I suppose that an irreverent man, being partly disgusted with the popular theology, having no scruples about putting aside Inspiration, &c., and conceiving that he himself is an adequate representative of the nineteenth century’s intelligence, and that the nineteenth century’s intelligence is most profound and infallible, sets to work to demolish what is distasteful to himself, and what the unerring criticism of the day rejects, correcting St. Paul’s mistakes, patronising him whenever he is fortunate enough to receive the approbation of the great thinkers of our day, and so constructs a vague “human” religion out of the Christianity which he criticises, eliminating all that lies beyond the speculative range of the mind, and that demands assent by its own authority as God’s Revelation.  I don’t know how to state briefly what I mean.

’I think I can understand that this temper of mind is very prevalent in England now, and that I can partly trace the growth of it.  Moreover, I feel that to ignore, despise, or denounce it, will do no good.

’As a matter of fact, thousands of educated men are thinking on these great matters as our fathers did not think of them.  Simplicity of belief is a great gift; but then the teaching submitted to such simple believers ought to be true, otherwise the simple belief leads them into error.  How much that common Protestant writers and preachers teach is not true!  Perhaps some of their teaching is untrue absolutely, but it is certainly untrue relatively, because they do not hold the “proportion of the faith,” and by excluding some truths and presenting others in an extravagant form they distort the whole body of truth.

’But when a man not only points out some of the popular errors, but claims to correct St. Paul when he Judaizes, and to do a little judicious Hellenizing for an inspired Apostle, one may well distrust the nineteenth century tone and spirit.

’I do really and seriously think that a great and reverently-minded man, conscious of the limits of human reason—­a man like Butler—­ would find his true and proper task now in presenting Christian teaching in an unconventional form, stripped of much error that the terms which we all employ when speaking doctrine seem unavoidably to carry with them.

’Such a man might ask, “What do you mean by your theory of Substitution, Satisfaction, &c.?” “Where do you find it?” “Prove it logically from the Bible.”  “Show that the early Church held it.”

’Butler, as you know, reproved the curiosity of men who sought to find out the manner of the Atonement.  “I do not find,” he says, “that it is declared in the Scriptures.”  He believed the fact, of course, as his very soul’s treasure.  “Our ignorance,” he says, “is the proper answer to such enquiries.”