new life; but this is not all: the representation is a type, an example, and more, for what Christ does itself produces the similar result in us. It is His union with the Christian that assimilates the Christian to Himself. Thus it will be seen that Prof. Du Bose gives up the idea of any vicarious work of Christ apart from us; yet he holds to a very real conception of the work of Christ on our behalf, viz., that Christ truly brings about reconciliation, and the putting away of God's wrath as well as our personal regeneration. The two sides of the work of Christ are united, mutually conditioning one another.

This position must be borne in mind when the chapters on the Sacraments are read. The writer leans to the belief in a real efficacy of the Sacraments conditioned by the faith of the recipient, i.e., to Calvin's opinion on the subject. Regeneration is offered to us in baptism; Christ gives Himself to us in the Lord's Supper; and the grace is received by those who have faith. Prof. Du Bose does not consider whether the same offer is made in other ways, e.g., in the reading of the Scriptures, in the preaching of the Gospels, and therefore he does not justify the unique position which he attaches to the Sacraments. W. F. ADENEY, M.A.

CURRENT

AMERICAN

THOUGHT.

PROGRESS OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT. By JAMES H. FAIRCHILD, D.D., Oberlin College (The Bibliotheca Sacra).-Growth is the law of the Christian life. The Christian is one who honestly and faithfully employs his faculties, and improves his opportunities. It is inevitable that he should become wiser in experience, in the knowledge of the world, of himself, and of God. The Christian community, composed of such docile and progressive souls, must present an aggregate of advancement in religious knowledge which is beyond the attainment of the individual believer. Personal opinion is sure to be more or less distorted and coloured by the limitations and idiosyncrasies of the individual, while in the common result these tend to balance and correct each other. Any company of believers, in the aggregate of its religious thought and opinion, is wiser than its wisest member; and an adequate statement of that thought in the form of a creed or confession comes nearer to the ultimate truth than any expression of individual belief. But it must be admitted that such general statements are usually elaborated by a single mind, and obtain acceptance from his influence or authority. It is said that the truths of revealed religion, being contained in divinely inspired Scriptures, afford a basis for statements of faith which should be regarded as unchangeable, but the idea is not sustained by the experience of men. The Church has always based its faith upon these Divine records, but its pathway in history is strewn with outgrown creeds and obsolete decrees of councils. The reason is natural and obvious. The Scriptures present God in His works and ways to the apprehension of men, and the principles of human life and action as these have been developed in God's dealings with men. They are vital and glowing with these truths in living practical form; but the Bible is not a treatise on systematic theology. It contains no summary of Christian doctrine. It contains theology somewhat as the starry heavens present astronomy, or the crust of the earth geology. The Scriptures, studied with an honest mind, bring within reach of the simplest soul the great principles of righteousness and salvation. But the Scriptures also cover a vast body of truth pertaining to God and man, which, carefully studied and systematized, becomes

profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. This is the science of religion. It is the study of the ages, and each age makes its contribution to the stores received from preceding ages. We are not to assume that every new suggestion in Biblical interpretation is of course a contribution to our knowledge; but it is reasonable that all honest suggestions should be hospitably entertained, because the presumption is in favour of progress. We can only pass our ideas out into the Christian community, and leave them to such acceptance as they may prove themselves worthy of.

We are not, however, to think of the whole body of religious truth as subject to a condition of fluctuation. There are great facts pertaining to God and duty which are for ever the same. Every system of Christian doctrine is built upon eternal foundations. It is in the range of secondary ideas that all change and fluctuation and improvement must be found. We may cheerfully accept the idea of change and improvement in these lines of thought, and of that free and full discussion which is essential to such improvement, because whatever may befall our cherished conceptions the foundations of God stand sure. We have no means of protecting our favourite ideas from such examination and criticism as shall test their truthfulness and value. It is vain that the Church disclaims the idea of freedom of interpretation, and repudiates the right of accepting the creed "for substance of doctrine." No creed can ever be held by more than one person without such freedom of interpretation and substitution or addition; and this one person, if he has a teachable spirit, must be indulged in the privilege of being wiser to-morrow than he is to-day.

What, then, are the forces which are working out these changes, and where are the evidences that the movement is in progress? The forces are found wherever there is any thinking upon religious truth, wherever there is any attempt at an expression of such thought, and especially where there is contact of mind with mind in the comparison or criticism of thought. The work goes forward without any definite intention on the part of those concerned to aid in such progress, or to produce such changes. It is not the prerogative simply of the few recognized thinkers and teachers, who sit in Moses' seat, to guide the current of thought and belief. They have their part to bear, but the forces which lift the continent are not in their keeping. The younger Edwards left a record of "improvements in theology," which seemed to him to have resulted from his father's studies and labours. But of the ten points which he presents, most would to-day be regarded as of doubtful significance.

Probably more is effected in the extension and progress of religious thought by means of the regular preaching of the Gospel in the established Sabbath services than by any other instrumentality. The preacher brings what he finds to bring, the Christian souls before him afford the good ground in which the seed germinates, if it has life, and in which it produces at length the fruits of righteousness. In this manner the truth presented is constantly tested in the result. If some unusual view of doctrine or truth meets with acceptance, and proves the power of God unto salvation, that form of truth will grow in the appreciation of preacher and hearer. It enters into their faith, and forms a part of their essential creed, even if unwritten. This new treasure will be extended to neighbouring Churches, with little attention to denominational limits, and thus the prevailing theology becomes improved. If the new phase of truth ceases soon to interest and profit, it will cease to be presented, and thus unprofitable teachings and views will be set aside and forgotten. The truth that is preachable is the truth that will hold its place.

The public service of song in our Sabbath worship is among the forces which are determining the direction and expression of our religious thought. The hymn has the

advantage of the sermon in that it presents the thought in poetic form and figure, thus affording opportunity for a breadth of interpretation like that which we employ in the interpretation of the poetic utterances of Scripture. A comparative study of the hymns of the ages would gives us an epitome of the history of Christian doctrine. Thus it is that forces mightier than any assembly, or œcumenical council even, are constantly moulding and modifying our theoretical beliefs, and the expression of them; and a retrospect of fifty years leaves no room for question that the general movement is in the direction of a more reasonable theology, better adapted to impress the hearts of men and turn them to righteousness. There are, doubtless, limited movements here and there, sometimes wide-spread and long-continued, in which religious thought is misdirected, and the faith of the Church suffers detriment, resulting, it may be, in a great apostasy. Such a liability lays upon us the duty of great circumspection and caution that we may be prepared to detect and withstand error as well as to promote truth.

THE ETHICS OF CREED CONFORMITY. By PROF. J. MACBRIDE STERRETT (The Andover Review).-Nothing human is alien to the historical spirit; and surely it will recover for us the worth of creeds that the vulgar rationalism of an unhistorical age criticized almost to the death. Creeds have a history, and are explicable by nothing less than all their history of making articulate human needs, and furnishing answers to human wants. The historical spirit and comparative method will soon be busy in raising from the deeps of oblivion and obloquy every form of Christian belief, not merely in the way of an amateur antiquarianism, but with genuine interest in its own spiritual heritage. It will lead us to put ourselves in the place of all the Church doctors of creed-making ages. The historical method is simply that of evolution applied to the work of the human spirit instead of to nature. Difference of nature and spirit necessarily modify the method and the results in the two cases. Creeds are not made, they grow; and they can only be appreciated through a sympathetic study of the history of the organism, as a work of the spirit. No one formula is sufficient to fully express the spirit and method of an age. And yet formulas do give us definite general measures of various epochs. In the eighteenth century the rationalism of the mere understanding got the supremacy, and the category then used was that of "naturalism," which conceived all things as static, permanent, distinct. Innate ideas, common sense, natural religion, and immutable conscience; the rights of man, and the uniformity of nature, reason, and revelation-every thing had the static form that could be weighed, measured, and defined. Even Christian apologists sought to prove Christianity by showing it to be "as old as creation," and but a "republication of the religion of nature." Where deism had not thus devitalized Christianity, a none the less abstract and static conception of revelation worked the same evil. Christianity, the Bible, and the Church were conceived of as having been, once for all, shot out of the supernal heights. Historical perspective was unknown. There was really no history-only events, natural and supernatural.

The reflective spirit will note that creeds cannot be abstracted from the whole context of the religious life and organism without losing their proper position and significance. Creed-making epochs must be studied in the sympathetic spirit of the historical method, and then in the critical comparative methods of subsequent epochs of reflection. The death of old forms will be noted as passing into the nascent forms of succeeding stages. The reflective spirit will also note the difference between the ecumenical creeds of Christendom and the confessions of faith and systems of dogma in local branches of the Church, and the constant relation of the former to

the changing content of the letter. In the latter, too, he will seek not merely a collection and classification, but also a unification of them through the central organic principle of Christianity. The personality of the Christ is the ultimate touchstone by which we must estimate all creeds. The portrait of the Master is multiform, and yet must be unified by the historical method. We must place ourselves before the Johannine, the Petrine, the Pauline, the Patristic, the Scholastic, and the Protestant portraits of our Lord, and recognize His lineaments in them all. But Christ Himself is greater than all His resulting manifestations, greater than all these portraits, as He was greater than all Jewish Messianic conceptions in His fulfilment of them. Woe be to us if we stand dogmatically before any one portrait of Christ and say that this is the only true and original one.

We are members one of another from the very beginning of the Christian commonwealth. Hence no creed is of merely private interpretation. It represents the corporate Christian consciousness gradually taking explicit and developing form. The germ, the generic leaven, is the historical Christ of the New Testament. Starting from this norm, the historical method traces the unity and continuity in all the diverse forms of development and of credal statement. Any development that results in the very opposite of its beginning is abnormal and false, and any form that grows dogmatically rigid becomes lifeless and sterile. To-day it is only the new which is indissolubly and organically connected with the old that is true in Christian doctrine. Our minds must be both attached to and detached from bygone formulas. To esteem only our present provincial view as the truth is as great and soul-destroying an error as to esteem a bygone view as ultimate. The deadliest of all heresies against reason is that which limits it to one age or one type of thought. What more absurd form of irrationality can be imagined to-day than that which modern orthodoxy till recently made as to creed subscription. Put in its naked form, the demand was this: Christianity is essentially doctrine. Here are the only ortho-dogmata. Each individual must yield unfeigned assent to their literal form from personal insight into their truth, all historical perspective aside. It thus has reverted to either scholastic fetters or to antinomian individualism. In the latter and ultimate form of orthodoxy it must result in the individual isolating himself from all ecclesiastical enclosures, and making a new one for himself. Requiring literal assent to novel and provincial formularies as a condition of Church membership is a modern barbarism that seems to be nearly outgrown. The modern scholasticism of Protestantism is causing a revolt as profound as that of the Reformation. The critical, comparative, and historical methods are all against it. The Church is far more and other than creeds and articles. It is the home of the lifelong spiritual culture of its members.

We appreciate and care for the historical development of the central heart of all faith in form of sound words. We dare not discard them for ourselves and our children. We hold them in deepest human reverence, though we must confess that when we measure the bones of the giants of the fathers of old we find them no larger than our own, begotten by them. We find, in a word, that credal conformity is our bounden duty, and a wholesome service as members of the most truly human and most truly Divine form of institutional life, that has educated us into our present Christian freedom and manhood. The article closes with a hearty commendation of the Nicene Creed. "We believe that a full and candid historical study of the Nicene symbol will prove it to be the larger and more constitutional form of statement needed to-day, an intrinsically valuable and valid gift of a genuine creed-making epoch to all subsequent dogma-ridden ages."

THE FORMAL PRINCIPLE OF THE REFORMATION. By Rev. F. W. C. MEYER (Old and New Testament Student). The tenet which makes the Bible the seat of authority in matters of faith and practice worked as a leaven in Christendom long before the day of Luther and of Calvin. Protests against unscriptural Church practices set Southern France into a state of fermentation as early as the ninth, the eleventh, and especially the twelfth century of the Christian era. We may be reminded of the premature efforts of Ajobard of Lyons, the Père Hyacinthe of Louis the Pious' cycle, and of the bold commentator, Claudius of Turin; or, later on, the revolutionary reform movements, headed by Peter of Bruys, Henry of Lausanne, and Arnold of Brescia. With less commotion than the last-named trio, Peter Waldez, a wealthy citizen of Lyons, inaugurated the well-known Waldensian movement. During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the rejuvenescence of classical studies brought eminent scholars into closer contact with the Greek and Hebrew originals of sacred writ. In England, John Wycliffe vigorously emphasized the sole authority of the Divine Will as laid down in sacred Scripture, and proclaimed it the basis for all true theology and expedient measures of reform. Wycliffian tracts ignited the hearts of men like Huss and Jerome of Prague, whose fervid antagonism against antiScriptural Rome outblazed the fire of the stake. These movements antedated the sixteenth century, but are inseparably linked with the Reformation. The German, Swiss, French, Dutch, and English reformers found the formal principle formed and formulated, as it were. It was their chief task to extricate from the book, loosed of its chains, the material principle of justification by faith. Protestantism is always born of something to protest against. The outwardness of Romanism was flagrantly opposed to the inwardness of Christ's teaching.

Luther, the first hero to brandish the new weapon, took a conservative stand. He insisted that only those practices of the Romish Church must needs be abolished which were anti-Biblical, by which he meant contra-evangelical. To bring one great and fundamental phase of religious truth irresistibly to bear upon Christendom was the great reformer's chief concern. How this end, steadfastly kept in view, caused him to regard portions of the Bible not corroborating his purpose as epistles of straw is known to all. The Reformed Church drew the lines somewhat closer. Zwingle and Calvin maintained that all practices not deducible from Scripture were to be refuted. Clinging tenaciously to this formal principle, disagreements soon arose. Open-eyed Bible readers established denominations of their own. The seed of separation bore a hundred fold. Factions, gendered by the impulse to regard what they see in the Bible as authoritative, are still multiplying. The unifying power of Christianity seems hampered by the very principle upon which all Protestants agree. Since the Reformation there has been a tendency to make the Bible an end of faith rather than a means of salvation. The worship of its letter is a penalty the Bible has had to pay for being made so all-important a factor in the Reformation. Still, nobody will disregard the inestimable amount of good wrought by the principle, in comparison to which all the evil is insignificant. The book in the hands of the millions has done, and is doing, what classical libraries have never accomplished. Any penalty the formal principle pays ought, therefore, only to be considered in connection with the grand result it reaps; a universal spread of Scripture and the moral and spiritual enlightenment of mankind following.

'But we have already crossed the threshold of a new, more sensible, and more Biblical Bible era; nor is this era so new that even the tardiest conservative need dread innovation. Much traditional darkness and dogmatical arbitrariness have been dispelled by that method of interpretation which asks for genuine historic light on