Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-5nwft Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-28T23:08:42.685Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

5 - The conflict of languages in the later eighteenth century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 December 2009

Isabel Rivers
Affiliation:
St Hugh's College, Oxford
Get access

Summary

THE TIME will come, my Lord, and I even assure myself it is at no great distance, when the Universities of England will be as respectable, for the learning they teach, the principles they instil, and the morals they inculcate, as they are now contemptible, in your Lordship's eye at least, on these several accounts.

I SEE the Day, when a scholastic theology shall give place to a rational Divinity, conducted on the principles of sound criticism and well-interpreted Scripture: When their Sums and Systems shall fly before enlightened Reason and sober Speculation … When their Physics shall be Fact; their Metaphysics, common sense; and their Ethics, human nature.

‘Locke’ to ‘Shaftesbury’, in Hurd, Dialogues on the Uses of Foreign Travel (1764), 192–3

reason has impertinently intermeddled with the Gospel, and that with such overbearing sedulity, as to darken it more and more; and rivers of tears would not suffice to bewail the increase of moral misery, which, since Mr. Locke's time, has pervaded these kingdoms.

Milner, Gibbon's Account of Christianity Considered (1781), 156

the aera is approaching very fast, when Theological Acrimony shall be swallowed up in Evangelical Charity, and a liberal toleration become the distinguishing feature of every church in Christendom. The ruling powers in Protestant and Catholic states begin at length every where to perceive, that an uniformity of sentiment in matters of religion is a circumstance impossible to be obtained; that it has never yet existed in the church of Christ, from the Apostolic age to our own.

Watson, Collection of Theological Tracts (1785), I, xviii
Type
Chapter
Information
Reason, Grace, and Sentiment
A Study of the Language of Religion and Ethics in England, 1660–1780
, pp. 330 - 356
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2000

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×