critics of Germany, distinguished as many of them have been for
learning, would proceed to interpret the Scriptures. Many of the sacred
books and parts of others have, of course, been rejected by them as
spurious, the strongest external evidence being thought by them
insufficient to prove the truth of what was determined to be
contradictory to their reason; and the inspiration of the rest was
understood in no higher a sense, to use the language of one of their
professors, than the expressions of Cicero as to the inspiration of the
poets, or those of Quintilian respecting Plato. It would be disgusting,
says Rose, to go through all the strange fancies which were set afloat,
and which tended only to set Scripture on the same footing as an
ingenious but improbable romance. They all proceeded from the
determination that whatever was not intelligible was incredible, that
only what was of familiar and easy explanation deserved belief, and that
all which was miraculous and mysterious in Scripture must be rejected;
and they rested perpetually on notions and reasonings which were in
themselves miracles of incredibility. But there were many of the German
divines of this rationalist period who went much farther, and who
imputed a deception to our Lord and his disciples, not for evil but for
good purposes. In reading or in hearing of these wretched productions,
the mind is divided between disgust at folly, and indignation at
wickedness. What can be said for the heart which could suppose that the
founders of Christianity could have taught the sublime and holy
doctrines of the Gospel with a lie in their hearts and on their lips? or
for the intellect which could believe that ambitious and designing men
would encounter years of poverty, and shame, and danger, with no
prospect but that of an ignominious death? But where the supernatural
and miraculous accounts were not rejected, they were, by many of the
most eminent of these writers, explained away by a monstrous ingenuity,
which, on any other subject, and applied to any ancient classic or other
writer, would provoke the most contemptuous ridicule. When Korah,
Dathan, and Abiram were swallowed up, Moses had previously _secretly
undermined the earth_.” Jacob wrestled with the angel in a _dream_;” and
a rheumatic pain in his thigh during sleep suggested the incident in his
dream of the angel touching the sinew of his thigh. Professor Paulus
gravely explains the miracle of the tribute money thus: That Christ only
meant to give a moral lesson, that is, that we are not, if we can avoid
it by trifling sacrifices, to give offence to our brethren; that he
probably reasoned thus with St. Peter: Though there is no real occasion
for us to pay the tribute, yet, as we may be reckoned as enemies of the
temple, and not attended to when we wish to teach what is good, why
should not you who are a fisherman,” a remark which might very properly
be made at a place where St. Peter had been engaged in a fishery for two
years, “and can easily do it, go and get enough to pay the demand? Go,
then, to the sea, cast your hook, and take up ϖρῶτον ἴχθυν, the first
and best fish.” St. Peter was not to stay longer at his work this time
than to gain the required money: ϖρῶτος often refers not to number but
to time; and ἴχθυν may undoubtedly be taken as a collective. St. Peter
must either have caught so many fish as would be reckoned worth a
_stater_ at Capernaum, (so near to a sea rich in fish,) or one so large
and fine as would have been valued at that sum. As it was uncertain
whether one or more would be necessary, the expression is indefinite,
τὸν ἀναϐάντα ϖρῶτον ἴχθυν; [the fish first coming up;] but it would not
be ambiguous to St. Peter, as the necessity and the event would give it
a fixed meaning. Ἀνοίξας τὸ ϛόμα. [Opening the mouth.] This opening of
the mouth might have different objects, which must be fixed by the
context. If the fisherman opens the mouth of a fish caught with a hook,
he does it first to release him from the hook; for if he hangs long he
is less saleable: he soon decays. The circumstantiality in the account
is _picturesque_. Take the hook out his mouth!” Ἑυρήσεις ἑυρίσκειν is
used in Greek in a more extended sense than the German _finden_, as in
Xenophon, where it is to get by selling.” When such a word is used of
saleable articles, like fish, and in a connection which requires the
getting a piece of money, it is clear that getting by sale and not by
finding is referred to. “And this from a professor’s chair!” In like
manner the miracle of feeding the five thousand in the desert is
resolved into the opportune passing by of a caravan with provisions, of
which the hungry multitude were allowed to partake, according to eastern
hospitality; and the Apostles were merely employed in conveying it out
in baskets. Christ’s walking _upon_ the sea is explained by his walking
upon the sea shore, and St. Peter’s walking on the sea is resolved into
swimming. The miracles of healing were the effect of fancy operating
favourably upon the disorders; and Ananias and Sapphira died of a
fright; with many other absurdities, half dreams and half blasphemies;
and of which the above are given but as a specimen.
The first step in this sorrowful gradation down to a depth of falsehood
and blasphemy, into which certainly no body of Christian ministers, so
large, so learned, and influential, in any age or period of the church
ever before fell, was, contempt for the authority of the divines of the
Reformation, and of the subsequent age. They were about to set out on a
voyage of discovery; and it was necessary to assume that truth still
inhabited some _terra incognita_, [unknown region,] to which neither
Luther, Melancthon, nor their early disciples, had ever found access.
One of this school is pleased, indeed, to denominate the whole even of
the seventeenth and the first half of the eighteenth century, the age of
theological barbarism; an age, notwithstanding, which produced in the
Lutheran church alone Calovius, Schmidt, Hackspan, Walther, Glass, and
the Carpzoffs, and others, as many and as great writers as any church
can boast in an equal space of time; writers whose works are, or ought
to be, in the hands of the theological student. The general statements
of the innovators amount to this, that the divines of the age of which
we speak had neither the inclination nor the power to do any thing but
fortify their own systems, which were dogmatical, and not to search out
truth for themselves from Scripture; that theology, as a science, was
left from the epoch of the Reformation as it had been received from the
schoolmen; that the interpretation of the Bible was made the slave, not
the mistress, of dogmatical theology, as it ought to be.
The vain conceit that the doctrines of religion were capable of
philosophic demonstration, which obtained among the followers of Wolf,
is considered by Mr. Rose as having hastened onward the progress of
error. We find some of them not content with applying demonstration to
the truth of the system, but endeavouring to establish each separate
dogma, the Trinity, the nature of the Redeemer, the incarnation, the
eternity of punishment, on philosophical and, strange as it may appear,
some of these truths on mathematical, grounds. We have had instances of
this in our own country; and the reason why they have done little injury
is, that none of those who thus presumed, whether learned or half
learned, had success enough to form a school. So far as such a theory
does obtain influence, it must necessarily be mischievous. The first
authors may hold the mysteries of Christianity sacred; they may fancy
that they can render faith in them more easy by affecting demonstrative
evidence, which, indeed, were the subjects capable of it, would render
faith unnecessary; but they are equally guilty of a vain presumption in
their own powers, and of a want of real reverence to God, and to his
revelation. With them, this boast of demonstration generally ends in the
rejection of some truth, or the adoption of some positive error; while
their followers fail not to bound over the limits at which they have
stopped. The fallacy of the whole lies in assuming that divine things
are on the same level with those which the human mind can grasp, and may
therefore be compared with them. One of these consequences must
therefore follow: either that the mind is exalted above its own sphere,
or that divine things are brought down below theirs. In the former case,
a dogmatical pride is the result; in the latter, the scheme of
revelation is stripped of its divinity, and sinks gradually into a
system of human philosophy, with the empty name of a revelation still
appended to it to save appearances. What can bear the test of the
philosophical standard is retained, and what cannot be thus proved is,
by degrees, rejected; so that the Scripture is no longer the ground of
religious truth; but a sort of witness to be compelled to assent to any
conclusions at which this philosophy may arrive.
The effect in Germany was speedily developed, though Wolf, the founder
of this school, and most of his followers, were pious and faithful
Christians. By carrying demonstrative evidence beyond its own province,
they had nurtured in their followers a vain confidence in human reason;
and the next and still more fatal step was, that it was the province of
human reason in an enlightened and intellectual age to perfect
Christianity, which, it was contended, had hitherto existed in a low and
degraded state, and to perfect that system of which the elements only
were contained in the Scripture. All restraint was broken by this
principle. Philosophy, good and bad, was left to build up these
elements” according to its own views; and as, after all, many of these
elements were found to be too untractable and too rudely shaped to
accord with the plans of these manifold constructions, formed according
to every pattern,” except that in the mount;” when the stone could not
be squared and framed by any art which these builders possessed, it was
rejected,” even to the head stone of the corner.” Semler appears to have
been the author of that famous theory of accommodation, which, in the
hands of his followers, says Mr. Rose, became the most formidable weapon
ever devised for the destruction of Christianity.” As far as Germany is
concerned, this language is not too strong; and we may add, that it was
the most impudent theory ever advocated by men professing still to be
Christians, and one, the avowal of which can scarcely be accounted for,
except on the ground, that as, because of their interests, it was not
convenient for these teachers of theology and ministers of the German
churches to disavow Christianity altogether; it was devised and
maintained, in order to connect the profits of the Christian profession
with substantial and almost undisguised deism. This theory was, that we
are not to take all the declarations of Scripture as addressed to us;
but to consider them as, in many points, purposely adapted to the
feelings and dispositions of the age when they originated; but by no
means to be received by another and more enlightened period; that, in
fact, Jesus himself and his Apostles had _accommodated_ themselves in
their doctrines to the barbarism, ignorance, and prejudices of the Jews;
and that it was therefore our duty to reject the whole of this temporary
part of Christianity, and retain only what is substantial and eternal.
In plain words they assumed, as the very basis of their Scriptural
interpretations, the blasphemous principle, that our Lord and his
Apostles taught, or, at least, connived at doctrines absolutely false,
rather than they would consent to shock the prejudices of their hearers!
This principle is shown at length by Mr. Rose, to run through the whole
maze of error into which this body of Protestant divines themselves
wandered, and led their flocks. Thus the chairs of theology and the very
pulpits were turned into the seats of the scornful;” and where doctrines
were at all preached, they were too frequently of this daring and
infidel character. It became even, at least, a negative good, that the
sermons delivered were often discourses on the best modes of cultivating
corn and wine, and the preachers employed the Sabbath and the church in
instructing their flocks how to choose the best kinds of potatoes, or to
enforce upon them the benefits of vaccination. Undisguised infidelity
has in no country treated the grand evidences of the truth of
Christianity with greater contumely, or been more offensive in its
attacks upon the prophets, or more ridiculous in its attempts to
account, on natural principles, for the miracles. Extremes of every kind
were produced, philosophic mysticism, pantheism, and atheism.
We have hitherto referred chiefly to Mr. Rose’s work on this awful
declension in the Lutheran and other continental churches. In a work on
the same subject by Mr. Pusey, the stages of the apostasy are more
carefully marked, and more copiously and deeply investigated. Our limits
will, however, but allow us to advert to two or three points. In Mr.
Pusey’s account of the state of German theology in the seventeenth
century, he opens to us the sources of the evil. Francke, he observes,
assigns as a reason for attaching the more value to the opportunities
provided at Halle for the study of Scripture, that “in former times, and
in those which are scarcely past, one generally found at universities
opportunities for every thing rather than a solid study of God’s word.”
In all my university years,” says Knapp, I was not happy enough to hear
a lecture upon the whole of Scripture; we should have regarded it as a
great blessing which came down from heaven.” It is said to be one only
of many instances, that at Leipzig, Carpzoff, having in his lectures for
one half year completed the first chapter of Isaiah, did not again
lecture on the Bible for twenty years, while Olearius suspended his for
ten. Yet Olearius, as well as Alberti, Spener says, were diligent
theologians, but that most pains were employed on doctrinal theology and
controversy.” It is, moreover, a painful speaking fact, which is
mentioned by Francke, (1709,) that in Leipzig, the great mart of
literature as well as of trade, “twenty years ago, in no bookseller’s
shop was either Bible or Testament to be found.” Of the passages in
Francke, which prove the same state of things, I will select one or two
only: Youth are sent to the universities with a moderate knowledge of
Latin; but of Greek, and especially of Hebrew next to none. And it would
even then have been well, if what had been neglected before had been
made up in the universities. There, however, most are borne, as by a
torrent, with the multitude; they flock to logical, metaphysical,
ethical, polemical, physical, pneumatical lectures, and what not;
treating least of all those things whose benefit is most permanent in
their future office, especially deferring, and at last neglecting, the
study of the sacred languages.” “To this is added, that, they comfort
themselves, that in examinations for orders these things are not
generally much attended to. Hence most who are anxious about a
maintenance, hurry to those things which may hasten their promotion,
attend above all things a lecture on the art of preaching, and if they
can remain so long at the university, one on doctrinal theology, (would
that all were anxious about a salutary knowledge of the sacred
doctrines,) and having committed these things to paper and memory,
return home, as if excellently armed against Satan, are examined,
preach, are promoted, provide for their families.” And having spoken
farther on the superficial knowledge, pedantry, and other faults of
those few who acquired knowledge of these subjects, he sums up: As the
vernacular Scriptures are ordinarily neglected or ill employed by the
illiterate, so are the original by the lettered: whence there cannot but
arise either ignorance in matters of faith, or an unfruitful and vain
knowledge; a pleasurable fancy is substituted for the substance of the
faith; impiety daily increases. In a word, from the neglect of Scripture
all impiety is derived; and so again from the impiety or unbelief of
men, there is derived a contempt of Scripture, or at all events an
abuse, and an absurd and perverted employment of it: and hence follows
either a neglect of the original languages, or a senseless method, or an
unfitting employment of them; which evils, since they are continued from
the teachers to the disciples, the corrupted state of the schools and
universities continually increases: and these we cannot remedy, unless
we can prevail upon ourselves to make the word of God our first object,
to look for Christ in it, and to embrace him, when found, with genuine
faith, and perseveringly to follow him.” Pfaff thus describes the
previous state of doctrinal theology: All the compendia of holy
doctrines, which have hitherto appeared, are of such a character, that,
though their excellence has been hitherto extolled by the common praise
of our countrymen, and they still enjoy considerable reputation, (_suâ
utique luce niteat_,) they can even on this ground not be satisfactory
to our age,--that since one system was extracted and worked out of the
other, with a very few variations, they dwell uniformly on the same
string; and that metaphysical clang of causes, which sounds somewhat
harshly and unpleasantly to well cultivated ears, constantly
reverberates in them, the same terms uniformly recurring in all. To this
is added, that a certain coldness appears to prevail in the common mode
of treating these subjects, especially in the practical topics of
theology; these being set forth as theoretical propositions, so that
scarcely any life or any religious influence finds its way into the
minds of readers; and the edification of mind, (though it should be the
principal object in sacred theology,) derived from them is very slight.
Nor does it appear less a subject of blame, that various theological
τόποι, and those the very chief, are here altogether omitted; that every
thing is choked with the thorns of scholasticism; and that divine truths
are often made secondary to the zeal for authority: nor is there
sufficient reference to the language of the symbolical books, to the
promotion of the peace of the church, to the exhibition of what is of
real importance in controverted points, and of the unreality of the mere
logomachies, with which all theology abounds; nor again, to destroy
theological pedantry and a sectarian spirit, or to treat the subjects
themselves in a style becoming to them: but most of all, sufficient
pains are not bestowed upon that which is of chief importance, the
building up the kingdom of God in the hearts of men, and the influencing
their hearts more thoroughly with vivid conceptions of true
Christianity.”
Yet these were but effects of a still higher cause,--the rapid decay of
piety in this century, of which the statements of Mr. Pusey, and the
authorities he quotes, present a melancholy picture. Speaking of J. V.
Andrea, he says, the want of practical religious instruction in the
early schools, the perverted state of all education, the extravagance
and dissoluteness of the universities, the total unfitness of the
teachers whom they sent forth and authorized, the degraded state of
general as well as of theological science, the interested motives for
entering into holy orders, the canvassing for benefices, the simony in
obtaining them, the especial neglect of the poorer, the bad lives, the
carelessness and bitter controversies of the preachers, and the general
corruption of manners in all ranks, are again and again the subjects of
his deep regrets or of his censure. “After the evangelic church,” he
says, in an energetic comparison of the evils which reigned in the
beginning of this period with those which had occasioned the yoke of
Rome to be broken, “after the evangelic church had thrown off the yoke
of human inventions, they should have bowed their neck under the easy
yoke of the Lord. But now one set of human inventions are but exchanged
for another, equally, or indeed very little, human; and these are called
the word of God, though in reality things are nothing milder than
before. Idols were cast out, but the idols of sins are worshipped. The
primacy of the pope is denied, but we constitute lesser popes. The
bishops are abrogated, but ministers are still introduced or cast out at
will; simony came into ill repute, but who now rejects a hand laden with
gold? the monks were reproached for indolence,--as if there were too
much study at our universities; the monasteries were dissolved,--to
stand empty, or to be stalls for cattle; the regularly recurring prayers
are abolished, yet so that now most pray not at all; the public fasts
were laid aside, now the command of Christ is held to be but useless
words; not to say any thing of blasphemers, adulterers, extortioners,”
&c. After many testimonies of a similar and even stronger kind from
other pious divines, who lifted up their voice strongly but almost
ineffectually against the growing corruption of the universities, the
clergy, and the people, Mr. Pusey adds the following passages from
Francke: “The works of the flesh are done openly and unrestrainedly,
with so little shame, that one who does not approve of many things not
consistent with the truth which is in Jesus, would almost be enrolled
among heretics. Ambition, pride, love of pleasure, luxury, impurity,
wantonness, and all the crop of foulest wickednesses which spring from
these; injustice also, avarice, and a species of rivalry among all vices
every where sensibly increases, atheism joining itself with epicurism
and libertinism. Thus while Christ is held to, while orthodoxy is
presented as a shield, all imitation of Christ, all anxiety for true and
spiritual holiness, “without which no one shall see the Lord,” nay, all
the decorum befitting a Christian, is banished, is exterminated, that it
may not disturb the societies of perverse men.” Into the state of the
clergy he enters more fully in another work. I remember,” he says, “that
a theologian of no common learning, piety, and practical knowledge, νῦν
ἐν ἁγίοις, told me, that a certain monarch, at his suggestion, applied
to a university, where there was a large concourse of students of
theology, for two candidates for holy orders, who, by the excellence and
purity of their doctrine, and by holiness of life, might serve as an
example to the congregation committed to their charge; the professors
candidly answered that there was no such student of theology among them.
Nor is this surprising. I remember that Kortholt used to say with pain,
that in the disgraceful strifes, disturbances, and tumults in the
universities, which were, alas, but too frequent, it scarcely ever
happened that theological students were not found to be accomplices,
nay, the chiefs. I remember that another theologian often lamented, that
there was such a dearth in the church of such persons as the Apostle
would alone think worthy of the ministerial functions, that it was to be
regarded as a happiness if, of many applicants, some one of outwardly
decent life could at length be found.”
With several happy exceptions, and the raising up of a few pious people
in some places, and a partial revival of evangelical doctrines, which,
however, often ran at length into mysticism and antinomianism, the evil,
both doctrinally and morally, continued to increase to our own day; for
if any ask what has been the moral effect of the appalling apostasy of
the teachers of religion, above described, upon the people of Germany,
the answer may be given from one of these rationalizing divines
themselves, whose statement is not therefore likely to be too highly
coloured. It is from a pamphlet of Bretschneider, published in 1822, and
the substance is, Indifference to religion among all classes; that
formerly the Bible used to be in every house, but now the people either
do not possess it, or, as formerly, read it; that few attend the
churches, which are now too large, though fifty years ago they were too
small; that few honour the Sabbath; that there are now few students of
theology, compared with those in law and medicine; that if things go on
so, there will shortly not be persons to supply the various
ecclesiastical offices; that preaching had fallen into contempt; and
that distrust and suspicion of the doctrines of Christianity prevailed
among all classes.” Melancholy as this picture is, nothing in it can
surprise any one, except that the very persons who have created the evil
should themselves be astonished at its existence, or even affect to be
so. But the mercy of God has begun to answer the prayers of the few
faithful who are left as the gleanings of grapes after the vintage; and
to revive, in some active, learned, and influential men, the spirit of
primitive faith and zeal. The effect of the exertions of these excellent
men, both from the professor’s chair, the pulpit, and the press, has
been considerable; and it is remarked by Mr. Rose, that no small degree
of disgust at the past follies of the rationalists prevails; that the
cold and comfortless nature of their system has been perceived; that a
party of truly Christian views has arisen; and that there is a
disposition alike in the people, the better part of the divines, and the
philosophers, to return to that revealed religion which alone can give
them comfort and peace. It is equally clear that some at least of the
governments perceive the dangerous tendency of the rationalist opinions,
and that they are sincerely desirous of promoting a better state of
religious feeling.
We close this article with the excellent remarks of Dr. Tittman of
Dresden, on the neological interpreters: What is the interpretation of
the Scriptures, if it relies not on words, but things, not on the
assistance of languages, but on the decrees of reason that is, of modern
philosophy? What is all religion, what the knowledge of divine things,
what are faith and hope placed in Christ, what is all Christianity, if
human reason and philosophy is the only fountain of divine wisdom, and
the supreme judge in the matter of religion? What is the doctrine of
Christ and the Apostles more than some philosophical system? But what,
then, I pray you, is, to deny, to blaspheme Jesus the Lord, to render
his divine mission doubtful, nay vain and useless, to impugn his
doctrine, to disfigure it shamefully, to attack it, to expose it to
ridicule, and, if possible, to suppress it, to remove all Christianity
out of religion, and to bound religion within the narrow limits of
reason alone, to deride miracles, and hold them up to derision, to
accuse them as vain, to bring them into disrepute, to torture sacred
Scripture into seeming agreement with the fancies of human wisdom, to
alloy it with human conjectures, to bring it into contempt, and to break
down its divine authority, to undermine, to shake, to overthrow utterly
the foundations of Christian faith? What else can be the event than
this, as all history, a most weighty witness in this matter, informs us,
namely, that when sacred Scripture, its grammatical interpretation and a
sound knowledge of languages are, as it were, despised and banished, all
religion should be contemned, shaken, corrupted, troubled, undermined,
utterly overturned, and should be entirely removed and reduced to
natural religion; or that it should end in a mystical theology, than
which nothing was ever more pernicious to the Christian doctrine, and be
converted into an empty μυθολογία, or even into a poetical system,
hiding every thing in figures and fictions, to which latter system not a
few of the sacred orators and theologians of our time seem chiefly
inclined.”