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labour by using it , discovered to be a mere abridgement of Fleury . On this he determined to take no guide ; but by the study of the originals form his system for himself . Instead of
using them as polemical weapons , to defend the doctrines of the Lutheran Church , as had been the practice of his predecessors , if they had used them at all , he investigated in them the
origin o ^ those doctrines which had since been stamped with the character of orthodoxy , and shewed that the fathers had often received as
unsuspicious truth , what , in a subsequent age , had been anathematized as heresy ; and hence drew an argument for the revival of that freedom of judgment on doctrinal matters which had been
enjoyed in earlier ages . In pursuance of this object he printed , in 1775 , the letter of Pelagius to Demetrias , and A » gustin ' s censure of it , with annotations , exposing the miserable criticism by which the latter extracted the dogma of original sin from the Latin
version , and vindicating the doctrine of Pelagius , as that of all the best expositors before Augustin ' s time . Among the Latin fathers he made Tertullian the object of his most careful study , as the first great writer of the Latin Church , and model of patristical Latinity , attracted perhaps , at the same time , by a secret sympathy with his bold and ardent genius . He published his works in five volumes , 8 vo . la 1770 and the following years . The
text has been in some places corrected by the help of the various readings , and the index facilitates the study of the peculiar and difficult Latinity of Tertiillian ; but it is to be regretted that he did not bestow more labour on
his edition , and make it still more useful . In the history of the middle ages he did not confine himself to writers professedly ecclesiastical , but studied the civil historians of the same period , with more diligence than most of those to whose province they belong .
The researches into the history and law of the German empire , into which he had been led at a very early period of his life , had made him familiar with them , and in the middle ages the secular and the ecclesiastical power were so connected , that the study of both is essential in order to understand cither . A work of his , entitled * ' On the proper Use of the Sources of Civil
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and Ecclesiastical History in the Middle Ages , " ( 1761 , ) contains in a short compass the first attempt which had been made to establish any principles of criticism on this important subject .
Hjs diligence in studying these authors , whose size and barbarous style is terrific to most readers , makes this part of his ecclesiastical history the most valuable . Generally speaking , this class of his works must not be
consulted as a full repository of fact 3 ; they are rather extracts and observations relating to ecclesiastical history , than a history itself . What every reader might be supposed to know he passed over , or only mentioned slightl y * and he is , therefore , most copious on those ages , in regard to which it costs most labour to ascertain the truth .
In these , as in his other works , his want of the graces , and even the necessary perspicuity of style , has given the credit of his thoughts to those who had the art to arrange and clothe them better .
Ihe opinions of Semler respecting dogmatic theology , or the doctrines of the gospel , must of course have been the result of his study of scripture and ecclesiastical history , and it will be evident , from what has been said
under these heads , that he arrived at results very different from the doctrines which the confession of a Lutheran church exhibited . It was here , however , that his situation became most critical , and that it was necessary for
him to proceed with the utmost caution . Though his criticism shewed those texts to be spurious which are commonly deemed pillars of orthodoxy ; though his exegesis explained away the phraseology from which popular doctrines are deduced , and his
ecclesiastical history shewed how different the orthodoxy of former ages was from that which in his time passed under the name ; still all this , though it excited reasonable suspicion of the
unsoundness of his own faith , did not prove it . He could still allege that Iu 8 believed the doctrines of the church , upon reasons of his own , or at least challenge his enemies to give a proof that he did not . But when he came
avowedly to lecture upon them , he could not so easily avoid laying himself open to censure unless he practised more reserve . " A theological manual , " observes Eichhom , " is not the
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Biographical Sketch ofJ . S . Semler . 139
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1821, page 139, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2498/page/11/
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