at the same time so free from enthusiasm, so rich in the gold of Christian antiquity, yet so astonishingly exempt from its dross.' She was so far removed from 'fanaticism' that she wrote All the doctrines of the gospel are practical principles. The word of God was not written, the Son of God was not incarnate, the Spirit of God was not given only that Christians might obtain right views and possess just notions. Religion is something more than mere correctness of intellect, justness of conception and excellence of judgment. It is a life-giving principle. It must be infused into the heart as well as into the understanding. It must regulate the will as well as direct the creed. It must not only cast all opinions into a right frame, but the heart into a new mould. It is a transforming as well as a penetrating principle."

1 'Practical Piety,' chap. ii.

of his party, sincere, earnest, intensely religious. In the Christian Observer in 1804 he criticised Archdeacon Daubeny, specially on the doctrine of regeneration in baptism. The baptismal service seems to make the two things contemporaneous, as if baptism were always regeneration; but this is explained, that the Church usually speaks in the name and character of that part which truly believes. It is always assumed that the persons using the services of the Church are what they profess to be. Every baptised infant is supposed to be regenerated, so is every baptised adult. In the last case it is clearly a charitable persumption, and there is no reason for its not being the same in the former.

The chief lay pillars of the Evangelical party in the beg ning of the century were William Wilberforce1 and Hanna. More. Wilberforce's 'Practical View' was a defence of the Evangelical doctrines, under the form of moderate Calvinism. It is strong on the corruption of human nature and the atonement as the means of deliverance The subject did not afford scope for originality, but the earnestness of the writer was manifest, and the book had great influence in calling men to seriousness.

Hannah More's works were popular, and helped to make fashionable the outward profession of religion, while they showed that religion was something not merely outward. In her time, and in some measure, through her influence, religion came to be spoken of with respect in many circles where before it had been treated with contempt. Bishop Porteus, in a Charge to his clergy, bore public testimony to the influence of her works. Her friend, Archdeacon Daubeny, had some fears that she was not sincerely attached to the Church of England. He dreaded the little reverence she had for mere external religion, and he thought she leaned to 'fanaticism and Calvinism.' In her tract 'On the Religion of the Fashionable World,' she says that she was sincerely attached to the Establishment, and she regarded its institutions with a veneration at once affectionate and rational.' She did not believe that, since the time of the Apostles, there had ever been a Church in which the public worship was so solemn, yet so cheerful, so simple and yet so sublime, so full of fervour and

at the same time so free from enthusiasm, so rich in the gold of Christian antiquity, yet so astonishingly exempt from its dross.' She was so far removed from 'fanaticism' that she wrote All the doctrines of the gospel are practical principles. The word of God was not written, the Son of God was not incarnate, the Spirit of God was not given only that Christians might obtain right views and possess just notions. Religion is something more than mere correctness of intellect, justness of conception and excellence of judgment. It is a life-giving principle. It must be infused into the heart as well as into the understanding. It must regulate the will as well as direct the creed. It must not only cast all opinions into a right frame, but the heart into a new mould. It is a trans

forming as well as a penetrating principle."

1 'Practical Piety,' chap. ii.

CHAPTER IV

MARSH, BATHURST, BURGESS, VAN MILDERT, MALTBY, FABER,

man.

ALEXANDER KNOX, RENNELL

THE next generation of theological writers may be said to belong more to this century. The line is not to be drawn definitely, as the time of influence and activity is not always proportioned to age. Among the writers of this period the most eminent was Herbert Marsh, Bishop of Llandaff and afterwards of Peterborough. He had lived some years at Göttingen and had acquired a knowledge of the German language, in those days a rare accomplishment for an EnglishWhile Margaret Professor of Divinity in Cambridge, he translated Michaelis'' Introduction to the New Testament,' adding notes and a 'Dissertation' of his own 2 on the origin of the first three gospels. This may be called the introduction of German criticism into England, but it did not then take root. In the Dissertation Marsh supposed the first three Evangelists to have used a common document, which in some places they abridged and to which they added matter from other sources. The document was supposed to have been that called by Origen 'The Gospel of the Twelve' or by Justin Martyr The Memorials of the Apostles.' Matthew probably retained the original Hebrew, while Mark and Luke translated it into Greek. The verbal agreement of the three Evangelists was the foundation of this hypothesis.

The publication of this 'Dissertation' produced one of those panics to which the orthodox world is as subject as volcanic 1 B. 1758, d. 1838.

regions to earthquakes. Here was a book written by a Professor of Divinity, in the University of Cambridge, published at the expense of the University, the tendency of which was indirectly to modify if not to overturn the received doctrine of infallible inspiration. A host of combatants rushed to the defence. Daniel Veysie argued that if Marsh's statement of the facts was correct, they would favour the hypothesis of a plurality of documents more than of one.

The Regius Professor of Oxford, wrote 'Remarks on Marsh's Hypothesis." This was anonymous, but the writer was John Randolph, afterwards Bishop of London. He dreaded the danger of such speculations to young and inexperienced persons. The hypothesis wanted simplicity and it made the Evangelists 'copiers of copyists, compilers of former compilations from a farrago of gospels or parts of gospels of uncertain authority.' The silence of the Fathers for many centuries as to the existence of any such documents was reckoned proof sufficient that they never existed. The Gospel of the Twelve' was spurious and the Memorials' of Justin were the present gospels. The verbal agreement on which the hypothesis rested was mostly confined to the discourses of Jesus and was much exaggerated. It is inferred that the discourses were often repeated before they were committed to writing, and were the only documents the Evangelists had before them.

Marsh repudiated the inference that he made the Evangelists copiers of copyists.' The documents from which he supposed them to draw in addition to the common document were communications made by the Apostles, and therefore of good authority, establishing the authenticity, integrity, and credibility of the gospels. All antiquity confirms the belief that St Matthew wrote in Hebrew, and the silence of the Fathers concerning this common document is easily accounted for by their ignorance of the Hebrew language, and the original document having been superseded by more com-. plete history. The Memorials' were a single gospel and not the four. This hypothesis of a common gospel had the advantage of going back to the preaching of Christ. It was the commentaries of the Apostles committed to writing, while