Dr. Manning appears to be in something of a theological
serape. In preaching on "the Sacred Heart," he seems to have used the expression that, by becoming man, God had " deified " the heart of Jesus. An Anglican theologian, Dr. A. Nicholson, thereupon invited him to justify this novel ex- pression, which several dogmatic decisions of the Church seem expressly to condemn, since not even the whole humanity of Christ, and still less any part of it, can, in orthodox language, be said to be deified ; and in a long corre- spondence published in the Guardian of 'Wednesday, the Archbishop endeavours, not apparently very successfully to explain away his rash expression without withdrawing it. The last door of escape which he tries seams vir- tually to be an admission of error ; lie wants to draw a distinction between " deify " in the sense of Del facere, and " deify " in the sense of Deum facere, and to intimate that he used the word only in the former and more popular sense. If so, would it not have been better to say at once that he had made a loose use of the term which Catholic theology would hardly justify, but that popular preaching must have some little verge? Protestants, however, will think that not only Archbishop Manning, but the whole Catholic Church of to-day, is taking too much verge in the direction of " deifying " human symbols of human affections.
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