'«,«!e>»^«A. "A/ ' aaaM^AaAa.AOaaaA ,'a/^»5W M^m^t r-r a~ ^w^kto ^A A A A A '_ SVM LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, ^^*V,f> AAAftOft HSONIAN, DEPOSIT.] { UNITED STATEk 6 0l^ AMERICA. ! ©<* JO /Q«^^«'C vr>v ' V AAA*- '*«fe^M(!\A^ 'ffilftiuMTt**^^ AS [AaAAa^OAa **&* 'mmm: VwVaW f^J^J^MiamJf^diffW^M 5«J^' ^AAAA A,AAA^°^ — A/>Afwv^nA^^A 'WW 1 \^m^m^^:^>^ ^M^A. A ' AAAA^ArA> S$il»^M^a's 'lit^MMMMMm A^A* ig«5MR5fi w^wyv !^^^mm ^fiSl./5^/i*/sAA« ^^amM^ ^^2S^««r ^a»?a««^^ WW.VWW y \^Ml^6mB^ iAAHAAAA . AA^^»r ft-/. ,a'a 'aaA^KAa'5-V 5 >&VY Aflhft^AriW a5£\'a^aM AaaaA^^' l ^M^\*f\W0^ 1^^^ &&&k ^whmw&mmmfi «^ s G'^ 88m \%m$MMmw> aA» a ^ a~^> a 1 aAA . A rs ^ A A .AAA^A^W a^aaa^^a [aAAAAA 1 A A ^ * A ■ A^/tt/V* ^mwt ^r,.f\.r^' Ws^i^m^ '.rtfrrf.KlH .^rOtto.fft r&^^mf^M A /AaaOTaAaAA'Aa'_ a^aA A^^^^^H i^AAjB^ ^v^^^^ ADDRESSES OF REV. S. L. GRAHAM, D.D., AND OF REV. F. S. SAMPSON, D.D., AT THEIR INAUGURATION, JULY 11, 1850, THE FORMER AS PROFESSOR OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY, THE LATTER AS PROFESSOR OF ORIENTAL LITERATURE, UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, PRINCE EDWARD COUNTY, VA. PUBLISHED BY DIRECTION OF THE BOARD. ^ NEW-YORK: ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS, NO. 285 BROADWAY. M.D.CCC.L. Printed "by Edward O. Jenkins, No. 114 Nassau Street. ADDRESS OF DR. GRAHAM. A Discourse, delivered June 11th, 1850, on the occasion of his inauguration as Pro- fessor of Ecclesiastical History and Polity in Union Theological Seminary, Prince Edward County, Virginia, hy S. L. Graham, D.D. By an order of the Board of Directors, I am required this day to deliver a discourse on History. Though the resolu- tion does not give the purpose for which this exercise is re- quired, yet it may be safely inferred to have been to express their conviction that this branch of study ought to be ele- vated to a place of dignity and importance which it has not heretofore occupied in this institution, as well as to ascertain in what manner it is to be taught. As these are praise- worthy and laudable objects, I cheerfully accept your ap- pointment, and now proceed to address myself to the fulfil- ment of it. In some minds there is a conviction that the study of history is light and easy, requiring the exercise of no faculty, except memory. No mistake can be greater. The evidence by which a historical fact is established, often requires most laborious research to ascertain it, and great soundness of judgment to judge of that evidence after it is ascertained. All party spirit must be renounced, and evidence must be regarded purely on its own merits. This is no easy attain- ment. The prejudices, generated for example by the great controversy which agitated and divided England in the seventeenth century, have been transmitted to our day ; and men can now be found who are as ardent haters of Cromwell and the Puritans, as were the partisans of . the arbitrary and tyrannical Stuarts ; nor need it be disguised that there is still also a spirit of indiscriminate justification of the errors and the wrongs of those Puritans who overthrew the English throne, and so changed the English constitution, as to check the absolute prerogative of the sovereign, and to secure the rights of the subject. The same remark may be made in reference to many other controversies. There are no subjects, however, on which we are required to sift evidence with greater care, than on those which relate to the controversies between Catholics and Protestants. The facts in reference to past controversies are so startling and astounding, and are so entirely in conflict with our American ideas of liberty and humanity, and scriptural truth, that we naturally require the most unquestionable evidence of their truth, before we receive them. For example, it would not be safe to assert that it is a doctrine of the Catholic communion that no faith ought to be kept with heretics ; for the council of Con- stance, the first and last that so decided, is wholly rejeoted by some Catholics, and is received as a general council only in its last sessions by others. The best authorities, as Bellar- mine and others, only allow it a partial authority ; and it is doubtful whether this obnoxious decree was enacted before or after it was acknowledged to be a general council. History can give many examples, before and after the council of Constance, in which faith was not kept with heretics ; but it must be acknowledged that protestants have not always been remarkable for keeping the faith of treaties and fulfilling promises. The knowledge of languages is necessary to the successful study of history. Many of the controversies of the church owe their origin, in the first instance, to the unfortunate s and imprudent use of new towns. Thus, the Nestorian con- troversy may be regarded as still a difficult question, on account of the ambiguity of the language used on the occa- sion. That the ambitious Cyril, under the influence of the passionate excitement by which he seems to have been gov- erned, did injustice to his opponent, is now generally admit- ted ; and after the lapse of fourteen hundred years, tardy justice has been done to a persecuted man; and, though condemned by a council, it is probable that Nestorius was only liable to censure on account of the novel and unauthor- ized phraseology he used in reference to Jesus Christ, and on account of the needless obstinacy with which he persisted in the use of language which gave offence, and which was, to say the least, ambiguous. Indeed, a critical knowledge of language is necessary, to enable- one to understand the early controversies of the church. And no language will be more necessary in this respect than the Greek, as it is well known that the activity and acuteness of the Cfreek mind, and the disputatious and confident spirit produced by the Greek philosophy, originated nearly all of the doctrinal controver- sies of the early ages of Christianity ; while the Latin mind slept on in its lethargic slumber, or only awaked to smile at the combatants, or to decide on a subject which was imper- fectly understood. The plan of this seminary declares, that the object to be attained in this department of study is the " history of theological doctrine, and its influence on religion, morals, literature, and civil and religious liberty, from the Christian era to the present time." This simple statement presents a most comprehensive view of the subject, and owes its origin to that great and good man whose likeness adorns our chapel, and whose profound and philosophical mind caught 6 the true and only rational view of church history. I allude to Dr. John Holt Rice, who, if any man can lay claim to that honor, was the founder of this institution. Can the end here sketched out be attained ? If it can, then history will become truly a science, and a school in which we may learn the most important lessons of wisdom. But it cannot be done in a day. It must be the result of long and patient investigation. The way will be weary ; but if the end can be gained, the fruit will be worthy of all the toil. Let us inquire whether the end proposed can be accomplished. We understand it to be what is known as the philosophy of history. The object of it is, to trace effects up to their causes ; to generalize the facts of history, and to draw from them those just conclusions which a sound philosophy teaches us are to be derived from them. It assumes that Grod governs the world, so as to accomplish a wise and benevolent purpose ; and that history is one of the schools in which he designs that we shall learn wisdom ; that if Grod is in history, there must be some great problems worked out for man's benefit. In the past, experiments have been made, as to what man can do, — as to the tendencies of his nature, — as to the effect of certain principles on his moral conduct and his .happiness ; and it is the duty of the his- torian to gather up these facts, to arrange and classify them, and, as far as the nature of the subject will admit of it, apply the principles of the inductive philosophy, and to draw just conclusions from them. It is true, that in this case, it is not man himself, performing his experiments on dead matter, for his own benefit and improvement, and that of others ; but man makes the experiment as man, endowed with a complex nature, with body and soul, the subject of moral government, a member of the social compact, and the recipient of religious impressions to an almost unlimited extent, and from a great variety of means and instrumen- talities. The operation of these different causes on man's intellectual, moral, and social nature produces results very- various ; still there is a unity which may be reached on this subject as well as others. We may ascertain what causes have been at work, and what effects have been produced in a given case, with a probability so strong as to reach almost to certainty. And when the mind has, on solid reasons, arrived at some general result of this kind, something valu- able is certainly gained. History is not to be regarded as a mere chaos of facts, without order and without object. — It is not intended to be a mere plaything for the pedant, that he may signalize the accuracy of his memory, by detailing the minutest facts, and the day and month and year in which they occurred. If this be all, we may well despise history, as only ministering to human vanity and ambition. On the contrary, nature herself has taught us order. The water is separated from earth, and air from both, and all the agents in nature operate with a system and regularity known only to the man of science. And everything in the animal world stands out before us already classified. And why should there not be a classification of the facts of history ? We may distinguish between the causes which produce a system of error, and the moral effects of that system itself. The effect produced will be like the cause, it is true ; but still that may not exhibit the whole effect in the case. If idolatry depend for its origin and its continuance on an appeal to the imagination and to the senses, as the principal special causes which produce it, we may safely conclude that, as the theory of its origin leaves man's con- science and his moral nature untouched, the effect will be, 8 not in his moral constitution, but on his imagination and senses. But still we must look deeper into the subject, if we wish fully to understand its influence on morals. And if we always find connected with it an extravagant influ- ence ascribed to mere external acts, and if the painting or the sculpture can itself convey no idea as to the spiritual qualities of the object worshipped, at least in ordinary cases, we may conclude that the condition of men will not be improved by such a system. In conducting these inquiries, however, there are certain extremes to be avoided ; and the same radical error lies at the bottom of them all, at least so far as church history is concerned. There is one class who hold to a gradual de- velopment of Christian truth ; that if the religious affections are right,- they will lead to results in Christian doctrine and in church polity, which are not to be found in the primitive church, and which are nevertheless agreeable to the will of God. This whole system of the mysteries, with all others analogous to it, is to be rejected, because it does not ac- knowledge the absolute perfection and sufficiency of the inspired volume. Another extreme is that which leads men to look with reverence on the opinions and interpretations of the uninspired doctors of the church, as authoritatively settling vital questions. To this appeal to tradition, the same objection may be made ; the inspired word of truth, alone, has authority in matters of controversy. We will never consent to take as our standard the opinions of the teachers of the church, in any century, since the Apostles' days. This would indeed fix at once in stereotype all the opinions and rites and customs of the church ; and not only so, but the very process of argument by which opinions and interpretations are established. This is a Procrustean bed on which we beg to be excused from lying. This is the gieat error of the Catholic, the effect cf which is mental servility, and the romoval of all stimulus to an intelligent and profitable study of history. To accomplish that which seems to have been in the mind of the Directors, when the plan of this Seminary was adopted, it is necessary that the adaptation of systems of doctrine to produce certain effects, should be proved ; and then, that these results have always occurred in point of fact, must be proved from history. In regard to the first, it must be made to appear that the effect ascribed to a given cause or combination of causes is not an incident, but that it flows naturally from it, as a stream from a fountain ; that there is a peculiar adaptation in the doctrine or system of doctrine to produce the effect indicated , and that it is adapted to produce no other. As to the second, the historical deductions must be made with great caution, and the student of history should be care- ful that he does not mistake his own prejudices for historical facts, a very common occurrence ; or at least that his party feelings and his want of candor have not given a coloring to facts inconsistent with truth. The connection between the doctrine and the effect ascribed to it ought to be real, not im- aginary. The different results at which we arrive by this process may be attended with various degrees of probability, In some cases the highest, and in others the lowest, degrees of probability will be reached. But this is only what occurs on every other subject of human investigation : in criticism, interpretation, metaphysics, and in morals, the mind is con- scious of different degrees of conviction, the result either of its own weakness, or of a want of a clear and full exhibition of light and evidence. We propose now to give an illustration of what we have thus far attempted to explain and confirm. 10 We will- suppose the object to be, to show the influence of some system of theological doctrine on civil and religious lib- erty, and that the system of the Puritans and of the Cathdics is selected, the one as a specimen, of a favorable, and the other as a specimen of an unfavorable, influence on human freedom. We will assume that the statements found in the ordinary histories on the subject we propose to discuss are true ; and we presume that, if they are denied, they can be proved by the most unquestionable authority. But we do not wish to perplex ourselves or our audience with any such questions to-day. We intend to make our statements as fair as possible. • The first thing to be done is, to inquire into the nature of the doctrines taught by the respective parties in this case. The Puritans held to the right of private judgment, the right to examine for themselves, and decide on their own creed. They held that every man was personally responsible to Grod for not finding his own rule of faith in the Bible. They also held to the right of all the members of the community to think for themselves on all subjects, a right to which the meanest had an equal claim with the highest. Thus they formed the habit of mental independence, in opposition to that servility and mental dependence, on the other hand, of which we shall speak presently. The Puritans also were ardent patrons of learning, and of the general diffusion of knowledge ; and thus they endeavored to educate the public mind to think and act for itself. In all the religious communities they organized, they gave the people a share in the government of the church. Nothing could be lawfully done, unless the people were pres- ent themselves, or by their representatives. Thus they taught, in the clearest manner, the representative principle, which is the basis of all free government. They also taught that all - 11 the ministers had equal rights, as well as that all the people had a voice in their religious assemblies. They repudiated that system which disfranchised the people, and elevated the clergy to principalities, temporal or spiritual, and made the bishop a little monarch over his brethren, and erected a throne higher than the rest for him who claimed, universal jurisdiction over the church. But, above all, the Puritans laid the foundation of their principles in the holy Scriptures. No one thing was more remarkable in their history than this reverence for Grod's word. Here they were taught to value justice between man and man, and to hate and punish oppres- sion and violence. They studied the civil code of Moses, of which Grod was the author, and in which strict and equal jus- tice in our intercourse with our fellow-men is always en- joined. Some of them may have misunderstood and misap- plied some portion of the Old Testament, especially the his- torical parts ; but we now speak of the main body of this most wonderful race of men. No book ever written more clearly defines right and wrong than the Bible ; nor is any book to be found anywhere, in which the principles of human liberty are more clearly taught. This was the great statute-book of the Puritans, and they were as deeply imbued with its spirit as any people that ever lived. Time will not permit us to en- large on this subject. We now proceed to inquire, whether history confirms the views which we have just expressed. From the days of Queen Elizabeth the Puritans resisted the arbitrary acts of the sovereign, and the violent encroachments on the rights of the subject. Against the Star Chamber and High Commission they earnestly remonstrated, as a stretch of the royal preroga- tive, not warranted by the English constitution. When the Stuart family attempted to make the English government an 12 absolute monarchy, and to dispense with parliaments, and even with the laws of the land, except such as they might approve ; when they imprisoned and condemned freemen with- out due process of law ; when they resorted to forced loans and benevolences, and, in fact, undertook to tax the subject without consent of their representatives ; foremost in the op- position to such high-handed measures were found the Puri- tan leaders. Thus did this body of men, for near one hundred years, steadfastly resist and oppose the tyrannical measures of the Court, until at last a revolution, more permanent and beneficial in its effects than any ever effected in Grreat Britain since the days of Alfred the Grreat, was effected by the acces- sion of William and Mary to the throne. The Puritans fought the battle for freedom during the long Parliament, during the days of Cromwell, and during the days of the licentious Charles II. The age of Cromwell is an era in English his- tory. Never before did more able judges sit in the courts, nor was justice ever more impartially administered. Commerce with, foreign countries flourished, and the English navy began to win those laurels which have since made her the mistress of the seas. In New England as well as old England, the Puritan character has shown itself to be deeply hostile to tyrants and tyranny. The only objection worthy of serious notice to these conclusions and statements is, that some of the Puritans were intolerant. The fact cannot be denied. It was, however, the error of the age in which they lived. They were the first in England to work out the problem as to reli- gious toleration, and the first to act on it ; they have perse ver- ingly adhered to it ever since. We next proceed to show, that the Catholic system is not favorable to liberty. The exact opposite to this has been in- geniously and perseveringly maintained by one of the ablest 13 and most eloquent of the Roman Catholic bishops of this country ; and it is maintained by thousands of others.* The infallibility of the pope establishes. the most despotic monarchy in the world ; for he speaks as God to men, and claims to be the vicegerent of heaven. The divine right of kings, and the legal fiction that the king can do no wrong, do not establish such an unlimited authority ; for the persons who admit these principles hold that a wrong may be done by the sovereign, though his official advisers are held responsible for it. But the claims of the pope are equal to a plenary inspiration. If it is believed that the infallibility in question is found in a general council, it is known that no such council has been held for three hundred years, even on the broadest theory of such councils. The clergy have usurped all the authority in the Catholic communion ; and no layman ever lifts his voice in any ecclesiastical court. And when appeals are made, they are not from one or two to many, so as to bring the col- lected wisdom of the whole body to bear on a difficult case, but they are from many to one. The church rulers, too, are a separate class, unconnected with the masses around them, by the ties of sympathy or interest ; but they are connected with the Bishop of Rome by the strongest motives of self- interest, and by the vows of canonical obedience. When we consider human nature as it is, we might well think it strange if they were not inflated to the point of insolence by their overgrown and absolute authority ; by the power they are sup" posed to possess of converting the bread and wine into the real body of Christ ; by their pretended priestly absolution, and by the Opus operatum that accompanies all their official acts. And then the whole Catholic system is pre-eminently • * Bishop Hughes. 14 one of authority. No opinion, rite, or ceremony of the church is to be called into question. * Submission to all acts, however oppressive, is required, under the pretence that the canon law so requires, or that the practice is justified by prescription, or by an infallible pope. Besides, the key that unlocks the trea- sures of knowledge is taken away from the people, and annu- ally there is published, under the sanction of the pope, a cata- logue of prohibited books, in which are included scientific works, if a Protestant is the author of them. It is no part of the principles of Catholicism that the schoolmaster should be abroad in the land ; and he is not abroad in Catholic countries. But, above all, the Bible is to the Catholic virtually a prohibited book, even in the unfaithful translation of a translation, itself in many points erroneous.* In short, the whole system is one of absolute mental servility on the part of the people ; and it uniformly checks and destroys mental independence. We now proceed to inquire what have been the teachings of history on this subject. In the .eighth century the popes became temporal princes in Italy, and for eleven centuries the region about Rome has acknowledged their spiritual and tem- poral authority. And what have been the results ? During all this long period religious intolerance has prevailed, and for the greater part of it the tribunal of the inquisition has been used to stop the mouths of heretics ; and the number of its victims, and the cruelties and deeds of darkness practised in its dungeons and rooms of torture, none can tell until the great, day shall reveal it. And what has Italy become under the domination of the priesthood ? The land of the Catos, Cice- ros, Scipios and Csesars of other days is now a land of mu- sicians,, painters and sculptors, a land of monks and priests, • * The Catholic translations are from the Vulgate. 15 barefooted, squalid, lazy, ignorant, and vicious; a land of robbers and assassins, of ragged lazaroni, of thriftlessness and indolence, in which the project to make a railroad is esteemed a crime against the state, which merits a thundering bull from the successor of St. Peter ; a land in which to preach a prot- estant sermon, or to distribute a protestant translation of the Bible, would be esteemed a crime equal to murder or grand larceny. And yet this is the country in which were built, by their pagan ancestors, the Appian Way, called the Queen of Roads, and others, as costly as the pavements in our cities, from the capital to various parts of the empire, at a distance of several hundred miles : the Coliseum, the amphitheatres, the obelisks now found, show to the sad and curious traveler, that Rome, as it now is, is only the tomb of its -own former greatness ; and that to degrade herself as she has done, by her attention to frivolous and childish superstition, it was necessary that she should unlearn all her former grandeur and greatness ; that she should renounce and nullify the best civil code, and the purest civil government to be found on earth. Rome is no longer the land of heroes, of statesmen and ora- tors ; it is no longer a land of equal laws. Some have attempted to prove that the population of the single city of Rome, in the day of her ancient glory, equalled that of the whole of Italy at the present day. From the age of Leo the Great, at the middle of the fifth century, the popes of Rome aimed to establish a universal spiritual despotism over the whole of Christendom ; and when this end seemed to be ac- plished, at least as far as the west was concerned, then, from the period of Gregory VII., 1073, to the Reformation, they strove unceasingly to build up their authority over temporal sovereigns, and they gave away crowns and kingdoms to whomsoever they wished. It was a pope of Rome (Innocent 16 III.) who deposed king John, and who annulled the great charter which contains the germ of English freedom, and ex- communicated the barons who drew it up and required the sovereign to sign it. It is known that the advisers of the most arbitrary measures of European sovereigns have been the Catholic priests, who have gotten the ear of the monarch, and have become the keepers of his conscience. The reign of -the bloody Mary may safely be contrasted with that of her sister, or of any protest- ant king or queen of England. In France, infidelity itself re- moved from the statute-book the laws proscribing and perse- cuting the Protestants. Thus we think we have made it evident, that the tendencies of Romanism are not in the direc- tion of human freedom. We will not deny that there may be exceptions, as to the operation of the principles we have men- tioned, in both the classes described. We have only acomod to generalize. Nor would we deny that there are others, be- sides the Puritans, who have exerted a happy influence in favor of civil and religious liberty. This we would most willingly admit, or rather most earnestly maintain. The principle which lies at the basis of a profitable study of church history might be further illustrated, by a reference -to the Oriental philosophy, to Arianism, to the rise, tendencies, and effects of monasticism. For example, it might be proved that there was a tendency to the ascetic life, especially in the East, previous to the advent of Christ, and after his advent, inde- pendent of the teachings of Christianity ; that it appeared among the Jews in the Therapeutse and Essenes ; among the pagans in the celibacy practised in some instances by the priests, and from the fact that many of them professed to lead a contemplative and ascetic life. The philosophy of that age, too, led to asceticism. The tendencies of gnosticism are 17 known to all ; nor is it less obvious that a similar tendency was found in the Cynics, and other sects of philosophers. The opposition between paganism and Christianity led some minds to the unsocial extreme of monasticism ; nor were per- secutions, and the contempt in which Christians were held in early ages, without their influence. The laxity of morals among professed Christians may have had an indirect influ- ence in stimulating some, whose minds were misled by these erroneous pre-existing views of religion, to retire from human society, that they might attain to a higher standard of piety than seemed to them attainable amidst the temptations and pollutions of the populous cities. As to the effects of this system, we might show that, in its earliest development, when the views of the anchorets pre- vailed, its tendency was to inhumanize men, to lead to men- tal-derangement and suicide, many examples of which could be produced from history ; and that after men, who professed to renounce the world, lived not in solitary cells, but in soci- eties regulated by rules, it tended to lower the standard of morals and religion among the people, by exhibiting what professed to be a higher spirituality than that attainable by the mass of Christians ; that it led to, if it did not originate from, ideas of human merit ; that it placed true piety in the sensu- ous and external, instead of placing it in the spiritual and internal ; that a religion, which consisted so much in absti- nence, fasting, vigils, and bodily inflictions, must, in the end, degrade Christianity from its high position, as a religion intended to govern the inner man, and outer man through the inner. We might also show that it fostered hypocrisy, and contributed its full share in separating a class of men from their relations to and sympathy with society around them, and to create a caste in religion ; and that men would at last 2 18 break away from all rules, and become licentious and indo- lent ; and finally, that it cherished self-righteousness and spiritual pride. The system is therefore unfavorable to spir- itual piety and to good morals. The question will most natu- rally arise here, " Whether anything has been done in this department of history which the plan of our seminary makes it the duty of the professor to occupy ?" We answer, that in civil history much has been done. Schlegel, Hallam, Gruizot, Arnold, and Smith, have all done something to throw light on this aspect of history ; and it is remarkable, that four of the five books just mentioned formed originally a course of public lectures ; one delivered in Germany, another in the University of Paris, a third in the University of Oxford, and the last in the University of Cambridge. History is now studied with an ardor which has no parallel in past ages ; and in our own country it is receiving increasing attention in our literary in- stitutions. For the department of ecclesiastical history not so much has as yet been done as for civil history. For eighteen hundred years Christianity has exerted great influence on the state ; it has formed the public morals ; it has controlled the education of the European world ; it has often been brought into conflict with false theories of morals, and has been persecuted by the state : and on all these ac- counts it has attracted the notice of the historians of the na- tions. It may therefore be expected, that in the general histories, and especially in the scholastic works on history lately issued from the press, something valuable to the student of church history will be found. Accordingly, all the books which we have mentioned may be read with profit. Some of them discuss questions of this nature with great ability. But this field has not been left without cultivation by those who have professed to write on the history of the church. 19 We say nothing of those who have treated , in an able and in- structive manner, certain portions of history, such as the flru- sades, and the rise of popery, together with its grand results. There is scarcely a valuable history of the church which does not more or less discuss some of the questions which appear to have been contemplated in the plan of this institution. In Robertson's history of Charles V. there are many acute and philosophical remarks, which show a mind awake to the true object of history. G-ieseler's Text-Book of Ecclesiastical His- tory proves that the author is a profound scholar, and capable of taking an instructive view of history ; but his work is very concise, and he has allowed himself little time for discussing, in an interesting manner, many questions, for the discussion of which he is well qualified. Indeed, his aim seems to have been, to give the results of his own investigations, rather than the process by which he arrived at them. But, of all the church histories of modern times, Neander's, now in a course of publication, is most thoroughly imbued with a philosophical spirit. With learning and scholarship of the highest order, he unites logical acumen, and sound judgment, and earnest piety. Still, we need a work which will embody the results of investigation on this subject ; a work which supposes the student to be possessed of the facts of history, but which rea- sons from them, and about them, in such a manner as shall be instructive. The German stand-point is one thing, and the American is another. There are some discussions suited to the aspect of things in Europe, and some to the aspect of things in this country. It is a desideratum, then, that the results of past investigation should be embodied in some con- venient form ; and that what Guizot, and Arnold, and Smyth have attempted to do for civil history, should be done for church history. Thus have we endeavored to give our views, 20 and what has seemed to us the views of those who originated anfl govern this institution, on the important subject of church history. Whether we have succeeded or not, it is for others to judge ; but if any one can show us a better way, or throw light on this subject, we hope we shall thankfully re- ceive his aid, and profit by his instructions. ADDRESS OF DR. SAMPSON. Respected Fathers and Brethren, and Auditors generally.— The great enemy of truth, of Christ, and of souls, has long been at work. His hate and his skill have only in- creased with his age and experience. When Christianity was first set up, Satan held the world fast bound in paganism. It had been so for many long ages of darkness, — ages of ignorance, and superstition, and sin. To this huge system, the great facts and the simple and sublime doctrines of Revelation, too deep for the discoveries of natural reason, had to be opposed. With the Bible in hand and a sound reason at command, aided by the mighty power of the Holy Grhost, it devolved upon the Christian Philosopher to sustain the conflict for the interests of souls, a