Discussions in history and theology

Preface

The Essays which are collected in this volume, with a few exceptions, may be classified imder three heads.

The first gronp, beginning with the second Essay, comprises Papers which relate to the history, polity and dogmas of the Roman Catholic Church. The Churcli of Rome has lately undergone two changes of great moment. The principality which the Pontiffs had ruled fur a thousand years, has fallen from their grasp and been absorbed in the new kingdom of Italy ; and the infallibility and supreme "power of jurisdiction" of the Pope have been defined by conciliar decree. These new aspects of the Roman Catholic system, in their historical relations, and in their bearings on religion and civil society, are among the topics here considered. How the genius and religion of ancient Rome reappear in characteristic features of Latin Christianity, is the subject of one of the Discussions in this series.

The second group of Essays relates to Xew England theology. Jonathan Edwards was the pioneer in a movement which was carried forward by a succession of theological leaders after him, and involved important modifications in the philosophy of Calvinism. The character of this movement— the most original in the history of Ameri-

VI PREFACE.

can theology — and the peculiarities of the principal coryphaei of the New England school, I have attempted impartially to describe. While Calvinism took this turn, out of the old Arminianism — which withstood the revivalism of Edwards and Whitefield — in conjunction with other influences, Unitarianism sprang up, in its various types and with its different offshoots. This branch of the religious history of Kew England is the subject of the Paper on Channing.

The third division pertains to Theism and Christian Evidences. In the Essay on Rationalism, the defining characteristic of the rationalistic theory, and its radical assumption, are pointed out, and a place is vindicated for the principle of authority in religion. The discourse on Atheism indicates, without elaborately developing, points of argument which appear to me to constitute valid grounds of faith in the personality of God. In the Essay on the Apostle Paul, the threads, intellectual and spiritual, which connect the two portions of his career — separated from one another by the crisis of his conversion — are brought to light, and comments are made on observations of Renan and of Matthew Arnold. The Review of Sujpernatural Religion examines the most noteworthy reproduction, in English literature, of the modei-n attack by the Tubingen criticism upon the genuineness of the canonical Gospels.

Among the Essays not included in this classification, one has for its object to trace to its origin the Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve, and to sketch the rise and progress of the civil wars in France, down to that epoch ; a second aims to set forth the history of the doctrine of future punishment in the church — in particular, the opinions and

PEEFAOE. yJI

arguments of modern theologians on that subject ; a tliird describes the position taken by the Church of England in reference to other Protestant Churches, in the age of the Keformation and subsequently. In the dissertation last mentioned, the relations of the Protestant leaders to one another in the different European countries, in the sixteenth century, are incidentally exhibited.

G. P. F.

J^Ew Haven, MarcJi 30, 1880.

Contents

PAOK

The Influence of the Old Roman Spirit and Religion on Latin Christianity 34

The Council of Constance and the Council of the Vatican.. 101 The Office of the Pope and how he is Chosen 141