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Philadelphia, July 25, 1829. Mr. Editor,-Having read a good deal of some recent discussions on original sin, in which, as it seems to me, the old notions of Pelagius are brought forward in something of a new form, I was much struck this day, with a few paragraphs in Milner's Church History, which I hit upon while looking for something else. Having noticed the fact, that A. D. 253, a council of 66 bishops, with Cyprian at their head, had decided a question relative to infant baptism, the historian takes the opportunity to give his own views of that subject, and then adds the following remarks:

"I could have wished that Christian people had never been vexed with a controversy so frivolous as this about baptism, and having, once for all, given my views and the reasons of them, I turn from the subject, and observe further, that there is in the extract of the letter before us,* a strong and clear testimony of the faith of the ancient church concerning original sin. One may safely reason in the same way as in the case just now considered, but the fulness of Scripture concerning so momentous a point precludes the necessity of traditional arguments. A lover of divine truth will be glad

however to learn, that Christians in the middle of the third century did believe, without contradiction, that men were born in sin and under the wrath of God through Adam's transgression, conceiving themselves as one with him, and involved with him in the consequences of his offence. Modern self-conceit may say to this what it pleases; but thus thought ancient Christians in general, and the very best Christians too, with whom was the spirit of Christ in a powerful degree. The just conse quence of such facts is not always attended to by those who are concerned in it. Yes, but reason should be attended to." So I say; but what is right reason? To submit to the testimony of the Divine Word. This alone is sufficient and is above all; if men will not abide. by this, it is not unreasonable to tell them, that their strained interpretations of Scripture are confuted by the sense of the primitive church, who had every opportunity of knowing the truth; that to deduce Scripture doctrines from what we should fancy to be reasonable, is not reason, but pride; that an argument drawn from settling the question,

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What did the ancient Christians think of these things deserves some attention; but that an argu. ment drawn from our own fancies, what we think ought to be in Scripture, deserves none at all. It may be called the language of philoso phy; nothing is more confused than the use of that term in our days; but it is not the language of one disposed to hear the word of God and to do it.”

L. N.

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And see again, after a little space,

The cloud is o'er

And shining clearer, brighter than before,
She glories in her race.

So have I seen the young, the good, the fair,
Rejoice in life,

Till

disappointment, wo, and bitter care, Remorse and pangs of mem'ry, ever rife, Taught them to shun the strife.

But ne'er have I beheld

Those who have trusted in their father's God,
To sink beneath the load-

Sooner or later did their sufferings end;
The dark cloud was dispell'd,

And they more purely, brightly on did wend,
Than when their hearts with youthful joyance swell'd,
For they who trust in God can never want a friend.

Let all our young readers mark and remember these lines.-EDIT.

A.

Keview.

In the following continuation of the review of Neologism, the writer of it for the Archives du Christianisme, has interposed his remarks, including them between brackets, in such a manner as to interrupt the quotation from Wegsheider's Theology, very unpleasantly. Yet we think the remarks just and important; and do not perceive how we can better dispose of them than to permit them to remain as he has placed them. The piece should be first read with an entire omission of what is contained in the brackets, and then reviewed in connexion with them. In the Archives the original Latin of Wegsheider is given at the bottom of the page. This we omit-One exhibition of his detestable infidelity is surely enough. We have examined the translation, and find that it faithfully conveys the sense of the original.

GERMAN NEOLOGISM.

(Continued from page 312.) But it may be asked, how, in spite of the energetick and im

posing opposition of men of the greatest merit, the influence of Neologism extended itself, as it must be acknowledged that it did, over the majority of young ministers? how has it maintained a preponderancy in the republick of literature, and given such a tone to the most respectable journals, that every orthodox Christian has passed for a person of contracted spirit, in the rear of his age and of the present state of science; and that every learned man, every independent thinker, and above all, every professor of a university, who would remain loyal to the ancient faith, has, in order to brave the ridicule which he drew upon himself, needed a moral firmness and elevation of soul, which is too often found wanting in men the most distinguished for intelligence and mental power?

To this question a reply may be made in the words of St. Augustine, satisfactory to those who know the sad state of the human heart, and man's wretched weakness: "If Christians should be afraid of the railleries of pagans, they would be

lieve nothing, not even the resurrection of Christ."* Here the repugnance of many modern German theologians to admit the very miracle cited by Augustine, presents itself spontaneously to our recollection. Ever since Dr. Paulus, in his celebrated commentary on the Gospels, called in question the reality of the death of Christ, and maintained his opinion in the second edition of his commentary, against the decisive observations of the physician, Dr. Gruner, the rationalists have more or less openly declared in favour of this new refinement of the gospel history. We shall presently see, how, respecting the principal events of the life of our Saviour, and the opinion which the enlightened interpreter of his biographers has elevated into a maxim of sound and philosophical criticism, a divine of the university of Halle expresses himself in a treatise of Christian theology, five editions of which published in few years, and its adoption by many theological professors as a manual for students attending their lectures, prove its influence and popularity. I make choice of this example, because there are some persons disposed to soften a passage, taken from the same work,t

* Nec enim ipsum Christum quòd tertio die resurrexit crederemus, si fides Christianorum cachinnum metueret paganorum.

†This passage, read with attention, and compared with the whole tenor of the book of Dr. Wegsheider, makes Jesus simply a wise man, aided by divine Providence with special help; in whom, or by whom, the divine power, operating with wisdom, (the word of God, John . 1, 14,) that is, in other terms, the providence of God, ("SIVE Providentia Dei") is reported (traditur) to have been manifested in a wonderful manner, (mirum quantum) and who is, in a manner, (quasi) the effulgence of the Deity itself (quasi ipsius numinis draugaoua, Heb. i. 3). Certainly the quasi is superfluous, when we read in the sacred author what precedes and follows the words, "Who is the brightness of his glory and the express image of his Person." He that

as offering a profession of faith most conformable to the true Chris

"made the world," and who "upholds all things by the word of his power," is not a simple organ of Providence, an instru ment, which it employs in the accom plishment of its designs. "Consequent. ly," says Dr. Wegsheider, in conclusion, "the doctrine of the Trinity may be reduced to this proposition:-God the Fa

ther manifests himself to men, by Jesus Christ, as the Holy Spirit. Whatever may be the opinion that is adopted re specting this tenet," adds he, "is entitled to the greatest indulgence, provided it do which lead us to virtue." But this is just not weaken or enervate the motives the essential point. Christians, who find this tenet clearly taught in Scripture, who think they see, and who rejoice in its intimate and indissoluble connexion with other doctrines, revealed for our moral healing, can never consider a divergency of opinions upon this capital point as indifferent or unimportant. In concluding, the Doctor recommends it to those who handle this matter publickly, to use great circumspection, lest they urge upon the credence of more enlightened Christians, a theory which is repugnant to their conscience, and which would weigh upon them like a yoke or burden, that is to say, which would be offensive to reason, (for very evidently this is the sense of his expression, Ne conscientia oneretur, Christianorum fide provectiorum,) and lest they shock, or injure, in their way of thinking, persons of weaker understanding and less fensionis aliquid capiat, page 198). Beenlightened (ne IMBECILLIORUM religio of hold us then, in the bosom of His church, who has ordered the glad tidings to be published from the house-tops, who, on every occasion, marked his abhorrence of hypocrisy, his aversion from all concealment, from all pusillanimous management in the concerns and interests of truth-of that truth, which it is essential to his religion to consider as always useful, never as hurtful, as always necessary, and never to be hidden timidly under a bushel; be hold us in the bosom of a church which has been founded at the expense of the blood of the Son of God, after an open conflict with the powers of darkness and deceit; behold us arrived, by a pretended progress of interpreting his gospel, to the refinement of having a double doctrine, one for the strong and another for the weak!-behold us deprived of the glorious prerogative of Christianity, that of offering to all its disciples the same truth, and the whole truth, and of being freed from the deceitful policy of augurs, who could not meet one another without a con.

tian doctrine, respecting that mystery which rationalists are thought to reject with the least hesitation, and because the paragraph which we are about to transcribe, contains a summary of the creed of the Germon rationalists, presented with a frankness and a precision, that form an honourable contrast to the artifice and hypocrisy of phrase em ployed by a great many of them, in order not to shock the multitude by too gross an exposition of their esoterick doctrine. We translate § 121 (p. 263, 2d edition) of Wegsheider's Theology.

"It is with the history of Jesus

scious smile-a policy as degrading to those who put it into operation, under whatever specious motive of promoting the publick good it may be sheltered, as it is iniquitous and injurious in regard to those who are held under so humiliating a guardianship. I am convinced, that upon a close view of this sort of management, they who are acquainted with the open, frank, and upright manner of the English Unitarians, will cease to bestow their approbation upon this twisted and ambiguous profession of Dr. Wegsheider's faith, and will see that it is nothing else than pure and simple rationalism, ill disguised under precautions unworthy of the honesty and candour, which (we love to repeat it) otherwise advantageously dis tinguishes Wegsheider from a crowd of other Janus-faced theologians. Without hazard of being deceived, I can assure the defenders of the Doctor's faith, that this theologian would smile, were he acquainted with the fact, at the benevolent efforts made in favour of his orthodoxy. Very far from participating in this tender soli. citude for his reputation concerning a belief in a supernatural revelation, he would feel very repugnant to be considered as acknowledging in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, any thing more than the most illustrious of the sages, and of the benefactors of humanity, aided by a providential concurrence of historical antecedents and contemporaneous events. He would dread the cachinnum provectiorum. Do not the doctors of the double doctrine, one for the people and another for the more enlightened, perceive that the moral evil, which produces a duplicity, an intrigue, so debasing, is positive and incalculable, while the good resulting from such a prudence is problematical, and worthless, compared to the moral obligation which they trample under foot?

Christ, as with many other histories of the same kind, which_remain to us from antiquity. Explained according to the rules of philosophy and criticism, it undoubtedly teaches that he was a man, and that he possessed nothing more than a human destiny. For if we draw aside the mythical veil, and remove all the poetical adorning, with which every event of the life of Jesus, as delivered in the books of the New Testament, is enveloped, there will remain a narrative, of which the following is a summary:" [What is this mythical envelope? what are the poetical ornaments, of which it is necessary to deprive the text of the Evangelists before we can arrive at the truth; and which are here evidently assimilated to the fables told about the birth and death of Romulus, and other great men of antiquity? There is undoubted reference to the first chapters of Matthew and Luke, and in general to all the miraculous facts related in the Gospels.] "Jesus was born under the reign of Augustus, of Galilæan parents, who were related to the family of David. Gifted with eminent powers of body and mind, which were seasonably developed, penetrated with a deep sense of religion, (Acts x. 38.) and imbued with a knowledge of the Old Testament, and with all the Jewish learning of his age (§ 44)."-[In the paragraph to which the author here refers the reader, he labours to establish the idea, that the divine assistance, in which the prophets participated as well as Jesus Christ, consisted merely in that kind of inspiration which may be attributed to all who announce truths worthy of God and beneficial to men, and which Seneca and Marcus Aurelius consider common to every good man.]-"he devoted himself to the rabbinical office. The rabbins were men, who went from place to place, instructing their own particular disciples, and others that might be willing to hear them." [There is a book

published in Prussia, with the best intentions, the title of which says more than the longest historical developments, for the conviction of those who are still inclined to doubt the predominancy of the rationalist opinions in Germany. It is as follows: "Was Jesus any thing more than a simple rabbi of Judea "]" In the fulfilment of this office, while he chiefly set himself to oppose with vigour the traditions and subtleties of the Pharisees, he forthwith became so famous for his sayings and actions, that many took him for the Messiah, ($50) whom, at that time, the Jews ardently expected ;"-[In this $50, Wegsheider labours to discredit all the prophecies of the Old Testament, and maintains that Jesus only accommodated them to himself by a wise condescension to the received opinions of the Jews.] -"and he himself, firmly persuaded by some declarations of the Old Testament, became convinced that he was really the Messiah, and that he was commissioned by God to the office of a divine teacher; which was agreeable to the opinions of his countrymen, and was wisely overruled by Providence for the accomplishment of its designs." [What, then, was this persuasion but a mere illusion, of which he was the dupe, and with which Providence, in its purposes of beneficence, co-operated? A fine game, truly, to be played between God and Him who is his perfect image! a game worthy of the Supreme Truth and of Him who is himself" the way, the life, and the truth!"] "Although he taught the people no other thing than a refined Mosaïsm," [a refined Mosaïsm! Behold to what Wegsheider reduces the Gospel of the Son of God!] "and although he recommended his doctrine by the example of an eminently holy and virtuous life, yet he met with most powerful enemies, whose conspiracies he escaped for a while through his courage, but at last he fell their victim. Condemned to death by an infuriated mob,

he was fixed to a cross. He was taken from it seemingly LIKE A DEAD PERSON, and revived on the third day. After he had met a number of times with his disciples, and renewed the announcement of his design to establish and to propagate a new religion, HE WITHDREW FROM THEM, AND THEY SAW HIM NO MORE." [Can it be more plainly said, that, deprived of its mythological investment, and of the ornaments which imagination has added to it-in a word, reduced by sound criticism to naked and indubitable facts, the his tory of Jesus Christ no longer offers the offensive miracles of his resurrection and ascension.]

But when we see an acute theologian openly professing to deny all immediate intervention of God for the establishment of Christianity, and consigning this persuasion to an official publication, intended as a guide to the students who attend his lectures, in one of the most celebrated universities of Germany, the seat of the admirable institu tions of such men as Franke, Canstein, &c. for the confirmation and propagation of the religion of the Redeemer of men, we return with redoubled astonishment to the ques tion already solved: how could such a change be effected, and in so short a space of time, in a country where the minds of men are by education and habit so disposed to seriousness, where discussion is so patient and deliberate, and the adoption of new doctrines is preceded by an investigation so severe and comprehensive? We think we can explain these strange phenomena, by the organi zation of public instruction and the state of society in Germany; while, at the same time, we insist upon the necessity of not confounding the upward march of the human mind with the unsteady features of the moral physiognomy incident toa peculiarly circumstanced and transitory age.

(To be continued.)

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