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THE

ECCLESIASTIC.

THOUGHTS ON THE STUDY OF THEOLOGY.

1. Justification.-Eight Sermons preached before the University of Oxford, in the year 1845, at the Lecture founded by the late Canon Bampton. By C. A. HEURTLEY, B.D., Rector of Fenny Compton, and late Fellow of C.C.C. Oxford Parker.

2. Expository Discourses on the Rod of Moses, with other Sermons. By the Rev. BERKELEY ADDISON, M.A. of S. Peter's College, Cambridge; Assistant Minister of S. John's Episcopal Chapel, Edinburgh. Edinburgh: Grant.

3. Sermons for Sundays, Festivals, and Fasts, contributed by Bishops and other Clergy of the Church. Edited by the Rev. ALEXANDER WATSON, M.A. London: Masters. 4. Sermons. By Archdeacon MANNING. Vol. II. London: Burns.

In the following Article we propose to note a few of the principal characteristics of the Theology of our day, as evidenced in published Sermons. The works selected for the subject of our Review, it will be seen at a glance, belong to what is usually acknowledged to be an orthodox School of the English Church, and may be said fairly to represent the sentiments of one portion of the High Church party.

To say that the average amount of learning among the Clergy is higher than it was fifteen years since, and that more pains are bestowed on the composition of Sermons, as on all other branches of the pastoral office, would be only to repeat a saying that is in every body's mouth. We shall now endeavour to estimate the exVOL. II.-JULY, 1846.

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tent to which this improvement has been carried; and if the conclusion at which we arrive is not so flattering as what some persons might anticipate, it is to none a matter of regret more than to ourselves.

In a former article we ventured to suggest that too much pains could scarcely be bestowed on the addresses of a clergyman to his people. Some persons, we are aware, consider that very little good is effected by Sermons. But be this as it may-all will admit that great harm at least is done by a lax and random way of speaking from the pulpit; and although it is undoubtedly true that the Parish Priest must rely ultimately on more private and immediate intercourse with the minds of his flock, it is, as matter of fact, chiefly through the Pulpit, that he disposes them to seek and value that intercourse. It has been too much the custom, if not to undervalue preaching, at least to despair of making it an effective engine for influencing men's minds without condescending to the use of unworthy arts; and so right-minded men have shrunk from encountering the multitudinous and undisciplined minds of our large towns. But surely this is an unworthy distrust of our own principles and an unjustifiable dereliction of duty. As Sir Robert Peel said of the Registration Courts after the passing of the Reform Bill, so we say of the large towns of England,-The battle of principle is to be fought in them. No man should decline a post merely because it is arduous. Carry the towns with you and the villages will follow as matter of course. Nor are we certain that the work is more difficult: if you have more independence in the former, there is at least more intelligence to appreciate salutary changes and less prejudice to oppose. At all events the work of GoD and His Church must be done; and woe betide the Clergy of this day if they do not prove equal to the emergency in which they are placed; or shrink from doing battle with Satan even in his strongest holds. The love of souls ought to constrain those who have in charge the Apostolic commission; and to be superior to every other motive. A missionary spirit is needed among the whole body of the Clergy; and if the groundwork of a well-defined dogmatic theology were laid in them, there would be no fear of such a spirit leading men to extravagant results. Why should not a body of earnest minded young men in our Universities engage themselves specially to ministering in the populous towns of England say for a period of ten years? An unmarried Priest, with two young men of this kind, together with a Schoolmaster and a few boys to form a Quire, might live in common at very little cost and would form a body that might by God's grace effect a real moral change in a town.

But at present we are only concerned with that which must lie at the root of any such plan of operations-sound dogmatic Theology. Has the English Church any such a system, or any School

for training her future Clergy in such a course? To this question we shall presently address ourselves.

But first we would prepare the way by a few preliminary observations. To be a theologian implies the possession both of certain knowledge and of a certain disposition of mind-both equally the result of careful training. It is in the latter of these two qualifications that the English Clergy most especially fail. Those who are orthodox seem to be so by chance, rather than from any assignable cause they are unaccustomed to take in any connected view of theology as a whole; and scarcely ever hold principles with the confidence and decision of a man who knows precisely how far they will and ought to lead him. But this faculty is indispensable to the theologian. Theology is a science, and like every other science, possesses certain acknowledged principles and rules to which every thing within its subject-matter ought to be submitted. And by the Theologian they should be considered as final and conclusive as are the postulates of Geometry by the Mathematician. It would be difficult to over-estimate the results of the absence of this feeling of repose upon the writings of our English Theologians. It deprives them of that calm and dignity which they ought to possess. They scarcely ever state truth dogmatically without an implied allusion to an opponent; and not resting on any basis of recognized security, they cannot deliver themselves with that majesty and self-forgetfulness, which we desire to find in one who is enunciating eternal verities. The science of Divine things, could we surrender ourselves unreservedly to it, is of a kind to possess the whole man the mind becomes emptied altogether of self; adores the truths which it is commissioned to enunciate; and bears the manifest impress of that Divine Love into which it is absorbed. Now it must be admitted that this temper of mind does not characterize the Divines of the English Church. And the cause is easily assignable. Our Clergy are not trained in any settled convictions of dogmatic truth: consequently they cannot throw themselves fearlessly into the admiration and love of those great verities which they are called to set forth. They are controversial rather than catholic.

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All that is meant by the catholic temper of mind perhaps, it may be difficult to indicate: but these two features will be recognized by all-confidence and self-possession in the statement of divine truths and a far extended charity. Further, there is presupposed a high degree of purity of heart, induced by all the recognized means of holy living. When S. Paul speaks of "holding the mysteries of the faith in a pure conscience," he uses a most significant figure-implying that these mysteries are to be received, not found out; and that the only vessel which is fit to receive them is a conscience unstained by familiarity with sin. But this it will be sufficient to have hinted at.

We will now proceed to notice a few of the faults which in our judgment deform very grievously the character of English Theology. 1. The first which we shall mention is its controversial tendency. That the English Book of Common Prayer is free from this blot, so destructive of devotion and charity, specially when we remember the clause that once found a place in our Litany, may be considered nothing less than a miracle of mercy. The only respect in which it can be charged with bearing the impress of the failings of the day in which it was compiled, is in an approximation towards Erastianism. It is at least a fair taunt in the mouth of a Roman Catholic, that human nature has avenged itself for the exclusion of the honour due to the Saints by the quasi-idolization of the Sovereign. But we believe that it is impossible to point to a single one of her Divines, who in this respect is equally free from blame. It is a fact which cannot be denied that Pearson's Treatise on the Creed is the only work of dogmatic, as opposed to Controversial Theology, that the English Church possesses. There is not, we believe, any other single methodical scientific treatise, which was not called forth by controversy.* Witness Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, and all the works published in the Anglo Catholic Library. They were all written to serve a temporary occasion; and consequently are all, more or less, unfitted for permanent use in the Church. And this most offensive spirit has crept even into our books of devotions. Scarcely one is free from "flings" both at Papists and Dissenters. The humble and devout soul can scarcely meditate on his SAVIOUR'S Passion as set forth in the Holy Eucharist without having his devotional feelings outraged by a protest against Transubstantiation, or the heresy of Geneva. (See Sutton and Nelson.)

But we must take leave to say, the most offensive form in which this characteristic meets us, is when writers or preachers employ the abuse of their neighbours as a kind of cover for themselves in stating what they feel to be unpalatable truths. If this is not an unworthy artifice, it is a very short-sighted policy, inasmuch as it goes to foster those very prejudices which the writer imagines renders the protest necessary. The popular mind is not very discriminating; and when it hears the doctrine of Confession, or the Real Presence, or the use of Ceremonies, as taught or preached by the Roman Church, decried as superstitious, or heretical, it is in danger, in spite of all our salvoes, of learning to repudiate the same doctrines or practices in the modified form in which our own Church enjoins or uses them. A single example of this very common habit shall be given in an extract from a Sermon by Dr. Coleridge, in Mr. Watson's Series of "Sermons for Sundays," &c.

The writer is recommending the practice of fasting. But he is not content with doing this, without uttering what is really nothing less than a libel upon a large branch of the Catholic Church. * Bingham's Christian Antiquities perhaps comes nearest to an exception,

"Do not understand me," he says, "as falling into the Romanist error of prescribing fasts for their own sakes, as meritorious in themselves, and deserving Gon's favour, and procuring salvation: I only say there is a lowly, humble, contrite frame of heart needful for us before we can be saved—a habit of self-denial prescribed by CHRIST HIMSELF to the begetting and encouraging of which in ourselves, the occasional practice of restraining our bodily appetites is very helpful.-Series II., Vol. I. p. 323.

And again :

"It is not because the Roman branch of the Catholic Church has abused the pious ordinance, that the Anglican Church should neglect it altogether. And it was so marked, we may reverently presume, not only in imitation of our LORD's Fast in the wilderness, but because it was most fit that before we commemorated the great event by which Salvation was purchased for a guilty world,—the Atonement by the Death and Resurrection of the LORD JESUS CHRIST,-some time should be set apart for self-examination, contrition for our many sins, prayer, communion with GoD in our hearts, self-correction and repentance, that so we may approach those Holy Mysteries with some adequate sense of our need of a SAVIOUR, and of love and gratitude to CHRIST for having offered HIMSELF as such for us."-Ibid. p. 325.

It is scarcely possible to read this passage without applying the words of the MOST HIGH, by His Prophet, "Behold ye fast for strife and debate,. ye shall not fast as ye do this day to make your voice to be heard on High." A habit, at all times in our judgment objectionable, becomes even more visibly so, when the subject-matter on which it is exercised; invites to humiliation and self-denial. Let this be our apology for choosing an example for censure, from a volume which we have in the main already strongly recommended.

II. A second very general defect in Theological writers of the present day among ourselves, is their utter unacquaintance with dogmatic statement. In illustration of this point, we will take our examples from a single work-that, viz., which is placed first before this Article. As Bampton Lecturer for the year 1845, Mr. Heurtley undertook formally and scientifically to draw out the doctrine of Justification. Here, if anywhere, then, we might expect the utmost clearness of view, and precision of statement. The subject and the audience alike demanded it. No one, it might be presumed, would select such a subject, without having thoroughly mastered both fathers and schoolmen, as well as Bishop Bull and Mr. Newman. And no one who has known the power of a strict technical phraseology, could ever come back to the lax statement of recent days. Yet, strange to say, Mr. Heurtley's appears to be a mind pre-eminently unfitted for entering upon theology. He is one of those amiable persons that never makes a positive statement without fearing that may condemn some one; as soon therefore as he has accomplished

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