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Untitled Article
instruction , and point to the exclusion of certain distinguished and influential rationalist teachers in the university . Soon they will demand it , and not it alone , but excommunication from the Protestant Church ; then the exclusion of all rationalists , and not only of rationalists but also of suprananatnral rationalists" ( who are they ?) " and rational supranaturalists ; then
of all moderate supranaturalists ; in a word , of all who do not believe and confess as they do . Finally , if ever a government should be weak enough to give a helping hand to this beginning , of which , however , we do not think , they will raise the hand against the power of the state itself , and not rest till they have subjected it to themselves . For this is the end of the struggle of all sects which imagine themselves to possess objective truth in a positive religion of external divine revelation ; to make it practically and politically availing through all the relations and business of life ; an end only to be
attained by erecting a hierarchy over the faith of men , which in fearful rigour would stand far above that of Rome—a hierarchy armed with the symbol of the dead letter . " " That it will not come to this we have a surety in the wisdom of our rulers , who see clearly the danger of resigning themselves to such a party , and in the power of public opinion which requires a decided freedom in the pursuits of intellect . The happy influences of science , arts , morals , civil ordinances , laws , and rights , the harvest of improvements made through the free use of the understanding , all these
must be overturned and dissolved , should the naked form of ancient prescriptive faith be put in the place of freedom of thought , and forced upon human life by the hand of power . ' * " Freedom of thought has awaked in our age ; the independent mind has entered upon the race to the goal of truth ; the ground must be gone over , and no human power can stop the
course . " Unity of doctrine may be good as an object of endeavour for the Protestant Church , but not as a law ; for the union which is produced by law can be but a dead union , and such pleases not us . We leave it to a papal hierarchical churcli . The Holy Scriptures alone must be the rule and
standard of doctrine ; and accordingly for this the right of private free interpretation must remain . Every binding of the theologian to symbolical books is according to the object and showing of those books only a bond so far as they accord with the Holy Scriptures , let their forms of expression be what they may . Yet less do the Scriptures require a blind unconditional belief . They appeal to the understanding ; they require faith as the fruit
of its free exercise . Thus in them is laid the foundation-principle of rationalism ; that we receive the doctrine of Christianity as the Bible presents it to us , because that doctrine is true ; because it is consonant with reason ; because the mind of man can receive it in the free exercise of its rational and moral powers . The Holy Scripture is itself the most decided protector
or freedom of faith and teaching . " It remains to be seen what remedy , if any , of these incongruities in the evangelical church will be devised . A large part of the English nation , that is , the Dissenting part , might think the best would be to cut the knot , by dissolving the connexion of Church and State , and letting the people model their own churches , choose their own ministers , and institute and govern their own schools of theology . The United States of America teach this policy by example . But the great European States are neither new nor republican , and what will not be done , may be more safely predicted lhan what will be done . J . M .
Untitled Article
State of Religious Opinion in Germany . 589
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1830, page 589, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2588/page/5/
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