Γ-* LIBERALISM

IN RELIGION

REV. M. H. MacINERNY, Ο. P.

Mission Church Press,
Boston, Mass.

A&H56</c.|

LIBERALISM IN
RELIGION.
By
Rev. Μ. H. M.cINERNY, Ο. P.

Published with kind permission of the

Australian Catholic Truth Society.

MISSION CHURCH PRESS,
St. Alphonsus Street,

Boston, Mass.
1912.

_______________ί___________________ ‘

■_________

Liberalism in Religion.
I5ihil Obstat.
PATRICK J. SUPPLE,

By REV. Μ. H. MacINERNY, O.P.

Censor Librorum
UmpvimatUF.

* WILLIAM CARDINAL O’CONNELL,

Archbishop of Boston

VqC.WùihMW

Liberalism in religion is a somewhat elusive entity.
Like Proteus in the fable, it is eapable of assuming a
thousand different forms. Under all its diversified
shapes, however, it is invariably the enemy of ortho­
dox Christianity—for Liberalism is, in fact, only
Rationalism in disguse.
As this pamphlet is intended for what the Germans
style “weitere Kreise”—for the public at large—it may
be well to emphasize the fact that Liberalism in re­
ligion is not necessarily connected with Liberalism
in politics. A man may be a Tory or a Socialist in
politics, and yet be a Liberal in religion. Neither is
there any essential bond of union between religious
Liberalism and what is known as Continental Liberal­
ism. Your Liberal on the Continent is too often a

4

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Freemason, an infidel, and a persecutor of religion;
your Liberal in religion, in these English-speaking
lands, is a Freethinker who labors under the amiable
delusion that he is a Christian.
Liberalism in religion assumes a multiplicity of
forms. At one time it is identical with what we now
term Modernism; at another it is merely a flattering
designation for Unitarian heterodoxy. At one mo­
ment it passes under the name of Broad-Churchism ;
at another, it is synonymous with Latitudinarianism,
or with Indifferentism, or even with certain aspects
of the Higher Criticism. But, whatever the garb in
which Liberalism chooses to masquerade, it is ever
the foe of dogmatic Christianity: it is perpetually
striving to sap and undermine “the faith once de­
livered to the saints.”
The distinguished Anglican, Canon Knox-Little,
observes with much truth that the ideal of Liberalism
is difficult to define. “It is vague, it is elusive, it is
changeful. Some upholders of it go farther than
others. Some shrink from the exact statements of
a dogmatic faith: others openly disbelieve much that
the Church teaches, and explain away its clearest and
most unequivocal statements: some are at the bottom
of the decline: some only half-way down; some only
at the· beginning of the descent. They are. however,
at one on certain points. While some hold parts of
the Catholic Faith which happen to commend them­
selves to their minds at the moment, they are really

out on the open sea, and may be driven by any chance
current or changeful wind.”*
Liberalism has obtained a powerful hold upon the
Anglican clergy, and probably a still firmer hold upon
many ministers of the Dissenting sects. It has cap­
tured the English Universities. It has become re­
sponsible for a vast increase of indifferentism ami
irréligion in the country generally. The rationalistic
methods of Liberals, and their sceptical conclusions,
have powerfully affected the atmosphere of thought
and practice in Protestant circles. Doubt, question­
ing, and indifference reign throughout the country,
and make their pernicious influence felt in lands be­
yond the sea. Canon Knox-Little bears witness that
the achievements of Liberals in the domain of Higher
Criticism
“are fast shaking the English people out of the one staunch
belief that clings to them more tenaciously than all others,
when so much of their religion was ‘dragooned’ out of them
—belief in the Holy Scriptures. The [Anglican) Bishops
complain of the neglect of keeping Sunday,’ of an increase
of civilized-or uncivilized Paganism in what arc called ‘the
higher classes,’ and of an increase of commercial dishonesty
in the commercial classes; of a diminution in the number of
candidates for Holy Orders, of ‘the absence of men from
church.’ ”♦

The same truths were expressed, with far greater
force and acumen, by the venerated Cardinal Manning,
nearly fifty years ago:
* “The Conflict of
PP· 75, 76·
* Ibid., p. 80.

Ideals in the Church of

England ’’

6
7
“Never before were the masses of our· people so without
God in the world ; never was spiritual famine so widespread
and so blank. Millions in our towns and cities have no
consciousness of the supernatural. The life of this world
is their all.

"Never before were the schisms and heresies which have
been generated by the first great heresy and schism so mani­
fold and dominant. The Church of the Anglican Reforma­
tion has given up well-nigh half its people to the endless
separations, which have exhausted its vitality.

“Never before were the internal and diametrical contra­
dictions among its teachers and guides so ripe and unrelent­
ing; never the confusion and uncertainty, the mistrust and
weariness of heart so widespread and oppressive among its
people.
“Never was its own impotence to rule, its incapacity to
teach, so proved and manifest. It cannot judge, it cannot
decide ; it may not legislate ; it dares not solve its own
perplexities; it has not mind or courage to define its own
doctrine. There is no voice to be heard ; no Divine cer­
tainty, no Divine guide in the seat of its councils.

“And lastly, never was there a time when the public
opinion, the supreme infallibility which guides and teaches
in England, was so absolute in its will. It is bearing all
before it down the stream to a deeper indfiference to all posi­
tive revelation. Struggle as they may, all must go down as
the current runs. No human will can stay its course, no
human intelligence avert its vehement descent. Rational­
istic Protestantism is the natural end and term of all that
moves around us.”t

The same illustrious writer accentuates the fact
that Rationalism is the inevitable outcome of Protest­
antism ;
“The more I have studied the religious and political his­
tory of England since the Anglican Reformation, and the
more I have observed the currents of thought, the dominant
t “Sermons on Ecclesiastical Subjects,” pp. 141, 142.

tendencies in English society at this day, the more I have
become convinced that the English people are upon an in­
clined plane. Men may strive to retard their descent, but
it is inevitable. The laws of nature are not more irre­
sistible and unerring than the law which generates unbelief
from the first principle of private judgment. Even in our
own lifetime, the advance of indifference, rationalism, in­
fidelity, secularism, and atheism, both objective and subjec­
tive, is vast and perceptible. The last ten years have de­
veloped these evils as with a tropical growth. . . . I
trace this development of intellectual, social, and spiritual
anarchy to one cause—separation from the Holy See—be­
cause separation from the Holy See is separation from the
Universal Church, and to be separated from the Church is to
be deprived of its Divine guidance and support.”*

Protestantism is the parent of Liberalism, Indifferentism, Rationalism, Secularism and Atheism—an
evil brood. These are the factors that have produced
the present condition of intellectual, social, and spiri­
tual anarchy in England. Fifty years ago Manning
was alarmed by the growing power, and the menacing
attitude, of Liberalism. It is noteworthy that the men
whom Manning then denounced as Rationalists are
now commonly referred to as Liberals,—a fact which
indicates that Liberalism, at best, is only diluted
Rationalism.
“It is remarkable [wrote Manning] “that at this moment
a recoil, the most pronounced, formidable, and reasoned, as
well as the most extensive, and extending towards rational­
istic unbelief, which has ever been known in England since
the Reformation, has developed itself. It must not be in­
deed supposed that rationalism did not already exist in the
Anglican Church. The germs of it were deep in its original
foundation, and had widely, but informally, spread them♦ Ibid., p 25.

8

9

selves. All that is new at this time is its systematic expres­
sion, and its logical relation to the state of religions belief in
England. There can be no doubt that the controversies of
the last thirty years have resolved the question of religious
belief for all intelligent minds in this country into its ulti­
mate analysis. It is a simple question between Rome and
rationalism, between the Divine certainty of faith and the
instability of human opinion; between the presence of a Di­
vine Teacher and the solitude and darkness of the human
soul. They who have watched the development of the re­
ligious intellect, so to speak, of the English people, in the last
years, can fix with certainty upon the period when this alter­
native became a public and practical question, and they have
noted the immediate reaction which threw itself back in the
direction of German criticism, as the only assignable reason
for not submitting to the Catholic Church.”*

It is a curious fact that the modern Liberal move­
ment, no less than the Tractarian movement, origi­
nated in the University of Oxford. “So early as the
year 1835,” writes Cardinal Manning, "at the outset
of the Oxford, or so-called Catholic, movement in the
Anglican Church, an opposition arose on the part of
certain men of high intellectual cultivation, who had
imbibed the spirit and system of the German
Rationalism. This school was headed by Arnold, the
intimate friend of Bunsen.” This Liberal school—as
the Angelical Dean Church observes—was destined to
become the most formidable rival of the Tractarians;
its leaders were eventually to succeed, where the Trac­
tarians had failed, in becoming the masters and lead­
ers of the University. “Liberalism had hitherto
been represented in Oxford, “Dean Church tells us, in
fordis which were “unattractive, sometimes even re­
pulsive.” The older Liberals were “dry, cold, super­
cilious, critical”; often “they were poor in character.
Liberals from the zest of sneering and mocking.’’
"But,” continues the same writer, "a younger set of
men brought, mainly from Rugby and Arnold’s teach­
ing, a new kind of Liberalism. It was much boldei
and more independent than the older forms”; it was
“more suspicious and daring in its criticism.”
The Liberals of the new school fraternized with Dis­
senters, and regarded Episcopacy, Presbyterianism,
and other modes of church government as mere mat­
ters of varying convenience. The new Liberalism was

If Liberalism was powerful half a century ago, it is
vastly more formidable to-day. It has advanced far
beyond the position which it held in the forties and
fifties. Its efforts in the two Universities have been
crowned with complete success. Oxford and Cam­
bridge are now ‘‘only in a very modified sense Chris­
tian at all.” The Liberals have succeeded in wresting
even such institutions as Keble College and Pusey
House from the Catholic-minded 1 ligh-Churchmen
who founded ami endowed them. Furthermore, the
Liberals have succeeded beyond all their hopes, first
in breaking up the Oxford Movement, then in almost
annexing the places of authority in the Anglican
Church, and, finally, in so affecting the more promi­
nent of modern Oxford Ritualists that these have be­
come little more than Liberals in disguise.f
* Ibid., pp. 60, 61.
t Knox-Little, “Conflict of Ideals,” pp. 78, 79, 168.

ΙΟ

destined to become dominant in Oxford; it soon began
to astonish old-fashioned Anglicans with new and deep
forms of doubt, more audacious than anything that
had ever been put forward by the Tractarians.* The
Tractarian movement was constructive; the Liberal
movement was essentially destructive. Gradually the
Liberals gained ground ; they hounded Newman out
ci Oxford ; they recast from top to bottom the institu­
tions of the University.
“The men who had driven me from Oxford were
distinctly the Liberals,’’ wrote the illustrious Cardinal,
many years later ; "it was they who had opened the
attack upon Tract 90, and it was they who would gain
a second benefit, if I went on to retire from the
Anglican Church.
Newman, happily, did retire from Anglicanism ; and
it is scarcely too much to say that his conflict ’ with
Liberalism ended only with his life. When raised to
the Cardinalate in 1879, after thanking the Holy
Father for the distinguished honor conferred upon
him, Newman spoke these remarkable words:
“And I rejoice to say, to one great mischief T have from
the first opposed myself. For thirty, forty, fifty years, I have
resisted to the best of my powers the spirit of Liberalism
in religion. Never did the Holy Church need champions
against it more sorely than now, when, alas ! it is an error
overspreading as a snare the whole earth : and on this great

♦Dean Church, “The Oxford Movement,” chap. xix.;
Knox-Little, “Conflict of Ideals,” pp. 76-78.
t Cardinal Newman, “Apologia pro Vita Sua.” popular
edit., p. 126.

II

occasion, when it is natural for one who is in my place to
look out upon the world and upon the Holy Church as it is,
and upon her future, it will not, 1 hope, be considered out
of place if 1 renew the protest against it which I have so
often made.
"Liberalism in religion is the doctrine that there is no
positive truth in religion, but that one creed is as good as
another ; and this is the teaching which is gaining substance
and force daily. It is inconsistent with the recognition of
any religion as true. It teaches that all are to be tolerated,
as all are matters of opinion. Revealed religion is not a
truth, but a sentiment and a taste; not an objective fact—
not miraculous; and it is the right of each individual to
make it say just what strikes his fancy.”*

The context of a passage quoted above will throw
additional light upon Newman’s attitude towards
Liberalism. In the great Cardinal's view, Liberalism
is "the anti-dogmatic principle”; it is "the half-way
bouse on the way to Atheism" : "The most oppressive
thought, in the whole process of my change of opinion,
was the clear anticipation, verified by the event, that
it would issue in the triumph of Liberalism, Against
the anti-dogmatic principle I had thrown my whole
mind ; yet now I was doing more than anyone else
could do to promote it. I was one of those who had
kept it at bay in Oxford for so many years ; and thus
my very retirement was its triumph. . . . As I
have already said, there are but two alternatives, the
way to Rome, and the way to Atheism; Anglicanism
is the half-way house on the one side, and Liberalism
is the half-way house on the other. J low many men
* Quoted by MacLaughlin, “Is One Religion as Good as
Another?” p. 12.

12

were there, as I knew full well, who would not follow
me now in my advance from Anglicanism to Rome,
but would at once leave Anglicanism and me for the
Liberal camp.”f
That many of these men deserted Newman, and
sought refuge in the Liberal camp, is unhappily only
too true. Such men, as Cardinal Manning observes,
betook themselves to “German criticism, as the only
assignable reason for not submitting to the Catholic
Church. Men who are now [1863] prominent in the
anti-Catholic movement in England, especially in pub­
lic life, were once on its frontier, and parted from
their former colleagues and convictions, actually on
the threshold of its unity, 1 may say ad limina apos­
tolorum.”*
The Liberals hounded Newman out of Oxford ; they
gained a fresh accession of strength through his retire­
ment from Anglicanism. Oxford and Cambridge had
been indoctrinated with Liberal views, chiefly by the
young men whom Arnold sent up from Rugby. When
Newman had gone, Liberalism triumphed all along the
line. In a few years Liberal unbelief found expres­
sion in a remarkable and notorious volume, entitled.
“Essays and Reviews.” It was the joint production
of seven Anglican writers, six of whom were clergy­
men holding office as professors, or other ecclesiasti­
cal or academical trusts. Considered as an exprestNewman, “Apologia,” p. 126.
♦ Manning, ‘“Sermons on Eccl. Subjects," p. 61.

IS

sion of views current among a considerable section
of the Anglican clergy ; considered as an expression oi
views prevailing extensively in the Universities of
Oxford and Cambridge, as well as in England at
large, the book was of a nature to take ones breath
away.
A friendly reviewer thus enumerated the articles of
Christian faith denied, called into question, or dis­
paraged in the volume, and his verdict was fully cor­
roborated by the report of a committee appointed to
examine the book by the Anglican Convocation, or
Synod of the so-called province of Canterbury :—“In
their ordinary, if not plain, sense, these have been dis­
carded—the Word of God, the Creation, the Redemp­
tion, Justification, Regeneration, Salvation, Miracles,
Inspiration, Prophecy, Heaven and Hell, Eternal
Punishment, a day of Judgment, Creeds, Liturgies,
Articles, the truth of Jewish History, and Gospel Nar­
rative. A sense of doubt is thrown over even the
Incarnation, Resurrection, and Ascension, the Divinity
< f the Second I ’erson, the Personality of the Third.”!
This is a comprehensive specimen of Liberal un­
belief ; so comprehensive, indeed, that hardly any­
thing is left undenied. One naturally wonders
whether these Christian clergymen believed in any
microscopic fragment of Christianity at all. One of
the chief of these unbelieving writers, a certain Dr.
t Quoted by Card. Manning. “Sermons on Eccl. Subjects,”
P- 51·

14

Williams, was summoned before the Court of Arches,
the highest ecclesiastical tribunal in the Anglican
Church, excepting only the Sovereign in Council.
Fifteen highly heretical articles were exhibited against
this Anglican ecclesiastic. Twelve of them were dis­
missed, whereby the Court of Arches, directly or
indirectly, declared that these twelve heresies might
with impunity be taught by the Anglican clergy. The
learned judge declared, in the course of his judgment,
that any Anglican clergyman may lawfully deny the
inspiration of any part or parts of the Scriptures, as
long as he does not deny the inspiration of any entire
book. An Anglican minister may, therefore, deny the
inspiration of all of ever}' book except some residuum
of each, so that the name of the book be still retained
in the Canon.*
Upon this amazing decision Cardinal Manning com­
ments as follows:—
“I need not stay to point out that this is pure and essentional Rationalism. The members of the Church of England
may reject or retain what they will, some more and some
less, of the Scriptures; but all that is hereby rejected is
rejected on the principle of Rationalism—i. e., of the critical
reason : all that is retained is retained upon the principle of
Rationalism—that is, of human testimony tried by the same,
criterion. The individual is by necessity rationalistic in the
use of the liberty permitted to him; and the Church of Eng­
land is equally rationalistic, both in the princinle on which it
permits that liberty and in the position it has assumed in
the sixth article towards the Scriptures and the Church.
This judgment, therefore, has an importance far beyond any
that has yet been given. It is far more rationalistic than the
* Manning, “Sermons on Eccl. Subjects,” pp. 49-53.

<5
‘Essays and Reviews,’ and it is more final and fatal in its
operations, inasmuch as it is not the wandering of private
individuals, but the authoritative promulgation of Rational­
ism aS the basis of the Established Religion by its highest
ordinary tribunal in ecclesiastical matters. And not a voice,
so far as I can find, has been raised by any one of all the
schools of Anglican Protestantism against it.”*

After the delivery of this judgment, a remarkable
illustration of the essentially Rationalistic and destruc­
tive character of Liberalism was given by Dr. Colenso,
the Anglican Bishop of Natal. That Liberal prelate,
in a work on the Pentateuch, denied that the Books of
Moses were written by Moses; he likewise denied that
the Books themselves are credible as history. Dr.
Colenso, nevertheless, professed his heartfelt belief in
the Revelations of the Old and New Testaments, but
rested his belief upon the subjective convictions of his
own spiritual consciousness—in other words, upon
mere arbitrary subjectivism.
* Ibid., p. 54—The “Essays and Reviews” were first pub­
lished in February, i860. The first essay in the volume was
by Dr Temple, then Head Master of Rugby, afterwards
Archbishop of Canterbury. The last was by Professor Jowctt. The other five Essayists were Dr. Rowland Williams,
Professor Baden-Powell, the Rev. 11. B. Wilson, Mr. C. W.
Goodwin, and the Rev. Mark Pattison. An appeal was
lodged against the decision of the Court of Arches, with the
result that a still more Rationalistic judgment was obtained
from the Privy Council. That final judgment was delivered
by the Lord Chancellor on February 8th, 1864. The Freethinking opinions expressed by Dr Williams and Mr. Wilson
were declared not to be inconsistent with the Articles and
formularies of the Church of England. The decision was
regarded, very naturally bv many earnest men as “soul­
destroying” (Prothero’s “Life of Dean Stanley.' chaps,
xvi. and xxi.)

ι6

Many changes have taken place since Or. Colenso’s
time. Rationalism, for one thing, has become less
overbearing and less self-confident. Still, the Liberals
of our time arc Rationalistic enough, in all conscience.
“We have found," writes Canon Knox-Little, that the
Liberals "desire a re-statement of the Church’s
dogmas ; that they have a strong dislike to dogma ;
and that their view appears to be that the task of
modern theology is to turn inside out the teachings
of the Church and re-sort them so as to suit the
‘modern mind.' We have noticed that they have no
belief in Episcopacy as a Divine institution, although
they are interested in it sentimentally, so to speak,
as reminding them of the past.”*
From the same authority we learn that the whole
teaching of Anglican Liberals "tends, sometimes con­
sciously and even blatantly, sometimes perhaps uncon­
sciously (i), to make the shifting positions of indi­
vidual criticism, instead of the rulings of the Catholic
Church, the external court of appeal in matters of
revealed truth : and (2) they encourage that tendency
to Pelagianism, or semi-Pelagianism (i.e., self-reliance,
instead of reliance on the grace of God), whch is so
common in the English race; and (3) they lower the
idea of the supernatural, they ‘prune away or econo­
mize the supernatural’—as Dr. Liddon would say—
and so tend to make the English Church even more
naturalistic, more sympathetic with unbelief, less en* “Conflict of Ideals,” p. 112.

couraging to a strong belief in the Unseen, than it
has been already since the Reformation—which is say­
ing a great deal.”f
Eleven years ago "a most learned and distinguished
dignitary of the Church of England, deservedly well
known for his sound and valuable scholarship, both on
I he Continent and at home,” wrote to Dr. Frederick
George Lee as follows:—
“With you, I cannot but feel that these days contrast in
many respects unfavorably with the earlier times of our
ministry. There is so much unsoundness in the grasp of
doctrine, as shown in the silly acceptance of groundless spec­
ulations on the Old Testament, and in idle submission to ec­
centric and destructive theories on the New Testament, as
well as absence of talent amongst the clergy. . . . Add
to this that real zeal of a self-denying character is sapped
at the foundation in Oxford and elsewhere, by the un-Christian and anti-Christian philosophy which has prevailed so
powerfully and now so long.Ӕ
·

This scathing verdict on the Liberals is perhaps
equalled in severity by what Canon Knox-Little him­
self writes: "The fact is, in the English Church at
present, Theology is well-nigh dead. We can scarcely
find a theologian ; we have ‘critics’ unnumbered.
Speculators, starting from assumptions of their own
concocting, are taking the place of theologians who
started from the revelation entrusted to the Church as
data. Speculation . has supplanted theology.”*
t Ibid., pp. 170, 171.
t Dr. F. G. Lee. "The Ecclesiastical Situation in 1899."
pp. £,1, 24.
♦"Conflict of Ideals,” p. 148

ι8

These “critics" speak a dialect of their own, which
renders them easily recognizable. They are con­
tinually assuring ns that “the essential facts of Chris­
tianity need to be expressed in terms of contemporary
thought" ; that “the modern Christian community ha.,
outgrown old forms"—i. e., Creeds ; that "the Church
is an invisible society"; that “the great conflict of the
present moment is a conflict betwween the visible and
the invisible Church" ; that the Creeds have nothing
to offer us except “abstruse speculative conceptions,
into which it is impossible for simple, practical Chris­
tian experience to follow them"; that, therefore, “the
Creeds have no claim to finality" ; that "religious ex­
perience is no longer to be dependent on infallible
institutions, infallible books, infallible dogmas"—and
so forth, and so on. The wide-reaching unbelief that
breathes through these and suchlike utterances is ob­
vious to everyone.
The essential facts of Christianity, when re-stated
by these Liberals, turn out to be essential fictions.
Too often these Liberal “critics” attempt to degrade
Our Lord to the level of a mere man; too often they
represent theBible as mainly a collection of exploded
myths ; too generally they wage a bitter warfare
against the ancient and venerable Creeds of Christen­
dom.
As might have been expected, Broad-Churchmen,
Congregationalists. and Unitarias, are in the van of
this unbelieving movement. The “New Theology" of

19

that prominent Congregational minister, the Rev. R.
J. Campbell, with the ridicule it cast upon the Virgin
Birth of Our Blessed Lord, is fast securing a following
among Protestant preachers, especially among those
of the Congregationalist persuasion. The language of
these preachers, in ' reference to Holy Scripture, is
what might be expected from an infidel like Ingersoll,
but hardly from a minister of the Gospel. Mr. Camp­
bell’s attitude towards the Bible may be surmised from
this remarkable extract: “The supposed authority of
the Bible is a great hindrance to truth. It is no ‘im­
pregnable rock.’ . . . Belief in an infallible book
is impossible. When a modern preacher dramatically
declares that he takes his stand and bases his gospel
on the infallible book, he is either a fool or—a
rhetorician "
Mr. Campbell is, after all, merely pushing Protest­
ant errors to their logical issue. Being a Protestant,
he disbelieves in the infallible Church founded by Jesus
Christ, and perpetually guided by the Divine Spirit of
Truth—he rejects the teaching authority of the
' Church of the Living God, the Pillar and Ground of
the truth." The Church of God teaches us that the
Bible’is inspired throughout, and therefore infallible
when properly understood. But Mr. Campbell and
Protestants generally reject the Church's testimony,
in consequence, they find themselves utterly unable to
•prove that the Bible is inspired from the first page to
the last. Realizing, on the other hand, their utter

20

inability to prove the inspiration of the Bible, and
lending a credulous ear to the carping criticism of
unbelievers on the other, it is no wonder that Mr.
Campbell and many other Protestants should have
ended by renouncing all belief in the Bible as an "infal­
lible book.”
Mr. Campbell's peculiar type of unbelief seems to be
a blend of Pantheism with German Rationalism. His
errors have made considerable headway even in Aus­
tralia, especially among the ministers and layfolk of
his own denomination. In South Africa, likewise, the
Congregationalists betray symptoms of Campbellisi.i,
or some equally malj^nant form of religious Liberal­
ism. Witness the following extract from an address
recently delivered by the Rev. D. M. Whyte, Chairman
of the Congregational Union at Johannesburg: “We
recognize that the theological ship can no longer keep
afloat carrying her old doctrines in water-tight com­
partments. There must be a readjustment of the
compass in the light of the best modern skill and the
clearest modern research. We must prayerfully, but
fearlessly, jettison all that retards progress or pro­
duces lopsidedness.”
I he sects have long since thrown overboard many
of the priceless truths of the Christian religion : now
they display a feverish anxiety to be rid of the few
fragments of Christianity which they had hitherto
retained. Tn a short time they will find themselves
1 educed to the plight of the German Lutherans, as

21.

described by the famous Dr. Tholuck in a letter to Dr.
J’usey more than fifty years ago. “Our preachers,”
wrote Dr. Tholpck, “having got rid of the Christian
doctrines by means of the iligher Criticism, are now
insisting with much earnestness upon the importance
of taking regular exercise.”*
Happily, there are still a good many Protestants who
regard “regular exercise,” and even the "New The­
ology,” as pitifully poor substitutes for the saving
truths of Christianity. There are many among them
like the Rev. A. Brown, in England, who, after read­
ing the new Liberal heresies, indignantly exclaimed :
“These are doctrines of demons, and are Satanic.
Behind the New Theology is the old devil! Any sim­
pleton can make a mark of interrogation against the
Bible, and that is what the New Theologians are
doing.”
At the same time, it is only fair to recognize that
tiie unbelieving "New Theologians” are merely follow­
ing the Protestant principle of private interpretation
to its logical issue. They are more consistent in error
'han their Protestant brethren, and. therefore, farther
from the truth. The principle of private interpretation
leads logically and necessarily to Rationalism and
religious anarchy. As a distinguished Catholic jour­
nalist has pointed out, “ft is as dangerous for any
religious body to sanction the free interpretation of
■* Quoted by Canon Liddon, “Some Elements of Religion,”
popular edit., p. 23.

22

the Bible as it would be for the State to allow indi­
viduals to interpret her laws, and administer them
according to their own sweet whim and pleasure."*
Λ favorite Liberal plea is that "we must progress
in religion, as well as in art and science and govern­
ment." The trouble with these Liberals is that in
religion they arc content to progress crab-wise. Their
"progress" consists in rejecting the fundamental
truths of Christianity. What should we think of the
mathematician who should reject the greater part of
the multiplication table, under pretence of promoting
the advancement of mathematics? Yet this is exactly
similar to what the Liberals are doing. Under pretext
of promoting the progress of religion, they are deny­
ing the Divinity of Our Lord, the Virgin Birth, the
Creeds, and so on.
One would imagine, from Liberal utterances, that
the Redeemer of the world meant His teaching to
endure for nineteen centuries alone, and that in the
twentieth a new series of up-to-date doctrines should
be discovered by “critics," who never manage to agree
among themselves. As the Rev. D. λί'Dermott has
justly said : “There is no more reason why the soul,
because of modern progress, should need up-to-date
doctrines to work out its salvation than that the body
should need an up-to-date sun, air and earth to provide
for its life. The same sun, air, and earth that are
t Rev. John O’Mahony, D.D., in Tasmanian “Monitor;’’
from whom a few of these citations are taken.

23

necessary for the existence of man to-day were neces­
sary thousands of years ago. Doctrines which saved
the soul in the day of St. John are sufficient to save
it to-day.”
A recent instance of the deplorable length to which
Liberals carry their unbelief is afforded by a work
lately published by an Anglican dignitary. The book
is entitled “Jesus According to St. Mark”; its author
is the Rev. J. M. Thompson, Fellow of Magdalen Col­
lege, Oxford, Dean of Divinity in the same College,
and Examining Chaplain to the Anglican Bishop of
Gloucester. Orthodox critics have been so shocked
by the views of this Oxford Don that they have not
hesitated to denounce his book as blasphemous. What
are we to think of an influential and many-titled
Anglican cleric who is reported as roundly denying the
Divinity of Christ Our Lord? What are we to think
of a Dean of Divinity and Examining Chaplain who, it
appears, not only asserts that Christ is not truly God,
but likewise adds that He was not even a perfect man,
and that He shared much of the ignorance and many
of the imperfections of His contemporaries and
countrymen? The vast majority of professed Rational­
ists are accustomed to speak more respectfully of Our
Lord than this Liberal Clergyman is reported to have
done. As the Beloved Disciple is not above his Divine
Master, it is no wonder that St. John receives scant
courtesy from this unbeleving critic. The fourth
Gospel is, of course, declared to be historically impos-

24

sible, and St. John, we are cooly assured, would not
hesitate in telling a lie if it happened to suit "his dog­
matic purpose.’ After these specimens of the Rev.
Dr. Thompson's unbelief, we may easily surmise “what
an infidel school of aspirants to the Anglican ministry
will grow up under his supervision.”*
This agnostic Liberalism—call it Modernism if you
will—is eating into the vitals of English Protestantism,
it is the main cause of the present dearth of candi­
dates for the Anglican ministry. Why should men be
ordained if they are to have no certainty of a Divine
message to impart—if they can exercise only a “pro­
visional faith” in the Bible itself? Some day, forsooth,
they shall receive an authoritative decision as to the
credibility of the Bible from an unknown “court of
trained experts.” But the decision, if given, would
be of little worth. As Canon Knox-Little says: “By
the time one expurgated Bible was settled by the
‘experts,’ another set of ‘trained experts’ would be
cutting it to pieces and preparing a fresh edition with
further alterations. There would be no end to the
energy of wild speculations arising out of baseless
assumptions. When the Church is put aside as a wit­
ness and keeper cf I loly Writ, as a witness of religious
observances and duties, as a witness of a changeless
message from God to man, then the ‘think what yon
like’ of Liberalism is very soon translated into ‘do what
you like’ by the average man.”f
* Dr. J. 0’Mahotiy, in Tasmanian “Monitor.” Jan. 7, 1910.
See also the issue of the same journal for December 31, 1909.
t “Conflict of Ideals,” p. «0.

25

All this is one of the inevitable results of Pro­
testantism ; it is the inevitable outcome of private
judgment, lhe self-styled Reformers of the 16th cen­
tury. in their revolt against the Catholic Church, took
the Bible as the foundation of all their new creeds.
1 hey made the Bible, as interpreted by private judg­
ment, the final arbiter upon all religious questions,
"'lhe Bible, and the Bible alone,’’ was the battle cry,
as it is still the cry of the more naive and less enlight­
ened portion of the Protestant world. Meanwhile, the
Higher Criticism has appeared upon the scene. By its
aid the Liberals are waging incessant warfare against
the credibility of the Bible, and seeking to dissolve
Christianity into an idle deam. Many of them deny
or disparage the sacred truths concerning Our Lord's
Birth, Miracles, and Resurrection. Creeds in genera!
are supremely distasteful to men of the Liberal school ;
the Athanasian Creed is the object of their pertina­
cious and ever-renewed attacks ; even the Apostles’
Creed itself does not escape their censure.
In a remarkable passage, Canon Knox-Little justly
attributes “the rise of the Higher Criticism, with al!
its enormities, to the Protestantism of the sixteenth
century. Protestantism, as a system, is incipient'un­
belief. It sets aside the teaching of the Church. It
makes the individual the judge of all things. It has no
reason to be angry when its principles have been car­
ried out. It wrung the Sacred Writings out of the
hands of the Church who alone could interpret them,

20
27

and its principles have been followed out until the
Bible has been left the shreds and tatters in which we
find it.”*
The Bible has been reduced to a thing of shreds
and patches by the Liberals, and Christianity itself
has fared no better at their hands. If we ask them,
"What is Christianity?” we shall receive a multitude
of diverse and conflicting replies. As Canon KnoxLittle observes, the Liberals are all "at sixes and
sevens” on the question : "So far as anything can be
discovered from their various writings, [Liberal
‘Christianity’] bears but a faint resemblance to what
has been supposed to have a right to that title in the
past. Sometimes it is a philosophy ; sometimes it is a
rigid interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount—
which not one of them literally obeys.”* Sometimes,
again, it is an “experience," or Heaven knows what.
Canon Knox-Little sets before us a portrait-gallery
of Anglican Liberals, some of whom are even more
sceptical than Dr. Arnold or Dean Stanley—which is
saying a good deal. The late Dr. Cheyne, for in­
stance, was about as Rationalistic in his methods as
man could well be. Yet he held the Oriel Professor­
ship of Interpretation in the University of Oxford,
and was, moreover, a Canon of Rochester Cathedral.
This did not prevent his throwing “the ægis of his au­
thority over the Biblia Critica, the chief aim of which
* “Conflict of Ideals,” pp. 118-119.
* Ibid., p. 100.

would almost appear to be to disprove the doctrine of
the Divinity of Our Lord, though the more frank ut­
terances there would seem really less disingenuous
than the cautious statements of many of the ‘Liber­
als.’ ”f
“Canon Cheyne,” as we are told by his brother Ca­
non of Worcester, "is, of course, the crowning glory
of the Higher Criticism in England. His book, ‘Bible
Problems,’ from its unbridled imaginativeness, its
total want of logical consecutiveness, and its (uncon­
scious) humorous seriousness, is a very ‘Alice in Won­
derland’ of the Higher Criticism. It need hardly be
added that, with perfect good temper and a sublime
calmness, it throws overboard most things believed in
Creed or Scripture by the Church of England”]:—as
well as by the Catholic Church.
Dr. Cheyne, it need hardly be added, was principal
editor of the notorious “Encyclopaedia Biblica,” which
has been called the chef d'oeuvre of the Anglican
Church in the department of Higher Criticism. “One
cannot read this last and crowning production of a
decaying religious organization," observes a Catholic
critic, “without again and again rubbing one’s eyes,
and asking oneself whether the whole thing will not
turn out to be some hideous dream, some terrible
mental delusion. The entire supernatural structure
of the Christian faith gone—gone beyond all hope of
t “Conflict of Ideals,” p. 132.
ΐ Ibid., p. 140.

28
29

recovery, and of the life and teaching of the Incarnate
Son of God nothing left but the record of the few
external events, from the admitted correctness of
which it may certainly still be gathered that a man, to
whom a later age erroneously attributed Divine char­
acteristics. in all probability existed, and perished by
crucifixon, once upon a time! . . .
“The startling thing is that such a work should be
published under the protection and editorship of a
learned dignitary of the Establishment itself, of an
officially recognized teacher of theology at a great
1 ’diversity, and that it should bear the impress of
whatever that Church may be said to possess in rhe
way of authority. T am wondering whether the men
who publish, and then recommend and advertise, such
a book as this really suppose that intelligent persons,
who study their speculations, and who accept them as
ascertained truth, will remain Christians, in any
definite and intelligible meaning of the term.”
This Catholic critic asks the natural and pertinent
question, “Can any person, still in possession of the
power of clear judgment, and still believing in the
supernatural element in Christianity, continue to
regard” Anglicanism—after setting forth and sanc­
tioning so rationalistic a work as the “Encyclopædia
Diblica”—“as in any intelligible sense part of the tra­
ditional and historic Church of the Divine Redeemer?
The very notion itself seems to me to be an outrage
on human reason, and the circumstance that such

persons still exist can only be accounted for by the
assumption that they are either wholly ignorant of
what is really going on at the headquarters of their
Church, or that they are deliberately shutting their
eyes to what they instinctively feel to be a very un­
pleasant and disquieting, and certainly a very compli­
cated, subject.”
“But how wonderfully and strikingly is the divinelyinspired method of the true Church being established
and justified by these extraordinary events,” continues
this able writer ; “how frail and human and fallible are
the foundations of heresy shown to be ! With good
reason might we not once more ask that striking ques­
tion of Cardinal Manning’s: ‘Take away the Roman
Catholic Church, and where is Christianity? In this
age, too, echo answers. Where? And reply there is
none.”*
The Rev. Mr. Hensley Henson, Canon of Westmin­
ster and Rector of St. Margaret’s, appears to be a
somewhat clamorous specimen of Anglican Liberal.
He teaches plainly that “much in the primitive ac­
counts of the Resurrection is demonstrably tinhistori­
cal.’’ This, of course, is equivalent to saying that
certain portions of the New Testament are demonstra­
bly false. Tn Canon Henson’s view, it appears, the
Resurrection of Our Lord is something widely differ­
ent from that which is asserted by St. Paul and taught
♦“Back to Rome!” by “Scrutator” (J. Godfrey Raupert),
pp. 213-216.

by the Church. He seems to regard the common belief
of Christians in Our Lord’s Resurrection as "crude,
materialistic, unsatisfactory.” Whether he would
approve of the Virgin Birth seems rather doubtful.f
But the most startling of Canon Henson's strange
doctrines is his teaching on the subject of ministerial
falsehoods. He teaches, apparently, that Anglican
clergymen may utter certain doctrinal statements while
retaining no vestige of belief in such doctrines. The
law, says Canon Henson, "must enforce a precise
aceptance of doctrinal definitions but "it can secure
nothing more, because it can enforce nothing more
than external confession.” “In the lower sphere of
external action,” he says, “the State can enforce its
will.” In this lower sphere the Anglican clergyman
can obey—he can express doctrines in which he
retains no belief whatever—as he is acting only "min­
isterially.”
The Liberal Anglican is, therefore (says Canon
Knox-Little), “able to do things and say things which
he does not in the least believe.” Canon Henson
encourages the Liberal ecclesiastic by assuring him
that his ‘‘concern can never be more than ministerial;"
that he has contracted for “the performance of legally
prescribed duties;” that if he does not fulfil them “it
is a breach of contract but that the law “can enforce
nothing more than external confession."
tKnox-Little, “Conflict of Ideals,” p. i33·

Hence, as the Worcester Canon sarcastically notes,
a Liberal Anglican cleric “is right, spiritual, and loyal,
if, having promised ex animo assent to doctrinal
definitions, he refuses to give it because the law can­
not enforce it, and yet to remain in the ministry which
he holds subject to that promise !" His duty is to say
"I believe" in the Creeds, for instance, though he does
not believe in them—for he has “contracted” in his
“ministerial” capacity to say them. His duty is to
say all that the Anglican Prayer Book puts into his
mouth, and he need not believe a word of it! On the
same principle, of course, he could perform the entire
Communion Service with a “conscientious” disbelief
in the whole thing !
As Canon Knox-Little observes, “To untrained,
unenlightened minds this peculiar ethical system might
appear rather closely related to what Protestant ran­
cor has (rightly or wrongly) attributed to the fol­
lowers of St. Ignatius.” It is no wonder that this lax
doctrine “does not appear free from moral taint,” and
that it “does not seem in accordance with the moral
teaching of Christ,” in the estimation of the worthy
High-Churchman.* One can imagine what fierce
charges of duplicity and hypocrisy would have been
hurled against the Jesuits if they had ever taught a
doctrine of this kind.
‘“Conflict of Ideals, pp. 106-110.—In the above references
to Canon Henson’s views I have closely followed Canon
Κηοχ-Litt' e’s work.

32

Dr. Driver is another leading light among Anglican
Liberals. The anxious inquirer who desies to know
about his Bible will learn from Dr. Driver that "in
the first eleven chapters of Genesis there is little or
nothing that can be called historical;" and that "the
concurrent testimony of geology and astronomy,
anthropology, archaeology, and comparative philology
is proof that the account given in these chapters
. . . is no historically true record of these events
as they actually happened.” This accomplished
Anglican Liberal “also instructs us that the Book of
Genesis was compiled by somebody who combined
certain stories handed on by three persons whom he
calls J. and E. and P.
“There is not the slightest evidence that such per­
sons ever existed. But, according to Dr. Driver, they
not only wrote down traditions, but they idealised
ihem—that is, they recorded as true what was reallv
false; and so Almighty God, who is the Truth, gave
His revelation by inspiring pious frauds, and allowing
the sacred writings of I lis Church to be, in great part,
a mass of religious fiction.”*
After these samples of Liberal heterodoxy, we need
not stay to consider the moderate, though harmful,
Liberalism of such men as Bishop Gore, Dean Armi­
tage Robinson, and Professor Sanday. Neither need
we discuss the various hues and shades of Liberalism
that sun themselves in the congenial pages of the
♦Ibid., pp. 133-134.

33

Hibbert Journal." Anglican Liberals—and their
name is legion—are fast verifying the dictum of
Canon Liddon: “We have again begun to slide down
the hill, towards the pit of uncertainty or unbelief.
(Liddon's "Life,” p. 364.)
Modern Liberalism recognizes no responsibility for
belief; no danger in rejecting the Faith; no sinfulness
in heresy. Every sort of doubt is thrown by Liberals
—especially by the more “advanced" among them—
upon the revealed facts of Our Lord's life. 11 is
miracles—if any of them are allowed to exist at all—
are sometimes described as myths, sometimes as par­
ables. His Divinity is sometimes openly denied, some­
times craftily and insidiously disparaged. The
average man will but too readily conclude that Christ
could not be the Divine Teacher, seeing that He stated
things as true which Liberal “criticism” pronounces
to be false, and often, therefore, misled men when He
professed to teach them infallibly.
Having discarded the Church, the Bible (except
selections accepted by some of them, but rejected br­
others), the Creeds, and the historic Christ, the
Liberals attempt to weave a Christianity out of their
own passing notions and “experiences.” A Chris­
tianity so constructed is no better than the “baseless
fabric of a vision.”*
Liberalism is merely another name for Modernism.
We have witnessed in our day the summary expulsion
* Knox-Little, “Conflict of Ideals,” p. 91.

34

of Modernism from the Catholic Church's fold. But
Anglicanism lacks the power to expel any form of
Liberalism, no matter how pernicious, from its own
system. Enumerating the "formal, permanent, and
substantive schools of error," which exist side by side
tn the Anglican Church, Cardinal .Manning could
reckon up no fewer than eight contradictory schools
of error within the bosom of that distracted com­
munion. These were "the Protestant. Hierarchical.
Romanising, Làtitudinarian, Formalistic, Puritan,
Oxford, and Rationalistic schools." Under slightly
different names, these warring sections still exist in
Anglicanism, and the Anglican Church is powerless
to declare which is right and which is wrong.
"These forms of religious opinions,” continues the
venerable Cardinal, “have been gradually evolved from
the darkness and chaos created by the Anglican Refor­
mation. Since that period the Anglican Church lias
been in a state of perpetual flux. Fixedness it has had
none from the moment of its separation, when it lost
its inherence in the Universal Church by schism, and
the influx of its supernatural mind and divine guid­
ance by formal heresy. For, as I have said before,
the master heresy of the English race is to deny th.·
presence of an infallible authority upon earth.
“During the eighteen centuries of its existence, the
Catholic Church has been tried by the rise of a suc­
cession of heresies within its unity. Every century
has had its characteristic heresy. From Gnosticism

35
to Jansenism there is a line of almost unbroken suc­
cession in error which has sprung up parasitically by
the side of Divine Truth. But the Church has re­
mained steadfast and resplendent, without change or
shadow of vicissitude, ever the same, and perfect in
its light as in the beginning. The errors of the human
intellect have never fastened upon the supernatural
intelligence of the mystical Body ; but every successive
error has been expelled by the vital and vigorous
action of the infallible mind and voice of the Church
of God.”*

Sermons on Ecclesiastical Subjects," pp. 55, 56.