Mr. Brown differs from many Nonconformists in holding the competency of the public assemblies of a Christian State to deal with spiritual matters, and would prefer to have such regulation as the British Parliament might supply to religious belief and life to that of any 'spiritual synod that he is acquainted with;' but he considers that a body like the British Parliament may and must 'abstain from all attempt at legislation on certain subjects, because they know that they would only mar them if they were to touch them with their legal fingers.' He does not think that domestic sympathies and affections, the higher intellectual life of the community, or the religious life of the people, are palpably beyond the sphere of a government, but that they are beyond 'their power. One shudders to think of the costly, wasteful, pompous, grasping, titled, beneficed, wealthy and bigoted thing which has been presented during three hundred years to the English people, as the visible embodiment of His kingdom, who was the incarnation of tenderness, compassion, purity, patience, gentleness, and love. The Establishment principle, under the most favourable conditions, seems to run directly counter to the fundamental principle of the spiritual government of men as we watch it working through all the ages. It belongs to the age of stagnancy and deadness, is vested in the old and decaying order, is doomed, and must die.' The theoretical admission of competency, coupled with the trenchant disavowal of power to deal with the higher regions of the social and religious life of the people, reminds us of the ground taken for some years by a large section of the free kirk of Scotland. There is no practical difference between the views held by Mr. Brown and by the bulk of Nonconformists; his condemnation of the Establishment principle is at least the result of experience, and appears to be final.
As Christianity and the Church are the form and life of the truth, Mr. Brown has prepared the way for his discussion of both by his discourses on the infallible. The first paper, entitled 'What is Truth?' exhibits with painful intensity the anguish, even the torment that accompanies the search after this hidden treasure. Expressing, as we suppose, the feelings of others rather than his own, the signs of the times rather than his own heart-throbbings, his language almost amounts occasionally to a wail of despair: nor does he, in the discourse which is entitled the 'Intellectual Revolution of the last Quarter of a Century,' exonerate the Christian teachers of the present day from the charge of augmenting that despair. After clearly expounding the theory of the Positivist, and showing how in its isolation it fails to satisfy the need of either the intelligence or the heart of man, he boldly charges theology and the Church with the sin of giving to science such a representation of God as to induce it to do without him. In his extreme anxiety to do justice to the scientific spirit, Mr. Brown appears to us to do some injustice to the age-long yearning after truth which has characterized theological science. Perhaps he does not sufficiently take notice that the mental faculties which are quite adequate to secure the broadest generalizations of science are insufficient to furnish us with some of the chief data of theology. He speaks with perfect confidence of 'common ground in our Christian belief for us and the leaders of the intellectual progress of men.' We believe that this common ground will be found only when the methods of theology and the methods of science are alike seen to be incomplete; but a difference of method in the two regions there must ever be.
In the paper on 'the Infallible Church,' our author frankly admits that there must be infallibility somewhere. With high courage and honesty he traces the confidence with which the Catholic Church has entertained a consciousness of the unerring guidance of the Holy Spirit, and he has done much to show how reasonable is the expectation of such a guidance and the truth that underlies the celebrated dictum of St. Vincent of Lerins; and with distinguished skill he has indicated the way in which vagueness and uncertainty have forced some of the strongest minds in the Romish Church to sigh after and ultimately to secure the definition of a Papal infallibility. Few things are more remarkable than the steady growth of this yearning in face of the proved forgeries and infinite gullibility on which the modern dogma conspicuously rests. Mr. Brown thinks that some deep necessities of human nature must be the explanation of this mystery. We believe he need not go much deeper than the ignorance, credulity, laziness, cowardice, and abjectness of the human mind, and the wide-spread incapacity, independently of the Holy Spirit, for the spiritual apprehension of transcendental truth. In his papers on the infallible book and the doctrine of Christ, Mr. Brown has shown how dependent a man with the Bible in his hand must ever be, on the spiritual presence and indwelling light of the Comforter. He may almost be said to have drawn Bossuet's rapier from its scabbard, and made some vigorous passes at the 'variations of Protestantism;' but it is not that he may turn back to an infallible Pope for guidance or for rest, but that he might fight his way past sects and churches, and dogmas and popes, into the true temple, where all who have received the fulness of the spirit are worshipping their father. As we have already said, Mr. Brown opens up so many controversies, and displays such varied culture and exceeding fairness in his treatment of these high themes, that we will now content ourselves with urging our readers to peruse the whole volume.
The Office and Work of the Christian Ministry. By James M. Hoppin, Professor of Homiletics and Pastoral Theology in Yale College. Second Edition. New York: Sheldon and Co. 1870.
This elaborate course on homiletics and pastoral theology may be said almost to exhaust the subject. The history of preaching, the art of preaching, the analysis of a sermon in all its various parts, from the text to the peroration, constitute the first part of the homiletical manual. The second part contains a series of valuable dissertations on the application of rhetoric to preaching. The pastoral office is then examined in its divine institution, in its ideal, in the call to its high functions, and the ordination to the office. The author further discusses the pastor as a man, the pastor in his relations to society, and the pastor in his relations to the Church. Here Dr. Hoppin investigates the conduct of public worship, and under this heading such details even as church music, marriages, and funerals are included. Finally the whole question of the care and cure of souls is wisely and affectionately urged upon the student. We have never seen a more complete treatise on the question with which the author deals. There is not much room for originality, and the analytical tone of the discussion precludes the presence of much enthusiasm or fire. There is an abundance of wise, godly counsel, and a considerable reference to the literature of the subject.
SERMONS.
Sermons Preached in the Temple Church. By the Rev. Alfred Ainger, M.A., Reader at the Temple Church. (Macmillan and Co.) There is about Mr. Ainger's sermons the great charm of perfect simplicity, unconventionally, intelligence, and fearlessness. Neither in style nor in thought are they like any sermons that we can recall. They are not eloquent; or if so, it is the eloquence of a perfectly transparent medium of thought. Not a fine word or a rhetorical figure occurs in them; but neither is there anything commonplace. It is the fresh, unconventional talk of a clear, independent thinker, addressed to a congregation of thinkers. The uncultured would have no difficulty in understanding; but the colourless thought would fail long to interest such. For popular effect, it wants sensuousness and passion, and, therefore, rhetoric. Mr. Ainger belongs to the liberal-orthodox school; but he does not shape his opinions to any school. He speaks right out what he thinks, and often surprises us with fresh views of familiar texts. He is not great; but he is unconventional and earnest. In doctrine he is broad, not however in any sense that is inconsistent with what are understood by Evangelical views. The moral aspects of the Atonement—forgiveness of sins, regeneration, and the life to come—which he exhibits, are the highest truths of the Gospel; but he exhibits them with such predominance, almost exclusiveness, that he is apt to forget his own principle that the Atonement of Christ has many aspects. Thoughtful men will be greatly charmed by this little volume; they will learn from its perusal how the Gospel of Christ commends itself to all the mind as well as to all the heart of men. The sermons, moreover, are preached in the light of the thought of the present day, and are rich glimpses of great questions now stirring men's hearts.—The City Temple Sermons, Preached in the Poultry Chapel, London, 1869-70. By Joseph Parker, D.D. (Hodder and Stoughton.) Dr. Parker, also, is a City preacher; but, perhaps, the three kingdoms could not furnish a greater pulpit contrast than between him and Mr. Ainger. Dr. Parker's sermons are much stronger, but they are far less thoughtful. They are more rhetorical, but less beautifully clear. They are abrupt, striking, sensational in style, and abound with rhetorical devices for catching the ear of the multitude. Sometimes, for instance, Dr. Parker renounces the idea of a sermon, and tells a story, after the manner of the Parables. His sermons often offend good taste, and are to be excused only on the ground that the end justifies the means. Certainly Mr. Ainger could not do what Dr. Parker is doing at the Poultry.—Christ Satisfying the Instincts of Humanity. Eight Lectures delivered in the Temple Church. By C. J. Vaughan, D.D. (Macmillan.) Half-hours in the Temple Church. By C. J. Vaughan, D.D., Master of the Temple. (Strahan and Co.) Counsels to Young Students. Three Sermons preached before the University of Cambridge at the opening of the academical year 1870-71. By C. J. Vaughan, D.D. (Macmillan and Co.) Concerning three new books by the author of upwards of twenty volumes of published sermons, it is almost enough to say that they are his: only these sermons, while preserving the admirable simplicity and practical spiritual unction of the parochial sermons, have more of intellectual fibre. The conception of the first series addresses itself more to thinking men, and the treatment has a more thoughtful cast. Seven of these letters were delivered on Wednesday evenings in Lent, the eighth on a Sunday just after. The instincts which Christ is represented as satisfying are the instincts of Truth, Reverence, Perfection, Liberty, Courage, Sympathy, Sacrifice, and Unity. The only text of doubtful relevancy is that of the sermon on Courage, taken from the Corinthians, 'Quit you like men.' It is matter for devout thankfulness that a preacher so single-hearted, so practical, so faithful to evangelical truth, and so spiritual, should address so large a number of the learned profession on the great themes of the Gospel, and that these qualities should find such acceptance as they do. The crowds who gather round the Temple pulpit prove that preachers need have recourse neither to strange doctrines nor to oddities of manner to make the Gospel attractive. Dr. Vaughan must preach almost all that he thinks, as he prints almost all that he preaches. His sermons have the natural, simple strength and freshness of an intelligent, scholarly, and devout man. They are not made, they grow; if they may not claim the merit of great originality, they are in every wise and wholesome sense independent. There is no reason why his series of little volumes should not go on for ever, and certainly we have every desire that they should. Dr. Vaughan's devout, spirit-searching fidelity, and evangelical theology, make his books almost everything that we could desire them to be for popular religious reading. There can be no better sign of our times than the favour with which such books are received. Because Dr. Vaughan's sermons are the simple, spontaneous outcome of his mind and heart, they always have an admirable adaptation, whether to the alumni of Cambridge or to the lawyers of the Temple. He speaks with exact pertinence, and therefore with power. We are devoutly thankful that both these classes should hear such faithful, searching, loving words as are addressed to them respectively in these three volumes.—The Lost Found, and the Wanderer Welcomed. By the Rev. W. M. Taylor, M.A., U.P., Liverpool. (Edinburgh: Oliphant and Co.) A lively series of expository and practical homilies on the fifteenth chapter of Luke's Gospel. Almost too lively at times, when the Prodigal Son is represented as departing to the 'El Dorado of his dreams,' and hopes to return a 'nabob;' but there is a dash, and force, and sweetness withal, that render the volume impressive and attractive.—Tender Herbs; or, Lessons for the Lambs. By George W. Conder. (Manchester: Tubbs and Brook; London: Kent and Co.) Few more charming volumes than this have ever been prepared for young Christians. A 'Little Bunch of Herbs for the Lambs,' the author calls them; but they have rare fragrance and beauty. Under such titles as 'The Broken Vase,' 'Thistle Gardens,' 'The Coat and the Dream,' 'The Golden Key,' 'The Shepherd and the Lambs,' Mr. Conder pours forth his affluent treasures of tender fancy and abounding affection. Underneath the almost playful tone of some of his addresses, and the genial kindness of all, there is plenty of strong masculine sense, of vigorous and noble thought, of original and novel argument.—A Practical Commentary on the Gospel of St. John, in Simple and Familiar Language. By G. B. (Nisbet and Co.) Evangelical but feeble.—Life and Truth; or, Bible Thoughts and Themes. The Lesser Epistles. By Horatius Bonar, D.D. (Nisbet and Co.) In our notice of the two previous volumes of this series we have sufficiently characterized the sermons of which it consists. Dr. Bonar seems to have been guided in the selection of passages for texts simply by his sympathetic fancy. In his treatment he is somewhat ultra-orthodox, deeply spiritual, not very critical, and not very original or striking. He is closely textual, and in his frame-work of divisions, resembles some of the old Puritans, rather than divines of the present day. Eighty-five discourses, in a small volume, necessitate brevity; they are, indeed, outlines rather than compositions. Perhaps we may best convey an idea of their character when we say they resemble Chalmers' 'Daily Readings;' only they have more of a sermon-plan in them—sometimes a division or sub-division is dismissed in a sentence. Their most fitting designation would be 'Sermons in Outline.'—Symbols of Christ. By Charles Stanford. (Hodder and Stoughton.) A second edition of a little book that has commended itself to devout readers by its healthy spiritual tone of devout practical religiousness. Mr. Stanford has just that tinge of mysticism which spiritualises events, and uses emblems with unction; but he never becomes mawkish or obscure. His sermons are pure and breezy; emotion is appealed to and excited in an intelligent, manly way. Hence few more wholesome helps to the spiritual life could be named. This is a companion volume to the edition of 'Central Truths,' which we commended on its appearance a few months ago.—Sermons on Historical Subjects. By the Rev. D. Rowlands, B.A. (Hodder & Stoughton.) Mr. Rowlands' sermons are ingenious and effective. In some of them he is remarkably happy in seizing and condensing into a paragraph or two the essence of a great lesson; thus the sermon on Jacob's dream at Bethel treats—1. The 'Duality of Existence;' 2. The 'Unity of Existence.' The treatment is sometimes inadequate, an undue space being given to mere description with which imagination has a good deal to do. On the whole, the sermons may be commended as fresh, sensible, vigorous, and useful.—Sermons. By Henry Melville. Two volumes. (Rivingtons.) Sermon readers will feel a great obligation to the publishers for this cheap reprint of the sermons of one of the most effective preachers of this generation. We are not too old to remember the electrical way in which, for an hour, the preacher at Camden Chapel held spell-bound the multitudes that crowded every available corner: A severe critic might characterise Mr. Melville's preaching as somewhat artificial, and his sermons as fanciful and sometimes wire-drawn; but they are full of unction, and contain precious evangelical truth enforced in a way not to be forgotten. We hope these volumes will be succeeded by others.—Beacons and Patterns; or, Lessons for Young Men. By the Rev. W. Landels, D.D. (Hodder and Stoughton.) These sermons, on some of the historical characters of Scripture, containing lessons specially adapted to young men, are reprinted from 'The Bible Student.' They rise to that level of popular excellence which characterizes all that Dr. Landels does, and are calculated to be useful.—The Prophet's Mantle. Being Scenes from the Life of Elisha, the Son of Shaphat. By the Rev. James Murray, Minister of Old Cumnoch. (Blackwood & Son.) An exceedingly good example of the expository preaching to which, much more than ourselves, our Scottish brethren are given. Mr. Murray, while evidently having a scholarly acquaintance with critical difficulties, knows how to keep them subordinate to popular statement and practical uses. Great good sense characterises all that he says, and regulates every touch. The sermons are Biblical rather than practical, that is, they simply furnish a running practical comment upon the Biblical narrative. Really useful preaching demands somewhat larger and wider uses suited to the practical life of our own day; the historical instance should not have larger prominence than its application.—Sermons. By Charles Wadsworth. San Francisco. (R. D. Dickenson.) We welcome this volume of sermons from the rapidly-growing and vigorous Christian life of San Francisco, where, as everywhere else throughout the States, religious provision fully keeps up with the rapid growth of the community. Mr. Wadsworth's sermons have some of the characteristics of Western life: they are full of vigour, fire, and fearlessness, but with that defective culture of form which in its excess is designated pedantry. The thought is cast in a scholastic form, the scientific illustrations are often in excess, and the style wants ease and simplicity; hard words and harsh compounds occur, and, together with this, the practical applications are too ejaculatory and coercive. Mr. Wadsworth will do better as he mellows, but his volume is able and has much good stuff in it.—Foreign Protestant Pulpit. Sermons by eminent Preachers of France, Germany, Holland, and Switzerland. Second Series. (R. D. Dickinson). We can only adduce as vouchers for the great excellency of this volume the names of the preachers of these six-and-thirty sermons; they are Lange, Grandpierre, César, Malan, Horace Monod, Tholuck, Bersier, Hocart, Gaussen, Krummacher, Luthardt, Schwartz, Rothe, Pressensé, and Julius Müller. In addition to the intrinsic excellence of the sermons, they have the exciting freshness of modes of religious thought and pulpit presentation which are different from our own; they seem to be well translated, their flavour is carefully retained. We cordially commend them to both sermon preachers and sermon readers.—The True Vine; or, the Analogies of our Lord's Allegory. By Rev. Hugh Macmillan. (Macmillan and Co.) Mr. Macmillan combines the eye of a poet and the knowledge of a savant with the heart of a saint; while he analyses the phenomena of nature on purely scientific principles, he interprets them on the principles of a devout Christian theist. He sees in nature the wonderful ways of Him who made it; 'looks through nature up to nature's God,' and often, in virtue of his religious insight, invests familiar things with unobserved and beautiful significance. Beneath the surface of natural symbolism he discerns the religious and loving ways of a divine Creator and father; and thus, in a subtle and beautiful way, he knits together the two great departments of the one kingdom of God. In this volume he is primarily a theologian, investigating the religious meaning of our Lord's great allegory of the vine and its branches—perhaps the greatest of his self-assertions on the one hand, and of his religious assurances on the other. Mr. Macmillan here, therefore, makes science the handmaid of theology, and brings his knowledge of natural phenomena to bear upon the significance of our Lord's similes. He has, we think, a little overdone this; the religious thought is overlaid, the illustration is more than the thing illustrated; but he has thrown beautiful light upon many points of natural symbolism. Readers and preachers who are unscientific will find many of his illustrations as valuable as they are beautiful. His wild luxuriance somewhat reminds us of that of James Hamilton.—Truth and Trust: Lessons of the War. Four Advent Sermons. By Henry Alford, D.D. (Hodder and Stoughton.) These are the last products of Dean Alford's pen, the last utterances from his lips. The proof was but partly corrected when he died. We could not subject them to criticism if we would. They are 'the sound of a voice that is still,' and love for an honoured and noble-hearted servant of God, and for a dear personal friend, seals our lips in reverence. Under any circumstances, we should have only words of eulogy for them. They are, in spiritual intelligence, strength, and cogency, about the best of the many sermons that he published.—The Jewish Temple and the Christian Church; a Series of Discourses on the Epistle to the Hebrews. By R. W. Dale, M.A. Second Edition. Revised, with additional notes. (Hodder and Stoughton). We cannot but regret that Mr. Dale has not made this volume much more than 'discourses, not for scholars, but for ordinary Christian people to whom learned commentaries are inaccessible or useless.' He has in them laid the foundations of an exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews of great spiritual insight and philosophic breadth, and he might advantageously have wrought out his plan, even in successive editions, until the work had become the worthy magnum opus of his life. It is, however, useless regretting what he has not done; we can simply commend what he has done, as one of the best popular hand-books to this great and suggestive epistle that is extant. Pulpit purposes demand broad treatment and the avoidance of minute exegesis; but the broad treatment here is always the fruit of careful exegesis, good scholarship, and sound, vigorous thought. Some of the sermons are not even wrought out as they were preached; the notes thereof only are given. It is virtually what Robinson's 'Lectures on the Corinthians' are, and will scarcely suffer by comparison with them.—Lights and Shadows in the Life of King David. By Charles Vince. (Elliot Stock.) In ten discourses, Mr. Vince selects certain incidents and points in the history of David. He makes no pretension to biographical completeness, or to relative importance. Spiritual, and not biographical, reasons have guided his selections. Thus one discourse is devoted to the influence of Rizpah's pathetic fidelity in quickening David's conscience; and two to the two things which David had never seen—'the righteous forsaken, and his seed begging their bread.' The volume is a very charming one—full of delicate spiritual discernment and tender religious sensibility; the style is simple and chaste; and the quiet, natural way in which the practical side of everything is presented is very felicitous. Mr. Vince does not 'strive nor cry;' he has recourse to no feverish rhetoric or tumultuous passion; his doctrine 'distils as the dew,' and, in a searching, potent way, finds the soul of every hearer and saturates it.—Misread Passages of Scripture. Second Series. By J. Baldwin Brown, B.A. (Hodder and Stoughton.) Very different is Mr. Brown, who is urgent with intellectual force and moral earnestness. His thought is inquisitive, aggressive, and demonstrative; his spiritual zeal takes cogent forms. He is full of intellectual surprises and unexpected spiritual motives; very independent, very instructive, very forcible, fulfilling the great practical religious ends of the ministry in a masterly, forceful way. His books are full of strong, wise, earnest words, such as place him among the noblest teachers of our day. Nothing could be more characteristic of him than these two series of sermons on 'Misread Passages.' In the second, as distinguished from the first which treats chiefly of textual misinterpretations, Mr. Brown deals with doctrines and conclusions derived from misinterpreted texts; e.g., 'The Principle of Christian Unity,' regarded in the light of the true reading. 'There shall be one flock and one shepherd,' instead of 'one fold and one shepherd;' and the true significance of the simile of the potter and the clay. We commend to special attention the sermon on the 'True Idea of Substitution,' in which, denying the theories of mere martyrdom and commercial substitution, Mr. Brown insists upon the substitution which has its character and power in Christ as the representative of the race—the true theory, as we venture to think. The volume is full of thoughtfulness, light, and power.—The Story of Job, and Meditation on Passages of the Book of Job. By Rev. Alfred Clayton Thistleton. (Nisbet and Co.) There is no distinctive character either of intelligence or strength in Mr. Thistleton's sermons. They are devout and practical, but very commonplace, abounding in unctuous words, and not over careful about exact meanings.—Sermons for the Christian Year. By the Rev. W. H. Lewis, D.D., Rector of the Church of the Holy Trinity, Brooklyn. (R. D. Dickinson.) A reprint of a volume of sermons published twenty years ago. It is a poor criterion of sermons to measure them by the clock—a poor compliment when the first commendation is of shortness; but Mr. Lewis's sermons have this merit. This little volume of 500 pages contains sixty-six. Few of them could have exceeded the orthodox Episcopal fifteen minutes. We differ from many of the tenets of Mr. Lewis. Thus, from the text, 'Cease ye from man,' he teaches that we are from human corruption to expect only ingratitude and wrong, to live among men as among natural enemies. This is a very doleful and, we think, an unwarrantable doctrine. Mr. Lewis is an orthodox evangelical. He discourses in the old mechanical way. He is pious, sincere, and earnest, but he furnishes no great help for men struggling with the real difficulties of human darkness and experience. The volume is typical, and should be very useful to rectors.—The Measure of Faith and other Sermons. By Philip Colborne, Norwich. With Preface by the Rev. John Stoughton, D.D. (Hodder and Stoughton.) Mr. Colborne's sermons are thoroughly individual, as if elaborated in some solitary place, with but little reference either to theologians, critics, or conventional modes of preaching. They somewhat lack fluency, but they are vigorous and discerning. The working out of Mr. Colborne's conceptions is not always so happy as the conceptions themselves; but his little volume contrasts nobly with the vague vapid stuff that often comes before us under the guise of sermons, and is a favourable specimen of that strength of the Nonconformist pulpit which, under God's blessing, has made our churches what they are. We would specially commend the sermon on 'Christian Heroism,' and the two sermons on 'The Origin of Christian Life,' and 'God's Principle of Selection,' preached during the meetings in Norwich of the British Association.—Christ's Healing Touch, and other Sermons, preached at Surbiton. By Alexander Mackennal, B.A. (Elliot Stock.) Mr. Mackennal's sermons combine, in an unusual degree, the freshness of an independent thinker and the power of a robust one, with the spiritual penetration of a devout man, the evangelical fervour of a believing man, and the practical urgency of an earnest man. No one, we think, can read this unpretending volume without being interested—we might say fascinated—by its manifold excellencies, or lay it down without a high estimate of its author's ministerial power. The people who listen to such a preacher are rarely privileged. The volume is one of the few that, without qualification or reserve, we can heartily commend. Mr. Mackennal has a rare faculty for eliciting the latent meanings of things without obtruding the sense of his ingenuity, or failing in broad, practical evangelical applications.—The Wisdom of the King, or Studies in Ecclesiastes. By the Rev. James Bennet, St. John's, New Brunswick. (Edinburgh: William Oliphant.) Mr. Bennet writes with much intelligence and good sense. In a plain, practical way he shapes the lessons to be derived from Ecclesiastes into a series of week-day lectures, and his book may be commended as worthy to take its place in the homiletical literature of Ecclesiastes. Mr. Bennet still adheres to the almost exploded notion that it is the veritable religious autobiography of Solomon.—Things Above. By the late F. W. French, Rector of Newtown, near Kells, County Meath. (James Nisbet and Co.) Mr. French was, as the preface tells us, an aged minister, who had entered upon his eighth decade, and who died before this little book was finished. It is a series of short chapters or lectures concerning things above—their reality, locality, character, &c.—written with devout feeling, and largely illustrated by quotations from a considerable range of writers.—Sermons and Lectures. By the late William M'Combie. (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark.) Mr. M'Combie was the editor of the Aberdeen Free Press, and a layman. He was accustomed to preach, chiefly in the Baptist Church, of which he was a member; and these discourses were prepared, not for publication, but for preaching. Mr. M'Combie was one of the most able men in the North of Scotland. He had much in common with Hugh Miller. His intellectual independence, vigorous thinking, manifold attainments, and cultured beauty and precision of expression, were not surpassed by any of his compeers. His 'Hours of Thought,' and still more, his 'Moral Agency,' proved, in their revolt from Predestinarianism, as commonly taught by Scotch Calvinism, both his profound metaphysical thinking and his intellectual independence. These sermons have not the finish of his own published works, but they are full of rare thoughtfulness and wisdom, and of rich spiritual feeling and suggestiveness. Their strong, unwavering faith in the sufficiency and power of the religion of Jesus to satisfy every necessity of the individual and social life of men is a fine tonic in these degenerate days. It is something to hear a man who believes as Mr. M'Combie believes speak as he speaks.—Sermons for the Times, preached at the Independent Chapel, Newbury. By E. W. Shalders, B.A. (Blacket and Son, Newbury.) Mr. Shalders has done most excellent service to the cause of spiritual Christianity by the issue of this series of discourses on the questions at issue between the Ritualist and the Free Churchman. The topics chosen by our author have been 'Baptismal Regeneration,' 'Apostolic Succession,' 'The Childishness of Ritualism,' 'Exclusiveness the real Schism.' Scholarship, candour, strength, clearness, and fine manly tone, pervade each of these discussions. We should be glad to see them circulated by tens of thousands.—The Revision of the New Testament, being a Popular Exposition of its Needs and Limits; a Lecture delivered before the Norwich Young Men's Christian Association. By George S. Barrett, B.A. (Hodder and Stoughton.) This lecture is admirably well done. There is a refined tone in the discussion, and a thorough grasp of the whole subject. When he was about it, however, Mr. Barrett might as well have explained a little more fully what is meant by 'The Text of Scripture.' The class addressed by the lecturer are singularly hazy on this point. It is not uncommon to meet with pious folk who, when the rejection, e.g., of 1 John v. 7, is made to depend on its absence from all Greek MSS., are ready to exclaim—'So much the worse for the MSS!' We heartily thank Mr. Barrett for his timely publication.—The Plymouth Pulpit. Sermons by Henry Ward Beecher. Third Series. (Dickenson.) The third series of Mr. Beecher's sermons fully sustains the interest excited by the previous volumes. There are the same high passion and earnest, practical love, the same brilliant touch, the ring of the same musical metal which have charmed and instructed us so often. This volume is characterized by more frequent treatment of great doctrinal themes, when liberal views are guarded by conservative love. There is a most powerful, practical, and useful discourse on the fearful theme of 'The Sin against the Holy Ghost.'
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Mr. Peter Walker, of Philadelphia, the late publisher of the Princeton Review, issued last year an index volume, giving brief biographic notices of each contributor to its pages, since 1825. The volume is incomplete. We are indebted to it for much of the information contained in the text.