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Excerpt from The New Church Repository, and Monthly Review, 1848, Vol. 1: Devoted to the Exposition of the Philosophy and Theology Taught in the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg
Theologians themselves have long been aware of the want of accord between the doctrines of their creeds, and man's sober reason. Hence it has long been, and still continues to be, the fashion with many religious teachers to depreciate human reason in matters of religion, thinking thereb to exalt the wisdom of God. This is the way in which t ey have sought to oppose the introduction and progress of every new truth in philosophy or religion: this is the way that the reli gious error which now darkens the sky and blackens the face of the moral world, has crept in and been propagated from age to age in the church. It is by undervaluing human reason; by teaching men to trample on their understanding, to reject all reason and common sense in religious matters, as the wisdom of this world, which is in Opposition to the wisdom of God; and to ield a blind and unquestioning assent, not to the Word of cd, but to the false and foolish construction which unauthorized and fallible men have put upon the Word. This is the way that Romanism has managed for so long a time so rivet its fetters and maintain its grasp on human minds, by discarding the exercise of reason, and denying the right of private judgment in the things of religion. And this is the way that Protestantism has contrived to gain the assent of such multitudes to dogmas that are scarcely less irrational than transubstantiation, purgatory, the canonization and invo cation of dead men. And this is the way that all false doc trines must, and will, seek to retain their hold on the minds of men, - by denying and discarding the use of reason in matters of faith.
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