of the Discipline of 1808. Very well. Now, if those writings are the Confessions of Faith in the Church, we must hold (1) that they are authoritative in all and everything they teach, or (2) that they are to be interpreted by the Articles of Religion, and are only of authority in elaboration of the articles, (which is the view of the writer,) or (3) that they are to be interpreted and applied by the sovereign authority of the triers, which is a return to the consensus doctrine. Here is a trilemma. The third member of it has all the vices of consensus, for those writings traverse the whole realm of theology, not only the essentials, but also the non-essential. How is an accused to know what part of the sermons of Wesley the triers will enforce as obligatory? Is Wesley's post-millenarianism an essential doctrine? Is Wesley's view of inspiration an essential, or his view of the punishment of the wicked in the world to come? Just where we want something fixed, a lex scripta, we find every thing is unfixed and ambiguous. The first member of the trilemma is equally untenable, for the simple reason that no Methodist preacher of to-day believes, or ever did believe, all that is taught in those writings. Nor was there ever a time in the history of our Church when every thing contained in them was believed.

This is the proof that they never had the authority of a creed, but that they were directory and for instruction, rather than obligatory. Take, for example, the Treatise on Baptism, which was one of the Doctrinal Tracts printed in the early Discipline. In the most unequivocal language Mr. Wesley teaches in that tract the doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration. (Wesley's Works, vol. vi, p. 14.) Surely the American preachers never believed that vagary of Popery. We are thus shut up to the conclusion that the Articles of Religion are the only test of orthodoxy.

A further argument for the Articles of Religion as the only test of orthodoxy is found in the place which these Articles have had in the history of the Church. What does it mean that they are so jealously guarded by the first Restrictive Rule, and have a sanctum in the organic law of the Church? What does it mean that neither the General Conference, nor the constitutional two thirds and three fourths vote of the entire Church, can revoke, alter, or amend them? What does it mean that both the Bishops and the last General Conference declared.

that the supreme Conference itself was not competent to add to them? And yet, forsooth, a Committee of Triers is competent to add to them, and to formulate creeds ad infinitum, according to their understanding of so-called standard authors or of the nebular hypothesis called consensus.

No legislative powers are half so dangerous to liberty as such latitude given to a court. The principles involved in this discussion were thoroughly canvassed in the famous debates on the Constitutional Law of the Church in the General Conference of 1868. The questions before the Conference were the admission of Delegates from Mission Conferences and Lay Delegation. There was a majority in the Conference for both measures, but the organic law of the Church seemed to be in the way. Dr. M'Clintock was on the popular side, and with his splendid eloquence made a terrible use of this very weapon of common law and unwritten constitution. He was answered in a speech in all respects worthy of the debate and of the cause, by the present editor of the "Repository," and the substance of the answer was that unwritten constitution has no standing in the presence of specific statute.

Too much deference cannot be felt toward that august Power "whose home is the bosom of God, and whose voice is the harmony of the world." All progress moves toward written constitutions and statute laws as the defense against arbitrary power. Let us recall the remark of Gibbon, that "the discretion of the judge is the first engine of tyranny." The defense of liberty is the well-defined law.

The principles in this discussion are constantly in debate in Church government. In a letter to Rev. F. D. Maurice, on the subscription to the Articles of the Church of England, Rev. Charles Kingsley wrote as follows:--

As long as the Articles stand, and as long as they are interpreted by lawyers only, who will ask sternly, "Is it in the bond ?" and nothing else, I see hope for freedom and safety. But as soon as any body of men, however venerable, have the power given to them to dictate to me what I shall think and preach, I shall answer, My compact with the Church of England is over. I swore to the Articles, and not to you.

John Wesley elbowed for himself room in the Church of England; and when consensus would have hung him, he sternly appealed to the law and the testimony of England's statutes.

"I vary from the Church," he said, "but I will never leave her." He had not much respect for majority votes; and in making a Church he allowed room for varying. And the Methodist Episcopal Church reflects his mind better than any other on earth, as Bishop Simpson told Dean Stanley, at his recent reception in St. Paul's Church.

When we took our ordination vows, we pledged ourselves to the Book of Discipline; we subscribed to certain doctrinal standards contained therein; but we did not subscribe to a library of authors or to an undefined consensus of faith. Let us see to it that our Church is in its form a Church of constitutional liberties, and in its spirit one which leaves to the Lord of the conscience judgment upon those questions where unity was never covenanted and can never be enforced.*

ART. VII.-SYNOPSIS OF THE QUARTERLIES AND OTHERS OF THE HIGHER PERIODICALS.

American Quarterly Reviews.

AMERICAN CATHOLIC QUARTERLY REVIEW, January, 1879. (Philadelphia.) 1. Theories of Education and of Life: Thomas Carlyle; by Rt. Rev. J. Lancaster Spalding, D.D. 2. Cedmon: His Genius and Influence; by Brother Azarias. 3. The Human Soul and Body; by Rev. Walter Hill, S. J. 4. The Present Industrial Condition of Ireland; by Rev. Thomas Quigley. 5. An Autumn in the Rocky Mountains; by General John Gibbon, U. S. A. 6. Was Shakspeare a Catholic? by S. B. A. Harper. 7. How Heresy deals with the Bible; by Very Rev. James A. Corcoran, D.D. 8. The Catholic Church in the United States in the Recent Translation of Alzog; by John Gilmary Shea, LL.D. 9. Catholicity and Protestantism in Relation to our Future as a People; by George D. Wolff. 10. Missionary Rectors; by Rev. F. Porphyrius.

NATIONAL QUARTERLY REVIEW, January, 1879. (New York.)-1. Ideal Commonwealth. 2. The Battle-field of England and Russia. 3. Matter, Life and Mind. 4. War Indebtment: Its Limitations and Dangers. 5. Voltaire and the French Revolution. 6. The Ecclesiastical Question in Italy. 7. Condition and Prospects of the Southern States. 8. The Development of Art. 9. Alzog's Church History.

NEW ENGLANDER, January, 1879. (New Haven.)-1. A Better Remedy than Communism for the Unhappiness of the Times; by Rev. Jotham Sewall, Jun., York, Maine. 2. Review of Professor Perry's Political Economy; by President Sturtevant. 3. Recent Evangelistic Movements; by Prof. George P. Fisher. 4. A Scholar of the Twelfth Century. Second Paper; by Prof. Thomas R. Lounsbury. 5. Review of Professor Ebers' Novel, "Homo Sum;" by Prof. Franklin Carter. 6. Gloomy Views of American Life; by Prof. W. M. Barbour. 7. Afghanistan and the English; by Prof. S. Wells Williams. 8. The Millenarian; by Prof. Samuel Harris.

*This Article is inserted, not as an expression of the Editor's opinion, but to call attention to a question needing review.-ED.

NEW ENGLANDER, March, 1879. (New Haven.)-1. Business Ethics, Past and Present; by Prof. J. B. Clark, Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota. 2. The Ministry to the Poor; by Rev. John C. Collins. 3. Female Education and Authors in China, with a Translation of a Primer for Girls; by Prof. S. Wells Williams. 4. The Latest Utterance on the Doctrine of Extinction; by Rev. Amos S. Chesebrough. 5. English Factory Legislation; by Prof. Jolinson T. Platt. 6. Our New English Thanksgiving, Historically Considered; by Rev. I. N. Tarbox, D.D. 7. Reducing Wages to Maintain Rate of Profit; by John E. Curran. NEW-ENGLAND HISTORICAL AND GENEALOGICAL REGISTER, January, 1879. (Boston.)-1. Memoir of the Hon. William H. Y. Hackett; by Frank W. Hackett, Esq. 2. Indenture of Lois, an Indian Apprentice, 1751; by Alexander Wiliiams, Esq. 3. William Clarke's Genealogical Statement, 1731; by Frederick L. Gay, Esq. 4. Origin of the Names of Whitmore and Whittemore; by William H. Whitmore, A.M. 5. Record of the Boston Committee of Correspondence, Inspection, and Safety. 6. The Davenport Family; by B. F. Davenport, M. D. 7. Record of the Rev. Seaborn Cotton, of Hampton, N. H.; by John S. H. Fogg, M.D. 8. American Prisoners at Forton Prison, England; by William R. Cutter, Esq. 9. The Name of Upham in England; by Lieut. F. K. Upham, U.S.A. 10. John Gay, of Dedham, and his Descendants; by Frederick L. Gay, Esq. 11. Memoranda concerning the Newgate Family; by Charles H. Townsend, Esq. 12. Petition of Jane Armitage of Lynn: by Charles H. Townsend, Esq. 13. Rev. John Eliot's Records of the First Church in Roxbury: by William B. Trask, Esq. 14. English Ancestry of the Toppan or Tappan Family; by Herbert Tappan. 15. Longmeadow Family; by Wil ard S. Allen, Esq. 16. Pre-Historic Copper Implements; by the Rev. Edmund F. Slafter, A.M. 17. Church Records of the Rev. Hugh Adams; by the Hon. Samuel C. Adams. 18. William Johnson and his Descendants; by George W. Johnson, Esq. 19. Notes on the Dover Combination of 1640; by the Rev. Alonzo II. Quint, D.D.

UNIVERSALIST QUARTERLY, January, 1879.

8. The

(Boston.)-1. Biographical Sketches: Sebastian Streeter; by E. G. Brooks, D.D. 2. After-Death Repentance; by Rev. S. Crane. 3. Persian Influence on Jewish Monotheism; by Rev. A. G. Lauris. 4. Purgatory; by T. J. Sawyer, D.D. 5. Comprehensiveness and Liberality in Temperance Work; by Austin Bierbower. 6. Martin Luther; by G. F. Flanders, D.D. 7. The Moral Power of the Resurrection; by Rev. C. R. Moor. Central Truth of Christianity; by A. C. Barry, D.D. BIBLIOTHECA SACRA, January, 1879. (Andover.) 1. Organic Forms; by the Rev. Thomas Hill, D.D., LL.D. 2. Note on Galatians iii, 16; by Rev. Frederic Gardiner, D.D. 3. The Unchangeableness of God; Dr. Dorner's Essay, translated by Dr. D. W. Simon. 4. Notes on Acts xiv, 16, 17; xvii, 30, and Rom. iii, 25, 26; by Prof. R. D. C. Robbins, Newton Highlands, Mass. 5. American Pre-Revolutionary Bibliography; by James David Butler, LL.D. 6. A Defense of the Catholic Faith concerning the Satisfaction of Christ against Fanstus Socinus of Sienna, written by Hugo Grotius; Translated, with Notes, by Rev. Frank II. Foster, North Reading, Mass. 7. Mohammedanism as a Missionary Religion; by Prof. Charles A. Aiken, D.D., Princeton, N. J. 8. Theological Education; No. 1-An Appeal for Higher Theological Training.

Amid the concussions produced by the breaking up of Quarterlies into Monthlies and Bi-monthlies, we trust our ancient friend, the Bibliotheca Sacra, will safely maintain its undisturbed and undamaged character and career. We trust that mere cheapness of price held out for other periodicals will tempt no subscriber to falter from its support. The scholarly Christian cannot afford to lose it. Its elevated yet modest bearing, its pure and genuine erudition, refusing to court popu

larity by compromise, should be maintained, and on that high and honorable platform we trust it will be effectually sustained. We are frank to say that we have not yet caught the bimonthly contagion. We have an able Monthly, and should maintain a good Quarterly. But we are not tempted by the example of the New Englander to split our Quarterly into a series of small bi-monthly pamphlets. Were our Quarterly large enough to furnish an imposing bi-monthly section such a move might be wise. But a survey of our synopsis will show that we stand in a large and honorable company, and there we propose to stand until the approaching General Conference in its wisdom or unwisdom shall confirm or change the situation.

QUARTERLY REVIEW OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, SOUTH, January, 1879. (Nashville, Tennessee.)-1. The Tongue and the Pen; by the Editor. 2. The Atonement; by C. W. Miller, D.D. 3. The Atomic Theory; by Prof. J. W. Glenn, A.M. 4. Esthetics of Literature; by M. Callaway, D.D. 5. The Ultimate and Universal in Philosophy; by the Editer. 6. Through the Dark Continent; by T, O. Summers, D.D. 7. The Bible in English Literature; by A. B. Stark, LL.D. 8. The Poetry of Tennyson; by J. B. Wardlaw, Jun. 9. The Christian Lawyer and Client; by W. B. Hill, Esq. 10. The German Baccalaureate; by J. C. Hinton, A.M. 11. Marvin at Home; by T. M. Finney, D.D.

We welcome to our table this new Quarterly, reminding us as it does of the antediluvian period when its former self visited us under the editorship of a Summers and a Doggett. It was wise in the General Conference of the Church South to authorize its publication. It is demanded by the literary ability in that Church, that needed an organ for its higher, more elaborate and more permanent utterances. We recog nize, too, the wisdom of publishing the names of the authors, thereby drawing into notice a galaxy of literary producers, revealing a literary republic, and enabling us to know who are its members and leaders. In the present number we have specially read Professor Glenn's sharp article upon "The Atomic Theory;" "The Ultimate in Philosophy," by the Editor; and "The Lawyer and Client," by Mr. Hill. This last article ably discusses a topic not often treated, but needing some outlay of thought.