Lately published in 4 vols. 8vo, price 21. 12s. 6d. in boards, THE EPISTLES of PAUL the APOSTLE TRANSLATED, with an EXPOSITION and NOTES. BY THE REV. THOMAS BELSHAM, RICHARD TAYLOR, PRINTER, EXTRACTS FROM THE WRITINGS OF EMINENT DIVINES OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND, ON THE HISTORY OF THE CREATION AND FALL, ON JUSTIFICATION, AND ON THE INSPIRATION OF THE APOSTLES. BEING AN APPENDIX TO A VINDICATION OF MR. BELSHAM'S TRANSLATION AND EXPOSITION OF THE EPISTLES OF PAUL. LONDON: PRINTED FOR ROWLAND HUNTER, 72, ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD. ADVERTISEMENT. THE following Extracts from the works of distinguished divines of the Established Church, were collected by a respected friend. These, together with the extracts in the Vindication, prove beyond all contradiction, in opposition to the bold assertions of the Quarterly Review, that many of the most judicious and approved writers of the NATIONAL CHURCH have thought very highly of MR. LOCKE and DR. JOHN TAYLOR:-that they have adopted the principle of interpreting the Epistles of Paul which was recommended and elucidated by those celebrated writers, and especially that of a first and a second justification:that several of them have concurred in the theory of inspiration maintained by Archdeacon Powell, and adopted by Mr. Belsham :-that some of great name have admitted that Moses may be considered as having written the book of Genesis as an historian from tradition only, without impeaching his divine commission as the legislator of the Jews, and that his account of the Fall of Man may be regarded only as an allegory, or as, according to Dr. Hey, many serious and thinking Christians have judged it to be, an allegorical story, like the Pilgrim's Progress :-that other writers, as Bishops Sherlock and Jeremy Taylor, have given such representations of the consequences of the Fall with respect to this life, as to reduce them to little more than a shadow :that some of the most eminent have readily allowed, that our Lord and his Apostles often did not intend to cite the writings of the Old Testament in their proper and primary sense, but in the sense in which they were understood by the Jews in the age in which they lived :—that in their argumentative discourses and addresses to their countrymen, they did not hesitate sometimes to recur to accommodation, to allusion, and even to imperfect analogy:-in short, that they adopted the ARGUMENTUM AD HOMINEM to no inconsiderable extent, frequently reasoning with the Jews on their own principles, even though erroneous, on the ground of their rabbinical traditions, and on allegorical and mystical interpretations of Scripture, which, however destitute of solidity, were generally received, and greatly admired by the nation at large. The evidence produced, that these opinions, as well as some others connected with them, have been held and taught by some of the most eminent and learned divines of the Church of England, is surely so obvious, as to supersede further controversy on the subject.. |