sians and Henricians deserve special mention because of their great zeal and radical character. But the style of Cultus then extant rooted itself in the hierarchical government of the Church, and as the Papacy in this period increased in power and uttered its threats with firmer voice, it came to pass by necessity that the war which was carried on against the style of worship, would be waged also against the dominant hierarchy and the general state of the Church. Of this tendency Arnold of Brescia, the Albigenses, and in parts the Stedinger of Germany, were the representatives. But the Hierarchy again directed attention to the general condition of the christian life, for its existence in such connection could be possible only in an age in which christianity had departed from its original tendency and vocation. Attempts were now made to lead the christian life back to its primitive purity, to the simplicity and glory of the Apostolic age. The Apostolic practise became the watchword of the parties which were dissatisfied with the Church. A peculiar order of Brothers of the Apostles was instituted. To the Waldenses belongs the honor of having developed with great success this tendency in its purest forms. In the very moment men turned their eyes back to the Apostolical they planted themselves on the authority of the Scriptures which had hitherto been kept in the dark and elevated it to the rank of the rule of Faith. Such was the case with the Waldenses and with all those who were in search of a piety more profound and earnest than generally obtained. In the course of time this appeal to the Bible as the final tribunal brought men into direct conflict with the dominant doctrine. This contradiction to the existing faith constituted the very gist of the opposition. Now it happened that the spirit of discontent left the ranks of the people within which it had hitherto been confined, and took hold of the higher orders, of theologians and the literati whose special business it was to search the scriptures and complete the doctrinal scheme. Now appeared men like Wicliff, Huss, Jerome of Prague, and several French theologians of distinction. The chief merit of these men who began their actions from the very centre of the spirit and of doctrine, consists in their having regard not only to single abuses but to the corrupt state of the whole Church, in their referring the cause of this corruption not to mere external circumstances and particular abuses but to the general spiritual decay of the whole Church, in their uniting in fair harmony well regulated zeal with accurate knowledge.

The spirit of opposition having, after the lapse of four hundred years, assailed the corruptions of the Church from all sides

and penetrated all classes, the lowest as well as the highest, the ignorant as well as the learned, and having failed to induce the enactment of ordinances for the improvement of the Church, a part of whose clergy sank more hopelessly into the abyss of vice, it came to pass by necessity that the desire for a Reformation became a matter of public concern, a popular interest in the fullest sense of the term, that the great Councils of the West, in the face of all Europe, and with special earnestness and zeal, legislated upon the subject, that the Imperial Diets continued to insist with increased importunity on a consideration of this point. and that the whole of Europe resounded in every nook and corner with clamors for an improvement of morals. Such was notoriously the condition of things. A fact of this order must have sprung from solid causes. It cannot be doubted that a necessity for a Reformation, deeply rooted and generally acknowledged, was at hand. The negative condition for the appearance of such an event, had been fulfilled.

But something more of greater account was necessary; a positive element which consisted in the incipient presence of the fundamental principles of that which was effected by the Refor mation. It was requisite that the spirit which was to be poured afresh upon the world by means of the Reformation should have displayed its power in individuals and smaller corporations, and that the purer conception of the christian faith which was to reconstruct after the primitive pattern the christian life should have evinced its efficiency in living manifestations out of which, if not in an outward yet in an inward connection, the theology of the Reformation might proceed. Now, this positive element was also at hand. That which constitutes the peculiar feature in the convictions and tendencies of the Reformers, although they pos sessed it in an original form and as an integral portion of their own spiritual life, was not something absolutely new; for the radical elements of it were included in the nobler spirit of the age and had been already developed, to a great extent, by sev eral conspicuous personages. It was the special vocation of the Reformers clearly and convincingly to arrange these elements in their proper relation to the governing influence of a living faith, to reduce to actual practise what had previously been a mere wish and feeling, and to make the better theology of single men. the foundation for the confirmation of a large communion.

We may regard, as the fundamental element of the Reformation which includes all its other characteristics, the firm conviction that salvation comes not from man but from God. The leading object of the Reformers was to prostrate before God and

Christ everything human, no matter how venerable its antiquity or how lofty its position in the Church, to give all honor to God and the Saviour, to separate from the christian faith and life everything which seemed to conflict with the honor of God and His word, and to restore the proper relation between man and his Maker by making Christ the only Mediator. This tendency, in the sphere both of christian doctrine and life, we find at work among the forerunners of the Reformation, so that through them was already present the material as well as formal principle of that great movement. That which these men brought to a clearer and more general acknowledgment is, on the one hand, the necessity of going back to the Scriptures as the pure word of God in opposition to human teachings and human traditions and of constructing in a purer, more evangelical form the christian faith and life in detail upon the basis of Scripture rightly interpreted and of the practise of the Apostolic Church rightly copied; on the other hand, the firm conviction that perfect peace with God and true happiness could not spring from any human activity or works prescribed by the Church, but from Divine grace revealed in Christ and received by an energetic faith, that the nearest and only safe way to God was not the Church and her prescriptions which were heavily laden with human additions, but Christ, the Redeemer and Mediator, and His Spirit which maketh free and leadeth into all truth and holiness.

We discover, as was to be expected, in their forerunners the same peculiarities which marked the Reformers themselves. They did not exhibit, it is true, the same fullness, symmetry and harmony of character, but, as precursors, they possessed these characteristics in an inferior degree. From this point of view, they may be divided into two classes. In the case of the Reformers, particularly of those whose influence was universally felt, we find a perfect union and intermixture of conviction and action, of theological thought and ecclesiastical practise. So, too, in regard to their forerunners, but in an inferior degree and with the difference that with some predominated practical activity in behalf of the Church, with others theological investigation; the former, among whom may be numbered Huss, Jerome of Prague and Savonarola, exerted a more wide spread influence on the great mass and, in their opposition to the dominant power, were often disposed to fly away from its control, whilst the latter, such as John of Goch, John of Wesel and John Wessel, exerted a greater influence in a theological respect by their profound speculations and retired within the precincts of their own spirits. As regards this last mentioned class, another

difference obtains. With the Reformers the positive and negative elements were combined in fair proportions. So, too, in regard to their forerunners, but in such a way that with some of them, as John von Goch, the positive predominated, with others, as John von Wesel, the polemic, whilst in John Wessel the two were united in the greatest uniformity. Finally, we may make another distinction. That which in the Reformation stood opposed to the scholastic period, was a living Scriptural theology. This was obtained in two ways, either scientifically or practically, in the school of speculation or experience. The one was prepared negatively by opposing and abolishing scholasticism, positively by the revival of the study of the ancient languages and literature and by the re-establishment of a theological system not based upon the tradition of the Church and Schools but upon the pure foundation of the Bible; the other was prepared by the purer, more practical mysticism and by religious incitements among all classes, particularly among the people, which proceeded from the use of the Scriptures. Thus we can divide the forerunners of the Reformation into those who stimulated the people to action, as Gerhard Groot and the brothers of the Common Life, into practico-mystical, as Thomas A'Kempis, learned and philological, as Agricola, Reuchlin and Erasmus, and theological, as John von Goch and John Wessel.

Mercersburg, Pa.

THE HOLY EUCHARIST.

[An extract from Thiersch's Lectures.]

THE holy Eucharist differs in this from all other sacraments, in the Catholic system, that it is taken to be not only a sacrament, but at the same time also a sacrifice and in this view a real propitiation for the sins of the living and the dead. In comparing the Catholic doctrine with our own then, it must be considered under such twofold aspect, first as a sacrament and afterwards as a sacrifice.

Taking it up now in the first view, we feel here more than anywhere besides the need of understanding fairly, at the outset, what is to be regarded as the actual Protestant doctrine. This requires us unavoidably to say something of the difference, which rent Protestantism within the first ten years of its history into two churches.

No regard will be had in the case, however, to what has been thought and spoken on the subject of this controversy by certain modern theologians, who let us know more or less plainly that they do not pretend to be governed in their judgment simply by the Bible, or to interpret it with believing submission from itself only and not from a foreign source. From such Protestantism no salvation is to be expected for the cause to which it belongs, and it can have no part, remaining what it now is, in the church of the future. This will know and feel, in proportion precisely to its new experience of the operations and gifts of the Holy Ghost, that it is called to honor in the solemnity of the eucharist a most sacred and unfathomable mystery of Divine love, and that all which pious church teachers of past times have said to magnify it falls short still of the wonders of grace it actually contains.

Looking at our Protestant theology as it now stands, we may say that already all those theologians who profess faith in the real incarnation of the true God in Christ, and submit themselves to the declarations of the Holy Scriptures as infallible oracles of divine wisdoin, are more and more agreed in this: That Zuingli and Oecolampadius went too far, when they found in the Lord's supper only a monumental meal, and in the use of it a mere practical demonstration of faith before men; that all those have erred, and do still err, who affirm that the believer receives in the eucharist nothing more than what he has also and may have without it. The necessity of acknowledging a mystery in the sacrament, has become clear for many later theologians particular