The following is of the same class. The armed champion advances to

the contest,

"As when a lion, hunger-pinch'd, espies

Some mighty beast of chase, or antler'd stag,
Or mountain goat, and with exulting spring
Strikes down his prey, and on the carcase feeds,
Unscared by baying hounds and eager youths."

His affrighted adversary shrinks back

"In fear of death; as when some traveller spies,
Coil'd in his path upon the mountain side,
A deadly snake, back he recoils in haste,

His limbs all trembling, and his cheek all pale."

This wonderful poem, which informs us of the public and social life, of the customs of war and peace, of adventures by sea and labours on the safer land, peculiar to Eastern Europe and Western Asia three thousand years ago, does not leave us in ignorance of their religion. One fragment will be sufficient to acquaint us with the gods of Greece and Troy. Here they are all together :

"On golden pavement, round the board of Jove,

The gods were gather'd; Hebe in the midst
Pour'd the sweet nectar; they in golden cups

Each other pledged, as down they look'd on Troy.

Then Jove, with cutting words and taunting tone,
Began the wrath of Juno to provoke."

We need not trace further these revelations of the heathen conceptions of the Divine, which vest the powers of the supernatural in beings full of intrigue, impurity, and revenge. If we grant that these were poetical creations, or at most belonged only to the popular theology, yet they were the only personifications of the invisible they had. The character of the worshippers lies side by side in the same picture; and we cannot be surprised that they knew little of "righteousness and temperance," that they never forgave their enemies, nor hesitated at cold-blooded murder, that they lived in adultery, made rapine a profession, and that vanity and cunning became the virtues of old age. Yet there are here also traces of the "accusing" and "excusing" thoughts which never wholly left the heathen mind. If we find little genuine gratitude, no disinterested love, no melting compassion over sorrow and misfortune, we find alarm at the prospect of death, and dread of the tremendous powers which torture covenantbreakers, and the neglecters of vows. They shed torrents of sacrificial blood, and poured free libations to friendly and adverse deities. Surely the lines had "fallen in pleasant places" to him in another land, who, about the same period, adored Jehovah, who is from everlasting; whom he knew to be "glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders," yet plenteous in mercy, and ready to forgive. Not less alive to the glories of earth, and sea, and sky, nor less gifted in poetical expression, than the

bard of Greece, how ineffably superior is the sweet singer of Israel in his conceptions of Deity, of universal providence, of morality, and human happiness! The one wrote under the inspiration of genius, shadowed by the ignorance and errors of heathenism; the other wrote as he was "moved by the Holy Ghost." What else was there in the Semitic-Hebrew mind to raise David so far above the Japhetic Homer? If there be anything in the "genius of the race," why is it not still displayed? Is the Jew or the Arab of to-day as far ahead of his Gentile neighbours in Divine knowledge and goodness? There can be but one theory of solution. The souls of these people perished "for lack of knowledge." Their fathers were given up to vain imaginations and corrupt affections; for many generations their cities were "wholly given up to idolatry;" their philosophers, "professing to be wise, became fools ;" and we need no further witness of man's moral destitution and helplessness without the light of revelation, than this melancholy testimony of one of their "own poets," concerning that nation whose civilization is attested by the sweetest song, and the sublimest philosophy, of antiquity.

S.

THE DEFECTS OF BROAD CHURCH THEOLOGY.*

WE must say something of that indefiniteness which is perhaps the most commonly urged, and, we certainly think, one of the most important objections to the school. There is a marvellous vagueness in everything relating to it. Who these new theologians are, what they teach, what they would alter in the old, what they bring forward that is new, what they reject, what they believe,-all these are questions to which no two men could be found to return the same response. The whole movement appears to resemble reality as mist resembles rain. How, for example, shall we determine who these modern theologians specially are? Dr. Stanley, in his eloquent defence and panegyric of what, if we are to believe him, is distinctively and pre-eminently the theology of the nineteenth century, devotes about a page to what is intended for an answer to this question : but we cannot say that it affords us an available clue to the labyrinth. A great number of men are named, through whose diversities and contrasts there runs, we are informed, this thread of unity-that they are, more or less, partakers in the theological movement of the nineteenth century. There is a "savour" of the new theology in the works of Goethe and Walter Scott: nay, they are "full" of this theological seasoning. That is a most puzzling statement. We have read a good deal in the works of Scott and Goethe, and the result of our readings is that we should find it much more difficult to say wherein they agree than wherein they differ. It would never have occurred to us that they met on the platform of Broad Church theology; and we fancy that the intimation would have been some

See "Evangelical Christendom," for April and May.

what surprising to themselves. Goethe began as a poet of extraordinary fervour and brilliancy, and cooled down, as he passed middle life, into a philosophic and, by consequence, unreadable novelist. There is in "Faust" a strong "savour" of modern infidelity, and a recklessness in dealing with sacred things, which appears to us, and, we dare say, appears to Dean Stanley, to smack of blasphemy. In "Poetry and Truth from my Life,” Goethe favours us with the views which, in his early boyhood, he formed of the history and character of the patriarchs; and they are not unlike those of Bishop Colenso. On these grounds, and a few others which might be added, the Dean of Westminster may make out something like a claim to Goethe as a theologian of the nineteenth century; though it admits of doubt whether the prospect of agreeing on theological points with Goethe would be attractive to any considerable number of religionists in England. But what are we to make of Scott? Sir Walter dabbled neither in theology nor in philosophy. His poems were pictures, as all good poems are; his novels were the raciest stories told since Homer wrote the Odyssey; in neither can we detect the faintest aroma of Broad Church theology....... Having named Scott and Goethe, Dean Stanley proceeds to give us a list of names which it is a new problem to connect either with those which went before or with each other. Dr. Pusey, Dr. Arnold, Edward Irving, Tennyson, Coleridge, Keble, Milman, Robertson, Montalembert, Lacordaire, the writers of "Essays and Reviews," many of the writers against “ Essays and Reviews," the contributors to the Roman Catholic "Home and Foreign Review," "the most eminent divines of the Established Church" of Scotland, and sundry ministers, "not excluding Dr. Candlish himself," of the Free Church, have all been "incontestably influenced" by the new theology. To the best of our understanding, one of the "Essays and Reviews" teaches materialistic Atheism. Is this a part of the new theology? Arnold, so far as we comprehend his character or opinions, contrasted well nigh as strongly as it was possible for man to do with Dr. Pusey. It does not explain the enigma to say that all these men entertained views on the subject of scriptural inspiration differing widely from those of believers in the old theory of verbal inspiration. This is not the

case.

66

Edward Irving was from first to last a strenuous maintainer of the infallibility of the Bible. Apart, however, from all consideration of particulars, can we pretend to derive any real information as to who and what these new theologians are, from the announcement that Goethe and Keble, Scott and Lacordaire, are of their number? They seem to form a regiment in which each soldier wears his own uniform, and carries his own flag; and not even the vital question whether the ancient banner, In hoc signo, floats over all, admits of indisputable answer.

Another illustration of the indefiniteness characteristic of this new theology is presented by the style of many of its professors. Mr. Maurice and Mr. Jowett are both men of ability; but it would be difficult to name two men of equal powers, of any time whatever, whose language is so perplexingly and tantalizingly vague. No school, either theological or

philosophical, has wholly escaped the disease of affectation; but leave a new-light theologian alone for skill to

"utter with a solemn gesture

Oracular sentences of deep no-meaning."

The peculiar gift of these men is to lead us on and on, like children pursuing a rainbow; to keep us always in eager expectation; to impress us with the conviction that, when one other page is turned, the mysterious and invaluable secret will break upon us. The curtain, we always think, will be lifted, and a galaxy of splendours will beam from the picture it hides. Alas! when we reach the end of the sermon, essay, volume, we find that, as in the old classical story, the curtain is the picture, and that it will never be uplifted in this world.

Another felicitous knack they have, is that of using words capable of conveying different meanings to different readers, according as they are initiated or uninitiated, and of being interpreted into fascinating heterodoxy, or commonplace orthodoxy, or innocent platitude, as may suit the occasion. Ice, water, and vapour, consist, one and all, of the same element, and it is exceedingly clever, in Broad Church theologians, to imitate this natural analogy in their literary compositions. We do not, however, mean that there is even a small admixture of conscious dishonesty in the producing causes of this indefiniteness of style. It is in our view an accompaniment and consequence of that indefiniteness of opinion which is universally characteristic of the school. It is the symptom of a defect lying far deeper than mere modes of expression.

To come, however, to close quarters with Dr. Stanley on the merits and achievements of the theologians among whom he is proud to hold a place, let us consider his position as to what they have done for the elucidation of Scripture. This is his strong point. The theology of the nineteenth century, he insists, has thrown a flood of light upon the Bible, making us acquainted with the circumstances under which its several books were written, enabling us to put ourselves into the exact point of view held by the writers, and, on the whole, rendering "far more evident to us, by this nearer, closer investigation, the paramount glory and power of the Bible." We have already acknowledged the service done by modern critics and topographers in connexion with the text of the Old and New Testaments, and with the localities, natural productions, customs, and climate, which are mentioned or alluded to in Scripture. But the question, after all, recurs, whether, with so many aids to a comprehension of the externals of Revelation, we have been assisted by these modern theologians to a more precise and thorough intelligence of what the Bible means than that attained by the Reformers. Do Broad Church theologians really enable us to see farther than heretofore into the heart and substance of Holy Writ? It is by no means clear to us that an affirmative answer can be returned to this question. A man of exceedingly keen and powerful vision may, with the naked eye, see farther than a man of weaker eyesight, though aided by

all manner of optical appliances; and we cannot help thinking that the Reformers, consummate in natural genius, and burning with an earnestness of faith which in these days we can hardly conceive, penetrated so deeply into the soul and essence of Scripture, that no secret of vital importance remained for modern theologians to discover. Our Broad Church friends talk at times as if they could lay claim to some such discovery; but, in point of fact, they seriously profess no more than to qualify, modify, set in new points of view, and variously illustrate, truths which the Reformers made familiar to Europe. Luther rescued from obscurity, and proclaimed with irresistible efficacy, the doctrine of justification by faith; Calvin cleared off Pelagian adhesions, and preached in all its comprehensiveness the doctrine of the sovereignty of God; but what doctrine has the new theology caused to ring through Europe? Some may answer, "The Fatherhood of God;" but if we allow, as we do, that on this subject the modern school has done something to elevate and enlarge our conceptions of the Divine character, we cannot admit that the idea of Divine Fatherhood is peculiar to the nineteenth century.

Three remarks occur to us in relation to the crucial question, whether Broad Church theologians have really deepened our knowledge of the Bible.

The first is, that their efforts have assuredly not tended to increase the precision and certainty with which we apprehend its statements of doctrinal truth. They seem rather to countenance this conception of it,—that it is a book in which all sects and parties may read their own views; and that, so long as they regard it with a sentimental affection, and accord it respect as a supreme literary production, all may be equally in the right. The Bible would thus be a musical instrument on which all might play, according to their fancy,—a grand old cathedral organ, capable of discoursing eloquent music, but taking its tune from each new performer.

Our second remark is, that we are not sure whether, in discarding the method of the old theologians and adopting one of their own, the moderns have proceeded in a manlier, wiser, or more resultful and rewarding manner than their predecessors. The method of the ancients was to consider and collate every declaration of Scripture on a particular point, and to arrange all its statements so that they might cohere in logical consistency. No doubt this effort to attain logical consistency might be pushed too far, and the difference might be forgotten between, on the one hand, the living Word of God, in all the glory of its varied features,-its green pastures by the still waters, its rich plains of golden corn, intellectual, moral, spiritual granaries of the human race, its mountain summits of holy contemplation, its heaven-pointing peaks of adoring ecstasy,-and, on the other, a theolo gical system put together by the skill of man. Nevertheless, if so be that a book is not merely imaginative, if it contains information and instruetion, the most important thing to do with it is not to derive from it so much intellectual or emotional enjoyment, but to learn from it what it has to tell, and what it has to teach. How, we ask, do men treat books of