* * * * *

Controversy on this matter--prolonged, bitter, and fought out with the
weapons of the flesh, as well as with those of the spirit--is no new
thing to Englishmen. We have been more or less occupied with it these
five hundred years. And, during that time, we have made attempts to
establish a _modus vivendi_ between the antagonists, some of which
have had a world-wide influence; though, unfortunately, none have
proved universally and permanently satisfactory.

In the fourteenth century, the controverted question among us was,
whether certain portions of the Supernaturalism of mediæval
Christianity were well-founded. John Wicliff proposed a solution of
the problem which, in the course of the following two hundred years,
acquired wide popularity and vast historical importance: Lollards,
Hussites, Lutherans, Calvinists, Zwinglians, Socinians, and
Anabaptists, whatever their disagreements, concurred in the proposal
to reduce the Supernaturalism of Christianity within the limits
sanctioned by the Scriptures. None of the chiefs of Protestantism
called in question either the supernatural origin and infallible
authority of the Bible, or the exactitude of the account of the
supernatural world given in its pages. In fact, they could not afford
to entertain any doubt about these points, since the infallible Bible
was the fulcrum of the lever with which they were endeavouring to
upset the Chair of St. Peter. The "freedom of private judgment" which
they proclaimed, meant no more, in practice, than permission to
themselves to make free with the public judgment of the Roman Church,
in respect of the canon and of the meaning to be attached to the words
of the canonical books. Private judgment--that is to say, reason--was