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thoroughly versed in criticism and antiquities as any of his adversaries, and had an important advantage over them in being much better acquainted with the Bible as a connected whole. He did not make the display, or attract the admiration, which attended the first efforts of Semler. But Liberalism received from his hand a salutary check. In his treatise on the historical sense, he demolished the whole scheme of accommodation, and compelled the party to resort to other grounds to defend their interpretations and doctrines. In other pieces he successfully and triumphantly attacked other errors of the Rationalists. His system of theology, which was purely Biblical, was the most solid and effectual contribution towards the support of the primitive faith of the Lutheran church, which she had received for more than a century. And the influence of his writings has not ceased; they are co-operating with the writings of living authors and with other causes, to purge out the abominations of that infidel philosophy, whose pernicious sway we have just exhibited. The modern orthodox school embraces some of the most respectable names, among which may be mentioned Reinhardt, Meyer, Flatt, De Wette, Winer, Wahl, and Tholuck. The system of Rationalism is unquestionably on the decline. Some of its advocates have openly renounced it. Others choose not to defend it. The appointments in the universities begin to be given to men of more serious views and feelings. A better day may soon be expected to shine upon the German churches.

But we must hasten to give some account of the work before us. The translation is made from the edition in German with notes and additions by Flatt, which is much more valuable to those for whom the translation was intended than

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any of the Latin editions. work consists of five books; the first treating of the authority of the scriptures; the second, of God, his works and providence, and his existence as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; the third, of angels, good and evil, and of man, his original state, his fall, the character of his posterity, the punishment to which they are exposed in the future world, the provision for their salvation through the atonement, their final separation to heaven and hell according to their use of the privileges of a probationary life; the fourth, of Christ as Redeemer, his person and different states of existence, his works on earth, (under which the nature and efficacy of his atonement are examined) and his works since the ascension, (under which is considered the whole subject of the church, its ministry and sacraments); the fifth, of justification and reformation by change of heart and life as connected with salvation. The manner of the author is to state in the briefest terms what he considers the exact testimony of the Bible on the several points, referring to the proof texts, and in his notes referring to the opinions and arguments of others. In the German, the notes of Flatt are built upon those of Storr. Mr. Schmucker has incorporated both together, and they follow the text in the form of illustrations, which greatly improves the perspicuity and the interest of the work.

We consider the first book, which contains the proof of the genuineness, integrity, authenticity, and inspiration, of the scriptures, as by far the most valuable part of the whole. It was necessary for Storr to give this subject a thorough investigation, as the divine authority of the Bible was rejected by the great body of the Liberalists of the age. Many of them freely admitted that the doctrines of orthodoxy were plainly taught in the sacred

books, but openly declared that no reader was under obligation on that account to adopt them. We fully believe that the Unitarians of this country will be compelled to avow the same opinion; indeed we apprehend they do not now as a body feel bound to believe what is taught in the Epistles; they make a distinction between what was spoken by Christ, and what was written by the early teachers; and unless we have been greatly misled as to their views, by what we have read in their publications and heard from their pulpits, there are among them those who do not consider any of the writings even of the New Testament as in any proper sense inspired: they take them not as being themselves a revelation from God, but only as a history of such a revelation, a history written indeed with great candour and fairness, and by persons probably competent for the work, but still a history liable like every other history to contain mistakes or errors even as to grand points connected with its main subject. Now our expectation long has been that they would ultimately avow this, that they would change the ground of attack upon the opinions of the orthodox, and deny the claims of the writers of the New Testament to implicit belief on the points in dispute. And the sooner this ground is taken the better; better for the truth, for it will tend very directly to open the eyes of many who are now blinded by their professed regard for the Bible, and better in some respects for the advocates of the heresy too, for it will free them from the embarrassment under which they evidently now suffer in their controversial efforts, lest they should too incautiously betray to the mass of the people their real opinions as to the authority of the scriptures. But whenever they may gather their forces and marshal them for a contest on this ground,

we think they will meet with their usual success, which (we are sorry for their sake and for the sake of their reputed learning and talents, although for the truth's sake and for righteousness sake most glad to say it,) has been defeat and disaster. The argument of Storr on this subject is conducted in a masterly manner and with irresistible evidence, and if our young theologians shall ever need to look around for the weapons of such a warfare they will find here a well stored armory.

Of the rest of the work the grand excellence, and we must add the only very important excellence, is its Biblical character. Every position and statement has its scriptural proof, and in adducing texts the author is most scrupulously attentive to their pertinency and authority. He even goes to the extreme of quoting for proof only from the the homologoumena, introducing passages, from the antilegomena merely for illustration. The investigations are conducted throughout on strictly philological principles. It is chiefly because the work is thus Biblical, that it deserves so far as it is a system of theology, the attention of the student. The great defect of most popular theological systems is, that they contain too much of the author and too little of the Bible.

The same has been true of theological controversies. They have too often been a trial of skill in metaphysics, rather than a simple appeal to the law and the testimony. And we doubt not, that he whose province it is to bring good out of evil, designed it as a chief good which should result from the controversy with the rationalists of modern times, that it should bring the advocates of truth to contend for it on the simple basis of the word of God. Such has been the effect of the Unitarian controversy in Germany. Such, eminently, has been its tendency in this

country. It has agitated, mainly, not the question whether the scriptures be a revelation from God: that was discussed and settled with the infidels of a former age; and the discussion probably will not soon need to be repeated, at least in the English language. But the great question now has been, What is contained in the scriptures? The fact of a revelation being admitted, What are we taught by it? This is the fundamental question; and the progress of the discussion has created a growing attention to the Bible. It has greatly modified and improved our systems of theological education, and has had a beneficial influence on the thinking and writing habits of the age, in respect to theological subjects. It has, in a word, tended to give the Bible its proper eminence above the speculative systems of men. Abstracts and compends, creeds and catechisms, are indeed useful, yea necessary in their place; but we apprehend that too great a relative importance has been assigned to them in comparison with the simple word of God. We fear that many a confident polemic, both public and private, has been better versed in his tomes of theology than in the Holy Oracles, and that even in the schools of the prophets, instances have not been wanting in which some favorite Body or Marrow of Divinity has practically been made the text-book, instead of the Bible itself.

The reader will not understand us as objecting to a logical arrangement in stating theological truth. So far from this is the fact, that we think the work before us would have been better had there been more regard to such an arrangement. There is one point in particular which we think worthy of notice, the place where, in a logical succession of topics, the proof of the divine benevolence should fall. It would seem clear upon thorough examination, that this attribute, inVOL. I. No. I.

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volving the divine veracity, must be admitted before any arguments can be drawn from the scriptures. For grant that the scriptures are given by inspiration of God, and of course contain his testimony, still unless there is previous satisfaction that his testimony must be true, no argument can be logically founded upon it, and we see not how this satisfaction can arise but from a sufficient proof of the divine benevolence, which will necessarily involve veracity.

It would be unnecessary, if our time permitted, to notice particularly the doctrinal views which the work presents. The reader will he specially pleased with the passages on the Trinity, the nature and efficacy of the atonement, and the future punishment of the wicked. He must expect however to meet in different parts of the work with the Lutheran peculiarities, and he will probably regret that the translator has not only made sixteen pages out of his two authors, in proof of the real presence, but has added ten more of his own, to explain and defend the doctrine. He will regret this the more, as probably after the most diligent perusal of the whole, he will be constrained to pronounce it, as Mr. Schmucker himself declares many of the explanations of his brethren to be, "nebulous indeed."

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Although we have spoken so highly of the work as exhibiting the divine authority of the scriptures, and as tending to give a more biblical character to theology, we should fail of doing justice if we should omit to mention another consideration, which goes to augment its value, namely, that on many of the controverted subjects it contains statements of the most important objections, and answers to them, with references to authors who may be consulted for farther satisfaction. Yet this part of the work might have been vastly improved by the translator, had he made

greater effort to adapt it to the wants of his readers. In many cases the illustrations are protracted very tediously by the introduction of objections, which it was altogether unnecessary to present in a work adapted to American theologians. And in general the references are confined far too much to German writers. The student is directed to works in a dead or foreign language, and works, which will long, perhaps always, lie beyond his reach, while others in his native tongue, and easily procured, are not mentioned. For instance, on the internal evidences for the New Testament scriptures, (compare §5.Ill.4 and § 16.Ill. 4.) we are referred only to Morus, Less,Stæudlin, Tallner, Werenfels, Bengel, Kleuker, Kæppen, and Paulus, while on the internal evidence of credibility, Lardner and Paley, stand unrivalled, and on that of divineness the little treatise of Erskine contains a clearer and more convincing argument than was ever written or conceived by a German. So in the illustrations of the sections on the existence of God (§§ 17-20.) we hear of Brastberger, and Fries, and Fichte, and Forberg, and Gabler, and Vogel, and we cannot say how many more, while there is not an allusion to one of those able, ample, sterling, English authors, who have given the argument for the divine existence every possible elucidation. Indeed we should suppose that the translator imagined himself all along to be at work as much for a German student as his original authors, for even where they refer to a German translation of an English book he has most scrupulously retained the reference to the translation instead of the original. And Mr. Schmucker must not complain of us as forgetting that he only undertook the business of translating, for his title page speaks of additions, which term is comprehensive enough to include something at least, of the improvement we have hinted at over and

above his two appendixes, and his extracts from works so rare as the Letters of Stuart and Woods.

In conclusion we recommend the "Biblical Theology" to the use and study of all who wish to cultivate habits of sound investigation. To the readers who seek for the flow of eloquence, or the ornaments of taste, it will present a forbidding aspect, as there is throughout a rigid adherence to the driest style of didactic statement. It was not intended at all for hasty perusal; it must be carefully studied. The volumes will be altogether out of place in the hands of the superficial, declaiming, popular theologian; they belong to the patient, noiseless, diligent reader of the Bible. The student will find nothing in them to inspire his admiration, but he will consider them as a highly valuable addition to his theological treasures.

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"Is it lawful for a man to marry his deceased wife's sister?" An often agitated question, both in ecclesiastical and civil councils. Both have generally decided against it. Yet instances of transgression have been so numerous, and so plausibly vindicated by argument, that legislatures, in many, perhaps a majority of cases, have either repealed, at length, their enactments, or suffered them to sink into a dead letter, while ecclesiastical assemblies have ever and anon been engaged in a fresh discussion of the subject. Such is the fact at present in the Presbyterian Church. At the last session of the General Assembly an appeal was brought to that body by a Mr.

pline.

The doings of the General Assembly, above referred to, occasioned the pamphlet before us. Its author is understood to be a highly respectable clergyman of that denomination. It has been sent to us in the last of the month, with a request, from different quarters, that it might be noticed in our forthcoming number. Those who feel an interest in the subject, and in the author's manner of treating it, are desirous that his argument should be brought under the consideration of others, as far as may be, before the approaching decision of the General Assembly. We have therefore turned our hasty attention to it; and if the author shall think our abstract of his half a hundred pages very imperfect, our apology must be, that we are compelled to send it as it is written, in rapid and unrevised paragraphs, to the printers.

McCrimmon, who, having married recurring question of church discia sister of his deceased wife, had been suspended from the communion of the church. Relief could not be granted without the erasure of a certain clause in the Confession of Faith. That clause declares that "the man may not marry any of his wife's kindred nearer in blood than he may of his own, nor the woman of her husband's kindred nearer in blood than of her own." The General Assembly, however, considering that "a diversity of opinion and practice obtains on this very important subject," resolved to refer it to the presbyteries; whose answers are to be sent up in writing to the next General Assembly, whether the prohibitory clause quoted above shall or shall not be erased from the Confession. The question is therefore to be made a matter of "serious consideration" throughout the Presbyterian Church. And the sense of that most respectable denomination, thus extensively collected, will not only have great weight with its sister Churches, but will materially affect the opinions of the community at large. The question itself, apart from the present interest which it thus derives from circumstances, is believed to be one of no fictitious or slight importance. A decision in the case is necessary. If the prohibited marriage be in itself right, no conventional act of men can make it wrong; and the innocent ought not to suffer the imputation of a crime which is merely imaginary. If, on the other hand, the marriage in question be wrong, ecclesiastical courts and legislatures should be cautious how they sanction a practice which, as many seriously regard it, is contrary to the dictates of nature, and opposed by a divine prohibition. And whether the practice be right or wrong, ministers and churches ought to be settled on an important and often

+ Chap. xxiv. Sect. 4.

Those who found their objections to the marriage of a wife's sister upon the word of God, refer us to the 18th chapter of Leviticus. They find it there forbidden, at the 16th verse, to marry a brother's widow; and as the relation of the man to his brother's wife is the same as the relation of the woman to her sister's husband, they conceive that the prohi bition plainly extends to the latter case. To this passage, thus understood, the Confession of Faith refers us, in support of the clause we have quoted. Our author however regards the argument from Scripture as entirely inconclusive. For, first, he does not find the supposed prohibition in the words of the Levitical law; the constructive reasoning from the 16th verse he considers too vague and indeterminate to set the matter at rest; and the 18th verse, he supposes, does not touch the question. And secondly, admitting that the alleged prohibition were contained in the law of Moses,

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