Just as Dr. Knox's book is valuable as shewing the extent to which an evangelical Bishop is willing to admit the validity of the fundamental postulates of English Modernism, so recent work by Dr. Gore shews how far the same tendencies prevail in the other wing of the English Church. Dr. Gore has an honourable record of intellectual and episcopal activity. He is recognised as the foremost of Anglo-Catholic leaders; and, though a generation ago Liddon thought his Modernism dangerous, he has been in recent years a stern critic of later Modernist developments. Needless to say he, like Bishop Knox, carefully measures his words, and seeks not to disturb unnecessarily the minds of those who look to him for guidance. Since his retirement from the See of Oxford he has produced two out of three promised volumes on the Reconstruction of Belief. The principles on which he works are set forth in the earlier of these volumes,' Belief in God.' At the beginning of this book he shews clearly that he is not prepared, in the supposed interests of orthodoxy, to continue the old quarrel between religion and science. The scientific view of the world which since the days of Darwin has become approximately 'universal, offers' he says 'no sort of hindrance to the spiritual interpretation of nature.'

'Science bids us contemplate an age-long process by which, out of some original elements and conditions, to us but dimly imaginable, there was evolved a universal order, and out of the inorganic order life, and the forms of life, vegetable and animal, and out of the animal creation rational man. We shall not, if we are wise, lay stress on the gaps in the scientific story of creation, or build on the conviction that living matter could not have been evolved out of that which had no life, or rationality out of animal mind.'

In effect, Dr. Gore, just like any Modernist divine who considers the theological implications of our knowledge of the universe, not only accepts the general theory of evolution, but will not even assert that the production of living from non-living matter differs in character from the rest of the evolutionary process. Naturally he abandons the idea of scriptural infallibility.

'I think (that) a believer in the reality of Biblical inspiration must admit in the widest sense that this inspiration of certain men by the Spirit of God does not appear to have carried with it any special enlightenment on those subjects on which man has proved able, though with infinite labour, to enlighten himself."

The Bishop lets us see that he does not recoil from some obvious concomitants of this attitude to inspiration.

'I am not disposed to think that the ass on which Balaam rode really uttered human words, or that the poetry of the book of Jasher can assure us of a real alteration having taken place in the normal motions of the bodies of our solar system.'

The Bishop holds that miracles are an essential element in the Christian revelation; but he combines belief with discrimination. Of the miracles of later ecclesiastical history he says that 'in arguing about any one of them you are arguing about supposed ' events which belong to a deeply discredited type.' With regard to some miracles recorded in Scripture, he argues that what God does when He works a miracle is not to violate the order of the 'world in the deeper sense.' God 'innovates upon the normal physical order, but solely in the interest of the deeper moral 'order and purpose of the world.' The Bishop's use of the word 'innovates' must be taken in connection with the fact that immediately afterwards he quotes with approval St. Augustine's statement, 'God does something contrary to nature which He 'does contrary to what we know in nature.' Dr. Gore's position is not wholly clear, but he appears to accept, somewhat hesitatingly, the Catholic dualism which opposes a natural to a supernatural order. St. Augustine's words, on the other hand, permit the belief that the Virgin Birth, for example, could be paralleled by a man of science who discovered the law of generation of which it is, at present, a unique example: Dr. Gore would probably refuse to accept this conclusion. Yet he, in common with all Modernists, would agree that, so far as our knowledge goes, there is no necessary connection between the physical miracle and the spiritual miracle of the Incarnation. He does not use the physical event in developing the theology of the Person of Christ: the Virgin Birth of Jesus he regards 'as in the highest degree acceptable and congruous in His case, if not ' rationally necessary.'

In the matter of Biblical criticism Dr. Gore's fundamental position is exactly that of Modernist scholars.

'There is (he says) no reason to believe that the Church is qualified by its legitimate authority to pronounce judgment on any literary problem. That is a matter for free criticism.'

He feels so certain that the new science has yielded results largely destructive of traditional views about Old Testament literature that no weight of ecclesiastical authority to the contrary could move me.' He holds that not one of the codes of law in the Pentateuch is due directly as it stands to Moses; and feels certain that the accounts of Creation, Eden, the Fall, the Flood, are not historical records but inspired folk-lore.' He dates the book of Daniel some three centuries later than Malachi.' With regard to New Testament criticism his position is conservative, but he reaches it by opposing arguments which he deems conclusive to those advanced by more radical critics. Yet his concessions to criticism are substantial. He regards it as probable that St. Matthew composed in Aramaic a collection of our Lord's discourses, and that

'Some one unknown, not long after A.D. 70, used this collection, in combination with St. Mark's narrative, and some other material which came to him, to produce our first Gospel "according to Matthew." (Further)' In some three cases prophecies from the Old Testament have been allowed to modify details of the narrative in the First Gospel, and in connection with our Lord's death and burial the author introduces material which it is difficult to believe to be historical.'

The authorship and historical value of the Fourth Gospel are, at the present time, hotly disputed. Dr. Gore holds that it was written by John the Son of Zebedee and that the discourses in it ' must be taken as recovering from oblivion very real and important 'features in our Lord's teaching.' But he says frankly that one holding this position is up against' the great mass of critical opinion.

Lest it should be urged that Dr. Gore is more liberal in his views than other Anglo-Catholics we may briefly mention the recent polemic against Modernism which Dr. Harris entitles 'Creeds or No Creeds?' The work has been warmly praised by Anglo-Catholic reviewers; and for our present purpose it is not necessary to mention its defects. As regards modern science, Dr. Harris takes it for granted that 'the evolution of the solar system from the nebula to man is an historic fact.' He holds that

'The supernatural or miraculous is not an occasional intrusion into the order of the universe which at other times is purely natural and

mechanical, but rather a permanent element in that order, resulting from the fact that the Spirit of God is immanent within it.'

It is possible, Dr. Harris says, that God may sometimes suspend His own laws to suit particular cases or emergencies, but he claims that this supposition is rejected by nearly all theologians.' In criticism Dr. Harris allows that the results of the more moderate 'school of advanced criticism' are ' approximately correct.' For instance, the author of Daniel was a Jew who lived in Palestine in the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes, 176-164 B.C., and

'His work has probably as little connection with the prophet Daniel as the Sibylline oracles have with the Cumaan or any other Sibyl.'

With regard to New Testament criticism he is conservative; but he states that all recent continental criticism is unfavourable 'to the apostolic authorship' of the Fourth Gospel, which nevertheless he himself maintains. His attitude to the Fall and Original Sin is consequential on his thesis that an 'orthodox' Churchman is only bound by explicit decisions of Ecumenical Councils.

The Creeds lay down no detailed doctrine concerning the Fall of Man and Original Sin, nor have any of the Ecumenical Councils recognised by the whole Church dealt with these mysterious subjects. This wise reserve has not been always imitated by later Councils of less authority. The Council of Trent, for instance, has made statements not easy to reconcile with present-day views concerning the descent and origin of Man.'

While the theological schools associated with English Universities are in the best sense progressive, the theological colleges of the English Church have too often sheltered obscurantism. It is therefore significant that the Vice-Principal of Cuddesdon in his book on 'The Christian Idea of Sin and Original Sin' should accept the evolutionary standpoint. The story of Adam's disobedience is a piece of folk-lore.' The chapter which contains it 'throws no light on the origin of sin ' in the world.' 'Historical origins can only be proved by 'historical evidence.' 'Our modern knowledge makes clear that 'the human nature which (Christ) assumed has a native kinship 'with the beasts and the lower creation.' Prebendary Bicknell confesses his obligations to, and in part adopts the position of, Dr. Tennant, whose singularly valuable books, though only

twenty years old, were condemned by orthodox critics when they first appeared.

It must, we think, be conceded that the copious extracts which we have given shew that between various schools of thought in the English Church there is more' modernist' agreement than is popularly realised. Leaders on all sides are willing to accept physical and biological conclusions reached by men of science. They recognise that it is legitimate to apply to the Scriptures the methods of literary and historical criticism; and, while all insist with earnest conviction that the Bible is a collection of inspired books of outstanding spiritual value, they do not contend that it is infallible. With regard to miracles, Bishop Gore writes somewhat uncertainly, but on this question it happens that the Bishops of the Anglican Communion have collectively expressed a clear opinion. In the Lambeth Conference for 1908 the Bishops, as Dr. Chase, Bishop of Ely, has pointed out, 'specially invested 'with the authority of the Conference itself,'* a report of a Committee on The Faith and Modern Thought.' In this report the following footnote was inserted :

'In using the word miracles in a report dealing with scientific thought, we must guard ourselves against the often repeated misapprehension that the Church by that word means breaches or suspensions of the laws of Nature.'

They then quote in full the passage from St. Augustine to which, as we have seen, Dr. Gore refers.

The conclusions of our enquiry are both important and significant. Men of science, familiar with popular religious prejudice and ignorant of the constructive work of theologians, still commonly assume that Churchmen must either be accounted heretical or must reject modern scientific beliefs. By the public at large it is generally assumed that none but a few religious teachers of questionable orthodoxy dare to accept critical conclusions with regard to the Scriptures or to doubt the infallibility of the Bible. There is moreover a widespread popular conviction that to Churchmen a miracle means a suspension or breach of the laws of nature. Fifty years ago the attitude of leading Churchmen to science, criticism and miracles was fairly expressed by these popular assumptions. But the evidence which we have

*F. H. Chase, Belief and Creed,' 1918, p. 23.