by a translation from the pen of the Bishop of Peterborough, of the elaborate work of Michaelis, in which the question was put forth. That a discussion affecting, in its results, even the claims of the Gospels in question to inspiration, and supported, on the heterodox side, by such an array of erudition and criticism, should not have drawn forth from our beneficed theologians some counteracting effort, can only be accounted for by that spell of rich repose' which, as we have said, hangs over all; and renders them, as long as they can prevail upon Heterodoxy to keep the peace within their circle, indifferent as to what gambols she may indulge in out of it. It was, indeed, not without good reason that Boileau placed the dwelling of the Goddess of Sloth in the rich Abbaye of Citeaux, where the light of Réforme had never penetrated. The question of the three Gospels was again returned upon the hands of the hard-working and hard-named scholars of Germany - the Schleiermachers, Bretschneiders, &c. and with the exception, if we recollect right, of Archdeacon Townson's Discourses on the Gospels, and a stray, contemptuous notice or two from the young candidates for livings that conduct some of the Theological Reviews, not a single response on the subject has breathed from any of those oracles to which we lay-readers of divinity are taught to look for instruction.

Nor has this arisen from any want of a taste for authorship among the members of the Episcopal bench, one of whom has been even engaged,-very innocently, we acknowledge,-in disturbing with his single voice that unanimity so dear to the Church, by upholding the 1 John, v. 7., which every body else rejects; and doubting the authenticity of Milton's Christian 'Doctrine,' which every body else believes. Another right reverend author, to whose enlightened candour, erudition, and literary tastes, we shall always be among the first to pay willing homage, has amused his classic leisure by composing two very interesting works on the writings of Tertullian and Justin Martyr; from the former of which our profane memories have carried away the following short and playful anecdote, related, as the bishop tells us, in Tertullian's Treatise, De Virginibus Velandis:-A female, who had somewhat too liberally displayed her person, was thus addressed by an angel in a dream, (cervices, quasi applauderet, verberans) Elegantes,' inquit, cervices et merito nuda !'-This is all very well, and very harmless; but, in the mean time, while our bishops are thus culling flowers from the Fathers, such momentous questions as we have above alluded to, involving vitally, it cannot be denied, the nearest interests of Christianity,-as troubling with doubt the very springhead from which that Fount of Life' flows,- remain unsifted and almost untouched; while such humble enquirers after truth

as ourselves, are left wholly at the mercy of these indefatigable Germans, (who will write, and whom we cannot help reading,) without any aid from our own established teachers of the truth, to enable us to detect their sophistries, or sound the shallows of their learning.

The policy of silence, however inglorious, was no doubt sufficiently safe, as long as the ignorance of the German language, prevailing throughout this country, rendered the heresies of the Wegscheiders and Fritzhes a sealed fountain' to most readers. But this state of things no longer exists. The study of German is becoming universal; translations multiply upon us daily; and we may soon expect to see our literary market glutted with Rationalism. Nor is it only on the shelves of Theology we shall have to encounter its visitations; for it can take all shapes,'mille habet ornatus.' It has, before now, lurked in a Fable of Lessing, won its way in the form of a Religious Essay by Schiller,* and glimmered doubtfully through the bright mist of the 'Allemagne' of Madame de Stael ;-while a late rationalizing geologist among ourselves, has contrived to insinuate its poison into a history of the primitive strata.

pos

Among the very few works this subject has as yet called forth, are those which have been selected for the groundwork of this article, and whose contents we shall now proceed briefly to notice. We have already stated, that the chief object of Mr Rose's publication is to prove, that to the want of an Episcopal Church Establishment,-like that of which he is himself an aspiring minister,-the decline, and all but fall, of German Protestantism, is to be attributed. From this view of the matter, Mr Pusey ventures to differ. He thinks it sible that a Christian Church may exist without the constitution, liturgy, or articles of the Church of England, and does us the honour, among other examples, to cite the Church of Scotland. He is of opinion, that the superintendents in the Lutheran church are not very dissimilar from the bishops in the Church of England; and he believes, on sufficient grounds, that subscription to the Symbolic Books is universally required;—the qualification to which Mr Rose so much objects, being, he thinks, of comparatively recent introduction, and very partially adopted. He therefore, with a far more comprehensive view of his subject than could be expected from an eye long accustomed, like Mr Rose's, to rest upon the bench of bishops as its horizon, deduces the gradual deterioration of the Protestant spirit in Germany to causes, some of them even anterior to the formation of Protestant

* The Finding of Moses;'—a little Essay, full of eloquence and Rationalism.

communities into a Church, and most of them, we should ourselves add, too deep and strong for any form of church discipline whatever to have controlled. This use of his reasoning powers by the Oxford Professor, could not do otherwise than give mortal offence to Mr Rose,-both because he is himself (in more senses than one) an Anti-Rationalist, and because he foresaw danger therefrom to his own much-loved theory. Accordingly, without loss of time or anger, he sends forth a reply to Mr Pusey, which, for ill temper and unfairness,-for the prodigal use of what Warburton calls hard words and soft arguments,'-has few parallels that we know of in the range even of theological controversy. For lack of seemlier modes of warfare, he has even resorted to that cry of heresy !' in which the defeated champions of State doctrines have always a sure resource; and, in the face not only of declarations, but of sound proofs of Christian orthodoxy, on the part of Mr Pusey, more than intimates that the historian of Rationalism is himself a Rationalist. To this attack Mr Pusey has replied, in a second volume on the state of German Protestantism, and in which, with a style much improved, and stores of learning still unexhausted, he developes still further his own views of this important subject; and answers the cavils and insinuations of his angry assailant with a degree of dignity, firmness, and imperturbable urbanity, which cannot fail to inspire his readers with the sincerest admiration.

Of the thick octavo volume of Professor Lee, the only portions that come within the scope of our present notice are his Dis'sertation on the Views and Principles of the Modern Ration'alists of Germany,' and his criticisms on two distinguished ornaments of that school-Bertholdt and Gesenius. That Professor Lee is a very learned person, we are not inclined to doubt; but he would make but a sorry figure, we suspect, in the hands of the theologians of Halle. For his Chaldaic we have, of course, infinite respect; but must confess, that were we to judge him by his English, it would be with some difficulty we should keep out of our heads that unlucky French couplet

Peutêtre, en Latin, c'est un grand personnage,

Mais, en Français, c'est un,' &c. &c.

In this gentleman's criticisms on the Christologia Judæorum of Bertholdt, it gives us no very promising notion of his familiarity with the works of the author whom he pretends to criticise, to find him avowing his inability to cite Bertholdt's interpretation of the fifty-second and fifty-third chapters of Isaiah; and this for the very simple and intelligible reason, that he did not know where to find it. Out of this difficulty we think it but charitable to help the learned Professor, by referring him as

well to a distinct essay of Bertholdt on the subject, as to the third part of this writer's Treatise, De Ortu Theologia Hebræorum, at the end of which Mr Lee will find the interpretation he seeks.

We have, however, a much graver charge than this of ignorance to bring against the Professor,-if, indeed, ignorance be not equally his excuse in both cases,-which is, that, in his strictures upon the Commentary of Dr Gesenius on Isaiah, he has, in one instance, totally misrepresented the opinions of that learned commentator; and this injustice is the less excusable, as, in the novelty and boldness of the German's theories, there may be found abundance of heterodox points to attack, without thus falsely charging him with any others.

In his observations on the 52d and 53d chapters of Isaiah, Gesenius contends, in opposition to the general opinion of Christians of all ages, and of many among the Jews themselves, that these passages cannot be interpreted as a direct prophecy of the Messiah; and having proved, as he thinks, by a series of elaborate arguments, that the commonly received interpretation is to be rejected, he next enters into an enquiry as to the interpretation that ought to be substituted in its place. The conclusion he comes to at last is, that, in those passages where the Prophet speaks of the Servant of the Lord, he had in view not any one particular person, past, present, or future, but the body or aggregate of the prophets of the Lord collectively considered;-in other words, the Prophetic Order, which he thus personifies, describing their wrongs and their hopes as the wrongs and hopes of an individual, lamenting the long series of suffering, insult, and persecution they had endured, and looking forward with confidence to their future vindication and triumph.

With the arguments by which Dr Gesenius endeavours to sustain this hypothesis, we have no concern at present,-except to say that they appear to us, on the whole, strained and unsatisfactory. Such, however, is his deliberate view of the prophecy, and he has declared it as explicitly as words can speak. In the face of all this, Professor Lee,-having taken pains, as he with much simplicity tells us, to ascertain' exactly the opinion of Gesenius, comes forward and attributes to him an interpretation of the passage totally different from that which he has thus plainly and distinctly enounced. The Servant of the Lord here mentioned,' says Mr Lee, is, according to Gesenius's comment, the Prophet Isaiah.' Now, not only is it the fact that this interpretation is not that of Gesenius, but it will be seen that Gesenius himself has taken great pains to prove that the passage cannot be applied to Isaiah; and for proof of this, we refer to his work, where various interpretations of the passage, and its

applications to Uzziah, Hezekiah, Josiah, Isaiah, and Jeremiah, are successively examined and rejected, (Part Second, p. 171.)

We should be inclined to consider this misrepresentation as merely a blunder of ignorance, had not Mr Lee turned it to such triumphant account in taunting and exulting over his brother Doctor. He pursues, indeed, his fancied triumph through several pages, talking of the marvellous inconsistency of Isaiah 'suffering death by martyrdom, and yet enjoying long life as a reward;' and exclaiming exultingly, I should like to know how this Servant of God could know that he was to become a martyr for the sins of the Jews.' This triumph of the Professor, resembling, as it does, that of another valorous personage of whom we are told, He made the giants first, and then he 'killed them,'-would be merely ridiculous, were there not strong reasons for suspecting that there is full as much of unfairness as of ignorance at the bottom of it.

6

We have already ventured to criticise the learned Chaldaist's English; we will now say a word about his German. In a passage immediately following that which we have above referred to, Gesenius says, 'Die Rede des Propheten wechselt mit 'der Rede des Jehova so ab dass. LII. 13-15 Jehova zu reden fortfahrt, wie in dem Vorgehenden: LIII. 1 Der Prophet redet, ' und zwar communicativ in Namen seines Standes.' The meaning of this, according to our humble apprehension, is as follows: -Jehovah and the Prophet speak here alternately. Thus, at the end of the fifty-second chapter, it is Jehovah who continues to speak, as in the foregoing verses; but, in the beginning of the fifty-third chapter, it is the Prophet who speaks,-communicatively indeed, (or in the manner of one who is holding com'munication with others,) and in the name of his order.' We shall now give Mr Lee's translation of the passage:- The speaking of the Prophet is here so changed for that of Jehovah, that, Chapter LII. 15, Jehovah continues to speak as in the 'preceding context: in LIII. 1, the Prophet communicates in the name proper for his own station.'

Having given these few specimens of Mr Lee's capacity for the task he has undertaken, we shall now dismiss him, with a sentence which he himself has applied to poets, but which strikes us as not altogether inapplicable to some prosers:- It is greatly to be regretted that learned geniuses do not make 'themselves better informed on these subjects.'

* Mr Lee, among his many titles, counts that of D.D. of the University of Halle, an honour for which, as he himself boasts, he was indebted to this very Dr Gesenius whom he thus disfigures.

† Note on Milman's History of the Jews, p. 146.