If there be no dogmatic Atheism involved in this state of mind, there is at least the germ of _skepticism_, which may soon grow and ripen into the open and avowed denial of religious truth.

At the very least, it will issue in that heartless _indifference_ to all creeds and all definite articles of faith, which, under the plausible but surreptitious disguise of "freethinking" and "liberalism," is the nearest practical approximation to utter Infidelity.[228] The system which is known under the name of Religious Liberalism or Indifference has been recently avowed in our own country with a frankness and boldness which can leave no room for doubt in regard to its ultimate tendency.

The late Blanco White avowed it as his mature conviction, that "to declare any one unworthy of the name of Christian because he does not agree with your belief, is to fall into the intolerance of the articled Churches; that the moment the name Christian is made necessarily to contain in its signification belief in certain historical or metaphysical propositions, that moment _the name itself becomes a creed_,--the _length_ of that creed is of little consequence."[229] This is the extreme on one side, and it plainly implies that _no one article of faith_ is necessary, and that a man may be a Christian who neither acknowledges an historical Christ, nor believes a single doctrine which He taught! But there is an extreme also on the other side, which is exemplified in the singularly eloquent, but equally unsatisfactory, treatise of the Abbe Lamennais,[230] in which, as _then_ an ardent and somewhat arrogant advocate of the Romish Church, he attempts to fasten the charge of _Indifference_ or _Liberalism_ on the Protestant system, and to prove that there can be no true faith, and of course no salvation, beyond the Catholic pale.

The chief interest of his treatise depends on his peculiar "theory of certitude," to which we shall have occasion to advert in the sequel; in the meantime, we may notice briefly the grievous error into which he has fallen in treating of the faith which is necessary to salvation.

He _overstates_ the case as much, at least, as it has been _understated_ by the abettors of Liberalism.