strength, of quickened responsibility, and of extended charity.

34. And this work of disarming prejudice, although it be altogether secondary to that of producing actual and direct conviction, is one at no time to be lightly thought of, but, in particular, not to be neglected at a period when almost the whole of the opposition to these principles has proceeded, not so much upon the question of their theological truth or falsehood, as upon that of the inconveniences, with respect to the members of the Church and of other bodies, supposed to follow logically from their recognition; that is, it has tended not so much to attack conviction directly, as to sap or to impede it by accumulating hostile prejudice. The inverse process is that which I propose; and it is one which a man living in the world of politics as opposed to one living in studious retirement, a layman as contradistinguished from a minister of the Church, may perhaps, whatever be his countervailing defects, undertake thus far not without some comparative advantage. For in situations where the religion we profess is undisturbed and alone, where it seems to enjoy the most venerable and undisputed prescriptions, it might be scarcely possible for us adequately to appreciate the difficulties arising from the hostile contact of other forms of faith, or to consider in detail, with the requisite nearness of view, its power of self-adaptation to the task of overcoming those difficulties. But those who live where their religion must be constantly subject to assault or im

D

putation, where a thousand shafts are openly or obliquely aimed at it, where at the least it is subject to the competition and the collision of all the bodies, Romanist and Protestant, which have separated from the Church-these are inclined by their daily life to a strictly practical manner of considering the question it is not easy for them to avoid perceiving its difficulties, and they will be less suspected of a disposition to extenuate or hide them.

35. It would, however, be most arrogant in itself, and most remote from my intention, to pretend in any the slightest degree, even within the limited province I have thus marked out, to the functions of a teacher. On this account I have refrained from arguments properly theological respecting the Church, beyond what seemed necessary to supply a counter-statement at least to those trivial, feeble, and depreciated notions which are still more or less current among us, though verging towards extinction. On this account also I have refrained from proceeding to inquire what more strictly practical results, what measures and modes of conduct, ought to arise out of the clear and full apprehension of our religious position. It is not, however, only the matter, but the manner of what is said, on which we must rely for the preservation of the demarcating lines between the character of the commissioned instructor who delivers with authority the message of revelation, and the private person who contributes his mite of thought and of inquiry to the common stock, always reserving his final allegiance

for that which is catholic and approved. Experience makes him in some degree a witness to results, and study may throw before him some light upon tendencies and it is his duty to exercise his faculties upon that precious inheritance of truth into which he has been adopted, provided in doing it he remember his relation to the Church as a parent, and to her members, as his fellow learners under her teaching; and show that he strictly applies to himself that rule which Saint Augustine, in his great humility, adopted before his hearers: Magistrum unum omnes habemus, et in und schola condiscipuli sumus.

CHAPTER II.

RATIONALISM.

1-4. The anti-rationalistic and rationalistic principles: the latter in two forms. 5-9. Province of the understanding. 10-18. It cannot cure a fault which lies in the affections. 19. True statement of the question. 20, 21. Homogeneity required in the affections. 2237. Objection from the discrepancy between belief and practice. 38-42. The need of some access to man besides that through the understanding. 43-48. The existence of such other access illustrated from Scripture. 49-51. Without it doctrinal orthodoxy cannot be maintained. 52. Illustration in the Sacraments. 53, 54. Harmony and co-operation of the affections and the understanding. 55, 56. Summary.

1. IN conformity with the introductory sketch just given, it will be my endeavour in subsequent chapters to discuss the principle of the Sacraments, and to show the vital union and harmony of that principle with the doctrines of the visible Church, and of the Apostolical succession; and how all the three conduce to sustain, embody, exhibit, and impress the great truth that Christianity is, in its first, highest, and most essential character, a religion of influences which transcend, though they do not oppose, the understanding. But, to remove prejudices flowing naturally out of the spirit of the age as well as of human nature in general, I would first endeavour to show how perfectly reasonable and how thoroughly Scriptural is this line of argument and that they, in fact, are the true advocates of the legitimate use of the understanding, who

seek to ascribe to it the honour which is its own and not another's, by defining its appointed province: how essentially and necessarily the reception of Christianity implies an action over and above that of the understanding and consequently how that reception is rendered difficult, and finally impossible, if we transmute our system into one which claims and appeals to that faculty alone.

2. First, let us consider what are the objections taken to rationalism in the popular sense; let us inquire whether they are sufficient to show that it is an improper, and therefore an irrational, method of religious inquiry and further, whether over and above the common forms in which it appears, still there be not an inner and more subtle form of the evil, liable to affect the mental habits in religion even of those who have offered to it, in its primary and popular aspect, a determined resistance. Now rationalism is commonly, at least in this country, taken to be the reduction of Christian doctrine to the standard and measure of the human understanding. The uniform consequence of the theory of rationalism thus understood is, as might be expected, a general depreciation of all other than preceptive teaching, as dealing chiefly with mere abstractions, as belonging to a region remote and impalpable: and accordingly there ensues an unnatural disruption of the strictly perceptive parts of the Gospel from those which can alone make them available for the restoration of human nature. Because Christianity in its results comes so imme