was brought out morfe dlstihcdy in the fimrtk es^ that of justiflca^n by faith in tbe prevalence of error acting in both tive and spur to the clever deania tion of the truth. At the same time, tbioa^ u aptness to overiei^ himseli^ and to ezsraente de» portanoe of whatever may be engaging him «t1ki» ment, an age wiiich has been allowed to b^ieM sM truth may too easily depreciate and let dip tht tnA which its anoeeton have bequeathed to it, vii proneness has ever been a nuda 80«xve of bev. Thus, on all sides, we are contmnaDy remiadsitlK inherent weakness, and how that weakneas is evs & most mischievous whm we are beguiled into ftarji; ourselves strong; and while we are bcarefayeikw to be diligent in studying the whole histaiy rf a Church, and the writings of her chjef teadms ia c«cr age, lest we drop and lose any portion of the jnam riches which they have been allowed to win iar wo- kind, we are still more stroni^j admonidied te oe- pare every proposition, and every scheme of pofm- tions— every proposition, both as it stands by iti£ and in its relation to the other parts <»f Cfaristiaatm: — ^with the only canon of truth, the written Wais God" (Hare, Mission of the Com/oner^ note G).
In what has been cidled the extretmesabjeebstid&i of German theology, tiiere is a false doctrine effete- opment, whidi is stated as follows in Chambeis't b- cifchpadia (s. v. DBVELOPMKnr) : ^* Acoofding te & school. Christian doctrine ia nothing else ttas the a- pression of the Christian conadoiisness at any ta. Scripture maintains no permanent or aatbocitstiic n- lationtoit. It is all progress — acontinnedflix^wal- out any normal standard or expreesion. So^itv may be its primary expression, bat it may leave & fountain-head, and in the cooTse of time iaeoe iadnti- opments not necessarily bound to Scriptnre. Bet^K- cording to the view above set forth, Scriptore ifH» the absolute and complete revelati<ni of Ghristin dec- trine, which is continually nnfblded, bat never exk»v ed by inquiry — ^beyond which right reason and tn^ never travel. The Christian revelation not eely lii- mits oi^ but demands constant criticiam, as tbe bmbs of unfolding more comprehensivelj and perfect ^ contents, but it remauis in itself the oonsomiBate ex^ pression of all spiritual truth ; and it is this vsjpeo- liarity of the Christian rev^ation that makes its oea- tents capable of continual and ever fresh dtx^Aapvs^ It b just because its substance is divine that its ist- trinal expressions never cease to interest sad ta to- swer to the necessitiee of successive times. O&et n- ligions, while capable of development, readi a fcA where they cease to have any Azrther living nstrwfi^ and pass on the one hand into mere popular mrtfaoiagT. or into an esoteric foiestly tradition. They beeoat transmuted into poetry or some ordinary prodKt d philosophical speculation. Civilization overtakes lad Bupi^ants them. But it is of the difltingmsluiig^tra character of Christianity that its doctrines possm » vi- tal ever-renewing power, capable of adaptetioo to ^ highest forms of human civilisation, and foU of cofigM- enment and guidance to the most advuiced iBtdfifeece. The development of Christian doctrine, tbovfttc ii not merely a subject of curious and importaat miy a the past, but of great and significant hifluMOS kr tk present and the future.'*
8. Certain Romanist writes hav« recent^ ma^ » of the doctrine of development to vindicate rhe tixdo-' gy of that Church. They hold that the Scriptarei ^ not contain the entire revelation of God to ina]i,tei that revelation is receiving additions, and gradodlr becoming complete, by the snoceaaive decssioiif of tbt Church. This view has been set forth by Mfibkt and with special skill by J. H. Newman C£kh9 « ^ Develcpment of Ckristiam Dodrim [N. T. 1858, 8to]1 Its ground is that the revelation given in the Kbk was intentionally incomplete, and forms as faKfaoste
DEVELOPMENT
1*75
DEVELOPMENT
d impeifeot system of truth, needing for iti oomple- >rk a spradiud development under infaJlible guidance, id ^faiat the present system of doctrine in the Roman ktbolic Church is the ripened result of this derelop- an^ so far as made. See also Ddllinger, Cftnitentibtm uf Kireh€, 1860, p. 162. The doctrine has not met with »neral fkvor in the Roman Catholic Church, as it is in tikflict with the established reliance of that Church pon tradition, and upon what is called ** Catholic con- tut." One of the ablest of modem Romanist writers, roivnaon, has written powerfhlly against the deyelop- lent tbeoiy (in his QeixrU Review). Extremes meet; le Rationalistic theory agrees with the Romanist Qn Tr. ^Newman's view of it) in representing the system f Cluistianity delivered in the New Testament as de- scti ve and imperfect The Council of Trent declared 9es8. iv) as follows: **The sacred and holy, oecumen- cal and general Council of Trent, keeping always in riew the removal of errors and the preservation i^ he Church of tlie purity of the Gospel, which Gospel, before promised through the prophets in the Holy Scriptures, was first orally published by our Lord Je- los Christ, the Son of God, and then commanded to be preached by his apostles to every creature, as the foantain both of every saving truth and discipline of morals ; and perceiving that this truth and discipline are contained in the written books, and the unwritten traditions which, received by the apostles from the moath of Christ himself, or from the apostles them- selvea, the Holy Ghost dictating, have come down even unto us, transmitted as it were from hand to hand ; [the council] following the examples of the or- thodox fathers, receives and venerates with equal af- fection of piety and reverence all the books both of the Old and of the New Testament, seeing that one God is the author of both, as also the said traditions, as well those appertaining to foith as to morals, as having been dictated either by Christ's own word of mouth or by the Holy Ghost, and preserved by a continuous succession in the Catholic Church." Mr. Newman's book was ably answered by W. Archer Butler, Letters on Rmnamtm (Cambridge, 1854, 8vo). The following remarks of Julius Charles Hare {Mimon of the Com- forter^ note G) are in point : " Some of the German apologists for Romanism, having perceived, as could not but happen in a country where learning and criti- cism have found a home, that the old plea of a posi- tive, unwritten tradition in the Churcii was utterly untenable as a ground for the doctrinal and practical innovations of later times, have fancied that they nught render their Church a service b}' taking up the popular and modem theory of the development of mankind— a theory which has been carried into the most outrageous extravagances in the contemporary schools of philosophy, as it has also been in France by the St Simonians. This theory has been used by others to show that Christianity itself is a transient religion, belonging to a by-gone period and almost ob- solete ; they have tried to employ it in defence of the Church of Rome. Herein, however, it was impossible for them to succeed^ That Church, whose c(»istant effort, since the time when it out itself off from the Uving body of Christ, has been to check, to repress, to cramp, to fetter the mind, could not find support in a theory which implies the freedom of the mind ; nor can any Church, unless it recognises, both doctrinally and practically, that the property of truth is to set the mmd free."