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Untitled Article
in which scientific clearness and freedom were the object of honest exertion * the other in which an inward indisposition toward the peculiar character of the Christian religion moulded the yet uncompleted results of historical investigation with a shallow philosophy into an unconnected , revolting commixture of naturalism and popular philosophy , all the phenomena in the history of theology will be sufficiently explained . That better race of
authors , for the most part too little acquainted with the principles of the sch ence of scriptural interpretation and the defence of religion , committed in- > deed many an error , but with a chastened judgment they again struck back into the right path . It was natural that they should occasionally fail at first sight to recognize the shallowness and pervertedness of inquiries of the second sort ; and that to a certain degree participating in the fascination with which the spirit of that time had invested every species of tolerance , they
should expose themselves to the injustice , by which their purer endeavours were subsequently confounded with those of the deistic naturalist;—an injustice frequently practised in these times in a crying manner , not by Romanists only , but by Protestants of too exclusive a system of theology . And now that this better sort of temperate , religiously-disposed , and scientific inquirers have gained a better basis , rule , and method , partly through their own more enlarged acquaintance with the province of their science ( to which belongs also the acknowledgment of its limits ); partly through the exertions
of decided apologists and apologetic doctrinal writers ; partly , and not least , through the endeavours of a deeper philosophy ; and lastly , in part through the religious stimulus caused by momentous political events : now also that studies in ecclesiastical history , alike deep in their character and pure in their point of view , have quickened the sight for discerning the essence of Christianity ; our German theology is attaining a pure and scientific character , which it could not have acquired , so unfettered and in such full consciousness , without first discharging itself of those baser elements .
Much is yet left to be done , much to clear away ; but the more that genuine apologetic and hermeneutic principles , derived from the nature of belief and of thought , possess themselves of the mind , the more will those falsifying theories of accommodation , those wretched explanations of miracles , those presumptuous critical hypotheses , give place to a perspicuous view of the essence of Divine Revelation , to a living understanding of the prophetic and apostolic writings , and consequently to a purer exposition of
the main doctrines of Christianity . You must not allow this hope to be obscured by what you may have seen of the struggles of supernaturalism and rationalism , or perhaps may read most obnoxiously exhibited in several of our periodical works . Within the province of proper theology this contest is not so important as it often appears , and the more it developes itself the less lasting can it be ; inasmuch as an independent rationalism is irreconcileable with the very idea of Christian theology , and a bare supernaturalism , which goes no further than what its name expresses , does not contain
the slightest portion of the substance and doctrines of Christianity . It then it is true , that through a genuine study of scriptural interpretation and of history , a better theology has begun to find place among us , the distracting influence which this conflict exerts must of necessity here also be gradually diminished : on the other hand it will probably continue , possibly yet more develope itself , in the more direct province of religion , in philosophy , and in politics , where , amid many a struggle and many an alternation , it may systematize itself in the contrast of a religious and of an atheistic , or of a sii * - cere and of an hypocritical character of thought , and then again from the
Untitled Article
Professor Sack's View of Religion in Germany . 527
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1828, page 527, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2563/page/15/
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