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179 RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA Nas Resenes 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 WILBER-
FORCE, 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 $. 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 o/ 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.
ESSEftES, es-sfnz': One of the three Jewish sects of the timeof Christ. According to the testimony of Philo and Josephus, the Essenes, numbering about 4,000, lived in the time of Christ in Palestine, partly in their own colonies by the Dead Sea, in the wilderness of Engedi (Pliny, v. 17), partly in cities (Josephus, War, II. viii. 4). Excluded from the temple in Jerusalem, the Essence formed a community resembling that of a monastic order, entrance into which involved a double novitiate. An applicant spent a year outside of the community, during which its mode of life was hec-
The No- ommended to him. He was provided vitiate. with a spade (symbol of work), an apron (to be used at the ablutions), and a white dress (the robe of the order). During his second novitiate of two years the candidate was admitted to the lustrations but not to the meals. At the end of that period he was admitted to the order. But before becoming a full member he had to bind himself by a solemn oath (the last permitted to him, since the Essenes rejected the use of the oath elsewhere), in which he promised to honor God, to exercise justice, to injure no one intention ally, to obey the superiors, and not to divulge any of the secrets of the order. Children were also received into the order to be educated for the community. The superiors of the order had an extended jurisdiction; without their command noth ing could be done. A court consisting of 100 mem bers judged offenses and could decree exclusion from the order.The members had everything in common, and upon entering the order the candidate cast all his possessions into the common treasury. The principal but not the only industry was The Order, agriculture. The mode of life was Practise and very simple. Anointing the body with Doctrines. oil was considered defilement. Slavery was not tolerated, the strictest truthfulness was enjoined. Before the sun arose the members never discussed secular matters.