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==II. The Reasonableness of Christianity==

==II. The Reasonableness of Christianity==

The principles that governed Locke's social polity largely determined his attitude to Christianity. His "latitudinarianism" was the result of extraordinary reverence for truth, and a perception that knowledge may be sufficient for the purposes of human life while it falls infinitely short of speculative completeness. He never loses sight of essential reasonableness as the only ground on which Christian faith can ultimately rest. But Locke accepted Holy Scripture as infallible with the reverence of a Puritan. It has God for its author, salva-tion for its end, and truth without any mixture of error for its matter." Yet he did not, like many Puritans, mean Scripture as interpreted by himself or by his sect. And faith in its infallibility was combined in Locke with deep distrust in " enthusiasm." This predisposed him to regard physical miracles as the solid criterion for distinguishing reasonable religious conviction from " inclinations, fancies and strong assurances. ' Assent in religion as in everything else he could justify only on the ground of its harmony with reason; professed " illumination without search, and certainty without proof " was to him a sign of absence of the divine spirit in the professor. Confidence that we are right, he would say, is in itself no proof that we are right : when God asks assent to the truth of a proposition in religion, he either shows us its intrinsic rationality by ordinary means, or he offers miraculous proof of the reality of which we need reasonable evidence. But we must know what we mean by miracle. Reasonableness, in short, must always at last be our guide. His own faith in Christianity rested on its moral excellence when it is received in its primitive simplicity, combined with the miracles which accompanied its original promulgation. But " even for those books which have the attestation of miracles to confirm their being from God, the miracles," he says, " are to be judged by the doctrine, and not the doctrine by the miracles." Miracles alone cannot vindicate the divinity of immoral doctrine. Locke's Reasonableness of Christianity was an attempt to recall religion from the crude speculations of theological sects, destructive of peace among Christians, to its original simplicity ; but this is apt to conceal its transcendent mystery. Those who practically acknowledge the supremacy of Jesus as Messiah accept all that is essential to the Christianity of Locke. His own Christian belief, sincere and earnest, was more the outcome of the common sense which, largely through him, moulded the prudential theology of England in the 18th century, than of the nobler elements present in More, Cudworth and other religious thinkers of the preceding age, or afterwards in Law and Berkeley, Coleridge and Schleiermacher.

The principles that governed Locke's social polity largely determined his attitude to Christianity. His "latitudinarianism" was the result of extraordinary reverence for truth, and a perception that knowledge may be sufficient for the purposes of human life while it falls infinitely short of speculative completeness. He never loses sight of essential reasonableness as the only ground on which Christian faith can ultimately rest. But Locke accepted Holy Scripture as infallible with the reverence of a Puritan. It has God for its author, salva-tion for its end, and truth without any mixture of error for its matter." Yet he did not, like many Puritans, mean Scripture as interpreted by himself or by his sect. And faith in its infallibility was combined in Locke with deep distrust in " enthusiasm." This predisposed him to regard physical miracles as the solid criterion for distinguishing reasonable religious conviction from " inclinations, fancies and strong assurances. ' Assent in religion as in everything else he could justify only on the ground of its harmony with reason; professed " illumination without search, and certainty without proof " was to him a sign of absence of the divine spirit in the professor. [[Confidence]] that we are right, he would say, is in itself no proof that we are right : when God asks assent to the truth of a proposition in religion, he either shows us its intrinsic rationality by ordinary means, or he offers miraculous proof of the reality of which we need reasonable evidence. But we must know what we mean by miracle. Reasonableness, in short, must always at last be our guide. His own faith in Christianity rested on its moral excellence when it is received in its primitive simplicity, combined with the miracles which accompanied its original promulgation. But " even for those books which have the attestation of miracles to confirm their being from God, the miracles," he says, " are to be judged by the doctrine, and not the doctrine by the miracles." Miracles alone cannot vindicate the divinity of immoral doctrine. Locke's Reasonableness of Christianity was an attempt to recall religion from the crude speculations of theological sects, destructive of peace among Christians, to its original simplicity ; but this is apt to conceal its transcendent mystery. Those who practically acknowledge the supremacy of Jesus as Messiah accept all that is essential to the Christianity of Locke. His own Christian belief, sincere and earnest, was more the outcome of the common sense which, largely through him, moulded the prudential theology of England in the 18th century, than of the nobler elements present in More, Cudworth and other religious thinkers of the preceding age, or afterwards in Law and Berkeley, Coleridge and Schleiermacher.

==III. Education==

==III. Education==