author, until we have compared with it that which has been formed, after at least as much attention, by some one equally competent to judge. It is for this reason we are not quite satisfied with the short biographical notice prefixed to this translation. We would fain know more of the habits and character of our author, in order to be aware how much confidence we have a right to place in his impartiality and power of judg

ment.

Dr. Neander is one of the many instances that have appeared of late years, of eminent literary men emerging from the longpersecuted and despised Jews. He became, however, a convert to Christianity at an early age, and shortly after entered the University of Halle, being then seventeen. After ending his studies at Gottingen, he became a teacher of theology at Heidelburg in 1801, and in the following year, when only twentythree, one of the extraordinary professors in that University. He has been since 1813 professor at Berlin; and now, at the age of fifty-three, he exercises a wider and more beneficial influence upon the religious opinions and theological government of Prussia than any other living mind. He has three regular lectures every day, except Saturday, when there are two, throughout the two semesters; the attendance upon which may average about three hundred each. The usual subjects of them are ecclesiastical history and the history of doctrinal opinion; exegetical lectures upon the three first Gospels and all St. Paul's Epistles, and further lectures upon systematic theology. Besides this, he reads with some of the students parts of the writings of the early Christian Fathers, and devotes one evening a-week to social intercourse, at his own house, with eighteen or twenty of the more zealous among the theological students. Amidst all this labour, however, he still finds time to commit almost every year some of his investigations to the press; some contribution, generally, to the completion of his vast and extensive work entitled a "General History of the Christian Religion and Church,' which was last year brought down to the conclusion of the 13th century. The present work is a preliminary to this larger one, and appeared in a third and enlarged edition last year, from which the translation is taken.

This may, perhaps, suffice to show the industry and real knowledge which Neander has of the subject, since in Germany no such extensive influence as above described can be obtained without the whole life and energy of an individual being devoted to his pursuit. The real independence of his character and inpartial judgment may be seen in the fact that even in Germany no religious party can claim him for their own. All respect

him—many fear him; but far more deeply venerate him. Owing to his vast intellect, Dr. Neander appears to be almost compelled to rationalize, in spite of himself, wherever a natural occurrence may be discovered on close investigation to have originated any miraculous relation. This, however, is in most cases so accomplished as by no means to lessen the really marvellous in the event, but only to render it more graphic and intelligible. The divine, too, in every event is most carefully brought to light and impressed upon the reader, apart from all mere love of the extraordinary. Against all anti-supernatural common-places he manifests rather a feeling of their palpable ridiculousness than of disgust.

By those who are most attracted to Neander by his deeply religious tone of mind he may, perhaps, be looked upon as a Pietist, with which body at one time he was somewhat closely united. But their narrow-mindedness and bigotry, if not fanaticism, would never allow of any sincere union with them; and a short time since he explicitly withdrew from having even a nominal connection with their organ, Hengstenberg's Evangelical Church Magazine.' Neither can he be numbered with the Orthodox party, since he has explicitly declared that there is no existing creed to which he could unreservedly subscribe.

It might be expected from this that Dr. Neander would form a school of his own. This, however, has not hitherto happened, nor is it likely that it will. His own views are not sufficiently marked and definite; nor even consequential enough to call around him any number of doctrinal adherents. It may even be doubted if he would wish for such a result any more than the apostle Paul, and for the same reason, that none but Christ should be their master. He is too many-sided, too capable and desirous of appreciating the good in all existing systems, to form a separate isolated one himself. He is, besides, not sufficiently systematic in his own views. In the emotional part of his character he may well be compared to Fenelon: since whose time, perhaps, there has not appeared a stronger instance of an almost excessive humility, along with deeply religious feelings and a vast and comprehensive intellect. In strength of character, however, Neander far surpasses Fenelon, and no mere external authority could incline his opinions a hair's-breadth from that which his conscience and reason assured him was correct.

In him, too, the perpetual struggle between those deep religious feelings which cling to the good and great in the past and present religious world, and that quick perception of truth, and hatred of error, which as constantly points to the future, to reform and perfection, seems to have ceased, and allowed these discordant elements to combine into an all-pervading desire for

the constant progress of religious as well as scientific convictions.

Dr. Neander has the strongest admiration for Schleiermacher, though he feels frequently obliged to differ from him in the interpretation of scripture. He manifests a strong predilection for the more serious among English writers, of the past and present age, such as Baxter, Chillingworth, Knox, Wilberforce, &c.

Among the living writers in Germany, those that most nearly approach him in opinion are, Professor Bleck, of Bonn, author of a most elaborate work on the Epistle to the Hebrews, of two thousand pages, though concisely written; Professor Lücke, well known for his researches into the writings of St. John; and Winer; along with others of the strictly Philological school of Biblical critics. Hase, of Jena, expresses the very highest admiration of him, but is still less inclined to the supernatural and to orthodox points of view.

We shall proceed now to give a few extracts, which will illustrate the characteristics we have mentioned.

In the preface to the first volume occurs a passage which is an example of the strong attachment felt by Neander for English authors; at the same time that it expresses the truly catholic spirit which pervades his writings:

"As for my relation to all who hold the conviction, that faith in Jesus the Saviour of sinful humanity, as it has shown itself since the first founding of the Christian Church to be the fountain of divine life, will prove itself the same to the end of time; and that from this faith a new creation will arise in the Christian Church and in our part of the world, which has been preparing amidst the storms of spring,-to all such persons I hope to be bound by the bond of Christian fellowship, the bond of the true catholic spirit,' as it is termed by an excellent English theologian of the seventeenth century.* But I cannot agree with the conviction of those among them who think that this new creation will

* We meet with a beautiful specimen of such a spirit in what has been admirably said by a respected theologian of the Society of Friends, Joseph John Gurney: "It can scarcely be denied, that in that variety of administration, through which the saving principles of religion are for the present permitted to pass, there is much of a real adaptation to a corresponding variety of mental condition. Well, therefore, may we bow with thankfulness before that infinite and unsearchable Being, who, in all our weakness, follows us with his love, and through the diversified mediums of religion to which the several classes of true Christians are respectively accustomed, is still pleased to reveal to them all the same crucified Redeemer, and to direct their footsteps into one path of obedience, holiness, and peace."-Observations on the distinguishing Views and Practices of the Society of Friends, by Joseph John Gurney, ed. vii. London: 1834. Words fit to shame theologians who are burning with zeal for the letter and forms, as if on these depended the essence of religion, whose life and spirit are rooted in facts,

be only a repetition of what took place in the sixteenth or seventeenth century, and that the whole dogmatic system, and the entire mode of contemplating divine and human things,* must return, as it then existed."

The opinions held by Dr. Neander on the subject of Christ's humanity and miracles may be partly gathered from a note which occurs at page 3.

"Whoever looks upon Christ only as the highest being developed from the germs originally implanted in human nature (although an absolutely highest being can not logically be inferred in the development of human nature from this standing-point) must take an essentially different view from ourselves of the transaction of which we are speaking (the first Pentecost after the Resurrection), though he may approximate to us in the mode of viewing particular points. When Hase, in his Essay on the first Christian Pentecost, (in Winer's Journal for Scientific Theology,) says, that a time may arrive when what is the result of freedom in man shall be considered as divine, and the Holy Spirit,' we readily grant that such a time is coming, or rather is already come; it has already reached its highest point, from which must ensue a revolution in the mode of thinking. We cannot however hold this view to be the Christian one, but entirely opposite to real Christianity. How irreconcileable it is with the apostolic belief, an unprejudiced thinker, Bouterwick, acknowledges in his Religion of Reason, p. 137. The Holy Spirit, in the Christian sense, is never the divine in the nature of man, but a communication from God to the nature of man (incapable of itself of reaching its moral destination), which becomes thereby raised to a higher order of life. But this supernatural communication from God, by no means contradicts an acknowledgment of the divine, and of freedom in the nature of man, but rather presupposes both.

The Italics are our own. This is an instance of the near approximation of Neander's views to the natural school, at the same time that he enforces a distinction, to himself of the utmost importance, in order to keep as nearly as possible, to the views of the early Christians. In the present instance does not the difference confine itself to the form of truth, allowing both views to contain the essence of it? Is not the distinction of the

* Well might the noble words of Luther be applied to those who cling to the old rotten posts of a scaffolding raised by human hands, as if they were needed for the divine building. "When at a window I have gazed on the stars of heaven and the whole beautiful vault of heaven, and saw no pillars on which the builder had set such a vault; yet the heavens fell not in; and that vault still stands firm. Now there are simple folk who look about for such pillars, and would fain grasp and feel them. But since they cannot do this, they quake and tremble as if the heavens would certainly fall in, and for no other reason than because they cannot grasp or see the pillars; if they could but lay hold of them, then the heavens (they think) would stand firm enough.'"-p. xiv. xv.

same kind as that between the two theories of light, one requiring the rays of light to proceed directly from the sun, while the more modern view considers the effects produced upon the retina to be owing to the vibratory influence of the light which always surrounds us, even in the dark? What a scientific, and practically unimportant aspect do these questions assume immediately that they are approached in a dispassionate manner!

We have purposely avoided entering into any of the questions which are thoroughly examined in the work before us, as justice could scarcely be done to them in a short review, and because our object is rather to turn the attention of the candid to the work itself, at the same time that we enable him to enter into the views and feelings as much as possible of the author himself.

With regard to the translation, we have little to say. It appears for the most part accurate and very literal. We have thought, that theological bias, in some instances, has misled the translator, where the original would admit of two renderings. Thus at page 25: "The spirit of holiness, who, by virtue of this intervention, is distinguished as the spirit of Christ." As Dr. Neander, in the passage already quoted, shows that he regards the holy spirit as an influence rather than as a person, it surely would be more consistent to have translated the clause by a "which." In another passage, page 62, we find in the translation the same perversion of a passage of scripture as is so commonly made by English authors: "As your fathers murdered the prophets who predicted the appearance of the Holy One, so have ye yourselves given Him up to the Gentiles, and thus are become his murderers." See Acts viii. 52. The original passage in the Acts is literally to be translated, "the coming of that righteous one," one or person being understood. The translation of Luther's version would give exactly this rendering, and we cannot but regret that in this case the original should be left in order to make use of a mistaken translation almost peculiar to our own common version.

We will conclude this notice, short as it is, compared to the importance of the work before us, by quoting the opinion expressed by Dr. Neander regarding the Trinity. It is, perhaps, the most cautiously worded, if not most obscure, passage in this really bold work.

"Both John and Paul place the essence of Christian theism in worshipping God as the Father through the Son, in the communion of the divine life which he has established, or in the communion of the Holy Spirit, (the Father through the Son dwelling in mankind [who