outward observance, there is the saine ignoring of the moral element as being of any Christian value." Again, "Nine tenths of the pulpits of Protestant Christendom have been occupied for years in showing that personal merit has nothing to do with salvation, and that it is accomplished wholly through the merits of Christ." Dr. Lyman Beecher is quoted as saying in a sermon, "The attention today has been very deep and solemn. In the morning I preached against morality." Again, "The highest virtues, without the atoning blood of Christ, have been stigmatized as filthy rags,"" and "How could we expect that such a presentation of Christianity could result otherwise than in a flood of immorality?" Again, "The slurs which holy men have been casting for centuries at the value of morality and personal goodness are now bearing their legitimate fruit in a harvest of robbery, murder, and lust."

Now, is it a fact that nine tenths, or one tenth of the evangelical pulpits have thus been occupied "for years," or at all? Is it true of even one such pulpit? Morality in the sense of meritorious works, as the ground of the sinner's justification before God, and of his salvation, has indeed been ignored by every evangelical Protestant pulpit, and for the very good and sufficient reason that the Scriptures utterly ignore it. "By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified." It is not "by works of righteousness." It is mercy, grace that saves us. "By grace ye are saved, through faith"-faith in Christ. "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." "There is salvation in no other." Faith in

him as "a propitiation for sin”-as an atoning Saviour-as "the Lamb of God, who," by his sufferings and death "taketh away the sin of the world"-faith in Him as such a Saviour, not merely as a Teacher and Example, is the means by which the merits of his death accrue to us-are made a saving benefit to us. In this sense alone is it true that he "bore our sins and carried our sorrows," and was made "a sin offering for us," that we might be "made the righteousness of God in him." Faith is the ground of hope, not morality-not human merit. And this faith is the gift of God. This is the sense, and the only sense in which morality is represented, by the evangelical pulpit, as useless and worthless, viz., that it is meritorious. This must have been known by the writer in the Magazine, when he penned the above quoted sentences, or if, with his evident acquaintance with evangelical writings and opinions, he did not know it, we have before us a very strange and inexplicable fact.

The evangelical pulpit teaches morality-the necessity of good works-not as a basis, indeed, to build a hope upon, but as evidence

of a regenerated heart, and faith in Christ; and the evangelical preacher always says to his hearers as an apostle said to his, "Show me thy faith without thy works, and I will show thee my faith by my works." On no point is the evangelical pulpit more strenuous or its teachings more frequent and solemn. This practical preaching is, in too many evangelical pulpits, at the expense of a thorough presentation of some of the fundamental doctrines of the Gospel. The slur upon Dr. Beecher is unwarranted and ungenerous.

If the writer's allegations, in the quotations above made, are true, then evangelical congregations and even churches might fairly be supposed to be made up of the worst portions of society, because they constantly hear this demoralizing evangelical preaching; and the non-evangelical congregations and churches, of people the most pure and virtuous, because they hear the preaching which repudiates evangelical sentiment altogether, and especially the doctrine of salvation by grace through an atoning Redeemer, with its necessarily affiliating doctrines. But do these latter congregations and churches sustain and manifest an elevation and purity in morals so far above their evangelical neighbors? Evangelical missions are asserted to be a failure. Have unevangelical missions accomplished more, either at home or abroad, among Catholics or the heathen?

Another cause of the present demoralized state of society, or of "the loss of religious power" in it, this writer avers is "clinging to the old formularies of Theology." This cause, however, is tantamount to the preceding, which was the preaching of the evangelical doctrines. But these doctrines being the doctrines of the formularies in question, the latter must of course produce the effects of the former. The writer's main object, however, under this head of discussion, seems to have been rather to introduce statements in regard to the late National Council than for any other other purpose. The old Confessions and Platforms of the Synods of 1648 and 1680 are referred to, and some of the offensive and unpopular doctrines of these named. Then comes the inquiry with a note of astonishment, "These doctrines the substance of our Christian Faith! How would it be possible to strike a more deadly blow against all vital religion than by such an affirmation?" "How could we expect that such a presentation of Christianity could result otherwise than in a flood of immorality?" "In every thing else," he continues, "there has been advancement, yet these five hundred members of the Council tell us that, in the midst of all this progress, there is one branch of knowledge which has stood absolutely still-that Theology, the noblest and sublimest of them all, has forgotten no mistakes and learned no truths."

Now, the Council, in re-affirming the creeds, has simply said, not that there has been no progress in substantiating and making more clear the truths of the Bible, but no progress in bringing new truth from it. Does not the Bible justify the Council in taking this ground? And more than this, does it not denounce the most appalling woes against all who presume to add to, or diminish from this completed Revelation?

Again, the writer says: "The action of this body (the Council) is not an exception. The position taken by the church at large is deliberately against all improvement, all recognition of new thought, new truth, new confessions of Faith." All this is unwarranted except in regard to new religious truth. There can be no new divinely revealed truth, for the sacred canon is closed. Uninspired men can manufacture what they are pleased to call Christian truth, but it is not Christian truth. It has no divine authority. It is a human product only, rational, in one sense, it may be, and philosophical, but it is binding on no man's judgment or conscience.

In regard to some other statements of this writer, they are, doubtless, founded in truth; and others still it may be left with those implicated to dispose of, as to themselves may seem best. "Every person in England graduating at the Universities, preaching in the established church, or holding a public office, must subscribe to the thirty-nine articles-the faith of that church three hundred years ago." "Not a few, and those the most eminent for scholarship, contend against doctrines, in which, as preachers, they have deliberately affirmed their belief." Dr. Paley is quoted as asserting that these articles are regarded rather as "articles of peace than of faith." There is too much truth in these statements.

Is there truth in the following? The implicated can tell us. After the statement of the fact that the Professors at Andover are obliged, "as the condition of holding their office, to give in their adherence every five years to the same old creed," is this also: "One of the most distinguished professors at Andover has got the chief part of his reputation from the skill with which he has enabled his pupils to hold on to the letter of the old doctrines, while they empty them of all their original meaning." And this likewise : "How many of the Boston Council believe, according to any honest interpretation of the words, that mankind are morally corrupt by nature”—that "God has ordained some to everlasting death and some to everlasting life, without any foresight of faith and good works? But, if they do not believe them; if they are professed only for effect, and because there is wanting the moral courage to come out boldly and deny them, what mockery to go down among

the dust of those old Plymouth Pilgrims, and there, of all places in the world, and with solemn rites, declare their adherence to them, and invoke the help of the divine Redeemer that, through the presence of the promised Comforter, he will enable us to transmit them in purity to our children."

Such assertions as these can best be met by those respecting whom they are made. If they are untrue they should be met, for they are a scandal upon individuals and upon the churches. Here is a charge of insincerity, at least by implication. A majority of that Council, it is believed a large majority, were honest and sincere in re-affirming those old standards-the creeds not only of the Pilgrim Fathers but also of the Continental Reformers,-creeds about as unlikely, to use the thoughts of another, to be exchanged for a newer and more liberal, and as some would say rational one, as King James' translation of the Bible is to give place to some modernized one deemed to be more perfect. Our "Common Version" is fixed for all time, and so are the long received symbols of the Reformed Protestant churches, for they are but the embodiment of the doctrines of that version, and of the original Scriptures from which it was made by the learned and godly men appointed to do it by royal authority; and, who did the work, not in a hurried and careless manner, but through years of careful and prayerful study. So many men so well qualified to do it, it would be difficult to bring together again, and especially in this age of the world. Attempts have been made to improve it, but they have been futile, and the translations unsuccessful and ephemeral. And why should we expect more perfect creeds from the efforts of this or any age than those which were framed by the stalwart men in mind, learning and piety who, after years of labor, gave to the churches the forms of faith which have been so long adopted and so tenaciously held? The best critics acknowledge that not one of the doctrines of our common Bible has been set aside, or in the least impaired, by all the emendations and sound criticisms that have been, or are likely to be made. And what new and modified creeds in our churches, can bear comparison, in clearness of statement and soundness of doctrine, with those old symbols, which not a few would supersede by something more popular and less exacting?

If any of that Council, in giving their votes to re-affirm those creeds, gave their public sanction to what they believe to be religious error (and some of them, it is well known, before giving their vote to re-affirm, did wish to set them aside and adopt a new creed), they must justify their action in the premises, or, for aught that yet appears, be obnoxious to the writer's charges of "dishonest" inter

pretation of the creeds, and lack of "moral courage" in voting to set them aside and adopt a new one. We do not make these charges, and yet we confess our minds would be very much relieved if we could see the grounds of them wholly removed. One pastor of prominence in the churches, has said-one who was a member of the Council, and doubtless other members are ready to say, that the doings of it have not altered in any material measure, if they have in any, either the biblical or the philosophical views with which they went into that venerable and important clerical body. One active member of it was chronicled, in a public print, as having preached an Arminian sermon in a Boston pulpit the Sabbath after its adjournment, and one church creed at least, since that time, has been adopted in which the language seems carefully adapted to exclude the biblical idea that all men are sinners.

A just conclusion from the whole article in the Monthly Religious Magazine, above noticed, would seem to be that pretty much all that is needed to reform the wickedness of the world is to throw away the long established creeds of the churches, and go on making improvements in theology as far and as fast as possible, that is, substituting morality for piety, outward correctness of life for inward "sincerity of heart," and "spirituality of worship"; in other words, throwing away the Gospel plan of salvation by grace through faith in an atoning Redeemer, and putting in its place the doctrine of salvation by works. If this be the true method of salvation, then Paul and his fellow apostles, though inspired men-inspired by the Holy Ghost-"labored in vain and spent their strength for naught and in vain." We choose to stand upon "the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone." This is rock and will remain, and the hopes that are built upon it too, when the sandy foundations and the hopes built upon them will be swept away.

ECCLESIASTICAL RECIPROCITY. "Look on this picture, and on that." In the New York Observer of March 8, 1866, we find the following, being an extract from the recent work of the Rev. Dr. Butler, late chaplain to the American Embassy to Rome. The title of Dr. Butler's book is "Inner Rome."

"American citizens are not permitted to hold service within the walls of Rome, because it is the right of an ambassador to hold such service in his own apartment, which, however distasteful, can not be refused. But it has been distinctly stated by Cardinal Antonelli to one of our ambassadors, that it would be tolerated nowhere else within the walls. During the early part of the winter, before the arrival of Gen. King, the service