Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Revelation Modern Theology Contrasted: Or, the Simplicity of the Apostolic Gospel Demonstrated
The object of the present work is to develope the position which was assumed as the foundation of my Bampton Lectures, viz., that Christianity, as distinct from the theological systems of the different communities into which Christendom is divided, consists of a few simple principles which constitute its essence as a revelation and to inquire what is really essential to it, and what are merely human additions. The importance of this distinction, in the interests of Christianity itself, can hardly be over-estimated in the present aspects of thought. The vast amount of subject-matter, involving a number of difficult philosophical, scientific, and historical problems, which has been identified With it by systematic and popular theology, has rendered the proof of its Divine origin one of so complicated a -character as to require a special training to enable the inquirer to appreciate its cogency. But the urgent need of the present times is a proof which shall be level to the capacities of the masses of mankind, and capable of verification by them. In order to effect this it is necessary that Christianity should be reduced to that simple form in which it was proclaimed by our Lord Himself and His Apostles.
This simplification is needed, not only in the interests of our evidential position, but to meet the requirements of the ordinary Christian. Men, whose lot it is to be engaged in the active duties of life, require a simple religion, not a complicated theology, to satisfy their religious needs. It is hardly too much to affirm, that the vast amount of abstract and complicated matter which in the popular conception is identified with Christianity as a Divine revelation, has done more to shake the faith of thoughtful men than all the attacks of unbelievers. They feel that no small number of these positions rest on evidences of a very uncertain character; and they are therefore in danger of drawing the conclusion that this uncertainty extends to the foundations of Christianity itself.
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