taught
they conceive to be adequately established, how much to be uncertain,
and how much, if anything, to be mistaken; there is scarcely, perhaps, a
single serious enquirer who would not submit with delight to a court
which is the highest on earth.

Mr. Mansell tells us that in the things of God reason is beyond its
depth, that the wise and the unwise are on the same level of incapacity,
and that we must accept what we find established, or we must believe
nothing. We presume that Mr. Mansell's dilemma itself is a conclusion
of reason. Do what we will, reason is and must be our ultimate
authority; and were the collective sense of mankind to declare Mr.
Mansell right, we should submit to that opinion as readily as to
another. But the collective sense of mankind is less acquiescent. He has
been compared to a man sitting on the end of a plank and deliberately
sawing off his seat. It seems never to have occurred to him that, if he
is right, he has no business to be a Protestant. What Mr. Mansell says
to Professor Jowett, Bishop Gardiner in effect replied to Frith and
Ridley. Frith and Ridley said that transubstantiation was unreasonable;
Gardiner answered that there was the letter of Scripture for it, and
that the human intellect was no measure of the power of God. Yet the
Reformers somehow believed, and Mr. Mansell by his place in the Church
of England seems to agree with them, that the human intellect was not so
wholly incompetent. It might be a weak guide, but it was better than
none; and they declared on grounds of mere reason, that Christ being in
heaven and not on earth, 'it was contrary to the truth for a natural
body to be in two places at once.' The common sense of the country was
of the same opinion, and the illusion was at an end.

There have been 'Aids to Faith' produced lately, and 'Replies to the
Seven Essayists,' 'Answers to Colenso,' and much else of the kind. We
regret to say that they have done little for us. The very life of our
souls is at issue in the questions which have been raised, and we are
fed with the professional commonplaces of the members of a close guild,
men holding high office in the Church, or expecting to hold high office
there; in either case with a strong temporal interest in the defence of
the institution which they represent. We desire to know what those of
the clergy think whose love of truth is unconnected with their prospects
in life; we desire to know what the educated laymen, th