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weigh Rothe's arguments. Anglican theologians might derive more advantage from this scientific masterpiece, if they understood it, than from most of their own writers upon the same subject. But the stand-point and the aim of Rothe on this subject are totally different from theirs. He has no intention to defend the Episcopal constitution in itself, and in relation to the present times; his only design is to illustrate it in its natural rise out of the needs of the Church when she had become widowed, so to speak, by the death of the apostles, and its historical necessity for the earliest centuries, and this in organic connection with the whole old catholic idea of the Church; so that his book really proves too much for the Anglicans, and therefore at bottom proves nothing, inasmuch as they abstract and detach the Episcopal constitution from those ideas which produced at a later period, under the same historical necessity, the Metropolitan, Patriarchal, and Papal constitutions, and carried up the government of the Church more and more to a pyramidical apex.

But this book, besides its historical, has also a philosophical side, inasmuch as the author, in a long introduction, analyses the relation of Church and State, and comes to the surprising result, that the Church at last must resolve itself into the State. This view has drawn upon him from all sides such sharp attacks,-especially from his own friend, Hengstenberg, and even from the Hegelian school, whose philosophical assumptions seem logically to lead to a similar result,that he has never published, and, as it seems, never intends to do so, the second volume of the work, though already completed in manuscript, to the great disadvantage of science. It is true, he has in many ways been misunderstood on this subject. The notion of the State upon which he proceeds is one entirely ideal, which has nowhere been realised. He understands by it a thoroughly Christianised community of nations, —a family of God embracing the whole of mankind. Of course, also, he has not the remotest thought that Christianity is to perish; but, on the contrary, he contemplates its complete triumph over the world. His opinion is that the Christian religion will so interpenetrate the whole moral life of mankind, will so naturalise itself in all the national relations of social life, that at last there will no longer be any room left for a specifically religious community-i.e., for a church—but that the Church will pass over into the form of the State-i.e., of a kingdom, a theocracy including all nations. We believe, too, that in the perfected kingdom of God no room will longer be left for Church and State; but instead of saying with Rothe that the Church will pass over into the ideal God-State, we would maintain the exact reverse, that the State will cease,

and resolve itself, or rather be transfigured into the ideal Church.*

Dr Dorner.

Dr Dorner is a native of Wurtemberg. He began his academic career in Tübingen as the successor of Steudel, was then called to Kiel, afterwards to Königsberg, and, last of all, to Bonn. He is both a speculative theologian and a writer of the highest eminence on the History of Doctrines. In profound philosophic culture and independent dogmatic talent he is inferior to none of his contemporaries. He has thoroughly mastered and digested the philosophy of Hegel and the theology of Schleiermacher. His dialectical method, and his way of looking at history, attach themselves predominantly to the former; but he has surmounted the Pantheism of Hegel, and takes his stand decidedly upon the ground of Christianity and the Church. His most important work is the "History of the Development of the Doctrine of the Person of Christ," in which he follows down this momentous doctrine-the central point of the whole Christian system— from the New Testament to the latest times, with a learning and an acuteness which have not yet found their equal. His style, also, is exceedingly lively and dignified, although not always sufficiently simple and natural. The work,—especially in its new and improved form, not yet completed, is, without question, one of the most valuable and able monographs in this department which theological literature has to show, and a most triumphant confutation of the investigations of Bauer in the same field. The author, who is still in the prime of life, may be expected to make many more contributions of importance to the new edifice of evangelical theology and the Church. Dorner, besides, takes a very animated and prominent part in the German Kirchentag, and in the practical questions there discussed affecting the interests of the Christianity of Germany.

Dr Hasse.

Dr Hasse, (not to be confounded with the church-historian Hase of Jena) originally attached to the right or positive side of the Hegelian school, has made himself known by an excellent monograph on Anselm of Canterbury, which, however, is unfortunately not yet completed. The first volume, which contains the life of the great scholastic, is quite a masterpiece of clear and elegant objective biography. The second volume

We understand that Dr Rothe has very recently been recalled to Heidelberg, to take the place of Dr Ullmann, who has been appointed Prelate of the Protestant Church of the Duchy of Baden.-ED.

+ Dr Dorner has recently been removed from Bonn to Göttingen.-ED. VOL. III-NO. IX.

2 c

will develop the doctrinal system of Anselm, and will probably throw much new light upon the early history of the scholasticism and mysticism of the Middle Age.

IV. THE OTHER PRUSSIAN UNIVERSITIES.

We have dwelt so long upon Berlin, Halle, and Bonn, that we must only touch slightly upon the other universities of Prussia, in order to gain room for an account of the theologians and universities of the other German States. At Königsberg, the second city of Prussia, where a university has existed since 1544, theology is taught by Gebser, Sieffert, Sommer, Erbkam (the author of a very valuable monograph on the Sects of the Reformation-period), and Jacobi (a disciple of Neander, and author of a Compendium of Church History, not yet completed). At Greifswald, in the province of Pomerania, founded in 1456, are Kosegarten, Vogt, Schirmer, and Semisch (author of the learned monograph on Justin Martyr). The university of Breslau, in Silesia (since 1702), was formerly a principal seat of the vulgar Rationalism represented principally by Schulz, and more recently of the closely allied German Catholicism; but, at present, there are labouring there, side by side with Schulz, men of a decidedly evangelical spirit, such as Hahn and Oehler.* Huschke, the head of the old Lutherans in Silesia, does not belong to the theological, but to the juridical faculty.

(To be continued.)

ART. VIII.-The Preaching for the Age.

Two classes of views prevail to some extent in regard to modern preaching. On the one hand, we are told that the Pulpit is deserting the high ground of Christian doctrine, and becoming, under the pressure of a false public sentiment, more feeble in matter and rambling in topics. On the other hand, it is alleged that the ministry are falling behind the times, that the pulpit is becoming antiquated, and to a great extent inefficient, amid the rapid advancement of our day.

There is, unquestionably, a preaching for the age. There is a style, a tone, a scope, a speciality of object in the administration of God's Word, at any given period, which peculiarly befit the times; and without which the ministry must fail of its full effect. And surely it is right that the progress of society in every form of talent, taste, and science, should tell on preach* Oehler has recently been removed to Tübingen.-ED.

ing-should modify this august science of acting on the souls of men by the power of divine truth and the realities of eternity. Nor is this right alone; it is a thing certain to be. The characteristics of the Pulpit will change from generation to generation. The traits of preaching in one age will be supplanted by other traits; and often the very qualities which have been the secret of its power for a season, will be laid aside by common consent, and replaced by other elements of temporary success. Such has been actually the case in all past time; and when the infidels of the day, and some who are not infidels, talk of the Pulpit as effete and antiquated, they simply contradict facts. The change in the habits and qualities of preaching for fifty or a hundred years past, while it has been silent and imperceptible, like every intellectual change, is yet as positive and marked as any progress which the age has witnessed. There is not more difference between the old-fashioned, bare-timbered meeting-houses of former times and the sanctuaries in which we now worship, than between the style and construction of an ancient puritan sermon and those of the average discourses preached in our churches Those venerable buildings on whose huge, overstretching beams and braces the hearer of that day used, we are told, to deposit, as on a system of mnemonics, the whole framework of the sermon, are gone, and those sermons are gone also. We can admire the fitness of both to their times; we can acknowledge the high service they rendered; we can invigorate our souls by communing with the sturdy forms of thought of those days; but as well might a modern builder attempt to revive that order of architecture, as a living preacher attempt to reproduce in his pulpit that style of discourse. Nor is the change to be regretted, if we can but attain the same great results of Christian instruction. This is the chief object which concerns us-to maintain amid necessary progress the undiminished power of the gospel in its action on the minds of men.

now.

In discussing this subject, two things seem requisite :-first, that we should look at certain facts which powerfully tend to modify preaching at the present day, and then consider certain qualities in dispensing the word of truth which ought, under no circumstances, to be surrendered.

Among those influences, then, which go to modify preaching, one of the most obvious is the highly practical character of the

times.

The business of life in our day and among us may be called an absorption. The old style of slow gains and moderate enterprises, which satisfied our fathers, and enabled them to retain

a somewhat reflective cast of mind even amid the activities of life, is now quite out date. The quiet habits of the English merchant who leaves care in his counting-house and becomes a man of reading and culture for half the day, are wholly incompatible with the nervous intentness and restless vigilance which characterise our business community. We are continually reaching after results. The whole cast of our thinking is practical. It is the thinking of men never out of hearing of a railroad whistle. And, as a natural consequence, the popular mind is becoming more and more averse to abstract speculation of every sort. Men do not wish to be led through any laboured process of thought. They are not disposed to enter into the investigation of causes. They cannot wait long to see the bearing of truth. They are impatient of any discussion, however able or ingenious, which does not drive directly at some tangible result. Now this trait, while it gives an admirable vantage-ground to a minister of Christ for direct influence at a thousand points, tends strongly to discourage him as to any thorough discussion of the foundation truths of religion. It is not that the hearer comes to the sanctuary with any less intellectual energy than formerly, but that he brings with him a mind indisposed to reason on mere matters of belief, and undervaluing the importance of exact and discriminating views of truth. And since the clear statement, explanation, and proof of Christian doctrine, involves a style of reflection and an argument from cause to effect out of the line of mere practical thinking, he is apt to approach it with disrelish, and regard it as a needless tax on his attention. That stream of thought which formerly lay, gathering its forces, in shade and retirement, or flowed only with still and deep waters, has turned into a different channel. It has a shallower and more rapid flow; it sparkles and flashes with a new life; it gathers its forces for sudden and swift toil; and they who are fishers for men along its course are driven to new resources and to the practice of a new skill.

But the Pulpit also feels the pressure of a fascinating and versatile literature.

The time has been among us when preaching was the only popular literature. The only serial issues which the people knew were published weekly from the pulpit, and the household library numbered few names beyond the old divines. The Pulpit then enjoyed a prerogative of influence, which would have been powerful for good, even with far less ability than it actually possessed. That pre-eminence has passed away, not because preaching has gone down, but because other influences have come up. Literature has been popularised. Reading has become imaginative and elegant, and the whole

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