Note 778 — Chapter VII · (continued 2)

Archbishop Whately (Dangers to Christian Faith, pp. 76, 77) says: ‘Neither the attacks on our religion, nor the evidences in its support, were, to any great extent, brought forward in a popular form, till near the close of the last century. On both sides, the learned (or those who professed to be such) seem to have agreed in this,—that the mass of the people were to acquiesce in the decision of their superiors, and neither should, nor could, exercise their own minds on the question.’ This is well put, and quite true; and should be compared with the complaint in Wakefield's Life of Himself, vol. ii. p. 21; Nichols's Lit. Anec. of the Eighteenth Century, vol. viii. p. 144; and Hodgson's Life of Bishop Porteus, pp. 73, 74, 122, 125, 126. See also a speech by Mansfield, in 1781 (Parl. Hist. vol. xxii. p. 265), when an attempt was made to put down the ‘Theological Society.’ The whole debate is worth reading; not on account of its merits, but because it supplies evidence of the prevailing spirit.