wrong to be right,-vice to be virtue, and virtue vice. This, in the first place, is an absurdity. Contradictions are not the objects of power. Right can no more be wrong than pleasure can be pain, or heat can be cold, or something nothing, existence non-existence. Secondly, there is great difference be tween making the will of God the ultimate ground of moral distinctions, and making God's nature that ground. His will is for the creature the ultimate rule of right and wrong; but his will is determined by his nature, and is subject to no other law. Therefore it is that God has a right to do what he wills, and that whatever he wills is right, because he wills it, and because his will is the expression of his nature. What higher reason can be given that any thing is wise, than that it is an act of infinite wisdom; or that it is right, than that it is the act of infinite holiness? The infinite reason is the ground and treasury of all truth; infinite goodness is the ground and rule of all right. But to subject God to law, to make him responsible, is to make him a creature.

As Dr Beecher's fundamental conception is that of a finite God, he finds no difficulty in representing him as unable to prevent sin, and as gradually gaining power to carry out his plans. For the same reason he can bring himself, without trembling, to speak of God's being unhappy. He says, "the entrance of evil has involved a period of long-continued suffering to God;" that the glorious results to which he is "conducting the universal system have been purchased at the expense of his own long-continued and patiently endured sufferings, (p. 487), and that God developes," through trial and suffering," his character in view of his creatures. Now, when a man gets so low as this in his idea of God, we do not see why he should trouble himself with any thing. If the world is badly governed, if sin and misery overrun the kingdom of God, he cannot prevent it. He can do no better. If the hurricane break loose from the hands of this feeble God, and sweep innocent children and hoary sinners to a common destruction, he is only to be pitied. How can he help it? If hell should burst its gates and invade heaven, God can only stand aghast. If this has happened once, despite his protest and his tears, it may happen again. The universe is under the government of a well-meaning but impotent Being, who can control created minds only by "moral power," who can bind Satan and restrain fiends only by telling them it is wrong to be wicked, whose blessedness and whose dominions are at the mercy of his creatures, and who holds his throne only by sufferance. If God is a finite Being; if his power is limited; if he governs his rational creatures only by the ascendancy he gradually acquires over them by the exhibition of his character; if he has failed,

despite all his resources, to prevent millions of millions of his creatures becoming and remaining sinful; if he endures great and continued suffering on account of the disobedience of his inferiors, which he cannot prevent,-then Dr Beecher has a right to place himself over against this God, as in nature his equal, to summon him to an account, to tell him, as he does throughout this book, he is bound to do this, and bound to avoid that, and that he will forfeit all respect unless he not only acts right, but makes it apparent to all Lilliput that he does so.-No! ten thousand times no? This is not our God. This is not the Lord Jehovah, who does his will among the armies of heaven and the inhabitants of the earth; who works all things after the counsel of his own will; who turns the hearts of men as the rivers of waters are turned; of whom, through whom, and to whom are all things; in whose sight all nations are as the dust of the balance; whose judgments are unsearchable, and whose ways past finding out, and who gives no account of his doings.

The first and most indispensable condition of piety is submission-blind, absolute, entire submission of the intellect, the conscience, the life, to God. This is blind, but not irrational. It is the submission of a sightless child to an all-seeing Father; of a feeble, beclouded intelligence to the infinite Intelligence. It is not only reasonable, but indispensable, both as a safeguard from scepticism, and for the rational exercise of piety. As we must end here, we may as well begin here. First or last we must come to say, It is Jehovah, let him do what seems good in his sight. Jehovah can do no wrong. The Lord reigns, let the earth rejoice. If, then, Adam sinned, and all men are thereby brought under sin; if we are born children of wrath; if sin and misery reign over the earth; if children bear the iniquities of their fathers; if our present condition is the result of the conduct of those who go before us; if the storm and pestilence respect neither age nor character; if clouds and darkness are round about the throne of God,-we must still hold fast our confidence in God, for if we let go our hold, we fall into the bottomless abyss of darkness and despair.

We lay down this volume with very mingled feelings. It records the struggle of a strong and devout mind with the great problems of life, under the guidance of a false principle. Raised by the teachings of Scripture and his own religious experience above the superficial views of the nature of sin and of the depravity of man which prevail around him, instead of submitting to the plain assertions of the Bible and obvious facts of providence, our author has attempted to understand the Almighty unto perfection, and of course has failed. The issue to which the book brings the reader is, an infinite God

and mystery, or a finite God and a satisfied understanding. This is the only old alternative, God or man; one or the other must rule. This is the real Conflict of Ages, and the result cannot be doubtful. Happy are they who are on the Lord's

side!

ART. V.--Inaugural Address, delivered at the Danville Theolo gical Seminary, October 13, 1853. By EDWARD P. HUMPHREY, D.D. Cincinnati: 1854.

OF the eloquent discourses at the late inauguration of the Danville Faculty, the one before us has especially arrested our attention at this moment, as affording the occasion for a few remarks upon the Method of Church History. The discourse itself, without affecting learned or profound discussion, either on the general subject or on any special topic, gives a gratifying augury both of the spirit and the principles by which the historical instructions of this new Church School are to be characterised. The sound discretion, liberality of sentiment, elegant culture, devout spirit, scholarly and felicitous expression, by which different parts of this address are distinguished, conspire, with a coincidence of judgment upon most of the points touched, to make us wish for something still more elaborate and professional from the same pen. To this meagre account of a performance which we may suppose to be already in our readers' hands, we take the liberty of adding some reflections of our own, upon the same or kindred subjects, partly suggested or recalled by its perusal.

There is something remarkable in the actual condition of the study of Church History. While it seems to be receiving more and more cultivation from a few among us, it fails to command the general attention of the educated public in the same proportion. There is even some disposition to depreciate it theoretically to excess, but chiefly on the part of those who, in the very act of doing so, betray their own need of the discipline which nothing but such studies can afford. The raw and blustering polemic, who mistakes every fresh reproduction of exploded heresies for something peculiar to his own church or village, is very apt to sneer at the only pursuits which could have taught him better; and the self-inspired prophet or interpreter of prophecy, as well as the transcendental dreamer and declaimer, may be pardoned for their natural antipathy to history, as the science of facts and actual events. Of such she is sure to be avenged, sooner or later, when their own history

comes to be written, or, what is far more likely and more dreaded, left unwritten. But apart from these sporadie cases of avowed contempt for history, there is certainly a general indifference to historical theology, even among such as cherish no such prepossessions; an indifference which shows itself by negative rather than by positive expressions, or not so much by any expression at all, as by simply letting it alone, and failing to derive either pleasure or sensible advantage from the study. We are strongly of opinion that, beyond the requisitions of academical or professional examination, there is very little reading of Church History in any way, and that little rather as an irksome task, though only self-imposed, than as a congenial intellectual employment or indulgence. This fact is the more worthy of remark, because it is only in the way of copious continued reading con amore, that a real knowledge of history can be acquired. In the sciences, properly so called, whether physical or moral, much may be accomplished by mere dogged perseverance, under proper guidance, and with due attention to fixed laws and principles, even, so to speak, against the grain of taste or inclination. But historical knowledge, practical or permanent, to have any value, must be gained by laboriously yet willingly sifting grains of gold from heaps of sand, with this important difference between the literal and figurative process, that the gathering, and assorting, and laborious separation of the crude material is not, in the latter case, a necessary evil, to be gladly avoided by ingenious contrivances and labour-saving arts, but an absolutely necessary good, or means of good, without which the product gained by such economical or indolent expedients would be altogether worthless, not in itself, but relatively to the intellectual improvement of the person thus securing it. What we mean to express by this perhaps ill-chosen illustration is, that the dry details of history, the proper names, and dates, and technical divisions, furnished by the cheap compendium or the table of contents, so far from being the quintessence of the subject, to which copious reading only adds a mass of superfluous rubbish, is itself of little value to the individual student, except as the result of his own collective and constructive labour. This view of the matter has nothing to do with what is often falsely called the philosophy of history, but is strictly a lesson of experience, which all have learned for themselves who have attained to any clear and satisfactory acquaintance, not with notions or theories of history, but with its bare and stubborn facts.

We do not think it necessary to enlarge upon the grounds of this opinion, or the causes of the fact alleged, or to attempt a demonstration of its truth, which is sufficiently attested by

the actual experience of all successful history-readers, who are well aware that they must read much in order to learn even a little, and that no attempt to get at the little by itself can possibly succeed, because, for some cause, known or unknown, the laborious separation of the dross from the ore, and of the chaff from the wheat, seems in this case necessary to the value of the product or residuum. The utmost that the best historical instructor can contribute to the success of his disciples is incitement and direction, not abridgment of labour. He may stimulate attention and awaken curiosity, and suggest new combinations, and indeed new aspects of the truths acquired; but they still must be acquired by the pupil's patient yet spontaneous industry, which can no more be dispensed with or superseded by the teacher's combinations and arrangements, than a catalogue raisonné can answer for a library, or a glass case, with its shelves and pigeon-holes, supply the place of the specimens which ought to fill it.

If this be so, a want of interest in the study of Church History, not as a part of every modern theological curriculum, but as a favourite subject of professional and general reading, must be fatal to its influence and cultivation; and assuming, as we may do without much offence to any whose concurrence we are anxious to secure, that this is a result by no means desirable, especially in this age and country, where precisely such correctives of ignorant conceit and narrow bigotry are needed, we propose to offer some suggestions in relation to the probable causes of the existing state of feeling, which will be at least one step towards the discovery of a remedy.

The cause cannot be a want of interest in history, as such; for, in one form or another, it commands more readers than all other subjects; a fact sufficiently attested by the experience of "the trade," as it is technically called, and by the records of all lending libraries. Nor can it be the want of something to awaken curiosity and interest the cultivated mind in the peculiar nature of the subjects treated; for they are the very subjects as to which men's intellects and passions are most easily excited, when presented in a certain way, and which, in fact, do interest the great majority of sensible and well-informed readers, under any other shape than that which they assume as part and parcel of Church History. Discussions and intelligence connected with church organization or with points of doctrine are by no means unacceptable to multitudes of unprofessional readers of our public prints; while, to a more select and cultivated class of laymen, there is a peculiar attraction in the history of literature and opinion. Now, as these all enter largely, as constituent elements, into the structure of Church History, the almost universal want of taste for it must spring