the fundamental unit' of church life; here nations are the 'real units,' and in page 90, the Christian nation,' or 'evangelical national church,' as the supreme body,' is the highest unit.' 'The moral responsibility of the nation,' again he says, p. 43, lies in the state, that is in the uncontrolled conscience of the 'national community or communities.' All churches,' Dr. Bunsen adds, must be witnesses for the truth; but no testimony has any real value before God in history, except as far as it is the testimony of a free and morally responsible being. Catholicity, 'therefore, must henceforth exist in harmony with nationality, in the same way that the divine right of the ministry can only be ' admitted in future, if controlled by the first great principle of the Reformation, the universal priesthood.'-p. 44.

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We must leave our readers to reconcile all these statements as well as they can; for ourselves, we see not how a state, as distinguished from the individuals who compose the nation, can be morally responsible. Again, how can churches be witnesses for the truth, but either through the testimony of the free and morally responsible beings who compose them, or their symbolical confessions? Are churches themselves, as such, free and morally responsible beings? But Bunsen, though he says, in p. 57, that he takes his stand on the Augsburg Confession, speaks slightingly of the confessions, articles, and systems' of the Protestant churches, and asserts that the notion that unity of doctrine is the condition of the development of the church in every other respect, is a notion which must necessarily arise in every clergy-church. Has it not always been the view of every national church, and can we reasonably expect the contrary? Our own conviction is, that both in this way and by fostering in Christians an undue partiality for their own country and its interests, which are represented in their liturgical offices as separate from those of other nations, nationality is subversive both of true religious freedom and true nationality.

But after taking exception thus freely to the details of Dr. Bunsen's work, it gratifies us that we can speak with admiration of his own catholic spirit. His views are Utopian, but his heart is large. This is conspicuous, not only in the liberality which he would fain infuse into his diocesan episcopacy, but in the comments which he makes at different times upon existing systems. In page 25 we have a candid and able notice of Calvin's ecclesiastical polity, and one we should have quoted, but that part of it would inevitably, unless we had mutilated it, have provoked a long discussion. His notices of the Swedish Church, pp. 73, 74, the English Independents, pp. 77-79, and the Episcopal Church of North America, are written in a liberal spirit. Our readers

would hardly excuse us if we withheld from them the second of these notices.

• The other protest was that of the Independents, who advanced the doctrine of the so-called separation of Church and State, and founded the Voluntary System. As the dictatorship we have just described [the state dictatorship which arose in the German Protestant Church*] has the merit of having protected the church from the unfounded claims of the clergy, before such protection could be afforded by a free national church polity; so it must be allowed that the Independents have the merit of having asserted and established the inalienable rights of the congregation, (that is, in the highest sense, of the Christian laity, which is necessarily composed of local congregations,) against State Churches as well as Clergy Churches, against systems of police as well as systems of dogmatism. But, from leaving out of sight the other side of the idea of the church, it necessarily followed that Independentism, having started with asserting the rights of the fundamental unit of church life, the local congregation should continue to regard this as its highest manifestation, as the church herself, and should degrade the ecclesiastical liberty it achieved into a liberty exterior to the national life. By its first one-sided view (that is, by leaving Catholicity out of sight) it incapacitated itself from exhibiting to the world, at any rate in practice, a great church-communion ; by the second (that is, the neglect of Nationality) it nearly relapsed into the errors of the Middle Ages, and even into Papacy. The Papacy, from its inherent enmity to nationality, disturbed as far as it could that divine law, according to which Christianity is developed around the divinely appointed centres of independent nations and states. Independentism, with its American gospel and canon law,—the doctrine of what is styled the separation of Church and State, loses the idea of Nationality as well as of Catholicity. While it protests against the state, the nation escapes from it. Its adherents desire freedom, and fall into a mischievous servitude,—the clergy under the fanaticism of a local congregation or its majority, the congregation under the onesided dogmatism of their preacher, tempered by no historical development. There is in this respect especially a very remarkable similarity between the theory of Independentism and the Monasticism of the Middle Ages. Like the ter, it does not find the pure expression of the Christian character in the civil relations assigned it by God, but shrinks from an encounter with the world, instead of joyfully and hopefully opposing it with faith, and penetrating it with love. Despairing of the renovation of the national churches, held in bondage by the state, or in the far worse slavery of worldliness, Independentism forgets time and hour, and looks even upon the present, that hard-won inheritance of centuries, as having absolutely no real existence. In this despair it is for beginning everything afresh, as if the past had yielded no experience, and formed no institutions, as if no Christian state existed, -led away in this by American orators, who, like many others before them, make a virtue of necessity. And thus people have been brought to perceive in an embryo condition the height of perfection, and in the point of commencement, at which America naturally herself stands, the end and haven of all development. We may deplore this one-sidedness and delusion, and yet recognise the great worth of Independentism, as presenting us with one of the necessary elements in the constitution of the church, and bestow our admiration on the Christian earnestness and zeal of its confessors and teachers. John Owen preached the doctrine of liberty of conscience with even more power and fearlessness than his contemporary Bishop Taylor,not, as a later age, in unbelief, but in faith,—not in a sense hostile to the church, but for the church's sake.'-pp. 77–79.

There are some parts of this statement which we may safely leave to the reader's knowledge and intelligence. That the clergy are enslaved under the fanaticism of local congregations, or their majorities, while the congregations are enslaved under the onesided dogmatism of their preachers, tempered by no historical development, is a portrait whose identity we fail to recognise. In his fling at the American gospel and canon law of Independentism, and his assertion that the Independents are led away by American orators, the chevalier only shows his small acquaintance with the historical development of the body to which he refers. These charges, however, were they true, are of far less consequence than their leaving Catholicity out of sight would be. Is this charge true ?

What Dr. Bunsen means by Catholicity we may learn from p. 41. He there says, truly and beautifully

• In the church the inward disposition is weighed, not the outward act; and this not only in the immediate communion of the Christian with his God, but also in that intercourse which he enjoys with his Maker by means of the world through his connexion with his fellowmen, and the rest of the creation. It is on this relation of the church to mankind (as the sphere of that moral life in which all have a common interest, and which is the condition of their highest unity) that the universality of the church is founded; it is plain that this relation must be older than the rise of states (as the whole must be prior to its parts); it is probable, from Christian doctrine, that it is intended to outlive their life. This is the evangelical import of the words Catholic and Catholicity. In this sense is Catholic, that is, universal, employed in the old creeds. In this sense only, according to the common English usage, have I used the words in my correspondence.'

Tried by this test, we have no fear for the catholicity of independency. It recognises no intermediate ecclesiastical constitution between that of the particular society of believers who maintain an habitual visible fellowship, and that of the church universal. It recognises all as belonging to this latter church who belong to Christ himself, by a voluntary and credibly sincere profession. It admits, ungrudgingly and on principle, to a participation in the most spiritual privileges of the church all who possess this character, without imposing any yoke upon the conscience. It claims for its own adherents, and as due to those who are attached to other systems, the right and duty of believing and living in harmony with the law and word of Christ. It knows no distinction, and makes no difference between Jew and Gentile, Romanist or Anglican, bond or free. It counts none whom God has cleansed common or unclean. We think it impossible to produce any form of religious communion more truly Catholic than this.

• But,' says Bunsen, 'while it protests against the state, the nation escapes from it.' This we admit. And the causes which check Independency are not few. It has never had fair play. Its adherents have been burdened with the support of other systems. For nearly two centuries they were debarred from approaching the national seats of learning. The wealth, and influence, and literature of the establishment, as well as the world, have been directed against them. Other bodies, commanding more or less of moral strength, ability, and learning, have also been in the field of competition. On these accounts, then, it is not very wonderful if Independency has not achieved a paramount influence over the nation. But we may fairly ask, has the State Church itself, with its diocesan episcopacy, secured the nation to itself? No. Nor would have done, had it been even purer than it is. The gospel itself is rejected by the world. How, then, is it likely that any ecclesiastical platform should, as such, obtain its favour? The presumption would be fully as much against as for any system which the world ran after.

By these remarks, we by no means intend to justify the Independent or congregational body in this country, as though they did all they might do, and all their own principles, the exigences of the times, or the law of Christ, require of them. We deplore the contrary. We own that, practically, there is not the union of counsel and effort which there ought to be. But our independency is not to blame for this. It is our individual selfishness and indolence which are to blame.

Dr. Bunsen in one place refers to Rothe, the author of a work which made some stir in Germany a few years back,

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intituled 'Die Anfänge der Christlichen Kirche.' In this work, Rothe, relying on the authority of Ignatius, argued earnestly in favour of episcopacy. He was ably answered by Baur of Tübingen, in a dissertation which first appeared in the Tübingen Zeitschrift für Theologische Wissenschaft,' but was afterwards published separately. Rothe's theory was that episcopacy was introduced by the apostles themselves, to counteract the progress of schism. We have also seen Bunsen's assertion, that the episcopacy of the first ages saved the church from schism.' But both were long since answered by anticipation, in John Milton's Reason of Church Government urged against Prelaty.' He there says, chap. vi., Tradition, they say, hath taught them, that for the prevention of growing schism, the bishop was heaved above the presbyter. And must tradition, then, ever thus, to the 'world's end, be the perpetual cankerworm to eat out God's com'mandments? Are his decrees so inconsiderate and so fickle, that ' when the statutes of Solon and Lycurgus shall prove durably good to many ages, his in forty years shall be found defective, ill-contrived, and for needful causes to be altered? Our Saviour ' and his apostles did not only foresee, but foretel and forewarn us 'to look for schism. Is it a thing to be imagined of God's wisdom, or at least of apostolic prudence, to set up a government in the ' tenderness of the church, as should incline, or not be more able 'than many others to oppose itself to schism? It was well known ' what a bold lurker schism was even in the household of Christ, ' between his own disciples and those of John the Baptist, about 'fasting; and early in the Acts of the Apostles, the noise of schism had almost drowned the proclaiming of the gospel; yet ' we read not in Scripture, that any thought was had of making ́ prelates, no, not in those places where dissension was most rife. If prelaty had been thus esteemed a remedy against schism, where was it more needful than in that great variance among 6 the Corinthians, which St. Paul so laboured to reconcile? And 'whose eye could have found the fittest remedy sooner than he? And what could have made the remedy more available than to ' have used it speedily? And lastly, what could have been more necessary than to have written it for our instruction ?'

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We must here take leave of Bunsen and episcopacy for the present. There are yet a dozen distinct points which we had marked for special notice, but it is difficult to enter on them without referring to the collateral topics which, as we before observed, our author's philosophizing style suggests. We can hardly quote a passage to point out one error, without bringing to notice others we could not possibly find room to discuss. Enough has been said, however, we trust, to convey an idea both of the object and method of the