the household
of faith. Salvation does not depend upon the ritual but upon the life;
the fruits of the Spirit are the sole criteria of the Spirit's presence.
They give prominence to the idea of the visible Church when they hold
the Church to be a Society divinely instituted for the purpose of
manifesting God's presence, and bearing witness to his attributes, by
their reflection in its ordinances and in its members. If its ideal were
fully embodied in its actual constitution "it would remind us daily of
God, and work upon the habits of our life as insensibly as the air we
breathe."[211] For this end, it would revive "daily services, frequent
communions, memorials of our Christian calling, presented to our notice
in crosses and wayside oratories; commemorations to holy men of all
times and countries; religious orders, especially of women, of different
kinds and under different rules, delivered only from the snare and sin
of perpetual vows."[212]

The special defender of these views of the visible Church, the late Dr.
Thomas Arnold, of Rugby, was a man of great industry, profound
erudition, and extraordinary power and tact in the management of youth.
His sermons, delivered to his pupils at Rugby, were short, and usually
written just before delivery in the school-chapel on Sabbath
afternoons.[213] He interested himself in all questions of reform,
education, politics, and literature. But he is best known as one of the
leaders of the Broad Church, and in this light his theological opinions
may be considered a fair sample of the theology adopted by that party in
its earlier and purer days. With him, inspiration is not equivalent to a
communication of the divine perfections. Paul expected the world would
come to an end in the generation then existing. The Scripture narratives
are not only about divine things, but are themselves divinely framed and
superintended. Inspiration does not raise a man above his own time, nor
make him, even in respect to that which he utters when inspired, perfect
in goodness and wisdom; but it so overrules his language that it shall
contain a meaning more than his own mind was conscious of, and thus give
to it a character of divinity, and a power of perpetual
application.[214]

According to Arnold, Christ was the sum of the Bible, and the centre of
all truth. We cannot come to God directly; Christ is to us in place of
God; and he is God, for to hold the contrary would be idolatry. Christ
suffered f