evil which it has inflicted and the general benefit
which it has indirectly accomplished. When we look, therefore, at the
developed types of error which have arisen and made their impress on the
public mind, we are forced to the conclusion that, as God holds truth in
his hand and makes it minister to the good of his cause, so does he
possess complete control of error, and sometimes causes its wildest
vagaries to contribute to the advancement of those interests which they
were designed to subvert. The promoters of the evil are none the less
responsible, though their works terminated in an unexpected issue. "It
must needs be that offenses come; but woe to that man by whom the
offense cometh."

This principle of God's moral government has long been denied a
recognition. The purely literary historian has here been in advance of
the student of religious events, for he has conceded and defended the
principle when tracing the career of military chieftains, who aimed
solely at the conquest of nations and the increase of temporal power. He
has shown how the devastations of an Alexander, a Hannibal, and a
Napoleon have been the unexpected instruments of great popular
blessings. Ecclesiastical historians have frequently regarded all
skeptical tendencies as evil in all their consequences; but it is a far
more exalted view of God's ceaseless care of the interests of his
Church, to consider him as the All-powerful and All-loving, causing even
"the wrath of man to praise him."

A glance at the various departments of theology which have received most
attention within the last half century, will prove that Rationalism has
been the undesigned means of contributing to their advancement. The
faith of the public teacher determines the faith and practice of the
masses; and those who are the commissioned expounders of truth for the
people have to-day a more substantial basis of theological literature,
than their predecessors possessed before Rationalism appeared in
Germany. As some of the grandest cathedrals of Europe, originally built
by the Roman Catholics, and designed by them for the perpetual
dissemination of the doctrines of Popery, are now the shrines of
Protestant worship, so have those weapons which were shaped for fierce
assaults upon inspiration been wielded in its defense. "Rationalism was
not to be simply ignored," says Schaff, "but in the hand of that
Providence which allows nothing to take place in vain, must serve the
purpos