THEOLOGY. 



587 



honourable exceptions : even in the fourth century 

 we not only find some following the natural signi- 

 fication of the words, but also Augustine and 

 Tychonius attempting to establish plain and wise 

 rules for the interpretation of scripture; but the 

 multitude of them followed the path of absurdity, 

 and all of them found it easy to attribute the whole 

 of their own foolish fancies to one or other of the 

 senses of the bible, till at last in the dark ages they 

 ceased and feared to invent new fancies for them- 

 selves, and contented themselves with retailing and 

 venerating the follies of those who had gone before 

 them. The expositions of scripture which in these 

 and in various other corrupt ways, may have ob- 

 tained a place in the church, may possibly be very 

 numerous ; the only prospect of their detection 

 and extirpation, the only preventive of new unwar- 

 ranted interpretations, and thus the purification of 

 our religious knowledge, and the pacification of the 

 contending parties in the Christian world, mainly 

 depend on the successful cultivation of exegetical 

 theology. Every opinion should be brought to the 

 test of God's word ; and every proof brought from 

 thence for its confirmation, should be justified by 

 the common principles of interpretation, as applic- 

 able to the inspired records : thus the truth of God 

 will shine forth in its own unclouded brightness ; 

 and the voice of the divine oracle distinctly heard, 

 will hush the clamours of contention, and relieve 

 the doubting mind from its fears and anxieties. 



Didactic Theology, which has been also called dog- 

 matic, has, for its province, to state and explain the 

 several doctrines of religion, and to point out their 

 proofs. Thus it may be considered as that which 

 gathers up and exhibits the results of the labours 

 of the exegetical theologian ; for it should derive 

 all its doctrines from the scriptures, and establish 

 their truth by showing whence it has taken them. 

 It is true that there are those who would reduce 

 theology to the standard of reason, and try every 

 doctrine by its test ; but it is one thing to say, that 

 religion cannot contradict reason, and another thing 

 to say, that it cannot go beyond and rise above it, 

 and that reason must be supreme judge in all that 

 pertains to it. How is it possible to reconcile 

 naked Rationalism with a sincere belief of the in- 

 spiration of the scriptures ? Can any man consis- 

 tently say, God has certainly spoken this, but I 

 must yet judge for myself, whether it is true or 

 false? With mere Rationalists we should not 

 reason out of the scriptures, for our labour will be 

 in vain : they need first of all to be instructed and 

 convinced in respect of the divine origin of our re- 

 ligion, and the claim which the announcement of 

 the divine will has to the unwavering assent of the 

 whole mind and heart. Some of them may be 

 ignorant of the length to which their favourite 

 principle should lead them ; but the more acute are 

 well aware of it, and probably the greater part of 

 them, at the present day, are nothing more than 

 naturalists, that is, they reject every thing super- 

 natural in religion : not only the mysteries in its 

 doctrine, but also the miracles by which it has been 

 attested are at once swept away, and the inspira- 

 tion of scripture either denied, or so explained as 

 to mean nothing. Thus in Germany, Socinianism 

 under the name of Neology, has unreservedly thrown 

 aside its mask and its borrowed garments, and dis- 

 played to view its real features and its true dimen- 

 sions, but still insisting on being reckoned genuine 

 Christianity, " Many of the Neologists are mere 

 Materalists, Deists, or Pantheists, who regard all 



revelation as nothing but a mass (if superstition, 

 imposture, and delusion. Others admit the prin- 

 cipal facts contained in the scriptures, but endea- 

 vour to account for many of them from natural 

 causes. They deny every thing supernatural or 

 miraculous, and regard our Saviour merely as a 

 divine messenger, sent like Socrates, Plato, Luther, 

 &c., to teach and improve mankind. The design 

 of Christianity, according to them, was the intro- 

 duction of a system of religion comprehensible by 

 human reason, and corroborative of its principles as 

 already existing. They treat the Bible precisely 

 as they would any other book of antiquity, not be- 

 lieving in its divine inspiration and authority, and 

 rejecting its books at pleasure. The doctrines ol 

 Christ and his apostles they consider as strongly 

 tinctured with Jewish prejudices ; and they ascribe 

 the extraordinary displays of knowledge and wisdom 

 in our Saviour, to the precocity of his understanding. 

 Some of them deny that he actually died when on 

 the cross; and others maintain that he never ascended 

 into heaven, but continued on the earth, made 

 himself known to Saul of Tarsus, &c. They ascribe 

 the great change which took place in the disciple 

 of Gamaliel, to mortified pride ; his Jewish brethren 

 having turned their backs upon him, on account of 

 his acceptance of the privilege of Roman citizen- 

 ship. To be revenged upon them, he set himself 

 strenuously to oppose their narrow and contracted 

 notions, and to establish an universal religion, to 

 which he found the doctrines of Christ were favour- 

 able." They hold, says Dr Tholuck, that what 

 Jesus of Nazareth really taught, can now no more 

 be known with certainty ; that his originally simple 

 doctrine has been greatly corrupted by Paul, who 

 engrafted upon it the important articles of original 

 sin and redemption, which he had borrowed from 

 his own Jewish theology ; and that these came 

 afterwards to be regarded as Christian doctrines, 

 though nothing can be more contrary than they are 

 to the understanding. (Menzies* Tholuck on Ro- 

 mans, Preface, p. 9.) Fearfully as these men have 

 erred, miserable as is their system of theology, they 

 are yet not very inconsistent Rationalists : but not 

 so those, who admitting the inspiration of the scrip- 

 tures, yet reject every thing which their reason 

 cannot grapple with and master. Is there nothing 

 that will necessarily be mysterious to us, in the na- 

 ture of things, and more especially in the nature and 

 purposes of the infinite God? When he conde- 

 scends to instruct us, is it not reasonable to expect 

 that we shall be taught some things which we can- 

 not discover for ourselves, or perfectly comprehend ? 

 Is it of no use to know the existence of a thing, 

 and the purposes to which it is applied, unless we 

 can also adequately comprehend its nature ? Surely 

 the authority of God is sufficient, to prove the truth 

 and establish the importance of any statement, 

 however dark or mysterious it maybe, and the true 

 theologian assents to it with reverence, and places 

 it among the doctrines of his system. Yet he will 

 not act thus with any absurdity, and any thing that is 

 an outrage on right reason : neither of these will he 

 admit ; not, however, because he allows reason the 

 place of supreme judge, but because neither of these 

 can possibly be found in a revelation from God. 

 Either of them occurring in what he had supposed 

 to be a revelation from God, would make him 

 ponder well whether he was not mistaking its 

 meaning, and would then send him to re-consider 

 the pretended evidences of its inspiration by which 

 he must have been imposed upon. 



