would appear to be at first sight, or as one of them
assuredly wishes it to appear. For if I receive a system, be it of
religion, of morals, or of politics, only so far as it approve itself to
my reason, whatever be the authority that presents it to me, it is idle
to say that I receive the system out of any respect to that authority. I
receive it _only_ because my reason approves it, and I should of course
do so if an authority of far inferior value were to present the system
to me. This is what that division of Rationalists, which professes to
receive Christianity and at the same time to make reason the supreme
arbiter in matters of faith, has done. _Their_ system, in a word, is
this: they assume certain general principles, which they 'maintain to be
the necessary deductions of reason from an extended and unprejudiced
contemplation of the natural and moral order of things, and to be in
themselves immutable and universal. Consequently anything which, on
however good authority, may be advanced in apparent opposition to them
must either be rejected as unworthy of rational belief, or at least
explained away, till it is made to accord with the assumed
principles,--and the truth or falsehood of all doctrines proposed is to
be decided according to their agreement or disagreement with those
principles.' When Christianity, then, is presented to them, they inquire
what there is in it which agrees with their assumed principles, and
whatsoever does so agree, they receive as _true_. But whatever is _true_
comes from God, and consequently all of Christianity which they admit to
be true, they hold to be _divine_.

"'Those who are generally termed Rationalists,' says Dr. Bretschneider,
'admit universally, in Christianity, a divine, benevolent, and positive
appointment for the good of mankind, and Jesus as a Messenger of divine
Providence, believing that the true and everlasting word of God is
contained in the Holy Scripture, and that by the same the welfare of
mankind will be obtained and extended. But they deny therein a
supernatural and miraculous working of God, and consider the object of
Christianity to be that of introducing into the world such a religion as
reason can comprehend; and they distinguish the essential from the
unessential, and what is local and temporary from that which is
universal and permanent in Christianity.' There is, however, a third
class of divines, which in fact differs very little from this, though
very w