NO. XCVII.-JULY 1876. ORIGINAL ARTICLES:- I. THE BASIS OF RELIGIOUS BELIEF. By the Rev. T. F. II. THE "UNIONS-CONFERENZ" AT BONN. By the Rev. J. B. III. PIONEER PRESBYTERIANISM. By the Rev. Professor GEORGE IV. THE PROGRESS OF OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES. By the Rev. V. JESUS CHRIST, THE CENTRE OF HISTORY. By the Rev. J. VI. ON HISTORICAL EVIDENCE AND THE MIRACLE OF THE HOLY VIII. THE CHERUBIM. By the Rev. M. WHITE, Blairgowrie I. SCHLEIERMACHER INTERPRETED BY HIMSELF AND THE MEN OF HIS SCHOOL. By the Rev. DANIEL EDWARD, Breslau II. THE APOLOGETIC FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH IN THE PRESENT TIME. By the Rev. Professor BRUCE, D.D., Glasgow III. ROMANISM IN THE UNITED STATES. By the Rev. Professor IV. ON THE TRANSLATION OF GALATIANS III. 20 AND HEBREWS IX. 16, 17. By the Rev. Professor FORBES, D.D., Aberdeen V. THE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY OF IRELAND. By the Rev. Pro- VI. THE SCIENTIFIC DOCTRINE OF CONTINUITY. By Professor LEE- BRITISH AND FOREIGN EVANGELICAL REVIEW. JANUARY 1876. ART. I.-Church History: its Scope and Relations.* AS this day's solemnity is the inauguration of a new Chair, as well as the installation of a particular occupant of the chair, it will be seasonable if I devote the Introductory Lecture to some observations dealing with the subject of Church History generally. It may well be presumed, indeed, that the students who are to prosecute the study of Church History in company with me this session are neither ignorant of the scope of the science nor indifferent to its claims. Yet I can imagine that those who have the clearest conception of the one and the deepest feeling of the other, may find it profitable to spend an hour to-day, in noting carefully the purposes with a view to which the teaching of ecclesiastical history has always received a prominent place in the theological curriculum-the purposes which ought, therefore, to be steadily kept in view alike by preceptor and students; in noting, also, the relations sustained by this particular discipline to the kindred disciplines which find a home within these walls. But, first of all, it is right that we should halt for a moment at the threshold, and reflect upon the fact that the Church of Christ has a history-a long and crowded history. We of this generation are not the first whom God has been * Introductory Lecture in the Free Church College, Aberdeen, 3d November 1875. The Lecture, it is right to state, was delivered to an audience which included many friends and benefactors of the College, as well as the Students. VOL. XXV.-NO. XCV. A pleased to lift up into fellowship with Himself; to whom He has spoken the blessed word of His grace; whom He has chosen and caused to approach to Him, that they may dwell in His house. God had a people on the earth before we were born; a people who were much upon His heart, and for whom He did great things. To speak only of our own country, during how many centuries Christianity has made for itself a home amidst the rigours of our northern climate! What a long, ever-changing, eventful course the Scottish Church has run! And the Church of Christ has many other branches-branches under whose shadow men of other and more populous nations sit, and whose annals offer manifold attractions to the Christian student. The primitive Church, too, from which all the modern churches deduce their origin,-it had a history, the investigation of which conducts us back to the age of the apostles, and to the personal ministry of our Lord. Nor was the Church a new society even then. There is a sense, no doubt, in which the day of Pentecost may be regarded as the birthday of the Christian society. On that day the Church emerged from its Judaic envelope, and received the wings which were to bear it to the far-off Gentile countries. The transformation was great, but it did not destroy the identity of the body on which it passed. What took place when the Comforter came and the Gentiles were called, was not the origination of a new society, not the production of a new tree. It was only the grafting of new branches into an old tree-an olive already venerable with age. It would be long to retrace the fortunes of that good olive tree; to tell how, during the centuries immediately preceding the incarnation, the Church subsisted as a widely-extended nation, having its headquarters in Judea, but with a multitudinous diaspora reaching out into all nations and tongues; or to tell how, before the captivity scattered so many of them abroad, the chosen people dwelt apart, under kings and prophets of their own. This retrospect carries us back to a period contemporaneous with the uncertain dawn of Greek literature and story; but it does not conduct us to the beginning of the sacred record. Israel, under the kings, could already speak of times long gone by, which were made bright by imperishable memories -memories of patriarchal life, of Egyptian bondage, of redemption by mighty signs in Egypt and in the wilderness, The Church has a History. 3 of copious legislation in Horeb, of national declension and national return to God-memories stretching back into a hoary antiquity, and everywhere so rich in lessons of admonition and encouragement, that the fearers of the Lord, when dark times befell the nation, used to recall them with fond affection, and drew strength to their hearts from the prayerful recollection of them. "I have considered (they would say) the days of old, the years of ancient times. I will remember the works of the Lord: surely I will remember Thy wonders of old" (Ps. lxxvii. 5, 11). These words of the Psalmist, besides bringing vividly into view the fact that the Church has a far-reaching history, aro of interest, as signalising one of the high purposes which the study of the history is fitted to accomplish. If the works of the Lord, His wonders of old, His acts to their fathers in early times, were such a fountain of instruction and profit to the faithful in Israel, certainly the total history of the Church ought to be to us of more abundant utility. Unless there is something strangely amiss in the way in which the work of a Church History class is conducted, it ought to contribute a valuable contingent to the equipment of our students for the ministry. This point is so important in relation to the business of our meeting to-day, that I must dwell upon it for a little longer. When Christian, in the Pilgrim's Progress, came to the House Beautiful, and had slept till break of day in the upper chamber called Peace, the people of the house told him that he should not depart till they had shewn him the rarities of the place. And first, we are told, they had him into the study, where they shewed him records of the greatest antiquity. Among other things, he here saw a record of the acts done by the Lord of the hill, and the names of many hundreds that he had taken into his service: a record also of worthy acts that some of his servants had done; as, how they had "subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, and turned to flight the armies of the aliens." They also shewed him some of the engines with which his servants had done wonderful things. They shewed him Moses' rod; the hammer and nail with which Jael slew Sisera; the pitchers, trumpets, and lamps, too, with which Gideon put to flight the armies of Midian; and many other like rarities. Such is Bunyan's conception of the Church of Christ; the House built by the wayside for the solace of the Lord's pilgrims. It shews, on the part of the immortal dreamer, if not a clear perception, at least a wonderfully fine feeling of the honourable function which belongs to Church History in Christ's house. Christ having, in former times, done great things for His people, and honoured them to do great things for Him in return, it is His will and pleasure that these shall be kept in memory. The records of the past are to be laid up with care, and every succeeding generation ought to renew the memory of them. God reveals much of His mind in His acts, and those who would largely know His mind must deeply study His acts. Not seldom His acts towards the Church-towards the general body of the faithful, or some particular society—have been of such a kind as to have left on thoughtful minds, at the time, the distinct impression that His intention in them extended beyond the generation for whom, in the first instance, they were performed, and had respect to the instruction of the generations to come. We shall not err if we recognise an impression of this kind in the care which Moses took to write, in a book, the story of the chosen people during the forty eventful years of his administration; and in the labours of the long succession of nameless writers, prophets doubtless, to whom, under God, we owe the history of the Tribes under the Judges and the Kings. It was an impression of the same kind which prompted John Knox to commit to writing the story of the Reformation in Scotland, and which, on the other side of the Atlantic, found expression in the grand title given by Cotton Mather to his record of the early fortunes of the settlements in New England, Magnalia Christi Americana. Nor is it only God's acts towards great communities which leave on beholders this impression of instructiveness for all times. God does not put the same difference between many and few, between great and small, as human infirmity is obliged to do. The wing of a gnat may display as lavish an expenditure of beauty and complex contrivance as is to be |