Bisuop-Middleiiam Curacy.
April 1858.
John Albert Bengel was born at Winnenden, in Wiirtemberg, on the 24th of June 1687. His father, Albert Bengel, assistant parochial minister of that town, was his first instructor ; and the son gratefully makes mention, in after life, of his father’s u easy and pleasant manner of instructing him.” This parent died in the year 1693 : but the providence of God raised him up, in D. W. Spindler, one who acted to him as a second father, and who, as tutor in the High School of Stuttgart, along with Seb. Kneer, completed the boy’s first elementary education. The French invasion in Suabia, under Louis XIV., had caused him the loss of his father’s library ; but even this was made by him into a subject of thankfulness in after life, that the providence of God had removed from him the temptation of reading too great a variety of books. At the age of thirteen he was promoted into the Upper School, where, under Hoch- stetter, Erhard, and others, he made considerable proficiency in an- cient and modern branches of knowledge. His mother, in 1703, married J. Alb. Glockler, steward of the Theological Seminary of Maulbronn ; and it was by the kindness of this excellent man that he was enabled to become a member of the Theological College of Tubingen. Besides his other studies here, he chose for more private study Aristotle and Spinoza, in which latter author’s metaphysics he attained to such proficiency, that Professor Jager set him to arrange materials for a treatise, “ De Spinocismo,” which the Professor after- wards published. He also made researches preparatory to a Church History, about to be composed by the same author : and to Jager’s employment of him at this time in such works, Bengel was no doubt indebted for that clearness of arrangement and expression, so observ- able in the writings of both. His attention to metaphysics and mathematics also tended to give him perspicuity of thought for analyzing the language of Scripture. Professor Hochstetter was another who was of great service to Bengel during his University
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