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rian and Congregational ministry of the United States, are descendants of "the tribe of Levi."

Such is christianity, as originally embosomed in the Abrahamic covenant-the christianity to which the Jewish institute served as a pedagogue or preparatory system-the christianity expounded by the great Apostle of the Gentiles, who regarded Abraham as the "the Father" alike of "the circumcision," or the Jewish branch, and of " the uncircumcision," or Gentile portion, "if they walked in the steps of that faith which Abraham had being yet uncircumcised"-who preached" Christ as the minister of circumcision, for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the Fathers," and also of uncircumcision, "that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy."

From the beginning, through all its phases and dispensations, the church is one; organic in its character, embracing among its members, the infant children of believers, from whom eminently its growth is to be expected. It is a part of the plan of God to bring the law of family increase directly into the church, and make it also a law of spiritual increase, or in the words of Baxter, himself an exemplification of his profound remark, “Education, rightly conducted, is an ordinary way for the conveyance of God's grace, and ought no more to be set in opposition to the Spirit, than the preaching of the word."

Were these views as clearly apprehended and fully carried out as they might and ought to be, the great law of the church's progress and perpetuation, would be verified to the comfort of parents and to the illustration of divine faithfulness, to an extent seldom now, if ever witnessed. The reproach cast upon the church of God, of inefficacy and inferiority to other schemes of man's devising, would be wiped away, and the wisdom of God, in its original organization and immutable peculiarities, exhibited. Families would be the nurseries of the church. Faithful parental instruction, would secure the first buddings of the plants of grace, and pastors would only have to develop them by appropriate cultivation to "trees of righteousness," "filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God." At the proper age, the infant members, recognizing their relations, would gratefully and intelligently

assume the responsibilities involved in their early consecration by their parents, and thus from age to age, by a constant reproduction and increasing expansion, from this the primary source, in addition to all the aggressions made on the empire of Satan, and sin, and the votaries of the world, the church of God, would, as it was designed, go on, widening and deepening, till "the knowledge of the Lord would cover the earth as the waters do the sea." Piety, too, beginning early in life, would assume progressively lovelier and more influential forms of manifestation from generation to generation, so that "the child would die an hundred years old;""the dew of youth," the strength of manhood, and the ripeness of age, would all be given to God and his cause. In virtue of this simple element alone, of internal vitality, independently of accretion from without, expanding by organic growth, not external conquest, the church of God, according to the tenor of the covenant, might soon fill the world. "I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of their enemies, and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." "For thus saith the Lord, this is my covenant with them, my spirit which is upon thee and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the Lord, henceforth and forever." In accordance with these covenant promises," the mustard seed" grows till it" becomes a tree." "The leaven" spreads " till all is leavened." "The stone cut out without hands," becomes "a great mountain and fills the whole earth." "The handfull of corn on the tops of the mountains," multiplying by its law of reproduction, increases, till "its fruit shakes like Lebanon," and "they of the city," the church of God on earth, "flourish like grass of the earth," perpetuated and multiplied, from age to age, till it covers "the field which is the world," once filled with briers and thorns, "with its fresh and lovely verdure, and earth becomes again the Paradise it was at first, and which, the Son of God, became incarnate and shed his blood, to reproduce.

PITTSBURG, Pa.

D. H. R.

ART. XII.-FALSE PROTESTANTISM.

WE translate the following communication from a late number of Schaff's Kirchenfreund. It is too important, in our estimation, to be allowed to pass without attention. If there be any one evil among us, that deserves to be exposed, it is the disposition shown in so many directions to make common cause with any and every interest that proclaims itself in opposition to Rome. The worst sort of zeal for Protestantism, surely, is that which practically at least, seeks to turn it into a mere negation, the blind contradiction, simply, of all that is considered peculiar to Romanism; by which it is brought to regard all such contradiction, however rationalistic and radical, as so far good and desirable. It seems to be forgotten by many, that opposition to Rome may be at the same time hostility to all religion; and that the loss of the Pope is not necessarily, in and of itself, the gain of Christ. We have heard, indeed, of a distinguished minister openly preaching that infidelity itself is to be counted a less evil than religion under the Roman Catholic form; and we remember the case of another, (to our mind, a very melancholy case,) who took pains to show publicly, that his son had not sought the consolations of religion, when dying on the battle field, at the hands of a Roman Catholic chaplain-preferring, as it seemed, a death that left no hope to one that could offer it only in this form. But such diseased judgments carry with them no lasting or general weight. They caricature the true Protestant faith. This is not in league thus with Christ's enemies, against christianity under any form. The triumph of mere infidelity over Romanism, is not one which it can either desire or welcome. That is no true Protestantism, even when exhibited by otherwise good Protestants, which can take complacency in such a man as Ronge, or go off in a fit of sympathy with his so-called German Catholicism, whether in Europe or America. We all remember how this ungodly movement was greeted, at the beginning, by the most of our religious papers; and how few of them had honesty enough afterwards to utter any equally explicit denunciation of it, when its true character stood confessed

finally before the whole world. What must we think, however, of the easy credulity of the same religious press, that after all this, could allow itself to be so readily imposed upon again by the very same spurious spirit presenting itself with the same pretensions on this side of the Atlantic. The movement referred to in the following letter, under the auspices of the notorious' Giustiniani, was hailed in all directions, on the faith of our most respectable religious journals, as the outburst of a new reformation, which was likely to sweep the whole German Catholic population in this country, and turn it away forever from its allegiance to the Pope. No one cared, apparently, to sift very narrowly the positive character of this new church; enough that it showed itself ready, with open throat, to hate and curse Rome. And yet, as might have been easily foreseen from the first, it has all turned out to be just what Rongeanism was before, on the other side of the water, a hellish farce, a diabolical lie. This is, of course, sufficiently humiliating; but it is still more so, that the respectable and popular religious journals aforesaid, still lack nerve, as it would seem, to come out openly and confess the sham, which was thought so recently to deserve their high glorification; and judging by the past, there is too much reason to fear that a new outbreak of the same spirit in some new quarter, with the Rev. Giustiniani figuring at its head, would so throw them again off their guard, in spite of all that has gone before, that we should have the very same old song rung in our ears, from Dan to Beersheba, as though the whole movement had gone perfectly straight from the beginning. J. W. N.

Letter in the Kirchenfreund.

In the November number of your Monthly, you have expressed your views freely, and for this very reason offensively to many, on the subject of Free German Catholicism in America. Will you allow a correspondent also, a few words, which may serve possibly to place your remarks in a still clearer light? When we speak of Free German Catholicism in America, we must now understand by it simply the efforts at conversion which are made by the American Protestant Society, through its missionaries and colporteurs, among the Roman Catholics; for the representative of the Rongean movement, Mr. Dowiat, who for a

time created such a stir in New York, has already a good while ago, bid adieu again to this country, and no trace whatever remains of his work. And what is it now that the American Protestant Society properly proposes in this case? Is it to transplant to America also, the movement started a few years since in Germany? So it is pretended; plainly, however, neither the nature of that movement is understood, nor the means needed, humanly speaking, for bringing it to effect. In truth, such a movement is at this time wholly impossible in America. Every one who knows anything of the general state of the case, knows that the Catholics of this country, so far as they retain any religious feeling and are not fallen into full indifferentism, are far more closely and stiffly wedded to the worship of their church, than those of the old mother country; that they are here much more under the authority and will of their priests and bishops, than in the old country, where the government has taken the regulation of ecclesiastical affairs into its hands, and the episcopal mandate becomes of force only through its placet. And the mass of the Roman Catholic people, belonging as they do almost entirely to the lowest class, and as such ignorant and superstitious, is perfectly satisfied with this state of things; neither the oppression of the hierarchy, nor the defect in doctrine or worship, are so felt as to create any longing after deliverance. And yet this is indispensable for any work of reformation, which is to stand. God himself must produce this feeling, this longing, however dark and unclear; so that the preacher standing forward in the service of such a people, shall have only to bring the dark want into clear consciousness, and show how it is to be satisfied; in other words, the fuel must be at hand, so as to need only the commencing spark to kindle the whole mass into a bright glowing flame. This was the case, unquestionably, with the Jews and heathen in the time of the Apostles, and with the Roman Church at the time of the Reformation; and inasmuch as nothing of the 'sort is found in the Roman Church of America, there is no room to think either of any result in this view. If the American Protestant Society wishes to do anything then for the benefit of Romanists, it should send pious and fit persons to visit them from house to house, who might converse with them in the spirit of love, proclaim to them the free grace of God in Jesus Christ, and so bring them to an inward dissatisfaction with their spiritual state. With the word of God in their hands, and the way to the throne of grace open, they would then soon find

⚫ Condemned, Dec. 16, by the criminal court in Berlin, on a charge of riot, to six years' imprisonment.

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