For the demands of Reason (as none knew better than good Bishop
Butler) must be and ought to be satisfied. And when a popular war
arises between the reason of a generation and its theology, it
behoves the ministers of religion to inquire, with all humility and
godly fear, on which side lies the fault: whether the theology
which they expound is all that it should be, or whether the reason
of those who impugn it is all that it should be.
For me, as (I trust) an orthodox priest of the Church of England, I
believe the theology of the National Church of England, as by law
established, to be eminently rational as well as scriptural. It is
not, therefore, surprising to me that the clergy of the Church of
England, since the foundation of the Royal Society in the
seventeenth century, have done more for sound physical science than
the clergy of any other denomination; or that the three greatest
natural theologians with which I, at least, am acquainted--Berkeley,
Butler, and Paley--should have belonged to our Church. I am not
unaware of what the Germans of the eighteenth century have done. I
consider Goethe's claims to have advanced natural theology very much
over-rated: but I do recommend to young clergymen Herder's
"Outlines of the Philosophy of the History of Man" as a book (in
spite of certain defects) full of sound and precious wisdom.
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