two Facebook discussions on Westcott and Hort seance and communion of the saints
two Facebook discussions on Westcott and Hort seance and communion of the saints
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Kent Settlemyer
Moderated King James Bible Debate
https://www.facebook.com/groups/ModeratedKingJamesBibleDebate/
“We’ve allowed the entire discussion of the doctrine of scripture, the text of scripture, and the translation of scripture to be determined by two men who believed in the communion of spirits and one of whom at least, routinely communed with spirits.” Phil Stringer, Westcott & Hort and Their Occult Connections, 2017 KJBRC Conference
(continues)
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Pure Bible
Hort seance attendance - Westcott communion of the saints spiritualism.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/purebible/permalink/955977207827502/
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The material from Westcott is also reprinted:
Thoughts on Revelation & Life: Being Selections from the Writings of Brooke Foss Westcott (1891)
edited by Stephen Phillips
https://books.google.com/books?id=atwTAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA91
https://archive.org/stream/thoughtsonrevela00westiala#page/90/mode/2up
One extract, essentially a "spirit guide":
And there is no limit to this inspiring communion. It embraces the living and the dead. It acknowledges no saddest necessity of outward separation as reaching to the region in which it is. It does not even seek for the confirmation of any visible pledge.
By saints we understand all who welcome and appropriate and show forth, in whatever way, the gifts of the Spirit. If we are ready to follow, Christ, through the Spirit sent in His name, will guide us to some one in whom we may study the virtue of His presence.
We can look for a bit more.
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The above quote can be found in 1883:
The Historic Faith: Short Lectures on the Apostles' Creed (1883)
Brooke Foss Westcott
https://books.google.com/books?id=K_o2AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA257
https://archive.org/stream/historicfaithsh00westgoog#page/n281/mode/2up
The section here is p. 245-261
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The Catholics understood that Westcott was following something like a Catholic idea, in fact they are sounder than Westcott, but did not really single out the mystic spiritism, although they did hint at it.
The Month and Catholic Review
https://books.google.com/books?id=KQIFAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA432
Looking over the subjects of discussion, we are struck by the presence of one at least which must naturally stir Catholic hearts. "The Communion of Saints!"—it sounds in the ears of Catholics as a strange topic for the consideration of Anglicans. It is like the altar "to the unknown God" which roused the charity of St. Paul as he walked among the monuments of Athenian piety. The Communion of Saints! what have these good Churchmen at Leicester got to do with that most tender and touching article of the Creed? Did not the Reformation desecrate the shrines of the saints, turn their offices out of the Prayer-Book, pull down their images, defile their altars, scatter their relics to the winds, forbid their invocation? Have not Anglicans separated themselves from the Church militant, the Church triumphant, the Church suffering in Purgatory? Yes, certainly, they have done all these things. But Christian nature and Catholic instincts are difficult to eradicate from baptised souls, and among the other wonderful developments of neo-Anglicanism it would not be surprising if this also, of the return to the veneration of the saints, were to find a place. The veneration of the saints, as all Catholics feel, is an integral part of the practical realization of the Incarnation, and, in proportion as the true doctrine concerning our Lord, either survives in a community which has been for any reason separated from the unity of the Church, or is restored to such a community, in the same proportion do the members of that community draw nearer to Catholicism as to such points as the honour paid to the Blessed Mother of God and to the saints. "And if thou art not here adored," sings the founder of modern Anglicanism to our Blessed Lady,
... However, the Professor is speaking especially of the influence of those gone before us. "We are learning, by the help of many teachers, the extent and the authority of the dominion which the dead exercise over us, and which we ourselves are shaping for our descendants." Here, as in other passages of this paper, we notice an exaggeration of what is true.
It is not true to say that the dead exercise dominion over us, although, of course, the whole of God's dealings with us cannot be understood unless we recognize the truth that He deals with us, in many respects, as one with our ancestors. But
this kind of influence of the dead on the living might be believed by a Sadducee, it might exist if death was an eternal sleep, and has nothing to do with the Communion of Saints any more than "the future which we are shaping for our descendants."
...We cannot follow Professor Westcott through the rest of His interesting paper with the same minuteness as we have used in examining what has already been commented on. He has some good remarks, not very real to Catholic ears, about the effect of Anglican commemorations in Colleges, or of dedication festivals, of the possible "peopling with familiar forms the vacancies of All Saints Day, and filling up the noble but blank outlines of the
Te Deum" of the importance of the feasts of the Transfiguration, and of St. Michael and All Angels, of the usefulness of meditation on holy examples, on the devotions which may be connected with Christian names, of hymn-books as "confessions of the Communion of Saints," and so on.
He speaks of the magnificent myth in the Phadrus of Plato, according to which, "on stated days human souls follow in the train of the gods, and rising above the world, gaze on the eternal and the absolute. It is only by strenuous and painful endeavour that they can gain, for a brief space, the vision which is the appointed food of Divine natures. Then they fall to earth, and their bodily life corresponds with the range and clearness of the celestial impressions which they retain. So they recognize about them during their earthly life sojourn, the images of the higher things, and again strive upwards." "For us," says the Professor, "the revelation of Christ has made this dream a reality. In Him we see perfect Sacrifice, perfect Truth, perfect Wisdom, perfect Love; and having seen it, we can discern signs of His presence in those who show His gifts."
This is well said, but it has not the precision and practical force which we should like to see. Why go to the myths of Plato, when we have before us the Catholic creeds, and the practice of the children of the Catholic Church in all ages, to tell us what those creeds mean?
... And
let it not be said, at least by Professor Westcott, that this exercise of power on the part of the saints is an interference with the single power and office of our Lord as the one Mediator. If, as he has said, the examples of the saints are our only way to understand the character of our Lord, and if, as he has also said, their reflections of His perfection do not in the least derogate from His inviolable honour, because what they are they are altogether through Him, then neither can their intercessions interfere with His, for their whole power is through Him. Let Professor Westcott, then, encourage his co-religionists, not only to commemorate and to meditate on the saints, but to ask their prayers, as they ask our Lord's help and grace. That will be a step towards the realization of the Communion of Saints which may perhaps lead them further than they think. But if it should be so, it will but be to introduce them to blessings and privileges, to which indeed they have a right, but from which they have too long let themselves be debarred. And, in the same way, let Professor Westcott extend his meditations on the examples of the saints to the subject of their own religious practice and belief in this very particular. If he does this, he will most certainly find that either they or the modern Anglicans are wrong in their conceptions, to use his own words, as to "the charge which our belief in this fact lays upon ourselves."
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Here is a spot where Hort defends "communion of the saints" as being communion between the living and the dead, he is attacking a writing that denies this type of spiritism:
Life and Letters of John Fenton Hort Vol 1, 1896
https://archive.org/stream/lifelettershort00hortuoft#page/210/mode/2up
"It is on the Communion of Saints, and the object is to show that there is no communion between the living and the dead"
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