played, during this period, with majestic brightness, as it was the first upon which man dared to lay a threatening hand. Athanasius of Alexandria, a distinguished teacher, perceived, in the profound mystery of Redemption, the necessity of the eternal divinity of the Redeemer. Earth had no Saviour, if its Saviour was not God. If Athanasius devoted his whole life, and endured so many exiles, to defend the identity of substance between the Father and the Son, it was not because he attached a great value to a dialectic subtilty. No, he contended for the very essence of Christianity and the salvation of souls. The end of Christianity is, to restore man to communion with God. For this there must needs be a Mediator. "But, if the Son of God," says Athanasius, "differs from God in essence, there must be a new mediation, by which he may be united to Him. He alone, who has no need of such mediation in order to be one with God,-who himself partakes of the divine essence, can establish a real communication between God and the creature. Now, the Son of God is this person. Were he a mere creature, however excellent, instead of uniting God and man by placing himself between them, he would only separate them from each other."*

But let us listen to the whole Church, speaking in the symbols of her faith. "This," she says, "is the universal Faith, —that we adore one God in Trinity, and the Trinity in Unity, without confusion of persons, or division of substance. For the person of the Father is one, the person of the Son is another, the person of the Holy Spirit is another. Yet the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit have one and the same divinity, an equal glory, a co-eternal majesty. Such as is the Father, such also is the Son, and such the Holy Spirit. The Father is uncreated, the Son is uncreated, the Spirit is uncreated. Father is God, the Son is God, the Spirit is God; and yet, there are not three Gods, but one God. ... This is the true faith, that we believe and confess one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, to be both God and man. As God, he is of the substance of the Father, begotten from eternity; as man, he is of the nature of his mother, and born in time. Perfect God, and perfect man. Equal to the Father, in his divinity; inferior to the Father, in his humanity."+

Athan. Oratio contra Arian.

The

[t This creed, called the creed, or symbol, of Athanasius, is the production of a Latin writer of a later period. See Murdock's Mosheim, Vol. I. p. 390, n. and the authors there referred to. TR.]

A contest of more than sixty years, (from A. D. 320, to A. D. 381,) was necessary to determine, expound and defend the doctrine of the divinity of Christ. New contests were now commenced for the purpose of settling another doctrine. Soon after Athanasius and the theologians who followed his movement, we see a teacher appear in the Church, who seems to have been commissioned by God, to develop and defend the Scripture doctrine respecting man; a teacher not less distinguished for the depth of his genius than for the lustre of his piety. It was Augustine.

Other teachers had preceded him, who showed, by their confessions, the unchangeableness of Christian doctrines. "In the sin of Adam," says Hilary of Poictiers, "the whole human race have sinned.' "We have all sinned in the first man,"-is the testimony of Ambrose of Milàn; "in him human nature has sinned." But it was when the great teacher of the West, under whose influence all those were formed, who, for ages after, had a clear view of the truth, it was when Augustine appeared, that all the depths of human impotency were disclosed.

He first abandoned Manichæism, and then Platonism, finding in neither, that internal peace which he needed amidst the tempests of life. He seized with eagerness upon the Gospel, which dissipated his doubts, consoled his heart, and shed new light upon all his paths. In the midst of his contests with sin and philosophy, he learned from himself the whole corruption of the human heart. This is the chord which vibrates in all his instructions. Pursued, at once, by a sublime idea of holiness, and by all the seductions of appetite, he saw, amidst the shock of these conflicting elements, the depths of his heart opened to his view, as the tempests of the ocean disclose the depths of the abyss. He found himself in the presence of a man, who, destitute of spirituality and living in easy circumstances, took but a superficial view of human nature, and made out a moral power for man, from fanciful notions. Augustine joined issue with Pelagius. The strife was not that of two men merely, but of two chiefs, of two great tendencies of which the human mind is susceptible, and which are discernible in all times. Augustine saw the first man alienated from God. From that alienation resulted his sin. From that sin, proceeded the moral disorder which has pervaded human nature. Mankind, he considers as

* Hilar. in Matth. C. 18.

† Apol. Davidis, Cap. 2.

"the

"a ruined mass. ."* The consequence to his descendants, of the fall of the first man, (which was also its punishment,) was necessity of sinning." Man has lost his freedom, and the power of doing any thing truly good. He can have no more than God gives him. If some men attain to the faith of the Gospel, the reason must not be sought for in man himself, since all are equally incapable of any good. It can be found only in a special agency of God, in a secret counsel of the Deity, in an election of grace. After a contest of nearly thirty years, in Africa, Italy, and central Gaul, truth triumphed, and the doctrine of the entire impotence of man remained in the church.

In like manner, (and this brings us to the third point which we have to examine,) the doctrine of grace was at this time developed by these teachers. The excellent Hilary had already declared: "Redemption is bestowed gratuitously, not according to the merit of works, but according to the pleasure of the Giver, according to the election of the Redeemer.""In this," says Augustine, "consists the grace of God through Jesus Christ, that He justifies us, not by our righteousness, but by his own." But he insists particularly, that the idea of grace excludes all merit, and all natural disposition in man to receive salvation. God is the Alpha of salvation as well as the Omega. "What begins by operation, He perfects by co-operation. In beginning, He operates that we may will; in perfecting, He co-operates with those who will."** He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.

Thus it was, that in this period of doctrines, Christian science made great advances. The doctrines respecting God, man, and salvation, which the teachers of the first period had found in the Scriptures, were more deeply sounded, and more fully unfolded, by those of the second. Theology advanced under the influence of the Spirit of God; for there is a progression in theology. What, then, shall we say of those, in our day, who would induce us to abandon these advanced degrees of sacred science, not merely with the view of carrying us back to the ele

* Massa perditionis. Pecc. Orig. 21.

+ Obligato peccati, C. D. XIV. 1.

§ Quaest. ad Simpl.

¶ Suâ, non nostrâ justitiâ.-De gratiâ Dei, 52.

** August. De gratiâ et lib. arb. § 33.

Prædest. S. S. 3.

Hilar in Psalm.

ments, but that they may force upon us grievous errors, which the Church has long since refuted and banished from her bosom? Leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on to perfection; not laying again the foundation.

FORM OF THE SCHOOL.

A new form succeeded to that which had itself displaced the primitive form. After a season of darkness, you see, about the middle of the eleventh century, a great intellectual movement working in the West. It was this movement which gave birth to Scholasticism. The School (schola) sought to separate itself from the Church, which had hitherto held supreme and single sway. It wished to secure to itself an authority and action independent upon the hierarchy. Certain men of liberal minds, who, at first, were not generally ecclesiastics, nor monks, attempted to form free schools entirely distinct from those which had hitherto existed. From these schools, the university of Paris, that mother of scholasticism, soon sprung up. The spirit of the School, (we should say now, the spirit of the university, may be discerned from the general character of Scholasticism. Its object was to apply philosophy to Christianity, to reduce doctrines to system, to show their connexion and their internal evidence, to gain over to them not only the heart, but the understanding also. So that, if the first period was the period of Life, and the second, the period of Doctrine, the third may be considered as the period of System. There was still life in many parts of the Church, there were doctrines in every part; but system was the predominating feature. Now every teacher published his system, or Summary of Theology.* It was the old age of the Church: which, in the course of nature, succeeds the first two periods of youth and manhood. Old age loves to arrange truths which have been before collected. It is the season of meditation. It has little power of impulsion, but more of reflection. Although there were men of strength in the middle ages, the proneness to systematize was the distinguishing feature of those times.

The study of History received no attention. Scarcely more

* Summa theologiae, of Alexander Hales, Venice, 1576; of Albert the Great, Bâle, 1507; of Thomas Aquinas, Paris, 1675, etc.

importance was attached to exegetical studies. Yet the European mind was effectually roused from its protracted lethargy. It needed a guide to direct its movements. That guide was Dialectics. And as Theology was the Science of the age, it was also the field upon which the human mind ventured under the auspices of this guide. This trait of the school tended to Rationalism and infidelity. Yet the earliest teachers of that period sheltered sacred theology from their attacks. "The Christian," says Anselm, the father of Scholasticism, "must arrive at understanding, through faith. I seek not to understand that I may believe, but I believe that I may understand. And, indeed, I believe, because, if I did not, I could not understand."* Soon, however, Abelard and his school abandoned this principle of Scholasticism, and became the defenders of free inquiry. They wished, first, to learn, and then to believe. "Faith," say they, "confirmed by investigation, is far more sure. We must attack the enemies of the Gospel on their own ground. If we must abstain from discussion, we shall find it necessary to believe every thing, falsehood as well as truth."+ Yet, notwithstanding this tendency to Rationalism, notwithstanding the anathemas of the Church against them, these Rationalist theologians cannot be reproached for the abandonment of any doctrine of faith.

But we do not entirely absolve Scholasticism from reproof. It often disfigured Christian truth. Its tendency and the state of the Church at that time, necessarily led to this result. Human reason can never venture with safety upon those great truths which pass all understanding. The School of the middle age, like the Alexandrian School in former times, disturbed some doctrines, in its anxiety to strengthen the Christian system. Still it is true, that Scholasticism produced not a few distinguished minds. I do not hesitate to say, although it may occasion surprise, that, under its influence, the Church made some progress; I speak not of progress in spiritual religion, but of progress in theological science. The teachers who were the light of those ages, communicated much sound doctrine to the crowds that filled their schools, and followed them by thousands, even to the deserts, wherever they saw them plant the chair of instruction.