when that pillar fell," thus states the case: "It is our errand into the wilderness to study and practise true Scripture reformation and it will be our crown in the sight of God and man, if we find it, and hold it, without adulterating deviations."

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The view which our fathers took of a pure and proper church is this;-It is an absolute monarchy democratically administered. It is an absolute monarchy; for Christ is its Head and King; his will is the highest law; he alone has the right to legislate; and his decrees registered in the Bible must alone be obeyed. And the affairs of this spiritual monarchy are democratically administered; for to the Church is given the free election of all its executive officers, and the members are all possessed of equal rights and privileges. What noble schools of liberty must be found in these self-governing societies, so willingly obedient to Christ, and so free from vassalage to man! The Church can do nothing but what Christ has authorised her to do. The power committed to the Church, is a power for administering the laws, not for making them. Christ put a stop to all further making of laws for his kingdom, when he closed the list of inspired writings. The famous John Cotton, the father of New England Congregationalism, in his comment on that clause in the apostle's commission,-"teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you," - well remarks: "If even the apostles teach people to observe more than Christ has commanded, they go beyond their commission; and a larger commission than that given to the apostles, neither Elders, nor Synods, nor Churches, can challenge."

John Higginson, the worthy minister of Salem, affirms: "This was, and is, our cause, that Christ alone might be acknowledged by us, as the only head, Lord, and Lawgiver, in his Church; that his written word might be acknowledged as the only rule; that only his, and all his, institutions might be observed and enjoyed by us; and that with purity and liberty, with peace and power." "In matters divine, where we have a clear command, with Moses, we yield not an hoof to Pharaoh."

One of the oldest Puritans, who died on the scaffold, a faithful martyr to Jesus, once said to his brethren in the faith and patience of Christ: "Let us, for the appeasing and assurance of our consciences, give heed to the Word of God, and by that golden reed measure our temple, our altar, and our worshippers; even

by these rules, whereby the apostles, those excellent perfect workmen, founded and built the first churches." And one of the latest and ablest writers on this subject says: "The Word of God is our only rule, in the sense both of a law, and a standard; a rule sufficient, as opposed to all deficiency; exclusive, as relates to any other than the Divine authority from which it emanates; universal, as embracing all the principles of human actions; and ultimate, as admitting of no appeal from its decisions."

Nearly a century after the landing of the pilgrims, an assembly of Connecticut ministers, in setting forth their general assent to the Savoy Confession of Faith, made a preface to their solemn act and testimony, in the following admirable words: "We do not assume to ourselves that anything is to be taken on trust from us, but commend to our people the following counsels: 1. That you be immovably and unchangeably agreed in the only sufficient and invariable rule of religion, which is the HOLY SCRIPTURE, the fixed canon, incapable of addition or diminution. YOU OUGHT

TO ACCOUNT NOTHING ANCIENT THAT WILL NOT STAND BY THIS RULE; AND NOTHING NEW THAT WILL.

2. That you be determined by this rule in the whole of religion. That your faith be right. and divine, the Word of God must be the foundation of it, and the authority of the Word the reason of it." Thus have the Puritans and their legitimate offspring always adhered to the noble maxim of Peter Martyr, admitting" nothing without, nothing against, nothing beside, nothing beyond the divine Scriptures."

DR. MÜLLER'S LETTER ON THE GERMAN REVOLUTION.

DEAR AND RESPECTED FRIEND.

You wish from me a letter written expressly for your "ChurchFriend," wherein I may impart my sentiments as to the recent revolutions in Germany, and particularly as to their actual and probable influence on the Church. I would readily respond to your wishes, could I do so without becoming an accuser of my

* Addressed to the Editor of "Der Deutsche Kirchenfreund," and translated from that work for December, 1848.

people before your present countrymen, which I have not the heart to do. You well know that I am not one of the pessimists; but I can look for nothing salutary from this whole commotion, so long as its existing tendencies are so deficient in religious and moral earnestness. The Frankfort Assembly was opened amid frivolous declarations, greeted with clamorous cheering, that the Germans had served God sufficiently, and must henceforth apply themselves to practical matters; and in the parliaments of Vienna and Berlin, this feeling was still more rampant. And this is that people whose standing epithet used to be," the religious!

Our State, as you know from the journals, has formally thrown off its Christian character. Against this I have nothing to say, so long as this act only expresses the matter-of-fact which made the official Christianity of our State a mere untruth, namely, that the great mass of our population is no longer pervaded by the spirit of Christianity. Moreover, all our political impulses produce in me an overpowering impression of rottenness and dissolution. The republic, or rather the anarchy, among us, is destitute of true energy and decision, or it would have gone much further. The revolution has not as yet thrown up men of character, able to inspire awe. And while anarchy has spread far enough in certain directions, yet our politics seem for the most part to move in a path leading to a precipice, that is to say, toward that kind of constitutional monarchy, which is, in fact, a democratic republic, only that it places a king at the head, who will have nothing to do at Frankfort except to nominate a prime minister, and to be looking out for a speedy successor to the person he has just nominated. I own, that nothing so disgusts me, as this sort of constitutional monarchy. I can commend the republic which honorably says what it is; and does not, like such a monarchy, lead the government into intrigue and corruption, in order to secure by secret arts an influence it could not openly claim.

As for the evangelical Church, one would suppose that this tumult would give it a strong impulse to rally in strength against the assaults of that radicalism, which thinks to use the abovementioned separation of the State from all nearer relation to the Church, as a weapon for cutting off from the latter all material resources, and all influence upon popular education. And it ought to collect its strength, not merely against radicalism, but also against the Romish Church, which will naturally derive very great

advantage from the proclaimed division between State and Church. But instead of this, our rigid Lutherans have been most industriously horrifying themselves at all communion with the professors of more free evangelical principles, and are for coming out from the "Babel" of the local churches. They wage severer contests against those who seek safety and peace in the same Saviour, than against infidelity and political radicalism. This, to me, is the sorest mistake of our evangelical Germany, of which I might say with Melanchthon: "Could I but shed as many tears as our Elbe pours of waves when in full stream, my grief would not be drawn dry." It is to be expected, that, as one sad consequence of dissolving the union between the protestant Church and the State, there will be forthwith a general splitting up into sects.

In order to plant all the barriers possible against this threatening and dangerous tendency, there is to be a great assemblage. at Wittemberg, on the twenty-first of this month, to consider the question, Whether, and how, a German evangelical church-league may be effected. It is my intention to be present. The invitation is addressed to "all who stand on the ground of the evangelical confession." The representatives of strict Lutheranism have already, for the most part, refused to take part in it. The "Light-friends," of course, will not be there; or, if they are, will miss their reckoning, and find themselves shut out. It may become the beginning of an organization for a German, evangelical, national Church, if it can succeed in holding together, for the formation of such a church-league, those portions of the German evangelical Church which lie between those extremes. May God grant his blessing!

Halle, Sept. 18, 1848.

*

Yours faithfully,

J. MÜLLER.

* By more recent intelligence, we learn that the "Evangelical-United Conference" at Wittemberg, alluded to in the above paragraph, has been held over Luther's grave with very gratifying results. There were present above five hundred clergymen from all parts of Germany, and among them the most celebrated theologians and preachers, such as the learned Dr. Müller, the writer of the above letter, Nitzsch, Hengstenberg, Dorner, Lehnerdt, Krummacher, etc. There were also many distinguished laymen, such as the two presidents of the "Conference," Von Bethman-Hollweg, and Professor Stahl, the famous jurist; also Presidents Von Gerlach, and Von Gotze. Men, agreeing in the essentials of religion, but who had been widely separated in

THE CHURCH AND THE WORLD.

WE propose in this article to speak of the Christian distinction between the Church and the World, and our address is to the men of the world. The distinction has an invidious aspect, just as every other important distinction has; as those of rich and poor, learned and ignorant. Yet these distinctions are none the less real, for being offensive. Nor is there just cause of offence. The purposes of science require the classification of its subjects; and each science necessarily adopts the distinctions which arise from its own peculiar principles. It must, therefore, be conceded to Christianity to employ a classification of mankind, which shall be the logical result of its own fundamental principles. The basis of one scientific division of the human race is, the diversity of physical structure; of another, the various forms of civil government; of another, the various religious systems that obtain. But Christianity assumes for the ground of its classification, these facts, that human character is radically and invariably defective in its first development; that this defect involves, as a consequence, a fatal relation to the government of Jehovah, and to the eternal issues of that government; and, that a supernatural influence is needed in every case, to secure a favorable change in the character and relations of men. In the one class, it recognizes those who are the subjects of this radical change; in the other, those whose development is natural, and not supernatural. It has been God's purpose in all ages, and for ends most benevolent, to make prominent this distinction.

Yet we are not surprised that this division has ever excited an undisguised hostility, from the early days of Cain, to the most recent modern scoffer, who has sneered at "the saints." Nor are we surprised that every form of attack has been made upon this distinction; and that the world has labored to efface this line of demarcation from human belief. The divine authority of the book so replete with it, has been assailed. The text must be destroyed, or the legitimate iuterpretation of it distorted. Baptismal regeneration, sacramental sanctification, priestly absolution, and state-religion, have here a common origin with infidelity. feeling, in these hard times gladly gave the fraternal hand of fellowship, for the purpose of forming a church-league to comprehend, in a new body of evangelicals," all Germans who adhere to the evangelical confessions.

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