i8 7 o] A THEOLOGICAL SOCIETY 149 



the new movement was beginning to assert itself. While 

 we still talk of a probable return of the Continental schools 

 to the conservative theology, the men who are the real 

 hope of Germany are conscious that as impassable though 

 not as wide a gulf exists between the new theology and 

 the old supernaturalism as between the new theology and 

 the old rationalism. 



We are at this moment surrounded by indications that 

 the movement which has passed over Germany is about 

 to pass, mutatis mutandis, over us. And with us as in 

 Germany, it is the negative side of the movement which 

 has come first. There is an uneasy feeling abroad that 

 the current theology has not rightly defined its relation 

 to Scripture and its relation to human thought. It is 

 not, of course, to be supposed that this movement touches 

 theology only ; something analogous, no doubt, must run 

 through the whole religious life. But, speaking generally, 

 the practical side of our Church is so far in advance of the 

 theoretical that within the Church at least it is mainly 

 the confessional theology that men are dissatisfied with. 

 There is a pretty widely diffused impression, not so much 

 that individual doctrines of the Church are false as that 

 the whole method and system of theology is artificial, 

 insecure, and hampering to the legitimate freedom of the 

 individual ; and it would be quite a mistake to suppose 

 that this sort of feeling is to be found only among 

 irreligious men. It must be granted, indeed, that the 

 mass of earnest church-members are still satisfied with 

 the confessional theology, the power of which they 

 have actually experienced, but there is a growing feeling 

 that that theology does not fully supply the needs of the 

 Church and the individual. 



Now the answer which is too often given to this feeling 

 is simply a challenge to lay down definite points in which 

 the confessional theology is in error, i.e. to show that in 

 certain cases the opposite of the confessional teaching is 

 laid down in Scripture. This answer ignores the difficulty, 



