Church through elective Synods or Conferences, was in most parts of Germany almost entirely unknown. Since then, however, the introduction of synods has made great progress, and at present the synodal system has been for some time in full operation in Bavaria, the kingdom of Saxony, Wurtemburg, Baden, Hesse, Oldenburg, and Brunswick; it has recently been introduced, or will soon be introduced, in all the Saxon Duchies. In all the States named, as well as in Alsace-Lorraine, in Waldeck, and the free cities, the constitution of the Church is chiefly Presbyterian. Prussia has had Protestant Synods in its western provinces for many years, but in the eastern provinces their introduction is of very recent date, the first elections to the provincial synods having taken place during the present year. A General Synod of the Prussian kingdom is now likely to meet ere long. The political and national union of all the German States, which, after so protracted struggles, was successfully established in 1871, has created a wide-spread wish for the closer union of the German Protestant Churches and the establishment of an "Imperial Synod," (Reichssynode.)

The way for such a national union of the Churches and the establishment of an imperial synod has been somewhat prepared by the "Evangelical Church Conference," a periodical meeting of delegates of the several Protestant Church governments of Germany. The object of these meetings is to have a free exchange of opinion on important religious questions, and to promote a closer union between the Churches of the different States. The first impulse to the convocation of these meetings proceeded as early as 1815 from the king of Wurtemburg, but the first actual conference was not held until 1846, when delegates of the supreme Church Boards of all the German States, except Austria, Bavaria, Oldenburg, and the free cities, assembled at Berlin. The meetings have generally been held biennially, and, since 1852, always at Eisenach, the city near which, in the ancient castle of Wartburg, Luther composed his German translation of the Bible. In 1852 a central official organ was established to publish the decrees of all the supreme Boards of the German States. Among the results of the meetings of this Conference are the following: Resolutions in behalf of a better observance of Sunday, and in favor of giving to congregations the right of co-operation in the appointment of ecclesiastical officers; resolutions relating to the revival of Church discipline, and to reforms in the legislation concerning divorces; the introduction of a prayer for the German fatherland, to be used every Sunday in every Protestant Church of Germany; resolutions on liturgical matters, on the examinations of theological students, on the revision of the Lutheran Bible, on the best way of collecting the statisties of the Protestant Churches.

The last meeting of the Church Conference was held in June of the present year. It was not so numerously attended as some of the former meetings, only eleven of the twenty-six German States being represented, besides Austria, which, though politically excluded from Germany, continues to send a delegate of its supreme Protestant Church Boards to the FOURTH SERIES, VOL. XXVI.—42

meetings of the Conference. As regards the proceedings and the resolutions, the meeting of the present year was the most important of any yet held. One of the resolutions provides for the admission of elective delegates of the synods to future meetings of the Church Conferences in addition to the delegates appointed by the Church Boards, and another resolution recommends the introduction of Church synods into every German State where they do not yet exist, and the completion of the synodal system wherever it is still incomplete. Both resolutions will smooth the way for the convocation of an imperial synod, in which all the Protestant Churches of Germany will be represented.

ART. VIII.-QUARTERLY BOOK-TABLE.

Religion, Theology, and Biblical Literature.

THE CHRISTIAN STANDARD AND HOME JOURNAL. Article, Dr. Crane's Book and the Quarterly Review.

This new paper (successor to the late "Methodist Home Journal ") takes a position explicitly outside our Church, yet has for its editor a Methodist D.D., (Rev. Dr. Lowrey,) and for its specialty the Wesleyan doctrine of Holiness. It seems to possess a sort of official character as organ for a certain affiliation, who have taken that specialty under their peculiar patronage, and the new editor early shows a sense of his high office by impeaching the sound Wesleyanism of our QUARTERLY REVIEW. This is of slight import, as we never had any intention of taking a certificate of soundness from that office. And the article itself is unimportant, except as furnishing a text for a long-needed discussion, and as an indication of the position of this new organ, showing the editor to be an advocate of a doctrine nearer to the type of George Bell than of John Wesley.

OUR DOCTRINE IS WESLEYAN.

The correctness of our views of this doctrine is altogether a past question not in the power of Dr. Lowrey to re-raise. During the whole of our ministerial life we are unaware that such an insinuation was ever made, until this rash article of this rash man. The same views our readers will find in our note on Matt. v, 8, and v, 48, and in the Sermon on the Mount generally. In April, 1862, at the request of Dr. Parks, editor of the "Bibliotheca Sacra," we published an elaborate article on the "Doctrines of Methodism" in that journal, which was read in MS. with perfect

approval by Gilbert Haven, was republished in full by Dr. (afterward Bishop) Edward Thomson in the "Advocate," and by Dr. E. O. Haven, editor of "Zion's Herald;" and would have been issued by the latter as a pamphlet, but he was threatened with a legal injunction from the publisher of the "Bibliotheca Sacra." The article is commended by Dr. M'Clintock, in his Cyclopædia, as a standard statement of our Arminianism, and part of our section on Christian Perfection is quoted. For twelve years it has stood before the Church unchallenged. As the definition and statement are nearly the same as in our notice of Dr. Crane's book, we republish that section on p. 644. We give it both to show that our views have received the highest indorsement in the Church, and because it may illustrate more fully the condensed statement in our notice. We give it, preceded by the paragraph on the DIVINE LAW, which our readers will soon see has an important bearing on the true Wesleyan doctrine of sanctification.

NATURE OF THE ASSAULT..

The reasons for this unexpected and unprovoked attack upon us appear to us to be these: First, in order to show themselves as the sole and necessary champions of the specialty they have selected, it is of the first importance for certain brethren to make people believe that the Book Rooms are unwilling to publish the proper books on the subject, and that the editor of the highest periodical is unorthodox; and, second, the editor of the QUARTERLY did refuse to join in a purpose to personally victimize Dr. Crane. By letter and by interview, we had been made to understand that Dr. C. had now destroyed "all his hopes of ecclesiastical preferment," and we were urged to "speak out," so that he should be put down reputationally and officially. On comparing these private communications with certain public expressions, we confess we became indignant at so evident a scheme of proscription, and especially that we should be expected to become its instrument.* Fully of the opinion that Dr. Crane, with his one

* The nature of these private communications is indicated by the following extracts from public expressions. This first is from the "Advocate of Holiness," a paper lately published in Boston, but now merged in Dr. Lowrey's Standard : "It [Dr. Crane's book] comes from a man holding official position in the Church, placed there by the appointing power, and, what is a still greater outrage, it is issued under the sanction of our publishing house, which is set as the guardian of our theological literature. . . . These destructionists will find that there is a conservative element in the Church which will ere long demand that they take their hands off this ark of God, and allow this heaven-given truth to have free course and be glorified. We call upon those who have authority in such cases

doctrinal error, is altogether their superior in learning, ability, services to the Church, moral position and personal piety, we promptly determined that this purpose should get no aid from us, so far as he was personally concerned. And that is the reason we apprehend why Dr. Lowrey is very dissatisfied at what he calls, very incorrectly, our indorsement of the book.

Now, look at this picture. Our beloved brother, Dr. M'Cabe, offered to us, as editor, a MS. on the subject of Holiness, in which he proposed to furnish some new views to elucidate the doctrine. Knowing his learning, piety, and genuine loyalty to Christ and our common Church, we did think that the Church had a right to hear him. His specialty was that the essence of the soul is changed in sanctification. The doctor, of course, did not even claim that it was Wesleyan. The editor passed the book to the agents and it was printed. When noticed in the QUARTERLY, it was treated just as we treated Dr. Crane's; that is, the author was mentioned with perfect respect and delicacy, but his specialty disapproved, as neither Wesleyan nor philosophical. Only in Dr. Crane's case we repeatedly declared his view un-Wesleyan, and then made such an elaborate re-statement of the Wesleyan doctrine as to exclude and crowd his theory out of existence. Now where, in the instance of Dr. M'Cabe, were the loud thunders of these our ultraorthodox brethren? Why did they not spring upon the unWesleyan doctor, aim to destroy his influence, and deprive him of office, and then rebuke the Book Concern for publishing false theology? For just this reason: they held Dr. M'Cabe as in affinity with themselves; so that it comes to about this conclusion, that heresy on their side is venial, and heresy not on their side is mortal. Our view, on the contrary, is, first, that even such men as these two noble doctors have no right to use our pulpits to raise schism among our people, and may be restrained therefrom by proper authority. But, second, when they appeal to the higher mind of the Church through the press, they should be met and kindly neutralized by the press and by the unanimity of the higher mind of the Church. Not till their animus appears obstinate and factious should any thing be done affecting their personality. Neither of these brethren has done any thing of the kind. They are both able, true, and holy men. They have neither said nor

to see that the Church is protected against such outrages; for such want of official integrity should not be allowed to pass unnoticed."

The following is from the "Guide to Holiness:" "I felt so cheated by the book, that after a careful reading I put it into the stove, where I was sure it would do no harm."

done any thing requiring the Church to withdraw from them her most perfect love, or withhold from them her highest honors. We would just as readily have sheltered our Brother M'Cabe from assault as we have Dr. Crane. The free spirit of the Methodist Episcopal Church will hardly accept this effort of these brethren first to take an outside position; outside of all official editorship, and even outside the Church itself, and thence to flourish their proscriptions over us all. Failing to smite down Dr. C. through our means, they heroically aim to smite down the editor of the QUARTERLY. In both cases they deal not purely with the argument; they strike at the man.

Dr. Crane, like many others of the purest and holiest men in our Church, has been impressed with what seems to them a vast amount of both false showiness and extravagance under the guise of sanctification, with which much of the present hour is disfigured, and he wished to furnish a conservative remedy. He attempted this, we think, on a mistaken basis, a platform outside the Wesleyan doctrine. He forgot that Wesleyanism furnishes not only the animating but the conservative element united in mutual countercheck. Its doctrines are beautifully symmetrical. As conservative check, Wesley presents before us the absolute penalty of the divine law, damning us for even the slightest so-called "infirmities." He presents the full interval between us and unfallen Adam in its ample breadth. And then, his pages of caution to the followers of George Bell are providentially on record. These conservative forces, if brought out and emphasized, are ample and adequate to the purpose of blowing off all the froth and "fury signifying nothing" with which these errorists are trying to overlay the cause of the higher Christian life.

NO INDORSEMENT.

Dr. Lowrey, in characterizing our Notice of Dr. C.'s book as an indorsement of Dr. Crane's views, as he does at length and repeatedly, very unjustifiably conceals from his readers the fact that our book-notice of near three pages was a strong re-statement of the Wesleyan doctrine; as completely contradicting and crowding out of existence Dr. Crane's Zinzendorfian* positions as

We have been inadvertently led by Dr. Lowrey's loose language to call Dr. Crane's view Zinzendorfian. But Dr. C. is at world-wide distance from Zinzendorf. The latter held, indeed, that entire sanctification took place at justification. But his sanctification was imputed. That is, he held that at justification the entire perfect holiness of Christ became ours, so that we were once and forever entirely sanctified, how much soever we might sin. It was, therefore, the perfection of Antinomianism.