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    808 Letters from Germany.

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    LETTERS FROM GERM AIM Y.

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    I Have Always Been Strongly Inclined To ...

    there will & ver be & perfect equality established among the rational creatures of God , ia respebt of their progress in the Divine likeness , there seems no reason to believe % however true it may be , that it is the natural tendency of a course ^ of riioral discipline extending through endless ages , in conformity with the principle of association to produce a continual approximation to

    such av state * At all finite distances of time , it appears not unreasonable to conclude , that those who are so irnuch further advanced on their heavenward journey here 3 as the Christian saint is before the abandoned profligate will retain their advantage * And in this sense it may even be true that the punishment of s \ np that is , the evil consequences arising from it to the sinner , may last for ever . Though we should suppose that he will ultimately be released from a state of positive misery , and even attain to a high degree of improvement , and be advanced to an exalted rank among glorified spirits , still it may be true , that in every period of his existence he will be worse off than he would have been , if he had not been a sinner in the present state , I have heard it said , upon what authority I know not , that there are some professed advocates of eternal punishments , whose doctrine , when fairly

    explained , amounts to no more than this ; if so , it is evident that they can be Calvinists only in name ; and they differ from the Universalists in a mere shadow ., or a slight peculiarity of language not worth the disputing about ; and which both parties may at length happily perceive is omly the veil of a real uniformity of sentiment . So perish all the bitter dissensions which at present divide Christian brethren in hostility from each other . Halifax . Wo To

    808 Letters From Germany.

    808 Letters from Germany .

    Letters From Germ Aim Y.

    LETTERS FROM GERM AIM Y .

    Letters From Germ Aim Y.

    Nos 0 III . and IV .- * Sir , Heidelberg . The philosophical public of Germany have been for some time past withdrawing from the metaphysical speculations in which system after system had been swallowed up without leaving behind them aoy vestige of

    discovery ; and are at length collecting themselves upon the firm ground of experience . They have found tliat by chasing phantoms on the fairy land of k priori assumptions and ideal abstractions , nothing is to be gained In philosophy , and that in religious speculations one meteor has glimmered and vanished only to be succeeded by another , leaving the inquirer baffled and perplexed , and always in want of a certain guide to truth . Still the language of the Kantische school pervades more or less most of the

    departments of literature ; and at the present time in Berlin , Professor Hegel has been , able to gather round him numerous disciples , I suppose rather juvenile . The doctrine of his school out-Kants Kant in transcending abstruseness and temerity * As to its religious bearing , it appears to flow in a direct course into the frozen deep Of a sort of ideal Pantheism . Its examiner in the Hermes iinds a coincidence in the speculations with some of £ he opinions arid reasoniogs Of Spinoza . As they are either unprofitable or unintelH-- - Lm ¦ " —¦— - - -- i 1 ¦ n _ i i i . i" ~ ¦¦ - ¦ - i ¦ i _ ¦ *• - - . . __^_—_ .

    * For Noa . I . and II . see pp . 545 and 585 .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1830, page 808, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/mrp_02121830/page/8/