rejoice if his very errors are made, in the hands of an overruling
Providence, instrumental in establishing truth. Christianity in England
had arrived in the eighteenth century at one of those periods of
revision when it has become absolutely necessary to examine the
foundations of its teaching, at any risk of temporary disturbance to the
faith of individuals. The advantage ultimately gained was twofold. It
was not only that the vital doctrines of Christian faith had been
scrutinised both by friends and enemies, and were felt to have stood the
proof. But also defenders of received doctrine learnt, almost
insensibly, very much from its opponents. They became aware--or if not
they, at all events their successors became aware--that orthodoxy must,
in some respects, modify the stringency of its conclusions; that there
was need, in other instances, of disentangling Christian verities from
the scholastic refinements which had gradually grown up around them; and
that there were many questions which might safely be left open to debate
without in any way impairing the real defences of Christianity. A
sixteenth or seventeenth-century theologian regarded most religious
questions from a standing point widely different in general character
from that of his equal in piety and learning in the eighteenth century.
The circumstances and tone of thought which gave rise to the Deistic and
its attendant controversies mark with tolerable definiteness the chief
period of transition.

The Evangelical revival, both that which is chiefly connected with the
name of the Wesleys and of Whitefield, and that which was carried on
more exclusively within the Church of England, closely corresponded in
many of its details to what had often occurred before in the history of
the Christian Church. But it had also a special connection with the
controversies which preceded it. When minds had become tranquillised
through the subsidence of discussions which had threatened to overthrow