Between  1820  and  1833  there  was  in  many
quarters  a  revival  of  Church  life,  and  this
revival  seems  to  have  provoked  a  violent
anti-clerical  attack  not  only  on  real  abuses
but  on  the  Church  itself. New  democratic
principles  were  leavening  the  minds  of  the
people,    a    new    popular    literature    which


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[Laud


ignored  religion  was  at  work,  and  the  govern-
ment was  unfriendly. Dr. Arnold  (q.v.)  of
Rugby,  who  though  reckoned  as  a  Broad
Churchman  was  as  much  opposed  to  secular-
ism as  he  was  devoted  to  the  Divine  Person
of  our  Lord,  was  in  favour  of  fighting  the
evils  of  the  day  by  admitting  dissenters  into
the  Church. The  Oxford  Movement  (q.v.)
showed  a  more  excellent  way,  and  advanced
against  theological  '  Liberalism,'  as  it  now
began  to  be  called,  with  the  weapons  of
learning  and  spiritual  experience. The  op-
ponents of  the  Tractarians  had  little  or  no
respect  for  the  living  collective  tradition  of
the  Church,  the  deposit  of  the  faith  handed
down  by  obedient  love. And  when  the
Church  in  Oxford  was  weakened  by  the
secession  of  some  of  the  Tractarians,  the
Latitudinarian  spirit  throve  aggressively. It
found  a  cultured  expression  in  Essays  and
Reviews  (q.v.),  1860. We  here  only  note
the  essay  on  The  National  Church. It
cautiously  assails  the  Athanasian  Creed  and
the  Church's  doctrines  of  the  sacraments
and  the  ministry,  and  advocates  a  relaxation
of  subscription  to  the  Thirty-nine  Articles
in  the  interests  of  those  who  are  reluctant
'  to  enter  an  Order  in  which  their  intellects
may  not  have  free  play.'  It  anticipates  the
most  recent  Modernism  by  urging  that  Jesus
Christ  has  not  revealed  His  religion  '  as  an
historical  faith,'  and  that  '  a  uniformity  of
historical  belief. can  never  exist.'  The
book  was  condemned  by  Convocation  as
'  containing  teaching  contrary  to  the  doctrine
received  by  the  united  Church  of  England
and  Ireland,  in  common  with  the  whole
Catholic  Church  of  Christ.'

We  may  connect  with  Essays  and  Reviews
the  controversy  about  Bishop  Colenso  (q.v.),
who  after  long  discussions  was  excom-
municated in  spite  of  the  State,  and  was
superseded  in  the  see  of  Natal  by  Bishop
Macrorie  in  1869. The  case  of  Colenso  is
not  unlike  that  of  the  ancient  heresiarch,
Nestorius,  with  whom  he  had  much  in
common. 