TRUE LESSON OF PROTESTANTISM 



as an inevitable result of the exercise of that 

 right of private judgment which is the funda- 

 mental principle of Protestantism ; and now it 

 begins to look as if the Catholic prediction 

 were likely to be fulfilled, although Protestant 

 churches have warmly resented the imputation, 

 and have too often taken pains to show that in 

 strait and uncompromising bigotry they could 

 vie with their great antagonist. While Catholics, 

 on the one hand, have foretold this result by 

 way of warning and opprobrium, on the other 

 hand it has been no less confidently predicted 

 by atheists, materialists, and positivists by way 

 of encouragement and approval. To Comte the 

 chaos of opinion which prevails in modern soci- 

 ety afforded proof that the time was ripe for 

 discarding theology and metaphysics altogether, 

 and for confining the operations of the human 

 mind hereafter to the simple content of observed 

 facts. To Dr. Biichner and his friends it pre- 

 sages the speedy advent of that glorious mil- 

 lennium when all men shall felicitate themselves 

 upon the prospect of dying like the beasts of 

 the field. On the one side and on the other we 

 hear it maintained, with equal emphasis, that any 

 system of Protestantism any system which 

 seeks to combine absolute freedom of specu- 

 lation with an essentially religious attitude of 

 mind is logically absurd, and is destined to 

 be superseded. The only question is as to 

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