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ists in this country, both lay and clerical, who make no scruple of declaring that the age has outgrown the Church, and only vindicate their continued conformity by the distinct avowal of a hope or expectation that it must, before long, be accommodated to the existing order of things. But few of these "liberal" Churchmen profess to conjecture when or how such improvements are to be effected. None, so far as we know, have taken any practical measures for effecting a reform, since the frustration of the hopes entertained of a revision of the Liturgy in the days of Archdeacon Blackburn and his co-reformers. The now divided state of the Church seems, indeed, to defy all such hope. For the maintenance of the Prayer-book as it is, the discordant parties in the Church can all unite against those common foes, Liberalism and Voluntaryism. The latitudinarian views of doctrine and discipline which were prevalent fifty years ago among prominent Church dignitaries and statesmen, so far as they prevail now, have learnt to keep a decent silence in the presence of Evangelical zeal and Puseyite pretension. This hollow truce is the worst sign of the times. The soul of religion is dying out among the mass of educated Churchmen, who are too philosophical to believe Evangelical doctrines respecting man, or the Puseyite assumption of priestly power and ritual efficacy;-yet they go to church. Why is this? How can it be defended?

Habit has much to do with it. A dislike to the tone of the chief Dissenting sects may be another cause. Policy, fashion, and such worldly motives, have, confessedly, very much to do with the explanation. And it is also certain, that thinking laymen, who would refuse to sign the Church Articles, do not regard those Articles, or the formularies corresponding, as excluding them from the worship of the Church. They shut their Prayer-book when the Athanasian Creed is read, and perhaps stop their ears to a few unscriptural doxologies and other expressions, and are satisfied thus to take what suits them and leave the rest. We do not think this a sound principle of action, where modes of worship more congenial to their opinions are accessible to them; but there is plainly a wide difference between this lay conformity as a worshiper, and the conformity of a clergyman who personally signs the Creeds and Articles, and declares that he "submits to them in the plain and full meaning thereof," while doubting or altogether denying some of them, and "drawing others aside" and very freely "putting his own sense and comments to be their meaning."

How the Church of England is to be reformed, as reformed it ought to be in accordance with the wants of the age we live in, it is not for us to say. But we hold it to be a perfectly clear point of common morality, that a man who does not believe what the Church expressly makes the test of fitness for her ministry, cannot, as an honest man, sign the Articles; and an equally clear point, that a man who, after signing them and entering her priesthood, permits his mind to outgrow them, is bound, as an honest man, to leave the office for which he has thus ceased to be qualified. That the test of qualification is a wrong one, is no part of the question for his decision. There it is; and if he cannot fulfil the conditions, however irrational, however antiquated, however degrading they may be, he has no right to participate the wealth and worldly honours. It may be hard upon good men and spiritual men and intellectual men, who are fitted by every personal qualification for the real

work of the Christian ministry, and who approve the principle of a truly comprehensive, truly national Church, to be thus arbitrarily shut out from the ministry of the Church of England ;-but their duty is plain enough.

And as to their power to reform the Church ;-while they can never do this by going into its priesthood, they perhaps might by staying out, or by coming out.

The likeliest thing to produce a reform in the Church would be, the practical proof of its unaccordance with the wants of the age which would be given by the secession of a large number of its "best and purest" clergy, followed, as they would be sure to be, by the majority of their flocks. If, for instance, the recent decision of the Court of Arches on the subject of Baptismal Regeneration should be confirmed by the highest Court of Appeal, we cannot doubt for one moment that the bulk of the "Evangelical" clergy would shew at once the sincerity of their belief and the purity of their consciences by relinquishing their preferments. And who can doubt that, if such a result should take place, it would have the effect of forcing upon the powers that be, in Church and State, the necessity of finding some means, whether by Convocation or by simple Act of Parliament, of reforming or relaxing this point of doctrinal offence, if not others at the same time? Perhaps the impending difficulty may be gently evaded. No doubt, statesmen, as well as Church dignitaries, are puzzled to know how to begin with Church Reform, and not unnaturally (though with doubtful wisdom) are disposed to adjourn difficulties and patch up disagreements. Possibly the Privy Council may find some means of negativing, without actually reversing, the theological decree of Sir Herbert Jenner Fust. To reverse it, and thereby condemn the doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration, might not indeed have the effect of driving out of the Church those who, holding the Church creed on this subject (as we think) in its obvious and natural sense, are accustomed to interpret such other articles as do not suit them in a "non-natural” sense; but we believe the opposite section of Churchmen are so sincere in their rejection of the doctrine, and are so characterized by general sincerity of religious profession, that they would leave the Church almost in a mass if this doctrine should be authoritatively pronounced to be (what they deny it to be) an essential doctrine of the Church of England. But on Mr. Foxton's plan, they might, in such a case, quietly continue in their cures, reading, omitting or modifying the Articles and the Offices where this doctrine is concerned, and wait for ecclesiastical proceedings to turn them out. Nor would they, in the diocese of Exeter, and perhaps in some others, have to wait long.

Mr. Foxton is egregiously mistaken in fancying that such freethinking latitude as he advocates would be safe from the severity of Episcopal authority. As little would it be tolerated by the "popular Christianity" of sincere Churchmen among the laity. An Evangelical laity would never allow their rector or curate to tone down the creeds and doctrinal parts of the service into mere "natural religion," without complaint to the Bishop ;-nor would the Puseyite class allow him to disuse the "insignificant rites and obsolete forms" which he has outgrown, but they have not. By one party or the other, perhaps by both, he will presently be brought to book. Simple laymen under

stand the nature of a contract signed and sworn, and will not exempt their spiritual guide from the obligation to fulfil it.

The false morality evinced in Mr. Foxton's book almost robs it, in our view, of all intellectual interest. We first read its speculative chapters under the idea that we were tracing another of those cruel martyrdoms with which Church history abounds, of the generous intellect to a blind faith, about to result, as many such have done, in a revolt of the understanding and a truer and nobler sacrifice of worldly interest to conscience. But when the conclusion of the whole matter is, to reconcile the most ultra free-thinking with conformity to a Church founded on rigid creeds and articles, we no longer care to examine the speculative positions taken by a mind destitute of moral earnestness. What seemed, as we first read them, mistakes to be pardoned, now look in retrospect like flippancies to be condemned. What we at first took to be signs of too violent reaction against discarded orthodoxy, may betray, we now fear, the "evil heart" of unbelief. And instead, therefore, of calmly following this writer through his advocacy, not always very clear, yet sufficiently unmistakeable, of that newest form of selfstyled Christianity which might, if it chose, equally well call itself Mosaism, Platonism, Epicurism, Stoicism or Mohammedism, or even take its name from Homer, Dante or Shakspeare (see p. 159),—which denies the possibility of inspiration, miracle or prophecy, except as every thing in nature is inspired, miraculous and prophetical,-which explains the "Divinity of Christ" as "the worship of moral beauty, of which he furnished the highest ideal,”—and which deliberately treats the subject of doctrines and articles on the basis of regarding "every doctrine of the Church as presenting a twofold aspect-its natural and non-natural,-its rational and ecclesiastical interpretation ;"-instead of following Mr. Foxton in what we personally regard as his erratic course, intellectually speaking, we are constrained to ask whether the errors, as we deem them, are intellectual simply, or whether they are not moral? And, quite against our entire disposition (if we know ourselves at all), which recognizes no bounds to intellectual freedom, and never sees guilt in honest opinions, we are impelled to ask, on reading Mr. Foxton, how far that style of theological doctrine which makes Christianity antisupernatural, is allied to the moral obliquity which vindicates conformity to a Church whose doctrines are disputed, and ceremonies declared idle and obsolete? Not willingly, but through constraint, we ask, on reading Mr. Foxton, who finds in Christianity only natural religion, yet vindicates adhesion to the Church of England, while disowning her creeds, articles and rituals,—we ask whether this laxity of moral principle is, or is not, akin to that laxity of scriptural interpretation by which Hegel reconciles his philosophical Pantheism with the orthodoxy of the Lutheran Church? We ask, with reluctance and sadness, but in the love of truth and religion, whether the metaphysical ingenuity which reconciles German Rationalism with German orthodox Christianity, is, or is not, akin to the special-pleading by which our author persuades himself that the purest and most spiritual clergymen of the Church of England are those who disbelieve all her creeds and articles, yet continue in her communion ?

We like things to be called by their right names. We have no moral aversion to the conscientious and virtuous disbeliever in Christianity.

We differ from him, indeed, in opinion, and we think he loses a great source of religious motive and blessing. We believe some part of the blessedness of the Gospel may reach him, even though he ungraciously denies the source from which so many of his best thoughts and feelings arise. But we cannot bring ourselves to look with complacency upon a system which forcibly repudiates the idea of a miraculous revelation as a thing à priori impossible, yet professes to honour Christianity and its Founder, and endeavours to explain not only the divine pretensions of the Gospel, but also the self-contradictory doctrines of orthodoxy, as eternal truths of nature and of philosophy, by the ingenious process of evaporating all their accustomed meaning, and retaining the empty name! On this principle, the Divinity of Christ is maintained in words, while every idea that has been hitherto denoted by the advocates of the doctrine is repudiated. On this principle, Christianity is professed, while every distinctive feature of authorized divine teaching and outward miracle that belonged to it in the view of Christ and his apostles, according to his memoirs and their writings, is abolished. On this same principle the German Pantheist demonstrates the truth of the Lutheran doctrines. And on this principle the English Churchman is exhorted to "popularize" Christianity into Natural Religion, to disuse the distinctive creeds and ceremonies of the Church, to teach his people the impossibility of the miracles alleged to have attested the Gospel,but to call himself a Christian still, and hold his living under the assumed connivance of a Bishop as pure-minded and spiritual as himself! We are sure the latter applications of Rationalistic theology are not dictated by a correct moral sense; and we are thus led to ask, somewhat doubtingly, whether the former are characterized by the simplicity of truth and sincerity? We are sure that no disinterested man would approve of Mr. Foxton's continuing in the Church, if he has the opportunity; and we doubt whether any Straussian or Hegelian really thinks that Christianity as taught by Christ was identical with what he now calls Christianity,-whether he really thinks that Jesus professed no miraculous powers, and assumed no right to teach more than natural human knowledge. Or, to put the matter differently, we must think that the habit of using the term Christianity to denote what might, by its own showing, equally well be called Judaism, Platonism, or Mohammedism, or Shakspearism, the practice of professing a belief in the Divinity of Christ, while meaning no more by it than that moral beauty is to be worshiped, or that "Christianity reminds man of the divinity which dwells within him," and of professing various other scriptural or orthodox notions in a sense utterly foreign to their meaning, as used either by orthodox or by scriptural writers, is a habit of mind decidedly remote from moral truthfulness, and very much akin to lax conformity. He who insists on being a Christian, in spite of Christ's own idea of Christianity, may well be a Church-of-England priest, in spite of the Church's declarations of faith.

Having these grave feelings of disapproval towards Mr. Foxton's book, we shall indicate its contents very briefly, and without discussing his arguments. He is very off-handed and superficial, and commits the perpetual injustice of all writers against a supernatural revelation, that of confounding Orthodoxy with Christianity, and holding the latter responsible for the silly and extravagant claims put forth on its behalf

VOL. V.

4 F

66

by the former. This is quite inexcusable in Mr. Foxton, because he is evidently well aware of the existence of that class of Christians called Unitarians, whose " withers are unwrung," whatever " galled jade may wince" at his arguments. He several times alludes to them (pp. 13, 48, 169, 200); yet he practically ignores their existence, in his attempt to trace the transition state and probable development of popular Christianity." He does not spend one word of argument to shew why the approaching development may not be in the direction of their views, which are exempt from the chief, if not all the difficulties shewn by him to lie against the views of Churches at present more popular, while maintaining the miraculous origin of Christianity as an intelligible theory at any rate;-which miraculous origin, we are confident, there is no tendency in the popular mind to dispute, when Scriptural Christianity is presented apart from heathen and patristical accretions. Mr. Foxton has saved himself trouble by thus omitting to recognize Unitarianism as a possible stand-point for popular Christianity; but he has done great injustice thereby to the subject which he professes

to treat.

After a good Preface, in which the author maintains that " a Christianity truly Catholic must offend neither the reason nor the conscience," shews how little religion is really loved and reverenced, seen as it is" through the distorted medium of articled churches," where it is "confessed without compunction, by men actively engaged in the traffic of the world, that they are not religious men ;"—in which he protests against finality, as the attribute of the Reformation, and declares the impossiblity of "establishing Christianity on the basis of a dogmatic theology,"-the book is divided into six chapters, as follows:

Chap. I. is on the "Condition of the Churches," of the Church of England more particularly, whose amphibious position, asserting spiritual authority, yet resting also on the appeal to private judgment, and at present torn by contending parties, is powerfully put,-whose "whole head is sick, and her whole heart faint," and to whose system the writer anticipates a vital and organic change as imminent and certain. How the change is to come, he nowhere tells us, but it is to consist, according to him, in "modifying so much of the doctrinal teaching and external government of all Christian Churches as is involved in the assertion of the following dogmas of the popular theology, viz.

"1. Of the vague and indefinite doctrine of the Inspiration of the Scriptures. "2. Of the doctrine of Miracles and Prophecy.

"3. Of the really Pagan doctrine of the Divinity of Christ as now taught. "4. Of the futile and fallacious idea of teaching Christianity by dogmatical creeds and articles."

These accordingly constitute the subjects of the next four chapters. It is curious to see how a Churchman puts aside the Trinity altogether, as a needless topic on which to insist upon reform, it being already done with in popular Christianity!

"I have purposely abstained from any notice of the doctrine of the Trinity, because, in the present temper of the world, I believe it would be impossible to excite the feeblest interest in such a discussion, beyond the cloisters of our Universities, and because I am unwilling to rekindle the ashes of an expiring superstition. The Creed of Athanasius is gradually disappearing, even from its last hold in the formularies of the Church; and we may venture to predict

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