profound thinker assumed a fixed
position, a reaction against orthodoxy has been progressing in the
Established Church. There are reasons why the slow but effectual
introduction of German Rationalism has been taking place imperceptibly.

The war which had agitated England, with the rest of Europe, came to a
close in 1815. Immediately afterward domestic polities needed
adjustment. "The disabilities were swept away," says a writer, "the
House of Commons was reconstituted, the municipalities were reformed,
slavery was abolished."[142] In due time the nation became adjusted to
peace; the popular mind lost its nervousness; the universities returned
to their sober thinking; and the Church took a careful survey to
ascertain what had been lost in the recent conflict, what gained, and
what new fields lay ready for her enterprise. But very soon fresh
political combinations attracted the attention of all classes. The
revolutionary changes and counter-changes in France were watched with
eager attention lest Waterloo might be avenged in some unexpected
manner. At home, church parties were reviving the old antagonisms
described by the pen of Macaulay. The popular mind has thus been
continually directed toward some exciting theme. England has not had a
day of leisure during the whole of the last half-century, when she
could come to a judicious conclusion concerning that class of her
thinkers who, though they make theology their profession, are so
intensely independent as to attach themselves to no creed or
ecclesiastical organization. But they have been thinking all the time,
and the outgrowth of their thought is now visible.

English Rationalism consists of three departments: Philosophical,
Literary, and Critical Rationalism. Whenever infidelity has arisen,
whether within or without the Church, it has usually developed these
forms. Philosophy has furnished undevout reason with a fund of
speculative objections to revelation; literature has dazzled and
bewildered the young and all lovers of romance; and criticism has seized
the deductions of science, language, and ethnology, and by their
combined aid aimed at the overthrow of the historical and inspired basis
of faith. Each of these three agents is in constant danger of arrogance
and error. The first, by a single false assumption, may lose its way;
the second, by making too free use of the imagination, can easily forget
when it is dealing with faith and facts; and the third, by one a