nation of the supernatural from its originally large occupation of
men's thoughts. The question--How far is this process to go?--is in my
apprehension, the Controverted Question of our time.

Controversy on this matter--prolonged, bitter, and fought out with the
weapons of the flesh, as well as with those of the spirit--is no new
thing to Englishmen. We have been more or less occupied with it these
five hundred years. And, during that time, we have made attempts to
establish a _modus vivendi_ between the antagonists, some of which have
had a world-wide influence; though, unfortunately, none have proved
universally and permanently satisfactory.

In the fourteenth century, the controverted question among us was,
whether certain portions of the Supernaturalism of mediaeval Christianity
were well-founded. John Wicliff proposed a solution of the problem
which, in the course of the following two hundred years, acquired wide
popularity and vast historical importance: Lollards, Hussites,
Lutherans, Calvinists, Zwinglians, Socinians, and Anabaptists, whatever
their disagreements, concurred in the proposal to reduce the
Supernaturalism of Christianity within the limits sanctioned by the
Scriptures. None of the chiefs of Protestantism called in question
either the supernatural origin and infallible authority of the Bible, or
the exactitude of the account of the supernatural world given in its
pages. In fact, they could not afford to entertain any doubt about these
points, since the infallible Bible was the fulcrum of the lever with
which they were endeavouring to upset the Chair of St. Peter. The
"freedom of private judgment" which they proclaimed, meant no more, in
practice, than permission to themselves to make free with the public
judgment of the Roman Church, in respect of the canon and of the meaning
to be attached to the words of the canonical books. Private
judgment--that is to say, reason--was (theoretically, at any rate) at
liberty to decide what books were and what were not to take the rank of
"Scripture"; and to determine the sense of any passage in such books.
But this sense, once ascertained to the mind of the sectary, was to be
taken for pure truth--for the very word of God. The controversial
efficiency of the principle of biblical infallibility lay in the fact
that the conservative adversaries of the Reformers were not in a
position to contravene it without entangling themselves in serious
difficulties; while, sinc