- MISS MACAULAY AND THE ARTICLES [To the Editor of
THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—As your May 1st issue of The Spectator was one of your best, it ill becomes one to find a fly in the ointment. And as Macaulay found it so distasteful to criticise the literary work of a lady how should I feel if I were to criticise the work of a lady who is Macaulay's great-niece ? The Bishop of Southwell deserves well of the nation for quoting the Thirty-Seventh Article of the Church of England. It was his job. And its sentiments agree with our Lord's words about the Church " rendering to Caesar " as well as with St. Paul, who calls Caesar " the minister of God who weareth not the sword in vain," with St. Peter's words about " honouring " such a " king " as Nero and with St. John's portrait of our Lord " on a white horse in a vesture dipped in .blood " as "in righteousness He doth make war" (Rev. xix, 11 sq.). I am
glad to state that this vital issue has brought out another bishop—he of Durham—and even the Regius Professor of
Divinity at Oxford, to take precisely the same line AS against the suffragan bishop at Gloucester, who thinks that .Caesar, like our Lord at the crucifixion, ought to allow the.State to be
destroyed as an example of 'forbearance to the heathen 1 Is that alternative Miss Macaulay's ? If, so, it is frankly anti- Christian ; for the very essence of the State is to protect the life of all her members, including that of the Church.
But there is worse to come. To " score off " the bishop Miss Macaulay parades her knowledge of the rest of the Articles as " calvinist." Alas, most of them, especially the one on Predestination, were drafted by that anti-Calvinist divine, Melancthon, who with Luther drafted a set of posfillae for the whole German Church which has remained anti-Calvinist ever since ! Then Miss Macaulay tilts against " the royal preface " to the Articles, written by the leader of anti- Calvinism, Laud, precisely to stop disputes as to their meaning in a Calvinistic sense. Indeed, the two best commentaries ever written on the Articles were written by such anti-Calvinists as Bishop Burnet and the late Rev. E. J. Bickley. Miss Macaulay is clearly not a theologian and may well leave such subjects to those who are.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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