An Apostle of Doubt [pp. 337-345]

i88~] AK APOSTLE OF DOUBT. 337
AN APOSTLE OF DOUBT.
PERfIAPS the most curious expression of modern religious
thought~n England is the rapid growth and development of what
is popularly called the Broad-Church party, which, withdrawing
as far from the Evangelicals on one side as from the Ritualists
on the other, forms the third point of the triangle enclosing the
whole Anglican Church. Her sister-factions,. far from holding
out their hands to welcome the new-comer, regard her with horror and aversion, gathering up their robes carefully from her
corrupting taint; but all the same she has touched a secret
spring in the hearts of men which responds but too readily to
the call. The Evangelical demands an absolute faith in the
Scriptures, which he will decipher for you according to his
views; the Ritualist exacts obedience to a church authority
based on insufficient and often unadmitted claims; but the
Broad-Church man appeals to the spirit of universal doubt, and,
far from inviting any spiritual allegiance, exhorts his congregation to judge all such matters for themselves, by the light, hardly
of inspiration, which is out of date, but of the most advanced
modern thought.
Such a doctrine is not merely attractive in itself, but it is
singularly hard to combat. You can, Bible in hand, defeat the
Evangelical with his own weapon; but the Broad-Churchman
meets you with a prompt denial of its infallibility. You can
point out to the Ritualist certain unpleasant truths connected
with the establishment of the English Church and its early discipline; but the Broad-Churchman replies, in the words of Mr.
Haweis, that "apostolic succession, if real, would be of no
value," and laughs at the idea of any ecclesiastical fabric being
divinely ordained.
A prominent English reviewer, anxious to say something in
favor of so unique a system, requests us to bear in mind that the
Broad Church is representative in a high degree. "It reflects,"
he says, "one of the characteristic points of the contemporary
mind-that desire to translate the old dogmas which it can no
longer hold by into something which it can believe; to give
them some shadowy spiritual meaning or recondite interpretation, by which they can still be retained, if in no better aspect,
VOL. xL.-22