RATIONALISM

The interpretation of scripture truths upon the principles of human reason; vvJiich has become famous in the present day by the theological systems to which it has given birth in Germany. The history of the progre of the opinions of the reformed churches of that country may be found in Dr. Pusey's e ay upon this subject. He conceives the ]>■>. imical discu ions which prevailed throughout those comniuniiies in the 17th and first half of the following century to have prepared the way for the reception of the low views of Christianity, as a moral system, which were derived from the writings of the concealed or avowed deists of this country. Herbert, Tyndal, Morgan, To land. &.<•.; and from the tone with which they were reviewed by the sincere, but odd. theologians of the Orthodox party. From the middle of the last century there has aris i n in Germany a succe ion of divines — Hnuingarten, Mlehaelis, Sender, Bichborn, Paulas Bretschneider, &.'•., who have endeavoured either to affix a lower and more human ci'. ble operations of God upon men throng ' Ity, or to reduce the accounts which we have of the foundation of our religion to the mixture of truth and error natural to fallible men. They have I the genuinene of almost all the separate parts of Scripture, and the accuracy of all their supernatural narratives. The discredit into which these theologians appear to have fallen arises, in a great measure, from the inability they have shown to produce a connected and con sistent system of religion upon the low ground which they have taken up. Of later years a much more spiritual conception of the nature of scripture promises.and Christian a istances is observable in the writings of German divines, under the operation of which their theological criticism has already a umed a more dignified and exalted tone. The sensation created by Strau 's Life of Christ, the latest, and In some respects the most remarkable production of the nationalist school, may probably have aided in this reac linn. (See the article " Rationnlismus," in the Con v. Lrxirnn. The English reader may consult the writings of Mr. Hugh Rose and Dr. Pusey on the subject of German rationalism; Jltkinson's View vfU'ninrsitics in Clermavy; Hawkins's Germany, and two articles in the Church of England Quarterly Review, Oct. 1837, and Jan. 1S18.) [s. 1045]