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biblical theologian solely . This was partly tbe result of his earliest education . His father , walking in the steps of Spener , laboured to substitute a simple , biblical , and practical mode of theological instruction , instead of that scholastic method which had prevailed in the seventeenth century . Besides his father , Knapp had Semler , Nosselt , Schutze , and Gruner , as his tutors at Halle ; and afterwards , at Gottingen , Walch , Zacharia , Miller , and
Michaelis . With the latter he maintained epistolary correspondence . He had as contemporaries engaged in the same good design , such men as Ernesti , Heilmann , Doderlein , Less , Morus , Seiler , Michaelis , Storr , Griesbach , in whose writings he found a rich treasure of biblical and practical theology . Steady in his original determination to acknowledge no sources of religious knowledge but the Holy Scriptures and the right use of reason , the metaphysical systems of Kant and other philosophers had little influence
on his theological system . Hence he had few alterations to make in his exposition of it , when it was completed after the most careful and exact exegetical and historical studies . It has been reported , indeed , on oral testimony , that his views of Christian doctrine underwent a great change as late as 1794 , after he had several times repeated his theological course . On this report his Editor remarks , " that , as far as he knows , Knapp never used refinement or subtilty in explaining scriptural expressions in a heterodox manner ; that his philological integrity would never allow it ; and that there
are no evidences of the pretended change either in his first publications , or in his latest exegetical productions . * The first impressions on his mind and heart , which are so influential on the future character , were , as he was wont to acknowledge with pious gratitude , entirely of that sort which are most remote from a light and careless manner of thinking with respect to religion and morality . They were calculated to cherish Christian faith , and an early and deep sense of the importance and obligation of religion , without depressing the natural vivacity of the youthful mind . At the University , his teachers and models were men who maintained what is essential to the creed
of their church , and their influence upon him was certainly neither weak nor transient . At the same time , it was scarcely to be expected that the lectures of a Semler and a Gruner should not raise doubts in his mind , which might be in part strengthened and increased when , after entering on his office as a Theological Professor , be continued his studies independently . It could hardly be otherwise in a young man who felt a lively interest in the indications of the theological literature of that age . These doubts , however , and his departure from the old discipline consequent upon them ,
never went so far as either to enfeeble his faith as a believer in revelation , pr his purpose as a purely biblical theologian . When he declared himself more decidedly in his later years on the side of certain views and doctrines , which with progressive illumination have been generally given up , the greater freedom of his earlier days was the more sedulously contrasted with it , and the difference misjudged by those who either could not , or would not , apprehend the reasons of it . " In a journal of the year 1787 , the Editor placed Knapp in the list of enlightened theologians , and added , *« that , as a theologian , he is almost unshackled with prejudices : prudenoe only
• I observe that he has given a place iu his lectures to Nosselt ' s exposition of Col . ii . 9 , " In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily . " NoSselt explains the expression of the fulness of divine instruction which is given to ittati through Christ , and that in a plain and substantial manner , ( rrcoputnviccq , ) not figuratively , by shadows and -obscure images , as in the religion of Moses .
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98 Letters from Germany ,
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1831, page 98, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2594/page/26/
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