visionary persuasions, might be extended to his son, and retard his advancement. These fears proved wholly groundless, but no anticipation of future difficulties would have had any weight in Paulus's mind against the ardent desire he had formed. His resolution was taken, and he pursued the needful preparatory course of study both at the academy and at the university, with a never-failing ardour, and persevering assiduity; the encouragement he met with from his instructors inspiring him continually with fresh energy. At the age of fourteen the paternal roof and his father's tuition were exchanged for the Kloster-school at Blaubeuren. Here he remained for two years, when he was removed to the upperschool at Bebenhausen, preparatory to his matriculation at the University of Tubingen. Paulus's entrance at a public school was also his initiation into the world. He here first acquired a knowledge of real life. Among his many new experiences, nothing seems to have excited more surprise and disapprobation, than to find a spirit of rivalry and emulation encouraged, and made the stimulus to exertion. He had previously no conception of an ambition growing out of envy. Taught by his father that a thing was to be done because it was in itself desirable or right, he knew no other impulse to exertion than the desire to possess that inward satisfaction which ever rewards our best efforts. We cannot follow him step by step through his academical career. This portion of the memoir contains much that is valuable respecting the course of study best calculated to prepare the mind of the student for theological investigation. He speaks of Professor Ploucquet's lectures on theoretical philosophy with particular approbation and gratitude. It was the method invariably adopted by that professor, of distinguishing between that which is in its own nature necessarily true, and that which can be considered only as more or less probable, which served to strengthen and confirm the previous direction of Paulus's mind, and it became with him an habitual aim in all his studies, in every branch of inquiry, to obtain inward conviction of the true, independent of all dogmatical and theoretical opinions and speculations. Dr. Paulus distinguished himself at the University, but his health suffered from his intense application. Ilis next years were spent in travelling. For this advantage he was indebted to the liberality of Freiherr von Palm, who was in the habit of devoting yearly a considerable sum to literary and scientific objects. Paulus had been favourably spoken of to this gentleman, and he most unexpectedly received from him a remittance which enabled him to visit many of the German Universities, and to extend his travels to England. At Oxford he devoted himself to the study and transcription of some of the Oriental Manuscripts which he found in the Bodleian Library. This service probably led to his appointment, shortly after, in the year 1789, to the Professorship of Oriental Languages at Jena. In 1794 he was made Professor of Theology, but in 1804 he was removed from Jena to Würzburg on account of his health. In 1811 he was called to fill the vacant chair, as Professor of Theology and of Philosophy at Heidelberg. He was also constituted Privy-Counsellor of the Ecclesiastical Court of Baden. Dr. Paulus was now to be the teacher of others, and most ably and conscientiously did he fulfil his mission. To trace the natural harmony between the Bible and human reason-to separate the essentially true and permanent in Christianity, from the opinions and notions incident to the age in which they took their rise to distinguish between the religion of Jesus, and the dogmas of the fathers and scholastics, and to assign to the latter their proper value-these were the objects he proposed to himself in his public lectures. But we will quote his own words on the duty and importance of religious inquiry, on the love of truth, and the adequate capabilities of the human mind for the attainment of truth. "To submit each individual point of belief to a severe scrutiny-to search out the agreement of each separate position with all other recognized truths-to ascertain that the probable is in complete and rational harmony with the true-is a duty as imperative in religion as in every other branch of inquiry. This is the highest duty of the right thinking and rightly disposed mind; and its prosecution in regard to religion is rendered less difficult because, in matters of religious conviction, we are protected against superstition on the one hand, and disbelief on the other, by two considerations; viz., whether that which is asserted to be true accords, in the first place, with the notions we form of the divine perfections, and, secondly, with the knowledge man has of himself-of his own nature. But a love of ease must not lead us to admit those decisions, those theological and dogmatical opinions, which have been handed down to us, as if they were infallible, whilst we never permit the investigation of the true, in any other department of science, to be suspended. In availing ourselves of that which has been transmitted both in religion and in theology, we must neither suffer ourselves to be seduced into stationary acquiescence, nor allow the want of infallibility to drive us to despondency we must guard ourselves equally against the believing nothing, and the believing every thing." * * * * "And what is the purest love of truth? Is it not the unfettered striving of the mind to attain to a right conviction respecting all that is— in small things, as well as in great? What do we mean by absolute certainty? In what does it consist but in this; that the opinion which we conceive to be true is found to be substantiated by every argument which presents itself to the mind, and can likewise be brought into unconstrained harmony with those truths of which we are already convinced?" "But a consciousness of absolute certainty is attained to, then only, when the individual mind, dismissing all its individual accidents, its peculiarities, passions and inclinations, exerts those powers of apprehension and of judgment, which it possesses in common with all others of the race, who likewise, releasing themselves as far as possible from disturbing and distorting individualities, strive to think and judge correctly. We cannot apprehend an object in its actual purity-such as it really is. knowledge is subjective, is to be attained only through the medium of the conceptive and reflective powers. That which is essential, therefore, is, that we separate our own accidental individualities (the peculiarities of the individual mind) from those faculties which we, as human beings, possess in common with all men. Let but these faculties, which are common to all, be exercised and applied wholly unfettered and unbiassed by individual peculiarities, and with regard to their universal validity for all who, as members of the human race, are able and willing to reflect, no ground of doubt will remain. However willingly we would persuade ourselves that we arrive at something beyond mere human certainty, by soaring into the region of the ideal—by aspiring after the superhuman— absolute the fact is, we obtain conviction by a constant careful investigating belief on ourselves—on our own powers, in as far as we are able, both in thinking and determining, to raise ourselves above that which is individual, to that which is subjective—to that which is universally, generically subjective. And in such manner only can we exercise the human capabilities, in their fullest application, to the attainment of a more perfect measure of truth. To the inquirer after truth, nothing is more requisite than that he should frequently realize this only possible mode of becoming humanly certain of the true, and that he should judge of its applicability to widely different objects according to their diversity. This is why we find the acutest thinkers have ever been so much occupied with the methodus inveniendi verum." Dr. Paulus gives a long account of his mode of studying and interpreting the writings of the Apostles of the manner in which he was gradually led to reject the commonly-received notions, and particularly the orthodox doctrine of "Justification by Faith." He writes "I clearly perceived that in the writings of the Apostle, and in them alone, were to be sought the Apostolic principles of distinction between blind faith in dogmas, and that faithfulness to conviction-to the belief of the mind, which is saving faith; and which is possible alike to all men; and which, according to Paul, is as pleasing to God in Abraham, as it is in the Christian, who, since the teaching of Jesus, possesses so much better means of knowing, and of practising all that is requisite to spiritual righteousness." 66 It was long before I could free my mind from the commonly held opinion that salvation depends on the belief of that which is objective-on adherence to the matters comprised in a given creed, and consequently upon what is not an affair of the will. According to the Old Testament tradition, which knows nothing of Types-of a belief in a Christ and his doctrines, through the medium of typical representationsthe belief which Abraham had must have differed widely from that belief which the early Christian would have, through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. And yet in the Epistle to the Romans* that kind of faith which Abraham had is set forth as the pattern of universal saving faith." "I had always attributed consecutive reasoning, and the power to convince, to the most argumentative among the Apostles, who, not satisfied to rely upon mere assertion, constantly aimed to produce inward conviction. Again and again I sought, but did not find the usual notion of faith :—namely, assent to certain revealed matters of belief-in the reasoning and deductions of the Apostle; till at length, by continually going back to the original positions, it became quite evident to me that the two principal words upon which the whole question depended, 'Righteousness' and Faith,' had been wrested (by the fathers and scholastics) from their proper primitive moral signification, and had been made to receive a forced and theoretical meaning. Alkaloσvvn signifies that which constitutes actual righteousness—or the aim of the thinking and determining mind, in the first place, to attain to full and resolute rightness of intention, and then to realize an undeviating adherence to that which is right in reference to action. This righteousness' Paul terms, the righteousness of God,' since it does and must belong to God, and because God wills that such righteousness shall be produced in the hearts of men, by means of thought working conviction, and by means of volition-the resolving to be faithful to that conviction. But this Bible expression is commonly misconstrued and so interpreted as if God considered those as righteous and consequently as justified-goodness and uprightness being imputed to them-who admit and experience a certain given belief on the person of Christ." "I found on the contrary, that in primitive, apostolic Christianity, true, essential righteousness of heart was required of every man, and that it was attainable by all, even by him who possessed the smallest portion of insight-if he would only form and hold fast, the determination first to acquire inward conviction of the right and the good, and resolve to live in faithful conformity to that conviction-and as soon as I found that it was possible in each instance to interpret the expression of the Apostle in the sense of a righteousness which was pleasing to God,' it became evident to me that this must be the incontrovertible meaning of the language of the Epistles; and that dialoovvn signified that actual righteousness which the All-knowing discerns in the heart-and not a Rom. iv. 1-24. true profession in him whose heart is not upright before God. In a similar manner I gained a clear apprehension of the notion of Pistis, faith. In order with entire faithfulness-conviction and faithful application-to arrive at the true Scriptural notion of saving faith, it is needful to bear in mind that weeσbai, as well as persuaderi, signifies something more than simply to be convinced. All religious communities have some particular words which they employ to express their own peculiar notions. These words are borrowed indeed from the common language, but are used idiomatically when applied to their particular views. The theologian is too regardless of the primitive Christian idiomatic sense of words, if he content himself with explaining them in the familiar sense which they bear in general, every-day intercourse. "ПoтEVEL, 'to manifest oneself (TOTOS),' 'to believe,' signifies commonly that state of mind in which a thing is regarded as true from a feeling of confidence-upon trust. The Christian faith is unconstrained, originates in confidence, yet not without real grounds, both internal and external. It arises from thinking, and at the same time willing that which is right; consequently it is not conviction only, but conviction combined with fidelity to conviction-the honest determination to will according to conviction. And it is he only who has that disposition of mind which ever wills to be convinced of all that is truly good and divine, in order that he may in his life observe unswerving faithfulness to that conviction, who possesses the righteousness which the Apostle describes as ek miσtews eis miσTIV,—as arising out of faith, and ever resulting in faith. It is that frame of mind which induces faithfulness to its own convictions, which constitutes inward, ever newly self-realizing righteousness. But it is religion, or devotion of the heart to God, which in all cases engenders this steadfastness in thinking and willing that which is right, and this faithfulness the Christian religion, as a universal religion, renders possible to all, though Christians must ever differ respecting the subject matter of their belief, since distance of time and place, inequality in the powers of apprehension, variety of degree in mental advancement, will ever produce differences of opinion. Yet the very desire to attain to a sincere conviction is in itself a security against a too wide diversity of belief, as well as against indifference and levity. For nothing which is a matter of conviction can be of light moment to him who strives to act in conformity with his conviction; and most assuredly his mind will easily progress, and rise without difficulty from that belief which Abraham had, to that far more excellent belief which is become manifest through Jesus Christ.* But that which Abraham believed, no less than that which the Christ of God believed, is sufficient for salvation, if embraced with Abraham's immoveable determination of purpose to sacrifice all to fidelity to that belief.” "By careful study I likewise became persuaded, that the Apostle's notion of the origin of sin-of which the universality is undeniable—did not comprehend either an inherited, or in any way imputed sin, but * This is the transition indicated by the Apostle, Rom. iv. 24, 25. |