ciple as heretical, both in his writings against their opinions, and elsewhere, reverses the position. Differat intellectum et incipiat a fide. Credidimus et cognovimus, he observes, in the natural order, not cognovimus et credidimus. It has been reserved for modern days to draw into the light and to exalt for worship that false opinion which in earlier ages skulked into obscurity, and only came to its followers as it were by night, that radical principle of all heresy, which teaches that we are to accept, as parts of revelation, or to reject, as spurious, any doctrine claiming to be of Christian faith, according to our own judgment of its reasonableness. It is truly the one, essential, universal, determining characteristic of heresy, that it subordinates the faith to human nature, instead of yielding up human nature to the faith. We are haunted and infected by this pernicious error in a thousand forms, some of them more virulent and some more mild. But for its counteraction we must establish the opposite principles, that the authority of revelation is independent of our assent; that the heart must be rectified in order that it may not mislead the understanding; that we must not only hold truth, but hold it as truth, value it, that is primarily, for what it is in itself, and not for what it is to us; or we shall assuredly let it slip. And if I have here dwelt but little on the value and need of the exercise of the understanding in religion, and have been content with merely admitting that it has a full recognition in Scripture, it is not from any

* Exp. in Ev. Joan. Tr. xiv.

+ Ibid. Tr. xxvii.

G

disposition to estimate it lightly, but from the belief that to the theory at least of this portion of duty the mind of the Church is in the present day sufficiently alive; it is, therefore, as it seems to me, by showing what the understanding cannot do, what is the proper work of the affections, that we shall best restore a due sense of the harmony of revelation upon this subject; and it is matter of no small difficulty to recover the full sense of that harmony when it has been suffered to decay.

55. In such difficulty, there are the signs of a righteous retribution: from the ease of habitual possession and open undisputed access, there is ever apt to grow a carelessness of mind respecting truth; and so the grasp of it is gradually loosened, and its singleness and unity disregarded, until at length, as our slumber deepens, some portion of it is perhaps even wholly resigned. And then comes the necessity of effort to recover the lost idea, and with that effort many accompanying dangers. Not the danger alone of failure, by faintness in toil or difficulty of the task, but the danger, too, of distorting the proportions and mutilating the parts of that truth in the attempt to replace it, a process in itself unnatural, though aiming at and tending towards that which is natural: next, the danger of alarming others by the aspect of innovation which our ignorance ascribes to resuscitated antiquity and last, yet not least, the danger of presuming that we are creators or discoverers, when we are at the very best but employed in clearing away the

mould and dirt which has gathered through tract of time about the letters that are graven with a pen of iron in the rock for ever.

56. As the chapter which is now at length drawing to a close is intended to serve as a key to the general tone of argument in which in subsequent parts of this volume the subjects of the visible Church, of the Apostolical Succession, and of the Sacraments, are discussed, it may perhaps be well to present a brief summary of its principles and conclusions, which are mainly these. That rationalism is generally taken to be a reference of Christian doctrine to the human understanding as its measure and criterion. That, in truth, it means a reference of the Gospel to the depraved standard of the actual human nature, and by no means to its understanding, properly so called, which is an instrumental faculty, and reasons and concludes upon the Gospel according to the mode in which our affections are disposed towards it. That the understanding is incompetent to determine the state of the affections, but is, on the contrary, governed by them in respect to the elementary ideas of religion. That, therefore, to rely upon the understanding, misinformed as it is by depraved affections, as our adequate instructor in matter of religion, is most highly irrational. That, without any prejudice to these conclusions, the understanding has a great function in religion, and is a medium of access to the affections, and may even correct their particular impulses.

57. That consequently upon the foregoing principles, the natural entry of grace into the soul of man is through the affections, and anterior to the action of the understanding upon the subject. As, therefore, it is rationalistic to say, Christian doctrine must be true or false, according as it is agreeable or repugnant to our natural perceptions, so also is it rationalistic to trust exclusively to teaching as an instrument of salvation or to maintain that intellectual apprehension is a necessary or invariable precondition of spiritual agency upon the soul. That as the need and the applicability of Divine influences are so large in extent and embrace so many more persons than possess an active understanding, the rationalism which makes these influences dependent on doctrine only as the medium of their conveyance to men, is exceedingly dangerous to Christianity. That by all these considerations we are prepared to anticipate, in a religion having the wide scope of the Gospel, some distinct provision for the conveyance of grace otherwise than through the understanding or in connexion with its agency; and some rites or institutions which should both convey grace in this separate and transcendant manner, and likewise mark, to the view of men, in the most forcible manner, the distinctness of these channels; and the complex and mystical constitution of all religious ordinances whatever, as consisting of an outward representation or instrumentality, and an inward living power.

CHAPTER III.

THE CHURCH.

Quod autem socialem volunt esse vitam sapientis, nos multo amplius approbamus. -S. Aug. de Civ. Dei, xix. 5.

Es ist dem religiösen leben wesentlich, ein leben in der gemeinschaft zu seyn. -Rothe, Anfänge der Christlichen Kirche, i. 1.

1-15. Ethical and analogical presumptions. 16-19. Some popular notions. 20. Not recognised by the Church of England. 21-9. Outline of Scripture doctrine. 30-40. Objections to the interpretation. 41-5. Actual deviation, and its causes. 46-71. Advantages of return. 72, 73. Argument applicable in degree to particular Churches. 74-82. Objections considered. 83. Conclusion.

1. THE Redeemer of the world bequeathed to men the new principle of life which He had realized in His own humanity, and a body of laws by which that principle of life should be guided. It was an inward life, having its first and main aspect towards God.

2. Yet, however, in its origin strictly spiritual,* it was applicable not to the spirit alone, but to all the parts of the mixed human nature: inasmuch as He came to redeem the whole man in the full extent of his need; and the body had been a sufferer by sin as well as the soul, and, like the soul, needed redemption. Therefore, because this principle of life is intended to effect the entire renovation of man, it must be represented to his bodily as well as to his mental organs:

* Rothe, Anfänge der Christlichen Kirche, i. 1.