extracts and his judicious criticism. In his indispensable, though yet unfinished Church History, Rationalism appears still more cool, and falls into the background behind the interest of learned inquiry and purely objective narration. § 12. (5) The Scientific Period. As different causes, the English Deism, the French Materialism, the Popular Philosophy of Wolff, Kant's Criticism, etc. conspired to raise the vulgar Rationalism, towards the close of the last century, into general power, so men like Herder, Hamann, Jacobi, the Romantic School, and still more Schleiermacher, Schelling, and Hegel, contributed each his part to overcome it scientifically, and to make room for a theology full of spirit and faith. Thus begins the fifth and last period of Protestant church historiography, in which we ourselves still stand. This has done vastly more than any other for the advancement of the science, both materially and formally. In Germany, during the last thirty years, an active emulation has displayed itself in this sphere, as in science generally; whose results will yet long be felt, and redound to the benefit also of other nations. 18 Here we must distinguish, 1. Works embracing the whole range of church history, as besides that of GEISELER already named, those of NEANDER, Engelhardt, HASE, SCHLEIERMACHER, (published after his death, from manuscript sketches,) GueRICKE, NIEDNER, GFRÖRER; 2. Such as relate to dogmatic history, as those of BAUMGARTEN-CRUSIUS, ENGELHARDT, HAGENBACH, BAUR; and finally, 3. The almost countless monographies, devoted to a single dogma, or to some one branch of church polity, or worship, or Christian life, or to an important individual, or to a particular period, or to a national church. The relation of the general works to the special is that of reciprocal completion. The first, as Dr. Kliefoth strikingly observes, 19 have a double task: "first to go before the monographies and show the chasms that still need to be filled by such special labor; and then again to come after the monographies, and incorporate their results properly into the living organism of history." 15 WINER, in the first supplement to his Manual of theological literature, mentions not less than five hundred works pertaining to the sphere of church history, which appeared in two years only (between 1839 and 41). In addition to this, the theological journals of Germany, such as Ilgen's "Zeitschrift für historische Theologie," Ullmann's and Umbreit's "Studien und Kritiken," contain a multitude of historical tracts; while almost all the later exegetical and dogmatic works are interwoven with rich historical material throughout. More on this point may be found in the first section of the author's tract: "What is Church History ?" 19 In Reuter's Repertorium for 1845, p. 106, where the reader will find several instructive and spirited essays from the pen of Kliefoth, on "the later ecclesiastical historiography of the German Evangelical Church." The latest style of history may be designated formally scientific, inasmuch as its leading representatives at least, in distinction from the mode before prevalent, propose always to comprehend truly the events, ruling ideas and actions of a period, and to unfold them before the eyes of their readers just as they have had place. The object is not merely to know what has been and come to pass, but also how it has come to pass. To be a historian, it is no longer enough to collect learned material, however faithfully, in an outward and aggregate way, nor yet, in the pragmatic style, to investigate psychologically the simply subjective causes and motives of events; but he is bound now to apprehend history as spirit and life, and this as rational spirit, the manifestation of eternal, divine ideas, and so to reproduce it also in a spiritual and living way. Only thus can the study or the exhibition of church history have a deep and abiding interest. For it is spirit only that can speak to spirit, and life only that can produce life. But all life is essentially process, development, which runs through different stages, ascends always to a higher position, and yet remains identical with itself, so that the end is only the full evolution of the beginning. Church history thus becomes also an organism, springing from the person of Jesus Christ, as the author and progenitor of the new humanity, extending itself outwardly and inwardly always more widely, engaged in perpetual conflict with sin and error from without and from within, moving forward through all sorts of difficulty and hindrance, and still surely tending always towards a definite end. This idea of organic development unites what is true in the Orthodox notion of something constant and unchangeable in church history, with what is true also in the Rationalistic notion of a perpetual movement and flow, and is the only view that makes room for any deep apprehension of the life of Christianity in time. It is a rich gain, never to be given up, which we owe to the later German Philosophy since Schelling, and which the most opposite schools of our time, those of Neander and Baur, though under different modification, alike appropriate to their use. With this view of church history, as an inwardly correct whole, pervaded with a common blood and reaching towards a common end, is intimately associated as a farther characteristic of the works in general now noticed, the spirit of genuine catholicity and impartiality. They show a like interest in almost all the portions of this vast organism, the fulness of whose inward life is thus unfolded in the flow of time; though with due subordination, of course, of the less essential and important, always, to what is of main significance and weight. Christianity is not shaped on the last of a fixed human formula; its own inward boundless and inexhaustible fulness is acknowledged. A Neander kisses the footprints of the Lord, and bows before his Spirit, wherever he finds him, and he finds him of right in all ages and among all nations, though it be with widely different displays of his glory. Church history is now more regarded from a central and universal position, and is exhibited sine ira et studio, for its own sake, and just as God has allowed it to come to pass. A onesided apologetic and polemic interest is no longer suffered to prevail, allowing only a troubled view of the Saviour's majestic person through the colored spectacles of a particular sect or party, but the spirit of truth is followed without bias, under the conviction that the boundless life of the Church can be fully represented only through the collective Christianity of all periods, nations and persons, and with the persuasion that the truth finds its best justification in the simple dispassionate exhibition of its own historical course. In this respect, in general, the spirit of the later evangelical theology of Germany is already raised, principally, above the existing divisions of Christendom, and occupies the position of a union, which carries in itself the pledge of its own full accomplishment in time to come. The later church history in fact, as is already shown by many works of the popular sort, among which BÖHRINGER'S Biographies are the most thorough, will win thus a practical influence on life, and from the old foundations of the Church sketch forth the plan for its new structure. These merits do not hold indeed of all later works, and still less of all in the same degree. In a theological view especially the difference among them is considerable. Looking away from those theologians who present no distinct theological character,20 or who belong still in substance to a former period,21 we meet mainly two schools, which are related to each other partly in the way of complement, but still more in the way of antagonism, with equal claims to spirit and learning; that namely of SCHLEIERMACHER and Neander, to which belong in a wide sense such men as HOSSBACH, RHEIN WALD, Liebner, Vogt, SEMISCH, HENRY, PIPER, JACOBI, BINDEMANN, and others; and that 20 As for instance ENGELHARDT, who in his thoroughly learned historical investigations makes it his business simply to report, with scrupulous exactness and monotony, from the sources, withholding all judgment of his own. NIEDNER'S "Geschichte d. Christl. Kirche" too, (1846), with its strange terminology, offers us no clear theory. Its value consists mainly in the richness of its single views. 21 AS GUERICKE, where he is independent, falls back to the polemic method of the 17th century. GFRÖRER is in the commencement of his work rather rationalizing, afterwards catholicizing. The manuals of HASE and HAGENBACH, full of spirit and taste, remind us often of Herder's humanism, the tinge of which is more aesthetical with the first, more practical with the other. of HEGEL, which however falls again into two essentially different branches, the one unchurchly and destructive, with BAUR at its head, the other churchly and conservative, of which DORNER may be taken as the most learned representative. In attempting briefly to characterize these tendencies, we will not forget the personal respect and gratitude we owe to their leaders, Neander, Dorner, and even Baur himself, who were all formerly our teachers, the first at the close, the other two at the commencement of our university studies. § 13. Neander and his School. NEANDER has himself admirably described his immortal work, when, on his first presentation of it to the public,22 he declared it to be the grand aim of his life to exhibit the history of the Church, “as a speaking argument of the divine power of Christianity, as a school for Christian experience, a voice of edification, doctrine and warning, sounding through all centuries for all who are willing to hear." Like Spener and Franke, he looks upon theology as a business of the heart, and has chosen for his motto accordingly the words: Pectus est quod theologum facit. This causes the treatment of history of itself to assume a practical and edifying character, and to turn with preference to the revelations of the interior religious life, the actings of Christ's Spirit in his genuine followers, whilst those relations in which the Church touches the world and its politics are less, and often indeed quite too little, regarded. Neander has served thus by his writings to bring thousands of youth to Christ, and has contributed largely to the revival of religious life in Germany. His religion however is by no means of the narrow pietistic sort, but possesses rather a broad and liberal character, which owns sympathy with the most different forms of the Christian spirit, shows great leniency of judgment, often perhaps too great, even towards heretical aberrations, while however it finds most delight in contemplative inward tendencies like that of John. As little is he opposed in any way to science, being distinguished rather for profound inquiry, and a great talent for the organic exposition of different theological systems. Hence dogmatic history fills a very considerable space in his work, especially in the patristic period, where he feels most at home and has been most extensive in his studies. His scientific position in theology may be characterized as that of subjectivity, which belongs to the Schleiermacherian system in general, making it just the contrary pole to Catholicism, in which the individual is absorbed by the general spirit. We do not mean by this that Neander wholly loses sight of the objective forces of history; on the contrary, he speaks very frequently of universal spiritual tendencies, revealing themselves in individuals; and the contrasts of idealism and realism, rationalism and supranaturalism, dialectic understanding and mystical contemplation, belong to the standing categories of his historical thinking. But he refers these tendencies themselves to a psychological basis only, to the peculiarity of the human nature, still in a certain sense thus to a simply subjective ground. The predominant view with him is, that the kingdom of God forms itself out of individuals, and so in some sense up from below, and that, as Schleiermacher once says, "the doctrine of the Church is composed from the opinions of single Christians." No theologian has had so high a conception of the worth of the person, so fine a feeling for individual peculiarity, as Schleiermacher; and what he brings out thus in a more speculative and doctrinal way, is turned to account historically by Neander. Hence he so often urges the thought, that Christianity, the leaven which is destined to pervade our entire humanity, does not destroy the natural capacities and peculiarities of men, but only purifies and sanctifies them; hence his great concern to secure for the personal, the individual and particular, the acknowledgment of its full right; hence the powerful impulse given by him mainly, also, through his monographies on Julian the Apostate, Tertullian, Chrysostom, Bernard of Clairvaux, to the culture of ecclesiastical biography, that most valuable species of literature, in which the mirror of a single great personality is made to reflect in concrete view the spirit and sense of a whole age. Just in this preponderance however, which is allowed to the subjective interest, is found, along with its strength, the weakness also of the Schleiermacher-Neandrian school. It has an excessive sensibility, where the rights of the individual are laid under limit for the sake of the general welfare, and an undue repugnance towards all law, the distinct assertion of the principle of authority, whether in theory or in practice. In all this it sees at once "bondage to the letter," the "mechanism of forms," "dry scholasticism," "symbololatry," and the like. It does not always distinguish sufficiently the idea of freedom from that of vagueness and arbitrariness, and seems at times to forget that true liberty can prosper only in the sphere of authority, the individual only in due subjection to the general or universal. Christianity and churchdom are taken by it more or less for opposites, which explains how it is that the Rationalists have affected to find an ally in Neander, in their war upon the dogma of inspiration and confessional orthodoxy, although the fundamental principle of their theology is totally different. We |