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BOSTON REVIEW.

VOL. I.-JANUARY, 1861.-No. 1.

ARTICLE I.

IIEPI APXON. — ABOUT BEGINNINGS.

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HERE is the title of Origen's greatest work. A Latin translation still exists under the name "Libri de Principiis,' or "Books of Principles.' No other uninspired production has wrought such changes in the state of the Church, or so revolutionized the form of Christian Theology. It made the influence of its author upon the ecclesiastical world to be mightier than that of Constantine upon the civil. For fourteen centuries it was the seed-plot of theological investigation and debate.

That Hepi Apxov contains errors and absurdities no one will deny. But, according to the Indian proverb, " A diamond with some flaws is still more precious than a pebble that has none." And whatever blemishes and inconsistencies it may be thought to have, it accomplished one great and good work: it contributed powerfully to the study and acknowledgment of principles.

Such a good and great work needs to be accomplished for the present age. Just now the theological skies of New England present striking omens of the need of, and the desire for, a return to the safe anchorage of first principles.

Sacred birds are flying both on the left and on the right, and the priests of augury should be looking out of their windows.

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flooded the country of late. they are bulky and cheap.

There is boding evil in the popularity of those printed sermons, with their speckled and mottled theology, which have Like the iron money of Lycurgus, While the sermons have been the astonishment of good and thoughtful men, the indiscriminate greediness with which they have been swallowed by multitudes in the churches, with lappings and gappings for more, have grieved and alarmed them.

There is threatening in the scantiness and vagueness of modern church creeds, as well as in the sensitiveness and querulousness with which, in many quarters, the simple inquiry about them has been received. Lengthening the denominational zeal, and the external forms and activities is no compensation for shortening and diluting the creed; for the tree dies not for want of branches and leaves, but for lack of nourishment to its roots. That so many young men are applying for licensure and ordination who possess almost the smallest modicum of definite and positive theology, evidently relying upon rhetorical style and popular address for their success, certainly portends no good to the Redeemer's cause. Ignorance, in this case, is not only injustice to the world, but ruin to the Church.

While those memorable councils at North Woburn, at Hartford, and Manchester, revealing the possibility and the reality of youth passing up from pious families, through our boasted Sabbath schools, and even through the full course of our popular theological seminaries, without even settling in their hearts the first principles of piety and religion, such as Inspiration, Probation, Atonement, and Judgment, are dark signs of approaching apostasy, bitter conflicts, and separations. That is a weighty aphorism of Coleridge, " He who begins by loving Christianity better than truth, will proceed by loving his own sect or church better than Christianity, and end in loving himself better than all."

But perhaps the darkest and saddest omen to be seen is the contempt and ridicule which some professed ministers of the Gospel pour upon the fundamental principles of the Gospel-system, and upon all who adhere to them and defend and preach them. In their ordination-vows, they have sworn, upon the altars of the Church, that they will "give heed to the doctrine,"

and "contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints." And yet they unblushingly boast that they do not preach doctrines, nor trouble themselves with dry old-fashioned abstractions. What has Calvinism to do with piety? In their cultivated congregations, men would run away from these ugly, thought-requiring and trouble-making themes; they could not retain their hearers. They are live, practical preachers, who go through the world with their eyes open, (" the things which are seen are temporal,") and with facile adaptability, seizing upon the fresh themes of passing life, they aim to meet and stir the feelings of the people! Instruction is no longer needed! It was well enough once! Now all have Bibles and books, and know their duty in the abstract! So long as they can keep their congregations large, and active in their sympathies, why should they care what particular principles are believed? Only let there be piety towards men, and piety towards God, fidelity to his revealed will, will take care of itself! How glibly they denounce heresy-hunting, and with what original talent they can follow their arch-leader in provoking a smile at "dead orthodoxy," "the vinegar-faced evangelicals," or, if all else fail," Total Depravity"! Their theology and theory of ecclesiastical history do not teach them that man's carnal nature is so averse to the divine counsel as to render eternal vigilance the price of a sound scriptural faith; and so they are credulous, bold, and ridicule the very idea of danger. The thief would have you leave your doors unbarred, and the simple believe his cry of peace, peace. Well has it been said, "Men that know nothing in sciences have no doubts."

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And, alas, there are society majorities that love to have it so. Says Bacon, "A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure." In this way any house may be filled by a cunning caterer. The demand will create the supply. The curse of apostate Israel was, at one time, "There shall be, like people, like priest; and [so] I will punish them for their ways, and reward them their doings." Young America is allowed to rule out the piety and experience of mature age. Strong meat is at a discount, and the clamor is for baby-diet and boy-preaching. Says an Arab proverb, Experience is the key of knowledge, as credulity is the gate of error."

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But we are not disposed to be gloomy and despairing. Though these evils have been poured out upon us thick and fast of late, we trust it is because the Pandora box is well-nigh exhausted, as people come faster out of a church when it is nearly empty than when a crowd is at the door. Moreover, along with these evil omens there are many signs of good; some of them are specially encouraging as indicating a pretty general discovery of the spring of the bitter streams, and a determination to apply the remedy at the fountain-head.

Many Christian clergymen and laymen are earnestly seeking to restore the saving principles of the Gospel system, as the prophet cast salt into the spring of the waters at Jericho, where the school of the prophets was. Many are feeling the aching void which the smooth and flowery, or at best, mere hortatory periods, from many a pulpit, leave behind them. Many hearers are hungering and thirsting for the thorough instruction, the full and plain presentation of the old and mighty truths which made giants of our Puritan Fathers, as the basis of right and deep feeling, and of earnest practical life.

Their desire is, not so much that the principles of the Gospel shall be preached after the same old scholastic models, as that they be preached substantially, and actually, underlying and forming the vital substance of every sermon. We do not believe that a mind that abandons all logic, however brilliant and gorgeous its rhetorical acquirements, is a safe instructor and guide in that most perfect and greatest of all systems, the Gospel. But if a minister of Christ is not satisfied with the patterns of Paul's cogent reasonings and clear abstract demonstrations of truth, then let him set before him the still higher models of the Lord Jesus, in the warm, glowing life-pictures of the same great doctrines which Paul set forth more didactically. For where are the distinguishing doctrines brought out half so vividly and overwhelmingly as in the sermons and parables of Christ? Who ever presented so clearly and boldly as he did man's Apostasy and utter Depravity, Repentance, Faith, Regeneration by the Holy Ghost, Divine Sovereignty, Election, Eternal Decrees, human Freedom and Responsibility, Judgment and Eternal Damnation? He did not cause "the offence of the cross to cease," for those of his hearers who

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