‘SIR,—I have often been surprised at finding my name and unpretending publications so often noticed in your pages. I have no doubt your judgment is as sincere as it is eloquently expressed. I have also very little hope of success in altering your opinion of my head; but I do think it possible that this letter may modify your opinion of my heart. I think, in estimating my spirit, and aim, and method of carrying out my convictions, you have, on insufficient data, arrived at an estimate of my spirit and temper which is exactly the reverse of what it is.
Now, in thus writing what, with your views, as a stranger to me, you are likely to misinterpret, I beg to assure you, it is not to secure, directly or indirectly, any personal or pecuniary advantage. Your censure does not affect any book I have printed, and your eulogy, however desirable, as that of an accomplished writer must be, is unlikely to help it. Besides, I have no pecuniary advantage whatever in the sale of these works, and therefore I shall escape now your former imputations. The two aspects in which you
seem to view me are those of an opponent of Romanism and an interpreter of prophecy.
You give judgment on the first substantially as follows:—Dr. Cumming is intolerant, bigoted, and prescriptive—neither competent nor conclusive— “the Chillingworth of an hour,” &c. &c.
First, as to competency. If incompetent, it cannot be from want of reading. For fifteen years I have read and studied the Fathers in the original Greek and Latin. Labbé and Cossart I have explored with intense energy. Pontificals, Ceremonials, Breviaries, and Missals, and the whole Corpus juris Canonici Dr. Wiseman has not oftener or more laboriously read. I should therefore be—what I think I could satisfy even you I am—competent to pronounce what the Church of Rome is and holds. If you will be at the trouble to inspect Bishop Gibson’s Preservative, one-half of whose elaborate references I have verified, or Willet’s Synopsis, you will see that, making allowance for much and valuable assistance, it required no little labour and capability of handling to execute what has satisfied first-rate scholars. If you have time to read it, it will give me sincere satisfaction to send you a copy of “the Hammersmith Discussion," of which some fourteen thousand have been sold, and from which I have derived no personal profit whatever, and I humbly think a perusal of it will dilute your present strong opinion of one of the controversialists.
As to the spirit and temper in which I have written and spoken, I beg to state that I do not think I ever lost my temper on any occasion. Nature has given me a quiet temper, and grace has yet more improved it. In all the discussions I have on Romish errors, and with Romish doctors, and cardinals, and priests, I do not recollect ever having made use of personal invective, or violent and exaggerated language. It is not my taste, and still less my temper, and certainly it never is good policy. That the Romish Church is the great apostasy, and involved in fatal and deadly error, is a conclusion to which Canon Wordsworth, and indeed the living and departed luminaries of the Church of England, have long ago come, and on the soundness of which I have no manner of doubt from long, and sober, and impartial research. But toward Roman Catholics I have long entertained sentiments of true affection, declaring deeply their errors, and striving, in season and out of season, to disabuse their minds of them. I feel no difficulty in cherishing love to fellow-men—a love great in proportion to their danger— and, at the same time, lamenting and faithfully exposing destructive and deadly errors. There may be charity without compromise. The force and fervour of a conviction in the mind need not, and in my case it does not, in the least poison or impair Christian affection. Decided and unsparing refutation of error may coexist with undiminished attachment to its victim. If you believe that Protestantism and Roman Catholicism are equally true, not to speak of the inconsistency of such a position, you may feel have no right to assail the one and assert the other. But I have no doubt here. I not only hold, but can prove, that Romanism is anti-scriptural and destructive of the soul. This in my mind is no doubtful notion, but a settled conviction. The Church of England and the Church of Scotland agree with me in this. It is my deep and earnest conviction of this that gives force and emphasis, and what the world may call dogmatism, to all I speak on this subject. It is this conviction, also, that makes me speak of Roman Catholics with sympathy, and feel for their position-a position that demands pity, not prescription and reproach.
As to my interpretation of unfulfilled prophecy, permit me to say there is nothing new in the principles of my interpretation; they are substantially those of the learned Mede, of Bishop Newton, Elliott, and Faber. The are those also of the last two clergymen raised to the episcopal bench—Dr. Villiers and Dr. Bickerstoth. Such views, therefore, are not peculiar to me, nor held by a few, nor unacceptable to those who have mitres in their gift. I have again and again admitted that I am indebted for the chief outline of prophetic interpretation to Elliott, who will be as prompt to acknowledge his obligations to Bishop Newton and Joseph Mede. The illustrative matter is exclusively my own. The principles on which I rest are those of the great names I have mentioned. Every philosopher accepts Newton's discoveries as his principia. But this is not plagiarism. Maclaurin did for Sir Isaac Newton what I have tried to do for Elliott. Your notion, in a former critique, that I gained money by my lectures on the Apocalypse, delivered in Exeter Hall, is not true. The sum given as copyright went to the repairs of the Scotch Church, which is public property, vested in trustees. I am sure you will be glad to be corrected in his matter. In reference to the subject itself—the study of unfulfilled prophecy—I humbly conceive it is lawful and dutiful to study and interpret, as we may be able, whatever God has caused to be written for our learning. Speaking on unfulfilled prophecy, you will find I have invariably admitted that in such difficult an delicate interpretations I may be wrong. On plain truths and duties I must speak in the language of unhesitating decision. On the interpretation of unfulfilled prophecy I speak invariably with reserve, as one liable to err. I refer you to my last book, which you have reviewed, called the End, for evidence of this. If I dare occupy more of your space, I could show that there is no discord or contradiction between the Sketches, written in 1848, and the End, written in 1855, where you think you detect it: but I forbear. My humble opinion is, that you need not attack so steadily the Times newspaper, for you cannot hurt it. I may also add, you need not persist in attacking me while you have higher game to fly at, for I see clearly what is true and right; and were papers more able than the Saturday Review—and I know few equal to it in force and point-to attack every book I write and every sentiment I hold, I shall not be moved one hair-breadth from a course I believe to be alike dutiful to man and right in the sight of God. I do, however, desire that so much talent as the Saturday Review displays should neither be wasted nor perverted; and at all events that the editor should no longer remain ignorant of some facts necessary to be remembered in his analysis of anything I may write.
I have no right to have this letter inserted. I rarely, if ever, reply to reviews. But your notices of me have been so frequent that I owe you the opportunity of receiving this information, and your courtesy may do what your duty as a critic does not demand-give insertion to this long letter.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
JOHN CUMMING’
We owe it to a gentleman who writes so courteously on a subject on which he must of course feel strongly, to state in the plainest language our views upon the questions at issue between us. Though we do not intend to retract or qualify any assertions which we have made respecting him, there is one point on which we think he has misunderstood our meaning. In a review of two of his works, published some months since, we say that it is dishonest “to obtain credit and to extend the circulation of a book" by certain artifices there referred to; and we also assert that a book called Apocalyptic Sketches, is neither more nor less than “an unauthorized abridgment of Mr. Elliott's book published for Dr. Cumming's profit and reputation." It is, we suppose, in reference to these assertions that Dr. Cumming "begs to assure us that it is not to secure, directly or indirectly, any pecuniary advantage " that he addresses us, adding that the price of the copyright of his book was devoted to the repairs of his church, the property of which is vested in trustees. We wish to give Dr. Cumming the full benefit of this statement, but we cannot see that it invalidates our observation. The success of his publication did not cease to be an object of direct personal interest to him because he chose to spend the proceeds in charity. It increased his influence and reputation; and even as to money, he must remember that whatever he received from it was absolutely his own—he might have used it exactly as be pleased. The gravamen of our charge against him was, hat he extended the circulation of his book by pandering to the diseased popular tastes of the moment. His answer is, that he had no interest in its success, because he spent what it brought him in charity. Suppose a Roman Catholic got £1000 by questionable dealings on the Stock Exchange, would it be any answer to a charge of dishonesty to reply that the money was laid out in masses for the soul of his mother?
Dr. Cumming joins issue with us on two points. He says, first, that we represent him, in his character of an opponent to Romanism, as “intolerant, bigoted, and proscriptive—neither competent nor conclusive," &c. These are, no doubt, hard words; and in the letter before us Dr. Cumming writes with so much candour and gentleness that we should be sorry to say an thing needlessly offensive to him. But we cannot honestly deny that the language which he uses does represent fairly enough our opinion of him as an opponent to Romanism. We think that he is intolerant, bigoted, an prescriptive—neither competent not conclusive; and it is due to him to tell him, in the simplest way, why we think him so. The words, of course, have a very wide and indefinite meaning, and Dr. Cumming defends himself against the charge as follows:
‘I do not think I ever lost my temper on any occasion. Nature has given me a quiet temper, and grace has yet more improved it. In all the discussions I have had on Romish errors and with Romish doctors and cardinals and priests, I do not recollect ever having made use of personal invective, or violent and exaggerated language.’No one can read Dr. Cumming's letter without being quite ready to admit that, however he came by it, he certainly has plenty of good humour; and we have no wish to charge him with having treated his opponents with personal discourtesy. But this is perfectly consistent with intense intolerance; and we think that, notwithstanding his good nature, he is intensely intolerant, and that his attitude towards Romanism sets this quality in the plainest light. We shall not, we hope, he suspected of any particular sympathy with Roman Catholics. We agree with Dr. Cumming in thinking very ill of Popery; but there is a very wide difference between our position and his. We think that doctrines which are professed by an immense proportion of the Christian world-which, as a matter of historical fact, have been embraced by many of the greatest men that ever lived, and which have been embodied in an institution so powerful and durable as the Roman Catholic Church—involve questions of great depth and importance. We further think that, however false Roman Catholic doctrines may be, their falsehood can only be shown by considerations of a profound, and, above all, of a measured and temperate character; and that the reiterated and vehement assertion of their falsehood, supported only by these popular and shallow arguments which are capable of being submitted to an excited assembly, is intolerant in the worst sense of the word. Intolerance does not necessarily imply a wish to subject persons holding certain opinions to legal punishment. In the present state of society, it shows itself far more often in attacking opinions than in attacking persons. Dr. Cumming and his school seem to think that it is impossible to assail a false opinion in an intolerant manner, and that they are able to draw a broad distinction between attacking an opinion and attacking those who hold it-so that it is possible to combine any amount of violent language about Romanism with “a love great in proportion to their danger" for Romanists. We consider this one of the most dangerous, as it is one of the commonest, of fallacies. Intolerance consists in keeping the mind in an aggressive attitude. There are many things of which it is quite right to be intolerant. The law is intolerant of crime—every good man is intolerant of his own faults—the English nation was intolerant of the attacks of Russia on Turkey —and in the same we. Dr. Cumming and many others are intolerant of Roman Catholic opinions. They are always assailing them, always rebuking, always exposing them. What we say is, that this is unwise and unchristian. Suppose the Roman Catholics to be as wrong as you please, it does not follow that it is right to make them the constant objects of attack—you must go on to show that some good effect is produced by attacking them. They are certainly not further wrong than the heathens in India; but would it be a wise or a Christian thing to pass a lifetime in reviling the falsehood or the impurities of the Hindoos? What should we have thought of the patriotism of a man who, during the last war, had constantly occupied himself in holding public meetings, in which, with every kind of personal consideration for concrete Russians, he denounced in the most glowing language the abstract Russian—offering, amidst the frantic cheers of the crowd, to argue the case with any beloved Russian brother who might be inclined to enter upon the discussion? Or suppose a man had a scolding wife—what should we think of his discretion if he passed his time in reading her lectures of the most piquant kind on the blessings of good temper in married life, always ending by declaring that he did not mean to allude to her personally? When we say that Dr. Cumming is intolerant, we mean—to use some of his own words-that he is "constantly striving out of season to disabuse Roman Catholics of their errors," by denouncing them, as holders of absurd and noxious opinions, to a set of women, children, shopboys, and others, who are totally incapable of really entering into the questions at issue.
It is a juggle of words to talk of attacking opinions, and not men. To say that an opinion is foolish is a mere figure of speech, which means that those who believe it are foolish. There are many occasions on which it is right to say this, because there are many occasions on which it is right to attack individuals. But to do so is to take a step of grave importance. If Dr. Cumming would remember that, when he attacks opinions, he attacks those who hold them, he would perhaps act somewhat differently. The distinction which he and his school draw between two operations which imply each other, is just one of those refinements which are fa to morality, and which gave so unpleasant a reputation to the casuistry of the Jesuits. The tone and circumstances of Dr. Cumming's controversies give them their distinctive character of bigotry. A man might hold all his opinions about Popery an yet be neither bigoted nor intolerant; for he might keep them to himself, or only express them as occasion required, with modesty and reserve. But it appears to us to be one of the gravest offences which a man can commit against charity and modesty to exert all his energy in exciting furious sectarian animosity against the opinions, however false, of any body of men whatever, in the minds of large and necessarily very mixed audiences. It would be quite possible to treat even Mormonism or Atheism in a manner thoroughly bigoted and intolerant. It is our firm conviction that the furious violence, or, as Dr. Cumming calls it, the “emphasis," of the denunciations which he and others like him pour forth against Popery, does more to produce a feeling in favour of that creed amongst the young, the generous, and the sensitive, than almost any other influence at work in the present day. We also think that such controversialists most justly earn the title of “proscriptive," by the savage passions which they excite amongst those who are naturally fierce and narrow-minded. The fruits of the Spirit are love, peace, gentleness; but the fruits of this kind of teaching are hatred, strife, and furious bitterness utterly disgraceful, as it seems to us, to the whole community, and diametrically opposed, not only to the spirit of Christianity, but to that straightforward simplicity and generous candour which ought to be characteristic of Englishmen.
Dr. Cumming tells us that he finds that his way of writing about Roman Catholics “does not in the least poison or impair" his “Christian affections." Of course, he knows best. We must say that we could not habitually denounce all a man's most sacred and characteristic opinions without feeling some disapproval of the man himself. We cannot deny, for example, that we thoroughly disapprove of Dr. Cumming; but he, no doubt, is differently constituted from ourselves. Some men have Mithridatic constitutions, and thrive upon poison; and we are bound to believe, as Dr. Cumming says so, that all that he says about Romanists only endears them to each other. Ordinary observers would hardly say, of the Tablet and the Record, “See how these Christians love each other!" By placing due emphasis on the “how," or the “these," we may perhaps be able to do so in future.
We also consider Dr. Cumming an incompetent and inconclusive debater on these matters. He tells us that he has passed fifteen years (and certainly it is not more time than was wanted) in studying “the Fathers in the original Greek and Latin," and in “exploring with intense energy" various books—amongst others the whole Corpus juris Canonici, which contains about six thousand folio pages, in double column. We are glad to hear it ; but we can only say that we judge of people by their works, and when we find a man, deeply versed in Greek and Latin, telling us that “unpolite" means "living out of the city"—that the ancients did not use γενεα in the sense of a generation of thirty years—that Sebastopol ought to be spelt Sebasteapol, because it means the venerable city—and that Saracen is derived from Sarah—we feel as little doubt about his “ competence" as we should about the scholarship of a boy who, after telling us that he had read the whole body of the classics at school, should go on to say that the perfects of amo and moneo were amui and monavi.
Dr. Cumming thinks we do him injustice in his character as a writer on unfulfilled prophecy, as to which he says that his views are substantially those of Mede, Newton, Elliott, Faber, and the present Bishops of Carlisle and Ripon. We have never denied that this may be the case. Indeed, we have insisted as strongly as he could wish on the fact, which we deem well worthy of attentive observation, that such views as his are “not unacceptable to those who have mitres in their gift ;" but though we do not share in Dr. Cumming's national repugnance to prelacy, we cannot admit that the circumstance that particular opinions are patronized by the Bishops of Carlisle and Ripon is conclusive evidence of their wisdom. Indeed, we think we have read, in the works of authors of nearly equal authority with himself, intimations that the fact that all men speak well of a doctrine, and that the world loves those who hold it, is, to say the least, consistent with the existence of serious objections to its reception. Dr. Cumming’s opinions, we full admit, combine respectability with solemnity. We cannot deny that many very rich people are of his way of thinking; and if purple and fine linen, sumptuous fare and silver slippers, are to settle the question between us, there can be no doubt that he is right, and that we are wrong. We repeat what we said in our review of his books:—“We are far from wishing to express any opinion against the theory of unfulfilled prophecy." Our view on the question is perfectly simple. It is that the study of prophecy must always be to the last degree difficult, whilst the conclusions arrived at must always be matter of conjecture and uncertainty—that, on the other hand, there is no subject on which so many gross and ignorant superstitions have prevailed—and that, for both these reasons, the subject is peculiarly unfitted for popular lectures which attempt only to place before the hearers picturesque and exciting guesses at futurity. Indeed, Dr. Cumming's expressions condemn himself. He says:—“Speaking on unfulfilled prophecy, you will find I have invariably admitted that in such difficult and delicate interpretations I may be wrong.” Surely this consideration ought to shut his mouth. Nothing but the certainty that he is right can justify a man in teaching ignorant people to look upon the ordinary events of nature as omens and portents. Dr. Cumming would probably not lecture Sunday-school children on predestination and reprobation. It seems to us quite as objectionable to lecture the Christian Young Men's Association, and kindred bodies, on the Signs of the Times, or the End of the World. We cannot retract or qualify what we have formerly said on this head. We think that there is a grave moral delinquency in creating a sort of panic on such subjects, when the person who does so has only conjecture to go upon—and when, moreover, he has taken so little pains to inform himself on the subject of which he speaks as to make an important argument turn on the allegation that Bagdad is on the Euphrates, when it is in fact on the Tigris, and to found conjectures about the identity of Sebastopol with Armageddon on the assumption that the city was founded and named by the ancient Greeks. Still less can we retract what we said about the relation between Mr. Elliott’s Horae Apocalypticae and Dr. Cumming's Apocalyptic Sketches. We still say that the one is an unauthorized abridgment of the other, published for the author‘s profit and reputation, though we willingly admit that the profits were spent on the repairs of the church in which he officiates. To compare the Apocalyptic Sketches to Maclaurin's Account of Sir Isaac Newton’s Discoveries is, we think, mere trifling. Maclaurin’s book claims to be no more than it really is. The title is conclusive evidence of this. If Dr. Cumming's book had been entitled “An Abridgment of Mr. Elliott's Horae Apocalypticae," and if it had been published by Mr. Elliott's authority, we should not have had a word to say; but it is written throughout as if it were original. Mr. Elliott's book is referred to as one of several authorities. His references are quoted independently, and not as references to Mr. Elliott; and, in fact, a reader who had not seen Mr. Elliott's book would never suppose that Dr. Cumming's work was nothing more than a series of extracts from it, connected by matter of his own. How does this resemble the case of an author who assumes the conclusions of an earlier writer as the foundation of his own subsequent and independent investigations? Dr. Cumming's book contains no independent investigations whatever. It is a mere abridgment, reproducing language, illustrations, and references—even references to the Bible—without any specific acknowledgment of the real character of the work.
We be to assure Dr. Cumming that we have no wish to cause him needless pain or injury. We have attacked him because we believe his influence to be very pernicious in the ways which we have stated; but that is our only ground of complaint against him. His letter to us is courteous and fair enough, and we have done our best to answer him in a similar tone. We will only say, in conclusion, that we should be hard to please if we were not satisfied with the tone of his letter, but we cannot quite repress a regret that it should be exceptional. If he had written and spoken with the same calmness and moderation about subjects of far greater importance, he would never have had occasion to address us at all. Surely it is a bad compliment to Exeter Hall and the Christian Young Men to supply them with diet so much more pungent than that which he considers fit for the Editor of the Saturday Review.
Saturday Review, February 14, 1857.
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