proved. Nor did they ever desire to | tudes to which it has been subjected, assume a distinct or sectarian name or this alone has been its end and aim. character, or to separate themselves Amidst all the storms of sectarian from the denomination to which they controversy in which it has been were thus attached; but rather, in cradled and nurtured, it has sought for connexion with that body, to labor for itself, and proposed to others, as a Christian union, and the restoration | peaceful shelter, no other home than of the simple faith and institutions of A COMMON FAITH, founded upon the the gospel. The reformers separated rock of divine truth, and embosomed themselves, therefore, in no case. in the graceful foliage of liberty of They were in some cases separated by opinion. The Lutheran Reformathat body; in others, they outgrew tion, on the other hand, was occathe covert of its sheltering wings. sioned by gross corruptions of the most important doctrines of the gospel, as in the traffic of Tetzel and the bold assumptions of Leo, and hence a restless zeal for purity of doctrine possessed the early reformers, and spent its energies in theological debates, and in the elaboration of creeds and formularies. The same feature has remained prominent in Protestantism to the present hour. There is no question of anything but doctrine. It is a theory of religion that justifies or condemns. It is a creed or a confession that makes the saint or the sinner. Through the whole progress of this religious movement, it has been maintained, that sects and parties are the great obstacles to theultimate triumphs of the gospel, and that there is a basis of union upon which all true believers may be united as one body, while, at the same time, there need be no retrenchment of Christian liberty. In short, it has been the great design to urge the importance of the two truths which we have now under consideration, that there should be unity of faith, and at the same time liberty of private judgment. To reconcile these is a problem which Protestants have been endeavouring to solve for the last three hundred years. It is believed that in the principles of the present reformation its solution has been found. There has been, however, in the present effort for union, no desire to depreciate the value of purity of doctrine. But while it has been duly urged that there can be no Christian union, except it be a union in the gosThe circumstances in which this pel truth, there has been a freedom movement originated gave to it its from that morbid sensibility upon subcharacter, and directed it almost ex-ject of doctrinal views which has led clusively to this very question. It to so many fine-spun theological abwas provoked, at first, by a manifes-stractions, and created so many divitation of the most obstinate sectarian prejudice on the part of several leading denominations; and the virulence with which it has been opposed by the various parties during its progress, has only served to augment the proofs of its necessity, and to continue it in its original direction against the ramparts of sectarianism. Every thing derives its characteristics from that which gives it birth. This reformation was born of the love of union, and Christian union has been its engrossing theme. Amidst all the vicissi sions by unprofitable and unauthorized inquiry. In adopting the scriptures as the only source of religious knowledge, there is an ample, and the only security for purity of doctrine: in the reception of the simple gospel of Christ there is true evangelical faith; and, in the confession of the great fundamental truth of Christianity, there is a divine basis of union which can neither be overthrown nor controverted. It is in urging these, as the great fixed principles of union and co-operation, that the present re formation has sought to restore to the THE QUESTIONS OF THE CONSIDERED IN THEIR RELATION NO. III. THE STATE CHURCH. became disheartened, and said that at each period of social disorganization the God's deserted the world. From some cause unknown to Plato, MANKIND HAD TRAVELLED IN A VAST CIRCLE, yet the labours of the great Grecian produced some fruit. Among those who had listened to his instructions, there was one youth who possessed an intellect so sagacious, so restless and profound, that Plato recognized him as one of the greatest among men. This was he who, under the name of Aristotle, is known as having sown the seeds of the poliWHEN Plato was musing over the tical and inductive philosophy of our great problems of human destiny and times: yet these precious germs would the object of existence, that hard and have perished but for a system devegrasping intellect came to the mourn-loped in after times, which gave to ful conclusion, that there were periods in human history when the gods deserted the world, leaving men to the sole guidance of their limited reason, their The Grecian states had risen to erring feelings, and stormy passions. the zenith of their glory, and begun As he gazed on the past, he saw it to decline, when, in Central Italy, strewn with the wrecks of legislative there arose another nation, Roman, and philosophical systems-monu- or strong, both in body and in soul. ments of the baffled hopes, the futile Descended from robbers and outlaws labours of the greatest and best of of every Italian nation-men, whose the human race. The practical ten- hands had been against every man, dency of all the exertions of Grecian and every man's hand against them intellect had been the science of poli--whose life had been spent in a tics, yet every effort to constitute a continual struggle with constituted government that would minister and authority, and who had borne all the adapt itself to human progress had scorn which could be heaped upon been vain. them by their fellow-men-they possessed, in an eminent degree, the restless energy, the dauntless courage, and power of mind, which character the mind of man a capacity to comprehend and apply them to practical purposes. . When the philosopher scanned, with a retrospective eye, the political history and ancestral traditions of his own land, he saw that the warrior-ized their ancestors. As they inking had given place to the oligarchy; the oligarchy to the timocracy, or aristocracy of wealth: this, again, yielded to the democracy; and the latter, as a natural consequence, had changed into ochloracy, or mob-rule, when society having become a chaos, the iron hand of the primal despotism was once more needed the despotism itself undergoing the same changes it had formerly been subject to. And Plato, thinking that Time had nothing better to bestow on the human race, creased in strength, policy, fear, and the admiration which always follows great, and even perverted powers, induced the surrounding nations to enter into a political alliance with them; and as the Romans fell within the reach of milder influences, they became a people noted for valour, a rude and gigantic virtue, intense patriotism, and a sincere belief in the power and justice of the gods whom they adored. The inhabitants of the sunny South, and the burning climes of the East, where nature is clothed in such voluptuous beauty, have always been prone to represent the Divinity under a sensuous form. Their idea of God was, that he "Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees; Lives through all life, extends through all extent, Spreads undivided, operates unspent. But in the nations of the North, who dwelt in deep and sombre forests, or lofty mountains, there has always been a disposition to spiritualize, to invest their Divinity with the attributes of grandeur and sublimity. When the hunter saw the majestic pine riven asunder by the lightning, which came and departed in a moment, he could find no earthly emblem by which to represent such vast and dazzling power; or when the mountaineer heard the thunder echoed by his native hills, or the wind swept through the forests on their sides, he heard sounds which, to his ignorant and untutored mind, seemed nothing less than the voice of the Supreme Being. They impressed his imagination with feelings of such awe, that they defied embodiment. The Romans shared more largely in the latter feeling than in the Greek pantheism, and therefore were at first more distinguished for moral dignity; possessing valour, energy, a high degree of virtue, and an earnest religious faith, they were worthy of dominion, and sure to attain it. The Roman legions gradually subdued all the fairest countries of Europe, extinguishing in each of them, according to their stern policy, every remnant of national independence, and destroying every monument or edifice that could arouse any recollections of former glory; or if this did not suffice, carrying into effect the fearful maxim mentioned by Tacitus, "They made a solitude, and called it peace.' With such a policy as this, Rome could not fail to become an iron kingdom, such as the prophet saw in the symbolic statue, which pourtrayed the provi dence of God. The laws, language, and civilization of Rome were fixed unalterably in every conquered land. Prometheus chained to the rock, while the eagle devoured his entrails, was but a type of the nations under the sway of the City of the Seven Hills. Yet this crushing rule, in the hands of Providence, ministered to the future welfare of humanity. In an evil hour, the power of Rome was extended over Greece, now become degraded both in mind and morals; and, as if in a stern retribution, the men whom the proud soldiers utterly despised were the cause of their ultimate ruin. The love of art became diffused among the Romans, and while they despised the Grecian character, they admired the Grecian genius. The young patricians repaired to Athens to acquire intellectual refinement, most frequently at the expense of mental energy and moral dignity; for while they studied the Greek philosophy, they gradually became imbued with the spirit of scepticism. Though the premises of the philosophers were false, they enforced their conclusions with the most rigorous logic, and their pupils were compelled to relinquish their former faith; but when asked for some foundation-stones on which to build up their hopes, and on which they might find refuge in the dark hours of life, they received doubts and speculations alone: there might be a God, or there might not; there might be such a thing as moral truth, or there might not; and if the Roman said, "Though you have deprived me of a fixed belief in the immortality of the soul, in the existence of the everlasting gods, and the future recompense of man's works, still there is the light of nature, the innate consciousness of good and evil, which dwells in every man's heart, and to that will I now cling as an unerring guide," the philosopher might answer, "The light of nature an unerring guide! Reflect a little; you would ! that even, after the lapse of eighteen be reckoned accursed of the gods if you were to slay your aged parents. Travel eastward to the Scythians, and you will find that they regard it as a virtue to slay them, because they think that life must be a burden to the feeble and the aged. You would wish to put the Scythian to death for this act, and he would regard you as beneath contempt for not following his example. Where is now your boasted light of nature?" And the Roman found, too late, that if there was to be an unchangeable moral law, there must be an unchangeable God. Being thus deprived of a moral law and consoling faith, his energies and intellect were turned to the pursuit of the pleasures and excitements of the passing hour. All his nobler faculties stagnated, or were perverted from their original use, they were devoted either to refined sensuality, or the terrible game of civil war, and very frequently to both these unhallowed occupations. There could be no pleasing recollections of the past, and the future contained no hope. The sorrows and trials which attend life were as so much subtracted from the sum of his enjoyment; and as he approached the shore of the Dark River, it was not with a solemn joy, but with cold indifference, or dark despair. "Alas! for those that lay Down in the dust without their hope of old! Backward they looked on life's rich banquet day, But all beyond was cold. Every sweet wood-note then, centuries, we dare only partially draw the veil: it will be sufficient if we say that the Emperor Augustus gave a great reward to the man who had honourably fulfilled the duties of a husband and a father. To As the laws and manners of the age have a reflex action, what must have been the state of society when subjects were rewarded by their king if they had fulfilled the holy duties of the ordinance of marriage? the few great and noble spirits of the age, the world was only a dreary dungeon, faintly illumined by a few gleams of light, and many escaped by suicide from a world that was hell, and a life that was a burden ; and as the anarchy became greater, despotism once more arose as the result, and the chastiser of violated social law. MANKIND HAD TRAVERSED ANOTHER VAST CIRCLE. Philosophers, statesmen, moralists, kings, all had laboured in vain, and men clung, as a last hope, to an old and obscure tradition, the relic of happier times, which said that, in the world's greatest need, there would appear one who should be the Guide and Ruler of all, and who should restore the golden age. Nor were their expectations disappointed. This time the Divine Being made himself manifest, not as an avenger of crime, but as a beneficent being, who directed the wandering steps of man once more into the right path, which should only terminate at His And through the plane-trees every sunbeam's glow, eternal throne; and as the Spirit And each glad murmur from the homes of men, breathed on the rod of Aaron, causing it to put forth its ruddy blossoms, its green leaves and fruit, so, under the influence of the same Spirit, was human nature to produce blossoms and fruit which should never die. The Roman's sun went down in darkness, he "being without hope and without God in the world." But when the energies of the people had exhausted themselves even in civil One of Saade's Apologues may wars, then the vices of the patricians serve for a beautiful illustration of descended to all classes of society, this. He says, "One day I was the social ruin became complete, delighted by the odour of a piece of and the civilized world became a earth. Art thou musk? said I. Art scene of guilt so dark and shameless, thou amber?" It replied, "I am only common earth, but the rose grew from me; its beneficent virtue penetrated my nature. Were it not for the rose, I should be but common earth." rus, had taught that virtue could only be preserved by the denial of pleasure: Christianity showed to man how he might enjoy earthly happiness, and at the same time disclosed The earthly was to be elevated by the boundary line where, if crossed, communion with the Divine. MAN-pleasure becomes mingled with pain. KIND IN FUTURE WAS TO TRAVEL The doctrines of the philosophers ONWARD. And the means the DiIvinity provided for the continual progress of the human race was CHRISTIANITY. This system was distinguished from all others by the following features: restrained, and, as far as possible, de- Suave mari magno, turbantibus ventis It is pleasant during a great storm to behold from the shore the peril of some ship, tossed about by the furious winds and the stormy ocean. If we were to apply the spirit of the verses to our own words, we should give forth the following aphorism— "When we ourselves are very happy. it is a remarkably pleasant thing to see other people very miserable." This is rather a contrast to the Christian precept, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." There were Pharisees in intellect as well as in religion. Such was the spirit of ancient phi I. It was the only system which gave perfect liberty to the intellect, the virtues, and the energies of man. It gave perfect liberty to the intellect of man, inasmuch as it revealed to him the origin, the indestructibility, and immortal destiny of his own soul. It revealed to him the reason for God's permitting evil to exist in the world-a mystery too deep to be solved by any man apart from the Christian system. It pointed out the method by which man might be redeemed from the power of sin; the means by which he might triumph over the passions of his own heart. Moreover, it revealed to man the mys-losophy, which always urged a sepateries of the spiritual world, and the entire nature and attributes of God; it answered all the questions which had hitherto perplexed and baffled the human mind. All men had hitherto been chained down to the world which they inhabited; but Christianity gave a power by which the eye of faith could discern the past, the present, and the future; by which the humblest mind could comprehend the ultimate destiny of the world and its inhabitantsknowledge once denied to the very angels who bow before his throne. Lastly, it revealed to man that death, that awful mystery, was but the change to another and a progressive state of existence. It gave perfect liberty, by taking away every restraint from the virtues of man. The ancient philosophers, with the exception of Epicu ration from the profanum vulgus— the vulgar herd; but it was a characteristic of Christianity that it spontaneously called into action the feeling of sympathetic benevolence: it made the exercise of that sympathy a point of conscience; nay, more-the man who endeavoured to stifle it, or was deterred from its practice by any fear of consequences, perilled his own salvation. But of this principle we shall say more when we have travel-aled a little further on. It gave perfect liberty by taking away every restraint from the energies of man. God, having devised a system of morals and government, adapted to human nature, the energies which man had hitherto employed either for the acquisition of the chief rule in a city, a republic, and a monarchy, were now to be employed |