estimable as he was for his piety, produced a work* which merely proved how strangely he was destitute of the information most indispensable in the ecclesiastical historian. Church-history was little likely to advance under such guidance. For a long season other pursuits entirely engrossed the genius and industry of our countrymen: and our own times have first witnessed the attempt to recall attention to the deep importance of ecclesiastical studies.

But we return to Germany, where, about the same time as Mosheim, CHRISTOPH MATTHAUS PFAFF,† SIEGMUND JACOB BAUMGARTEN,‡ and JOHANN GEORG WALCH,§ distinguished themselves by the zealous cultivation of church-history; and a few years later, CHRISTIAN WILHELM FRANZ WALCH, the Tillemont of Germany, the son of the lastnamed writer, commenced his active and successful career of ecclesiastical investigation. These able men all remained true to the principles of the orthodox theology, and sought reputation by the straight road of accurate and solid learning.

But we have now reached the limit of the orthodox period,¶ and must be content for a while to learn the melancholy, though instructive, lesson which is taught by the extravagances of the writers of a different school. It is the unenviable distinction of JOHANN SALOMO SEMLER to have effected in church-history a revolution of the same nature as that which he effected in theology.** The character of this remarkable man is a phenomenon in the history of the human mind. With a scepticism which doubted the plainest facts, he combined a credulity which could believe the most improbable conjectures; and to an overwhelming passion for theory, he united a diligence and industry which enabled him to acquire the most extensive learning. An admirer of antiquity can scarcely speak with moderation of a writer whose speculations are marked by bold profaneness and outrageous absurdity: and I gladly avail myself of the remarks of one who cannot be suspected of prejudice or fanaticism. Dr. Staüdlin says

"He set out upon the supposition that we have received ecclesiastical history from the hands of the potentates of the church, that they have regulated and disfigured it in accordance with their own views and prejudices, and that it must consequently be

The History of the Church of Christ. By Joseph Milner, M. A., Master of the Grammar School in Kingston-upon-Hull. 1794-1803. In four volumes, 8vo. Dean Milner published a volume of a continuation in 1809. The controversy occasioned by Mr. Rose's lecture at Durham in 1834 is too recent for me to wish to add anything to what I have said in the text. Magna est veritas, et prævalebit.

+ Institutiones Historiæ Ecclesiastica. Tubingæ, 1721. Breviarium Historiæ Christianæ. Halæ, 1754.

§ Historia Ecclesiastica Novi Testamenti. Jenæ, 1744.

Entwurf einer vollständigen Historie der Kezereien, Spaltungen und Religionsstreitigkeiten, bis auf die Zeiten der Reformation. Leipzig, 1762-85. The eleven volumes which were published came down only to the ninth century, and the last was posthumous. This is C. W. F. Walch's principal work, but several of his other works are valuable.

According to Augusti, die dogmatischen untersuchungen der sogenannten neuern Theologie begannen im Jahr, 1760. Lehrbuch der christlichen Dogmengeschichtes, 162. (Ed. 1835.)

** Rev. Hugh James Rose on the State of the Protestant Religion in Germany, p. 45 et seq.

entirely reconstructed. But this often brought him to merely bold and groundless hypotheses. In general he destroyed more than he built up or improved. As the morals of the first Christians were represented by others as exceedingly pure, Semler described them as worthless people (als schlechte Leute); and without any sufficient grounds declared the younger Pliny's letter to the Emperor Trajan, which bears testimony to the purity of their morals, to be spurious. For what was beautiful and venerable in the character, and manner of life, and religious institutions, of these Christians, he had no feeling. He well knew that religion, mental cultivation, and the apparatus of instruction (Lehrgebaüde), cannot always and everywhere be uniform; but he knew not how duly to estimate their different forms, nor to interpret, and refer them to religious ideas and feelings.'

He wrote in a confused and barbarous style, without any regard to art or method. But the effect of his works+ was wonderful. All his countrymen who wrote on church-history after he had begun his career of authorship were more or less affected by his speculations; and he lived to see his principles carried to their furthest extent by some of the most able and popular writers of Germany.

Contemporary, however, with Semler was JOHANN MATTHIAS SCHROCKH, who published in 1768 the first volume of the extensive undertaking, which he completed only by the uninterrupted labour of forty years; and who must not be classed among the Rationalists. A pupil of Mosheim, he brought to the study of ecclesiastical history much of the taste and learning of that distinguished historian. When he began his "Christian Church-history," he merely intended to compose a popular work for the use of the educated classes of society. He altogether omitted references, and made it the principal object of his attention to write in a pleasing and attractive style. But as he proceeded his plan altered. His own acquaintance with his subject gradually became more extensive; he displayed his learning less sparingly; and at length freely entered into the most difficult points of ecclesiastical investigation. His work exhibits the inequalities and defects which we might expect from the circumstances under which it was written. But the writer was a moderate and candid man, who generally extracted his information immediately from the sources, and was always acquainted with the most valuable labours of his predecessors. His views are generally sound and natural; and though he has too hastily adopted many new opinions, and often expressed

* Geschichte und Literatur der Kirchengeschichte, 167, 168.

+ I copy the following list from Staudlin. I have only the first before me. Historiæ Eccles. Selecta Capita. 3 voll. Hal. 1767-79.

Commentarii Historici de Antiquo Christianor. Statu. 2 voll. Hal. 1771, 72. Versuch eines fruchtbaren Auszugs der Kirchengeschichte. 3 Bde. Halle, 1773-78.

Versuch christlicher Jahrbücher. 2 Bde. Halle, 1783.

Neue Versuche, die Kirchenhistorie der ersten Jahrhunderte aufzuklären.
Leipz., 1788.

Christliche Kirchengeschichte von Johann Matthias Schröckh, ordentlichem Lehrer der Dichtkunst auf der Universität Wittenburg. Leipzig, 1768-1803. The work was carried on with this title as far as the Reformation, in thirty-five volumes 8vo. And it was immediately followed up by the modern history of the church in another, differing only in the title, (Christliche Kirchengeschichte seit der Reformation, Leipzig, 1804-1808) in eight volumes more. The whole work was completed by the publication of two volumes of a continuation by Tzschirner in 1810 1812.

himself with too little circumspection on serious subjects,-though he was not alive to the danger of latitudinarian sentiments, and had not perhaps altogether escaped the contagion of error,-he produced a valuable and useful work. Though he was not the first writer who discarded the division of church-history into centuries, he was the first whose example in doing so has been generally followed. It would be unfair to compare his work with those of writers who have concentrated their attention upon particular subjects or periods; but it has strong claims to be regarded as the best which has ever been written on so large a scale upon the general history of the church.

For half a century after the time of Semler no new work appeared on church-history which was not written upon the principles of the Rationalists. According to the theory of these ingenious speculators, Christianity was no longer to be regarded as a revelation from Heaven, except in so far as it might be traced to the interposition of Providence, in disposing the circumstances connected with its origin and progress. The facts relating to its introduction were involved in impenetrable obscurity; for the records which professed to exhibit its primitive history, valuable as they were on other accounts, were of a character too mythic to satisfy the philosophical inquirer. From its first introduction it had been grievously misapprehended. What was really divine in it, its pure morality, had been buried under a system of dogmas, borrowed from the Oriental and Greek philosophers. An enlightened age was anxious to possess the gospel as it came from the mind of its Founder, before it was adulterated by his ignorant and crafty followers; and it was the high vocation of the ecclesiastical historian to co-operate with the philologist and the philosophical theologian in attempting to disengage the more precious materials from the worthless and noxious elements with which they had been so long combined.

The popular work † of SPITTLER was constructed on the theory of this school. But the first church-history avowedly written on these principles, which displayed research and learning, was the work of

Tzschirner says of it, “Ob aber gleich das Schröckhische Werk nicht frey von Mängeln ist und man in ihm, zwar richtige und feine Beurtheilung, aber doch keinen tiefen pragmatischen Geist, zwar eine zweckmässige Zusammensetzung, nicht aber eine kunstreiche Anordnung, zwar eine beyfallswerthe, nicht aber eine classische Darstellung findet, so trage ich doch nicht Bedenken, das oben über den Werth dieses Werkes ausgesprochene Urtheil zu wiederholen und ihm unter allen das Ganze der Kirchengeschichte umfassenden Schriften den ersten Platz zuzugestehen. Es giebt kirchenhistorische Werke, welche an einzelnen Vollkommenheiten das Schröckhische bey weitem übertreffen; vereiniget aber werden in keinem so viele Vorzüge wie in diesem, gefunden. Ueber Schröckh's Leben, s. 78, 79. And Staüdlin, Hier haben wir ...... zum Glücke ein Werk erhalten, welches so viel vereinigte, als bisher noch in keiner andern Kirchenhistorie vereinigt war und welches im Ganzen das zugleich ausführlichste und lehrreichste war, das unser Zeitalter hervorgebracht hat." Geschichte und Literatur der Kirchengeschichte, s. 170.

Grundriss der Geschichte der christlichen Kirche, Göttingen, 1782. 8vo. A fifth edition was published in 1811.

Allgemeine Geschichte der christlichen Kirche, nach der Zeitfolge. Braunschweig, 1788-1802. In six volumes 8vo., with a continuation in three more (1818-1823) by Vater.

HEINRICH PHILIPP KONRAD HENKE, of Helmstadt. It appeared in six volumes between 1788 and 1802, and was a bold and systematic attempt to subdue a new province to the absolute jurisdiction of the Rationalists. Staüdlin * says of the author, that "wherever he found not his naturalism he saw corruptions (Verunstaltungen) of Christianity; he inserted and ridiculed, instead of explaining and estimating; changed the whole almost entirely into a series of light pictures of superstition, fanaticism, stupidity, and wickedness, and misunderstood the beneficent, moral, and religious effects of Christianity. He affirmed that its true sense and spirit was first generally recognised in the eighteenth century."

Of much the same + character and tendency, though written in a more amiable spirit, was the manual ‡ of JOHANN ERNST CHRISTIAN SCHMIDT, of Giessen, which was published in six volumes between 1801 and 1820. This author was well acquainted with the sources, and wrote in a belief" that the diffusion of accurate views of churchhistory had not hitherto kept pace with the diffusion of better exegetical and philosophical knowledge."§ But the Christian could scarcely hope that the history of the church would be successfully illustrated by one who considered it an undecided question whether the Founder of our religion "died to give posterity an example of patience and constancy, to attest the firmness of his conviction, or entirely to correct the expectations of his disciples respecting the Messiah;" and who thought that "we should be the less inquisitive about it, inasmuch as distinguished men have internal motives and grounds of action, of which books say nothing, and moreover, men regarded nothing as holy which was not hallowed by sacrifice." ||

But the very extravagance of the men who held these miserable views naturally tended to produce a reaction. Writers who were themselves unsound in their opinions were dissatisfied with the heartless opinions of such persons; and the works written on churchhistory by such men as MARHEINECKE¶ and STAUDLIN,** served to form a transition to better and sounder views. Even professed Rationalists learned to write with greater caution and moderation; and men of learning again arose who were not ashamed of the cross of Christ.

I speak with reluctance of the labours of living writers, yet the

Geschichte und Literatur der Kirchengeschichte, s. 178.

Both Henke and J. E. C. Schmidt are assigned by Dr. Bretschneider to the class of Rationalists properly so called, who“ deny in Christianity any supernatural and miraculous agency of God, and make the scope of it to be the introduction, the establishment of, and the propagating in the world, the religion accessible to human reason."-Apology for the Modern Theology of Protestant Germany, translated by Evanson, p. 62.

Handbuch der christlichen Kirchengeschichte. imperfect, extending only to the year 1216. § Schröckh, Kirchengeschichte, xxxv. 219. Ibid.

Universalkirchen-historie des Christenthums. only to the beginning of the seventh century.

** Universalgeschichte der christlichen Kirche.

Giessen, 1801-1820. It is

Erlangen, 1806

It extends

Hannover, 1806.

nature of the task which I have undertaken forbids me to be silent. Among the works on church-history which have appeared in our own time, the first place is undoubtedly due to that of DR. NEAnder. The Christian is thankful to find a person so justly eminent as this distinguished writer acknowledging the divine authority of the gospel. But he is not free from the spirit of speculation; and his notions respecting the original constitution of the church give to some of the most elaborate parts of his history too much the character of an attack upon episcopacy. The other recent works are on a much less extensive scale. But DR. DANZ,† and especially DR. GIESELer,‡ have enriched their text-books with copious extracts from the original writers. And DR. GUERIKE has written a very able manual,§ in which it is a real pleasure to meet with sound and scriptural views of doctrine, as well as extensive learning. The number of works on this subject which have appeared in Germany within the last few years, sufficiently prove the interest with which it is regarded. Monographies (if I may be allowed to naturalize an useful word), or treatises on particular branches, have been still more numerous than works on the general history of the church. Though much of what has been done, has been done in a spirit little likely to promote the cause of truth, we cannot but rejoice at the degree of attention which has been paid to these studies. Let the German scholars once honestly engage in the cultivation of church-history, and they will inevitably return to orthodox views of Christianity.

We may fairly employ, too, with respect to ourselves, the language of congratulation. Though we are still destitute of any original work which deserves the name of a general history of the church, we have, within the last few years, been presented with several valuable contributions. I trust it will not be deemed unbecoming in me to close these papers by enrolling the respected names of Bishop Kaye, of the late Professor BURTON, of Mr. MAITLAND, and Mr. NEWMAN, among the ecclesiastical historians. I. G. D.

* Allgemeine Geschichte der christlichen Religion und Kirche. Von Dr. August Neander. Hamburg, 1825-1836. The four volumes, (in eight parts) which have hitherto appeared, bring down the history to the year 1073. The three parts, which compose the first volume, have been translated into English by the Rev. Henry John Rose. 2 vols. 8vo. London: Rivingtons, 1831-1838. The second volume being now announced as it is in the press.

Lehrbuch der christlichen Kirchengeschichte. Jena, 1818-1826. In two

volumes.

Lehrbuch der Kirchengeschichte. Bonn, 1831-1835. In two volumes, the last published in four parts. The first volume of my copy is of the third edition. It first appeared in 1824. The plan of the work is admirable, and it is well executed. Though the author is a Rationalist, he seems more desirous to suppress than to obtrude offensive peculiarities. It has been translated in America, where Rationalism is treated with more gentleness than in this country.

[The Editor has used Gieseler's work for some time, and finds it, from its full extracts, most useful. It is right to add, that Mr. Cunninghame, the American translator, is not very well versed in German, and still less in a very necessary point, the geography of the middle ages, so that the book is full of errors, like those in Foxe.] Handbuch der Kirchengeschichte von D. H. C. Ferd. Guerike. Halle, 1836. This is the second edition. The first appeared, I believe, in 1833.