Selections from German literature

Contents

Page.

INTRODUCTION, BY THE TRANSLATORS. ..... 1—2"

The Life, Character and Style of the Apostle Paul. By Prof.

Section I. General Principles of Reasoning in this Treatise, . . .390

II. Same Subject continued, 394

III. Testimony in favor of Christ, . . . . . . . 397

IV. Characteristics of the Saviour, . 402 V. Objections to the Testimony in favor of Christ, . . 409

VI. Works and Influence of the Saviour, . . . .416 VII. Objections against Christ's Character, .... 426 VIII. Metaphysical Difficulties relating to the Saviour's Sinlessness, 436 IX. Concluding Instructions from the Subject, . ' . . 445 Notes by the Translator, 454

ERRATA.

Want of room prevents an intended notice of several errors, some of them errors of the press, on pp. 115, 116, 120, 121, 122, 123, 125, 133, 135, 141, 146, 159, 163. After carefully comparing pp. 115—170 with the original, the translator discovered that, in his wish to give a free version, he had deviated, in several instances, too far from the text ; not far enough, however, to affect materially the train of thought. The errors may be easily detected. Page 133, line 2 from bottom, read invite for smite. Page 205, line 7 from bottom, read u judge at Halle, but now supreme judge."

Introduction

There are two great tendencies in human nature of which Plato and Aristotle are commonly regarded as the representatives. One of these tendencies or characteristics is indicated, in its various forms, by the epithets speculative, theoretical, ideal, abstract, doctrinal, subjective. The terms which are employed in describing the other tendency are practical, experimental, concrete, actual, objective.

Plato, though not deficient in acuteness and subtlety, was meditative and profound. As the author of the celebrated ideal philosophy, he supposed that certain ideas existed in the Divine mind from eternity, to which God gave a figure or form when he created the world. He ascribed a Divine original to the human soul. True happiness, according to Plato, consists in the investigation of truth and in the subjection of the passions. Virtue is the perfection and health of the soul. It is manifested in the various forms of wisdom, righteousness, temperance, valor. Plato had a living power of imagination, a loftiness of thought, together with the ability to clothe his conceptions in the noblest and most beautiful forms. Under his pen the most abstract ideas assumed the character of life and reality. Spirit, vigor, warmth pervade his writings. 1

1 See Scholl, Geschichte der Griech. Litt. I. 460. The moral character of Plato's great master is yet occasionally assailed with considerable violence. The charges against Socrates originated partly from calumny, which is always thrown out by the vicious against those, who are more virtuous than themselves; and partly from a misapprehension of some Socratico-Flatonic expressions. For instance, when Socrates said, in his last moments, that he '•' owed a cock to iEsculapius," any one, who regards his well known habit of irony, may suppose that he was not in earnest; that be understood by iEsculapius health, and intimated by this form of expression that he had almost recovered from his long disease. In respect to another charge — that of sensuality — we have the explicit testimony of Xenophon, that physical love was directly excluded by Socrates. Alcibiades, in Plato*s Dialogue, declares that Socrates was unsusceptible of every lower kind of love, being devoted to spiritual love alone. If Socrates had been 1

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Aristotle is the father of natural history. The philosophical terminology and many of the existing scientific definitions are traced to his pen. He formed a system of logic with wonderful completeness, and also gave fundamental laws to rhetoric and poetry. Psychology owes to him its philosophical form. His style of writing is simple and exact. He never sacrifices sense to sound. He discards the fable, the allegory and the various figures of speech in which Plato abounds. He is always serene, tranquil, modest, though occasionally obscure in consequence of his brevity, or his use of uncommon words. He founded his system on reason and experiment, entirely rejecting the aid of the imagination. He embraced all the branches of human knowledge which were attainable in his time, and gave to them order and a scientific form. He had collected so large a library that Plato named his dwelling, " the house of the reader." It has been said, probably with truth, that in the quality of mere dry intellect, Aristotle is at the head of the race.

Plato is the leader of another series. In imagination, feeling, originality, in what may be termed the spiritual powers, he is among the greatest of the children of men— the Homer of philosophers. " Plato," says Goethe, " is, in relation to this world, like a blessed spirit, who chooses for a time to take up his abode here. His object is not so much to become acquainted with the world as kindly to communicate to it that which he brings with him, and which is so necessary to it. He mounts upward, with longing to partake again of his original. All that he utters has reference to one single principle — perfect, good, true, beautiful ; the love of which he studies to enkindle in every bosom. Whatever of earthly science he acquires in particulars, melts, yea we might say, evaporates in his method, in his discourse. Aristotle, on the contrary, is, in relation to the world, like a man, a master-builder. He is once here, and he must work and build. He inquires about the soil ; but no further than till he finds a firm foundation. From that point to the centre of the earth, all the rest is indifferent to him. He marks out a vast circuit

guilty in this particular, would not Aristophanes have trumpeted it ? Before we believe all which has been uttered against some of the best men of antiquity, we want better authority than the story-teller Athenaeus. We do not vindicate everything which Socrates did or said. We may contend that he would not be admitted into virtuous society now. But would many of the pious patriarchs of Scripture on the same principle ? See Tholucls in Bibl. Repos. II. 453, and Schweighauser, XII, 161.

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for his building, collects his materials from every quarter, arranges them, piles them one upon another, and thus rises in regular pyramidical form into the air ; while Plato shoots up towards heaven like an obelisk, yea like a pointed flame." 1

These eminent Greeks are not without their representatives at the present day. Plato reappears in the German ; Aristotle in the Anglo-Saxon. The former lives in an ideal realm. He is given to speculation. He is lost in the depths of his own spirit. Nothing is profound or subjective enough for him. The Oriental mysticism is seen again in the centre of Europe. The Gnostic finds a home on the banks of the Elbe. The German is not satisfied with the obvious meaning of a proposition. He must look behind or below it for something more fundamental, for something wrapped in deeper mystery. In struggling to reach a lofty and unattainable ideal, he will have nothing to do with the actual and possible. Plain sense, obvious truth, are cast out as too vulgar. A personal God, with definite, individual attributes is not to his taste. He meditates and conjectures till he loses himself in barren generalities or pantheistic dreams. In his exclusive tendency he perverts Plato himself. That great thinker did not overlook practical utility. His repeated and hazardous journies into Sicily, as well as many other events of his life, are a proof of his attention to the actual condition of his fellow creatures. His aim was the completeness, the symmetry, the perfection of the human soul. He abhorred everything partial or exclusive. Dr. Hitter terms his republic a ' University.' Still the general position is undoubtedly true that the Germans are the disciples of the Academy. Their faults are of the ideal kind. Their mistakes are not those of action. Of the errors of the experimentalist they are guiltless. 2

On the other hand, the Englishman and American are thoroughly Peripatetic ; they are ever in motion. They are undoubting believers in the sensible world. In rejecting its existence, Berkeley has hardly a living disciple. In demolishing his system, Dr. Reid performed a work of supererogation. Nothing could be more harmless than Berkeley's notion. The corn law or the woollen trade have

1 Goethe, Farbenlehre II. 140. JBibl. Repos. III. 687.

2 Of course the general tendency, the national characteristic is here described. Prominent exceptions doubtless exist. Of this the Memoirs of the Berlin Academy are a sufficient proof

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infinitely greater charms for the countrymen of the Minute Philosopher than the soul of man. The latter cannot be weighed on a counter, or be shipped off to the Baltic by steam. No men make better surveyors of land than the Anglo-Saxons ; none can steer a ship like them. In the physical world, from Spitzbergen to the utmost South, they are lords of the ascendant. This practical, Aristotelian tendency pervades all things, science, jurisprudence, politics, education, religion. Everywhere the questions are sounding, Where has he been ? Whither is he bound ? What is the value of that article ? Which school-book or school-teacher or minister is the cheapest ? We have heard even of clergymen who estimated the conversion of a congregation of immortal souls at so much a head — who were willing to assess a sort of poll-tax on salvation. In science we have no great discoverers. We have practical philosophers — scientific explorers — men who can divide off and parcel out to good advantage the treasures which have been accumulated in past times. It is no disproof of our general position that many eminent names might be mentioned in physical science. We love the outward. Our home is in the visible.

Here and there, indeed, an individual may be found who is weary of this ceaseless stir, of this insane eagerness after the perishable and the transient. His ears are pained by the incessant clamors of buyers and sellers. He longs for repose, for calm meditation, for a secure retreat from his jostling and inquisitive contemporaries. Such men, however, are few and far between. The tendency to bustle and agitation, to digging and hoarding is widely predominant. The epithets acute, practical, quick-witted, impatient, sharp-sighted, delineate the Saxon races on the two continents, or rather on the four continents, and the islands of almost every sea.

In thus characterizing the English mind, we only repeat the general verdict of intelligent Englishmen. " Our utilitarian practicality" says a late writer, " is a theme that has often been discussed. It is impossible to contrast the condition of any one branch of science or literature in England with its condition on the continent, and especially in Germany, without becoming sensible of the all-pervading influence of this tendency of the British character." 1 " Whatever the causes may be," says the Bishop of London, " the fact cannot be denied, that we have comparatively few really classical

J For. Quart. Rev. No. 44. p. 238,

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scholars, few who enter deeply into the study of the Greek language, into the examination of its structure, of its formations, of its analogies." 1

An interesting question here arises. What occasions this marked difference between the Germans and the English ? They were originally one. They belong to the same stock, and their languages to the same family. They are alike in the substantial qualities of mental and moral character. Why the prominent existing dissimilarity ? England has not been always what she is now. Once the English spirit deeply sympathized with the Platonic. A long roll of revered names might be unfolded that all of us have been wont to love and admire.

A principal cause is unquestionably geographical position. Great Britain is an island, and she has immense colonial possessions in every quarter of the earth. The United States have a very extended sea-coast, with numerous harbors and large rivers. We have thus every incitement to spread ourselves over a large surface. The call to physical effort is loud and unceasing. On the contrary the Germans are shut up in the centre of Europe. Almost everything has conspired to keep them at home. We are the couriers and the carriers of the whole earth. The Germans are the purveyors of mind. They carry on a commerce of intellect. They are psychological adventurers. While we are making ships, they are manufacturing theories. While we are harpooning the monster of the northern ocean, they are defining the limits of old and new Platonism, or demonstrating that the chorus in the Agamemnon of ^Eschylus consisted of twelve old men, and not of fifteen.

Another cause is found in the nature of the governments. The British government has been for a long time essentially republican. Freedom of thought and of speech is unfettered. The political world has opened a thousand avenues for practical effort, which have been eagerly entered. " A few minor minds may peck with laudable industry at the luxuriant fruitage of German erudition ; but our great intellects, our original discoverers, our secret miners and public heaven-stormers are all in the senate." 2 It is not necessary to say how different is the state of things in Germany. An iron-handed government there controls everything. Liberty means what the royal vocabulary makes it mean. There are no Burkes nor Chat-

1 London Quart. Rev. No. 101.

2 For. Quart. Rev.

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hams. There is no Junius nor Wilkes to set at defiance the powers that be. The great engine of freedom — the newspaper press — is an insignificant affair. The mind is necessarily turned inward. Meditation, reverie, or prying investigations into old and distant objects become a fixed habit. One mode of action being effectually barricaded, the soul breaks out with violence into another.

An additional occasion of the difference in question lies in the antagonist systems of philosophy. In the British world, Bacon, Locke and Paley have long been the masters. The end which Bacon proposed to himself was fruit ; it was the relief of man's estate ; it was to enrich human life with new inventions and powers. Philanthropy, he says, was so fixed in his mind that it could not be removed. Wherever Locke has been read, men have not fallen into the errors of the Middle Ages. He has promoted anything rather than the building of cloisters or the re-publication of Plato. The influence of Paley, perhaps, has been equally great with that of Locke ; it certainly has been entirely correspondent. The Germans, however, have launched forth to the other extreme. It is said that Kant's system is in ruins ; but Kant's influence is not. Other systems, it has been observed, have rolled over his, and have been themselves in turn displaced. Yet all these systems have conspired to one general effect. They have all been at antipodes to Locke and Paley, they have all made war upon the sensual and the outward. The basis of every theory has been laid upon the internal and the independent powers of the human soul. Hence the German language is so rich in all the terms which are applied to spiritual phenomena.

Another powerful cause is the modern revival of Christianity and the awakened spirit of missionary enterprise which have pervaded England and the United States far more than they have Germany. Multitudes are running to and fro. Almost every land is beginning to feel the practical beneficence of those who speak the English tongue. While the Germans are speculating nobly, and erecting monuments to their patient industry, to their vast and learned research, to their metaphysical acumen, the Englishman and American may point for their memorials to Howard's grave at Cherson, and further on to Martyn's at Tocat ; to the raised letters which are giving eyes to the blind — to the Bible Society, sublimer than all the proud achievements of the scholars who rise up by thousands in the universities of the continent.

INTRODUCTION.

We may remark, however, that there is no good reason for these two diametrically opposite tendencies. Men were not made merely for action or speculation. In following either course exclusively, they sin against the nature which God has given them. We have no cause to laugh at the airy course of the spiritual philosopher. We need not shrug our shoulders in proud self-complacency when we talk of German mysticism. We are not called upon to identify every form of nonsense, which appears among us, with the name of transcendentalism. We are not authorized to term every outbreak of error in Saxony or Switzerland with the imposing title of the newest fashion in German theology. 1 We may well spare such demonstrations of our ignorance and self-conceit. On the other hand, the Germans might well copy our excellent practical habits. An infusion into the German mind of the old, sound, substantial English sense would be of inestimable worth. They ought to read Dr. Dwight's Sermons, and the works of Dr. Paley. They should become familiar with such men as Thomas Scott and Claudius Buchanan. John Newton's Letters and Cowper's poetry would do good service among the followers of Fichte and Hegel. They say that we are incapable of understanding their writings, that we scorn that which we have not mind enough to understand. With equal truth, we might affirm that they do not understand us. They have cultivated one tendency to such an extent, that they cannot see the substantial excellencies of a writer like Dr. Paley. If we have neglected the reason and the imagination, they have undervalued the sense and the practical understanding.

It is the wisdom, therefore, of both parties to adopt a more enlarged course of thinking and action. It would do our young scholars no harm to read the Dialogues of Plato — not so much for any philosophical theory which they contain, not so much for the sake of any immediate practical utility, as to become familiar with the accurate distinctions which he makes on the great questions in morals and religion that he discusses, and especially to become imbued with his noble spirit — to partake in his lofty aspirations, and to be thankful for that better light that we enjoy, but which was denied him. There is much in German literature of the highest value which we might well transfer to our language. How little we know of the great geography of Bitter ? How contented are our bookmakers to go on year by year copying Malte Brun ? What do we 1 See a late Letter of Dr. Malan of Geneva.

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know of the profound historians Leo, Luden, Schlosser, Wachler, Ranke, Von Hammer— none of them neologists ? A long list of writers in other departments we might name, but it is unnecessary.

In the preceding considerations, one reason may be discovered for the appearance of the present volume. 1 The translators have cherished the hope that something might be done to break down the wall of national prejudice, and to correct an exclusive tendency which cannot but be injurious. They have wished to contribute something to aid the better feeling, which is beginning to spring up between those who speak the German and the English tongues, and to promote that brotherly intercourse which is so becoming and which may be made so useful to both parties.

There are several additional considerations, which have influenced the translators of the present volume, in thus appearing before the public. One of these is, the well known tendency of acquaintance with foreign authors to enlarge and liberalize the mind. The man who never travelled out of his native county, is apt to be a man of prejudices. A new language is to the inward being what a new eye is to the outward ; one sees with it what he could not have seen without it ; and by examining such developments of humanity as are not found among his own kindred, he learns to value substance more, and form less. Creatures of custom as we are, we are prone to look upon everything habitual as right of course, and everything uncommon as wrong. Unfashionable is another name for monstrous. When a blind adherence to the standard of present fashion is limited to matters of secular concern, it narrows the mind ; but when it extends to theology, it cripples the very sentiments which should be most expanded. It makes men partizans, when they ought to be philanthropists. The Bible is one of the freest books ever written. Its style is as unlike that of our scholastic systems, as the costume of the oriental is unlike the pinching garb of the Englishman. It never intended that men should abridge its freeness, and press it forcibly into the mould of any human compend. We approve of

i We may here mention that another volume is in the course of translation which will be entirely devoted to Plato and Aristotle. It will include the Life of Aristotle by Dr. A. Stahr of Halle, and a Comparison of Platonism with Christianity by Prof. Baur of Tubingen. It will also contain an estimate of the character of both these philosophers, with illustrations from the recent commentators upon their writings.

INTRODUCTION. 9

creeds : they are useful, needful ; but ihere is a difference— is there not — between respecting and adoring them. We prefer to see men shaping their creeds so as to suit the Bible, rather than to see them shaping the Bible so as to suit their creeds. There is reason to fear, that while the language of our confessions of faith is in some cases too pliant, bending to interpretations that are subversive of each other, it is in other cases too stiff and strait ; giving no heed to some valuable modifications of thought, which reason approves, and allowing no place for some statements of inspiration, which always look somewhat strange alongside of the creed, and which can be disposed of the most satisfactorily by the divine who is most of a lawyer. It is to be feared, for instance, that some special pleading is required for such an explanation of Matt. 11: 21. Luke 10: 13, as will make them harmonize with the inflexible language of certain compends in reference to the doctrine of human passivity in regeneration. It is to be feared, that there is a scholastic mode of stating the doctrine of the saints' perseverance, which can be shown to be in keeping with the inspired entreaties against apostasy, by none but very ingenious and witty men. It is to be apprehended, that many, influenced more by the narrowness of a creed than the freeness of the Bible, when they repeat such passages as Heb. 6: 4 — 6. 10: 26 — 32. 2 Pet. 2: 20 — 22, secretly look upon them as a kind of manoeuvre, rather than as an expression of honest fear. Has not the reader himself been haunted with something like this suspicion of artifice, even when he dared not breathe it to his own conscience ? and have not these passages, when invested with certain technical explanations, seemed to be in a strait-jacket, or at least not exactly at their ease ?

Now in measuring our faith by the symbols of any single sect, we are often obliged to cut off some positive instructions, direct or indirect, of the Bible. Robert Hall's Preface to Antinomianism Unmasked, contains several invaluable hints on this topic. " When religious parties have been long formed," he says, "a certain technical phraseology, invented to designate more exactly the peculiarities of the respective systems, naturally grows up. What custom has sanctioned, in process of time becomes law ; and the slightest deviation from the consecrated diction comes to be viewed with suspicion and alarm. Now the technical language, appropriated to the expression of the Calvinistic system in its nicer shades, however justifiable in itself,

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has, by its perpetual recurrence, narrowed the vocabulary of religion, and rendered obsolete many modes of expression which the sacred writers indulge without scruple. The latitude, with which they express themselves on various subjects, has been gradually relinquished ; a scrupulous and systematic cast of diction has succeeded to the manly freedom and noble negligence they were accustomed to display ; and many expressions, employed without hesitation in Scripture, are rarely found, except in the direct form of quotation, in the mouth of a modern Calvinist. In addition to this, nothing is more usual than for the zealous abettors of a system, with the best intentions, to magnify the importance of its peculiar tenets by hyperbolical exaggerations, calculated to identify them with the fundamental articles of faith. Thus the Calvinistic doctrines 1 have often been denominated by divines of deservedly high reputation, the doctrines of grace; implying, not merely their truth, but that they constitute the very essence and marrow of the gospel. Hence persons of little reflection have been tempted to conclude, that the zealous inculcation of these, comprehends nearly the whole system of revealed truth ; or as much of it, at least, as is of vital importance ; and that no danger whatever can result from giving them the greatest possible prominence. But the transition from a partial exhibition of truth to the adoption of positive error is a most natural one ; and he who commences with consigning certain important doctrines to oblivion will generally end in perverting or denying them." 2

Now there is a strong tendency in the members of every sect, to narrow down their views to the standard of a sectarian creed. Hence the necessity that good men of different denominations should have frequent interchange of thought and feeling. And there is a strong tendency in the inhabitants of one land to exalt certain terms, which their fathers used, into tests of orthodoxy, and to circumscribe the teachings of the Bible, within a few national shibboleths. Hence the importance of looking away from our own land, and seeing phases that truth assumes elsewhere. We shall thus find, that modes of exhibition, which we have thought essential to a sound theology, are discountenanced by sound theologians who live under

1 [The " Calvinistic doctrines 1 ' are here spoken of as distinguished from the Lutheran, or other evangelical systems. — Eds ]

2 See Hall's Works, Vol. II. pp. 458—466. See also Cecil's Remains, p. 191, Andover Ed.

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other skies ; and that modes which we have always regarded as precursors, if not representatives of fatal error, are regarded by them as the safeguards of truth. We are alarmed at their peculiarities, and they are equally alarmed at ours. We are wondering at them, and they are amazed at our wonder. All this is a lesson to us. It teaches us, that the spirit of truth will live, when any particular body of it has died. It teaches us, that no mere modes are the articles of a standing or a falling church. It teaches us, that wise men and good men have philosophized differently, and yet have had one Lord, one faith, one baptism. We learn from it, that those two disciples of the Wittemberg reformer were more earnest in contending for the faith, than wise in determining what it was, when they began to beat each other, because one avowed himself a Martinist, while his combatant had been brought up a Lutheran. We learn from it, that if men will unite in one theology, they may be allowed to come to it through whatever by-paths of philosophy seem best to them. It is well, if we be full-grown, to see as many different faces as we can ; to hear as many different voices ; so we shall learn that humanity is everywhere one and the same, though its aspects are often various. Men from the northward will believe that water freezes, though the king of Siam may declare such belief heretical. As men do not look alike, nor talk alike, so they do not, in all respects, philosophize alike. They never have, and perhaps never will. So long as their temperaments vary, there will be variety in their theorizings. It is an old " dilemma" of the schoolmen, " there are two things

o

which we ought not to fret about ; what we can help, and what we can not :" now we think that mere speculative, as distinct from theological differences, come under the latter " conditional," and it seems idle then to go to exscinding our brethren on account of them. A wise Christian will devote his energies to make all men unite in fundamental doctrine ; and will not be afraid of the World's coming to an end, because men, who agree in faith, differ on its philosophical relations. We believe that some among us are troubled over much about the speculative notions of the day. It is well to be cautious— not so well to be in a fright. It is a good thing to give heed lest the spirit of our religion be circumscribed or expelled ; but it is needless to raise a panic because one man prefers this mode and another that of explaining the one faith. Let not the grasshopper become a burden to us, while we are so young as a people. No

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greater evil has come upon us than has come upon other lands, and other ages. And yet the world moves on, as it did aforetime. We desire that men may be more true to their nature, as beings of " large discourse, looking before and after," and neither blown about by every wind of doctrine, nor fear-stricken as though some strange thing had happened, when the mind springs one of its artificial bars. Let us see what has been thought and said in other days, and we shall have the health-giving assurance, that truth will live on, though we cannot keep it always decked out, as Turretin or Gomar may have prescribed. Let us see how men, good and true, are now speculating in foreign climes, and we shall be convinced, that the sky does not close in with the earth four or five miles from the spot where we happen to stand, however central that spot may be. There are things in the world that we have never yet heard of. Then is it not well to have a mind capacious enough and liberal enough to examine, without dismal forebodings, a form of philosophy, even though it may not have been laid down in the standards ? Is it not well to keep our balance, like the town clerk of Ephesus, and the doctor of the law before the Sanhedrim ? l We should be glad to count up the instances, that have come to our knowledge, of sanguine men, who, at a period of peculiar religious encouragement, have seen evidences of the immediate approach of the Millennium ; and the instances of melancholy men, who, at a period of peculiar religious conflict, have had no doubt, that it was the last letting loose of evil. We wish that all men of such " quick inference 1 ' would remember, that what is usual in one sphere is not therefore a universal law ; and that what is new to them, be it in theology or philosophy, may be old and even stale to more knowing men than they. We are not sure that the present volume contains a single thought, of any importance, which is not already familiar to the reader ; but it perhaps contains some new modifications of thought, which will deepen the impression, that the great realities of our religion may consist with diversified modes ; that we are bound to cleave by all means to the realities, and to be neither indifferent nor bigoted about the modes. 2