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Jnisis . We shall speak more fully hereafter respecting the different works of Semler ; at present it is sufficient to have remarked their general tendency and effect . Although he indulged in violent language as a writer , he was disposed to live peaceably with his
colleagues ; but in his intercourse with the great , with some of whom he was necessarily brought into contact , from the dependence of German universities on their respective governments , he
was not sufficiently smooth and complying , and he suffered a very mortifying insult from the Prussian Minister von Zedlitz , who , in 1779 , took from him the office of Director of the
Theological Seminary , although he had administered its funds in an unexceptionable manner . This and some similar circumstances appear to have produced for a time disgust for the studies to which he had till now
devoted himself , and to have led him to study natural philosophy , and especially chemistry . In uniting a taste for these pursuits with those which were more strictly professional , he resembled
our own Priestley ; but the parallel is confined to this single circumstance . While Priestley enlarged the boundaries of science by his curious discoveries , Semler wasted his time in
researches after the elixir of life and the philosopher ' s stone . Lest the reader should consider this as a proof of insanity or dotage , or at least begin to doubt all that has been said of Semler ' s vigour of mind and extent of knowledge , we must entreat him to remember that a tendency to mysticism is a
part of the national character of the Germans , among whom , at this moment , animal magnetism is taught by professors in universities , and annals of its wonders are regularly published . The respect which Semler had long enjoyed among his contemporaries was lost towards the close of life , not so
much in consequence of these extravagancies as of his supposed abandonment of those principles of religious liberty which he had not only defended in his former life ,, but practically availed himself of them , by renouncing
opinions supported b y the state and the belief of the majority . This charge was founded upon the part which he took in opposing those who exercised the liberty of going still further than himself in calling received opinions in
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question , and abandoned orthodoxy or even Christianity altogether . Semler not only wrote against them , as ^ against Bahrdt and the author of the Wolfenbuttel Fragments , but treated them as men pernicious to the state , whose works deserved to be suppressed by its authority ; and when
charged with inconsistency and with having himself been the greatest innovator in theology of his age , sheltered himself in a distinction between private and public religion . He distinguished , indeed , in his work on this subject , ( 1786 , ) a three-fold variety of religion : historical religion simply takes the relation of the life and doctrine of
Jesus in the literal sense , without any application to the moral condition of the individual : civil or established religion consists in the doctrinal propositions which the church has adopted , incorporated in its creeds and
confessions , and , for the preservation of unity , tranquillity and order , has enjoined to be believed and taught : moral religion , finally , is that development and adaptation to his condition and necessities which an individual makes
of the doctrines which he derives from the New Testament , and its effects are seen in the sentiments and conduct . The great mass of Christians must content itself with historical belief and the explanation of it which the church has given , and thus do the best it can
for its own spiritual welfare : those of more comprehension , on the contrary , he would have receive religion in the peculiar form best adapted to their own minds , and fashion and apply it according to their own necessities , the established religion being merely the vehicle to convey this higher and more
refined species to those who are capable of it . In this way he hoped to reconcile that diversity of opinion on religious subjects which is essential to freedom of conscience , with the unity of teaching and profession which is implied in the idea of an established church .
It may be easily conceived , that this scheme of Sender ' s met with the fate which attends attempts to reconcile irreconcileable things : the orthodox gave him no thanks for an adherence which was formal and insincere ; the heterodox condemned him for timid duplicity . It was alleged with truth , that our Lord and his disciples , instead
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Biographical Sketch ofj . S * Semler . 69
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1821, page 69, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2497/page/5/
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