avour of
both, especially of Ernesti, was to revive the grammatical and literary
mode of interpreting scripture, as opposed to the dogmatic previously in
use. Their spirit was not sceptical, but was that of men who felt the
sceptical opinions round them; ethical and cold, like that of the
Arminians of the preceding century.

Their system developed into rationalism in the hands of two of their
pupils. Eichhorn was the pupil of Michaelis, Semler of Ernesti. The name
of Eichhorn will recur later; Semler(680) must be considered now.

Semler was one of those minds which fall short of the highest order of
originality, but by their erudition and appreciation of the wants of their
time institute a movement by giving form to the current feeling of their
day. Nurtured in pietism, he always retained signs of personal excellence;
and his Christian earnestness is said not to have been destroyed by his
speculations. His autobiography furnishes us with the means for the full
comprehension of his character, and shows him to have been keenly alive to
the difficulties which the English literature had suggested. His labours
related to criticism, to exegesis, and to doctrine. As a critic he did not
restrict himself to the examination of texts, but investigated the
canonicity of the books of Scripture.(681) It is probable that the
criticism commenced by R. Simon and Spinoza furnished hints for his views.
He was one of the first to undervalue external evidence in the formation
of the canon. The determination of the canon, i.e. of the list of books
which are to be considered scripture, is a question of fact. What did the
early church pronounce to be such; and does internal evidence bear out the
idea? Semler undervalued the historical evidence of the church's judgment,
and replaced it, not by careful study of internal critical evidence, like
later rationalism, but by an _a priori_ subjective decision, that only
such books were to be received as conduced to a religious object. But it
is in exegesis that he enunciated the principles which have left a
permanent effect. He established what is called the historical method of
interpretation.(682)

In the course of Christian history, three great methods for the
interpretation of scripture have been used; the allegorical, the dogmatic,
and the grammatical.(683) In the early church the tendency in the main was
to the allegorical; in the middle-ages to the dogmatic; at the Renaissance
and Reformation