but excites the misapprehension of strangers? M. Bunsen is no Puseyite to be misled by his wishes. Let us but have the Form of Consecration and Ordination expunged, and Priests and Bishops nominated simply under the royal sign manual, let the consecration and distribution of our LORD's Body in the Holy Eucharist be changed to a simple repast, in which bread and wine shall be handed round by an attendant while the minister harangues them, and we promise his Grace that he shall, hear of no more Tractarians in the Church of England. This is the meaning of those sacred rites according to his view of them. Why, then, does he agree to leave them so open to misinterpretation? M. Bunsen is at least a far fairer enemy. If he does not believe our system he openly blames it. Yet even then it is at least without abuse and rancour. He never savours of Exeter-hall or the "Record" newspaper. There is no whore of Babylon phraseology. He could obviously believe that Paschal was devout, and Fénélon humble.

We have said as much as we could in M. Bunsen's commendation, and having done so, we must in all seriousness add, that his book is in the main utterly unsound, that it shows a fearful ignorance of the gospel system, and can only be excused from consideration of the unfavourable circumstances in which he has been placed. It consists of two main parts. From Chap. v. to ix. is a detailed account of his scheme for a German Church; while Chap. i. to iv. and x. to xii. are a general disquisition on the nature of Church authority. It is plain that much of this is like the abuse of Popery in our own writers, a manner of doing quarantine, lest he should be suspected of too strong a tendency to Anglicanism. The main principles of this part of his work are the two following:

1st. That the Priesthood of Christians, or as Tertullian expresses it, the "sacerdotium laicorum," is inconsistent with a belief in the sacramental system of the Church as ministered through appointed officers.

2nd. That the ruling power in the Christian community, by which questions of truth and falsehood must ultimately be decided, resides in the voice of the multitude.

The first of these propositions is drawn out in the second, the other in the fourth chapter, and we shall proceed presently to show more at large their fearful tendency: meanwhile we must show by a few remarks that we are not doing M. Bunsen injustice in the opinions we attribute to him.

In bringing forward the "Universal Priesthood of Christians," he does it professedly in order to overthrow the notion of the necessity of any ministry, appointed by GoD to officiate in things divine. He allows the convenience of permitting persons to teach, who are called to it by office, but he considers that to suppose any instruments to be used in conveying to men God's gifts, is to

derogate from their freedom. "To suppose that a transmitted Episcopacy is the condition through which an individual or a people participates in CHRIST's Church or promises; and therefore in consistency, that it is a necessary condition for the security of the atonement a thing which Scripture assigns to faith alone-I have declared to be heretical." (p. 126.) He afterwards explains that by Priests he means "those who have an immediate intercourse with GOD." (p. 145.)

It is obvious, then, that M. Bunsen supposes that which CHRIST gives through his ministers, He does not give himself, and that the use of Sacraments as a real participation is inconsistent with individual devotion. Surely, this is like supposing that a sailor cannot climb up a rope if he uses his hands. But more of the tendency of this system hereafter. We will only observe now, that it is wholly inconsistent with history. Did not Tertullian, to whom the phrase, "sacerdotium laicorum is especially referable, believe in the reality of Sacramental gifts? Did he not suppose that they were communicated through a particular order and ministry? And did not ALMIGHTY GOD tell the Jews, who certainly had a constituted Hierarchy, that they were "a nation of Priests, and an holy people."

This historical perplexity leads to many singular observations respecting the Jews. The Divine nature of their laws seems hardly realized. Their types and shadows, imperfect no doubt, but an improvement certainly on heathen ignorance, our author seems to think a positive detriment to them. There is something positively Gnostic in the tone in which he says that "the law and the Levitical system was introduced according to S. Paul's account, not through God's operation between the promise and the fulfilment, and therefore was formed in GoD's anger." (p. 77.) Again, the sacrifices of the typical law are ranked with those of natural religion, as though they stood on the same basis; (p. 63,) and the zeal shown in early times for their constituted Priesthood, is spoken of as though proceeding from an unkindly superstition. (p. 300.)

In the other main principle of the volume, the assertion that the voice of the people is the criterion of truth, there is less of plainspoken resolution than in the proposition we have noticed. Yet the whole tenor of the argument must come to this conclusion: It is true, the author tries to qualify it by referring in one place to the promise of GOD, to be with "the believing people and their elders." (p. 156.) But he not only makes the body of the community the last standard of appeal, (p. 149,) and asserts "that it has the authority of appointing its ministers from God's appointment and from its right," (p. 298,) but he speaks likewise of national Churches, as holding a sort of council,-the assemblies and deliberations of a free Church, as the representative of a great Christian people." (p. 310.)

There is something so portentous in this notion-this subjugation of truth to the popular will, that we may well ask how it is that our author has been led to such conclusions; and by what training a man of such personal merits should have been involved in theories so destructive. Let us state in few words some of these contributory principles, which are evidently to be traced in the composition of his character.

There is first that ancient one-sided system of the rigid Lutherans, who thought that faith could not be possessed so long as aught besides is deemed necessary to salvation.

Yet this first element is corrected by a large infusion of that turn for Publicism, as the Germans style it, (in England we should term it, study of the law of nations,) which results from his official life. His remarks on the conditions necessary to the dispatch of business, on the incompetency of divines to settle matters of fact, as opposed to matters of principle, are trenchant and acute. that administrative ability which has raised Prussia to its present position among the powers of Europe, comes out in the arrangements which he has suggested for the order of the Church.

And

Along with this characteristic of his character, we must mention another, derivable not from his individual habits, but from the history of his country. The writer before us can hardly be appreciated by those who know nothing of that singular controversy, which has raged in Germany ever since the Reformation respecting the nature of Ecclesiastical power, and which has been recorded in the names of the Episcopal, Territorial, and Collegiate systems. When the Diet of Augsburg, A.D. 1555, attempted to make peace between the two contending parties, it decided, by way of avoiding a difficulty which could not be solved, that religious matters should be left in abeyance till they could be finally adjusted; and that meanwhile every Prince should be sovereign in his own district. This agreement was taken on the part of the Protestant Princes, as a declaration that the Episcopal power which had formerly belonged to the several Bishops was devolved on them in their own states. This power accordingly they exercised through the hands of various ecclesiastical ministers, who bound the people by a rule no less hard and coercive than could be that of their Roman Catholic. predecessors.

This which was called the Episcopal system was overthrown mainly by two persons, Thomasius the Rationalist, and Spener the Pietist. Starting on entirely different sides, they yet wonderfully accorded in the result of their efforts. It was the object of Thomasius to destroy the notion of ecclesiastical power, because it was a part of that system of religion which he hated. He maintained, therefore, that the supremacy of the German Princes did not result from any devolution of powers, which had once been possessed by spiritual persons, but that it appertained of course like any other

branch of authority to the masters of the soil, and hence arose what was called the Territorial system.*

With this attempt of Thomasius the pious Spener made common cause, just as the "Record" made common cause with the "Examiner," in the last Session, against the Bishop of London's Bill, against Criminous Clerks. "Shall a Sanhedrim of the clergy guide at will the helm of the Church?" says a German writer of this school; "From such a fate, Good LORD deliver us." And thus, out of aversion to the formalism which had resulted, when the dead corpse of the Lutheran Church had stiffened in the shape and garments in which the Reformers had persuaded themselves they had left a living soul; out of nausea for a consistory which had Episcopal power without Bishops, for an Eucharist in which was no sacrifice, for an Agenda in which were no primitive usages, for Confessions by which the ancient Creeds were superseded, for an Orthodoxy which stood on no authority, and a dogmatism which was not inspired by the presence of the HOLY GHOST, did the best men among the Lutherans, for such surely Spener was, join with the Rationalistic party, to pull down what remained of the framework of the national temple, and to tumble it over the walls of Zion, into the valley of the dead.

But this territorial system was so professed an abrogation of all spiritual power in the Church's offices, that it is plain it could have no permanent endurance. The German Church must either perish altogether, or be constituted on some new basis. A new basis was found for it by Pfaff, who founded what was called the Collegiate system.† The principle of this system is to suppose all power in spiritual things to be really vested in the people, and thus it chimes in with the Democratic tendency which is manifestly developing itself throughout Europe. The ecclesiastical rights of Princes are therefore accounted for by Pfaff, not as having been inherited from the Bishops, who preceded the Reformation (the Episcopal system), nor yet as an inalienable feature of monarchic rule (territorial system), but as conceded by the people to the princes, with a view to the common advantage.

Now it is obvious that M. Bunsen's book is largely pervaded by the result of these several theories, and that they possess him to a degree little appreciated by the mere English reader. A work which, like his, purports to be a plan for the re-establishment of Episcopacy in Germany, might be supposed to be built rather on the first of these three principles; but in reality he is radically opposed to it. For he is opposed, as vehemently as could be Thomasius, to the belief that any power at all was inherent in the rulers of the Church. This system he treats with every kind of obloquy, under the

*Thomasius published "Das Recht Evangelischen Fürsten in Theologischen Streitigkeiten, A.D. 1696." + Pfaff's Akad: Reden über das Kirchen-recht. 1742.

His real propensity is

appellation of the "Clergy-Church." plainly towards the Collegiate system, checked however with such kindly feeling to the territorial rights of the monarch as might be expected in an ambassador and in the favourite of a king.

But there is a fourth principle which it is easy to discern in M. Bunsen's mind, and which combines strangely with his love towards Lutheranism and officialism, and with his attachment to the theory, which gives power to the people. Our author is not only a politician and a divine, he is also a philosopher. Of the services rendered to religion by Kant and Fichte, he speaks in high terms. That these writers altogether rejected the Christian revelation, does not seem to set them lower in his view as religious guides.

"What the Laity has done in the way of government and by its officers through the State for the Church's constitution in the time of its dictatorship, that has science effected in the same time by way of preparation for Christian life. She has reconquered the common domain of man's life for the Church, in Evangelical Germany, and especially in Prussia." (p. 162.)

In the same spirit does he speak more at large towards the conclusion of the work, when he dwells " on the influence of the philosophical school from Kant, Schelling and Hagel." (p. 361.) Now it is the influence of that Pantheistic system which is more or less inculcated by these several writers, and especially by the last, that we can so clearly discern in our author. We do not charge him with appreciating or accepting the more odious conclusions of this party, but the notions which Hagel has bequeathed to his disciples may be easily discerned to influence his mind. The Pantheism of the present day does not set itself to oppose Christianity, but to swallow it up: it would appropriate it to its own purposes. It would represent the truths of Revealed Religion as a useful and beautiful system for an uninformed age; while the more consistent labours of deeper thinkers have discovered the real foundation on which it was built, and thus superseded its appeal to a Divine authority. And this deeper foundation is sought in the nature and capacities of men, in the adaptations between his circumstances and his wants; the ultimate appeal being to his own reason and to the primitive laws of thought. The doctrine of the TRINITY is quite true, according to this school of philosophers, but whereas S. John supposed he was declaring its real nature when he spoke of the FATHER, the SON, and the HOLY GHOST, there was only a sort of temporary personification of that deeper truth which was reserved to be disclosed by German Philosophy. The real nature of the TRINITY, after which S. John was blindly feeling, "was that the DEITY first existed in Himself (the Creator), then came out of Himself (the SON), and then returned back into Himself by a self-reflective act of intellectual contemplation (the HOLY GHOST)." Now it is plainly a part of this same tendency to