ology seems to indicate.
It is indisputably true that God, in granting reason to man, has not
forbidden its exercise. As religion, the queen of all minds, possesses
indestructible rights over them, so has human reason also rights which
cannot be disputed. Kant has justly said, the faith which should oppose
itself to reason could not longer exist. With this view we form an idea
of Rationalism similar to that conceived by the great Leibnitz, which,
with our present ideas of truth, we cannot regard as unreasonable. But
this right of human reason to examine and discuss differs widely from
its self-constitution as supreme judge on religious matters, and from
the wish to submit God and conscience to its own tribunal, which it
declares to be infallible. This, however, has been the case in modern
times when Philosophy has openly avowed itself the enemy of
Christianity, and when those who were terrified by its rash demands have
sought to confound them by the devices of Rationalism--thus hastening to
ruin the edifice which they aspired to restore.... Rationalism must not,
therefore, be understood to signify the use which theologians have made
of reason in matters of faith. Did the reader thus interpret it he would
mistake our aim. He would be deceived as to the character of the labors
which it is our wish to describe. He would attribute to the author of
this history intentions which he could not entertain, and religious
opinions which his respect for human reason would compel him to disavow.
The apostles of the gospel continually appeal to the reason of their
hearers, and Christ himself argues the increasing exercise of the _eye
of the soul_, as he calls conscience, in judging of the truth which he
announces--Matt. vi. 23. For a good conscience is always better disposed
to rise to the knowledge of the truth; while one heavy laden and
harassed is exceedingly prone to receive dogmas without properly
understanding their import, because it feels their truth through the
consolations which they offer. In no age of Christianity has there
arisen a serious discussion on this subject, though the extravagant
pretensions of Rationalism have provoked some exaggerations which can
never prevail over the ancient Christian system. That system by no means
forbade the exercise of human intelligence in religious matters, though
it employed a superior and only infallible reason--the divine reason,
the doctrinal expression of which is found in the books