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Corinth, and of Rome, have never been governed by a common authority; they have had nothing in common, to use the expression of a sacred author, but faith, charity, and hope. It is true that the Founder of Christianity never speaks of his Churches, that he always speaks of his Church; but there is no doubt that under this denomination he may have understood the ideal whole of those who should adopt his doctrine and his life, his death and his resurrection. It is thus that in theory men still speak of a single Church. They mean, then, an ideal Church; for example, that of the saints, such as it will be after the consummation of ages, or else the collective body of true Christians upon earth, to whatsoever special community they may belong.-Pp. 11–13.

History, however, needs not enter into this research; her business is to describe things as they are, to generalize according to truth, and to carefully avoid any tendency to individual prejudices. And this is the danger of historians; for

To exercise this criticism, it would be requisite to belong to no particular Church, and to have in all a lively interest. This attitude, however, is impossible; but it is not only possible, it is the duty of the religious man of our days to elevate himself to the height, where he belongs to the universal Church, which is composed of true Christians of every communion..... Without doubt it is impossible to write the history of the Greek Church without that of the Latin Church; this latter does not shew itself in all its clearness but beside the Protestant Church, and without Protestantism no other modern Church can be understood. They are sisters who are closely united together, who cannot forget each other, who speak of each other without ceasing, and who, in the depths of their hearts, keep, with their family resemblance, such a tenderness, that unceasingly they want to run into each other's arms.—Pp. 15, 16.

Now the consideration of these facts is the field of the historian ; but to enter upon the duties of such a task, his acquirements ought to be of the very highest order. The history of the Church is so blended with secular history, is so connected with all the nations who have embraced the symbol of the cross, -is so interwoven amongst the laws, the institutions, and the customs of the world,—that to unravel the destinies and to develop the connexions of the Church, requires learning the most multifarious and exact. The historian must be not only a lawyer and a politician, but a philosopher of every sect and system; he must be an antiquary and a chronologist; a geographer as well as a diplomatist; a man of literary excellence as well as of profound research; of the greatest patience, as well as of the most sound and discreet judgment. Above all, he must be devoid of prejudice, and full of the love of God; and he must, under the influence of that universal charity which the Gospel inculcates, extend the right hand of fellowship to all who keep, at the same time that he turns away with disgust from all who deny, the faith that is in Jesus Christ.

The object of ecclesiastical history should be to identify itself with Providence; to follow the steps of Infinite Wisdom, as exhibited in the changes of the world, and to derive from all the lesson which they are intended to teach-the existence of a superintending Creator,

the weakness of all human efforts to divert the course of those events which He has willed and worked. The historian of the Church is upon holy ground, and should remember that he is writing not the mere actions of men engaged in struggles after some partial or imperfect system of human authority, but is describing the series of those events in the government of the Eternal, which are but portions of the vast career which Infinite Wisdom has ordained, and Infinite Power is gradually bringing to an individual effect.

Viewed in this way, the work of the historian of the Church appears a difficult and perilous undertaking; for if he has labours to encounter, and patience to prove, he has also to be responsible for a right or a wrong interpretation of those occurrences on which the immediate interests of mankind depend.

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Whether M. Matter is gifted with these requisite and indispensable qualifications for the duty he has undertaken to perform, may be, perhaps, more than questioned; but as he has shewn that he understands wherein his own requirements exist, as he has not shirked the question of the historian's responsibility, we are inclined to think that he has given as fair and as impartial a statement as his means and opportunities have allowed. The work before us is, at least, the fruit of some pains, and has been matured with considerable delay; for, we believe, twelve years ago he commenced his lectures at Strasbourg on Church history; and that these lectures have been condensed into the present publication, we have evidence sufficient from its style and language, as well as from the allusion in the Preface to those treatises which have preceded it, and which, he says, are to be received as guarantees for the exactness of his research, and the impartiality of his judgment." (P. 8.) If we may receive the testimony of his own country, those treatises are of extreme value. The Chronological Tables, published some years ago at Strasbourg, in a small octavo volume, are well known; and the "Essai Historique sur l'Ecole d'Alexandrie," and the "Histoire du Gnosticisme,” each work in two volumes, octavo, were crowned with prizes by the "Academie Royale;" the former in 1817, the latter in 1826. There is a progressive improvement to be perceived in the style of these consecutive works; but in the present he has not given such an evidence of their continued advancement as we might have expected. This has been a complaint of more than one reviewer on the continent; and with the reproofs of one of them in particular our strictures coincide. Whether the mass of materials accumulated in the course of his twelve years' study has encumbered him or not, M. Matter seems, at least, to have been far from free in the use of those materials; and in the multifarious authorities whom he quotes so unsparingly, he appears to have wandered far and near, without

sufficient self-control to guide him to the few, who, in all cases of the kind, are more than amply sufficient. He seems to have been aware how much toil he had undergone, and to have deemed its display a necessary claim upon the indulgence of the public. Yet we give him credit for a most important point-the division of his task. It is here that he has shewn his judgment: he has looked on the field before him with the eye of a skilful general, and has marshalled his troops accordingly. As the arrangement of the work depends altogether on this circumstance, we shall leave him to state the method he has pursued, and the reasons thereof.

Drawn from the purest sources, history ought to live again in our pages; as in the destinies of the human race, it ought to form a continued chain of causes and events—its narratives ought to flow without defect and without interruption. And yet the dominant cause of every thing which exists, and which is going on there, appears oftentimes to delight in accumulating a multitude of facts, in order to produce greater events to which certain series of results may happen to attach..... These events are called the epochs of history. Ecclesiastical history presents many of these epochs, which may serve as points of rest and of departure for the historian. The times comprised between them, or their periods, are so many isolated groups belonging to one general picture. It is essential to make good choice of epochs; a bad choice disposes of the narratives capriciously, by carrying them away from their natural connexion.

It would be a happy choice to find such events, to limit the periods, as would really make an epoch in the destinies of the entire Church. Now it is a constant fact, that these destinies are only a succession of combats,-that a struggle is carried on,—and that in this struggle, always great and universal, five capital epochs present themselves.

In fact, Christianity, in establishing itself, wrestled at first with Judaism and paganism, for the space of three centuries, and from its origin till the reign of Constantine. This is the first period of her history. A. D. 33-312.

Established on a solid basis, elevated to the throne by the sovereign who embraces it, the recently new religion takes in her turn an offensive attitude in the empire: she persecutes she ruins paganism. But scarcely does she see the last wreck of the institutions of polytheism disappear, when a new enemy, Mahometanism, rises against her in the bosom of Arabia. Second period, A. D. 312-622.

The religion of Mahomet, accusing that of the Christians of a singular degeneration, of a superstitious polytheism, armed with the pen and the sword, wages war upon her with an equal violence. It persecutes her, it oppresses her in Asia, in Africa, in Europe. It is on the point of suspending its triumphs, but not its cruelties, when, at the voice of a pilgrim from the Holy Land, and from the Pontiff of Rome, the West arms itself en masse, to reject Mahometanism, even in its cradle, or at least to wrest from it the sepulchre of the Founder of the Christian society. Third period, A. D. 622-1096.

This struggle, so long, so full of brilliant episodes, and so fruitful in immortal results, conducted with more enthusiasm than prudence, and more by good fortune than by skill (plus de bonheur que de stratégie), terminates at length in the fifteenth century, in a lamentable manner for the Christians, and by the complete subjugation of the Greek Church.

The Latin Church indemnifies itself by the success of its crusades directed, in Spain, against the Moors; in Prussia, against the Pagans; in the south of France, against the Heretics. She consoles herself still better by the conquest of the New World, which she divides between two of her most faithful children. Yet, at the moment when the New World appears to submit to the most powerful pontiff of the Old, a new Church, carrying along in its defection the half of

Europe, detaches itself from Rome, and gives the signal of a more lively combat than those which have preceded it. Fourth period, A. D. 1096-1517.

The new Church, or, as she styles herself, the primitive Church, re-established in its evangelical purity, which is Protestantism, struggles with all her force for settlement, enlargement, and preservation; the ancient Church, or Catholicism, opposes her with all its resources, invokes against her all its power, and, exclusive in its principle, ceases not to fight, that she may have no rival. Very soon from spiritual they pass to temporal means-from argument to the sword. A struggle, every where too bloody, takes place, and is prolonged, throughout all Europe. At length, the spirits are calmed-peace is concluded: some return to the Gospel, others to reason; toleration, claimed by Jesus Christ, to found his religion, and commanded by the force of things, and the impossibility of reconciling opinions, are proclaimed anew; and intolerance is not kept up, except in countries which put themselves beyond the benefit of civilization. Fifth period, A. D. 1517-1828 (say 1830).*

Such are the principal periods, the grand parts of the immense picture which the history of the Church is bound to describe.-Pp. 22-25.

We have now given, in the words of the author, a satisfactory answer to inquiries respecting the nature and plan of the work; it remains only to state how that plan has been pursued.

Two volumes only have yet appeared. The first embraces the history of the two former of the above-named periods; the second volume is devoted to the third. Two other volumes will complete the work. But can our readers expect a particular dissection of these two former volumes, embracing, as they do, the events of more than 1000 years, in the narrow compass of a page? Let us, then, state once for all, that there is frequent evidence of the talent of the author throughout the history, but that, and even in the most brilliant and poetic passages,-for the style is, notwithstanding its German pithiness, occasionally eloquent, there is sometimes perceived a laxity of expression, and an apparent incomprehensibility of language, which are the general characteristics of oral lectures, but which are not to

In the "Tables Chronologiques," the learned author has considered the events of these five periods under a parallelism, of which the following will be found an accurate though concise abstract.

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be excused in a work which has, or ought to have, received the after consideration of the writer.

"Vos, 6

Pompilius sanguis, carmen reprehendite, quod non
Multa dies et multa litura coërcuit, atque

Perfectum decies non castigavit ad unguem."-HOR.

It appears that every qualification which the critic requires, M. Matter possesses in an eminent degree; but he also seems to want, or rather to have neglected to employ, that literary skill which combines, connects, and interweaves the successive materials of a composition into one indivisible fabric. The work reads rather as a series of histories than as one continued argument; it is more like a collection of memoirs than a single memoir: but to make it one requires only a little diligence, the thousandth part of that which has laboured to bring together so many authorities, so many facts, and so much erudition, into such a compass. It is still too much like a cours académique," and the passages translated above may be quoted as an example.

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We wish, however, that there were no other defects: but such there are. We thank a foreign contemporary for directing our attention to one or two of those to be enumerated. At p. 55 of the first volume we have these words:

Jésus Christ..... Se présente et meurt comme la dernière des victimes, agréee par son père pour l'expiation des péchés du genre humain; le rite du baptême, emblème d'initiation et de purification, et celui de la cène, emblème de sa mort, sont tout ce qu'il reconnait de symboles.

Again, p. 60, he says-

Ses disciples considérant avec lui sa mort comme un DERNIER acte d'expiation, comme un symbole de réconciliation entre le Créateur de l'univers et les peuples égarés de la terre, encore plus coupables par leur ignorance que par leurs vices.

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Now, with all deference to the Strasbourg professor, we do think that the above passages do not give "the truth as it is in Jesus;' they certainly understate both the value and the effect of the great event by which God reconciled the world to himself. There is also, we think, a misunderstanding in the writer's mind of the use of Mosaism, as he terms the law; and upon the correct theory of the "law and the gospel" depends every thing in the teaching of the desk or the pulpit. St. Paul's view of that connexion, in the third chapter of Galatians, does not appear to have received M. Matter's full consideration. He adds, that "Jesus reformed Mosaism," &c. (p. 56). Now it is sufficient to refer for a refutation of these hasty assertions to the texts, Matt. v. 17, and Eph. ii. 20.*

He says

English divines are in no want of sources whence to draw light and instruction on these points; nor need M. Matter have forgotten his own theologians, Kleuther and Planck, Staeudlin, Hess, and Biallobotzky.

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