Such names do not require special comment. They are their own best eulogium, and present a high title to their country's gratitude. The name of Prebendary Lowth, (the author of an excellent commentary on the prophets,) reminds us that there was living till 1732 one who fully appreciated the calling of an Interpreter of God's Word[139]. Bishop Lowth his son, in his great work, (1753,) recovered the forgotten principle of Hebrew poetry. To convince ourselves what a spirit existed in some quarters, (notwithstanding the general spread of the very opinions which 'Essayists and Reviewers' have been so industriously reproducing in our own day,) it is only necessary to transcribe the title-page of S. Parker's excellent 'Bibliotheca Biblica,' a Commentary on the Pentateuch, 1720-1735; 'gathered out of the genuine writings of Fathers, Ecclesiastical Historians, and Acts of Councils down to the year of our LORD 451, being that of the fourth General Council; and lower, as occasion may require.'--That learned man designed to achieve a Commentary on the whole Bible on the same laborious plan; but his labours and his life, (at the age of 50,) were brought to an end in 1730.--Dr. Waterland, born in 1683, and Dr. Jackson, born in 1686,--two great names!--died respectively in 1740 and 1763.--In 1778, appeared Dr. Townson's admirable 'Discourses on the Gospels.' The author lived till 1792. Pious Bp. Horne (1730-1792) has left the best evidence of his ability as a Divine in the Introduction to his Commentary on the Psalms. Jones of Nayland is found to have lived till 1800. Bp. Horsley, a great champion of orthodoxy of belief, as well as an excellent commentator, critic, and Sermon writer, lived till 1806. Not seven years have elapsed since there was to be seen among ourselves a venerable Divine, who was declared in 1838, by the chief promoter of the 'Tracts for the Times,' to have "been reserved to report to a forgetful generation what was the Theology of their Fathers[140]." Martin Joseph Routh, died in 1854, after completing a century of years. In 1832 appeared his 'Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Opuscula.' His 'Reliquæ Sacræ' had appeared in 1814. The work was undertaken so far back as 1788. The last volume appeared in 1848, and concluded with a _Catena_ of authorities on the great question which was denied by the unbelievers of the last century, and _is_ denied by the 'Essayists and Reviewers' of this[141]. Here then was one who had borne steady witness in the Church of England to what is her genuine Catholic teaching from a period dating long before the birth of any one who was concerned with the 'Tracts for the Times.'
Indigenous Review
Inspiration and Interpretation — Part 85
2026-11-15 19:34:35 · Cedar Herald Index
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