The storm which this collection of theo logical essays by various authors called up in England had great similarity with the
commotion
produced in Germany by
Strauss's Leben Jesu.
Strauss's Leben Jesu.
Pleiderer - Development of Theology in Germany since Kant
By this act of love on the part of Christ the one possible method of peace and harmony in the world generally is revealed.
The principle of self-
sacrifice is revealed as the truth in which God displays his inmost character and which all creatures must obey by appro priating the mind of the loving Christ. Thus Christ, the
eternal Head of mankind, becomes the Head of a new moral
world, in which no longer selfish discord reigns, but lasting
and self-sacrificing love.
These ideas tend obviously in the direction of that idealistic
philosophy of Christianity which is represented in the specu lative theology of Germany and in the writings of such men as Caird and Green in Great Britain. But Maurice even more than the kindred German theologian Dorner failed to work them out consistently and thoroughly. The cardinal con tradiction of making the eternal idea of humanity at the same
time an historical individual of an absolutely supernatural nature
participation
separation
? involved everywhere the diversion of all ideal speculative effort of thought into traditional supernaturalism. And in the case of Maurice this supernaturalism was the more pronouncedly narrow, inasmuch as he found the spiritual community of humanity, founded by the revelation of Christ, embodied not in the universal kingdom of God, or the in visible community of the children of God, but in the Church
necessarily
? ? ? 378 THEOLOGY IN GREAT BRITAIN SINCE 1825. [Bk. IV.
of England. 1 Accordingly, while he teaches on the one hand that the entire human race is created and has its essential nature in Christ as its ideal Head, he seems to maintain on the other hand that it is only in the Church of England that the Kingdom of Christ has attained actual existence ! This is a contradiction that a German intellect finds it hard to comprehend, or can only explain by supposing that the strong national feeling of the Englishman had got the better of the intellect of the theologian.
The sources of the characteristic points of Maurice's
profession, had, by his own independent study of the Bible, arrived at the conviction that the orthodox representation of the Gospel did not properly represent its real and scriptural nature. 2 For the Gospel announces the forgiveness of sins not as a reward of faith any more than as a reward of works, but as the free unconditional gift of God, which was bestowed on mankind once for all in their representative Head, Christ, so that every man may appropriate Yet forgiveness
not itself salvation, but only the means of and salvation itself not a future good, but spiritual fellowship with God in the sanctification of the character by means of his holy love. The very purpose for which God offers his free unmerited love, as forgiving mercy to sinners, that they may thereby be encouraged and impelled to love him in return, and to grow themselves into the image of his holy love. Glad devotion to God, loving dependence on the Creator, the perfect condition of the creature, in which all the faculties
This, the fundamental thought of his book, The Kingdom of Christ,
stated in strong and emphatic language in letter of July 12, 1834 (Life,
p. 166).
The most interesting of Erskine's writings, which has been followed
the above account of his system, The Unconditional Freeness of the Gospel (1828); to must be added The Brazen Serpent, or Life coming through Death (1831) The Doctrine Election, and its Connection with the General Theory Christianity (1837) his first work, Remarks on the Internal Evidence for the Truth Revealed Religion (1820), of less importance.
are to be found in the idealistic philosophy of
teaching
Coleridge (whose metaphysical ideas, however, acquire in Maurice's system a Platonic modification), and in the doc trines of the Scottish theologians, Thomas Ersk1ne, of Linlathen, and John McLeod Campbell, at whom we must take a brief glance. The first of these men, an advocate by
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it
is
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? Ch. II. ] PARTIES AND MOVEMENTS IN THEOLOGY.
379
of the soul are kept in their proper order by that ruling principle. The Fall of man consisted in the rise of the spirit of independence, in that " each man became an independent individual, loving and desiring and approving things accord ing as they affected himself, without regard to the will of God or the sympathies of the universal family. " And this sin of man was also his misery, his hell. The punishment of sin did not consist in external evils, which might be re moved by arbitrary acts, but it consisted in the very fact that the man himself had revolted from saving fellowship with God, and had
the love of him for the love of self and the world. " Restoration to a condition of salvation cannot therefore be effected otherwise than by the restoration
of the love of God to its place as the paramount principle in the heart, resulting in the due subordination of self and the creature under it. Any remedy which falls below this re storation falls below man's need. No pardon which leaves this undone is of any value to him. He needs no infliction from without to make him miserable ; and it is not the re moval of any outward infliction that can give him happiness. He must know that God is better than happiness, and that sin is worse than sorrow. The love of God, not the desire of happiness, is the true keystone of the arch. " The means which God has provided for the attainment of this blessing is the Gospel. It shows us, in the appearance of Christ, the gracious character of God in relation to his rebellious creatures, in order thereby to draw back our hearts to him, which had been estranged through hatred, fear, or
indifference, and thus to restore love to God and to the whole divine human family to its true place in the heart. It is particularly the sufferings of Christ in which the holy love of God has been revealed ; but not in the sense that God had to be reconciled, that his love had to be purchased, by the sacrifice of his Son ; on the contrary, his holy love itself was the source of the mission and the self-sacrifice of Christ. Christ, by his patient endurance of all the misery that had
from the sin of the world, overcame sin itself by love and glorified God by his obedience. His glorifying of the Father, by obediently enduring suffering from love of his sinful brethren, was both the expiation and the putting away of sin ; and because it was the Head of mankind who accomplished this as representing all men, the sin of the entire race is once
sprung
exchanged
? ? ? ? 380 THEOLOGY IN GREAT BRITAIN SINCE 1825. [Bk. IV.
for all forgiven in Christ ; the resurrection of Christ was the seal of this forgiveness. The message of this forgiveness is proclaimed to all the world as the free gift of God offered for its acceptance, but only those who actually accept it are really justified and made part of the Church of Christ. The fear lest the Gospel of free, unconditional mercy should pro duce a false peace in a world dead in sins, and expose the
moral interests of Christianity to the dangers of antinomian- ism, rests, as Erskine is continually reiterating, upon a mis conception. For the pardon, which is the free gift of God in Christ, is of advantage to men only as they receive and with Christ himself, the revelation of the holy, loving character of God, into their hearts and thereby the principle of holy, self-sacrificing love made the dominant power and the root of personal holiness and salvation. Pardon therefore, really received only when evinces itself as the effective means of sanctification and accordingly of salvation.
not itself salvation, for salvation cannot be given to men
? without conditions consists in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit heaven holiness, and the forgiveness of sins blessing only in so far as produces holiness.
Holiness the ultimate object God has view with us, and the Gospel message serves only as means to this end.
These ideas of Erskine's were further worked out and established by his friend, the theologian, McLeod Camp bell, in his very suggestive book, The Nature the Atone
ment, and its Relation to Remission of Sins and Eternal Life (1856, 5th ed. , 1878). As believing Biblical theologian, Campbell does not deny that Christ presented an expiatory sacrifice for us, but he maintains that when this sacrifice not interpreted in accordance with preconceived opinions, but looked at as and as represented in the Scriptures, cannot be regarded as the suffering of the punishment due to man's sin his stead, but moral and spiritual meaning must be put upon it. Christ effected our salvation by becoming the mediator between God and man, and representing both -- God with man and man with God. This twofold relation of the atonement worked out with reference to its retrospective and its prospective action. In the first respect, Christ's work was to reveal the Father in humanity and for humanity, to be the witness of God's holy love, a love which hates sin and seeks to save the sinner by
gratuitously
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J. of
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is it ;
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;
it is
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;
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? Ch. II. ] PARTIES AND MOVEMENTS IN THEOLOGY. 381
him. Christ felt the pain on account of sin that filled the holy heart of God, and in a perfect, vicarious contrition acknowledged the righteousness of the divine condemnation of sin, as the representative of mankind before God. When he identified himself with his brethren in the flesh by his compassionate sympathy, he endured the deepest pangs, such as only the Holy One could feel, on account of the sins of men, both as guilt before God and as the source of human misery. This pain on account of sin, and this perfect repentance of offered to God in the name of man kind, constituted the true atonement for the sins of mankind,
sacrifice well-pleasing to God, such as no execution of punishment could have supplied. With this complete con demnation of the sinful past of mankind by its representative
Head, full satisfaction was offered to the holy will of God.
But this moral atonement of Christ had at the same time
prospective significance. must be conceived as effecting salvation, or eternal life, not merely as the indirect result of Christ's work, but as inwardly connected with as, in fact, already included in that work. This would not be the case on the supposition of an imputation of vicarious punitive suffering to sinners, which leaves their moral condition in relation to God unchanged, and makes salvation only a future state of happiness. The atonement must therefore be con ceived thus Christ in his person represents humanity as
converting
? to God, and animated solely by love to Him, and by means of his identification with his brethren Christ communicated his righteousness as new life to them. He thereby not only revealed the Divine Fatherhood to men,
but he also discovered the treasure of the Divine image in man, which had until then been veiled under their sin. The
holy, well-pleasing
putation.
of Christ was the revelation of the latent
righteousness
capacity in man for righteousness, which he possessed by virtue of the indwelling Son of God. Christ must not be conceived as so standing apart from humanity that his righteousness could not avail for otherwise than by im
He as the second Adam, the Head of humanity, so truly one with that his righteousness counts the sight of God as the righteousness of mankind generally, and that
can pass from Christ to all men. Christ himself had in his human consciousness the witness to the ability of man kind to be filled with the love of God. In his love to his
? ? it
a
is, it
in
it,
it
a
:
It
it,
? 382 THEOLOGY IN GREAT BRITAIN SINCE 1825. [Bk. IV.
brethren lay the prophetic hope that they also would open their hearts to the love of God, from which they had for a time been estranged. Accordingly, the atoning work of Christ did not consist in the deliverance of men from future punishment and the obtaining of future happiness ; but in
to them his knowledge and love of the Father, and making them thereby children of God, in the possession of eternal life and a righteousness well- pleasing to God. Everything that the Son accomplished, and that the Father accepted, had the prospective intention of being reproduced in us ; both his pain on account of sin, and his confiding and obedient love to the Father, were intended to be appropriated by us. Nothing of a mere external nature
that God could do with us or could give to us, which is not involved in the relation of our souls to God and in the re lation of our own hearts answering to his heart, can possibly
be our salvation.
This is manifestly the same reconstruction of the Christian
doctrine of salvation which was effected by Kant and Schleier- macher in Germany, whereby it is converted from forensic externality into ethical inwardness and a truth of direct religious experience. Erskine and Campbell appear, however, to have reached their convictions in entire independence of German theology, by their own absorbing study of the Bible ; and I regard their ideas as the best contribution to dogmatics which British theology has produced in the present century.
That the Scottish Church rejected and thrust out from its
midst, in the person of Campbell, this line of theological thought, was the heaviest blow that it could inflict upon itself;
thereby it arrested its healthy development for more than half a century. For it is only just now that Scotch theo
logians begin to start once more from Campbell, though, it must be confessed, with great timidity, as may be seen from the book of the Glasgow theologian, Alexander Bruce,
The Humiliation of Christ in its Physical, Ethical, and
Soteriological Aspects (1876). It is here taught (following rather Hofmann, of Erlangen, than Campbell) that the Son of God entered into the condition of humanity, as it lay under the wrath of God, in such a way that he felt in himself the effects of that wrath, though he was not himself in his per sonal relation to God the object of it. The value of the sacrifice of Christ, Bruce holds, was equal to his Divine
communicating
? ? ? ? Ch. II. ] PARTIES AND MOVEMENTS IN THEOLOGY. 383
dignity multiplied by his perfect obedience, multiplied by his boundless love, multiplied by his sufferings, which reached the utmost limits of what a sinless body could endure. As God took all this into account, and was thereby satisfied, we also must take it all into consideration, in order to say " Amen " to the Divine view of the sacrifice of Christ. This is an attempt to mediate between the old and the new, which does not approach in clearness of principle the thought of Erskine and
Campbell, although we must acknowledge that it is in the same direction which they took.
Though condemned in the land of their birth, the ideas of Erskine and Campbell were received in the soil of the
Liberal theology of England. The religious profundity of the Scotchmen admirably supplemented the thought of the Englishmen, which is characterised more by a practical breadth than religious and speculative depth. It is to them that Maurice's theology owes its best features. And from Maurice again Charles Kingsley received the dominant
direction of his theology, which gave fitting expression to the feelings of his heart in its warm sympathy for everything truly human, and supplied the theoretical rallying-point for his philanthropic aims. In the history of the Christian- socialist movements of the century, the names of Maurice and Kingsley occupy a foremost place. They showed by their deeds what was the fundamental thought of their theology -- that Christianity is the leaven which is destined to regenerate and to hallow the life of human society. Side by side with them stands the great preacher Freder1Ck W. Robertson, whom death too soon removed, who was equal to them in nobility of character and their superior in the wealth and depth of his mind. The biography of this man, so admirably executed by Stopford A. Brooke, reads like the life of a saint, but of a Protestant and modern saint, who does not escape out of the world, but, as a soldier of God, fights the great fight with all ungodliness, with the sins of the upper and the lower classes, with the unreality and falsehood of even religious parties, who at the same time keeps his own soul unspotted from the world, and who is compelled often and deeply to drain the bitter cup of suffering, which no
soldier of God can escape in this world of wickedness and folly. There is little in homiletical literature to compare
with the four series of Robertson's sermons, in
? respect
? ? ? 384 THEOLOGY IN GREAT BRITAIN SINCE 1 825. [Bk. IV.
of wealth and depth of thought, strength of moral pathos, warmth of religious emotion, clearness and vividness of style, and elevation and beauty of language. As his biographer says, Robertson " felt that Christianity was too much preached as theology, too little as the religion of daily life ; too much as a religion of feeling, too little as a religion of principles; too much as a religion only for individuals, too little as a
for nations and for the world. He determined to
make it bear upon the social state of all classes, upon the
questions which agitated society, upon the great movements
of the world. " After painful inward conflicts, which arose not merely out of theological difficulties, but from a percep tion of the falsehood and unrighteousness of the various political and ecclesiastical parties, he found rest in the Gospel of Christianity, the truths of which seemed to embrace the truth of Conservatism and the progressive tendencies of Liberalism, and to offer the solution of the questions of the
day, not by setting up laws or external limitations, but by the spread of a spirit of love, of duty, and of mutual respect. Those salutary truths he beheld embodied in Jesus, the per fect type of man as the child of God. He held that Christ was humanity, and in Him alone is our humanity intelligible. It is only in the feeling of fellowship and union with this life, in the acknowledgment of like feelings and conflicts, in a similar estimate of the world and its maxims, that our own life becomes bearable and desirable. Judging humanity in the light of this ideal, Robertson had, on the one hand, the keenest eye for its sins and weaknesses in their endless forms and disguises, and yet, on the other, he never lost sight of the Divine heart and root of human nature. The greatest truth which Christ revealed, as Robertson is always urging, is that all men are as men children of God, and each other's brothers ; they do not become children of God by baptism or by faith and regeneration, but are already such by virtue of the divine image in which they were created ; baptism is
the messenger to each one in particular, declaring that he is a child of God de jure. But in order to be this de facto, it is needful for him to receive this message in faith, and to realise it in life, i. e. that he should be regenerated. Faith does not create the fact of Divine sonship, but receives it and converts it from an unconscious reality, which would avail nothing, into a conscious and voluntary life after the likeness
religion
? ? ? ? Ch. II. ] PARTIES AND MOVEMENTS IN THEOLOGY. 385
of Christ. Christ is our Saviour not by the vicarious suffer ing of the penalty due to our sins, but by being actually the typical realisation of that which every man is potentially, as
a child of God, and ought to be actually. The death of Christ was an atoning sacrifice, in so far as, having been endured in sympathy with human misery, it established the eternal principle, that salvation for man must always come from the sacrifice of self in ministering and patient love, a principle that is so universally asserted in nature and history that it must be regarded as a law of the universe. Faith is the life of Christ begun in us, which God counts as righteous ness, because, as the Divine life in the soul, it is the root and spring of righteousness. As the inward principle of a morally good will, it sets us free from external laws, which can only incite to transgression or produce conventional legality. This thought Robertson applied energetically in relation to the Sabbath question ; he openly declared the legal observance of the Sabbath a relapse from the spirit of the Gospel into
and Pharisaism. On account of this
? Judaism
genuinely
Lutheran view of the question, he claims almost more than
any other English theologian the sympathy of Germans 1 ;
of profoundest truth, he pronounced " bibliolatry " as super stitious, as false, and almost as dangerous as Romanism. The Bible is inspired, he says, but not dictated ; it is the word of God, but in the words of man ; as the former, per fect ; as the latter, imperfect. Indeed, the Divine wisdom is shown in the fact, that it has given a spiritual revelation, that is, a revelation concerning the truths of the soul and its relation to God, in popular and incorrect language ; for how otherwise could it have been understood by unscientific men and ages ? The highest truths, he maintained, rest ulti mately, not upon the authority of the Bible, or of the Church, but upon the witness of the Spirit of God in the human heart,
1 He claims this sympathy also for the reason that he did not share the national prejudices of his countrymen, but, on the contrary, spoke with fitting contempt of their contempt for everything German (see his remarks on '. German Neology," in his letter of 1849, Life and Letters, p. 97 of People's
In this respect how far he stands above Maurice !
G. T. C C
and not less on account of his views as to the authority of Scripture and the dogmas of the Church. Deeply as Robertson revered the Bible as the inexhaustible spring
ed. ).
? ? ? 386 THEOLOGY IN GREAT BRITAIN SINCE 1825. [Bit IV.
a witness which is to be reached not by the cultivation of the understanding, but by the loving obedience of the heart.
Accordingly, in interpreting the dogmas of the Church, he never troubled himself about their intellectual husks, but only about their kernel, the religious truths and moral principles which are to be found under the various dogmatic opinions as their real meaning. He was consequently, with all his strict ness in the condemnation of what is morally wrong, extremely charitable and catholic in the views he took of dogmatic differences of opinion. There was one principle which pro bably Maurice recognised in the dim distance, but which in his case remained confused eclecticism, but Robertson's deeper and clearer mind endeavoured to work out distinctly, and applied with unerring tact in various regions of contro versy : it was the principle, that the one truth which under lies the various partial views of opposing parties, and by this very partiality and onesidedness becomes falsehood, must be brought out into clear light as the essential thing common to both parties. An acute dialectical intellect and a rare power of sympathy in entering into the thoughts and feelings of others qualified him to perform, as few men could, the work of a peacemaker amid contending religious parties. If a longer life had been granted him (he died 1853, at the age of thirty-seven), and if he had had leisure to write the theological works which he had proposed to himself (that on
Inspiration, e. g. ), what a beneficial influence he might have
exerted on the development of theological thought, both in his own country and abroad ! But as it his Sermons and Letters are a rich source of truth and light, from which no
one can draw without feeling their purifying, strengthening, and elevating power they are the monument of genuine religious genius, whom for some time to come later generations will reverently recognise prophet of the higher development of Christian thought and feeling.
We have still to take glance at the course of Biblical
criticism in Great Britain, and the review may be the more
rapid as the labours in this department of theology practically commenced but a generation ago, and have hitherto produced little of independent value. The credit of having done the work of pioneer in these studies in England must be accorded to the learned classical scholar and theologian, Jowett, who
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? Ch. II. ] PARTIES AND MOVEMENTS IN THEOLOGY.
387
published in 1855 his exegetical work The Epistles of St. Paul to the Thessalonians, Galatians, and Romans, with Critical Notes and Dissertations (2 vols. ), in which he introduced to his countrymen the results of Baur's critical labours. His own views hold a place midway between those of Baur and the traditional ones as to the relation of Paul to the earlier Apostles : there was not complete harmony, but neither was there absolute antagonism ; the difference was not so much of a dogmatic as of a practical nature, and on the part of the Twelve was due more to want of consistency than to an tagonism of principles ; though in accord with Paul on funda mental principles, they were attracted to Jewish practices by their national sympathies and habits. Some points of Pauline theology are discussed in the appended Dissertations with characteristic acumen and without
? dogmatic prejudice (e. g. the doctrine of election). Of special value is the careful
criticism of the text, and the amended authorised
English version. The principles of interpretation which Jowett ap plied in his Epistles of Paul he has expounded in the ex
tremely interesting essay, On the Interpretation of Scripture
the Essays and Reviews, 1860), in which he demands, quite in the spirit of Arnold, that the method of the classical scholar shall be applied in Biblical exegesis, in short, that
(in
" the Bible must be interpreted like any other book," and thus the study of the Scriptures be raised to the rank of the most valuable portion of the study of history and antiquity ; the best book for the heart ought to be made the best for the in tellect, so that its moral judgment of history might seem to
and correct the aesthetic standard of the classics. " Before we can make the Old and New Testaments a real part of education, we must read them not by the help of
custom and tradition, in the spirit of apology or controversy, but in accordance with the ordinary laws of human know
ledge. "
The year 1860, in which the Essays and Reviews appeared,
may be regarded as an epoch in the history of English theology, corresponding to the year 1835 in the history of German theology.
The storm which this collection of theo logical essays by various authors called up in England had great similarity with the commotion produced in Germany by
Strauss's Leben Jesu. It is quite true that the causes of the commotion in the two countries were by no means of equal
complete
? ? ? 388 THEOLOGY IN GREAT BRITAIN SINCE 1825. [Bit IV.
importance. For the Essays and Reviews contain nothing that had not already been thought and said from the days of Whately and Arnold by not a few writers belonging even to the Anglican Church. The first essay, by Temple, Arnold's successor at Rugby, deals with the gradual and progressive education of the world, a thought which had from the time of Lessing formed part of the ordinary consciousness of the educated world, and which is to be found indicated in the Church Fathers, and in fact in the New Testament. The second essay, by Rowland Williams, gave an account, ex pressing substantial agreement, of Bunsen's Biblical Re searches. This was one of the essays which the opponents, High-churchmen and Evangelicals combined, selected as the basis of a prosecution for heresy. The charge was laid, that the general scope, tendency, or design of the essay as a whole was to disseminate unbelief in the Divine inspiration and authority of Holy Scripture, to degrade it to the level of mere human writings, to deny prophetic predictions and miracles, or to interpret them in an unorthodox way, and to explain away articles of the creeds. The trial, which took place in the Court of Arches, before Dr. Lushington, and in which Mr. James Stephen defended the accused essayists in a masterly manner, ended in a complete triumph for Liberal theology. Mr. Stephen remarked in the course of his defence that a poor compliment would be paid to the English people if they were deemed incompetent to bring into open discussion the views of Baron Bunsen. The design of the accusation was really nothing else than to put asunder reason and faith, which
God had joined together. But the questions which learning and criticism had raised would have to be settled ; the de cisive question was whether the clergy should be allowed to co-operate freely in the settlement. The authorities might perhaps close the mouth of the clergyman, but not of the lay
man, or of literature and history. Is it allowable to make a compact between Christ and darkness ; reason and Satan ? It is of greatest moment to Christianity itself that theo logians should be free to study the Bible. The decision of the Court, which was in accordance with these principles, sanctioned the rights of free theology in the English Church.
A leading representative of this new party, which may be described as the left and progressive wing of the Broad Church, was Arthur P. Stanley, the pupil and biographer
? ? ? ? Ch. II. ] PARTIES AND MOVEMENTS IN THEOLOGY.
389
of Arnold. The fact that his high ecclesiastical position as Dean of Westminster did not prevent his sustaining friendly relations with Dissenters and heretics largely helped, no doubt, to modify the dogmatic exclusiveness of the Estab lished Church. His theological writings were valuable con tributions in aid of a free and unfettered study of Biblical and ecclesiastical history. Simultaneously with Jowett's com mentary on St. Paul, he published his kindred work, The Epistles of St. Paul to the Corinthians, with Critical Notes and Dissertations (1855), which had been preceded by his Sermons and Essays on the Apostolic Age (1847), in which the realistic historic method of Arnold was applied to the history of the New Testament period in a way that departed far from the lines of customary dogmatic exegesis. To the same category belong his Lectures on the Jewish Church (1862), in which the history of Israel is treated in a manner midway between poetry and criticism, following very much the lines of Ewald. In an essay on the Theology of the Nineteenth Century, published in Eraser's Magazine, Feb. , 1865, Stanley characterised the method which he had followed. The theory of development, he maintains, has taken the first place in every field of religious and philosophical thought. It has had an important effect on the proper understanding of the Bible itself. The gradual growth, the imperfect forms, the varied
? of Revelation itself are now understood, and thus the greatest difficulties in the way of understanding the Bible are removed. We no longer expect to find in the Jews of the Old Testament premature Christians, or premature
astronomers or geologists. Together with this historical spirit, a characteristic of modern theology is the importance it attaches to the moral and spiritual aspect of religion. The value of internal evidence has now been recognised in theory as well as in practice, in theology as well as in philosophy, and its superiority to the proof from miracles. The spirit is placed above the letter, and practice above dogma. The first and clearest statement of this new principle is found in Arnold's Essay on the Interpretation of Scripture, the man to whose memory Stanley has dedicated such a noble monument in his biography.
That the problems of Biblical criticism can no longer be suppressed, that they are as it were in the air of our time, so that theology could not escape them, even if it took the wings
degrees
? ? ? 39? THEOLOGY IN GREAT BRITAIN SINCE 1825. [Bk. IV.
of the morning and dwelt in the uttermost parts of the sea, was strikingly shown at the beginning of the sixties by the re markable case of Bishop Colenso. He had gone as Bishop to Natal with the orthodox belief in the inspiration of the
Bible, with the object of converting the Zulus, and returned home as a critic to call in question the integrity and historical character of the Books of Moses. In the course of his in struction of the heathen, their doubts led him to make a more careful examination of the Biblical text, and in the process it grew arithmetically certain to the keen and mathematical intellect of the Bishop, that it was impossible to maintain the correctness of the Mosaic records. The historical inquiries thus started led him step by step to further results; he per ceived the composite character of the Pentateuch as consist ing of component parts of various ages and sources (the Elohistic and Jahvistic sections), he perceived the gradual
growth of the Levitical Law, of which some portions origin ated before Deuteronomy, that before the time of Jere miah, other portions not until after Ezra, being inserted into the earlier portions of the Pentateuch. In a word, Colenso arrived, by his originally quite independent path of inquiry, at results which are in substantial agreement with the views of the Biblical science of our day. But the Bishops of the Anglican Church, instead of calmly examining the honest studies of their brother, felt called upon to break a lance for Moses and the infallibility of the letter of the Bible, and demanded the deprivation of the Bishop of Natal. Once more the Secular Court, the Queen's Privy Council, was wiser than the Churchmen, and pronounced the Bishop the legitimate occupant of his see (1865).
Amongst the opponents of Colenso was to be found not only Maurice, who had himself suffered as a persecuted heretic, but even Matthew Arnold, who substitutes the moral order of the world for the God of the Bible, and with this object in view takes great liberties in the interpretation of the Bible. In an essay in Macmillari Magazine (Jan. and Feb. ,
1863), he demanded that the Biblical historian should show great consideration for the edification of his readers. In order not to do violence to their devout feelings, and not to endanger the interest of the practical religious life, he ought, Arnold thinks, to attenuate the difficulties which might be stumbling- block to faith in the Bible, to go out of the way of what
? ? ? is
a
s is,
? Ch. II. ] PARTIES AND MOVEMENTS IN THEOLOGY. 39 1
doubtful, such as the miraculous stories, by using nice gener alities, a method of which Stanley had given a perfect model in his Jewish Church. Without doubt Matthew Arnold ex pressed the views of the great majority of Englishmen on this matter, and perhaps the views of the men of his age. It may also be granted that there are practical interests at the bottom of such advice which have some justification. On the other hand, it ought to be perceived, as Matthew Arnold seems to have subsequently perceived, that the claims of the purely scientific spirit to present the simple historical truth are equally well founded, and that both those practical religious, and these absolute scientific interests will be better promoted
by the separation of the two kinds of Biblical interpretation -- the practical and the learned, -- than by a confused amalga mation of both. These hybrid forms, with their indefinite- ness, half-truths and compromises, have little value in the pro motion of an exact knowledge of the historical facts ; the only use they serve is to check, in a time of transition, such as ours is, the too rapid advance of some and to prepare others gradually to receive what is new ; in that way facilitating and securing an orderly and steady development of general opinion, and avoiding sudden leaps and catastrophes of a
? kind. This is without doubt the duty which the modified orthodoxy of the English Broad Church party has to perform at present, and perhaps for some time to come. The acknowledgment of the legitimacy of this purpose, and respect for those men who endeavour to realise quite consistent with decided assertion of the rights of strictly scientific historical research in theology, uncontrolled by any secondary considerations whatsoever. The representatives of this purely scientific research are, however, so much in the minority, not only in Great Britain, but everywhere, that there no reason to fear lest the development of the general religious consciousness should go on at too rapid rate.
Whilst the Colenso controversy was still engaging public attention England, R. W. Mackay, (who had previously by his Progress oftlu Intellect, as exemplified in the Religious Development of the Greeks and he Romans (1850), -- learned work, but burdened with too great weight of material -- made himself known as a free inquirer in the department of religion) published the very instructive book, The Tubingen School and its Antecedents (1863). An introductory review of the
dangerous
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t
is in
a a
it, is
a
? 392 THEOLOGY IN GREAT BRITAIN SINCE 1825. [Bk. IV.
relation of religion to theology, of the origin and development of dogma, of the influence of modern philosophy on the doctrine of the belief in miracles and inspiration, and of the
of Biblical criticism from the Socinians to Strauss, is followed by an excellent account of the critical labours of F. C. Baur and his disciples, of their method and its new
results, the author professing himself an adherent of the school. In an appendix polemical notes against the opponents of the criticism of Baur, amongst others Ewald, Ritschl, and Lechler, which show accurate knowledge, are added. To this book the merit is to be ascribed of having promoted
an acquaintance with the stricter form of German criticism in wider circles in England. Nor are there wanting signs of the ferment produced by this criticism. Oxford itself could not escape its influence, where T. H. Green introduced, together with German speculative philosophy, the critical results of the Tubingen school to his circle of friends.
A pendant to the various Lives of Jesus which appeared on the Continent during the sixth decade originated in Cambridge, Ecce Homo : A Survey of the Life and Work ofJesus Christ (1866). This anonymous book (said to be by Professor Seeley, the author of Natural Religion), pro
duced a deep impression, and greatly promoted the cause of more unfettered religious thought in Great Britain, although, or perhaps because, it was not directly critical, but, upon the basis of the narratives of the four Gospels, drew a picture of the moral personality of Jesus with great delicacy of feeling and a profound perception of his peculiar greatness and originality. The nature of Christian morality, as distinguished from Jewish and Heathen legality or philosophy, is derived from the character of Jesus and the personal impression he made upon his disciples. therefore, the personality of Jesus as delineated Seeley produces to some extent rather the impression of an artificial composition than that of real historical truth, this the unavoidable consequence of the author's neglect of any critical examination of the sources the personal claims of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel, and the Synoptics' discourses of the Messianic Judge being ascribed to Jesus himself straightway. By this means the portrait of the man, which really the object aimed at, ac quires an unintelligible, problematic aspect. Still, Ecce Homo
takes a foremost place amongst the books of this class.
history
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is
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;
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? Ch. II. ] PARTIES AND MOVEMENTS IN THEOLOGY.
393
At this point the learned work of the late Dr. Edershe1m, Tlie Life and Times ofJesus the Messiah (2 vols. , 1883), may V
be mentioned. It is a harmonistic combination of the nar
ratives of the Gospels, with a decided apologetic purpose, and without any concession to the most important objections of historical criticism. But the scientific value of the book consists in its rich collection of materials as to the condition of Jewish life and beliefs at the time of Jesus. It meets thereby a real and urgent want of Biblical research in our day. For it is very true, as the author observes in his preface, that a light is cast by these contemporary circum stances and analogies upon many parts of the gospel history itself, by which our knowledge of the origin of our religion under the forms of Judaism, and yet in opposition to its spirit, is essentially furthered. It is probable that strictly critical
research may make often another use than the author himself would wish of the learned materials which his book supplies ; where he finds confirmation of the historical character of a narrative in the New Testament, or of a discourse in the Fourth Gospel, others may discern rather the source of the literary origin of the narrative or the discourse in question. But in any case, the good service the author has rendered should be thankfully acknowledged ; by laborious studies, pursued through many years, in out-of-the-way Jewish lite rature, he has collected an extremely rich and useful mass of materials bearing upon primitive Christian history.
Samuel Davidson's Introduction to the Study of the New Testament (2 vols. , 1868), presents noteworthy evidence of
the progress of historical criticism in England since the begin ning of the sixth decade. In the first edition (1848-51) the author had maintained the genuineness of the whole of the New Testament writings, not excepting even 2 Peter, against all the objections of criticism. He then published an Intro duction to the Old Testament (1862-3), in which the stand point of the apologist was abandoned, and the intermediate position of Ewald was taken (e. g. the Pentateuch not by Moses, but not completed until the reign of Josiah, the Priestly Legislation preceding the Prophets). Six years later, the author having in the meantime resigned his position as theological professor in the Lancashire Independent College, and acquired full freedom to prosecute his critical studies,
appeared the second edition of his Introduction to the New
? ? ? ? 394 THEOLOGY IN GREAT BRITAIN SINCE 1825. [Blt IV.
Testament, entirely rewritten, in which the standpoint of the Tubingen school was taken with almost too little reservation. The counterwork to it is the strictly apologetic Introduction of Salmon, which appears to enjoy well-nigh the rank of an authority in orthodox circles.
The latter is the case with the Introduction to the Study of the Gospels, by Westcott, now Bishop of Durham, the English Tischendorf. This work, which appeared in six editions between 1851 and 1881, belongs to that class of
apologies which, by their learning, an air of superiority towards the main arguments of the critics, and occasional minor concessions on secondary points, are accustomed to make a great impression, and really perform the service above referred to, of retarding the progressive theological spirit of an age. The best part of the book is the introductory chapters on the Jewish religion, and particularly the Messianic faith of the century immediately preceding our era. But with regard to the Gospels, the author holds that their contents are in complete harmony, or that only unessential differences in the form of narrative are to be met with. These are to be explained by the varied individuality of the writers, in whom the Divine image of the Saviour was reflected in diverse but mutually complementary forms. For the Gospels are all Divine in the highest sense, because they are in the highest sense human. The spirit in the Evangelists searched into the deep things of God, and led them to realise the mysteries of the Faith, as finite ideas, and not in their infinite essence.
This is such language as we have long been accustomed to hear from Neander ; instead of getting intelligible answers to definite questions, we have to listen to the mystical phrases of devotional literature, which appeal to the emotions and presentiment (Ahnung), where, from the nature of the case, the intellect alone is qualified to speak. Westcott's lectures, entitled The Historic Faith (1882), have the same apologetic purpose, being an historical and dogmatic exposition of the Apostles' Creed.
But influential as these and similar apologetic works (they are essentially so much alike that it does not seem necessary to give a list of their titles) may be for the present moment, they cannot arrest the stream of time. 1 This we may, finally,
1 The papers on the results of recent criticism of the Old Testament, read
? ? ? ? Ch. II ] PARTIES AND MOVEMENTS IN THEOLOGY. 395
assure ourselves of by a glance at three important works of the last three lustra, with which our survey of English theo logy may conclude.
The anonymous work, Supernatural Religion. An In quiry into the Reality of Divine Revelation (3 vols. , 1874- 1879, in seven editions) seeks, with the aid of an acute and
scientifically trained intellect and extensive historical learning, to overthrow the popular view of Christianity as a religion transcending the human reason and based upon supernatural institutions and miracles. With a view to this, the belief in miracles is first examined in general, its untenability being shown less from metaphysical than epistemological considera tions and analogies from experience, and the origin of the belief is explained from psychological and temporal conditions. When the proof from miracles has been thus in general de prived of its force, positively by the immutability of the order of nature, and negatively by the unreliability of human obser vation and testimony, the Christian legend of miracles is next submitted to trial by a detailed examination of the evidential value of the Biblical documents -- the Gospels and the Acts.
From an examination of the testimony of the Fathers the author finds that not one of the canonical Gospels is connected by direct testimony with the men to whom they are tradition ally ascribed, and that the later, in itself valueless, tradition is divided by a long interval of profound silence from the period of its alleged authorship ; the canonical Gospels continue to be anonymous documents until the end of the second century, without evidential value with regard to the miracles which they record. The internal evidence confirms this result of the external ; to say nothing of minor discrepancies which run through the first three Gospels, it is impossible to bring
the accounts of the Synoptists into harmony with the Fourth Gospel ; they annul mutually the force of their testimony. Like the Gospels, the Acts is a legendary composition of a late date, and cannot be regarded as a sober historical narrative, which renders the reality of the numerous miracles it reports
at the Church Congress, at Manchester, in 1888, by Dr. Perowne, the Dean of Peterborough, Professor Cheyne, of Oxford, and Mr. J. M. Wilson, the Head-master of Clifton College, supply one of many proofs of this. Mrs. Ward, the author of Robert Elsmere, very justly regards the debate on these papers as " The glorification of criticism. " See her striking article on " The New Reformation " in the Nineteenth Century for March, 1889.
? /. '
? ? ? $9*5 THEOLOGY IN GREAT BRITAIN SINCE 1825. [Bk. IV.
incredible. The testimony of the Apostle Paul as to the resurrection of Christ remains then to be considered. A close examination of his evidence shows that, so far as it con cerns the earlier events, it rests upon indefinite hearsay and does not agree with the accounts of the Gospels, whilst the Apostle's own experience, in view of his peculiar and highly nervous temperament, must be looked upon as a subjective vision, as are also most probably the appearances to the excited disciples of Jesus. Accordingly the proof of the re surrection and ascension must be pronounced as absolutely and hopelessly insufficient. The examination of the historical sources has therefore confirmed the view of the improbability of miracles formed upon general grounds.
So far the author of this interesting book stands upon firm historical ground, and it will be difficult to upset his main position. But when he proceeds to draw the inference that the claim of Christianity to Divine revelation has no better foundation than the like claim made by other religions, he is advancing no longer an historical but a philosophical opinion, which is not by any means the necessary consequence of his critical results, but is based upon an inadequate estimate of the distinctive properties of Christianity as an ethical religion, and upon a superficial, external, dualistic idea of revelation. The defect of the work Supernatural Religion, as of Strauss's Leben Jesu, is that it employs destructive criticism ex clusively, and neglects to make clear, or even so much as to indicate, what is the lasting moral and spiritual truth that lies at the basis of the supernatural legends and dogmas. But while this is beyond doubt a very serious defect, it is equally certain, on the other hand, that the work of negative or destructive criticism must everywhere be first done as the conditio sine qua non of the positive or constructive task of a better understanding of the historical religion. And as the author himself describes his labours as but the negative pre paration for positive construction,1 we are not justified in judging them by any other standard ; and within the limits which he proposed to himself, the value of his contribution to
the end in view cannot be called in question.
Naturally, a work of this kind attracted great attention
1 Preface, p. lxxvii, " Under such circumstances, destructive must precede constructive criticism. "
? ? ? ? Ch. II. ] PARTIES AND MOVEMENTS IN THEOLOGY.
397
wherever the English language is spoken. Never before had such a systematic attack, based upon solid learning, been made in English upon the external evidences of the Christian religion, which still continue to hold a foremost place, not merely in the popular, but also in the theological apologetics of England (Mansel, Newman, Mozley). It may, undoubtedly, be taken as a sign of the times that this book, in the first year
of its publication, passed through six editions, and that the periodical press of all parties gave long extracts from and reviews of which were for the most part, as appears from Lightfoot's complaint, of a favourable and even laudatory nature. The answer which Lightfoot, the late Bishop of
Durham, offered in the name of orthodoxy in a series of articles in the Contemporary Review, subsequently published as book, extraordinarily weak.
sacrifice is revealed as the truth in which God displays his inmost character and which all creatures must obey by appro priating the mind of the loving Christ. Thus Christ, the
eternal Head of mankind, becomes the Head of a new moral
world, in which no longer selfish discord reigns, but lasting
and self-sacrificing love.
These ideas tend obviously in the direction of that idealistic
philosophy of Christianity which is represented in the specu lative theology of Germany and in the writings of such men as Caird and Green in Great Britain. But Maurice even more than the kindred German theologian Dorner failed to work them out consistently and thoroughly. The cardinal con tradiction of making the eternal idea of humanity at the same
time an historical individual of an absolutely supernatural nature
participation
separation
? involved everywhere the diversion of all ideal speculative effort of thought into traditional supernaturalism. And in the case of Maurice this supernaturalism was the more pronouncedly narrow, inasmuch as he found the spiritual community of humanity, founded by the revelation of Christ, embodied not in the universal kingdom of God, or the in visible community of the children of God, but in the Church
necessarily
? ? ? 378 THEOLOGY IN GREAT BRITAIN SINCE 1825. [Bk. IV.
of England. 1 Accordingly, while he teaches on the one hand that the entire human race is created and has its essential nature in Christ as its ideal Head, he seems to maintain on the other hand that it is only in the Church of England that the Kingdom of Christ has attained actual existence ! This is a contradiction that a German intellect finds it hard to comprehend, or can only explain by supposing that the strong national feeling of the Englishman had got the better of the intellect of the theologian.
The sources of the characteristic points of Maurice's
profession, had, by his own independent study of the Bible, arrived at the conviction that the orthodox representation of the Gospel did not properly represent its real and scriptural nature. 2 For the Gospel announces the forgiveness of sins not as a reward of faith any more than as a reward of works, but as the free unconditional gift of God, which was bestowed on mankind once for all in their representative Head, Christ, so that every man may appropriate Yet forgiveness
not itself salvation, but only the means of and salvation itself not a future good, but spiritual fellowship with God in the sanctification of the character by means of his holy love. The very purpose for which God offers his free unmerited love, as forgiving mercy to sinners, that they may thereby be encouraged and impelled to love him in return, and to grow themselves into the image of his holy love. Glad devotion to God, loving dependence on the Creator, the perfect condition of the creature, in which all the faculties
This, the fundamental thought of his book, The Kingdom of Christ,
stated in strong and emphatic language in letter of July 12, 1834 (Life,
p. 166).
The most interesting of Erskine's writings, which has been followed
the above account of his system, The Unconditional Freeness of the Gospel (1828); to must be added The Brazen Serpent, or Life coming through Death (1831) The Doctrine Election, and its Connection with the General Theory Christianity (1837) his first work, Remarks on the Internal Evidence for the Truth Revealed Religion (1820), of less importance.
are to be found in the idealistic philosophy of
teaching
Coleridge (whose metaphysical ideas, however, acquire in Maurice's system a Platonic modification), and in the doc trines of the Scottish theologians, Thomas Ersk1ne, of Linlathen, and John McLeod Campbell, at whom we must take a brief glance. The first of these men, an advocate by
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? Ch. II. ] PARTIES AND MOVEMENTS IN THEOLOGY.
379
of the soul are kept in their proper order by that ruling principle. The Fall of man consisted in the rise of the spirit of independence, in that " each man became an independent individual, loving and desiring and approving things accord ing as they affected himself, without regard to the will of God or the sympathies of the universal family. " And this sin of man was also his misery, his hell. The punishment of sin did not consist in external evils, which might be re moved by arbitrary acts, but it consisted in the very fact that the man himself had revolted from saving fellowship with God, and had
the love of him for the love of self and the world. " Restoration to a condition of salvation cannot therefore be effected otherwise than by the restoration
of the love of God to its place as the paramount principle in the heart, resulting in the due subordination of self and the creature under it. Any remedy which falls below this re storation falls below man's need. No pardon which leaves this undone is of any value to him. He needs no infliction from without to make him miserable ; and it is not the re moval of any outward infliction that can give him happiness. He must know that God is better than happiness, and that sin is worse than sorrow. The love of God, not the desire of happiness, is the true keystone of the arch. " The means which God has provided for the attainment of this blessing is the Gospel. It shows us, in the appearance of Christ, the gracious character of God in relation to his rebellious creatures, in order thereby to draw back our hearts to him, which had been estranged through hatred, fear, or
indifference, and thus to restore love to God and to the whole divine human family to its true place in the heart. It is particularly the sufferings of Christ in which the holy love of God has been revealed ; but not in the sense that God had to be reconciled, that his love had to be purchased, by the sacrifice of his Son ; on the contrary, his holy love itself was the source of the mission and the self-sacrifice of Christ. Christ, by his patient endurance of all the misery that had
from the sin of the world, overcame sin itself by love and glorified God by his obedience. His glorifying of the Father, by obediently enduring suffering from love of his sinful brethren, was both the expiation and the putting away of sin ; and because it was the Head of mankind who accomplished this as representing all men, the sin of the entire race is once
sprung
exchanged
? ? ? ? 380 THEOLOGY IN GREAT BRITAIN SINCE 1825. [Bk. IV.
for all forgiven in Christ ; the resurrection of Christ was the seal of this forgiveness. The message of this forgiveness is proclaimed to all the world as the free gift of God offered for its acceptance, but only those who actually accept it are really justified and made part of the Church of Christ. The fear lest the Gospel of free, unconditional mercy should pro duce a false peace in a world dead in sins, and expose the
moral interests of Christianity to the dangers of antinomian- ism, rests, as Erskine is continually reiterating, upon a mis conception. For the pardon, which is the free gift of God in Christ, is of advantage to men only as they receive and with Christ himself, the revelation of the holy, loving character of God, into their hearts and thereby the principle of holy, self-sacrificing love made the dominant power and the root of personal holiness and salvation. Pardon therefore, really received only when evinces itself as the effective means of sanctification and accordingly of salvation.
not itself salvation, for salvation cannot be given to men
? without conditions consists in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit heaven holiness, and the forgiveness of sins blessing only in so far as produces holiness.
Holiness the ultimate object God has view with us, and the Gospel message serves only as means to this end.
These ideas of Erskine's were further worked out and established by his friend, the theologian, McLeod Camp bell, in his very suggestive book, The Nature the Atone
ment, and its Relation to Remission of Sins and Eternal Life (1856, 5th ed. , 1878). As believing Biblical theologian, Campbell does not deny that Christ presented an expiatory sacrifice for us, but he maintains that when this sacrifice not interpreted in accordance with preconceived opinions, but looked at as and as represented in the Scriptures, cannot be regarded as the suffering of the punishment due to man's sin his stead, but moral and spiritual meaning must be put upon it. Christ effected our salvation by becoming the mediator between God and man, and representing both -- God with man and man with God. This twofold relation of the atonement worked out with reference to its retrospective and its prospective action. In the first respect, Christ's work was to reveal the Father in humanity and for humanity, to be the witness of God's holy love, a love which hates sin and seeks to save the sinner by
gratuitously
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? Ch. II. ] PARTIES AND MOVEMENTS IN THEOLOGY. 381
him. Christ felt the pain on account of sin that filled the holy heart of God, and in a perfect, vicarious contrition acknowledged the righteousness of the divine condemnation of sin, as the representative of mankind before God. When he identified himself with his brethren in the flesh by his compassionate sympathy, he endured the deepest pangs, such as only the Holy One could feel, on account of the sins of men, both as guilt before God and as the source of human misery. This pain on account of sin, and this perfect repentance of offered to God in the name of man kind, constituted the true atonement for the sins of mankind,
sacrifice well-pleasing to God, such as no execution of punishment could have supplied. With this complete con demnation of the sinful past of mankind by its representative
Head, full satisfaction was offered to the holy will of God.
But this moral atonement of Christ had at the same time
prospective significance. must be conceived as effecting salvation, or eternal life, not merely as the indirect result of Christ's work, but as inwardly connected with as, in fact, already included in that work. This would not be the case on the supposition of an imputation of vicarious punitive suffering to sinners, which leaves their moral condition in relation to God unchanged, and makes salvation only a future state of happiness. The atonement must therefore be con ceived thus Christ in his person represents humanity as
converting
? to God, and animated solely by love to Him, and by means of his identification with his brethren Christ communicated his righteousness as new life to them. He thereby not only revealed the Divine Fatherhood to men,
but he also discovered the treasure of the Divine image in man, which had until then been veiled under their sin. The
holy, well-pleasing
putation.
of Christ was the revelation of the latent
righteousness
capacity in man for righteousness, which he possessed by virtue of the indwelling Son of God. Christ must not be conceived as so standing apart from humanity that his righteousness could not avail for otherwise than by im
He as the second Adam, the Head of humanity, so truly one with that his righteousness counts the sight of God as the righteousness of mankind generally, and that
can pass from Christ to all men. Christ himself had in his human consciousness the witness to the ability of man kind to be filled with the love of God. In his love to his
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in
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it
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? 382 THEOLOGY IN GREAT BRITAIN SINCE 1825. [Bk. IV.
brethren lay the prophetic hope that they also would open their hearts to the love of God, from which they had for a time been estranged. Accordingly, the atoning work of Christ did not consist in the deliverance of men from future punishment and the obtaining of future happiness ; but in
to them his knowledge and love of the Father, and making them thereby children of God, in the possession of eternal life and a righteousness well- pleasing to God. Everything that the Son accomplished, and that the Father accepted, had the prospective intention of being reproduced in us ; both his pain on account of sin, and his confiding and obedient love to the Father, were intended to be appropriated by us. Nothing of a mere external nature
that God could do with us or could give to us, which is not involved in the relation of our souls to God and in the re lation of our own hearts answering to his heart, can possibly
be our salvation.
This is manifestly the same reconstruction of the Christian
doctrine of salvation which was effected by Kant and Schleier- macher in Germany, whereby it is converted from forensic externality into ethical inwardness and a truth of direct religious experience. Erskine and Campbell appear, however, to have reached their convictions in entire independence of German theology, by their own absorbing study of the Bible ; and I regard their ideas as the best contribution to dogmatics which British theology has produced in the present century.
That the Scottish Church rejected and thrust out from its
midst, in the person of Campbell, this line of theological thought, was the heaviest blow that it could inflict upon itself;
thereby it arrested its healthy development for more than half a century. For it is only just now that Scotch theo
logians begin to start once more from Campbell, though, it must be confessed, with great timidity, as may be seen from the book of the Glasgow theologian, Alexander Bruce,
The Humiliation of Christ in its Physical, Ethical, and
Soteriological Aspects (1876). It is here taught (following rather Hofmann, of Erlangen, than Campbell) that the Son of God entered into the condition of humanity, as it lay under the wrath of God, in such a way that he felt in himself the effects of that wrath, though he was not himself in his per sonal relation to God the object of it. The value of the sacrifice of Christ, Bruce holds, was equal to his Divine
communicating
? ? ? ? Ch. II. ] PARTIES AND MOVEMENTS IN THEOLOGY. 383
dignity multiplied by his perfect obedience, multiplied by his boundless love, multiplied by his sufferings, which reached the utmost limits of what a sinless body could endure. As God took all this into account, and was thereby satisfied, we also must take it all into consideration, in order to say " Amen " to the Divine view of the sacrifice of Christ. This is an attempt to mediate between the old and the new, which does not approach in clearness of principle the thought of Erskine and
Campbell, although we must acknowledge that it is in the same direction which they took.
Though condemned in the land of their birth, the ideas of Erskine and Campbell were received in the soil of the
Liberal theology of England. The religious profundity of the Scotchmen admirably supplemented the thought of the Englishmen, which is characterised more by a practical breadth than religious and speculative depth. It is to them that Maurice's theology owes its best features. And from Maurice again Charles Kingsley received the dominant
direction of his theology, which gave fitting expression to the feelings of his heart in its warm sympathy for everything truly human, and supplied the theoretical rallying-point for his philanthropic aims. In the history of the Christian- socialist movements of the century, the names of Maurice and Kingsley occupy a foremost place. They showed by their deeds what was the fundamental thought of their theology -- that Christianity is the leaven which is destined to regenerate and to hallow the life of human society. Side by side with them stands the great preacher Freder1Ck W. Robertson, whom death too soon removed, who was equal to them in nobility of character and their superior in the wealth and depth of his mind. The biography of this man, so admirably executed by Stopford A. Brooke, reads like the life of a saint, but of a Protestant and modern saint, who does not escape out of the world, but, as a soldier of God, fights the great fight with all ungodliness, with the sins of the upper and the lower classes, with the unreality and falsehood of even religious parties, who at the same time keeps his own soul unspotted from the world, and who is compelled often and deeply to drain the bitter cup of suffering, which no
soldier of God can escape in this world of wickedness and folly. There is little in homiletical literature to compare
with the four series of Robertson's sermons, in
? respect
? ? ? 384 THEOLOGY IN GREAT BRITAIN SINCE 1 825. [Bk. IV.
of wealth and depth of thought, strength of moral pathos, warmth of religious emotion, clearness and vividness of style, and elevation and beauty of language. As his biographer says, Robertson " felt that Christianity was too much preached as theology, too little as the religion of daily life ; too much as a religion of feeling, too little as a religion of principles; too much as a religion only for individuals, too little as a
for nations and for the world. He determined to
make it bear upon the social state of all classes, upon the
questions which agitated society, upon the great movements
of the world. " After painful inward conflicts, which arose not merely out of theological difficulties, but from a percep tion of the falsehood and unrighteousness of the various political and ecclesiastical parties, he found rest in the Gospel of Christianity, the truths of which seemed to embrace the truth of Conservatism and the progressive tendencies of Liberalism, and to offer the solution of the questions of the
day, not by setting up laws or external limitations, but by the spread of a spirit of love, of duty, and of mutual respect. Those salutary truths he beheld embodied in Jesus, the per fect type of man as the child of God. He held that Christ was humanity, and in Him alone is our humanity intelligible. It is only in the feeling of fellowship and union with this life, in the acknowledgment of like feelings and conflicts, in a similar estimate of the world and its maxims, that our own life becomes bearable and desirable. Judging humanity in the light of this ideal, Robertson had, on the one hand, the keenest eye for its sins and weaknesses in their endless forms and disguises, and yet, on the other, he never lost sight of the Divine heart and root of human nature. The greatest truth which Christ revealed, as Robertson is always urging, is that all men are as men children of God, and each other's brothers ; they do not become children of God by baptism or by faith and regeneration, but are already such by virtue of the divine image in which they were created ; baptism is
the messenger to each one in particular, declaring that he is a child of God de jure. But in order to be this de facto, it is needful for him to receive this message in faith, and to realise it in life, i. e. that he should be regenerated. Faith does not create the fact of Divine sonship, but receives it and converts it from an unconscious reality, which would avail nothing, into a conscious and voluntary life after the likeness
religion
? ? ? ? Ch. II. ] PARTIES AND MOVEMENTS IN THEOLOGY. 385
of Christ. Christ is our Saviour not by the vicarious suffer ing of the penalty due to our sins, but by being actually the typical realisation of that which every man is potentially, as
a child of God, and ought to be actually. The death of Christ was an atoning sacrifice, in so far as, having been endured in sympathy with human misery, it established the eternal principle, that salvation for man must always come from the sacrifice of self in ministering and patient love, a principle that is so universally asserted in nature and history that it must be regarded as a law of the universe. Faith is the life of Christ begun in us, which God counts as righteous ness, because, as the Divine life in the soul, it is the root and spring of righteousness. As the inward principle of a morally good will, it sets us free from external laws, which can only incite to transgression or produce conventional legality. This thought Robertson applied energetically in relation to the Sabbath question ; he openly declared the legal observance of the Sabbath a relapse from the spirit of the Gospel into
and Pharisaism. On account of this
? Judaism
genuinely
Lutheran view of the question, he claims almost more than
any other English theologian the sympathy of Germans 1 ;
of profoundest truth, he pronounced " bibliolatry " as super stitious, as false, and almost as dangerous as Romanism. The Bible is inspired, he says, but not dictated ; it is the word of God, but in the words of man ; as the former, per fect ; as the latter, imperfect. Indeed, the Divine wisdom is shown in the fact, that it has given a spiritual revelation, that is, a revelation concerning the truths of the soul and its relation to God, in popular and incorrect language ; for how otherwise could it have been understood by unscientific men and ages ? The highest truths, he maintained, rest ulti mately, not upon the authority of the Bible, or of the Church, but upon the witness of the Spirit of God in the human heart,
1 He claims this sympathy also for the reason that he did not share the national prejudices of his countrymen, but, on the contrary, spoke with fitting contempt of their contempt for everything German (see his remarks on '. German Neology," in his letter of 1849, Life and Letters, p. 97 of People's
In this respect how far he stands above Maurice !
G. T. C C
and not less on account of his views as to the authority of Scripture and the dogmas of the Church. Deeply as Robertson revered the Bible as the inexhaustible spring
ed. ).
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a witness which is to be reached not by the cultivation of the understanding, but by the loving obedience of the heart.
Accordingly, in interpreting the dogmas of the Church, he never troubled himself about their intellectual husks, but only about their kernel, the religious truths and moral principles which are to be found under the various dogmatic opinions as their real meaning. He was consequently, with all his strict ness in the condemnation of what is morally wrong, extremely charitable and catholic in the views he took of dogmatic differences of opinion. There was one principle which pro bably Maurice recognised in the dim distance, but which in his case remained confused eclecticism, but Robertson's deeper and clearer mind endeavoured to work out distinctly, and applied with unerring tact in various regions of contro versy : it was the principle, that the one truth which under lies the various partial views of opposing parties, and by this very partiality and onesidedness becomes falsehood, must be brought out into clear light as the essential thing common to both parties. An acute dialectical intellect and a rare power of sympathy in entering into the thoughts and feelings of others qualified him to perform, as few men could, the work of a peacemaker amid contending religious parties. If a longer life had been granted him (he died 1853, at the age of thirty-seven), and if he had had leisure to write the theological works which he had proposed to himself (that on
Inspiration, e. g. ), what a beneficial influence he might have
exerted on the development of theological thought, both in his own country and abroad ! But as it his Sermons and Letters are a rich source of truth and light, from which no
one can draw without feeling their purifying, strengthening, and elevating power they are the monument of genuine religious genius, whom for some time to come later generations will reverently recognise prophet of the higher development of Christian thought and feeling.
We have still to take glance at the course of Biblical
criticism in Great Britain, and the review may be the more
rapid as the labours in this department of theology practically commenced but a generation ago, and have hitherto produced little of independent value. The credit of having done the work of pioneer in these studies in England must be accorded to the learned classical scholar and theologian, Jowett, who
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published in 1855 his exegetical work The Epistles of St. Paul to the Thessalonians, Galatians, and Romans, with Critical Notes and Dissertations (2 vols. ), in which he introduced to his countrymen the results of Baur's critical labours. His own views hold a place midway between those of Baur and the traditional ones as to the relation of Paul to the earlier Apostles : there was not complete harmony, but neither was there absolute antagonism ; the difference was not so much of a dogmatic as of a practical nature, and on the part of the Twelve was due more to want of consistency than to an tagonism of principles ; though in accord with Paul on funda mental principles, they were attracted to Jewish practices by their national sympathies and habits. Some points of Pauline theology are discussed in the appended Dissertations with characteristic acumen and without
? dogmatic prejudice (e. g. the doctrine of election). Of special value is the careful
criticism of the text, and the amended authorised
English version. The principles of interpretation which Jowett ap plied in his Epistles of Paul he has expounded in the ex
tremely interesting essay, On the Interpretation of Scripture
the Essays and Reviews, 1860), in which he demands, quite in the spirit of Arnold, that the method of the classical scholar shall be applied in Biblical exegesis, in short, that
(in
" the Bible must be interpreted like any other book," and thus the study of the Scriptures be raised to the rank of the most valuable portion of the study of history and antiquity ; the best book for the heart ought to be made the best for the in tellect, so that its moral judgment of history might seem to
and correct the aesthetic standard of the classics. " Before we can make the Old and New Testaments a real part of education, we must read them not by the help of
custom and tradition, in the spirit of apology or controversy, but in accordance with the ordinary laws of human know
ledge. "
The year 1860, in which the Essays and Reviews appeared,
may be regarded as an epoch in the history of English theology, corresponding to the year 1835 in the history of German theology.
The storm which this collection of theo logical essays by various authors called up in England had great similarity with the commotion produced in Germany by
Strauss's Leben Jesu. It is quite true that the causes of the commotion in the two countries were by no means of equal
complete
? ? ? 388 THEOLOGY IN GREAT BRITAIN SINCE 1825. [Bit IV.
importance. For the Essays and Reviews contain nothing that had not already been thought and said from the days of Whately and Arnold by not a few writers belonging even to the Anglican Church. The first essay, by Temple, Arnold's successor at Rugby, deals with the gradual and progressive education of the world, a thought which had from the time of Lessing formed part of the ordinary consciousness of the educated world, and which is to be found indicated in the Church Fathers, and in fact in the New Testament. The second essay, by Rowland Williams, gave an account, ex pressing substantial agreement, of Bunsen's Biblical Re searches. This was one of the essays which the opponents, High-churchmen and Evangelicals combined, selected as the basis of a prosecution for heresy. The charge was laid, that the general scope, tendency, or design of the essay as a whole was to disseminate unbelief in the Divine inspiration and authority of Holy Scripture, to degrade it to the level of mere human writings, to deny prophetic predictions and miracles, or to interpret them in an unorthodox way, and to explain away articles of the creeds. The trial, which took place in the Court of Arches, before Dr. Lushington, and in which Mr. James Stephen defended the accused essayists in a masterly manner, ended in a complete triumph for Liberal theology. Mr. Stephen remarked in the course of his defence that a poor compliment would be paid to the English people if they were deemed incompetent to bring into open discussion the views of Baron Bunsen. The design of the accusation was really nothing else than to put asunder reason and faith, which
God had joined together. But the questions which learning and criticism had raised would have to be settled ; the de cisive question was whether the clergy should be allowed to co-operate freely in the settlement. The authorities might perhaps close the mouth of the clergyman, but not of the lay
man, or of literature and history. Is it allowable to make a compact between Christ and darkness ; reason and Satan ? It is of greatest moment to Christianity itself that theo logians should be free to study the Bible. The decision of the Court, which was in accordance with these principles, sanctioned the rights of free theology in the English Church.
A leading representative of this new party, which may be described as the left and progressive wing of the Broad Church, was Arthur P. Stanley, the pupil and biographer
? ? ? ? Ch. II. ] PARTIES AND MOVEMENTS IN THEOLOGY.
389
of Arnold. The fact that his high ecclesiastical position as Dean of Westminster did not prevent his sustaining friendly relations with Dissenters and heretics largely helped, no doubt, to modify the dogmatic exclusiveness of the Estab lished Church. His theological writings were valuable con tributions in aid of a free and unfettered study of Biblical and ecclesiastical history. Simultaneously with Jowett's com mentary on St. Paul, he published his kindred work, The Epistles of St. Paul to the Corinthians, with Critical Notes and Dissertations (1855), which had been preceded by his Sermons and Essays on the Apostolic Age (1847), in which the realistic historic method of Arnold was applied to the history of the New Testament period in a way that departed far from the lines of customary dogmatic exegesis. To the same category belong his Lectures on the Jewish Church (1862), in which the history of Israel is treated in a manner midway between poetry and criticism, following very much the lines of Ewald. In an essay on the Theology of the Nineteenth Century, published in Eraser's Magazine, Feb. , 1865, Stanley characterised the method which he had followed. The theory of development, he maintains, has taken the first place in every field of religious and philosophical thought. It has had an important effect on the proper understanding of the Bible itself. The gradual growth, the imperfect forms, the varied
? of Revelation itself are now understood, and thus the greatest difficulties in the way of understanding the Bible are removed. We no longer expect to find in the Jews of the Old Testament premature Christians, or premature
astronomers or geologists. Together with this historical spirit, a characteristic of modern theology is the importance it attaches to the moral and spiritual aspect of religion. The value of internal evidence has now been recognised in theory as well as in practice, in theology as well as in philosophy, and its superiority to the proof from miracles. The spirit is placed above the letter, and practice above dogma. The first and clearest statement of this new principle is found in Arnold's Essay on the Interpretation of Scripture, the man to whose memory Stanley has dedicated such a noble monument in his biography.
That the problems of Biblical criticism can no longer be suppressed, that they are as it were in the air of our time, so that theology could not escape them, even if it took the wings
degrees
? ? ? 39? THEOLOGY IN GREAT BRITAIN SINCE 1825. [Bk. IV.
of the morning and dwelt in the uttermost parts of the sea, was strikingly shown at the beginning of the sixties by the re markable case of Bishop Colenso. He had gone as Bishop to Natal with the orthodox belief in the inspiration of the
Bible, with the object of converting the Zulus, and returned home as a critic to call in question the integrity and historical character of the Books of Moses. In the course of his in struction of the heathen, their doubts led him to make a more careful examination of the Biblical text, and in the process it grew arithmetically certain to the keen and mathematical intellect of the Bishop, that it was impossible to maintain the correctness of the Mosaic records. The historical inquiries thus started led him step by step to further results; he per ceived the composite character of the Pentateuch as consist ing of component parts of various ages and sources (the Elohistic and Jahvistic sections), he perceived the gradual
growth of the Levitical Law, of which some portions origin ated before Deuteronomy, that before the time of Jere miah, other portions not until after Ezra, being inserted into the earlier portions of the Pentateuch. In a word, Colenso arrived, by his originally quite independent path of inquiry, at results which are in substantial agreement with the views of the Biblical science of our day. But the Bishops of the Anglican Church, instead of calmly examining the honest studies of their brother, felt called upon to break a lance for Moses and the infallibility of the letter of the Bible, and demanded the deprivation of the Bishop of Natal. Once more the Secular Court, the Queen's Privy Council, was wiser than the Churchmen, and pronounced the Bishop the legitimate occupant of his see (1865).
Amongst the opponents of Colenso was to be found not only Maurice, who had himself suffered as a persecuted heretic, but even Matthew Arnold, who substitutes the moral order of the world for the God of the Bible, and with this object in view takes great liberties in the interpretation of the Bible. In an essay in Macmillari Magazine (Jan. and Feb. ,
1863), he demanded that the Biblical historian should show great consideration for the edification of his readers. In order not to do violence to their devout feelings, and not to endanger the interest of the practical religious life, he ought, Arnold thinks, to attenuate the difficulties which might be stumbling- block to faith in the Bible, to go out of the way of what
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s is,
? Ch. II. ] PARTIES AND MOVEMENTS IN THEOLOGY. 39 1
doubtful, such as the miraculous stories, by using nice gener alities, a method of which Stanley had given a perfect model in his Jewish Church. Without doubt Matthew Arnold ex pressed the views of the great majority of Englishmen on this matter, and perhaps the views of the men of his age. It may also be granted that there are practical interests at the bottom of such advice which have some justification. On the other hand, it ought to be perceived, as Matthew Arnold seems to have subsequently perceived, that the claims of the purely scientific spirit to present the simple historical truth are equally well founded, and that both those practical religious, and these absolute scientific interests will be better promoted
by the separation of the two kinds of Biblical interpretation -- the practical and the learned, -- than by a confused amalga mation of both. These hybrid forms, with their indefinite- ness, half-truths and compromises, have little value in the pro motion of an exact knowledge of the historical facts ; the only use they serve is to check, in a time of transition, such as ours is, the too rapid advance of some and to prepare others gradually to receive what is new ; in that way facilitating and securing an orderly and steady development of general opinion, and avoiding sudden leaps and catastrophes of a
? kind. This is without doubt the duty which the modified orthodoxy of the English Broad Church party has to perform at present, and perhaps for some time to come. The acknowledgment of the legitimacy of this purpose, and respect for those men who endeavour to realise quite consistent with decided assertion of the rights of strictly scientific historical research in theology, uncontrolled by any secondary considerations whatsoever. The representatives of this purely scientific research are, however, so much in the minority, not only in Great Britain, but everywhere, that there no reason to fear lest the development of the general religious consciousness should go on at too rapid rate.
Whilst the Colenso controversy was still engaging public attention England, R. W. Mackay, (who had previously by his Progress oftlu Intellect, as exemplified in the Religious Development of the Greeks and he Romans (1850), -- learned work, but burdened with too great weight of material -- made himself known as a free inquirer in the department of religion) published the very instructive book, The Tubingen School and its Antecedents (1863). An introductory review of the
dangerous
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? 392 THEOLOGY IN GREAT BRITAIN SINCE 1825. [Bk. IV.
relation of religion to theology, of the origin and development of dogma, of the influence of modern philosophy on the doctrine of the belief in miracles and inspiration, and of the
of Biblical criticism from the Socinians to Strauss, is followed by an excellent account of the critical labours of F. C. Baur and his disciples, of their method and its new
results, the author professing himself an adherent of the school. In an appendix polemical notes against the opponents of the criticism of Baur, amongst others Ewald, Ritschl, and Lechler, which show accurate knowledge, are added. To this book the merit is to be ascribed of having promoted
an acquaintance with the stricter form of German criticism in wider circles in England. Nor are there wanting signs of the ferment produced by this criticism. Oxford itself could not escape its influence, where T. H. Green introduced, together with German speculative philosophy, the critical results of the Tubingen school to his circle of friends.
A pendant to the various Lives of Jesus which appeared on the Continent during the sixth decade originated in Cambridge, Ecce Homo : A Survey of the Life and Work ofJesus Christ (1866). This anonymous book (said to be by Professor Seeley, the author of Natural Religion), pro
duced a deep impression, and greatly promoted the cause of more unfettered religious thought in Great Britain, although, or perhaps because, it was not directly critical, but, upon the basis of the narratives of the four Gospels, drew a picture of the moral personality of Jesus with great delicacy of feeling and a profound perception of his peculiar greatness and originality. The nature of Christian morality, as distinguished from Jewish and Heathen legality or philosophy, is derived from the character of Jesus and the personal impression he made upon his disciples. therefore, the personality of Jesus as delineated Seeley produces to some extent rather the impression of an artificial composition than that of real historical truth, this the unavoidable consequence of the author's neglect of any critical examination of the sources the personal claims of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel, and the Synoptics' discourses of the Messianic Judge being ascribed to Jesus himself straightway. By this means the portrait of the man, which really the object aimed at, ac quires an unintelligible, problematic aspect. Still, Ecce Homo
takes a foremost place amongst the books of this class.
history
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If,
;
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At this point the learned work of the late Dr. Edershe1m, Tlie Life and Times ofJesus the Messiah (2 vols. , 1883), may V
be mentioned. It is a harmonistic combination of the nar
ratives of the Gospels, with a decided apologetic purpose, and without any concession to the most important objections of historical criticism. But the scientific value of the book consists in its rich collection of materials as to the condition of Jewish life and beliefs at the time of Jesus. It meets thereby a real and urgent want of Biblical research in our day. For it is very true, as the author observes in his preface, that a light is cast by these contemporary circum stances and analogies upon many parts of the gospel history itself, by which our knowledge of the origin of our religion under the forms of Judaism, and yet in opposition to its spirit, is essentially furthered. It is probable that strictly critical
research may make often another use than the author himself would wish of the learned materials which his book supplies ; where he finds confirmation of the historical character of a narrative in the New Testament, or of a discourse in the Fourth Gospel, others may discern rather the source of the literary origin of the narrative or the discourse in question. But in any case, the good service the author has rendered should be thankfully acknowledged ; by laborious studies, pursued through many years, in out-of-the-way Jewish lite rature, he has collected an extremely rich and useful mass of materials bearing upon primitive Christian history.
Samuel Davidson's Introduction to the Study of the New Testament (2 vols. , 1868), presents noteworthy evidence of
the progress of historical criticism in England since the begin ning of the sixth decade. In the first edition (1848-51) the author had maintained the genuineness of the whole of the New Testament writings, not excepting even 2 Peter, against all the objections of criticism. He then published an Intro duction to the Old Testament (1862-3), in which the stand point of the apologist was abandoned, and the intermediate position of Ewald was taken (e. g. the Pentateuch not by Moses, but not completed until the reign of Josiah, the Priestly Legislation preceding the Prophets). Six years later, the author having in the meantime resigned his position as theological professor in the Lancashire Independent College, and acquired full freedom to prosecute his critical studies,
appeared the second edition of his Introduction to the New
? ? ? ? 394 THEOLOGY IN GREAT BRITAIN SINCE 1825. [Blt IV.
Testament, entirely rewritten, in which the standpoint of the Tubingen school was taken with almost too little reservation. The counterwork to it is the strictly apologetic Introduction of Salmon, which appears to enjoy well-nigh the rank of an authority in orthodox circles.
The latter is the case with the Introduction to the Study of the Gospels, by Westcott, now Bishop of Durham, the English Tischendorf. This work, which appeared in six editions between 1851 and 1881, belongs to that class of
apologies which, by their learning, an air of superiority towards the main arguments of the critics, and occasional minor concessions on secondary points, are accustomed to make a great impression, and really perform the service above referred to, of retarding the progressive theological spirit of an age. The best part of the book is the introductory chapters on the Jewish religion, and particularly the Messianic faith of the century immediately preceding our era. But with regard to the Gospels, the author holds that their contents are in complete harmony, or that only unessential differences in the form of narrative are to be met with. These are to be explained by the varied individuality of the writers, in whom the Divine image of the Saviour was reflected in diverse but mutually complementary forms. For the Gospels are all Divine in the highest sense, because they are in the highest sense human. The spirit in the Evangelists searched into the deep things of God, and led them to realise the mysteries of the Faith, as finite ideas, and not in their infinite essence.
This is such language as we have long been accustomed to hear from Neander ; instead of getting intelligible answers to definite questions, we have to listen to the mystical phrases of devotional literature, which appeal to the emotions and presentiment (Ahnung), where, from the nature of the case, the intellect alone is qualified to speak. Westcott's lectures, entitled The Historic Faith (1882), have the same apologetic purpose, being an historical and dogmatic exposition of the Apostles' Creed.
But influential as these and similar apologetic works (they are essentially so much alike that it does not seem necessary to give a list of their titles) may be for the present moment, they cannot arrest the stream of time. 1 This we may, finally,
1 The papers on the results of recent criticism of the Old Testament, read
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assure ourselves of by a glance at three important works of the last three lustra, with which our survey of English theo logy may conclude.
The anonymous work, Supernatural Religion. An In quiry into the Reality of Divine Revelation (3 vols. , 1874- 1879, in seven editions) seeks, with the aid of an acute and
scientifically trained intellect and extensive historical learning, to overthrow the popular view of Christianity as a religion transcending the human reason and based upon supernatural institutions and miracles. With a view to this, the belief in miracles is first examined in general, its untenability being shown less from metaphysical than epistemological considera tions and analogies from experience, and the origin of the belief is explained from psychological and temporal conditions. When the proof from miracles has been thus in general de prived of its force, positively by the immutability of the order of nature, and negatively by the unreliability of human obser vation and testimony, the Christian legend of miracles is next submitted to trial by a detailed examination of the evidential value of the Biblical documents -- the Gospels and the Acts.
From an examination of the testimony of the Fathers the author finds that not one of the canonical Gospels is connected by direct testimony with the men to whom they are tradition ally ascribed, and that the later, in itself valueless, tradition is divided by a long interval of profound silence from the period of its alleged authorship ; the canonical Gospels continue to be anonymous documents until the end of the second century, without evidential value with regard to the miracles which they record. The internal evidence confirms this result of the external ; to say nothing of minor discrepancies which run through the first three Gospels, it is impossible to bring
the accounts of the Synoptists into harmony with the Fourth Gospel ; they annul mutually the force of their testimony. Like the Gospels, the Acts is a legendary composition of a late date, and cannot be regarded as a sober historical narrative, which renders the reality of the numerous miracles it reports
at the Church Congress, at Manchester, in 1888, by Dr. Perowne, the Dean of Peterborough, Professor Cheyne, of Oxford, and Mr. J. M. Wilson, the Head-master of Clifton College, supply one of many proofs of this. Mrs. Ward, the author of Robert Elsmere, very justly regards the debate on these papers as " The glorification of criticism. " See her striking article on " The New Reformation " in the Nineteenth Century for March, 1889.
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incredible. The testimony of the Apostle Paul as to the resurrection of Christ remains then to be considered. A close examination of his evidence shows that, so far as it con cerns the earlier events, it rests upon indefinite hearsay and does not agree with the accounts of the Gospels, whilst the Apostle's own experience, in view of his peculiar and highly nervous temperament, must be looked upon as a subjective vision, as are also most probably the appearances to the excited disciples of Jesus. Accordingly the proof of the re surrection and ascension must be pronounced as absolutely and hopelessly insufficient. The examination of the historical sources has therefore confirmed the view of the improbability of miracles formed upon general grounds.
So far the author of this interesting book stands upon firm historical ground, and it will be difficult to upset his main position. But when he proceeds to draw the inference that the claim of Christianity to Divine revelation has no better foundation than the like claim made by other religions, he is advancing no longer an historical but a philosophical opinion, which is not by any means the necessary consequence of his critical results, but is based upon an inadequate estimate of the distinctive properties of Christianity as an ethical religion, and upon a superficial, external, dualistic idea of revelation. The defect of the work Supernatural Religion, as of Strauss's Leben Jesu, is that it employs destructive criticism ex clusively, and neglects to make clear, or even so much as to indicate, what is the lasting moral and spiritual truth that lies at the basis of the supernatural legends and dogmas. But while this is beyond doubt a very serious defect, it is equally certain, on the other hand, that the work of negative or destructive criticism must everywhere be first done as the conditio sine qua non of the positive or constructive task of a better understanding of the historical religion. And as the author himself describes his labours as but the negative pre paration for positive construction,1 we are not justified in judging them by any other standard ; and within the limits which he proposed to himself, the value of his contribution to
the end in view cannot be called in question.
Naturally, a work of this kind attracted great attention
1 Preface, p. lxxvii, " Under such circumstances, destructive must precede constructive criticism. "
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wherever the English language is spoken. Never before had such a systematic attack, based upon solid learning, been made in English upon the external evidences of the Christian religion, which still continue to hold a foremost place, not merely in the popular, but also in the theological apologetics of England (Mansel, Newman, Mozley). It may, undoubtedly, be taken as a sign of the times that this book, in the first year
of its publication, passed through six editions, and that the periodical press of all parties gave long extracts from and reviews of which were for the most part, as appears from Lightfoot's complaint, of a favourable and even laudatory nature. The answer which Lightfoot, the late Bishop of
Durham, offered in the name of orthodoxy in a series of articles in the Contemporary Review, subsequently published as book, extraordinarily weak.
