Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1861-03-26
RntiOuaIIsm in the church of England,

III ~ hNH VI Lhh8 hluut
A number of the Bishops and other clergy
of the English Church are preparing to
make a combined effort to refute the ideas
recently put forth by seven clergymen in the
Oxford Essays. They purpose issuing a
volume of counter essays, and to these
the strongest of the orthodox clergy
are devoting their energies. In the mean
time the agitation of the subject has created
an Unprecedented demand for the Oxford
Essays, which have run through six editions,
and the seventh is bespoke in advance.
1t is strange that there is not force enough
in the Church of England to expel, by e%ccles-
~iastical authority, clergymen who nave pro
muIgated doctrines which the most moderate
call Tationalism, and which the orthodox do
not hesitate TO declare infidelity. But they
propose to meet rationalism on equal terms,
This certainly will be a phase of religious
discussion which the world has not seen
since the establishment of Christianity.
Hitherto the Government censorship, the
ban Of the Church, the ease of destroying
dangerous works, before the invention of
printing, and the disreputable character
which society attaches to all who read inf
del or h~eretical works, has prevented any
extensive spread of them.
But now we find doctrines which many Of
the best ~clergymen of England declare inf
del, promulgated within the church with
IMMUNITY, multiplied ten-thousand-fold by
the printing press, and carried into religious
families, while all that the orthodox clergy
propose, to meet the emergency, is to do it
with the same weapons; to fight rational
ism with rationalism. The experiment is as
dangerous as it is novel.
The London Wdtchmdn (Wesleyan) de-
scribes the tactics whichthe orthodox clergy
intend to use. ''They trust much to the
earnestness of the orthodox clergy" "Some-
thing" it says, may be hoped from the sud-
den completeness of the heresy, about which
there can be no mistake that it is willful."
Something also may be won by the weapons
with which Germany has of late furnished
u.s." We fear that Germany has furnished
more weapons for the other side, and that
there can be but little hope for aid from that
quarter.
1t hopes most, however, from the impru-
dent ardor of one of the essayists, which has
carried him beyond the line of cautious poll
icy adopted by the rest and has led him to
put forth Thirty. min Articles for the
Church of the Future" OF these, the
Waterman says, the cardinal doctrine is that
"man is justified by his religion, and not
by faith alone" In other words, man is
justified by his conduct, and not alone by
his profession of faith; or in other words,
he is justified before God by what he does,
and not alone by what he says.
So important an attack on the vital doc
trine Of justification by belief alone, will
expose a practicable breach by which it is
hoped the essayists may be assailed with
effect. This affair is the principal topic of
conversation in high social circles in En-
gland, and this sudden eruption in the midst
of the great bulwark of Professionalism, will
be watched with much interest from
America.