BISHOP CROKE AND THE SCRIPTURES.

Thames Guardian and Mining Record, Volume I, Issue 269, 19 August 1872, Page 3

BISHOP CROKE AND THE SCRIPTURES.

To the Editor of the THAMES GUARDIAN. Sir. —I perceive that in your morning contemporary there is a letter signed “ Old Catholic,” and with your permission I will make a few remarks on the said letter, and attempt to correct its writer in several egregious mistakes which he has made. He says : “We ask where lias the Pope received authority to sit and prutiouuce on >he Word of God," and tlier he adds “ that the power or authority was given to the people and not to Popes.” .Now, sir, this is one of the most absurd ideas that l have ever heard. “ The people to get authority to expound the Word of God.” This argunn tit, at all events, floes not speak well for “ Old Catholic’s” study of the Scriptures on which he writes ; because, if lie lias ever looked at the Bible, could lie n -t see iu Matthew xvi. and Jolm xxi. the following : “ Tliou art Peter , and upon this rock I will build my Church, and I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of Heaven ; feed my lambs, feed my sheep.” Our Lord did not say, “ thou art people,” but lie said “ thou art Peter,” thereby giving to Peter and bis lawful sucees°ors only the authority to preach the divine word, and therefore tlie very fact of Christ having given to Peter and his successors the sole authority to preach his word, to forgive and remit sins, &c., upsets “ Old Catholic’s” argument “ that the authority was given to the people and not to Popes,” because St. Peter was a pope or head of a particular Church, called at that time the Christian Church. In the next place, “Old Catholic” says that the Bible is the sole rule of faith, and he brings for his proof St. Paul, 2nd Timothy iii, 15 16 17, “ And that from a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation.” Well, perhaps according to “ Old Catholic’s ” interpretation this

text means that the Bible is the sole rule of faith, but according to the interpretation of the most learned doctors of the “ Church ” this text means “ that if a persom has known and understood the Scriptures from h s childhood, as interpreted by the Apostles of Christ from the beginning, and does according to that book, then that person, having faith and believing in the Word of God (written as well as unwritten), whatever is revealed, he it ever so incomprehensible, shall be saved.” Then again “Old Catholic”says that Dr Croke said that there were many things which were practised by Christians that were not in the Bible at all, as the baptism of infants, the observance of the Sabbath &c. ; nnd “Old Catholic” says “that St. Paul absolved the Christians from the observance of the Jewish Sabbath, and appointed Sunday as the Lord’s day.” Now, sir, Bishop Croke never denied that St. Paul absolved the Christians from keeping Saturday holy, but he said that there was nothing in the Scriptures about it; and I defy “ Old Catholic ” to give me a single text of Scripture proving Sunday as the Sabbath. In tlie next place, “ Old Catholic” admits (to my li.iud) “ that persons that lived before the 1 glorious reformation,’ as socalled, and consequently before printing was discovered, and before there were so many Bibles in the world, could be saved," but he says that the man that takes the Bible as his sole rule of faith has tm room for doubt. lam thankful to “ Old Catholic " for admitting so much, at all events. In the next place “ Old Catholic” brings Scripture proof to eliow that every one who adds to or takes from the Bible is doing an evil thing—by tnkimr from the Book of Life. Well, I would ask “ jld Catholic ” to communicate with the r ..sms who are going to revise the Protestant Bible, and to try and deter them from so doing, as by doing it they will take away from the Book of Life. Now, as a conclusion, I would ask “Old Catholic" to tell mo one of the traditions of the “ Ecclesiastical Body ” (manning, I suppose, the Roman Catholic Church) which have been so dangerous, and' that are devoid of anything like common sense, as “ Old Catholic” says the' are. If “ Old Catholic” wishes to write any more on the foregoing subject, I would advise him to sign his name, as manliness denotes good faith.—l am, &e., W. J. Napier. Grahamstown, August 17, 1872.