THE "PROTESTANT DECLARATION."
(TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.") SIR,—The Saturday Review has departed from its accustomed rule, and printed a letter from the Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. If there is any substantial error in what Dr.
Thompson thinks it worth while to affirm in this letter, it will certainly be thought worth while that it should be corrected. Still more certainly is there error in the following judgment :—
" Those Fellows (there are some)," says Dr. Thompson, "who, in consequence of a subsequent change of opinion, have given up their fellowships, have, it may be presumed, satisfied themselves either that tradition and use are to be preferred to Scripture and truth, or that the 'true religion of Christ,' which they pledged themselves to 'embrace' is identical with the Thirty-Nine Articles, or, thirdly, a case which it is to be hoped is imaginary, that no form of Christianity is tonablo."—Saturday Review, May 14, p. 641.
The first two cases are as frivolous as the writer intended them to be considered ; yet, if the third case is imaginary, each of the late Fellows in question is guilty of one of these two forms of frivolity ; and, if the third case is not imaginary, one or more of them must be guilty of something which Dr. Thompson thinks more monstrous still. It may be only a natural illusion, but I believe it is of some importance to state that what Dr. Thompson must be supposed to class under his third case is not at all imaginary.
It should be observed, however, that Dr. Thompson's dilemma, or trilemma, is not exhaustive. The resigning Fellow need not have satisfied himself of either of these things,—that, for instance, no form of Christianity is tenable ; it is enough that he should not satisfy himself that any is so. This is a distinction which represents a perfectly real and practical difference, although criticism founded on it may have a technical sound. On the other hand, Dr. Thompson omits a point in the "Protestant Declara- tion" which makes it irreconcilable, not indeed in strict logic, but upon any candid interpretation, with a not manifestly unreason- able state of opinion. The declarant promises "to 'regard as human all doctrines not provable by the Word of God.'" Suppose a man has satisfied himself that nothing exists deserving the distinctive title of the Word of God, by which doctrines, human or divine, are provable.—I am, Sir, &c.,
ONE OF THE "Soars."
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