C URRENT LITERATURE.
DR. MARTINEAU AND PROFESSOR KNIGHT..
Inter Arnim: Letters between James Martineau and William Knight, 1869-72. (John Murray. 5s.)—This volume contains a sermon, a reprinted article on "The Ethics of Creed-Subscrip- tion," and Some letters which passed between Dr. Martineau and Professor Knight. Most of their extensive correspondence his been placed in the hands of these who are preparing the official biography of Dr. Martineau. The letters here given refer for the most part to a single episode. The sermon has a history, for the author had to leave the Free Church of Scotland because of it. Not that it was a bad sermon, but because it was preached in a wrong place,—in Dr. Martineau's church in Little Portland Street. At the time Mr. Knight defended his action on the principle that an acknowledgment of God as the common Father is the true ground of Christian worship, not agreement on doctrinal ques- tions. The letters show that Mr. Knight was far from being in agreement with the theclogical opinions of his correspondent. In one long letter he defends the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity, chiefly, however, on the ground that it is an inevitable inference from the unique phenomena of the life of Jesus, and from some apparent necessities of the divine nature. His argument is well worth reading, but it could not have possessed much weight with Dr. Martineau, whose principles of interpretation had led him to reject as unauthentic most of the New Testament passages on which Mr. Knight relied. While, however, Dr. Martineau rejects emphatically the Catholic doctrine of the Incarnation, he acknowledges in striking language its power as a creative force in the spiritual education of humanity. "I am profoundly convinced," he writes, "that the idea of an historical incarnation affords no permanent standing ground for a religious philosophy; and I look upon it. as the transitory means of saving the supreme truth—which Theism would else have lost—of the life of God in the soul of man,—a life intense in proportion to self-surrender. This aspect it is of the doctrine, together with the whole cluster of sentiments, penitential arid trustful, that gather around it, which has always drawn me in heart to the piety of orthodox Christendom far more than to that of my fellow-believers. But though I feel with other Churches—and their hymns and prayers speak to me in tones of a home-music—I cannot thmk with them, and my wonder at their creed increases from year to year." Mr. Knight, like most Broad Churchmen, desired that the signing of creeds should sit lightly on the consciences of the signatories. Dr. Martineau's austere integrity was repelled by this view, which he regarded as ethically inadmissible and socially demoralising. The only method, he writes, of getting freedom for religious thought without tam- pering with veracity was to get rid of creed-engage- ments altogether. He adds, however :—" It is only when it comes to argument on principles, that the Huguenot spirit which I inherit wakes within me. With the diffi- culties of each concrete problem I feel the most entire—I could almost say afflicted sympathy." Not the least interesting part of the v.olunie is the address presented to Dr. Martineau on his eighty-third birthday, with its remarkable list of signatures.
It looks like an anticipation of the theological paradise of.. the future, to see the Dean of Westminster and M. Henan, the Bishop of Ripon and Professor Zeller, lying down together with a number of Scotch and American ministers to pay homage to the veteran theologian of one of the moat unpopular of Christian sects. The homage was given in part to the man ; but it was in part due to the fact that Dr. Martineau had come to. be universally recog- nised as the most trusted leader in the conflict with materialism.
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