by his name. But this movement, whose tendency is rather liturgical than theological, diverges too widely from the providential current of the time, and the genius of the people, to be anything more than an episode in the history of the Church whose theoretical contradictions it has served to illustrate, and whose order it has so profoundly agitated. The full development and thorough application of the principles involved in it necessitate, as recent defections from the national communion in favor of Romanism have shown, the entire abandonment of the Protestant ground.

The future of the Church is committed to another interest, and a different order of minds. The life of Anglican theology is now represented by such men as Powell and Williams and Maurice and Jowett and Stanley. Its strain and promise are apparent in these Essays.

The term "Broad Church" has been used to designate the new phase of ecclesiastical life, whose characteristics are breadth and freedom of view, an earnest spirit of inquiry and resolute criticism, joined to a reverent regard for ecclesiastical tradition and the common faith of mankind. The spirit of this theology is at once progressive and conservative; careful of all essential sanctities, careful also of the rights of the mind, of the interests of science, and the "liberty of prophesying;" carefully adjusting old views with new discoveries, transient forms with everlasting verities; regarding symbols and "Articles" as servants of thought, not as laws of thought; as imperfect attempts to articulate truth, not as the measure and gauge of truth.

Rationalistic it is, inasmuch as it is Protestant; for, of Rationalism, the only alternative is Romanism. Yet assuming in Christianity itself the perfection of reason, and believing

that the truest insight in spiritual things is where the human intellect, freely inquiring, encounters the Holy Ghost, and that such encounter is afforded by the Gospel, it goes about to analyze and interpret, not to gainsay or destroy; reverently listening, if here and there it may catch some accents of the Eternal Voice amid the confused dialects of Scripture, yet not confounding the latter with the former; expecting to find ir criticism, guided by a true philosophy, the key to revelation; in revelation, the sanction and condign expression of philosophic truth.

May this spirit, which is now leavening the Church of England, find abundant entrance into all the churches of our own land! and may this volume, its genuine product, though very imperfect exponent, contribute somewhat thereto!

F. H. HEDGE.

BROOKLINE, Aug. 14, 1860.

PREFACE TO THE THIRD AMERICAN EDITION.

FOURTEEN years have elapsed since the second American reprint of "Essays and Reviews," like the first, was published in Boston, with the title, "Recent Inquiries in Theology."

During that period some changes have occurred in the theological and ecclesiastical world of England, but none which have tended to discredit the views represented in this volume, or to check the progress of liberal theology. The author of the first Essay, formerly Head Master of Rugby, has been transferred to the bishopric of Exeter; I will not say promoted, for I hold the former position to be quite as honorable as the latter. He has seen fit to withdraw his portion of the work from the later English editions of "Essays and Reviews" in England. The alleged cause of this secession-disagreement in some particulars with his associates-seems hardly a sufficient reason for refusing to appear in such company, where the general intent of all the co-workers was the same. And certainly the dissertation entitled "The Education of the World" contains nothing that can compromise the bishop's orthodoxy, or that need alarm the most conservative prelatical mind. That the views expressed in the other essays continue to find favor with a portion at least of the British public, may be inferred from their republication during the present year.

Meanwhile, other agencies have combined to reinforce the cause of liberal thought within the pale of the Church.

Dr. Stanley, the frank and consistent advocate of toleration and free inquiry, from the vantage-ground of his position as Dean of Westminster, has contributed not a little to this end by the weight of his character and his brilliant gifts.

In humbler station, Mr. Stopford Brooke, who seems to have inherited the spirit, together with much of the peculiar talent of the late beloved Robertson, of Brighton, preaches and publishes discourses which show how piety and liberality, fervor of sentiment and mental emancipation, practical religion and independent thought, may unite in the service of truth.

Matthew Arnold's "Literature and Dogma,” notwithstanding its weary iterations and its unaccountable misconception of Hebrew theism, has struck at the root of orthodox bigotry with its fundamental position that the Bible must be interpreted by literary, not by ecclesiastical canons.

Max Müller, the learned and philosophical interpreter of Oriental faiths, though not a theologian by profession, has extended the horizon of theological vision by his lectures on the "Science of Religion," and, like his compatriot, Bunsen, whose researches Dr. Williams discusses in this volume, has exercised a liberalizing influence on the English mind, whose power is felt in ecclesiastical circles no less than in the realm of science.

In a different spirit and with different aims, the "Examination of Canon Liddon's Bampton Lectures," by a "Clergyman of the Church of England," and the Duke of Somerset's little treatise on "Christian Theology and Mod

ern Scepticism," with the very significant motto inscribed on its title-page, have exposed, in the one case, the weakness of the Scriptural proof of a cherished dogma which Tradition has fastened on the creed of Christendom; in the other, the doubtful tenure of the whole system of Christian dogmatics, when viewed in the light of the critical discoveries of recent time.

The Revision of the English version of the Bible, authorized by the Convocation of Canterbury in 1870, and now in progress under supervision of English and American scholars of established repute, although mostly committed to men who are interested in maintaining the status quo of Christian theology, avails itself also, to some extent, of the counsel of critics of the liberal communion. Whatever its treatment of doubtful and disputed passages of Scripture, it can hardly fail to shake the superstition which idolizes the letter of the English text as the very identical, infallible word of God.

The frequent desertions from the Church of England to that of Rome which have come to our knowledge within the limits of the present generation, have been thought to indicate that the tendency of Anglicanism is retrogressive, instead of progressive; that it lies in the direction of external authority and materialism, rather than of growing illumination and generous trust. But these apostasies, so industriously, bruited, seem to be not so much the result of intellectual conviction as of false sentiment-a romanticism in religion, like that which impelled a Christian emperor of the fourth century to secede from the Church and turn polytheist. It is hardly conceivable that any considerable portion of the laity of England should follow in a path