after his social and moral elevation. We must compassionate the miserable, we must relieve the destitute, we must instruct the ignorant, and, by all the means in our power, redeem the fallen. The civil relation to Besides the general relation in which we stand to all men, there are particular relations in which we stand to individuals which involve particular duties. The parental relation gives rise to parental duties. The filial relation to filial duties. The conjugal relation to conjugal duties. civil duties. On these we cannot dwell. our design to exhibit all these particular duties, or mark their relation to the universal idea of the good. We merely offer the following general observations. The union of any number of rational beings, whether in the family or the state, involves the necessity of government as a means toward an end, namely, the general good. Government supposes authority. And the foundation of all authority, whether in the parent or the civil ruler, is the relation of dependence. "Whenever one being sustains such a relation to another that, without controlling him, he cannot do him the good which benevolence demands, the right and duty of control exists on the part of the former, and the duty of obedience on the part of the latter."* Parental requirements and civil enactments must, however, derive their real and permanent authority from reason-they must be conformable to the just, the true, the good. For a short season they may be sustained by mere power, but unless they echo the demands of the universal conscience they cannot long command respect or obedience; they will become effete, or be violently overthrown, because they are unjust and untrue. The only strong and enduring thing is the right. All relative duties, therefore, that carry an imperative obligation to all beings, in all times, will be found to be modifications of the fundamental ideas of reason. 3. We stand in fixed and changeless relations to the Infinite. We are absolutely dependent on God; we have therefore duties toward him. There are three great facts of our inward consciousness which seem to underlie and determine our conception of piety toward God. (1.) A sense of utter dependence on God. (2.) A * Mahan. conviction of accountability to God. (3.) A belief in God as the Infinite and Perfect. Toward him from whom our existence is derived, and on whom we continually depend for life and well-being, we are bound to cherish feelings of gratitude and hope and trust. The sense of accountability to him imposes the duty of making his law, in whatever way revealed, the rule of our conduct. God stands revealed to us in and by conscience as a moral governor commanding what is right and prohibiting what is wrong. This "voice within" has been universally recognized as the voice of God. The universal consciousness of our race, as revealed in history, clearly teaches that the commands of the moral faculty have always been immediately and spontaneously referred to an external authority. The felt presence of a Lawgiver and a Judge within has always pointed to a Lawgiver and a Judge who is over us," and given the surest warning of a retribution which awaits us. Out of these inner facts of consciousness the outward acts of prayer and expiation have unquestionably been developed. "The sense of dependence is the instinct which in every age has urged men to pray."* And the consciousness of demerit and ill-desert has moved man to self-inflicted sufferings and costliest sacrifices to expiate sin. God in his essential nature is a being of infinite perfection. All moral excellency resides in him. He is pure and holy, just and good. Toward such a being reason demands we shall cherish the highest moral esteem. It is our duty to reverence, love, and delight in him-to worship God. And such worship must tend to elevate and perfect man. It only remains for us, in conclusion, to protest against the allegation that our method subverts the authority and dispenses with the necessity of Divine revelation. Such allegations are unworthy a serious refutation. We affirm that our philosophy is in harmony with revelation, and places its authority on the broad and immovable basis of necessary and universal truth. It shows that "the law of the mind" and the statutes of the revealed code are identicalthat the writing on the tables of stone, and the writing upon * Mansel. the hearts of men, are by the same finger of God. And when in the course of our inquiry we have found the foundation of moral obligation in the divine REASON rather than the divine will, we are persuaded the idea of duty is invested with increased sacredness and reality and force. We think, also, that the necessity for a Divine revelation must be argued on higher and broader grounds than our presumed ignorance of what is right and good. The great, the prevailing necessity for a divine revelation is to be found in our conscious guilt, which needs a voice from heaven to remove it; and our depravity of heart, which needs grace from on high to correct it, rather than in our inability to perceive the good. Amid the clamor and uproar of passion the voice of conscience is drowned. Beneath the outward conditions of human existence, the perverted tastes and evil customs of society, and the surrounding circumstantial darkness, the light of reason is obscured. Mankind are indisposed to calm reflection on moral questions, and the determinate duty cannot always be clearly reached by a series of deductions from universal ideas and laws. And when the knowledge of duty is attained, men are unwilling to obey its behest. Revelation, therefore, is needed to give the moral law an objective form and reality, and a more immediate sanction and authority, so that it may appeal to the eye and ear and understanding of man as an imperative rule of conduct. Moreover, it was needed to furnish examples of the application of universal principles and laws to all the varying circumstances of human existence, in the light of which we may solve all questions of duty which arise. Christianity was especially needed to exhibit to us a perfect model of all excellence in the person of Christ; and above all, to bring to us the knowledge of a redeemer from sin, to proclaim forgiveness of sin, and to secure for us renewing and sanctifying grace. The ethics of Christianity are superior to the ethics of the human conscience, because, under its influence, conscience takes a wider range, and has a deeper insight into man's responsibility; just as the religious sentiment, when illuminated and impregnated with the fire and energy of the Christian religion, is superior to the dim and undefined "feeling after God" which stirs the heathen mind. ART. II.-HAGENBACH ON THE LATER HISTORY OF THE CHURCH. 1. Die Kirchengeschichte des achzehnten und neunzehnten Yahrhunderts. Zwei Theile. Von Dr. K. R. HAGENBACH. Leipzic, 1856. 2. A Text-Book of the History of Doctrines. By Dr. K. R. HAGENBACH, Professor of Theology in the University of Basle. Revised, with large additions from the Edinburgh Translation of C. W. BUCH. By HENRY B. SMITH, D.D., of New York. Two volumes. New York: Sheldon & Co. 1863. CHURCH HISTORY has come in for its full share of recent inquiry. In fact we can call to mind no department of theology, even exegesis not excepted, that has received more attention of late or manifested a greater commensurate improve And in this respect we have not been so chary of our German friends as in some others. Nor was there need of much suspicion; for when the clouds of Rationalism began to break from their sky after the beginning of the present century the history of the Church was one of the very first branches of theological study that gave signs of the return of the old faith. And is it not true that the evangelical status of the Church can always be determined by the way in which she writes her own history; or in other words, by the construction she places on those events which constitute her career? Neander's work was the pioneer's ax; and, thanks to the arm that wielded it, it did noble duty in opening the way to renovation. Now we sit at the feet of him and his disciples and hear what they say of the great past of the Church. It is not a little remarkable that the American Church has yet to produce its first real Church historian. Denominational and other fragmentary historians we have in abundance, and of rare worth; but no American has yet planted his foot on the far loftier eminence of the true history-writing of our common Church. Hence we have been compelled to go to Germany for our Church chronicles or do without them, for England was no better off than ourselves. But however much we have been at fault in invention, we have not been slow in translation. We can read Neander, Hase, and Kurtz in English with almost as much pleasure as if it had been their original language. The German theologians cannot understand how the English-speaking world could have remained so long faithful to those old authorities that they, in their own land, had carefully entombed scores of years ago. When Tholuck, of Halle, was once lecturing to one of his classes he inflicted a scathing bit of wit on the absurdity of Oxford and Cambridge still poring over the learned but antiquated Mosheim. The smiles that played over the faces of his auditors seemed to say, "What a pity the English are so behind the age!" But give Oxford and Cambridge time and they will come up to the standard of you Germans. They are afraid of you on first acquaintance; but after you have stood at their door-step fifty years they will come out and invite you in. Dr. Hagenbach cannot be termed a Church historian in its widest sense, for he has not written his works in the order of history itself. His course has been to write on periods: having finished his examination of one, he has passed either backward or forward over wide intervals to bestow his attention on another. Nor has he confined his labors to the mere historic events of the Church, as an examination of his works will show. His diligence as a writer is abundantly proved by the main events of his life. He was born in 1801, at Basle, Switzerland, where his father, himself an author, was Professor of Botany and Anatomy. Having received his early instruction in his native city, he attended the Universities of Bonn and Berlin. At the latter city he imbibed the prevalent doctrines of Schleiermacher. Not long after the completion of his studies he was appointed Professor of Theology in the University of Basle, and in 1828 entered upon the duties of his office. In the same year he published his Tabular Survey of the History of Doctrines, a work which was followed, in 1833, by his Encyclopedia and Methodology of Theological Sciences; and this by a series of sermons in four volumes at intervals between 1830 and 1836. The popular work which contributed greatly to the formation of his reputation as a historian was his Lectures on the Nature and History of the Reformation, six volumes, 1834-43. His Church History of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries appeared in a second edition in 1848-49, which |