nection running through certain variations of doctrine, while history itself does not show it. It is rather his own interpretation of history than the affirmation in simple language of the history itself. He finds very often a "bent," as he expresses it, from which start particular lines of doctrine, true or false, distinguishing particular writers, or schools, or ages. The proper discovery and tracing out of the threads of connection between events or opinions, the opening of the process by which, from germs of doctrine important systems or results have been developed, form one of the most instructive and interesting portions of a historian's office. But the development must be historical, not merely an operation of the writer's own mind. Romish writers have presumed to see a connec tion in the way of development between Protestantism and Manicheism, and with about as much ground for it as Mr. Newman has for claiming the hairy garments of the prophets and the wilderness retreat of Elijah as the seed out of which the monastic system of the Middle Ages grew, or the language of the psalm, "Thou shalt tread upon the lion and the adder," as the root planted in the Old Testament for the necessary growth of the Papal power in the Christian Church.

The influences of one mind on another, of one age on another, the growth of a great system out of a small germ of doc, trine or opinion, may be often traced in history. The influence of Plato on many minds in the early Church and that of Aristotle on those of after ages, is easily perceived. The impulse given to theology, as a system, by Augustin and by Anselm, has been felt in the Church of all later times and will continue to be felt. But we are not to see developments where history does not guide us. The stress of controversy has at times forced the advocates of truth to precision in their conceptions, and it may be to unwonted definitions. But the faith itself has not and never can change. That is fixed "with an iron pen and lead in the rock forever." The living word of God can never die nor change. The words Trinity, and consubstantiation, and original sin are not found in the Bible, but the truths expressed by them are. The words are the clothing of the truths made necessary by the rough times of contention, in order to protection. The principles of right and justice

contained in the decalogue can never change nor ever be added to, but the application of those principles to particular times, and the necessity of definitions in order to suit the cases of such as would, by perversely ingenious construction, evade general laws, bring in terms of law which are not to be found in the books of Moses, but which are not, for that reason, to be regarded as innovations or unwarrantable additions. They may be regarded as merely the translation of the immutable or elementary principles of law into the indispensable language of the courts of the times. The words Trinity and consubstantiation are translations of the simple testimony of the inspired writers into the language of dogmatic creeds, creeds whose terms are made necessary by the heretical perversions of men, who, to get rid of the truth, would take advantage of the elementary or simple words of Scripture. Our Saviour, in scriptural language, is the Son of God. Men who, while using this language, would pervert its sense, may say he was the Son of God as Adam was, or angels, or good men. To assert his divinity then in opposition to such perversion, we say in the creed he is of one substance with the Father. But we can not here pursue the topic further.

Neander's style is diffuse, and not always perspicuous. This gives it, for the minds of many readers, a dullness which wearies. He pursues some subordinate matters to undue length, as perhaps in the cases of Otto of Bamberg, and Lanow and Huss, and often indeed in biographies. The great powers of his mind, and his intense application, sometimes act as the digestive function, especially in the process of assimilation. It is not always the Christian father or the missionary himself whom we see through Neander's pages, but the substance of the one or the other assimilated in the historian's mind. The great merits. of the history are its learning, its systematic arrangement of subjects, its calmness and moderation, and its fullness as to material.

Gieseler's work is one of the most scientific of the German Church Histories. Its order or arrangement is deemed superior to most of them. Its notes are its great excellency, because of their being citations from the original authorities, and in the original languages. The text is bald and cold, though

clear, and filled with the substance of the history. It serves as an admirable manual and guide, but from its very peculiarity as such, must be wanting in details. It is, by itself, insufficient as a history.

Dr. Schaff's work, the one last named at the head of this article, is the most recent. The author began a history a few years ago on a larger scale, and published (in 1854) an octavo volume on the "History of the Apostolic Church," which was intended to be an introduction to a history of the Church to the present time. The original plan would have made the work quite voluminous; would have required many years for ts completion-too many, perhaps, for the life of one manand would not, from its extent, have answered well as a textbook. The author has, therefore, in this new volume, given the substance of the original one, and embraced the history of the Church to the time of Constantine's obtaining the crown of the Roman Empire. We trust he will have health and time to finish what he has so well begun. We think this volume, so far as it goes, better fitted to the wants of American readers of Church History than any other to which we have access. We do not pledge ourselves to all of the author's statements and opinions. But his Catholic spirit and candor prevent all occasion of offense. He writes more like an AngloSaxon than Neander or Hase or almost any other German author of Church History. We could wish he had referred more frequently to great British authors on some of the topics of his history. His German (German-Swiss) birth and German education inclined him, of course, to familiarity with writers in his own tongue. To some of these, as Baur, because perhaps of personal acquaintance and early association, he may give unnecessary attention. Having been a pupil of Neander, he would naturally defer much to that great master in Church History, and fall in with his mode of viewing important questions. And with all his veneration for the modern Father of Church History, he sees faults in his great work, both in the positions taken in regard to important questions, and in the style. Professor Schaff is far enough removed from the ration alizing temper which has distinguished great German theologians. He has no sympathy with those who would in any de

gree impair the authority of the text of the Bible, or get rid of the creeds of the Church Universal. But our present concern is not with theological questions. Dr. Schaff's history is the work of an author who loves his subject, enters into it with all his heart, and so is prepared to write with liveliness of style, and to bring to view the great features of the times to which he refers. His style shows at times the glow of a mind fully engaged upon the subject before him, and bent on imparting to others the life and fervor with which he himself pursues his object. We shall not stay to note points in which we are not prepared to hold with him. His honesty and candor and genial spirit are such as to win our respect, even while we depart from him. The excellences of his work are to be found in its bringing before us the full fruits of the labors of the best previous explorers; in testing all things by an application of the original authorities; in the systematic arrangement of the material according to the most approved method; in perspicuity of style; and preeminently in the liveliness and heartiness and full sympathy with the subject which distinguish this production.

There are other important German works on Church History which have been brought out in an English dress, such especially as that of Hase, which is of much value as a manual, but which, as we think, crowds too much material within the compass of one volume. The work of Guericke we consider to be well worth the translation undertaken by Professor Shedd, of Andover. We hope the translator will complete his undertaking. Guericke is a very strict Lutheran, and takes side very warmly in the contest between the Lutherans and the Reformed in Germany. But this hardly appears in the early portions of his work. Late years have given birth in Germany to yet other volumes of ecclesiastical history, which have acquired much reputation, as those of Dr. Kurtz, of Dorpat, Dr. Ritter, (a Roman Catholic,) and others. To the class of writings called monograms, the Germans have given much attention. They are most valuable contributions. to the history of particular times of the Church, especially when their subjects are the men who have stamped their own

character on their ages. The Lives of Chrysostom and of Bernard by Neander, and of Chrysostom by Perthes, of Anselm by Hase, and of Gregory of Nazianzum by Ullman, and of Augustin by Schaff, belong to this class. Wigger's "Augustinism and Pelagianism" is virtually a life of Augustin, so far at least as his doctrines are concerned. Such works, properly executed, are among the most valuable contributions to the history of Christianity. Chrysostom in the East, and Augustin in the West, (he was, in style of thought and in tongue, of the Latin Church, though a North-African,) represented in their times the features of the respective portions of Christendom to which they belonged. The former, by his brilliant eloquence and his high tone of Christian duty, stirred especially his own age, without leaving much to shape the doctrinal views of later times. The latter, by his profounder thinking on the mysteries of the fall of man and of the sovereignty of God in salvation through grace, and by his transcendent earnestness and energy, left the stamp of his own mind not only on the men of his own times, but on some of the most devout, gifted, and vigorous spirits of all ages. The influence of Anselm, whose theology was of the type of Augustin, may be seen in the systematic divinity of our own days. When going out as the defender of the Pope, he was on troubled waters, where we see not much else than the Romish Churchman, battling with refractory monarchs, and with hardly less refractory priests. But within the quiet shelter of his own study, he finds time and repose for some of the profoundest inquiries which have ever employed the thoughts of the greatest divines. He can write his Cur Deus homo, setting the current of systematic thought on the Incarnation of the Son of God and on the ques tion of redemption, for all following ages, his Monologium and Proslogium anticipating the studies of all later writers on the Ontological argument for the existence of God; and can calmly survey the field of "Logic in Theology" in regard to the question of the "Freedom of the Will," hardly leaving room for an original view by Jonathan Edwards himself. The lives of such men must then be of highest moment for il lustrating great stages of ecclesiastical and doctrinal history,