not need to be moulded into a symbol. It was learned from honored preachers, and wrought into the most settled convictions by the earnest discussions of every house. When the Westminster Confession was framed in 1648 and the Savoy Confession followed it in 1658, they were accepted in the New England churches, as sound expositions of Christian truth. To the adoption of the two together with the thirty-nine articles of the Church of England as standards of doctrine, the representatives of the forty-one churches in Connecticut, at the Saybrook Synod raised not a note of dissent or remonstrance. There may have been secret misgivings on the part of preachers and laymen in Massachusetts and Connecticut, but of such history gives no record. That with all this soundness of formulated theology, there was some lack of fervent Christian faith, and an earnest Christian spirit among clergy and laymen became evident from time to time. The complaints of coldness and worldliness and immorality which abound toward the close of the seventeenth century, and are intensified from that period till the great awakening of 1740, cannot be interpreted otherwise than that a so-called dead orthodoxy of theological creed was taken as a substitute for a fervent and loving Christian faith. With the revival came the new theology of Edwards, which was first of all an attempt to demonstrate that the doctrines of Depravity, of Grace, and Divine Sovereignty were not inconsistent with reason and sound philosophy, but were entirely reconcilable with the same. With these discussions a new standpoint was taken from which to look at theological statements, and a new method by which to test their truth. The standpoint and the test were Reason and Philosophy. Edwards was a distinguished philosopher and also an able interpreter, and he cited abundantly from the Scriptures the texts which he considered to be decisive of questions strictly philosophical. As a reasoner he was subtle in his distinctions, logical in his inferences, and abundant in his imaginative resources, and above all was fervid in his spirituality, and bold in his appeals to the conscience. While in the schools he stood unmatched for his skill in controversy, in the pulpit he was as saintly as Fenelon and as bold as Savonarola. He flung himself with the ardor of his most sacred convictions, into one of the most

stirring controversies of the times, concerning the conditions of church membership. This involved the right to the most sacred privileges of many men of the highest social position in his own parish, and brought him into sharp antagonism with his own grandfather, who had been his colleague in the ministry. He was also the leading spirit in that great awakening which at once aroused and divided the churches and laymen of all New England, in theological opinion, in Christian sympathies, and in many instances in their church relations. Grave and reverend pastors who had been thought good Calvinists before, but could not endure the sharp distinctions and pungent conclusions of the new light theology were stigmatized as Arminians. Massachusetts and Connecticut were profoundly agitated for nearly two generations by the movements and counter-movements of the New light and Old light parties, and a wind of books and pamphlets kept the fire at glowing heat. These theological divisions took the place of the political agitations of later times, being kept alive by those leaders of the later Edwardian school who applied his method to still further modifications of the New England theology. This agitation was displaced by the pressure of the impending outbreak against the mother country, which silenced for awhile all theological excitement by the absorbing interests of a desperate war. After the peace of 1783, the country was occupied with manifold political and mundane interests. Several causes led to greater tolerance of theological differences, and the irenical period came in, in which Presidents Stiles and Dwight were conspicuous. Slowly but surely the so-called Unitarian controversy arose which profoundly agitated, and so unhappily divided the churches of Massachusetts. This was succeeded by new discussions, occasioned by the philosophical and exegetical positions taken by the teachers of the Schools at New Haven and Andover, and these again by the more modern methods of theologizing. It is not surprising, in view of all these changes of opinion, that the questions have been seriously agitated whether the daughter churches at the present profess the same faith with the mother churches, and again what securities have they for the transmission to their descendants, of the faith which they have. We answer, if the Christian faith is identical with Christian

theology, then it is true that this faith is not in every particular of thought or words identical with that which was held 250 years or even 50 years ago. This is more or less true of every Protestant communion, which has in it the blessing of God or the promise of vigorous life. The great facts of Christian truth stand for centuries, as also the grand generic relations between man and God which they manifest or enforce. But as science concerning man and the physical universe makes. advances, and as both man and the universe, the better they are understood, cannot but reveal God more fully and distinctly; inasmuch also as history and criticism enable and compel us to interpret the Scriptures more intelligibly and completely, the scholastic formula which compose the creeds and theologies of one generation, must give way to the systems and theologies which express the more scientific and exacter thought of another. The great body of Congregational churches have no more changed their theology than the other churches who think as profoundly and as learnedly and as freely. The essentials of Calvinism even are theirs as truly as ever, if these are rightly understood as comprehended in a belief in one redeeming purpose springing from the mercy of God, towards man in his guilt and danger, and controlling all the events which happen to man, under the conditions of that personal responsibility which makes possible moral retribution. Its non-essentials vary with a differing philosophical theory of sin, and the relations of divine power to man's capacities to choose and to act. The New Calvinism may start with the conception of sovereign grace as beginning and ending with the manifestation of God's loving and saving mercy, while the Old Calvinism may have been controlled by the thought that the chief end of sovereign grace was to signalize and to make emphatic the power of God, and yet both may retain and emphasize the sovereignty of God as a Moral Ruler. The Christian of to-day, could not if he would, he certainly would not if he could, formulate his faith in many of the elaborated propositions of the schools of another century. There is scarcely a single ancient church in New England which would accept the very words of its founders, if compelled to select those which should best express its present faith. The Calvinism of Edwards, formulated as it was partly from the

school of Locke and partly from the schools of earlier teachers, deviated materially in phrase and reasoning from the Calvin. ism of Thomas Hooker and John Cotton, and both were removed not a little from that of Timothy Dwight and Moses Stuart, with many shades of transition between. Not only was this necessary, but it was altogether desirable and honorable to the churches concerned and their teachers. The freedom of Congregationalism to think for itself, and to interpret for itself, has been one of its chief glories, as it has enabled it to contribute largely to the defence and confirmation of the faith against adversaries of every grade, and to challenge these adversaries to meet it in the open arena of learning and philosophy. A petrified theology is usually the sepulchre of a dead faith. A growing and in some sense a changing theology is the product of a faith that is living and growing. A church that does not raise questions and discuss them in the light of the thought of passing generations, is given over to the dry rot of a dead orthodoxy or the watery weakness of sentimental pietism. From these evils the Congregationalism of New England has been kept free by the manly tone of its instructed thought. From the day when John Robinson uttered the memorable words for which some of his descendants would now and then apologize with bated breath, the New England Congregationalist has been ready at any time to appeal to an open combat, for the trial of his faith, on grounds of reason and argument. His fearlessness in renewing these combats with the weapons and armor suited to the times has trained him to understand Christian truth more perfectly, and to defend it more successfully. It should not be forgotten that as the reformers of Germany derived their new life and light from the study of the Scriptures in the original languages, then for the first time made possible since the apostolic days; in like manner the Scriptures have been a second time opened to the further enlightenment of the church by the new methods of historic interpretation; nor should it be forgotten, that the churches of New England were the earliest to welcome this new light, and to avail themselves of the improved methods which have wrought such a change in the results of theological study and verification. It is just sixty years since Dr. Beecher wrote to

his son, then at college, "Get me the book which Prof. Gibbs has lately translated from the German in opposition to Eichhorn's Accommodation of Scripture." It ought not to be surprising that since that time the conceptions of Christian truth in respect to both statement and proof should have undergone important changes, as they unquestionably have, in all Protestant churches, the Congregational included.

But where is the security against error or defection, if the symbols themselves may be reinterpreted by successive generations? We answer, let the living teacher be judged both by the living teachers, and by the living church. Let living men decide what they accept as the substantial truth of the gospel, and let them commit the same to living men in the presence of living believers. This is far better than to ask or enforce either the plump or the qualified assent to any formula with more or less of dogged confidence on the one hand or of mental reserve on the other. This has been the New England way from the first, and we see no reason in the history of the past to distrust its efficiency for the future. Let the freest liberty be accorded and taken for dissent of opinion or denial of confidence from any teacher or preacher, provided reason rules, and charity is honored, and we cannot doubt that the Spirit of truth, the Comforter, will keep the church in all essential truth. We see no occasion then to apologize for the liberty of enquiry and discussion which has been characteristic of the New England churches. The free and progressive spirit of their researches in theological science, the boldness with which their leaders have faced every new question, the candor with which they have subjected each to a fresh examination, the readiness with which new views have been accepted as the result of fresh light and knowledge, are reasons for gratitude and pride, rather than for palliation or apology. We need only compare Scotland with New England in this regard. Both countries have been intensely Protestant and intensely Calvinistic, for at least equal periods of time. Both were characteristically metaphysical in philosophical tastes, and in the application of philosophy to theological discussions. Both had universal popular education, and brought university culture within the reach of the humbler classes. Of the two Scotland possessed superior opportunities