"how the dead are raised, and with what body they shall come." The theological articles contain much curious and valuable information, together with bold and fanciful conjecture, and often inconclusive reasoning. They exhibit a strange mixture of intellectual independence and strict adherence to authority; and the boundaries between these two antagonist principles, where they are fixed at all, seem to be marked often by sentiment or fancy, rather than by a just regard to intrinsic differences in the objects of faith or of doubt. If we should venture a criticism on the general character of the various theological investigations and speculations contained in this volume, we should say that their merit consists in their suggestive rather than their convincing power. They excite, although they do not satisfy, a hearty thirst after the highest spiritual truth.

We welcome this volume of Selections from German Literature as one of many proofs, that amongst us, in every denomination of Christians, a spirit has waked up which is not afraid or ashamed of a good thing, even though it come out of Nazareth.

The common notion, that German Theology, with all its historical, exegetical, and speculative riches, is but another name for Biblical Skepticism, or Transcendental Mysticism, will give way before a more extensive and accurate knowledge of the subject, which has been greatly promoted by contributions from the Andover Seminary.

Sound principles of Free Trade will prevail in the literary as in the commercial world. The intellectual productions of every country will be placed on the same footing, and come in for their share in the public regard, which hitherto, amongst us, has been bestowed almost exclusively upon the literary commodities of the most favored nation; and every work of the human mind, whether foreign or domestic, will be valued according to its intrinsic worth.

F.

ART. VI.-A Discourse on the Latest Form of Infidelity; delivered at the Request of the " Association of the Alumni of the Cambridge Theological School," on the 19th of July, 1839. With Notes. By ANDREWS NORTON. Cambridge: John Owen. 1839. 8vo. pp. 64.

WE doubt whether a sufficient distinction is commonly made between the facts and the truths of the gospel. By the facts we mean the external events connected with the life and ministry of Jesus, his birth, miracles, death, and resurrection. These are mere history,- local and temporary. By the truths we denote those great eternal principles which Jesus revealed, the love, providence, and laws of God, the tendencies of human conduct, the worth of the soul, the doctrines of regeneration, pardon, and immortality. For our own part, we believe that these truths could not have been promulgated and established among men, had they not been connected with the most stupendous series of facts in the world's history; and we therefore can yield to none in hearty reverence for what in current phrase is termed historical Christianity. But the conservative party in the church have always claimed for these facts a kind of reverence and faith, of which they are not susceptible, a concurrent jurisdiction with great truths over the heart and life, — a sanctifying efficacy. To take a single example of this, great stress has always been laid on the mere blood of our Savior's cross, as if this material fluid were possessed of an inherent spiritual efficacy, so that it has not been deemed sufficient for the disciple to believe in Jesus as all love and all self-sacrifice, unless he could concentrate all his ideas of self-sacrificing love on the purple current of Calvary. The radical party in theology, perceiving the absurdity of thus substituting the phenomenal for the spiritual in matters of faith, have passed to the opposite extreme of undervaluing or rejecting all that is merely external and local in the records of our religion. This tendency has long characterized the more liberal school of German theology, and has recently manifested itself in various ways in our own country.

We cannot dissemble our belief that much of the Rationalism of Germany deserves no better name than "the latest form of infidelity," and that it would claim no other name, were it not that the profession of Christianity is there essential to the

enjoyment of certain ecclesiastical and literary preferments, as well as of a certain modicum of respectability. It is, we apprehend, this trans-Atlantic pseudo-theology, and not any mode of belief or class of speculatists in our own borders, that Mr. Norton designs to attack in his Address. We cannot regard him as having entered into the arena of personal controversy with any portion of the "Association of the Alumni," before which he uttered himself, but as having discussed a theme in theological literature, with which he and many of his hearers had been long and familiarly conversant. There is not a sen

tence in the Address, which would have seemed out of place on a similar occasion ten years ago, before Alumni, whose alma mater had fed them on German fare. Yet we have no doubt that Mr. Norton was led to the choice of his subject by certain novel speculations, which, grouped together as they have been inaccurately enough under the name of Transcendentalism, have been recently rife among us. Several popular writers, agreeing in nothing else, have concurred in attacking the generally received notions with regard to the miracles of the New Testament. One author has denied their validity and worth as evidences of a religious system; another has attempted to reduce them to the level of natural phenomena; while a third cannot receive them in the form in which they have been transmitted to us, because they are monstrous, fall not in with the analogy of nature. The blended braying of their trumpets has given too uncertain a sound for one to gird himself to the battle with them. The highly spiritual characters of these authors themselves have indeed kept their pages pure from the impious absurdities, which have been issued from the German press under the name of biblical criticism. But the common tendency of their writings upon the unspiritual and grovelling is to bring about a skepticism with regard to miracles and historical Christianity. This skepticism on the continent of Europe was the joint result of mysticism and naturalism, the fruit of bold, anatomizing theories and hypotheses started by men of a sincere and devout spirit. It is this result, among us yet in embryo, it is Rationalism full grown, and not its various constituent elements, against which Mr. Norton has directed his course of reasoning. He has fought no new battle, has grappled with no unfamiliar foe, - has wielded weapons already thoroughly proved and often victorious. He sought not the award of originality; but merits the far higher praise of a most lucid, cogent, and im

pressive reiteration of arguments, which are only the more precious, because they have come down to us from former times unanswered, and which he has so recoined in adaptation to the present times, as to leave upon them the manifest stamp of his own vigorous and discriminating mind.

In the following article we propose first, to discuss very briefly the worth and the peculiar province of the gospel miracles, and then, to follow Mr. Norton in his train of argument, with such extracts as our limits may permit.

And at the outset, we agree entirely with those who profess a more spiritual philosophy, that a belief in miracles constitutes no part of a sanctifying faith in Christ. It is the truth as it is in Jésus, that makes a man a Christian. Whosoever is of the truth is his disciple. To be a Christian is to have a perpetual consciousness of the truths which Jesus revealed, — to feel our spiritual relations and condition as constantly and as vividly as we feel our earthly estate and our temporal wants. It is not by what lies without the mind and is contemplated at a distance and historically, but by truths that lie deep within the mind and are regarded as a part of itself, that piety must have its birth and growth. It is not an outward Christ, a cross far away upon Mount Calvary, a sacrifice once made and never to be repeated, that is to save us; but a Christ, formed within, is our hope of glory, a cross, taken up and borne, is our pledge of eternal life, an inward sacrifice of sin alone can make the sacrifice of the Lamb of God availing. What we call the outward means of salvation are not means of salvation, till they become inward, till the heart adopts and fosters them; and then they are spirit, and they are life.

What then is the province of mere marvellous facts? What relation do they bear to the truths of religion? What can a belief in them conduce to a true Christian faith? Had mankind been always perfectly pure and spiritual, they would never have needed the apparatus of miracle and revelation to have guided them to the truth. They would have recognised and embraced it, in whatever form it came to them, because it commended itself to their spiritual discernment, because it touched answering chords in their hearts. Had it been uttered by common men, or written in anonymous books, or breathed upon the soul as the zephyr breathes upon the Eolian harp, it would have been all the same as if uttered in a voice from heaven, and attested by the right arm of Omnipotence. The heart attuned

to the truth would know it by a feeling of kindred and a sense of fitness and reality. But such is not our condition. We have lost the signature of native innocence. We are carnally minded. The eyes of our understanding are darkened. The oracle within utters false responses. The chords of our moral nature are unstrung or misstrung, so that their quick vibrations are no longer an infallible test of truth. Hence without special revelation we should be the prey of ceaseless doubt or of mistaken confidence tost on an ocean of skepticism and error, without chart or pilot, sun or star. Such was the condition of the whole heathen world before Christ. Such would be our condition, were the marvellous facts of the gospel stricken out of knowledge. The truths of Christianity would still remain, for they are the same yesterday, to-day, and forever; and a few pure and gifted spirits might attain to the consciousness of them, walk in their light, and rejoice in their salvation. But not so the vast majority of the ignorant, the unspiritual, the sinning. They would be shut out forever from the temple of truth. Its torch light would have gone out in their hearts, and there would be no vestal flame at which it could be rekindled. The light within would have become darkness.

The worth of the gospel miracles lies in their adaptation to the erring and grovelling, in their exciting and fixing the attention, and opening the heart, where worldliness or guilt had stupified and closed it. They are a ladder from earth to heaven, from carnal-mindedness to spiritual-mindedness. They address the unspiritual and the guilty in that language of outward phenomena, to which they are accustomed and which they can understand. They employ material signs, and appeal to men's senses and every-day laws of belief in behalf of things, which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor the grovelling heart conceived. Take the case of a heathen, bound down by the degrading superstitions and vices of idolatry. We go to preach the gospel to him. What can we do for him without the miraculous history of the gospel? We might proclaim in thrilling tones its sublime doctrines and promises, and the very stones might cry out before he would be moved. For his soul would be dead within him. Its strings would have been so often swept by harsh and unholy hands, that they would no longer answer to the gentle touch of truth. How then could he believe, when we told him of heavenly things? But we might tell him of earthly things, of the music that floated over the hill-tops, of the star that stood over the manger, when Jesus was born, of his walk