CONTENTS PREFACE By G. G. COULTON, M.A., Hon. Litt.D. Durham, Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, Author of Extracts from the Pastorals of the late Right Rev. FRANCIS JOHN JAYNE, D.D., Bishop of Chester 1889-1919 303 SYNOPSIS A RECONSIDERATION of the nature and limits of human liberty is suggested by all the conditions of the world to-day. It is especially important in relation to Religion. At the beginning, Christianity was essentially a spiritual movement. History reveals the story of its transformation into a world-power. In the West it became a monarchy. But, even in the Middle Ages, the liberating influence of the Christian Gospel became the parent of many movements antagonistic to autocratic rule. With the new birth of learning and the enlargement of ideas in the sixteenth century came the great revolt. An immediate effect was the proclamation of Christian Liberty. The doctrine of Luther's Freedom of a Christian Man was the assertion of a true and vital principle. Yet it involves great dangers, for it sets free the mind of the individual in a way which may produce complete licence. How, then, are liberty and order to be reconciled? The example of science affords guidance in this difficulty. Here order is found to be the result of complete freedom, because a spiritual principle, reason, is dominant. Can we find any similar principle in Religion? The problem of authority in Religion demands consideration. Here we are confronted by the old question of the relation of the Church to the Bible. The doubts and controversies of the present day drive us back to an authority superior to both, the Divine Logos. In Christ, the Word of God, we find the principle which can harmonise liberty with order. Applied to the problems of our own age, this principle points the way to a great unification in which is ample scope for all true human developments. The framework described in the "Appeal" of the last Lambeth Conference provides a means of exhibiting the manner in which Christianity can become truly Catholic while realising more perfectly than ever the essentials of the Gospel of Christ. I CHRISTIAN LIBERTY THE catastrophic events of the last few years have created in the minds of men a sense of insecurity. All our social and political institutions are shaken. Many of them are manifestly crumbling. Empires have fallen. In the West not a single one remains, for the British confederation of peoples is no longer an empire. In the whole world, Japan is the only survivor; and it also shows signs of transition. Europe has been Balkanised, and, however earnestly we may pray that the League of Nations may prove an effective guardian of peace, it will not be an easy task to control the nervous excitements of so many conflicting nationalities. Instability is the most obvious characteristic of such a world. Meanwhile, the whole social system is in a state of solution. The institution of property, and its development in the form of capitalism, are threatened. În the largest of European States an effort to reorganise society on other principles has been actually attempted. In spite of the terrific tragedies which have marked this effort, the fever of its influence has more or less infected every people in the world. It might appear that, at such a time, the need of mankind is not liberty but its repression; for, if liberty is pushed to an extreme, the licence which brings anarchy may supervene. A further reflection should, however, convince us that the greatest need of 3 |