Which Bible, Which Version?
Dr. Fenton John Anthony Hort had read Cardinal John Henry Newman’s autobiography, and he wrote to Westcott on September 23, 1864, commenting upon it. This is Volume 2, page 30 and 31, Life of Hort.
QUOTE: To the Reverend B. F. Westcott, Newman certainly raises many thoughts…END QUOTE
A little further down, Hort comments:
QUOTE: Every syllable of the book, except the miserable, controversial dialectics, I enjoyed thoroughly and felt its force, but I believe at a distance.
All or nearly all seem to me to belong to the world of neat theories of the universe, which is so rudely shaken to pieces, both by personal experience and, may I say it, by natural science.
Within that world, Anglicanism, though by no means without a sound standing, seems a poor and maimed thing beside Great Rome… I believe Coleridge was right in saying that Christianity without a substantial church is vanity and dissolution.
And I remember shocking you and Lightfoot not so very long ago by expressing a belief that Protestantism is only parenthetical and temporary. END QUOTE.
Well, if you’re going back to Rome, I guess you would think Protestantism is only parenthetical and temporary. A few days later, in writing again to Westcott, Hort said, volume 2, page 31:
QUOTE: We must not be tempted into discussing the church and the churches in the opening lines of a letter.
I must take the chance of your misunderstanding me for the present and merely state one comprehensive belief, that perfect Catholicity has been nowhere since the Reformation. END QUOTE.
This next one will be the last one we give you on the subject of their affinity with Rome. (There is much more that could be shown.) This comes from a letter from Hort to John Ellerton in volume 1, Life of Hort, pgs. 76 and 77.
QUOTE: The pure Romish view seems to me nearer and more likely to lead to the truth than the evangelical.
[Hort is giving a list of reasons here, that was number two, this is number three.] Third, we should bear in mind that that hard and unspiritual medieval crust which enveloped the doctrine of the sacraments in stormy times, though in a measure it may be, it may have made it unprofitable to many men of that time, yet in God’s providence preserved it inviolate and unscattered for future generations. Still, we dare not forsake the sacraments, or God will forsake us. END QUOTE.
There are now a couple of miscellaneous items I am going to insert right here that I think you will find of interest. Hort did not write very frequently concerning America or concerning other races, but in this case he did. You may find it shocking.
Before I read this, I want to say that if anyone is listening to this lecture (or now reading the manuscript) who is of the black race and a Christian, then you might be very interested in knowing Dr. Hort’s comments on the people of your race.
This comes from The Life of Hort, Volume 1, pgs. 458 and 459. Hort is again writing to the Reverend John Ellerton. Remember, these are Hort’s words and not mine.
QUOTE, “Lincoln is, I think, almost free from the nearly universal dishonesty of American politicians. I cannot see that he has shown any special virtues or statesmanlike capacities.
I do not for a moment forget what slavery is or the frightful effects which Olmsted has shown it to be producing on white society in the South. But I hate it much more for its influence on the whites than on the niggers themselves.
The refusal of education to them is abominable. How far they are capable of being ennobled by it is not so clear. As yet everywhere, not in slavery only, they have surely shown themselves only as an immeasurably inferior race, just human and no more, their religion frothy and sensuous, their highest virtues those of a good Newfoundland dog. PAUSE QUOTE
Then Hort goes on to comment about the civil war between our states, and then he says… QUOTE:
So much for the mutual rights and wrongs of the two contending parties, but that is only one part of the matter. I care more for England and for Europe than for America. How much more than for all the niggers in the world ! and I contend that the highest morality requires me to do so.
Some thirty years ago, Niebuhr wrote to this effect: Whatever people may say to the contrary, the American empire is a standing menace to the whole civilization of Europe, and sooner or later one or the other must perish. Every year has, I think, brought fresh proof of the entire truth of these words.
American doctrine… destroys the root of everything vitally precious which man has by painful growth been learning from the earliest times till now, and tends only to reduce us to the gorilla state.
The American empire seems to me mainly an embodiment of American doctrine, its leading principle being lawless force. Surely, if ever Babylon or Rome were rightly cursed, it cannot be wrong to desire and pray from the bottom of one’s heart that the American union may be shivered to pieces. END QUOTE.
That is enough to digest for one day. When we learn in future chapters about the political and occult connections of Westcott & Hort, we shall see how they fit right in with the plans of powerful men who were (and are) behind the scenes in Great Britain—men whom coincidentally we have also been teaching about in our current lecture series (some of which we are “blogifying”) concerning how central bankers control and steal from all nations.
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