Lutheran church, contain all the treasures of celestial wisdom; all things that relate to faith and practice. Hence it happened that the number of commentators and expositors among the Lutherans was equal to that of the eminent and learned doctors that adorned that communion. At the head of them all, Luther and Melancthon are undoubtedly to be placed; the former, on account of the sagacity and learning discovered in his explications of several portions of Scripture, and particularly of the books of Moses, and the latter in consequence of his commentaries on the Epistles of St. Paul, and other learned labours of that kind which are abundantly known. A second class of expositors of the same communion, obtained also great applause in the learned world, by their successful application to the study of the holy Scriptures, in which we may rank Matthias Flacius, whose Glossary and Key to the Sacred Writings' is extremely useful in unfolding the meaning of the inspired penmen; John Bugenhagius, Justus Jonus, Andrew Osiander, and Martin Chemnitz, whose Harmonies of the Evangelists are not void of merit. To these we may add Victor Strigelius and Joachim Camerarius, of whom the latter, in his Commentary on the New Testament, expounds the Scriptures in a grammatical and critical manner only; and laying aside all debated points of doctrine and religious controversy, unfolds the sense of each term, and the spirit of each phrase, by the rules of criticism and the genius of the ancient languages, in which he was a very uncommon proficient. The respec tive merits of sacred XVI. All these expositors and commentators abandoned the method of the ancient interpreters, who, neglectthe seeing the plain and evident purport of the words interpreters. of Scripture, were perpetually torturing their imaginations, in order to find out a mysterious sense in each word or sentence, or were hunting after insipid allusions and chimerical applications of Scripture passages, to objects which never entered into the views of the inspired writers. On the contrary, their principal zeal and industry were employed in investigating the natural force and signification of each expression, in consequence of that is inserted by Mollerus, in his Cimbria Literata, tom. i. p. 225. Elswich, De fatis Aristotelis in Scholis Protestant. § xxvii. p. 76. entitled Gotter. Arnold, Kirchen und Kitzer Historie, p. 947. See also Jo. Herm. ab z The Latin titles are Glossa Scripturæ Sacræ, and Clavis Scripturæ Sacræ. golden rule of interpretation inculcated by Luther, "That there is no more than one sense annexed to the words of Scripture throughout all the books of the Old and New Testament." It must however be acknowledged, that the examples exhibited by these judicious expositors were far from being universally followed. Many labouring under the old and inveterate disease of an irregular fancy and a scanty judgment, were still seeking for hidden significations and double meanings in the expressions of Holy Writ. They were perpetually busied in twisting all the prophecies of the Old Testament into an intimate connexion with the life, sufferings, and transactions of Jesus Christ; and were over sagacious in finding out, in the history of the patriarchal and Jewish churches, the types and figures of the events that have happened in modern, and that may yet happen in future times. In all this they discovered more imagination than judgment; more wit than wisdom. Be that as it may, all the expositors of this age may be divided, methinks, with propriety enough, into two classes, with Luther at the head of the one, and Melancthon presiding in the other. Some commentators followed the example of the former, who, after a plain and familiar explication of the sense of Scripture, applied its decisions to the fixing of controverted points, and to the illustration of the doctrines and duties of religion. Others discovered a greater propensity to the method of the latter, who first divided the discourses of the sacred writers into several parts, explained them according to the rules of rhetoric, and afterward proceeded to a more strict and almost a literal exposition of each part, taken separately, applying the result, as rarely as was possible, to points of doctrine, or matters of controversy. theology or doctrine of XVII. Complete systems of theology were far from being numerous in this century. Melancthon, the most Concerning eminent of all the Lutheran doctors, collected and the didactic digested the doctrines of the church, which he so the Lutheran eminently adorned, into a body of divinity, under church. the vague title of Loci Communes, i. e. A Commonplace Book of Theology. This compilation, which was afterward, at different times, reviewed, corrected, and enlarged by its author, was in such high repute during this century, Pa This golden rule will be found often defective and false, unless several prophetical, parabolical, and figurative expressions be excepted in its application. 29 VOL. III. a, and even in succeeding times, that it was considered as a universal model of doctrine for all those, who either instructed the people by their public discourses, or promoted the knowledge of religion by their writings." The title prefixed to this performance indicates sufficiently the method, or rather the irregularity that reigns in the arrangement of its materials; and shows that it was not the design of Melancthon to place the various truths of religion in that systematical concatenation, and that scientific order and connexion, that are observed by the philosophers in their demonstrations and discourses, but to propose them with freedom and simplicity, as they presented themselves to his view. Accordingly, in the first editions of the book under consideration, the method observed both in delineating and illustrating these important truths, is extremely plain, and is neither loaded with the terms, the definitions, nor the distinctions, that abound in the writings of the philosophers. Thus did the Lutheran doctors, in the first period of the rising church, renounce and avoid, in imitation of the great reformer, whose name they bear, all the abstruse reasoning and subtile discussions of the scholastic doctors. But the sophistry of their adversaries, and their perpetual debates with the artful champions of the church of Rome, engaged them by degrees, as has been already observed, to change their language and their methods of reasoning; so that, in process of time, the simplicity that had reigned in their theological systems, and in their manner of explaining the truths of religion, almost totally disappeared. Even Melancthon himself fell imperceptibly into the new method, or rather into the old method revived, and enlarged the subsequent editions of his Loci Communes, by the addition of several philosophical illustrations, designed to expose the fallacious reasonings of the Roman catholic doctors. As yet, however, the discussions of philosophy were but sparingly used, and the unintelligible jargon of the schoolmen was kept at a certain distance, and seldom borrowed. But when the founders of the Lutheran church were removed by death, and the Jesuits attacked the principles of the reformation with redoubled animosity, armed with the intricate and perplexing dialectic of the schools; then indeed the scene changed, and theology as b See Jo. Franc. Buddeus Isagoge ad Theologiam, lib. ii. cap. i. sect. xiii. tom. i. p. sumed another aspect. The stratagem employed by the Jusuits corrupted our doctors, induced them to revive that intricate and abstruse manner of defending and illustrating religious truth that Luther and his associates had rejected, and to introduce, into the plain and artless paths of theology, all the thorns and thistles, all the dark and devious labyrinths of the scholastic philosophy. This unhappy change was deeply lamented by several divines of eminent piety and learning about the commencement of the seventeenth century, who regretted the loss of that amiable simplicity that is the attendant on divine truth; but they could not prevail upon the professors, in the different universities, to sacrifice the jargon of the schools to the dictates of common sense, nor to return to the plain, serious, and unaffected method of teaching theology that had been introduced by Luther. These obstinate doctors pleaded necessity in behalf of their scholastic divinity, and looked upon this pretended necessity as superior to all authorities, and all examples, however respectable. morality XVIII. Those who are sensible of the intimate connexion that there is between faith and practice, between The state of the truths and duties of religion, will easily per- among the ceive the necessity that there was of reforming the Lutherans. corrupt morality, as well as the superstitious doctrines of the church of Rome. It is therefore natural, that the same persons, who had spirit enough to do the one, should think themselves obliged to attempt the other. This they accordingly attempted, and not without a certain degree of success; for it may be affirmed with truth, that there is more genuine piety and more excellent rules of conduct in the few practical productions of Luther, Melancthon, Weller, and Rivius, to mention no more, than are to be found in the innumerable volumes of all the ancient casuists and moralizers, as they are called in the barbarous language of these remote periods. It is not however meant even to insinuate, that the notions of these great men concerning the important science of morality were either sufficiently accurate or extensive. It appears, on the contrary, from the various debates that were carried on during this century, concerning the duties and obligations of Christians, and from the answers that were given by famous casuists to persons perplexed c The moral writers of this century were called moralisantes, a barbarous term, of which the English word moralizers bears some resemblance. with religious scruples, that the true principles of morality were not as yet fixed with perspicuity and precision, the agreement or difference between the laws of nature and the precepts of Christianity sufficiently examined and determined, nor the proper distinctions made between those parts of the gospel dispensation, which are agreeable to right reason, and those that are beyond its reach and comprehension. Had not the number of adversaries, with whom the Lutheran doctors were obliged to contend, given them perpetual employment in the field of controversy, and robbed them of that precious leisure which they might have consecrated to the advancement of real piety and virtue, they would certainly have been free from the defects now mentioned, and would perhaps have equalled the best moral writers of modern times. This consideration will also diminish our wonder at a circumstance, which otherwise might seem surprising, that none of the famous Lutheran doctors attempted to give a regular system of morality. Melancthon himself, whose exquisite judgment rendered him peculiarly capable of reducing into a compendious system the elements of every science, never seems to have thought of treating morals in this manner; but has inserted, on the contrary, all his practical rules and instructions under the theological articles that relate to the law, sin, freewill, faith, hope, and charity. XIX. All the divines of this century were educated in the school of controversy, and so trained up to spiritual war, that an eminent theologian, and a theology. bold and vehement disputant, were considered as synonymous terms. It could scarcely indeed be otherwise, in an age when foreign quarrels and intestine divisions of a religious nature threw all the countries of Eu-. rope into a state of agitation, and obliged the doctors of the contending churches to be perpetually in action, or at least in a posture of defence. These champions of the reformation were not however all animated with the same spirit, nor did they attack and defend with the same arms. Such of them as were contemporary with Luther, or lived near his time, were remarkable for the simplicity of their reasoning, and attacked their adversaries with no other arguments than those which they drew from the declarations of the inspired writers, and the decisions of the ancient fathers. Toward the latter end of the century this Polemic or controversial |