declaration to the effect that the once perverted affections were rightly directed. The test employed was a moral, and not a mental one. No mention is made of a rigid examination as to theological sentiments. The evangelist does not record a series of questions and answers with respect to what are called 'fundamental' and 'essential' articles of faith. What the Saviour was most urgent about was this, healthful feeling, and aspiration which would develop into a course of persevering usefulness. We cannot but think that in the plan thus pursued there is a lesson which Christ intended his followers in after-ages to learn. The scribes and pharisees were, we presume, regarded by many as being very orthodox. They were punctual in their attendance at the temple or the synagogue, scrupulous in the observance of rite and ceremony, and tenacious of the least constituent of their dogma. But what said the Lord? Woe unto you!' And wherefore? Not merely because their creed was sometimes a perversion of the law and the prophets, but chiefly because their souls were destitute of spiritual life, and their intercourse with mankind was characterised by selfishness and pride. The men reputed to be orthodox were abhorrent to him; and that mainly because they had not orthodoxy of motive and action.

Seeing what was the general tenor of Christ's life and teaching as regards the question before us, surely we have presented to us the true criterion by which to judge of those who profess to be his disciples. It has reference to the heart rather than the head, the character rather than the creed. If we believe a brother to be in error, let us try to show him wherein he is mistaken, but let us not brand him as unchristian, and exclude him from our sympathy because he does not think as we do. The inquiry should be, What is his spirit, what his conduct? If his spirit be loving and devout, and his conduct righteous and philanthropic, let us greet him fraternally and kindly. On the other hand, should a man, however correct in theology he may be esteemed, display what is mean, dishonourable, and selfish, let us not excite the ridicule and contempt of society by speaking of him as if he were, in the truest and hightest sense of the term, a follower of Jesus. Let him be pitied, if you will, but never approved, An evangelical belief will not atone for an indifferent and a paltry life. 'Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit. It is not in thinking harshly and judging hastily of those who differ from us in opinion that we honour the Infinite Father, but in allowing the seed of truth within us to produce piety, love, and self-denial.

C. B. S.

298

The Westminster Review on the Present State of German Theology.

THE current number of the Westminster Review' gives an estimate of the Present State of Theology in Germany,' some account of which may not be unacceptable to our readers. The article follows in the main the lead of Professor Schwarz, of Halle, whose clever, but somewhat one-sided book, entitled 'Zur Geschichte der Neueste Theologie' (Contributions to the History of the most Recent Theology), has already reached a third edition. The pretty evident Rationalistic bias of Schwarz would naturally dispose the 'Westminster' writer to look at matters through his eyes, rather than through those of Hagenbach and Kahnis, whose productions on the same subject, however, are not altogether overlooked, and have due prominence given them at the head of the paper. Whilst the Halle professor represents what the reviewer designates the 'Critical School of German Theology,' Kahnis is a leader amongst those whom he styles the Orthodox, and Hagenbach would take rank amongst those whom he designates the Mediation Divines, who endeavour to hold the balance between the other two parties, and to reconcile their jarring claims. This is a tolerably fair selection of authorities, indicating a laudable anxiety to arrive at impartial views. If the article betrays an unmistakeable leaning to Schwarz, this is no more than was to have been expected. The Rationalist historian will of course be the favourite with the Rationalist critic; just as Hume continues to be the oracle of oldfashioned Tory squires. If philosophical sceptics imagine themselves to be sublimely elevated above worshipping the 'idols of the tribe,' this is only a piece of that Pharisaical spirit to which poor human nature is so prone, and against which Sadducean opinions afford but a sorry safeguard. It is enough that the Westminster' writer has done his best to give an intelligible account of the present state of theological opinion in Germany as surveyed from his own stand-point, which is akin to that of the author on whose statements he principally relies. It would, perhaps, have helped to improve his certainly very interesting sketch, had he consulted Hundeshagen's work on German Protestantism, which he does not seem to have done. More than most of the leading German theologians of the present day, Hundeshagen is wont to hold aloof from controversial strifes. His voice, therefore, is that of a calm witness to facts, which he has a keen eye for observing, and a philosophical mind of no common reach and vigour to appreciate in their full significance and bearing. His work was reviewed some years ago in the British Quarterly,' by, perhaps, the most competent man for the task in the United Kingdom-we mean Principal Tulloch, of St. Andrew's-and it has since been revised by the author, so that it can hardly be said to be antiquated. A production of such importance ought not to have been overlooked. With all its draw

backs, however, we deem the paper in the Westminster' a far from contemptible contribution to our knowledge of the theological movements of Germany-a subject on which such a vast amount of crass ignorance and stupid prejudice obtains in this country, and that even in minds from which better things might confidently have been expected. But let bigots and fools rave as they may, 'German Theology' is a phenomenon which cannot be ignored. It is a great mistake to imagine that it is an isolated idiosyncrasy with which the rest of Christendom has nothing to do but to stand afar off and shriek. The German Church is the most intellectually advanced in the world at this hour, and her thinking, morbid as it has been, and to a sad extent still is, is the thinking of the brain of the one body of which the other Christian nations are members. On this subject the following remarks of the Westminster' are far nearer the truth than the platitudes in which the soi disant religious press so frequently indulges:

'It must not be suppose that German Theology is some obscure national product, the concern exclusively of the country which has given it birth. It is no insulated phenomenon. Though generated in Germany, it belongs to Christendom. It is the theological movement of the age. It is only because there is fuller intellectual life in Germany than elsewhere,-only because it so happens that, at present, European speculation is transacted by Germans, as our financial affairs are by Jews, that German characteristics are impressed on the substance of the Christian science. The capital of learning is in the hands of Germans, and theirs has been the enterprise which has directed it into theological channels. The stream may be strongly coloured by the peculiarities of the locality through which its course at present lies; but it is the old stream of Christian tradition still, whose source is in the Galilæan lake. If we have not been drawn into it, or contributed to it, it is not because we have found a better channel for thought, but because we have dispensed with thought upon such subjects altogether. So far as there has been speculative movement in any other of the constituents of the European commonwealth of nations, so far they have participated in the German impulse. For this is the historical law of the progress of the human mind. In each wave of its advance, in each epoch-making conquest, some one natio. has taken the lead, and done the work, while all have shared in the profits. Sic vos non nobis is the condition of all industry, intellectual as well as material. In quite modern times it would seem as if the burden and labour of human progress was pretty evenly shared between the three nations of Europe who have any liberty of action at all. The French have had hitherto the working out of the political problem. To the share of the English has fallen the social and industrial difficulty. Speculative Germany has claimed for her own the problems of thought, the abstract matters of philosophy and theology. To each of these separate tasks is attached its own burden; its own peculiar danger. We each do our work at our own risks and perils. It is a venture in which each, if he loses, wrecks only his own fortunes; what each gains, is equally gained by all. The political experimentalist, France, undertakes hers, subject to the most terrible casualties-to violent revolutions-to the sudden transference of power from one extremity of the body politic to the other. The English industrial development is big with the threatening evils of pauperism, fraud, and bankruptcy, of which none can yet foresee the issues. It cannot, therefore, be expected that the work of the intellect should not be subject to its own dangers-to the destruction of faith-to the too absolute rupture with the past-to exhaustion and paralysis from over-exertion, and other diseases incident to vigorous life.'

We have already mentioned the three schools into which the reviewer distributes the modern theologians of Germany. Of Dr. Baur,

acknowledged leader of the first in order, the Critical, or so-called Tübingen school, he thus speaks, probably from personal knowledge :—

'F. Ch. Baur-the initials are necessary to distinguish him from a critic of a very different stamp, Bruno Baur*-is not only the chief of the Tübingen school, but is unquestionably the first of living theologians. His exterior, by which one is involuntarily reminded of Gibbon-heavy, sleepy, and somewhat coarse-gives indication of the intellectual power locked up within. This exhibits itself in his books and lectures, in the rare union of the opposite qualifications-viz., the most extensive reading, with the most elastie vigour of original speculation. He has Mosheim's colossal capacity for details, with Schleiermacher's inventive genius. A deficiency in either of these points would have equally destroyed his means of remoulding the subject as he has done. With the exception of a few, and those certainly interesting, recent discoveries, all the facts of early Christian history had been long in the hands of theologians-had been turned over and over-commented and illustrated on a thousand sides. On the other hand, the speculative and à prieri method had fairly exhausted itself in the various Hegelian schools. "Mere theory" had shown its impotence in Strauss' "Leben Jesu," in which it professed to dissipate all fact and reality, to disperse history into air. Forsaking the illusory path of speculation, Baur undertook to submit all the remain, genuine and spurious, of early Christianity to a new examination, on the same rigidly critical method which had been applied to the remains of classical antiquity. Ă bare enumeration of his labours may convey some idea of their compass and drift. No description can do justice to the fund of learning and vigour of thought which they contain. Baur first came forward as a writer in 1824, with his Symbolik und Mythologie," in which he still stands on Schleiermacher. In 1831 he published, in the pages of a theological journal, the "Tübinger Zeitschrift," two essays, on "The Derivation of Ebionitism and Essenism," and "Church Parties at Corinth." The latter of these essays contains already the germ of that view which he has since expanded-viz., the view of the development of Christianity through the antagonism of Petrinism and Paulinism continued within the Church up to the middle of the second century. In 1833, he first descended to the times of the Reformation, and stood forward as an expounder of the principle of Protestantism against Möhler. After this, there followed in rapid succession a series of striking monographs-"Gnosticism" (1835), "On the Pastoral Epistles (1835), "On the Epistle to the Romans" (1836), "Manicheeism" (1838), "The Origin of the Episcopate" (1838); these were smaller essays preluding to works of greater extent and compass. These were a "History of the Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation" (1841-43), "The Apostle Paul" (1845), “On the Canonical Gospels" (1847), and, lastly, “The Christian Church of the Three First Centuries" (1853).'

We are glad to find the reviewer candid enough to admit that the Critical school, to which his sympathies undisguisedly belong, is not without serious shortcomings and defects. He allows freely Baur's lamentable one-sidedness, and too exclusive reliance on the laws and categories of thought, as the order of historical sequence. He is sensible, too, of the scholastic, frigid, unfeeling character of the Tübingen theology, and, since he concedes in handsome terms the perfectly satisfactory nature of Bleek's demonstration of the genuineness of the fourth gospel, which Baur, contrary to the clearest evidence, persists in referring to the middle of the second century, he must be conscious, one would think, of what everyone else knows, the elephantiasis of prejudice with which the great Tübingen doctor is so sorely afflicted. The new evidence brought to light by the recovery

*It should be spelt Bauer.

of the long-lost treatise of Hippolytus has not made the smallest impression upon him, any more than the previously known fact of the existence of Heracleon's Commentary on the Gospel,' at the very date to which his absurdly subjective historical view of early Christianity compels him to assign the document commented on.

The term Mediation Theology,' as the reviewer justly remarks, is as old as the time of Schleiermacher, at the close of the last century, and was first applied to the attempts made in the school of that celebrated revivalist of a more positive creed than was fashionable in his day, to approximate the old Rationalism to the doctrine and ordinances of the Church. With what right he classes amongst the Mediation theologians some names which he refers to that category, is, we think, very questionable. If, for instance, by mentioning Ullmann first amongst them, he means to insinuate that that distinguished man is a trimmer (which seems to be his notion of these divines), we should at once challenge the correctness of the opinion. He cites, in proof, Ullman's Essence of Christianity; and then, as if he were Dr. Campbell himself, remarks upon it, that it is a repertory of Schleiermacher's phrases, emptied of all their significance.' The difficulties,' he says, with which Schleiermacher really grappled, are here smoothed over with sounding words which but ill disguise the absence of any distinct theology. He gives this sentence from the book in illustration-Christianity is not a doctrine, as the Supernaturalists have said; nor a law of morality, as the Kantians; nor redemption, as Schleiermacher would have it; but life. And so he goes on to complain, quite in the style of the Boanerges of Bolt-court, that the changes are rung on life-power' and 'life-principle,' till the doctrine disappears, evaporated in its own expressions. We think we can understand why a Westminster critic should be so annoyed at the want of definiteness implied in teaching that Christianity is rather life than stiff, frozen dogma, such as some amongst ourselves imagine to be the very crown of the gospel. It is a much more difficult thing to grapple with the life of God in the Church, than with the numbered and ticketed articles of a human confession of faith. When this is borne in mind, the admission of the reviewer is valuable, that 'To this class belong all the theological writers of any eminence, except the few who, on either extreme, constitute the schools of Orthodoxy or of Criticism.' We can understand, too, the sweeping nature of the reaction against Rationalism, beneath his party-coloured description in the following passage: Nothing else leaves on the spectator a more discouraging picture of the utter rout and discomfiture of German intellectual effort than the inspection of this wide region, in which is comprehended nearly every name of theological character in Germany. These campi patentes are anything but the abode of faith, of high aspiration, or science confident in its grasp. It is rather like a battle-field strewed with the shivered wreck of some great combat. The pale heroes are seen sadly amusing themselves with the ghosts of dead controversies. Among these melancholy débris of a former world, we are not to expect anything like common views or united effort. What common