he had denied the inspiration of
the Bible in the sense in which 'inspiration' was understood by his
prosecutors. He had in particular denied that Jonah and Daniel were the
authors of the books which pass under their names, and he had disputed
the canonicity of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Fitzjames lays down as his
first principle that the question is purely legal; that is, that it is a
question, not whether Dr. Williams's doctrines were true, but whether
they were such as were forbidden by law to be uttered by a clergyman.
Secondly, the law was to be found in the Thirty-nine Articles, the
rubrics, and formularies, not, as the prosecutors alleged, in passages
from Scripture read in the services--a proposition which would introduce
the whole problem of truth or error. Thirdly, he urged, the Articles
had designedly left it open to clergymen to hold that the Bible
'contains' but does not 'constitute' the revelation which must no doubt
be regarded as divine. In this respect the Articles are contrasted with
the Westminster Confession, which affirms explicitly the absolute and
ultimate authority of the Bible. No one on that assumption may go behind
the sacred record; and no question can be raised as to the validity of
anything once admitted to form part of the sacred volume. The Anglican
clergy, on the contrary, are at liberty to apply criticism freely in
order to discriminate between that part of the Bible which is and that
which is not part of divine revelation. Finally, a long series of
authorities from Hooker to Bishop Hampden is adduced to prove that, in
point of fact, our most learned divines had constantly taken advantage
of this liberty; and established, so to speak, a right of way to all the
results of criticism. Of course, as Fitzjames points out, the enormous
increase of knowledge, critical and scientific, had led to very
different results in the later period. But he argues that the principle
was identical, and that it was therefore impossible to draw any line
which should condemn Dr. Williams for rejecting whole books, or denying
the existence of almost any genuine predictions in the Hebrew prophecies
without condemning the more trifling concessions of the same kind made
by Hooker or Chillingworth. If I may remove one stone from the building,
am I not at liberty to remove any stone which proves to be superfluous?
The argument, though forcible and learned, was not in the first instance
quite successful. Dr. Williams