what was thus fixed in the way of faith, and laboured to reduce all to a general system. Throughout this whole progress of theological development, however, the distinctive constitution of Christianity itself, as compared with other forms of religion, can hardly be said to have come into view. Even the Reformers of the sixteenth century, thoroughly imbued as they were with its living spirit, were too fully occupied with the work of setting it free from church oppression, to bestow much reflection on this point. The question has been reserved for the Modern Period; which has felt itself urged moreover, by its philosophical and historical cultivation in particular, to direct towards it a large measure of its attention. During the last fifty years, numerous attempts have been made to determine the characteristic nature and genius of Christianity; of very different tendency of course, reflecting always the theological life under whose influence they were formed. Thus Storr made the distinction to consist mainly in the supernatural, the miraculous, the positive, as comprehended in the Christian religion; Herder, in its character of universal humanity; Chateaubriand, in its sublime and captivating beauty. But we owe it to the christological struggles of our own time in particular, that the specific nature of Christianity, and its inmost constitution, have begun to come more freely into the light, than ever before.

The theological position of the present time may be considered especially favourable, for a proper appreciation of the truth in the case of the important inquiry here brought into view. It has been too common heretofore, to proceed on some particular conception of Christianity, as Primitive, Catholic, Protestant, &c.; by which, as a matter of necessity, a single historical stadium, arbitrarily bounded according to the pleasure of the inquirer, has been made to stand for the idea of the whole; thus causing certain phases of the system, its divinity for instance, or its humanity, its doctrinal, or its ethical, or it may be its æsthetic character only, to represent the general life of which each could be said to form but a single side. Now however, as the result of our historical cultivation itself, we stand on higher ground. We are able to take a comprehensive survey of Christianity as

an organic whole, under all the aspects in which it is presented to our view, in its origin, and throughout the entire stream of its development, down to the present time. In this way, it is made much more easy than before, to reach the true life centre of the whole, and to recognize the beating heart from which all has been formed, and that still continues to animate all perpetually in its several parts.

When we speak of the distinctive character of Christianity, it implies the idea of something general as well as particular in its constitution. As general it is religion; as particular the Christian religion. But these two conceptions, in this case, are bound inseparably together. We cannot so abstract from Christianity its particular specific character, as to leave the general idea of religion behind. It must exist under the specific form which belongs to it, or it is nothing, a mere abstraction, destitute of all reality. Christianity is not religion in the first place, with something added to it to make it Christianity; but as religion itself, it is at the same time in its inmost ground, this particular form of religion, exclusively complete in its own nature, and different in all its parts, by the spirit which pervades the whole, from every other religion. As thus individual and general at once, it claims to be the absolute truth itself; not a religion simply, as one among many, but the one, universal, all perfect religion of humanity in its widest sense. Essential and specific here flow together, and cannot be kept asunder.

2.

It belongs to the modern period, we have said, that it has come to exercise a conscious reflection on the nature of Christianity. This reflection has its history, its regular development from one stage still forward to another. This will be found to correspond strikingly, only with vast difference as to time, with the historical conformations under which the Christian life itself has appeared, from period to period, since its first revelation in the world. The spirit of Christianity has been carried first in a real way, by an evolution of many centuries, through the same phases, that have

since been repeated, with more rapid succcession, in the modern effort to determine theoretically in what this spirit consists.

It started, as before remarked, in the character of a new life. So it meets us, with full harmony and perfection, in the person of its Founder. So it is exhibited to us more inadequately in the apostles and the apostolical churches. The mere existence of this life however was not enough. It was necessary that the Church should come to a full and free apprehension of what it comprehended. This called for a separation of its elements, involving necessarily more or less confusion and conflict and onesided action, as the only process by which it was possible, in the present state of the world, to advance from the simplicity of childhood to the consciousness of spiritual manhood. Hence the long course of development, revealed to us in Church History. In this process, the different constituent elements or forces included in Christianity could not, in the nature of the case, come in promiscuously at one time for such share of attention as they were entitled to claim. Some one interest must still take the lead of another, determined by the general character of the time; and thus for every grand period in history we have a particular side of Christianity standing forth prominently to view as its dominant characteristic form; till in the end, as the result of the whole process, all such single and separate manifestations may come to be united again in the full symmetrical perfection of that one glorious life to which they severally belong.

The process now mentioned began naturally with Doctrine, which it was attempted to settle first in a general way, and then in single articles. The dogma producing period extends in particular, from the fourth century on into the sixth. For this service the Grecian mind, which was then predominant in the Church, might be said to have a special vocation. With the fall of the old world, and the rise of a new life among the western nations, Christianity was required to exercise its power in a different way. It must form the manners, and regulate the life of the rude population with which it was called to deal. The main interest now accordingly was its moral authority. It became

in the hands particularly of the Roman Church, a system of Law, a pedagogic institute for the government of the nations. In this character however, it only made room for itself to appear, with new life, as the Gospel; a change effected chiefly through the German spirit, which included in its very constitution an evangelical or free tendency, and was gradually prepared to assert its ecclesiastical independence in this way. With the Reformation, the mind of the Church, no longer in its minority, forced its way back to the proper fountain-head of Christianity, and laid hold of it in the form of Redemption; the justification of the sinner before God, and the principle of freedom for the consciousness of the justified subject himself in all his relations. Along with these three leading conceptions of Christianity, as doctrine, as a system of law, and as a source of redemption and spiritual freedom, we find still a fourth unfolding itself from an early period, with steadily increasing strength. It is the view, which makes religion to consist in the union of man with God, and of course finds in this the distinctive character of Christianity. It is regarded as the absolutely perfect religion, because it unites the divine and human fully as one life. This view may be traced to a remote antiquity, but comes forward more decidedly in the mysticism of the middle ages, and appears now most completely revealed in the philosophical and theological speculation of the modern time. From the first however, it has exhibited itself under two divergent tendencies, one pantheistic, and the other recognizing a personal God. Of these, the first has become widely prevalent at the present day; but the last must be regarded of course as the only legitimate form of thinking in the case, and may be expected in the end universally to prevail.

Such are the ground types, by which the conception of Christianity has been differently moulded under different circumstances. They are characteristically represented by as many several forms of Church life. The interest of doctrine finds its proper expression in the Greek Church, self-styled significantly the Orthodox, the Church of Christian Antiquity. As a disciplinary institute, the Christian system has its fit character in the Roman Church, with its claim of universal authority, challenging for itself the

title Catholic, the Church of the Middle Ages. To the idea of redemption and freedom answers the Church which has sprung up among the nations of German extraction, rightly denominated Evangelical, the Church of the Reformation. The Church finally in which all these stages of development are to be carried forward together to their highest truth, under a form of Christianity that shall actualize the conception of a full life union with God, and to which it may be trusted the ecclesiastical agitations of our own time form the transition, may be characterized as the Church of the Future, whose attributes shall be spirituality, catholicity, and freedom, joined together in the most perfect combination.

It

Correspondent now we say with this historical progress through which the apprehension of Christianity has been carried in the actual life of the Church, appears the course of modern theology as concerned with the same subject in the way of reflection. has been described successively as doctrine, as an ethical law, as a system of redemption, and ultimately, though not always in the same way, as a religion based on the idea of a real union with God. All this involves a regular advance undoubtedly from the outward to the more inward. It is most natural and obvious, to conceive of Christianity first as doctrine. Then in view of its practical ends, it seems to be essentially ethical, or as Schleiremacher terms it, teleological, in its character. Again, its highest morality is found to spring from the fact of redemption and atonement, and thus to centre upon the person of Christ. Finally it is felt that the person of the Redeemer can have such force, only as the divine and human, God and man are in the first place reconciled and united in its very constitution, as the ground of all redemption for the race.

As might be expected these different views of Christianity appear in close relation with the various forms in which the idea of religion itself has been held; for as it is taken to be the absolute truth of all religion, it must of course participate in its essential character, whatever this may be supposed to be. Viewed as doctrine accordingly, it finds support in the conception of religion as a mode of knowing God, its prevailing definition, especi