PLAN OF THE FOUNDER OF CHRISTIANITY. BY Franz Volkmar F. V. REINHARD, S. T. D. PUBLISHED BY G. & C. & H. CARVILL, Andover.... Printed at the Codman Press BY FLAGG AND GOULD. 16/ "Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and thirty one, by G. & C. & H. Carvill, in the Clerk's office of the Southern District of New York." TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. The work here presented to the public, is the production of F. V. Reinhard, a native of Vohenstrauss a market town in the Dukedom of Sulzbach, for some time Professor Ordinarius of Theology at Wittemberg, and finally Court Preacher with the honorary title of Oberconsistorialassessor at Dresden, where he died in 1812, in the 59th year of his age. His father was a pious and worthy clergyman of the place where he was born, and the first and principal instructor of his youth. Of course, the education which he received was strictly of an Evangelical cast, and, through the blessing of God, was a principal means of preserving him from continuance in the errors of skepticism into which he afterwards fell, and of rendering him the useful man in the cause of religion which he ultimately became. He was the most eloquent scholar of his age and the author of several works and about thirty volumes of sermons, all distinguished for a flowing style, lucid order, and clearness and fullness of thought. Of his works, the following is not the least conspicuous. The object which he had in view in composing it and the circumstances which first called it forth, are, in a few words, clearly stated in the introduction and the appendix, A and F. Still it may be interesting to some to have a more particular account of them. Protestant Germany, which had long been comparatively free from anti-christian writers, while England and France were deluged with them, had now begun to experience a reverse in this respect. J. C. Edelmann a native of Weissenfels, having passed through various seceding sects of the Evangelical church, then tried Atheism, and finally taken up with Pan theism, a man of some talent but few acquisitions, had died a few years previous in banishment, for his open and audacious attacks upon the church. To him succeeded Reimarus a native of Hamburg, where he was born in 1694, a thorough philologist, one of the ablest critics of his age, and the author of various productions, some of them of high repute. In 1758, he published an able work, entitled: "Logic containing directions for the right use of reason in the acquisition of truth; drawn from the two natural rules of agreement and disagreement. ."* Of some of the directions which he laid down in this work, he afterwards made extensive use for the purpose of opposing revealed religion. It was far from his intention however to publish any thing of an anti-christian character, and consequently his writings were confined to his confidential friends, and left behind in manuscript at his death, which occurred at Hamburg in 1765, at which time, he was Professor of Hebrew and Mathematics at the Gymnasium in that place. Of these antichristian manuscripts, Lessing, who is well known both as a scholar and a poet, contrived to get a copy, parts of which he published at Brunswick in a work, entitled: Contributions to history and literature drawn from the archives of the ducal library at Wolfenbuttel," of which he was then overseer, under the name of " Wolfenbuttel Fragments, by an anonymous person." Five of these fragments made their appearance in 1777, and a sixth, in 1778. They all excited great attention and called forth corresponding answers. The last however was particularly inimical to Christianity and calculated to injure the cause of truth, and of course, deserved more particular attention. It was entitled: "Fragment respecting the object of Jesus and his disciples." In it the author generally extolls the morality of *Die Vernunftlehre, als eine Anweisung zum richtigen Gebrauche der Vernunft in dem Erkenntniss der Wahrheit, aus zwei ganz natürlichen Regeln der Einstimmung und des Widerspruchs hergeleitet, 2te A., 1758. 8. + Beyträge zur Geschichte und Litteratur, aus den Schätzen der Herzoglichen Bibliothek zu Wolfenbüttel u. s. w. Wolfenbüttelsche Fragmente eines Ungenannten. § Fragment von dem Zwecke Jesu und seiner Jünger. the Gospel as noble, but he says that Jesus and his apostles were deceivers, and maintains that the former was not the author of the mysterious doctrines afterwards imputed to him, and that he never had any intention of abolishing the moral, Levitical law, inasmuch as he expressly asserts that he came not to abrogate the law and the prophets but to see them fulfilled; and hence, that it was his intention merely to establish an earthly kingdom among the Jews. He says that his disciples expected nothing else from him during his life time, and that it was not until after his death that they changed their opinion and imputed to him other intentions, which led them in many instances to give a different representation of things from what they would have done had they written their narratives before this event, so that their accounts are not to be depended upon; that he and John deceived the people, as, without correcting the false notions of the Jews or contradicting them, he gave himself out for the Messiah, and consequently for a worldly prince, and John asserts that he was first made acquainted with Jesus as the Messiah by revelation at his baptism, though he had extolled him as the Messiah before, and hence there must have been some contrivance between them; that Jesus under the cloak of religion had formed the plan of a rebellion, of founding a kingdom of God and establishing a royal government upon the ruins of the Jewish state; that though he forbade his disciples from making known his deeds, it was for the purpose of maturing his plan, and because the time and circumstances had not arrived for him to claim the authority of king; that at the feast of the passover, when the time had arrived as he thought, he actually made a solemn entrance into Jerusalem, accompanied with the acclamations of the people, went into the temple and formed an estimate of the means of defence there collected together, and the next day, delivered an inflammatory address to the people for the purpose of exciting them against the magistracy and inducing them to aid him in obtaining the chief authority, but all without success, for the people left him; and as there was danger of his producing more disturbance in the state, he was taken and crucified; and that while on the cross, he gave himself up to devotion; and that the exclamation which he uttered on that A* |