Bible Treasury, 2nd Edition, Volume 1, April 1857.
(1st. Edition, April [01 1857 182])
[01 1857 177]
A circular letter has been issued by the Committee of the Lancashire Independent College, on the charges brought against Mr. Davidson's contribution to the last edition of Horne's Introduction. It is a feeble and faithless production, fully justifying the fears which godly men outside the Congregational body could not but feel, when they noticed the insensibility to the glory of Christ which the Rivulet Controversy brought to light. For it soon became a question, not of Mr. Lynch, but of the London dissenting chiefs. Naturally they did and said what they could to convince others of their soundness in the faith. Letters, pamphlets, books, appeared by one or other of the fifteen, intended to convey strong impressions of their own orthodoxy. But no such effort has done away with the plain and utterly condemning fact, that they endorse, as Christian, and as in the main sound, a writer and writings which undermine nearly all the foundation truths of revelation. Altogether akin, and proving that the provinces are tainted, as well as the metropolis, is the Committee's judgement of Dr. D. It admits a number of petty faults, as hasty, incautious, inaccurate, and contradictory statements; it pleads the variety, peculiarity, and difficulty of his task; it urges that while many passages, taken by themselves, seem to indicate unsatisfactory views, others, and especially the author's oral explanations, fully satisfied his examiners that he holds all the vital truths impugned, and that he maintains the inspiration of the Bible! They characterise it as a "noble work," throughout manifesting reverence for the authority of scripture. The result is an unanimous vote of continued confidence in Dr. D's theological views generally, with a request for published explanations, as soon and as kindly as a due regard to the case and his own position will allow; and this, in the face of the fact that both his colleagues have disclaimed his part of their joint-work with horror, and that his very publishers have felt it needful to deal with it as unworthy of confidence! Such an opinion from the Committee is to us a graver symptom than Dr. D's book.