iting an organizing talent which has made his church a centre for a whole group of religious enterprises, he has undoubtedly exercised a very wide influence, though he could hardly be placed among the foremost theologians of the age if he were to be judged on the score of intellectual depth and subtlety. In the controversy between open and close communion, Spurgeon arrayed himself on the side of the former. In compensation for this laxity, however, he displayed extra zeal for the maintenance of the essentials of the old orthodoxy. In the latter part of 1887 he proclaimed. his withdrawal from the Baptist Union, because of the innovating opinions which some of its members had imbibed. His protest was framed in these emphatic terms: "As a matter of fact, believers in Christ's atonement are now in declared religious union with those who make light of it; believers in Holy Scripture are in confederacy with those who deny plenary inspiration; those who hold evangelical doctrine are in open. alliance with those who call the fall a fable, who deny the personality of the Holy Ghost, who call justification by faith immoral, and hold that there is another probation after death, and a future restitution for the lost. . . . To be very plain, we are unable to call these things Christian Unions; they begin to look like Confederacies in Evil." In the absence of more specific evidence, it will not be uncharitable to either party to assume that this impeachment is not strictly judicial, that it bears in truth somewhat of the coloring which hyper-orthodoxy is wont to give to its representation of more liberal opinions. The century has witnessed no inconsiderable growth in the Baptist communion. At the beginning of the closing decade their numbers in the United Kingdom, including the Channel Islands, had risen to about three hundred thousand. In the Congregational churches of England the feature of independency was made prominent at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Little provision existed for associated action. There was indeed some agitation for a general union of ministers and churches as early as 1806, but definite results were first obtained about twentyfive years later, when the "Congregational Union" was formally instituted. In 1833 a declaration was put forth which was understood to be representative in general of the Congregational churches, though not binding upon them. While the Calvinistic peculiarities respecting predestination and perseverance have a place in the confession, they are sheathed in as mild language as could well be chosen. As to the more recent attitude toward this creed, the words of H. M. Dexter, written in 1879, may be taken as an index. "It may be doubted," he says, "whether, even with the liberal allowance for dissent which it includes, the declaration of 1833 would now be the preference of the body. On a single point some English Congregational churches have no doubt drifted from what American Congregationalists, it is believed in their overwhelming majority, still regard as so clearly the teaching of the Word as to be held indispensable to its loyal acceptance; namely, the doctrine of the future eternal punishment of those who die impenitent. Two facts seem to be clear with regard to this matter in England: the one of a considerable relaxing of the ancient faith, either in the direction of annihilation, or of restoration through further probation; the other that this questioning or rejection of the old view of everlasting punishment is not connected with any conscious weakening of attachment and devotion to evangelical truth'; and in most cases the deeds of Congregational chapels still affirm, in a condensed form, the distinguishing points of the ancient evangelical system,' as those which for substance of doctrine must in good faith be taught therein, to maintain legal title to the premises." 1 The roll of honor for the Congregationalists of Britain during the century contains many eminent rather than a few pre-eminent names. Morrison, McAll, Wardlaw, Vaughan, Stoughton, Fairbairn, Legge, and Dale are among those who have earned a full measure of esteem. Presbyterianism in England has secured in the nineteenth century at least a partial compensation for the lapse of the Presbyterian body into Unitarianism in the preceding century. A faithful remnant of the old communion has been supplemented by an influx from various Presbyterian bodies in Scotland. By a union of two divisions of the Presbyterians in England in 1876, a communion bearing the name of the Presbyterian Church of England, and numbering at that time fifty thousand members, was formed. The Unitarians at a recent date counted about three hundred churches in England and Wales. Since the early part of the century the animus of the body has 1 Congregationalism as seen in its Literature, p. 675. been not a little changed. A more ideal philosophy has largely usurped the place of the crass sensationalism taught by Priestley, and in place of the old rationalism, with its combination of a deistic leaning with formal supernaturalism, we observe ways of thinking which unite stress upon the divine immanence with much freedom in Biblical criticism. Influences from New England and Germany helped to work the transformation. In point of intellectual leadership James Martineau has occupied a foremost place among English Unitarians in recent times. His name is spoken with reverence by great numbers who are far from adopting all of his theological views. The spirit of the age has not favored the increase of the Quakers, and has besides blunted the edge of their peculiarities. In customs and methods of religious work they are not so widely separated from their neighbors as formerly. However, a fair degree of steadiness in belief seems to have been maintained in the body. The rationalizing scheme of the American Hicks found little acceptance with the English Quakers, and was emphatically disowned by the Yearly Meeting of 1829. One section of the body, impelled by zeal against the Hicksite tenets, began to qualify the function of the inner light as compared with written revelation, and also to argue in favor of the sacraments of baptism and the eucharist. The result was a considerable agitation, a separation of a small party under the leadership of Isaac Crewdson, and their ultimate absorption in other communions. In the field of practical benevolence the Quakers have made honorable additions to their former record. The labors of Elizabeth Fry were continued well into the century, and the London chemist William Allan won a kindred distinction as an exponent of Christian charity. In one part of his career we find exhibited something of that romantic character which distinguished Quaker evangelism in the earlier days. In company with Stephen Grellet, from the United States, he made a tour of religious visitation through Europe, not neglecting the Czar at St. Petersburg, Mohammedan dignitaries in Constantinople, and the Pope at Rome. As has been truly said, "No more remarkable and surprising journey was ever made since apostolic days, if even then." That Quaker antecedents and training are not incompatible with the gift of tongues — using that phrase in the better of modern senses has been sufficiently demonstrated by the oratory of John Bright. - The protest against ecclesiasticism which was characteristic of the primitive Quakers was taken up between 1820 and 1830 by a party which is known as the Plymouth Brethren. In their view church constitutions and denominational fences were unholy things, which should be put away. They held further that the distinction between clergy and laity ought to be abolished, though sacramental rites should be retained. As is apt to be the case in like procedures, the formal protest against sectarianism ran into not a little of sectarian asperity. For the rest, a strained theory of imputed righteousness, which makes the continued existence of the old Adam in the true believer no bar to his perfect standing before the divine tribunal, is a prominent point in the belief of the Plymouth Brethren. Herein they 1 Cunningham, History of the Quakers. |