Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays by Thomas Henry Huxley
page 31 of 393 (07%)
page 31 of 393 (07%)
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* * * * * 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 mediƦval 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 |
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