POPULAR CONTRIBUTIONS TOWARDS A RATIONAL THEOLOGY. BY WILLIAM BENNETT. "Prove all things: hold fast that which is good." GLASGOW: THOMAS BENNETT, 16 ALSTON STREET. 1876. 3-21-38 J.A PREFACE. -00 THE following Contributions towards a Rational Theology were delivered in the first instance as Popular Lectures, without any serial connection, and with no intention of publication. This, while it will account largely for the style of composition, may at the same time be offered as my apology for the repetitions that occur in branches of the subjects discussed, as well as in the arguments employed. My encouragement to offer the Lectures in their present form is the hearty reception given to some two or three of them which as pamphlets have already appeared in print. My earnest desire and sincere hope is, that as now published they may prove helpful in ever so humble a way in directing attention, by their plain and candid utterances, to the irrational and pernicious doctrines and beliefs, which, in my opinion, are to be found in the prevailing theology of the times. Heresy and error only though the views throughout expressed will, without doubt, to many appear, they are at present, and from my stand-point, the full and genuine truth to me. Their possession, I feel assured, has made me a happier, and, I trust, a better man; and but that I am hopeful that their diffusion among my fellow-men will in some measure prove similarly beneficial to them, they would never thus, or otherwise, have been allowed to see the light. Let those who differ widely from my position-as Į ال iv. well know many good men honestly do-say of my opinions and of their tendency what they may, they will never take from me the satisfaction of having, in the face of some discouragement, done what I was able, and what to me seemed good for the enlightenment and well-being of the men of my time, and for the promotion of what I esteem to be the true honour and glory of God. As to the correctness relatively of the views expressed with those now popular, I appeal with confidence from the general verdict of the present to that of the religious freethinkers of the day, and to the increased enlightenment of the future. To the possession of absolute truth, I, of course, lay no claim whatever. Our knowledge in theology is, of necessity, like our knowledge in every other science, progressive and cumulative. Happy would I be could I believe I had placed ever so small a stone upon the ever enlarging cairn of truth, or had even simply caused one raised there by other hands to be more plainly visible to the eyes of the humblest and most unlettered fellow-wayfarer. WILLIAM BENNETT. 1 BELVIDERE PLACE, ABERDEEN, 31st Jan., 1876. |