Protestant Theology since 1700 -- By: Miner Brodhead Stearns
Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 105:419 (Jul 1948)
Article: Protestant Theology since 1700
Author: Miner Brodhead Stearns
BSac 105:419 (Jul 48) p. 320
Protestant Theology since 1700
(Concluded from the April-June Number, 1948)
{Editor’s note: Footnotes in the original printed edition were numbered 291–331, but in this electronic edition are numbered 1–41 respectively.}
British Theology in Modern Times
It was in the 19th century that the three parties into which the Anglican church is divided today became clearly defined. The Low Church or evangelical party owed much to the revival begun by the Methodists, as noticed earlier. Charles Simeon (1759–1836) has been called its founder. Pfleiderer disparages this party, as all might expect in consequence of his personal views.1
The other two parties, the Broad Church and the High Church sections, originated from a common source and tendency. This was the romanticism which swept over all of Europe at the beginning of the last century. After the despotism of cold understanding in the 18th century the watchword became, “A return to nature and the natural emotions.”2 Rousseau was the prophet of this new age, Herder and Goethe its heralds in Germany, Wordsworth and Shelley its English poets. This tendency made itself felt in philosophy and theology alike. Its effects in the two realms have been well described by Pfleiderer: “The first and most influential representative of this tendency in England was Coleridge, in whose Aids to Reflection (1825), German idealistic philosophy was transplanted to English soil, and employed in the revivification of theological thought. We have seen that in Coleridge, as in Schleiermacher, his German predecessor, intellect and feeling, faith and knowledge,
BSac 105:419 (Jul 48) p. 321
entered into such a close alliance with each other, that he appeared on the one hand as the apologist of the faith of the Church, in opposition to anti-religious rationalism; and, on the other, as at the same time the champion of a more liberal view of traditional doctrines, in opposition to a literal orthodoxy. These two aspects of Coleridge’s thought, while combined in his own person, separated into two distinct parties or tendencies in the Church, their common origin, in the set of feeling in Romanticism, betraying itself outwardly in the fact that both parties proceeded from the same circle of Oxford students, and were represented by men who were personal friends in their university days, far as their courses subsequently diverged.”3
We need not enlarge upon Coleridge’s view, though Fisher goes into detail and awards him “the distinction of introducing a ne...
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