any thing which is not included in the life of Christ. It may not in all respects be uniform or free from foreign admixtures, but it must remain true to its nature. Its whole characteristic life cannot at one period be what at another period is rejected. Truth is permanent. What was true during the Nicene period cannot be false in the Protestant period. There may be a difference, as between more or less perfect; but not a contradiction. The oak cannot become an apple-tree. The idea, therefore, of an outward historical Church, incapable of defection, such as the theory calls for, is inconsistent with such development as the theory calls for. No cannot be developed out of yes. Polytheism cannot be an expansion of the doctrine that there is but one God. We are reduced to the absolute necessity of admitting that the outward Church, during the middle ages, departed from the pure gospel, or of giving up the cause of Protestantism. The Mercersburgh gentlemen put the case in their peculiar way, when they say, "It comes then just to this, that either the rebellion [the Reformation] was diabolical, or else the ancient Church, back to the second century, was the work of the Devil, and not Christ's work." This is their dilemma, not ours. We do not hold to an entire apostasy of even the outward Church before the Reformation. It is an historical fact that (excepting the Arian ascendancy) the inspiration of the Scriptures, the doctrine of the Trinity, the true divinity and humanity of the Saviour, the fall of man, redemption by the blood of Christ, and regeneration and sanctification by his Spirit, were held by the Church universal. These are not the doctrines of Romanism as distinguished from Protestantism. These are not the points against which the Reformers protested, and as to which they declared Rome apostate and anti-Christian. The doctrines rejected by Protestants are those above enumerated, which Dr Nevin affirms belonged to the Church as far back as the second century, and the rejection of which as false and anti-Christian, he says, is tantamount to turning Catholicism into a wholesale lie. Now the dilemma is this: one element of Dr Schaff's theory, viz., that which determines the idea of the Church, requires that we should regard those doctrines as true; while another element, viz., that which makes Protestantism a development of Romanism, requires us to pronounce them to be false and anti-Christian. No man can hold both sides of this dilemma. He will either give up that idea of the Church, and adhere to Protestantism; or he will adhere to the idea of an outward Church, incapable of defection, and give up Protestantism. In other words, the Mercersburgh theory of development is utterly incompatible with the Mercersburgh idea of the Church. Dr Nevin, therefore, has evidently given up the theory of develop VOL. III.-NO. IX. U . ment. It admits of no progress. The religion of the early Church, he says, was in all essential points identical with that of the middle ages, nay, was "Romanism itself." There has been no development in the case, and therefore, on his system, "Protestantism resolves itself into a lie." And this we doubt not is his conviction, and the conclusion to which he has been long labouring to bring the readers of his various publications. The authorities of the Romish Church, we as little doubt, desire him to remain where he is, so long as he can plead their cause with so much greater advantage than he could as an avowed Romanist. Dr Schaff, on the other hand, has just as evidently given up the idea of the Church, in order to adhere to that of development, and to save Protestantism. That is, he admits the defection of the Church before the Reformation. He acknowledges that the whole array of doctrines rejected by the Reformers is effete and obsolete. Those things are passed away. But this is just what the other wing of the Mercersburgh party says is to turn Catholicism into a wholesale lie, and make the ancient Church "the work of the Devil." As Dr Schaff has thus far remained true to that principle of his theory which enables him to look back on Rome as defunct, we trust and hope he may be carried further and further from the whirlpool which has engulphed so many who venture within its outer circles. There is, we think, good ground for this hope. His later writings evince a great improvement. This noble history reveals only here and there traces of principles which are made offensively prominent in his earlier works. Were it not for his antecedents and his associations, his history would excite but little uneasiness, notwithstanding the blemishes to which we have referred. We confess, however, we feel no little concern about the future. The pantheistic philosophy of Germany is a broad road, leading Rome-ward. Many of the best Christians of that country also, alarmed by the union of the liberal with the atheistic party, have turned to despotism in the State, and to something like infallibility in the Church, for protection. They are afraid of the liberty wherewith Christ has made them free, and desire again to be entangled in a yoke of bondage. Still, "the Lord knoweth them that are his." Ein' veste Burg ist unser Gott, [A British edition of Dr Schaff's works is announced for publication by Messrs T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh.] ART. IV.-The Conflict of Ages; or, The Great Debate on the Moral Relations of God and Man. By EDWARD BEECHER, D.D. Boston: Phillips, Sampson, & Co. 1853. Pp. 552. THE opinion expressed in our last number concerning this work, founded on a very slight inspection, has been abundantly confirmed by a careful perusal. It is characterised by great ability, by an earnest spirit, by frankness, candour, and courtesy. It is the result of long-continued thought and research. It presents with clearness the various conflicting theories by which men have tried to explain the great problem of sin. And although, from the plan of the work, the author is obliged to travel more than once over the same ground, his book is, in the main, condensed and logically ordered. With all these recommendations, it cannot fail to command and to repay attention. It has a special interest for us. We hail it as an ally. The author shuts his readers up to the choice between orthodoxy and the doctrine of pre-existence. He admits that Scripture, Christian experience, and facts, are all on our side. He acknowledges that the Church has the Bible and its own consciousness in support of the doctrine that all sin does not consist in voluntary action; that it is in one form inherent, innate, lying back of consciousness and the will, and of course beyond the reach of the will. He admits that men are born in a state of condemnation, that they do not stand and fall each for himself after birth. He acknowledges that they come into the world with a nature depraved, i.e. sinful. He reviews and rejects the doctrine that men are born with a nature uninjuredthe doctrine that their nature though degraded is not sinful; the doctrine that the corruption of the soul is due to its union with the body, or to the law of development, or to its unfavourable circumstances, or to the divine efficiency. In short, he concedes that the Old-school doctrine as to the nature of sin, and the natural state of man, is the doctrine of the Church, of the Bible, and of Christian experience. This is much. These admissions, coming from such a source, cannot fail to produce a strong impression. These are the doctrines which have been the special objects of execration and contempt. It is on account of these doctrines that Old-school men have been held up, by the friends and associates of our author, to hatred or to ridicule. Professor Park must be tempted to exclaim, Et tu, Brute! We do not regard the truth as needing any man's patronge, or as honoured by any man's concessions; but the prejudices of men, and especially of young men, are such, that statements which would be rejected without a hearing from one source, are respectfully considered when coming from another. There are many minds, we hope, over which Dr Beecher's influence may be sufficient to counteract the effect produced by the plausible and confident declamation which has so long been directed against the doctrines above referred to. This is the reason why we anticipate good from the publication of the work before us. We do not dread its strong protest and fervid argument against the doctrine of the fall of man in Adam, or in favour of the doctrine of pre-existence. These will pass by unheeded, while the arguments for the truth will have an abiding force. This is the difference between truth and error. The former can stand all forms of opposition, but the latter soon perishes, when those long regarded as its friends turn against it. We have no doubt that our author's arguments against all the forms of New-school doctrine will be tenfold more effective than any other portion of his work. The great conflict which Dr Beecher undertakes to portray and to reconcile, is the conflict between the undeniable truth of the innate and entire depravity of our nature on the one hand, and those principles of "honour and right," as he calls them, which forbid the introduction of creatures into existence in such a state of sin. On the one hand, the Bible, consciousness, and experience, teach concerning the ruined condition of man, "1. His innate depravity as an individual. 2. His subjection to the power of depraved social organization, called, taken collectively, the world. 3. His subjection to the power of unseen malignant spirits, who are centralised and controlled by Satan, their leader and head.”—(P. 62.) On the first of these points our author quotes Calvin's definition of original sin, as "a hereditary depravity and corruption of our nature, diffused through all parts of the soul, which, in the first place, exposes us to the wrath of God, and then produces in us those works which the Scriptures call works of the flesh." Of infants, he adds, Calvin says: "They bring their condemnation with them from their mother's womb, being liable to punishment, not for the sin of another, but for their own. For although they have not as yet produced the fruits of their iniquity, yet they have the seed's inclosed in themselves; nay, their whole nature is, as it were, a seed of sin; therefore it cannot but be odious and abominable to God. Whence it follows that it is properly considered sin before God, because there could not be liability to punishment with out sin." These explicit statements of Calvin are sustained by quotations from the symbols of the leading Protestant Churches. For example, he quotes the language of the Synod of Dort: "All men are conceived in sin, and born children of wrath, disqualified for all saving good, propense to evil, dead in sins, and the slaves of sin; and, without the grace of the regenerating Holy Spirit, they neither are willing nor able to return to God, to correct their depraved nature, or to dispose themselves to the correction of it." In the later Helvetic Confession, this language is used: "We take sin to be that natural corruption of man derived or spread from those our parents unto us all; through which we, being drowned in evil concupiscences, and clean turned away from God, but prone to all evil, full of all wickedness, distrust, contempt, and hatred of God, can do no good of ourselves-no, not so much as think of any. Passages to the same effect are quoted from the Bohemian Confession, the Gallican Confession, the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England, the Augsburg Confession, from that of the Moravians, and of the Westminster divines. The language of these confessions, says our author, does not "convey an idea at all too strong of the fearful power of the actual developments of human depravity in the history of the world, even as stated by Unitarians, or of the great truth that there must be in man some adequate cause, before action, of a course of action, so universal, so powerful, so contrary to right, to the natural laws of all created minds, and to his own highest interests." (P.71.) Ona subsequent page, he admits the correctness of the statement, that "there is not a creed of any Christian church in which the doctrine that inherent corruption, as existing prior to voluntary action, is of the nature of sin, is not distinctly asserted.”—(P. 96.) "The great doctrine that men enter this world under a forfeiture, and with innate depravity, which is the real element of strength in the system of Augustine, and which has given it all its power, is," he says, "neither impossible nor absurd."-(P. 305.) As the gospel purports to be a means of deliverance from sin, it is indispensable to its appreciation and acceptance that there should be a due sense of the evil from which it proposes to redeem us. All history teaches that the strength and power of the religious life, in all its manifestations, is in proportion to the depth of the sense of sin. If the views taken of sin are superficial, every thing else connected with the divine life must partake of the same character. This our author fully "No one," admits. he 66 says, can fail to see that the religious depth that has ever been found in the Western Church, and among the Reformers and Puritans, and their followers, as compared with the superficiality of the Eastern Church, under the auspices of John of Damascus and the Greek Fathers, is owing to the more profound views of human depravity which were introduced by Augustine, and which gave a deep and vital character to its theology, but which never penetrated and |