tempted to qonstruct a regular system of Deism. He maintained that God could not intend that men should ever be without a re- ligion adequate to all their necessities, and therefore that a revela- tion can only make knovvn vehat every man has in his own reason. This internal and universal revelation contains the two truths : 1. The existence of God. 2. That God created man not for his own sake, but for man's. By far the most able and influential of the writers of this class was David Hume. His " Essays " in four vol- umes contain his theological views. The most important of these are those on the Natural History of Religion, and on Miracles. His " Dialogues on Natural Religion " is regarded as the ablest work ever written in support of the Deistical, or rather, Atheisti- cal system.
From England the spirit of infidelity extended into France. Voltaire, Rousseau, La Mettrie, Holbach, D'Alembert, Diderot, and others, succeeded for a time in overthrowing all religious faith in the governing classes of society.
Rationalism in Germany. In Germany the Rationalistic defection began with such men as Baumgarten, Ernesti, and John David Michaelis, who did not deny the divine authority of the Scriptures, but explained away their doctrines. These were followed by such men as Semler, Morus, and Eichhorn, who were thoroughly neological. During the latter part of the last, and first part of the present century, most of the leading church historians, exegetes, and theologians of Germany, were Rationalists. The first serious blow given to their system was by Kant. The Rationalists assumed that they were able to demon- strate the truths of natural religion on the principles of reason. Kant, in his " Critic of Pure Reason," undertook to show that reason is incompetent to prove any religious truth. The onl}' foun- dation for religion he maintained was our moral consciousness. That consciousness involved or implied the three great doctrines of God, liberty, and immortality. His successors, Fichte and Schel- ling, carried out the principles which Kant adopted to prove that the Outward world is an unknown something, to show that there was no such world ; that there was no real distinction between the ego and non-ego, the subjective and objective ; that both are modes of the manifestation of the absolute. Thus all things were merged into one. This idealistic Pantheism having displaced Rationalism, has already yielded the philosophic throne to a subtle form of Mate- rialism.
44 INTRODUCTION. [Ch. m. — Rationalism.
Bretschneider's " Entwickelung aller in der Dogmatik vorkom- menden BegrifFe," gives a list of fifty-two works on the rationalistic controversy in Germany. The English books Avritten against the Rationalists or Deists of Great Britain, and on the proper office of reason in matters of religion, are scarcely less numerous. Some of the more important of these works are the following : " Boyle on Tilings above Reason," Butler's " Analogy of Religion and Nature," Conybeare's " Defence of Religion," " Hulsean Lec- tures," Jackson's " Examination," " Jew's Letters to Voltaire," Lardner's " Credibility of the Gospel History," Leland's " Advan- tage and Necessity of Revelation," Leslie's " Short and Easy Method with Deists." Warburton's " View of Bolingbroke's Philosophy," and his " Divine Legation of Moses," John Wilson's " Dissertation on Christianity," etc., etc. See Staudlin's " Ge- schichte des Rationalismus," and a concise and instructive his- tory of theology during the eighteenth century, by Dr. Tholuck in " Bibhcal Repertory and Princeton Review " for 1828. Leib- nitz's " Discours de la Conformite de la Foi avec la Raison," in the Preface to his " Th^odicde," and Mansel's " Limits of Religious Thought," deserve the careful perusal of the theological student. The most recent Avorks on this general subject are Lecky's " His- tory of Rationalism in Europe," and " History of Rationalism, embracing a survey of the present state of Protestant Theology," by Rev. John F. Hurst, A. M. The latter is the most instructive publication in the English language on modern skepticism.
§ 4. Dogmatism^ or the Third Form of Rationalism.
A. Meaning of the Term.
It Avas a common objection made in the early age of the Church against Christianity, by the philosophical Greeks, that its doctrines were received upon authority, and not upon rational evidence. Many of the Fathers, specially those of the Alexandrian school, answered that this was true only of the common people. They could not be expected to iinderstand philosophy. They could re- ceiye the high spiritual truths of religion only on the ground of authority. But the educated classes Avere able and Avere bound to search after the philosophical or rational evidence of the doctrines taught in the Bible, and to receive those doctrines on the ground of that evidence. They made a distinction, therefore, betAveen TrtVris and yi'wcri?, faith and knowledge. The former Avas for the common people, the latter for the cultiA'^ated. The objects of faith