Note 581 — Chapter VII

‘The “divines” in England at the present day, her bishops, professors, and prebendaries, are not theologians. They are logicians, chemists, skilled in the mathematics, historians, poor commentators upon Greek poets.’ Theodore Parker's Critical and Miscellaneous Writings, 1848, p. 302. At p. 33, the same high authority says: ‘But, within the present century, what has been written in the English tongue, in any department of theological scholarship, which is of value and makes a mark on the age? The Bridgewater Treatises, and the new edition of Paley,—we blush to confess it,—are the best things.’ Sir William Hamilton (Discussions on Philosophy, 1852, p. 699) notices the decline of ‘British theology,’ though he appears ignorant of the cause of it. The Rev. Mr. Ward (Ideal of a Christian Church, p. 405) remarks, that ‘we cannot wonder, however keenly we may mourn, at the decline and fall of dogmatic theology.’ See also Lord Jeffrey's Essays, vol. iv. p. 337: ‘Warburton, we think, was the last of our great divines…. The days of the Cudworths and Barrows, the Hookers and Taylors, are long gone by.’ Dr. Parr was the only English theologian since Warburton who possessed sufficient learning to retrieve this position; but he always refused to do so, being, unconsciously to himself, held back by the spirit of his age. Thus, we find him writing to Archbishop Magee, in 1823: ‘As to myself, I long ago determined not to take any active part in polemical theology.’ Parr's Works, vol. vii. p. 11.

In the same way, since the early part of the eighteenth century, hardly any one has carefully read the Fathers, except for mere historical and secular purposes. The first step was taken about the middle of the seventeenth century, when the custom of quoting them in sermons began to be abandoned. Burnet's Own Time, vol. i. pp. 329, 330; Orme's Life of Owen, p. 184. After this they rapidly fell into contempt; and the Rev. Mr. Dowling (Study of Ecclesiast. History, p. 195) asserts, that ‘Waterland, who died in 1740, was the last of our great patristical scholars.’ To this I may add, that nine years subsequent to the death of Waterland, the obvious decay of professional learning struck Warburton, afterwards Bishop of Gloucester, so much, that he wrote to Jortin, somewhat roughly, ‘anything makes a divine among our parsons.’ See his Letter, written in 1749, in Nichols's Illustrations of Lit. Hist. vol. ii. p. 173; and for other evidence of the neglect by the clergy of their ancient studies, see Jones's Memoirs of Horne, Bishop of Norwich, pp. 68, 184; and the complaint of Dr. Knowler, in 1766, in Nichols's Lit. Anec. vol. ii. p. 130. Since then, attempts have been made at Oxford to remedy this tendency; but such attempts, being opposed by the general march of affairs, have been, and must be, futile. Indeed, so manifest is the inferiority of these recent efforts, that one of the most active cultivators in that field frankly admits, that, in point of knowledge, his own party has effected nothing; and he even asserts, with great bitterness, that ‘it is melancholy to say it, but the chief, perhaps the only, English writer who has any claim to be considered an ecclesiastical historian, is the infidel Gibbon.’ Newman on the Develop. of Christ. Doct. p. 5.