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    fit for their profession , if they are not qualified to make use of the kind of authors here described without danger . On the contrary , I regard the principle as to the last degree dangerous and injurious to the interests of Divine truth , that there are any theological works , full of learning and argument , but from which the

    devoted teachers of religion ( supposing them to have the prerequisites of competent classical and theological education ) ought to avert their eyes . Such a voluntary ignorance is paying the highest compliment to the enemies of truth , and is giving the strongest credit to the validity of their reasonings . Besides , the authors

    whom I have named , and the whole class which I have clearly enough described , are not Anti-supernaturalists , but firm defenders of a supernatural or miraculous revelation . I feel myself on firm ground when , to pious and conscientious biblical students , I recommend the use of such works .

    " [ D ] Can &ny Englishman need to be told , that Divine is the common appellative of any theological writer , whatever his sentiments may be ? " [ E ] The evil against which we are cautioned in 2 John 10 , appears to be the receiving and accrediting , as preachers of tfhd gospel , those who deny and would subvert it . But it cannot involve

    a prohibition of that which is at all times a moral duty ; to ' honour all men ; ' that Is , to behave towards them with justice and civility , to do them no tbfong , to avoid calumniating tHem , and to Speak the troth always with regard to them . For the honour of the gospel and its professors , sill the duties of social morality should be practised with the most sedulous care towards those whom

    we regard as erroneous m faith , or irreligious in life . " [ F ] I am not aware that there is any fixed nomenclature for the varieties of theological deviation in Protestant Germany , and I may not , therefore , be correct in my application of the term

    Rationalist . I have often used it promiscuously with Neologist and Anti-supernaturanst . But , considering the evils arising from a want of precision in the application of terms , it occurred to me that the word Rationalist might very properly be made the name of a genus , and the others , and with several besides

    which I have been told exist , so many species under that genus . Yet I cannot be surprised at the course of A / s argument . He quotes from the valuable volume of the Rev » Hugh James Rose , a Sketch of the worst apectes of this multi-

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    farious body ; and he instantly , without hesitation or scruple , applies the entire delineation to Dr . Haffner . He omits ' a very important sentence of Mr . Rose , which stands in immediate connexion with what he has quoted , and which Mr . R . is evidently anxious to have understood as qualifying his general statement : it is this— ' And I ought here distinctly to say , that the full extent of many of the opinions I have mentioned , or have still to mention in the remainder of this

    discourse , is not held by all the divines ef whom I speak . * How does A . know that Dr . H . holds all the unchristian and flagitious opinions , the list of which he has copied from Mr . R . ? How does he know that Dr . H . might not exclaim , that both A . and I have done him wron&

    in denominating him a Rationalist ? Indeed , A . affirms , * it is well known that these are the sentiments of Dr . H ., ' and he appeals to the Preface , which has given occasion to all this strife . The notoriety asserted cannot attach to our own country . We want some proofs of its existence . Of the Preface more must

    be said hereafter . " [ G ] I need only desire the passage in my letter to be read , in order to shew that A . completel y misconceives its design and application . The anecdote of Drf Priestley may have been learned from

    a book with which , it may be presumed , that I am not totally unacquainted , entitled , ' The Scripture Testimony to the Messiah / Vol . I . p . 90 . But is A . really ignorant that Dr . Priestley , as well as the other writers with whom his

    name is grouped , rendered very important service to the cause of revelation , by his various writings upon its evidences ? Or is it possible that he can have failed to perceive , from the whole tenor of the paragraph in my letter , that I was speaking of the authors referred to as persons by whom * the foundations and the pillars and the external

    walls of the temple of revelation have been most ably defended ? ' I pity the man who can throw away the advantages to be derived from these and similar writers , however strongly our convictions lead us to reject their theological sentiments . The inspired Paul did not

    act so reckless a part . He did not think it beneath the dignity of truth , or the sacredness of his apostleship , to avail himself , in a courteous manner , of truths admitted by persons the most hostile to the Gospel , even bigoted Pharisees and proud philosophers . See Acts xxiii . (> , xvii . 28 , 29 . " [ HI Certainly the evidence ought to

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    l $ 0 - " ' Intelligence . — German Rationalists .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1827, page 130, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1793/page/50/