It is truly to be regretted that a work of such merit is not presented in a style more clear and attractive, a defect of which Neander made severe complaint, and of which a foreigner must be more keenly sensible. But whatever deficiencies the work may have, it is undoubtedly, in many respects, the ablest, the most reliable, and the best extant on the archæology of the Christian church.

After the illustrious examples of Planck and Neander, Böhmer applies throughout the pragmatic mode of historical research to the elucidation of his subject; always bearing in mind that an earnest religious spirit imparted from on high, first fashioned the outward organization of the church, and that no historical investigations of his subject can be safe or satisfactory which overlook the religious spirit of the age, and the internal causes which affect the outward ordinances and institutions of the church. With this religious, pragmatic view of the subject, which Augusti and Siegel disregard, and Rheinwald avowedly despises as worthy only of a "literary charlatan," Böhmer often subjects the writings of his predecessors to a searching and severe criticism, and establishes a separate independent judgment. His work is, indeed, to a great extent, a learned and severe critique on preceding works in the same department. It might with propriety be denominated a pragmatic review of modern German authors on Christian Archæology.*

He announces, as his subject, the Science of Christian Ecclesiastical Antiquities, theologically and critically discussed. This mode of discussion and the qualifications requisite for it are set forth in the following extract from the preface of his first volume: "The researches of one, however learned, who contemplates the Christian church only from without, and deduces its institutions and rites from external relations and circumstances, and other forms of religion, are wholly unsatisfactory. Such a one overlooks the fact that the Divine Spirit which the exalted Founder of the Christian church possessed in all its fulness, and which was shed forth on the day of Pentecost, was also infused more or less into the institutions, ceremonies, rites, and customs of the church; and that though, these were elsewhere derived, they still retain the imprint of his own character; nay, more, that this Spirit originated not a few institutions and usages of the church, and manifested

*On the title-page of his first volume he has inscribed the following sentiment from Cyprian-"Triticum non rapit ventus, nec arborem solida radice fundatam procella subvertit. Inanes palem tempestate jactantur, invalidae arbores turbinis incursione evertuntur,"-which sufficiently indicates the spirit and character of his criticisms.

itself in them. This is at once the most interesting and the most important element of Christian antiquities; so that a true and just investigation must take into consideration, not only the outward circumstances, but the inward spirit of the ancient church, and must keep steadily in view the forming influence of the Divine Spirit. It must keep before the mind the combined influence of these two different agencies, the visible and the invisible. For the understanding of these outward agencies, the intellect, conversant only with sensible and earthly things, is fully competent; but is wholly incompetent to investigate the internal agencies, while all that is supernatural and divine lies wholly without the range of its vision. If brought to the investigation of such divine agency, it is to be feared that the understanding will proceed only so far as altogether to deny the existence of this agency. An enlightened religious consciousness is an indispensable qualification for the investigation of that divine influence which was the original source of the ordinances and institutions of the church."

Guericke of Halle, the enlightened Christian scholar, and the accomplished historian of the church, has also applied his own skilful hand to the task of providing the public with a suitable manual on the Antiquities of the Christian Church. Though sympathizing with Böhmer in his religious views, he objects to his work as too learned and recondite; then, as in his history, he has pursued a middle course between Neander and Gieseler, so in his archæology he proposes to himself the same auream mediocritatem between the plethoric fulness of Augusti and the naked skeleton of Rheinwald. The result is an admirable Manual in the fair proportions, the grace and finish which characterize all the works of Guericke.

In 1839, a Manual of Christian Antiquities was published in London, compiled from much the same sources as the following, by the Rev. J. E. Riddle, an accomplished scholar of Oxford. The author is an earnest dissenter from the Tractarian and high-church party, but a decided Episcopalian, a zealous and candid advocate for "episcopacy, charity, and peace." We acknowledge ourselves under many obligations to this author, though occupying a standpoint quite opposite to his-that of a dissenter from episcopacy and prelacy in any form, and taking our departure from him, in a multitude of instances, under a firm conviction that episcopacy and prelacy have no authority either in the teachings of Christ and his apostles, or in the examples and traditions of the apostolical churches.

Why, in view of all the labours of the learned, age after age, to elucidate and enrich this branch of ecclesiastical history, why is it, in this country, so neglected? Who can intelligently read the history of the Christian Church without attention to its institutions, offices, rites, and ceremonies? The history of these is the history of the Church. To follow out the sufferings and trials of the early Christians, their patience and fortitude under persecution, and the cruelty of their persecutors, is but to write a single chapter of their history, and that of least importance. It reveals their patient endurance of a great fight of afflictions, but this is only a single trait of their character. Many other characteristics of equal interestthe spirit of the age in which they lived, with all the varied influences which formed or modified their religious sentiments, their institutions, and their ritual of worship-these all remain unrecorded, unknown. No individual who is desirous of viewing the character of Christianity and the conduct of its professors under all circumstances, and particularly of contemplating the human mind under extraordinary moral influences,-of watching the various experiments of Christianity when combined in a social system with other elements, can consent to be excluded from such a source of instruction as is found in the antiquities of the Christian church.

Christian antiquities are indispensable as a key to many parts of ecclesiastical history. The very same circumstance which renders Greek and Roman antiquities important to the classical student, and Jewish antiquities to the biblical student, renders Christian antiquities important to the ecclesiastical historian. He who supposes that he can find all he needs on this subject in certain chapters in general works on church history has only to make the trial, and then take up some work on this subject, and compare the results, and the difference will be sufficiently perceptible. Church history itself has gained no less by making this a distinct branch of study than by making the history of Christian doctrines a distinct branch; both have contributed immeasurably to the advancement of the historical branch of theology within a few years past. How much broader and clearer the light which now shines on this whole department of study than at the close of the last century!

Above all archæological investigations, those that relate to the Christian church possess a lively interest, important and peculiar. The Hebrew commonwealth, the Roman and the Grecian republics have passed away. We are neither Hebrews, Greeks, nor Romans;

and yet endless research is lavished on their antiquities. But we are Christians, and the church continues to this present time, with its sacred ordinances, its constitutions, its discipline, its offices, and its solemn rites of worship. Why, then, is not a knowledge of its antiquities to us, Christians, an object of surpassing interest, above those of pagan Greece and Rome? Why do not the antiquities of the Christian church exceed in importance those even of the Jewish church, as far as the Christian excels the Jewish religion? Hebræorum respublica cum veteri lege tumulo pridem illata est. Græcia sub mausoleis et pyramidibus suis sepulta jacet. Romana gloria atque potentia inter triumphos suos consenuit. .... Modo Hebræi non sumus, neque Græci, neque Romani . . . . neque amplius harum gentium moribus vivimus. Quid ergo nos juvat, illarum antiqua tempora, mores et monumenta, tanto studio a ruderibus suis ac tenebris in lucem protrahere, dum interea obliti vivimus eorum, quæ domestica nobis sunt et esse deberunt? Dixi, non sumus Hebræi, non Græci, non Romani-attamen Christianos nos omnes esse profitemur in hodiernam usque diem. Horum itaque quorum nomine, disciplina, et religione insigniti etiamnum vivimus, horum, inquam, antiquitates cognoscere præ omnibus cæteris, rem summi momenti, summæ utilitatis, ac gloriæ, futuram esse judicavi.* But the polemic importance of this branch of ecclesiastical history, at present, outweighs all others, with reference to the extraordinary assumptions and encroachments of prelacy. For all these a venerable antiquity is claimed, and continually reiterated, as. though the apostolical succession, diocesan government, episcopal ordination, the grace of the sacraments canonically administered, liturgical worship, with all the distinctive peculiarities of the prelatical system, were the pillars of the Church of Christ; parts of that temple which was reared by him and his apostles to stand forever, for the admiration and imitation of their followers. These pretensions and claims are entirely disowned by the whole body of dissenters. They maintain that there is, underlying all the ancient forms of prelacy, another system still more ancient, more simple, and deeper laid; which itself, after the vast incongruous structures which prelacy and papacy have thrown up around and over it are cleared away, stands forth in sublime simplicity and symmetry, a divine pattern for the imitation of the church of Christ in every age. The defence of those opposing views respecting the primitive church is the great controversy of the age; it is a renewal of the

* Mannhart, cited by Riddle.

controversy of the Reformation. It is sustained on either side by an appeal to history, after the research of three hundred years by the learned of every communion in christendom. In these polemics every theological student, every pastor, every Christian scholar is an unavoidable combatant, and must provide himself with historical armour for the conflict.

Neither should the liberalizing influence of this study be forgot

Like foreign travel, it inspires a Christian catholicism superior to the bigotry and intolerance of sect and party. One who has travelled far, and observed the practical fruits of religion in different communities, however diversified their national peculiarities and ecclesiastical institutions, learns to judge charitably of all; so, after a wide range of historical research, which exhibits the spirit of practical Christianity, the same, age after age, under all the shifting forms of church government and worship in which it appears, he exchanges the prejudices of partizan zeal for the catholic and Christian sentiment: "In things essential, unity; in things not essential, liberty; in all things, charity.”