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uity, either to fortify or modify its position by the voice of the past, much as the forest oak strikes his roots deeper into the earth, in proportion, as he elevates his head into the region of the tempest and the storm. This is in accordance with the direction of scripture: "Every scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven, is like unto a man that is an householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old." As our age is emphatically an age of progress, much more so than any previous one, and as the Church is modified by the spirit around her, how necessary the hallowed influences of the Church of the past, to serve as a counteracting force to the fearful velocity, with which the times are carrying us forward. How strange too does it sound for good men to grow suspicious, and become excited at the very word, antiquity. But midst all the noise and bustle of the present, the meditating, the reflective, the serious can discern the mellowed voices of the ancients, as from a distant shore, waxing louder and louder, as our troublous times seem to require their co-operation in carrying forward the work of God in the world. No species of theological knowedge is beginning to be regarded of more value, than Church History, and in no department of knowledge, have more genius and learning been summoned to the task of satisfying the crying wants of the Church. Our commentaries are beginning to be valued not so much for their novel modes of interpretation, as for the authority of any single explanation, and we hope the time is not far distant, when the laity will place the pulpit under similar, wholesome restrictions. And with reference to the present state of our doctrinal Theology, it is being felt by many, that its purification can be encompassed only by its transmission to the head-waters of the Reformation.

In conclusion, we would say, that in the above, we do not intend to disparage any of the Reformers. We regard Luther as the greatest man: Calvin, the greatest Theologian: whilst we regard Melancthon as the greatest christian, and his position as the safest starting-point for the progress of Protestantism, that on which the future universal church is destined to rest. We do not claim for him originality, for all that goes to constitute the ground-work of his life. We regard it as a matter of the highest praise that could be bestowed upon him, that in an excited, agitated age, warding off the influences of party-spirit, he adopted such a full, many-sided view of the Gospel. Smithsburg, Md.

T. A.

ECCLESIASTICAL TENDENCIES.

[Translated from the "Kirchenfreund."]

It belongs to the peculiar character of our times, that in different lands, on the field of the Protestant Church, a certain retrograde tendency is coming to prevail, materially and plainly different from the views and aims which were entertained even among the pious themselves not a great while since. In Germany, for instance, it had gone so far, that not only was the Church fallen into absolute contempt with open unbelief, affecting at the same time the proud tone of science and superior cultivation; but for those also who professed to adhere to the old faith it was regarded as of force and authority, so far only as it fell in with the current conception of a merely invisible communion. It was frequently said in so many words indeed, that a Christian and a Pietist were two as much like terms, as a Protestant and a Christian or a Pietist and a Protestant. The case was supposable thus, that a man might have no regard for the Church, visibly taken, nay might absolutely hate it, and still be counted, possibly too for this very reason itself, a good christian. The Church as an outward organism, thrown around man's life, seemed to lose almost all significance over against subjective christian experience. Infidelity sought to abstract Christ from the heart; the great interest then, on the other side, was felt to lie in maintaining for the heart the possession of Christ.-'The course of things in England and America was much the same. There however it was not so much the inroads of unbelief, as the prevalence of a stiff, dry, moralising orthodoxy, rationalistic too in its own way, which served to call forth a reaction on the part of those who were concerned truly for their salvation. The visible Church, not directly in its forms and ordinances, but in the manner rather in which these were administered, being shorn of their proper life and spirit, could not fail to excite an opposition, to which every established form as such came to appear dangerous, and which also gave itself up to the object of bringing individuals to Christ, in the way of experimental apprehension, as the one great end of religion. The maxim had full acknowledgment, that every one who is in Christ is thereby also in the Church, but not the reverse. That to "be in Christ" however includes more in it than a mere personal experience of salvation, that one who is in Christ is a member of his body, while this body must be not at all something purely inward, but something outward at the same time, an organism embracing

humanity this seemed to be left entirely out of sight. If danger was escaped thus in one direction, it was only by running into new danger in another. For will inward experience now really become infallible? Shall there be no need more for any forms whatever? May not new ones rise, much worse perhaps than before? May not spiritual coldness again return? Must not the divisions of Protestantism tend to impair its inward strength and truth? Can the old church forms be abandoned, without giving up at the same time doctrines and principles indispensable to sound church life?

History itself has long since answered these questions. And with it many of the friends of christianity, both in the old world and in the new, have come to look upon a piety as of very questionable character, which makes a merit of its own unchurchliness. Hence no idea belonging to the whole range of theology is so much in view latterly as that of the Church. And this is altogether right. The Church may be placed not improperly at the head of the entire christian doctrine. By her we know that there is a kingdom of God; by her the Bible is first offered to us as God's word; by her our faith stands in union with the faith of all the saints in the earliest and most remote times. The undervaluation of the visible Church has been carried quite too far. Christianity demands a sound body no less than a healthy soul. The two condition each other. The efforts then which are made to secure closer contact again with the old order, the original spirit, the forms this created for itself in the Reformation, are full of meaning for our time. Their object is to restore the good, which has been thrown away along with the bad in rash attempts at improvement.

The circumstances of the present time are in truth such, that any man who puts forth his strength for the sake of the good, against the reigning spirit of the age, and so not out of selfishness but from a true spirit of love, is at once entitled to thanks, even though his activity should be without plan in a universal view. And with how few can it be otherwise! All should be welcome, that honestly proposes to help the malady of the times. How much too has taken place recently, in the old world as well as in the new, for the invigoration of Protestantism! From the Prussian scheme of Union to the great London Alliance— the cause of Missions, Foreign and Domestic, Bible Societies, the system of Tracts and Colportage, and many other agencies that might be named, are all enterprises of true benevolence, that have already wrought more good than can well be told in single respects. But these enterprises themselves serve in truth

to show us to what point we have come, and the obligation which rests on every friend of the kingdom of God, to build on the broken down walls of Zion, in his own place, according to the best of his knowledge and ability. No one is called at present to the office of a Reformer. But to assist, to improve, to resist the enemy in single places, and to be true to particular trusts; that is what we must limit ourselves to at this day, and a blessing may be expected to go along with it.

We ought not now to be surprised however, if in this business of patching and improving much may come into view that is not in full harmony with itself. It fares with the spiritual habitation of God here, as it has fared with many houses of God that are made with hands. We have ourselves seen such, which were begun in the old Roman round arch style. Afterwards these simple and noble lines failed any longer to give satisfaction, and were crowded out by fanciful complicated Gothic additions. There came however still another spirit, and the rich pomp of the Gothic architecture was covered over with lime and chalk, to make the worship more spiritual. Even this sober improvement has been forced also to give way to new change, which may be repeated again no one can say how often. Has it not fared in the same way with our Protestant Church? It is the arena, we know, at any rate, for all private opinions, where every one may make trial of his strength.

The efforts of our time to infuse new life into the kingdom of God, and to secure for it a more full and effective entrance into public life, as well as the family sphere, all reduce themselves perhaps to two tendencies. The one aims to reach the general from the single, the other reversely to reach the single from the general. The one lays hold of the individual life, to incorporate it with the organism of the whole; the other seeks the organization of the whole, in order to subdue the individual life the more easily by means of it to a general end. The first asserts in favor af the individual an independence of christian thought, that owns no necessary allegiance to the past of the Protestant Church; the second insists on laying down a certain basis of faith and worship, as already established, by which to restrain and hold in check the undue exercise of freedom. The first is historically the older tendency, the second the later and more recent. The old form of Protestantism retained its authority down into the last century, carrying it to petrifaction; it had historical right on its side, but its rigid conformation was at last only a sort of paper papacy, and its existence was almost wholly polemical, its very strength lying in controversy not in love.

The last century shows here the most violent revolution. This had many aspects, but its distinctive character is just the assertion of the subjective and individual over against the claims of tradition and law. Thus private judgment stood forward in the Rationalism of Germany, and of other lands, carrying its appeal to the fundamental right of Protestantism itself; but it showed clearly also the entire want of a right understanding_between the Protestant confession and individual knowledge. The same assertion of the subjective lies at the ground of German Pietism, English Methodism, and all kindred manifestations. Here indeed no departure from the church faith has been designed; but there was no right understanding again with the reigning form of the church; it failed to serve as a medium between the word of faith and the believing heart. The effect of all this was, and still continues to be, very great. Unbelief on the one side, affecting to believe as it may please and what it may please, has grown into frightful power. This carries in itself no organizing principle, but is decomposing, eats like rust, wherever it is found, spreading itself as a cancer; it sees in the faith of the Church only an overwhelming power, it seeks new principles on which to build the social system, but draws off men from the influence of Christ's word and spirit. Over against it, and yet one with it as regards the over-valuation of the subjective, stands the modern Separatism, with its so plausible pretence of superior piety; which with vast want of all general knowledge invests the feeling of a moment with the value of eternity, and labors under all the defects that attach to such one sided account of feeling, namely lack of genuine moral force in the will, and confusion in the understanding. This sovereignty of the individual will not allow us Protestants, with all our talking, to come to right genuine action; in this country Protestantism has lost a large part of its moral force, its influence over public relations. To this state of things it is owing, that our youth for the most part grows up in the thickest moral and religious darkness; that an insensibility to divine things follows, which no later inward convulsions can ever compensate or cure; that the leading political men lend their favor to the religious body, which promises them the best service; that family love is found to fail, in proportion as that which should be the strongest bond of union is turned into an occasion of difference and separation; that all the enterprises of Protestantism, as a propaganda fidei, are made weak by the misery of division; that persons who have no call whatever, without any preparation, devote themselves to the service of the Church, getting honor thus to themselves while the

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