of toleration, which, even in our own country, and in our own time, is not yet consummated. It is necessary that men should learn to doubt, before they begin to tolerate; and that they should recognize the fallibility of their own opinions, before they respect the opinions of their opponents.35 This great process is far from being yet completed in any country; and the European mind, barely emerged from its early credulity, and from an overweening confidence in its own belief, is still in a middle, and, so to say, a probationary stage. When that stage shall be finally passed, when we shall have learned to estimate men solely by their character and their acts, and not at all by their theological dogmas, we shall then be able to form our religious opinions by that purely transcendental process, of which in every age glimpses have been granted to a few gifted minds. That this is the direction in which things are now hastening, must be clear to every one who has studied the progress of modern civilization. Within the short space of three centuries, the old theological spirit has been compelled, not only to descend from its long-established supremacy, but to abandon those strongholds to which, in the face of advancing knowledge, it has vainly attempted to secure a retreat. All its most cherished pretensions it has been forced gradually to relinquish.36 And although in England a temporary prominence has recently been given to certain religious controversies, still the circumstances attending them show the alteration in

35 In Whately's Dangers to Christian Faith, pp. 188-198, there is a perspicuous statement of the arguments now commonly received against coercing men for their religious opinions. But the most powerful of these arguments are based entirely upon expediency, which would have insured their rejection in an age of strong religious convictions. Some, and only some, of the theological difficulties respecting toleration, are noticed in Coleridge's Lit. Remains, vol. i. pp. 312-315; and in another work (The Friend, vol. i. p. 73), he mentions, what is the real fact, "that same indifference which makes toleration so easy a virtue with us.' See also Archdeacon Hare's Guesses at Truth, 2d series, 1848, p. 278; and Nichols's Illustrations of Lit. Hist. vol. v. p. 817: "a spirit of mutual toleration and forbearance has appeared (at least one good consequence of religious indifference)."

36 It would be idle to offer proofs of so notorious a fact; but the reader will be interested by some striking remarks in Capefigue, Hist. de la Réforme, vol. i. pp. 228, 229.

the character of the age. Disputes which, a century ago, would have set the whole kingdom in a flame, are now regarded with indifference by the vast majority of educated men. The complications of modern society, and the immense variety of interests into which it is divided, have done much to distract the intellect, and to prevent it from dwelling upon subjects which a less-occupied people would deem of paramount importance. Besides this, the accumulations of science are far superior to those of any former age, and offer suggestions of such surpassing interest, that nearly all our greatest thinkers devote to them the whole of their time, and refuse to busy themselves with matters of mere speculative belief. The consequence is, that what used to be considered the most important of all questions, is now abandoned to inferior men, who mimic the zeal, without possessing the influence of those really great divines whose works are among the glories of our early literature. These turbulent polemics have, indeed, distracted the church by their clamour, but they have not made the slightest impression upon the great body of English intellect; and an overwhelming majority of the nation is notoriously opposed to that monastic and ascetic religion which it is now vainly attempted to reconstruct. The truth is, that the time for these things has gone by. Theological interests have long ceased to be supreme; and the affairs of nations are no longer regulated according to ecclesiastical views.37 In England,

27 A writer intimately acquainted with the social condition of the great European countries, says: "Ecclesiastical power is almost extinct as an active element in the political or social affairs of nations or of individuals, in the cabinet or in the family circle; and a new element, literary power, is taking its place in the government of the world." Laing's Denmark, 1852, p. 82. On this natural tendency in regard to legislation, see Meyer, Esprit des Institut. Judiciaires, vol. i. p. 267 note; and a good summary in Stäudlin, Gesch. der theolog. Wissenschaften, vol. ii. pp. 304, 305. It is not surprising to find that many of the clergy complain of a movement so subversive of their own power. Compare Ward's Ideal of a Christian Church, pp. 40, 108-111, 388; Sewell's Christian Politics, pp. 276, 277, 279; Palmer's Treatise on the Church, vol. ii. p. 361. It is thus that every thing is tending to confirm the remarkable prediction of Sir James Mackintosh, that "churchpower (unless some revolution, auspicious to priestcraft, should replunge Europe in ignorance) will certainly not survive the nineteenth century." Mem. of Mackintosh, vol. i. p. 67.

where the march has been more rapid than elsewhere, this change is very observable. In every other department we have had a series of great and powerful thinkers, who have done honour to their country, and have won the admiration of mankind. But for more than a century, we have not produced a single original work in the whole field of controversial theology. For more than a century, the apathy on this subject has been so marked, that there has been made no addition of value to that immense mass of divinity, which, among thinking men, is in every successive generation losing something of its former interest.38

38 "The divines' in England at the present day, her bishops, professors, and prebendaries, are not theologians. They are logicians, chemists, skilled in the mathematics, historians, poor commentators upon Greek poets." Theodore Parker's Critical and Miscellaneous Writings, 1848, p. 302. At p. 33, the same high authority says: "But, within the present century, what has been written in the English tongue, in any department of theological scholarship, which is of value and makes a mark on the age? The Bridgewater Treatises, and the new edition of Paley,-we blush to confess it, -are the best things." Sir William Hamilton (Discussions on Philosophy, 1852, p. 699) notices the decline of "British theology," though he appears ignorant of the cause of it. The Rev. Mr. Ward (Ideal of a Christian Church, p. 405) remarks, that "we cannot wonder, however keenly we may mourn, at the decline and fall of dogmatic theology." See also Lord Jeffrey's Essays, vol. iv. p. 337: "Warburton, we think, was the last of our great divines. The days of the Cudworths and Barrows, the Hookers and Taylors, are long gone by." Dr. Parr was the only English theologian since Warburton who possessed sufficient learning to retrieve this position; but he always refused to do so, being, unconsciously to himself, held back by the spirit of his age. Thus, we find him writing to Archbishop Magee, in 1823: “As to myself, I long ago determined not to take any active part in polemical theology." Parr's Works, vol. vii. p. 11.

In the same way, since the early part of the eighteenth century, hardly any one has carefully read the Fathers, except for mere historical and secular purposes. The first step was taken about the middle of the seventeenth century, when the custom of quoting them in sermons began to be abandoned. Burnet's Own Time, vol. i. pp. 329, 330; Orme's Life of Owen, p. 184. After this they rapidly fell into contempt; and the Rev. Mr. Dowling (Study of Ecclesiast. History, p. 195) asserts, that "Waterland, who died in 1740, was the last of our great patristical scholars." To this I may add, that nine years subsequent to the death of Waterland, the obvious decay of professional learning struck Warburton, afterwards Bishop of Gloucester, so much, that he wrote to Jortin, somewhat roughly, "any thing makes a divine among our parsons." See his Letter, written in 1749, in Nichols's Illustrations of Lit. Hist. vol. ii. p. 173; and for other evidence of the neglect by the clergy of their ancient studies, see Jones's Memoirs of Horne, Bishop of Norwich, pp. 68, 184; and the complaint of Dr. Knowler, in 1766, in Nichols's Lit. Anec. vol. ii, p. 130. Since then, attempts have been made at Oxford to remedy this tendency; but such attempts, being opposed by the general march of affairs, have been, and must be, futile. Indeed, so manifest is the

39

These are only some of the innumerable signs, which must be discerned by every man who is not blinded by the prejudices of an imperfect education. An immense majority of the clergy, some from ambitious feelings, but the greater part, I believe, from conscientious motives,— are striving to check the progress of that scepticism which is now gathering in upon us from every quarter. It is time that these well-intentioned, though mistaken, men should see the delusion under which they labour. That by which they are so much alarmed, is the intermediate step which leads from superstition to toleration. The higher order of minds have passed through this stage, and are approaching what is probably the ultimate form of the religious history of the human race. But the people at large, and even some of those who are commonly called educated men, are only now entering that earlier epoch in which scepticism40 is the leading feature of the mind. So

inferiority of these recent efforts, that one of the most active cultivators in that field frankly admits, that, in point of knowledge, his own party has effected nothing; and he even asserts, with great bitterness, that "it is melancholy to say it, but the chief, perhaps the only, English writer who has any claim to be considered an ecclesiastical historian, is the infidel Gibbon." Newman on the Development of Christian Doctrine, p. 5.

39 As some writers, moved by their wishes rather than by their knowledge, seek to deny this, it may be well to observe, that the increase of scepticism since the latter part of the eighteenth century is attested by an immense mass of evidence, as will appear to whoever will compare the following authorities: Whately's Dangers to Christian Faith, p. 87; Kay's Social Condition of the People, vol. ii. p. 506; Tocqueville, de la Démocratie, vol. iii. p. 72; J. H. Newman on Development, pp. 28, 29; F. W. Newman's Natural History of the Soul, p. 197; Parr's Works, vol. ii. p. 5, vol. iii. pp. 688, 689; Felkin's Moral Statistics, in Journal of Statist. Soc. vol. i. P. 541; Watson's Observations on the Life of Wesley, pp. 155, 194; Matter, Hist. du Gnosticisme, vol. ii. p. 485; Ward's Ideal of a Christian Church, pp. 266, 267, 404; Turner's Hist. of England, vol. ii. pp. 129, 142, vol. iii. p. 509; Priestley's Memoirs, vol. i. pp. 127, 128, 446, vol. ii. p. 751; Cappe's Memoirs, p. 367; Nichols's Lit. Anec. of Eighteenth Century, vol. iv. p. 671, vol. viii. p. 473; Nichols's Illust. of Lit. Hist. vol. v. p. 640; Combe's Notes on the United States, vol. ii. pp. 171, 172, 183.

40 It has been suggested to me by an able friend, that there is a class of persons who will misunderstand this expression; and that there is another class who, without misunderstanding it, will intentionally misrepresent its meaning. Hence, it may be well to state distinctly what I wish to convey by the word "scepticism." By scepticism I merely mean hardness of belief; so that an increased scepticism is an increased perception of the difficulty of proving assertions; or, in other words, it is an increased application, and an increased diffusion, of the rules of reasoning, and of the laws of evi

far, therefore, from our apprehensions being excited by this rapidly-increasing spirit, we ought rather to do every thing in our power to encourage that which, though painful to some, is salutary to all; because by it alone can religious bigotry be effectually destroyed. Nor ought we to be surprised that, before this can be done, a certain degree of suffering must first intervene. If one age believes too much, it is but a natural reaction that another age should believe too little. Such are the imperfections of our nature, that we are compelled, by the very laws of its progress, to pass through those crises of scepticism and of mental distress, which to a vulgar eye are states of national decline and national shame; but which are only as the fire by which the gold must be purged before it can leave its dross in the pot of the refiner. To apply the imagery of the great allegorist, it is necessary that the

dence. This feeling of hesitation and of suspended judgment has, in every department of thought, been the invariable preliminary to all the intellectual revolutions through which the human mind has passed; and without it, there could be no progress, no change, no civilization. In physics, it is the necessary precursor of science; in politics, of liberty; in theology, of toleration. These are the three leading forms of scepticism; it is, therefore, clear, that in religion the sceptic steers a middle course between atheism and orthodoxy, rejecting both extremes, because he sees that both are incapable of proof.

41 What a learned historian has said of the effect which the method of Socrates produced on a very few Greek minds, is applicable to that state through which a great part of Europe is now passing: "The Socratic dialectics, clearing away from the mind its mist of fancied knowledge, and laying bare the real ignorance, produced an immediate effect, like the touch of the torpedo. The newly-created consciousness of ignorance was alike unexpected, painful, and humiliating,- -a season of doubt and discomfort, yet combined with an internal working and yearning after truth, never before experienced. Such intellectual quickening, which could never commence until the mind had been disabused of its original illusion of false knowledge, was considered by Socrates not merely as the index and precursor, but as the indispensable condition of future progress." Grote's Hist. of Greece, vol. viii. pp. 614, 615, 8vo, 1851. Compare Kritik der reinen Vernunft, in Kant's Werke, vol. ii. pp. 572, 577: "So ist der Skeptizismus ein Ruheplatz für die menschliche Vernunft, da sie sich über ihre dogmatische Wanderung besinnen und den Entwurf von der Gegend machen kann, wo sie sich befindet, um ihren Weg fernerhin mit mehrerer Sicherheit wählen zu können, aber nicht ein Wohnplatz zum beständigen Aufenthalte. So ist das skeptische Verfahren zwar an sich selbst für die Vernunftfragen nicht befriedigend, aber doch vorübend, um ihre Vorsichtigkeit zu erwecken und auf gründliche Mittel zu weisen, die sie in ihren rechtmässigen Besitzen sichern können."