The obvious objection to the doctrine, that miracles are the only adequate proof of divine revelation, is that the great majority of Christians, who are incapable of examining the evidence on which the miracles rest, are thus left without any sufficient ground of faith. This objection does not escape Mr. Norton’s attention. His answer is the same as that given by Catholic priests and high churchmen, everywhere, viz., they must believe on trust, or as he prefers to express it, on the testimony of those who are competent to examine the evidence in question. As they are forced to believe a thousand things, without personal examination, on the testimony of others, he thinks it not unreasonable that they should receive their religion on the same terms. If they believe that the earth turns round because astronomers tell them so, why may they not believe that the gospel is true because learned men vouch for the fact? It is hardly necessary to remark, that every Christian knows that such is not the foundation of his faith: he has firmer ground on which to rest the destiny of his soul. He does not believe Grotius or Paley; he believes God himself, speaking in his word. The evidence of the truth is in the truth itself. The proposition that the whole is greater than a part, is believed for its own sake. And to higher intellects, truths at which we arrive by laborious process, appear in their own light, as axioms appear to us. So also with regard to morals. There are some propositions which every human being sees to be true, the moment they are announced. There are others which must be proved to him. And the higher the moral cultivation, or purity of the soul, is carried, the wider is the range of this moral intuition. So also with regard to religious truth. That God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth; that he is not a Jupiter, or a Moloch, is believed with an intimate conviction which no argument nor external evidence can possibly produce. It is believed for its own sake. It cannot be understood or perceived in its true nature without the persuasion of its truth rising in the mind. No man believes that malignity is wrong on external authority; and no man believes that God is good, because it can be logically demonstrated. The ground of faith in moral truth, from the nature of the case, is the perception of the nature of the truth believed. It is seen and felt to be true. That one man does not see a proposition in morals to be true, can have no effect upon him who does perceive it. And the only way to produce conviction in the mind of him who doubts or disbelieves, is to remove the darkness which prevents the perception of the truth to be believed. If seen in its true nature, it is believed; just as beauty is believed as soon as seen. “Faith is no work of reason, and therefore cannot be overthrown by it, since believing no more arises from arguments than tasting or seeing.”⁴

It is very true, that the great majority of men have no such perception of the peculiar truths of the gospel as produces this unwavering faith. The only belief that they have rests on tradition, or prejudice, or, in the learned few, on the external evidences of the gospel. The reason of this fact, however, is not that the doctrines in question do not contain the evidence of their own truth, but that the minds of the majority of men are not in a state to perceive it. What is the reason that savages do not perceive many things to be wrong, the moral turpitude of which is to us a matter of intuition? The reason lies in the state of their minds. So, also, the “natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them; for they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual discerneth all things.” The spiritual man, then, (that is, the man under the influence of the Spirit of God,) discerns the excellence of the things of the Spirit; and he receives them because he does discern them. He sees the excellence of the divine character; the glory of God as it shines in the face of Jesus Christ; the perfection of the divine law; the accordance of the declarations of God with his own experience; the suitableness of the plan of salvation to his necessities, and to the perfections of God. He feels the power which attends these truths in his own soul, and his faith, therefore, rests not on the wisdom of man, but on the power of God. It must be remembered, that the Bible is a whole. The believer sees these doctrines every where, and he therefore believes the whole. One portion of Scripture supposes and confirms another. The authority of the ancient prophets, of Christ, and of the apostles, is one and indivisible. As the prophets testified to Christ, so he testified of them. As Christ testified of the apostles, so did they testify of him. The object of the believer’s faith, therefore, is the whole Bible. He sees every where the same God, the same law, the same Saviour, the same plan of redemption. He believes the whole, because it is one glorious system of effulgent truth.

As this is the doctrine of the Bible on this subject, so it is also the doctrine of the church. Were it our present object to establish this point, the correctness of the above statement could be easily proved. We cannot forbear, however, to quote the following beautiful passage from the Westminster Confession: “We may be moved and induced,” says that venerable symbol, “by the testimony of the church, to an high and reverend esteem for the Holy Scripture; and the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole, (which is to give all glory to God,) the full discovery which it makes of the only way of man’s salvation, the many other incomparable excellencies, and the entire perfection thereof, are arguments whereby it doth abundantly evidence itself to be the word of God; yet, notwithstanding, our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit, bearing witness by and with the truth in our hearts.”

Owen wrote a treatise on this subject, which bears the impress of his sound and vigorous understanding, as well as of his intimate acquaintance with the nature of true religion.⁵ In his Treatise on the Reason of Faith, he says: “The formal reason of faith, divine and supernatural, whereby we believe the Scriptures to be the word of God, in the way of duty, as it is required of us, is the authority and veracity of God alone, evidencing themselves unto our minds and consciences, in and by the Scripture itself. And herein consisteth that divine testimony of the Holy Spirit, which, as it is a testimony, gives our assent unto the Scripture, the general nature of faith, and, as it is a divine testimony, gives it the especial nature of faith divine and supernatural.

“This divine testimony given unto the divine original of the sacred Scriptures, in and by itself, wherein our faith is ultimately resolved, is evidenced and made known, as by the character of the infinite perfections of the divine nature which are in and upon it; so by the authority, power, and efficacy, over and upon the souls and consciences of men, and the satisfactory excellence of the truths contained therein, wherewith it is accompanied.”

This view of the ground of faith is confirmed by the experience and testimony of the people of God in all ages.

It is a monstrous idea, that the thousands of illiterate saints who have entered eternity in the full assurance of hope, had no better foundation for their faith than the testimony of the learned to the truth of the Bible. Let the advocates of such an opinion ask the true Christian, why he believes the word of God, and they will find he can give some better reason for the hope that is in him than the faith or testimony of others. Let them try the resources of their philosophy, empirical or transcendental, on a faith founded on the testimony of the Holy Spirit by and with the truth; let them try the effect of demonstrating that such and such doctrines cannot be true; they will assuredly meet with the simple answer, “One thing I know, whereas I was blind now I see.”

It is by no means intended to undervalue the importance of the external evidence of a divine revelation, whether derived from miracles, prophecy, or any other source, but simply to protest against the extreme doctrine of Mr. Norton’s discourse: that such evidence is the only proof of a divine revelation, and that all who cannot examine such evidence for themselves must take their religion upon trust. The refutation of this doctrine occupies much the larger portion of the Letter of the Alumnus of the Cambridge Theological School, the title of which is placed at the head of this article. The argument of the Alumnus, as far as it is a refutation, is perfectly successful. With his own doctrine, we are as little satisfied as with that of Mr. Norton. “The truths of Christianity,” he tells us, “have always been addressed to the intuitive perceptions of the common mind.”⁶ He quotes with much commendation, the following passage from Professor Park, of Andover: “The argument from miracles is not the kind of proof to which the majority of cordial believers in the Bible are, at the present day, most attached. They have neither the time nor the ability to form an estimate of the historical evidence that favors or opposes the actual occurrence of miracles. They know the Bible to be true, because they feel it to be so. The excellence of its morality, like a magnet, attracts their souls; and sophistry, which they cannot refute, will not weaken their faith, resulting as it does, from the ACCORDANCE OF THEIR HIGHER NATURE WITH THE SPIRIT OF THE BIBLE.” This language, as coming from Professor Park, if it be any thing more than a specimen of the desire to express a familiar truth in a philosophical form, is something far worse. If this “higher nature” of man, which thus accords with the spirit of the Bible, is his renewed nature—his nature purified and enlightened by the Holy Spirit—then we have a solemn truth disguised in order to secure favor with the world. But if this “higher nature” be the nature of man, in any of its aspects, as it exists before regeneration, then is the language of Professor Park a betrayal of the scriptural truth. The doctrines of depravity, and of the necessity of divine influence are virtually denied. That which is born of the flesh, is flesh; unless a man be born of the Spirit, he cannot see the kingdom of God; the carnal mind is enmity against God; the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him; we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and to the Greeks foolishness, but unto them which are called (and to them only) Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. To assert, therefore, the accordance of the higher nature of unrenewed men with the spirit of the Bible, is to contradict one of the primary doctrines of the word of God. It contradicts, moreover, universal experience. Does the character of God, as a being of inflexible justice and perfect holiness; do the doctrines of Christ crucified, of the corruption of man, of the necessity of regeneration by the power of the Holy Ghost, and of eternal retribution, commend themselves to the hearts of unrenewed men? Are they not, on the contrary, rejected by those who delight to talk of the accordance of their higher nature with the spirit of the Bible?

If the passage on which we are commenting, refers to nothing more than the accordance between the ethics of the Bible and the moral sense of men, and between its general representations of God and human reason, it is still more objectionable. It supposes that all that is peculiar to the gospel, all that distinguishes it from a system of natural religion, may be left out of view, and yet its spirit, its essential part, remain. Is the spirit of a system which makes Christ a mere man, which denies the apostacy of our race, which rejects the doctrines of atonement and regeneration, the spirit of the Bible? Then, indeed, has the offence of the cross ceased.

While, therefore, we dissent from Mr. Norton’s doctrine, that miracles are the only adequate proof of a divine revelation, and that those who cannot examine that proof for themselves, must believe upon the testimony of others, we dissent no less earnestly from the doctrine of his opponent, that Christianity is addressed to the intuitive perceptions of the common mind; that it is embraced because of the accordance of its spirit with the higher nature of man. We believe the external evidence of the Bible to be perfectly conclusive; we believe its internal evidence, (that is, its majesty, its purity, its consistency, its manifold perfections,) to be no less satisfactory; but we believe also, that the ultimate foundation of the Christian’s faith, is the testimony of the Holy Spirit, by and with the truth in our hearts.

Though the author of the letter to Mr. Norton devotes most of his attention to the refutation of the doctrine above stated, respecting miracles, the feature of the discourse which seems to have given him and his friends the greatest umbrage, is its denunciatory character; that is, its venturing to assert, that those who deny the miracles of Christianity are infidels. This, it appears, was considered singularly out of taste, and incongruous, seeing the discourse was delivered before an association of liberal theologians. Its members, it is said, “agree in the rejection of many articles of faith which have usually been held sacred in the church; a traditional theology has taken no strong hold of their minds; they deem the simple truths of Christianity more important than the mysteries that have been combined with them; but the principle of their union has never been made to consist in any speculative belief; no test has been required as a condition of fellowship; the mere suggestion of such a course would be met only with a smile of derision.” The Association “is composed of the alumni of a theological school, which has always claimed the favor of the community, on account of its freedom from an exclusive spirit; its confidence in the safety and utility of thorough inquiry in all matters of faith; its attachment to the principles of liberal theology; and its renunciation of the desire to impose articles of belief on the minds of its pupils.”⁷ That the exclusive principle should be adopted in a discourse before such an audience was not to be expected. By this principle is meant, “the assumption of the right for an individual, or for any body of individuals, to make their own private opinions the measure of what is fundamental in the Christian faith. As liberal Christians,” it is said, “we have long protested against this principle, as contrary to the very essence of Protestantism. It was not because our exclusive brethren made a belief in the Trinity a test of allegiance to Christ, that we accused them of inconsistency with the liberty of the gospel; but because they presumed to erect any standard whatever, according to which the faith of individuals should be made to conform to the judgment of others. It was not any special application of the principle that we objected to; but the principle itself; and, assuredly, the exercise of this principle does not change its character, by reason of the source from which it proceeds.”⁸

This strikes us as very good declamation, but very poor reasoning. There may be just complaint about the application of the exclusive principle; but to complain of the principle, is certainly very unreasonable. The author of this letter is just as exclusive as Mr. Norton, and Mr. Norton as the Trinitarians. They draw the line of exclusion at different places; but all must draw it some where. An infidel is a man who denies the truth of the Christian religion. That religion is certainly something. Different men may have different views of what it consists, or what is essential to it. But all must regard it as embracing some doctrines, or it would cease to be a religion; and, consequently, they must regard those who reject those doctrines as infidels, whether they say so or not. This Alumnus would hardly call Mohammedans Christians, though they reckon Abraham and Christ among the prophets, and believe in God and the immortality of the soul. Would he then call him a Christian who denies the divine mission of Christ, the being of an intelligent God, and the existence of the soul after death, merely because he lives in a Christian country, and assumes the Christian name? This would be to make liberality ridiculous. Yet such claimants of the Christian name are beginning to abound. Mr. Norton, therefore, is not to be blamed, even as a “liberal theologian,” for the adoption of the exclusive principle. He may have drawn the line in an inconvenient place; he may have violated the code of Unitarian etiquette, in making a belief in miracles essential to a belief in Christianity, and thus justly exposed himself to the charge of a breach of privilege; but he can hardly be blamed for making the belief of something necessary to entitle a man to the name of a Christian. We have no doubt, his real offence was in drawing the line of exclusion in such a manner as to cast out of the pale of even liberal Christianity, some who are not disposed to be thus publicly disowned. This is, indeed, distinctly stated.

“Your declaration,” says the author of the letter, to Mr. Norton, “is that a certain kind of evidence, in your view, establishes the truth of Christianity, and that he who rests his faith on any other is an infidel, notwithstanding his earnest and open professions to the contrary. You thus, in fact, denied the name of Christian to not a few individuals in your audience, although you avoided discussing the grounds by which their opinions are supported. For it is perfectly well known, that many of our most eminent clergymen—I will not refrain from speaking of them as they deserve on account of my personal sympathy with their views—repose their belief on a different foundation from that which you approve as the only tenable one.” It is plain, therefore, that the offensive exclusiveness of Mr. Norton’s Discourse consisted in denying the Christian name to those who deny the miracles of Christ.

It appears to us, however, that the writer of this letter does Mr. Norton great injustice. He accuses him of confounding “two propositions which are essentially distinct: a belief in a divine revelation, and a belief in the miracles alleged in its support. You utterly confound,” it is said, “the divine origin of Christianity, and a certain class of the proofs of its divine origin.”—P. 34. Mr. Norton does not confound these two things; nor does he, as represented by this writer, pronounce all those to be infidels whose faith rests on any other foundatian than miracles. He declares those to be infidels who deny the miracles of the New Testament, but this is a very different affair. Many who feel the force of other kinds of evidence much more than that of miracles, and whose faith, therefore, does not rest on that foundation, admit their truth. Mr. Norton’s doctrine is, that the miraculous accounts contained in the New Testament are so interwoven with all the other portions of the history, and enter so essentially into the nature of the whole system of Christianity, that they cannot be denied, without denying what is essential to the Christian religion. There is no confusion here of the thing to be proved, and the proof itself. It is true, he teaches that miracles are the only proof of a divine revelation. But this is only one of his reasons for maintaining that the rejection of the miracles of Christianity, is a rejection of Christianity itself. We believe this latter proposition, though we do not believe the former. We believe that miracles are essential to Christianity, though we do not believe that they are the only sufficient proof of its divine origin.

The Alumnus moreover censures Mr. Norton severely, for calling Spinoza an Atheist and Pantheist. The propriety of this censure depends on the sense given to the terms employed. An Atheist is one who denies the existence of God. But what is God? If the term be so extended as to include even a blind vis formativa operative through the universe, then there never was an Atheist. But if the term is used in its true scriptural sense; if it designates an intelligent and moral being, distinct from his creatures, whose essence is not their essence, whose acts are not their acts, and especially whose consciousness is not their consciousness, then Spinoza was an Atheist. He acknowledges no such being. The universe was God; or rather all creatures where but the phenomena of the only really existing being. It may, indeed, seem incongruous to call a man an Atheist, of whom it may with equal truth be said, that he believed in nothing but God. But in the sense stated above, which is a correct and acknowledged sense of the term, Spinoza was an Atheist.

“We come now,” says the Alumnus, “to a still more extraordinary mistake, which arose probably from the habit, too prevalent among us, of grouping together theologians who have scarcely anything in common, but the language in which they write. You class Schleiermacher with the modern German school, whose disciples are called Rationalists or Naturalists.”—P. 133. This he says is as whimsical a mistake as if a foreigner were to describe the celebrated Dr. Beecher as one of the most noted of the Unitarian school, in New England. This mistake is not quite as whimsical as the author supposes. The term Rationalist is, indeed, commonly employed to designate those who, making reason the source as well as the standard of religious truth, deny all divine revelation. Have the pietists, says Rhör, the superintendent of Weimar, yet to learn that we admit no other revelation in Christ than such as occurred in Socrates or Plato? Of such Rationalists, who are in Germany just what the Deists are in England, Schleiermacher, and all the transcendal school, were the determined and contemptuous opponents. In another sense, however, the term Rationalist is applicable, and is in fact applied, to the transcendentalists of the highest grade. Under the head of the Mystisch-spekulative Rationalismus, Tholuck includes the gnosticism of the first centuries, the Pantheists of the middle ages, and of modern Germany.⁹ To this class of mystical Rationalists, Schleiermacher undoubtedly belonged. As, however, the term is generally applied to the deistical opposers of a supernatural revelation, with whom he was ever in controversy, it certainly produces confusion to call Schleiermacher himself a Rationalist. As to the question, whether he was a Pantheist, as it is a matter about which his learned cotemporaries in his own country are at variance, we may well stand in doubt. Few unbiassed readers of his Reden über die Religion, however, could regard him in any other light when those discourses were written. They are, to be sure, a rhapsody, full of genius and feeling, but still a rhapsody, in which the meaning is a very secondary concern; which the reader is not expected to understand, but simply to feel. Such a book may betray a man’s sentiments, but is hardly fit to be cited in any doctrinal controversy. Schleiermacher was a very extraordinary man. Though he placed far too little stress on historical Christianity, (i. e., on the religion of Christ, considered as objective revelation, recorded in the New Testament,) yet as he made Christ the centre of his mystical system, exalting him as the perfect manifestation of God, he exerted an extraordinary influence in breaking down the authority of those deistical Rationalists, who were accustomed to speak of Christ as altogether such an one as themselves. He was once a Moravian, and there is reason to believe, that the interior life of his soul existed, after all, more under the form thus originally impressed upon it, than under the influence of his subsequent speculations. It was no uncommon thing for him to call upon his family to join with him in singing some devout Moravian hymn of praise to Christ; and though his preaching was of a philosophical cast, yet the hymns which he assigned were commonly expressive in a high degree, of devotional feeling and correct sentiment.¹⁰ Such a worshipper of Christ ought not to be confounded with such heartless Deists as Paulus, Wegscheider, and Rhör.

The Alumnus makes another objection to Mr. Norton’s discourse, the justice of which we admit. It does not fulfil the expectations which the annunciation of his subject excites. It is not a discourse on the Latest Form of Infidelity; it is a mere consideration of one subordinate feature of that form, viz., the denial of the miracles of the New Testament. And this feature is by no means characteristic of the system, as this denial was as formally made by Paulus as it is now by Strauss, men who have scarcely any other opinion in common. Mr. Norton’s discourse gives us little insight into the form which infidelity has recently assumed in Germany, and still less into the nature of the opinions which have begun to prevail in his own neighborhood. According to the Alumnus, it is better adapted to mislead than to inform the reader, as far as this latter point is concerned. “You announce,’ says he to Mr. Norton, “as the theme of your discourse, ‘the characteristics of the times, and some of those opinions now prevalent, which are at war with a belief in Christianity.’ This, certainly, was a judicious opening, and I only speak the sentiments of your whole audience, when I say that it was heard with universal pleasure. It at once brought up a subject of the highest importance, of no small difficulty, and of singular interest to our community at the present moment. It gave promise that you would discuss the character and tendency of opinions now prevalent in the midst of us; that you would meet some of the objections which have been advanced to popular theological ideas; that you would come directly to the great questions that are at issue between different portions of the audience which you addressed. But instead of this mode of proceeding, you adopted one which could not have been expected from your statement of the subject, and which I conceive to have been singularly irrelevant to the demands of your audience, and the nature of the occasion. Instead of meeting, face to face, the opinions which have found favor with many of the theologians in this country, which are publicly maintained from the pulpit and the press, in our own immediate community, which form the cardinal points on which speculation is divided among us, you appear studiously to avoid all mention of them; no one could infer from your remarks, that any novel ideas had been broached in our theological world, excepting such as can be traced back to the sceptical reasonings of Spinoza and Hume, and a comparatively small class of the modern theologians of Germany.”¹¹ He then denies that the writings of Spinoza, Hume, or of the German Rationalists, (in the limited sense of that term,) were exerting any influence among the theologians of Boston, and that the speculations which really prevailed, had a very different origin.

It is clear, from all this, that a serious and wide breach has occurred between different classes of the Unitarian divines in New England, but the real character of the novel ideas cannot be learned either from Mr. Norton’s discourse or from the letter of the Alumnus. It is, indeed, sufficiently plain, from the manner in which the latter speaks of pantheistic writers, that the new philosophy is the source of the difficulty. Speaking of the system of Spinoza, which he admits to be pantheistic, in a philosophical sense, inasmuch as it denies “real, substantial existence to finite objects,” he says, “no one who understands the subject, will accuse this doctrine of an irreligious tendency. It is religious even to mysticism; on that account, as well as for certain philosophical objections it labors under, [the Bible, it seems, has nothing to do with the question,] I cannot adopt it as a theory of the universe; but, I trust, I shall never cease to venerate the holy and exalted spirit of its author, who, in the meek simplicity of his life, the transparent beauty of his character, and the pure devotion with which he wooed truth, even as a bride, stands almost ‘alone, unapproached,’ among men.”—P. 126. Such language, in reference to a system which denies the existence of a personal God, the individuality of the human soul, which necessarily obliterates all distinction between right and wrong, betrays a singular perversion of ideas, and an entire renunciation of all scriptural views of the nature of religion. To call that obscure and mystic sentiment religion, which arises from the contemplation of the incomprehensible and infinite, is to change Christianity into Buddhism. The result in fact, to which the philosophy of the nineteenth century has brought its votaries.

In another place, however, he says of the leading school in modern German theology, “that the impression of the powerful genius of Schleiermacher is every where visible in its character; but it includes no servile disciples; it combines men of free minds, who respect each other’s efforts, whatever may be their individual conclusions; and the central point at which they meet is the acknowledgment of the divine character of Christ, the divine origin of his religion, and its adaptation to the world, when presented in a form corresponding with its inherent spirit, and with the scientific culture of the present age. There are few persons who would venture to charge such a school with the promulgation of infidelity; there are many, I doubt not, who will welcome its principles, as soon as they are understood, as the vital, profound, and ennobling theology, which they have earnestly sought for, but hitherto sought in vain.”—P. 146.

It is difficult to know how this paragraph is to be understood. If restricted to a few of the personal friends and pupils of Schleiermacher, such as Lücke, Ullmann, Twesten, and a few others, the description has some semblance of truth. But, in this case, it is no longer the “leading school of modern German theology” that the writer is describing. And if extended to the really dominant school, the description is as foreign from the truth as can well be imagined.

We have so recently exhibited at considerable length, the nature of the prevalent system of German theology and philosophy,¹² that we may well be excused from entering again at large upon the subject. As, however, it is a subject of constantly increasing interest, it may not be amiss to give a few additional proofs of the true character of the Latest Form of Infidelity. In doing this, we shall avail ourselves of the authority of such men as Leo, Hengstenberg, and Tholuck, men of the highest rank in their own country for talents, learning and integrity. We shall let them describe this new form of philosophy, which is turning the heads of our American scholars, inflating some and dementing others; and we shall leave it to our transcendental countrymen, if they see cause, to accuse these German scholars and Christians of ignorance and misrepresentation.

It is well known to all who have paid the least attention to the subject, that the prevalent system of philosophy in Germany is that of Hegel; and that this system has, to a remarkable degree, diffused itself among all classes of educated men. It is not confined to recluse professors or speculative theologians, but finds its warmest advocates among statesmen and men of the world. It has its poets, its popular as well as its scientific journals. It is, in short, the form in which the German mind now exists and exhibits itself to surrounding nations, just as Deism or Atheism was characteristic of France during the reign of terror. That a system thus widely diffused should present different phases might be naturally anticipated. But still it is one system, called by one name, and, despite of occasional recriminations among its advocates, recognised by themselves as one whole. The general characteristic of this school is Pantheism. This, as has been said, is “the public secret of Germany;” and “we must,” says Hengstenberg, “designedly close our own eyes on all that occurs around us, if we would deny the truth of this assertion.”¹³ And on the following page, he says, that though there are a few of the followers of Hegel who endeavor to reconcile his principles with Christianity, yet they are spoken of with contempt by their associates, who, as a body, are “with the clearest consciousness, and as logically as possible devoted to Pantheism.” They are, moreover, he adds, hailed as brothers by the advocates of popular Pantheism, who denounce, under the name of pietism, at once Christianity, Judaism and Deism. This was written four years ago, a long period in the history of modern philosophy, and since that time, the character of the school has developed itself with constantly increasing clearness.

In allusion to the French Chamber of Deputies, this school is divided into two parts, the right and the left. The former teach the principles of the philosophy in an abstruse form, as a philosophy; the other gives them a more popular and intelligible form. This latter division again, is divided into the centre left and extreme left. The one preserving some decorum and regard to public morals in their statements; and the other recklessly carrying out their principles to the extreme of licentiousness. To the extreme left belong the class which is designated “Young Germany,” of which Heine is one of the most prominent leaders. This class profess themselves the true disciples of the extreme right; the extreme right acknowledge their fellowship with the centre left, and the centre left with the extreme left. The respectable portion of the party of course express themselves with disapprobation of the coarseness of some of their associates, but they speak of them only as the unworthy advocates of the truth. Thus says Hengstenberg, “Professor Vischer, one of the most gifted of the party, expresses himself with an energy against the ‘young Germans,’ which shows that his better feelings are not yet obliterated, and yet acknowledges their principles with a decision and plainness which prove how deep those principles enter into the very essence of the system, so that the better portion of the party cannot, with any consistency reject them. In the Halle Jahrbuch, page 1118, he speaks of the Rehabilitationists¹⁴ as the ‘unworthy prophets of what, in its properly understood principle, is perfectly true and good.’ He says, ‘It is well, if in opposition to the morality of Kant and Schiller, the rights of our sensual nature should, from time to time, be boldly asserted.’ He complains, page 507, of the pedantry of his country, where the want of chastity is placed on a level with drunkenness, gluttony, or theft, and so expresses himself that every one sees that he considers incontinence a virtue under certain circumstances, and conjugal fidelity a sin.”¹⁵ Though this dominant party, therefore, has its divisions, its outwardly decent, and its openly indecent members, it is one school, and is liable to the general charges which have been brought against it as a whole.

It may well be supposed that a system so repugnant to every principle of true religion and sound morals, could not be openly advocated, without exciting the most decided opposition. This opposition has come from various quarters; from professed philosophers and theologians, and from popular writers, who have attacked the system in a manner adapted to the common mind. Professor Leo, of Halle, has adopted this latter method of assault. He is one of the most distinguished historians of Germany; and, until within a few years, himself belonged to the general class of Rationalists. His History of the Jews was written in accordance with the infidel opinions which he then entertained. Having, however, become a Christian, he has publicly expressed his sorrow for having given to the history just mentioned, the character which it now bears, and has, with great boldness and vigor, attacked the writings of the leading German school in theology. This step has excited a virulent controversy, and produced an excitement, particularly at Halle, such as has not been known for many years. Hengstenberg says, that Leo has not been sustained in this conflict, by the friends of truth, as he had a right to expect. “One principal reason,” he adds, “of this reserve, is no doubt, in many cases, the reckless vulgarity of many of his opponents. When they see what Leo has had to sustain, they tremble and exclaim, Vestigia me terrent! A decorous controversy with opponents who have something to lose, they do not dread, but they are unwilling to allow themselves to be covered with filth.”¹⁶ Hengstenberg, however, is not the man to desert the truth or its advocates, let what will happen. He stands like a rock, despite the violent assault of open enemies and the coolness of timid friends, the firmest and the most efficient defender of Christianity in Germany.

Leo entitled his book against the latest form of infidelity, “Hegelingen;” that is, Hegelians of the left, in allusion to the division of the school into a right and left side. It is presumed, he gave it this title, because it was intended to be a popular work, designed to exhibit the principles of the school in a manner suited to the apprehensions of the ordinary class of educated people. It was, therefore, directed, not against that division of the school which wrapped up its doctrines in the impenetrable folds of philosophical language, but against that division which have spoken somewhat more intelligibly.

With regard to the charges which Leo brings against this school, Hengstenberg says, “No one at all familiar with the literature of the day, needs evidence of their truth. Instead of doubting, he may rather wonder that an abomination advocated for years past, should now first, as though it were something new, be thus vehemently assaulted, and that the charges should be directed against comparatively few and unimportant writers.” This latter circumstance he adds, however, is accounted for, as Leo professed to confine himself to the productions of the year preceding the publication of his own book.

Leo’s first charge is this: “This party denies the existence of a personal God. They understand by God, an unconscious power which pervades all persons, and which arrives to self-consciousness only in the personality of men. That is, this party teaches Atheism without reserve.” With regard to this charge, Hengstenberg remarks: “Whoever has read Strauss’s Life of Jesus, and Vatke’s Biblical Theology, where Pantheism, which every Christian must regard as only one form of Atheism, is clearly avowed, cannot ask whether the party in general hold these doctrines, but simply whether the particular persons mentioned by Leo, belong, as to this point, to the party. About this, who can doubt, when he hears Professor Michelet say, beside many other things of like import, ‘God is the eternal movement of the universal principle, constantly manifesting itself in individual existences, and which has no true objective existence but in these individuals, which pass away again into the infinite.’ [In other words, God is but the name given to the ceaseless flow of being.] When he hears him denouncing as unworthy of the name, ‘the theistical Hegelians, who believe in a personal God, in another world?’”—P. 22. “Professor Vischer,” adds Hengstenberg, “is so far from being ashamed of Pantheism, that he glories in his shame, and represents it as the greatest honor of his friend Strauss, that he has ‘logically carried out the principle of the immanence of God in the world.’ That the Professors Gans and Benary agree with him and with Strauss, not only in general, but in this particular point, Michelet, ‘certain of their assent,’ has openly declared. According to Dr. Kühne, Hegel’s God ‘is not Jehovah,’ he is, ‘the ever streaming immanence of spirit in matter.’ To this representation, Dr. Meyen agrees, and says, ‘I make no secret, that I belong to the extreme left of Hegel’s school. I agree with Strauss perfectly, and consider him (seine Tendenz) as in perfect harmony with Hegel.’ Another writer, the anonymous author of the book ‘Leo vor Gericht,’ ridicules the charge of Atheism as though it were a trifle. He represents the public as saying to the charge, ‘What does it mean? Mr. Professor Leo is beyond our comprehension: Wodan, heathenism, Hegel’s God, Atheism! ha! ha! ha!’”

That Tholuck looks on the doctrine of Strauss, with whom these other writers profess agreement, and who is an avowed disciple of Hegel, in the same light, is clear from his language in his Anzeiger, for May, 1836: “Strauss,” he says, “is a man who knows no other God than him who, in the human race, is constantly becoming man. He knows no Christ but the Jewish Rabbi, who made his confession of sin to John the Baptist; and no heaven but that which speculative philosophy reveals for our enjoyment on the little planet we now inhabit.”

Nothing, however, can be plainer than Strauss’s own language: “As man, considered as a mere finite spirit, and restricted to himself, has no reality; so God, considered as an infinite spirit, restricting himself to his infinity, has no reality. The infinite spirit has reality only so far as he unites himself to finite spirits, (or manifests himself in them,) and the finite spirit has reality only so far as he sinks himself in the infinite.”¹⁷ How does this differ, except in the jargon of terms, from le peuple-dieu, of Anarcharsis Clootz, the worthy forerunner of these modern Atheists?¹⁸

“If,” says another writer in Hengstenberg’s Journal, “mankind is the incarnate Godhead, and, beside this incarnate divine spirit, there is no God, then we have a most perfect Atheism, which removes us from Christianity far beyond the limits of Mohammedanism, the heathenism of the Indians and Chinese, or of our Pagan ancestors.” “Hegel, and his school, maintain that God is not an individual person, as opposed to other individuals, since individuality is of necessity exclusive, limited and finite. Since God is a trinity, wherein the outwardness of number is merged in substantial unity, so God is an universal person; because the comprehension of individuals in unity is universality. This is what is meant by the expression: ‘God is personality itself.’ The simple question, whether they believe in the God whom Christians are bound to honor and love,” continues this writer, “is here complicated with an obscure definition of the Trinity, which no man can think removes the mystery of the subject, by saying Die Ausserlichkeit der Zahl zu einer substantiellen Einheit umgebogen ist (the outwardness of number is merged in substantial unity). The charge of denying the true God remains in full force, this justification of themselves to the contrary notwithstanding.” And on the following page, he adds, “that this school, to be honest, when asked, ‘Do you deny God and Christianity?’ ought to answer, ‘Certainly, what you Christians of the old school call God and Christianity; we would teach you a better doctrine.’”¹⁹

We have seen how that portion of this dominant school, which retain some respect for themselves, and for the opinion of others, veil their God-denying doctrines in philosophical formulas unintelligible to the common people, and mysterious and mystical to themselves. Stripped of its verbiage, the doctrine is, that men are God; there is no other God than the ever-flowing race of man; or that the universal principle arrives to self-consciousness only in the human race, and therefore the highest state of God is man. The extreme left of the school trouble themselves but little with words without meaning. They speak out boldly, so that all the world may understand. “We are free,” says Heine, “and need no thundering tyrant. We are of age, and need no fatherly care. We are not the hand-work of any great mechanic. Theism is a religion for slaves, for children, for Genevese, for watch-makers.”

“Leo,” says Hengstenberg, “charges this party with denying the incarnation of God in Christ, and with turning the gospel into a mythology. If the previous charge is substantiated, this requires no special proof. If the existence of God, in the Christian sense of the terms, be denied, we must cease to speak of an incarnation in the Christian sense of the word. The doctrine of the immanence of God in the world, says Professor Vischer, (Halle Jahrbuch, s. 1102,) forbids us to honor ‘God in the letter, or in single events, or individuals.’ It regards, ‘as a breach in the concatenation of the universe, that an individual should be the Absolute.’ According to this view, there is no other incarnation than that which Professor Michelet, in harmony with the Chinese philosophers, teaches, that ‘God must constantly appear here on earth in a form which affects our senses, (als sinnlicher,) though constantly changing that form (als ein sich aufgehebender und aufgehobener), and in this statement, if I mistake not, the whole school will recognize the eternal incarnation of God.’ The Absolute attains consciousness in a series of individuals, no one of which fully represents him, but each has significance only as a member of the whole. This incarnation of God is eternal, but all individuals are perishing and transitory; the Absolute constantly fashions for itself new individuals, and rejects the former as soon as they have answered their end. These form ‘the Golgotha of the Absolute Spirit;’ they surround, like bloodless ghosts, the throne of the monster that devours his own children; that, void of love, strides through ages, trampling and destroying all that lies in his way.” Such is the awful language in which Hengstenberg describes the God of the Hegelians.

The incarnation of God, then, according to this school, did not occur in Christ, but is constantly occurring in the endless succession of the human race. Mankind is the Christ of the new system, and all the gospel teaches of the Son of God is true only as it is understood of mankind. Strauss teaches this doctrine with a clearness very unusual in a philosopher. “The key,” says he, “of the whole doctrine of Christ, is that the predicates which the church have affirmed of Christ, as an individual, belong to an Idea, to a real, not to a Kantian unreal idea. In an individual, in one Godman, the attributes and functions which the church attribute to Christ, are incompatible and contradictory; in the idea of the race they all unite. Mankind is the union of the two natures, the incarnate God, the Infinite revealed in the Finite, and the Finite conscious of its infinity. The race is the child of the visible mother and of the invisible Father, of the Spirit, and of nature; it is the true worker of miracles, in so far as in course of its history, it constantly attains more complete mastery over nature, which sinks into the powerless material of human activity. It is sinless, so far as the course of its development is blameless; impurity cleaves only to the individual, but in the race, and its history, it is removed. The race dies, rises again, and ascends to heaven, in so far as by the negation of its natural element (Natürlichkeit) a higher spiritual life is produced, and as by the negation of its finitude as a personal, national, worldly spirit, its unity with the infinite spirit of heaven is manifested. By faith in this Christ, is man justified before God; that is, by the awakening the idea of the nature of man in him, especially as the negation of the natural element, which is itself a negation of the spirit, and thus a negation of a negation, is the only way to true spiritual life for man, the individual becomes a partaker of the theanthropical life of the race. This alone is the real import of the doctrine of Christ; that it appears connected with the person and history of an individual, has only the subjective ground, that his personality and fate were the occasion of awakening this general truth in the consciousness of men, and that at that period the culture of the world, and indeed the culture of the mass at all periods, allowed of their contemplating the Idea of the race, only in the concrete form of an individual.’”²⁰

Tholuck, whose charity for philosophical aberrations is very wide, remarks on this passage, “As the incarnation of God occurred not in an individual, but comes to pass only in the constant progress of the race, so the individual as a mere item of the race, has fulfilled his destiny at the close of his earthly course, and the race alone is immortal. It is not we that enter a future world, the future world goes forward in this, the more the spirit becomes aware of its infinitude, and by the power of reason, gains the mastery over nature. This ideal perfection is to be attained, not in heaven, but in the perfection of our political and social relations. This system therefore comes to the same result with the materialism of the Encyclopedists, who mourned over mankind for having sacrificed the real pleasures of time for the visionary pleasures of eternity, and the protracted enjoyments of life, for the momentary happiness of a peaceful death. It agrees moreover, despite of its intellectual pretensions, with the wishes of the materialistical spirit of the age, which sets as the highest end of man, not the blessings promised by the church, but according to the ‘Young Germans,’ the refined pleasures of life, and according to politicians, the perfection of the State.”

It is strange that men holding such views should trouble themselves at all with the gospel. As this system, however, has arisen in a Christian country, there was but one of two things to do, either to say that real Christianity means just what this system teaches, or to explode the whole evangelical history. Some have taken the one course, and some the other, while some unite both. That is, they reject the gospel history as a history; they represent it as a mere mythology; but as the ancient philosophers made the mythology of the Greeks and Romans a series of allegories containing important truths, so do these modern philosophers represent the gospels as a mere collection of fables, destitute in almost every case of any foundation in fact, but still expressive of the hidden mysteries of their system. It is by a mytho-symbolical interpretation of this history that the truth must be sought. The life of Jesus by Strauss is a laborious compilation of all the critical objections against the New Testament history, which he first thus endeavored to overturn, and then to account for and explain as a Christian mythology. “Had this book,” says Hengstenberg, “been published in England, it would have been forgotten in a couple of months.”²¹ In Germany it has produced a sensation almost without a parallel. It has become the rallying ground of all the enemies of Christianity open and secret, and the number of its advocates and secret abettors is therefore exceedingly great. The author, says Tholuck, “has uttered the sentence which so few dared to utter; ‘The evangelical history is a fable.’ He has uttered it at a time when the deniers of the truth were filled with spleen at the prospect of a constantly increasing faith in the gospel. With what joy then must this hypocritical and timid generation hail a leader who gives himself to the sweat and dust of the battle, while they hide behind the bushes, and rub their hands, and smile in each other’s faces.’”²²

3. Leo’s third charge against this party is that they deny the immortality of the soul. “This point also needs no further proof,” says Hengstenberg, “since the former have been proved. With the personality of God falls of course that of man, which is the necessary condition of an existence hereafter. To a Pantheist, ‘the subject which would assert its individual personality, is evil itself.’ (Michelet.) It is regarded as godless even to cherish the desire of immortality. According to the doctrine of the eternal incarnation of God, it must appear an intolerable assumption for an individual to lay claim to that which belongs only to the race; he must freely and gladly cast himself beneath the wheels of the idol car that he may make room for other incarnations of the Spirit, better adapted to the advancing age. The proofs, however, of this particular charge are peculiarly abundant. Hegel himself, who ought not to be represented as so different from the Hegelingen, since the difference between them is merely formal and not essential, involved himself in the logical denial of the immortality of the soul. This has been fully proved with regard to him and Dr. Marheineke in a previous article in this journal (that is, the Kirchen-Zeitung). It has also been demonstrated by Weise in the work: Die philosophische Geheimlehre von der Unsterblichkeit, as far as Hegel is concerned; and with Weise, Becker has more recently signified his agreement. If this happens in the green tree, what will become of the dry?

“Richter came out with such a violent polemic against the doctrine of immortality, that the party had to disavow him, for fear of the public indignation. When, however, they thought it could be done unnoticed or without danger, they acknowledged the same doctrine. Michelet endeavors most earnestly to free Hegel’s system from the charge of countenancing the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, as from a reproach. He speaks out clear and plain his own views in words which, according to him, Hegel himself had spoken, ‘Thought alone is eternal, and not the body and what is connected with its individuality,’ that is, the whole personality, which, according to this system, depends entirely on the body (Leiblichkeit). * * * Ruge (Hall. Jahrb. s. 1011) ridicules the scruples of theologians as to whether ‘Philosophy can make out the immortality of the human soul; whether philosophy has any ethics; whether it can justify the gross doctrines of hell, of wailing, and gnashing of teeth, &c.’ ‘Such vulgar craving,’ he says, ‘is beginning to mix itself with purely philosophical and spiritual concerns, and threatens to merge philosophy in its troubled element. The more this dogmatical confusion arrogates to itself; the more this senseless justification of the wretched errors of orthodoxy dishonors the free science of philosophy, the more necessary will it be to cast out this dung-heap of nonsense to the common mind (in das gemeine Bewustseyn).’ Meyen at first puts on the air as though he would acknowledge the doctrine of the immortality of the soul.

‘The Hegelians,’ he says, ‘do indeed reject the sensual conceptions of immortality, but they admit the doctrine as presented by Marheineke in his Theology.’ The dishonest ambiguity of this sentence will not escape notice. Dr. Marheineke denies the continued personal existence of the soul after death, and attributes the belief of such a doctrine to selfishness. ‘Whoever,’ continues Meyen, ‘is so conversant, as Hegel, with what is eternal in connection with spirit, must admit the eternity of the spirit.’ Here again is intentional ambiguity. The question concerning the continued personal existence of the soul is silently changed for the question about the eternity of the spirit. A veil is thrown over the fact that Hegel, while he admitted the latter, denied the former, as Michelet and others have sufficiently shown. These preliminary remarks, transparent as they are, were only intended to prevent his being quoted in proof of the disbelief of immortality in the school to which he belongs. He immediately comes out plainly with his own views and those of his party, yet so as still to leave a door open behind him, ‘What though a Hegelian,’ says he, ‘did not.believe in the immortality of the soul in a Christian sense—let it be noticed that the words are here so placed, that the uninformed should infer that the school, as a whole, and its above mentioned leaders, do believe in immortality in a Christian sense—what then? If I resign myself to this, am I thereby a different person, or is the world for me different? I would seek to acknowledge God in his works as before, and I would live as morally as ever.’ At last, however, it becomes too hot for him, even in these thin clothes, and he casts them off, having assumed them only for the sake of his brothers in Hegel, who happen to be in office. ‘Grass,’ says he, ‘is already growing on the grave of Daub, is he therefore dead for his friends and for the world? his works, and hence also his spirit, live. Many winter storms have already swept over the graves of Hegel and of Göthe, but does not their spirit still live among us? It is, as Christ said, where two of you are met together, there am I in the midst of you.’²³ Thus each continues to live according to his words. The citizen in remembrance of his family; he who has distinguished himself in the kingdom of the spirit, still lives in that kingdom, and hence he who has worked for eternity is immortal.’”

4. “Leo, finally,” says Hengstenberg, “accuses the school of wishing to pass themselves for Christians, by means of disguising their ungodly and abominable doctrines under a repulsive and unintelligible phraseology. This is a heavy charge. Honesty and candor have ever been the ornament of our national character. They have ever been regarded as the innate virtues of a German. Whoever undermines them is a disgrace to his country. Yet who can say the charge is not well founded? Several proofs of its truth have been given in what has been already said. A statement, however, by Professor Vischer, in his character of Dr. Strauss (Hall. Jahrb. s. 111), is worthy of special attention. ‘How firm his (Strauss’s) conviction as to the main point even then was, is shown in a highly interesting correspondence between him and one of his friends, communicated to me through the kindness of the latter, and which now lies before me. It is touching to observe with what cheerful confidence in the saving power of the truth, he endeavors to remove the anxiety and scruples of his friend, who felt pained by the chasm which his scientific convictions had made between him and his congregation; how clearly he shows that it is no dishonesty to speak the language of the imagination (der Vorstellung), to introduce unobserved into the figures which alone float before the believer, the thoughts of the knower (des Wissenden).’ Here the zeal and skill with which Dr. Strauss teaches his friend how to lie, and instructs him how to steal from the congregation what they regard as the most precious treasure (and what, for that very reason, it will be found impossible to rob them of), are represented as a great merit, and the reader is exhorted to allow himself to be affected by this proof of his amiableness, and in the warmth of his sympathy to press his hand, and exclaim, O how good you are! We, however, cannot regard such conduct without the deepest moral abhorrence. The school endeavor to jutsify this course, from the relation which Hegel has established between conception and thought (Vortstellung²⁴ und Begriff). But this justification is completely worthless. It is not one whit better than the theories by which the robbers in Spain justify their vocation. Evil is not better, but on the contrary worse, and the more to be condemned when it is brought in formam artis. The relation assumed by Hegel between conception and thought, would allow at most of a formal accommodation. That yours is of that nature you cannot assert. * * * If the difference between your thought (Begriff) and our conception (Vorstellung) is merely formal, why do you rave with such hatred against us? Why do you say that ‘pietism is a disease which corrupts the very life of the spirit?’ (Vischer, p. 526.) How can the question be about a mere formal difference? Our Conception and your Thought are just as far apart as heaven and hell. We confess God the Father the maker of heaven and earth, and Jesus Christ his only begotten Son; you deny both the Father and the Son, and confess Antichrist, yea, would yourselves be his members. * * * ”

Hengstenberg afterwards remarks that it is almost incredible to what an extent this deception and hypocrisy is carried. This course of conduct, however, though very characteristic of this modern school, is an old device. The Rationalists, to go no further back, were accustomed to speak of the Lamb of God, of the blood of Christ, &c., with the avowed purpose that the people should attach to these expressions their scriptural sense, while they employed them in a very different one. How strange too it sounds to hear this Alumnus of Cambridge speaking of “the divine character of Christ,” of “the cross of Christ as the hope of the world” and “of the anointing of the Holy Ghost.” This community, we trust, is not prepared to have such solemn words made playthings of. Let philosophers and errorists, who deny the truths of the Bible, find words for themselves, and not profane the words of God by making them a vehicle for the denial of his truth. One of the most monstrous examples of this perversion of scriptural language occurs in a passage quoted above from Strauss. He too will have it that a man is justified by faith in Christ, because as God is incarnate in the race, the race is Christ, and by faith in the race, or by coming to a proper apprehension of his own nature, man reaches his highest state of perfection. Mr. Bancroft in his history talks of men being justified by faith, meaning thereby, that they are justified by their principles. And the Oxford divines teach that we are justified by faith, since the thirty-nine articles say so, but then it is by the faith of the church.²⁵

“With this last charge, Leo,” says Hengstenberg, “entered upon the department of morals; and we could wish that he had dwelt longer on this part of the subject. It would then have been shown, how this party are laboring to destroy all that Rationalism has left of religion and morality. What their ethics are, may be readily inferred from their religion. Where there is no personal God, there is no law, which men need fear to violate, as the expression of his will. If the distinction between God and man is removed, if man is set in the place of God, then nothing is more natural than that men should without reserve, and upon principle, give themselves up to all their inclinations and lusts. To suppress these desires, is to hinder the development of God; if they do not become God as developed, they do become the nascent God; if not good in themselves, they are relatively good, as transition-points in the progress of development. It is not sin, that is sinful; but only impenitence, that is, cleaving to the relative good, which is vulgarly called evil, as though it were the absolute good. These painful results of the doctrine of this school, are everywhere, with the most logical consequence, avowed and brought to light. Ruge, in a passage already quoted, attributes the question, whether philosophy has any ethics, to ‘vulgar craving’ (gemeinen Bedürftigkeit), as much as the question, whether it can vindicate the gross doctrine of hell, &c.; and insists that this whole ‘dung-heap should be cast out into the mire of the common mind.’ In connection with Leo, and the editor (Hengstenberg himself), Menzel is designated as ‘the incarnation of protestant Jesuitism (Meyen. page 5), because he has appeared in defence of morality, now completely antiquated, against the young Germany. On every side, efforts are made to represent him, before the whole nation, as a marked man, on account of his conflict with that which the spirit of the pit in our day says to the common man. ‘Upon Wolfgang Menzel,’ says Meyen, ‘judgment is already executed; he lies like a scurvy old dog on the foul straw which Herr von Cotta has in compassion left him, and can seldom muster courage to yelp;’ that all is over with his pitiful morality, which has gone to its rest.²⁶ The principles of the ‘Young Germany’ have been advanced in the Literary Magazine of Berlin, with shameless effrontery, and the infamous advocates of those principles defended, and the sottish prudery of ‘the gray heads of the age,’ who were disgusted at their song: ‘We lead a merry life,’ has been turned into ridicule.” Hengstenberg then introduces the passage from Professor Vischer, quoted on a previous page, in which, while he condemns these young Germans as unworthy prophets, he defends their principles.

This pantheistic school, therefore, is as subversive of all morality, as it is of all religion. It does not admit the idea of sin. As there is no God, there is no law, and no transgression. Every thing actual, is necessary. The progress of the race, the ever nascent God, goes on by eternal undeviating laws, and all that occurs, in fact, is the action of the only God of which this system knows.²⁷ We do not think it right to stain our pages with the indecent ravings of those writers who, availing themselves of the principles of the decent portion of the school, have applied them to the service of sin. It is enough to show the nature of the system, that the Pantheist “does not believe in the continued existence of the individual, in the reality of his freedom, in the deadly nature of sin, and its opposition to God. Individuals are to him but the phantasmagoria of the spirit. Liberty is but the subtle moment of determination. Sin is what a man, with his measure of knowledge and power, cannot avoid: remorse is, therefore, a forbidden emotion in his system.”²⁸

The most offensive aspect of the whole system is, that in deifying men, it deifies the worst passions of our nature. “This,” says a writer in Hengstenberg’s journal, “is the true, positive blasphemy of God—this veiled blasphemy—this diabolism of the deceitful angel of light—this speaking of reckless words, with which the Man of Sin sets himself in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. The Atheist cannot blaspheme with such power as this; his blasphemy is negative; he simply says there is no God. It is only out of Pantheism that a blasphemy can proceed, so wild, of such inspired mockery, so devoutly godless, so desperate in its love of the world; a blasphemy at once so seductive, and so offensive, that it may well call for the destruction of the world.”²⁹

As an illustration, at once, of the confidence and character of these modern Pantheists, we shall give one more passage from Strauss, the most prominent and, perhaps, most respected writer of the school: “This disposition is not a secret of the philosophers only; as an obscure instinct, it has become the universal spirit of the age. It is acknowledged, that we no longer know how to build churches. But on the other hand, from an impulse which, as a miasma, has spread, especially over all Germany, monuments to great men and lofty spirits arise on every side. There is much that is ridiculous mixed with this feeling; but it has its serious aspect, and is assuredly a sign of the times. The Evangelical Church Journal (Hengstenberg’s) has taken the right view of the matter, when it pronounces accursed, as a new idolatry, the honor paid to the man on a pillar in the Place Vendome, and to him of the Weimar Olympus. In fact, they are Gods, before whom the God of the Church Journal may well tremble; or, in other words, a heathenism which endangers its Christianity. If Heine has compared the accounts of O’Meara, Antommarchi, and Las Cases, with Matthew, Mark, and Luke, will not some one soon discover in Bettina’s letters,’³⁰ a new gospel of John? A new Paganism, or it may be a new Catholicism, has come over Protestant Germany. Men are no longer satisfied with one incarnation of God; they desire, after the manner of the Indians, a series of repeated avatars. They wish to surround the solitary Jesus with a new circle of saints, only these must not be taken from the church alone; but, as in the private chapel of the Emperor Alexander Severus, the statue of Orpheus stood beside those of Christ and of Abraham, so the tendency of the age is to honor the revelation of God in all the spirits which have wrought, with life and creative power, on mankind. The only worship—we may deplore it, or we may praise it, deny it we cannot—the only worship which remains for the cultivated classes of this age, from the religious declension of the last, is the worship of genius.”³¹

Such, then, is this Latest Form of Infidelity. It knows no intelligent or conscious God but man; it admits no incarnation, but the eternal incarnation of the universal spirit in the human race; the personality of men ceases with their present existence, they are but momentary manifestations of the infinite and unending; there is neither sin nor holiness; neither heaven nor hell. Such are the results to which the proud philosophy of the nineteenth century has brought its followers. We have not drawn this picture. We have purposely presented it as drawn by men with regard to whose opportunities and competency there can be no room for cavil. It might be supposed, that a system so shocking as this, which destroys all religion and all morality, could be adopted by none but the insane or the abandoned; that it might be left as St. Simonianism, Owenism, or Mormonism, to die of its own viciousness. This supposition, however, overlooks the real nature of the system. We have presented it in its offensive nakedness. It is not thus that it addresses itself to the uninitiated or timid. What is more offensive than Romanism, when stripped of its disguises, yet what more seductive in its bearing, for the vast majority of men? There is everything to facilitate the progress of this new philosophy. It has a side for all classes of men. For the contemplative and the sentimentally devout, it has its mysticism, its vagueness, its vastness. It allows them to call wonder, a sense of the sublime or of the beautiful, religion. For the poet, too, it has its enchantments, as it gives consciousness and life to everything, and makes all things expressive of one infinite, endless mind. For the proud, no Circe ever mingled half so intoxicating a cup. Ye shall be as God, said the archtempter of our race: ye are God, is what he now whispers into willing ears. For the vain and frivolous, it has charms scarcely to be resisted. It gives them easy greatness. They have only to talk of the I, and the not I (or, as they prefer to have it, the me and the not me), and they are beyond the depth of all ordinary men. And even then, they are, according to the system, far greater than they can possibly think themselves to be. For the sensual, it is a perfect heaven. It legitimates and dignifies all enjoyments. It makes self-indulgence religion. It forbids all remorse and all fear. That a system so manifold as this, which has a chamber of imagery for every imagination, should find advocates and friends on every hand, is not a matter of surprise. There is still another circumstance which must be taken into consideration in accounting for the rapid progress of this new philosophy, and in speculating on its prospects. It has, in some of its principles, a certain resemblance to the truth. The God of the Bible is not the God of the Deist, or off the Rationalist, or of the worldling, a God afar off, who has no oversight or direction of his creatures. The world is not a machine wound up and left to itself. The wonders of vegetable and animal life are not the result of the properties of matter acting blindly and without guidance. The God of the Bible is an everywhere-present, and ever-active God, in whom we live and move and have our being; it is his Spirit that causes the grass to grow. It is he that fashions the curious mechanism of our bodies, who numbers the hairs of our heads, and directs all our goings. All the changes in nature are produced by his power, so that everything we see, is in truth a manifestation of God. But then the Bible does not merge God in the world or the world in God. Though everywhere present in the world, God is not the world; but a Being of infinite intelligence, power, excellence, and blessedness, guiding and controlling his creatures, whose acts and consciousness are their own and not his. The chasm which divides the pantheistic from the scriptural view of God, is bottomless, and the difference in the effects of the two views is infinite; it is all the difference between infinite good and infinite evil. If there is anything impressed clearly on the Bible, it is the personality of God; it is the ease and confidence with which his people can say Thou, in calling on his name; it is that he ever says I of himself, and you, when addressing his creatures.

It is doubtless in a good degree owing to the deceptive show of truth in this new system—to its pretending to bring back, if we may reverently so speak, God to the world from which Deists and Rationalists had so long banished him, that we are to attribute the hold which it has taken of many of the better class of minds. and it is to this that it owes its most alarming aspect; since those errors are always the most dangerous which can put on the nearest resemblance to truth. A conflict, therefore, is anticipated by the Christians of Germany with this new form of infidelity, far more lasting and deadly than any that has yet afflicted the church in that country. If Rationalism, so unattractive, so lifeless, made such inroads upon the church, “what,” say they, “may be expected from Pantheism, a system so full of life, of feeling, of mysticism, of poetry, whose disciples can, with a deceptive show, boast that they are religious, that they are introducing a new, beautiful, and universal religion, and give themselves out as a new sort of Christians;” nay, who pretend at times to be real Christians, who say they believe in the Trinity, in the incarnation, redemption, resurrection, and all other doctrines of the Bible, that is, they express some philosophical enigma under these terms; or at times speak of Christianity with affected respect, as good for the people in their present state, professing with Cousin that “philosophy is patient; * * * happy in seeing the great bulk of mankind in the arms of Christianity, she offers, with modest kindness, to assist her in ascending to a yet loftier elevation.”³²

Strange therefore as it may seem, when we look at this system in its true character, it undoubtedly has already prevailed to a great extent in Germany; and is making some progress in France, England, and our own country. Its true nature is disguised in obscure philosophical language, which many use without understanding, until it comes at last to the expression of their real opinions. We have evidence enough that this pantheistic philosophy has set its cloven foot in America. First we had a set of young men captivated by the genius and mysticism of Coleridge, republishing works through which were scattered intimations more or less plain of the denial of a personal God. This was the first step. In the writings of Coleridge the general tone and impression was theistical. He was an Englishman; he had received too many of his modes of thinking and of expression from the Bible, to allow of his being a Pantheist except when musing. Next we had the writings of Cousin, a man of a different cast, with none of Coleridge’s solemnity or reverence. A Frenchman, on whose mind the Bible had left no strong impress. Vain and presumptuous, and yet timid; intimating more than he durst utter. As he has given the world nothing in the form of a system, it is only by these occasional intimations, that his readers can judge how far he adopts the ideas of the German school, whence all his opinions are borrowed. These intimations, however, are sufficiently frequent and sufficiently clear to make it plain that he is a denier of God and of the gospel. This has been clearly proved in the article in this Review already referred to.³³ He uses almost the very language of the Hegelians in expressing his views of the nature of God. “God exists as an idea,” say the Hegelians;³⁴ “these ideas,” i. e., of the infinite, finite, and the relation between them, “are God himself,” says Cousin.³⁵ According to the Hegelians, God arrives at consciousness in man; and so Cousin teaches “God returns to himself in the consciousness of man.” The German school teaches that everything that exists is God in a certain stage of development; so also Cousin, “God is space and number, essence and life, indivisibility and totality, principle, end, and centre, at the summit of being and at its lowest degree, infinite and finite together, triple in a word, that is to say, at the same time God, nature, and humanity. In fact, if God is not everything he is nothing.”³⁶ Surely there can be but one opinion among Christians, about a system which admits of no God but the universe, which allows no intelligence or consciousness to the infinite Spirit, but that to which he attains in the human soul, which makes man the highest state of God. And we should think there could be, among the sane, but one opinion of the men who, dressed in gowns and bands, and ministering at God’s altars, are endeavoring to introduce these blasphemous doctrines into our schools, colleges, and churches. “Ancient chronicles relate,” says Leo, “there were watchtowers and castles for which no firm foundation could be obtained, until (by the direction of the practitioners of the black art), a child was built up in the walls. They made a little chamber in the foundation, placed within it a table with sugar and playthings, and while the poor, unconscious little victim was rejoicing over his toys, the grim masons built up the wall. This is a fable; or, if true, belongs to a pagan age, and every nerve within us trembles, when we think of this abomination of heathenism. But are not those, who cut the people loose from the more than thousand years old foundation of their morality and faith, by teaching the rising generation that there is no personal God; that the history of his only begotten Son is a cunningly devised fable, which does indeed, if properly understood, give a good philosophical sense; that all subjective consciousness and feeling end with death; that the greatest abominations that ever occurred were necessary, and thus reasonable, and a conscious and willful opposition to God is alone evil; are not these the most cruel of masons, who immure the children of Germany in the walls of the tower of heathen ideas, in the bastions and watchtowers of the devil, enticing them within with the sugar toys of their vain philosophy, that they may perish in the horrors of unsatisfied hunger and thirst after the word of the Lord?”³⁷

Shocking as this whole system is, we doubt not it will, to a certain extent, prevail even among us; and God may bring good out of the evil. “There are two people,” says Hengstenberg, “in the womb of this age, and only two. They will become constantly more firmly and decidedly opposed, the one to the other. Unbelief will more and more exclude what it still has of faith; and faith, what it has of unbelief. Unspeakable good will hence arise. ‘And the Lord said unto Gideon, by the three hundred men that lapped, will I save you, and deliver the Midianites into thy hand; and let all the other people go, every man unto his own place.’ Had the spirit of the times continued to make concessions, concessions would have been constantly made to it. But, now, since every concession only renders it more importunate, those who are not ready to give up everything, will more and more resist, and demand back again what they have already yielded. They began by giving up the first chapter in Genesis, as mythological, which even well meaning theologians, as Seiler and Muntinghe, thought of little consequence. Soon, for the supposed greater honor of the New Testament, they gave up the whole Old Testament history, as mythological. Scarcely was this point reached, when they felt themselves under the necessity of giving up the first chapters of Matthew and Luke, with the sincere assurance that these scruples about the early history of Jesus did not at all endanger the remaining portions of his life. Soon, however, beside the beginning, they gave up the end, the account of the ascension of Christ, as fabulous. Even here there was no rest. It was not long before the first three gospels were yielded to the enemy. They then retired on the gospel of John, and loudly boasted that there they were safe, not without some secret misgivings, however, that they lived only by the forbearance of the foe. He has already appeared, and availed himself of the same weapons which had already gained so many victories, and the gospel of John is now no better off than the rest. Now, at last, a stand must be taken; a choice ‘must be made; either men must give up everything, or they must ascend to the point whence they first set out, and through the very same stations through which they descended. To this they will not be able, at once, to make up their minds; they will at first believe that they can escape at a cheaper rate; but let them twist and turn as they may, let them use what arts they please, the matter can have no other issue.”³⁸ This has a special reference to the state of opinion in Germany. But it is not without its application to us. There are those in our country, even among the orthodox, who talk of a mythology of the Hebrews; and others among the Unitarians, who give up not only the miracles of the Old Testament, but those of the New. All such must either go on or go back. Professor Norton cannot give up the first chapters of Matthew as fabulous, and call him an infidel who gives up the remainder. This new philosophy will break up the old divisions. It will carry some on to Atheism, and drive others back to the unmutilated Bible.

This is not the only effect which this new leaven may be expected to produce. As in Germany it has operated to the destruction of Rationalism, so here it may serve to bring Socinianism and Pelagianism into contempt. Even some Unitarian ministers of Boston, we are told, have already discovered that “the religion of the day seemed too cold, too lifeless, too mechanical, for many of their flock.”³⁹ “There are many, I doubt not,” says this same authority, “who will welcome its principles (i. e., the principles ‘of the leading school in modern German theology’) as soon as they are understood, as the vital, profound, and ennobling theology which they have earnestly sought for, but hitherto sought in vain.” If this is so, then farewell to Socinianism, and farewell to Pelagianism. If only for consistency’s sake, those who, with this Alumnus, find in the transcendentalism of Schleiermacher the true philosophy, must feel or affect the contempt which he felt for the Rationalists and Pelagians. The ground on which they stand, however, is too narrow to afford them a footing. Schleiermacher gave up almost everything, except the incarnation of God in Christ. This was the centre of his system. Those whom he brought off from Rationalism, have almost all gone on, with the Hegelians, to Atheism, or turned back to the Bible. And so it will be here. Indeed, the man who can see no harm in Pantheism, who thinks it a most religious system, and venerates its advocates, as is the case with this Alumnus, has but one step to take, and he is himself in the abyss. We should not, therefore, be surprised to see, in the providence of God, this new philosophy, which is in itself infinitely worse than Socinianism or Deism, made the means of breaking up those deadening forms of error, and while it leads many to destruction, of driving others back to the fountain of life.

Though, for the reasons stated above, we think it not unlikely that this system will make a certain degree of progress in our country, we have no fear of its ever prevailing, either here or in England, as it does in Germany. Apart from the power of true religion, which is our only real safeguard against the most extravagant forms of error, there are two obstacles to the prevalence of these doctrines among Englishmen, or their descendants. They do not suit our national character. A sanity of intellect, an incapacity to see wonders in nonsense, is the leading trait of the English mind. The Germans can believe anything. Animal magnetism, is, for them, as one of the exact sciences. What suits the Germans, therefore, does not suit us. Hence almost all those who, in England, or in this country, have professed transcendentalism, like puss in boots, have made them ridiculous. If it was not for its profaneness, what could be more ludicrous than Mr. Emerson’s address? He tells us, that religious sentiment is myrrh, and storax, and chlorine, and rosemary; that the time is coming when the law of gravitation and purity of heart will be seen to be identical, that man has an infinite soul, &c. How much, too, does Dr. Henry look, in Cousin’s philosophy, like a man in clothes great deal too large for him. It will not do. Such men were not made for transcendentalists. This is not meant in disparagement of those gentlemen. It is a real compliment to them, though not exactly to their wisdom. Coleridge is the only Englishman whom we know anything about, who took the system naturally. To him it was truth; he was a mystic; he had faith in what he said, for his words were to him the symbols of his own thoughts. It is not so with others. They repeat a difficult lesson by rote, striving hard all the while not to forget.

The Germans keep their philosophy for suitable occasions. They do not bring it into mathematics or history. With us, however, it is far too fine a thing to be kept locked up. If transcendental at all, we must be so always. Marheineke, the first almost in rank of Hegel’s scholars, has written a history of the German Reformation, which is a perfect master-piece; perfectly simple, graphic, and natural. From this history, the reader could not tell whether he was a Wolfian, Kantian, or Hegelian; he would be apt to think he was a Christian, who loved Luther and the gospel. Compare this with Carlyle’s History of the French Revolution, which is almost as transcendental as Hegel’s Encyklopädie.

It is not, however, only or chiefly on this want of adaptation of the German mysticism to the sane English mind, that we would rely to counteract the new philosophy; it is the influence of the Bible on all our modes of thinking. We believe in God the Father, the maker of heaven and earth. We must have a God who can hear prayer. In Germany, the educated classes, little in the habit of attending church, have for generations felt comparatively little of the power of the Bible. There was no settled idea of a personal God, such as is visible in every page of the Scriptures, engraven on their hearts. They were therefore prepared for speculations which destroyed his very nature, and were content with a blind instinctive power, productive of all changes, and struggling at last into intelligence in the human race. Such a God may do for a people who have been first steeped in infidelity for generations; but not for those who have been taught with their first lispings, to say, Our Father who art in heaven. The grand danger is, that this deadly poison will be introduced under false labels; that this Atheism, enveloped in the scarcely intelligent formulas of the new philosophy, may be regarded as profound wisdom, and thus passed from mouth to mouth without being understood, until it becomes familiar and accredited. We feel it to be a solemn duty to warn our readers, and in our measure, the public, against this German Atheism, which the spirit of darkness is employing ministers of the gospel to smuggle in among us under false pretences. No one will deny that the Hegelian doctrines, as exhibited above, are Atheism in its worst form; and all who will read the works of Cousin, may soon satisfy themselves that his system, as far as he has a system, is, as to the main point, identical with that of Hegel. and is one measure, the [?] against this German Atheism, which the spirit of darkness is employing ministers of the gospel to smuggle in among us under false pretence. No one will deny that the foregoing doctrines, as exhibited above, are Atheism in its worst form; [?] tem, is as to the main point, identical with that of Hegel.

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← II. Stuart on the Romans · Contents · IV. Beman on the Atonement →

Footnotes

1. Discourse, p. 11. ↩

2. Discourse, p. 18. ↩

3. Discourse, p. 21. ↩

4. Der Glaube ist kein Werk der Vernunft, kann also auch keinen Angriffen derselben unterliegen, weil Glauben so wenig durch Gründe geschieht, als Schmecken und Sehen. ↩

5. See his work on the Divine Authority, Self-evidencing Light, and Power of the Scriptures, with an answer to the inquiry, How we know the Scriptures to be the word of God? ↩

6. Letter, &c. p. 116. ↩

7. Letter, &c., pp. 5 and 6. ↩

8. Letter, &c., pp. 23 and 24. ↩

9. Tholuck’s Glaubwürdigkeit der evangel. Geschich. &c., Ch. 1. ↩

10. It was his habit to have these hymns printed on slips of paper and distributed to the people at the door of his church. ↩

11. Letter, &c., pp. 17 and 18. ↩

12. Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review, January, 1839. ↩

13. Kirchen-Zeitung, January, 1836, p. 19. ↩

14. The name assumed by those who plead for the rehabilitation of the flesh, i. e., for the restoration of the sensual part of our nature to its rights, of which Christianity has so long deprived it. ↩

15. Preface to Kirchen-Zeitung, for 1839, p. 30. ↩

16. Kirchen-Zeitung, p. 21. ↩

17. Leben Jesu, p. 730. ↩

18. “Je préchai hautement,” said Clootz in the French Convention, “qu’il n’y a pas d’autre Dieu que la nature, d’autre souverain que le genre humain, le peuple-dieu.” Thiers: Histoire de la Revolution Fran., Vol. V., p. 197. ↩

19. Kirchen-Zeitung, February, 1839. ↩

20. ‘Strauss’s Leben Jesu, Th. ii. s. 734, quoted by Tholuck, in his Glaubwürdigkeit, &c., p. 19. ↩

21. Kirchen-Zeitung, January 1, 1836, p. 35. ↩

22. Glaubwürdigkeit, p. 34. ↩

23. To this passage Hengstenberg has the following note. “We frequently meet, in the writings of this school, with similar shameful profanations of the Scriptures, which are seldom quoted without some mutilation, which is characteristic of the relation of the party to the word of God. These writers delight to transfer to Hegel what the Scriptures say of Christ. According to Bayrhoffer (Halle Jahrb. s. 343), Hegel ‘is the absolute centre, around which the present revolves.’ His first disciples are compared with the apostles. ‘Hinrichs is the rock of terminology, the strength and the support of the school’ (Jahrb. s. 672). Leo, who has left the party, is compared with Judas, and even designated as ‘the fallen angel of speculation’ (Hegel’s doctrine concerning the State). The school as a whole, is a copy of the church of Christ. According to Bayrhoffer, (Hegelinge s. 29) it should no longer be called a school, but ‘the congregation of the idea,’ or ‘the spiritual kingdom of the idea.’ Ruge applies the passage, ‘The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force,’ to the popular exhibition of Hegel’s philosophy by Erdmann. The most shameful of these perversions, however, relate to the passages concerning the sin against the Holy Ghost. Whoever comes out boldly against the spirit of Hegel, or of his disciples, or of the time, or of hell, is declared guilty of the sin against the Holy Spirit or rather the Spirit, (for the word holy they commonly leave out, it savors too much of morality; when it is inserted, it is only for the sake of the allusion). ‘The writings,’ says Meyen, ‘in which Leo has presented his new opinions, blaspheme the Spirit—hence God himself.’ To which we answer: Yes, your spirit and your God we wish to blaspheme, for blasphemy of him is the praise of the God of heaven and of his Spirit. * * * “We can hardly express the admiration which we feel for Hengstenberg. No one who does not know how much alone and aloft he stands, and how much he has had to endure for his uncompromising opposition to the enemies of God and religion, can appreciate the noble firmness and vigor of his character. ↩

24. This translation of the words Vorstellung and Begriff is no doubt inadequate. The technical terms of a system do not admit of adequate translation, because the sense assigned to them in the system is arbitrary. The only method that can be pursued in such cases, is to give their nearest corresponding words the same arbitrary signification. Hegel calls that form of truth which is the object of absolute knowledge, a pure thought, Begriff; and that form in which it is the object of faith or feeling, Vorstellung. Or, the exercises of feeling, desire, will, &c., considered as objects of attention, are Vorstellungen; these it is the office of philosophy, by the process of thinking, to turn into thoughts, Begriffe. And hence he says, Vorstellungen can be regarded as the metaphors of Begriffe. See his Encyklopädie, p. 5. ↩

25. It should be here stated that Dr. Strauss, at the close of his Life of Jesus, as first printed, had freely admitted the incompatibility of his views with the exercise of the ministry in the Christian church. This admission in the last edition, he has suppressed; and in his letter to the authorities of Zurich when appointed a professor of theology in the University of that city, he says, he should not consider it a difficult matter to quiet the apprehensions of those who feared that he would labor to overthrow the Christian religion, that he would endeavor to sustain “the fundamental truths of Christianity,” and only try to free it “from human additions.” When it is considered that he regards as human additions almost every thing that the people of Zurich hold to be fundamental truths, there can be but one opinion of the dishonesty of this statement. The reputation for candor which he had gained by his first admission, has been lost entirely by these subsequent proceedings. Our readers are aware that the attempt to force Strauss on the people as a professor led to one of the most remarkable revolutions of our times. The people rose en masse and overthrew the government. ↩

26. Wolfgang Menzel was the editor of a periodical, called the Morgen-Blatt, belonging to Von Cotta, one of the principal booksellers in Germany. In that journal Menzel attacked, with great manliness and effect, the libertine principles of Heine, Gutzkow, and other writers of the extreme left of the pantheistic school. ↩

27. Die Geschichte is der werdende Gott, und dies Werden Gottes geschicht nach ewigen Gesetzen; nirgends ein Sprung, überal nur Entwickelung. Hengstenberg, in the Kirchen-Zeitung, January, 1836. ↩

28. Kirchen-Zeitung, 1836, p. 571. ↩

29. Kirchen-Zeitung, 1836, p. 571. ↩

30. An enthusiastic girl, who wrote a series of letters to Göthe, filled with a raving Platonic love. ↩

31. Vergängliches und Bleibendes in Christenthum. Selbst-gespräche Von Dr. Strauss. In Zeitschrift; Der Freihafen, Gallerie von Unterhaltungsbildern aus den Kreisen der Literatur, Gesselschaft und Wissenschaft. Mit Beiträgen von Carus, Gans, König, Mises, Barnhagen von Ense, dem Fürsten von Pückler, Rosenkranz, Strauss, Theodor Mundt, Kühne u. A. Drittes Heft. The names of the contributors to this Journal, may give some idea of its character. Here we have Gans, Rosenkranz, Strauss, prominent Hegelian philosophers or theologians, and the libertine prince of Pückler. ↩

32. Cousin’s Introduction to Hist. of Phil., p. 57. ↩

33. Princeton Review, January, 1839. ↩

34. Marheineke’s Dogmatik, § 174. ↩

35. Elements of Psychology, p. 400. ↩

36. Ibid., p. 399. ↩

37. Conclusion of his Hegelingen. ↩

38. Kirchen-Zeitung, January, 1836. ↩

39. Letter to Mr. Norton, p. 12. ↩