For many years
past, liberal divines in the Protestant Churches have been doing what
the Modernists are doing. The phrase "Divinity of Christ" is used, but
is interpreted so as not to imply a miraculous birth. The Resurrection
is preached, but is interpreted so as not to imply a miraculous bodily
resurrection. The Bible is said to be an inspired book, but inspiration
is used in a vague sense, much as when one says that Plato was inspired;
and the vagueness of this new idea of inspiration is even put forward as
a merit. Between the extreme views which discard the miraculous
altogether, and the old orthodoxy, there are many gradations of belief.
In the Church of England to-day it would be difficult to say what is the
minimum belief required either from its members or from its clergy.
Probably every leading ecclesiastic would give a different answer.
The rise of rationalism within the English Church is interesting and
illustrates the relations between Church and State.
The pietistic movement known as Evangelicalism, which Wilberforce's
Practical View of Christianity (1797) did much to make popular,
introduced the spirit of Methodism
[202] within the Anglican Church, and soon put an end to the delightful
type of eighteenth-century divine, who, as Gibbon says, "subscribed with
a sigh or a smile" the articles of faith. The rigorous taboo of the
Sabbath was revived, the theatre was denounced, the corruption of human
nature became the dominant theme, and the Bible more a fetish than ever.
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