tian ministry is not a work for drones. "Be ye strong." "Quit yourselves like men." Make your sacrifices in a liberal, magnanimous spirit. Hold no base parleying with flesh and blood. Ask of the Crucified, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" and let the responsive oracle be henceforth the law of your being. O rejoice to lay your talents, and your scholarship, and your life at the foot of the cross! "I write unto you, young men, because ye are strong." By the grace of God you can achieve something worth living for. Be ever mindful of what Divine resources are at the command of your prayer of faith. Seize upon them all, and consecrate them all to the service of Him "who hath loved you, and given himself for you." Shun no labour--no sacrifices. Give the best of your life, of your learning, of your genius, and your eloquence, if you possess them, to Him from whom you have received much more than all of these. You will be enriched by what you give. You will be made strong by the efforts you shall put forth. Such a consecration opens the way to the only true distinction. The only ambition worthy of a Christian scholar here finds its appropriate field of display. ART. V. THE INCARNATION. 1. God in Christ: Three Discourses delivered at New-Haven, Cambridge, and Andover, with a Preliminary Dissertation on Language. By HORACE BUSHNELL. Hartford: 1849. 2. The Doctrine of the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, in its Relation to Mankind and to the Church. By ROBERT ISAAC WILBERFORCE, A. M., Archdeacon of East Riding. London: 1848. 3. Theophany; or, the Manifestation of God in Jesus Christ. BY ROBERT TURNBULL. Second edition. Hartford: 1849. 4. The Person and Work of Christ. By ERNEST SARTORIUS, D. D., General Superintendent and Consistorial Director of Königsberg, Prussia. Translated by C. S. Stearns, A. M. Boston: 1848. 5. Letters on the Eternal Sonship of Christ. By Rev. WILLIAM BEAUCHAMP, with an Introductory Essay, by Leroy M. Lee, D. D. Charleston: 1849. THE Person and Work of Christ is emphatically the great theological question of the age. Underlying the whole fabric of Gospel truth, it has to do with the faith, the experience, and the hopes of all Christians. Interwoven as it is with all the doctrines and institutions of religion, it seems to constitute a part of each, or rather the grand centre from which they all radiate. In itself a question of paramount importance, it infolds all the minor questions of revelation and religion. The apostle terms it the "great mys tery of godliness; God manifest in the flesh." This is the sublime mystery of our holy religion. Our faith centres in it; our hope clings to it; and our very yearnings of soul impel us onward in humble effort to comprehend its majesty and glory. So long, then, as this sublime mystery stands in the gateway that opens to heaven, and mortals are looking and hoping to enter by "the door," this question must open freshly before the successive generations of men. From the very nature of the case it must always be mooted and discussed in every succeeding age, as it has been in every past age; unless, indeed, humanity shall succeed in fathoming the unfathomable mysteries of the Godhead-the finite grasp and encircle the Infinite. But circumstances have given at the present time a momentous importance to this subject. Modes of thought and forms of expression, derived from a certain school in Germany, have been gradually working their way into our metaphysical and speculative philosophy, have also entered the domain of theology, and are endeavouring to subject its principles to new and untried, if not inapplicable tests. The cardinal and long-established doctrines of the Christian faith are to be subjected to a new and most searching re-examination, with a view to the general renovation of our established theological systems. These theological revolutionists are determined to dig down to the very foundations of Christianity, and to remodel the whole fabric upward. Without reverence, they enter the sanctuary of revelation, and assail its most sacred truths with a ruthless and arrogant criticism, that tramples everything Divine beneath its iron hoof. In this school, man becomes a critic and an umpire, inspecting Christianity as a system-not so much with a view of being instructed and blessed by it, as of discovering its defects, and making it more precise, critical, and philosophic in its character. Far different this from being a disciple in the school of Christ! In such a school of criticism and speculation, the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, his essential divinity, and his atonement, or vicarious death, furnish fruitful subjects in which "old Christianity" is to be recast, newly moulded, modernized by the "new philosophy." The results of this attempt to philosophize Christianity, are seen in that rank denial of the inspiration of the Divine word which reduces the Bible to the level of common books, bating only its high antiquity, and its historical and literary character; also in that rank denial of the character and mission of Christ, which reduces him to the common level of humanity, or converts his whole history into a myth, having no foundation in historical fact. We are not, however, protesting against the re-examination and discussion of these questions. It is fitting, perhaps, that they should be re-examined, with all the advantages which modern science and method can offer. Nor do we fear the ultimate result of this investigation, whatever may be its more immediate consequences. Essential truth can lose nothing by the discussion. A clearer apprehension and a more precise statement, of cardinal principles may possibly be reached. And even if, in reaching them, we should be compelled to surrender points we have been accustomed to regard as fundamental and essential, Christianity loses nothing, and we are infinite gainers. Indeed, we regard it as of no small moment that the public mind, and especially the thinkers of the age, have been awakened to recognize the importance of the subject. The dawn of a sounder and more healthful criticism is already discerned. Men no longer fear results. Error is looked boldly in the face; its arrogant assumptions and foregone conclusions are calmly and carefully weighed in the balance. The battle for truth is more than half fought. Our object in this paper is less to review any of the able treatises that have recently been given to the world upon this subject, and the reading of which has been the occasion of our writing, than to examine briefly the subject itself. We search after truth, upon one of the profoundest and most momentous subjects that ever occupied the attention or tasked the powers of man. The teachings of Christ were not given in the scientific forms of dogmatic theology. He spoke in sentences and in parables; but personally he stood forth the Mediator between man and God. This is the great religious and moral fact from which spiritual regeneration flows to the human race. It is the germ and central point of his doctrine. We cannot, therefore, separate his doctrine from his person. Humanity, divinity, and the union of the two, all are here. Biblical theology has then to ascertain, and classify, and express, under scientific forms, the contents of the Gospel history. The first disciples of the Lord Jesus followed the example of their Master in teaching and illustrating Christianity. But as the doctrine of Christ necessarily became a subject of theoretical consideration, as well as of experience and exemplification with them, they soon began to give scientific form and expression to it. Thus, St. John propounds the doctrine of the incarnation of the Logos in Christ.* On the other hand, St. Paul develops the doctrine of justification by faith. If a man wars against didactic theology, (dogma,) he wars against John and Paul. * Introduction to his Gospel; also his First Epistle. In fact, when Christianity was brought into conflict with heresy, the polemic statement of the doctrines of Christ was no longer to be avoided. The first heresies in the early church appeared under the form of Judaizing and ethnizing tendencies. To counteract the former, St. Paul develops the doctrine of justification by faith in systematic form; to counteract the latter, St. John expresses in dogmatic form the doctrine of the incarnation of the Logos in the person of Jesus Christ. This was in the apostles' day. During the second century, two new forms of heresy were developed-opposite in their character, but each seeking its correction in a more precise and rigid statement of the doctrines held by the church from the beginning. One of these errors appeared under the form of Montanism-which was an eccentric supernaturalism, conceiving the true nature of inspiration to consist in extraordinary emotions still continued in the church. The other error consisted in an attempt to adapt the mysteries of faith to the understanding, and thus to fill up the gulf between the natural and the supernatural. This, perhaps, was the first development of rationalism, and was the error of the Alogi and the first Monarchians.* From Monarchianism we have two branches of error, which were respectively germs of Sabellianism and Arianism, which, under the various forms of their development in subsequent ages, have continued to be the ever-present and pestilent heresies concerning the character and work of Christ. § 1.-Symbol of the Church concerning the Logos. For the correction of these errors, a more precise and scientific statement of the doctrine of the Logos was felt to be necessary. The local councils of the church during the third century protested against the teachings of Noetus, Beryll, and Paul of Samosata, as heretical; but they lacked the plenary power to determine and impart general authority to the form in which the church should give utterance to this cardinal doctrine of the gospel. In the mean time, error became rampant and wide-spread. Sabellius had revived the errors of Noetus and Beryll, and given them scientific form and development. Arius, with a still more alarming success, had become the champion of the opposite phase of error. The necessity which led to the local councils had now become universal, and the first Ecumenical Council, held at Nice, in 325, was the result. A difficult task was before the council. To preserve orthodoxy in its purity, it must avoid Sabellianism on the one hand, and Arianism on the other. It must maintain sameness of essence *Hagenbach, History of Doctrines, vol. i, § 24. in the Trinity, but yet distinctness of persons. But how should this be done without giving countenance to the doctrine of subordination? How should the Arian shoals be escaped but by steering close to the Sabellian rock? Hence the term oporovolos (of similar ὁμοιούσιος essence with the Father) would not do, and ouoovolos (of the same essence with the Father) was adopted. Nor was the evasion of these errors the only difficulty the council had to encounter. It was now called by the force of circumstances, in the development of the doctrines of the Christian faith, to give scientific form, dogmatic expression, to one of the most sublime mysteries of the gospel. The success of its effort to reach this result will be a matter of discussion by and by. But we will here premise, that the faith of the early church upon the doctrine of the Logos is made clearer to our apprehension by the struggles through which she passed, than by any subsequent dogmatic embodiment of it. So much of the Nicene Creed as relates to this subject runs as follows:: "We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, only-begotten of the Father, that is, of the substance of the Father, God of God, light of light; true God of true God; begotten, not made; of the same substance with the Father; by whom all things were made, both in heaven and upon the earth.... And those who say that there was a time when He was not, that before he was born he was not, and that he was made from nothing, or that he was of a different substance or essence, or that the Son of God was created, or is mutable, or is susceptible of change,-them the whole catholic and apostolic church anathematizes." From this time forth the Nicene Symbol may be considered the accredited expression of the faith of the church. Subsequent modifications have never revoked its essential elements, and the ascendency of Arianism at a subsequent period was violent and temporary. The second Ecumenic Council, held at Constantinople, in the year of our Lord 381, confirmed and established the Nicene Creed, adding to it also a section affirming the Divinity of the Holy Ghost, which had been denied by Macedonius and his followers. The Council of Chalcedon, in the fifth century, (453,) set forth that, "in Christ there is one person; in the unity of person, two natures, the divine and the human; and that there is no change, or mixture, or confusion of these two natures, but that each retains its own distinguishing properties." The "Athanasian Creed," the date and authorship of which are alike in doubt, but which has been attributed to Hilary of the fifth century,* and is styled "Athanasian," * Dr. Waterland, Crit. Hist.-It is said that no mention of this creed is made in any of the works of Athanasius, nor any reference to it; but he, and all the divines |