ARTICLE IX.-CHARLES BEECHER'S NEW THEORY OF THE WORK OF THE REDEEMER.

Redeemer and Redeemed. An Investigation of the Atonement and of Eternal Judgment. By CHARLES BEECHER. Georgetown, Mass. Boston: Lee & Shepard. 1864. 12mo. Pp. 357.

WHATEVER may be thought of the doctrine of Rev. Charles Beecher's "Redeemer and Redeemed," no reader can fail to be moved by the frankness and simplicity of the Preface. Even the sternest of critics must needs relent, at the openness with which the writer recounts his struggles for twenty years, and hesitate to disturb the rest which he confesses to have found in his singular theory. If moved to a severe judgment, he would be quite disarmed of any hostile intent, by the frank and naive confession, "I have no idea that many minds will be satisfied with them [my views]. I have learned, by sad experience, that what convinces me does not always convince other people. The most I can hope for is, that these views will interest the thoughtful, studious, of the same grand system, as a specimen of the working out of the problem by a sincere and independent mind, whose sole desire is to grow in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." Who could fail to be moved to a charitable and kindly feeling by such an avowal, save the stoniest of hard-hearted dogmatists?

The problem to be worked out is the explanation and vindication of the import and ground of the redeeming work of our Lord. The manner in which our author does it is the following: He begins with the assumption that the doctrine is true which is taught by his brother in "The Conflict of Ages," of a preëxistent state in which all the souls of men were subjected to a moral trial, and fell. This being assumed, he carries back into this period all the relations of the work of redemp. tion. In order to show that his theory is necessary, he discusses the other theories which have been received in the

church, under the titles of the Ancient Theory; The Scholastic Theory; and the New England Theory; subjecting each to what he considers a fair and searching criticism. After proving to his own satisfaction that all these theories are de fective, he proceeds to develop his own. His first thesis is that the chief object of the work of the Redeemer was to destroy Satan, and hence its chief relations are, as the ancient church taught before the time of Anselm, to be explained with reference to Satan. This he seeks to support by appropriate prooftexts, and also by a long argument on the import of Azazel, to which the escape-goat was let loose on the day of Atonement. He then adduces an argument to show that the angelic host consists of many gradations in rank and office, and that highest of all was Lucifer, "the Anointed Cherub." He then adduces evidence to prove that the person of the Son of God was "complex before the incarnation, we mean that the union of the Divine and Human natures had already taken place be fore the Word was made flesh." Now of the Universe, "the Covering Cherub" Lucifer was the Natural Heir as the highest of created beings. But when Christ was revealed, or declared the Son of God, on occasion of this ante-mundane union with human Nature, he was promoted to the place of the first born by substitution. Hence Lucifer was jealous. Hence he rebelled in heart and covertly seduced that portion or order of the angelic world whom we call men.. These were brought into another state or form of being, in the bodily condition upon "this dim spot which men call earth." Christ undertakes to redeem them. This attempt moves the rage of Lucifer, who, being not yet banished from heaven, has power to oppose, and, to a certain extent, to thwart these plans of recovery. In seducing men, he had brought them to trust in himself and to distrust the goodness and equity of God. Having gained them to be his subjects, and brought them thus into a moral subserviency and subjection to himself, he then turns against them and demands, on grounds of justice, that they shall be punished for their very sin, being bent upon their ruin out of jealousy, thinking if he degraded and ruined the race to which the Redeemer had united himself, he should thereby degrade and supplant the Redeemer himself.

The process of redemption is this. The Redeemer first identifies himself in sympathy, in temptation, and in suffering, with the deceived and degraded race with whom he had previously been united in nature. Having finished this career of humiliation, he returns to the presence of his Father to plead what he had done, as a ground why those who had been brought back to penitence should be forgiven, and the claims of Lucifer upon them for service and punishment should be set aside. The arguments which he urges are various, but they are all derived from what he has done for the race, and from what they had suffered, and from their actual recovery from the power of sin. He prevails. The power of Satan to betray and condemn is broken. His deep-laid and wicked plans are unmasked. He, himself, is stripped of all capacity longer to deceive and beguile. He is forever disgraced at the Court of Heaven, and is at once a fugitive and banished exile.

Such is the theory. It is not unlike some fantasm of an old Gnostic "intruding into those things which he hath not seen," and exalting to preternatural and almost Godlike energy the power of evil. It is unlike in uniting with these unwarranted and fantastic notions, the most elevated conceptions of God's moral glory and of Christ's redeeming tenderness. There is no little power of thought and statement in many single passages and chapters. There is not a little acumen in the management of subtle distinctions. There is soaring energy of the imagination in many single flights of eloquence, and everywhere there is purity and elevation of religious feeling. But in the conduct and coherence of the argument, there is the inconsequence of rhapsody. The use of proof-texts is just what Coleridge describes when he speaks of pyramids of inference standing on their apex, and each sustained by a single text, the pyramids being in this case piles of eddying clouds, or smoke expansions, widening and swelling as they go upward. To read this book is to sojourn in veritable cloudland. What avails if it be gorgeous land! It is, after all, no better than "a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors!"

ARTICLE X.-NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS.

THEOLOGICAL AND RELIGIOUS.

PROFESSOR SHEDD'S HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE.*-We welcome this work, the fruit of investigations pursued for several years while the author filled the chair of Ecclesiastical History at Andover. American theology has needed to connect itself more with historical investigations, and to graft itself upon the past thinking of the church. We trust that these volumes may prove to be forerunners of other works in the same department of study. The plan which Professor Shedd has adopted is that of giving a continuous view of the progress of each of the principal doctrines through the whole course of its history, instead of treating each period exhaustively before proceeding to another. The method adopted, which is that of Baumgarten-Crusius, (in his Second Part), has the advantage of affording a consecutive view of the growth of each doctrine-the thread being nowhere dropped for the purpose of bringing forward contemporaneous discussions upon other topics. Still, it is true that the various discussions of any given period throw light upon each other, and the purely historical interest is, thus, furthered by an opposite method. But we think that Professor Shedd has done wisely, espe. cially in a work of no greater compass than his, in the choice he has made between these two modes of treatment.

After an Introduction (pp. 1-48) in which the learned author's conception of History, of Sacred History, and of Doctrinal History in particular, are set forth, we come to Book First, in which the Influence of Philosophical systems, especially of Aristotelianism and Platonism, upon the construction of Christian doctrine, is explained. This section of the work is followed by the History of Apologies (pp. 103–220) and the History of Theology (Trinitarianism) and Christology (pp. 223-408)-this topic filling up the first volume. The second volume is devoted to the History of

A History of Christian Doctrine. By WILLIAM G. T. SHEDD, D. D. Two volumes. New York: Charles Scribner. 1863. Price $6. New Haven: Judd & White.

Anthropology, (pp. 1-199), the History of Soteriology, (pp. 203-386), the History of Eschatology, (pp. 389-419), and the History of Symbols, (pp. 423-498). A topical index completes the work. The subjects which are most fully treated are the Trinity, the Doctrine of Sin, and the Atonement. The chapter on Apologies is comparatively brief, and that on Symbols still more so, while other theological topics, except those mentioned above, are thrown very much into the background. For modern theology, in particular, since the seventeenth century, little space is reserved. This we do not charge as a fault upon the work, for, generally speaking, the matter is rightly divided. Considering the proportions of this treatise, it is well that the room should be taken up by the most important topics.

Another feature of the present work is the espousal and maintenance, throughout the history, of a distinct doctrinal standpoint. This peculiarity the author himself notices in the preface. It gives to his work somewhat of the air of a commentary upon Doctrinal History, rather than a merely objective definition of the changes and progress of theological opinion. Partly on account of this characteristic, and partly, perhaps, from a desire of brevity, there is not unfrequently an omission of opinions-especially, singularities of opinion-which, from a historical point of view, are interesting, but which to a doctrinal theologian, anxious only to seize upon the element that is perpetuated or bears on present discussions, are of little moment. For example, in Anselm's construction of the Atonement, the fanciful notion that it is necessary to fill up the place of the fallen angels from the human race, has an important place in the theory as it lay in Anselm's mind. So the ascetic notions of Augustin about the sexual appetite were, in his view, an important feature in the doctrine of Original Sin, though modern theology is wont to throw out of consideration this point of the Augustinian theory.

In the manner in which the author has executed his plan, there is much to admire. The style is perspicuous, condensed, animated, often eloquent. Signs of a broad and generous culture crop out all along its pages; but literary allusions illustrate, without diverting, the course of the discussion. There is no want of sharp discrimination. The marks of a mind philosophical by nature and by training are obvious to the reader. The materials have been mastered, fused, and assimilated, so that a character of fresh