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    of the time , together with assistance from those writers who have successfully developed the facts of the gospel history . Among ther writers of this description , he particularly specifies Chrysostom in his Homilies on the Gospel , Hess in his different works on sacred history , and Paulus in his Commentary on the Evangelists , regretting , however , in the last-mentioned writer , the introduction into his otherwise useful work of such a vast number of forced and improbable conjectures .

    In regard to didactic texts , it is often necessary to adhere more strictly to the original words than in the case of such as are historical ; and yet many of the rules , which are followed with so much advantage in developing the latter , are also applicable to the employment of the former . Reinhard furnishes an example from Romans xii . This chapter is divided into three sections , which are read respectively on the three Sundays following the feast of Epiphany . Placing himself in the circumstances of the infant

    church , Reinhard seems to discover that the reigning idea of the Apostle , in this series of apparently unconnected precepts , is to delineate the proper and distinctive character of Christians , as the elect of their time . Having seized this general idea , he considers Christians , in the first section , as members of the community ; in the second , as beings ennobled and perfected ; and in the third , as gifted with prerogatives which distinguish them above the rest of mankind .

    Some of these distinctions must be admitted to be more ingenious than just ; but they illustrate the skill with which Reinhard , under the fetters imposed on him by custom , adapted Scripture to the purposes of public instruction . Reinhard lived at a time when theological controversy was carried on with extreme vehemence , and the established systems of faith were strongly shaken in every part of Germany . Brought up in habits of profound reverence for the Scriptures , and made

    deeply sensible of the vagueness and uncertainty of philosophy by the studies and speculations in which his first professorship at Wittemberg led him to engage , he took , after some deliberation and a careful weighing of both sides of the question , the decided part of standing by the Confession of Augsburg , as the purest exposition , in his judgment , of the doctrine of Christianity . c It seemed to me , ' says he in his seventh letter , that of all Christian

    churches the Lutheran is that whose system of doctrine is most consonant to Scripture , when its expressions are not tortured or turned from their natural sense by strained or subtle commentaries . H ^ nce , notwithstanding the doubts and the agitations with which i had for a long time to contend , I not only always felt that I could teach the doctrine of the Evangelic Church , but my conscience made it a duty to me . Doubtless , I professed it in the sequel with more force and satisfaction , because I became more

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    of F . V . Reinhard . 80 i *

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1832, page 801, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1826/page/9/