Into Oxford no serious philosophical movement had penetrated.It had been slowly amending its system,but it still adhered in substance to the ancient traditions.Dimly it knew that infidels and rationalisers were preaching dangerous theories.Pusey had visited Germany in 1825-27,and had come back with some knowledge of German thought.He was even accused,very superfluously,of rationalism.Of that there was no real danger(214)for a man thoroughly steeped in the Oxford spirit.A sufficient illustration of Oxford education may be found in the curious controversy between Copleston,who had done much to rouse his University,and the Edinburgh Reviewers.Copleston replied vigorously,and yet his boast is a tacit confession.He declares that Oxford possesses good classical scholars,and we need not inquire how far they were really abreast of the day.Oxford men had to get up logic in Aldrich and make some acquaintance with Aristotle;and he argues that the mathematical studies of the place were more than 'elementary.'They were even beginning to include 'fluxions.'If this were a matter for boasting,it could not be seriously held that Oxford was doing anything comparable to the German universities as an adequate organ of the national intellect.(215)In point of fact,the system allowed the great majority to remain in complete ignorance of any recent movements of living speculation,a century or two behind-hand in philology,and absolutely indifferent to science.Naturally,when the champions of the Church came out to fight,they were armed with antiquated weapons.Yet many of them were men of great ability,and one at least a man of most indisputable genius.
The alarm spread by radical assaults upon the Church was equally felt by the liberal divines.No one,for example,was more alarmed than Dr Arnold.But Arnold,a man of lofty and generous instincts and strong political interests,took the essentially liberal view.The Church,as all active-minded men agreed,was in danger.It was threatened by 'the godless party,'the radicals and revolutionists who were the heirs of jacobinism,and were as hateful to him as to the high-churchmen.But here his diagnosis becomes essentially different.Arnold thought that the Church had become a separate sect because it adhered to old prejudices and to sacerdotalism.His remedy was to make it truly national,by widening its borders,admitting dissenters,and encouraging philosophic thought.The Church should be,as Coleridge urged,an essential part of the State organism;not a close corporation belonging to a priestly order.It was properly identical with the State.It must be liberalised that the State might be made religious,and drop the antiquated claims to magical authority which opposed it to the common sense of the masses and the reason of the thinkers.(216)This was precisely the antithesis to the view taken by the leaders of the 'movement.'They held that the Church was weak,precisely because it had been unfaithful to its higher claims and made an alliance with the State,which had passed into a bondage.This,then,is one aspect of the division between the liberals and the dogmatists;and what I have now to do is to endeavour to indicate the dogmatical view.
I confine myself to two representatives of the movement:
Newman,whose literary genius needs no emphasis;and W.G.Ward,conspicuous as one who never shrank from an inference,and who,to do him bare justice,was incapable of supporting logic by misrepresenting his opponents.He represents the forlorn Hope,and reveals the tendencies which frightened his less daring comrades.
The true starting-point of the 'movement'can hardly be given more distinctly than in Ward's Ideal of a Christian Church.(217)It represents the stage at which Ward was becoming fully aware of the consequences of his own logical position.The Ideal has ceased to be lively reading;it is like an echo from old common-room disputations of young men intensely interested in the ecclesiastical movements of the day.Ward contrasts the actual Church of England with the ideal Church of Christ,and already finds in the Church of Rome a more promising embodiment of the true spirit.The true Church is of divine institution,the channel of supernatural graces,and independent of all human authority.The Church of England,if not the creature,has become in fact the slave,of the State.It claims a parliamentary title,and in return for privileges has abandoned its rightful authority.Above all,a true church is known by its discipline.
It should be the incarnate conscience of the society,and should superintend,enforce by its sanctions and stimulate by its example,the spiritual nature of its members.A true church should exercise an omnipresent spiritual authority,reaching every detail of life and organising the perpetual warfare against the world,the flesh,and the devil.The utter decay of any such power is the most fatal symptom of the Anglican body.From a contemporary book,Ward extracts a ghastly account of the misery,vice,and spiritual degradation of the mass of the population.(218)To remedy such evils,he declares,the 'science of dogmatic theology'is more essential than the science of political economy.(219)Dogmatic theology is in fact the basis of 'ascetic theology,'or of the whole theory of religious discipline.If,indeed,the Christian theology be taken seriously,if spiritual degeneration has an importance altogether out of proportion to material progress,and the salvation of souls be the one thing necessary,the conclusion is inevitable.
