and Assyria; including Readings of the Inscriptions on the Nimroud Obelisk; and a brief notice of the Ancient Kings of Nineveh and Babylon. Read before the Royal Asiatic Society. By Major H. C. Rawlinson. London, 1850. 5. A Later Communication from Lieutenant-Colonel Rawlin- son, C.B., containing Outlines of Assyrian History from the Inscriptions of Nineveh; followed by some Remarks, by A. 6. Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy. Vol. XXII., Part XI. On the Inscriptions of Khorsabad. By the Rev. Edward Hincks, D.D. Dublin, 1851. 797 AMERICAN PUB- 800 XI. RECENT BRITISH, GERMAN, AND AMERICA) 1. Discourses on Christian Nurture. By Horace Bushnell, D.D., Pastor of the North Church, Hartford. Approved by the Committee of Publication. Boston, Massachusetts Sabbath School Society. 12mo. Pp. 72. 3. Dr Tyler's Letter to Dr Bushnell on Christian Nurture. 3. An Argument for "Discourses on Christian Nurture," ad- dressed to the Publishing Committee of the Massachusetts IV. OXFORD AND ROME: DR WISEMAN'S ESSAYS, Article 2. The Spanish Protestants, and their Persecution by Philip 4. Letters from Spain. By Don Leucadio Doblado. London, 3. Gatherings from Spain. By Richard Ford. London, 1846. 6. Memoir of a Mission to Gibraltar and Spain. By the Rev. Church of Spain. By the 7. The Practical Working of the 9. Spain, its Position and Evangelization, &c. VI. THE GYMNASIUM IN PRUSSIA, VII. HISTORICAL THEOLOGY, By James 943 963 A Vindication of the Idea of Historical Development. By Philip Schaf. Translated from VIII. MAURICE'S THEOLOGICAL ESSAYS, Theological Essays. By Frederic Denison Maurice, M.A., IX. CRITICAL NOTICES, RIODICALS, X. GERMAN RELIGIOUS PERIODICALS, XI. MISCELLANIES- The Masquerade of Infidelity, Dr Spiegel's Grammar of the Parsi, 981 1026 1044 1059 INDEX TO SELECTED PAPERS. In No. IV., Articles II., IV., V., VI., VIII., are from the Princeton In No. V., Articles I., II., IV., V., are from the Princeton Review, and In No. VI., Articles I. and II. are from the Princeton Review, and Article In No. VII., Articles II., III., VI., and VII., are from the Princeton The Critical Notice in No. VII. of the "Conflict of Ages," is from the All the other Papers are Original. BRITISH AND FOREIGN EVANGELICAL REVIEW. MARCH 1853. ART. I.-JOHN Albert Bengel : THE LUTHERAN CHURCH AS HE FOUND IT-HIS LIFE AND LABOURS. It is precisely a century since this rare combination of scholarship and grace was removed from the Church below; and yet far from being on the wane, his name at this day stands as high perhaps in his own country, the classic land of biblical criticisin, as ever it did, and those who seldom concur in any thing else bear testimony alike to the merits of Bengel. While such scholars as Winer do homage to his philological attainments, the sweet odour of his expositions at Sabbath evening prayermeetings perfumes the pages of Hengstenberg on the Revelation; and while his close walk with God, and the calm, clear elevation of soul which this imparted-though freely expressed in spiritual hymns and other exercises which none but the children of God can appreciate-are discernible in his critical writings only by that unction which his countrymen are wont to style the mystic element, there is not a scholar in Germany who does not readily assign him the credit of being the first to detect among the manuscripts of the Greek Testament, over which he bent with rare interest and critical sagacity, a relationship in their characteristic readings, giving them the now-established name of families, and distinguishing these into the Asiatic and the African-the only classification which, after all the recensions since proposed, seems now in possession. of the field. In this country, however, where a deeper sympathy with his peculiar cast of mind might be expected to exist, the number of those whose acquaintance with Bengel goes much beyond the name is comparatively small. The high testimony borne to his immortal "Gnomon" by Archdeacon VOL. II.-NO. I. Α Hare, in his "Mission of the Comforter," the few gems from that casket which adorn some of our recent theological works, and the recommendation of it by some professors to their students, have probably helped to bring it anew into notice. The sale, indeed, of the third Tübingen edition (1835-36), and the recent issue of a fourth from the same press, and with a London imprint (1850), evince the growing popularity of that work. But the obligations of the Christian world to this admirable man can be estimated only by those who have studied his life and writings in the light of the age to which they belong, and have observed with what elements of enduring value they are charged; how amid the decaying formalisms of the Lutheran Church, the reactionary but unsteady pietism in which the breath of a new life was fondly hailed, and the incipient rationalism which sprang out of the exhausted remedy, Bengel steered his course, holding and teaching the faith of his Church without its wretched technicalities, diffusing around him the warmth of a living piety without the peculiarities of the pietistic school, and in the critical principles which he formed for himself, and advocated from the press, liberal even to suspicion, without a tincture of the new rationalism which was so soon to deluge theological Germany. Transition-periods in the history of the Church, such as that in which Bengel lived, while they are fraught with instruction to after times, are peculiarly trying to those whose lot is cast in them, and bring out in a strong light the character of such as take any prominent part in the business of them. We should not greatly err, for example, in tracing the accession of Tertullian in his later days to the Montanists in a good measure to the decaying supernaturalism of the Church piety, which in the third century had lost much of its apostolic simplicity and warmth the Phrygian fervour of the new sect operating upon the fiery temperament and ascetic tendencies of the Carthaginian presbyter; and on the same principle, as Tertullian himself became ultimately more moderate, so his party in Africa melted away in the warmth of that great western luminary which, rising at Hippo, soon provided within the Church what earnest piety had been seeking without it. The case of Grotius furnishes another illustration of the influence of times and circumstances upon the character and actions of public men. The growing leanings of that great man towards the Church of Rome in his old age-leanings which but for his death would probably have ripened into open secession-were doubtless only a development of character, under the influence of the malign atmosphere in which he had passed his best days, that of a rapidly degenerating semi-pelagian party, and his subsequent political connection with the court of France.* As for Bengel, he was no public man, in the usual sense of that term. Nearly thirty years of his life were spent at Denkendorf, a small town in Würtemburg, as a divinity tutor; and though he was ultimately raised to the highest ecclesiastical dignities in the Lutheran Church, his life to the last was quiet and unobtrusive,-nor was he known even to his own Church at large, save through his academic chair and his literary works. And yet, to apprehend at this time of day what Bengel was and what he did, some knowledge of the state of the Lutheran Church when he came upon the stage is indispensable. And as some of the facts of the following sketch are accessible to few, and they are pregnant with instruction independently of their bearing on the more immediate subject of this paper, we shall, even at the risk of limiting our space for the discussion of other topics, endeavour to place before our readers the singular elements which were successively developed in the bosom of the Lutheran Church from the time when it obtained an independent footing till the birth of Bengel. Foremost among these elements, as first in time, must be placed dogmatic Lutheranism. For more than a century after the German Reformation was established, perhaps the most humiliating spectacle which Protestant Christendom presented was to be seen in the favoured land of its birth. The history of the Lutheran Church during that period has yet to be written in our language, if indeed it be worth writing. The materials for it are scarcely to be had in this country. Hardly any of the works indispensable for it are to be found in our public libraries; and even in Germany, though church histories are abundant, and monograms on almost every subordinate topic, it would be a matter of some difficulty to collect the materials from which these are drawn. They are in truth petrifactions. Yet even as fossil remains of an extinct period, a certain melancholy interest attaches to them, showing as they do how political devices and sectarian passions can jointly succeed in undoing, under pretext of maintaining and developing, the noblest work of God. It was the misfortune of the German Church that the imperfections of its two leading Reformers were too vividly stamped upon it. In the struggle with Rome, the lion of the Reformation did the work of God to admiration. His stout heart was doubtless given him for that purpose. But in controversy with his fellow-Reformers about his unhappy sacramental * See his Letters, extracts from which will be found in Hallam's Literature of Europe, third edition, vol. ii., pp. 312-316, note. |
0 Отзывы Google не подтверждает отзывы, однако проверяет данные и удаляет недостоверную информацию. Написать отзыв |