Tindal, and others; will be entirely
separated from them, for they were far removed from Pantheism or
Materialism. Bretschneider, who has set on foot the best inquiry on this
point, says that the word Rationalism has been confused with the word
Naturalism since the appearance of the Kantian philosophy, and that it
was introduced into theology by Reinhard and Gabler. An accurate
examination respecting these words gives the following results: The word
Naturalism arose first in the sixteenth century, and was spread in the
seventeenth. It was understood to include those who allowed no other
knowledge of religion except the natural, which man could shape out of
his own strength, and consequently excluded all supernatural revelation.
As to the different forms of Naturalism, theologians say there are
three; the first, which they call Pelagianism, and which considers human
dispositions and notions as perfectly pure and clear by themselves, and
the religious knowledge derived from them as sufficiently explicit. A
grosser kind denies all particular revelation; and the grossest of all
considers the world as God. As to Rationalism, this word was used in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries by those who considered reason as
the source and norm of faith. Amos Comenius seems first to have used
this word in 1661, and it never had a good sense. In the eighteenth
century it was applied to those who were in earlier times called by the
name of Naturalist."[5]

Of all writers on the subject of Rationalism we give the palm of
excellence to the devout and learned Hugh James Rose, of Cambridge
University. As far as we know he was the first to expose to the
English-speaking world the sad state to which this form of skepticism
had reduced Germany. Having visited that country in 1824, he delivered
four discourses on the subject before the university, which were
afterward published under the title of _The State of Protestantism in
Germany_. Thus far, in spite of the new works which may have appeared,
this account of Rationalism has not been superseded. We shall have
occasion more than once to refer to its interesting pages. Of
Rationalism he says:

"The word has been used in Germany in various senses, and has been made
to embrace alike those who positively reject all revelation and those
who profess to receive it. I am inclined, however, to believe that the
distinction between Naturalists and Rationalists is not quite so wide,
either, as it