!

The Puritans, rebelling from a State church abroad, founded another according to their own taste in New England. To their great disappointment, sorrow and wrath, people refused to remain within the iron paling of their creed. The irrepressible life of the young nation burst their theocratic shell; and half a dozen new sects-each with its peculiar instrument and device-have taken up their positions in advance of the Puritan theology. How much dissension, rancor, and unhappiness all those seceders have occasioned Each, as he stepped into the arena, has repeated the gospel challenge" I came not to send peace, but a sword." The sword has flashed between conservative and reformer-between bigot and radical; and the halcyon day of peace has been continually adjourned. The war is not yet ended; we have, now and then, a truce, to enable us to repair damages, and to gain a new position; but no millennial and absolute peace. Is there any thing in all this to regret? Are any disposed to murmur at the decree? Does not the warfare pay its expenses? Have not all our conflicts, thus far, advanced the word of God in the conquest of error; and planted farther, and yet farther, into the mazy depth of the Infinite, the immutable landmarks of truth.

We have had our theological turmoil, ending in dissent and migration from the Orthodox fold. It was painful to part, not from a narrow creed which had began to gall us, but, from the social connexions with which that creed had become associated. It was painful to incur the reproach of friends, the alienation of kindred, and the rancor of bigots, by avowing what all men knew to be unpopular, and what most believed to be heretical. But we braved all for the sake of our consciences, and the compensating word of God; we enjoyed our liberty, sometimes, perhaps, at the price of our worldly interest; and our fidelity bears fruit in denominational organizations, ministry, schools, and literature, that must tend largely to the diffusion of religious knowledge, and the spiritual culture of a great people.

We have said that the Christian warfare is not finished. One aim has been measurably attained, in the partial subjection of atrocious dogmas, and the inauguration of a generous and reputable theology, based upon a critical

interpretation of the Scriptures. Liberal Christians and devout philosophers may congratulate themselves that the risen gospel of the nineteenth century, in cordial alliance with cultivated reason, has rebuked the nonsense of ecclesiastical tradition, and remanded its grim phantoms to their native chaos. The leading schools of Christendom are effectually delivered from the incubus and scandal of Mediæval theology. They have broken its dire enchantments, and unclasped its iron gyves. Whatever delusions may darken our future progress-whatever alarming shapes the clouds of speculation may assume-we shall not again be appalled by that tartarean firmament whereon superstition had painted a gorgon for a God, and by which the celestial luminaries were excluded from human life. Good men, who trust their own instincts and aspirations, and wise men, who reconcile the lights of nature and revelation, will battle, in the power of the Holy Spirit, against ecclesiastical dogmatism, until the heathenism of the church shall lie low with the fables of mythology, and divine truth vindicate its harmony and efficiency in every land.

While the gospel, aggressing upon error, organizes a rational theology for its form, it also aggresses upon moral evil, and generates the principle of universal love as its soul. For the application of this principle to the business and institutions of the world; for the incarnation of this soul in the Christian church-that the gospel may become, in verity as in prophecy, "the power of God unto salvation" -all good soldiers of Christ have yet to strive. The former victory was secured only by conflict, and by the temporary sacrifice of peace: we ought not to be surprised or disheartened if this involve similar cost. The other was worth the sacrifice, as we all now confess; this also will pay the charges, and give us an ampler revenue than we had before. The Lord is paymaster in all enterprises of this nature; he is engineer, contractor, overseer, and president of the board; his work does not fail, bankrupt or suspend; and all we have to do is to take hold of it manfully-never doubting, never faltering with expediency— and in due time receive the blessing with which he crowns all righteous service.

We put the more stress upon this obligation because it seems to us that the church, in most of its sectarian divisions,

wants faith in moral power, a clearer perception of moral distinctions, and a more vivid sense of responsibility, with reference to social and political evils. To justify this broad censure, one has only to mention the attitude of most of the ecclesiastical bodies in America toward slavery, the liquortraffic, and political corruption lavished in defence of these iniquities. The oldest and most influential branches of the self-named Evangelical church, are equally happy in ignoring the sin of the slaveholder and the rights of the slave; and pass with a nimble facility, from the exposure of heresy in a northern philanthropist, to an apology for injustice in a southern kidnapper. If that vast association, the Tract Society, may be said to represent the average moral sense of its patrons in its action on the slavery question, we may conclude that the popular religion of America has adopted a more speculative and less arduous mission than that of preaching deliverance to the captives, and training the mind of a great nation into the love of justice, magnanimity and honor.

This timidity and abasement of the churches before prosperous and gigantic sins, is due, fundamentally, to a distrust of moral power. We are cautioned, on all hands, against precipitate righteousness. We are advised to economize our virtue. Superlative abominations may be attacked obliquely, under shelter of diplomacy; but are not, on any consid eration, to be directly assailed. If we rightly apprehend the ecclesiastical discretion that spikes our heavy artillery, it would desolate the kingdom of Christ to pour a simultaneous cannonade into the slave power. If some impulsive gunner here and there, firing out of time, wounds one of its pettifoggers at Washington, or one of its blood-hounds in Kansas, the stability of Zion is perilled. Alas! how potent has the devil grown, since we must divide the heritage of the righteous with him, in order to enjoy our religion! Would it not be well, however, to confirm our confidence in our own cause, instead of perpetually magnifying his potency? Is the word of our God no more than breath, that men are so reluctant to trust themselves upon it? Their doubts shame their spiritual experience. Their timidity impeaches their moral perception. We have glanced at the great epochs of the gospel conquest in vain, if we have not been led to confess that truth and right are the mightiest

forces working among mankind; and that the solitary path of wisdom, in every age, leads to their invincible standards. Every Christian ought to be grounded in this conviction. If he have not this article in his creed, he is a practical infidel, though all the councils certify to his orthodoxy. We can pardon the man of the world for preferring material security. To the gross mind, brick bats are more potent than ideas. The Christian should have risen above these fallacies. In the kingdom of God a higher philosophy is taught, and truer perceptions are imparted. In that transparent atmosphere, all the truths and principles God has revealed are discovered leaning upon his own majestic omnipotence, and are seen to form but the van of a phalanx whose ascending columns are wrapt in the splendor of his throne. Can we peril any real interest, or forego any substantial enjoyment, by seeking service in a cause thus flanked and fortified?

It is a fallacy, as natural as it is pernicious, to suppose that all the conflicts in behalf of the gospel have been fought by our predecessors, and that nothing remains for us but to praise their fidelity, and enjoy the fruit of their labors. We flatter ourselves that the great folio of history is complete; and that the world has no more arduous task, henceforth, than to celebrate what has been achieved, and make epitaphs for the virtues that have become extinct forever. Now, this notion is so far from being correct, that every new age-every new phase of Christian development -presents a new problem, and involves a new conflict. The growth of society, the shifting interests of the world, the aggressive tendency of evil-no less than the irrepressible action of spiritual truth-all conspire to put the church into a martial attitude, to call into activity its latent vigor, and to impose peculiar claims and responsibilities. There is always something to be resisted-something to be achieved; and there is always an appeal to our faith and courage. The old battles commemorated in history were assaults upon special phases of moral evil; we have the same enemy to assail, in different manifestations. There is a change of circumstances, and a modification of conditions; but every church must fight the special sin that threatens its integrity; and our great Captain will not disband a single battalion,

till the sword of the Spirit shall be sheathed in the victory of God over all that dishonors his image in man.

We are not here alone to read history, but also to create it. We are not here to build monuments to ancestral heroism, but to emulate and augment what the memory of man has treasured. We are not here to garnish the sepulchres of the Prophets; but to kindle at the fire of their devotion, and wear the mantle of their fidelity.

E. W. R.

ART. VI.

Divine Sovereignty.

WHEN Paul announced to the Romans, that God had designedly made men to differ—that of his own good pleasure, he had made one vessel to honor and another to dishonor-that it is not of him that willeth, or of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy-that he had raised up Pharaoh expressly that he might, in him, show his power, and make his name to be declared throughout the earth, he presented an important and fundamental truth. He also anticipated the objection that would be raised, by adding: "Thou wilt say to me, Why doth he yet find fault? for who hath resisted his will?" From that time to the present, when Christians have made use of the same truth, the same objection has been raised. If God is the sovereign ruler, and doeth all things after the counsel of his own will-if it is God that worketh in us, both to will and to do of his good pleasure, why doth he yet find fault? who hath resisted his will? If God thus governs all things, how can man be accountable? how can he be free? Wherein is he not a mere machine? In what we propose now to offer, we desire to say, in the outset, that with those who deny that God governs, we have at present no controversy. Let such first embrace Christianity, the corner-stone of which is a recognition of an almighty and all-wise God who created and governs all things. Admit