LIBRARY UNIVERSITY Of CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO *) THE DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTUEY THE DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 1800-1860 BY VERNON F. STORR, M.A. FELLOW OP UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, OXFORD ; CANON OF WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL EXAMINING CHAPLAIN TO THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO. 3.9 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA 1913 All rights reserved PREFACE THIS book owes its existence to the generosity of the Master and Fellows of University College, Oxford, who made me a Research Fellow of the College, and so gave me opportunity for a few years of quiet study. I should like here to thank them very warmly for all their kindness to me. I have found the subject which I have been investigating so wide that I have been unable in the time at my disposal to do more than complete a survey of the first sixty years of the nineteenth century; but I hope at a later date to write another volume dealing with the theological development from 1860-1900. I trust that I have sufficiently acknowledged in the footnotes my indebtedness to the various writers whom I have consulted. But I desire to express my gratitude to my brother-in-law, Mr. Frank Storr, for reading through the chapters on the Oxford Movement, and for making some valuable criticisms upon them. My uncle, Mr. Reginald Fanshawe, also kindly read through the MSS. of chapters II, VII, and VIII, and I am indebted to him for some suggestions. The book which I have found most useful as a general introduction to the whole subject is the late Principal Tulloch's Movements of Religious Thought in Great Britain during the Nineteenth Century. The volume is out of print, and is difficult to obtain. It ought to be reprinted without delay. V. F. S. WINCHESTER, 1913. CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. INTRODUCTORY 1 II. THEOLOGY AND DEVELOPMENT . . . . . 11 III. THE LEGACY OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY . . 25 IV. THE EARLY EVANGELICALS 63 V. THE EARLY ORTHODOX 79 VI. THE EARLY LIBERALS 92 VII. SPIRITUAL FORCES OF THE CENTURY (1) . . . 115 THK HISTORICAL METHOD ROMANTICISM VIII. SPIRITUAL FORCES OF THE CENTURY (2) . . -. 135 PHYSICAL SCIENCE PHILOSOPHICAL IDEALISM THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND DEMOCRACY IX. THE RISE OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM IN GERMANY . 160 X. THE RISE OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM IN ENGLAND . . 177 XL PHILOSOPHICAL INFLUENCES IN THEOLOGY . . . 199 XII. STRAUSS AND THE TUBINGEN SCHOOL . . . 219 XIII. SCHLEIERMACHER ...... 235 XIV. THE OXFORD MOVEMENT ...... 250 XV. THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE OXFORD MOVEMENT . . 276 XVI. NEWMAN'S THEORY OF DEVELOPMENT .... 294 XVII. COLERIDGE .317 XVIII. HARE MAURICE ERSKINE CARLYLE . . . 337 vii viii CONTENTS CHAP. XIX. THE NEGATIVE MOVEMENT, 1840-1855 . . . 362 XX. BROADENING INFLUENCES, 1845-1860 .... 398 XXI. " ESSAYS AND REVIEWS "...... 429 APPENDIX THEOLOGY OUTSIDE THE CHUKCH OF ENGLAND . 455 BIBLIOGRAPHY .463 INDEX . 473 THE DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTUEY 1800-1860 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY No age can hope to understand its own mind and temper, its purposes and ideals, except through a study of the past from which it has sprung. We of this generation have learned, and are in little danger of forgetting, the lesson of the con- tinuity of history. The growth of a feeling for history has, perhaps, been the most marked characteristic of the intellectual development of the last hundred years. And nowhere is this continuity more apparent than in the story of English theology in the nineteenth century. As we study it, we trace the silent operation of an inevitable law of growth ; we follow down the course of a stream whose main current flows steadily in one direction with increasing volume. Past and present are seen to be inextricably intertwined. Nor is this continuity of theology to be found only in the nineteenth century. It ex- tends into the eighteenth; indeed, for there are no breaks anywhere in history, it reaches back to the very origin of Christianity, and beyond. But the connection between 'the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is peculiarly close, for it was in the last quarter of the former period that most of the ideas and tendencies came to birth which were to shape the mind of the century which followed. I have tried in this volume to indicate what these ideas and tendencies were, and to show how a complex problem of theological reconstruction was the legacy which the eighteenth century left to its suc- cessor. Few will be found to deny that a veritable intellectual A 2 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY revolution has taken place in the last forty or fifty years in England, and that religious thought is being profoundly affected by it. From many sides to-day arises the demand for a revision of theological beliefs. The present century will witness, in fact is already witnessing, a change in our presentation of dogma. Living as we do in the very crisis of the coming movement, it is impossible for us to forecast in detail the form which this reconstruction will take, though we can already see something of the ground-plan of the new building. But this is certain, that only he can hope to play an intelligent part in the re- formation of religious beliefs who tries to understand the movements and forces in the past, which by their consilience have brought about the existing state of affairs. It is surely all-important to study the past of English theology at a moment when the future of that theology is in the making. The present volume is a slight contribution to a vast subject. I hope that its many imperfections may stimulate others to investigate anew the history of our theology in the nineteenth century. There is need that many minds should apply themselves to this study, for we want all the light upon the past which can be obtained. Then the danger will be lessened that in our future reconstruction we shah 1 lose sight of elements in the past which are of real value. If we are to build firmly we must lay our foundations securely, and the foundations of Christian theology are to be found in the past. A study of the past, again, will enable us to avoid some of the mistakes of an earlier generation. Too often, as we shall see, the attitude of theologians last century was one of blind hostility to changes whose advent nothing could prevent. There were panics and alarms. Unreasoning hatreds and sus- picions were fomented. The cry, " the Church in danger," was sufficient to arouse the full fury of unintelligent, ecclesiastical conservatism. But all the while the cause of truth was win- ning; and to-day we accept without demur much which our grandfathers resisted to the utmost. The lesson for ourselves is plain. From the study of the past we may gain, not only a wider vision, but a surer confidence. Magna est veritas et praevalebit. " The Spirit of truth . . . shall guide you into all the truth." IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 3 A general survey of English theology in the first sixty years of last century reveals at once certain large features of the development. (a) It was, in the first place, if we except two decades, a period of change, when theological problems attracted atten- tion, and called out a keen interest and activity. From 1800- 1820 no new tendencies, it is true, appeared above the surface ; theology may not unfairly be described as being then in a stagnant condition. But the decade which followed 1820 saw the birth of three distinct movements, all of which vitally affected the evolution of religious thought. These were, the critical and historical work of the liberal theologians of the early Oriel school; the emergence in Scotland, under the in- spiration of Erskine, of a theology which, by its emphasis on experience and the inner witness of the heart, stood in marked contrast to the narrow, dogmatic Calvinism of the Scotch Church ; and, finally, the religious idealism of Coleridge, with its appeal to a philosophy more satisfying than utilitarianism, the influence of which can be traced all down the century. The next decade (1830-40) saw the rise, and the initial stages in the decline, of the Oxford Movement. There was activity enough here, and Tractarianism has left a permanent mark upon the English Church ; though its power has been felt less in the sphere of thought than in that of practical Church life. Indeed, its theological, as opposed to its ecclesiastical, signi- ficance has been greatly over-estimated, and the historian of to-day, looking back upon the movement, is unable to place it in the main line of theological advance. After the collapse of the Oxford Movement came a period of reaction and negation, an hour of darkness in which Maurice so nobly upheld the torch of Christian idealism, and carried on the Coleridgean tradition of a more spiritual philosophy. It was a time in which theology was exposed to many attacks, the most formidable of which came from physical science. Theo- logians, though they were painfully slow in learning their lesson, were beginning to appreciate the need of reconstruction and of a new apologetic. A leavening process was at work in the general mind during this period. Biblical criticism was steadily advancing; the influence of German thought was extending ; the discoveries of science were profoundly modify- 4 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY ing men's views of Nature, organic and inorganic. A few prophets, like F. W. Robertson, were trying to show how theology had nothing to fear from the fresh ways of thinking, and how, with infinite gain to the cause of religion, what was vital in the old might be blended with the new. Finally, in 1859 came the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species, and in 1860 the publication of Essays and Reviews. These two volumes marked the climax of the crisis which had been growing. A brief period of storm and unrest followed. But the broader thought had triumphed, and the way was made open for further theologicaladvance. Throughout these sixty years the story of English theology has hardly a dull page. (6) What has just been said by way of summary of the course of theological development makes it clear that the first six decades of the nineteenth century were a time of prepara- tion. But I wish further to emphasize the fact, because in it we see the most characteristic general feature of the period, viewed as a whole. It was in these sixty years, taken in conjunction with the close of the preceding century, that the forces were slowly accumulating which were to revolutionise theology, and to bring about that reconstruction of belief in which we to-day are called on to bear our part. Speaking broadly, we may say that before 1860 we have the epoch of the pioneer in English theology ; and one of the chief interests for the student is to detect the prophets who had insight enough to note the coming changes, and the direction which they would take. Intellectual advance is always achieved through opposition. New views have to contend with the innate conservatism of the human mind, which is never more marked than where theological belief is concerned. The period now under review affords abundant illustration of this law of progress through opposition. Such advance as was made came about only after incessant conflict with the forces of reaction, ignorance, and traditionalism. The key to the situation is not difficult to find. English theology was isolated. On the Continent, and particularly in Germany, an intellectual revolution had already taken place, but the majority of English theologians were utterly ignorant of what had happened abroad, and, what is far worse, did not care to know. They entrenched themselves in their fortress of tradi- IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 5 tion, and had the anguish of seeing the outworks carried one by one. But after 1860 the state of affairs was very different. In the first place, the upheaval became general. Those who had before refused to face the facts were now compelled to do so by the force of circumstances. Public interest was fully aroused ; thinking laymen were growing impatient for some modification of the traditional position. Essays and Reviews and the Origin of Species caused an explosion. Theology could no longer adopt the policy of the ostrich, and hide its head in the sand. In the second place, there was a growing appreciation of the magnitude of the changes which were coming. The problem was not merely one of the literary criticism of the Bible, and of the meaning of inspiration. It was the deeper problem of the reasonableness of a theistic faith, and of an apologetic which could successfully come to terms with the idea of evolution, or meet the negations of a materialistic science. The traditional theology found itself powerless, for it had no religious philosophy worthy of the name. The last forty years of the century saw theologians forced out of their attitude of isolation, and driven to hold commerce with the wider thought around them. Then began that period of rapid progress and enrichment which has ever since characterised theological development. (c) But though 1800-1860 was in the main a time of pre- paration, all the while progress was being made, and particularly in one direction. Biblical criticism was surely gaining ground, and the traditional theory of plenary inspiration was giving way. This was the inevitable result of the growth of the his- torical and comparative methods. I have tried to give some account of the rise of the higher criticism both in Germany and in England, and to show how by 1840 the broad lines had been laid down which the study of the Scriptures has since followed. The tenacity with which most theologians in Eng- land clung to the traditional views is amazing. But the story of these years is one of the growing triumph of critical methods. So long as the traditional theory obtained, so long was there of necessity a divorce between religious and secular knowledge. At the root of many of the changes which were coming over theology lay a change of view as to the meaning of the inspira- 6 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY tion and authority of the Bible. Throughout all this period theology was becoming increasingly historical. In another direction also advance was being made, the full fruit of which, however, was not seen till after 1860. I have already mentioned the work of Coleridge in introducing English thought to a religious philosophy of a kind very different from the generally accepted teaching of Paley. Julius Hare and Maurice carried on what Coleridge had begun, and helped to prepare the way for the superseding of empiricism by idealism. We shall see in the chapters which deal with this movement how large were its results for theology, and how, by directing attention to those profounder problems concerned with the relation of God to man, it promoted that alliance between theology and philosophy, which was cemented as the century drew to its close. The demand for dogmatic reconstruction became more pro- nounced in the last quarter of the century, but there are indications in our period of a movement in the direction of a modification of some of the traditional doctrines of Christianity. We trace, for example, a growing displacement from its central position of the doctrine of the Atonement by that of the Incarnation. There is increasing dissatisfaction, again, with the traditional view of the Atonement, as transactional and substitutionary. Hare, Maurice, Jowett helped to break down the older theory. But the most important name in this connection is McLeod Campbell. His volume, The Nature of the Atonement, will hold a permanent place in theology. The doctrine of the Fall, again, was being called in question. Jowett, as we shall see, regarded it as unscriptural ; while Maurice is constantly inveighing against those who would make it the basis upon which the scheme of Christian redemption is to be built. The difficulties which thoughtful minds felt about the doctrine were increased tenfold after the biological theory of evolution was accepted, and to-day there is a wide- spread admission that the doctrine needs a complete restate- ment. As Biblical criticism grew, it was inevitable that inquiry should be directed to the Creeds. The Creeds are based upon the Bible ; the results of historical research into the Scriptures cannot but influence dogmatic theology. But, as I have said, the demand for dogmatic reconstruction did not become general IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 7 till toward the end of the century. In the second volume of this work I shall hope to deal with the nature of this demand, and the directions in which it may be met. (d) One supreme problem emerged, as a result of critical and historical inquiry the problem of the Person of Christ. " The return to Christ " has become a watchword of modern theology. We are to investigate the reasons which have brought this about. The problem was present before historical methods had securely established themselves; it lay at the heart of the speculative Christologies of the great German idealists. In fact, it was their unsatisfactory treatment of the problem which caused a reaction in favour of historical research into the origins of Christianity. In this connection the name of Schleiermacher is of high importance. But the emergence of the problem was assured so soon as the historical sense was awakened, for inquiry into the origins of Christianity brings one face to face with Christ and His claim. The rise of New Testament criticism was largely due to a desire to discover the historical Jesus, and to approach Him through history, instead of through the technical definitions of theology. (e) One other feature of the period may be mentioned. It was an age of tendencies rather than of men. Perhaps it is always so ; perhaps the great man is always, in the main, the product of the forces of his time, and the tendency creates its own prophets and witnesses. I do not mean that there were not great men in these sixty years, but there were few giants, as there were very few great theological books. Coleridge and Newman were unquestionably the greatest personalities, but Coleridge was not a professed theologian, and Newman was a somewhat lonely being, the course of whose later life moves outside the Anglican tradition. Maurice, again, was an arresting figure, and Robertson a teacher of the first rank. But the men are dwarfed by the movements. It was essentially a time, to repeat what has already been said, in which large ideas and principles were germinating a time of the growth of potent, spiritual forces, destined to reshape the whole thought of man- kind. The historical and comparative methods, romanticism, idealist philosophy, the achievements of physical science, the growth of democracy, above all, the conception of evolution here are some of the influences which were to transform theology. Anyone who will contrast the mind of the eighteenth century with our mind to-day will be in a position to appreciate the vastness of the change which has come about. Do we not win an added interest in our study of the period from this very fact of the predominance of ideas and tendencies ? Here is the travail of the Time-Spirit ; here is the living God at work. When we see how this revolution in our thought is the result of the convergence of many lines of movement, how inevitable it was, how preparation had been made for it in a long past, we may well rest assured that, though doubtless much of our thought is erroneous, and that at best we can understand only a fragment of the whole, still we are on the right line of advance, and have entered into a heritage which cannot be taken from us. It may be convenient if I give a brief sketch of the plan of this book. The first three chapters may be regarded as in- troductory. Since the subject under investigation is " The Development of English Theology in the Nineteenth Century," I have thought it well to say something as to the meaning of the two terms, theology and development, and this I have done in Chapter II. Chapter III deals with the legacy of thought left to the nineteenth century by the eighteenth. The next two chapters treat of the opening years of the nineteenth century, when theology was unprogressive. I have discussed here the theology of the Evangelicals and of the High Church or Orthodox party. In Chapter VI we find the first signs of real movement in the liberalism of the early Oriel school, and of those who shared in its spirit. Chapters VII and VIII I have called " Spiritual Forces of the Century," and in them I have tried to estimate the influence exercised upon nineteenth century thought by the Historical Method, Romanticism, Idealist Philosophy, Physical Science, and the Democratic Movement. The two succeeding chapters give an account of the rise of Biblical criticism in Germany and England up to the year 1840. Chapter XI is entitled " Philosophical Influences in Theology." It was, I felt, impossible to discuss (Chapter XII) the work of Strauss and the Tubingen theologians without attempting some survey of the movements of philosophical thought which culminated in Hegelianism. Schleiermacher IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 9 the most important personal influence in the theology of the century, comes in for a brief review in Chapter XIII. With Chapter XIV we return to English theology. Two chapters are given to the Oxford Movement, and a third (XVI) to Newman's essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, which sprang directly out of the movement, and is one of the most important books of the period. Chapter XVII deals with Coleridge, and is out of place chronologically. But I thought it best to discuss Coleridge in close connection with his disciples Hare and Maurice, of whom the next chapter treats. Tractarianism represents one line of theological move- ment ; the school of Coleridge another, entirely distinct from the former in method and ideal. With Maurice I have grouped Erskine and Carlyle. Chapter XIX contains some account of the Negative Movement which followed on the collapse of Tractarianism, and also a criticism of the prevailing empirical philosophy. Chapter XX is called "Broadening Influences." It gives a short summary of the tendencies which were making in the direction of a more liberal theology, and discusses the influence of Frederick Myers, F. W. Robertson, and McLeod Campbell. The last chapter is concerned with the publication of Essays and Reviews, with the judgment of the Judicial Committee upon it, and with the general influence of the volume. The book ends with a short appendix on theology outside the Church of England in the period under review. A strictly chronological treatment of the subject is im- possible, unless one is content to be a mere annalist. My object throughout has been to describe the movements of thought which have influenced theology. I have therefore unhesitatingly sacrificed the chronological order where I thought such sacrifice was demanded in the interests of a clear ex- position. I have also, as in the case of Maurice for example, attempted to estimate the work of theologians as a whole, even though they lived on beyond the year 1860. In the second volume it may be necessary to repeat in places what has been said in the first volume when one is dealing with a life which covers parts of both periods. This is one of the disadvantages incident to any historical treatment of the kind here attempted. The disadvantage might conceivably have been lessened if I 10 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY had been able to publish both volumes simultaneously ; but that I have found impossible. The critics will quickly discover my sins of commission and omission, which I am willing to believe are numerous. But among the omissions in the volume are some which are deliberate. For example, I have barely touched upon the question of the relation of Church and State, though Coleridge wrote an important essay upon the subject, and though it was a problem which vitally concerned the Tractarians, and was very dear to the heart of Arnold. Again, I have given, and that in a note, only the most meagre summary of the results of Biblical criticism between 1840 and 1860. I was anxious not to overload the volume with details, and I could not find that criticism in those years was doing more than developing results which had been obtained in the earlier period. But the most significant omission is the absence of any treatment of the effect upon doctrinal theology of the idea of evolution. It may be thought that, since the Origin of Species was published in 1859, I should have discussed this subject. But I felt that a discussion of this kind belongs more appropriately to the second volume, for it was not till after 1860 that the meaning of evolution came home to the English mind, or that its significance for theology was appreciated. I have, on the other hand, treated at some length of the historical method, which was an outcome of the general conception of development. Darwin gave biological confirmation to an idea which had long been ripening; and I hope I have not neglected this earlier ripening of the idea among philosophers and historians. The tract of country which I have tried to survey is immense. I trust that I have succeeded in mapping out some of its main roads and general features. I shall be more than content if this volume encourages others to make their own exploration of the district. CHAPTER II THEOLOGY AND DEVELOPMENT THE most marked feature of the development of theology in the nineteenth century has been the broadening of the scope of the science, which has carried with it as a necessary result the recognition that theological study requires for its successful prosecution the use of various methods. The subdivisions of theology have become more numerous, just because the material from which the theologian draws his conclusions has grown more extensive. This enrichment of theology has perhaps been a continuous process from the first ; but at no epoch has it been more manifest than in the nineteenth century, which in its turn looks to the latter half of the eighteenth as the seed-plot of some of its most constructive and fertile ideas. Two factors which compelled theology to define its ideal in wider terms were the dispute over the re- spective claims of natural and revealed religion, and the rise of the comparative study of religion. The orthodox apologists of the eighteenth century were driven to consider more carefully the meaning of the natural religion which revelation pre- supposed as its basis. From that the step was an easy one to the comparative investigation of the various forms in which natural religion had clothed itself. And the result of this widened inquiry was that theology could no longer limit itself to the systematisation of revealed truth as it is found in the Bible. It had to take account of religion in all its manifold forms of expression, and to broaden its notion of revelation so as to include non-Christian systems. The sources from which theology derived its material were thus seen to be both numerous and varied. All the channels through which God manifests Himself to men became the necessary object of theological investigation, and theology found itself driven from its former 12 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY position of isolation and brought into contact with the historical sciences and with philosophy. The main purpose of these volumes is to trace out the stages of this progressive enrichment of theology in England in the nineteenth century, and to discuss the various influences which have worked a revolution in the method and outlook of the science. The history of English theology in the last century is the history of the gradual development of a new spirit and broader ideal. It is the story of the gradual conquest and permeation of the old by the new a conquest achieved, as all spiritual advance is achieved, only in the face of violent opposition. The victory, though not yet finally complete, is assured. The forces of illiberalism and reaction are still indeed operative ; ecclesiasticism still makes its appeal to the principle of authority falsely interpreted. But the deepest currents of life and thought set in an opposite direction. Criticism, science, history, philosophy, all combine, as will be seen, to produce a temper of mind which, while it is historical in the best sense of the word, finds in the past no golden age to be restored as the model for the present, but the material out of which future progress is to be shaped. Theology, while it preserves its own rights, must, if it is not to die of inanition, come to terms with the living thought around it. To a large extent it has already done so, and the result has been nothing but gain. To-day there is a growing feeling that an isolated theology is no living theology at all, and that without frank interchange of thought between the theologian and investigators in all other fields of knowledge theology immediately ceases to be of interest. We are to study the Development of English Theology. As a preliminary to the historical inquiry, it is well to say some- thing more about the meaning of the two terms. We may begin with Theology its nature, scope, and method. Theology, as is obvious, presupposes religion. It is the reflective analysis of the contents of religion with a view to the systematisation and unification of truth relating to God. It is concerned with the subjective religious consciousness, as it expresses- itself both inwardly and outwardly, in idea and emotion, in worship, ritual, and institution. But it cannot stop there. It has also to determine the objective basis of religion. It must pass from man to God. It must pass from history to IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 13 speculation and metaphysical construction, seeking to make clear the character of the object of worship, to determine the existence and nature of God, and His relation to man. In this constructive work the theologian must take counsel with the historian, the man of science, and particularly with the idealist philosopher. For not only does he require for his final synthesis the contributions to knowledge which they have to make, but he has to effect some reconciliation between his own view of the universe and the view or views of philosophy. Both theology and philosophy aim at discovering the true nature of reality ; both seek unity ; and both seek it by means of the com- mon instrument of reason. A permanent opposition between the verdicts of the theologian and the philosopher as to the mean- ing of reality is impossible, for the universe is one rational whole which thought seeks to interpret. Opposition indeed there has > been in the past, and still is, between the two disciplines ; but we may reasonably hope that it is diminishing, now that it is being recognised that, if philosophy is being called on to listen to the theologian and to take account of his interpretation of religious experience, the theologian is equally called on to listen to philosophy. Theology, therefore, must relate itself to all other knowledge; otherwise it will merely interpret the whole in the light of the part. We can, then, see clearly the complexity of the subject- matter of theology and the need for the theologian to pursue a variety of method, if he would attain his object. He has to deal with nothing less than religion in all its forms, to determine its essential principle, the nature of the object to which it is directed, and its relation to other fields of human experience. I may seem by giving to theology this wide interpretation to have abolished the distinction between it and philosophy. The relation between the two is discussed more fully later on in this chapter. But I feel it to be impossible, for two reasons, to define the scope of theological inquiry in any narrower terms. First, the whole intellectual movement of the nineteenth century has had for theology this result : it has forced it out of its earlier isolation, and brought it into connection with an ever-expanding universe of thought around it. Secondly, the limitation of theology to Christian theology, though valid for 14 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY certain purposes, is ultimately indefensible. Let us begin by considering this latter point. Biblical, or Christian, theology is a distinct branch, and, as I think few would deny, the most important branch of general theology. In any theological treatise a separate section will probably always be given to the discussion of peculiarly Christian doctrines. But Christianity cannot satisfactorily be treated apart from other religions. Its very claim to be the uni- versal religion leads us at once to relate it to other faiths, so that we may test wherein it is superior to them. Again, the historical development of Christianity owes not a little to the influence of non-Christian modes of thought. Rooted in a Judaistic past, it took colour from the successive environments in which it found itself, as it developed. Once more, dominated as we are to-day by the thought of development, we study the evolution of religion, and interpret earlier and lower faiths as leading up to the Christus Consummator, as prophetic of the more perfect expression of the religious principles found in Christianity. The specific theology of Christianity loses much of its meaning and value if it is not treated in genetic relationship with other religions. Attempts have been made to construct out of the Christian consciousness, taken in isolation, a complete theological metaphysic, which it is then sought to relate to the conclusions reached by general philosophy and the rest of experience, but none of them have been successful. All such attempts start with the tacit, or open, assumption of a dualism between Christian experience and other experience, and this dualism it then becomes impossible to overcome in a final synthesis, except by some highly artificial construction. It is forgotten that at every stage of human development religious experience and other experience interact. Each modifies the other, and only in a natural and growing fusion of both can any true unity either for thought or life be found. Christian theology, then, cannot satisfactorily create its own metaphysic. It must call in the aid of philosophy for the task. A theology which seeks its material only in the revelation contained in the Bible will both fail to understand fully that material itself, and will make the part the standard for interpreting the whole. How, then, are we to characterise the aim of a living and progressive theology ? It is not enough, though it is true, IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 15 to say that it will seek for system and unity. The more im- portant problem relates to the nature of the system sought. The system may be an artificial one, something imposed arbitrarily as it were, upon the material in hand, a mere col- lection of doctrines which do not develop naturally from a common root or principle, and are therefore incapable of growth, or at any rate not easily patient of it. Many of the theological systems of the past have displayed this artificial character. For example, as will be seen later, the theology of Hegel and Strauss and of the Tubingen school, even though the idea of a developing system underlies it, is highly artifi- cial, because Christian doctrine was by them forced into the mould of the Hegelian philosophy. Christian truth and ex- perience were unnaturally intellectualised and interpreted in the light of a purely speculative system. Theology here was ^overpowered by metaphysic. Again, theologians have often taken as the basis of their construction an existing Christian creed or confession of faith, and have built up on that founda- tion their system of doctrine, with the result that we have many Christian theologies in place of one comprehensive system proceeding from a fundamental principle, and showing a natural and organic connection of ideas. Or, to take one more illustra- tion, we may point to the immense influence of jurisprudence on theology in the early days of the Latin Church. Theology then took its colour from law, with the result that a legal interpretation of Christian doctrine, and in particular of the doctrine of the Atonement, became the fashion. Nothing but artificiality in theological systematisation could result from such procedure. Now to-day the wisest amongst the theologians recognise that the supreme object of theology must be the exhibition of the organic unity of all the doctrines and truths of religion. Just as in botany the artificial classification of the Linnaean system has given place to a natural system based on a funda- mental differentiation in the life of the seed, and, in addition, the ideal of the botanist has ceased to be mere classification, and has become an ideal of interpretation of plant life in terms of genetic relationship and of the causes of growth ; so in theology it is being increasingly felt that the systematisa- tion of religious truth must be nothing arbitrary or mecha- 16 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY nical, but must proceed from an adequate interpretation of the vital principle of religion itself. The basal idea of religion must first be found. Then the natural affiliation of doctrine with doctrine must be shown. Finally, all the subordinate branches of theology must be set in organic relationship, one with the other. 1 The organic point of view increasingly characterises modern thought. It has been forced upon us by the idea of evolution and the historical method. More and more is it influencing theology. I have tried later to describe more fully the nature of this organic outlook. Here I would only refer in passing to a work which, in a limited sphere, yet one which leads us into the very heart of the Christian system, displays what I conceive should be the true temper which should animate the modern theologian. I have in mind the late Dr. Hort's Hulsean Lectures, The Way, The Truth, and The Life. Those lectures contain a profound discussion of the meaning of the supremacy of Christ in the world of thought and action. The volume may be described as a commentary upon Christ's words, " I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil." In what sense is Christianity the crown of the long religious development which went before it? And within Christianity itself, what is the significance for life and doctrine of the Person of Christ ? A more suggestive treatment of these questions I have nowhere else seen. It is a book which will help anyone who will patiently study it to understand, at any rate in part, what is meant by an organic outlook. Theology, then, as we have seen, is wider than Christian theology ; but the latter provides the fullest expression both of the doctrine of God and of the religious consciousness. All other religions and theologies are illuminated when referred to Christianity. Central in Christianity is the Person of Christ. The systematising of Christian doctrine must proceed from Christ as a centre. He must be shown to be the meeting point of all truth, the fulfiller of the past, and the regulative standard for the future. It is a hopeful sign that theology is feeling its way toward a truer method. One of the needs of the present moment is a better arrangement of the sub- 1 Cp. article "Theology," in Encyd. Brit,, 9th. ed. I have received consider- able help from this article in writing this chapter. IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 17 divisions of theology, based upon a critical survey of the complex material now available for the theologian. But that can come only gradually ; for, by the very necessities of the situation, if the presence of the ideal of a complete theo- logy guides the investigator in his search for proper methods of handling his material, the ideal itself grows and becomes more articulate, as the material to be arranged increases. A progressive theology cannot, except in outline, define before- hand the line of its own advance. Part and whole must react upon each other. Advance can only be gradual and tentative. If the foregoing is a true account of the scope and aim of theology, two conclusions at once follow. First, theology must be free. There must be a free use of reason in the inquiry ; there must be a frank abandonment of the scholastic maxim that reason is but the handmaid of faith. Neither ^Church nor Bible can be set up as barriers to investigation. That both possess an authority, none will deny ; but since it is reason itself which, after critical inquiry, determines them to be authorities, reason has both a right and a duty to subject its determinations to constant revision. Nor can the opposi- tion between faith and reason be pressed to an extreme. A complete synthesis of the two is, doubtless, impossible. Faith would cease to be faith, if such could come about. But there can be no secret mysteries of faith into which reason is for- bidden to enter. She must at any rate attempt to understand them. To prohibit her from so doing is to set up a dualism within the oneness of personality, and to confess that the attempt to reach a final unity of thought and experience is fruitless. A theology which aims at being scientific in method must recognise that its only hope of success lies in complete liberty of investigation. The absence of this recognition was the fatal defect in the Oxford Movement. The second conclusion is that theology cannot progress without speculation. The weakness of a purely speculative theology will become more apparent when we discuss the movement of German idealism from Kant to Hegel. But theologians must beware of a prevalent modern tendency to make theology purely historical. The rise of the historical method and of the historical sciences has enormously enriched theology ; indeed, the greater part of the advance which theo- B 18 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY logy has made in the last century has been due to the growth of a truer feeling for history. But it is only by reflection on the past, and on present experience, that we are anywhere able to go forward ; and theology, truly conceived, is the reflective analysis of the religious consciousness, and its object. Chris- tianity is a religion rooted in historical facts. Christian theology, therefore, must always temper its speculation by reference to history ; but, as I have tried to show elsewhere, the historical method itself, in its highest form, involves speculation and philosophy. Without speculation how is it possible for theology to compass its task of interpreting the inner principles of religion and determining the nature of God ? Or how can it hope to effect any reconciliation between its own unification of experience and the unifications attempted by philosophy ? We have reached a point at which it becomes necessary to say something as to the relation between theology and the philosophy of religion. Can the two inquiries be separated, or does not theology broaden out into the philosophy of religion when viewed in the light of its supreme ideal ? It appears to me that the two disciplines ultimately coincide, and that one large result of the movement of thought in the nineteenth century has been to make the coincidence more clear. Such fusion of the two could not, perhaps, have been achieved earlier, because the philosophy of religion, as a distinct inquiry, had hardly come into being until the latter part of the eighteenth century. The philosophy of religion owes its origin to three causes the recognition on the side of philosophy that religious experience is part of the material with which it has to deal ; the recogni- tion by theology that its methods must be based on a free use of reason ; and the rise of the comparative study of religion. That combination of factors was not found in its completeness till the close of the eighteenth and the dawning of the nineteenth century. Theology and the philosophy of religion both aim at discovering the true nature of religion, as a subjective con- sciousness, and as looking outward to an object of reverence and worship. Both derive their material from the same sources, historical and psychological. Both involve philosophical speculation- Some evidence of the ultimate identity of the IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 19 two may be found in the change which has of recent years come over religious apologetics. These have assumed a dis- tinctively philosophical colour. The change is largely due to the fact that the advance of evolutionary science has raised doubts as to the truth of the fundamental principles of theism, and thus a defence of theism is necessary before any defence of Christianity can be attempted. But that this is so is proof that theology is increasingly feeling its dependence on all other branches of inquiry, and not least upon the philosophy of religion, and is recognising that it cannot do its own work as a self-contained science, but must hold open commerce with the world of thought outside itself. In this there is nothing to be regretted. On the contrary, it is a matter for sincere con- gratulation ; for it means that the days of medievalism are for ever vanished, when reason was simply the ancilla fidei, and theological speculation busied itself with what too often turned out to be barren logomachies. Yet the distinction between theology and the philosophy of religion has an important relative value. Thus, while philosophy knows nothing of authority, the theologian, and in particular the Christian theologian, is right, for special purposes, in as- suming some authoritative basis from which to start his investigations. The Bible, or the Christian creed as the sum- mary of truth taught in the Bible, may well be taken as a body of authoritative truth. But that authority must be used hi a rational manner. It is not an authority above reason, which reason has no right to criticise. The sanctity of a creed is not, as some would have it, the sanctity of a thing taboo. Its title to our reverence consists in the fact that it embodies the traditional, reasoned belief of the historical Christian com- munity. It is not so sacred that it may never be altered, if adequate occasion arises. The authority of the Founder of the Christian religion, though very real, and for the believer in- vested with the quality of divinity, is not one which can never be critically examined. Christ, though " He spake with authority," never sought to impose truth from without upon the minds of His hearers. The truth was set forth, and then left to commend itself by its own inherent worth and per- suasiveness. Finally, the authority of the Bible is one which can be determined only after it has been critically examined. 20 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY The immense advance made last century in our knowledge of the Bible is due largely to the illumination which other branches of study have shed upon it. The authority possessed by the Scriptures to-day is stronger than before, because it is more reasonably conceived ; but criticism has helped them to win this authority, and in consequence they can never be set above the reach of criticism. But, if these qualifications are kept in mind, the Christian theologian has every right to assume some authoritative truths or principles as the basis of his inquiry ; and he will then build up, on the foundation of certain historical facts and of a definite type of spiritual experience, his organic scheme. That scheme, if he would complete his work, he will then have to relate to general theology, showing how Christianity is to be regarded as the crown and comple- ment of the truth concerning God which is to be found in other systems. From another point of view, again, a distinction may be made between theology and the philosophy of religion. It is hardly possible for the Christian theologian to avoid altogether in his work a practical and educational aim. This is probably true of any theologian, but is particularly true of the Christian, because Christianity is a life as well as a theory. Among the subdivisions of theology are those relating to ethics, institu- tional religion, and the life and discipline of the community of believers. Christianity is not a pure theory of God ; it is a theory which involves a practice. And the Christian contention is that he who would know the doctrine to be true must live it out in his daily life, The presence, however, of a practical aim unquestionably leads to dangers. There will always be the temptation to wrest truth in the interests of some special branch of the Christian society, or some special mode of belief or observance. The philosophy of religion, on the other hand, would cease to deserve the name of philosophy if it were anything but pure theory. These distinctions, however, between the two inquiries are subordinate and relative. Theology in its widest aspect, and in so far as it uses the methods common to all rational investi- gation, cannot be distinguished from the philosophy of religion. A final separation between the two can be maintained only if the theologian deliberately narrows the sphere of his investiga- IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 21 tions to the study of the tenets of one particular body of believers, or claims the right to make a special use of the principle of authority, thus withdrawing part of the material of which the philosophy of religion has to take account from the survey of the critical reason. Theology, then, has to admit her need of philosophy. That she has been unwilling to do so is perhaps due to a feeling on the part of the Christian theologian that faith has its rights, and carries with it its own witness to truth in a living spiritual experience ; and that such faith is beyond the reach of philo- sophy, which instead of life offers speculation, and cold reflection upon experience instead of the vital glow of experience itself. Now certainly the philosophy of religion must take account of the specific Christian consciousness and the inner life of faith. That is just part, and a most important part, of the material with which it has to deal; and that concrete experience it can never adequately translate into terms of abstract thought. Yet reflection upon life is part of life itself, and it is only as we turn the eye inward upon our religious experience and strive to disengage its essential principle that we can hope to under- stand it, or make our faith a reasonable one. And so soon as the theologian, starting from the basis of the Christian con- sciousness, seeks to build upon it an ordered theology, he will find that at every turn he must call in the aid of philosophy. The meaning which he attaches to his doctrines, the form in which he presents them, must depend in large measure upon the conclusions reached by science, history, psychology, meta- physics. Thus it is that men are realising so keenly to-day the need of theological reconstruction. The need is forced upon us by the growth of knowledge in all departments ; but the reconstruction can never come about, if theology, which itself owes its existence to human reason, distrusts the conclusions of that same reason in other spheres of inquiry. Truth will never be seen in its living, organic unity, if theology refuses to be on speaking terms with philosophy. Three things, therefore, are required for a progressive theology the avoidance of an irrational use of the principle of authority ; a recognition that theological method must be speculative as well as historical ; a continuous reference to the conclusions of general philosophy, with a view to effecting a 22 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY reconciliation between a specifically religious consciousness and all other forms of experience. Development is the second term which demands some con- sideration. Our discussion of it here, however, in its application to theology will be very brief, as it is more fully treated later on in the volume. 1 If we take the wide view of the scope of theology defended in the earlier portion of this chapter, it is obvious that theology is always in process of development. Theological truth is continually growing. There is both increase in the materials out of which the theologian forms his system, and growth in the methods which he pursues. It is impossible for a living theology to stand still if knowledge elsewhere is developing. The conception of development, moreover, has given birth to a process of critical reflection upon the meaning of the idea; and theology has thus become interested in its own evolution, and feels the need of a thorough investigation into the laws which govern its advance. No question, then, can be raised as to the applicability of the idea of development to theology in the largest meaning of the term. Differences of opinion, however, arise, when theology is used in the narrower sense of Christian theology ; and it becomes extremely important to examine carefully the nature of the dispute. Two objections are commonly made to the use of the word development in connection with those portions of Christian truth which are contained in the creeds of the Church. It is said, first, that the creeds are not themselves developments of earlier scriptural truth, but are merely summaries of that truth; secondly, that the revelation embodied in the creed having been once given, there can be no further unfolding of it. Nothing can be added to it, and nothing can be taken away from it. Let us shortly examine these objections. With regard to the former it is certainly true, that the creeds look to the Bible for confirmation of their statements. Those who composed the creeds would not for a moment have admitted that they contained anything which was not already stated or clearly implied in Scripture. If the test of a true development is to be found in the emergence of what is new and what was not there before, then it is argued that the creeds 1 Cp. Chap. xvi. IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 23 are not a development of primitive truth. On the other hand, it is asserted that in giving precise dogmatic form to the state- ments of Scripture, which are, if not altogether undogmatic, yet couched in untechnical language, an addition has been made which may well be called a development. The doctrine of the Trinity, for example, is certainly only implied, and not formally enunciated, in the New Testament. This was Hampden's contention in the Bampton Lectures of 1832, as we shall see when we deal with him. He maintained that in the process of translating scriptural statements into scholastic terminology a development, and one which he regretted, had taken place. This problem of the meaning ot development as applied to a theology which starts from the basis of the revelation contained in the New Testament is of great importance in the story of the nineteenth century. It was, as I have said, raised by Hampden. It called forth Newman's famous volume. It underlay the appeal of the Tractarians to the age of the undivided Church. It is the pivot on which turns the Modernist movement in the Church of Rome to-day, and is involved in the whole history of Roman apologetic methods. The significance of the problem grew when the publication of the Origin of Species made the category of development dominant in the mind of the century. It is still present with us, and we are the more acutely aware of it, now that the genetic method has become characteristic of historical inquiry into the origins of Christianity and Christian doctrine. The type of question which to-day interests thoughtful minds is this, What is the relation of the Christ of the Creeds and the Epistles to the Christ of the Synoptic Gospels ? What influence upon the development of Christian doctrine was brought to bear by the non-Christian environ- ments in which the new religion found itself? The second objection to the use of the word development is that the revelation, once given, has been given in its complete- ness. It is patient of no addition or modification. That is true, but with these qualifications : we must be sure that we are in possession of the original revelation ; and we must be ready to admit that, though the revelation is in itself complete, there is much room for development in our understanding of it. Now, how can we be sure that we possess the original 24 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY revelation ? Only by careful investigation of the sources which embody it; and this is a continuous task incumbent on each succeeding generation. If it is asserted that, because the Christian society has for all these centuries accepted the creeds as a standard of belief, therefore they are beyond criticism, that is a position which no one can accept who values freedom of thought. One age cannot dogmatically impose its creed upon its successor. Each age must test the creed for itself, and must reserve the right to modify it, if the evidence points in that direction. Further, a creed based on the Bible cannot, surely, be uninfluenced by any fresh results which may be reached through criticism of the Bible. Immense as are the weight and authority of the continuous Christian tradition, a blind adherence to that tradition cannot, if faith is to remain living, be substituted for the free, reasonable inquiry which is incumbent on each generation. CHAPTER III THE LEGACY OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY WRITERS of a generation earlier than our own were accustomed to treat the eighteenth century with scant respect. They called it prosaic and uninteresting, and were glad to pass it by with the briefest of notice. The chief offenders in this respect, as Mark Pattison points out in Essays and Reviews, were the ecclesiastical historians, who regarded the century as an unim- portant, though regrettable, interlude in the story of the Church. For them the Oxford Movement was the true successor of the seventeenth century. What lay between was a period when the tide of Church life was at its lowest ebb, a period of Erasti- anism in ecclesiastical politics, and of an uninspiring latitudi- narianism in theology. It witnessed, indeed, the Evangelical revival ; but a staunch Churchman was not called on to pay much attention to a movement so deeply tainted with the spirit of Methodism. To-day we think differently. We have learned the lesson of the living continuity of all history. Even the most violent reaction of one age upon its predecessor is a form of the obedi- ence which all ages owe to those which have gone before them. And more often, what seems to be a sudden reaction is in reality only the maturing of ideas which had been slowly ripening in the past. The eighteenth century has for the student of the nineteenth an absorbing interest. The striking contrast in intellectual outlook between the epochs sets him at once upon the task of discovering in the earlier period the beginnings of those tendencies which came to completion in the later. And his search is abundantly rewarded. He finds that the eight- eenth century is the seed-plot of many of the ideas and move- ments which give life and colour to the hundred years that follow. The purpose of this chapter is to indicate in brief outline, 25 26 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY and chiefly as it affects theology, the nature of the intellectual legacy left by the eighteenth century. This may be described, in anticipation, as a problem of comprehensive reconstruction, social, economic, philosophical, theological. For that reconstruction many of the materials were already available in England at the opening of the nineteenth century. France contributed some of them ; more were at hand, owing to the breakdown of the traditional English ways of thinking and the rise of new social and intellectual needs. The contribution of Germany to the work of rebuilding was of primary importance ; but German influence was not felt to any considerable extent in this island until some decades of the nineteenth century had passed. Of this influence an account is given later in the volume. Here we are concerned mainly with the legacy left by English thinkers and movements of English national life. The intellectual characteristics of an epoch cannot be sum- marised in a word. Yet the one word " unhistorical " describes, more fully than any other, the mental outlook of the eighteenth century. Just what we possess, it lacked the sense of growth, development, continuity. The historical method, which on the Continent was in its infancy, had in England not yet been born, though we shall see how in the latter part of the century men were feeling their way toward it. But they had neither the knowledge nor the insight which can alone make a study of history fruitful. The prevalent mode of thought was static and abstract. The earlier half of the century was a period of keen, speculative activity both in theology and philosophy. Reason was proud of its powers, and confident in its ability to solve the deepest problems. Yet the problems which it deemed itself to have solved were not the really deep ones. When these profounder issues gradually emerged into prominence, the inadequacy of the professed solutions became apparent. And for the time speculation was paralysed. A period of stag- nation overtook theology and philosophy in the latter half of the century. Reason had done its best, and that best was obviously insufficient. Men turned to politics rather than to speculation on matters of high, spiritual import. They had to learn the lesson that reason means more than the logical under- standing, and that by the roads of logical demonstration or abstract generalisation little progress . could be made toward IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 27 solving the concrete problems of life and history. A further proof of the shallowness, or, as it is perhaps fairer to say, the essential limitations of the eighteenth century mind is to be seen in the almost unquestioning acceptance of certain assump- tions by both sides in a dispute. Some common ground, indeed, there must always be if we are to argue at all ; but the charac- teristic feature of the speculation of the eighteenth century is that the rival disputants started from assumptions which deeper historical study has plainly shown to be untenable. 1 What was axiomatic for the men of that time is, as we shall see, in many cases simply untrue for ourselves. This is why we are justified in describing the change which came about in the nineteenth century as nothing less than revolutionary. Again, the eighteenth century was the period of the predo- minance of the peculiarly English mind. That mind has still its special characteristics ; they are seen, most markedly per- haps, in our literary and political activities. But in science and philosophy there is to-day, at any rate as far as Europe is concerned, hardly any such thing as a national mind. The outlook here is international, human. The fresh contribution to knowledge made by the thinker or investigator of any nation immediately becomes the common property of all. But England in the eighteenth century was insular in the whole range of its thought, and all its thinking was stamped with that love of compromise which has always been characteristic of Englishmen. It was the presence of this spirit of compromise and of the common assumptions already mentioned which makes so many of the controversies of the century, especially the theological controversies, appear to us to-day, if not insincere, at least superficial, though they were waged at the time with great keenness. England, in this respect, affords a striking contrast with France and Germany. In all three countries a far-reaching transformation of opinion was in progress as the old century passed away and the new began to dawn ; but in each case the method of the change differed, and produced different results. In Germany philosophy, and a philosophy which showed a 1 This is brought out by Sir Leslie Stephen in his English Thought in the Eighteenth Century. I should like to take this opportunity of acknowledging my debt to this work, which must long remain in the front rank of books dealing with the period. 28 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY marked continuity of development, led the way ; the revolution in thought was essentially philosophical in character. Theology was treated as a branch of philosophy, and the literary revival preserved a close contact with philosophical speculation. The result was twofold. First, the whole movement possessed a consciously conceived unity which was lacking in England. Secondly, German writers sounded the deepest abysses of specu- lation. Theirs was no intellectual play on the surface. They realised the mystery of existence, and endeavoured to explore it to the utmost. In France compromise was scouted as a thing impossible. The choice was between Catholicism or atheism, between the existing social order or its entire destruction. There was no half-way house. The result was the catastrophe of the Revolution cataclysm instead of a more gradual emerg- ence of the new from the old. In England, on the contrary, the practical common sense and healthy conservatism of the national mind formed a barrier against the advancing tide of new ideas. From this attitude mixed consequences followed. The State gained; there was no revolution, nor any near approach to it. But speculation lost. Theologians were pain- fully slow in adopting the new ideas ; in fact, they resisted them all through the first half of the nineteenth century, with immense detriment to the cause of truth. And English philo- sophy (Coleridge is an exception) remained English, clinging to a narrow empiricism, or meeting the sceptical attack of Hume with appeals to common sense, until, but not before 1850, Oxford led the way to a more satisfying creed by the promotion of a study of German idealism. This unhistorical character of eighteenth century thought, its love of abstractions and logical demonstrations, may be illustrated from many fields of inquiry. In social and political theory, for example, it was the period of the figment of the social contract. Of the nature of this supposed contract various accounts were given, corresponding to the form of government, absolutist, democratic, or constitutionally monarchical, which the writer wished to uphold. But there was a general agree- ment that the contract represented a true, historical occurrence, and the belief in its historicity survived far into the century, despite criticisms upon it, such as those offered by Hume. Closely connected with this belief was the appeal to the IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 29 " inalienable rights of man," or to the " law of nature," or, again, to the " nature of man," which was conceived as a static and fixed entity, the properties of which could be determined by abstraction from all national or individual peculiarities. Social and political speculation tended to model itself on the metaphysical methods of the Cartesian philosophy, which in their turn were based on mathematics as the pattern of a demonstrative science. A study of history and of social conditions in their evolution can alone provide a firm foundation for political theory. When this is absent, legal fictions flourish and controversy is up in the air. The same tendency again is seen in the contemporary writings of political economists. Here the main defect was the absence of any sufficient appreciation of the complexity of the forces which shape the economic life of a nation, and the result was that speculation was governed by a false simplification. For example, what is known as the mercantile theory long held the field, according to which the test of a nation's wealth is to be found in the amount of hard cash contained in its coffers. The aim of the economist was to reduce the facts of industrial life to logical order by the help of certain formulae. His mistake was that he over-emphasized the importance of being logical, and adopted formulae which were too simple for the intricacies of the situation. The publication of The Wealth of Nations marked the beginning of a complete change in economic science. Adam Smith substituted inductive inquiry for a priori reasoning, and led the way in showing that a careful study of sociological conditions was necessary if any real advance was to be made in political economy. 1 Literature also showed the influence of the age of reason. Pope represents faithfully the prevailing spirit of the time. Reason was to be supreme in poetry as in theology. The free play of the imagination was checked on every side by rules and regulations. It was the age of classicalism, but of classicalism as construed by French standards of interpretation. Poetic diction was formal. Construction had to follow the prescribed paths. Literature of course, would cease to exist if no scope was allowed to the emotions. Emotion there was, but it expressed itself in conventional symbols, and in the personifica- 1 Sir Leslie Stephen, op. cit., vol. ii. chap. xi. sect. ii. (3rd. ed.) 30 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY tion of abstract qualities. The didactic and argumentative note prevailed throughout the poetry of the time. l It was as if the spring of feeling, which should be allowed to flow freely over the soil around it, had been confined by a kerb, roofed over, and effectually prevented from reflecting the beauty of the changing skies. Mention has already been made of the influence of the Cartesian philosophy. Just as the roots of the nineteenth century are to be found in the eighteenth, so the latter long felt the influence of the seventeenth. The philosophy of Descartes was inspired by a desire to extend mathematical methods to metaphysical speculation. Proof was to follow the road of logical demonstration. The first requisite was clearness of idea, such clearness as the thinker deemed was equivalent to self-evidence. Find the self-evident principles which lie at the basis of all knowledge, and from them you will be able to build up your world of logically ordered thought. Authority was to be discarded as a principle of reasoning. Descartes begins by doubting everything, and prosecutes his scepticism up to the point where he finds a truth, the truth of his own existence as a thinking being, to deny which is to commit an act of intel- lectual suicide. A supreme confidence in the power of reason to accomplish the task set before it characterises Descartes and his school. They never question the ability of the human mind to create an intellectual system which shall faithfully reflect the structure of ultimate reality. The influence of Descartes upon English speculation in the eighteenth century may be seen in the following directions. There is the same buoyant confidence in the power of reason. There is the same reaching out after the mathematical ideal of clarity of idea, and logical demonstration following from principles judged to be self-evident. There is the same revolt from authority ; only in England, so far as theology is con- cerned, the revolt is tempered by a general acceptance of the traditional beliefs. What the English a priori theologian wished to do was to build up, by the help of reason alone, a theology which should be independent of revelation. Clarke, for example, is typical of this mode of speculation. In his Boyle Lectures (1704-5) he adopts throughout the a priori 1 Sir Leslie Stephen, op. cit., vol. ii. chap. xii. sect. iii. IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 31 method, demonstrating the existence and character of God and the truth of revealed religion in a closely connected series of logical arguments. His object is to construct a train of reason- ing so compact that no flaw could possibly be found in it. Take, again, the intellectual group of moral philosophers, Clarke, Wollaston, Price, with their talk of the immutable law of nature, and their attempt to ground morality on eternal necessities in the scheme of existence. Here we have the same static outlook, the same absence of any true historical apprecia- tion. The facts of ethical life are to be squared to the rule of geometry. Cartesianism, however, though its influence was considerable in the earlier half of the century never obtained complete mastery of the English mind, and the hollowness of its pretensions was quickly exposed. Locke began the attack upon it at the end of the seventeenth century in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding ; Berkeley continued it ; while Hume, pressing the onslaught with a pitiless, logical consistency, demolished not only Cartesianism, but the whole of Locke's system as well, and left men face to face with an unrelieved scepticism. We need not here trace out the story. What is important, however, is to see how this reaction against the Cartesian system affected English speculation, and led the way to a more fruitful reconstruction later on. The criticism of Cartesianism, which Locke began by his attack on innate ideas, took generally the form of an appeal to experience. Abstract speculation was to be abandoned, and its place was to be taken by a study of facts and a psychological investigation into the origin and growth of knowledge and experience in the human mind. But in attacking Descartes, Locke was all the while unconsciously ruled by him. He accepted without criticism many of the presuppositions of the Cartesian system, and so entered on a path which could lead only to scepticism. He was saved from scepticism himself first, because he did not see the true tendency of the philosophy which he was inaugurating ; secondly, because, along with his appeal to experience, he inconsistently combined a mass of other beliefs largely theological in character. Berkeley's thought, in like manner, has two distinct sides. He continues the attack on Cartesianism, carrying the sceptical process to the further stage of disbelief in the existence of the external, 32 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY material universe ; but he also suggests a more positive and constructive spiritual philosophy, which contains the promise of a better system. But he, too, is dominated by a strong, theological motive. Hume, on the other hand, is entirely free from theological presuppositions, and has no religious axe to grind. He is animated by the single desire to demonstrate, beyond possibility of cavil, that if you started with Locke's psychological assumptions you could arrive nowhere. You could have knowledge neither of God, nor of the external world, nor of your own self. If Cartesianism hopelessly broke down, English empiricism, as formulated by Locke, was in worse plight. What was required was a new departure in philosophy. Kant effected this, though even Kant failed to shake himself entirely free from the coils of Cartesianism. What, now, was the cardinal defect in Locke's system ? It was an inadequate understanding of the meaning of experience. The appeal to experience, in opposition to the a priori specu- lation of Cartesianism, was right ; all philosophy must start from experience and the concrete facts of life. But none of these English thinkers interrogated experience deeply enough, or got beyond the standpoint of the experience of the indivi- dual. The deeper interrogation was supplied by Kant, who, instead of asking Locke's question, how knowledge grew up in the mind of the individual, and what was the psychological process of its formation, asked how there could be such a thing as knowledge at all sought, in a word, to determine what were the ultimate presuppositions which we were compelled to make, if we would explain the existence of a mind which knows, and orders its experience. A solitary thinker here carries out a vast revolution in philosophy, which affected not only the whole theory of knowledge, but the conception of God and of His relation to the world. The abandonment, on the other hand, of the individualism which characterised the thought of the eighteenth century was effected more gradually, and was the work of many minds. It came about through the advance of historical and sociological inquiry, which taught men that the search into the origins of beliefs, customs, institutions, mental habitudes, involved long arid patient study, and could be satis- factorily achieved only if the thought of the continuity of historical development, and of the influence upon the indivi- IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 33 dual of race and external conditions, was kept steadily in mind. The tracing out, in the latter half of the century, of this growing appreciation of the historical temper is one of the chief interests of the student of the period. To this we may now turn. It will serve as an introduction to our consideration of the new tendencies which, slowly gathering force in the eighteenth century, were to re-fashion the thought of the suc- ceeding epoch. (a) We may begin with theology, where clear signs of the coming change are to be seen in the fact that, after the middle of the century, metaphysical speculation is abandoned, and its place taken by a study of the external evidences of Chris- tianity. Some reasons for this alteration in the attitude of theologians are given later. Here we merely note the fact. Investigation of the external evidences of a religion based upon the life and doings of a historical Person must, in course of time, lead to inquiry into the method and canons of historical criticism. In this connection the names of Morgan, Middleton, Hume, and Gibbon are of chief importance. Thomas Morgan was a Christian Deist who wrote at the close of the Deistic controversy, with the aim of reinforcing the arguments of Tindal. His book, The Moral Philosopher, the first volume of which was published in 1737, has, as Sir Leslie Stephen points out, 1 this significance, that it attempts to trace the historical process by which the pure religion of nature has been corrupted and overlaid with the inventions of a scheming priesthood. His theory is shallow enough. Priestly love of power is the deus ex machina who unties all difficult knots. But, while almost all the writers in the Deistic dispute on both sides left history alone, and were content with logical argu- mentation, Morgan gives a new turn to the controversy by attempting some historical treatment of the early development of Christianity. The Free Enquiry 2 of Conyers Middleton (1748) is highly important for the two following reasons. It brought the Deistic controversy to a close by definitely raising the question, which 1 Op. tit., vol. i. pp. 166-8. * The full title is Free Enquiry into the Miraculous Powers which are supposed to have existed in the Christian Church through several successive Ages. C 34 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY neither side had fairly faced, Why should we believe in the miracles of the Bible, and not in those of a later period ? And it suggested that an explanation of the belief in the miraculous might be found, if an investigation was made into the general intellectual conditions of the age in which miracles were re- corded as happening. Both the question and the suggested explanation were prompted by Middleton's keener sense of the true meaning of history. We shall see, when we come to treat of the Deistic dispute, that the orthodox opponents of Deism divided history into two parts. The earlier portion was the sphere of revelation. There miracles flourished, and divine activity was of a character so special that it could not be judged by the standard applicable to the later portion. Middle- ton saw that, if there was to be any scientific treatment of history at all, a belief in the continuity of history was essential. After his day the character of the dispute changed. Its range grew narrower. The problem of miracle became the central problem in the apologetics of the latter half of the century. There slowly came into being what we may call a critique of the supernatural. But Middleton did more than ask the question, Why should we believe in the existence of miracle at one period, and refuse to believe in it at another ? He was the first to suggest that genuine, historical study must take account of the influence of conditions in the formation of opinion. The doctrine of evolution has taught us that an organism cannot be explained without reference to its surroundings, that life is the continual adjustment of inner to outer conditions. One of the first objects of the modern historian is to determine the influence of conditions, physical, racial, sociological, intellec- tual, upon the belief, custom, or national peculiarity which he is examining. But in the middle of the eighteenth century such a method of research was unknown, and to Middleton belongs the honour of having pointed it out. 1 Hume's sceptical challenge affected every branch of theo- logy, and, in particular, his attack on miracles, which centred round the question of the possibility of substantiating a 1 Middleton in the Letter from Borne describes the many parallels which exist between the religious practices of modern Romanism and those of classical paganism. He may be thus said to have helped on the comparative study of religion. IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 35 miracle by testimony, helped still further to concentrate the energies of theologians upon that special problem. His Natural History of Religion (1757), however, is what concerns us here. In it he makes a genuine attempt to treat the sub- ject historically seeking to show how animistic beliefs may give rise to polytheism, while the latter, in turn, develops into theism, because, for one reason or another, one of the many gods is crowned by the worshippers with superior attri- butes. The defects of Hume's treatment are obvious. He lacks the necessary historical knowledge for an adequate dis- cussion of the subject. His scepticism prevents him doing justice to the real nature of religion; and he writes from the standpoint of individualism, with a very inadequate apprecia- tion of the potency of racial tendencies and general conditions of environment. But the essay marks an advance, and is another indication of the set of the tide. In Gibbon (1737-1794) we reach a writer in whose hands the historical method has become a more powerful instrument of research. He lacks many of the qualities necessary to a historian, and must be judged, so far as his investigation into the rise and spread of Christianity is concerned, to have failed to have achieved the object which he set himself. He has not satisfactorily accounted for the growth of Christianity. It may not be impossible, but it must certainly be difficult, for an infidel like Gibbon to do justice to the history of the Chris- tian religion. This, at any rate, is clear, that his use of the historical method extended little beyond a masterly treatment of the external factors of the development. But an essential part of the method is the use of a regressive, historical sym- pathy, and of an imagination which can penetrate to inner motive and appreciate the spiritual atmosphere of a past epoch. It was just this which Gibbon lacked and romanticism supplied. But he understood the externals of history, the influence of conditions, the continuity of the historical process, the need for accumulating facts, before any sound generalisation could be made. It is his great achievement to have shown that history can be treated in a scientific spirit. (6) Some rudimentary beginnings of the historical method may be detected in the moral philosophy of the century. The intellectual school of moralists tried, as we have seen, to apply 36 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY to ethics the methods of mathematical and logical demonstra- tion, and to find a basis for morality in the eternal and un- alterable necessities of God and nature. But they failed to show how such a creed could be reconciled with the patent fact of variations in moral standards and beliefs. As their onto- logical speculation became discredited, the ethical theories based upon it were discredited too. Inquiry then began to be directed increasingly to the problem of the nature and origin of the moral faculty. We find, on the one hand, theories of the "moral sense" which tend, on the whole, in the direction of intuitionism, and of a belief in the ultimate and unanalysable character of ethical appreciation. On the other hand, we see the rise of sceptical tendencies, such as those of Mandeville or Hume, both of whom, though in very different ways, regard morality as derivative. But this genetic investigation was hampered by two restrictions. In the first place, the great majority of ethical writers were dominated by theological presuppositions. Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, Butler, Hartley, Adam Smith we see in all their moral theories the influence, in varying degree, of theological beliefs. And this influence showed itself, in the main, in one direction. It led them all to adopt a theological ethics. Their professed starting-point was a psychological investigation of human nature. But behind their psychological analysis lay the belief that God had made human nature and each faculty in it for certain ends. Accord- ingly, when they found the supposed end for which a faculty was designed, they pressed their inquiry no further. The faculty was regarded as an ultimate constituent of human nature. The second limitation under which ethical investi- gation suffered throughout the century was the inability to rise above the standpoint of individualism. The study of morality involves the study of sociology. Inquiry into the origin and growth of moral ideas or the nature of the moral faculty clearly cannot proceed very far without investigation into the influence of historical and social conditions upon the formation of beliefs. But, as we have already said, this was beyond the purview of the eighteenth century English writers. England had no Herder or Lessing. Intuitionist and utilitarian alike suffered from this excess of individualism. In Hartley and Adam Smith, however, are to be found germs of a more IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 37 fruitful method. Both of them try to show how the moral sense, as it exists now, may have gradually arisen out of some- thing more elementary. It is worth while very briefly to examine their theories. Hartley invokes the principle of association to explain the process. He was a materialist in his philosophy. Ideas, he taught, had their origin in sensations, and sensations, were caused by " vibratiuncles," or minute vibrations in matter, which, entering the brain, agitate the particles of the medullary substance. The growth of ideas corresponded to the movements of these particles. But a simple idea could be converted into a complex one through association. Here was the mechanism which would explain the origin of the moral sense. He divides pleasures and pains into seven classes. In each class, he tells us, those pleasures are purest which lie nearest to the pleasures of the class above. The mind is gradually drawn upward by the help of association from one class to another, until at last there comes into being the moral sense which represents the sum total of all the lower pleasures, and results from them. 1 Hartley's theory is painfully crude, and he himself in later life abandoned the hypothesis of " vibratiuncles," but it represents one of the earliest attempts to show that what seems ultimate and inexplicable is not really so, but will yield the secret of its growth to patient inquiry. Adam Smith is dissatisfied with the doctrine of the moral sense, as propounded, for example, by Hutcheson. He too wishes to get behind it, and to show its origin. 2 He does so by an appeal to sympathy. He thinks of each man as having what he calls an " impartial spectator " within the breast, who enables him to judge of his own behaviour from the point of view of others. We sympathise with the verdicts of this 1 Observations on Man (1749), Pt. I. ch. iv. His summary is as follows : " And thus we may perceive, that all the pleasures and pains of sensation, imagination, ambition, self-interest, sympathy, and theopathy, as far as they are consistent with one another, with the frame of our natures, and with the course of the world, beget in us a moral sense, and lead us to the love and approbation of virtue, and to the fear, hatred, and abhorrence of vice. This moral sense there- fore carries its own authority with it, inasmuch as it is the sum total of all the rest, and the ultimate result from them ; and employs the force and authority of the whole nature of man against any particular part of it, that rebels against the determinations and commands of the conscience or moral judgment." 2 Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759). 38 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY " man within the breast," and our sympathy thus generates within us a power of moral appreciation. But Adam Smith entirely fails to explain why we do, or should, sympathise with the spectator's view rather than with our own. A study of his ethical theory shows that, though he began with the laudable desire to explain the growth of the moral sentiments out of something more elementary, he ends with adopting a theological ethics, and falls back upon the hypothesis of a divinely im- planted moral instinct whose working has been so ordered as to produce happiness. (c) In the field of political theory the growing dissatisfaction of thinkers with the doctrine of the social contract indicates the approach of a more historical spirit. It was inevitable that such a doctrine should crumble under the touch of criticism. There was no evidence in its favour. No facts could be pro- duced pointing to the existence of the supposed contract. But it was not only by this negative road that advance was made. Positive influences were at work in the latter half of the century which helped men to a deeper appreciation of the nature of social life, and of the meaning of the historical evolution of a state or nation. The atomistic view of society, which regarded it as being held together by mechanical bonds or legal contract, was superseded by a more organic view, which saw that national life was, in all its phases, a thing of complex growth and long ancestry, the slow creation of a community of interests, ideals, and sentiments. As the century moved towards its close the eyes of Englishmen were turned to France. There they saw revolution threatening, and heard it openly advocated by powerful voices. Rousseau was preaching the doctrine of liberty and equality. " Man is born free ; and he is everywhere in chains." He was pleading for a return to the state of nature, and denouncing civilisation as the cause of all the ills of the body politic. The only remedy was to start afresh, to make the breach with the past complete, and on the ruins of the exploded civilisation rebuild a fairer state. England had no desire for a revolution within her own borders ; but even in England Priestley was attacking the Established Church, which had always been regarded as the custodian of order and of a sound, national life, while a little later Paine and Godwin gave expression to anarchic sentiments which were hardly dis- IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 39 tinguishable from those of the French extremists. French politics and political theorising not only taught Englishmen to value more highly the blessings of their own orderly national existence, but stimulated political thinkers to deeper thought upon the problems connected with the historical development of societies and states. Two writers, Montesquieu and Burke, contributed more than any others to the formation of this changed outlook. Leslie Stephen speaks of Montesquieu as "the founder of the historical method." 1 In so far as that method can be said to be the creation of any one man, Montesquieu, perhaps, has a claim to the title, though he must share it with Lessing and Herder. Certainly the true, scientific spirit of historical re- search breathes through the work which he published in 1734 on the ancient Romans, their greatness and decline. 2 We see in it his power of analysis, and his sense of the complexity of the influences which go to make up a nation's life. But the book which more closely affected English thought was the Esprit des Lois (1748), which in less than two years passed through twenty-two editions. Prolem sine matre creatam are the words which he prefixed to it. The phrase indicates his consciousness that he was heralding a new departure in the study of the subject. The very title Spirit of Laws prepares us for what we find in it a treatment of law in the light of the deeper causes which have made the laws of any nation what they are. Law is no arbitrary or mechanical product. It is born of the whole social and natural conditions, including conditions of climate, amid which a state develops. The influ- ence of these ultimately determines the form which law takes. The book contains also a profound analysis of the forms and principles of government ; and a special object of Montesquieu's study is the constitution of the government of England. For this he had a deep admiration, seeing in the balance of its different factors a model for general imitation. To disturb so perfect a mechanism would be an act of criminal folly. Montesquieu thus became the interpreter of the English con- stitution to Englishmen, who found in his writings a reasoned justification of their instinctive conservatism. 1 Op. tit., vol. ii. p. 187. 2 Considerations sur les Causes de la Grandeur et la Decadence des Jtomains. 40 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY This constitution was the idol of Burke's affections, just as Montesquieu was the object of his panegyrics. Burke, how- ever, though at times he shows a tendency blindly to worship the old ways, just because they were old, was not unprepared for the advent of changes in the social and political world. But he was supremely anxious that any change should be made gradually. He preached to his generation the need of that deep insight into political affairs which can divine the true continuity of historical development. For the method of abstract, metaphysical speculation in politics he had a thorough hatred. Experience, he felt, should be the statesman's guide. But experience for Burke meant more than a crude empiricism. It meant a testing of every step in the light of principles derived from the wisdom of the past. In the past there was wisdom, and he was a foolish person who, at the bidding of some wild theorist, would lightly break with it. Probably no one in England in the eighteenth century had a keener ap- preciation of the organic character of a nation's growth, or of the meaning of continuity in history. Keform, not revolu- tion, was his ideal. Hence his strong hatred of Rousseau, and his terror of the French Revolution. In a tit of naming passion you might uproot a constitution, but you could put nothing stable in its place. Nations and constitutions are not made, but grow. Nothing, he felt, but bitter disillusionment could await the political dreamers, if they had the opportunity of carrying into effect their revolutionary schemes. Liberty and equality in the mouths of the revolutionaries were empty sounds. The true advance of freedom and progress lay along the path of gradual development. The growing feeling for history, then, was the first and most important part of the legacy of the eighteenth century. It was left to the next century to deepen the feeling, and to perfect the historical method as an instrument of research, by freeing it from the limitations to which, in the early stages of its use, it was inevitably subject. But other forces were also at work which pointed to the coming reconstruction. In religion, for example, we have the upheaval caused by the Methodist Movement. What was its signi- ficance ? Its direct influence upon the theology of the century was slight. Its promoters produced no theological writings of IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 41 any importance. They never claimed to be theologians. They were evangelists with a practical aim, and were content to build upon the traditional doctrines. And the hostility with which, for the most part, they were regarded by Churchmen made the orthodox theologian disinclined to learn from them any lesson. Indirectly, however, Methodism had an influence upon the theology of the succeeding century. When the reconstruction came, after the rationalistic methods of the eighteenth century had proved their impotence, it was seen that a wider spiritual vision was needed, if a theology was to grow up, adequate to religious experience. This wider vision Wesley and White- field helped to create, and they did so by restoring to the emotions their place in religion. Religion for the average man, and for the uneducated in particular, can never be founded on argument. Its basis must be laid deeper, in an appeal to the heart and the will. But, speaking broadly, we are right in saying that it was just this appeal which was lacking in the teaching of the English clergy at this period. Their sermons, for the most part, were moral essays, or logical demonstrations, and were addressed to the head, not the heart. Christian morality was taught, but its practice was advocated from prudential motives. There was an absence of fire. "En- thusiasm " was a thing to be avoided at all costs. The English Church of the eighteenth century loved above all things a quiet existence. 1 Wesley saw, and grasped, his opportunity. The population of the country was growing. In the towns were masses of people for whom the Church was an object of no interest what- ever. They were growing up without the ministrations of religion. A situation was arising which was fraught with danger for the community. Here was the very soil in which the seeds of atheism and revolution might take root. We may note in passing that, among the causes which may be adduced in explanation of the fact that England avoided a revolution, 1 Bishop Horsley's primary charge to the diocese of St. David's (1790) is concerned with pointing out the importance of doctrinal preaching. He warns his clergy against preaching mere moral sermons and becoming "apes of Epictetus." If the clergy would pay more attention to doctrine, then "our churches would be thronged ; while the moralising Unitarian would be left to read his dull weekly lecture to the walls of his deserted conventicle, and the field-preacher would bellow unregarded to the wilderness." 42 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY place must be given to the influence of Methodism in diverting into a religious channel emotions which might otherwise have found expression in political action. 1 Rationalism, as has been said, was the prevailing temper in theology. Wesley's religious training had been in a very different school. He had learned both from the Moravians and from William Law that religious experience cannot be measured by logic, and that feeling is of the essence of religion. But he did not blindly follow either master. From the Moravians he definitely broke away. And his practical common sense found Law's later mysticism too vague and unsubstantial. He was, like the Evangelicals, a believer in the power of definite doctrinal teaching. There is a theo- logical framework to all his preaching. But his power lay in bringing doctrinal truth home to the heart and conscience. He was a master in rousing religious emotions, though, as is well known, he produced results in this respect which he himself regretted. Feeling, then, was making its voice heard. The religious revival led the way. It was followed by the literary revival. Here, too, we trace the growth of feeling, and of a reaction against the formalism and conventionalism of literary standards, which was to issue, in England as on the Continent, in the Romantic movement. One of the first symptoms of the change is to be seen in a fresh feeling for nature and her beauty. Descriptions of natural scenery are frequent in Thomson's poetry, but Thomson hardly belongs to the true line of the new interpretation. He is still fettered by the formalism of his age, and, while he finds beauty in nature, fails to penetrate to its spiritual significance. With Cowper the new movement has fairly begun, because he has left formalism behind, and shows us how nature can be a source of pure and simple delight to man. He was, too, the poet of religious emotion, and though he cannot be said to have risen, like Wordsworth, to a religious interpretation of nature, yet he marks a stage in that direction. It was left for Wordsworth to bring out the full, spiritual meaning of natural beauty, to hold up nature as the garment of God, or, rather, to reveal her as spiritual in essence, as a material frame indwelt, and so transfigured, by the life of 1 Cp. Sir Leslie Stephen, op. cit. , vol. ii. p. 432. IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 43 Deity. Along with this revival of a feeling for nature went a feeling for humanity in its natural and simple elements, for the life of the peasant and the homestead, such as we find in the poetry of Burns, or later in that of Wordsworth. It was a protest against artificiality ; it was a recognition of the dignity of manhood, and of the worth of the life of simple, natural feeling and honest toil. Here was not only fresh material for poetic treatment, but the way was being opened for that larger vision of the meaning of humanity and human history which has characterised the nineteenth century. One other feature in the movement may be mentioned ; it receives fuller consideration later. A feeling for the past began to show itself. It was to come to maturity, even to over-ripe- ness, in Romanticism. It was to join hands with the historical method which it was to help to interpret. It was the seed from which sprang, under the touch of Scott's genius, the historical novel. No very serious purpose, perhaps, underlay the beginnings of the process which first took the form of an antiquarianism cultivated as a pastime. 1 But interest in the past, once aroused, quickly spread. And the study of the past helped to destroy that false belief of the eighteenth century in an abstract humanity possessed everywhere of identical qualities. The static view of human nature dis- appeared. It was seen that men of other times were not Englishmen of the Georgian era, and that for the interpretation of their life and mode of thought a sympathetic imagination was necessary. Both for poetry and for scholarship in all its branches this birth of a feeling for. the past had immense results. Once more, there was all the ferment of ideas and emotions connected with the revolutionary theorising of Rousseau, and its practical issues in the catastrophe which followed in France. Politics in England had been stagnant enough in the earlier half of the century. In the latter half they were an object of absorbing interest. The war with America, the French Revolu- tion, the growth of wealth and population at home, the break- down of the old theory of the social contract, the spread of revolutionary ideas, and the presence of a strong undercurrent of social unrest there was enough here to stimulate both the 1 Sir Leslie Stephen, op. cit., vol. ii. p. 444. 44 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY theorist and the practical statesman. England as a whole rejected the more violent teaching of the revolutionaries, though Godwin and Paine were anarchic forces. The former's advocacy of the complete destruction of the old social order, as a preliminary to the making of a new one, based on the principle of individual liberty, lost in effectiveness, because of his love of dreamy speculation and abstract theorising; but Paine was a power to be reckoned with. He succeeded in touching the masses of the population, as the sale of his writings proves. He kindled their emotions, and drove his appeal home in speech which they could understand. Filled with all the fire of a prophet, he predicted the speedy coming of the age of true democracy, when kings and priests should be no more and reason alone should reign supreme. This was the period in which were born those hopes of human progress and perfectibility which were to leave their mark upon later political theory and practice, and that reaction against govern- mental interference which issued in the doctrine of laisser faire. It was clear that changes were coming ; it was not yet clear what form they would take. Time and experience could alone prove that. But a new sentiment was in the air. We may call it the feeling for humanity, for its liberties, its possibilities of growth, for the inherent worth of the individual. Modern democracy had come to the birth. The closing years of the century, then, saw the co-operation of many factors making for change and reconstruction. And it is the co-operation which is of importance, the more so, as the prophets of the new era were not working in conscious combination. The tendencies of the age were greater than the men who interpreted them. The transition from the eighteenth to the nineteenth century represents one of the most profound spiritual transformations which human thought has undergone. If we turn now to examine the theology of the period, we shall find that it reproduces the same intellectual features which we have seen to be characteristic of the century as a whole. Here, as elsewhere, there is a gradual abandonment of the method of abstract speculation and the adoption of a more historical attitude. In the first half of the century theologians are concerned mainly with the internal evidences of Chris- IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 45 tianity ; in the second half with the external. The first period is one of vigorous, speculative activity; in the second, interest in ultimate problems wanes, and apologists are content with trying to make good their position on points of detail. This decay of speculation is highly significant. When we examine the reasons for it, we find that it was due to the fact that theologians had become conscious of a need for new prin- ciples and a new method. By the old a priori road they could achieve nothing further, and what they had achieved they were beginning to feel was unsound. Reconstruction was imperatively called for, but that could not be effected in a day. Time was required, in order that the fresh tendencies which were making themselves felt below the surface might gather force. The theological history of the period is marked by four disputes. They are known as the Trinitarian, the Deistic, the Bangorian, and the Subscription controversies the first three of which occurred in the earlier half of the century. Of the Bangorian and Subscription controversies there is no need to speak here ; they are not vitally connected with the main line of theological development. Nor does the Trinitarian con- troversy call for more than a brief notice, though it was not unimportant. It was conducted with distinct ability, and on the orthodox side produced in Waterland a champion whose writings will probably always retain a place in the history of English theology. But here again it stands somewhat apart from those interests which the student of the period finds to be most living. Controversy upon the doctrine of the Trinity can, perhaps, never produce any strikingly new developments. There is little room for the accumulation of fresh evidence, and the chief arguments in favour of the doctrine were set forth centuries ago by the earliest Christian thinkers. The really important dispute of the century is the Deistic controversy ; and it is important for these reasons. A study of it leads us into the very heart of eighteenth century theology. It was a brief struggle, but it mirrors the whole theological mind of the time ; and though it was brief its results lived on. Theology in the latter half of the century was concerned with problems which came to the front as a result of the earlier dispute. To understand this quarrel is to understand the 46 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY temper, methods, and assumptions of eighteenth century theologians. If the quarrel interests few but the student to-day, that is because our general outlook has so profoundly changed. But the beginnings of this change, or, as we should rather say, the reasons which made the change inevitable, are to be found in this controversy. The fundamental problem of the Deistic dispute was to discover the valid, rational grounds for belief in Christianity, and to decide between the rival claims of reason and revelation. The emergence of this problem was nothing sudden. It had been coming to the front all through the seventeenth century. It underlay the Protestant revolt against the authority of Rome, and the subsequent growth of a number of independent Protestant Churches. What authority could be substituted for that of Rome ? " The Bible " was the answer commonly given. But, then, though men might agree in regarding the Bible as an authority, there was this further difficulty that they did not agree in their interpretation of the Bible. And, since the Protestant allowed the right of appeal to private judgment, there was no tribunal to decide between the varying inter- pretations. A position was thus created which could not endure. It was inevitable that the authority of the Bible should before long be called in question, and the process was hastened by the rise of the higher criticism, the beginnings of which are to be found in Hobbes and Spinoza. Here, in this movement of thought, is one source of the Deistic controversy. Another source is to be found in the widening of men's concep- tion ot religion, which was brought about by increased knowledge of the structure of the universe, and of the more distant parts of the earth. 1 Doubts of the following kind began to suggest themselves. Could the claim of Christianity to be the one supreme revelation from God, necessary for the salvation of all men, be sustained ? There were vast populations in distant regions of the earth, living happy and useful lives, who had never heard of Christianity. Were they, as the orthodox teach- ing seemed to suggest, to be condemned to eternal ruin ? And could we be perfectly sure, after all, that so small a planet as this earth had been the scene of so stupendous a drama as that postulated by the Christian Churches ? As early as 1624 Lord 1 Cp. Sir Leslie Stephen, op. cit., vol. i. ch. ii. IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 47 Herbert of Cherbury had sketched in his De veritate 1 the out- lines of a system of natural religion. That there was such a thing seemed to be clear ; it was equally clear that it came into some kind of competition with Christianity. The relation between the two must be determined. Was any revelation necessary, if a system of natural religion could be constructed without its aid ? Or, if it was necessary, what was its exact function, and what were its limits ? Again, what were the beliefs common to all Christians ? Could there be discovered, beneath the divisions of Protestantism, a common body of doctrine which looked to revelation as its source, parallel to the common body of beliefs which it was held constituted the essence of natural religion ? 2 The causes, then, of the Deistic controversy are to be found in the general movement of thought in the seventeenth century. Its immediate occasion may be referred to the writings of Locke, who in 1695 published his Reasonableness of Christianity. He was led to write the book, he tells us, by doubts as to the true meaning of justifying faith. What was faith ; and how much was a man required to believe, if he would be heir of salvation ? Locke wished to simplify theology. He finds the essence of Christianity to consist in a belief in Christ as the Messiah, and in the acceptance of the doctrines which Christ taught. Everything else he would sweep away. Thus a simple creed would be presented to the world which all could understand. What now of natural religion ? If Christianity could be thus simplified, might we not go one step further and admit that natural religion was enough to secure salvation, and that revelation was superfluous? Locke will not allow this. He argues that Christianity is necessary, partly because it teaches new truth, confirming, for example, our expectation of im- mortality by the doctrine of the Resurrection, but more parti- 1 De Veritate prout distinguitur a revelations, a verisimili, a possibili et a false. * One result of the controversy was to show that the antithesis between natural and revealed religion was ultimately false. As historical investigation advanced, it became clear that there was no one simple body of beliefs which could be called natural religion. Religion, on the contrary, was seen to be a very complex phenomenon, and its intellectual content varied greatly among different peoples. For an excellent discussion of the antithesis see Webb's Problems in the Relations of God and Man, ch. ii. Cp. also, for a general account of Deism, Plinjer's History of the Christian Philosophy of Religion, bk. i. section v. 48 DEVELOPMENT OP ENGLISH THEOLOGY cularly because it enforces the claims of religion upon men. It offers a religion universal in its scope, and so appeals to all men ; and it backs up its appeal by the evidence of miracles, and proffers the divine aid of the Spirit for the guidance of life to all who will accept it. We have here not only the materials for the dispute which followed, but we see the nature of the weapons with which the controversy was to be waged. Let us analyse a little further Locke's position. He appeals, in the first place, to reason, and believes in its power to discover religious truth. He is not prepared to accept Christianity on authority, but is anxious to test its claims, and is ready to reject whatever in the traditional creed seems irrational, or unsupported by sufficient evidence. But he comes to his inquiry with his mind already made up on two points. First, he believes that a revelation has been given. Secondly, he accepts the doctrine of the plenary inspiration of the Bible. His revolt against authority, therefore, is not com- plete. In his criticism of Christianity he lays great emphasis upon the evidence of miracle. The Christian miracles were performed openly, and are well attested. But there is evidence also of another kind. Christianity in its essence accords with the teaching of human reason. There is no contradiction between reason and revelation. By the free use of reason we reach the same truths which are embodied in the revelation. Yet we cannot, he feels, dispense with the revelation, because religious truth in its Christian form makes an appeal to human nature which reason cannot make, or makes less powerfully. Revela- tion provides sanctions for conduct, and such sanctions are necessary for the generality of mankind. For the next half century the controversy followed, in the main, the lines which Locke had laid down. The central point at issue was the need of revelation. Orthodox apologists had to meet the Deist's argument that natural religion was either superior to revealed religion or identical with it in content, though not in mode of presentation. They did so, for the most part, by adducing the utility of the sanctions and motives for right living which Christianity provided. Both sides possessed a buoyant confidence in the power of reason ; it was the age, as we have seen, of logical demonstrations. But the orthodox were in this difficulty. If reason was so potent, might not faith IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 49 be done away with ? The appeal had been made from authority to reason. What if reason should prove destructive of the very revelation it set out to defend, by superseding it, and by showing that it was unnecessary ? The Deistic attack, however, was not limited to the attempt to demonstrate the superiority of natural religion. Many of the Deists criticised the belief in miracles, and in the inspiration of the Bible. Certain portions of the Old Testament were held up to ridicule as unworthy of credence. This critical movement was of the utmost importance, because it led to a weakening of the doctrine of plenary inspiration, and to the discussion, in the latter half of the century, of the place and meaning of the miraculous. Thus the ground of dispute shifted. The question was no longer that of the need of a revelation. It was an evidential problem which came to the front. Had a revelation taken place ? If so, what what were its credentials ? What reasons have we for believing in miracles ? Of what nature was the inspiration of the Bible ? In other words, the course of the argument led the apologists to investigate the beliefs which they had started by assuming were true. They began to see that the problems awaiting solution were more profound than they had at first realised. Our present purpose will be served if we mention some half-dozen of the leading writers in the dispute. In the year following the publication of Locke's volume appeared Toland's Christianity not Mysterious. The title of the book indicates its object. Locke had insisted that there was no contradiction between reason and revelation, and had claimed for reason the right to judge of revealed truth. Toland pressed the claim of reason still further. He would eliminate all mystery from religion. Theology offered men doctrines cast in the mould of authoritative dogma. Reason, says Toland, discarding the principle of authority altogether, can reach independently the same conclusions. It would seem to follow that there was no need for revelation ; though Toland, it is important to notice, does not himself entirely discard supernaturalism. He is prepared to accept a revelation, if its contents can be shown to be in harmony with reason. Clarke defended the orthodox position. Reference has already been made to his Boyle Lectures, in which he attempts, D 50 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY in the earlier course, to demonstrate, without reference to revelation and by the road of pure speculation, the existence and attributes of God ; and, in the later, the truth of revealed religion. He holds an important position in the controversy for the following reasons. He most clearly exhibits the prevailing tendency to trust in the method of abstract speculation, but equally clearly does he show its inevitable failure ; and he has to abandon it when he sets out to prove the truth of historical Christianity. As Leslie Stephen points out, 1 the problem which confronted him, in common with all the orthodox apologists of the period, was the reconciliation of a philosophical theology with the Biblical record. By the a priori road you might, indeed, reach a metaphysical conception of God, but could you harmonise that with the God revealed to Moses or Elijah ? Or how could you combine in one system a Christianity based on miracles and a theism based on logical demonstration ? Clarke is important for another reason. He insists, with even more emphasis than Locke, upon the value of Christianity in pro- viding sanctions for conduct. This, as we have already stated, was the common orthodox answer to the denial of a need for revelation. But it implied that the method of a purely speculative demonstration of religious truth was being aban- doned. In addition, the use of this argument set the fashion for the theological utilitarianism which was current throughout the rest of the century, and culminated in Paley's famous definition of virtue. Once more, we see in Clarke a prominent feature of the whole dispute, the readiness of the defenders of Christianity to meet their opponents half-way. Clarke, though a Christian, is deeply tinctured with Deism. We may well wonder at the bitterness of the controversy when both parties shared so much common ground. What is less surprising is the rapid decline of interest in the dispute. Neither side could win a decisive victory, though unquestionably the orthodox came out triumphant for the moment, because neither were sufficiently critical of their assumptions. In 1730 Tindal published his Christianity as Old as the Creation. This was, apart from Butler's Analogy, probably the most important contribution to the discussion. Tindal argues in favour of an original religion of nature, of which 1 Op. cU., vol. i. pp. 128-9. IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 51 revelation was a duplicate. 1 The purpose of Christianity, he says, was to restore and republish natural religion. But the religion of nature consisted of truths imprinted in our common humanity and accessible to all. Many of the doctrines which passed for revealed truth were obviously not of this universal nature. Tindal, therefore, would sweep them away as accre- tions. He throws down the glove before his opponents. " You argue," he says in effect, " that Christianity is a revealed religion, universal in its scope. How is it, then, that the revelation was made to so small a portion of mankind ? You are attempting to prove the reasonableness of revelation, to show that reason and revelation coincide. But the common mind of humanity knows nothing of the majority of your theological dogmas, and, when it does become aware of them, cannot admit that they agree with the verdicts of right reason." He is ready to admit revelation, but only so far as its contents coincide with natural religion. Nor will he allow that miracles are a test of the truth of Christianity. The only legitimate test is reason. He criticises the Old Testament, attacks the story of the Fall, and treats many of the Biblical narratives as being purely legendary. Christianity as Old as the Creation is the clearest expression of the Deist position. None of the later writers on that side really added anything to Tindal's arguments. But the volume has a further importance, because in two ways it influenced the subsequent development of the controversy. Tindal, as we have seen, allows no test but that of reason, and his application of the test to Christianity resulted in the destruction of much of the traditional theology. How could revelation be defended against this attack ? The line taken by some of the apologists, for example by Conybeare and Leland, who answered Tindal, was to throw doubt upon the capacity of human reason. Conybeare, for instance, argues that since the Fall a taint of imperfection has infected reason. 2 A revelation thus becomes necessary to make good the deficiencies of natural reason and of the natural religion based upon it. After Tindal's attack distinct indications appear of this tendency to depreciate 1 The alternative title of the book is The Oospel a Republication of the Religion of Nature. * Cp. his Defence of Revealed Religion, 1732, and Leland's Answer to Tindal, 1733. 52 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY reason. The controversy went on, but both sides were begin- ning to feel that, before any attempts at speculative construction were made, there should be a preliminary investigation into the limits of man's reasoning power. And side by side with this movement in theology a philosophical movement was develop- ing which took the same direction and culminated finally in the scepticism of Hume. Again, Tindal had raised the objection that the revelation had not been made known to all men. The religion of nature, on the other hand, was held to consist of a body of truths so plain that all could discover them. But was it so ? The ortho- dox were quick to point out that reasoning power was very unevenly distributed, and that the doctrines of natural religion were not manifest to all. If there could be this inequality in natural religion, why should not a revelation be equally limited in its operations ? But the orthodox retort contained an im- plicit criticism of one of the fundamental assumptions in the whole dispute. Time alone was needed to make clear its signi- ficance, and thus to strike a fatal blow at the intellectual methods of the age. The assumption in question which was common to both parties was that human nature was every- where the same. You had, on the one hand, an abstract humanity, statically interpreted ; and, on the other, an immu- table law of nature, to which revelation was a supplement. Tindal's attack led to a questioning of the assumption, and the questioning, once begun, was bound to go forward, until the whole structure built upon this unsound foundation collapsed. The rapid decay of the controversy which followed was due to the growing perception that both sides were arguing about unrealities. Collins, Woolston, and Middleton remain to be mentioned. In all three the critical note is predominant ; they are concerned less with the larger problem of the relation of natural to revealed religion, than with special aspects of the problem. In the Discourse of Free- Thinking (1713), Collins points out the pre- sence of defects in the Bible. It is not free from contradictions, and an examination of the MSS. of the Scriptures reveals the presence of many various readings. Such defects cannot but raise doubts in the mind. Reason may be able to allay these doubts, but it is clear that the doctrine of plenary inspiration IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 53 calls for some criticism. The importance of Collins's second book is greater. In A Discourse of the Grounds and Reasons of the Christian Religion (1724), he deals with the subject of prophecy. The fulfilment of earlier prophecies he considers to be the strongest evidence for the truth of Christianity. But the apologist has to determine what he means by fulfilment. It is, he argues, absurd to look for a literal fulfilment in all cases. In fact, a critique of prophecy shows that strained methods of interpretation, allegorical or symbolic, must be applied to the Old Testament if its predictions are to be made to fit the facts of Christianity. Such methods he flouts as irrational. The conclusion is, that the strongest bulwark of Christianity gives way before a reasoned criticism. This attack was the opening of a long conflict upon prophecy, which lasted till the end of the century. Woolston published Six Discourses on Miracles between 1727-1730. He rejected all miracles, and made a violent attack in unmeasured language upon the vital doctrines of Christianity . He defeated his own object by his extravagance. But he helped to bring into prominence the problem of the miraculous. The main discussion in the Deistic controversy turned, as we have seen, upon the need of revelation. But there was a deeper question to be answered. What was the place of the super- natural as a whole in the scheme of the universe ? This had to be determined before any satisfactory treatment of revelation was possible. In the eighteenth century English theology never probed this problem to the depths : it had no philosophy capable of undertaking the task. But a beginning was made in that direction when apologists took up the subject of miracles. Of Middleton I have already spoken. His importance can hardly be over-rated. One by one the assumptions which underlay the dispute were being disproved. Middleton completed the process of destruction. In the Free Enquiry he points out two things : first, that the current doctrine of Biblical inspira- tion is untenable ; secondly, that the question of miracle admits of a treatment different from any which it had yet received. The key to the right handling of miracle he finds in the prin- ciple of the continuity of history. The historian must assume that the past is capable of rational treatment, and that the forces which operate now operated then. Superstitions flourish 54 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY in the present, but we can show how they have arisen. May not, he asks, the belief in miracle be a superstition whose source lies in the general intellectual conditions of earlier times ? His argument is not, of course, conclusive against miracle ; but it shattered the common assumption of the theologian that be- tween sacred and secular history there was an impassable gulf, and prepared the way for the historical method in theology. It was becoming still more clear that the central problem of apologetics was that of the possibility and range of the super- natural. Deism rapidly died. It was a spent force. Never at any time had it a real chance of succeeding, for that cannot be a religion for the generality of men which appeals to reason alone. The orthodox theology was also over- weighted with rationalism, and, as Wesley saw, was no fount of inspiration for the masses ; but at least it preserved the Christian tradition. Christian doctrines were set forth in the creeds of the Church, and had power over men. But the most essential of the doctrines Deism rejected. The Deists differed considerably in their beliefs. Most of them, however, were agreed in repudiating the orthodox Christology, and in denying that the death of Christ was an atonement. They denied, that is, the two doctrines which, as experience has proved, make the strongest appeal to the heart. Deism, in short, was a philosophy, not a religion. Can it be said that orthodoxy triumphed in the controversy over its rival? The answer is both Yes and No. Deism perished, orthodoxy survived, and must, therefore, by the wit- ness of facts, be adjudged to have won a victory. But it was a Pyrrhic victory ; for the half century of dispute left orthodoxy without any philosophic basis for its beliefs, and without any power to make a new constructive effort. The fact that discus- sion in the second half of the century turned upon the special problems of miracle and prophecy, and, to a less degree, upon the meaning of inspiration, is proof that thought was content to move on a lower intellectual plane. The whole temper of this later period shows an aversion from strenuous speculative effort. The disputants on both sides had been discussing questions which could be answered only by the help of an adequate philo- sophy. It was just such a philosophy which they lacked. This they gradually came to see, and so abandoned the contest. IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 55 I have tried not in any sense to write a history of the Deistic controversy, but to indicate the limits within which it moved, the main assumptions which governed the minds of the dis- putants, and the reasons why the dispute ended in the paralysis of both parties. The writers mentioned have been mainly Deists. It was they who began the attack, and the develop- ment of the attack determined the form taken by the defence. We may conclude our survey of the earlier half of the century by considering briefly some of the leading apologists and their methods. Law and Butler, of whom I shall speak in a moment, stand somewhat apart from the general movement of the orthodox apologetic. The majority of the apologists rely on two classes of argument. When the problem is one of proving the need of a revelation, they fall back upon the sanctions of Christianity and its power as a regenerating influence. 1 When the difficulty presses of reconciling natural and revealed religion, they either argue, with Clarke, that there is a sphere of God's operation which cannot be completely brought into accord with His ordi- nary action, and that for His own purposes He acted in the past in a special manner ; or they begin to depreciate reason, in order to make room for revelation. 2 When the problem shifts to the question of miracle, they assert that, if you can prove the truth of the central miracle of the Resurrection, the proof of the other miracles follows. Or, with Sherlock, 3 they embark upon an elaborate evidential inquiry as to the trustworthiness of the writers who record the miracles, the likelihood of their having been deceived, and their readiness to die for their opinions, a line of defence of which Paley was later the chief exponent. Such evidential inquiry is as necessary to-day as it was then. But the value of the conclusions reached must depend upon a prior examination into the character of the literary records. And an examination of this kind was not possible in the eighteenth century. The materials for it did not exist, and, in addition, the belief in plenary inspiration held the field. This was one of the assumptions with which the apologist began his work, and it was the source of many of his i This was the line taken by Locke. * Cp. Conybeare and Leland. 8 Cp. his Trial of the Witnesses, 1729. 56 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY difficulties, particularly with regard to the Old Testament. It helped him, however, in meeting a certain class of contempo- rary attacks upon miracles. For, in the absence of any literary or historical criticism of the Bible, the only alternatives were these : either the Biblical writers were conscious deceivers, or they were to be trusted. And it was easy to prove that they were honourable men, whose acts testified to the truth of their con- victions. On the other hand, such a defence was useless when the philosophical problem of the supernatural was discussed ; nor did it avail against a writer like Middleton, who pointed out that the alternatives in question did not exhaust the possi- bilities of the situation. It is curious that there were not more apologists of the type of William Law. That there were not is evidence of the extent to which the spirit of rationalism had permeated theo- logy. In the age of reason religion was regarded as a code of moral rules, promulgated, according to the orthodox, by divine authority, and enforced by supernatural sanctions. The Deist, who wished to disparage revelation, questioned the authority and the sanctions. In place of a revelation from without, he put the inner witness of the natural reason. Both parties, however, were agreed that the work of theology was the discovery of a code suitable for universal acceptance. Law, on the other hand, treated Christianity, not as a system of regulations, but as a spiritual life and energy which could transform human nature. 1 Being a revelation from God, it was impossible, he argued, that our reason could completely reduce it to logical measure and remove all its mystery. We could but humbly accept it, and try to live by it. This is the kernel of his reply to Tindal. Law's influence, however, on his contemporaries was small. They were bent upon measuring heaven by the rule of earth, and only learned by the slow discipline of experience their inability to do so. But Law, though his depreciation of reason was, perhaps, too complete, is a pioneer of that more fruitful apologetic which took shape 1 Cp. the following from Christian Perfection: " Christianity is not a school for the teaching of moral virtue ... it is not any number of moral virtues, no partial obedience, no modes of worship, no external acts of adoration, no Articles of Faith, but a new principle of life, an entire change of temper, that makes us true Christians." IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 57 later at the hands of Coleridge, and for which, as the century waned, preparation was being made along many converging lines. His answer to Deism was at that time ineffective, just because the orthodox were almost as rationalistic as their oppo- nents. The greatest name on the orthodox side is Joseph Butler. The Analogy (1736) lives on, while most of the writings con- nected with the controversy have passed into oblivion. One wonders whether the book would have maintained quite the same high position if the sermons at the Rolls Chapel had never been preached. For the moral earnestness and gravity of Butler, which are his most striking characteristics, are best seen in his doctrine of conscience. A grave and serious tone pervades, indeed, the Analogy. Butler throughout it empha- sizes the solemnity of life as a probation, involving issues which reach out into eternity. The purpose of the book, in fact, is to show that, on a wide view of human nature and human history, tendencies may be seen at work which harmonise with the teaching of revelation. Yet I think it probable that the Analogy shines with some rays of glory reflected upon it from the sermons. This at any rate is certain, that its argument presupposes the view of conscience which the sermons unfold. It starts from the postulate that God exists as the moral governor of the universe. The Analogy was the most crushing, as it was the most philosophical, retort made by orthodoxy to Deism. The Deist attacked revelation and defended natural religion. Butler bids him consider more carefully the evidence afforded by natural religion as to the character of God and the method of His government. He shows that, if that evidence is fairly treated, it discloses a God whose action corresponds with the action of God set forth in revelation. The objections which the Deist raised against revelation exist equally in the case of natural religion. Yet the Deist is not driven to scepticism ; on the contrary, he frames and defends his natural theology. Why, asks Butler, should he not, by parity of reasoning, be ready to accept revealed religion ? Butler's question is this : Assuming the existence of God as maker and governor of the world, what can we discover, by induction from the facts before us, as to the character of His rule? He shows that natural religion 58 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY and revelation point in the same direction. They disclose the same God ; whatever difficulties there are in the way of coming to any conclusion on the matter press as much on the Deist as they do on the Christian. Butler silences his opponents, and they have no reply to make. The Analogy was written with the special object of crushing Deism. It survives because it contains much more than an answer to the Deistic attack. It is an apology conceived on a larger scale than the current apologies of the time. Butler saw the vastness of the problem, and has given us a study in the general method of apologetic which is of permanent, value. His doctrine of probability raises the whole question of proof by convergent lines of evidence. His insistence that we can see only a fragment of the whole, and that there is a larger scheme of things of which the story of this earth is only a part, is a perpetual reminder of the limitations which beset human reason, and teaches both sceptic and believer to be cautious in stating their case. His keen desire to be fair, and not to press the evidence for a conclusion beyond its legitimate limit, is a trait in Butler which we shall all do well to imitate. Finally his emphasis upon conscience, his living sense of God as a personal and moral being, places us at the very heart of the argument for theism. His doctrine of conscience will always give him a place amongst English moralists. The ethical argument for God's existence has been variously stated at different times ; it remains the strongest argument which the theist can use. To Butler belongs the honour, which he shares with Kant, of making us feel its weight and import- ance. 1 Such, then, was the position in the middle of the century. The Deistic controversy was dead. The philosophical move- ment inaugurated by Locke had been brought to a standstill by the criticism of Hume. No further advance seemed pos- sible. Scepticism appeared to be the only tenable creed, and scepticism was not a creed, but a mere negation. The paralysis infected theology. Theologians abandoned speculation, and turned to the study of external evidences, and in particular of the place of miracle and prophecy in the Christian scheme. 1 For an interesting general estimate of Butler, cp. W. A. Spooner's Bishop Butler, ch. viii.; in Leaders of Religion series. IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 59 There was little alteration in this state of affairs for the rest of the century. All the while, as we have seen, new tendencies were developing under the surface, but theology was hardly as yet affected by them. The most prominent theologian of the period was Paley, and he faithfully reflects the general temper of the time. Let us try to make clear his characteristics as a thinker and apologist. The key to his thought is to be found in what we may describe as his mechanical teleology. God, for Paley, is the great artificer who has made the cunningly devised machine of the universe. He made it long ago by His divine fiat, and started it upon its career. But its course was not entirely smooth. Owing to human perversity defects appeared in the working of the machinery, and these God had to remedy by special acts of divine interference which culminated in the advent and mission of Christ. Man, says Paley, has only to study his own nature and the structure of the world, in order to see plainly the marks of design. If he looks at the world, he finds it teeming with contrivances so skilfully constructed that they afford clear proof of divine origination. If he inspects his own constitution, he discovers finger-posts pointing out his road, and can read a warning of the penalties which will follow, should he wander from the path. A crude, anthropomorphic theism, a teleology of special contrivances, and a theological utilitarianism represent Paley's creed. We may say a little more about each. In the emphasis which he placed upon teleology, Paley was only giving fuller expression to a belief which had dominated theological thought throughout the century. We have already seen how strong was the influence of theology upon ethics, and how the psychological tendency of ethical inquiry in such men, for example, as Butler and Hutcheson, was the result of their belief that God, having made man for certain purposes, had indicated what these purposes were by the marks which He had left in human nature. By introspection of that nature the divine intention could be known. Paley extends his teleological investigation to nature, and primarily to living nature. The pith of his argument is this : Living nature teems with subtle contrivances and adaptations. Chance could not have brought about the combination of forces required to 60 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY produce such a structure as the eye, or the webbed foot of the duck, so admirably suited for swimming, or the nest-building instinct of the bird. Intelligence alone could achieve such results, which are therefore clear proof of design on the part of God. We can give, says Paley, no satisfactory explanation of this mechanism of nature, unless we postulate at some date in the past, which we may make as remote as we will, a creative act which launched into the world ready-made the various species of living things, and endowed them with power to perpetuate their kind. 1 The doctrine of evolution, and the special theory of the method of evolution known as natural selection, have destroyed Paley's presentation of the teleological argument. Teleology survives, but it is no longer Paley's mechanical teleology of special contrivances. It is something wider a teleology of the whole cosmic process to which God is related, not in anthropo- morphic fashion as a gigantic workman at work on a refractory material outside Himself, but rather as the immanent, con- trolling principle of the whole development. In Paley's day, however, the theory of evolution was only just appearing above the horizon, and it would be beside the point to censure him for failing to understand facts which were not to be made generally known till more than half a century had passed. It is, however, fair to point out that his reasoning is shallow. He never faces the deeper problems. He was writing, it is true, a popular work ; but a work may be popular, and yet show some appreciation of metaphysical difficulties. But Paley seems to be sublimely unconscious of the existence of any such serious objections to his argument as Kant pointed out in his Critique of Judgment. The Natural Theology has no sound philosophical basis. It is the work of a clever special pleader who knew how to arrange his evidence to the best advantage. It had considerable influence on contemporary and subsequent thought, but it belongs to an epoch whose intellectual fashions have passed away, never to return. One of the legacies of the eighteenth to the nineteenth century was the task of rebuilding theism on surer foundations. Paley defines virtue as " the doing good to mankind, in obedience to the will of God, and for the sake of everlasting 1 Cp. his Natural Theology, 1802. IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 61 happiness." Here again he is but carrying on the tradition of theological utilitarianism which had prevailed throughout the century since the failure of the school of intellectual moralists. Clarke had emphasized the importance of the sanctions of Christianity, and had given hell a prominent place in his endeavour to prove to the Deists that there was need of a revelation. But he at least made the attempt to find for morality an independent foundation. Paley un- blushingly bases his ethical system upon revelation. He speaks, indeed, of the light of nature as a guide for man, but by the light of nature he means the rules of conduct which God has made known. If you ask him why God has laid down these rules, he answers that He chose to do so. They are the expression of His will, rather than of His nature, and if we do not obey them we shall suffer endless torment. The righteousness of an action depends upon its results, measured in terms of the happiness of ourselves and others. With the exception of Hume and a few other sceptical writers, it may be generally said that in the eighteenth century philosophy was in close alliance with theology. The alliance was shown both in the metaphysical inquiry of the earlier, and the ethical inquiry of the later years. It was left for the nineteenth century to free philosophy in all its branches from this theological dominance. Philosophy ceased to be theological ; theology, on the contrary, more and more sought the aid of philosophy. The Evidences of Christianity (1794) introduces us to an- other side of Paley's work. Central in the book is the treat- ment of miracle. If the object of Christianity was, as Paley maintains, to enforce by sanctions obedience to God's will, miracles were the divinely authorised means of calling atten- tion to the truth of the new religion. The presence of miracle, argues Paley, proves Christianity to be of divine origin. It was because they saw miracles performed that the first gene- ration of Christians became believers. Miracle was thus the very heart and centre of the revelation. The philosophical problem of the possibility of miracle does not trouble Paley : God can at any minute interfere with the working of the machine which He has made. What he is concerned to show is that we have good historical grounds for accepting the New Testament record of miracles. 62 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY In following out this line of proof he does not add much to what earlier apologists who had been dealing with the same question had already said. But he arranges his arguments with great lucidity, puts the salient facts into relief, and so builds up a compact and symmetrical structure. He points out that the Gospel story gives to miracles an important place, and argues that there is no valid reason for discrediting the record. The tradition has come down unchanged through the centuries. It is clear that the original disciples believed that miracles had occurred. Only if you grant this can you explain their enthusiasm and readiness to die for their faith. Is it easier to believe that they were the victims of a great illusion, or that their faith was produced by actual supernatural occur- rences ? A modern apology for miracles would, of course, have to consider the same evidential problem which interested Paley. But it would approach it from a standpoint altogether different. In the first place, it would have sounder canons of literary and historical criticism. It would investigate the general back- ground of culture and belief in the primitive Christian com- munity, and would allow for some measure of influence, conscious or unconscious, from this quarter. It would bring to its investigation the results of a century's literary criticism of the Bible. In the second place, we to-day realise that the problem of miracle is ultimately a philosophical problem, and we are not satisfied with Paley 's metaphysics. Thirdly, we should certainly not follow Paley in making miracle central in Christianity. Miracle would not now be adduced to prove doctrine or the divinity of Jesus. It would rather be regarded as the natural accompaniment of a Personality judged on other grounds to be divine. In the first five or six decades of the nineteenth century the problem of miracle came to the front, as we shall see later. Theology had to meet two attacks upon the miraculous, one from the side of philosophy, the other from the side of physical science. The apology of Paley was of little use in meeting either, for both raised issues deeper than any with which he concerned himself. Paley served his gene- ration well, but it was a generation which did not make high intellectual demands upon its thinkers. CHAPTER IV THE EARLY EVANGELICALS As upholders of the vital force of religion, and exponents of its spiritual power, the Evangelicals in the early years of the nineteenth century may be regarded as the strongest influence in the Church. Never at any time numerically were they more than a minority, and they were always looked on with disfavour by the majority of the clergy, who disliked "en- thusiasm" in any form. Only very gradually did they win from the episcopate some measure of sympathy and recogni- tion ; their chief supporters on the bench being Beilby Porteus, Bishop of London (d. 1809); Henry Ryder, appointed in 1815 to the see of Gloucester ; John Bird Sumner, Bishop of Chester 1828, translated to Canterbury twenty years later ; and Charles Richard Sumner, Bishop of Llandaff 1826, and of Winchester 1827. The last decade of the eighteenth century had witnessed the death of many of the leaders among the older generation of Evangelicals, though John Newton and Richard Cecil sur- vived into the first decade of the new century. The three great centres of the party's influence were Cambridge, Clap- ham, and London. At Cambridge the prominent names were those of Charles Simeon (d. 1836); Isaac Milner, President of Queens' College and Dean of Carlisle, the chief intellectual power in the party (d. 1820) ; William Farish, Professor of Chemistry (d. 1837) ; James Scholefield, Regius Professor of Greek (d. 1853); and William Dealtry, till 1813 a Fellow of Trinity, subsequently Rector of Clapham and Archdeacon of Surrey. The " Clapham sect " looked to William Wilberforce as its leader (d. 1833), and included such men, eminent in their various spheres of life, as Henry Thornton, Lord Teignmouth, Granville Sharp, Zachary Macaulay, James Stephen, and John Venn, who preceded Dealtry as Rector of Clapham. In London Richard Cecil had charge of St. John's Chapel 63 64 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY in Bedford Row till his death in 1810, when he was succeeded by Daniel Wilson, who in 1824 became Vicar of Islington, and later Bishop of Calcutta. Thomas Hartwell Home, the author of an Introduction to the Critical Study of Holy Scripture, published in 1818, was at Welbeck Chapel. Thomas Scott, the Biblical commentator, was ministering at the Lock Hospi- tal. 1 Other important names are Josiah Pratt, secretary and inspirer of the Church Missionary Society ; Basil Woodd, chap- lam of the Bentinck Chapel; and Henry Blunt, Rector of St. Luke's, Chelsea. The fashionable watering-places were also centres of Evange- lical influence, as were some of the big towns, such as Liver- pool and Manchester: but the party had little foothold in Oxford, save at St. Edmund's Hall, of which Daniel Wilson was assistant tutor in 1804, and Vice-Principal in 1809. 2 Three more names deserve mention : Hannah More (d. 1833), whose Cheap Repository Tracts had a wide and wholesome in- fluence, and whose personal character and devotion to the cause of religion, even at the risk of danger to life and limb, have won universal admiration ; Legh Richmond, Vicar, first of Brading in the Isle of Wight, and then of Turvey in Bedford- shire (d. 1828), a man of high culture and the antagonist of Daubeny; 3 and Thomas Gisborne (d. 1846), who was regarded by the party as an intellectual light, and a preacher of consider- able power. The Christian Observer, first published in 1802, was the official literary organ of the Evangelicals, and had a large circulation. Three causes contributed to an increase of the party's strength and influence. The Calvinistic controversy gradually died down, and, with the removal of this bone of contention, the members of the party drew together and presented a united i Newman says of Scott that he " made a deeper impression on my mind than any other [writer]," and that to him "(humanly speaking), I almost owe my soul." Apologia, p. 5, ed. 1890. * For the attitude of the authorities of Oxford University to Evangelicalism see A History of the Evangelical Party, by G. R. Balleine, pp. 124-126. * Richmond, in the Christian Observer in 1804, severely criticised Daubeny's Vindicice Ecclesice Anglicana, and, taking up the cudgels in defence of Overton, whom Daubeny was answering, maintained that the XXXIX Articles of the Church of England taught a moderate Calvinism. IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 65 front to the world. The later generation ot Evangelicals were more markedly Churchmen than their predecessors had been. While always cultivating friendly relations with Nonconformist Protestant bodies, they definitely abandoned the policy of alliance with dissenters, recognising that loyalty to their own Church was their primary duty. Finally, many of the leading classes in society joined their ranks. This for a time increased their prestige and influence, but herein also undoubtedly lay one cause of their subsequent rapid decline ; for a religion which becomes fashionable is inevitably in danger of losing some of its spiritual power. Our concern, however, is not with the history, but with the theology of the movement. We have to ask, What were its main doctrines ? What are the permanent elements in its theology? In what respects was that theology defective? What changes in it has the course of time brought about ? Newman, in an article in the British Critic, published April 1839, charges Protestantism with lacking all internal principles of union, permanence, or consistency. It spells, he says, religious individualism and atomism. It cannot state clearly its views upon any religious doctrine. "It is but an inchoate state or stage of a doctrine, and its final resolution is in ration- alism." Kept within limits up to the present by the formularies of the Church, it must now quickly succumb before the more consistent system of the Tractarians. " Then indeed will be the stern encounter, when two real and living principles, simple, entire, and consistent, one in the Church, the other out of it, at length rush upon each other, contending, not for names and words and half views, but for elementary notions and dis- tinctive moral characters." How far is this criticism true ? Newman was writing when Tractarianism was in the full flush of its advance, and the Evangelical movement had distinctly declined. Facts gave support to his view. The history of Protestantism since the Re- formation is clear proof that the tendency to break up into sects has been characteristic of the system ; while on the Continent Protestant theology has been deeply infected with rationalism. But as applied to Evangelicalism in the Church of England the criticism surely needs considerable modification. Protestants are charged by Newman with inability to state clearly their 66 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY views on any religious doctrine. 1 Now, if there was one feature which, more than another, characterised the Evangelical move- ment, it was definiteness of doctrinal belief. It comes before us on its theological side as a clear-cut scheme of doctrines which men were required to accept as the embodiment of a divine revelation ; and its exponents are never tired of insisting that the fruits of practical religion will be found to exist just in proportion to the clarity of the doctrinal belief. The chief point, for example, emphasized by William Wilberforce in his Practical View 2 (a book typical of the teaching of the school) is, that the main distinction between real and nominal Christians consists in the fact that the former have, while the latter have not, a clear hold upon what he characterises as the peculiar doctrines of Christianity, such as the corruption of human nature, the efficacy of the Atonement, the sanctifying influence of the Holy Spirit. Inadequate conceptions concerning the real nature of Christianity are, he maintains, one of the chief causes of the prevalent decay of religion. 3 The heart, indeed, must be warmed and the will strengthened, but these changes cannot be wrought unless the mind also grasps firmly the truths which make up the body of Christian doctrine. Narrow though Evangelical theology may have been, it is not too much to say, that one of the chief sources of the party's strength lay in the fact that they possessed a clearly denned doctrinal system which they rigidly enforced. The Evangelicals, however, neglected what are called the "Catholic" features of the Christian system. They laid little stress on the thought of the Church as a visible institution, or 1 Newman probably had in mind the special doctrine of Justification by Faith, the precise significance of which, it must be admitted, was not always clearly stated by Evangelical theologians. In Loss and Gain he makes merry over their confusions on this point. It may be argued, too, that in their views upon the Atonement some of them came perilously near Tritheism. But were there no confusions in the Tractarian writings upon the doctrine of the Real Presence 1 Can the Eucharistic teaching of the Anglo-Catholic school be said to display everywhere a marked precision and definiteness of theological belief ? * The full title is A Practical View of the prevailing Religious System of Pro- fessed Christians in the higher and middle classes in this country contrasted, with Real Christianity (1797). This was probably the most influential book produced by the Evangelical party. It was translated into several foreign languages, and went through many editions. * Cp. especially ch. iv. section 6, and chh. v. and vi. IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 67 on the Anglican Church as a branch of the Church Catholic. Questions of external organisation, such as the necessity of episcopacy, were regarded by most of them as of secondary importance.* While they were absolutely loyal to the Church of England, to its Liturgy and Articles, they were, unlike their Puritan ancestors, not keenly interested in problems of polity. The bond of doctrine was emphasized, not the bond of fellow- ship in a visible, ordered, historical society. For that was substituted the wider and vaguer conception of membership in an invisible, spiritual Church. Evangelicalism, therefore, helped in two ways to foster a spirit of individualism in religion. Differences in external polity were regarded as compatible with a more fundamental spiritual unity. It was the deliberate policy of the party to join, whenever they could do so, with Nonconformists, for the promotion through voluntary societies of religious and philanthropic ends. 2 Religion was conceived as something almost entirely subjective, as a right relation of the individual soul to God which was to be brought about, not so much through the aid which the worship and system of an ordered society might provide, as through the free, interior action of the Spirit of God upon the spirit of the individual man. The need for fellowship in religion was met by the formation of voluntary societies for the extension of the divine kingdom upon earth. In the doctrinal teaching of the Evangelicals, Soteriology occupies the central place. Christ as the crucified Saviour of sinful man is the main theme of almost all their sermons. Here two beliefs are fundamental. The first is the assertion of the depravity of human nature as the ground and occasion of Christ's redemptive work. John Overton, in The True Church- man Ascertained, in answer to The Anti-Calvinist of Robert Fellowes, writes: "We can only teach that every man who is born, considered independent of the grace of God, and in respect to spiritual concerns, is wholly corrupt, utterly impotent, under the wrath of God, and liable to everlasting torments." 3 A 1 This, however, would not be true of such a man as Charles Simeon, whose churchmanship was well defined, and whose feeling for the discipline and liturgy of the Church was very real. 2 E.g. the committees of the Bible Society and Religious Tract Society con- tained clergymen of the Church of England and of the Free Churches. 3 Second edition 1802, p. 157. The book was first published in 1801. 68 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY writer like Overton, with distinct Calvinistic leanings, would naturally emphasize the corruption of human nature ; but you also find Wilberforce, who was an anti-Calvinist, maintaining that " man is degraded in his nature, and depraved in his faculties, indisposed to good, and disposed to evil, . . . tainted with sin, not slightly and superficially, but radically and to the very core." l The perverse dispositions of children are regarded as proof of this. A child must be made first to feel its sinful- ness, if it would grow in grace. Isaac Milner speaks of the unconverted as being in a " natural state of alienation from God." 2 All, without exception, insisted upon this article of their creed. Upon all their writings lies the heavy shadow of the Augustinian theology. But, as the bright complement to this dark picture, stands the cross of Christ, conceived as the ground of God's forgive- ness, and the only hope of the sinner. In the matter of the punishment for sin the Evangelicals taught a doctrine of sub- stitution. Christ bore, instead of men, the punishment which sin deserves. The death of Christ was regarded as effecting a change in God's attitude to man. The divine wrath, appeased by the sacrifice on the cross, became the divine favour for all who would accept the proffered salvation. The Atonement had for them far more than a subjective value. It was of objective importance. It was an act of God which had mean- ing not only for man, but for God Himself in His relation to a sinful humanity. 3 It was the divine remedy for the ruin wrought by sin ; the plan devised by God to supplement the original plan of creation, which, owing to human wilfulness and depravity, was in danger of failing of its purpose. Great importance was attached by the Evangelicals to the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, and the reality of His operation in the human heart. The whole nature of man must co- operate with His working, but the possibility of such co-opera- tion was His gift. By Him repentance is inspired. Conversion, or the radical turning round of the whole man from darkness 1 Op. tit., pp. 26, 27, first edition, 1797. 2 Sermons, 1820 ; vol. i., sermon i. p. 5. * Cp. John Bird Sumner's The Evidence of Christianity derived from its Nature and Reception, second edition 1826, ch. ix., where he argues that we are probably part of a larger scheme of things, which may require punishment for sin to be borne by a substitute, if there is to be forgiveness. IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 69 to light, implies His activity. Growth in character, and the gradual eradication of sinful tendency, are possible only by His aid. Such repentance and conversion were necessary for all who would be Christ's followers ; but conversion, so the more sober-minded taught, was not an instantaneous thing, but " the serious commencement of a work which it requires the vigorous exertions of the whole life to complete." * Justification by Faith was one of the watchwords of the party. "You build for eternity," says Isaac Milner, "on the righteousness of Christ ; you renounce for ever, as a foundation of hope, your own righteousness." 2 "Faith," says Overton, " is a cordial belief of God's testimony, and a reliance on His promises." 3 In particular, it is an unquestioning ac- ceptance of the saving power of Christ's death upon the cross. Christ died for me. He did that tor me which I could never do myself. He now lives to infuse His life into me. I have only to believe that, and to act upon it, and heaven is open to me. That sums up the essence of the Evangelical creed ; a creed which had, and still has, power to redeem and rescue men. Faith is in no way opposed to good works, save where the question is one of the grounds of our acceptance with God. Good works have no merit in themselves to procure salvation, but they are the necessary outcome of a living faith. The tree is known by its fruit. For the unrepentant sinner who neglects Christ's offer of pardon waits the doom of eternal punishment. The Evangelicals universally accepted the doctrine that at death every soul passes into an eternity of weal or woe. Underlying the whole system, and common to it and almost all other schools of thought in the opening years of the century, was the belief in the Bible as the authoritative word of God. A discussion will be found elsewhere of the current theories of inspiration, and of the gradual growth of Biblical criticism. 4 Suffice it to say here that, just as the Evangelicals have perhaps been the most unwilling to admit the results of modern criticism of the Bible, so they were the most unquestioning in their acceptance of the truth of the Biblical narrative in its literal meaning. For them the 1 Overton, The True Churchman, p. 163. 2 Sermons, vol. i., sermon vi. p. 207. 3 Op. tit,, p. 280. * Cp. chh. ix. and x. 70 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY Bible was not simply the record of a divine revelation. The very page was sacred. It was not only the word, it was the words of God. Such, in brief outline, was the system of Evangelical theo- logy. What were its defects, and in what directions have we travelled beyond it ? Though the Evangelicals, as we have seen, insisted upon the necessity of a clearly defined dogmatic basis of belief, they were not interested in speculative theology. Spiritual religion was what they taught. They were not theologians ; they were religious reformers. Truth for truth's sake, the independent pursuit of truth, was no passion with them. Their passion was for saving souls, and for large schemes of religious and philan- thropic enterprise. Doctrine was utilised for this end ; and they showed too often a tendency to wrest the meaning of isolated texts or passages in the Bible, so as to make them fit in with their doctrinal scheme. Their writings were in the main homiletical. They produced no great theological work. A narrowness of interest characterised the party. They were not a party of learning, and, with few exceptions, cared little for church history. Large fields of human endeavour lay beyond their horizon. Art, science, literature, philosophy, with all the contribution to the fullness of human life which these can make, were viewed by them with indifference or hostility. 1 When we make all allowance for the tone of the novels of the day and for the moral standards of cultivated society, 2 and remember that Evangelicalism stood for a crusade of righteous- 1 It mast, however, be remembered that the literary and poetic revival which had begun in the preceding century, and was now in progress in England, owed not a little to the religious revival. The religious awakening, effected iu the eighteenth century by Methodism and Evangelicalism, provided a general atmo- sphere of emotion which formed a stimulus for fresh, creative literary effort. Literature recovered its spontaneity, when the feelings came to their own ; and the feelings played a large part in the religious revival. Cowper was an Evan- gelical poet. It may be true, as recent criticism suggests, that Cowper's religion was based on fear, and that there was a discord in his soul, which he never overcame, between the fierce creed of his spiritual mentor Newton, and his own fresh delight in the simple beauties of Nature ; yet the fact remains, that he gave poetic expression to many of the deepest instincts and feelings of the religious life. Mention should be made also of the hymns composed by Cowper and the brothers Wesley. * Cp. on this point Balleine's A History of the Evangelical Party, pp. 12-15. IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 71 ness, we must still feel that its ethical ideal might have been more rich and varied. The Evangelical pressed to an extreme the opposition between the Church and the World. Christianity must always regard this life as a probation for a life to come ; but to endeavour to make all secular pursuits sacred in their degree is a nobler ideal than to rule out most of them as antagonistic to the claims of Christ's kingdom. The Evangeli- cal conception of the relation of this life to the next is fairly summed up in the following words of Isaac Milner : " To be happy in another life ; to square all our conduct by that object steadily and primarily kept in view; to attend to the things of this life only as necessary, not as objects of choice . . . these are the grand objects in the religion of Jesus." l The Evangelicals had no philosophy of history or religion. The divine revelation brought by Christ was regarded rather as a sudden interposition of God to save a world from ruin, than as the culmination of an age-long process, by which, hi all nations, in differing degrees, God had been making Himself known to men. 2 You could not expect them in an age when the comparative study of religion was in its infancy, and when the thought of development had not come into prominence, to think in terms of growth and process; but they seem to have had no conception of theology as a discipline essentially related to the work of science and philosophy, as a study which, unless it is to perish of starvation, must grow by the assimilation of what is vital and progressive in truth everywhere. It is this absence of any philosophical basis to the system which has rendered so insignificant the contribution of Evangelicalism to the intellectual life of the nineteenth century. One other feature of Evangelical teaching may be men- tioned. The Anglican Church has always claimed to be a society for the education and training of character. Wel- coming the new-born life at baptism, she offers it, at every stage of its existence, a nurture suited to its progressive spiritual needs. Can it be said that the Evangelicals paid enough attention to the training of souls ? Alexander Knox criticises them as defective in this respect. 3 The soul, once 1 Sermons, vol. ii., sermon xxL p. 260. 2 Cp. Tulloch, Movements of Religious Thought in Britain in the Nineteenth Century, p. 13. 3 Cp. Remains of Alexander Knox, vol. i. p. 72, 2nd. ed. 1836. 72 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY brought within the kingdom by conversion, was left to find its own way, under the guidance of God, along the road of life. This is an indication of their individualism, and failure to appreciate the value of membership in an organised society. The same defect, though to a considerably less degree, char- acterised the Puritans. If we were writing Pilgrims Progress to-day, should we make Christian set out on his journey alone ? Contemporary attacks on Evangelicals by their opponents centre mainly round three points their indifference to the unity and organisation of the Church ; their Calvinism ; and the extravagances into which some of the more extreme members of the party were betrayed, or the latent tendency to such extravagances supposed to lurk in the system. It is questionable whether the two last charges can fairly be brought against the Evangelicals of the early decades of the nineteenth century. They were, as has already been said, thoroughly loyal to the Church of England and its liturgy, though they extended a hand of welcome to other bodies of Christians. Their Calvinism was of a very moderate type, and, as Bishop Horsley saw, was in no way incompatible with the teaching of the Articles. 1 Some of their leaders, Simeon, Bickersteth, Wilberforce, were in no sense Calvinists, and, unlike many of the earlier generation of Evangelicals, who were nearer to the original Methodist Movement, and so caught more of its spirit, they taught nothing which could be called extravagant or enthusiastic. It is unnecessary to discuss the Calvinistic controversy, which was, for all practical purposes, dead at the period with which this chapter deals, and has little living interest for us to-day. I have, however, in a note to this chapter, 2 given a brief account of four books which may be taken as representa- tive of the attacks made upon the party. In these, particular criticism is levelled against the supposed Calvinism and " en- thusiasm " 3 of the school. Many of the problems which were then burning questions those, for example, connected with the Predestinarian dispute have to-day dropped into the back- ground. Those concerned with the outward organisation of the 1 Cp. Charge to the Rochester Clergy, 1800. " Note A. 3 Cp. Note B at the end of the chapter for the meaning of "enthusiasm." IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 73 Church and the significance of the sacraments are still with us, and perhaps always will be. In the period under review they were destined to come almost immediately into marked prominence. But all these old problems notably, for instance, those arising out of a consideration of the meaning of original sin would in the twentieth century be approached in a different temper, and from a different point of view. The Calvinistic controversy was waged with great bitterness. Looking back on it, we see how futile much of it was. It dealt with problems, many of which must for ever remain insoluble by human intellects ; but it taught the Evangelicals of the follow- ing century to avoid "the falsehood of extremes." As a result of all the quarrelling, one principle emerged into clearness an old principle, but then reaffirmed the comprehensiveness of the formularies of the Church of England. Evangelicalism declined when broader and more liberal modes of thought began to make their way, and when the rival movement of Tractarianism brought into prominence truths which had been neglected. Somewhere about the year 1840 Evangelicals began to feel the change, and to modify their position. As we compare the new Evangelicalism with the old, we see at once how great is the interval between them. 1 In the first place, the growth of Biblical criticism has com- pelled Evangelicalism to modify its views as to the inspiration and authority of the Scriptures. The results of such criticism are nothing but a gain to the cause of religious truth, but they constitute a serious stumbling-block to defenders of the old system. The bed-rock of that system was the authority of the written word, the inspiration of the letter of Scripture. That foundation of the Evangelical creed has been destroyed, and can never be relaid. Evangelicals have been compelled to frame a new theory of the authority of the Bible. Secondly, in all schools of theological thought, Christology rather than Soteriology, the Incarnation rather than the Atone- ment, now occupies the central position. In place of the Christus Redemptor stands the Christus Consummator. The teaching of the Evangelical party in the early years of the 1 An interesting discussion of the contrast will be found in R. W. Dale's The Old Evangelicalism and the Neio. I am indebted to this small volume for some suggestions. 74 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY nineteenth century was essentially and almost exclusively soteriological. In the cross of Christ they found the motive power for the saving of souls. Christian experience proves that it is just here that the motive power resides. But when theological thought began to relate itself to the new methods of historical and comparative research, to the discoveries of physical science, and to a philosophy broader than that of English empiricism when, in a word, it began to learn that, if it would be the queen of sciences, it must take into account all branches of learning, then it became inevitable that a wider view should be taken of the meaning of the Christian revelation. The Atonement was a unique and supreme act of Christ's life ; but the life lay behind it, and behind that again the historical preparation for His coming. The perception that revelation is progressive forbids the isolation of any single factor of the movement. It is likely enough that the pendulum has to-day swung too far in the opposite direction ; and that the doctrine of the Atonement is not receiving the emphasis which it deserves. There are signs that teachers and preachers are recognising, and are correcting, this defect. But we can never return to the old Evangelical position; unless, indeed, we are content to forget all that we have learned as to the meaning of a historical development. Thirdly, the doctrine of eternal punishment is, if it is insisted on at all, no longer enforced with the same vigour. Here, again, we may have grown too lax in our views ; may be in danger of losing that sense of the heinousness of sin which was so marked a feature of the Evangelical creed, and of mini- mising the gravity of Christ's words about future retribution. The dread of eternal punishment was utilised by the Evangeli- cals as a powerful instrument for the conversion of souls. They were but giving practical application to the creed of theological utilitarianism which flourished almost universally throughout the eighteenth century. In this respect we have unquestion- ably lost a potent motive for the transformation of the sinner. Yet the loss here is a moral gain, for fear of punishment can never be a worthy motive for goodness. Fourthly, few to-day would follow the Evangelicals in their views as to the total depravity of human nature, and the absolute alienation, apart from divine grace, of man from God ; IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 75 while there is a general admission that some reconstruction of the traditional doctrine of original sin is necessary. A truer psycho- logy has taught us that much of the perverseness of children, which it was customary to adduce as clear proof of the presence of original sin, is due to the natural desire of a growing nature to express itself freely. The balance between the different elements of its being has not yet been attained in a child. Reason is still the slave of impulse ; and impulse is the child's natural endowment, not uninfluenced indeed by heredity, but not wholly, or mainly, evil, and so deserving the wrath of God. Finally, the individualism of the Evangelicals has broken down. There is more recognition of the corporate life of religion and of the value of membership in a Church. Through- out the whole of last century forces were at work which were undermining the individualism which had been so marked a feature in the thinking of the preceding century. Here, again, a reaction will come. We have gone far in the direction of depersonalising the individual, and losing him in the mass. Whatever may be true of social salvation, it is certain that in the matter of religion " no man can redeem his brother," though he may help to set him on the path of redemption. The religious individualism of the Evangelicals, over-emphasized though it may have been, was rooted in the truth. But the new individualism which will come to the birth can never be the atomism of the older Protestants. It is curious that the strong sense of fellowship which the Evangelicals showed in their splendid missionary and philanthropic work, and their insistence upon family life as the seed-plot of character, should not have been more clearly reflected in their theology. NOTE A (1) In 1802 G. F. Nott took as the subject of his Bampton Lectures Religious Enthusiasm. The lectures are mainly concerned, it is true, with the teaching of Wesley and Whitefield ; but the lecturer is only endeavouring to trace back to its source an evil which he sees flourish- ing in his own day, both within and without the Church of England. His criticism is, therefore, in part directed against the Evangelicals. His leading points are these. Enthusiasts neglect the doctrine of the unity of the Church which Christ plainly taught, and which has thus 76 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY come down to us stamped with the seal of divine authority. Schism is rebellion against God. Nothing but an increase of schism, with all its baneful effects for religious and national life, can result from the doctrine that all who follow Christ, in whatever way, are fulfilling the divine intention. Secondly, the enthusiasts make feeling the basis of religion, rather than duty. Upon the quicksands of feeling no stable structure can ever be built. A religion based on feeling must either rapidly yield before the attack of a reasoned scepticism, or maintain itself by an extravagant individualism which mistakes a heated imagination for the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and so is left without any adequate criterion for judging between what is divine and what is human. Thirdly, the source of enthusiasm is either vanity and ambition, or a delusion produced by the vehement action of the imagination. If enthusiasm does not issue in extravagances and aberrations, it destroys the possibility of all mental growth and improvement. Where an extravagant belief in the illumination of the Holy Spirit obtains, there is no room for the slower process of self-education. (2) The Bampton lecturer in 1812 was Richard Mant, who sub- sequently became Bishop of Killaloe, in Ireland. In An Appeal to the Gospel he sought to rebut the charge brought by Methodists and others, that the Gospel was not preached by the clergy of the National Church, and set out to show that the enthusiasts misunderstood the meaning of the Gospel, and gave a false interpretation to the doctrines of Justification, Election, and Regeneration. Justification, he main- tained, takes place at baptism ; it relates to the admission of Christians into favour and covenant with God, and not to their ultimate for- giveness and title to everlasting happiness. The Pauline doctrine of Election does not, he said, refer to the election of individuals. Or, if it does, then it is not an election to eternal life, but to the privilege of the profession of the Gospel. Or if it does relate to election to eternal life, then such election is not absolute and unconditional, but covers only those whom God in His foreknowledge knew would remain true. Again, any form of election, as interpreted by the enthusiasts, carries with it, as its correlative, the hateful doctrine of reprobation. By regeneration is meant the spiritual grace given in baptism. It is to be sharply distinguished from conversion, or renovation. If you deny the efficacy of the one sacrament, you should logically be ready to deny the efficacy of the other. 1 Overton had insisted upon the necessity of conversion for all men without 1 Lectures six and seven deal with Regeneration and Conversion. They were published later separately by the S.P.C.K. under the title of Two Tracts cm Regeneration and Conversion. IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 77 exception. Mant combats this, but is hardly fair to Overton, who expressly says that he is not speaking of instantaneous conversion. 1 Mant also combats the doctrines, taught by some of the extremists, of the perfectibility of human nature and the inward assurance of salvation. (3) In 1804 Richard Laurence, Archbishop of Cashel, formerly Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford, discussed in his Bampton Lectures the question of the Calvinism of the XXXIX Articles. 2 He showed that the Articles dealing with the Predestinarian controversy, if traced back to their source, are seen to be modelled on Lutheran lines, in opposition to the tenets of the Roman Church. They con- tain, he said, no trace of the Calvinistic doctrine of the general im- putation of Adam's guilt to posterity. Our reformers never asserted that man could not think a good thought, or do a good act, until some predestined moment arrived, when God's grace should move him without any co-operation on his own part. With regard to justifica- tion, it was their opposition to the scholastic doctrine of merit which led them to speak of justification by faith alone. They never meant to deny the value of a moral act ; but were concerned only to oppose the view, that by good actions man could effect a reconciliation between himself and God. It is contrary to the teaching of the Prayer Book, said the lecturer, to insist that to be justified by faith a man must have within him the consciousness of a saving principle. (4) The last work of which mention may be made is A Refutation of Calvinism, by George Tomline, Bishop of Winchester, published in 1811. The conclusion reached by the author is thus expressed: " There is not in any part of our Book of Common Prayer, or in our Articles, a single expression, which can fairly be interpreted as asserting or recognising any one of the peculiar doctrines of Calvinism." 3 Tomline loathed Calvinism with all his soul, and his loathing led him to strain the meaning of some of the expres- sions in the Articles, so as to eliminate from them any trace of the moderate Calvinism of which they are unquestionably patient. He is, as far as Calvinism is concerned, a purely partisan writer. In Article IX, Of Original or Birth-Sin, Tomline explains that the phrase " very far gone from original righteousness " means not com- pletely gone ; and that " of his own nature inclined to evil," means 1 Cp. The True Churchman, pp. 160-163. It is at this point that the question of Regeneration touched Calvinism. The Calvinists said there was no justifica- tion unless there was present a conscious sense of pardon and acceptance. 2 An Attempt to illustrate those Articles of the Church of England which the Calvinists improperly consider as Calvinistical, 3 Cp. p. 385. Eighth edition, 1823. 78 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY that he can still do good. He, too, refers regeneration to the im- mediate effect of baptism, and distinguishes it from repentance, conversion, or any subsequent operation of the Holy Spirit. At baptism, he says, you change " a natural state in Adam for a spiritual state in Christ." The book is a learned one, and ends with a series of patristic quotations against Calvinistic teaching, extracts from Calvin's writings illustrating the nature of his theology, and a historical account of the growth of Calvinistic doctrine. NOTE B I know no better account of the meaning of the word " enthusiasm " than that given by Abbeyin ch. vii. of TheEnylishChurch in the Eighteenth Century (Abbey and Overton). The writer points out that the term indicated the presence of certain modes of thought and feeling rather than of practice. It signified in the words of Henry More, which he quotes, " a misconceit of inspiration," and had a wide connotation. " It thus became a sort of byeword, applied in opprobrium and derision to all who laid claim to a spiritual power or divine guidance, such as appeared to the person by whom the term of reproach was used, fanatical extravagance, or, at the least, an unauthorised outstripping of all rightful bounds of reason. Its preciser meaning differed ex- ceedingly with the mind of the speaker and with the opinions to which it was applied. It sometimes denoted the wildest and most credulous fanaticism, or the most visionary mysticism ; on the other hand, the irreligious, the lukewarm, and the formalist often levelled the reproach of enthusiasm, equally with that of bigotry, at what ought to have been regarded as sound spirituality and true Christian zeal, the anxious efforts of thoughtful and religious men to find a surer standing ground against the reasonings of infidels and Deists." The term is a land-mark in the history of eighteenth century thought, both theological and philosophical. It is closely connected, on the one side with the revival of the feelings in the life of religion and the reaction against a narrow rationalism ; and on the other with the development of ethical inquiry into the nature of the moral faculty. A careful study of the significance of the word opens up the whole range of the problems which the speculation of the eighteenth century was trying to solve. CHAPTER V THE EARLY ORTHODOX IT is probably better to describe the group of men who are the subject of this chapter by the name Orthodox than by the name High Churchmen. The latter suggests at once our modern threefold division of High, Low, Broad; but in the early years of the nineteenth century that division did not exist, for under the title Low Church were included the Lati- tudinarians, whom we to-day should call Broad. 1 Again, those who a century ago were designated as High Churchmen con- sisted of two distinct groups. One group was composed of " Church and State " men who were never tired of praising the Establishment, and pointing out the beneficial results which flowed from it ; and to these the name High Churchman was especially given. The other group of able and distinguished men dealt with in this chapter, while not despising the con- nection of Church and State, regarded the Church as in essence a purely spiritual organisation, and independent of the State in all matters relating to doctrine or spiritual authority. Church feeling was far stronger in this group than in the other. It is to them the Oxford Movement looks as its lineal ancestors. Nomenclature is, perhaps, a matter of secondary concern, but there is, I think, a further appropriate- ness in the title " Orthodox." The very word suggests defence of an accepted creed and position, contentment with a long- established order, and the absence of any desire to innovate. These are precisely the traits which we find to be characteristic of this group. They were the conservative party in theology, preserving in the main the old historic traditions of the High Church divines of the Caroline epoch. But, for the most part, they did not push their doctrinal tenets. They held them firmly and devotedly, and in their controversial writings 1 This is the position defended by Canon Overton in The English Church in the Nineteenth Century, p. 24. 79 80 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY defended them with vigour against Evangelicals, Methodists, and Roman Catholics, but they did not press the attack or carry the war into the enemy's camp. The theology of the Evangelical was narrow, but the truths which he believed filled his soul, and he was eager to propagate them whenever he could. The theology of the Orthodox was broader and more systematic, but it did not possess him, or turn him into a prophet. The party, as Alexander Knox saw. lacked fire and vitality, and though they were scarcely behind the Evangelicals in good works in the promotion, for example, of Church societies for missionary and educational effort in the assertion of their distinctive doctrinal principles they were content rather to act on the defensive. It was the advance of liberalism in politics and theology which stimulated their successors in the next generation to adopt a more aggressive and constructive policy. The Caroline divines had been willing to cultivate friendly relations with the Reformed Churches in Europe. The Orthodox had a stiffer conscience in this matter. They laid great emphasis upon episcopacy, and felt that the Refor- mation had sundered the unity of the Church. Every form of Nonconformity at home came under the ban of their dis- pleasure, and they disliked the Latitudinarians. They disliked, too, the Evangelicals, partly because of their Calvinistic lean- ings, partly because they regarded as of minor importance questions of Church unity and organisation. They were content with the Prayer Book as affording a middle position between Romanism on the one side and continental Pro- testantism on the other. Ritual observance had little interest for them. Their Sacramentalism was, on the whole, sober and restrained. The High Church party, therefore, was not extinct at this time, as is sometimes erroneously asserted. The Oxford Movement was not so much the resurrection of principles long buried underground, as the corporate assertion, in more vigorous fashion, of teaching which had always found a place among Anglican divines, and was in the early years of the century maintained by the Orthodox group. All the leading doctrines of the Tractarians are to be found in the writings of such men as Van Mildert, Horsley, Daubeny, and Alexander Knox. The change which came about with the Oxford Move- IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 81 ment was mainly a change in doctrinal emphasis and spiritual atmosphere. While the whole body of High Church doctrine was enthusiastically taught, a new importance was given by the Tractarians to the two dogmas of the Catholicity of the Church and the Apostolical Succession. These formed the central pivot on which the later movement turned. Feeling and emotion came in also to complete the change. What had been a restrained sentiment of veneration for the Church became a passion of loyal attachment. In the writings of the Orthodox, with the one exception of Knox, there is not much flow of feeling. They were on their guard against it, because they had seen in the enthusiasts the dangers and extravagances to which it might lead. The Orthodox, like the Evangelicals, were a minority in the Church, though they included among their number the most prominent of the bishops. They were distinctly a party of learning, who kept alive the tradition of a cultured clergy. Why was it that they had not more influence ? Firstly, because the bulk of the clergy were indifferent and worldly. Secondly, because, though they held in theory a doctrine of the spiritual independence of the Church, in practice they leaned too much upon the arm of the State. The Establishment was the repre- sentative of settled order amid the revolutionary tendencies of the day. For centuries the Church, allied with the State, had been the Church of the nation. In its bosom they had grown up, and they felt unwilling to thrust aside the ideal of a national Church. They were pulled in two directions, and so lost power. Once more, as has been already pointed out, the very circumstances of their time seemed to counsel defensive action. Enthusiasm, on the one hand, and, on the other, latitudinarianism, were foes who must be kept in check. Resistance rather than aggression appeared to be the sounder attitude to adopt. The Evangelicals were not theologians ; the Orthodox were. They were not theologians on a large scale, constructing systems which have an abiding place in the history of Christian doctrine. That was not their object They had inherited a well-tried creed which satisfied them, and they were there to defend it from attack. But in defending it they proved that they had learning and a real theological interest ; and if their books 82 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY are hardly more read to-day than are the writings of the Evangelicals, that is because the modern mind is interested in a mass of problems which in their time had not appeared above the horizon. Among the bishops who belonged to the party the three ablest were Van Mildert of Durham (d. 1836), Herbert Marsh of Peterborough (d. 1838), and the veteran Horsley of Rochester (d. 1806), whom Coleridge called "the one red leaf, the last of its class, with relation to the learned teachers of our Church." Others of intellectual eminence were Tomline of Winchester, Kaye of Lincoln, Lloyd of Oxford, Middleton of Calcutta, and, in Ireland, Jebb of Limerick and Richard Mant of Killaloe. A consistent friend and supporter of the party was the Arch- bishop of Canterbury, Manners-Sutton (d. 1828). Among the clergy of lower rank the leading names are William Jones of Nayland, 1 Henry Handley Norris, who for many years worked in South Hackney with his brother-in-law, Archdeacon Watson, Hugh James Rose, Christopher Wordsworth, brother of the poet and Master of Trinity, Cambridge, Thomas Sikes, rector of Guilsborough, Thomas Rennell, and Archdeacon D'Oyly. The two most prominent laymen of the party, to whom all looked for leadership and inspiration, were Joshua Watson and William Stevens. Both followed business careers, and were extraordinarily liberal in support of Church work. Watson was founder of the National Society, and for some time its treasurer, and treasurer also of the S.P.C.K. Stevens is remem- bered, among other reasons, as the leading member of the Nobody's Club, which was started in his honour. Some of the Lake poets, in addition, had strong sympathies with the party. Its literary organs were the British Critic, of which at one time Van Mildert was editor, and the Churchman's Remembrancer, an issue of tracts, designed to promote Church teaching and principles. The members of the party who were more especially connected with Hackney were known as the " Hackney phalanx " or " Clapton sect," in distinction from the Evangelical " Clapham sect." It is unnecessary to discuss at any length the theological writings of the group. It will be enough to indicate the main positions for which they contended, so far as these are con- 1 Jones died in 1800, and so properly belongs to the century before. IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 83 cerned with problems of Church organisation and the seat of authority. It was their agreement on this class of question which constituted them a group or school ; and these were the problems which were destined to come into prominence in the immediate future. Archdeacon Daubeny was the most militant member of the party, the narrowest in his sympathies, the most dogmatic in his utterances, and, perhaps, the most passionate in his attach- ment to the Church. He cannot, therefore, be taken as altogether a fair representative of the general temper of the party. Yet most of them would, I think, have subscribed heartily to the main principles enunciated in the famous Guide to the Church (1798) ; indeed, we find in their writings those same principles, as firmly, if not as pugnaciously, maintained. Daubeny emphasizes the importance of the following doctrines: (a) The doctrine of Apostolical Succession. The visible Church in respect of its constitution, must, he says, consist of men duly commissioned to their office by those who can trace back their descent to the Apostles. The Christian priesthood is a divine institution. It had its beginning from God, and it can be continued only in the way which God appointed for that purpose. " What that way was the Apostolic practice has plainly shown. For Christ was in all that the Apostles did." 1 " The Church of England in her canons exclusively appropriates the title of a true and lawful Church to that Society of Chris- tians in this country assembled under Episcopal government ; and determines all separatists from it to be schismatics." 2 (6) Sacraments are not " seals of the divine covenant," but only human ordinances, if administered by men who cannot trace back their commission to the Apostles. You leave the sacraments behind you if you leave Christ's Church. Without a priest there is no eucharistic sacrifice, and if no sacrifice, then no receiving the body and blood of Christ. 3 " There is a holiness of office independent of the holiness of the minister; the former being essential to the validity of the ministerial act." 4 1 Guide to the Church, 2nd ed., 1804, Preface, p. x. * Ibid., Preface, p. iv. 3 Appendix to Guide, pp. 310, 311. Danbeny qualifies this statement by speaking of a " commemorative sacrifice " and a " typical representation." Guide, p. 72. 84 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY (c) Upon every Christian lies the obligation to Church unity. The Act of Toleration may have removed civil penal- ties, but whatever liberty that Act may allow in respect of Christian conformity " must be understood as given in a case in which no human legislature has any liberty to grant." l The existing prejudice against the Church of Rome is, he urges, unreasonable. In the most essential articles of the Christian faith the Roman and Anglican Churches are agreed. (d) Private judgment in religion cannot be allowed. " In religious matters no man can have a right to judge otherwise than God has judged for him." 2 Conscience, in its true meaning, is the reflection of a law or standard imposed from without. 3 Daubeny, in a word, places his main emphasis upon Church polity. The guarantee for purity of doctrine lies in the existence of a society episcopally organised, which can trace back an unbroken descent from the Apostles. He offers us a clear-cut scheme, rigid in outline, and anathematises all who will not accept it. 4 Van Mildert, in his Bampton Lectures, 5 insists, in like manner, that Episcopacy is of the very essence of the visible Church, and that the sacraments and the priesthood are " inter- woven into the very substance of Christianity, and inseparable from its general design." Against Methodists and Enthusiasts he and Marsh display unrelenting hostility. Bishop Horsley, in his primary charge as Bishop of St. David's, 6 condemns the irregular ministry of the Methodists, and says that it is with hazard to himself that any private person meddles with the preacher's office. He emphasizes the fact that the clergy have been given from above a distinct spiritual commission, 7 and bids them not be afraid of being called High Churchmen. " To be a High Churchman in the only sense which the word can be allowed to bear as applicable to any in the present day 1 Guide to the Church, p. 140. Ibid., p. 146. 3 Ibid., p. 128. He violently attacked Calvinism. He was answered by Sir Richard Hill in An Apology for Brotherly Love, and by Overton in Tlie True Churchman Ascertained. To this latter book Daubeny replied in Vindicia Ecclesice Anglicance. An Inquiry into the General Principles of Scripture Interpretation, 1814. 1790. 7 "He who thinks of God's ministers as the mere servants of the State is out of the Church, severed from it by a kind of self-excommunication." IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 85 God forbid that this should ever cease to be my public pretension, my pride, my glory ! " Horsley, at the same time, was wise enough to see that the Articles were capable of a modified Calvinistic interpretation, and advises the clergy to leave the Calvinistic controversy alone. 1 Thomas Sikes, who agreed with Daubeny and Van Mildert as to the necessity of Episcopacy and the Apostolical Succession, was the author of a remarkable utterance which may fairly be described as a prophecy of coming events. He saw a tendency in his age to neglect the importance of that article of the Creed which speaks of the Holy Catholic Church. " Our confusion nowadays is chiefly owing to the want of asserting this one article of the Creed ; and there will be yet more confusion attending its revival, when it is thrust on minds unprepared, and on an uncatechised Church." 2 He urges the clergy to instruct the people in the meaning of this article. When the Oxford Movement began, the question of the nature of the Church and its authority came at once to the front. The problem was not simply that of the true constitution of the Church, but of what the catholicity of the Church implied. Did membership in the Church involve the acceptance of cer- tain doctrines ? If so, must not the Church teach these doc- trines authoritatively, and must not its members accept the instruction thus given without question ? If visible unity could not be found, might not its place be taken by a catholicity of doctrinal belief and outward observance ? 3 I have spoken of Alexander Knox (d. 1831) as a member of this group, and it is true that, if he is to be classed with others, his place is among the Orthodox. But. in reality, he stands alone, or with only Bishop Jebb of Limerick as his companion. He was a man of broader, and at the same time far more deli- cate, spiritual sympathies than any of his Orthodox contempo- raries ; and, in particular, was the direct precursor and prophet of the Oxford Movement. A distinct gulf separates Daubeny and Van Mildert from Keble and Newman, whatever doctrinal 1 Charge to the Rochester Clergy, 1800. * Pusey quotes this utterance in his Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, 1841. Cp. note on p. 42 of Overton's The English Church in the Nineteenth Century. 3 For an interesting account of the meaning of Sikes's prophecy, cp. Cornish, A History of the English Church in the Nineteenth Century, vol i. pp. 66-69. 86 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY agreement there may be between them. But with Knox the case is different. He breathes an atmosphere and speaks a language which are almost identical with their own. I have not been able to discover that the Tractarians ever sufficiently acknowledged their indebtedness to Knox. Knox was an Irish layman who was at one time private secretary to Lord Castle- reagh. He was urged to serve in Parliament as the member for Derry after the union of Great Britain and Ireland, but refused, and turned instead to theological writing, his chief correspondent being Bishop Jebb. We may well begin our account of him by referring to a letter, written in 1,816, On the Situation and Prospects of tfo Established Chv/rch, in which he diagnoses the position of the Church of England. 1 He complains of the champions of High Church orthodoxy that they are suspicious of movements of piety, and lack that " interior learning " and knowledge of the needs of the human spirit in its search for God which Wesley and the Evangelicals possessed. " Inward religion is little less than systematically exploded." High Churchmen, he says, in combating their Evangelical opponents, attack what is valu- able as well as what is objectionable, and thereby weaken their power of appeal and their chance of influencing the popular mind. 8 Frigidity he notes as one of the characteristics of the age. 8 Knox has been called a Churchman of the type of Wesley. 4 Wesley's influence on him was marked. He defines Methodism as that " spiritual view of religion which implies an habitual devotedness to God," and he classes himself among the Methodists. He values the Evangelicals, not for their doctrine, but because they had, more than any others, kept experimental religion alive in the Church. 5 He notes, but without anxiety, the growing spirit of liberalism and anti-ecclesiasticism in the nation. This, he prophesies, will be the stimulus which will arouse the Church from its indifference. " The old High Church race is worn out." The framework of doctrine and organisation is there, but no life animates the body. Trial and persecution Remains of Alexander Knox, 2nd ed., 1836, vol. i. Ibid., vol. i. p. 64. Thirty Years' Correspondence between John Jebb and A. Knox, Esq., 2nd ed., 1836, vol. ii. p. 506. 87 Hunt in Religious Thought in England in the Nineteenth Uentury, p. 44. Remains, vol. iv. p. 105. IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 87 will be the breath from the four winds which will make the dead bones live. Knox diagnoses the situation exactly when he says that religious feeling in the Orthodox party has disap- peared, the feeling for antiquity and continuity and corporate life in a society, the indefinable sentiment for the Church and its liturgy which a reverent and sympathetic study of the Prayer Book can call forth. Preachers in the Church, he says, preach dull, moralising sermons, " the result of a kind of intellectual pumping : there is no gushing from the spring." l In addition, he notes how an unreasoning suspicion of Rome has blinded men to their heritage in the Church Catholic, and made them indifferent to the search for the truth which lies imbedded in error. " As matters are, dread of transubstantiation has made the sacrament a ceremony ; and to ward off infallibility, every man has been encouraged to shape a creed for himself." 2 Knox would find the remedy for this state of things, first, in the revival within the Church of personal religion ; secondly, in the promulgation of a more inspiring doctrine as to the meaning of the Church. He calls himself a Christian of the first three centuries in regard to the Catholic Church, and a Christian of the seventeenth century in regard to that reformed branch of it established in England. The Church of England is " not Protestant, but a reformed portion of the Church Catholic." To a Lutheran body it unites a Catholic soul. 3 Hence, while Knox holds the authority of the Roman Church to be a tyranny, he values the remains of primitive catholicity within it. Of the Prayer Book he speaks with a feeling which only long habits of use and devotion could have generated. Its sobriety and moderation, its inexhaustible spiritual nutriment, the guarantee which it affords of continuity of doctrine, have so endeared it to him, that it has become part of himself. 4 With 1 Corretpondence, vol. i. p. 14. * Remains, vol. i. p. '58. 3 Ibid., vol. iii. p. 130 ; and Preface, p. cxiii. * Ibid., vol. iii. p. 69. " Our vitality as a Church consists in our identity of organisation and of mental character with the Church Catholic ; and as our unbroken episcopacy implies the first, our Liturgy, and that alone (because an effluence of the Catholic religion) contains the other." Cp. also p. 61. "I know nothing settled in the whole Reformed body but the Liturgy of the Church of England. I do not add the Articles, not because I have any real quarrel with them, but because they have not, in any respect, the same intrinsic authority." 88 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY regard to the connection of Church and State, while Knox does not despise the Establishment as a means of leavening the national life, the following quotation shows clearly his opinion as to the true nature of the Church: " An Establishment alone. I conceive, affords these provisions [i.e. continuity and stability] ; but not everything called an Establishment. What I intend by this term consists far more in the interior organisation than in any external alliance. An Hierarchical Church has the nature of an Establishment whether it is, or is not, allied with the State." * But the same cannot be said of a body of presby- ters, even though they be State-supported. The Church was to hear much in a few years of the maxim, Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ah omnibus creditum est. Knox called attention to it as something which was in danger of being forgotten. He points out that, while the Church of England, in common with other reformed Churches, agrees that all fundamentals must be referred to Scripture for their proof, it alone among these Churches gives a place to " the concurrent voice of sacred antiquity." 2 In this maxim he finds a sure guide both for belief and practice. Knox, like Kaye of Lincoln, was learned in patristic studies, and is always eager to show that the Church of England has preserved an unbroken continuity in doctrine and organisation with the primitive Church. Something, too, must be said as to Knox's sacramental views. His views on Baptism need not detain us long. He points out that we have to distinguish between the word "Baptism" as used for the whole sacrament, outward and inward, and as used for the outward part only. In the latter case we may, he says, identify Baptism and Regeneration, for here Regeneration implies the contracting of indelible relations, which, according to the use made of them, tend to infinite gain or infinite loss. In the former case the Church teaches plainly that spiritual regeneration is not identical with the ordinance, but is the effect of a heavenly influence which may be lost. In the case of adults the Church of England holds the concurrence of the two to be conditional ; but infants, it teaches, receive the 1 Ibid., vol. i. p. 425. Jebb would have agreed with Knox in this matter ; cp. Correspondence, letter to Knox, cxxxiv. Ibid., vol. iii. p. 43. IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 89 divine grace unconditionally. " Nothing less can be concluded than that a vital germ of all virtuous dispositions and pious affections is implanted in the mind of the baptized infant," but the germ " will not grow up of itself." Hence it often follows that there is no identity between the baptized and the spiritually regenerate. 1 Knox wrote a Treatise on the Use and Import of the Euchar- istic Symbols, with a double object ; first, to link up the doctrine of the Real Presence and spiritual efficacy of the con- secrated elements with the teaching of Christ, St. Paul, and the Fathers ; secondly, to show that the true doctrine of the Eucharist is that of Ridley. 2 He attacks Waterland for wishing to destroy the notion of a mysterious connection between the symbols and the divine grace, and quotes with approval Horsley, who said that the matter of the sacrament was by Christ's appointment, and the operation of the Spirit, " a vehicle of grace to the believer's soul." 3 He says that his study of the Fathers has shown him that they took the same view. The consecrated elements, being vehicles of Christ's saving grace, may be regarded as "in that respect the permanent repre- sentatives of His incarnate Person." 4 By them, though we cannot explain the process, " God works invisibly in us." Knox urges that there was a good reason for this ordinance, because only with difficulty do our sceptical minds retain the thought that spiritual grace is conveyed supernaturally. 6 He combats the argument that the Christian can expect benefit from the sacrament only in proportion to the actual state of his devotional feelings. " Whereas, if there be a persuasion that divine grace is communicated in and through the sacrament, by a special exercise of divine power, it will follow that, not an inability to co-operate, but solely an incapacity to receive, will 1 Cp. Remains, vol. i. pp. 488-510. 2 Cp. the Prefatory Letter to the Treatise. The latter is included in the Remains. Ridley, he points oat, derived his views from Ratram or Bertram, a monk of the Abbey of Corbey in the diocese of Amiens. In the ninth century Bertram answered Paschasius Radbertus of the same monastery, who was the first to pro- pound the doctrine of transubstantiation. Ridley influenced Cranmer, and his views were embodied in the first reformed Communion Service in 1548, After a reaction they were finally restored in 1661. 8 Charge to Rochester Clergy. * Remains, vol. ii. p. 155. 8 IUd., vol. ii. p. 233. 90 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY obstruct the communication." l He rests his belief on the principle, adopted by the revisers of 1661, that the sacraments have their effect, where the receiver " doth not ponere obicem, put any bar against them." " The co-operation of mind on the part of the receiver, which in all the common means of edifica- tion must be deemed indispensable, was, in the Eucharist peculiarly and mysteriously superseded ; and capacity the sole requisite for the reception of the heavenly blessing." * In conclusion, we may note Knox's view of inspiration. He admits that inspiration allows of degrees, has existed in every age, and is to be found among heathen writers. In this opinion he had the support of Jebb, who was one of the most distin- guished Biblical scholars of his time. In a letter to Jebb, Knox remarks that the idea of Scripture being inspired " has kept very many back from exercising their judgments on its structure and composition." 3 I have dwelt at some length on Knox, because he is un- questionably one of the most striking figures in the Church in the early years of the nineteenth century, and because, as these extracts from his writings show, he anticipated the Oxford Movement. An immense interval separates Knox from such a man as Daubeny. With the latter all is mechanical, rigid, dogmatic. The former, while his teaching is equally definite, has a breadth of vision and a real sympathy with other modes of presenting Christian truth. The one has atmosphere, the other is without it. Daubeny is like a landscape seen in a hard, clear light, where every outline is over-defined. Knox is like the same landscape softened and mellowed into a sug- gestive mystery. Bishop Jebb was the channel through which much of Knox's influence was exercised ; but, while the two 1 Remains, p. 235. 1 Ibid., p. 280. Knox denies that he is teaching a doctrine of the opus operatum ; but he comes very near it. He draws a distinction between passivity "in the actual matter of reception," and passivity as to desire and holy inten- tion. But he states distinctly that the divine agency "works its purpose, not on a co-operative, but on a passive subject." His argument is that " we cannot co-operate in the divine act, because it is so purely divine as to exclude even subordinate co-agency ; but we may obstruct, or wholly resist its effect, by a positive unpreparedness for any such benefit." Cp. Postscript to the Treatise, where he develops his argument. * Correspondence, vol. i. p. 41. IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 91 friends reacted on each other, the place of honour belongs to Knox, who combined with nobility of character and a genius for religion a remarkable power of insight into the needs of the Church of England, and a largeness of mind which is too often lacking in the theologian. CHAPTER VI THE EARLY LIBERALS THEOLOGICAL liberalism in the early years of the nineteenth century suffered from the general stagnation which had over- taken all parties in the Church. It is not till we reach the men of the Oriel school that any movement on a considerable scale can be detected in the direction of a broader and more progressive creed. Only three names call for any mention, and of these two may be passed by with a word. Paley and Richard Watson, Bishop of Llandaif, both of whom, however, may more fitly be regarded as belonging to the eighteenth century, 1 were in favour of the abolition of subscription, and of the revision of the liturgy. The former argued that only a Church which claimed infallibility had the right to impose creeds upon its members ; the latter objected strongly to the damnatory clauses of the Athanasian Creed, and held that, as speculative doctrines must always be matters of dispute, it was unfair to ask men to subscribe to them. In addition, a national Church should throw open its doors as wide as possible. 2 The controversy about subscription dates from the Feathers Tavern petition of the preceding century, but its echoes were prolonged kito the nineteenth, and it was the subject in which the Latitudinarians were chiefly interested. The one name which deserves more consideration is that of Robert Fellowes (1771-1847), a theological free-lance whose unorthodoxy increased as he grew older. Being unbeneficed, he was perhaps more at liberty to express his opinions than he would have been had he held a living. His two most important books are Religion without Cant (1811), and The Religion of the Universe (1836). He wrote the former, which is far less unorthodox than the latter, with the double object 1 Paley died in 1805. Watson's dates are 1737-1816. * Cp. Hunt's Religious Thought in England in the Nineteenth Century, pp. 3-4. 92 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY 93 of defending the principles of the Church of England against dissenters, and of clearing the doctrines of Christianity from the gross misinterpretations with which, as he held, they had been covered. The doctrine which he most violently attacks is that of original sin. He denies that Scripture teaches the innate depravity of man, and treats the story of the Fall as allegorical. 1 Of the doctrine of the Trinity he says that the subject is beyond the grasp of human understanding. 2 The later volume shows Fellowes in full revolt against the orthodox creed. He had apparently become an enthusiastic student of physical science, and says that a general study of the sciences will do more than anything else to promote morality. He advocates the provision of parish telescopes, in order that the parishioners may gaze upon the rings of Saturn, and so appreciate better the goodness and wisdom of God. 3 In his earlier book he had attacked emotionalism in religion ; here he makes religion merely a matter of intellectual culture. " Religion and science, according to my notions, are identical." The volume is an argument for a pure theism, based on the evidences of the divine wisdom and beneficence in nature. Miracle he entirely rejects. Prayer, he says, implies imperfection in God ; while creeds and dogmas are born of superstition and mystery, and are only kept alive by priestly artifice. 4 These tirades against orthodoxy call for no further notice. The important thing in the book is the author's acceptance of an evolutionary creed. The word evolu- tion is not mentioned, but Fellowes views nature as a scene of progressive advance. He accepts the teaching of geology as to the age of the earth, holds that the earliest forms of life were very simple, 5 and questions whether the doctrine of special creation is true of man. He sees that such evolutionary beliefs in no way militate against theism. "Whether his [i.e. man's] existence was owing to the immediate volition of the Deity, or was the effect of second causes coming to a certain point in the series . . . the divine agency is equally manifested." 6 He is a firm believer in immortality, and argues that the fact that man is the crowning term of a long development, and has in him such capacity for progress, gives us strong reasons for anticipating that he will continue to advance in another sphere of existence. He complains bitterly of the unprogressiveness 1 P. 56. * P. 376. * P. 58. * P. 86. 5 P. 12. P. 54. 94 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY of contemporary theology. This is the root of his quarrel with orthodoxy. Though he lost his intellectual balance in his later writings, we must give him the credit of being in advance of his age, and of putting forward views the truth of which later research has abundantly confirmed. Unlike the Evangelicals or the Orthodox, the men whom we are now to consider flew no party banner, and championed no closely defined system of doctrine. Common ties indeed united them, such as their sympathy with movements of reform, whether in Church or State, their opposition to Trac- tarianism, and their advocacy of free inquiry in theology, but no more distinctive common name can be given them than that of liberal theologians, and of such there are many varieties. Most of them were Oxford men who were in one way or another intimately connected with Oriel College, and this Oxford group was called by their contemporaries the Noetics, or Intellec- tuals. The nickname was eminently appropriate, for the work which they accomplished was just that of subjecting to the criticism of reason and history the conventionalities and dogmas of traditional religious orthodoxy. Edward Copleston, Provost of Oriel, 1814-1828, and after- wards Bishop of Llandaff, may be regarded as the intellectual father of the group; though it must not be forgotten that it was Eveleigh, his predecessor in the provostship, who first introduced into the University and his own college reforms which helped to remove from the former the well-merited reproach of being a home of idleness and unintellectuality, and made the latter for some years the leading college in Oxford. Eveleigh did two things. In face of great opposition, he succeeded in persuading the University to adopt a system of public examination for the B.A. degree, which had hitherto been conferred without any proof of intellectual proficiency in the candidate. He also established the rule, that fellowships in Oriel were to be given only to men who showed that they possessed real learning. Copleston carried on and developed Eveleigh's work. Under his rule admission to fellowships "was accorded only to evidence of power and originality; not to what a man had read, but to what he was like." l While he remained in Oxford he was a powerful liberalising influence. 1 Cp. the sketch of Copleston in Tuckwell's Pre-Tractarian Oxford. 95 Whately, Hampden, Baden-Powell were among his pupils. It is difficult to over-estimate the debt which the younger generation at Oriel owed him. Himself possessed of a keenly alert mind, he taught them to reason and criticise. As regards churchmanship, he may be placed in the more liberal wing of the old High Church or Orthodox party. His views upon the Church are expounded in the Bosworth Lectures which he gave in Oriel. 1 In these he points out that the Reformers nowhere pro- nounced episcopacy to be essential to the constitution of the Church, or to the validity of orders ; but he held the Church to be a visible, divinely instituted society, having spiritual authority, and possessed of a ministry which, viewed as a whole, could prove a continuous succession from apostolic times. Such succession, however, involved no theory of trans- mitted virtue, and no sacrificial or sacramental character in the individual minister. Tractarianism he described as " that folly." Edward Hawkins succeeded Copleston as Provost, having been already a fellow of Oriel since 1813. Like Copleston, he condemned the Tractarian doctrine of Apostolical Succes- sion, as having no clear warrant in revelation. The Tractarian, he held, had superadded a theory to a fact, and refused to distinguish the permanence of the institution of the threefold ministry from the exact succession of the individual ministers. 2 Hawkins was one of the first to denounce Tractarian teaching, and his action in dismissing the three Oriel tutors, Robert Wilberforce, Newman, and Hurrell Froude, marks his disap- proval of the system of which they were leading represen- tatives. Personal jealousy may have partly influenced him in this action. He saw that they were likely to supplant his own influence with the undergraduates. But underneath any personal feeling lay a real dislike of Tractarianism. It is this dislike which links him with the Noetics. In other respects he differed from them. For example, he adopted a sullen attitude of resistance to the reforms of the Royal Commission 1 The lectures as a whole were not printed ; but X and XI are given in Whately's Remains of the Late Edward Copleston, 1854. 2 Cp. a sermon on the Apostolical Succession preached February, 1842, at the consecration of Gilbert, Bishop of Chichester. 96 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY which affected the internal administration of the College, and would not allow that any change was needed. Again, in 1818, he preached a sermon on Tradition in which he argued that doctrine was not to be learned from Scripture, but from the Church, Scripture being called in only to prove the truth of the Church's teaching a view to which none of the Noetics could have subscribed. The influence of Hawkins cannot be compared with that of Copleston. The latter inspired ; the former did not. But Hawkins deserves to be remembered as one who tried to maintain a more liberal tradition when the forces of ecclesiastical reaction were at their height. Richard Whately, who owed more to the influence of Copleston than any of his contemporaries at Oriel, may be called the typical Noetic. We may characterise his work by saying that he brought critical reason and historical research to bear upon the terminology and beliefs of traditional theo- logy. Party spirit and the catchwords of ecclesiastical parties he detested, seeking always to penetrate to the real meaning of customary phrases. 1 To the end of his life he displayed the temper of the questioner. Endowed with a large fund of robust common sense, and with a mind cast in a logical mould, he shed the dry light of reason on any subject which he investigated. He appreciated the logic rather than the poetry of life. But, reason er though he was, none recognised more plainly than he the limitations of human reason in dealing with the ultimate problems of religion. In the Bamp- ton Lectures he insists upon the value of a healthy agnos- ticism, and points out how we habitually use words like " time," " cause," " eternity," without any clear understanding of their meaning. 2 He encouraged all who came in contact with him to think, bidding them remember that the cause of truth could suffer no harm from honest inquiry. One of his chief objects was to promote a more intelligent study of Scripture ; and here the Essays on Some of the Diffi- culties in tfte Writings of St. Paul (1828) are characteristic of his general attitude. He examines in this volume the sig- nificance of a group of Pauline words and phrases, "election," i Cp. his Hampton Lectures, 1822, The Use and Abuse of Party Feeling in Matters of Religion. Cp. Lecture vi. IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 97 " imputed righteousness," " law and grace," and the like, which had gradually acquired a theological meaning far removed from that of the original, and had been made centres of con- troversy; with the result, that men received the impression that the Epistles, if not Scripture as a whole, were a mass of puzzles. Whately urges the necessity of studying the general drift and design of each Biblical writer. Isolated texts or passages could be made to mean anything. The student must come to the Bible with an unprejudiced mind. Above all, he must not expect to find in it a scientific or systematic exposition of doctrine. Scripture, he tells us, possesses no technical vocabulary, and does not always give the same meaning to a term. 1 With Hampden, he points out that the teaching of the Bible is practical, not speculative, in tendency. 2 As we should expect, he holds a view of inspiration broader than that which was generally current. Some parts of Scrip- ture, he insists, have not the character of revelation ; many of its historical statements, for example, are of little import- ance. And it is no function of a true revelation to anticipate the discoveries of geology or astronomy. 3 It was Whately's mission to make men think about their religion, and to strip the truth of the conventionalities with which popular theology had clothed it. Superstition of any kind he could not tolerate, and no man had a keener eye for " the falsehood of extremes." German rationalism inspired his dislike as much as Tractarian- ism. That his writings are not much read to-day is doubtless due to the fact that they were called forth by the circum- stances of his time, and so served a temporary purpose. 4 But that purpose was one of high importance for a generation which was just beginning to feel the pressure of new ways of thinking, and witnessed in the Oxford Movement a de- liberate attempt to suppress liberalism in theology. Whately's opposition to the Tractarians was mainly due to their use of the principle of authority. Two results, he felt, flowed from their exaltation of the authority of tradition. An unintelligent faith took the place of reasonable belief based 1 Essay III. 3 Cp. Some Peculiarities of the Christian Religion, 1825 ; Essay IV (4th ed., 1837). 3 IMd., pp. 236-7. 4 Cp. Tulloch, Movements of Religious Thought, p. 53. G 98 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY upon an investigation of evidence ; and the study of Scripture, the true fount of authority, was neglected. 1 He regarded Tractarian teaching as having an infidel tendency, because it disparaged reason and inquiry. He criticised Coleridge for laying too much emphasis on internal evidence, the witness of the heart, and spoke of neglect of the study of evidences as one of the characteristics of the age. 2 He viewed with alarm the spread of Tractarianism, and published his Cautions for the Times (1853) to bring home to the popular mind the dangerous character of the movement. His biographer says of him: " Generally speaking, Whately occupied an intermediate posi- tion between the high dogmatic school in the Church, and the school which refines away dogma into mere sentiment." But there is evidence, I think, that his ecclesiastical opinions under- went a change, and that his later views upon the Church and its authority were not so pronounced as his earlier. In Letters on the Church: By an Episcopalian (1826) 3 he defines the Church as " a body-corporate, of divine institution," approves of the doctrine of Apostolical Succession in so far as it witnesses to the principle of delegation of authority, and emphasizes the disciplinary right of the Church over those who voluntarily enrol themselves as its members. 4 He advocates the complete separation of Church and State, maintaining that no alliance between the two is possible without a violation of the con- ditions which Christ laid down for His spiritual kingdom. 5 As a Church, he says, we ask nothing of the State, but "to let us alone." To the end of his life he remained in favour of Disestablishment, but without disendowment. In 1839, how- ever, we find him arguing that Scripture lays down no direc- tions for the formal organisation of any Christian Society, but merely sets forth the great principles hi the light of which Christians in all ages might group themselves into societies.* " The Church is undoubtedly one, and so is the Human Race 1 Cautions for the Times, Nos. xi. and xv. 3 Life and Correspondence of Richard WTuttely, by E. Jane Whately, 1866, vol. ii. pp. 154-5. 3 Whately never admitted or denied the authorship of this book ; but there is no doubt that it is his. * Letter iii. 6 Letter iv. Cp. note A to Essay III in Essays on some of the Dangert to Cliristian Faith, which may arise from the Teaching or the Conduct of its Professors, IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 99 one; but not as a Society." The unity of the Church is a unity, based, not on an identity of organisation, but on the acceptance of common principles. "It is one Society only when considered in its future existence." l What, he asks, is the Universal Church ? Where are its decisions ? What are its constituted organs for making such decisions? There is no one community on earth, he answers, which has any claim to be so recognised ; and at no time was the supremacy of any one Church universally acknowledged. " The Church," he says, is a term applicable only to the Jewish people, among whom the Church of God was one society. 2 In Cautions for the Times he criticises the Tractarian view of Apostolical Suc- cession, and asserts that Church government need not neces- sarily be episcopal. 3 He refuses to consider tradition as a fount of authority parallel to Scripture, and says that an appeal to the sanction of the Church adds nothing to the truth of any doctrine. Renn Dickson Hampden was another important member of the group. I question if justice has been done to his merits as a theologian. Dean Church, in The Oxford Movement, describes him as a confused thinker, who lacked the mental grasp neces- sary for handling so difficult a subject as that which he set himself to treat in his Bampton Lectures. 4 Such a verdict appears to me unfair. I shall hope to show that, however unclear some of his statements in the lectures may have been, Hampden displayed an insight into coming developments in 1 Cp. note A to Essay III in Essays on some of the Dangers to Christian Faith. 1 Ibid., cp. the following characteristic passage in Essay III, pp. 138, 139 : " If they shall say, Behold ! he is in the secret chambers (of some conclave or Council of Divines), or, Behold ! he is in the wilderness (inspiring some enthusiastic and disorderly pretender to a new light), go not after them. Whether they fix on this or on that particular Church as the abode of such inspired authority or on the Universal Church ; which, again, is to be marked out either as consisting of the 'numerical majority, or as the majority of those who lived within a certain (arbitrarily-fixed) period, or, a majority of the sound and orthodox believers, i.e. of those in agreement with the person who so de- signates them ; all these, in their varying opinions as to the seat of the supposed inspired authority, are alike in this ; that they are following no track marked out by Christ or His Apostles, but merely their own unauthorised conjectures. While one sets up a golden image in Bethel, and another in Dan, saying, ' These be thy gods, Israel I ' all are, in fact, ' going astray after their own inven- tions,' and ' worshipping the work of their own hands.' " s No. XT. * Chap. ix. 100 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY theology which justifies us in giving him a high place among the theologians of the century. A Whig in politics, Hampden must be classed as a liberal theologian, though he was a strong and decided Churchman. 1 With the storm of abuse and persecution which broke over his head on his appointment in 1836 to the Regius Professorship of Divinity in Oxford, and gathered again, when, eleven years later, he was nominated to the see of Hereford, we are not here directly concerned. The painful story may be read else- where. 2 Suffice it to say, that he was himself above all things a man of peace, and was deeply pained to find himself a centre of strife. Of no man were the words truer which were spoken by Dr. Hinds in the sermon preached at his consecration " the occasion of strife is not necessarily the cause of it." It is Hampden the thinker with whom we have to deal. The para- mount authority of Scripture was the ruling principle of his theology. In common with English theologians of his time, he held views as to the nature of inspiration which were far more rigid than those which obtain to-day ; but, when we have made that reservation, we must regard him as an advocate of free inquiry, as one who was not afraid to subject to criticism the dogmas of traditional theology. 3 His Bampton Lectures in 1832, the germs of which are to be found in two earlier publications, An Essay on the Philo- sophical Evidence of Christianity, and an article written for the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana on Thomas Aquinas and the Scholastic Philosophy, may be described as an attack on the excessive development of the dogmatic principle, and an attempt, in the light of the history of past theology, to determine the place and limits of dogma. He chose as his subject The Scholastic Philosophy considered in its Relation to Christian Theology , 4 and called the lectures an inquiry into the nature of theological terms. He sees in Scholasticism the final result of a method of reasoning which had dominated philosophy for 1 Cp. Archdeacon Clarke's recollections in Memorials of Bishop Hampden, by Henrietta Hampden, 1871. 1 E.g. in the Memorials, in Church's Oxford Movement, and Tuckwell's Pre- Tractarian Oxford. 3 He condemned, however, the teaching of Essays and Reviews; cp. his Charge of 1862, most of which is given in Memorials, chap. rx. * The references are to the 2nd edition, 1837. IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 101 a long period. The main point upon which he insists through- out is the necessity of distinguishing between Christian truth itself and the mode of its presentation. Christian truth is to be found in Scripture, and must be accepted as from God ; but the speculations and definitions of theology, necessary though they may be for the defence of the faith, are not to be considered essential parts of the divine revelation. " I insist on Scripture truth as distinct from Human truth the doctrines of God's word as distinct from the commandments of men." l Scholastic theology, he argues, made the fatal mistake of regarding revela- tion as a demonstrative science, a system of deductions from certain primary truths about God accepted by faith. Its maxim was, "that is true which is logically deducible from certain premises." Hence it delighted in abstractions and in spinning cobwebs. The intellect ran riot, with the result that authority had to be invoked to determine which of the logical develop- ments of the primitive belief were to be accepted. Theological terms, he tells us, are peculiarly liable to the abuse of being taken for the very truths themselves which they seek to define. They pass into popular speech, and are used without any thought of their meaning. It is forgotten that they are but symbols of truths which they can only imperfectly adumbrate. Hence arises logomachy, " that fruitful mother of controversy." Hampden's battle-cry is, "Back to the Scriptures; Scripture, not tradition." The Bible records facts, and facts are the only sure basis on which we can build. His language here, it must be confessed, is not always clear. In one passage he says that in Scripture there are no doctrines. 2 In another he includes doctrines under the head of facts. 3 What he seems to have meant was that dogmatic definition is not the object of Scripture, which has always a practical aim in view. Would St. Paul, he asks, have adopted the epistolary style if he had wished to communicate doctrine in scientific terms ? When the revelation was given to the Israelites, " Hear, Israel : the Lord our God is one Lord," it was not a speculative unity of the Godhead which was revealed, but a teaching which was to check the worship of the stars. He bids us note the immense difference between the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds. The one gives us facts, the others speculations. 1 P. 57. 2 P. 374. 3 P. 45. 102 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY Scripture doubtless contains the substance of the later doctrines and definitions, but it is Hampden's contention that the succes- sive creeds are not merely " the manhood and ripening " of the earlier truths. Discussion has given to them new forms, and, in the process of defining, extraneous matter has been added. 1 The difference between the New Testament and technical theology is that in the one you have divine truth, guaranteed by inspiration, in the other the human rendering of divine truth. 2 What, then, is the true nature and use of dogmatic theology ? Hampden discusses this question in the eighth lecture. He reaches the conclusion that, as dogmatic theology arose out of the necessity of meeting heresy, so it must be limited to the negative function of excluding all notions which have not the express sanction of Scripture. Here it is valuable as a philo- sophy of human Christianity, " of Christianity in the world, as it has been acted on by the force of the human intellect." Christian truth, coming into contact with various systems of human thought, was of necessity coloured by them. It was inevitable that attempts should be made to translate it into terms of these systems, and that the same process should continue in the future. The function of dogmatic theology is to guard the substance of the original deposit, and to see that in the process of translation the primitive revelation suffers no loss. That it had so suffered at the hands of the Schoolmen is Hampden's contention. It had been obscured and altered by over-definition. Scholastic philosophy, he says, lies between us and the immediate diffusion of truth from heaven as "an atmosphere of mist through which the early beams of the Divine Light have been transfused." 8 Dogmatic theology, again, serves as a bond of social union. What political institutions are to the social principles of our nature, that dogmatic theology is to Christianity. Dogma is necessary, because you must preserve from dissolution the common beliefs which are presupposed by the existence of any society of worshippers. The anathemas of creeds and councils are " the penalties of social religion." 4 The lectures aroused considerable interest, but it was not till four years after their delivery that Hampden's opponents 1 P. 33. 2 P. 357. s P. 8. * P. 383. IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 103 attacked them as heretical. In the interval Tractarianism had been gaining ground, and Hampden had issued the pamphlet in which he advocated the abolition of tests, and the admission of dissenters to the University. 1 He did so on the ground that Christianity was a matter of the heart, not of the intellect, and that theological opinion, as it was not Christianity, ought not to be made a bond of union among Christians. The publication of the pamphlet roused his foes. On his being offered the Regius Professorship of Divinity, they set on foot a violent agitation against the appointment, and did all they could to inflame public opinion. Newman published an Elucidation of Dr. Hampden' s Theological Statements, a work full of animus, in which, in the most unfair way, as Hampden's friends thought, sentences from the lectures were printed, torn from their context, and stripped of their qualifying safeguards. Pusey followed this up by a book in which he severely criticised Hampden's opinions, and showed what he conceived to be their dangerous tendency. 2 Hampden, while deeply hurt by this attack, and genuinely surprised that his teaching should be regarded as unorthodox, remained calm, devoted his inaugural lecture as Professor to an attempt to remove misunderstandings, 3 and set himself to write for the second edition of the lectures an introduction, in which he sought to explain to the public the real nature of his views. What estimate are we to take of the controversy as a whole, and of Hampden's merits as a theologian ? It is not surprising that the Tractarians singled him out for attack. He was the uncompromising opponent of the principles of tradition and Church authority which they were defending. It must be admitted, too, that there is truth in Dean Church's criticism, that the lectures contained sentiments and ideas which it was hard to reconcile with the main teaching of the volume ; and that Hampden seemed to think that, because the book abounded in orthodox statements, anything unorthodox in it should be overlooked. Church points out, in defending Newman, that Hampden's explanations of his position were given later. They 1 Observations on Religious Dissent, 1834. 1 Dr. Hampden's Theological Statements and the Thirty-nine Articles Compared. By a Resident Member of Convocation (1836). 1 For an account of the lecture cp. Arnold's article, " The Oxford Malig- nants," Edinburgh Review, April 1836. 104 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY were not in the lectures, and Newman's attack was therefore, he considers, justified. Again, there was soundness in Pusey's criticisms. He thought that Hampden had under-estimated the amount of definite dogma which the Bible contained ; and that he was wrong in treating the theology of the Fathers as identical with that of the Schoolmen. It is, I think, probable that Hampden read into the Fathers a completer scholasticism than they contain, and failed to do justice to their endeavours to balance a metaphysical by an ethical presentation of the truth. But none of these criticisms really detract from Hampden's true greatness as a theologian. The Hampden controversy belongs to the past, but the Bampton Lectures have a present value. Development is the sovereign conception of our modern thought, and our theology has taken a historical colour. The evolution of doctrine is one of the most living of modern theological problems, and it is this problem which is central in Hampden's volume. In a very real sense he may be called a prophet of coming tendencies. Investigation at the present time concerns itself increasingly with the attempt to estimate the influence upon Christianity of the varied environment in which it grew up. Hampden's demand for a greater simplicity of credal statement is echoed to-day from many quarters. It is not only that men have grown tired of logomachies, but rather that historical criticism has emphasized the distinction, which Hampden was never tired of enforcing, between truth as it is in the Bible, and the subsequent dogmatic forms in which it was clothed. Hampden had no intention to undermine Christian truth. He expressly states in the introduction to the second edition of the lectures that he leaves untouched the matter of Christian doctrine. But "he saw, as his opponents did not, that theology could only remain a living science if theologians were willing to recognise that, while the original truths of revelation stand unaltered, the intellectual presenta- tion of them must of necessity change with the changes of human thought and language. The University Sermons are concerned almost entirely with a criticism of Tractarianism, and the Romanism with which, as Hampden saw, it had such close affinities. In his opinion, the chief danger which threatened the Church of England was the erection of tradition into an authority parallel to Scripture, IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 105 and destined quickly to supersede it, as it gathered to itself an increasing sanctity, and wrapped itself in the mystery of antiquity. He points out how different are the notions of authority in the Roman and Anglican Churches. 1 When we quit the age of the Apostles, we leave behind us, he says, the period of divine authority. All later developments are to be tested by Scripture, and not Scripture by them. They may be re- garded as confirmations of the truth, but not as primary and fundamental evidence. 2 Insistence on the authority of tradition necessitates either a progressive interpretation of tradition, or the interposition of an arbiter whose decisions are final. Rome finds an arbiter in the Pope. Others fall back upon the authority of general councils. But why, asks Hampden, should conciliar verdicts be regarded as infallible ? 3 The Apostolic Fathers he would use as valuable witnesses of the essence and spirit of the Gospels, but he cannot allow that they are accurate expositors of what is true or false in theological statement. The fact that there was considerable latitude in the early usage of theological terms is enough to prove that antiquity as such is no unimpeachable guarantee of truth. 4 Least of all in matters of ritual and ceremony is antiquity to be taken as an authority. He deprecates the importance attached by the Tractarian to ritual, on the ground that forms and ceremonies are no part of the essential faith of a Christian, and that an excessive use of ritual may foster a morbid senti- mentality .5 Newman's theory of doctrinal development receives some penetrating criticism. 6 In opposition to all theories of development, Hampden maintains that the Church possessed from the first the truth as completely as it does now. The University Sermons are models of lucid statement, and testify abundantly to Hampden's orthodoxy. They prove his sincere attachment to the Church of England ; but they prove more. They prove that, just as he distinguished between theology and religion, so he emphasized the independence of spiritual religion from the outward embodiments of worship. 1 Sermon ix. ; cp. also his Lecture on Tradition, 1839. 2 Sermon ix. 8 Lecture on Tradition, p. 30. * In the Bampton Lectures he instances the use of "person," "nature," " substance." 5 Sermon x. ' Sermons ix. , xii., xiii. 106 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY Forms were things that changed and passed ; but the living reality of Christian experience remained. Of Thomas Arnold's work as an interpreter of Scripture I have written in a later chapter. It seemed to me to be the most natural method of procedure to discuss this side of his activity in connection with the story of the rise of Biblical criticism in England. Here I will only say that this is the sphere of his most abiding influence. He was more than a critic ; he was a prophet and interpreter, filled with a deep reverence for the Bible, and conscious of the permanent value of its varied religious message. The study of the Bible he held to be the proper end of scientific theology, and the best instrument for such study, next to the enlightened conscience, a good general education, and a knowledge of history. The lack of such education among the English clergy, and the isolation of theology from the larger currents of thought, he perpetually lamented. Arnold's liberalism, religious and political, was the liberalism of one whose whole soul was possessed by a vision of Christian unity. He was not a speculative theologian, nor, perhaps, a profound thinker ; but he was a man, all of whose aims and ambitions were controlled by a fervent loyalty to Christ. To bring all life under the dominance of Christ, to sanctify all its activities, to make the spirit of Christian discipleship an active power throughout the entire range of individual and national existence, was his supreme object. He had an intense hatred of party-spirit in religion ; the divisions among Christians pained him greatly. He felt that many of them could be removed, or, at any rate, could be treated as differences of opinion, not of principle. 1 His watchwords were " Christianity without Sectarianism," " Comprehension without Compromise." In the striving after a uniformity of dogmatic belief, he saw nothing but a principle of separation, 2 though he would impose the test 1 Op. Principles of Church Reform (1833) p. 272 of Miscellaneous Works (1845). 1 Cp. Stanley's The Life and Correspondence of Thomas Arnold, vol. i. p. 359, where, in a letter to Julius Hare, Arnold speaks of " the great philosophical and Christian truth, which seems to me the very truth of truths, that Christian unity and the perfection of Christ's Church are independent of theological articles of opinion ; consisting in a certain moral state, and moral aud religious affections, which have existed in good Christians of all ages and all communions, along with an infinitely varying proportion of truth and error." IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 107 of readiness to worship Christ on all who desired to be members of the enlarged national Church. He felt a difficulty about the admission of Unitarians to the Christian society, but was con- tent, if they were willing to join in the worship of Christ, not to press them to define what they meant by calling Christ God. Conformity to the Liturgy he regarded as a better test than subscription to the Articles. Formulae should not " serve as a test of any latent error," but should be as comprehensive as possible. 1 As to the relation between the Church and the State, he held that the ideal of each fused with that of the other, and that the highest perfection of both involved an identity between them. Both Church and State, he writes, exist to promote happiness and improvement among men. Religious society has the higher knowledge of what true happiness is. Let that knowledge be imparted to civil society, and the aims of each will be, in fact as well as in intention, identical. A Christian State, he argues, ought to act on Christian principles. Its officers should regard themselves as being in a very real sense Christian ministers, and should have power, in the absence of the clergy, to administer the sacraments and read the services of public worship. Dissenters, if they would accept episcopal government, ought to be admitted within the national Church. He would have the clergy sitting in both houses of Parliament. He welcomed with all his soul anything which broke down the barrier between the clergy and the laity. The fatal obstacle to any such identity between Church and State as he desired he held to be the belief in a peculiar form of government existing in the Church jure divino, and there- fore incapable of modification, 2 His own view was that the unity of the Church was a unity of principle, not of organisa- tion. He valued highly the principle of an establishment, seeing in the existence of an established Church the only security for the presence throughout the land of an adequate body of well-educated men, " whose sole business is to do good of the highest kind." 3 Among the changes which he advocated, 1 Principles of Church Reform p. 285 of Miscellaneous Works. 2 The State and the Church p. 472 of Miscellaneous Works. 8 For Arnold's views as to the relation of Church and State, cp. the following in Miscellaneous Works; Principles of Church Reform; Letters to the Sheffield Courant, ii. and xii. ; Letters to the Hertford Reformer, on " The State 108 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY as likely to make the Church more popular and efficient, were, an increase in the number of dioceses, the admission of laymen to greater administrative authority in matters ecclesiastical, more variety in our forms of worship, the use of churches on week-days, and the revival of an inferior order of deacons for the ministry, which he thought would provide a link between the clergy and the laity. All these proposals have, in our time, been adopted. The pamphlet, Principles of Church Reform, created an immense sensation, but met with far more condemnation than approval. It is worth while to quote Arnold's own words in reply to the charge of indiscretion which was brought against him: " I am quite ready to allow, that to publish such a pamphlet in 1840, or indeed at any period since 1834, would have been the height of indiscretion. But I wrote that pamphlet in 1833, when most men myself among the number had an exag- gerated impression of the strength of the movement party, and of the changes which it was likely to effect. My pamphlet was written on the supposition not implied but expressed repeatedly that the Church Establishment was in extreme danger ; and therefore I proposed remedies which, although I do still sincerely believe them to be in themselves right and good, yet would be manifestly chimerical, and to advise them might well be called indiscreet, had not the danger and alarm, as I supposed, been imminent. I mistook, undoubtedly, both the strength and intenseness of the movement, and the weakness of the party opposed to it; but I do not think that I was singular in my error many persisted in it." x Tractarianism was the object of his vehement scorn and hatred. He saw clearly that Apostolical Succession was the central doctrine of the system. In opposition to it, he argued that " bishops confer a Legal qualification for the ministry, not a real one, whether natural or supernatural." 2 The Oxford Movement meant for him the erection of the clergy into a and the Church" and "Church Establishments," 1838 and 1840. Also the following letters in the Life and Correspondence, Nos. 20, 40, C5, 97, 152, 168, 197, 216. 1 Life and Correspondence, vol. i. p. 293. 1 Principles of Church Reform p. 329 of Miscellaneous Works ; cp. also in Life, letter 130. IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 109 separate caste, and the abandonment of all which English Pro- testantism held dear. The Tractarian appeal to antiquity he felt to be essentially unhistorical, because it did not go back to the first century, but made the fourth the final standard of refer- ence. It was, further, a contradiction of the teaching of the great Anglican divines, Hooker, Taylor, Bull, Pearson; nor could it be said that those who made the appeal were clear as to the nature or source of the authority which they invoked. 1 The hardest blow which he delivered against the Tractarians (the "Judaizers" of the nineteenth century) was the article in the Edinburgh Review, written to defend Hampden from Newman's attack. 2 Arnold, as I have said, was not a speculative theologian. Early in life he felt difficulties over the doctrine of the Trinity, 3 and, though he was able to overcome them before his ordination, he remained to the end averse from attempts to go beyond the language of Scripture in defining the being of God, and regarded as presumptuous the definitions of the Athanasian Creed. The revelation of God in Christ completely satisfied him ; he was not concerned to translate it into metaphysics. Hence arose his dislike of Articles of Religion which he felt presented truth in an abstract guise, and so robbed it of its living power. The same truth " embodied in prayers, or confessions, or even in catechisms, becomes more Christian, just in proportion as it is less theological." 4 He did not consider that his scheme for 1 His views on Tractarianism may be found in the Introduction to the volume of sermons, Christian Life, its Course, its Hindrances, and its Helps, and in the Appendix to Sermon xi. of volume iii. of Sermons, where he discusses Priest- hood. Also in the Life and Correspondence, Letters 63, 111, 115, 130, 134, 187, 232. 2 The following is an extract from the article: "The fanaticism of the English High Churchman has been the fanaticism of mere foolery. A dress, a ritual, a name, a ceremony ; a technical phraseology ; the superstition of a priesthood, without its power ; the form of episcopal government, without the substance ; a system imperfect and paralysed, not independent, not sovereign ; afraid to cast off the subjection against which it is perpetually murmuring. Such are the objects of High Church fanaticism objects so pitiful, that, if gained ever so completely, they would make no man the wiser or the better, they would lead to no good, intellectual, moral, or spiritual to no effect, social or religious, except to the changing of sense into silliness, and holiness of heart and life into formality and hypocrisy." 3 Life and Correspondence, vol. i. p. 22. 4 2bid.,vol i. p. 317. 110 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY Church reform had any tendency toward latitudinarianism in belief. On the contrary, he thought that it would lead to greater unity and strictness in regard to the doctrines which he held to constitute the essence of the Gospel, doctrines, that is, which related to the disposition and dealings of God toward man, and man's consequent duties to God. 1 In revelation he did not look to find abstract theological truth, but rather lessons of practical conduct. He objected to the damnatory clauses in the Athanasian Creed, and wished to see the use of the Creed as a whole in public worship discarded. 2 Of subscription he wrote that all subscriptions "miist be taken in their widest rather than their strictest sense, except on points where they were especially intended to be stringent, and to express the opposite of some suspected opinion." 3 He would allow any one to subscribe who was "in sympathy with the Church in its main faith and feelings." 4 Leaving out of account the very important influence which Arnold exercised in promoting a more intelligent study of the Bible, we may say of him, that he lives in the story of the nineteenth century mainly because of his character. Newman's question, " but is he a Christian ? " was an atrocious libel on a man whose whole life was an act of loyalty to Christ. Chris- tianity for Arnold was, first and foremost, a way of life, a moral discipline. It was not given to him to revivify a theology, grown stale with convention, by deeper thought of the specu- lative order; the road which he trod was practical. But for many he did rekindle religion, by showing how the Christian spirit could be made to pervade the whole of life, and how the sectarian temper was a contradiction of the Gospel. He studiously avoided using the customary phraseology of reli- gious circles or the shibboleths of ecclesiastical parties. These were for him marks of division. His aim was to unite Chris- tians by bringing them face to face with the truth as it is in Christ. The Noetic spirit of inquiry and historical research was active in two men, Thirlwall and Milman, who, though they were not members of the Oriel group, may fairly be classed with it. Arnold died in 1842 ; Whately in 1863 ; Thirlwall not 1 Life and Correspondence, vol. i. p. 319. * Ibid., vol. ii. p. 120. 1 Ibid., vol. ii. p. 120. * Ibid., vol. ii. p. 173. IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 111 till 1874, after an episcopate as Bishop of St. David's of thirty- four years. Much therefore of the history of Thirl wall's theo- logical opinions belongs to a period later than that now under consideration. What concerns us here is his early liberalism, which entitles him, though he belonged to the sister University of Cambridge, 1 to be ranked with those Oxford theologians who were trying to effect a synthesis between traditional theo- logy and the broader spirit of progress. Thirlwall's mind was cast in a wider mould than that of Whately, but between the two are marked resemblances. Both possessed the power of critical analysis, both made the same appeal to the dispas- sionate arbitrament of reason. But Thirlwall had in fuller degree the synoptic faculty. He could take in all sides of an argument, and hold the balance evenly between them. One has only to read his numerous Charges to see how immense was his learning, how remarkable his power of lucid presen- tation, how unflinching his impartiality. Those Charges, as his biographer points out, are really a comprehensive review, invaluable to any student of ecclesiastical history, of all the great questions which agitated the Church of England in the middle portion of the nineteenth century. 2 Educated for the profession of the law before he took holy orders, he brought to his work as a theologian that legal acumen and judicial temper which, had he remained in his original calling, would assuredly have placed him on the bench of judges. He was still a layman when, in 1825, he published his translation of Schleiermacher's Essay on St. Luke, The fact that he dared in the existing state of opinion to translate the essay proved him to be fearless when others were painfully timid; while his Introduction to the essay showed that he had reached views as to the nature of inspiration which were an immense advance on the current traditional theory. 3 He was one of the very few English scholars of the day who possessed a knowledge of the German language and German theology. He had visited Germany, and had made the ac- 1 He was assistant tutor at Trinity 1832-34, resigning his post because of some difficulties caused by his publication of a pamphlet on the admission of dissenters to the University. 2 Literary and Theological Remains of Connop Thirlwall, 3 vols., 1877, edited by Perowne. 3 For a fuller account of this book, cp. ch. x. of this volume. 112 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY quaintance of Bunsen. His interest in Biblical studies was increased by his friendship with Julius Hare, the co-translator with himself of Niebuhr's History of Rome. His intellectual sympathies were large and varied, but for Hegel he had a profound disliking and contempt. " One of the most impudent of all literary quacks" is the description which he gives of him. 1 He saw clearly enough that Hegelianism, though it might pose as such, and indeed was originally welcomed as such, was no friend to Christianity as the Church understood it. But the violent denunciation of the Hegelian system, which is repeated several times in his correspondence, makes us feel that he had failed to appreciate the debt which the philosophy of history owes to Hegel. Thirlwall's attitude to Tractarianism was less hostile than that of the Oxford liberals. In the Charge delivered in 1842 he questions whether the doctrines advanced by the Tractarians are, as a whole, such as to place them outside the limits of the Church of England. The controversy, he points out, is an old one, and the comprehensive character of the Church rendered its recurrence inevitable. Later Charges deal with the development of Biblical criticism, and with the dangerous tendency, as he deemed it, of Essays and Reviews. But though he condemned the essayists, he never sought to check the free expression of opinion or the spirit of inquiry. He saw how fatal was the mistake which English theologians were making, when they tried to conceal from the public the results reached by criticism in Germany. 2 With intellectual endowments very different from those of Whately, or Thirlwall, or Hampden, Henry Hart Milman may still be placed within the circle of the Noetic brotherhood, because of the spirit of historical criticism which animated him. He was not, perhaps, a historian of the first rank, yet the indefinable quality of genius clings to his historical writings. His powers were of the literary order. He had the gift of style and picturesque expression, and an imaginative sympathy which enabled him to call up and interpret a past epoch of history. His Bampton Lectures in 1827 gave no indication of 1 Letters Literary and Theological of Connop ThirlvxiU t 1881, edited by Perowne and Stokes. Ibid., p. 175. IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 113 the disturbance which he was to cause two years later in ecclesiastical circles. 1 They followed the lines of Paley's apologetic, and reached the orthodox conclusion that miracles are an essential part of Christianity, and cannot, with any show of reason, be removed from the New Testament narratives. In 1829, however, his History of the Jews appeared in three small volumes of the Family Library Series, and so great was the commotion aroused by them that the publisher had to suspend the issue of the book. Criticism to-day would endorse all that Milman said in this work ; what were then startling conclusions are now commonplaces. But in the third decade of the century public opinion was not prepared for the applica- tion to the narratives of the Old Testament of the ordinary methods of historical criticism. Sacred history was regarded as something apart ; it was held to be profanation to treat it as you would treat secular history. Milman suggested that a natural explanation might be found of many incidents in the Old Testament which tradition unquestioningly accepted as supernatural. For example, the angel who destroyed Senna- cherib's host may have been a pestilential wind; Sodom and Gomorrah, built on a bituminous soil, may have perished in a natural conflagration. The story in Joshua of the sun and moon standing still was poetry, not fact. The Biblical numbers were obviously exaggerated, and Biblical chronology was un- trustworthy. Milman's object, however, was not to destroy faith, but rather to quicken it by bringing the story of the Hebrew people "within the sphere of fact, rather than of pulpit convention." 2 His imaginative sympathy enabled him to portray with remarkable vividness the characters and scenes of the Old Testament. Here were living men and women of flesh and blood like our own. Here was a pulsing national life, full of instructive lessons for the world, but which could never be understood if the traditional view of inspiration continued. Milman was charged with denying the supernatural and mini- mising revelation. The charge was true to this extent, that it was his aim to distinguish between what was essential in religion and what was local and temporary. Current orthodoxy 1 The title was The Character and Conduct of the Apostles Considered as Evidence of Christianity. 1 Cp. Tulloch, Movements of Religious Thought in Britain, p. 82. H 114 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY refused to make that distinction, and so found itself in conflict with historical criticism. But Milman never impugned the spiritual greatness of the Bible, or denied that the religious message of its writers was due to inspiration. His was no naturalistic creed. But while his opponents pinned their faith to tradition, Milman was filled with the spirit of inquiry, and saw that criticism had reached results which were fatal to the unthinking orthodoxy of the day. The History of Latin Christianity was his greatest achievement. The conclusion of it fitly expresses his philosophy of faith. He speaks of the passing away of dogmatic systems, and of the " wider interpre- tation" of parts of the Bible which will have to be made, if its teaching is to be harmonised with new knowledge and the con- clusions of science; but clings to the conviction that "the primal and indefeasible truths of Christianity" will abide, and that, as humanity progresses, its understanding of the truth, as it is in Christ, will become clearer and fuller. A common ideal, then, inspired all the members of this group. They stood for freedom of inquiry and a progressive theology. They brought historical criticism to bear upon traditional orthodoxy, and in particular upon current beliefs relating to the Bible. They wished to disentangle the essence of Christianity from its local and temporary setting. They were a party of movement and reform, and exercised a strong, general, liberalising influence. Tractarianism for the moment seemed to carry all before it, but the triumph of the forces of reaction was short-lived. The seed sown by these men had germinated, and was later to produce an abundant harvest. From the vantage-ground of to-day we can look back on their work, and hail them as prophets of the coming change which was to revolutionise theology. CHAPTER VII SPIRITUAL FORCES OF THE CENTURY (1) THE HISTORICAL METHOD AMONG the new influences which were to shape the thought of the nineteenth century, the foremost place must be given to the historical method, of which the comparative method may be regarded as a branch. The eighteenth century witnessed the birth of this method at the hands of Lessing and Herder, but it was the following century which fashioned it into a powerful instrument of critical research, and showed how by its aid the long story of humanity's development might be rendered more intelligible. I have tried at the end of this section to distinguish some of the different meanings which the phrase " historical method " may convey. Meanwhile, speaking generally, we may describe the method as genetic. It seeks to understand the subject under investigation by tracing out its history. It recognises that the present carries within itself whatever was vital in the past, and will in its turn be the parent of the future. Its outlook is organic. The hiatus, the sharp interval, it cannot tolerate. Its thought is of continuity, living connection, slow transformation of one stage of a process into the next. It wishes to discover in the field of history the connection of cause and effect. It conceives of any given society as an organism, with its own laws of growth which it aims at eluci- dating. It seeks to penetrate to the fundamental principles of sociological change. The early historian, Herodotus for example, was a literary artist rather than a scientific investi- gator. He gave you a series of pictures or descriptions of events, adding to them certain moral and philosophical reflec- tions, often through the medium of imaginary speeches put into the mouths of his chief characters ; but he never realised either the complexity or depth of the forces which moulded 116 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY the life of a society. This deeper insight could come only with increased knowledge, such as the primitive historian had no means of obtaining, and with the reflection which such knowledge called forth. The historical method, then, refuses to treat any event in isolation. Each wins significance from, and is to be explained by, its relation to other events. But the search for continuity reveals the vastness of the interconnection. Existence forms one whole, and the ideal for knowledge presents itself as the ideal of a system in which all the parts shall be so related as to form a unity. For example, the history of any single nation must be studied in relation to the history of all other nations ; and thus is born the thought of universal history. The development is of humanity as a whole, whose story stretches far back into a dimly discerned past, and looks forward into a future which none can measure. This conception of the unity of mankind began to come into prominence in the latter half of the eighteenth century ; and with it arose the problem of showing how all the manifold varieties of human culture and civilisation were correlated expressions of the one under- lying and growing spirit of humanity. The historical method arose in reaction against the abstract and artificial manner of writing history prevalent in the eighteenth century. The rationalism of that age was content to move lightly over the surface of events, without caring to explore the deeper causes of change and movement. The writing of history became a matter of the use of abstract formulae, or shallow generalisations. Of a true, sympathetic feeling for the past there was little or none ; the past, in fact, was often frankly despised. But the historical method revived the feeling for the past, though it was itself in part created by it. Men began to realise that the past was not entirely past, but was active in a present which had absorbed all that was living in it. A regressive, historical sympathy henceforward became part of the necessary equipment of the historian. As the method grew, its character underwent a change. It became less philosophical, and more truly historical. It began to acquire the temper of exact research. One of Lessing's chief interests was the philosophy of history. He made it clear, once and for all, that, if history is to be really understood, 117 there must be a philosophy of history. But a philosophical insight into the significance of history requires as its basis the work of the scholar and researcher. There must be the patient analysis of detail, the collecting of facts, the recovery of the past in its living interest and incident, before the larger generalisation can be effective. Now it so happened that in Germany, just when the historical method was being adopted, a brilliant epoch of speculative philosophy was in full develop- ment. Speculation carried all before it. Theory tended to leave fact behind. True historical research had difficulty in asserting itself. Particularly noticeable was the influence of speculation in theology, when the historical facts of Christianity were in danger of being either altogether neglected or translated into ideas. But the needed reaction came. The destructive criticism of Strauss set men upon the task of recovering the historical Christ. Theology became historical. A genuine scientific criticism was applied to the documents of Christianity. The investigator began to understand more clearly the scope and value of the method which he was employing. Every department of inquiry felt the impulse of the new movement. The growth of the historical spirit meant the birth and rapid development of the historical sciences dealing with man. An- thropology, ethics, comparative religion, racial psychology, the study of language, all took on a historical colouring, and yielded a rich harvest of results. The most important effect of the method upon theology has been the creation of the science of Biblical criticism, which has profoundly modified our conceptions of revelation and inspiration, and has given a new meaning to the authority of Scripture. It is probably here that the method has most influenced the public mind. But it has also, because it is a genetic method, led men to investigate the origin and development of the whole Christian system. Ecclesiastical organisations, institutions, ritual, doctrine, all have had a history which must be discovered if their significance is to be understood. What was primitive Christianity ? How much colour did the religion take from the successive environ- ments in which it grew up ? Has all the growth of Christianity been sound, or are there elements in it which should be dis- carded ? That type of question at once emerges as a result of the use of this method. For the method is, by its very nature, one 118 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY of criticism. It involves a criticism of the present in the light of the past, and of the past in the light of the present. It is something more than a method of mere description. The search into the past of any doctrine or institution is undertaken not merely in order that the stages of their development may be set out in their temporal sequence, but in order that their meaning may be made clear through their history. The results reached by an investigation into the past history of a belief are used, and must inevitably be used, to test the validity of the belief. For example, if the historian investigates the history of the doctrine of the Real Presence in the eucharist, his work will have two results. It will show what various views have been held in the past, or are held in the present, about the belief; and it will help us to-day to decide what meaning we ought to attach to the belief, and whether a given view has justification or not. The two processes the descriptive and the critical differ in kind, but they are necessarily associated in our minds. The one furnishes materials for the other. The history of any development carries with it a criticism of the development. 1 Much still remains for the historical method to do hi the field of Christian theology in the fuller discovery, for example, of the backgrounds, Jewish and pagan, against which Chris- tianity appeared ; in the investigation of documentary sources and of the early developments of ecclesiastical organisations ; in the determination of the part played by non-Christian thought in the formation of Christian doctrine. The conflict is not yet over between the claims of the method and the spirit of dogmatism, which would exempt from criticism certain theological areas, or canonise certain centuries of Church life and thought, as supplying for all time the standard to which doctrine and organisation must conform. But the past triumphs of the method are the surest proof of its ultimate success. The spirit of a true historical criticism, once aroused, can never be suppressed. It is important to point out how the method affects the notion of authority. The conception underlying the method 1 My point is, that, though a valid logical distinction may be made between an inquiry into origins and an inquiry into meaning, it is a mistake to treat the historical method as if it were one of pure description only. IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 119 is that of organic development, in which the past is ever being taken up into, and transcended by, the present. This is equi- valent to saying that the present must always be the critic of the past, and that the past can never be imposed upon the present as an authoritative arbiter or standard. The historical method recognises the principle of authority, but in the form of the authority of an organic reason, whose verdicts are them- selves constantly liable to revision in the light of growing knowledge and experience. The authority of the dictator, of the Papal ipse dixit, of the Church Council, regarded as an independent principle, falls to the ground before the claims of the historical method. Its place is taken by the conception of the authority of history itself an authority not absolute or final, but progressive, and limited by the immanent criticism which the movement of events constantly furnishes. At one point the method early came into collision with theology. Its claim to interpret history causally and genetically implies the abandonment of the customary antithesis between the natural and the supernatural. The scientific historian feels that he is untrue to his ideal if he excludes any part of history from the operation of the natural forces which govern all histo- rical movements. Traditional theology singled out a particular race and country, and asserted that here was a sphere in which the divine activity worked supernaturally by miracle or special intervention, and that only by conceding this could you explain the history of the Jews or their peculiar religious achievement. But religion for the historical method is, equally with art or poetry, an expression of the common spirit and character of the race, and must be interpreted by reference to the general con- ditions, physical, moral, social, political, under which the race developed. Exclude all thought of God, and then all becomes natural. Include God, with Lessing, and then all becomes supernatural. The demand, in other words, is for a self-con- tained whole, developing by its own inherent powers, and the rejection of the hypothesis of an intermittent divine agency in the background, whose operation could always be invoked to explain something which seemed inexplicable by natural causes. The historical method, as an instrument of strict scientific research, can come to no terms with the belief in an irregular or occasional supernatural activity. It is a problem for philo- 120 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY sophy whether any reconciliation is possible between theology and the method in this regard. The method, inspired as we have seen, by the idea of con- tinuity, seeks to bind past and present into one. The unity of mankind it conceives as a developing unity. In the thought of evolution it finds the principle which enables it to link together phases of human history which at first sight seem to have little connection with each other, and to bridge the gap which separates primitive from modern civilisation. The story of humanity is read as a process in which, though not without movements of retrogression, there is a gradual passage to richer and fuller life. The conception of evolution had established itself before it received such abundant illustration in biology at the hands of Darwin. Goethe and Schelling had applied it to science, and it was the master-thought of the whole Hegelian philosophy. But it was immensely reinforced when, after the publication of the Origin of Species, it became the leading category of scientific research. This reinforcement was com- municated to the historical method which, being itself a genetic method, could not but gain from every extension of the prin- ciple of development. The historical method made the study of history scientific ; and the sciences themselves, learning from the method, applied the thought of evolution to their own past history. Scientific and historical investigation, informed by the common conception of development, followed parallel paths. The intellectual record of the nineteenth century is one of the growing sovereignty of the idea of evolution. The historical method however, valuable though it is as an instrument of research, is subject in its use to several limita- tions. Some mention must be made of these in order that we may more clearly understand the nature of the method and its bearing upon the central problem of Christian theology. In the first place, then, each department of historical inquiry requires its own special application of the method. Develop- ment is a comprehensive term which covers many diverse processes. Just as evolution in history is not to be explained by the same categories which explain evolution in plant or animal life, so within the sphere of history proper the dif- ferent fields of human activity will need the application of different principles of interpretation. In the second place, we IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 121 are dealing in history with free, self-conscious beings, capable of forming ideals which they seek to realise. Now the question arises whether the historical method can explain the origin and presence of ideals. The method, as usually understood, concerns itself with tracing the development of external factors and conditions. It seeks to show how the present has grown out of the past ; how out of the simple, as it is deemed to be, the complex has arisen. But the action at every stage of the process of free, self-conscious beings, who frame the ideals which, at any rate in part, govern the development of the process, intro- duces a factor which is not entirely amenable to strict scientific treatment. Personality, with all that it implies, can never be regarded as you would regard outward conditions of environ- ment. Ideals cannot be explained solely as the product of external circumstances. They are, at least in some degree, a spontaneous creation of the human spirit. The claim, there- fore, of the historical method to explain by tracing backward to antecedent conditions is one which calls for careful considera- tion. Philosophy, confronted with the claim, would qualify it in three respects. It would deny that the higher can be ex- plained by the lower, the complex by the simple. In point of time, what seems the simple may have preceded the complex. Unicellular organisms appeared upon the scene long before the vertebrates; the religion of the savage preceded the more developed faith of civilised man. But just because the higher has grown out of the lower, the lower must have contained in itself potentially all that has developed from it. What for history is simple, for philosophy is complex. In so far, there- fore, as the ideal of the historical method is to explain the higher by the lower which has preceded it in point of time, philosophy would say that such an ideal fails to do justice to the real meaning of a development. The procedure should rather be inverted. The lower should be interpreted in the light of the higher into which it has grown, and in which it finds its true significance. Secondly, philosophy would deny that the historical method can offer any explanation of a process taken as a whole. By the help of the method, the historian can trace out the threads of connection between past and present ; but of the significance of the total process, its meaning and value for thought, he can give no account. The " how " of the process 122 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY he can in part explain, but not the " why." To trace out, for example, the history of religion, while it enables us to under- stand the different forms which religion has taken and reveals the universality of religion in the story of mankind, does not satisfy the philosopher who wants to know what value he is to attach to the religious attitude in his final interpretation of reality. The philosophical problem lies deeper down than the historical, and remains to be answered after the historian has done his work. Thirdly, as has already been pointed out, philosophy would deny that the historical method can give any satisfactory account of the presence of ideals in history, except by voiding personality of its meaning and treating a person as being on the same level with an external force or factor. The importance of these considerations for theology is clear. The central problem in Christian theology is that of the creative Personality of Christ. How is He to be explained ? Can He be explained in terms of the antecedent forces of Jewish history ? Is not His personal influence the most important factor in the historical development of Christianity ? This was the problem which, as we shall see later, baffled Hegel and Strauss. It was Schleiermacher's fuller appreciation of it which makes his theology more satisfying than that of his rivals. The historical method rediscovered the historical Christ, but the rediscovery inevitably sets us thinking about the limitations of the method. This brief discussion suggests the desirability of trying, by way of summary and conclusion, to analyse in further detail the nature of the historical method. Under the common name are included operations which differ both in character and aim ; and the value which we attach to the method will depend upon the width or narrowness of our view of it. (a) The method may be regarded, first of all, as an instru- ment of scholarship and critical research. As such it has revolutionised learning. It has created the modern sciences of grammar and philology, has taught us how to make use of sources and documents, has provided, in a word, the critical apparatus necessary for the understanding of any past period of history or literature. Its triumphs in this field have been immense, particularly in the matter of Biblical study. IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 123 (6) But such critical and analytical labour is merely pre- liminary. If the past is to be recovered, more is needed than the temper of the pure researcher. An attempt must be made to appreciate the past, to revive its moving and concrete life. Here the personal quality of sympathetic imagination comes into play. Insight, vision, the power of interpretation are needed, before the empty stage of the past can be peopled once more with living forms. The method here becomes one of sympathetic, personal appreciation, and imaginative reconstruc- tion. The historian has to reproduce for the thought of the present the spirit of the past, its conscious and unconscious strivings. He has to make it live again before the eyes of his contemporaries. (c) Thirdly, the method may be regarded as a method of causal explanation, which traces out the links which bind past and present together, and discovers the nature of the forces which, operating through the past, have made the present what it is. Process and continuity are here the leading ideas in the mind of the historian. But at this point an opposition reveals itself among those who use the method. On the one hand, the claim is made, that, since the later stages of a process have developed out of the earlier, it is the earlier which must supply the standard for interpreting the process. The complex must be reduced to the simple, the whole resolved into its elements. On the other hand is the counter-claim, that in any process of growth we must look to the end, and not to the beginning, to what the growing thing has become, not to what it started from, for an explanation of the process. In the former case the method is one of analysis and abstraction ; in the latter, of synthesis and concretion. In the former the method has affinity with the methods of physical science ; in the latter with that of philosophy. Now both methods may truly be regarded as parts of the historical method. It is certainly possible, and perhaps it is customary, to treat the historical method merely as a method of analysis into beggarly elements, and to place all your emphasis upon it as an instrument of critical and scholarly research. But such a treatment over- looks the deeper significance of the method, and robs it of much of its value. The creators of the method, Lessing and Herder, used it as a method for the construction of the philo- 124 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY sophy of history. Both would have said, though Lessing certainly with greater emphasis, that, in tracing back a de- velopment to its germ, the fullness of its later stages must be taken as the standard by which the earlier stages are to be interpreted. Lessing's use of the method, in other words, is not open to the criticisms which philosophy must pass upon the method in its narrower meaning. (d) The method, then, in its most comprehensive aspect, is a historico-philosophical method, involving ideal elements of constructive thought and imagination. It runs up into the philosophy of history. It becomes teleological and interpre- tative. It seeks to determine the inner meaning of history, to find the goal towards which history moves, to bind past and present into a living unity of continuous growth, and discover the immanent reason and purpose of the whole. History, as we understand it to-day, is something more than a chrono- logical table of events. It is a study of laws, forces, tendencies, personalities, and rests upon the assumption that between past and present there is living continuity. Any historian who sets out to investigate a past epoch, with this larger ideal of in- vestigation before him, will find, if he examines the implications of the historical method, that it inevitably involves philo- sophical elements. This account of the method is, I am aware, in sharp opposi- tion to the claims put forward to-day by a powerful school of historical research to which a purely objective ideal com- mends itself. We may describe their aim by saying that they would get rid of the personal equation, and eliminate from their treatment of history all philosophical elements. They would carry over into historical study the spirit of exact, scientific research. Thus their object in studying any past epoch is to let the past be its own interpreter. They seek to free themselves from any influence which the standards or thought of the present may exercise, and to approach the past with a purely receptive mind. The unity of history is for- gotten ; we are given instead a series of epochs, each of which the historian endeavours to set before us by itself in in- dependence. Such an ideal of historical research is open to two classes of objections. In the first place, an attitude of pure objectivity is impossible to attain. The eye sees in the IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 125 past what it brings with it to see ; no historian can ever free himself entirely from the influence of subjective elements, as is proved by the presence of very different interpretations of the same period. Again, the historian must be in possession of some standards of valuation. His picture of the past is necessarily coloured by these standards ; his grouping of events implies the constant use of them. Once more, the very instrument by which he pictures for us the life of the past, the sympathetic imagination, is subjective through and through. In the second place, the ideal of a purely objective study voids not only personality, but all history of its meaning. Why do we study history ? Not merely that we may learn what hap- pened hi the past in its chronological sequence, but that we may understand the life and temper of our own time. A study of the past helps us to interpret the meaning of the present. It is the meaning, the spiritual significance, of our own age, which we wish to master. If the present without the past can afford insufficient material for an understanding of ourselves and our surroundings, it is no less true that the past, unless it be interpreted by the present, is a mere collection of happen- ings. The deeper life of the present must inevitably be weak- ened if history is treated as the objective school would treat it, and if no attempt is made to grasp the unity of the whole historical process. But where this attempt is made, it will be found impossible to free the historical method from philo- sophical implications. 1 The historical method, as an organic method, seeks not only to discover tendencies, but the co-operation and fusion of tendencies, the consilience of factors, the lines of convergence. It seeks to reflect in its own operation the oneness and inter- relationships of humanity. An organism is a living and growing unity, in which the whole may be said to be present in each of the parts, and in which each part is vitally connected with all the others ; which develops as a whole, and suggests the operation of an immanent purpose. The historical method strives to reproduce in its own movement something of the unity and concreteness of living growth. In particular (and for theology this is important) it strives to rise above any narrowly conceived antithesis of sacred and secular, natural 1 Cp. Eucken's Main Current of Modern Thought, D. 2. 126 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY and supernatural. The limited validity for certain purposes of such oppositions it may recognise, but its constant aim is to discover the higher unity in which they are overcome by being transcended. (e) Finally it must be remembered that the historical method is itself a growing method which is destined, as it perfects itself, to become increasingly powerful. Reference has already been made to the way in which the method, in opposition to the too speculative treatment of history by the philosophers, became critical, scholarly, comparative. The positive results reached by this more exact research have not only been immense in amount, but have reacted upon the method itself, helping it to make its aim clearer, and furnishing it with fresh instruments of discovery. That im- provement will continue. In addition, the method must gain from every advance made in our interpretation of the idea of evolution. The more we can make plain what development implies, the more clearly will the historian understand the meaning of process in history. The more will he learn to take what I have called an organic point of view ; recognising the living interaction of all the factors which make up history, and striving in his interpretation of any historical movement to do justice to their interconnection. A vision of unity gave birth to the method; a vision of unity is the ideal which still inspires it. ROMANTICISM Newman, in the Apologia, when describing the sources of the Oxford Movement, speaks of " a spirit afloat " as the back- ground of the religious revival. This spirit was Romanticism in the larger meaning of the term. It influenced many sides of human activity. Learning, philosophy, art, criticism, litera- ture, religion, all came under the spell of the new impulse, and blossomed into fresh life. Now a movement so complex as Romanticism cannot be described in a sentence. It includes tendencies very different in scope and character, some of which had important collateral results in branches of inquiry which at first sight seem to have little direct connection with the movement. For our present purpose, however, it is unneces- sary to attempt any full analysis of Romanticism, or any IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 127 description of its course. We are concerned only with the wider bearings of the movement, and with its effect upon English theology. For what, then, does Romanticism stand? In its origin it was a reaction against the over-dominance of classical standards in literature and art, and a protest against the intellectualism and rationalism of the eighteenth century. It was a plea for life, for freedom, for the claims of feeling and the spiritual nature. Little place was found in rationalism for sentiment, passion, emotion, or the spontaneity of the creative imagination. Human life was measured by intellectual standards ; logic reigned supreme. The temper of the eighteenth century, however, was not entirely rationalistic. The Pietists in Ger- many, and the leaders of the religious revival in England, Wesley and Whitefield, were emphasizing the importance of the part played by feeling in religion, and unquestionably helped to prepare the way for a general recognition that life is larger than intellect. But the movement, in its main advance, came not from religion, but from literature and philosophy. Once started on its career, it progressed with an impetus which nothing could withstand. We may distinguish in Romanticism the following notes : (a) It recognised the depth and largeness of human nature. Man, it taught, was not simply an intellectual being, but a creature of passion and emotion, of deep-seated instincts and forces, which help to govern him, even though he is not always aware of their presence. It was thus a protest against the prevailing tendency to starve half of human nature. In particular, it showed how in feeling fresh springs were ever welling up for the reanimation of the life of society and the individual. Of primary importance, in this connection, was the wider meaning which it gave to the term reason. Reason was not to be identified with mere reasoning, the logical or argumentative faculty. It was something larger a creative and unifying activity. It stood for man in the wholeness of his capacities and the oneness of his growth. It was to be distinguished from the narrower understanding. It represented the total movement of the personality. It drew the material for its constructive efforts from the whole range of human experience. 128 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY (6) Romanticism may be called the revival of the spirit of wonder, and of the appreciation of the element of mystery in man and nature. It gave birth to the sense of the infinite, to the vision of far horizons, of " that untravelled world " whose margin ever recedes as we approach it. In the inner circle of the Romantics this sense of mystery showed itself in two forms ; in a deliberate use of the element of the super- natural to heighten the effect of a situation, and to create the emotions of awe, terror, amazement ; and in the emphasis placed upon the sadness and melancholy of life. The stirrings within the human breast of a vague discontent, the feeling of the weariness of existence, the sighing for the unattainable, the sense of burden and despair, of life's pain and grief it was to themes such as these, that so many of the writers of the school gave prominence. On the other hand, as in Words- worth, it struck the note of joy and calm, born of the recognition that human life is bosomed in the life of an Eternal Spirit of perfection. But everywhere, whether the appeal is made to the sadness or the joyousness of life, there is in romantic writing the sense of mystery, of spiritual import, of the dim backgrounds of human existence. And in some members of the school this sense of mystery passed into mysticism, and generated a temper which found delight in what was vague and indefinite. (c) Romanticism laid stress upon the importance of the imagination. Reason and imagination were shown going hand in hand in their creative task. In the more advanced repre- sentatives of the movement imagination degenerated into the play of individual caprice and fancy, and tended to run riot in mere subjectivity. But its best efforts were soberer, and were often directed to a reconstruction of the past. To recover the life of the past, to bring it before the eyes and minds of men in all its incident and movement, was one of the prime objects of the romantic writers. In Germany they were aided in the achievement of this aim by the pressure of political events. The necessity of breaking the power of Napoleon, and the struggle for independence which ensued, helped to make Germany a nation, and to create the feeling of nationality. And with the birth of this feeling came the desire to investigate the past of the nation, and to understand its place and power IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 129 in the world. But imagination alone could not recover a for- gotten past. Knowledge, criticism, exact investigation were also needed ; and thus the scholar and researcher began their labours. Here Romanticism links itself with the historical and comparative methods; and all the sciences which deal with man, his speech, religion, literature, customs, start upon their fruitful career. Among the attractive treasures of the past was primitive poetry, the ballad, the folk-song, the lays of the soil and hearth. Herder was the first in Germany to explore this rich mine. The movement had begun in England by the publication of Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry and Macpherson's Ossian, both of which books influenced Herder. But Herder was the first to interpret the meaning of this primitive poetry, and to show its significance for thought. He saw that here you had the spontaneous utterance of a nation's life in its earliest stages, before it had become staled by convention ; and that its mythology, which was frequently expressed in poetical form, contained the key to many of the later problems con- nected with the nation's religious life. It was an easy and natural step to pass from the investigation of the past of a single nation to the investigation of the pasts of other nations, from the Niebelungenlied to the Sagas of the North, and to the hitherto unexplored poetry of India and the East. 1 Whole new worlds were thus opened for discovery ; and the study of primitive poetry widened into a study of the total life of early humanity. One epoch in the past, the Middle Ages, commanded special attention both in Germany and England. The rich life of medievalism provided Scott with much of the material which his genius so marvellously used in his historical novels. This interest in the Middle Ages had, as will be seen, important consequences for English theology. In Germany Romanticism came into closer relation with religion and theology than was the case in England. In both countries the stream of reli- gious revival set in the direction of Rome, but the English Romantics were not so definitely interested in the religious 1 Sir William Jones (1746-1794) was a pioneer in making known the thought of the East. He founded the Asiatic Society. A most important work was done also by F. Schlegel in his Sprache und Weisheit der Indier (1808). I 130 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY aspect of medisevalism as were such men as Tieck, Novalis, and F. Schlegel. A further point in connection with the romantic revival of the past must be mentioned. A tendency grew up, in some quarters, to imitate the past; not merely by an imaginative sympathy to recover its life, but to copy it with slavish fidelity. We shall discuss this tendency later in its bearing upon the development of theology hi England. All that need be said now is, that any attempt to put back the clock of history in this way is doomed to failure. The past does, indeed, yield materials for the present, but the present must use them freely for its own purposes, exercising the right of rejection as well as that of assimilation. The attempt to ape the past is but an irrational fancy of men who have lost the sense of what historical development means. (d) Another note of Romanticism is the creation of a sense of sympathy between man and nature. We can trace in English poetry the gradual rise of a new feeling for nature from the middle of the eighteenth century onwards. The method of conventional description is abandoned. Its place is taken by an increasing appreciation of external beauty, and a recognition of the spiritual ties which bind man and nature together. In the poetry of Wordsworth this recognition receives its fullest expression. For him nature is clothed with a religious significance. She is the home of the same Spirit who has not left Himself without witness in the human heart. Her beauty is a spiritual beauty. Even in her most common objects the seeing eye can trace a deep mystery and suggestiveness. We may say generally of romantic poetry, that it ceased to follow the fashion of treating nature as a mere accessory or background of external ornament to the life of man, but gave her a life of her own, and thought of that life as flowing out upon, and mixing with, human life. In Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, for example, the sea is some- thing far more than a mere setting to the story. The sea is alive, and its life passes into the lives of the men who sail upon it. This treatment of nature by Romanticism is of immense importance. It was part of a larger movement which, beginning in the eighteenth century, and gathering force in the nineteenth, was to bind man to nature with the closest IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 131 ties. Herder was insisting that the key to the historical development of mankind is to be found in the influence of physical surroundings. Schelling's Philosophy of Nature was a protest against treating man apart from nature. All existence, he taught, forms one whole: man is the crowning term of a long ascent, and cannot be understood except in relation to the whole. Finally, the biological doctrine of evolution enforced the same lesson, and showed that, whatever may be man's peculiar spiritual endowment, his physical nature looks back to an ancestry which begins with the dawn of life. The significance of this affinity between man and nature was interpreted in opposing ways. On the one hand, Naturalism reduced man to the level of nature, despiritualising him, and explaining him in terms of molecular process. On the other hand, Idealism insisted that the meaning of evolution was to be found in its final product. Spiritual man could not have developed from a merely material nature. Nature, therefore, must be read in terms of spirit. No issue in the whole thought of the nine- teenth century is of more importance than this struggle between Naturalism and Idealism. And though the romantic treatment of nature is capable of, and in fact often implied, a pantheistic interpretation, we may still fairly regard it as a valuable contribution to a philosophy which finds in mind and spirit the true significance of life and its development. The influence of Romanticism upon English theology is considered in later chapters of this volume, in those, for example, which deal with Coleridge and the Oxford Movement. Here I merely indicate in brief outline some of the directions in which that influence worked. Though, as will be seen later, there was that in Tractarianism which was in conflict with the essential spirit of Romanticism, there was also in the two movements much which was akin. The romantic temper, with its sense of mystery, lent itself naturally to sacramentalism in theology. The growth of ritualism in the Church of England was certainly in part an outcome of the romantic love of colour, movement, pageantry. To these influences must be added the awakening of interest in the past which characterised Romanticism and is clearly reflected in the Oxford Movement. It is in this movement 132 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY that the most obvious effects of Romanticism upon theology may be seen. But the most obvious influence is not always the most significant or abiding. In two other directions Romanticism worked a deeper change in English theology. In the first place, the study of religious psychology received from the movement an impetus which brought to it an entirely new life. Romanticism, as we have said, opened up a wider vision of human nature, revealed the presence within man of deep-seated instincts and aspirations, and showed that emotion played an important part in the conduct of life. Among the original constituents of human nature was found the instinct for religion. It made its presence felt from the first. It helped to create the mythology of primitive poetry. Man, ever since he had been man, had been feeling after God. Religion was proved to be natural to him ; it could not be explained as due to the artifice of power-loving priests. The religion made the priests, not the priests the religion. To trace the development of this primitive and universal factor in human nature became a study of the highest interest and importance. Feeling and emotion, again, were emphasized by the Romantics. This led on to fresh inquiry into the nature of faith, and into the parts played by feeling and reason respectively in the forma- tion of belief. Newman and Ward, whatever may be thought of the logic of their argument, made an important contribution to the psychology of religion. The Grammar of Assent was a fruit of that rediscovery of the inner life which Romanticism helped to effect. All through the nineteenth century can be traced a growing interest in the subject. Coleridge, after he had broken away from his early faith in empiricism and the associa- tionism of the Hartley school, preached the doctrine that man's spirit was the meeting-point of the divine and human, and had about it depths which no sensationalist philosophy could sound. Carlyle, Julius Hare, Maurice, taught a similar gospel. Each was concerned to show that the religious life of man was something profounder and more complex than the rationalism of the preceding century had imagined it to be. The impulse thus given toward the discovery of a truer psychology of religion has persisted, and to-day there are few inquiries of more generally acknowledged interest ; while most of those who have a right to speak upon the matter will be IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 133 ready to admit that religion is native to man, and that the verdict of religious experience is entitled to a respectful hearing in any attempt to construct a final philosophy of existence. In a second direction Romanticism has permanently influ- enced theology. It has, working here together with the historical method, called into being a new apologetic. The apologetic of the last half of the eighteenth century, and of the earlier years of the nineteenth, was narrowly evidential. The standing arguments were those from miracle and pro- phecy, or from the trustworthiness of the New Testament writers, as proved by their readiness to die for their beliefs. Elaborate schemes were drawn up in defence of Christianity. They were based upon a false theory of the inspiration of the Bible, were often dry and technical, requiring for their appre- ciation a detailed knowledge of the scriptural narratives. It was an apologetic which lacked a spiritual appeal. The newer apologetic, which, after it had received its initial impulse from Coleridge, gradually gathered force in England in the nine- teenth century, was very different in aim and method. It found in Christianity a message for the whole nature of man. The appeal to human needs and their satisfaction in Christ became a dominant feature of apologetic writings. The be- ginnings of this change in the temper of the apologists may be found, for example, in such a book as Chateaubriand's Le Genie du Christianisme. 1 The appeal which Chateaubriand makes to feeling and emotion is over-emphasized, and the apology is put forth in the interests of Roman Catholicism. But the writer recognises that the religious instinct is a fundamental part of man's being, and that his whole nature reaches out after some abiding spiritual satisfaction. The argument from prophecy, or, as we should rather say, from prophecy as detailed prediction, recedes into the back- ground when Biblical criticism begins to show the true char- acter of the prophet's work. Miracles are no longer regarded as the main evidence for the truth of Christianity. The greatest miracle of all is seen to be the Person of Christ, whose claim to be Way, Truth, and Life has been justified in the continuous experience of the Christian consciousness. 1 Cp. The Romantic Revolt, by C. E. Vaughan, pp. 424-426. 134 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY Another characteristic of the new apologetic was its con- ception of Christianity as the completion of all the partial revelations which had preceded it. The thought of a pro- gressive movement culminating in Christianity was most directly derived from the historical and comparative methods ; but Romanticism helped to bring about the change, by awaken- ing an interest in the past, and so leading men to investigate the early developments of religion. The apologist to-day no longer views Christianity in isolation. In the conception of a gradual revelation he finds a constructive principle of the profoundest significance which enables him, while he maintains the uniqueness of Christianity, to relate it to other faiths. Modern apologetic, then, lays a double stress upon the uni- versality of Christianity. It sees in it the consummation of earlier and less perfect faiths ; and, passing behind its local and temporary expressions, emphasizes those elements in its teaching which are universal in their range, and concern the common wants and aspirations of the human heart. CHAPTER VIII SPIRITUAL FORCES OF THE CENTURY (2) PHYSICAL SCIENCE THE sense of community in intellectual interests which now prevails in all civilised countries is, in no small degree, the creation of physical science. The triumphs which science has achieved are due to the use of exact methods of research. Such methods, by their very nature, leave no scope for the influence of those peculiarly personal or national modes of thought which inevitably colour the rise of a literature or a philosophy. A discovery made in one laboratory can be immediately tested hi all other laboratories ; while the practi- cal results of applied science upon human life and its ameliora- tion are available for the whole world. In science, more than in any other field of inquiry, exists the feeling of brotherhood and co-operation in a common task. In the early years of the nineteenth century scientific research was more organised on the Continent than was the case in England. There was nothing in England, till the for- mation in 1830 of the British Association, to correspond to the French Academy; and our universities were not so quick as those in Germany to recognise the claim of science to a place in the established curriculum of studies. Scientific thought up to the year 1830 looked to France as its natural home. The influence of the French mathematicians and naturalists was wide-spread and enduring. None called in question their title to supremacy. 1 This does not mean that England lagged behind the rest of the world in scientific discovery. She was, on the contrary, in the van of the advance ; but what was achieved here was achieved by the efforts of individuals, working for the most part alone, and without official support or encouragement. 1 Cp. Merz's History of European Thought in the Nineteenth Century, vol. ii. p. 751. 185 136 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY The closing years of the eighteenth century and the be- ginning of the nineteenth saw the foundations securely laid of almost every branch of physical science. The principles of Newton's teaching received their first thorough and systematic application when Laplace published between 1799 and 1825 his Mecanique Celeste. Comparative anatomy took organised shape under the hands of Cuvier. In 1803 Dalton propounded the atomic theory, having in the previous year enunciated the law of the expansion of gaseous fluids. Thomas Young in 1801 showed the undulatory character of light, and Davy began his discoveries in electro-chemistry. Lamarck was proving himself a prophet of the doctrine of evolution. Liebig by 1826 had demonstrated the importance of organic chemistry. Bichat's Recherches Physiologiques came out in 1800, and was followed a few years later by Sir Charles Bell's investigations into the anatomy of the brain, and his discovery of the differ- ence between the sensory and motor nervous mechanism. More exact methods began now to be applied to all physiolo- gical phenomena. Lyell, following in the footsteps of Hutton, was revolutionising geology, by substituting a uniformitarian theory for the older hypothesis of catastrophe. A little later the cellular theory of animal and plant organisation, announced respectively by Schwann and Schleiden, gave an entirely fresh direction to biological research ; while the investigations of Meckel and Von Baer called into being the new science of embryology. I have mentioned only a few of the landmarks in the new territory which science was conquering; but they are enough to show how great was the change which was coming over men's conception of organic and inorganic nature. Such a re- volution could not but affect theology. We shall best under- stand how it did so, if we begin by pointing out some of the common features of this scientific activity. First must be mentioned the desire to make science in- dependent, and to free it from all theological or metaphysical presuppositions. The prime object of the investigator was the discovery and frank statement of facts in their naked sim- plicity. Truth for truth's sake became, and has since remained, the scientific ideal. Secondly, scientific research was characterised by an IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 137 increasing use of the mathematical method of physics. An ideal of a thorough-going mechanical interpretation was set up, and it was boldly claimed that all the phenomena of life were amenable to mechanical treatment. As the century went on, the older theory of vitalism, which held the field in biology, was gradually displaced. The contrast between the organic and inorganic appeared so marked, and the behaviour of a living organism was so different from that of a machine, that it was felt that some special vital force or principle was opera- tive in the former which accounted for its peculiarities. But no one had been able to explain the nature of this vital force. It remained a mystery, which could be invoked whenever an investigator found himself in a difficulty. Now science cannot admit the legitimacy of such an appeal to the unknown. Her object is to explain what lies before her by the use of known principles and methods. The hypothesis of vitalism was accordingly banished, and the processes of life were subjected to a rigorous mechanical treatment. Biology adopted the methods of molecular physics. Similarly in physiology, mechanism became the guiding principle. Exact methods, involving the use of quantitative estimates and precise standards of measurement, were applied to physiological phenomena, and were found to be productive of important results. Even the life of mind was treated in the same way, consciousness being studied in relation to its brain basis. The science of physio- logical psychology arose, and sought to explain the inti- mate relation between the physical and the mental, by emphasizing the dependence of the latter upon the former. The triumphs achieved by this extension of mechanical cate- gories to the realm of life are the best justification of an attempt which seemed to many to be impious and over-daring. Whatever more they may be, living organisms, including men, are machines, when looked at from a certain point of view. Thirdly, the result of all this investigation was to bring into prominence the thought of the unity of the universe. Just as the spectroscope has revealed one chemistry of sun and stars and planets, so organic and inorganic were linked together as exhibiting the same fundamental molecular pro- cesses. Everywhere identical forces were seen to be operating. The doctrine of the conservation of energy became the guiding 138 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY principle of scientific research. The universe was conceived as a self-contained whole which possessed a fixed amount of energy. This energy underwent constant transformations and redistri- butions, owing to alterations in the collocation of material particles, but never suffered either increase or loss. The further science prosecuted its inquiries, the more extensive were found to be the uniformities of nature's working. "Nothing is that errs from law " became the creed of the man of science, who was inspired by the hope of being able to show that the whole universe was a gigantic mechanism, infinitely complex indeed, yet of one structure throughout, and interpretable in terms of measurable energy. We have now to consider some of the larger results of this development of physical science upon theology in England. The first was a state of war between the two disciplines, which continued, with varying degrees of intensity, until the closing years of the century brought about a truce, if not a measure of reconciliation, between the opponents. We may, perhaps, distinguish three stages in the conflict the earliest, when geology came into collision with the traditional view of the teaching of the book of Genesis ; the second, when the successful application of mechanical methods to physiology led to the rise of materialism ; the third, when Darwin published the Origin of Species, and the doctrine of evolution came into prominence. 1 For this conflict both science and theology were to blame ; science because, overstepping its limits, it began to construct metaphysical theories, and loudly proclaimed mate- rialism as the final philosophy; theology, because it clung blindly and unreasonably to traditional beliefs about the in- spiration of the Bible, which were indefensible in the light of modern knowledge. A truce between the two has now been effected, because it is recognised that the ideal of science is to explain the world from a certain point of view. The ideal is strictly limited, and the method of pursuing it is one which involves abstraction and an artificial simplification of the 1 The chronological limit of this first volume is 1860. The Origin of Species came oat in 1859. Bat I have thought it best to leave for the second volume any full discussion of the doctrine of evolution, and its effect upon English theology. It was not till the last third of the century that the influence of the new teaching was generally appreciated. IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY problem. For example, science treats a living organism as a machine. The man of science wishes to show that mecha- nical categories can successfully be used to explain the life of the organism, and that its activities can be expressed in terms of molecular physics. He is absolutely right to make the attempt, and to frame any hypothesis which he chooses about the organism. He simplifies his problem in this way, and so the more easily applies his mechanical methods. But the life of the organism may be regarded from other points of view with which science has no concern. Suppose it to be a man who is the subject of investigation. We all instinctively feel that man is a creature of moral value. But the concep- tion of value does not enter into science. Man possesses reason and self-consciousness. What conceivable application of quan- titative standards of energy can explain self-consciousness ? The life of mind is, doubtless, conditioned by the life of brain, and the latter science seeks to explain hi physical terms. But to mind itself the categories of physics are inapplicable. Once again, man, looked at in the light of evolution, is the crowning term of a long organic development. We think of him as higher, not only structurally, but ethically, than the forms below him. But that is an appreciation entirely foreign to the outlook of science. Science comes into conflict with theology only when it asserts that mechanical principles are the sole principles available for the explanation of the world, and denies the validity of other points of view. Science, it must be remembered, when it keeps within its self-appointed bounds, has nothing to do with ultimate problems. These are the province of metaphysics. The concern of science is with the "how" and not the "why" of the universe, and, further, with the " how " viewed only as a series of mechanically con- nected happenings. It abstracts from all other aspects of a problem, and looks at it simply as a problem in physics. It sets out to reduce every problem to its simplest physical terms, and with the help of the fundamental conceptions of time, length, and mass, "to construct a mechanical model of nature." But such a model in no way represents the whole life or meaning of nature. If reality is pictured as a solid, the mechanical interpretation of nature is like a section ar- bitrarily cut through the solid; cut, it may be, where the 140 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY solid is widest, and so traversing more of it than any other section which has yet been cut, but still only a section, and therefore incapable of interpreting the constitution of the whole. 1 Whether science has not hampered itself by this procedure, in dealing, for instance, with some of the problems which the growth of living beings suggests, is an open question, and there are not wanting signs that it is reconsidering its method in this regard. 2 But the method is legitimate. It has brought success, and theology can have no real quarrel with it. Theologians, however, were slow to recognise the right of science to offer its own interpretation of the world. Again and again we see hi the conflict how they entirely misunderstood the aims of the scientific investigator, and, what is still worse, how they refused to face the facts fairly, but took refuge in theories or dogmatic assertions, which the steady advance of knowledge proved to be untenable. To-day the rivalry between the two armies is less acute. Each side understands the other better. Science is more ready to admit that its inquiry is limited and abstract, and philosophy has taught theology that the scientific interpretation of the uni- verse is only one out of many possible interpretations. One of the features of the development of theology in the last three decades of the nineteenth century has been its growing alliance with philosophy. The philosopher has shown the theologian a wider vision, and has made plain that the results reached by physical science are transfigured when handed up to metaphysics for the final synthesis. Certain aspects of the struggle between science and theology require to be brought out more fully. There is, first, the question of miracle. The further science investigated the secrets of nature's working the more was the presence of law or uniformity revealed. What room was left for the super- natural ? If by a miracle is meant a special divine interference with the customary operations of nature, was not the pre- sumption against the probability of any such interference having taken place ? It seemed as if God was being excluded 1 This illustration and the short quotation; which precedes it, are taken from Whetham's The Recent Development of Physical Science, pp. 18 and 38. Chap- ter I of this book contains a clear discussion of the method and ideal of science at the present time. * For a discussion of this point, cp. Sandeman's Problems of Biology. IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 141 from His universe, as if secondary causes alone were operative, and no place could be found for the direct activity of the divine will. The dispute raged throughout the century, and continues to-day. But a change has come over our thought which puts the dispute in a new light. In the first place, the conception of divine immanence has tended to make the distinc- tion between primary and secondary causes unreal. Whatever else immanence may mean, it implies that God is always causally active. Every happening in nature is His operation. The physical universe is no longer thought of as a machine wound up and left to itself; it is the scene of a never-ceasing divine energy. The uniformities of nature are regarded as the expression of the constancy of the divine will. Thus the hard antithesis of natural and supernatural is softened. In the second place, we to-day draw no such rigid distinction between the spiritual and the physical as was drawn at an earlier date. We think rather of the two spheres as overlapping, or shading off into each other, while recent researches into the constitu- tion of matter have tended to rob it of its crass materiality. Matter is now interpreted in terms of electrical energy; and between physical force and force of will the line of distinction can be less clearly drawn. Thus the whole problem of miracle and of the relation of natural to supernatural has assumed a new colour. An immense alteration, again, has taken place in our general outlook owing to the discoveries of science as to the age of the earth and the extent of the physical universe. Where our grandfathers reckoned by centuries we reckon by millennia. We picture a universe in which the planet on which we live is but a tiny speck in a boundless system of suns. We think of the earth as having slowly reached its present form by a gradual development through millions of years. A great cosmic drama unfolds itself before us. This new orientation of time and space has had a marked effect upon literature. 1 Tennyson's In Memoriam affords a good example of the results of scientific research for the emotions and the imagination. Science here has become romantic as well as historical. Nor has the widen- ing of the horizon been without influence upon theology. In the first place, our thought of God has been enriched. We 1 Cp. Dowden's Studies in Literature, " The Scientific Movement in Literature." 142 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY conceive of Him as the infinite Spirit " whose dwelling is the light of setting suns," and for whom " a thousand years are but as one day." And we no longer picture Him in Deistic fashion as apart from His universe, but think of Him as near at hand, as the immanent, sustaining power of the whole creation. 1 In the second place, the doctrine of immortality has received an increased emphasis. If man is the product of an age-long striving of the past, can we think of him in his present condi- tion as having reached his full stature ? Must he not have a future in which he may rise to heights denied him now, when capacities latent here may have full opportunity of expansion ? It is, I think, unquestionable that the doctrine of evolution has, on the whole, reinforced the belief in immortality, though it may be argued, on the other hand, that the evolutionary process, as we see it in nature, while " careful of the type," is utterly " careless of the single life." But at this point other considerations emerge. Our recognition of the vastness of the physical universe has helped to accentuate the thought of spiritual values. In certain moods it seems incredible that this planet should have been the scene of a redemption such as that in which the Christian believes. But the counter- thought at once arises, that physical vastness and moral worth have nothing in common. We turn from the con- templation of the immensities of time and space to the ethical and religious significance of man, and find a spiritual meaning in and behind natural process. The central issue in the struggle between science and theology has been whether naturalism or some form of spiritual idealism shall prevail. The dispute has ranged over a wide area. At one time atten- tion has been focussed upon miracle, at another upon the dependence of mind on brain, at another, again, upon the problem of final causes. But all these questions are parts of a larger problem the problem whether any religious meaning can be found in the universe, or whether a creed of naturalism is to provide us with our philosophy of life. It is easy, in view of the fact that there has been so much opposition between science and theology, to think of science as 1 Ptinjer, however, cautions us against assuming that all the Deist writers conceived of God in this external fashion. Cp. History of the Christian Philosophy of Religion, p. 289. IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 143 permanently hostile to the claims of spirit. But we must remember that science has its ideal aspect, and that it has abandoned the dogmatic materialism which characterised it in the middle of the nineteenth century. In speaking of science we are apt to think only of physical science and its mathematical methods, and of these, again, as offering to provide the final interpretation of reality. We forget that the wisest science recognises its own limitations and makes no pre- tensions to be metaphysical ; and that to the credit of the scientific spirit as a whole must be set down the work of the historical sciences, with all that they have done in teaching us what methodical research means. Science has deepened and broadened the ideal of truth, and has stimulated our search for it. Nor can it be fairly said that the results which physical science has now reached are such as can find no place in a scheme of religious idealism. PHILOSOPHICAL IDEALISM Idealism is a word with many meanings, and is applicable to several very diverse systems of thought. Happily we are not called on here to discuss the technicalities of idealist philo- sophy, though some of the main differences between its schools will become apparent in the course of this section. It will be enough for present purposes if we use idealism in a large sense, as signifying, in contradistinction to materialism, the priority and supremacy of the spiritual in man and in the universe around him. My immediate object is merely to indicate in briefest outline some of the more important ways in which the mind of the nineteenth century was influenced by German idealism, and some of the results which followed for theological thought. The extent of that influence it would be difficult to exaggerate ; and it may fairly be maintained that the develop- ment of theology in the century is a commentary upon the German speculative movement. It is only with larger issues that we are now concerned. Another chapter treats more fully of the relations between idealism and theology. In the forefront of this influence must be placed the witness of idealism to the creative power of reason. Both idealism and romanticism, which in some ways may be regarded as the 144 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY literary expression of idealism, enriched the thought of human nature, and showed that man, in virtue of the spontaneity of his intellectual and imaginative powers, is, in no small degree, the creator of the world in which he lives. Modern idealism sprang from Kant, who, dissatisfied with the dogmatism and intellectual conceit of the Wolffian philosophy, and recognising that the empiricism of Locke, as Hume had demonstrated, could never account for the growth of knowledge and ex- perience, set himself to inquire critically into the nature of the knowing mind. The result of his analysis was to prove that mind from the very first makes its own contribution to know- ledge, by supplying the principles which give order to the chaos of impressions pouring in through the avenues of sense. The task of Kant's successors was to carry still further the analysis of the growth of knowledge, to free Kant's work from the contradictions with which it abounds, to bring into closer relationship the knowing mind and the object known, and to show how an immanent reason gives unity to the worlds of nature and humanity. Kant's importance can hardly be over-rated. He put the theory of knowledge on a new footing. In ethics he dealt a heavy blow at the prevailing creed of utilitarianism, by insisting that duty lost its high significance if it was reduced to the pursuit of pleasure, or to any self-interested calculation of consequences. His doctrine of the spontaneous creative power of the imagination forms the basis of modern theories of aesthetic. He was not free from inconsistencies. Though he was in revolt against the systems of philosophy, whether rational- istic or empirical, which held sway in the first three quarters of the eighteenth century, he never entirely liberated himself from their presuppositions; and these hung about him as a dead-weight, hampering his thought at every turn. But his inconsistencies do not detract from his greatness. He was the champion of man's freedom and spiritual dignity. He showed that man was more than a creature of sense, and belonged to a spiritual world. Everywhere his reach exceeded his grasp, a fact in which Kant saw the pledge and promise of a develop- ment which demanded immortality for its completion. The later stages of this philosophical movement may be summarily described by saying that idealism was feeling its IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 145 way towards the discovery of objective standards. If man's reason is a free, constructive power, if he is possessed of a creative spontaneity, what is the relation of that fact to nature and history? In both of these we find abundant traces of what we may call imbedded reason. Whose reason? It cannot be the reason of the individual, for he perishes after threescore years and ten; but nature abides, and the march of history continues. Whatever man's creative power may be, the individual is born into a universe which is prior to him, and conditions his growth. The answer given by idealism was that it was God's reason ; and the object of sub- sequent speculation was to show how a common reason was at work both in man and in the world outside him. Nature and man were thus the twofold expression of the divine intelligence. Experience was throughout rational; thought and being were identical. Fichte, in his later writings, was the first to intro- duce this conception of God as the underlying idea or life manifesting itself in the processes of nature and history, but he never fully worked out his thought. It was left for Schelling and Hegel to develop it, and to interpret the universe as the embodiment of one absolute reason. The conception of the unity of all being became central in philosophy. The reign of intellectualism began. Reality was construed in terms of thought, as the manifestation of a divine mind. Or rather, as absolutism maintained, it was that mind, objectified in the world of things, and rising to self-consciousness in human intelligence. That a reaction against absolute idealism should set in was inevitable. The movement of philosophy in the latter half of the nineteenth century has been a protest against the system. Men began to ask whether the metaphysical ideal of absolutism was not too daring, and whether an absolutist stand- point was possible for a human thinker. Can the finite mind hope to see with the larger eyes of God ? Was it not altogether vain to make the attempt ? Criticism, again, was directed against two other features of the movement. In the first place, it was felt to be too purely speculative and intellectual. It deified intellect at the expense of other elements in human nature, and it dealt with abstractions, turning life into logic, and thinning out reality into " bloodless categories." In the second K 146 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY place, it failed to do justice to personality. The individual was swallowed up by, and lost in, the whole. He became a mere channel through which flowed the life of the absolute. The revolt against this teaching is seen in the rise of Personal Idealism, Pragmatism, and various systems of Pluralism. In other directions also the reaction is manifested. The nineteenth century was characterised by its search for facts and its general spirit of inquiry. Nature and history were subjected to the minutest investigation. Speculation, it was seen, had out- stripped knowledge. A final synthesis had been attempted before the necessary materials for the task were available. Thus a metaphysical pause ensued, which still continues, though there are indications that philosophy is again beginning to be constructive. But we wait for the master mind who shall co-ordinate the various movements of our time, and reveal their hidden unity. Idealism made prominent the conception of evolution or development. The unity of existence was viewed as a unity of process. The story of the earth showed a clear line of ascent from dead to living matter, from animal life to man, from man uncivilised to man as a member of the State. At each stage of the advance the immanent purpose and spiritual significance of the whole became more apparent. It is important to re- member that the idea of evolution, which biology was later on so amply to illustrate, was making itself felt thus early in a general way. It is there in Herder, for example, who through- out his writings takes the genetic point of view, and loves to trace back to their source literary and historical movements. You find it in Schelling, whose conception of nature was that of a developing organism ; and again in Goethe, whose botanical studies led him to see in the leaf-bud the original type of which all varieties in floral structure are modifications. Above all, it is the sovereign category of Hegel's thought, and is applied by him to the entire range of natural process and human activity. Nature, art, religion, politics, literature, he views them all as growths, as stages in the universal divine process through which the life of God returns to itself in increasing fullness. The completer knowledge of the past which has resulted from the patient labours of an army of scholars has necessitated a revision of many of Hegel's historical con- IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 147 elusions ; but to him belongs the honour of having shown how the conception of development can be fruitfully applied in every department of inquiry. We have now to see in what special ways this conception has affected the thought of the nineteenth century : (a) In the first place, we have the rise of the historical method which has resulted from the application to history of the idea of evolution. This I have already sufficiently discussed. (6) In the second place, the evolutionary outlook has helped to shatter indivi- dualism. The isolated individual is seen to be a figment. The study of man in his development has proved his dependence at every turn upon outward conditions. Both Herder and Schel- ling insisted that, if you would understand man, you must take account of all the influences, physical, moral, social, which have been playing upon him from the day of his first appearance upon earth. Hegel emphasized the same lesson, which Aristotle had taught long before, that man is 7ro\iTiKov $ov, owing his origin to society and finding in his membership in the State his only true means of self-realisation. Idealist speculation, how- ever, tended to lose the individual in the whole. It is true, indeed, that " we live, and move, and have our being " in God, and so, in some sense, are organs and instruments of the divine life ; yet personality, surely, involves the existence of a separate centre of feeling and consciousness. God is not I, and I am not God. Nor am I the mere product of external forces. In virtue of my freedom I have power to react upon, and to control, circumstances. Personality has its rights, and must assert them. But atomism is " a creed outworn." The study of history and the thought of evolution have for ever made it impossible to treat society as a collection of independent units held together by mechanical bonds. Our outlook to-day is organic, in relation both to humanity as a whole, and to the individual who nowhere exists apart from society. (c) Thirdly, the conception of development has given to our thought a teleological colour. We regard the movement of the universe as a movement toward a goal, and as expressive of purpose. When we think of process we think of change deter- mined to an end. Teleology, for example, underlies all Hegel's philosophy. In England, at the opening of the nineteenth century, the teleology of Paley was in general favour. But, as 148 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY we have seen, his exposition of the argument from design was confessedly popular and of very limited range. 1 He constructed a teleology of special instances of contrivance in nature, and placed God in the position of an artificer standing outside His work. The teleology implied in the thought of development is something very different. It views the process of nature as a whole, as a vast movement unfolding to a distant goal. Each step in that process is both means and end, has its own imme- diate value, while at the same time it serves for subsequent advance. And for an external designer the newer teleology substitutes the thought of an immanent purpose. The transcendence of God is a principle vital to Christian theology ; and it is possible that we place too much emphasis to-day upon the conception of the divine immanence, and of the universe as a self-contained whole, developing by its own inhe- rent powers. But any readjustment which may be effected in this matter can never bring about a reversion to Paley's position. That has been completely undermined by the teaching of Darwin. The belief in special creation, which was Paley's sheet anchor, has vanished before the belief in descent from a common stock with progressive modification ; while the adaptation of organisms to their surroundings, Paley's contrivance, is explained by natural selection, without the necessity of appeal to direct divine inter- ference. The teleological implications of the conception of develop- ment are, however, by no means clear ; nor are they universally accepted, even in a general sense. Many who are ready to think of the universe as a process determined to an end are unwilling to allow that such a thought involves a theistic faith. They prefer to interpret the movement as one of unconscious natural tendency. But mechanism can supply no ultimate explanation of reality. You must assume as your evolutionary starting-point either a chaos of material particles, or a system of such. If you begin with chaos, which is itself unthinkable, you can never evolve order from it. If, on the other hand, you start with system, you can explain the presence of the system only by the help of some spiritual principle. It was one of Lotze's chief merits, while advocating to the full the claims of mechanical interpretation, to have shown that 1 Cp. ch. iii. IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 149 mechanism has no metaphysics, and that the unity and inter- relationships of the universe require some form of teleological explanation. If we could arrive at a deeper understanding of life and the living organism, our way would be clearer. Mean- while no task is more pressing for philosophy than to inves- tigate the meaning and precise teleological significance of development. The change of attitude which the thought of development has brought about is seen nowhere more plainly than in the study of psychology. An interest in psychology has been characteristic of English philosophy, which, unlike German philosophy, has generally tended to adopt the psychological method. But psychology in England has only recently freed itself from the dominance of the older empirical creed and learned to take a genetic point of view. The result has been a complete transformation of the science. The conception of the unity of the personality has taken the place of the earlier division into faculties. The living creature, man or animal, is thought of as being determined in its growth from the first by interests which he seeks to realise, and purposes which he strives, however blindly, to achieve. Effort, creation, the reaching-out after completer self-expression, the presence within the organism of tendencies manifesting themselves in the struggle for fuller life, are the clues which the modern psychologist uses in his inquiry. Just as it is being increasingly felt that life is more than mechanism, and that the reduction of biology to physics is possible only at the expense of leaving out of account the phenomena peculiar to living creatures, so it is being felt that a mere analytical psychology which seeks to reduce the life of mind to its elements, and then show how the elements can be recombined, is utterly inadequate. Mental life has its elements, but they are never found except in vital combination with others. They are elements of a whole, and the whole is always present in each of them. Life at every stage is a unity marked by purposive tendencies, and the teleo- logical character of psychology to-day is a recognition of that fact. In considering the influence upon English theology of idealist speculation, we must again remind ourselves that the relations between philosophy and theology were not the same in England 150 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY as they were in Germany. In Germany, when the idealist movement was in full development, the two were always inti- mately allied. It was the aim of each German thinker to produce a theology which should be in harmony with his meta- physics. The result was that theology was subordinated to general philosophy. Christianity suffered in the process. Her facts and doctrines were violently forced into the shape dictated by metaphysical requirements. It was not till about the year 1840 that a sounder historical criticism of Christianity began to arise which restored the balance between theory and fact. In England the course of events was very different. English theology, as a whole, did not feel the influence of German philosophy till after 1860. Germanism was a term of abhor- rence among the majority of the clergy, Some movement certainly there was in the direction of reconstruction of belief. But the pioneers of the new thought were few in number, and were regarded with the utmost suspicion. Nowhere has English insularity been more marked than in the theological outlook of the first half of the nineteenth century. The change, however, when it came, came quickly and forcibly ; and the last forty years of the century witnessed an upheaval which has affected the whole range of Christian doctrine. It was not only Biblical criticism which proved victorious, but philosophical problems began to bulk more largely in theological inquiry. Theology received from German philosophy a new stimulus, and entered upon a fruitful constructive epoch. Among the changes which came over theology, as a result of its contact with idealism, the following are, perhaps, the most significant : (a) The ideal, and in consequence the method, of the theolo- gian were radically altered. English theology in the eighteenth century was engaged in elaborating schemes of dogma which were highly artificial in character, and showed no natural affiliation of one doctrine with another. If the theologian of that epoch had any ideal at all, it was mechanical, not organic. He made little or no attempt to trace the development of doctrines from a common root or principle. Schleiermacher, as we shall see, did more than any one else to effect a change in this matter, and to sketch for theology an evolutionary ideal which profoundly influenced the whole subsequent develop- IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 151 ment of the science. Now it is true that Schleiermacher reached this ideal through a study of the history of religion ; it was his feeling for religion as a historical growth which shaped his conception of theological method. And it has been the study of comparative religion which has been mainly in- strumental in giving the theologian of to-day his new outlook. Yet some part in the reconstruction must be conceded to idealism. Each of the great post-Kantian idealist philosophers tried to demonstrate the organic nature of truth, and to frame a system which unfolded from a fundamental principle. Their work was not free from artificiality; they were too ready to force facts into their speculative moulds; and this is parti- cularly noticeable in their treatment of Christianity. But at least they set a standard for theology, and by emphasizing the conception of development pointed the way to a new ideal. History and philosophy thus worked hand in hand in bringing about the transformation. (6) Something has already been said about the influence of Romanticism in helping to produce a new apologetic. Idealist philosophy moved in the same direction. Two classes of problem called for solution. On the one hand were the ques- tions raised by the literary and historical criticism of the Bible. On the other hand, and going far deeper down, were those which metaphysical speculation brought to the front. The most significant issues for theology were philosophical; and we can trace a growing appreciation of this fact, as the in- fluence of German idealism spread. It was not so much that idealism made the English theologian take an interest in philo- sophy. It was rather that he turned to the deeper thought of Germany for weapons with which to meet the attacks of materialist science. He could get no help, but rather the reverse, from the philosophy of J. S. Mill and his school, and so was driven to seek the aid of German thinkers. Apologetics thus became increasingly philosophical. Men began to see that the theistic foundations must be made sure, before they could deal with the specific problems of Christianity. The last thirty years of the nineteenth century witnessed a large output of apologetic literature which treated of subjects lying on the borderland of science, religion, and philosophy. Theology gained both in depth and vitality by its alliance with philo- 152 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY sophy, and learned to abandon its old attitude of hostility to new ways of thought. (c) Idealism brought into prominence the thought of the divine immanence. Immanence is a term which is often used in a loose and uncritical fashion, and may be nothing but a thin disguise for pantheism. It should be carefully considered how far the conception has any meaning when applied to the divine will, or how far the life of spirit can be described by a word which carries with it a spatial reference. Problems like these will be most conveniently discussed, when we come to investigate what doctrinal use theologians made of the con- ception in the later years of the century. That doctrine should be affected by it is only what we should antecedently expect ; for it was nothing less than a revolution in thought to abandon a deistic and mechanical view of God's relation to the universe, and to substitute for it the idea of the universe as a growing organism, pulsating with life, and indwelt by the divine Spirit. (d) More significant, however, than any of these changes was the increasing recognition by theologians of the importance of the problem of Christ's Person. Theological speculation in the nineteenth century was predominantly Christological. Nor is it difficult to see the reasons for this. The idealist philosophers had aimed at bridging the gulf between the human and the divine. Hegel, for example, viewing the world-process as a development in which a divine life was being progressively realised, taught that God was perpetually incarnating Himself in humanity, and in the life of men found His fullest self-expression. But in the story of the human race the Person of Christ stood out supreme. What interpretation could be given of Him ? In connection with His Incarnation emerged the philosophical problem of the relation of the eternal to the temporal, of the absolute to the finite and historical. Here was a challenge to the theologian to investi- gate anew the historical Christ, and, having found Him, to show that the doctrinal interpretation of His Person, given by orthodox theology, could be sustained. Idealism had been baffled by the Christological problem. It was the feeling that these speculative Christologies had neglected the historical basis of Christianity, and had been too ready to treat facts as if they were ideas, which led to a reaction, and set theologians IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 153 upon the path of detailed historical inquiry. The central problem, then, was the reconciliation of the Christ of history with the Christ of dogma. In addition there was the Christ of experience, whose redeeming activity through the centuries was the cardinal doctrine of Schleiermacher's theology. Place had to be found for Him in the coming reconstruction, and the relation of a living faith to the historical facts from which it sprang had to be determined. The issue thus thrust to the front by speculation has been kept in that position by the comparative study of religion, which has shown that what differences Christianity from all other systems is the place in it occupied by its Founder. For nearly a century theology has been concerned with this many-sided Christological problem, has explored at in all its ramifications, and has sought to solve it with the help of the fresh knowledge which research has won. It remains the most living of problems to-day, requiring for its solution the co-operation of history, philosophy, and personal religious experience. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND DEMOCRACY We may distinguish two main influences of the French Revolution upon English theology, but each of them was indirect rather than direct. The first is the rise of a critical and negative temper of thought ; the second, the growth of a democratic spirit. Both affected the Church, and theology through the Church, but in different directions. The first led to a reaction in favour of the Church, as the one stable institution in an epoch of change, and the upholder of authority amid the welter of passion and individualism. The second made theologians consider more carefully the social bearings of Christianity, gave added emphasis to the doctrine of the Incarnation, and taught men that Christ's religion was one of redemption both for body and soul. In its earlier stages the French Revolution was a destructive movement. It embodied the spirit of violent revolt against law and order. It represented the protest of an individualism bent on asserting its own rights, even at the cost of destroying the whole social fabric of the State. Such a temper, when it concerned itself with religion, was bound to issue in negations. 154 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY For ecclesiastical authority it had no respect ; tradition it regarded merely as an incubus from a dead past. Failing to recognise its debt to the past, it became merely critical and revolutionary. In French materialism it found a welcome ally, for did not materialism spell atheism, and was not the false belief in God the source of the pretensions of ecclesiastical authority? Throughout the eighteenth century materialist teaching had been gathering force both in France and England. But, whereas in England the materialists had, for the most part, been anxious to come to some kind of terms with theology, and had not altogether banished God from their mechanical inter- pretation of the universe, in France the case was different. There materialism, in the hands of such men as Diderot, Cabanis, and Holbach, was equivalent to a frank atheism. The extent to which this teaching had affected the English mind is not altogether easy to determine. But that it was a source of danger is seen from the references to it in episcopal charges in the early years of the nineteenth century, and from the publication of such a book as Thomas Rennell's Remarks on Scepticism. 1 But the avowed supporters of a materialist creed were probably few. The instinct of the Englishman for religion was too deep-rooted to be easily destroyed. Among the working classes, however, it spread to some extent, less, perhaps, as a definite creed, than as a disintegrating influence which, coming at a time of severe economic distress, caused a general feeling of unrest, and formed a seed-plot for the growth of revolutionary ideas. That there was a marked hostility to the Church in many quarters of the industrial population is clear, but this represented as much an attack on privilege and class supremacy as an opposition to current theology. The result was a reaction in favour of the Church, brought about by a fresh endeavour on the part of the latter to win the support of the masses. A period of activity set in. The Church awoke from its slumbers, and busied itself with removing the abuses in its system, and trying to increase its influence in the national life. Men began to look to the Church 1 Remarks on Scepticism, especially as it is connected with the subjects of Organisa- tion and Life, 1819. Rennell was Christian advocate in the University of Cam- bridge. The book is distinctly an able one. IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 155 as a centre of order and authority, and the way was thus prepared for the constructive effort of the Oxford Movement. The second influence of the Revolution, the birth of the democratic spirit, has had wider and more permanent results. An enthusiasm for humanity sprang up, and a sentiment of brotherhood. The justice of class distinctions was questioned. The demand was for liberty and equality. An optimistic temper flourished which saw visions of a new earth and a perfected human nature, not as remote possibilities in a distant future, but as capable of present realisation " Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven." So sang Wordsworth who felt as deeply as any the thrill of the new hope, until mature reflection failed to justify the actual course which the Revolution had taken, and the attack on'Switzerland caused him to regard France as the foe rather than the champion of liberty. Coleridge and Southey, in like manner, were caught up in the rush of the new enthusiasm, and dreamed their dreams of Pantisocracy, only to find by wider experience that the task of regenerating human nature was a work, not of decades, but of centuries. This new feeling for humanity and for the rights of man was not a mere vague sentiment. It had an ethical root, and was the expression of a moral demand that society should be based on justice, and that the claims of the poorer classes should be recognised. Already, before the French Revolution, Bentham had been preaching the doctrines of utilitarianism, and his work was carried on by a group of philosophical radicals, chief among whom were the two Mills. Between utilitarianism and the new spirit of democracy there was a natural affinity. Bentham and his successors, whatever may be thought about their ethical hedonism and the logic of their position, were in intention and sympathy the champions .of altruism. The greatest happiness of the greatest number is a maxim which looks away from the individual to the claims of the whole, and, in point of fact, it was the influence of the utilitarian leaders which brought about a much-needed movement of social reform. They kept their eye upon the ills of the body politic, and spared no pains to have them cured. Utilitarianism succeeded in creating a 156 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY sense of corporate responsibility, and gave a practical direction to the sentiment of humanity. The abstract individualism of Rousseau which inspired the early stages of the French Revolu- tion gave place to something more concrete, to a sense of the solidarity of humanity, and to a doctrine of the State as the embodiment of the organic reason of the community a doc- trine after which Rousseau was feeling, and of which Hegel was the profoundest exponent. The character of the democratic movement has, in the course of the nineteenth century, undergone great changes. It is worth while to dwell on these, not only because they help us better to understand the mind of our own age, but because they make clearer the task which now lies before theology. The democratic movement began with an assertion of the plea for individual liberty ; it has since taken the form of an appeal to the power of the State. It began as a sentiment and an enthusiasm ; it is now, while not uninspired by passion, a move- ment directed to the control of the economic and industrial forces of the community. Speaking in general terms, we may say that the task which lay before the modern world at the Reformation was the recovery of individual freedom. That task was accomplished, not, however, without the destruction of much that was valuable in the life of an earlier society. Yet, on the whole, the gain was greater than the loss. A spirit of individualism everywhere asserted itself among Protestant communities ; it was the characteristic feature of English thought in the eighteenth century. But, as we have seen, that century lacked the historical sense ; and an individualism, un- tempered by a study of history, can provide no adequate solu- tion of the problems of life and thought. Individualism broke down, and the nineteenth century was faced with the problem of building upon its ruins a sounder fabric. In the reconstruc- tion which followed, the following factors may be distinguished. First, philosophical idealism, emphasizing the thought of a world-process, and of a common reason in all men, tended to put humanity in place of the individual. Hegel directed attention to the State as the highest expression of this common reason. Secondly, the growing study of history showed how the individual was dependent, throughout his whole development, upon the physical and social conditions IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 157 with which he was surrounded ; a dependence which was made still more clear by the doctrine of evolution. Thirdly, the rapid growth of industry, and of a large industrial population, forced to the front the economic problem. The development of industry meant the depression of the individual, who seemed increasingly powerless in presence of vast economic movements which he could not control. In addition, competition so intensified the struggle for daily bread, that the claims of the inner life were in danger of being forgotten altogether. Applied science revolutionised industry; but the tyranny of the work made the worker a slave. Liberation was sought in the attempt to improve the social condition of the worker ; and for this end the power of the State was invoked. The workers, indeed, learned to combine, gaining thus strength in union ; but even so, with- out State aid, they were unable to achieve much. Hence it has come about that one of the most striking features of our modern social life is the desire to effect, through State agency, an industrial revolution for the benefit of the masses. No one can quarrel with the labourer when he claims a larger share in the material prosperity of the age. You cannot build up a full soul on an empty stomach. Yet there is a danger that life may be despiritualised by the pressure of material needs. It is for religion, and for theology, which is religion in its systematised and reflective form, to reassert the essential spirituality of human life, and to provide it with a divine background. If that can be done, then the individual who is now lost in the mass will again come to his own. But he can recover his true freedom only if he becomes aware of his relation to God. The individual, treated as an independent unit, cannot out of his own resources build up an enduring spiritual life. That achieve- ment, however, may be his, if he can be brought to realise his fellowship with the divine and the eternal. 1 The task, then, which confronts theology at the present time is the vindication of the supremacy of the spiritual. But in carrying it out there are two special difficulties which must be noted. In the first place, though the historical and com- parative methods have brought to theology so much enrich- 1 Cp. Eucken's Main Currents of Modern Thought, sect. D. 3. I have borrowed some suggestions from Eucken's analysis of the democratic movement. 158 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY ment, the use of them is not without danger to Christianity. In seeking for affinities between Christianity and other faiths, and in trying to defend its universality on the ground that it takes up and completes what is good and vital in other religions, it is easy to lose sight of its peculiar features. Supernaturalism is of the essence of Christianity, which claims to be from above, both in its origin and in the power which it wields for the redemption of human life. But the object of the historian is to trace the natural history of religion without any hypothesis of intervention from without. He seeks to assign to Christianity its place in the evolutionary process, and he finds it to be the crown of the process, because it realises a universal ideal, after which other religions were feeling. The theologian, too, em- phasizes the universality of Christianity, but insists that it is unique, as well as comprehensive. He must be on his guard against the temptation to make it merely the last stage of a natural evolution. On the other hand, thought cannot rest content with any crude antithesis of natural and supernatural. What is needed is some reconciliation between the two, some definition of Christianity which, while it preserves its unique- ness, shall set it forth in its universal relation to all other faiths. It is in this direction that the deepest theological thought of the time is moving. 1 The second difficulty which theology has to meet arises from the fact that many of its formal statements of belief reflect ways of thinking which the modern world has outgrown. In vindicating the supremacy of the spiritual, theologians must concern themselves with issues which are alive, and must use modern speech. Reconstruction and reformulation of dogma are imperative. An immense intellectual revolution has been accomplished, and theology must boldly face the situation. She will not reach finality in her representation of Christian truth. There can be no finality in the matter so long as there is progress in general knowledge. But she can at least achieve some advance for this generation, and it is the spiritual interests of this generation which are her immediate care. What is needed is, in the words of the late Edward Caird, " a thorough reformation (in the etymological sense of the word) of the whole edifice of dogma and institution in a way which few of 1 Cp. The Essence of Christianity, by W. A. Brown, ch. viii. IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 159 the friends of religion have yet realised, and still fewer have had the faith and courage to attempt." l As we survey the changes which came over the thought of the nineteenth century, we are struck by the fact that they are due to the co-operation of a number of forces, all of which were moving in the same direction. The historical method, roman- ticism with its interest in the past, German idealism with its thought of world-process and development, and finally evolu- tionary science, are all consilient factors of a broad movement, the keynote of which is the conception of growth. We think to-day in terms of development; our outlook is historical. This conception of growth has yet more fully to be explored. Meanwhile it holds the field, and influences our thought in innumerable ways. Of its results for theology I have tried in these two chapters to say something, but I should like, by way of conclusion, to say something more. It appears to me that all the problems which confront theology to-day are parts of the one great problem of the place and significance in Christian theology of the Person of Christ. The quarrel be- tween naturalism and supernaturalism comes to a head when His Person is considered. In Him centres the problem of a progressive revelation and a teleology of history. The problem of how to present Christianity as a universal religion will be best met if He is exhibited as capable of satisfying human need, and providing a spiritual power for the regeneration of humanity. His mind and character supply us with a standard for criticising the various forms which Christianity in its historical evolution has assumed. Scholarship and research have helped us to recover the historical Christ. But the recovery of Him is no mere satisfaction for pious curiosity. It is a fact, the significance of which for a theology grown conscious of the need of reconstruction can hardly be over- estimated. 1 Essay on Rousseau in Essays in Literature and Philosophy. CHAPTER IX THE RISE OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM IN GERMANY BIBLICAL CRITICISM was an outgrowth of a movement wider than itself. It.was the application to a special subject-matter of the general method of historical inquiry, which had its birth in Germany, and from there spread to England, until it coloured the whole of English theology. The broad result of this treat- ment of the Bible was to bring the Jewish and Christian Scriptures into line with general history and literature. No longer could the Bible, or the history of the nation whose religious achievement it records, be isolated. Whatever special features the Bible might possess would emerge into view, after it had been subjected to the same methods of investigation which were applied to any other literature. To assume before- hand that the Bible was not subject to the ordinary conditions which govern the growth of any national literature was to render true historical study impossible. But to apply to the Bible the canons of historical criticism was to raise at once the many problems connected with revelation, inspiration, miracle, divine superintendence. In the Deistic controversy of the eighteenth century these very problems had been argued and counter-argued, until exhaustion overtook the combatants, But they had been discussed on inadequate premises by men who had little sense of history, and who imperfectly understood the issues involved in the antithesis of natural and super- natural. They were now taken up again as elements in a wider inquiry which proceeded with new methods and a different aim. We must look to Lessing and Herder primarily, but also to Niebuhr and Savigny, as the creators of the historical method. History was for Lessing a continuous process in which we are to see God's gradual education of humanity. Revelation was the progressive instruction of the race. Humanity he pictured 160 IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 161 as a giant individual, passing from infancy through childhood to full maturity, and at each stage receiving increasing illumina- tion. Religion was man's response to the action of God upon him, and within him, It was no artificial creation of self- interested priests or rulers, but was rooted in the needs of man's spirit, and represented a natural movement of man toward God, in correspondence with the movement of God toward man. Its presence in all races as a vital element of their existence was proof that it was based on no illusion. No elaborate and artificial apologetic was required for its defence. It lived, it grew, it was its own apology. Lessing profoundly influenced the thought of the age in three ways : (a) He took up and developed Leibniz's doctrine of con- tinuity, and applied it to history, thus recalling men's minds to the need for a careful and sympathetic study of the past, if they would understand the present. This power of sympathy with the life and thought of other times and races Lessing possessed to the full. His interest in the religions of the East and of heathen tribes was due to his perception that every stage in the evolution of religion was valuable, as contributing something to the interpretation of the whole. A fragment here, a gleam of truth there, the survival of an old custom or superstition you could neglect none of them, for each was a step in a vast organic movement, and was fraught with some- thing of the significance of the whole. Of religion Lessing would have said what Wordsworth says of the cloud in The Leech-Gatherer, that it " Moveth altogether, if it move at all." Such teaching naturally met with opposition from the upholders of orthodox, dogmatic Christianity, who felt that the supremacy of Christianity was threatened by the refusal to allow finality to any one dogmatic system. Lessing defended Christianity on the ground of its adaptation to the needs of human nature, but held that it would be superseded in course of time by a more perfect religion and a purer ethical code, though in this transfor- mation its essentials would be preserved. He drew also a distinc- tion between Christianity and the religion of Christ, holding that ecclesiastics and theologians had overlaid the simple teaching 162 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY of Jesus with a mass of doctrinal subtleties. In order that primitive Christianity might be recovered, there must be a return to the study of the earliest Christian records. Lessing's attack upon current orthodoxy had important results, both for criticism and for the philosophy of religion. In particular, men were led to consider the nature of revelation and its relation to reason. Lessing himself regarded revelation as an anticipation of the results which human reason would by slower processes eventually reach. (b) In opposition to Deism, with its God at a distance from the universe, Lessing taught a doctrine of divine immanence, and revealed a world instinct in every part with spiritual life. The Age of Enlightenment sought to measure all truth by purely rationalistic standards. Lessing, who had the feeling of the poet and artist, insisted that truth did not enter into man solely by the avenues of reason. To the bare understanding the worlds of art and natural beauty could not yield their secrets. There were depths in the human spirit which the plummet of logic could not sound. Too often in the past had theology stifled religion wkh its cerements of dogma and defini- tion. Spiritual truth was always richer and broader than the intellectual rendering of it. The spirit was more potent than the letter ; the written record was inferior to the inner witness of the heart. 1 (c) Thirdly, Lessing, influenced again by Leibniz's concep- tion of the evolution of the monad, showed that the idea of evolution might be made a powerful instrument of historical criticism. Criticism henceforth began to be governed by the ideas of origin and end, and of the process from the one to the other. It became genetic and historical, abandoning arbitrari- ness, and endeavouring by patient research to discover the laws of growth in the subject under investigation. Toward the end of his life Lessing was engaged in definite theological controversy which had an important bearing upon 1 We must be careful, however, not to misunderstand Lessing's relation to the Age of the Enlightenment. He broke away from it far less than did Herder. He was essentially a critic, and so tended to make the human understanding the final arbiter. In his rejection of orthodoxy he adopts the rationalist standpoint. But he had a wider vision than the rationalists ; and in particular dwelt upon two ideas which were foreign to rationalism, the ideas of Individualism and Development. Cp. Piinjer's History of the Christian Philosophy of Religion, pp. 564-572. IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 163 the rise of Biblical criticism. The daughter of Reimarus, Pro- fessor of Oriental Languages at Hamburg, handed to Lessing on her father's death his Apology for the Rational Worshippers of God. Lessing published extracts from this work under the title The Wolfenbuttel Fragments. The public was intended to conclude that the work was the transcript of a document by an anonymous author found in the library at Wolfenbuttel. The work reflects the tone and temper of English Deism. It defends natural religion, and criticises the evidence for the miracles recorded in the Bible. The assumption, common at the time both to the orthodox and the rationalists, was that the Bible and Christianity stood or fell together. Every attack on the Bible was regarded as an attack on Christianity. The orthodox argued that, because Christianity was true, the Bible was true. The rationalists replied that Christianity was untrue, because there were some things in the Bible which were clearly false. Lessing criticised this common assumption, maintaining that the Bible was not necessary to a belief in Christianity, because Christianity was a living power before the New Testa- ment took its present form, Further, he argued that to base your belief in the truth of a religion on any written record, or on any argument from miracle or prophecy, was to miss the real evidence for religion. The truths of religion were internal truths of the reason, and as such could never be proved by the evidence of history. 1 The problem which was exercising Lessing was how to preserve the spiritual authority of Christianity, when criticism was weakening the historical evidences for it. By setting the inner witness above the written record he gave an impulse to the spirit of criticism. In a posthumous work, A New Hypothesis concerning the Evangelists regarded as merely Human Writers (1788), Lessing attacked the problem of the origin of the Gospels. He suggested that the basis of all the Gospels was a written set of records about Jesus, constructed from the oral narratives of the Apostles and other eye-witnesses; and that John knew and used both the original records and the Gospels based on them, but wrote with a different aim and purpose. 2 By his activity 1 Cp. Piinjer, op. cit., pp. 573-577. 2 Strauss wrote of this work : " A mere pamphlet in two sheets, but contain- ing the fruitful seeds of all subsequent inquiries upon this subject." Cp. A New Life of Jesus, authorised translation, p. 103. 164 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY in the field of Biblical inquiry Lessing helped to secure the right of free investigation, and suggested many problems for future research, such, for example, as the meaning of inspira- tion, the growth of the canon of Scripture, and the relation of the teaching of Jesus to the later doctrinal development in the Creeds. Herder, poet, philosopher, theologian, founder with Lessing of German national literature, continued Lessing's work. For him, as for Lessing, history was a continuous whole and the world a unity under its various manifestations. Humanity is one of his favourite terms. It signifies human interests and activities in the totality of their historical evolution. God, while not identical with the sum of material and spiritual phenomena, he regarded as immanent in them all ; so that, in interpreting them, we are interpreting Him. Herder, as we have seen, lays great, we may say excessive, emphasis upon the part played by physical surroundings in man's development. Unlike Kant, who opposed ethical man to nature, Herder includes man in nature, and regards all forms of development as natural processes. The leading thought of the Ideas for a Philosophy of History is, that spirit is everywhere closely con- ditioned by physical organisation, and that the key to man's evolution is to be found in his environment. With Lessing he sees in nature an ascending series of which man is the crowning term. A genetic method, therefore, is necessary for the inter- pretation of nature and history. But in applying this method Herder tends to explain the process in terms of its earliest stages, instead of making the end the interpretation of the beginning. Two facts account for this tendency, the influence of Rousseau and his own poetic and artistic impulses. Rousseau put the Golden Age of humanity in the past. Civilisation he regarded as a departure from the true ideal of human life. He would fain return to the free, simple, natural life of primitive man, as he fondly idealised it. This conception precisely suited Herder's temper of mind. His genetic method had taught him that he must investigate the past if he would understand the present, and when he began his investigation he found in the poetry of the past something which vividly appealed to his imaginative sympathies. In national popular songs and ballads, in Homer, in Hebrew poetry, and in the early poetry of the IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 165 North, he saw expressed humanity's fresh native instincts and aspirations. In a nation's primitive poetry he found the free creation of the nation's individuality. Lessing had urged his countrymen to give up copying French models in their litera- ture, and pointed to the classics as examples for imitation. Herder would have them be themselves, and copy no one. His poetic feeling and his love of early poetry thus held him back from doing full justice to the idea of development. But he helped to lay the foundation of the historical and comparative methods. Hume had made fear the root of religion. Herder saw that such an explanation was superficial and untrue. Ke- ligion was natural to man. It is born, he taught, of awe and wonder, and represents primitive man's attempt to explain the phenomena of the world around him and his own spiritual experiences. Hence in every nation it is closely connected with mythology and early national poetry. Mythology is the natural form with which primitive theology clothes itself, and with mythology poetry goes hand in hand. Both are of the highest importance, for both are stages in God's self-revelation. Herder was the stout opponent of the rationalist reduction of religion to morality, and in place of the negations of the Enlightenment suggested fruitful principles for the construction of a philosophy of religion. We may say, then, that Herder made a twofold contribution to the growth of Biblical criticism. He brought the Bible into relation with general literature. He emphasized its national character, and taught men to see in it a growth which reflected the general mind of the people and their special traditions. He also directed inquiry to the early literature of the Hebrews, where were to be found those elements of myth and poetry which were in all nations the first natural expression of their spiritual life. 1 Herder valued the Bible intensely, and was a genuine student of it. The Bible was for him the divinest, because the most human of books. But inspiration and revela- tion, he insisted, were not confined to one people, nor were they to be mechanically or supernaturally interpreted. Revelation was the immanent working of God upon the whole spiritual being of man. Inspiration was the God-given insight which 1 Cp. his The Voices of the Peoples, 1778, a free translation of popular songs and ballads ; and The Spirit of Hebrew Poetry, 1782. 166 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY made men, in all ages and among all peoples, grasp that portion of divine truth which was adapted to their needs. The super- natural for Herder is the natural intensified. It is not unfair to say that his appreciation of the Bible is, in the main, aesthetic. In his desire to unify all the spiritual powers of man, he lost sight, as Piinjer points out, of the differentia of religion and of the peculiarly religious qualities of the Bible. 1 Herder follows Lessing in drawing a distinction between the religion of Jesus and the Christianity of orthodox theology, finding in the former a spontaneity and simplicity which delighted him. And he urges men to go back to the original sources of the Gospel and search its early records if they would clear their minds of error. It may be noted, too, that in his study of the synoptic problem he had reached the conclusion that Mark's narrative was the earliest of the three. Niebuhr in the field of history, Savigny in that of law, applied and developed the historical method. Niebuhr's His- tory of Rome not only marked an epoch in the study of its particular subject, but powerfully affected the whole future course of investigation. A generation of later students, Thomas Arnold among them, looked to Niebuhr as their teacher and inspirer. His work breathed a spirit of genuine historical research, showed the proper use'of original sources and authori- ties, and drew attention to the presence of myth and legend in primitive tradition. The suggestion which he made that early Roman history was the prose rendering of still earlier national ballad poetry was capable of a wider application. Might not the same be true of the early Biblical narratives ? Must we not there too allow for the operation of the mythopoeic tendency ? The same line of argument was taken by Friedrich Wolf. In his Prolegomena to Homer (1795) he had maintained that the Homeric poems consisted of a number of short lays or ballads, which were subsequently combined together in the time of Peisistratus. If there could be floating national ballads in Greece, could the possibility of them in Palestine be legiti- mately excluded ? Niebuhr was essentially a critical historian, and his standard of criticism was severe. By criticism he meant, not the application to past events of any shallow or arbitrary criticism, but the recognition of the immense com- 1 Op. cit., pp. 605-607. IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 167 plexity of the factors which make up history, and the patient endeavour to give to each factor its due place and weight. Savigny applied to law the principles of a sound historical criticism. He showed that the history of law was the record of a continuous development, and that this growth was no accidental thing, but was vitally connected with the whole of a nation's life. A nation's laws were the expression of the national character, reflecting, and in turn modifying, its tendencies and ideals. In his volume On the Vocation of our Age for Legislation and Jurisprudence (1814) he protested against the attempt to reach a supposed " law of nature " by searching for the common residue left, after abstraction had been made of all special peculiarities in legal codes. The history and true significance of law could never be understood, if this barren abstract method were followed. In the same spirit he protested against the imposition on the German States of the Code Napoleon. Any unity so reached could only be artificial. The legislation of a nation must grow out of the life of the nation. Savigny, even more truly than Niebuhr, may be called the creator of a school. Along with Eichhorn and Gb'schen he founded in 1815 the Zeitschrift fur geschichtliche Rechtswissenschaft as the organ of the new historical method. He held the chair of Koman Law in the University of Berlin. Niebuhr and Eichhorn were also pro- fessors of the same University at the same time. The friend- ship of the three men, who were all inspired by similar ideals of study, gave an immense impetus to the new movement of historical research. So much may be said by way of introduction. We have now to try to give some more detailed account of the story of Biblical criticism in Germany, in order that we may grasp at any rate the outlines of the critical movement on the Continent, as it developed during the first thirty- five or forty years of the century. Without some such summary we can hardly hope to understand the course of criticism in England. The year 1835 is a turning-point in the history of Biblical criticism. It saw the publication of Strauss's Life of Jesus, 1 a book whose wide influence showed itself in three main 1 Vol. i. came out in 1834. 168 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY directions. In the first place, the extravagances of this volume, and the negative character of most of its conclusions, startled the religious public, made Biblical criticism a subject of common talk, and so helped to bring it down from its academic heights into the homes of men. The Life of Jesus was not a popular work, as was the later Life of Jesus for the German People, which Strauss published in 1864 with the avowed object of summarising for the general reader the results of criticism. 1 Strauss himself wrote of the former book : " For the laity the subject is certainly not adequately prepared ; and for this reason the present work is so framed, that at least the unlearned among them will quickly and often per- ceive that the book is not destined for them." 2 But, as I have said, it created a widespread unrest, which was intensified when in 1846 George Eliot translated it into English. 3 In the second place, scholars, confronted with the volume, began to realise how little had been done in the way of New Testa- ment criticism, compared with the results achieved hi the study of the Old Testament. Speculative Christologies had been numerous, but the historical Christ had been left alone or taken for granted, What was needed, and came about as a result of this bold challenge, was a careful investigation of the primitive records of Christianity, a true historical criticism of the New Testament. Thirdly, the publication of the book increased the opposition between the orthodox and naturalistic schools of criticism, and brought into fresh prominence the problem of miracle and the supernatural. Rationalist theologians, with Paulus at their head, had for some time been applying their criticism to the Gospels, but the forced nature of their exegesis, and the absurdity of many of their conclusions, were sufficient to prove the inadequacy of their method, and the need of a better one. Paulus, while rejecting the orthodox view that the Gospels contained supernatural history, agreed with the orthodox that they contained history, 1 Strauss in this work avoids detailed discussions of problems. He gives instead a summary of the general results of criticism, and supplements the earlier volume with an investigation into the written sources of the Gospel story. 2 Preface to the first German edition. * There had been an earlier translation, issued in numbers, at a cheap rate, which had had a wide circulation. 169 and that a kernel of historical fact lay concealed in all the events which they described. To reduce that history to a record of actual facts explicable by natural causes, and to explain away, by accounting for its origin, whatever of the marvellous or miraculous there might be in the narrative, was their avowed aim. The criticism of Strauss struck deeper. He questioned the initial assumption, that nothing but fact, however embellished, was to be found in the Gospels, and bade men look there for myth, poetry, legend. By boldly applying to the whole life of Jesus his mythical theory, he compelled criticism to undertake a detailed examination of the records, with a view to determining what could be regarded as fact and what as the product of an idealising tendency in the mind of the writer. The vigour of his attack helped to create a new apologetic, even though for a time it gave fresh life to naturalistic interpretations. The same year, 1835, saw also the publication of Vatke's Biblical Theology, in which the conception of development in history, derived from Lessing and Herder, and reinforced by Hegel, was systematically applied to the religion of Israel. Earlier critics of the Old Testament had used the conception, but Vatke made it the central principle of his exegesis, and so put in the forefront of inquiry the idea which was to govern the criticism of the future. He subjects the national traditions of Israel to a penetrating criticism, and shows that many of those which relate to the earliest period of the nation's life are of later origin, and are therefore not always to be trusted. He affirms that the law of development from lower to higher, which characterises the growth of other nations, is true of Israel. This necessitates a revision of our view of the order of Israel's religious and political evolution. We cannot, for example, hold that Moses gave the nation a fully developed civil law or theology. 1 Vatke (1806-82), it is important to remember, was a profound student of philosophy before he began his researches into the Old Testament. Hegel's influence upon him was enormous. The Biblical Theology would never have seen the light, had it not been for Vatke's thorough 1 For an account of Vatke, cp. Pfleiderer's Development of Theology, pp. 252- 256. Also the section in Cheyne's Founders of Old Testament Criticism. I should like here to acknowledge my debt to this book. 170 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY acceptance of Hegelian teaching on the philosophy of history. Vatke himself confesses this, by prefacing the work with philo- sophical speculations on religion and its evolution, couched in the Hegelian terminology. These speculations mystified and repelled would-be readers of the book, which consequently had at the time less influence on the general public than it deserved. It was left for a later generation to discern the true worth of Vatke's method and conclusions. Mention must also be made of yet one more book issued in this same year, F. C. Baur's treatise on the Pastoral Epistles, 1 in which the author shows that criticism of primitive Chris- tianity must concern itself, not only with documentary analysis, but with the whole environment of life and thought in which the Christian community developed. Christianity, while it exercised a formative influence on its surroundings, was also coloured by them, and it was the duty of the historian to trace this reciprocal interaction. The problem, as Baur showed, was far more complex than critics had hitherto realised. It could be solved only by the careful application of the historico- critical method in its completeness. As we look back over the early movement of Biblical criticism in Germany, we are struck by the comparative poverty of the criticism of the New Testament. One reason for this poverty, as has been already indicated, was the dominance of speculative Christologies. Men were dazzled by the variety and brilliancy of these philosophical constructions, and had not yet learned that the only sure basis for a theory of Christ's Person was to be found in patient, historical research. Again, the orthodox theologians of the eighteenth century had in- herited from the seventeenth century the love of dogmatic system which has been a characteristic of Protestant Churches. Their concern was more with dogma than with the historical facts of Christianity; or, it they were concerned with these facts, they were hampered in their investigations of them by a mechanical theory of inspiration which precluded any true literary criticism of the documents of the New Testament. Some work, however, had been done on the synoptic problem, and on the question of the formation of the canon of Scripture. Between 1804 and 1814 Eichhorn (1752-1827) had published 1 Ubcr die sogenannten Pastoralbriefe. IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 171 his Introduction to the New Testament, in which he propounded the fertile hypothesis of a primitive source, or Urevangelium, which the various synoptic writers utilised, each for his own purpose. 1 Gieseler (1792-1854), accepting the theory of a common tradition, regarded that tradition as oral. Griesbach (1745-1812) maintained that Mark was made up of extracts from Luke and Matthew ; and with this opinion Schleiermacher agreed, thus showing less insight than Herder, who had already noted the priority of Mark. Schleiermacher, while allowing a place to oral tradition, thought that the synoptic narratives were made up by the combination of several short, written accounts of the life of Jesus, and so represented an aggregation of pre-existing material. Of this material he held that the oldest and most authentic portion consisted of the didactic sayings of Christ. In the matter of the canon, the march of free inquiry had been hindered by conceptions of canonicity which tended to remove the books of the New Testament from investigation by ordinary literary criticism. Semler (1725-1791) indeed had already argued that there was no evidence that the compilers of the canon were specially inspired, and that the word " canonical " carried with it no association of miraculous selection or pre- servation; but the opposing view of some peculiar sanctity attaching to a canonical book continued to be maintained. Eichhorn did good service in tracing the gradual growth of the canon, but it was Schleiermacher, more than any else, who helped to dispel false opinions as to canonicity and in- spiration. With regard to the Fourth Gospel, criticism was in the curious position of accepting it as perhaps the earliest, and certainly the most authentic, account of the life of Jesus, written by the apostle St. John as an eye-witness of the events described. Bretschneider (1776-1848), it is true, had in 1820 attacked this assumption in his Probabilia? Assuming the historical credibility of the first three Gospels, he questioned the historicity of the fourth, on the ground that it was so 1 Lessing, in his New Hypothesis, had suggested that both the canonical and uncanonical Gospels sprang from an original Gospel, represented in the first instance by the Gospel of the Hebrews, and ultimately by St. Matthew. 2 ProbabUia de Evangdii et Epistdarum Joannis Apostoli indole et origine. different from the others. But his book came out, just when a reaction had begun in favour ot a religion of feeling and senti- ment, and so had little immediate effect upon critical opinion. 1 The authority and influence of Schleiermacher were in the main responsible for the opinions held about this Gospel, but his view of the book was not based on historical criticism, but was an outcome of his general theology, and of the romantic strain in his nature which found a sympathetic affinity in the portrayal of the Johannine Christ. 2 Weisse did something in his History of the Gospels (1838) to determine the relation of the fourth Gospel to the other three, but it was Baur who first, in an essay on St. John (1844), made it clear that, if the question of its historical character was to be determined, the purpose and idea of the author in writing it must be taken into account. Criticism was also beginning to busy itself with the Epistles and the Apocalypse. Eichhorn questioned the genuineness of II Peter and Jude, and the Pauline authorship of the Pastoral Epistles. De Wette agreed with him, and doubted also the authenticity of Ephesians and Revelation. Schleiermacher, on the other hand, accepted as genuine II Timothy and Titus, but readily admitted the presence in the New Testament of pseudonymous writings. But, speaking in broad terms, we may say, that the historical criticism of the New Testament had not yet that is, up to about the year 1840 reached the position of an organised movement. It lacked careful method and settled canons of judgment, though it had begun to see where the problems lay which were to exercise critical ingenuity for many years to come. Invaluable work, however, had been done by scholars, such as Wettstein, Michaelis, Ernesti, Griesbach, in the field of grammar, philology, and investigation of the text of the New Testament ; and the material collected by this " lower " criticism was indispensable for the later growth of " higher," or literary and historical, criticism. Matters, however, were very different in respect of the Old Testament. Here a more sympathetic and continuous critical 1 Cp. Mackay's The Tubingen School and its Antecedents, p. 121. 2 Cp. the words of Strauss in The Life of Jesus for the German People, p. 120 " The whole generation, which had grown up in Romanticism and the combined philosophy of Fichte and Schelling, found the mystic ideal Gospel of John more suitable to their views than the historical realism of the first three." IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 173 movement took place, which, beginning with Eichhorn, 1 was carried on (to mention only the more important names) by Ilgen, De Wette, Gesenius, Vatke, Ewald. Three features of this movement stand out. First, it was founded on exact scholarship and minute research. In place of a priori methods we find critical analysis of documents, and careful grammatical and philological inquiry. Secondly, there quickly grew up among the critics a broad unanimity as to general principles and larger conclusions. Hengstenberg (1802-1869) stands almost alone in his settled opposition to the new criticism. Thirdly, a genuine religious motive inspired the majority of these early critics. Their criticism is reverent. They were not there to destroy, but to construct. Most of them, and certainly the greatest, were filled with a spirit very different from either pure scepticism or the narrow rationalism of the Enlightenment. For them the Bible was a book replete with spiritual life and teaching, and in the history of the Hebrews they felt that they were tracing out the gradual self-revelation of God to humanity. They were men of wide interests and sympathies, familiar, for the most part, with philosophy and literature. Their breadth of vision saved them from pedantry and dryness. 2 The main results of Old Testament criticism in these early years may be summarised as follows: (a) The problem of the Pentateuch was attacked, and its composite character recognised. Eichhorn, in his Introduction to the Old Testament, pointed out 1 I have taken Eichhorn as the starting-point of the criticism of the Old Testament, because, unhampered by any theory of a peculiar sanctity attaching to canonical writings, he frankly treats Scripture as literature. He is aware, too, that the higher, as contrasted with the lower criticism, had hardly begun. But the particular problem of the Pentateuch had exercised the minds of writers before Eichhorn. For example, Simon in 1678, in his Critical History of the Old Testament, had pointed out the existence of duplicate narratives in Genesis, and of differences of style. Simon was a Roman Catholic Oratorian priest. In 1753 another Roman Catholic, a doctor, by name Astruc, had called attention to the use in Genesis of the two divine names Jehovah and Elohim, and had argued that there were two main documents, each of which again might be composite, which were combined together in the book. Spinoza, too, deserves mention, first, on account of his bold conjecture that Ezra was the author of the Pentateuch in its present form ; secondly, because he insisted that no precon- ceived theory of inspiration should hinder the application to the Biblical writings of an unfettered literary and historical criticism. 2 Cheyne, in Founders of Old Testament Criticism, succeeds, in a delightful manner, in making the personality of these critics live before us. 174 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY the existence in Genesis of two documents, distinguishable both by style and ideas, which he argued were combined at the end of the Mosaic age. 1 The four later books of the Pentateuch he considered were formed out of separate writings of Moses and his contemporaries. He defended the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, though he admitted the possibility of later addi- tions to Genesis. Ilgen (1763-1834) was the first to show that there were three separate writers in Genesis, two of whom used the divine name Elohim. He held that Genesis was a compila- tion from documents or archives preserved in the temple at Jerusalem, but saw that much research was necessary before any sure conclusions could be reached about the history of Hebrew literature. De Wette (1780-1849) argued in 1805 2 that Deuteronomy was later than the rest of the Pentateuch, and placed the composition of the main portion of it in the reign of Josiah. He noted clear traces in the Pentateuch of a progressive development of ritual and worship. By com- paring the books of Samuel and Kings with Chronicles, he showed that the laws of Moses were unknown to post-Mosaic historians, and that the Pentateuch could not be regarded as an authority for the period which it describes, but only for the period in which it was compiled ; the narrative of the earlier period being idealised by the projection into it of ideas and conditions representative of a later time. De Wette by this striking contribution to the problem gave an immense impetus to historical criticism, and for many years influenced the critics who succeeded him. But, as Wellhausen pointed out, 3 histori- cal criticism in De Wette had outrun literary. Hence came a reaction, led by Bleek and Ewald, who set themselves to examine more minutely the structure of the Pentateuch, and the relation of its parts. 4 1 Astruc had earlier shown the existence of the two documents ; but Eichhorn seems to have reached the same conclusion independently. 2 In a treatise written for his doctor's degree at Jena. 3 Cp. the article "Pentateuch " in Encyclopaedia Britannica. * The results of this inquiry were as follows: The older Fragmentary hypo- thesis of Geddes was abandoned (a), and its place taken by the Supplementary hypothesis, which regarded the Elohist sections of the Pentateuch as the primary narrative, this being subsequently supplemented by the narrative of the Jehovist writer. This view obtained general assent till Hupfeld in 1853 threw new light (a) Cp. the next chapter. IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 175 (6) Hebrew grammar and philology were carefully in- vestigated in themselves, and in connection with other Semitic languages. Here the place of honour belongs to Gesenius (1785-1842) and Ewald (1803-1875). Gesenius's Hebrew Grammar, History of the Hebrew Language, and Lexicon Manuale have provided all later scholars with materials in- dispensable for their work. Ewald's Kritische Grammatik had also much influence, while his studies in Arabic were an important factor in the spread of the comparative method. Thorough work of this kind was not only the necessary pre- liminary for the investigation of Hebrew literature, but put an end to the fashion of arbitrary textual criticism. (c) Certain general principles were steadily winning their way to acceptance, and later criticism has entirely confirmed them. One such was the principle, first grasped by Eichhorn, that the documents of the Old Testament have undergone a process of constant re-editing, and hence are frequently com- posite in character. Allowance has everywhere to be made for the modifying influence of national tradition. Following on this was the principle, emphasized by De Wette in his Com- mentary on the Psalms, that the title of a work is no proof that the traditional author was the real author. David, as he pointed out, stands in the Psalter for a collective name. The third and most important principle was the recognition that Israel's religion was a gradual development, reaching its maturity in the prophets, and that for its understanding a genetic method was essential. Vatke, as we have seen, gave to this thought its clearest expression, but it also inspired Ewald in his Poetical Books of the Old Testament, and has proved itself the most fruitful of all critical principles, Again, we trace a growing appreciation of the Old Testament as a litera- ture, in respect both of its form and spirit. Herder's love of primitive poetry is reflected in Ewald's early studies of the upon the subject. Joshua was included as part of the Pentateuch, and the Elohistic sections of Genesis were seen to be vitally connected with the legisla- tion of the middle books of the Pentateuch (6). (6) It may be mentioned that Vatke in his Biblical Theology agreed that the Elohistic document in its present form could not be earlier than the Exile, but he later changed his opinion, and maintained that it was prior to the Jehovistic document and to Deuteronomy. 176 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY Hebrew poets, and in what Cheyne has called his unique " emotional sympathy with the psalmists." This sympathetic insight was to come to a fruitage riper than that of Herder in Ewald's work The Prophets, and in his History of the People of Israel; riper, because, while Herder had a keen aesthetic appreciation of the Bible, he lacked Ewald's deeper religious feeling. Anyone who would do justice to the Old Testament can never separate its religious teaching from the literary form in which it is cast. The growth of historical and literary criticism in the hands of such writers as Ewald gradually opened men's eyes to the immense spiritual wealth of the Old Testament. With an understanding of the way in which the literature had grown up came a feeling for its beauties, and an appreciation of its varied spiritual message, which have made the Bible live, as it has, perhaps, never lived before. Finally, as criticism developed, broader views of inspiration won their way to acceptance. Reference has already been made to the teaching of Lessing and Herder on this matter; but the name of Semler must not be forgotten. He was one of the first to insist upon the need for distinguishing between the spiritual message of the Bible and the local forms in which that message was cast. Inspiration was concerned with the former, not with the latter. A book was not divine because it was put in the canon. It was put in the canon because men recognised its spiritual worth. With the exception of Heng- stenberg, all the critics whom we have mentioned laid emphasis upon the human element in the Bible. The presence of this element made the Bible amenable to treatment by the ordinary canons of literary and historical criticism. CHAPTER X THE RISE OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM IN ENGLAND VARIOUS influences were at work to block the advance of Biblical criticism in England at the opening of the nineteenth century. There was, in the first place, a general indifference to learning on the part of the clergy. Learned theologians were, indeed, to be found among the Orthodox, but, taken as a whole, theology shared in the eclipse which had settled upon culture generally, both at the universities and outside. Thomas Arnold's complaint that in his day there was no science of Biblical Theology in England applied with still greater force to the years 1800-1825. Almost all the clergy were ignorant of German, and had no knowledge of the results which criticism had achieved. Again, the effect of the French Revolution had been to make men suspicious of any novelty. They rallied to the traditional teaching of the Church as a bulwark against the advancing tide of infidelity. They felt that, at all costs, the authority, whether of the Church or the Scriptures, must be maintained. But the chief obstacle was the traditional view of the Bible as a volume inspired throughout from cover to cover, whose statements, whether they related to science, or history, or religion, were to be accepted without questioning. The Bible was treated as something apart from all other writings. Its various books were regarded as being all on the same level of inspiration, and as having been produced under a divine super- intendence which protected them from any material error. Even a man of such large mind as Van Mildert could write that in the Bible " it is impossible even to imagine a failure, either in judgment or in integrity " ; 1 and could argue that the confusion of tongues at the Tower of Babel was designed to prevent the mixing of true believers with idolaters and 1 Bampton Lectures, 1814, An Inquiry into the General Principles of Scripture Interpretation, p. 158, 3rd edition. 177 M 178 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY atheists, and that the mark set on Cain was " probably some miraculous change in his external appearance, transmitted to his posterity, and serving as a memorial of the first apostacy from true religion." l The theory of a literal, verbal inspiration was probably not largely held; its place was taken by a theory of plenary inspira- tion, or an inspiration of superintendence which preserved the Scriptures from all mistakes except very minor contradictions, or the errors of copyists. Theologians, however, had never thought out the implications of their views. Van Mildert, for example, leaves us uncertain as to the range of the divine control, or the extent to which he will admit the presence of a human element in the Bible. The main object of his Boyle and Bampton Lectures was to defend the authority of the Bible and Revelation. God, he argues, must have secured the record of His revelation from material error. The Biblical writers "constantly received from the Holy Spirit such a degree of assistance as might suffice to give to every part of Scripture its sanction and authority, as the word of God." 2 In the Boyle Lectures are indications of a broader outlook, as when, for instance, he admits that there are degrees of inspiration, that the divine character of the Bible is proved by the matter con- tained in it, rather than by the manner of its conveyance, and that it is impossible to form a clear notion of the extent of the inspiration of the prophets. 3 But I am inclined to think that in the Bampton Lectures, in his desire to defend from any attack the whole system of Church doctrine, he recedes some- what from his earlier and more liberal opinions. Van Mildert was aware of the existence of critical theories. He mentions the views of Alexander Geddes, but only to condemn them. He can see in them nothing but " the most unwarrantable liberties " taken with the sacred writings, in order to reconcile them with the prejudices of philosophical unbelievers. 4 The following beliefs were generally accepted : (a) Adam was a historical person to whom had been given a primitive revela- 1 Boyle Lectures, 1802-5 An Historical View of the Rise and Progress of Infidelity, with a Refutation of its Principles and Reasonings. Sermon xxi. * Boyle Lectures, p. 395. 8 Ibid., Sermons xxii. and xxiii. * Ibid., Sermon xi. IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 179 tion. 1 Pagan systems of religion were regarded as "a wilful corruption of Sacred Truth," and a departure from the known will of God as given in the primaeval revelation and handed on to later generations. 2 When, as in the case of the rite of sacrifice, there was a parallel between Jewish and heathen usages, it was explained as "a fragment of early revelation, broken off from the system of which it formed a part, and carried down along the stream of time, after its object and purpose had been forgotten." 3 (6) Acceptance of any of the results of criticism was equivalent to unsoundness of faith and disloyalty to the Church, and was to be explained by the presence of some moral defect in the critic, (c) Miracle and prophecy were the chief evidence for the truth of Christianity, and a proof of inspiration. By prophecy was meant the God-given power of foreseeing future events. What better proof of inspiration could be adduced than the fact that predictions were subsequently fulfilled ? One would antecedently have expected that Biblical exegesis would have been a marked feature of Evangelical theology, seeing that the basis of the Evangelical system was the autho- rity of the written word. But it was not so. Except in the interpretation of prophecy, where they elaborated extravagant views connected with the fulfilment of prediction and the millennium, the Evangelicals did little in the way of exegesis of the Scriptures. The two most famous commentaries of the first quarter of the century, the Family Bible, edited by D'Oyly and Mant, and Home's Introduction to the Critical Study of Holy Scripture, did not emanate from that school. The former was a popular work, intended as a counterblast to the annotated Bible which was being issued by dissenters, and was mainly homiletical. The latter, a massive and learned production, can hardly be called truly critical in method. Blunt's Undesigned Coincidences (1827-33) was an apologetic work which applied 1 " It is scarcely possible to doubt that man was instructed immediately after his Fall in the mysteries of Eedemption, so far at least as was necessary to enable him to work out his own salvation, and that instituted means were pro- vided for him by a faithful use of which he might attain to eternal life." Boyle Lectures, p. 433. 2 Ibid., p. 433. 3 J. B. Sumner, The Evidence o/ Christianity Derived from its Nature and Reception (1825), p. 84. 180 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY to all the historical books of the Bible Paley's method of proof from the undesigned coincidences in the Pauline Epistles. It belongs to apologetics rather than to criticism. Two Bampton Lectures of the period perhaps deserve short notice as pointing the way to better things. In 1817 John Miller, with his eye on the growing conflict between theology and geological science, insisted that the appeal of the Bible is primarily spiritual. 1 Scientific statements, he urged form but a very small part of Scripture, whose true authority is moral, and can never be undermined by objections from the side of science. 2 As the older theories of inspiration gave way, it was more clearly seen that the true inspiration of the Biblical writers lay in the moral and religious character of their message. In 1806 John Brown was the lecturer, and took as his subject the progressive nature of the divine revelation. 3 His principle does not carry him far enough to make him discard the current belief in a primaeval revelation, but it enables him to deal with the moral difficulties of the Old Testament the presence, for example, of low ethical standards which constituted a serious stumbling-block to traditional theories of inspiration. God, he says, was gradually educating the Hebrews. Adam was the recipient of such knowledge of God as was suitable to his condition. It was wrong to regard him as the perfect man. Intellectually and morally he stood far below his descendants. 4 The traditional view of the Bible was possible, only because theology had not been permeated by the historical spirit. As the historical method grew, the whole conception of revelation changed. It ceased to be regarded as a mechanical thing operating from without at one uniform level, but was thought of as a progressive unfolding of the divine purpose. The con- ception of inspiration underwent a similar change. Inspiration, if harder to define, became something much more real and living. Before we pass on to consider the few men in England who 1 The Divine Authority of Holy Scripture Asserted, from its Adaptation to the Real State of Human Nature. * Cp. Lecture iv. : " The practical and moral records of the Bible are the very picture of man." Cp. Keble's lines for St. Bartholomew's Day in The Christian Year, which, as the footnote shows, had Miller's lectures directly in view. 1 Published in 1809 under the title Sermoni. * Sermon ii. IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 181 may truly be called the pioneers and prophets of the coming critical movement, it is necessary to say a little about the influence of geology in promoting Biblical criticism. Geology is a science which can claim a peculiarly British ancestry. The Geological Society was founded early in the nineteenth century by Greenough with the direct object of collecting facts. The ideal of its members was accurate observation in place of the theorising which had up till then been so common. And facts were soon found which conflicted with the current, orthodox view of the literal accuracy of the Biblical records of Creation and the Deluge. Men were driven to ask, whether belief in the Bible as the word of God necessarily implied that all its state- ments upon every subject were strictly true. Theologians, however, were slow to abandon their traditional opinions. Between 1800 and 1834 four of the Bampton Lecturers dealt with the conflict between science and religion, and three of them, Faber, Nares, and Bidlake, adopted a tone of violent hostility to the new geological discoveries ; either denying that the discovered facts were facts, or maintaining that room could still be found for them within the traditional system. 1 It was argued, for example, that the story of the Deluge in Genesis sufficiently explained the presence of marine deposits on mountain-tops or in regions far from the sea. All these lec- turers urge that belief in revelation is impossible if the accuracy of the Biblical record is in any respect impugned. Frederick Nolan, the lecturer in 1833, adopted a somewhat less uncom- promising attitude. 2 He admitted that the primary object of the Bible was to teach religion, not science, but held, at the same time, that Moses was inspired with enough scientific knowledge to write an account of creation which should in broad outline harmonise with subsequent scientific dis- covery. A revolution in geology was effected with the publication of Lyell's Principles of Geology (1830-33), though his views met with considerable opposition from many of the leaders 1 The titles and dates of these lectures are as follows : 1800, Faber, Horac Mosaicae : 1805, Nares, A View of the Evidences of Christianity at the close of the Pre- tended Age of Reason ; 1811, Bidlake, The Truth and Consistency of Divine Revela- tion, with some Remarks on the contrary extremes of Infidelity and Enthusiasm. 2 The Analogy of Revelation and Science Established. 182 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY of scientific thought. 1 Lyell maintained that there was no need to adopt the theory of a succession of violent catastrophes to explain the present state of the earth's surface. Given a sufficiency of time, a uniformitarian theory would account for the facts: the forces now at work modifying the face of the globe were adequate to account for all its past history. Lyell's views had been foreshadowed by Hutton, but Button's con- tribution was forgotten in the excitement aroused by the Principles. To Lyell belongs the honour of converting the geological world to the new theory. The belief in catastrophe went hand in hand with the biological doctrine of the fixity of species of which Cuvier was the stoutest upholder. Fixity of species involved a belief in special creation. Either all existing species had remained unchanged since the primal act of creation, or there had been a series of creative acts, by which new forms had been produced to take the place of those destroyed by the cataclysms which rent the earth's crust. The effect of Lyell's teaching was to weaken the belief in special creation and supernatural interference, by showing that the hypothesis of a succession of divine creative acts was unnecessary. Following upon the break-down of the theory of geological catastrophe came the evolutionary theory of organic descent from a common stock. Geologists and bio- logists both learned the lesson of evolution, and so contributed to the spread of new views about the Bible. We turn now to the pioneers of Biblical criticism in this country. Alexander Geddes (1737-1801) is the first to attract our attention. 2 He was a Roman Catholic priest, living near Aberdeen, a scholar, and a man of liberal theological opinions. He had been engaged for some time on a new translation of the Bible with critical notes, of which volume i. was published 1 E.g. from Cuvier, Sedgwick, Buckland. It is an open question how far some of the geologists who opposed Lyell were influenced by the traditional theology. a A fuller narrative of the history of Biblical criticism would deal with the work of still earlier investigators, such as Warburton, Lowth, Parrish, and Thomas Hobbes. Geddes, however, is the first really important name in the story of detailed criticism of the Old Testament. Cp. Cheyne, Poundert of Old Testament Criticism, pp. 3-13. IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 183 in 1792, and volume ii. in 1797. 1 In 1800 he published Critical Remarks on the Hebrew Scriptures, corresponding with a New Translation of the Bible, He boldly asserted that the Penta- teuch in its present form could not be the work of Moses, though it contained, he thought, Mosaic documents. He places its composition in the reign of Solomon, holding, however, that there were passages in it which pointed to insertion at a still later date. Of inspiration he took a broad view, refusing to limit it to the Jewish Scriptures, and arguing that many difficulties which the narrower theory had to face would vanish, if the Bible were not treated as something entirely different from all other literatures. 2 Geddes is important, not only as an early champion of the right of free inquiry, who went on with his work, undeterred by the threats and punishments of his ecclesiastical superiors, but because of his influence upon Eichhorn and Vater in Germany. Eichhorn spoke of him with the highest respect, and Vater in his Commentary on the Pentateuch translated portions of the Critical Remarks, and supported his hypothesis, that Genesis contained not only two separate documents, but a large number of fragments which had been combined into a whole at some later date. Geddes, however, like Marsh of whom I next speak, had little influence upon English theology. The mind of the age was not ripe for the reception of these new opinions. A long period was still to elapse before any real stirring of the stagnant waters took place. Herbert Marsh, Bishop ot Llandaff (1816-19), and of Peter- borough (1819-35), was unquestionably one of the ablest theo- logians and Biblical scholars of his day. He had the distinction of being one of the very few writers in England who possessed a knowledge of German or any familiarity with German scholar- ship ; and he was the first in this country to raise clearly the problem of the composition and correlation of the Synoptic Gospels. Subsequent investigators looked back to him as one of their chiei inspirers. Thirlwall, for example, expressly states that he is taking up the problem of inspiration at the point 1 The Holy Bible, or the Books accounted sacred by Jews and Christians, faith- fully translated from corrected Texts of the Originals, with Various Readings, Explanatory Notes, and Critical Remarks. 1 Ibid., vol. ii., Preface. 184 DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY where Marsh left it. 1 Marsh was a Fellow of St. John's, Cambridge, and in 1807 became Margaret Professor of Divinity in that University. While holding the chair, he delivered and published a voluminous course of lectures which covered almost the entire ground of theology. 2 The lectures show his immense learning, particularly in the history of Biblical scholar- ship, his analytical faculty, and his power of penetrating to the heart of a problem. They contain much which can be read with profit to-day. We are not, however, directly con- cerned with these, but rather with the controversy which arose between Marsh and Randolph, Bishop of Oxford. Marsh had studied at Leipsic under Michaelis, and had also corresponded with Griesbach on the text of the New Testament. In 1793 he published a translation of Michaelis's Introduction to the New Testament with notes of his own ; and in 1801 followed this up with a volume on The Origin and Composition of the Three First Canonical Gospels* In this he discusses the synoptic problem, and offers as a solution the following hypothesis. All three writers used a common Hebrew document, but none had knowledge of any Gospel but his own. Matthew wrote in Hebrew, and retained in that language what he took from the common source. Mark and Luke translated into Greek what they borrowed. The two latter had in addition to the Hebrew original, a Greek translation of it. Whoever translated Matthew's Hebrew Gospel into Greek got help from Mark when Mark had matter in common with Matthew, and when there was no such common matter used Luke. The sources to which Matthew had access were com- posed of communications derived from the Apostles themselves. It was an attempt to show that a real problem existed, that it lay in the very structure of the Gospels, being evoked by their joint similarities and discrepancies, and that for its solution a critical investigation of the text of the narrative was necessary, which should be free from all a priori theorising, and should follow the methods of ordinary historical criticism. 1 Cp. Letters Literary and Theological of C. Thirlwall, edited by Perowne and Stokes, p. 76. 3 A Course of Lectures containing a Description and Systematic Arrangement oj the Sweral Branches of Dinnity. Delivered between 1809-1823. 3 This appeared as a separate book, but was really volume iv. of his work on the New Testament. IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 185 Such an inquiry raised at once the question of the meaning of inspiration. Marsh deals with this, and, while he admits that a belief in verbal inspiration is untenable, maintains that there is nothing in his views which is inconsistent with a belief in the inspiration of the writers. 1 In his lectures at Cambridge he lays down the maxim, that the same critical principles should be applied to the Bible which were applied to any other literature; but it is difficult to see how he could re- concile such a view with his belief in " a never-ceasing super- intendence to guard the evangelists from error." Randolph in 1802 attacked Marsh in an anonymous pub- lication entitled Remarks on Michaelis and his Commentator, to which Marsh in the same year replied. The controversy continued for two more years, 2 and there can be no question that the victory lay with Marsh, the bishop having neither the knowledge nor, we must add, the fairness of mind, to deal with the subject. Randolph's criticism ignored the central point at issue, the existence of a problem raised by the very structure of the narratives. It was no question, as the bishop tried to maintain, of minutiae which could be left alone; nor was the difficulty to be settled by any appeal to ecclesiastical tradition, or by assertions that Marsh's views were derogatory to the Holy Spirit. When he writes that Marsh reduces the evangelists to " the mere copiers of copyists, the compilers from former compilations, from a farrago of Gospels or parts of Gospels, of unknown authority everyone of them," he convicts himself of having misunderstood his opponent ; for, as we have seen, Marsh contended that Matthew used first-hand sources, consisting of communications from the apostles themselves. 3 1 He quotes with approval Warburton's opinion that the Holy Spirit operated on the writers " by watching over them incessantly, but with so suspended a hand as permitted the use, and left them to the guidance of their own faculties, while they kept clear of error, and then only interposing when without the divine assistance they would have been in danger of falling." 1 Marsh's reply, 1802, is called Six Letters to the Author of " Remarks, &c" In 1803 Marsh published Illustrations of the Hypothesis proposed in the Dissertation on the Origin, &c. In 1804 Randolph published a Supplement to "Remarks on Michaelis' Introduction " in answer to the Illustrations, Marsh replied in 1805 with Defence of the " Illustrations,