Yesterday it was the American Presbyteran theologian, John Williamson Nevin (1803-1886), the Anglican turned Roman Catholic, John Henry Newman (1801-1890) and German liberal theologian Albrecht Ritschl (1822-1889) from Nick Needham. Dr Needham like Nevin but he fell out with Charles Hodge and William Cunningham over how to understand the Lord's Supper. Hodge ended up claiming that Calvin's view of the real presence was not really Reformed and an uncongenial foreign element that was extreme and dubious. Hodge seems to have somehow been unaware of Calvin's views.
Alexander Whyte was a fan of Newman's early sermons printed up in eight volumes and never repudiated by Newman. Whyte quoted favourably this statement
"Dr. Newman's sermons stand by themselves in modern English literature; it might be said, in English literature generally. There have been equally great masterpieces of English writing in this form of composition, and there have been preachers whose theological depth, acquaintance with the heart, earnestness, tenderness, and power have not been inferior to his. But the great writers do not touch, pierce, and get hold of minds as he does, and those who are famous for the power and results of their preaching do not write as he does. His sermons have done more perhaps than any one thing to mould and quichen and brace the religious temper of our time; they have acted with equal force on those who were nearest and those who were furthest from him in theological opinion."
I found it hard to get a handle on Ritschl. I'll need to look at that again.
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