Movements in religious thought, Romanism, Protestantism, agnosticism : three sermons, preached before the University of Cambridge in the Lent term, 1879

t

1

:^'£.:>»^

*

PRINCETON, N. J.

BL 48 .P58 1879
Plumptre, E. H. 1821-1891.
Movements in religious
thought , Romanism,

SM/.

Number.

MOVEMENTS

IN

RELIGIOUS THOUGHT.

MOVEMENTS

IX

RELIGIOUS THOUGHT

I. ROMANISM. II. PROTESTANTISM.
III. AGNOSTICISM.

THREE SERMONS, PREACHED BEFORE THE

UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE IN THE

LENT TERM, 1879.

BY

E. H.^'PLUMPTRE, D.D.,

PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY IN KING's COLLEGE, LONDON,
PREBENDARY OF ST PAUl's, VICAR OF BICKLEY, KENT.

"RESPICE, ASPICE, PROSPICE.'

Hontion :

MACMILLAN AND CO.
1879

\The Right of Translation is resei~ved.^

CTambttUse :

PRINTED BY C. J. CLAY, M.A.
AT THB UNIVERSITY PRESS.

TO

THE REV. J. POWER, D.D.,

MASTER OF PEMBROKE COLLEGE, AND VICE-CHANCELLOR.

Dear Mr Vice-Chancellor,

I owe the opportunity of preaching
these sermons to the favour of the Syndicate
of which you are Chairman. I am indebted
to you for much personal kindness shewn to
one who was previously a stranger. I trust
you will allow me thus to connect your
name with the discourses, now that they are
published at your request, and that of other
Members of the University.

I am,

Yours very faithfully,

E. H. PLUMPTRE.

BicKLEY Vicarage,
Feb. 19, 1879.

CONTENTS.

SERMON I.— ROMANISM.

ECCLES. VII. lO.

Say not thou, What is the cause that the former days
were better than these? for thou dost not en-
quire wisely concerning this ....

PAGE

SERMON II.— PROTESTANTISM.

S. Matt. xii. 30.

He that is not with me is against me ; and he that
gathereth not with me scattereth abroad.

S. Luke ix. 50.

Forbid him not : for he that is not against us is
for us ........

.^9

viii Cotitcnts.

SERMON III.— AGNOSTICISM.
Acts xvii. 23.

PAGK

I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE
UNKNOWN GOD.

Rom. I. 19.

That which may be known of God is manifest in

them 78

-pROPERTrcf

PKIHCETOH
.HtC. MARlBbI
THBOLOGIG:&L

mA

ECCLES. VII. 10.

Say not t/ioti, What is the cause that the
former days were better than these? for
thou dost not enquire wisely coneerning
this.

There is a strange modernness of thought
and feeHng in these confessions of the Preacher.
That sense of the weariness of a confused and
disordered life ; that sentence of 'Vanity of
vanities' written on all man's pains and plea-
sures, pursuits and aims^; that blase cymc\srs\
as to the existence of any true disinterested
goodness in man or w^oman^; that absence of
any clear faith in the future of Israel or of
mankind — all this is divided by a whole

^ 'EccXqs. passim. ^ Eccles. vii. 28.

P. S. I

2 Romanism.

heaven from the life of patriarchs, prophets,
psalmists, with which, as by the seeming ac-
cident of history, it is now associated. We
seem carried into a time when men were drift-
ing away, under the pressure of new problems
and new thoughts, from the moorings of their
ancient faith, and had not yet found, in the
midst of the wild waves of doubts and diffi-
culties which were surging round them, a safe
anchorage or the desired haven. We need
not, for our present purpose, enquire into the
date and authorship of the Book. Whether
it represents the conflict, in the mind of the
historical Son of David from whom it pur-
ports to proceed, between the traditional faith
which he had inherited from his fathers, and
the largeness of heart which came from con-
tact with other systems of belief and worship ;
or belongs, as some have thought, to a far
later period in the history of Semitic culture,
Avhen the teachers of the Garden and the
Porch had brought before the mind of some
restless thinker other thoughts of God and
life, and the chief end of life, than those which

Romanism. 3

had sustained the souls of an earlier genera-
tion^; this, at any rate is clear, that the aim
and purpose of the book seems to be to por-
tray the shiftings and oscillations of a time
when the old order is passing away and the
new is not developed in its completeness ;
when men go to and fro in devious ways, in
many wanderings of thought. We hear the
"two voices" of Scepticism and Faith^; the
latter heard in feeble protests, unwilling to let
slip the hope which yet it cannot firmly grasp ;
the former uttering itself in loud reiterated
murmurs, that the world is out of joint, that
man knows nothing, or but very little, of the
whence and whither of his being, that a
balanced scepticism and an upright life are
well-nigh all that he can aim at as a guide in
the tangled intricacies of the labyrinth of life ;

^ The dates that have been assigned to the Book take a
sufficiently wide range from circ. B.C. 992, on the assump-
tion of Salomonic authorship, still maintained by many critics,
to B.C. 200, as fixed on independent grounds by Hitzig and
Mr Tylor.

^ The words remind us of Tennyson's poem, " The Two
Voices," which, taken together with his "Palace of Art," is,
practically, though with no apparent consciousness of following
in the same track, the best commentary on Ecclesiastes.

4 Rovianism.

that, at the best, he can only fall back on
the belief that behind the surface disorders of
the world, there is working silently, slowly,
surely, an Eternal order, that will one day
bring to judgment every secret work, whether
it be good or evil. (Eccles. xii. 13, 14.)

It is almost a truism that there have been
periods in the history of human thought of
which this floating, transitional, unsettled state
of feeling has been eminently characteristic.
It was so when the old faiths of Greece or
Rome had yielded to the subtle and pervad-
ing influence of Stoic and Epicurean systems
and to the scepticism Avhich was engendered
by the conflict of those systems. It was so in
the sixteenth century, when mediaeval theology
came into collision with the revived paganism,
and the critical questioning temper of the
Renaissance^ It was so, in our own country,

^ The scepticism of the Renaissance period had its chief
repi'esentatives in Italy among the circle of scholars gathered
round Lorenzo de Medici at Florence, and who, after watch-
ing the attempts of some of their number, like Mirandola and
Ficino, to Platonize Christianity, fell into the general license
of thought and life which was rebuked by Savonarola. In
Giordano Bruno it found a quasi-pantheistic develoiDment. It

Romanism. 5

in the eighteenth century, when men were led,
through utter weariness of Calvinistic and
Arminian controversies, of questions about
vestments and positions, to the free thought
which transformed AngHcans into Latitudina-
rians, and Presbyterians into Socinians, and
led others to a cold and naked Deism \ It
will hardly be questioned that the times in
which we are now living present many analo-
gous phenomena. There is an uneasy feeling

was popularized by Montaigne in France, and has left traces
of its influence in England in the teaching as to the indiffer-
ence of Creeds against which the Eighteenth Article of the
Church of England is a protest.

^ Chillingworth is memorable as the leader of the van-
guard in this progress to a wider range of thought than that
which had been dominant, in one phase under Whitgift and
Abbot, in another under Laud. Stillingfleet, Taylor, Burnet,
Tillotson, represent its later development within the Church
of England. Baxter, in his later years, cast off much of the
dogmatism of his earlier life, and became the forerunner of
the movement which culminated in the great Conference of
Presbyterians, Independents and Baptists at Salter's Hall in
1 72 1, when the first of these three bodies for the first time
rejected the principle of subscription to Creeds and Articles,
and committed itself to the current of speculative thought
which ended in transforming nearly the whole body into
the modern Unitarians. Of the wide scepticism of the
time Mr Pattison's paper on the "Tendencies of Religious
Thought in England, 1688 — 1792," in Essays and Revinvs,
gives the best accessible account.

6 Romanism.

that we are living in a transition state and
that an unknown future is opening to us.
Two great rehgious movements, tending in
opposite directions, have run their course, and
seem, in part at least, to have lost their earHer
strength. Criticism has opened new fields of
enquiry as to the authority of the sacred
books, and the nature and measure of the
inspiration which men had hitherto ascribed
to all alike with an unquestioning reverence.
The science which deals with the organic
world has opened vistas of a boundless past
of almost illimitable aeons, during which man
and the dwelling-place of man have been alike
evolved from lower and more rudimentary
forms. The science which deals with the his-
tory of human thought has traced a like evo-
lution in the religious history of mankind,
and notes affinities between systems of faith
and worship where before we had only recog-
nised contrasts. We learn to talk of Semitic
tendencies where before we accepted a revela-
tion of the Lord. From many quarters and
in many different voices, some grave with the

Romanism. 7

serenity of wisdom, some flippant with the
superficial levity of a half-knowledge, we are
told that we have Ignorantly worshipped —
dreaming of Him — or It — as even such an
One as ourselves — that which after all must
remain for ever as the Unknown and Unknow-
able, and which there Is now no Prophet or
Apostle to declare to us. Within the circle
of those who have not as yet listened to the
voice of the charmer, who would fain stop
their ears to the unwelcome words that rob
them of their vision of peace and seem to
lead them only to the blank darkness of the
abyss, there Is yet a sense of disquietude and
distress. They ask, as they look back upon
the past, each school from its own standpoint,
contrasting It with the present, why the former
days were better than the latter. They sigh
for the golden age of faith in which their
fathers had rested, trusting In the guidance of
the Book that could not err, or In that of Its
equally Infallible interpreter^.

^ It is needless to give references for the verification of
phenomena which meet our eyes at every turn in the floating
literature of the day. It would be enough to give a broad-

8 Romanism.

It is at once a necessity and a duty at such
a time, for those who take any higher view of
hfe than that of acquiescence in the routine
of the Httle world in which they Hve, to look
before and after, to choose their own path,
and endeavour to solve, or to recognise as
insoluble, the problems which they have to
face. The question, Who will shew us any
good ? is one which many hearts are asking.
The work of the preacher, now, as in the
days of Ecclesiastes, is to answer that ques-
tion as of the ability which God giveth,
reading, as far as he may, the lessons of the
past, recognising the facts of the present,
looking forward to that future w^hich in its
dim uncertainties awaits alike communities
and individual souls. The Respice, Aspice,
Prospice of St Bernard may well be taken
as a watchword both for the speakers and
the hearers at such a time and in such a

cast passim over the whole ground occupied by the Nine-
teentk Century, the Westminster, Contemporary and Fort-
nightly Revirci's, and the Pall Mall Gazette. The nobler
leaders of thought will be recognised as I may have occasion
to cite their actual words.

Rom autism. 9

place as this. And recognising what are,
at least, the dominant forces that are acting
upon you to whom I speak, and drawing
you in this or that direction, the survey
which those words imply will bring before
us in succession the systems which repre-
sent the two great divisions of Christian
thought, with which we are practically con-
cerned, and the forms of thought which lie
outside the range of Christendom and which
present themselves in the form either of
positive denial or of an Agnostic scepticism.
Romanism, Protestantism, Unbelief will come
before us, that we may ask what claims each
has on our regard, what lessons the history
of each teaches — what course it is our wisdom
to take in regard to each of them.

One word, however, has to be said before
we enter on that enquiry, and it concerns us
all very nearly. The warning of the preacher,
" Thou dost not enquire wisely concerning
these things," though we may not accept it
blindly as shutting out all such trains of
thought as profitless, is not without signi-

10 Romanism.

ficance. It is wise to learn the lessons which
God has taught mankind through the ex-
perience of the past — wise to remember that
even the systems of theology which men
have deduced from Scripture, or which have
been developed by influences apart from
Scripture, require to be tested and tried by
the teaching of the history of the Church
of Christ. It is not wise that we should
enter on that enquiry in the temper of a
regretful idolatry of the past, or forget that
we are called to live and act in the pre-
sent. Each one of us belongs to a nation,
a Church, a College, a neighbourhood, a
family, in which, however limited the range
of his influence, he may be a power for evil
or for good. Each one of us has an earthly
life which is capable of growth and discipline
till it ripens into life eternal or ends in the
shame and misery of an eternal failure. Each
has been called to inherit the blessing of
being a child of God, redeemed by the blood
of Christ from the vain and fruitless life
which would otherwise have been his por-

Ro7naiiisnt. 1 1

tion. And if as yet, in the doubt and per-
plexity of these latter times, which we feel
to be not better but worse than the former,
we fail to grasp these higher thoughts, and
they, too, seem to float in the cloudland of
dreams and speculations, this, at least, you
know and feel, that there lies before every
one of you, at every moment of his life, the
power of speaking truth and falsehood, of
doing good or evil, of feeling love or hatred,
and there is a voice within your souls —
speaking, as the Master spoke of old, "with
authority and not as the scribesV bidding
you to refrain from the evil and to seek the
good: at least, giving its warnings, even if
you do not see how they are to be fulfilled,
of a judgment which shall render to every
man according to his works, and bring to

^ The philosophy of Kant is, perhaps, less studied now
than it was some forty or fifty years ago. Yet it is well to
recall the stress laid by him on the 'categorical imperative,'
the authoritative command, Thoti shalt or Thou shalt not,
heard in the depths of consciousness as the foundation of all
ethics, and to remember that his teaching on this point was
recognised by Dr Pusey {Historical Enqtiiiy, p. 165) as
"an initiating instructor" (the TraiSaYW^os of Gal. iii. 24)
"leading men to Christ."

12 Romanism.

light the counsels of all hearts. The life of an
unwilling scepticism ought to be more than
most lives, one of honest labour, and self-
reverencing purity, and thoughtful care for
others — for that such a life is true and noble
is the one gleam of light which it has to
guide it in the tangled labyrinth in which
its lot is cast. It is not without a deep
significance that the counsels of the preacher
who had, far back in the history of thought,
anticipated the doubt and weariness of these
later ages should be summed up in the rule
of life, " Whatsoever thy hand findeth to
do, do it with thy might." " Fear God and
keep His commandments, for that is all that
man has to do\" For those who cannot as
yet rise to the higher laws : " Do all to the
glory of God," " do all in the name of the
Lord JesusV those twin precepts may well
be received as being, what indeed they are,
oracles of God.

I return to the main enquiry which now
lies before us. We ask, as we look back

^ Eccles. ix. 10, xii. 13. ^ i Cor. x. 31; Col. iii. 17.

Romanism. 1 3

upon the past history of Christendom — upon
the records of the last three hundred years of
our own branch of Christendom, upon the
currents of thought and feehng within the
horizon of our own Hves, what is the secret
of the power exercised by that system which
seems from one standpoint to belong to the
former things that have passed away, and
from another to retain an unexhausted vitality
of existence ? What, we ask, is the spring
and source of this renewed energy? What
are the attractions and what the claims
of the Church of Rome on us who are not
her children — with what convictions, sym-
pathies, hopes or fears, should we look on her
teaching and her policy?

We may enter on that enquiry without
bitterness and without prejudice. There is
no need for opening old wounds or reiterating
the phrases which belong to a time of con-
troversy when men wrote and spoke in the
heat of a passionate conflict. " Idolatry to
be abhorred of all faithful Christians," "blas-
phemous fables and dangerous deceits," the

14 Romanism.

exclusion from the heavenly Jerusalem of
all who do not forsake what we look upon
as the mystical Babylon^ — these we may
well regard as involving more than we would
willingly say now in the light of a wider
experience and a larger charity. They keep
their place in our formularies, because it is
not 'easy to alter them without the risk of a
process which might be destructive of much
besides, and of which we cannot be sure that
it would be followed by a wise reconstruc-
tion. We may acknowledge freely, while we
protest against errors of doctrine, and corrupt
worship, and unfounded claims, and unscrupu-
lous intrigue, that Rome has yet been in
times past as "the light of the wide West^"

^ Art. XXXI. Rubric in Communion Office. Hotnily
against Peril of Idolatry, Part ill. Hooker, in his contro-
versy with Travers, appears ahiiost as the earliest champion
of wider and more charitable thoughts (Walton's Life, ed.
Keble, i. p. 56). There are, I imagine, few bishops or theo-
logians of repute who would willingly use such language now.
2 The words have the interest of coming from an early
poem of J. H. Newman's :

"And next a mingled throng besets the breast
Of bitter thoughts and sweet;
How shall I name thee, 'light of the wide West';
Or 'heinous error-seat'?" Z/ra Apostolica, clxx.

Romanism. 1 5

— the home of saints — leading many souls
to Christ. She, too, has had her martyrs
and confessors who did not count their lives
dear unto them so that they might finish
their course with joy ; her mission preachers
who have carried the cross of Christ into
far-off heathen lands; her witnesses to holi-
ness and purity and humility and love, who
have been as lights shining in the world. To
admit all this is to make no fatal or unwise
concession. For not even this, though it
may show that truth has not been altogether
lost nor the grace of God's Spirit forfeited,
can turn error into truth, or change the weight
of evidence, or be accepted as a set-off against
manifold corruptions.

There can be little doubt that, at least in
these latter times, the secret of the fascination
which Rome has exercised even on men of
widest culture and subtlest intellect, still more
on those who are weak and ignorant and un-
stable, is found in the prevalent scepticism
which marks a period of transition. It is not
a happy, hardly even a pleasant, state to be in

1 6 Ro7nanism.

for one who is conscious of a craving after
truth, who would fain have something certain
to rest on — who yearns, it may be, for a greater
measure of assurance than is compatible with
the limits of our knowledge. To that appe-
tite— sometimes healthy, sometimes morbid —
Rome appeals. She assumes that it is the
purpose of God not only that each soul should
have sufficient light for its guidance, if it will
live by the light it has, through the chances
and changes, the duties and dangers of our
life, but that there should be for all the means
of attaining to an unerring judgment on all
questions which the speculative intellect may
raise as to the being of God and His dealings
with mankind. And she claims, almost as if
the very magnitude of the claim carried with
it its own attestation, to give that unerring
guidance. She points to the infinite variations
of creed among those who rest on Scripture
only as a proof that there is no adequate
certainty to be found there. In her latest
developments she abandons the appeal to an
unbroken tradition, and to the authority of

Rouianisni. 17

the Church as represented in her councils, and
rests on the personal infaUibility of the so-
called successors of St Peter, speaking ex
cathedra, as the one rock on which our faith
can rest in the midst of the wild whirling sea
of conflicting theories and doubts. ^^ Roma
locuta est; causa finita est" are her last words
to the nations and Churches of Christendom.
Beyond her limits, there is no safety; scarcely,
except on the plea of invincible ignorance
and uncovenanted mercies, the shadow of a
hope\

We ask, unless we are fascinated by the
very magnitude of the claim, on what grounds
it rests, and we find that the evidence offered
is at every stage inadequate. There is the
promise made to Peter, and it is assumed that
he is the rock on which the Church was to be

^ The language, and perhaps the thoughts, of Romish
divines has of late shewn that the Zeii-Gcist has penetrated
even where the doors and windows were most closely barred
against it, and in their hands, as in those of Anglicans, the
plea of " involuntary ignorance and invincible prejudice" is
tolerably elastic. It must not be forgotten, however, that the
dogma against which the whole of Chillingworth's Religion
of Protestants was directed was that "Protestantism unre-
pented of destroys salvation."

P. S. 2

1 8 Romanism.

built, that he and not Christ is the foundation
and the chief corner-stone \ It is assumed

^ Matt. xvi. i8, 19. I may perhaps venture to quote the
substance of a note giving what seems to me the tnie mean-
ing of what has been for centuries the subject of endless
controversies. "What then is the rock {ir^Tpa) which is dis-
tinguished from the man {iriTpos) ? Was it Peter's faith
(subjective), or the truth (objective) Avhich he confessed, or
lastly, Christ Himself? Taking all the facts of the case, the
balance seems to incline in favour of the last view : (i) Christ,
and not Peter, is the Rock in i Cor. x. 4, the Foundation in
I Cor. iii. 11, the Corner-stone in Eph. ii. 10, and in
St Peter's own teaching (i Pet. ii. 6, 7). (2) The poetry of
the Old Testament associated the idea of the Rock with the
greatness and steadfastness of God, not with that of a man
(Deut. xxxiii. 4, 18; 2 Sam. xxii. 3, xxiii. 3; Ps. xviii. 2, 31,
46; Isai. xvii. 10). (3) As with the words which, in their
form, present a parallel to these, 'Destroy this temple'
(John ii. 19); so here, we m.ay believe the meaning to have
been indicated by significant look or gesture. The Rock on
which the Church was to be built was Christ Himself, in the
mystery of that union of the Divine and the Human which
had been the subject of St Peter's confession. Had Peter
himself been meant, we may add, the simpler form, ' Thou
art Peter, and on thee will I build my Church, ' would have
been clearer and more natural. As it is, the collocation
suggests an implied contrast; 'Thou art the Rock-Apostle,
and yet not the Rock on which the Church is to be built. It
is enough for thee to have found the Rock, and to have
built on the one Foundation.' What follows as to 'the keys
of the kingdom of Heaven,' and the power to bind and to loose,
is, as is shewn in the notes that follow, equivalent to the
recognition of the disciple's faith as qualifying him for the
office of a scribe 'instructed for the Kingdom of Heaven,
bringing out of his treasure things new and old' (Matt. xiii.
^2), declaring, as Hillel and Shammai had declared, but

Romanism. 19

that that promise conveyed to him a personal
infallibility, and that that infallibility was to
be transmitted to his successors, and that those
successors are to be found only in the Bishops
of Rome. The respect paid in the early ages
of the Church to the Bishop of the imperial
city is transformed into an admission of his
absolute authority. The influence exercised
by the higher culture and central position of
the Church of Rome over the half-barbarous
nations of mediaeval Christendom — an in-
fluence strengthened by what we may freely
recognise as a true missionary activity and the
witness borne for a divine order against the
tyranny of brute force and secular domina-
tion— is treated as if it could give the sanction
of the consensus of at least European Chris-
tianity to a fantastic interpretation of Scrip-
ture and a false reading of antiquity. The
claim resolves itself at last into the a priori
assumption that there must be an infallible

with a higher authority resting on divine gifts, what precepts
of the law or traditions of the elders were, or were not, of
permanent obligation." See Bishop Ellicott's Neiv Testa7ne7it
Commentary in loc.

2 — 2

20 Romanism.

guide somewhere, and that the only church
which assumes to be such a guide must ipso
facto be warranted in its assumption. The
earth rests on the elephant, and the elephant
on the tortoise, and the tortoise rests not on
the eternal rock of fact, but on the cloudland
of a dream.

The counter argument from scripture or
from history shatters the edifice which has
been raised on this unsubstantial and shadowy
foundation \ Whatever prominence may be
given to Peter in the history of the Apostolic
Church, it is that gained by energy, activity,
great gifts and greater love, and not by any
freedom from error or supreme authority. No
trace of either is found in the primitive re-

^ His name stands, it is true, at the head of the list of the
Twelve in the Synoptic Gospels and the Acts, but that it is
but zs, primus inter pares, and that the promise of Matt. xvi.
1 8 was not thought of as conferring more than this, is shewn
by the fact that it was after this that the two sons of
Zebedee came with their request to sit at their Lord's right
hand and His left in His kingdom (Matt. xx. 20, 21;
Mark x. 35), and that there were two disputes which was
greatest (Luke ix. 47, xxii. 24). The emphatic words
"Many that are first shall be last, and the last first" (Matt,
xix. 30), might well seem to rebuke any claim to a personal
and permanent primacy of power.

Romanism. 21

cords of the Church of Christ. The Impulsive,
wayward disciple during our Lord's ministry
on earth, now venturing on the troubled sea,
and now sinking through his want of faith \
uttering words which indicate an almost child-
like ignorance of the Lord's mind and pur-
pose^, denying, in the paroxysm of a coward
fear. Him whom he had acknowledged to be
the very Son of the living God, having the
words of eternal life — this is surely not what
we should have pictured for ourselves as the
Apostle who was to present to men the type
of an unerring steadfastness. The Pentecostal
gift brought doubtless to him as to others, but
not to him more than others, wider thoughts
and a new illumination, but the old vacilla-
tion and infirmity remained, and the Apostle
by whom the door of faith had been opened
to the Gentiles, was condemned alike by the
feeling of the Church and by the mouth of
one to whom had been given a larger wisdom
than his own^ In his conferences with that

1 Matt. xiv. 28 — 31.

2 Matt. XV. 15, xvi, 22, xvii. 5, xviii. 21.

3 "I withstood him to the face, because he had been con-
dc7nned (on KaT(.'yvo}(Jiiivos 17^)." Gal. ii. 11.

22 Rouianisiu,

other Apostle he appears as receiving, not as
imparting", the full truth of the mystery of
God and the universality of His kingdom ^
In the first great controversy which threatened
to break up the unity of the Church there is no
appeal, as, on the Roman theory, there should
have been, to his decision as final and supreme.
He speaks, it is true, wisely and rightly, but it
is as one debater among many, and the decision
rests not with him, but with the Apostles and
elders and the lay members of the Church^

It seems almost surplusage of argument
to go beyond this, but it may be added, that
even if the position of St Peter had been
other than it was, there is not one jot or tittle
of evidence in the writings of the New Testa-
ment or those of the age that followed it, to
connect him with the pastoral superintendence
of the Church of Rome. The foundation of
that Church is traceable not to him or to
St Paul but to obscurer and less honoured

^ Gal. ii. 2, 6.

2 Acts XV. 7, 14, 23. As Peter, according to the Romish
hypothesis, h^d already entered on the years of his Episco-
pate in the imperial city, this absence of any recognition of his
supreme authority is all the more striking.

Romanism. 23

preachers of the truth, perhaps to Aquila or
Androniciis or Junias\ perhaps to workers of
whose very names not a record has come down
to us. Had he assumed a supreme authority
in that Church he would have been, to use his
own expressive term, as an dWorpLoeTTLcr-
/co7^o9^a bishop in a diocese not his own, even
as those who claim to be his successors have,
as in the strange irony of history, shewn
themselves to be dWorpioeTTLcrKOTroL in every
Church in Christendom. Thehistory of those

1 It is a natural inference from the absence of any records
of Aqiiila's conversion, as well as from his immediate readi-
ness to fraternize with St Paul, that he already shared the
Apostle's faith, and this at least falls in with the hypothesis,
now generally received, that the expulsion of the Jews from
Rome was connected with tumults in which the name of
Christ (which we recognise in the " uj/pulsore C/iresfo'^ of
Suetonius (Claud, c. 25) had been bandied to and fro
between opposing parties. Of Andronicus and Junias we
know that they were Roman Christians, and that their conver-
sion to the faith had preceded the conversion of St Paul, and
must therefore have been earlier than the persecution which
culminated in the death of Stephen (Rom. xvi. 7). The
chief opponents of Stephen, it will be remembered, were the
Ubertlni, or emancipated Jews, and proselytes from Rome
who had a synagogue at Jerusalem (Acts vi. 9), and there are
some reasons for connecting the martyr himself M'ith the
imperial city. See Bishop Ellicott's Commentary on Acts vi. 5.

^ I Pet. iv. 15.

24 Romanism.

successors, the work they have done for good
or evil, in the history of the Church is, I need
scarcely say, incompatible with the claim.
Popes have lapsed into what other Popes have
condemned as heresy. They have stultified
themselves by flagrant contradictions on facts
of criticism or history^ Personal vices or a
persistent policy of ambition and intrigue
may, perhaps, be theoretically compatible
with an official infallibility, assuming its exist-
ence to be proved, but they are but unsatis-

1 The more familiar cases are those of Liberius, who
subscribed the Arian Creed at the third Council of Sirmium
(a. D. 357), and Honorius, who was condemned as holding
the Monothelite heresy by the sixth General Council at
Constantinople (a.d. 680), and by his successor Leo II.
Other instances will be found in the A^olume on The Pope and
the Council by the writer who took the nam de plume of
Janus. The advocates of Rome have, of course, a case
which they maintain, with more or less ability, against the
verdict of history, but the one fact which emerges, even ad-
mitting the success of efforts to whitewash the individual
Popes, is that no one then dreamt of the office as identified
with infallibility. The Avell-knoAvn Bclht}7i Papale of the
Sixtine and Clementine editions of the Vulgate, each stamped
with an ex cathcdrd authority, and containing some 3000
variations in their texts, remains as a witness that the claim
which had by that time been made could not bear the test of
even superficial criticism. (See Dr Westcott's Article,
Vulgate, in Smith's Dictionary of the Bible)

Rovianism. 25

factory accompaniments of its possession,
and are poor credentials of the mission of one
who assumes to speak as the oracle of God. If
the test " by their fruits ye shall know them" is,
in any measure, a true test, there are, at least,
many in the long list of Pontiffs who must
take their place among the false prophets who
are as ravening wolves, and not among the
preachers of righteousness and the witnesses
for the truth. And it is a singular outcome
of the claim to be the one witness and keeper
of the Word of God, the one interpreter of
its mysteries, that no church in Christendom
has done so little for settling the Canon or
unfolding the meaning of Scripture as the
Church of Rome, that none in that Church
have done so little as its long line of Bishops\
We might have expected the one pattern-

1 Chillingworth's answer to the argument drawn by
the advocates of Rome from the difficulties of Scripture, and
the consequent necessity for some authorized and unerring
interpreter, is pointed enough to deserve quotation. If the
Pope possesses this power, he asks, why does he not write a
Commentary? "Why not seat himself in cathedra, and
fall to writing expositions upon the Bible for the direction of
Christians to the true sense of it?" Religion of Protestants,
I. II. § 95-

26 Romanism.

scribe instructed to the kingdom to have
brought forth from his treasure "things new
and old." As a matter of fact he has too often
closed the doors of the treasure-house against
those who were seeking to enter in ; he has
brought out, not the pearls and precious
stones of truth, but the rubbish of the false
Decretals and of wildly fantastic interpreta-
tions \ The work of settling what books were
entitled to canonical authority, what text of
those books was authentic, was left in earlier,
as in later times, to private judgment, work-
ing on the data supplied by history and
criticism. Councils followed in the wake of

1 No thoughtful student of Scripture will take a low
estimate of the work done by many individual interpreters of
the Church of Rome. The names of Aquinas and de
Lyra, of Maldonatus and Estius, of Cornelius a Lapide
and Calmet, are worthy of all honour. But when we pass
from these "particular persons," following Butler's method,
to the writings of the Bishops of Rome, we have to fall back
upon such expositions as we find, e.g. in the Bull '■'' Unani
Sanctam" of Boniface VIII., in which the "two great lights"
of Gen. i. i6 are made to represent the spiritual and tem-
poral powers as impersonated in the Pope and the Emperor,
and the Magna Moralia of Gregory I., in which the seven
sons of Job represent the ''■ordo praedicantmm,'''' and his
three daughters the ^^ midtitudo andientium.^''

Rouianisin. 2/

scholars and confirmed their decisions\ The
work of interpretation has from the first been
carried on, as it will be to the end, not by
Popes or Councils, but by the exercise of the
individual intellect guided, in greater or less
measure, by the illumining grace of the
Eternal Spirit; dwelling on the meaning of the
words and the sequence of thoughts, on the
character, environment, and. purpose of the
writer whom we interpret ; or, to use Butler's
words, " in the same way as natural knowledge
is come at, by the continuance and progress of
learning and of liberty; by particular persons
attending to, comparing and pursuing, intima-
tions scattered up and down it, which are over-
looked and disregarded by the generality of the
world. For this is the way in which all improve-

^ When it is said that we receive Scripture on the
authority of the Church, it should be remembered that the
work of Mehto of Sardis, of Origen, of the author of the
IMuratorian Fragment, of Eusebius of Caesarea preceded the
earliest authenticated lists drawn up by the Council of
Laodicea (circ. A. d. 363) and the third Council of Carthage
(a.D. 397). The actual order is in accordance with the
natural course of things, and not with that demanded by
a hypothesis: (r) general currency and acceptance, (2) indi-
vidual scrutiny, (3) authoritative determination.

28 Romanism.

ments are made ; by thoughtful men tracing
on obscure hints, as it were, dropped us by
nature accidentally, or which seem to come
into our minds by chance." {Ajial. II. 3.)

It cannot be doubted, however, that, as a
matter of fact, the Roman Communion has
exercised influences of another kind over
minds differently constituted from the en-
quirers who seek simply for intellectual cer-
tainty. The long history that stretches back
into the remote past — the wide extent of her
sway and the apparent unity that rests on
her central authority — the stately impressive-
ness of her ritual, affecting the imagination
through the senses and the emotions through
the imagination — the provision which she
makes for sin-burdened consciences by her
system of confession and absolution — the
hope which she offers to those who mourn
for their dead, of a remedial and purifying
discipline after death bringing to complete-
ness the holiness without which no man shall
see the Lord, and which, when their earthly
course was finished was but incomplete and

Romanism. 29

almost rudimentary — the high ideal of saintly
and self-devoted life which has been aimed
at and not seldom realised, in her religious
communities of men and women — all this, we
know but too well, has exercised its power
of fascination over weak and unstable natures ;
sometimes, we must admit, over those whom
we could not so describe without an arrogant
injustice. But to those who are, in greater
or less measure, under the influence of these
attractions, we may say that, so far as they
are legitimate in their action, they are not the
exclusive heritage of Rome, that it is to her
misuse of them that we may largely trace
the neglect of them which has, it may be,
too largely characterised the Churches that
have separated from her. It has been one,
at least, of the gains, balancing some serious
drawbacks, of the so-called Catholic revival
of the last fifty years that it has given a
brighter and more joyous character to our
worship ; that it has taught us that Art in all
its manifold applications to sight and hearing
may legitimately be employed to stir up the

30 Romanism.

dull minds of men to soar heavenwards even
on the wings of sense, that we have learnt
from it that the highest act of Christian wor-
ship, that which is the witness of our com-
munion and fellowship with all who name
the name of Christ on earth, and with the
saints who have passed to their eternal home,
with angels and archangels and all the com-
pany of Heaven, need not be in its outward
accompaniments the most cold and lifeless
act of all \ It has led men, if not always
wisely, yet with an earnestness which deserves
all praise, to feel that the ministry of souls
involves something more than sermons how-
ever earnest, and calls for the personal con-

^ I am not, of course, defending any special form of
ritual, still less any which is at variance A\dth the decisions
of the tribunal which, whether we admit the force of its
reasonings or not, is for us, as English Churchmen, at least
for the present, the authoritative exponent of the Rubrics of
the Prayer-Book. But it is impossible to compare the type
of worship which now prevails among us with that which was
all but universally dominant till within the last forty years,
without feeling that there has been a great change for the
better, and that this has been wrought out by those who at
nearly every stage have had to encounter the brunt of sus-
picion and distnist, sometimes even of mob violence and
irritating prosecutions.

Romanism. 3 1

tact of mind with mind and heart with heart,
for the outpouring of the confession of the
sin-burdened soul and the words of comfort
and counsel that bring home to the penitent
the assurance of pardon and absolution\ It

'^ I have stated elsewhere, in. a Sermon on Confession and
Absohetion, the reasons which lead me to look on this element
in the work of the ministry as belonging to its prophetical
rather than its priestly character. The "drawbacks" to
which I refer are, I need scarcely say, the tendency which
has shewed itself among those who adopt the practice to
follow the guidance of Romish casuists, like Dens or Liguori,
rather than that of the wiser masters of the School of Con-
science, and to dwell with a minuteness, prurient in its results,
if not in its intention, as in the too conspicuous instance of
\\\Q Priest in Absolution^ on the "things done in secret," of
which "it is a shame to speak." That tendency one may
deplore and protest against, but in the popular outcry raised
on the strength of it against the practice of Confession, from
the journalism of the Clubs and the oratory of platforms to
the street-hawkers of pamphlets with suggestive extracts, I
find nothing that can deserve our sympathy, much that I
cannot regard as other than the product of the hypocrisy
which is content that the things in question should be done so
long as they are not spoken of. It is not an exaggeration to
say that there is a greater element of corruption in any one of
the thousand provincial newspapers which are published,
week by week, without let or hindrance, than in the work
which became a nine days' wonder. It is surely an unsatis-
factory outcome of Protestantism that it should prefer that
those who have fallen into sensuous sins should "open their
grief" to the counsellors who thus invite their confidence
rather than pour out their sorrow and shame to the ministers
of Christ. See an interesting Article on Confession by Dr
Cornell in the Contemporary Review for March, 1879.

32 Romanism,

has in many ways revived the idea and the
practice of associated and consecrated labour
for God's glory and the good of men in
fraternities and sisterhoods and guilds, with-
out the snare of vows of perpetual obligation.
It has given a new impetus to the Church's
mission work, both as evangelising the heathen
in far-off lands and preaching Christ to those
who, though they live and die under the very
shadow of the Churches, have lapsed into a
practical heathenism and need to be taught
what are the first principles of the oracles of
God. Mingling with a current of thought,
which in its main drift, started from a differ-
ent quarter, and flows in an opposite direc-
tion, it has led us to look into the dim region
that lies behind the veil with a wider hope
than our fathers dared to cherish, and to be-
lieve that there also, wherever there is yet
the capacity for a higher life, the everlasting
Love is not willing that any should perish
but that all should come to repentance\

1 I refer, of course, to the "wider hope" which cherishes
the thought that the education of the soul, that it may be fit

Romanism. 33

No, we do ill, even looking at Rome on
her best and brightest side, to ask impatiently
and unwisely, why the former days were better
than the latter. And, on the other side of
the account, she comes before the tribunal of
History and of Truth heavily weighted with
many serious charges from which even the
subtlest eloquence of her advocates w^ill find it
hard to clear her. She has darkened counsel
by words without knowledge, and in her en-
deavours to formulate the fact of Christ's
spiritual presence with His people, has over-
shadowed it with the cumbrous theories of
substance and accidents that belong to an
obsolete philosophy. She has pushed those
theories to their logical result in practice, and
has called men to acts of adoration, of which
it is hard to say, even while we shrink from
the harsh words of condemnation which our

for the mansions of its Father does not cease at the moment
of death, and that there may be behind the veil new stirrings
of repentance and apprehensions of the truth and growth
in hoHness, of which Mr Maurice was, if one may so speak,
the proto-martyr, and which has since been advocated in
various forms by Mr Wilson, Mr Kingsley, Professor Grote,
and Dr Farrar.

P. S. 3

34 Romaiiism.

fathers thought themselves justified in using
in the heat of conflict, that they do not bring
with them at least the peril of idolatry, i.e. of
the substitution of the symbol for the thing
symbolised, of a sensuous for a spiritual wor-
ship. She has taught men practically to trust
to the intercession, the patronage, the pro-
tection of created mediators who, in their
turn, have been presented as objects of de-
votion through outward forms, in painting or
in sculpture\ She has by her doctrine of

^ The '•''Monstra te esse Matrem " of the hymn in the Office
of the Blessed Virgin is strong enough as an illustration of
the tendency of which I speak, but it has been shewn that it
is but as the germ of a monstrous growth of Mariolatry which
is practically becoming more and more the religion of France
and Italy and Spain. Proofs enough and to spare may be
found in Dr Pusey's Eirenicon or an anonymous pam-
phlet, written, I believe, by the late Rev. W. E. Jelf,
A Review of Mariolatry (Rivingtons, 1869). It is not with-
out interest to note that the extracts given by Dr Pusey from
works published with more or less authority from Roman
Catholic Bishops, and in wide use throughout their flocks, are
enough to move even Dr Newman to language almost as
strong as any Protestant could desire: "I consider them cal-
culated to prejudice enquirers, to frighten the inilearned, to
unsettle consciences, to provoke blasphemies, to work the
loss of souls.... I know not to what authority to go for them —
to Scripture, or to the Holy Fathers, to the decrees of
Councils, or to the consent of Schools, or to the tradition of
the faithful, or to reason" {Letter to Dr Fusey, pp. 120, nr.)

Romanism. 35

purgatory and her practice of indulgences

turned the Gospel message of pardon and

peace into a narcotic for the conscience — not

seldom into a source of ill-gotten gain and

an instrument of spiritual oppression. She

has accustomed men to a worship in a speech

which they cannot understand, into which

they at least cannot enter with the fulness of

thought and speech which is found only when

men pray in the language in which they

think, and, as if reversing the Pentecostal

wonder, has decreed that they should not

hear, every man in his own tongue, wherein

they were born, the wonderful works of God.

If Protestant Churches and sects have shared

with her, as they have but too largely shared,

in the guilt of a persecuting intolerance, upon

her rests the blame of having led the way, of

having made men accept almost as an axiom,

from which it required centuries of freedom to

clear their ' long-abused vision,' that religious

error is a crime, to be punished like other

crimes, of having carried that principle age

after age to results by the side of which all

3—2

3 6 Romaiiisni.

other acts of persecution dwindle into in-
significance\

^ The first blood shed in tlie name of religious truth was,
it may be noted, that of Priscillian, a Spanish Bishop, who
had embraced some form of Manichaean or Gnostic opinion,
and was put to death by the usurper Maximus (a.D. 385);
The employment of the civil sword was condemned in
strong and earnest terms by St Ambrose and St Martin of
Tours, the former of whom refused to communicate with the
Bishops who had been the advisers of the act or sharers in it.
The Bishop of Rome, however, Leo II., sanctioned the fatal
principle of recourse to the secular arm. The Church,
"quae, etsi sacerdotali contenta judicio, cruentas refugit
ultiones, severis tamen Christianorum principum constitu-
tionibus adjuvatur, dum ad spiritale nonnunquam recur-
runt remedium, qui timent corporale supplicium" (Milman's
Lotifi Ch}'isiianity, B. 11. c. 4). In that fatal ^'' nonnun-
quam,^^ that sacrifice of the law of Christ for the chance of
an uncertain gain, Ave find the germ-cell (to return once
more to the metaphor naturally suggested by the Theory of
Development) out of which have come in terrible succession
the slaughter of the Albigenses, the Auto-da-fes of Spain, the
massacre of St Bartholomew, the fires of Smithfield, the
Dragonnades under Louis XIV., the long torturing tyranny
of the Inquisition. How hard it was to throw off the incubus
of the irpiOTov yf/eiidos we find but too plainly in the action of
Anglican Reformers under Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, of
Calvin in the execution of Servetus, of Scotch Presbyterians,
and the Courts of the Star Chamber and High Commission.
Perhaps, however, the crowning instance of the power of the
evil demon to return even to the house from which it had been
cast out is seen in Chillingworth. He, who in the Religio7i
of Protestants had claimed an almost unlimited freedom, and
written strongly against the persecuting policy of the Church
of Rome, came within a few short years to *' count it a
greater happiness than God had granted to his chosen ser-

Romanism. 37

I know not how far any of you may have
felt the power of that spell which has fasci-
nated not a few ardent and eager spirits,
which has led some to fear and some to hope
that the tide was turning, and that the wave
which we had watched in its slow retreat for
three hundred years, was creeping- in again
in creeks and bays, and was about to sub-
merge once more many fair fields of thought
and action. I have not sought to speak in
accents of alarm — still less to urge the policy
of jealousy and suspicion, which originates
in panic and does but augment the danger.
But we cannot close our eyes to the fact that
the danger exists. The former days will, in
a time of bewilderment and controversy and
doubt, seem to some better than the latter.
And therefore, I trust I shall not seem to
have misused the opportunity which has been
given me, by urging those who have listened
to the voice of the charmer, to reconsider that

vants in the infancy of the Church that we now have the
sword of the civil magistrate, the power and enforcement of
laws and statutes, to maintain our precious faith against all
heretical and schismatical oppugners thereof" {Sermons,\l. 15).

;^S Romanism.

conclusion. There is a heavy ofnis probandi
on all resolves to abandon the position in
which God has placed us before we have
made full proof of all the openings it presents
for the advancement of our own spiritual life,
and the welfare of those among whom we
are called to work. England, and the Church
which is identified with the life of England,
are, for us at least, the Sparta which God
has given us to beautify and set in order,
and it would be ill done to desert our post
and to take our flight on the wings of scep-
ticism into the abysmal depths of supersti-
tion.

II. PROTESTANTISM.

S. Matt. xii. 30.

He that is not zvith me is against nie ; and
he that gathereth not zvith me scattereth
abroad.

S. Luke ix. 50.

Forbid Jam not: for he that is not against ns
is for ns.

It is obvious that the two utterances which I
have read seem, at first sight, to tend in
opposite directions. The one might well
become the basis of a wider and more com-
prehensive Catholicity than any Church of
Christendom has as yet attained to. The other
might appear to sanction the most rigorous
measures to enforce uniformity, and to repress
every form of schism and dissent. We need,

40 Protestantism.

in the enquiry on which we enter to-day, yet
more in the part which every one of us will
some day have to play in relation to parties
within the Church's pale or to sects outside it,
to interpret rightly what Bacon has well called
these " cross-clauses of the league of Chris-
tiansV It is, for good or evil, the character-
istic feature of Protestantism that it has been
fruitful in these variations. It has been
marked, if one may so speak, by the hyper-
trophy of individualism, as the history of the
Church of Rome has been marked by its
suppression.

It will be noted as a help to a right under-
standing of our Lord's words that both the
passages which I have cited were spoken
primarily in connexion with the work of cast-
ing out demons. I need not now enter into
the vexed question of the nature of that
demoniac possession. It is enough for our
present purpose to recognise its phenomena
without involving ourselves in any disputable
theory of causation. Those phenomena are,

^ Bacon's Essays, ill. 0/ Unity in Religion.

Protest an tism. 41

beyond dispute, Identical with many that we
now connect with the idea of morbid condi-
tions of brain or nerve, of spiritual states that
He on the very verge of insanity. There Is a
strange dualism in the nature which should
be at unity within itself. Alternate paroxysms
of fear and hate, and love and adoration — a
preternatural insight and a reckless disregard
of the conventional restraints of life — wild or
ceaseless cries, or persistent and sullen si-
lence— these are the features that present
themselves even to the most superficial reader
of the Gospel records \ On these our Lord
looked as with an infinite compassion, and
made it one chief object of His work to heal
the evils which thus met His gaze. And it
was seen that His word was with power. The
disorder was, in the main, spiritual, and yield-
ed to spiritual and not to physical remedies.
The loving look — the gracious welcome — the
recognition of the true humanity which lay
beneath the wild conflict of the legion of

1 See Trench on the Mh'acles, v. The Demojtiacs in the
coimtry of the Gadarenes ; ox Exairsus on Matt. viii. 28 in
Bishop Ellicott's New Testamettt Cofunmitary.

43 Protestantls?n.

tempestuous passions — these had power to
cast out the demon forces, and to change the
wild howling maniac Into a disciple, sitting at
the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right
mind ; to bring to the fevered spirit the peace
and the sweet sleep which no popples or man-
dragora could have ministered. And what
the Lord Jesus did Himself, that He taught
His disciples also to do. It was His first
commission to them, that, as they preached
the Gospel of the Kingdom, they were to heal
the sick and to cast out devils. Their chief
ground of joy when they returned was that
even the devils were subject to them through
His Name. Their exultation had its counter-
part in His joy. He saw in this the pledge
and earnest of His future victory over the
powers of evil — He beheld as in vision Satan,
" as lightning, fall from heaven," cast out from
his usurped dominion in the ''heavenly places"
of the mind and will of man\

Those who saw or heard of this work
looked on it, the Gospel records tell us, with

1 Matt. X. i; Mark iii. 15; Luke x. 17, 18; Eph. v'. 12.

Protestantism. 43

widely different feelings. The Scribes and
Pharisees felt no sympathy with it. It mat-
tered not to them whether the Gadarene
demoniac remained in chains and fetters,
howling in the tombs, or returned to his own
home as in the peace of God. What did
matter was that the power was exercised by
One who was not of their school and had
rebuked their hypocrisy. They stood aghast
at the proof thus given of the presence among
them of a spiritual power mightier than their
own. That it was a spiritual, preternatural
power they could not, even from their own
stand-point, deny, and they ventured on the
horrible paradox that the good work was
wrought by the Power of Evil, that the libera-
tion of the human spirit from its bondage had
its source in the subtlety of the great oppressor.
" He casteth out devils by Beelzebub," was
their solution of the problem which presented
itself. On the temper that thus judged there
was passed the sentence, '' He that is not with
me is against me, and he that gathereth not
with me scattereth abroad." It approximated,

44 Protestantism.

with an awful nearness, to the sin of intense
persistent antagonism to goodness as such,
slandering and resisting it, which, in its ulti-
mate development, excludes forgiveness be-
cause it excludes repentance \ In the great
warfare of Christ against the power of evil,
the end and aim of which was to rescue those
who had been held as captives, and gather
them into His Father's house, there could be
no real neutrality. He that did not help to
gather, whose heart beat with no yearning
sympathy for those who were wandering and
lost, was practically perpetuating the isolation
and the misery which Christ sought to over-
come. On others, however, what they heard
of the works of the Christ produced a differ-
ent impression. It stirred up dormant sym-
pathies and roused into energy powers that
had been latent. They too would use the
prayer of faith and the Name that was mighty
above all names, that so they might deliver
those who had, it may be, for long years of
their life, been subject unto bondage. They

1 Matt. xii. 24 — 32; Mark iii. 22 — 30; Luke xi. 14 — 20.

Protestantism. 45

looked on the frenzied demon-haunted souls
whom they met, with a compassion like that
of Christ. And their words too w^ere mighty
and prevailed. Peace and calmness took the
place of restless agitation \ The man was
gathered into the fold of that humanity from
which he had strayed into the howling wilder-
ness. Those who so worked had not as yet —
we know not for what reason — ^joined them-
selves to the company of the disciples that
followed Jesus, but they shewed by using
His name that they believed in Him, and by
the purpose for which they used it that their
mind was one with His. And therefore when
the disciples sought to make that outward
union an essential condition of any recogni-

^ IVIark ix. 38; Luke ix. 50. It is obvious that whatever
we understand by "casting out devils" was actually accom-
plished by those whom the disciple (St John) sought to
restrain from working. This was true also, it would seem
from our Lord's reasoning in Matt. xii. 27; Luke xi. 19, of
the " children" or disciples of the Pharisees. To them also,
if they were single-minded in their purpose, and used the
name of the Most High God, not, like the vagabond exorcists
of Ephesus, as a spell or charm, but in humility and faith,
prayer brought a spiritual power to deliver which was
mighty to prevail against spiritual evil.

46 Protestantism.

tion of those who were thus working, they
were met with words, which, under the form
of a paradox, presented the opposite pole of
the self-same truth. He that was not against
Christ in that warfare with evil — who was
actually engaged in the conflict, though it
might be in skirmishes that lay outside the
plan of the regular campaign, was really an
ally and not an enemy — to be welcomed, not
to be condemned. It was not amons: such as
these that one would be found who would
"lightly speak evil" of Him.

The "cross clauses" of the league of
Christians are thus seen to receive their prac-
tical interpretation, not, as Bacon suggests \ in

1 ^'Bicon'i Essays, ill. " Both these extremes" (the zeal
of the persecutor and Laodicean kikewarmness) "are to be
avoided; which will be done, if the league of Christians
penned by our Saviour Himself were in the two cross-clauses
thereof soundly and plainly expounded, ' he that is not with
us is against us,' and again, ' he that is not against us is with
us': that is, if the points fundamental, and of substance, in
religion, were truly discerned and distinguished from points
not merely of faith, but of opinion, order and good intention.
This is a thing may seem to many a matter trivial and done
already ; but if it were done less partially, it would be em-
braced more generally." The concluding words form a me-
lancholy comment on many memorable passages in the con-

Protestantism. 47

a company of divines sitting round a table
and examining which of the formulated after-
thoughts of theology are to be classed as
essential or non-essential, fundamentals or
things indifferent, but in looking to the tem-
per in which men are acting and the work
which they are doing. Are they casting out
devils, or slandering and thwarting those who
do cast them out ? Are they warring, to
extend the principle in a way which all will
surely recognise as legitimate, against the
demon passions that desolate and make havoc
of all that is best and noblest in man's nature —
against lust and hate and falsehood, against
pride and injustice and oppression ? If so,
the word of command still goes forth from
the Lord of the Churches, " Forbid them not,
for he that is not against us is for us." Are
they among the upholders of traditional
prejudices, the sneerers at enthusiasm, the

troversies of Christendom. It would have been well for the
Church at large, for our own National Church in particular,
if this teaching had been more acted on, but there is after all
"a more excellent way" even than moderation in fixing
"fundamentals."

48 Protestantism.

cavillers at details, among those who never
hear of any earnest work for the souls of
men without asking the Ciii bono ? of a cynical
suspicion ? For them, as for those who said
of Christ that He cast out devils by Beelzebub,
there is the condemnation, " He that is not
for us is against us."

The truth thus established is manifestly
not without its bearing on our thoughts and
feelings, even as to the system of the Church
of Rome. There also we find, and may give
God thanks that we do find, those who, not
without success, have given themselves, in
this form or in that, to the work of casting
out devils. There also, for the most part in
her high places of authority, w^e find those
who have condemned men who were doing
that work, almost in the very words in which
the Pharisees condemned our Lord. We
need, as far as lies in our power, to recognize
the distinction between the two classes.
Where we find, as in such characters as St
Dominic, and Carlo Borromeo, and Francis

Protestantism. 49

de Sales\ a strange blending of the two con-
trasted elements, a warm tender illumined love
of souls mingled with a zeal, not according to
knowledge, against the error or the truth which
they looked on as hateful heresy, we must be
content to leave the judgment which History
shrinks from pronouncing, to Him before
whom the secrets of all hearts are as an open
scroll — from whom even the persecutor may
obtain the mercy which he has refused to
others, on the ground that he has acted igno-
rantly and in unbelief, not slighting conscience
but misled by an invincible prepossession.

We must feel, however, when we turn from
the one vast system with its centralised unity
to the manifold sects and parties which popu-
larly come under the common category of

^ I write the two names not without reluctance, but it
must be remembered that both were among the most ener-
getic leaders of the Anti-Reformation party in the sixteenth
century, that Borromeo was the main author of the Catechism
which popularised the teaching of the Council of Trent, and
that he brought the Jesuits into Switzerland ; and that the
70,000 converts whom the Bishop of Geneva was said to have
brought back from the heresy of Calvin to the bosom of the
Church were not gained altogether without the use of the
secular arm of the Duke of Savoy,

P. S. 4

50 Protestantism.

Protestantism, that \vc need the balanced
teaching of the twin precepts more than ever
to direct our judgment and to guide our con-
duct. For you to whom I speak, that is the
one chief lesson to be learnt. There is pro-
bably not one of you who has felt, or ever
will feel, called on to discuss the question
whether it is his duty to become a Wesleyan
or a Congregationalist. How you are to
judge and act towards Wesleyans and Con-
gregationalists is a question which you can
scarcely ignore with safety at any stage on
your work, as laymen or as clergymen.

I do not care to dwell at length on the
question which has been raised, whether the
Church of which we are members is itself
rightly described as Protestant. Historically
it may be true that the epithet is not alto-
gether a happy one. In its origin it had little
or no dogmatic significance. In its next
stage it implied the acceptance of the Confes-
sion of Augsburg as distinct from those of
the Reformed Churches of France or Switzer-
land— agreement with Luther and Melancthon

Protestantism. 5 ^

rather than with Calvin and Bcza. In the
wider range of connotation which it ulti-
mately acquired it expressed little more than
the negation of such errors as were distinctive
of the Roman Communion. It has never
been adopted by the Church of England in
any formal statement of her position. If, at
one time, it was accepted almost boastfully
by some of her most conspicuous teachers —
by those even whom we regard as representa-
tives of her more Catholic aspects, by Laud
and Cosin no less than by Chillingworth and
Tillotson, the title has lost something of Its
greatness by passing to viler uses\ It has

^ The Edict of Worms (a.d. 1521) had condemned
Luther in the strongest possible terms, and ordered rigorous
measures to be taken throughout the Empire against him and
his followers. At the Diet of Spires (a.d. 1526) the Reform-
ing party obtained an unanimous decree suspending the
operation of that Edict, and urging a general Council as
necessary for the peace and order of the Church. At the
Second Diet of Spires (a.d. 1529) the Anti-Reform party, bv
a majority, repealed the decree of the First and thus restored
the Edict of Worms to full activity. Against this decree six
Princes and the deputies of fourteen imperial cities protested,
partly on constitutional, partly on religious grounds. The
name Protestants^ first applied to them as so acting, soon
spread to their followers. The earliest instance of its wider
use beyond the limits of Germany with which I am acquainted

4—2

c; 3 Protestantism.

been made the plea for the intolerance of
statesmen and the violence of mobs, and the
panic and prejudices of the ignorant*. Those
who were sunk in a hfe of worldhness, or who
looked on the Estabh"shed Church from a

is in Ridley's speech on his trial: "Yea, I protest, call me
I'roteslaut who will." It probably grew in popularity under
Elizabeth, and Bacon { Observations on a Libel) speaks of the
'' protestantical Church of England " as though it were a recog-
nised phrase. The title of Chillingworth's book shews that
it was adopted by the high Anglican party whom he repre-
sented. Charles spoke of himself as a " Protestant king."
Laud claimed the title for himself and Andrewes {Speech on
his Trial). Cosin, in his will, expressed his yearning after
outward communion, his actual heart-communion, with foreign
" Protestants." The term was struck out of an address pre-
sented to William III. by a vote of the Lower House of the
Convocation of Canterbury, but retains its place in the
Coronation Service in the promise of the Sovereign to main-
tain the "Protestant religion."

^ We look back with a half-sad, half-contemptuous won-
der at the time when English Protestantism turned to Lord
George Gordon, or Lord Eldon, or the Duke of Cumberland
as its leaders, when the Duke of York's "So help me God I"
speech was printed in letters of gold as if it had been an
oracle from heaven. Are we quite certain that we are better
than our fathers? Ilie surplice riots at Exeter and St
Cjeorge's in the East, the recent scenes at Hatcham, the
organised action of an Association which exists only for the
purpose of promoting prosecutions about the '* mint, anise
and cummin" of obscure and obsolete rubrics, will not be
bright spots for the future historians of the nineteenth cen-
tury to dwell on.

Protestantism. 5 3

political standpoint, simply as Established,
have sheltered themselves under the profession
of a zeal for its Protestant doctrines. At the
best, the word carries with it a simply nega-
tive aspect, and no mere negation can be
an adequate bond of unity. There may be
something to be said, however unattainable
the ideal may be, for the dream of a union of
relig;ious societies on the basis of a common
Christianity, but the basis of a common
Protestantism is, of all things, the most
shadowy and unsubstantial. We may feel, as
indeed we ought to feel, respect and gratitude
for those who, in past times, bore the burden
and heat of a conflict in which we too were
sharers, but an alliance, offensive and defen-
sive, requires, as a condition of permanence,
something more than hostility to a common
foe. We may recognise, with no grudging
acceptance of the fact, that the tone of the
dogmatic formularies of the Church of Eng-
land is eminently protestant against the errors
of that of Rome. We do well to avoid all
supercilious scorn in our treatment of a word

54 rrotcsiantisi7t.

which was once honourable, and stirred the
hearts of men Hke a trumpet, calling them to
battle, but we need to add another term to it
in order that it may define our position with
any adequacy. Catholic first, and then be-
cause Catholic, protestant against the coun-
terfeit of Catholicity, is the only legitimate
description of the position which our Church
occupies in its relation to this controversy.

Leaving this question of words and names,
we pass on to ask what have been the main
characteristics for good or evil, of those to
whom, as having these at least, in common,
the name of Protestant has been applied ;
how far it is in our power to refuse the evil
and to choose the good ; how we ought to deal
with those who seem to us to have chosen the
evil as well as the good, and perhaps in larger
measure. It seems a true statement of these
characteristics, true almost to the verge of
being a truism, that they are found in the
tendency to individualism, which in greater
or less measure, has been found in these
societies, or in extremest cases, in solitary

Protestantism, 5 5

thinkers who take their stand outside all so-
cieties. The right of the individual intellect
to be the interpreter of Scripture, instead of
accepting an interpretation given as authori-
tative by Pope, or Council, or Fathers, to go
beyond this, and to judge of the evidence on
which the authority of Scripture, or any part
of Scripture, itself rests, of the grounds on
which we believe in the existence of God
and of a Divine order resting on His will ;
this has been the distinguishing feature of
the great movement which we recognise by
the name of Protestant. If it has been sup-
plemented, as in many cases it has been, by
including the work of the Spirit as guiding
and illumining the reason, which, left to itself,
was admitted to be inadequate to the task
of discerning the mysteries of God, it has still
been left to the individual intellect to deter-
mine how far it possesses that illumination.

It will hardly be questioned here that
this emancipation of the minds of men from
their long thraldom to an authority which
might, at least, be usurped, resting on no

56 Protestantis77t.

legitimate foundation, was an immense step
forward in the right direction. It was to
theology what the recognition of the rights of
the people was in the political history of the
time. It stirred men to activity of thought
and earnest enquiry instead of a blind acqui-
escence in the order which they found ex-
isting, or in the traditions which they had
inherited from their fathers. It impressed
them with the sense of a new responsibility
as seekers after truth. If it brought new pro-
blems and doubts and difficulties before their
minds, it gave them at the same time courage
to face those difficulties, and led them into
the right path of investigation in the hope of
a solution. It recognised that God reveals
Himself to man through Reason, and Con-
science, and Experience, no less really, though
it might be less fully, than through Scripture
and the Church, and taught men that the
knowledge gained by that first Revelation
was the test by which they were to judge
of the meaning and credentials of the second.
Even those who still urged the claims of au-

Protestajttism. IJ

thority as against the endless variations of
private judgment felt the power of the move-
ment, and were compelled to give a new cha-
racter to their arguments. Every plea for
the infallible authority of Pope, or Church,
or Scripture had to be submitted to the
Reason which men were seeking to persuade
to acknowledge Its own Impotence. Its free-
dom w^as recognised up to the point when, in
one supreme exercise of volition, It was to
determine that it would be no longer free, and
would thenceforth submit Its judgment to the
self-imposed power of the tribunal which it
had learnt to look upon as final.

We, in this place, shall hardly question
that the gain of the movement which was
thus characterised has more than balanced
any Incidental loss. Even If it had been
otherwise, if the loss of unity, of peace, of the
sense of certainty had been greater than
it has been, It would still remain true that
freedom is a nobler state than bondage,
that there Is a truer unity than that
which rests on absolute uniformity in creed,

58 Protestantism,

that it is wrong-, and not right, for the indi-
vidual soul to disinherit itself of the gifts
which it has received from God in order to
avoid the responsibilities which those gifts
bring with them. But the test "By their
fruits ye shall know them" maybe challenged
without fear, as applicable not less to systems
of thought and methods of enquiry than it is
to individual teachers. The w^hole body of
Apologetic literature in which the last three
centuries have been fruitful beyond all com-
parison with any past period of the history of
Christendom, and which has never been richer
and more effective than in our time, what is
it but the outcome of this recognition of what
has been rightly called the "v^erifying faculty

i»»

^ I borrow the phrase from Dr Rowland Williams's paper
on Biinsen's Biblical Researches in Essays a?td Revicrvs
(p. 83). It was much attacked at the time by those who were
alarmed at the tendency of that volume, and Augustine's
maxim "i\^(? corrigat aeger 77iedicamenta siia" was quoted
against it. But it will be admitted that even the sick man
chooses his physician according to the best evidence he can
obtain, and that if he has not before him the prescription for
his own individual case, but an unclassified Pharmacopoeia,
he must exercise his discernment in deciding what mediia-
menta are suitable for his own maladies or those of others.

Protestantism. 59

within us, of Reason as the lamp which God
has kindled in each man's soul, in order
that by following its light, and living by it,
we might attain to the perception of the
hicrher li^ht which He has manifested in
Christ. If it had been from the first, the duty
of a Christian to give to every man who
asked him a " reason of the hope" that was in
hlm\ "an answer with meekness and fear," —
a duty which Implied the right of the ques-
tioner to ask that reason, — we may say with-
out boasting overmuch, that, at least on the
intellectual side of the argument as distinct
from the living personal experience, which
translates arguments into realities and con-
firms outward evidence by that of the spirit
within us, no age has been so well furnished
as our own, with weapons, offensive and
defensive, from the armoury of God ; that it
is an inestimable gain, both as regards the
attainment of truth and the maintenance cf
peace and goodwill in human societies, to
have substituted these weapons for those of

^ I Pet. iii. 15.

6o Protestantism.

the older warfare, for the rack, the scaffold
and the stalce, or, where men did not dare to
venture on these, for political and social dis-
qualifications.

Still greater, if possible, is the debt which
we owe to the essential principle of Pro-
testantism in its work on the interpretation
of the writings whose claim to be the
Oracles of God has thus been vindicated.
In proportion as it has been true to itself,
men have entered the house of the interpre-
ter, and have passed through its richly gar-
nished chambers and have brought out from
its treasures things new and old, as well
instructed scribes. It is not too much to sav
that under this method, we have made dis-
coveries in the region of sacred literature no
less than in that of natural science. Scripture
has been seen to be a library and not a book';
each volume in that library has been studied,

^ The idea was indeed latent in the old title of the Vul-
gate, Biblia Sacra, the plural noun which came in mediaeval
Latinity to be taken as a feminine singular, and was expressed
by the term Bibliotheca, which Jerome himself applied to it,
and which was freely used by writers of the Anglo-Saxon
Church.

Protestantism. 6 1

as other books are studied, as having a his-
tory and meaning of its own, fashioned by the
mind of the writer, and the environment in
the midst of which he hved, and the teaching
which he had received from God. Eacli
sentence in every book has received a new
meaning, because it has been no longer treated
as one of a great collection of texts to be
used in controversy, or as rules of life, but as
part of an organic whole. The application
of the results of the accurate study of lan-
guage, of history, of character, of psychology,
has thrown light upon much that before was
dark, and it is almost a truism to say that
the life and words of Christ or of St Paul,
of Abraham or David or Isaiah, have been
broufjht before men in this a";e of ours with a
clearness and vividness which were unknown
to our fathers. You in this University may
well count it as one of your special titles to the
reverence of the English people that you, in
the nineteenth century as in the seventeenth,
have been foremost in this work, that you
can claim as your children, not a few of the

6: Protestantism.

most eminent of those who have acted on the
principle of Protestantism in the temper of
CathoUcity, among whom I may perhaps
venture to-day 'to recognise as one of the
noblest of that goodly company, not of the
' chief thirty ' only, but of the ' first three/ the
teacher whose loss you will soon deplore,
while the Church at large welcomes his entry
on a new region of activity for his w'ell trained
powers \

Evil has, however, it cannot be denied,
been mingled with the good. This assertion
of individualism, of the right of private

* This sermon was preached on the Sunday after Dr
Lightfoot had been designated as Bishop Baring's successor
in the See of Durham. One who belongs to the sister
University may freely recognise, without detracting from its
special merits, the work which Cambridge has done from the
sixteenth century downwards in the criticism and interpre-
tation of Scripture. The list is a long one, and it will be-
.sufficient to name among those belonging to the past, Cran-
mer, Ridley, Latimer, Rogers (the translator of the Bible),
Davenant, Fulke, the elder Lightfoot, Poole (of the Critici
Sacri and Synopsis), Walton (of the Polyglot Bible), Bishop
Marsh ; and of those who come within our o\vn times, Alford,
and Wordsworth, and Trench, and Ellicott, and Maurice
(though here Oxford may claim a share), and Scrivener, and
Perowne, and Farrar, and Howson, and Cook, and Lightfoot,
and Ilort, and Westcott.

Protestantism. 6"^

judgment as such, as distinct from its recog-
nition as a duty, for which we need, as for
other duties, a special preparation, and
which brings with it very solemn responsi-
bilities, has had in the region of man's
religious life, somewhat of the same disinte-
grating effect as the assertion of the abstract
rights of men has had in political society.
The right so asserted has been exercised in
the spirit of self-will, without the deference
which is due, in this, as in all regions of in^
quiry, from those who do not think and study
to those who do, from the scholars of the
lowest form to the masters of those who know,
from the solitary dreamer to the coiisensiis of
those who look before and after. Men have
claimed a direct illumination, as giving them
not only a sufficient light by which to live,
and so leadinp; them to holiness, but as ena-
bling them to understand all mysteries and all
knowledge. They have inverted Augustine's
ingenuous coni^ssion, Errare posstnn ; hcercii-
cus esse nolo, and taking for granted that they
could not err, they have assumed a position of

64 Protcstafitism.

aloofness from the Church which marked
them out, as in the true sense of the word,
heretical. The results of this spirit are seen,
I need not say, in the history of those varia-
tions over which Romish controversialists
have raised their song of triumph — in schisms
and disputes about the infinitely little, which
should lie below man's care, or the infinitely
great, which lies above his ken — in the loss of
all, or nearly all, sense that Christ came not
only to redeem this soul and that from the
penalty of sin, but to gather the souls so
redeemed into a great society with a corporate
and perpetual life, with memories stretching
back into the past, and hopes reaching for-
ward to the future. The " dissidence of Dis-
sent^" has taken in men's thoughts the place
of the Communion of Saints, and the one
question which each one has been taught to
ask himself has been '■' Am / saved from ever-

^ The characteristic watchword, for many years, of the
Nonconformist newspaper. It has now, however, been with-
(h-awn. Giitta cavat lapidem, and the sape cadendo of Mr
Matthew Arnold's gentle iteration would seem to have
achieved its victory.

Protestantism. 65

lasting torments" rather than "am I living as
a child of the Kingdom, a citizen of the
heavenly City?"

Not seldom, also, in the history of Protest-
antism, has it proved untrue to itself It had
rejected the authority of an infallible Pope or
an infallible Church, but the spirit which it
had cast out returned, and instead of believ-
ing, in the quietness and confidence of faith,
that the Word of God would prove itself to
be true to those who tried it rightly, it assum-
ed that the books that contained that Word
were infallible in all things. It condemned
in advance, as impious and unbelieving, all
conclusions in history or science which seemed
at variance with any part of its teaching — all
expansions in doctrine, or discipline or ritual
which could not be found in some definite
form within Its pages. Lavishing what Hooker
has well called "incredible praises"^ on Holy

^ Hooker, Eccl. Polity, II. vill. 7. "And as incredible
praises given unto men do often abate and impair the credit
of their deserved commendation; so we must likewise take
great heed, lest in attributing unto Scripture more than it
can have, the incredibility of that do cause even those things
which indeed it hath most abundantly, to be less generally
esteemed.

P. s, 5

66 Protestantism.

Scripture, they turned it into an idol to which
they paid a blind and unreasoning homage,
ascribing to it a character which it does not
claim for itself, and using it for purposes for
which it was not needed, for which also its
very form or fashion might have shewn that
it was never intended.

The history of the relations between the
Church of England and these latter aspects
of Protestantism has not been a very happy
or creditable history. We cannot study the
bearing of the great Puritan party, to which
we may look as the parent of all later forms
of Dissent, without seeing that there were
in it many elements of nobleness. Its very
name — in itself a far grander name than Pro-
testant— bore its witness, though given, it
might be, in derision, of a high ideal of purity
in doctrine, in worship and in morals \ The

^ It would be interesting here also, as in the case of
Protestant, to trace the genesis of the name, who first used it,
when it first appeared, and the like. Historians, however,
even Neal, are vague on these points, and we learn little
more than that the party that desired a further reformation of
the doctrine, discipline, and ritual, of the Church of England,
began about A.D. 1564 to be known as Puritans. In Shake-

Protestantism. 6/

men who were so described were marked by
an intensity of faith which has seldom been
seen working on so large a scale since the
first ages of the Church. Sin and holiness,
and pardon and peace, and heaven and hell,
were to them intense realities. They were
as the salt of the nation, preserving it from
the putrescence with which it w^as threatened
by the revived paganism and sensualism of
the Renaissance. They fought for the civil
as well as the religious liberties of English-
men against a tyranny that was at once eccle-
siastical and Erastian \ Even their Sab-

speare's Tzvelfth Night (A\T:itten between 1590-1602) in which
Malvolio is described as ''a kind of Puritan" (Act il. 3), it
appears as a current-term of reproach. The title-page of a
Life of Joseph Alleyne by C. Stanford (1873) gives, as a
quotation from Erasmus, the words : Sit anima mea ctnn
Pttritanis Ajtglicanis. No reference is given, and I have
been unable to verify the passage. Assuming its genuine-
ness it would seem to imply that the term had been ap-
plied, perhaps, even then, with something of a sneer, to
the Oxford Reformers, and that More and Colet were the
first bearers of the name.

^ It will hardly be contended, even by the warmest ad-
mirers of the Anglican party under the Stuart regime, that
the Starchamber and High Commission Courts, dominant as
was Laud's influence in them, were true Church tribunals in
their constitution. Even " His Majesty's Declaration " pre-

5—2

68 Protcstantisvi.

batarianism, overstrained and Judaising as it
was, stands out in honourable contrast with
the coarse comedies and the brutal bear-
baitings which were then the recognised re-
creation of an English Sunday. But with this
there was all the narrowness that grows out
of ignorance and panic. They sought to ob-
literate all traces of the continuity of the
Church's life, and took fright at things that
were absolutely indifferent because they had
belonged to its pre-reformation period \
They acted too often in the very spirit of

fixed to the Thirty-nine Articles, though interesting as the
first example of a ' Broad Church ' comprehensiveness in the
interpretation of dogmatic formulae, assumes, in "prohibiting
the least difference from the said Articles, not suffering
unnecessary disputations, altercations, or questions to be
raised," and decreeing that "all further curious search be
laid aside,*' an authority more in harmony with the theory
of the Swiss physician whom we know as Erastus (Thomas
Liebler, of the Swiss Baden) than with either the Episcopal or
Presbyterian ' platform ' of Church polity.

^ The vestments, the surplice, the sign of the cross, the
position of the Lord's Table, the use of chanting and instru-
mental music, the ring in marriage, were among the most
prominent of the adiapko7'a, round which the battle of con-
troversy raged in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Here, too, it would seem that the prejudices and passions of
the past have a potent vitality.

Protestantism, 69

sectarianism. When they had their brief hour
of triumph, they used it without pity, and
shewed that the spirit of intolerance survived
even in the champions of freedom. And the
rulers of the Church on the other hand — Can
we hold them blameless ? Where it would
have been their wisdom to conciliate the pre-
judices of the weak, and to utilise the reserve
force of spiritual energies, and to concede a
little for the sake of gaining much, we find
them bent on a froward retention of customs
and formulas which had not ev^en the prestige
of antiquity — insisting on a rigorous uni-
formity and enforcing it by severest penalties.
Both sides alike act and speak as though they
had never heard the words "We that are
strong ought to bear the infirmities of the
weak, and not to please ourselves \" If we

^ The oppressive measures recorded in Walker's " Suffer-
ings of the Clergy," the expulsion of many hundreds of that
order from their cures and homes imder the Long Parliament
and Cromwell must be borne in mind when we censure, as
we are compelled to censure, the over-bearing harshness
which was shewn at the Savoy Conference, and which issued
in the " black Bartholomew " fixed by the Act of Uniformity
of 1662, for the deprivation of the 2000 Presbyterian Minis-

70 Protestantism.

may believe of many on both sides that they
were casting out devils in the name of Christ,
even though they followed not with those
whom we follow, we must fear that many also
came under the condemnation passed on those
who do not gather, and are therefore as he that
scattereth abroad. Golden opportunities were
wasted of which we cannot hope that their
like will ever again be given to us, and we arc
compelled to look the fait accompli in the
face, and to acknowledge that the sentence
' Too late ' is written on all schemes for the
union and reconciliation of the dissenting
communities Avhich we see around us, with
each other or with the Church.

But accepting, as we must, that lamentable

ters, many of whom were as the salt of the earth in the
hohness of their lives, and most of whom were yearning for
Communion with the Established Church, if but a few con-
cessions had been made to them in things indifferent. A
few leading minds like Stillingfleet, Tillotson, Burnet, Crofts,
Baxter, sought in the forty years that followed, for terms of
comprehension, and the Revolution of 1688 seemed at one
time to hold out a hope that the contending parties might be
drawn together by the sense of a common danger. On the
Country party in the House of Commons, the country Clergy
in the Lower House of Convocation, rests the responsibility
of having frustrated all such well-intentioned efforts.

Protestantism. y i

heritage, are we simply to content ourselves
with the proverb of despair and to let the
children's teeth be set on edge for ever by the
sour grapes of which the fathers have eaten ?
Are we still to look on those who are our
bone and our flesh, who have fought the same
battles against the same foes, with a super-
cilious and discourteous scorn \'* Are we to
condemn as schismatics those who have been
alienated from us at least as much by the fro-
wardness of our fathers, as by the perverse-
ness of theirs ? Are we to confine our sympa-
thies and efforts at re-union to the far-off
Churches of the East, or the corrupt com-
munion of the Latin Church, while we shrink
from contact and co-operation with the more
energetic and evangelic life of the Reformed
Churches of Western Europe, or with the
communities to which it would be hard, on
any New Testament principles, to deny the
name of Churches, that exist among our-

1 The existence of this feeling as dominant in the upper
classes of English Society in the past, and not extinct in the
present, will, I suppose, hardly be questioned. It shews
itself even now in the most opposite quarters, in the Bishop

72 Pj'otestatitism.

selves \? We as Churchmen need not shrink
from following Cosin ^ in holding communion
with "the Protestant and best Reformed
Churches " of France and Germany and re-
cognising the validity of their ordinations, in
declaring that " in what part of the world so

of Lincoln and Mr Matthew Arnold, as a survival of the old
leaven. When we sneer at Dissenters as "Philistines," or
deny to their teachers the conventional title of respect which
indicates nothing more than that they are recognised by the
body to which they belong, as qualified instructors, we are
reproducing the old arrogance and the old bitterness of our
fathers.

1 It will be acknowledged that the Non-conformist
Societies are congregations of baptised persons, confessing
the name of Christ, taking scripture as their rule of faith. It
would be hard to prove that St Paul would not have recog-
nised such a congregation as an Ecdesia, though he might
have deplored, as we deplore, the imperfect knowledge, or
the inherited conviction, which separates them from com-
munion with the wider Ecdesia of the nation.

2 The extract that follows is from Cosin's Will ( Works in
Anglo-CathoUc Library, i. p. xxxii.) After his expulsion
from the Mastership of Peterhouse, he took refuge in France
and lived at Charenton, not far from Paris. He communi-
cated with the Protestant (more strictly, of course, we should
say, the Reformed) Churches there, and they allowed him to
officiate in their congregations, using the Liturgy of the
Church of England. When consulted as to the lawfulness of
such communion he wrote, "To speak my mind freely to you
I would not wish any of ours absolutely to refuse communi-
cating in their Church, or determine it to be unlawful, for
fear of a greater scandal that may thereupon arise, than we
can tell how to answer or excuse." Ibid. p. xxx.

Protestantism. 73

ever any Churches are extant, bearing the
name of Christ and professing the true Catho-
lic Faith, and worshipping and calling upon
God the Father, the Son, and Holy Ghost,
with one heart and voice, if anywhere we be
now hindered actually to be joined with them,
either by distance of countries or variance
amongst men or by any hindrance whatso-
ever, yet always in our mind and affection we
should join and unite with them." We may
well be content to walk in the steps of San-
croft in urging on the Clergy " that they have
a very tender regard to our brethren, the Pro-
testant Dissenters . . . persuading them,
if it may be, to a full compliance with our
Church, or, at least, that ' whereto we have
already attained, we may all walk by the
same rule, and mind the same thing;' pray-
ing for the universal blessed union of all Re-
formed Churches, both at home and abroad,
against our common enemies \" We may ac-
knowledge with thankfulness that many steps
have been taken to the right application in

1 D'Oyly, Life of Sancroft^ p. 196.

74 Protcstantis7n.

vicliorcm paj'icin, of the " cross clauses of the
league of Christians." One by one the sta-
tutes which embodied the vindictive Intole-
rance of the seventeenth century have been
swept away. The operation of the Conscience
Clause in our National Schools no longer
throws us Into an hysterical alarm. The ad-
mission of Dissenters to our Colleges no
longer rouses the fierce passions of contro-
versy, as it did when the Master mind of this
your University was forced to resign his tu-
torship because he pleaded for the cause of
justice and of charity \ Bishops and Pro-
fessors of the Church are seen working side
by side with Nonconformist scholars in the
great task of translating and Interpreting the
sacred books which are the common heritage
of all. They have recognised that It was
right to Inaugurate that work by participation
in the act which witnesses of a higher unity

^ I refer, of course, in this to Bishop Thirlwall's pamph-
let on the Admission of Dissenters, and the proceedings that
followed on it. (See Edinburgh Review, Vol. cxLiii). For
the now almost forgotten controversy of the Conscience
Clauses I may refer to the Bishop's Charge for 1866, in the
second volume of Dean Perowne's Edition of his Retnains.

Protestantism. 75

than that which is Hmlted by outward uni-
formity in dogma or in ritual — that the true
Elevation of the Host was that which raised
it above our manifold divisions \ It remains

^ I owe the expression and the thought to the late F. D.
Maurice. It may freely be admitted that the Communions in
Westminster Abbey, in June 1870, to which all members of
the two Revision Companies were invited, bore an entirely
exceptional character, and that the Rubric which directs that
none should be admitted to communion but ' ' such persons as
have been confirmed, or are ready and desirous to be con-
firmed" \\2iS, pro hac vice, disregarded. But the rubric itself
is, on the other hand, a dead letter in its prohibitive, though
happily a living ordinance in its directive, aspects. The
English Church has never adopted the Scotch plan of
"fencing" the Lord's Table, and in the public administration
of Holy Communion, we, for the most part, are entirely igno-
rant whether the condition has been complied with, or
whether those who present themselves for Communicants
have previously been trained in her Communion. We take
for granted that they are ' ' worthy " because they seek for
fellowship with Christ and His Church in His ordinance, that
their consciences find nothing in our Order for Holy
Communion to repel them from it. On this occasion men
were on the point of starting on a great work which was
planned for the good of English-speaking Christendom.
Both Houses of Convocation had deliberately invited Non-
conformist Scholars of many different denominations to take
part in that work. Was it supposed that they could not
possibly join in prayer for the Divine blessing on their
labours, that they were to be students of the Divine Book with
no sense of a Divine unity binding them together? And if they
could thus draw near to the Father through the Son, was
there not a cause for suspending, for the time, the restrictions

']() Protestantism.

for you, who are rising to take your place in
the ranks of the clergy or laity of the Church
of England, to carry on the good work to its
completeness ; to meet any grievances that
yet remain in the temper, not of a jealous
exclusiveness, but of an equitable charity ^ ;

which exckided them from the highest Act of that access?
Did not each Communicant, with whatever sacramental
theories he might approach the Table, confess that there was
in that Memorial Feast something which was wider than all
theories, and that there was nothing in the liturgy in which
he joined, though there might be that in it which he would
wish otherwise, to hinder his participation in it ? Was it not
wise and charitable to leave it to the conscience of each to
say whether he could make that confession ?

^ I have no wish to enter here into a discussion of the
vexed question of which we see the outcome in the endless
Dissenters' Burials Bills of the last few years ; but no language
can well be too strong in deprecation of the tone and temper
in which that discussion is commonly approached by those
who claim to represent Church interests in Parliament or the
press. There is the old bearing of the Cavaliers to the
Roundheads, of the Country party of the Restoration to the
Presbyterian. There are the old cries of the " Church in
danger" and "the thin end of the wedge," the old incapacity
to enter into the feelings of those from whom we differ, and
to understand that a grievance may be very real even though
it be only " sentimental," the old Noii possimius of an
irrational resistance. The history of the Conscience Clause
is not in this matter without its lessons. Men nail their
colours to the mast and raise the cry of " no surrender." At
last a change comes, more thorough and sweeping than that
which they had resisted, and they find that what they dreaded

Protestantism. yj

to recognise that those who are not against
us in the great battle against ignorance and
evil are on our side — and so to inherit the
blessing which belongs to " the repairers of
the breach and the restorers of paths to
dwell in." (Isai. Iviii. 12.)

takes its place in the normal order of the nation's life, with-
out the convulsive and catastrophic changes which their fears
had prognosticated.

III. AGNOSTICISM.

Acts xvii. 23.

/ found an altar with this inscriptio7i^ TO
THE UNKNOWN GOD.

Rom. I. 19.

That which may he known of God is matiifest
in them.

We can, without much difficulty or risk of
error, picture to ourselves the thoughts and
feelings of the Apostle as he walked through
the streets of Athens, or stood talking to such
as would listen to him in its agora. The
stately temples that move the world's wonder,
the statues of Athene, or Poseidon, or Apollo
in every courtyard, the Hermes busts at the
corner of every street, these were for him not,
as they have been to many, a "thing of

Agnosticism. 79

beauty, and a joy for ever," but the witness of
a fatal degradation. He had seen many
Greek cities — Tarsus, Antloch, Lystra, — but
none had so stirred his spirit into a paroxysm
of indignant grief. That feeling was but
intensified by the fact that the Wisdom no
less than the Art of the Greek world was
here presented to his mind in its highest and
most perfect form. Those brave words of
Epicureans and Stoics as to the Supreme
Good and the chief end of life, that super-
cilious disdain of the popular worship which
the philosopher knew to be radically wrong,
yet had not courage to abandon, that high
Ideal of conformity to the Eternal Order on
the one hand, or of a serene equilibrium and
maximum of enjoyment on the other — what
had they done to raise the mass of mankind
to clearer thoughts of God, or greater purity
of life ?

His eye had, however, rested on words
which seemed to him of profound significance,
and gave a new direction to his thoughts.
We need not now discuss what was the mean-

8o Agnosticism.

ing of the words TO THE UNKNOWN GOD, to
him who had dedicated the altar. Was it the
extreme result of Polytheism, unable to
identify its benefactor among the gods many
and lords many of Greek mythology, and
thinking of one more to be added to the list
who as yet was without a name? Was it, as
seems more probable, like the SiGNUM INDE-
PREHENSIBILIS Dei on the Mithraic group
from Ostia\ the utterance of a yearning cry

1 The inscription maybe found in Orelli, li. p. looo; the
altar on which it appears is in the Vatican Museum. It
represents, like most of those dedicated to the worship of
Mithras, a youthful figure sacrificing a bull. The inscription
runs :

SIGNUM INDEPREHENSIBILIS DEI

G. VALERIUS HERCULES. SACERDOS.
P. P.
De Rossi thinks that it belongs to the last half of the third
century, when the worship of Mithras (of which the con-
tinued observance of the Dies Solis is perhaps a survival)
came to be fashionable as a rival to the claims of that of
Christ. It had, however, been introduced at Ostia as far
back as the time of Pompeius (Plutarch, Pomp.), and Ter-
tullian {De PrcEscr. c. XL.) bears witness to its wide-spread
prevalence in his own time, and speaks of it as presenting
many points of resemblance to the cidtiis of Christians.
There is, therefore, no anachronism in supposing that an
altar of this type may have existed in Athens in the first
century. It may be added that the absence of any reference
to such an inscription in Greek writers is against the assump-
tion of a much earlier date."

Agnosticism, 8 1

for the Undiscovered One, Supreme above all
Gods — worshipped in many lands and under
many names — but as yet revealed to none,
and wrapt in the impenetrable darkness of an
eternal mystery? The latter was, at all events,
the interpretation which the Apostle put upon
the words when he made it the text of that
memorable discourse before the court, or
within the precincts, of the Areopagus. I
dare not venture now, great as the temptation
is, to follow that discourse step by step, and
to trace its bearing on those who listened, the
devout worshippers — the gossiping idlers —
the philosophic disputants. It will be enough
to note that he sees in the inscription a token
of that awe of the unseen and unknown
forces that lie round us, which is at once the
germ of all true religion, and the source of
the basest superstitions ; that in contrast with
the false idea of God of which the latter were
developments, he proclaims the true philo-
sophy of worship, almost, as far as its nega-
tive aspect is concerned, in the very words of
P. S. 6

82 As:nosticisin.

i>

Lucretius*, as resting on the thought that God
needs nothing at our hands, but gives all
things ; that he adds to this the outline of a
new philosophy of History as being, in all its
complexity, in "the times before appointed,
and the bounds of men's habitations," the
school in which God educates mankind,
waking longings which remain unsatisfied,
leading them through devious ways, as men
feeling their way and groping in the twilight
dusk, after the Eternal and Invisible. To
that outward witness there is, he adds, an
answering voice within us. The Stoics were
right in their belief that every man is a
Temple to himself, and that in that temple
he may find God. " He is not far from every
one of us." More truly than in the witness
of creation, than in the records of experience,

1 Lucret. De Nat. Rer. ii. 645—650:
" Omnis enim per se divom natura necesse est
Immortali aevo summa cum pace fruatur,
Semota ab nostris rebus sejunctaque longe ;
Nam privata dolore omni, privata periclis,
Ipsa suis pollens opibus, nil indiga nostri,
Nee bene promeritis capitur, neque tangitur ira."
Acts xvii. 25 " Neither is worshipped with men's hands, as
though He needed anything."

Agnosticism. St^

he may find in the depths of consciousness,
in the law written in his heart, in the thoughts
that accuse each other, the token that every
child of man is a child of God. "We also are
His offsprlng-V

The speech came to an end, but not so the
train of thought of which it was, as it were, the
firstfruits. The Apostle's mind w^orked on in
that groove, and sought to solve the problems
which had thus presented themselves. How
was it that, though God had not left Himself
without witness, giving showers from heaven

^ Dr Lightfoot has given some striking illustrations in his
Excursus on Si Paul and Seneca {Philippians, p. 288):

"Temples are not to be built to God of stones piled on
high: He must be consecrated in the heart of each man"
{Fj-agm. 123)..." God is near thee; He is with thee: He is
within" [Ep. Mor. xli. i)..." Thou shalt not form Him of
silver or gold. A true likeness of God cannot be moulded
of this material " {Ep. Alor. xxxi.).

Another may be given from a contemporary poet, the
nephew of Seneca and the namesake of the writer of the
Acts :

" Estne dei sedes nisi terra, et pontus et aer,
Et coelum et virtus ? Superos quid petimus ultra?
Jupiter est quodcumque vides, quocunque moveris."

Lucan, Phars. IX. 578—580.

Many other illustrations will, of course, be found in most
Commentaries on the Acts.

6—2

84 Agnosticism.

and fruitful seasons, filling men's hearts with
food and gladness^ men either shewed by
their worship, as in the popular ritual, that
they knew Him not, even by the hearing of the
ear, or as in the altar to the Unknown God,
confessed their ignorance ? What adequate
explanation could be given of those times of
ignorance during which God had overlooked,
and, as it were, connived at the world's evils,
tolerating the sins of men, while as yet there
were no signs of the repentance which is the
one condition of forgiveness ? If the history
of the world was the education of mankind,
what was the goal to which that education
was directed ?

The whole argument of the Epistle to the
Romans is the outcome of the thoughts which
were working in St Paul's mind in that
speech at Athens. It is not reading too
much between the lines to find in the very
words which open the argument an echo of
the inscription which had been the origin of
those thoughts. The despairing confession

^ Acts xiv. 1 7.

Agnosticism. 85

of the altar to the Unknown and Unknowa-
ble God is met by the assertion that " That
which may be known, the knowable, of God
is manifest in them^" that the ignorance into
which men have fallen is the result wrought
out by their unwillingness to face the thought
of God — that this led, in its turn, to a baser
view of their own nature and of the end of
life^ As in the entail of curses on which the
Greek poets loved to dwell, one sin became
the parent of another, which was at once its
natural consequence and its divinely ordained
penalty ^ With unshrinking hand he tears
aside the veil of a flimsy optimism which
boasted of the triumphs of wisdom and art,
and culture, and in words that make us shud-
der, lays bear the putrid and leprous cancers

1 ^Ayvdia-Tc^ Qecp, Acts xvii. ■23. T6 ypcoa-rbv toO Qeov,
Rom. i. 19.

'■^ Rom. i. 21 — 32.
^ yEsch. Aga7fi. 757,

rh yap dvaae^h epyov
/xira ixkv irXeiopa tlkt€l, acperepg. 5' e'lKora yivvq..

^iXet hk TLKTeiv "TjBpis jj-kv TraXaca. ved-
^ovffOLV eV KaKoU ^poTQv "T^piu.

86 Agnosticism.

t,

that were eating into the life of the Greek
and Roman world and plunging it into a
fathomless corruption.

That dark and terrible picture might well
have crushed out all hope. No older Mani-
chean, no modern Pessimist, could have con-
structed, it might have seemed, a stronger
indictment against the divine attributes of
wisdom, and love, and power. Did not the
history of the world seem a colossal failure,
the education of mankind one that ended in
ever-deepening ignorance and guilt ? St Paul
could not rest in that thought any more than
he could satisfy his questioning intellect with
the phrases of a Stoic apathy or Epicurean
tranquillity. He found what helped to sus-
tain him and give him guidance in the record
of another failure that more nearly concerned
himself and the race of which he was a member.
Israel had not been left to the twofold wit-
ness of creation and of conscience, but had
been chosen for a higher knowledge and a
special revelation. Law and Psalm and
Ritual and Prophecy had preserved them

Agnosticism. ^'/

from the darkness that had brooded over the
heathen. Were they after all better than the
heathen ? Had they been truer to the Law
written on the Tables of Stone than the
Gentiles had been to the law written in their
hearts ? The answer to those questions was
a sad stern negative. Both Jew and Gentile
had alike come short of the glory of God —
were alike guilty before Him — shut up under
sin and condemnation. Each had had suffi-
cient knowledge to be ''without excuse;"
neither had so used his knowledge as to attain
to holiness and peace \ The darkness on
this view might have seemed blacker and
more abysmal than before. If Israel was
rejected, with all its special prerogatives as a
chosen and peculiar people, what hope was
there for the Gentile world "^ It was given to
St Paul to see the gleams of a Divine light
breaking through the darkness. We cannot
say that he solves the whole problem, and

^ Comp. the whole argument of Rom. i. i8 — iii. 19. We
note the terrible reiteration of the dvaTroXoyrjTos in Rom.
i. 20, ii. I, as addressed alike to idolater, philosopher, and
Jew.

88 Agnosticism.

removes all difficulties. The varying inter-
pretations that have been put upon his words
hinder us from saying that his Theodicy, his
vindication of the ways of God, is specu-
latively complete\ He himself is the first to
confess that those ways are " past finding
out." But he has seen, at least, what we may
call the drift of things — the purpose which is
working out a result for good and not for evil.
Men had been led — and were being led —

^ It will hardly be questioned that logically the argument
falls short of completeness, unless we carry on the train of
thought of Rom. v. and xi. to the conclusions adopted by
Origen and later teachers, who have cherished the wider
hope of a universal restoration. The " much more " of Rom.
V. 18—20 is hardly satisfied by the "salvation" of a pre-
destined few out of the millions of mankind. When we read
that "all Israel shall be saved" (Rom. xi. 26), the words
suggest something more than the perdition of a hundred
generations and the pardon of a remnant of the hundred and
first. And yet it is clear that the Apostle shrinks, as most
of the Masters of those who know have shrunk, from dog-
matically affirming that universal restoration. He is content
to rest in the belief that that is God's purpose, that He is
leading men through ways that baffle our investigation to
that far-off result, but he cannot exclude the thought that it
is possible that the fatal gift of freedom which frustrates the
loving purpose of God now on earth may frustrate it for ever.
It is not without significance that Rom. xi. should have been
the favourite chapter alike of ultra-Calvinists and of Thomas
Erskine of Linlathen.

Agnosticism. 89

Jew and Gentile alike, by a terrible experience
to feel their impotence apart from God, to
welcome the revelation of God in Christ by
which they have access to the Father. The
mercies of God were manifested even in the
sentence of condemnation. He had concluded
all in unbelief that He might have pity upon
all\

I have dwelt at this length on the main
line of St Paul's treatment of this great
question — the ever-recurring question which
has haunted the souls of men in the former
times as well as in the latter — because I am
persuaded that it is on these lines of thought
that we must travel if we would meet, with
any adequacy, the special forms of scepticism
or unbelief that seem to us characteristic of
our own time. Those forms present, it is
obvious, many features analogous to those
with which he had to deal. It seems a strange
outcome of the eighteen centuries which have
passed since he thus thought and spoke, that
men should still be thinking of God as the

^ Rom. xi. 32.

90 Ag?wsticism.

Unknown and the Unknowable — yet so we
know it is\ The prophets of Science tell us
that we can know the phenomena of the uni-
verse, but that we cannot know their cause,
and that it is our wisdom to keep within the
limits of the knowable. The prophets of
culture, with the savour of an earlier and
better training still lingering in their souls, go
a step beyond this, and tell us not untruly,
however incompletely, that there are signs all
around us and within us of "a power not
ourselves, a stream of tendency, that makes
for righteousness",'' and that therefore it is our

^ Huxley's Zfiy/ Ser?nons, p. 20, "The theology of the
present has become more scientific than that of the past,
because it has not only renounced idols of wood and idols of
stone, but begins to see the necessity of breaking in pieces the
idols built up of books and traditions and fine-spun ecclesias-
tical cobwebs, and of cherishing the noblest and most human
of man's emotions by worship, ' for the most part of the silent
sort,' at the altar of the Unknown and Unknowable."

^ Matthew Arnold, Literature and Dogma, p. 41. "For
Science God is simply the stream of tendency by which all
things fulfil the law of their being." One cannot read this
and other writings of Mr Arnold's without hearing in them
the two voices whose dissonant notes have not yet been
brought into accord. On the one hand there is a manifest
capacity for almost mystical emotion. He sympathises with,
and half shares, the love which Israel felt for the Eternal,

Agnosticism. 91

wisdom to be righteous — that this is all that
we can know of what we call God, and that
when we ascribe to Him a Will, and Purpose
and Character, still more when we venture
to interpret His dealings with mankind or to
accept a revelation from Him, we are simply
falling back into the anthropomorphic con-
ceptions which have been the source of all

the Father. He confesses truly enough that the ' ' Power in
us and around us is best described by the name of this
authoritative, but yet tender and protecting relation" (p. 35),
that "the more we experience its shelter, the more we feel
that it is protecting even to tenderness" (p. 65). On the
other he is repelled by the introduction of a scholastic term
like "personality" into popular rhetoric, and by what seem
to him platform phrases about "a moral and intelligent
Governor of the Universe" (p. 26), and will not ask himself
whether these phrases are not after all identical in meaning
with those which he adopts himself. Is there, we may ask,
any great gulf of thought between a "Power not ourselves
that makes for righteousness" and "a moral Governor of the
Universe"? Are we thinking of God only as "a magnified
and non-natural man," because we ascribe to Him a "Wisdom
and Love and Righteousness, the ideas of which have been
gathered indeed from our own conscious experience, but
which we recognise as being free in Him from the imper-
fections that cloud all manifestations of them which we have
seen in men? In his protests against the "insane license of
affirmation" which characterises our theological systems,
most controversialists will recognise a rebuke deserved by
their opponents, most impartial students of controversy a
warning by which all may profit.

92 AgJtosticism.

perversions and falsehoods, in the reh'gious
history of mankind. The prophets of art
follow up the lesson by proclaiming that its
province and that of ethics are unconnected
with each other — and that the end of the
former is but to depict faithfully whatever it
finds to its hand that may minister to our
sense of beauty and bring about a maximum
of enjoyment. The more sensuous, realistic
forms of art, in poetry, and painting, and
sculpture, fulfil this purpose more than the
ideal, or mystic, or ascetic forms that presup-
pose a standard of holiness, and those who
follow them are therefore truer to their voca-
tion. All alike take up their taunting proverb
against what seems to them the shadowy
projection of our hopes and fears into the
dim future that lies beyond the veil. Epicu-
reans and Stoics may listen to the preacher
as he speaks in their own terms, of righteous-
ness and temperance, but when he proclaims
a judgment to come and tells them that God
has appointed Jesus who was crucified to be
Judge of quick and dead, the result is now as

Agnosticis7n, 93

it was of old. Some mock, in various tones
of brutal or refined derision. Some, let us
hope, there may be, who will say " We will
hear thee again of this matter."

What kind of worship, in act or word, is
to be the expression of the thoughts of those
who, while they undermine the groundwork
of all devotion, still recognise the religious
instincts of mankind, as an essential element
of their nature, that must have a legitimate
outflow, or, at least, a safety valve, lest they
should explode and shatter the edifice of
theory, it is not easy to say. The worship to
be paid at the altar of the Unknown and
Unknowable is, we are told, to be "for the
most part of the silent sort," and it must be
admitted that it would be a hard task to con-
struct a liturgy on the basis of an absolute nes-
cience of Him whom we ignorantly worship.
The worship of humanity, of its saints and
heroes as having an immortality in the
memory of mankind, and the after harvest of
the seeds which they have sown, may end, as
it seems likely to end, in an unlimited

94 Agnosticism.

apotheosis of the discoverers and benefactors
of the race, but of each god so created it will
be true that he is shadowy, impersonal, un-
substantial, and that after all prayer and
praise, there will be neither voice nor answer
nor any that regardeth\ The Christian of the
nineteenth century will find it as hard to turn
from the worship of a personal Father to that
of an impersonal "drift of things" as the
Athenian did to think of a Vortex as seated

1 What we may call the positive, or constmctive, side of
Positivism has been described by Mr Huxley as "Catholicism
minus Christianity. " It meets man's cravings for a cultus of
some kind, with a calendar of heroes and saints and sages
almost as multitudinous as that of the Church of Rome, with a
hierarchy whose ideal task is to dominate, as she has done, over
the intellect and will of men. It has been easier, however, for
those who call themselves disciples of Comte to follow him in
the task of pulling down than of building up; and while
thousands take up the phrases that shut out the question, Can
we know God ? as belonging only to the first stage of human
progress, the priests and the worshippers of the ' ' religion of
humanity " may be counted on one's fingers. And yet it has
been said with truth that the thoughts which underlie that
religion are not the weakest, but the noblest elements in
Comte's teaching, are " not only reconcileable with Christia-
nity, but are essentially Christian." The Positivist theory
"so far from advancing anything novel in such teaching, simply
places us once again in the original Christian point of view
of the Cosmos" (Westcott, Aspects of Positivism in relation
to Christianity in Contemporary RevircVy vol. Vlii. p. 383).

Agnosticism. 95

on the throne of Zeus\ The worship of the
beautiful in art is likely to issue, as it did of
old, in hymns to Aphrodite and a sensuous
ritual of measureless impurities^ We turn
from these dreams and mirage phantoms of
an impossible devotion, as with a sense of
relief and reality, to the truer utterances of
those who though they confessed that they
had not found God were yet in earnest seek-
ing after Him, to the traditional death-prayer
which some mediaeval sceptic passed upon
the world as coming from the lips of Aris-

^ Strepsiades, "o/oas o'vv, ws dyaOou to fxavdaueiv,
ovK 'icTLV, w <l>ei5i7r7rtS?;, Zei^s, dWd tls
Aivos ^aaLKevei, rov Ac eleXTjXa/cws."

Aristoph. A^uk 805.

2 I am not over-conversant with the literature of the
higher criticism of art, and do not care to quote illustrative
extracts, but the verses and popular essays which meet one in
the current journalism of the day tend, it will scarcely be denied,
to a glorification, — almost, one might say, an apotheosis, —
of Nakedness, which presents but too obvious points of pa-
rallelism to the St Simonian "rehabilitation of the flesh."
Not once or twice in the history of mankind have we seen
the outcome of this gilded putrescence, and have learnt how it
eats into a nation's life, and ends as in the poetry of Catullus,
the novels of Petronius, and the art of Caprese. The " Pa-
lace of Art" which an earlier generation was taught to admire,
had no galleries of lupanarian tableaux.

g6 AgJiosticisjH.

totlc, Causa catisaniin, miserere mei'^, to the
touching, sad, yet not hopeless, words which
we read at Westminster on the tomb of the
statesman-poet, and which embody the same
prayer addressed to the God whom he knew
only as the Ejis Entiiun, for in that Miserere
we read the faith which from the beginning of
the world has justified, the sinner's conscious-
ness that he needs forgiveness and that there
is One ready to forgivel

It is not enough, however, to point out

^ The prayer is referred to by Fiddes in his defence of
Sheffield's epitaph (p. 40) as found in Coelius Rhodigenius
(II. 17, § 34), and it runs thus : '■''Fcede hanc vitam intravi;
anxius vixi; trepidtis egredior ; Catisa Catisariiviy Miserere
7)iei.^^ That writer, however, does not give the words, and I
write them from my recollection of an Oxford Lecture by the
present Dean of Wells, in 1842.

2 The whole of this part of the epitaph (on the tomb
of Sheffield, Duke of Buckinghamshire) is worth giving :
"Dubius, sed non improbus, vixi;
Incertus morior, non perturbatus.
Humanum est nescire et errare.

Deo confido
Omnipotenti benevolentissimo :
Ens Entium, miserere mei."

The vacant space in the fourth line was to have been filled
up with "Christum adveneror," but this was rejected by
Atterbury as not sufficiently orthodox. — Stanley' sJ^Ves^mins^er
Abbey, p. 247.

Agnosticism. 97

the inadequacy of these substitutes for the
faith and the worship of Christendom. We
may learn something even from those who
appear, as in some sense, its enemies. There
is an element of truth in the protests which
they utter against the anthropomorphic ten-
dency that shews itself too often in our
thoughts of the Divine Nature. While we
rightly contend that no conception of that
Nature is thinkable which is not moulded in
the forms of human thought — that we must
take our idea of the righteousness and love of
God from what we know of the righteousness
and love of Man, and that it introduces an
inextricable and intolerable confusion, if we
reason, as some of the defenders of our faith
have reasoned, as if the two were generically
different, so that the one cannot be measured
by the standard of the other \ the history of

^ The argument that we cannot reason from the ideas
which we connect with human righteousness, truth, love,
wisdom to what would or would not be consistent with
those attributes in the Divine Nature, is but too familiar to the
student of Calvinistic and other controversies. We find it in
its most philosophic form in Dean Mansel's Bampton Lectures.

P. S. 7

9S Agnosticism.

theological speculations, often, alas, of that
speculation as translated into action, shews us
that men have in too large a measure trans-
ferred their own imperfections, their own nar-
rowness and want of love, to Him in whom all
is perfect. We cannot ask ourselves what
were the thoughts of God underlying the
creed of a Philip II. or a Dominic (may we
not add, in some measure, of a TertuUian and
an Augustine, of a Dante and a Calvin i") with-
out feeling that they were clouding the divine
light with their own darkness, making sad
the hearts that God had not made sad, that
they reasoned, as Caliban may have reasoned
out his system of theology as to the nature
of his " dam's God Setebos," from what they
would have done had they been in the place

We have no "right to assume that there is, if not a perfect
identity, at least an exact resemblance between the moral
nature of man and that of God ; that the laws and principles
of infinite justice are but magnified images of those which
are manifested on a finite scale " {2nd ed. p. 212). In words
which seem almost as if it came from the camp of the enemy
and not of an ally, we are told that " we find ourselves baffled
in every attempt to conceive an infinite moral nature, or its
condition, an infinite personality."

Agnosticism. 99

of God^ ; that to the worshipper of the eiddla
of the Market-place and the Den, no less
than to those of the idols of wood or stone,
the psalmist's words, spoken as from the
mouth of God, were but too justly applicable,
*'Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a
one as thyself V The true safeguard against
an unworthy anthropomorphism is found, not
in taking refuge in the thought that God is
unknowable and unthinkable, but for those
who are without the revelation of God in
Christ, in reasoning upwards from all that
the consenstis of mankind has most reverenced

^ Most readers will recognise the reference to Mr Brown-
ing's poem, Calihaji upon Setebos, or Natural Theology in the
Island, in his Dramatis Persona. As a psychological study
the poem stands in manifestly designed correspondence and
contrast with the higher form of anthropomorphic thought in
the Death in the Desert in the same volume. I quote the
following from the latter poem.
"Before the point was mooted 'What is God?'
No savage man inquired ' What am myself? '
Much less replied 'First, last, and best of things.'
Man takes that title now, if he believes
Might can exist with neither will nor love
In God's case— what he names now ' Nature's Law ' —
While in himself he recognises love
No less than might or will : and rightly takes."
•■^ Ps. 1. 21.

7—2

I oo Agnosticism.

and loved in man ; for those who walk in the
light of that revelation, in looking on the
human character of Jesus as the standard by
which to measure all our conceptions of the
Eternal Will and Purpose. What God is, is
made known to us, as far as the Finite can
apprehend the Infinite, by what Jesus was.
" He that hath seen Him hath seen the Fa-
ther \" In the light of that revelation we
need not fear the reproach of holding an an-
thropomorphic creed. Too often, we may
fear, the reproach comes from those who
shrink from any distinct thought of the Per-
sonality of God, because they shrink from the
burden even of their own personal being as
being brought face to face with His. It is
not without significance that one of the lead-
ers of scientific thought should have hinted at
the seeming paradox, that it may be ques-
tioned whether " there is anything really an-
thropomorphic even in man's nature V' whe-

^ John xiv. 9.

2 Huxley, Lay Sermons, p. i8o. "As the ages lengthen
the borders of Physicism increase. The territories of the
bastards are all annexed to Science, and even Theology, in

Agnosticism. loi

"^3

ther, i. e., all that we think of as most distinc-
tive of man, the thought that looks before
and after — the consciousness of sin — the
yearning after holiness — the enduring faith of
the martyr — the foul crime of the murderer
and the adulterer, are not all alike on the
same level, as " automatic functions " of the
" cunningest of Nature's clocks."

If we ask, as we survey these and other
movements of thought around us, as we trace
their action on ourselves, in what they have
originated, and what constitutes their strength,
we shall find, if I mistake not, that they have

4

a twofold birth. There is first, what we may
describe, in the language of one who has
given to the world his confessions of the way
in which they acted on himself, as the Neme-

her purer forms, has ceased to be anthropomorphic, however
she may talk. Anthropomorphism has taken stand in its
last fortress, man himself. But Science closely invests the
walls; and Philosophers gird themselves to battle upon the
last and greatest of all speculative problems. Does human
Nature present any free, volitional, and truly anthropo-
morphic element, or is it only the cunningest amongst all
Nature's clocks? Some, among whom I count myself, think
that the battle will for ever remain a drawn one."

102 A;^7iosticis7n

^>

sis of Faith\ The blind acceptance of dogmas
that rested only on human authority, that had
never been tested by, and could not bear the
test of, Scripture, of Reason and of Consci-
ence, has been followed by a natural reaction.
The imperious command '' Believe all that
the Church tells you to believe, or believe
nothing," has led sometimes, as we see in the
prevalent unbelief of Spain and Italy and
France, to a simulated faith, as when the
priest turns atheist; or to open and defiant
resistance I The bitterness and narrowness of
Christian controversialists, each anathema-
tising the other, each insisting on his own
definitions of the faith as essential conditions

1 The Nemesis of Faith, published by Mr J. A. Froude
in 1848, is now, I believe, out of print, and is probably not
likely to be republished by its author. Taken together with
the " Remains" of his brother R. H. Froude, it forms a com-
ment almost as suggestive as the history of the two Newmans
or the two Arnolds, on the history of religious thought in the
last half century.

^ Here again the general state of things in the countries
where Rome exercises, or did exercise till lately, her most
direct influence without the counter-check of an active and
living Protestantism, finds a representative instance in the
" Life of Blanco White."

Asrnosticism. 103

"<i

of its having any power to save from sin
or the penalties of sin, have deterred men
from any thorough examination of the grounds
of faith. They have not cared to under-
take the preliminary enquiry where the path
by which they travelled was to lead them, not
into the fair field of truth, but into a laby-
rinth of thorns and briars \ You have known,
I cannot doubt, as I have done, some who

^ The state of feeling produced by the reciprocal de-
nunciations of controversalists has found expression in
Pope's familiar lines :

"For modes of faith let senseless bigots fight,
His can't be wrong whose life is in the right."
It is suggestive that like lines in Dry den's Religio Laid,

"Faith is not built on disquisitions vain;
The things we must believe are few and plain,"
were followed by his conversion to Rome, and the poem of
The Hind and the Panther. Taylor's " Dedication" to his
Liberty of Prophesying represents the same tendency to a
Latitudinarianism like that which has become characteristic
of modern thought. "Where then," he asks, after a survey
of the Churches and sects of his time, "shall we fix our
confidence or join communion? To pitch upon any one of
these is to throw the dice, if salvation be to be had only in
one of them, and that every error that by chance hath made a
sect and is distinguished by a name is damnable." The
whole treatise is given to working out the ideal of a Church
which should impose no other term of communion than the
Apostles' Creed. Baxter, in the closing years of his life,
drew very near to a like wide comprehensiveness.

104 Agnosticism.

have thus made shipwreck of their faith, who,
with great power and brilliant genius, have
begun their career among you as the highest
of high Churchmen, talking glibly of the notes
of Catholicity, asserting the authority of the
Church as against private judgment, quoting
the Vincentian Canon of the '' Qtiod semper^quod
iibiqiie, qtiod ab omnibus'' as though it were ap-
plicable to the most disputable formulae ; and
you have seen after a year or two, it may be of
great success in the regions of science or of
culture, a strange and sad transformation.
They appear as the destroyers of the faith
which once they preached, and turn, almost
as if with a personal vindictiveness, upon the
Creed which had held them in bondage and
trammelled the free exercise of their thought,
as the enemy of civilisation and of science.

And then, secondly, there is yet another
source of unbelief which I name, not that you
may condemn others, but that you may judge
yourselves. What St Paul noted as explain-
ing the degradation of the race is true also —
fatally true — of the degradation of the indivi-

Agnosticism. 105

dual soul. Men do not care to retain God in
their knowledge because tliey have ceased to
honour Him as a Father and shrink from
regarding Him as a judge\ They will not
come to the light lest their deeds should be
reproved. They hear the preacher reasoning
of righteousness, temperance and judgment to
come — and they, at first, put off the unwel-
come task of acting on his words to the more
convenient season which never comes — and
then the wish is father to the thought — and
they say in their hearts that there is no judg-
ment and no God. Have you not felt that it
is so } Have you not known, as you look
back upon a year of selfishness and sen-
suality— upon some lavish act of sin which
" lets in contagion to the inward parts," and
leaves on the soul the indelible stain of a lost
purity, that not your Reason, but your Will,
rose up in rebellion against the Truth which
you reject — that you looked round for argu-
ments which might confirm you in your de-
nial or your doubt — that having ceased to

^ Rom. i. 19 — 29.

1 06 A (:}iosticism

o

pray, you sought to convince yourselves that
prayer was a delusive unreality. Conscience
is not yet dead, and therefore you seek for
the narcotic of speculative unbelief that it
may drug you into at least a partial insensi-
bility. If any of you have trodden that
downward path you will do well to remember
that it is not thus that the victories of Truth
are won — that you enter on the enquiry with
a mind set upon a foregone conclusion. The
Masters of those who know — who, even if
they are not for us, are yet not against us,
will tell you that " self-reverence, self-know-
ledge, self-control " are the conditions of
which your own poet speaks \ as of " sove-
reign power " so of all clearness of spiritual
perception. " Into a soul skilled in evil Wis-

^ "Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control,

These three alone lead life to sovereign power,
Yet not for power — power of herself
Would come uncalled for, but to live by law,
Acting the law we live by without fear;
And because right is right, to follow right
Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence."

Tennyson's CEfione.

Agnosticism. 1 07

dom will not enter, nor dwell in the body that
is subject unto sin \"

The attacks on the faith thus weakened,
or the spiritual perception thus obscured, come
from many different quarters, if not with the
concert of an organised campaign, yet with a
common aim. Criticism questions the date, or
the authorship, or the accuracy of the Sacred
Books ; tells us that the records which pur-
port to give the Origiiies of the faith of Israel
or of Christendom are the product of a later
age, marked, each of them, by human tenden-
cies, or even party purposes, and that the
Origines themselves are to be found in the
cloudland of mythical tradition, with or with-
out a nucleus of historical fact. Marks of
compilation or editorship are found where
before we had recognised only the work of
a single hand. The diversities which present
themselves in the presentation of our Lord's
teaching in the Synoptic Gospels and St
John's are urged as shewing that the last

^ Wisd. of Sol. i. 4. The Greek word rendered in the
English version as "malicious" is KO-KbT^yyov.

io8 Aorjiosticism

i>

is not the work of the beloved disciple, but
of some unknown speculative thinker of the
second century. Not a few of St Paul's
Epistles are noted as being manifestly spu-
rious, standing on the same footing as the
Clementine Homilies. You, in this place,
have materials ready at hand for giving in
these matters a reason of the hope that is in
you. You have been taught how the Bible
took its place in the Church \ after what sift-
ings and searchings of evidence — after what
test and trial of its spiritual power as the
channel through which the Word of God was
brought to the souls of men. You have seen
how the parade of an enormous erudition,
summing up what were alleged to be the
results of an impartial criticism of the claims
of a Supernatural Religion, has collapsed, like
the shadowy phantom who poured into the
ear of the sleeping mother of mankind

distempered, discontented thoughts,
Blown up with high conceits, engendering pride,

before the touch of an Ithuriel spear of more

^ See Dr Westcott's Bidk in the Church.

Agjzosticism. 1 09

celestial temper \ You have been taught that
in the midst of all the diversities of thought,
temperament, tendencies, which mark the
writings of the New Testament, there is a
central unity — that no historical error has
been proved against its records sufficient to
invalidate their claim to our respect. And
above all, you have learnt to examine these
questions without panic and without passion,
to admit the right of men to ask them, and
not to judge them hastily if they seem to you
to have answered the questions wrongly. You
would not think that the foundations of the
earth were out of course if the book of Eccle-
siastes were shewn to be a dramatic persona-
tion of the character of the Son of David,
like that which we recognise as such in the
Wisdom of Solomon, or if the second Epistle
of St Peter were proved to stand on a less
firm basis of authority than the first.

Those who press the incompatibility of
the results of scientific research with the re-

^ See Dr Lightfoot's series of Papers on "Supernatural
Religion " in the Contemporary Review for 1876-77.

iio Asrnosticism.

<i'

cord of the creative work with which the book
of Genesis opens, dwell in part on facts which
are all but universally recognised, in part on
theories which, whatever claim they may pos-
sess as approximate solutions of phenomena,
stand, as yet, at best on the footing of inge-
nious, but unproved, hypotheses. No sane
person would now quote texts against the con-
clusions which we identify with the names of
Copernicus and Galileo and Newton. Few
would venture to raise the cry of impiety
against the geological theories that demand
an almost limitless period for the preparation
of the earth as the dwellingplace of man. We
look with a pitying astonishment on the chrono-
logical tables which barely half a century ago
fixed the creation of the world, sun, moon and
stars, as well as earth, in the autumn of B. c.
4004\ The more recent theories of the evo-
lution of all forms of life from some proto-
plasmic germs, of the origin of species, not by
successive creative acts, but by the accumula-
tion, through long ages, of variations singly

^ Greswell's Fasti Catholici, i.

Agnosticism. 1 1 1

^^>

imperceptible, of the descent of man from
some anthropoid ape, can scarcely claim as
yet to be invested with the same authority.
The history of the past has here, also, how-
ever, its lessons for the present. The zeal,
" not according to knowledge," which con-
demned Galileo ^ and asserted in the early
days of the British Association that the geo-
logical theories which we connect with the
honoured name of Sedgwick were " incom-
patible with Christianity," and bore on them
" the taint of infidelity V' may repeat the
blunders of the former days, which in this
respect were neither better nor worse than
the latter. We need to examine these specu-

^ Galileo's enforced recantation has been regarded by
Roman Catholic theologians from very different standpoints.
On the one hand some have found comfort in the thouo-ht
that he was condemned by the Congregation of the Holy
Uttice and not by the Pope personally, and that thus the In-
lallibihty of the successor of St Peter was not compro-
mised (Celeste's Galileo, c. xii.). On the other he has been
praised as having made a sincere recantation (the '' E pur
si muove " being dismissed as a Protestant mythos), and so set
a noble example of the submission of intellect to faith
(Wetzer and Welter, Kirchen-Lexikon, Art, Galilei).

^ Dean Cockburn, T/ie Bible defended against the British
Association, i^\\.

1 1 2 Agnosticism.

lations also without prejudice and without
passion, without the bitterness of condemna-
tion, which has its source in panic while it
simulates the confidence of faith. " Day unto
day uttereth speech, night unto night de-
clareth knowledge," and, should they also
come to take their place, with missing links
of evidence supplied, as demonstrable con-
clusions, we may welcome them as a true
interpretation of the facts of God's universe,
reconcilable, not, it may be, with the outward
form and symbols of the truth which were
adapted to an earlier stage in the history of
mankind, but with the essential truth that
underlies those symbols. Artificial schemes
of reconciliation detail by detail, the laissez
faire assumption that the works of God can-
not contradict even the letter which we have
identified with His word\ — these we may

^ The failure of such attempts, even in the hands of men
like Buckland or Hugh Miller, is a warning against the hasty
reproduction of these or like schemes in the future. It is
doubtless a wiser course that the students of Theology and of
Science should accept a partition treaty and work on in
parallel lines independently of each other with mutual respect

Agnosticism. 1 1 3

leave to those who are wanting in the wider
faith. Knowledge may grow from more to
more, but the faith which rests on the eternal
rock will keep pace with her advance. There
was a creative energy manifested in ever>
variation of type which worked out the Divine
idea. When the anthropoid ape — if we were
to admit the possibility of the transforma-
tion— first became a " being of large discourse
looking before and after," a man endowed
with reason, speech, conscience, will, there
was that which answers to the record, veiled,
it may be, in the symbols of the world's in-
fancy, that God made man — Adam, the pro-

and sympathy. But to assume that the conck;sions of science
will ultimately be found to coincide with a natural and
honest interpretation of the letter of Gen. i. — vi. rests on the
further assumption, incapable of proof, that that record was
intended to be an unerring scientific statement of the true his-
tory of the phenomena of the Universe ; and a time may come,
is indeed sure to come, when the students in the two regions
will compare results and ask whether they agree. It is,
I believe, a wiser and braver course to admit the possibility
of disagreement, and to limit our thoughts of the Genesis
records to the great central ideas which were in the mind of
the human writer, ideas coming from the Eternal Spirit but
clothing themselves in the symbols of a time of imperfect
knowledge and the generalisations as of an infant Newton.

P. S. 8

114 Agnosticism,

totype of humanity, — out of the dust of the
ground, yet in His own image, and breathe^
into his nostrils the breath of Hfe\

The attack advances from the outworks
to the citadel, and Science — or those who pro-
phesy in the name of Science — proclaim that
there can be no revelation of the mind of
God, because the idea of a revelation pre-
supposes a miraculous interposition, and the
order of Nature testifies against the possi-
bility of miracles. That objection may be

^ I find that I have almost reproduced unconsciously the
very words in which the great Apostle of Evolution states
the view which he, as might be expected, rejects. (Haeckel,
The Evolution of Man, ii. 458.) "These same dualistic
philosophers must of course, if they are consistent, also
assuine that there will be a moment in the Phylogeny of
the human mind at which this mind first entered the ver-
tebrate body of man. Accordingly, at the time when the
human body developed from the body of the Anthropoid
Ape (thus probably in the latter part of the Tertiary Period)
a specific human mind-element, or, as it is usually expressed,
a "divine spark," must have suddenly entered, or been
breathed into, the brain of the Anthropoid Ape and there
have associated itself with the already existing Ape-mind.
I need not point out the theoretic difficulties involved in this

conception Comparative Psychology, however, teaches

that this frontier-post (Reason) between man and beast is
altogether untenable."

Agnosticism. 1 1 5

urged, as you know, either on the ground of
a scepticism pure and simple, contending that
there can be no evidence adequate to prove a
miracle against the overwhelming presump-
tion from the uniformity of Nature, or from
the higher ground of an ideal theism resting
on the assumption that the maintenance of
law, and not interference with it, is more wor-
thy of our highest conceptions of the Divine
Nature, and that, therefore, there is, from that
standpoint also, a presumption against phe-
nomena claiming to be miraculous \ Answers
have been given to both those presumptions
with a completeness which lies beyond my
reach I It has been urged as against the first

^ Hume's Essay on Mh-ades may be taken as the repre-
sentative of the one school, Goethe's assertion that the idea of
a miracle was a blasphemy against the majesty of God, of the
other.

2 No thoughtful reader can study Dr Mozley's Bampton
Lectures on Miracles without profound interest. But it may
be questioned whether he too does not, like his predecessor
Dean Mansel, tend to drift into a scepticism in the interests
of orthodoxy when he maintains that a uniform succession of
phenomena in the past gives no grounds for anticipating
a like succession in the future. On the whole I fall back
upon Butler's discussion of the Miraculous Element of

8^2

ii6 Agnosticism.

presumption, that there are phenomena in the
natural world, exceptional and rare in their
occurrence, which yet we receive, when they
are attested by evidence that we should con-
sider trustworthy in other cases, as coming
within the range of law ; that in order that the
presumption might rest on an adequate basis,
we need an induction from the history of
other worlds like our own, and passing through
similar stages of development. It has been
contended, as against the second, that it intro-
duces into our conception of God, the very
anthropomorphism against which we have
heard such indignant protests — that it juggles
with ambiguous terms when it identifies the
Law which conscience recognises as binding,
with that which is but a convenient expres-
sion of the manner in which material pheno-
mena succeed each other — that even from its
own standpoint it would be true that, as man
rises to his highest dignity when Will obeying
Law, in its true sense, asserts its supremacy

Revelation (-r4«^/. II. 2) as being less subtle but more satis-
fying.

Agnosticism. WJ

over merely automatic actions, so there is no
dishonour done to our ideal of God when we
think of Him, also, as putting forth His Will,
in accordance with the wisdom and with the
love which, with Hooker, we may recognise
as the true eternal Law of His being \ even
though in so doing He should break through
what, in the other sense of the word, are the
Laws which He has imposed on the world of
Nature, which without that exercise of sove-
reignty, would be but an eternally automatic
mechanism.

We are thus carried on one step further to
the great question of all. Can we know that
God is t Can we know what He is ? Is He
a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him ?
Does He govern the world in righteousness ?
Is He such that we should serve Him, love

1 It may rightly be urged that on this view the INIiracle
itself (assuming adequate evidence of the fact) presupposes
the law of uniform succession which it interrupts, and is itself
the expression of the higher Law working now through that
lower law, and now through its suspension. Of that higher
Law itself it is true that it includes love, life, and will, and
therefore that "her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the
harmony of the world." (Hooker, E. P> T. ad fin,)

1 1 8 Aoiiosticisvi

d>

Him, yearn after His presence now, that to
see and know Him as He is shall be hereafter
the beatific vision of the Saints of God ? Here
also, as we know but too well, some of the
keenest intellects and noblest natures of our
time have made shipwreck of their faith.
The words that " that which is knowable of
God" is manifest in them, being intellectually
apprehended from the things that are made,
even His eternal power and Godhead, have
come to seem to them as a voice heard in
a dream and not audible to the waking ear.
The laws of evidence or the constitution
of men's minds have, it would seem, under-
gone a catastrophic change within the last
hundred years. Paley's argument from de-
sien is out of date. "We cannot infer from
the watch the existence of its maker. The
very ' cunningest of Nature's clocks' may
have been developed out of a ruder and
rougher timepiece, and that, in its turn, may
have originated in the spontaneous activity
of some germ-cell more sensitive than its fel-
lows, to the motion of the heavens which it

Agnosticism. 119

measures. We, at all events, cannot even
guess at the purpose and character of the
maker. We must content ourselves with ob-
serving its movements, and taking its wheels
and springs to pieces \ In that positive know-
ledge there is wisdom and safety. In the

^ I have but summed up the very words of Huxley's Lay
Sermojis, p. 330. He is answering Paley's argument from
the watch and the inferences of teleology generally, " Imagine
that it had been possible to shew that all these changes had
resulted first from a tendency in the structure to vary indefi-
nitely, and secondly from something in the surrounding
world which helped all variations in the direction of an
accurate timekeeper and checked all those in other directions,
then it is obvious that the force of Paley's argument would be
gone, for it would be demonstrated that an apparatus tho-
roughly well adapted to a particular purpose might be the
result of a method of trial and ends worked by unintelligent
agents, as well as of the direct application of the means
appropriate to that end by an intelligent agent." I confess,
in spite of the undue depreciation which now rests on Paley's
name (a natural reaction, it may be, from a period of undue
honour), that I could wish for one hour of his robust common
sense in answer to this "It is obvious," "it would be demon-
strated." Does the inference that there is a Will that designs
vary in the inverse ratio of the magnitude and complexity of
the design ? Assuming the theory of evolution to be carried
backward and forward to the remotest periods of duration of
which we can conceive, is it more philosophical to believe
that it speaks of a Will that is, and was, and is to come, or
to find in it no object of faith but a "tendency" and a "some-
thing " ?

1 20 Aznosiicism

a

attempt to go beyond it we are going back to
the childhood of the race, when it peopled
earth and heaven with Unseen Powers, and
bowed in blind terror or gratitude, before the
presence of the supernatural. The consejisiis
of mankind in the times of ignorance cannot
be allowed to weigh against the illumination
of the present." That conclusion of Atheism
or Agnosticism has been contemplated with
very different thoughts. There are those who
see in it, like Lucretius \ the last triumph of

' "Humana ante oculos foede cum vita jaceret
In terris oppressa gravi sub religione
Quae caput a caeli regionibus ostendebat,
Horribili super aspectu mortalibus instans,
Primum Graius homo mortalis tollere contra
Est oculos ausus primusque obsistere contra,
Quem nee fama de1lm nee fulmina nee minitanti
Murmure compressit caelum, sed eo magis acrem
Inritat animi virtutem, effringere ut arta
Naturae primus portarum claustra cupiret.
Ergo vivida vis animi pervicit, et extra
Processit longe flammantia moenia mundi,
At que omne immensum peragravit mente animoque.
Unde refert nobis victor quod possit oriri
Quid nequeat, finita potestas denique cuique
Quanam sit ratione atque alte terminus haerens,
Quare religio pedibus subjecta vicissim
Opteritur, nos exaequat victoria caelo."

Lucret. De Nat, i. 62—79.

Agnosticism. 12 1

the ^' vivida vis aniniV which neither the

'' fama deihit nee fulmina " can terrify, over
the Religion which has been the curse of the
world's history. There are others whom it
plunges, as in the vision of the German
thinker^ into the blackness of darkness. They
"gaze on the immeasurable world for the Di-
vine Eye, and it glares on them with an
empty black bottomless eye-socket. They
have laid them down to sleep, and they
awaken in a stormy chaos, in the Everlasting
Midnight, and there comes no morning, and
no soft healing hand and no infinite Father."
" Our little life is the sigh of Nature or only
its echo. Mists fall and worlds reek up from

^ Jean Paul Ricliter, Siebeiikas. I quote from Carlyle's
Miscellanies, vol. ii., p. 371 — 375 (ed. 1840). It adds to the
almost terrific power of this vision of a world without God,
tJiat it is the Christ as the ideal representative of Humanity
who is thus made to utter the blank despair of finding that
His trust in the Father had been a delusive dream. Richter's
own comment on what he had thus imagined is worth adding:
' ' If ever my heart were to grow so wretched and so dead
that all feelings in it whic^r announce the being of a God
were extinct there, I would terrify myself with this sketch of
mine. It would heal me, and give me my feelings back"

(P- 370)-

122 Agnosticism.

the Sea of Death : the Future is a mounting
mist, and the Present is a falling one," You
and I, my friends, have to look on this pic-
ture and on that, and to ask the question,
Have we indeed no Father ? Is there indeed
no God ? If you deal honestly with your
own spirits, if you do not close your eyes
against the light, or narcotise the thoughts
that accuse or else excuse each other, if you
live by the light you have, even though it be
but as the rays of a flickering torch shining
through the mist and darkness, I have no fear
for the result. I hold to the old belief that
" The heavens declare the glory of God, and
the firmament sheweth His handywork" —
that the order of the universe testifies to a
Divine purpose working through the ages to
a result which shall testify, not of limited
Power or imperfect Goodness, but of a Su-
preme Wisdom and Love victorious even over
the freedom which seems to thwart them, that
deep within the consciousness of each human
soul there lies the capacity for knowing God,
the promise and the potency of a higher and

Asruosticism. 123

'O

Eternal Life. " He is not far from ever}' one
of us," and in the contrite heart and pure
which He prefers above all temples, makes
Himself manifest to those who diligently seek
Him. Even from the scientific standpoint
the phenomena of Theopathy^ which thus

^ I use the word as a comprehensive expression of the
whole cycle of emotions which connect themselves with the
belief that men are in contact and communion \\\\h the
Eternal, that they have found God, and that He is the
Father of their spirits. They are found, it will be acknow-
ledged, in ever}' age, in every race, under all conditions of
knowledee and creed and culture. In Closes and Da\'id
and Job and Paul and John, in Socrates and Plato, in
Augustine and Bernard and Tauler and a Kempis, in Hooker
and Leiiihton and Herbert and Keble and Maurice and
Erskine, in Mahometan Mystics and English Quakers, m
millions of men and women of whom the world was not
worthy, but whom it has not known, they have been as the
very central passion of their being. They have been found
historically with greater purity and intensity within the range
of the influences of Christendom, and in proportion as those
intluences have been allowed to act, than in those who saw
the Light that lighteth every man through more refracting
rtUiUa. They have been united, in the vast majority of cases,
with a greater purity and holiness than was found in their
absence, with a manifest power alike to strengthen and to
soothe. Humanity has appeared in its noblest ideal of ex-
cellence where they have most characterised it. What expla-
nation has a merely materialistic science to ofter of these
phenomena ? Are they all, from first to last, a delusion, a
mockery and a snare ? Are these also automatic functions of
the grey matter of the brain, or abnormal developments of

1 24 Agnosticism.

present themselves, and which have been
verified throughout the ages by experimental

hysteria ? Or are they witnesses that this is indeed the goal
and consummation to which man's nature tends and in which
it finds its completeness ?

It is obvious that it is on the reality of the grounds of
these emotions that the whole question of the efficacy of
prayer turns, and not on its power to produce changes in the
outward phenomena of nature round us or in our material
condition. We may ask for many things, and receive not,
because we ask amiss. We may ask for health and pros-
perity, for rain and sunshine and plenteous harvests, and
receive not, because it is better for us in the sum and total of
things that we should be without that which we have asked
for. We may ask and receive not, because we ask for that
which comes under the dominion of a law which it is not the
will of the Father to suspend or change, which, as soon as we
know its existence, we recognise as wiser and better than any
choice or wish of ours. But if we seek, not, as the Heathen
seek, as Christians have too often sought, what we shall
eat or what we shall drink or wherewithal we shall be
clothed, but for the kingdom of God and His righteousness,
there is surely a chorus of attestation that such prayers are
answered. The crucial test of prayer would be found, not as
suggested in the well-known letter to Dr Tyndall in the C^w-
temporary Review (xx. p. 305), in a comparison of results as
regards material success in one Hospital Ward, for the patients
in which people were praying outside, with those in another
Hospital for which people were not praying — (can we ima-
gine, by the way, any one with a mind after the mind of
Christ, praying that the sufferers in the latter might not
recover, or leaving them, by an act of volition, unprayed
for ?) but in two Wards, in one of which the patients prayed
for themselves and for each other as they have been taught
by Christ to pray, while in the other, men had "nourished

Agnosticism . 125

tests, crave for an explanation and a theory
as much as those of the material universe or
of our physical life. To those who go be-
yond that standpoint they will prepare the
way for the fuller Apocalypse of all that may
be known of God. To the worship of the
Unknown and the Unknowable, leaving the

a blind life within the brain," and never known what it was
to lift their hands in prayer. We need not fear the result of
such an experiment. Phthisis and cancer might do their
work in each, but in the one there would be, what physicians
see too often, the picture of a lazar-house such as Milton has
drawn :

"Dire was the tossing, deep the groans: Despair
Tended the sick, busiest from couch to couch ;
And over them triumphant Death his dart
Shook, but delayed to strike, though oft invoked
With vows as their chief good and final hope."

Far. Lost, xi.

In the other there would be what also they, at least, sometimes
see, patience, and joy, and hope, and the faith that all is well,
and trust in the Father who scourge th every son whom He
receiveth, and the calm surrender of their own wills to His,
and the readiness for death, or the willingness to remain.
Are these lesser or greater goods than a rapid or slow re-
covery, than the healing of the burning fever or the fractured
limb ? Would not even the most dispassionate and sceptical
practitioner admit that these presented, not by the violation
of law, but by its natural working, at least more favourable
conditions than the other for the action of his best chosen
remedies, or the vis medicatrix NaturcB ?

1 26 Agnosticism.

world to itself, we oppose, in the full as-
surance of Faith, the worship of the Father
and the Son and the Eternal Spirit — of God
manifested in Christ and reconciling the world
unto Himself

THE END.

CAMBRIDGE: PRINTED BY C. J.CLAY, M.A. AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.

Edited with Notes by Professor
Plumptre.

The Mission of the Comforter. By JULIUS
Charles Hare, M.A., Archdeacon of Lewes. New
Edition. Crown 8vo, 7^. dd.

Edited by Professor Plumptre.

The Victory of Faith. By Archdeacon Hare.

With Introductory Notices by Professor F. D. Maurice
and Dean Stanley. New Edition. Crown 8vo,
ds. 6d.

Works by the
Rev. J. B. LIGHTFOOT, D.D.,

Bishop of Durham.

St PaiiVs Epistles. Revised Texts, with In-
troductions, Notes, &c.

THE GALATIANS. Fifth Edition, 8vo, l^s.

THE PHILIPPTANS. Fourth Edition, 8vo, \is.

THE COLOSSIANS and PHILEMON. Third
Edition, 8vo, lis.

St Clejjietit of Rome. An Appendix, contain-
ing the newly recovered Portions. With Introductions,
Notes, and Translation of the whole. 8vo, 8^. 6d.

On a Fresh Revision of the English New Testa-
ment. Second Edition. Crown 8vo, ds.

MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON.

By canon WESTCOTT, D.D.
A General Survey of the History of the Canon

of the Nciu Testatncnt diiriug the First Four Centuries.
Third Edition, Revised. Crown 8vo, lo^. dd.

Introduction to the Study of the Gospels. Fifth

Edition. Crown 8vo, lo^. dd.

The Bible in the Chureh. A Popular Account

of the Collection and Reception of the Holy Scriptures
in the Christian Churches. New Edition. 1 8mo, 4^. 6d.

A General View of the History of tJie English

Bible. Second Edition. Crown 8vo, los. 6d.

The Gospel of the Resurrection. Thoughts on

its Relations to Reason and Histor}\ New Edition.
Crown 8vo, ds.

The Christian Life, manifold and one. Six

Sermons in Peterborough Cathedral. Crown 8vo, is. 6d.

On the Religious Office of the Universities.

Sermons. Crown 8vo, 4^. 6d.

By canon FARRAR, D.D., F.R.S.

Eternal Hope. Sermons preached in West-
minster Abbey, 1877. Crown 8vo, 6s.

{^Sixteenth Thousand.

Saintly Workers. Lenten Lectures at St

Andrew.'s, Holborn, 1878. Crown 8vo, 6j.

In the Days of Thy Youth. Sermons on

Practical Subjects preached at Marlborough College,
1871-6. Third Edition. Crown 8vo, 9^.

The Fall of Man : and other Sermons. Third

Edition. Crown 8vo, ds.

TJi£ Witness of History to Christ ; being the

Hulsean Lectures for 1S70. Fourth Edition. Crown
8vo, 5^.

Seekers after God. The Lives of Seneca,

Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius. New Edition. Crown
8vo, ds.

The Silence and Voices of God: University

and other Sermons. Third Edition. Crown 8vo, ds.

MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON.

May^ 1879.

A Catalogue 0/ Theological Booics,
with a Short Account of their
Chai^acter and Aim,

PiLblished by

MACMILLAK- AJN^D CO.

Bedford Street, Strand, Lo7zdon, W.C.

Abbott (Rev. E. A.)— Works by the Rev. E. A. ABBOTT,
D.D., Head Master of the City of London School :

BIBLE LESSONS. Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 4$-. 6^^.

" Wise, suggestive, and really profound initiation into religious thought. "
—Guardian. The Bishop of St. David's, in his speech at the Education
Conference at Abergwilly, says he thinks " nobody could read them -without
being the better for them himselj, and being also able to see hotu this difficult
duty of imparting a sound religious education may be effected. "

THE GOOD VOICES: A Child's Guide to the Bible.
With upwards of 50 Illustrations. Crown 8vo. cloth gilt. 5j-.

'■^ It would not be easy to combine simplicity with fulness and depth of
meaning more sjiccessfully than Mr. Abbott has a'^;/^."— Spectator. The
Times says — "J/r. Abbott writes with clearness, simplicity, and the deepest
religious feeling. "

CAMBRIDGE SERMONS PREACHED BEFORE THE
UNIVERSITY. Second Edition. 8vo. 6..

10,000 : 5 : 79.

THEOLOGICAL BOOKS.

ABBOTT (Rev. E. A.)—co7iiin7ied.

THROUGH NATURE TO CHRIST ; or, The Ascent of
Worship through Ilkision to the Truth, 8vo. 12s. 6d.

" T/ie beauty of its style, its tender Jeeling, and its perfect sympathy, the
originality and suggestivcness of many of its thoughts, would of them-
selves go far to recommend it. But far besides these, it has a certain
value in its bold, comprehensive, trenchant 77iethod of apology, and in the
adroitness with zvhich it turns the flank of the many modern fallacies that
caricattire in order to condemn Christianity.'''' — Church Quarterly Review.

Ainger (Rev. Alfred).— SERMONS PREACHED IN

THE TEMPLE CHURCH. By the Rev. Alfred Ainger,

M. A. of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, Reader at the Temple Church.

Extra fcap. 8vo. 6^.

**//f w-,"//^^ British Quarterly says, ""Uhe fresh unconventional talk of a

clear independent thinker, addressed to a congregation of thinkers ....

TItoughtful men will be greatly charined by this little volume.''''

Alexander.— THE LEADING IDEAS of the GOSPELS.

Five Sermons preached before the University of Oxford in 1870 —

71. By AViLLiAM Alexander, D.D., Brasenose College ; Lord

Bishop of Derry and Raphoe ; Select Preacher. Cr. 8vo. a^. dd.

'■^Eloquence and force of language, clearness of statement, atzd a hearty

appreciation of the grandeur and importance of the topics upon which he

writes, characterize his sermons. " — Record.

Arnold. — Works by Matthew Arnold :
A BIBLE READING FOR SCHOOLS. The Great
Prophecy of Israel's Restoration (Isaiah, Chapters 40—66).
Arranged and Edited forYoung Learners. By Matthew Arnold,
D.C.L., formerly Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford,
and Fellow of Oriel. Third Edition. i8mo. cloth. \s.
The Times says — " Whatever may be the fate of this little book in
Government Schools, there can be no doubt that it will be found excellently
calculated to further instruction in Biblical literature in any school ifito
7uhich it may be introduced. ... We can safely say that whatever school uses
this book, it will citable its pupils to understand Isaiah, a great advantage
compared with other establishments which do not avail themselves of it.'''

ISAIAH XL.— LXVL, Avith the Shorter Prophecies allied
to it. Arranged and Edited Avith Notes. Crown 8vo. 5^-.

Bather.— ON SOME MINISTERIAL DUTIES, Cate-
chising, Preaching, &c. Charges by the late Archdeacon
Bather. Edited, with Preface, by Dr. C. J. Vaughan. Extra
fcap. 8vo. 4-$'. ^d.

THEOLOGICAL BOOKS.

Benham.— A COMPANION TO THE LECTIONARY,
being a Commentary on the Proper Lessons for Sundays and
Holydays. By the Rev. W. Benham, B.D., Vicar of Margate.
Cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo. 6jr.

"^ very iiseful book. Air. Benham has produced a good and welcome
companio7i to our revised Lectionary. Its contents will., if not very original
or profound, prove to be sensible and practical, and often suggestive to the
preacher and the Sunday School teacher. They loill also furnish some
excellent Sunday reading for private hours.^^ — Guardian.

Bernard.— THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE IN THE
NEW TESTAMENT. By Thomas D. Bernard, M.A.,
Rector of Walcot and Canon of Wells. Third and Cheaper Edi-
tion. Crown 8vo. 5^. (Bampton Lectures for 1864.)
'''^ We lay dozvn these lectures zoith a sense not only of being edified by
sound teaching and careful thought, but also of being gratified by con-
ciseness and clearness of expression and elegance of style.''^ — Churchman.

Binney.— SERMONS PREACHED IN THE KING'S

WEIGH HOUSE CHAPEL, 1829—69. By Thomas Binney,

D.D. New and Cheaper Edition. Extra fcap. 8vo. /[s. 6d.

^^Fidl of robust intelligence, of reverent but independent thinking on the

most profound and holy theines, and of earnest practical purpose.^'' —

London Quarterly Review.

A SECOND SERIES OF SERMONS. Edited, with Bio-
graphical and Critical Sketch, by the Rev. Henry Allon, D. D.
With Portrait of Dr. Binney engraved by Jeens. 8vo. \2s.

Birks. — Works by T. R. BiRKS, M.A., Professor of Moral
Philosophy, Cambridge :

THE DIFFICULTIES OF BELiEF in connection with
the Creation and the Fall, Redemption and Judgment. Second
Edition, enlarged. Crown 8vo. 5^-.

AN ESSAY ON THE RIGHT ESTIMATION OF MSS.
Evidence in the Text of the New Testament. Crown
8vo. y. dd.

COMMENTARY ON THE BOOK OF ISAIAH, Critical,
Historical and Prophetical ; including a Revised English Trans-
lation. With Introduction and Appendices on the Nature of
Scripture Prophecy, the Life and Times of Isaiah, the Genuineness
of the Later Prophecies, the Structure and History of the whole
Book, the Assyrian History in Isaiah's Days, and various Difficult
Passages. Second Edition, revised. 8vo. 12s. 6d.

SUPERNATURAL REVELATION, or First Principles of
Moral Theology, 8vo. 2>s.

THEOLOGICAL BOOKS.

Bradby.— SERMONS PREACHED AT HAILEYBURY.
By E. H. Bradby, M.A., Master. 8vo. \os. 6d.

'■^ HewJio claims a public heaj-in^ now, speaks to an audience accustomed

to Cotton, Temple, Vaughan, Bradley, Butler, Farrar, and others

Each has given us good work, several, work of rare beauty, force, or
originality ; but we doubt 7ohether any one of them has touched deeper
chords, or brought more frshness and strength into his sermons, than the
last of their number, the present Head Alastcr of Ilaileybuiy." — Spectator.

Butcher.— THE ECCLESIASTICAL CALENDAR; its
Theory and Construction. By Samuel Butcher, D.D., late
Bishop of Meath. 4to. i:\s.

Butler (G.) — Works by the Rev. GEORGE Butler, M.A.,

Principal of Liverpool College :

FAMILY PRAYERS. Crown 8vo. 5^.

The prayers in this vohime are all based on passages of Scripture — the
morning prayers on Select Psalms, those for the evening on portions of the
New Testatnent.

SERMONS PREACHED in CHELTENHAM COLLEGE
CHAPEL. Crown 8vo. 7^. 6d.

Butler (Rev. H. M.)— SERMONS PREACHED in the
CHAPEL OF HARROW SCHOOL. By H. Montagu
Butler, Head Master. Crown 8vo. 7^. 6d.

^^ These sermons are adapted for every household. There is nothing
more striking than the excellent good sense with which they are imbued. "
— Spectator.

A SECOND SERIES. Crown 8vo. 7^.6^.

' ' Excellent speci?nens of what sermons should be — plain, direct, prac-
tical, pervaded by the true spirit of the Gospel, and holditig up lofty ai??is
before the minds of the youngj''' — Athenaeum.

Butler (Rev. W. Archer). — Works by the Rev. William
Archer Butler, M.A., late Professor of Moral Philosophy in
the University of Dublin :

SERMONS, DOCTRINAL AND PRACTICAL. Edited,
with a Memoir of the Author's Life, by Thomas Woodward,
Dean of Down. With Portrait. Ninth Edition. 8vo. 8^-.

The Introductory Memoir narrates in considerable detail and with much
interest, the events of Butler^ s brief life ; and contains a few speci7nens of
his poetry, and afetv extracts fro7n his addresses and essays, including a
long and eloquent passage on the Province and Duty of the Preacher.

THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. 5

BUTLER (Rev. W. KYc\i&x)—conti7iued.

A SECOND SERIES OF SERMONS. Edited by J. A.
Jeremie, D.D., Dean of Lincoln, Seventh Edition. 8vo. 7^.

T/ie North British Review says, " /^eza sermons in our language exhibit
the same rare combination of excellencies ; imagery almost as rich as
Tayloi-'s ; oratory as vigorojcs often as South' s ; judgment as sound as
Barrow's; a style as attractive but more copious, original, and forcible
than Atterbuiy^s ; piety as elevated as Howe's, and a fsrvour as intense at
times as Baxter's. Air. Butler' s are the sermons of a true i)oet.^''

■ LETTERS ON ROMANISM, in reply to Dr. Newman's
Essay on Development. Edited by the Dean of Down. Second
Edition, revised by Archdeacon Hardwick. 8vo. ioj'. dd.

These Letters contain an exhaustive criticism oj Dr. Newjman^ s famous
''^ Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine.'^ "y^ work which
ought to be in the Library of every student of Divinity. " — Bp. St. David's.

Campbell. — Works by John M'Leod Campbell :

THE NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT AND ITS
RELATION TO REMLSSION OF SINS AND ETERNAL
LIFE. Fourth and Cheaper Edition, crown 8vo. 6^.

''^ Among the first theological treatises of this generation.''' — Guardian.
" One of the most remarkable theological books ever written.^'' — Times.

CHRIST THE BREAD OF LIFE. An Attempt to give
a profitable direction to the present occupation of Thought with
Romanism. Second Edition, greatly enlarged. Crown Svo. OfS. 6d.

^^ Deserves the most attentive study by all who interest theinselves in the
predominant religious controversy of the day." — Spectator.

REMINISCENCES AND REFLECTIONS, referring to
his Early Ministry in the Parish of Row, 1825—31. Edited with
an Introductory Narrative by his Son, Donald Campbell, M.A.,
Chaplain of King's College, London. Crown 8vo. 7j. dd.

These ''Reminiscences and Reflections,^ written during the last year of
his life, zuere 7?iainly intended to place on record thoughts which might
prove Jielpful to others. ' ' We recommend this book cordially to all who
are interested in the great cause of religious reformation.'" — Times.
" There is a thoroughness and depth, as well as a practical earnestness,
in his grasp of each trtith on which he dilates, which make his reflections
very valuable." — Literary Churchman.

THOUGHTS ON REVELATION, with Special Reference
to the Present Time. Second Edition. Crown Svo, 5^.

THEOLOGICAL BOOKS.

CAMPBELL (J. yi'\^^o6.)— continued,

RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE GIFT OF ETERNAL

LIFE. Compiled by permission of the late J. M'Leod Campbell,

D.Y)., from Sermons preached chiefly at Row in 1 829 — 31.

Crown 8vo. 5^.

*' There is a healthy tone as well as a deep pathos not often seen in

sermons. His words are roeighty and the ideas they express tend to pei'-

fection of life.'" — Westminster Review.

Campbell (Lewis).— SOME ASPECTS of the CHRIS-
TIAN IDEAL. Sermons by the Rev. L. Campbell, M.A.,
LL.D., Professor of Greek in the University of Glasgow. Crown
Svo. 6s.

Canterbury. — Works by Archibald Campbell, Archbishop

of Canterbury :

THE PRESENT POSITION OF THE CHURCH OF
ENGLAND. Seven Addresses delivered to the Clergy and Church-
wardens of his Diocese, as his Charge, at his Primary Visitation,
1872. Third Edition. Svo. cloth, y. 6d.

SOME THOUGHTS ON THE DUTIES OF THE ES-
TABLISHED CHURCH OF ENGLAND as a National
Church. Seven Addresses delivered at his Second Visitation.
Svo. 4J". 6d.

Cheyne. — Works by T. K. Cheyne, M.A,, Fellow of Balliol
College, Oxford :

THE BOOK OF ISAIAH CHRONOLOGICALLY AR-
RANGED. An Amended Version, with Historical and Critical
Introductions and Explanatory Notes. Crown Svo. 'js. 6d.
The Westminster Review speaks of it as "^ piece of scholarly work,
very carefully and considerately done.^' The Academy calls it "rt: success-
ful attejnpt to extend a right understanding of this important Old Testa-
7nent writing. "

NOTES AND CRITICISMS on the HEBREW TEXT
OF ISAIAH. Crown Svo. 2s. 6d.

Choice Notes on the Four Gospels, drawn from

Old and New Sources. Crown Svo. 4^. 6d. each Vol. (St.
Matthew and St. Mark in one- Vol. price 9^.)

Church. — Works by the Very Rev. R. W. Church, ]\LA.,
D.C.L., Dean of St. Paul's :
ON SOME INFLUENCES OF CHRISTIANITY UPON
NATIONAL CHARACTER. Three Lectures delivered in St,
Paul's Cathedral, Feb. 1873. CrowTi Svo. ^. 6d.

THEOLOGICAL BOOKS.

CHURCH (Very Rev. R. V^ .)— continued.

^^ Feiv books that ive have met with have given us keener pleasure than

this // ivould be a real pleasui'e to quote extensively, so wise and so

ti'ue, so tender and so discriminating are Dean Ch7irch''s judgments, but
the limits of our space are inexorable. We hope the book will be bought.^^
— Literary Churchman.

THE SACRED POETRY OF EARLY RELIGIONS.
Two Lectures in St. Paul's Cathedral. iSmo. \s. I. The Vedas.
II. The Psalms.

ST. ANSELM. Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 6^.
" // is a sketch by the hand of a master, with every line marked by
taste, learning, and real apprehension of the subject. " — Pall Mall Gazette.

HUMAN LIFE AND ITS CONDITIONS. Sermons
preached before the University of Oxford, 1876 — 78, with Three
Ordination vSermons. Crown 8vo. 6^.

Clergyman's Self-Examination concerning the

APOSTLES' CREED. Extra fcap. 8vo. i^. 6^.

Colenso.— THE COMMUNION SERVICE FROM THE
BOOK OF COxMMON PRAYER; with Select Readings from
the Writings of the Rev. F. D. Maurice, M.A. Edited by the
Right Rev. J. W. Colenso, D.D., Lord Bishop of Natal. New
Edition. i6mo. 2.s. 6d.

Collects of the Church of England. With a beauti-
fully Coloured Floral Design to each Collect, and Illuminated
Cover. Crown 8vo. 12s. Also kept in various styles of morocco.
The distinctive characteristic of this edition is the coloured floral design
which accompanies each Collect, and zvhich is geiierally emblematical of
the character of the day or saint to luhich it is assigned; the flaiuers
which have been selected are such as are likely to be in bloom on the day to
which the Collect belongs. The Guardian thinks it "«; successful attempt
to associate in a nattiral and unforced manner the flowers of otir fields
and gardens with the course of the Christian year.^'

Congreve. — HIGH HOPES, and Pleadings for a Rea-
sonable Faith, Nobler Thoughts, Larger Charity.
Sermons preached in the Parish Church of Tooting Graveney, Surrey.
By J. Congreve, M. A., Rector. Cheaper Issue. Crown 8vo. ^s.

Cotton. — Works by the late GEORGE Edward Lynch
Cotton, D.D., Bishop of Calcutta :

8 THEOLOGICAL BOOKS.

COTTON {^xsYiO^)— continued.

SERMONS PREACHED TO ENGLISH CONGREGA-
TIONS IN INDIA. Crown 8vo. -js. 6d.

EXPOSITORY SERMONS ON THE EPISTLES FOR
THE SUNDAYS OF THE CHRISTIAN YEAR. Two

Vols. Crown 8vo. i^s.

Curteis.— DISSENT in its RELATION to the CHURCH
OF ENGLAND, Eight Lectures preached before the University
of Oxford, in the year 1871, on the foundation of the late Rev.
John Bampton, M. A. , Canon of Salisbury. By George Herbert
Curteis, M. A., late Fellow and Sub-Rector of Exeter College ;
Principal of the Lichfield Theological College, and Prebendary of
Lichfield Cathedral ; Rector of Turweston, Bucks. New Edition,
Crown Svo. ^s. 6d.

^^ Mr. Curteis has done good service by maintaining in an eloquent,
temperate, and practical manner, that discicssion among Christians is
really an evil, and that an intelligent basis can be found for at least a
proximate union.^^ — Saturday Review, "^ well tifned, learned, and
thoughtful book. "

Davies. — Works by the Rev, J. Llewelyn Davies, M.A,,
Rector of Christ Church, St. Marylebone, etc. :

THE GOSPEL AND MODERN LIFE ; with a Preface
on a Recent Phase of Deism. Second Edition. To which is
added Morality according to the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper,
or Three Discourses on the Names, Eucharist, Sacrifice, and Com-
munion, Extra fcap. Svo, 6^.

WARNINGS AGAINST SUPERSTITION, IN FOUR
SERMONS FOR THE DAY. Extra fcap. Svo. 2s. 6d.

^'We have seldom read a wiser little book. The Sermons are short,
terse, and full of true spiritual wisdom, expressed with a lucidity and a
modej-ation that must give them weight even with those who agree least

with their author Of the volume as a whole it is hardly possible to

speak with too cordial an appreciation.^^ — Spectator.

THE CHRISTIAN CALLING. Sermons. Extra fcap,
Svo. 6^.

Donaldson — THE APOSTOLICAL FATHERS: a Critical
Account of their Genuine Writings and of their Doctrines, By
James Donaldson, LL.D, Crown Svo. ^s. 6d.

THEOLOGICAL BOOKS.

DONALDSON (J., "L^L.Ti .)—co7itinued.

This book tvas published in 1864 as the first volume of a ^Critical
History of Christian Literature and Doctrine frojn the death of the
Apostles to the Nicene Council.^ The intention was to cai-iy dozun the
history continuously to the time of Eusebiics, and this intention has not
been abandoned. But as the writers can be sometimes grouped more easily
accordijig to subject or locality than according to tiffie, it is deefjied ad-
visable to publish the history of each group separately . The Introduction
to the present volume set'ves as an introduction to the whole period.

Drake.— THE TEACHING of the CHURCH DURING
THE FIRST THREE CENTURIES ON THE DOCTRINES
OF THE CHRISTIAN PRIESTHOOD AND SACRIFICE.
By the Rev. C. B. Drake, M.A., Warden of the Church of Eng-
land Hall, Manchester. Crown 8vo. 4^-. 6d.

Eadie. — Works by JOHN Eadie, D.D., LL.D., Professor of
Biblical Literature and Exegesis, United Presbyterian Church :

THE ENGLISH BIBLE. An External and Critical History^
of the various English Translations of Scripture, with Remarks on
the Need of Revising the English New Testament. Two vols.
Svo. iZs.

' ^Accurate, scholarly, full of completest sympathy with the translators
and their work, and marvellously ifiteresting.'^-^Lit&r^iXy Churchman.

' ' The work is a very valuable one. It is the result of vast labour,
sound scholarship, and large eruditio^i.'''' — British Quarterly Review.

ST. PAUL'S EPISTLES TO THE THESSALONIANS.
A Commentary on the Greek Text. Edited by the Rev. W.
Young, M.A., with a Preface by the Rev. Professor Cairns,
D.D. Svo. lis.

Ecce Homo. A Survey of the Life and Work of
Jesus Christ. Fourteenth Edition. Crown Svo. ds.

"A very original and remarkable book, fill of striking thought and
delicate perception ; a book which has realised tvith wo7iderful vigour and
freshness the historical magnitude of Chrisfs work, and which here and
there gives us readings of the finest kind of the probable ?notive of His indi-
vidual words and actions.'''' — Spectator. " The best and most established
believer will find it adding sojne fresh buttresses to his faith." — Literary
Churchman. "7/" ive have not misunderstood him, we have before us a
writer who has a right to claim deference from those who think deepest
and know ?nost.''^ — Guardian.

lo THEOLOGICAL BOOKS.

Faber.— SERMONS AT A NEW SCHOOL. By the Rev.
Arthur Faber, M.A., Head Master of Malvern College. Cr.
8vo. 6s.

*' These are high-toned, earnest Sermons, orthodox and seholarlike, and
laden with encoiiragentent and warning, zmsely adapted to the needs of
school-life, " — Literary Churchman.

Farrar.— Works by the Rev. F. W. Farrar, D.D., F.R.S.,

Canon of Westminsier, laie Head Master of Marlborough College:

THE FALL OF MAN, AND OTHER SERMONS.
Third Edition. Crown 8vo. ds.

The Nonconformist says of these Sennons, ^^ Mr. Farrar^ s Sermons
are almost peifect specimens of one type of Sermons, 7uhich we may con-
cisely call beatitifnl. The style of expression is beautiful — there is beauty
in the thoughts, the illustrations, the allusions — they are expressive of
genuinely beautiful perceptions and feelings. ^^ TJie British Quarterly j-^j>'5,
^^ Ability, eloquence, scholarship, and practical usefulness, are in these
Sermons combined in a very unusual degree. "

THE WITNESS OF HISTORY TO CHRIST. Being
the Hulsean Lectures for 1870. Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo. 5^.

The following are the subjects of the Five Lectures : — /. " The Ante-
cedent Credibility of the Miraculous." II. " The Adequacy of the Gospel
Records.'' Ill '' The Victories of Christianity.'' IV. ''Christianity and
the Individual." V. '■'■Christianity and the Race." The subjects of tJie
four Appendices are: — A. " The Diversity of Christian Evidences."
B. ''Confucius."- C. "Buddha." D. " Co?nte."

SEEKERS AFTER GOD. The Lives of Seneca, Epictetus,

and Marcus Aurelius. New Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s.
"A very interesting and valuable book." — Saturday Review.

THE SILENCE AND VOICES OF GOD : University
and other Sermons. Third Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s.

"We can most cordially reco?nmend Dr. Farrar s singularly beautiful

volume of Ser7?ions For beauty of diction, felicity of style, aptness of

illustration and earnest loving exhortation, the volume is without its
parallel." — ^John Bull. " They are marked by great ability, by an honesty
which does not hesitate to acknaidedge difficulties and by an earnestness
which commands respect." — Pall Mall Gazette.

" IN THE DAYS OF THY YOUTH." Sermons on Prac-
tical Subjects, preached at Marlborough College from 1S71 — 76.
Third Edition. Crown 8vo. ()s.

THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. ii

FARRAR (Rev. F. W<I .)— continued.

'^All Dr. Farrar's peczdiar chai'tn of style is apparent ke7-e, all that
care a7id subtleness of analysis, and an even-added distinctness and clear-
ness of moral teaching, which is what every kind of sermon ivants, and
especially a sei'mon to boys.'^ — Literary Churchman.

ETERNAL HOPE. Five Sermons preached in Westminster
Abbey, in 1876. With Preface, Notes, etc. Contents : What
Heaven is. — Is Life Worth Living? — ' Hell,' What it is not. —
Are there few that be saved ? — Earthly and Future Consequences
of Sin. Sixteenth Thousand. Crown 8vo. 6s.

SAINTLY WORKERS. Lenten Lectures delivered in St.
Andrew's, Holborn, March and April, 1878. Crown 8vo. 6s.

Fello-wship : Letters Addressed to my Sister
Mourners. Fcap. 8vo. cloth gilt. 3^. 6d.

Ferrar.— A COLLECTION OF FOUR IMPORTANT
MSS. OF THE GOSPELS, viz., 13, 69, 124, 346, with a view
to prove their common origin, and to restore the Text of their
Archetype. By the late W. H, P^errar, M.A., Professor of Latin
in the University of Dublin. Edited by T. K. Abbott, M.A.,
Professor of Biblical Greek, Dublin. 4to., half morocco, los. 6d.

Forbes. — Works by Granville H. Forbes, Rector of

Broujhton :
THE VOICE OF GOD IN THE PSALMS. Cr. Svo. 6s.6d.

VILLAGE SERMONS. By a Northamptonshire Rector.
Crown Svo. 6s.

" Such a voluf?ie as the present . . . is as great an accession to the cause
of a deep theology as the 77iost 7'efined expositio7i of its fundamental p7'in-
ciples . . . We hea7'tily accept his actual teac/mtg as a true picture of what
I'evelatio/i teaches us, and iha/ik him for it as one of the 77iost p7'ofound
that was ever 77iade pe7fectly si77iple a7id popular . ... It is pa7't of the
beauty of these se7'7nons that while they apply the old t7'uth to the nezu
modes of feeli7tg they seei7i to p7'ese7-ve the whiteness of its si7nplicity ....
The7'e zvill be ple7ity of C7'itics to accJise this vohwie 0/ inadequacy of
doct7'ine because it says no 77W7-e than Sc7'ipture about vica7'ious suffe7-ing
and exter7tal 7'et7-ib2ttio7i. For ourselves we welco77ie it 77iost cordially as
expressi7tg adequately zvhat 7C'e believe to be the t7'ue burde7i of the Gospel in
a 77ian7ier zuhich 77iay take hold either of the least or the fiiost cultivated
intellect. " — Spectator.

12

THEOLOGICAL BOOKS.

Hardwick. — Works by the Ven. Archdeacon Hardwick :

CHRIST AND OTHER MASTERS. A Historical Inquiry
into some of the Chief Parallelisms and Contrasts between Christ-
ianity and the Religious Systems of the Ancient World. New
Edition, revised, and a Prefatory Memoir by the Rev. F^RANCIS
Procter, M.A. New Edition. Cr. 8vo. lox. dd.
The plan of the work is boldly and ahnost nobly conceived. . . . We com-
mend it to the pei-usal of all those who take interest in the study of ancient
mythology, rvithottt losing thei-*- reverence for the supi'efiie authority of the
oracles of the living God^ — Christian Observer.

A HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Middle

Age. From Gregory the Great to the Excommunication of Luther,

Edited by William Stubbs, M.A., Regius Professor of Modem

History in the University of Oxford. With Four Maps constructed

for this work by A. Keith Johnston. New Edition. Crown

8vo. \os. 6d.

*'As a Mannal for the student of ecclesiastical history in the Middle

Ages, we know no English work which can be co?fipared to Mr. Hardwick' s

book. " — Guardian.

A HISTORY of the CHRISTIAN CHURCH DURING
THE REFORMATION. New Edition, revised by Professor
Stubbs. Crown 8vo. los. 6d.

This volume is intended as a sequel and companion to the ^^ History
of the Christian Church during the Middle Age."

Hare. — Works by the late Archdeacon Hare :

THE VICTORY OF FAITH. By JULius Charles
Hare, M. A., Archdeacon of Lewes. Edited by Prof. Plumptre.
With Introductory Notices by the late Prof. Maurice and Dean
Stanley. Third Edition. Crown Svo. 6^. 6d.

THE MISSION OF THE COMFORTER. With Notes.
New Edition, edited by Prof. E. H. Plumptre. Cm. Svo. Is. 6d.

Harris.— SERMONS. By the late George Collyer
Harris, Prebendary of Exeter, and Vicar of St. Luke's, Torquay.
With Memoir by Charlotte M. Yonge, and Portrait. Extra
fcap. Svo. 6s.

Hervey.— THE GENEALOGIES OF OUR LORD AND
SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST, as contained in the Gospels of
St. Matthew and St. Luke, reconciled with each other, and shown
to be in harmony with the true Chronology of the Times. By Lord
Arthur Hervey, Bishop of Bath and Wells. Svo. los. 6d.

THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. '13

Hort. — TWO DISSERTATIONS. I. On MONorENHS 0EO2

in Scripture and Tradition. 11. On the " Constantinopolitan"
Creed and other Eastern Creeds of the Fourth Century. By F. J. A.
Hort, D.D., Fellow and Divinity Lecturer of Emmanuel Col-
lege, Cambridge. 8vo. 7^. 6^.

Howson (Dean) — Works by :

BEFORE THE TABLE. An Inquiry, Historical and Theo-
logical, into the True Meaning of the Consecration Rubric in the
Communion Service of the Church of England. By the Very Rev.
J. S. HowsON, D.D., Dean of Chester. With an Appendix and
Supplement containing Papers by the Right Rev. the Bishop of
St. Andrew's and the Rev. R, W. Kennion, M.A. 8vo. ']s. 6d.

THE POSITION OF THE PRIEST DURING CON-
SECRATION IN THE English Communion Service. A
Supplement and a Reply. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.

Hymni Ecclesise. — Fcap. 8vo. js.Gd.

This collection was edited by Dr. Newman while he lived at Oxford.

Hyacinthe.— CATHOLIC REFORM. By Father

Hyacinthe. Letters, Fragments, Discourses. Translated by
Madame IIyacinthe-Loyson. With a Preface by the Very Rev.
A. P. Stanley, D.D., Dean of Westminster. Cr. 8vo. ']s.6d.
"A valuable contribution to the religious literature of the day, and is
especially opportune at a time when a controversy of no ordinary import-
ance upon the very subject it deals with is engaged in all over Europe.''^ —
Daily Telegraph.

Imitation of Christ. — Four Books. Translated from the

Latin, with Preface by the Rev. W. Benham, B.D., Vicar of
Margate. Printed with Borders in the Ancient Style after Holbein,
Diirer, and other Old Masters. Containing Dances of Death, Acts
of Mercy, Emblems, and a variety of curious ornamentation. Cr.
8vo. gilt edges. ']s. 6d.

Jacob- — BUILDING IN SCIENCE, and other Ser-
mons. By J. A. Jacob, M.A., Minister of St. Thomas's, Pad-
dington. Extra fcap. 8vo. Gs.

Jellett.— THE EFFICACY OF PRAYER : being the Don-
nellan Lectures for 1877. By J. H. Jellett, B.D., Senior
Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, formerly President of the Royal
Irish Academy. Second Edition. 8vo. 5^.

14 THEOLOGICAL BOOKS.

Jennings and Lowe. — THE PSALMS, with Introduc-
tions and Critical Notes. By A. C. Jennings, B. A., Jesus Col-
lege, Cambridge, Tyrwhitt Scholar, Crosse Scholar, Hebrew
University Scholar, and Fry Scholar of St. John's College; helped
in parts by W. H. LowE, M. A., Hebrew Lecturer and late Scholar
of Christ's College, Cambridge, and Tyrwhitt Scholar. Complete
in two vols, crown 8vo. \os. 6d. each. "Vol. i, Psalms i. — Ixxii., with
Prolegomena ; Vol. 2, Psalms Ixxiii. — cl.

Killen.— THE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY OF IRE-
LAND from the Earliest Period to the Present Time. By W. D.
Killen, D.D. , President of Assembly's College, Belfast, and
Professor of Ecclesiastical History. Two vols. 8vo. 25^.

*' Those who have the leisure "will do well to read these two volumes.
They are full of ititerest, and are the result of great research.''^ — Spec-
tator.

Kingsley. — Works by the late Rev. CHARLES KiNGSLEY,
M.A., Rector of Eversley, and Canon of Westminster :

THE WATER OF LIFE, AND OTHER SERMONS.
New Edition. Crown 8vo. 6^-.

THE GOSPEL OF THE PENTATEUCH ; and David.
New Edition. Crown. 8vo. ds.

GOOD NEWS OF GOD. Eighth Edition. Crown Bvo.
ds.

SERMONS FOR THE TIMES. New Edition. Crown
8vo. 6j'.

VILLAGE AND TOWN AND COUNTRY SERMONS.

New Edition. Crown 8vo. ds.

SERMONS on NATIONAL SUBJECTS. Second Edition.
Fcap. 8vo. 3^. 6.'/.

THE KING OF THE EARTH, and other Sermons,
a Second Series of Sermons on National Subjects. Second
Edition. Fcap. 8vo. y. 6d.

DISCIPLINE, AND OTHER SERMONS. Second Edition.
Fcap. 8vo. y. dd.

WESTMINSTER SERMONS. With Preface. New
Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s.

THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. 15

Kynaston.— SERMONS PREACHED IN THE COL-
LEGE CHAPEL, CHELTENHAM, during the First Year
of his Office. By the Rev. Herbert Kynaston, M.A., Princi-
pal of Cheltenham College. Crown 8vo. ds.

Lightfoot. — Works by J. B. LiGHTFOOT, D.D., Bishop of

Durham.

S. PAUL'S EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS. A Re-
vised Text, with Introduction, Notes, and Dissertations. Fifth
Edition, revised. 8vo. cloth. \7.s.

While the Author'' s object has been to make this commentary generally ^
complete^ he has paid special attention to ez'erything relating to St. FaitVs
personal history and his intercourse with the Apostles and Church of the
Circujncision, as it is this feature in the Epistle to the Galatians ivhich
has given it an ovej'^u helming intei'est in 7-ecent theological co7it?-oz'ersy.
The Spectator says, " There is no cojnmentator at once of sounder judg-
ment and more liberal than Dr. Lightfoot. "

ST. PAUL'S EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPPIANS. A
Revised Text, with Introduction, Notes, and Dissertations. Fourth
Edition, revised. 8vo. I2J-.

'''■No co}]imentary in the English language can be compared with it in
regard to fulness of information, exact scholarship, and laboured attempts
to settle everything about the epistle on a solid foundation. " — Athenoeum.

ST. PAUL'S EPISTLES TO THE COLOSSIANS AND
TO PHILEMON. A Revised Text with Introduction, Notes, etc.
Third Edition, revised. Svo. I2s.

' ' It bears marks of continued and extended reading and research, aiui
of af?ipler materials at command. Indeed, it leaves nothing to be desired
by those who seek to study thoroughly the epistles contained in it, and to do
so with all known advantages presented in sufficient detail and in conve-
nient form. ^^ — Guardian.

S. CLEMENT OF ROME. An Appendix containing the
newly discovered portions of the two Epistles to the Corintliians
with Introductions and Notes, and a Translation of the whole.
Svo. Sj-. dd.

ON A FRESH REVISION OF THE ENGLISH NEW
TESTAMENT. Second Edition. Crown Svo. 6^.

The Author shmjs in detail the necessity for a fresh revision of the
authorized version on the following grounds: — i. False Readings. 2.
Artificial distinctions created. 3. Real distinctions obliterated. 4. Faults

l6 THEOLOGICAL BOOKS.

of Grammar. 5. Faults of Lexico^-aphy. 6. Treatment of Proper
Names, official titles, etc. 7. Archaisms, defects in the English, errors
of the press, etc. " The book is marked by careful scholarship, fafniliarity
with the subject, sobriety, and circutnspection." — Athenaeum.

Lome.— THE PSALMS LITERALLY RENDERED IN
VERSE. By the Marquis of Lorne. With three Illustrations.
New Edition. Crown 8vo. ^s. 6d.

^uckock.— THE TABLES OF STONE. A Course of
Sermons preached in All Saints' Church, Cambridge, by H. M.
LUCKOCK, M.A., Canon of Ely. Fcap. 8vo. y. 6d.

Maclaren.— SERMONS PREACHED at MANCHESTER.

By Alexander Maclaren. Sixth Edition. Fcap, 8vo. ^. 6d.

These Sermons repi-esent no special school, but deal with the broad prin-
ciples of Christian truth, especially in their bearing on practical, every day
life. A few of the titles are : — " The Stone of Stumbling," '^Loz'e and
Fo7'giveness," *^ The Living Dead," "Memory in Another IVoi'ld,"
Faith in Christ," '' Lcrve and Fear," ''The Choice of Wisdoin," ''The
Food of the World."

A SECOND SERIES OF SERMONS. Fourth Edition.
Fcap. Svo. 4^'. 6^.

The Spectator characterises them as "vigorous in style, full of thought,
rich in ilhcstratiott, and in an unusual degree interesting.^'

A THIRD SERIES OF SERMONS. Third Edition.
Fcap. Svo. /\s. 6d.

" Sei'jjions more sober and yet more forcible, and with a certain wise and
practical spirituality about them it zuould not be easy to find. " — Spectator.

WEEK-DAY EVENING ADDRESSES. Delivered in
Manchester. Extra Fcap. Svo. 2s. 6d.

Maclear. — Works by the Rev. G. F. Maclear, D.D., Head

Master of King's College School :

A CLASS-BOOK OF OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY.
With Four Maps. New Edition. iSmo. ^. 6d.

"The present volume," says the Preface, "forms a Class- Book of Old
Testa7?ie}it History froi7i the Earliest Times to those of Ezra and Nehe-
miah. In its p-eparation the most recent auihoi'ities have been consulted,
and wherever it has appeared useful, Notes have been subjoined illustra-
tive of the Text, and, for the sake of more advanced students, refei'ences

THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. 17

MACLEAR (Dr. G. Y .)-— continued.

added to larger works. TJu Index has been so arranged as to form a
concise Dictionary of the Persons and Places mentioned in the course of the
Narrative. " The Maps, prepa7-ed by Stanford, ?naterially add to the
vahie and usefulness of the book. The British Quarterly Review ^aZ/j it
"A careful and elaborate, though brief compendium of all that modei'n
research has done for the illustration of the Old Testament. We know of
no work which contains so much importajit information in so small a
co?npass.^'

A CLASS-BOOK OF NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY.

Including the Connexion of the Old and New Testament. New
Edition. i8mo. 5^. 6d.

The present volume forms a sequel to the Author'' s Class-Book of Old
Testament History, and continues the narrative to the close of S. Pauls
second imprisonment at Rome. The work is divided into three Books —
/. The Connection between the Old and Nero Testa f?ient. II. The
Gospel History. III. The Apostolic Histoty. In the Appendix are given
Chronological Tables. 77^^ Clerical Journal jayj", ^^ It is not often that
such an amount of Jiseful and interesting matter on biblical subjects, is
found in so convenient and small a co?/ipass, as in this zuell-arranged
volume. "

A CLASS-BOOK OF THE CATECHISM OF THE
CHURCH OF ENGLAND. New and Cheaper Edition. i8mo.
is. 6d.

The present work is intended as a sequel to the two preceding books.
* ' Like them, it is firjiished with notes and references to larger works,
and it is hoped that it may be found, especially in the higher forms of our
Public Schools, to supply a suitable manual of instruction in the chief
doctrines of our Church, and a useful help in the preparation of Can-
didates for Confirmation.'''' TJie Literaiy Churchman says, '^It is indeed
the work of a scholar and divine, and as such, though extreniely simple, it
is also extremely instructive. There a7-e fezo clergy zvho would not find
it useful in preparing Candidates for Confirynation ; and there are not a
few who would find it useful to themselves as well. "

A FIRST CLASS-BOOK OF THE CATECHISM OF
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND, with Scripture Proofs for
Junior Classes and Schools. New Edition, i8mo. 6d.

This is an epitome of the larger Class-book, 7?ieant for junior students
and elementary classes. The book has been carefully condensed, so as to
contain clearly and fully, the most important paj^t of the contents of the
larger book.

i8 THEOLOGICAL BOOKS.

MACLEAR (Dr. G. F .)— continued.

A SHILLING-BOOK of OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY.

New Edition. i8mo. cloth limp. i^.

T/izs Alaniial bears the sanie relation to the larger Old Testament His-
tory., that the book just fnentioned does to the larger 7vork on the Catechism.
It consists of Ten Books, divided into short chapters, and subdivided into
sections, each section treating of a single episode in the history, the title of
-which is given in bold type.

A SHILLING-BOOK of NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY.
New Edition. i8mo. cloth limp. \s.

A MANUAL OF INSTRUCTION FOR CONFIRMA-
TION AND FIRST COMMUNION, with Prayers and Devo-
tions. 32mo. cloth extra, red edges. 2s.

This is an enlarged and iinproi-ed edition of ' The Order of Confirma-
tion.'' To it have been added the Conwiunion Office, with Azotes and
Explanations, together -with a brief form of Self Exami^iation and De-
votions selected from the works of Cosin, E'en, Wilson, and others.

THE ORDER OF CONFIRMATION, with Prayers and
Devotions. 32mo. cloth. 6d.

THE FIRST COMMUNION, with Prayers and Devotions
for the Newly Confirmed. 32mo. 6d.

THE HOUR OF SORROW ; or, The Order for the Burial
of the Dead. With Prayers and Hymns. 32mo. cloth extra. 2s.

APOSTLES OF MEDIEVAL EUROPE. Cr. 8vo. ^.6d.

In two Inti'oductoty Chapters the author notices some of the chief cha-
racteristics of the 7nediceval period itself; gives a graphic sketch of the de-
vastated state of Europe at the begintiing of that period, and an interesting
account of the religions of the three great groups of vigorous barbarians —
the Celts, the Teutons, and the Sclaves — zoho had, wave after -ivave, over-
flowed its stirface. He then proceeds to sketch the lives and zuork of the
chief of the courageozis men who devoted the^nselves to the stupendous task
of their conversion and civilization, during a penod extending from the
yh to the 13M century ; such as St. Patrick, St. Columba, St. Cohim-
banus, St. Augustine of Canterbury, St. Botiiface, St. Olaf, St. Cyi'il,
Raymond Sull, and otJiers. ''''Mr. Maclear will have done a great work
if his adynirable little volufne shall help to break up the dense ignorance
which is still pre-uailing among people at large."" — Literary Churchman.

Macmillan. — Works by the Rev. Hugh Macmill'an, LL.D.,
F.R.S.E. (For other Works by the same Author, see Catalogue
OF Travels and Scientific Catalogue).

THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. 19

MACMILLAN (Rev. H., \^\..T>.)— continued.

THE TRUE VINE; or, the Analogies of our Lord's
Allegory. Third Edidon. Globe 8vo. 6j-.

The Nonconformist says, '■^ It abounds in exquisite bits of description,
and in striking facts clearly stated. " The British Quarterly says, ' ' Readers
and preachers who are unscientific will find /nany of his illustrations as
valuable as they are beautiful. "

BIBLE TEACHINGS IN NATURE. Twelfth Edition.
Globe Svo. 6j-.

In this volume the author has endeavoured to shew that the teaching of
Nattire and the teaching of the Bible are directed to the same great end;
that the Bible contains the spiritual truths zvhich are necessary to make us
wise unto salvation, and the objects and scenes of Nature a^-e the pictures
by which these truths are illustrated. ' ' He has made the world more
beautiftd to us, and unsealed our ears to voices of praise and messages of
love that might otheitvise have been unheard.^'' — British Quarterly Review.
"Z>r. Macmillan has produced a book which may be fitly described as one
of the happiest efforts for enlisting physical science in the direct service of
reliirion. " — Guardian.

<b'

THE SABBATH OF THE FIELDS. A Sequel to " Bible
Teachings in Nature. " Second Edition. Globe Svo. 6s.

" This volujne, like all Dr. Macmillan' s productions, is very delight-
ful reading, and of a special kind. I?7iaginatiotz, natural science, and
religious instruction are blended together in a very charming way.'''' —
British Quarterly Review.

THE MINISTRY OF NATURE. Fourth Edition. Globe
Svo. 6^.

" Whether the reader agree or not with his conclusions, he will ac-
knowledge he is in the presence of an original and thoughtfid writer.^'' —
Pall Mall Gazette. " There is no class of educated jnen a?td women that
will not profit by these essays. " — Standard.

OUR LORD'S THREE RAISINGS FROM THE DEAD.
Globe Svo. 6s.

M'Clellan.— THE NEW TESTAMENT. A New Trans-
lation on the Basis of the Authorised Version, from a Critically re-
vised Greek Text, with Analyses, copious References and Illus-
trations from original authorities, New Chronological and Ana-
lytical Harmony of the Four Gospels, Notes and Dissertations.
A contribution to Christian Evidence. By John Brown M'Clel-
LAN, M.A., late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. In Two

20 THEOLOGICAL BOOKS.

M'CLELLAN (J. B.)— continued.

Vols, Vol. I. — The Four Gospels with the Chronological and
Analytical Harmony. 8vo. 30j".

'^ One of the most remarkable productions of recent times, ^^ says the
Theological Review, ^'' in this depart}nent of sacred literature f and the
British Quarterly Review tcrj?is it "a thesaurus of first-hand investiga-
tions y '"'' Of singular excellence, and sure to niake its mark on the
criticism of the New Testament.'''' — ^John Bull.

Maurice. — Works bv the late Rev, F. Denison Maurice,

M.A., Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Cam-
bridge :
The Spectator says, — ^^Fe^v of those of our own generation whose names

will live in English history or litei'ature have exerted so profound and so

permanent an influence as Air. Maurice. "

THE PATRIARCHS AND LAWGIVERS OF THE
OLD TESTAMENT. Third and Cheaper Edition. Crown
8vo. 5^.
The Nineteen Discourses contained in this volume were pr ecu hed in the
chapel of Lincoln^ s Inn during the year 185 1. The texts are taken fro f?t
the books of Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Deuterononiy, "Joshua, Judges,
and Samuel, and involve some of tht most interesting biblical topics dis-
cussed in recent times.

THE PROPHETS AND KINGS OF THE OLD TES-
TAMENT. Third Edition, with new Preface. Crown Svo.
10^. dd.

Mr. Alaurice, in the spirit which animated the compilers of the Church
lessons, has in these Sermons i-egarded the Prophets more as preachers of
righteousness than as mere predictors — an aspect of their lives luhich, he
thinks, has been greatly overlooked in our day, and than which, there is
none we have more need to contemplate. He has foimd that the Old
Testament Prophets, taken in their simple natural sense, clear up many
of the difficulties which beset us in the daily work of life; make the past
intelligible, the present endurable, and the future real and hopeful.

THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN.
A Series of Lectures on the Gospel of St. Luke. Crown 8vo. qj.

Mr. Maurice, in his Preface to these Twenty-eight Lectures, says, —
*'/« these Lecttires I have endeavoured to ascertain what is told us respect-
ing the life of Jesus by one of those Evangelists who proclaim Him to be
the Christ, who says that He did come from a Father, that He did baptize
with the Holy Spirit, that He did rise from the dead. I have chosen the

THEOLOGICAL BOOKS, 21

MAURICE (Rev. F. T>.)— continued.

mte who is most directly connected with the later histoiy of the Churchy
who was not an Apostle, who professedly wrote for the use of a man
already instructed in the faith of the Apostles. I have followed the course
of the writer'' s narrative, not changing it under ajiy pretext. I have
adhered to his phraseology, striving to avoid the substitution of any other
for his.^''

THE GOSPEL OF ST. JOHN. A Series of Discourses.
Third and Cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s.

The Literary Churchman thus speaks of this volume: ^^ Thorough
honesty, reverertce, and deep thought pervade the work, which is every
way solid and philosophical, as well as theological, and aboundiitg with
suggestions which the patient stttdent may draw out more at length for
himself'' .

THE EPISTLES OF ST. JOHN. A Series of Lectures
on Christian Ethics. Second and Cheaper Edition. Cr. 8vo. 6j.

These Lectures on Christian Ethics were delivered to the students of the
Working Alen's College, Great Ormond Street, London, on a series of
Stmday mornings. Mr. Maurice believes that the question in which we
are most interested, the question which most affects our studies and our daily
lives, is the question, whether there is a foundation for hu??ian morality^
or whethe)' it is dependent upon the opinions and fashions of different ages
and countries. This ij?iportant question will be found a?nply and fairly
discussed in this volume, which the National Review calls '■'■Air.
Maurices most effective and instructive work. He is peculiarly fitted
by the constitution of his mind, to throzu light on .St. John's writings. "
Appended is a note on "Positivism and its Teacher. ^^

EXPOSITORY SERMONS ON THE PRAYER-BOOK.

The Prayer-book considered especially in reference to the Romish
System. Second Edition, Fcap. 8vo. 5^. ()d.

After an Int7'oducto7y Sermon, Mr. Maurice goes over the various parts
of the Church Sei'vice, expounds in eighteen Sermons, their intention and
significance, and shezvs hozv appropriate they are as expressions of the
deepest longings and wants of all classes of men.

WHAT IS REVELATION? A Series of Sermons on the
Epiphany; to which are added, Letters to a Theological Student
on the Bampton Lectures of Mr. Mansel. Crown Svo. los. 6d.

Both Sermons and Letters were called forth by the doctrine maintained
by Air. Mansel in his Bampton Lectures, that Revelation cannot be a direct
Manifestation of the Infinite Nature of God. Mr. Maurice j?iaintains

22 THEOLOGICAL ROOKS.

MAURICE (Rev. F. Ti.)— continued.

the opposite doctrine^ and in his Sermons explains "why, in spite of the high
authorities on the other side, he 7imst still assert the principle which he
discovers in the Services of the Church and thi'oughout the Bible.

SEQUEL TO THE INQUIRY, "WHAT IS REVELA-
TION?" Letters in Reply to Mr. Mansel's Examination of
*' Strictures on the Bampton Lectures." Crown 8vo. 6^.

This, as the title indicates, 7uas called forth by Mr. ManseVs examina-
tion of Mr. Maurices Strictures on his doctrine of the Infinite.

THEOLOGICAL ESSAYS. Third Edition. Crown 8vo.
\os. 6d.

** The book,'''' says Mr. Maurice, '^expresses thoughts which have been
working in my mind for years ; the method of it has not been adopted
carelessly ; even the coniposition has undergone frequent revision.^' There
are seventeen Essays in all, and although meant primarily for Unitarians,
to quote the words of the Clerical Journal, "// leaves untouched scarcely
any topic which is in agitation in the religiozis world ; scarcely a moot
point between our various sects ; scarcely a plot of debateable ground be-
tween Christians and Infidels, between Romaiiists and I'rotestants, bettaeen
Socinians and other Christians, between English Churchmen and Dis-
senters on both sides. Scarce is there a misgiving, a difiiculty, an aspira-
tion stirring amongst us now — now, when i7ien seem in earnest as hardly
ever before about religion, and ask and demand satisfaction zvith a fear-
lessness which seems ahnost awful when one thinks what is at stake — which
is not recognised a7id grappled zvith by Air. Alaurice."

THE DOCTRINE OF SACRIFICE DEDUCED FROM
TPIE SCRIPTURES. Crown 8vo. 'js. bd.

THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD, AND THEIR
RELATIONS TO CHRISTIANITY. Fifth Edition. Crown
Svo. 5j".

ON THE LORD'S PRAYER. Fourth Edition. Fcap.
Svo. 2s. 6d.

ON THE SABBATH DAY ; the Character of the Warrior,
and on the Interpretation of History. Fcap, Svo. 2s. 6d.

THE LORD'S PRAYER, THE CREED, AND THE
COMMANDMENTS. A Manual for Parents and Schoolmasters.
To which is added the Order of the Scriptures. iSmo. cloth
limp. is.

DIALOGUES ON FAMILY WORSHIP. Crown Svo. 6s.

THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. 23

MAURICE (Rev. F. Ti.)— continued.

SOCIAL MORALITY. Twenty-one Lectures delivered in
the University of Cambridge. New and Cheaper Edition. Cr.
8vo. \os. 6d.

^^ Whilst reading it we are charfued by the freedom from exdusiveness
and prejudice, the large charity, the loftiness of thought, the eagerness to
recognise and appreciate whatever there is of real worth extant in the
tijorld, which animates it f-om one end to the other. We gain new
thoughts and new ways ofvieiuijig things, even more, perhaps, from being
brought for a time under the inflicence of so noble and spiritual a 7nind?^
— Athenaeum,

THE CONSCIENCE : Lectures on Casuistry, delivered in
the University of Cambridge. Second and Cheaper Edition.
Cro^^^l 8vo. '^s.

The Saturday Review says: " We rise from the perusal of these lec-
tures with a detestation of all that is selfish and mean, and with a living
impression that there is such a thing as goodness after all. " ^

LECTURES ON THE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY
OF THE FIRST AND SECOND CENTURIES. 8vo. los.dd.

LEARNING AND WORKING. Six Lectures delivered
in Willis's Rooms, London, in Tune and July, 1854. — THE
RELIGION OF ROME, and its'lnfluence on Modern Civilisa-
tion. Four Lectures delivered in the Philosophical Institution of
Edinburgh, in December, 1854. Crown 8vo. 5^.

SERMONS PREACHED IN COUNTRY CHURCHES.
Crown 8vo. \os. 6d.

^^ Earnest, practical, and extremely simple.'''' — Literary Churchman.
^^ Good specimens of his simple and earnest eloquence. The Gospel inci-
dents are realized with a v'lvidness which we can well believe made the
common people hear him gladly. Moreover they are serjuons xvhich must
have done the hearei's good.'" — ^John Bull.

Moorhouse. — Works by James Moorhouse, M.A., Bishop
of Melbourne :

SOME MODERN DIFFICULTIES RESPECTING the
FACTS OF NATURE AND REVELATION. Fcap. 8vo.
2s. 6d.

JACOB. Three Sermons preached before the University of
Cambridge in Lent 1870. Extra fcap. 8vo. 3^-. 6d.

24 THEOLOGICAL BOOKS.

O'Brien.— PRAYER. Five Sermons preached in the Chapel
of Trinity College, Dublin. By James Thomas O'Bkien, D.D.,
Bishop of Ossory and Ferns. 8vo. 6s.
" // is with much pleasure atui satisfaction that we render our huvihle

tribute to the value of a public atio7i 7vhose author deserves to be remembered

with such deep respect.'''' — Church Quarterly Review.

Palgrave. — HYMNS. By Francis Turner Palgrave.

Third Edition, enlarged. i8mo. \s. 6d.
This is a collection of twenty original Hynuis^ which the Literary
Churchman speaks of as ^^ so choice, so perfect, and so refined, — so tender
in feeling, and so scholarly in expression.'^

Paul of Tarsus. An Inquiry into the Times and the Gospel
of the Apostle of the Gentiles. By a Graduate. 8vo. \os. dd.
" Turn where we %mll throughout the volume, we find the best fruit
of patient inquiry, sound scholarsJiip, logical argu7nent, and fairness oj
conclusion. No thoughtful reader will rise from its perusal without a
real and lasting profit to himself, aftd a sense of pertnanent addition to
the cause of truth.'''' — Standard.

Philochristus.— MEMOIRS OF A DISCIPLE OF THE
LORD. Second Edition. 8vo. \2s.
" The winning beauty of this book and the fascinating power with
which the subject of it appeals to all E?tglish minds xvill secure for it
many readers." — Contemporary Review.

Picton. — THE MYSTERY of MATTER; and other Essays.

By J. Allanson Picton, Author of "Nev/ Theories and the

Old Faith." Cheaper Edition. With New Preface. Crown 8vo. ds.

Contents — The Mystery of Matter : The Philosophy of Ignorance : The

Antithesis of Faith and Sight: The Essential Nature of. Religion:

Christian Pantheism.

Plumptre MOVEMENTS in RELIGIOUS THOUGHT.

Sermons preached before the University of Cambridge, Lent Term,
1879. By E. H. Plumptre, D.D., Professor of Divinity, King's
College, London, Prebendary of St. Paul's, etc. Fcap. 8vo. y.6d.

Prescott.— THE THREEFOLD CORD. Sermons preached
before the University of Cambridge. By J. E. Prescott, B.D.
Fcap, 8vo. 3J-. dd.

Procter.— A HISTORY OF THE BOOK OF COMMON
PRAYER : With a Rationale of its Offices. By Francis Procter,
M.A. Thirteenth Edition, revised and enlarged, Cr. 8vo, 10^.6^,
The Atheneeum says: — '■'■The origin of every part of the Prayer-book
has been diligently investigated, — and there a7'e fe^cv questions or facts con-
nected with it which are not either sufiiciently explained, or so referred to
that persons interested may work out the truth for the??iselves.^'

THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. 25

Procter and Maclear.— AN ELEMENTARY INTRO-
DUCTION TO THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER.
Re-arranged and Supplemented by an Explanation of the Morning
and Evening Prayer and the Litany. By Y . Procter, M. A., and
G. F. j\L\CLEAR, D.D. New Edition. Enlarged by the addition
of the Communion Service and the Baptismal and Confirmation
Offices. i8mo. ■zs. 6d.

The Literary Churchman chaTacterizes it as ^^ by far the completest
and i7iost satisfactory book of its kind we hwnj. We ivisk it ivere in
the hands of ez'ery schoolboy and every schoolmaster in the kingdom^

Psalms of David CHRONOLOGICALLY ARRANGED.
An Amended Version, with Historical Introductions and Ex-
planatory Notes. By Four Friends. Second and Cheaper
Edition, much enlarged. Crown 8vo. Sj. dd.

One of the chief designs of the Editors, in preparing this volume, tvas
to restore the Psalter as far as possible to the order in which the Psalms
were written. They give the division of each Psalm into strophes, and
of each strophe into the lines zvhich composed it, and amend the errors of
translation. The Spectator calls it ''' ojie of the most instructive and
valuable books that have bee^i published for many years. "

Psalter (Golden Treasury). — The Student's Edition.

Being an Edition of the above with briefer Notes. i8mo. 3J-. 6d.

The aim of this edition is simply to put the reader as far as possible in
possession of the plain meaning of the writer. " // is a gem,'' the Non-
conformist says.

Pulsford.— SERMONS PREACHED IN TRINITY
CHURCH, GLASGOW. By WilliaxM Pulsford, D.D.
Cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo. 45-. 6d.

Ramsay.— THE CATECHISER'S MANUAL; or, the

Church Catechism Illustrated and Explained, for the Use of
Clerg}^men, Schoolmasters, and Teachers. By Arthur Ramsay,
M.A. Second Edition. i8mo. li-. 6d.

Rays of Sunlight for Dark Days. A Book of Selec-
tions for the Suffering. With a Preface by C. J. Vauohan, D.D.
i8mo. Eighth Edition, y. 6d. Also in morocco, old style.

Dr. Vaughan says in the Preface, after speaking of the general run oj
Books of Com fort for Alourners, ^^ It is because I think that the little
volume now offered to the Christian sufferer is one of greater wisdotn and

26 THEOLOGICAL BOOKS.

of deeper experience^ that I have readily consented to the request that I
would introduce it by a fei-U words of Prefaced The book consists of a
series of very brief extracts from a great variety of authors, in prose and
poetry, suited to the viany moods of a mourning or suffering mind.
^^ Mostly gems of the first water. " — Clerical Journal.

Reynolds.— NOTES OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. A
Selection of Sermons by Henry Robert Reynolds, B.A.,
President of Cheshunt College, and Fellow of University College,
London. Crown 8vo. 7 J. dd.

Roberts.— DISCUSSIONS ON THE GOSPELS. By the
Rev. Alexander Roberts, D.D. Second Edition, revised and
enlarged. 8vo. i6j-,

Robinson.— MAN IN THE IMAGE OF GOD ; and other
Sermons preached in the Chapel of the Magdalen, Streatham,
1S74 — 76. By H. G. Robinson, M.A., Prebendary of York.
Crown 8vo. 7^. dd.

Romanes.— CHRISTIAN PRAYER AND GENERAL
LAWS, being the Burney Prize Essay for 1873. With an Ap-
pendix, examiningthe views of Messrs. Knight, Robertson, Brooke,
Tyndall, and Galton. By George J. Romanes, M.A. Crown
8vo. 5^.

Salmon. — THE REIGN OF LAW, and other Sermons,
preached in the Chapel of Trinity College, Dublin. By the Rev.
George Salmon, D.D., Regius Professor of Divinity in the
University of Dublin. Crown 8vo. ds.

*^Well considered, learned, and pozueiful discourses.'" — Spectator.

Sanday.— THE GOSPELS IN THE SECOND CEN-
TURY. An Examination of the Critical part of a Work entitled
"Supernatural Religion." By William Sanday, M.A., late
Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford. Crown 8vo. %s. 6d.

*^A very ijuportant book for the critical side of the question as to the
authenticity of the Nezu Testament, and it is hardly possible to conceive a
writer of greater fairness, cajtdour, and scrupulousness.'''' — Spectator.

Selborne.— THE BOOK OF PRAISE : From the Best
English Hymn Writers. Selected and arranged by Lord Selborne.
With Vignette by Woolner. i8mo. \s. 6d.

THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. 27

SELBORNE {l.ox^)— continued.

It has been the Editor's desire and ai7?i to adhere strictly^ in all cases in
which it could he ascertained, to the genuine uncorrupted text of the authors
themselves. The names of the authors and date of cotJiposition of the
hymns, when knozvn, are affixed, while notes are added to the vohmie,
giving further details. The Hymns are arranged according to subjects.
' ' There is not room for two opinions as to the value of the ''Book of Praise. ' "
— Guardian. "Approaches as nearly as one can conceive to perfection.^'
— Nonconformist.

BOOK OF PRAISE HYMNAL. See end of this Catalogue.

Service. — SALVATION HERE AND HEREAFTER.

Sermons and Essays. By the Rev. John Service, D.D., Minister
of Inch. Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s.

' ' IVe have enjoyed to-day a rare pleasure, having j?ist closed a volume
of sermons which rings true 7netal fro?n title page to finis, and proves that
another and ve^y poiverful recruit has been added to that srnall band of
ministers of the Gospel %vho are not only abreast of the religious thought
of their time, but have faith enough and courage enough to handle the
questions which are the most critical, and stir men's minds most deeply,
with frankness and thoroughness. " — Spectator.

Shipley. — A THEORY ABOUT SIN, in relation to some
Facts of Daily Life. Lent Lectures on the Seven Deadly Sins.
By the Rev. Orby Shipley, M.A. Cro\vn 8vo. 7^. 6d.

^^Two things Mr. Shipley has done, and each of them is of considerable

woi'th. He has grouped these sins afresh on a philosophic principle

and he has applied the touchstone to the facts of our moi'al life. . . so wisely
and so searchingly as to constitute his treatise a powerful antidote to self-
deception. " — Literary Churchman.

Smith.— PROPHECY A PREPARATION FOR CHRIST.

Eight Lectures preached before the University of Oxford, being the
Bampton Lectures for 1869. By R. Payne Smith, D.D., Dean
of Canterbury. Second and Cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo. 6^.

The authoi-'s object in these lectures is to shew that there exists in the

Old Testament an element, which no criticisin on naturalistic principles

can either account for or explain away: that element is Prophecy. The

author endeavours to proz'e that its force does not consist mei'dy in its

predictions. ''''These Lectures overflow with solid learning. " — Record.

Smith.— CHRISTIAN FAITH. Sermons preached before
the University of Cambridge. By W. Saumarez Smith, M.A.,
Principal of St. Aidan's College, Birkenhead. Fcap. 8vo. 3>j-. 6d.

28 THEOLOGICAL BOOKS.

Stanley. — Works by the Very Rev. A. P. Stanley, D.D.,
Dean of Westminster :

THE ATHANASIAN CREED, with a Preface on the
General Recommendations of the Ritual Commlssion, Cr.
8vo. is.

* ''Dr: Stanley puts iinth admirable force the objections which may be
viade to the Creed ; ecpially admirable, ive think, in his statement of its
ad'-iantages. " — Spectator.

THE NATIONAL THANKSGIVING. Sermons preached
in Westminster Abbey. Second Edition. Crown 8vo. is. 6d.

ADDRESSES AND SERMONS AT ST. ANDREW'S

in 1872, 1875 and 1876. Crown 8vo. 5^.

Stewart and Tait.— THE UNSEEN UNIVERSE ; or,

Physical Speculations on a Future State. By Professors Balfour
Stewart and P. G. Tait. Sixth Edition, Revised and Enlarged.
Crown 8vo. 6s.

*'A most remarkable and most interesting volume, which, probably
more than any that has appeared iti modern times, will affect religiotis
tJiought on many momentous questions — insensibly it may be, but very
largely and very beneficially." — Church Quarterly. " This book is one

which 7vell desei'ves the attention of tJioughtful and religious I'eaders

It is a perfectly safe enquiry, on scientific grounds, into the possibilities of
a future existence." — Guardian.

Swainson. — Works by C. A. Swainson, D.D., Canon of

Chichester :

THE CREEDS OF THE CHURCH in their Relations to
Holy Scripture and the Conscience of the Christian 8vo. cloth. f)s.

THE AUTHORITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT,
and other LECTURES, delivered before the University of Cam-
bridge. 8vo. cloth, lis.

Taylor.— THE RESTORATION OF BELIEF. New and
Revised Edition. By Isaac Taylor, Esq. Crown 8vo. %s. 6d.

Temple.— SERMONS PREACHED IN THE CHAPEL
of RUGBY SCHOOL. ByF. Temple, D.D., Bishop of Exeter.
New and Cheaper Edition. Extra fcap. 8vo, 4J. 6d.

This voltane contains Thirty five Sermons ojt topics more or less inti-
mately connected with every -day life. The follozving are a few of the
subjects discoursed upon: — '■'■ Love and Duty:" '•''Coming to Christ;"

THEOLOGICAL BOOKS, 29

TEMPLE ['Dr.)— continued.

''Great Men f' ''Faith f' "Doubts;'" " Scruples f' "Original Sin;''
"Friendship;''' "Helping Others;" "The Discipline of Te?Jiptation ;''
"Strength a Duty;" "^Worldliness ;" "III Temper;" "The Burial oj
the Past."

A SECOND SERIES OF SERMONS PREACHED IN
THE CHAPEL OF RUGBY SCHOOL. Second Edition.
Extra fcap. 8vo. 6s.

This Second Series of Forty-two brief pointed, practical Ser^nons, on
topics intimately connected with the every-day life of young and old, will be
acceptable to all who a7'e acquainted with the First Series. The following
are a few of the subjects treated of: — "Disobedience," "Almsgiving,"
"The Unknown Guidance of God," " Apathy one of our Trials," "High
Aims in Leaders," "Doing our Best," " The Use of ICncnvledge," "Use
of Observances," "Martha and Mary," "fohn the Baptist," "Severity
before Mercy," "Even Mistakes Punished," "Morality and Religion,"
"Children," "Action the Test of Spiritual Life," "Self Respect," "Too
Late," " The Tercentenary."

A THIRD SERIES OF SERMONS PREACHED IN

RUGBY SCHOOL CHAPEL IN 1867— 1S69. Extra fcap.

Svo. 6s.

This Third Series of Bishop Temple' s Rugby Sermons, contains thirty -six

brief discourses, including the " Good-bye" sermon preached on hi^ leaving

Rugby to eJiter on the office he now holds.

Thring. — Works by Rev. Edward Thring, M.A. :

SERMONS DELIVERED AT UPPINGHAM SCHOOL.
CrowTi Svo. 5^'.

THOUGHTS ON LIFE-SCIENCE. New Edition, en-
larged and revised. Crown Svo. 'js. 6d.

Trench. — Works by R. Chenevix Trench, D.D., Arch-
bishop of Dublin :

NOTES ON THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD.
Thirteenth Edition, Svo, \2.s.

This work has taken its place as a standard exposition and interpreta-
tion of Christ's Parables. The book is prefaced by an Introductory Essay
iti fozir chapters : — /. On the definition of the Parable, II. On Teach-
ing by Parables. III. On the Interpretation of the Parables. IV. On
other Parables besides those in the Scriptures. The author then proceeds
to take up the Parables one by one, and by the aid of philology, history,
antiquities, and the researches of travellers, shews forth the significance.

30 THEOLOGICAL BOOKS.

TRENCH {Kxc\ih'\^\iO'p)— continued.

beauty, and applicability of each, concluding with -what he deems its true
moral interpretation. In the numerous Notes are tnany valuable references,
illustrative quotations, critical and philological annotations, etc., and ap'
pendcd to the volume is a classified list of fifty-six works on the Parables.

NOTES ON THE MIRACLES OF OUR LORD.
Eleventh Edition, revised. 8vo. \2s.

In the ^Preliminary Essay'' to this ivork, all the momentous and in-
teresting questions that have been raised in connection -with Miracles, a^'e
discussed zi'ith considerable fulness. The Essay consists of six chapters : —
/. On the Navies of Miracles, i.e. the Greek words by which they are
designated in the New Testament. II. The Aliracles and Nature — What
is the difference between a Mircule and any event in the ordinary course
of Nature? Ill The Attthoi'ity of Miracles — Is the Miracle to command
absolute obedience? IV. The Evangelical, cojnpared with the other cycles
of Miracles. V. The Assaults on the Mi7-acles — I. The Jewish. 2. The
Heathen (Celsus etc.). 3. The Pantheistic (Spinosa etc.). 4. The
Sceptical ( Hume). 5. The Miracles only relatively miraculous ( Schleier-
macher). 6. The Rationalistic (Paidus). 7. The Historico- Critical
( Woolston, Strauss). VI. The Apologetic Wo7'th of the Miracles. The
author then treats the separate Miracles as he does the Parables.

SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. Eighth
Edition, enlarged. 8vo. cloth. \2s.

This Edition has been carefully revised, a^id a considerable numbei' of
new Synonyms added. Appended is an Index to the Synonyms, and an
Index to many other words alluded to or explained throughout the tvai'k.
''''He is," the Athenaeum says, '''' a guide in this department of knowledge
to whom his readers may intrust themselves with confidence. His sober
judgment and sound sense are barriers against the misleading influence of
arbitrary hypotheses."

ON THE AUTHORIZED VERSION OF THE NEW

TESTAMENT. Second Edition. 8vo. 7^.
Aftei' some Introductory Remarks, in which the propHety of a revision
is bHefly discussed, the whole question of the ?nerits of the present version
is gone into in detail, in eleven chapters. Appended is a chronological list
of works bearing on the subject, an Index of the principal Texts con-
sidered, an Index of Greek Words, and an Index of other Words re-
ferred to throughout the book.

STUDIES IN THE GOSPELS. Fourth Edition, revised.

Svo. \os. 6d.
This book is published undei' the convi-ction that the assertion often
made is untrue^ — viz. that the Gospels are in t]u main plain and easy.

THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. 31

TRENCH [P^xz\ih\s\io^)— continued.

and that all the chief diffi.culties of the Neiv Testament are to be found
in the Epistles. These ^^ Studies,'''' sixteen in number, are the fruit of a
much large)' scheme, and each Study deals with some important episode
mentioned in the Gospels, in a critical, philosophical, a)id practieal man-
ner. Many references and quotations are added to the Notes. Atfiong
the subjects treated are: — The Temptation ; Christ and the Sajuaritan
Woman; The Three Aspirants ; The Transfiguration ; Zacchccus ; The
True Vine; The Penitent Malefactor ; Christ and the Two Disciples on
the way to Emmaus.

COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLES to the SEVEN
CHURCHES IN ASIA. Third Edition, revised. 8vo. 8j. dd.

The p-esent work consists of an Intj-odziction, being a commentary on
Rev. i. 4 — 20, a detailed examination oj each of the Sez^en Epistles, in all
its bearings, and an Excursus on the Historico- Prophetical Interpreta-
tion of the Epistles.

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. An Exposition
drawn horn the writings of St. Augustine, with an Essay on his
merits as an Interpreter of Holy Scripture. Third Edition, en-
larged. 8vo. lOJ'. 6^.

The first half of the present work consists of a dissertation in eight
chapters on '■''Augustine as an Interpreter of Scripture,'" the titles of the
several chapters being as follozv : — /. Augustine^ s Gene>-al Views of Sc?-ip-
ture and its Interpretation. II. The External Helps for the Inteipreta-
tion of Scripture possessed by Augustine. III. Augustine'' s Principles
and Canons of Interpretation. IV. Augustine^ s Allegorical Interpretation
of Scripture. V. Illustrations of Augustine^ s Skill as an Inteipreter of
Scripture. VI. Augustine on John the Baptist and on St. Stephen.
VII. Augustine on the Epistle to the Romans. VIII. Miscellaneous
Examples of Augustini s Interpretation of Scripture. The latter half of
thetvork consists of Augustine' s Exposition of the Sermon on the Mount,
not hozvez'er a mere series of quotations from Augustiiie, but a connected
account of his sentiments on the various passages of that Sennon, inter-
spersed with criticisms by Archbishop Trench.

SHIPWRECKS OF FAITH. Three Sermons preached
before the University of Cambridge in May, 1867. Fcap. 8vo.
is. 6d.
These Sennons are especially addressed to young men. The subjects
are ^^ Balaam," '^Sazd," and '■'■Judas Iscariot," These lives are set
forth as beacon-lights, ' ' to warn us ofi^ from pej'ilotcs reefs and quick-
sands, which have beejt the destruction of many, and which might only too
easily be ours.^' The ]ohn Bull says, "they are, like all he Twites, af-
fectionate and earnest discourses. "

32 THEOLOGICAL BOOKS.

TRENCH (Archbishop) —continued.

SERMONS Preached for the most part in Ireland. 8vo.
IOJ-. dd.

This volume consists of Thirty-two Sermons, the gj'eate>' part of which
were preached in Ireland ; the subjects are as follow : — Jacob, a Prince
with God and with Men — Ai:;rippa — The Woman that was a Sinner —
Secret Faults — The Seven Worse Spirits — Freedom in the Truth — Joseph
and his Brethren — Bearing; one another'' s Burdens — Chrisfs Challenge to
the World — The Love of x\Ioney — The Salt of the Farth — The Armour of
God — Light in the Lord — The Jailer of Philippi — The Thorn in the Flesh
— Isaiah^s Vision — Selfishness — Abraham inta'ceding for Sodom — Vain
Thoughts — Pojitius Pilate — The Brazen Serpent — Ilie Death and Burial
of Moses — A Word from the Cross — The Churches Worship in the
Beauty of Holiness — Every Good Gift frotn Above — On the Healing of
Prayer — The Kingdoj?i zahich cofneth not with Observation — Pressing
toi.uards the Mark — Saul — The Good Shepherd — The Valley of Dry Bones
— All Saints.

LECTURES ON MEDIEVAL CHURCH HISTORY.

Being the Substance of Lectures dehvered in Queen's College,

London. Second Edition, revised. 8vo. I2s.
Contents : — The Middle Ages Beginning — The Conversion of Eng-
land— Islam—- The Cotiversion of Germany — The Iconoclasts — The
Crusades — The Papacy at its Height — The Sects of the Middle Ages —
77^1? Mendicant Orders — The Walde7ises—The Revival of Learning —
Christian Art in the Middle Ages, &^c., g^c.

Tulloch.— THE CHRIST OF THE GOSPELS AND
THE CHRIST OF MODERN CRITICISM. Lectures on
M. Renan's "Vie de Jesus." By John Tulloch, D.D.,
Principal of the College of St. Mary, in the University of St.
Andrew's. Extra fcap. 8vo. 4s. 6d.

Vaughan — Works by the very Rev. Charles J ohnVaugh an,

D.D. , Dean of Llandaff and Master of the Temple :

CHRIST SATISFYING THE INSTINCTS OF HU-
MANITY. Eight Lectures delivered in the Temple Church.
Second Edition. Extra fcap. Svo. y. 6d.
" We are convinced that there are congregations, m number unmistakably
inc7'easing, to ivhom such Essays as these, full of thought and leartiing,
are infinitely more beneficial, for they are vwre acceptable, than the recog-
nised type of sermons y — ^John Bull.

THE BOOK AND THE LIFE, and other Sermons,
preached before the University of Cambridge. Third Edition.
Fcap. Svo. dfS. 6d.

THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. 33

VAUGHAN (Dr. C. }.)— continued.

TWELVE DISCOURSES on SUBJECTS CONNECTED
WITH THE LITURGY and WORSHIP of the CHURCH
OF ENGLAND. Fcap. 8vo. 6s.

LESSONS OF LIFE AND GODLINESS. A Selection

of Sermons preached m the Parish Church of Doncaster. Fourth

and Cheaper Edition, Fcap. 8vo. 3^. dd.

This vohune consists of Nineteen Sermons, mostly on subjects connected

with the evejy-day walk and conversation of Christians. The Spectator

styles them ^''earnest and human. They are adapted to every class and

07'der in the social system, and will be read with wakeful interest by all

who seek to amend whatever may be amiss in their natural disposition

or in their acquired habits. "

WORDS FROM THE GOSPELS. A Second Selection
of Sermons preached in the Parish Church of Doncaster. Third
Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 4^^. dd.
The Nonconformist characterises these Sermons as ''^ of practical earnest-
ness, of a thoughtful ness that penetrates the cojnmon conditions and ex-
periences of life, and brings the truths and examples of Scripture to bear
on the?n with singular force, and of a style that otves its real elegance to
the shnplicity and directness which have fine culture for their roots. "

LIFE'S WORK AND GOD'S DISCIPLINE. Three

Sermons. Third Edition. Fcap. Svo. 2s. 6d.

THE WHOLESOME WORDS OF JESUS CHRIST.

Four Sermons preached before the University of Cambridge in
November 1866. Second Edition. Fcap. Svo. 3^. 6d.
Dr. Vaughan zises the word ''^ Wholesome''^ here in its literal and
original sense, the sense in ivhich St. Paul uses it, as meaning healthy,
sound, conducing to right Hving ; and in these Sermons he points out
and illustrates several of the '"'■ wholesome^'' characteristics of the Gospel,
— the Words of Christ. The John Bull says this volume is ^^ replete with
all the author'' s well-known vigour of thought and richness of expression.''^

FOES OF FAITH. Sermons preached before the Uni-
versity of Cambridge in November 1868. Second Edition. Fcap.
8vo. 3 J. dd.
The ^^Foes of Fait h^' p'eached against in these Four Sa^nons are: —
/. ''Unreality." II. ''Indolence.''^ III. ''Irreverence." IV. "Incon-
sistency."

LECTURES ON THE EPISTLE to the PHILIPPIANS.

Third and Cheaper Edition. Extra fcap. 8vo. 5^-.
Each Lecture is prefaced by a literal translation from the Greek of
the paragraph which for tns its subject, contains first a minute explanation

34 THEOLOGICAL BOOKS.

VAUGHAN (Dr. C. }.)— continued.

of the passage on which it is based ^ and then a praciical application oj
the ve)-se or clause selected as its text.

LECTURES ON THE REVELATION OF ST. JOHN.
Fourth Edition. Two Vols. Extra fcap. 8vo. ^s.

In this Edition of these Lectures, the literal translations of the passages
expounded will be found interwoven in the body of the Lectures themselves.
*^ Dr. Vaughan's Sermons,^^ the Spectator says, '■^are the most prac-
tical discourses on the Apocalypse with which we are acquainted. " Pre-
fixed is a Synopsis of the Book of Revelation, and appended is an Index
of passages illustrating the language of the Book.

EPIPHANY, LENT, AND EASTER. A Selection of
Expository Sermons. Third Edition. Crown 8vo. los. 6d.

THE EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL. For English Readers.

Part I., containing the First Epistle to the Thessalonians.

Second Edition. 8vo. is. 6d.

It is the object of this work to enable English readers, unacquainted

with Greek, to enter with intelligence into the meaning, connection, and

phraseology of the writings of the great Apostle.

ST. PAUL'S EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS. The Greek
Text, with English Notes. Fourth Edition. Crown Svo. 'js. 6d.

The Guardian says of the work, — ^''For educated young men his com-
vientary seems to fill a gap hitherto unfilled. . . . As a whole, Dr. Vaughan
appears to us to have given to the world a valuable book of 07-iginal and
careful and earnest thought bestowed on the accomplishment of a work
which will be of much sei-vice and which is much needed.''^

THE CHURCH OF THE FIRST DAYS.

Series I. The Church of Jenisalem. Third Edition.
" II. The Church of the Gentiles. Third Edition.
" III. The Church of the World. Third Edition.
Fcap. Svo. dfS. 6d. each.
The British Quarterly says, ^' These Sermons are worthy of all praise,
and are models of pulpit teaching.''^

COUNSELS for YOUNG STUDENTS. Three Sennons
preached before the University of Cambridge at the Opening of
the Academical Year 1870-71. Fcap. Svo. 2s.(id.

The titles of the Three Sa-mons contained in this volurne are: — /,
'' The Great Decision." II. ''The House and the Builder." HI. ''The
Prayer and the Counter- Prayer." They all bear pointedly, earnestly, atid
sympathisihgly upon the conduct and pursuits of young students and
young men generally.

THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. 35

VAUGHAN (Dr. C. 'S-)— continued.

NOTES FOR LECTURES ON CONFIRMATION,

with suitable Prayers. Tenth Edition. Fcap. 8vo. \s. 6d.

THE TWO GREAT TEMPTATIONS. The Tempta-
tion of Man, and the Temptation of Christ. Lectures dehvered in
the Temple Church, Lent 1872. Second Edition. Extra fcap.
8vo. 3i'. ()d.

- WORDS FROM THE CROSS : Lent Lectures, 1875 ; and
Thoughts for these Times : University SeiTnons, 1874. Extra fcap.
8vo. 4^. 6d.

ADDRESSES TO YOUNG CLERGYMEN, delivered at
Salisbury in September and October, 1875. Extra fcap. 8vo. 45-. 6d.

HEROES OF FAITH : Lectures on Hebrews xi. Extra
fcap. 8vo. 6^.

THE YOUNG LIFE EQUIPPING ITSELF FOR GOD'S
SERVICE : Sermons before the University of Cambridge. Sixth
Edition. Extra fcap. 8vo. 3^-. 6^.

THE SOLIDITY OF TRUE RELIGION ; and other
Sermons. Second Edition. Extra fcap. 8vo. y. 6d.

SERMONS IN HARROW SCHOOL CHAPEL (1847).
8vo. 10^. 6d.

NINE SERMONS IN HARROW SCHOOL CHAPEL
(1849). Fcap. 8vo. 5J-.

"MY SON, GIVE ME THINE HEART," SERMONS

Preached before the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, 1876
—78. Fcap. 8vo. 5^.

Vaughan (E. T.)— SOME REASONS OF OUR CHRIS-
TIAN HOPE. Hulsean Lectures for 1875. By E. T. Vaughan,
M.A., Rector of Harpenden. Crown 8vo. 6s. 6d.
^^ His words are those of a well-tried scholar and a sound theologian,

and they will be read widely and valued deeply by an audience far beyofid

the range of that which listened to their masterly pleading at Ca?nbridge. "

— Standard.

Vaughan (D.J.) — Works by Canon Vaughan, of Leicester:

SERMONS PREACHED IN ST. JOHN'S CHURCH.
LEICESTER, during the Years 1855 and 1856. Cr. 8vo. 5^. bd.

36 THEOLOGICAL BOOKS.

V A UGH AN (D. ].)—coutinii€d.

CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES AND THE BIBLE. New
Edition, revised and enlarged, Fcap. 8vo. cloth'. 5j. 6d.

THE PRESENT TRIAL OF FAITH. Sermons preached
in St. Martin's Church, Leicester. Crown 8vo. 9^.

Venn.— ON SOME OF THE CHARACTERISTICS OF
BELIEF, Scientific and Religious. Being the Hulsean Lectures
for 1869. By the Rev. J. Venn, M. A. 8vo. 6s. 6d.
These discourses are intended to ilhistrate, explain, and work out into

some of their consequences, certain characteristics by which the attainment of

religious belief is prominently distinguished from the attainment of belief

upon most other subjects.

Warington.— THE WEEK OF CREATION ; or, The
Cosmogony of Genesis considered in its Relation to Modem Sci-
ence. By George Warington, Author of "The Historic
Character of the Pentateuch vindicated." Crown 8vo. a^s.dd.

*^A very able vindication of the Mosaic Cosmogony by a writer who
unites the advantages of a critical knowledge of the Hebrew text and of
distinguished scientific attainments.''^ — Spectator.

Westcott. — Works by BROOKE Foss Westcott, D.D.,

Regius Professor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge ;
Canon of Peterborough :

The London Quarterly, speaking of Mr. Westcott, says, " To a learn-
ing and accuracy which command respect and confidence, he unites what
are not always to befoimd in union ixxith these qualities, the no less valuable
faculties of lucid an-angement and graceful and facile expression. "

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF THE
GOSPELS. Fifth Edition. Cro\vn8vo. los. 6d.

The autho7''s chief object in this work has been to shew that there is
a true mean between the idea of a forf?ial harmonization of the Gospels
afid the abandonment of their absolute truth. After an Introduction on
the General Effcxts of the course of Modern Philosophy on the popular
vie^vs of Christianity, he proceeds to determine in what way the principles
therein indicated may be applied to the study of the Gospels.

A GENERAL SURVEY OF THE HISTORY OF THE
CANON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT during the First Four
Centuries. Fourth Edition, revised, with a Preface on "Super-
natural Religion." Crown 8vo. loj-. dd.

The object of this treatise is to deal with the New Testarnent as a whole,
and that on purely historical grounds. The separate books of which it is

THEOLOGICAL BOOKS. 37

WESTCOTT (Dr.)— continued.

composed are considei'ed not individually, but as claiming to be parts of the
apostolic heritage of Christians. The Atithor has thus endeavoured to con-
nect the history of the JVeiu Testament Canon with the grozuth and con-
solidation of the Catholic Church, and to point out the relation existing
between the amount of evidence for the authenticity of its component parts
and the whole mass of Christian literatu7'e. ''''The treatise,^^ says the
British Quarterly, *'z> a scholarly performance, learned, dispassionate,
discriminating, worthy of his subject and of the prese^it state of Christian
literature in relation to it. "

THE BIBLE IN THE CHURCH. A Popular Account
of the Collection and Reception of the Holy Scriptures in the
Christian Churches. Sixth Edition. i8mo. 4-$-. (yd.

A GENERAL VIEW OF THE HISTORY OF THE
ENGLISH BIBLE. Second Edition. Crown 8vo. \os. dd.

The Pall Mall Gazette calls the work "A brief, scholarly, and, to a
great extent, an original contribution to theological literature. "

THE CHRISTIAN LIFE, MANIFOLD AND ONE.

Six Sermons preached in Peterborough Cathedral. Crown 8vo.

is. 6d.
The Six Sermons contained in this volume are the first preached by
the author as a Canon of Peterborough Cathedral. The subjects a7'e : —
/. ''''Life consecrated by the Ascension.^'' II. ''''Many Gifts, One Spirit .^^
III. '''' The Gospel of the Resurrection.'''' IV. ^^Sufiiciency of God." V.
^''Action the Test of Faith." VI. ''''Progress from the Confession ofGodJ'

THE GOSPEL OF THE RESURRECTION. Thoughts
on its Relation to Reason and History. Third Edition, enlarged.
Crown Svo. 6s.

The present Essay is an endeavour to consider soine of the elementary
truths of Christianity, as a miraculous Revelation, from the side of History
and Reason. The author endeavours to shezu that a devout belief in the
Life of Christ is quite compatible with a broad view of the course of hujuan
progress and a frank trust in the laws of our ozvn minds. In the third
edition the author has carefidly reconsidered the whole argument, and by
the help of several kind critics has been enabled to correct some faults and
to remove some ambiguities, which had been overlooked before.

ON THE RELIGIOUS OFFICE OF THE UNIVER-
SITIES. Crown Svo. 4^-. dd.

' ' There is certainly no man of our time — no man at least who has ob-
tained the command of the pniblic ear — whose titterances can compare with
those of Professor Westcotf for largeness ofvinvs and comprehensiveness of

38 THEOLOGICAL BOOKS.

grasp. There is zaisdom, and truth, and thought enough, and a

harmony and mutual connection running through thetn all, lohich makes
the collection of more real value than many an ambitious treatise." —
Literary Churchman.

Wilkins.— THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. An Essay,
by A, S. Wilkins, M.A., Professor of Latin in Owens College,
Manchester. Second Edition. Crown 8vo, 3^-. dd.
* ' It would be difficult to praise too highly the spirit, the burden, the
co7iclusions, or the scholarly finish of this beautiful Essay." — British Quar-
terly Review.

Wilson.— THE BIBLE STUDENT'S GUIDE TO THE

MORE CORRECT UNDERSTANDING of the ENGLISH

TRANSLATION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT, by Reference

to the Original Hebrew, By William Wilson, D.D., Canon of

Winchester. Second Edition, carefully revised. 4to. 25J.

" The aiithor believes that the present work is the nearest app'oach to

a coJHplete Concordance of every word in the original that has yet been

made: and as a Concordance, it may be found of great use to the Bible

student, while at the sante time it serves the important object of furnishing

the means of comparing syitonymous words, and of eliciting their precise

and distinctive meaning. The knowledge of the Hebrew language is not

absolutely necessary to the profitable use of the work. The plan of the

work is si7nple : every word occurring in the English Version is arranged

alphabetically, and under it is given the Ilebreza word or words, with a

full explanation of their meaning, of which it is meant to be a translation,

and a complete list of the passages where it occurs. Follcmdng the general

work is a complete Hebrezv and English Bidex, which is, in effect, a

Hebrew-English Dictionary.

Worship (The) of God and Fellowship among

Men. Sermons on Public Worship. By Professor Maurice,
and others. Fcap. 8vo. 3^^. dd.

Yonge (Charlotte M.)— Works by Charlotte M. Yonge,

Author of " The Heir of Redclyffe :"

SCRIPTURE READINGS FOR SCHOOLS AND FA-
MILIES. 5 vols. Globe 8vo. \s. 6d. With Comments, 3J. 6d. each.
First Series. Genesis to Deuteronomy.
Second Series. From Joshua to Solomon.
Third Series. The Kings and Prophets.
Fourth Series. The Gospel Times.
Flfth Series. Apostolic Times.

THEOLOGICAL BOOKS, 39

YONGE (Charlotte M..)— continued.

Actual need has led the author to endeavour to prepa7'e a reading book
convenient for study with children, containing the very words of the
Bible, zoith only a few expedient omissions, and arranged in Lessons of
such length as by experience she has found to suit with children's ordinary
power of accurate attentive interest. The verse form has been retained be-
cause of its convenience for children reading in class, and as more re-
sembling their Bibles ; but the poetical poj'tions have been given in their
lines. Brofessor Huxley at a meeting of the London School-board, par-
ticularly mentioned the Selection made by Miss Yonge, as an example of
how selections might be made for School reading. '''' Her Comments are
models of their kind.'''' — Literary Churchman.

THE PUPILS OF ST. JOHN THE DIVINE. New
Edition. Crown 8vo. ds.

*' Young and old will be equally refreshed and taught by these pages,
in which nothing is dull, and nothing is far-fetched. " — Churchman.

PIONEERS AND FOUNDERS ; or, Recent Workers in
the Mission Field. With Frontispiece and Vignette Portrait of
Bishop Heber. Crown 8vo. ts.

The missionaries whose biographies are here given, are — John Eliot,
the Apostle of the Red Indians ; David Brainerd, the Enthusiast; Chris-
tian F. Schwartz, the Councillor of Tanjore; Henry Martyn, the Scholar-
Missionary ; William Carey and Joshua Marshman, the Serampore Mis-
sionaries; the Jtidson Family; the Bishops of Calcutta — Tho??ias
Middleton, Reginald Heber, Daniel Wilson; Samuel Mar sden, the Aus-
tralian Chaplain and Friend of the Maori; John Williams, the Mar'tyr
of Erro?nango ; Allen Gardener, the Sailor Martyr; Charles Irederick
Mackenzie, the Martyr of Zambesi.

THE "BOOK OF PRAISE" HYMNAL,

COMPILED AND ARRANGED BY

LORD SELBORNE.

In the following four forms : —

A. Beautifully printed in Royal 32m.o., limp cloth, price Gd.

B. ,, ,, Small 18mo., larg-ertype, cloth limp, Is.

C. Same edition on fine paper, cloth., Is. 6d.

Also an edition -with Music, selected, harmonized, and composed
by JOHN HTTLLiAK, in square 18mo., cloth, 3s. 6d.

The large acceptance which has been given to " The Book of Praise"
by all classes of Christian people encourages the Publishers in entertaining
tiie hope that this Hymnal, which is mainly selected from it, may be ex-
tensively used in Congregations, and in some degree at least meet the
desires of those who seek unifor?}iity in co?n?non worship as a means
towards that unity which pious souls yearn after, and which our Lord
prayed for in behalf of his Church. '"''The office of a hymn is not to
teach controversial Theology, but to give the voice of song to practical
religion. No doubt, to do this, it must embody sound doctrine ; but it
ought to do so, not after the manner of the schools, but with the breadth,
freedoyn, and simplicity of the Fountain-head. " On this principle has
Sir R. Palmer proceeded in the preparation of this book.

The arrangement adopted is the following : —

Part I. consists of Hy 771ns ai'rajtged acco7'ding to the subjects of the
Creed — '^God the Creator," ^^ Christ Incarnate," ^''ChT^st Crucified,"
^^ Christ Risen," ''^Ch7'ist Ascended," "ChT^sfs Kingdom and Judg-
7nent," etc.

Part II. co7)iprises Hy77ins arranged according to the subjects of the
Lords Prayer.

Part III. Hyi7ins for natural a7id sacred seasons.
There are 320 Hymns in all.

CAMBRIDGE: — PRINTED BY J. PALMER.

Princeton Theological Seminary Libraries

1 1012 01248 1646

-t.

-■i'

■ f -V.

* 1'. s

I, o

''\-

1 "V "

ICt'

■- %

v» .-,,'»

r-T'.

^■^

' ' . 'nM •■■■■> -•■■1

^^i

'r-.t:-l'.C-t

I

■^-