NOTICE.-The Essays on the Philosophy of the Mind, and on Christianity and Philosophy, will be continued. ERRATUM.-On page 56, last line, for objection read obligation. LITERARY AND THEOLOGICAL REVIEW. NO. V.-MARCH, 1835. ART. I. MEANS OF PROMOTING CHRISTIANITY. THE divine influence is the sole efficient cause of all the success of Christianity, whether with respect to individuals or communities. No means or instrumentalities are to be employed but those which are divinely sanctioned, and which are therefore appropriate to the co-operation of that influence. The degree of success will be proportioned to the right use of these means. It were inconsistent with the very nature and all the pretensions of Christianity to argue otherwise, and would imply that the truths and sanctions of the Gospel were less adapted, even with aid from on high, to affect men's minds, than the perversions of errour. There is in the divine purpose and constitution with respect to these means and the nature and affections of the human mind, a fitness and connexion, on the ground of which, by the concurrence of the divine agency, success may be expected to follow their use, and cannot be looked for without the appropriate instrumentality. This connexion, fitness, and co-operation is analogous to that which occurs in other cases involving human agency, as in that of agriculture: insomuch that a departure from the scriptural method, and a reliance on other influences and grounds of success, will as certainly end in disappointment, as the calculations of a husbandman would, who, to produce wheat should sow tares, or who should look for a crop without sowing any seed. But there have been in modern, as well as earlier times, wide departures from the simplicity of the Gospel, and reliance has been extensively placed, in the reformed churches, on other means of success. Instead of specifying at large in what instances and what respects in the history of Protestant Christendom there have been the most notable failures to employ evangelical means in simple dependence on the divine influence, it will be more to the present purpose to notice some of the substitutes and inferiour causes on which reliance for success has been extensively reposed. The results anticipated and realized from these substitutes amount to little more than a kind of public worldly influence of Christianity, an outward respectability, a tolerated observance of its forms, a temporal support of its institutions, and certain secular benefits to society. Among those inferiour grounds of dependence for the success of the Gospel, Learning must be named as the first and most conspicuous. When the church emerged from the ignorance and corruption of the dark ages, and caught a glimpse of the light and glory of the Gospel in contrast with the reigning and universal superstition, imposture and wickedness, the minds of men were roused, and the transition gave to every species of knowledge a captivating power; and in relation to the first and main object, the conversion and salvation of men, assigned to human learning a mistaken office and an undue importance, which the invention of printing encouraged, and various causes have helped to perpetuate. Let every one think as he pleases, but let no one's temper be disturbed, if it be urged that the reformers and their successors erred on this subject. Let it be candidly considered, whether instead of relying on the inculcation of those simple and essential truths of the Gospel which are adapted to the capacities and feelings of the common mind, however ignorant of other things, and on the divine influence, as the immediate and sole ground of confidence and hope, they did not too much exalt, and too much depend on, the efforts of reason, the arms of controversy, and the powers of learning? Instead of calculating on the boundless resources of moral influence and renovation which ceed from the simple inculcations of the Gospel, and addressing their efforts accordingly, did they not direct their zeal quite too much against the heretical doctrines, abominable customs, and tyrannical power of the hierarchy to which they were opposed? pro Whatever may be alleged in its defence, whatever causes may be assigned as leading to it, did not the course which they adopted at once place Christianity in a position to require defence, constant defence against the arrogance of puny mortals, and defence on other grounds and by other means than its own intrinsic elements, its divine verities, its spirit of love, purity, and humility, its claims on the conscience, its hopes, its sanctions, its alliance with the agency and glory of God? Did not their view of the contest they were to prosecute, unavoidably lead to the use of weapons similar to those by which they were assailed, and to transfer the scene of action from the field of spiritual conquest, the hearts and consciences of the common people, to the intellects and passions of the learned and the great? Were not the acquisitions and efforts of ministers dictated by this view of the case? Did it not become necessary, that they should explore all those paths of learning in which their enemies were intrenched, and those newer ones which they opened, and which augmented their intellectual force, and gave them advantages of position? Did not this policy naturally require, that their learning should appear conspicuously in their sermons, as well as in their books; that in addition to their controversies with each other, they should fight the enemy at all points; that they should openly attack and oppose each and every thing which they deemed erroneous in theory and practice, every thing in the theological, ecclesiastical, and political world, every thing in the religious rites and established customs of society, every thing in the stupendous fabric of papal imposture, and in the dark workings of the whole mystery of iniquity which could be argued against, ridiculed or denounced? The Reformers, whose praise needs not the tribute of any feeble tongue of the present day, had themselves, in common with all around them, been enveloped in the clouds of Romish ignorance and superstition. When they opered their eyes and discovered those effulgent truths of the Gospel which are quick and powerful, sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and discerning the thoughts and intents of the heart, it need not be wondered at, that in view of the abominations of Rome, and the degraded and hopeless condition of the people, they were impelled to extremes by the spirit of controversy; that seeing the reins of absolute power, ecclesiastical and political, in the hands of a few of the trained and leading agents of the Pope, they were induced to turn the influence and the associated and public efforts of Christianity, and all the artillery of learning and wit, against them; that they deemed an intellectual and political victory, necessary as a preparation for the Gospel to have free course and be glorified. To those who have leisure and curiosity, it will be worth the trouble to read the history of this prolonged battle with the powers of the air, and mark how the intellectual and political resources which were so much depended on, and so earnestly employed on the part of Christianity, were gradually expended, or engrossed by the enemy, and how naturally the present state of those parts of Europe which were the scene of these events, has resulted from the mistaken course adopted by the first Reformers. In the light of that history, the tendency of their system is clearly to be seen, and there can be no hazard in saying, that like all the efforts of heated controversy and excited passion at the present day, their proceedings were calculated to divert attention from the spiritual and practical import of the Gospel, to the points in dispute, and to their connexion with the affairs of civil government, the rights of the people, and other secular and extraneous matters. Rers and politicians seized the rising ferment as a means of securing their power and gaining strength for its defence; and the people, suffering under the iron rod of despotism and superstition, like the Jews on the earliest announcement of Christianity, were first and chiefly anxious to be delivered from the yoke of political tyranny. It is therefore no matter of surprise, that the Scriptures should have received less attention, and been less read, less understood and less regarded, even by the learned, at least in Germany, a century after, than immediately before the dawn of the reformation. That such was the case may be rendered sufficiently evident by a single testimony, that of Spener, one of the founders of the school of Biblical Theology at Halle, near the close of the seventeenth century. He states, that it was usual for persons having an education for the ministry, to spend five or six years at the Universities without hearing, or caring to hear, a single book, chapter, or verse of the Bible explained. It is also stated by the Translator of Knapp's "Theology," from whom the above is |