INTRODUCTION.

A FAITHFUL record of the doctrines, the institutions and rituals.
of the Church, is its true history. These, and not merely or chiefly
its conflicts, its trials, and its triumphs, disclose the true genius.
and spirit of Christianity. But the study of these two great
branches of Christian Archæology, the history of its ceremonials
and of its doctrines, indispensable to all who would rightly read
the history of the ancient church, has been almost totally neglected
in this country. Neither of them, we believe, is made a separate
and distinct subject of study in any of our theological seminaries;
nor has a single course of lectures on either of these topics, so far
as the writer is informed, ever been delivered by any public lec-
turer or professor of ecclesiastical history in our land.

This neglect presents our course of theological study in humi-
liating contrast with that of the European nations, particularly the
Germans. In their universities, no course of theological instruc-
tion is complete without an independent and extended series of
lectures on the history both of the doctrines, and of the polity and
rites of the ancient church.

Neander has evinced his sense of the importance of these studies
by the space devoted to them in his immortal work. But in con-
nection with his public lectures on ecclesiastical history, he was
accustomed uniformly to deliver a parallel course, equally full and
extensive, on the Antiquities of the Church. Both were, in his
estimation, equally important, as essential and independent parts
of the History of the Church. Moreover, the rapidity with which
works of this character are thrown off from the German press, the
wide and extensive range of topics which they comprehend, indi-
cate the importance which this branch of ecclesiastical history, by
us so generally neglected, has assumed in that country.

And yet the rites and forms of the ancient church have, to the
American churches, an interest and importance unknown to those
to whom we are chiefly indebted for information respecting the
early institutions of the Christian church. However discord-

23. Number of the Nestorians.......

4. Language and literature.....

5. Versions of the Scriptures used by the Nestorians............

6. Ecclesiastical organization.......

7. Doctrinal belief...

8. Religious observances............

9. The sacraments........

10. Baptism and confirmation.........

11. The Lord's supper...

12. Marriage..........

CHAPTER XXIX.

OF THE SACRED SEASONS OF THE PURITANS.

21. Fasts and thanksgivings in New England......

2. Observance by other States........

ant in sentiment the Lutheran churches may be, they are harmonious in their government and rites of worship. The learned of their communion carefully scrutinize the ancient church, not to justify or defend their own ecclesiastical usages, about which they have no controversy, but as the means of discerning the real character of primitive Christianity. The moral habits of a man are a practical exemplification of his religious principles; so the social habits of a church, its government, and ritual, are a living expression of the religious spirit of the age. A knowledge of these is indispensable for a right understanding of church history; but to the American churches it has an importance far greater, with reference to the great controversy in which they are engaged respecting rites and forms. In this controversy, Formalism and Puritanism are the great antagonistic principles; the one striving for a sensuous, the other for a spiritual religion. In the former, as in the Old Testament, religion is estimated by outward forms, and piety promoted by external forms; in the latter, as in the New Testament, every thing is made to depend upon what is internal and spiritual. The one found its just expression in the freedom, simplicity, and spirituality of the apostolic and primitive churches; the other was embodied in the ancient hierarchy which early supplanted the foundations laid by the apostles and their immediate successors, and still discovers itself in the ceremonies and assumptions of high church prelacy, Puseyism, and Popery.

These two opposite schemes of religion the Tractarians of Oxford denominate the Genevan and the Catholic. They boldly avow that these schemes are now, probably for the last time, struggling together, and that on this struggle hangs the destiny of the Church of England. But the conflict is not confined to the Church of England. It has passed over to our American churches. It summons them to begin anew the great controversy of the Reformation. This was, at the beginning as now, a controversy not so much respecting doctrines as about forms and traditions. Melancthon and the reformers earnestly maintained that their controversy was not "respecting the doctrines of the church, but concerning certain abuses which, without due authority, had crept in." The Augsburg Confession renews the affirmation "that the division and the strife was respecting certain traditions and abuses;" and to the same effect is the Helvetian Confession, and that of Smalcald.

With this controversy in the Reformation began the study of the Antiquities of the Church as an independent branch of church history. The contending parties both appealed to the authority

of the fathers, and the usages of the primitive and apostolical churches. This appeal led each to renew his researches in the records of the past; to arrange, digest, and construct his authorities in defence of his position. From the scattered materials which were collected, the historians of the church, on either side, soon began to construct their antagonist histories of the church—of its doctrines, its polity, and its worship. The chaotic elements of the ancient fathers, apologists, and historians of the church, rudis indigestaque moles, began now to be arranged, compared, and constructed into opposing systems, deduced from opposite views of the primitive formation.

A brief historical sketch of the rise and progress of this department of Ecclesiastical History may therefore serve as an appropriate Introduction to the following work; in preparing which the author, by permission, has availed himself chiefly of an article originally prepared for another place.*

The Magdeburg Centuriators, in the sixteenth century, led the way in this new science of ecclesiastical history, from which that of Christian Antiquities has since become a distinct department. These illustrious and laborious compilers published, from 1559 to 1574, thirteen folio volumes, each comprising a century. Their object was to show that the Protestant doctrine respecting the church was the doctrine of the ancient Catholic church, as might appear from its history, recorded and traditional; and that the

* The Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review, Jan., 1852, No. I. Article I. Antiquities of the Christian Church.

1. Denkwürdigkeiten aus der Christlichen Archæologie. Bde. I.-XII. 8vo. Leipzig, 1817-31. Von D. Johann Christian Wilhelm Augusti.

2. K. Schöne's Geschichtsforschungen über die Kirchlichen Gebräuche und Einrichtungen den Christen, ihren Ausbildung und Veränderungen. Th. I.-III. Berlin, 1821-22.

3. Die Kirchliche Archæologie. Dargestellt von F. H. Rheinwald. 8vo. S. 569. Berlin, 1830.

4. Handbuch der Christlichen Archæologie. Bde. I.-III. Leipzig, 1836–7. Von D. Johann Christian Wilhelm Augusti.

5. Handbuch der Christlich-kirchlichen Alterthümer in alphabetisher ordnung mit steter Beziehung auf das, was davon noch jetzt im christlichen Cultus übrig geblieben ist. Von M. Carl Christian Friedrich Siegel. Bde. I.-IV. Leipzig, 1835-38.

6. Lehrbuch der Christlich-kirchlichen Archæologie. Verfasst von Dr. Joh. Nep. Locherer. 8vo. S. 194. Frankfort am Main, 1832.

7. Die Christlich-kirchliche Alterthumswissenschaft, theologischcritisch bearbeitet. Von Dr. Wilhelm Böhmer. Bde I.-II. 8vo. Breslau, 1836-9.

8. Lehrbuch der Christlich-kirchlichen Archæologie. Von Heinrich Ernst Ferdinand Guericke. 8vo. S. 345. Leipzig, 1847.