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in which, like the great Anglican Churchmen of the seventeenth century, like the early leaders of the Oxford movement, and, we may add, like ourselves, he defends the Catholic theory of the Church alike against the Papal and the Protestant view. We will cite in illustration one paragraph from a sermon at the close of his volume :

'The movement of 1833 is but a resurrection of the movement of A.D. 33. In the sixteenth century, the thinking world rejected that adulterated presentment of Christianity known as Romanism, because it was tyranny. In the nineteenth century the thinking world has rejected that other adulterated presentment of Christianity known as Protestantism, because it is utter anarchy. Is it not possible that ancient Catholicity, which is neither Roman nor Protestant, and which once conquered the world in less than four centuries, should, now that it has roused from its long obscurity, regain that world again which Romanism and Protestantism have between them lost?'

Nothing is clearer than that such Protestantism in England, as is not a mere popular alias for Anglicanism, is becoming daily less of a religion and more of a mere negation of all positive faith. Two broad facts exhibit this so clearly, that no further evidence is needful. First, as regards the Nonconconformist bodies, their unanimity in being willing to have the Bible banished from Board Schools, and thus by degrees from all primary education, provided that the Church might be impeded in her efforts for Christianising the young; and next, as regards the Evangelical party within the Church itself, the manner in which it has now for twenty years given itself almost exclusively to rancorous litigation and to the use of such vile weapons as hired rioters and suborned prosecutions against a competing school, while it has been ready to cast away one of the Creeds in order to secure allies,-show only too plainly that Christianity counts for little with either of them, and cannot be trusted to stand any vigorous pressure from the unbelieving element with which both these bodies are interpenetrated to the marrow. And we see no wisdom, even on the most earthly and prudential grounds, in giving' more prominence to such a disintegrating factor of religious decay.

And with this judgment agrees precisely the language of Dr. Thorold, the junior Evangelical Bishop on the bench, in his recent Pastoral, which we have placed at the head of this article:

'First amongst the features of our present distress I put unbelief, because it is the first and greatest. Who does not prefer a grave superstition to a dismal atheism? Thomas Aquinas at least adores

Jesus Christ. Comte, in what he calls Humanity, worships himself. Indisputably, unbelief is a wide expression, since it begins where a subtle Arianism almost imperceptibly parts company from the orthodox formula, and ends by a blank abyss, where modern thinkers blandly inform us that modern research gives no glimpse of a Personal God, and where the human spirit, with all its ineffable hopes, undeveloped powers, and exquisite forces of joy and sorrow, faith and hope, is constantly told that its short life, so full of tragic interest, will be but as the brief sob of a wave as it rises and falls on the shore. The outcome is, that conscience becomes a lie, creation a misfortune, existence a bubble, reason an enigma, and death-the supreme end.'

Such is modern Protestantism, logically reasoned out from the premisses of Luther and Calvin, as David Strauss and others like-minded have not failed to tell us, who confess that though they are Protestants, they are not Christians.

And it is because we know the loyalty of the great majority of the English clergy can be depended on in the main, so that whether they vote by orders or in a separate House, in the event of any crisis of disestablishment, they are sure to resist dangerous neologising more effectually than their Irish brethren did, and not to permit a half-instructed laity to sweep away the ancient landmarks, that we can look forward without dismay. We are no friends to clerical domination over the laity, but it is well to be assured that we run no risk here of the flocks being allowed to drive the shepherds, with small advantage to either.

ART. II. THE CHRISTIAN POSITION, AND THAT OF ITS OPPONENTS.

1. Supernatural Religion. Vols. I., II., III. (London.) 2. Three Articles in the Fortnightly, entitled 'The Christian Conditions,' by the Author of Supernatural Religion, in reply to Professor Westcott's Resurrection of Christ, a new Revelation.

3. The Bampton Lectures for 1877. Christian Evidences reviewed in relation to Modern Thought. By Rev. C. A. Row, M.A., Prebendary of S. Paul's. (London, 1878.)

SINCE our former notice of the work at the head of this article, its author, who still preserves his incognito, has pub

lished his third and concluding volume. In point of tone, as far as the imputation of unworthy motives to those whose views he controverts is concerned, it is an improvement on its predecessors; but here our praise must end. It is characterised throughout by the same one-sidedness as the two former volumes. While its author professes to occupy the judgmentseat of grave impartiality, his reasoning is that of the most thorough-going advocate. In his eyes every variation in the Sacred narrative is a contradiction; a probability, provided it be in his own favour, which is erected on another probability, and that again on a third, is an unquestionable fact, while the strongest probabilities on the other side are simply ignored; and where facts are wanting, or obscure, his power to determine what they must have been out of his own subjective consciousness is inexhaustible. Of the capa

city to weigh and balance evidence he seems to be utterly destitute; of his one-sidedness in this respect his elaborate criticism of the Acts of the Apostles and of the history of our Lord's Passion, contained in his third volume, constitute the most singular example we have ever seen. His object is to prove that the Acts is a work written by an unknown writer, not earlier than the last thirty years of the second century; and that, with the exception of the account of S. Paul's voyage, and one or two other brief passages, it is utterly unhistorical-in fact, a romance written for the purpose of effecting a compromise between opposing parties in the Christian Church. It is impossible here to discuss an argument which is spread over several hundred pages; but to such an astounding position common sense puts in an objection in limine, to the important bearing of which on the case it is impossible that an impartial judge could avoid drawing the attention of the jury. It is this-if the book is, as you allege, a romance, and if its author has committed the number of stupid blunders which you charge him with, how has it come to pass that such a writer, at the end of the second century, has succeeded in composing an historical romance out of his own subjective consciousness, which enters into minute details of facts, the latest of which took place more than a century prior to the composition of his work; and yet that his numerous allusions to historical and geographical facts, manners and customs, and a number of other minute incidents, are not only in strict conformity with what we know to have been the case from other historical sources, but are constantly receiving additional confirmation, even in points otherwise doubtful, from the numerous discoveries made in

antiquities at the present day? Surely if the Acts of the Apostles is a work such as our author attempts to prove it to be, it requires to be shewn that the theory of its origin which he propounds is within the limits of the possible; yet we fail to find a single attempt to grapple with it. Again, in his criticism of the Passion, he has denied the historical foundation of every event recorded in the Gospels, except the bare fact of the Crucifixion itself. In pursuing this line of criticism, it seems never to have occurred to him that it amounts to a moral impossibility that a wholly fictitious narrative of events which lay at the foundation of the Christian Church, and which must have been intimately known to the original followers of Jesus, can have taken the place of the real history of the Crucifixion at any time during the period in question. Yet this writer who claims the merit of impartiality in his statement of the case never even alludes to this and a number of other moral impossibilities with which his theory is beset.

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Another grave defect we must notice. His two former volumes have been subjected to serious criticism; and inaccuracies and defects of reasoning, which even unbelievers admit to be such, have been pointed out, yet this third volume is written as if every position in his two former ones were beyond all question proved. The existence of at least two serious replies he simply ignores, although indications are not wanting that he has read one, if not both, of them. In his articles in the Fortnightly (his last production), the author professes to set forth the conditions of the Christian argument. No doubt the account he gives will be eagerly accepted by his unbelieving friends as a true statement of the Christian position. For their benefit therefore, as we believe it to be utterly unreal, we propose to point out to them what in the opinion of modern defenders of Christianity constitutes the essential parts of the Christian position; and we invite them, for the purpose of bringing the controversy between us within reasonable limits, to direct their assaults in future against the key and citadel of the Christian Faith instead of wasting their time and our own over a number of minor issues, under the full assurance that if they can capture the former, all the outworks will fall along with it; but, until they can do so, Christianity will remain intact in all its essential features as the religion of reasonable men. For brevity's sake, as it will be necessary frequently to refer to the author of Supernatural Religion, we shall designate him by the letters

'S. R.'

I. Our author strongly objects to the conditions of the

Christian argument as laid down by Professor Westcott. We admit that the form in which two of them are stated is liable to exception. Yet, if we are to discuss the question whether Christianity has originated in the action of a superhuman power, or whether it be the mere result of the ordinary forces which energise in man, it is clear that we must assume the truth of certain principles as the starting point of our argument, which neither party has a right to call in question in its subsequent stages. What our assumption must be in this particular case is evident, viz. that we must take for granted the general truth of Theism; for unless a God exists, who is a moral being and not a blind force, all discussions, whether Christianity be or be not a Divine revelation, are simply futile. It is obvious that, if we have no evidence that a God exists who can reveal Himself to man, the question at issue between Christians and unbelievers is at once settled in favour of the latter. Again we will fully agree with 'S. R.' to treat no assumption as valid, for the truth of which we are dependent on the testimony of the Bible alone. Now two of Professor Westcott's assumptions (in the form in which he has stated them) fall under this second head, viz. the second, ‘that man was made in the image of God,' and the third, ‘that man has fallen.' But both these are unnecessary, because their place can be supplied by two facts, which we have ample means of verifying, quite independently of the testimony of Scripture, viz. first, that mankind, taken as a whole, are in a state of deep moral degradation; and, secondly, that it is in the highest degree desirable that they should be raised to a condition of greater moral elevation. The truth of these two propositions, which contain all that is really essential in those of Professor Wescott, can be disputed by no intelligent unbeliever.

It will doubtless be objected that, if the Christian argument involves the assumption that a God exists, who is also a moral being, it is founded on a plain petitio principii. We reply that it does so precisely in the same manner as the science of trigonometry pre-supposes the truth of that of geometry, and in no other. The latter science must be firmly established before we are in a proper position to enter on the study of the former. In a similar manner it is necessary that the principles of Theism should be firmly established on their own independent grounds before we can enter on the question whether Christianity be a Divine revelation. We draw attention to this, because nothing is more common among unbelievers than to urge objections against the Christian argument which are only valid on the assumption of the truth of the principles

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