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 Library of Dr. A. A. Hod^e. Presented. 
 
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AN 
 
 HISTORICAL ENQUIRY, 
 
AN 
 
 HISTORICAL ENQUIRY 
 
 INTO THE 
 
 PROBABLE CAUSES 
 
 OF THE 
 
 RATIONALIST CHARACTER 
 
 LATELY PREDOMINANT 
 
 IN THE 
 
 ©fieologe of i&txmam* 
 
 TO WHICH IS PREFIXED, 
 
 A LETTER FROxM PROFESSOR SACK, 
 
 UPON THE 
 
 REV. H. J. ROSE'S DISCOURSES ON GERMAN PROTESTANTISM 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN. 
 
 BY E. B. PUSEY, M.A. 
 
 FELLOW OF ORIEL COLLEGE, OXFORD. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED FOR C. & J. RIVINGTON, 
 
 ST. Paul's church-yard, 
 
 AND WATERLOO-PLACE, PALL-MALL. 
 
 1828. 
 
TO THE 
 RIGHT REV. FATHER IN GOD 
 
 CHARLES, 
 
 LORD BISHOP OF OXFORD, 
 
 IN ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF ADVANTAGES DERIVED 
 
 FROM HIS PUBLIC AND PRIVATE ASSISTANCE 
 
 IN THE COURSE OF THEOLOGICAL STUDY, 
 
 AND FROM THE CONTINUED KINDNESS OF PRIVATE INTERCOURSE, 
 
 Cfi^ foUoluntg ^f^tm 
 
 ARE INSCRIBED 
 
 WITH THE SINCEREST GRATITUDE AND RESPECT. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The relation which the following sheets bear to a 
 work, which has in this country met with consi- 
 derable approbation, seems to require that a brief 
 explanation be given of the circumstances in 
 which they originated. Mr. Rose's Essay has un- 
 questionably, through the number of facts which 
 it stated, had the merit of introducing the subject 
 of German Theology more extensively before the 
 English, and of furnishing a considerable number 
 of data, from which the character of the late Ra- 
 tionalist Theology might in itself be appreciated. 
 In the mode, however, in which these facts were 
 presented, the Author missed that arrangement of 
 the facts themselves, through which alone it be- 
 comes possible to trace the connexion of causes 
 and effects through the whole course of the sys- 
 tem described ; as well as a due appreciation of 
 the intrinsic and relative importance of those 
 facts. To some of the innovations a degree of 
 weight seemed to be attached, which their rela^ 
 
Vlll PREFACE. 
 
 tion to the whole compass of the Christian system 
 did not appear to justify : other attempts, which 
 were in themselves justly stigmatized, had either 
 expired as soon as they came into being, or even 
 if they did enjoy a short-lived existence, were, 
 from their nature and the character of their 
 authors, as little entitled to notice, as the ephe- 
 meral and contemptible productions of a Carlile 
 or a Hone. It was indeed almost unavoidable, 
 that, without enquiry in the country itself, mis- 
 takes must frequently be committed as to the 
 real influence of any instrument, whether a lite- 
 rary production or an institution. The Christian 
 Evidence Society in this country has appeared at 
 first sight to foreigners, who knew only its object, 
 but neither the manner in which it was con- 
 ducted, nor the little talent by which it was sup- 
 ported, an engine of some magnitude. Of infi- 
 nitely more importance, however, appeared to be 
 the omission of the history of German Theology 
 previous to the commencement of the crisis de- 
 scribed ; since, in that previous history, the deep- 
 est causes of this crisis must necessarily lie, and 
 without a full knowledge of this, it seemed hope- 
 less to anticipate any satisfactory results. The 
 causes accordingly incidentally assigned in Mr. 
 Rose's work (for his professed object was to give 
 an account of the actual state of Theology, not of 
 
PREFACE. ix 
 
 the causes in which that state originated), seemed 
 partly inadequate to produce so great a revolu- 
 tion, partly of too negative a character to be 
 entitled to the name. The weight in particular 
 ascribed to the neglect of a controlling superin- 
 tendance, and of adherence to the letter of the 
 symbolical books, appeared to confound the with- 
 drawing of what are, at the utmost, but means of 
 prevention, with the introduction of a positive 
 agency. Yet the stream must be filled from 
 some other causes than those which merely shake 
 the floodgates by which it is restrained : nor, un- 
 less it were thus swelled beyond its usual height, 
 could the mere opening of a free course to its tide 
 produce so extensive and desolating an inunda- 
 tion. Did the removal of these checks neces- 
 sarily or probably involve the downfall of the 
 religion, which they were employed to fence in, 
 a strong probability would exist against the truth 
 of that religion, which was thus incapable of 
 maintaining, unassisted, its own ground, and of 
 producing an adequate conviction of its divine 
 origin. The question does not here relate to the 
 use of articles, either to restrain individual error, 
 or as the depository of the faith of highly-gifted 
 and enlightened men, with the standard of whose 
 belief it may be beneficial for all to compare the 
 results of their own conviction ; but whether any 
 
X . PREFACE. 
 
 relaxation of the binding force of these articles 
 will produce not merely deviation from their 
 doctrines within the bounds of Christianity, but 
 the abandonment of the principles and the autho- 
 rity of Christianity itself. The affirmative of 
 this question is indeed implied in the conduct 
 and avowed principles of the Church of Rome, 
 but it has, exteriorly to that church, received 
 hitherto only the unwelcome support of Hobbes, 
 and another English deist \ Though fully assured 
 of the excellence of Mr. Rose's intentions, the 
 author could not but think, that the view sup- 
 ported in his work involved the abandonment of 
 the fundamental principles of Protestantism, and 
 derogated from the independence and the inherent 
 power of the word of God. That Scripture did 
 need no such adscititious means to preserve 
 generally its healthful truths from such corruption 
 as would neutralize their efficacy, appeared to 
 result from the history of the early Church, in 
 which for above two centuries no symbols were 
 at all received, and even when heretical specula- 
 tion did render such safe-guards necessary in 
 individual cases, they were extended no further 
 
 * The author beheves that he found this theory in Tindal, but 
 cannot at the moment be certain in which of the Enghsh deists 
 he met with it. . 
 
PREFACE. Xi 
 
 than the emergency of such cases required ; the 
 rest of the body of Christian doctrine was com- 
 mitted to the keeping of unauthoritative tradi- 
 tion, expounding the word of Scripture : that a 
 recurrence to Scripture is sufficient to regenerate 
 the system when corrupted, independent of, or in 
 opposition to, existing symbols, resulted from the 
 various portions of the history of the Reforma- 
 tion. It must be repeated that it is not intended 
 by the maintenance of these views to derogate 
 from the value of articles generally, much less of 
 such, as are drawn up with so much judgment 
 and moderation as our own ; their value is certainly 
 very great both to individuals, as presenting a 
 test by which to examine the character of their 
 own faith, and to the Church, as enabling it to 
 exclude those, who depart from the principles 
 upon which itself was founded. The view, in which 
 the author felt it impossible to participate, was not a 
 supposed probability that the Church might suffer ' 
 from individual deviations,but the supposition that 
 the whole or the greater part of the body must 
 necessarily decline, unless it were voluntarily to 
 bind its hands by the resolution never to deviate 
 from the letter of the faith of its earlier state. 
 During a year's residence in Germany, the author 
 found that every class of theologians, with whom 
 he had intercourse, (and among them were men 
 
Xa PREFACE. 
 
 whose deep piety, sound faith, and extensive views 
 excited his veneration,) shared these opinions 
 with regard both to the inadequacy of the causes 
 assigned by Mr. Rose for the deflections of Ger- 
 man theology, and to the classes of errors which 
 the Author thought he perceived in it. Aware, 
 however, of the difficulties under which a stran- 
 ger must always lie in appreciating the extent 
 and influence of any complex state of things, 
 but thoroughly dissatisfied with all the criticisms 
 which had yet appeared in Germany, he applied to 
 the theologian, of whose letter he has here given 
 a translation, for his opinion in writing, as fufly 
 as his important avocations permitted, upon the 
 principal points in Mr. Rose's work. An early 
 work, published by that author on the state of 
 English Protestantism, (though circumstances 
 had prevented his becoming so much acquainted 
 as might have been wished with the largest por- 
 tion of the Episcopal Church) indicated the 
 possession of the talents and religious character 
 requisite for the execution of the task. He 
 performed it with the ready kindness, which 
 the Author gladly acknowledges to have received 
 from him in a gratifying and useful intercourse, 
 and circumstances alone, which it is not necessary 
 to state, have thus long delayed its appearance. 
 In the translation, the principal object has been 
 
PREFACE. Xiii 
 
 to render with the utmost faithfuhiess the mean- 
 ing of the original, and to this, (as must be 
 necessarily the case in any precise translation 
 from so rich and powerful a language as the 
 German), style has been voluntarily sacrificed. 
 Professor Sack's numerous occupations not al- 
 lowing him to enter into the other part of the 
 enquiry, the historical causes of the late revolu- 
 tion in German Theology, the Author has at- 
 tempted a brief sketch, rather with the view of 
 inducing others, whose principal department may 
 lie within the province of ecclesiastical history, 
 to institute a fuller investigation, than with the 
 wish that his own opinions should be adopted. 
 He feels indeed convinced, from his own exami- 
 nation, and from the independent concurrence of 
 some of the most valuable divines in Germany, 
 that conclusions more or less corresponding with 
 these will be the result of a more extensive en- 
 quiry ; his only object, however, here is, that 
 such an enquiry should be instituted. On this 
 ground it being to him comparatively indifferent, 
 with what reception his own opinions may meet, 
 he will not feel himself under any obligation to 
 maintain them, should they be opposed. Con- 
 troversy is generally of little advantage to the 
 public, and detrimental to those who engage in 
 it ; and the Author will consequently not think it 
 
 6 
 
XIV PREFACE. 
 
 necessary to abandon his pursuits for the ungrate- 
 ful and unprofitable employment of self-vindica- 
 tion. The removal from any large public library, 
 as well as from the greater portion of his own, 
 during the period in which this Essay was written, 
 has compelled him for the most part to quote 
 mediate authorities only, instead of having re- 
 course to the immediate sources. He has, how- 
 ever, no reason to apprehend from the character 
 of the authors principally used, Weismann, Bud- 
 deus, Schrockh, Mosheim, Henke, Vater, Twes- 
 ten, any incorrectness of the facts adduced. 
 It may perhaps be necessary to state, in order to 
 avoid misconception, that the term " Evangelical" 
 is used in the following sheets according to the 
 phraseology of the German church, to designate 
 the Lutheran body, that of " Reformed" or " Cal- 
 vinistic" for such as agree in the doctrine of the 
 Lord's supper with ourselves. There remains in 
 conclusion only, to acknowledge with gratitude 
 the assistance derived from the MS. of a German 
 friend, who has carried on the same enquiry, and 
 whom though the Author is not permitted to 
 name, he cannot but express his sincere sense of 
 his kindness, as well as his thankfulness for the 
 advantages, which through that kindness he has 
 been, on many occasions, permitted to enjoy. 
 
C O NTE NTS. 
 
 Introductory Letter by Professor Sack. 
 Historical Enquiry. 
 Uses, and extent of the Enquiry — Period from which it 
 must be commenced — Causes of the imperfect completion 
 of the Reformation in Germany — External — Internal — Conse- 
 quent limitation and narrowing of the Lutheran Church — Per- 
 nicious effects on the Theology of the 17th century — View of 
 that Theology in its several parts, Scriptural Interpretation, 
 Doctrinal and Moral Theology, Ecclesiastical History, Prac- 
 tical Theology, and dangers to be apprehended from the state of 
 each — General descriptions of it by Spener and Thomasius — 
 Shocks sustained by this system, from the improvement attempt- 
 ed by Calixtus — from the endeavour of Arndt and Spener to 
 restore genuine Christianity — Means employed by Spener — Their 
 influence — Continuation in the school of Halle — its character, 
 institutions, and influence — its inherent liabilities to degenerate — 
 School indirectly produced by it — Opposition to parts of the pre- 
 vailing system by Arnold and Thomasius — Effects of the Wolfian 
 Philosophy— Review of the state of Theology at the time of the 
 first struggle with Unbelief —External circumstances^ tending to 
 promote Unbelief — Moral and intellectual character of the age — 
 Influence of Frederic— English and French Unbelievers— Nicolai 
 — Popular Philosophy— Gradual decline of Theology— Influence 
 of Baumgarten, Ernesti, Michaelis; of Semler, Monis, Koppe,&c. 
 of Steinbart— Principal directions of German Theology then 
 
XVI CONTENTS. 
 
 coexisting — Exceptions to the general Character — Individuals 
 who prepared for a restoration of Christianity; Lessing, Herder — 
 Opposition to the shallow philosophic-religious system by Kant — 
 Influence of the system of Kant on its positive and negative side, 
 favorable and unfavorable — Influence of the philosophy of Fichte, 
 Schelling, Jacobi — Final formation of Rationalism — Results — 
 Present state of German Theology and Church. 
 
LETTER 
 
 FROM 
 
 PROFESSOR SACK 
 
 TO 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
 You express a wish, my dear Friend, for my opinion upon 
 Mr. Rose's book " on the state of Rehgion in Protestant 
 Germany ;" and, even at the risk of your occasionally meet- 
 ing with views and opinions contrary to those to which you 
 are attached, I will give it you ; being fully convinced that 
 we are agreed on the main points, and that you are yourself 
 sufficiently acquainted with Germany to enter into the cir- 
 cumstances, which either remove or mitigate the charges of 
 Mr. R. You will allow me in the outset to own to you that 
 a renewed perusal of the work of youi' countryman excited 
 in me on two accounts a feeling of pain ; on the one hand, 
 that so much evil could be said of the Theological Authors 
 of my country, which it is impossible to clear away ; on the 
 other, that this was done in a form and manner which could 
 not but produce a confused view and false picture of the 
 state of Germany. Gladly, however, I allow, that a very 
 different mode of judging of German Theology would have 
 given me infinitely deeper pain. I mean such an agreement 
 with the prevailing views of the Rationalist School as would 
 have presented them to the indifferent party in England 
 under the dazzling colors of theological liberality. This 
 would have seemed to me a yet more unnatural violation of 
 the relation in which the English Church (taking the word 
 in its widest sense) is called upon to stand to the German ; 
 
 a 
 
11 LETTER FROM PROFESSOR SACK. 
 
 and since Mr. R. has missed the real course of the deve- 
 lopement of the opinions of theological Germany, the harsh 
 and oft perplexing manner in which he has delivered his 
 statement may still indirectly be productive of much good, 
 although indeed in order to its attainment much accurate 
 investigation and renewed examination on both sides will be 
 unquestionably indispensable. You will have already per- 
 ceived, (and indeed you were before aware) that I am not 
 one of those Germans who have received this English work 
 with a mere tissue of revilings, with renewed expressions of 
 self-approbation, altogether mistaking the, (as I do not 
 doubt) excellent and Christian disposition of its author. 
 Very different are the thoughts to which it has given rise in 
 myself; the most essential of these I will endeavour briefly 
 to lay before you. 
 
 First, then, I would remark the erroneousness and injus- 
 tice of the imputation, that the Protestant Churches of 
 Germany, founded as they were on the authority of Holy 
 Scripture, at the same time permitted any one of their 
 ministers and teachers to vary from it even in their public 
 instruction as far and as often as they pleased *. At no 
 place and at no time was such the case. The Protestant 
 Churches of Germany have founded their public teaching 
 and observances on confessions of faith, which their aban- 
 donment of unchristian errors compelled them to frame ; and 
 in these scriptural " confessions" themselves were marked 
 out the limits, beyond which the liberty of their ministers 
 was not to be extended. 
 
 It was unavoidable and it was right, that the period, in 
 which an undue value was attached to the letter of these 
 confessions, should be followed by another, in which a 
 distinction should be made between that which constitutes 
 their essential import (to meet each error by the positive state- 
 ment of the opposed truth,) and that which in the form of ex- 
 
 P. 10. 
 
LETTER FROM PROFESSOR SACK. iii 
 
 pression originated solely in the then state of doctrinal science ; 
 nor did this in any way destroy the right and duty to bind 
 down the public teacher to the matter of the confession ; nor 
 did the conduct of individuals who, in literary controversy, 
 when this difference had been perceived, spoke slight- 
 ingly of the value of the confessions generally, by any means 
 imply any renunciation of them on the part of the Church. 
 This, I repeat, never happened ; and if ecclesiastical autho- 
 rities, in times of an innovating boldness of teaching, did 
 allow the reins to pass too much from their hands, and 
 occasionally permitted the liberty conceded to their teachers 
 to be unworthily abused, still this was only a transient 
 although great error of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. But the 
 Church never abandoned aught of its rights, nor does their 
 conduct establish any absurdity in the fundamental principles 
 of the Protestant Churches. Would it be a fair and just 
 inference, if from the cases in the English Episcopal 
 Church in which unprincipled Clergy were for years con- 
 tinued in their functions to the spiritual detriment of their 
 Cure, one were to attribute to the Church the disgraceful 
 inconsistency, that, while she appointed the Clergy for the 
 edification of their charge, she at the same time permitted 
 them to give offence by their unchristian life ? If Mr. R. 
 will not allow this, but ascribes it to the deficiencies of indi- 
 vidual spiritual authorities, how can he charge the Pro- 
 testant Churches in Germany with inconsistency? 
 
 Closely connected with this confusion of the errors in 
 the Functionaries with the principles of the Church, is the 
 too great value which Mr. R. attaches to the preventive 
 means for those evils which he observed in Germany. The 
 English Episcopal Church may glory and rejoice in the 
 character of her XXXIX Articles, she may from her point 
 of view give them the preference over those longer formula\ 
 which had their origin in historical struggles and in the 
 living Christian fiiith of their composers, (though I must 
 repeat, that it is not in the nature of these confessions that the 
 
IV LETTER FROM PROFESSOR SACK, 
 
 source of the weakness of the Authorities is to be sought ;) 
 she may think it right to bind her ministers by subscription 
 to these Articles ; nothing of all this do we wish to depreciate ; 
 still one cannot grant to its advocates that the disorders ob- 
 served in Germany evidenced the necessity of laying " some 
 check and restraint upon the human mind," nor that the 
 binding force, the necessity of the subscription, the setting 
 the letter of the symbol on the same level with its scriptural 
 contents, can be regarded as the source of the spiritual bless- 
 ing which the Church enjoys. The former would too much 
 resemble the control which the Romish Church exerts over 
 her members ; the latter appears to involve too strange a 
 confusion of the prevention of an evil with the existence of 
 a good. 
 
 The necessity of deterring the ministers of a Church from 
 the arbitrary aberrations of heresy, by binding them to human 
 Articles, and of thereby assuming the right to remove them 
 when convicted of erroneous doctrines, may often, perhaps 
 always, exist ; yet where it does exist, it presupposes an 
 inclination to these heretical aberrations, and that in a de- 
 gree proportionate to the apparent urgency of this necessity. 
 
 Such an inclination, however, in a considerable part of 
 the Clergy, is no healthy condition, nor one productive of 
 blessing. Its suppression is but the prevention of a yet 
 greater evil than actually exists within the system. The 
 blessing, however, the blessing of doctrines delivered by 
 enlightened and believing men, must be derived elsewhere ; 
 from the spirit, namely, of grace and of prayer, which 
 human forms can never give, but which they may by an 
 unreasonable strictness hinder, though they cannot quench. 
 When a Church then so far confides that this spirit of grace 
 and of truth, which is the Spirit of Christ, will illumine her 
 teachers, if duly prepared and called, as to trust that such 
 unscriptural heretical aberrations, by which the basis of 
 Christianity is shaken, should be but of rare occurrence ; 
 she may, indeed, go too far in this originally noble confi- 
 
LETTER FROM PROFESSOR SACK. y 
 
 dence, and may find herself compelled by experience to 
 return more decisively to the preventive means and rules 
 comprised in the documents upon which she was founded : 
 in no event, however, will she be tempted to look for blessing 
 and prosperity, from the establishment of the most definite 
 verbal forms, from the erection of symbols independent of 
 immediate controversy, and from a mode of restraint which 
 places the human form of the doctrine on an equality with 
 the word of Scripture. Had she such expectations, it M^ere 
 evident that she trusted more in the human formula than in 
 the Spirit of Christ. While she trusts in this, she will indeed 
 not neglect those means of protection ; still she will make it 
 'her first aim to impart to her young Clergy, by a genuine 
 theological preparation, that spirit which preaches the same 
 Gospel under forms, varying indeed, yet all within the limits 
 of the word of Scripture, and which produces adherence to, 
 and justification of, the doctrine not after the letter but after 
 the spirit of the symbol : for ill were the state of any eccle- 
 siastical authorities who should be unable to discern and to 
 exhibit this spirit ; and lamentable the condition of any ' 
 Church, which, besides the legal fences against error, did 
 not believe in a source from which the truth issues in such a 
 living stream, that error itself must progressively diminish, 
 the administration of the law become continually more en- 
 lightened, the means of repression less and less necessary. 
 Such belief, however, and such endeavours form the prin- 
 ciples upon which the Evangelical Churches of Germany 
 acted. If they stumbled occasionally in this noble course is 
 that a sign they can never reach the object they proposed ? 
 and if their principles are grounded on faith in the Spirit 
 of Christ, should they abandon them in the midst of their 
 career, and recur to those which centre on a reliance upon 
 the letter of the human form, and upon the restraining force 
 of the law ? 
 
 But this leads further to those other charges of Mr. R.'s 
 work, which indeed constitute by for the most important 
 
VI LETTER FROM PROFESSOR SACK. 
 
 portion of its contents, the condemnatory representation of 
 the direction which theology took for so long a period, and 
 in part still takes, in so great a portion of the German 
 authors : and here it is my duty both candidly to avow the 
 pain which I also feel at such numerous aberrations from 
 the purity of Christian truth ; and yet distinctly to indicate 
 that this evil, when contemplated in the due connection with 
 the fi'ee developement of theological science, (and how can 
 science exist without freedom) appears partly to have taken 
 place beyond the limits of the Church, partly to have been 
 a necessary point of transition to a purer theology, partly to 
 have been less widely extended than the author represents. 
 
 It is not necessary for us, my dear friend, to settle as * 
 preliminary, whether those rationalist tendencies, through 
 which the external and internal facts of Christianity are to 
 be transmuted and solved into speculation and reflection, are 
 disastrous and pernicious in any literature, and in any times. 
 
 Christianity is a divine fact, whose divine character, ex- 
 ternally manifested, is inseparably united with an internal 
 transformation of mind, which remains eternally distinct 
 from any thing which man by his own device can produce : 
 and yet will the rationalism of all times and all descriptions 
 remove this distinction ; this is its error, this its irpwrov 
 xpev^oQ, and herein is it at all times equally destructive, 
 whether it employ itself in the sublimest speculations on 
 the ideas contained in the facts of Christianity, or whether 
 on the shallowest department of the common-place, empiric, 
 factitious view of history it strain to evaporate the miracles 
 of the sacred relation. 
 
 Yet must we confess that this rationalism appears from time 
 to time in every people and every literature. England has 
 felt its full presumption and full perniciousness, in its deism. 
 In France it united itself, though not at all tim.es entirely, 
 with materialism : and in Germany, it appeared in the form 
 of a baseless innovating interpretation of Scripture, a 
 shallow, would-be enlightening philosophy of religion. 
 
LETTER FROM PROFESSOR SACK. vii 
 
 If then the author rightly says, that the distinctive and 
 specially revolting characteristic of the German rationalism 
 consists in its having made its appearance within the 
 Church, and in the guise of Theology ; this indeed cannot 
 be denied, yet it is not true to the extent to which the 
 author represents it. Many of those wi-iters whom he 
 quotes for their unscriptural positions and opinions, as 
 Reimarus, Becker, Buchholz, &c., were never in any ec- 
 clesiastical or theological office : they wrote as men pur- 
 suing in entire independence their philosophical systems ; 
 and if the influence of some of them widely extended itself 
 even among the theologians, yet are not their opinions 
 upon that account to be charged upon the theology and 
 the Church. Or can this be done with greater fairness, 
 than if the deistical principles of a Hume and a Gibbon, 
 nay of a Toland and Tindal, were to be imputed to the 
 English theology? We may further take into consideration, 
 that many of those scientific men, who went furthest in a 
 superficial and forced interpretation of the sacred docu- 
 ments, belonged to the philosophical faculties in our univer- 
 sities : in these it has ever been a ] rinciple to allow 
 science to speak out -entirely unrestrained, even in opposi- 
 tion to the doctrine of the Church, in the confidence that 
 the theological faculty, through greater depth, or the greater 
 correctness of its point of view, would be able to supply a 
 counterpoise : if we take this also into the account, no small 
 portion of the blame is already removed from the theolo- 
 gians and the Church of Germany: the evil itself remains, 
 but it appears more as connected with the philosophical 
 and literary spirit of the time, than as a charge against the 
 theology, which however it may have come in contact with, 
 and been affected by, the pliilosophical endeavours of the 
 age, has yet its own independent history ; nor are the several 
 portions of this so indistinct and confused as would appear 
 from the notes of Mr. Rose. 
 
 And this constitutes the second point which I would 
 
viii LETTER FROM PROFESSOR SACK. 
 
 notice, namely, that not only in Mr. Rose's citations, but 
 in the sketch given in the discourses themselves, the dis- 
 tinction of the different times and periods has been to so 
 great a degree neglected : an omission, which has entirely 
 obscured the several points of transition by which theo- 
 logy progressively advanced towards a purer and sounder 
 state. How can your countrymen form a correct image of 
 our literature, when Lessing and Schelling, Steinbart and 
 Bretschneider, Tollner and Schleiermacher, Bahrdt and 
 Wegscheider, Herder, and the anonymous author of the 
 Vindiciae sacrse N. T. scriptur., are mentioned together, 
 without any other distinction than the often incorrect dates ? 
 Most of these authors who are thus named together, were 
 separated by 30 or 40 years from each other ; they may to 
 the letter say the same thing, and yet the meaning in which 
 they say it, and the influence which it has upon the times, are 
 by no means the same ; the earlier have, perhaps, suggested 
 as an experiment what has long since been discarded ; or they 
 have started that as philosophers, which only the more 
 superficial writers have attempted to convert into theology : 
 several of them moreover had grown up in close connec- 
 tion with a period in which it was a duty to contend against 
 a false orthodoxism which clung to the letter alone : while 
 many of the weaker moderns have proceeded to develope 
 their opinions into positions, against which those nobler 
 strugglers for truth would themselves with great earnestness 
 have contended. The neglect of these historical relations 
 however, (which is not made good by the description of 
 Semler) casts a false light upon the whole view. Had our 
 author possessed a vivid conception of the spirit of German 
 theology, which toward the middle of the preceding century 
 was more rigidly attached, than was ever the case in England, 
 to a false system of doctrine, combined with a confined idea 
 of inspiration, and a stiff intolerant method of demonstra- 
 tion, which impeded the healthy process of a scriptural 
 and deeper theology ; had he moreover by the study of the 
 
LETTER FROM PROFESSOR SACK. ix 
 
 noblest authors of our nation in that earher period, whether 
 in philosophy, or in practical or elegant literature, learnt 
 the inward desire after a noble genuine freedom of mind, 
 for which at that time Protestant and Romanist longed, he 
 would deem the rise of a new and partly daring direction 
 of theology, not only a natural but an interesting pheno- 
 menon; he would have acknowledged that in part the 
 legitimate requisitions of science in philology and history, 
 led to the adoption of that new course ; that many also of 
 those so-called innovators, were well conscious that they pos- 
 sessed a Christian and good scriptural foundation and ob- 
 ject, but that almost all were so deficient in firm scientific 
 principles in the execution of these views, that too much 
 freedom and too open a course was given to the bad, the 
 capricious, and the irreligious, to violate the sanctuaries of 
 the Bible, by a semi-philosophical babbling and a lawless 
 criticism. 
 
 If then this point of view be adhered to, that all German 
 innovations in theology discharged themselves principally 
 in two main channels ; the one in which scientific clearness 
 and freedom were the object of honest exertion, the other in 
 which an inward indisposition toward the peculiar character 
 of the Christian Religion, moulded the yet uncompleted 
 results of historical investigation with a shallow philosophy 
 into an unconnected revolting commixture of naturalism 
 and popular philosophy, all the phenomena in the history 
 of theology will be sufficiently explained. That better 
 race of authors, for the most part too little acquainted with 
 the principles of the science of scriptural interpretation, 
 and the defence of religion, committed indeed many an error, 
 but with a chastened judgment they again struck back into 
 the right path. It was natural that they should occasionally 
 fail at first sight to recognise the shallowness and pervcrtcd- 
 ness of enquiries of the second sort ; and that to a certain 
 degree participating in the fascination with which the spirit 
 of that time had invested every species of tolerance, they 
 
X . LETTER FROM PROFESSOR SACK. 
 
 should expose themselves to the injustice, by which their 
 purer endeavours were subsequently confounded with those 
 of the deistic naturalist ; — an injustice frequently practised 
 in these times in a crying manner, not by Romanists only, 
 but by Protestants of too exclusive a system of theology. 
 And now that this better sort of temperate, religiously dis- 
 posed, and scientific enquirers have gained a better basis, 
 rule, and method, partly through their own more enlarged 
 acquaintance with the province of their science (to which be- 
 longs also the acknowledgment of its limits) ; partly through 
 the exertions of decided apologists and apologetic doctrinal 
 wi'iters ; partly, and not least, through the endeavours 
 of a deeper philosophy ; and lastly, in part through the 
 religious stimulus caused by momentous political events; 
 now also that studies in ecclesiastical history, alike deep in 
 their character and pure in their point of view, have quick- 
 ened the sight for discerning the essence of Christianity ; 
 our German theology is attaining a pure and scientific 
 character, which it could not have acquired, so unfettered 
 and in such full consciousness, without first discharging 
 itself of those baser elements. 
 
 Much is yet left to be done, much to clear away ; but the 
 more that genuine apologetic and hermeneutic principles^ 
 derived from the nature of belief and of thought, possess 
 themselves of the mind, the more will those falsifying theo- 
 ries of accommodation, those wretched explanations of mira- 
 cles, those presumptuous critical hypotiieses, give place to a 
 perspicuous viev/ of the essence of Divine Revelation, to a 
 living understanding of the prophetic and apostolic writings, 
 and consequently to a purer exposition of the main doctrines 
 of Christianity. You must not allow this hope to be obscured 
 by what you may have seen of the sti'uggles of supernatural- 
 ism, and rationalism, or perhaps may read most obnoxiously 
 exhibited in several of our periodical works. Within the 
 province of proper theology this contest is not so important 
 as it often appeiu's, and the more it developes itself the 
 
LETTER FROM PROFESSOR SACK. Xl 
 
 less lasting can it be ; inasmuch as an independent rational- 
 ism is irreconcileable with the very idea of Christian theo- 
 logy, and a bare supernaturahsm, which goes no further than 
 what its name expresses, does not contain the slightest por- 
 tion of the substance and doctrines of Christianity. If then 
 it is true, that through a genuine study of scriptural inter- 
 pretation and of history, a better theology has begun to 
 find place among us, the distracting influence which this 
 conflict exerts, must of necessity here also be gradually di- 
 minished: on the other hand it will probably continue, pos- 
 sibly yet more develope itself, in the more direct province of 
 religion, in philosophy and in politics, where amid many a 
 struggle, and many an alternation, it may systematise itself in 
 the contrast of a religious and of an atheistic, or of a sincere 
 and of an hypocritical character of thought, and then again 
 from the various points of mutual contact unavoidably re-act 
 upon theology. This danger is, liov/ever, no other than 
 that to which the English Episcopal, nay even the Roman- 
 ist, and indeed every part of the Christian Church, is ex- 
 posed ; and this disease, thus universal to mankind, may 
 indeed delay, but cannot preclude, the restoration of Ger- 
 man theology, derived from the genuine sources of philolo- 
 gical and historical investigation combined with that ex- 
 perience in faith, which brings tlie mind and heart in vivid 
 contact with them. 
 
 If, however, Mr. Rose has failed to perceive the neces- 
 sary course of developement of German theology, so neither 
 has he become sufficiently acquainted with, nor duly appre- 
 ciated, the counter Avorkings, by which the further progress 
 of the evil was even in the worst and most perplexed times 
 opposed and checked. He names indeed Storr as an oppo- 
 nent of the rationalist school, yet so that no one could 
 thence perceive that this theologian was only the represen- 
 tative of a party at all times considerable and important. 
 He names tlie philosophy of Schelling, yet almost as if all 
 the impulses in Religion and in the Church, which, for al- 
 
;S» LETTER FROM PROFESSOR SACK. 
 
 most twenty years, have been tending to improvement and 
 increased unity, were derived from the suspicious source of 
 mystical philosophemata. Neither was the case. Storr was 
 but the disciple of the whole school of Wiirtemberg and 
 Tiibingen, of which he was subsequently the head; a school 
 which, without being exempt from the errors of the time, 
 has now for between thirty and forty years united in its 
 writings the most conscientious earnestness with the deep- 
 est investigation. Here should have been mentioned toge- 
 ther with Storr the names and the works of the two Flatts, 
 of Slisskind, Bengel, Steudel, &c. To the same effect 
 notice should also have been taken of Reinhard, who, chiefly 
 by" the pure means of works alike classical and theological, 
 promoted an improved spirit in Saxony ; of Knapp, who, but 
 lately deceased, blended the purest orthodoxy with classical 
 attainments, which might satisfy even English scholars, and 
 with a depth of scriptural interpretation, which was the object 
 of respect in every school ; of Hess, the venerable investigator 
 and relator of biblical history ; of the works of Planck on 
 Theological Encyclopaedia, and in defence of Christianity ; 
 of Kleuker in Kiel, Schott in Jena, Schwarz in Heidelberg, 
 and of the direction (in part one of scientific depth) deci- 
 sively opposed to the common rationalism, which the theo- 
 logical faculty of Berlin has by its historical and philosophi- 
 cal investigations, for more than fifteen years imparted to 
 theological study. All this must be viewed in connection 
 with the great number of well-disposed and Christian prac- 
 tical Clergy in evangelical Germany, and with the almost 
 universal removal of the lower classes from unchristian books 
 upon religion. It should have been acknowledged, that in 
 certain parts of Germany and Switzerland, Christian socie- 
 ties existed for the purpose of mutually imparting biblical 
 and Christian knowledge, and for the circulation of the Scrip- 
 tures, even previous to the (it must be confessed, somewhat 
 too vehement) impulse given by the British Bible Society. 
 It should have been noticed, how the community of the 
 
BETTER FROM PROFESSOR SACK. xiii 
 
 Moravian brethren exerted, upon the whole, a very deep and 
 gentle influence (even though not altogether exempt from 
 error) upon the very highest as well as upon the lowest 
 classes, in producing the reception of the fundamental doc- 
 trines of Christianity, especially of the Atonement. It 
 should have been remarked, that the entirely voluntary asso- 
 ciations in Bible and Missionary Societies could not have 
 been so universal and so great, as is upon the whole the 
 case, without a considerable foundation of Christian disposi- 
 tion ; this and so much more therewith connected, must be 
 more accurately known, investigated deeper, and exhibited in 
 more connexion, before the theology and Church of Protes- 
 tant Germany can be displayed in their real form ; and they 
 would then certainly not appear so revolting and so oifend- 
 ing as they are represented in Mr. R.'s work. 
 
 Should these remarks have now made it clear that the 
 foundations upon which the theology of Protestant Germany 
 may be raised to a high degree of pure Christian and sci- 
 entific elevation, are, through the blessing of God, already 
 laid on the deep basis of her improved principles, neither 
 can one share the great expectations which the author enter- 
 tains from the introduction among ourselves of fixed litur- 
 gies, and an ecclesiastical constitution resembling that of the 
 Episcopal Church. Be it here undecided how far the one 
 or the other could in themselves contribute to a better state 
 of things ; thus much at least is certain, that in a church ac- 
 customed, in the noblest sense of the word, to so mucli free- 
 dom as that of Evangelical Germany, and which, without 
 any external interference, is at this moment conscious of a 
 voluntary return to the fundamental evangelical principles, 
 (a return in which all its earlier spiritual and scientific 
 advances are comprised and guaranteed,) political restraint 
 can be neither necessary nor beneficial. Those, however, 
 who conceive that they can observe in the theology and 
 Church of Evangelical Germany an internal formative prin- 
 ciple, tending to realize a high Christian purity, while they 
 
XIY LETTER FROM PROFESSOR SACK. 
 
 do not ascribe the same value as the author to the measure 
 which he proposes, will attach themselves so much the more 
 firmly to one, which they regard as proceeding from the 
 same principle, and of which the author speaks with an 
 almost inconceivable suspicion. You will perceive, that I 
 speak of the union of the Lutheran and Reformed Churches 
 in Germany; and I must confess to you, that it is the judg- 
 ment passed upon this, which appears to me to fix the stamp 
 of misconception upon every thing else which is unclear in 
 the work. Had the author but recalled to mind, that in the 
 period of the greatest indifference to religion and church, 
 the division of these two parties continued unregarded and 
 unmitigated ; that the endeavour to remove it coincided with 
 the renewal of a warm interest in divine worship and in the 
 Church, had he allowed himself to be informed, that it ori- 
 ginated with men very far removed from indifFerentism, and 
 promoted by that very evangelically-disposed king of Prussia, 
 from whom he himself anticipates so much, he could scarcely 
 have ascribed the union to motives so bad. But had he 
 (which he at all events both could and ought) informed him- 
 self, that the one difference in doctrine between the two 
 Churches is of such a nature, that the distinction can scarcely 
 be retained in the symbolical books of the Church even by 
 a straw-splitting nicety, (this is the case with regard to the 
 doctrine of the Lord's Supper in the two Churches) while 
 the other, that regarding election, never existed in Germany, 
 (in that the strict Calvinistic doctrine is not at all expressed 
 in the symbol of the German reformed Church, the Heidel- 
 berg Catechism) and that Brandenburg expressly refused to 
 acknowledge the definitions of the synod of Dort respecting 
 it ; had he weighed this he would have spared himself this 
 hostility against a work, in its nature originating in Chris- 
 tian brotherly love, and which has already produced in many 
 countries, especially in Prussia and Baden, the cheering 
 fruits of reanimated interest in the Church. 
 
 Yet enough; for you, my worthy friend, I have made 
 
LETTER FROM PROFESSOR SACK. XV 
 
 myself sufficiently intelligible, and should I, through your 
 means, perhaps, contribute to prepare a portion of your coun- 
 trymen for a correcter view of the character of Protestant 
 Germany, I should deem myself happy in thereby repaying 
 a small portion of the debt, which the privilege of surveying 
 the character of your English Church, in its important and 
 pure (though as yet unreconciled) contrasts, has laid upon 
 me. And if I might express a wish, which forces itself upon 
 me at the close of this long letter, it is, that more of your 
 young theologians would visit our Protestant Universities, 
 become acquainted with our theologians, and hear our 
 preachers, only not making a transient and hasty stay, nor 
 living principally amid books, but acquainting themselves 
 with the people, and the Church, and the literature, in their 
 real character, and ready for mutual confidential interchange 
 of their different talents. 
 
 With real regard and esteem, 
 Your's most sincerely, 
 
 Charles Henry Sack, 
 
 Professor of Theology, and Minister of the 
 Evangelical Church of Bonn. 
 Bonn, 
 Juli/ 27, 1827. 
 
1 
 
HISTORICAL ENQUIRY, 
 
 Human nature, as in itself it for the most part 
 remains the same, so does it continue upon the 
 whole in the same relation to Christianity, opposes 
 the same obstacles to its first reception, and to 
 the complete exertion of its influence, furnishes 
 the same temptations to substitute for it a mere 
 passive acquiescence in its doctrines, or to convert 
 it into a mere material for the speculation of the 
 understanding. Still more uniform than the ex- 
 istence of the obstacles themselves is the na- 
 tural tendency of each aberration to re-pro- 
 duce another, for the most part its opposite, 
 extreme. The form, however, of the impedi- 
 ments, and the prominence assumed by each, 
 will be in great measure modified and deter- 
 mined by the degree of civilization, by the pecu- 
 liarities and predominant tendency of each age, 
 by national character, and by national circum- 
 stances. Fruitful then as must be every portion 
 of ecclesiastical history, in exhibiting the inherent 
 power of Christianity to conquer the different 
 difficulties to which it is opposed, in proving it 
 to be the leaven, by which the whole mass of hu- 
 
 B 
 
2 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 man nature is to be penetrated and changed, and 
 in supplying the knowledge of the conditions by 
 which the full exertion of that influence is limit- 
 ed ; more especially productive must those por- 
 tions be, which relate to its struggles in nations, 
 derived from the same common stock, under cir- 
 cumstances in many respects similar, and above 
 all, where the remedy applied was equally freed 
 from the grossest of those extraneous admixtures, 
 which in other less favoured countries create a pre- 
 judice against its use, or diminish its efficacy. 
 The experience furnished by Evangelical Germany 
 is to us as the biography of an individual to one 
 of similar character, temperament, and circum- 
 stances. The plant, though its growth and exter- 
 nal character may be affected by the influence of 
 a different climate, will not belie its original stock : 
 nor can the atmosphere of a neighbouring region 
 be changed, without the probability of its affect- 
 ing our own. Linked as European nations are, 
 every direction which the human character takes 
 in one country must exert an influence over the 
 rest ; the circulation may be rendered more or less 
 rapid by the peculiar subordinate organization of 
 each ; yet still is the whole one great system, no 
 part of which can be affected without indirectly 
 operating upon the rest, in a degree proportioned 
 to the general analogies of their constitution. Nor 
 is it nationally alone that the result of German 
 experience may benefit ourselves ; the moral and 
 religious history of mankind is but an enlarged 
 biography ; should therefore no crisis be impend- 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 3 
 
 ing over this country, similar to that from which 
 Germany is now recovering, (and, with some simi- 
 larities, there is still sufficient which is dissimilar, 
 to justify the hope that we shall be preserved from 
 such a visitation,) much individual profit and 
 warning may be obtained from the study. The 
 several, and not unfrequently opposite, aberrations 
 which took place in Germany, and which terminated 
 in the temporary unbelief of so large a portion of 
 its speculating minds, has not unfrequently been 
 realized in the deflection of a single individual. 
 Independently, moreover, of its personal as well as 
 national utility, it affords in itself a sublime con- 
 templation of the innate force of pure Christianity, 
 which, instead of sinking irrevocably, as the fall- 
 ing stars of the false religions of old, or the now 
 waning crescent of Mohammedanism, shines forth 
 again with a clearer brightness, and a more vivi- 
 fying warmth, from amid the clouds which were 
 for awhile permitted to obscure its face. Su- 
 perstitions or false belief, foundations of " wood, 
 hay, stubble '," when tried by the fire, disappear 
 for ever ; divine truth, as the " silver and gold," 
 in each successive trial to which it has been ex- 
 posed, has come forth purer from the human alloy 
 which had collected round it. 
 
 A large, however, and extensive survey will be 
 necessary, whenever this crisis is to be fully un- 
 derstood. Completely comprehended, indeed, it 
 can then only be, when time shall have more 
 entirely disclosed the results, to which Providence 
 
 » 1 Cor. iii. 12. 
 B 2 
 
4 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 has through this fearful developement been con- 
 ducting the Evangelical Church in Germany; 
 though enough may be already seen to lay open 
 His general purposes, and to furnish comfort 
 amid that temporary desolation in the gladdening 
 results of a purer, more active, more vivifying faith, 
 which are even now apparent. Even the causes, 
 however, by which these events were immediately 
 produced, can only be fully discovered by a wide 
 and accurate study of the previous history, from 
 a period long prior to their commencement. No 
 revolution or developement in the moral, or poli- 
 tical, any more than in the physical world, can be 
 understood from the single contemplation of the 
 times alone in which it takes place. The pro- 
 ducing causes must evidently be anterior to the 
 commencement of the manifestation of the re- 
 sults. As in vegetable nature, the seed has long 
 been prepared, the root has already struck, before 
 the first indications of the germ above the sur- 
 face, so, for the most part, has the train of 
 producing causes been long imperceptibly in ac- 
 tion, before they give any visible manifestations 
 of their agency ; the developement itself is almost 
 inevitable, before the tendency of circumstances 
 to produce it is generally felt. But if such is the 
 case in civil, much more is it in religious, history, 
 since this exhibits not the result of irregular, un- 
 defined, and often jarring, principles ; but the 
 application of one uniform system, the course of 
 one great plan for the elevation, purifying, hal- 
 lowing, of the human mind, in the vast contest. 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 5 
 
 which in the words of one of the most philoso- 
 phic observers of Germany, forms the only and 
 the deepest theme of the history of the world 
 and of man, the contest of faith and unbelief ^ 
 An unity thus necessarily belongs to ecclesiasti- 
 cal history, which no other history, even of prin- 
 ciples, at least to the same degree, can claim ; and 
 the necessity of considering each given period in 
 combination with the whole, or at all events with 
 a large preceding portion, becomes manifestly 
 more indispensable. Throughout this vast course, 
 however, there occurs a series of elevations, from 
 which the survey of the several intervening stages 
 is facilitated, and the relation of the whole scheme 
 to each tendency of the human mind, which it is 
 given to correct, becomes more distinct. Uniform 
 as this scheme is in itself, the subordinate princi- 
 ples, with which it is brought in contact in succes- 
 sive ages, will necessarily vary : and as, in combi- 
 nation or in conflict with these, it either proceeds 
 tranquilly onward, modifying and being in its 
 external character modified by them, or, having 
 reached a crisis, manifests itself more energeti- 
 cally in the new developement to which this crisis 
 gives rise, there have been and will be a succes- 
 sion of periods and of eras in its history. Each 
 new era is the commencement of a new period, 
 in which the results of the former crisis are car- 
 ried on in gradual progress ; each new period pre- 
 pares for a new crisis, as soon as the human prin- 
 ciples, with which Christianity has been brought 
 
 ' Gothe Westostlicher Divan, S. 224. 
 
6 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 in contact, or by which it has been acted upon, 
 shall have acquired sufficient strength to induce 
 a re-action, if the foreign ingredients be combined 
 with it ; a collision, if they be opposed. Each 
 period then will be best understood from the pre- 
 ceding crisis or era; each era requires for its 
 explanation the knowledge of the preceding pe- 
 riod. In the periods also, or at least in their later 
 portions, it appears, Christianity will be most 
 mingled with, or opposed by, extraneous princi- 
 ples ; in the eras, it will most exert its native and 
 original powers. The last great crisis in the 
 Christian Church in Germany preceding that, 
 which is now being developed, was the Reforma- 
 tion ; and from that time, therefore, must any 
 full investigation of the course of things, which 
 led to the present, commence. This, however, 
 though upon the whole one period, in that no 
 complete crisis intervened in it, can be subdivided, 
 accordingly as the system, which became predo- 
 minant, was either pre-eminently engaged in the 
 process of formation, or in maintaining itself 
 against its various antagonists. It must, how^- 
 ever, be kept in view, that this division is subor- 
 dinate ; inasmuch as these conflicts, till the final 
 collision with unbelief, succeeded indeed in de- 
 taching portions from the sway of that system, 
 but not in modifying its character. Within the 
 limits, which it yet retained, its developement 
 continued, until the final crisis by v/hich it was 
 overthrown. It will be further necessary in any 
 complete view, to con^ider distinctly the two ele- 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 7 
 
 ments of Theology, the religious basis and the 
 scientific form ; though mutually acting upon each 
 other, it is only by a distinct consideration, that 
 the very different efforts, which in the close of 
 this period tended to the same results, can be un- 
 derstood and appreciated. The minor periods 
 then are, I. — The formation of the system from 
 the Reformation, and its developement through 
 the Formula of Concord until the first opposition. 
 II. — The Opposition, 1. on the scientific side by 
 Calixtus, 2. on the religious side by Spener 
 and the school of Halle carrying on the earlier 
 efforts of Arndt, 3. both on its scientific and reli- 
 gious side, either by the partial but honest endea- 
 vours of men, whose sole object was to remove 
 its errors, or by unbelief in its various gradations. 
 Much, both in the external and internal cir- 
 cumstances of the German Reformation, occurred 
 to prevent its full and adequate developement. 
 Had this been perfected in the spirit in which its 
 great instrument might have completed it, if 
 permitted tranquilly to finish his work, or sup- 
 ported by others, acting in his own principles, and 
 surveying the whole system of Revelation with 
 the comprehensive and discriminating view of his 
 master-mind, the history of the German Church 
 had probably been altogether different ; the re- 
 sults, which it is now reaching after centuries, and 
 at which it is arriving through such a fearful tran- 
 sition, might have been even then attained. A 
 great part of the really valuable principles, which 
 have resulted from the late collisions, may be 
 
8 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 found, unsystematized indeed, occasionally only 
 implied, in the works of Luther. The fruitless at- 
 tempts to satisfy an uneasy and active conscience 
 by the meritorious performances of a Romish con- 
 vent had opened his eyes to the right understand- 
 ing of Scripture, in whose doctrines alone it could 
 find rest ; and the clear and discerning faith which 
 this correspondence of Scripture with his own 
 experience strengthened in him, gave him that in- 
 tuitive insight into the nature of Christianity, 
 which enabled him for the most part unfailingly 
 to discriminate between essentials and non-essen- 
 tials, and raised him not only above the assumed 
 authority of the church, and above the might 
 of tradition, but above the influence of hereditary 
 scholastic opinions, the power of prejudices, and 
 the dominion of the letter. Unfortunately, how- 
 ever, the further expansion of his views neces- 
 sarily yielded to the then yet more important 
 practical employments, to which this great apostle 
 of evangelical truth dedicated the most of his 
 exertions ; — the instruction of the young, the care 
 of all the churches, the necessary struggles with 
 the Romish Church, or with those seceders from 
 it, who maintained tenets inconsistent with the 
 first principles of the Reformation, as in the op- 
 posed errors of the Anabaptists, and of Zwingli. 
 His successors, in developing to the utmost 
 subordinate but contested points of his system, 
 neglected the great views which lay beyond the 
 sphere of their polemics. Few, comparatively, 
 in the large mass of the active agents in the 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 9 
 
 Reformation, were led to the rejection of the 
 errors of the Church of Rome through the same 
 school of experience, by which the master-mover 
 had been conducted. Many had been merely 
 theoretically convinced of its errors, others sought 
 a freedom from intellectual tyranny, others poli- 
 tical advantages, some finally followed, but half 
 consciously, the mighty impulse. The number 
 of the noble band, who were actuated by the 
 same spirit which impelled Luther, was dimi- 
 nished, and their agency disturbed by the troubles 
 of the times ; by which e. g. Melanchthon and 
 Chytrseus became for some time wanderers in 
 Germany; Bucer acquired among ourselves anew 
 scene of evangelical exertion. More fatal than 
 the impediments thus presented to the tranquil 
 developement of the principles of the R,eforma- 
 tion were the internal divisions, originating in 
 an imperfect conception of its scheme, which 
 distracted its members, and diverted their atten- 
 tion from its essential points to subjects of very 
 subordinate importance, or upon which con- 
 troversy should never have been raised. These 
 had been checked indeed by the commanding 
 spirit of Luther ; after his death (1546) no one 
 was left of sufficient authority or firmness to pre- 
 vent their eruption, or to lead back the current. 
 Even in Melanchthon's life, the Adiaphoristic ' 
 
 * Henke infers from this controversy being confined to the 
 Electorate of Saxony, exclusive of Brandenburg, where the ob- 
 noxious compliances were carried to a greater extent, that not the 
 supposed errors, but the school of Melanchthon, was the real 
 object of attack. (Kirchengesch. iii. 418.) 
 
10 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 controversy, (a controversy, which, from the neg- 
 lect of the simple but comprehensive principles 
 of St. Paul, has, under different forms in various 
 ages, been destructive of Christian charity, and 
 drawn down the minds of Christians to minute and 
 subordinate questions from the great and influ- 
 ential truths of the Gospel,) the Majoristic ', 
 Synergistic ^ Flacianist "^, Osiandrist ^ Stanca- 
 
 ^ Major's doctrine of the necessity of good works to salvation, 
 had appeared without offence inMelanchthon's lociTheol. 1535, as 
 well as in the translation by Justus Jonas, 1536. Being however 
 repeated in the Interim of Leipzig, in which Major had a share, 
 it served to swell the papistical errors which were to be found in 
 it. Major throughout maintained justification by faith alone* 
 willingly pledged himself not to use the offensive expression, yet 
 was compelled publicly to recant. One of his principal antago- 
 nists, as is known, held " that they were hurtful to salvation." 
 Schrockh Kircheng. B. 39, S. 548, fg^. 
 
 ^ The doctrine questioned had appeared with Luther's appro- 
 bation in Melanchthon's Examen ordinandorum in the scholastic 
 form, that there were three causes of conversion, God, God's 
 Word, and Free-will, (Vater. K. G, 225.) implying, hov/ever, 
 (according to Pfeffinger's explanation in the present contest) 
 " that though the human will could not awaken or rouse itself 
 " to good works, but must be awakened by the Holy Spirit, yet 
 " that man was not altogether excluded from such works of the 
 " Holy Spirit, to the degree that he should not also do his share." 
 (Planck Gesch. des Prot. Lehrbegr. ap. Schr. ib. 554.) 
 
 ' The principal subject of the controversies in which Flacius 
 was, on the defensive, engaged, was an assertion made in the 
 vehemence of his opposition to Strigel, that " original sin was 
 the substance of human nature." 
 
 * Brentius, who wrote as the organ of the theologists of 
 Wiirtemberg, concluded their judgment by saying, that if the 
 theologians of Konigsberg would interpret each other's words in 
 Christian love, and not explain unusual or imperfect expressions 
 with the greatest rigour and in the worst sense, they would not then 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 11 
 
 rian ^ had unceasingly torn the infant church^; 
 nor can it have been the mere love of peace, but 
 rather the deep and oppressive sense of the im- 
 pediments presented to the progress of the truth 
 by these endless and by him incurable dissentions, 
 which made Melanchthon gladly hail approaching 
 death as a refuge from the phrenzy (rabie) of the 
 Theologians ^ ; nor was it merely as his own anxious 
 wish, but rather as the most important principle 
 
 contend against each other as against Turks, especially as this 
 dispute could produce no useful result, (ap. Schr. ib, 579.) 
 Though the whole question was whether SiKaiu'Ofjyai signified 
 " to be acquitted," as Osiander held, or to be made righteous, 
 and whether, (it being allowed on both sides, that our righteous- 
 ness was derived from the perfect obedience of Christ, and his 
 obedience resulting from his divine nature) Christ were our 
 righteousness solely according to his divine nature, Osiander 
 was accused by a synod of " destroying the whole merit of the 
 atonement of Christ." (Schrockh, ib. 582.) The people were 
 warned in sermons against his devilish heresy, (ib. 578.) and the 
 command of Duke Albrecht of Prussia to wave the contested 
 point in their sermons, declared by his opponents to have ema- 
 nated from the devil. (Ib. 581.) 
 
 ^ The over-speculation of Osiander naturally produced the re- 
 action, that the work of justification was ascribed by Stancarus 
 to the human nature alone of Christ. 
 
 ^ Schlusselberg, who has more fully than any other contem- 
 porary writer enumerated the contests of his times, composed his 
 " Catalogus Hereticorum," in 13 Svo. volumes, describing as 
 many classes of deviations. (Schr. ib. 484.) 
 
 3 Melch. Adam. Vita Germ. Philos. p. 93. That these evils, 
 not the depreciation and revilings of his own name and character, 
 were what Melanchthon principally felt, see in Heerbrand Pr. 
 Funebr. in ob. Mel. in Strobel's Miscell. St. vi. S. 215. Strobel's 
 Apologia Mel. wider Goze. 
 
12 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 which he could impress upon his times, that he 
 wrote as his motto and memorial in the alba of 
 his contemporaries, " a contentioso Theologo 
 libera nos, bone Deus." Far be it from us, how- 
 ever, who are removed by the differences of age 
 and manners from the temptations to which these 
 often well-intentioned men were exposed, who, 
 though our faith be equally the result of inde- 
 pendent conviction, have yet had the easier task 
 of examining an existing system by the test of 
 Scripture, instead of that of constructing it for 
 ourselves from the ruins of one deformed by 
 human additions, and whom the lapse of time 
 has for the most part enabled to discriminate be- 
 tween the vital and the subordinate truths of the 
 Gospel, to judge harshly of those, whose difficul- 
 ties we have not experienced. It was, perhaps, 
 natural, certainly pardonable, that accustomed by 
 early and deeply impressed habit, in the Church 
 which they had left, to attach an equal value to 
 every doctrine, and dazzled by the adscititious in- 
 terest, with which the recency and difficulty of 
 the acquisition had invested every portion of the 
 newly obtained truths, they failed to appreciate 
 the relative value of those truths ; especially as 
 these were, for the most part, opposed to a sys- 
 tem, every portion of which was inculcated as 
 of equal importance, every departure from which 
 was represented as an equal sin : it was natu- 
 ral also, that those who differed in opinion should 
 be suspected of disaffection to the common cause; 
 and consequently, that as every error seemed to 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 13 
 
 be an error in essentials, those should appear the 
 least excuseable, who in other points approached 
 the nearest to the truth, and in whom, there- 
 fore, from the general correctness of their views, a 
 single aberration would appear the result of wil- 
 fulness. These principles would of course exert 
 a similar influence upon the human deductions or 
 speculations by which they fenced, or defined, the 
 newly-acquired divine truths. External circum- 
 stances, however, also contributed to foster this 
 uncompromising refusal to allow of the slightest 
 deviation, even in the minuter and collateral points, 
 which had once been saiictioned. The unhappy 
 limitation of the toleration, guaranteed by the re- 
 ligious peace of Augsburg, to the adherents of the 
 Augsburg Confession, and the undisguised anxiety 
 of the Romanists to take advantage of any devia- 
 tion from the letter of that Confession ^, to ex- 
 
 ^ Many of these attacks, either upon the vahdity of a rehgious 
 peace generally, or upon its extension to those who only accepted 
 the Confession with Melanchthon's later alteration, are related in 
 Salij's Vollstand. Hist, der Augsb. Conf. Th. 1. S. 772. fg. ; see 
 also Budd. Isag. 429. 441. Among these one of the most re- 
 markable was written by the private secretary of the Emperor, 
 1586 (Schrockh Kirchengesch. B. 39. S. 338. fg.) It is well 
 known that the Reformed were not formally included in the reli- 
 gious peace until nearly a century afterwards, by the peace of 
 Westphalia ; that even then this acknowledgment was protested 
 against by the Elector of Saxony, and obtained only by the asse- 
 veration of the Elector of Brandenburg, that he accepted every 
 thing which was verbally contained in the confession of Augsburg, 
 and by the interposition of Holland and Sweden ; even then the 
 theological distinction was maintained by the substitution of the 
 words " inter illos," for " inter hos," which latterwould havedirectly 
 
14 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 elude them from the protection which it afforded 
 bound them to its letter, as the safeguard of theii 
 privileges or their existence. The common-place 
 and shallow argument also, drawn from the varia- 
 tions of the evangelical statements of doctrine 
 against the truth of their system itself, which was 
 even then urged, was met not by the easy task of 
 retort upon the Romish Church, nor by the ob- 
 vious principle that all human discoveries of truth 
 must be gradual, must be effected by the slow and 
 toilsome passage through error, nor by shewing 
 that these discrepancies in collateral points, or 
 modes of statement, were still entirely consistent 
 with the truth and harmony of the general sys- 
 tem, but by drawing still closer the limits of their 
 Churches' pale, and by excluding as heretics all 
 who departed from the strictest letter of the sym- 
 bol. The Protestant princes, who had embraced 
 the Reformation rather from feeling than from 
 clear views, felt themselves responsible for the 
 doctrines of their clergy ; and, perplexed by the 
 differences of the Socinians, Anabaptists, Fana- 
 tics, and their own controversialists, sought to 
 obviate discordance by minute and detailed con- 
 included them among the members of the Augsburg Confession^ 
 (see authorities in Schrockh, ib. 347 ; Henke, K. G. B. 3. S. 596 
 fg. ; Vater, K. G. S. 269.) Even after this the theologians of 
 Wittenberg taught, that this, as a political measure, could not 
 affect the theological question, (Henke, B. 4. S. 272.) After this 
 time, however, the political interests of the two evangelical bo- 
 dies, in that the voices of both together only equalled those of the 
 one Romanist, became identified. 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 15 
 
 fessions : in other cases their political jealousies, 
 especially those of the two lines of the house of 
 Saxony, of which the younger had dispossessed 
 the elder of the Electorate (1547), aided to give 
 bitterness to these contests ^ Not theologians 
 merely, but jurists, historians, even physicians, 
 participated in the acrimony of the elder branch ^ 
 Yet, however these and other difficulties may 
 prevent our assuming an uncharitable right to 
 condemn the successors of the Reformers, certain 
 it is, that the measures employed to produce uni- 
 formity, miserably impeded the progress of the 
 Reformation, buried in great measure the hardly 
 won evangelical truth under a load of scholastic 
 definitions, and converted the Gospel truth it- 
 self, when it shone dimly through, into matter 
 of speculation, instead of motive for practice. 
 The history of Christian controversy scarcely ex- 
 hibits more unhappy, more unpractical, and fre- 
 quently presumptuous polemics, than many of 
 those which distracted the German Church after 
 the death of Luther, unless perhaps in the eastern 
 controversies^ on the person of the Redeemer, 
 
 ^ Schrockh, ib. 554. In these originated the foundation of the 
 University of Jena, as a bulwark of genuine Lutheranism against 
 the falsifications of the then Melanchthonian Wittenberg : the new 
 edition of Luther's works, in opposition to the alleged corruptions 
 of the collection of Wittenberg, was a proof of the spirit in which 
 it was founded, as also the strictest and most polemical Lutherans, 
 such as Flacius, were invited thither. 
 
 ' Henke, 3. 411.fgg. 
 
 == The Annals of Eutychius furnish, perhaps, the fullest proof 
 
 6 
 
16 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 or the endless straw-splittings of the schoolmen. 
 Little, indeed, could be hoped from measures so 
 little in unison with the principles of the Refor- 
 mation, as the attempt to re-establish a minute 
 uniformity by the oppressive accumulation of new 
 formulae of faith, or by the infliction of civil, some- 
 times the severest, penalties for minute declen- 
 sions even from the human system. Both, 
 however, were extensively employed. Of the 
 latter it may be sufficient to mention the impri- 
 sonment of StrigeP, the deposition and banish- 
 ment of Hardenberg^ (1561), the ten years con- 
 finement of the physician Peucer^ and the death 
 
 that the uncharitableness of controversy is in proportion to its un- 
 practicalness. See Annales Eutych. ed. Pococke, Oxon. 
 
 ^ To obtain Strigel's release, after he had been confined three 
 years for maintaining, that man was not merely passive in the 
 work of his conversion, not evangelical princes only, but the ca- 
 tholic Maximilian interfered. Schrockh, ib. 560. 
 
 ^ Hardenberg, minister in Bremen, was banished from the 
 whole of Lower Saxony, for approximating to the reformed doc- 
 trine on the communion, though he admitted a sacramental dis- 
 tribution of the body of Christ, distinct from the participation by 
 the faithful, (Schrockh, ib. 602) that the body of Christ was 
 distributed with, but not in, the bread, (ib. 600.) His followers 
 were deposed, and excluded from the communion. In the course 
 of the proceedings an edict of 1534 is referred to, which directed 
 the immediate expulsion of Anabaptists and Sacramentarists from 
 Bremen. The persecutors of Hardenberg, having afterwards wil- 
 lingly resigned their ofiices rather than cease from revilings in 
 the pulpit, succeeded in inducing Hamburg and Lubeck to ex- 
 clude Breinen from their league, and renounce her commerce, as 
 a protectress of heresies. Her trade suffered also, from the same 
 cause, in Dantzig, and other places. 
 
 ^ Peucer's offence was the recommending for the theological 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 17 
 
 of Cracau, a Jurist, in consequence of torture, 
 with the banishment or imprisonment of tlie other 
 Crypto-Calvinists of Saxony (1574), measures re- 
 enacted against the same par::y after a temporary 
 encouragement (1591), with the additional blot 
 of the death of Krell their chief after ten years 
 confinement \ (1601) and the deposition and 
 banishment of Huber^ for a mere variation in 
 
 chairs at Wittenberg zealous followers of Melanchthon, and the 
 share which he had in promoting the reception of their catechism, 
 which yet asserts, that in the receiving the Sacrament, the Son of 
 God is truly, and according to his substance, present. (Schrockh, 
 ib. 615.) The reason why Cracau was put to the torture is not 
 known ; yet he was apprehended as a promoter of the Philippian 
 school. These two cases are the stronger, in that neither be- 
 longed to the theological body, and both were men of distin- 
 guished talents. Cracau had had a principal share in the " Con- 
 stitutions of Augustus," the celebrated reform of Saxon law. 
 (Schrockh, ib. 619.) Neither were the other depositions con- 
 fined to theologians, (ib. 621.) another eminent man died after 
 two years imprisonment. " Others," says Schrockh, " met with 
 similar fates." (Ibid.) 
 
 ' The final sentence against Krell, Chancellor of Christian I. 
 of Saxony, imputed to him secret practices with foreign courts, 
 (the supplying Henry IV. with troops against the league.) This, 
 though the pretext, cannot have been the real reason, since four 
 years expired before the nature of his accusation was agreed 
 upon. It seems probable that the jealousy of the nobility, whom 
 he had in great measure excluded from office, combined with his 
 attempted innovations in religion, was the cause of his fate. (Sec 
 Schrockh, ibid. 649—659.) 
 
 ^ Huber maintained that the Calvinistic predestination could 
 only be effectually opposed by the assumption of an " universal 
 election to eternal life ;" yet this he so explained, that it became 
 entirely equivalent to the " universal call, ofier of mercy," &c. 
 The contest was miserably prolonged by the obstinacy in adhe- 
 
 C 
 
18 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 the mode of stating the Lutheran doctrine, that 
 none are excluded from salvation. Depositions 
 of all the clergy of a province, who refused to 
 subscribe a newly introduced formula, were not 
 unfrequent, where the prince passed from the 
 Lutheran to the Reformed Church : yet here the 
 intemperance ' of the clergy often mitigated, 
 often justified, the proceeding. The similar 
 enactments of the Lutheran Church had no plea 
 but the supposed necessity of a strict adherence 
 to the letter of its founder. The effect of these 
 violent measures was in their own nature transi- 
 tory or partial ; from the unsettled state of Ger- 
 many, those expelled from one province were 
 preferred in another. More efficacious in produ- 
 cing an at least external uniformity was the other 
 measure of binding down the Protestant freedom 
 by formulae, more and more closely rivetted, until 
 the human mind could take no step except in the 
 leading-strings of authority. Of these formulae, 
 enacted for the most part for separate lands, the 
 majority are known principally through the cata- 
 
 rence to terms, and by the invidious use of the names of former 
 heretics (see Schrockh, ib. 661-5.) 
 
 ^ This is the more credible from the general vehemence of the 
 Lutheran clergy. It is expressly mentioned by Schrockh in pal- 
 liation. (Ib. 374, 5. 381, 2, &c.) Even within the Lutheran 
 Church itself, we find the edict of Augustus, Elector of Saxony, 
 forbidding all strife in the pulpit about the Adiaphorists, Majorists, 
 and Synergists, regarded as an undue limitation of the pastoral 
 office, and the Consistorium of Leipzig consulted whether such 
 a command were unchristian. (Schr. ib. 612.) see also Henke, 
 3. 452. 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 19 
 
 logues in which they are enumerated ^ ; they 
 have perhaps an historical value, rather from the 
 light which they cast upon the spirit of the times, 
 than from any extensive influence which they 
 exerted. More fatal, because more widely, and 
 at last almost universally, received, was the for- 
 mula of Concord. Until this was adopted, a 
 certain latitude was still allowed by the symbo- 
 lical books, though not indeed equal to that per- 
 mitted by our own articles; notwithstanding 
 some exceptions, still upon the whole, similarity 
 of principle, rather than exact uniformity of ex- 
 pression, or of minute mode of conception, was 
 made the condition of belonging to the Lutheran 
 conjmunion ; some points were left altogether 
 undefined ; and the re-union of the Protestant 
 churches, (which perhaps had never beei^ divided 
 had Calvin, instead of Zwingli, been the original 
 founder of the Reformed, or might have speedily 
 again been blended, had Luther survived ^, when 
 the fair prospect died away through the timidity 
 
 ^ See Kocher Biblioth. Theol. Symbol, p. 114. Feuerlein 
 Biblioth. Symb. Eccles, Luther. J. G. Walch Introd. in 1. 
 Symbol. G. G. Meyer I. Symb. util. et Hist, subscript, eorund. 
 Gott. 1796. It may suffice to name the Confutation-book of 
 Weimar (1558) against the Synergists, the Symbol formed at 
 Stuttgard (1559) enforcing the doctrine of the ubiquity of Christ's 
 body, (Schr. ib. 606.) and the Corpus Doctrinse Pruthenicum 
 against the Osiandrists. (1567.) 
 
 ^ CaHxtus, whose accuracy is unquestioned, says that Luther 
 became gradually more inclined to an union, (de Tolerantia Ref. 
 ap. Schr. ib. 498. 
 
 c2 
 
20 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 of Melanchthon, and the vehemence of the ul- 
 tra-Lutheran Westphal ') (1552) was still open, 
 and might gradually have been effected by the 
 mediation of the Crypto-Calvinists. The face 
 of things was changed by the introduction of 
 the formula of concord^. The moderate party 
 of the Lutheran Church, which in accordance to 
 Melanchthon's wise counsel confined itself to the 
 Scriptural expressions on the communion, and 
 which, though inferior, was still considerable ^, 
 was annihilated, or passed into the Reformed 
 Church ; the desirable union of the two churches 
 in Germany itself, was for above two centuries 
 and a half delayed. The immediate object of 
 the new formula was indeed so far effected, that 
 the existing contests were laid aside ; the scene 
 of warfare, however, was changed, not peace 
 produced^: struggles about the reception of the 
 formula itself, about the altered and unaltered 
 Augsburg Confession, and the contests with the 
 reformed, succeeded ; so that the only permanent 
 fruits of this restriction were, on the one hand, 
 the exclusion of many who in principle agreed 
 
 ^ Mosh. cent. xvi. iii. 2. c. 3. ^, 6. 
 
 ^ In its first form as the Articles of Torgau, (1574) though 
 such that the theologians of Wittenberg signed it at last, after 
 undergoing imprisonment, only with restrictions, even it was 
 deemed too favorable to the Crypto-Calvinists. Budd. ib. 433. 
 
 = Schrockh, ibid. 623, 649. 
 
 * Mosheim, ibid. c. 1. § 40. sq. Henke, ibid. 457, fgg. Budd, 
 ibid. 435, sq. 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 21 
 
 with the Lutheran doctrines ; on the other, the 
 enforcement of the letter ' of the Lutheran tenets, 
 
 ' It was a natural, though injurious, consequence of the great 
 superiority of Luther, that every expression of his upon contro- 
 verted points became a norm for the party, which, at all times the 
 largest, was at last co-extensive with the Church itself. This 
 almost idolatrous veneration was perhaps increased by the selec- 
 tion of declarations of faith, of which the substance on the whole 
 was his, for the Symbolical books of his Church. At least, it is 
 remarkable, that in the Reformed Churches, where the original 
 articles were not taken from the works of the chief founder, no 
 such scrupulous adherence to the expressions of that founder ever 
 existed. On the other hand even in the earlier Lutheran controver- 
 sies, the question is often, not whether the tenet agree with Scrip- 
 ture, but " whether it be a deflection from Luther's doctrine," — 
 "whether the individual be fallen away from Luther," whether " if 
 the expression be the same, it be used precisely in the sense of 
 Luther," (e. g. of Osiander, Vat. 5, 229. Schr. ib. 577. so also in 
 the collateral definitions on the sacrament.) " Much as both par- 
 ties were indebted to Luther, it is still strange to see the constant 
 reference in the one, not merely to what Luther taught, but what 
 expressions, what grounds, what ideas he had on collateral points; 
 and this with the view of not varying a hair's-breadth from him." 
 (ib. 599.) These principles were made universal by the formula 
 of Concord ; in this, ideas, which Luther had only thrown out 
 in controversy, or had recalled, or which were at all events 
 secondary only, became primary articles of faith ; till this was 
 received, even the then symbolical books were not exclusively 
 adopted; they appear in different countries with different modi- 
 fications; and it was yet doubtfid whether the milder form in the 
 Corpus DoctrinfTG Christiana3 Philippicum, and the Consensus 
 Dresdensis, might not prevail. A greater freedom had occasion- 
 ally been left; not only could Hardenberg declare, that on his 
 appointment he had only bound himself to adhere to the Bible 
 and the ancient Christian doctrine, (Schr. ib. 601.) but the 
 synod of Hesse, in rejecting the formula of Concord, held the 
 language, that it was not expedient that all the writings of 
 
22 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 the establishment of mere scholastic opinions as 
 articles of faith, the substitution of human tech- 
 nicalities for the free spirit of the Gospel, of a 
 logical formalism for the scriptural and living ex- 
 pression of revealed truth. From the time that 
 this formula was, through the influence of the Uni- 
 versities, generally received, and the ultra Luthe- 
 ran compendium of Hutter ^ substituted there as 
 
 Luther, which were so unequal, should be thus extolled as rules 
 of doctrine ; that the Evangelical Church had already been re- 
 proached with submitting to a Babylonian captivity ; that no man 
 should be so much trusted to the detriment of conscience, &c. 
 (Schr. ib. 627.) After the second attempt to approximate to the 
 Reformed doctrine, the formula of Concord was in Saxony further 
 guarded (1592) by a new temporary symbolical book, the 
 Visitation- Articel, for not subscribing which, many distinguished 
 men, and among them the celebrated Schindler, who first pro- 
 moted the enlarged study of Hebrew, were deposed. (Schrbckh 
 ib. 660, 1. Budd. 440.) 
 
 ^ This was not only introduced into all the schools of Saxony 
 to the exclusion of every other, but was to be learnt by heart 
 with the greatest accuracy practicable before going to the univer- 
 sity. The spirit of the author may be judged of from his other 
 works, as the Calvinista aulico-politicus, in which he warns the 
 clergy of Brandenburg against the accursed Calvinism ; (Schrockh. 
 ib. 385.) his loci Communes Theologici, whose object was to 
 correct and replace the heresies of Melanchthon ; and his Cal- 
 vinus Judaizans, hoc est Judaicse scholae et corruptelse, quibus 
 J. Calvinus illustrissima S. S. loca et testimonia de gloriosissima 
 Trinitate, Deitate Christi et Spiritus S. — detestandum in modum 
 corrumpere non exhorruit." The ground of which charge was the 
 greater discrimination, which Calvin employed in adducing evi- 
 dence for the Trinity, and in admitting prophecies and types of 
 Christ in the Old Testament. Asa system of theology, the work of 
 Hutter is not sufficiently connected, is unpractical, and meagre : 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 23 
 
 the basis of instruction for the loci theologici of 
 Melanchthon, nothing remained but to proceed 
 onward in the groove into which they had been 
 forced to enter, to develope in still greater minute- 
 ness the fixed, immutable, definitions of the sanc- 
 tioned form^ to offer solutions of its difficulties, 
 and to refute its opponents. It was to be ex- 
 pected from human nature, that party-spirit, thus 
 fostered, should fail in none of its destructive 
 effects. The circumstances of the age, as above 
 observed, in themselves nurtured it ; it had already 
 painfully manifested itself in the vehement con- 
 tentions within the Lutheran church, in the 
 refusal to admit to the Lord's table, or to grant 
 honourable burial to those, who on some minuter 
 speculative points disagreed ^ It did in fact in- 
 
 as a compendium, it is burthened with over-refined discussions ; 
 twenty pages being, for example, devoted to the developement of 
 the doctrine of the imion of the two natures in Christ, and the 
 communicatio idiomatum. It continued, however, for a century to 
 be one of the most favourite compendia; (Langemack Hist. Cate- 
 chet. P. iii. p. 13.) that, which was its principal object, to combat 
 the errors of the Romanists and the Reformed, remaining during 
 that period the almost exclusive aim of doctrinal theology. The 
 principal commentators upon it are mentioned by Budd. Isag. 
 p. 351. 
 
 * Spener mentions that the symbolical books were often arbi- 
 trarily adduced in support of deductions, of which their authors 
 never thought, (ap. Weism. 1227.) 
 
 ^ E. g. even laymen, who would not sign the confutation-book 
 (against Synergism) were excluded from acting as sponsors, and 
 even from honourable burial ; (Henke 3. 420) so were the non- 
 Flacianists ; (Schr. ib. 571.) the Osiandrists by the opposed 
 party of Morlin, (Vater, S. 223.) and the students of Wittenberg 
 
24 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 crease. The monuments of that age, whether 
 theological works, or the public opinions of the 
 universities, are but too deeply stamped with 
 it ; and agreeably to its genuine principles, the 
 slightest approach to any tenet, or rite, or observ- 
 ance, of the opposed party, or the faintest disap- 
 probation of any of those questioned by that party 
 in the Lutheran Church, were considered sufficient 
 indications of the adoption of every tenet of that 
 party. The disapproval of the rite of exorcism 
 at baptism, of private confession before admis- 
 sion to the Lord's table, of the decoration of 
 churches with images, or the approval of the 
 breaking of bread instead of the use of the wafer, 
 the division of the Ten Commandments according 
 to the Heidelberg, not according to the Lutheran, 
 catechism, even the collocation of the two first 
 words of the Lord's prayer, (" unser Vater" for 
 * Vater unser,") were considered as sufficient in- 
 dications of the reception of the whole system \ 
 
 by the clergy of the Jena, unless after a formal renunciation of 
 the corruptions there taught, (Id. S. 226.) 
 
 ^ Vater, ib. S. 241. It is singular that of these rites, 
 which now became criteria of Lutheranism, some had been 
 before either rejected in the Adiaphoristic controversy, or re- 
 tained for a time only to avoid offence. (Henke, ib. 470-2.) The 
 very valuable remarks of AVhately on the abuse of party-feeling 
 in religion, find ample illustration in those tim.os. It may be here 
 mentioned in confirmation of the ill effect of the indiscriminate 
 use of party names, that the application of that of Calvinist to 
 all, v;ho in the slightest shade varied from the later Lutheran defi- 
 nitions, (Henke, ib. 345.) considerably diminished the numbers 
 of the exclusive party. 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 25 
 
 The inevitable consequence was, that the parties 
 thus accused of adopting the Reformed doctrines 
 did actually approximate more nearly to them, 
 and the remaining Lutherans became more rigid 
 in their own system and their own peculiarities. 
 
 The effect of this narrowing spirit, of these 
 unceasing jarrings, could not but be injurious to 
 the whole Lutheran theology. It is probably the 
 unavoidable consequence of polemics, certainly 
 of such polemics as these, that the question in 
 dispute assumes an undue importance, that the 
 mode of stating the truth, or some collateral 
 points connected with it, more or less displace in 
 the minds of the disputants the practical and re- 
 ligious purport of the doctrines themselves, and 
 their relation to the rest of the Christian system ; 
 though in this relation alone, it can exert an 
 efficacious, vital, and consistent influence. Every 
 thing else is forgotten in the determination of the 
 immediate controversy ; the conviction of the in- 
 tellect becomes in itself the end ; the heart is 
 forgotten in the exclusive employm.ent of the 
 understanding. What, however, is perhaps only 
 a tendency when other corrections are at hand, 
 was realized in its whole painful extent in the 
 practical as well as the scientific theology of 
 Germany in the 17th century. In proof of this, 
 it will be necessary briefly to consider the different 
 branches of theology as they were, or were not, 
 then studied. A vivid picture of the times can 
 indeed be furnished by no general statement, but 
 
26 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 must be obtained from the perusal of the authors 
 themselves. Here the results only can be given. 
 The Reformers, in consistency with their great 
 tenet, that scripture is the only authoritative 
 source of Christian knowledge, had laid the study 
 of the sacred volume as the foundation of all 
 Theological science. In the pursuance of this 
 principle they had established as the rule of inter- 
 pretation one which, when correctly developed, 
 contains all the elements of right exposition, 
 which have since been gradually vindicated by 
 the combination of several partial efforts. Their, 
 or rather the Biblical, rule, that " Scripture is its 
 own interpreter," includes in itself the religious, 
 historical, grammatical, elements, which were 
 imperfectly, because separately, brought forward 
 by Spener, Semler, and Ernesti. For it is obvi- 
 ous that if scripture is to be understood from 
 itself, those only can rightly and fully understand 
 it who have a mind kindred to that of its author; 
 as any human production, upon which the mind 
 of its author is impressed, will be best understood 
 by him, whose intellectual and moral character is 
 most allied to the original which it expresses. 
 The individual is thus placed, as it were, at the 
 centre of the same circle, from which the views 
 of the author emanated, and contemplates there- 
 fore every part in the same order, harmony, and 
 relation, of which they were originally possessed. 
 In religious writings it is plain that the spirit re- 
 quired is a religious spirit ; that none can truly 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 27 
 
 understand St. Paul or St. John, whose mind has 
 not been brought into harmony with theirs, has not 
 been elevated and purified by the same spirit with 
 which they were filled : and this, unquestionably, 
 was what the pious Spener meant by his much dis- 
 puted assertion, that none but the regenerate could 
 understand Holy Scripture. The same principle 
 of the Reformers contained, further, the gramma- 
 tical element, in that it directed, for the right un- 
 derstanding of the several writers, to the constant 
 comparison with themselves and with each other : 
 views, which were subsequently lost, when it was 
 deemed necessary to inspiration to maintain the 
 perfect purity of the language of the New Testa- 
 ment ^ Historical, finally, as opposed to the doc- 
 trinal. Interpretation, was secured by the direct 
 contrast of this self-illustration of Scripture to the 
 decision of councils, and to the authority of Tradi- 
 tion. If the theory were less distinctly stated, at 
 least it was admirably exemplified in the translation 
 of Luther, and the commentaries of Melanchthon; 
 individual Christian knowledge enabled these Re- 
 formers to perceive the fundamental distinctions 
 of the two covenants, to determine what in the 
 documents of the latter was occasioned by tem- 
 porary events, and, above all, to avoid that iden- 
 
 ^ It is remarkable, as illustrative of the comparative freedom 
 of judgment in the two Protestant bodies, that the prejudice 
 with regard to the purity of the language of the New Testament, 
 and the importance attached to it, continued predominant among 
 the Lutherans long after it had been extinguished among the 
 Reformed. 
 
 6 
 
28 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 tification, by which the full, and pregnant, and 
 varying, language of Scripture is forced into the 
 fetters of the narrowing and monotonous concep- 
 tions of system. 
 
 These principles of interpretation ^ were for- 
 
 ^ The much abused doctrine that each passage of Scripture 
 must be interpreted according to the analogia fidei, which was 
 the basis of the dogmatical interpretation, appears as early as in 
 the Clavis Scripturae Sacrse of the learned but bigoted Flacius. 
 His maxim " omnia debent esse consona catechisticse, aut arti- 
 culis fidei" entirely precludes all independent interpretation of 
 Scripture from itself ; yet was it received unquestioned in the sys- 
 tematic ultra- Lutheran school. Spener complains of the practice 
 of many of the theologians of his day, who rather made the 
 symbolical books the norm of interpreting Scripture, than Scrip- 
 ture the norm of the symbolical books, (ap. Weism. 1227.) It is 
 therefore natural though remarkaljle that the Lutheran inter- 
 preters of the age immediately subsequent to Luther, who even 
 now retain their value, Strigel, Camerarius, Chemnitz, belonged 
 to the school of Melanchthon ; that with the cessation of that 
 school, scriptural interpretation for a time ceased ; and that the 
 only three who in the largest portion of the next century were 
 at all distinguished, — J. Gerhard, Tarnov, and Hackspan, were 
 depreciated by their contemporaries, the two latter on the especial 
 account of occasional deviations from received interpretations, (on 
 J. Gerhard, see Weismann (H. E. 2. 1127.) on Tarnov, Budd. 
 Isag. (p. 1669.) on Hackspan and Tarnov, Schrockh (39. 429.) 
 It attests the polemic character of the age that the chief subject 
 of Scriptural exposition was the Apocalypse, (Schr. ib. 428.) 
 and that principally in reference to the Romish Church. Bud- 
 deus, speaking generally of the times subsequent to the Refor- 
 mation, says, Hinc et multum lucis S. S. accessit ; licet amplius 
 quid accedere potuisset, nisi simul ortee in religione dissensiones 
 maximsB gravissimseque multorum animos partium studio infecis- 
 sent, quo praepediti veritatem illis se oflerentem videre aut nolue- 
 runt aut non potuerunt. Isig. 1453. § 12. 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 29 
 
 gotten, this pre-eminence of scriptural above hu- 
 man system strangely reversed by the successors of 
 the Reformers. Scriptural interpretation, instead 
 of being the mistress and guide, became the hand- 
 maid, of doctrinal Theology. Its principal and 
 nearly exclusive employment was the justification 
 and defence of the Symbolical books by means of 
 the oft-repeated exposition of the loci classici 
 (beweis-stellen) for each of the positions therein 
 contained, conveyed for the most part in the same 
 technical language; nor was a departure from the 
 received explanations of any of these passages, or a 
 doubt as to the real applicability of one sanctioned 
 as supporting a given doctrine, any more per- 
 mitted than the rejection of the doctrine itself; or 
 was thought, indeed, to involve it \ To this per- 
 verted mode of interpretation some ground may 
 have been laid in the Symbolical books themselves, 
 especially in the formula of Concord, in which 
 passages are quoted in proof, whose irrelevancy 
 has been acknowledged by later Lutherans. False 
 ideas of inspiration, introduced by the imaginary 
 necessities^ of the argument with the Romanists, 
 
 ^ This fact, which is indeed notorious, is directly asserted by 
 Schrockh. 42, 557. and 43, 6. The influence attributed to the 
 formula of Concord I find also in Meyer Gesch. der Schrifter- 
 klarung. B. 2. S. 519. fg. 
 
 ^ Bellarmine had inferred from the priority of the existence of 
 the Church to that of Scripture, that the Church could not be 
 founded upon it, but must be the judge and controller of it. 
 The right answer had been that the Church was founded upon 
 Apostolical doctrine, which was faithfully preserved in Scripture 
 alone ; that tradition was indeed the foundation of faith, but not 
 
30 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 contributed to the same result ; from the first 
 assumption, that the whole of Scripture was imme- 
 diately dictated by the Holy Spirit, was derived 
 a second, that all must be of equal value : to prove 
 this, it was supposed that the same doctrines, 
 the same fundamental truths of Christianity, must 
 be not implied merely, but expressed, by all ; a 
 theory which must, of necessity, do much vio- 
 lence to the sacred text, while it overlooked the 
 beautiful arrangement, according to which the 
 different doctrines of Revelation are each pro- 
 minently conveyed by that mind, which was most 
 adapted to its reception, (love, by St. John ; faith, 
 by St. Paul ; hope, by St. Peter ; faith, developed 
 in works by St. James ;) and thus the highest illu- 
 mination of inspired minds, each in the fullest 
 degree of which it was capable, are combined to 
 convey to us the vast compass of Christian truth. 
 Yet greater confusion must obviously be the re- 
 sult of the same theory, when applied to the Old 
 Testament. The difference of the law and the 
 Gospel, which Luther had so vividly seen, was 
 obliterated, the shadow identified with the sub- 
 stance, the preparatory system with the perfect 
 disclosure. Not content with finding the germs 
 of Christian doctrine in the Old Testament, or 
 those dawning rays, which were to prepare the 
 
 as it had become Origenian, Gregorian, &c, but as it was Apos- 
 tolical, i. e. in Holy Scripture, The answer given was, that as 
 long as the Apostles spoke and taught, their individual agency 
 mingled itself, but that when they began to write, they became 
 the immediate agents and amanuenses of the Holy Spirit, 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 31 
 
 mental eye for the gradual reception of fuller 
 light, but whose entire character could only be 
 understood by those, who should witness the 
 rising of that luminary whose approach they an- 
 nounced ; they not only considered prophecy as 
 being throughout an inverted history, but held 
 that all the distinguishing doctrines of Christian- 
 ity were even to the Jews as much revealed in 
 the Old Testament as in the New, and that the 
 knowledge of these doctrines was as necessary to 
 their salvation as to ours j. No scientific error 
 seems to have prepared so much for the subse- 
 quent re-action, in which all prophecy was dis- 
 carded, all doctrine considered to be precarious. 
 
 It was assumed, further, in support of the same 
 system, and was indeed the natural consequence 
 of the doctrinal interpretation, that the same doc- 
 trinal word, wherever it occurred, was employed 
 in the same sense ; the sense, namely, attached to 
 it in the symbolical books. The Scriptures thus 
 handled, instead of a living Word, could not but 
 become a dead repository of barren technicalities. 
 Less important, lastly, though perhaps in its effects 
 more immediately dangerous, was the corollary 
 to the same theory of inspiration, that even his- 
 torical passages, in which no religious truth was 
 contained, were equally inspired with the rest, and 
 consequently, that no error, however minute, could 
 even here be admitted. Yet the imparting of 
 religious truth being the object of revelation, any 
 
 ' A proof of this will occur in the account of Calixtus, inf. 
 
32 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 further extension of inspiration would appear an 
 unnecessary miracle, as indeed it is one no where 
 claimed by the writers of the New Testament. 
 Violence was, in consequence, naturally dons to 
 the language of Scripture ; it may suffice, as an 
 instance, that sk is by these interpreters stated to 
 be equivalent to ek. This, however, for the time, 
 could produce no detrimental doctrinal result, 
 yet in its palpable perversion of the doctrine of 
 Inspiration it did prepare for the indiscriminate 
 rejection of the doctrine itself. 
 
 Not only, however, were the principles of scrip- 
 tural interpretation perverted, but the study itself 
 neglected. At the University of Leipzig, until 
 Spener, one of whose great objects w^as the pro- 
 motion of the study of the Bible, obtained a de- 
 cree from the Elector, directing that an exegetical 
 lecturer should be established, none were there 
 delivered; nor was it without an open expression 
 of bitterness against Spener, that the learned Carp- 
 zov, who, on a former occasion, had been com- 
 pelled, for want of hearers, to abandon his lecture 
 on Isaiah, before he had concluded the first chap- 
 ter, resumed the attempt ^ Spener himself men- 
 tions, that he knew theologians, who during a six 
 years' course of study at universities, had not 
 heard a single exposition of any biblical book. 
 
 The unpractical and untenable character of the 
 doctrinal theology of the same century will have 
 
 ^ Cansteia'a Leben Speners, ed. Lange. S. 119. ap Schrockh, 
 43, 267. 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 33 
 
 been partly anticipated from what has been al- 
 ready said on the controversies and the scriptural 
 interpretation of the times. It was in fact, for the 
 most part, but a connected polemic ; which again, 
 by the method in which it was handled, contri- 
 buted to reinstate the extremest dryness of scho- 
 lastic formalism. This method, indeed, was ori- 
 ginally reintroduced by contests not so immedi- 
 ately connected with the present view, those with 
 the Romanists, and especially with the Jesuits, who 
 employed the same weapons * ; but it gained yet 
 greater admission in controversy with individuals, 
 who (as some inclined to the reformed doctrine 
 in the Lutheran Church) endeavoured to conceal 
 diversity of doctrine under similarity of terms. 
 In order to maintain the distinction which it was 
 thought necessary to perpetuate, yet nicer and 
 minuter distinctions were to be adopted, and the 
 contrast of the two systems pursued to its re- 
 
 * Mosheim, c. 16. s. 3. p. 2, § 19. Budd. Isag. p. 239. and 
 249, (who, following Elsevich de varia Aristot. in scholis Protes- 
 tant, fortuna, p. 75, dates the influx of scholasticism from the 
 conference of Ratisbon, 1601.) and Twesten's Dogmatik, S. 235, a 
 work, of which the first volume, which appeared in 1826, is one 
 of the most valuable productions of the new German theology, 
 uniting philosophic depth with pure Christian faith, and which 
 promises, if continued, to form an era in the doctrinal theology 
 of that country. The view of the character of Protestantism, 
 and of its successive stages in Germany, § 8 — 12, as well as that 
 of doctrinal theology from Melanchthon to the present time, § 
 13, fgg. though concise, touches in a masterly manner on all the 
 principal points of the enquiry, and has been partly followed by, 
 partly found to coincide with the previous views of, the writer of 
 this essay. 
 
 D 
 
34 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 motest consequences \ It were then almost 
 needless to state, that not even a wish for free- 
 dom of enquiry existed ; that the Lutheran sys- 
 tem, instead of being freed from those errors or 
 unscriptural appendages, which were blended 
 with its basis of scriptural truth, or existed only 
 in the mode of stating what was purely scriptu- 
 ral, was developed, and carried to a precarious 
 height, by increased yet consistent speculation ; 
 yet the higher the system was carried, the more 
 dangerous was a return ; the fabric was ready to 
 fall by its own weight, yet any attempt to lighten 
 it might only precipitate the evil. The virtual 
 claim of infallibility (which is perhaps natural to 
 every long established, unaltered, Church) was in 
 this case strengthened by the perverted system of 
 Scriptural interpretation. Revelation being inter- 
 preted according to the analogy of Faith, or, what 
 was then equivalent, according to the doctrinal 
 system of the Church, could furnish no other result 
 than that which already existed. It was referred to 
 for the justification of preconceived and predeter- 
 mined opinions. The separation, further, by Calixtus 
 of the system of "Christian moral" from ^' Christian 
 doctrine," with which it had been hitherto inter- 
 woven, though in itself greatly to the advantage 
 of the unity of the latter science, seems to have 
 produced at the time no effect, but that of extin- 
 guishing even the sense of the necessity of pre- 
 senting it in a form influential upon the Christian 
 
 ' Twesten, ibid. 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 35 
 
 life. Abounding then in technical formulae, 
 (whether from the Aristotelic-scholastic philoso- 
 phy, or from the scholastic theology) in straw- 
 splitting distinctions, in endless problems and 
 deductions, the systems of the age were rather 
 a massive repertorium of all which might be 
 accumulated on doctrinal theology, than a clear 
 exposition of Christian doctrine itself. No 
 unfavourable specimen of the method is the 
 " systema locorum theologicorum" of the un- 
 doubtedly learned Calov^ Though he asserts, 
 that he has aimed at conciseness in the questions 
 discussed, the work consists of fourteen quarto 
 volumes ; its polemical spirit may be in some 
 measure conceived, in that even the first part, 
 whose professed subject is *' the nature of Theo- 
 logy, Keligion, divine Revelation, Holy Scripture, 
 and articles of Faith generally," decides that the 
 reformed are to be reckoned among the Heretics, 
 who hold dangerous errors ; (Qu. 14, p. 251) and 
 that they are no members of the Augsburg Confes- 
 sion ; (Qu. 21, p. 259) and closes with a long censure 
 (p. 881 — ^1216) of the various errors of Calixtus 
 
 It is no sufficient apology for the defects of this age to in- 
 sist upon the learning of many of the individuals, who are in- 
 volved in them. In their mass of knowledge they are equal, often 
 superior, to those of other ages ; their deficiency was in the want 
 of scientific spirit, of freedom from prejudice, of comprehensive 
 and discriminating views, without which mere knowledge is use- 
 less to the cultivation of science, and oppressive to its possessor. 
 Gerhard's loci Theologici must be excepted from this con- 
 demnation, as indeed he himself lived at the commencement of 
 this age. 
 
 D 2 
 
36 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 and his followers. But indeed it is superfluous to 
 state the polemical and bitter character of the work 
 of one, who deemed it necessary to refute, step by 
 step, the commentary of Grotius. The book it- 
 self enjoyed all the distinction of its author, until 
 the growing disapprobation of the love of strife, 
 and of a needless creation of heresies, deeply 
 sunk it. 
 
 The mode of arranging and of handling the 
 matter thus accumulated, would hardly find place 
 in the present argument, but that it completes the 
 proof of the uninteresting and abstract form with 
 which the whole science was invested. Two fa- 
 vourite methods then of arrangement prevailed, 
 which were for the most part carried through 
 with unvarying uniformity ; the causal, and the 
 defining method. The first consisted in enquiring 
 upon each article what were the causse principales, 
 et minus principales, instrumentales, efficientes, 
 materiales, formales, finales, &c. (that adopted 
 in the above Systema of Calov) ; the second in 
 premising to each article a definition, which 
 should at the same time comprise the whole doc- 
 trine of the Church, and all the opposed here- 
 sies : this was then illustrated according to its 
 several parts, was further subdivided, or gave occa- 
 sion to new definitions, till the whole subject was 
 supposed to be exhausted. Each article was thus 
 split into numerous theses, antitheses, distinc- 
 tions, questions, objections, &c. * Not the ob- 
 
 * Tweslen. 236. 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 37 
 
 sourest nor the most abounding in metaphysical 
 terminology is the " Systema Theologise 29 Defi- 
 nitionibus absolutum of J. A. Scherzer; in which 
 the definition concerning Christ occupies three 
 quarto pages in a single period. It thus com- 
 mences, p. 172, sqq. Christus est 9eav9po)7roc, Deus 
 scilicet (etiam avroQeog) et homo, Patri in coelis et 
 matri Virgini (ut Virgo revera deoroKog et Chris- 
 tus etiam secundum humanitatem Filius Dei na- 
 turalis sit,) (in terris o^xoovaiog) constans in unione 
 ad unam personam, (propter quam unionem etiam 
 secundum humanam naturam Filius Dei natu- 
 
 ralis, non adoptivUS est) [a]7re^iyo)phwg, aavyyvTUig, 
 
 aTpeTTTiog, a^iaaTciTwg, a^wpfewc, facta, natura divma 
 et humana impeccabili, &c.^ Yet these books satis- 
 lied all the wants of that age ; an acquaintance 
 with the scholastic terminology, and the topics of 
 controversy, with a copious collection of Biblical 
 passages, whose relevance was a point of inferior 
 importance to their numbers was all which the 
 ordinary Theologian required ; and the favourite 
 class-book of the age, that most frequently com- 
 mented upon, and orally expounded, was the 
 dryest and the most meagre, Kbnig's ^ Theologia 
 positiva acroamatica synoptice tractata, 1GQ4:. 
 
 ^ Ap. Schrockh, B. 43, S. 10, 1 1. There seem to be some mis- 
 prints, which, not having the original, T cannot correct, but which 
 do not affect the object for which it is quoted. 
 
 ^ Buddeus, p. 359, calls it " Skeleton quoddam sine succoet san- 
 guine;" and adds that Konig heaps unnecessarily metaphysical 
 terms, sometimes incorrectly, and adduces irrelevantscriptural pas- 
 sages, and he aUributes its celebrity solely to the then prevalence of 
 
38 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 " Christian morals/' though separated, as above 
 stated, by Calixtus from doctrinal theology, with 
 which it had been joined rather than combined, (the 
 Christian duties being treated of under the head of 
 the " law" in a species of exposition of the Deca- 
 logue ; Ihe principle of Christian virtue under the 
 article of Sanctification and the new Obedience^;) 
 made, as a science, no progress, and was, for the 
 most part, but a relic of the old casuistry ^ One 
 work alone (Schomer's Specimen Theologiae Mo- 
 ralis, 1690) contained any traces of scientific me- 
 thod. The rest are very moderate productions. *'In 
 the midst of the vehement Theological contro- 
 versies (says the ecclesiastical historian ^) which 
 
 Scholastic Theology. The works which, according to Twesten S. 
 237, are best calculated to give an image to the Doctrinal Theology 
 of that period, Quenstedt's Theologia didactico-polemica, of the 
 larger, and Baler's Compendium, of the smaller, " are destitute, 
 not indeed of diligence, acuteness, order, and precision, but of un- 
 prejudiced scriptural interpretation, philosophical depth, and reli- 
 gious warmth." Quenstedt accounts all, even the most distin- 
 guished Theologians, as heretics, who differ in any point, however 
 slight, from those of Wittenberg ; Baier can scarcely be under- 
 stood without a previous thorough knowledge of the then contro- 
 versies. Budd. ibid, 
 
 J Twesten, p. 235. 
 
 ^ Schrbckh, B. 42, p. 558. 
 
 ^ Schrockh, B. 43, p. 86. Buddeus states the same fact and 
 the same ground for the degeneracy and defects of books of 
 edification. Fuit ceteroquin jam seculo sexto ea temporum infe- 
 licitas ut in certamina et intestlnas dissensiones raperentur prse- 
 stantissima ingenia; unde contingebat ut qui vitee morumque 
 prsecepta inculcabant, minus sapere viderentur. Contemptus 
 ejusmodi librorum, (he adds,) inde auctus est, quod pauci rem 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 39 
 
 then divided the whole Evangelical Church, was 
 neither time nor room for the scientific treating 
 of theological moral." 
 
 A scholastic age has but little feeling for his- 
 torical enquiry ; the neglect, which it experienced 
 in the age of the original schoolmen, again re- 
 curred. What did exist was either a mere justifi- 
 cation of Protestantism, or historical notices of 
 the contests between the Lutherans and the Re- 
 formed ; or if more extensive, a catalogue of 
 heretics, which, because opposed to the then 
 orthodoxy, were now also condemned. Yet, for 
 the most part, in the 17th century, the study of 
 ecclesiastical history was, as Spener again com- 
 plains, at least at the Universities, extinct. The 
 evil consequences of this neglect were subse- 
 quently severely felt ; history and historical cri- 
 ticism broke upon the age, in which the system 
 began to give way, with a dazzling and perplexing, 
 because unaccustomed, light; they were thought 
 to be, (as indeed every science has been in its first 
 imperfect commencement,) and indeed were in 
 their then state of cultivation, adverse to Ptevela- 
 tion. Ignorance of ecclesiastical history had nega- 
 tively also a detrimental effect ; to minds engaged 
 solely in speculation, and accustomed to no system 
 foreign to their own. Christian antiquity wore a 
 strange and unintelligible aspect; unable to divest 
 
 serio agere, plurimi contra aut ad gloriolam aut ad lucrum cap- 
 tandum, aut ut mori rccepto aliquid darent, talia scribcrc crede- 
 rentur. Isa"-. 588. 
 
40 CAUSES OF THE 1>ATE RATIONALIST 
 
 themselves of modern ideas, or to transport them- 
 selves into times externally so different, the past 
 was to them as a sealed book, and was laid aside 
 without further investigation ; the pride of sup- 
 posed superiority above all preceding times, (the 
 natural consequence of re-awakening energy com- 
 bined with this ignorance of what antiquity pos- 
 sessed of deeper truth,) was thereby nourished and 
 promoted. Yet was this pride the basis of many 
 of their errors : hence arose the presumptuous 
 contempt with which sentence was passed upon all 
 earlier modes of expression of Christian feeling ; 
 hence doctrines, in which the most pious men of 
 old had found the source and nourishment of 
 their piety, were, in the name of eternal reason, 
 determined a priori to be prejudicial even to mo- 
 rality ; and hence the various and confused dreams 
 of the perfectibility of Christianity. A large por- 
 tion, also, of Christian evidence was lost, from the 
 consequent failure to understand the manner, in 
 which the influence of Christianity exerted itself. 
 Equally a consequence of the same neglect was the 
 positive error of, unconsciously at least, theorizing 
 on events, ideas, persons, of antiquity, as if in 
 all respects similar to those of modern times ; 
 with a little modification, the well-known severe 
 terms of Gothe would apply to many besides the 
 wretched Bahrdt, Da kam mir ein Gedanke von 
 ungefahr, So redete ich, wenn ich Christus ware '. 
 The Theological sciences, whose application 
 
 ^ In Lis Baliidt. 
 
CHARACTER 0¥ THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 41 
 
 forms the basis of practical Theology, being thus 
 perverted or obliterated ; the exposition of Scrip- 
 ture, and Christian doctrine converted into pole- 
 mics; ecclesiastical history, so pre-eminently the 
 magistra vitae, and Christian Moral, forgotten ; 
 it could scarcely be but that this crown, as it 
 has been justly called, of all theology ^ should 
 equally suffer. From the nature, however, of 
 Pastoral Theology, those two portions alone 
 which partake of a scientific character, the pul- 
 pit and catechetical instruction, can furnish 
 results sufficiently definite or universal, from 
 which to attempt, without risk of injustice, to 
 form an estimate of the general condition of the 
 whole church. Each of these was injured by the 
 predominant importance attached to controverted 
 points. Elementary instruction, as far as other 
 interests permitted it still to be cultivated, was 
 perverted from its proper object, the communica- 
 tion of the essentials of Christianity, to the en- 
 forcement of the system of the Church in the 
 immense compass of its abstract articles. Illus- 
 tration and defence of contested points displaced 
 the inculcation of vital truths in their practical 
 import; the inexperienced mind was oppressed 
 and bewildered by the exposition of points which 
 belonged only to systematic Theology ^ ; the er- 
 
 ^ Schleiermacher Darstell. des Theol. Studiums, § 8. 
 
 "^ See Schrockh (43, 154.) who mentions that in the illustra- 
 tion of many Catechisms of this age, one, or even several oc- 
 tavo volumes, filled with a complete doctrinal systen), were 
 emj.'Ioycd. 
 
42 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 ror, at all times natural to the human mind, of 
 regarding religion as a matter of memory, was 
 rendered almost inevitable by the indiscriminate 
 mode in which the whole sum of doctrine was 
 propounded. Yet more common, however, was 
 the opposed extreme, by which catechizing, was 
 either, as in the original scholastic age \ neglect- 
 ed, or was committed to subordinate persons, as a 
 mere mechanical labour. In Saxony, which more 
 indeed than the rest of Germany was the seat of 
 a dead orthodoxism, it was not without much 
 ridicule that Spener, when appointed Court- 
 Preacher and member of the Consistory at Dres- 
 den, revived it ^ ; not without the taunt that 
 " the elector had sent for a Court-Preacher, and 
 had received a school-master." Yet to this failure 
 of catechising, whatever success unbelief had 
 among the lower and middling classes (positive 
 unbelief was, however, among them rare) is far 
 more attributable, than to any direct attempts of a 
 later unbelieving clergy or of profligate Rational- 
 ist writers ^ The house was swept and gar- 
 
 * Catecheticse Theologise, says Buddeus (Isag. p. 332,) eo 
 tempore quo scholasticum illud regnum floruit, nulla fere habita 
 fuit ratio; ideoque hinc inde quaedam solum ejus vestigia depre- 
 hendere licet. Id quod, (he truly adds, and it is a warning cri- 
 terion for every age,) corruptee admodum ac depravatae liisce 
 seculis ecclesise documentum prsebet luculentum. 
 
 ^ Schrockh, ibid. 
 
 ^ This subject veill occur more fully hereafter; here it may 
 suffice to notice that Bahrdt, the only one of the infidel writers 
 who had any influence on the middling classes, was no Theolo- 
 gian, His frivolity and charlatanisu), combined with powers of 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 43 
 
 nished; it was abandoned, empty, and undefended ; 
 it remained but for the master to enter in. The 
 coldness of unbelief is preferable to the luke- 
 warmness of such a state, in that it is more easily 
 recoverable. 
 
 Not neglected, indeed, but for the most part des- 
 titute of practical spirit, was the other ordinary me- 
 dium of Christian instruction, the pulpit. The dif- 
 ferent proportions which the several parts of divine 
 service bear in Germany, (where the prayers, in- 
 cluding the hymns, occupy a much smaller space, 
 and much less of Scripture is read than among 
 ourselves), have from the beginning given a pri- 
 mary importance to this ministerial intercourse 
 of the pastor with his flock ; and this the more, as 
 the occasions of these addresses are more fre- 
 quent, in that they are delivered at all the occa- 
 sional services, — baptism, marriage, burial of the 
 dead, and the public confessional on the day pre- 
 paratory to the participation in the communion, 
 as well as at confirmation, and in the ordinary 
 service of the Lord's day. Luther, accordingly, 
 who knew and assigned it its importance, pu- 
 rified it from all its previous defects, and pro- 
 vided in his Kirchenpostille, which he deemed 
 his best work \ a model for future preachers. The 
 interest of polemics seems, however, soon to have 
 
 imagination and an easy style, gave him, for a time, access and 
 popularity among the superficial, who were willing to be deceived. 
 He had, however, no share in the Theological revolutions of the 
 period. 
 
 ^ Schrbckh, 39. 4G0. 
 
4i CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 swallowed up every other ; nor, with the excep- 
 tion of Mathesius, does the name of any distin- 
 guished preacher occur among the successors of 
 Luther. Of those who wrote on the theory of 
 Christian oratory, a disciple of Melanchthon's 
 alone. Hemming ^ extended his views beyond 
 the mere external arrangement. The history of 
 every controversy after the Reformation gives the 
 proof that intemperate disputation on abstract 
 questions had largely displaced Christian instruc- 
 tion. Early in the seventeenth century this be- 
 came systematic ; the preacher not unnaturally 
 taught that, in which alone he had been himself 
 instructed, and which he had been inured to think 
 of primary or exclusive importance ; he delivered 
 it in the same scht)lastic terminology in which he 
 had himself received it^ Not orthodoxy, then, 
 was wanting in the sermons of the seventeenth 
 century, but the developement of that orthodoxy 
 in its influence on Christian practice. Moral, when 
 preached, being separated from implied, equally 
 as from express, reference to the Christian truths, 
 was dry and barren ; and the acknowledgment of 
 these truths manifested itself solely in the refuta- 
 tion of heretics. The sermons printed by James 
 Andrea, minister at Erlangen, 1568, may furnish 
 a specimen of the usual subjects of these dis- 
 courses. They consist of four divisions ; 1. Of 
 the division between Lutherans and Papists ; 
 
 1 In his Pastor, 1566. See Schrockh, 464. 
 Other defects are mentioned by Schrockh, ib. 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 45 
 
 2. Of the Church of Christ and the Zwiiiglians ; 
 
 3. Against the Schwenkfeldians ; 4. Against the 
 Anabaptists. To shew the spirit of these pole- 
 mics, may suffice the following commencement of 
 those of Artomedes of Konigsberg (1590) on the 
 Lord's Supper. " Against the holy Communion 
 war two raging armies of the incarnate devil ; on 
 the one side the ungodly Papists, on the other 
 the over- curious and conceited Calvinists. The 
 wretched heathen Ovid is a better theologian 
 than our Calvinists." There follow yet stronger 
 and more offensive expressions. The style was 
 equally repulsive. The ordinary divisions were a 
 dry grammatical exposition of Scriptural texts, 
 and a polemical or so-called practical application, 
 equally uninteresting and uninfluential. It is of 
 course impossible to multiply instances ; suffice 
 one of Hermann of Brieg in Silesia, on the Gos- 
 pel of the day, the history of Zacchseus. The 
 text selected was, " He was little of person." 
 The division of the sermon was, 1. The word 
 " He" teaches us, "persones qualitatem;" 2. " was," 
 " vitse fragilitatem ;" 3. " little," " staturse parvita- 
 tem." The practical application was, 1. Zacchceus 
 est informator de varietate operum Dei ; 2. conso- 
 lator parvorum ; 3. adhortator ut defectum nos- 
 trum virtute compensemus. There were indeed 
 some splendid exceptions of men, as Arndt ', 
 J. V. Andrea, and J. Gerhard, who kept aloof from 
 
 ' Arndt's '' True Christianity" was the substance of his ser- 
 mons. His lectures on Luther's Catechism are also a memorial 
 of his practical piety. 
 
 6 
 
46 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 polemics, and whose piety has been venerated by 
 every subsequent age, and has edified many other 
 churches \ ** But these instances," adds the his- 
 torian, " besides that they were exceptions from 
 the usual course, influenced the whole but little ; 
 and Homiletic "remained a science almost entirely 
 unknown to those who deemed that they most 
 excelled in it ^." 
 
 More, however, of the scientific and practical 
 defects, or rather offences, of the theological pre- 
 paration of that age, may be learnt from the testi- 
 monies of two men of very different characters, 
 Spener and Thomasius ; the former a divine, 
 mildly mourning in heartfelt pain over the decay 
 of piety, and of the practical study of theology ; 
 the latter, the celebrated reformer of the evange- 
 lical ecclesiastical law, with some, though not un- 
 deserved, mockery. Spener, in his Pia Desideria, 
 and the preface to Dennhauer's Hodosophia, gives 
 the following account of the preparatory and pro- 
 fessional studies of theologians. " In the semi- 
 naries for the most part, Latin alone is taught ; 
 Greek extremely seldom ; Hebrew not at all : 
 persons come to the Universities without having 
 an idea of the nature of Theology, which is consi- 
 
 ' Gerhard's Meditations is, with Arndt's Christianity, among 
 the few books which have been valued by every age and country. 
 Buddeus (ib. 588.) mentions translations into German, French, 
 English, Polish, and Swedish. 
 
 ^ Christian rhetoric, the art of preaching, of Christian persua- 
 sion and instruction, 
 
 ' Schrockh, ib. 468. 
 
CHARACTER Of THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 47 
 
 dered a mere matter of memory ; hence all prayer, 
 all meditation, all attention to a holy life, is want- 
 ing. Philosophy is a dry scholastical assemblage 
 of formulas ; to it is most time devoted. Philo- 
 logy is almost unknown. Many theologians do 
 not understand the New Testament in Greek. 
 The most important Theological science is thetik 
 (doctrinal Theology in its confined sense) ; scrip- 
 tural grounds for the doctrines are not deemed 
 necessary. Scriptural interpretation is learnt after 
 entering- on the office of preacher, in order to 
 write the expository part of the sermon, which 
 contains a mere dialectical explanation. Next to 
 thetik is polemic ^ the most important science, 
 though it is melancholy to contend against error 
 when one knows not the truth. And if polemic 
 must be carried on, yet should it be as in the state, 
 where one class only is engaged in war. Ethics 
 are not taught at all ; homiletic consists only in a 
 philosophical schematism, how a sermon is logi- 
 cally to be arranged." The remarks of Thomasius 
 are conveyed in the following description of a 
 candidatus theologiae". " He has for two years 
 
 ^ '* Joined with doctrinal Theology," (says Schrockh, describ- 
 ing this age, 39. 482, sq.) " was polemic theology considered the 
 highest dignity of the theologian ; and, under a biblical expres- 
 sion, * to carry on the wars of the Lord,' was the field in which 
 he most readily appeared, fully armed for the defence of the pro- 
 vince entrusted to him. That such a constant readiness and in- 
 clination to fight, often, as in the political world, brought on wars 
 which might easily have been avoided, cannot be denied." 
 
 " '* In his Freymiithige lustige uud crnsthafte, jcdoch Venuinft- 
 
4-8 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 studied the Aristotelic philosophy ; in the third, 
 positive theology ; in three more, that of the 
 schoolmen ; and in the four last, which he has 
 spent at the University, polemic : he has held a 
 long disputation on the use of metaphysics in the 
 refutation of heretics ; is able, by means of those 
 different species of theology, the concordance, and 
 the skeletons, to give, at an hour's preparation, a 
 well constituted sermon ; is employed, besides, on 
 a refutation of that infernal book, Ric. Simonis 
 Critical History of the Old Testament; but in 
 practical or moral theology is an entire stranger." 
 No wonder then that Spener should meet at least 
 with assent in his earnest regrets, which he ex- 
 pressed, however, with his peculiar mildness^: 
 " That the clergy needed an entire reformation, 
 and so much the more, in that their defects were 
 not acknowledged; that many of them were wholly 
 strangers to earnest inv/ard piety, conceiving that 
 every thing was comprised in skill in religious 
 disputation ; that much foreign useless matter, 
 many needless niceties, had been introduced into 
 theology ; whence many theologians, when they 
 attained an office, could make no use of what they 
 had learnt ; that it wvas necessary to study holy 
 Scripture with much more diligence than had 
 
 und Gesetzmiissige Gedanken iiber allerhand, fUrnemlich aber 
 neue, Biicher." ap. Schitickh, 42, 561. 
 
 * See the observations of Weism. ib. 1168, sq. where, in 
 praising Spener's great wisdom and moderation, he mentions that 
 many thought rather that he did too little than too much. 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 49 
 
 been hitherto done, to put a due limit to reli- 
 gious controversies, and to educate and form 
 future ministers upon an entirely different plan, 
 reminding them, that much more depended upon 
 a pious life than upon their diligence and study ; 
 lastly, that sermons should be made more useful'." 
 No wonder that H. Midler should speak against 
 the four dumb church-idols, the font, the pulpit, 
 the confessional, and the communion-table ^ ; or 
 that the result should be that described by the 
 truly pious, able, and learned Joh. Gerhard, 
 " that the most diligent church-goers were guilty 
 of the most reckless practices; but if one did 
 not admit them to be good Christians, they 
 threatened an action for libel, and whoever re- 
 commended earnest Christianity, was termed Pha- 
 risee, Weigelian, and Rosecrucian^." 
 
 Such a system could not endure ; it contained 
 within itself the seeds of its own dissolution ; a 
 
 ' Pia desideria ap. Schrbckh, ib. p. 549. 
 
 "^ The censures passed upon him by Joh. Mviller of Hamburg 
 for these expressions seemed, even to those times, captious and 
 unjust. Fateor (says Weismann, ib. p. 1143) multum hujus 
 viri existimationi apud me detrahere acta ejus eristica, et plane 
 superflua, cum optimo Viro, H. Mullero, cui plures alii et cele- 
 bres nostroe Ecclesiee Theologi assistebant contra censuram Ham- 
 burgensem. Cp. Buddeus, who mentions some of his defenders, 
 and says, that his writings omnium fere promeruerunt calculum 
 (ib. 590.) H. Miiller's Erquickungsstunden, especially, long 
 continued to be one of the principal practical works of Germany. 
 
 ' The evidences on this head will hereafter be occasionally in- 
 creased by the incidental mention of some of the innovations in 
 doctrines which the ultra- Lutheran party opposed. 
 
 E 
 
50 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 re-action was almost the unavoidable conse- 
 quence, unless some one, or some succession of 
 men, gifted with Luther's pious and discriminat- 
 ing mind, should establish a separation between 
 this accumulation of narrowing human definitions 
 and the simple truths of the Gospel, should re- 
 place by the influential faith of the heart the 
 barren contentious scholasticism, by which the 
 understanding alone was occupied, or rather was 
 distracted. It was the natural effect of a system, 
 in itself partly untenable, and of which every un- 
 tenable point was developed to its utmost extent 
 by other deductions and hypotheses, to provoke 
 the inconsiderate rejection of a whole, whose 
 every part was maintained with equal decision, 
 and as of equal importance; it was the direct 
 tendency of the endless disputes about abstract 
 points, in which the different parties were agreed 
 about nothing, but that unquestioned certainty 
 might be arrived at, and that they were each in 
 possession of that certainty, that distaste and 
 doubt of the whole should be engendered ; it was 
 the natural consequence of so vast a system of 
 abstract doctrine, apparently influential in the 
 production of discord alone, that the authority 
 of the whole should be questioned : to what pur- 
 pose, it would be asked, should so vast a body of 
 doctrine be made known to mankind, some of 
 which in its own nature can have no influence, 
 and the rest has none ? doubt of the whole would 
 further be excited by the manifestly weak or 
 distorted basis, upon which much was rested ; 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 51 
 
 aversion would be created by some unscriptural 
 doctrines, repugnant to the nature of God ' ; op- 
 position by the intolerance of their supporters ^ : 
 there are few probably who would not have been 
 confirmed in their difficulties by such an anta- 
 gonist as Goze, who seems to have sought a 
 triumph over, rather than the conviction of his 
 sceptical, but probably more Christian^ opponent. 
 
 It may suffice to mention that of the eternal condemnation 
 of the heathen, which appears to have been generally held by 
 the orthodox. This appears more strikingly from the fact that 
 Schrockh uniformly mentions as a peculiarity in the system of any 
 doctrinal writer, even a doubt of its truth, than from any number 
 of instances with which I may myself have met. To give one 
 instance, Schrockh names as a freedom of opinion in Spener, 
 unexpected in his times, and which, therefore, was interpreted to 
 his injury, that " he doubted not that even out of the Evangeli- 
 cal Church, not children only, but many of maturer age, would 
 be saved." (Theol. Bedenken ap. Schr. 43, 281.) The mainte- 
 nance of the contrary opinion gave rise to one infidel work at 
 least, Eberhard's Neue Apologie des Socrates ; even Ernesti ex- 
 presses a doubt whether the happiness of virtuous heathens and 
 Jews be consistent with the importance of the Christian Revela- 
 tion. Neue Theol. Biblioth. 1. B. S. 105. 5. B. S. 359. 
 
 * This is mentioned by Schlegel also (Kirchengesch, 5. B. 
 S. 247.) as one of the causes of the unbelief of the 18th century 
 in Germany. 
 
 ' I know not any man whose scepticism gives one more pain, 
 excites more regret, than that of Lessing. His works manifest a 
 conscientious desire after truth, a struggle to extricate himself 
 from his difficulties ; he first pointed out the impregnable bulwark 
 of religion against all scientific objections, which has since been 
 philosophically justified, that the foundation, the original seat of 
 religion is in the feeling, not in the understanding. Without 
 subscribing to every thing contained in the following passages, it 
 
 E 2 
 
52 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 Other causes actually coincided, but these fur- 
 nished a well prepared soil for the seed of unbe- 
 
 may be permitted to cite them, to shew what the heart of the in- 
 dividual was, whom the unhappy circumstances of his time, and 
 the intolerance of his opponents seem mainly to have driven into 
 scepticism. They are collected in the often-quoted work, Twes- 
 ten's Dogmatik, p. 19. Under the word " Religion," (in his post- 
 humous works) he says, " The many works which in modern 
 times appear in defence of the Christian religion, are open to the 
 objection, not only that they prove very ill what they undertake 
 to prove, but that they are quite contrary to the spirit of Christi- 
 anity, in that its truth is such as rather to be felt, than to be made 
 an object of intellectual knowledge." (Collectan. Werke, Th. 
 1 6. S. 305.) Hence, (observes T.,) he makes a clear distinction be- 
 tween the Theologian and the Christian ; the former, he supposes, 
 may be perplexed by certain objections, which threaten to shake 
 the props by which he would support religion, " but what do this 
 man's hypotheses, and explanations, and proofs, concern the 
 Christian ?" He possesses already the Christianity which he 
 feels to be so true, and in which he himself is so blessed. When 
 the paralytic experiences the beneficial shocks of the electric 
 spark, what matters it to him whether Nollet, or Franklin, or 
 neither, be in the right ? (Zusatze zu der Wolf. Fragm. Werke, 
 Th. 5. S. 18.) To the same purport against Goze. (Th. 6. S. 16.) 
 " Even supposing one should not be able to remove all the objec- 
 tions, which reason is so busy in making against the Bible, yet 
 religion would still remain undisturbed and unconcerned in the 
 hearts of those Christians, who had attained an inward feeling of 
 its essential truths." Again, Axiomat. (Th. 6. S, 77.) " He, 
 whose heart is more Christian than his head, pays not the 
 slightest regard to those objections, since he feels what others 
 content themselves with thinking." (cp. S, 139, at greater 
 length.) " This appeal (adds T.) to the feeling of the facts of 
 inward Christianity is Lessing's leading idea in the contest with 
 Gbze ; and how much he was in earnest, might be shewn from 
 many passages of his writings, and the whole frame of his mind." 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 53 
 
 lief, under whatever immediate circumstances it 
 might be planted. 
 
 The first opposition to this system, however, 
 came from other quarters. It seems as if it were 
 not until other methods had been employed in 
 vain, that the storm of unbelief was allowed to 
 burst over so much of this fair portion of the 
 Christian Church ; not until they had refused to 
 return from the light of their self-kindled fire, to 
 the sun of pure Christianity ; that that sun was 
 for a time obscured to them, in order that the 
 temporary privation might make them more 
 deeply feel its value, and benefit by its light and 
 warmth and healing. 
 
 In the very beginning of the 1 7th century, the 
 destructive effects ^ of the existing system in sub- 
 stituting dialectic disquisition for practical Chris- 
 tianity, had been felt by two theologians, Praetorius, 
 minister of Salzwedel, (ob. 1610), and the ever- 
 memorable and pious Arndt. (ob. 1611). The lat- 
 ter alone had a very wide permanent influence ^ of 
 
 ib. p. 20. The late Rennell (Notes on the Conversion of Count 
 Struensee, p. 20,) and Coleridge (Aids to Reflection, p. 136,) 
 have given seasonable advice to those, who think that in the 
 reception of Christianity the intellect alone is concerned. 
 
 ^ Arndt's " true Christianity" was occasioned by the prevailing 
 corruptions ; its object was to shew that " true Christianity con- 
 sists in the manifestation of a true, living, active, faith, in genuine 
 piety, and the fruits of righteousness." Buddeus in the passage 
 following that quoted Sup. p. 38. n. 3. assigns the exclusive 
 polemic as the source of these corrupt manners. 
 
 ^ Spener, however, in his candid judgment of Prtetorius, 
 mentions the *' very many instances of })ious and orthodox men, 
 
54 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 which, however, as is generally the case of the most 
 extensive usefulness, the largest results were late, 
 and long after his own personal removal^ In his 
 life-time, though he united all the humility and 
 mildness of Spener with the firmness in which 
 the latter was deficient, though he entered not 
 into the polemics of his time, and his exertions 
 were calculated to replace, not to overthrow, the 
 existing system, he was the object of dislike and 
 persecution. Even while these exertions were 
 limited to the exercise of his ministry, he was ac- 
 cused of the heresy of requiring from Christians 
 Angelic perfection, and of practising alchemy ; 
 his extensive benevolence was attributed to the 
 discovery of the philosopher's stone. The clergy 
 of Brunswick issues warnings against the " poison" 
 of Arndt^ The immortal work on " True Chris- 
 tianity," (1605), which was translated into every 
 language of Europe, and has been valued by pious 
 minds of every succeeding age, did but increase 
 the hostility. A host of antagonists charged him 
 with heresy, termed his writings jugglery, him- 
 self an unlearned presuming fool ^ L. Osiander 
 
 who, next to Scripture, ascribe almost all their Christian know- 
 ledge to him," ap. Weism., 1193. 
 
 1 Weism., 1178. S. 8. 
 
 * Weism., ib. 1175. 
 
 ' The names of some of his opponents may be found in Weism. 
 1176, and Budd.,ib. 614. Though a few were distinguished in the 
 controversies of their time, they have long been forgotten. They 
 were mostly inferior, even in learning, to the great man whom 
 they reviled. See Schrockh 39,450, and Weism. 1174, who 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 55 
 
 pronounced, that they could not be read by the 
 ignorant without risk of salvation ; that they were 
 full of heretical poison, pestilential, abounding in 
 Papism, Calvinism, Flacianism, Schwenkfeldian- 
 ism, and Weigelianism ^ He accused him of 
 blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, and of ascrib- 
 ing the agency of God to the devil ; by others 
 were added Osiandrism, Paracelsism, and the use 
 of the language of the mystico-chemical philoso- 
 phers ^ ; it was made a crime that he did not bind 
 himself, in his religious teaching, to the symbo- 
 lical formulae ; he was charged with using expres- 
 sions in common with earlier mystics or fanatics, 
 who had spoken against a bare outward Church 
 formalism ^ These imputations in part refuted 
 themselves, in part did not need refutation ; he 
 was cleared of all error of moment by subsequent 
 divines of his own Church^; and his own valuable 
 
 speaks of his " eruditio plane singularis et arcana etiam in par- 
 tibus doctrinee Theologiam non concernentibus." The source of 
 the accusation was, that he did not employ it in the same osten- 
 tatious and unedifying manner which was usual in the sermons of 
 the time. (See Schrbckh, ib. 464.) 
 
 ^ In his " Theologisches Bedenken und Christlich treu-herzig 
 Erinnerung, welcher Gestalt Arndt's wahres Christenthum nach 
 Anleitung des Heiligen Worts zu betrachten sey." 1623. Weis- 
 mann, however, mentions, that he is said to liave retracted at 
 the approach of death, (ib. 1176.) 
 
 ^ Mosheim, c. 17. 11. 2. 1. 39. Weismann, 1. c. 
 
 ^ Vater, p. 258 — 9. Weism. (p. 1177), as well as others ap. 
 Budd. 613, doubts not that he conferred a benefit on the Church 
 by extracting and combining with Scripture what was really solid 
 and useful in the mystic or practical authors. 
 
 * Besides others who vindicated him, among whom was the 
 
56 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 work has, in better times, produced far more than 
 a mere negative testimony. His principal imme- 
 diate influence, however, seems to have been 
 among the laity ^ : upon the system of the German 
 Church he acted most extensively through the 
 formation of the mind of Spener, whose character 
 was principally framed by the early study of 
 Arndt's " True Christianity V in combination with 
 two English works. 
 
 The thirty last years, however, of the half-cen- 
 tury, which intervened between the death of 
 Arndt and the commencement of Spener's public 
 exertions, witnessed an attack upon the system on 
 the scientific side, which, however its immediate 
 operation was annihilated by the heat of the par- 
 ties, prepared for its subsequent downfal by lead- 
 ing to historical enquiry, to a better scriptural in- 
 terpretation, and to a more practical view of con- 
 troversy. 
 
 valuable J. Gerhard, who regarded him as a second parent, 
 (Weisra. 1177) the praise of the otherwise bigoted Hulsemann, 
 the bitter opponent of Calixtus, of Dannhauer, (at first prejudiced 
 against Luther as well as against Arndt,) and of M. Geier, who 
 attributes to his work his own real Christianity, will be above sus- 
 picion of undue attachment. (Weism., ib. cp. Budd. 614.) 
 
 ' Two highly-gifted authors, however, were formed by him ; 
 Scriver (Superintendant at Magdeburg, died at Quedlinburg, 
 1693, as first court-preacher,) whose Seelenschatz, or Consi- 
 derations on Doctrine and Morals, was one of the most valued 
 edifying books of the time: (Schrockh, B. 42. p. 87.) and H. 
 Midler of Rostock, already mentioned. 
 
 ^ Spener mentions that Arndt was the only modern besides 
 Luther, whom he quoted by name in his preaching, (ap. Weism. 
 1192.) 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 57 
 
 Nearly coincident with the conckision of the 
 unequalled horrors of the thirty years' war, (a 
 war whose length and miseries might long before 
 have been closed but for the disunion of the two 
 Protestant parties, and the jealousy of a Lu- 
 theran court-preacher and adviser of Joh. George 
 I. of Saxony '), was the signal for the Syncretis- 
 
 ' The principles expressed on this occasion, alone, entitle it to 
 notice. M. Hoe von Hoenegg, the individual in question, per- 
 suaded his patron, that " an union with the Papists was better 
 and safer than one with the reformed," (Leyser Bedenken daruber 
 von Hoe herausgeg, 1619. &c. ap. Henke, iii. 487.) and that Bo- 
 hemia " should not be exposed to be devoured by the Calvinistic 
 Antichrist;" (Hoe's letter in Unschuld. Nachr. (1714.) S. 39. 
 ap. Henke, ibid.) which confirms the statement of the experienced 
 Cardinal Bentivoglio, (many years employed by Rome in Flan- 
 ders and France,) that the Lutherans were more disinclined 
 to the Reformed than to the Romanists. (Lettres de Ben- 
 tivoglio, p. 42.) Hoe, though moderated by the necessities of 
 the times during the conference of Leipzig, (1631), resumed 
 his former tone when hopes of a separate Lutheran peace re- 
 appeared, wrote against a hundred points, in which the Re- 
 formed held erroneous, nay, Arian opinions, (Unvermeidl. Ret- 
 tung wider das Oraculum Dodonaeum, &c. 1635), and dis- 
 suaded from every effort to procure their religious freedom. (Henk. 
 ib. 491.) The Reformed, as their theology remained free from 
 formularism to a much later period than that of the Lutherans, 
 and unbelief found consequently a much slower access among 
 them, so were they throughout more tolerant. Public recon- 
 ciliation was never hindered by them ; private polemics were but 
 seldom bitter. Besides the resolution of the famous Synod of 
 Charenton (1631), the conference of Cassel (1661) was approved 
 of by the most distinguished theologians even of die Dutch 
 Church; (see authorities ap. Henk. iv. 276.) and at the very time 
 that Hoe was making the above exertions, Parcus wrote to pro-i 
 luote the concord of the two churches, met, however, with rcfu- 
 
58 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 tic * controversy given by Buscher in his work 
 
 tations only from the Lutherans. (Henk. 3. 485; Schrockh, 40. 
 194.) The name of Evangelical was denied them, (Wittenb. 
 Bedenken, ap. Henk. 4. 279.) The conference of Cassel was 
 condemned by most Lutherans, by some as a conspiracy to be- 
 tray the truth to apostasy and ungodliness, (Henke, ib. 277-9.) 
 though it asserted only, that the difference of the two churches 
 did not affect the foundation of faith nor salvation, (ib. 275.) 
 In the same spirit they had rejected the proposals for peace from 
 the Synod of Lissa (1645) as treacherous ; (Consil. theol.Witteb. 
 i. 527) and in conformity to the response of the University of 
 Wittenberg, refused, at the ensuing conference with the Roman- 
 ists at Thorn, to unite in worship with the Reformed. (Henke, 
 ib. 257, 8.) In Brandenburg, the so called Nominal-Elenchus, 
 or the preaching by name against the characteristic doctrines of 
 the Reformed, was held part of the duty of the clergy; (ib. 279.) 
 and many of them abandoned their functions and their land sooner 
 than comply with the moderate requisition of the wise and excel- 
 lent Elector, Frederic William the Great, that both parties should 
 abstain from invidious deductions from the Confessions of the 
 other, &c. ; and that the Exorcism at Baptism should be omitted, 
 when requested by both parents, (see ap. Henk. 280, 1.) Among 
 these zealots one regrets to see Paul Gerhard, the author of the 
 most beautiful and pious hymns in the German Church. To close 
 these painful instances, in Swedish Pomerania, where were no Re- 
 formed, an order from the local authorities, suspending declama- 
 tions against them, and erasing from the Liturgy the petition, 
 " Repress the Turks, Papists, and Calvinists," was annulled by 
 application to Stockholm ; and the intermarriage of a Lutheran 
 with a Reformed declared inadmissible, (more such cases in Bal- 
 thasar von d. Eifer d. Pommern gegen d. Reformirten ap. Henk. 
 ib. 283.) Some knowledge of the relation of the two churches is 
 necessary both to understand the vehemence of the opposition to 
 Calixtus, and as one specimen of the state of polemics in the 
 Lutheran Church. 
 
 ^ An invidious meaning was given to the term Syncretism by 
 means of a false etymology, as if its promoters wished for a mix- 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 59 
 
 against Calixtus ; " Crypto-Papismus novae theolo- 
 gian Helmstadiensis." (1639.) Seldom has any one 
 been so much misunderstood, partly perhaps from 
 his own unguardedness ^ but principally from the 
 passions of his opponents, as this great and penetra- 
 ting man. Incidental expressions in works, of which 
 the substance alone ^ was his, were caught up and 
 imputed as heresies; real positions^ perverted, 
 and made to bear upon some existing or extinct 
 heresy ; his anxiety to promote Christian charity 
 converted into indifferentism. Though his office 
 
 ture of religions. It implied the reverse ; for it was used, in its 
 original sense, of union in a great common object notiuithstand- 
 ing existing differences, having been first employed by Greek 
 authors, of similar conduct in the " CretansJ' 
 
 ^ See Weism. p. 1195. §. 3. Possessed of great talent, and 
 taking comprehensive views, he was not aware until too late 
 that every expression would be thus sifted. 
 
 ^ This was the case with most of his works : among them the 
 Epitome Theologiae was published, from his lectures, unrevised, 
 and without his knowledge. In this occurred once, and once 
 only, the expression, that " God could only be called indirectly, 
 improperly, and per accidens the cause of sin ;" alluding to the 
 passages in which God is said to harden men's hearts. An im- 
 pious sense was given to the phrase, whereas it implies, that God 
 cannot, in any proper sense, be called the author of sin, (See 
 Weism. ib. p. 1260.) 
 
 * Much occasion of offence was, for instance, taken at his 
 allowing to the fathers of the five first centuries a secondary au- 
 thority in fundamental articles of faith. This, which in fact in 
 no respect differed from the practice of all Protestant writers, 
 who have uniformly referred to the agreement of the early fathers, 
 as witnesses of the primitive faith, was imputed to him as involv- 
 ing the Romanist error of setting human authority co-ordinate 
 with Scripture. (See Weism. ibid. p. 1195, 6.) 
 
GO CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 as teacher of theology was conferred upon him for 
 his success in controversy with a Romanist \ and 
 though by one of themselves^ he is named as 
 their ablest antagonist, his Lutheran brethren 
 charged him with secretly favouring them ; though 
 he wrote against the distinguishing doctrines of 
 the Reformed, and even represented them to be 
 self-contradictory ^ he was accounted to belong 
 to them; Arianism and Judaism* were imputed 
 
 ' The Jesuit Aug. Turrianus had nearly effected the conversiou 
 of a young nobleman of Brunswick, but withdrew after one day's 
 conference with Calixtus. Calixtus was then twenty-seven. 
 Schrbckh, 39. 690,1. 
 
 ^ Bossuet Traite de la Communion sous les 2 especes, p. 1. 
 §. 62. p. 12. Calixtus' works immediately upon this subject were, 
 those on the Sacrifice of the Mass, on the Infallibility of the Pope, 
 on the Marriage of the Clergy, (a treatise of considerable historical 
 research, and the first upon the subject), and especially the Di- 
 gressio, qua excutitur nova ars Bart. Nihusii, written upon the 
 sophistical position then popular among French theologians, that 
 the Catholics, by right of prescription, had no occasion to prove 
 their doctrines, but that the Protestants, as plaintiffs, must dis- 
 prove ihem, and that from the simple words of Scripture without 
 inferences. This, however, was by no means the sole subject 
 of the work, it gave occasion to lay down general principles 
 proving the unjustified introduction of several of the distinguish- 
 ing Romanist doctrines, &c. 
 
 ^ Disput. xi. de Coena Domini, p. 247, sq. and more generally 
 in the Annott. et Animadvr. in Confessionem Reform. Thorunii 
 in CoUoquio A. 1645 oblatam, &c. 16.55. 
 
 * These charges were brought by Weller, " Teutsche Probe." 
 Scharff of Wittenberg imputed to him enormous errors against 
 the Trinity, and almost Photinianism ; and so others. (Weism. ib. 
 1096,7.) In the same spirit Reinboth was accused of an ap- 
 proximation to Socinianism and Atheism, for holding that the 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. Gl 
 
 to him, because he thought that the doctmie of 
 the Trinity was not revealed with equal clearness 
 in the Old as in the New Testament; nor was, 
 under the old dispensation, necessary to salvation. 
 Such, however, and others, though the subjects, 
 were not the ground of attack; they were the 
 channels in which it flowed, the stream which 
 filled them was his supposed indifference to the 
 distinguishing doctrines of Lutheranism. It would 
 now scarcely appear credible that this charge of 
 indifferentism arose, not in any of the attempts, 
 which have been renewed from time to time in 
 every country, to unite different confessions ; (this 
 Calixtus thought then impossible, or at least dis- 
 tinctly stated, that he did not aim ^ ;) but in the 
 endeavour to revive a mutual Christian feeling, 
 by recalling to mind, that, however important the 
 points of disagreement, still both Lutheran and 
 Reformed, nay, the Romanist, held all the doctrines 
 necessary to Salvation. Beyond this Calixtus did 
 not go ; he shewed by his writings and by his ac- 
 tions his value for the Lutheran doctrine ; but he 
 did wish, that amid this diversity the ground of 
 unity should not be forgotten ; that, amid the 
 names of Lutheran, Reformed, and Romanist, that 
 of Christian should not be obliterated ; nor in his 
 very widest assertion, that all doctrines necessary 
 
 doctrine of the Procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son was. 
 not a necessary article, nor prescribed in the ancient Creeds. 
 Henk. iv. 264. 
 
 ' See Schrockh, 704, sq. VVeism. ib. 1203. sq. 
 
62 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 to salvation are contained in the Apostles' Creed, 
 (however in shallower minds such a maxim may 
 at different times have been a cloak for indiffer- 
 entism) was there any undervaluing of the main 
 Christian doctrines ; since it was evidently not a 
 mere abstract belief in the Father, Son, and Holy 
 Spirit, but that of the doctrines therein involved, 
 which he understood. This meaning he has him- 
 self sufficiently explained \ The conference at 
 Thorn, between the two Protestant bodies and 
 the Romanist Church, where his presence as co- 
 adjutor of the Reformed delegates, at the request 
 of the Elector of Brandenburg, gave ground to 
 lasting offence, had in view only the same general 
 object, that a better acquaintance with each 
 other's principles might diminish the bitterness 
 of discord ^ Half the evils of controversy would 
 indeed cease, did the mass of each party derive 
 their knowledge of the tenets of their opponents 
 from any other source than the refutations on 
 their own side. Calixtus promised the same as- 
 sistance to some of the Lutheran delegates, but 
 
 ' Calixtus' meaning is clear from other passages, where he ex- 
 presses the same sentiment in different language, as, that all a 
 Christian need believe in order to salvation was contained in the 
 ancient creeds and decisions of the councils ; that whoever agreed 
 with these doctrines of the ancient Church, he was in heart united 
 with him, &c. (Digress, de arte nova, p. 462, sq. ap. Schrockh, 
 39. 697.) See especially the principles developed in the De To- 
 lerantia Reformator. 
 
 * The points of controversy were in this conference neither to 
 be attacked nor defended, but to be explained; the word " dis- 
 
CHARACTER OP THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 63 
 
 was, by means of others, rejected ^ In this Chris- 
 tian career he was acting on the principles and 
 according to the oath of the professors of his Uni- 
 versity to promote Christian peace ^, and, from 
 his personal knowledge of the character of the 
 different confessions in various countries ^ his 
 mind became alive to the existence of the same 
 great doctrines in all, to which his contemporaries 
 had been deadened by exclusive attention to 
 points of controversy. The endless struggles in 
 
 pute" was not to be used ; it was to be a fraterna collatio, a 
 colloquium charitativum. It had also the result, that the Re- 
 formed Church, especially that of Brandenburg, did here form 
 the Confession, called, from the conference, that of Thorn. 
 (Schrockh, 39. 509—12. Henk. iv. 256-9.) After this confer- 
 ence many of the orthodox party ceased to regard Calixtus as 
 an evangelical teacher. (Schrockh 39. 702, fg.) 
 
 ^ Schrockh, 39. 703. 
 
 ^ Mosh. c. 17. ii. 2. § 21. Weismann says that Helmstadt had 
 always exerted a greater freedom of opinion than other Univer- 
 sities, which accordingly denied to its theologians the character 
 of pure and genuine Lutherans, contrary to their own protesta^ 
 tions. The non-reception of the Formula of Concord seems in 
 part to have contributed to this difference ; the doctrine of the 
 ubiquity of Christ's body, whose rejection appeared to the Luthe- 
 rans of that formula to involve an approximation to the Re- 
 formed doctrine, was not only not admitted, but expressly set 
 aside by Luther in one of his later works, (quoted by Cahxtus 
 de Tolerantia Reformator. ap. Schrockh. 39. 497.) 
 
 ^ He studied the practical character of the reformed confession 
 in Holland, in England, (where he derived much benefit from 
 Casaubon, and his attention was directed to the study of the fa- 
 thers by the English bishops), and in France. At Colin, where 
 practical Romanism was most fully exhibited, he employed six 
 months. (See his life in Schrockh, 39. 689-91.) 
 6 
 
64 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 which Calixtus became involved, prevented his 
 giving a better direction to theological study by 
 the complete digestion of his own comprehensive 
 views, and limited his immediate influence nearly 
 to the countries where the Formula of Concord 
 had not been introduced ^ ; yet many of his opi- 
 nions produced enquiry^; historical investiga- 
 
 ^ Such as Holstein, Brunswick, and part of Hesse Nurnberg, 
 The whole University of Helmstadt coincided with CaUxtus ; 
 among whose members Conring, the most distinguished and most 
 variously cultivated of the learned of his country, (Schrockh, ib. 
 707) through his influence with different princes, by whom he 
 was constantly consulted, was enabled to remove many of the 
 imputations circulated against him. The duchess Anna Sophia 
 procured admission for theologians of his school into Branden- 
 burg, (see authorities ap. Henke, iv. 271-3.) In Saxony, on the 
 contrary, among other places, no one who had studied at Helm- 
 stadt was preferred, without abjuring the so-called Calixtian 
 principles. (Answer oi Fred. Will, of Brand, ap. Henk. ib. 280.) 
 Among other attempts of a similar character, most worthy of no- 
 tice is that of Calov, who endeavoured, by means of a new symbo- 
 lical book, to exclude the Calixtians from the Lutheran Church 
 and the rehgious peace. (See Weism. ib. 1205-6. Henke, iv. 268.) 
 Even in Kbnigsberg, where they were protected by the Elector 
 of Brandenburg, all the influence of his disciples was destroyed 
 by the vehement opposition of Mislenta, popular tumult excited, 
 and even an honourable burial refused to M. Behm, who would 
 not unite in decrying them. (Hartknoch Preuss. Kirchenh. 
 S. 609. ff. and others ap. Weism. ib. 1205. Henk. iv. 268-9.) 
 
 * His view, for instance, on the Revelation of the doctrine of the 
 Trinity in the Old Testament, and on the supposed necessity of its 
 being believed under the former dispensation, led naturally to in- 
 quiry into the now almost obliterated distinction of the two cove- 
 nants, and into the gradual character of revelation ; the limitation 
 which he introduced into the doctrine of inspiration, confining it 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 65 
 
 tion ' and a sounder scriptural interpretation 
 commenced, through his example, instruction, or 
 principles ; his fragment on the study of theology 
 contained and illustrated his valuable and large 
 views on the nature of the necessary preliminary ^ 
 acquirements, as well as on the compass and order 
 of the different branches of the science itself; and 
 in the separation of essentials from non-essentials, 
 his warnings against needless controversy, and 
 his opposition to a dead faith ^ he directly pre- 
 
 to the essentials of religion, and admitting the existence of minor 
 errors of transcription, must tend to a simplification of the exist- 
 ing theory ; his exclusion of the doctrines of universal religion 
 from the sum of Christian truths, would naturally lead to more 
 defined ideas on Revelation, &c. &c. (See Schrockh, ib. 706.) 
 
 ^ To this Calixtus contributed theoretically by the sketch in 
 the Apparatus Theologicus (in which there occurs an expression, 
 very remarkable for those times, that " without the knowledge of 
 ecclesiastical history, no theologian deserves the name," see the 
 Epitome of the Fragment, in Schrockh, ib. 400-2.) and practi- 
 cally, by his own example in his different controversial works, 
 which communicated itself to his scholars and disciples. (See 
 Henke, ib. 255.) This historical character of the school, as far as 
 its influence extended, weakened the dominion of formularism. 
 
 2 His own Commentaries were indeed very imperfectly pub- 
 lished, yet his Apparatus Theolog. shews at large the combined 
 service of philology and philosophy in biblical interpretation ; and 
 Hackspan, one of the best commentators of the age, was his 
 disciple. 
 
 ' To this place belongs the controversy " whether good works 
 were necessary to salvation," for maintaining which his colleague 
 Horneius was termed Papist, Majorist, Anabaptist, and severely 
 condemned by Wittenberg, Jena, and Leipzig. Calixtus, to 
 avoid ambiguity or offence, employed other terms ; yet because 
 he urged as a motive to chastity, (in his Historia Josephi) that 
 
 F 
 
6G CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 pared the way for the exertions of Spener. Re- 
 markable is it also, in proof of the ill effects of the 
 existing controversies, that the persons, who in 
 this century most promoted the advance of theo- 
 logical science, were either pupils of Calixtus, or 
 of the same uncontentious disposition \ 
 
 The present controversy was estimated by men 
 of high talent ^ entirely unconnected with party ; 
 
 salvation might be endangered by the contrary sins, this exhorta- 
 tion was converted into the position that chastity, (and thus good 
 works,) were necessary to salvation, and the same imaginary 
 heresies supposed to be involved. (Weism. ib. 1198, 9.) 
 
 * Among the former may be mentioned the celebrated Hack- 
 span, Durr, (the first expander of the science of Christian moral) 
 and the elder Fabricius ; among the latter John Gerhard, (whom 
 Bossuet calls " le troisieme homme de la Reformation apr^s 
 Luther and Chemnice," Hist, des Var. T. 2, p, 455.) and to 
 whom Du Pin preferred Melanchthon alone, (Biblioth. des. 
 Auteurs separes de la Coram, de I'Eglise Rom. T. ii. p. 74, sqq.) 
 but who was frivolously depreciated by many Lutheran contem- 
 poraries, (Schrockh, ib. 443. ; Budd. Isag. i. p. 353, sq.; Weism. 
 ib. 1127.) Tarnov, Glassius, M. Geier, Sagittarius, Kortholt, 
 S. Schmidt, Reuchlin ; of the same spirit were the few, who 
 presented striking exceptions to the decayed and lifeless system 
 of preaching, — Arndt, J. V. Andrea, Herberger, — and of the 
 learned theologians, J. Gerhard and Glassius. (See Schrockh, 
 ib. 464 — 9 ; on J. V. Andrea there is a very interesting Memoir 
 in Weism. ib. 1131—8.) 
 
 "^ These were the celebrated Glassius and Musaeus. The opinion, 
 which the former was commissioned by Ernest the Pious of 
 Saxe Gotha to deliver on the points of controversy, was pub- 
 lished after his death ; and is " almost the only work (says 
 Schrockh, 43. 250.) which furnishes a correct and moderate 
 estimate of the controversy." Musseus, first in his lectures, esti- 
 mated candidly the meaning of the expressions upon which the 
 charges against the Calixtians were founded, (Weism. p. 1206.) 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 67 
 
 these virtually acquitted Calixtus ; the only effect, 
 however, of their candour was, to divert the con- 
 test in part against themselves ; it was continued 
 against the younger Calixtus, who possessed nei- 
 ther the talents, the learning, nor the temper of 
 his father, and had degenerated into mere mutual 
 revilings, before it sunk in the deeper interest of 
 that with Spener and his followers. 
 
 Spener's endowments, (though he was possessed 
 of considerable learning ^) were rather of a moral 
 and religious, than of a high intellectual nature. 
 
 and was consequently charged by a disciple of Calov with 93 
 errors in the most essential doctrines ; (Schrockh, ib. 251.) as 
 those of Calixtus had varied from 80 to 120. (Schrockh, 39. 706.) 
 These he refuted point by point, satisfactorily shewing their vexa- 
 tiousness, and the danger which resulted to the Church from this 
 wanton multiplication of controversy. (Weism. p. 1207.) Calov 
 after Calixtus' death, refused to use the term " beatus C," 
 alleging that he must on the same ground speak of B. Bellar- 
 mine, B. Calvinus, B. Socinus, &c. (Weism. p. 1148.) and at 
 Wittenberg, in a dramatic piece, Calixtus was represented as a 
 fiend with horns and claws, (quoted by Henk. iv. 271.) 
 
 ^ Early intended for the pastoral office, he studied principally 
 at Strasburg and Basle under Seb. Schmidt, (the best Scripture 
 expositor of his time, and whose works are even now useful) 
 Dennhauer and Buxtorf, Hebrew and other Oriental languages, 
 history, and especially the interpretation of Scripture. His inti- 
 mate study of Grotius' treatise De Bello et Pace, his being the 
 author of the first considerable treatise on heraldry, (of which two 
 editions were published,) and his delivery of lectures and holding 
 disputations at Strasburg and Basle on geography and history, 
 logic, and metaphysics, are indications of a more extensive know- 
 ledge not confined merely to actual theology, (see Schrockh, 
 B. 43, S. 256. Canstein Leben Speners, §. 4, 5.) Still his best 
 powers were given to theology, and much more to religion. 
 
 F 2 
 
68 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 Even his sermons owed their attractions solely to 
 their pure biblical and practical character. Those 
 among his qualifications which approached most 
 nearly to gifts of nature, a sound judgment^, and 
 a practical intuitive insight into the point upon 
 which each question turned, were in him moral 
 qualities. Through these endowments principally, 
 combined with his own religious experience and 
 his study of the history of the Church, he was 
 enabled to see precisely what were the defects in 
 its then state ; his piety and religious zeal, sup- 
 plied without pretension, in the regular perform- 
 ance of his functions, an example of the remedy 
 for those defects. On these two points, then, 
 turns the extensive, though from external cir- 
 cumstances still inadequate, reformation, which 
 he was enabled to effect. He did not claim for 
 himself the character of a reformer, and was 
 perhaps on that very account, in those turbulent 
 and intolerant times, the more calculated to be 
 one. Too fully penetrated with the importance 
 of the truths, whose neglect he deplored, in the 
 slightest degree to compromise them for an un- 
 sound peace, yet was his manner of stating them 
 conciliating and mild ; confiding in the power 
 of those truths, when stated, to make themselves 
 acknowledged and felt, he withheld as much as 
 possible his own individuality from mingling with 
 them ; he lived, as long as his opponents permitted 
 him, for the discharge of his own duties alone, 
 
 ' Leben Sp. S. 38, 9. 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 69 
 
 trusting that either the fruits of their right dis- 
 charge might kindle others to like exertions, or 
 that God would raise up others, who might carry 
 into effect upon a more extensive scale that 
 reform, whose necessity he proclaimed, but in 
 which he himself was content to act a subordinate 
 part. The alarm and jealousy were thus avoided, 
 which might have resulted from bolder and 
 more direct attempts. The princes of Germany 
 valued and favoured him '. Enemies he had, 
 from envy, from the unpalatableness of the truths 
 which he promulgated, from his undervaluing the 
 mere intellectual orthodoxism of his day, from his 
 discovering that among the many things, on the 
 laborious acquisition of which the orthodox theo- 
 logians prided themselves, the one thing needful 
 had been forgotten ; but no one became Spener's 
 enemy from any presumption or failing of his 
 own. The following extract from a private letter^ 
 to a friend gives much insight into the Christian 
 
 ' Witness his first unsolicited invitation to Dresden as first 
 court preacher; and that subsequently to Berlin, when the displea- 
 sure of the Elector of Saxony at the earnestness of his preaching 
 had emboldened his antagonists, and made his office painful; the 
 confidence of the Elector of Brandenburg in entrusting to him 
 all the theological appointments of the newly-erected University 
 at Halle, (Schrockh, ib. 271.) and the invitation to resume his 
 office at Dresden, (1698), at the very time that the divines of 
 Saxony were declaiming against his deviations from the doctrines 
 and constitution of the Evangelical Church. (Ibid. p. 282.) 
 
 * Published at Halle three years after his death, in the collec- 
 tion of his occasional writings and letters, entitled Thcologische 
 Bedenken, 32 Th. S. 305. (1708). This and the following ex- 
 tract are quoted by Schrockh, B. 43, S. 264. 
 
70 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 mildness and humility of Spener's character, as 
 well as into the principles upon which he acted. 
 " To set myself up as a reformer of the Church 
 were a folly, which I do not allow myself to 
 entertain ; I know sufficiently my own weakness, 
 that I have received neither the wisdom nor 
 strength for such a task. Let me then be con- 
 tented to be numbered among the voices which 
 encourage those to work a reformation, whom the 
 Lord may have endowed with the ability thereto. 
 For such a work then I need no followers, nor to 
 draw others to me. Yet neither am I required 
 to break with those Theologians, of whom I may 
 either myself think and hope well, or who at least 
 do not openly oppose the truth. Rather is it my 
 aim to retain their good feelings in any way 
 which is not contrary to my conscience ; whether 
 that their coinciding with me may make my own 
 work succeed better, or that they may be thereby 
 encouraged to a more diligent discharge of their 
 office, or that they may not be seduced wickedly 
 to oppose the Christian intentions of others. 
 All which ends are in conformity with the glory 
 of God. On the other hand I see not how 
 it could be justifiable, wantonly to drive such 
 needlessly to oppose themselves." Nor was this 
 feeling of his own insufficiency momentary; it 
 is expressed yet more fully, and therefore with 
 more evident humility, in a letter to another 
 friend, (1678) \ " I know well not only that the 
 work of Reforniation is not the v\^ork of one man, 
 
 ^ Schrockh, ib, S. 226. 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 71 
 
 but that, whatever may be the purpose of the 
 Lord towards his Church, I shall neither be the 
 chief agent, nor one of the chief; since lie has 
 not bestowed upon me the talents thereto. More 
 honour already than I deserve is it that my 
 God has so far blessed my " pia desideria," that 
 they have sounded sufficiently loud to awaken 
 and encourage many, — not to learn of me, but to 
 reflect further on the subject according to the 
 powers which they have from God." Of his in- 
 adequacy, which he here mentions in general terms, 
 he assigns the grounds in another letter. " I find 
 in myself a want of erudition and of natural qua- 
 lifications, deficiencies which I observe in the 
 execution of my functions, so that I am ashamed 
 of being so little able to help myself. How then 
 would it be, were I to undertake a thing so great? 
 Especially am I deficient in the power of the 
 Spirit from above, which is, alas! very weak; 
 and my natural timidity even in small matters is 
 difficult to overcome; nor can I do any thing 
 which requires a truly heroic courage, but if the 
 Lord of our Church design yet more to bless it, 
 so that besides possessing true doctrine it should 
 be brought generally into a sound condition, the 
 agents must be very different from me and such 
 as me." The agency of Spener, then, principally 
 arose from the influence of his example, in the 
 restoration of a more instructive and influential 
 mode of preaching and of catechizing, and in the 
 institution of those Unions for the promotion of 
 piety and of Christian knowledge, which received 
 the title of Collegia Pietatis ; from his writings. 
 
72 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 and from the communication of the same spirit to 
 others, especially to the Theologians of Halle. 
 
 The previous state of the pulpit has been 
 already described. The evil was too universal 
 to be felt. There was not light sufficient to make 
 the darkness visible. Spener's reform commenced 
 in the omission of the superfluous parade of dry 
 learning, of unpractical controversy, of self-dis- 
 play, and of the cramped mechanism of the 
 Arrangements. His preaching was a simple but 
 energetic developement and application of the 
 Gospel. It is indeed no slight proof of the 
 dominion of controversy in preaching, that in 
 one of his earliest sermons, (1667) ' on the neces- 
 sary precautions against false prophets,' even he 
 gave offence by including the Reformed among 
 them \ The error was not repeated. Nor is the 
 sensation excited by one, shortly subsequent, " on 
 the false and insufficient righteousness of the 
 Pharisees," in which he developed the incorrect 
 ideas of many Christians on virtue and holiness, 
 as if these consisted in the mere avoiding of 
 gross vices, less a proof of the necessities of his 
 times. Many there lirst learnt the insufficiency 
 of unfruitful faith without amendment of the 
 heart ; some, unwilling to have their imagined 
 security disturbed, refused again to enter his 
 church^. Spener indeed did not cultivate one 
 portion alone of the Christian system ; he did 
 not dwell exclusively on favourite doctrines, but 
 
 * Schrbckli, ib. 262. Spener retained his regrets for this 
 action even in his lust siekuess. (Lcben S. 138.) 
 ^ JSchiockh, 1. c. 
 
CHARACTER OF GERMAN THEOLOGY. 73 
 
 proposed the whole of Christianity. His three 
 years' courses of sermons ' contain severally. Gos- 
 pel doctrine, Gospel duty, the consolations of 
 Gospel faith. In the second especially, he taught 
 not merely, as inexperienced moral teachers, that 
 the duties were to be performed, but how ; what 
 facilitated, advanced, or hindered them^. Spe- 
 ner's anxiety to render belief practical is further 
 evinced by his venturing to omit assertions, which 
 were abused by fleshly mindedness and indolence, 
 but to the letter of which an indiscriminating 
 Orthodoxy clung ; such as that " No one can at- 
 tain to the perfection which the divine law re- 
 quires :" " in the act of justification, on the part 
 of man, faith alone is concerned without good 
 works," and by the revival of the often contested 
 doctrine, that " good works are necessary to sal- 
 vation*'." It was, namely, one of Spener's main 
 objects to remove the confidence in the dead faith, 
 which the series of controversies had fostered \ 
 The publication of these sermons, aided by Spe- 
 ner's living example, formed a new era in Chris- 
 tian preaching ; the causes of the unfruitfulness 
 of the former method became thus manifest : the 
 
 * They were published while Spener was at Dresden, 1688. 
 
 * Schuler. 1. c. S. 22. %. Allgemeine Biographic, Th. 6, S.319. 
 fg. 417, fg. ap. Schrbckh, B. 43. S. 163. 
 
 ' Mosheim, C. 17, P. 2, S. 2. c. 1. § 31. Not however that 
 Spener held that justificatfbn was other than the free gift of God, 
 but that good works as the fruits of faith were contained in it. 
 
 * See Loscher, one of Spener's bitterest antagonists, as quoted 
 by Schrockh, B. 43, S. 289. 
 
74 CAUSES OP THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 widest sphere however was opened to the pure 
 biblical instruction of Spener, when theoretically 
 as well as practically inculcated and exemplified 
 by the first theologians of Halle, who united the 
 offices of Professors and of Christian Ministers. 
 
 The defects of the catechetical system have 
 been already noticed. Spener aimed at, and suc- 
 ceeded in, restoring the sense of its importance, 
 which had been felt by every class even of the 
 earliest Reformers \ and had been earnestly in- 
 culcated by Luther, and in giving it a more in- 
 structive and practical character. The first he 
 effected by undertaking its duties himself, when 
 his high station in the Church did not make it a 
 part of his office ; (both as Senior of the Evange- 
 lical Ministerium at Frankfort, and as first court- 
 preacher and member of the Upper Consistory at 
 Dresden, whence in the latter office he could 
 more effectually further it in others.) In both 
 places he infused so much interest into his in- 
 structions, that even grown persons gladly availed 
 themselves of them^. To the improvement of 
 
 * It is interesting and singular to see the practice independently 
 revived by the Vaudois, by WickhfFe, and by Huss, after it had been 
 nearly obUterated since the sixth century : (Budd. ib. 334, sqq.) 
 and the circumstance adds to the proof, that Protestantism had 
 its rise in the rehgious wants of Christians, not in intellectual 
 difficulties, or in the much-praised scientific advancement of the 
 age. Science aided indeed the Reformation, but was not its 
 source; it can, and has as much perhaps assisted Romanism. 
 Erasmus was more learned than any of the Reformers, yet was 
 not himself one. 
 
 2 Schr5ckh, ib. 151, fgg. 
 
CHARACTER OF GERMAN THEOLOGY. 75 
 
 the mode of catechising he contributed princi- 
 pally by his " simple explanation of Christian 
 doctrine according to the order of [[Luther's^ 
 lesser catechism;" (1677.) a full and clear expo- 
 sition of the sum of Christian faith, in reference 
 to Christian life, with well-selected scriptural 
 proofs \ His object in this work was to give a 
 specimen how unpractised Christians might be 
 taught, not by a mere mechanical exertion of the 
 memory, but by developing their newly-acquired 
 knowledge in their own language. He warned 
 consequently against any mere adoption of his 
 own model ; he added tables, explanatory of his 
 method, the more clearly to shew how little a 
 mere adoption, or servile imitation, was neces- 
 sary". The science of catechetical instruction, 
 which has since been expanded, owes its existence 
 to this work of Spener's. Immediately connected 
 with this improvement of elementary instruction 
 was his revival of the rite of confirmation, whose 
 solemnity and influence in the German Church 
 now far exceeds that generally observable in our 
 own ; but which, until Spener, had sunk into 
 neglect, as a supposed remnant of Popery ^ 
 
 Spener's widest influence, however, was derived 
 from the institution of the much-questioned " col- 
 legia pietatis." The object of these at their first 
 commencement, was to expand, explain, and ap- 
 ply the discourse of the preceding Sunday. He 
 
 * See Budd. ib. 336. 
 ' Schrockh, ib. 
 " Henke, iv. 519. 
 
76 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 had felt, in common probably with every prac- 
 tical minister, the inadequacy of any instruction, 
 in which the people were mere recipients, either 
 in imparting religious knowledge, or in giving an 
 individual effect to what was delivered generally. 
 In these meetings, which were commenced with 
 prayer, part of the sermon was repeated, ques- 
 tions were asked by Spener to ascertain how far 
 it had been understood, or proposed to him by 
 any of the men present, not to satisfy curiosity, 
 but to promote practical piety. These meetings 
 continued to be conducted upon the same prin- 
 ciples, when a passage of Scripture was laid as the 
 basis instead of the sermon \ The free commu- 
 nication and the knowledge of the wants of the 
 congregation re-acted upon the usefulness of the 
 pulpit. These meetings were approved of by his 
 colleagues, were in conformity with the symboli- 
 cal books, praised by the Universities, and consult- 
 ed even by Ben. Carpzov, who was subsequently, 
 from envy, the great enemy ' of Spener. In the 
 Articles of Smalcald (III Th. Art. 4.) it is said, 
 
 • Schrockh, ib. S. 257. 
 
 ^ Carpzov's subsequent enmity arose in the disappointment of 
 his expectation that the office at Dresden, which was given to 
 Spener, should have been filled by himself or his brother. (Leben 
 Sp. S. 118.) His brother actually was the successor of Spener. 
 (Vater, 368.) This inconsistency, which Calovius shared with most 
 of Spener's opponents, was excused by the idle distinction of a 
 ' Spener prior et posterior,' though Spener continued to act uni- 
 formly to the end, and all his plans of reformation had been already 
 developed. (Niemeyer die Universitat Halle nach Ihrem Einfluss 
 auf gelehrte u. prakt. Theol. S. 32.) 
 
CHARACTER OF GERMAN THEOLOGY. 77 
 
 " Brotherly conferences out of the word of God, 
 among the people, are a valuable aid to Christian 
 advancement :" and B. Carpzov declared, with 
 reference to these times, " The advantages of 
 these meetings cannot be told, especially when 
 the hearers thus communicate with their teach- 
 ers ; for unquestionably a common man learns 
 more from one such meeting, than from ten ser- 
 mons '." The example thus given speedily spread ; 
 similar meetings were instituted in other places, 
 as Essen, Augsburg, Schweinfurt, Giessen, &c. ; 
 and though, in the place of their original institu- 
 tion, misrepresentation diminished their influ- 
 ence ^ in others they may have been inconsider- 
 
 ' In his " Auserlesene Tugendspruche." Another passage is 
 adduced by Lange Antibarb. T. 1 1. p. 171. " This wish of those 
 enlightened and celebrated theologians, Dannhauer and Dors- 
 cheus, a zealous divine, (whom may God long continue to his 
 Church) has not only very earnestly urged in his Pia Desi- 
 deria, but has even shewn how Collegia Pietatis may be formed 
 where there are no Universities, and laymen be admitted to 
 speak in them. Whether they do well who despise them, and 
 thwart them to the utmost of their power, when they might 
 much promote them, time will shew." A similar opinion of 
 Sagittarius is quoted by Weism. 1230, and others are mentioned 
 generally. 
 
 ' Schrockh 1. c. mentions generally, that these meetings were 
 removed twelve years afterwards, at the requisition of some am- 
 bassadors, into the Church, where the hearers having no longer the 
 liberty of speaking, much of their usefulness of course fell away. 
 In some places they were introduced without the superintendance 
 of the minister, were naturally attended with irregularities, and 
 suppressed under the name of conventicles. But these abuses 
 were no necessary consequence of the institution, and Spener 
 amply defended himself in a separate work, 1677, and in his 
 
78 CAUSES OF TIIL' LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 ately introduced, and were forbidden, yet they 
 continued long a blessing to the Church, and were 
 the means of recalling many, even of the learned, 
 from the inventions and disputes of the schools, 
 to the basis of a more fruitful theology, in piety 
 and the study of the Scriptures \ On these were 
 also founded the Collegia Biblica, which formed 
 part of the widely-felt utility of the University of 
 Halle. 
 
 Of Spener's writings many have already been 
 occasionally mentioned. The most extensively 
 useful were, perhaps, the Pia Desideria, and the 
 works in vindication or explanation of it ". It is 
 no slight proof of the mildness of Spener's cha- 
 racter, that a production containing such bold, 
 
 " Allgemeine Gottesgelahrtheit," (Walch Einl. in d. Rellgions- 
 Streitigk. 1 Th. S. 560, fg.) nor was he directly attacked on this 
 head until after his death (by Loscher, Timotheus Verinus, 2 Th. 
 S. 112. fg.) 
 
 * Twesten, p. 163. The University of Giessen, which in the 
 later contests with the Pietists adopted the milder side against 
 that of Rostock, seems to have long felt the influence of this ear- 
 lier institution. Henke, Th. 8. S, 37. 
 
 ^ Buddeus bestows however great praise not only upon the wri- 
 tings mentioned, but upon his expositions of Scripture, especially 
 one ' libellum plane aureum,' in which Spener collected and ex- 
 plained the passages of Scripture abused by worldly men to encou- 
 rage a false security, (Isag. p. 1479.) and his " de natura et gratia," 
 (on the difference of actions derived from man's natural powers, 
 and those proceeding from the influence of the Holy Spirit,) " in 
 Avhich he was the first who abandoned the intricate, and often 
 useless, questions of the schools, and made the enquiry through- 
 out practical." (lb. 592.) Lange says that even for the quicken- 
 ing of the natural intellect, there could be no better whetstone 
 than Spener's writings. Anmm. zu. Sp. Leb. S. 38. 
 
CHARACTER OF GERMAN THEOLOGY. 79 
 
 unwelcome, and sweeping truths, could have been 
 so written, as to give so little offence, and to call 
 forth at first universal approbation \ Spener re- 
 ceived innumerable letters of thanks for this 
 work ; and not only the celebrated Kortholt, but 
 even B. Carpzov, praised him for it. Yet Spener's 
 censures extended to every branch of the Lu- 
 theran Church ; he complained, that of the magis- 
 tracy few knew what Christianity was ; that, at 
 the most, they only provided for the maintenance 
 of the hereditary system ; and that many hindered 
 the good which religion might produce. That 
 the order of the clergy required a thorough re- 
 form; that many lived in profligacy ; many taught 
 the letter only of Scripture; that numbers were 
 such strangers to real earnest piety, that one 
 zealous for it was looked upon as a Papist, Qua- 
 ker, and Fanatic ; that an immoderate value was 
 attached to mere forms ; that the clergy were 
 looked upon as a caste of priests, like those of 
 Rome, and wished to become so ; that many 
 deemed a mere peace from external enemies the 
 most blessed condition of the Church, and there- 
 fore studied alone the means of subduing them, 
 controversy. He dwelt also on the vices of the 
 laity ". His proposed cure was extensive ; his 
 
 ' Henke, 3. 516. The testimonies of many of the most dis- 
 tinguished theologians were adduced by Spener himself, in a sub- 
 sequent defence of Pietism, Griindl. Beantwortung des Unfugs 
 der Pietisten, c. 1. § 15. fgg. 
 
 ^ Undoubtedly the whole of this lamentable state of the Church 
 is not to be attributed to the contentious and unpractical theo- 
 
 6 
 
80 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 views relating to the education of the clergy have 
 been already named ; on religious controversy 
 especially, he timely warns, that right disputing 
 about religion, even if free from irritation, is not 
 sufficient, but must be accompanied with the ap- 
 parent desire of improving the opponent, and of 
 teaching him the wholesome application of the 
 truth maintained '. Yet of all the positions in 
 this work, two" alone, and these incidentally only 
 
 logy. The fearful excesses and the extremes of misery of the thirty 
 years' war had demoralized and degraded Germany : still the 
 state of religious teaching and religious education prevented the 
 application of the remedy, which a better religious instruction 
 might have afforded. No slight degree of misery fell upon Ger- 
 many in the last desolating war; yet was the greater earnestness of 
 mind, which this created, among the principal means of reviving 
 religion ; but unbelief is, for the most part, more reclaimable than 
 a dead and contented orthodoxism. 
 
 ^ See the extract in Schrbckh, ib. S. 289, fgg. 
 
 ' These were, the one, Spener's favourite maxim, that " the 
 theology of an unregenerate person was no real theology," but 
 only a philosophising about divine things ; which had been main- 
 tained, unquestioned, by his instructor, Dannhauer, and by many 
 others. " Pietistica posthac sententia vocata est, et periculosus 
 error," says Weismann, " quod mille forsan Theologi nostrates, 
 tanquam gravem et arduam veritatem docuerunt," (Hist. Eccles. 
 p. 1214, sq. where some authorities are quoted.) It was first op- 
 posed by Dielefield, a deacon in Nordhausen, 1679, and subse- 
 quently by the opposite assertion of Lbscher, " that the ministry 
 of an unconverted teacher was just as beneficial as if he were 
 converted ;" in support of which he appealed to the so-called 
 gratia ministerialis, by which God was supposed uniformly to 
 bless not only the administration of the Sacraments, " though 
 administered by evil men," but their teaching also. With regard 
 to the latter, Lange might well term this gratia ministerialis an 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 81 
 
 connected with its import, were at the time at- 
 tacked, and the theologians of Saxony continued 
 to praise his orthodoxy, until the displeasure of 
 the Elector of Saxony, at his earnest, but strictly 
 official \ remonstrances, made opposition accept- 
 
 absurd and pernicious fiction. (See Spener Allg. Gottesgel. 
 Fr. 1,2. Loscher Tiraoth. Verimus, 1 Th. S. 281. fg. Pacho- 
 mii Synops. Logom. Pietist, c. 1. qu. b. p. 5. ap. Schrockh, ib. 
 p. 287, 8.) Yet Spener's maxim in other words, that no real 
 theology can be conceived without piety and religious interest, 
 no one would now think of questioning. Then, however, it was 
 found to contain Pelagianism, Arminianism, Calvinism, Soci- 
 nianism, &c. (see ap. Weism. ibid.) The other point related to 
 the anticipation of better times, when Romanism having sunk, 
 and the Jews having been converted, Christianity should attain 
 a fuller and more glorious development ; these cheering expecta- 
 tions Spener distinctly separated from the millenniary dreams of 
 apocalyptic writers ; he expected no earthly, no distinct kingdom, 
 no kingdom of glory, which should replace the kingdom of grace ; 
 none, which should endure a precise period of ten centuries ; but 
 according to the analogy of the history of religion, and of Chris- 
 tianity itself, he did anticipate, that after the long contest which 
 it has carried on, and in which it has been gaining successive 
 victories, its conquest should be yet more manifest, that accord- 
 ing to the prophets, a time should come " when the knowledge of 
 the Lord should cover the earth, as the waters cover the sea." 
 (See Spener's Behauptung der Hoffhung besserer Zeiten, 1693 ; 
 his Vindication, 97 ; his Letzte Theologische Bedenken, 3 Th. 
 S. 73; Loscher's Timoth. Ver. 1. Th. c. 1. and others ap. 
 Schrockh, ib. S. 291, 2. Spener's Leben, S. 137.) Yet among a 
 large portion of Spener's opponents, these hopes were deemed no 
 better than the grossest conceptions of Chiliastic fanatics, were 
 thought to overthrow the foundations of the faith, and the whole 
 sum of Christian doctrine; to lead to seditions and tumults, 
 &c. &c. (Weism, 1225.) 
 
 ^ Spener was his Confessor. Weism. p. 1168, says, Summara 
 
 G 
 
82 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 able. From that date much of Spener's time was 
 consumed in self-defence. Not only B. Carpzov 
 then wrote against him, but the University of 
 Wittenberg maintained its character by setting 
 forth two hundred and sixty-four errors which 
 were to be found in his writings ; twenty-five of 
 these relate to the symbolical books ^ ; of the rest 
 
 prudentiam, modestiam, gradationemque scrupulosissiraam in 
 sacro suo officio in Aula gerendo observavit B. Spenerus, at ne 
 sic quidem causam, non suam, sed Dei, perficere potuit. 
 
 ' The allegations against Spener with regard to the symbolical 
 books, as far as they were allegations, have been justly reckoned 
 by Zeltner among the Anti-pietistic Logomachies, (under the 
 name of Pachomius, Synopsis Logomach. ut vulgo vocant Pietisti- 
 carum, a. 59. 72, fg.) Spener acknowledged that these books con- 
 tained divine truths, he believed them free from errors in doc- 
 trine, yet he justly thought that confusion and symbololatry alone 
 could arise from terming them " inspired," (as comprising doc- 
 trine originally given by inspiration) which his opponents required 
 of him. (Weism. ib. 1226, fg. Budd. ib. 474, fg. Schrockh, 
 ib. 191, fgg.) In the much agitated question of the use of the 
 quia or the quatenus in the subscription of the symbolical books, 
 which Spener did not originate, but which he was called upon to 
 decide, he wished only that those, who for conscience sake de- 
 clined the apparently stricter formula, might be allowed to 
 employ the " quatenus;" yet he himself always used the former. 
 Indeed the two formulae mutually imply each other ; no conscien- 
 tious man could subscribe to articles, " so far as they agreed 
 with Holy Scripture," who did not believe that in their princi- 
 ples, that in all essentials, they did so agree ; nor can it be 
 thought that every individual, who subscribes them *' because 
 they so agree," necessarily binds liimself to every incidental ex- 
 pression, so that he agree in the principle. As to the value of the 
 symbolical books, Spener said, that " none held them in greater 
 respect, treated and inculcated them on their hearers with greater 
 diligence than those who were reproached as Pietists, and 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 83 
 
 many illustrate the character of the orthodoxisni 
 of that period ; it was deemed erroneous then, 
 that he considered a holy life as absolutely neces- 
 sary, since without it no one could have a true 
 faith ; that the truth and sincerity of the repent- 
 ance was indispensable to the validity of abso- 
 lution ; that in all absolution a condition was 
 implied ; that the intention to reform was a pre- 
 paration for repentance ; that all revenge was 
 forbidden ; that the Scripture was no power of 
 God, so long as it was neither read nor heard ; 
 that the Greek of the New Testament was, in 
 different books, more or less elegant, the Holy 
 Spirit having conformed himself to the style 
 of each writer ^ ; that Holy Scripture was 
 then only a source of religious knowledge, 
 when it was understood according to the mean- 
 ing of the Holy Spirit ; that ministers were 
 mere guides to the real teacher, the Holy Spi- 
 
 that the whole question was not about the real vaUie, use, esti- 
 mation, or authority of the symboHcal books, but about their 
 abuse by certain Theologians to charge heresy upon unmeriting 
 and orthodox men." (ap. Weism. 1227.) Neither did his fol- 
 lowers diminish the respect attached to them. (Schrockh, ib. 193.) 
 The neglect of the symbolical books was the effect, not the cause 
 of change in doctrine. 
 
 ^ This extraordinary hypothesis, which, in a manner read- 
 mitted human individuality in the composition of the Scripture, 
 at the same time that it denied it, became predominant, when 
 the difference of style and of the purity of the language in the 
 different books had been put beyond question by the progress 
 of criticism ; in Spener's time the admission itself was thought 
 to derogate from inspiration, 
 
 G 2 
 
84 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 lit, and Christ in him; that believers are, in 
 matters of belief, free from all human authority ; 
 that heretics, out of that Church, might possess 
 faith, real love, the Holy Spirit, and eternal hap- 
 piness ; that much might be learnt and imitated 
 from the Reformed, the Romanists, the Anabap- 
 tists, Quakers, and other parties ; that the new 
 man was not less nourished by the bread and wine 
 in the Lord's Supper, than the natural man by 
 the natural bread and wine, &c. &c \ 
 
 Yet notwithstanding the vindications of him- 
 self thus extorted, in which, however, Spener 
 still manifested the same practical and conciliat- 
 ing spirit, his indefatigable industry enabled him 
 to maintain an almost incredibly large correspon- 
 dence on all the subjects which mainly occupied 
 his long life, manifesting a very deep acquaint- 
 ance with the necessities of the Church, and a 
 sound judgment on the means of meeting them. 
 Through these he exerted no merely temporary 
 influence over a large portion of the German 
 
 * The title is curious: " Clirist-Luthrische Vorstellung in 
 deutlichen aufrichtigen Lehrsatzen, nach Gottes Wort und d. 
 Symbol. Kirchenbiichern, sonderlich d. Augsb. Conf., und unrich- 
 tigen Gegensatzen aus Hrn Spener's Schriften, zur Ehre des 
 grossen Gottes, Erhaltungder GottlichenWahrheit, auchBeylage 
 der Augsb. Conf. xi. d. and. symbol. Biicher, geistlichen A-^erein- 
 barung d. aufrichtigen Theologen, treuer Warnung der recht- 
 glaubigen Lutheraner, u. s. w. aufgesetzt u. publioirt von den 
 Theologis in Wittenberg." Well might a theologian of those 
 days say with a sigh, " in more nunc positum esse apud multos, 
 ut lubentius centum htereticos, quani unum faciant Christianum." 
 (ap. Weism. 1215.) 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 85 
 
 Church. Four quarto volumes were published 
 in his life, besides those which were subsequently- 
 collected \ At Berlin, also, as well at Dresden, 
 he maintained in his own family and formed 
 many, who continued to act after his death in 
 the same principles. 
 
 Spener, then, both by his direct improvements, 
 by his revival of Biblical enquiry and historical 
 investigation, by his concessions that other com- 
 munions might in some respects be more correct 
 than the Lutheran, by his disapprobation of some 
 rites in his own Church '^ by the admission that 
 though it was clear from fundamental errors, it, 
 as little as any other Church, could be free from 
 
 ' The principal subjects of this collection were, the best me- 
 thod of Theological learning ; Christian doctrine and moral, 
 especially the promotion of piety ; the explanation of Biblical 
 passages ; cases of difficulty in the Christian ministry ; the ne- 
 cessary improvements in the Church, and the safest mode of 
 their execution ; Ecclesiastical law ; the general and particular 
 state of the Church ; Christian principles of conduct towards 
 Christians of a different persuasion ; judgments on a great num- 
 ber of remarkable men and their opinions ; " a treasure of prac- 
 tical observations, and admonitions, for Theologians, Ministers, 
 and Christians, of many ranks." (Allgem. Biogr. 6*"=' Th. S. 
 444, fg. ap. Schr. ib. S. 130.) 
 
 ^ Of Confession, for example, as it then existed, (Letzte Theol. 
 Bedenken, 3 Th. S. 723.) he says that " almost all conscien- 
 tious preachers looked upon it as a burthen, and that he himself 
 was glad from his heart that he had now nothing to do with it." 
 Exorcism at Baptism he termed an useless ceremony, which 
 might easily prove cause of offence, and might well be abolished. 
 (Theol, Bed. 1 Th. S. 157, fg.) 
 
86 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 air, and by the spirit of enquiry to which these 
 principles gave rise, shook, incidentally, the sup- 
 posed infallibility and perfection, which was vir- 
 tually ascribed to the old system, and upon which 
 its security rested. His immediate followers 
 carried on practically the improvements whose 
 theory he had given, and through the erection of 
 the University of Halle obtained an extensive 
 and influential field of action. 
 
 The bitter polemics of the Lutherans of Wit- 
 tenberg '^, (whither the Prussian students, and es- 
 pecially those of the Mark, had for the most part 
 been wont to repair) suggested to the Elector of 
 Brandenburg, who wished for concord, the erec- 
 tion of an University, nearer, and more peaceful. 
 Halle was already a place of education, and was 
 adopted at the recommendation of Thomasius, 
 who had withdrawn thither, having been removed 
 from Leipzig by the persecutions of the ortho- 
 dox Theologians ^ The three who at first com- 
 posed the Theological faculty there, Francke, 
 Anton, and Breithaupt, had all more or less, de- 
 rived their spirit from Spener ; Anton and Breit- 
 
 ' Theol. Bed. 3 Th. S. 706, fg-. 
 
 ' Above thirty years before, Fred. Will, the Great had been 
 obliged, on the same grounds, to refuse to prefer any Theologi- 
 cal students educated at Wittenberg. (Henke, iv. 279.) 
 
 ^ These were excited by his defence of Francke, and his justi- 
 fication of intermarriage between the Lutheran and the Reformed, 
 in the course of which he gave offence to Casp. Loscher of Wit- 
 tenberg-, who procured his removal, (Henke, iv. 542, fg.) 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 87 
 
 haiipt had been formed by him at Frankfort ; the 
 zeal of Francke for the promotion of piety had been 
 furthered, and its character determined, by a two 
 month's residence with him at Dresden. Immedi- 
 ately upon his return, he, as a subsidiary teacher 
 (privatim docens) at Leipzig, as well as Anton, had 
 held Biblical lectures, and presided at the meet- 
 ings of the students for the study of Scripture '. 
 These were continued for some months unno- 
 ticed ; the numbers mounted to some hundreds ; 
 many of the hearers became distinguished for 
 the exemplariness of their life ; and though some 
 may not have been free from peculiarities, an in- 
 vestigation instituted in consequence of calumny, 
 fully acquitted them of misconduct ^ The Uni- 
 versity reported the blamelessness of the lec- 
 tures, yet Francke was suspended, though Thoma- 
 sius, and Sagittarius, entirely unconnected with 
 him, wrote in his defence. The meetings were 
 continued by Schade, and severer measures fol- 
 lowed ^ ; Pietism, as it was then first called, was 
 
 ^ The Magistri were allowed in the ferice caniciilares to read 
 theological lectures. (Kanst. ebend. S. 119.) 
 
 ^ The principal accusations against Francke were, that he had 
 spoken against philosophy and disputation, and had maintained 
 that the Christian's happiness began on earth ; those against the 
 students, that they had burnt their abstracts of the lectures, 
 spoken ill of polemic, &c. 
 
 ^ The so-called Pietistic students were deprived of their 
 pensions ; any one who attended one of these meetings was re- 
 fused his testimonials, excluded from any office, &c. yet the 
 Leipzig Protocol names nothing fanatical which had taken place 
 in them. It must be observed, that the name of Pietists was 
 Jiot assumed by themselves, but given to them, snccringly, by 
 
88 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 forbidden, and a harsh contest carried on, prin- 
 cipally by Carpzov, until the erection of the 
 new University allowed the reform to be pursued 
 undisturbed, though not unopposed \ 
 
 The free circulation of talent or merit, which 
 has ever taken place through every part of Ger- 
 many, independent of the accident of the spot of 
 its first formation, gave more importance to the 
 new institution, than would, perhaps, in this 
 country be generally conceived. Halle became, 
 like Geneva of old, the heart from which the 
 impulse of the new principles became felt in 
 every part of the system. In the first thirty years 
 of its institution, 6034 Theologians had been 
 admitted into it, besides the thousands which 
 were educated at the numerous schools supported 
 in the Orphan-House founded ^ by Francke. An 
 
 their opponents, who themselves took that of the Orthodox. 
 (Schrbckh. 43. 272.) 
 
 ^ The next year, (1795), produced the Wittenberg Manifesto 
 against Spener ; and Carpzov, in a second Programm which 
 he wrote against him, did not hesitate to term this mild and 
 peaceful man a procellam ecclesise, tempestatem pacis, turbonem 
 religionis, nay, a Spinozist. The irritation against Spener did 
 not cease even with his death ; it was a question at different Uni- 
 versities whether the term " beatus Spener" could be used. 
 Professor Fecht, of Rostock, published a work, " De beatitu- 
 dine mortuorum in Domino," in which he decides that this could 
 be said of the extremely impious, who die without any external 
 mark of repentance ; of all sinners but those who die in the com- 
 mission of gross sin (Par. 18.) but not of Spener. (See at length 
 in Kanstein's Leben. S. 109 — 117.) Others, who decided simi- 
 larly, are mentioned generally by Weism. 1168; the contrary 
 was even declared sinful. Niemeyer, ib. S. 32. 
 
 * This establishment, which was comnen.ed by I'rancke, in 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 89 
 
 institution, which collaterally perfected, by the 
 opportunities which it afforded for catechetical 
 instruction, the practical character of the ministers 
 educated at Halle'. The usefulness of these 
 preparations was further promoted by the estab- 
 lishment of Kanstein, a disciple of Spener, for 
 the printing of Bibles, (by which much more 
 than two millions of Bibles, and a million of 
 Testaments have been circulated), and that for 
 the printing of Christian writings and for the 
 cheaper sale of books of education. 
 
 The plan pursued at Halle was conducted by its 
 first founders on the principles of Spener, the same 
 as those of the earlier Reformation ; a recurrence 
 from human forms and human systems to the 
 pure source of faith in Scripture ; a substitution 
 of practical religion for scholastic subtleties and 
 unfruitful speculation. On these two points 
 then, the promotion of scriptural study and of 
 the practical direction of the several theological 
 sciences, turns the peculiar method of the instruc- 
 tion of Halle. Scripture interpretation again 
 
 1697, with seven gulden (14 sh.) so much increased before his 
 death, that 600 children were supported daily, 2000 instructed, 
 120 teachers maintained. It was a pattern for many others, and 
 a nursery for instructors in the schools of every class (Henke, iv. 
 548, fg.) Yet even this institution did not escape the censure 
 of the orthodox party; e. g. V. E. Loscher Unsch, Nachr. and 
 Meyer, (ap. Henke, ib.) The Danish Missionary Institution was 
 subsequently erected there, and the interest in the extension of 
 the Gospel abroad was influential, as it always is, in promoting 
 its domestic progress. 
 
 ^ Niemcyer, ib. S. 53. fg. 
 
90 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 became as among the first Reformers, the root of 
 theological study. It was theoretically promoted 
 by the lectures ^ of the highly-gifted and learned 
 Francke, on the " Principles of Interpretation," 
 which tended, at least negatively, to free it from 
 the subserviency to doctrinal systems, both by 
 their own extensive immediate influence, and as 
 the foundation of the work of Rambach, which 
 was nearly exclusively employed for almost half a 
 century '^ Though the principle of the analogy of 
 faith was still held as the basis of right interpre- 
 tation, its abuses were in some measure checked 
 both by positive restrictions, and by the simpli- 
 fication of the system itself; and though on the 
 other side the predominantly practical character 
 may, by directing the search to a higher spiritual 
 meaning beyond that of the letter, have minis- 
 tered occasion to subsequent arbitrariness, yet 
 Francke does not seem to have intended more 
 than the acknowledged and important truth, that 
 a deeper and more spiritual study will ever find 
 a deeper truth in Scripture, or than the legiti- 
 mate employment of analogical application. With 
 this theory of biblical exposition, were united 
 lectures on all the principal parts of the Bible, 
 embracing principally the practical side ; a course 
 not to be judged of according to the usual 
 character of practical commentaries, in which 
 
 ^ The Manuductio ad lectionetn Script. Sacrae, frequently 
 reprinted in German and Latin, and in the latter language even 
 in England. 
 
 - Schrockh, 4'2. 614. 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 91 
 
 the topics dwelt upon are rather united with, 
 than deduced from the text. Independent study 
 of Scripture was further encouraged by the 
 successive correction of passages in Luther's 
 version, (remarkable as the first published ' at- 
 tempt in the same language), an attempt which, 
 in Francke, can only indicate anxiety ^ for their 
 better understanding, and freedom from the pre- 
 vailing timidity, which an adherence to system 
 had engendered. Of lasting service, finally, for 
 the extension of Biblical knowledge, were the 
 Collegium Orientale Theologicum, and the Semi- 
 narium Ministrorum Ecclesige, of which the 
 former, besides promoting the study of the lan- 
 guages connected with the Old Testament, and 
 giving rise to the first critical edition of the 
 Hebrew Bible ^ contributed to the propagation of 
 
 ^ That which the learned Saubert commenced at the command 
 of Aiigust, Duke of Brunswick, 1665, was broken off" in the 
 midst of 1 Sam. 17, at the death of the Duke, and even the 
 published part suppressed (Schrockh 42, 598, Henke, 3, 285, 
 fg'.) so completely, that Buddeus, ib. p. 112, supposes it never 
 to have been published. Calov and others raised a clamour 
 against it before they had seen it, and its continuation was pro- 
 bably prevented by the influence of one of the polemic preachers 
 removed from Brandenburg. 
 
 * It gave rise, however, to bitter invectives against Francke, 
 from Meyer, Beck, and others of the orthodox party. Meyer 
 entitles one of his, " a warning to students not to be led astray 
 by Francke's work ;" in another he calls this work " a temptation 
 of Satan, by which he endeavours to cast into yet worse confusion 
 the on every side persecuted Church." See on the controversy 
 Budd. p. 1 360, sqq. Walch Religions-streitigk. 1 Th. S. 731 , fg. 
 
 * That of J. H. Michaclis, completed by the assistance of 
 
92 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 Christianity among the Jews and Mohammedans \ 
 The same practical character was given by Breit- 
 haupt and Freylinghausen to doctrinal studies ; 
 after the example of Spener, all scholastic, and 
 even unbiblical terminology, except what was 
 admitted by the universal church, was excluded, 
 and the long-forgotten element of Christian ex- 
 perience was by the former restored ^ In moral 
 theology, though as yet little cultivated as a 
 science, the declarations of this school in the 
 Adiaphoristic controversy, that no action was 
 to the individual who performed it indifferent, 
 evinced a deeper insight into the principles of 
 Christian action^. Polemic again was taught by 
 
 Breithaupt and Anton, (Vater S. 366), which is even now of use; 
 the same institution also gave birth to the valuable work of 
 J. H. and C. B. Michaelis on the Hagiographa. 
 
 ^ See J. L. Schulze in Francken's Stiftungen, B. I. S. 209, 
 ap. Vat. S. 365. 
 
 ^ Freylinghausen in the Grundlegung der Theologie, Budd. 
 ■p. 362; on Breithaupt's Instit. Theol. see Budd. p. 361. and 390. 
 
 ' On this as on every other occasion, in which this controversy 
 has been renewed, both parties appear to have forgotten the 
 principle which seems to lie in the precepts of St. Paul, that, 
 though nothing is indifferent to individuals, many things are so, 
 except to individuals ; the character of the action depending 
 entirely upon the influence which it exerts upon the mind of the 
 person performing it, some of them may have more tendency 
 than others to produce an ill effect, and thus lose to a certain 
 degree the character of acih^opa, yet none but the individual 
 himself can know whether they have that effect, and therefore 
 though a minister may warn of their tendency, they must still in 
 each case remain matters of private judgment. In the present 
 case, however, not merely the usual topics of this controversy, 
 but the pleasures of the appetite, the desire of honor, glory, riches, 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 93 
 
 Anton, according to the beautiful view of Spener, 
 in which every real heresy was considered as it 
 originated in moral defects ; the heretic was 
 regarded as one labouring under a disease ; the 
 teacher recollected, that though exempt from 
 this, he was not free from other diseases, and 
 endeavoured to restore him as a friend, not to ha- 
 rass him as an antagonist. The greatest change, 
 however, was in the science, whose better culti- 
 vation was one great object of all these, pastoral 
 theology : the defects of the former century had, 
 in the orthodox school, become confirmed in the 
 commencement of this; what was then custom, had 
 now become law ; the train of grammatical, histo- 
 rical, polemical, expositions of the text, was now 
 fixed in the elementary treatises; they varied 
 only, in that now the fivefold practical applica- 
 tion consisted in the polemic against the pietists. 
 The style was full of the same pedantic display 
 and unnatural conceits ; and as if to prevent the 
 possibility of free-exertion of mind, the artificial 
 plans of arranging the discourse were now inva- 
 riably determined ; and ingenuity and strength 
 were wasted and perverted in arranging the 
 same text according to the greatest variety of 
 methods \ The practical character of the whole 
 
 and pre-eminence, were placed by the orthodox party among 
 things indifferent, see Weism. p, 1250. 
 
 ^ These were swelled by the often-mentioned J. B. Carpzov 
 
 to 100; some of them were named from the mode of treating 
 
 the text, some from the inventor, some from the university where 
 
 they were the most used, e. g. Leipzig, Helmstadt, Konigsberg, 
 
 6 
 
94 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 theology of Halle must necessarily introduce 
 better principles ; method, style, and illustration 
 were no longer valued for themselves, but as 
 means ; a right and faithful application of Scrip- 
 tural Interpretation, Doctrinal Theology, and 
 Christian moral to catechetic and pulpit instruc- 
 tions, were a main object of the Collegia Biblica ; 
 the previous system, whose defects originated in 
 an entire misconception of the preacher's office, 
 fell at once * among those who became acquaint- 
 ed with a more living Christianity ; that, by which 
 it was replaced, was guarded against its natural 
 deflection, a neglect of all rules, by the scientific 
 developement of Lange and Rambach ^ as it was 
 
 Wittenberg:, (Schuler, 1 Th. S. 180, fg. ; 2 Th. S. 8, fg. ap. 
 Schiockh, 43, 160-1.) To apply 50 of these plans to a single 
 text was considered a meritorious performance ; Lbscher indeed, 
 according to Sclirdckh_, reduced them to 25, but " those he re- 
 tained were in their execution not much better than the rest," 
 (Id. ibid.) 
 
 ^ The vain display of pedantic learning seems to have been 
 among the most deeply rooted evils ; against this Francke and 
 Freylinghausen, (both distinguished preachers, and the latter 
 considered as the best model of his age, see Knapp, Francken's 
 Stiftungen, 2 B. S. 305.) opposed the principle of Luther, who 
 " in Wittenberg did not preach to the 40 doctors or magistri 
 who might be there, but to the crowd of young people, children, 
 and populace." — "To them," added Luther, "I preach; to 
 them I conform myself; according to their wants I speak; if 
 the rest like it not thus simply, the door stands open." Francke 
 in his lectures refers to the example of our Saviour, who had 
 indeed in the Pharisees learned hearers, yet told them in what 
 they were wanting, in terms as simple as could be used. 
 
 ^ R,ambach was one of the most active and efficient disciples of 
 the school of Halle ; though not possessed of an original mind, nor 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 95 
 
 practically realized in the preacliing of Francke 
 and Freylinghausen. Two apparently slight in- 
 novations, the alternation of continuous explana- 
 tions of large portions of Scripture ^ with the usual 
 synthetic preaching, and the occasional selection 
 of passages not contained in the appointed sec- 
 tions of the Church, as subjects of the discourses, 
 are too obvious improvements to have been 
 noticed, but that the general adherence to all the 
 defects of the hereditary system implies the 
 more decided practical character in those who 
 perceived them. The doubt of the sufficiency 
 of these pericopse, which had been continued as 
 they had existed in Germany previous to the 
 
 able to strike out new views, he has well embodied in a scientific 
 form the practical principles of his school. He was widely in- 
 fluential in his life at Halle, Jena, and Giessen, and was referred 
 to even by Mosheim as the best model for general preaching-. 
 (Schrbckh, ib. 170.) His Wohlunterrichteter Catechet, 1722, 
 and his Erlauterung iiber die Preecepta homiletica, a posthumous 
 work, were long the best and favourite treatises in each depart- 
 ment. Lange's work was the Oratoria Sacra ab artis homileticae 
 vanitate repurgata. 
 
 ^ The advantages of this species of lecture, alternating with 
 discourses on set subjects, are sufficiently obvious, and have been 
 witnessed by the author in Germany ; the most fruitful source 
 of mistakes in doctrine, the interpretation of texts independent 
 of and contrary to the context, to which so great occasion is 
 given by the division into verses, is thereby, and thereby alone 
 can it be, checked ; the understanding of Scripture in private 
 study is materially facilitated ; the habit of investigating its mean- 
 ing, and of considering its varied references, is substituted for a 
 mere perusal of its letter ; the instruction conveyed is more 
 easily recollected, being as it were incorporated with the passage 
 explained. 
 
96 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 Reformation \ but which both limited the know- 
 ledge of Scripture, and the subjects of the dis- 
 courses, and interfered with the natural connec- 
 tion and the order of these subjects, was re- 
 ceived as a mark of alienation from the Lu- 
 theran Church^. Spener's principles of catechis- 
 ing, (the Socratic method) again were expanded 
 by Rambach, and the readiness acquired in the 
 practice of the Orphan-house added to the supe- 
 riority to the teachers of Halle. This practical 
 theological tendency was furthered by private 
 intercourse of a corresponding character; at 
 regularly recurring seasons of the week, the 
 character of a theologian, as a servant of the 
 Church, the necessity of not forgetting the one 
 thing needful amid the earnestness of intellectual 
 study, was illustrated and impressed ; the circum- 
 stances promoting or advancing right theological 
 study were discussed; the scientific and practical 
 elements were blended in the Collegia Biblica ; 
 other meetings were held, in which the pro- 
 fessors were consulted as fathers ; so that most 
 students were known personally to them ; theolo- 
 gians of evil lives were recommended to em- 
 brace some other profession. 
 
 ^ Budd. Isag. 1343, 1412, 1426, sq. some evils attending them 
 are briefly alluded to, ib. 1430. 
 
 ^ E. g. in Loscher's diss. Auticalviniana de pericopis Evang. 
 et Apostol. The pericopse for the morning service being mostly 
 taken from the Gospels, and a large proportion being accounts 
 of miracles, the subjects of Christian instruction must, v^'here 
 there was no evening lecture, if the pericopa be adhered to, be 
 either omitted, or very artificially connected with the text. 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 97 
 
 The influence of this system was, for a time, 
 felt not in Germany alone, but in Denmark, in 
 Sweden, even in Greece, in mount Athos ; 
 teachers of youth, and ministers were sought 
 from Halle, in every part of Germany ' ; others 
 were kindled by their example, and the plans 
 of benevolence as well as the piety of Halle were 
 extended in the places, whither they were invited ^ 
 The bodies, thus organized, long continued to 
 exist, and indeed never wholly lost their influ- 
 ence, though the master-movement, which had 
 first given them impulse, slackened, and in 
 great measure ceased, with the death of Francke, 
 and the first founders of the school. The same 
 spirit more or less influenced C. B. Michaelis, 
 the younger Francke, Freilinghausen, the elder 
 Knapp, Q' cujus vita," says his biographer Niis- 
 selt \ " commentatio ceternitatis fuit ;") Callen- 
 berg, (the pious founder of the institutions for 
 
 * Niemeyer, 1. c. S. 53. 
 
 ^ Vid. inter al. Niemeyer, 1. c. S. 58. 
 
 ^ Sammlung Nosseltsch. Aufsatz. von Niemeyer, S. 192, where 
 the character of this perfect Christian is at large described. The 
 separation, however, of the theoretical and practical side of 
 Theology had already commenced, and diminished the influence 
 of G. Francke, Knapp, and Callenberg. (On the two last see 
 Semler's Lebensbeschreibung, 1 Th. S. 87. ig^.) The unaffected 
 and pure piety of Knapp obtained him veneration even from 
 those, whose scientific requisitions he did not satisfy ; yet, though 
 he possessed respectable learning, his influence appears, even iu 
 the account of Nosselt, to have been principally practical. On 
 Francke and Callenberg, see also Niemeyer, der Univ. Halle, 
 S. 72. {'^, 
 
 II 
 
98 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 the conversion of Jews and Mohammedans,) and 
 Baumgarten. Yet in part the times themselves 
 were altered ; a too predominant cultivation of 
 the mere understanding had commenced even in 
 the latter days of Francke, as himself complains ' ; 
 the antagonists against whom the school had to 
 contend, were differently and more scientifically 
 formed ; in part also the system itself was liable to 
 misrepresentation, in part exposed actually to 
 suffer both from scientific and moral degeneracy. 
 Of the liability to mis-statement, their Pseudo- 
 Lutheran opponents had fully availed themselves. 
 Not only had they excited popular violence ^, and 
 obtained the interposition of civil interference to 
 suppress the " schools of piety ^;" but had dili- 
 
 * In a lecture, 1709, upon the difference of the present and 
 former students of Theology. 
 
 ^ As in the tumults at Hamburg-, where Meyer (formerly Pro- 
 fessor at Wittenberg,) irritated by Spener's official remonstrances 
 on his life, having first attempted to impose a new formula of sub- 
 scription upon Spener's brother-in-law, Horbius, preached against 
 him as a lying prophet and priest of Baal ; so that Horbius 
 having once escaped at the risk of life, was obliged to leave the 
 city by night. See Vater, 360. Henke, iv. 525. fgg. 
 
 ^ Henke gives, from Walch's Religionsstreit. and the Pantheon 
 Anabaptistar. et enthusiast., the following list of places where edicts 
 were published against the Pietists: Wolfenbiittel, (1692) ; Gotha, 
 (1697); Zelle, (1698); Hannover, (1703); Bremen, (1705); 
 Stutgard, (1706) ; Nurnberg, (1707) ; Zerbst, (1709) ; Hannover 
 again, (1710 and 1711); Berlin, (1711); and says that the list, in 
 Germany, might easily be increased. It was also proscribed in 
 Sweden and Denmark; (Henk. S. 528.) in Wolfenbiittel even some 
 clergy were forbidden to meet to read the Scripture together, and, 
 on refusal to comply, were removed to lower stations ; in Erfurt 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 99 
 
 gently confounded their tenets, principles, and 
 objects with those of the wildest and most dis- 
 graceful fanatics, whose appearance always tar- 
 nishes and obstructs, and seems indeed an evil 
 almost inseparable from, any great and sudden re- 
 vival of religion. It were scarcely credible, but 
 for the knowledge that every fanatical sect was 
 classed, with Wickliffe, under the same title of 
 Lollard, and that Luther had some difficulty in 
 separating his cause from that of the Anabap- 
 tists, that the immediate and pure followers of 
 Spener should have been identified by their oppo- 
 nents with the most wretched and abandoned 
 fanatics of their times, that the degrading ex- 
 cesses of the deeply-sunken view of Butler ^ should 
 have been deprecated under the title of Pietism. 
 Old and new titles of heresies were put in requi- 
 sition to stigmatize the school of Halle ; Pelagian- 
 ism, Socinianism, Jesuitism, Schwenkfeldianism, 
 Osiandrism, were, with many others, found ^ united 
 
 all meetings to read the Bible were forbidden under penalty of a 
 fine of 151. ; and when Sagittarius, writing in defence of Francke, 
 asserted that Pietism was only a living Christianity, the Elector 
 of Saxony wrote to the Duke of Weimar to inform him of, and 
 to request him duly to punish, his unquiet Professor Thcologiaj. 
 
 ^ This was done by the above-named Meyer, then Gen. Super- 
 intendant in Pomerania ; and Breithaupt and Francke were com- 
 pelled to disclaim all connection with these miscreants. (Walch, 
 Th. 11. S. 769. ap. Vat. 367. Henke, 8. 40, 41.) They answered, 
 that the faculty of Halle had nothing to do with those called 
 Pietists in that report, but that it were " better that the name 
 were altogether omitted." 
 
 " Henke quotes (iv. 520, 521) the following titles of treatises 
 n 2 
 
100 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 ill their principles ; and tliougli, following the 
 example of Spener \ they earnestly opposed them- 
 selves to every manifestation of a schismatical 
 spirit, they were invariably charged with a Phari- 
 saical separatism. More dangerons, however, than 
 external violence, were the liabilities to degene- 
 racy in the system itself The abuse lay so close 
 to the use, the means employed were in such close 
 
 against the Pietists. Meyer de Pietistis veteris ecclesiae — de So- 
 cinianismo Pietistarum — de fraternitate P. et Jesuitarum — 
 Loescher de Schwenkfeldianismo in Pietismo renato — Edzardi 
 Machiavellus Pietisticus. — Biicher Rathmanna redivivus. — Fecht 
 de Pelagianismo a Lutheranor. doctrina depulso — epistolse anti- 
 prsedestianae. — Wernsdoff Osiandrismus in Pietismo redivivus, 
 &c. According to the definition of Schelwig, another oppo- 
 nent, " Pietism is a sect, instituted and promoted by Spener, of 
 Anabaptists, Schwenkfeldians, WeigeHans, Rathmannians, La- 
 badists, Quakers, and other fanatics, (under the pretence of a 
 new Reformation and of the hope of better times) for the haras- 
 sing and final destruction of the Church attached to the Augs- 
 burg Confession, and the other symbolical books." Weism. 
 ib. 1211. 
 
 ^ Spener uniformly and earnestly set himself against the Phari- 
 saical separation, which occasionally manifested itself, even in 
 the earlier period of his ministry. (Schrockh, 43. 265.) His 
 principles may be partly collected from the extracts already given, 
 partly from his, " der Klagen lib. d. verdorbene Christenthum 
 Missbrauch u. rechter Gebrauch." Frft. 1684, 1696, (cp hisTheol. 
 Bedenk. Th. 1. S. 634. Consil. P. iii. S. 517.) Towards the end 
 of his life, Spener equally opposed the too general declamations 
 of Schade against the Confessional as tending to produce di- 
 visions. It were easy to multiply instances or authorities ; suffice 
 the brief statement of the ecclesiastical historian ; " Never did 
 Spener, or any of his genuine disciples, favour separatism in the 
 Church." (Schr. ib. 285.) 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 101 
 
 connection with principles, where self-deception 
 is most easy and most dangerous, they required 
 for their exertion the combination of such varied 
 gifts ; (not deep piety alone, but sound judgment, 
 and extensive knowledge of human nature,) that 
 decay and abuse were much to be apprehended, 
 as soon as the comprehensive mind, which first 
 set them in action, was withdrawn. Ail religious 
 forms, and especially those expressive of religious 
 feeling, have a tendency to lose the spirit by which 
 they were originally animated ; this may again be 
 revived, but in the mean-time the employment 
 of the form alone, whose significance is either 
 insensibly changed or wholly lost, produces in those 
 who use it, a more or less conscious hypocrisy. 
 The whole history of the Church furnishes the 
 proof, that every new strong awakening of religious 
 feeling brings with it a peculiar form of express- 
 ing that feeling ; it gives, too, the painful con- 
 firmation, that in all cases the form has been con- 
 tinued, when the spirit, which produced it, is 
 departed. The same phenomenon is found in in- 
 dividuals as well as in classes ; the language of 
 early days is frequently retained, while the feel- 
 ing, w hich produced that language, exists only in 
 reminiscence of those times. This aberration is 
 the more injurious, in that, while the conscious 
 hypocrisy generally invests itself in the mere ex- 
 ternal peculiarities or practices, which in the first 
 instance arose from religious principle, the com- 
 paratively, and often almost Avholly, unconscious 
 consists in the adherence to the language which 
 
102 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 originally expressed deep religious feeling, or for 
 which either other ideas are imperceptihly sub- 
 stituted, or those before entertained are, for a time 
 alone, renewed. The temporary feeling, excited by 
 the recurrence to these forms, induces or facili- 
 tates, self-deception ; the use of the forms, desti- 
 tute of their spirit, deadens, yet further, that spirit 
 in the individual. The form, in which the re- 
 awakened Christianity exhibited itself in the time 
 of Spener, may be considered in contrast with 
 the subsequent deflections, under the heads of 
 the language and actions, in which it expressed 
 itself, and of the means of its preservation or 
 extension. In none of these are the first founders 
 of the Pietistic school open to censure. The re- 
 ligious language of Spener and Francke possesses 
 all the copiousness, and purity, and life, natural 
 to minds deeply penetrated by their subject, im- 
 bued with the treasures of Scripture, and suffi- 
 ciently enlarged to reject no expressions, by 
 whomsoever they might have been before used, 
 which furnished a pure vehicle of Christian sen- 
 timent and Christian devotion. The unpractical 
 formulae of the school alone were set aside, other 
 language, whether of the orthodox or the mys- 
 tics, but especially from the pure and rich foun- 
 tain of Luther, was, under this single limitation, 
 equally admitted ; and the deadening effects of 
 uniform or systematic expression were thus ob- 
 viated. Tlie later Pietists contracted, instead of 
 expanding and perpetuating, this system ; on the 
 one hand they liii)ited their richer ])y a too hasty 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 103 
 
 rejection of much of the moral language of the 
 orthodox school, as well as of the expressions of 
 the Moravians, who had arisen from among 
 them ; on the other, the original freshness of the 
 stamp of their own was worn away, and what 
 had once conveyed the " free spirit" of Spener 
 became as technical and lifeless as the phraseo- 
 logy of the orthodox, to which it had been op- 
 posed, and more pernicious, from the very depth 
 of its original significance. A mere vague and 
 general meaning was attached to what had ori- 
 ginally conveyed definite Christian ideas. II. 
 The means adopted to preserve and extend this 
 spirit were, as above stated, meetings for the 
 practical study of Scripture, for mutual consul- 
 tation and assistance, and more than ordinary 
 domestic and public devotion. The strongest 
 hold of formalism is in the very means employed to 
 promote devotion : great watchfulness is requisite 
 against self-deception, from considering them as 
 more than means ; great discrimination in the re- 
 commendation of these means to others. In both, 
 lamentable mistakes were committed by the later 
 members of this school ; hypocrisy was engendered 
 by the too great stress laid upon private edifying 
 and Christian conversation ; their indiscriminate ^ 
 
 ^ This indiscriminateness manifested itself in the anxiety to 
 induce all the students, on their entering the University, to par- 
 ticipate in all these meeting-s, without regard to the stage of 
 Christianity in which each might then be ; and in the ill estima- 
 tion in which those were held, who omitted them when inter- 
 fering with their studies. The failure to perceive that these 
 
104 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST ^ 
 
 and too frequent employment, where the mind 
 was yet unprepared to profit by them, the use of 
 " strong meat" where " milk" alone could nourish, 
 produced, often, re-action and disgust ; in other 
 cases religious conversation was engaged in as a 
 mere act of duty, and as a test of religion ; and 
 the probably but half-conscious, hypocrisy, which 
 employed the expressions, without a correspond- 
 ing feeling, of religion, deadened the heart. III. 
 The actions, finally, in which the religious spirit 
 manifested itself were in part only liable to per- 
 version ; neither the zeal for plans of benevo- 
 lence, nor the resignation of expensive gratifica- 
 tions to promote them, which distinguished the 
 school of Halle, nor the highly-prospered efforts 
 to extend Christianity among the heathen, were 
 well susceptible of it. The degree of value, 
 however, attached to the abstinence from amuse- 
 ments, whose character is derived solely from 
 their influence upon each individual, (the so-called 
 o8ta(/)opa,) became a source both of self-deception 
 and of breaches of Christian charity ; a deflection. 
 
 meetings were for that, and for most ages, too crowded, seems 
 scarcely credible. On the Sunday there were, one with the citizens, 
 two in the afternoon with the Professors, (also purely practical,) one 
 in the family in the evening-, each lasting an hour, besides the three 
 times attending divine service. Much of the character of the 
 later system of Halle, and of its incidental disadvantages, may 
 be collected from Semler's autobiography ; from this it appears, 
 that when the attendance at these meetings began to be valued 
 for i"ts ov/n sake, the perfect rectitude of the means employed to 
 induce attendance was notalwavs reearded. 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 105 
 
 invariably occurring, as soon as the abstinence 
 is regarded as being in itself a Christian duty. 
 A legal yoke is then substituted for Christian 
 freedom ; and things, in the first instance acknow- 
 ledged by the party itself to be of subordinate im- 
 portance, become the tests of Christian progress. 
 it thus became common to exclude from the 
 communion persons known to have danced, or to 
 have played at cards \ The great object, lastly, 
 of the early school, the promotion of practical, 
 living Christianity around them, became a mere 
 external duty, and being consequently pursued 
 mechanically, alienated, too often, instead of 
 winning to the Gospel. 
 
 It has been necessary to go through this pain- 
 ful detail, both as it is fruitful in admonition to 
 our own, to all, times, and in that without it, 
 the want of resistance from the school of the 
 Pietists to the subsequent invasion of unbelief 
 would be unaccounted for. It is obvious, however, 
 that these observations relate to the diminution 
 of its influence in its original seat, not to the 
 branches, wliich in its earlier state it had. sent 
 forth. These may have been, and doubtless 
 were, permanently as well as extensively influen- 
 tial, though the result of their insulated exertions 
 
 ^ Among other cases a Graf von Reuss (born 1717.) issued 
 an edict to this purport. Mutual opposition seems to have 
 occasioned the opposite excesses of the two parties ; on this 
 ground alone can be explained the blas[)henious measure of 
 an orthodox preacher, who pubUshed a formula of prayer to win 
 at cards. 
 
106 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 cannot be presented by history K It is the mis- 
 fortune of the history of all religion, that the 
 silent but by far the largest influences which it 
 exerts, those of individual and private life, can 
 form no portion of the annals of mankind. An 
 unfair, a very inadequate, too frequently an unfa- 
 vorable, representation can alone result from the 
 exclusive contemplation of the great phenome- 
 na, which public history records ; the cases, in 
 which religion has been made by bad men the 
 instrument and the plea of ambition, the Inqui- 
 sition, the devastation of America, the dragon- 
 nades of France, the expatriation of hundreds 
 of thousands from that land, can be, and have 
 been, faithfully recorded ; of the blessings which 
 it has produced not the thousand thousandth 
 part is known to any but to Him, to whom alone 
 all hearts are open ; who has seen the evil and un- 
 disclosed passions, which it has, in silence, over- 
 come ; the sorrows it has cheered ; the difficult 
 duties it has given strength to perform ; the 
 kindly and benevolent feelings which it has pro- 
 duced ; the hearts, in which the love of God has 
 created, expanded, hallowed the love to man. 
 A few such cases, a few of its great results, we 
 are allowed to see, to weigh down the record of 
 incidental evil ; the immeasurably greater pro- 
 portion is reserved for that day, in which all 
 secret good, as well as secret evil, shall be disco- 
 vered. Privacy is often the condition, as well as 
 
 ^ Sec Niemcyer, ibid. S. 56. 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 107 
 
 the natural element, of religious good. As the 
 value of the great and fearful element, whose uses 
 are so essential to us, is generally felt most in its 
 privation ; at other times, perhaps, we think chiefly 
 of it, where it is most visible, in its destructive 
 effects, in the devastations of the storm, or the 
 conflagration of our cities, and forget, or cannot 
 calculate, the innumerable hearths which it in 
 silence cheers, the thousand comforts or necessa- 
 ries of life, to which it is essential ; so, and much 
 more, is it with that spiritual fire, which first kin- 
 dles into being the noblest energies of our nature, 
 which, realizing, in a higher sense the heathen 
 fable of man's formation, converts the sordid, in- 
 animate, though well-formed, mass of clay, into 
 a living spirit, warming and enlightening and 
 purifying the best affections. By far the greater 
 proportion of its influences can be known to 
 none ; and even of the slight proportion, which 
 admits of being manifested in external action, 
 most are witnessed but by few, in the narrow 
 sphere of their immediate influence ; collectively, 
 none know them. 
 
 For the conduct of those, who, for worldly 
 ends, in conscious hypocrisy, assumed the lan- 
 guage, habits, and exterior of the Pietists, these 
 are, of course, no farther responsible, than as, 
 by adopting injudicious and insuflicient tests, 
 they may have facilitated the imposture. It 
 afforded, however, large scope for misrepresenta- 
 tion and misconception. Opportunities for tliis 
 deception occurred in Halle itself, and yet more 
 
108 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 in some of tlie courts of the lesser German 
 princes \ At Halle, so soon as a particular tone 
 or language came to be considered as indications 
 of Christian piety, they were, of course, in many 
 instances, adopted by students, who wished to 
 obtain the oftlces at the disposal of the in- 
 structors. At some courts the use of the lan- 
 guage, which had received the supposed stamp of 
 piety, facilitated the advance, not only in ecclesi- 
 astical, but even in civil, offices. The hollowness 
 thus occasioned was discovered at the death of 
 these mistaken promoters of piety, when the tone 
 of the court forthwith resumed its genuine and 
 undissembled character ^ 
 
 It now remains only briefly to mention the 
 scientific deflections to which the system was ex- 
 posed. It is the natural and universal tendency 
 of every school, on the one hand, to convert 
 what was originally a predominant only, into an 
 exclusive, character ; on the other, gradually to 
 lose sight of and to omit what at first occupied a 
 subordinate, though essential, place. The aim 
 of Spener, Francke, and the first Pietists was, we 
 
 ^ Among these were the courts of Graf Heinrich II. von 
 Reuss ; Graf von StoUberg-Wernigrode ; Duke Ernest of Saal- 
 feld ; Prince August of Mecklenburg ; and the King of Den- 
 mark. Great weight having been attached to the power of 
 making long extemporary prayer, as a sign of real conversion, a 
 Duke of Coburg required the masters of schools to utter these in 
 his presence, as a test of their fitness for advancement. 
 
 ^ This was especially visible at the courts of Wernigrode and 
 Saalfeld. 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 109 
 
 have seen, to give theology a practical charac- 
 ter ; though they endeavoured to promote true 
 science, still the practical results were their 
 main object. The deflection, of course, was, in 
 those who maintained the strict character of the 
 school, that the practical character of Theology 
 became all in all ; that science was either lightly 
 regarded or despised ; in others, such as the in 
 many respects valuable Baumgarten, the scien- 
 tific element too largely predominated. The se- 
 paration was the more natural, in that the two 
 parts, the scientific and the religious interests, 
 were rather united than blended in the first 
 founders of the school. 
 
 Through these unhappy deflections, great as 
 was the temporary influence of the first institu- 
 tion, permanent the benefits communicated in a 
 narrower circle by individuals whom it had sent 
 forth, and the indirect influence of its first teachers, 
 when the irritation of party feeling was with- 
 drawn, upon many who cannot be counted among 
 its adherents, it was disabled, as a body, from 
 opposing any effectual resistance to the inunda- 
 tion of unbelief, or from diminishing the rigidness 
 of prejudice by which this re-action was in part 
 produced. The rapid decay of this attempt to 
 reform the barren orthodoxism by a recurrence to 
 practical and unspeculating Christianity increased 
 the apparent hopelessness of such a re-animation. 
 The fanaticism coincident, and by the enemies of 
 the effort identified, with it, alienated from the 
 wish for a remedy. The rationalist tendencies 
 
110 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 of the age were promoted by this treble exhibi- 
 tion of the aberrations of belief, through which 
 it was presented to the superficial or the pre- 
 sumptuous, as a speculative system, oppressive 
 to the intellectual without communicating energy 
 to the moral powers, as the garb of hypocrisy, 
 or the dream of a bewildered imagination. 
 Science was inlisted against it not only by its 
 self-confidence in its own strength, but by the 
 perversion in the orthodox, the contempt in the 
 pseudo-pietist and fanatic, bodies, the opposition 
 by all. 
 
 There was indeed one body of men ', who. 
 
 ' The chief characteristics of this class are clearness of views, 
 good judgment, and well-digested learning, yet without either 
 distinguished acuteness or depth of mind, or broad and general 
 principles. As repertoria of information, their works are conse- 
 quently valuable ; they filled up some of the details of science, 
 but were unable to advance its limits, or to give it a secure and 
 large basis. The theological system might have received through 
 their means a beneficial simplification, had a sufficient interval 
 elapsed to permit it to be imperceptibly modified, but its character 
 was too little pronounced to have much effect in the violent 
 collisions which followed. Of the individuals mentioned Buddeus 
 is duly appreciated among us, Mosheim is unfortunately principally 
 known by a most unfaithful translation of one, and that not his 
 best, work, from which a false estimate alone can be formed of his 
 intellectual, moral, and religious character. The author has found, 
 from collation, the original in so many cases offensively coloured 
 and disguised by gratuitous interpolations of epithets, or of whole 
 sentences, that collation seems to him absolutely indispensable, 
 wherever it is of importance to know the precise sentiment or 
 statement of Mosheim. A close translation would probably 
 reduce the work to half its present size. Mosheim, besides his 
 6 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. Ill 
 
 though not belonging to the school of the pietists, 
 would never have existed without their collision 
 with the opposed system, such as Buddeus, 
 Mosheim, PfafF, &c. men of great learning, and 
 practical minds, who acted beneficially in a limited 
 sphere, and who would have been an ornament 
 to any existing party, but who did not possess 
 sufficient calibre or comprehensiveness themselves 
 to form one, to give a permanent direction to the 
 character of the age, or to satisfy the whole intent 
 of its scientific requisitions. Their existence is 
 however to be accounted among the benefits con- 
 ferred by pietism, and they form a memorable 
 historical phenomenon in the course of the new 
 theological developement. More directly ema- 
 nating from the Pietists was the school, which, 
 descending from Bengel and Storr, remained amid 
 increasing degeneracy, as witnesses of the prac- 
 ticability of the union of a deep piety, genuine 
 orthodoxy, and scientific investigation ; and who 
 while they candidly admitted into their system 
 the real advances of theological science, in part 
 
 works on Ecclesiastical History, which first raised the science in 
 Germany above the character of a chronicle, and furnished an im- 
 partial estimate of the character of the opposed parties, was the 
 author of several commentaries on Scripture, which, without great 
 depth, were valuable for a good developement of the connection in 
 each book. His work on Scriptural Moral, though not sufficiently 
 scientific, has much that is valuable ; his sermons long remained 
 models of pulpit eloquence. (Schr. 41. 168. 43. 169. fg.) Pfaff 
 commenced a reform in the mode of treating the types of the 
 Old Testament, in Doctrinal Theology, and in the principles of 
 Ecclesiastical Law. 
 
112 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 successfully opposed the illegitimate innovations 
 incidental to its earlier stages. Though some 
 intellectual deficiencies limited their immediate 
 influence, they were to a certain degree the pat- 
 terns, as well as the precursors of what a maturer 
 age is now richly completing. In their own times, 
 even their moderate corrections of the faults of 
 the received system were regarded with suspicion 
 and refutations K 
 
 Before passing to the last systematic struggle, 
 which the orthodox school had to encounter pre- 
 vious to the final conflict, two men of very different 
 character, but both in some measure connected 
 with the Pietists, may be mentioned, each of 
 whom effected some alteration, if not in the sys- 
 tem itself, yet upon the opinions of the times ; 
 Arnold and Thomasius. It affords, indeed, in it- 
 self, no small presumption of the untenableness 
 of that system, that no attack was made upon it, 
 (even previously to the altered character of those 
 days, which witnessed its dissolution,) without 
 producing some corresponding impression. Ar- 
 nold originally belonged to the Pietists. A gloomy 
 mind, and a want of sufficient confidence in Him, 
 to whom all is possible, made him resign his Pro- 
 fessorship at Giessen, from despair of producing 
 any amendment in the dissolute habits of the stu- 
 dents, yet unable, as he expresses it himself, to 
 endure to see hundreds, who should hereafter 
 have the cure of souls, but who never appeared 
 
 * See Semler Lebensbeschreibung, 2 Th. S. 146. 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 113 
 
 yet to have had a thought of their own. He 
 afterwards applied his vast learning and ingenuity 
 to the reform of ecclesiastical history ; yet, mis- 
 led by his dislike of the orthodoxism of his own 
 days, and of the fruitless and wanton multiplica- 
 tion of heresies, as well as of the injustice uniform- 
 ly perpetuated towards any whom the prevailing- 
 Church had on any occasion stamped as heretics, 
 he manifested scarcely less partiality to all who 
 had been so denominated, than had hitherto ex- 
 isted against them. There was, however, enough 
 of truth in his views to shake the previously pre- 
 vailing opinion, that the party, which succeeded 
 for the time in establishing their own orthodoxy, 
 was always in the right. The influence of Tho- 
 masius, (as, indeed, the general character of 
 his mind was more calculated to destroy than 
 to build up,) was rather exerted in the demoli- 
 tion of detached prejudices, and in the promo- 
 tion of a greater freedom and independence of 
 thought, than in producing any comprehensive 
 innovation in the system. The bitterness, vehe- 
 mence, and occasional buffoonery of his satire, 
 was deservedly a further obstacle to his success. 
 He removed, however, many insulated errors \ 
 
 ^ Such were the importance of church ceremonies not ordained 
 by Christ or the Apostles, (in his " Rechte EvangeHschen Fiirsten 
 in Mitteldingen oder Kirchencarimonien"), the right of civil in- 
 terference in matters of faith, except as far as concerns the 
 public peace, (Das Recht Evangelischen Fiirsten in Religions- 
 streitigkeiten,) the opinion that heresy implied perverscness of 
 will, or was penal, (ob Ketzerei ein straf bares Vcrbrcchen sey, and 
 
 I 
 
114 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 and by the overthrow of the dominion of the 
 Aristotelic philosophy prepared the way for the 
 dominion of that of Wolf. 
 
 The previous conflicts had acted rather in di- 
 minishing the extent than in changing the cha- 
 racter of the orthodox school, in detaching some 
 portion of its empire, than in any change of its 
 own internal constitution. The Wolfian philo- 
 sophy was received into the system itself, and with 
 the temporary appearance of adding to its strength, 
 contributed, ultimately, to its fall. It seems, in- 
 deed, to have been the fate of every successive 
 philosophy in Germany, to he at first indiscrimi- 
 nately opposed by the Theologians, and then to 
 have been unduly admitted into their own science. 
 Experience, and a surer ground of faith has now 
 shewn them the right place of philosophy, as an 
 auxiliary science, and subdued the hostility with- 
 
 " vom Recbte Evangelischen Fiirsten gegen d. Ketzerei,") and 
 many other points derived from, or connected with, these. He laid 
 the foundation for the removal of numerous others by the study 
 of ecclesiastical history, both for itself, (cp. Niemeyer, Univ. 
 Halle, S. 47,) and as necessary for the understanding of ecclesi- 
 astical law ; (Hochstnothige Cautelen, welche ein studiosus Juris, 
 der sich zur Erlernung der Kirchenrechts-gelahrtheit vorbereiten 
 will, zu beobachten hat.) Schrbckh, 42. 542, 548. He was 
 opposed at the time by the theologians, especially by the oft- 
 named Ben. Carpzov, but his services have since been acknow- 
 ledged with gratitude, and himself styled the reformer of eccle-- 
 siastical law, (Schrockh, ib. Henke, iv. S. 252. 537, fg. 577, 
 fgg.) It may be added, that he first removed in Germany the 
 heathenish superstition of witches, sorcery, &c. so frequent a 
 source of cruelty, the denial of whose truth B. Carpzov had 
 declared a punishable offence. (Henke, ib. p. 581. fg.) 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 115 
 
 out producing the yet more unnatural identifica- 
 tion K The principal opposition, with which 
 Wolf at first met, was from the Pietists, among 
 whom he taught at Halle. The great importance, 
 which he ascribed to the employment of his 
 science in Theology, appeared to be dangerous ; 
 his adoption of Leibnitz's " predetermined har- 
 mony" to involve the admission of fatalism ; his 
 
 ^ There are at present but few representatives of this system, 
 such as Daub and Marheinecke, who have converted doctrinal 
 theology into the philosophy of Schelling and of Hagel, and 
 De Wette, who is too much influenced by that of Fries. As 
 Bretschneider has placed •^chleiermacher in this class, and the 
 charge has been introduced into this country, it is but justice to 
 that great man who, whatever be the errors of his system, has 
 done more than (some very few perhaps excepted) any other, to 
 the restoration of religious belief in Germany, to oppose to this 
 assertion that of his distinguished and independent disciple, 
 Twesten. (lb. S. 199 ) " Is it apprehended that the Nature- 
 philosophy, amid its pretensions to absolute knowledge, will 
 not respect the independence of the religious conviction, and 
 only admit Christianity as far as it can introduce into it its own 
 positions, or interpret it as a symbolical representation of them ? 
 through Schleiermacher has the peculiar and independent source 
 of religion in the human mind, and the original difference of 
 •philosophy and doctrinal theology been set in so clear a light, 
 that the invasion of the province of either by the other seems 
 thereby to be adequately guarded against." It were contrary 
 also to a maxim laid down by Schleiermacher himself. " The 
 endeavour to introduce philosophical systems into theology is 
 generally at variance with a correct interpretation of Scripture." 
 Kurze Darstellung des theologischen Studiums, p. 51, a work, 
 which, with a iew great defects, is full of important principles 
 and comprehensive views, and which will form a new era in the- 
 ology whenever the principles which it furnishes for the cultivation 
 pf the several theological sciences shall be acted upon. 
 
 I 2 
 
116 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 rejection of some former methods of proving the 
 existence of a Deity, to lead to atheism. Though 
 he was, however, himself banished, through the 
 combined representations of the Theologians of 
 Halle and of some individuals at Berlin, his sys- 
 tem, through its clearness, definiteness, syste- 
 matic spirit, and consistency, which satisfied the 
 philosophical wants of the times, gained ground 
 continually, and was further cultivated and 
 developed by the adherents whom it acquired. 
 Through these it maintained its ascendancy until 
 near the 18th century. Within a few years after 
 the banishment of Wolf, the first attempt was 
 made by a theologian (Canz ' of Tubingen) to in- 
 
 * In his Usus Philosophiae Leibnitianae et Wolfianae in Theolo- 
 gia, 1728. The theological faculty of TUbingen destroyed all 
 the copies of the third part of this work, which they could find. 
 Canz was followed by Reinbeck, who had great influence in all 
 matters of rehgion in Prussia under both Frederics ; (he wrote 
 " philosophic considerations upon the Augsburg Confession," 
 which were continued by Canz and Alwahrdt;) by Ribov, Pro- 
 fessor at Helmstadt and Gottingen, author of the " Institutiones 
 Theologise dogmaticae methodo demonstrativa traditae," in which 
 however he confines himself to the doctrines common to natural 
 with revealed religion ; by Schubert at Helmstadt and Greifs- 
 wald ; Carpov at Weimar ; Darjes at Jena, who applied the 
 Wolfian mode of proof without limitation to revealed doctrine, 
 and neglected Scriptural evidence. Thus the eternity of future 
 punishment was to be demonstrated by Schubert : Darjes thought 
 to establish the doctrine of the Trinity by algebraical formulee, 
 (Tractatus philosophicus, in quo pluralitas personarum in Deitate, 
 qua omnes conditiones, ex solis rationis principiis methodo ma- 
 thematica demonstratur. 1735.) while Carpov applied the method 
 in all its strictness to the whole existing system ; suffice that the 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 117 
 
 troduce his system into Doctrinal Theology ; 
 others quickly succeeded ; and these established 
 in different parts of Germany, at Gottingeu, 
 Helmstadt, Berlin, Greifswald, Weimar, Jena, &c. 
 formed different centres, whence it extended its 
 influence by their oral instruction as well as by 
 their writings. Notwithstanding the unques- 
 tioned Christian principles of its author, its recep- 
 tion tended to bring on the destruction of more 
 
 Trinity, the nature and origin of the soul of Christ, his concep- 
 tion, the imputation of Adam's sin, the incarnation of the Son 
 of God, and the redemption of mankind thereby effected, the 
 state of his soul after death, &c. were hence to derive their 
 proof. ('* CEconomia Salutis N. T. methodo scientifica ador- 
 nata," in four 4tos.) This last, though opposed, was defended by 
 very many ; while none saw the extent of the evils of the system. 
 (Schrbckh, 43, S. 28—37. Schlegel, K. G. vi. 102—108. 
 Henke, vii. 55.) The " Tentamen Theol. dogm. methodo scien-i 
 tifica pertractatee" (1741. three 8vos.) of Wyttenbach, though a 
 Swiss divine, had much influence, and was even used as a com- 
 pendium for lectures in Germany. (Schlegel, S. 108, 109.) The 
 evils of this system, as summed up even in the Allgemeine Deutsche 
 Bibliothek, B. 2. S. 183, were, the introduction of philosophical 
 positions into the system of religion ; the equalizing what was 
 certain or probable, problematical or established, what was 
 left obscure in Scripture with what was clear ; the neglect or 
 arbitrary application of Scripture interpretation, the philoso- 
 phizing with, not always out of the Scripture; "so that had 
 this method been continued. Scripture had no longer been the 
 source of religious knowledge, but at most, a witness only, which 
 yvas to confirm by its evidence the conclusion which was already 
 arrived at." Crusius, though in part Opposed to this system, did 
 not improve it; Scriptural proof occupied an equally subordinate 
 place; the mode alone of philosophizing was changed, (Sclirockh, 
 ib. S. 41 .) The author, however, survived his system. 
 
118 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 than the system which it was called in to support, 
 and to the encouragement of Rationalist princi- 
 ples. The faulty portions, indeed, of the pre- 
 vious system alone, would directly suffer from the 
 spirit of deeper and more accurate investigation 
 nurtured hy this philosophy ; yet indirectly it 
 promoted many habits of mind, in part already 
 existing, through which Christianity itself could 
 not but be affected or mistaken. The disposition 
 to give to reason not a negative merely, but a 
 positive, decision in matters of faith was fostered 
 by the habit of proving revealed doctrine by alge- 
 braical formulae, or by philosophical grounds ; the 
 abstract mode of treating its subjects aggravated 
 the evils of the existing system, already too 
 exclusively speculative ; uncertain philosophical 
 tenets and hypotheses were introduced into the 
 system of doctrine, as if equally established with 
 Scriptural truth ; the requisitions, which Chris- 
 tian evidence can be called upon to satisfy, were 
 obscured by the confusion of mathematical and 
 moral proofs ; a large portion of that evidence 
 lost by the exclusive appeal to the intellect ; and 
 finally, the already diminished consciousness of 
 the positive doctrines of Christianity was yet 
 further weakened by the fabric of natural The- 
 ology, formed by this system through the mere 
 omission of what, in the prevailing religious 
 ideas, was peculiarly Christian, and the substitu- 
 tion of proofs from reason for those from Scrip- 
 ture ' ; a skeleton, deprived of the form, and 
 
 » Twesten, S. 185. 
 
CHxVRACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 119 
 
 beauty, and life of the once animated being. The 
 ground-work of a bare deism, or naturalism, was 
 thus already laid. 
 
 To sum up briefly then the internal state of 
 things in Theology, at the moment when the 
 struggle with the united and condensed efforts of 
 unbelief of every age and of every country was 
 about to commence, we find the result to be, an 
 abstract and unpractical system, in which error 
 was mingled with truth, yet these so blended 
 together, that the practicability of a separation 
 was scarcely seen either by the supporters or 
 by the opponents, and the untenable human 
 additions, advanced more prominently and de- 
 fended as equally essential with the divine basis : 
 we find the truths themselves presented in a dry 
 dialectic form, destructive of their life and in- 
 fluence, and no distinction made between the rejec- 
 tion of the received mode of stating and explaining 
 them, and the abandonment of the doctrines thus 
 stated; none between those which are essen- 
 tial to Christianity, and those which, though 
 forming part of its system, would if rejected, 
 disfigure, but not destroy it : and, (which was the 
 foundation of those perversions,) the maintenance 
 of the letter of the whole system, as a sum of 
 credenda, viewed as in itself the object of Reve- 
 lation, without reference to the practical reli- 
 gious value ; the efforts to make them practical re- 
 garded as hypocrisy or fanaticism, and the school, 
 who had begun the undertaking, degenerate ; the 
 real proofs of the truths themselves overwhelmed 
 
120 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 and clioked by a multitude of others, of evident 
 invalidity, yet regarded as altogether essential 
 to the maintenance of those truths ; true science 
 and free inquiry abandoned and opposed ; Scrip- 
 ture scarcely felt to be the basis of religious 
 truth, nor studied in order to discover it, and the 
 right understanding of Scripture itself perplexed 
 by wrong principles and obscured by the neglect 
 of history ; the knowledge of the nature, objects, 
 and influence of Christianity, lost through the 
 want of that best comment upon it, a Christian 
 life, and the defect not even objectively supplied 
 by the study of its past existence. 
 
 To this condition of Theology, must be added 
 the moral and intellectual circumstances of the age : 
 its moral character was such as might be antici- 
 pated from neglected education, and the defects in 
 Christian teaching and Christian ministry, — frivo- 
 lity, self-gratification, and corrupted morals ^ ; nor 
 was its intellectual character, though more difficult 
 to condense, from the variety of the elements of 
 which it was composed, less adverse to the subsis- 
 tence of Christianity. It is indeed rare, either in 
 individuals or nationally, that a state of strong ex- 
 citement is not accompanied by a diminution of 
 religious feeling ; the absorbing gratification of 
 active mental creation jars the tone of mind 
 essential to the Christian influences ; a feeling of 
 self-confidence and self-satisfaction is generated, 
 unfavourable at least to that deep sense of man's 
 
 ^ Schlegel, v. 246. 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 121 
 
 dependence, his insufficiency, and his necessities, 
 which draws him to his God, and his Redeemer. 
 Not the pursuit of science in itself, not the depth 
 of speculation, but the engrossing power which 
 they exert over the unaccustomed mind, (and to 
 such an one only are they thus unhealthy,) 
 interferes with the harmonious and proportionate 
 developement of the intellectual and religious 
 faculties. In the present instance, the impulse 
 appears originally to have been given by the 
 Leibnitz-Wolfian philosophy : this, without great 
 speculative depth, imparted new energy to the 
 German mind, as being the first effort to produce 
 a self-originated and native system of philosophy ; 
 the eminent distinctness, precision, and force, 
 which it in part discovered, in part communicated 
 to, the German language, both rendered that 
 language a fitter instrument for other exertion, 
 and enabled it, (as language always does,) itself to 
 re-act upon the activity of the mind : the study 
 of history was revived and reformed through the 
 views of Thomasius, and the acquaintance with 
 our own literature : a number of highly-gifted 
 minds were roused in every department, and 
 German literature, in many branches at least, 
 sprung with unexampled rapidity from infancy to 
 maturity. Had a religious spirit been already 
 there, this revival might have contributed, like 
 the first and great re-awakening of literature in 
 Europe, to the vindication and purification of 
 the Evangelical belief; in the actual event, it 
 furnishes an additional proof, that however re- 
 
122 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 animated science aided in, it was not a principal 
 source of the Reformation. Like the shower, it 
 may aid the seed to vegetate, but the seed it is 
 not ; the ground being now unprepared, it gave 
 luxuriance to the natural productions, which 
 choked it. The incidental causes which made a 
 suddenly revived, and therefore as yet unsound, 
 study of history especially injurious have been 
 already hinted. It was the unsound part of the 
 Wolfian philosophy also which was injurious. 
 
 These intellectual defects were again strength- 
 ened by the moral faults of the age. The conceit 
 and absence of moral earnestness, then extensively 
 prevalent, greatly promoted the natural liability 
 of times of newly kindled energy to over-rate all 
 supposed discoveries, and to depreciate indiscrimi- 
 nately every thing which before existed ; to prefer 
 extent to depth of investigation, and to be dazzled 
 consequently by every specious novelty. For a 
 time, at least, every hypothesis opposed to the 
 strictness of the previous system, was assured, 
 among a certain class, of a favourable reception ; 
 and though this disposition had ultimately the 
 collateral advantage, that the truth was more 
 clearly ascertained, through the examination of 
 every imaginable opposed theory, as well as 
 through the modifications which itself occasionally 
 obtained from the persevering sifting of views, at 
 first unpromising, the first result was the introduc- 
 tion into theology of much that was shallow and 
 capricious. The evils however, which occurred 
 must not be entirely ascribed to a prevailing love 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 123 
 
 of innovation, being in part attributable to the 
 contrary error of the previous and contemporary 
 orthodox school, which refused altogether to listen 
 to any theory at variance with its own, or the re- 
 sults of whose enquiries was a priori certain. 
 
 The collision, however, to which the German 
 Theology must, it appeared, be necessarily ex- 
 posed, might perhaps have been still deferred ; 
 the regeneration, by which it was to be restored, 
 have been effected without this great struggle, 
 but for circumstances connected with the reign 
 of Frederic the Second. The extreme popula- 
 rity given by the authority of that monarch to 
 French literature, at that time universally tinged 
 with a flippant unbelief, even in works not pro- 
 fessedly written in mockery of religion ; the re- 
 ception of French unbelievers at his court and 
 as his companions, some of them (such as the 
 wretched La Mettrie and Voltaire,) the most reck- 
 less and unprincipled ; and the countenance given 
 in an admiring nation by his own professed 
 opinions, aided strongly to determine in this 
 direction the existing frivolity. Frederic, when 
 he saw the moral effects of the extended unbe- 
 lief, in vain repented ^ that he had contributed to 
 its propagation. The disposition thus engender- 
 
 ^ It has been related to the author by one likely to be accu- 
 rately informed, that Frederic shortly before his death, in expres- 
 sing his regret at the altered condition of his dominions in this 
 respect, professed that he would gladly sacrifice his best battle, 
 could they but be restored to the state in belief and in practice in 
 which he had found them. 
 
124 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 ed was fostered by translations of the writings 
 of all the principal deists of our own land. 
 
 The attack upon Christianity had been carried 
 on more systematically ^ in our own, than in any 
 other, country ; the necessity of a revelation, as 
 well as the validity of the several evidences for 
 its truth had been successively disputed by men, 
 some of whom possessed no ordinary acuteness : 
 the course, which had been here adopted, was 
 eminently calculated, from the similarity of its 
 general character and of its defects, to promote 
 the direction which the German mind was taking; 
 inasmuch as the greater part of the early English 
 unbelievers had been carried into unbelief partly 
 by the same intellectual defects, partly by similar 
 unhappy circumstances in the Church itself. 
 The sunken state of Christianity through the 
 civil wars, and the controversies of embittered 
 
 * There is scarcely a point in the whole compass of Christia- 
 nity or of Christian evidence which was not, in a regular progres- 
 sion, sifted by the English Deists. Herbert, by substituting a 
 natural theology for revealed doctrine, and by assigning man's 
 natural instinct as the source of his knowledge of truth, the uni- 
 versality of the reception of those truths as the test of their being 
 thus derived, laid a broad foundation for all the theories and 
 criticisms of his successors. The distinctive character of the 
 Christian miracles had been disguised by Blount ; the morality 
 of the Gospel criticised from a false point of view by Shaftes- 
 bury ; the evidence from miracles and prophecy had been sepa- 
 rately, (and therefore, as evidences, unfairly) judged by Woolston 
 and Collins ; the theory of rationalism had been proposed with 
 plausibleness, consistency, and roundness, though without depth, 
 by Tindal. 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 125 
 
 parties, induced in Lord Herljert of Clierbury, 
 the leader of the EngHsh Deists, the attempt to 
 remedy the unpracticahiess of the existing system, 
 by converting Christianity into a mere scheme of 
 Ethics ; they had led Toland to deny all higher 
 truths of Revelation, and had inclined Hobbes 
 to transform Christianity into a mere instrument 
 of state policy. The similar consequences of 
 the thirty years' war, in which, as in England, 
 Religion was made the watchword, and to whose 
 prolongation the contentions of religious parties 
 had in part contributed, produced among many 
 of the Germans a similar disposition. The con- 
 stant appeal to the rationality of the system of 
 Christianity which led Tindal to conceive of it as 
 a mere *" republication of the Religion of Nature V' 
 was extensively encouraged in Germany by the 
 translation of the works of the earlier English 
 Apologists, and by the partly allied character of 
 the orthodox school. The erroneous conceptions 
 of inspiration and of prophecy, and the conse- 
 quent failure to understand the connection of the 
 two covenants, together with the exclusive ap- 
 
 ' Tindal himself refers to a passage of Sherlock, in which this 
 expression occurs, as well as the assertion that the laws of Chris- 
 tianity are a ckar exposition of that original religion. Neither 
 Bishop Conybeare nor Foster in their answers (which, however, 
 are the most celebrated which appeared) pressed the necessity of 
 the Christian revelation, but the former contented himself with 
 shewing that it formed an useful addition to the religion of nature 
 through its positive laws, the latter that its system of morality 
 was superior to that naturally discovered. 
 
126 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 peal to the intellect in the proposition of the evi- 
 dences, which had confused to Collins the argument 
 from prophecy, gave a ready access to his criti- 
 cisms when transferred into the German Church. 
 The depth of thought and of moral earnestness 
 accordingly which guided Lord Herbert of Cher- 
 bury > in his search after the source of truth in 
 the human mind, the acuteness of Toland^ 
 and of Hobbes, and the ability evinced in de- 
 tached criticisms by Collins and Morgan ^ ex- 
 
 ' Much moral as well as intellectual reflection is implied in the 
 confession of Lord Herbert, that the understanding is an insuffi- 
 cient source of knowledge in divine things, as well as by his 
 directing his mind to consciousness, (or as he called it instinct) 
 as the only independent ground of such knowledge. The errors 
 in the application of this truth he shared in common with Jacobi, 
 with whom his general character has much similarity ; yet not- 
 withstanding these errors, he is entitled to a high degree of 
 respect from the earnestness of his religious as well as from his 
 intellectual character. 
 
 ^ It is remarkable in Toland that he was first carried on by 
 the consecutiveness of his speculations to the only consistent 
 system of unbelief, Pantheism. Locke says of him that but for 
 his love of distinction he would have been a great man ; and 
 Leibnitz, whose annotationes subitaneae ad Tolandi Libruni 
 (1707) are the best of the 50 refutations which appeared against 
 him, praises his acuteness. 
 
 ^ Morgan put together with greater minuteness than any other 
 the historical critical difficulties, and was much used both by 
 the French and German unbelievers ; (the most of Voltaire's 
 objections, which do not originate in his own unprincipled inven- 
 tions, are derived from Morgan and Tindal.) He manifested also 
 no ordinary acuteness in the doctrinal objections which he ad- 
 duced, while he won through his greater candour ; from Collins 
 whole sections have been transcribed into modern doctrinal works 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 127 
 
 erted greater influence, and that upon minds less 
 frivolous or less morbid, than those acted upon 
 by the wit and audacious falsehoods of Voltaire ', 
 or the diseased sensibility of Rousseau. Imitators, 
 but for the most part with few original additions, 
 were stimulated in Germany itself. Transla- 
 tions of our earlier English Apologists opposed 
 to these works did but aggravate the evil, and 
 increase the rationalist tendency ^ ; partly because 
 they had themselves been in some degree tacitly 
 acted upon by the systems which they opposed, 
 partly as being too exclusively intellectual, and 
 lastly, because from the different stage in which 
 German Theology then stood, their very defences 
 contributed to expose some of its untenable, but 
 
 of Germany ; his work obtained its credit from the previous mis- 
 conceptions of prophecy, as a mere historical description of the 
 future, and the confusion of prophecy and foreteUing therein 
 involved. 
 
 ^ As unbelief assumed a different character in each of the 
 three nations according to the ruling turn of mind in each, so 
 had each its separate class of readers : the French unbelievers, 
 from the unsystematic character of their minds, and from their 
 recklessness about the establishment of any fixed principles, 
 followed individual objections into a minuter detail, but without 
 reference to any general theory ; they aimed at destroying, without 
 attempting to replace, Christianity ; the English Deists from the 
 predominant practical character of our nation, were generally de- 
 termined in their investigation by what appears to be of moral 
 practical importance ; the German, who, from his more specula- 
 tive character, pursues enquiry for its own sake, followed his system 
 with more consistency whithersoever it led him. 
 
 2 This is especially remarked by Twesten, S. 189, 90, and is 
 indeed the view of the most observing niioda of Germany. 
 6 
 
128 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 iinyielded, points. It will appear scarcely credi- 
 ble to one unacquainted with those times, to 
 what degree these agencies were furthered by a 
 review established by Nicolai. Its object was to 
 recommend every book opposed, not merely to 
 Christianity, but to every earnest character of 
 mind, while it passed over in silence, or held up 
 to scorn, every work which favoured a belief in 
 Revelation \ With little recommendation, ex- 
 cept peculiarities of style, and the favourable 
 disposition of its readers, its dicta were consider- 
 ed as oracles ; and its party succeeded with no 
 better means than their bold claims to the ex- 
 clusive possession of ' sound reason,' and the 
 audacity with which they accordingly decided 
 upon Christianity, to drown any voice raised in op- 
 position, to brand any antagonist as an intolerant 
 enemy of illumination, if not as a Crypto-Catho- 
 lic. This shallowness was promoted by the 
 substitution of the rightly-called *' Popular Phi- 
 losophy," for that of Wolf, through such writers 
 as Garve, Eberhardt, M. Mendelssohn, and 
 Basedow. Incapable of deep or consistent specu- 
 lation, they laid '' sound common sense," (the 
 usual refuge of shallowness, or of deficiency in 
 speculative powers) as the basis of their philo- 
 sophy, and of their criticisms of Christianity ; a 
 superficial empiricism was the ground-work of 
 that mere shadow of Natural Religion, to which 
 they reduced Christianity : and they themselves 
 
 ^ It commenced in 1768, and grew to 48 4to. Volumes. 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 129 
 
 scarcely suspected the precariousness of their 
 own arbitrary structure, now that they had 
 undermined the foundation of positive belief, and 
 were consequently astonished at the Spinozism 
 of Lessing, and at Jacobi's vindication of its con- 
 sistency for the mere understanding. A shallow 
 theory of Eudaimonism stood at the head of their 
 system. '' Happiness was the highest destination 
 of man, the end to which it was the purpose of 
 God to lead him ; an intelligent pursuit of happi- 
 ness its morality, and to find one's own happiness 
 in that of others, the most elevated virtue, to 
 which it rose \" 
 
 Theology, however, declined only gradually, by 
 successive generations, and even at last but par- 
 tially, into this school of unbelief. The form 
 which itself latterly assumed, was not the cause 
 but the result of this collision with unbelief, which 
 its earlier stage had tended by reaction to pro- 
 duce. Not only did the first theologians, who in- 
 cidentally, or by too exclusive or partial a follow- 
 ing up of their systems, gave occasion to the 
 superficializing or the rejection of Christian doc- 
 trine, Baumgarten, Ernesti, and Michaelis, them- 
 selves still firmly adhere to them, but some even 
 
 * Twesten S. 193, in whose words much of the immediately 
 preceding statement of the external auxihary causes of unbehef 
 is conveyed ; they do not rest, however, on his authority alone, 
 but are in Germany universally regarded as occasionally con- 
 tributing to unbelief; more, however, than the circumstances, 
 which incidentally called into existence what was already formed, 
 they cannot in their own nature be. 
 
 K 
 
130 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 of their next disciples, as Semler and Morus, did 
 not altogether abandon any fundamental article. 
 The course, in which this declension was com- 
 pleted, was rather such as might have been ex- 
 pected from the previous mere intellectual con- 
 ception of Christianity, the gradual deadening of 
 the ideas peculiarly Christian, the unperceived 
 substitution of mere moral doctrines, which bore 
 more or less analogy to those of Christianity 
 which were now longer understood, and finally 
 the attempt to conciliate Rationalism by bringing 
 down Christianity to its low and carnal standard, 
 than that of direct and intentional opposition. 
 The seed withered because it had no root in the 
 heart. Each theologian attempted and strained 
 to maintain as much of Christianity, as his own 
 gradually altered tone of mind enabled him to 
 understand ; it was the natural and almost neces- 
 sary consequence of a mere objective contempla- 
 tion of Christianity, destitute of the insight 
 afforded by personal experience, that the objects 
 themselves should become gradually more and 
 more faint and indistinct, until they at length 
 faded from the sight, or were mingled, in the in- 
 creasing dimness, with others to which, viewed 
 from that distance, they bore more or less simi- 
 larity. It has often been the case, not in nations 
 merely but in individuals, where early Christian 
 education has not been further developed by active 
 religion, that Christian doctrines have first lost 
 their freshness and vividness, and that finally, 
 though habit has retained the same names, im- 
 6 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 131 
 
 paired religious perception has substituted far 
 other and far lower meaning than that which 
 they once possessed, when they were felt as well 
 as acknowledged. If under ordinary circumstances 
 they often continue apparently the same, the con- 
 tact with unbelievers, or the mistaken attempt to 
 recommend Christianity from a partial and com- 
 promising point of view, invariably discovers, as 
 it often promotes, the half-conscious deviation. 
 
 Of the first Theologians who prepared for 
 the new system, Baumgarten, who was a real 
 Christian, though gradually chilled by the exclu- 
 sive love of the mere scientific element of Theo- 
 logy, was chiefly influential by the introduction 
 of English Theology of a freer, but very negative 
 and superficial character ; by the promotion of the 
 study of history through the translation of English 
 works ; and by accustoming his disciples to de- 
 part from the traditional method, through the 
 application of the form of the Wolfian system 
 to the different branches of Theology. By this 
 last innovation, especially, the Scriptural fresh- 
 ness, which Doctrinal Theology and Scriptural 
 Interpretation had recovered in the school of the 
 Pietists, was in that same school in a different 
 mode destroyed. The tabular method, the dia- 
 lectic precision, the abstract language, which he 
 employed, humanized and straitened the divine 
 truth ; the fulness of the Christian ideas admits 
 not of being compressed into narrow logical 
 formulae ; the free and living spirit, which ani- 
 mated its language, evaporated in the minute 
 
 K 2 
 
132 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 dissection of this dialectic anatomy. Many of 
 Baumgarten's disciples ^ were led by this method 
 to a mere cold intellectual conception of Christia- 
 nity; and Semler, whose naturally ardent mind 
 was capable of deeper impressions, inherited from 
 his teacher only the views of reform, which 
 Baumgarten recommended as necessary ^ but 
 felt himself too old to execute, and which Semler, 
 from the inaccurate and unsystematic character 
 of his mind, ill, because imperfectly and partially, 
 developed. Equally faithful to the sum of Chris- 
 tian doctrine remained Ernesti, even in his later 
 years, when it had already been pared down by 
 theologians to a mere *' republication of the Re- 
 ligion of Nature." In him, however, the evil 
 effects of a mere external conception of Christia- 
 nity were yet more apparent. His revival of the 
 " grammatical," as opposed to the doctrinal, in- 
 terpretation of Scripture, was indeed a great and 
 very beneficial change ; a change for which the 
 
 * Besides Semler, many of the principal innovators, as BUsch- 
 ing. Teller, Spalding, Eberhardt, Steinbart, &c. had been pupils 
 of Baumgarten. (Niemeyer, d. Univ. Halle, S. 104.) The in- 
 fluence of Baumgarten was greater probably than that of any 
 other individual ; almost all the theological students of Halle, 
 (never fewer than between 5 and 600, and often more,) attended 
 his lectures ; the attachment to the letter of his lectures was so 
 great, that they were not only at the time transcribed by most of 
 his pupils verbatim, but weie published after his death with diplo- 
 matic accuracy, different MSS. being collated and even minute 
 variantes noted, according to the several years of the delivery of 
 the lectures. Even Baumgarten's bodily defects were imitated. 
 (Niemeyer Ebend. S. 77, 81.) 
 
 ' Semler Lebensbeschr. ap. Niemeyer, S. 104. 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 133 
 
 German Church must long be grateful to him, in 
 that it has restored the principle of the Reforma- 
 tion, that not human system, but the clear word 
 of God in the Scripture, is the basis and norm 
 of faith. Too exclusively intent, however, on 
 the introduction of the classical rules of inter- 
 pretation, he slighted the historical element : and 
 destitute of the key which would have opened to 
 him the fuller riches of Scripture, he forgot that 
 every new religion must form to itself a new 
 language, that in order to convey new truths, 
 words already in use must indeed be employed 
 to connect them with the previous ideas of man- 
 kind, but that the signification of these words 
 must be modified, that they must be re-cast, 
 re-moulded, in order to receive the stamp 
 of the newly communicated truth. The appli- 
 cation of classical language in its full strictness 
 to the records of Christianity, could but convert 
 them ii'ito a document of mere human speculation. 
 That \6yog signified " reason," and " wisdom" 
 in the classics, was a very superficial, as well as 
 an entirely mistaken, ground for supposing that 
 in St. John it meant nothing more than the 
 wisdom of the communication made to man. 
 
 The effect of this mistake is seen in its full 
 perniciousness in his immediate followers '. " Re- 
 generation" was supposed to signify " the mere 
 reception into a religious society ;" the doctrine 
 
 ' E. g. Fischer (who was indeed no theologian, but did in- 
 fluence theology) Proluss. de Vitiis Lexicon N.T., Schleusner, &c. 
 
134i CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 of the influences of the Holy Spirit became, 
 more or less, a certain attaining of praiseworthy 
 qualities with the (often merely external) assist- 
 ance of God ; the tv uvai with the Father, an 
 unity of disposition or of will. 
 
 A similar failing, arising from the same source, 
 is manifest in Ernesti's mode of vindicating re- 
 ceived doctrine. Thus in claiming inspiration 
 for the books of the Old Testament, he even 
 admits the supposition, that they may not be 
 calculated for all mankind, that they did not tend 
 to the improvement of the human heart. He 
 acknowledged their temporary value for the Jews, 
 but did not feel their direct importance for 
 Christians*. In the school of experience of 
 Luther, he would have learnt the analogy of dif- 
 ferent parts of the life of most Christians to the 
 two different stages of the Law and the Gospel ; 
 he would have felt the necessity of the law, even 
 now, as a state of preparatory discipline to bring 
 us to Christ. 
 
 The adherence of Michaelis to the established 
 system, and his respect for religion is probably 
 mainly to be attributed to the impressions made 
 by the intercourse of the Pietists, among whom 
 he was educated by his father, the excellent J. H. 
 Michaelis. Too light-minded, as himself says, 
 to adopt their tone of pious feeling, he yet re- 
 tained an external conviction of the truth of 
 
 ■ Neuester Theol. Bibliothek, B. 2. S. 440. fg. in his critique 
 upon Semler's " Enquiries on the Canon of the Old Testament." 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 135 
 
 Christianity, endeavoured to remove objections 
 by new theories, and much to the surprise of his 
 younger contemporaries, held to the last many 
 parts of the older system, which had been modi- 
 fied or laid aside. Throughout are the pernicious 
 consequences of his mere outward persuasion 
 manifest. Destitute of that conviction, which 
 can alone give a comprehensive insight into the 
 real character of Revelation, and the harmo- 
 nious relation of its several parts, he had no 
 guide which might enable him to perceive what 
 might be safely admitted, without detriment to 
 the system itself; he consequently, according to 
 the usual error of persons taking only a partial 
 view, frequently opposed the objection, instead 
 of the principle, upon which the objection was 
 founded ; endeavoured to remove it by theories 
 in conformity with mere human systems, and 
 strengthened it equally by his concessions, and 
 by his own inadequate and arbitrary defences ^ 
 
 ^ There is no work probably of Micliaelis, at all toucliing upon 
 religious subjects, to which these observations do not apply ; 
 " the Commentaries on the Laws of Moses," and " the Notes 
 on the Old Testament," are full of these perverted applications 
 of mere civil, often of modern, principles, unfounded theories and 
 low views ; his translation of the Bible indicates his common-place 
 conceptions of Scripture : his " History of the Resurrection" 
 evidences occasionally both his wrong principles of defence, and 
 a readiness, which he seems to have deemed praiseworthy, to 
 abandon his previous belief, in case it should be found to be false ; 
 his commentary on " the three most important Psalms concern- 
 ing Christ" is a specimen of his failure, from want of enlarged 
 views, to see the right principles of exposition, and the arbitrary 
 
136 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 To a mind possessed of no enlarged principles, 
 every minute difficulty obtained an intrinsic and 
 perplexing force ; his belief was a reed, ready to 
 be shaken by every fresh breeze ; all which had 
 been previously won, seemed again staked upon 
 the issue of each petty skirmish, and in the very 
 descriptive comparison of Lessing on this sort of 
 combatants, he was like the timid soldier who loses 
 his life before an outpost, without once seeing the 
 country of which he would gain possession \ The 
 
 theories and unsound criticisms to which he was consequently 
 driven, &c. Deep insight into religion were indeed inconsistent 
 with the intemperate habits and low moral character of Michaelis, 
 which defiled his books occasionally, and still more frequently his 
 lectures, with obscenity. It is a very characteristic trait of 
 Michaelis's mind, that he himself records his having asked his 
 father on his death-bed, which of the Lexica of Castelli he 
 thought the best. (Pref. to Mich. Syr. Chrestomathie.) One may 
 very consistently acknowledge the service, which Michaelis, and 
 even Paulus, has rendered, by contributing to place the histo- 
 rical circumstances of Scriptural narration more before our eyes, 
 to put us more in the situation of contemporaries, and to render 
 the mode of conception less abstract, and yet esteem the manner 
 in which they have done it pernicious, and derogatory to 
 Scripture. 
 
 ' Such, according to Lessing, was the conduct of theologians ; 
 the Christian he compares with the bold conqueror who, neglecting 
 the fortresses on the frontier, at once takes possession of the land. 
 " Never," he says, " will any one arrive at a belief in the Christian 
 Revelation who thinks he must first clear up this or that doctrinal 
 or historical minutia, before he accepts the substance ; rather 
 will he only ever accept all the several historical truths, who has 
 first gained possession of the inward holy truth, and not the de- 
 tails." In this he was preceded by our great Bacon, who com- 
 pares such defenders or enquirers to one, who, in order to light up 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 137 
 
 disadvantages, however, to which he thus exposed 
 the defence of Christianity, were the least evils of 
 the system ; far more resulted from the common- 
 place views of the persons, actions, institutions, 
 and doctrines of Scripture, to which it gave rise : 
 not only the theories of Eichhorn, (his pupil) ^ con- 
 structed on the assumed human origin of every 
 phsenomenon in revealed religion, but even the 
 low and vulgar tone of mind, in which Paulus de- 
 graded every thing spiritual and divine in the 
 Gospels to the sphere of civil every-day life, the 
 mean and earthly principles which he attributes 
 to its actors, (by which far more injury has been 
 produced than by the soon exploded and now 
 almost forgotten explanations of the miracles,) 
 seem but the natural and inevitable consequence 
 of this exclusion of religion from the theories of 
 Michaelis. 
 
 Theology, thus already on the decline, natu- 
 rally sunk still further, though in very different 
 degrees, in the next generation ; in Semler, the 
 pupil of Baumgarten and of Ernesti ; in Morus, 
 the inheritor of Ernesti's principles ; and in 
 
 a large hall, were to place a light in every corner, instead of one 
 great central light, which should illumine every the most distant 
 part. 
 
 ^ The pursuit of novelty, to the comparative disregard of truth, 
 which was the besetting temptation of this original and elegant, 
 but ill-regulated mind, revenged itself upon him ; more fertile in 
 new theories than any of his contemporaries, he survived to see 
 the last extorted from him. His errors, however, must not be 
 set to the account of German Theology, since he was a philoso- 
 phical, not u theological, Professor, 
 
138 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 Eichliorn and Koppe, the disciples of Micliaelis. 
 Of these Morus and Koppe superficialized still 
 further the Christian ideas ; Morus especially, 
 devoid of any settled principles, though in his 
 Epitome of Christian Doctrine he opposed none 
 of the Christian doctrines, led the way to their 
 subsequent rejection, by his representations of 
 the uncertainty of the conflicting views; yet 
 more perhaps by the arbitrary principle, which 
 this hesitation caused him to propose in his 
 doctrinal lectures, that so much only should 
 be retained as tended to moral improvement. 
 What was described to be thus uncertain, his dis- 
 ciples, naturally very inadequate judges of what 
 was really practical, of course laid aside. 
 
 Not only however was there in these men no 
 direct opposition, but the influence even of Semler, 
 the most direct founder of the innovating school, 
 lay more in the principles which he introduced, and 
 in his own intellectual defects, than in any direct 
 rejection of fundamental doctrines. The piety of 
 his early days accompanied him in some measure 
 through life, and became in his later years 
 still more decided. His intellectual character 
 was a singular combination of great advantages 
 and great defects. On the one hand he possessed 
 amazing retentiveness of memory, and very con- 
 siderable acuteness : on the other he was entirely 
 devoid of all philosophical talent, all power of ex- 
 tensive survey, of clear perception, and of accu- 
 rate reasoning. His extensive reading supplied 
 consequently only a mass of facts and ideas, which 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 139 
 
 floated indistinctly before him ; his acuteness sug- 
 gested continually a number of minuter combina- 
 tions, which his mind was not sufficiently syste- 
 matic to correct or limit by reference to the whole 
 subject to which they related, or to perceive the 
 consequences to which they led. When in his 
 latter days he saw how his principles had been 
 developed by others, he repented that he had gone 
 so far \ Against the Wolfenbiittel Fragments 
 he wrote with earnestness ; he opposed conscien- 
 tiously, and prevented the appointment of Bahrdt 
 as Professor at Halle : he preserved himself (how- 
 ever difficult the mode may be to understand) 
 from the results of his own scientific investigation, 
 by what he called his ** private religion," (the re- 
 ligion apparently of feeling, whose separate and 
 independent validity he wished to establish); and 
 some of his theories, which have been most exten- 
 sively abused, seem to have owed their character 
 to the indefiniteness and obscurity with which he 
 conveyed them. In his treatises on daemoniac 
 possessions ^ there was nothing in any wise dero- 
 
 ^ Niemeyer, Semler's letzte'Ausserungen liber religiose Gegen- 
 stande, S. 9. He thought, however, that in an age which had 
 been more adapted to the reception of these views, they could 
 have been developed without injury. 
 
 ^ Semler came upon this subject not in the way of mere specu- 
 lation, but to remove an injurious superstition, through which an 
 hysterical person had been treated by a clergyman of high office 
 near Wittenberg as actually possessed. Semler's first treatise 
 went no further than to disprove present possessions, admitting 
 the moral influence of evil spirits; his subsequent essay propos- 
 ed only to prove that iaifJLoi'L'Cv^itvoi need not, any more than 
 
140 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 gatory to the Evangelists, much less any thing im- 
 plying any ' accommodation' in Christ ; yet his 
 undistinguishing contemporaries pronounced the 
 opinion to be irreconcileable with faith and piety, 
 or proceeded ^ to deny the existence of any agent 
 of evil superior to man. The indiscriminate stiff- 
 ness of the preceding age yet survived sufficiently 
 to perpetuate the reaction which it had caused ; 
 and a shallow generation, accustomed by the still 
 continued mode of handling the subjects of Theo- 
 logy, to regard them as mere theoretical pro- 
 blems, seems to have thought, that the only mode 
 of recovering liberty was to depart as widely as 
 possible from the system which had fettered them. 
 Every hint was eagerly seized, and under the pro- 
 tection of a certain correspondence with the views 
 of those whose only aim was to attain that free- 
 dom of enquiry^, which is an essential principle of 
 
 cai/jiopdr, &c, in classic Greek, signify more than a " raging 
 phrenzy," while he allowed that some narrations implied a stronger 
 external or internal agency of the evil principle. Yet these 
 treatises produced such works as the " Disquisitio an Adeemo- 
 nismus cum Jide et pietate Christiana conciliari possit," Tiib. 
 1763. The subject occupied subsequently, very unprofitably and 
 unpractically, but to a wide extent, the German pulpit. 
 
 ^ E. g. Teller's Worterbuch. 
 
 ^ A good view of the previous stiffness of the German Theo- 
 logy may be collected from the second part of Semler's Autobio- 
 graphy, in which he describes the progress of the developement 
 of his own views, S. 121. fgg. We find then, in the province of 
 Biblical Criticism, not only the letter, but the very variantes, 
 (Kri, Chethibh,) of the text of the Old Testament supposed to be 
 inspired, and this immutability of the text to be indispensable to 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 141 
 
 Protestantism, others found admission, who dif- 
 fered from them in their first principles, as well 
 
 the truth of Christianity ; bolder critics, as Simonis and Le 
 Clerc, accounted among evil-intentioned antiscripturarii ; (S. 
 121-3.) the divine origin of the Hebrew points and accents 
 maintained ; the possibility of errors of transcription rejected ; 
 the Hebrew text considered as the norm of all versions, (S. 123.) 
 yet the fable of Aristeas still retained; (S. 128.) the imaginary 
 pre-eminent sanctity of the Hebrew language, and other inven- 
 tions of the Rabbins, inherited ; any innovation regarded as a 
 petulant opposition to the agreement of the universal Church. 
 (S. 130-2.) Every merely historical book of the Old Testament, as 
 Ruth and Esther was further considered equally indispensable and 
 essential to the beneficial reception of Christianity with those of the 
 New Testament, and the discovery of Christ in all the books of 
 the Old Testament to be a truth essential to religion, the basis of 
 all interpretation, and the criterion of its soundness. (S. 135 — 
 144.) The perfect purity of the Greek of the New Testament was 
 vindicated ; (S. 126.) the relative value of its documents, which 
 Luther, as well as the early Church, had acknowledged, was oblite- 
 rated, and inspiration regarded as a mere mechanical act. (S. 161.) 
 In Ecclesiastical History, the principles on which it had been 
 cultivated in the Romish Church were still perpetuated ; there 
 prevailed an indiscriminate panegyric of the early orthodox, a 
 severe condemnation of all the heretics of the first five centuries, 
 without an historical acquaintance with either; it was yet full of 
 exaggerated accounts of the early persecutions and martyrs : and 
 (here equally as in the case of Gibbon) the indiscriminate ad- 
 mission of the later miraculous legends, and among these even of 
 the least credible class, those by which the orthodoxy of one of 
 conflicting speculations was to be established, endangered the 
 reception of the miracles of the first introduction of Christianity. 
 The whole study was confined for the most part to what related 
 to the external society. (S. 154 — 161.) Symbolical, as well as 
 doctrinal, theology, needed also extensive simplification, though 
 the limits of a note will not allow even a condensed exhibition 
 of this portion of the subject. 
 
142 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 as in their object, but were included in the same 
 category by the adherents of the traditional scheme. 
 Science, unnaturally separated from Theology, 
 whose end should be a scientific statement of divine 
 truth, became its foe. It was from this cause 
 alone, that the revival of historical interpretation 
 by Semler became the most extensive instrument 
 of the degradation of Christianity. The princi- 
 ple, that an historical religion cannot be under- 
 stood without the history of the era of its intro- 
 duction, that no writing can be fully understood 
 without a knowledge of other contemporary writ- 
 ings, which fully develope the ideas, to which it- 
 self occasionally alludes, which it modifies or cor- 
 rects, nor without a clear view, whether collected 
 from itself or from exterior sources, of the persons 
 with reference to whom it was originally written, 
 and the circumstances which immediately occa- 
 sions it, is so obviously correct, that in this coun- 
 try, where the circle of expounding Scripture by 
 the system which has been founded upon it, has 
 never been systematically adopted, the contest 
 about the " Historical Interpretation " must be 
 matter of surprise, and, until explained by pre- 
 vious circumstances, of perplexity. The princi- 
 ple had already in part been developed by Baum- 
 garten: the unsystematic and unclear mind of his 
 disciple saw neither the limits, by w^hich it must 
 in its own nature be circumscribed, nor the other 
 principles by which it must be conditioned. The 
 fundamental errors of Semler's application of it 
 are the same which have already been noticed in 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 143 
 
 Ernesti ; the same exclusive adherence to his 
 single principle, the same failure to perceive the 
 connection ^ of the Christian with the Jewish reve- 
 lation, as the completion of this earlier education 
 of mankind, the same inability to discriminate 
 between what was principally intended for con- 
 temporaries, and what is directly also of eternal 
 value ; they were derived in part from the same 
 source, the want of that deeper insight into the 
 nature of the religion, which a constantly improv- 
 ing personal Christianity alone can give. Such 
 
 ^ This connection of the two dispensations had been in great 
 measure obhterated by the Orthodox system, partly from over- 
 looking the gradual character of Revelation, and finding every 
 thing already fully revealed under the preparatory covenant, partly 
 from the neglect of the historical interpretation : the study of the 
 Apocryphal books, or of Philo, which supply a necessary link in 
 the chain, by shewing how revealed truth had, during the tem- 
 porary cessation of any new discoveries, been developed by hu- 
 man reflection in conformity to the earlier Scriptures, had been 
 altogether neglected ; the revelation in the New Testament had 
 consequently become insulated and abstract ; and Semler's prin- 
 ciple, that " Revelation must consist of purely unknown truths," 
 " that it was unworthy of it to say anew what had been already 
 said," was a natural consequence of this system. It was this 
 dogma, however, which most injured Semler's great principle of 
 historical interpretation. It followed from this theit Revelation 
 could not be merely confirmatory, that whatever in it did agree 
 with what previously existed, v/as mere t,vyKaTd[DaaiQ ; that what- 
 ever had been previously taught by the Pharisees, (though in fact 
 indirectly derived from the earlier revelation,) could form no part 
 of the later communication. On the same principles, however, 
 even the meagre portion, yet left, of that scheme of truth, which 
 was destined to regenerate mankind, must be still further re- 
 duced. 
 
144 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 inexperience alone could convert the everlasting 
 contrast of adp'^ and Trv^vna into the mere tempo- 
 rary contrast of the Judaizing and narrowing con- 
 ception of Christianity, with the freer views which 
 St. Paul taught ; have divided consequently the 
 books of the New Testament into those in which 
 the aap^, and those in which the Trvtv^a, predomi- 
 nated, or have conceived that the sole object of 
 the Epistle to the Romans, was to oppose the par- 
 ticularism of the Jews, and to prove that the hea- 
 then also might attain eternal life. The theory 
 of accommodation was an unavoidable conse- 
 quence of this perverted form of historical inter- 
 pretation. Still more injurious would the same 
 system obviously be to the right understanding of 
 the Old Testament, while the inducement to apply 
 it was increased, by the inability of Semler to com- 
 prehend an extensive scheme, and by the greater 
 faultiness of the system, which he could not but 
 oppose. The confusion, further, which the ortho- 
 dox system of Doctrinal Theology had introduced 
 between essentials and non-essentials, biblical 
 truth, and human developement or mode of state- 
 ment, and the want in Semler himself of the deep 
 Christian knowledge, and clearness of thought, 
 which would have enabled him to unravel it, ren- 
 dered his vast study of Christian doctrine in its 
 earlier forms an inextricable labyrinth, a mere 
 source of perplexity and uncertainty. The mind, 
 long accustomed to derive its Christian knowledge 
 from the mechanical study of the letter of a con- 
 fined form, had lost the clue, which would have 
 
CHARACTLR OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 145 
 
 enabled it to trace in this variety of statements, 
 and in what, to a superficial mind, appeared to be 
 contradictions, the unity of the same spirit mani- 
 festing itself in various forms, according to the 
 character of the individuals through whom it was 
 conveyed. The former school had found in the 
 Bible itself all the subsequent developements, 
 which later speculation on its truths had s\ibse- 
 quently, often indeed rightly and consistently, 
 evolved : a superficial age, dazzled with the sud- 
 denness of the discovery, that parts of the re- 
 ceived system were by time alone thus developed, 
 and convinced only of the untenableness of that 
 system, employed itself in remarking and accu- 
 mulating the apparent differences : the higher 
 unity in which much of this discordance would 
 have harmonized, lay beyond their sphere. Doc- 
 trinal Theology assumed consequently in this 
 school a critical and negative, rather than a posi- 
 tive, character : the sum of doctrine, considered as 
 certainly fixed, gradually diminished, the deve- 
 lopement of the connection even of the general 
 truths of Religion became less frequent, and in 
 the energetic description of the often-quoted au- 
 thor, who has, with the deepest insight, and 
 soundest judgment, traced the whole course of 
 doctrinal Theology, " they cleared with great 
 exertions the site of the overthrown palace from 
 the encumbering heap of ruins ; they dug deep 
 trenches to bring better materials to light ; but 
 as if their strength were exhausted with these 
 efforts, they left it to each individual to put toge- 
 
146 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 ther a petty hut for his own use, if he should find 
 the foundations still safe, and the materials ade- 
 quate to the purpose ; or, if they undertook the 
 trouble for him, it was but a temporary construc- 
 tion, which, in its turn, was again to be laid in 
 heaps \" Against these principles and this con- 
 duct of Semler, (which, it must again be repeat- 
 ed, arose from no indisposition to the doctrines ^ 
 but originated in his sense of the necessities of 
 Theology, and were perverted only by the indis- 
 tinctness of his views) little opposition seems to 
 have been made, (at least none is recorded,) though 
 they led to the ultimate temporalizing and annihi- 
 lation of every thing peculiarly Christian in the 
 system ; while long-enduring contests were excited 
 by his partial deviation from the received opinion 
 on daemoniacs, or from his doubts with regard to 
 some few of the least important biblical books, 
 
 ^ Twesten's Dogmatik, S. 244. 
 
 ' That part of Seinler's autobiography, which relates to his 
 views in doctrinal Theology, (2 Th. S. 220, fgg.) indicates great 
 earnestness of mind, and a practical object ; and leaves, in com- 
 mon with every other part of this interesting piece of self-observa- 
 tion, a very favourable impression of his piety and conscientious- 
 ness. A misinterpretation of the word * liberalis,' in Semler's 
 Apparatus ad liberalem N. T. interpretationem, has given rise to 
 misconceptions of his character in several English authors, and 
 especially the late valuable Conybeare; (Bampton Lectures.) 
 Semler did not hereby mean that false spirit which casts aside, 
 under pretence of liberality, what from its own altered character 
 it no longer values, but he wished to characterize his own theory, 
 founded solely on the results of historical investigation, and 
 free and independent of the previously established doctrinal 
 system. 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 147 
 
 with regard to which, in the early Church, free 
 scope had been permitted to difference of opinion. 
 The orthodox school guarded with vigilance the 
 number of the repositories of their treasures, but 
 were unable to detect the substitution by which 
 these treasures were deprived of their value. It 
 is also remarkable, (as far as may be inferred from 
 the yet very imperfect and inadequate history of 
 the times,) that the opponents of succeeding 
 aberrations were, with a few splendid exceptions, 
 princijDally the practical clergy. These, in whom 
 their difficult practical duties perpetuated the 
 sense that something more was necessary than 
 doctrinal speculation or a religion of nature, and 
 thus kept alive the spirit of piety awakened by 
 Spener, remained doubtless, to a very wide extent, 
 unaffected by the contagion around them. 
 
 Scriptural doctrine having thus been converted 
 into speculation by one party, superficialized by 
 another, and treated as uncertain and vague by 
 a third, there remained but one more declension, 
 to which, under the then circumstances, all these 
 systems tended, the final amalgamation namely of 
 Christianity with the more earnest of the systems 
 by which it was opposed, but to which it had been 
 gradually approaching. What was left of Chris- 
 tianity was too little substantial to present any 
 obstacle to this now natural union ; nor is there 
 any reason to doubt the assertion of the author ' of 
 
 ' Steinbart Philosophische Unteihaltungen zur weitern Auf- 
 klarungder Gluckseligkeitslehre Heft. 3. 1786. 
 
 l2 
 
 • 
 
148 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 this last measure, that his object was to lead the 
 sceptics of his time to the acceptance of Christi- 
 anity. One of the most pious of his opponents ^ 
 regarded his enterprize as a sincere, though un- 
 happy, attempt to conciliate such of his contem- 
 poraries as felt the necessity of religion, but either 
 knew not, or doubted, pure Christianity. The 
 character of Steinbart seems to have been deter- 
 mined partly by a too ascetic early education, 
 partly by the habit of a mere intellectual and 
 subtle consideration of Christian truth, which was 
 engendered by the study of the over-refining me- 
 thod of Baumgarten ^. The two elements of re- 
 ligious-scientific knowledge were in him never 
 combined. The perusal of Voltaire, which at first 
 produced pain and disquiet, gained a gradually 
 increased influence over his exclusively intellec- 
 tual conviction ; and while his early education 
 preserved in him a regard to virtue with a gene- 
 ral reverence towards God, and the study of the 
 apologetic works of Locke and Foster infused a 
 respect towards Christ, the perception of the 
 errors, which the reference to experience alone, 
 as the sole source of Christian knowledge, had 
 occasioned in his pietistic teachers, fostered in 
 him the far more dangerous tendency altogether 
 to neglect it. His system consequently, though 
 sincere, was miserably shallow. As happiness in 
 
 ' The excellent Lavater in Pfcnniiigcr's Christl. Magazin. 
 
 ^ See the account of Steinbart in Schlctrel. B. 6. S. 523. 
 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 149 
 
 his view is the only object proposed to man, so 
 are human passions the only impediment ; and the 
 sum of the benefits conferred through Christianity 
 is, that it promotes that happiness by awakening 
 the reflection of mankind to their real and com- 
 mon good, and by the removal of the idea of arbi- 
 trary requisitions on the part of God, which im- 
 pede the right working of reason, and perplex the 
 natural conscience ; that it contains a perfect sys- 
 tem of moral ; strengthens through its authority 
 the natural suggestions of reason by the knowledge 
 of the superintendance of God, by the hope of 
 future rewards, and by the employment of prayer ; 
 gives an insight into the predominance of present 
 good, and an anticipation of unbounded progress 
 in various perfection. All deeper views of the 
 holiness of God, of the spiritual degeneracy and 
 spiritual capabilities of man, and of the means 
 by which the lost energy may be restored, every 
 thing in Christianity peculiarly Christian, and 
 even the more earnest aspirations of the natural 
 man, are wanting : " The system of pure philoso- 
 phy, or Christian doctrine of happiness'" was nei- 
 ther philosophy nor Christianity, but served, after 
 having been much disputed, to reconcile them in 
 the degraded state in which they then existed -. 
 
 } See the abstract of the above-mentioned work, ap. Schlegcl, 
 S. 527, %g. 
 
 . ^ Lessing, as he was throughout opposed to the shallowness of 
 the popular philosophy, speaks also strongly against this unnerv- 
 ing of Christianity, with a view to render it acceptable. " For- 
 merly," says he, " a wall of partition was drawn between Theo- 
 
150 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 The two most distinguished of his opponents, 
 Seiler and Sixt, Steinbart maintains, differ only in 
 words from himself ^ 
 
 The work was now completed ; and until a 
 more earnest spirit should re-awaken the suscep- 
 tibility for, and the need of pure Christianity, the 
 gradations of the several classes mattered but 
 little ; whether, as Nosselt and others, they de- 
 prived the doctrines of Christianity of their high 
 and efficacious import, or Socinianized them with 
 Teller and Spalding ^ or rationalized them with 
 
 logy and Philosophy, behind which each might hold on its own 
 course. What is done now ? They break the wall down ; and, 
 under the pretence of making us rational Christians, make us 
 irrational philosophers." Lessing compares further the theolo- 
 gians of this class to the master of a house, who, while he reviles 
 the thief, himself throws his goods out of window, so that he has 
 only to fetch them. 
 
 ^ In his " Philosophische Unterhaltungen," Heft. 1, ap. Schle- 
 gel, S. 545. 
 
 ^ Both Teller and Spalding belonged to a secret institute, (of 
 which Mendelssoln, Nicolai, and other adherents of the popular 
 philosophy, were also members), whose object was to re-model 
 religion, and alter the form of government. Both, however, saw 
 the necessity of proceeding slowly, and wisely confined themselves 
 to the unnerving Christianity, by substituting common-place 
 moral notions for its energetic doctrines, declaring these to be of 
 importance only to the Theologian, or polemizing against them 
 under the title of the oriental idioms of the New Testament. Thus 
 unnerved, it would collapse at once, or at least offer no resistance. 
 Thus they exchanged the doctrine of the influences of the Holy 
 Spirit for the moral endeavours after improvement with the ex- 
 ternal assistance of God : for " regeneration" was adopted " re- 
 solution to lead a new life ;" for " sanctification," " moral im- 
 provement ;" for being " actuated by the Holy Spirit," " to live 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 151 
 
 the followers of Steinbart : nor can that mode of 
 dismissing the evidences of prophecy and mira- 
 cles, which, without expressing any unbelief in 
 them, considered them as valid only for former 
 times, well be considered as any additional step. 
 It was but casting away the shell when the seed 
 of future fruit was already gone. Buttresses, 
 massive as these, were needed to aid in the sup- 
 port of the important fabric, as it once had stood, 
 but to what avail to leave them when this was 
 shrivelled up and dissolved ? 
 
 The object of this Essay, which is but to hint 
 the probable efficient causes of the temporary re- 
 ception of rationalism into German theology, and 
 the points of its gradual declension, not to give a 
 view of that theology generally, has necessarily 
 produced an almost exclusive attention to the 
 dark side of the picture. Yet it would be an un- 
 just and untrue representation, if it were not dis- 
 tinctly stated, that this outline is intended to 
 convey only the predominant character of the 
 age, that many at all times were found, in whom 
 the struggle of contending opinions produced al- 
 ready its ultimate destination, — that of separating 
 evangelical truth from scholastic systems, and of 
 
 in conformity to reason." Spalding had most influence through 
 his essay on the Utility of the Preacher's Office ; Teller, through 
 his Lexicon to the New Testament, of which six editions were 
 circulated. These, however, were among the rarer instances of 
 practical clergy, who actively engaged in the promotion of the 
 new system, as they are among those of men, who were actuated 
 by impure, not merely by shallow, views. 
 
152 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 grounding it upon a firmer basis ; who, though 
 they could not dispel the gathering darkness, still 
 sent forth even beyond the comparatively narrow 
 sphere, which they directly illumined, the beacon- 
 light of truth, and were instrumental in transmit- 
 ting the sacred torch to an age where it could 
 shine more freely, and more unimpeded. It would 
 be unfair moreover to omit the mention of such 
 men as Klopstock and Claudius, who, though not 
 theologians, exerted an extensively beneficial influ- 
 ence upon their own and succeeding times ; Klop- 
 stock, yet more by the Christian piety of his Reli- 
 gious Odes, than by his far famed epic ; Claudius, 
 by a very rare and happy union of distinguished 
 talents and rich imagination, a genuine, though 
 not deeply speculative, philosophical spirit, with 
 the purest simplicity of mind, and a depth of 
 Christian feeling and piety, which communicated 
 its own chastened holiness and practical character 
 to every subject which it treated. " Out of the 
 fullness of the heart the mouth spoke," and there- 
 fore spoke naturally and to the heart. This Chris- 
 tian piety shed throughout an unobtrusive light, 
 which was often principally perceived in the rich- 
 ness, and life, and truth, which it gave to the 
 objects more immediately prominent. Nor is the 
 love, with which the works of tiiis genuine Ger- 
 man author have been ever since cherished by his 
 nation, a slight proof of the Christian disposi- 
 tion existing. 
 
 It does not belong to a brief sketch to give a 
 detailed account of all the individuals who were 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 153 
 
 borne along by, and swelled the tide of innova- 
 tion. None of these later followers contributed 
 any original views ; the torpid influences of the 
 popular philosophy, the proud and self-compla- 
 cent satisfaction in the triumph which they were 
 gaining, the increasing efficacy of French lite- 
 rature in the extension of the reigning French 
 frivolity, indisposed to any deeper inquiries, 
 which might endanger their tranquil possession 
 of the exclusive claim to " sound reason." A 
 system which originated in the mere negation of 
 what preceded, in a mere abstraction of its deeper 
 thoughts, could not in itself produce any thing 
 positive. This hollow composition between rea- 
 son and belief stifled for a time the longings of 
 nature, which a more consistent and uncompro- 
 mising system never fails again to recall ; the 
 emptiest and most timid schemes of luibelief are 
 ever the most dangerous to Christianity ; they are 
 palliatives, which while they deaden the mind, 
 and cast over it a paralyzing torpor, conceal the 
 extent of the disease, and suspend the deeply- 
 implanted wish for its real removal. The first 
 new energy was consequently given by one far 
 more opposed to the popular philosophy than to 
 an historical revelation. A minute account then of 
 the innovating theologians would present only a 
 series of modifications of the leading classes, dif- 
 fering in the degree in which they unnerved 
 Christianity, or as to the portions of it, which they 
 admitted into their religion of reason, but agree- 
 ing in their general princij)lcs ; and the survey. 
 
154 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 though necessary in a history, which would repre- 
 sent the state of German Theology during this 
 period, and appreciate the extent of the existing 
 evils, would in the present case, where the object 
 is merely to trace the outline of the general 
 course, only serve to distract the mind by advert- 
 ence to subordinate points. Still less is it neces- 
 sary to mention the different critical investiga- 
 tions with regard to the authenticity of several 
 of the books of Scripture: these furnish but 
 rarely, or at most only incidentally, any indication 
 of the dispositions of the enquirers. The faith of 
 the Christian depends not upon the reception of 
 the one or the other book of Scripture ; and it has 
 been a supposition pregnant with mischief, that any 
 doubt respecting an individual portion of the sacred 
 volume necessarily implies a diminished value for 
 its whole contents, or a weakened reverence and 
 gratitude towards its divine Giver. The enqui- 
 ries in Germany, though occasionally carried on 
 upon wrong principles, seem generally to have had 
 truth for their object, have contributed to the 
 firmer and better-grounded establishment of seve- 
 ral books, and to the better classification of all ; 
 and one instance at least, the anxiety evinced by 
 practical as well as scientific Theologians to vin- 
 dicate to its author what all Christianity has de- 
 signated as * the evangelical, the spiritual Gospel,' 
 implies no slight interest in the truths which it 
 pre-eminently contains \ 
 
 ' Within a short time after Bretschneider's collection of objec- 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 155 
 
 Two men, however, must be mentioned, belong- 
 ing to this age, to whom much attention must be 
 given in any view of the course of the final de- 
 velopement of this crisis ; who, (though the one 
 seems to have remained embarrassed to the last 
 by the perplexing conflict of the different systems 
 in Theology and Philosophy, the other, though he 
 defended Christianity, knew it not in its depth, 
 and defended it consequently on wrong princi- 
 ples,) both contributed to its re-establishment, and 
 both contain, at least in the germ, many of the 
 ideas, whose subsequent expansion and scientific 
 justification has led to a correcter conception, a 
 readier admission, and a deeper foundation, of its 
 truths : — Lessing and Herder. It is difficult to 
 appreciate how far Lessing stood within Christi- 
 anity : how far his high value for it went beyond 
 an objective esteem for its contents : how far his 
 conception of "its internal holy truth" enabled 
 him to overcome his historical and doctrinal diffi- 
 culties and his inclination to Pantheism, and to 
 
 tionsor difficulties relating to the genuineness of St, John's Gos- 
 pel appeared, no less than fourteen answers were published ; and 
 the point is now established to the satisfaction of Bretschneider 
 himself, in common with the rest of Germany ; it would, however, 
 be very unjustifiable to ascribe to Bretschneider any other motive 
 than that which he assigns in his original work, the wish to bring 
 the question to an issue : where doubts have acquired a genera] 
 prevalence, it is an unquestionable service to collect those doubts 
 as strongly as they are capable of being put ; the only result of 
 the desultory answers with which, till this is done, vindicators 
 often content themselves, is to produce an unjustified and uncon- 
 vinced conviction. 
 
156 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 appropriate it to himself independently of its his- 
 torical basis. A too predominant indulgence of 
 the taste for elegant literature and the arts, in 
 ■which he was so great a master, seem to have 
 enervated in him the moral earnestness, and pre- 
 cluded him from the self-knowledge, necessary for 
 a thorough and satisfactory examination ; and 
 though he perhaps rightly preferred Pantheism 
 to the then existing systems, he had neither bold- 
 ness to take the " saltum mortalem/' by which 
 Jacobi escaped it, nor a philosophy sufficiently 
 deep to see the deficiencies of Pantheism itself *. 
 The contentions of his times increased to him the 
 difficulty of perceiving what formed the substance 
 of Christianity itself. Yet whatever place he may 
 himself have occupied, he rendered considerable 
 services to Christianity. Some of these have al- 
 ready been occasionally mentioned; it might suffice 
 to add that he restored the key to the right under- 
 standing of the Old Testament, as the preliminary 
 education - of the human race, and removed the su- 
 perficial objections against the particularism of the 
 earlier revelation, and the omission of a future state; 
 and which was yet more important, the change 
 which he mainly produced in the too abstract sys- 
 
 ^ In his essay iiber die Natiirliche Religion he explains Chris- 
 tianity by means of Pantheism. 
 
 * In his concise but deep and much-containing essay, " iiber 
 die Erziehung des Menschengeschlechts." A Christian would 
 indeed defend some things differently, and the Pantheistic scheme 
 lies as the basis ; it has, however, much that is valuable. 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 157 
 
 terns of evidence of the then Apologists, and his re- 
 ferring to the Bible itself as its own best, or, as 
 he held, its only, advocate \ He further, in oppo- 
 sition to a presumptuous philosophy, pointed out 
 the limits of the empire of reason, by admitting, 
 that though reason must decide whether a given 
 system be a revelation or no, yet if it find in that 
 revelation things which it cannot explain, this 
 should rather determine it for it than against it. 
 Lessing, however, though he exerted a consider- 
 able influence upon Theology, came only inciden- 
 tally in contact with it ; the dryness, with which it 
 was cultivated at Leipzig, whither he was in his 
 youth sent to study, seems to have deterred him 
 from making it a professional pursuit. The ser- 
 vices also which he rendered were, it seems, rather 
 external to Christianity, in preparing the way for 
 a higher order of Christian apologetic authors, 
 than any direct illustrations of its truths. Herder, 
 on the other hand, though, from the predominance 
 of imagination in his mental character, his own 
 views were rather dim and distant conceptions, 
 than any full realizations of the truths which 
 flashed across, rather than dwelt upon his mind, 
 promoted variously their subsequent reception ; 
 the natural simplicity and deep feeling of his 
 mind enabled him, partially at least, to under- 
 stand much of the deeper contents of the Chris- 
 
 ^ The only book, says Lessing often in his controversy with 
 Gcize, which is, properly speaking, written in behalf of the truth 
 of the Bible, or which can be written for it, is the Bible itself. 
 
158 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 tian documents, which the satisfied self-sufficiency 
 of his contemporaries had pronounced to be the 
 mere temporary disguise of the eternal truths of 
 reason : through his genuine oriental spirit he was 
 enabled to penetrate and to shew the fuller mean- 
 ing of much in the Old Testament, which their 
 partial and unhistorical rationalism had neglected 
 or despised, as mythos or unmeaning exaggera- 
 tion. The entire insight which Christian experi- 
 ence would have given, was indeed here also 
 wanting ; his early education by one of a repul- 
 sive, gloomy, and austere spirit, had alienated his 
 mind, of which feeling and imagination were the 
 chief characteristics, from the more earnest con- 
 templation of Christianity ; his natural character, 
 strengthened by this alienation and by his devotion 
 to classical literature and the belles-lettres, led 
 him to view it chiefly on its sesthetik-moral side, 
 to defend it from its loveliness rather than as the 
 only way to holiness. Still, amid this generally 
 mistaken direction of his endeavours, a suscepti- 
 ble mind, as Herder's, could not but frequently be 
 penetrated with a deeper consciousness ; and ac- 
 cordingly, not merely in his earlier works \ before 
 the love of reputation made him imperceptibly 
 enter into a compromise with the spirit of his 
 times, is there much useful, many a sentiment full 
 
 * Such are especially die alteste Urkunde des Menschen- 
 geschlechts ; die Briefe das Studium der Theologie betreffend ; 
 die Anmerkungen zum N. T. aus einer neueroiFneten morgenlan- 
 discher Quelle. 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 159 
 
 of Christian meaning, and much correct concep- 
 tion, but even in his later writings, where every 
 thing seems to float in a dim mist, so that a con- 
 temporary ^ compared them to a distant cloud, of 
 which one could not distinguish whether it were 
 a cloud, or a city with inhabitants, is many a hint, 
 which may be pursued to clearer and enlarged 
 views. 
 
 These men, however, wrote principally for a 
 succeeding generation ; their own age was too 
 deeply stamped with its empiric-rationalistic cha- 
 racter, to be much alive to minds so unlike their 
 own. A deep impression was first made by one, 
 who, in the province of philosophy itself, shewed 
 the nothingness of the boasted pretences of the 
 popular philosophy, to build a system on the 
 grounds of ' sound human reason.' Before Kant, 
 German philosophy had been content to specu- 
 late, without entering into the previous question, 
 how far human reason is capable of attaining any 
 certain knowledge in things not cognizable by 
 the senses. This enquiry Kant was induced by 
 the scepticism of Hume to institute, and the re- 
 sult to which his investigations led him was, that 
 " speculative intellect" cannot prove that the 
 ideas, at which it arrives, are more than ideas, that 
 its objects have any objective, independent, exist- 
 ence". Speculative intellect then failing, Kant 
 
 ^ Garve. 
 
 ' The object of Kant's enquiry was, wherein consists the con- 
 stitution of our mental nature previous to all experience, what in 
 6 
 
IGO CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 tried the way of practical intellect. Here he 
 found as an absolute universal principle, the ' cate- 
 gorical imperative' in man, the consciousness of 
 a fundamental law in his nature, that he ought to 
 realize that which is prescribed by the moral law, 
 so that the maxims of his will on each obcasion 
 might serve as the principles of an universal legis- 
 
 it exists purely, or a priori ? The three fundamental powers of 
 mind, by which ideas are conveyed to us, are, according to his 
 Kritik der reinen Vernunft, perception, understanding, and in- 
 tellect. In perception, all which exists a priori, is time and space : 
 these however are merely conditions of our power of contem- 
 plating external objects ; exterior to us they are nothing. Under- 
 standing is, according to Kant, the power of reducing the mani- 
 fold objects of perception under generic heads. The summa 
 genera of these (the Categories) in that they comprize all the ob- 
 jects of perception, introduce unity and connection into the sub- 
 jects of contemplation ; and thence results experience. Intellect, 
 lastly, embraces the pure conceptions, which lie beyond all expe- 
 rience, called ideas. Of these the most universal, the" highest and 
 purest, is the Unconditional and Absolute. Of this there are 
 three classes : 1. The absolute unity of the recipient of the im- 
 pressions, when detached from all accidents. 2. The absolute 
 unity of all <pair6jj.era, in the whole succession in which they 
 are presented. 3. The absolute unity of all objects of con- 
 ception. In the first of these respects, the fundamental idea of 
 the intellect is Psycologic, and denotes the soul ; in the second 
 Cosmologic, and denotes the world ; in the third Theologic, and 
 denotes God. These three ideas, he proceeded, which are merely 
 subjective and relative, had been considered as something objec- 
 tive, as objects existing external to ourselves, and thereupon had 
 been constructed a rational Psycology, a transcendental Cosmo- 
 logy, and a natural Theology ; in a word, metaphysic : sciences, 
 the existence of whose object cannot be proved, in that ' specu- 
 lative intellect' cannot shew that these ideas are more than 
 ideas. 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 161 
 
 lation. This universal principle, it appeared, 
 exists independently of any thing external ; its 
 universality Kant assumes as an established fact ; 
 that every rational being namely is conscious of 
 this unconditional unlimited law, and then most 
 strongly, when his inclinations are in contradiction 
 to it. If then this law have a real existence, in 
 order that practical intellect may not be in con- 
 tradiction with itself, it must have a right to 
 assume as postulates whatever is necessary to its 
 reality. These postulates are, according to Kant, 
 free-agency, immortality, and the existence of a 
 personal God. Free agency, as the indispensable 
 condition of all morality ; immortality, because if 
 this law really exist in man, there must be a capa- 
 bility of its realization ; but man can only make 
 an imperfect approach to its full realization in 
 this life, therefore there must be a continued per- 
 sonal existence, during which he may make an 
 endless approach to the highest degree of it, per- 
 fect holiness. This law further, though it admit 
 of nothing exterior to itself as a motive to its 
 completion, comprises in the idea of its fulfilment 
 the idea of happiness proportionate to the degree 
 of its fulfilment, and consequently requires the 
 existence of a perfect moral being, Author and 
 Governor of the world, who should allot this 
 blessedness. In brief, that if there be no God, no 
 free agency, no immortality, this law will involve 
 a contradiction. 
 
 The present is not the place to point out the 
 defects in the postulates of this system, in conse- 
 
 M 
 
162 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 quence of which it was afterwards overthrown, 
 but solely the influences of the system itself upon 
 Theology. These were for the time injurious, 
 but permanently beneficial. Its ill effects result- 
 ed from its positive side ; the idea of God was 
 lowered, and became grossly anthropomorphic, 
 in that he appeared to exist not for himself, but 
 in order to allot the degree of blessedness, which 
 man by his compliance with the moral law might 
 deserve. The moral law occupied the place of, 
 and became, God : all the relations of man to God, 
 (except as far as he was the distributer of rewards) 
 and consequently all prayer, ceased : a cold intel- 
 lectual system of dry morality was substituted 
 consequently for religion. Especially pernicious 
 was the (only short lived) system of moral inter- 
 pretation, by which Kantian moral ideas were 
 substituted for Christian doctrine. Kant, though 
 he held that the belief of pure reason was the only 
 foundation of an universal and true Church, saw 
 that a Church could only be actually erected 
 among mankind through a positive revealed le- 
 gislation, that there must consequently be an his- 
 torical Church-belief : '' This however must be 
 united to the * moral belief by an uniform inter- 
 pretation in a sense which agrees with the uni- 
 versal practical rules of a pure religion of reason." 
 This interpretation, he confessed, might often ap- 
 pear, often be, forced, if considered in relation to 
 the text of the revelation ; yet must it be pre- 
 ferred to the literal, which contained merely theo- 
 retical truth. The only real truth according to 
 
CHARACTER OP THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 163 
 
 Kant, is such as can be found in human reason ; 
 what lays beyond it could be no object of con- 
 ception, and therefore must be prejudicial to man, 
 in that it would make him neglect known truths 
 to pursue unknown \ The old error of the Gnos- 
 tical interpreters in the early Church was thus 
 revived, an example set for the subsequent iden- 
 tification of Scripture doctrine with the results 
 of speculation, and, for the time, the Scriptures 
 valued only as the vehicle, the Founder of Christia- 
 nity only as far as he was a teacher, of morals 
 analagous to that of Kant. This mode of expo- 
 sition, however, though for the time theoretically 
 much approved, was precluded from any perma- 
 nent practical ascendancy, by the firmness which 
 the historical-grammatical interpretation had now 
 acquired. It exerted, however, finally a salutary 
 
 ^ This system was contained in his " Die Religion innerhalb der 
 Granzen der reinen Vernunft." According to this theory, the 
 doctrine of the Trinity became symbolical of the three funda- 
 mental points of universal religion, that there is a holy law-giver, 
 a holy benefactor, a holy retributor ; the doctrine that " the 
 blood of Christ makes us pure," yielding, according to the views 
 of this school, no practical results, the blood as containing the 
 vital principle, was to be explained of the life, and the meaning 
 of the expression was to be, that when, through a community of 
 life with Christ, his life had penetrated and united itself with 
 ours, and we had conformed ours to his, we became pure. The 
 moral practical feeling, or tact, was in each case to supply the 
 practical result, where the point in revelation did not furnisli it ; 
 none such bdng e. g. to be obtained, according to these theorists, 
 from the curses upon David's enemies, this moral tact was to 
 perceive that under these enemies were designated his passions. 
 
 M 2 
 
164 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 influence on that system, by recalling the im- 
 portant principle of the Reformation, that a bare 
 stiff philology, or an historical knowledge, which 
 perpetually hovered around without ever reach- 
 ing its object, were no sufficient keys to the 
 meaning of Scripture. It cannot, on the other 
 hand, be considered a disadvantage, that rationa- 
 lism, which had before been a desultory aggregate 
 of mere negations, began to assume a definite and 
 scientific shape : a philosophic basis was indeed 
 thereby given to the a priori objections against 
 miracles and prophecy; yet the temporary evil 
 was more than counterbalanced by the attempt to 
 construct a system of its own ; since the more it 
 attempts this, the more visible will ever become 
 the superiority of Revelation, the more manifest 
 its own intrinsic emptiness. The benefits con- 
 ferred by the Kantian philosophy resulted more 
 immediately from its negative, ultimately also 
 from its positive, side ; from the former, not only 
 by the destruction of the Wolfian demonstrative 
 method, and the annihilation of the presumptuous 
 shallowness of the popular philosophy, but in that 
 by shewing the inadequacy of speculative reason 
 in matters uncognizable by sense, it led many, 
 who were not bound by the fetters of the new 
 philosophy, to listen to the voice of nature, the 
 revelation of God within them, and to seek as the 
 direct result of consciousness, the truths which 
 speculation was unable scientifically to justify; 
 a course, which it was expected by many ' that 
 
 ' See Iminanucl ein Buch Cur JuHen unci Heiden. Berlin 1802, 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 165 
 
 Kant himself must have adopted. Nor is there 
 any point at which the mind, which had resolved 
 upon this step, could consistently rest, short of 
 the acceptance of Christianity itself. On its posi- 
 tive side, the uncompromising strictness, with 
 which it pronounced the full and complete reali- 
 zation of the perfect moral law to be the funda- 
 mental principle of our nature, re^ awakened the 
 moral consciousness from the slumber into which 
 it had been cast by the enervating system of 
 Eudaimonism ; and though man wearied him- 
 self for a while in the endeavour to fulfil this law 
 in his ov*^n strength, the more vivid the percep- 
 tion of its claims became, and the more that man 
 was in consequence disquieted through the inade- 
 quacy of his own fulfilment of them, the more 
 earnest must be the longing after a higher assist- 
 ance, after a reconciliation with himself and with 
 his God : the " Categorical Imperative," was, as 
 the law of old, an initiating instructor which led 
 him to Christ \ The fuller acquaintance with 
 the moral nature of man, at which this philo- 
 sophy arrived through a more persevering specu- 
 lation upon the human mind, shewed also, espe- 
 cially in the acknowledgment of an in-dwelling 
 disposition to evil, that a deeper philosophy was 
 more in harmony with the depth of Christian 
 truths A preparatory education, however, on 
 
 1 Twestcn, S. 218. 
 
 ^ The first treatise in his " Die Rehgion innerhalb der Granzen 
 der reinen Verminrt," is on " the radical evil of Human Nature ;" 
 
166 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 an extensive scale must be slow ; and the Kantian 
 philosophy reigned for a considerable time undis- 
 puted and unmodified in every department of 
 science \ History and doctrinal theology were 
 alike under its sway^ and suffered for the time 
 the more from the absoluteness of the dominion 
 by which it enchained the mind. Yet where this 
 system was comprehended in its depth, and not 
 merely verbally followed, it did evince its ten- 
 dency to produce a return to the essential truths 
 of the Gospel, as in one Theologian especially, 
 whom Kant esteemed among his best disciples 
 and his friend '^ 
 
 Additional energy and activity of mind was 
 produced by a bold disciple of Kant, who com- 
 pleting Kant's system on its negative side by a 
 correct inference, which it is strange that Kant 
 
 the second on the claims of the good principle to the dominion 
 over man ; the similar claims of the evil principle, the struggle 
 between them, and what the New Testament teaches of man's 
 fall into sin, and of the means by which he may free himself from 
 the dominion of the evil principle. 
 
 * Hamann, (a man whose worth was not appreciated by his 
 contemporaries, but who possessed a very philosophic as well as 
 religious mind), and Herder especially, complain of the dry 
 scholastic method which this system introduced, as did Johann. 
 von Miiller with reference to history. 
 
 - Stliudlin, who first treated the system of Christian doctrine 
 on the principles of Kant, which, however, he by no means ser- 
 vilely followed. The doctrinal theologians of the pure critical 
 philosophy, were chiefly Tieftrunck at Halle, 1791 — 6, Schmidt, 
 at Jena, 1797, and Ammon at Gottingen, 1797 ; who, however, 
 in the later form of his work, the Summa Theologise Christianse, 
 1803, employed it only negatively. Schrockh, 43, 65 — 71. 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 167 
 
 himself overlooked, founded thereon his own. 
 The groundwork of Fichte's system was the same 
 as Berkeley's. If, according to Kant, the predica- 
 ments which we ascribe to things are merely the 
 results of our own subjective impressions, and we 
 know not what the things in themselves are, but 
 they are an unknown quantity, which the human 
 mind has invested with properties, according to 
 the necessary laws under which it contemplates 
 them, it was an obvious question, how do we 
 know that such things exist at all, exterior to our 
 own minds, that this unknown quantity is more 
 than the qualities which result from the laws of the 
 human mind ? The conclusion of Fichte then was, 
 that the whole material world has no existence 
 exterior to ourselves, that it only appears to us 
 to exist in consequence of certain laws of our 
 mind. This material appearance he accounted 
 for, from the essential nature of the human mind. 
 God, according to him, the infinite Ens, exists 
 through the finite thought of finite spirits. Finite 
 thought is the existence and image of the infinite 
 Ens. Finite thought, however, if limited to 
 itself, would be dissipated and become a nothing; 
 to give it reality and life, there must be a con- 
 trast in itself; hence infinite thought, coming 
 into existence in finite, places together with 
 thought a something, by which thought may be 
 confined. This is the material world, which ap- 
 pears as something external, so that with each 
 self is necessarily united a not-self, a cpntrast to 
 self. The life and activity of human thought 
 
168 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 consists then, in a continued endeavour to break 
 through that by which it is confined, partly 
 theoretically, by penetrating and thinking through 
 the objects, and thus appropriating them to 
 thought, and as it were, converting them into it ; 
 partly practically, by raising itself above all the 
 laws of the not-self, so that man lives from and 
 for himself. This system was useful in producing 
 energy, yet this energy was in the first instance 
 confined to abstract thought, and it engendered 
 a proud high-mindedness both theoretically and 
 practically; theoretically in the contempt of all 
 material science, of every thing but abstract 
 thought, practically in that it attributed to man 
 a freedom which belongs only to God, and thereby 
 produced a most unbounded egotism \ 
 
 A new element was introduced into Germany 
 by the nature-philosophy of Schelling. Fichte 
 had endeavoured to solve the contrast of matter 
 and spirit by denying the existence of the former, 
 and transferring the contrast to the mind ; Schel- 
 ling's problem was to remove it essentially. He 
 attributed as real an existence to the material as 
 to the ideal empire of things, so that the empire 
 of material things was only a different mode of 
 expression of the immaterial. Spirit, by thinking 
 matter through, frees it as it were from its con- 
 
 ^ Fichte's system may be collected best from Fichte'ns Ap- 
 pellation an das Publicum iiber die ihm beigef'iigte Beschuldigung 
 dcs Atheismns, 1791. Anweisung zum seligen Leben, 1806. 
 Schelling's Darlegung des wahren Verhiiltnisses der Naturphilo- 
 sophie zur veibesserlen Fichte'schen Lehre. 1806. 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 169 
 
 finement, in that it looses its spirit. In that, 
 however, the laws of matter are the expression 
 of spirit, the spirit only becomes conscious of 
 itself, in that it thinks matter through and ap- 
 propriates it ; so that the whole employment of 
 speculation upon external things is only a self- 
 affirmation. God accordingly cannot be consider- 
 ed as a mere unity, but can only be conceived as 
 a.living God, in that he has a contrast in himself, 
 the removal of which is his life. The unity of God 
 has consequently continually revealed itself in plu- 
 rality, spirit in matter, that the plurality may extri- 
 cate itself into unity, matter be exalted to spirit, 
 and be freed. The system of Schelling produced 
 indirectly as well as directly a great revolution ; 
 while the activity and independence of mind, which 
 it much contributed to rouse, precluded those 
 parts within itself, from which danger might be ap- 
 prehended to the Christian system, from exerting 
 that universal influence which the Kantian philo- 
 sophy had exercised, it excited a vivid conscious- 
 ness of the universal presence and agency of a 
 living and infinite being ; and thereby overthrow 
 the dead barren idea of an epicurean deity at a 
 distance from, and without connection with, the 
 world, and the unworthy deduction of the infinite 
 from the finite. By the introduction of contem- 
 plation, instead of mere abstract thought, it 
 awakened a deeper mode of seeking after know- 
 ledge than was admitted by the previous systems ; 
 and in the direct province of theology it acknow- 
 ledged, or introduced, that susceptibility for truths 
 beyond the compass of intellectual speculation. 
 
170 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 which those systems had effaced. " It has partly 
 again acknowledged, in part it has, though dimly, 
 anticipated a deeper meaning in the ideas of the 
 Christian Theology, which had been entirely con- 
 cealed from the common view. To many it has 
 been a point of transition to a Christian convic- 
 tion ; to many it has restored the courage to 
 undertake a scientific defence of Christianity, 
 and has exerted an influence favourable to it 
 even upon systems at variance with itself ^" 
 
 Jacobi acknowledged the consistency of these 
 systems, as also of Pantheism, but could not 
 acquiesce in their results ; he therefore opposed 
 to them the doctrine of immediate consciousness 
 in divine things. He maintained that there 
 must be an immediate certainty of knowledge 
 in regard to the deity, (whether it be termed 
 feeling, or consciousness, or intellect,) whereas 
 speculation only arrived at this knowledge 
 immediately : that this immediate conscious- 
 ness taught man to believe in God, as a being 
 different from and in contrast with himself, in the 
 freedom of man, in personal continued-existence, 
 and in the objective existence of evil -. The part 
 
 ' Twesten, S. 198. who instances Fichte; comp. Schelling, Ver- 
 haltniss der Naturphilosophie zur verbesserten Fichte'schen Lehre 
 Tiib. 1806. This system was itself but little directly admitted into 
 doctrinal theology ; the above-mentioned work of Daub is the 
 only instance; and even that (according to Twest. S. 200.) is 
 among the most visible proofs of the commenced independence 
 of doctrinal theology from the schools to which the authors are 
 addicted. 
 
 ^ See especially his Einleitung iiber Gottliche Dinge. 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 171 
 
 of Jacobi's system unfavourable to revelation 
 was the extension of the same principle to 
 historical information, as being equally mediate 
 with speculation, and therefore as little capable 
 of conveying real knowledge. Jacobi accordingly 
 accepted only the idea of the truths of revelation, 
 not their historical basis. He forgot that his four 
 truths are no where to be found, exterior to 
 Christianity, as indeed through it they first ac- 
 quire their practical importance ; he failed to per- 
 ceive the ground of this fact, that though the 
 acknowledgment of his truths does lie deep in 
 human nature, in consequence of its yet remain- 
 ing likeness to the divine, they must now be 
 cleared up by the aid of Ptevelation, and that to 
 man in his present state, other truths beyond 
 these four are necessary. 
 
 The latest form of rationalism established itself 
 as the result of these systems ; but from these 
 same systems has its untenableness, both in 
 its positive and negative sides, been beyond all 
 question established ; and in its strictest contrast 
 to revelation it has nearly disappeared \ The 
 support which it before claimed for its positive 
 contents from speculation or from " sound human 
 reason," has been withdrawn by the overthrow of 
 the Wolfian and Popular Philosophy ; the most 
 of its adherents built therefore, (though in a 
 very different spirit from its excellent author) on 
 
 ^ Among theologians, the only remaining adherents of any 
 note of the strict rationalistic school are Wegscheider and Rohr. 
 
l72 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 the principle of Jacobi, on consciousness as the 
 source of knowledge in divine things, and thereby 
 disabled themselves from effectually attacking 
 the believer in revelation, or from defending them- 
 selves against the Pantheist. Of the believer in 
 revelation they could no longer require, that he 
 should establish by reason truths which lie be- 
 yond reason, since they confessed themselves, 
 that they could not establish by reason free- 
 agency, human personality, &c. which they yet 
 continued to hold ; the Pantheist on the other 
 hand maintained against the rationalist, as he did 
 against the believer in revelation, that the unprov- 
 ed truths of the deist were merely the product of 
 subjective self-deception, derived from the ascrip- 
 tion of human qualities and human feelings to 
 the deity. The shalfowness of his conceptions 
 of moral evil, which produced his denial both of 
 the original declension of man, and of the neces- 
 sity of the means for his restoration, which 
 Christianity contains, were exposed by the system 
 of Kant : the anthropomorphic views of God, as 
 a mechanical contriver of the world, which, like 
 the human author of a machine, he was imagined 
 subsequently to have left to carry on the work 
 for which it was designed, (on which views the 
 distinctions between the mediate and immediate 
 agency of God, the so-called interruptions of the 
 laws of nature, &c. and the consequent criticisms 
 of revelation were founded,) were annihilated by 
 the philosophy of Schelling. The rest of the 
 system of rationalism was too mere an abstrac- 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 173 
 
 tion of Christianity, deprived of its radiancy and 
 warmth, long to endure ; its criticisms of revela- 
 tion the same as those which our invaluable 
 Butler has shewn can be consistently urged only 
 by the Atheist or the Pantheist. That milder 
 form, which, according to the scholastic distinc- 
 tion, admits things above, but not those contrary 
 to, human reason ', rather incidentally and occa- 
 sionally, than in its own nature, agrees with the 
 pure Rationalism, and stands within or without 
 Scriptural Christianity, according as the Christian 
 doctrines appear to each individual who adopts it, 
 contrary or not to that reason ; but even among 
 those, who on this ground yet remain strangers to 
 the main Christian doctrines, there exists, in very 
 many at least, that deep moral earnestness, which 
 must in time bring them to their acknowledg- 
 ment. 
 
 The final issue of this great developement is 
 yet too incomplete, the extensive re-animation of 
 a living Christianity too recent, the degrees in 
 and the forms under which it has often been re- 
 stored, too various, to allow a stranger now to 
 pronounce upon either the causes or the extent of 
 
 ^ The reality of this distinction has been questioned by some 
 moderns, as if what was above, were also contrary to, reason ; 
 yet " not to belong to, not to be within the province of," is no 
 more equivalent to the " being opposed to," than " not to love," 
 is " to hate." In saying that a thing is contrary to reason, we 
 acknowledge that it lies within the cognizance of that faculty ; 
 in saying that a subject is above it, we ascribe to it a different 
 order of things, for which reason has no criterion. 
 
174 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 that restoration, or to express any opinions upon 
 the individuals who have been, under providence, 
 the means of that restoration. From the very 
 advanced state of theological education in Ger- 
 many, a vast influence is at all times in active 
 agency, of which no conception can be formed 
 either from its printed literature, or from a resi- 
 dence at a limited number of universities. By 
 far the largest portion of German Theology is a 
 floating capital; so that no just estimate can be 
 made from the printed works of any theologian, 
 of the extent or variety of his usefulness, while 
 a great proportion will always remain, who are 
 the instruments of a widely diffused blessing, to 
 which their embodied theology bears not the 
 remotest proportion : still more difiicult is it for 
 a stranger, especially for one, who has only wit- 
 nessed in his own country a scrupulous ad- 
 herence to a received system, to see how far 
 much which is contrary to his own views may 
 not only not be injurious, but, in a different 
 state of things, even beneficial to the essentials 
 of Christianity. Much that appears to be danger- 
 ous in a system, which has not been in all its 
 parts deeply examined, is found in a more ad- 
 vanced stage to be useful or necessary : the wind, 
 which might be fatal within a narrow channel, 
 serves only to bear onward more prosperously in 
 its way the vessel which has taken a freer and 
 a bolder course. 
 
 Without however venturing to define the 
 causes, or name the instruments of this great 
 6 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 175 
 
 renovation, the gains of this long and perilous 
 career are in part obvious ; the banishment of a 
 reliance upon the mere letter of a received 
 system, of a mere intellectual conception of 
 Christianity, of a deadening formularism, of the 
 undervaluing of Scripture in behalf of an over- 
 refined human system, of an uncharitable pole- 
 mic, which partly rivetted the attention upon 
 mere collateral or subordinate points, partly obli- 
 terated the import of the most momentous truths ; 
 (acting as these evils did on practical as well as 
 scientific theology), and the renewed and ener- 
 getic life given by the opposite of all these 
 aberrations, are on the purely religious side an 
 immeasurable, inestimable, gain ; on the scientific 
 side the principles established in each theological 
 science, and its more comprehensive and juster 
 cultivation, have been productive of yet greater 
 benefit to theology than even the enlarged and 
 correcter knowledge, which has resulted from the 
 continued investigations produced by these col- 
 lisions ; many theories (as those on the principles 
 of interpretation) which were partially developed 
 by different minds, and injurious while partial, 
 have in their more enlarged application become 
 favourable to the purer development of Scriptural 
 truth: many weak points, which before were 
 stumbling-blocks in the reception either of 
 Revelation or of the essentials of Christianity, 
 have been removed or replaced : it has indeed 
 been necessary to examine deeply the founda- 
 tions of Christianity, but thereby has the rock 
 
176 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 upon which it rests, been again discovered from 
 amid the accumulation of human theories by 
 which it was concealed, but which yielded to the 
 first shock of the storm or the flood : while in the 
 well-founded confidence, which past experience 
 has given to the German enquirer, there is a rich 
 promise, that the already commenced blending of 
 iDclief and science, without which science becomes 
 dead, and belief is exposed to degeneracy, will be 
 perfected beyond even the degree to which it was 
 realized in some of the noblest instruments of the 
 earlier Reformation. Nor is it any slight advan- 
 tage (compared to its earlier state) that no investi- 
 gation is now entered upon with that hesitating 
 timidity, which contemplates the results with re- 
 ference only to an existing human system, thereby 
 producing an unconscious bias to blink the diffi- 
 culties by which the wished-for conclusion is op- 
 posed, and becoming unsusceptible for that portion 
 of truth, which may exist in a scheme at variance 
 with one's own. Controversy, whether within or 
 without Christianity, would have been spared 
 much of its bitterness, have been sooner ended, 
 and produced richer and earlier results, had this 
 candour been more uniformly exercised. 
 
 How soon these great results may be fully 
 realized can be known only to Him, " in whose 
 power are the times and seasons" of his Church. 
 Yet in contemplating the probability of their 
 arrival, it must be recollected that the individuals 
 employed in their acceleration must be weighed, 
 not counted ; that every individual who has extri- 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 177 
 
 cated himself from the mazes of unbelief, as many 
 of these have done, is not only a witness to others 
 of the living force of Christianity, but is himself 
 so much the firmer and more energetic a minister 
 of the faith which he has won ; that many, who 
 themselves still stand short of a perfect Scriptural 
 faith, are yet in various measures and degrees en- 
 gaged in promoting its final renovation; that 
 there may be the same Christian feeling in very 
 different forms of expression, or that the basis 
 may exist, though the intellectual developement 
 of it may be impeded by the intricacies of an ear- 
 lier-admitted system of philosophy ^ ; and that, in 
 the sceptical struggle after truth, of many who 
 are yet in doubt with regard either to the essen- 
 tial doctrines of Christianity, or to revelation 
 itself, there may be often more of the Christian 
 spirit, than in an unhesitating traditionary belief. 
 The final issue of this crisis may be impeded by a 
 mistaken political interference, which can now 
 only create re-action, or engender hypocrites ; or, 
 in a lesser degree, by the distractions and irregu- 
 larities produced by the intervention of foreign 
 religious bodies ^ ; yet it seems neither too san- 
 
 ^ TliOLigli the mention of living- authors has been for the most 
 part purposely avoided, one may, it is believed, safely instance 
 De Wette, as one whose really Christian faith is only obscured 
 by his adherence to the Fricsian Philosophy. 
 
 2 From the author's personal knowledge of Germany aud from 
 the views of some very Christian practical clergy of that country, 
 of whom he enquired, he is strongly assured that such interference 
 
 N 
 
178 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 guine nor presumptuous to hope that the time is 
 not far distant when the religious energy, now 
 widely visible in Germany, shall produce its fruits, 
 and the Evangelical Church, strengthened by the 
 increasing internal unanimity, fortified against 
 error by past experience, and founded on a Scrip- 
 tural faith, shall again, in religious as well as sci- 
 entific depth, be at least one amongst the fairest 
 
 could only retard the object which it wishes to promote; that it 
 would not only increase the suspicions of Sectarianism and Schism, 
 under which the revival of a living Christianity has already been 
 calumniated, but that it would necessarily introduce disorder and 
 division, and might both occasion direct political Interference, 
 render individual opposition more plausible, and alienate the un- 
 discriminating. It is perhaps a natural feeling in a time of strong 
 excitement, for each individual to think that too much cannot be 
 done, or that his own exertions if earnest cannot be mis- 
 applied; and in this country especially, a feeling, analogous to 
 that energetically described by the Greek historian, seems to 
 be revived, that nothing can be well done which English piety 
 and English charity are not concerned in promoting. The au- 
 thor doubts not the goodness of the motives of the members of 
 the " Continental Society ;" but it might be well if they would 
 re-consider whether their interference is not likely to produce a 
 diminution of Christian charity, whether it be in itself justifiable, 
 and whether it would not imply a firmer faith in Him, who has 
 promised never to desert his Church, to leave the German Church 
 under the care of those pastors whom He has raised up in it, in- 
 stead of intruding, uncalled, into a foreign fold. The author 
 must repeat that the statement of these sentiments arises not 
 from any doubt of the piety of the objects of the Continental So- 
 ciety, whose members are personally unknown to him, but from 
 the conviction that their exertions in Germany are unnecessary, 
 and would be prejudicial. 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 179 
 
 portions of the universal Church of the Re- 
 deemer. 
 
 It may be permitted, in confirmation of these 
 hopes, to present the view given by the valuable 
 author, already so often quoted ^ remarking only, 
 that Theologians form but a very small propor- 
 tion of the second class described, and that as 
 Theology was the last department which felt the 
 influence of the inroad of unbelief, so likewise has 
 it naturally been the first to recover itself; that 
 moreover, even as far as Theology is pre-eminently 
 considered in any portion of this picture, the view 
 of the author, from the character of his own mind 
 and the nature of his subject, seems principally 
 to have been directed to those developements, in 
 which philosophy has been most influential, and 
 where a pure renovation of Christian faith, though 
 often deeper, would perhaps in its own nature be 
 slower; and that one may be justified, therefore, 
 in forming brighter expectations of an earlier con- 
 clusion, than he in the midst of the struggle has 
 ventured to anticipate. 
 
 " The mass of the Lutheran Church, the people 
 namely, as they were but little affected by the de- 
 fects of the old Theology, so have they also been by 
 the revolutions of the new ^ ; if there have been at- 
 
 1 Twesten, S. 216—220. 
 
 ^ The author may be permitted to remark in confirmation, that 
 he has heard more than one sermon founded upon rationalist prin- 
 ciples, and stating: incidentally rationalist views, of which he had 
 
 N 2 
 
180 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 tempts to adapt it to them, yet have not the inno- 
 vations been able to penetrate either very deeply 
 or very generally ; the people has, on the whole, 
 remained true and attached to the faith of their 
 fathers. The religious ideas seem indeed to have 
 lost in strength and efficacy ; the habits, the whole 
 form of domestic and public life no longer express 
 
 reason to know that the positive evil passed by wholly unperceived 
 by the congregations; in several cases where these had been more 
 prominently promulged, the congregations had, through their own 
 biblical knowledge, been able to correct them, and in some had 
 even insisted on the removal of their preacher. In general, how- 
 ever, the effects of rationalism upon the pulpit were solely to pro- 
 duce dry moral discourses, or if a different meaning were attached 
 and attributed by the preacher to the doctrinal terms which he 
 yet retained, the congregations, in whom their former faith was 
 kept alive by the study of the Scripture, and the hymns of a more 
 pious age which Germany possesses in such rich abundance, con- 
 tinued to understand them in their original Christian meaning. 
 Among the lower classes, the unchristian publications, directly 
 manufactured for them, found but little access ; and the author 
 \vas . informed, on enquiring upon this subject, in one Prussian 
 University where the lowest class could without exception read, 
 that the Bible and the Hymn-book were alone actually read. It 
 may be added, that in several places where an attempt has been 
 made to substitute new hymns for the public use, in which the 
 Christian doctrines were modernized, or omitted, it has been suc- 
 cessfully resisted by the congregations. It is, however, upon the 
 whole, due to the German clergy to state, that though there may 
 have been some flagrant instances of the violation of pastoral 
 duty, the defects have not, upon the whole, been different in kind 
 from those, which have often resulted from a dead orthodoxism ; 
 the effects have been negative rather than positive, rather the 
 withholding of more nutritious, than the substitution of unwhole- 
 some, food. 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 181 
 
 the same uniform reference to the Christian ideas, 
 which they formerly did : worldly-mindedness, 
 deficiency in faith and in piety, may have gained 
 ground ; yet perhaps it is only, that what formerly 
 lay concealed under a scrupulous adherence to 
 forms now displays itself more openly. Let 
 but the evangelical faith again be energetically 
 preached, the evangelical congregations will ap- 
 pear more readily than many now dare to hope. 
 Not so much a reanimation as a new arousing of 
 the already existing life is necessary ; it is a condi- 
 tion like that of the chrysalis in the coverings of 
 the pupa ; the old formations have been dissolved, 
 the anatomist sees within the larva nothing but 
 shapeless matter ; yet there do lie within it the 
 preparations for a new organization, wherewith 
 the being, unfolded into a higher class, goes forth 
 from its envelopements. 
 
 " With regard to the learned and cultivated 
 classes, at least a certain tolerance towards the 
 faith of the Church has revived, among many a 
 reverence and a need of it. It has been perceived, 
 that the way which has been hitherto trod led to 
 no blessing ; the illumination has not produced its 
 vaunted fruits ; philosophy has not justified the 
 confidence with which it was exultingly greeted ; 
 after the foundation of positive faith had been 
 undermined, in many, very many, the general 
 truths of the so-called natural religion sunk in the 
 ruins; the unsatisfactoriness of a scepticism is now 
 felt, which conceals itself perchance under loud- 
 
182 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 sounding phrases, but deceives not the experi- 
 enced, who has been tried in the struggles of life, 
 and which deserts its adherent without consolation 
 in the presence of death. We have become con- 
 vinced, that by the side of the many systems, 
 which in part without any great expenditure of 
 intellect and of originality, have yet found appro- 
 bation or been tolerated amongst us, that of the 
 old Church, which is inferior to no other in con- 
 sistency and depth, may with honour maintain its 
 place ; whoever consequently undertakes to de- 
 fend it, has at least (with the exception of a few 
 journals and a few individuals, the representatives 
 of an earlier period), no longer to anticipate the 
 common contempt and the hostility of all the self- 
 deemed wise ; and if the larger number, like the 
 Athenians of old, (Acts xvii.) reserve the further 
 investigation for another time, yet is there here and 
 there another Dionysius the Areopagite among 
 them, who finds here what he had hitherto sought 
 in vain. 
 
 " It must further be acknowledged, that even 
 among those who yet remain estranged to the 
 faith, the respect for moral duty, the feeling 
 for what is good and noble has not diminish- 
 ed; rather has it been animated and elevated 
 by that very philosophy, to which the majority 
 of the opponents of the ancient system of the 
 Church is attached. Those who deny or doubt 
 every thing else, deny not that morality deter- 
 mines the worth of man ; there is no one who 
 
CHARACTER Or THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 183 
 
 would not be ashamed of a theory which regarded 
 duty as subordinate to interest, virtue to enjoy- 
 ment. Moral systems, which refer morality to 
 the mere impulse after well-being, would now 
 meet with no success : the taste of the age has 
 withdrawn even from favourite authors, who 
 seemed to sanction less strict principles. This 
 moral earnestness which animates all men of the 
 better order among us, is an important point for 
 the preacher of Evangelical Christianity, with 
 which to connect its truths ; for their reception 
 depends upon a moral disposition ; the stricter 
 the system of morality becomes, the less can there 
 fail a feeling of the necessity of reconciliation 
 and of a higher assistance, which can only be 
 realized in Christ : as the law formerly, so may 
 now the categorical imperative be a preparatory 
 instructor to lead to Christ. 
 
 " To this must be added, what we have before 
 mentioned, the more favourable direction which 
 science has taken. Mere empiricism and mate- 
 rialism have vanished from the schools of philo- 
 sophy ; the religious ideas are indeed differently 
 explained and interpreted, but they are acknow- 
 ledged every where ; the disposition has ceased 
 to ascribe reality only to that which admits of 
 demonstration ; the understanding and the will 
 are no longer accounted the only modes in which 
 the activity of the mental powers can exert itself; 
 the claims of the feeling, the peculiar organ of re • 
 ligion in man, remain no longer unregarded. 
 
181 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST 
 
 *' On the other hand a different spirit is aroused 
 in historical studies also. The time is past in 
 which Christian antiquity furnished materials 
 only for the exercise of critical acumen, with 
 which there was no sympathy, from which the 
 mind was too estranged to be able to obtain from 
 it a pure historical picture ; the mind has ceased 
 to be susceptible only for what coincides with 
 certain prevailing opinions ; it has learnt the 
 abstraction from self, necessary for the full recep- 
 tion of the impressions of history. Much has 
 thus become intelligible to us, which hitherto 
 was as a sealed book, and in the same proportion 
 has it been brought nearer to us ; we feel our- 
 selves attracted by the character and the efforts 
 of antiquity ; we can transport ourselves into 
 their feelings and modes of conception ; we can 
 derive pleasure and improvement from the ex- 
 pressions of their Christian sentiments. By these 
 means has that pride been checked, through which 
 our age deemed itself raised so far above every 
 thing which preceded it ; what our ancestors 
 have transmitted to us as the fruit of their exer- 
 tions, is no more rejected without further exami- 
 nation as valueless; but the duty of respecting, 
 and of faithfully preserving it, is acknowledged, 
 wherever it was not founded on transient circum- 
 stances of the time, but expressed the funda- 
 mental ideas of Christianity and Protestantism. 
 At the same time, however, the investigations in 
 Scriptural interpretation and in history have 
 10 
 
CHARACTER OF THEOLOGY IN GERMANY. 185 
 
 cleared away much, which hindered the right 
 understanding and free appropriation of these 
 ideas; the essential has been separated from the 
 non-essential and accidental, the indifferent and 
 unimportant has been brought back to its true 
 value ; the genuine traits of Evangelical Christia- 
 nity are become more clearly prominent, since 
 that has been removed through which it was 
 thought to help out, or to adorn, the portrait ; so 
 that there is nothing to deter any one from ac- 
 cepting it, in whom there is found an internal 
 alliance with its spirit. 
 
 " The ground then is prepared ; it remains 
 only that the seed of a living faith be cast into it. 
 The fields are ready to harvest ; only may the 
 Lord of the harvest send his labourers ! And 
 why should we not put our trust in him, who 
 has planted, propagated, preserved Christianity 
 among circumstances so much more difficult ? 
 He, whose assistance our Church has experienced 
 in so many a severe contest, will not desert it 
 even now, whether he presently send one, who in 
 the spirit and power of a Luther shall quickly 
 turn the hearts, and bring back the minds of the 
 fathers to the children, or whether it lie in his 
 purpose that the crisis shall slowly unfold itself, 
 and the religious life should gradually recover a 
 sound and healthy state. Many appearances of 
 the times point to a deeper, more universal, 
 awakening of belief. If this be derived from the 
 right source, then in a short time the undecided 
 
 o 
 
186 CAUSES OF THE LATE RATIONALIST, &C. 
 
 will become determined ; the wavering, firm ; the 
 cold, warm ; the lukewarm be borne along ; and 
 those foreign intermixtures be separated, which 
 here and there create a suspicion of the good cause 
 even in the minds of the well-disposed, and give 
 to the adversaries a plausible ground of depre- 
 ciating or of opposing it." 
 
 THE END. 
 
 Printed by R. Gilisert, St. John's S(iiiare, London. 
 
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 6