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ecclesiastical influence equal to that maintained by Lord Shaftesbury under the Palmerston government; gifted, not with that creative power or speculative intrepidity which the tendency of his age and nation might have turned to an ill account, but with a profound and chivalric reverence for truth, with vigorous and almost intolerant common-sense, with singular hermeneutical sagacity, and with a severe and ponderous logic, he was the man of all others to gain a hearing for the orthodox faith among the polite, and a triumph for it among the learned. He knew no half-way advocacy; and it was well that such was the case, for when he began to write there was a paradox in an unreserved faith which excited an attention which was denied to a hesitating and qualified confession. The genuineness of the canon, old and new, the inspiration of thought, if not of letter, the absoluteness, the completeness, and the necessity of the word of God as a means of salvation against the Rationalists as well as against the Romanists, were asserted by him almost singly at a time when such an advocacy would have been audacions were it not sublime. It was enough for him that Christianity was in danger. It made no matter to him that the assailants were countless and the defenders but few. With his usual chivalry he flung himself into the place where the defense seemed most weak. This was the historical books of the Old Testament. Here a siege had been maintained under the united forces of Gesenius, of Eichhorn, of Valke, of Stähelin, of Van Bohlen, of Tuch, of Ewald. Genesis was the particular point of attack. Eichhorn declared that it was pieced up from two supposititious documents; Ilgen from three; Vater from an innumerable number. One class treated it as a myth, another as an allegory, another as a guess, another as a legend. Nor did the attack spend itself on Genesis. The whole Pentateuch was declared, and truly too, to be involved in the fate of its first book. And upon the prophets an attack was begun, which was already signalized by the surrender of Daniel by most even of orthodox critics, and of Zechariah by not a few.

It was in defense of this humanly forlorn cause that Hengstenberg, with the most dauntless courage, and with a controversial grandeur which enabled him to tower above every as

sailant, threw himself into the midst of the fray. At once his presence was signally felt. There was a lofty moral and religious purpose about him that gave him superhuman power and dignity, for it was the dignity of truth and faith. To this were added an ingenuity and strength which enabled him to reconcile discrepancies which less confident and less sagacious apologists had admitted to be contradictions; to show how the apparently trivial letter of the levitical ordinances was pregnant with the sublimest moral and spiritual teaching; to vindicate the integrity of the disputed documents; and to prove that in perfect conformity with them were the doctrines of grace as held by the Lutheran and Reformed Communions. The volumes in which this great work was achieved are known to most of our readers. The first in point of date was the "Contributions to the Introduction to the New Testament," published in 1831, the special object of which was the vindication of the genuineness of the Pentateuch, of Daniel, of Zechariah. Still more valuable than this, from its spiritual as well as its critical power, is his Christology of the Old Testament, a revised edition of which was published in 1854, and which has been brought before the English and American public in Clark's Theological Library. This work is executed with an ability and a fullness which makes it useful for religious edification as well as for controversial study. The author seizes upon the grand Messianic idea, which is the basis of the whole Old Testament, and develops it in its spiritual as well as its critical relations. What was apparently purposeless and trivial in the old dispensation he thus vindicates; what was obscure he illuminates; and even Rationalism bowed with awe when it discovered the text it had spurned, invested by its new champion with moral grandeur, if not with divine glory. But he went beyond this. Adopting the same idea almost simultaneously brought out by Mr. Walker, of Ohio, in the "Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation," Hengstenberg developed the educational character of Judaism as a substantive branch of Internal Evidence. Men were to be gradually led to Christ by (1) the culture of Judaic symbolism, and (2) by the progressive development of the Messianic idea. At first the voice is heard in the desert but faintly. Jacob but inarticulately mutters the truth as he dies leaning

on his staff. David, it is true, points us to the family of Messiah, and shows us His glory and His sufferings; yet the glory and the sufferings are both spread before us, not with distinct lineaments, but in heavy masses of coloring-sometimes splendid sometimes sombre-but always requiring the cipher of the future for their individual resolution. But with Isaiah it was back history. Israel was to be led by the patriarchs to the mount; by the psalmist to the summit; and by the prophet to the very foot of the cross. The cross itself was to be heralded in a way which we would à priori expect as meet for the central divine dispensation. Thus not only was the philosophy and symmetry of the divine plan exhibited, but the critical difficulties arising from the forcing of the text by former injudicious advocates, as well as from its depreciation by skeptics, were removed. And although the rationalist critics affected at first to treat Hengstenberg's labors with contempt, and though in one or two cases they were able to bring home to him errors arising from his tendency to hasty dogmatism, yet the result was established by the fact that in two or three years, while the old orthodox creed was vigorously taught in fields it had almost deserted, the several skeptical hypotheses almost entirely disappeared from notice. No longer pretending to a positive system of its own, and no longer boasting in an entire and sweeping skepticism, rationalism has since contented itself with carping at points of mere superficial criticism.

We now come to the more recent of the German Christian apologies. It needs only a glance to prove to us how great has been the advance since those not very distant days when the defenders of the faith thought themselves venturesome if they went beyond the assertion of a meagre historical belief. Now rationalism is driven back to its inmost citadel, and is even there held at bay. As an illustration of this, we will refer to one or two recent works now upon our table.

The first of these is an "Apology for Christianity, in Letters to Educated Readers," by Dr. C. H. Stirm, published in 1856.* It seems from the preface that an "Evangelical Union" at Wurtemburg, offered in 1828 a prize for an apology for Christianity, to be addressed to the educated classes. The prize was

* Apologie des Christenthums, in Briefen für gebildete Leser, eine gekrönte Preisschrift von C. H. STIRM. Zweite verbesserte und vermehrte Auflage. Stuttgart, 1856.

in 1832 awarded to the present treatise, which, after having at tracted great attention in Germany, and having been translated in Holland, is now brought before us in its present edition in a shape greatly enlarged and improved.

The main points which the author discusses, are the religious condition of the present, and the method to arrive at a wellgrounded conviction of the truth and divine mission of Christianity; (Letter I.) the integrity and veracity of the New Testament narratives as the sole positive source of Christian knowledge; (Letter II.) the credibility of these writings as shown by both external and internal evidence; (Letter III.) the principles of Christian faith and life, involving the doctrine of human cor ruption and inability; (Letter IV.) the terms of salvation ; (Letter V.) the historical position of Christianity, involving its preparation among heathen and Jews; (Letter VI.) the historical influence of Christianity; (Letter VII.) the moral influence of Christianity; (Letter VIII.) the influence of Christianity in the refinement and elevation of the individual man; (Letter IX.) the comparative merits of Christianity as a religious system; (Letter X.) the truth of Christianity as evidenced by the historical Christ; (Letter XI.) the relations of faith and reason; (Letter XII.) and the contrast of the several Christian. creeds, for example, the Romish, the Greek, the Lutheran, and the Reformed, as compared with each other, and as compared with the true Christian idea.

From the Fifth Letter we give, as a specimen of the author's style, the following translation of a passage on the union of the divine and the human in our Lord:

"I have, in my last letter, led you into the depth of human misery, and attempted to describe the fearful laceration of the human heart, as the Christian doctrine (supported by experience) represents it. Whither shall we fly for help, salvation, health, and harmony? where shall we find the way to communion with God? A superficial observer would reply: Human nature has power enough to raise itsel again, even out of the deepest abyss, to (the highest) perfection. But I merely reply to this, that, in this very answer, the historical influence of Christianity has been implicitly conceded; as it is only since the appearance of Christianity that such a progress is perceptible, while the condition previous to its establishment ought to be taken into consideration. This done, we can not help saying that the beforementioned assertion is nothing but an arbitrary one, as it is supposed that there was power for what could not be attained from the very want of power. Nay, man(kind) had not even the IDEA of the absolutely perfect state which it was to attain; it lacked the thought and perception of an ideal of the human nature united

with God, which ideal might have elevated and saved it. A few philosophers had, indeed, looked up to a divine aim, but it remained only an ideal(ity) without realization. Mankind longed for it, and manifested this longing in manifold ways; nay, that desire is written deep in the heart of every man. But history alone, that is, God in history, could give an answer.

"Is mankind to be saved from ruin, the guilt which oppresses every joyous moral emotion must be taken off, and the consequences of this guilt must be wiped away. But if this is to be accomplished in an efficient and satisfactory manner, an objective reason, a historical fact, must be given to man, which he may accept with confidence. This, however, would by itself be a mere exterior healing, without removing the inner material cause of disease. To use a striking parable of the Lord, (Matt. 12 29,) the strong man must first be bound, then you may rob his goods; the tree must first be good before its fruit can be good. The good itself must, therefore, be implanted in man; a positive living power and love for good must be imparted to him. But how can this be accomplished? By the appearance of the good and perfect in the human world, or by the imparting of the divine life itself. The divine life belonging to the supernatural order of things must be imparted, since the perfect is not to be found in humanity; since all that comes from man partakes more or less of the common sinfulness. But it must be imparted in a human person if it is truly to bear upon the human heart. God is to render a human nature the instrument of his grace, and must realize in the same the divine life, the ideal of holiness, in all degrees of human development. And from this starting-point-in which is now accomplished, as in a new Adam, (1 Cor. 15: 45,) the unity of divine and human life-it must spread over mankind in a sanctifying, purifying, and reconciling manner. This is, if rightly understood, the very nucleus of the Christian doctrine. Adam and Christ are the two representatives of mankind; the former typifying mankind as it recedes from God, the latter typifying the same as it returns to him; both are the centres, around which mankind moves in opposite direction.

"But we would not sufficiently appreciate and properly estimate Christ's influence and dignity, if we imagined that he had merely taken his place in history in order to rectify the evil and restore the lost. A much higher, much more important efficiency is ascribed to him, a gift of new life far exceeding the loss, (Rom. 5: 15.) Man was to be raised, through him, to higher glory; he was to be capable of a higher evolution of the life implanted in him by God, than had been the case since Adam. Christ is, therefore, (1 Cor. 15: 45-49,) compared to Adam as the heavenly to the earthly, without regard to the fall by sin. Hence it is (Eph. 1:4; 3:9; 1 Peter 1: 20; 2 Tim. 1: 9-10; Rom. 16: 25) that salvation was foreordained before the world began. Unless we say that Christ would not have appeared without the fall by sin-so that, consequently, the noblest and only perfect man that history can show would have existed only through Adam's fall-we must assert that God has not only foreseen the fall from eternity, and prepared a remedy for it since eternity, but also that it was his good pleasure (Eph. 1: 5) to manifest himself in the fullness of time (Gal. 4: 4) to mankind in a human person, in order to impart to the former the greatest possible abundance of divine life, and thus to finish, as it were, the work of spiritual creation. And this divine decree has its ultimate basis in the love and grace of God alone, or solely in his own will, (John 3:16; Rom. 3: 24; Eph. 1: 11,) wherefore God is called the Saviour, (1 Tim.

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