§18. T. H. Green; Martineau. XIII. The Growth of Liberal Theology. Vol. 12. The Romantic Revival. The Cambridge History of English and American Literature: An Encyclopedia in Eighteen Volumes. 1907

The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
Volume XII. The Romantic Revival.

XIII. The Growth of Liberal Theology.

§ 18. T. H. Green; Martineau.

While Christian scholarship was thus holding its own, there was also a welcome escape from the determinist and utilitarian fashions in philosophy. At Oxford, Thomas Hill Green, tutor of Balliol, exercised a strong spiritual influence over those whom criticism was compelling to discard “the fair humanities of old religion.” James Martineau, of an older generation than Green, did not publish any of his more important books till his eightieth year. In earlier life, Martineau had adopted the determinist and utilitarian theories of morals, but he proved their effective critic in his octogenarian volume, Types of Ethical Theory (1885). Three years later, he vindicated theistic belief in A Study of Religion.

The critical principles for which liberal theologians had had to do battle were by this time no longer the badges of their tribe, but were accepted by most educated Christians. For instance, high churchmen had travelled more than half way from the tractarian to the liberal position, when, in 1889, a group of Oxford friends combined, in Lux Mundi, to make a re-statement of Christian faith; “it needs disencumbering, re-interpreting, explaining.” “It is the test of the Church’s legitimate tenure that she can encourage free inquiry into her title-deeds.”