Miscellaneous Articles. Rose, on the State of Religion in the Protestant Church in Germany. OUR readers will probably recollect that this work of Mr. Rose, was reprinted some time since in the Repertory, as presenting an instructive view of the state of things in the German Protestant Churches. That any individual residing but a short time in such a country as Germany, should fail to obtain that comprehensive and accurate knowledge of the rise, progress, and diversified form and character of the theological revolution which has there occurred, cannot be a matter of surprise. Nor it is at all to be wondered at, that the book in question, when once translated into German, should call forth very severe animadversions. On the part of the Rationalists, these have been indiscriminate and unjust. Bretschneider, in his Apologie der neuern Theologie des evangel. Deutschlands, endeavours to invalidate the testimony of Mr. Rose, by proving-1, his partiality,-2, his deficiency in judgment, and information,-3, that, if not from design, at least from weakness he has misrepresented facts, and 4, that his statements are not all the result of his own observation, but derived from unnamed persons. In carrying out his proof of these points, he betrays far more bitterness, self-satisfaction, and and quite as much of partiality as the author whom he is refuting. The work of Mr. Rose, however has not proved satisfactory to some of his own countrymen, and Mr. Pusey of Oxford, has recently published a volume with the design of giving a more full and fair representation of the causes, nature and results, of the remarkable changes in theological opinion of which Germany has been the theatre. The plan and details of this production of Mr. Pusey, are so coincident with those of the "History of Theology during the eighteenth century, by Dr. Tholuck," published in the two preceding numbers of the Repertory, that he who has read the one, has all the information contained in the other. There is, however, a letter perfixed to Mr. Pusey's work, addressed to himself, by Professor Sack of Bonn, which as exhibiting the light in which Mr. Rose's work is viewed, by the moderate orthodox theologians of Germany, we think it worth while to reprint. The letter is given in English, whether originally thus written, or translated by Mr. Pusey, is not stated. Letter from Professor Sack, to E. B. Pusey, A. M. You express a wish, my dear Friend, for my opinion upon Mr. Rose's book "on the state of Religion in Protestant Germany;" and, even at the risk of your occasionally meeting with views and opinions contrary to those to which you are attached, I will give it you; being fully convinced that we are agreed on the main points, and that you are yourself sufficiently acquainted with Germany to enter into the circumstances, which either remove or mitigate the charges of Mr. R. You will allow me in the outset to own to you that a renewed perusal of the work of your countryman excited in me on two accounts a feeling of pain; on the one hand, that so much evil could be said of the Theological Authors of my country, which it is impossible to clear away; on the other, that this was done in a form and manner which could not but produce a confused view and false picture of the state of Germany. Gladly, however, I allow, that a very different mode of judging of German Theology would have given me infinitely deeper pain. I mean such an agreement with the prevailing views of the Rationalist School as would have presented then to the indifferent party in England under the dazzling colors of theological liberality. This would have seemed to me a yet more unnatural violation of the relation in which the English Church (taking the word in its widest sense) is called upon to stand to the German ; and since Mr. R. has missed the real course of the developement of the opinions of theological Germany, the harsh and oft perplexing manner in which he has delivered his statement may still indirectly be productive of much good, although indeed in order to its attainment, much accurate investigation and renewed examination on both sides will be unquestionably indispensable. You will have already perceived, (and indeed you were before aware) that I am not one of those Germans who have received this English work with a mere tissue of revilings, with renewed expressions of self-approbation, altogether mistaking the, (as I do not doubt) excellent and Christian disposition of its author. Very different are the thoughts to which it has given rise in myself; the most essential of these I will endeavour briefly to lay before you. First, then, I would remark the erroneousness and injustice of the imputation, that the Protestant Churches of Germany, founded as they were on the authority of Holy Scripture, at the same time permitted any one of their ministers and teachers to vary from it even in their public At no instruction as far and as often as they pleased.* The Protestant place and at no time was such the case. Churches of Germany have founded their public teaching and observances on confessions of faith, which their abandonment of unchristian errors compelled them to frame; and in these scriptural "confessions" themselves were marked *P. 10. |