ingly apt to carry a moderate party with them, and gradually imbue the latter with their own extreme spirit. History is full of illustrations.

It was not only a Revolution that was wrought in our Church in the sense of cutting off large integral parts without trial, and thus rending the body in twain by unconstitutional violence; there was something, if possible, still more serious in the matter, in this, that a Revolution was wrought in the entire spirit and character of the American Presbyterian Church. The Act and Testimony was Seceder in its spirit and tendency. No men opposed it more earnestly than the Princeton divines. They had been liberalized by culture, by foreign travel, by American institutions, by inherited American Presbyterian feeling. It was the entrance to a close cavern where the air was both cold and stifling, and they shrunk from it. Their instincts did not deceive them; it was the germ of another faith and order than that of their fathers. But what availed it? A Cromwell in the Parliament; a Napoleon in the sections; the iron will of Scotland, whose nerves never quiver; the iron vice of the Secession principles clamped and fastened; and the American force, velocity and eloquence persuaded to give effect on a fearful scale, and in sight of a continent, to narrow maxims and sheer violence.

We press our view of the case. It happened that a crisis arose soon after these Seceders were admitted into our citadel. Presbyterian leaders had made up their mind that something must be done to stay what they believed to be desolating mischief. Not taking counsel of the old records; not inquiring after the wisdom of their fathers; not well understanding what glorious vessel they had ventured to guide, nor how humanity

With all its hopes, with all its fears,

hung breathless in suspense; they looked out for some sharp remedy; some trenchant weapon.

The Seceder was at hand. He was used to crises. He is "a creature of the elements," who luxuriates in storms, is never more at home than when floating against some blackest cloud, with heaven in wrack around him. He lives on law; he

dotes upon the splitting of a hair; he rejoices in the Church militant; his library is filled with controversial divinity; his sharp face is made for defiles;

A sect whose chief devotion lies
In odd perverse antipathies;
In falling out with that or this,
And finding somewhat still amiss;
Call fire and sword and desolation,
A godly thorough reformation,
Which always must be carried on,
And still be doing, never done,
As if religion were intended

For nothing else but to be mended.

In an evil hour such counsel was heeded, Princeton was ordered to stand aside, and obeyed, and the Presbyterian Church was revolutionized. It does not avail to say they were few. A few men always lead revolutions, and when a large deliberative body learn to follow leaders, they follow them with a blindness that exceeds belief. They think of nothing but watching the vote of the Mirabeau of the moment.

The American Presbyterian Church is the same; it always has been the same; the oneness is something amazing; it is traceable throughout its entire history. It is not the position of the Seceder Church; it is not that of the Congregational. We are perfectly candid in our opinion, that the Exscinding Church are off the foundation of our fathers, and our only, though trembling anxiety is, that our own beloved Zion may be kept upon it. A Calvinistic faith and Presbyterian order liberally understood; firm adherence to the Constitution benignly interpreted; institutions binding us together as a Church, and carrying everywhere our faith and order; a heart open to our brethren of every name, and especially ready to unite with all who in any degree resemble us in character and history; a passion for revivals of religion; earnest labor for the salvation of men and the conversion of the whole world; a constant eye upon sound learning; a sleepless devotion to civil and religious liberty; a warm attachment to the traditions of our fathers, and finally, an equal blending of the progressive and the conservative; this is what we mean by American Presbyterianism.

NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS.

I. An Investigation of the Trinity of Plato, and of Philo Judæus, and of the Effects which an Attachment to their Writings had upon the Principles and Reasonings of the Fathers of the Christian Church. By Cæsar Morgan, D. D., Chaplain to the Lord Bishop of Ely. Cambridge, 1853. London: John W. Parker.

This work, which is a small octavo of 166 pages, is a republication of a work of the last century, which the Editor regards as a valuable supplement to the great Anglican works on the Trinitarian controversy. Besides this work, which was published in 1795, the author gained a prize at Harlem in 1785 for an essay, to prove that philosophy does not of necessity tend to undermine revelation. The main proposition of the work is, that the doctrines of hypostatic distinctions in God, is not by fair interpretation found either in Plato or Philo, but was interpreted into their works by the Christian Fathers, from their well known anxiety to assert the antiquity of the essential doctrines of the faith, and that this construction of Plato's works was only admitted by the New Platonists, when the growing authority of Christianity made it of moment to dispute its claims to originality. The first part of the work is exegetical, the remainder, historical. The author examines briefly the topics of discussion in the following works of Plato; the Epinomis, the Parmenides, the Philebus, the Cratylus, one or two of the Epistles, his mean ng in the phrase rò 'ayatov, and his doctrine of Ideas. In the Timæus he asserts the discussion to be about the soul of the universe, which is not a hypostasis of the First Cause, but entirely distinct from him. In the Epinomis, the Aoyos which made the visible world, he affirms to be shown by all the context to be, the divine intelligence unhypostatized. So the passages in the Philebus, where in the first it is said, that "Mind rules the universe," and in the second, tha "mind is cognate to the cause of all things," refer, the first to the divine, the second to the human mind, whose excellence it is the purport of the whole discussion to maintain. In like manner the other works are interpreted, the idea of divine hypostasis in any, being excluded, he thinks, by the whole

tenor.

In the historical view, he justly lays great stress on the profound silence of all the ante-Christian admirers and students of Plato,

respecting a Trinity, as a proof that it was the exegesis of a doctrine developed independently of him into his works, that originated the notion of a Platonic Trinity.

The Aóyos of Philo Judæus, he contends to have meant the intelligible plan of the universe in the mind of God, not a divine person. But Philo's allegorizing way, as well as his devotion to Plato, afforded the Christian Fathers, who profoundly respected him, a tempting opportunity to try their skill at finding the Christian doctrines on the one hand in the Old Testament, on the other in Plato. Being bent on this, they could find isolated and mystical expressions enough in Plato, to finish out any doctrine they might wish to find in him. The latter half of the work is a sketch of speculations once started in this direction, till their culmination in the great but fanciful Origen and the pagan Plotinus, who represents, according to the author, the Neo-Platonic philosophy influenced by Christianity, but still hostile to it, and therefore agreeing with the Christian Fathers on this point, though for very different reasons, they aiming to establish the antiquity of this doctrine, he aiming to disprove its originality.

These sketches seem to be suggestively drawn, and both to invite and assist research.

II. Entwickelungsgeschichte der Lehre von der Person Christi, [The Historical Development of the Doctrine of the Person of Christ, from the most ancient to the most recent times. By Dr. J. A. Dorner. Second part, division first. The Doctrine of the Person of Christ from the end of the fourth century to the Reformation. Berlin, 1853. 452 pp.

This is the long expected continuation of the well known work of Professor Dorner, interrupted since 1845. The second portion of the volume, completing the history, is promised for the present year. The work was originally published in the form of articles in a review, then it was enlarged to a moderate volume in 1839, and it is now to be comprised in two volumes of some 900 or 1000 pages each. It follows, step by step, the criticisms of the Tübingen school and of Dr. Baur in his History of the Trinity, and defends the doctrine against their historical and philosophical objections. It is a monument of German labor and constructive talent. The exegetical and doctrinal results are promised for the concluding part.

The portion of the history comprised in the present volume is divided by the author into three periods. The first extends from 381 to 451, the Council of Chalcedon; in this period, in opposition to

both Nestorianism and Eutychianism, we have the definite statement of the problem of the two natures in Christ, that there is in his Person both a divine and a human nature, distinct from each other. The second period, from 451 to 793, is the period of the precise sundering and explication of the two natures, in accordance with the decrees of the Council of Chalcedon, ending with the Council of Francfort. The third Period, to the Reformation, insists more upon the oneness of the Person, proceeding to a denial of a distinct personality to the human nature of Christ. This rups through the whole of the scholastic theology.

Under the first period come in review the opinions of Diodorus of Tarsus, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Nestorius and his great opponent, Cyril of Alexandria. Leo's letter to Flavianus and the decrees of

Chalcedon are fully illustrated.

In the second part we have the Monophysitic controversies, the Monothelitic, and the history of Adoptianism. The discussions respecting the two wills are more fully narrated and explained than in any previous work; great light is cast on the whole of these obscure polemics.

In the third period, the scholastic discussions are reviewed, and the opinions of Aquinas, Duns Scotus, and the leading doctors of the middle ages, subjected to criticism.

Such extended monographs on single doctrines, give a more impressive idea of the greatness and various aspects of the leading Christian truths, than can be gained in almost any other way. We shall look anxiously for the continuation and completion of this able work, sure of deriving from it the amplest materials for thought and investigation, even though we may not agree with the final doctrinal statements of the author.

A translation of the work is announced for Clark's Library in Edinburgh.

III. Lehrbuch des Kirchengeschichte. Von Dr. J. C. L. Gieseler. Dritten Bandes zweite Abtheilung. Zwei Theile. Bonn: 1852, 1853. pp. 722.

With this second division of the third volume, the Church History of Gieseler is completed to the Peace of Westphalia, 1648. It contains the history of the Reformation in England to Charles the First, the history of the smaller sects, the Unitarians, Mennonites, &c., completing the external history of the Reformed bodies. Then, in the second division, follows the history of the doctrinal discussion and parties, Lutherans and Calvinists, in two hundred and fifty pages.