is the assertion in the life of humanity in history, not of a formal but a real theocracy, the divine order of the

• world in the Christendom of nations.

This antagonism is necessary also in the assumption of Roman ecclesiasticism, since it denies to the individual and to the nation a real and integral moral being, the realization of a divine vocation in the moral order of the world —which is not formulated through it. The individual and the nation apart from the church, are regarded as in identity with the world, only the kingdoms of this world,— and the church will concede to them, therefore, no spiritual life or powers, no real freedom, no fulfillment of a divine vocation, in conscious obedience to a divine will. It assumes the working of the divine energy, and the fulfillment of the divine purpose in itself alone, and in the individual and the nation only as formulated through it, and the moral that is in its definite Christian realization, the 'moral order of history, apart from itself is unreal, only the legal, the unspiritual condition of man. It assumes that in and through itself alone the redemptive life is formed, and in it alone is manifest the power of the redemption and the power of the resurrection. It alone is built upon "the foundation which is lying;" and itself external, all which is external to it, is a baseless structure. It alone stands in the living and eternal will, and that only has a real and a moral continuity which is formed in it. It will not concede that in the individual and the nation as separate from itself, there is wrought the work of righteousness on the earth. Therefore when Protestantism asserts that the nation has the condition of its being in righteousness, and in righteousness alone its strength and exaltation, and that its unity and continuity is only in the will of One, who will establish righteousness on the earth, and its freedom in the obedience to that will, and its being and responsibilities in an immediate relation to that, these truths Roman ecelesiasticism, in its primary assumption, denies and discards.

The inevitable character of this antagonism in Roman ecclesiasticism appears also in the fact that it will not concede a real and immediate relation in the individual or the nation to God, to God as manifest in the Christ, nor that their life and personality are immediately and only derivative from Him. The life of the individual, the moral life as definitely Christian, it asserts to be mediated and formulated in it, and that the nation is only the province of physical forces, the combination of material interests, a secular kingdom, in whose course there is only what it calls a phenomenal morality.1 It will not admit the divine guidance of the people in its history, and holding the light only in itself, it discerns not the presence which goes before the march of the people. It does not allow in the nation a means or agency of actual good, nor that it derives its wisdom and courage and understanding only from God, nor that its obligation is to no other power on earth, but only to Him. It will not admit in it a vocation, whose duty cannot be transferred to another. In its assumption, the nation is not a power in the realization of the divine kingdom in the world, but in its origin and end is in alienation from it,—only a kingdom of this world.

The church, in this conception, comes to regard the being, the unity and the freedom of the nation with indifference, when it is not its avowed antagonist. The nation is regarded at the most as only formal and abstract, and existent in indifference to right and wrong, and the church is not to stoop to what it represents as the secular

1 "The Catholic confession, although sharing the Christian name with the Protestant, does not concede to the state an inherent justice and morality—a concession which in the Protestant principle is fundamental. This severance of the political morality, which is necessary to the being of the state from its natural connection, is characteristic of that religion, since it does not recognize justice and righteousness as something integral and substantial. But thus isolated and torn away from their inner centre, the sanctuary of conscience which is their last refuge, and the still retreat where religion has its abode, the principles and institutions of political legislation are destitute of a real unity in the same measure in which they are compelled to remain abstract and undefined." - Hegel, Philosophie der Geschichte, p. 64.

aims in the life of humanity. In its view, the unity and continuity of the nation in which the fathers are turned to the children and the children to the fathers, the authority of government and the reverence for law, and the punishment of crime on the earth, and the triumph over oppression, over principalities and powers which have held dominion over men, involve no immediate and divine obligation. The aim of the statesman is no longer the conformance of legislation to a divine law of righteousness, and the end of the state is no longer the fulfillment of an order which he did not create, but whose principle he is to obey. The faith of the people, the fulfillment of its work through all the trials of its years, the very devotion and sacrifice of its children, the wisdom and courage of its leaders, have no real moral significance, but are only the continuance of a sacrilegious course, the circumstance of a profane history.1

1 This is also the attitude of many of the sects, and the conclusion of their logic, when it does not avoid its premise. A recent writer says: "The secular career of man is a violation of sacred obligations and of a divinely established order. In reference to the divine idea and intent, it is a sacrilege — well denominated profane - the history of the world as the opposite and antagonist of the church, only the ordinary workings of the human mind, and such products as are confessedly in its competence to originate, etc." Then the construction of the Nicene formula is described in its parallel, in the sæculum necessary to it, "As long a time as was required for pagan Rome to conquer and subjugate the Italian tribes, and to lay the foundations of a nationality that was to last a millennium in its own particular form; as long a time as was required for the thorough mixing and fusion of British, Saxon, and Norman elements into that modern national character which in the Englishman and Anglo-American is perhaps destined to mould and rule the future, more than even Rome has the past." Then the parallel of the Nicene formula is continued. "The one is metaphysical, the other is political and relates to the rise and formation of merely secular sovereignties, exceedingly impressive to the natural mind and dazzling to the carnal eye; these metaphysical victories secured a correct faith, etc."— Shedd's History of Christian Doctrine, vol. i. p. 18, p. 374. This is the conception, in which, in the consistent and necessary sequence of its premise, national life is apprehended.

It is evident that the character of the appeal to the eye is consequent upon the content of the object; but there has never been in the life of nations an immediate appeal to the carnal eye to compare with that made in the centuries included in this parallel, by the visible church.

There is the assumption in this description also of the apprehension of truth

There is a so-called catholic church, beyond the pale of Rome, which assumes the same. If a nation is struggling for its unity and being against forces of division and dissolution, it is a subject of no moral concernment. The life of the nation and the sacred obligations of its .citizenship, which so inspire common men that they will die for them, and pass those gates of holy and willing sacrifice with the sacrament of the nation upon their lips, it regards only with moral indifference. If a people in a great crisis are redeemed from slavery, it sees not the glory of their deliverance. It heeds not the roll of the waves parted by the right hand of Majesty on high, but asks only that it still may catch the murmur of waters, breaking on the shores of ancient wrong. It repeats its protest against sedition, conspiracy, and rebellion, but to their reality its conscience is dead. It asks in the litany of human hopes and sorrows, for the unity of all nations, but for those who hold the unity of the nation as a divine.

only as a proposition. It is represented in its scientific precision as an abstract formula, and the contrast is with the real conflict of history. The analogy in the centuries of the construction of this formula may have another presentation. This metaphysical speculation never had more exclusive control of the thoughts of men, nor more regard for its scientific precision than in the city of Constantine, under Heraclius, in the beginning of the seventh century. It passed on to the controversy as to the two wills; but the impressiveness of its themes did not affect the lives of men. It was the sign of the division of the schools, it separated society in the avenues of fashion, it started the mob and tumult in the streets, it was the signal of parties in miserable circus-fights; but it awakened no moral energy. It was apprehended only as a dogma-an abstraction—and with no reference to the actual condition of men. It was a strife only measured by the scientific accuracy of terms, in which a dogma was held. It was then that their foundations on which they built the foundations of a system, but not of a living Person whose Will had been revealed to men were shaken by the coming of a conqueror, as a voice from the desert. It has been said by an historical writer, "his words and deeds carried out the moral of the previous history. Mohammed proclaimed an actual God, to men who were disputing concerning his nature and attributes. Mohammed affirmed that there was an actual will, before which the will of man must bow down. It was a tremendous proclamation. Philosophy shrinks and shrivels before it. All ethical speculations are concluded by the one maxim, that God's commands are to be obeyed; all metaphysical speculations are silenced by the shout of a host, "He is, and we are sent to establish his authority over the earth."

gift, it is silent and offers only the drowsy opiates of this world that drug the spirits of men. Its hierarchy will not soil itself with these common aims, although St. Peter could ask with longing for the time of the restoration of Israel, and St. John could trace in the historical order of the nation, the symbols of eternal things, and St.. Paul could dwell upon its historical events as the sacraments of the divine presence, and the voices of Prophets have been lifted in exultation at the nation's deliverance, or burdened with its sorrow since the world began. It wearies of the symbols of the prophetic office when the reality is gone. It concerns itself with a ritual and processions, but they are no longer the ritual, nor the processions of a people. It finds no longer a significance in the name of Protestant, since it has no place in the great process of Protestant history.

Whether the United States will be involved in an immediate conflict with Rome, lies in her future. While there are noble, but still few exceptions, her unity and education and freedom will meet in Roman catholicism, it may be a guarded and often concealed, but an unceasing antagonist. Those who see in the course of the Christian centuries only the development of a dogma, and regard Protestantism as an intellectual conflict, can find no ground of apprehension. M. Guizot turns from speculations on the essence of Christianity, to advocate a confederacy in Italy, and the maintenance of the temporal power of the Popes; but to those for whom the conflict of so many centuries has a deeper reality, the ecclesiasticism of Rome bears another character. Milton was the statesman of a greater age, and was a wider scholar, and of fairer sympathies, but for him it was "the old red dragon." It was to be met by the nation in a struggle of life and death. And the nation will not maintain its unity or its being if it meet it only as a material force. The church will not give place to an atheistic state, nor to a material civiliza