Translator's Preface (2)

Translator's Preface (2)

Another extract from the correspondence of this writer will fully justify the warning which we have sounded against the influence of such sophistical comments. “I am busied now in Theology, and have actually drawn up a paper, ‘Who wrote the Wisdom of Solomon?’ which has for its object to prove that Jesus Christ wrote it: partly from the Internal Evidence of passages descriptive of him, partly from the External Evidence of the extreme veneration in which the Book was held by the Apostolic characters.” These verily are the men of our day — the enlightened teachers of a liberal Theology — the despisers of antiquated credulity — and the authors of a new and improved method of interpreting the Oracles of our God!

The charge of credulity may be answered by showing that even some of the chiefs of the Rationalist School have not been free From Its Influence. The Scholars Of Europe Have Not Yet Forgotten That Gesenius was imposed upon by the clumsy forgery of Wagenfeld, who pretended to have discovered a Oreck Translation of the lost Books of Sanchuniatho in a Portuguese monastery. Had he relied a little more on External than Internal Evidence, had he demanded a sight of the Greek Manuscript, and also of the alleged Phoenician stone, he would have saved the discredit of the discovery that a patois of Arabic, Maltese, and Italian was palmed upon him for Phoenician, and that the celebrated Lapis Lydius of Volney will ever after serve as a landmark to indicate the credulity of this self-satisfied septic.

Note 10. See Foreign Quarterly Review, volume 19, and volume 20.

How painfully interesting it has become to the reader of Calvin to be made acquainted with the manner in which his views of Prophetic Interpretation have been received and adopted by later Biblical Scholars of the Continent. Three hundred years have allowed ample time for the refutation or elucidation of his Comments. The Christian Scholar who still holds fast the form of sound words received through the earliest Reformers, must grievously lament the sad degeneracy of Continental Theology. And it may here be desirable to take a slight review of the growth and progress of theories totally opposite to those of Calvin, that, by comparison, the soundness of this illustrious Expounder may become most conspicuous. For the opportunity of doing so, concisely and accurately, we are indebted to a small treatise of Dr. Tholuck’s, Vermischte Schriften grosstentheils Apologetischen Inhalts. (Miscellaneous writings for the most part Apologetical in their import.)

After the more stirring times of The Reformation had subsided into a peaceful calm, both the LUTHERANISM Of GERMANY, and the CALVINISM Of SWITZERLAND and France, were subject to gradual yet powerful changes. The pietism of Spener and Francke began to lose its hold over the minds of succeeding generations of students. A new race arose, who were destitute of their predecessors’ deep and scriptural piety. Infidelity entered Germany through its learned universities, not as it assailed France through wit and mockery. The Sceptics soon rivaled the Pietists in the depth and variety of their Hebrew scholarship, and in their anxiety to spread abroad their new teaching. First came the philosophy of Wolf, who, after banishment from Halle, by Frederick William 1st, returned again with renewed spirit to his labors, and made many disciples. In Theology S. J. Baumgarten became his most successful follower. “It is incredible,” says Tholuck, “with what enthusiasm this teacher of the Theology of his time was listened to. Above four hundred theologians, and seven jurists and physicians, sat at the feet of the venerated man, and took down every, even the minutest, word that fell from his lips. Scarcely another class could meet when Baumgarten was holding his! And, now, let any one compare his printed Prelections, as they have come down to us, what dead schematism? what dry tablemaking! and the whole dictated in the most longwinded style!” (P. 12.)

Next came the great apostle of Rationalism in Geneva. the well known Semler, a scholar of Baumgarten’s — “a man who, without founding any school of his own, yet carried the torch from which the sparks darted upon the tinder which, on every hand, was scattered among his contemporaries, and kindled a blaze which continues to the present moment. ” (P. 29.) His principle of criticism is thus stated by himself: “The only proof of the Divine authority of a book arises from the internal conviction produced by the truths therein contained; that is, the fides divina, which people, for brevity’s sake, and also to have the advantage of a biblical, though somewhat obscure mode of speech, have called the Testimony of the Holy Spirit in the mind of the reader.” Hence, with regard to The Pentateuch, he adopts the fragmentary hypothesis of Simon and Vitringa, — dismisses from the Canon some of the Historical Books, and throws doubts upon others, which are equally destructive in their tendency. Having set up his own standard of moral improvement to be derived from any book, he sets aside Daniel and The Apocalypse, as peculiarly unsuited to his views; while The New Testament is scarcely more acceptable to him in its integrity than the Old. He treats both as merely temporary and local in their character, as filled with accommodations and modes of speaking adapted to the times, but not permanent for all time. His principles, then, robbed the Scriptures of everything positive, and destroyed the very basis on which objective and eternal truths must rest.

The most surprising portion of the narrative is the unhappy influence of such Biblical views over others. There must have been a preparation in the German mind, as well as in that of Switzerland, before such principles could be received. Had they been put forth in England or in Scotland, they would have died an easy and a hasty death. The spark would never have been raised to a flame, because the touchwood was happily absent. But melancholy is the list., as given by Tholuck, of the Universities and of eminent individuals who gave the whole weight of their countenance to these pernicious doctrines. Happily this learned writer, in companionship with Neander, Olshausen and Hengstenberg, are permitted to witness the turn of the tide in favor of the long despised Evangelism which so thoroughly pervades these Lectures Of Calvin On Ezekiel.

In reviewing the manner in which Calvin has lectured on the single words and separate phrases of Ezekiel, the mind is naturally led to contemplate his theory of the Theopneustia of the Prophets. No question in Theology has been more fruitful in discussion than that of The Inspiration Of The Hebrew Prophets: it could hardly be otherwise, as their position, as the chief heralds of the future Christianity, forms a preliminary part of The Evidences of The Christian Faith. However lofty and sublime may be the Writings of the Prophets, yet their Divine Authority cannot be fully impressed, without we are persuaded that they are inspired. But a question has always arisen, what is that supernatural and infallible guidance which we understand by θεοπνευστια, or inspiration? Does it extend to every word that is uttered by the Prophet, or simply to the material and spirit of his message? Calvin, and The Early Reformers, from the very necessity of their position, contended for the Verbal Inspiration of the entire Scriptures. On these, and these alone, they took their stand against The Corruptions of Rome, and they were necessarily compelled to strengthen their position by every imaginable effort, to uphold the authority of the Written Letter.

In these days, this is too often called an “antiquated hypothesis,” and treated as an “exploded theory;” but it is important to observe that the wisest and most learned Christian Commentators have adhered to it, though not, perhaps, with the strictness of Calvin’s literal views. M. Twesten in Germany, and M. Turretin, J. F. Stopfer, and B. Pictet of Switzerland, men eminent for their piety and usefulness, have upheld the Existence, Universality, and Plenitude of Inspiration, though their views involve a slight modification of the sentiments of the Early Reformers. A few references to their Works may here be appropriate, as they are not easily accessible to the English reader. The writings of Henderson, PYE Smith, Dick, and Wilson, are too accessible to need quotation here, but it may be desirable to know what the Modern Pietists of the Continent, who are foremost in the struggle with Neology, feel to be truth on these important points.

M. Twesten, in his Vorlesung uber die Dogmatik, extends the idea of Inspiration to all parts of the Bible, but not in an equal degree to every portion. This inequality of Inspiration is held as accompanied with the admission of verbal errors, which the lapse of time now renders irremediable. But it is by no means unconnected with clear views of evangelical truth, calmness of thought, and sagacity of discrimination, though not altogether free from the speculative tendencies of the German mind.

Note 11. Nicht gleichmassig.

M. Turretin, a well known divine of that land which was formerly adorned with the graces and piety of the masterspirits of the Swiss Reformation, in his Institutio Theologiae Elementicae, shows how Scripture proves itself Divine, not only by an authoritative appeal to testimony, but by undoubted proofs of its Divinity. “But,” he afterwards adds, “it must not be supposed that these tokens of Divinity shine forth alike and in the same degree in all the Books of Scripture; for as one star differs from another star in brightness, so some Books emit fuller and more dazzling rays of light, and others fewer and feebler, according as they are more or less necessary to the Church, and contain doctrines of more or less moment: so that the Gospels and The Pauline Epistles glow with far richer splendor than the Book of Ruth or Esther.”

Note 12. Loc. 2. quaest. 4.

The language of John Frid. Stopfer is in some degree similar. He distinguishes “The things written in Scripture by the immediate Inspiration of the Holy Spirit from those which are committed to writing only by the Direction of the Holy Spirit. To the former class belong all The Peculiar Doctrines of Salvation, which as they could not be discovered by the principles of reason, could not be made known but by Revelation: to the latter class belong’ all those Truths which, though previously known, required to be inculcated on man, both to arouse him to a sense of his duty and to convince him of his need of a Revealed Salvation. The same class also includes the Historical Facts connected with the illustration and proof of Revealed Doctrines, and pointing out the various steps of Revelation, in the bestowments of grace and in the ministrations of the Church, all of which require to be known, for the fuller explanation of Divine Truth.”

Note 13. Institut. Theol. Polem., volume 2, and volume 3.

In the Christian Theology of M. B. Pictet we find the following passage: — “I1 n’est pas necessaire de supposer que l’Esprit de Dieu a toujours diete aux prophetes et aux apotres tousles mots dont ils se sont servis, et qu’il leur a appris tout ce qu’ils ecrivoient. Il suffit qu’ils n’ont rien ecrit, que par la direction immediate do l’Esprit de Dieu en sorte que cot Esprit n’a jamais permis, qu’ils aient erre dans ce qu’ils out ecrit. Agobard, auteur du 9 siecle, dans sa reponse a Fredigise, dit, que c’est une absurdite de croire que le Sainct Esprit ait inspire les termes et les mots... Cependant c’etoit l’Esprit qui les empechoit de tomber dans aucune erreur, non pas meme dans les moindres cheses.”

Note 14. Volume 1 50 1 100:16.

The Theopneustia of M. Gaussen is SO well known, through the English Translation, that it is only necessary to say, that his view of the Plenary Inspiration of Scripture is more stringent than that of our own Writers, Doddridge, Dick, Pye Smith, and Henderson. He contends for “the existence, universality, and plenitude of Theopneustia,” and condemns the theories of those English Divines who “have gone so far as to specify four degrees of Divine Inspiration.” All these distinctions are in his view “chimerical: The Bible itself does not authorize them: the Church during the first eight centuries of the Christian era knew nothing of them; and we believe them to be erroneous and fraught with evil.”

Note 15. S. Bagster, 1841.

Having thus glanced at a few of the views of the successors of Calvin among his own countrymen, it will not be necessary to advert to the subject at greater length. It will be enough to refer the reader of Calvin On Ezekiel to Dr. Henderson’s able work on Divine Inspiration, being the fourth series of the Congregational Lectures delivered during 1836. He will there find the difficult questions connected with the subject ably, judiciously, and satisfactorily discussed. It is only necessary to mention so accessible a volume to induce the student of Calvin to apply to it for guidance and instruction.

Another boast in which the Rationalists indulge over the early Reformers, consists in their more extensive use of Rabbinical Literature. Hence it becomes necessary to investigate their claim to superior talent and research in turning to account these stores of Cabalistic tradition. We cannot thoroughly estimate the comparative value of the Commentaries of the old and new Reformers, without being well-versed in the contents of the Targums and the follies of the Gemana. Pococke and LIGHTFOOT, GROTIUS And BOCHART, ERNESTI And KEIL have all made Rabbinical and Oriental Learning subservient to the interpretation of the Hebrew Prophets; and in doing so have thrown great light upon modes of expression, grammatical usages, and peculiar customs of the Jews. And thus far we are greatly indebted to them. They have unlocked these precious treasures of Eastern tradition with a learned and a liberal hand; they have solved philological difficulties which did not yield to the perseverance and ingenuity of Calvin.

But we are not to be led away by the abuse of this species of learning, in which some of the depreciators of orthodoxy have indulged. Let the reader, for instance, turn to the Christology of the Jews, as illustrated by Bertholdt of Erlangen; let him observe how he mingles the later Hebrew Prophets, the Apocryphal Books, and the works of Philo and JOSEPHUS, and treats them as if on the same level of authority and value. The baseless speculations of “The Book or Zohar,” and the extravagant conceits of the “Nezach Israel,” are gravely used as the basis of philosophical explanations, which are to supersede the plain, spiritual, and literal interpretations of the holy men of old. The progress of Sacred Criticism, they tell us, in the three centuries which have elapsed since the Reformation, calls upon us to reject the errors of the Schoolmen at Geneva, but still we hesitate to bow down to the dicta of these visionary theorists. We protest against the improper use which they make of the unauthorized comments of foolish and infatuated Jews. These perverters of the sense of Holy Scripture were utterly ignorant of its Spirit. They are the very blindest leaders of the blind. They are the most unspiritual guides, the most puerile corrupters of the Truth, the most contemptible inventors of falsehood. And yet they are upheld as the very authorities on which we are to receive philosophical novelties, and to throw away the joys, and consolations, and blessings of the inspiration of Hebrew Prophecy. Again and again must we repeat the protest., and maintain the eternal principles of childlike faith, and holy zeal, and persevering godliness which adorned and consecrated the valuable labors of the calumniated Teacher Of Switzerland.

Note 16. For an account of “the Book of Zohar” and the” Nezach Israel,” see Wolf’s Bibliotheca Heb., volumes 2; and 4, also volume 1. Consult also Burcker’s Historia Critic. Phil., and the Prolegom. to Bertholdt’s Christol. Judoe. Various quotations are given by Dr. M’Caul in “The Old Paths,” and the subject is treated pointedly and intelligibly by Professor Lee of Cambridge in his University Sermons, 1830.

In closing our notice of Foreign Theology, we are by no means anxious to foster any undiscerning prejudice against German divinity. We would discriminate between the tares and the wheat, while we protest against the dreamy speculations, the unsound principles, the shallow reasoning, the ostentatious and perverted scholarship, and the irreverent levity with which the Neologians have violated every law of literary evidence, and shocked every feeling of serious piety. On the other hand, we by no means desire to uphold any cramped or exploded interpretation, or to justify any details in Calvin’s Comment On Ezekiel which are inconsistent with the real improvements in Hebrew philology. Let but a spirit of disciplined humility prevail, and then our later Churches may hope to rival the elder ones in the wisdom which is from above. The patient and devout use of these additional means which are now within our reach, will lead us to comprehend “the mind of the Spirit,” and enable the Christian Commentator to east the living seed into the stream of time, in the fullest confidence that a fruitful harvest of believers shall spring up, uniting the docility of children with the intelligence of men and. the constancy of martyrs. But to this end, the spirit of the Early Reformers must be cultivated: the spirit of skeptical criticism must be abhorred. Lord Bacon’s adage is, alas, too often verified: “Certain there be that delight in giddiness, and count it a bondage to fix a belief:” for in the discursive reading? which we have found necessary for illustrating Calvin’s Ezekiel, how often have we met with writings on the Old Testament flippant and irreverent, oscillating’ for ever between fact and falsehood.

The Holy page is still undefaced — it is the eye of the self-sufficient Commentator which willingly gathers over it the misty film: the balance of truth remains what it ever was, accurate and sensible: it is the palsied hand which agitates the scales in ceaseless alternation.

While, however, we thus strenuously uphold the general principles of Prophetic Inspiration which Calvin taught, we are willing to concede that many of his attempts to explain the text are unsatisfactory. Thus, for instance, an exception may fairly be made against the conclusiveness of his explanation of the appearance of the cherubim in the tenth chapter of this Prophecy. He accounts for the appearance of the heads of an ox and a man, a lion and an eagle on the same living creature, by asserting that it represents the energizing power of God throughout animated nature. Not content with this general and probably correct exposition, he goes on to derive the motion of all living creatures from that of angels. “Now, when the Lion either roars or exercises his strength, he seems to move by his own inherent power, and so it may be said of other living creatures: but God here says that living beings are in some sense parts of Angels, although not of the same substance.”

Instead of explaining how Angels are the powers (virtutes) of God, and how he proves any “inseparable connection” between angelic and creative motion, he draws this conclusion from the mysterious emblems of the Cherubim: “Let us understand, then, that while men move about and apply themselves to their various pursuits, and when even wild beasts do the same, yet Angelic motions are underneath, so that neither men nor animals move themselves, but their whole rigor depends on this secret inspiration.”

One is surprised that the acute and welltrained mind of Calvin did not perceive that this assertion only shifts the difficulty one step farther back, and that it does not unfold one single law of either the life or motion of animated nature.

The student of Theology, however, must not expect to find in Calvin the correct expositions of the laws of natural phenomena, — the discoveries of the three last Centuries have thrown a flood of light on physical and psychological science. Let the reader distinguish between the theological and scientific explanations of these Lectures; and while he allows the latter to be capable of improvement through the gradual progress of human knowledge, he will value the former as defending and upholding “the truth of God.”

It becomes necessary also to caution the reader that he will find these Lectures at times liable to the charge of overexplanation. The Lecturer searches with microscopic scrutiny into the hidden meaning of every minute portion of a sentence, and it sometimes occurs in his explanation of Visions, Symbols, and Emblems, that he carries out his method of minute subdivision and verbal comment too far. This concession will readily be made by all who have perused the valuable treatise of Gottlob Ch. Storr on Parabolic Illustration, interspersed as it is with valuable References to Luther and Chrysostom, Ernesti and Lessing, COCCEIUS and Pfaff, Wemyss and Beckhaus.

It must not be considered that Calvin is depreciated, because he is not idolized as infallible. It is now so customary for an Editor to treat his author as a model of perfection, that it requires some degree of moral courage to assert that Calvin could possibly be indiscreet. The daily experience of life, however, convinces us that the wisest, the holiest, and the best are always fallible, and at times inconsiderate.

It may now be desirable to furnish the general reader with a few facts concerning the celebrated Gaspard De Coligny, to whom Beza dedicates these Lectures of his Master. To have been Grand Admiral of France gives him no title to admiration in the eyes of those who seek for divine, and heavenly, and soulsatisfying truth — but to have been a burning and shining light in Christ’s Holy Church in the days of its struggles and persecution, this may afford us an apology for introducing here a short account of his Christian life, and his awful martyrdom.

He was born of a noble family which had been connected with the Government of France for about three hundred years, and was the second of three brothers, all eminent for their devotion to God’s saving truth. The eldest became a Cardinal, and Gaspard consequently took possession of the paternal estate as Seigneur of Chatillon. After serving his country both by land and sea., and arriving at the high offices of both General and Admiral, he retired for a while from the distractions of public life to his residence at Chatillon, about the age of forty-three. Here both he and his excellent wife, Charlotte De La Val, study together the Word of God, and grow gradually stronger in the faith and hopes of the Gospel. Being’ fully aware of the suffering’s they must undergo, and the sacrifices they must make, and in defiance of all the edicts of persecution which they saw daily enforced around them, they persevere in reading the Writings of the Reformers, and opening’ their minds without reserve to the beams of the New Light, they resolve both to do and to suffer God’s will, as soon as they shall learn it. At length this Christian pair are joined by his brothers — Odet, the Cardinal, and Francis, the Colonel — and thenceforth they become a noble brotherhood of searchers for Divine guidance, of one mind and of one spirit, each equally earnest to be found after the image of their Redeemer.

About five years before Beza addressed him in the following dedication, the Queen Mother Of France had sent for Coligny to give his advice respecting the proper remedies for the discontent of the people. He boldly assigned Persecution for Religion as its cause, and advised the passing of an Edict of Toleration, in opposition to the arbitrary injustice of the House of Guise. He next stands by the Prince. Or Code, who is seized, imprisoned, and. condemned to death, but rescued from the scaffold by the decease of the king. But in a short period the enmity of the Duke Of Guise against the Hugonots became deadly, and 3000 Protestants, according to Beza, are “stabbed, stoned, beheaded, strangled, burned, buried alive, starved, drowned, suffocated.” Fearful wars and dreadful massacres arise, and after the assassination of the Duke Of Guise, on the 18th February 1563, Coligny retired to Chatillon, and was probably living in retirement there, when Beza announced to him the decease of Calvin.