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sound philosophy . These qualifications sufficed to place them as critics and translators of scripture , far above those whom Germany had hitherto revered as oracles ; in these qualifica-1
tions their descendants amongthe Presbyterian Dissenters have never been deficient ; but to pursue the study of theology , as a branch of literature , with that minuteness with which the
( Germans have , since the middle of the 18 th century , cultivated every department of it , would have required more leisure and more wealth than falls to their lot . To be pursued with such results , theology must be studied , as the Germans study it , as an end not as a means . Some few , it is to be
hoped , we shall always preserve among us , to whom no department of theological literature will be strange ; and , we trust , that no one will interpret what lttis been said , as an excuse for neglecting to furnish himself with as much literary knowledge , for the office of a minister , as his circumstances will allow . We have been
endeavouring to account for a fact which cannot be denied , and which wo have heard remarked in Germany itself ; the solution which has been given appears simple , and not dishonourable to those
to whose present st < ate it applies . Our establishment , connected with so many splendid institutions of learning , and offering to its members so many situations into which neither cares of
subsistence nor calls of professional duty intrude , might indeed have done for the theological literature of England what the Dissenters could not do ; but the feeling of shame or danger arising from ignorance must be strong indeed , before it can overcome the ins inertice
of an establishment so wealthy and aristocratic as ours . Baumgarten possessed an excellent library , in which Semler , whom he had taken into his house , and to whom he continued through life strongly attached , was enabled to indulge that thirst for various and desultory reading ,
which we have already observed that he brought with him from Saalfeld . History , however , his patron ' s favourite stud y , became also his ; Baumgarten employed him on the translation of tj ^ e English Universal History in which he had engaged , and he contributed materials to other historical works in which the literati of Halle were occu-
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pied . He also projected some classical works ; one of these , which he began in the second half-year of his academical career , was a consolidation of all the Greek lexicographers , Hesychius , Suidas , the Etymologicon Magnum , &c . into one . It is hardly necessary
to say , that he never proceeded , even to the end of Alpha , with this gigantic undertaking . Jn the years 1747-8 , while yet a student at the University , he published a letter to Heumann , upon his Emendations of Livy ; an Essay on the Coincidences of Legends and ' Romances ; a Specimen of Corrections in the German Edition of
Bayle ; a Translation of the Isis and Osiris of Plutarch ; a Dissertation on the Egyptian Dynasties according to Manetho , Eratosthenes and Syncellus ; besides a number of articles in
the Transactions of Literary Societies in Germany . Baumgarten , proud of the genius of his favourite pupil , took every method to make him known , and before he had finished his
academical course he was regarded * as a young man of the highest promise , and one whom a distinguished station awaited . But the inspection of the works which he published at this period
will shew , what might have been expected from the nature of his studies , that he had never given himself time to master completely any one of the numerous topics on which he wrote . His free and ardent mind made him
on every subject a vigorous and independent thinker ; he touched nothing on which he did not throw some light , but the fitful and unsteady gleam never remained long enough on any one object to shew it in all its parts . He had not hitherto received that decided
bias to any particular pursuit , which leads to the concentration of all the mental powers upon it : and even his theological studies , though he had devoted himself to this profession , appear from his earliest works to have been still very imperfect . Hits
Disputation for his Degree on leaving the University , was a defence of the genuineness of the readings in some passages of the received text of the Greek Testament , attacked by Whiston either in his Sacred History or his Translation . He sent him this Dissertation , and
Whiston , then in his 83 d year , replied with great mildness , and excused the errors which he pointed out to Semler ,
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Biographical Sketch of J * S . Semler . 67
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1821, page 67, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2497/page/3/
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