RIGHT RELATION OF REASON TO RELIGION 22/ 



no doubt already half expressed itself in your thoughts. 

 We are prone to connect the Old Doctrine, the strong- 

 est expression of the Method of Authority, with the 

 teaching and practice of the Romanist church. And 

 it is plausible to take the Middle Doctrine, which at 

 bottom is still a Method of Authority, though mingled 

 professedly with a method of reason, as character- 

 istic of the Protestant churches. Then we naturally 

 complete this interpretation by allotting the New Doc- 

 trine, with its unmixed Method of Reason, either to 

 minds entirely outside the pale of Christianity, and 

 arrayed in opposition to it (whom it is convenient and 

 comforting to designate as Infidels), or else to those 

 small groups — still partly holding to the name of 

 Christian themselves, but by the great body of the 

 orthodox acknowledged only askance, if at all — which 

 are usually called Liberal Christians, or, perchance. 

 Unitarians or Free Religionists or what not. 



But this distribution of views, handy and plausible 

 as it may be, is really quite wrong, quite out of accord 

 with the facts. We cannot afford to carry it into our 

 discussion. The so-called Old Doctrine has been, and 

 is now, held alike by some Romanists and by some 

 Protestants ; indeed, it has never been stated with 

 such unqualified emphasis by any Romanist as it has 

 been by the elder Protestants, of the school of high 

 Calvinism. The gracious Middle Doctrine is held 

 alike by many Protestants and by many Romanists, 



