ESSAYS AND REVIEWS: The title of a book
projected and edited by Bristow Wilson
(q.v.) and published in London Mar. 24, 1860,
which occasioned a remarkable theological controversy. It included seven essays by as many authors:
The Education of the World,
by Frederick Temple; Bunsen's Biblical Researches,
by Rowland Williams; On the Study
of the Evidences of Christianity,
by Baden Powell; Seances
historiques de Gereeve, The National Church,
by Henry Bristow Wilson; On the Mosaic Cosmogony, by
Charles Wycliffe Goodwin; Tendencies of
Religious Thought in England, 1688-1760,
by Mark Pattison; and On the Interpretation of Scripture,
by Benjamin Jowett.
With the exception of Goodwin all the writers were
clergymen, and with the exception of Williams and
Goodwin all were Oxford men. The book attracted
little attentionuntiltheappearanceof an anonymous
review in the
Westminster Review
for Oct., 1860. Under the title
Neo-Christianity the writer (Fred
eric Harrison) assumed a jubilant tone and wel
comed the essayists to the ranks of liberalism (the
review i$ reprinted in Harrison's
Creed of a lay man, London, 1907). The clergy now took alarm.
Samuel Wilberforce, bishop of Oxford, after warn
ing his clergy against the book in his autumn
charge, took up the controversy in the
Quarterly Review for Jan., 1861. He accused the essayists
of neology, rationalism, and skepticism, and de
nounced them for their dishonesty in holding such
views and remaining in the Church. A petition of
protest was presented to the archbishop of Canter
bury at Lambeth Mar. 13, 1861, signed by 10,000
clergy. Meanwhile, on Feb. 16 there had appeared
in the
Times the so-called "Episcopal Manifesto,"
in the form of a letter from the archbishop of Can
terbury in answer to one of the numerous remon
strances with which the bishops had been besieged;
to it were affixed the names of twenty-five
bishops, who joined the archbishop "in expressing the pain
it has given them that any clergyman . . . should
have published such opinions." Both houses of
convocation expressed condemnation of the book,
and Williams and Wilson were summoned before
the court of arches, which pronounced final deci
sion in Dec., 1862. Williams was convicted of
denying the inspiration of Holy Scripture and of
holding heretical views on propitiation and justifi-
cation, Wilson of denying the inspiration of Holy
Scripture and also of denying the eternity of future
punishment, and both were sentenced to suspen
sion for one year, with payment of costs. Appeals
to the queen in council were heard June 19-~6 be
fore the judicial committee, which included Lord
Chancellor Westbury, Lords Cranworth, Chelms
ford, and Kingsdown, the two archbishops, and the
bishop of London, each appellant pleading his case
in person. Lord Westbury finally delivered his
judgment Feb. 8, 1864. Restricting itself to the
specific passages cited by the prosecution, the
court decided that the opinions expressed therein
were not inconsistent with the articles and formu
lariea of the Church of England. Accordingly the
judgment of the court of arches was reversed; and
the appellants were granted the coats of the appeal.
Some of the points affirmed by the judgment were,
that it is not penal in a clergyman " to speak of
merit by transfer as a fiction," or " to deny the
proposition that every part of every book of Holy
Scripture was written under the inspiration of the
Holy Spirit and is the Word of God," or to express
the hope " that even the ultimate pardon of the
wicked, who are condemned in the day of judgment,
may be consistent with the will of Almighty God."
The decision naturally put a stop to a prosecution
that had been begun against Jowett in the vice
chancellor's court at Oxford Feb. 20, 1863.
The announcement of the judgment started the
agitation
afresh. On Feb. 24, 1864, at the instance
of E. B. Pussy, the so-called " Oxford Declaration
on Inspiration and Eternal Punishment " was pre
pared and sent to every clergyman of the Estab
lished Church in England, Wales, and Ireland, with
a letter adjuring him to sign it without delay. It
was addressed to the bishops and archbishops, and
in the course of a few weeks was signed by 11,000
clergymen. The two archbishops dissented from
the judgment of the privy council and each stated
his position in a pastoral letter. On Mar. 16, a
deputation waited on them at Lambeth Palace to
present an address signed, it was said, by 137,000
laymen, who desired to thank the primates for the
stand they had taken. The bishop of London
(Tait), who had concurred in the judgment, was
made the subject of many attacks. In June a
resolution offered by Wilberforce was carried in
the upper house of convocation by a vote of eight
to two (the bishops of London and Lincoln) synod
ically condemning the book " as containing teach
ing contrary to the doctrine received by the United
Church of England and Ireland in common with
the whole Catholic Church of Christ." After a
stormy debate, in the course of which A. P. Stan
ley and others urged strong arguments against the
measure, the lower house concurred in this resolu
tion June 24 by a vote of thirty-nine to nineteen.
In July Lord Houghton brought this action of con
vocation before the House of Lords. Lord Chan
cellor Westbury pronounced it illegal, but not
worth noticing. " The judgment," he said, " is
simply a series of well-lubricated terms, a sentence
so oily and saponaceous that no one could grasp
it "; from this characterization originated Wilber
force's nickname of "Soapy Sam" (see
Wilberforce, Samuel).
The judgment of the judicial committee, as a matter of course, became a part of
the law of England and was ultimately acquiesced
in. With
the judgment in the
Gorham Case (q.v.)
it has established the right of an English clergyman freely to express the opinions he honestly holds.
How little this charge of heresy affected their
ecclesiastical preferment is shown by the positions
three of them subsequently held: Temple became
bishop of Exeter (1869), of London 1885, and then
archbishop of Canterbury (1896); Pattiaon rector
of Lincoln College, Oxford (1861), and Jowett,
master of Balliol (1370).
Bibliography:
The literature educed by the Essays and
Reviews is enormous; a guide to it may be found in S. A.
Allibone. Critical Dictionary of English Literature, iii.
2771-72. Philadelphia, 1891,
and many titles ale collected in the
British, Museum Catalogue under " Essays
and Reviews." Consult: R. B. Kennard,
Essays and Reviews; their Origin. History, General haraaer, and
Significance, Persecution, Prosecution; the Judgment of
the Arches Court, Review of Judgment,
London, 1883 (" an exposition, a history, and a defense"); H. B.
Wilson, Speech before the Judicial Committee of . .
Privy Council, ib. 1863; and A. P. Stanley, in
Edinburgh Review, April. 1881.
