forget that it is addressed to an idol, which is 'nothing in the world;' otherwise it is most full of devout fervour, and is an instance of the distinction between false or merely natural devotion, and that which is true and divine.”

"AUGUSTINE's severity as a writer against the heresies of his time may be traced to his own former entanglement in similar dreadful errors. He had felt the mischief of them in his past experience. It is observable that even in his 'Confessions' there are thoughts subtile enough to sound quite scholastic, if divested of their devotional form. I think it is his general way to make too much of such fine-spun thoughts.”

"The ancient fathers of the church often charged heretics with holding much worse opinions than they really did; and this through not understanding their writings, which in their literal meaning frequently appeared absurd; but which also contained a mystical meaning not obvious to every reader."

"I do not think that MAHOMET at first designed a wilful imposture. At his outset he was a merchant of a shrewd and intelligent mind; and having much intercourse at places of travelling resort with Jews, Christians, and pagans, he was free and communicative. Finding the eyes of many opened by his remarks, and that through the sickly and declining state of the Christian church, his ideas gained very ready acceptance, he became encouraged to make bolder pretensions. Being also subject to epilepsy, which was followed by a morbid rapture, he upon occasions of this kind actually did many strange things; and thus learnt to believe his own lie. I think that most of the heresies in the church itself have originated and spread much in the same way. I have long been increasingly disposed to believe that there is an esoteric meaning in the Alcorân which Christians have overlooked. Certainly an allegorical manner of teaching prevails in it throughout; and if allegory be really the thing intended, we gain no ground with Mahometans by setting forth its absurdities in the literal meaning."

"LUTHER'S character was truly great. All his brother reformers together will not make a Luther. They found it necessary to look to him, and he had skill to make use of them just where they were wanted. If any of them harboured a different or opposite design to his, they could not disclose it till after his death. This event too was an important epocha; for nothing since it took place has ever been really added to the reformation itself. Writers commonly distinguish Luther in his younger days from

Luther in his mature age; but the distinction should rather be, that of his younger days, middle age, and decline of life. The first and last of these were good: but in his middle age, and while engaged in the heat of controversy, he suffered one thing and another to provoke him at times, even to irritation.”

"ERASMUS on Free Will, and Luther on the Bondage of the Will, ought to be read together. The former skirmishes, like an agile logician, and reproaches the latter with obstinately uttering mere assertions. Luther will not advance a single step without making good his ground; nor is he inferior to Erasmus, even in eloquence: besides which, his reasonings are more convincing. Luther is certainly the happiest of all expositors upon the book of Genesis.

"Luther has a quaint, pretty expression about beating the (metal) mirror into armour; that is, making use of what we need for godly exercises and defence against evil, so as to look at our own image in it, fall in love with it, stand to admire it, and be quite taken with it, (clothing ourselves as it were with the imagination of our own reflected image;) a thing which people are very apt to do, for when they see any good accomplished in themselves, they presently make too much of it.”

"It has been remarked, how little of the active power of the gospel has been put forth in the ANGLICAN CHURCH. But why is this? Its first reformers felt but little of that active power; their fort lay rather in speculative divinity.”

"CALVIN'S Institutes, which had been originally intended to be presented to the king of France, as a confession of faith on the part of the Reformed, is a most excellent work, and well worth reading."

"I am pleased with IGNATIUS LOYOLA for his finding no relish in Erasmus's Miles Christianus, because of its loquacity. Hence the Jesuits do not read it, though their way of thinking and acting coincides, in many other respects, with that of Erasmus."

"BELLARMINE has many fine observations. In controversy with the avowed enemies of Christianity he is quite sound. Even in his altercations with the Lutherans he has much mildness and moderation, compared with the raw manner in which controversy is too often handled. A similar remark applies to the COUNCIL OF TRENT. That council contained many welldisposed men, who desired not to have every point so rudely despatched, nor every article drawn up in such crude and general language. Even that of Justification is now little more than

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logomachy; especially when by justification is meant whatever can make us acceptable to God; which, by the way, is the lax meaning adopted in our Symbolical Books. But the gross perversions about communion in one kind, prohibition of the common people from the free use of the Scriptures, &c., are altogether inadmissible; for these are evidently dregs from the cup of the Babylonian harlot."

Bengel's high estimation of ARNDT has already been noticed (Part. iii. ch. 6). Speaking of Arndt's contracted means for improving his (theological) education, he remarks, in reference to 1 Cor. i. 25-29, "Arndt, who was a poor clergyman's son, was necessitated, in very early life, to support himself by private tuition, (so that he was less in the way of being formed according to the prevalent academical mould;) and this circumstance, together with his cordial aversion to that spirit of controversy which prevailed in his time, may serve to account for his having struck into a more free way of thinking for himself. But all this was so ordered, that it might be the more evident on the one hand, what an efficient character God's special help could make him; and on the other, how poor and weak a creature Arndt would have been without such special help.

"BUXTORF was a man of profound erudition in his way. He sifted to the bottom those matters which had been most neglected, and ought not to have been neglected, by the learned who had preceded him. These he set in so clear a light, that his works will be always valuable."

"I find it really difficult to give a just opinion of Jacob BOEHME's* writings. He says things which clearly do not accord with Scripture; still we find many a passage in him which is exceedingly beautiful. He acknowledges that he cannot always distinguish between what he has derived from the pure fountain of revelation, and what he has added of his own. How then could he expect his readers to do it? His manner is evidently very different from that of the Bible. Multifarious as are the subjects of the sacred volume, and different as were its penmen from one another in such a variety of respects, still, in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, we observe one grand idea pervading the whole: and though each single book is a whole of itself, it is only a component part of the entire volume of revelation. Each bears severally its relation to the rest, and contributes its distinct quota to the grand total. And O how

Generally, but improperly, written Brehmen in English works.—TR.

beautiful and captivating is the simplicity of Scripture! Christ himself, in each of his temptations, by employing a simple text of Scripture, defeated the sophistry of our great adversary.

"The supposition that some of Boehme's friends published works of their own under his name, is quite improbable. Boehme's writings having so very peculiar a character of their own, it would be more difficult to counterfeit them, than those of any ancient classic. But if he has found, as we may trust he has, his portion in the land of the living, what will his calumniators and revilers have to say for themselves in the last day? Arndt and Boehme lived at the same period; but the instructions of the former have been far more extensively received than the opinions of the latter."

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POIRET, in his little treatise called Prima Cognita, has explained the divine greatness and all-sufficiency in a strange manner. The impression one feels in reading it is, 'Had I been God, no other being should have had an existence.'

"SPINOZA thought that God in his word lowers himself to the physical dispositions of the instruments he makes use of. But this is degrading the proper idea of God; and I am rather disposed to think quite oppositely to such an opinion. All was to go through a process of self-denial; and nature had to bear its portion of it.

"Spinoza's treatise, De Servitute Humaná, is very fine. It savours, indeed, too much of his own peculiar system, but it excellently shows how the various human affections depend, in a natural order, on one another; and that the soul has no independent self-moving principle, any more than a piece of clock-work contains a self-moving spring. This is quite true of our fallen nature, as considered apart from that divine to which every grace one ought to yield, and of which every person ought at once to avail himself. It is grace only that communicates real liberty."

Bengel having, as early as 1713, in his tour through Germany, become acquainted at Halle with AUGUSTUS HERMANN FRANKE, the great disciple of Spener, Franke visited him four years afterwards at Denkendorf. Of this visit, and of Franke's other proceedings in Würtemberg, Bengel gives the following account in a letter to a friend:

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“We have lately had amongst us Professor Franke, a man of noble example; one who appears to live entirely to God, and to depend only upon him. The presence of this excellent man has aided not a little in stirring us all up. Repentance towards

God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ, are every thing with him. He has remarkable talent at conversation, with all sorts of persons, and gains their confidence by his great kindness and affectionate manners. Thus he is powerful in awakening every one to an affectionate regard for the divine word, to earnest prayer, and catechetical instruction; setting all to teach, improve, and save one another. The parting between him and our provost, (Dr. John Frederic Hochstetter,) was really affecting. At Bebenhausen he made himself quite another son to Dr. John Andrew Hochstetter, so well did he supply to him the place of his deceased son, the late Tübingen professor; and such a brother did he prove himself to the rest of that good man's family. I accompanied him in his visit to the Orphanhouse at Stuttgart, and could not but admire his humble and beautiful simplicity in conversing with the children. After asking them two or three questions, he would draw them naturally at once upon the most spiritual subjects of our holy religion.

"To my own children, and to my dear wife, who, at my suggestion, put herself with them in his way, to crave his blessing, he affectionately imparted it with imposition of hands.

"On the whole, he left Würtemberg much gratified at what he had seen in our country."

Shortly afterwards, Bengel wrote as follows:

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Among the christian friends dispersed through the upper, lower, and middle districts of our country, there appears a kindly disposition to become more closely connected with one another; and desirable indeed is it for the honour of faith, hope, and love. Franke, it is quite probable, has contributed in part to stir it up. I know he has eminently done so at Stuttgart. But there are persons alike disposed in other quarters of our land, who, I am equally certain, have had no communication with him. Real Christianity amongst us, if I may compare it with a thing so opposite, reminds me, in one respect at least, of witchcraft; namely, that, with the exception of a single place, it is spreading itself secretly and unrecognised among its abettors. But this is not the manner in which it ought to spread. Is it right that any two souls who are like-minded, alike seeking the face of God, should never exchange a word with each other upon their mutual fellowship in the One Thing Needful? Is the saints' communion so to be left with God as to be no mutual concern of their own? Surely this is an inconsistency.