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Evangelical theology : 1857-1900.
Culbertson, Eric Malcolm
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UNIVERSITY OF LONDON
EVANGELICAL THEOLOGY 1857-1900
A THESIS SUBMITTED
FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
BY
ERIC XALCOLX CULBERTSON
KING'S COLLEGE
DEPARTLBBTOF THEOLOGYAND RELIGIOUS STUDIES
1991
ý.
.,, ý ,.. ,.. ABSTRACT OF THESIS
This thesis deals with Evangelical theology in the Church of England
between the years 1857 and 1900. It relates, evaluates and analyses how
Evangelicals employed their theology in answering controversially
rationalist and ritualist theories and new ideas regarding the after-life,
and also how Evangelicals expressed their theology positively concerning
God, creation and evolution, scripture, the last things, the atonement, and
the church, sacraments and the liturgy. In the course of this analysis the
present low evaluation of Evangelical theologians, especially T. R. Birks and
Nathaniel Dimock, is questioned and their reputation enhanced. The
assumption that their position was unimaginative and almost uniformly
ultra-conservative is shown to be untenable. The lack of scholarly study
of these thinkers is remedied. In an introduction previous scholarship is reviewed, and the iaportance and relevance of the subject is shown. In chapter one, it is related how Evangelicals replied to Essays and Reviews,
Colenso, Renan and Seeley and evolutionary thought by relying on a high, though not uniformly verbal theory of Biblical inspiration. Chapter two deals with rationalism from 1879-1900 and notes a growing breadth in
Evangelical scholarship. Chapter three concerns the after-life, and shows how some Evangelicals accepted that the pains of hell were less severe than traditionally believed. Chapter four notes the Evangelical view of baptismal regeneration, confession, the real presence and eucharistic presence. Chapter five contrasts Garbett and Birks in the 1860s and Xoule and Litton in the 1890s on God and creation and describes Birks' impressive assault on evolutionary philosophy. Chapter six shows how scriptural views varied from the conservative Birks to the liberal Lias. Chapter seven is on the Last Things and the Atonement and chapter eight considers the remarkable liturgical scholarship of Dimock. In the conclusion Evangelical theology is contextualised and the implications of its importance considered. 4
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE 7
INTRODUCTION 8
THE CONTROVERSIES 27
1. RATIONALISM 1857-1878 28
1.1 Introduction 28
1.2 Essays and Reviews 31
1.3 Colenso 52
1.4 Renn 64
1.5 Seeley 65
1.6 Geology and Evolution 67
2. RATIONALISM 1879-1900 91
2.1 Introduction 91
2.2 The Revised Version of the Bible 94
2.3 Wellhausen 101
2.4 Lux Xundi 113
2.5 Genesis and Science 117
2.6 T. H. Huxley and Mrs Humphry Ward 122
3. THE AFTER-LIFE 135
3.1 Introduction 135
3.2 Passive Contemplation and Conditionalism 137
3.3 Farrar, Pusey, and Xoule 142
4. RITUALISM 147
4.1 Introduction 147 5
4.2 Baptismal Controversy 152
4.3 Athanasian Creed and Prayer Book revision 158
4.4 Confession 163
4.5 Real Presence and Eucharistic Sacrifice 172
4.6 Ritualism 1857-74 185
4.7 Ritualism 1874-1900 191
THE THEOLOGICAL YRITINGS 203
5. GOD, CREATION, AND EVOLUTION 204
5.1 Introduction 204
5.2 Creation 206
5.3 Evolution 213
5.4 Evolutionary philosophy 215
6. SCRIPTURE 224
6.1 Introduction 224
6.2 Inspiration 227
6.3 Exegesis 234
7. THE LAST THINGS AND THE ATONEMENT 247
7.1 Introduction 247
7.2 The Future State 249
7.3 The Atonement 258
8. CHURCH,SACRAMENTS, AND LITURGY 264
8.1 Introduction 264
8.2 Apostolic Succession 267
8.3 Sacerdotium and Ministry 273
8.4 Real Presence 275
8.5 Eucharistic Sacrifice 282 CONCLUSION 290
BIBLIOGRAPHY 299 7
PREFACE
Ny thanks-are due to several people. Firstly they are due to Dr
Judith Champ, lecturer in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at King's College, London, for supervising my research. Secondly to Dr.
Christoph Schwoebel, lecturer in the same department, who assisted me with final revision. I an also grateful for the advice of Revd. Dr. Peter Toon,
Dr. Kenneth Hylson-Smith, and the Revd J. S. Reynolds, on the feasibility of this subject for research. However all errors and mistakes in this thesis remain my own.
I an grateful to the librarians of King's College library, the
British Library, the Bodleian library, Oxford, the Cambridge University
Library, The National Library of Scotland, the Lambeth Palace library, the
Evangelical library, and New College library, University of Edinburgh, for allowing me to use their facilities and for helping me.
I also thank my wife Kay, who helped me with some final checking, and who has given me such excellent support over the several years I have been writing this thesis. I dedicate this thesis with affection to my parents.
Deo gratias. INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate and analyse the theology
of Evangelicals of the Church of England in the late nineteenth century and
to investigate how they employed it in responding controversially to
rationalist, ritualist, and eschatologically revisionist theories.
The exciting possibility of investigating the thought of these
theologians was in part a product of the writer's personal Anglican
Evangelical tradition. It is hoped that this will not prejudice his
judgement, but it provides an immediate interest and sympathy with these
thinkers. More particularly a historical interest in the Victorian period
has been of help, as was the experience of reading a glowing tribute to
these largely and unjustly forgotten figures by Prof. J. I. Packer, in lb&
Oxford Evangelicals by J. S. Reynolds. That was the immediate spur to find
out why this galaxy of theological stars has passed from the firmament
unloved and unregarded.
In December 1860 Lord Shaftesbury wrote that many had fallen spiritually under the "Juggernaut of Rationalism, which enlarged, elevated and emancipated the intellect"' and many more under the "Juggernaut of
'Shaftesbury, Broadlands XSS, SHA/XIS/3, cited by G. B. A. H. Finlayson, The Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury. 1801-188 (London: Eyre and Methuen, 1981), p. 515 9
Ritualism which pleased the fancy, made religion easy and lulled the
conscience"' The two Juggernauts were, as he wrote two months later,
"rife, ready and riotous"2. Peter Toon in his book Evangelical Theology
1833-56 has related how in the preceding twenty years Evangelical
theologians had responded to Tractarianism and if hardly stemming its tide
they had at least demonstrated the tradition and credentials of Evangelical
Protestants within the Church of England. After 1856 the theological
crisis grew with the well-known rationalist controversies involving Darwin,
Jowett, Colenso and Seeley. And a counterpoint was played by liturgical Tractarianism.
The name of the Evangelical theologian William Goode who played a
particularly distinguished role in the Gorham controversy is known and
recognised. However he had less renowned and unjustly neglected followers
and successors who were men of quality if not as outstanding thinkers as
Together he. they responded at length to the issues of the day and also
wrote more theoretically.
It is time for a revaluation of, and in some cases a first verdict on these Evangelical theologians of the Church of England. Their opinions and their response to the issues confronting them deserve investigation.
Owen Chadwick is right that "Throughout the mid-Victorian age the
Evangelical movement was the strongest religious force in British life "3.
Such a movement cannot be evaluated, nor can the Evangelical mind be traced throughout Victorian society, as Chadwick bids us to, unless its theological underpinning is delineated. The range of theological opinion among
'Ibid. 2Shaftesbury, Broadlands MSS, SHA/PD/8, cited by Finlayson, The. Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury 1801-1885, p. 515 30wen Chadwick, The Victorian Church,, (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1966,1970) I, p. 5 10
Evangelicals needs to be described, as well as the development of their views during the rest of the century. The relationship between Evangelical and non-Evangelical theology requires investigation.
But is Evangelical theology between these dates susceptible to scholarly investigation in depth? It seems wise, before turning over the first clod, to ascertain the fertility of the soil.
Is there novelty of subject matter to be found here?. Would there be newly discovered facts? It is generally acknowledged that this field has not been over tilled in times past. In his book Evangelical Theology
1833-1856 Peter Toon writes: ' "A further book needs to be written showing how they [the Evangelicals] reacted to the "Liberal" theology - that is to new views about the Bible, revelation, creation, miracles and related subjects which gained popularity in England from about 1850.0 J. S.
Reynolds refers to the theology of Evangelicals in Oxford, in the reigns of
Victoria and Edward VII as "a subject hitherto little explored"2
Some work has been conducted an Evangelicalism in general during the period. This touches in part, but to a very limited extent, on matters theological. Anne Bentley's thesis, The Transformation of the Evangelical
Party in the Church of England in the later Nineteenth Century"a is a powerful work of general history. The same is true of a thesis covering the early period, B. B. Hardman's "The Evangelical Party in the Church of
England", '. It has a little theological material in the chapter, "The
'Peter Toon, Evangelical Theology. 1833-56. A Response to Tractarianism, (London: Xarshall, Morgan and Scott, 1979), Preface 2J. I. Packer, "The Oxford Evangelicals in Theology" in J. S. Reynolds, The Evangelicals at Oxford 1871-1905, (Oxford: Xarcham Xanor Press, 1975), Additional Contents, p. 82 3Anne Bentley, "The Transformation of the Evangelical Party in the Church of England". Ph. D., Durham, 1971 4B. E. Hardman, "The Evangelical Party in the Church of England, 1855-1865". Ph. D., Cambridge, 1964. 11
Struggle with Liberal Theology", '
A thesis dealing with a similar area to this one, but for different dates, is "Aspects of late nineteenth century Anglican Evangelicalism: the response to ritualism, Darwinism and theological liberalism. " by X. Vellings
2. This dissertation, which I consulted only in the last stages of revision, and on which I have not depended, though I shall refer to it, deals with these issues between the 1890s and 1930. Its title is slightly misleading, therefore, since it is mostly about the early twentieth century. Thus it only overlaps with the last fifth or so of my period. In fact there is only a little in it on the 1890s, and it does not deal with the Edward King controversy or with the Huxley and Yard disputes. Thus it carries on the historical story of controversies on these issues in the next period, dealing with the CXS/BCXS, SCX, FEC/AEGN, and Prayer Book controversies.
The sections on ritualism deal with education, patronage, and the legal and parliamentary campaigns in detail, with only a little theological
There is treatment. a discussion of general Evangelical attitudes to higher
Darwinism during criticism and this later period, with some discussion of the later theologians like reaction of Griffith Thomas, Vernon Storr, and
Herbert Ryle, though there is more concentration on theological non-
like A. specialists E. Knox, and, for the 1890s, J. C. Ryle, and also on such non-technical topics like the effect of higher criticism on mission and the importance of expository preaching. It is interesting, however that Vellings finds that by 1920-1930 there was a group of Evangelicals willing to accept
' Ibid., 84-122 2X. Vellings, "Aspects of late nineteenth century Anglican Evangelicalism: the response to ritualism, Darwinism and theological liberalism. " (D.Phil., Oxford, 1989) 12 some moderate German higher criticism, and that some Evangelicals acc. pted aspects of Darwinism -by -this later date, indicating that the developments mentioned here were pursued to their conclusion'and thus confirming- the assessment of developments here.
Vellings does not provide any analysis of the Evangelical theologians as such, - and his approach is throughout historical rather, than theological. In two I disagree his - one or cases with estivate of, i ,.. he theologians, and I shall point this, out. 'Nevertheless provides ýa, helpful broad survey of how the Evangelical-party historically coped with these issues in the next period and he provides a sequel to the more historical aspects of this dissertation.
However despite these works and several studies on the social and cultural effects of Evangelicalism, not only the theology-but many other aspects of the lives of Evangelicals of the late. nineteenth century have not been thoroughly explored., Until recently the only account was the. rather, dated and anecdotal-book by G. R. Balleine, A History of the Evangelical
Party in the Church of England'., Now this has been superseded by, two volumes: Evangelicals in the Church of England 1734-1984 by Kenneth
Hylson-Smith (Edinburgh: T and, T Clark, 1988) and a, general and-very -more stimulating work Evangelicalism-in Modern Britain. - a history from the 1730s to the 1980s by D. Y. Bebbington (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989). The former is a straightforward narrative 'account of the historical events, with only, a brief mention of the main outlines of theological controversy - especially pp 122-142. The latter deals with Scottish, Velsh and nonconformist
Evangelicalism as well as the Church of England. Bebbington gives more
IG. R. Balleine, A History of the Evangelical Partyehe Church of England. (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1933). 13
attention to the theological controversies although his purpose is mainly
historical. He writes on the issues dealt with here on pp. 137-140,142,
145,146-149. " Given the space available he offers an overview of these-
matters, advancing his major thesis, that beyond certain basic
characteristics, Evangelicalism is not in the main a reaction against the
times in which it is set, but a reflection of then. Evangelicalism has
consequently changed much in the course of its history. This conclusion,
arrived at independently and contemporaneously, meshes well with the
findings of this-research: that Evangelical reaction- to the new *movements
in the late nineteenth century church was less simple rejection based'on
timeless theological principles, and more a range of dialogue, with an
admixture of partial concession as-well as negative diatribe. Both
Evangelicals and their opponents were'well salted with Victorian'
Romanticism and individualism. In his pages then Bebbington skilfully advances an overarching thesis, but he`does not attempt a detailed analysis
of the thought of Evangelical' Anglican theologians.
So the acres have not been tilled. Yet they seem broad enough to
the eye. ' There'is a considerable corpus of-late nineteenth century
Evangelical theology. Victorian religious writers rarely wrote less than exhaustively, and Evangelicals were no exception. L. E. Elliott-Banns saw
the length, and sometimes the dull length, of Victorian Evangelical works of theology as, a hindrance to their positive reception. ' 'Perhaps we'have'here one reason why the Evangelical divines are not better known. Thinkers'of other church parties may have spread their talents less thinly and less voluminously. It is certainly hard to imagine Victorian schoolboys
'L. E. Elliott-Binns, The Evangelical Xovenent in the English Church, (London: Methuen, 1928), pp. 83-4. 14 scanning Birks or Litton as exemplars of a perfect English prose style as they did Newman.
The Evangelical theology is large. corpus of -Elliott-Binns mentions
Henry Vace, B. A. Litton, and Nathaniel Disock as copious writers worthy of study. Vriting at an earlier date about men who were his colleagues and associates, Handley Xoule also invokes the names'of T. R. Birke, Villias
Goode, Robert Payne Smith, and Alexander XcCaul. '-' The enthusiastic, if understandably partial J. I. Packer,, in a most suggestive chapter,
Oxford Evangelicals in Theology2 finds a place in his pantheon also, for
Xoule himself, R. - B. Girdlestone, V. H. Griffith Thomas, C., H. H. Vright, and
C. A. Heurtley. A scrutiny of the published works of these individuals reveals that their writings were extensive and that they possessed substance. Bebbington concurs. He refers to "established scholars" mentioning those suggested by`a writer to the Record for a compendium as a counterblast to Essays and Reviews: 'T. H. Horne, Alexander IcCaul,
Christopher Benson, Joseph Baylee, -J. B. Xarsden, T. R. Birks, Villiam Goode, and B. A. Litton, "on p. 140. However many of these were old and were not making their mark by the 1860s. Bebbington also mentions as worthy of note Edward Garbett, Robert Payne Smith, and Nathaniel, Dinock"on, the same page.
But were they aen of gold, (or at least silver) or men of straw? If there is a case that new facts about their theology exist, waiting to be discovered, -Is the enterprise worthwhile? Does the subject have sufficient importance? ' Vhy study these writers if they were lacking in competence or
'H. G. C. Xoule, The Evangelical School in the Church of England- its men and its work in the 19th century (London: Nisbet, 1901). 2J. S. Reynolds, The Evangelicals at Oxford, Additional contents, pp-82-94 theological 15 gravitas, or if their contributions to the intellectual debates of their time were uncertain and lightweight?
There exists a suspicion that the Evangelicals of this period are not worthy of serious intellectual scrutiny because they themselves disavowed any sustained theological endeavour. Did, not Shaftesbury state
'God cared comparatively little for Man's intellect. He cares greatly for
Xan's heart. Satan reigned in the intellect: God in the heart of San"? '
It cannot be denied that theology lay less near the heart of their religion for Evangelicals than for other churchmen. The faith of the plough-boy was approved as much as that of the professor for.. the spiritual heirs of Tyndale. The gospel could be grasped by the simple as well as the sophisticated, and it was accepted by an emotional change of heart rather than new intellectual insight. Much of the best 'of Evangelical work was performed in the parish and the mission field rather than in the lecture theatre. Owen Chadwick comments: "Nothing is commoner than the charge that Evangelicals were ignorant. You can find learned Evangelicals;....
Villiam Goode, famous in the Gorham fights, whose learning bore comparison with that of any English divine..... But what has learning to do with religion? They were men with flocks, and spoke to simple hearts, and knew that little children shall inherit the kingdom of God "2 But because salvation was more important that learning, it did not follow that learning was of no account and ignorance was to be preferred to knowledge.
Evangelicals reacted against what many of them considered the sterile intellectualism of both Tractarians and Broad churchmen. They distrusted the mental pyrotechnics of Newman's Tract %C. They rejected the
'Shaftesbury, Broadlands XSS, SHA/PD/8 2Owen Chadwick, The Victorian Church, I, pp. 450-1 16
papacy of Teutonic scholars. They did not trumpet their own theological
achievement or seek to dazzle readers of divinity. But they did not reject
the intellect. Recent studies have shown that the allegation that they were
unconcerned with secular learning and culture is unfair. ' It is time to
reconsider the suggestion that they were also uncommitted to serious
Christian thought. Peter Toon has already shown the serious theological
commitment and considerable quality of the mid-century Evangelicals. Our
task is to show that the learning of their successors is also worthy of due
consideration.
If Evangelicals did not themselves reject theology, some commentators have rejected the theology they did produce and have declared that it lacks quality. Firstly it has been regarded as unbalanced, and hence unreliable. As Owen Chadwick suggests, this is largely due to the
Evangelical fondness, common to most periods of history, for eschatological speculation. Chadwick points to theories about the destruction of the papacy and to the ministry of Dr. Xarsh in Birmingham; these, he argues, led people to think that Evangelicals were gullible, extreme, and intellectually unreliable. "In 1845 Xarsh declared in a sermon his expectation that antichrist would be revealed within about twenty-five years and the Second Coming would be at hand. The congregations did not depart. They knelt in soul before the throne of judgment. But it is easy to see why Christian sceptics mocked the learning and sense of Evangelical preachers; 02 Yet if Evangelicals were spiritually committed to notions of
'D. Rosman, Evangelicals and Culture, (London: Croon. Helm, 1984) 20. Chadwick, The Victorian Church, I, pp. 450-451. 17 the millennium and the second coming, they were not intellectually obsessed by then. The vast majority of their writings have nothing to do with the last times. If they lacked balance because they took Daniel and Revelation more literally than most, they should not have'to pay too high a price for this.
Bebbington's more recent verdict on the quality of Evangelicals represents a considerable change in scholarly opinion towards a more favourable judgement on the quality, of Evangelical thought: on p. 138: The characteristic activism of Evangelicals made them chafe at the bit of reclusive scholarship. Yet within Evangelicalism there was a leaven conducive to intellectual endeavour. " - And on p. 141: "Originality, it must be admitted, was not the forte of most Evangelical, theologians, who from the
1830s normally saw their task as essentially defensive. Yet' Evangelicalism did generate academic theology. Its adherents did not spurn the task of reflecting on their faith. "
Secondly Evangelical theology has been criticised for an alleged naive Biblicism. From the anglo-catholic camp H. P. Liddon accused
Evangelicalism of limiting its theology to "a-few chapters in St. -Paul's epistles". ' Vernon Storr, a liberal Evangelical, in his book MM
Development of English Theology in the Nineteenth Century criticised nineteenth century Evangelical thought for its lack of philosophical content: "The Evangelicals had no philosophy of history or religion...... You could not expect them in an age when the comparative study of religion'was in its infancy, and when the thought of development had not come into
' Ibid., I, p. 451. 18 prominence, to think in terms of growth and process; but they, seem to have had no conception of theology as a discipline essentially related to the work of science and philosophy.... "'- -
There is truth in Liddon's charge. Perhaps only in recent years have some Evangelicals begun to open themselves to a full-orbed critical view of the Bible, and endeavoured to escape from a narrow quoting of texts and a concentration on-key passages in the Epistles. Yet nineteenth century Evangelicals did give the necessary due weight to Scripture as a necessary foundation for Christian theology. Anglo-Catholics like Liddon were themselves often guilty of a selective use of texts and reinterpretation of Biblical doctrine.
Storr's criticism is less fair.. There was at least one Evangelical philosophical theologian of note, T. R. Birks. And seventy years on, Storr's evolutionary theory of-religious development seems flawed. To-a}twentieth century observer, the Evangelicals' insulation from Hegelian and Spencerian theory looks less than fatal.
Thirdly it is argued that the decline in the Evangelical party's power, influence and vitality in the latter part of the century betokens a lack of intellectual backbone and a breakdown in the confidence of others in the theological credibility of Evangelicalism. The Evangelical party grew in size in the latter part of the century; one quarter of the clergy of, the Church was Evangelical by the generous assessment of J. C. Ryle in
1877. Yet this numerical growth was paralleled by a decline in standing and influence, as Anne Bentley has chronicled.
'J. I. Packer in J. S. Reynolds, The Evangelicals at Oxford, Additional Contents, p. 83 citing Vernon F. Storr, The Development of English Theology in the Nineteenth Century (London: 1913), p. 71. 19
Part of this decline was caused by a failure to answer altogether satisfactorily the questions thrown up by rationalism. Yet no party did so, and all suffered. Evangelicals suffered more than most because they defended the key redoubt of the Bible in the host dangerous forward position.
disappoint Some Evangelicals did intellectually, especially the .
"Palmerston bishops". Yet just as the growth in the Evangelical party in the early part of the century had-not been by power of brain, but by spiritual vision and practical zeal, so too decline was probably caused in the main by non-intellectual factors such as a change in spiritual fashion.
In a leader in the Tines of 31 Jan.,, 1879 on the occasion of the death of the leading Evangelical Dean"Xcjeile the following comments are made on the decline of the party: its decay is due to "closing its eyes to those elements of religion and those elements of theology which the
Tractarian revival brought again into prominence. " The leader goes. on to state that the "apostolic succession" has passed from Vesley and Vhitefield to Keble and Newman.
And so there exists a prima facie case for rejecting arguments that there was no late nineteenth Evangelical theology of a good or even adequate standard. At the same time, since a low estimate of its worth is part of the current scholarly consensus, a contrary view would radically revise established opinion.
It is the contention of this writer that there are grounds for giving a higher estimate than is usual of the worth of these writers. Vith the growth of numbers of Evangelical Anglicans in recent years, the nanes of Dimock and Litton, of Xoule and Birks are beginning to be spoken of again in academic as well as popular circles. There was a breach in the 20 continuity of theological tradition within Anglican Evangelicalism due to decline' in the early part of the twentieth century. Now the threads are being picked up again. An exciting aspect to an appraisal of these
thinkers is how, faced with issues different from those of today, they yet provide methodological clues to Evangelicals answering modern questions.
In many respects the Victorian Evangelicals' position in the mainstream of church debate has more in common with modern Anglican Evangelical experience than the early twentieth century period. -
Does the subject have a sufficiently wide interest? Or is it trivial or unrelated to other areas of study?
It has to be admitted that nineteenth century Evangelical theology forms to a certain extent a school apart. Contemporaries remarked upon this. In the same leader mentioned above this point is brought out:
the accredited theology of the (Evangelical] party was too such like that of the isolated scholars described by a great novelist who laboriously make paths for themselves through a country where others have already made highroads along which all the rest of the world are travelling
Evangelicals did not stand apart fron the past. Evangelicals placed great emphasis on their theological predecessors, not just the Bible writers, but Fathers, Reformers and Anglican divines. They were aware, as
J. I. Packer writes, of their inheritance of "three centuries of reformed
Augustinianism, massively expounded by major minds". '
But Evangelicals stood deliberately somewhat aloof fron what they called the "theology of the nineteenth century". They meant by this, not the general theological climate of the time but the new speculative schools.
Evangelical traditionalism, rooted in Scripture, suspicious of novelty and innovation, meant that both speculative Teutonic and sceptical English
' Ibid., p. 92 21 religious thought were beyond the pale. Rationalism and ritualism did not compel a questioning of roots among Evangelicals, except among those lost to the party and often to the faith. Evangelicals were not--as aloof from other schools and parties as their successors in the early years of this century, whose sense of separation has been chronicled by Kenneth Hylson
Smith in his thesis The Evangelicals in the Church of England, 1900-1939",
(Ph. D. Disseration, King's College London, 1983). But they did have'a different style and different'first principles from High and Broad churchmen.
Yet much Evangelical theology was written for all, even if some of it was only valued by fellow=travellers. Dimock'the Evangelical liturgiologist was read and praised by Dowden the anglo-catholic scholar.
The Victorian church of England hada strong yet fluid party system, and such exchange of ideas and cross-fertilisation of thought took place between Evangelicals and others which would be inconceivable thirty years later.
There is another way in which the'subject'of Evangelical theology has a wide interest. Late nineteenth century Evangelical theology, like most theology of all periods was rarely written in an intellectual vacuum.
It addressed the issues of the day. These issues are of the widest' possible concern - rationalism in Biblical criticism, science and philosophy, ritualism, and the after-life. In the absence of a detailed critique of the Evangelical contributions to these debates we have often heard the voice at only one end of the telephone, or at best a High Church reply to rationalism or radical views on life after death, or a broad church answer to ritualism, often replies and answers not endorsed by' Evangelicals. - It is in the interest of students of Darwin that Birke as 22-
well as Vilberforce should be heard; it-is to the advantage of those who
study Temple and Colenso that Payne Smith should not be ignored while
Pusey and Denison are taken into account. Often conservatism seers weaker
than it was when Evangelical conservatives are ignored; frequently non-
Evangelical conservatives give conservatism a bad reactionary name when
the often moderate views of Evangelicals- are not taken into consideration.
So it is especially in the energetic` Evangelical response to`the controversies of the time that wide interest- lies. There is then a strong hope that, new, facts, will be found, that the material'is of good quality and that there will be wide interest in-any findings. -'
How will the subject be treated, then? First of all, by a consideration of, the controversies, and only afterwards by an analysis of the theology. ' I-am-grateful to Peter- Toonfor prompting this very" serviceable structure in his book Evangelical Theology 1 3. It seems to make good logical sense, since so auch Evangelical theology was prompted by the issues of the day, to deal first with matters which touched the parish and the newspaper office as well as the senior common room.
Xore particularly this particular methodology has other advantages.
There is a criterion of relevance'here. If a historical approach alone was attempted there would be a danger of self-selecting and limiting the range of theology, considered to that which was relevant to particular controversies. Thus this approach might lead to a distorted assessment of
Evangelical theology as negative and reactive in character, limited to a rejection of new ideas. It-seems better to have a theological section in which the broad richness of Evangelical theology can be examined, while focussing the on positive theological contributions to areas connected with the controversies. 23
It is impossible to deal with the whole range-, of Evangelical
theology in these years, and any such attempt would lack coherence.
Accordingly only those subjects related-to-the response to rationalism and
ritualism, including new-ideas-about the after-life, can be dealt with.
Biblical scholarship cannot: be surveyed aside from the general issues of
the authority and-inspiration of scripture, and the response to rationalist
criticism and higher criticism. Similarly Evangelical patristic and
reformation studies and works of church -.history- liebeyond scope of the
thesis, save where they relate to other relevant areas.
Similarly it would broaden the subject unmanageably and it would,
lessen the coherence of the area under question should Evangelical-theology
outside the'Church of England be included. To exclude-such theology is to
make no judgement as to its worth or importance. ' From time to time such
theology, will be mentioned en passant, where a particular dispute or a
particular theology cannot be understood without its consideration. Many
Evangelicals, especially those who read the Record newspaper and attended
Exeter Hall meetings, had a low. doctrine of episcopacy and-a high one of
inter-denominationalisa. But Anglican Evangelical cooperation with dissent
was more evident in practical matters and missionary societies than in
theology.
A broad range of sources must be considered. There are relatively
few relevant secondary sources apart from-the general works and the two theses by Bentley and Hardman already mentioned. Consequently there is only, occasionally the necessity for reviewing secondary literature on particular points and appraising its validity. Geoffrey' Finalyson's massive biography"on Shaftesbury concerns a figure who, while not a theological specialist was a key influence on Evangelical opinion. It is a reliable .24 work. Balleine and Reynolds (see bibliography) set the scene without covering theological detail. Toon analyses meticulously the Evangelicals' theology in responding to Tractarianism up to 1856. As mentioned above, his work has been 'largely' influential`in prompting this enterprise. The chapter by Packer on'the Oxford theologians in"Reynolds' book was also particularly important in confirming that'late nineteenth century
Evangelical theology is a suitable topic for serious study.
Primary sources include church periodicals and newspapers, especially for the section'on the controversies. By far the most important of these are the Christian' Observer and its successor The Churchman. From the beginning of the period until 1878 the Christian Observer provided the
Church of England Evangelical with a moderate and reasoned organ of comment on religious'and secular matters. The theological quality of the journal was variable but on average acceptably high. It reviewed non-
Evangelical as well as Evangelical books and was not narrowly partisan. It could sometimes be dull and its very reasonableness alienated the fiery spirits. Accordingly it finally fell into financial problems.
The Churchman sought to, replace it from 1879 onwards. It was less of a party journal and included some articles by non-Evangelicals. The
Record was more popular in style, ' a newspaper, `not a journal, with a larger circulation that the Christian Qbserver or The Churchman. It appealed to the old Exeter Hall constituency, less open to the rest of the Church of
England, more ecumenical towards other Evangelicals, more vigorously anti-
Roman Catholic. Shaftesbury's adviser, Alexander Haldane was editor at the beginning of the period, then Edward Garbett. By the '70s it had become more moderate. A new rival, -'The Rock, more like the Record of old, appeared. The Vestminster Review is also quoted from. It was a periodical 25 specially, concerned. with issues-of science and religion with a broad readership and was widely read and quoted from in public forums such as the Houses of Parliament.,
Archives and correspondence which. throw light on individuals will also be used. The basis of the section on the theological response is the theological books, by the Evangelicals,, together with articles and sermons where appropriate.
Lastly some words about the definition of technical terms is appropriate. "Rationalism" has been defined as "a system of belief regulated by reason: a disposition to apply to religious doctrines the same critical methods as to science and history, and to attribute all phenomena to natural rather than miraculous causes. " It was used especially to refer to the enlightenment thought of the eighteenth century philosophes, and of the English like Toland. It is used to describe radical and heterodox Bible scholarship and scientific criticism of the Bible record by Evangelicals throughout the period 1857-1900 but more particularly in the earlier decades. In the latter period, modernism or liberalism began to be used instead to describe much the same kind of thought, especially after the turn of the century. Yet there is a difference between rationalism, modernism, and liberalism. Xodernism and liberalism suggest a relativistic view of religious truth, aware of the historical specificity of doctrine, whereas rationalism is dogmatically unbelieving. Elements of liberalism as opposed to rationalism can be seen in the thought of theologians as early as the writers of Essays and Reviews. Yet it seems least inconsistent to use the term most employed by the Evangelicals themselves to describe a kind of theology recognisably similar and continuous into the 1890s, even at the cost of something of a mismatch in the later period. 26
Another term requiring definition is neology. This has been defined as "new doctrine, especially German rationalism. " This is used more of the earlier period, and is employed frequently by Evangelicals. It has something of an antique flavour about it, becomes less popular later in the century, and has a pejorative tone.
Lastly there is the term ritualism. This denotes the theology and practices of the adherents of the second phase of the Oxford Xovesent, arguably more or less connected with the former, which introduced ceremonial practices into the English church. It includes the thought as well as the liturgical policy of the party. THE CONTROVERSIES CHAPTER 1
RATIONALISX: 1857-1878
These years mark the flood-tide of controversy caused by the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species (1859), Essays and Reviews (1860)
Ecce Roma (1865) by J. R. Seeley, and Colenso's Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (1861) and The Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua Critically,
Examined (1862-79). There were several important cases in court testing the law on rationalist issues. These included the failed prosecution of
Vilson and Villians, authors of chapters in Bays and Reviews, and the judgement in favour of Colenso against his metropolitan, Gray. In 1869
Frederick Temple, another of the Essays and Reviews writers was appointed
Bishop of Exeter, pointing the way ahead to an assimilation of moderate rationalism into the mainstream of the Church of England.
The lead in opposing some aspects of rationalism, and especially
Darwinism, was taken by Vilberforce and the High churchmen. But T. R.
Birks, a non-doctrinaire Evangelical, professor of Xoral Philosophy at
Cambridge in controversial succession to F. D. Maurice from 1872, opposed strenuously and ably evolution and the philosophical Darwinism of H.
Spencer. C. A. Heurtley, also on the pragmatic wing of the party, wrote on 29 .
the subject of miracles. Edward Garbett gave Boyle and Bampton lectures on
The Bible and its critics and the necessity for dogmatic faith. The ,,
Evangelical defence against "neology" in Essays and Reviews was conducted
forcefully by Alexander X'Caul, Payne Smith, and B. A. Litton. Articles in
church periodicals cover such subjects as Geology, the veracity of Genesis,
the cosmogony of Xoses, miracles, general law, and Renan's Life of Jesus,
and reflect a lively Evangelical response to the controversies. Some
writing, in the Record and the Christian Observer is polemical only; much
of it is studied and theologically well grounded.
Vithin the period there is a calm before the storm from 1857 to
1859, a flurry of debate in a litigious atmosphere from 1860-7, then a more
considered response with major publications from Birks in particular from
1867-1878. The period ends with the opening of Vycliffe and Ridley Halls
in 1877 and 1878 to provide theological ammunition for young Evangelical clergy in the war against rationalism and the other "R".
In this chapter there will be a detailed account of the controversies and the Evangelical role in them, and an attempt to fill in evidence on such general issues as the range of theological opinion about them and the points on which Evangelical ground shifted in these debates.
In 1.2 Essays and Reviews will be dealt with. The previous scholarly consensus has been that the Evangelical response was uniformly conservative. But what kind of conservatism was it? Vas it a neo- eighteenth century response to rationalism? How high a view of inspiration did the Evangelicals take? What mode of inspiration did they favour? What arguments did they use to show the trustworthiness of the Bible, against the essayists? 30
In 1.3 the Evangelical opposition to Colenso will be considered.
What theory of inspiration underlay the Evangelicals' response to him? Was
Colenso's theory of inspiration deficient? In 1.4 there are questions to be answered regarding Renn. What did Evangelicals think of his non- supernatural approach? In 1.5 Seeley's writings are considered. Did
Evangelicals object to the tone of his writings, or their content?
In 1.6 scientific matters are dealt with. Was the main debate over
Darwin, as has been thought, or on some other matters? Vhat were the objections Evangelicals made to theories of evolution or "development"? How dependent were Evangelicals on outmoded scientific theories? What were they most concerned to safeguard? 31
1.2 Essays and Reviews'
Essays and Reviews, of all the neological publication of the period
covered. by this chapter, was the book which aroused most controversy. It
was hated by conservatives of every stamp. But it had a special place in
Evangelical demonology. In retrospect it is somewhat difficult to see why.
Essays and Reviews seems an uneven book, its arguments variable in quality,
many of its conclusions less than novel. Yet the book's impact on the
theological intellect and the subsequent court case's impression on the
popular mind were considerable. Xore than the works of Darwin, Colenso and
others, the volume came to symbolise neology and the campaign against it
became the main battle of the war. Throughout the decade of the '60s the
columns of the Record and the Christian Observer were filled with articles,
letters, and reviews rebutting the "Septem contra Christum". In the
Christian Observer alone there were over 30 pieces of writing on Essays
and Reviews between 1860 and 1865. The book presses too disgorged a fair
number of publications designed either as. a whole or in part to refute
Temple and his associates.
Essays and Reviews was a book which profoundly disturbed
Evangelicals, yet whose authors they tried to respect. Shaftesbury
endeavoured to be fair when he described the book as compiled by 'seven
gentlemen, conscientious, no doubt, in their own views, but holding a belief and a faith antagonistic in the extreme from that-which we hold. '2 The conscientiousness and the antagonism were elements of both of which
' (Frederick Temple et al. ), Essays and Reviews (London: John V. Parker and Son, 1860) 2F. Hodder, The Life and Vork of the Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury (London: 1887), Vol. I I I, p. 162. 32
Evangelicals were aware. Evangelicals tended to react with savagery to the
more sensational neologians, like Renan and Seeley. But Essays and Reviews
was perceived as more moderate in its tone, even if that moderation was
sometimes uncharitably construed as a deception. For example Essays and
Reviews was referred to as the Tract XC of the Broad Church school. '
Evangelicals were kinder to some of the contributors than to others.
Temple was complimented for being "mild and moderate. M2
Jowett was given the back-handed credit for being "not so much an
unbelieverN3 as the rest. On this point modern scholars are broadly agreed.
Peter Hinchliff comments that Jowett was essentially conservative in his
thought His .4 radical biblical criticism was in practice almost entirely
confined to the textual or lower criticism of scripture. Once the text had
been established, the historian's work was done, according to Jowett. In
this he followed the established practice of classical scholarship in which
discipline he had first excelled. Pattison's fine historical essay on late
seventeenth and early eighteenth century thought, which in retrospect can
be seen as the best thing in the book; perplexed Evangelicals. It was
labelled the "least effective"b contribution.
But the other four essays offended. They offended not just the
Record but the more moderate Christian Observer. Wilson was said to have
"attacked the Articles"6-and especially the sixth one. He interpreted'it as allowing a liberal doctrine of scriptural inspiration. Evangelicals
'"Essays and Reviews: a review", Christian Observer, 1860,375-98. 2Ibid. 3Ibid. P. Hinchliff, "Ethics, Evolution and Biblical Criticism - the thought of Benjamin Jowett and John William Colenso", Journal of Ecclesiastical History. . vol 37 1986. pp. 91-110 Essays and Reviews: a review". 6lbid. 33
reacted in a vigorous way to any attempt to reinterpret the Articles.
Newman's attempt had increased Evangelical sensitivity on this score.
Goodwin's assault on Genesis 1 was rebutted in the more restrained tone which Evangelicals tended to employ in matters touching on the biological.
Baden-Powell was similarly treated with firmness of argument but moderation of tone with a topical sideswipe against his and Darwin's belief in the the grand principles of self-evolving powers of nature ."
But on the unfortunate head of Villiams fell the full weight of
Evangelical fury. His essay, the Church Observer declared, was "a mass of reckless infidelity, compared with which the writings of Voltaire and Paine were comparatively harmless "2 Exception was taken to his theories on prophecy. And 'Williams' championing of Bunsen was severely condemned, but mainly in the more extreme Evangelical circles, like the Reord, which labelled Bunsen its leaders It had the "heretical diplomatist" in one of .3 been a shrewd move of Williams to frame his article as a review of Bunsen's biblical researches. This Prussian had been ambassador in London and was well known by Shaftesbury and others in England and respected as a churchman. Later on in the year it was reported in the Evangelical
Alliance's periodical Evangelical Christendom that Bunsen had died a converted man. The Evangelical Alliance voted a resolution in his favour, only to be roundly attacked for doing so by Haldane, editor of the Record. 4
But for many Evangelicals Bunsen was a more acceptable figure, even before conversion, than Williams would ever be. T. D. H. Battersby suggested that he Villiams r, was not as unorthodox as made out .
'Ibid. 2Ibid. 3Becprd. 21 Xay, 1860. 'Resod 9 January, 1861. 5Record, 5 October, 1860. 34
The initial Evangelical reaction to Essas and Reviews then was
hostile but not uniformly strident. Its novelty did shock. But how novel
was the publication perceived to be? Evangelicals traced its pedigree to
various sources, trying to understand the book by placing it in historical
context.
Firstly some capital was made of the Oxonian connections of the
contributors. lore "malignancy" was expected from the source which had
brought forth Puseyism. C. H. Davies, in the columns of the vehemently
anti-ritualist Record, drew attention to the fact that several of the
"Seven" were ex-Tractarians. ' An alliance between Broad and High against
Evangelical was feared by some. A few years before, in 1852, Shaftesabury
had alleged such an alliance, because of a lack of Tractarian opposition to
H. H. Xilman's History of the Jews, a work which introduced some Teutonic
theology to the English reader. The charge was acrimoniously denied by
Pusey.
Secondly the writers of Essays and Reviews were placed fairly and
squarely within the Broad Church tradition. Evangelicals had fought
strenuously against this party for zany years, often in alliance with
Tractarians, both groups for example opposing the appointment of Dr. R. D.
Hampden as Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford in 1836, though
Evangelicals did not oppose his becoming Bishop of Hereford in 1848, as some High Churchmen did. In more recent tines F. D. Xaurice, Charles
Kingsley and A. P. Stanley, the leaders of a new Broad Church grouping, were resisted in their schemes, more on a pragmatic than a theological level, and more in the pages of the uncompromising Record than the Christian Observer.
This practical opposition was tempered as always by the Evangelicals' love
' Record. 11 January, 1861 35
of legality and reverence for the constitution.
Evangelicals were slow to raise charges of heresy against
mainstream figures'like Stanley, büt theological mavericks like Xaurice were
attacked. Xaurice had been a target since the controversy over his
dismissal from King's College, London. In 1860 he was still a bogey man.
The Record referred to his "kaleidoscope of Jumbled, dazzling doctrine"' and
recommended that Piggs' anti-Maurice book Charges of -Heresyshould be
reprinted. Beyond the fringes of the Broad Church school the Evangelicals
espied the thoroughgoing secular Zationalism of Emerson, Carlyle, the
Sterling Club, F. V. Newman, and other avowed opponents of Christian-
into Evangelicals tried, to orthodoxy .2 This was the rogues' gallery which fit the "Seven". .,.. -.
It was conceded that Essay and Reviews was a more lucid and less
obscure book` than some latitudinarian writings, especially those of
Maurice 3 This was in its favour. - Also Evangelicals understood and
sympathised with the desire of the Essayists'and other Broad Churchmen to
narrow the gap between study and pew and to help the modern world to
understand the Bible better. Had not F. D. Maurice offered cooperation-to
Shaftesbury in bringing the Gospel to the common people back in 1843? 4 `
Nevertheless the particular interpretation of the Bible stemming from the
Essayists' studies was rejected -by- Evangelicals as suitable for any pews-in
the Church of England.
The third source of Essays and Reviews was identified as German.
This was openly acknowledged by the Essayists and capitalised on, as
' Record. 29 August, 1860 2"Religion without a creed", letter, Christian Observer, 1860,556-60 3Ibid. ,IF. D. Maurice, On Right and Vrong Methods of Supt ing Protestantisn, (London: Parker, 1842) 36 in Villiams' use of Bunsen. Evangelicals were well aware that what was new in England was old on the-continent. Edward Garbett, incumbent of St.
Bartholomew's, Gray's Inn Road, pugnacious editor of the Record from 1854 to
1867 and author of a major Evangelical riposte to Essays and Reviews in the printed version of his 1861 Boyle lectures, wrote: "The production of such a volume [as Essays and Reviews] from persons holding the offical positions of the writers, might unhappily. be paralleled in Germany". ' It would be untrue to claim that Evangelicals were greatly knowledgeable about
Teutonic theology. But this did not make them pecularily insular. Few _ English churchmen, High, Broad, or Evangelical, could even read German.
Fewer still had read the works of Strauss and the Higher Critics in the original. But the more learned Evangelical was aware of the broad lines of
German neology. In the Christian Observer of 1858 there was a series "Past and Present Aspects of German theology', a fairly brief historical summary .2
The author recognised the influence of continental divinity on Xaurice and other Broad churchmen. Garbett was well read enough to appreciate the underlying influence of Baur, Ewald, Tuck, and others, on the Essayists, and especially on the biblical criticism of Villiams 3 Alexander XcCaul was aware of the diversity of German scholarship. Xuch of it was acceptable to him and he thought it should not all be decried as beyond the pale of orthodoxy. Confessional conservatives and neologians formed various schools and fought among themselves, he judged, citing divergence of opinion between different Teutonic scholars, between Hengstenberg and Hävernick,
'Edward Garbett, The Bible and Its Critics, (London: Seeley and Griffiths, 1861), p. iv. "Past and Present Aspects of German Theology", Christian Observer, 1858,145-51,465-70. 3Garbett, The Bible and Its Critics, p. 52. 37
Ewald Eichhorn Payne Smith the Semitic the and .1 scholar was pleased with way German biblical research was progressing. Much was owed to the accurate exegesis of Ewald and Gesenius, and he scented a more conservative and wind blowing with such as Delitsch Renke in the ascendant i2 So although Evangelicals' overall feelings about the continental figures quoted by the Essayists were negative, they were not entirely without knowledge of and indeed sympathy With some Teutonic theology. Evangelicals displayed philosophical learning also. Spinoza, Leibnitz, Kant, Schelling, and Hegel were all read. However Evangelicals did not find German speculative theology congenial. They contrasted it unfavourably with the English tradition of inductive philosophy.
The fourth influence on the thought of Estes and Reviews which
Coleridge Evangelicals identified was an English one, the theology of .3
Evangelicals tended to label Coleridge as the father of the new and more extreme "latitudinarianism, the "theology of the nineteenth century" as they described it`to distinguish it from the older Broad church teaching of
Hampden -and others.
In an article entitled "The Theology of Coleridge" in the Christian
Observer in 18595' Coleridge was stated to contain the germ of the opinions of Maurice and Kingsley, especially in his denial of original sin and expiation and in his exaltation of Reason as the sole foundation of certainty". He was also held to be the father of much of the Essayists'
'Alexander XcCaul, Some Notes on the First Chapter of Genesis with reference to statements in "Essays and Reviews", (London: Vertheia, Xacintosh, and Hunt, 1861). 'Robert Payne Smith The Consideration of the Principle of Scriptural Interpretation" Sermons and Addresses (Oxford: James Parker and Co., 1866), pp. 13-24. 3E. S. Shaffer, Lubla Khan and the fall of Jerusalem, (Cambridge: 1975) "The Theology of the Nineteenth Century", Christian Observer, 371ff. "The Theology of Coleridge", Christian Observer, 1859,634-9. 38,
thought and in particular their biblical criticism. Garbett drew attention
to Coleridge's criticisms of scriptural infallibility and compared them with
Jowett's. '
A fifth source of thought identified by Evangelicals in Essays and
Reviews lay in a quarter less familiar and less esteemed today. Theodore
Parker was the man of whom the Essayists most reminded Evangelicals. An
American Unitarian preacher, he moved beyond the generous liberalism, of his
Church, and was denounced by his colleagues. He taught that the core of
Christianity lay in the moral influence of Jesus and that a belief in miracles was unnecessary. He was an influential figure in Britain especially on some Unitarian thinkers such as the universalist campaigner
J. Xartineau. In the Christian Observer of 1860 an article appeared: ,, "Theodore Parker Oxford Essayists' The found Parker and the .2 author and the Essayists to agree in attacking Calvinism, biblical inspiration, miracles, and the conducting of mission. Another Unitarian, F. V. Newman, was also mentioned. It was exaggerating and extravagant to compare those well beyond the bounds of Trinitarian orthodoxy with the Essayists. But
Evangelicals sensed a thin end of a wedge in Essays and Reviews and knew from church history that Latitudinarianism could easily glide into
Socinianism. The Parker parallel proved popular. The Record drew its readers' attention to the Christian Observer article and approved its
" conclusions warmly .3
These then were five of the roots which, Evangelicals reckoned, lay beneath the Essayists bud of "heresy". Which fruits of this plant tasted
'Garbett, The Bible and its Critics, pp. 7-8. "Theodore Parker and the Oxford Essayists", Christian Observ r, 1860,467-87 3Becord, 11 July, 1860. 39
particularly bitter to Evangelicals? To which teachings did they take
greatest exception? And how did they counter them? There is not space in
this historical chapter for an exposition of Evangelical theology as a
positive body of teaching. But an outline of the theological reasons for
Evangelical opposition to Essays and Reviews can be delineated, in the*
initial period following its publication.
The main work of theological opposition fell to Garbett, XcCaul,
Payne Smith, and C. A. Heurtley, a moderate Evangelical who was Lady
Xargaret Professor of Divinity at Oxford. Heurtley attacked Baden Powell's
views on miracles in Replies to Essays and Reviews', edited by Vilberforce,
in the strongest contribution to a weak volume.. XcCaul contributed to Lids.
to Faith= a reply to the Essayists which crossed the churchmanship divide.
But his criticisms of Goodwin there were not thought to be any more
than book effective than the other writings in that less penetrating .3
XcCaul's exegesis of Gen. 1 in Some Notes on the First Chapter of Genesis
with reference to statements in "Essays and Reviews"4 is, however,
competent and surprisingly unliteralistic. He argues, for example, that the
six days of creation may be indefinite in length, like the seventh, and that
the two days Payne six geological periods can be fitted into the first .15
Smith was even more exact in matters Semitic than XcCaul, and later on, he
also took Goodwin to task, especially over his suggestion that the Hebrew
'Samuel Vilberforce, ed., Replies to Essays and Reviews 2Villiam Thomson, ed., Aids to Faith: a Series of Theological Essays (London: Xurray. 1860) 3"Aids to Faith: a review", Christian Observer, 1862,369-85 `XcCaul, Some notes on the First Chapter of Genesis with reference to statements in ". slays and Reviews", (London: Vertheim, Xacintosh and Hunt, 1861). J. Rogerson, Old Testament Criticism in the Nineteenth Century England and Germany, (London: SPCK, 1964), p. 215, likes XcCaul's reply. 40
word "ragia'", "firmament", meant a solid mass and was thus unscientific. '
Garbett delivered the Boyle lectures for 1861 mentioned above, lba
Bible and its Critics, and also two other series of lectures in the course
of the '60s - the Boyles for 1863 and the Bamptons for 1867. Garbett was
not an exciting author. Even his Evangelical supporters admitted this. He
"pore like Egyptian than Garbett's wrote an pyramid a cathedral* .2 1861
lectures were explicitly directed against Essays and Reviews3 However
Garbett did not answer the assertions of the Essayists in detail, but
rather painted with a broad brush. The lectures were fairly well reviewed
in the Evangelical press, although the book was criticised for being too
long-winded and dull. It had little influence outside the Evangelical party.
It was nevertheless the major Evangelical publication to rebut the
Essayists' theology as opposed to their biblical scholarship.
On what points, then, did Garbett challenge the Essayists? It was
clear that the battlefield was the Bible. Essays and Reviews maintained
that all truth was from God. Evangelicals agreed. The Bible and science
both teach us about the Almighty. But the Essayists denied that the Bible
taught detailed and scientific truth about God, and that it was wholly true
and reliable. The Evangelicals defended the Bible as "in the strictest
sense the Vord of God". " This was not a view confined to Evangelicals. It
was the consensus of the centuries of Christendom. It was maintained by
conservatives of every churchmanship in 1860. The Bible as the infallible
Vord of God had been defended against sceptics for one hundred and fifty
'Payne Smith, " The Consideration of 'the Principle of Scriptural Interpretation". 2"E. Garbett, Boyle Lectures, 1863: a review", Christian Observer, 1864,901-15.. 3Garbett, The Bible and its Critics, p. v. 'Ibid., p. iv. 41
years in England. Educated unbelievers in the 1850s and 60s stepped up
their traditional attacks, strengthened by geological and biological
theories.
But Essays and Reviews was quite different in its attitude to the
Bible. It united scepticism and faith by driving a wedge between God and
the Bible. It asserted that one could be a Christian and reject the
absolute trustworthiness of Scripture. "A11 neology springs from the
rejection of Scriptural infallibility", one Evangelical commented. How
much more perceptive was he than some contemporaries and modern
commentators who have seen the seat of disagreement as a dispute between
the Bible and science. If Lyell and Darwin had never put pen to paper,
Scripture would still have been assailed. Payne Smith thought that the
boundary between theology and physical science perhaps had to be
readjusted. But there was no fundamental discord between the two. Give
science its head for the present and eventually it would agree with the
Bible 2 Evangelicals thought that the 'Seven' were right in much of what
they affirmed, but wrong in some of what they denied. They considered that they erred not in the affirmation of science, or literary criticism, the bedrock, as they saw it, of Christian doctrine.
Evangelicals affirmed three main points about the Bible which the
Essayists denied. The first was by far the most Important to. them.
i) A high doctrine of Biblical inspiration.
ii) The Bible is trustworthy in historical and scientific matters.
iii) The Bible is shown to be inspired by its coherence and moral character.
'"The Cause of Infidelity", Christian Observer, 1864,1-16. 2Payne Smith, The Consideration of the Principle of Scriptural Interpretation". 42
It was not usual for Evangelicals to try to prove that the Bible was inspired by the fulfilment of the prophecy which it contains. Prophecy was used to illustrate that it is historically likely that God does have inspired communication with man. but not to prove inspiration.
Let us look at-these three points"inýa little more detail.
1) A high doctrine of Biblical inspiration. Evangelicals at this time did not however all hold to verbal inspiration or infallibility.
Jowett wrote of the various meanings of "inspiration": "ail, perhaps, of these explanations err in attempting to define what, though real, is incapable of being defined in, a exact manner"' Vilson stated: The Vord of
God is contained in Scripture, whence it does not follow that it is co- extensive with it M2 Evangelicals thought that inspiration could be exactly defined and they rejected statements like Vilson's which denied that every word of the Bible was directly from God. The Essayists, especially Jowett, were slippery in their definition of Biblical inspiration. Evangelicals were especially strong in their denunciation of Temple's theory of progressive revelation. the revelation contained in the Scriptures is not human, but divine, and therefore not progressive and admitting of addition and dimunition, but fixed, final, unalterable, " Garbett wrote 3
Evangelicals found the philosophical theories of Henry Xansel as propounded in his Bampton lectures of 18584 useful in combating the
Essayists' theology of revelations Xansel taught that an adequate and full speculative knowledge of God by the unaided intellect is impossible because
'Benjamim Jowett, Essays and Reviews, p. 345. 2Henry Vilson, Essays and Reviews, p. 176. 3Garbett, The Bible and Its Critics. 'Henry Xansel, The Limits of Religious Thought Examined, (London: Xurray, 1858). 5Garbett, The Bible and its Critics, p. 94 43 of the gulf between Infinite and Finite. Scripture had a regulative role in teaching how God wills us to think of hin. Trustworthy, revelation was therefore essential to know God at all, Evangelicals argued. --
Garbett held that Scripture was divinely inspired in several, ways, in the infallibility of its record, the moral truth of its teaching, and the knowledge of the otherwise unknowable God which it contained:
Yben we say that the revelation contained in the Christian Scriptures is divine, the assertion may be understood in several senses. It may mean that the history, considered as a history, is inspired, and that we may rest therefore with unfaltering confidence upon the infallible accuracy with which the events have been recorded. In this case the divine authority of the revelation will guarantee the faithfulness of the narrative, and no more. This is the character of the historical Scriptures. Or it may be divine in the absolute truth of the matter, as well as in the faithfulness of, the record that contains it. This is the case with the devotional, prophetical, and didactic portions of the Scriptures. Or. lastly, it may be divine inasmuch as it deals with divine things - with matters that lie beyond the range of human experience, and above the faculties of the human mind. This characteristic we likewise claim for the Christian revelation, because it evidently, as in the language of the text, claims it for itself. '
The Inspiration of the Bible, then, according to Garbett, depends on its awn claim. According to Payne Smith our knowledge of God's supernatural acts depends on inspiration: 'If the Bible stands, if the authenticity of the Gospel history stands, the miracles stand, and you have the proof, i. e. of the supernatural `2
ii) The Bible is trustworthy in historical and scientific matters.
This had been attacked by Villiams, Vilson, and Goodwin, in particular.
Evangelicals, though men of the Book and scholars of Scripture, were perhaps less concerned with this area than with the doctrinal and philosophical realms of i). They were therefore less eager to respond to the Essayists immediately on this issue. Garbett, XcCaul and Payne Smith,
' Ibid., pp. 82-3 2Payne Smith, "The Consideration of the Principle of Scriptural Interpretation", p. 24. 44
however did answer various of the Essayists' points. Garbett attempted to
distinguish speculative from legitimate criticism. ' As we saw above XcCaul
and Payne Smith both-responded to Goodwin-on the subject of Gen. 1.
iii) The Bible is shown to be inspired by its coherence and moral
character. Baden Powell had challenged the evidences of inspiration.
Garbett devoted two lectures to'the two points of a) coherence - the unity
of the Bible, and b) its - character'- and effects - the impact of Scripture on
believers. 2
Evangelicals, then were able to make an intellectual response to
Essays and Reviews as they strove to understand its roots and answer its
theological points. After this'initial reaction, as theoretical gave way to
practical opposition, Evangelicals continued to play a prominent role, not
as prominent as the'High Churchmen, perhaps, yet more important than in the
cases of Darwin and Colenso. Samuel Vilberforce led the High Churchmen,
striking a heavy blow against the Essayists in the Quarterly Review3. - That
blow resounded over wider areas of' the church than the fulminations of the
Record and the criticisms of the'Christian Observer- Tractarians like
Vilberforce, and old-fashioned Latitudinarian bishops like Hampden and
Thirlwall of St. David's were united with Evangelicals in opposing the book.
There was widespread puzzlement across the church from High to Low about how five of the six clerical authors - Baden-Powell having, meanwhile died - could in all conscience remain as clerks in Holy Orders in the Church of
England.
' Ibid., pp. 111-5. 2Ibid., lectures 2 and 6. 3Samuel Vilberforce, Quarterly Review, 1861,302. 45
Cooperation between all but the most extreme Evangelicals and the
rest of conservatism was therefore possible. The book had to be confuted,
and a confutation without-party spirit would carry more crediblity with the
broad mass of churchmen. Aids to Faith', mentioned above, was the fruit of
such cooperation. It was edited by William Thomson, Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol, and had contributors from a wide spectrum of churchmanship.
The Christian Observer gave a balanced though unenthusiastic review of this patchy volume, criticising the Evangelical XcCaul, as we noted, for a
"partly unsatisfactory" article, while complimenting the non-Evangelical
Hansel for his refutation of Baden Powell's theories on Miracles. So this book was only partially successful as an example of cross-party cooperation, not so much through partisan spirit, as through a lack of intellectual weight and substance from some of the authors.
Response to Essays and Reviews at the episcopal level also conquered party divisions. Archbishop J. B. Sumner was a sick, old man and he did not give an energetic lead either to his fellow-Evangelicals or to other sections of the church. However he did issue on behalf of the bishops a general declaration affirming the traditional doctrines of atonement and biblical inspiration, clearly intended as a condemnation of the Essayists. The bishops unanimously backed this move, from Palmerston- appointed Evangelicals to old-style liberals, including Broad churchmen like
Tait of London.
There was therefore cooperation between Evangelicals and others in a high-level official response. There was also cross-party cooperation in a stronger reaction. Twenty four bishops wrote a public letter against
'Villiam Thomson ed., Aids to Faith. 46
Essays and Reviews in 1861. These included Evangelicals. High Church and
Evangelical clergy in London diocese addressed the Bishop of London in
protest in the same year.
There was also much argument between Evangelicals and others over
action in Convocation, although Evangelicals were not very enthusiastic
about this clerical body, since they believed in lay leadership and were
weakly represented in it. However Evangelicals backed moves in the
Convocation of Canterbury to condemn Essays and Reviews synodically,
headed by Denison, their enemy of less than a decade before. His
successful actions were supported by Evangelicals.
But when legal proceedings were instituted against Williams by the
Tractarian Hamilton, bishop of Salisbury and against Wilson by Fendall,
High Church rector of Great Staughton in Ely diocese, Evangelicals were
more divided in their attitudes. They had been encouraged by their legal
victory over Gorham but downcast by defeat in the Denison case, and
therefore had mixed expectations of any success in the courts.
Evangelicals combined a distaste for neology with a Tory respect, bordering
on reverence, for the English constitution. If the courts found for
neology, many Evangelicals would feel a wound from a hand which they loved.
Hence Evangelicals did not start the forensic harrying of Williams and
Wilson, and were suspicious of it.
The Christian Observer reacted to the Dean of Arches, Stephen
Lushington's initial judgement with moderate favour. Lushington ruled 47
that the court was=not competent to judge' whether the Essayists were or sound, scriptural but only whether their writings were at variance with
the formularies of the Church of England. The Christian Observer fully
accepted this distinction. ' No judge should make binding rulings on the
interpretation of scripture. Evangelicals were pleased that Lushington gave
precedence to the Articles over the Prayer Book in determining what
Anglican doctrine was. They were relieved that Villiams and Vilson were condemned for transgressing the Articles on inspiration, propitiation, justification and eternal punishment, though they were concerned that they were found not guilty of the majority of the charges brought against them.
However they were concerned that James Fitzjames Stephen, defending
Villiams, had declared that the Bible contained, rather than consisted of, the Vord of God, and that it contained Christianity. Stephen, brother of
Leslie and son of Sir James Stephen also wrote a book defending these
IcCaul him XcCaul views and ventured into print to reply to .2 argued that the word canonical in the Articles was equivalent to inspired, and that it could be proved that in the Articles "holy Scriptures" and "word of God" were synonymous. Evangelicals were especially worried by Dean Lushington's ruling that the Articles taught that the Bible was to be received as the
Vord of God, without specifying a doctrine of inspiration. * It was this failure to specify the doctrine of inspiration which worried the writer of the Christian Observer article, rather than the practical latitude thereby given for a_clergyman to deny the traditional authorship of a book of the
'"Dr. Lushington's Judgement: Essays and Reviews", Christian Observer, 1862,607-14. =Alexander XcCaul, Testimonies to the Divine Authority and Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures as taught by the Church of Engn reply to the statements of )r James F tzjames Stephen, (London: jiving-ton's, 1862) 3"Dr. Lushington's Judgement: Essays and Reviews". 48
Bible or to interpret Scriptural passages as myth. The theology of
inspiration more than biblical scholarship or interpretation was the main
issue for, Evangelicals. Villiams on the other hand, was delighted at the
practical freedom given in the latter area, ' and High Churchmen were
especially appalled by it.
Evangelicals did not hope for much from the Privy Council Appeal.
When the Lord Chancellor and the Judicial Committee, "dismissing Hell with
costs", found for Williams and Wilson, Evangelical reaction was divided. In
the Christian Observer the moderate conclusion was that the Privy Council
needed to be reformed 2 However more extreme Evangelicals fulminated and
responded in warm terms to Pusey's overture for cooperation, written to the
Recor3. Shaftesbury in particular agreed that something should be done to
"contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the Saints M4 The more
moderate high churchman Wilberforce motivated Convocation to condemn the
book Even Evangelicals doubted the the .6 if had wisdom of court case,
there was a feeling that, now it had been lost, something more should be
done. .
The result was the Oxford Declaration. Hardman, in his thesis. has described its genesis and effect so there is no need for detail here, but it
is of theological interest to note that some Evangelicals thought it too
loosely defined doctrinally, and others were opposed to it because it was thought r, These included to be antagonistic to the legal system .
'Daily News. 28 June 1862. 2"The Court of Final Appeal", Christian Observer, 1865,361-70. 38ecord, 12 February, 1864. 'Geoffrey B. A. X. Finlayson, The Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury. 1801- 1885, (London: Eyre Xethuen, 1981), p. 395 citing Hodder, Shaftesbury, vol. 3, ppl66-7. s Ibid. 6B. E. Hardman, The Evangelical Party in the Church of England, 1855-18650, Ph.D., Cambridge, 1963, pp. 84-122. 49
Goode' and Litton2. Still others were party purists and objected to an
alliance with Tractarians. The Declaration was signed by 10,906 clergy, 44%
of those in orders in the United Church of England and Ireland.
As a footnote to the main controversy over Essays and Reviews,
there was a dispute in 1869 over the appointment of Temple as Bishop of
Exeter. The controversy had moved from the scholar's study to the lawyer's
court to the bishop's throne. Again, others have described this dispute in
detail. For our purpose it is enough to note that Evangelicals were
seriously divided and uncertain in their response. As with the appointment
of Hampden in 1848, their respect for the Crown made them hesitate to
oppose a cong6 d'elire. The more Recordite Evangelicals and especially
Shaftesbury and Haldane were reluctant to opppose Temple in the only
effective way possible - by forming an alliance with the Puseyites once
more. There was bad blood between High Churchmen and Evangelicals by
1869. There had been Shaftesbury's attempt to introduce a Vestments Bill
in 1867 and this had soured relationships. Evangelicals were also more seriously split over the appointment of Temple than during any other phase of the Essays and Reviews controversy. Some urged the Dean and Chapter of
Exeter Cathedral to opppose Temple. Others were even apologists for him.
This division depressed Shaftesabury. He thought the extreme opposition to
Temple had been 'rash, violent, undignified and abortiveM3 and that
Evangelical disagreements had been noticed by outsiders and seen as weakness. "Vho is to lead a regiment like this? " he wrote to Haldane.
"Even Falstaff would not march through Coventry with them. "'
'V. Goode, The Oueen's Supremacy, (London: Hatchards, 1864). 2Becord, 21 Xarch, 1864. IF. Hodder, The Life and York of the Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury. L&., 3 Vols., (London: 1887), III, p. 256. 4Ibid.
1" 50
Shaftesbury was tired of nine years of strife over a single book.
He wrote against the anti-Temple campaign, regretting that "we should have
spent our tine and strength in struggles and disputes. "' He may also have
realised that the Essayists had won the battle, if not the war. They had
won liberty, if they had not conquered minds. The defeat for conservatism
was mainly legal rather than theological, a rebuff in the courts brought
about by Tractarian, not Evangelical, rashness. But a defeat it was.
A recent secondary work, published during the course of this
research, which has bearing on these matters is: "The Xind of Victorian
Orthodoxy: Anglican Responses to "Essays and Reviews", 1860-64" by J. L
Altholz2. It is useful to have a broader study including the responses of
high churchmen and others. Altholz is correct in this article to lay
stress on the opponents' emphasis on eighteenth century evidential theology.
such as Paley. As has been noted in this chapter, the "theology of the
nineteenth century" and Coleridge's priciples of scriptural interpretation
were strongly attacked by Evangelicals. Thus Altholz concurs with the
conclusions here that opposition to the essayists was founded on a narrower
view of reason than they held.
However on some points the conclusions here differ from those of
Altholz. There is a strong Evangelical character in the responses
considered here, with an instinctive distrust of the spirituality of
tractarianism evident. Evangelicals, because of the recent Xilman
controversy, distrusted high church treatments of history. Altholz brackets
Evangelicals, tractarians, and others together under a general label of
'Finlayson, The Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, p. 524, citing B. R. A. Shaftesbury, Broadlands XSS, SHA/PO 19.2,1 October, 1869. Zed. Gerald Parsons, Religion in Victorian Britain IV. Interpretations (Manchester: Xanchester University Press, 1988), pp. 28-40. 51
"orthodox", but this may not help assessing the individual characteristics
of the response of the various church parties.
Secondly Altholz finds it curious that the. opponents should have disagreed over a doctrine of inspiration and that there should have been
little theological progress on this subject. But more precise battle-lines had not been joined by this date on the question of the mode of
inspiration, although the fact of inspiration was recognised, more clearly by Evangelicals than other conservatives. Contrary to Altholz, the question of inspiration seems to have been important throughout.
Lastly Altholz should have stressed the Xauricean broad church theology, with its inductive philosophy as the main object of the opponents' attack. Opponents did not' merely attack German biblical criticism. They saw the philosophical basis of a new and non-deductive approach.
It is'good however that Altholz has broadened the studyýof opposition to Essays and Reviews by'including opponents from other parties and there is much to be gained from comparing them with Evangelicals.
The most important study of the thought of Essays and Reviews as opposed to that of its opponents, is Seven against Christ: A Study of
! Essays and Reviews" by Ieuan Ellis. ' Ellis' modern assessment of the theology of the essayists casts light on the accuracy or otherwise of the
Evangelicals' criticisms. Ellis rightly does not consider that the essayists derived much from 'Coleridge. Perhaps the Evangelicals were wrong there. However Ellis agrees with them that German theology was influential
'(Studies in the History of Christian Thought, Vol. XXII), (Leidens
E.J. Brill, 1980), pp. 276,277,285. 52
on them. Ellis refers to the essayists' deference to Locke, but this is not
very significant, since -their Evangelical opponents were also mainly
Lockean empiricists. Indeed perhaps the Evangelicals were more influenced
by that philosophy than the more idealist essayists with their fixed
notions of unfolding religious development.
"Ere the 'funeral baked meats' [for Essays and Reviews] have quite grown cold they are reproduced to furnish forth the marriage tables of
Bishop Colenso with the spirit of rationalism, who, like the Sadducean woman, has already had seven brethren to her husbands, but having survived them, has unlike her, now taken an eighth. "' Evangelicals had no sooner recovered from the publication of one work of neology, and were still
involved in its rebuttal in Convocation and court when this other English scholar, inspired by Teutonic biblical study, began to publish his magnum opus, The Pentatuch and the Rnntr' of Joshu . critically examined?
Colenso was not unknown to or lacking in notoriety among
Evangelicals before this date. In 1853 he had published a book, Village
Serzaae, in which he extolled Maurice in a dedication letter. This was
'Christian Examiner, 1862, p. 29?. 2J. W. Colenso, The Pentateuch and Book of Joshua. critically examined, (London: Longman, Roberts and Green, 1862-79) 3J. W. Colenso, Village Sermons. (Cambridge: Xacmillan, 1853) 53
just before his consecration as bishop of Natal, and the Rid, although
impressed by his style detected in the book a Xaurice-like nebulousness of
reasoning. The newspaper expressed concern about his consecration and
Colenso had to clear himself by professing disagreement with Xaurice on the
subject of hell.
Colenso wrote a commentary on Romans in 18611. In it he denied the
penal substitutionary theory of the atonement. He drew on Xaurice's ideas,
but diverged from him in denying the existence of the church separate from
the human race as a whole. A storm blew up because of this book with
Evangelicals as well as Anglo-Catholics on the attack as Colenso was assailed in South Africa and in England.
The controversy surrounding this publication was still at its height when Colenso began to bring out his Pentateuch. In this work he moved away from the world of doctrinal controversy over eternal punishment and penal atonement to that of historical and biblical scholarship. Colenso had been encouraged by the Essayists' claim for a "freedom of thought and utterance which is the very essence of our Protestant religion "2 The
Pentateuch lacks deep originality and is somewhat obsessively mathematical and literalistic. Nevertheless it was an important series of volumes for it introduced the work of German Old Testament scholars, conservative as well as radical, to an English public hitherto mostly ignorant of them. However ------
'J. V. Colenso, St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans: newly translated. and explained from a missionary point of view, (London: 1861). 2Colenso Pentateuch, I, , part p. xii 54 the author sometimes spoiled his scholarship by a certain violence of expression, e. g. the Pentateuch as a whole, cannot possibly have been written by Xoses... and the Xosaic narrative... cannot be regarded as historically true. "'
Colenso was consciously reacting against Evangelicalism in the
Pentateuch. He had been brought up as an Evangelical and he recounts his early belief in verbal inspiration as taught by Burgon: Such was the creed of the School in which I was educated. God is my witness! what hours of wretchedness have I spent at times, while reading the Bible devoutly from day to day, and reverencing every word of it as the Vord of God, when petty contradictions net me, which seemed to my reason to conflict with the notion of the absolute historical veracity of every part of Scripture,..? He also felt the need to counter Evangelical exegesis. For example in the Preface to the first part he argues against Archdeacon Pratt's interpretation of Joshua 10: 13, that the earth rather than the sun had stood still. 3
Let us then look at the initial Evangelical reaction to th* first volume of the Pentateuch and see what criticisms of it Evangelicals offered.
The first part of the work saw the bishop at his most negative and scathing. Evangelicals tended to respond in kind although they tried to be just. For example Colenso was given some credit for his faith in a "God of providence", and he was contrasted favourably on this point with Baden
Powell., ' Evangelicals were less puzzled by Colenso than by Essays and
Reviews. They responded with greater confidence to someone who was in many ways an old-fashioned sceptic than to a group of modern liberals.
' Ibid., p. 8 2Ibid., p. 6 3Ibid., p. x ""Bishop Colenso on the Pentateuch", Christian Observer 1862,922- 42 55
Their first dart aimed at Colenso attacked his thought for being antiquated.
The Record hit on this old-fashioned quality and compared Colenso with the seventeenth century Deists. Let studies of the evidences of Christianity be produced, the newspaper demanded. These would rebut Colenso as Toland and the others were rebutted. '
Secondly Evangelicals detected a theological amateurism in rolenso.
He should confine his attentions. to mathematics. As the Record put it, The habitude of mind produced by exclusive addiction to mathematical pursuits is singularly unfavourable to theological enquiry. "' The Record judged that theology was inductive rather than deductive in nature and this rendered its study uncongenial to the arithmetical mind. Dr. Vhewell's Bridgewater
Treatise was cited to support this point. Colenso's reasoning might be
The Christian Observer sound enough but his premises were mistaken .3 criticised the bishop for emphasising mathematical difficulties and failing to prove any doctrinal discrepancies ! His numerology and his Kalthusian economics had led him astray. Evangelicals were more surprised than scandalised at the barrage of figures in the Pentateuch. The second wrangler and author of an arithmetical textbook employed in the royal nursery was expected to indulge in numbers. Evangelicals took Colenso's theology more seriously than some modern critics although they looked on a colonial bishop launching out into a field of knowledge new to him with wary eyes. Shaftesbury sums up Evangelical merriment over the writer's mathematics with his remark, "He could not forgive Xoses for
' Record, 1 December, 1862 2Record 21 November, 1862 3Ibid. 'Christian Observer, 1862,922-42 56 having ventured to write the book of Numbers". '
In the third place Colenso was attacked for his doctrinal views which were thought to have poisoned his biblical criticism. The Record thought that he was prejudiced against the truth of the Bible before he wrote a word. He was in error over eternal punishment, and, a heinous sin for a missionary bishop, over the damnation of the heathen. This lack of
"distinctive and dogmatic teaching" made him an unreliable commentator of
Holy Scripture. Colenso followed Xaurice, and Xaurice led away from the
Bible 2. Coleridge, the source of much of Xaurice's theology, was thought to have influenced Colenso also and by destroying his confidence in the Bible as God's word, to have opened the door to his doubts and difficulties. 3
In some cases, Evangelicals discerned inconsistencies between
Colenso's doctrine and his exegesis. In the view of the Christian Observer the bishop's notorious advocacy of polygamy agreed ill with his dislike for slavery in the Old Testament ° His distaste for the extermination of the
Canaanites was thought to be the product of a mind which saw difficulties in God's actions in his Vord, while refusing to acknowledge any in his actions in the world.
Fourthly Colenso was berated for following radical German criticism.
Indeed some Evangelicals thought he had gone further than Eichhorn and in the Record drew attention to his extremism in calling the Pentateuch
"unhistorical"= Even neological Teutonic critics maintained the historical reliability of early fragments within the books of Xoses, casting doubt only upon the editorial hand. Colenso's work was a mere
'L. E. Elliott-Binns, English Thought 2$ecord, 21 November, 1862 3Christian Observer, 1862,922-42 ° Ibid. b$ecor4,24 November, 1862 57
rechauff6 of German rationalism, according to the Christian Observer of
1863. This more moderate conclusion was surely unfair to a certain
originality in Colenso's work. Evangelicals varied in the depth of their
knowledge of German scholars. '
Fifthly Evangelicals attacked Colenso at what they saw as a vital
weak point in his defences, the same weak point which they had espied in
the fortifications of the "Seven" - his deficient theology of inspiration.
The Record waxed indignant with Colenso for rejecting the infalliblity of
infallibility God scripture and ascribing to alone .2 This was more bluster
than argument however. The Christian Observer more thoughtfully pondered
on Colenso's theology of inspiration3 He had been wrong, the journal suggested, in following Coleridge and rejecting an "organ-pipe" theory of divine authorship. "God speaks through all scripture". But in a daring moment the reviewer ventured the opinion that it did not signify if the
Bible should be proved wrong on a few points. "It does not matter if there are one or two immaterial inaccuracies in a document checked by a master. "
Colenso was not so much wrong in drawing attention to factual difficulties as in drawing from them the conclusion that verbal inspiration was impossible. Yhere Colenso criticised particular texts as being historically unreliable Evangelicals defended them with patience and a fair degree of plausibility. But they were less tolerant of Colenso's deduction, from discrepancies which he found, that the whole Pentateuch was flawed and so not direct from the mind of the Almighty. As with the Essayists, Colenso's deficient doctrine of inspiration was thought to have handicapped him before he ever began his exegetical task.
'T. V. Davies, Heinrich Ewald. (London: 1903) 2Record, 1 December, 1862 3Christian Observer, 1862,922-42 58
These then were the main lines of attack which Evangelicals counted in the initial period following publication of the first one or two parts of
Colenso's work. These were the immediate ripostes of the Evangelical reviewers. Vhat of a more considered response? The Evangelical party was well armed for a campaign on the ground Colenso had chosen. One of its
Old Testament scholars of national repute entered the lists - Alexander
XcCaul, Professor of Hebrew-and Old Testament at King's College, London.
He had fought effectively over Essays and Reviews as we have seen, but his talents were better suited to assaulting the arithmetician. Xeticulous rationalist Biblical scholarship was net by an equally meticulous conservatism. Where the bishop had based his argument on a corrupt text or a doubtful translation, this was fairly pointed out and thus many, though not all, of Colenso's objections were answered.
Before we look at the contributions of this star in the Evangelical firmament, let us consider the books written by two lesser lights. The first was by Joseph B. XcCaul, son of Alexander. He had composed a series of eight letters to the Record, later published separately, on "whether the
Law of Xoses enjoins the priests to carry offal on-their backs' and other matters of exegesis raised by Colenso. '
XcCaul disclaimed any theological as opposed to philological competence and left the question of whether the bishop was orthodox to others. Agreeing with some of the reviewers, he criticised Colenso's tone of voice as well as content of theological utterance, finding the more moderate Germans less strident:
'Joseph B. XcCaul, Bishop Criticism -olenso's criticised in a series of eight letters addressed to the editor of the 'Record' newspaper, (London: Vertheim, Xacintosh and Hunt, 1862) 59
The Rationalist scholars of Germany, and more especially Dr. Ewald (Geschichte des Volks Israel), afford in this respect a striking and a happy contrast to Dr. Colenso. Unsound, and fanciful as the conclusions at which they arrive undoubtedly are, they nevertheless handle these most ancient records of the human race, and of the ways of God to man, at least with an outward show of scholarly reverence for what bears on its forefront the majestic tokens of a hoary antiquity. ' XcCaul was especially severe on the feeling held by Colenso and
other Broad churchmen that the ecclesiastical history of the sixteenth
century was about to be reenacted, that religious thought was about to take
another forward leap and leave behind the superstitions of the past.
XcCaul is at his most caustic and mocking here: "If it can be shown that
his Lordship is philologically and critically incompetent for the stupendous
responsibility he has voluntarily assumed, in declaring himself to be the
Reformation, the apostle of a new ....., greater portion of our apprehensions
must fall to the ground. " 2. XcCaul was scathing about the quality of
Colenso's scholarship, more so than other Evangelicals, but it must be borne
in mind that he was writing for a Record readership which had a taste for
blood.
XcCaul answered Colenso's charges with a fair measure of
persuasiveness. A good sample of his style of argument is to be'found in
the first letter where he rebuts the bishop's charges about priests
carrying offal. Colenso had declared that Lev. 4: 11-12, where priests were
to carry personally all the offal from the sacrifices outside the camp, was
impossible because of the large number of sacrifices and the distance of
transportation. XcCaul responded by questioning the bishop's translation of w-hotsi' as he shall carry forth" (personally and manually). It rather
' Ibid., p. vi 2Ibid., p. vii 60 meant, he claimed, "he shall cause to go forth". This could signify that a conveyance was employed or that others helped. XcCaul's tone is frequently hostile and scathing but his linguistic and exegetical work is usually persuasive.
The second lesser Evangelical scholar who wrote against Colenso was an anonymous layman, who has been identified as G. Varington. He published a fairly slim volume replying to the first part of the bishop's work; it enjoyed some popularity and went into three editions by 1863. This book,
The Historical Character of the Pentateuch vindicated', is as positive and irenic as Joseph XcCaul's publication is negative and polemical. Varington had more doctrinal insight than XcCaul. He did not exaggerate or overplay
Colenso's position, freely admitting that Colenso was not attacking
Revelation itself. and quoting the bishop as saying that the Pentateuch is
"the means of revealing to us the name of the Living and True God
Recent modern scholarly studies confirm that this was a valid insight into the nature of Colenso's thought. Hinchliff states that Colenso was respectful of the core of the gospel, which he believed, once excrescences were removed 2. Also Hinchliff maintains that Colenso had a
to God behaving in bloodthirsty moral purpose, wishing excuse of a way .3
Varington gave Colenso credit also for accepting the possibility of miracles and other supernatural acts by God. Varington himself had a far from inflexible view of the literary genres of the Bible. 'God could have revealed himself in legend, as in parable", he maintained. He criticised the
'A layman of the Church of England, The Historical Character of the Pentateuch vindicated. A Reply to Part I of Bishop Colenso's Critical Examination, 3rd (London: 1863) edition , 2P. Hinchliff, "Ethics, Evolution and Biblical Criticism - the Thought of Benjamin Jowett and John Villian Colenso", Journal of Ecclesiastical History. vo1 3711986 pp. 91-110 3P. Hinchliff, John Villiam Colenso, (London: 1964), p. 97 61
bishop for his exegetical methodology. He suggested that Colenso should harmonise text with text, interpreting Scripture with Scripture. This would solve many of his exegetical problems, and he would be less tempted to argue a silentio. _
But Varington's main objection to Colenso, held by most
Evangelicals, concerned the theology of inspiration. Throw doubt on the literal verbal accuracy of historical portions of Scripture and all parts of the Bible would be open to suspicion.
The contribution of Alexander XcCaul to rebutting Colenso was a distinguished and magisterial one, sadly cut short by his death in the course of the controversy. The opening chapter of An Examination of Bishop
Colenso's Difficulties with regard to the Pentateuch has the slightly wearied tone of the professor correcting a wayward pupil:
In such a book [as the Pentateuch] there must be difficulties, as easily not discerned by the believer as the unbeliever - and a few have been noticed and explained, many centuries ago, by Christian fathers and Jewish Rabbis. In more modern times, Spinoza and the English Deists, the French philosophers and the German rationalists have increased their number; and Christian apologists, of various nations, have multiplied answers, so that now but little new can be said for or against the genuineness and authenticity of the Pentateuch. Bishop Colenso's chief difficulties, such as that relating to Judah's grandchildren, the number of the children of Israel at the Exodus - the mode of finding sustenance for the cattle in the wilderness - the history of the fortieth year, have been discussed again and again. But as they are stated in a somewhat new form, and some minor objections added, an examination of the Bishop's whole argument became necessary. The results are now presented to the reader, and will show that the objections propounded by Bishop Colenso are based, some on doubtful interpretations, others on suppression of, or additions to, the words of Scripture impugned, on unwarranted assumptions, or defective information. ' In this passage we see the rather blinkered conservatism of
Evangelical biblical scholarship but also its supreme confidence. In the case of XcCaul that confidence stemmed from considerable linguistic and
'Alexander XcCaul, An Examination of Bishop Colenso's Difficulties with regard to the Pentateuch, (London: Rivingtons, 1863), p. 2. 62 exegetical gifts. Ve cannot discuss XcCaul's argument on the various textual cruces but in the view of most contemporaries, he won many of his points against Colenso.
As with Essays and Reviews the controversy moved from the scholar's study to the judge's bench. In November and December 1863 the High churchman Bishop Gray of Capetown, claiming metropolitan authority over
Colenso, held a synod and deposed Colenso. In Xarch 1865 the judicial committee of the Privy Council declared that the synod did not possess the authority to do so. ' A theological dispute had been transmuted into not just a legal one, as with Essays and Reviews, but a constitutional one.
Colenso the heretic was transformed into Colenso the defender of the constitution, upholding the rights of Queen and Church- of England against rebellious Tractarians in South Africa. Evangelicals were not disposed to assail in the courts one who had wrapped himself in a cloak of Erastian virtue. As in the campaign against the Essayists high churchmen took a forensic lead. The Record took a cool view of the legal battle and was mainly concerned that Gray should not overreach himself. It approved of the English bishops' advice that the title "Bishop of Natal" should not be assumed by Gray's new bishop, otherwise there would be a break in relations between in England South Africa the churches and .2
Evangelicals were less reluctant to proceed against Colenso in
Convocation. An extraordinary alliance was forged in the Convocation of
Canterbury between Denison, prosecuted by Evangelicals in the, church courts for a Tractarian theology of the eucharist as recently as 1857, and
Alexander XcCaul. In February 1863 ?[cCaul seconded Denison's motion to
'Cox,G. W. The Life of John William Colenso. D. D., Bishop of Natal, 2 vols, (London: 1888) 2Becord. 2 July, 1866 63
appoint a committee to look into Colenso's teaching. The committee
reported and resolutions were adopted by Convocation declaring that the
Pentateuch was subversive of faith in the Bible as the Word of God, and warning the general public about it. No further action could be taken by
Convocation because it might-trespass on the rights of the courts. But an effective official rebuke had been administered to the bishop.
A minor dispute arose between Colenso and some of his critics in
1867. The bishop compiled a hymn book in which Jesus was addressed, rather than God the Father, and the Son invoked rather than the Spirit. So great was the suspicion which the name of Colenso aroused that the matter was discussed in the Times and some accused the arithmetician not only of a departure from liturgical tradition but also of Socinianism. Evangelicals were prominent among the bishop's critics with Perowne involved and also C.
A. Heurtley, Lady Xargaret Professor of Divinity at Oxford University, who conducted a vigorous correspondence with Colenso. '
The field of battle was now transferred to South Africa. A sad and petty war of attrition was fought over twenty years between Colenso and the
Provincial authorities. Evangelicals took part, in this, mainly against
Colenso, although a few sided with him despite theological differences because he stood for the connection with the Church of England. Bishop
Cotterill of Grahamstown was the most noted Evangelical among Colenso's
South African opponents. He was one of Gray's two assessors in the trial of the Bishop for heresy in Cape Town in November 1863. He was an expert on Canon Law and the constitution of the South African church. Unworried by Gray's wish for South African autonomy, he was largely responsible for
"On some of Dr. Colenso's Difficulties", Christian Observer, 1867, 314-16, Record, 6 February, 1867. 64
drawing up the provincial constitution. '
Evangelicals had fared better in the Colenso controversy than in
that concerning Essays and Reviews. Their scholars had proved effective in
matching, if not surpassing the bishop's Old Testament scholarship. There
was a little polemical stridency but much. sound learning in what they
wrote, and they showed moderation in declaring German and radical biblical
study legitimate if conducted in a spirit of reverence, a spirit they
grieved to find absent in Colenso. An old fashioned sceptic had proved an
easier foe than neological liberals. The legal campaign was unproductive.
This was primarily a Tractarian failure, despite Cotterill's involvement.
Tractarian success in mobilising most of an increasingly independent South
African church against Colenso was no more popular than Tractarian legal
failure with Evangelicals. Evangelicals, once again, were troubled by the
rashness of High Church conservatives.
There were two less important controversies involving Evangelicals
which concerned rationalist publications on New Testament subjects. The
first arose after the publication of Ernest Renan's Vie de Jesus in 1863.2
The Christian Observer, reviewing it, took care not to make Renan too auch
of an ogre. It discriminated sharply between Strauss's theory that the core of the gospels was mythological and Renan's view that the, gospels were historically true in the main although supernatural accretions had been added to a simple, human tale. The Christian Observer found Renan's characterisation of Jesus far-fetched - "a simple, dreamy peasant.... on
'Peter Hinchliff, John William Colenso, Bishop of Natal, (London: Nelson, 1964), pp. 131,134,144,156 2Ernest Renan, Vie de Jesus, 15th edition, (London: Levy Brothers, 1863) 65 leaving Galilee he became an ardent and objectionable enthusiast. " It was granted that Renan was an 'able and powerful philosophical writer"; he had, however, many doctrinal faults. His sceptical faith-seemed to be a hybrid of Judaism and Christianity. And above all he should not have ignored divine intervention. Vhy should the gospel be believed in all its parts if not in the supernatural? '
In the following year, 1864, the Christian Observer reviewed JIM
Divinity of Jesus: a Reply to X. Renan by X. Herve. 2 This was a reply of only average standard, the reviewer thought, lacking theological technicalities and an Englishman's sound knowledge of the Bible. The review repeated Evangelicals' main charges against Renan - that no account was taken of the supernatural and that his biographical inquiry had been conducted "as if there was not a God. "" Evangelicals thus responded to
Renan with some perception and a decided moderation.
The best known Evangelical reaction to J. R. Seeley's Ecce Homo, ' published in 1865 was the notably immoderate outburst from Lord
Shaftesbury. At a meeting of the Church Pastoral-Aid Society in Xay 1866 he remarked that Ecce Homo was the most pestilential book ever vomited, I think, from the jaws of hell" This exaggerated utterance was unfair to a volume which taught much of edification about Christ the moral teacher. It was also untypical of Evangelical reaction. zany Evangelicals, like other churchmen, found nothing in Seeley objectionably heterodox. The Christian
Observer was troubled, not so much by doctrinal inadequacies in the book,
'Christian Observer, 1863,780-86 3X. Herve, The Divinity of Jesus: a Reply to X. Renan, (Paris: 1863) 3Christian Observer, 1864,143-8 J. R. Seeley, Ecce Homo: a Surveu of the Life and York of Jesus rhri-At, 4th edition, (London: Macmillan and Co., 1866) 66 as by its partial and unbalanced view of Christianity, emphasising ethical righteousness rather than salvation. Quoting kids to Faith, the volume written against Essays and Reviews' the reviewer declared that the apostles preached not a system of morality, but the risen Christ. Pure
by but by ingrafting into Christ 2 Evangelicals morality came not example .: were especially qualified by their stress on the gospel of grace to criticise Seeley's worthy but rather legalistic moralism.
In 1867 Ecce Deus by Joseph Parker This to was published .3 aimed make up some deficiencies in Ecce Homo by emphasising the spiritual element in Jesus' life and teaching, as well as controverting some points made by
Seeley. It was only partially successful. The Christian Observer disliked its doctrine only slightly less than Ecce Homo's moralism. The reviewer, possibly the Revd. D. T. K. Drummond of St. Thomas's English Episcopal
Private Chapel, Edinburgh, thought that Parker had strayed into the paths of heterodoxy. He claimed that the Spirit inspired Art. This was doubtful,
Drummond thought. He believed that Christ could have been overthrown.
This verged on Irving's heretical Christology. However Parker was declared to be fundamentally sound. The book did have some useful points for use against Seeley in its "Controversial Kotes". °
Evangelicals therefore reacted to Renan and Seeley with a sense of proportion. They were unhappy about the tone of Renan and the emphasis of
Seeley. Some more Recordite Evangelicals like Shaftesbury, and some of those less theologically tutored saw no difference between Vie de Jesus and
'Villiam Thomson, ed.. Aids to Faith: a Series of Theological Essays (London: Murray, 1860), p. 332 2Christian Observer, 1866,498-520,579-98,681-98 *Joseph Parker, Ecce Deus: essays on the Life and Doctrin. -of Jesus Christ with Controversial Notes an "Ec Homo', (Edinburgh: Tand T. Clark, 1867) "Christian Observer, 1867,585-98 6? and Ecce Homo, a "novel" and moral tract, and rationalist works of substantial scholarship like Essays and Reviews and the Pentateuch. But most were able to make a distinction and they saved their ammunition accordingly.
I do not object to any research into Nature and her deepest secrets. I do not say 'no' to anyone who wishes to announce that he has discovered a fact inconsistent with Scripture. Let him do so, and push his discoveries further; but let him not, in the arrogance of half- informed persons, assume and declare that the puling infancy of Science has flooded the manhood of the Bible. '
Thus pronounced Shaftesbury. He rarely beat scientists with his big stick. He had been interested in natural science in an amateur way since his youth and he reacted with less disfavour to radical theories about the book of God's works than to those concerning the book of his Mord.. Only when the junior discipline of natural science assailed the queen of the sciences did Shaftesbury object.
Some years later, in 1874, he wrote that he was willing to give generously to promote scientific investigation, which he thought was progressing at too slow a pace. Scientists would eventually "cone to maturity and faith" as. their findings waxed more orthodox. The God of the natural philosophers and the God of the patriarchs would be seen as indivisible once more i2
The greatest Evangelical layman of his age was typical of his party, including the more theologically schooled members of it, in reacting
' I. R. A., Shaftesbury (Broadlands) XSS, SHA/PD/7,30 Aug., 1863, cited by Finlayson, The Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury p. 39? 2Ibid., SHA/PD/10,27 Aug., 1874, cited by Finlayson, Ibid., pp. 517-8 68
less polemically to new scientific theories than to radical biblical -
criticism. Science offended only when the Bible seemed under serious
threat. Otherwise there was some restraint. However the Bible, or at least
a conservative exegesis of it, seemed frequently in danger from new, well
grounded scientific theories apparently incompatible with it. Evangelicals
had the same motive for rebutting Darwin as for attacking Jowett - to
defend the inspired Vord of God. Few Evangelicals were especially learned
in the natural sciences, fewer still in both science and theology. Their
writings on scientific matters often lacked brilliance. But they were
rarely mere obfuscation.
There were several disputes between Evangelicals and the new science
mostly over practical policy. Even the relatively moderate Professor
Richard Owen was attacked by the, Becord over a scientific speech under the
auspices of the YMCA. The SPCK was criticised for publishing Bonney's
Manual of Geology in 1874. But over all there was an absence of extreme
polemicism.
Compared with the large number of articles and books written by
Evangelicals against rationalist biblical scholars, the literature directed against the new science was less extensive. The controversy played a minor counterpoint to the main theme of the dispute between neologians and conservatives over the Book. Its height was reached later. If the early sixties was the time of greatest controversy over the Bible, the later sixties and early seventies saw most disputation between devotees of the
Rock of Ages and of the Age of Rocks. In the general public debate the year 1864 saw the first Times leader on "science and religion". '
' Times, 1 May, 1864. 69
Evangelicals shared the public mood and discussed the issue increasingly intensively from then on. In the Christian Observer between the years 1860 and 1865 there were 5 articles or reviews on the subject of rationalist science and 30 on the subject of rationalist biblical scholarship. Between
1866 and 1871 there were 10 on the former and 14 on the latter.
This might seem remarkable since the publication of The Origin of
Species' took place back in 1859. Yet this revolutionary book did not produce the cataclysmic effect on Evangelicals, in the short tern at least, which Essays and Reviews and the Pentateuch achieved. Neither did it and the issue of evolution monopolise debate between science and theology.
Evangelicals debated other issues also such as the historicity of the flood and the pre-history of man.
Let us first of all consider the Evangelical reaction to science from the beginning of the period in 1857 until,. the publication of Thg
Origin of Species. There were no major Evangelical theologians in England writing an this subject in this period, but reviews give a significant picture of the party's state of mind on the main issues.
For more than thirty years a major area of debate between natural science and theology had concerned the age of the earth and the length of tine God's work of creation had taken. Most Church of England Evangelicals had endeavoured to chart a central course here between the Scylla of Lyell and the Charybdis of biblical literalism.
Lyell said that the earth was old, and he argued against a universal catastrophic flood. Buckland, biblically orthodox, conceded that the flood of Noah was not universal in his Bridgewater Treatise of 1836. -2
'Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, (London: John Murray, 1859). 2Bri ewater Treatise, i. 94-95, cited by Chadwick, Victorian Church, i. 560. 70
Authors of these treatises, Chalmers and Whewell as well as
Buckland, rejected strict literalism by responding to Lyell's incontestable geological discoveries and by proposing such speculative theories as the
"gap" during Gen. 1: 2 in which geological and biological creation and destruction took place over extended periods, unrecorded in scripture. Then followed the six-day creation in which the earth as it is at present was made for man's use. In this "gap" was posited the'geological formation of the earth, which, the evidence of the rocks now indicated, had required many millennia to take its course. Extinct and primitive animals and plants also subsisted during the "gap". This reconciled scripture with the fossil evidence. xost Evangelicals of the Established Church had accepted such moderate hypotheses, with the Christian Observer writing in pacific vein. '
The first major scientific controversy in the period after 1857 occurred when the synthesis of 1830s geology and Gen. 1 began to break down under the impact of new findings. The cracks papered over by Chalmers,
Vhewell, and Buckland began to gape and fresh hypotheses were offered.
Extreme biblical literalists and scientific rationalists eschewed reconciliation between Genesis and geology, but most Evangelicals attempted to prevent a divorce.
Some Evangelicals of all denominations thought that a radical departure from the theories of the '30s was called for. Others were less sure. The most important of the former group was Hugh Miller. After his tragic suicide, his book, The Testimonies of the Rocks?, was reviewed at
'Christian Observer, 1834, pp. 306-309 2The Testimonies of the Rocks or. Geology in its Bearings on the two Theolomies, the Natural and Revealed. (Edinburgh, 1857) 71
length in the Christian Observer. ' The writer remained unconvinced by
xiller's arguments. In common with most Evangelicals of the Church of
England he stood by Chalmers and the older exegesis of Genesis. The
reviewer was opposed to "anti-geologists" like Granville Penn, Fairholme. and
Macfarlane. He was also against "anti-scripturists" such as Humboldt, the
Savilian Professor, at Oxford. Those Christian geologists who rejected both
extremes had a choice of three possible views regarding Gen. 1, the writer
maintained. i) The "gap" theory of Chalmers. ii) Dr. Pye Smith's theory
that Gen.1 described only a great local creation in Central Asia. iii)
?filler and Faber's theory that Gen. 1 was a compressed summary'of the whole
of creation, including the Azoic period. The "days" of creation were
extended "day-periods". The reviewer regarded ii) as bathetic. iii) was
unlikely, because it was too grandiose. Gen. 1 described the present creation from the perspective of its relationship-with man. It passed over
any description of past geological ages because these did not affect human beings now. The reviewer summed up this argument, with its modern ring,
thus: The appearance of superior grandeur is illusive and turns aside the
narrative from its proper object". On a minor point, xiller was attacked
for denying, what Chalmers had affirmed, that there had been a geological chaos in which the earth was misty and there was no distinction of sea and dry land.
Xiller and Faber's new theory was a striking one. Xiller and,
Faber's pioneering of it has not been sufficiently recognised and understood in modern scholarship. But here was an new Evangelical exegesis of distinction for which full credit should be given to them.
'Christian Observer, 1858,14-33. 72
The writer of the review, however, saw no need to depart from the
creation theology of the 1830s. Unlike Xiller he remained unpersuaded by a
radical new exegesis of Gen. 1. Other reviews in the Christian Observer
attacked Miller's theories further. There was general approval in this journal for Villiam Gillespie when in 1859 he brought out a volume' in which he opposed Miller's theory that needless and gratuitous pain was present in creation before the Fall. Both sides accepted that animals died before Adam's sin, but Gillespie denied that their deaths were painful.
However Gillespie went too far for his reviewer. He had speculated that tusks and horns and other such "instruments of torture" were the result of demoniacal influence, this to be hypothesis and was adjudged an unlikely .2
Miller's interpretation of Gen. 1 also came under fire in a review 3of a book of German theology by J. H.Kurtz. ' Kurtz argued against Xiller that extinct flora and fauna were not part of God's six day creation, but had been formed in the "gap" during Gen. 1 2. The six day creation was all for man's use. The reviewer approved of these strictures of Xiller.
One of the most important Evangelical writers who responded to the new science was John Pratt, Archdeacon of Calcutta. He came from the Pratt family who had already produced a theologian and doughty opponent of the
Tractarians, Josiah Pratt. John Pratt wrote scripture and Science not at
Variance in 1856, before Miller declared himself in favour of the day-period theory. 6 Pratt revised it extensively several times and thus was able to
'Villiam Gillespie The Theology of Geologists, as exemplified in the cases of the late Hugh Miller and others, (Edinburgh: A. and C. Black, 1859). 2Christian Observer, 1859,516-27. 3Ibid. 4History of the Old Covenant, from the German of J. H. Kurtz, D.D., Vols. I and II, translated by Rev. A. Edersheim, Ph. D. (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1859) sJohn H. Pratt, Scripture and Science not at Variance, (London: Hatchards, 7th ed., 1871). 73 meet the newest of theories like Xiller's and later Darwin's with up to date responses. Although no masterpiece of subtlety the volume was clearly written and persuasively argued. It was-also much read by Evangelical parish clergy who wanted to be able to respond in their sermons to the latest fossil find. The book went through seven editions by 1871.
Pratt sided with Chalmers and Sedgwick and adhered to the "natural day" theory. ' He criticised his fellow Evangelical Alexander XcCaul for believing in day-periods. Pratt thought XcCaul rash in accommodating the nebular hypothesis of Laplace and in considering the creation of the sun on the fourth day to be only its appearance through clouds of vapour. Dawson and XcCausland were also chided for their adherence to period theory, together with Varington, whose contribution to the Colenso controversy we have already noted. Varington had written a book on the subject, The Vork of Creation. An essential point in the natural day and "gap" theory was that there were no common species between the pre-six day creation, with its fossil evidence in the pre-Cambrian to Tertiary periods, and the six- day creation, with its fossils in the Human or Recent period. Pratt somewhat dubiously suggested that this had been supported by the geological discoveries of D'Orbigny. Xiller's theory of a partial or local Deluge was also severely criticised by Pratt. "Why were birds taken into the ark? ", he asked. Surely they would have survived in any case by flying to an
locality undrowned .2
However the reaction to Xiller was not all negative. Even English
Evangelicals who adhered to the teachings of Chalmers, that previous light from the North, found some illumination in Xiller's writings, and much
' Pratt, Ibid., p. 38. 2Pratt, Ibid., pp. 82ff. 74
ammunition against unbelieving science. There was a great deal in Xiller with which more conservative commentators might agree. Xiller had declared himself utterly opposed to any notion of evolutionary development, such as that delineated in a scientifically inadequate form by Robert Chambers in the Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation' back in 1844. The reviewer in the Christian Observer declared that Xiller had refuted
Vestiges of Creation. 2 However concern was expressed that Xiller's "day- periods" made evolution seem more probable, bearing in mind the fossil evidence, since most species seemed continuous and there was no evidence in the rocks for new acts of creation.
So most Evangelicals were broadly unimpressed by Miller's daring attempt to synthesise Genesis and geology in a new and startling configuration. Had they accepted his theories they might well have been better placed to adjust to Darwin. Instead they unwisely placed their trust in the old exegesis of Genesis and remained convinced that new scientific evidence could be made to fit in with it, and indeed, that it had increased its plausibility. There were three ways in particular in which one of the reviewers in the Christian Observer thought that modern geology supported a traditional Genesis i) The understanding of .3 recency of man's appearance, after the close of the Tertiary period. ii) The upward progress of creation
- scripture and science agreed on this whether the "day" or "day-period" theory was held. iii) The "fixity of specific differences"; "Ho trace is found of one species gradually melting into another".
'[Robert Chambers) Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. (London, 1844) 2Chrietian Observer, 1858,27-33. 3Christian Observer, 1858,14-33. 75
It was this last point which was severely challenged in 1859 by the
publication of The Origin of Sies. Its most important contribution was
to suggest a plausible mechanism for evolution, natural selection, backed up
by meticulous observation over a period of twenty years. It did not
represent the launching of a new theory. As has just been seen, evolution
was being debated in theological circles in 1858. However it had been
linked to Lamarckianism. Evangelicals found this evolutionary theory fairly
easy to dismiss. It was full of tales of unlikely transformations of
species and Cuvier had dealt it some blows at the beginning of the century
with his theory, favoured by most Evangelicals, that the fossil record could
be explained by multiple inundations, followed by fresh creations. Although
the Vestiges of Creation had kindled the public imagination, it was such an amateur work that evolution seemed a wild hypothesis to sober scientists as
well as conservative theologians. Now with Darwin's publication these
theologians, and the Evangelicals among them, confronted the old enemy, evolution, or "development" as they preferred to call it, possessed by a
monstrous infusion of strength.
How, then did Evangelicals respond to Darwin? They endeavoured to be fair and to give credit to the strengths of the volume. Evangelicals acknowledged that Darwin had assembled evidence exhaustively. The critic reviewing The Origin of Species in the Christian Observer remarked that
'the product of years of laborious research demands attention". ' In a lecture delivered at the Dalhousie Institute in Calcutta responding to
Darwin's later volume The Descent of Ian Archdeacon Pratt praised him for
his unwearied assiduity in the collection and classification of facts and
'Christian Observer, 1860,561-74 76 statements from all quarters" in researching The Origin of Species'.
Vhat had been the result of this assiduous' observation of nature, however? In the view of Evangelicals, the result was an untenable theory which they attacked on several grounds. First of all, Darwin's selection of evidence was partial. The biologist possessed "a bias of mind which leads insensibly to the choice of exceptional rather than normal examples. " He chose "abnormal developments" 2 This was an easy charge to sake, but a fair one. No one, including conservative biblicists, denied that natural selection operated in a small number of cases. Darwin argued that this evolutionary mechanism was the only one in operation, but he fell short of proving this. In the absence of conclusive evidence to this effect Darwin's theory was criticised for being more of a philosophical theory than a scientific hypothesis. The reviewer in the Christian Observer3 made this point when he. asserted that "Hot one jot of direct and substantial evidence
[is] in favour. of this theory". "Possibilities [were] worked up into conclusions .0 Secondly-Evangelicals criticised Darwin for Ignoring Scripture. The biologist was not "well studied in the book of God's word", as well as in
"the book of God's works", as his quotation from Bacon, prefaced to The
Origin of Species suggested., ' He ignored scripture as a "philosopher".
This freethinking attitude had produced an "animus calculated to injure the cause which the author seeks to advance". Darwin should have taken into account revelatory as well as scientific evidence. The Bible supplies the
'John. H. Pratt, The Descent of Xan in Connexion with the Hy athesis of Development, (London, Hatchards, 1871), cited in the Christian Observer, 1871, pp. 888-90. 2Christian Observer, 1860,561-74. 3Ibid. °The Origin of Species, title page. 77
records of creation. ' This was perhaps a grumble from a theologian against
the increasing complexity and autonomy of the natural sciences, as well as a characteristic Evangelical insistence on scripture's inspiration and relevance to all areas of knowledge.
In the third place Evangelicals attacked Darwin for rejecting
Cuvier's theory of multiple floods. Darwin had asserted that cataclysms or floods were invented: to account for the extinction of species. But, the
Christian Observer reviewer asserted, geological evidence for cataclysms
Here Evangelicals had was extensive .2 were on much weaker ground. 'They refused to draw natural conclusions from the fossil evidence - that the earth and its living inhabitants were much more ancient than a literal reading of Genesis suggested, and that living creatures had existed continuously during this extended period. All this could. have been admitted if Xiller's new synthesis had been accepted, and Darwin-could have been opposed from a less exposed position. But Evangelicals had painted themselves into an excessively conservative corner in the äiller controversy and now they paid the price. Xost gradually abandoned Cuvier's theory. though some tenaciously maintained it over the years. As late as
1869 Henry Xoule book in its But it published a - support .3 was not well reviewed. A reviewer attacked Xoule for suggesting that a pre-Adamite world was inhabited and then covered with water - Xoule had quoted Ps. 104.6 to support this
'Christian Observer, 1860,561-74. 2Ibid. 3Henry Xoule, Wore than One Universal Deluge, -(London: Villian Hunt and Co., 1869) ''Christian Observer, 1871,155-6 78
Fourthly Darwin's theory was correctly perceived as an attack on a purposive view of the natural world. "Development" was by chance. A later article in the Christian Observer compared Darwin with Lucretius. The latter taught that atoms swerve by chance, and not by the design of a creator. ' Pratt thought that the "chance" element in natural selection ruled it out as a coherent theory describing a supposed natural law. "This or that variety were the fittest to survive, therefore they survived; or they survived, therefore we infer that they were the fittest "2 No laws were shown; the hypothesis was mere classification and taxonomy.
Evangelicals adhered to the biblical view that creation was designed by God for a purpose. And they thought that this fitted the biological evidence better than Darwin's theory. Evangelicals argued that homology and morphology pointed to a creator. Instincts. were not imperfect as
Darwin alleged. Varieties were influenced by what they were intended by
God to be, e. g. -domestic companions to man. This remains a major argument against Darwinism, though not necessarily an argument in favour of divine creation. It is difficult to explain the development of some complex and interdependent life-forms by the mechanism of natural selection.
Fifthly and lastly Evangelicals attacked Darwin's theory at its most vulnerable point -transitional forms. "Vhat aboutthe eye? ", the Christian
Observer asked. "How could such an intricate organ have developed imperceptibly by chance? "3 Darwin himself recognised a problem here.
"When I think of the eye, I shudder" he said. Evangelicals emphasised the
'"Science and the Bible", a lecture by the Bishop of Xelbourne, Christian Observer, 1870,28-41. 2The Descent of Xang p. 10. 3Christian Observer. 1860,561-74. 79 necessity of divine forethought as an explanation. ' Furthermore, where was the evidence of intervening forms? 2 This lack of evidence in the fossil record is still a problem for evolutionary theory today -and has led to emendations in Darwinism such as saltatory theory. Another intermediate form which created problems for Darwin was the giraffe. Pratt made much of the unlikelihood of its neck growing gradually since before it reached a considerable height it would have no advantage in feeding over animals with
Again, Evangelicals that the designing hand shorter necks .3 argued only of a great Artificer could furnish an adequate explanation.
In 1871 Darwin published The Descent of Xan. In this book he described the relationship of man with the -evolutionary scheme. Nan is an animal, not fundamentally different in degree from other creatures., Ian has evolved from the higher apes. Few anthropoid remains had emerged from beneath the hammer in Darwin's time; this apparent weakness of evidence
Darwin explained because the evolution of man had been extraordinarily rapid.
Evangelicals reacted with considerable strength of feeling to this attempt to obliterate the divine image in man and discern in its place the lineaments of a beast. Pratt gleefully recorded the dissent from Darwin's conclusions of Alfred Russell Wallace, who had independently arrived at a theory of evolution by natural selection. ' Wallace did not think that natural selection could have produced the evolutionary leap resulting in such a complex and intelligent creature as mo sa iens. The Archdeacon
'Christian Observer, 1870,28-41. 2Ibid. 3Pratt, The Descent of Nan, pp 10 ff. 'Ibid. 80
replied to Darwin's three main arguments for the evolution of ape into
man. '
i) Darwin had argued that the bodily structure of apes and men
possessed a "similarity of character in particulars". This similarity,
Pratt replied, showed that a Creator worked according to rational
principles of construction. The alleged similarity was exaggerated, in any
case. Where was the fossil evidence of intermediate forms showing a
greater similarity?
ii) Human embryos at early stages of development resemble those of
other animals. This, Pratt maintained, was again evidence of the divine
design. Creatures so alike "become creatures of different kinds with no
confusion. " Embryology was at such a primitive stage of development that
such unscientific assertions can be partially forgiven, although Pratt does
descend to special pleading here.
iii) Rudimentary organs are remnants of a previous stage in evolutionary development. Darwin quoted the example of the panniculus carnosus muscle which we use to raise our eyebrows. It has, he suggested, no great usefulness to us. But it is a rudimentary vestige of the muscles horses use to shake their entire skin. Pratt, however, questioned whether this and other "rudimentary" features were as useless as Darwin thought.
Even "rudimentary" organs were useful and part of the maker's plan.
Xost of the Evangelical criticisms of Darwin, then, were plausible, although some must be categorised as special pleading. Evangelicals were on stronger ground over what they attacked in Darwin than over what they defended in the Bible. They adhered to the fanciful and passe cosmogony of
Cuvier and paid a price for that. They saw where the last ditch on the
'Pratt, Ibid. 81
battlefield was, and that was the special creation of man and his spiritual
uniqueness. Thus they reacted more violently to The Descent' of Man than to
The Origin of Species. Few original arguments were advanced by
Evangelical theologians, but then few of them had 'much interest or
expertise in biology. Evangelicals were as appalled as other conservatives
by this new assault on the Bible but they did not appreciate immediately
the subtlety and tenacity of Darwinism. One of them referred over-
"that fanciful theory is likely optimistically to of evolution, which ...
speedily to be numbered with the many' scientific theories of modern times
which have been eagerly espoused and as speedily abandoned "'
Kost Evangelicals responded with more moderation to Darwin than to
Villiams or Colenso. They agreed with Professor Daubeny that the major
recent assault on the Bible had come from an Anglican bishop in Africa who
was not "addicted to the study of nature"2. Again, as in the other
rationalist controversies, High churchmen took a more strident course, with
Vilberforce pronouncing on his grandmother's ancestry at the British
Association and Pusey taking a savage line.
Church of England Evangelicals may have lacked outstanding`
scientific thinkers who could respond to Darwin's biology with the
necessary grayly, but this was not the case in the realm of philosophy.
In the late sixties and early seventies debate moved from Darwin's
scientific evolutionary theory to the philosophical evolutionism of Herbert
Spencer. The Evangelical response was led by Thomas Rawson Birks, who has
been called "Britain's foremost Evangelical anti-Darwinian"3 Birks was a
remarkably able Evangelical philosopher and theologian, one of the two or
'Christian Observer, 1871,888-90. 2C.G. B. Daubeny, Miscellanies, (Oxford, 1867), iv, 130-3, cited by Chadwick, The Victorian Church. 11,8 3James R. Xoore, The Post-Darwinian Controversies, (Cambridge: C. U. P., 1979), p. 201. 82 three outstanding Evangelical thinkers in the whole period. He is not better known because in helping to topple his adversary, Spencer, his name has been obliterated in the debris. Vellings' does not deal with Birks or his philosophy, dismissing him and Pratt as unreconstructed conservatives.
David H. Livingstone has written a stimulating book mainly on the American
Evangelical supporters of evolution2, but he does not deal with Birks, regarding him as illiberal and strident. In fact Birks's thought is subtle, low key, and flexible.
Birks was brought up as a Nonconformist. After graduating from
Cambridge he became curate to the Evangelical leader, Edward Bickersteth and married his daughter. He became vicar of Holy Trinity church,
Cambridge in 1866, occupying Simeon's pulpit. In 1872 he succeeded F. D.
Xaurice as Knightbridge Professor of Xoral Philosophy at Cambridge. This caused a controversy between Broad and Evangelical churchmen. He was a biblical scholar of uneven quality, author of The Pentateuch and its
Anatomists 3 This was a strongly controversial attack on the Jehovist/
Elohist composite theory as taught by German critics and passed on by
Davidson and Colenso. There were various inaccuracies in the book to which the Christian Observer drew attention. Doctrinally Birks was at the more liberal end of the Evangelical spectrum and, as will be seen below, he came under fire from right wing Evangelicals for his advanced beliefs about the after-life.
Birks was first and foremost a philosopher and he wrote two books opposing the philosophy of "Development". These were The Scripture
Doctrine of Creation with Reference to Religious Nihilism and Xodern
X. Vellings, "Aspects of late Nineteenth Century Anglican Evangelicalism " pp. 313-318 2D. N. Livingstone, Darwin's Forgotten Defenders, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), p. 132 3 (London: Hatchards, 1869. ) 83
Theories of Development' and lodern Physical Fatalism and the Doctrine of
Evolution. Including an Examination of Mr H. Spencer's "First PrinciRles". 2
His style is not always pellucid, but his argument is studied and cogent.
Birks did not confine his attacks to Spencer. He assailed the positivism of Comte and the seemingly more orthodox philosophy of Sir
Villiam Hamilton - his "Philosophy of the Conditioned", of which Spencer had made use. Darwin also came under fire. In addition to some of the arguments against natural selection which were advanced by other
Evangelical critics which we have noted, Birks made some points of his own.
He was especially unconvinced that so many primitive species should have survived after the supposed evolution of more sophisticated life-forms.
The first type [the less favoured variety] exists side by side with the second, and has proved itself equally successful in the great struggle for life. Hence the motive power is entirely wanting, on which the whole efficacy of the principle is assumed to depend. 13 Birks also pointed out the mathematical unlikelihood of accumulated tiny variations tending in the right direction to ensure effective adaptation to the environment. They
[varieties] need to have varied only upward, when downward change is more easy, and the chances seem to be infinite that variations would be both up and down "4
But Birks' major thrust was against philosophical, rather than biological evolutionism. Spencer, with Darwin's approbation, had erected a philosophical theory of human behaviour on the zoological base. He was a
'The Scripture Doctrine of Creation with Reference to Religious Nihilism and Modern Theories of Development. (London: SPCK, 1872). 2Xodern Physical Fatalism and the Doctrine of Evolution. Including an Examination of Xr H. Spencer's "First Principles' (London: Macmillan and Co., 1876). 'Ibid., p. 299. 'Ibid., p. 306. 84
Lamarckian, but not so strenuous a one as utterly to oppose natural
selection. He derived from Comte and Sir Villiam Hamilton a belief that
the metaphysical was unknowable. Progress was the aim of human as of animal development and the "survival of the fittest" the means of its attainment.
Birks attacked Spencer on several grounds. Firstly he attacked his denial of the possibility of scriptural revelation. Hamilton's "philosophy of the conditioned" was erroneous, even though Xansel were invoked to support it. The Unconditioned could be known "in part". ' Spencer's denial of revelation amounted to a failure to consult available inductive evidence and resulted in a destructive scepticism or Pyrrhonism.
Secondly Birks maintained that creatures, including man, possessed a vital principle which gave each one individuality of being and directed its activity. This "vitalism" was common among opponents of evolution and reflected Birks' dependence on Vhewell's philosophy of conceptual realism.
Creatures were independent centres of thought and intention, not blind victims of the determining of environment or heredity.. They possessed life and this is how Birks defined it.
Life, then is that force or power of some living individual existence, whether man, animal, plant or germ, by which it can attract into union suitable material, and repel or reject the unsuitable, in agreement with some plan of living structure, or external life-work, peculiar to each specific form and type of life 2
In the third place, Birks argued against Spencer that evolution was, inasmuch as it existed in nature, as its name would suggest, an unwrapping, a dissolution of coherent structures into incoherent, more into less
'The Scripture Doctrine of Creation, p. 18. 2Xodern Physical Fatalism, p. 278. 85 advanced, a decaying. Such was the scriptural picture. Evolution in the sense of progress and advance was unknown in the physical world. This version of the Second Law of Thermodynamics is prima facie an argument in favour of divine creation, although local concentrations of energy can exist within an overall dissipation.
These were the major arguments which Birks employed to argue against Spencer, and especially his First Principles. He had force and cogency and must rank as a major philosophical opponent of evolution. He was no Hodge and no Agassiz, but he was able to respond effectively and surely to the voluminous outpourings of Spencer.
Payne Smith attempted much more briefly than Birks, and in an area in which he was less knowledgeable, to attack evolution as Spencer applied it to man's moral development. In his lecture, "Science and Revelation"' he argued that only God's teaching in the Bible had enabled man to progress, especially in his exercise of his conscience. Evolution could not explain this.
In the same lecture, Smith enunciated some new principles to prevent unnecessary disputes between science and religion in the future. These show that this Evangelical at least was beginning to turn his back on the conservatism of Pratt and the last-ditch polemicism of the sixties. He declared that the investigation into how the earth was formed was the proper domain of science, not of theology. Only the creation of the world as it affected man was described in scripture.
'from Modern Sceptism, ed. C. J. Ellicott, D.D. 3rd Ed., (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1871). pp. 139-? 8. 86
The object matter of revelation is the moral relation in which man stands to God, especially with reference to a future state of being. Religious men forget this. They often take up an antagonistic position to science, and try to make out systems of geology and astronomy and anthropology from the Bible, and by these judge all that scientific men say. Really the Bible never gives us any scientific knowledge in a scientific way. If it did, it would be leaving its own proper domain. When it does seem to give us any such knowledge, as in the first chapter of Genesis, there is a very important difference about it. What it says has always reference to man. The first chapter of Genesis does not tell us how the earth was formed absolutely; geology ought to tell us that. '
Smith went on to confine the possible as well as the actual domain of revelation still further. "Revelation was never intended to teach us anything that we could learn by the use of our natural faculties. " - p. 176.
Payne Smith probably went further in the liberal direction than most
Evangelicals would have done in 1871. He came under some pointed
for his lecture, for that But his held rationalist criticism all .2 words out the possibility of an accommodation between men of the Bible and men of science. Evangelicals, wearied by over ten years' struggle from increasingly untenable forward positions, viewed an armistice with favour.
' Ibid., pp. 1? 3-4 2Julian, Julian's Reply to the Dean of Canterbury. Science and Revelation. A lecture by Revd. R. Payne Smith, DA. Dean of Canterbury critically examined. (London: Trübner and Co., 1871). 87
So in this chapter it has been seen how Evangelicals responded to the initial assaults of Essays and Reviews, Colenso, Renan, Seeley, Darwin and other biologists and geologists. The previous scholarly consensus has been that the Evangelical response was uniformly conservative. It would be surprising to find anything other than an unyielding uniform spirit of reaction. Yet, interestingly, the response is more flexible than this. In relation to Essays and Reviews in 1.2 questions about their position can be answered as follows.
Vas the Evangelicals' response characterised as a neo-eighteenth century reply to rationalism? To a certain extent it was, because they attacked the theology of the nineteenth century from eighteenth century premises, criticising the essayists for their links with tractarianism, broad church theology, especially that of Kaurice, German neology and its inductive philosophy, Coleridge and his romantic liberalism on scriptural interpretation, and Theodore Parker and his Unitarianism. They were especially opposed to Villiams and to Baden Powell's views on creation.
Vhat kind of conservatism did the Evangelicals favour? Evangelicals based their response on a flexible view of Scripture which nevertheless stood under its authority.
How high a view of inspiration did the Evangelicals take? Led by
Payne Smith and XcCaul1 they asserted a high view of Biblical inspiration by they were not united on the mode of inspiration. Vhat mode of inspiration then did Evangelicals favour? XcCaul interpreted the creation narratives in a non-literalistic fashion and only some Evangelicals supported verbal inspiration. What arguments did Evangelicals use to show the trustworthiness of the Bible, against the essayists? They agreed that the Bible was trustworthy in historical and scientific matters and was shown to be inspired by its coherence and moral character. 88
In 1.3 the Evangelical opposition to Colenso was considered.
Evangelicals opposed his deductive mathematical approach. Evangelicals showed a preference for the inductive method as more suitable to theology and characteristic of their favourite eighteenth century rather than nineteenth century thought. They thought Coleridge and Maurice had
influenced him also. Vas Colenso's theory of inspiration deficient, in the opinion of the Evangelicals? Yes. Colenso was said to have a deficient theology of inspiration, but the Christian Observer rejected infallibility, showing the theory of inspiration which underlay the Evangelicals' response to him. This is also vividly illustrated by Varington's statement that God could have revealed himself in legend as in parable.
In 1.4 the question was considered regarding Renan about what
Evangelicals thought of his non-supernatural approach. Evangelicals criticised Renan for taking no account of the supernatural. His was a biography etsi deus non daretur. This was a typical reaction of many
Victorians reading Renan; although not all wished for the miracles of orthodox Christianity, many found every aspect of mystery sadly missing.
In 1.5 Seeley's writings were considered. Did Evangelicals object to the tone of his writings, or their content? Shaftesbury reacted much more negatively than most Evangelicals to Seeley. Seeley's preference for ethical righteousness to salvation was regrettable, but the book was seemly.
In 1.6 scientific matters were dealt with. On scientific matters there was less polemic than with biblical criticism. The major debate among Evangelicals throughout the period was not a dialogue with Darwin but a division on the exegesis of Gen. 1 between supporters of Chalmers, Vhewell and Buckland and their "gap" theory and those who favoured Miller's "day- period" hypothesis. The leading Evangelical controversialist Pratt favoured natural days and regrettably relied on the questionable fossil evidence of 89
D'Orbigny. Most Evangelicals in this earlier period rejected Miller
unwisely. They argued that modern geology supported their view, because of
the fixity of specific difference, the recency of man's appearance, and the
upward progress of creation, the latter being a Victorian commonplace from
which Evangelicals were not exempt.
Vhat were the objections Evangelicals made to theories of evolution?
Xost Evangelicals rejected Darwin as holding to a view which they had long
opposed, that of "development". How dependent were Evangelicals on
outmoded scientific theories? Darwin was criticised as partial in his
selection of evidence, dismissive of revelation, and because he rejected
Cuvier's theory of multiple floods. It was an Evangelical mistake to rely
on this doubtful theory because the earth was increasingly clearly seen to
be old and living creatures had existed continuously on it.
Fortunately Evangelicals gradually abandoned Cuvier's theories. Vhat
were Evangelicals most concerned to safeguard? Teleological theory and the
possibility of revelation were essential doctrines to be defended. Pratt
also opposed Darwin's rejection of a purposive view of the natural world.
Teleological arguments had featured largely in traditional Evangelical
theology of evidences based on the eighteenth century theories of Paley.
Pratt also attacked Darwin's theories at their supposed weak link of the transitional forms. Attacking the Descent of Man Pratt opposed theories of rudimentary organs, and alleged eabyrological traces of animal ancestry.
Pratt's critique of geology and science was facile but unoriginal.
Birks was deeply original in his attacks on the philosophical Darwinism of
Spencer. He argued effectively against Spencer's denial of the possibility of revelation. He claimed that evolution was an unwrapping only without progress, and he taught a vitalism with living creatures possessed of a principle of life. 90
So in these various fields the response of Evangelicals can be characterised as one hampered by an old-fashioned reliance on outmoded scientific and theological theories, but nevertheless in principle flexible.
It was concerned above all to defend a few core doctrines to do with the
Bible and the doctrine of creation which were perceived to be under assault. CHAPTER II
RATIONALISX: 1879-1900
There is a contrast between the Evangelical response to rationalism during this period and during the earlier one. There is less heat generated in the controversies. There is a more positive declaration of doctrine rather than a negative polemic and also a broadening of the range of theological opinion. The period takes its tone from the Bampton lectures for 1879 given by Henry Vace, Foundations of Faith, a clear commendation of conservative theology. These years saw continuing debate, however. The
Revised Version of the Bible was much criticised in 1881 and 1885.
Biblical Criticism was considered at length in The Churchman in the late eighties. In 1889 there was a crucial dispute between Henry Yace, one of, the Evangelicals' more heavyweight theologians, and T. H. Huxley on the latter's agnostic tenets. This resulted in the publication of Vace's
Christianity and Agnosticism (1895), a studied and learned reply. Also in
1889 Lux Xundi was received with tolerance by most Evangelicals and with a degree of acceptance by some. Preb. Stanley Leathes wrote on some of the issues raised by these essays in The Churchman in the early nineties. 92
There was still an unyielding strain in Evangelicalism, however. On a more popular level, J. C. Ryle fulminated against "neology" and the extremes of rationalism were attacked head on, as in A. C. Ewald's
"Jihilism" in The Churchman of 1880. Although the overall strength on the ground of the Evangelical party remained considerable in terms of number of clergy, its influence on the higher echelons of the church and its self- confidence had waned since the salad days of the fifties and sixties. The old tendency to reach for the text first and think afterwards remained.
These factors sometimes led to an ostrich-like attitude to the onward march of biblical scholarbsip, archaeology and natural science. There was a partial failure to engage with the rationalists on their own ground and a preference to bolster up friends and allies. The old separateness of
Evangelical theology from mainstream religious thought remained. Yet there was much change and development in the line taken on rationalism. At the end of the period, H. G. C. Xoule could teach that the first three chapters of Genesis were records of fact but not literally so and were to be seen as pictorial representation of truth like hieroglyphs. A new vein of moderate liberal biblical criticism was beginning to pulse in the Evangelical body.
In 2.2 Evangelical reactions to the Revised Version of the Bible will be dealt with. How suspicious were Evangelicals of 'this new version?
What aspects of it did they like and which did they dislike? In 2.3
Vellhausen's higher criticism will be considered. It would be most surprising if Evangelicals responded positively to any of his work. Vas this at all the case? Vhat elements of Vellhausen and which of Driver did
Evangelicals feel undermined the unity and character of scripture?
In 2.4 Lux Xundi will be discussed. Vhat differences could be observed within the now diverse Evangelical party in reactions to it? Was 93
doctrine, or bible criticism the ground of Evangelical dissent from the
book? In 2.5 scientific matters are dealt with. Vas there any abatement
in criticism of Darwin in these years, or did Evangelicals go down fighting_
at the last ditch? Lastly in 2.6 the disputes between Evangelicals and
non-Christian free-thinkers are mentioned. Did Evangelicals base their
apologetic on revelation or reason?
After the battlefield of controversy in the sixties and the early
and mid-seventies, the terrain assumed a more peaceful appearance for the
rest of the century. Disputes were fewer in number, as radicalism moved on
from some of its wilder theories and conservatism abandoned some of its
more exposed positions. Evangelicals responded with less heat to the
assertions of rationalists in this later period. Theological disputes were
still strenuously fought, but, generally, with less polemicism than formerly.
The gulf separating neologians and Evangelicals was still wide. Hew
theories were advanced by radical biblical scholars and unbelieving
scientists, theories which challenged traditional orthodoxy as those of
twenty years previously had done. Yet now neology was no longer new.
Heterodoxy seemed less shocking with familiarity. And if rationalists were
more confident in treading the well-trodden path of challenging the wisdom
of past Christian centuries with the "theology of the nineteenth century", so too Evangelicals were more accustomed to responding to their assault. 94
Biblical criticism and revision continued to be the main' battleground between rationalists and Evangelicals. In the period 1879 to
1900 there were forty three articles and reviews in The Churchman on these subjects. This compares with only ten articles and reviews on science and its relation to the Christian faith.
Evangelicals were actively involved in the controversy concerning the revision of the Authorised Version of the Bible. In 1870 the
Convocation of Canterbury appointed committees to revise the Old and New
Testaments. The achievements of "lower" criticism of the-texts and advancing linguistic scholarship demanded some emendations to the hallowed
Jacobean phrases of 1611. Controversy followed as to whether an accurate and scholarly version was preferable to a familiar literary and spiritual masterpiece. There was also some dispute over whether non-Anglicans, and indeed non-Christians, 'should join the panels of the revisers, in the interests of scholarly excellence.
Evangelicals had in the past had mixed views regarding a revised version of the Bible. The Recordite wing of the party, and Shaftesbury in particular, were suspicious. Shaftesbury had objected to the possibility back in 1864. He wrote to Vilberforce, eventually the chairman of the' committee of the Convocation of Canterbury recommending revision, with the words, "what a fearful declaration, in these days, to pronounce the blessed old version unworthy of credit! "' In 1870, after Vilberforce's committee had made its recommendations, he wrote to Gladstone
'Finlayson, The Seventh Earl of Shaftesburv. p. 395 95 and to The Times arguing, in somewhat extreme vein, that revision would destroy the reverence of the English people for the Bible. ' Shaftesbury also engaged in dispute with the Secretary of the British and Foreign Bible
Society. He tried to entice the Society into opposition to the new version, but failed to disturb its neutral stance.
However there were also many Evangelicals who realised that revision was essential. The advance of "lower criticism" had discredited the textus receptus and the canvas of God's Word had to be restored to reveal the original colours, using the best tools of contemporary scholarship. A Dissenting Evangelical, S. P. Tregellis began to publish a critical text of the New Testament in 1857. He played a role in textual scholarship which some in his day compared to that of Tischendorf.
When the revised version of the New Testament was published in
1881, Evangelical reaction was mixed and complex, though generally positive.
The reasons for this mixed response were several.
Firstly there was a greater range of opinion on controversial biblical questions than previously. At the conservative extreme The Rock alone among the Evangelical journals-in its somewhat raucous and popular way had serious misgivings. Its editor expressed his reservations.
The revisers have, we admit, done much good work, but we must confess that they would have earned the gratitude of English Christians more fully had they limited their action to the correction of glaring errors and modernization of words which had become obsolete and almost unintelligible to the million 2
At the other extreme of Evangelical reaction The Churchman judged
' Ibid., p. 51? 2The Rock, 20 Xay, 1881 96 the Revised Version favourably. There was much to welcome in the Revised
Version of the New Testament, its reviewer thought. He wrote: "Our study of the present Revision has deepened our admiration for the conscientious care with which the labour has been done. "'
Interestingly the Record also took a benevolent editorial line. The acerbity and reaction of Haldane had given, way to a softer editorial position by the eighties. Even before the publication of the Revised
Version the newspaper's leader writer looked forward to its arrival: "we are prepared smilingly to welcome the achievement of scholastic minds and lengthened trial. 02 The presence of Dr-Ellicott, Bishop of Gloucester and
Bristol as chairman, reassured the editor. Vith such a defender of orthodoxy in charge the conservatism of the Revised Version's scholarship seemed guaranteed
Evangelical opinion was more united, and more uniformly well disposed, towards the Revised Version of the Old Testament when it was published in 1885. Their party had been represented on the Old Testament
Commission as it had not been on the New Testament body. Payne Smith and
Stanley Leathes took their seats as men preeminent in their scholarly fields. And Evangelicals feared verbal emendations to the English-Old
Testament less than to the New, because less was at stake doctrinally.
So the mixture of Evangelical response towards the Hew Testament
Revision was partly the product of growing diversity of opinion between
I The Churchman, Vol. 4,1881,446 2Record, 7 Xarch 1881 3$ecor, 20 Nay 1881 97
members of a numerically increasing and more disparate party., But secondly
there was a tension within individual Evangelicals between a doctrinal and
stylistic conservatism and a respect for textual and linguistic scholarship.
Evangelicals, as has been mentioned, saw the work of "lower
criticism" and of the study of the Greek language, if pursued in a devout
and godly fashion by such as Tregellis as a permissible, indeed a necessary
task. But they were wary of the wolves of rationalist error smuggled in in
the sheep's clothing of textual emendation. And they were deeply attached
to the style and language of the Authorised Version.
Xany Evangelicals approved of the commission's policy of translating
wherever possible a Greek word with the same English word. In The
Churchman of 1881 there was a review of Companion to the Revised Version
of the English New Testament by Alex. Roberts. The reviewer approved this author's strong criticism of the Authorised Version for its large number of unnecessary different translations of the same word, some of which be--
listed. Evangelicals were critical of the. Revised Version's -However some uniform translation of the same words and praised the greater literary elegance of the commission of 1604. '
The Record thought that a new version was essential, because the old
inaccurate, damaged the than was and inaccuracy church more novelty .2R.
B. Girdlestone, the first principal of the recently founded Ridley Hall,
'The Churchman, Vol. 4.1881,434-46 2Becord, 23 May 1881 98
Cambridge, in a series of meticulous articles in The Churchman, praised the revision of the Old Testament. The revisers had cleared up many obscurities and commendably purified the text. They had remedied the
Authorised Version's lack of precision in its Hebrew ceremonial terms. All this was "faithfully and wisely done ."
However there was a widespread fear that unnecessary changes were a smokestream for rationalism and doctrinal innovation. In the Record a letter-writer, probably Shaftesbury continuing his old antipathy to revision, wrote complaining that the emendation of "Godhead" to "Divinity" in Rom.1: 20 showed a Unitarian influence, since Unitarians were prepared to
former, Jesus Although he predicate the latter, but not the of .2 named no names, Shaftesbury was attacking Dr. Vance Smith, the controversial
Unitarian member of the commission.
The Rock condemned what it considered doctrinally imprudent changes such as, in the Lord's Prayer, "bring us not" for "lead us not". It thought that the last alteration came near to making God the author of evil .3 The reviewer in The Churchman thought some changes theologically defensible.
He considered that Lightfoot's emendation to the Lord's Prayer, "the evil one" for "evil" was "good and unpopular theology", but not a good
6 variation .,
Even when no principle of teaching seemed at stake, most
Evangelicals thought that the brief to the revisers, as to their
'The Churchman, Vol. 12,1885,241-50,321-35,409-26, Vol. 13,1885-6, 16-31. 28ecord, 20 Nay 1881 3The Rock, 27 Nay 1881 `The Churchman, Vol. 4,434-46 99 predecessors of 1604, to make the minimum possible number of changes, was wise. Some members of the commission like Vestcott found this constricting in practice. Evangelicals thought they had sat too loosely to this clause of their instructions. The Rock argued in typically raucous fashion, without substantiating its claims in detail, that many of the revisers' alterations were unsupported by any ancient authority, and were no more faithful to the Greek or generally intelligible than the Authorised Version.
The newspaper even unkindly and implausibly compared the commission with
"bombastic improvers" who had earlier attempted revision, such as Xace in
1729. The Rock condemned what it considered unnecessary changes such as
"last" for "uttermost" farthing (Xt. 5: 26) The paper had to rebuke some of its more passionate readers who comprehensively condemned the Revised
Version'. Some of the Record's correspondents had doubts, too. Dean John
V. Burgon of Chichester pursued his crusade of extreme conservatism in its pages as elsewhere.
Trivial stylistic changes annoyed Evangelicals. This was not because of a linguistic antiquarianism as their proposals for revision of the prayer book show, but because of a respect for words hallowed by devout prayer and persistent memorising. The reviewer in The Churchman was of the opinion that the Revisers of 1861 have made a great number of changes, many of which in our judgement, are inexpedient or unnecessary, and some of which lack idiomatic force and melody "z He judged that many of the trivial stylistic improvements of the revisers were unnecessary, e. g., The findeth first" for The first findeth". (Jn. 1: 41). However the reviewer
The Rock, 27 May 1881 2The Churchman, Vol. 4,1881,373-80 100
judged that the revisers had been correct to make changes in the interest
of scholarship, or increasing accuracy of translation and modernity of
idiom. Vhere expressions like "take no thought' and words like "admire"
had altered their meaning, the revisers were right to change them to be
not anxious" and "marvel at". '
The Churchman had more stylistic complaints. The reviewer thought
that the revisers' English compared badly with that of their seventeenth
century counterparts. Their language was "too scholastic". However-their
Greek scholarship was much better than that of their predecessors. The
companies and the commission of 1604 had cramped their Greek by speaking and writing Latin regularly.
Girdlestone roundly approved the stylistic changes to the Old'
Testament. There were far fewer new words than in the Revised New
Testament. Some "indelicate expressions" had been removed, along with
idioms presenting difficulties to a nineteenth century reader.
And so Evangelicals responded to the Revised Version in a mixed fashion. They showed themselves for the most part flexible and open to textual and linguistic scholarship. Their doctrinal conservatism, built on the rock of the Word, did not preclude acceptance of novel hypotheses in these disciplines. But they feared an opening of the floodgates of rationalist reinterpretation of the Bible. Yet if a new rendering did not assail any of their shibboleths they showed themselves no more conservative than other parties of the church.
Xost Evangelicals were in unlikely agreement with Frederick Faber,
'The Churc man, Vol. 4,1881,250-63 101
who called the Authorised Version one of the strongholds of
Protestantism in England. They were wary in case revision threw away the
birthright of past generations for a mess of hypothetical scholarship. The
open Bible of the Reformators was at the mercy of a new papacy of scholars.
But most Evangelicals recognised that hallowed as the Authorised
Version was, its inaccuracy lost it credibility in a sceptical age. They
had faith in the sound and moderate scholarship represented by the
revisers, and they approved of the new version which they had produced.
As Evangelicals turned from the "lower" criticism of Vestcott and
Hort, so influential in the revision of the English Bible, to the 'higher"
criticism of Vellhausen and his allies, they found little which they
regarded as sound or moderate. There was great interest in, and great
controversy over, Vellhausen's theories during the eighties and nineties
among Evangelicals, as throughout the church. The Evangelical, J. J. Lias
stated, "The perpetual combat between the two great parties in the Church has suddenly ceased, in the face of the great struggle which has now commenced on the question of Old Testament criticism. "'
Fifteen articles were written in The Churchman during that period to repel this latest rationalist onslaught. In the less polemical atmosphere towards the end of the century this degree of attention given to a radical biblical scholar was unusual. It is a measure of Vellhausen's stature, perceived even by his enemies, that his revolutionary theories, achieving
'"Xodern Criticism of the Old Testament", The Churchman, New Series 6,1891-2,281-8 102
what has been described as a "paradigm shift"' in the study of Old
Testament literature and history, called forth from Evangelicals their most
energetic riposte since the sixties. This riposte lacked brilliance. The
Evangelical party had declined in the influence and reputation of its Old
Testament scholars since the middle years of the century. Nevertheless as
in the 1860s Evangelicals were represented by a small number of able, if not outstanding scholars who fought the good fight on their behalf.
Vellhausen's "higher" criticism, positing considerable changes in scholarly understanding of the history and literature of the Old Testament, moved the radical consensus even further away from the traditional
Evangelical interpretation of Old Testament literature and history.
Previously there had been general agreement among the more radical German critics that most of the levitical legislation in Exodus, Leviticus and
Numbers went back. to the Grundschrift employed by the Yahwist in the ninth or eighth century. Vellhausen turned the whole gar-sent inside out in a few deft moves and exposed new and eye-catching patterns. He posited a new fourth documentary source, P, the Priestly Code, which was of a post-exilic date. Vellhausen emphasised the simple and unsacerdotal nature of pre- exilic cultic practice. The pre-exilic prophets, he thought, displayed no knowledge of the levitical law.
So Vellhausen's theories were agreeable to those Protestants who could swallow rationalism but strained at ritualism, because he exalted the prophetic word as chronologically prior to the priestly altar. The subtlety and complexity of his formulations marked an advance in the scientific ------'John Rogerson, Old Testament Criticism in the Nineteenth Century, (London: SPCK, 1984), p. 260. Rogerson relates how early radicalism in German biblical scholarship gave way to Vellhausen's positivism and Henstenberg's confessional orthodoxy. 103 achievements, or claims, depending on one's view, of Old Testament criticism. Vellhausen possessed a solidity which reassured even those who rejected his hypotheses. Here was no sceptical Eichhorn or destructive
Baur; here no outspoken Colenso. He claimed to be following minute scholarship to its unchallengeable conclusions, not hazarding sweeping hypotheses. Those Evangelicals who rejected his findings had to be painstaking and restrained for their part. Preb. E. Tilney Bassett acknowledged that the new radicals wielded different weapons from the sceptics and scoffers of old with which to besiege orthodoxy. ' "Hot the coarse Philistinism of Paine and his followers, nor the sneering satire of
Voltaire and his school, but the research of linguists and the rationalism of critics or rather conjecturists, now challenge of us a surrender of our citadel".
Vellhausen may have challenged the Evangelical position on the Bible but in his own way he was doing what Evangelicals also strove to accomplish - to vindicate the Bible as the Vord of God. Both he and his
Evangelical opponents were unwilling to view the Bible as a historical document and no more. Vellhausen believed that conventional views of the literary form and historical circumstances of composition of passages needed to be revised; then God's message could be clearly heard.
Evangelicals held that little revision was necessary. Although Vellhausen was impossibly radical for them they could relate to his pursuit of biblical truth and close attention to the text of the Bible as they could not to Jowett's liberal historicism. Wellhausen was an historical positivist and rejected the idealist philosophy of the Tübingen school ------
'"The Old Testament and the Critics", The Churchman, New Series 4, 1889-90,518-33. 104
which was repugnant also to Evangelicals. A positive attitude can be seen
in the views of V. Robertson Smith. He broadly supported Vellhausen's
position and outlined his motives and reasons for doing so in a series of
published lectures. As an Evangelical, ' if not a conservative, Smith
explained that he held that only Vellhausen's reading vindicated Scripture
as the Yard of God. After Smith's removal from office in Aberdeen, when
the immediate heat of controversy was cooled, Church of England
Evangelicals began to consider his position with balance and fairness. In
1881 R. B. Girdlestone gave an appraisal of Smith's lectures. ' In this
appraisal he declared his respect for Smith's motive of vindicating the
Bible although he disagreed that such radical surgery of Scripture was
necessary to do so.
But if Evangelicals agreed with Vellhausen and his supporters about
this motive of vindication, they profoundly disagreed about methods. In
some respects they found Vellhausen and especially Robertson Smith too
liberal in their philosophy of history as the writers of Essays and Reviews
had been.
Firstly Evangelicals were uneasy about the way in which Vellhausen
and his followers linked the Bible with products of merely human culture by
treating it like any other book. This was the cornerstone of Jowett's
critical philosophy in Essays and Reviews and Robertson Smith carried the
principle still further by suggesting that not only was the Bible to be
treated like other volumes, but'that biblical scholars were to be like any
other scholars, guided'only by "the ordinary laws of evidence and good
sense. " Girdlestone rejected Jowett's view, without mentioning his name, on
'"The Old Testament in the Jewish Church", The Churchman, Vol. 5,48- 62 105
the grounds that the Bible was "too sacred a Book to be dealt with thus. "
And he attacked Smith's position, holding that spiritual sympathy with the
divine Author was necessary to true critical enquiry.
Secondly Evangelicals diverged widely from the higher critics in
their theology, of revelation. They disagreed most pointedly again with
Smith; less so with Vellhausen and Driver. For Smith the bible was an
expression of man's devotional spirit, so Girdlestone claimed, perhaps being
unfair to Smith who believed in inspiration, though not in plenary
inspiration. However Smith opposed a propositional view of revelation, holding that Scripture was not about doctrine but about God. And he maintained that revelation was progressive through history. Girdlestone rather, saw,, the Bible as a record of God's mighty acts.
However Evangelicals less disposed to Driver's .. were unfavourably propositional view of revelation. Driver had initially pronounced against some of Vellhausen's arguments in 1882, while accepting his division of sources. He had differed from Robertson Smith over the latter's key assertion that Scripture revealed God, not doctrine. Driver held that revelation was about information. Criticism could only deal with the form, not the content of revelation. This difference in Evangelical reaction confirms Rogerson's findings', that when Driver succeeded Pusey in his chair in 1883 he was positive on the inspiration and authority of the biblical accounts.
Thirdly Evangelicals disagreed with the new criticism over the detailed literary and historical results which it offered, and in particular the documentary hypothesis. It reduced the Pentateuch, they argued, to an
'John Rogerson, Old Testament Criticism in Nineteenth Century , England and Germany (London: SPCK. 1984), p. 274. 106
"implausible patchwork". Yet even here they found some common ground with
their adversaries. Evangelicals endeavoured to give Vellhausen's
Prolegomena a'fair hearing. ' Robert C. Jenkins found that new criticism
fascinating because of its "novelty, boldness, ingeniousness, and learning",
although he rejected its conclusions. ' J. J. Lias found much to admire in
Vellhausen as a writer if not as a scholar. He pronounced him no turgid
Teuton. He was, "Lias judged, more imaginative and more attractive as a writer than other German critics2. 'Lias in the same article also admitted that Vellhausen was popular in England because he redressed an imbalance in the treatment of the Bible, albeit in an extreme fashion. Extreme bibliolatry had held the field for'centuries. The conclusions of Vellhausen and other modern scholars were'less than'compelling because they partook of a general feebleness of mind, intellectual' and moral, at the present time. The old Evangelical prejudice against the "theology of the nineteenth century" reasserted itself.
Evangelicals were pleased that the tide of biblical scholarship was moving away from the ultra-radicalism of Strauss. As they compared biblical scholarship in the 1860s "with that in the 1880s they felt that times had changed for the better. Writing on "The Present Position of Old Testament
Criticism in England"3 in 1894 the former Bishop of Colchester sounded a confident note. ""He detected a sign of hope on the horizon, like Elijah's cloud, to break the drought of rationalistic criticism. He rejoiced that
Yew Testament scholarship in England remained resolutely traditional, with the exception of critics like Professor Sanday who attacked the accuracy of
St. John's gospel. But even he defended the historicity of miraculous
'The Churchman, New Series 7,1892-3,281-9 2The Churchman, Few Series 6,1891-2,281-8 3The Churchman, New Series 9,1894-5,57-65,113-21 107
gospel incidents like the destruction of the Gadarene swine, against the
outright unbelief of Huxley. There were conservative scholars like Sayce
the Xosaic the Pentateuch. who argued- persuasively -for authorship of Evangelicals ., thought that rationalist biblical criticism moved in
phases of fashion and-rejoiced that some of-their old opponents had not
worn well. with. the years. Payne Smith, writing in 1890, was relieved that
some, of, the ogres of his youth had had their theories disproved or
superseded. ' Ewald's theories had passed away, he pronounced with
satisfaction. It is a measure of Payne. Smith's conservatism even by
Evangelical standards that Ewald could be. portrayed by him as an extremist.
Payne Smith was also encouraged because the scientifically
meticulous approach of Vellhausen meant that the Pentateuch was being thoroughly examined as never before. "We -nay, be glad that there is going
on an accurate, minute, and most painstaking examination of every line and
word of Holy Scripture w2 This gave an opportunity for the truth to emerge and for conservative scholors, to mount a strong counter-offensive. The
Churchor tolerant to Herbert Ryle, himself liberal- , was enough allow a biblical scholar,. to put. forward his views on Old Testament studies in its
"Three Histories Israel" columns,. - Recent of .3 Those radicals without leading Evangelical fathers were more scantily represented in The
Churchman's. pages. _
That more intangible quality, the tone of voice Evangelicals employed in answering Velihausen, was softer and less strident than the
' The, Churchman, New Series 4,1889-90 449-59. 2Ibid., 449 3The Churchman, New Series 5,1890-1,246-59 108
rallying cries of their fathers twenty years, before. There was less use of
slogans of derision, "neologian". "unbeliever". -In The Churchman
Evangelicals had a journal with broader sympathies than the Christian
Observer and the Record had mellowed with age. Their pages afforded a
moderately relaxed critique. -There was a greater breadth to"Evangelical
opinion now over, Old Testament scholarship, °ranging from Lias' positive
endorsement of scientific conservative criticism, to-the caution of Bassett.
So Vellhausen was not universally seen as an ogre. _ Nevertheless the Evangelical reaction to the new critics was mainly
strong, and negative. As soon as Smith began to introduce their theories to
a British public Evangelicals began to respond to them critically. Smith
emphasised the time and circumstances of the various authors, the long
period over which the, Bible grew,, and, similarities with, other contemporary
writings and cultures.
Girdlestone countered this by referring to the extremely
conservative and accurate Jewish copying tradition, although he'admitted
the significance of variant readings in the various XSS. Smith put forward
his version of the documentary hypothesis, a version agreeing on major
points with that of Vellhausen, whose views Smith had come to accept
gradually. As an Evangelical, if-not a"conservative, Smith held that only-
Vellhausen's reading vindicated Scripture as-the Word of God. Deuteronomy
was the book found in the temple in Josiah's reign. Joshua and Chronicles
were of little historical worth. Ezra was responsible for incorporating the
in priestly code the Pentateuch. .
But Girdlestone held that Smith had no historical evidence for such an act by Ezra. The priestly law was pre-exilic and its existence was implied in the historical books. It had not been adequately put into 109
practice because of Israel's disobedience., Jesus quoted from Deuteronomy
and Leviticus and thus gave the weightiest possible support to their
genuineness.
Arguments of the sort employed by Girdlestone had some force and
plausibility., These and others like then were increasingly employed by
Evangelicals as Smith's exposition of Vellhausen's theories was replaced by
the publication in English of the German scholar's magnum opus itself.
This happened in 1885 when a translation of his Prolegomena was issued.
From then until the mid-nineties there was a full-blown controversy over
Yellhausen's views.
Evangelicals attacked the Prolegomena forcefully also. Frederick B.
Toyne strongly supported the arguments of Gerhardus Vos in his book
opposing Vellhausen's theories, shortly after the English publication of
the ProlejnmanM. Toyne took grave exception to Vellhausen's suggestion that
"in the time of Ezra a very thorough, revision of the historical books took
place. "' He also rejected as monstrous the, idea that the Priestly code
which appeared historically true. because of its detailed technical
descriptions was "the fruit of Jewish fancy. " He summed up his negative . judgement on the Prolegomena by characterising it as follows: "subjective
criticism [which]..... exaggerates statements and then takes exception to the
absurdities it has created. " In the following years, as they developed a
more considered but scarcely weaker opposition to "higher" criticism,
Evangelicals criticised Vellhausen on several grounds.
Firstly they attacked, the, new scientific criticism for making an
'Review of Vellhausen's Theory of the Pentateuch. The Mosaic Origin of the Pentateucha Codes. Gerhardus Voss (London: Hodder and Stoughton. 1886) in The Churchman, Vol. 14,1886,296-306 110
implausible patchwork of the Pentateuch. The veteran campaigner Payne
Smith attacked,. Vel lhausen and other Teutonic scholars on these grounds in
his article, "Recent Hostile Criticism on the Authority and Position of the
Old Testament Scriptures". ' Payne Smith considered that the scissors and
paste hypotheses of the docunentarists were inappropriate and clearly
derived from secular literary criticism, which might not be in order for
biblical material. The method might not even be justified in classical
studies. Wolf had made just such a patchwork of the Ilia.
Vellhausen was not the only scholar esteemed guilty of cutting up
biblical texts and destroying their natural flow and unity. Hypotheses
attacking the unity of Isaiah were also current. S. R. Driver, Pusey's
successor as Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford, and an increasingly a expounded convinced, if cautious advocate of Vellhausen, had such theories
for an English readership in 18882 Payne Smith upbraided those critics
who'cut Isaiah in pieces as 'viciously as King Xanasseh. Girdlestone had
already done the same in his review of Driver's book in The Churchman3.
Girdlestone granted that there seemed to be many' differences between the
situation of the author of Isaiah 1-39 and the author of the following
chapters, but there were similarities too.
Clearly the writer has projected himself to an unheard-of-degree into the exilic period; and yet there are in these chapters occasional hints that the land and the people were in very much the same condition as when the 1st. 5th and 11th chapters were written4
Girdlestone also amusingly' performed a source critical analysis on
The Churchman, New Series 4,1889-90,449-59 2S. R. Driver, Isaiah: his life and times. and the writings which bear his name, (London: Nisbet, 1888) 'The Churchman, New Series 2,1887-8,514-25 `Ibid., 522 111
Driver's book:
Even Canon Driver's book nay be discovered to be the work of two authors, one a D.D. (as on the title-page), the other an LA., as on the cover of the book; one giving positive expositions of the text, the other criticising the authorship; one under the influence of Assyrian inscriptions, the other inspired by a Hebrew concordance. '
So Vellhausen and his followers were attacked for rending the
seamless robe of scripture and making it a parti-coloured patchwork fit
more for a scholar's study than a patriarch's tent. They tended, so
Evangelicals argued, to fragment the unity of scripture. And secondly
Evangelicals attacked him for alleging that Scripture was untrustworthy.
The leading Old Testament scholar Stanley Leathes played this familiar old
Evangelical card. In an article entitled "Old Testament Criticism in
Relation to Faith and Teaching", 2 this theologian put forward his views.
As has been seen, Evangelicals used the same arguments in the sixties against Colenso. Leathes accepted Butler's dictum that God could reveal himself in any way he chose. But the way of pseudonymity was peculiarly ill-suited to the communication of religious truth. Leathes made a distinction between scripture and works of a famous dramatist. The worth of Shakespeare's plays would be unaltered if their author were proved to be
Bacon; not so the Bible, if its apparent authors were doubted. The true religious message of the Bible had to bear the unimpeachable credentials of genuine authorship. That stamp had to be upon the word of God to give it credence and moral weight. Dt. 31: 9 affirmed that Xoses wrote the law. To move
'Ibid., 525 2The Churchman, Few Series 6,1891-2,617-28. 112
instead authorship of the Priestly Code to the time of Ezra was to make the
writing of part of the Bible into a lie, Leathes argued. Kost Evangelicals
had accepted for many years that Noses had used sources in the composition
of the Pentateuch; very few of them were willing to accept that he had
successors in writing parts of the Law. Roses was seen as the end of the
process of transmission and compilation, perhaps. With much more
difficulty could he be descried as the beginning of a process of the same
kind, with the possibility of other sources and other hands distorting a
pure revelation entrusted to Roses alone.
Robert C. Jenkins feared that the trustworthiness of the Pentateuch would be severely impaired by Vellhausen's theories. Reviewing 1hft
Documents of the Hexateuch by V. E. Addis, ', a history of the new criticism,
Jenkins expounded his fears. If others had a hand in writing what claimed to be by Moses, the books were a forgery. There was an element of deceit involved in their production and some moral opprobrium attached to this.
Furthermore what is attributed to another author is less easily believed.
The fate of the Donation of Constantine and of the forged Decretals would befall would to believe its teaching the Pentateuch - many cease .2
The third objection which Evangelicals brought against Yellhausen and his followers was that they were a house divided against itself. Far from proving to be a solid and unified school, divergencies were alleged between the German and his followers. Driver in particular was said to be at variance with his Teutonic master, and to hold views more palatable to a majority of Evangelical scholars.
'V. B. Addis, The Documents of the Hexateuch, -(London: Hutt, 1892) 2The Churchman, New Series 2,1887-8,514-25 113
Driver differed from Vellhausen on many points. As has been seen his
belief in propositional revelation and his contention that criticism could
elucidate the form but not the content of Scripture were reassuring to
Evangelicals and broad churchmen alike. Later, Driver came to accept more
of Vellhausen's findings. But he remained a moderate English face of
Teutonic scholarship, more acceptable to many, including Evangelicals, than
his German mentor, and more respectable than Professor Cheyne, who
antagonised moderate opinion by his unbridled enthusiasm for all that the documentary theory could offer. Yet other Evangelicals objected to swallowing the hard book of Vellhausen in the soft bait of Driver. Lias commented: The extent of the disagreement between him [Driver] and the authorities on which he professes to rely is, as the reader will already have perceived, really far greater and more serious than he has given us the least reason to suspect. "' Evangelicals thus responded firmly but not harshly in attempting to rebut Vellhausen's theories. They were united in opposing the German scholar himself, but some were beginning to soften in their attitude to his English followers, to Driver's quiet scholarship, if not Cheyne's more extreme advocacy. The controversy over Old Testament scholarship was also focussed and brought to a head by the debate following the publication of Lur xundi.
Evangelicals and others defended the traditional authorship of the
Old Testanent books against the theories of Vellhausen and others partly because Jesus declared that these authors had written what they were said to have written. However with the publication of Lux Xundi in November
"The Vitness of the Holy Scripture to the Accuracy of the Pentateuch", New Series 14,1899-1900,466. 114
1889, Christ's own nature and powers in making this sort of assertion came
under. scrutiny and an attempt was made to revise the doctrine of Christ's
dis and elaborate it in a "new era in Anglican thought. "' This attempt was made by Charles Gore almost incidentally in The Holy Spirit and
Inspiration", his contribution to the collection of essays.
Xost Evangelicals were suspicious about this as about other features of Lux Nundi. Neither the ritualist roots nor the liberal scholarship of the contributors reassured them. Nevertheless they responded to the volume in a less negative way than to almost any other work of liberal scholarship in the period covered in this study. Evangelicals, like the essayists, were beginning to be concerned about the Christian faith growing out of touch - with modern intellectual and moral problems. -In an initial review even the conservative Record voiced positive sentiments 2 The reviewer complimented
Aubrey Moore on his essay, "The Doctrine of God",, in which he expounded the theology of the Logos effectively. The Record was pleased that he had distinguished between the God, of Religion and the God of Philosophy, and that he had demonstrated the theological inadequacy of Unitarianism. His essay was the most'valuable.
The reviewer found the essays by Holland and Gore less satisfactory.
He faulted Holland's essay on "Faith", original and illuminating on the response of man to the natural and supernatural, for reinterpreting revelation in, an unacceptable way, -as merely "a record of man's growing intimacy with God". He also criticised Gore's views, especially for his description of Genesis as "myth". This too was to devalue the high doctrine of inspiration upon which Evangelicals insisted.
A. M. Ramsey, From Gore to Temple, (London: Longmans, 1960), p. vii, 2Recotd, Dec. 13,1889,1215 115
Payne Smith was more negative than most Evangelicals in his
attitude to Lux Xundi. He attacked Gore's essay roundly, savaging him for
leaving Moses the author of only the decalogue and a little ceremonial" -
"Recent Hostile Criticism on the authority and Position of the Old
Testament Scriptures". '
°' At the other end of the spectrum of Evangelical reaction was Hay
Aitken, who joined some other Evangelicals in writing about Lux Mundt In
broadly The in the favourable vein in the Record and The Churchman. - splits
Evangelical party showed up in public when Archdeacon Denison continued in
the tradition of Pusey and attempted to forge an alliance of High and Low
against Broad over Lux Xundi. In December 1891'he secured the publication
of a declaration on holy Scripture which denied that Jesus was fallible in
his use of the Old Testament. This declaration was'signed by thirty eight
eminent churchmen. Among Evangelicals Payne Smith, Vebb-Peploe. ` and J. V.
Xarshall supported the declaration., But the influential Lord Grimethorpe
his opposition it known in made to public .a
Striving to'steer a piddle course was R. B. Girdlestone, who
continued with his Old Testament scholarship which was so useful to
Evangelicals in the controversy over Vellhausen. He wrote-a series in the
Record on'"The Authority and Accuracy of Christ's Teaching". The
importance of these articles was'recognised by the Times, in its review of
Lux Xundi. Girdlestone then published'a book based on the articles. " In
this book Girdlestone made some notable concessions'to the critical movement.
'The Churchman, New Series 4,1889-90,449-59 'Anne Bentley, The Transformation of the Evangelical Party in the Church of England in the later nineteenth Century, Ph. D., Durban, 1971, Ch. 3. 3The Foundations of the Bible. Studies in Old Testament Criticism, (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1890) 116
We allow that Genesis-is a compilation and that the writers of the original materials from which it is composed may have presented the traditional information that came into their hands in different ways, with different names for God, and from different points of view, but we believe that all these variations were patriarchal, and that the book, as we now have it, is in the main as Xoses and his immediate followers have left it. '
These concessions were acceptable to moderate Evangelical opinion, such as his reviewer in The Churchman, D. S. 'Xargoliouth, professor of
Arabic 11 at Oxford -- 11`
Girdlestone also argued that the different codes in the Pentateuch were compiled in the -time of Joshua, 'probably by Phinehas, although they were delivered through- Moses. -Ezra finally authorised the historical books.
The post-exilic priesthood did not invent legal codes this would have been discreditable.
There was some dispute among Evangelicals over Gore's teaching on
sis. The conservative B. Tilney Bassett published two articles in The
Churchman in July and August 1892 on Christ's knowledge especially'in relation to Xk. 13: 32.. In these he attacked strongly any limitation-in Jesus' cognition. However a more radical, theologian, V. -T. Hobson wrote an article
The Limitation of Christ's Knowledge, " in, the same year attacking Bassett. 3
Infallibility, he argued, does not., imply omniscience. Gore was no Arian in questioning Jesus' omniscience. Even the opponents of Arianism in the fourth century recognised a limitation in Christ's knowledge. ' He=cited
Ellicott, Browne, Harold, and Liddon, a conservative pantheon, among those who allowed a limited laying aside of-Jesus' cognitive powers in the'
Incarnation. He also quoted the "clarum et venerabile nomen" of the,
' Ibid., p. 193. 2The Churchman, New Series 5,1890-1,225-30 3The Churchian, New Series 7,1892-3,36-49 117 respected Evangelical O'Brien of Ossory as teaching in a charge of 1863 against Colenso a "suspension of living powers" in Jesus. Hobson maintained that Jesus' increase, in. wisdom (Lk. 2.52), was a real one and that the Spirit at Baptism further enlightened him.
Thus the controversy over Lug Xundi forced many moderate
Evangelicals like Girdlestone'to reconsider their position on the Old
Testament radically. Vellhausen could be answered but when Driver and Gore made their more limited claims and took much mainstream opinion with them. some Evangelicals began to abandon the high ground from which they had retreated scarcely an inch since the eighteen sixties. Some Evangelicals also felt able to relax enough to respond sympathetically to a novel and speculative Christology when it was presented with reverence and orthodox intent by Gore.
There were in the period 1879-1900 no scientific theories of revolutionary novelty which challenged biblical orthodoxy or caused fresh controversy with Evangelicals as the geologists and Darwin had.
Evangelicals continued to assail evolutionary theory, though more through review and article than by the sort of books they had written twenty years previously. Time was healing the asperities of combat.
Church of England Evangelicals were embarrassed by the crudity of much popular propaganda against Darwinism. Valter R. Browne complained of this and in particular with the work of the Christian Evidence society. '
It treated Darwinism too much as a heresy, Browne argued, and not enough as
' The Churchman, Vol.?, 1882-3,103-114 118
a scientific hypothesis. Its impartiality was hardly beyond reproach and
hence its usefulness was impaired. Xore intellectually reputable
organisations like the Victoria Institute, founded in 1866 to show the
"necessary, eternal and Divine Harmony between Science and Religion"', had a
better record.
Yhen new scientific discoveries threw doubt on Darwinism,
Evangelicals were quick to pounce. In a review of The Remote Antiquity of
Man not Proven - Primeval Man not a Savage by B. C.Y2, discoveries of
remains in Kent's Cavern, Devon had been given a more recent date than
first thought. Nicholas Whitley, the reviewer, thought that extinct animals
should be dated later and not primeval human remains earlier. He quoted
Alfred Wallace, Darwin's more conservative rival in support. The Bible's chronology, Yhitley argued, ' bad not been disproved. 3
In 1884 Joseph Reynolds voiced his continuing opposition to
Darwinism Reynolds that, declared .A maintained although some scientists that the arguments against evolution [were] not worthy of thought" many were not convinced. Evolution failed to explain the origin of the universe.
Differentiation, not evolution, explained the similarities between species.
Creation displayed a unity of substance and a oneness of plan. There is in
Reynolds' article a certain frustration and lack of confidence. Like other
Evangelicals he realised that the tide of intellectual argument had moved so far in favour of evolution by now that it could not be turned back. His arguments were as the commands of Canute.
'Finlayson, The Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, p. 51? 2B. C. Y., The Remote Antiquity of Xan not Proven - Primeval Nan not a Savage, (London: Elliot Stock, 1882) 3The Churchman, Vol. 7,1882-3,384-6. °"A research into Origins: a Scientific Investigation as to Evolution", The Churchman, Vol. 10,1884,351-8 119
Reynolds must have realised that he needed to make some concessions
to evolutionary theory. In 1888 he admitted that special creation 1n"its
full-blooded form,. could not be maintained. Indeed he argued that it was
not taught in scripture. ' The earth was given power to bring forth
vegetation. However at this time Reynolds did also marshal further
arguments against evolution. He thought that evolutionary theory applied to
inorganic as, well as organic creation and was linked to a steady-state
universe which could be entirely accounted for by a causal nexus. He
opposed the principle that matter can neither be created or destroyed and
posited a Heracleidean flux in which molecules changed and passed away
altogether. He also argued against the admittedly somewhat fanciful
arguments for evolution derived from embryology.
Xany Evangelicals reacted to the continuing controversy over
evolution in an eirenic fashion. In 1884, Frederick Temple's Bampton
lectures on The Relations between Religion and Science2 were given a
in The Churchman by C. Lloyd Lloyd surprisingly. generous, review .3
pronounced Temple's work to be "a truly noble contribution to theology in
its philosophical, scientific, and, above all, ethical aspects. ' He did not directly argue against Temple's apologia for evolution, although he thought
it did not agree well with his insistence that regularity was more
important than causation in science. Lloyd argued that evolutionary theory was based on causation, not on Hume's uniform sequences and co-existences.
Again in an article on evolution in 1885 Canon E. Hoare treated
'The Churchman, New Series 2,1887-8,400-9 2Frederick Temple,, The Relations between Religion and Science, (London: Macmillan and Co, 1884) 3The Churchman, Vol. 11,1884-5.383-92 120
Temple's views with respect. ' He argued against the evolutionary theories of Darwin and Laplace but acknowledged that "those who believe in Evolution may-believe in a Creator", asa matter of theological logic as well as empirical fact. In this Hoare showed himself more liberal than Charles
Hodge who had pronounced Darwinism to be atheism. Hoare also committed himself to a revisionist position regarding Gen.l. He stated "To one supposes that the world was created and peopled by one instantaneous act of the Creator". He entertained various explanations of the duration of the six days of creation. But Hoare rejected Temple's assumption that the theory of evolution had been conclusively established. Hoare seized upon
Henry Drummond's admission that evolution was still unproved. If an evolutionary theorist such as the author of Natural Law in the Spiritual
World granted'such a concession. Hoare the Evangelical' felt 'safe. Perhaps he should not have'drawn conclusions about the general state of scientific opinion from Drummond with his dangerous blend of faith and science, of natural and spiritual law.
B. H. Baden Powell's book, Creation and Its Records was favourably
in The Churchman Baden Powell for in reviewed .2 argued creation evolution and rejected a one-act creation per saltum. As' has been seen many
Evangelicals were coming to accept this. However he denied that evolution was a sufficient explanation for all_the phenomena of nature. Divine design also had a part to play. Baden Powell in addition maintained a conservative position on the authority of Genesis. Reviewing the book in
'The Churchman, Vol. 13,1885-6,1-16 2B. H. Baden Powell, Creation and its Records, (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1886), The Churchman, Vol. 14,1886,296-306. 121
The Churchman Edward Vhately approved of all these points and saw Baden
, Powell's emphasis on design in nature as a blow struck back for. Paley
against the recently deceased Darwin.
One of the- most favourable opinions on evolution by an Evangelical
was that by Canon A. D. Xacnamara. Writing in 1896 he boldly declared.
"evolution is a law of Nature, which is discernible as working towards the
development of animal life on earth. Nature seems the sole governess
here "I the to ... God worked through proximate causes which seemed reign
supreme in physical nature, Xacnamara argued. God was also the ultimate
cause not discernible by scientific enquiry. - But man's spiritual life
conflicts with the process of natural selection. -Even Huxley conceded this,
Xacnamara stated. Therefore different spiritual laws, known to theology, operate in this realm. Showing such positive support for evolution was unusual -for an Evangelical at this time and it shows the growing plurality of views within the party by the end of the century. -
Some Evangelicals conceded openly that the book of Genesis was a compilation, though their dating of its composition and editing was conservative. Robert Bruce wrote as follows:
The knowledge which we now have that the book of Genesis is essentially a compilation; that it is, to a large extent, composed of documents, some of which are older by several centuries than the time of Xoses, so far from if belief in its Divine shaking, increases, possible, our origin .2
Genesis was narrative, Canon T. D. Bernard stated, with all the limitations that implied. It was not a statement of abstract truths
'The Churchman, New Series M11,1896-7,24. 2The Churs man, New Series, 9,1894-5,353-60. "Genesis and the Bible", The Churchman, Vol. 12,1885,401-6. 122
There was therefore a considerable range of Evangelical opinion
on Genesis and Science. There was little discussion of geology, compared
with the eighteen sixties. A gentle assimilation of evolutionary theory in
some quarters can be observed during the nineties., Evangelicals seemed tobe
willing to give some ground on evolution and a literary understanding of
Genesis, so long as the inspiration of scripture and divine supremacy in
the spiritual realm were retained.
2.6 T. H. Huxley and Mrs Humphrv Vard
The leading Evangelical controversialist of the eighties and nineties was Henry Vace (1836-1924). He was a church historian specialising in Luther studies, appointed Professor of ecclesiastical history at King's College, London in 1875, and made Principal in 1883.
From an early stage in his career he made it clear that he was willing to forsake the lecture theatre for the arena of public debate, becoming a leader writer for the Times in 1863.
In 1879, Vace showed that he had special interest and ability-in assailing outright unbelief, rather than broad church liberalism. - In that year he gave the Bampton lectures on The Foundations of Faith. ' These for the most part consisted of a positive commendation of conservative theology, arguing for the importance of faith in history and morality.
However Vace also'attacked what he saw as the inadequacy of reason and rationalism in forming'a coherent and reliable world-view. In particular he directed his fire against` Supernatural Religion, the anonymous book of
'Henry Vace, The Foundations of Faith, Q, ondon: Pickering and Co., 1879) 123
1874 which attacked the veracity of the New Testament from an avowedly
" free-thinking position. °°
Vace had no great difficulty in puncturing the pretensions of such
an apparently scholarly but in reality-light-weight volume. Its author had
claimed that in the early church human superstition - and Alexandrian
philosophy, displaced the simple morality of Jesus. Vace made good use of
his knowledge of the fathers and of church history, somewhat uncommon
among Evangelicals,, in defending the apostolic simplicity of the centuries
up to Hicaea. Supernatural Religion had also claimed, as Seeley had in the
previous decade, that the teaching of Jesus-was moral, free from theological
dogma.. Vace successfully showed how ethics and divine grace were
inseparable in Christ's Vord and Vitness. Vace also quarrelled with the
assertion of the author of Supernatural Religion that Christian revelation
was superfluous. Thus in these lectures Vace began to establish a`name as
a leading Evangelical champion in the crusade against unbelief.
In his Bampton lectures Vace had briefly criticised T. H. Huxley for
his attempt to undermine faith in his use of Rune. Huxley was to be Vace's
foe in one of the major confrontations between orthodoxy and unbelief ten
years later. Huxley was a formidable opponent, and one whom many
Evangelicals found difficult to counter. - He was pugnacious in public debate
and popular writing. His scientific ability was acute. Evangelicals were
used to attacking old-fashioned atheists and free-thinkers with
popularisations of Paley and diluted philosophy. Huxley, however distanced
himself-from these positions of the past. ' His aposteriori agnosticism was
L. Huxley, The Life and Letters of T. H. Huxley, (1900), i, 217, cited in B. X. G. Reardon, Religious Thought in the Victorian Age, (London: Longman, 2nd ed., 1980), p. 296 124
hard novel and to answer. .
In 1888 Vace addressed himself to Huxley's agnosticism. He chose
the forum of the Xanchester Church Congress in which to do so, ensuring a
wide audience of parish clergy thereby. In his paper Christianity and
Agnosticism Vace first described Huxley's derivation and coining of the
neologism, "agnostic" by Huxley in 1869, derived from Acts 17. ' Huxley
maintained that belief could be no more than opinion, based on inductive
scientific evidence. On the contrary, Vace argued, Christian belief in God
was founded on what Jesus had said, on his personal declaration and
authority., Xuch of the content of Christian revelation had not and could
not be tested by scientific observation. It was solely dependent on
authority. Vace leavened this insistence on submission to the Vord with a
characteristically Evangelical appeal to the person of Jesus and his
experience. Vace regarded the refusal of the agnostic to accept the
empirical evidence of the person of Christ as a testimony to God's
existence as a refutation of any claim of openness. Therefore the new
agnostic was simply the old atheist writ large.
Huxley rose to the bait and replied in the Nineteenth Century in
February, 1889. He showed some personal rancour towards Vace, iaplying
that he was a "less refined sort of controversialist". Vace later
reciprocated this, tarring Huxley with the brush of Bradlaugh as (not)
"belonging, himself to the more refined sort of controversialists"2 Huxley did not accept Vace's redefinition of agnostic as "unbeliever". Vith heavy sarcasm, he referred to its "attractive simplicity" but be thought it
'Henry Vace, Christianity and nosticism, (Edinburgh: William Blackwood, 1895), pp. 1-12 2Ibid., p. 16 125
offensive to agnosticism, because it implied that agnostics thought that
Christ was untruthful. Huxley maintained that it was the Gospel accounts,
not Jesus himself, which_were unreliable. He supported this assertion with
rationalistic objections to Gospel miracles, such as the destruction of the
Gadarene swine. He further maintained that the church had distorted the
teaching of Jesus because the Nicene Creed was at variance with what even
the early church believed about Jesus' nature.
Vace answered promptly in the columns of the same journal in Karch
1889 - "On a Defence of Agnosticism by Professor Huxley". ' He denied that
he had claimed that agnostics declared Jesus untruthful. But they did
maintain that Christ was under an illusion, and this was just as improbable
morally. Vace pronounced Huxley's strictures against the veracity of Gospel
miracles irrelevant in the face of this point. The Gospels could disappear
tomorrow and the agnostic would still be at variance with what Jesus
taught, because there was no doubt of his divine claims and character. But
Vace did in fact endeavour to answer several of Huxley's attacks on the
Bible, and on the early church. He showed that Huxley's scepticism about
the Bible was excessive, even by the standards of the radical critics,
quoting Professor Reuss of Strasbourg - whom Huxley had cited - on the
reliability of the Sermon on the Xount and Renan on the Xarcan and Lukan
authorship of the second and third gospels.
This was not the end of the controversy, however. Huxley published
a further rejoinder in the April issue of the journal. This time he
concentrated on points of New Testament criticism. He claimed that Vace's views on the conservatism of much recent New Testament scholarship were
Nineteenth Century, March, 1889 126
erroneous. He disparaged the work of most English scholars and employed
the arguments of Baur and the Tübingen school to throw doubt on Paul's
theology of the resurrection. He cavilled at the authenticity of the Lord's
Prayer, and repeated his doubts about whether the Sermon on the Xount was
preached in toto.
Vace terminated the war of words with a final article in the
Nineteenth Century in May entitled "Christianity and Agnosticism". He
deplored Huxley's description of English New Testament scholars as "counsel
for creeds'. He criticised Huxley for relying on Baur, whose views had
largely been refuted and superseded. He declared his support for the
theory, surmised since Schleiermacher, that a document containing Jesus' discourses existed. The Sermon on the Mount and the Lord's Prayer were contained in this document and were therefore historically reliable.
Vace had performed with credit, if not with brilliance in this disputation with Huxley. He wrote clearly, and made telling debating points against a pugnacious and practised opponent. He lacked Huxley's logical acuity and precision. On church history he was Huxley's superior, on the
Kew Testament at least his equal. He chose his ground carefully, not venturing into scientific or philosophical territory where he would have been outgunned. Vace helped to father a whole new genre of Evangelical writing - popular apologetic against agnosticism. The old-fashioned diatribes against free-thinking could no longer attract the undecided back to orthodoxy.
In his article "Christianity and Agnosticism", Vace attacked another free-thinker who had been prompted by the proceedings of the 1888 Church
Congress to attack Christian doctrine publicly. This was Xrs Humphry Vard, the rationalist author and granddaughter of Thomas Arnold of Rugby. She 127
alleged that English orthodoxy had collapsed at the Congress and that some
distinguished English Hebrew scholars, Driver among them, had made
startling concessions to Vellhausen and the German critical school. Vace
responded by quoting the conservative Hermann Strack against Vellhausen.
Vace had known Xrs Ward since 1879 when she had contributed on his
invitation to the Dictionary of Christian Biography which he had edited.
She wrote the lives of early Spanish saints and bishops for this dictionary. In the course of her research she reached the conclusion that
the historical truth of the Gospels was as doubtful as the veracity of the
Hispanic religious legends on which she was working. In 1888 her novel
Robert Elsmere was published, containing an incident in the life of the eponymous doubting clerical hero based on this experience of hers. Vace rather piously endeavoured to distance himself from Xrs Vard's loss of faith in a sentence from "Christianity and Agnosticism" - p. 101 - "I trust that, her Robert Elsaere in account of the effect upon ...... of absorption in that barbarian scene, she is not describing her own experience and the source of her own aberrations. "
Vace recognised that in writing Robert Elsmere Xrs Vard had struck a powerful blow for rationalism. In the great controversy over the novel which caught the public mood over religious doubt and orthodoxy, Vace made an Evangelical contribution, standing beside Gladstone and other orthodox
Christians who sought to respond to the message emanating from the book's narrative and characters. Vace reviewed the book in the Quarterly Review for October 1888.
Vace wrote in positive terms about Robert Elsmere's characterisation and plot, and especially its compelling picture of Catherine Elsmere,
Robert's Evangelical wife. However he criticised strongly its treatment of 128 theological controversy. Firstly it was out of date in its biblical criticism. The work of the Tübingen school, described in such glowing terns, had been confuted. -Secondly it scorned moderate English biblical criticism, accusing Vestcott of "isolating Christianity from all the other religious phenomena of the world". Thirdly, Vace claimed, Xrs Ward' throughout "tone to adopted a of supercilious superiority ... orthodox Christianity Christianity to be ." was said "a religion which can no longer be believed".
Fourthly and most substantially Vace took issue with the grounds on which Elsmere lost his faith in miracles and in testimony. Mrs Vard had declared testimony invalid and miracles impossible on a priori grounds.
Vace attacked this as an aberration of Teutonic idealism, ` as embraced by T.
R. Green, on whom Mrs Vard based the character of Grey in the novel. The true scientific spirit, Vace maintained, could not commit itself to such a denial on principle.
Fifthly and lastly Vace declared himself unconvinced by'the "Jew
Brotherhood", the Arnoldian religion of morality which - Blsmere adopts and propagates among the poor in the East End of London. It possessed, Vace declared "in degree, an extravagant .. that unhistorical and arbitrary character which the authoress would attribute to Christianity". - 284-
Thus Vace proved himself able to enter the lists effectively in defending orthodoxy on unfamiliar literary territory. 'Moderate Evangelicals such as he showed themselves capable of a positive apologetic for Christian orthodoxy in the public arena. As the nature of rationalism had changed, so also had the Evangelical response to it.
' Vace, Christianity and Agnosticism, p. 249. 129
In this chapter, then, it has been seen that Recordite Evangelicals continued to be suspicious of developments in scholarship and science but others were more positive. In 2.2 the question was asked: how-suspicious were Evangelicals of the Revised Version of the Bible? ý In this revision greater accuracy was approved of but doctrinal innovation rejected, along with unnecessary or trivial stylistic changes.
In 2.3 Vellhausen's theories were considered. Vas there any positive response to any aspects of his work from Evangelicals? Vellhausen's higher criticism led to the conclusion that ritual was late and secondary in the history of Israel. This appealed to some Evangelicals. - A few Evangelicals agreed with Robertson Smith that problems of authorship needed'to be dealt with by Vellhausen's drastic surgery and then God's voice would be clearly heard in scripture. Vhat elements of Vellhausen and which of Driver did
Evangelicals feel undermined the unity and character of scripture? Xost
Evangelicals criticised Vellhausen for treating the Bible-like any other book, for his theology of revelation, on detailed literary findings, holding that Vellhausen made of the Pentateuch an "implausible-patchwork". Lias argued that Vellhausen was needed to redress an imbalance in viewing scripture without its human element. Payne Smith was in. favour of the new practice of painstakingly examining scripture. Girdlestone could see, no evidence for Ezra incorporating the P document in the Pentateuch.
Evangelicals also opposed the destruction of the-unity of Isaiah.
Leathes criticised Vellhausen's objections to the trustworthiness of'
Scripture. Driver was seen to be more moderate and a more acceptable 130
English face to Vellhausen's theories. Evangelicals rejected Cheyne's more acerbic and destructive criticism, but were more favourably disposed to
Driver, whom they perceived to believe in propositional revelation. -
In 2.4 Lux Xundi was discussed. Vhat differences could be observed within the now diverse Evangelical party-in reaction to it? Was doctrine, or bible criticism the ground of Evangelical dissent from the book? When
Lux Xundi was published Evangelicals -reacted -positively to one or two parts of it. Moore's distinction between the God of Religion and the God of -
Philosophy pleased the Record, by this time a much more moderate newspaper.
Hay Aitken, a liberal Evangelical was even more favourable to. the volume.
Payne Smith was very negative, and his response focussed on not doctrine, but biblical criticism, always the major Evangelical concern. He objected - to any denial of Mosaic authorship of-the Pentateuch and to the description of Genesis as "myth". Girdlestone steered a middle course in his response.
Evangelicals were divided over the, acceptability, of Gore's theology of, kenosis. The Bassett-rejected it; the Hobson - conservative radical accepted. it.
In 2.5 scientific matters were dealt with. Was there any abatement in criticism of Darwin in these years,, or did Evangelicals go down fighting, to the last ditch? There was some continuing forthright opposition to
Darwinism in this later period, notably by Reynolds. But in 1888 even, he, admitted that special creation could not be fully maintained. The
Evangelical Hoare treated Temple's views on the relation between religion and science with respect. Baden-Powell's theory-of creation-in-evolution
by Evangelicals. Xacnamara was reviewed warmly some openly wrote=in - .- favour of evolution as "a law of"nature"... Some evolutionist Evangelicals 131 denied that Genesis was a compilation of abstract truth. There was little discussion of geology compared with the 1860s.
There were notable controversies between Evangelicals and free- thinking non-Christian rationalists, notably Henry Vace's battle with T. H.
Huxley, mentioned in 2.6. ` Did Evangelicals base'their apologetic on revelation or reason? Vace maintained that Christian belief had a firm basis in God's personal declaration and authority.
In this period, Evangelicals showed considerable flexibility over what, the Bible taught, but less flexibility than-this over theories of inspiration, indeed less 'flexibility in some cases than in the 1850s and
1860s. They were open to science and to new doctrinal and metaphysical' theories. - But they were conservative in their defence of the bible as God's revelation. They were unsympathetic to Idealist Philosophy, which influenced both High and Broad church thinkers at this time.
The reasons-for such a changing, mixed, and increasingly moderate response'to rationalism from Evangelicals over the whole period covered by the two chapters were several. An analysis-of the positions' adopted in the controversies of this period reveals -much -about the presuppositions and nature of Evangelical theology. " Vithout"anticipating the'treatment of these issues as points of positive theology in-the second section'of the"thesis, '
The Theological Response", It, is appropriate'to draw out here some general points which show why the particular Evangelical contributions to'these controversial debates'took the form they did. '"
Firstly Evangelicals were able to be increasingly flexible over what the Bible taught and how it was written and at the same time inflexibile in their respect for what the Bible was, namely the word of God. Donald
Allister has commented: 132
[To Evangelicals and other conservative churchmen of the time] The Scriptures were the "Nord of God" and could not therefore contain statements which were not, true " The trouble was, not that Churchmen of many persuasions believed that about Scripture, but that they were unable to apply their beliefs satisfactorily to specific problems and questions. '
Evangelicals were rigid in defending a theory of 'inspiration: This
was more usually defined as plenary rather than verbal, as in`Litton's
Introduction` to Dogmatic Theology. `"the magnum opus of Evangelical-theology
of the period 2 Nevertheless-this doctrine committed Evangelicals to a
theoretically extremely high doctrine of scripture.
However this doctrine was held in such a°way°as to allow,,
considerable latitude and variety in the way in which Evangelicals, felt free
to interpret the Bible and in the fashion in which different Evangelicals
in fact did so. ' Textual' criticism' was almost universally accepted as a
legitimate discipline. Even some of the conclusions of higher criticism,
such as the presence of a'variety of sources in the'Pentateuch, were
endorsed by a few Evangelicals, such as Girdlestone and Leathes. And
Evangelical exegeses of Gen. 1 ranged from the anti-evolution stance of
Joseph Reynolds, to Canon A. D. Xacnamara's acceptance of Darwinism.
Secondly Evangelicals showed a' concern for biblical rather than
metaphysical theology in their contributions to these disputes. - Assaults on
the veracity of the Bible record were viewed as more serious than novel' theories of Christ's psychology or moral character. This can'be clearly seen in the dispute-over Lux Xundi where what concerned most Evangelicals was the attack on Christ's authority in upholding the Old Testament
D. S. Allister, The Evangelical Succession ed D. Y. Samuel, (Cambridge: James Clarke, 1979), p. 80. 2CLondon, James Clarke, 1882,1892,1960 ed. ), p. 19. 133 scriptures if he had divested himself of supernatural insight, rather than the possibly heterodox Christology of the kenotic doctrine. Gore's description_of Genesis 1 as "myth" offended more than his limitation of
Jesus' knowledge. Indeed Evangelicals such as V. T. Hobson and Hay Aitken supported Gore on this point. However many Evangelicals signed Denison's petition denying that Jesus was fallible in his use of the Bible.
Thirdly Evangelicals displayed a remarkable openness to science, although they did foreclose some avenues of enquiry. C. Lloyd was willing to endorse Temple's vision of scientific enquiry untrammelled by theological constraint. In one respect Lloyd anticipated twentieth century science by casting doubt on Temple's theory of a mechanistic universe governed by regularity. Lloyd sought to replace this by a more limited causal scheme.
Those Evangelicals who were willing to accept some form of evolution by the eighties and nineties justified this retreat by accepting that science must be supreme in the physical realm of enquiry, while theology continued to reign supreme in the spiritual field. Xacnamara maintained this position.
Fourthly Evangelicals were mostly negative towards the Teutonic philosophical tradition of Hegel and his followers. They applauded the fact that Vellhausen was much freer from such influences than Strauss and Baur.
But they discerned that much of the "Theology of the nineteenth century" was saturated by such influences. Some Evangelicals like Canon E. Hoare flirted with Henry Drummond's philosophical and theological evolutionism.
But most of them instincively rejected theories which sought to establish a continuum between the human and the divine spirit. That is why an
Evangelical reviewer criticised Holland's essay in Lux Mundt for reinterpreting revelation as 'a record of man's growing intimacy with God".
On the same basis he complimented Aubrey Xoore for distinguishing the God 134 of Religion from the God of Philosophy. This lack of sympathy with philosophical idealism made Evangelicals seem quaint to Victorians; however it strikes a chord with the modern reader. CHAPTER III
THE AFTER-LIFE
3.1 Introduction
In his book Hell and the Victorians Geoffrey Rowell has familiarised us with the nineteenth century crisis of belief in the traditional after- life. There were celebrated controversies on this subject. H. B. Vilson was prosecuted in 1862-4. Xaurice was dismissed from his chair at King's
College, London in 1853 over his somewhat nebulous eschatological doctrines.
Farrar and Pusey disputed notably over eternal punishment in 1877-81.
There was pressure on Evangelicals if not to change their teaching on eternal punishment, at least to reexpress it in a modern and palatable form and to produce a plausible theodicy. The role of Evangelicals in the controversies which arose has not been explored in detail although Rowell does cover the dispute over T. R. Birks' Victory of the Divine Goodness. In
1866 Edward Bickersteth, a leading Evangelical and a close associate of
Birks, published Yesterday, Today. and For Ever, a highly influential poem on life after death. This was soon followed by the controversy involving
Birks which focussed on the issue of his membership and holding office as secretary of the Evangelical Alliance. In 1881 an Evangelical became involved in the controversy over Farrar, with H. G. C. Xoule preaching on
The Future State. Other evidence of Evangelical interest in this area includes reviews of Bartles' Scriptural Doctrine of Hades in the Christian 136
Observer of 1870 and Jackson's Banpton lecture on The Doctrine of
Retribution in 1876. Edward Garbett gave a positive contribution to the
debate with an article The Immortality of the Soul in the 1877 edition of
the Christian Observer.
In 3.2 on passive contemplation and conditionalisn the question will
be asked: did Evangelicals reject any of the penalties of hell? Did
Evangelicals accept or reject passive contemplation? In 3.3 the controversy
surrounding Farrer will be discussed. Vhat did Evangelicals contribute to
this controversy? Their response has been little discussed.
This subject was a battle-ground of deeply felt views throughout the
period in question. Geoffrey Rowell has shown' that as the horizon of
possibilities in this life expanded due to Victorian self-advancement, so a
vista of extended options after death became popular in society. The old closed'views of an automatic and unendingly fixed destiny in the after-life depending on choices in this existence became less attractive. And it was this conservative view which the Evangelicals above all other groups had
inherited. Evangelicals found themselves at odds with the spirit of the age which rejected the theology of a well-stocked hell which they had
inherited from their Calvinist forebears. Although Simeon had affirmed human free-will in choosing heaven, it seemed to most of his disciples that few did in fact. Those who did, testified to their election and their destiny on their deathbeds. Some Anglican Evangelicals still indulged in
"hell-fire" preaching. Xost of them read Evangelical novels full of threats of damnation and they echoed such strictures to their children.
Evangelical interest in the after-life had increased from the 1820s to the
'Geoffrey Rowell, Hell and the Victorians, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974), p. 216 137
50s by their concern with eschatology, especially millenarian theory. ' Accor dingly faced with controversial views suggesting universalism, purgatory, annihilationism, or conditionalism, most Evangelicals reacted with heat and hostility. However they were sufficiently children of their age to be influenced by the general Victorian concern over the eternal perishing of individuals and by Victorian optimism about the world and human destiny.
Thus within Evangelical ranks there was a wide range of theological response to'novel ideas on the'after-life, and one notable dispute within the Evangelical party.
Evangelicals played a full part in the several controversies which arose as Victorian churchmen developed their theology in this emotionally charged yet'also intellectually absorbing area. The hostile Evangelical reaction to Vilson's rejection of'eternal punishment' on rationalist grounds in Essays and Reviews has already been dealt with, so it is the controversy over the doctrine of passive contemplation in hell propounded by T. R. Birke which should be considered next.
Geoffrey Rowell has already outlined'the main historical 'events of the Birks controversy, so the ground covered there will not be dealt with again. Birke' novel views on the state of the lost led to a dispute between him and R. Baxter and J. Grant. Birke resigned as Secretary of the
Evangelical' Alliance but he was not expelled from that body.
There are points to do with the Evangelical theological 'treatment of
'S. C. Orchard "English Evangelical Eschatology, 1790-1850" (Cambridge University Ph. D. 1968) 138 this question which can be elaborated on and which answer questions about the way in which Evangelicals diverged when confronted with a very mild modernist revision of their traditional view of the after-life.
Barks' doctrine of-the passive contemplation of the ransomed universe by the lost was a carefully thought out one, but less subtle and philosophically ripe than his contributions to the Christian philosophy of science debate. He described his views as follows:
Let us suppose that the future condition of the lost will combine, with the utmost personal humiliation, shame, and anguish, the passive contemplation of a ransomed universe, and of all the innumerable varieties of blessedness enjoyed by unfallen spirits, and the ransomed people of God; such a contemplation as would be fitted, in its own nature, to raise the soul into a trance of holy adoration in the presence of infinite and unsearchable Goodness. '
Birks was heavily ' influenced by Edward Bickersteth whose devotional epic poem on the afterlife, Yesterday. Today. and For Ever was a popular classic. This poem was heavily influenced by Milton and taught that the
Second Coning and the millennium were near. It opened with the death of the narrator. The soul then- saw his Saviour and saw the damned, awaiting judgement. A narrative about the fall of the angels followed and then the millennial sabbath and the marriage supper of the Lamb. , The reviewer in the Christian Observer-2 found the poetry imperfect and not in the highest flight, but thought the work of much worth. He criticised Bickersteth for relying on human and especially marriage analogies in describing the relationship of the Lord and the redeemed in heaven.
Bickersteth had his Judge weeping-at the Last Judgement. This was not merely Victorian sentimentality, but betokened a softening of the notion of a rigorously punitive God. He also rejected the medieval tradition of
IT. R. Birks, The Victory of Divine Goodness, (London: Rivington's, 1869), p. 45 2Christian Observer, 1867,376-89 139 devils tormenting men and men blaspheming God for ever. " Rather rebellion was eternally silenced. The door was clearly open for other Evangelicals to teach an amelioration in the sufferings of the damned, or their shortening, or extinction as a kinder and fitter alternative to everlasting punishment.
Birks took up this challenge in teaching the doctrine of passive contemplation outlined above. He took the Arminian, position on universal atonement. He strongly rejected annihilationism and conditionalism. His avoidance of these positions secured his continuing membership of, the
Evangelical Alliance, although he resigned as Secretary.
This controversy in the late, sixties, and early seventies was succeeded by one over conditionalism in the late seventies. The dispute over conditionalism was fiercest in the- Congregational church, but the
Church of England also experienced division on this subject. Liberal. low churchmen were those most strongly attracted toýthis theory.. Broad churchmen mitigating a doctrine of eternal punishment tended to be drawn to a Xaurician universalism; high churchmen to belief in a generously, capacious purgatory. Since it was those who shared-much common ground with Evangelicals, namely"low churchmen and dissenters, who embraced-this view, it was clearly important for Evangelical theologians to refute conditionalism.
In reviewing The Scriptural Doctrine of Hades by the Revd George.
Bartle, ' an Evangelical writer attacked an''exegesis'of the Old Testament which made passages there refer to extinction, not death. These passages were interpreted thus by conditionalists. Edward Garbett also wrote a
'George Bartle, The Scriptural Doctrine of Hades (London: Longuat's, 1869) 140 series of major articles on this subject. '"'In them he noted that conditional ists used to rely on philosophical arguments but now were concentrating on retranslating biblical passages.
Against the conditionalists Garbett argued first of all that they mistranslated axoXXujii. It did not always mean destroy. Be quoted Xt. 10.28
"fear those who can kill the soul. " Yhat does it'mean that the soul can be killed? Not that it is not granted eternal life, but that it is sentenced to eternal punishment, he contended. ' Be also quoted Xk 9: 44 and 46, and argued that the worm and the fire being for ever implied that the victims were for ever also. The same words were also used in the New Testament for the eternity of the saved and the damned.
Garbett showed his distance from the harshness of popular
Protestant eschatology and traditional Calvinist teaching when he refused to speculate on whether the vast majority of the human race was damned. He also rejected what he termed Catholic 'extravagances of thought' such as demonic torture of the lost and extremities of material pain.
Garbett maintained strenuously that the soul was naturally immortal.
Xan was not a mixture of body and soul, but body and soul in one.
Immortality was a great blessing in itself and annihilation was worse than the severest punishment. This strong assertion of the soul's immortality was echoed by another Evangelical theologian. the Revd Xarsh. In an article "On the Progressive Revelation of a Future State" he explained the gradual growth of understanding on this point from the Old Testament to the New. Isaiah 26: 19 showed that there were seeds of the
'E. Garbett, "The Immortality of the Soul", Christian Observer, 1877, 673-81,768-76,840-8. 2Xarsh, "On the Progressive Revelation of a Future State", Christian Observer, 1874,161-77. 141 doctrine in the former dispensation. Xarsh asserted that the New
Testament, while drawing a veil over precisely what the blessings of heiven were, envisaged heaven for the soul immediately after death.
It was by arguments such as these that Evangelicals sought to stem the rising tide of eschatological revisionism. By no means themselves immune to the temptation to suggest a softening of the asperities of the
Last Things, most maintained traditional teaching on hell and strove strongly but sensitively to respond to the novel proposals of passive contemplation and conditionalism. 142
In 1877 a major controversy arose over the views of F. Y. Farrar concerning eternal punishment. In a series of sermons and subsequently in a book Eternal Honet Farrar rejected universalism and annihilationism but attacked hell's physical torments, their endless duration, and the irreversible decree of damnation for all the unregenerate vast majority of mankind.
Farrar defined hell as a "temper rather than a habitation' and protested against ideas of hell which were little more than "acrid fumes from the poisoned crucible of mean and loveless conceptions. " He crucially retranslated aiwvios (Xt. 25: 46) as not meaning, "of endless duration. "
In reply Pusey wrote Vhat Is of Faith as to Everlasting
Punishment? 2 He stressed the significance of the moment of death. He emphasised the intermediate state and quoted Patristic writers in its support.
This controversy has been discussed by Rowell3. He maintains that it was a crucial turning point. It was a less academic debate than that concerning the 'Xodern 'Symposium"'. Farrar was perceived to teach universalism, though he did not explicitly. Even Pusey and his allies admitted the validity of a moral protest against hell being the destination of the vast majority of mankind and stressed the intermediate state as an answer to this problem.
How did Evangelicals react to this controversy? Rowell did not
'F. V. Farrar, Eternal Hope, (London: Macmillan, 1878). 2E. B. Pusey, Vhat is of Faith as to Everlasting Punishment?, (Oxford: James Parker, 1880) 3G. Rowell, Hell and the Victorians, pp. 139-52 143
consider in his analysis the Evangelical contribution. A key Evangelical
response was made by Handley G.C. Xoule. in a sermon on Lk. 16: 26 "There is
a great gulf fixed", Xoule outlined his objections to two views about the
after-life which he found- erroneous. ' These were Restoration and
Extinction. Extinction or conditionalism was the doctrine which those in
an Evangelical or protestant tradition held when they abandoned the doctrine of everlasting punishment. Restoration or universalism held a special appeal for those in the broad church party when they abandoned the same teaching.
Xoule addressed the Farrar controversy in characteristically restrained fashion when he referred to "certain opinions, different from the belief commonly'held in this Church. " He maintained that the'bible, not tradition and patristic teaching, of which Pusey had fashioned an extensive catena, was determinative of eschatological doctrine. The essence of'the issue, lay, he supposed, in God's opposition to sin, not in his attitude to pain or sorrow. He set Jesus in his context by stating that Jesus did not treat the subject of eternal punishment at greater length because only the
Sadducees doubted it in his time. However Jesus never rebuked, he rather confirmed this almost universal belief.
Xoule summed up his tenets in four principles: the soul is immortal, sin is immortal-ruin, the unpardoned will receive judgement and the "terror of the Lord. ", there is "a death that cannot die". This represented a sensitive restatement of'traditional teaching. However Xoule showed himself open to'softening it a little. He went a small way with Farrar in stressing mental and spiritual punishment in hell to the exclusion of
'H. G.C. Xoule, The Future State, Fordington sermons, (London: Poole 1881), pp. 60-70 144 physical torment. "Anguish may be of the memory, the conscience, the soul, alone. "' And he even went a tiny way with Pusey in allowing that degrees of punishment might exist in. hell. Vhat else meant the "greater condemnation" of Xt 23: 14? "So man will be punished for not knowing what he could not know. ", Xoule pronounced. In later life he sanctioned prayers for the dead to increase in light and grace; thus he anticipated degrees of blessedness in heaven.
On this point, though, Moule was not followed by many Evangelicals.
A more typical reaction to prayers for the dead comes from the Christian
Observer of 1874.2 There is to be found a denunciation of all attempts to support the practice from 2 Xaccabees, early liturgy, and the history of the prayer book. In the same edition of the journal the same point is, made, that heaven is experienced by the righteous soul immediately after death.
This is in the course of an article "Progressive Revelation of a Future
State". It accepts frankly the paucity of references to the. future life in the Old Testament,, and asserts that Christianity, unlike other religions, draws a veil over the blessings of heaven.,
Heaven immediately after, death is still, a. point having to be maintained in the context of controversy towards the end of the period.
Dean Theophilus Campbell does so in an article "Hades"a.. Campbell refutes an erroneous exegesis of Lk. 23: 43: 'Verily I say today, "Thou shalt, be with be in Paradise. " This is not admissible in Greek grammar. Scripture was silent on the souls of the unrighteous dead, but definite that the souls of the righteous dead are in paradise. 'He, descended into Hell" from the
' Ibid., p. 68. 2Christian Observer, 1874,152-4. 3Churchman, 1887-8, Vol 2,233-45. 145
Apostles' Creed Campbell interprets as meaning merely burial, not any
salvific entry into the underworld. Hades is a state, not a place. There
two death heaven hell. are only places after - and -
In this way throughout the period, Evangelical eschatology was
maintained in the face of threefold revisionism, from high church
purgatorial theories, broad church universalist ideas, and liberal
Evangelical conditionalism. The broad traditional line was held. Yet
Anglican Evangelical thought on the after-life was softer and gentler than
popular preaching of hell-fire. It admitted variety of approach and
opinion, as the Birks case showed. And it came to terms with new theories
by admitting a few of their more acceptable features while rebutting their
bolder assertions. The Evangelical God who punished for eternity was also
the Victorian God who wept at the Last Judgement.
In this chapter then, it has been seen how Evangelicals sought to
remain true to biblical teaching, but that their teaching was influenced by a sentimental softening of the asperities of traditional popular Protestant eschatology. In 3.2 the Birks controversy was dealt with. Did Evangelicals reject any of the penalties of hell? Evangelicals were influenced by
Bickersteth's poetry to deny some of the traditional physical penalties of hell. Did Evangelicals accept or reject passive contemplation or conditionalism? Birks espoused a doctrine of passive contemplation, which was most unpopular with others in his party. Evangelicals rejected conditionalism, which was the most acceptable of the three radical revisions of the after-life available to them, the others being restorationism or universalism, which attracted liberals, and purgatorial theory, which appealed to tractarians. They held to a traditional metaphysic in which the soul was immortal. In 3.3 the Farrar controversy 146 was mentioned. Vhat did Evangelicals contribute to this controversy?
Garbett and Xoule attacked conditionalists and restorationists. Noule involved himself notably in the Farrar controversy. Thus Evangelicals were able to contribute distinctively and substantially to the ongoing debate on the after-life. CHAPTER IV
RITUALISM
The backcloth to the Evangelical response to the second "R" of ritualism is formed by the legal attempts to curtail Tractarian practices in liturgy. The Church Association was formed in 1865 to maintain
Protestant faith and worship, and soon assumed a litigious role.
Shaftesbury mooted legislation in 1867. A Royal Commission on Ritual was created in that same year. The Public Vorship Regulation Act was passed in
1874. This led to the imprisonment of four ritualist clergy and to general public sympathy for them. This legal approach by Evangelicals effectively ended with the unsuccessful prosecution of Edward King, Bishop of Lincoln in 1889-90.
Evangelicals rejected Tractarian worship of the second phase of the
Oxford Movement, especially that fostered by the Camden Society, later the
Cambridge Ecclesiological Society, just as earlier Simeonites had rejected
Tractarian doctrine. Yet some Evangelicals were affected by the less outrageous novelties of the sanctuary. In 1887 H. G. C. Moule created controversy by wearing a surplice for the first time in the pulpit of Holy
Trinity, Cambridge. There was diversity of response, appraisal of anti- 148
ritualist tactics, and liturgical theology among Evangelicals. Yet in
general a frightened reaction to the smell of incense led to a narrow conservatism in worship which endured into the following century. '
Controversies over ritualism took place at a theological as well as a forensic level and'involved matters of doctrine as well as ceremonial.
In the 'early years of 'our period there was the aftermath of the Gorham judgement, with J.' B. Xozley's Review of the Baptismal Controversy stirring
up passions again in`1862. On the issue of baptismal regeneration there
was some division among the Evangelicals with Henry Xelvill in favour of
the doctrine. In 1860 the trial of Bishop Forbes in Scotland for his
Tractarian eucharistic theology drew an Evangelical reaction south of the border. From 1867-1871 another controversy on Communion took place over
Pusey's views on the'"Real Presence" with"Dimock and Harrison responding
for the Evangelicals. At the end of the period, in 1900, Houle and Dimock took part in Bishop Creighton's Round Table conference on-Communion and
Ritual. ý.
In 4.2 the aftermath' of the-Gorham controversy will be dealt with.
The question will be"asked: did any Evangelicals agree with any form of baptismal regeneration? - In 4.3 the Athanasian Creed and Prayer Book revision will be dealt'with; Vhat'precisely'did Evangelicals dislike about the Athanasian Creed? In 4.4 Confession is the subject. Vhat'were the
Evangelicals' main objections to auricular confession?
In 4.5 Evangelicals' reaction to the doctrine of the Real Presence will be charted. What authorities did the Evangelicals cite against this?
Without accepting the doctrine, did Evangelicals begin to embrace a higher view of the communion elements? In the same section eucharistic sacrifice 149
will be considered. What differences lay between Evangelicals over the
Son's session in heaven?
In 4.6 ritualism in the early period will be mentioned. Yhat
theological authorities did Evangelicals cite against vestments and ritual?
In 4.7 the latter period will be considered. What signs were there of
growing division of opinion among Evangelicals?
In 1865 Bishop Charles Sumner of Vinchester allowed incense to be
used five times a year at Christ Church, Clapham. ' This behaviour by an
Evangelical bishop shows that caution should be employed in assessing the
Simeonite reaction to ritualism.
In 1867 the use of incense was one of the charges brought by
Evangelicals. of the Church Association against the ritualist Nackonochie, and he was condemned on this charge. Similarly Purchas was successfully prosecuted over the thurible in 1871. The Revd. S. F. Green of Miles
Platting, Manchester was confined in Lancaster Gaol in 1881 for his employing this aid to worship among others. Owen Chadwick has recorded that people began to suspect that the letter from Sumner sanctioning incense was a forgery2
This incident involving Sumner suggests not only aberrance and inconsistency, which undoubtedly existed in the Evangelical response to ritualism, but some diversity and theological complexity in the Evangelical
'Owen Chadwick, The Victorian Church Part II 1860-1901, London: Adam and Charles Black, 1970), p. 315. 2 Ibid. 150 mind as it grappled with Shaftesbury's second "R" of the Juggernaut. David
Bebbington has further charted the adoption of moderate High Church practices by such Evangelicals as William Cadman. '
There is a temptation to interpret the ritualist controversies as struggles between men of action rather than men of thought. It is easy to imagine that the gentle subtleties of theology fled before the stern affidavits of the courts, that the practical considerations of the parish outweighed the nice distinctions of the senior common room. Yet while the forensic and the parochial featured largely in the confrontations of these years, each dispute was shrouded in the complexities of Victorian theology.
There have been several helpful studies of the rise of ritualism in the local church and the legal response, especially Ritualism and Politics
James Bentley It be in Victorian Britain by .2 would superfluous to cover that ground once more. Yet there is a place for charting the response of
Evangelical theology and its involvement in the controversies.
Peter Toon has commented: "The appearance of Goode's The Tature of
Christ's Presence in the Eucharist [in 1856) was one of the last serious
to Tractarianism. Evangelical, theological responses .... the controversy between Tractarians and Evangelicals for the next four decades was primarily concerned with ritualism" The ritualist disputes were less exclusively theological than those concerning Tract XC and Gorham. The lighting of a candle or the burning of incense demanded a practical response as the flying of an intellectual kite did not. However just as'the obstruction of Hampden and the condemnation of Newman by men of action
'David Bebbington Evangelicalism in Xodern Britain (London; Unwin Hyman 1989), pp. 147-8 2James Bentley, Ritualism and Politics in Victorian Britain, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978) 3Peter Toon, Evangelical Theology 1833-56, (London: Marshall, Xorgan and Scott, 1979), p. 109 151
was given justification by men of thought, so behind the stern litigants of
the '70s lay more intellectual and frequently more moderate figures. There
was much continuity between the first and second waves of the Oxford
Xovement, and hence much continuity in the response to them. However there
were many who accepted much of the patristic doctrine of Pusey and Newman
and even the mediaeval theology of Froude who were unwilling to make an
excursion into ecclesiastical millinery. The term "middle of the road" or
"moderate" grew up to describe non-ritualist Tractarians as well as old-
fashioned High churchmen.
And just as there were Tractarian non-ritualists so there were
Evangelical semi-ritualists. Some supported the reordering of churches and
services on aesthetic or antiquarian grounds. The Evangelicals Sumner of
Vinchester and Ryder of Lichfield and Coventry were in 1868 two out of
only four bishops to wear purple cassocks. There were Evangelical members of the Cambridge Camden society, founded in 1839. Only after a controversy over the restoration of the Round Church in Cambridge and a sermon by the
Cheltenham Evangelical Francis Close The Restoration of Churches is the
Restoration of Popery, was there a breach. ' Recordite Evangelicals fought more lustily against Tractarian practice than "Christian Observer"
Evangelicals. Hence it is more in the area of theology than in the often arbitrarily and pragmatically chosen fields of parochial and litigious strife that we should look for the rationale of the Evangelical response.
There was also some ongoing controversy over points of Tractarian theology not strictly ritualistic which must be considered.
'Chadwick, Ibid., The' Victorian Church Part II, p. 221 152
In the late fifties and early sixties Evangelical morale was high.
The flight of the Tractarians, begun by the defection of Newman in 1845 seemed to have turned into a rout with the Gorham victory. Vriting in 1863 an Evangelical reviewer pronounced: The Tractarian warfare is over; its echoes have not yet died away. The master minds of the controversy have quitted the field; the few combatants who still remain there are rather noisy than dangerous. "'
It was felt that a decisive blow had been struck against Tractarian sacramental theology. So devastating was the judgement of the Judicial
Committee of the Privy Council perceived to be that Evangelicals thought that most of the strength of the Oxford party had been shorn from it, like
Samson's locks. The Gorham judgement had the following consequences for
Evangelicals in their views on the sacrament.
The first consequence was that the main challenge to the ReformedT
Anglican theology of baptism now came from Dissenters rather than
Tractarians. Evangelical Anglicans were denounced by non-conformists as unprincipled because of their use of the Prayer Book. It would undoubtedly have suited many free churchmen still better if the Gorham judgement had gone the other way and the official Anglican doctrine had been defined as that of Philpotts. Nevertheless they took advantage of the way in which the Anglican theology of baptism had been exposed to the public gaze to launch their own attack on the Evangelical episcopal position. And
Evangelicals had to defend themselves from this flank also.
'Christian Observer, 1863,104-111 153
The redoubtable figure of Charles Haddon Spurgeon entered the fray and in a published sermon Baptismal Regeneration delivered on June 5th,
1864, he quoted disapprovingly the answer from the Catechism that in baptism "we hereby the " He in - are made children of grace. stated, as quoted the Christian Observer' that persons were not saved by baptism, and that this was out of character with Christ's spiritual religion. He asserted that the Church. of England was the only Protestant church to hold this doctrine. He heatedly demanded a Luther and a Knox to reform the Prayer
Book.
However his arguments were refuted by the reviewer in the Christian
Observer He Spurgeon having broken the ninth commandment in .2 accused of his accusations against fellow Evangelicals who were in the Church of
England. The Articles teach that baptism is a sign of regeneration, and that they that receive baptism rightly are grafted into the church. Luther and Knox support the Anglican position, he argued. The Confession of
Augsburg states that the sacraments are signs of God's good will towards us -. not so much notes of profession, as the baptists suggest. And in
Knox's Scots. Confession we find the words, By baptism we are ingrafted into. Christ " The: even quoted Spurgeon's Vestminster 'Jesus reviewer
Assembly catechism against him. Scripture too, he maintained, has a high view of baptism. He suggested against Spurgeon that baptism is not something which man does, "putting on his regimentals". The Holy Ghost acts in baptism.
Further arguments were deployed against Spurgeon's sermon by the
'C. H. Spurgeon, Baptismal Regeneration, (London: Passmore, 1864), cited in Christin Observer, 1864,568-82 2Ibid. 154
Revd. Archibald Boyd. He deplored his strong language attacking Anglicans. '
Sacraments are channels, not merely pledges, he asserted. He took advantage of the presence of baptists in the controversy to assert the arguments in favour of paedobaptism, especially the baptism of the children of Jewish proselytes. He quoted Peter Xartyr and Calvin on the grace promised to the children of. believers in baptism.
The of the defeat of Tractarianism in the Gorham . second consequence
Judgement was that Evangelicals were free to take a more moderate line in their theology of baptism. A very few Evangelical clergy, such as Henry
Xelvill were even favourable to the doctrine of baptismal regeneration. An article in the Christian Observer of 1868 denounced equally two views of the sacrament as "extreme". namely that i) regeneration invariably takes place at baptism, and that ii) regeneration never takes place at baptism 2
Other Evangelicals took a different stance in coming to terms with the Prayer Book statement, this child is regenerate", and in striking a middle line in their theology. The reviewer of a Tractarianbook,
Liturgical Purity, our Rightful Inheritance by John- C. Fisher stated that
Evangelicals made two claims concerning baptism. That i) regeneration in the lower sense, i. e. admission to the community of the new covenant, was accomplished in baptism, and that ii) regeneration in the higher sense was endowed merely hypothetically
'Christian Observer, 1865,489-502 2Christian Observer, 1868,171-5 3Christian Observer, 1857,349-50 155
Xost Evangelicals were governed in their sacramental understanding
by a federal theology. Bullinger and Cranmer were quoted as supporting' -
this view of the church as God's covenant people. The Reformation
supported a conditional sense, not an absolute one, of baptismal
regeneration, and the distinguished Evangelical of a previous generation,
Henry Venn, was also quoted to support this position. This enabled
regeneration in the sense of a change of ecclesiastical condition and
inclusion in the covenant people, to be accepted. '
Evangelicals admitted that there was a close relationship between baptism and regeneration then. And they conceded that the pre-Nicene fathers such as Justin Xartyr and Tertullian taught so. However these authors, they claimed, stated that baptism marked only the first stage in the Christian life. The further faith one of mature was required .2
Thirdly many Evangelicals 'felt that they wished to show mercy to a defeated enemy, and not to press home their victory over Tractarianism to its ultimate conclusion. This tendency can be observed in'the Evangelical reaction to J. B. Mozley's A Review of the Baptismal Controversy 3 Mozley was a leading theologian, author of On Miracles. Be was a convinced
Tractarian, an editor and a strong supporter of the use of the Athanasian creed. Yet in his review of the Gorham dispute he showed an eirenic"face.
And Evangelicals responded favourably to this. He maintained that the regeneration of all infants in baptism was neither an article of faith, nor required by Church formularies.
Mozley's arguments and historical evidence supporting the latter ------'Christian Observer, 1870,641-53 2R. Payne Smith, "On Baptism", Christian Observer, 1875,3-14 3J. B. Xozley, A Review of the Baptismal Controversy (London: Rivington's, 1862) 156
point were therefore useful ammunition to Evangelicals accused by Baptists
of inconsistency or hypocrisy in using the Prayer Book. Xozley even showed
that an 'absolute' theory of baptism could not be clearly adduced from the
scholastics. Xozley's reviewer was pleased with his former point also, that
automatic regeneration was not an article of faith. Coming from a
Tractarian, this was perceived as having more weight. He was satisfied
with Xozley's position, since it gave freedom to the individual. Even the
Anglican divines Field and Thorndike with a high view of ecclesiastical
authority had permitted this. Evangelicals were not keen to insist that
their hypothetical interpretation of baptism was the only possible, or
scriptural one. The reviewer did not press home his opposition to
Tractarianism to that extent although he did enumerate his disagreements
with Xozley on other points.
Although Xozley's careful scholarship was useful against Spurgeon in
defending hypothetical baptism from the Prayer Book, it was less helpful in
maintaining the scriptural basis of paedobaptism. Xozley quoted with
approval Valli who in his great work on baptism had declared paedobaptism
an open question. Vall had objected to Anabaptists who deny liberty on
this issue. Xozley was unimpressed by the parallels between baptism and
circumcision. Circumcision is not entirely analogous to baptism, he argued,
because it was not administered to females. It only shows that infants may
be admitted to the church. Xozley believed that the church taught that
infants should be baptised. But reliance on this source of authority set
J. B. Xozley, The Baptismal Controversy, cited in the Christian Observer, 1863,104-111 157 him at odds with Evangelicals. Thus reaction to this book shows that
Evangelicals felt able agree on many points with moderate Tractarians, or at least agree to differ, especially with a common dissenting foe on the horizon.
These disputes over baptism form somewhat of a postlude to the
Gorham controversy. The issue of the legal validity of the Evangelical
Anglican view of baptism had already been settled. Xost Evangelical members of the Church of England showed themselves moderate towards High
Churchmen and Tractarians who did not share their opinion. After all, the
Gorham judgement had showed the legality of that opinion, not the illegality of all others. And, attacked from the other non-conformist flank by fellow-Evangelicals, they did not content themselves with showing that the
Prayer Book could be used with a good conscience. They went on to maintain that regeneration could sometimes accompany baptism. They also attacked the baptist theology of baptism.
This initial skirmish over a Tractarian issue shows that
Evangelicals, especially when not embroiled in legal or parochial wrangling, were willing to strike a via media in their theology. 158
4.3 Athanasian Creed and Prayer Book Revision
In their involvement in both of these issues Evangelicals can be
seen in an unusually radical role. It is as if the Tractarian assault on
Hanoverian anglicanism summoned forth an Evangelical willingness to engage
with the same. It is as if the radicalism of the party of Pusey justified a
radicalism from the party of Bickersteth. Evangelicals could play the
traditionalist card to some effect where it suited them. But here they
made their excuses to the ghosts of Anglican history and showed that they
were men of the Bible even more than men of the Book of Common Prayer.
Lord Ebury, a leading Evangelical layman, advocated revising the
Prayer Book wording and rubrics in a more protestant direction. In 1860 he
was unsuccessful in proposing a parliamentary royal commission on-this
issue. In 1866 he made several detailed proposals for revision. He was
not the first Evangelical to attempt this. In the 1840s there had been a similar movement. Ebury was a moderate reformer in comparison to some in the Evangelical party. However he was not moderate enough for the majority who were probably opposed to any change. Such was the assessment of a contemporary Evangelical commentator. '
Ebury advocated the same kind of revision advocated by the Savoy
Conference in 1641, and took up some of the suggestions put forward by it.
This Conference had received proposals from Archbishop Ussher and others of moderate Puritan views to reform the service book, not explicitly as an anti-Laudian move, Bbury pointed out. Neither was he, he claimed, moving negatively against ritualists, but taking advantage of the debate they had opened up by helpfully amending outdated and unhelpful features.
'Christian Observer, 1866,340-7 159
Ebury wished the Lectionary to be amended to contain fewer lessons from the Apocrypha. The wording "deadly sins" in the Litany he thought objectionable because it implied a possible falling away from_grace and it denied assurance. ' He suggested instead "grievous sins". He wished the
Vestments rubric to be altered. It was proving a Trojan horse allowing the infiltration of ritualist robes. Ebury made the most of the general dissatisfaction with aspects of the Prayer Book. Clergy of all schools felt unhappy with the Burial=Service.
Ebury accordingly founded a society entitled the "Association for promoting the revision of the Prayer Book and-for securing purity and simplicity in the public worship of the Church of England. " Xost of his support came from the Recordite wing of the Evangelical movement and this aroused suspicion since the dissenters with whom he and the association consorted were noted for their hostility to the Book of Common Prayer. He organised a deputation to Archbishop Langley in 1866 to press for revision.
However Longley'rejected Ebury's proposals. To many non-Evangelical commentators who did not sympathise with ritualism, the Archbishop did right. Ebury was stigmatised as too sympathetic to nonconformists, too much a Recordite, Exeter Hall Evangelical. "Lord Ebury and his half- dissenting friends" a paper described him and his allies. ' The same commentator doubted whether dissenters would be impressed or attracted into the established church by any revision. -
Secondly Ebury was considered to have made a false move in response to ritual excess. Evangelical sensitivity to misinterpretations of the Prayer Book and a misapplication of the Ornaments rubric should not
'Archbishop Longley's papers, 5,68, have a cutting fron a "Xanchester paper" of 1866. 160
lead, in the view of his critics, to opening the Pandora's box of°Prayer
Book revision. The same Xanchester critic commented: "Ve foresaw and,
foretold several-months ago that the absurd-excess of ritualism, which-we
deprecated, would be made a-pretext by restless and dissatisfied, persons
the the Church for demanding within pale of a ,variety of alterations, not in the lectionary, but in the only and rubrics, canons and constitutions .01
Evangelicals were-suspected by their non-ritualist opponents of having conspired to revise the Prayer Book for some time, to have used the growth
of ritualism as a pretext, and to have responded by suggesting a more sweeping undermining of doctrine-than that of which the ritualists were guilty. - "Seeing how great a ferment has been created by such minor subjects as vestments or candlesticks, what would be the effect of laying open to discussion those larger questions of doctrine that are contained in the occasional services and offices? "2 Although not all non-Evangelicals were in agreement that matters of ritual were minor, most concurred with the Archbishop that revision would solve little and open dangerous possibilities. A safer tactic against ritualism seemed to many at that time to be episcopal discouragement, such as its recent denunciation by the
Bishop of Oxford, Samuel Vilberforce.
In spite of this set-back for revision two years later there was still agitation, in particular against the Commination Service. Some
Evangelicals were opposed to the service on various theological grounds.
They did not object to it because of its pessinistic theology of human nature. One Evangelical wrote that he concurred with the service in having
I Ibid. 2Ibid. 161
"no fastidious delicacy or reserve in exhibiting the utter depravity of man
by to firstly nature ." But it was. objected because it appeared to teach
that those were accursed who might be acquitted in Jesus. An Evangelical
commented: "How can I solemnly assert as a fact that he is accursed whoa
God does not declare to be accursed? "2 Secondly Evangelicals thought that
the tenor of the Comnination service was legalistic. It seemed to teach
that the law was aa ground of condemnation for professors of Christianity,
whereas it was no longer the basis of either justification or condemnation
for them. Evangelicals "(The law) had by quoted: no glory ... reason of the
glory (of the Gospel) which excelleth". (2 Cor 3: 10) Christ's propitiation
was mentioned late in the service, but this created an unsatisfactory
mixture of the law and the gospel
In 1869 a further controversy arose over another proposed
Evangelical departure from Prayer Book tradition.. This was, to end the
compulsory recitation of the Athanasian Creed. Such a proposal had much
broader support than that of the Evangelical party. For. over thirty years
all clergyman with any liberal sympathies had favoured such a change. Even
Newman had supported this, to Froude's discomfiture!
It was the Royal Commission on ritualism which in 1869 recommended that the creed's use should become voluntary. Petitions were presented on both sides. High churchmen were against change. Broad churchmen and many
Evangelicals were in favour. Shaftesbury was influenced by lay opposition and the ritualist controversy to support voluntary use. In 1872 he presented a
'Christian Observer 1868,594-99 2Ibid. 3Ibid. 40wen Chadwick The Victorian ChurchPart I p. 68. 162 memorial of 7000 signatures to Archbishop Tait asking for this. '
Shaftesbury and many Evangelicals were thus siding with Broad'churchmen.
They were suspicious of the creed's credentials, disliked its rigorous definitions of the Trinity and the incarnation in Nicene and Chalcedonian terms, and disapproved morally of the damnatory clauses. ' This alliance troubled Pusey who wrote, "I don't understand Shaftesbury now. "' A few
Evangelicals, however, 'like XcNeile, supported a compulsory Athanasian creed.
Xost Evangelicals were however like Shaftesbury and they disliked the Athanasian Creed for a number of reasons. They strongly supported the
Trinitarian and Incarnational definitions. Indeed the Creed should remain in the Book of Common Prayer as an embodiment of faith. But they agreed with broad churchmen that the damnatory clauses were objectionable.
Salvation or damnation for Evangelicals depended on acceptance or rejection of Christ, not on-subscription or rejection of theological statements, however correct. Shaftesbury also'saw'the creed as a human document, and not as high churchmen did, as the product of an indefectible church. He commented: OA document, however sublime and true, yet human, must'not be forced on unwilling ears '2 The mandatory use of the creed, so' Evangelicals argued, ignored the place of the consent of the individual in public worship.
However no change was made in the compulsory status of the creed because of high church opposition, especially in Convocation. This attempt by Evangelicals, like the others, to amend Church of England worship in
'Anne Bentley The Transformation of the Evangelical Party in the Church of England", Ph. D. Thesis, 112, Liddon Eu=Volume IV, p. 228. 2- Shaftesbury IRA S (Broadlands) MSS SHA/80 10 May 1871 163
their direction was unsuccessful. Henceforth they concentrated their
efforts on preventing' high churchmen from doing the sane according to
their tenets.
4.4 Confession
Tractarians began to introduce auricular confession into parish
churches and proprietary chapels from the time of the defection of Newman
in 1845 onwards. ' How did Evangelicals respond theologically to this
practice? The controversy concerning this formed the major contention with
Tractarians in the '50s and early '60s.
Firstly Evangelicals* drew a clear distinction between private confession and auricular confession. The "former', they argued was the
"special Confession of his sins. if he feels his conscience troubled with any weighty matter" mentioned in the Prayer Book Order for the Visitation of the Sick. It was not an exhaustive confession and possessed no sacramental character: The latter, auricular confession had these elements and involved an alleged juridical and absolving role by the priest. A publication establishing this distinction by Benjamin Shaw was favourably reviewed by an Evangelical in the Christian Observer in 1858. Shaw's charity and learning were praised as he "placed himself between the combatants" in the current Belgravia controversy. The reviewer took particular exception to the exhaustive character of auricular confession.
There should be no "binding a man to the numbering of his sins !2
Evangelicals rejected a juridical and an absolving role of the minister partly because it led to an arrogation of priestly power. This power usurped the proper place of the conscience. The conscience was twisted into an instrument of clerical domination. So argued an Evangelical
P. Toon, Evangelical Theology. 1833-56. (London: Xarshalls, 1979) p. 70 2Christian Observer. 1858,661-3. 164
considering the case of the Revd Poole, tried at Lambeth Palace for
allegedly asking indecent questions in the confessional. '
Secondly Evangelicals disliked auricular confession because the
priest, acting out that same juridical role, intervened between husband and
wife. This was the most heartfelt and instinctive objection at a popular
level, not just among Evangelicals but in English protestant society as a
whole. However it does not form a major element in the theological case
against confession, and it is only mentioned on relatively few occasions by
Evangelical theologians assailing the practice on numerous other theoretical
grounds. By the very end of the period this was however still a concern.
Aitken commented at the Fulham conference on Confession and Absolution
that confession placed the priest between the married couple and this meant
that confession alienated the population from the church since people would
not accept the intrusion.
The third objection which Evangelicals made to the confessional was
that it attracted dissolute women. Commenting on the case of Xr Poole, a
reviewer in the Christian Observer mentioned the "morbid, sickly feelings
which draw immoral women only to the confessional "2 However the writer thought that there would be fewer victims for the confessional found within the "healthier moral sentiments of England", compared with the continent.
Fourthly Evangelicals regarded the confessional as a treatment of the symptoms of sin and not its cause. At a theological level an external observance could not heal the soul; only conversion could. The middle classes of London, Brighton and Oxford, so the reviewer of the case of the
'Christian Observer. 1859,251-64 2Ibid. 165.
Revd Poole observed, had a fondness for cures for the body of doubtful
worth. The addiction of some of this part of society for the confessional
was of a piece with this; it was a "homoeopathic trifling with disease. ",
- These objections in the early years when confession was beginning
to be introduced were concerned to establish that Evangelicals did not
disapprove of private spiritual help by the minister for those with serious
problems of sin; they did however reject sacramental, juridical. confession.
Evangelicals also voiced their concern over-the effects on family life and
on dissolute women, on the addictive character of confession for the
serious sinner, yet its lack of efficacy as a cure for sin.
From the later sixties onwards Evangelicals attacked the practice of
auricular confession more and more because it was contrary to the prayer
book and to the articles; they could not effectively litigate against
confession because spiritual counsel seemed to have some sanction in the
prayer book, yet they were convinced that sacramental confession violated
prayer book theology. In some quarters they had lost, the argument that the
effect of confession was invariably degrading; now they suggested
confession was unanglican and heterodox.
The first of these later reasons for rejecting confession was that
it implied that the declaration of absolution was unconditional. An
Evangelical commented on the Prayer Book Order for the Visitation of the
Sick that the absolution was not unconditional, only applying to "sinners
who truly repent and believe in (Jesus) '2 Bot only was the declaration of absolution conditional in this service, it was also voluntary, another
'Christian Observer, 1859,251-64. 2Christian Observer, 1867,688-97 166
Evangelical pointed out. ' It was therefore neither a necessary nor a sufficient cause of absolution.
Secondly Evangelicals looked carefully at the various formt of absolution in the prayer book. They pointed out that in Morning and
Evening Prayer the absolution was declaratory: "He pardoneth and absolveth all them that truly repent,.... in Communion optative: "Almighty God... Have mercy upon you; pardon and deliver you from all your sins; ". and in the
Visitation of the Sick indicative: NI absolve thee from all thy sins,.. "
An Evangelical in 1873 argued that these forms were traditionally regarded as equivalent, even by divines not known for Evangelical
Sparrow The form found in the sympathies, namely bishops Cosin and .2
Visitation of the Sick had most problems for Evangelicals - yet it had not been held to teach sacramental absolution by Anglicans in the past.
Another argument used about the Visitation of the Sick absolution by
Evangelicals was that it was not an absolution from sins in the eight of
God but a form of release from church censures3 It was the same as the traditional prayer for dying penitents. Another Evangelical writer two years later also referred to this form of absolution in the Visitation of the Sick service. The absolution there was conditional and voluntary, he argued. The reformers used it to apply to sins against the church !
Thirdly Evangelicals endeavoured to throw Tractarians on to the defensive by asking what positive commendation of sacramental confession there was by Jesus himself. This argument was first enunciated by the
'Christian Observer, 1875,161-71 2Christian Observer. 1873,465-7 3Ibid. 4Christian Observer. 1875,161-71 167
reformer bishop Jewel. The reviewer of Archdeacon Denison's sermon on
Confession', made this point and also mentioned Jewel's assertion, contrary
to Roman Catholic teaching, that confession was not-necessary to salvation.
Jesus' words in Jn. 20: 22,23 were misinterpreted by Denison to Justify the practice, so the reviewer claimed. So neither scripture nor the Reformers, some of whom, e. g. Parker, were also adduced by the Archdeacon as allies, supported confession. Jas. 5: 16 was about admitting sin, not having it forgiven by a priestly mediator. Confession, therefore, was a human ordinance.
Fourthly Evangelicals turned to their favourite doctrinal source, the articles and pointed out that confession was not a sacrament since the twenty fifth article allowed only two sacraments of the gospel, baptism and communion?
Fifthly there were warnings in the 1552 Communion office against secret confession. Evangelicals cited this most protestant of prayer book
Such they revisions often in their support .3 a strict warning, argued, had not been rescinded nor modified.
There was a pragmatic controversy concerning A. H. Xackonochie and
Shaftesbury regarding the morality and intrusive character of a continental manual of confession used in St Albans, Holborn. " No detailed theological matters were involved here and in many ways it was a revival of the previous controversy of the fifties and early sixties concerning the ethical questions surrounding the use of the confessional.
There were fewer disputations in the eighties and nineties, as the
'Christian Observer, 1873,739-57 On Private Confession", Christian Observer, 1873,565-7 3Ibid. °X. Reynolds, Martyr of Ritualism, (London: Faber, 1965), pp. 212-3, 227. 168 practice of auricular confession became established and secure from legal assault. Vhere then did matters stand at the end of the century, the end of the period?, A 'very useful guide is the Round Table ' conference` at Fulham
Palace' organised by Bishop Xandell Creighton. There were conferences on the doctrine of Holy Communion and on Confession which are of importance in assessing what Evangelical opinion was by the twentieth century.
Faced with growing divergence in Anglican practice, and given that such divergence was increasingly tolerated legally. ' Creighton took a bold step in calling these conferences to establish where the tolerable bounds of Church of England belief and practice should lie. ' 11 °°`
The latter conference on confession took place between December,
1901 and January 1902.1 Evangelicals invited to attend included the maverick liberal 'Evangelical Hay Aitken, Canon of Norwich, and Henry Vace, the heavyweight conservative.
A surprising amount was agreed on at the conference: that Jn 20: 22-
23 "Receive the Holy'Ghost. " Whose soever sins ye resit.: " was directed'to the whole church, not'at the apostles or a priesthood, and was for the ministration of Word and Sacrament, that auricular confession was not used in the first centuries'of the church, and that the words pronounced at
Ordination did not of themselves inculcate the duty to provide auricular confession. 1" "'
However substantial divisions existed. Evangelicals maintained that forgiveness was not tied to an appointed means such as confession. Aitken asserted that such a means does not produce "true repentance towards God":
'ed. H. Vace, Report of Fulham Palace Conference - Doc. 1901-Tan. 1902. Confession and Absolution, (Longmans, Green and Co., 1902) 169
it induces spiritual deception. It does not lead to the overcoming of sins;
it is full of danger by its intimacy.
The Evangelicals also maintained that the declaration of absolution
in private confession was made where there was inadequate assurance that
sins were absolved. Spiritual damage occurred when individuals were not
sure of their salvation without private confession and absolution.
Hay-Aitken made the clear distinction which Evangelicals were
making twenty five years previously, between declaration of freedom from
church censure and absolution of sins. Xt. 18: 18 referred to the former, Jn
20: 22-3'to the latter. The latter forgiveness was granted at conversion,
and thus came by the preaching of the gospel.
Lastly the Evangelical members of the conference showed their
preference for the open penance of the early church rather than the closed
form of private confession, a preference found in Cranmer. They noted the
omission of an endorsement of confession in the exhortation in the
Communion Service of the 1552 book. Only the words, "let him... open his
grief.. " were retained, showing that an exceptional remedy of Bible-based
counsel was available for those with disquieted consciences.
How did non-Evangelicals, and in 'particular their Tractarian
opponents, view the arguments of Evangelicals about confession and respond
to them? This gives us a useful independent assessment of the
effectiveness of Evangelicals in this dispute. Pussy wrote in response to
Evangelicals on their response to the Manual for Confessors in a book published in 1879. ' He claimed that Evangelicals were narrow. They were controversialists who had a narrow conception of the Christian faith.
'H. B. Pusey, Correction of some Criticisms of the "Xanua1 for Confessors", (Oxford: J. Parker, 1879) 170
Pusey also claimed that the fathers were on the side of confession
and not opposed to it. He denied that, as T. H. Gill had alleged, the "Xanual
- subverts some of the very fundamental principles of Christianity", including
satisfaction with God, -expiation of past sin, and tampered with the doctrine
of the atonement. Pusey challenged his Evangelical opponents with the
scriptural text of Prov: 16: 6, which, he argued, allowed for atonement by
acts of mercy and truth done'in penance. Pusey accepted the criticism of
his use of the term "works'of supererogation" as meaning unusual acts of
penitence. Imposing prayers as penance was a good discipline for those who
pray carelessly.
Pusey also used the reformers to attack the Evangelical position.
Hooker uses the term satisfaction to refer to human works and mentions
prayers as part of satisfaction. He quoted Bishop Overall as teaching
sacramental absolution in 1619. He claimed that confession was sacramental
and that other ordinances besides Baptism and Holy Communion were of this
character. People need not obey the priest's direction, since they can
choose another confessor - only the scrupulous and those in conventual
societies aiming at perfection should always obey.
In these ways, therefore, Pusey used the Evangelicals' own
authorities of scripture, fathers and reformers to oppose then. It is a
measure of the seriousness of their challenge that he engaged with them on
their own ground. There is no hint of condescension at Evangelical
intellectual powers or an opinion that their position was weak. There is
some common ground concerning the atonement.
The theological response to auricular confession by Evangelicals
therefore passed through several phases. The visceral negative reaction of
the fifties and sixties was embellished by sociological arguments and 171 traditional opposition to priestly power. Not against private spiritual counsel, Evangelicals stressed the dangers as they saw it, of a punctilious and superficial remedy to sin in the practice of auricular confession.
Later in the century, the growth of the practice of confession led
Evangelicals to show with a fair degree of success, that sacramental confession, while perhaps not strictly illegal, was at best tenuously based on the prayer book. At Fulham, the Evangelicals maintained their opposition, but showed that they were serious about the need for personal holiness and ongoing forgiveness in the Christian life. 1? 2
It is probably most convenient to consider next the Evangelicals'
theological reaction to the two core doctrines at dispute concerning Holy
Communion - the real presence and eucharistic sacrifice. Then other
theological issues raised by vestments, ornaments and other outward
practices can be discussed. As will be seen, doctrinal controversies,
growing out of those of the period of reaction to the first phase of
Tractarianism, preceded disputes over ritualism. The latter almost stood in
place of the former as the chosen legal ground on which Evangelicals
thought they might fight most effectively against Tractarian eucharistic doctrine, by opposing the practical novelties which they occasioned. First to be considered are controversies concerning the real presence.
The real presence was a doctrine held by Tractarians which was a centrepiece in an edifice of sacramentalism to which Evangelicals objected.
It held a similar position in Tractarian belief about the Sacrament of the
Lord's Supper to the doctrine of baptismal regeneration in the Sacrament of
Baptism. That is to say, it was the principle by which grace was conveyed mechanically to all who partook of the sacrament. Although Evangelicals objected to adoration of the elements also, this belief in mechanical grace and the consequent reception of grace by all including the unworthy, was the object of their chief assault.
At the beginning of the period, in 1857, the controversy between
Goode and Denison over Communion still raged. It has been dealt with up to
1856 by Toon'. Toon discussed both the teaching of Denison in his
'P. Toon, Evangelical Theology. 1833-56, pp. 102-105,105-202 173
Sermons on the Real Presence and that of Goode in The Nature of Christa
Presence in the Eucharist. In 1857 there were a few lingering echoes of the controversy. Reviewing both Denison's and Goode's works, a reviewer in the Christian Observer' pronounced Denison's doctrine of the Real Presence not heterodox but incoherent. He held it to be a chimaera and consigned it to a lower region among "gorgons and hydras and chimaeras dire. "
Transubstantiation was coherent and consistent with oral manducation. But Denison's doctrine was2 the presence of a body, in its proper substance, yet not corporal. It is a presence immaterial and spiritual, yet neither of'a spirit, nor to a spirit, but of a body to human senses. It is a`spiritual presence, to be carnally pressed by the teeth of the unbeliever'. " 'This savoured, the reviewer contended, of "flagrant contradictions".
The same reviewer showed that he understood the force of Goode's scholarship in his Tature of Christ's Presence, dealt with by Toon, in repudiating Denison's assertion that Archbishop Make, Varburton, and Taylor held a doctrine of the real presence. Evangelicals continued to accuse
Denison of a false literalism about the words of institution, a literalism,
they Fathers did Denison's which, maintained, the not share .3 exegesis of 1
Cor 10 in particular seemed unsatisfactory. All ate, but not all received spiritually, supporting a Reformed doctrine of communion, and Christ was not literally concealed in the Rock or the coriander seed of the manna.
Bennett, Vicar of Frone, supported Denison's position; he too was
'Christian Observer, 1857,15-39. 2abid., 23 3ebid. 174 strongly challenged by Evangelicals in-1857. '
There was a subsequent attempt to-prosecute Bennett for heretical eucharistic doctrine, following his publication of his A Plea for Toleration in the Church of England in 1867, arguing for the real presence, eucharistic sacrifice and adoration. Bennett toned down his views in the third edition.
This failed before the Judicial committee of the Privy Council. Its failure was seen by G.X. Young the historian as causing attacks on Tractarianism to be diverted from the unsuccessful field of doctrine to the more productive one of ritual prosecution. This failure to succeed in litigation over an
Evangelical view of the sacrament of Communion whereas Evangelicals had succeeded legally with Gorham over the sacrament of Baptism-was a major blow. Talk-was of a substantial secession from the church though this did not happen. 11
The legal position over the Church of England's eucharistic doctrine was unclear. An Evangelical commentator2 did not quarrel, as Tractarians did after Gorham, about the powers of the secular court. The-committee confirmed that the Church of England goes no further than to maintain the presence of Christ in the worthy recipient, and that Christ's Body is received spiritually. However Bennett's way of describing his views were deemed acceptable because he never wrote of a "corporeal presence', taught similarly to the first Prayer Book of Edward VI, and used 'sacrifice" to mean a commemorative offering, in the sense of the Bishops' Bible. Inward or mental adoration of Christ was deemed lawful.
'Christian Observer, 1857,204-5 =Christian Observer, 1872,543-54 175
The Evangelical writer acknowledged the legal correctness
of the judgement'. Bennett had sailed near the wind and could count
himself fortunate. However he deprecated the loophole in the formularies
which appeared to allow inward adoration of a localised presence. From now
on Evangelicals argued the theological points as strenuously as before. But
without full legal support, they had to do so as one party only within a
church which increasingly tolerated teaching diverse and strange to them.
In Scotland at this time, despite the high church tradition of the
Episcopal church, there was a successful attempt at prosecution for
teaching Tractarian eucharistic doctrine in the case of Bishop Alexander
Penrose Forbes of Brechin. He was condemned as "semi-popish" by a typical
Evangelical commentator 2
In the face of Denison and Bennett's rather amateur attempts to
construct'a non-Roman doctrine of the Real Presence with roots in Anglican'
theology, Evangelicals successfully showed that Anglican` thinkers of the past sided with them, and they; maintained their traditional doctrine of the spiritual reception of Christ by those with a lively faith at the Lord's
Supper.
The next major Tractarian challenge to traditional eucharistic theology came in 1866 from a more redoubtable source than Denison: from
Pusey himself. There was considerable personal warmth towards Pusey from
Evangelicals at the time because of their alliance with him against
'unbelief and half-belief"3, Pusey having withstood Manning's condemnation for this alliance. In his Eirenikon Pusey outlined
'Ibid. 2Christian Observer, 1866,20-43 3 Ibid. 176
his view of the Church of England's Catholic credentials and his hopes for
unity with Rome. He declared his belief in the real presence. However he
was condemned by Xanning for not embracing transubstantiation. fanning maintained that anything falling short of this was unacceptable and tarred the whole Church of England with the same brush of inadequate eucharistic teaching.
Pusey wrote a letter to the Veekly Register in which he pronounced that the doctrine of Trent an the Real Presence could be explained satisfactorily by the Roman church, but not by individual theologians. He was unsatisfied by the Roman doctrine of transubstantiation, but like
Denison, tried to forge a distinctively Anglican teaching of the "real presence". He appealed to the literal truth of Jesus' words "this is my body".
The Evangelical response to this was one of considerable theological and philosophical sophistication. ' Firstly it was argued in the usual way from Jn. 6: 63 "the flesh profiteth nothing" that a corporal presence could not convey grace to the soul. Zwingli was the source of this defence.
Secondly Pusey had quoted 1 Cor. 10: 16 with its mention of participation in the body of Christ. This seemed to suggest that Paul took a realist rather than a figurative view of the elements. However the
Evangelical response was that the verse meant that the breaking of the body, rather than the body, was represented at the Lord's Supper, and that the words relating to the cup similarly related to sharing in the blessing or benefits of Jesus' outpouring of his blood, rather than in the blood literally.
'Christian Observer, 1866,379-87 177
Thirdly Evangelicals challenged strongly the Tractarian teaching on
Christ's body implied by the real presence. Goode had restated Cranmer's
objections to the omnipresence of Christ's eucharistic body as a denial of
his true humanity and hence as the heresy of Eutyches. The objection was
made in the course of this subsequent controversy with Pusey that Christ's
body was currently glorified and hence his suffering humanity could not be
presented in the elements'. In addition the same writer wondered whether
the "spiritual body" which Pusey wrote of was not a tertium q=uid neither
truly spirit nor body.
A similar point was made by the reviewer of Confession. Absolution
Boyd Ritualists, it tortured and the Real Presence by Archibald .2 was said,
language because "they speak of a bodily presence which is not corporeal,
of very flesh which is not carnal or substantial. "
One of the classic sources of Anglican eucharistic theology was
Daniel Vaterland. Though not an Evangelical or even a low churchman he
outlined a receptionist theology of communion. In 1869 an Evangelical
warmly praised his views, recommending a reissuing of his book A Review of the Doctrine of the Eucharist. Vaterland acknowledged only a "relative holiness" of the elements, attacked the "gross and carnal Romanism" of transubstantiation, and also the doctrine of the real presence of the
German Poynet. 3
It was John Harrison and Nathaniel Dimock who responded in most detail to Dr Pusey's attempts to formulate an Anglican theology of the real presence in his sermon On the Presence of Christ and in his Efrenikon.
'Ibid. 2Ghristian Observer, 1867,688-97 3Christian Observer, 1869,135-41. 178
Harrison wrote An Answer to Dr. Pusey's Challenge respecting the Doctrine
of the Real Presence. ' Dimock wrote his papers Concerning the Eucharistic
Presence In B. A. Litton has the .2 addition a substantial section on subject
in his Introduction to Dogmatic Theology m
Xost aspects of the theological points raised by these writers will
be dealt with under the exposition and assessment of their theology in
chapter 8. However inasmuch as what they wrote relates to the controversy
with Pusey, it may be remarked that Dimock continued Goode's work in
showing that the teaching which Pusey proposed was at variance with the
formularies and theological writings of Anglican writers before the 1830s.
In addition he tended to the view that the Zwinglian doctrine was not that
taught by the Church of England. - Vox Liturg ne Anglicanaeo the history
of the BCP in its bearing on Present Eucharistic Controversies4
Evangelicals also made a strong case that the doctrine of the real presence
by three to four than r, was more recent centuries ritualists maintained .
Harrison and the others recognised that the key shibboleth was
whether the unworthy did or did not receive the Body and Blood of Christ.
If yes, then some doctrine of the real presence was taught. If no, then no doctrine was taught at variance with article Xlii and the reformers.
There was consternation among Evangelicals that Bennett in his recent prosecution had written not only of a real but a "visible" presence.
Evangelicals were satisfied with most aspects of the Privy Council
'J. Harrison, An Answer to Dr Pusey's C llenge respecting the Real Presence (London: Longsan's, 1871) 2B. Dimock, Concerning the Eucharistic Presence(London: Longman's, 1911) 3E. A. Litton, Introduction to Dogmatic Theology (London: James Clarke and Co., 1960) J. Dimock, Vox Liturgine AngliconaecLondon: Elliott Stock, 1897) 'Christian Observer 1877,817-25 179 judgement against him. "
How stood matters at the end of the century? Again there is the some Fulham Rouid Table Conference to give us indication. Vace was elected chairman and'Dimock`and Xoule both sat on it. '
Dimock restated the Evangelical response, and developed it. He stated that the presence of Christ, which he called the real presence, subjective, meaning a spiritual presence, was objective, not but objective by faith. It was not in or under the elements, though a denial of this was not e fide. Christ was adored'as present in the sacrament, not the outward and visible sign. Ye are made partakers of the Crucified body directly, 'and'of the Glorified body consequentially. 'indirect Iioule'too'spoke of an union with the' Lord now in his glory. with He also"stressed union and communion the whole faithful church. The
Xatter'of - theGift, as opposed to the manner of the Gift, given by a manner of signification, was the Body' and Blood, received however only by those receiving, worthily.
Gore objected that participation in the crucified body of Christ was impossible. But Vace drew attention to the use of "body", not "flesh" in the 'werde of institution, meaning dead body. There was a difference of argued opinion over the 'issue recorded. In the following session Dimock that things past may be present to faith. Xoule'quoted Ratramnus, "JL veritate sed in figures". Ratrannus' theology of the presence was similar to that 'of Cranmer's, and envisaged a parallel though separate physical and spiritual feeding. Gore and 'some of the others suggested that' the
'The Doctrine of Holy Communion and ItsExpression in Rituale Report of a Conference held at Fulham Palace in October 1900 (London: Longmans, Green and Co. 1900), p. 48 180
sacramental symbol, mentioned in the early church meant that things really
were what they signified. Another divergence of belief was recorded.
There had clearly been some development and alteration in ", -
Evangelical` eucharistic teaching as it had been moulded in-response to
ritualism. Evangelicals could now write of 'a consequential participation in
the glorified body, and -aa-spiritual adoration of Jesus in, though'not'
locally'in, the sacrament. Zwinglianism had never been accepted by the
majority of Evangelicals. Now, although, rejecting consubstantiation, some
could embrace Ratramnianism; though xoule was in advance of-Dimock and.
Vace here. -I
--,Now the second pillar of, Tractarian eucharistic theology can be ,-
considered - eucharistic sacrifice. How did Evangelicals respond to this?
The issue surfaced in 1861 when, it was reported. several bishops wanted to
interpret the rubric on placing bread and wine to mean oblation. Philpotts
of Exeter was one. He made the novel suggestion that money for bread and
wine was to be taken from the offertory money.
Even this slight suggestion of oblation was unacceptable to- many
Evangelicals. ` In the Christian Observer it was stated that money alone was
the offertory - even bread and wine paid for it would be a Tractarian
wedge. ' In a more extended criticism of Philpotts' position his use of It
23: 19 "Which is greater, -the gift or the altar? " was criticised, since Jesus'
sacrifice made'the altar redundant. Archbishop Bancroft, who became a non-
furor, argued for oblation of the bread and the wine, but his advice was
rejected. Denison had tried to force on ordination candidates a subscription to oblation. The only biblical use of "oblation". Evangelicals
'letter, Christian Observer. 1861,314 i81
argued, was offering and presenting ourselves and our possessions to the
Lord in, response to Christ, not in Christ. ' Daniel Vaterland, cited with
favour because of his receptionism, also supported Evangelicals-here. He
argued that sacrifice at the Lord's Supper was of 'praise and thanksgiving',
or ourselves-of-prayer and penitence and of the offering up of the church i2
A sacrifice demands an altar, and Evangelicals opposed all those who
tried. to use this title of the holy table, a title nowhere used in the
prayer book. The editor of the Christian Observer made a rejoinder to a
Tractarian correspondent who-tried to argue from Heb. 13: 10 and the 1640
canons (canon vi)"that the holy table might be called an altar. The
Hebrews verse, -he pointed out, referred to Old Testament sacrifice, and the
1640 canons-were Laudian and repealed in 1642. The Tractarian
correspondent, had cited Bishop Sparrow in support but the editor declared -'
him an antiquarian rather than an authority.
However there was a more emollient line, on this -subject which some
Evangelicals pursued. Richard Baxter was quoted by an Evangelical who
sought not. to quarrel too closely regarding the use of the term "altar"3
Baxter had written in Cases of Conscience about Matters Ecclesiastical that
we must not, therefore, be quarrelsome about the bare names, unless they be abused to some ill use. " This writer argued that the word altar could be used in a way acceptable, in the sense in which the primitive church employed it. It was only dangerous when twisted "in a Romish direction
How ancient was the doctrine of Eucharistic sacrifice? Ritualists
'Christian Observer, 1861,271-5. 2D. Vaterland, A Review of the Doctrine of the Eucharist, (Oxford: reissued, 1868) 'Christian Observer 1881 182
claimed it was widespread in the third or fourth centuries. All sides
acknowledged that Cyril of Jerusalem had stimulated the popularity of the,
idea. However an anonymous Evangelical Clericus Cantabrigensis wrote a
book, The Primitive Doctrine of the Eucharistic Sacrifice as exhibited in
early Liturgies in which he cut away many arguments from antiquity in
favour of eucharistic sacrifice. In particular he endeavoured to show that
Jerome's use of the term "sacrifice" did not denote that of Christ's body
and blood. '
Eight years later some further divisions were beginning to open up
in Evangelical ranks., Sadler the Evangelical in his book The One Offering
2 was a man known to have offered resolute arguments against Roman -
Catholic eucharistic theology in the past. But in this book he argued that
Christ offered his death continually in heaven. To this another Evangelical
replied that Christ sits in heaven - he does not stand at an altar.
Chrysostom opposed continuous sacrifice - he emphasised nax rather.
Sadler's opponent held that there was a danger in using language in a
slippery way to suggest propitiatory sacrifice. A wide gulf existed
between Roman and Anglican doctrine here. There was no offering of4esus
in the eucharist. "touto xoieite" did not mean "sacrifice this". Jesus blessed God, not the elements, at the last supper 3 So the view that Jesus was presenting his sacrifice in heaven gained some currency among more liberal Evangelicals, as did the emphasis on the Lord's Supper as a fellowship meal with each other as well as
'Clericus Cantabrigensis, The Primitive Doctrine of the Eucharistic Sacrifice as exhibited in early Liturgies, (Cambridge: Bell, 1876) 2X. F. Sadler, The One Offering (London: Bell and Sons 1884) 3Churchman, Vol 10,1884,142-52,217-26,295-305 183
Christ. ' Both these ideas are representative of theories originally from
the Tractarian stable which had been more widely disseminated and accepted
in the Church of England. -- -
By the end of the century additional concessions had been made to a
sacrificial element in Communion by a few Evangelicals. How matters stood
with their most distinguished theological representatives may be gleaned
from session three of the proceedings of the Fulham Conference on the
Eucharist .2
Dimock successfully turned the old controversy in a new direction
by making two new distinctions. He distinguished between representation of
Jesus's death, which was acceptable to him, and re-presentation, which was
not. Also he derived from Vaterland, the Evangelicals' favourite source of
eucharistic doctrine, the second distinction between sacrifice actively and
passively considered. Christ's sacrifice could be said to be ours in the
Communion only in the latter sense. He described it as an "offering to
view" like showing the receipt for a debt. This last concession to his
opponents displeased Dr Barlow, another Evangelical on the committee, who
amended "offering to view" to "submitting to view". He represented a more
conservative strand of Evangelical opinion than Dimock.
Dimock also distinguished between the offering of the elements and
the offering of Christ; the latter, he said, was found no earlier than the
third century. This found widespread agreement, although Gore maintained
the theological soundness of Cyril's innovation. Thus the historical
controversy of the 170s on this point was almost resolved. There seemed to
'Churchman, Vol 10,1884,446-53. 2The Doctrine of Holy Communion and its Expression in Rituals ' Report of a Conference held at Fulham Palace in October 1900 (London: Longmans, Green and Co. 1900), pp. 59 ff. 184
be more convergence on the issue of eucharistic sacrifice than on the real
presence.
So-Evangelicals resisted the two theological pillars of ritualist
innovations in eucharistic doctrine. They showed themselves to be able
controversialists and scholars of some ripeness. They demonstrated that
they covered a spectrum of positions from near-Zwinglianism to
Ratramnianism on the real presence and the more radical interpreted
Vaterland's theology to allow for a passive offering to view of Jesus'
sacrifice in the Communion. They proved that the Reformers and most
Anglican divines of varying parties were on their side and that the Bible
offered strong justification for their views.
Yet the-tide of religious feeling on the eucharist was against then
as Anglicans of most traditions moved away from memorialism to the active
re-creation of the past characteristic of Victorian thought in general. And
so Evangelicals, while maintaining a common opposition to local presence and re-presentation, were increasingly divided over how to show that they took Communion as an effectual sign for the present and to present a relevant analysis of increasingly important eucharistic worship. 185
How it is appropriate to consider the Evangelical contribution to
the theological controversies which underlay the litigation over ritualism.
At the outset of the period, when pre-Tractarian Anglican eucharistic
theology had not been challenged as official teaching, there was a relaxed
attitude among Evangelicals to mildly ritualist practice. Reaction to the
Judicial Committee's judgement on the Knightsbridge case was restrained.
Credence tables, a variety of coloured communion-table coverings and
crosses were sanctioned. An Evangelical, writing in 1857, with traditional
Evangelical loyalty to the courts of the land, and untroubled by the
decision wrote, "Neither can we see that Protestantism will suffer the
smallest injury from a rose-coloured Communion coverlet, or an ornamented credence table"'. Peace should be secured without sacrificing truth, the writer argued, and his main concern was for clergy to consult with their bishops and congregations rather than forcing through innovations -a principle which applied to Evangelical ministers also.
By the mid-sixties Evangelicals were engaged in controversy mainly with rationalism rather than ritualism. New alliances were, as has been seen, being forged between Evangelical and high parties, between Shaftesbury and Pusey. There was concern that the high church party was becoming too broad, too rationalistic. An Evangelical wrote: "Ruch of the sceptical and rationalistic tendency which makes the Broad Church division, is being diffused among those who have hitherto strictly maintained the High Church
'Christian Observer, 1857,283-4 188
The High becoming Broad system ." main enemy was clearly rationalism, and was more to be feared than Broad becoming High.
At the same time there had been growing concern in Recordite circles about ritualism. This led to the founding of the Church Association in 1865. Yet some Evangelicals, even at this date, saw less to worry about in ritualism, and words of caution over their practice had to be addressed
them by Observe zthrough the to the moderate Christian , anonymous
Clericus, endorsed by the editor. A tendency to imitate the more moderate forms of High Church practice was observed: 'which though not in themselves of much importance, indicate a leaning towards form and ceremony. I allude to processions in surplices, preaching in the surplice, musical services, anthems, decoration of churches, and other things of this character. " No great principle was at stake, but services should be simple.
In the late sixties, a major area of controversy concerned vestments. The Ornaments Rubric, which seemed to sanction their use inserted in the 1559 prayer book called for ornaments as in the second year of Edward VI's reign. However this was. Evangelicals maintained, superseded by the Advertisements of Archbishop Parker, issued in 1586 prescribing surplice only and copes in cathedrals; Canon 58 of the canons of 1604 ordered obedience to the Advertisements, but they lacked the force of law.
In 1866 an article by 'a prebend" outlined the historical sequence of events and the legal situation as seen by Evangelicals in these terms. 3
'Christian Observer, 1865,206-212 2Ibid. 3Christian Observer 1866.698-708 187
There seemed to be a weakness in the Evangelicals' case, however, because they wished to amend the rubric; in 1867 Shaftesbury attempted unsuccessfully to give legal force to Canon 58. Vilberforce, bishop of
Oxford came in for much Evangelical criticism because although not a ritualist but an old-fashioned high churchman. be opposed tampering with the rubric. ' He thought this would "sees to break the links binding us to prepapal Christendom. " Other fair-minded churchmen thought it just to reject all attempts to change the prayer-book, whether by Ebury, or
Shaftesbury, or Tractarians. The latter used unauthorised publications such as the "little prayer book" but when Evangelicals complained they were told
beam in daily The to mind the their eyes of clergy not saying services .2 status quo of maintaining and enforcing the prayer book and its rubrics as they were seemed fairer. Yet Shaftesbury evidently considered himself to be doing no more than closing an anomalous legal loophole.
Evangelicals did not content themselves with legal and parliamentary contention, however. They advanced a theological case for reformed robes.
Firstly they pointed out that Jesus did not wear vestments at the Last
Supper, an apparently trivial point. " Yet Evangelicals were concerned to restore the Lord's Supper, as other church ordinances to its apostolic purity. They could justifiably point the finger of innovation at those in. favour of vestments.
Secondly Evangelicals drew a dividing line between the simple white vestments of the late Ronan Empire, outdoor clothes as they were, and the ornate vestments of the Xiddle Ages, replete with sacrificial significance. 4
Christian Observer, 1867,188-207 =Christian Observer, 1867,123-33 3Christian Observer, 1867.862-6 'V. B. Xarriott, The Vestments of the Church - all Illustrated Lecture, (London: Rivingtons, 1869) 188
The oldest of the vestments were the tunicle and the pallium, and with these Evangelicals had less to quarrel than the chasuble. Even with the theology of Cyril gaining in ascendancy, simple white vestments remained in use.
Thirdly Evangelicals stressed that there were serious doctrinal issues at stake. They had not always recognised this. But now they were to. Communion vestments were not theologically indifferent or mere decoration. ' Vith such theological and historical arguments Evangelicals bolstered their legal campaign.
Evangelicals continued with this campaign and they were rewarded for persistence when the Judicial Committee came out in favour of the
Advertisements in the Purchas judgement of 1871. This was restated in the
Ridsdale decision of 1877, after the Public Vorship Regulation Act came into force. This successful attempt to prove that historically Anglicanism had prescribed reformed robes, and hence by implication a reformed theology, for the Communion service, and that there was a strong biblical and patristic case for them, should not be regarded as nullified by the subsequent success of'ritualists in establishing the use of vestments in many parishes, or the tactical and moral failure of imprisoning clergy under the Act. Evangelicals 'were arguing in the way in which they had done since the onset of the Tractarian movement, that Tractarianism and ritualism, far from having sound historical credentials, were innovations of the nineteenth century'for the Church of England. The theological argument, based on Bible, prayer book and articles, was a strong one. It was a weakness of practical enforcement, rather than of theological theory, often
'Christian Observer, 1870,178-89 189
thought an Evangelical failing, which brought trouble.
One question of robes which exposed disagreement within the
Evangelical camp was that of the use of the surplice for preaching. This
was not a legal question - nothing forbade or commanded its use, although
the Advertisements mentioned "surplice in all other ministrations" apart
from the use of the cope at communion. This was quoted by high church
bishops and others wishing Evangelicals to abandon the black gown.
However no Evangelical wished the surplice to be compulsory, sensitive to
the historical disputes over Bishop Hooper and the Puritans. ` The
Evangelical response was no more than to encourage variety in the church as a whole, a variety sanctioned by the Ritual Commission. ' However a smaller group of Recordite Evangelicals were determined to oppose its use
in Evangelical parishes, and this caused controversy later in the seventies when J. C. Ryle and Handley Noule used the surplice. Benjamin Harrison for one strongly defended the gown.
Another issue which Evangelicals stressed against ritualists was the position at the table for presiding at Communion. Eastward position was of uncertain legality - allowed in the Xackonochie judgement, eventually condemned in the Privy Council Purchas ruling. However the rubrics were varied and confused over whether the table was placed end-on during the reformation period. An Evangelical reviewer argued against the ritualist
Littledale's for the Eastward Littledale apologia position .2 argued illegitimately from the Old Testament practice of priests
'Christian Observer, 1871,291-301 2Christian Observer, 1874,513-37 190
before the altars of burnt offering and of incense, he maintained. Westward position might be legitimate if Borth side in the rubric meant side of an end-on table and not North end. Chrysostom argued for Westward position.
But Eastward facing position was clearly wrong, the reviewer argued. Only a few seventeenth century Anglicans - Andrewes, Laud, Cosin, and Wren, used it. It was an unacceptable symbol of sacerdotal theory.
And so Evangelicals argued persuasively against ritual innovations.
They did not carry the tide of opinion which was moving against them. But they were able to demonstrate the selectivity of ritualist credentials for their practices, based on Evangelical biblical theology and patristic and reformation history.
IN .r
t 191
In 1874 litigation over ritualism reached its fiercest stage with
the promulgation of the Public Vorship Regulation Act. From then on until
the end of the century there was a growth in ritualist practice, a failure
to convince the public and increasingly the Evangelical party of the value
of prosecuting and punishing clergy, and a weakening of the power and resolve of the Evangelical party with the arrival of a less crisply defined theological climate. '
The theological storm had broken before 1874, however, with the consideration of the issues of the real presence and eucharistic sacrifice at the time of the Bennett case. Theological response by Evangelicals was on a more limited scale from 1874 onwards, with fewer articles in the theological journals. What there was displays interesting changes in emphasis.
In 1875 and 1876 scholarship was mainly exercised over position at the holy table, since this point remained more open legally than others. An
Evangelical referred to Cosin and Wren the seventeenth century divines and emphasised their anti-Romanisa, even if their opinion on eastward position was suspect .2
There was a continuing loophole over eastward position because of the rubric calling on the priest to stand before the table while arranging the elements. Evangelicals were in favour of a limited and narrow interpretation of this, one which certainly forbade kneeling before the table, as Xackonochie had done, and concealing the elements, like Purchas. 3
I J. Coombs, Judgement on Hatcham,. (London: Faith Press, 1969), gives the flavour of the persecutions. 2Chrjstian Observer, 1875,246-67 3Christian Observer, 1876,246-60 "The Eastward Position" 192
The Ritual Controversy appears to be slumbering rather than extinguished",
commented one Evangelical. '
Benjamim Harrison was praised for his Evangelical historical and - theological response on this question. In his Prospects of Peace for the
Church in the Prayer-book and Its Richest he disposed of seventeenth
century precedents well and impartially and moderately argued for, an
abandonment of the eastward position for the sake of peace. He quote
Bishop Jewel, "What father or doctor taught us that the priest should hold
the bread over his head, and turn his back to the people? "
By 1885 the practice of eastward position was much more widespread.
Canon Bardsley wrote an Evangelical objection to the practice. The Ridsdale
case had exposed some backing on the Privy Council from Phillimore for the
practice. This reinforced ritualist arguments derived from Cairns'
judgement in the Xackonochie case, but there was little legal cogency in
preferring this to the whole judicial committee's judgement against Purchas
and Ridsdale on the issue.
The Evangelical response was as negative as ever. However the
ground for objection had changed to stress the more practical obstacle to
the people seeing the bread and the wine rather than the implied theology
of sacrifice'. The reviewer also mentions some Evangelical use of eastward
position, namely Archbishop Sumner on one occasion in Canterbury long
before it became a common practice.
The Ridsdale judgement had also pronounced against vestments. . Objection was made to this by James Parker, and reply was made by, the
I Ibid. 2B. Harrison. Prospects for Peace for the Church in the Prayer-book and its Riches, (London: Rivingtons, 1875) 3, Vol. 11,1884-5,185-195 193
Evangelical Robert Kennison. Parker maintained that the Advertisements and
the Injunction were not to be relied upon. He relied on Cosin's comments.
He claimed that the thirtieth Injunction enjoined outdoor dress only. But
Kennison argued from the Queen's letter to the Archbishop in 1571 that she
knew what she did. The Ornaments Rubric did not in any case refer to the
Vestments before 1649 -a confusion had been made between the second and
third years of Edward VI's reign. General practice in Elizabeth's reign was
clear - vestments were not used. The thirtieth Injunction included dress
in all places and assemblies both in the church and without. " Cosin himself preferred the surplice. ' These were strong points.
Traces of more extreme catholicism encroaching within the Church of
England such as the invocation of Xary, the saints and the angels were also mentioned at this time and roundly opposed. The episcopal church in
Scotland was seen as a source of this practice, with its longstanding high
devotion "Scotch church to saints* .2
The debate became increasingly dissipated into scholarly but secondary issues, such as whether evening communion services were appropriate. Ritualists objected to them because communion should be received fasting. However Dimock made a magisterial response in which he reminded ritualists that communion at the Last Supper was after the meal, showed that the full agape meal was a feature of apostolic life, and pointed out that Xaundy Thursday evening communion had always been a feature of the Church's liturgy. He produced evidence of evening communion in the early Egyptian church from Socrates' Thebaid, cited Chrysostom as equivocal on the issue, and pointed to the late source of the abolition of evening
' Ch hman, Vol. 2,1880,241-50, Vol. 3,1880-1,143-4 2Christian Observer, 1875,140-154 194 communion in an epistle of St Augustine to Januarius. '
The next major landmark of theological interest was the Lincoln case of 1888-92. Little fresh ground was broken here, but the dispute is attitudes. important for observing diversity'and development in Evangelical
There was a division between those, the majority of Evangelicals, who disapproved of Read's action, and those'who agreed with the Church
Association. In the pages of Churchman a battle was fought between Sydney
Gedge, against the prosecution, and Henry Xiller, secretary of the Church
Association, in favour of it. '
Gedge centred his attack on the inadvisability of the Church
Association's tactics and attitude, and on the relative harmlessness of
King's practices. Gedge claimed that some Evangelicals of a more liberal hue were told that if they criticised the Church Association its newspaper,
"The English Churchman will rend you out of the Evangelical party" He more agreed with a writer to the Record, a broadly based Evangelical newspaper by then, that the policy of prosecution had failed to halt ritualism. Gedge repudiated the doctrines behind the six points of ritualistic practice. But he thought that they could be used without harm, like the Christmas yule log, no longer pagan. Even on a point on which
King was eventually found guilty, the mixed chalice, Gedge regarded this as simply a matter of taste. Gedge was in favour of good relations with bishops. Thus he had sanctioned the CXS cooperation with High church bishops like the bishop of Colombo.
Miller on the other hand held that every one of the six points taught a heretical doctrine, such as wine and water teaching an amalgamated
'Churchman, Vol. 13,1885-6. 2 man, New Series Vol. 3 88-9,662-71,504-15 195
duality of nature rather than the unamalgamated one taught in the
Athanasian Creed. The Sign of the Cross was superstitious, as mentioned in
the preface to the 1549 prayer book. Lights symbolised the real presence,
the Agnus Del was addressed to the sacrament, the eastward position implied
sacrifice and adoration, as Pusey had written.
Once Archbishop Benson's judgement came out, Philip Vernon Smith in
the n spoke for the more liberal Evangelical when he declared
himself sympathetic to the court and its decision. ' Candles on the table
were merely ornamental, not ceremonial. Permitting the Agnus Del was too
loose, however, but only because it would open the way to other hymns, being
used during communion.
Vhen the Privy Council judgement came out the Churchman recognised
that there had been a change from the outcome of the Purchas case and
eastward position and candles were legal. The writer was in favour of
going further than the judgement and permitting the mixed chalice. He
wrote, "We hope that we shall hear no more of any doctrinal importance being attached to the matters which have now been decided to be beyond question lawful. In necessariis Unitas, In non-necessariis libertas. in omnibus caritas. N2 low this High Church freedom should be extended to
Dissenters by a relaxation of the 1662 Act of Uniformity. Thus these ritualist practices were dismissed out of the theological sphere. Since they were legal, they could teach nothing contrary to the doctrine of the church. The Evangelical respect for the courts was combined with a growing liberalism.
'Churchman, New Series Vol. 5,1891-2 2Churchman, New Series Vol. 6.1891-2 91-2,645-54 196
Villiam Xurdoch Johnston, another Evangelical, also argued that
greater liberty of worship was much to be desired. ' "Bo men sought it more
eagerly than low churchmen. " Over six or seven Evangelical hymns were as
illegal as the Agnus Dei. The two parties, high and low "represent two
types of mind that have always been prominent in the history of human
thought" They are often found in the same households even, as with the
Vilberforces and Hewmans. The men of 1833 "were marked by a piety as deep
and as personal and individual as Simeon and Vilberforce " The eastward
position was allowed in the rubrics and even the Record, Johnston commented, wondered why it was prosecuted. The centrality and dignity of
Holy Communion was good, but confession and Romanism were not.
Johnston's position was extremely liberal by Evangelical standards and other reactions to the judgement were less favourable. Several
Evangelical churchmen seceded and J. C. Ryle wrote an appeal for
Evangelicals to the Church England He however held that stay within of .2 the judgement would damage the church by legalising ceremonies which were not in the prayer book. This judgement was echoed by others including
G.Everard3. He held that the judgement was not neutral doctrinally but that it sanctioned the presence in the elements and the adoration of the Saviour on the altar. Interestingly the uncommitted Times agreed with this
There was an uncertainty among other Evangelicals about how to react with one voice. The National Club passed a resolution deferring action until other Evangelical bodies made known their reaction to the
Lincoln Judgement. A Record editorial confined itself to asserting the
'Churchman, New Series Vol. 7,92-3. 2Record, 12 August 1892. 3$ßd, 2 September 1892 "$ ord 12 August 1892 citing the Times 197
"practical uselessness of litigation under present circumstances. 0 No
public conferences and manifestos were desirable. Evangelicals should
confine themselves to positive work. Ryle's stance was fair, but he could
not reverse the verdict. '
The Rock with its more aggressively conservative stance argued, in
the face of correspondents urging unity for the sake of peace, "let no one
run away with the fancy that, the Privy Council has given its whole bead to
the Ritualists, for it has done nothing of the kind. The trouble is not in
that which has been decided, but in the new departure started by the Privy
Council. "2 This then was the conservative wing of response.
It has rightly been perceived that most Evangelicals regretted the
Lincoln prosecution, and that it worked against them. However the reason
for this was not simply one of tactics and procedure in combating
ritualism. An influential wing of the Evangelical movement was beginning
to conclude that ritual need not entail false doctrine, and that ritualist
eucharistic doctrine. could be re-expressed in such a way as to cause less . outrage to Evangelical susceptibilities.
The fourth session of the Fulham conference on Holy Communion in
Dimock 1900 dealt with ritual .3 opposed any ritual which implied the real
presence which he held to be denied by implication in Article XXIZ.
Halifax's suggestion, that the phrase, "bodies made clean by his body", in
the Prayer of Humble Access implied the real presence, was rejected by the conference. Xoule confined himself to the temperate
'Record, 12 August 1892 z$, 12 August 1892 3The Doctrine of Holy Communion and its Expression in Ritual (London: Longmans, Green and Co. 1900) 198 observation that, the reason why. there.. was too much diversity in ritual was that he would feel incompetent to officiate at some churches if asked to do so.,..
Vace was more anti-ritualistic, suggesting that it was. possible for
disused, throughout the mass vestments tobe church again. -He commented, "I do believe that, the Rites by. Lord, 'not few in , not excepting commanded. our - number. and easy, to be observed', the church universal, as such, possesses a ritual law. " xoule thought that this wasconfirmed by, Article XXXIV.
Thus there were different shades of opinion among the Evangelicals
the loule than Vace. Evangelicals had at conference. ,. was, more emollient lost the practical fight against ritualism, although battle continued to be fought into the next century. This was not merely a matter of. legal defeat,
by or, of offending the church at large aggressive tactics. - Nor was it because, of theological defeat. From Gorham to Ridsdale, the essentially
Evangelical, of. the formularies the, Church and, reformed character. of of . England was maintained. The desperation. of some Evangelicals like Ebury to amend the documents of-Anglican history was seen to be unnecessary, and at the end: of. the period J. C. Ryle could assert that the church was, still
Evangelical on paper.
Evangelicals had given a good account of the scriptural and reformation credentials for their. liturgiology. In Dimock, and to arlesser extent John and Benjamin Harrison, they. had learned and able liturgical., scholars who had argued their case well. They failed because tide . oUthe of ideas and of, the., Victorian culture which craved aesthetic delight, and combined historical, relativism with antiquarianism., -A bare memorial, of
Christ in communion, based, on an inner certainty of faith, seemed less vital than an, empirical experience of-the real presence. The old 199
Evangelical dichotomy between flesh and spirit, based on Jn. 6: 63 appeared
less relevant philosophically than experiencing the divine Christ through
the_-bread and wine.
Secondly Evangelicals failed because under the pressure of the
growth of ritualism, they grew fragmented and ragged as some reinterpreted
their, doctrine in modern terms while others remained attached to its
traditional expression. Although the range of opinion on doctrinal issues
such. as baptismal regeneration and the real presence remained relatively
small, the range on practical matters of ritual was larger.
- Such then was the impact of the controversies on Evangelical
theology, as ideas were forged under the impact of topical disputes. But
what of the bedrock of Evangelical theology, systematically, theoretically
and positively expounded to its own constituency? That demands further
exposition.
In this chapter, then, it has been noted that some Evangelicals were
semi-ritualist. in practice for aesthetic and pragmatic reasons. In 42 the
aftermath to the Gorham baptismal controversy in 1857 was investigated.
This had been a great Evangelical victory, so great that it led to greater
relaxation of doctrine on this point. Did any Evangelicals agree with any-
form of baptismal regeneration? Xelvill favoured a form of baptismal
regeneration. A lower form of baptismal regeneration, that of admission to
the Christian community, linked to Evangelical federal theology, was more
widely acknowledged. Some aspects of Xozley's high church critique of baptism were acceptable to some Evangelicals.
In 4.3 it was seen how some Evangelicals were cast in an unusually radical role in seeking, the revision of the prayer book. Vhat precisely did Evangelicals dislike about the Athanasian Creed? They disliked the 200
damnatory clauses of the Athanasian Creed, because they argued that
salvation depended not on intellectual assent but on personal trust. In 4.4
Confession was the subject. Evangelicals accepted private, but denied
auricular confession. Vhat were the Evangelicals' main objections to
auricular confession? It treated the symptoms of sin, not the disease. It
was seen as contrary to the prayer book and the articles. Absolution in
the prayer book, they maintained, was always conditional. There was some
agreement at the Fulham conference between the various parties at the end
of the century: that absolution belonged to the whole church, not to
priests alone, and that sacramental confession was not practised in the
early church. Pusey attacked this Evangelical position and quoted Prov. 16: 6
to justify penance. He showed respect for Evangelical scholarship.
In 4.5 the doctrines of the real presence and eucharistic sacrifice
were dealt with. On the question of the real presence, Denison was attacked
for being "falsely literal" on the words of instituion. Bennett was assailed was sailing near the wind by referring to a "visible" presence.
Yhat authorities did the Evangelicals cite against the doctrine of the real presence? Pusey's hlrenikon was attacked, and the text that "the flesh profiteth nothing" was quoted, and the old Cranmerian charge was unearthed and developed that the teaching of the real presence leads to Eutychianism.
Vaterland was widely used as an authority for Evangelicals. Dinock denied that the Church of England's doctrine was Zwinglian. Harrison discoursed learnedly against the reception of the body and blood of Christ by the unworthy. This was the bellwether article disproving the real presence.
Vithout accepting the doctrine, did Evangelicals begin to embrace a higher view of the communion elements? The highest doctrine Dimock would commit himself to was a real presence, objective by faith. This showed at 201
least a verbal broadening from previous positions.. Evangelicals altered , other elements of their, teaching on this issue over the, period, such as the
acknowledgement that there could be a consequential participation. in the..
glorified body. Xouleembraced a Ratramnian theology of eucharistic
presence.
On the question of eucharistic sacrifice, Evangelicals objected to
all oblation during the Lord's Supper. The terninology of holy table rather
than altar was used, but later some Evangelicals used the word "altar".
Vhat differences lay between Evangelicals over the Son's session in heaven?
There were divisions between some Evangelicals arguing that Christ offers
his death continuously in heaven, or that he has sat down. Liberal
Evangelicals stressed that the Lord's Supper was a fellowship meal with
other Christians. Evangelicals did not respond well to a tide of Victorian
thought away from eighteenth century memorialism to an active recreation of
the past, and eucharistic sacrifice should be seen in this context as well
as in a purely theological sphere.
On points of ritual, in the earlier half of the period dealt with in
4.6, Recordites were concerned about surplices for preaching as well as vestments. Vhat theological authorities did Evangelicals cite against vestments and ritual? Evangelicals successfully showed the selectivity and weakness of ritualist credentials for their practices from patristic and
-b reformation history.
In the later period considered in 4.7, there were many objections made by Evangelicals to the eastward position. What signs were there of growing division of opinion among Evangelicals? By the time of the Lincoln prosecution there was a diversity of opinion among Evangelicals. Gedge was against the bringing of the bishop to trial. Vernon Smith was in favour of 202 freedom on candles. Some Evangelicals wanted greater liberty of worship, and others, fewer in number, thought that ritual need not entail false doctrine. Victorian culture wanted aestheticism and antiquarianism. There were some signs of a fragmentation on doctrine among Evangelicals. THE THEOLOGICALWRITINGS 204
CHAPTERV
GOD, CREATION AND EVOLUTION
lot only traditional views of special creation were under attack in the 1860s and '70s but also the whole philosophical underpinning to a belief in the great Designer himself. Spencer assaulted traditional teaching on the knowledge of God, drawing conclusions from H. Xansel's strictures against metaphysical speculation very different from those drawn by the Evangelicals. From the continent, Comte's nihilism also seemed a dangerous phenomenon.
The most distinguished and able Evangelical to enter the fray was T.
R. Birks. The most learned Evangelical of his generation, he wrote widely but his contribution to a defence of the doctrine of creation was his most notable achievement. He was described by G. K. Hopkins as "almost the only las
learned Evangelical in the judgement J. R. Xoore he going" , and of was
"Britain's foremost Evangelical anti-Darwinian"2. Birks was-happiest in his own philosophical field and had his weaknesses in scholarship beyond it, especially in the Biblical field. Yet his work in rebutting attacks on scriptural theism was important. His books include The Scripture Doctrine of Creation (1872), Modern Physical Fatalism and the Doctrine of Evolution
(1876), and Xodern Geogonies (1880).
Another important writer in this area was Henry Vace whose book deriving from the 1889 controversy with Huxley, Christianity and
Agnosticism, (1895), is a careful and studied defence of the possibiblity of traditional Christian belief in God. The need for such a volume shows how far the attack of rationalism had driven home, with not only scripture creation but also theism assailed.
E. A. Litton's massive Introduction to Dogmatic Theology, (1882,
1892), based on the Thirty line Articles, has sections of important bearing on these doctrines as has H. G. C. Joule's Outlines of Christian Doctrine
(1889). Edward Garbett's writings are also important.
'C. C. Abbott(ed. ), Further Letters of Gerard Manley Hopkins, (1956), p. 18,6 June, 1864. 2J. R. Moore, The post-Darwinian Controversies, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), p. 201. 206
And so the first of the chapters in the section The Theological
Writings concerns God, Creation and Evolution. This chapter will contain
an analysis of the thought of those Evangelicals who responded to these
writers, an estimate of strengths and weaknesses, and an investigation into
development in Evangelical understanding of these doctrines.
In 5.2 issues concerning creation will be considered. Vhat
contrasts are there between Evangelical theology in the earlier and the
later parts of the period on this subject? Was there a change in verdicts
on Xiller's "day-period" theory? In 5.3 Birks' treatment of evolutionary
philosophy will be analysed. What was his position on eighteenth versus
nineteenth century philosophy?
How literally did Evangelicals accept the Genesis 1 and 2 accounts of creation? Firstly two theologians from the end of the period will be considered. Then two from the beginning will be compared with them.
Boule held that scripture gives no "formulated anthropology"'.
Nevertheless it did give facts and principles. The two accounts of chapters one and two were different views of the same event, not different
IH. C. G. Moule, Outlines of Christian Doctrine, (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1899), p. 152 207
events described by different authors, as higher critics would argue.
Genesis 1 deals with the creation of man in the abstract, Genesis 2 in
concrete terms.
Xoule held that the assumption in the New Testament that these
narratives were historical is important, e. g. in Xt. 19: 4-6. The historicity
of Adam is fundamental to the inspired theology of Paul in Rom.5: 12-19.
Furthermore Xoule, writing in 1899, was impressed by recent research by
J. V. Dawson concerning the locality of the garden of Eden in a real
geographical place. And yet Xoule identified many pictorial and symbolic
terms and phrases. The "dust" means existing matter, a wide interpretation.
The creation of the woman from Adam's side was not a mechanical operation.
In 1869 Xoule had committed himself to Cuvier's theory of multiple floods but this hypothesis had fallen out of favour by 1899 as an adjunct to the theory of a geological "gap" in Gen. 1: 2 and Xoule does not reiterate it here. '
Litton takes a similar line. He considers whether Genesis 1: 1 may refer to the chaos caused by the creation and then the revolt of the
He the duration the "day", angels .2 speculates concerning of neither committing himself to nor ruling out Xiller's theory of "day-periods" which had grown in popularity by 1882 when Litton wrote.
'see p. 64. 2E. A. Litton, Introduction to Dogmatic Theology-, (London: J. Clarke; new ed., 1960), p. 110. 208
Like Xoule Litton regards chapters one and two as referring to the
same event of the creation of man. Chapter one describes man in his
ethical and cosmic aspects. Chapter two supplies the material details
about him.
The precise chronology of when man was created is regarded by
Litton as of little moment. ' The accuracy of Biblical chronology would be
thrown into question, but Litton suggests that only the way in which that chronology is currently interpreted would be threatened.
However Litton, like xoule is strongly insistent on retaining a belief in mankind's origins in a single pair. Other statements of the Old.
Testament such as Gen. 9: 19 are wrong if this is denied, Paul is mistaken to call all men of one blood (Acts 17: 26), the doctrine of original sin is made difficult and the restitution of all men by the one man, Jesus, is rendered insignificant 2
Garbett, writing near the beginning of the period, thought that the book of Genesis should be read with reference to its original purpose, which was the religious one of informing the generation of the Exodus about
fall The the book-did the covenant and the .3 opening chapters of not give a scientific account. A scientific account would have been unintelligible to the ancient Hebrews, it would have been philosophically foreign, and it would have destroyed the primacy of spiritual truth above other kinds of truth which the Bible affirms.
On the other hand Garbett rejected totally the idea of scientific
I Ibid., p. 111. 2Ibid., p. 112. 3E. Garbett, The Divine Plan of Revelation. being the Boyle Lectures for 1863, (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co. ), Lecture IV. 209
error in Genesis. Neither in its teaching on the creation, on the antiquity
of man, on the descent of the human race from one pair, or on the flood
have mistakes been proved, Garbett opined.
Birks in The Bible and Modern Thought mentions the various methods
of reconciling the Genesis account of man's creation in Eden six or seven
thousand years ago at the end of six days of creation with the long series
of changes which the earth went through before man's presence, and the
distinct flora and fauna of these eras. ' Miller, MacCausland, and Macdonald
espouse the day-period theory. Pye Smith restricts the narrative to local
change in central Asia. But Birks holds to the older theory of Chalmers,
Buckland, Sedgwick, Kurtz, and Pratt, that the days are literal and that the ages of geology are passed over silently in the second verse. This is the
"gap" theory discussed in chapters one and two. Opposition to Essays and
Reviews being the main purpose of this volume, Birks set out to show the validity of this view against the objections in the Fifth Essay.
Firstly Birks maintained that the Genesis account, though consisting of a view of how things appeared to an observer, and this was held by both those propounding the day-period and the "gap" theory, was able to give factual information, and not merely an account of passing phenomena. 2
Secondly he argued that this optical or observer-centred view of the
Bible did not confuse the reality of what happened. It did not turn what it said into a riddle.
Rather, Birks maintained, the creation account must needs be described as it would appear to a terrestrial observer. This was because ------
'T. R. Birks, The Bible and Modern Thought, (London: the Religious Tract Society, 1861), p. 298. 2lbid., pp. 300-302. 210 this was the viewpoint of daily life, because it is the way in which all scientific observations are made, because historians used such a method, and because the rest of the Bible is written in this idiom. ' A total eclipse is an event of importance, though it only has significance from the observer's point of view .2
Birks saw no difficulty relating to the mention of the heavens in verse 2 of Genesis 1, when on his theory, there was no sky as such.
However he regards this as referring to the upper heavens of the stars and not the lower heavens of the clouds .3
Was there a geological gap between the Tertiary and Human periods such as the advocates of the "gap" theory of Gen. 1: 2 maintained, and did this make sense of the Hebrew? Xiller thought that there was not such a gap in fossil evidence. However Birks quotes the fossil geologist
D'Orbigny, also referred to by Pratt, as has been seen in chapter one, as showing little continuity of species between the two eras. Birks' reliance on one partial and not totally reliable school of science is unfortunate here.
Those who follow Miller's deductions in this, drawn from similarities in only eight species are, Birks claims, on dubious grounds.
He states, 'A11 that is true and beautiful in Hugh Xiller's writings is cast aside; and a solitary error, since disproved by the evidence of thirty eras and twenty thousand species, is stolen from him and dipped in poison, that it may inflict a deadly wound on the faith which was dearest to his heart "4
'Ibid., p. 302. 2Ibid., p. 304. 'Ibid., p. 306. 4Ibid., p. 309. 211
There was, Birks insists, a breaking through of light over- the whole surface of the globe after the period of darkness following the convulsion at the end of the Tertiary period, the wrapping of the planet in a sea of vapour while Alps and Andes were formed. This bursting forth cannot be described as mere verbiage, and as insignificant compared to the actual formation of light emitting objects in other theories. It was the reversal of gloomy darkness, and as such, from the point of view of the observer, was a veritable creation. '
The Genesis account is, so Birks maintains, anthropocentric and thus any long treatment of geological history would be out of place. This accounts for the absence of such. Birks also adopts the theory of convulsions as taught by Dr Lardner, following Xurchison and, again,
D'Orbigny. There were supposed to be at least twenty eight successive convulsions during which all animal and plant life on the globe perished.
The last took place at the end of the Tertiary period.
The creation of seasons, days and years on the fourth day refers. therefore, to their creation for man, not to their continued existence for previous ages and their plants and animals.
Birks also considered the meaning of the word "firmament" and concluded that it need not mean a sold vault. There is, he thought, room for metaphor and poetry in writing of "windows" in heaven. The firmament is not interpreted grossly or materially in scripture.
Birks therefore concludes that "The relation, then between the latest conclusions of modern science, and the Bible history of creation, is one of independent truth, but of perfect harmony. 02
'Ibid., pp. 309-10. 2Ibid., p. 316. 212
Comparing Birks and Garbett, at the beginning of the period with
Xoule and Litton at the end of it, what can be noticed? Firstly the the later writers are more reluctant to commit themselves to a particular scientific theory. Birks was so closely committed to D'Orbigny's convulsion hypothesis that its falling into disfavour taught this lesson to
Evangelicals. It had never been maintained by Evangelicals that Genesis was primarily a scientific textbook; later theologians increasingly taught that there was little scientific information in the book. Birks had taught that, although anthropocentric and observer-based, the account was scientific.
Secondly there was increasing recognition of the pictorial and symbolic element in these creation narratives. Birks had admitted such in descriptions of the firmament. Noule applied this much more extensively to the details of the story of the garden of Eden. Yet Evangelicals continued to uphold the factuality of much in the narratives. Xoule was interested in geographical theories about where Eden was.
Thirdly, there was an increase in the attractiveness of Xiller's
"day-period" theory, as opposed to Chalmers' "gap-theory". Birks maintained the latter, and was virulent in his opposition to the former. Yet in twenty years time, Litton, although committing himself to neither, pronounced the former as a possibility. Other Evangelicals were more keen than he on the theory of Xiller. This was a considerable change in Evangelical opinion.
Fourthly there was considerable latitude and liberalism in all but a few circles towards these issues by the end of the century. Ahead in the early years of the next century lay controversy and division between liberals and fundamentalists on these key matters. Yet the combination of 213
breadth and yet keen controversy of late Victorian Evangelicalism on this
matter was a unique one.
5.3 Evolution
Evangelicals' views on evolutionary theory continued to develop as
the century progressed. The objections to Darwin raised by Pratt have
already been discussed in chapter one and the more favourable responses to
evolution by Lloyd and Xacnamara, arguing that evolution was a law of
nature, charted in chapter two.
Litton is much more conservative, however, in his view of what he
describes as evolutionism. ' He is reluctant to comment on a matter of
natural philosophy. The theory, however, has not, he claims, gained
universal acceptance among biologists. He is sceptical about the capacity
of one species to transmutate into another. Attempts to combine species
frequently lead to sterility.
The theory is inconsistent with scripture, Litton maintains.
Everything has been made by the Lord in fixed kind (Gen. 1: 24-5). Yet
Darwinism leaves no room for God's personal agency beyond the creation of
matter. Scripture too distinguishes between man and the animals because
man possesses the image of God and can know him. By evolution, there is a
difference only of degree and the religious faculty of man is an accidental
quality?
Koule maintains that it cannot, by observed phenomena alone, be
proved that man is not a "new departure". Even if further evidence is produced by future science, that man is not as different from the most
'Litton, Dogmatic Theology, p. 113. 2Ibid. 214 nearly related beasts, the uniqueness of man cannot be disproved. ' and Scripture asserts that there is a plan progression in Nature. Xan is of the sane matter as the animals and moulded in the same way. But there- is a new departure with the creation of man, not dislocating God's design, but breaking a merely material continuity.
No discoveries in material nature can disprove this. Early human skulls are different and more highly developed than anthropoid skulls. Man is to be found everywhere with a unique capacity for loving and obeying
God. That constitutes a gulf between him and the lower animals.
Xoule takes exception to the tendency in evolutionary theory to explain the universe by matter and impersonal force. Scientific observation has its own physical criteria of verification. But philosophical theory about the nature and origin of things is on open ground and can be' challenged on non-observational grounds.
Xoule takes up Birks' point, mentioned in chapter one, that
"evolution" means etymologically an unrolling, rather than a progress.
There is a progress within God's plan in his eternal Xind, and scripture tells an evolutionary tale. Here Xoule is strongly influenced by Victorian progressive theory. Yet Xoule denies that all organic life can be unrolled from primary inorganic matter without'an eternal Xind to order it.
Scripture excludes such a possibility. Still less 'can nature evolve in this fashion to produce man by multitudinous insensible variations.
Scripture's teaching on the antiquity of man should be treated with caution. Yet it teaches that man is quite recent, compared with the origins of nature. J. Y. Dawson the biologist has recently stated that man's origins
'Noule, Christian Doctrine, pp. 154-5 215 are only seven or eight thousand years ago. Dawson holds to a general but not a universal deluge within the human period. The unity of mankind as taught in scripture seems to be maintained by recent studies in man's genesis, arguing against many centres of origin.
Thus comparing Xoule with Pratt and Birks twenty years before he wrote, Moule is less keen to engage in detailed scientific discussion on technical issues, basing his position on theological precepts. He takes the finding of the assured results of science most favourable to his position and interprets this in a way broadly consonant with a partially symbolic reading of Genesis. Litton's approach is more conservative, seeing in some elements of the biblical account, notably the teaching of "kinds" an absolute bar to evolutionary theory.
Neither of these writers embrace evolution with the enthusiasm of
Lloyd Xacnamara. Yet the the is and spirit of old antagonise gone, , especially for Xoule. There has been a retreat from forward positions and the line is held at few points only such as a spiritually distinct 'a creation of man.
The immediate and controversial objections to Spencer's philosophy by Birks have already been discussed in chapter one, especially in the book
The Scripture Doctrine of Creation. Here is the place for a more detailed consideration of Birks' position, especially as expressed in Modern Physical
Fatalism. Spencer's writings were widely disseminated although their quality was variable so it is crucial to establish how effective putting Evangelicals were in forward their opposing theological and 216
philosophical views against him. ' Birks was undoubtedly a philosopher of a
high order, and his work is one of the most impressive monuments to late
Victorian Evangelical thought. -
Firstly it may be asked what other Evangelicals perceived as the main challenges to Christian thought from the philosophy of the age. In
The Anatomy of Scepticism of 1863, a work based on papers printed in the
Christian Advocate of 1862, R.B. Girdlestone offers an introductory
Several his have bearing assessment .2 of points a on evolutionary philosophy. He condemns a tendency to merge the individual into the race,
Christianity Emerson and thus do away with the essential need of .3 is quoted with disfavour here, and his error is the denial of the existence of
Providence and a personal Ruler of the world. Birks concurred with
Girdlestone here and held to the existence of a plan in nature, expressed in his case in Vhewell's theory of vitalism, the existence of a self-ordering life-force within each living creature. Moore mentions Birks' following of
Vhewell's conceptual realism and the physical/vital phenomena distinction
Secondly Girdlestone condemns the growth of Subjective Philosophy, which throws confusion on religious teaching. This is a product of Kant's thought, Girdlestone argues. Truth is what man troweth, and some doubt any
Birks too attack real objective existence .6 assails any on the reality of matter'. He is a simple Lockfan natural realist, and rejects Berkeley,
Hume, Kant, and Mill here. Both noumenon and phenomenon express realities
'J. C. Greene, "Biology and Social theory in the 19th Century - Auguste Comte and Herbert Spencer", Science Ideology and World View, (California: University of California Press), pp. 60-94 2R.B. Girdlestone, The Anatomy of Sce 1cism, (London: Villiam Hunt, 1863). 'Ibid., p. 44. °J. R. Moore, The Post-Darwinian Controversies, pp. 201-2 Slbid., pp. 41-3. 6Birks, Modern Physical Fatalism, pp. 124 ff. 217
but a first principle is that human beings are real persons, living in a
real world of material objects.
Thirdly revelation is unnecessary. It has already been seen in
chapter one that one of'Birks' -main criticisms of Spencer is his rejection
of revelation. Girdlestone condemns even Butler here.. -Reason and faith are
seen as at enmity, and the philosopher-is dissatisfied with the language in
which scripture expresses divine things. Yet-the divine lies beyond
philosophical grasp so revelation is necessary to make it known. Birks concurred that the unknown could be known in part. Girdlestone makes use of Mansel here, as Birks does, though both criticise bim for his doctrine of the unknowability of God and the self-contradiction of his attributes of infinity and absoluteness. ' Thus Girdlestone shows that he is well aware of the trends in modern secular philosophy which have to be combated by those asserting the primacy of Christian revelation.
Birks' Modern Physical Fatalism was based on lectures Birks gave as
Knightbridge Professor of Xoral Philosophy at Cambridge in 1876. Birks' lecturing style here has a clarity which often eluded him in his written
English. Birks attacked Spencer for his exposition of the nature and
Evolution This based the three supposed laws of .2 was on erroneous principles that matter is indestructible, motion continuous, and force persistent. In condemning-the theory that matter is indestructible, Birks does not mean that physical matter does not survive the destruction of its form. Rather he attacks the theory that "matter is self-existent and eternal by a -necessity of human thought; that the idea of its creation or annihilation, or of any part of it, is pseudo-thinking, and not real thought,
'Ibid. p. 38. 2Birks, ändern Physical Fatalism, 242 ff. 218
being an essential contradiction. "'
This theory includes the implication that God himself cannot create
and cannot destroy a single atom of natural creation. Yet Birks finds that
this contradicts the principle of Spencer's thought, that God is unknowable,
and also that the substance of real matter is unknowable. Only the
relative reality of matter is knowable, according to Spencer. This is
phenomenal matter and Birks sees a contradiction in this because it appears
and disappears as sensible appearances2. Boumenal matter is permanent and
indestructible. That only can be securely known.
Birks sees to the heart of a difficulty for agnosticism here. If
the most basic elements of God, and also matter is its essential aspect, are unknowable, not merely by fact, but by principle, how can anything be securely known? There is a slide into a logically self-contradictory
Pyrrhonism.
Birks attacks the indestructibility of matter as a logical second- order truth, rather than a truth of perception. It is not an a priori doctrine, but an inductive one. And yet an inductive observation cannot lead to an a priori principle. Observing that the Senate House is situated in a certain place in Cambridge ten thousand times does not prove its indestructibility.
Spencer also affirms the incompressibility of matter. This principle, Birks maintains, contradicts the doctrine of the Unknowable. If pieces of matter can be counted and its quantity estimated, its true nature must be known. Spencer has denied this.
Spencer argues from the nature of thought that the disappearance of
Ibid., p. 131. 2Ibid., p. 135. 219
matter cannot be conceived. Thought presupposes a relation between thought
and object, and this cannot pertain when no object exists, it having
disappeared.
This proves too much, according to Birks. It would make it
impossible to know the beginning or end of anything. All is eternal,
including transitory sensations, and this is an a priori law.
Birks concludes that Spencer and Hamilton teach that both theists
and atheists are guilty of pseudo-thinking. It is rather Spencer and
Hamilton who are guilty of this, he maintains, because they refuse to accept
the basic conception of thought lying behind perception, that anything can
either have a beginning in existence, or cease to be. '
The second of Spencer's allegedly erroneous principles which Birks
attacks, is that motion is continuous. Spencer bases his theory on
Newton's first law of motion, that a moving body, not influenced by external
forces, will remain at rest, or move on uniformly in a straight line. But
aK this law is, according to Newton, based on observation.
Spencer rather elevates the continuity, of motion to another of his A. priori principles2. We cannot, he holds, conceive anything that now moves to stop moving, or anything now at rest to begin to move. On scientific grounds Birks challenges the idea of a constant quantity of notion, poured like a liquid into moving bodies. It is only constant when potential
is there is here Spencer energy constant, and always a variation .3 rather makes motion not a relation but a substance in itself. Newton argued for
' Ibid.,, p. 149. 2Ibid., p. 151. 'Ibid., p. 153. 220
a continual decay in momentum, against Spencer.
Lastly Birks challenged Spencer's theory of the conservation of
force. Spencer wrote of an absolute force as a correlate of the force
known by observation. He uses the term "persistence" rather than
"conservation" to eliminate the implication of a preserver. This theory is
open to the same objections as the indestructibility of matter, because this absolute force is a priori and transcends experience. But Birks maintains that equality of action and reaction is an a post eriori experimental truth, arrived at by experiment by Newton.
Birks concludes his objections to Spencer's principles by asserting that science needs to concern itself with Real Being and that it implies a
Real Author and an Absolute Being as Creator.
Birks also attacks, as has been seen, on purely philosophical grounds the theory of the relativity of knowledge taught by Hamilton,
Spencer and Xili, that there is no real perception of objects, but only an apprehension of their sensations. This "common sense" philosophy, elaborated by Birks is a notable nineteenth century counter-tradition to the blend of idealist philosophy and rationalist science so characteristic of the age. It has roots in Locke and the late seventeenth and eighteenth century thinkers who were important to many Evangelicals. Birks rejects the view that reality is simply a persistence in consciousness. Birke comments: "So that this ripest effort to remedy the illusiveness of metaphysics consists in affirming that things are nothing else than continued thinking, with no object of thought, and that Reality means only persistent non-reality. "'
' Ibid., p. 73. 221
Birks set himself against Spencer's theories on choice and will in physical laws. Spencerianism was a form of necessitarianism. Birks denied that particle "there was any necessity that any should act on all or at any distance"'. The existence of ether as well as matter gave substances which could not act on each other in a determinist fashion. Here Birks is on doubtful ground, trapped in an obsolete scientific world view, yet twentieth century quantum physics has elevated indeterminacy over determinism. Birks suggests that the law of Gravitation cannot be ascribed to necessity - other alternatives laws are possible. God chose to make this law operative.
By the three principles that Birks holds erroneous, Spencer formulates the theory of evolution, of a translation of matter to a more condensed and perceptible form, to a more diversified and heterogeneous character, and to an integration of matter and a dissipation of motion. to The last element does not marry well with the first two, according
Birks. 2
Evolution is a cooling, as defined by Spencer. But Birks holds that matter may condense and expand at the same time. Spencer makes all energy, potential and kinetic, decline together. But the one may increase and the other decrease where there is condensation. This Birks holds to be a fatal error. Birks argues that increased heterogeneity is exaggerated by
Spencer because primitive organisms are more unlike each other than is immediately apparent. Life has, contrary to Spencer, active vital power, and individuality of being. Life is not merely mechanical 3
' Ibid., p. 222. 2Ibid., p. 250. 3lbid., p. 285. 222
Natural selection is criticised by Birks as being based on insufficient observation to become a universal theory and the main mechanism for evolution. Natural selection, Birke submits, cannot explain changes in creatures other than those which contribute to increased healthiness. It does not take into account regressive developments, cannot explain an increase in the number of species, or the co-existence. of inferior and superior species. It could result in a descent to lower as in an ascent to higher, forms of life. '
These criticisms of evolutionary theory, which parallel in some. cases the charges of Pratt mentioned in chapter one, are less persuasive than other parts of Birks' arguement. He is more effective when criticisug the philosophical than the biological parts of Spencer's philosophy., His unwillingness to accommodate any even limited role in natural selection is less impressive than his rejection of it as a mechanism to explain all change in species. Birks' basis for rebuttal of Spencer is not a biblical one, not a biological one, in the main, but a purely philosophical one, and as such it is characteristic of nineteenth rather than twentieth century
Evangelical response in this area. His general rejection of some typically
Victorian philosophical accretions to a more universally acceptable biological theory is one which may have more appeal than many of his arguments, dictated as they are by the principles of essentially eighteenth century science.
So as a result of the considerations in section 5.2 of this chapter, what contrasts are there between Evangelical theology in the earlier and
I Ibid., p. 307. 223
the later parts of the period on the subject of creation? The existing
scholarly consensus would suggest that most Church of England Evangelicals
continued to be conservative until the end of the century. However a
marked contrast can be observed between Garbett and Birks' conservatism in
the early part of the period, and Xoule and Litton's broader position at the
end of the century. Vas there a change in verdicts on Miller's "day-period"
theory? Birks rejected Miller's ideas. But Xoule and Litton argued in
favour of this theory. Motile went further than Litton and contended for
pictorial elements in the story and against a literalism. In 5.3, on the
subject of evolution, Xoule showed a considerable slackening of rigidity,
compared to Pratt and Birks.
Birks' work in attacking evolutionary philosophy is impressive, as analysed in 5.4. Vhat was his position on eighteenth versus nineteenth century philosophy? He is a Lockian natural realist and rejects any
idealist philosophy. He rejects Mansel's theory of the unknowability of
God, although this had been adopted by some Evangelicals. Birks' rebuttal of Spencer is grounded in a good knowledge of Newtonian science and'based on great facility of philosophy. His adherence to vitalism is a weakness, but he is persuasive in arguing against Spencer's theory of blind progress, and his purposive view of nature. CHAPTER VI
SCRIPTURE
6.1 Introduction
At the time in the late fifties and early sixties when doubt began
to be thrown on the truth of scripture by Darwin, Colenso and the authors
of Essays and Reviews, the Evangelicals were well pleased to have a group
of biblical scholars who were capable and learned. It is true that Birks'
contributions in this field were mixed in quality, as he wrote books like
The Exodus of Israel: its Difficulties examined and its Truth confirmed
(1863) and The Pentateuch and its Anatomists (1869), both directed against
Colenso, and The Bible and Modern Thought (1861). But he was aided in his
defence of the Book by able figures like Payne Smith, Regius Professor of
Divinity at Oxford and then Dean of Canterbury and Alexander X'Caul the
Hebraist. C. A. Heurtley and Edward Garbett also wrote and spoke, as we noted in the outline of chapter 2. R. C. Trench composed counterblasts to
Vellhausen and Driver.
In the latter part of the period, H. C. G. Xoule's writings are important. They show an acceptance of some of the less radical proposals 225
of biblical criticism, and a willingness to recognise the distinctiveness of
biblical culture and to accept a theory of different literary genres. Xoule
however maintained the traditional Evangelical high doctrine of the
inspiration of scripture and he is said to have saved many conservatives
from going over to the liberal side. He commented that new Scriptural criticism must be sifted and not merely censured". ' His non-literalist exegesis of Genesis 1-3 has already been mentioned and he also sought the excision of the maledictory passages in the psalms in common worship. He wrote extensively on scripture and his expository and devotional commentaries on the Pauline epistles in particular were highly influential. -
Evangelical interpretation of scripture during the period was forced to adjust to a rapidly developing scholarly scene. The growth of higher criticism and a new scientific approach led Evangelicals to respond to these wide-ranging and subtle developments. There were changes also in the theology of inspiration and the grounds for accepting scripture as the Vord of God. The seeds of a stricter and of a looser view of infallibility can be charted.
In 6.2 doctrines of inspiration will be considered. The question will be considered: were the Evangelicals infallibilists? Vas there disagreement between those who held to verbal, to plenary and to dynamic theories of inspiration? In 6.3 exegesis will be investigated. How conservative were Evangelicals on matters of interpretation? Does their scholarship have any abiding worth?
'H. C. G. Xoule, The Evangelical School in the Church of England. Its men and its work in the nineteenth century, (London: Nisbet, 1901), p. 116. 226
One extreme of the Evangelical response can be seen in the work of
J. J. Lias, whose theories of the atonement will also be considered in the next chapter. Vellings describes him as a "conservative"' but this is not how he seems in this analysis. His position was that of a liberal Evangelical; in his work can be seen the beginnings of the movement which would lead to a fully fledged school of liberal Evangelicalism after the turn of the century. Rather Lias was in favour of a positive response to the new scholarship. He wrote The most fearless criticism, if sober and relevant, is calculated on the whole to create a higher type of character than can ever be produced by absolute submission to authority "2
'X. Vellings 'Aspects of late nineteenth century Anglican Evangelicalism: the response to ritualism, Darwinism, and theological liberalism", (Ph. D. dissertation, University of Oxford, 1989), p. 258 2J. J. Lias, Principles of Biblical Criticism, (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1893), p. 2. 227
Firstly what did Evangelicals perceive as the grounds for accepting
scripture as the Vord of God? Lias approaches questions of canonicity in a distinctive fashion. He denies to the Bible the central role in revelation
respresented by the Koran to Xuslims. The fact that Christ wrote nothing
impresses him. Lias, as a, true Protestant denies that the church, in. any age is infallible, a notion which has no support from scripture. Lias mentions the process as doubtful by which the canon was approved. But he does set out grounds for accepting the canon. Firstly there is internal evidence, the Bible's teaching about God and its lofty morality. Secondly there is an external consensus of authority. The church is witness and keeper but Scripture is received not on church authority alone but on the authority of Christ.
Edward Garbett dealt with this issue also in his Boyle lectures for
1863, The Divine Plan of Revelation. His arguments against higher criticism of the Bible have been observed already in his 1861 lectures The Bible and its Critics.. Garbett advances an interesting additional argument for the canonicity of the Bible. He traces evidences of design in the writing of the Bible. The unity of the Bible can be shown. If this unity is, proved, it must be the product of the mind, of God. Arguing from final causes he deduces a Divine author. There is a plan implied in the teaching of
Scripture on the personality of God.. Perhaps Garbett lapses into circularity here. He goes on to argue that Scripture, states this plan and the scattered nature of the exposition of the plan throughout scripture suggests a divine and not a human intention. '
'E. Garbett, The Divine Plan of Revelation being the Boyle lectures for 1861. (London: Seeley and Griffiths, 1861). Lecture I 228
Litton is much less sceptical than Lias about the historical process by which the canon was recognised. He states that there was a general agreement about which books were to be accounted canonical. ' However he agrees with Lias about the difficulty of determining exactly when this took place. The lack of unanimity of reception of Hebrews, James, Jude and
Revelation only adds weight to the judgement of the early church where this
Litton Lias in the determining was unanimous .2 concurs with rejecting authority of the church for canonicity as Roman. The church does not receive scripture, in a sense. It is the individual only, who has been converted and accepts the Vord because of the personal experience of hearing the Holy Spirit through it. This is a product of an Evangelical doctrine of conversion but it also, and less helpfully, betrays a tendency towards Victorian individualism.
However the witness of the church to canonicity does lend authority to a book, especially since the Apostolic church was spiritually perceptive.
The epistle to the Hebrews, lacking a record of its author, was recognised by this means. Internal and external evidence both play a part in accrediting particular volumes.
Birks regards the testimony of Jesus regarding the inspiration of the Old Vith Testament as its crucial accreditation .3 regard to the sew
Testament, the analogy of the Old is important. There is a threefold division in the New Testament, as the Old, between the history of Gospels and Acts, the doctrine and practice of the epistles, and one book of
'Litton, Dogmatic Theology, p. 11. 2Ibid., p. 12. 3T. R. Birke, The Bible And Modern Thought, (London: The Religious Tract Society), p. 205. 229 prophecy, Revelation. The promises to the apostles of the Spirit and the respectful references to New Testament writings in the testament itself, e. g. in 2 Pet. 3: 15 also support the canon as we have it. '
Secondly what did Evangelicals teach regarding the inspiration of
Holy Scripture? For Birks in his The Bible and Modern Thought, "the reception of the whole Bible as inspired and authoritative, is a corollary of Christian faith. It holds the first place among the subsidiary doctrines of the Gospel. 02 Yet Birks, like many other non-Recordite Evangelicals held view which fell short of plenary or verbal inspiration. Birks stated that inspiration was not mechanical. He wrote "there is a mechanical view of
Bible inspiration, which shuts out and practically denies, the human element in its composition. It reduces the whole process, so mysterious, and possibly so various in its nature, by which the Spirit of God overruled nad guided the sacred penmen, to one dull monotony of mere verbal dictation "3
He admitted' that "slight errors of transmission and translation may intrude, and have intruded, without destroying its authority and inspiration, or detracting in any perceptible degree from its practical worth. * Bebbington has charted the growth of this doctrine in the 1840s and early 1850s under the influence of Louis Gaussen's Theonneustia 6
Yet Birks rejected any doctrine of partial Inspiration. This
' Ibid., pp. 223-39. 2Ibid., p. 189. -"Ibid., p. 249. i Ibid. SBebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain, p. 88-91 6Birks, The Bible and Modern Thought, p. 266. 230
theory was that the substance only of the thought was divine but the
details, phrases, form and historical circumstances were human and subject
to error. Birks argued that this view robbed of any force the appeal of
Jesus and the Apostles to the written word of scripture. How could the purity and permanence of the Vord be maintained by such an arrangement?
Error would be accepted with the Vord alongside truth, and receive more credence by this juxtaposition.
Lias laments the paucity of theological works on inspiration, mentioning only Dr Lee's Lectures on Inspiration of 1854. However even it is inadequate, Lias maintains, because "like a great many books written on what is called the orthodox side of the question, it frequently takes too much for granted"' Regarding Essays and Reviews the Court of Appeal has, for Lias, affirmed the compatibility of the more liberal sentiments contained in that volume with the formularies of the Church of England.
For Lias the extent of divine guidance in the writing of scripture is a legitimate subject of inquiry. He defines inspiration as divine guidance and states that it consists in a communication dictated by God and general guidance imparting teaching calculated to "make men wise unto salvation"2. The mechanical theory has never been popular among theologians. But it is popular with the popular mind. Any theory which sees the biblical authors as mere passive machine-writers is derogatory to
Christ, since it places the transmission of unimportant facts at the same level as salvation through Jesus. It is also unreasonable. Ve can learn biblical facts without the aid of scripture. ------
'Lias, Principles, p. 31. 2Ibid., ch. 3. 231
Lias states that in the Bible there are "occasional errors on points
of detail not closely connected with its sacred message. * His theory of
inspiration is dynamical - its form is determined by the particular writer.
It is also"non-verbal. Inspiration should mean only the divine origin of
scripture, its general accuracy, its accuracy of-prophecy, and its guiding
of spiritual aspirations. Lias rejects the theory of Schleiermacher that
scripture does not reveal but awakens man's religious consciousness. -'Lias
quotes Vestcott - "inspiration is a direct intelligible communication of the
Divine will to chosen messengers" - but what of the form of writing? And
does Scripture only contain communication of the Divine will? Religious
truth is communicated. Jesus did not formulate a definite theory of
inspiration.
The Fathers, Lias submits, treated scripture as infallible. However the "new learning" men of sixteenth century humanism wanted to move away from this. The reformers' commitment to Scripture came from their scholastic interest, and only the Vestminster confession commits itself to infallibility. The popular doctrine'of infallibility became negative rather than positive and scripture was worshipped for itself rather than seen-as-, a testimony to Christ.
For Garbett, certain human characteristics, of scripture were necessitated by the finitude and fallen nature of the creature. ' The- revelation to each age within the history of God's purpose must be intelligible to that generation yet it also fits into God's overall revelation. The eternal truths themselves are perfect, but the human
'Garbett, Divine Plan. Lecture III. 232
representation of them is imperfect; and it is no wonder that, in this
imperfect representation, the ingenuity of human unbelief should find
occasions for cavil, not that the sincere mind should sometimes find it
difficult to square with the ordinary modes of human thought these partial
This issues in glimpses of Divine realities ." a probation of faith.
Garbett can even partially echo Temple in writing of a progressive moral education to which he has submitted mankind. However for Garbett, this does not lead him to discard any portion of the earlier part of revelation.
Aot only spiritual but scientific error is fatal to any theory of divine inspiration and therefore to be totally rejected, in Garbett's opinion. There are none of the alleged divergences of tone and spirit between the two Testaments. Rather the character the God revealed there is one and identical. There is a difference of circumstance between the mode by which God revealed himself to the Jewish Old Testament people and the
New Testament church.
For Xoule too the Bible is revealed to human beings in the midst of development. "Christianity assumes and claims the facts of general developed human consciousness, as part of its evidence, and as necessary to a full estimate of its doctrines "2 Xoule gives an extensive catena from the Fathers showing how they understood inspiration. They held that the writers of scripture were vehicles of the Holy Spirit. This was shown by the fulfilment of their prophecies. They were "inundated" with the Holy
Spirit. Their writings can be termed those of God.
Ibid., p. 129. 2Xoule, Outlines of Christian Doctrine, (London: Hodder, 1899), p. 2. 233
It is quite legitimate to trace the individuality of each'of the
writers. But out of these individualities the Inspirer fulfils his overall
intention. ' Fabricated pseudonymous writings could because their - not, of moral failing, be truly inspired.
Litton regards plenary inspiration, which term he prefers to
"verbal", as assumed, though not directly affirmed in the formularies.
Litton regarded the nub of the issue as whether the authors were given'
something more than a general endowment of inspiration appropriate to their
status as e. g. apostles. He describes an older theory of plenary
inspiration, that the writers were passive organs or amanuenses. This
theory is however, he states, inadequate. The writings are too peculiarly
coloured by their authors to admit of this 2 The mode of union between the
Vord of God and the word of man is not fully known.
For Litton, there is no obscurity in scripture regarding'its saving
doctrines and moral teaching He quotes here Article VI. He is maintaining
that scripture is a viable rule of faith against Ronan Catholic and
Tractarian objections, carrying on the work in this area of Villian Goode'.
Scripture interprets itself and because of its multiplicity of
authorship and its inspiration, books have their inadequacies supplied by
other books. This is the Holy Spirit himself supplying a commentary, for
example, on Leviticus from the Epistle to the Hebrews
Thus it can be seen that there are both common points and
divergencies in the Evangelical understanding of the doctrine of
'Ibid., p. 141. 2Litton. Dogmatic Theology, p. 20-21. 'Ibid., p. 22. 4 Ibid., p. 25. 234
inspiration. Garbett, writing early in the period is the most conservative.
He affirms every sort of scientific accuracy in scripture. However the
notion of a progressive revelation is gently introduced in Xoule, though
without suggesting error in the early stages. Birks rejects mechanical
inspiration while Lias goes further and accepts the presence of minor
factual error. Litton in something of a neo-conservative in this respect
and endorses a tighter doctrine of plenary inspiration, though like others
he rejects a passive dictation theory. In their understanding of the
development of the doctrine in the history of the church, Lias holds that
the reformers were not supporters of plenary inspiration, but Litton, Lias,
and Xoule all acknowledge the high teaching on inspiration of the fathers.
Vhat view did Evangelicals take of the exegesis of the Old
Testament? Girdlestone held that there was some room for conjectural emendation in the text' thus distancing himself from the view of the extreme verbal inspirationists that the true text was to be found in either one of the manuscripts or even the received text.
The exegesis of the early chapters of Genesis has been dealt with in chapters one and five. Lias reviews the history of Old Testament Criticism in short. He is aware of the importance of Eichhorn's Introduction of 1780.
Vellhausen is recognised as the most significant modern figure, but Lias strongly criticises his work. His theory is full of presuppositions. His criticism of some of the prophets is "destructive"2 Lias regards himself as an English commentator distancing himself from continental developments which may have limited relevance to the insular scene. He
'&. B. Girdlestone, The Foundations of the Bible, London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1892), ch. X%VII. 2Lias, Principles. p. 77. 235 comments:, *Criticism, though it cannot destroy, may do a good deal to lower the credit of Holy Scripture". ' Lias regards Jonah as a historical personage from 2 Kings, 14: 25, round whom accretions have gathered, including details in the prophet's book. Jesus' reference to Jonah "though it should preclude all contemptuous, rejection of the book or its contents, does not commit Him to the actual historical accuracy of all the details of the narrative w2
Girdlestone's position is more conservative, though Lias mentions in the preface to his book Canon Girdlestone "to whom all, the sheets have been submitted. " He reviews Kuenen and Vellhausen with disfavour. At the same time he cannot necessarily support any claim concerning the Pentateuch that
Roses is the author. He prefers the more moderate critic Delitzsch.
Girdlestone's general principles of Old Testament criticism are to argue for the traditional and prima facie age and authorship of the books as a whole.
He comments as. follows: "It is quite clear that Christian students are not all of one mind on the matter. " It is a "charitable and rational hypothesis that the writers of a series of religious books, which have come to us on the highest to be trusted; that their for authority, are words call .a careful and not unfavourable construction; that the historical, and, literary foundations on which they stand should be fully estimated apart from the question of their supernatural contents; that their language and contents should nevertheless be studied together; and that linguistic and literary difficulties should be viewed in the light of the age and the circumstances of the writers N3
'Ibid., p. 78. 2Ibid., p. 80. 3Girdlestone, Foundations, p. 8. 236
Birks regarded the attacks on the Pentateuch as serious. It was an
easier target for sceptics, he considered, than the Gospels, being more
remote in history and seemingly less central to the Christian faith. ' He applauded the archaeological discoveries from Mesopotamia for shedding
light on later Old Testament history, but he was sceptical about the value
of Egyptian parallels for the earlier period, although here too the veracity of the. Bible record was confirmed, by many discoveries. Nevertheless some have been led to, reject Genesis as unhistorical and embrace instead conjectures about Egyptian civilisation, whose details are not well known because of-their great antiquity.
Garbett can lecture in 1863 on the history of the Old Testament period with very little reference to the new scholarly theories of the genesis of its books. Rather he recounts a traditional sequence of events
For Garbett is with no reference to revisionist chronology .2 what most striking about the Old Testament is its unity of design, although it was written by different men in very different periods. Also the Bible is indissolubly connected throughout, so that no book could be omitted without
The that the Pentateuch making the record unintelligible .3 notion could have been written by Samuel is examined by Garbett, as a specimen of the kind of radical hypothesis which breaks the unity and sequence of the writings of the Old Testament, and is shown to be untenable. The unity of
Scripture makes any distinction between the religious and the secular portion of scripture unsatisfactory. Likewise the supernatural sections cannot be disregarded.
' Ibid., pp. 83-4. ZGarbett, Divine Plan, Lectures V, VI. 3lbid., Lecture VIII 237
Dating from the same year as Garbett's lectures is Birks' rejoinder
to Colenso, The Exodus of Israel. ' The more controversial writings of the
papers and, journals against Colenso including that by Alexander XcCaul have"
been discussed in"chapter one, but Birks' work is a positive contribution to
scholarship in its own right and merits consideration here.
It is remarkable that Birks made gifted contributions to no less
than three of the fields discussed here - the After-life, evolution and
evolutionary philosophy, and biblical studies. Birks' combination of
philosophical' and linguistic skills are nowhere better in evidence than in
his treatment of the doctrine of inspiration.
Birks defends the historicity and particularly the numerical
accuracy of the account of the exodus from Colenso's'idiosyncratic
scepticism. Birks based his position on the witness of the New Testament
and the person of Christ. Jesus would not have put his seal of approval on
forgeries and legendary distortions of history. Birks had some knowledge
of German biblical criticism which had influenced Colenso, although
Colenso's scepticism was more of an English eighteenth century type, and he
was also familiar with the work of moderate German critics like
Hengstenberg; Kurtz, and Havernick who defended the genuineness of the
Pentateuch .2
T. R. Birks, The Exodus of Israel, (London: The Religious Tract Society, 1863) 2Ibid., p. 2. 238
In The Bible and Modern Thought Birks deals briefly with matters of
detail concerning both the Old and the New Testaments. He upholds the
separate witness and plurality of viewpoints of the four evangelists; indeed
their power of witness depends on that differentiation, he holds. The
improbability of miracles should form no part of the prolegomena to biblical studies. He writes of a marked harmony in the tone of narrative
in the whole of sacred history', and he makes a contrast with the paucity of secular witness to the earlier period and the sophistication of-Roman history in the latter. He can recount the whole of bible history in a straight-forward fashion and little involve himself with sceptical hypotheses which he regarded as of peripheral interest. He writes concerning the books making up the Pentateuch: The direct evidence of their authenticity is of the strongest kind. They have been accepted as the writings of Moses, by the followers of three different and rival creeds - the' Christians, the Samaritans, and'the Jews, as far back in each case as their own history extends, or any record of their belief can be found. 02
Thus Birks, while dealing with individual assaults on the truth of scripture like Colenso's, like Garbett can deal with matters of both history and inspiration in an essentially pre-critical fashion.
'These then may serve as examples of Evangelical Old Testament scholarship and the principles held by the scholars at the beginning of the
'Ibid., p. 89. 2lbid., p. 138. 239
period. The genuineness of the Pentateuch is defended at the end of the
century in rather different terms by Lias. As he approaches the Pentateuch
he considers that it does not matter if the Old Testament is on some
points inferior to the Hew Testament or that there are some discrepancies
within the Old Testament. In any case the "divine scheme for training men
is progressive"' The historical positivism of Vellhausen was in some
respects attractive to Evangelicals. A simple historical account'of the
transmission of revelation was more agreeable to them than the Hegelian
profundities of Baur and the Tubingen school.
Yet Lias distances himself from Vellhausen. He writes: The English
school of Biblical research is'free from the coarse irreverence and
presumptuous dogmatism of its continental progenitors. " His insular
reliance on a more pragmatic English tradition of biblical interpretation
was noted above. Lias also sees the historical accuracy of the narratives
as vital. '' Driver's mistaken theories, in his opinion, deny this. He here
argues against th& leading British advocate of higher criticism 'finding
in his transmutation Teutonic theories exception even milder of .2
As with many Evangelicals Lias questions the morality of e. g. the
Deuteronomist putting into Noses' mouth words he never spoke. ` Surely
scripture cannot be unintentionally false in this way. Vellhausen was at
fault in describing`a section of scripture as a "pious make-up". German
critics were also at fault in denying the possibility of miracles. acknowledged As has been seen, Lias that some development took place in scripture, but he did not embrace the fully fledged development theory of inspiration, regarding every part of scripture as inspired.
' Ibid., p. 84 2Lias, Principles- ch. V. 240
Lias found the documentary theory of Yellhausen unsatisfactory. He
regarded the repetitions of J and E as a sign not of different sources, but
of an unversed style of literary composition.
Arguaents from silence, Lias alleged, were weak. He stated: The
logic which would infer that the law was unknown in the days of the Judges
because little or no allusion is made to it, and because it does not appear
to have been generally known, would produce striking results if applied to
the history On theory Vycliff Luther of -the Christian church. such a or the Bible must have been the authors of a great part of ."
Lias found Robertson Smith's interpretation of the higher criticism
in such a way-as to agree with British tradition complicated and unconvincing. Against him, Lias argued that there was a tradition of the writing of history before 900 B.C.
Lias doubted whether the Old Testament could have contained such
lofty morality if it had been drawn up in the bronze age of Josiah, rather than the golden-age of Xoses. And who could be persuaded to copy someone morally if they were partly fictive?, Vho would copy Abraham-if he is a
'free creation of unconscious art. " The true spirit of historical criticism was not destructive, but rather constructive, establishing what facts were rather than what they were not. So although liberal on theories'of inspiration, in details of criticism, Lias was conservative.
Girdlestone's book The Foundations of the Bible dating from 1892 was written to defend the traditional dating and accuracy of the Old
Testament, and the Pentateuch in particular. He first addresses the question whether the Old Testament was the Jewish scripture of Jesus' time.
He uses evidence from Josephus to suggest that it was.
' Ibid., pp. 98-9. 241
Then he turns to the German theories that the Hebrew Bible in the present form of almost all its books is essentially Xaccabean. '- He denies this, relying on Delitzsch. Yet on the question of whether Jesus affirms that the whole of the Pentateuch is true, Girdlestone holds it best to be agnostic. By describing one part of the Pentateuch as Mosaic, Jesus might not have referred to it all.
Girdlestone is similarly uncommitted to the Xosaic authorship of the
Pentateuch. Yet- he is against ruling this out completely, as Vellhausen and
Kuenen do. There is little first person writing in the Bible, Girdlestone mentions, so Xoses would be expected to use the third person, even when involved in action. Ezra and Behemiah however have a mixture of first person'and third person writing. In'the New Testament Xoses is quoted as an author of certain passages at least. There are many literary works from
Xosaic and pre-Xosaic times, including Accadian epics quoted by Professor
Sayce. 2
Girdlestone also deals with the method of composition of other Old
Testament books. Samuel and Kings were composed of materials current in
David's time. Almost all Chronicles' material was taken from that in Samuel and Kings. -
What then did Girdlestone suggest was the method by which the
'Girdlestone, Foundations, ch. X. 2Ibid., ch. III. 242
Pentateuch was composed? He moved away from a simple theory of Xosaic authorship to a hypothesis that Xoses had compiled or authorised a compilation from many sources, including the patriarchs and official materials, transmitted orally and on tablets or Accadian-style bricks.
The cornerstone of Girdlestone's attempts to prove a traditional date of authorship for the Pentateuch was his proof that these books of the law were known and used before the period of Ezra and Nehemiah, when the radical critics averred that they were written. He produces evidence from
Samuel in particular to this effect. He acknowledged the existence of different codes of law, but maintained. that they, were all delivered to Xoses at different stages of the Vilderness wanderings. Xore positive about
Egyptian parallels than Birks had been, he compares the poetical portions of historical books with the Egyptian hymns to the sun discovered by
Flinders Petrie.
Lias, unlike Girdlestone, includes a consideration of New Testament criticism in his book. The development in the course of the Bible was not,
Lias submitted, one of fetishism and primitive religion to pure monotheism, but that of the law as paidogggos. A standard was set up and found too high. This led to repentance. This was a Pauline analysis conflicting sharply with secular Victorian thought.
On New Testament criticism Lias was very willing to abandon the
Textus Receptus and follow Vestcott and Hort in their, rejection of the three witnesses in 1 Jn and on other points. But on the other hand he deprecated Baur's theory of the pseudonymity of all but four of Paul's letters' which have given credence to the claims that the New Testament writings are not genuine.
'H. Harris, The Tübingen School (Oxford: OUP, 1975), p. 185 243
What principles of exegesis did these two later scholars, Lias and
Girdlestone, use? Lias welcomed textual scholarship, praising Vestcott and
Hort's 'memorable attempt"'. Girdlestone accepted that it was rational
and reverential to allow for faulty translation and a degenerate text and
also oriental ways of expressing and reckoning. ' Such an acknowledgement
on the last point showed how much ground had been traversed since Birks'
defence of numerical accuracy in The Exodus of Israel.
Lias was more liberal than Girdlestone on most points and in his
theology of inspiration. He states that the Christian regards Holy
Scripture as "containing if not being the revelation of God's will and
purpose"2 The English higher critic Driver he differentiates on ethical
grounds from the radical Germans in his approach to scripture which is
"reverent and moral. " There must be a difference between historical and
biblical criticism because the latter must allow for the possibility of the
supernatural. Perhaps this view was more open to challenge, because a God
acting in history would leave records of supernatural happenings outside
the inspired canon. In fact Driver diverged from Wellhausen on many
substantive points .3
Girdlestone argued that Genesis' original writers may have used
different names for God, but they were all of the patriarchal period. This appears to go further in an opening towards the documentary theory than
even Lias. However Ezra gave only a final authorization of scriptures compiled from contemporary accounts. Girdlestone's principles of biblical criticism are extremely interesting and show clearly what the state of
'Lias, Foundations, ch. XI. 2Ibid., ch. XI. 3 J. Rogerson, Old Testament Criticism 1n the Nineteenth Century (London: SPCK, 1984) deals with the neo-Hegelisation of Vellhausen's thought in England. 244
conservative Evangelical biblical scholarship was at the turn of the
century. He admits that "we traditionalists" are not free from fault. '
Conservatives have confused inspiration with omniscience, they have been
unnecessarily fearful of textual corruption, of later editorial work, of
merely human ways of puttings things. The Old Testament is a "theological
educator", educating man in ethical convictions. Here Girdlestone agrees
closely with Lias. There is growth and development in the knowledge of
God's justice and preference for obedience over sacrifice. The Old
Testament shows that in spite of, the difference of scale between the
magnitude of God and his creation and the petty smallness of man'sýaffairs,
the Divine intervenes throughout history. The natural is thus linked to the
supernatural. --
Girdlestone interestingly points the way forward prophetically to-
developments beyond higher and source criticism, anticipating developments
in twentieth century scholarship. His position is similar in some respects
to more recent Evangelical, scholars who have emerged-from the more fundamentalist earlier twentieth century period into an engagement with the critical scholarship of their day, just as Girdlestone did with the criticism of his age.
Firstly Girdlestone ironically accuses the German radical critics of rigidity and of a cultural absolutism. Considering their comments on
Abraham's-passing off Sarah as his sister, he writes, They write as if they expect everything to be brought up to the critical style of the present century, regardless alike of the age of the books, of the genius of the people, and of the spiritual interest of the writers "= This was
'Girdlestone, Foundations, pp. 196-7. 2Ibid., pp. 195-6. 245
surely a valid criticism of the source critics, that they turned biblical
characters and the writers of scripture into figures of the nineteenth
century, thus making their approach less rather than more historically
sensitive.
Secondly Girdlestone always wishes the passage to speak for itself,
not to be placed in the straitjacket of subservience to this or that theory.
"Critics are sometimes liable to forget or neglect the first principles of
their art, viz, that we should give due respect to what an author says of
himself, and to what his earliest followers say of him, and to what his
object is, and to the spirit with which he carries it out. "' Here there is
another valid charge against higher criticism, that in its scientific spirit
it had lost the art of reading.
There is thus a great deal of ground separating Birks and Garbett
with their pre-scientific critical approach and their historical directness,
albeit combined with a sharpness of exegesis and a softness of approach to
the doctrine of inspiration, from Lias and Girdlestone, with their maturity
of understanding of the critical movement, and their ease to assimilate the
more conservative findings and reject the more radical ones. In Lias some
seeds of dissolution in the Evangelical fabric can be observed with his
acceptance of the principle of error in scripture, but Girdlestone's balance had ultimately more to contribute to the future of conservative
Evangelicalism. -
'Ibid., p. 194 246
So in this chapter Garbett was seen to be at the most conservative extreme, and the later figure of Lias at the opposite liberal pole. In 6.2 the question of scriptural infallibility was investigated. Were the
Evangelicals infallibilists? Accepted opinion would hold many of them to have been so. But Birks did not believe in scriptural infallibility, although he denied partial inspiration also. Was there then disagreement between those who held to verbal, to plenary and to dynamic theories of inspiration? Lias held to a dynamic theory of inspiration and showed that the reformers were not infallibilist. Litton's view was more conservative than Lias, yet he held to plenary rather than verbal inspiration. Lias did not posit a Vellhausenian view of spiritual progress in Old Testament history, but he acknowledged some development.
In. 6.3 exegesis was considered. How conservative were Evangelicals , on matters of interpretation? Lias was more conservative on some details of criticism, as Evangelicals usually, were in this period. Girdlestone was agnostic on whether Jesus affirmed that all the Pentateuch was true.. Does
Anglican Evangelical scholarship of. this date have any abiding worth?
Probably it does. Girdlestone for example interestingly anticipated some points of twentieth century scholarship - that passages should speak for themselves, and that source critics saw the biblical authors as too literary, like themselves. CHAPTER VII
THE FUTURE STATE AND THE ATONEMENT
The major work of eschatology by an Evangelical was Birks' Victory of the Divine Goodness (1867). This set forth an original, sensitive, though controversial theodicy in the face of traditionally harsh popular
Evangelical teaching on the punishment of the damned. His opponent Janes
Grant's The Religious Tendencies of our Times (1869), putting forward that traditional teaching in response to Birks, is also important. In later years there was a conditionalist influence on Evangelical eschatological thought which must be charted. C. A. Heurtley wrote an influential book.
The Future of the Ungodly in 1879. R. B. Girdlestone's Dies Irae: The Final
Judgement and the Future Prospects of Mankind (1869) is an important rejection of universalism and annihilationisa.
The Atonement, linked with eschatology as a field of battle between
Calvinists, Arminians, and liberals, was the subject of a major controversy in the late fifties and early sixties. Farrar wrote his Christian Doctrine of the Atonement and there were Evangelical rejoinders to this from 1858.
Dr Dewar wrote on this subject in the Christian Observer of 1880. Three 248
pamphlets on the atonement controversy were reviewed in the Christian
Observer of 1861.
So in these three vital areas of doctrine Evangelical theologians
contributed substantial works. Their thought requires elucidation and
evaluation to arrive at an estimate of their role, as traditional beliefs in
God's judgement and intervention in creation fell into the shifting sands of
the new theology.
In 7.2 Evangelical views on the future state will be discussed.
What was the balance between tenderness and severity at the last judgement
according to Evangelicals? Vas there to be union at the last between God
and the saved on the one hand and the lost on the other?
In 7.3 Evangelical teaching on the atonement will be mentioned.. How
did Evangelicals line up on the issues of substitutionary atonement and
Christ's vicarious death? 249
In chapter three various controversies were recounted concerning the future state which occurred as Evangelicals grappled with new theories and ways of interpreting the bible in relation to this article of belief. It was the most deeply felt of all the items of the creed for the Victorians including Evangelicals, who felt as strongly as most about the destiny of their many departed loved ones and so struggled to formulate their own version of what scripture dictated on this matter. Yhat, then was the positive theological expression of Evangelical teaching on the last things?
The "blurring of the edges of doctrine" caused in Bebbington's opinion by "sub-Romantic influences" is obvious in Evangelical teaching on this matter. Indeed when Evangelicals were not engaged in controversy against their opponents they became less definite. At the same time there were a number of Evangelicals who continued to hold strongly to the asperities of traditional Evangelical teaching on judgement and eternal punishment. The overall picture, then, is of considerable range . and complexity in Evangelical views on the future state. 250
First of all, what did Evangelicals teach on judgement? The tendency of the times was to stress the tenderness and restraint of God's justice at the final assize. How much was this reflected in their teachings? Xoule shared in this tenderness. He remarked that "nothing will be decided roughly and in the mass. "' The experience of Jesus in being tempted by sin guarantees a merciful outcome.? Not too much enquiry need be made into God's condemnation of the damned. Rather the text of
Gen. 18: 25 should be relied on; he will act justly. The sentence will not condemn for ignorance what people could not know. However there is not total acquittal for those who are in ignorance of Christian revelation because their sin against conscience has to be taken into account. Holy
Scripture does not encourage hope of human salvation without the Gospel.
Yet there is room for submission to the will of God rather than a definite exclusiveness here. The Gospel is given so that men may do the will of God as well as be saved.
Boule considers that there is a pictorial element in the biblical descriptions of judgement. It is an event, but it may have a long duration.
Xoule therefore clearly dissociates himself from traditional Evangelical and
Protestant teaching on the Last Things on a number of points. He is less literal, accepting symbolism. He is open to development and evolution in the way in which God judges over time. The final judgement is not necessarily simple and climactic. God's judgement is more merciful and is culturally relative to the religious background of the individual, namely whether that person has heard the Gospel. In contrast to this Birks
H.C. G. Moule, Outlines of Christian Doctrine, (London: Hodder, 1899). p. 116. 2Ibid., p. 115. 251 although radical in other respects is clear in his division of mankind into the two categories of the saved and the lost'. He argues for an absolute moral contrast in the present state of man having its correlative in the contrast in the Divine sentence between the two classes.
Litton is more conservative and more philosophically prolix on most of these issues. He accepts that by God's providence there is already a distinction between good and evil which anticipates the final kris. But this is seen in a more literal fashion than by Xoule 2 He emphasises the twofold judgement: firstly that immediately following death, as taught in the parable of Dives and Lazarus, and secondly the one at the end of history. The Son has a particular role in judgement, although it is an act of the whole Trinity ad extra. Litton stresses the omniscience of the judge, making the investigative process of an earthly lawcourt redundant, and the perfect justice and infallibility of God. However this different divine quality of justice is not appealed to because a God of love may be more lenient, as Boule does.
Litton therefore concludes that the last judgement will be a day of publication and execution, not essentially one of scrutiny.
Girdlestone lies somewhere between Xoule and Litton in his estimate of the severity of God's judgement. He meditates on the universality of judgement including for those spirits in prison mentioned in 1 Pet. 3: 19-20.
Interestingly however he does not mention the covenant with Abraham as any basis for Jewish hope, but sees that people as wholly under the Xosaic dispensation .3
'T. R. Birks, Difficulties of Belief, (London: Macmillan, 1876) p. 195. 2E. A. Litton, Introduction to Dogmatic Theology, (London: Clarke, 1882,1892)) pp. 591 ff. 3R. B. Girdlestone, Dies Irae: the Final Judgment and Future Prospects of Mankind, (London: Hatchards, 1877), ch. 4. 252
Girdlestone holds more strictly than Litton to the principle of a
judgement according to works. Like xoule he sees a principle of relativity
in judgement. Hot only will men be judged by the standard by which they
judge others, but "who can say whether God, who reads the secrets of the
heart, may not take to Himself some at least who have never heard the name
of Jesus upon earth? "'. On the other hand he seems rather to lean to the
theory that there is a less severe punishment in store for those who could
not have heard the Gospel. "If they perish from lack of knowledge, their
fate on the day of judgment will be comparatively speaking 'tolerable'". He
balances this leniency by declaring that there is an awful punishment for
those who have heard the love of Jesus and rejected it, quoting Hebr. 12: 25.
Acquittal, Girdlestone maintains, depends on whether we have faith
in Jesus or not. Jesus will detect a, heart "softened and turned through faith in God, to love and good works. " However note even here an emphasis on the internal Christ in the life of the believer and a stress on the infusion of the Spirit to produce fruit, that is works..
Vhat is the position of the Christian, of the saints, at the last
Judgement? Boule writes of the mystery of the sharing of the saints in
Christ's action as judge, as taught in 1 Cor. 6: 2. This participation Xoule envisages as a solemn approval of Jesus' verdict. This participation is the more remarkable since angels as well as men will be the subjects of
Judgement. Litton interprets their role somewhat differently. The saints will have been the first to have come before the court, which is for Litton more the royal court promulgating decrees than the forensic bench. Their decrees of acquittal will have been published and executed. But Litton
'Ibid., pp. 56-7. 253
argues that in some sense their acquittal has already have been judged in
this world, through their own judging of themselves preceding their
conversion.
Vhen these saints have passed into Jesus' outward favour and
received their attestation then they may well be supposed as assisting at
the judgment of the rest. " Litton is characteristically oblique at this
point.
For Girdlestone the saints' role in judgement reflects the principle
that those who have sown little shall reap little. The saints also are to
govern the regenerate world.
In treating the issue of the saints' involvement in judgement
therefore, all the Evangelical theologians show a reticence and a reluctance
to interpret scripture as prescribing a grandiose role for the Christian.
After judgement how do the Evangelical thinkers see the final end of
the saint and more particularly, the lost? This had been the subject for
the main controversies, first surrounding conditionalism, then passive
contemplation and lastly the duration of punishment. Issues of
universalism and restitution also lay around as heterodox notions for
Evangelicals to dismiss. Yet could they be said here too to be influenced
by these new ideas in a more diluted form? How stern was their commitment
to traditional biblical interpretation?
Conditionalism attacked first and foremost the immortality of the soul. Evangelicals could assert unequivocally that the Bible taught rather
the resurrection of the body than the eternal existence of the spiritual
'Litton, Dogmatic Theology, p. 594. 254
part of man. The tern "immortality of the soul" was rejected by Litton. '
Nevertheless this emphasis on the incomplete humanity of the unincarnated
soul in its intermediate state did not usually lead to a denial of the
continuity of the spiritual core of man.
B.A. Litton advanced a scheme of considerable philosophical
complexity in arguing for the continutiy of the soul. Indeed the soul is of
major importance in his resurrection anthropology, because he rejects the traditional Protestant position that the resurrection body will be the same as that in the grave .2
Only committed, conditionalists, such as E. F. Litton, not to be confused with E. A. Litton, argued that the Bible denied this too, and this of course was an adjunct to their philosophical position which placed them outside, the Evangelical camp .0
Xost Evangelicals argued strongly against conditionalism precisely because it was the error into which they could most congenially fall, as broad churchmen into universalism and high churchmen into a Roman doctrine of purgatory.
Girdlestone was fierce against annihilationism. First of all he adopted the Augustinian position of arguing for a desire or longing, deeply implanted within human beings, for eternity. This was not the product of subjectivism but was a reflection of man's metaphysical nature. It argued against the scientific destruction and annihilation of the order of matter.
The second death taught in Revelation is not annihilation but is a continuation of personal-consciousness yet stripped of "all that is worth
' Ibid., p. 551. 21bid., p. 588. 3E. F. Litton, Life or Death: the Destiny of the Soul in the Future State, (London: 1877) 255
calling life. "' The word "destruction" found e. g. in Beb. 13: 9 has a broader
meaning than simply annihilation. It rather means here "desolation and
ruin. " There is some sign of a willingness by Girdlestone to engage in the
complexity of the status of the tree of life.
Disappointingly Birks fails to resolve the significance of the tree
of life in his condemnation of conditionalism. This tree must surely play
a major part in a speculative argument for conditionalism. For Birks the unsaved contemplate the tree without partaking, of it.
If conditionalism was unacceptable but a starkly Hellenistic account of the immortality of the soul was also, Evangelicals were less equivocal on theories of purgatory, or of progress or cleansing from sin following judgement. Girdlestone set himself against the extreme and non-Roman theory of actual repentance after death. The full-blown Roman doctrine of purgatory held few attractions for him either. He pronounced it a mistake.
2 However Girdlestone was open to the possibility of a transitional date in which the soul grew in holiness. This would seem to open the possibility, later endorsed by Moule, for prayer that loved ones would advance speedily into greater and ever greater light.
Until the end of the century and beyond, however, Xoule would draw attention to the silence of scripture on an intermediate place. He acknowledges that prayers for the dead are primitive, but submits that they are open to criticism, even when they ask for continuation of bliss and for the admitted certainty of acquittal for the Christian.
The doctrine of passive contemplation formulated by Birks has already been considered in chapter three. Let it be noted that this
'Girdlestone, Dies Irae, ch. 12. 2Ibid., ch. 23 256
teaching tended to unite the lost and the blessed in a common vision of God
whereas other Evangelicals like Litton see separation and not union - the
"great gulf fixed" as an important purpose of the judgement and God's plan
for the final state.
What of theories of restitution and universalism? These two
theories may be distinguished in that some measure of temporal punishment
is more usually associated with the former. These views were usually
combined with a denial of the eternity of punishment, apparently taught in
)tt. 25s46 and other texts.
Girdlestone is concerned to prove first that "eternal" is the usual
and natural meaning of 'clam and minnins. In the former case he has to concede that the word is often used more loosely. A modern scholar would express this reservation more strongly. However Girdlestone argues for a normatively strong meaning for 'clam because the covenant is described as of the same duration. ' Regarding aionios, Girdlestone focusses on Jn. 8: 52.
Aictlos cannot mean "the age to come" here, because the phrase "shall never taste death" would then mean "shall not taste death until the age to come"
Similarly in )(t. 21: 19 the meaning cannot be that there is no fruit until the age to come.
Birks similarly analyses the word aioios2 and in fairness points to Rev, 14: 6 where the "everlasting gospel" may not have a strictly eternal reference. Birks distinguishes between two kinds of conditionalism, that in which the unsaved are annihilated immediately at the general resurrection, and that is which their extinction follows a long period of severe ------'Ibid., ch. 10. 2Birks, Difficulties of Belief, p. 200. 25? punishment. Both are, he maintains, impossible to reconcile with the texts of the Bible teaching and eternal and not merely an aionian punishment.
This must surely form the major positive if speculative argument for conditionalism.
Litton's major attention, writing in 1892 after the major controverises was not with immediate argument over conditionalism or eternal punishment but with the old heterodoxy of restitution, dating back to Origen. He enumerates the texts opposed to it, but is unable entirely to deny that a non-universal interpretation of the "free gift come unto all men to justification of life " (Rom.5: 18) must demand an abandonment of a literal interpretation and a use of other texts to elucidate. He seeks to make destiny conditional on unstated faith, rather than limiting the extent of the universal "all".
By this date universalism had begun to make some impression on ultra-liberal Evangelicals. In some ways it fitted in better with
Evangelical theories of the primacy of salvific grace, freely bestowed, than conditionalism's amelioration of God's vengeance. Universalise certainly married well with the spirit of Victorian optimism. Yet conservative
Evangelicals sternly opposed it until the end of the century and beyond. 258
In the case of the atonement too there is a wide variety of
Evangelical opinion and signs of the influence of rationalism. J. J. Lias the
liberal Evangelical who was vicar of St Edward's, Cambridge, gave the
Hulsean lectures for 1883 and 1884 on the subject of the atonement. His
views exhibit a fair measure of revisionism.
Lias writes of Pusey with respect but can also quote John Owen and
Jonathan Edwards in support of his position. Indeed his theory is that
that there was a falling away in doctrinal correctness on the atonement
between Edwards and Wesley and Simeon. Lias opposes the latter two
Evangelical leaders in their teaching on this matter. Lias made no
" objection to Owen's and Edwards' view that Jesus was "substituted in the
sinner's room". ' But the doctrine to which he was opposed was that Jesus
was a substitute bearing God's wrath. He holds this to be a stumbling
block, leading some to reject the gospel, because the justice of God cannot,
he maintains, be vindicated by punishing the innocent and letting the
guilty go free.
Redemption is, Lias argues, through Christ's blood, not his death,
which rather has merely unifying effects. It was not Jesus' death which
mediated redemption but rather his being a go-between. His spotless life
of love and mercy is part of that mediation. Lias claims that in the Bible
"there is no one single passage which explicitly asserts that it (the
cross) derives its reconciling power from its being the bearing the divine
Wrath for sin in our stead. "2
1J. 3. Lias, The Atonement viewed in the Light of Certain Modern Difficulties: the Hulsean Lectures for 1883.1884, (Cambridge, Deighton, Bell and Co., 1884), Lecture I 2Ibid., Lecture II 259
Lias asserts that neither Calvin nor Edwards believed Christ to be
bearing God's wrath. He approved of some Roman Catholic theology of the atonement, emphasising' Christ's obedience and merit and also other
Protestant theologians associating expiation with Christ's obedience as the ground of his satisfaction for sins. He is fond of Mcleod Campbell and quotes with approval his statement that "the Lord's character is revealed to mankind in Christ's death. "
Lias uses the term "propitiation" but interprets it in such a way as to exclude any notion of turning away anger. He is happy to talk of man's acquittal and even Christ's death as 'penal", but only in the sense of the consequence of sin. Christ's atonement is the "amen" of man to God's sentence. It is man's acknowledgement of the guilt of sin, a reconciliation of man to God, an identification of Christ with man, a unification of mankind. Enduring suffering is necessary to the highest conception of humanity. Christ's death is a subjection, and hence an example. It is also a sign of God's love, and a revelation of the true relationship of God to sin. '
It will be seen that Lias has moved away considerably from the reformed and Evangelical tradition here. His doctrine is no longer
Anselmian and only loosely propitiatory. The alternative models of atonement as a defeat of sin and the devil and the subjective theory of
Abelard are prominent. In addition there is a hint of liberal Anglo-
Catholicism and modernist Roman Catholicism in his stress on the incarnation and the whole of Christ's life and in particular his humanity as an example of love and a' manner of identification. The unification of
'Ibid., Lecture IV. 260 mankind as a fruit of the atonement is typically Victorian in its new appreciation of the diversity of newly discovered peoples but also their essential unity and capacity for betterment. But it is also a foretaste of twentieth century universalism.
Lias represents one extreme. Moule, Litton, and Diaock, however, are the mainstream. xoule rejects thinking which places the incarnation and the life of Christ as more central than the cross of Calvary'. Xoule finds this balance in the narrative of the Gospels and in the content of the speeches in Acts. Moule held that a need for propitiation was basic to man, yet he admits that this is out of tenor with the times. Litton and
Xoule both emphasise the Old Testament system of sacrifices here. Litton deals directly with Lias's comment that blood and not death obtains atonement in the Bible2 and rejects it, stating that the expiation of sin was effected by death, and the covering of sin by the application of the blood as containing the life.
Nor was Litton embarrassed by the vicarious element in the atonement. Substitution was inherent in the Xosaic system of atoning for human Litton does sin by animal sacrifice .3 not agree with notions of divine wrath which would encroach upon God's immutability', but he links wrath with love closely -a "love sorrowing and indignant at the perverted relation between the creature and his Creator". Anselm's theory of satisfaction finds favour with Litton, although he found it lacking in ethical content - Jesus did not have to suffer all the pains of hell which
IXou1e, Christian Doctrine, p. 75. 2Litton, Dogmatic Theology. p. 223. 3Ibid., p. 224. 11Ibid., pp. 228-9. 5Ibid., p. 229. 261
are the exact equivalent to what we should have had to undergo.
xoule argues in favour of Anselm, stating only that he speaks less
strongly than the Bible on the "bearing of the curse". but he is strongly
against the theory of a ransoa to the devil and pronounces this an
excrescence of doctrine'. Litton too fails to endorse this teaching.
Xoule too writes of merit, of propitiation as well as expiation towards God, and as not merely moral suasion of men or obtaining of extra spiritual power. 2 Yet he dwells more than Litton on the manward aspect.
The cross is a manifestation of divine Love and the cross acts on the conscience and instincts of man. The atonement is "a moral attraction of man's will, and an enlightening of man's eyes, towards God. "
Litton considers the significance of the suffering of Jesus' life and his perfect obedience to the law. Does this have any atoning element? He argues that it can be said to, discriminating between the sinlessness and the sinless sufferings of Christ. His expiation belongs to his sufferings alone, yet those sufferings, undergone with dignity belong to the whole life of Jesus. 3
Dimock discusses the theory of the poena vicaria at length4 and as well as analysing it thoroughly in the light of Scripture, he provides an extensive patristic catena in support of the doctrine. He pays special attention to the Biblical evidence for the concept of vicarious suffering, tracing collective and substitutionary suffering in the Old Testament.
However his main intention was to attack the increasingly common
'Xoule, Christian Doctrine, p. 90. 'Ibid., p. 80. 3Litton, Dogmatic Theology, p. 232. °H. Dimock, The Doctrine of the Death of Christ, (London: Elliot Stock, 1903) 262
belief that the atonement was because of Christ's incarnation rather than
his death on the cross. Studying the epistle to the Hebrews in particular
Dimock identifies the sacrificial oblation of Christ as having been before
his Resurrection, Ascension, and Session. Christ's atonement was not by
virtue of his obedience to death alone. The Godward element in the
atonement was of extreme importance because "the death of Christ affects
the justification of man by affecting the attributes of God, by reconciling
Divine perfections in their bearing on the condition of fallen humanity. "'
Dimock is by far the deepest and clearest of the Evangelicals dealing with
this doctrine and he sets forth the conservative position with great
freshness and care.
There was some work done on the theology of justification of which
space forbids a detailed consideration. The most notable contribution was
Justification and Imputed Righteousness by T. R. Birks. ' Inasmuch as it
relates to the atonement, it gives an important yet limited role to faith
and interprets it as essentially belief in testimony. Justification is by
imputation of legal righteousness. However we do not receive Christ's
obedience so as to become our own. Both justification and sanctification
have a role in salvation. Birks unites the two more closely than some
Evangelicals. The tone of the work is of gentle and idiosyncratic revision
of Evangelical doctrine, with much philosophical subtletly.
Salvation by the atoning death of Christ was at the centre of
Evangelicals' religion, being the theological core of conversion. The
treatment of this doctrine shows a range of belief, some deviation from conservatism, and much fine tuning to preserve the lineaments of the ------
' Ibid., p. 23 2T. R. Birks, Justification and Imputed Righteousness, (London: )Eacmilla; n, 1887) 263
teaching while rendering it more attractive to the age. The stress on the
subjective, on the manward as well as the Godward element clearly grows
within the period.
In this chapter, then, a sub-romantic influence can be observed on
Evangelicals. In 7.2 Evangelical teaching on the future state was
considered. Yhat was the balance between tenderness and severity at the
last judgement according to Evangelicals? There is a tendency towards
tenderness and pictorialism in treating the last judgement. Litton, was
however more severe in his treatment. Girdlestone emphasised a judgement
according to works. Litton taught the continuity of the soul in the
intermediate state, while Girdlestone qualified this. He taught no
Hellenistic doctrine of immortality. Vas there to be union at the last
between God and the saved on one hand and the lost on the other, at least
in some sense, even if punishment continued? Birks argued for union,
Litton against restitution and in favour of eternal separation.
On the atonement, in 7.3, how were Evangelicals found. to line up on
the issues of substitutionary atonement and Christ's vicarious death? Lias
was opposed to substitutionary atonement and Jesus bearing God's wrath, although he was happy with the word "propitiation". Xoule, Litton and
Dimock represented the mainstream here and restated traditional Evangelical doctrine. Litton admitted that Christ's life, as well as his death, was vicarious. This was a concession to incarnational Lux Mundt theology. CHAPTER VIII
CHURCH, SACRAMENTS AND LITURGY
8.1 Introduction
In these fields Evangelicals were fortunate to have a leading
scholar, Nathaniel Dimock. His books were acknowledged by Xoule to be ones
"which Goode would have hailed and studied". ' His Papers on the
Eucharistic Presence was singled out especially for praise. Dimock was
also respected outside Evangelical circles for his learning., Bishop Dowden
of Edinburgh, another leading liturgical scholar, compliaented him for his
writing on the Eucharist.
Although Dimock was still writing in the 1890s it is curious to find
to him in Vellings' dissertation He only a very short reference .2 merits
much detailed study and respect.
C. A. Heurtley also wrote on these subjects. His line was more controversial among Evangelicals, however. His doctrine of justification in
1H. C. G. Xoule, The Evangelical School in the Church of ngland" its men and its work in the 19th century, (London: Nisbet, 1901), p. lll 2X. Vellings, "Aspects of late Nineteenth century Anglican Evangelicalism: the response to ritualism, Darwinism and theological liberalism. " , (D. Phil., Oxford, 1989), p. 134 265
baptism by faith, in the sense- of credence, being condemned as "essentially
Romish" by Litton. Xoule's work in liturgical scholarship is also worthy
of consideration. His D.D. thesis was an edition of Ridley's "On the Lord's
Supper". Litton also wrote liturgically, with more conservatism and
polemicism than the others. He opposed Tractarian worship in English
Religion and Ritualism (1900). His writings were only really influential within Evangelical circles.
In the fields of ecclesiology and liturgiology the Evangelicals had much theological strength. And it was here that the academic equivalents to the battles of the wardens' vestry and the law court dock were fought.
But there was more than anti-ritualism in the careful study of Evangelical scholars. I would hope to outline the Evangelical theology of church and worship in this chapter and to disentangle its polemical and scholarly strands.
In 8.2 Evangelical response to the doctrine of apostolic succession will be noted. Was ministerial succession accepted? Was the episcopate a bane-es,-,g? In 8.3 sacerdotium and ministry will be treated. Where did the mediatorial ministry of'the church lie, according to Evangelicals? In 8.4 theology of communion will be analysed. Which theology of reception of communion was held? Were there any discoveries of permanent value concerning eucharistic theology made? In 8.5 eucharistic sacrifice will be considered. How favourable were the Anglican divines held to be to the
'E. A. Litton, Introduction to Dogmatic Theology, (London: 1882,1892, 2 parts), p. 313. 266
Evangelical position? In 8.6 the Evangelical response to the eastward
position will be evaluated. Vere Evangelicals able to prove that this was
not a primitive or a historical Anglican way of presiding at the Lord's
Supper? These tantalising questions may give us a clue as to the long-term
worth of Evangelical liturgical scholarship in this era.
There were not wanting men of the Evangelical party of noticeable
expertise in these fields. To the public eye, Evangelicals litigating about
ritualism seemed motivated by prejudice, albeit prejudice widely shared, and
less subtle and erudite than their opponents. However in the field of technical theology they proved a match for the Tractarians. They did not possess a theologian of massive 'philosophical creativity such as Newman, who had led the opposing camp in his earlier Anglican days, nor one of such heavyweight learning as Pusey. Yet Evangelicals were able to'give a 'good account of themselves because they had several liturgical scholars of high standard and one of national reputation.
The study of Christian worship was in its infancy. As'a scientific discipline it was just beginning. One of the universally acknowledged benefits of the Oxford Movement was the stimulus which it gave to liturgiological studies. The great Villiam Goode was by far the most distinguished Evangelical theologian who responded to the first phase of
Tractarianism. Now he was succeeded by others of scarcely more base a metal. 267
Allied with what could, strictly speaking, be described as
liturgical studies, there was also much work on related matters of
sacramental theology and also ecclesiology, especially dealing with
controverted subjects such as apostolical succession. The doctrine of the
Ministry largely determines the doctrine of the Church and underwrites that
of the Sacraments. There is merit therefore in dealing with the
Evangelicals' teaching on the apostolic succession and the ministry first.
At the basis of Evangelical teaching there was the wish, in conformity with Article XXIII that there should be order, continuity, and official sanction in the appointment of the ministers of Vord and
Sacrament. This much was common ground with their opponents. Xany
Evangelicals, and not only Anglicans shared this concern and were against merely local and temporary ministries, and those lacking historical sanction. Some Evangelicals, including those of the Church of Scotland went further and taught a limited yet decided'doctrine of apostolic succession. James Valker, of that church, writing in 1872', stated: "There is no doubt that Scotch Presbyterians have held what, in some sense, might be called a doctrine of Apostolical Succession. That is, they have held that those who were ordained by apostles to the ministerial office were endowed with the authority to ordain others to that office, and so to continue the succession - that ordinarily neither the possession of the needed gifts, nor the call of the people, superseded the solemn setting apart of the Presbytery. '
Similarly Noule argues for ministerial succession in the broadest
'James Walker, The Theology and Theologians of Scotland 1560-1750. (Knox Press, Edinburgh, 1872,2nd ed., 1982), p. 188. 268
sense. The idea of a ministerial succession is clearly to be seen in the
New Testament, as in the Pastoral Epistles, and is amply confirmed by the
earliest sub-apostolic writings. As- the idea of a ministry at all is
implied in the fact that the Church as visible is an organized society, so
the idea of a succession in the ministry-is implied in the fact that it is
a society with a continuous work to do and development to follow "
Ministerial succession was commonly supposed by sone Evangelicals
not only to ensure continuity but even to be a means of salvation. Xoule
declared this2 But by this xoule only meant generally that the preaching
of the gospel by the ministers of the church was the means by which people
were converted, and that this office needed to be transmitted regularly, not that any mechanical grace inhered in the episcopate or priesthood.
But more precisely was there such a thing as an apostolic succession, that is a succession of the apostolic office? To this
Evangelicals answered mainly in the negative, but in a qualified negative.
Litton argues that the Apostolate was not a permanent order of ministry. *
Apostles were uniquely gifted with inspiration. As rulers'and founders they could have no successors.
But Litton maintains a certain doctrine' of the apostolic succession.
Bot only does he maintain that the Scriptures of the New Testament succeed the apostles - this was a reformation commonplace that the true succession was one of doctrine, but also he states that as ministers of Christ the
'H. C.G. Moule, Outlines of Christian Doctrine. (London: Hodder, 1899), p. 220. 2ibid, p. 221. 3Litton, Dogmatic Theology, pp. 392-3. 269
apostles are "the predecessors of all Christian ministers. *' Their
ministerial office is self-propagating and permanent since the preaching
and teaching office is the ordinary office of Christian leadership. So in
this sense, "no ministry deserves the name of Christian which is not
Apostolical or derived from the Apostles. "2 Both Xoule and Litton saw
ministerial succession of an apostolic origin as a safeguard against
independency and the election of ministers by congregations with the danger
of subservience to them. Litton differentiated his doctrine of ministerial
succession from the Roman apostolic succession by emphasising that the
inward call of the spiritually fit took precedence over the mere laying on
of hands.
John Harrison produced the major work of historical scholarship in
this field, Vhose are the Fathers? 3 The apostolic succession cannot be
proved from scripture, he maintained. Even Tractarians concede that the
doctrine is only very obscurely taught, using a novel interpretation of
Jn. 20: 21-3 20. and Xt. 28: ,
He also attacked any notion of the transmissibility of the apostolic
office as it was held by the original bearers of the office. Ho-church
rulers were called apostles in the sense of the twelve. Epaphroditus was not a bishop of the church at Philippi but a messenger. Vhy then were so many others called apostles in the early church? Hilary the Deacon says that bishops were at first, called apostles. Theodoret calls the seventy apostles and bishops as the entrusted messengers of the Lord. So for the
Fathers, Harrison maintains, the bishops and presbyters succeeded the
' Ibid., p. 389. 2Ibid. 3J. Harrison, Whose Are the Fathers?, (London: Longmans, Green and Co, 1867) 270
seventy, not the twelve, and their office is only apostolic in a linguistic
sense because they were sent out. The successors to the twelve are the New
Testament and sound doctrine. This is taught by Jerome, Augustine, and
Gregory the Great. The successors to the seventy are the church's
ministers. This is a traditional Anglican distinction according to
Harrison, taught even by the anti-Puritan Andrewes.
Therefore the Evangelical theologians rejected theories of the
transmission of the apostolic office in favour of a broader doctrine of
ministerial succession. Anglican Evangelicals of the non-Recordite school
had valued the episcopate highly, unequivocally seeing Timothy and Titus as prototype monarchical bishops. This, had been the view in the earlier nineteenth century. It was also held by, Koule who wrote that the
"presidential or monarchic element is traceable in the New Testament. ",
However Litton preferred to regard them as apostolic delegates without a fixed local, bishops., the to base, not, as -This pointed way a. more pragmatic view of the value of bishops. Was episcopacy of the ez or of the beam esse of the church?
Of the bene esse, Evangelicals replied, not being convinced that it was essential to the validity of the church and its ministry. Xoule held that a developed episcopacy was not of the very essence of the church, despite his view that a more primitive form of episcopacy was to be found in the New Testament. "It (episcopacy) does not appear there as a thing of the vital order... It appears as a matter of the very highest rank of expediency and common benefit; certainly as a thing which cannot be despised and rejected
'Houle, Christian Doctrine, p. 221. 271
without grievous sin. But it is not a thing of the rank of saving truth. "'
Litton's rejection of a biblical warrant for episcopacy meant that
he viewed the growth of'the office of bishop as a merely historical
process. He thought that this development was sanctioned by St John.
Episcopacy was the product of a craving for union, with the bishop a type of that union. It was not therefore of Divine prescription, having developed itself from It within outwards .2 was a safeguard against factions and heresies'which began to develop with the death of the apostles. ' Episcopacy was therefore a pragmatic safeguard of good order and sound doctrine.
Evangelicals of course rejected all suggestions that the Christian ministry was essential to the church because it was like the Levitical
'priesthood with its constant offering of sacrifice to keep the Old
Testament people right with God. Kore precisely Harrison identified a weakness in the Tractarian comparison of bishops, priests and deacons with high priests, priests and Levites. The Old Testament high priest was no more than a priest. " Although Jerome used an analogy between Christian ministers and Old Testament priests, Augustine and Nicholas of Lyra rejected any analogy of bishops and high priests because there was no succession of high priesthood. Origen compared priests and high priests
lay Thus Harrison to with ordained and .3 was able show an internal inconsistency in the comparison.
Evangelical Anglicans rejected the weakness of independency and saw the episcopate as a source of strength, as has already been mentioned.
Ibid. 2Litton, Dogmatic Theology, p. 401. 3Harrison, Yhose are the Fathers', ch. 3. 272
Since they regarded bishops as of the bene esse of the church, they
maintained the pre-Restoration openness and hospitality to other forms of
ministry in other churches, pronouncing them valid. Harrison claimed that
the bidding prayer of the fifty fifth canon did relate to the Church of
Scotland. The archbishop of the time, Bancroft, was opposed only to
heretical and schismatic Puritan members of the Church of England. He did
not think that the Church of Scotland agreed with Cartwright, who argued
for presbytery. ' Therefore he recognised in the canon the validity of presbyterian orders.
Evangelicals were at their most convincing when they sought to prove that there was sound warrant for their views on the apostolic succession and episcopacy in historical Anglicanism. Harrison was particularly skilled in this. Harrison pointed to the Ordinal and to the divines of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It was accepted even by Tractarians that writers of these periods only attested the practical worth of episcopacy. Cosin accepted foreign pastors as exercising a valid ministry. Harrison pointed out that Bradford, Jewel, and even Vhitgift, though anti-Puritan, regarded the bishop and presbyter as having the same order in Scripture. In the first ordinal of 1549 almost the same texts were chosen for the ordination of a priest as for the consecration of a bishop. Even Laud himself wrote against apostolic succession 2
And so Evangelicals used considerable historical firepower to maintain their views on the church's ministry. They taught ministerial rather than apostolic succession, that episcopacy was of the practical esse of the Church of England, and that Anglicans had always held both
I Ibid., ch. 5. 2Ibid., chs. 6 and 7. 273
these positions. They remained impervious to hierarchical and sacramental
theories of the clergy, but there is clearly development at the end of the
century towards a reverent and respectful high valuation of the historic
succession. At the same time through Biblical scholarship some of the old
confidence about the scriptural nature of the episcopacy has gone.
In short, on this issue Evangelicals can hardly be said to be untouched by
liberalism and catholicism.
The leading student of these doctrines was the redoubtable Nathaniel
Dimock. A considerable debate on the nature of the Anglican ministry was initiated by Pope Leo XIII with the Bull Apostolicae Curae declaring
Anglican orders null and void and by the reply of the Archbishops.
In a skilled contribution to this discussion Dimock established
Evangelical principles for the existence of a true priesthood within the
Church of-England, on the one hand rejecting the Pope's declaration that this did not exist, on the other hand maintaining the traditional
Evangelical position that this priestly activity was to be located in Christ and in his finished work. '
Firstly Dimock maintained that nothing in the original meanings of cohen, iereºis, or gacerdQs pertained "to sacrifice. Rather is priesthood in the Old Testament linked with the idea of "drawing near". Sacrifice in the
Old Testament is not only for sin and therefore both sacerdotium and sacrifice can'be used in other senses by Biblical and Reformed writers.
This is an important caveat.
N. Dimock, The Christian Doctrine of Sacerdotium, (London: Elliot Stock, 1897) 274
Secondly Dimock discusses Christ's sacerdotium and its eternal I "Thou for (Ps 110: 4, Heb. 5c6) Does this -character. art a priest ever" mean
that his priesthood must be exercised now, and. since it cannot be in heaven
since heaven is no place for sacrifice, as Bellarmine and Aquinas maintain,
that priesthood must be exercised on earthly altars? Dimock, quoting from
Chrysostom and Theodoret interprets the eternal priesthood of Christ, not
in the sense of his eternally sacrificing, but as having once and for all
completed a sacrifice and then interceding merely. Continuity implies
imperfection, whereas for Dimock's opponents perfection includes historical
continuity. Here there is a dichotomy between Dimock's views of a strongly
Platonic kind derived from the Fathers and the novel Hegelian Anglo-
Catholic theory of perfection through history.
Thirdly Dimock stresses the strong basis in Anglican divines and
formularies for the finished sacerdotium of Christ. He draws attention to
the Te Deum from Morning Prayer with its words, "Thou didst open the
kingdom of heaven to all believers. Thou sittest at the right hand of God:
in the glory of the Father. " He also mentions the omission of the porrectio instrumentorum from the Ordinal since 1552. As an significant historical point he mentions that the Sarum Pontifical calls the priests presbyteres rather than sacerdotes.
Dimock accepts the Roman charge of defect of intention to ordain a sacrificing priesthood. It is unnecessary, in his view, because of the work of Christ.
If Evangelicals regarded the ministry as non-sacerdotal, they also held it to be non-mediatorial. xoule makes a distinction between medium and mediator. The former is convenient, useful and ordinarily needful. The latter is indispensible. Only Christ falls into the latter category in 275
man's relationship with God. ' Hooker and Tertullian both held that the
laity could in times of exigency supplement its character as a "royal
lacking Xoule that the priesthood" and supply a ministry. --Yet maintains
ministry is the guardian and dispenser of the sacraments by the immemorial
order of the Church and as such has an important role as medium of a "holy
sealing ordinance" .2
It has been said that there was little novel written in the way of sacramental theology in late nineteenth century England. This is the opinion of L. E. Elliott-Binns. 3 Yet that same author mentions the scholarship of Dimock in this field as worthy of notice.
Villian Goode had already made a distinguished contribution to an
Evangelical theology of the Lord's Supper just before the start of the period, in the course of the controversy with Denison. Dimock added to the depth of analysis and attestation on this issue.
Evangelicals agreed with their opponents that Christ was in some sense present at the Eucharist. Where two or three are gathered in my name, there an I in the midst", Christ had said. Evangelicals and others were united in rejecting a "visible presence" proposed by Bennett. Even
Pusey and Newman had disapproved of this term since it implied that the accident of place pertained to the substance of the body and blood of
Christ.
'Xoule, Christian Doctrine, p. 222. 2lbid. 3L. E. Elliott-Binns, English Thought 1860-1900: the Theological Aspect, (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1956), p. 26?. 276
The "corporal presence" denied in the black rubric was the main
object of Evangelical attack. Dimock defined it more closely as a "real
objective presence. * This was to differentiate it from the "real presence"
taught by certain Reformed divines which denied a corporal presence. Yet
he also wished to oppose a sophistical distinction between a real objective
presence and a corporal presence, for he was convinced that none existed.
Jeremy Taylor was the most prominent of those seventeenth century
theologians who had held to a theory of the "real presence" but, so Dimock
claimed, it had meant not a real objective presence, which that term would
have meant in the sixteenth century, but rather its opposite. Dimock
believed in real presence which was not local, which was spiritual, and .a which was akin to the presence of the Lord in the sacrament of baptism.
He found much support for his view in Andrewes, Vake, Hammond and others,
and hence. was able to claim an Anglican pedigree.
Vaterland's receptionist theory was the one most widely held by
Evangelicals. Betokening their considerable debt to this eighteenth century
theologian, it also showed a certain common ground as Than has shown -
with the first phase of Tractarianism and its rejection of the memorialism
of Hoadly. Vaterland's definition of the real presence was strongly tilted
in a receptionist direction. "the force, the grace, the virtue, and benefit
of Christ's body broken and blood shed, that is, of His passion, are really and effectually present with all them that receive worthily. This is all the Real Presence that our church teaches"'.
'D. Vaterland, A Review of the Doctrine of the Eucharist, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1880) p. 42 277
Dinock certainly held a sinilar, doctrine. Virtualisi, or the theory of "real absence" he rejects as unscriptural' implying as it does a
permanent and inherent change in the elements. Rather he writes of "the
true Presence, in the but in the efficacious not elements, ministration' .2
He also quotes from the Homily on the Lord's Supper the words the due
receiving of His blessed Body and Blood, under the form of bread and wine".
and he comments on the difference between reception and presence: "Xany
things are continually being conveyed and received under the forms of
papers signed and parchments sealed, which certainly are never present
under the forms of the paper or parchment N3
Dimock maintained that the Anglican doctrine of a spiritual and
non-corporal presence was Reformed as opposed to the alleged Lutheran
sacramental theology of his opponents, but was not what was commonly known
by his opponents as the Zwinglian doctrine, that is a memorialism. He
quotes from Zwingli to show that his position was receptionist rather. And
he shows, that even semi-Laudians such as. Bishop Overall of porwich were
receptionist.
Dimock also stressed that the manducation by the recipient by faith was a real eating and drinking of the Body and Blood of Christ, that this was the Reformed view, and that even Lutheran opponents had acknowledged this. But this manducation had to be by those possessing faith, as Article
XXIX made plain. This article Dimock regarded, unlike Article XXVIII, as the crucial proof that the Church of England sided with the
'1. Dimock, On Eucharistic Worship in the English Church, (London: Longmans, Green and Co., memorial ed. 1911), p. 19. 2H. Dimock, Papers on the Doctrine of the English Church concerning the Eucharistic Presence, (London: Longmans, Green and Co., memorial ed., 1911), p. 1. 278
Reformed rather than the Lutherans. ' St Augustine is cited in this article
and Dimock strongly maintains that he did deny a true as opposed to a
merely sacramental reception of Christ by the wicked.
One of the strongest Reformed arguments against the real presence
had been initiated by Cranmer and built on by Goode. This was the ,
contention that it denied the doctrine of the ascension, that Christ's
natural body was in the heavens, and by claiming that his natural body
could be present on many altars it overthrew his-human nature and implied
Apollinarianism.
Dimock further refined this contention subtly. He maintained that
the doctrine of the real presence had deleterious consequences on the
Christology of the incarnation. 2 The doctrine of eucharistic presence was
so interrelated with these other two that they stood or fell together.
Firstly Dimock declares that the union of Christ's supposed real presence
with the bread and the wine must be a decided union, to Justify any
eucharistic adoration. There again the full person of Christ in. his body,
soul and divinity must form the Real Presence.
Such a real presence would be a greater miracle than, the incarnation-
because it takes place thousands of times every day, because that presence
is effected without Jesus coming from heaven to earth. - Dimock, then shows
how the various Roman Catholic writers affirm a closeness of union of the
species with Christ, though denying that this union is a-hypostatic one.
Such a magnification. of the eucharist into what a Tractarian writer
'Dimock, Eucharistic Presence, p. 451. 2Dimock, Eucharistic Worship, pp. 10-15. 279
described as an'"extension of the incarnation" quoting from "Tracts for
the Day", would be, Dimock considers, inconsistent with the Lord's economy.
Vhy should full eucharistic adoration and the feast of Corpus Christi be
sanctioned only in 1264 if it was of such outstanding significance?
Again, Dimock considered the purpose of the sacraments in general.
Baptism was effectual by faith without a real presence. It involved only
an effectual-symbol, namely water. Vhat therefore was the need of the real
presence? Is it not enough for the bread and wine, by God's economy, to be
effectual symbols, to possess the virtue of what they signify to the
believing recipient?
Dimock claimed that the real presence denies the permanent
consequences' of the incarnation. The union of Christ's body, soul and
divinity cannot be undone, and the black rubric rightly pronounces it
impossible-for Christ's natural body to be at one time in more places than
one. Therefore some breach in the hypostatic union must be posited instead
if a lapse into a one'nature Christology is to be avoided. Any such breach
denies the incarnation or the ascension. Fundamental Christological
heterodoxy, Dimock claims, is the consequence of any attempt to move away
from a Reformed eucharistic theology.
Another interesting implication of Article XXIX was suggested not by
Dimock but by Edward Garbett. ý This was that Christ's statement in Jn. 6: 51
that those who eat his flesh and drink his blood have eternal life could
not include any unworthy recipients2. Therefore
'Ibid., p. 24. 2E. Garbett, Voices of the Church of England against Xodern Sacerdotalism, (London: V. Hunt, 1869), ch. 3. 280
the true eating and drinking must be spiritual, not oral manducation. This
is an interesting exegesis of in 6, but not one widely followed by
Evangelicals. The statement that those who do not eat his flesh and drink
his blood do not have life in them in the sane chapter was held to mean
that this passage did not refer to the Lord's Supper at all, since it is
possible to be saved without receiving communion. Evangelicals followed
Vaterland in affirming that Jn. 6: 51-63 can be applied to the eucharist, but
denying that it can be interpreted of it.
Litton made a rigorous distinction between the glorified body of
Jesus and the body in statu exinanitionis to deny any direct connection
between the memorial of the latter and the present state of the former.
Xore of a memorialist and a virtualist than Dimock, Litton clearly embraces a Calvinist rather than a Lutheran view, namely that the manhood of Christ
is not ubiquitous. It was interesting however to note in chapter 4 that the absolute Evangelical denial of a eucharistic connection with the glorified body was beginning to crumble at Dimock's hands. There was a precedent in Vaterland's suggestion of an indirect connection.
However in the main Evangelicals stressed that the Communion related to Jesus when he was put to death. Litton doubted whether the glorified body of Jesus had any blood. '
Xoule gave a convincing scriptural exegesis of the words of institution and again stressed that the body and blood narrowly define their relation to Jesus' death. Body and Blood are not the equivalent for
Christ. They are not the whole Christ, but those parts of His blessed
'Litton, Dogmatic Theology, p. 483. 281
Constitution testified His Death whose separation ."
Thus there was strong support for receptionism among Evangelicals,
but this was not the only Evangelical position. Vellings assumed-that it
was, in his study of the 1890s to 1030.2 However this was not the case;
there was some support for virtualism from Litton and for Ratramnianism
from Xoule.
Dimock, aided by others, taught the real presence of Christ in the
heart of the worthy recipient by faith. Based on the traditional Anglican
theology of Vaterland, he showed that this receptionist theory had very
widespread support in Church of England history and could claim to be the view which best fitted the formularies, although other non-Roman Catholic explanations of the eucharistic presence might be allowable. He showed, even more clearly than Goode, the interrelatedness of the doctrines of
Christ's nature and incarnation and that of the eucharistic presence, and how a belief in the real objective presence, he claimed, distorted the former. The weak point of the doctrine, he maintained, lay in its theory of the union between the bread and the wine and Christ.
------
'Xoule, Christian Doctrine, p. 262. 2X. Vellings, "Aspects of late Nineteenth Century Anglican Evangelicalism. " p. 55-6. 282
Something has been related already in chapter four of how
Evangelicals were able to introduce a modicum of flexibility into their
rejection of this doctrine and their denial of any form of oblation in the
Lord's Supper, especially through the distinction between the active and
passive consideration of sacrifice, and between the offering of the elements
and the offering of Christ. There was in fact a certain range of
Evangelical thought on this issue, and Dimock was outflanked in
conservatism by Litton.
As usual much of Dimock's energy, in elaborating a positive
Evangelical theory of the finished nature of Christ's sacrifice, was devoted
to furnishing his argument with historical attestations and pointing to the
internal inconsistencies in his opponent's contentions. He mentioned that
there was little support from the old Roman formularies for eucharistic
sacrifice. The Tridentine fathers could find no support from ecumenical
councils for the doctrine. There was some opposition to the theory from
the Fathers. St Bernard had stated that "Christ is not immolated in every
mass any more than he is incarnated every Christmas Day. "
This contrasts strongly with the way in which Litton deals with the evidence from the Fathers. He claims that sacrificial ideas began to gain ground as early as in Irenaeus and Tertullian, though figurative theory still held sway. Modern theologians might rather trace the doctrine not much earlier than Cyprian, and Litton mentions him, especially for his concept of priesthood'. Litton is unimpressed by the authority usually
'Litton, Dogmatic Theology, p. 573. 283
respected by Evangelicals in these matters, Vaterland. He rejected his view
that the Fathers generally meant by eucharistic oblation no more than
offering the heart to God, or the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving.
Litton was also of the'-opinion that Anglican divines were less
favourable to a Reformed doctrine of the eucharistic offering than Dimock
thought. He quoted Cosin as using incautious language', to suggest a
perpetual sacrifice in heaven, and that this justifies a linked earthly
sacrifice. Litton's less positive attitude to the Fathers reflects a
growing tendency towards the end of the century in the treataent of this source as an authority by the more strongly Protestant kind of Evangelical.
Dimock drew attention to the internal inconsistencies, as he saw them, of the doctrine of eucharistic sacrifice. He termed it "chameleon- like" but regarded its transformations as undermining its coherence. Vas there destruction in its sacrifice as Bellarmine Insisted? But if only bread is destroyed is it only a sacrifice of bread? Bellarmine denies this and affirms rather that Christ's body is offered. Bellarmine describes the sacrifice as a true though unbloody one, and refers to the destruction of food by eating. Is this true immolation? Is the Body of Christ destroyed by being eaten? ' At the Last Supper Christ did not destroy his own body, so there was no sacrifice there.
Regarding the word "unbloody" which describes a different manner of offering to that on the Cross, the only blood which'exists, so Roman
Catholic theology maintains, is in the cup. But it is not shed, or if shed, not bloodily shed. Yet Bellarmine, agreeing with scripture affirms that there is no sacrifice' without shedding of blood.
' Ibid., p. 520. 284
Dimock also detected disagreement in the descriptions of the
eucharistic sacrifice between the Tridentine Catechism (satisfactory,
propitiatory, Ludanus (propitiatory, not satisfactory), Gregory _meritorious), de Valentia (not meritorious). and Bellarmine (neither properly
satisfactory, nor meritorious, nor propitiatory).
However the main burden of Dimock's criticism of eucharistic
sacrifice was that it derogated from the oneness and perfection of the
sacrifice of the cross. Iteration of sacrifice was denied, Dimock claimed,
by official Roman theology but embraced by some theologians. ' Continuation
and renewal of the sacrifice of the Cross was part of Roman Catholic
teaching. Based on the teaching of the Epistle to the Hebrews about the
inconsistency of perfection and continuity in sacrifice, Dimock rejected
this. There were similar philosophical grounds for his objections to
continuity in presence, as has been seen above.
Dimock gladly acknowledged that the protestant teaching on the
eucharistic action was thht it was a nudes connemoratio, in the sense that
Roman Catholics condemned this.
Litton approached Evangelical teaching on this point from a more robustly protestant perspective. He was undoubtedly less accustomed than
Dimock to discussing these matters on commissions with those of differing churchmanship. He made less use of the historical evidence and more of the biblical. In Heb.9: 11-14 Litton referred to a passage quoted by many supporting eucharistic sacrifice as an ongoing heavenly process. Yet,
Litton points out, the bull has already been slain. The sacrifice has been made in the Day of Atonement ceremonies in which Christ's more perfect
'Dimock, Sacerdotium, pp. 60-1. 285
sacrifice in foreshadowed. Vhat rather is described in these verses is the
presentation of the blood. '
Litton next addressed the alleged sacrificial virtue of the
ordinance, separated from its virtue to communicants, not its virtue
towards God but towards man. Litton criticises Augustine for suggesting
that celebration of the eucharist might benefit the dead. Since they cannot
receive communion, this argues that there must be a residual sacrificial
benefit in the eucharist for non-communicants. The growth of private masses and the decline in receiving communion in the medieval church fostered further the doctrine.
Litton points out that even scholastic theologians like Aquinas held that the Eucharist was a representation, not the fact, of Calvary. However given that this distinction was made, he is unconvinced by the language of impetration used by Bellarmine, who writes of pleading the merit of the sacrifice, and applying it. How does the sacrifice not plead its own efficacy, Litton asks? --
Also the exclusiveness of the channel of mechanical grace through the sacraments does not fit Litton's belief in the appropriation of grace by faith. The Sacrifice of the Cross is open to the believer for access, not constrained by the sacramental rite which shows it forth.
So in these ways Dimock and Litton endeavoured to maintain a doctrine of limited eucharistic offering of praise in response to Christ's self-offering, and tried to show that the teaching of eucharistic sacrifice was tenuously based in scripture and Anglican tradition. There was clearly a difference between Dimock's more favourable and. Litton's less favourable
'Litton, Dogmatic Theology pp. 510-21 2lbid., p. 519 286
estimate of the Fathers and the Anglican divines. As with the eternal
priestly action and the real presence. Dimock and Litton were to some
extent out of tune theologically with the prevailing Victorian historicism
and interest in the' senses. But for these Evangelicals there were too
many dangers in running the risk of confusing Christ's sacrifice with any
earthly rite.
The leading Evangelical authority on this matter was John Harrison.
It is "'a significant area of theological debate, and not merely a point of
ritualistic detail, beause it is so closely linked with the doctrine of
eucharistic sacrifice.
Harrison notes that certain Tractarians had claimed sanctity for the eastward position, claiming it to be primitive. ' However he denied any he such primitive pedigree. There was, admits, an early custom of praying to the eastward part of the heavens, but this did not influence the practice of eastward position, which was only introduced after the real presence doctrine. Clement of Alexandria had compared Christ with the east (the day-spring of Lk. 1: 78) but this did not prove any sanctity for the eastward heavens. The disputed LIZ text of Zech: 8: 12 identified the Messiah with the east. But it was, Harrison argued, very likely that the Xassoretic Text reading was correct, that the Messiah was the branch, as in Jer. 23: 5 and
Lk. 1: 78 was a repetition of the same Hebrew title. This was rather a radical sort of exegesis, influenced by recent biblical scholarship.
'J. Harrison, The Eastward Position Unscrintural and not Primitive and Catholic, (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1876) 287
Harrison also denied that turning east meant turning to the,
eastward part of the heavens, given a Copernican cosmography. In any case
the practice was also a pagan one, as Clement of Alexandria himself
mentions, and Origen simply maintains that eastward worship is a universal
practice.
Eusebius confirms that churches were westward facing in the time of
the Fathers, and only the sacrificial theology and teaching on the real
presence. of the early middle ages brought change, necessitating the
remodelling of Italian basilicas. So Harrison satisfied himself that the
eastward position was not ancient, nor biblical.
text Harrison attempted to prove that it was not Anglican. He
sought to explain the rubric in the Prayer Book about the priest "standing
before the table. " It emanated from Cosin, he argued. Cosin used the
language of about the eucharist, stating that it might be called -sacrifice such by. allusion, analogy, and extrinsical denomination. However Harrison maintains that Cosin never prescribed eastward celebration.
The Evangelical reaction to the eastward position, was therefore similar theologically to their reaction to the real presence and eucharistic sacrifice. That is, they argued that the authority of the Fathers and
Anglican divines was. against it, and also advanced some progressive biblical criticism to cast a sceptical eye on the claims of the ritualists.
In 8.2, Evangelical teaching on apostolic succession was investigated. Was ministerial succession accepted by Evangelicals? They accepted ministerial succession, but not transmission of grace or the office of apostle. John Harrison contributed well to the scholarly debate here.
Was episcopacy the of the bene esse, according to Harrison? It was, he argued, of the bene esse merely, and there was no warrant in Anglican 288
tradition for the apostolic succession or episcopacy as an exclusive
channel of valid orders.
In 8.3, on sacerdotium and ministry, where did Evangelicals argue..
that the mediatorial ministry of the church lay? All mediatorial ministry
was ascribed to Christ by Dimock. No earthly minister had a mediatorial
role, although Christ's ministry was present and available in the church.
Yet the ministry had the task of guarding the sacraments. In 8.4 the
theology of communion was analysed. Vhich theology of reception of
communion was held? Waterland's receptionism was influential on Dimock in
his theology of the Real Presence.
Vere there any discoveries of permanent value concerning eucharistic theology made? Excitingly so, there were, by Nathaniel Dimock on the implications for Christology of eucharistic theology. Dinock argued for a spiritual and a non-corporal presence after the reformed rather than the
Lutheran pattern. He showed how the Real Presence produces deleterious consequences on the Christology of the incarnation. In this be went beyond
Cranmer's discoveries on Eutychianism. The permanent consequence of the incarnation is the union of Christ's body and soul and this cannot be undone. Litton was more memorialist and virtualist in his eucharistic theology. On the doctrine of the eucharistic sacrifice, in 8.5, how favourable were the Anglican divines held to be to the Evangelical position? Litton was unimpressed by Vaterland, and he thought that
Anglican divines were less favourable to Reformed doctrine than Dimock thought. Finally on the eastward position in 8.6, were Evangelicals able to prove that this was not a primitive or historical Anglican way of presiding at the Lord's Supper? Harrison dealt ably with the subject of the eastward 289 position and showed that it was not primitive and not well attested in
Anglican seventeenth century writers, not even in Cosin. CONCLUSION
What conclusions, then, can be drawn about Evangelical theology in
the Church of England in this period? The previous scholarly consensus
was that Evangelical theologians lacked standing, intellectual worth, and
that their lack of influence was a prime reason for the decline of the
Evangelical party. They were said to be exclusively negative, controversial
and uncreative. These suggestions have seemed less plausible as the
Evangelicals' theological thought has been charted.
Evangelical thought is characterised by a strong adherence to
certain experiences and traditions which are central and normative to it.
Bebbington has helpfully outlined these in pp. 2-17 of Evangelicalism in
Xodern Britain, and he has described them as conversionism, activism, biblicism, and crucicentrism. Biblicism affected the Evangelical theologians especially in inculcating a bias against any teaching which obscured or devalued the importance of the Bible as God's inspired revelation or as a practically useful guide to theology. Crucicentrism led to a bias against incarnational teaching such as that of Lux Xundi.
Conversionism led to a rejection of any rival channels of grace other than 291
that of the free access to God by the direct acceptance of Christ through
faith. Thus baptismal and eucharistic sacraments were given at best only a
consequential or anticipatory significance. This much is a general result
of the influence of Evangelicalism on these theologians.
`It is clear that specifically Victorian Anglican Evangelicalism had
other consequences on these thinkers, however, less general and less common
to other Evangelicals of different periods. In many ways Victorian
Evangelical thought was highly typical of the period; after all this was a
quintessentially Evangelical period, in the mid-century at least, in which
its thought-forms were widely disseminated. In other respects Evangelical
thought cut across the tenor of the times especially later in`the century,
and this is perhaps the most fundamental reason for the eventual decline of
the movement. One example of opposition to the Weltanschauung is the
rejection of the "theology of the nineteenth century". This was not merely
a conservatism, but a preference of methodology for the eighteenth century,
once shared with the whole of Anglicanism, but'now rejected by Maurice and
Newman in preference for one kind or another of romantic "development"
theory. Evangelicals continued to be happiest with the old theology of
evidences, of Paley and Butler, and Vaterland in the sacramental field.
Evangelicals were thus old-fashioned where Tractarians were
antiquarian. They did not use and reinterpret the past to create something
of the nineteenth century as High Churchmen did. Rather they lived in the
past, and even in a narrowly rationalistic though orthodox past. This
tendency can also be observed in Dimock and Harrison's exhaustive researches into the Anglican divines. They treat the figures of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as contemporaries, with a lack of historical awareness but a sharpness and an appreciation of their 292
relevance. Evangelicals rejected the growing inductive style of Victorian
thought, influenced by the sciences. 'They 'were much happier with deductive
reasoning.
Another aspect of Victorian thought with which Evangelicals were at seen variance was Coleridge and the romantic movement. He was clearly at
the root of the views of scriptural liberalism present in Essays and
Reviews. Idealist philosophy also was not taken up by Evangelicals. Both
in Lux Xundi and in evolutionary thought, it was strenuouslyIopposed1 bye
Payne Smith and Birks.
Evangelicals were likewise unsympathetic to any re-creation of the
past, for example in eucharistic sacrifice or in the real presence. The
drama of re-presentation was abhorrent to them. Instead they adhered to a
dry memorialism.
Yet on the other hand, many universal tendencies in Victorian
thought were well represented in the Evangelical theologians, individualism, 'liberation for example. ` They interpreted the reformation in terms of a for private judgement and individual faith, a popular Victorian view. Only at the end of the century did a few Evangelicals begin to interpret the sacraments as a corporate celebration of the Body of Christ.
The verbal infallibility of Scripture in its strictest form was notion influenced by romantic thought, with its of the individual receiving clear revelation through an experience of the divine. Evangelicals reject materialist or rationalist notions of progress such as Spencer's but replace them with Christian versions. Birks does this, and Lias and even
Girdlestone reject Vellhausen's theory of a development in knowledge of God in Old Testament history only to replace this with their own theories of development. 293
Pictorial symbolism and myth, so powerful in the Victorian imagination, become increasingly important in Evangelical theology. Xoule and Litton both allow these categories in scripture in the 18908.
The overall picture of. development of Evangelical theology in these years is a broadening with warning signs of an incipient schism between liberals and conservatives; which finally occurred in 1904. Initially views are defensive and narrow in reaction, to the assaults of rationalism and ritualism. Then some insights from these movements. are absorbed and a creative response is made to them. But always there is a conservative faction which remains-firm. In science there is much openness. After a disastrous rejection of Xiller's "day-period" theory, there is a skilful exposing of the scientific and philosophical weaknesses of evolutionary principles by Birke, the leading dogmatic Evangelical theologian.
In scripture, the period begins with the conservatism of Garbett and
Birks. Then this is replaced by the moderate conservatism of Xoule and
Girdlestone and the liberalism of Lias. Lias shows signs of breaking the
Evangelical consensus on rules of biblical interpretation.
In the doctrines of the after-life, the line holds throughout against conditionalism. But-within that consensus, there are major divergences and disputes within the party over passive contemplation, and towards the end of the century, the intermediate state, and even prayers for the dead.
In ritual matters, Evangelicals possess one first-rate scholar,
Dimock, and a good lesser one, John Harrison. Dimock is an intelligent conservative, and holds the Evangelical position on essentials, such as reformed eucharistic teaching. He is also unrivalled as a historian of
Anglican liturgical thought. However with the pressure of the times,, some
Evangelicals begin to practise semi-ritualism. There is a major rift 294 between the theologian Gedge and the Church Association over the Lincoln prosecution.
How important are these theologians? Dimock is a first-rate liturgiologist, and recognised as so. Birks is recognised as a leading anti-Darwinist but he is even more gifted as a philosopher of religion.
Litton produced an enduring dogmatics textbook. Noule was skilled as a bible and liturgical scholar. Girdlestone and Lias are both interesting if minor biblical scholars. Vace was a powerful controversialist. Payne
Smith was a leading Semitic scholar.
How successful were the Evangelical theologians in rebutting rationalism and ritualism and responding positively with teaching in these various fields? They were effective in showing how tenuous the Anglican and to a lesser extent the Patristic basis was for much of the Anglo-
Catholic revolution affecting the Church of England. To read Dimock on sacerdot+uum is to be aware how much only Evangelicals preserved of pre-
Tractarian Anglican traditions of theology and teaching. They showed that their Evangelical credentials were deeply based in the divines of the
Elizabethan, Jacobean and Caroline periods.
These Evangelical theologians were also fairly successful in responding with a thinking conservatism to critical and scientific matters, though a few Recordite figures cannot be acquitted of the charge of obscurantism. They maintained a dialogue with the worlds of biology, philosophy and higher criticism, and they do not largely deserve the sweeping judgement of having defended to the last ditch untenable positions- and having fallen in the fight.
In the case of both rationalism and ritualism, a lack of knowledge of these thinkers has led to an exclusive concentration on controversial 295 and lightweight figures whose response was less measured. '. At the end of the century the materials were there, created by Evangelical theologians, for a positive and contemporary restatement of Christian theology. But by this time decline' in Evangelical spirituality and grass roots strength, and a growing schism-within the movement, meant that a major retreat from public debate into a` small Evangelical ghetto was inevitable. The theologians, therefore were more'the victims than the authors of
Evangelical decline. In the end Evangelicalism fell away in strength because its features had become increasingly out of tune with the times.
Intellectual failure played a small part in this, perhaps a salutary reminder to theologians. '
How does-the writing of the Victorian church history and the" history of theology need to'be amended in-the light of our conclusions?
The writing -of history always reflects the views of the winners, and the winners of the first two thirds of twentieth century in the Church of
England were'liberals and anglo-catholics. Despite the many strengths of their positions as legitimate Anglican theological traditions their historiographic efforts were not an unmixed blessing. The early twentieth century conservative Evangelicalism which liberals and catholics confronted was'an enfeebled pigmy compared with its Victorian predecessor. Therefore they were able to visit the weakness of the son on to the father and depict it as narrow minded, unthinking and sentimental, without a theological rationale. ' Liberalism and catholicism, on the other hand, were viewed as historical vocations of the Church of England, as the via media, and their
Victorian growth under the aegis of the Oxford Movement and scientific biblical criticism was considered as a recapturing of the classic Anglican 296
in the and patristic - heart -of the church after centuries of wandering
wilderness.
for Victorian Anglican , So there was, no room in this scheme
Evangelicalism to fit in as a legitimate spirit of the age and a theological
tradition with a respectable pedigree in the Anglican divines. Hence
Anglicans underestimated the importance of Evangelicalism. Aided by the
lack-of well-known big Evangelical theological names, the Victorian age was
declared the period of Newman and Maurice, not of Birks and Diaock. Yet Evangelical Victorian culture is-admitted to be massively Evangelical.
Anglicanism contributed to this as well as Evangelical non-conformity. that Evangelical Later even Evangelical historians accepted the consensus battle thought =Anglicanism had-not only lost the with new and-Anglo- for doing because its - Catholicism, -but was to blame so, of own
shortcomings. Yet these shortcomings have been, as has been seen, greatly
exaggerated.. The task of charting in more detail a revisionist history,
begun by Bebbington, remains.
the Victorian Anglican Evangelicalism in This -deals with position of
historiography. What was its position in the history of theology? In many
respects it is the end of the classic Anglican tradition. Victorian
Evangelical Anglicans cited the Anglican divines of the sixteenth and
seventeenth century as-few Anglicans have since, helped by the new Parker
These divines, few edition of -the reformation theologians. with a -
exceptions, supported a reformed and Protestant position on church order, been , the sacraments, and the sufficiency of scripture,, and it has seen that
Dimock in particular made a strong-case that Evangelicals only followed the
general historic Anglican position. Twentieth century non-Evangelical
Anglican theology broadened the range of Anglican authorities and has not 297
depended on the divines 'to the same extent, preferring the Fathers, on whom
Dimock also relied but with whom fewer twentieth century Evangelicals have
been qualified to make a rejoinder. Twentieth century Evangelicals accepted
the via media view that the Anglican divines were middle of the road, and
relied on them less, depending more on Puritan theology. Those like J. I.
Packer who follow the latter then regarded Victorian Evangelical theology
as distinguished 'but decadent. Although lacking purity of thought and
subject to historicist and individualist obfuscation, Victorian Evangelical
thought is a-subtler instrument than Puritanism.
Thus Victorian Evangelical theology represents the end of a
particular line'for Anglican theology in general. Indeed in a sense Birks
and the others regarded themselves more as Anglican than Evangelical
theologians, since they wrote on public issues for the whole church, unlike
many Evangelical thinkers subsequently.
Yet there is a continuing tradition also. Packer refers to centuries
of reformed Augustinianism massively expounded by major minds in the
Church of England, indicating the tradition in which Dimock and the others
found themselves. There is a continuity from the conservative yet reformed
divines such as Jewel and Ussher, through the more moderate Puritans such
as Baxter, through Goode to Dinock, Litton, Xoule, and Birks.
The continuity goes on even in the weak ghetto of the early
twentieth century with such thinkers as Griffith Thomas. It is an Anglican
tradition, not exclusively Calvinist, Reformed more than Lutheran, with a
conservative attitude to church order, and an adherence to simple yet
liturgical worship. It is flexible and able to respond to the issues of the day by using contemporary philosophy and historiography. Stressing the sufficiency of scripture and the necessity of personal conversion, it has 298 throughout the centuries been stronger in the parish churches than records of controversies reveal and more powerful in theological argument than opponents allow. The tradition's weaknesses lie in a lack of intellectual and creative curiosity about new ideas, a certain negativism, and an insularity. Nevertheless it forms an important though neglected tradition in English theology.
Through their work, most of which was not formulated in an ivory tower but in the heat of battle and controversy, these men formed a school of Evangelical theologians. Bone of them was a giant like Maurice or
Bewman. Taken together, though, they refute the notion that Evangelical theology in the late nineteenth century was other than substantial and weighty. They sought to withstand Shaftesbury's "juggernaut" of rationalism and ritualism. They did not fall under its car. They did not halt it, even if they slowed its progress. But out of their struggle they forged an important chapter in Evangelical and in Anglican theology. 299
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