Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

of the Lutheran and reformed churches into one body, gave a pleasing spur to the exercise of the better religious feelings on the one hand, there was opened on the other a fresh channel in which the religious scepticism of the age might flow. The extent to which the Hegelian theology spread through the Rhenish and Westphalian churches I am not at present able correctly to estimate; of this, however, there can be no doubt, that the prevailing tendency of the last ten years has been away from the Rationalistic towards the Biblical or Exegetical theology. This is evidenced by the readiness with which books of practical religion, such as the late work of Dr. Tholuck, entitled. "Hours of Christian Devotion," and others of the same class, are bought up in the university towns, together with many other intimations of a similar nature, which it is needless to enumerate.

Neither are there now wanting, in the united church, men of the same stamp as those whose life and labours we have recorded. Of these some are already known in this country; amongst whom we may mention Professor Sack, of Bonn, a man of truly Christian spirit; as also Dr. Krummacher, of Elberfeld, so popular in his own country as a preacher, and in this as a writer; a man in whom zeal perhaps is more predominant than wisdom, but one whose deep religious feeling and extensive usefulness it is impossible for us to question. Amongst the six hundred churches, therefore, of Rhenish Prussia, we have the best reason to hope that there is a goodly company of truly active and pious ministers, whilst at the same time it were wrong to deny that there is much yet to be accomplished in the advancement of the truth, before the whole of the avowed ambassadors of Christ in that church shall stand forth as a noble army of witnesses for the truth, to promote which the apostles laboured, and to consummate which the Saviour died. Indeed, we can hardly expect that it should be otherwise while the state endowments keep alive (as they ever do) the notion, that the ministerial profession is one to which a youth may be designated, and for which his education may be adapted, quite irrespective of his own personal piety and devotedness to the religion which he has to teach.

After these few remarks upon the clergy, I must proceed to offer one or two illustrations respecting the churches themselves as to their internal and external relations. These churches exist, it should be remembered, in the midst of a population who are for the most part Roman Catholics, so that they closely resemble in many points the Presbyterian churches of Ireland, which are endowed by a yearly grant from the State. Under such circumstances, the evils of State support are much diminished, and the spiritual affairs of the churches, as we have before explained, kept altogether distinct from the civil. To assign, however, any high standard of piety to the generality of those who compose them, would be wrong. Religion is treated there too much as a matter of business; the system of miscellaneous com

munion breaks down, as it ever must, the distinction between the spiritual and the worldly, so that the difference not being attempted to be made in fact, is very soon and but too generally lost sight of altogether. There is, nevertheless, reason to hope that with the increasing piety, zeal, and devotedness of the ministry, there will also be manifested a similar advancement among the people, and that the leaven of a purely evangelical faith existing as it does amongst a priest-ridden Catholic population, will gradually spread until it has leavened the whole lump. The friendly feeling existing between the Catholics and Evangelicals was very striking up to the time of the dispute respecting the mixed marriages; and now even that breach appears to be effectually healed. The Christian charity by which this friendship is dictated cannot be too much admired, except indeed in those cases where charity is simply the result of indifference, not of principle, and where union is purchased at the price of that deep love for truth by which every Christian should be distinguished. For both communities to worship in the same church is an occurrence by no means uncommon, and I have myself often met the Catholic congregation coming out from their mass, and seen the officials putting out the candles upon the altar, as we have been entering through the door to enjoy our Protestant worship. The following scene at the laying the foundation of a new church, erected for the use of both communities, would sound passing strange in the present state of things amongst ourselves. The place referred to is the small town of Mandel, near Kreutznach, and the account before me states,

"There were present at the ceremony the two Protestant superintendents, the Catholic decant of Kreutznach, and the civic governor of the district. The day was commenced with a procession of both communities, accompanied by the children of the schools, to the site, where a hymn was sung, and the Protestant minister made an oration. After this, another hymn was sung, and the Catholic priest made a speech. In both discourses they described the peace which they enjoyed under the government of a good and righteous king, and the happiness they felt in being able to erect in unity and love a temple dedicated to the glory of God, for the present and future generations."

In such a state of things it may be easily imagined there are but few direct attempts at proselyting; and as both Catholics and Protestants are more inclined to look upon their religious duties as institutions received from their forefathers, and beneficial to society, than as matters which ought to be submitted to the calm review of their own judgment and conscience, there is but little influence exerted by the one party upon the other. In some instances, however, attempts have been made to carry the Bible and the simple truths it contains into unenlightened regions, more especially where there have existed in such regions a little nucleus of Protestants around which others might gather. This will be better illustrated if I give one instance out of several I have before me, of the founding of a new church, an instance

which will at the same time show the kind of dependence which such church extension has upon the State.

"The town of Mayen is situated in a delightful country, on the skirt of the Eifel range, containing about three thousand inhabitants. When this district came under the power of the Prussian government, in 1815, there were from six to eight Protestants dwelling in it, to whom a few officers and several mechanics were soon after added. In the year 1820, the neighbouring cloister of Laach was purchased by a Protestant nobleman from Treves, who brought several dependents with him to assist in the cultivation of the estate. Already before this time a Protestant candidate (student of theology) had been appointed joint master of the Gymnasium, with a Catholic clergyman; and, as the desire of having Protestant worship increased, the candidate united himself with two officers who were zealous in the cause, and requested from the civil governor of the district a list of all the Protestant residents. This being obtained, a suitable room was hired, where the evangelical residents assembled, and formed themselves, by subscribing their names and giving each other the right hand of fellowship, into a Christian society. The number amounted altogether to about seventy souls, to which many additions were afterwards made. At the opening of the church, the sermons were preached by the Protestant minister of Neuwied and by the above-mentioned candidate. From that period the people received weekly instruction, read to them by the presidents or deacons, and had the sacrament administered by the neighbouring clergy, until at length His Majesty granted an annual endowment of 262 dollars (about £40,) with the assistance of which they obtained the services of a stated pastor."

There is only one point to which I wish to allude before I lay down my pen, namely, the subject of Dissent. And here we soon find the difference between a land of free institutions, like our own, and one in which the popular will is unrepresented. With all the spiritual freedom which the regular endowed Protestant church enjoys, there is very little for the man who thinks it right to differ from that church, and to form another upon what he may consider more scriptural principles. The congregations who refused to join the union of 1828 were frowned upon by the Government, although that union was to be a voluntary act of their own, and a "conventicle law" was passed specifically to meet their case. What liberty might be granted to any body of Christians in this district who should wish to form a church of their own upon independent principles, I am unable accurately to conjecture; that it would be but scanty, however, I should infer from the fact, (which I can testify on the ground of personal experience) that no Englishman is allowed to hold a public religious service, even for his own countrymen, except he belong to the State-endowed Anglican church. Whilst, however, this is the case, I do not imagine that the Nonconformists to the established ritual are ever subjected to the same overbearing and uncharitable conduct from their fellow-Christians around them, as that by which our own country is but too frequently disgraced. At any rate I find in a work before me, published under the sanction of the united Evangelical church, three questions proposed to Nonconformists, and three to Conformists, which breathe a very different

spirit from that which characterises the religious controversies of our own land. They are as follows:

To Nonconformists,

“1. Are you, in frequenting your places of worship, conscious to yourselves before God, of the pure and simple design of edifying yourselves in your most holy faith? "2. Cannot this end be obtained by means of the appointed services of religion, together with domestic devotion, quite as well, or better, than by your frequenting such assemblies?

"3. Has such a course really borne good fruits to yourselves and your families?" To Conformists,

"1. Can you appeal to God that your opposition to nonconformity arises simply from the desire of spreading the pure truth of the Gospel, and for promoting the due estimation of your own religious services?

"2. Are the Christian assemblies to which you are opposed really ungodly assemblies, in which the truth is obscured, and occasion given either to error, or to indifference for the public worship of God? Are they of that nature that you are compelled by conscience to oppose yourself to them?

"3. Is your opposition a rational one, which is likely to gain over the minds of men by mildness and charity, or is it an irrational one, which repels them by its abuse and derision ?"

These questions, whilst they indicate a moderation that might well be imitated by many, seem at the same time to betray a feeling which is now spreading itself widely throughout Europe; that the fact of legal support and state patronage do not raise one system of religion above another to that lofty elevation that men once imagined. The time is now fast hastening on, when men will no longer ask whether the worship they attend is regularly attested by the "powers that be," but whether it embodies the truth of the New Testament, and leads to the results of a devotional spirit and a holy life. Whilst England is awakening more and more to the spirituality of the kingdom of Christ, whilst Scotland is sending forth her heralds to proclaim it, whilst the same voice is issuing from the press of France and Switzerland, and is re-echoed from the chairs of theology at Geneva, Germany is not by any means insensible to this same great question, which it appears to be the mission of the nineteenth century to discuss, and perhaps to solve. The well-intentioned but mistaken monarch, who enforced upon so many unwilling subjects a fruitless uniformity, has now gone to his account, and we may hope to his reward; and in his son and successor we seem already to trace the marks of a more enlightened mind, and more just and liberal principles. In the mean time, may those upon whom it devolves to free the church of Christ from the thraldom of centuries, feel the solemn responsibility of their position; and whilst they are combating for the liberty of the Gospel, not forget that the most perfect form of ecclesiastical government is but the skeleton of a church until it becomes clothed with faith, animated with love, and adorned with true holiness.

Gosport.

J. D. M.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE HISTORY OF JONAH,

BY THE LATE JOHN FOSTER.

A PART of the history of the prophet Jonah has just been read. It should, surely, be possible to raise from this narrative a few observations tending to our instruction, and adapted to introduce some variety into the course of our religious exercises. And the rather would we do this, from the consideration that this piece of sacred history has been, to irreligious men of wit, and of no wit, a favourite resource for malicious jests and profane amusement. Nor are we the less disposed to do this, from having observed that some pretended divines have betrayed something very like a feeling of being half sorry and half ashamed that there is such a history in the Bible-men who are anxious to be able to account for every strange thing by a natural cause, and terrified at the spectacle of a prodigious miracle-who would say, "Yes, we believe in miracles-we build upon them; but there are some things so startling, so very far from the natural course of things, that we almost wish we were not required to believe them."

Jonah is justly no great favourite with us, though conspicuously a prophet of the Lord. Hardly one prophet's name is pronounced with so little respect. We should have been ready to presume, that the persons whom the Almighty would have chosen for prophets should have been men of the most eminent piety and excellence; and, in fact, this does appear to have been the general rule. But there are recorded exceptions-Balaam-the prophet who deceived the other prophet whom a lion destroyed-Jonah, but he is not an exception in the same degree. A real saint, with too much of the remaining elements of a sinner. In a former part of the Old Testament (2 Kings xiv. 25) he is spoken of in terms which would not have applied to a man who had not somewhat of a true spirit in him-" words which the Lord spake by his servant Jonah, the prophet." His first commission was to Nineveh, the capital of Assyria,—an immense city, and therefore a wicked one. His conduct on receiving the commission does appear very strange. But for the mention of his having acted as a prophet before, we should have concluded that this must have been the first time; and that he was surprised and amazed as by some alarming and calamitous visitation. But the vocation was not new to him, therefore there could have been no affright, as at a portentous novelty. We might have attributed terror of another kind; dread of attacking singly a great wicked city, like leaping into a gulf of destruction. Even in that case, however, was there less in disobeying God? We are reduced at last to accept, unwillingly, his own explanation, given in the beginning of the fourth chapter" I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore, I fled before unto Tarshish; for I knew

[blocks in formation]
« AnteriorContinuar »