sistently and definitely, in defence of Christianity. Its necessity is indeed not vital, as is that of faith in the heart: it is not of universal educational necessity, as are preaching and teaching: but it is necessary so far as we need leaders thoroughly trained, able to define and defend the truth, to show its harmonies and relations. It is not necessary, as is the circulation of the blood, but like the knowledge of that circulation, which is important to all, and indispensable to the expert. It is necessary so far as the mind needs system and science at all, so far as a science of the highest objects is yet more necessary, so far as a science of the highest objects for the most urgent and practical ends is most necessary. It is necessary so far as it is a delight to the mind to see the fair proportions of its faith depicted in their symmetry; and surely, never is the soul better prepared to feel the deepest emotions of reverence and of trust, than when it has gazed upon the grand outlines and internal symmetry of the system of redemption. He who thinks highly feels deeply. From long meditation on the wonder of the divine revelation, the mind returns with added glow to the simplicity of faith.

We do not, then, feel the force of the objection to doctrinal theology that it is unfavorable to a life of faith. A technical system may be, but that is because it is technical. Mere formulas may be, but we should not hold any truth as a mere formula. And least of all does this objection apply to our New England systems; these have been held by the heart quite as much as by the head; no theology has ever insisted with such unrelenting earnestness upon the necessity of inward experience. Not written in catechisms, it has been engraved on fleshly tablets. We have not only discussed, we have also experienced almost everything; from conscious enmity to God, to the profoundest submission to his will; from the depths of a willingness to be condemned, to the heights of disinterested benevolence; from the most abstract decrees of a Sovereign, down, almost, to the power to the contrary; we have passed through the very extremes of doctrine, and known them to be real by our inward experience. We have not so much transformed spirit into dogma, as we have transinuted dogma into spirit. We have never, never forgotten, that the begetting in man of a new life was the paramount end of all theology as of all preaching.

Nor are we sure that we understand the force of the objection to doctrinal theology, derived from the allegation that language is inadequate to embody spiritual truth; for though this be annihilating, yet it seems to us that it cannot be proved true, unless we utterly divorce language from all thought and feeling. It is of the very office of language to express what is consciously working in the soul; language

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is the express image of spirit. As soon as the mind is raised above the obscure state of spontaneous feeling, or the rude perceptions of sense, it begins to express its feelings and indicate its perceptions in audible language. In its whole training, words, thought or uttered, are the great instrument, as well as the result of its progress. And so it comes to pass, that though language be not life, yet there is not a deep or delicate emotion, not a subtle distinction or large concatenation of human thought, not an abstract principle or a simple idea, which language by simple words, by imagery, by definition, by description, or by system, is not adequate to convey. And though single words, when taken singly, may have many a sense, yet the single words only give us the separate parts of speech; but take language as a whole, put the word in a sentence, qualify it by adjuncts, limit it by its relations, define it by logic, fix it in a system, and the single word may have such an immovable significance, that no other term can be exchanged for that simple sound. It may have had its origin in the regions of sense; but by the action of the soul upon it, it has been transfigured; it has passed through all inferior stages, and at length has been claimed by faith or reason for its exclusive use; so that only a philologist knows its earthly origin, and to all others it is the apt and direct symbol of the highest ideas of reason, or the loftiest objects of faith.

And for the objection itself, we might be the more anxious, did we not find in the exquisite grace of the language of the accomplished thinker who has propounded it, that his own theory is practically refuted by his own eminent example. None more skilful than he to express the subtlest moods of mind, the most delicate analogies of thought; no one who better exemplifies the fact, that the sublimest objects of Christian faith, and the tenderest play of Christian feeling may be so fully expressed in human language, that the only hearts unmoved are those themselves devoid of feeling and of faith.

In proceeding now to state, as concisely as we can, the mode in which faith and philosophy are to be harmonized in Christian theology, so that this shall be truly their nuptial state, we say, first of all, that that only can be a true system, which contains the very substance of the Christian faith; which gives us the very heart of the revelation in a systematic form. Hence the absolute necessity of Biblical study, as the prime condition; hence, too, he only who knows the inward power and reality of faith can be a true theologian. This results. from the very fact that the Christian economy is both an historical and an experienced reality. "He is the best divine who best divines" the spirit of the Scriptures; and he alone has the power of divination

whose heart is responsive to the oracles. In a higher sense than can be asserted of anything else, it holds true of the Christian faith, that "it can be really known only as it is truly loved." The illumination of the spirit is as necessary as is the light of reason. Both the cherubic and seraphic virtues, in the old interpretation of them the spirits of wisdom and the spirits of love, must preside over the work.

But, on the other hand, only the philosophic intellect can grasp the prime principles, can see the relations of the parts, can guard against inconsistencies, can show the harmony of the system with the powers of the mind, with ethical truth, and with our necessary and essential ideas. It alone can grapple with the real problems, and show how the Christian faith solves them. Without it, the interpretation of Scripture would be careless when not obscure. It alone can regulate and correct the definitions of doctrine; it alone can impart shape and comprehensiveness to the system.

Thus we have the substance of the system, that is, the revelation; and the power which is to shape this substance, and that is the philosophic mind. But now come up the most important and decisive questions: whence are we to get the principle, and what is the principle, which is to be the central influence, and the controlling energy of the whole system? And here is where the inquiry really hinges about the relative supremacy of faith and philosophy. Is philosophy to bring this principle with it from ethics, from mental philosophy, or from natural religion; or is it to take it from the revelation itself? And here perhaps is also the point on which turns the controversy between those who seem to contend on the one hand all for system, and on the other all for faith. If a system of Christian theology be a true expression of the Christian faith, there can be no incongruity between the system and the faith ; we shall not be forced either to change spirit into dogma or dogma into spirit; for in the doctrine we shall have the expression of the spirit we shall be lifted above the misery of saying that we must be all doctrine or all life, all formula or all faith and while we insist that faith is the essential thing, we may also be able to see that a true theological system is one of the noblest boons which faith can have, as well as a want of the Christian intellect.

All theological systems, now, which have any distinctive influence or character are based upon some ultimate principles, by which the arrangement and even the definitions of the doctrines are controlled. Consciously or unconsciously they are under the power of some dominant idea, which determines the shape of the separate parts. Thus, the compact and consistent system, comprised in the Westminster Assembly's Catechism, rests, indeed, upon the basis of the

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divine sovereignty, but this sovereignty is further modified by the idea of a covenant relation; and this it is which may, perhaps, be said to give shape to the exposition of the leading doctrines in the consistent Presbyterian church, so far as their views are different from the general orthodoxy.

Our New England theology has its basis in the same general idea of the divine sovereignty, drawn out into a clear and articulate system of decrees, giving us the very anatomy of religion in its most abstract form. And such anatomy is necessary; if we believe in a God and are consistent thinkers, we cannot avoid believing in a sure and divine system of things: thus alone can we keep alive the idea of the divine agency and government, without which all theology would be unsupported. But besides the decrees, we have had two other modifying influences in our systems, which have given them their most distinctive character, and which have both come to us through the discussions of Jonathan Edwards, though they might easily be shown to be no arbitrary development of the Calvinistic system. What is the Nature of True Virtue, and what is the real Freedom of the Human Will in connection with the divine sovereignty are the two questions which have chiefly determined the character of our theological systems and parties. Our views on these points have given character to our theology and our preaching on many of the most important articles of the Christian faith. It is here that we have had a distinctive character, an original theological cast; it is here we have made " advances in theology." Our systems have indeed contained all the doctrines, from the Being of God to the life everlasting; but our pressure and force have been on these radical inquiries. We have met and not shrunk from the absorbing investigations which are forced upon the mind when it asks about the harmony of the doctrines of Christianity with ethical truth, and with indubitable facts of mental science.

But now we have fallen upon other times; and other inquiries are brought home to us. We are compelled to meet questions, to which our theories about sovereignty, virtue, and free-agency can give no definite response. Men are asking, what is Christianity as distinct from an ethical system? Who and what is Christ, that we should love and believe in Him? What is his nature? what his relation to God and to us? What is his place in the Christian system? The questions of our times, in short, do not bear upon the point, whether the doctrines of the Christian system are in harmony with the truths of ethics and of mental philosophy; but rather upon the point, what is the real nature of Christianity, what are its essential characteristics! And no theory of ethics or of freedom can answer these questions. VOL. VI. No. 24.

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To meet the wants of our times, then, we must endeavor to get at that principle which gives its definite and distinct character to the Christian economy.

And it is here we claim, as a matter of philosophical justice also, that philosophy is not to bring this principle with it, but is rather to seek it in the Christian system itself. This is the dictate of the Baconian, of the Aristotelian induction. This is necessary in all science. To find the principles of optics, we study light. To find the laws of the mind, we study mind. To know Christianity, we must study Christianity. To get at a living Christian theology, we must have the central principle of Christianity itself.

We state our position again. The principle which is to give shape to a theological system ought, on the strictest philosophical grounds, to be taken from the Christian economy itself; so that what forms the substance and vitality of Christianity shall be the centre of our theology also; this principle is not to be sought in ethics, or in nature, or in the will of man, but only in the revealed will of God.

And where we are to seek for this principle, who can doubt? The central idea of Christianity, as a distinct system, can only be found in Him of whom prophets did testify, evangelists write, and apostles preach; whose life was the crowning glory of humanity, as his death was its redemption; and from whose death and from whose life influences and blessings have streamed forth, constant and inestimable; in Him, whose nature, more wonderful than any other, unites the extremes of humanity and divinity; whose work, more glorious and needed than any other, reconciles heaven to earth and earth to heaven; and whose dominion is as intimate in its efficiency as it is eminent in its claims and beneficent in its results. He is the centre of God's revelation and of man's redemption; of Christian doctrine and of Christian history, of conflicting sects and of each believer's faith, yea, of the very history of this our earth, Jesus Christ is the full, the radiant, the only centre fitted to be such because He is the God-man and the Redeemer Christ-Christ, He is the centre of the Christian system, and the doctrine respecting Christ is the heart of Christian theology. For, if theology be the science which unfolds to us the relations of God and man; if the Christian revelation contains the full and authoritative account of these relations; and if in the Christian revelation the wealth of the divine manifestation and the wants and hopes of man are all convergent upon Jesus Christ; and if it be philosophically just to seek the central principle of Christian theology in that which forms the heart and life of the revelation - where else can we find this animating idea excepting in the Person of Jesus Christ? And that which