1802 4 
highly animated*, and well adapted tothe 
circumftances of the cafe. And, in a 
fhort time afterwards, he publified a much 
longer Letter to the Bishop of Centuriz, 
with a fhort, Preface addrefied to the Eng- 
lith Catholics : in this he fays, ** I tru& 
ye will not deem it prefumption in me to 
grapple with Bifhops; indeed, I would 
boldly grapple with Popes, if Popes dared 
toinjureme. Our Catholic anceftors fre- 
quently grappled with them, and fome- 
times -came off yiftorious. A Pope, and 
confequently a Bifhop, may do wrong, 
and, ifhe do wrong, may be told of it even 
by an inferior.”’ 
*® The reader will be pleafed with an ex- 
traét from Dr. Geddes’s Reply to the Bifhop, 
after he had received the fentence of fufpen- 
fion :— . 
_ Perhaps, my Lord, you wifh to have 
another occafion of exercifing your epifcopal 
authority, and of playing with cenfures as 
children do with a new ball—I wifh your 
Lordthip much joy of the bauble; but; be- 
wate, my Lord, beware of playing too often 
_with it. Read St. Chryfoftom on Ecclefiafti- 
cal Cenfures,and learn from him alittle more 
moderation. Permit an o/d Prief# to tell you, 
that it is a very great ornament in a young 
Bifbop. As to myfelf, my Lord, I am not 
afraid of your threats, and-thall laugh at your 
cenfures, as long as J am confcicus that I 
deferve them not.’ I will never /ubmit to the 
injunZtion, becaufe I deem it arafh, ridiculous, 
and informal injunétion. If this you think a 
fufficient reafon for declaring me fufpended 
from the exercife of my orders in the Londun dif- 
tri, much good may that declaration do 
you! The truth is, I exercife no paftoral 
function in your diftrié: I have neither, 
taught, preached, nor adminiftered any fa- 
crament in it for many years back: I have 
not even faid prayers in any public chapel for 
- fix years at leaft. ‘To oblige a friend or two, 
I have fometimes, not often, faid private 
prayers at their houfes ; but fince you feem 
to-envy me the pleafure of obliging a friend, 
I forego that too. But, my Lord, you cannot 
hinder me from praying at home ; and at 
home I will pray, in defiance of you and your 
cenfure, as oftenasI pleafe. The chief Bifhop 
of our fouls is alwaysacceflible 5; and through 
Him I can, at all times, have free accefs to 
the Father, who will not reject me, but for 
voluntary unrepented crimes. In the pano- 
ply of confcious innocence, the whole thun- 
der of the Vatican would in vain be levelled 
at my head. 
You fee, my Lord, that I have not required 
even the fhort time you grant me, to fignify 
my difpofition to fubmit to the injunction 
in your Paftoral Letter.. Such a fubmiffion, 
my Lord, will never be made by 
: AteEx. Geppgs, 
A Prie& in the Catholic Church, 
Acesunt of the late Dr. Geddes. 
265: 
It was not till the year 1797, that the 
fecond volume of the. Tyranflation was 
given to’ the world, which was dedicated 
to her Royal Highnefs the Duchefs of 
Gloucefter, as an ‘* early, fpontaneous, and 
liberal encourager of the work.” Inthe 
Preface to this volume, Dr. Geddes dif- 
tinétly gives up, and boldly controverts, 
the popular doétrine of the abfolute and 
plenary infpiration of the Scriptures; he 
confiders the Hebrew hiftorians to have 
written, like all other hiftorians, from 
fuch human documents as they could find, 
confequently, like them, were liable to 
miftakes ; that they were not more intelli- 
gent and judicious, and were equally, at 
leat, creduious.. In the fcale of merit, 
he ranks them much lower chan the more 
celebrated hiftorians of Greece and Rome, 
becaufe, after carefully perufing them, and 
properly appreciating their value, he was 
unable to find inthe Hebrew writers that 
elegance, correctnefs, and lucid order, 
which were to be found in the Greeke 
and Romans. 
‘s It would (fays Dr. Geddes) indeed, 
be unfair to weigh them in the fame 
fcale. The Hebrew hiftortans have a 
greater retemblance to Homer than te 
Herodotus, and to Herodotus than ta 
Thucydides. To the firft of thefe writers 
they in many refpe&ts bear a ftriking fimi- 
litude. - Like him, they are continually 
blending real faéts with fanciful mythole- 
gy, atcribing natural events to fupernatu- 
ral caufes, and introducing a divine agency 
on every extraordinary occurrence. The 
fame fimplicity of narration, the fame pre- 
fufion of metaphors, the fame garrulous 
tautology pervade them both: in beth we » 
meet with poetical iffory;. the efubons of a 
warm imagination, tracing with boldnets — 
inaccurate refemblances between the ope- 
rations of nature and the petty artifices 
of men.” if 
Such was Dr. Geddes’s theory as to the 
foundation of the Jewith {criptures, which, 
if generally adopted, he thought would be 
attended with feveral important advan- 
tages, fuch as diveiting the adyerfaries of 
religion of their_moft formidable and of- 
fenfive weapons—of getting rid of a cum- 
“berfome load of ufelefs commentaters, which 
ferve only to puzzle, when they profeds to 
explain; and biblical criticifm would be 
reduced-to one finglé obje& ; namely, to 
afcertain the genuine grammatical mean- 
inz of a genuine text ;—and of obtaining, 
among perfons of all de{criptions, a more 
general attention to the Hebrew [eriptures. 
With fuch notions it will be readily 
imagined, that our author would give 
uP 
