the decisions of the Court of Chancery and the House of Lords; whereas the proposed enactment would not only have the effect of preventing other such restorations of property to its rightful use, and confirming Unitarians in the enjoyment of chapels and endowments which they have already unlawfully usurped, but would be offering a temptation for the future usurpation of chapels and endowments at present justly enjoyed by Trinitarian Dissenters, according to the well-ascertained intentions of founders and testators, although no particular doctrines are in the deeds, declaring the trusts, in express terms required to be taught.

"5. Because an intention has been expressed by a noble and learned lord to propose amendments, which cannot be opposed on principle by the government, by which the provisions of the bill will become applicable in Ireland, as well as England, a country in which property to a much larger amount than in England has been thus diverted from its rightful use.

"III. That it is therefore the opinion of this deputation, that this bill requires the immediate attention of all the friends of evangelical religion in the United Kingdom; and this deputation pledges itself to use, in co-operation with other religious bodies interested in this important question, all constitutional means to prevent its passing into a law.

"IV. That this deputation wishes to offer no opposition to the first clause of the said bill, if it be deemed necessary to secure any existing trusts from the operation of repealed penal statutes.

"V. That a petition to the House of Lords, founded on the above resolutions, be prepared, and signed by the members of this deputation.

"THOMAS PEWTRESS, Chairman."

RECENT DEATHS.

DIED, on the 2nd March, 1844, after a protracted affliction, and in the 36th year of his age, the Rev. H. B. MARTIN, late pastor of the Independent church, Richmond, Surrey.

Mr. Martin was originally a member of the Independent church at Newton Abbott, Devonshire, and subsequently of the Independent churches at Silver-street, London, and Warminster, Wilts. He was placed under the tutorship of the Rev. John Raven, of Hadleigh, previously to his entrance on ministerial labour. He became pastor at Richmond in the early part of 1835, and continued zealously and effectively to discharge the duties of his office, alas, for six years only. In the spring of 1841 he was seized with his fatal malady, which almost entirely disqualified him for public labours. He was, however, kindly and generously permitted by his affectionate people to hold the pastoral office till the day of his death; and during the whole period of three years he was gratuitously assisted by various friends in the ministrations of the pulpit.

He gradually sank into the arms of death. His faith was strong and unwavering. He was calm, tranquil, and full of hope to the latest moment of life. He died, leaving his beloved wife and three children to the care of a gracious God, and the kind and sympathising consideration of the Christian public.

Some attempts were made just previously to his illness to insure his life, but before the object could be accomplished, his fatal pulmonary symptoms developed themselves. His widow and family are therefore left totally unprovided for, and a subscription is being raised on their behalf, towards which we shall be happy to receive donations.

His mortal remains were interred in the burial-ground behind his chapel on Friday, March 8th, when the Rev. Messrs. Richards, of Wandsworth, and Miller, of Chiswick, delivered the accustomed addresses in the chapel and at the grave.

The funeral sermon was preached on Sabbath evening, March 10th, by the Rev. R. Ashton, of Putney, to an audience which, by its character, numbers, and habiliments, showed how highly the deceased was respected by his neighbours and beloved by his people. He being dead yet speaketh. His labours live in the faith and piety of many whom he was blessed in bringing to God.

The chapel and ground attached were the munificent gift to the Independent denomination of the late Thomas Wilson, Esq., and he had the gratification of living to witness the augmentation of the Christian church in that place, through the sincere, zealous, and devoted labours of his young friend.

Died, March 17, 1844, in the 75th year of his age, the Rev. WILLIAM GUNN, for twenty-seven years pastor of the Independent church assembling at Hall Leys chapel, Aylesbury, Bucks. He was one of the first students of Hoxton Academy, which he left in the close of 1794, to become pastor of the church at Towcester, and he was ordained on the 16th October, 1796. In December, 1795, the venerable Isaac Toms, pastor of the Congregational church at Hadleigh, in Suffolk, being in the 88th year of his age and the 55th year of his pastorate, relinquished his public labours, and Mr. Gunn removed to Hadleigh, to undertake that service, and on the death of his venerable predecessor he was elected pastor, and publicly set apart to that work April 28, 1802. In May, 1814, he removed to Roydon, in Essex, a pleasant village not far from the metropolis, where he sought to unite the labours of a small pastoral charge with those of a private seminary. In this station he only continued two or three years, when he was called to the pastoral charge of the church at Aylesbury, and was recognised in that office by a public service held May 29, 1817. Here he continued to labour to the close of his days. He was confined to his house about thirteen weeks before his death, and bore his mortal sufferings with great Christian patience and submission to the will of Heaven.

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

Favours from Drs. Hoppus, Urwick, Alliott, Matheson, and J. P. Smith. Rev. Messrs. S. Thodey-A. Reid-R. Chamberlain―J. H. Godwin-J. CorbinJ. D. Morell-J. Jefferson-Thomas Guyer-B. Backhouse-R. Ashton-W. H. Dyer-G. Taylor-J. Glyde-J. A. Morris-J. W. Massie-R. H. Herschell. Messrs. A. J. Macnoy-J. Read--G. Hadfield.

Our Brief Notes are necessarily deferred.

Several articles are in type till our next.

Our poetical correspondents must bear with our delay.

The Editor has received the following note, which he cheerfully inserts, and offers the best thanks of the reviewer for the information it contains:

Ipswich, March 11th, 1844.

Dear Sir,-The reviewer of the Hellenistic Greek Testament, in your number of last month, has fallen into an important error, which I expected would have been corrected in the number for the present month; as this is not the case, I take the liberty of pointing it out for correction.

It is stated by the reviewer that the New Edition of the Septuagint by Dr. Holmes, began at Oxford in 1798, and published from time to time by him until his death, and afterwards continued by Mr. Parsons, was never completed.—Now this is not the fact; it was continued from time to time and completed in 1827, at the Clarendon Press, Oxford, forming five vols. folio. Wishing you every success, and believing your valuable work to be the repository of many valuable papers, I am, yours truly, JAMES READ.

THE

CONGREGATIONAL MAGAZINE.

MAY, 1844.

RATIONALISM IN GERMANY.*

Ir is a remark sufficiently trite, that man is ever ready to believe what he wishes to be true, and that it is just as difficult to convince him of any thing that he would rather know to be false. So long, therefore, as there are causes in human nature which render the truths of the Gospel unwelcome, we must ever look for some element of unbelief to exist there. This unbelief manifests itself in the various forms of scepticism with which the faithful have ever had to struggle, and against which they have seldom struggled in vain. Our own country has had its ample share of scepticism to contend with; for we have to look back but a short period in our history in order to see springing up the seeds of an infidelity, which, whilst it spread widely over our own land, propagated amongst other nations those noxious principles which have since borne the bitterest fruits. The age of Collins, Chubb, Tindal, and Wollaston may be regarded as the period in which was laid the foundation of all modern scepticism, whatever varied phases it may have assumed, according to the different soils in which it has struck its roots.

Scepticism in France, aided by a material system of philosophy, and incited by the superstitions of popery, went onwards in its destructive course, until it arrived at the very farthest atheistical results: in Germany, however, where a vigorous protestantism had once arisen, and where the public mind was more inured to religious thinking, it was necessitated to assume another form, and, instead of denying the

* Histoire Critique du Rationalisme en Allemagne, dépuis son origine jusqu'à nos jours; par Amande Saintes. Deuxième Edition, revue et augmentée. Paris: Librairie de Brockhaus et Avenarius, Rue Richelieu, No. 69. Hambourg: Librairie de Herold. 1843. A Critical History of Rationalism in Germany, from its origin to the present time, by Amand Saintes. Second Edition, revised and enlarged.

Gospel of Christ, sought to accomplish the same purpose by transforming it into another Gospel, which (as the apostle Paul would say) is not another, since it cannot be termed a glad message in any proper sense of the word. The German infidelity, accordingly, assumed the name of rationalism, thus disguising, under a term which seemed to commend itself to every cultivated mind, the deep-rooted enmity which it cherished against every thing that peculiarly characterises evangelical truth.

Now to understand aright the multiform phenomena of the German anti-supernatural theology, we want, first, to have a clear idea of what the term rationalism means; next, to find the origin of that way of thinking on matters of religion which is indicated by it; and then, to take a connected view of its history up to the present time. On these points we shall briefly touch, not so much for the purpose of discussing them, as of marking out the road in which the whole question might be investigated with the greatest ease and success.

First, then, as to the term "rationalism," which has now come so generally into use, we find at once that it has something deceptive about it. It seems, primarily, to imply simply an assertion of the right we have, to employ reason in the investigation of religious truth, in opposition to those who discourage all reasoning on such matters, and inculcate a blind and submissive faith. In this sense the cause of rationalism must appear a holy cause-nay, it must altogether identify itself with the progress of a vigorous, intelligent and manly piety. Christ himself often appealed to man's natural faculties, and to the light of conscience, as witnesses to the truth of his moral precepts; and Paul hesitated not to say to the Christians of his time, "I speak as unto wise men; judge ye what I say." The whole spirit of apostolical Christianity is anything but calculated to dazzle us with unapproachable mystery-anything but adapted to discourage the most enlarged thinking, or to nurture the genius of fanaticism; on the contrary, it seeks to assimilate, not only the moral nature, but the whole mind of humanity to that Being respecting whom it is said, "God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all." Rationalism, however, according to the present acceptation of the term, is something altogether different from that which I have just described. Not content with allowing reason to occupy its proper place in the investigation of religious truth, it has raised it to the dignity of a supreme judge; not content with employing it in the elucidation of the revealed word, it has made the latter altogether subordinate to its dictates. The real nature of rationalism is, in fact, all contained in this one idea,—that man's natural faculties are sufficient to raise him to the knowledge and practice of every thing that is legitimately included in Christianity. The expansion of this fruitful sentiment has given rise to all the theories, the accommodations, the mutilations of Scripture, the sceptical paradoxes, which have

startled and sometimes dismayed the believing church. Now that reason must be the judge-the ultimate judge, of what is a revelation, and what is not, cannot be questioned; neither can it be denied but that we must be dependent upon it, in great measure, to educe, systematise, and arrange the truth that is scattered throughout the various portions of the written word. This, however, is its legitimate use, as opposed to the opinion held by some, that the human mind is to resign itself passively to the influence of the truth and of the Spirit of God, without bracing up its own faculties to the work of investigation; but there is a wide difference between this employment of our reason, and that above described, which constitutes it a last appeal, from the decision of which even revelation itself is not exempt. That we have not exaggerated the idea of rationalism, as held by its professed advocates, may be easily seen from their own definitions of it. Röhr says, that in matters of faith, reason alone is called upon to decide what we are to believe and what to reject. Hahn defines rationalism— "That manner of thinking according to which human reason ought to be the sole source and judge of every species of knowledge. Consequently," he adds, "revelation only appears supernatural in its form; in reality it is always natural, and if its contents can have any pretensions to truth, they ought to be limited by reason or natural religion." Bretschneider, again, defines it, as that manner of thinking according to which we do not believe in any immediate revelation, but only in the truth of a philosophical religion: while Wegscheider, the great buttress of anti-supernaturalism, says "Rationalistæ à naturalistis eò potissimum recedunt, quòd illi divinam aliquam revelationem verè admittunt, eique progressus mentis humanæ in religione colendâ lubenter acceptos ferunt, vindicata quidem rationis facultate hanc revelationem judicandi et ad usum transferendi."

This, then, being the nature of rationalism, our next inquiry is after its origin. Respecting this, we have already seen that the English infidelity of the 17th century was the proximate cause which roused the spirit of unbelief in other countries, as well as nurtured it in our own. In Germany, however, we have the phenomenon of open scepticism yoking itself with a profession of the Christian religion; that is to say, we have a principle which is abhorrent to the whole spirit of the Gospel, building itself up upon those very records which were intended to be its perpetual antagonist. This leads us, therefore, to inquire, what there was in the protestantism of Germany which could bring about this strange alliance, and whether there must not have been there some radical error or imperfection that hindered it from protesting against the unbelief of the sceptic, as well as the abuses of the papist? The answer to this inquiry is one of no little difficulty, and one, moreover, upon which there is no probability of our finding a unanimity of opinion among Christians of the present day. One class