Dean Stanley delivered, yesterday week, at the close of his
Rectorial term, a farewell address to the students of St. Andrew's University, which was chiefly devoted to the progressive char-
acter of theology. He declared that this progressive character was shown by the "disappearance of whole-continents of useless controversies which once distracted the-world," as instances of 'which he gave the controversies about: predestination and justi-
fication ; and again, this progressive character was shown by the new meaning gained for religious teaching ;by diving below the surface, and discovering the original foundations. The Dean contended that the sacred writings of Christianity had taken quite a new power from modern 'study and criticism,— that they were sealed books to Hume and Voltaire, mainly because their full meaning had never been unveiled to Thomas Aquinas, Cyril, or Augustine. The Dean then- insisted that miracles should be believed for the sake of the doctrine, not the doctrine for the sake of the miracles, and that the moral-weight of Christianity was its chief " evidence." And he went on to declare that " not to the Synod of Dort, but to . the aspirations of the excommunicated Spinoza, 'was vouch-
safed the clearest glimpse into the nature 'of the Deity." That is the least Christian sentiment we have ever heard
from the Dean. Whatever the attractions of Spinoza's marvellous system of Pantheism may -be —and intellec- tually they are incomparable—we sheuld-never have thought of supposing that they could be reconciled-with the teaching of Christ. That infinite Being of whom the tiro essential attributes are Thought and Extension, is as unlike as possible -to the Father who so loved the world that He-sent his only begotten Son, that -through him the world might be saved. In Spinou'madamantine deity there was -no need and no ream for-self-renunciation or redemption.
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