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Elements of Biblical Theology, translated from the work of Storr and Flatt, with Additions; by S. S. SCHMUCKER. 2 vols. 8vo. Andover: 1826.

GERMAN theologians and philologists we have never idolized; we have never thought that they were the only men, and that wisdom would die with them. We have known, and been ready ever to state, that whatever might be true or false as to the talents and erudition, and facilities for research, and fundamental methods of study, which have distinguished the Biblical scholars of Germany, the great body of them have come to results which make the Word of God a dead and useless book, while many of them have interpreted its most interesting passages in a manner a hundredfold more inconsistent with common sense than any of the mysticisms of the Platonists, or the absurdities of the schoolmen.

On the other hand, we have never been filled with alarm, as we know some excellent Christians have been, to notice a growing fondness among our theological students for German authors. We apptehend no important dangers from the greatest familiarity with

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their philological and theological writings. Such a melancholy departure from truth and godliness as has been exhibited in the history of the Lutheran church of Germany, is not to be feared in the orthodox church of the United States. grand reason is, that a very plausible heresy already exists in the country, under the banners of which all classes of unbelievers can most easily and most honourably rank themselves. That this heresy will extend farther than it has we think not improbable, when we consider how fond the depraved heart is of error in religion. But it will be extended, as it has been hitherto, chiefly by its gathering under the mantle of a very broad and indefinite name, all who dislike and reject the truth, and who are hereby induced to break away from the doctrines and discipline of a pure and holy church. The effect of this will be, not in reality to diminish the true church, but only to exalt its character, to raise its standard of piety, and increase its living energies. In this view we think the orthodox church has before her the brightest and most cheering prospects. Her lifeless members, her fruitless branches, are cut off; and of the support of

her life and strength, she has assurance, under God's blessing, from those peculiar means of grace, which the piety of the past and present generation has brought into use in this country. The great movements of benevolence which give a character to the age are the security of the true church. In fact they are exerting a mighty in fluence to stop the progress of every great error, and to reclaim and purify even the churches which have given heed to lying vanities..

If then there were danger that some of our theological students would imbibe the errors of the writers in question, there would, in the present condition and prospects of the American church, be little to fear.

But Christians need not apprehend many apostasies from the true faith among our theological students in consequence of reading the German writers, even if there were no guard against it in the circumstances of the church. The errors of the authors are well understood in the general, before their writings are consulted, and there is a distinct and fixed object in view, which is to take the benefit of their attainments in all the branches of knowledge auxiliary to the grand business of interpreting the Bible, while there is not the least regard to their philosophical dogmas, which it must be remembered are the great source of all the loose and erroneous doctrines they advance. The student goes to their works knowing that he will have the task of separating the precious from the vile, of sifting the wheat from the chaff.

Were the danger, however, much greater, it would probably on the whole be expedient to hazard it. Such is the present state of theological discussion in our country, and such is the nature of the arguments and objections by which the defender of the truth is now assail

ed, that he must arm himself at all points, and he will be able to draw from these writers important assistance. He will ever find among them a few strong supporters of orthodoxy, whose writings are peculiarly valuable, especially those of the later authors who have written in view of all the doctrines of the modern rationalists and liberalists. Such was Dr. Storr, chief author of the work of which Professor Schmucker has given us a translation.

Storr lived while the Liberalists were in their greatest glory, and may justly be considered as the chief restorer and supporter of the orthodox faith in Germany. His name has long been familiar to the Biblical student. One of his minor pieces, the Essay on the Historical Sense of the New Testament, was several years ago put into an English dress, and somewhat extensively circulated. His Doctrina Christiana had found a place in the libraries of almost all our recent theologians, and when Mr. Schmucker's intention to translate it was announced, it was received with great pleasure by many, who have waited with some impatience for the completion of the work.

Before proceeding to a particular notice of this work, it may be suitable to glance very slightly at the state of theological and biblical opinions in Germany when the work was composed, and the steps which had led to their adoption.

The original creed of the Lutheran church was substantially orthodox, as is shown by her symbolical books. Subscription to these was required of all candidates for the ministry or for a degree in theology, and of all laymen on accepting any official situation, and in a few of the States they were guarded by severe pains and penalties. Some of the German writers consider that the symbolical books had an influence in holding together the church

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down nearly to the middle of the last century. But in the middle of the seventeenth century a subscription or oath with some reservation began to be allowed, the person being required to assent to them only quatenus cum S. S. concordant.' During the first century, (from the middle of the sixteenth, to the middle of the seventeenth,) the divines remained generally true to the faith of the reformers. The chief subjects of discussion and disputation were the points in controversy between the Protestants and the Catholics, and in the grand essentials of orthodoxy all were united. A spirit of controversy however had begun to burn between the Lutherans and Calvinists, which soon rose to such a height and produced such unhappy dissensions, that several excellent men made great efforts for a union of the two churches. One of the warmest advocates of union was Calixtus, a professor in the University of Helmstadt, whose zeal and writings in this cause occasioned what is called the syncretistic controversy, in which torrents of abusive scurrility were poured upon him, although in every respect one of the most eminent divines of the age. The bigotry displayed in this dispute by the Lutheran clergy created disgust in liberal and reflecting minds,especially as a melancholy number of the clergy, so far from manifesting the piety of Christians, actually indulged in immoral and vicious habits, for which the most rigid and punctilious adherence to the ancient symbols of their faith could make no atonement. Here we think it more than probable was the first germ of that poisonous plant, which has spread its roots and twined its tendrils so fatally among the foundations and around the columns of the Lutheran church. Many, weary of the strifes, and disgusted at the inconsistencies of the angry disputants, and beginning to despise their Aristotelian method of treating the

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ological subjects, chose to retire from the field of controversy, and pursue, with a criminal indifference to the practical interests of religion, those liberal studies which had been growing in popularity from the commencement of the reformation. In opposition, on the one hand, to those who with so much indifference to religion gave themselves to the pursuit of learning and science, and on the other, to those who placed so much stress upon the thorough orthodoxy of their faith, arose the Pietists. was the grand object of the good men of this school to render religion an efficacious principle, to exhibit it as designed to control the heart and the life. Hence their doctrine that the word of God is understood only when the heart is affected by a divine influence, and the inference which some of the disciples soon made, but which by no means follows, that all human attainments are useless. Had all to whom this name was applied been such men, or cherished only such principles as Spener of Berlin, or Franck of Halle, the Lutheran church would have had great occasion to be grateful for the rise of the sect. But the colleges of piety, as their private meetings were called, unfortunately were frequented by religionists of the most fanatical and disorganizing principles. The consequence was that both in Germany and abroad, the name of Pietism came at last to be associated with the wildest enthusiasm, and when, ever presented brought to mind, in a woful train of recollections, the stubborn prejudices of Arnold, the acrimonious bile of Dippelius, the romantic follies of Petersen and his visionary wife, the mystic dreams of Jacob Behmen, the star-gazing reveries of Paul Nagel, and the ridiculous pretensions of Christopher Kotter and Anne Vetter, with the whole brotherhood and sisterhood of delirious prophets.

The only effect therefore, which

Pietism could produce as to the party which had begun to swerve from the strictness and spirituality of the primitive reformers, was to alienate them still more from every thing favouring the peculiarities of evangelical religion, and induce them to look abroad for principles more congenial to the cold speculations of reason and philosophy. They began accordingly, in the former part of the eighteenth century, to study the writings of the Polish Socinians, the English Deists, and the French Literati, and soon imbibed many of their pernicious notions.

This, co-operating with the natural effect of Pietism, led the more orthodox party to a higher cultivation of philosophy, and an attempt to build their system of faith upon principles more purely demonstrative. Leibnitz and Wolf were the founders of the philosophical school, and their system, although it was at first opposed, (Wolf being even expelled from his office in the university of Halle on account of his principles,) yet before long gained numerous and vehement admirers, who laboured with great assiduity and ardor in applying it to support the doctrines of religion. The disciples of this school produced metaphysical and even mathematical demonstrations of the Trinity, the nature of Christ, and the duration of future punishment. One of them commenced a new version of the Bible, prefixing to it a system of theology drawn up in geometrical order, which was to guide him in interpreting the sacred writers. It is impossible to say how much these efforts contributed to nourish the same mistaken views as to the power and province of human reason, which were fostered by the deistical studies of the other class of theologians just mentioned; but it certainly must appear probable that they tended in no small degree to intro

duce that disposition, which became so general about the middle of the century, to unite the doctrines of scripture with the discoveries of reason; to connect Christianity with natural religion; to give, in short, to the whole gospel a rational and philosophical dress.

Just at this juncture appeared the bold innovator, who has the undisputed honour of being the father of the modern Liberalism. Semler was brought up in the midst of the Pietists, and although he caught none of the ardour of their religious feelings, nor of their indifference to human learning, he imbibed a double portion of their contempt for formal creeds and symbols. Nature gave him a most powerful mind, and he stored it richly with the fruits of diligent, various, and extensive research; but both his talents and learning were most grossly abused in devis ing and defending the theories of a subtle and perverse ingenuity. His doctrines soon attracted universal attention, and obtained an astonishing degree of approbation and influence. He attacked the symbols of the church in a most violent manner, and from this period they ceased to have any power. He attacked the canon of scripture, and shortly had followers who stripped the whole Bible of its claims to divine authority. He started the doctrine of accommodation, and in the hands of his disciples it proved a most fearful engine in sweeping away every valuable principle of religion. The new light rapidly spread. Writers multiplied. Speculation grew in audacity. Ere long it was ascertained that miracles are an absolute impossibility, inspiration a downright absurdity, nearly all that Jesus ever did or said was in condescension and adaptation to the ignorance and prejudice of the Jews, most that was written by the apostles was little better than blunder or falsehood, the ac

count of the creation was merely a philosophical fable, and the history of Christ a new mythology, like the incarnations of Vishnoo.

Such were the speculations of the school of Semler. No serious mind can think of them but with disgust. Yet more or less of this indecency and profaneness is found in nearly all the Commentaries, Biblical Antiquities, Introductions, and Hermeneutical or Dogmatical systems, which deluded Germany at the close of the last century. It deserves to be noticed too, that these pernicious doctrines were not confined to writings designed merely for scholars and divines. They were embodied and circulated in popular treatises, and in periodical publications, which carried the poison throughout the community. They were boldly and impiously avowed and proclaimed in the Lutheran pulpits. They were taught in the Gymnasia and Universities to every class of the youth. They were even infused into the elementary books of instruction, of which we will give one example in a work of Becker, called a, Universal History for the Young.'This contained a chapter on Christianity, in which the evangelists are styled the wretched biographers of Jesus. John the Baptist and Jesus are represented as artful emissaries of the sect of Essenes, who secretly supported them; the account of the crucifixion is pronounced a mere tale, and the miracles of the New Testament, termed in general concerted fabrications.

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It was no wonder therefore that a great indifference to all religious subjects, and consequently a low tone of moral feeling, should soon pervade the country. It was no wonder that the lower classes, where there remained any seriousness and religion, should turn again to the writings and system of the Pietists for something to satisfy and sustain their feelings, or

that those in the higher ranks should begin to look with favour upon the worship and ceremonies of the Catholic church as most congenial to religious emotion, and actually desert, as numbers did, the ranks of the Protestants. It was no wonder that some of the more reflecting should come forward with new systems of philosophy, supporting religion and morals not upon any grounds of reason or deductions of argument, but upon intuition and original feeling. These systems, although opposed for the most part to the scheme of rationalism, are by no means calculated to promote correct views of theology or practical religion. Kant of ten advocates the cause of the scriptures and the old orthodox faith, and is frequently quoted with respect by Storr, but his views tend too much to mysticism and Platonism to be followed with advantage or safety. Schelling, whose system is we believe, the latest in vogue in that land of systems and theories, is a violent opposer of the Rationalists, comparing them to the unhappy beings whom Dante places "in the foreground of the mansion of woe, rejected by heaven yet not received by hell;" but his philosophy, besides being exceedingly vague and mystical, is directly atheistic in its tendencies, teaching that the existence of man and of spirits is nothing real, except as it is identical with the existence of God, and that in fact, neither exists out of the Divine Being.

In such a state of things as resulted from the principles of Semler, nothing could be more desirable for the cause of religion, than that some man of piety, talents, and suitable Biblical attainments should be found to resist the flood of mischief swelling on every side. It was at this time that Storr came forward to overthrow the foundations of the liberal school, being every way qualified for his task. He was as

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