ON THE SUPREME AUTHORITY OF THE WORD OF GOD: LAID BEFORE THE MORNING CLERICAL MEETING, ON APRIL 13, 1864. BY SAMUEL BUTCHER, D. D., REGIUS PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN. HODGES, SMITH, AND CO., 104, GRAFTON-STREET, A FEW THOUGHTS, &c. &c. MY REVEREND BRETHREN, When I received an invitation to say something on the subject proposed for our consideration this morning, I felt at some loss to determine what was the precise import of it; I mean, what was the exact point to which it was intended we should direct our special attention. "The supreme authority of the Word of God" is a very wide subject, and admits of being dealt with under a great variety of aspects. If by the Word of God be meant, as I presume it is, the written Word, then we are at once brought into contact with all the great questions connected with the supreme authority of the Holy Scriptures. Now, the general position which the Church of England has taken up in relation to Holy Scripture is very plainly set forth in all her accredited documents. Its paramount authority is expressly asserted in her Articles and Homilies, and is assumed in and underlies every portion of her Liturgical Offices. In the sixth Article we have her doctrine respecting the Rule of Faith formally and solemnly enunciated, in opposition to errors of two very different kinds, and proceeding from two very opposite quarters, against which she found herself called on to protest. The Council of Trent had, some six years before the first compilation of our Articles, declared, in its fourth Session, that unwritten traditions— divine and apostolical traditions as they were termed—were to be received and venerated with the same affection and reverence of piety as the written Books; thus, in fact, establishing the co-ordinate and independent authority of Tradition, as part of the Rule of Faith. In opposition to this, our Reformers declared in the sixth, and again in the twentieth Article, that Holy Scripture is the sole and sufficient source of all things necessary to salvation. And in the eighth Article, on the Creeds, and the twenty-first, on the authority of General Councils, they further declared that Holy Scripture is the necessary and sole test of all dogmatic teaching. Into the great controversy between us and the Church of Rome on this head there is no occasion now to enter. It is too old and familiar a topic to need any special discussion here. The other error against which our Reformers intended to protest in the sixth Article, was that of certain fanatical sects of Protestants,-Anabaptists, especially,-who held that God's revelation of Himself did not cease with the close of the New Testament Canon; but that, besides His objective, written, revelation, common to all, there are internal, special, revelations vouchsafed, from time to time, to individual believers; and that these internal illuminations, inasmuch as they are immediate and particular, are invested with even a higher sanction and more cogent authority than the written Word itself. This notion manifested itself very early in the Church. It was the error of Montanus and his followers towards the close of the second century. Nor, perhaps, has it ever wholly died out since. It was revived, as I have said, by fanatical sects of Protestants at the time of the Reformation. It constitutes one of the characteris tic features of the religious system founded by George Fox, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, and maintained by his followers to the present day. And sporadic outbreaks of it have taken place at various times amongst those who otherwise have had no sympathy with the principles of the Quakers. This has occurred, for the most part, among the excitable inhabitants of the United States of America. But in England, and even in our own country, instances of it have not been wanting, in certain phases of unusual religious excitement. In reference to spasmodic impulses of this kind, I shall only observe, in connexion with the subject before us, that whenever such movements lead those who are under their influence to put forward their own subjective inspirations, I do not say in opposition to, but even in addition to the requirements of God's written Word, the result is and must be that the cause of Divine truth is dishonoured. And, therefore, in all such cases it becomes the bounden duty of every sober-minded Christian to insist on the sole and paramount authority of the written Word, and to reject all such pretended revelations and illuminations, as the offspring of over-excited feelings and disordered imaginations. But there is another quarter, in which not merely the su preme authority of Holy Scripture, but its authority in any real sense of the word, has been called in question. And as this aspect of our subject is the most important and pressing, at the present crisis of religious thought in England, so is it incomparably the most difficult and the most delicate. The cause of truth may suffer, as it has often already suffered, from the injudicious zeal of its friends, no less than from the assaults of its foes. Calmness and sobriety, caution and moderation, at all times useful in religious controversy, are here indispensable. And in this spirit I would desire to approach the present topic. Within the last four years, or thereabouts, a school of |