THE

THEOLOGICAL REVIEW:

A JOURNAL

OF

RELIGIOUS THOUGHT AND LIFE.

"Our fathers worshiped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is
the place where men ought to worship.'

*

"The hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jeru-
salem, worship the Father.
But the hour cometh, and now is, when
the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth for the
Father seeketh such to worship Him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship
Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth." (John iv. 20, 21, 23, 24.)

VOL. I. Nos. I-V.

LONDON:

WHITFIELD, GREEN & SON, 178, STRAND.

WILLIAMS & NORGATE, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN,
AND AT 20, SOUTH FREDERICK STREET, EDINBURGH.

MANCHESTER

JOHNSON & RAWSON, 89, MARKET STREET.
LEIPZIG L. DENICKE.

1864.

AMONG the most noteworthy characteristics of English society at the present moment, is a singular revival of interest in those theological inquiries which in quieter times the mass of men are content to leave to studious and painful divines. The interest is not purely intellectual, but has a practical side also: men, whose minds are commonly urged by little speculative ardour, are conscious of a vague insecurity in the foundations of the faith which is their stay in life and death, and will not be satisfied till they have looked into the matter with their own eyes. Yet, though the present commotion in the region of theological thought springs in part from moral sources and owns moral restraints, it must not be regarded as a parallel phenomenon to any of those great awakenings of religious life, of which the birth of Methodism in the last century is a familiar example. For in these, the moral and spiritual is also the preponderating element, asking from the intellect, in order to produce its own fullest results, little more than a certain receptive activity. The question is not of new beliefs, but of a fresh power poured into the old; not of the firmer base on which the ancient faith can be seated, but of the new life with which it can be made to move and glow. What quickening of the intellect is needed, is implied, not in the careful marshalling of evidence, the cautious process of logical deduction, but in the sudden inspiration which, shewing familiar truths in a new light, reveals them as undeniably true and unspeakably solemn. On the contrary, the present movement comes from the side of the intellect, and, though with enough of the moral element to keep it honest and reverent,