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The mystic rationalism, on the other hand, which is founded upon feeling rather than reason, had its first development in the writings of Schleiermacher, who with great eloquence and power showed the religious side of Jacobi's philosophy; while Fries has spoken to the religious world by the mouth of De Wette and Hase. The succeeding adherents of these schools, especially the admirers of Schleiermacher's theology, have shown gradual signs of a nearer approach to the simple. supernaturalist point of view as held generally by the church from the earliest ages. Lücke and Twesten have been long advancing to that position; Nitzsch and Neander may be said to be virtually there already; whilst we recognise in Dr. Sack one who has completely found his way back to the position of the first reformers before the composition of the symbolical books. What the result may be of a contest which has now been carried on for nearly a century, it is impossible to predict; but if we may judge from the tendencies which are now manifest, we may hope that truth will yet ere long prevail, and that the religious history of this eventful century we have described will stand forth to the world like a beacon which shall warn from the shoals among which so many have made shipwreck of their faith, and direct the honest inquirer to the land of true repose.

The object we have had in view in the preceding sketch, is to introduce to our readers a work, the title of which stands on the first page of the present article, which really is what it professes to be, a critical, and we may add, a masterly history of the German rationalism, from its very commencement up to the year 1843. The course followed in it, is substantially that which we have briefly given above, only expanded into an octavo volume of more than five hundred pages, and containing a most minute account of all the principal movers in the scene. The first chapter is devoted to an explanation of rationalism itself, in which the author plainly declares his own views to be opposed to any infringement upon the simple supernaturalism of the Bible, as it has ever been held by the church from the remotest period; whilst at the same time he evidently knows how to appreciate the investigations of the learned in casting light upon the sacred page. His own words at the end of this chapter we translate as follows:

"Previous to tracing the successive transformations which rationalism has undergone since its origin, it was necessary for me to establish its nature; and we have seen that this consists in the persuasion, that man possesses within sufficient powers to raise himself to the knowledge and to the practice of the truths of the Christian religion. As we have shown, it treats revelation, which judges these powers to be insufficient, as simply a vassal; and in treating it thus, evidently places itself in opposition, and in a state of hostility to it. If rationalism rejects this accusation, I will abstain from suspecting its honesty; but it will be allowed me to point out its inconsistency, and to show the logical error, from which we should like to see it exempt. It is true, that all the doctrinal systems which a more or less moderate rationalism has produced for the last fifty years, are not based upon the literal sense of this far too ambitious 2 x

N. S. VOL. VIII.

definition; because the faculties of the human reason are differently considered by each one of their authors; but all these doctrinal systems unite in denaturalising the ancient idea of revelation and inspiration, without which the doctrines have no authority, and in deifying the human reason, by constituting it judge of all which must be believed and practised in matters of religion. If care is not taken to establish this essential and radical difference between the two systems, we shall soon bewilder ourselves in respect to their reciprocal bearings, and, with the best intentions, render ourselves guilty of injustice in our judgments. Having witnessed the narrow-mindedness of some supernaturalist theologians, or people of the world, who make so offensive a contrast to the generous sentiments evinced by many rationalists, we shall gladly, in these cases, sympathise with the latter; but in doing so, we shall be far from forsaking those Christian principles which, wisely understood, and intelligently applied, are an inexhaustible source of elevated thoughts, of noble sentiments, and, above all, of peace to the human soul."

The view which our author next takes of the principles upon which the Reformation was founded, and his sketches of the respective characters of Luther, Melancthon, and Erasmus, will be found highly interesting although we should certainly demur to the conclusion at which he arrives, that the first seeds of the German rationalism are to be found in their substitution of the Bible, and the Bible alone, as the religion of Protestants for the authority of the church. This, as it appears to us, is the most vulnerable part of our author's critique, because here he has evidently been more influenced by local circumstances than by a broad view of the Protestant church, in all its various branches. For his argument to be good, it would be necessary to show, that wherever the Bible has been made the sole guide, wherever the authority of tradition has been disregarded, and articles and creeds disowned, there have existed perpetual variations of opinion and rationalistic tendencies as the result. This, we contend, is far from the truth;-nay, we think, that if M. Amand Saintes were to pay a visit to our own country, we could convince him that the very religious community which, of all others, has refused to be confined by articles and confessions, and appeals most strenuously to the word of God, is that in which there is the greatest unity of sentiment, and which has, at the same time, placed one of the strongest barriers against extravagance on one side, and neology on the other. That cumbrous articles and Athanasian creeds should superinduce scepticism, we can very easily imagine; but how a faith, based simply on the Bible, could lead to anti-supernaturalism, we are at a loss to conjecture; for assuredly, of all books in the world, it is that which most plainly contains a divine and supernatural element. Our author, indeed, himself allows that it is in spite of the Bible, and not in accordance with it, that the rationalistic spirit has extended itself throughout the Lutheran church; so that had there not been other causes at work, it is evident that an appeal to Scripture would have led them into a diametrically opposite direction from that which they have unhappily followed. With the exception, however, of

this point, the predisposing causes which led to scepticism in Germany, and the various means by which it has been nourished, are admirably, and we doubt not faithfully, portrayed. The pedantic spirit of the Wolfian theologians, for example, is described to the life in the following passage:

"In place of Scripture ever holding the first rank in respect of proofs and citations, under the reign of the Wolfian philosophy, it was ever placed in the second; it became, in fact, only supplementary; and arguments, taken from the affairs of life, or based simply upon weak hypotheses, were held up as the sole guide in spiritual concerns. The preachers considered themselves elevated to the very height of their sacred functions, whenever, by means of considerations drawn from the pictures of nature, they could excite the sensibilities of the heart. They did not consider that this was nought but touching the surface, and appeared ignorant of the fact, that to produce any lasting effect upon the mind, and induce it to commence the work of reformation, it is necessary to find the way to the conscience, and awaken it from its slumber. And can this be done without announcing the judgments of God upon the guilty, and obliging the spirit to plead earnestly for mercy? One would hardly credit that abuses in the choice of subjects could be driven to such an extent, that the manner in which we ought to laugh should be treated of seriously by one of these doctors. Another, taking for his text Jesus went up into a mountain,' commences with all the gravity of a college pedant, by saying, in a loud voice-' A mountain is a place with an elevation, by which it is distinguished from a plain,' &c.; and upon a verse in the connexion, where it is said—' Jesus lifted up his hand'-'The hand,' he exclaimed, is that part of the body which serves for,' &c. Is it astonishing, that with these deplorable abuses before their eyes, some persons actually advised to read the newspapers from the pulpit as being better adapted to edify the people? No, Wolfianism having thus degraded religion, it is not astonishing that the arrival of Naturalism imposed silence upon it, and that ashamed of its weakness, it should allow itself to be annihilated, in giving place to the attacks of its antagonist."

After relating the labours and influence of Lessing, and Semler, and Eichhorn, estimating the effects of the Kantian philosophy, and doing justice to the memory of Storr and Stendel, as the pious opponents of the advancing scepticism of their age, he gives us a most graphic description of the popular literature of Germany, when Goethe and Schiller were at its head, and of its working upon the morality and religion of the country.

"At this epoch, rationalism, sometimes impassioned, so netimes tender, often insulting, and at other times severe, possessed all the avenues of literature, and by its journals was the sole dispenser of celebrity; it had on its side the fine arts, and ruled supreme over polite literature. It was the time when Wieland, by his Epicurean philosophy, and his light notions on religious subjects, gave amusement to the talkers of the age; when Jean Paul caused to vibrate at the name of a vapid religion, the chords of a sentimentalism, whose tones the sensual nature of man delighted to hear; when Schiller, the king of inward poetry, could see only those external phases of Christianity, which led him into a vague region of his own creation, between the pomps of Paganism and those of Christian worship; while Goethe, the man of an eccentricity all his own, the poet of deified humanity, answered to his friend Lavater,

'That if he might not be allowed to hold a Christianity such as he conceived it, he should prefer atheism, because, after all, there existed no very clear idea of these two respective beliefs;' Goethe, I say, rationalistic par excellence, because reason was predominant, stifled in his own soul the sentiment, without which no one can be a Christian; Goethe, in a word, who held art alone as the deity to which he sacrificed, paganised in this way a whole generation of writers who followed in his footsteps. These diverse causes which united to rationalise that which is not submitted to the known laws of the human understanding, give us some idea of the triumph of rationalism in Germany."

The region, however, in which our author seems most at home, and to which he has devoted most of his work, is that of the modern rationalism as moulded by the different existing systems of philosophy. We know of no work by means of which any one who will venture a plunge into the ocean of German metaphysical theology would be so likely to come out again unsuffocated, as he would by means of this very luminous critique. The author has managed to employ that transparency of style which is characteristic of the best French writers, in order to enlighten the obscurity which is equally characteristic of the German ones. We will just give a single passage, which may interest our readers, as being the judgment of one, who has narrowly watched the progress of rationalism, upon the doctrines of Strauss.

"From these considerations we can see that there was nothing wanting in the precedents of rationalism to urge on Strauss in his career, though his system made more stir among the rationalists themselves (who were not expecting so much boldness), than among the supernaturalists, who had long believed in the effect of his logic. Strauss, in fact, only drew the legitimate conclusions from premises which had been established during three-quarters of an age previously. He put into contact, for the first time, the most contradictory doctrines from the schools of Bolingbroke, of Voltaire, of Lessing. of Kant, and of the Count J. de Maistre: whether transformed and disguised under the names of materialists, mystics, or lovers of symbols, of natural, or figurative, or dogmatical exegesis, of visions, of animal magnetism, of allegories, of mythologies: and then interpreting them, jumbling them, and breaking the one against the other, by means of an indefatigable logic, he drew from them all the same conclusion. In a word, he concentrated all doubts into one, and formed one bundle of the scattered arrows of scepticism. Add to this, that in rending the metaphysical veil which cloaked these doctrines, he reduced the question to its most simple terms; so that it became, for the first time, manifestly apparent what a havoc had been committed. He raised, like Mark Antony, the robe of Cæsar, so that every one could see in the great body the wounds which had been secretly inflicted."

After giving a brief view of the Catholic theology of the nineteenth century, our author sums up the results of his whole sketch, predicts the future consequences which are likely to arise, and estimates the growing strength of an intelligent supernaturalism founded on the word of God. The reader will find in M. Amand Saintes, a learned, a pious, a philosophical, and withal, a most impartial historian: he rises altogether above the spirit of a sect, and breathes after the time when the church shall have overcome all her present difficulties, and shall elevate herself

to the higher atmosphere of Christian love, where the religion of St. John shall unite all communions in one fold, under one Shepherd.

"For though it be true," he remarks, "that for the experienced Christian faith and love are identical things, it is not less true that, as Christians, we shall be far better comprehended by the world when in conjunction with a church that shall have united all loving minds under its standard, we can say-Much has been forgiven you, because you have loved much;' for, says the apostle John, commenting on the words of his Lord, God is love; and he who dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.' Whatever the immediate future may have in store for us, it is this consummation which all cultivated minds, and all observant understandings of every nation and every communion, look forward to. If the evil which rationalism has produced in Germany be great, we ought not to forget what naturalism and materialism have done in England and France; and amidst all its excesses, it is to be questioned, whether it is not leading to a more just appreciation of Christian truth. The German rationalism, then, may yet gain many partisans from not being sufficiently known; yet when the full proof of it shall have been made, it will need but a few rays of the pure gospel to dissipate all the clouds, which levity, prejudice, or sectarianism may have cast over the horizon of the religious world."

With these brief notices we now part with a work which has given us much pleasure and profit in the perusal, and which we cordially recommend to the attention of those of our readers who may feel an interest in the remarkable phenomena which the religious world, in Germany, during the greater part of the by-gone century, has presented.

"THE CAPTAIN OF SALVATION-PERFECT (TEAEIQEAI) THROUGH SUFFERINGS."-HEB. ii. 10.

THE writer of this article had occasion, some time ago, to examine, with considerable attention, the meaning of the verb reλewoai, as applied to Christ, in Heb. ii. 10; and as he was led to adopt a view of the passage, differing materially from that entertained by the most celebrated modern commentators, he ventures, through the pages of the Congregational Magazine, to submit the following criticism to those interested in the advancement of exegetical theology. The subject is one of some importance; and as the view he combats tends to throw into the shade the great doctrine of our Lord's priesthood, and is maintained by names so great as those of Schleusner, Rosenmüller, Stuart, &c., without having been opposed, so far as he knows, by any one, he trusts the following observations may have a candid and careful perusal.

The general idea implied by this word and its cognates TeλELOS, τελειότης, and τελειωσις, is that of perfection,the highest degree of the qualities which are peculiar to the person or thing spoken of. Thus, those who were fully initiated into the mysteries, were called

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