176 THE LIGHT OF DAY 



an aspiration after the highest good. But as an 

 intellectual conception of God and of the manner 

 of his dealings with man, it must be subject to 

 change and revision like all other intellectual con- 

 ceptions. Where actual verification cannot take 

 place, as in science or mathematics, belief must for- 

 ever fluctuate like the forms and colors of summer 

 clouds. The subject of it may always be the same, 

 — God, the soul, the eternal life, — but the relation 

 of these and their final meanings can never be once 

 and forever settled. Theology is at best only a ten- 

 tative kind of science. Its conclusions cannot have 

 anything like the certitude of scientific truth because 

 they are not capable of verification. 



Principal TuUooh, in his " Movements of Reli- 

 gious Thought in Britain," had the courage to say 

 that " the idea that theology is a fixed science, with 

 hard and fast propositions, partaking of the nature 

 of infallibility, is a superstition which cannot face 

 the light of modern criticism." Tulloch further in- 

 dicates that the true rational standpoint as to creeds 

 and formulas is a profound distrust of them as pro- 

 fessing " to sum up Divine Truth. Useful as ' aids 

 to faith,' they are intolerable as limitations of faith." 

 And " limitations of faith " most of the creeds un- 

 doubtedly are. 



But the drift of religious feeling, if not of reli- 

 gious opinion, is undoubtedly away from them. Our 

 churches wisely keep their creeds pretty well in the 

 background. When has any one heard a doctrinal 

 sermon ? The creeds have been retired to the rear 



