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    THE CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND.*!

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    MACAULAY lias somewhere stated that Scotland has always had the Worst government ; and always been the best governed , of ' European countries . The constitutional love of the writer for startling- antithesis occasioned the exaggeration of the . paradox . We ¦ ¦ may fairly deduct something , and limit our acceptation of the dictum to this—that Scotland has always iiad a feeble government , but never has suffered so much therefrom as at first sight might have been expected . Still the saying , even as modified , is perplexih « - and we anxiously beat about for some solution of the climculty . iAvill not suffice for the doctrinaire at oilce to leap to the refuge of laissez-faire , and calmly to assume , in a satisfied way , that there is here yielded one more demonstration of the lnsnmciuncy oF to look at the other stfle of

    government for its professed ends ; m , the medal , the needlessness of the device of government for the attainment of ends that society , ungoyerned , may adequately achieve . The solution is yet to be reached . The question recurs , What was it in this national society that enabled it to govern itself , and produce a fair average security and national life , impeded as it wasby a feeble , or injured by a . worthless . , governing body P Now , Scotland is and has been , at least since the Reformation , the most ecclesiastical and the most theological of modern peoples , lhe theorist would very naturally , at the first blush , try to apply the recognised differentia of Scotland ' s character , m explanation ot the reco gnised differentia of Scotland ' s condition . Such volumes as the two before us we open with the primary wish to discover whether this theory will avail , whether the facts will support it , and ¦ ¦

    so dispel our perplexity . . .. . It is in this way that our interest in Scottish ecclesiastical history becomes greater than if Scottish ecciesiasticalis had been as subordinate to civil and secular questions and movements , as has been the case in such countries as our own . Scottish / presbytery , with its evolutions , answers , as one constituent factor m the riatioua development , to something » great deal more than tbe ^ apparently corresponding English episcopacy , the various forms of nonconformity , and ho history of their conflicts . The real * ed fact , Englandof ami

    to-day , has partly been produced by ecclesiastical causes movements , partly by political and social causes and movements . X he latter have enormously preponderated as constituent agencies towards the development of the English nation into what it is . In Scotland ecclesiastical and theological movements ( but chiefly the former ) Live preponderated over political and social agencies put together , as productive of the Scotland and . tho Scotchmen of to-day . The student ofSeottish history must , therefore , njgard its , ecclesiastical aspects with nearly the « mno special prominence au _ ho regards the religious life of tU Jewish Commonwealth ; and with something move than tie attention that ho regards the Church History of Holland and Geneva in certain stages of the records of those ropubj . es , feuch a book as Mr . Ci-nninchiam ' s we nmnt regard as somothing more than S ft professes to be-a " Church History . ' In very We irensure it must ; be looked upon as a national history ; u . id the aSard if our judffinont . and our < Uir ^ peotatlon . ol > £ ««*• must bo nrooortionato y altorod . Wo miiHt try ic by a I » gno ) , 01 an " oast by a dSront tost than that applicable to such works ,, s Dean

    () opinioS of the book is , upon . tlie whole , a very favourable one . In i " l In we might- have preferred its tone and , character to bo dlflbront but such diffuronoe wo could not ' ^ . ^ .. XtS ? from a Scotch clergyman . Written , we suppose , mainly for Scotchmen nnd porhapsf for Scottish churchmen , it w not otyeottve enough to Bull the outBido . general reading public . For example , to instnnQO a minor mnttor first , technical terms about the proe * dm o and rule " of Scotch Church Courts are assumed to be under . Stood by liS win but only when they have repeatedly occurred ,

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    rationalism Mr . Mansell availed himself of the forms whjich it has assumed in certain German systems , very foreign to Eng lish- modes of thought . Dr . Yonng gives a brief'but able sketch of the doctrines of the chief German philosophers , indicating their merits and defects , and showing that the latter do riot render . it the ; less incumbent upon us to cling to a rationalism which he designates as " reverent , humble , and pious , " and which it would be false to our minds to " ^ 0 VQ 0 » .. . .. . Looking , at the social aspects of these questions , we cannot fail to recognise the connexion between liberty and progress on the one hand , with perfect freedom of inquiry and of retrogression and slavery on the other , with any attempt to establish a national faith repugnant to the understanding , by the exercise of terrorism or force . Mr . Mansell is hopeless of convincing our reason that lie is right , but he would scare us from the use of that reason by hobgoblin pictures of its alleged works , and compel us to swallow without examination the system which he affirms to be the only one in which we can find safety and peace . The first step in this process is to inquire into , with a view of limiting , our powers of thought . The Bampton [ Lecturer asserts that "to conceive of a Deity as lie is we must conceive of him as First Cause , as absolute , and as infinite , " and the terms First Cause , absolute , and infinite , he declares to be " familiar as household words . " Dr . Young objects at the outset to cumbering the discussion with words which are far from being generally understood , and shows that to make a distinction between the Absolute and the Infinite is to follow Sir W . Hamilton into one of the errors which that great man committed . He then comes to the definition of the Infinite which Mr . Mansell lays down , and especially the strange assertion that ¦ " an unrealized potentiality is a limit , " and consequently that nothing can be considered to be infinite which has not already accomplished all it can do , or in other words , used up all its powers . Dr . Young is . here completely at issue with the subject of his criticism , and he justly considers that " power which is truly infinite must he for ever unrealized , for ever unrealizable in its utmost extent , and just because it is infinite , " Mr . Mansell considers " every infinite > mode of consciousness as extending- over the field of every other , and that their common action involves perpetual antagonism "—a fallacy of confusion that would make infinite benevolence the opponent of infinite , skill . Just as Imlac convinced Kasselas that no one could be a poet , Mr . Mansell seeks to gain his object by drawing a picture which nobody could realize . If the idea of infinity did involve the absurdities which Mr . Mansell supposes , it is quite clear that the human intellect would never arrive at it , and equally clear that Dr . Young is right in perceiving that such an infinite could not be accepted by the direction of any external authority . . Mr . Mansell asks , " How ' can the relative be conceived as coming into being ? If it is a distinct reality from the absolute , it must be considered as passing from non-existence into existence . " It is by no means easy to know what these hard words mean , but they seenl intended to show that any idea of creation is an intellectual impossibility . Their author has chiefly read German metaphysics to obtain instruments of confu- . siou . A thing cannot pass from one state to another , unless it is in the first state from which it is supposed to progress . Passing from , non-existence into existence is simply nonsense , but with the aid of such nonsense it is easy for the Lecturer to arrive at the assertion that from whatever side we view it , the " conception of the Infinite is encompassed with contradictions . " It is strange that fallacies so obvious as those of Mr . Mansell , should have needed the refutation provided for them by Dr . Young ; but the influence of his book . , undoubted , and must to a large extent be ascribed . to the ingenuity with which the subject was confused by a swarm of technical words , which concealed alike its meaning and its fallacies , and left a vague imnression that a man of cleverness and learning had said a wonderfiifdeal of fine stuff to prove acrtain propositions , which were affirmed with afanatical energy that looked like well-meaning zeal . So curious an idea has Mr . Mansell of that Infinite , which is happily beyond the cognisance of our faeultiqs , that he tells us it " cannot be . distinguished from tho : finite by the absence of any quality which the finite possesses , for such absence would bo a limitation . Dr . 1 oung shows that tho sort of infinite here imagined is merely an ideal abstraction— " the all , " and cannot have any reference to the qualities of an Infinite Being-. By a negative method , Mr . Mansell constructs an nthcistio system , and then tells us if wo do not like it wo can accept his version of revealed theism * But if the atheism wore the natural conclusion , of reason , tho foundations for tho proposed theism would havo been taken away . In other directions the theory of tho Bampton Lecturer is equally at vananco with fact ; and we fully concur with Dr . Young ' s protost against such assertions as that , "in religion , in morals , in ouv daily business , in tho care of our lives , in the exercise of our souses , tho rules which guide our practice cannot bo reduced to prinoiplqs which satisfy our reason ; " and it is still more monstrous that the mind should be represented as " cramped by its own laws , and bewildered by tlio contemplation of its own form ? . " Wo do not moan to accuse Mr Mansoll of wilful perversion , but it it » curious that tueso attaoks upon human reason and painful efforts to produce confusion ot thought nearly always spring" from tho adhoronts of ecclesiastical or political tyranny , and come from thoso who wish to support or construct an * institution in donance , of tho natural tendencies and interests of mankind . , J _ ,. ... Another portion of Mr . Maxell ' s system that Dr . Young assails With croat onergy , is that in which ho places the oxtornnj ovidoncos of religion above those which aro internal , a process which is ossontial to tho oomplote subjugation of individual consciousness to the yoke of nn arbitrary and unreasonable authority . For many eloquent

    more than partial success in our efforts at either knowing or being what we desire ; and , with regard to the theory of intuitions , we may remember that We are designed and destined to come into contact with a host of external circumstances , which furnish food for thought as well as objects , of perception , and at each stage of our progress our mental horizon is enlarged , and new objects and generalisations shine upon us as true , —felt to be so , because , in harmony with the experience we have gained , and the development we have reached . We see no gain in believing that without experience or without antecedent culture , some miraculous fact of intuition would unfold itself in our minds . But while differing upon a few minor points of controversial metaphysics , we offer our sympathy and applause to Dr . Young for his bold assertion of the claims of reason .

    remarks on this subject we refer to Dr . Young ' s work , and also for his vindication of immutable morality and the authority of man ' s conscience as an ultimate appeal . ¦ ' . \ Dr . YoUng objects to Sir Win . Hamilton ' s opinion that our knowledge is merely phenomenal , that is , a knowledge of effects , not of essences or causes , and he adopts , in a manner we do not altogether understand , a theory of intuitions , as distinct from the natural action of the mind upon external objects , or upon its own manifestations . To us it seems enough to be certain that our knowledge is true , and we have no reason to Consider phenomenalknowledge as untrustworthy or unsound . Ifc must fail to give us all the truth , but , as finite beings , we cannot expect

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    April 28 , 1 S 60 . ] The Leader and Saturday Analyst . 403

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    * mi r < h ,,,.,, h TTInloi'ii oF Si'oilnwl . From tl > o Oommonoomont of the Oh » i . ^ h Bi ' ft'tff P «« nt Ocntury . By tho Kev Jo . m « Jjjj « Na | . 4 « . M nUtor of Orioff . Two Volumes . Edinburgh i A . iiud V- Hl »< " < -

    The Church History Of Scotland.*!

    THE CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND . *!

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), April 28, 1860, page 403, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2345/page/15/