UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO. 
 
 I The History and Principles 
 
 -OF— 
 
 Wyclifle College. 
 
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 WYCLIFFE COLLEGE i 
 
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 AN ADDRESS TO THE ALUMNI 
 
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 —BY THE— S 
 
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 Rev. Principal Sheraton, D.D. I 
 
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 OCTOBER 7th, 1891. | 
 
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 TORONTO : 
 The T- E. Bryan r Company (Limited) 
 
 1891. 2 
 
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CHURCH PUHIJCATIONS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE J. K. BRYANT COMPANY (LLNflTED). 
 
 The Evan.^elical Churchman. 
 
 'Ihe Church Sunday School Lesson I,eaflets. 
 
 Thtf Church Sunday School Lesson Helps. 
 
 Parish and Home, 
 
 TheAlgfii Missionary News. 
 The Canadi in Church Magazine. 
 
 The Protestantism of the Prayer Book. 
 
WYCLIFFE COLLEGE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO. 
 
 The History and Principles 
 
 -OF— 
 
 Wycliffe College. 
 
 AN ADDRESS TO THE ALUMNI 
 
 —BY THE- 
 
 Rev. Principal Sheraton, D.D. 
 
 OCTOBER 7th, 1591. 
 
 TORONTO : 
 The J. E. Bryant Company (Limited) 
 
 1891. 
 
The Ilistory and Principles of 
 Wycliffe College. 
 
 ADDRESS TO THE ALUMNI, OCT. 7, 1891, 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. PRINCIPAL SHERATON. D.D. 
 
 THE opening of this new and commodious building fur- 
 nishes a fitting opportunity i^i a brief review of the past 
 history of our College and the reassertion of the principles 
 it is intended to embody and to propagate. It is fitting to 
 do so, both that we may be stirred up to gratitude and de- 
 vout thanksgiving to Him without whose guiding and sus- 
 taining hand we had in vain attempted to build, and that 
 we may be reminded of the trust committed to us, and, 
 taking courage from the past, may go forward with increased 
 ardour and hopefulness in our work. 
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE. 
 
 The very origin of the College is a proof of its vitality 
 and a pledge of its stability. For it was not the result of 
 any formal ecclesiastical deliberation, but the outcome of 
 the spontaneous and voluntary action of earnest Christian 
 people, loyal members of our communion, chiefly laymen, 
 together with a small band of earnest and faithful clergy- 
 men. 
 
4 The History and Principles 
 
 This informal spontaneity of inception has been char- 
 acteristic of the most useful enterprises of the Christian 
 Church in missions, in education, in the circulation of the 
 Scriptures, and in the rescue of the sinning and the suffering. 
 It is the best guarantee of success, because it is the strong- 
 est evidence of vitality. It marks that which proceeds out 
 of the very heart and inmost being of the Church, and not 
 merely arises from the routine of formal deliberation and 
 official procedure. 
 
 The situation in thiz diocese and throughout Canada 
 was most serious. We were feeling the blighting influence 
 of the mediaeval reaction which has torn and weakened the 
 Mother Church. It became necessary to withstand the 
 growing sacerdotalism by means of organization and agita- 
 tion. The association formed for this purpose battled with 
 the evil courageously. More and more it was apparent 
 that the contest lay between the majority of the Protestant 
 laity of our communion on the one hand, and, on the other 
 hand, a large section of the clergy who had ceased to be in 
 sympathy with the principles and spirit of the Reforma- 
 tion. The conviction grew that the only adequate remedy 
 must be found in the provision of distinctive Evangelical 
 teaching in the training and education of candidates for the 
 sacred ministry, and out of this conviction, deepened by 
 thought and prayer, originated Wycliffe College. 
 
 The initiation of the work evoked, as is well known, 
 strong and persistent opposition. It was alleged that it 
 was opposed to the law and order of our Church, and the 
 authority of the Bishop was invoked to arrest it. Charges 
 of disloyalty and lawlessness were persistently alleged. 
 Now all educational work, including the training of theo- 
 
of ]Vycliffe College. 5 
 
 logical students, has ever been carried on in the Church of 
 England by the voluntary action of her members, as dis- 
 tinguished from the corporate action of the Church. In 
 the elasticity of this voluntaryism she has found her chief 
 counter action to the inflexibility of an Establishment and 
 her most reliable safeguard against the disintegration of 
 parties, which thus found within her scope and liberty of 
 action. The promoters of this College in their resistance 
 to attempted coercion were contending for this freedom of 
 voluntary action within legal limits which both laity and 
 clergy have ever deen ed an inalienable right and necessity. 
 Moreover, that which they sought to do was no innovation. 
 Individually they had the right, as was admitted at the 
 time, to prepare men for the Bishop's examinations, and it 
 was urged that this should content them. But what had 
 been done before in a desultory and unsatisfactory way, 
 they proposed now to do by methods more thorough and 
 systematic ; and surely, as they contended, their liberty ex- 
 tended to the better doing of that which they were already 
 doing less completely and satisfactorily. 
 
 The Church in Canada had no corporate connection with 
 the work of theological education, and no control over theo- 
 logical colleges. Even the Provincial Synod had not dealt 
 with the matter. So late as in 1883, a committee of that 
 Synod declined to recommend any action, a decision which, I 
 rejoice to say, has been reconsidered so far as relates to 
 theological examinations and degrees. Thus the matter 
 stood; law could not be violated where no law existed; and 
 no accusation could be more devoid of foundation than the 
 statement repeatedly made that the founders of this College 
 were acting in opposition to the settled laws of the Church. 
 
t ^ The History and Principles 
 
 Painful as it is to recur to these misrepresentations, they 
 could not be passed over in silence in any just and accu- 
 rate review of our history ; and although in every stage of 
 the work the same misrepresentations have pursued the 
 workers, I shall refrain, as far as possible, from any further 
 allusion to them. Only we who know the motives of our 
 founders and benefactors, their real and strong affection for 
 the Church of their fathers, their devotion to its principles ; 
 we who are impelled by the same strong convictions of 
 truth and duty, and who see with sorrow the perils and 
 conflicts which have gathered around our historic com- 
 munion ; we who know and share these things, and who 
 are jealous \ox the good name of this College, must indig- 
 nantly repel the charges of disloyalty and faction which 
 have been flur.g forth so gratuitously and vindicate the in- 
 tegrity and legality of our position. 
 
 In October, 1877, this work was begun in a very unas- 
 suming form in one of the Bible Class rooms of the school- 
 house belonging to St. James' Cathedral, under whose 
 fostering wings the infant institution was sheltered, and to 
 the co-operation of whose members, under the late lamented 
 Dean Grasett, the work owes an incalculable debt. In 
 what was then known as the Protestant Episcopal Divinity 
 School a little band of students assembled, and some six of 
 the Evangelical clergy of the city gave their valuable and 
 gratuitous services as instructors. And although the 
 growth of the College and the increase of the staff have en- 
 abled us to diminish our demands upon their time and 
 strength, their zeal has not grown cold, nor their co-opera- 
 tion less valuable, in the work. At our dedication service 
 last evening three of these standard-bearers who led the 
 
cf Wy cliff c College. y 
 
 work at that time conducted our devotions and voiced our 
 thankfulness for the progress achieved — the Venerable 
 Archdeacon Boddy, M.A., the Rev. Alexander Sanson, and 
 the Rev. Septimus Jones, M.A. 
 
 In 1878 the bitterness of the conflict was somewhat 
 mitigated by the agreement arrived at between the repre- 
 sentatives of the two parties in the diocese, upon the basis 
 of which the Church Association was dissolved and the 
 present Bishop of the diocese elected by a unanimous vote. 
 
 This partial recognition of the place and rights of the 
 Divinity School was followed by two important steps 
 towards placing it upon a more permanent and efficient 
 basis. One was its incorporation in 1879 j ^^^ other was 
 the erection of the building upoi College street in 1882, 
 which gave the work a local habitation and supplied 
 the accommodation and appliances without which it 
 could not be efficiently conducted. The institution was 
 still in the weakness of infancy, and at times the most 
 resolute were tempted to despond, so great were the perils 
 which threatened it. But the work of building was taken 
 in hand and the contracts signed by the then Chairman and 
 Treasurer, the Hon. S. H. Blake and Mr. W. H. Howland, 
 who became persoiially responsible for the funds required, 
 and to whose courageous faith we owe, in a large measure, 
 the determination to build and its successful completion. 
 
 The original building soon proved inadequate, and in 
 1885 an addition was completed which almost doubled its * 
 capacity, giving additional dormitories, a refectory, and a 
 splendid room for the library. The chief financial basis of the 
 extension was furnished by the Hon. Edward Blake's muni- 
 ficent gift of $ 1 0,000 for this purpose, but one of his many 
 
8 'The History and Principles 
 
 generous benefactions to the College. Notwithstanding 
 these additions the building proved inadequate for the 
 growing work, and while the College Council was contem- 
 plating further extensions an opportunity was given to sell 
 the building for hospital purposes. The proposition, at 
 first refused, was ultimately accepted, the Council being re- 
 luctant to part with so central and convenient a site. The 
 wisdom of the course taken is sufficiently justified by the 
 erection of these buildings in a position altogether suitable 
 for the work. The foundation was laid in the spring of 
 1890, and now, in the autumn of 189 1, we are enabled by the 
 Divine goodness to take possession of these new quarters, 
 substantial and commodious, which owe very much more 
 than I can tell you to the unwearied supervision of Sir 
 Casimir Gzowski, whose unflagging interest in the work is 
 everywhere manifest. But it will be a grievous mistake to 
 regard this work as complete. Further enlargement will soon 
 be necessary. I hope before very long to see an extension 
 to the south, with a front towards University College, pro- 
 viding additional dormitories, and a convocation hall which 
 shall supply more adequately the accommodation for pub- 
 lic gatherings now temporarily secured in the suite of lecture 
 rooms in which we are assembled. 
 
 Commensurate with the growth of the building, there has 
 been an increase in the financial basis of support. The 
 steady inflow of voluntary contributions is an indication of 
 the deep interest felt in the work and a measure of the 
 donors' attachment to the principles of the College. To 
 name these many generous and self-denying friends is im- 
 possible. The record of their benefactions is attached to 
 the annual calendar. At first there was no method with 
 
of Wyclijfe College. g 
 
 •regard to the collection of these gifts ; but the increase in 
 the requirements of the work necessitated a more system- 
 atic procedure. Our friends are greatly indebted in this 
 matter to the indefatigable energy and devotion of the 
 Financial Secretary, the Rev. T. R. O'Meara. A partial 
 endowment from gifts and legacies has been secured. Of 
 this the foundation was laid by the liberality of Messrs. 
 A. H. Campbell, Homer Dixon, J. K. Kerr, Sir C. S. 
 Gzowski, the Blakes, and the late Sheriff Jarvis. Its in- 
 crease, as rapidly as possible, ought to be strenuously 
 sought after by our friends. For although it is well that 
 such an institution as this should always be partially de- 
 pendent upon voluntary offerings, and by this means kept 
 in touch with its constituency ; yet because of its com- 
 parative remoteness from its supporters, not being in daily 
 and weekly contact with them as a congregation is with its 
 pastor and organization, it is necessary that there should 
 be a backbone of endowment, a reserve of financial sup- 
 port, to meet the inevitable vicissitudes and delays of volun- 
 tary annual subscriptions. 
 
 Let me pass now from the material growth to the more 
 internal and vital progress. The personnel of the staff 
 is of vital importance to the efficiency of the work. 
 We began with one paid professor, relying very 
 largely upon the generous assistance of city clergymen al- 
 ready overburdened with the work of populous parishes. 
 We have gradually enlarged our regular staff until we have 
 four professors devoted to the work. In this enlargement 
 we have followed a policy which, I believe, has amply justi- 
 fied itself. We found some years ago in making inquiries 
 in England and taking counsel with such competent ad- 
 
: ia* The History and Principles J . 
 
 visers as Principal Moule, of Ridley Hall, in the University 
 -of Cambridge, that we must either afford very large induce- 
 ■ ments to tried and experienced men who were already in 
 positions of responsibility, or take young and untried 
 men. The former course was beyond our resources. If 
 ; we must adopt the latter, it were better far than bringing 
 "^^^ from abroad men unknown to us and unproved in their" 
 t own land, to take men whom we knew, men young but of 
 promise, honour-graduates of the Toronto University, as 
 .' well as of our own College, who were imbued with the 
 - spirit of our work and filled with enthusiasm for its ad- 
 ] vancement. This policy has been followed in Ridley Hall 
 itself and elsewhere. The results here have more than* 
 justified its wisdom. I would speak very warmly and with 
 heartiest approval of the work done by my younger col- 
 leagues. We have an increasing body of graduates from 
 which we can draw for the development of our work. I 
 trust that our frinds will soon give us funds to add another 
 instructor to our staff, and help us thus to reasonably real- 
 ize the ideal toward which we have been working. 
 
 The. library is an indispensable factor in the work of the 
 College. The basis of our own was laid in the munificent 
 gift of the family of the late Dean Grasett and in other con- 
 tributions of generous friends, especially Mr. VVyld, and 
 now reaches nearly eight thousand volumes. But we 
 greatly need a library endowment fund and some provision 
 for an annual increase to our books, not only from current 
 literature, but also from the great works of the past, in not 
 a few departments of theological study. This matter can- 
 not be kept too prominently before the friends of the Col- 
 lege. Our students are, however, by no means restricted 
 
.y-^ ::[■[' '■'-<:.^^:,,_,-yr'':, • of Wycliffe College, - . ii 
 
 to our own College library. They have access to the great 
 library of the University, now being reconstructed upon a 
 most ample and acceptable basis, and numbering not less 
 than forty thousand volumes, and to the valuable and ex- 
 tensive public library of this city, and to others of lesser 
 extent. These are invaluable privileges. 
 
 » Wycliffe College stands in two intimate and important 
 educational relationships which merit consideration ; the 
 one literary- to the University of Toronto; and the other 
 theological — to our Church in Canada. 
 
 Our connection with the University of Toronto was at 
 first merely the local one of convenient proximity and ac- 
 cess to its lecture-rooms and appliances. Even this was a 
 very great advantage, in which we owed very much to the 
 sympathy and co-operation of the revered President, Sir 
 Daniel Wilson. In 1885 Wycliffe College was by statute 
 of the University Senate, confirmed by the Governor in 
 Council, affiliated to the University. In 1889 the College 
 was by Act of the Ontario Legislature confederated and 
 made a constituent part of the University of Toronto. 
 From this close and intimate relationship with our national 
 University the College derives great advantages. All our 
 revenues are devoted to theological teaching, .vhue the 
 general literary training is provided by the University. Our 
 students are able to avail themselves of all the resources of 
 the University in the various departments of study, especi- 
 ally those which bear the closest relation to theology. 
 Moreover, by our connection w^ith the University we are 
 preserved from that tendency to narrowness of which an 
 isolated theological school stands in great danger. Our 
 students commingle with those among whom their life-work 
 
12 The History and Principles 
 
 is to be carried on. They come into contact with men of 
 different communions and destined for various professions, 
 have their sympathies broadened, and learn to take broader 
 and juster views of life. I lay great stress upon the in- 
 fluence of a common university life and the relations of 
 our students with their fellow-students with whom they are 
 associated in the pursuits of learning, and in the religious 
 work which, I rejoice to say, is carried on both by the Uni- 
 versity Young Men's Christian Association and in other 
 ways. 
 
 After much delay the Provincial Synod, in 1889, passed 
 a canon relating to examinations and degrees in theology. 
 The scheme was adopted in consultation with the theologi- 
 cal colleges, and is chiefly based, with some modifications, 
 not always improvements, upon the lines developed by 
 Lightfoot and Westcott in connection with the University 
 of Cambridge, and with what is known in England as the 
 Preliminary Examination for Holy Orders. By this canon 
 Wycliffe College is recognized as one of the six institutions 
 devoted to theological teaching in this Ecclesiastical Prov- 
 ince, and the Board of Examiners is constituted, upon 
 which Wycliffe is represented equally with the other institu- 
 tions. This scheme, which first comes into operation this 
 year, has the hearty support of the Council of Wycliffe Col- 
 lege, and we welcome it with great satisfaction, believing 
 that it will exercise a very marked and beneficial influence 
 upon theological education in Canada, elevating its stand- 
 ards and improving its methods. While, then, our College 
 preserves completely its autonomy and carries on its work 
 upon its own lines, it is intimately and organically con- 
 nected, on the one hand, with our national system of educa- 
 
of Wycliffe College, ^ 13 
 
 tion, which has its crown and complet'on in the University 
 of Toronto, and, on the other hand, with the special theo- 
 logical education of our own Church. The student of 
 Wychffe can, at, the close of his course, go forth with his 
 degree in Arts, the certificate and guarantee of his literary 
 attainments, bearing the imprimatur of the University of 
 Toronto, and with the certificate of the Board of Examiners 
 of the Provincial Synod, bearing the imprimatur of the 
 highest ecclesiastical authority in our Canadian Church. 
 
 No sketch of Wycliffe would be complete without some 
 reference to the missionary work supported by our gradu- 
 ates, and the outcome of the practical work of the students 
 which has been encouraged and developed in connection 
 with their theological training, and which is as valuable 
 and indispensable as the clinical side of mediqal studies. 
 Already there are supported by the Missionary Society of 
 the College and its friends a travelling missionary in Al- 
 goma, a missionary in Rupert's Land, and two missionaries 
 in Japan, where we hope to see developed a strong and ag- 
 gressive centre of educational and evangelistic work, and 
 which specially commends itself to the prayerful and prac- 
 tical sympathy of the friends of Wycliffe. ^-^^ ; - 
 
 Another educational enterprise at home has had its origin 
 and impulse in Wycliffe Collefije. There was long felt the 
 necessity for a boys' school which should be of the highest 
 standing in educational efficiency and pervaded by an earnest 
 religious spirit to which those who value the Protestant and 
 Evangelical principles of our Church could send their sons 
 with confidence. Bishop Ridley College, St. Catharines, has 
 now entered upon the second year of its existence under 
 the energetic and admirable management of the Rev. J. O. 
 
14 The History and Principles 
 
 Miller, M.A., assisted by an able staff, and in its signal suc- 
 cess has already more than justified the expectations of its 
 promoters. 
 
 These enterprises, missionary and educational, and, above 
 all, the faithful work of our alumni in their parishes and 
 missions, are the practical outcome of the principles em- 
 bodied in this College, which exists to provide . such 
 workers and to promote such work. For this object 
 the College exists — to send forth faithful, earnest, de- 
 voted ministers of the Gospel of Christ, not mere theologi- 
 cal theorists, but practical men, faithful to the Reformation 
 principles and devoting themselves without reserve to the 
 service of humanity in the most blessed of all ministries, 
 the bond-service of Jesus Christ. To say that there may 
 have beenf and to expect that there will be, no failures, no 
 disappointments, would be to claim what is unknown in 
 any enterprise committed to frail men ; but we can say, 
 humbly and thankfully, that the labours of our alumni and 
 the whole work of the College have been blessed beyond the 
 most sanguine expectations of its friends, and that the prom- 
 ise of the future is rich and encouraging, so that we are 
 ready to go forward with unabated confidence, assured that 
 the same strong and loving Presence to which we owe all 
 the success of the past will abide with us in the days to come, 
 and prove, as of old, the exhaustless source of wisdom and 
 strength, filling our work with abounding vigour and keep- 
 ing it true to its original design and to the principles which 
 it embodies. 
 
 JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH ONLY. 
 
 The whole value of our work depends upon those 
 principles which it represents and propagates. Nothing 
 
of Wyclife College, '15 
 
 less than the most vital issues can either vindicate its 
 past course or guarantee the stability and success of its 
 future development. Profound and far-reaching, we 
 believe these issues to be. In any enquiry into their 
 nature we must bear in mind that we are not dealing with 
 isolated statements, fragments without connection or re- 
 lationship, among which we can pick and choose, each 
 selecting for himself what he will retain or reject. On the 
 contrary, we have to do with one homogeneous whole, a cor- 
 related system, a living organism, all of whose parts 
 stand in a definite and vital relationship to each other. 
 Moreover, we find this organism of truth dominated and 
 ■controlled by a few great principles. If these principles 
 are clearly understood and resolutely held, the whole com- 
 pass of the truth revealed in Christ stands forth luminous 
 and self-consistent. But if they are ignored, displaced, or 
 perverted, our whole religious belief is vitiated, and our 
 conceptions of God, of liberty, and of righteousness suffer. 
 Still further it will be seen that these principles converge 
 into one focus, that they centre themselves in the one 
 point, of all others the most practically important and mo- ^ ■ 
 mentous — How shall sinful man be just with God? — in the . 
 question of the anxious heart, tersely and urgently voiced . , 
 by the Philippian jailor, "What must I do to be saved?" 
 It is in the answers given to this question that the funda- - 
 mental and vital differences between the sacerdotal and > I 
 the Evangelical theologies most vividly present themselves. 
 Nowhere does this stand out more manifestly than in the 
 development of the great Reformation and in the life his- 
 tories of the Reformers, e.g., of Lucher. Take him at the 
 outset of his career, a pious and ardent monk, whose 
 
l6 » The History and Principles 
 
 whole concern, as Dorner observes, was about the salvation 
 of his soul. Profoundly conscious of the Divine holiness^ 
 and of his own sinfulness, in vain he sought for peace and 
 deliverance by following the prescriptions and observances 
 of the sacerdotal Church, as he himself afterwards con- 
 fessed, with fastings, vigils, prayers, and other exercises, 
 torturing and wearying his body far more than his most 
 . bitter enemies and persecutors ever did. But it w^as all in 
 vain until he learnt the great truth that man is justified by 
 faith without works of law, and apprehended the glori- 
 ous significance of the words of the Apostolic Creed — " I 
 believe in the forgiveness of sins." Thus Luther first came 
 into the possession of the personal experience of salvation 
 : by faith. It was only by degrees that he came to know 
 the full significance of this truth and its bearing upon 
 theology as well as upon life. He had, as Dorner says, as 
 yet no presentiment of the fact that there lay in it the 
 ^ germ of a totally different system of the economy of salva- 
 tion from the ecclesiastical. There is not time to trace the 
 . ,1 steps by which he was led towards a consummation he had 
 JJ never dreamt of He was himself astonished at the light 
 which the knowledge acquired upon one point shed upon 
 the whole compass of theology, and unveiled to him the 
 manifold errors of the dominant system. He found the 
 truth of the appropriation by faith of the free grace of 
 God in Christ to be a principle of universal significance. 
 By it he was ushered into a new world of Evangelical free- 
 dom. It became the constructive principle of his theo- 
 logy, and, as expressed in the doctrine of justification by 
 faith only, apart from works, it soon became manifest that 
 it was entitled to the place universally conceded to it as the 
 
• - . ■■■ ,../3fe^y .•■^'.^y •"."-,, ^-^ . : ' - . 
 
 -■. , ' ji - - • * 
 
 of ^Vyclijfe College, - 17 
 
 great subjective principle of the Reformation. He himself 
 called it articulus stantis vel cadentis ecclesice^ the article of 
 a standing or falling Church. His Roman antagonists 
 themselves viewed it as the keystone of the Protestant 
 position, and hence the principal theologians of the Coun- 
 
 " cil of Trent, as Sarpi in his history of that Qpuncil re- 
 lates, advised that their fathers and divines should be 
 assiduous and exact in their studies concerning the doc- 
 trine of justification "because all the errors of Martin 
 (Luther) were resolved into that point." They conceded 
 the doctrine of justification by faith only, to be the master 
 principle of the Reformation. " Therefore," they alleged, 
 *' by a contrary way, he that will establish the body of the 
 Catholic doctrine must overthrow the heresy of justification 
 by faith only." 
 
 The student of St. Paul's life cannot fail to observe how 
 close is the parallel between his experience and that of 
 Luther. Study in the light of the apostolic history the 
 
 ; third chapter of Philippians, and the jontrast there drawn 
 
 ' between the Pharisaic legalist who sought by his devotion 
 to ritual and his obedience to law to build up for himself a 
 
 * sure ground of acceptance with God, and the humble dis- 
 ciple and bond-slave of Jesus of Nazareth, who accounts all 
 his attainments, privileges, and performances as dross, vile, 
 and worthless, and finds his only hope of acceptance, his 
 only ground of confidence before God, his only righteous- 
 ness, in the merits of the Redeemer appropriated by faiths 
 Study St. Paul's conflict with the Judaizers, whose error is 
 identical in substance with that of legalists and sacerdotal- 
 ists in all ages ; read in the Epistle to the Galatians his 
 impassioned denunciation of their perversion of the Gos- 
 
i8' Tlie History and Principles 
 
 pel of Christ and his vindication of the liberty of the Gos- 
 pel and of the gratuitousness of salvation, and you w*U not 
 be surprised that Luther chose this epistle as his most 
 efficient engine in overthrowing the vast superstructure of 
 error which had been raised upon the simple foundations 
 of the Go^el, and that his "Commentary on the Galatians" 
 remains, as Bishop Lightfoot affirms, a speaking monument 
 of the mind of the Reformers and of the principles of the 
 Reformation. All departures from the Reformation posi- 
 tion can be traced back to unfaithfulness to this great 
 master principle, justification by faith only. Our great 
 Hooker, in his notable sermon on justification, finds here 
 the essential point in the differences between England and 
 Rome, and affirms the Roman doctrine of justification to . 
 be the mystery of the man of sin. In this he is at one 
 with our Reformers and great divines. .Archbishop Usher 
 overflows with it. Bishops Downame and Davenant have 
 devoted volumes to this controversy. The keynote of our 
 Church's teachmg is sounded in Article XL, that *' we are , 
 accounted righteous before God only for the merit of our 
 Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, by faith and not for our 
 own works or deservings." *'Then," to quote the words 
 of tlie judicious Hooker, "although in ourselves we be 
 altogether sinful and unrighteousness, yet even the man 
 who is impious in himself, full of iniquity, full of sin, him, 
 being found in Christ through faith and having his sin re- 
 mitted through repentance, him God beholdeth with a 
 gracious eye, putteth away his sin by not imputing it, 
 taketh quite away the punishment due thereto by pardoning 
 it, and accepteth him in Jesus Christ as perfectly righteous, 
 as if he had fulfilled all that was commanded him in the law.'* 
 
of W y cliff e College. 19 
 
 In the history of our Church there occur two periods of 
 lamentable defection from Reformation doctrine, and between 
 them a remarkable parallelism can be traced. I refer to the 
 Laudian and the Tractarian movements. The errcs and 
 evils in each can be traced up to one central and fountain 
 error. The decline in each began with the obscuring and 
 setting aside of the truth of justification by.faith only, and 
 substituting therefor the old legal and sacerdotal figment of 
 a progressive justification by works, ceremonies, and sacra- 
 ments. The work of Bishop Bull on the agreement of St. 
 Paul with St. James on justification is an outcome of the 
 earlier of these defections. The character of its theology, 
 confused, illogical, and unscriptural, can be judged from its 
 definition of faith, which Bull states, "comprehends in one 
 word all the works of Christian piety." The influence of 
 this pernicious work upon the theology of non-jurors and 
 High Churchmen has been very great ; and to this day it is 
 recommended as an authority by bishops and examining 
 chaplains of that school. It is one of the books which have 
 transmitted the errors of the Laudian divines to the later 
 Tractarian school, and prepared the way for the more pro- 
 nounced developments of Oxford theology. Dr. Pusey con- 
 demns those who " sever justification from baptism and 
 make it consist in the act of reliance on the merits of Christ 
 alone." He asserts that " we are by baptism brought into 
 the state of salvation or justification"; and he further tells 
 us that it is "a state admitting of degrees according to the 
 degree of sanctificaiion." In Newman's lectures on justifi- 
 cation, written before his departure to Rome and approved 
 by Dr. Pusey, it is stated that " the righteousness wherein 
 v/e must stand at the last day is not Christ's own imputed 
 
20 The History and Principles 
 
 obedience, but our own good works." He tells us that 
 " cleanness of heart and spirit, obedience by word and deed, 
 these alone can constitute our justification." *' The gift of 
 righteousness or justification is not an imputation, but an 
 inward work." " If He (God) accounts righteous, it is by 
 making righteous." But, as Godet points out, this is the 
 vital difference between Romanism and Protestantism : the 
 former teaches an inward regeneration by means of the 
 sacraments, on the ground of which God pardons ; the 
 latter teaches a free reconciliation through faith in Christ's 
 merits, on the ground of which God regenerates. Faber, 
 inhis primitive "Doctrineof Justification," draws the contrast 
 between the certainty and sufficiency of the Gospel plan of 
 salvation and the painful uncertainties of sacerdotalism. If 
 we follow the teaching of the Reformers, " we shall build our 
 justification, not upon the ever-shifting sands of man's im- 
 perfect and inherent righteousness, but upon the immovable 
 rock and absolute cubical unity of the perfect and finished 
 righteousness of Christ. " - : ' > -. 
 
 The latest Tractarian doctrine differs from the earlier in 
 that it has been formulated more completely into a system 
 which is in its essence a Pantheistic Hegelianism. It is 
 curious and instructive to follow out this teaching to its 
 source. The Tractarian doctrine was first elaborated by 
 Archdeacon Wilberforce, afterwards a pervert to Rome, in 
 his work on the Incarnation. It may be thus brif^fly stated. 
 The Incarnation is the central dogma of Christianity. 
 Christ having completed His manifestation of Himself upon 
 the earth is now enthroned in heaven as the Head of His 
 mystical body, the Church, which, as Gore says, is of a piece 
 with the Incarnation, whose benefits it perpetuates by means 
 
of Wy cliff e College, 21 
 
 of a once for all empowered and commissioned ministry 
 through the sacraments which are the instruments by which 
 we are incorporated into Christ and the channels of spiritual 
 gifts, the sacraments themselves being dependent upon the 
 ministry, apart from whose succession and authority they 
 have no validity. Now, as I said, it is curious to trace the 
 genesis of this theory of the sacraments as the extension of 
 the Incarnation. VVilberforce first introduced it into Trac- 
 tarianism. He derived it from the German Roman Catholic 
 theologian, Moehler,ofa portion of whose "Symbolik" his book 
 is substantially an expansion. Moehler's object was to ex- 
 press Roman theology in the terms of contemporary philo- 
 sophical thought, and thus, if possible, to place its dogmas 
 upon a philosophical basis. He took hold of the Pantheis- 
 tic conception of God perpetually becoming man, an eternal 
 incarnation of God in humanity, as Schelling formulated it. 
 Hegel had constructed upon this basis a philosophy of his- 
 tory. A little later Strauss utilized it in his myth theory of 
 the op'^n of the Gospel history. Moehler transferred the 
 idea from humanity in general to the Roman Church, so that 
 instead of its being the incarnation of God in humanity, it 
 became, in his theory, the incarnation of God in the Church; 
 the Church being the form or incarnation in which God ex- 
 isted for the world, and through which the world could find 
 access to God, so that to be united to the Church is to be 
 united to God in Christ. VVilberforce simply adapted Moeh- 
 ler's theory to Tractarian exigencies, and to the Tractarian 
 conception of the Church, which included the Anglican and 
 Greek as well as the Roman. The practical result of such a 
 theology is to give the Church that position of mediatorship 
 which belongs to Christ alone ; and accordingly the means 
 
aa The History and Principles 
 
 by which man is reconciled to God is the reception of the 
 sacraments and submission to the priesthood. A man-de- 
 vised method of reconciliation is substituted for that pro- 
 claimed in the Gospel. It is clear then that the only 
 effective remedy for such a perversion is the proclamation 
 of the Gospel itself. This was the instrument so effective in 
 the hands of its first preachers, and which proved^ as St. 
 Paul declared, the power of God unto salvation unto every 
 one that believeth. It was by the same instrumentality that 
 the Reformation was achieved, and by no other means can 
 our Church be delivered from the false gospel of sacerdotal- 
 ism. It is to bear witness to this great truth of justification 
 by faith only that this College exists, that it may impress it 
 upon its students and send them forth to teach and enforce 
 it and make it the living centre of their preaching. 
 
 THE SUPREMACY OF THE SCRIPTURES. 
 
 To justification by faith there is a correlative truth — the 
 absolute supremacy of the Word of God as the only rule of 
 Christian faith and life. The one is the inner and subject- 
 ive, the other the external objective principle of Evangelical 
 Protestantism ; and the two are closely related, for the Word 
 of God is the warrant of faith. It is from the promise and 
 revelation of God in Christ that faith derives the guarantees 
 upon which it rests. The written record of the Scriptures 
 sets forth the person of Christ in whom faith trusts, the 
 work of Christ upon which faith builds. The career of 
 Luther forcibly illustrates the relationship between the two 
 truths. When he could not find pardon and peace by 
 means of the prescriptions of the Church, he obtained it by 
 faith in the promises of the Gospel. Then he found the 
 
■■*'■ 
 
 -5» 
 
 . - of Wycliffe College, ^ ^ 23 
 
 authority of the Church arrayed against him. Against it he 
 had but one appeal, and it is upon the Word of God that he 
 takes his stand. '* That," he exclaims, " is God's Word ; 
 on that will I risk body and life, and a hundred thousand 
 necks, if I had them." 
 
 The doctrine of tradition was the substitution ot man's 
 word for God's. At quite an early period in Church history 
 the question came to be, not what does God's Word teach, 
 but what do fathers teach and councils affirm that God's 
 Word declares. The Church was thus made the mediator 
 of truth as well as of grace. As man cannot receive what 
 God gives, so neither can he know what God reveals except 
 through the Church, that is, the priesthood. The patristic 
 rule of quod semper^ quod ubique^ quod ab omnibus creditum 
 est^ proved as embarrassing as it was false. Even its origi- 
 nator, Vincentius Lirinensis, was obliged to limit it to *' the 
 consent of all or nearly all the clergy." And ever since the 
 Reformation the Church of Rome has been more and more 
 pressed by the insufficiency and inconvenience of the re- 
 quirement of universal consent as the test of truth, as 
 the progress of historical knowledge and the methods of 
 historical enquiry began to show the novelty of her distinct- 
 ive dogmas. Moehler again came to the rescue with his 
 philosophizing. As he made the Church the substitute for 
 Christ by his adaptation of the Hegelian hypothesis of an 
 eternal Incarnation, so he also made the Church the substi- 
 tute for the Holy Scriptures by the skilful application to the-- 
 ology of the philosophical doctrine of development. Inspira- 
 tion was thus taught to be continuous in the Church, to which 
 new revelations were constantly Ijeing made. Tradition was 
 as little necessary as Scripture to the authentication of a 
 

 24 The History and Principles 
 
 dogma. The voice of the hving C.'hurch becomes a suffi- 
 cient substitute for both. And as there were false as well 
 as true developments, a criterion was necessary to distinguish 
 them. This was provided in the infallible authority of the 
 Pope, the Vicar of Christ, whose decisions were final, so that 
 Pius the Ninth could say, " I am the tradition." The devel- 
 opment theory of Moehler was adopted by Newman, and 
 is the accepted hypothesis of the younger Tractarians of 
 the Lux Mundi school, and requires only the doctrine of 
 the Papal Infallibility as its correlative. It is the last des- 
 perate attempt of our Anglican traditionalists to defend 
 their dogmas against the encroachments of modern critical 
 enquiry. The disintegration may be delayed, but it cannot 
 be arrested ; and when it does come, the collapse will be 
 all the more complete. ^ tv 
 
 Now, it is characteristic of all these theories that they 
 make the Scriptures the initial point in a course of develop- 
 ment. They make the development begm with the com- - 
 pleted Scriptures and go on through the whole course of 
 Church life, bringing in thoughts and dogmas which are? 
 confessedly not in the Scriptures at all. The Scriptures are 
 thus virtually superseded. They no longer possess either 
 finality or completeness. They n > longer remain the one 
 supreme authority which determines what we ought to be- 
 lieve and do according to the mind of Christ. 
 
 We, on the contrary, hold fast to the supremacy of the 
 Scriptures. It is because they contain God's revelation of 
 Himself in His Son that they are final and complete, until 
 that Son comes again. Before His advent, God spoke in 
 the prophets, giving a fragmentary, preparatory, and incom- 
 plete revelation. At last He spoke in His Son, who is the 
 

 0/ Wycliffe College. 25 
 
 express image of His substance. That revelation cannot be 
 superseded or supplemented. We accept it as final and 
 complete for the present dispensation. But this finality 
 does not exclude progress in theology. There is and must 
 be a continuous advance in a living Church, but it is not an 
 advance away from and beyond the Scriptures ; it is an ad- 
 vance which, beginning in each successive generation with 
 the measure of its understanding of the Divine Word, goes 
 on to a fuller and riper knowledge of that W^ord. The 
 starting point is the measure possessed of the knowledge of 
 the truth ; the goal is the complete knowledge of the truth 
 revealed. The historical development is not the receiving 
 of new revelations which virtually set aside the Scriptures, 
 but it is a growing up into the full understanding and the 
 complete assimilation of the revelation given once for all in 
 the Incarnate Son of God. 
 
 But it may be said. Is not this great Protestant principle 
 of the supremacy of the Scriptures superseded and dis- 
 credited, not merely by sacerdotal assumptions, but also by 
 modern scholarship and research? We hear in some quar- 
 ters a good deal about the errors of Scripture, the mistakes 
 of Moses, the contradictions of theology and science. What 
 weight are we to attach to these ? I cannot now enter at 
 length into the questions here raised, but I will set before 
 you a few considerations which may be of service to the 
 timid. "■'■'- - ' "' -^ -^.v..-i^.^;. ■;:.. ■" -- ■ ..^■. %>. '-^:- .i,. 
 
 First, inspiration is one thing, a theory of inspiration is 
 another. We may not be agreed as to the precise terms of 
 the theory. We cannot but accept the glorious reality that 
 God has revealed Himself to us. If He could not, where is 
 His power? If He would not, where kHi4lp.Vft?A^ad to 
 
26 The History and Principles 
 
 • . - " >-- ■ ' 
 
 do it, and yet to do it so feebly, so uncertainly, so vaguely, 
 that we cannot know whether or not He speaks or what He 
 utters, were not worthy of a weak and fallible man, much 
 less of an eternal and omnipotent God. With the fact of 
 the Chriscian revelation. Theism must stand or fall. 
 
 Secondly, truth is self attesting. This is characteristic of 
 all truth, whether mathematical, physical, or ethical. Every ' 
 humble seeker verifies for himself the Divine promise ' 
 which is, in its inmost nature, the assertion of a Divine law — 
 *' Ye shall know the truth." Truth does not need any ex- 
 ternal autho»-ity, whether of Council, Pope, or P'ather, to rest 
 upon. It verifies itself. It is by the manifestation of the 
 truth, to use St. Paul's expression, that the true teacher com- 
 mends himself to every man's conscience. Let us have 
 confidence in the truth. It is often the excess of scepticism 
 which leads to superstition. It was Newman's distrust of , 
 God's revelation of Himself in reason and in Scripture, 
 which drove him *o the alternative of absolute unbelief or 
 of submission to external authority. He chose the latter x^ 
 alternative, and his own premises logically led him into 
 submission to Rome. /^ . , *: ^-Wk-/.^:^ 
 
 Thirdly, it is a mistake to speak of contradictions between 
 nature and revelation. What we do find are apparent con- 
 tradictions between science, which is man's interpretation of 
 nature, and theology, which is man's interpretation of reve- 
 lation. In either of these interpretations man may err, and 
 has repeatedly erred. When confronted by these perplexi- 
 ties, let us have patience and courage. The tirnidity of 
 some Christians is as reprehensible and more hurtful than 
 the arrogance of many unbelievers. What a curious com- 
 mentary on human fallibility is the conflict between Genesis 
 
''V:^:.:."'- 
 
 "; of Wycliffe College, ^ " . 27 
 
 ■, ' _ -- • . " . 
 
 and geology. We smile alike at the rash zeal of some 
 apologists who found in the presence of shells on the heights 
 of the Alps a proof of a universal deluge, and the superficial 
 cleverness of Voltaire, who evaded the force of the supposed 
 demonstration by the suggestion that the shells had been 
 dropped by pilgrims from the Holy Land. We may not yet 
 be fully able to synchronize every stage in the record with 
 every successive step in the evolution of the world ; but we 
 refuse to accept the now almost incredible suggestion once 
 seriously made that God created the fossils and placed tliem 
 in the rocks as a test of our faith. And who does not marvel 
 as he contrasts the puerilities and absurdities of other ancient 
 cosmogonies with the grandeur and verisimilitude of that 
 of Moses ? Who can fail to trace the marvellous corres- 
 I- pondence between its testimony and that of the rocks to the 
 •; order and beauty of the Divine method which unfolded itself 
 C in those dies ineffabiles^ those God-divided, not sun-divided, 
 :; days, as the great Augustine called them centuries before 
 ' geology hid begun to trace the vast periods of the world's 
 formation. Profounder problems in biology are now to be 
 dealt with. And if, while we are still but children in know- 
 ledge, we protest against the haughty dogmatism of some 
 scientists as to revelation, let us theologians beware lest we 
 repeat their error by an equally crude and self-sufficient con- 
 demnation of the working hypotheses of science. • * ^ = 
 
 Fourthly, let us remember that the science of the Biblical 
 criticism of the Old Testament is still in its infancy, and 
 there is too strong a disposition to accept as true what are 
 still, to say the least, unproved hypotheses. But these specu- 
 lations are not to be met by dogmatic denunciation, but by 
 the more thorough study of the documents and their history. 
 
28 The History and Principles 
 
 It is not very long since the Biblical criticism of the 
 New Testament was in an equally tentative position. 
 And what have been the results? When our Authorized 
 Version was made, the Greek text was substantially that 
 of Erasmus, founded upon a few late and inferior Greek 
 manuscripts, and in the case of the Book of Revelation 
 upon one defective manuscript of the 15th century, so 
 that he had to retranslate a portion of it (some six verses) 
 from the V'^ulgate into Greek. Now a science of textual 
 criticism, as exact and thorough as research and scholarship 
 can make it, has discussed and arranged some 1,500 manu 
 scripts, some of them dating from the fourth and fifth cen- 
 turies ; has compared and collated some 150,000 various 
 readings, and has given us a text which with but compara- 
 tively few exceptions we can confidently affirm to be the 
 ipsissima verba of the writers. Yet the result has not been 
 a revolution but a confirmation of the substantial accuracy 
 of Erasmus and his coworkers. . > -. ' - 
 
 So the genuineness and authenticity of the New Testa- 
 ment writings were challenged. They were subjected to the 
 severest and often the most unfair tests ; yet, even those 
 who have taken the position of hostile critics concede the 
 authenticity of four, with few exceptions of eight, of the most 
 important New Testament writings, sufficient to establish 
 every great truth of Christianity. I speak now of the mini- 
 mum of admission of the most pronounced enemies of 
 Evangelical religion. And while there are still problems 
 awaiting solution, the result of this conflict has been to place 
 the historical basis of our faith and its documents 
 upon a stronger foundation than ever, and to confirm the 
 judgment of the Christian Church throughout the ages. 
 
;v "i 
 
 of Wycliffe College, ^M, '. ^ 
 
 Such, too, will he the result of the present controversies 
 relating to the Old Testament. Some changes may be re- 
 quired in our belief as to the authorship and age of some 
 Old Testament books ; some traditional views may have to 
 be replaced by a more accurate and critical estimate of the 
 process by which the Canon of the Old Testament was 
 formed and preserved ; some of our conceptions of God's 
 working in the older dispensation may be modified ; but the 
 outcome will be the triumphant vindication of the inerrancy 
 of Him who said " One jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass 
 fromthelciw until allbefulfilled," and whocouldaffirm of Him- 
 self as a co-ordinate authority as well as a competent witness, 
 " Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not 
 pass away." Recent researches into the history and antiqui- 
 ties of the east have vivified our knowledge of the Old 
 Testament, and furnished innumerable corroborations of its 
 truthfulness, so that not too confident is the expectation of 
 Professor Sayce, of Oxford, that the Biblical history will yet 
 be disentombed by pick and spade from the soil of Pales- 
 tine. ^,i'^M;^,-s:.^:^ -.■•, -■ :■:- -,-;.,, .r . ■:.. 'W.. -'■':- 
 
 Moreover, the difficulties of the Bible are the diffi- 
 culties of life ; they are those which inhere in the present 
 constitution of things; and their presence in the Bible is 
 the best demonstration that it is a living book and pro- 
 ceeds from the God of all life and wisdoi. . Were it 
 otherwise, were the Bible so superficial as to present no 
 problems and create no difficulties, we must either cease to 
 regard it as Divine, or accept the boast of the proud Gnostic, 
 that he knew God as thoroughly as the staff in his hand. 
 But let such impious thoughts begone in the presence of 
 Him whose judgments are unsearchable and His ways past 
 
30 The History and Principles 
 
 finding out. Surely such a God must transcend our puny 
 reason; but He cannot contradict it. He would not have us 
 despise His own gift. Let us bevvare lest we incur the cen- 
 sure not unjustly cast upon some Evangelicals, that their 
 hatred of rationalism turned into fear of reason. Intellect- 
 ual timidity is nearly as hurtful, if less criminal, than moral 
 cowardice. Let us seek for large views of God and of His 
 universe. „„ . 
 
 As Bishop Lightfoot has grandly stated it — "the ab- 
 negation of reason is not the evidence of faith, but the 
 confession of despair." Let us be in sympathy with 
 science, with research, with the restless daring spirit of the 
 age which must question, examine, test all things ; a spirit 
 indeed capable of awful perversions, if it be the fruit of self- 
 assertion, akin to the old Babel ambition to build a tpwer 
 to heaven ; but which may be and is, in its best and true 
 form, a determination to know truth and to stamp out false- 
 hood, a passion for the real, a God-given impulse to subdue r 
 this great world of matter and of thought and to rule over it ' 
 and to make it subservient to those supreme moral and i 
 spiritual ends for which God created it. ,. ., ,.^; . - : 
 
 So far, then, from having any reason to distrust or to discard 
 that great principle of our Protestantism which leads us to 
 acknowledge no Lord over the conscience, no king of truth, 
 but God Himself, the God who has given us a revelation of 
 Himself, not only in nature and reason, but, above all, in 
 His Son ; we have every reason to hold fast to it as the 
 great anchor of our hope, the impregnable foundation of our 
 faith. The Bible is to day more fresh, more real, more 
 accessible, than it ever was. It speaks now with as paramount 
 authorityasof old. It attests itself as decisively by its power to^ 
 
 '■•■»;' 
 
of Wycliffc College, 31 
 
 search the heart, to convict the conscience, to transform the 
 life, and to bring man into that fellowship with God which 
 is at once the necessity and the perfection of his nature. 
 
 From these two primary principles of Evangelical Protest- 
 antism, logically follow the Evangelical doctrines of the 
 Church, the ministry, and the sacraments. Upon them 
 depends the whole organism of Evangelical truth, which, as 
 a correlative system, must, in all its essential members, stand 
 or fall together. No via media is possible, except in the 
 delusions of illogical minds, or in the compromises 
 of false expediency. The choice must ultimately lie 
 between a thoroughgoing Sacerdotalism and a consistent 
 and decided Evangelicalism. Between these two the con- 
 flict is irrepressible. . Indolence or cowardice may lead 
 us to attempt to evade the issues ; but it will prove impos- 
 sible. Each one of us is called to contend for the truth. 
 Let us see to it that while we speak the truth, we speak it 
 in love. The stronger our confidence in the truth, the 
 greater should be our patience and tenderness towards those 
 who oppose it. We are not contending with men, but with 
 false principles ; and what we desire, as a great English states- 
 man has recently said, is the good of our opponents ; their 
 conversion, not their confusion. 
 
 Lastly, let us remember that our theology is Christo- 
 centric. The dogmas are but definitions of certain relations 
 in which we stand towards Christ, a relation of obedience to 
 His Word and of confidence in His promise. Not the 
 holding of dogmas saves, but the holding of the Head Him- 
 self. It is possible, let us remember, for those who have 
 but a. feeble intellectual grasp of the doctrine to hold fast to 
 the living Christ, to follow Hin^truly, and possess His Spirit. 
 
3$ Wycliffe Colleffe, , : . 
 
 And it is possible, on the other hand, to have accurate 
 conceptions of doctrine and yet to lack that personal trust 
 in Christ and that loyal subjection to Him which are 
 essentials in a truly Evangelical life. The whole man must 
 be in subjection to Christ. We must have His love in our 
 hearts and }^'\ law in our conscience, not less than His 
 truth in our understanding. A dead Evangelicalism is of 
 all things the most repulsive. A living Evangelicalism 
 means a life of service to men, inspired by supreme love to 
 the Son of Man. We can be safe and strong, morally and 
 spiritually, only in so far as we are in touch with the living 
 Christ, united to Him by a living and fruitful faith. " 
 
 ■'"~W^^