and the flock; though, like many other effects, it tends to reproduce and strengthen its own cause." * If Izaac Walton,-who kept a small draper's shop, seven feet and a half long and five wide, and afterward occupied but half of a shop, John Mason, hosier, having the other half,-if this simple-hearted man listened with such delight to the discourses of Richard Hooker and Dr. Sanderson, may we not hope that the tastes of our community can be so educated as to appreciate a higher standard of pulpit performance than now prevails? And did not some of the older ministers in our land actually adopt a higher standard? Our fathers were not seldom used to walk through snow and hail, of a cold winter's day, and sit down in an unwarmed church, and were delighted with long discourse on sovereignty, electing grace, foreknowledge absolute. The ministry of that day, we concede, went over the line sometimes, and beyond it. They often were too metaphysical. But is there not danger that we, in avoiding their extreme, may foster an effeminate taste among our people? Our architects have removed the old sounding-board from the meeting-house, -have lowered the pulpit, and have raised the pews. All this may be for good. But let it not be an omen that our ministers will dethrone sound doctrine from its supremacy, bury every principle under illustrations, become afraid of stern and strong thought, and choose to declaim their hearers to sleep by gentle and lullaby discourses. While we would rather speak five words with our understanding than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue, we would yet so preach that our hearers shall inquire diligently into the things that are spoken, and shall search the Scriptures daily whether these things be so. *Coleridge's Lay Sermons, p. 185. ARTICLE II. HISTORICAL OUTLINES OF GERMAN RATIONALISM. Historical Sketch of the Revolution in Theology which commenced in 1750 in Germany. From the German of Dr. A. THOLUCK. Translated by the Editor. [CONTINUED FROM PAGE 269.] The progress of the new theology until the beginning of the nineteenth century. It might be supposed that, in representing the spread and fuller development of the doctrines broached by Semler, we should pass from him directly to those of his disciples who carried out and completed what he had begun. But, as has been already intimated, this distinguished man left behind him no disciples, in the proper sense of the term. He had no system to be more fully developed by others. He threw out upon the public mind innumerable sparks, but kindled no flame. A still further reason is to be found in the strange character of some of his views, especially the unnatural distinction, on which he laid so much stress, between public and private religion. Stroth, Griesbach and Corrodi have the best claim to being regarded as his disciples. Instead, therefore, of tracing out external historical connections between Semler and his followers, we must seek for an internal development of neological principles. We shall pass over the department of church history as comparatively unimportant in this investigation, and confine our attention to the progress of Rationalism in exegetical and doctrinal theology. To this will be subjoined an account of the spread of neology in the different states of NOTE. Some of our readers may have been surprised to learn that Frederic the Great should be so familiar with the Shakers as would appear from p. 259 of the June number. And yet we can assure them that the word Schaeker (Cheker is the Prussian monarch's French orthography) stands in the original. We must add, however, that it should have been translated blackguard.-ED. and the flock; though, like many other effects, it tends to reproduce and strengthen its own cause." * If Izaac Walton,-who kept a small draper's shop, seven feet and a half long and five wide, and afterward occupied but half of a shop, John Mason, hosier, having the other half,-if this simple-hearted man listened with such delight to the discourses of Richard Hooker and Dr. Sanderson, may we not hope that the tastes of our community can be so educated as to appreciate a higher standard of pulpit performance than now prevails? And did not some of the older ministers in our land actually adopt a higher standard? Our fathers were not seldom used to walk through snow and hail, of a cold winter's day, and sit down in an unwarmed church, and were delighted with long discourse on sovereignty, electing grace, foreknowledge absolute. The ministry of that day, we concede, went over the line sometimes, and beyond it. They often were too metaphysical. But is there not danger that we, in avoiding their extreme, may foster an effeminate taste among our people? Our architects have removed the old sounding-board from the meeting-house, -have lowered the pulpit, and have raised the pews. All this may be for good. But let it not be an omen that our ministers will dethrone sound doctrine from its supremacy, bury every principle under illustrations, become afraid of stern and strong thought, and choose to declaim their hearers to sleep by gentle and lullaby discourses. While we would rather speak five words with our understanding than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue, we would yet so preach that our hearers shall inquire diligently into the things that are spoken, and shall search the Scriptures daily whether these things be so. * Coleridge's Lay Sermons, p. 185. ARTICLE II. HISTORICAL OUTLINES OF GERMAN RATIONALISM. Historical Sketch of the Revolution in Theology which commenced in 1750 in Germany. From the German of Dr. A. THOLUCK. Translated by the Editor. [CONTINUED FROM PAGE 269.] The progress of the new theology until the beginning of the nineteenth century. It might be supposed that, in representing the spread and fuller development of the doctrines broached by Semler, we should pass from him directly to those of his disciples who carried out and completed what he had begun. But, as has been already intimated, this distinguished man left behind him no disciples, in the proper sense of the term. He had no system to be more fully developed by others. He threw out upon the public mind innumerable sparks, but kindled no flame. A still further reason is to be found in the strange character of some of his views, especially the unnatural distinction, on which he laid so much stress, between public and private religion. Stroth, Griesbach and Corrodi have the best claim to being regarded as his disciples. Instead, therefore, of tracing out external historical connections between Semler and his followers, we must seek for an internal development of neological principles. We shall pass over the department of church history as comparatively unimportant in this investigation, and confine our attention to the progress of Rationalism in exegetical and doctrinal theology. To this will be subjoined an account of the spread of neology in the different states of NOTE. Some of our readers may have been surprised to learn that Frederic the Great should be so familiar with the Shakers as would appear from p. 259 of the June number. And yet we can assure them that the word Schaeker (Cheker is the Prussian monarch's French orthography) stands in the original. We must add, however, that it should have been translated blackguard.-ED. Germany and in the universities. We can pursue these inquiries only into the first decennium of the nineteenth century, for in the second, new views, both of a negative and positive character, begin to appear, whose results cannot yet be estimated. In portraying the revolution in exegetical theology, it will be necessary to commence with the changes which took place in the views of men in regard to the Scriptures. The mind, which is struck with the divine character of the Scriptures, which finds in its own sanctified religious consciousness a testimony in favor of their divinity, must of course regard the medium through which these divine truths are communicated as itself divine. For the divine truth contained in the Bible could not so seize the mind, could not find in the human breast such a testimony in its favor, were it not itself pure and unspotted, or in other words, were it not divinely communicated. Thus a belief in the inspiration of the Scriptures must have originated in the mind of the Christian, even had there been no declarations to that effect contained in them. In the New Testament there is no direct testimony to its own inspiration. When men began to speculate upon the subject, it was supposed that there were things in the sacred writings which could not be traced to a divine causation, but which were rather to be attributed to human weakness or to accident; and that there was, on the other hand, much to which the Holy Spirit within us could not testify. Such opinions gave rise to a milder view of inspiration, according to which either verbal inspiration was given up, or a distinction was made between religious truths and the truths of science and history, in the former of which the possibility of error was denied, while in the latter it was admitted. Occasional hints of this kind, without being formed into a system, are to be found in the writings of the Christian Fathers, in Irenaeus, Origen, and Jerome, and especially in the writings of the Reformers, as Erasmus, Luther, Calvin, Pellican and Beza. So also the rabbinical division of inspiration into three degrees is a modification of the more rigid abstract theory. The Catholic church has always taken a lower view of inspiration than the Protestant, maintaining, instead of a passive inspiration and suggestion, merely the assistance and guidance of the Holy Spirit. The doctrine that the Bible |