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whatsoever I shall have said unto you; go ye therefore and teach all nations. They who alone have the truth, and who alone are sent to teach, how shall they not alone have and confer salvation? Do not the way, the truth, and the life walk with equal steps? He walks in darkness who follows not Christ, the way, the truth, and the life. He follows not Christ, who hears not the church constituted by Christ; and he is to be regarded as a heathen and a publican. Truth, too, is one; for as, according to Paul, there is no coming together of light with darkness, and of Christ with Belial, so neither in a collection of various and alien doctrines with eternal truth.

"Perhaps you will imagine all who are born of non-Catholic parents to be condemned by me. Judge me not so, I earnestly beseech you. I know many, who belong not to the body of the Catholic church, to belong to the soul of the church; very many to err, and not to be heretics. Truly desirable it is, that all should be united to the external body of the church, that all within and without may be one body in Christ; but it is one thing to long for this union, and another to condemn the erring and thrust them all indiscriminately into hell.

"Many things still remain to be said respecting your letter; but there is a time to be silent and a time to speak. But, candid professor, though you do not admit the expression of my wishes, yet do not, I pray you, reprobate the earnest longings of my heart as also not to be uttered.

"Daniel was heard because he was a man of longing desires; but you would not that my sighs for you be heard. But at least, if I am not deceived, the hour will come, known only to the Omnipotent, when you will no longer regard me as a stranger. Too happy shall I be, if the Holy Spirit himself shall penetrate and vivify us with the same unction. Meanwhile, if the impulse of your conscience induce you to pray for me, most certainly the prayers of your heart will not hurt me. Let Christ mould these and you will be safe.

"You would not that Gregory VII, but that Christ should meet you as you enter the celestial palace; and yet I confidently say, if it be given you to enter the celestial palace, you will exult at Christ's meeting you, and yet will not repel Gregory. You have celebrated and honored him when dead. You will salute and caress and admire him when glittering in splendor. He opening his arms to you, you will also open yours to him. At home you will not be an enemy to him whom you defended in exile. For

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Result of the Correspondence.

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'you, learned Sir, most sincerely do I long for the day that shall know no end; the only true and unfailing glory; the only unfading crown.

"Thus put I an end to the interchange of letters between us. I desire, as I ought, to live and die a Catholic. Do not condemn the charity of the holy mother church when offering her bosom, though you refuse her breast. As I unroll the book of eternity, as I think of the snares of error, as I recollect the enemies of truth, as I ponder the fallacies of a trifle-loving life, for myself and my friends I beg for whatever is good and holy and safe, and dread whatever is injurious, and despise what is transient, and fear what is perilous. For what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul!

"Farewell, dear Professor, and do not repel my complaisance. CLEMENT, bishop of Rochelle."

Prof. Voigt informs us, that he did not think it worth while to go any deeper into the discussion, and here the correspondence was closed. The letters were read to a few confidential friends, and a copy of the first two was given to a person of distinction, through whom they found their way to the king of Prussia. The king was so much pleased with Dr. Voigt's letter to the bishop, that he ordered his ministers to write a brief note to Dr. Voigt, expressive of his high satisfaction. This note and the bishop's last letter reached Dr. Voigt at about the same time; and he was earnestly pressed to publish the whole correspondence. But sentiments of delicacy towards the bishop, who had spoken to him in language of such respect and affection, prevented him, for some years, from yielding to such entreaties. At length, however, in 1844, he found to his surprise, that the bishop had been restrained by no such delicacy. Soon after the correspondence was closed, which was written in Latin, a translation of the whole had been published in a French journal," Ami de la Religion," in December, 1839; and from this French translation another had been made into German and published in a Catholic journal of February, 1840. Nor was this the worst of the matter. 'On comparing the translation with the original letters, Prof. Voigt found in many passages the sense of the words in part so altered and in part so craftily beclouded, that he could not sufficiently wonder how one could allow himself in such mistranslations and distortions.'

By such a use of these letters, and by further learning of a so

ciety which existed in the diocese of Rochelle for the express purpose of making proselytes to the papal church, and which gloried in its great success at the period when the letters were written, Prof. Voigt 'became perfectly convinced that the bishop, in his letters to himself and Hurter, had merely in view the work of proselyting, and that his panegyrical compliments were merely allurements to the only saving church.'

These letters of the zealous bishop may afford us some idea of the means employed by the Romish church for making proselytes in this country and England as well as in France and Germany, and may well increase the conviction that secret arts have been very extensively used to excite and increase the widespread movement in the papal direction. Rome is as wise in the selection of her objects as in the use of her enchantments. Occasionally she may mistake, as in the case of Voigt and of Hurter. But men of feebler intellect and greater vanity, or more superstitious propensities, fall a more easy prey.

ARTICLE VII.

THE HISTORY OF DOCTRINES.

By Rev. Henry B. Smith, West Amesbury, Mass.

Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte von Dr. K. R. Hagenbach, Prof. der Theol. in Basel. Erster Theil. Bis auf Johannes Damascenus. Zweiten Theiles erste Hälfte. Von Johannes Damascenus bis auf die Reformation. Zweiten Theiles zweite Hälfte. Von der Reformation bis auf unsere Zeit. Leipzig: 1840-41. Compendium of the History of Doctrines. Translated by Carl W. Buch. Vol. I Clark. [Clark's Foreign Theological Library, Vol. III] 1846. Lehrbuch der christlichen Dogmengeschichte, von Dr. F. Ch. Bauer, ordentl. Professor der evangelischen Theologie an der Universität Tübingen. Stuttgart, 1847.

By K. R. Hagenbach.
Edinburgh: T. & T.

No book is at present more needed in our theological literature than a good history of doctrines. Dr. Murdock's translation

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Uses of a History of Doctrines.

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of Münscher's compendium is the only work to which our students have had access, and that is too meagre to satisfy the wants of a zealous inquirer, and is too far behind the present state of historical research in Germany to be of any decisive authority. It is remarkable, that while the English as a people are averse to speculation, and much more at home in history and in facts, they have been far less earnest, of later years, in investigating the records of the past, than have their more speculative and imaginative German neighbors. Especially is this the case in respect to the doctrinal history of Christianity, which is almost unknown, even by name, to the English literature, but which has been prosecuted with the greatest ardor and research in Germany.1

Such a work would be of the greatest advantage to our theological literature in several ways. It would tend to relieve the too abstract character of many of our theological speculations. It would serve to make more clear to our minds the exact position of a particular doctrine in the whole scheme of Christianity; and thus keep us from laying an inordinate stress upon a truth which is of inferior moment. It would be one of the most effectual means of dissipating a too fond reverence for the past; and also of increasing our love to those abiding truths which we should find running through the whole course of the history of Christ's church, and determining its fortunes. Neither Tractarianism nor Socinianism would be possible to a mind that thoroughly understood the course of Christian doctrine. It would serve to make us tolerant of incidental errors, and firm in our belief of essential truth. It would deliver us both from a morbid fear and a morbid love of new theories. We should not be so apt to imagine that Christianity must stand or fall by one particular, and it may be novel, theory on one particular subject. It will bring before our minds the different phases both of truth and error; and both the errors and the wisdom of the past may help to make us wise. Thus our theological systems might become less abstract and more profound; our catholicity of feeling be enlarged; our confidence in the ultimate triumph of truth made more firm. Such a history would also serve

It is a grievous reproach to the theological literature of England, that the two most interesting chapters in doctrinal history which that country has produced are to be found in the pages of Gibbon. The influence of his infidelity would have been greatly diminished had any of the English divines been able to present the results of equal research in a style as attractive as that which marks his narration of the controversies about the Trinity and the Incarnation in the twenty-first and forty-seventh chapters of his History.

to increase our knowledge of any particular doctrine in its relations to others, and likewise to make our views respecting it more precise. We should see its various phases, and under what influences these were formed, and be enabled to distinguish the permanent truth from the transient form. Such a course of investigation, too, is absolutely essential to a thorough understanding of the true character and the exact meaning of the Confes sions of Faith which are most generally received among us. Single phrases in these symbols are the ripened fruit of ages of prolonged discussion. Both orthodoxy and heresy will thus be illu mined by new lights. We may, also, here obtain new help in our defence against error, and, if it be needful, oppose the preponderant authorities in favor of the truth to the scattered opinions which heresy loves to cite. "It is many times with fraudulent design," it has been said, "that men stick their corrupt doctrines with the cloves of other men's wit;" and the best way of opposing this design is not, as this same author would have it, to rely wholly upon our own resources, but rather to show, that if error has its hundreds, truth has still its tens of thousands. For the systematic study of theology, also, a zealous study of the course of Christian doctrines would be of inestimable benefit. It would transfuse a new life into our systems. One of the best accompaniments of a course of systematic divinity would be a history that should trace the progress of each doctrine from the earliest times until now. Nor would such a work answer an unimportant purpose in deepening our faith in the divine and permanent authority of the sacred Scriptures. For, one of the most significant results of such a history is the evidence it affords, that the human race in its whole progress has not gone beyond the metes and bounds which the Bible gives. It is the life of the Scriptures which has passed over into the life of the church, and formed the very substance of all its doctrines. In all discussion and controversy, the human race has not advanced beyond the sacred truths and facts laid down in this marvellous volume.

It is a striking fact, noticed by Kliefoth, a profound inquirer into the idea of a History of Doctrines, that Christianity is the only system of religion which has what can properly be called doctrines.

Here alone do we find regular systems of doctrine, and a succession of such systems. No other form of religion which the world has known has ever produced any exposition of its articles of belief, which could for a moment be compared, even as exhibitions of intellectual power, with the theological systems which Christianity

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