versity will yet live. She will identify her prosperity with the progress of sound learning and the liberal arts. The temporary phrenzy of religious party may for a time diminish the number of her students, but cannot permanently lessen her usefulness or obscure her fame. An Institution that sends abroad annually from fifty to sixty well-informed and well-principled young men, notwithstanding the efforts of her enemies, need have but little fear for the future.

ART. III. Sermons on Various Subjects, preached at the Church in Barton Square, Salem, Mass. By HENRY COLMAN. Boston. Lilly, Wait, & Co. 1833. 8vo. pp. 347.

READERS who take up this volume, attracted by its uncommon neatness and beauty of mechanical execution, will not be likely to be disappointed on perusing it unless their expectations are unduly raised. The sermons it should be considered, do not purport to be elaborate and thorough treatises, profound discussions of knotty points in theology, or examples of impassioned declamation. They can claim, nevertheless, to be regarded as plain and useful discourses, many of them as highly interesting and instructive, and all together as forming a peculiarly appropriate monument to the author's pastoral affection and fidelity to his former people.

The discourses are twenty-five in number, with titles as follows: Nature and Revelation, Christianity as taught in the Gospels, Christianity as taught in the Epistles, Directions for understanding the Scriptures, Proof of Christianity independent of the New Testament, Human Nature, How far our Persuasions and Convictions may be relied upon, The Moral Government of God, Man's Personal Accountableness, Occasions of Self-deception, The Permanency of the Moral Law, Consistency of Character, Discouragements in Doing Good, Pauperism, Parental Solicitude, Filial Piety, Domestic Life, The Great Objects of Life, The Appointment of Death, The State after Death, Imperfection of Human Knowledge, Acquiescence in the Will of God, Man's Dependence, The Sins of men chargeable to themselves, Valedictory on Resigning the Pastoral Charge of the Church in Barton Square, Salem, Dec. 4, 1831.

A simple annunciation of the subjects suggests one defect in this collection which we regret to find, the want of discourses on what may be termed peculiarly Christian topics. We do not now refer to treatises on the evidences of Christianity, or on the authority or interpretation of the Christian Scriptures, for of these there is enough in the volume before us; but we regret to find that so little is said of any of the thousand views that may be taken of the life and character of Christ, or of the peculiar genius of his religion, its peculiar spirit, motives, and sanctions. We are also tempted to complain of many of the subjcets as being too general, making it necessary for the preacher to be superficial and common-place as he hurries over them, and of course unsatisfactory. In such cases, it is true, by a happy division he may sometimes. seem to cover the whole ground, and give the discourse a sort of logical completeness; but this is not the completeness that the people want, which is one of unity and filling up. Let the preacher narrow his ground; for, as a general rule, in the same proportion as he does this, he will be likely to become intelligible, interesting, and effective. Nine times out of ten it is not his doctrine that does any good, but his illustrations.

Those of Mr. Colman's sermons which are of an entirely practical character are, we think, to be preferred to those of a doctrinal or speculative cast; as the latter, probably from the cause just mentioned, evince at times a want of thoroughness, and of exact and careful statement and qualification, which leaves them open to serious and injurious misconstructions. Take, for example, the following passage from his sermon on "Christianity as taught in the Gospels":

"The Old Testament is an entirely distinct work from the New Testament. The Old Testament is in many respects as the New Testament a revelation from God. It contains several remarkable prophecies relating to the fortunes of the Jewish nation and the coming of the Messiah; and the writers of the New Testament quote the Old Testament writings and refer to them frequently as we might expect Jews writing for the benefit of Jews would do; but it is a great mistake to look upon the Old Testament writings as Christian scriptures, or to go to them to learn what the Gospel is. The one contains the religion of Jesus; the other the religion of Moses. There are many points of resemblance between them. The moral features of their religion are of course the same; for the great principles of moral duty are in their nature unchangeable; but in many respects

the two religions are totally different; and we can with no more propriety go to the Old Testament to learn what the Gospel is, than we should go to it to find out what our duty is in the ritual and Levitical law. The Old Testament writings are Jewish scriptures; the New Testament writings are Christian scriptures. The Jews, in this respect, are far more consistent than Christians. The Jews refuse to receive the Gospel because they see that it at once and utterly abrogates their law; whereas the Christians cling to the Old Testament scriptures as authority in their religion notwithstanding this abrogation and the difference of the one religion from the other. The Mosaic religion was a religion designed for a particular people under peculiar circumstances and for peculiar purposes. The Christian religion is a universal religion, designed for all mankind, and the great and universal purposes of religion and morals." pp. 21, 22.

Doubtless the New Testament, and particularly the Gospels, should be consulted as our principal source of religious instructions. But if Mr. Colman means that Christians, to be "consistent," must disown the authority of the Old Testament, as the Jews do the authority of the New, or that the New Testament is a "work" "so entirely distinct" from the Old, as not to be essentially dependent on it in any respect, or that the abrogation of the ritual of "the Mosaic religion" was an abrogation of the religion itself, he assumes more than we can admit.

On subjects, and it is a large and important class, calling for a familiar acquaintance with society, and great freedom and courage in exposing prevalent abuses, blended however with a tone of much seriousness, tenderness, and moderation, Mr. Colman generally excels. We would refer to the whole discourse on Pauperism as a favorable illustration of this remark, and single passages to the same effect might be cited from other parts of the volume. Thus in resisting one of the common arguments for original sin, he observes:

"Children are said to be given to falsehood, prevarication, deception; and these things are cited as triumphant proofs of an original and innate depravity. We admit that these are common failings or vices with children, though not to the extent which is usually represented. But, first, we say that children generally are not responsible for them, and, secondly, that they are not so much the vices of children, as of persons of adult age. It is not natural to children to lie; but it is natural to them

to speak the truth; and they would always speak the truth, and act the truth, if they were not driven to an opposite course by a fear of punishment, or corrupted by our example, and taught to deceive by the countless deceptions and falsehoods, which they see practised, and hear uttered, in the ordinary business and intercourse of life; and by the encomiums which they hear passed continually upon successful cunning and fraud; and upon that subtle and polished address, which the customs of refined society demand, but which children, who are admitted behind the scenes, discover is deceptive, and only put on for the occasion. Then again, what magnificent falsehoods we tell them, by way of quieting their restlessness; what equivocal, or evasive, or false answers we think ourselves, through a mistaken and false modesty, at liberty to give to many inquiries, dictated by a natural and artless curiosity, which it would be much safer to gratify by speaking the truth, or to repel by a direct refusal to answer; and then, too, how often we oblige them, by bribery or fear, to lie and deceive, in order to hide our own folly, to gratify our own vanity, or to shelter our own weakness. It must be observed likewise by every one, that a great part of the language of social intercourse, is so hyperbolical and extravagant, that to them it must appear false. We, who have been long accustomed to it, are not deceived by it; it is a sort of depreciated currency, which men, familiar with society, never take at its nominal value, but always at a large discount; much of it, all of us understand to be entirely valueless, and merely serving as a form of intercourse; but it is some time before children learn this; they hear it; they believe, they know it to be false; but they see it circulate, given and accepted by persons, whose example they regard as a proper standard of duty; and by such a process, and such examples, they are early taught to deceive. It could hardly be otherwise. These vices in children, therefore, do not spring from any innate or original perversity; but they are taught them, and taught them under such circumstances, that their early proficiency can excite no surprise." - pp. 313, 314.

The following paragraph, from the frequency of suicides, has a solemn pertinency and application at the present time.

"Many a time, when men have found themselves here involved in the miserable consequences of their folly and sins, they have poured out the vain wish that they could die at once; or the still vainer wish that they had never been born. Often the unhappy convict has presumptuously anticipated the awful sentence of the law, and thrown back upon God a life which he had

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dishonored and abused. Here the analogy ceases; death is one thing, annihilation is another. Men may kill themselves; but death is not the end of a man; it is only the commencement of another life; to extinguish our existence, to say that we will cease to be, is not in our power. The power of annihilating, as the power of creating, belongs only to one Being. Death removes man from our sight; but in God's sight men never die. The existence remains; what properly constitutes the man, all that makes up the moral being, the capacity of action, perception, intelligence, suffering, enjoyment, remains; and, when these earthly incumbrances have fallen and the immortal spirit has burst from its earthly abode, must put on new freshness, vigor, expansion, sensibility. We exist at the pleasure of God, not at our own pleasure. He has made man in his own image; and destined the human soul to share in the sublime attribute of his own eternity."- pp. 118, 119.

With the sermons we have an excellent Address to the Society delivered by Mr. Colman at the installation of his successor, and to the whole are appended Notes containing Mr. Colman's request for a dismission, and the record of the ceedings of the Society thereupon. Both papers abound with warm and unaffected expressions of mutual confidence, affection, and respect.

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ART. IV. Qu'est ce qu'un Serviteur de Jesus Christ? Trois Discours adressés aux Étudians en Théologie, &c. Genève et Paris. 1832. 8vo. pp. 128.

The Minister of Christ described, in Three Discourses, addressed to the Students in Divinity at the Opening of the Course in November, 1829, 1830, and 1831. By J. E. CELLÉRIER, the younger; Professor of Criticism and of Sacred Antiquities in the Theological Faculty of the Academy of Geneva.

WE have been so much interested in these truly admirable Discourses, that we are desirous of making them known to our readers in this country; and this, not merely that they may understand with what serious views and delightful feeling the young ministers of our sister church at Geneva