as mediator, which would have us invoke him and pay him a certain worship, is in the highest degree antiProtestant. It resembles the Papist doctrine, the invocation of saints and of the Virgin, maintained by the most illustrious doctors of Roman Catholicism. And if one would find a difference in this respect betwixt Arianism and Popery, none will be discovered except this, that the Arians raise but one creature to this mediatorship, while the Romanists raise many.

But if the Arians reply, that they certainly elevate Jesus to a much higher place than what the Romish Church assigns to the saints, and that, while they distinguish between him and the supreme God, they accord to him, nevertheless, a portion of the majesty and omnipotence of the Deity, to what amounts this pretension to place side by side with God the Creator, a secondary God, a demi-god, a false god, what is it, I ask, but sheer paganism? The doctrine of demigods is an essentially pagan doctrine. The Jews crucified Jesus because he made himself equal to God; the Christians worship him as being really the true God; and all who would neither, like the Jews, crucify him as a man, nor with Christians acknowledge him as God, but render him a half worship, fall into the category either of Papists or Pagans. Thus Arianism is in the highest degree Anti-Protestant, and whoever would be truly a Protestant minister, ought to make the absolute and eternal divinity of Jesus Christ the foundation of his faith and preach ing.

THEISM.

We have seen that without this doctrine-first, no one is a Christian, secondly, no one is a Protestant. "At least," some will say, "if we must give up Christianity and Protestantism, Theism still remains for us. No, gentlemen, not ever that. I do not say that a lifeless and abstract Deism may not exist without the eternal divinity of Jesus, but I say that a true Theism, a living Theism, satisfactory even to a man's mind, cannot subsist without it. One cannot deny the eter

nal Son, without denying, at the sametime, the eternal Father. Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father. God is not Father, Father essentially, and from all eternity, if he have not essentially and from all eternity the Son, whom he loves, and to whom he communicates his glory eternally. To say that God is not Father eternally, is tantamount to saying that God is not love eternally, for it is as Father that he loves. Can there be love where there is nothing to love? The Father has never ceased to love his only well-beloved one, him in whom he has placed his whole affection. This is what constitutes the love of the Father. Had there been a time in which there was no son, there could not then have been love, and God would not have been a living but a dead God, a mere abstraction-a dream. This proposition-God is Father from all eternity, is equivalent to this-God loves from all eternity. To deprive God of his everlasting fathership, is to deprive him of his everlasting love, that is, of his essence. these doctrines of God's fathership, of God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, are not, as the world would have it, scholastic abstractions; they are the exposition and the realization of that grand doctrine which the world itself reveres -God is love. God is not a selfish and solitary I, without affection, without life. God, who from all eternity communicates his love and his glory as Father to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, in virtue of this very fact lives, acts, and is supremely blessed. The God of Christians, the God of our baptism, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, one only God, blessed for evermore, is the only living God. Besides him there is none else.

No,

Or, would you have it, then, that God can be love without his Son, and in order to that would you establish the universe, creation, as the object of this love? Then, strange to say, God is not really God without the universe to make him so; down to the existence of the universe he is but an imperfect being, an embryo, without affection (cha rité), and consequently without real divinity. In that case, O marvellous re

sult it is the creature that in some sort creates the creator. And to what does this lead us? The noblest minds, well convinced that God cannot remain eternally without love, being without being, would rather have it that the universe never had a beginning, in order that God might never be without an object of his love. The great Scriptural doctrine of the creation would have to be abolished, the creator and the creature placed in the same rank, and because people will not have an eternal Son, they must needs have an eternal universe.

And so true Theism cannot subsist without the eternal divinity of the Son. The Unitarian doctrine which denies this divinity, is not then Christian, or Protestant, or Theist. Being none of these it is consequently irreligious, it finds no place at all in any department of faith, and is but the inanimate abstraction of a dialectic altogether hu

man.

I repeat, then, we do not call upon you to be the servants of a creature, but to be the ministers of a God-man, of a God-Saviour.

What a responsibility is thus imposed upon you? If you were the servants of a creature only, you might perhaps dispense with looking so narrowly into your work, for the work of a creature is always mingled with imperfections. But it is the work of a God that you are called to here below —ponder it well-beware of relaxing in the work of him who never intermits-beware of mingling strange fire with the divine fire of the sanctuary.

But also what confidence, what courage, may you not derive from this? That Jesus who calls you to be fellowworkers with him is not a creature, an angel, an archangel, a being merely divine-he is God manifest in the flesh. Are not all things easy to him? Hethe Lion of the tribe of Judah-has overcome, and he will overcome!

Let your soul be only united to Christ, and Christ being God, all will go well with you. The winds will not drive from its moorings the vessel whose anchor is fixed in a good anchorage; ChristGod will be that anchorage for you. If

there have passed between the Lord and your soul that mysterious work which the Holy Ghost accomplishes in all those whom the Father has chosen, to give them to the eternal love of the eternal Son, fear nothing! You will hourly experience more and more that this love is strong as death, and that many waters cannot quench it.

II.-FORM.

Such, gentlemen, was the truth which I desired to recall to your remembrance, in order that due homage might be rendered to the rank which doctrine ought to occupy in the Christian hierarchy. I repeat it in re-opening the school. First of all, doctrine; next, life; then, form. This position we will not quit, and we hope that God will give us sooner or later grace to die in this breach.

Here I approach, gentlemen, a grand discussion, and it is impossible not to add a few words. Two great leading interests might occupy our minds, and become the supreme object of our activity: on the one hand, the faith and life of the Church, and, on the other, its forms and constitution.

For thirty years past-for from thirty years ago, in this year 1846, dates the revival of Geneva, and by virtue of that too, of French Switzerland and of France, of which there are in this hall more than one living witness now present-for thirty years past, that is, from 1816, the faith and life of the Church have been the main objects that Evangelical Christians have looked to in their labours and in their prayers. Now that a new generation is beginning, for you are aware that thirty years is the time a generation lasts, it seems that a new object is opening to the minds of our successors, to wit, the Church's forms and constitution. The following is a representation of the present state of men's minds, as traced in a letter we have lately received from a French Christian, who has had a near view of matters, and who himself belongs to one of the two parties which he characterizes. "The distinctive character of our times seems properly to be the struggle between nationalism and liberty. As early as

some years ago both opinions existed, but there was no struggle save at a distance; the great majority of Christians remaining neuter, all serious conflict became impossible. Now-a-days this is no longer the case. On both sides preparations are making for the conflict by pushing principles to their extreme lengths. I have no wish to inquire whether such a state of things be a good or an evil, but certain it is that the two extreme parties are daily gaining in numbers, that they are constantly taking up more and more of a hostile position as respects each other, and that the neutral space that separates them is every day becoming narrower. It is on this neutral ground," continues this French Protestant, "that the Evangelical societies take their stand; accordingly they have the melancholy privilege of pleasing nobody. Will these societies be able to maintain themselves on that ground? Will they find themselves compelled to side with one or other of the extreme parties, and ought they to do so?" Our correspondent inclines to the negative. What a picture, gentlemen, and what eloquence in these simple strokes ! With what power do they speak! What! these children of the revival, saved by the same baptism of regeneration, and for whom the Lord prayed to his Father, that they all may be one, as thou Father art in me and I in thee! These children of the revival, divided, ranged under different banners, are met in two hostile camps, like two armies that are about to encounter each other, and already brandish their weapons!

I

I would fain, gentlemen, that there were some exaggeration in the pic ture presented to us in the letter, of which I have quoted a fragment: not the less is it true that such, indeed, is the general state of men's minds. have not even read to you the strongest parts; the writer speaks of hatred among Christians, hatred excited by questions relating to ecclesiastical forms, and of this he quotes some deplorable examples.

Well, then, gentlemen, we, the founders of this school, we who belong to the generation that is passing away, we will firmly keep our place; God helping us, we shall not be driven from it to the close of our career, and we would say to this new generation of which you are for us the representatives," The question, not of the day, but of the age, that which ought everywhere to rank first among those from the solution of which society looks for the fixing of its destiny," is not the question of the Church, of the Church considered in its form, it is the question of Christianity, of doctrine, of faith, of Christian life. Those things in which Christians are one, ought to occupy their minds more than those in which they differ. Very far from separating, very far from cutting off, we would rather endeavour to fuse together and to unite.

Let us remark, however, that here the question is solely about a matter of precedence. Nothing ought to be omitted. It is impossible to shut one's eyes on the importance of forms. I have said elsewhere,* I see in the New Testament the chief lines of the Church. In the image which the Gospel presents to us of that mysterious tree in which the birds of heaven make their nests, it would be difficult to discern the shortest branches, the minutest, twigs; but the main trunk and larger boughs, are not these to be found in it? Yes, there are forms in the Scripture.

Moreover, in this age, when all the forms of political and civil constitutions have been and still are so constantly discussed; in times when every one must perceive the mutual influence which the life of the State and the life of the Church exert upon each other, how can we deem it possible that the Church too should not occupy herself about the forms which she ought to adopt? The zeal of the new generation about constitutional questions, is easy to be explained.

But it is precisely in this view of the mutual consistency of these questions that we find the obligation of maintaining the position which the founders of

error.

this school took up fifteen years ago. What is it that constitutes likewise the infatuation and the infelicity of the age in social and civil affairs? Is it not just this very excessive pre-occupation with political forms that leads our contemporaries to look for the salvation of a people from such or such a combination, from such or such a constitution, instead of perceiving that this salvation must have its chief source in attachment to the grand principles of truth and justice? I am aware, that with charters and pronunciamentos, people think they may escape from being compelled to undergo a moral regeneration, but God will laugh at them. Ah, sirs, if this be the grand sore of our age in the political sphere, let us guard well, in so far as we are concerned, against falling into a like In order to this let us fully understand that the Church's well-being is involved, before all things, in its faith, in its life, and not in constitutional revolutions and ecclesiastical pronunciamentos. Wherefore, gentlemen, should there be found among the new generation persons disposed to launch the vessel of the Church into the deep and agitated sea of the present world, contenting themselves with looking to the deck, the poop, the prow, the masts, the cordage, but thinking little about the precious goods with which it ought be laden, and which are even necessary to keep it from being upset-we, gentlemen, we who belong to the elders, would call the attention of our younger brethren to this sacred freight of doctrines, and we shall load the vessel with this precious ballast of the faith, without which it would infallibly perish in the frightful tempest of the world." Here, to the best of our view, is the essential point in our vocation, and we pray God to give us the grace necessary for the faithful and courageous discharge of it.

The natural and ordinary position of man's body is that of standing erect, with the look turned towards heaven. But suppose we take a dead body, and with the help of cords, bandages, and props, succeed in giving it this posture, should we gain much by doing so? Would it not remain, like a phantom, motionless, with livid lips, fixed, hollow, lack-lustre eyes, and legs like

heavy, sluggish posts attached to the ground? And then on the breaking of the first cord, would not the body fall to the ground again? But let God put life into that body, and the eye will naturally turn towards heaven, and the man-for then it will be a man-will walk about, will speak, will exert himself with ease, and remain erect, without prop and bandage.

Meanwhile I have told you, that in reminding you that the grand doctrines of faith and life are essentials, assuredly I would not have you abandon questions of form. On the contrary, I

call upon you to attend to them in due measure. The Protestant Church is characterized by a certain idealism, and that of Rome by a certain realism. While in the latter, the hierarchy, worship, ecclesiastical acts, occupy the first place, faith, on the contrary, life, subjective religion—that is to say, the conversion and sanctification of the individual, are the main affair of Protestantism. But while we maintain this Protestant thesis-and such is the object of this discourse—we would not that people should neglect to give a form to this internal work. If every perfect mind must have a body, so as not to be a phantom, in like manner, all true Christian faith, if it would avoid falling into a fantastic and sickly state, ought to find the expression and the form of the Christian Church. The period during which most contempt was shown for the ecclesiastical form, the 18th century, is that also in which Christianity itself was most despised; and no sooner did Christianity recover the respect that was due to it, than ecclesiastical form also has risen anew into estimationfar less, no doubt, than doctrine and life-yet to just consideration. Christian individualism is the essential matter, but yet there is something else beside. No doubt, it is necessary, before all things, that every man be saved for himself; it is necessary that the kingdom of God be in me, be in you; but it is necessary, at the same time, for us to remind you that the king-. dom of God is above me and above you. It is something to have a stone properly shaped—but that is not all; it must

be put into the building. Let us not therefore forget, that if we be a living stone, we ought to be built into the spiritual house-that we ought to enter into that form, that temple, which is erected in the name of the living God, and which is filled with his glory.

Nevertheless, in what concerns the Church, all is not secondary—something is essential. Gentlemen, I recommend to you as one of your first duties, and one of your holiest prepossessions, submission to the King of Heaven and to his word, and the maintenance of the Church's independence as respects all purely human influences. This I have said elsewhere. For me it is a great article of faith (dogme) that Jesus is the only king of his Church. I reckon it a great duty for us to obey nothing but his word, and to disown in other powers the right of dictating to us in matters of faith. For this article of faith (dogme) and this duty it is not enough that we maintain a discussion or write a pamphlet: it is necessary, should God so require, that for these we should part with our goods and our lives. But I declare also, that for me there is nothing truly essential in the constitution of the Church, beyond what immediately relates to the person and the word of the Saviour. I assign a very secondary importance only to forms supported by reasonings and deductions, to systems derived from the political condition of nations, from the social order, from metaphysics or human philosophy. I rest the whole of my ecclesiastical system upon Jesus Christ. As for proofs and systems independent of his word, I bow before that declaration of our holy writings, which I adopt in all its fulness: Account all things but dung (loss) for the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ our Lord. I subscribe to this saying of the Apostle, and if I look, in particular, to my reasonings, to my activity, to myself, I claim for myself without hesitation the humiliating privilege it involves. I do not think, gentlemen, that God desires to be excluded from any place whatsoever on the earth; I do not believe that there is any domain whatever here below of which it may be said to

the Lord, "Here there is nothing that concerns you, begone!' I firmly believe that God ought to be everywhere in the individual, in the family, in the state, in the government, in the law, in the church. I can neither approve nor adopt that expression of an Atheist state, of an Atheist law, employed by a French politician who does not belong to the Reformed communion. If there be nothing here beyond an affair of words, why, in order to designate what one believes to be good, choose so odious an expression? But there is more here than an affair of words. sincerely believe that God ought to be in the State; that he ought to be there not ostensibly only, but in reality; and if he be little there at the presont day, if often even he be not found there at all, it is only one reason the more for me to maintain this important position towards all and against all.

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Let me not, however, be mistaken, gentlemen, when I say that God ought to be in the State-I say God, that is to say, he who is light, not he who is darkness; I do not, therefore say that that which ought to be in the State is the Popedom, Socinianism, or Mahomet. God forbid! But if I reject those hideous counterfeits, I maintain the holy and divine Being who is counterfeited. I affirm that wisdom from above should be found in magistrates and in kings, not only in so far as they are individuals this everybody admits - but likewise in so far as they are governors of the people under them.

idea.

A late example will illustrate my After that movement in Poland which not long ago agitated the whole of Europe, it was said that of the three powers which it menaced, namely, Austria, Russia, and Prussia, the last was the one that displayed least rigour and most humanity with regard to the unfortunate authors of those violent movements. Now this difference between the government of a people which professes the faith of the gospel, and those of two nations of which the one is attached to the Greek, the other to the Roman faith, is an example of what I ask when I would have God to be in the State. I would have the fear of God, and those generous and holy ideas