ation to regard Christ in all points as God (Gieseler's History). Hence their dogmatic adherence to the phrase "Mother of God," to which Nestorius objected; and the consequent virtual substitution of the Virgin, as the great object of Christian worship,-" the Mediator between God and man,"-in the place of Jesus | Christ.

Very possibly, in opposing this gross and fundamental error,-where the Divine nature alone was recognised in Christ,-Nestorius may have unduly exalted the human; at all events, if he did not do this, his enemies, we may be quite sure, would do it for him. For my own part, I am wholly unable to believe those accounts of his doctrine, which represent him as separating the Divine and human in Christ, or as allowing to them merely a

terms in which these distinctions were expressed, the mere circumstance, in the case before us, that the doctrine comes down to us through the distorted medium of Romish historians, whether their own, or historians of earlier times, adopted and adapted by them, is of little consequence, would hardly allow us to expect, that we should, from such sources, get a faithful record of the points urged by objectors to the "Catholic" faith. We know the monstrous doctrines they have attributed to Luther. Now, suppose he had lived in the 5th century instead of the 16th, how hard a matter it would have been to have ascertained what Luther's doctrines were. We must therefore expect something of the same kind with reference to Nestorius. The history of Luther's times might, how-moral and spiritual union. The extract ever, in face of all such misrepresentations, almost suggest Luther's errand. Let us apply this test to the case before us. In the period preceding the Nestorian controversy, the worship, as we must call it, of the Virgin Mary appears to have been extensively spreading itself throughout the Western Churches. The watchword of this advancing Mariolatry (θεοτοκος, "The Mother of God") represented evidently, in its influence on the popular mind, the root of this wicked superstition. The name "Mother of God" at once embodied and diffused the doctrine. Hence, destroy the name and you destroy the doctrine; so at least appears to have thought Nestorius; and hence on this point he brought all his weapons to bear, as he entered a solemn protest against the name, as unscriptural. Upon this Neander remarks," His endeavour to keep close to the Holy Scriptures appears worthy of all respect. He very justly offers

it as
an argument against the use of the
former term, that the Holy Scriptures no-
where teach that God, but everywhere that
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Lord, was
born of Mary." "This," quoting the words
of Nestorius, we all acknowledge, for un-
happy is his case who receives not what the
Scriptures teach.”

แ

Now this does not appear the man who would hazard rash speculations, or trouble himself to elaborate intricate theories respecting the person of Christ. That he entered the arena at all, where such a matter was in debate, was not, we must believe, because he volunteered a new doctrine on this most mysterious point, but because, if he would explode the doctrine of which he was called to attempt the overthrow, he must, in some form or other, exhibit the truth, as he conceived it, respecting Christ's person.

The Western Churches, in their anxiety, seemingly, to escape the Arian error, which contended for two separate and distinct persons in Christ, had recorded their determin

which I have given from the Creed of the present Nestorians, coupled with their denial of the doctrine commonly attributed to them, go far, I think, to show, that their Patriarch, in this matter, has been either misrepresented, or misunderstood, or probably both.

Neander's mode of stating his doctrine would seem to have in it the elements of truth-" He teaches that there were two natures-Deity and Humanity "-" but from the first, in connexion with the duality of natures, there was but one dignity." Hence one Christ,- -one Son of God-inasmuch as the humanity had been taken up into union with the one Eternal Son of God."

66

If I were asked for a definition of his doctrine, I should be disposed, in the light of the preceding facts, to offer the following, as probably not very far from the truth. Substantially Nestorius taught that Jesus Christ was God and Man, and that in this twofold nature, whilst yet firmly maintaining the one undivided person, he offered himself a sacrifice for the sins of the world.

In the consistent, stedfast, persevering maintenance of this great Scripture doctrine of the Apostolic Church, Nestorius endured every species of persecution; submitted not merely to banishment from his see, but to degradation and exile; and after sixteen years' accumulated sufferings from the malice of his enemies, paid with his life the penalty of his anxious, stedfast, unwavering adherence to what he believed to be the doctrines of the Word of the eternal God.

But the matter does not end here. Even in the lifetime of Nestorius, and whilst his enemies were engaged in forging new weapons of persecution against him, these very enemies-the party who had professed themselves so offended by his doctrine-were themselves constrained to sign a Confession of Faith, which conceded the very point for maintaining which this great man was sacrificed by them. According to this Confession, says Neander,

"the title, Mother of God, was applied to Mary, in the sense that two natures were united in Christ, while each still remained pure and unmixed in its individuality."

Perhaps few Christian confessors,-perhaps we ought rather to say martyrs,-have ever been privileged, in their own immediate lifetime, to enjoy a greater satisfaction in the triumph of their own principles, "even their enemies themselves being judges," than was here enjoyed by Nestorius. And yet, strange and all but incredible as it may appear, the persecution still raged against him hotter than ever, as though their forced acknowledgment of his doctrine added to their rage.

It was in vain that the members of his own devoted community at this time (A. D. 433) assembled themselves in crowds in the Imperial City, demanding the restoration of their beloved bishop; threatening indeed, when they saw there was no disposition to comply with their request, to set fire to the Patriarchal Church, unless this request was complied with. But this, says, Neander, only the more exasperated his enemies, who grudged him such love of his people.

branch of the primitive apostolic community. After his death new persecutions for his followers were devised. Imperial edicts insultingly ordained that-why, it is difficult to conceive,-after the name of the man who had sought to buy the Holy Ghost, the Nestorians should for the future be called "Simonians;" that all the writings of Nestorius should be burnt; that those who should copy, preserve, or read them, should be punished in the severest manner; and that all bishops who ventured to defend the doctrines of Nestorius should be deposed. As the result of the opposition called forth by them, and other kindred "catholic" measures, a large number of the Tyrian bishops-who, in the midst, possibly, of much other error, still held fast by the principle, "My kingdom is not of this world," could not bring themselves to bow to the authority of the Emperor Theodosius, or to deny the truth which they had so long cherished-withdrew wholly and for ever from the church of emperors and Romish bishops, and emigrated-not to found a new church, but, like our own pilgrim fathers, to set up, under more favourable auspices, the standard of the old-to the kingdom of Persia, where, as we may see on another occasion, they long constituted a distinct and flourishing com

And what does all this go to prove, but that it was not the doctrine of Nestorius that so exasperated them. This could not now with decency be alleged. The "unpardon-munity. able sin" of this man of God, for which even the extremest charity of his enemies could find no excuse, must be sought for, I apprehend, in the fact that, with him, the authority of Scripture was paramount to that of the Church. For this, in those growing days of church domination, we may readily conceive, there could be no forgiveness.

Hence the abuse to which imperial edicts condescended. Hence the nicknames by which these same edicts designated the foul malignant, who had dared to avow his acceptance of the authority of Christ, rather than that of the emperor, calling him now an Arius, now a Porphyry, and now a Simon Magus. Hence the application made to the emperor by the incipient pope, as we may term him, Coelestine, at that time Bishop of Rome, to remove this propagator of “blas. phemous errors," that it might be put out of his power to lead others astray.

And this most charitable prayer of Rome was granted assuredly to the heart's content of our Catholic (?) Coelestine, as the aged Nestorius was driven from the "dwellings of men" to the African desert, where, first, from the incursions of the native barbarians, and then, from the cruelty of the Roman governor of the district in which, after escaping from the former, he took refuge, he continued exposed to every species of indignity and insult, until death at length kindly interfered, to terminate at once his exile and his sorrows.

And now for the church of Nestorius, as a

Let us hear no more about the novelty of Protestantism, when here we have as early as the first half of the 5th century, the highest authority of the Eastern Church, with multitudes of bishops like-minded with himself, solemnly protesting against the errors which others were seeking to introduce into the church of Christ, and contending, at the sacrifice of means, reputations, and even of life itself, for the conservation of the primitive apostolic doctrine, as contained, not in the decrees of councils and synods, but in the inspired words of the "faith once delivered to the saints."

As we have intimated at the outset of this paper, the remains of this pilgrim church of A. D. 440 still exist, breathing the free air of the Kurdish mountains, in the retreat in which Mr. Layard found them-as a monument, if nothing more, like the worn and fragmentary inscriptions of some portions of the Assyrian ruins, which his enterprising hand disinterred from the grave-like heaps of Nineveh,-testifying, if not to all that we could wish, at least most plainly to this: that if we would look for a church entitled to take to itself the name of " Apostolic," we must go back some centuries earlier than the period when first the authority of the bishops of Rome became dominant. Here is a church, which has always repudiated their authoritywhich repudiates it still-which, moreover, as contrasted with the age of their own church, represents the age of Nestorius as of

comparatively modern date, as, in giving to their church the prior existence they significantly assert, that Nestorius-" the man who died about A. D. 435-followed them, and not they Nestorius."

Prayer I.

in Thy presidency; and first Thou didst separate the grosser parts from the ethereal. Thou madest Heaven, Thou madest earth, Thou madest man. All things were produced by thee."

Prayer II.

This is a concluding prayer in the Ritual from which it is selected:

"In the beginning, when there was the great Chaos, dark and undigested, before the five elements had begun to resolve, or the Sun and the Moon to shine, when in the void I can only add further here one word in there presented itself neither form nor sound; conclusion, as to the persecutions with which-Thou, O mysterious Sovereign, camest forth Rome has to this day continued to follow them. Take the following, in Mr. Layard's own words, on this point:-" By a series of the most open frauds, the Roman Catholic emissaries obtained many of the documents which constituted the title of the Chaldean Patriarch, and gave him a claim to be recognised and protected as the head of the Chaldean Church, by the Turkish authorities. A system of persecution and violence, which could scarcely be credited, compelled the Chaldeans of the plain to renounce their faith, and to unite with the Church of Rome. A rival patriarch, who appropriated to himself the titles and functions of the Patriarch of the East, was elected, not by but for the seceders, and was put forward as a rival to the true head of the Eastern Church. Still, as is the case in all such forced conversions, the change was more nominal than real; and to this day the people retain their old forms and ceremonies, their festivals, their chronology, and their ancient language, in their prayers and holy books. They are even now engaged in a struggle with the Church of Rome for the maintenance of these last relics of their race and faith." I hope to return to this subject, and to complete the present paper in your next Number.

CHINA.

C. R. H.

MRS. LEGGE'S GIRLS' SCHOOL.

As the result of Mrs. James Legge's late account in the Magazine, of her Chinese Girls' School, at Hong-Kong, Dr. Morison has received £10 from the Rev. George Moore, at Lewes, to be appropriated for their support; a Missionary Box, from Mrs. Tapp and friends, of Hull, has arrived at the Mission House for the same object; and other intimations have been given by various friends, that they are preparing Boxes for the support of this interesting institution. For this expression of interest in his daughter's labours, Dr. Morison offers his most grateful thanks.

66 SHANG-TE," EXTRACTED TWO PRAYERS TO FROM THE RITUAL OF THE MING DYNASTY.

DR. LEGGE sends the Editor the two following prayers to Shang-Te, which greatly countenance the view which he and our other Chinese Missionaries take of the propriety of employing Shang-Te, and not Shin, as the term for God. The prayers are, to say the least, remarkable.

"Thus have our rites been performed, and our prayers presented. Sovereign Spirit, vouchsafe to accept them. Every form has been observed; and nine times has the music resounded. O God, grant me Thy wise protection, and great will be the happiness of my house. The music peals, and the gems give forth their sounds, while mingles with them the tinkling from the ornamented robes of the attendants. Spirits and men rejoice together, while they praise the Sovereign God. We have celebrated Thy great name, Thou unsearchable, immeasurable One. Everlasting, firm, exalted, and wide is Thy perpetual rule and presidency. Thine insignificant servant (imperator loquitur) bows his head; he lays it in the dust. Let him be bathed in thy grace and light!"

Dr. Legge adds, justly, "Poor prayers, it will be said! Yes, but who must He be of whom these things are said?"

THE REV. J. J. FREEMAN'S CONCLUDING
REMARKS TO HIS LATE TOUR.

DURING my tour of two years and a quarter, I had learned many things abroad; aud now, on my return, I found I had many also to learn at home, and not the least, the movement on the Papal question.

The last news I had heard on leaving England, at the close of 1848, was, that the Pope had fled from Rome, and was at Gaeta! The first news on my return was, that of the Papal aggression-the appointment of a cardinal for Englishmen, in the middle of the nineteenth century-and the aroused spirit of English Protestantism in resisting the imposition of "a yoke," that neither we nor our fathers could bear.

Assuredly I had seen nothing in all my tour to shake my faith or principles as a Protestant, nothing to make me willing to surrender one particle of civil or religious freedom, to give up one atom of liberty of conscience, or of the right of placing the Sacred Volume in the hands of every man beneath the skies. I came home with the deepest impression, that wherever Popery advances, the

interests of humanity recede: that the Pro- | proceeded, they have been most deeply intertestant faith is the bulwark of English liberty, and the guarantee of Britain's elevation; and that, if that faith perish from our land, political anarchy, social degradation, and moral ruin must as inevitably follow, as the shadows of evening and the darkness of night follow the setting of the sun.

family the sovereign or the minister who shall send the fiery cross over tranquil Europe, and summon the bloodhounds of war to settle the disputes and gratify the animosities of nations. ***The principle of this Congress to settle national disputes by arbitration has, to a certain extent, been adopted by existing powers, both monarchical and republican; and it is surely neither chimerical nor officious to make such a system universal among the very nations that have themselves partially adopted it. If these views have reason and justice on their side, their final triumph cannot be distant. The cause of peace has made, and is making, rapid progress. The most distinguished men of all nations are lending it their aid. The illustrious Humboldt, the chief of the republic of letters, whom I am proud to call my friend, has addressed to the Congress of Frankfort a letter of sympathy and adhesion. He tells that our Institution is a step in the life of nations, and that, under the protection of a superior Power, it will, at length, find its consummation. He recalls us to the noble expression of a statesman long departed," that the idea of humanity is becoming more and more prominent, and is everywhere proclaim

celebrate the tragedies of war. We have followed the warrior in his career of glory without tracing the line of blood along which he has marched. We have worshipped the demigod in the Temple of Fame, in ignorance of the cruelties and crimes by which he climbed its steep. It is only from the soldier himself, and in the language of the eye that has seen its agonies, and of the ear that has heard its shrieks, that we can obtain a correct idea of the miseries of war. Though far from our happy shores, many of us may have seen it in its ravages and in its results, in the green mound which marks the recent battle-field, in the shattered forest, in the rased and desolate village, and, perchance, in the widows and the orphans which it made! And yet this is but the memory of war-the faint shadow of its dread realities-the reflection but of its blood, and the echoes but of its thunders. I shudder when imagination carries me to the sanguinary field, to the death-struggles between men who are husbands and fathers, to the horrors of the siege and the sack, to the deeds of rapine and violence and murder in which neither age nor sex is spared. In acts like these the soldier is converted into a fiend, and his humanity even disappears under the fero-ing its animating power." Other glorious names cious mask of the demon or the brute. To men who reason, and who feel while they reason, nothing in the history of their species appears more inexplicable, than that war, the child of barbarism, should exist in an age en lightened and civilized, when the arts of peace have attained the highest perfection, and when science has brought into personal communion nations the most distant, and races the most unfriendly. But it is more inexplicable still that war should exist where Christianity has for nearly 2000 years been shedding its gentle light, and that it should be defended by arguments drawn from the Scriptures themselves. When the pillar of fire conducted the Israelites to their promised home, their Divine Leader no more justified war than he justified murder by giving skill to the artist who forges the stiletto, or nerve to the arm that wields it. If the sure word of prophecy has told us that the time must come when men shall learn the art of war no more, it is doubtless our duty, and it shall be our work, to hasten its fulfilment, and upon the anvil of Christian truth, and with the brawny arm of indignant reason, to beat the sword into the ploughshare, and the spear into the pruning hook. I am ashamed in a Christian community to defend on Christian principles the cause of universal peace. He who proclaimed peace on earth and good-will to man, who commands us to love our enemies, and to do good to them who despitefully use us and persecute us; He who counsels us to hold up the left cheek when the right is smitten, will never acknowledge us as disciples, or admit into His immortal

sanction our cause. Several French statesmen, and many of the most distinguished members of the Institute, have joined our Alliance. The Catholic and the Protestant clergy of Paris are animated in the sacred cause, and the most illustrious of its poets have brought to us the willing tribute of their genius. Since I entered this assembly I have received from France an olive-branch, the symbol of peace, with a request that I should wear it on this occasion. It has lost, unfortunately, its perishable verdure, an indication, I trust, of its perennial existence. The philosophers and divines of Germany, too, have given us their sympathy and support; and in America, every man that thinks, is a friend of universal peace. In pleading for a cause in which every rank of citizens has a greater or a less interest, I would fain bespeak the support of a class who have the deepest stake in the prosperity of the country, and in the permanence of its institutions. The holders of the nation's wealth, whether it is invested in trade or in land, have a peculiar interest in the question of peace. In the reign of peace, wealth will flow into new channels, and science will guide the plough in its fructifying path; and having nothing to fear from foreign invasion, or internal discontent, we shall sit under our vine and our fig-tree, to use the gifts and enjoy the life which Providence has given-to discharge the duties which these blessings impose, and prepare for that higher life to which duty discharged is the safest passport."