by the Christian Church of the first five centuries. On all sides, however, the eminent ability of the work is acknowledged. The work will be completed in two volumes.

Wolfgang von Goethe, the grandson of the great poet, has begun the publication of an interesting work on the Greek Cardinal Bessarion, who in the fifteenth century played a prominent part in the endeavors for bringing about a union of the Greek and Roman Churches. (Studien und Forschungen über das Leben und die Zeit des Cardinals Bessarion.) The first number contains several essays on the Council of Florence, at which the Greek Bishops, to obtain aid from the western nations against the Turks, consented to a union which was repulsive to the majority of the people, and which, therefore, most of them had to disown as soon as they returned home.

A new edition of the Greek text of the apocryphal works of the Old Testament has been prepared by Prof. O. F. Fritzsche, of Jena, (Libri apocryphi Veteris Testamenti graece. Leipsig. 1871,) who for years has made these books his special study, and has already published several commentaries on them. He gives them in the following order: 1. The Greek Ezra ; 2. Esther, with the additions, in a double text; 3. The Greek additions to the Book of Daniel, in the text of Theodotion, besides that of the Septuagint; 4. The Prayer of Manasseh; 5. The Book of Baruch; 6. The Book of Tobit, in a triple text; 7. The Book of Judith; 8. The four Books of Maccabees, of the fourth of which we have thus far not had any good edition; 9. The Wisdom of the Son of Sirach; 10. The Wisdom of Solomon. The edition has been made with careful comparison of the Latin, Syriac, and other translations. Of the fourth Book of Maccabees this edition publishes for the first the correct Greek text. Several pseudographic books of the Old Testament are given in an appendix, which is also published as a separate work. They are the following: 1. The Psalms of Solomon; 2. The Fourth Book of Ezra; 3. The Fifth Book of Ezra; 4. The Apocalypse of Baruch; 5. The Assumption of Moses.

The Protestantenverein (“Protestant Union") has recently published the second volume of its annual Year-book, (Jahrbuch des deutschen Protestantenvereins. Elberfeld, 1871.) The object of the Year-book is to acquaint all the members of the Union with the progress of the common cause, to aid them in a thorough understanding of all the important questions of the day, and to interest the educated classes of Germany in the objects of the Union. To this end every volume of the Year-book gives a review of the religious history of the past year, one of several biographies of prominent men, some of the best essays delivered in the course of the past year in the branch societies of the Protestant Union, the proceedings of the General Assembly of the Protestant Union, (Protestantentag,) and an account of the progress of the Union. The first volume of the Year-book was published in 1869; last year none was published on account of the French-German war. The volume just published contains a review of the year by Hossbach; an account of the labors and the statistics of the Protestant Union during the past year, by Hönig; the fundamental views

of the primitive Christian congregations, by Prof. Lipsius, of the University of Kiel; a biographical article on Arndt, by Prof. Schenkel; a Protestant testimony against modern Lutheranism, by Prof. Baumgarten, of Rostock; Darwinism and Religion, by Dr. Zittel, of Heidelberg; Two Trials for Heresy, by Prof. Nippold, of Heidelberg. The Year-book is edited by Dr. Thomas and Lic. Hossbach, and among its contributors, besides the above names, are mentioned Prof. Bluntschli, of Heidelberg, the President of the Union; Prof. Holtzendorff, of the University of Berlin ; Dr. Schwarz, of Gotha, and other well-known representatives of the Liberal party.

A new extensive Life of Jesus, from the stand-point of the critical school, was begun in 1867, by Professor Keim, of Zurich, under the title, "History of Jesus of Nazareth, in its Concatenation with the General History of His People." (Geschichte Jesu von Nazara. Zurich, 1867.) A second volume of this work has recently been published, which embraces the period from the sermon on the mount to the sermon on the sending out of the disciples.

Prof. Fr. Nitzsch has published the first volume of a new "History of the Christian Doctrines," (Grundriss der Christlichen Dogmengeschichte, Vol. I. Die Patristische Periode. Berlin, 1870.) Differing in many respects from his predecessors, the author intends not to trace the history of the several more or less unconnected doctrines, but the organic growth of the system of Christian doctrines. As the center of the Christian doctrine, he regards the historical confession that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah, and that as such he has established the salvation of the world. The Patristic period to which this first volume is devoted is divided into two sections. The former extends to the end of the second, the latter to the middle of the eighth century. During the former the foundation of the "Old Catholic" Church doctrine is laid by fixing the formal creed; during the second the Church doctrine is systematically developed; for the process of this development, the doctrine of the divinity of Christ-not, as Baur thinks, that of the Trinity-constitutes the central point of the Old Catholic Church system. Next to it in importance, and closely connected with it, is the doctrine of the Church, as an institution of salvation. The history of these two doctrines is, therefore, treated as the stem of the doctrinal progress of the Church during this period; the other doctrines are regarded and treated as offshoots of this

stem.

HOLLAND.

Professor Scholten, of the University of Leyden, is one of the most prolific, as well as the most prominent, representatives of the Rationalistic school of theology of Holland. He has recently published a new elaborate work on the Gospel of Luke and its relation to the Gospels of Mark and Matthew and the Acts, (Het Paulinisch Evangelie. Leyden, 1870.) This work supplements those previously published by him on the Gospel of John, (1864,) and on the oldest Gospel, (1868,) in the latter of which he tried to ascertain the primitive form of the evangelical history in the

Gospels of Mark and Matthew. The Gospel of Luke, the last of the three synoptic evangelists, is, according to Scholten, intended to be the apologist of Paulinism against Judaism and Jewish Christianity, and the same tendency he finds in the Acts. He differs, therefore, from other champions of the same school, like Hilgenfeld, who looks upon the Acts as a work which does not contain the genuine Paulinism, and finds an admixture of un-Pauline elements even in the Gospel of Luke. Scholten finds the first vestige of the existence of this Gospel about the middle of the second century.

ART. X.-QUARTERLY BOOK TABLE.

Religion, Theology, and Biblical Literature.

A Defense of "Our Fathers," and of the Original Organization of the Methodist Episcopal Church against the Rev. Alexander M Caine and Others. With Historical and Critical Notes of American Methodism. By JOHN EMORY, D. D. 8vo., pp. 154. New York: Carlton & Lanahian. Cincinnati: Hitchcock & Walden. If you would teach your son to reason, said Locke, let him study Chillingworth. So if the Church would teach her sons both to reason well and to defend her institutes, let them study John Emory. We do not wonder that before his clear, manly, exhaustive logic the followers of Alexander M'Caine dissipated like a belated frost before the clear sun of a May morning. We need little more, perhaps, than John Emory and the History of our Discipline, by Robert Emory, for the refutation of our good and able brethren, who, without the disloyalty of Alexander M'Caine, are making a movement upon our episcopacy with analogous arguments.

The question of main and immediate practical importance now before the Church to us seems to be just this: Has the General Conference the right to abolish our episcopal ordination and to limit the episcopal office to four years by a mere majority, and without her two thirds majority and the three fourths majority in the Annual Conferences?

We

To this we gave in our July Quarterly a negative answer. say that the Restrictive Rule declares that a General Conference majority alone "shall not do away with episcopacy;" that is, shall not do it away in whole or in any essential part; and in that episcopacy, as received from Mr. Wesley by the framers of that Rule, Ordination and Life-tenure were held to be essential and constituent parts. To remove them is therefore "to do away episcopacy" in the sense of the framers of the Rule.

Our business, then, is to show what was the Episcopal IDEA

framed by Mr. Wesley, accepted by our fathers, and deposited in the Restrictive Rule.

The broad principle upon which our system is built is, as said in our last Quarterly, the inherent right of every Church to shape its government for the highest good to man and glory to God. This may properly be called, as it is by Dr. Reid, "the optional theory." The fundamental axiom was quoted by us from Wesley in our late article on this subject (July Quarterly, p. 526, footnote) in the following words: "I still believe the episcopal form of Church government to agree with the writings of the apostles; but that it is prescribed in Scripture I do not believe. This, which I once zealously espoused, I have been heartily ashamed of ever since I read Bishop Stillingfleet's Irenicon.' I think that he has unanswerably proved that NEITHER CHRIST NOR HIS APOSTLES PRESCRIBE ANY PARTICULAR FORM OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT. Our capitals signalize what we call the Wesleyan AXIOM. From this we deduced the resistless inference, (in same foot-note,) "Of course, then, they no more prescribed two orders than three." And we may now add, of course they no more prescribed three orders than five.

This broad Wesleyan basal principle, or axiom, our article (p. 527) re-affirmed in the following explicit words: "Though a CHURCH MAY SHAPE ITSELF INTO SUCH FORM AS IS PROVIDENTIALLY BEST ADAPTED TO EFFECT ITS TRUE PURPOSES, and though other forms of Church government are doubtless permitted, yet we believe episcopacy to be apostolically sanctioned, though not enjoined, and primarily the best form of government for the most efficient evangelical action." Such was "the prelacy," (!) forsooth, of our article.*

Confirmatory of all this Dr. Emory, through sixteen pages of his work, quotes from Stillingfleet a variety of pertinent passages; passages by which Wesley's mind was influenced as every candid mind must be influenced. Primarily (according to these extracts) even in England the reason for adopting episcopacy was not any "pretense of divine right, but the conveniency of this form of Church government to the state and condition of the Church at the time of its reformation." Archbishop Whitgift was the first who solemnly vindicated hierarchy; yet even he asserts that "no kind of government is expressed in the word, or can necessarily be concluded from thence;" and again, "no form of Church government is by the Scriptures prescribed to or commanded the Church

See also Whedon's Commentary, vol. iii, pp. 74, 146.

of God." Of course, then, we again infer there are by divine prescription no more two orders than three, or three than two. Chemnitius, indeed, is approvingly quoted as affirming that "the word of God nowhere commands what or how many degrees and orders of ministers there shall be; and that in the Apostles' times there was not the like number in all the Churches." Such is the basal doctrine of our Church polity.

To all this the able editor of the "Canada Christian Guardian" replies, that Mr. Wesley "vindicated" our episcopacy on the fact that episcopate and eldership are one order.* One order, we reply, by New Testament example and even somewhat in the postapostolic Church, but not one by divine prescription for the Church of all time. The thoughtful editor has chosen precisely the right word, "vindicated." Mr. Wesley "vindicated" his ordination by this statement, but based it on the broad "optional" axiom. He vindicated himself against the clamors of High Churchmen on the established fact that in the New Testament the episcopos and the presbyteros were one. It was a shield; an argumentum ad homines, accomplishing its defensive purpose. The axiom, that no limitation is divinely laid down to either two or three orders, underlay this vindication. That axiom Mr. Wesley never forgot. He expressly tells us that he was ashamed of maintaining any other doctrine ever since he had read Stillingfleet. It must therefore be assumed, on his own authority, as permanently underlying all his subsequent utterances and movements.

In regard to the proper nature of "orders," we said in our Article, (p. 526,) "How can there be an ordination if not to an order?" This question embraces an entire argument. The old verbs to ordain and to order were different forms of the same word, used in the ritual of the Anglican Church, of which Wesley was a presbyter. To order signifies to endow with orders, just as to magnetize signifies to endow with magnetism. And so Webster rightly defines "ordination, in the Episcopal Church, the act of conferring holy orders or sacerdotal power; called also consecration." And so the old Thirty-sixth Article of the Anglican Church says, "The Book of Consecration . . . doth contain all things necessary for such consecration or ordering. And, therefore, whosoever are consecrated or ordered according to the rites of that book ... we decree all such to be rightly. consecrated or

...

"Lord King's Account of the Primitive Church convinced me, many years ago, that Bishops and Presbyters are the same order, and consequently have the same right to ordain."-Tyerman's Life of Wesley, vol. iii, p. 435.