ence, the most vivid conception of energy, earnestness, goodness, and sincerity.

Nor need we say how closely and exactly these two writers sympathize in view and feelings. Dr. Arnold, to select one passage out of many, speaks thus in his correspondence (vol. ii. p. 265,) of the Chevalier Bunsen, I scarcely know one amongst my dearest friends, except Bunsen, whom I do not believe to 'be in some point or other in gross error.'

M. Bunsen speaks not less strongly in the following words:

:

'It is a token full of comfort, that in our own age no one has conceived and presented the truth of the universal priesthood of Christians with so much life, and in such close connexion with the very marrow of Christian doctrine, and has made it tell once more so powerfully, convincingly, and extensively against the assumptions of the clergy church, as another clergyman of the Episcopal Church of England-Arnold. That truth was the centre point from which he started in all his thoughts and researches, and the deep and immovable foundation of his spiritual convictions with regard to the Church. The spirit of this revered apostle of the free Church of the Future, departed before he had completed the great work of his life, his book on the Church. He has been taken from amongst us before the stern combat has begun in earnest on either side. But he has left to his own people, whose love and veneration is his worthiest monument, and to us all, a living and life-inspiring testimony, not only in his writings, but in his whole life, the model of an enlightened, faithful, and disinterested inquirer after Christian truth, and of a spirit of love and humility, not less than of freedom and power.'-Church of the Future, p. 221.

We have quoted these passages in order to show merely the sympathy and close agreement of these two writers in views and feelings. Let us add to them others, which express the opinion they entertain of the present crisis in the history of the Church, their judgment of past times, and their expectation of the immediate future.

Liberty of conscience,' says Mr. Bunsen, describing the present religious state of Christendom, has been won, and civil liberty secured. Freedom without religion will no longer satisfy the Romanic nations, nor religion without freedom the Germanic. Among the leading nations of Europe, science has been invested with its proper privileges, either by the free consent of the rulers and clergy, or as the necessary consequence of civil liberty. Freedom of conscience has come to be considered as implied in the very idea of liberty, even in countries where as yet but little sense of personal moral responsibility is awakened: private judgment in spiritual matters," (that is, the application to them of reason and conscience,) recognised on the one side as a right, and on the other declared to be a duty, is exercised by many, is demanded by all.... The harmonious interchange of power between heaven and earth is restored: the charm between the visible and invisible is spanned: the barrier between the secular and the spiritual is broken down .... Thus the world has entered upon one of those great critical epochs, when nations either unfold new powers of life, or perish. We believe they will do the former. Now or never is the time for governments and nations to come to a clear understanding with respect to Christianity, the import of the Church and her constitution.'—Bunsen, p. 28.

The Church, at the Reformation, first began to appear in the world in that full reality of which its former existence was but a shadow.' P. 67. 'He (Luther) saw clearly the impossibility of making the husk of the perishing part contain the fruit of the new life just commencing.' P. 26. 'It is undeniable that the old forms are perishing, and that men, consciously or unconsciously, are striving on all sides to arrive at a new and more perfect organization of the Church.' P. 48.

We, for our part, betake ourselves in faith to the open sea of the freedom of the spirit.' P. 59.

'We must get rid of the narrowness and confused terminology of the ClergyChurches, and endeavour, in faith and love, to draw forth our proposed restoration, according to the true idea of the Church, from the inmost heart of the present, not to construct it out of the dead bones of the past.' P. 84. Dr. Arnold's language is not materially different from this:'So when the husk cracks, and would fain fall to pieces by the natural swelling of the seed within, a foolish zeal labours to hold it together: they who would deliver the seed are taxed with longing to destroy it; they who are smothering it, pretend that they are treading in the good old ways, and that the husk was, is, and ever will be essential. And this happens because men regard the form and not the substance; because they think that to echo the language of their forefathers, is to be the faithful imitators of their spirit; because they are blind to all the lessons which nature teaches them, and would for ever keep the eggshell unbroken, and the sheath of the leaf unburst, not seeing that the wisdom of winter is the folly of spring.'-Fragm. of the Church, p. 121.

We think, that if any person carefully considers these passages which we have quoted, he will agree that it is not unimportant to remark the very peculiar and strong expressions in which these two writers describe each other. It is the deliberate meaning of both, that we have reached a time in which the past constitution of the Church is as a husk, about to break with a seed full of new life, or as an egg about to open and develope a new and hitherto unseen being. Each proposes a complete restoration, or reformation, and one which will set at nought, as corrupt and useless, all that the Church has held and thought on the subject for eighteen hundred years. Each regards the other as the one man who has adequately conceived and duly represented the true idea of that which is to succeed to the obsolete and decayed Church of the past. It is really not venturing, then, at all beyond the exact and literal truth to represent them both, as being, each in the other's judgment, what Mr. Bunsen calls his lamented friend, the Apostles of the 'Church of the Future.'

The Apostles of the Church of the Future! It is a startling sound; one, which may well startle those who thought they already lived, and were happy and peaceful in thinking so, in a Church of the past, the present, and the future, built upon "the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the head corner-stone.'

Let us then, in all seriousness, set ourselves to examine the grounds of this startling, and wonderful title: which, though it may not have been assumed with the lofty meaning which we have assigned to it, does really not exceed the vocation with which these two writers appear to regard themselves as designated to open the husk of the hitherto imperfect and undeveloped Church, and usher into destined life its new and more perfect organization. Let us ask for the signs, the tokens, the proofs from God. If these be not forthcoming, let us demand what are the arguments which are exhibited, in order to induce us to believe that the Church of God, corrupted in the first age, went on deepening its guilt and evil till the sixteenth century after Christ; that then it began to appear in the world in that full reality of which its former existence was but a shadow; that a dead and dreary period has elapsed since, during which all Church polities rest either on the remains of the earlier period, or on the mere negation of it; that now both of those things, the ruins of the old Clergy-Church, as well as those modern 'systems which are built up upon the mere denial of what was 'false in it,' must be swept away, in order to make room for the living restoration of the Church?

The answer is simple. These two writers claim to have found out, from the Scriptures, that the Episcopal Constitution of the Church Universal as held for sixteen hundred years was not only a corruption of the original divine institution, but a corruption so gross that it is heresy to esteem it necessary to Church membership on the part of individuals; a corruption so early and universal, that the germs of the mischief may be here and there discernible'' in the first Christian writers,-that this false and superstitious notion of a Church-the very mystery of iniquity-began in the first century, and had no more to do with Rome in the outset, than with Alexandria, Antioch, or Carthage; that the Church, early in the second century, was ready to slide into the doctrine of a priesthood, with all its accompanying corruptions of Christian truth;" a corruption so total, that now, the true and grand idea of a Church, that is, a society for the purpose of making men like Christ,-earth like heaven,—the kingdoms of the world the kingdom of Christ,-is all lost; a corruption so shocking, that if,' says Mr. Bunsen, an angel from heaven should manifest to me that, by introducing, or advocating, or merely favouring the intro'duction of such an episcopacy' (as should be esteemed, 'on principle and catholically,' necessary to the due constitution of

6

93

1 Bunsen, p. 68.
2 Arnold, p. 58.
Arnold, p. 123.

3 Arnold, Corresp. ii. 61. 5 Arnold, Corresp. ii. 15.

the Church, and so to the full membership of Christians,) into any part of Germany, I should not only make the German 'nation glorious and powerful above all the nations of the world, but should successfully combat the unbelief, pantheism, ' and atheism of the day-I would not do it: so help me God. ' Amen.'1

6

They claim to have discovered, instead of this immemorial, universal, episcopal constitution (episcopal, we mean, as a matter of principle and catholically') another.

Of this newly discovered constitution, it does not matter though there should be no traces either in the writers of the early Church, or in the early Church institutions. Dr. Arnold does, indeed, condescend to adduce the writers of the early Church as witnesses to his hypothesis: but he takes good care that his readers should understand how great a condescension he makes in so doing.

The chapter which I am now going to write,' he says, 'is, in truth, superfluous. Nay, although its particular object were proved ever so fully, yet this would be a less gain than loss, if any were by the nature of the argument encouraged to believe that we are to seek for our knowledge of Christianity any where else but in the Scriptures. What we find there is a part of Christianity, whether recognised as such or no in after ages: what we do not find there is no part of Christianity, however early or however general may have been the attempts to interpolate it.'-Arnold, p. 47.

In this temper he begins his examination of early writers. After adducing various passages from them, and applying to them, we cannot but think, more forced and unnatural modes of interpretation than any ordinary principles will justify, he concludes by rejoicing that he is spared the pain of believing that Christianity was grossly corrupted in the very next gene'ration after the Apostles by the men who professed themselves to be the Apostles' true followers." So that in the former passage he shows how little he is disposed to esteem even the universal voice of Christendom, unless it should coincide with his own individual views of Scriptural interpretation, whilst in the latter he almost proclaims how unhesitatingly he would have rejected even the most primitive records of the PostApostolic Church, if they had resisted his strong explanatory wrestings. Indeed, we can hardly conceive language stronger to this point than Dr. Arnold's in another place:

'Thus, then, as the Scriptures wholly disclaim these notions of a human priesthood; as the perfection of knowledge to which they would have us aspire consists in rejecting such notions wholly; it is strictly, as I said, superfluous to inquire into the opinions of early Christian writers, because, if these uphold the doctrine of the priesthood ever so strongly, it would but show

1 Bunsen, Corresp. p. xlvii.

2 Arnold, p. 117.

that the state of mind of which the Epistle to the Hebrews complains, was afterwards more universal, and more remote from Christian perfection.'Arnold, p. 57.

Is there not something marvellous, as a mere piece of natural history, in the confidence with which this writer holds his own personal interpretations of Holy Scripture?

But we must allow writers of such powers to unfold their Church theory for themselves. It is in a beautiful passage, of which the following is an extract, that Mr. Bunsen begins the statement of his view.

'All religions whatever have for their inward ground that feeling of need which springs from the interruption of man's union with God by sin, and for their final object that re-union for which, however dimly and uncertainly, men were encouraged to hope. All their sacrifices were attempts at this restoration, founded on this hope. But it was not possible that such attempts should ever fully realise that to which they aspired; and this for two reasons : in the first place, because, if considered as mere symbolical outward acts, they could of course effect nothing in a matter where that which is essentially inward, namely, the moral disposition of the heart towards God, is concerned: and in the second place, because it was not in man's power really to consummate that inward act, which their outward sacrifices expressed. Perfect thankfulness is only possible for the man who feels himself perfectly at one with God; and, therefore, that divided feeling with respect to God, which, as we have said before, is the prominent feature in man's religious sentiment, prevents the feeling of separation, of sin, of alienation from God, from being ever permanently merged in thankfulness. And thus the soul, although thankful, and ready to offer itself in thankfulness as a living sacrifice unto God, is necessarily driven to the other pole. The desire of union awakens the sense of distance and of guilt; the sin-offering is felt to be needed. But on this side it is still more out of man's power to consummate the sacrifice. For to this end the perfect innocence and sinlessness of the sacrificer is, in the very first place, necessary; but how can any man lay claim to this? and, if not for himself, how then for others,-for the family, or the nation? The consciousness of sin, of imperfection, of alienation, accompanies the worshipper even to the altar. He surrenders his most cherished possession, he invokes upon the head of the victim which stands in his place all that vengeance of God with which his conscience tells him his own head is threatened: he even, in his madness, offers the head of his beloved child as a sacrifice to the offended Deity. But still in the heart abides the feeling of God's anger : every misfortune, every pain, every bereavement, is to him a witness of this wrath, of this alienation.. The great atonement, or sin-offering, of mankind was consummated by Christ, by means of his personal sacrifice: the great thank-offering of mankind became possible through Christ by means of the Spirit.'-Bunsen, pp. 6-10.

From these premises Mr. Bunsen thus draws his conclusion :

، There can henceforth be no more human, and therefore typical, mediators between God and man; for the Mediator, the High Priest, is himself God: no more acts of mediation (sacrifices) can henceforth exist, as means of producing inward peace and satisfaction in the conscience, for the true sacrifice of atonement has once for all been offered, and the true sacrifice of thanksgiving is continually being offered.'--- Bunsen, p. 11.