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    their weight , as proceeding from a national school , too little accustomed to question old opinions to be able fairly to judge when they are questioned without reason , " We could almost believe that this sentence had been written by one who had listened to Mr . Rose ' s invective from the university pulpit . _ ¦

    Perhaps some who would treat with contempt the pretension of restraining individual faith by articles of religion , may acknowledge that a certain uniformity of doctrine in the public teaching of Christianity is desirable , and join with our author in condemning the laxity of the Lutheran church , which allows its ministers not only to think , but to write and preach , what they please , and thus ceases to answer the purpose of an established church at all . This is by much the strongest part of his case ; it is powerful as an argumentum ad hominem from the member of one establishment to the member of

    another ; but very little concerns those who belong to neither , and think that the creed of every , association of worshipers should be determined by those who compose it only . If there is no medium between this laxity and the jealous rigour with which the Church of England prohibits every innovation , ( and we confess we see none , ) if the very idea of an established church include that of a creed strictly denned and vigilantly guarded , we are furnished with a very strong argument against such institutions under any

    modification . For what result can their absence produce worse than that the clergy should believe one thing and preach another , or , through fear of this , abstain from all religious inquiry ; or else , calling themselves the ministers of Christianity , deliver doctrines which involve a complete denial of its divine authority ? We believe this to have been of much less frequent occurrence in Germany than Mr . Rose represents ; yet it is certainly not without example . But how could such a state of things have existed , even in a single instance ,

    except in the case of the minister of an establishment , whom the people are bound to hear , or remain altogether without religious instruction ? Perhaps our readers are not aware that in Germany , though a man may preach almost any thing he pleases from the pulpits of the churches recognized by law , no one can establish any new mode of worship , or form any new church , without special permission from the government , a permission which in the principal states would assuredly be denied him , the ruling powers

    dreading above all tilings the increase of religious sects . The clergy of the Lutheran and Reformed churches have therefore a virtual monopoly of religious instruction , and the people , who would elsewhere have left the antisupernaturalist , for a teacher more congenial to their religious feelings , have sunk into great indifference as to the doctrines which their preachers may inculcate . The want of sympathy in belief , between the teacher of religion and his flock , is destructive of all the benefits which this relation is

    calculated to produce ; yet we see no other method by which this can be prevented than that states should cease to consider it as their duty to provide a creed for the people , or a clergy to teach it , and leave individuals to their own free choice of both . We rejoice as sincerely as Mr . Rose can do that the doctrines of the antisupernaturalists are abandoned by many who had embraced them ; we

    rejoice especially , for the honour of Christian truth , that this change has been accomplished without that interference of the higher powers which he would invoke ; an interference which , by throwing doubts on the sincerity of the change , would have destroyed its whole virtue as a testimony to the evidences of Revelation . If any one , however , supposes that this will be followed by a return to the dogmas of the sixteenth century , his wishes must

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    52 Review . —Rose ' s Discourses on the State of Religion in Gernianjf .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1827, page 52, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1792/page/52/