something about predestination, the authors of the Thirty-nine Articles put together a number of pious sentences which have no particular meaning, and the consequence has been that Arminians and Calvinists have discovered by practical experience that their differences need not prevent them from living under the same government and joining in the same form of worship. Does any one now regret this? Does any one wish that either party had been expelled from the Church? Can any intelligent student either of history or of human nature, fail to see that both the Calvinist and the Arminian have got hold of part at least of a great truth, that it is of the utmost importance that neither side of it should be forgotten, and that if either party could silence the other, the other side most assuredly would be forgotten? What should we say of a proposal to put the Whigs into one House of Commons and the Tories into another? The 'development' of Church doctrine by judicial decisions would be a process tending to precisely the same result.

If we look not at the glory, but at the shame of Christianity, are we not taught the same lesson? If the conversion of the Roman Empire was the greatest exploit of Christianity, the persecution of Christian by Christian has been its greatest shame. It has been the great argument of all the enemies of the Christian faith, from Julian to Voltaire. So base, so horrible, so bloody are these passages in history, that it is as superfluous to stigmatize their infamy as to dilate on the wickedness of such crimes as those of Palmer or the Mannings. The crusade against the Albigenses, the persecutions in the Netherlands, the Spanish Inquisition, the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, the massacre of the Protestants in Ireland, stand in history by the side of the Reign of Terror, and it must be confessed that there are Protestant enormities of a very similar complexion. The brutal usage of Ireland for more than a century, its penal code (copied from the provisions of Louis XIV. against the

Protestants, and quite as atrocious), the cruel fanaticism which reigned in New England for many years after the first settlements of Massachusetts and New Plymouth, were not so bloody as the Romish persecutions, but they were not much less disgraceful. Even if we look away from these hideous crimes to the quiet current of every-day life, what spectacle is more contemptible than that every-day persecution which is exercised on all occasions by those who really do think it wrong for any one to doubt the truth of some particular set of religious opinions? Every one must have seen, in private life, how it dwarfs a man's character and blinds his eyes to everything that he ought to see. We sometimes see it on rather a larger scale, but it is always the same petty, dirty, ungenerous spirit. Would any other motive than bigotry have led a number of English gentlemen, in the character of the legislature of a great public body, to act so suicidal a part as the University of Oxford lately acted towards Professor Jowett ? 'We cannot expel you; we cannot refute you; but we can spite you and fine you, and we mean to wreak our grudge.'

These considerations may perhaps justify the proposition that the Church of England loses little by repudiating the pretension to decide on the truth of controversies as they arise, and so to develop its theology into a complete exclusive system. Let us now consider whether it gains by this modesty. It gains the advantage of being the only religious body in this country, nearly the only religious body in Europe, which can, consistently with its own principles, inquire into the truth upon a subject on which knowledge of the truth is of the utmost value to the whole human race; and this it can do with advantages which mere abstract inquirers, men standing apart from all religious bodies, do not and never can possess. Churches or sects which do assume the task of developing systems of theology may, under circumstances, present an imposing appearance. A spiritual tyranny

like Popery has, no doubt, the qualities which impress a certain kind of mind. The mere elaboration and intricacy of a system like the Roman Catholic theology has a kind of attractiveness by its very audacity, if by nothing else; but one thing it cannot do. It cannot produce general conviction. People educated as Catholics may cling to the system from the force of early prejudice; pious and able men, and sometimes women, educated in other communions, may become Catholics from sheer terror at the consequences of inquiring or longing for the support of a guide who professes to be infallible; but neither Popery nor any other sect convinces or tends in the smallest degree to convince thinking men who are not cowards. As soon as any theological system has been made perfectly neat and complete all round, it ceases to have the least intellectual value, and the reason is obvious.

Those

who really think about these things, and care more for truth than for peace of mind, know that there is a vast deal more to be said about theology than ever has been said yet; that objections have been taken which have never been removed; that questions have been asked which have never been fully answered, respecting matters of the utmost importance; and that the only religious institutions worth supporting are those which practically admit this, and which allow their officers to try in real earnest to get at the truth. Where there is a prospect of bonâ fide inquiry, much may be borne. Rome was not built in a day; and the theology which is to give full play to every part of man's religious faculties, and to recognize and embody the most important facts in the history of the race, must be of slow growth. The best thing that can be hoped for in any institution whatever, is that it should contain the germs of such growth, and that those germs should have room to expand. This, as matters stand, is the case with the Church of England. There is now no reason why the Bible should not be carefully examined from end to end, so that people may know what

VOL. LXIX. NO. CCCCXIII.

it really is. Can any reasonable person pretend to doubt that there is a case for inquiry? Can any one venture to affirm that that inquiry has been fully performed, and that any body of men in the world is at the present moment in a position to affirm precisely what the real truth is?

There is a blindness which might almost be called judicial in the conduct of those who wish to prevent the clergy from undertaking this task. There is about as much reason to fear that the clergy of the Church of England will be rash or revolutionary, as to fear that English lawyers will be hasty in interfering with English law. What will become of Christianity if all real thought about it is to be confined to men like M. Rénan, and if its natural defenders and advocates are carefully gagged and handcuffed before they are allowed to answer? Clergymen writing on the Bible will be bound by every consideration, not only of decency but of prejudice, to write of it with the deepest reverence, and with the most earnest desire to secure from their readers scrupulous attention to the truths which it contains. They will also be guided in their inquiries by that experience which nothing but familiarity with the working of the religious feelings can give. Is not this better than the rude and irreverent criticisms of men who have little sympathy with religious feelings and no experience of their working? Was it wise in the French government in the last century to deprive men of letters of all political experience, and to deprive the established government of all literary support? No earthly power can stop religious inquiry. Persecution has not stopped it; and no one now can persecute. No amount of dogmatism, on the part of all the churches in the world, will have the least effect on it. The only thing that the clergy can possibly do, if they do not mean to be thrown on one side by the current, is to go with it heartily. The clergy of the Church of England have still a little time left to take that course. Their best friends will be most anxious that

NN

they should not lose their opportunity.

Where,' he

Important as it is to impress these conclusions on the clergy, it is at least as important to impress them on the laity. There are writers amongst us who appear to be determined to make the clergy contemptible by every resource of gentle sarcasm and eloquent denunciation. -One powerful writer, who loves to display in little feats of playful ingenuity, a strength of understanding and depth of thought which might do great service to the world if it were more frequently employed on larger subjects and a greater scale, preaches almost every Saturday on the text about suffering fools-especially clerical fools-gladly, and about the inestimable blessings which accrue to the world from the large number of fools contained in it. seems inclined to ask, 'would all these little ones go for their daily bread unless the Church of England had been provided as a sort of nursery, managed by things in surplices who are neither regular men nor absolute women, but who are fitted both by nature and art for the necessary, though unexciting occupation of preparing the spiritual tops and bottoms which their interesting flock requires.' Another writer, to whom nature has certainly not denied a faculty of writing, which indignation has sharpened to an extent almost morbid, appears to be indignant at the notion that a clergyman can be at once an honest man and a vigorous thinker. He is for freedom for every one except the clergy. Every sort of test is in his eyes an abomination, as far as it bears upon the laity; but that the clergy should be tied down by subscriptions and articles, and branded for dishonesty if they do not hug their chains, seems to appear to him natural and proper. Others tell us that the freedom of the clergy means the slavery of the laity; and that if the clergy are permitted to think freely, their congregations can have no security for the supply of the particular description of spiritual food which they happen to prefer. In other words, that if the physician is allowed to think, his treat

ment may perhaps surprise some of his patients. In short, amongst the abler part of the laity, there is a very general disposition, not only to despise the clergy, but rather to exult in the opportunity of despising them. The tone which many laymen adopt is, 'You used to be tyrants, you are now crushed under your own armour. In your fierce intolerance you imposed fetters on all the world, which now weigh upon you alone, whilst we go free. You wished to narrow and oppose the spread of knowledge. You wished us all to be bigots, and as regards yourselves, you have got your wish. Keep it now you have got it, keep your money, keep your social position, but do not presume to attempt to think or instruct. If you do we will remind you that you must be held to your bargain, and taunt you with the decrepitude which it has caused, whilst we forbid you to try to cure it.'

Though not honourable, this feeling is intelligible. It is often, though by no means always, a cloak to utter scepticism. Men averse to all religion say, 'We do not mind these fools, let them say what they will; but if the clergy really began to think, they might exercise a perceptible influence on public opinion, and this might be inconvenient to us, and interfere with our proceedings.' The slave-owners and slavetraders of America had no sort of objection to any number of sermons on the text, 'Love is the fulfilling of the law,' so long as they were conceived in the proper conventional tone; but when Theodore Parker and others began to preach about politics, they felt uneasy. The

persons influenced by this feeling in our country are perhaps not numerous, and we may hope that the less ignoble motive of real dislike for the clergy and things clerical is more common and more powerful; but whatever the motive may be, this way of proceeding towards the clergy is cutting off your nose to be revenged on your face. It must be admitted that the clerical profession is not in a satisfactory state, and that it requires much reform before it can discharge its

functions properly; but the profession itself is absolutely essential to the well-being of society. So long as men are apt to be engrossed by petty and immediate objects, to the exclusion of great and permanent ones, so long as they live under the impression that there is a world beyond the grave, and so long as that impression is liable to be thrown on one side by the common business of life—so long, in a word, as we are weak and more or less wicked-there will be an urgent necessity for setting apart a particular order of men whose special duty it is to remind men of their relations to their Maker and to each other. Whether they do this well or ill, whether they keep on a level with the general intellect of the age or fall behind it, whether they are honoured and respected as the representatives of the highest of human interests, or derided and scorned as the slaves of a stupid superstition, are matters of unspeakable importance. clergy have rendered greater services to mankind, and have also made themselves more generally contemptible, than any other body of men. It is hardly possible that they should fall into general and permanent contempt, and that that of which they are the representatives should not share in it; and if this

The

happens, human nature itself will become harder and poorer than it now is. It is thus the part of every wise man to encourage by every means in his power the mental activity of the clergy, and to do what he can to raise them to a sense of the importance of their calling, and especially to the importance of the intellectual side of it. Nothing can be more mischievous than to say to them, 'You have engaged to be fools, what right have you to think?' unless it be to say, 'You have to do the dirty work of the world, and you ought not to be above your place.' To wish to blind your guide because you are yourself short-sighted is the meanest form of jealousy. If the minds of the clergy are fettered, the necessary consequence is that the laity's are fettered too; and if it turns out that by great good fortune the shackles are less effective than they were supposed or intended to be, the laity and clergy ought to rejoice over the fact in common, and use for their joint benefit the advantage provided for them. Knowledge of the truth ought to be the great object of all of us,—let us try to get at it, and encourage every one who cares to find it, instead of quarrelling over the right of one man or another, to join in the search.