seen in the Lutheran and Methodist reformations and in the revival periods of our own time. What we need, therefore, in the improvement of worship, is an improvement in congregational singing. Not until we obey the injunction of the Psalmist, "Let all the people praise thee," will public worship be what it should be.

4. Once more, we may inprove the worship of the Church by varying from time to time the order of its services. There is a natural craving for variety in all things. One of the disadvantages of a fixed liturgy is the monotony into which its use is so apt to degenerate, and which deadens men's hearts to its beauties. If services could be. accommodated to the ever changing needs of the soul it is probable that there would be a more hearty and earnest entering into them. Nor is this impossible. While the more formal exercises of the Lord's day must, perhaps, of necessity be more or less fixed, the devotional meetings offer a scope for variety sufficient to include every spiritual exigency, and give facilities to make the hour of worship a perpetual help and joy.

These, then, I believe are the general principles of worship, and the means of rendering it more what God meant it to be. The subject I conceive to be one of the largest importance, for the relations of worship to Christian life are exceedingly close and vital. There are a great many questions connected with the theme which I have not been able even to touch. After all, the great object to be reached in worship is to give the heart the means of expressing itself towards God. That this object is best attained by a simplicity which, while it lays hold of the best products of culture, avoids every thing that is cumbrous and gaudy, is the testimony of the Church's history and of the saintliest of men. A fixed ritual which dresses the life of every age in the clothing of a dead past has no support either in the experience of the Church or of the Word of God. Life must ever be left to choose its own forms, and the Spirit must be allowed to select its own modes of approach to him

who is the object of its reverence and love. I can not close this essay better than by adopting the words of one whom I have already quoted: "History can guide us, not by authoritative precedent, but only by illustrating tendencies and recording results. We may argue against systems in the light of general principles, but clearly no man has any right to make his preferences or expediencies the law of another man's conscience. For both individuals and churches there is but one valid law; namely, that, as far as practicable, each shall embody its worship in such modes and forms as are best adapted to its own life. Of worship itself there is but one great use and end, that it bring a brotherhood of men to the feet and heart of the great Father in heaven, there to speak to the eager sympathy of his love all their adoration and all their desire."

ARTICLE II.

SOME ASPECTS OF EARLY PROTESTANT THEOLOGY.

BY PROFESSOR ALBERT H. newman, ll. D.

THE Protestant revolution of the sixteenth century, commonly, and with some propriety, known as the Reformation, may be considered from several different points of viewas a moral and religious revolt against the corrupt practice of the mediaval Church; as a political revolt against the oppressive financial methods of the Roman Curia; as a phase of the great and comprehensive movement in the direction of the emancipation of thought, whose influence was everywhere perceptible during the later Middle Ages, and whose most remarkable development in Italy and elsewhere is known as the Renaissance, the Revival of Learning, Humanism, etc.; or, again, as a revolt against the corrupt dogma of the hierarchical Church. In this last aspect we

propose at present to consider it.

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PROTESTANT THEOLOGY.

The formal element of the Protestant theology of the Reformation period was adherence to the Scriptures as the only and sufficient guide of faith and practice. This was held to at first unconditionally, in opposition to the papal theory, which gives to tradition a place side by side with Scripture, while making Scripture and tradition alike dependent for their authority on the Church. Most of the Reformers came to make a distinction between tradition in doctrine and tradition in practice. In arguing with the papists they rejected papal practices, not so much because they were without Scriptural authorization (though they usually insisted upon this), as because they rested upon,

and, in turn, promoted, false (anti-Scriptural) doctrine. In arguing with the radical reformers, however, they defended such practices as they had chosen to perpetuate, although without Scriptural precept or example, on the ground that they were not contradictory of the teachings of Scripture; that they were good in themselves; and that they were matters of immemorial usage. In his tract on "Vows," written while he was at the Wartburg (1521-2), Luther condemns, unconditionally, whatever falls short of, is apart from, or goes beyond Christ (vel citra, vel præter, vel ultra Christum incedit), and gives the lie to the papal proposition, "that all things have not been declared and instituted by Christ and the apostles, but that very many things were left to the Church to be declared and instituted." He declared moreover, that whatever is without the Word of God is, by that very fact, against God” (co ipso contra Deum, quod sine verbo Dei). He frequently cited, in support of his position, the passage in Deuteronomy iv, 2: "Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish aught from it." Such citations might be multiplied. But when he saw what radical changes in ecclesiastical practice were likely to result from so thorough-going an adherence to Scripture authority he promptly modified his view in this. wise: "Nothing [that is, no ecclesiastical practice] ought to be set up without Scriptural authority, or, if it is set up, ought to be esteemed free and not necessary" (extra Scrip turas nihil esse statuendum, aut, si statuitur, librum et non necessarium habendum). Still later, when hard pressed by the consistent advocates of the Scriptural principle on the positive and the negative sides, Luther allowed himself to write: "What is not against Scripture is for Scripture, and Scripture for it." However inconsistently held to by the Reformers, the doctrine of the supreme authority of Scripture must still be regarded as the formal principle of the Protestant theology.

The material element of the Protestant theology was the doctrine of justification by faith alone, maintained in opposi

tion to the doctrine of justification by faith and worksthe works meaning, with the papists, ceremonial observances, almsgiving, the purchasing of indulgences, masses, etc., the giving of money for the building and endowment of churches, monasteries, etc. This doctrine of justification by faith alone exerted a molding influence upon Protestant theology. Held to thus polemically, in opposition to the mediæval system of opera operata, it could hardly escape a distorted development, and was sure to lead, in some instances, to antinomianism. The absolute rejection of the efficacy of works in securing salvation assumed in some minds the form of denial of any freedom of will whatsoever in man; and some advanced to the Manichean position, declaring that original sin is the very essence of human nature. The maintenance of justification by faith alone was sure to lead to controversy as to the manner in which Christ's redemptive work is applied to man. Some held that justification is a mere judicial act, conditioned on man's belief in the Redeemer; others, that through belief man is transformed in character, and that his justification occurs only in connection with, and in consequence of, his sanctification. But what is the nature of faith, the medium through which the redemptive work of Christ is applied to man? Some held that it is chiefly an assurance of justification through the merit of Christ; others, that it involves a complete surrender of the subject to Christ, a radical turning away from sin and the love of it, and an inward apprópriation of Christ as the controlling principle.

Again, if justification is by faith alone, what place is to be assigned to the sacraments? The seven Roman Catholic sacraments rest upon the doctrine of justification by works, which, in turn, rests upon sacerdotalism. The number of the sacraments was reduced by the Protestants to two, bap tism and the Lord's Supper. How were these to be looked upon? As mere symbols of spiritual facts or as possessing in themselves mystical efficacy from their connection with