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obvious to remark, that the term Rationalism has been used in Germany in various senses. It has been made to comprehend both those who reject all revelation and those who profess to receive it.' The latter class, while they profess to receive revelation, nevertheless receive it only so far as their critical reason accepts it. They profess to receive Christianity, but they make reason the supreme arbiter in matters of faith. When Christianity is presented to them, they inquire what there is in it which agrees with their assumed principles (i. e. of intrinsic credibility), and whatsoever does so agree they receive as true.' Others again affect to allow 'a revealing operation of God, but establish on internal proofs rather than on miracles the Divine nature of Christianity. They allow that revelation may contain much out of the power of reason to explain, but they say that it should assert nothing contrary to reason, but rather what may be proved by it.' But, in fact, such divines reject the 'doctrines of the Trinity, the Atonement, the Mediation and Intercession of our Lord, Original Sin, and Justification by Faith.'

I need not prolong these quotations. They suffice to show that Rationalism has various senses, or rather various degrees; but, ultimately, it has one and the same principle, namely, that the Reason is the supreme and spontaneous source of religious knowledge. It

1 H. T. Rose's State of Protestantism in Germany, Introd. xxiii.

may be therefore distinguished into the perfect and imperfect Rationalism, or into the fully-developed and the incipient Rationalism, and these may perhaps be accurately described as follows:

1. The perfect or fully-developed Rationalism is founded upon the assumption that the reason is the sole fountain of all knowledge relating to God and to the soul, and to the relations of God and of the soul. This does not mean the reason of each individual, but of the human race, which elicits from its own intellectual consciousness a theology of reason, and transmits it as a tradition in the society of mankind.

The reason is therefore the source and the measure or the limit of what is credible in the theology of rational religion. This, necessarily, excludes all supernatural revelation.'

2. The imperfect, or incipient, Rationalism rests upon the assumption that the reason is the supreme test or judge of the intrinsic credibility of revelation admitted in the main to be supernatural. It is easy to see that nothing but the inconsequence of those who hold this system arrests it from resolving itself into its ultimate form of perfect Rationalism. In both the reason is the critic of revelation. In the latter, it rejects portions of revealed truth as intrinsically incredible; in the former, it rejects revelation as a whole The latter criticises the contents

for the same reason.

1 Rose, ut supra, xxv. xxvi.

of revelation, accepting the evidence of the fact, and rejects portions; the former criticises both the contents and the evidence, and altogether rejects both.

Now, it is evident that in England we are as yet in the incipient stage of Rationalism. Materialism, Secularism, and Deism are to be found in individuals, but not yet organised as schools. Rationalism in the perfect form is also to be found in isolated minds; but the incipient, or semi-Rationalism, has already established itself in a school of able, cultivated, and respectable men. I need not name the writers of whom Dr. Williams, Mr. Wilson, and Dr. Colenso are the most advanced examples. In this school most of the followers and disciples of the late Dr. Arnold are to be classed. It does not surprise me to see the rapid and consistent spread of these opinions; for ever since by the mercy of God I came to see the principle of divine faith, by which the human reason becomes the disciple of a divine Teacher, I have seen, with the clearness of a self-evident truth, that the whole of the Anglican reformation and system is based upon the inconsequent theory which I have designated as incipient Rationalism. It admits revelation, but it constitutes the reason as the judge by critical inquiry of the contents of that revelation, of the interpretation of Scripture, and of the witness of antiquity.

The Church teaches that faith is an infused grace which elevates and perfects the reason; but as ration

alists allege that faith detracts from the perfection of reason, my object will be to show :—

1. That to believe in revelation is the highest act

of the human reason.

2. That to believe in revelation, whole and perfect, is the perfection of the reason.

3. That to submit to the Voice of the Holy Spirit in the Church is the absolute condition to attain a perfect knowledge of revelation.

4. That the Divine witness of the Holy Spirit in the Church anticipates the criticism of the human reason, and refuses to be subject to it.

Lest any one should imagine that in these propositions I limit the activity and office of the human reason in matters of faith, I will add also the following propositions :

1. It would be a violation of reason in the highest degree not to believe that there is a God. To believe that this visible world is either eternal or selfcreated, besides all other intrinsic absurdities in the hypothesis, would simply affirm the world to be God in the same breath that we deny His existence. It would be a gross and stupid conception of an eternal and self-existent being; for to believe it self-created is a stupidity which exceeds even the stupidity of atheism. But if the world were neither eternal nor self-created, it was made; and, if made, it had a maker. Cavil as a man will, there is no escape from

this necessity. To deny it is not to reason, but to violate reason; and to be rationalists, by going contrary to reason.

2. Secondly, it would be a violation of the moral sense, which is still reason judging of the relations between my Maker and myself, not to believe that He has given to me the means of knowing Him. The consciousness of what I am gives me the law by which to conceive of One higher and better than I am. If I am an intelligent and moral being, and if my dignity and my perfection consist in the perfection of my reason and of my will, then I cannot conceive of a Being higher and better than myself, than as One who has, in a higher degree, those things which are the best and highest in myself. But my intelligent and moral nature, and the right exercise and action of its powers, is the highest and best that is in me. I know it to exceed all the other excellences which are in me. It exceeds, too, all the perfections of other creatures to whom gifts of strength and instinct have been given, without reason and the moral will.

I am certain, therefore, that my Creator is higher than I am in that which is highest in me, and therefore I know Him to be a perfect intelligence and a perfect will, and these include all the perfections of wisdom and goodness. I say then it would violate the moral sense to believe that such a Being has created me capable of knowing and of loving