alone through faith." The author then unfolds the Roman and the Protestant doctrine, and replies to the objections which Rationalists or Roman Catholics have urged against this great truth. Again, the formal principle was the authority of the sacred Scriptures, as opposed to the dogma of tradition. Here, as before, the Roman and the Protestant doctrine are compared, and the chief objections against the supreme authority of the Scriptures are removed, with great discrimination. Finally, these two principles are compared together, their analogy is unfolded, and their reunion is declared to form "the criterion of genuine orthodox Protestant truth." We shall give one extract, which deserves to be thoughtfully weighed. The writer has distinguished ritual, historical, exegetical, and dogmatical tradition. The last he considers as material or formal; including in the first all doctrines professedly independent of scripture; in the latter, the forms designed to convey and perpetuate scripture truth. Of the last he speaks as follows:

"Quite different is the case of the formal dogmatic tradition. This is such as has not for its contents something different from what is contained in the Bible, but forms the channel by which these contents are conducted forward in history; the onward development thus of church doctrine and church life, as comprehended first dogmatically in the so-called rules of faith, above all in the apostles' creed, and then in the cecumenical creeds, that of Nice and the Athanasian; and still farther as orally carried forward, apart from all written statement, through the entire course of church history, so that every one, before he wakes even to self-consciousness, is made involuntarily to feel its power. Tradition in this sense is absolutely indispensable. By its means we come first to the contents of the Bible, and from it these draw their life for us, perpetually fresh and new, in such way that Christ and his apostles are made present, and speak to us directly, in the Spirit which breathes in the Bible, and flows through the Church as her life's blood. This tradition, therefore, is not a part of the divine word separately from that which is written, but the contents of scripture itself as apprehended and settled by the Church against heresies past and always new appearing; not an independent source of revelation, but the one fountain of the written word, only rolling itself forward in the stream of church consciousness. Much to the same purpose, Martin Chemnitz says: 'Hæc est vera et vetus apostolorum traditio, quæ nihil tradit extra et præter scripturam, sed complectitur summam totius scripturæ.'

"This tradition Protestantism can and must allow, without a surrender of its principle. For the Reformers in their great controversy had always in their eye, not this conception, but the material tradition only, as a fountain of knowledge independent of the scriptures, and having different contents. Many Protestants are to be found, to be sure, in our own time particularly, who entirely overlook the importance of this point; which makes it so much the more necessary to give it emphasis. But we can appeal boldly to history for its support. In the first place, an argument for holding fast to tradition in this form, is found in the whole historical connection of the Reformation itself with the period going before, as this has been already brought into view. Then we have it expressly declared by the leaders of this vast movement, that men can be saved only in connection with the true Christian Church, as it has stood from the beginning, against which the gates of hell cannot pre

vail; and that all reformation therefore, and further development of doctrine and life, must maintain essential unity with the collective consciousness of the Christian Church. Lastly, our affirmation is confirmed by the practice of the Reformed and Lutheran Churches. For these have appropriated to themselves unhesitatingly the oecumenical symbols, as true expressions of this Church consciousness, that is, as agreeing with the scriptures; to which they refer still as the unerring fountain and norm of religious knowledge. Then again, they formed in their own bosom a peculiar Reformed and Lutheran tradition, carrying forward thus the stream of church consciousness in themselves, and giving it representation in their symbolical books. This too is in no respect contrary to their Bible principle. For the Protestant symbols are likewise formal dogmatic traditions, which contain nothing different from the scriptures, but simply express the faith of Protestantism in the scriptures themselves, and its apprehension of their contents. They are the evangelical answer to the interrogation of the divine Word; which founded the Church at first, and by which it must be continually set free from remaining alloy, and carried forward from one degree of light and power to another, till at last the word itself shall be fully corporealized in its life, and the written letter thus will be no more needed in the plenitude of the spirit.-(pp. 87—90.)

The writer passes on, in the second part, to examine "the relation of the Protestant principle to the posture and wants of the Church in our own age." After a brief review of its historical power, he points out the diseases or caricatures to which the principle has been exposed. The individual and subjective element has impaired the unity of the Church, and veiled the objective grandeur of the Christian faith. The evil has appeared in two forms. In Germany, the region of metaphysical thought, it has taken the form of rationalism or theoretic subjectivity. The great realities of the faith are thus reduced to modes, reflexions, and conceptions, of the finite and fallen spirit of man. In England and America, where practical energy is the ruling character of the national mind, the evil takes also a practical and outward form, in sectarian strife and separation. Each of these two evils is traced, first, in its own history and character; next, in its relation to Protestant truth; and lastly, in its effects on the present state of the Church. The following remarks are pungent, but it is the pungency of truth, not unmixed with love.

"Thus we have come gradually to have a host of sects, which it is no longer easy to number, and that still continues to swell from year to year. Where the process of separation is destined to end, no human calculation can foretell. Any one who has, or fancies that he has, some inward experience and a ready tongue, may persuade himself that he is called to be a reformer; and so proceed at once in his spiritual vanity and pride, to a revolutionary rupture with the historical life of the Church, to which he holds himself immeasurably superior. He builds himself of a night accordingly a new chapel, in which now for the first time, since the age of the apostles, a pure congregation is to be formed; baptizes his followers with his own name, to which he thus secures an immortality, unenviable, it is true, but such as is always flattering to the natural heart; rails and screams with full throat against all that refuses to do homage to his standard; and with all this, though utterly unprepared to understand a single book, is not ashamed to appeal continually to the scrip

tures, as having been sealed entirely, or in large part, to the understanding of eighteen centuries, and even to the view of our Reformers themselves, till now at last God has been pleased to kindle the true light in an obscure corner of the new world! Thus the deceived multitude, having no power to discern spirits, is converted not to Christ and his truth, but to the arbitrary fancies and baseless opinions of an individual, who is only of yesterday. Such conversion is of a truth only perversion: such theology, neology; such exposition of the Bible, wretched imposition. What is built is no church, but a chapel, to whose erection Satan himself has made the most liberal contribution.

"Such is the aspect of our land. A variegated sampler of all conceivable religious chimeras and dreams, in connection with more sober systems of sectarian faith! Every theological vagabond and pedlar may drive here his bungling trade, without passport or license, and sell his false ware at pleasure. What is to come of such confusion is not now to be seen.

"Nor is it enough that all these poisonous weeds shoot up thus wild and luxuriant, in our Protestant garden. Even those divisions of the Church, that are essentially rooted in the same evangelical soil, and that cannot well be included in the category of sects, stand for the most part in such hostile relation to one another, and shew so little inclination or impulse towards an inward and outward union in the Lord, that one might weep to think of it. There are indeed single cases of honourable exception, which I know how to value. Without them, we might well nigh despair. In a broad general view of the case, however, particularly as it is exhibited in the periodical organs of the different denominations, the evidences of a wrong spirit are sufficiently clear. Jealousy and contention, and malicious disposition in various forms, are painfully common. We see but little of that charity, which suffereth long and is kind, envieth not, vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, and thinketh no evil; that rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth, wherever it may be found; that beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. No, alas! with shame and humiliation be it confessed, the different sections of our orthodox Protestantism also, are severally bent on securing absolute dominion, take satisfaction too often in each other's damage, undervalue and disparage each other's merits, regard more their separate private interest than the general interest of the kingdom of God, and show themselves stiff-willed and obstinately selfish wherever it come to the relinquishment, or postponement even, of subordinate differences for the sake of a great common object.

"To the man who has any right idea of the church as the communion of saints, this state of things must be a source of deep distress. The loss of all his earthly possessions, the death of his dearest friend, however severely felt, would be as nothing to him, compared with the grief he feels for such a division and distraction of the church of God, the body of Jesus Christ. Not for the price of the whole world, with all its treasures, could he be induced to appear as the founder of a new sect. A sorrowful distinction that in any view; and one besides that calls for small spiritual capital indeed in these United States.

"I am well aware, that many respectable Christians satisfy their minds on the subject of sectism, by looking at it as the natural fruit of evangelical liberty. In the main matter, the leading orthodox Protestant parties, they tell us, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Methodist, Lutheran and Reformed, are all one; their differences have respect almost altogether to government and worship only, that is to the outward conformation of the church, in the case of which the Lord has allowed large freedom; and so far as they may have a doctrinal character, they may be said to regard not so much the substance of the truth itself, as the theological form simply under which it is apprehended. The separation of these churches, in the mean time, is attended, we are told, with this great advantage, that it serves to stimulate their zeal and activity,

and to extend in this way the interest of religion. This last point we shall not pretend here to dispute; but the advantage, so far as it may exist, is to be ascribed, not to the divisions in question as such, but only to God, who in his wisdom can bring good out of all evil. In the balance of the last judgment moreover, good works that proceed from ambition and emulation, only will be found to carry but little if any weight.

"From those however who undertake to justify the sect-system as a whole, the apologists of religious fanaticism and faction, I would fain require some biblical ground in favour of what is thus upheld. Not a solitary passage of the Bible is on their side. Its whole spirit is against them. The Lord is come to make of twain one; to gather the dispersed children of God, throughout the whole world, into one fold, under one Shepherd. His last command to his disciples was, that they should love one another, and serve one another, as he had loved and served them. His last prayer, before his bitter passion, was that all his followers might be made perfect in one, as he was in the Father and the Father in him. Of the first Christians we read, in the Acts of the Apostles, that they were of one heart and one mind, and continued steadfast in the apostles doctrine and fellowship, and in the breaking of bread and prayer. Paul exhorts the Corinthians in the name of Jesus Christ, that they should all speak the same thing, and that there should be no divisions among them; but that they should be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. They must not call themselves after Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or Christ in the way of party or sect. For Christ was not divided; and Paul had not been crucified for them; and no one had been baptized into the name of Paul, but all into the name of Christ. The entire view taken by this apostle of the nature of the church, as the one body of Christ, whose members all partake of the same life-blood and are set for mutual assistance; having one hope of their calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all; endeavouring to keep the unity of the one body and one spirit in the bond of peace; this view, I say, inflicts a death-blow, with one stroke, on the whole sectarian and denominational system. Peter describes the church as a single spiritual temple, built up with living stones on the same living foundation, Jesus Christ. John places one great mark of Christianity in love to the brethren; and when in his old age he was carried to the church, having no strength more for any long address, he would still repeat that one exhortation, as comprehending all besides, Children, love one another.'"-(pp. 116-119.)

From this review of the three last centuries, our author infers, that “rationalism and sectarianism are the most dangerous enemies of the Church of Christ at the present time. They are different sides of the same principle, a one-sided, false subjectivity, sundered from the objective truth. Rationalism is theoretic sectarianism, and sectarianism is practical rationalism. Who will guide the vessel of orthodox Protestantism safely between these rocks? In such peril the helmsman looks anxiously around for help, come whence it may."

This leads the writer to unfold the brighter side of the Tractarian movement, as " a well-meant, but insufficient attempt to remedy these diseases." Its strength lay in the divisions, the sectarian confusion, of the Protestant churches. Its weakness lay in its backward and retrograde character, in its turning back again to the Egypt of the dark ages, instead of looking onward to the promised glory.

"Its grand defect," he says, "forming an impassable gulf between us, is the utter blindness to the Divine significance of the Reformation and its development, that is, of the entire Protestant period of the Church. . . . They wish to shut out of view the progress of the three last centuries entirely, to treat the whole as a negation, and, by one vast leap, to carry the church back to the point where it stood before the separation of the eastern and western communions. Turn and twist as they may, the Reformation can be to them only an apostasy from the true Church."

The author now proceeds, in the last place, to unfold what he terms "the true stand-point of regular historical progress, or Protestant Catholicism. He first shews how even rationalism and sectarian divisions may have been overruled for partial good; that they are a scourge of Divine discipline to purify the Church, and thus prepare the way for a riper and purer unity of faith and reason, of individual conscience, and truly catholic religion. He extends the same principle to that separation of various fields of thought from Christianity which has marked the last age; for this has created a deep void, which only the full redemption, promised in God's word, can ever satisfy. We must here venture on one more extract, as it is beautiful in itself, and bears powerfully on the question of national religion, now mooted so often in our own land.

"To the Lord and his kingdom belongs the whole world, with all that lives and moves in it. All is yours, says the apostle. Religion is not a single, separate sphere of human life, but the divine principle by which the entire man is to be pervaded, refined, and made complete. It takes hold of him in his undivided totality, in the centre of his personal being; to carry light into his understanding, holiness into his will, and heaven into his heart; and to shed thus the sacred consecration of the new birth, and of the glorious liberty of the children of God, over his whole inward and outward life. No form of existence can withstand the renovating power of God's Spirit. There is no rational element that may not be sanctified; no sphere of natural life that may not be glorified. The creature, in the widest extent of the word, is earnestly waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God, and sighing after the same glorious deliverance. The whole creation aims towards redemption; and Christ is the second Adam, the new universal man, not simply in a religious but also in an absolute sense. The view entertained by Romish monasticism and Protestant pietism, by which Christianity is made to consist in an abstract opposition to the natural life, or in flight from the world, is quite contrary to the spirit and power of the gospel, as well as false to its design. Christianity is the redemption and renovation of the WORLD. It must make all things new.

"Such morbid views are powerfully counteracted in this country, by the sound practical feeling which so generally prevails. A different mistake, however, nearly as false, is widely established; according to which science, art, and politics, are placed in a relation, not of absolute hostility indeed, but of entire indifference to religion, that is, properly, in no relation to it at all. The idea seems to be, that a man's piety is deposited in one corner of his spirit, his politics in another, and his learning in a third. All good and necessary in their place, but having nothing whatever to do with one another! According to this view, it might seem to be expected farther, that religion