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HISTORY

OF

RATIONALISM

EMBRACING

A SURVEY OF THE PRESENT STATE OF PROTESTANT
THEOLOGY.

By JOHN F. HURST, D. D.

With Appendix of Literature.

THIRD EDITION, REVISED.

New York:
PUBLISHED BY CARLTON & PORTER,
200 MULBERRY-STREET.
1867.

Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1865, by
CHARLES SCRIBNER & CO.,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the
Southern District of New York.

The Rationalists are like the spiders, they spin all out of their own bowels. But give me a philosopher who, like the bee, hath a middle faculty, gathering from abroad, but digesting that which is gathered by its own virtue.—Lord Bacon.

The Bible, I say the Bible only, is the religion of Protestants.... There is no safe certaintie but of Scripture only, for any considering man to build upon. This therefore, and this only I have reason to beleeve; this I will professe; according to this I will live, and for this I will not only willingly, but even gladly loose my life, though I should be sorry that Christians should take it from me. Propose me anything out of this book, and require whether I believe it or no, and secure it never so incomprehensible to humane reason, I will subscribe it hand and heart, as knowing no demonstration can be stronger than this, God hath said so, therefore it is true. In other things I will take no man's libertie of judgment from him; neither shall any man take mine from me. I will think no man the worse man nor the worse Christian. I will love no man the lesse for differing in opinion with me. And what measure I meet to others I expect from them againe. I am fully assured that God does not, and therefore that men out not to require any more of any man, than this: to believe the Scripture to be God's word, to endeavor to finde the true sense of it, and to live according to it.—Chillingworth.

Are those enthusiasts who profess to follow reason? Yes, undoubtedly, if by reason they mean only conceits. Therefore such persons are now commonly called Reasonists or Rationalists to distinguish them from true reasoners or rational inquirers.—Waterland.

PREFACE.

There were no prefatory remarks to the first and second editions of the following work. It was thought, when the printer made his final call for copy, that a preface might be written with more propriety if the public should indicate sufficient interest in the book to make its improvement and enlargement necessary. That interest, owing to the theme rather than the treatment, has not been withheld. The investigation of the subject was pursued in the midst of varied and pressing pastoral duties, with a pleasure which no reader of the result of the labor can enjoy; for, first, the author felt that Rationalism was soon to be the chief topic of theological inquiry in the Anglo-Saxon lands; and, second, he regarded the doubt, not less than the faith, of his fellow men as entitled to far more respect and patient investigation than it had usually received at the hands of orthodox inquirers.

The author would probably never have studied the genetic development of Rationalism in Germany, and its varied forms in other countries, if he had not been a personal witness to the ruin it had wrought in the land of Luther, Spener, and Zinzendorf. In compliance with the instruction of a trusted medical adviser, he sailed for Germany in the summer of 1856, as a final resort for relief from serious pulmonary disease. But, through the mercy of God, he regained health so rapidly that he was enabled to matriculate in the University of Halle in the following autumn, and to be a daily attendant upon the lectures of such men as Tholuck, Julius Müller, Jacobi, and Roediger. From some theologians he heard Rationalism defended with an energy worthy of Wolff and Semler; from others with a devotion worthy of the beloved Neander. In the railroad car, the stage, the counting-room, the workshop, the parlor, and the peasant-hut, Rationalism was found still lingering with a strong, though relaxing grasp. The evangelical churches were attended by only a few listless hearers. His prayer to God was, "May the American Church never be reduced to this sad fate." The history of that movement, resulting in such actual disaster to some lands and threatened ruin to others, took a deep hold upon his mind; and if he has failed in any respect to trace it with an impartial pen, his hope is that his failure will not cause any bright color of the truth to be obscured for a moment. For no man and no cause can ultimately triumph by giving an undue prominence to favorite party or principles; it is only by justice to all that the truth can win its unfading laurels.

Criticism was to have been expected, from the very nature of the topic of investigation. But the author has endeavored, as a student at the feet of his judges, to derive the largest possible benefit from criticism. No word of censure, however wide of the mark, has been unwelcome to him, whether from the sceptical or orthodox press. To all questioned passages he has given a careful re-examination, in some instances finding cause for alteration, but in others seeing his ground more strongly sustained than was at first imagined. He has, for example, been informed by many esteemed persons that his representation of Coleridge was hardly just; and, in obedience to that suggestion, he has given that author's works a more careful study than ever, having previously resolved to completely reverse his judgment of that profound thinker's faith, if he found his own utterances would justify him in that course. The result was, as far as he can now recall, that he could alter but one adjective in the entire section relating to Coleridge. Of course, the author finds no fault with those who differ from him on Coleridge, or on any other writer who has come under treatment; but he must be granted by others what he concedes to them. For the criticism, as a whole, which he has received both through the press and private sources, he owes a debt of gratitude which he cannot hope to pay. It gives him profound pleasure to know, that the highest theological journals in the United States which wage open war against orthodoxy, have conceded, with marked unanimity, the general correctness of his statements, though they naturally take issue with his conclusions.

Every effort has been bestowed on the present edition to make it as free from blemishes as possible. The appendix of literature has been slightly enlarged, many typographical errors—occurring in consequence of the too rapid passage of the work through the press, and the abundance of words of different languages with which the printer was not always well acquainted—have disappeared; and, in many cases, the narrative has been brought down to the present time. In the prosecution of revision, a large number of the stereotype plates have been cancelled; and no labor has been wanting to make this edition worthy of the goodwill expressed toward the two editions which have preceded it.

Through a strange providence the author is now about to commence a term of theological instruction in Germany, where Rationalism first excited his attention, and where his apprehensions were first raised that Great Britain and the United States might be seriously invaded by it. His presence at its old hearthstone leads him to indulge the hope that, in some future though distant day, if life be spared, he may be able to enlarge this history greatly, and thus to render it better adapted to its purpose, more approximative to his first ideal, and more commensurate with the present universal interest in religious and theological themes.

Bremen, Germany, November 5, 1866.

CONTENTS.

HISTORY OF RATIONALISM.

INTRODUCTION.

RATIONALISM DEFINED—ITS CHARACTER AS A SKEPTICAL DEVELOPMENT.

Rationalism is the most recent, but not the least violent and insidious, of all the developments of skepticism. We purpose to show its historical position, and to present, as faithfully as possible, its antagonism to evangelical Christianity. The guardians of the interests of the church cannot excuse themselves from effort toward the eradication of this error by saying that it is one which will soon decay by the force of its natural autumn. Posterity will not hesitate to charge us with gross negligence if we fail to appreciate the magnitude of Rationalism, and only deal with it as the growth of a day. We have half conquered an enemy when we have gained a full knowledge of his strength.

There was a time when Rationalism was a theme of interest to the Protestant church of Germany alone. But that day is now past. Having well nigh run its race in the land of Luther, it has crossed the Rhine into France and the Netherlands, invaded England, and now threatens the integrity of the domain of Anglo-Saxon theology. Thus it has assumed an importance which should not be overlooked by British and American thinkers who love those dearly-bought treasures of truth that they have received as a sacred legacy from the martyrs and reformers of the English church. The recent writings of the exegetical Rationalists of England are sufficient to induce us to gather up our armor and adjust it for immediate defence. Delay will entail evil. The reason why skepticism has wrought such fearful ravages at various stages during the career of the church has been the tardiness of the church in watching the sure and steady approach, and then in underrating the real strength of her adversary. The present History will be written for the specific purpose of awakening an interest in the danger that now threatens us. We have no ambition to deal with the past, further than to enable it to minister to the immediate demands of the present. We all belong to this generation; it calls for our energies; it has its great wants; and we shall be held justly responsible if we neglect to contribute our share toward the progress of our contemporaries.

The three principles which have influenced us to undertake a discussion of the present theme—and of the truth of which we are profoundly convinced—are the following:

I. That Infidelity presents a systematic and harmonious History. Our customary view of error is, that its history is disjointed, rendered so by the ardent, but unsteady, labors of the doubters of all periods since the origin of Christianity. We have ignored the historical movement of skepticism. Even the storms have their mysterious laws. The work of Satan is never planless. He adapts his measures to the new dangers that arise to threaten his dominion. The analogy between the Rationalism of to-day and the infidelity of past ages is so striking that we can with difficulty recognize the interval of centuries. We see the new faces, but the foes are old. Rationalism has repeatedly varied its method of attack; but if we follow the marches of its whole campaign we shall find that the enemy which stands at our fortress-gate with the Essays and Reviews and Notes on Pentateuch and Joshua in hand, is the same one that assailed Protestant Germany with the Accommodation-theory and the Wolfenbüttel Fragments.

II. A History of a mischievous Tendency is the very best Method for its Refutation and Extirpation. We can learn the full character of the good or evil of any abstract principle only by seeing its practical workings. The tree is known by its fruits. Rationalism may be of evil character, but we must see the results it has produced,—the great overthrow of faith it has effected, and its influence upon the pulpit and press of the countries invaded by it, before we can comprehend the vastness of our danger. An enumeration of the evil doings of a public enemy is the best plan to forestall his future misdeeds. We are not to judge Rationalism by its professions. The question is not, What does it wish? At what does it aim? or, What is its creed? But the true way to measure, understand, and judge it, is by answering the inquiry, What has it done? Its work must determine its character. This work has been most injurious to the faith and life of the church, and its deeds must therefore be its condemnation. There are those who say, "Tell us nothing about skepticism; we know too much about it already." Would it be a prudent request, if, before penetrating the jungles of Asia, we should say, "Tell us nothing of the habits of the lion"; or, before visiting a malarious region of Africa, we should beg of the physician not to inform us of the prevalent fever and its appropriate remedy? Forewarned is forearmed. We are surrounded by Rationalism in many phases; it comes to us in the periodical and the closely-printed volume. Even children are reading it in some shape or other. Shall we know its danger; then we must know its deeds.

III. Of Rationalism it may be affirmed, as of all the Phases of Infidelity, that it is not in its Results an unmixed Evil, since God overrules its Work for the Purification and Progress of his Church. A nation is never so pure as when emerging from the sevenfold-heated furnace. It was not before Manasseh was caught among thorns, bound with fetters, and carried to Babylon, that he "besought the Lord his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers;" nor was it before this humiliation that the Lord "brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom." The whole history of religious error shows that the church is cold, formal, and controversial before the visitation of skepticism. When every power is in full exercise, infidelity stands aloof. God has so provided for his people that he has even caused the delusion by which they have suffered to contribute great benefits but little anticipated by the deluded or the deluders themselves. The intellectual labors of the German Rationalists have already shed an incalculable degree of light on the sacred books, and upon almost every branch of theology. But thus has God ever caused the wrath of man to praise him.

Taking this view of the indirect benefits resulting from skepticism, we cannot lament, without an admixture of solace, that the path of Truth has always been rough. The Master, who declared himself "The Truth," premonished us by his own life that his doctrines were not destined to pervade the mind and heart of our race without encountering violent blows, and passing through whole winters of frost and storm. Many things attending the origin and planting of Christianity gave omen of antagonism to its claims in coming generations. Nor could it be expected that the unsanctified reason of man would accept as the only worthy guide of faith and life what Judaism, Paganism, and Philosophy had long since decidedly rejected. But the spirit of Christianity is so totally at variance with that of the world that it is vain to expect harmony between them. Truth, however, will not suffer on that account; and when the issues appear it will shine all the brighter for the fires through which it has passed. The country where Rationalism has exerted its first and chief influence is Germany, than which no nation of modern times has been more prospered or passed through deeper affliction. At one time she was the leader of religious liberty and truth, not only in Europe, but throughout the world. She was thirty years fighting the battles of Protestantism, but the end of the long conflict found her victorious. Since that day, however, she has lost her prestige of adherence to evangelical Christianity; and her representative theologians and thinkers have distorted the Bible which she was the very first to unseal. We rejoice that her condition is more hopeful to-day than it was twenty-five years ago; but recovery is not easy from a century-night of cold, repulsive Rationalism. As a large number of those stupendous battles that have decided the political and territorial condition of Europe have been fought on the narrow soil of Belgium, so has Germany been for ages the contested field on which were determined the great doctrinal and ecclesiastical questions of the European continent and of the world. Happily, the result has generally been favorable; and let no friend of evangelical truth fear that Rationalism will not meet its merited fate.

We must not imagine that, because the term Rationalism has been frequently employed within the last few years, it is of very recent origin either as a word or skeptical type. The Aristotelian Humanists of Helmstedt were called Rationalists in the beginning of the seventeenth century, and Comenius applied the same epithet to the Socinians in 1688.[1] It was a common word in England two hundred years ago. Nor was it imported into the English language from the German, either in a theological or a philosophical sense. There was a sect of Rationalists, in the time of the Commonwealth, who called themselves such exactly on the same grounds as their successors have done in recent years. Some one writing the news from London under date of October 14, 1646, says: "There is a new sect sprung up among them [the Presbyterians and Independents], and these are the Rationalists, and what their reason dictates them in church or state stands for good until they be convinced with better."[2] But Rationalists, in fact if not in name, existed on the Continent long anterior to this date. The Anti-Trinitarians, and Bodin, and Pucci were rigid disciples of Reason; and their tenets harmonize with those of a later day.[3]

In order to arrive at a proper definition of Rationalism we should consult those authors who have given no little attention to this department of theological inquiry. Nor would we be impartial if we adduced the language of one class to the exclusion of the other. We shall hear alike from the friends and adversaries of the whole movement, and endeavor to draw a proper conclusion from their united testimony. It was Selden's advice to the students of ecclesiastical history, "to study the exaggerated statements of Baronius on the one side, and of the Magdeburg Centuriators on the other, and be their own judges." Fortunately enough for a proper understanding of Rationalism, there is no such diversity of statement presented by our authorities. On the contrary, we shall perceive an unexpected and gratifying harmony.

In Wegscheider's Institutiones Dogmaticæ, a work which for nearly half a century has stood as an acknowledged and highly respected authority on the systematic theology of the Rationalists, we read language to this effect: "Since that doctrine (of supernaturalism) is encumbered with various difficulties, every day made more manifest by the advances of learning, especially historical, physical, and philosophical, there have been amongst more recent theologians and philosophers not a few who, in various ways, departing from it, thought it right to admit, even in the investigation and explanation of divine things, not only that formal use of human reason which regards only the method of expounding dogmas, but also the material use, by which the subject-matter of the particular doctrines is submitted to inquiry.

"Thus arose that of which the generic name is Rationalism, or that law or rule of thinking, intimately united with the cultivation of talent and mind, by which we think that as well in examining and judging of all things presented to us in life and the range of universal learning, as in those matters of most grave importance which relate to religion and morals, we must follow strenuously the norm of reason rightly applied, as of the highest faculty of the mind; which law of thinking and perceiving, if it be applied to prove any positive religion (theological Rationalism) lays it down as an axiom that religion is revealed to men in no other manner than that which is agreeable both to the nature of things and to reason, as the witness and interpreter of divine providence; and teaches that the subject-matter of every supposed supernatural revelation, is to be examined and judged according to the ideas regarding religion and morality, which we have formed in the mind by the help of reason.... Whosoever, therefore, despising that supremacy of human reason, maintains that the authority of a revelation, said to have been communicated to certain men in a supernatural manner, is such that it must be obeyed by all means, without any doubt,—that man takes away and overturns from the foundation the true nature and dignity of man, at the same time cherishes the most pernicious laziness and sloth, or stirs up the depraved errors of fanaticism.... As to that which is said to be above reason, the truth of which can by no means be understood, there is no possible way open to the human mind to demonstrate or affirm it; wherefore to acknowledge or affirm that which is thought to be above reason is rightly said to be against reason and contrary to it.

"The persuasion concerning the supernatural and miraculous, and at the same time immediate, revelation of God, cannot be reconciled with the idea of God eternal, always consistent with himself, omnipotent, omniscient, and most wise, by whose power, operative through all eternity and exerted in perfect harmony with the highest wisdom, we rightly teach that the whole nature of things exists and is preserved.... This being so, it seems that the natural revelation or manifestation of God, made by the works of nature, is the only one which can be rightly defended, and this may be divided into universal or common, and particular or singular. The universal indeed is affected by the natural faculties of the mind, and other helps of the universal nature of things, by which man is led to conceive and cultivate the knowledge of divine things. That we call particular and mediate, in a sense different from the elder writers, which is contained in the compass of things happening according to nature, by which, God being the author, some men are excited above others to attain the principles of true religion, and to impart with signal success those things, accommodated indeed to the desires of their countrymen, and sanctioned by some particular form of religious instruction. A revelation of this kind consists as well in singular gifts of genius and mind, with which the messenger, and, as it were, its interpreter, is perceived to be furnished, as in illustrious proofs of divine providence, conspicuous in his external life. But the more agreeably to the will of that same God he uses these helps to be ascribed to God, and full of a certain divine fervor, and excelling in zeal for virtue and piety, the more he scatters the seeds of a doctrine truly divine, i. e., true in itself, and worthy of God, and to be propagated by suitable institutions, the more truly will he flourish amongst other men with the authority of a divine teacher or ambassador. For as our mind partakes of the divine nature and disposition (2 Peter i. 4), so without the favor and help of the Deity it is not carried out to a more true species of religion.

"But whatever narrations especially accommodated to a certain age, and relating miracles and mysteries, are united with the history and subject-matter of revelation of this kind, these ought to be referred to the natural sources and true nature of human knowledge. By how much the more clearly the author of the Christian religion, not without the help of Deity, exhibited to men the idea of reason imbued with true religion, so as to represent as it were an apaugasma of the divine reason, or the divine spirit, by so much the more diligently ought man to strive to approach as nearly as possible to form that archetype in the mind, and to study to imitate it in life and manners to the utmost of his ability. Behold here the intimate and eternal union and agreement of Christianity with Rationalism."

Stäudlin, at first a Rationalist, but in later life more inclined to supernaturalism, says: "I do not now look to the various meanings in which the word Rationalism has been used. I understand by it here only generally the opinion that mankind are led by their reason and especially by the natural powers of their mind and soul, and by the observation of nature which surrounds them, to a true knowledge of divine and sensible things, and that reason has the highest authority and right of decision in matters of faith and morality, so that an edifice of faith and morals built on this foundation shall be called Rationalism. It still remains undecided whether this system declares that a supernatural revelation is impossible and ought to be rejected. That notion rather lies in the word Naturalism, which however is sometimes used as synonymous with Rationalism. It has been well said that Naturalism is distinguished from Rationalism by rejecting all and every revelation of God, especially any extraordinary one through certain men. This, however, is not the case with many persons called Naturalists both by themselves and others. Supernaturalism consists in general in the conviction that God has revealed himself supernaturally and immediately. What is revealed might perhaps be discovered by natural methods, but either not at all or very late by those to whom it is revealed. It may also be something which man could never have known by natural methods; and then arises the question, whether man is capable of such a revelation. The notion of a miracle cannot well be separated from such a revelation, whether it happens out of, on, or in men. What is revealed may belong to the order of nature, but an order higher and unknown to us, which we could never have known without miracles, and cannot bring under the law of nature."[4]

Professor Hahn, in speaking of the work just referred to, and of the subject in general, makes the following remarks: "In very recent times, during which Rationalism has excited so much attention, two persons especially, Bretschneider and Stäudlin, have endeavored to point out the historical use of the word, but both have failed. It is therefore worth while to examine the matter afresh. With respect to the Rationalists, they give out Rationalism as a very different matter from Naturalism. Röhr, the author of the Letters on Rationalism, chooses to understand by Naturalism only Materialism; and Wegscheider, only Pantheism. In this way those persons who have been usually reckoned the heads of the Naturalists; namely, Herbert, Tindal, and others; will be entirely separated from them, for they were far removed from Pantheism or Materialism. Bretschneider, who has set on foot the best inquiry on this point, says that the word Rationalism has been confused with the word Naturalism since the appearance of the Kantian philosophy, and that it was introduced into theology by Reinhard and Gabler. An accurate examination respecting these words gives the following results: The word Naturalism arose first in the sixteenth century, and was spread in the seventeenth. It was understood to include those who allowed no other knowledge of religion except the natural, which man could shape out of his own strength, and consequently excluded all supernatural revelation. As to the different forms of Naturalism, theologians say there are three; the first, which they call Pelagianism, and which considers human dispositions and notions as perfectly pure and clear by themselves, and the religious knowledge derived from them as sufficiently explicit. A grosser kind denies all particular revelation; and the grossest of all considers the world as God. As to Rationalism, this word was used in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries by those who considered reason as the source and norm of faith. Amos Comenius seems first to have used this word in 1661, and it never had a good sense. In the eighteenth century it was applied to those who were in earlier times called by the name of Naturalist."[5]

Of all writers on the subject of Rationalism we give the palm of excellence to the devout and learned Hugh James Rose, of Cambridge University. As far as we know he was the first to expose to the English-speaking world the sad state to which this form of skepticism had reduced Germany. Having visited that country in 1824, he delivered four discourses on the subject before the university, which were afterward published under the title of The State of Protestantism in Germany. Thus far, in spite of the new works which may have appeared, this account of Rationalism has not been superseded. We shall have occasion more than once to refer to its interesting pages. Of Rationalism he says:

"The word has been used in Germany in various senses, and has been made to embrace alike those who positively reject all revelation and those who profess to receive it. I am inclined, however, to believe that the distinction between Naturalists and Rationalists is not quite so wide, either, as it would appear to be at first sight, or as one of them assuredly wishes it to appear. For if I receive a system, be it of religion, of morals, or of politics, only so far as it approve itself to my reason, whatever be the authority that presents it to me, it is idle to say that I receive the system out of any respect to that authority. I receive it only because my reason approves it, and I should of course do so if an authority of far inferior value were to present the system to me. This is what that division of Rationalists, which professes to receive Christianity and at the same time to make reason the supreme arbiter in matters of faith, has done. Their system, in a word, is this: they assume certain general principles, which they 'maintain to be the necessary deductions of reason from an extended and unprejudiced contemplation of the natural and moral order of things, and to be in themselves immutable and universal. Consequently anything which, on however good authority, may be advanced in apparent opposition to them must either be rejected as unworthy of rational belief, or at least explained away, till it is made to accord with the assumed principles,—and the truth or falsehood of all doctrines proposed is to be decided according to their agreement or disagreement with those principles.' When Christianity, then, is presented to them, they inquire what there is in it which agrees with their assumed principles, and whatsoever does so agree, they receive as true. But whatever is true comes from God, and consequently all of Christianity which they admit to be true, they hold to be divine.

"'Those who are generally termed Rationalists,' says Dr. Bretschneider, 'admit universally, in Christianity, a divine, benevolent, and positive appointment for the good of mankind, and Jesus as a Messenger of divine Providence, believing that the true and everlasting word of God is contained in the Holy Scripture, and that by the same the welfare of mankind will be obtained and extended. But they deny therein a supernatural and miraculous working of God, and consider the object of Christianity to be that of introducing into the world such a religion as reason can comprehend; and they distinguish the essential from the unessential, and what is local and temporary from that which is universal and permanent in Christianity.' There is, however, a third class of divines, which in fact differs very little from this, though very widely in profession. They affect to allow 'a revealing operation of God,' but establish on internal proofs rather than on miracles the divine nature of Christianity. They allow that revelation may contain much out of the power of reason to explain, but say that it should assert nothing contrary to reason, but rather what may be proved by it. This sounds better, but they who are acquainted with the writings of the persons thus described, know that by establishing Christianity on internal proofs, they only mean the accepting those doctrines which they like, and which seem to them reasonable, and that though they allow in theory that revelation may contain what are technically called much above reason, yet in practice they reject the positive doctrines of Christianity (I mean especially the doctrines of the Trinity, the Atonement, the Mediation and Intercession of our Lord, Original Sin, and Justification by Faith), because they allege that those doctrines are contrary to reason. The difference between them and the others is therefore simply this, that while the others set no limits at all to the powers of reason in matters of faith, they set such a limit in theory but not in practice, and consequently cannot justly demand to be separated from the others."[6]

One of the ablest advocates of Supernaturalism among English divines is the late Dr. A. McCaul, of London. He joins issue successfully with the Rationalists. We quote a specimen of his method of argument. His definition of Rationalism is beautifully lucid and logical. He says:

"This doctrine then plainly denies the existence and the possibility of a supernatural and immediate revelation from the Almighty, and maintains that to claim supreme authority for any supposed supernatural religion is degrading to the dignity and the nature of man. It enters into direct conflict with the statements of the Old Testament writers, who clearly and unmistakably assert the existence of a divine communication which is called 'The law of the Lord,' 'The law of his mouth,' 'The testimony of God,' 'The saying of God,' 'The word of the Lord,' 'The word that goeth forth out of his mouth,' 'The judgment of the Lord,' 'The commandment of the Lord.'

"Now it is not intended to strain the allusion to the mouth or lips of the Lord beyond that which the figure may fairly bear. But the expression does certainly mean that there is some direct, immediate, and therefore supernatural communication from the great Creator of all things. The writers who used these expressions did not mean that as reason is given by God, so whatever reason may excogitate is the word of God. They would not have used these expressions concerning Truth that may be found in heathen writers. They believed and recorded that God had manifested himself audibly to the ears, and visibly to the eyes of men. They did not therefore hold the doctrine that supernatural revelation is impossible, or derogatory to reason or inconsistent with the nature and attributes of Him who is eternal.

"It is almost needless to refer to instances. God spake with Adam, with Cain, with Noah. In the latter case the communication led to such actions, and was followed by such results, that without rejecting the history altogether, there can be no doubt of a miraculous communication. Noah knew of the coming flood—built an ark for himself and a multitude of animals—prepared food—was saved with his family, while the world perished—floated for months on the waters, and when he came out, had again a manifestation of the Deity. So Abraham, so Moses, not now to recount any more. Indeed the writer referred to does not deny this. He admits that in Scripture the knowledge of divine things is referred immediately to the Revelation of God, and that though the modes of this Revelation are various, they appear often to overstep the laws and course of nature. He enumerates as modes of revelation, Epiphanies of God himself, of angels—heavenly voices—dreams—afflatus, or the Holy Spirit.

"How then does he reconcile this with his denial of all supernatural revelation, or show that these Epiphanies of God and angels, were mere developments of reason? He does not try to reconcile them at all. He simply rejects them as false. He comes directly into collision with the credibility and veracity of the Scripture narratives, and therefore leaves us no alternative but to disbelieve the Bible as fabulous, or to reject Rationalism as inconsistent with our rule of faith. This system not only generally denies the possibility of supernatural revelation, but asserts that all the particular narratives of all such communications from God are incredible; nothing better than ghost stories or fairy tales; equally unworthy of God and man, the offspring of an ignorant and unenlightened age and nation, and therefore rejected by these men of reason and science. How this differs from the doctrine of Deists and open opposers of Christianity, it is difficult to conceive, except that it seems to be rather worse. Even Bolingbroke admits supernatural Revelation to be possible. Tom Paine himself says, 'Revelation when applied to religion means something immediately communicated from God to man. No one will deny or dispute the power of the Almighty to make such a communication if he pleases.' Spinoza asserts that the 'Israelites heard a true voice at the delivery of the ten commandments; that God spoke face to face with Moses; and generally, that God can communicate immediately with men, and that though natural science is divine, yet its propagators cannot be called prophets.' That the Rationalist view of revelation is contrary to the popular belief of Christians generally, and of Christian churches and divines particularly, there can be no doubt. It is intended so to be....

"The Rationalist professes to believe that all the knowledge of truth at which man arrives is owing to the original wisdom, will, and power of the Almighty in giving man a certain intellectual constitution, to be unfolded by the circumstances of human history and necessities—that therefore moral and religious truth, such as the Rationalists acknowledge, is still to be ascribed to the purposes and power and efficacy of the Great Spirit, acting upon that which is material and compound.

"Why, then, should it be impossible for the Creator to shorten the process, to help man in his painful and often unsuccessful search after truth, and to make known that which exists in the Divine mind and purpose? To say that he cannot, is in fact to depose him from the throne of omnipotence, and to bring us back either to two eternal independent principles, incapable of all communication, or to drive us to Pantheism. If there ever was a period in duration in which God could act upon matter, or endue infinite intelligences with the means and capability of knowledge, he can do so still."[7]

M. Saintes, who has investigated the history of this subject more thoroughly than any other writer, says of the significations and limits of Rationalism:

"I myself at first imagined that it signified the wise and constant exercise of reason on religious subjects, but in studying the matter historically I soon found that it is the same with this word as with many others which, having lost their original meaning, now express an idea directly contrary to that which their etymology seems to indicate. It is indisputably true that God, in granting reason to man, has not forbidden its exercise. As religion, the queen of all minds, possesses indestructible rights over them, so has human reason also rights which cannot be disputed. Kant has justly said, the faith which should oppose itself to reason could not longer exist. With this view we form an idea of Rationalism similar to that conceived by the great Leibnitz, which, with our present ideas of truth, we cannot regard as unreasonable. But this right of human reason to examine and discuss differs widely from its self-constitution as supreme judge on religious matters, and from the wish to submit God and conscience to its own tribunal, which it declares to be infallible. This, however, has been the case in modern times when Philosophy has openly avowed itself the enemy of Christianity, and when those who were terrified by its rash demands have sought to confound them by the devices of Rationalism—thus hastening to ruin the edifice which they aspired to restore.... Rationalism must not, therefore, be understood to signify the use which theologians have made of reason in matters of faith. Did the reader thus interpret it he would mistake our aim. He would be deceived as to the character of the labors which it is our wish to describe. He would attribute to the author of this history intentions which he could not entertain, and religious opinions which his respect for human reason would compel him to disavow. The apostles of the gospel continually appeal to the reason of their hearers, and Christ himself argues the increasing exercise of the eye of the soul, as he calls conscience, in judging of the truth which he announces—Matt. vi. 23. For a good conscience is always better disposed to rise to the knowledge of the truth; while one heavy laden and harassed is exceedingly prone to receive dogmas without properly understanding their import, because it feels their truth through the consolations which they offer. In no age of Christianity has there arisen a serious discussion on this subject, though the extravagant pretensions of Rationalism have provoked some exaggerations which can never prevail over the ancient Christian system. That system by no means forbade the exercise of human intelligence in religious matters, though it employed a superior and only infallible reason—the divine reason, the doctrinal expression of which is found in the books which all Christians have hitherto considered divine, and whose authenticity and truth cannot be disputed without overturning that Christianity, which has been professed during eighteen centuries. But modern Rationalism has done more than assert the right of exercising reason; it has pretended that to this faculty alone belongs the privilege of deciding on man's religious belief and his moral duty; and that if, from long custom, any respect is still due to revelation, it should only receive it when it is not opposed to the judgments of reason. But if this reason were sufficient for mankind, why should divine revelation be in any case opposed to it?

"Rationalism is not a systematic incredulity as to religious truths. Far from being so, it makes pretensions of developing the religious feelings to the highest degree; and there is in the writings of its most distinguished disciples something which arouses even the most lethargic minds. But it is far from attaining its end; for although it constitutes itself the supreme judge of Christianity, it does not really adopt one of the leading doctrines of that religion which alone has power over the moral nature of man. Its influence, if we observe it closely, extends only over his feelings; it fails to penetrate into the depths of his being; and can we forget that one of its essential characteristics is to wage deadly war against the supernatural element which abounds in the Bible, and which Rationalism would wholly eradicate? An enlightened Supernaturalist will then very willingly confess that Naturalism may be professed with a semblance of reason and in good faith, and he can even consider it as a system of philosophy wherein are to be found fewer philosophical elements than in any other. But simple good sense forbids him to imagine it possible to profess Rationalism and at the same time to retain the name of Christian."[8]

The most recent defence of Rationalism is by Mr. Lecky.[9] He has written in great calmness, taken great pains to generalize his investigations, and followed closely in the steps of the late Mr. Buckle, in his fragment of the History of Civilization. But his argument is false. According to Mr. Lecky, human reason is the only factor of history. The agency of the Holy Spirit is ignored. Elaborate creeds and liturgical services are a barrier to the mind's progress, because they shackle the intellect by impure traditions. Rationalism is the only relief of these later times. "Its central conception," says our author, "is the elevation of conscience into a position of supreme authority as the religious organ, a verifying faculty discriminating between truth and error. It regards Christianity as designed to preside over the moral development of mankind, as a conception which was to become more and more sublimated and spiritualized as the human mind passed into new phases, and was able to bear the splendor of a more unclouded light. Religion it believes to be no exception to the general law of progress, but rather the highest form of its manifestation, and its earlier systems but the necessary steps of an imperfect development. In its eyes the moral element of Christianity is as the sun in heaven, and dogmatic systems are as the clouds that intercept and temper the exceeding brightness of its rays. The insect, whose existence is but for a moment, might well imagine that these were indeed eternal, that their majestic columns could never fail, and that their luminous folds were the very source and centre of light. And yet they shift and vary with each changing breeze; they blend and separate; they assume new forms and exhibit new dimensions; as the sun that is above them waxes more glorious in its power, they are permeated and at last absorbed by its increasing splendor; they recede, and wither, and disappear, and the eye ranges far beyond the sphere they had occupied into the infinity of glory that is before them.... Rationalism is a system which would unite in one sublime synthesis all the past forms of human belief, which accepts with triumphant alacrity each new development of science, having no stereotyped standard to defend, and which represents the human mind as pursuing on the highest subjects a path of continual progress toward the fullest and most transcendent knowledge of the Deity.... It clusters around a series of essentially Christian conceptions—equality, fraternity, the suppression of war, the elevation of the poor, the love of truth, and the diffusion of liberty. It revolves around the ideal of Christianity, and represents its spirit without its dogmatic system and its supernatural narratives. From both of these it unhesitatingly recoils, while deriving all its strength and nourishment from Christian ethics."[10]

The present age, if we hearken to Mr. Lecky, is purely Rationalistic, because purely progressive. The world has emerged from its blindness and ignorance by the innate force of the mind. Reason, the great magician, has uplifted its wand; and lo, the creatures of night disappear! It has dispelled the foolish old notions of magic, witchcraft, and miracles. It has overcome the spirit of persecution, the childish conception of original sin, and the doctrine of eternal punishment. It has put an end to bull-baiting, cock-fighting, and all the lower forms of vicious pleasure. It has secularized politics, overthrown the notion of the divine right of kings, and now creates and fosters all the industrial developments of the age. Protestantism is excellent when allied to Rationalism; but when opposed to it, it is no better than any other conglomeration of creeds and liturgies. There is no such thing as a fixed notion of God and Providence. The conceptions of man on these subjects will change with the progress of the race. Human reason, therefore, and not revelation, is the sole arbiter of truth.

Thus Mr. Lecky places himself beside his predecessors in ignoring the agency of the Holy Spirit, either in giving inspired truth to the world, or in educating the church.

From the foregoing authorities it is very apparent that the Rationalists do not deny the special features of skepticism with which their opponents charge them. They admit frankly that they give the precedence to Reason, when the alternative is Reason or Revelation, instead of adopting a positive creed from the principle, that, if we would ascertain the character of Revelation, we must begin our inquiry by examining the doctrines it contains, and then by comparing them with our notions of what a Revelation ought to be. Thus the capricious dictates of reason are made to decide the quality of revealed truth. Besides, wherever a mysterious account is contained in a book which in the main is accepted, such mystery is cast out as altogether unlikely, probably the poetic version of some early legend. A miracle is recounted; one of the best attested of all. "It could never have happened," the Rationalists say, "for Nature has made it impossible."

There have been several classes of Rationalists. Some were men of very worthy character; and, save in their opinions, were entitled to the high respect of their generation. Semler lived a beautiful life; and his glowing utterance on his daughter's death exhibited not only a father's love, but a Christian's faith. Bretschneider, himself a Rationalist, gives the following classification of his confreres:

The first class consider Revelation a superstition, and Jesus either an enthusiast or a deceiver. To this class belong Wünsch and Paalzow, but no divine. The second class do not allow that there was any divine operation in Christianity in any way, and refer the origin of Christianity to mere natural causes. They make the life of Christ a mere romance, and himself a member of secret associations; and consider the Scriptures as only human writings in which the word of God is not to be found. To this class belong Bahrdt, Reimarus, and Venturini (the last two not divines), and Brennecke. The third class comprise the persons usually called Rationalists. They acknowledge in Christianity an institution divine, beneficent, and for the good of the world; and Jesus as a messenger of God; and they think that in Scripture is found a true and eternal word of God,—only they deny any supernatural and miraculous working of God, and make the object of Christianity to be the introduction of religion into the world, its preservation, and extension. They distinguish between what is essential and non-essential in Christianity, between what is local and temporal, and what is universal. That is to say, they allow that there is good in Christianity—that all that is good comes from God; but miracles, inspiration, everything immediately coming from God, they wholly disbelieve. Among this class are Kant, Steinbart, Krug, as philosophers; and, as divines, W. A. Teller, Löffler, Thiess, Henke, J. E. C. Schmidt, De Wette, Paulus, Wegscheider, and Röhr. The fourth class go a little higher. They consider the Bible and Christianity as a divine revelation in a higher sense than the Rationalists. They assume a revealing operation of God distinguishable from his common providence; carefully distinguish the periods of this divine direction; found the divinity of Christianity more on its internal evidence than on miracles; but especially separate church belief from the doctrines of Scripture; reform it according to the sentiments of the Divine Word; and require that Reason should try Revelation, and that Revelation should contain nothing against, though it may well have much above, Reason. Döderlein, Morus, Reinhard, Ammon, Schott, Niemeyer, Bretschneider, and others, belong to this class.

The only objection to this classification is the one urged by Rose; namely, that only a few of the theological writers would appear to have been violent Rationalists, while the larger class would seem to have held the moderate opinions which Bretschneider himself professes to adopt. The contrary is the fact, as any one at all acquainted with the number of theological writers of the period in question can determine. The spirit of the Rationalistic literature of the time was decidedly violent and destructive.

In glancing at some of the general causes which have made Rationalism so successful in its hold upon the popular mind, we find that it has possessed many advantages over almost any other form of skepticism that has appeared during the history of the church.

Prominent among these causes were its multiplied affiliations with the church. It had thus a fine vantage-ground on which to wage deadly war against the text and doctrines of the Bible. The first antagonists of Christianity came from without; and they dealt their heaviest blows with a deep and thorough conviction that the whole system they were combating was absolutely false, absurd, and base. And, in fact, many later enemies of Revelation have come from without the pale of Christianity. But the great Coryphæi of Rationalism have sprung from the very bosom of the church, were educated under her maternal care; and, at the same time that they were endeavoring to demolish the superstructure of divine inspiration, they were, in the eyes of the people, its strongest pillars, the accredited spiritual guides of the land, teaching in the most famed universities of the Continent, and preaching in churches which had been hallowed by the struggles and triumphs of the Reformation.

German Protestantism cannot complain that Rationalism was the work of acknowledged foes; but is bound to confess, with confusion of face, that it has been produced by her own sons; and that English Deism and French Atheism were welcomed, and transmuted into far more insidious and destructive agencies than they had ever been at home. The Rationalists did not discard the Bible, but professed the strongest attachment to it. They ever boasted that their sole object was the defence and elevation of it. "Because we love it," they said, "we are putting ourselves to all this trouble of elucidating it. It grieves us beyond measure to see how it has been suffering from the vagaries of weak minds. We are going to place it in the hands of impartial Reason; so that, for once at least, it may become plain to the masses. We will call in all the languages and sciences to aid us in exhuming its long-buried treasures, in order that the wayfaring man, though a fool, may appropriate them. And as to the church, who would say aught against our venerable mother? We love her dearly. We confess, indeed, that we love the green fields and gray mountain-rocks better than her Sabbath services; nor do we have much respect for her Sabbath at all. But we cherish her memories, and are proud of her glory. Yet the people do not understand her mysteries well enough. They do not love her as much as we do. Therefore we will stir them up to the performance of long-neglected duties. They ignorantly cling too proudly to her forms and confessions. But we will aid them to behold her in a better light. We know the true path of her prosperity, for do you not see that we have been born and bred within her dear fold? Let everybody follow us. We will bring you into light." Had outspoken enemies of the church and inspiration, though doubly gifted and multiplied in number, set themselves to the same destructive work that engaged the labors of these so-called friends, they could not have inflicted half the injury. They had razed to the ground tower after tower of the popular faith before their designs were discovered. And yet we must do them the credit to say that they did not intend to do the harm that they eventually accomplished. But human agencies achieve their legitimate results without regard to the motives that give them impulse. No doubt, many a Rationalist, as he looked back from his death-bed on the ruin to which he had contributed, trembled with astonishment at the poisonous fruit of his labors. Christ beheld a broader field than we can see, when he said, "A man's foes shall be they of his own household."

This religious exterior has been a powerful auxiliary to the growth of Rationalism. In the earlier stages of its history, every utterance regarding the authenticity of any books of Scripture was carefully guarded. The boldest stroke that this species of skepticism has made has been a recent one, Strauss' Life of Jesus; but that work was only the outgrowth of long doubt, and the honest, frank expression of what a certain class of Rationalists had been burning to say for a century. Parents who sent their sons to the university to listen to such men as Semler, Thomasius, and Paulus, had not the remotest idea that institutions of such renown for learning and religion were at that very time the hotbeds of rank infidelity. Even the State cabinets that controlled the professorial chairs could not believe for a long time that men who had been chosen to teach theology were spending all their power in corrupting the religious sentiment of the land. Large congregations were sometimes startled with strange announcements from their pastors, to the effect that the supposed miraculous dividing of the Red Sea was only occasioned by certain natural forces of wind and tide; that all the rest of the Old Testament miracles were pure myths; and that many parts of the New Testament were written at a later time and by other authors than those whose names are usually associated with them. "Heterodoxy," was whispered. But the reply was, "Better have heterodoxy than these miserable disputes on Election and the Lord's Supper, to which we have been compelled to listen almost ever since Luther laid his body down to die." Fledgling theologians would come home from the university, and read aloud to the family-group the notes of lectures which they had heard during the last semester. The aged pair, looking up in wonder, would say, "The good and great doctors of our Reformation never taught such things as these." But their sons would answer, "Oh, the world has grown much wiser since their day. New discoveries in philosophy and science have opened new avenues of truth, and our eyes are blessed that we see, and our ears that we hear. Just wait until we get into the pulpit, and we will set the people to thinking in a new way." Thus the enemy was sowing tares while the church was dreaming of a plenteous harvest.

Rationalism was very adroit in its initial steps. Its method of betrayal was, Judas-like, to sit in friendly intercourse beside its victim, and afterwards, when the fulness of malevolent inspiration had come, to give the fatal kiss in the presence of enemies. The people did not know the ills they were about to suffer until deliverance was well-nigh hopeless. Had Rationalism begun by laying down its platform and planning the work of proof, the forces of the opposition might have been organized. But it commenced without a platform, and worked long without one. The systematic theology of Bretschneider would by no means be accepted by the entire class of Rationalistic divines. To get a fair conception of what has been the aggregate sentiment of the whole class, one must wander through hundreds of volumes of exegesis, history, philosophy, and romance; and these covering a space of many years. Even when you hold up your treasure, and cry "Eureka!" your shrewd opponent will coolly say that you have given a false interpretation, and have drawn wrong conclusions,—that his masters never claimed such an absurdity. Rationalism looked upon Revelation as a tottering edifice, and set itself busily at work to destroy the entire superstructure. But sometimes it is the surrounding vines and trees that shake in the autumn storm, and not the building itself; and often beneath the worm-eaten bark there is a great oaken heart, which no arm is strong enough and no axe sufficiently keen to cleave.

Rationalism has been striving to destroy a house which was built upon a rock; and if it fell not, the fault lay not in the absence of ingenuity and strength of attack, but in the undecayed material and deeply-grounded solidity of the structure.

We are not blind to the extenuating circumstances that are adduced for Rationalism. The motives of its founders seemed pure enough, for these men held their life-task to be the purification of faith from the misconceptions of inspiration, and the deliverance of the church from the thraldom of stiff formularies. Some of their successors held that their labors were only philosophical, and hence could not affect theology. They all claimed relationship with the Reformers, and with the good and great of all ages. Bretschneider says that Luther talked of miracles as only fit for the ignorant and vulgar, as apples and pears are for children.

Paulus tries to prove the great Saxon a Rationalist by the following circumstance. The Elector of Brandenburg having asked Luther if it were true that he had said he should not stop unless convinced from Scripture, received this reply: "Yes, my lord, unless I am convinced by clear and evident reasons!" It was a favorite view of the Rationalists that the Reformation had been produced by Reason asserting her rights; and it was then an easy step to take, when they claimed as much right to use Reason within the domain of Protestantism as their fathers possessed when within the pale of Catholicism.

But there were wide points of difference between the Reformers and Rationalists. The former would return to the spirit and letter of the Word of God, while the latter did not hesitate to depart from both. The former accepted the Bible as it is, making Faith its interpreter; the latter would only construe its utterances as Reason would dictate.

With the Reformers there was a conflict between the Bible and the Roman church, but harmony between Reason and the Bible; hence these two homogeneous elements should be united and the rebellious one forever discarded. But with the Rationalists there was an irreconcilable difference between Reason and Revelation, and the latter must be moulded into whatever shape the former chose to mark out. The Reformers celebrated the reunion of both; but the Rationalists never rested as long as there was any hope of putting asunder those whom they believed God had never joined together. But the later Rationalists, least of all, could claim consanguinity with the Reformers. How could they who banished miracles from the Scriptures and reduced Christ to a much lower personality than even the Ebionites declared him to be, dare to range themselves in the circle of the honored ones who had unsealed the long-locked treasures of inspiration, and declared that Christ, instead of being an inferior Socrates, was divine, and the only worthy mediator between God and man? After we accept every reasonable apology for this destructive skepticism there will still be found a large balance against it. There are four considerations which must always be borne in mind when we would decide on the character of any development of religious doubt and innovation. 1. The necessity for its origin and development; 2. Its point of attack; 3. The spirit with which it conducts its warfare; and 4. The success which it achieves.

Let us see how Rationalism stands the test of these criteria. It must be confessed that the German Protestant church, both the Lutheran and Reformed, called loudly for reinvigoration. But it was Faith, not Reason, that could furnish the remedy. The Pietistic influence was gaining ground and fast achieving a good work; but it was reprobated by the idolaters of Reason, and the tender plant was touched by the fatal frost. Had Pietism, with all its extravagances, been fostered by the intellect of the pulpits and universities it would have accomplished the same work for Germany in the seventeenth that the Wesleys and Whitefield wrought in England in the eighteenth century. There was no call for Rationalism, though its literary contributions to the church and the times will eventually be highly useful; but they were ill-timed in that season of remarkable religious doubt. It was the warmth of the heart, and not the cold logic of the intellect that could rejuvenate the church.

Nor do we find the position of Rationalism to be any better when we call to mind that it really acknowledges no hallowed ground. It attacked the most endeared doctrines of our faith, and applied its enginery to those very parts of our citadel which we would be most likely to defend the longest. Had it contented itself with the mere discussion of minor points, with here and there a quibble about a miracle or a prophecy, we could excuse many of its vagaries on the score of enthusiasm. But its premiss was, "We will accept nothing between the two lids of this Book if our Reason cannot fathom it." Hence, all truth, every book of the Bible, even the sacraments of the church, came in for their share of discussion and pruning. In this respect Rationalism takes rank as one of the most corrupt tendencies of infidelity which appears anywhere upon the page of ecclesiastical history. But do we find its spirit mild and amiable? Some of the Rationalists were naturally men of admirable temperament, but this was no effect of their faith. The most lamentable feature of this whole system was the ruthless character of its warfare. The professions of love for the Scriptures and the church, which we so often meet with in the writings of the early Rationalistic divines, were soon laid aside. The demon of destruction presided over the storm. And the work of ruin was rapid, by forced marches and through devious paths,—in the true military style. When the hour of fight came there was no swerving. Men full of the spirit of a bad cause will sometimes fight as valiantly as others for a good one; but it is then that God determines the victor. The evangelical Christians of Protestant Germany saw their banner captured by their foes. And it was their foes who gave the first fire; but they will not be so fortunate in the last encounter. We challenge Deism and even Atheism itself, to furnish proof of a more malignant antipathy to some of the cardinal doctrines of the common faith of Christendom than Rationalism has produced in certain ones of its exponents, and which we shall strive to expose in future pages of this work. Some of the Rationalists were John-like in all they did, save when they discussed the holy truths of inspiration. Then they were possessed by the evil spirit. Nowhere can we find a more deplorable example of the disastrous effects of a false creed on the human character. It is an infallible law of our nature that the mind, not less than the body, becomes depraved by an impure diet. Many persons have been permanently injured by reading the Briefe über den Rationalismus, and other works which Rationalism has published against the doctrines of Revelation.

As far as the completeness and speed of the work of Rationalism are concerned we shall find that it ranks with the most rapid and destructive errors that have ever risen in conflict with the church. Instead of striving to build up a land that had so long been cursed with the blight of Papacy, and had not yet been redeemed a full century, this evil brought its quota of poison into the university, the pulpit, and the household circle. Nor did it cease, as we shall see, until it corrupted nearly all the land for several generations. To-day the humblest peasant who steps on our shore at Castle Garden will stare in wonder as you speak of the final judgment, the immortality of the soul, and the authenticity of the Scriptures. Naturalism could not live thus long in Italy, nor Deism in England, nor the blind Atheism of the Encyclopædists in France; neither in either land was the work of destruction so complete.

But the church has proved herself able to depose many corruptions of her faith; yet this attack upon her faith she has still to vanquish thoroughly. It is not works on the evidences of Christianity that she needs for the consummation of her great aim; and we trust that, by the divine blessing, the inquiry into the vagaries of Reason upon which we are now entering will not be without its effect upon the young mind of America. Our task is simply to lift the finger of warning against the increasing influx of Rationalistic tendencies from France and England; which lands had first received them from Germany. One of our great dangers lies in permitting Reason to take our premises and build her own conclusions upon them. There is an intimate union between theology and philosophy; and anything less than the pursuit and cultivation of a sound philosophy will endanger our theology. Tennyson gives a beautiful word of advice when he says:

"Hold thou the good: define it well:
For fear divine Philosophy
Should push beyond her mark, and be
Procuress to the Lords of Hell."

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Tholuck, Herzog's Real-Encyclopædie. Art. Rationalismus.

[2] Trench, Study of Words, p. 147.

[3] As a fair specimen of the extent to which philological criticism is often carried by some of our German friends, when advocating a doubtful cause, we quote a paragraph in point from Dr. Rückert's work, Der Rationalismus, one of the latest and feeblest apologies for neological thought:

"What is Rationalism? We must try to get the meaning from the term itself. And what sort of a term is it? Barbarous enough! Its root is ratio, but it is directly from rationalis that the word in question is derived. Now this word is good enough in itself, for it signifies what is conformable to reason, that which possesses the attributes and methods of reason. Man is a rational animal, and it is his rationality that distinguishes him from all other animals. So much for this part of the word Rationalism. Now for the barbarous part of it, the -ism. This termination belongs to another language, the Greek -ισμὁς and is derived from a verbal ending which cannot be expressed in Latin, namely—ἱζειν. Now if we examine certain intransitive verbs, such as μηδἱζειν, λακωνἱζειν, ῥωμαἱζειν, ἀττικἱζειν, we shall find their common peculiarity is that the persons meant are not the real persons which the words seem to signify, but only act in their capacity. Not a real Mede μηδἱζει; no true Spartan λακωνἱζει; and so of all the rest. But those Greeks who would rather belong to the Medes than be freemen, act like Medes, would prefer to be under Median rule—μηδιζουσιν. This -ισμος is a termination from this class of verbs, and is employed in reproach and not in praise. Hence Rationalist is a term of contempt, and means not one who is really reasonable, but would like to pass for such." Of course the Doctor concludes that the word is a most flagrant and unrighteous misnomer; but we accept his philology and return him our thanks for his etymological study.

[4] Geschichte des Rationalismus und Supernaturalismus, pp. 3-4.

[5] De Rationalismi: A Disputation at Leipzig.

[6] State of Protestantism in Germany. pp. XXII-XXVI.

[7] Thoughts on Rationalism. pp. 23-32.

[8] Histoire du Rationalisme. pp. 1-6.

[9] History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe. By W. E. H. Lecky, M. A. 2 vols. Longmans, London, 1865.

[10] History of the Rise and Spirit of Rationalism in Europe, vol. I., pp. 183-185.

CHAPTER I.

CONTROVERSIAL PERIOD SUCCEEDING THE REFORMATION.

A work of such magnitude as the Reformation could not easily be consummated in one generation. The real severance from the Roman Catholic church was effected by Luther and Melanchthon; but these men did not live long enough to give the symmetry and polish to their work which it really needed. Unfortunately, their successors failed to perform the necessary task. But lofty as our ideas of the Reformation should be, we must not be blind to the fact that German Protestantism bears sad evidences of early mismanagement. To-day, the Sabbath in Prussia, Baden, and all the Protestant nationalities is hardly distinguishable from that of Bavaria, Austria, Belgium, or France. But a few bold words from Martin Luther on the sanctity of that day, as the Scriptures declare it, would have made it as holy in Germany as it now is in England and the United States. Another error, not so great in itself as in the evils it induced, was the concessions which Protestantism granted to the civil magistrate. The friendly and heroic part which the Elector of Saxony took in the labors of the Reformers, made it a matter of deference to vest much ecclesiastical authority in the civil head. But when, in later years, this confidence was abused, it was not so easy to alter the conditions of power. We see in this very fact one of the underlying causes of the great Rationalistic defection. The individual conscience was allowed almost no freedom at certain periods. The slightest deviation from the mere expression of doctrine was visited with severe penalty. Strigel was imprisoned; Hardenberg was deposed and banished; Peucer doomed to ten years' imprisonment; Cracau put to death on the slightest pretenses; and Huber was deposed and expatriated for a mere variation in stating the Lutheran doctrine that none are excluded from salvation.[11]

There were several causes which contributed to the intemperate controversies that sprang up immediately after the Reformation. The Reformers were involved in serious disputes among themselves. Had Luther and Zwinglius never uttered the word Consubstantiation they would have gained multitudes to the cause they both loved so dearly. Many other questions, which unfortunately occupied so much public attention, caused minute divisions among those who should have stood firm and united in that plastic period of the great movement. But it is to the numerous confessions of faith that we must attribute most of these controversies. Perhaps the grave character of the master-points at issue with Romanism demanded these closely-succeeding expressions of doctrinal opinion; but we question if the advantage was not much less than the outlay. First of all came Melanchthon's celebrated Augsburg Confession, in 1530. The Roman Catholics replied by their Confutation, which, in turn, was answered by Melanchthon in the Apology of the Confession. Luther followed in 1536-'37 with his Articles of Smalcald, and still later by his two Catechisms. In 1577 came the Formula Concordiæ, and in 1580 the symbolical canon entitled Liber Concordiæ.

Amid this mass of doctrinal opinion in which many conflicting points were easy enough to find, it was no small task to know what to accept. The air was filled with the sounds of strife. Those who had fought so steadfastly against Papacy were now turning their weapons in deadly strife against each other.

The very names by which Church History has recorded the memory of these strifes indicate the real littleness of many of the points in question. The Antinomian Controversy originated with John Agricola during Luther's life-time. Agricola, in many severe expressions, contended against the utility of the Law; though Mosheim thinks he intended to say nothing more than that the ten laws of Moses were intended chiefly for the Jews, and that Christians are warranted in laying them aside. The Adiaphoristic Controversy was caused by the difference between the moderate views of Melanchthon and the more rigid doctrines of the orthodox Lutherans. We have next the controversy between George Major and Nicolas Amsdorf, as to whether good works are necessary to salvation, or whether they possess a dangerous tendency. The Synergistic Controversy considered the relations of divine grace and human liberty. The dispute between Victorin Strigel and Matthias Flacius was on the nature of Original Sin. Then we have the Osiandric Controversy, on the relation of justification to sanctification; and the Crypto-Calvinistic Controversy, concerning the Lord's Supper, which extended through the Palatinate to Bremen and through Saxony. The Formula Concordiæ thus sums up the Lutheran controversies: 1. Against the Antinomians insisting on the preaching of the law. 2. Justification as a declarative act, against Osiander; good works are its fruits. 3. Synergism is disavowed, but the difficulty left indefinite. 4. Adiaphora are admitted, but in times of trial declared to be important. 5. Consubstantiation, and ubiquity of Christ's body.

The Reformed or Calvinistic church was likewise engaged in doctrinal disputation, but there was more internal unity. Hence, while Calvinism was rooting itself in England, Scotland, and Holland, Lutheranism was spending itself in internal strife.

The Syncretistic Controversy was remarkable on account of the great men who engaged in it and the noble purpose which caused it. It arose from an attempt to reconcile all the disputants under the Apostles' Creed.

George Calixtus was the chief actor in the movement. He was a most cultivated theologian. But, like so many of his fellow countrymen, whose merits have not yet been appreciated by the English-speaking people, he is little known to our readers of ecclesiastical history. He applied himself first to the study of the Church Fathers, poring over their voluminous productions with all the zeal of an enthusiast. He was eager to gain an insight into contemporaneous theology as it was believed and practised by all the sects. He concluded that he could gain his object only by travel and personal observation. Consequently, he commenced a tour through Belgium, England, France, and various parts of Germany. Nor did he hasten from one place to another, but continued a length of time, in order to become imbued with the local spirit, make the acquaintance of the most illustrious men, hold conversations with them, and commit his thoughts to writing. On his return he commenced the labors of a professor of theology at Helmstedt. Thus, few men ever brought to their aid more extensive acquirements than Calixtus. Besides the advantages he derived from his travels, he was possessed of strong and brilliant natural talents. He was bold and striking in his style; had great originality of conception, and remarkable logical acuteness. Yet he received but little justice from his generation; for almost everything he wrote was made the theme of mad disputes and violent abuse.

The controversies of the period made a profound impression on the mind of Calixtus. The anger and personality with which they were conducted were sufficient proof to him of the little service they were able to contribute to either the improvement of theology or the religious growth of the people. To reconcile the various sects was the dream of his whole life. Referring to his early desires in this direction, he thus wrote in later years: "I was cogitating methods, even at that early age, for mitigating the feuds and dissensions of Christians.... One thing, however, is clear, that if men's minds were not bound by prejudices, they would remit a great deal of rigor."[12] Those were sincere words, too, which he said on beholding the rancor of sectarianism: "If I may but help towards the healing of our schisms, I will shrink from no cares and no night-watchings; no effort and no dangers; ... nay, I will never spare either my life or my blood, if so be I may purchase the peace of the church. For nothing can ever be laid upon me so heavy but that I would undertake it, not only with readiness, but also with gladness." The abuses of preaching, then prevalent, were also a theme of intense sorrow to him. What some of them were may be easily gathered from a passage in his course of lectures on the Four Evangelists to the students of Helmstedt. "It is evident," he says, "that in every interpretation the chief heed is to be given to the literal sense. In every address to the people this must be made the principal point—so to explain the text of Scripture that men may understand what the Holy Spirit chiefly and primarily intends to teach by it. Inasmuch, too, as the language is addressed to the people, it is the part of prudence to decide what words may suit their capacity. We should strive to state the fact on the doctrine itself in words as fitting and simple as possible, and (omitting all controversial subtleties) to prove the truth as far as it is necessary for salvation to be known, by a few words of Scripture:—few, that they may not escape the memory of the hearers; evident and convincing, lest the proofs seem doubtful, and the minds of the more intelligent be left in suspense and be disturbed to their very exceeding harm. The words of the Fathers (if used by way of evidence) should be used sparingly and with caution; lest the ignorant should confound the Apostles and Prophets with the Fathers, and persuade themselves that all have equal authority. For it is to be borne in mind that sermons are preached not so much for the benefit of the learned as for the sake of the people generally; that they may be rightly instructed in the doctrine of salvation and of Christian morals. In the meantime we must do our best to satisfy all; that the simple be not left without needful teaching; the more acute find no want of force and argument; nor the learned charge the preacher with a pride of knowledge foreign to the occasion and not always thorough."[13]

In his first controversial work, Chief Points of the Christian Religion, Calixtus gave expression to many solid thoughts, which subsequently produced an abundant harvest. His Theological Apparatus was written for young ministers, and designed to meet the immediate necessities of the times. But it is to his great work, the Desire and Effort for Ecclesiastical Concord, that we must turn to find the true man spending his greatest power toward the unification of Christians. In terms of communion, he contends, we must distinguish between what is, and what is not, essential to salvation. In all that relates to the Christian mysteries we must content ourselves with the quod and not dispute about the quo modo. In stating these mysteries we should use the simplest language. There is a natural brotherhood of men, and this should bind them together in matters of religion. We must love all men, even idolaters, in order to save them. The Jews and Mohammedans stand nearer to us than they, and we should cherish affection also for them. Those who are most closely united to us are all who believe that they can be saved only by the merits of Christ. All who thus recognize the saving power of Christ are members of his body, brothers and sisters with him. We should live, therefore, as members of one family, though adhering to different sects.

But we must not be neutral. Every one should join the church to which his own conscientious convictions would lead him. Yet when we do this, we must love all who think differently. Those who have been martyrs for the Christian faith were in the right path; we cannot do better than to follow them in love and doctrine. The outpouring of the Spirit would be meagre indeed if the church existed for the stringent Lutherans alone.[14]

But the intense desire of Calixtus to unite the various Christian bodies was poorly rewarded by the sympathy of his contemporaries. He was charged with religious indifference because he looked with mildness on those who differed from him. Though a strict Lutheran, he was accused of secretly favoring the Reformed church; and Arianism and Judaism were imputed to him, because he thought that the doctrine of the Trinity was not revealed with equal clearness in the Old and New Testaments! When he affirmed that the epithets Lutheran, Reformed, and Romanist should not destroy the idea of Christian in each, he was foully vilified for opening the gate of heaven to the abandoned of all the earth. A friendly man said that he was "a good and venerable theologian," and for this utterance the offender was subjected to a heavy fine. The friends of Calixtus were termed by one individual "bloodhounds and perjurers." Another declared that "he tuned his lyre to Judaizers and Arianizers and Romanizers and Calvinizers, and that he showed a spirit so coarse and shameless that never the like had been before." Still another compared him to Julian the Apostate.

But previous controversies and the ever-increasing points of divergence had so estranged the different churches that the labors of Calixtus to unite them proved unavailing. His influence was lessened because of the disputes into which his bold undertaking led him. But he quickened national thought, turned theologians to looking deeper into the Scriptures than had been the practice since the Reformation, and established the difference between the essential and non-essential in matters of faith. The cause of his failure to unite the discordant church was his fearless attack on popular error. But his disappointment detracts nothing from the grandeur of his work; and his name is one which will not be denied its meed of praise when theological peace is once more restored to Germany. No generation can duly value a character whose life is not in consonance with the prevailing spirit of that generation. As the military hero must not expect his greenest laurels in time of peace, and as the sage must not dream of praise in an uncultivated period, so must such men as George Calixtus wait for a coming day whose untainted atmosphere will be in harmony with their own pure life and thoughts.

The spirituality of the German church having suffered materially from the controversies of which we have spoken, the beneficial results of the Reformation were greatly endangered by them. The German version of the Bible had been an incalculable blessing to the masses; and the commentaries written by the Reformers and their immediate successors gave promise of a wide-spread Scriptural knowledge. But the religious disputes distracted the mind from this necessary department of thought, and neutralized much of the good which would otherwise have been lasting. The danger in which the Protestant church now stood was great. Sectarian strife, formalism, neglect of the high functions of the pastorate, and other flagrant evils of the day, made the devout and far-seeing tremble for the cause which had engaged the great minds of the Reformation era. What could be done? A steady and gigantic effort was necessary to be made or the great Reformation would die by its own hand. Happily there were men, though somewhat removed at first from public observation, whom God was intending to employ as conservative agents. Often in the history of the church, when there has been no prospect of success and progress, and when the votaries of error seemed everywhere triumphant, God was secretly preparing the instrumentality which, Joseph-like, would in due time perform the work of preservation and restoration. There have been pessimists who were ever ready to cry: "Lord, they have killed thy prophets, and digged down thine altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life." But when the hour of crisis came, God's answer was heard: "I have reserved to myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal." This was true at the present period, for there were a few men whose services were destined to be of great value to the Protestantism of Europe.

We mention first of all the prince of mystics, Jacob Boehme, shoemaker of Gorlitz. Gieseler chooses to stigmatize him with "contempt of all Christianity of the letter and of all scientific theology;" but men can only be measured by the standard of their age. Did they serve their generation well? If so, we grant them all honor for their work. Let Boehme be tested by this method, and we do not fear the result. We are not unmindful of many of his absurd notions, of the fanaticism of his followers—for which he is not in the least chargeable—and of the many extravagances scattered through his twenty-eight treatises. But that he intended well, served his church and his Master, led thousands to self-examination, taught his nation that controversy was not the path to success or immortality, his whole career proves beyond confutation.

His life, from beginning to end, is a marvel. He was born of poor peasant parentage in 1575; and, after being taught to read and write, was apprenticed to a shoemaker. His time was divided between reading his Bible, going to church, making shoes, and taking care of the cow. But in that boy's heart there were as deep a conscientiousness, imperturbable patience, purity of soul, and love of God as can be found in a like period of spiritual dearth. Having reproved his master one day, he was dispatched on his apprentice-pilgrimage somewhat sooner than he had anticipated. It has been truthfully said of him that his characteristic lay in his pneumatic realism. His was ecstacy of the loftiest type; but with him it was something almost tangible, real, and akin to actual life. A late author, the lamented Vaughan, thus fancies him: "Behold him early in his study, with bolted door. The boy must see to the shop to-day, no sublunary care of awl or leather, customers and groschen, must check the rushing flood of thought. The sunshine streams in emblem, to his high-raised phantasy, of a more glorious light. As he writes, the thin cheeks are flushed, the gray eye kindles, the whole frame is damp, and trembling with excitement. Sheet after sheet is covered. The headlong pen, too precipitate for calligraphy, for punctuation, for spelling, for syntax, dashes on. The lines which darken down the waiting page are, to the writer, furrows, into which heaven is raining a driven shower of celestial seed. On the chapters thus fiercely written the eye of the modern student rests, cool and critical, wearily scanning paragraphs, digressive as Juliet's nurse, and protesting, with contracting eyebrow, that this easy writing is abominably hard to read."[15]

He was four times in ecstacy. He writes of himself: "I have never desired to know anything of divine mystery; much less have I wished to seek or find it. I sought only the heart of Jesus Christ, that there I might hide myself from the anger of God and the grasp of the devil. And I have besought God to grant me his grace and Holy Spirit, that he would lead me and take from me everything that would tend to alienate me from him; that I might lose my own will in his, and that I might be his child in his son Jesus Christ. While in this earnest seeking and longing, the door has opened before me, so that I have seen and learned more in a quarter of an hour than I could have gained in many years at great schools.... When I think why it is that I write as I do, I learn that my spirit is set on fire of this spirit about which I write. If I would set down other things, I cannot do it: a living fire seems to be kindled up within me. I have prayed God many hundreds of times, weeping, that if my knowledge did not contribute to his honor and the improvement of my brethren, he would take it away from me, and hold me only in his love. But I found that my weeping only made the inner fire burn all the more; and it has been in such ecstacy and knowledge that I have composed my works."

The Aurora was his greatest production. His extreme modesty forbade the publication of it; and it was first discovered accidentally in manuscript by a nobleman who was visiting him. Of the literary character of his works Schlegel says: "If we consider him merely as a poet, and in comparison with other Christian poets who have attempted the same supernatural themes—such as Klopstock, Milton, or even Dante,—we shall find that in fulness of emotion and depth of imagination he almost surpasses them. And in poetic expression and single beauties he does not stand a whit behind them. The great intellectual wealth of the German language has rarely been revealed to such an extent in any age as in this writer. His power of imagery flowed from an inexhaustible fountain." His last words declared the inward life of the man, "O Lord of Sabaoth save me according to thy pleasure! O thou crucified Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, and take me to thy kingdom! Now I am going into Paradise!"

John Arndt was not the subtle mystic that Boehme was, and his writings are subjected to fewer misapprehensions. The service he rendered the church and the cause of truth was important; and his influence is still felt upon the practical life of the German people. While yet young he no sooner became awakened to his spiritual condition then he saw the great religious defects of his day. He first yielded to the prevalent passion for the study of chemistry and medicine; but, through a severe illness, he was subsequently led to give himself to the service of God. But few works have obtained the celebrity which his True Christianity has enjoyed, not only while its author lived, but at every period since that time. He was induced to write it on account of the controversial and formal spirit which petrified the church. In a letter to Duke Augustus, in 1621, he thus explained his motives: "I have first endeavored to withdraw the minds of students and preachers from this disputation and contentious theology which threatens to bring upon us once more the evil of a scholastic theology. Another reason that has impelled me to this course is my strong desire to incline dead Christians to become fruitful. A third one is to lead people from the study of human theory and science to the real exercise of faith and devotion. A fourth reason is to show what that true Christian life is which harmonizes with vital faith—and what that is which Paul meant when he said, 'I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.'"

Immediately after the publication of the True Christianity it found a hearty welcome. The learned and ignorant took equal pleasure in its living thoughts. Next to the Bible and Kempis' Imitation of Christ, it has been circulated more widely on the Continent than any other book. It was translated into all the European languages, and missionaries rendered it into heathen tongues. The Roman Catholics received it, and claimed it as one of their treasures. When Professor Anton visited the Jesuit Library at Madrid, in 1687, he inquired for the best ascetical writer. The librarian produced a copy of Arndt's True Christianity, which, though without preface or introduction, had this simple expression on the first page: "This book is more edifying than all others."

The spirit with which Arndt wrote all his works was calm and heavenly. He possessed that beautiful Moravian type of character which defied persecution by its submission, love, tenderness, and energy. In referring to his many enemies he wrote on one occasion, "I am delighted to suffer, and I would endure a thousand times more, sooner than bury my talent." He was somewhat ascetical in temperament, but he differed from all that class of thinkers by the clearness of his appreciation of the wants of his time and his unwearied efforts to meet them successfully. He did not escape the censure of mysticism; for that was more than any devout spirit in that age could expect. Some of the most learned took umbrage at his ardent sentiments and bitter complaint at the impiety of his times. The opposition to him was well organized, and continued long after his death. Even at the end of the seventeenth century we find various writers replying to his celebrated work. But all the blows of his adversaries have only tended to deepen the love of the people for his name and writings. It is not an unfrequent occurrence for minds in Germany, even at the present day, to be led to accept the truths of the Gospel by the reading of the True Christianity. What Thomas à Kempis was to the pre-Reformation age, Fenelon to France, and Jeremy Taylor to England, John Arndt has been to the Protestant countries of the Continent for the last three centuries. Superintendent Wagner only gave expression to the world's real conviction when he wrote of him: "Vir placidus, candidus, pius et doctus."

A personal friend and spiritual son of Arndt, John Gerhard, followed closely in his footsteps. He was possessed of the same general characteristics which we have traced in connection with the two preceding names. His love was boundless, his spirit unruffled, his piety deep and lasting. He was more serviceable in some respects to the interests of the orthodox church than any other theologian of that time. Like Arndt he had been inclined to the study of medicine, but a dangerous sickness turned his mind to religious contemplation and to the study of theology. His mental capacities had been cast in a great mould. He grasped whatever he undertook with gigantic comprehension. His attainments were so rapid that at the age of twenty-four he received the degree of doctor of divinity; and, somewhat later, was the most famous and admired of all the professors of the university of Jena. His influence was such that princes placed themselves before him for his counsel, and the highest ecclesiastical tribunals deemed themselves honored in receiving a share of his attention. His works embrace the departments of exegesis, doctrine, and practical religion.

But it was chiefly the two former branches of theology that engaged his attention. In his Exegetical Explication of Particular Passages he accomplished an important service for the church. He introduced all the leading doctrines of inspiration into this work, and discussed the merits of contemporary controversy in connection with them. He explained those almost indefinable terms which had been so variously employed by the schoolmen, and summed up the literature on the points in question. His style was prolix but his conclusions carried great weight with them. As a specimen of his tedious method, he begins his discussion of original sin with the questions, "Is there such a thing as original sin? Then, what is it? What is its subject? How is it continued?" Many other inquiries are made in the same manner, but it is only after a hundred pages have been passed over that he gives his own definition of it. But we should not smile at such latitude of style when we remember the literary standard of those times. The German language was then in its plastic state; and by far the greater portion of writers had been much more interested in gaining points than rounding periods. It is almost a hopeless task to wade through the ridiculously lengthy terms of the seventeenth century. But it may be said, in their defence, that the method of verbose composition was not without some appearance of utility. The intelligence of the reader could not be relied upon to such an extent as now, and the eager eyes of so many opponents made it necessary to guard every word of importance with a wall of sentences.

We have now to mention a fourth actor in the great drama of these dangerous times, John Valentine Andreä. His mind was not of the serious tone that marked the other writers of whom we have spoken. That he looked deeply, calmly, and wisely into the surrounding evils no one can doubt. Every work he wrote established this fact. But the method which he adopted to cure them was of a totally different order from that employed by others. His personal history bears all the evidences of romance. He was the son of a poor widow, who, having spent all her property to give him an education, found her boy at the conclusion of his studies desirous of making the usual academic tour. She has but a pittance left, so she puts into his hand twelve kreutzer, and a rusty old coin, as a pocketpiece. Her eyes follow him until they are blinded in a flood of tears. Years pass on and Valentine comes home, having travelled, by dint of self-denial and perseverance, over the most interesting portions of the Continent. He returns to the fatherland and settles quietly down as an orthodox Lutheran pastor.

It is now that the evils of his generation loom up before him in terrible blackness. He attacks them by satire. He sits down and writes a little book, dedicated to all the great men of Europe, and entitled, The Discovery of the Brotherhood of the Honorable Order of the Holy Cross. This work aims to show that there had once lived a certain Christian Rosenkranz. He was a man of remarkable learning, and communicated his knowledge to eight disciples, who lived with him, in a house called the Temple of the Holy Ghost. This building has come to light, and behold the uncorrupted body of Rosenkranz, who has been dead a hundred and twenty years! The various disciples whom he left, and who are scattered throughout Germany, claim to be true Protestants, and call upon all men to help them in their efforts to promote learning and religion. They possess great secrets and the world ought to know them. They are perfectly at home in bottling the elixir of life, and have been in possession of the philosopher's stone a long time. Their great object is to benefit their fellow creatures. Who will follow them?

Such was the burden of Andreä's little book. The consequence was, it set all Germany on fire. People never dreamed for a moment that it was a burlesque on the times. Thousands left their labor to follow the advice of the earnest disciples of Rosenkranz. On seeing that he had caused some mischief, Andreä wrote book after book affirming that his previous one on Christian Rosenkranz was a pure fiction intended to teach a useful lesson. But nobody believed him; the people were sure that they could not be so sadly deceived. His first work was the only one that was heartily received; and multitudes ran mad after the fabulous knowledge of the famous master and his imaginary disciples. But when the land awoke to the real idea of Andreä, the reaction was tremendous. Perhaps no satire, not even the Laus Stultitiæ of Erasmus, created such a fury of excitement as this; seldom has one been followed with more astounding and beneficial results. We say beneficial from purpose; for Andreä succeeded in attracting the popular mind from its old habits of controversy. This was his great service. As a man he was of unexceptionable life and ardent sympathies. He passed peacefully to his rest after uttering the words, "It is our joy that our names are written in the Book of Life."

Thus were these devoted men performing their great mission of improving the life of the Church. We shall soon see how low the current of that life was, and how great the burden placed upon them. Each one had his special endowment, and was eminently qualified to contribute to a more healthy religious tone throughout the Protestant lands. But, after all, their work was only preparative. The culmination of their labors was, in later years, the great Pietistic Reform; and they marked out the path along which Spener subsequently passed. Theirs was a great part in the drama of providence; but their achievements would have accomplished no permanent advantage had they not been succeeded by the triumphs of the Father of Pietism. It has sometimes been a noticeable part of the divine plan in our great struggles with the powers of darkness, that, when the heroes of truth fall at their post, the contest does not need to rage long before others, with hearts of equal fervor and weapons more brightly polished, take their places in the advancing lines. What wonder, then, that, by and by, the mountains echo back the shouts of victory!

FOOTNOTES:

[11] Pusey, Historical Inquiry, pp. 16, 17.

[12] Responsum Moguntinis Theologis, p. 129.

[13] Conc. Evang., in Henke, vol. I. p. 274, note.

[14] Dowding, Life and Correspondence of Calixtus, pp. 313-315.

[15] Hours with the Mystics, vol. 2, p. 67.

CHAPTER II.

RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF THE PROTESTANT CHURCH AT THE PEACE OF WESTPHALIA—1648.

Theological strife was the precursor of the all-devastating Thirty Years' War. The forces had been long at work before the fearful carnage began. The principles involved were of such moment that, whatever power took part in the struggle, did so with all the energy with which it was endowed. The Emperor Rudolph II. had, in 1609, guaranteed to Bohemia the liberty of Protestantism, but his successor, Matthias, violated the pledge by preventing the erection of a Protestant church edifice. The imperial councillors were cast out of the window; the priests driven off; and the Elector Frederick V. of the Palatinate, chosen King of Bohemia. But the Protestants were overcome. Ferdinand II. tore up the imperial pledge; led back the priests into authority, and expelled the Protestant clergy. Certain concessions having been previously made to the Protestants, Ferdinand II. issued in 1629 his infamous Edict of Restitution, by which the Protestants were to deliver up all the monasteries confiscated after the Treaty of Passau. Calvinists were excluded from the Peace; and the Catholic States were granted unconditional liberty to suppress Protestantism in their hereditary countries.[16] The fearful carnage commenced in bitter earnestness. No war was ever carried on with more desperation; none can be found more repulsive in brutality, or more beautiful in fortitude and sublime in bravery. Great sanguinary contests often receive their appellation from the influences that produce them, or the nations conducting them; but this one, extending from 1618 to 1648, combined all these elements to such an extent that the historian finds it most convenient to denominate it by the period of its duration. It was the bloody mould in which the continent of Europe received its modern shape. It extended, with but slight exceptions, over the entire extent of Germany. Some portions of that singularly picturesque country were permitted to hope for immunity from its devastations; but, by and by, they too were visited; and all that remained were a decimated population and smoking ruins.

Pastoral work was necessarily neglected. Large sections of the country were deprived of all spiritual cultivation and oversight. The children were deprived of both their natural protectors and those guardians whom the church had provided for them. Out of ten hundred and forty-six pastors in Würtemberg, for example, only three hundred and thirty were left by the ravages of war. Food could hardly be provided for the Seminary students, few as these were; for nearly all the young men had been compelled to yield to the repeated conscriptions. The princes themselves were in many cases driven from their jurisdiction; and when the prince was gone the church was usually disorganized. Duke Eberhard of Würtemberg and many of the Rhenish rulers were compelled to seek an asylum in Strasburg. The Margrave of Baden-Durlach was a refugee to Switzerland; Dukes Adolph Frederic I. and John II. of Mecklenburg fled to Lübeck.[17]

The desolation caused by this protracted war baffles all description. No writer has been competent for it. Schiller found it a task to which even his fervid imagination and glowing diction could not measure. Wherever it went it left destruction in its path. The population of Bohemia was reduced from three millions to seven hundred and eighty thousand. Only a fiftieth part of the inhabitants of the Rhine-lands were left alive. Saxony lost nine hundred thousand of her citizens within the brief space of two years. The city of Augsburg could number only eighteen thousand out of her enterprising population of eighty thousand. In 1646 alone, Bavaria saw more than one hundred of her thriving towns laid in ashes; while little Hesse lost seventeen cities, forty-seven castles, and four hundred towns.

The cruelty which characterized some of the participants in this war may be conceived from the awful scene of the siege of Magdeburg; a picture for which, says Schiller, "History has no speech, and Poetry no pencil." "Neither childhood, nor age," another author affirms, "nor sex, nor rank, nor beauty were able to disarm the conqueror's wrath. Wives were mishandled in the arms of their husbands, daughters at the feet of their fathers. Women were found beheaded in a church, whilst the troopers amused themselves by throwing infants into the flames, or by spearing sucklings at their mothers' breasts. 'Come again in an hour,' was Tilly's only reply when some of his officers (utterly horrified at what they saw) besought him to put a hand upon this bath of blood:—'Come again in an hour and I will see what I can do. The soldier must have something for his labor and risk.' With unchecked fury did these horrors go forward, till smoke and flame set bounds to plunder. The city had been fired in several places; and a gale spread the flames with rampant speed. In less than twelve hours the town lay in ashes; two churches, and some few huts excepted. Scarcely had the rage of the fire slackened, when the troops returned again to grope for plunder. Horrible was the scene which now presented itself. Living men crept out from under corpses; lost children, shrieking, sought their parents; infants were sucking the dead breasts of their mothers. More than six thousand bodies were thrown into the Elbe, before the streets could be made passable; whilst an infinitely larger number were consumed by the fire. Thirty thousand persons are supposed to have perished."[18]

At the outset of the war, and at many times during its continuance, the Protestants fought with but little apparent prospect of success. But their heroic zeal continued unabated until it was crowned with triumph. The peace of Westphalia, which concluded the protracted struggle, secured the abolition of the oppressive Decree of 1635; granted legal rights to the Protestant churches; established Lutheranism in Central Germany, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and Livonia; recognized the Swiss and Dutch Republics; and, under certain conditions, allowed future changes of religion by princes and people.[19]

The religious effect of the first few years of this sanguinary period was beneficial. There were indications of more seriousness in common life, and a deeper love of truth among the thinking circles. The people manifested a disposition to trust in the Divine arm for deliverance from their sorrows; and this new confidence developed itself particularly in benefactions for the impoverished and young. But as the war progressed and peace seemed farther off with every new year, the heart of the people relaxed into coldness, distrust, and desperation. Thus, dark as was the picture of religious life before the outbreak of hostilities, it was darker still during their progress and at their close. So literally was this the case that Kahnis declares its termination to have been the beginning of the reign of secularism. He says: "Up to the period of the Thirty Years' War religion was the chief moving power of the time. The question regarding the confession prevailed over everything, and even secular questions, that they might excite interest and be carried, were compelled to clothe themselves in the garb of religion. But the result of the Thirty Years' War was indifference, not only to the confession, but to religion in general. Ever since that period secular interests decidedly occupy the foreground, and the leading power of Europe is France."[20]

It shall now be our business to inquire into that dwarfed vitality which Kahnis elevates so high as to denominate "religion." We believe that, in all the course of ecclesiastical history on the Continent, no period of equal intelligence is marked by the same degree of religious coldness and petrifaction. Theology was a special sufferer. The most useful departments were neglected, while the least essential were raised to superlative importance. Andreä places the following language on the neglect of the study of church history, in the mouth of Truth: "History, since she is exiled with me, readily consents to be silent and laughs at the experience of those who, because they can but relate their exploits from the A. B. C. school to the Professor's chair, that is, from the rod to the sceptre, dream that they are in possession of a compendium of the whole world. Hence their city is to them a compendium of the world, their class book a library, their school a monarchy, their doctor's cap a diadem, their rod of office a lictor's staff, each scholastic rule an anathema: in short everything appears to them exaggerated. Oh! the hapless human learning that is shut up in these scholastic Athens, that whatever offences may everywhere besides be committed by ignorance, all the severest punishments are in store for these alone to overwhelm it."

Again, in his Christianopolis, or ideal Christian state, he says: "Since the inhabitants of Christianopolis value the church above everything else in this world, they are occupied in her history more than in any other. For since this is the ark which contains those who are to be saved, they prefer to busy themselves about it more than about all the waters of the deluge. They relate then by what immense mercy of God this soul flock was brought together, received into covenant, formed by laws enforced by his word; by what weak instruments it was extended, by what mighty engines attacked, by what manifest aid defended; what blood and prayers its safety had cost; amid what anger of Satan the standard of the Cross triumphed; how easily the tares spring up; how often its light is contracted to a narrow space; what great eclipses, and how very great and thick an one it suffered under Antichrist; how it has sometimes emerged from desperate circumstances, and especially in this our age under the mighty Luther; with what defilement and spots it is often stained; how much it is conversant with the flesh. Many other such things they have in store; as also its periodical changes, and the harmonious vicissitudes of its seasons. They diligently impress them on the youth that they may learn to trust in God, to mistrust the flesh, to despise the threats of the world, to endure the darkness of this age. And this is right, however others may not even dissemble their neglect of ecclesiastical history; for how little any knowledge of it is now required even from ecclesiastics, or how, where it is found, it is sold cheap in comparison with a syllogism or two—it does not belong to this place to discuss more at length."

The existing state of impiety may be inferred from the low estimate of childhood. The Roman Catholic Church of that day was not so careful of the indoctrination of the young as she is at the present time. Mathesius says that in the twenty-five years he spent within her fold he had seen no case in which the catechism had been elucidated, and that he had not once heard it explained from the pulpit. Luther took great pains to have children and the lowest classes trained in the elements of religious knowledge. His express language, in reference to the catechetical instruction of the young and ignorant was, "It is not merely enough that they should be taught and counselled, but care must be taken that, in the answers returned, every sentence must be evidently understood." But like so many other lessons of the great Reformer, this was not remembered by his successors; and in course of time all that the youth and laboring classes could boast in favor of their doctrinal training was a smattering of contemporary controversy. There were sermons and expository lectures intended for children; but they were often at unseasonable hours, and of such insufferable dryness as to tax the mind and patience of maturity. A certain author, in a catalogue of this class of literature, enumerates fifteen hundred and ninety catechetical sermons for the young that were directed solely against the Calvinists!

No one is better able to inform us, however, of the low state of religious training than he who labored most for its improvement. Spener's language, though written in reference to the melancholy prostration which his own eyes beheld, applies equally well to the very time of which we speak:

"If one were to say that catechizing and the Christian instruction of youth is one of the principal, most important, and most necessary of our duties, and not of less value than preaching, would he not be contradicted or even laughed at by many uninstructed preachers, or by others ignorant of their duty, who seek only their own honor; as if such care were too small and contemptible for an office instituted for more important employment? Yet such is but the real truth. Meantime this duty is by many considered so ridiculous that there are preachers who think it degrading to their dignity to undertake it, or even see that it is diligently and faithfully performed by those appointed to it. It is no credit to our evangelical churches that catechetical instruction has been so little or not at all thought of in so many places; though even Luther recommended it so strongly, and gave us so many admirable writings to promote it. But now it either does not exist at all, or is performed negligently, and thrown almost entirely upon schools and schoolmasters.

"These duties should not have been left to schoolmasters; for these are almost wholly unfit to discharge them on account of their own meagre attainments. But preachers should recollect that the souls of the youth are intrusted to them, and that they must give an account of them. They should therefore submit to this as well as to the other duties of their office. It is not indeed anywhere prescribed who among them should perform these duties. In places where there are several clergymen, and the pastors and superintendents are laden with so many other occupations that they cannot perform this duty, we cannot object to its being left for the deacons, or for others who may have more time for it. In large churches able catechists might be appointed. Superintendents, however, and theologians in high office would not do amiss if they would sometimes countenance this exercise by their presence, and even now and then perform it themselves in order to encourage others. If there were some who would voluntarily commence it themselves, it would not be interpreted ill, or thought below their dignity.

"I have become acquainted with the character of most instructors of youth, and I find that their real aim is not to lead the soul of youth to God, but their pay also, that they are chiefly not fit to impart a correct knowledge of God since they do not possess it themselves. And indeed there are very many who have not a knowledge even of the letter of that which is or is not to be believed; much less do they comprehend thoroughly and spiritually what is the will of God in faith and its fruits. Catechizing is as necessary to the church as any other religious agency can be."

We have also the important authority of Calixtus on the sad condition of the education of the young. "The chief cause and origin of the decay of learning," says he, "now tending to extinction, (which may God avert!) I hold for my own part, to be this:—that the younger children are not well grounded in the minor schools. Foundations ought to be laid there, which might afterwards support the whole weight of solid learning and true erudition. The children ought to learn from genuine authors the Greek and Latin languages; the Keys (as they are) of those treasures which preceding ages have laid up for our use. And they ought so to learn, as to be able to appreciate the thoughts of others (specially of the best authors), and to express their own in suitable and perspicuous words.... But now, in many places, we see the reverse of all this. Before they can speak (passing by preposterously, the matters essential to ultimate success), the boys are made to proceed, or rather leap, to higher subjects; 'real' subjects, as we have learned to call them. Pedagogues of this stamp seem to themselves learned, whilst they are teaching what they have never themselves mastered; and what their scholars neither understand, nor at their age can understand. In the mean time the writings of those good authors, who, by all past ages, have been recognized as masters of literature and style, are struck out of their hands, and they (the schoolmasters) substitute their own comments; disputing in a circle of children about Anti-Christ and the doctrine of predestination."[21]

The theological literature of these times was voluminous and confused. A work on an unimportant subject would occupy a dozen volumes, and then the writer would give his finishing touches with the apology that he had not done justice to his theme. No nation publishes to such an extent as Protestant Germany in the nineteenth century; but one cannot be adequately convinced of the extent of the literary activity of her theologians of the former half of the seventeenth century without loitering among the alcoves of her antiquarian bookstores of the present day. The dusty tomes testify, by their multitude and care, to the character of the ecclesiastical age that gave them birth. The Germans do not sell their old books to the paper merchants because they are old. It is sacrilege to convert the printed sheet back again to pulp. The libraries of the universities are located in those portions of the city where land is cheap; the catalogue is a small library of itself. The Leipzig Fair keeps much of this long-printed literature before the world. It changes hands, migrates to Tübingen, Halle, or some other book-loving place; passes through a generation of owners, and turns up in some other spot, but little the worse for wear. The peasant is found at the book auction; the professor considers it a white day when a replenished purse and the sale of an old library are simultaneous facts. And when the hour arrives, the preparations are sometimes of the most comfortable and leisure-inviting character. We once attended an auction in picturesque old Brunswick which continued three days; and coffee, beer, sandwiches and other refreshments were freely enjoyed at frequent intervals by nearly all present. Every one had a long breathing spell when the auctioneer, or any one of his numerous secretaries, sipped his coffee and replenished his pipe.

We cannot affirm that there was as much a deficiency of talent or learning at the time of which we speak, as there was of an humble, subdued religious spirit, and of clearness of conception, all of which are equally necessary to give a high tone to theological writing and thinking. Dr. Pusey says of the theologians, that "they were highly learned but deficient in scientific spirit, freedom from prejudice, destitute of comprehensive and discriminating views, without which mere knowledge is useless." An illustration is furnished in Calov's mammoth production, entitled, Systema locorum Theologicorum e sacra potissimum scriptura et antiquitate, nec non adversariorum confessione doctrinam, praxia et controversiarum fidei, cum veterum tum inprimis recentiorum pertractationem luculentam exhibens. The author tried faithfully to redeem his pledge; and though he asserted that he had aimed at conciseness, his work only terminated with the twelfth quarto volume! The subject of the first part was the nature of Theology, Religion, Divine Inspiration, Holy Scriptures, and the articles of Faith. He defined Theology to be, that practical skill in the knowledge of true religion, as drawn from divine revelation, which is calculated to lead man after the fall through faith to eternal life. One of the important questions propounded is:

"Are the Calvinists to be considered heretics, and do they not teach very dangerous errors?" Of course an affirmative reply is returned with cogent reasons therefor. At the end of this part there is a prolix recital of the many errors of George Calixtus and his followers. Calov conformed to the causal method of composition. There were two systems of arrangement in vogue, the causal and defining. Under the former were grouped the causæ principales, et minus principales, instrumentales, efficientes, materiales, formales, finales. Under the latter, a definition was prefixed to each article, which comprised the whole doctrine of the church and all the opposed heresies. This was then redundantly illustrated until the subject was supposed to be exhausted. Schertzer, in his doctrinal work, begins with a definition of Christ, and occupies three quarto pages with one sentence. We venture only its commencement: "Christ is God-man; God and man, born of his heavenly Father and his virgin mother; and Christ is according to his humanity the natural son of God, constant in his unity to one person, his divine and human nature impeccable." The favorite class-book of those times was Koenig's Theologia positiva acroamatica synoptice tractata; and it does but partial justice to this work to say that in dryness and meagreness it almost defies a parallel.

There was a lamentable decrease of exegetical works and lectures toward the middle of the seventeenth century. The Reformation was the signal for Scriptural study; and the Reformers declared the word of God to be the origin of their gigantic movement. All the ordinances of the early Lutheran Church were in strict keeping with this principle. The Elector Augustus, in his church order of 1580, established professors solely for the elucidation of the Scriptures. He appointed two to lecture on the Old Testament, one on the Pentateuch and the other on the prophets; and two on the New Testament. His command was, that they should all read the Scriptures, as far as they could, in the same languages in which the prophets and apostles had written. Many of the universities had no other professors of theology than exegetical lecturers. The languages of the Bible were diligently studied, and great progress was made in their scientific understanding.

But after the rise of the long and exciting controversies of which we have spoken, the death-blow was given to Scriptural interpretation. The method of theological study was to spend the first year in learning what is orthodox. The second was occupied in obtaining a knowledge of controversies; the third was devoted to the Scriptures, a more intimate knowledge of controversial literature, and the scholastics. One day in the week was spent with the Fathers, Church Councils, and moral theology. The later years were chiefly consumed in controversial practice, as a preparation for the great arena. Francke as truthfully described these times as his own when he said: "Youths are sent to the universities with a moderate knowledge of Latin; but of Greek and especially of Hebrew they have 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."

But while there were many evidences of religious torpor there were none more marked and unmistakable than the preaching of that time. The pulpit being an invariable index of the state of the national heart, it was not less the case during the present period. The preaching was of the most formal and methodical texture. It assumed a rhetorical and poetical appearance; the people calling it the Italian style. Petrarch had given shape to Italian thought, and through his influence Germany became sated with poetic imagery and overwrought fancy. Sagittarius founded a stipend for the preaching of a yearly sermon in the University Church "which should be more a practical illustration of Christian doctrine than of lofty speech." Emblematical sermons were sometimes delivered in lengthy series.

Christopher Sunday descanted on the Perpetual Heart-Calendar, treating of genera and species, and dividing his themes into "Remarkable, Historical, and Annual events, Particular numbers, and the amounts of Roman currency, the Four Seasons, the Seven Planets, the Twelve Heavenly signs, and many aspects and useful directions." All these, this divine claimed, are to be found in the Gospel as in a perpetual calendar of the heart. Another preacher adopted as his theme for a funeral sermon, The Secret of Roses and Flowers. Daniel Keck preached a discourse in 1642 from Romans viii. 18, calling his subject "The Apostolic Syllogism," dividing it into subject, predicate, and conclusion. The subject, suffering, was again divided into wicked, voluntary, stolid and righteous; and these further classed into natural, civil and spiritual suffering.

A sermon on Zaccheus from the words, He was little of stature, claims for its theme, "The stature and size of Zaccheus." The first division is, he; the second, was; third, small stature. Application first, The text teaches us the variety of God's works; second, it consoles the poor; third, it teaches us to make amends for our personal defects by virtue. Tholuck well asks, who would imagine that the author of this sermon was the minstrel of "When the early sun arises," "Oh Jesus, all thy bleeding wounds," and so many other deeply earnest Christian songs which have touched the hearts of many generations,—the immortal Hermann von Köben? A pastor of Wernigerode preached from Matthew x. 30. His divisions were, 1: Our hair—its origin, style, form and natural circumstances. 2: On the right use of the human hair. 3: The memories, admonition, warning and consolation that have come from the human hair. 4: How hair can be used in a Christian way! A Brunswick pastor commenced his Sabbath discourse on one occasion with the words, "A preacher must have three things; a good conscience, a good bite, and a good kiss;" wherefore his transition was made to the theme under consideration: "an increase of my salary." But it is needless to continue illustrations of the almost universal dearth of preaching. One hardly knows whether to laugh at its absurdity or weep over its prostitution.

Andreä's caustic pen revelled in satire at the depreciation of this important agency of good. Some of his ideas are by no means ill-timed in the present century. In the Dialogue of the Pulpit Orator he thus speaks:[22]

A. Tell me earnestly, I pray you, what you find wanting in my present sermon.

B. One thing only, but that a main point.

A. It cannot be in the arrangement?

B. It was, I believe, according to all the rules of the methods.

A. Then the pronunciation was defective?

B. You must speak as God has made you; only you must not be an imitator.

A. Then the action was wrong?

B. About that I am indifferent, if it be only quiet and not gesticulatory.

A. My sermon must have been much too long?

B. If a sermon be good it can't be too long: a bad one always is.

A. Certainly I did not produce illustrations enough?

B. You could not have meant to empty a basket of quotations.

A. Then I spoke too slow?

B. Ha! In the pulpit we must teach, not talk too volubly.

A. I should have spoken louder too?

B. I like the voice of man, not the braying of an ass.

A. Should I not have used more subtle distinctions?

B. You were there to instruct the ignorant, not to dispute with heretics.

A. Do then explain yourself more fully.

B. Hear me: you said, "I think much, very much," which was good, but it only flowed through you as through a pipe.

A. Indeed!

B. Thus, much contracted the taste of the pipe and savored accordingly.

A. No good compliment, this.

B. It is the best I can make. For when you only cast forth good and wholesome doctrines, and show nothing of them expressed in your life and manners, are you not placed out of yourself to speak one thing and think another? You make us believe that your holy words are only practised solemn words, without any real feeling, just as poets make bridal songs and funeral dirges whenever called upon. You have many passages of Scripture in readiness; but they do not exhort, strengthen and instruct you, though others die with joy at hearing the divine word.

A. You are severe upon me.

B. It is not often the case that the worst men preach the best. I wish but one thing: that for the future you should say nothing but what you express in action by your example, or at least realize by serious endeavors after obedience to God.

A. This is harsh enough.

B. It is incomparably harsher, however, to openly contradict oneself before God both in words and works, and to convert the divine service into an empty clatter of words.

A. You speak truly.

B. And it is just as true, believe me, that a simple, plain sermon, exhibited and sealed by your life, is more valuable than a thousand clever declamations.

This want of consistency between the profession of the clergy and their daily life is indeed a dark picture. While we would not forget that there were noble exceptions to all the examples of declension that we have adduced, and that there were also exemplary illustrations of ministerial devotion amid all the deformity of these times, we must maintain that the ministerial spirit which characterized this period was not merely cold and indifferent, but wicked, and to a great extent abandoned.

The scenes of clerical immorality are enough to chill one's blood even at the distance of more than two centuries. The preachers were not licensed to preach until they had been graduated through a course of study extending from five to ten years. According to the judgment of the Lutheran Church, they must be fitted intellectually for exercising the functions of their office. But after settlement over the churches of the land, their conduct furnishes a sad proof that their intellectual qualifications were utterly barren without the more important adjunct of spiritual regeneration. They were not converted men, as the sequel will plainly show. The salary allowed them was usually small; and this is the apology pleaded for them by their friends; but scanty salaries are the outgrowth of scanty ministerial piety. The people, in no age of the world, have refused a proper and sufficient support to a zealous, God-fearing ministry.

A Church Order of 1600 reads thus: "Since we have received information that servants of the church (clergy) and schoolmasters, the parochial teachers, are guilty of whoredom and fornication, we command that if they are notoriously guilty they shall be suspended. We learn, too, that some of the village pastors do not possess the Bible. We command that they shall get a Bible and Concordance. Those whom we formerly suspended shall remain so until they give proof of a reformation." A pastor Pfeifer of Neukirchen and Lassau lived five unhappy years with his congregation; and from mere private prejudice refused the sacrament of the Lord's Supper to the sick and dying. On communion-day he overturned the baskets of the fish-venders; was wounded for his conduct; and then went into his church to the performance of his ministerial duties. He did not scruple to administer the elements with his bloody hands. Pastor Johansen of Detzböll wrote in his Church Record in 1647, the following: "The persons whom I will name have persecuted me in my office, but God delivered me miraculously out of their hands. J. Dirksen struck me down with a pitchfork: I was taken home as dead but recovered again; some years afterwards he was struck dead, and died in the street. J. Volkwartsen struck me with my own spade. Subsequently he was killed by his brother. Where his soul went, God only knows. P. Peusen was on the point of stabbing me through, but M. Payens saved me. A. Frese committed adultery with my wife, and followed me with a loaded rifle. D. Momsen broke two of my right ribs: he apologized afterwards for his offence. I forgave him. O Jesus, protect me and thy poor Christianity, that I may praise thee in eternity!" A church made the following charges against its pastor: I. He called certain people "scoundrels" from the pulpit; to which the offender pleaded "guilty." II. He had grown so angry in his sermon that he afterwards forgot the Lord's Prayer. He urged that "this had happened some time ago." III. When some women went out after the sermon, he called after them, and told them that if they would not stop to receive the blessing they would have his curse; "not guilty." IV. He had cohabited with a servant girl, and an illegitimate child was born; "others do the same thing." V. He forgot the cup at the communion; "that happened long ago." VI. He said to the officer, "All are devils who want me to go to Messing;" "that is true."

There were sad evidences of the same immorality in University life. Melanchthon's prophecy had proved too true: "We have seen already how religion has been put in peril by the irruption of barbarism, and I am very much afraid that this will happen again." At a Disputation in the University of Wittenberg, the Chancellor addressed a disputant with such epithets as "Hear, thou hog! thou hound! thou fool! or whatever thou art, thou stolid ass!" Another prominent personage of Wittenberg, in a Disputation, became so enraged at hearing Melanchthon addressed as authority against him, that he pulled down the great Reformer's picture which hung near him, and trampled it under his feet. One Professor was so deeply in debt that he could not pay his creditors, "if every hair on his head were a ducat." Another was "in bed with seven wounds received in a fall when he was coming home drunk." Some read their newspapers at church-service. Nor did the wives and daughters of the Professors lead any better life. They were guilty of deeds of the grossest immorality, such indeed as would disgrace a less enlightened people than the Germans at that period.[23]

The great moral decline of the clergy was confined chiefly to the Lutheran church. The Reformed was earnest, pious, and aggressive. At this very time it was endeavoring to spread the leaven of the Gospel through other lands. It was, during the whole period, the conservative power of Protestantism. As might be expected, it suffered somewhat from the declension of Lutheranism; but it stood manfully up to the crisis, and met the issues with an heroic spirit. When the Roman Catholics saw these excesses of the Lutherans, and witnessed the return to their fold of many Protestants who had become disgusted with the vices of their brethren, they rejoiced greatly, and used every available means to bring back more of their erring friends.

We must remember, however, that it was the clergy and not the laity, who were the agents of the great declension. The theologians had submerged the land in fruitless controversy; they hesitated not to commit open sin when occasion demanded it; they neglected the youth of the whole country; the ignorant peasantry were not blessed with even the crumbs of truth; the pulpit was perverted to a cathedra for the declamation of the hyperbolical rhetoric that a corrupt taste had imported from Spain and Italy: the Apocrypha was the all-important part of the Bible; and the private life of the clergy was corrupt and odious to the Christian conscience. "What wonder that the piety of the people suffered a similar decline? Let the ministry be steadfast, and the masses will never swerve." The result in the present case was, that the latter gradually became imbued with the same impiety that they had learned, to their sorrow, of the former.

Glancing first at the cultivated circles, we find a practical indifference well nigh akin to skepticism beginning to prevail among the noble and wealthy. The deference which the Reformers paid to the princes led the latter to a too free exercise of their power, and there are numberless instances of their despotic usurpations. They claimed supreme control over the religious interests of their jurisdiction, and came into frequent conflict with the ecclesiastical tribunals. They maintained a tolerable show of religion, however, considering it a matter of prime importance to have the services of chaplains, and to give due public prominence to doctrinal questions. Their courts were most generally irreligious, and sometimes notoriously corrupt.

Walther, the court chaplain of Ulrich II. of East Friesland, wrote in 1637 a letter from which we take the following words: "I would much rather be silent concerning my sore misfortune, which I am here undergoing than, by speaking, to make the wounds of my heart break out afresh. These infernal courtiers, among whom I am compelled to live against my will, doubt those truths which even the heathen have learned to believe." A writer of 1630 describes three classes of skeptics among the nobility of Hamburg; first, those who believe that religion is nothing but a mere fiction, invented to keep the masses within restraint; second, those who give preference to no faith, but think that all religions have a germ of truth; and third, those confessing that there must be one true religion, are unable to decide whether it is papal, Calvinist, or Lutheran; and consequently believe nothing at all.

This classification might be applied to the whole of Protestant Germany, as far as the higher classes are concerned. They exhibited a growing taste for antiquity; and, with them, there was but a slight difference between the sublime utterances of inspiration and the masterpieces of pagan genius. We find in a catechism of that time that the proverbs of Cato and the Mimi Publiani constitute an authorized appendix.

A practical infidelity, bearing the name of Epicureanism, prevailed even before the war; and it became more decided and injurious as the war progressed. The highest idea of religion was adherence to creed. Princes who even thought themselves devoted and earnest, had no experimental knowledge of regeneration; and in this, as we have shown, they were but little surpassed by the clergy themselves. Orthodoxy was the aim and pride of those religionists. Hear the dying testimony of John Christian Koenig, in 1664: "My dear Confessor, since I observe that the good Lord is about to take me out of this world, I want it understood that I remain unchanged and firm to the Augsburg Confession; I will live by it and die true to it. It is well known that I have directed my teaching according to its truths. I die the avowed enemy of all innovation and Syncretistic error!"

The licentiousness of life, not less than of faith, was deplorable in the German courts. Dancing was carried to great excess and indecorum; and though there were edicts issued against it during the Thirty Years' War, the custom seems to have undergone but little abatement. Drunkenness was very common, and even the highest dignitaries set but a sorry example in this respect. The Court of Ludwig of Würtemberg established six glasses of wine as the minimum evidence of good breeding; one to quench the thirst; the second for the King's health; the third for those present; the fourth for the feast-giver and his wife; the fifth for the permanence of the government, and the last for absent friends. The example of all nations proves that when the nobility thus indulge themselves, and become the devotees of passion and luxury, they do not need to wait long for imitators among the lower and poorer classes. The poor looked to the rich and their rulers as standards of fashion and religion. They esteemed it not less an honor than a privilege to follow in the footsteps of their acknowledged chiefs. The governing and the governed stood but a short distance from each other, both in faith and in morals.

There was great display and extravagance in the ordinary ceremonies of matrimony and baptism. It was quite common for the wedding festival to last three days, and the baptismal feast two days. The expenses were not at all justified by the means of the feast-makers; for the humblest mechanics indulged themselves to an excessive extent. Even funeral occasions were made to subserve the dissipating spirit of these times; they were the signal for hilarity and feasting. Distant friends were invited to be present; and the whole scene was at once repulsive to a healthy taste and pure religion. A writer from the very midst of the Thirty Years' War gives us the following item: "The number of courses served at funerals frequently amounted to as many as two hundred and thirty-four. The tables were furnished with expensive luxuries and costly wines, and the people gave themselves up to feasting and rioting until far into the night." The common people became more habituated to drinking strong liquors. New breweries arose in various localities, and drunkenness became a wide-spread evil. In 1600, the city of Zwickau numbered only ten thousand inhabitants; but it could claim thirty-four breweries to supply them with beer. During the war, in 1631, that number rose to seventy.

But it is needless to particularize the phases of popular immorality as they existed in the time of which we speak. It is enough to say that all classes betrayed a growing disgust at religion and a gradual decline in morals. The danger was imminent that the great work of the Reformation would be in vain, and that it would soon come to ruin.

Every department of ecclesiastical authority having become disarranged and weakened, there must now be a reäwakening, or the labors of Luther and his coadjutors will be swept away. The popular mind should be deflected from controversy, and become united, at least on some points of faith and theory. The pulpit needs a thorough regeneration, and the Gospel should reach the masses by a natural and earnest method. The university system calls for reorganization, and a rigid censorship exercised upon the teachings of the professors. Childhood must be no longer neglected, and the illiterate must become indoctrinated into the elements of Scriptural truth. The prevalent social evils should receive severe rebuke from the private Christian and the public teacher. Calixtus, Boehme, Arndt and Gerhard have done nobly, but they have pursued paths so totally divergent that their labors have not produced all the good effects of a united work. Their efforts were preparatory, but not homogeneous; and what is now needed to make their writings and example permanently effective, is a plan for infusing new life into the church. Then there must be inflexible system and heroic determination for the consummation of such a plan.

When the demand became most imperative, the great want was supplied. Let all the records of providential supply and guidance be studiously searched, and we believe that Pietism—the great movement which we are now about to trace—will take its place among them as one of the clearest, most decided, and most triumphant.

FOOTNOTES:

[16] Kurtz, Church History, vol. 11, p. 177.

[17] Tholuck, Das Kirchliche Leben des Siebzehnten Jahrhunderts. Erste Abtheilung. For much information in the present chapter we are greatly indebted to this valuable repository.

[18] Dowding, Life and Correspondence of Calixtus, pp. 153-154.

[19] H. B. Smith, D. D., History of Church of Christ in Chronological Tables, pp. 56-61.

[20] History of German Protestantism, p. 21.

[21] Orationes Selectæ, Henke, vol. 1, pp. 285-286.

[22] We use Dr. E. B. Pusey's version of Andreä's words.

[23] 1602: Der Frau Gerlach (Prof. Theol.) Tochter ist in Geschrei, dass sie mit einem kinde gelie. 1613: Dr. Happrecht's Tochter hat ihre Jungfrauschaft verloren. 1622: Dr. Magirus klagt dass seine Frau die Dienstboten ihm nicht zur Disposition stelle, mit den Alimentis nicht zufrieden sei, immer Gäste einlade, und viel herum laufe. Frau Magirus klagt ihren Ebemann des Ehebruchs an. Tholuck, Deutsche Universitäten. Vol. 1, pp. 145-148. Also Dowding, Life and Correspondence of Calixtus, pp. 132-133.

CHAPTER III.

PIETISM AND ITS MISSION.

If any apology can be offered in defence of the ecclesiastical evils already recounted, it will be, that the fearful devastations of the long warfare had wrought the public mind into a feverish and unnatural state. We must not, therefore, pass that cold criticism upon the Church and her representatives to which they would be justly entitled, had they been guilty of the same vices during a time of profound peace and material prosperity.

The philosophy of this whole period of ecclesiastical history may be summed up in a sentence: The numerous theological controversies, and the pastoral neglect of the people, before the war, had unfitted both the clergy and the masses for deriving from it that deep penitence and thorough reconsecration which a season of great national affliction should have engendered. The moral excesses apparent during this time had been produced by causes long anterior to it. Hence, when the protracted time of carnage and the destruction of property did come, there was no preparation of mind or heart to derive improvement from it. Had some provision been made, had theology not abounded in idle disputes, and had the moral education of the masses been faithfully cared for, instead of the evils which have been so reluctantly related, there would have been a lengthy succession of glowing instances of devout piety. And Protestantism, instead of emerging from the conflict with only equal rights before the law, would have possessed a sanctified heart, and a vigorous, truth-seeking mind.

Time was now needed to gather up the instruction taught by those pillaged towns, slain citizens, and broken social and ecclesiastical systems. A few years passed by, when the lessons began to be learned, and signs of rejuvenation appeared. After Spener had commenced his reformatory labors, he expressly and repeatedly declared that he did not originate, but only gave expression to, a spirit of religious earnestness that had already arisen in various quarters. To him belongs the honor of cultivating and guiding these reassured hearts who had derived most improvement from the Thirty Years' War. Pietism, the fruit of their union, became a triumph under the leadership of Spener.

But who were these persons who became aroused to a sense of the exigencies of the times, and saw that the danger which threatened the kingdom of God in Germany was now scarcely less than when Tilly was leading his maddened hordes through the fair fields and over the ruins of those once happy towns? Some of the clergy were the first to indicate new life. They preached with more unction, and addressed themselves to the immediate demands of the parish, especially to provide for the orphans and widows of those who had fallen in battle. Certain ministers who had spent their youth in vain theological wrangling, preached sermons which contained better matter than redundant metaphor and classical quotations. Müller and Scriver serve as fitting illustrations of the improvement. They avoided the extended analytical and rhetorical methods long in use, and adopted the more practical system of earnest appeal and exhortation.

The clergy needed not to wait long before beholding the fruit of their labors. For a better spirit manifested itself also among the lower classes. A singular interest arose in sacred music. Not only in those venerable Gothic Cathedrals, so long the glory of the Roman Catholic Church, but in the field and the workshop there could be heard the melodies of Luther, Sachs, and Paul Gerhard. Young men appeared in numbers, offering themselves as candidates for the ministry. But let it not be supposed that these encouraging signs were universal. While the eye of faith could read the most decided lessons of hope, the religious dearth was still wide-spread. Nor was it unlikely that in a short time it would triumph over all the efforts for new life. When Spener rose to a position of prominence and influence, he saw, as no one else was able to see, the real danger to the cause of truth; and those affecting descriptions which we find among his writings, revealing the real wants of the latter half of the seventeenth century, show how keenly his own heart had become impressed by them.

It was very evident that the Lutheran Church would require a long period for self-purification, if indeed she could achieve it at all. The shorter and more effectual way would be to operate individually upon the popular mind. And does not the entire history of the Church prove that reform has originated from no concerted action of the body needing reformation, but from the solemn conviction and persevering efforts of some single mind, which, working first alone, has afterward won to its assistance many others? Its work then reacted upon the parent organization in such way that the latter became animated with new power.

The enemies of Pietism made the same objection to it that all the opponents of reform have ever made: "This is very good in itself, but do you not see that it is not the Church that is working? We would love to see the cause of truth advanced and our torpid Church invigorated with the old Reformation-life; but we would rather see the whole matter done in a perfectly systematic and legitimate way. Now this Pietism has some good features about it, but it acts in its own name. We do not like this absurd fancy of ecclesiolæ in ecclesia; but we prefer the Church to act as the Church, and for its own purposes." Thus reasoned the enemies of Pietism, who claimed as heartily as any of their contemporaries that they were strict adherents of truth and warm supporters of spiritual life. But their reasoning, however baseless, found favor; and the Church gradually came to look upon Pietism not as a handmaid, but as an adversary.

But we must first learn what Pietism proposed to do before we can appreciate its historical importance. Dorner holds, with a large number of others, that this new tendency was a necessary stage in the development of Protestantism,—a supplement of the Reformation. Though laughed at for two centuries by the Churchists on the one hand, and by the Rationalists on the other, it has to-day a firmer hold upon the respect of those who know its history best than at any former period. What if Arnold, and Petersen and his wife, did indulge in great extravagances? Have not the same unpleasant things occurred in the Church at other times? Yet, because not classed under any sectarian name, there has been but a transient estimate placed upon them, and criticism has been merciless. Is not every good institution subject to perversion at any time? We believe Dorner to be correct, and that Spener was the veritable successor of Luther and Melanchthon. A recent author, who has shown a singular facility in grouping historical periods and discovering their great significance, says: "Pietism went back from the cold faith of the seventeenth century to the living faith of the Reformation. But just because this return was vital and produced by the agency of the Holy Spirit, it could not be termed a literal return. We must not forget that the orthodoxy of the seventeenth century was only the extreme elaboration of an error, the beginning of which we find as far back as Luther's time, and which became more and more a power in the Church through the influence of Melanchthon. It was this: Mistaking the faith by which we believe for the faith which is believed. The principle of the Reformation was justification by faith, not the doctrine of faith and justification. In reply to the Catholics it was deemed sufficient to show that this was the true doctrine which points out the way of salvation to man. And the great danger lay in mistaking faith itself for the doctrine of faith. Therefore, in the controversies concerning justifying faith, we find that faith gradually came to be considered in relation to its doctrinal aspects more than in connection with the personal, practical, and experimental knowledge of men. In this view Pietism is an elaboration of the faith of the sixteenth century.... Without being heterodox, Spener even expressed himself in the most decided manner in favor of the doctrines of the Church. He would make faith consist less in the dogmatism of the head than in the motions of the heart; he would bring the doctrine away from the angry disputes of the schools and incorporate it into practical life. He was thoroughly united with the Reformers as to the real signification of justifying faith, but these contraries which were sought to be reëstablished he rejected.... From Spener's view a new phase of spiritual life began to pervade the heart. The orthodoxy of the State Church had been accustomed to consider all baptized persons as true believers if only they had been educated in wholesome doctrines. There was a general denial of that living, conscious, self-faith which was vital in Luther, and had transformed the world. The land, because it was furnished with the gospel and the sacraments, was considered an evangelical country. The contrast between mere worldly and spiritual life, between the living and dead members of the Church, was practically abolished, though there still remained a theoretical distinction between the visible and invisible Church. As to the world outside the pale of the Church, the Jews and Heathen, there was no thought whatever. Men believed they had done their whole duty when they had roundly combated the other Christian Churches. Thus lived the State Church in quiet confidence of its own safety and pure doctrine at the time when the nation was recovering from the devastations of the Thirty Years' War. 'In the times succeeding the Reformation,' says a Würtemberg pastor of the past century, 'the greater portion of the common people trusted that they would certainly be saved if they believed correct doctrines; if one is neither a Roman Catholic, nor a Calvinist, and confesses his opposition, he cannot possibly miss heaven; holiness is not so necessary after all.'"[24]

The enemies of Pietism have confounded it with Mysticism. There are undoubted points in common, but Pietism was aggressive instead of contemplative; it was practical rather than theoretical. Both systems made purity of life essential, but Mysticism could not guard against mental disease, while Pietism enjoyed a long season of healthful life. The latter was far too much engaged in relieving immediate and pressing wants to fall into the gross errors which mark almost the entire career of the former. Pietism was mystical in so far as it made purity of heart essential to salvation; but it was the very antipodes of Mysticism when organized and operating against a languid and torpid Church with such weapons as Spener and his coadjutors employed. Boehme and Spener were world-wide apart in many respects; but in purity of heart they were beautifully in unison.

Pietism commenced upon the principle that the Church was corrupt; that the ministry were generally guilty of gross neglect; and that the people were cursed with spiritual death. It proposed as a theological means of improvement: I. That the scholastic theology, which reigned in the academies, and was composed of the intricate and disputable doctrines and obscure and unusual forms of expression, should be totally abolished. II. That polemical divinity, which comprehended the controversies subsisting between Christians of different communions, should be less eagerly studied and less frequently treated, though not entirely neglected. III. That all mixture of philosophy and human science with divine wisdom was to be most carefully avoided; that is, that pagan philosophy and classical learning should be kept distinct from, and by no means supersede, Biblical theology. But, IV. That, on the contrary, all those students who were designed for the ministry should be kept accustomed from their early youth to the perusal and study of the Holy Scriptures, and be taught a plain system of theology drawn from these unerring sources of truth. V. That the whole course of their education should be so directed as to render them useful in life, by the practical power of their doctrine, and the commanding influence of their example.[25]

The founder of Pietism, Philip Jacob Spener, was in many respects the most remarkable man of his century. He was only thirteen years old at the close of the Thirty Years' War. His educational advantages were great; and after completing his theological studies at Strasburg, where he enjoyed the society and instruction of the younger Buxtorf, he made the customary tour of the universities. He visited Basle, Tübingen, Freiburg, Geneva, and Lyons; spending three years before his return home. From a child he was noted for his taciturn, peaceful, confiding disposition; and when he reached manhood these same qualities increased in strength and beauty. His studies had led him somewhat from the course of theology—at least certain branches of it—and he became greatly fascinated with heraldry. But gradually he identified himself with pastoral life, and into its wants and duties he entered with great enthusiasm. He was for a short time public preacher in Strasburg, but on removing from that city he assumed the same office in Frankfort-on-the-Main. Here the field opened fairly before him, and, confident of success, he began the work of reform.

The instruction of children in the doctrines of Christianity, as we have already said, had been sadly neglected, because the pastors of the church had committed the task to less competent hands. Spener determined that he would assume complete control of the matter himself, and, if possible, teach the children during the week without any coöperation. His labors proved a great success; and his reform in catechetical instruction, not only in Frankfort, but thence into many parts of Germany, eventuated in one of the chief triumphs of his life. But he had further noticed that the customary preaching was much above the capacity, and unsuited to the wants, of the masses. He resolved upon a simple and perspicuous style of discourse, such as the common mind could comprehend. But, seeing that this was not enough, he organized weekly meetings of his hearers, to which they were cordially invited. There he introduced the themes of the previous Sabbath, explained any difficult points that were not fully understood, and enlarged on the plain themes of the gospel. These meetings were the Collegia Pietatis, or Schools of Devotion, which gave the first occasion for the reproachful epithet of Pietism. They brought upon their founder much opposition and odium, but were destined to produce an abundant harvest throughout the land. Spener entertained young men at his own house, and prepared them, by careful instruction and his own godly example, for great ministerial usefulness. These, too, were nurtured in the collegia, and there they learned how to deal with the uneducated mind and to meet the great wants of the people. The meetings were, at the outset, scantily attended, but they increased so much in interest that, first his own dwelling, and then his church, became crowded to their utmost capacity.

In 1675 Spener published his great work, Pia Desideria. Here he laid down his platform: That the word of God should be brought home to the popular heart; that laymen, when capable and pious, should act as preachers, thus becoming a valuable ally of the ministry; that deep love and practical piety are a necessity to every preacher; that kindness, moderation, and an effort to convince should be observed toward theological opponents; that great efforts should be made to have worthy and divinely-called young men properly instructed for the ministry; and that all preachers should urge upon the people the importance of faith and its fruits. This book was the foundation of Spener's greatest influence and also of the strongest opposition with which he met. As long as he taught in private he escaped all general antagonism; but on the publication of his work he became the mark of envy, formalism, and high-churchism.

After he was invited to Dresden in 1686, the state church indicated a decided disapprobation of his measures. He incurred the displeasure of the Elector by his fearless preaching and novel course of educating the young. His teaching of the masses drew upon him the charge that "a court-preacher was invited to Dresden, but behold, nothing but a school teacher!" He deemed it his duty to accept the invitation of Frederic of Brandenburg to make Berlin his residence, where, in 1705, he ended his days, after a life of remarkable usefulness but of unusual strife.

It would be a pleasure to linger a while in the beautiful scenes which Spener's life affords us. Endowed with the most childlike nature, he was nevertheless a lion in contest. And yet who will find any bitterness in his words; where does he wax angry against his opponent? He did not shun controversy, because his mission demanded it; but no man loved peace more than Spener. His mind was always calm; and it was his lifelong aim to "do no sin." His enemies,—among whom we must not forget that he had a Schelwig, a Carpzov, an Alberti, and a whole Wittenberg Faculty,—never denied his amiable disposition; and it was one of his expressions in late life that "all the attacks of his enemies had never afflicted him with but one sleepless night." It was his personal character that went almost as far as his various writings to infuse practical piety into the church. He was respected by the great and good throughout the land. Crowned heads from distant parts of the Continent wrote to him, asking his advice on ecclesiastical questions. He was one of those men who, like Luther, Wesley, and others, was not blind to the great service of an extensive correspondence. He answered six hundred and twenty-two letters during one year, and at the end of that time there lay three hundred unanswered upon his table. His activity in composition knew no bounds. For many years of his life he was a member of the Consistory, and was engaged in its sessions from eight o'clock in the morning until seven in the evening. But still he found time, according to Canstein, to publish seven folio volumes, sixty-three quartos, seven octavos, and forty-six duodecimos; besides very many introductions and prefaces to the works of friends and admirers, and republications of practical books suited to the times and the cause he was serving. After his death his enemies did all in their power to cast reproach upon his name. They even maligned his moral character, which had hitherto stood above reproach. It was a grave question at the hostile universities whether the term Beatus Spener could be used of him. Professor Teck, of Rostock, published a work On the Happiness of those who die in the Lord, in which he decided that heaven will open its gates sometimes to the extremely impious who die without any external mark of repentance, and also to those who die in gross sin; but not to such a man as Spener.

The University of Halle was founded for the avowed purpose of promoting personal piety, Scriptural knowledge, and practical preaching throughout the land. It had already been a place of instruction, but not of theological training. The theological faculty was composed of Francke, Anton, and Breithaupt. These men were deeply imbued with the fervid zeal of Spener, and set themselves to work to improve and continue what he had inaugurated. The field was ample, but the task was arduous. While Spener lived at Dresden, Francke, who taught at Leipsic, enjoyed a brief personal intercourse with him, and became thoroughly animated with his spirit. On his return to Leipsic, he commenced exegetical lectures on various parts of the Bible, and instituted Collegia Pietatis for such students as felt disposed to attend them. So great was the increase of attendance, both at the lectures and also at the meetings, that Francke was suspended and Pietism forbidden. It was, therefore, with a wounded and injured spirit that he availed himself of the privilege afforded in the new seat of learning.

Francke was naturally an impulsive man, and his ardent temperament led him sometimes into unintended vagaries. An extravagance of his once caused Spener to remark, that "his friends gave him more trouble than all his enemies." But he was not more erroneous than most men of the same type of character; and there is not a real moral or intellectual blemish upon his reputation. His aim was fixed when he commenced to teach at Halle; and he prosecuted it with undivided assiduity until the close of his useful life. The story of his conversion is beautifully told in his own language. Like Chalmers, he was a minister to others before his own heart was changed. He was about to preach from the words, "But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name." He says: "My whole former life came before my eyes just as one sees a whole city from a lofty spire. At first it seemed as if I could number all my sins; but soon there opened the great fountain of them—my own blind unbelief, which had so long deceived me; I was terrified with my lost condition, and wondered if God were merciful enough to bless me. I kneeled down and prayed. All doubt vanished; I was assured in my own heart of the grace of God in Christ. Now I know him, not alone as my God but as my Father. All melancholy and unrest vanished, and I was so overcome with joy, that from the fullness of my heart I could praise my Saviour. With great sorrow I had kneeled; but with wonderful ecstacy I had risen up. It seemed to me as if my whole previous life had been a deep sleep, as if I had only been dreaming, and now for the first time had waked up. I was convinced that the whole world, with all its temporal joy, could not kindle up such pleasure in my breast."

A few days afterwards he preached from the same text as before. The sermon was the first real one that he had preached. Henceforth his heart was in the work for which God had chosen him.

He preached in Halle statedly, for, in addition to the duties of the professor's chair, he was pastor of a church. His ministrations in the pulpit became extremely popular and attractive. Naturally eloquent, he won the masses to his ministry; and by his forcible presentation of truth he molded them into his own methods of faith and thought. Nor was he less zealous or successful in his theological lectures. He commenced them in 1698, by a course on the Introduction to the Old Testament, concluding with a second one on the New Testament.

In 1712, he published his Hermeneutical Lectures, containing his comments on sections and books of Scripture, particularly on the Psalms and the Gospel of John. In his early life he had observed the dearth of lectures on the Scriptures; and he accordingly applied himself to remedy the evil. His principles of instruction were, first, that the student be converted before he be trained for the ministry, otherwise his theology would be merely a sacred philosophy—philosophia de rebus sacris; second, that he be thoroughly taught in the Bible, for "a theologian is born in the Scriptures." His Method of Theological Study produced a profound impression, and was the means of regenerating the prevailing system of theological instruction at the universities.

But Francke is chiefly known to the present generation by his foundation of the Orphan House at Halle. This institution was the outgrowth of his truly practical and beneficent character; and from his day to the present, it has stood a monument of his strong faith and great humanity. Its origin was entirely providential. It was already a custom in Halle for the poor to convene every week at a stated time, and receive the alms which had been contributed for their support. Francke saw their weekly gatherings, and resolved to improve the occasion by religious teaching. But their children were also ignorant, and there was no hope that the parents would be able to educate them. So he resolved to do something also in this direction, and secured some money for this purpose. But yet the parents did not thus apply it; whereupon he placed a box in his own dwelling, that all who visited him might contribute. He knew that then he would have the personal distribution of such funds. During three months one person deposited four thalers and sixteen groschen; when Francke exclaimed, "That is a noble thing—something good must be established—with this money I will found a school." Two thalers were spent for twenty-seven books; but the children brought back only four out of the whole number that they had taken home. New books were bought, and henceforth it was required that they be left in the room. At first Francke's own study was the book depository and school-room; but in a short time his pupils so greatly increased that he hired adjacent accommodations. Voluntary contributions came in freely; new buildings were erected, and teachers provided; and before the death of the founder, the enterprise had grown into a mammoth institution, celebrated throughout Europe, and scattering the seeds of truth into all lands.[26] It became a living proof that Pietism was not only able to combat the religious errors of the times but also to grapple with the grave wants of common life. Is not that a good and safe theology, which, in addition to teaching truth, can also clothe the naked and feed the hungry? Francke's prayer, so often offered in some secluded corner of the field or the woods, was answered even before his departure from labor to reward; "Lord, give me children as plenteous as the dew of the morning; as the sand upon the sea-shore; as the stars in the heavens; so numerous that I cannot number them!"

The theological instruction of Francke and his coadjutors in the University of Halle was very influential. During the first thirty years of its history six thousand and thirty-four theologians were trained within its walls, not to speak of the multitudes who received a thorough academic and religious instruction in the Orphan House. The Oriental Theological College, established in connection with the University, promoted the study of Biblical languages, and originated the first critical edition of the Hebrew Bible. Moreover, it founded missions to the Jews and Mohammedans. From Halle streams of the new life flowed out until there were traces of reawakening throughout Europe. First, the larger cities gave signs of returning faith; and the universities which were most bitter against Spener were influenced by the power of the teachings of his immediate successors. Switzerland was one of the first countries to adopt Pietism. Zürich, Basle, Berne, and all the larger towns received it with gladness. It penetrated as far east as the provinces bordering on the Baltic Sea, and as far North as Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Many of the Continental courts welcomed it, and Orphan Houses, after the model of Francke's, became the fashion of the day. The Reformed church was influenced and impelled by it, and even England and the Netherlands indicated a strong sympathy for its practical and evangelical features. No higher tribute can be paid it than that of Tholuck, who avers, "that the Protestant church of Germany has never possessed so many zealous Christian ministers and laymen as in the first forty years of the eighteenth century."

There are two names intimately connected with Pietism in its better days, which it would be improper to pass over. Arnold, the historian of Pietism, and Thomasius, the eminent jurist. They were both alike dangerous to the very cause they sought to befriend. The former, in his History of Churches and Heretics, took such decided ground against the existing church system that he was fairly charged with being a Separatist. He attached but little importance to dogmatics, despised orthodoxy, and inveighed against the church as if she were the veriest pest in the land. While a student at Wittenberg he applied himself to the study of Mysticism, and now claimed that its incorporation with Pietism was the only salvation of Christianity. He held that great sins had existed in the church ever since the days of the Apostles, the first century being the only period when it enjoyed comparative purity. Thomasius, very naturally, held Arnold in high esteem, and lauded his services in the following language: "He is the only man, or at least the first, who has avoided the follies into which others have fallen, and discovered and fully exposed the errors which have been especially committed by the Englishman Cave; he has maintained that the Church of Christ, with respect to life and conduct, had begun to fall into decay immediately after the ascension of our Saviour, and still more after the death of the Apostles, and that this degeneracy had enormously increased since the age of Constantine the Great."[27]

Thomasius, though not personally connected with Pietism, gave it all his influence. He was Director of the University of Halle, and defended the Pietists from the standpoint of statesmanship. He believed Pietism the only means of uprooting the long-existing corruptions of education, society, and religion. He opposed the custom of teaching and lecturing in Latin, warmly advocating the use of French, and subsequently of German. He wished to cultivate the German spirit, and spared no pains to accomplish his purpose. While yet a teacher at Leipzig he announced a course of lectures to be delivered in the German language. The outcry was great against him; but he persevered, and henceforth delivered all his lectures in his mother tongue. Since his time the use of Latin, as a colloquial, has gradually decreased, and at the present day the German is the chief language employed at the universities. Thomasius was also the first to combat the system of prosecutions for witchcraft, and the application of torture in criminal trials. He was a thorough and indefatigable reformer. His name was a tower of strength in his generation; and he left a vivid impress upon the German mind of the eighteenth century. He published many works, some of which were directed against the ministry because of their neglect of duty.

A new generation of professors arose in Halle. C. B. Michaelis, the younger Francke, Freilinghausen, the elder Knapp, Callenberg, and Baumgarten, took the place of their more vigorous predecessors. It is deplorable to see how Pietism now began to lose its first power and earnest spirit. The persistent inquiry into scriptural truth passed over into a tacit acquiescence of the understanding. Reliance was placed on the convictions, more than on the fruits of study. Spener had blended the emotions of the mind and heart, reason and faith, harmoniously; but the later Pietists cast off the former and blindly followed the latter. Hence they soon found themselves indulging in superstition, and repeating many of the errors of some of the most deluded Mystics. Science was frowned upon, because of its supposed conflict with the letter of Scripture. The language of Spener and Francke, which was full of practical earnestness, came into disuse. Definitions became loose and vague. The Collegia, which had done so much good, now grew formal, cold, and disputatious. The missions, which had begun very auspiciously, dwindled from want of means and men. External life became pharisaical. Great weight was attached to long prayers. A Duke of Coburg required the masters of schools to utter a long prayer in his presence, as a test of fitness for advancement. Pietism grew mystical, ascetic, and superstitious. Some of its advocates and votaries made great pretensions to holiness and unusual gifts. This had a tendency to bring the system into disrepute in certain quarters, though the good influences that it had exerted still existed and increased. It might disappear, but the good achieved by it would live after it. But a strong effort was made by Frederic William I. to maintain its prominence and weight. From 1729 to 1736, he continued his edict that no Lutheran theologian should be appointed in a Prussian pulpit who had not studied at least two years in Halle, and received from the faculty a testimonial of his state of grace. But when he was succeeded by Frederic II., commonly called Frederic the Great, that University no longer enjoyed the royal patronage, and Halle, instead of being the school of practical piety and scriptural study, degenerated into a seminary of Rationalism.

It was charged against the Pietists that they wrote but little. Writing was not their mission. It was theirs to act, to reform the practical life and faith of the people, not to waste all their strength in a war of books. They wrote what they needed to carry out their lofty aim; and this was, perhaps, sufficient. They did lack profundity of thought; but, let it be remembered that their work was restorative, not initial. Pietism, though it ceased its aggressive power after Francke and Thomasius, was destined to exert a reproductive power long afterwards. From their day to the present, whenever there has arisen a great religious want, the heart of the people has been directed towards this same agency as a ground of hope. Whatever be said against it, it cannot be denied that it has succeeded in finding a safe lodgment in the affections of the evangelical portion of the German church.

Witness Bengel, who was a Pietist of the Spener school. He was warmly devoted to the spread of practical truth and a correct understanding of the Bible. Kahnis says of him: "We might indeed call conscientiousness the fundamental virtue of Bengel. Whatever he utters, be it in science, or life, is more mature, more well-weighed, more pithy, more consecrated than most of what his verbose age has uttered. In the great he saw the little, in the little the great." In the present century the church has had recourse to Pietism as its only relief from a devastating Rationalism. Not the Pietism of Spener and Francke, we acknowledge, but the same general current belonging to both. Its organ was the Evangelical Church Gazette, in 1827, and among the celebrities who attached themselves to it we find the names of Heinroth, von Meyer, Schubert, von Raumer, Steffens, Schnorr, and Olivier.

Pietism lacked a homogeneous race of teachers. Here lay the secret of its overthrow. Had the founders been succeeded by men of much the same spirit, and equally strong intellect, its existence would have been guaranteed, as far as anything religious can be promised in a country where there is a state church to control the individual conscience. The great mistake of Lutheranism was in failing to adopt it as its child. The skeptical germ which soon afterwards took root, gave evidence that it could prove its overthrow for a time, at least; but the evils of Rationalism were partially anticipated by the practical teachings of the Pietists. Rationalism in Germany, without Pietism as its forerunner, would have been fatal for centuries. But the relation of these tendencies, so plainly seen in the ecclesiastical history of Germany, is one of long standing. From the days of Neo-Platonism to the present they have existed, the good to balance the evil, Faith to limit Reason. They have been called by different names; but Christianity could little afford to do without it or its equivalent, in the past; and the Church of the Future will still cling as tenaciously and fondly to it or to its representative.

FOOTNOTES:

[24] Auberlen: Die Göttliche Offenbarung, vol. I., pp. 278-281. The second volume of this important work has been completed, but the gifted author has just died. His book must therefore take its place in the catalogue of brilliant but hopeless fragments.

[25] Watson, Theolog. Dict. Art. Protestant Pietists.

[26] Schmid, Geschichte des Pietismus, pp. 290-293. How greatly this movement was favored by Providence, may be seen from the Report presented to King Frederick William I, shortly after Francke's death:—1. The Normal School with 82 scholars and 70 teachers; 2. The Latin School of the Orphan House, with 3 Inspectors, 32 teachers, 400 scholars, and 10 servants; 3. The German Citizens' school, with 4 Inspectors, 102 Teachers, 1725 Boys and Girls; 4. Orphan Children, 134, and 10 overseers; 5. Number accommodated at the tables, 251 students, 3600 poor children; 6. Furniture, Apothecary, Bookstore, employing 53 persons; 7. Institution for women unable to work.

[27] Schmid, Geschichte des Pietismus, pp. 475-486.

CHAPTER IV.

THE POPULAR PHILOSOPHY OF WOLFF—SKEPTICAL TENDENCIES FROM ABROAD.

The struggle between the Pietists and the Orthodox subsided on the appearance of Wolff's demonstrative philosophy. The church was glad enough to offer the friendly hand to Pietism when she saw her faith threatened by this ruthless foe; and if the followers of Spener had refused to accept it, their success would have been far more probable. Leibnitz was the father of Wolff's system. Descartes had protested against any external authority for the first principles of belief. Leibnitz and Spinoza followed him, though in different directions.[28] Leibnitz had no system in reality, and it is only from certain well-known views on particular points that we can infer his general direction of opinion. He sought to prove the conformity of reason with a belief in revelation on the principle that two truths cannot contradict each other. His doctrine of monads and preëstablished harmony was opposed to the scriptural and ecclesiastical doctrine of creation, inasmuch as by the assumption of the existence of atoms the Creator was thrown too much in the shade.[29] He wrote his Théodicée for the benefit of learned and theological circles, and both as a statesman and author he acquired great celebrity for his vast acquirements and discriminating mind.

But the philosophy of Leibnitz was confined to the learned; and had it been left solely to itself, it is probable that it would never have attracted great attention or possessed much importance in the history of thought. But Wolff, who studied all his works with the greatest care, deduced from them certain summaries of argument, which, with such others of his own as he felt disposed to incorporate with them, he published and taught. Whatever censure we may cast upon Wolff, we cannot ignore his good intentions. Even before his birth, he had been consecrated by his father to the service of God; and when he was old enough to manifest his own taste, he showed a strong predilection for theological study. He says of himself: "Having been devoted to the study of theology by a vow, I also had chosen it for myself; and my intention has all along been to serve God in the ministry, even when I was already professor at Halle, until at length against my will I was led away from it, God having arranged circumstances in such a manner that I could not carry out this intention. But having lived in my native place, Breslau, among the Catholics, and having perceived from my very childhood the zeal of the Lutherans and Roman Catholics against one another, the idea was always agitating my mind, whether it would not be possible so distinctly to show the truth in theology that it would not admit of any contradiction. When afterwards I learned that the mathematicians were so sure of their ground that every one must acknowledge it to be true, I was anxious to study mathematics, for the sake of the method, in order to give diligence to reduce theology to incontrovertible certainty." These words explain Wolff's whole system. He would make doctrine so plain by mathematical demonstration that it must be accepted. But the poison of his theory lay in the assumption that what could not be mathematically demonstrated was either not true or not fit to be taught. He sets out with the principle that the human intellect is capable of knowing truth. He divides his philosophy into two parts: first, the theoretical: second, the practical. The former he subdivides into logic, metaphysics, and physics; the latter into morals, natural right, and politics. He admits a revelation, and proves its possibility by maintaining that God can do whatever he wishes. But this revelation must have signs in itself, by which it may be known. First. It must contain something necessary for man to know, which he cannot learn in any other way. Second. The things revealed must not be opposed to the divine perfections, and they must not be self-contradictory: a thing is above reason and contrary to reason when opposed to these principles. Third. A divine revelation can contain neither anything which contradicts reason and experience, nor anything which may be learned from them, for God is omniscient,—he knows the general as well as the particular, and he cannot be deceived. Necessary truths are those the contrary of which is impossible; accidental truths, those of which the contrary is impossible only under certain conditions. Now, revelation could not contradict necessary truths; but it may appear to contradict those which are accidental. Geometrical truths are necessary; and therefore revelation could not oppose them; but as accidental truths refer to the changes of natural things, it follows that these may be apparently contradicted by revelation; though if we search minutely, we shall at last be able to lift the veil from the contradictions. Fourth. Revelation cannot command anything contrary to the laws of the nature of existence and of the mind, for whatever is opposed to the laws of nature is equally opposed to those of reason. Fifth. When it can be proved that he who declares that he has received a divine revelation has arrived at his knowledge by the natural use of his mental powers, then his declaration cannot be considered true. Sixth. In a revelation all things ought to be expressed in such words, or by such signs, that he who is the object of it can clearly recognize the divine action. For God knows all possible symbolical means of knowledge, and does nothing without a purpose.

These views Wolff taught from his university-chair in Halle, and disseminated throughout the land in publications under various titles. He aimed to reach not only the young theologians and all who were likely to wield a great public influence, but to so popularize his system that the unthinking masses might become his followers. He succeeded. Even Roman Catholics embraced his tenets, and he was accustomed to say, with evident satisfaction, that his text-books were used at Ingolstadt, Vienna, and Rome. The glaring defect of his philosophy was his application of the formal logical process to theology. He reduced the examination of truth to a purely mechanical operation. The effect was soon seen. When his students began to fill the pulpits the people heard cold and stately logic, extended definitions, and frequent mathematical phrases. Think of the clergy feeding their flocks on such food as the following: "God—a being who supports all the world at one time;" "Preëstablished harmony—the eternal union of things;" "Ratio sufficiens—the sufficient ground;" with many other arid definitions of the same class. One preacher, in explaining the eighth chapter of Matthew, thought it necessary, when noticing the fact of Jesus descending the mountain, to define the term mountain by declaring it to be "a very elevated place;" and, when discoursing on Jesus stretching forth his hand and touching the leper, to affirm that "the hand is one of the members of the body." It is astonishing how quickly the popular principles and teachings of the followers of Wolff began to supplant Pietism. In the university and the pulpit there were sad and numerous evidences of decline. Perhaps no system of philosophy has ever penetrated the masses as did this of Wolff; for no one has been more favored with champions who aimed to indoctrinate the unthinking. Old terms, which had been used by the first Lutherans and Reformed in common, and by the Pietists with such effectiveness, were now abandoned for the modern ones of these innovators. Everything that had age on its side was rejected because of its age. Even the titles of books were fraught with copious definitions. The Wertheim translation of the Old Testament was published under the extended name of "The Divine Writings before the time of Jesus, the Messiah. The First Part, containing the Laws of the Israels." The Wolffian adepts wrote for Moabites, Moabs; for the Apostle Peter, Peter the Ambassador.

Wolff's life was full of incident. The first publications he issued after his appointment to the mathematical professorship were on subjects within his appropriate sphere of instruction. Here he first acquired his fundamental principle of mathematical demonstration applied to theology, and henceforth his mind was bent on philosophical and theological themes. We are reminded of the same process of mental action in Bishop Colenso. In a late catalogue of his works, we have counted twelve mathematical text-books. These are at least an index of his attachment to mathematical demonstration; and it is not surprising that an ill-regulated mind should fall into Wolff's error of applying the same method to the Scriptures. The Bishop's works find their exact prototype in the "Reasonable Thoughts of God," "Natural Theology," and "Moral Philosophy," of Christian Wolff. The mathematical professor at Halle was not long in exposing his views; and on more than one occasion gave umbrage to his Pietistic associates. His offence reached its climax when he delivered a public discourse on the Morals of Confucius, which he applauded most enthusiastically. The Rector of the university, Francke, requested the use of the manuscript, which the author refused to grant. Influence was brought to bear against Wolff at court; and when it was represented that if his teachings were propagated any further they would produce defection in the army, Frederic William I. issued a decree of deposition from his chair, and banishment from his dominions within forty-eight hours, on penalty of death. This occurred in 1723. After Frederic the Great ascended the throne, and began to countenance the increasing skeptical tendencies of the day, he recalled him, in 1740, to his former position. He was received, it is true, with some enthusiasm, but his success as a lecturer and preacher had passed its zenith. Of his reception at Halle after his long absence he thus writes, with no little sense of self-gratulation: "A great multitude of students rode out of the city to meet me, in order to invite me formally. They were attended by six glittering postillions. All the villagers along the roadside came out of their towns, and anxiously awaited my arrival. When we reached Halle, all the streets and market-places were filled with an immense concourse of people, and I celebrated my jubilee amidst a universal jubilee. In the street, opposite the house which I had rented as my place of residence, there was gathered a band of music, which received me and my attendants with joyous strains. The press of the multitude was so great that I could hardly descend from my carriage and find my way to my rooms. My arrival was announced on the same evening to the professors and all the dignitaries of the city. On the following day they called upon me, and gave me warm greetings of welcome and esteem. Among all the rest I was received and welcomed by Dr. Lange, who wished me the greatest success, and assured me of his friendship; of course I promised to visit him in return."

Verily this was an epoch in theological history. It proves how thoroughly the Wolffian philosophy had impregnated the common classes. They had learned its principles thoroughly, and the lapse of more than a century has not fully disabused them of its errors. The philosophy of Kant was the first to supplant the Wolffian in learned circles; but Kant has had no such popular interpreter as Wolff was of Leibnitz, and hence his influence, though deep where prevalent, was felt in a more limited sphere. Wolff cannot be termed a Rationalist in the common acceptation of the term, though his doctrines contributed to the growth of neological thinking. Had he been theologian alone, and applied his principles to the interpretation of Scripture, he would have done much of Semler's work. It was, therefore, the latter and not the former whom we would denominate the father of Rationalism. Moreover, Wolff manifested a strict observance of the ecclesiastical institutions of his day, and always professed the warmest attachment to the church,—which was anything but the fact, as far as the followers of Semler are concerned. Wolff wrote on a circular announcing some university celebration the following words, which indicate the habit of his life: "I see, and would like to be present. Yet as I have purposed to partake of the Lord's Supper on the same day I do not know whether I shall be able to be present, inasmuch as I should not like to change my intention; yet I will consider the matter with my minister. Signed, Christian Wolff, 1717."

Of the relations of the Wolffian philosophy to the theology of one century ago, and of its general Rationalistic bearing, Mr. Farrar says, "The system soon became universally dominant. Its orderly method possessed the fascination which belongs to any encyclopædic view of human knowledge. It coincided, too, with the tone of the age. Really opposed, as Cartesianism has been in France, to the scholasticism which still reigned, its dogmatic form nevertheless bore such external similarity to it that it fell in with the old literary tastes. The evil effects which it subsequently produced in reference to religion were due only to the point of view which it ultimately induced. Like Locke's work on the reasonableness of Christianity, it stimulated intellectual speculation concerning revelation. By suggesting attempts to deduce à priori the necessary character of religious truths, it turned men's attention more than ever away from spiritual religion to theology. The attempt to demonstrate everything caused dogmas to be viewed apart from their practical aspect; and men being compelled to discard the previous method of drawing philosophy out of Scripture, an independent philosophy was created, and Scripture compared with its discoveries. Philosophy no longer relied on Scripture, but Scripture rested on philosophy. Dogmatic theology was made a part of metaphysical philosophy. This was the mode in which Wolff's philosophy ministered indirectly to the creation of the disposition to make scriptural dogmas submit to reason, which was denominated Rationalism. The empire of it was undisputed during the whole of the middle part of the century, until it was expelled, toward the close, by the partial introduction of Locke's philosophy, and of the system of Kant, as well as by the growth of classical erudition, and of a native literature."[30]

Wolff was succeeded by a school of no ordinary ability. But his disciples did not strictly follow him; they went not only the length that he did, but much farther. Their thinking and literary labor circled about inspiration. It was evident that they were intent upon solving the problem and handing the doctrine over to the world as entitled to respect and unalterable. Baumgarten was the connecting link between the Pietism of Spener and the Rationalism of Semler. He was the successor of Wolff in the university-chair of Halle, and, as such, the eyes of the people were turned toward him. His acquirements were versatile, for he studied every subject of theology with poetic enthusiasm. Nor was he a superficial student merely; and his opponents well knew that in him they had found no mean adept in philosophy, theology, hermeneutics and ecclesiastical history. His writings bear a strong impress of Illuminism, but he contributed most to the formation of Rationalistic theology by training Semler for his great destructive mission. He acknowledged the presence of the Holy Spirit in Scripture, but reduced inspiration to an influence which God exercises over the mental faculties. Both he and Töllner declared that the Spirit had permitted each writer to compose according to the peculiar powers of his mind, and to arrange facts according to his own comprehension of them.

Töllner was a follower of Baumgarten. He was not intent upon any innovating theories as much as he was desirous to harmonize the old ecclesiastical system with the new philosophy. He had some views in common with Wolff; but he totally differed from him in his conception of mathematical demonstration of theology, and maintained that theology cannot be mathematically demonstrated, but that its integrity and worth depend solely upon historical testimony. Does the Christian system have the authority of history for its defence? If so, it will stand the test of universal opposition; but, if not, it will fall of its own weight. The tendency of his deductions was negative, and hence we rank him as no ordinary agent toward the growth of historic doubt. Here we behold the germ of such thinking as developed in Strauss' Life of Jesus in the present century. Töllner held that Scripture is composed of two senses, the natural and revealed. That which is natural is subject to criticism; but the revealed or spiritual light is always clearer, and does not call for much inquiry. There may be differences between the two, but there can be no contradiction. "The revelation in Scripture," he says, "is a greater and more perfect means of salvation. Both the natural light and revelation lead the man who follows them to salvation. Scripture only more so."

The historian cannot fail to observe a systematic and steadfast development of skepticism in the lands south and west of Germany. Many causes contributed to its growth in Italy, whose prestige in war, extensive and still increasing commerce, and ambitious and gifted rulers, were a powerful stimulus to vigorous thought. The classics became the favorite study, and all the writings of the ancients were seized with avidity, to yield, as far as they might, their treasure of philosophy, history and poetry. Leo X. was notoriously skeptical, and, as much from sympathy as pride, surrounded himself with the leading spirits of the literature of the times. With him morality was no recommendation. Two tendencies took positive form, as the result of the literary tastes of the court and thinking classes: first, a return to heathenism, produced by the study of the classics; and second, a species of pantheism, produced by philosophy.

We now come to the Deism of England, which not only succeeded in corrupting the spiritual life of France, but became directly incorporated into the theology of Germany. It was the so-called philosophy of common sense. The most thorough German writer on the subject, Lechler, has well defined it, "The elevation of natural religion to be the standard and rule of all positive religion, an elevation which is supported by free examination by means of thinking." It started on the principle that reason is the source and measure of truth; and therefore discarded, as its Rationalistic offspring in Germany, whatever was miraculous or supernatural in Christianity. There was much earnestness in some of its champions; nor was there any absence of warm attachment to the morality and religious influence of the Scriptures. Thus it differed widely from the flippancy and frivolity of the Deists of France. We cannot, however, consider Lord Herbert's serious reflections on the publication of his chief work as a fair specimen of the tone of his coadjutors. They were mostly inferior to him in this respect, though it would not be safe to say that their influence on the public mind of England was less baneful than his. Having finished his book, Tractatus de Veritate, he hesitated before committing it to the press. "Thus filled," he says, "with doubts, I was on a bright summer day sitting in my room; my window to the south was open; the sun shone brightly; not a breeze was stirring. I took my book on Truth into my hand, threw myself on my knees, and prayed devoutly in the words, 'O thou one God, thou Author of this light which now shines upon me, thou Giver of all inward light, I implore thee, according to thine infinite mercy to pardon my request, which is greater than a sinner should make. I am not sufficiently convinced whether I may publish this book or not. If its publication shall be for thy glory, I beseech thee to give me a sign from Heaven. If not, I will suppress it.' I had scarcely finished these words when a loud, and yet at the same time a gentle sound came from heaven, not like any sound on earth. This comforted me in such a manner, and gave me such a satisfaction, that I considered my prayer as having been heard."

Deism in England began with the predominance given to nature by Bacon. Locke contributed greatly to its formation by discarding the proof of Christianity by miracles and supernatural observations, but claimed that nature is of itself sufficient to teach it. Hence, man can draw all necessary faith from nature. Lord Herbert, of Cherbury, held that education is inconsistent with true religion, since the earliest pagan times manifested a higher state of morality than later periods of culture and refinement. Hobbes considered religion only a sort of police force, useful solely as an agent of the State to keep the people within bounds.

Shaftesbury, the disciple and follower of Locke, addressed himself by his style to the higher classes. He cultivated the acquaintance of the rising leaders of skepticism in France and Holland, and continued through life on terms of cordial intimacy with Bayle, Le Clerc, and others of kindred spirit. He was relentless in his attacks on revealed religion. His hostility may be inferred from the fact that Voltaire termed him even too bitter an opponent of Christianity. Warburton says, "Mr. Pope told me that, to his knowledge, The Characteristics have done more harm to revealed religion in England than all the other works of infidelity together." Collins contributed more than any other author to the rise of Deism in France. He applied himself to the overthrow of all faith. Ignoring prophecy, he held that nothing in the Old Testament has any other than a typical or allegorical bearing upon the New Testament.

Wollaston's creed was the pursuit of happiness by the practice of reason and truth. He was the epicurean of the system which he adopted, and sought to prove that religion is wholly independent of faith. He first published a brief outline of his views in a limited number of copies, but afterwards prepared a new and enlarged edition. Twenty thousand copies were sold, and six other editions found a ready sale between 1724 and 1738. Woolston strove to bring the miracles of Christ into contempt. Mandeville and Morgan, contemporaries of Woolston, wrote against the state religion. Of Chubb's views we can gather sufficiently from his three principles: First. That Christ requires of men that, with all their heart and all their soul, they should follow the eternal and unchangeable precepts of natural morality. Second. That men, if they transgress the laws of morality, must give proofs of true and genuine repentance, because without such repentance, forgiveness or pardon is impossible. Third. In order more deeply to impress these principles upon the minds of men, and give them a greater influence upon their course of action, Jesus Christ has announced to mankind, that God hath appointed a day wherein he will judge the world in righteousness, and acquit and condemn, reward or punish, according as their conduct has been guided by the precepts which he has laid down. With Bolingbroke's name closes the succession of the elder school of English Deists. He wrote against the antiquity of faith, showing bitter hostility to the Old Testament. His aim, in addition to this antagonism to revelation, was to found a selfish philosophy.

Many of the works by these writers were ill-written and lacked depth of thought. Some were, however, masterpieces of original thinking and writing. The style of Mandeville, for example, has been eulogized extravagantly both by Hazlitt and Lord Macaulay.

It cannot be expected that a movement so extensive as this, and participated in by the leading literary men of the day would be without its influence abroad. Its first effect was to elicit great opposition; and numerous replies poured in from every quarter. Toland's Christianity Not Mysterious was combated in the year 1760 by fifty-four rejoinders in England, France and Germany. Up to the same period, Tindal's Christianity as Old as the World was greeted with one hundred and six opponents. The Germans repulsed these tendencies bravely at first, and among others was the gifted and versatile Mosheim, who delivered public lectures against the influx of Deistical speculations. But gradually translations were made, and the Germans were soon able to read those works for themselves. All the Deists were rendered into their language, and some were honored with many translators. True, there were replies from the theologians of England immediately upon the appearance of the works of the leading Deists; but many of them were very feeble, the puny blows doing more harm than good. When these rejoinders came to be translated they had almost as deleterious an influence as if they had been panegyrics instead of well-meant thrusts. John Pye Smith says, "Translations were made of our Deistical writers of that time, and of a large number of vindications of Christianity which were published by some English divines of note in reply to Collins, Tindal, Morgan and their tribe; and which, in addition to their insipid and unimpassioned character, involved so much of timid apology and unchristian concession that they rather aided than obstructed the progress of infidelity." Through the influence of Baumgarten and others Deism now gained great favor in Germany. Toland was personally welcomed, flattered and honored at the very court—that of Frederic William I.—which had banished Wolf, and made adherence to his doctrines a bar to all preferment.

There was a speedy adoption of English Deism by France, though the French had manifested strong attachment to skepticism as far back as the illustrious reign of Louis XIV., whose court had dictated religion and literature to Europe. It was in 1688 that Le Vasser wrote: "People only speak of reason, good taste, the force of intellect, of the advantage of those who put themselves above the prejudices of education and of the society in which they were born. Pyrrhonism is now the fashion above everything else. People think that the legitimate exercise of the mind consists in not believing rashly, and in knowing how to doubt many things. What can be more intolerable and humiliating than to see our pretended great men boast themselves of believing nothing, and of calling those people simple and credulous who have not perhaps examined the first proofs of religion?" The condition of things was no better in the reign of Louis XV., nor indeed at any time during the eighteenth century. It could not be expected that Rousseau would overpaint the picture; yet in his La Nouvelle Héloïse we find this language: "No disputing is here heard—that is, in the literary coteries—no epigrams are made; they reason, but not in the stiff professional tone; you find fine jokes without puns, wit with reason, principles with freaks, sharp satire and delicate flattery with serious rules of morality. They speak of everything in order that every one may have to say something, but they never exhaust the questions raised; from the dread of getting tedious they bring them forth only occasionally, shorten them hastily, and never allow a dispute to arise. Every one informs himself, enjoys himself, and departs from the others pleased. But what is it that is learned from these interesting conversations? One learns to defend with spirit the cause of untruth, to shake with philosophy all the principles of virtue, to gloss over with fine syllogisms one's passions and prejudices in order to give a modern shape to error. When any one speaks, it is to a certain extent his dress, not himself, that has an opinion; and the speaker will change it as often as he will change his profession. Give him a tie-wig to-day, to-morrow a uniform, and the day after a mitre, and you will have him defend, in succession, the laws, despotism, and the Inquisition. There is one kind of reason for the lawyer, another for the financier, and a third for the soldier. Thus, no one ever says what he thinks, but what, on account of his interest, he would make others believe; and his zeal for truth is only a mask for selfishness."

This was the basis upon which Voltaire and Rousseau built in France. What wonder that the one with his pungent sarcasm, popular style and display of philosophy, and the other with his morbid sentimentalism, should become the real monarchs not only of their own land, but of cultivated circles throughout the Continent? There was not the slightest sympathy between these two men, for they hated each other cordially, and each was jealous of the other's fame and genius. Voltaire said one day to Rousseau, who was showing him an Ode Addressed to Posterity, "This is a letter which will never reach the place of its address." At another time, Voltaire having read a satire of his own composition to Rousseau, the latter advised him to "suppress it lest it should be imagined that he had lost his abilities and preserved only his virulence." But Voltaire was inordinately ambitious; he longed to rise to fame, as on the wings of the eagle. "How unworthy, and how dull of appreciation is sluggish France," thought he. For her rewards he had toiled, and thought, and racked his brain for years. But she was stern, and would not honor him. He therefore became disgusted with his native land, and set out for England, whose scientific and theological literature had already fired his mind. George I. and the Princess of Wales, afterward Queen Caroline, distinguished him by their attentions, and relieved his poverty by securing large subscriptions to his works. It was here that he commenced to lay up a princely fortune; but it was not until the close of his long and stirring life that he forswore his miserly habits. He found in the deistical literature of England everything that could suit his taste and ambition. "Here," reasoned he to himself, "I find what I never dreamed of before. France would not tolerate these thoughts if her own sons had given birth to them; but this is England, and we Frenchmen respect the thinking of the English mind. I will not translate much, but I will go to work with hearty earnestness, and reproduce in French literature what I find worthy of it in these free-thinking masters. May be, after all, I shall become a great man." The plan succeeded. Voltaire, on his return, became more outspoken in his infidelity. His star ascended; and he ruled, not by original but by borrowed lustre.

Frederic the Great of Prussia was captivated by the skeptical and literary celebrity of Voltaire. The latter was not long back again in France before his selfish sensitiveness imagined that all the literary men of his country had entered into a cabal to deprive him of his fame and hurl him from the throne of his literary authority. He was therefore ready to be caught by the most tempting bait; and when Frederic offered him a pension of twenty-two thousand livres, it was more than the miserly plagiarist could resist. Of his reception by the king he thus speaks in his usual style: "I set out for Potsdam in June, 1750. Astolpha did not meet a kinder reception in the palace of Alcuia. To be lodged in the same apartments that Marshal Saxe had occupied, to have the royal cooks at my command when I chose to dine alone, and the royal coachman when I had an inclination to ride, were trifling favors. Our suppers were very agreeable. If I am not deceived I think we had much wit. The king was witty, and gave occasion of wit to others; and what is still more extraordinary, I never found myself so much at my ease; I worked two hours a day with his majesty; corrected his works; and never failed highly to praise whatever was worthy of praise, though I rejected the dross. I gave him details of all that was necessary in rhetoric and criticism for his use: he profited by my advice, and his genius assisted him more effectually than my lessons."

But matters did not move on a great while thus harmoniously, for Voltaire, becoming complicated in personal difficulties with greater favorites of Frederic, received the frown of the man he had so much flattered, and whose purse had been enriching his coffers. The skeptic returned to France, wrote other works, settled near the romantic shore of Lake Geneva, and returned honored, great, and feasted to Paris. Indulging in unaccustomed excesses, his frail and aged body sank beneath the weight. But Frederic and Voltaire maintained a correspondence many years after the flatterer's disgrace. Full of trouble, haunted by dreams of conspiracy and of poverty, successful in achieving more evil than usually falls to the lot of a single mind, Voltaire passed from the society of men to the presence of God. It has been truthfully said of him in proof of his inconsistency, that he was a free thinker at London, a Cartesian at Versailles, a Christian at Nancy, and an infidel at Berlin.

Rousseau sought to establish the proposition that the progress of scientific education has always involved the decay of moral education. With Lord Herbert he held that barbarism has ever been the condition of greatest moral power. A sentiment from his Émile furnishes the key to his creed: "Everything is good when it comes forth from the hand of the Creator; everything degenerates under man's hand. In the state in which things now are, a man who from the moment of his birth would live among others, would, if left to himself, be most disfigured. Prejudices, authority, constraint, example, all social institutions which now depress us, would choke nature in him, and nothing would be put in its stead. He would resemble a young tree which, growing up accidentally in the street, would soon pine away in consequence of the passers-by pushing it from all sides, and bending it in all directions." Rousseau wrote with great earnestness, and possessed the faculty of inspiring his readers with an enthusiastic admiration of his theories. His romances misled many thousands, and were the most popular productions of his times. Though he and Voltaire were the exponents of French Deism, they were greatly aided in the dissemination of skeptical doctrines by Diderot, d'Alembert, Helvetius, d'Argent, de la Mettrie, and others. Bayle, in his Dictionary, appealed to the learned circles; and, not content to give only historical facts, he ventured upon the origination or reproduction of those new skeptical opinions which captivated unthinking multitudes.

The Deism of France was now a coadjutor with that of England in the devastation of Germany. The throne of Frederic II. was the exponent and defender of the hollow creed. The military successes of that king gave him an authority that few monarchs have been able to wield, while his well-known literary taste and capacity enlisted the admiration of men of culture throughout the Continent. Born to bear the sword, he surprised his subjects by the same felicity in the use of the pen; and the man who could leave to his successors a treasury with a surplus of seventy-two millions of thalers, an army of two hundred and twenty thousand men, a kingdom increased by twenty-nine thousand square miles, and a people grown since his accession from two millions to thrice that number, was not a king who could be without great moral weight among his own subjects. And it was known that he was a skeptic, for he made no secret of it. No traces of the old Pietism of his harsh father were visible in the son. Gathering around him such men as Voltaire, La Mettrie, Maupertuis, and others whom his gold could attach to him, he was the same king in faith and literature that he was in politics. Claiming to be a Deist, it is probable that he was a very liberal one. It is more than likely that he was truthful in his description of himself when he wrote to d'Alembert that he had never lived under the same roof with religion. He claimed for his meanest subjects the right to serve God in their own way; but all the power of his example was at work in drawing the people from the old faith. He hesitated not to supplant evangelical professors and pastors by free-thinkers, and at any time to bring ridicule on any religious fact or custom. That thin-visaged man in top boots and cocked hat, surrounded by his infidels and his dogs at Sans Souci, dictated faith to Berlin and to Europe. He would have no one within the sunshine of royalty whom he could not use as he wished; and just as soon as Voltaire would be himself he became disgraced. But Frederic lived to see the day when insubordination sprang up in his army, and in many departments of public life. It came from the abnegation of evangelical faith. And it is no wonder that when the old king saw the disastrous effects of his own theories upon his subjects, he said he would willingly give his best battle to place his people where he found them at his father's death. But the seed had been sown, and Prussia was destined to be only a part of the harvest-field of tares.

FOOTNOTES:

[28] Farrar, Critical History of Free Thought, p. 214.

[29] Hagenbach, History of Doctrines, vol. 2, p. 340.

[30] Critical History of Free Thought, pp. 215-216.

CHAPTER V.

SEMLER AND THE DESTRUCTIVE SCHOOL.

1750-1810.

The foreign influences being fairly introduced, it now remained to be seen what course the German church would adopt respecting them. The process of incorporation was rapid. A remarkable activity of mind was observable in the theological world, and men of great learning and keen intellect began to apply the deductions of foreign naturalism to the sacred oracles. No one can claim that the interpretation of the Scriptures rested at this time on a pure and solid basis; and it is therefore not remarkable that those men who had no special predilection for the doctrine of inspiration should silently submit to the views of the orthodox believers of their time. The divine origin of Hebrew points and accents was rigidly contended for; and Michaelis only fell in with the accustomed current when, in his early life, he wrote a work in their defence. The theory that errors of transcription might possibly have crept into the text, was totally rejected. No such thing could, by any contingency, occur. The fable of Aristeas was still considered worthy a place in the canon. The sanctity of the Hebrew language, and other Rabbinical notions, were defended. Christ was discovered in every book of the Old Testament; the perfect purity of the Greek of the New Testament was held; and fabulous accounts of early martyrs and miraculous legends were elevated to the same standard of authority with the gospels. What wonder, then, that when such absurdities were entertained by the evangelical portion of the church the temptation of others to skepticism was so great? Men like Ernesti could not resist the enticement to combat such a state of criticism; and he gave himself to the task with all the ardor of his nature.

He was the classic scholar of his day. The purity of his diction and the fertility of his authorship gained him a hearing among the educated and refined. His word became law. In his case, as with many others of his countrymen both before and after him, his theological tastes gave him far more authority than his merely linguistic and literary attainments could have gained for him. He was distinguished as a preacher not less than as a scholar. Enamored with the old classic times, the atmosphere of Greece in her glory of taste and culture, and of Rome in her lustre of victory and law made him impatient of the dull theology of his day. He lived not in Germany, but in the temples and bowers of paganism. His Latinity was scarcely inferior to the flowing utterances of his heathen masters. He edited many classical works, and succeeded in regenerating the humanistic studies of Europe. For this all honor be given him; but he did not rest here. He examined the New Testament with the critic's scalpel, and applied the principles of ordinary interpretation to the word of God. He held that Moses should receive no better treatment than Cicero or Tacitus. Logos was reason and wisdom in the Greek writings; why should it mean Christ or the Word when we find it in the gospel of John? Regeneration need not be surrounded with a saintly halo; it is absurd to suppose that it can mean any more than reception into a religious society. The Holy Spirit does not communicate divine influences, but certain praiseworthy qualities. Unity with the Father is mere unity of disposition or will. The Old Testament is very good in its way, but it certainly cannot be intended for all mankind; since many parts can have no salutary influence whatever on the heart and life. It might be of some use to the Jews, but since we are so far beyond them it is quite out of place for us.

Both Grotius and Wetstein had been the forerunners of Ernesti in this method of interpretation. What he wrought against the New Testament had its counterpart in the mischief effected by John David Michaelis against the Old. This theologian was profoundly learned in the Oriental languages, but he was a reckless and irreverent critic. He made light of many of the occurrences of the Old Testament, and whenever the students applauded one of his obscene jokes, he was tickled into childishness. He made no claim to an experimental acquaintance with the operations of the Holy Spirit, and used his position as theological professor and lecturer only as the stepping-stone to money and fame. He would make Moses a very good sort of statesman, but took care to cast censure upon him whenever the feeblest occasion was offered. Still he did not go so far as to cause great offense to his Jewish readers, who were very numerous at that time, for that would have endangered the pecuniary profits from his books. He lectured on every subject that came in his way, and discussed from his chair natural science, politics, agriculture, and horse-breeding, with as much respect and reverence as the song of Moses or the utterances of Isaiah. He carried Ernesti's principles a step farther than that scholar had done. He held that it is necessary not only to understand the situation and circumstances of the writer and people at the time and place in which the books were written, and the language and history of the time, but all things connected with their moral and physical character. The critic must also be conversant with everything relating to those nations with whom the Jews associated, and know just how far the latter received their opinions and customs from abroad.

There have been few men who have shown greater boldness in assaulting the Christian faith than Semler, the father of the destructive school of Rationalism. Reared in the lap of the sternest Pietism, he found himself a student at Halle pursuing his theological curriculum. He was one of the charmed disciples at Baumgarten's feet, but it was reserved for the pupil to accomplish far more than the master had ever anticipated. Gradually the old faith claimed him only by a slight hold; and when, while yet a student, he drew the subtle distinction between theology and religion, he, in that act, gave the parting hand to evangelical faith. Then step by step he descended, until he looked at the oracles of God with no more credence in their inspiration and divine claims than his master before him. In his turn he became professor; and that was a dark day for Germany and Protestantism when he read his first lecture to his auditory. He studied the Scriptures while laboring under the conviction that people worship the Bible instead of the universal Father; and he seemed to say within himself: "I will destroy this vain idolatry, if it take bread from my wife and children: if life be lost in the effort." So he set himself to work with a will. He was in a difficulty concerning the want of understanding as to the number of sacred books. He consulted the Jews of Palestine, and they replied "twenty-four;" he went to the Alexandrians, and they answered "a greater number than that;" and to the Samaritans, who stoutly held "that only the five books of Moses have a just claim to divine authority." With such difference of opinion among those who ought to know all about the Holy Scriptures, Semler, confounded and defiant, esteemed himself a judge on his individual responsibility. He consequently began to examine the merits of each part. And first of all, he must determine what is the proof of the inspiration of a book. This he decided to be the inward conviction of our mind that what it conveys to us is truth. Certainly, reason cannot be sunk so low as to discard its functions of judgment. And did not Christ use his natural faculties? Letting reason, therefore, be umpire, he concluded that the books of Chronicles, Ruth, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, and the Song of Solomon must be rejected; that Joshua, Judges, the books of Samuel, Kings, and Daniel, are doubtful at best; that the Proverbs of Solomon may be his or the joint production of a number of tolerably gifted men; and that the Pentateuch, and especially Genesis, is a mere collection of legendary fragments. The New Testament has some good qualities, which are wanting in the Old; but there are parts of it positively injurious to the church. The Apocalypse of John, for example, can only be held by every calm critic as the work of a wild fanatic. As to the gospels, their authenticity and integrity are very doubtful, and that of John is the only one in any wise adapted to the present state of the world; since he alone is free from the Jewish spirit. The general epistles were written solely for the unification of the struggling parties into which the early church had unfortunately split.