Manchester New College celebrated its centenary on Wednes- day last,
when the Rev. Dr. Martineau, the President, delivered an address at Willis's Rooms on the history of the Noncon- formist Theological Academies and Colleges, and on the prin- ciple of teaching theology without the manacles of tests and creeds. His description of the origin of the Nonconformist Academies after the restoration of Charles II. was very graphic, and so, too, was his attack on the Act of Uniformity and on the disastrous effect of having to learn and teach up to prescribed standards of orthodoxy, without reference to the drift of the evidence which history and criticism produce as to the Divine or human origin of orthodox symbols. But Dr. Martineau appeared to be perfectly conscious that there was something to account for in the curious and somewhat suspicious uniformity with which the non-subscribing Theological College in which he himself has been so great and so successful a
teacher, appoints heterodox teachers to its chairs. He maintained that this was due to the love of orthodox theologians for tests, and not to the love of his own College for negative conclusions. But we confess to a very serious doubt whether that is the whole account of the matter. Nay, further, we doubt whether even the Unitarians would choose to appoint the most learned of pure agnostics to any theological chair in their College ; and we doubt whether they would be wrong in feeling the deepest scruples on the subject. Theology without any belief becomes a very useless sort of study ; and yet the principle of the College, stated as Dr. Martineau stated it, seems to point to the absolute exclusion of the consideration of a theologian's belief as even a factor in judging of his qualifications for a theological chair. Can this be a right principle ?
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