Last Sunday, Mr. Stopford Brooke preached his first sermon as
an unattached clergyman, at Bedford Chapel, after using a form of service in which the Creeds and "Te Deum " and the "Gloria Patri " were omitted, and the Commandments com- pressed into the form in which Christ recites them in the Gospels. Mr. Brooke's sermon consisted in a justification of the step he had taken, and this he based on the double ground of the too aristocratic spirit of the English Church—which he ascribes to the predominance of the principle of authority in its con- ception of Christianity—and the inconsistency of miracle and the incarnation with the drift of modern science. In brief, Mr. Brooke is too radical for a Church which starts from "an imperialistic conception of God," and too sceptical for one which accepts as true the story of the transformation effected by Divine influence in the order of external nature. As we have told our readers, the latter reason appears to us a final one. For any men who disbelieves all the most characteristic historical as- sumptions of his Church, to be oonstantly using the language
of reverent and grateful acknowledgment of them, as if that language expressed his own mind and heart, is a mockery of worship ; and though Mr. Brooke seems to us to misread the real significance of modern science and modern criticism, on his views he is acting like -an honest man. But in what sense the English Church adopts an "imperialist conception of God," or, indeed, any conception of God different from that of Christ himself, we are quite at a loss to understand. " Thy will be done" is not, we suppose, " imperialist," for Mr. Brooke retains that prayer. Where does the English Church mask in any dis- guise of arbitrary caprice, Christ's teaching of the perfect righteousness and love of God P
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