It seems to us that a due regard to the point of view from which these studies were written would have obviated some of the criticisms upon them. For instance, it would have explained why we forbore to enter upon the questions which may be raised as to the seat and methods of Church authority. It was because these questions do not arise practically till the work has been done to which we were attempting to minister. When a man is once reassured that his faith in Christ is capable of rational justification, he begins naturally to enquire what exactly the Christian religion involves in this or that detail, and how its manifestly authoritative character, as a Divine Revelation, is to find expression: but these enquiries hardly begin till the preliminary reassurance has been gained. The _moral_ authority of Christianity, of Christian lives and characters, does indeed exercise a determining influence on the promotion and recovery of faith; but men do not often either win a hold on the creed for the first time, or recover it where it has been lost or impaired, because the theological authority of the Church enables them to take it on trust. The very grounds of that authority are for the moment too much in question to admit of the proper amount of deference being given to it. Thus it seemed to us better in this volume to be content with general statements as to the principle of Church authority[8], leaving out its detailed discussion as unsuitable to our present purpose. Of course, however, we were conscious all the time that we were ourselves amenable to the bar of authority and were bound to feel sure that nothing we were saying was transgressing the laws which the Catholic Church has laid down. We should indeed be unanimous in disclaiming any desire to have 'license to say what we please' in our position as Church teachers. All meaning would be taken out of the effort and hope this book represents if we could not believe that we were speaking as the Church would have us speak. As the essay on Inspiration has been chiefly called in question on the ground of authority, the author of it must be allowed to plead that he did assure himself he was saying nothing which the Church in her past action had not left him free to say, while for the future he does earnestly desire in due course, and after due enquiry, an action of Church authority on the relation of modern critical methods to the doctrine of Inspiration; and further he believes that the Anglican churches, holding as they do so conspicuous a place in traditional reverence for the Scriptures, while they are so free on the other hand from the obscurantist fear of historical enquiry, are more likely than any other part of the Church to arrive at determinations on the subject such as will be of material service to the whole of Christendom. But for the present there can be no doubt the subject is not ripe for any official or formal determinations. III.