In England, Lutheran scholasticism, with the accompanying protest against it, did not appear. There were all phases of theological belief, front hyper-Calvinism to Arianism, but Bible study preserved itself from confessionalism. Nothing more practical and devotional-and often nothing more scholarly-exists than the work of the English exegetes of the seventeenth and eigh teenth centuries, as Hall (died 1656), Hammond (died 1660), Trapp (died 1669), Lightfoot (died 1675), Poole (died 1679), Pearson (died 1686), Henry (died 1714), Whitby (died 1726), Dod dridge (died 1751), Lowman (died 1752), and Gill (died 1771).
Against all the dead scholasticism of German orthodoxy the devotional impulse of pietism was of no permanent avail. Its power was fully broken only by the deeper-reaching principles of the rationalism represented by such philos ophers as Wolff (died 1754) and Lessing (died 1731), and reproduced in the work of such ex egetes as Semler (died 1791), Eichhorn (died 1827), and Eckermann (died 1336)-a group of scholars whose New Testament expository work was founded on the idea, not only that the Apostles and Evangelists were influenced by their Jewish surroundings, but that their writings could be properly interpreted only from the view point of these surroundings. The influence of Semler. Preparation for Yew Testament Her meneutics (Halle. 1760), and his Commentaries on John's Gospel, Romans, and Corinthians (Halle, 1770-76), was significant and can be said to have prepared the way for all the later work of New Testament criticism. while in turn their inspiration may be assigned to Baum garten (died 1767). Exposition of the Holy Scrip tures (1742), and of Paul's Epistles (1749-67), who properly represents the translation from Pie tism to rationalism. To this group should be added Gabler ((lied 1826) and Paulus (died 1851), scholars more extreme in their views, whose New Testament commentaries •and her meneutical writings, while marked by learning and critical skill, were thoroughly committed to a naturalistic exegesis and even sympathized with the mythical principles of Strauss (died 1874). Fritzsche (died 1846), whose commentaries on Matthew (1826). Mark (1330), and Romans (1836-43) art characterized by great philolog ical ability, alone seems to have been uninfluenced by this rationalism, unless with him might be classed the earlier writer Koppe (died 1791), whose contribution (Galatians, Ephesians, Thes salonians, and Romans) to the Greek New Testa ment with projected by Heinrichs and Pott, but not completed (Gottingen, 1783 98), is a piece of careful and impartial exegetical work; while Herder (died 1803) shows in his Explanations of the New Testament (Riga, 1775), Letters of Two Brothers of Jesus (Lemgo, 1775), and Apocalypse (London, 1821), a com bination of rationalistic and mystical elements that makes him a forerunner of the Schleier macher school, to which school should be as signed the later scholar de Wette (died 1849), whose Exegetical Handbook on the New Testa ment (Berlin, 1836-48) is remarkable for its religious convictions and its naturalistic results.
Naturally this rationalistic movement aroused orthodoxy to protest; but orthodoxy's dying pow ers were not equal to anything more than a feeble effort. In fact, the scholarly work of such men as Ernesti (died 1781), Institutes of the New Testament Interpreter (Leipzig, 1761) ; Aca demic Lectures on Hebrews (ib., 1815) ; his pupils, Morus (died 1792) and K. A. G. Keil (died 1318) ; and of J. D. Michaelis (died 1791), Paraphrase of the New Testament, with Annota tions (Gottingen, 1790-91), all of whom belonged to o•thodov, and sought to defend it, proved silent confessions of the hopelessness of the cause, and added rather to the rationalistic im pulse. Ernesti's New Testament work, indeed, formed an epoch in hermeneutics by establishing the principle that Scripture has but a single sense—a literal one—and that this sense can be discovered only by the same means as are appli cable to an ordinary human book; hut this princi ple, derived really from WeWein (died 1754), was in fact more opposed to the mysticism of pietistic interpretation than it was to the real ism of rationalistic exposition. It was the founda tion of the subsequent school of grammafieo historical exegesis, which was developed more fully by his immediate pupils, Morns and Keil. As a consequence, the latter members of this de fensive group. .J. G. Rosenndiller (died 1815), and especially Kiihn6l (died 1841), were more in sympathy with rationalism than they were with orthodoxy.