has thus far forestalled collision. Amidst all the bad consequences of the union of church and state, however, we must not forget that the deeper spirit of the gospel has ever reacted against the evils and abuses of it, whether under an imperial pope or a papal emperor, and has preserved its divine power for the salvation of men under every form of constitution. Though standing and working in the world, and in many ways linked with it, yet is Christianity not of the world, but stands above it. ISTor must we think the degeneracy of the church began with her union with the state.' Corruption and apostasy can- ' This view is now very prevalent in America. It was not formerly so. Jona- than Edwards, in his "History of Redemption," a practical and edifying survey of church history as an unfolding of the plan of redemption, even saw in the accession of Constantiue a type of the future appearing of Christ in the clouds for the re- demption of his people, and attributed to it the most beneficent results ; to wit : " (1) The Christian church was thereby wholly delivered from persecution. . . . (2) God now appeared to execute terrible judgments on their enemies. ... (3) Hea- thenism now was in a great measure abolished throughout the Eoman empire. . . . (4) The Christian church was brought into a state of great peace and prosperity." . . . " This revolution," he further says/p!-.3]lj^, -■ waa the groatoot-that-bajd. oocurr^l since the flood. Satan, the prince of darkness, that king and god of the heathen world, was cast out. The roaring lion was conquered by the Lamb of God in the strongest dominion he ever had. This was a remarkable accomplishment of Jerem. x. 11 : ' The gods that have not made the heaven and the earth, even they shall perish from LLLidjlA /W^ the earth and from. the heavens.' " This work, still much read in America and England, was written, to be sure, long before the separation of church and state in New England, viz., in 1739 (first printed in Edinburgh in 1774, twenty-six years after the author's death). But the great difference of the judgment of this renowned Puritan divine from the prevailing American opinion of the present day is an inter- esting proof that our view of history is very much determined by the ecclesiastical circumstances in which we live, and at the same time that the whole question of church and state is not at all essential in Christian theology and ethics. In America all confessions, even the Roman Catholics, arc satisfied with the separation, while in Europe with few exceptions it is the reverse. § 14. RIGHTS A2n) PKrV^ILEGES OF THE CHURCH. 95 not attach to any one fact or personage, be he Constantine or Gregory I. or Gregory VII. They are rooted in the natnral heart of man. They revealed themselves, at least in the germ, even