"[256]
The best method of determining the present spirit of Unitarianism is to
observe the reception which it gives to the Rationalism that has grown
up luxuriantly of late in England. The welcome has been most cordial. A
Unitarian clergyman has become the American editor of the _Essays and
Reviews_;[257] and hails the appearance of such a book as representing a
new and better era in modern theology. He holds that the real "life of
Anglican theology is now represented by such men as Powell and Williams
and Maurice and Jowett and Stanley;" that the Broad Church is the only
one which fully embodies true progress and conservatism; that
Rationalism is the only alternative of Romanism; and that, as a matter
of course, the former should be adopted. He expresses the hope that the
spirit of Rationalistic criticism, "which is now leavening the Church of
England, may find abundant entrance into all the churches of our land,"
and that the _Essays and Reviews_, "its genuine product, may contribute
somewhat thereto."[258]
The quarterly organ of the Unitarians, _The Christian Examiner_, has
passed an encomium on the same exponent of English Rationalism, in which
it manifests no tempered gladness at skepticism within the pale of the
church.
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