Obrazy na stronie
PDF
ePub

results. But we would remark that the empiricism of Locke in this conflict receives a signal discomfiture: no system, it is true, is wielded against it; but that which is infinitely more powerful, the principles of inalienable reason and good sense.

But there is one thing for which Cousin, as we have already remarked, deserves great credit; and that is, the elevation he is giving to the character of metaphysical science in France. It is well known that the philosophy of France has, for some time, been essentially infidel: the philosophy of Locke bordered hard upon the inner temple of sensualism; and from sensualism to materialism, and thence to deism and rank atheism, the descent is gradual, but almost unavoidable. Such undoubtedly is the downward tendency of the philosophy of Locke; but yet Locke was a Christian, or rather, as Cousin says, "upon the limits of Christianity." This tendency of his principles, though Locke himself, perhaps, did not discover it, was early discovered and promptly met by the Scotch philosophers, Reid, Stewart, and Brown; but in France no such antidote checked its progress, and French philosophy, in company with French morals, sunk into one common maelstroom of infidelity. Such was the fruit of Locke's philosophy in France; and with Voltaire for its patron, and Condillac, Helvetius, and D'Holbach for its expounders, we cannot wonder at the result. The revolution in the spirit of French philosophy, it is true, was commenced by Roger Collard, and Jouffroy, his pupil; but it was reserved for Cousin to push forward the conflict to its present auspicious stage. He stands conspicuous in the field, and stands, too, like a giant still girded for the contest. All his works that have come within my reach have been read with increasing interest and avidity. His unsurpassed, if not unequalled power of critical analysis, his independence as a philosopher, his comprehensive and accurate knowledge of the history of philosophy and of philosophical systems, the spirited and elevated style in which he discourses, command my admiration; but, at the same time, his ingenuousness, the freedom with which he acknowledges the real excellences of those whose errors he is called to expose and refute, inspire in me sentiments of the highest possible esteem for the man, in whom is blended so many of the virtues that give dignity to the philosopher, and honor to human nature. I can only hope for Cousin that he may do for the metaphysical philosophy of France, what Reid and Stewart

have already done for that of England and America. Cousin's philosophy is also becoming extensively known and as extensively admired in this country; and the author of these fragmentary thoughts will not esteem his labor lost if they shall be the means of directing any to a mine so replete with knowledge and truth. Amenia, N. Y., 1841.

ART. III.-Translation from Professor Tholuck.

THE author of the following piece (Professor Tholuck, of Halle) is already favorably known to the American public as a Christian and scholar; and as having borne in our age an active and influential part in the revival of evangelical religion throughout Germany. The unhappy infidel tendency of the close of the last and the beginning of the present century was not confined to France. The Christian world everywhere felt it more or less; and while France was its mainhold, where it exhibited its direst effects, and most revolting fruits, yet the form that it assumed among Germans, by courting an alliance with their learning and industry, was more dangerous. As it did not there, as in France, banish the church, and as the union of church and state is so intimate as to affect, more or less, men's fortunes in all departments of life, it naturally became an infidelity in the church—and while all men were in its pale, it was not uncommon to find theological professors and ministers of the altar disowning every essential doctrine of the Bible-indeed, denying revelation itself. The strange anomaly was presented of a Christian people rejecting Christ. The moral decencies of life were the only duties acknowledged by the mass, and too often these were shamefully neglected.

But it is one of the pleasing fruits of the passing century that this malign religious influence has year by year been sensibly wearing out. Under Bonaparte matters had already somewhat improved; but especially since his fall, and the return to Europe of peace, commerce, and prosperity, has the advancement of the interests of true religion and true learning been rapid. For fifteen or twenty years Professor Tholuck has been a prominent assistant in this revival of evangelical principles. By his books, and largely

as professor of theology, by his influence upon students annually ripening into ministers, has he been instrumental in redeeming piety from the odium into which it had fallen, and shaking the influence of rationalism, which for a long time had been triumphant. At him, perhaps more than at any other individual, have the attacks of the opposite party been directed. This contest has issued in as signal defeat to his opponents as the most happy discipline of Christian character in himself. In the cause of Christ, there have been also many other able and amiable men, of whom it is not our present purpose to speak. Through their united influence, with the blessing of Heaven, the cause of holiness for the last few years has become strong-it gives all indications that it is in the ascendantand the world has yet much good to expect from the German Church. The piece here offered to the English reader was among Professor Tholuck's early publications. Perhaps, in its abridged form, the transitions in the course of thought and illustration may not always appear easy.

Randolph Macon College, Va., March 15, 1841.

Apologetical Hints for the Study of the Old Testament. Translated and abridged from the German of Professor A. THOLUCK.

In the last ten years the error has almost universally spread itself, as well in the theological world as elsewhere, that the study of the Old Testament for theologians, and the reading of the same by the laity for the purpose of edification, are either wholly unnecessary, or but little beneficial. With especial reference to theologians, we will at present cursorily develop, 1st. How important the study of the Old Testament would be, even though it had no connection with the New. 2d. How deep and wisely founded were the institutes of the Israelites and the divine dispensation toward them. 3d. How the New Testament entirely rests upon the Old, and how Christ is the kernel of all the Old Testament.

As this our undertaking has invited the attention of profound men of all ages, much that is good has already been said on the subject by others, so that the main design of this composition cannot be to give much that is new, but to present only that which is called for by the condition of our age.

I. How far do the books of the Old Testament deserve a diligent study, even if they were not connected with Christianity?

If stability is praiseworthy as a great distinction in an individual man, it is in a double degree so in a whole people. Josephus says, (Contra Ap.,) " Were our nation not known to all men, and were mankind not generally acquainted with our voluntary subjection to the law, and should a person describe and represent our institutions to the Greeks, or say, that out of the limits of the known world, he had met with a people that had so sublime conceptions of God, and for so many centuries had remained true to the same laws, they would be altogether astonished, since among themselves they know nothing but perpetual change."

[ocr errors]

Variety and change create vivacity, an objector will reply, and on account of this very vivacity is the Greek nation to be considered great and exalted, while the whole East from the remotest times. to the present languishes. But a mere busy activity of the mind without object (which the Persian Dschelaleddin compares to the constant flow of a stream) cannot be the end of life. If the truth is once found, it is useless to be ever seeking it anew; and hence the apostle of the Gentiles gives the most striking picture of all heathens, both of ancient and modern times, when he says, They are ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth," 2 Tim. iii, 7. The Hebrews had a worship of God, which, as we shall see, satisfied the requirements of an humble mind, but one not yet arrived at high intellectuality. To this they remained true, according to this they fashioned their whole life; and hence Josephus can rightly say, "It can be no reproach to us, that we have discovered nothing new, but it affords this testimony, that we needed nothing better." "What can one think of more beautiful," continues this sagacious man, "than a whole people, whose entire government resembles a general religious festival? While other nations can hold their feasts and mysteries scarcely a few days together, we celebrate our religious precepts without change from century to century." If now such a continuance in established institutions, springs not from the enervation or ossification of a people, it is something truly sublime. The praise of Sparta, indeed, resounds in history, because she was able for several centuries to remain faithful to the brazen laws of Lycurgus. But who can accuse the Israelites of enervation, who, without unity in the

time of the judges, flourishing in the spiendid period of a David or Solomon, split and at enmity under the kings, trodden down by enemies during the Babylonish captivity, and under the Maccabees preserving with heroic power their ancient honor-passed through all the catastrophes which nations suffer. At the time of Christ their weakness and decline are not to be mistaken, but then even something unusual occurred. Frightfully did the remaining power convulse itself when the ruins of Jerusalem buried the antiquated sanctuary now stripped of meaning; as once at Nineveh the smoldering palace overwhelmed the effeminate Sardanapalus, and with him the fallen glory of Assyria. Instructive must it therefore be to become acquainted with the source of this iron constancy of temper, which long ago the Greek Hecatæres Abderita acknowledged and admired in this people.

If one now asks how the Spartan state became what it was, and if he be forced to answer the question by showing that ambition and unchecked haughtiness were the nurses of the Spartan constitution, and that Lycurgus endeavored to augment the hardness of character natural to the Doric tribe, and founded the greatness of the citizens of Sparta upon the brutal degradation of the Lacedemonians. the legitimate inhabitants of the land; the Hebrew people will then exhibit themselves in a light proportionably the more beautiful as the following words of Josephus are true:"That our legislation was by far more useful than all others, must undoubtedly be regarded as the cause of our unchangeable faith in God and his commandments. For Moses did not make piety a part of virtue, but all virtues he made parts of the fear of God, by attributing to all our actions a reference to God." And no impartial historian will deny that in just this constant reference of all events to God lay the source of the great power of the Israelites: since times, when the fear of God was extinguished, mostly failed in firm and manly characters, which are the products only of a foundation in God.

Next to the stability of the Hebrew people, is their antiquity (already the subject of much praise) worthy of our respect. More than six hundred years before Lycurgus, Moses gives his laws; six hundred years before Pindar, the king of the Hebrews composes his divine Psalms. Moreover, three hundred years before the mythic heroes, Orpheus, Hercules, and Theseus, go against VOL. I.-23

« PoprzedniaDalej »