while he maintains, for sufficient reasons, that possessions were more numerous in the days of our Lord than they were before or have been since, he will not undertake to say that there are no such things now, though he has no faith in the reputed possessions which he has witnessed or of which he has read.

The sixth lecture is on the temptation of our Lord in the wilderness, which he regards as literal. And the seventh is on the temptations of Satan in their common or ordinary form. Much as there is that is mysterious on this subject, there are several things which on the assumption of the correctness of the principles advocated in the preceding lectures, he maintains are both obvious and important: as, first, that Satan does tempt; secondly, that Satan cannot compel the adoption of error, or the commission of sin,—he can only entice and deceive; thirdly, that as Satan is not possessed of omniscience or ubiquity, he carries on the work of temptation, to a great degree, through the instrumentality of those fallen spirits who are called his angels; fourthly, that Satan endeavours as much as possible to conceal his operations, and to carry on the work of temptation in such a way that he may not be perceived or suspected; and, fifthly, that he will always avail himself of the advantages that are afforded him by the dispositions, the character, and the circumstances of those whom he tempts. Our author then concludes his course by suggesting various means whereby Satan and his agents may be vanquished.

Having thus accompanied Mr. Scott to the end of his course, we must take our leave of him; before we part, however, we tender him our best thanks for the pleasure we have enjoyed in his society. This volume is a valuable addition to our biblical literature; and we congratulate the committee of the Congregational Library in having been instrumental in the publication of it. Highly erudite, it is yet popular; critical, it is yet didactic; and argumentative, it is yet simple. Possessing a regard for Scripture amounting to reverence, the author never explains away passages; nor is he at any time ultra-literal in his expositions of them. He never steps aside to avoid a difficulty; and he is as ready to anticipate and meet an objection to his own statements, as an opponent can be to urge it. He is at no time declamatory, much less dogmatical. As the hypotheses of his adversaries are battered down, so his own are built up, solely by sound argument; and while his opinions might be received as oracular, they are delivered with modesty. The book will bear to be ranked with any of its precursors in the Congregational Lecture, and we hope it will receive as extensive a circulation as any. We should like to see it in the library of every minister and every theological student of whatever denomination; also of every intelligent layman, for it is not more a book of the priesthood than it is of the people. And it is especially adapted for wide and general circulation, in that it is quite unsectarian in its character. It

is a series of the Congregational Lecture; but we have not detected congregationalism or any other ism in it. The object of it is simply the elucidation of the truth on an important scriptural topic, and this object it laboriously pursues, and we think, completely attains.

Letters on Puritanism and Nonconformity. By Sir John Bickerton Williams, Knt., LL.D., F.S.A. 12mo. pp. xxviii. 174. London: Jackson and Walford.

1843.

THIS is in our judgment a very seasonable little volume; the result of high principles and much research. At a time when clouds of lampoons are falling over the dissenting churches, from the high places in the establishment, and when ecclesiastical history is the order of the day, it cannot but be an useful undertaking to recal and direct attention to those illustrious and holy men in former ages, who endured the same reproach which we are called to bear, in order that we may take courage in carrying out principles so essential to the constitution of the churches of Christ. It can scarcely be denied that a culpable degree of ignorance exists amongst our congregations on the history of Nonconformity, and especially amongst the young. Slanders frequently repeated come to be believed; and the perpetual cry of conformist divines, as to the comparative insignificance of the men who have from one generation to another advocated the Congregational principles of doctrine and government, has been too successful in blinding the present professors of them, to the memory of that bright cloud of witnesses who taught and suffered for the truths which they have transmitted to ourselves. In these letters, the reader will find this veil removed; and if he have not been in the habit of taking counsel with these excellent and accomplished men, he will, perhaps, be surprised to find that Nonconformity brings him into such good company,company compared with which the external splendour of the hierarchy, to say the least, is a thing of naught.

We do not recollect to have met with any pages which would serve equally well as an introduction to the knowledge of Nonconformity in the present day, especially as the work, though small in size, is replete with references to nearly every publication of note on the subject of dissent, which has issued from the press of late years. The respected author appears to enjoy an extended acquaintance with the literature of the modern no less than of the ancient Nonconformists, and his encomiums upon their writings are most liberal and minute. We trust that these letters, dedicated to Dr. Vaughan, will be the means of diffusing much valuable information, both amongst churchmen and dissenters.

It is difficult to make selections from such a work as this is, but the

following passage will afford a fair specimen of the work, while it expresses the opinion of the writer upon a question of great interest, -Christian union. Speaking of the church of Christ abandoning "those political props which were reared by Constantine, and upon which a leading section of it has so rested," Sir John remarks:

"Nor does such a consummation appear to many less necessary, for the universal diffusion of saving knowledge; and that love and union also, which is made in Scripture, one of the chief evidences and attractions of Christianity. As matters stand, a certain kind of zeal, it is Hooker's beautiful phraseology, hath drowned charity,' whereas that to which Christians should aspire, is unfeigned love of the brethren;' no matter where found, or in what communion. And this squares with the Bible. You do not see inculcated there, unity in a liturgy, or architecture, or crosses, or candles, or ritual observances, or ceremonies. Nothing like it. Unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God,' was enforced by the first preachers of the Gospel, and it was once realised. The people continued stedfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship.'

"The Hon. and Rev. Baptist W. Noel, one of her majesty's chaplains in ordinary, has made an effort to promote such unity that is worthy of imitation. His tract on the subject, and his preface to a reprint of one of John Howe's best pieces, are compositions which might have proceeded, such is their excellent spirit, from Archbishop Leighton. But how such charity suits the established church, which has fixed 'a great gulf between itself and all other communions, it is not for me to say. This, however, I can and do say, that in the principles of Nonconformity, there is not only nothing to hinder union, but every thing to promote it, with all who hold the Head; as well by the interchange of pulpit services, as by every other office that can be regarded as expressive of Christian confidence and love. This has been recently demonstrated in the noble plan for union chalked out, with such glowing zeal, by Mr. James, of Birmingham; and adopted cordially, in its principle, by the meeting of the Congregational Union of England and Wales, at Liverpool. It has been lately exemplified, and to an encouraging extent, in an overflowing assembly of Christians and ministers of different denominations, at Craven Chapel, London.

"It is delightful to dwell on Congregationalism in this aspect; and I am happy to refer you to two publications of modern date, peculiarly rich in the illustration of it. I allude to Professor Hoppus's before-mentioned prize essay, and Dr. Harris on 'Union, or the Divided Church made One.' How the admired Jeremiah Burroughs, a Puritan and an Independent, would have rejoiced in such a developement of his chosen motto! It was placed upon his study door, and is preserved in the second funeral sermon by the Rev. S. Bury, for the before-named Rev. John Fairfax. An union of affections is very consistent with a variety of opinions.'

"But—and mark the contrast; the passage is from the Rev. Dr. Pye Smith's reply to Professor Lee's letter-' The church of England sets up claims of superiority and domination, to which, not from pride or factious humour, but solely from our subjec tion to the authority of Christ, we cannot submit. You can hardly help allowing, that at least we have a pretty strong appearance of reason for our difficulties and hesitations. But your church has no feeling for difficulties, no sympathy for tender consciences. You are anxious for love and union. I honour your motive, and thank you for its utterance. But your church has few charities out of her own pale. To enjoy her union and communion, we must bring our assent and consent to all and every thing in her terms. Other bodies of Christians respect conscientious difficulties in their brethren, and would be ashamed of requiring conformity to their modes and forms, while the great essentials of faith and holiness are preserved. Not so the

church of England. She enjoins things not authorised by the New Testament, and confessedly indifferent; and she will not relax a hair's breadth, just to show her power. She rejects, as null and void, the ministerial ordination of all the other churches of the Reformation; but, upon the childish ground of episcopal transmission and uninterrupted succession, she acknowledges the orders of the papal church. I speak, not of persons, but of the system. You, and many, very many in your communion, I love and revere; but your ecclesiastical system is an almost perpetual exhibition of straining at gnats and swallowing camels.

"We long to hold the communion of saints, and of sister churches, in the most large and liberal manner; but she refuses; not an iota will she abate of her unscriptural pretensions. She absolutely claims authority in matters of faith, the exclusive prerogative of God; and if we ask where this authority is seated, it turns out to be with the king, lords, and commons! We have read, thought, and inquired, have searched the Scriptures long and carefully, and are not strangers to the records of ecclesiastical antiquity; and hence, we are unable to acquiesce in her demands. But she is inflexible. Our known harmony, upon the grand essentials of faith and holiness, shall stand for nothing. She will not admit the communion of saints, except in her own arbitrary and man-devised way. Who, then, is guilty of schism? The party which insists upon terms of communion for which the word of Christ gives no sanction; or that which declines submission to the proud, presumptuous, selfish demand, a demand which we cannot but consider as an act of rebellion against Christ?'"-pp. 134-138.

1. The Death of Christ for the Redemption of his People; or the Atonement regulated by the Divine Purpose. By Andrew Marshall, D.D., LL.D., Minister, Kirkintilloch. 12mo. pp. 227. London: Simpkin, Marshall and Co. 1842.

2. Discourses on the Nature and Extent of the Atonement of Christ. By Ralph Wardlaw, D.D. 12mo. pp. 285. Glasgow: James Maclehose. 1843.

3. Strictures on Certain Portions of Dr. Marshall's late Work on the Atonement. By an English Congregational Minister. 8vo. pp. 42. London: John Gladding.

4. A Tract for the Times.

1843.

On the Atonement of Christ, considered in Relation to its Extent, &c. By John Petherick, Minister of Highstreet Chapel, Exeter. 8vo. pp. 31. London: Jackson and Walford. 1843.

ONE of the most melancholy reflections to a pious mind in recalling the history of Christianity is, that its blessed doctrines have been the innocent occasion of much unholy passion and unnatural strife. However easy the solution of it, however obvious the good which has come out of it, however plain that Christ foresaw, and that he predicted it, it is impossible to think without emotions of distress that the peaceful truths of Christ have been a sword, and that the message of Divine mercy has, in innumerable instances, been a means of human wrath and sin. The reflection is still more bitter when this perversion of the truth is found among the good; when those who give clear evidence

that they are sanctified thereby, not only contend earnestly, but with evil tempers and schismatic issues, for their several interpretations. And it is most of all painful when the points discussed are not the essence, but the form of doctrines; not different faiths, but different phases of the same faith; not whether certain things are or not, but how, and in what way they are; their reality and their importance being equally and heartily admitted. These remarks have been suggested naturally by the theological discussions now going on in Scotland respecting the atonement. Who can fail to mourn that the doctrine of reconciliation should itself become the cause of enmity, and the truth respecting restoration to God, separate Christian brethren? If the rebel dwellers in an earthly province were mercifully blessed with the announcement of forgiveness, its means appointed, its fulness and freeness assured, and if these partakers of a like guilt, and inheritors of a like grace, instead of kindly and solemnly entertaining different thoughts on some points that might be not very explicitly declared, all too humble and too grateful, too deeply sympathising in each other's grief and joy, to allow of strife, should contend for them with anger and uncharitableness; should have no intercourse with one another; should even make the difference a reason and a ground for trying to prevent the announcement, by those esteemed erroneous, of the blessings all agree to have been granted, and to be unspeakably important; would not all this be most unseemly and most sinful? And is the case a better one because the reconciliation is from God, and the means of it the death of his only and beloved Son? We bring no charges against individuals, but we do say that our supposition is but too real a fact, and that but few are quite incapable of deriving some advantage from its application.

The works which we have placed at the head of this article all bear upon the same subject, and have all been occasioned by the same controversy. We therefore now group them together, although two of them have already been noticed in these pages.* * Our readers need not to be informed by us, that for some time past, a great theological agitation has been going on in the United Secession Church, a body which adheres to the Westminster Confession of Faith. Many have begun to question and to deny its accordance with Scripture upon many points, among others the extent of the atonement. Various measures have been tried to stop the plague of heresy, but it seems without effect.

"If report may be credited, or if a judgment may be formed from some unpleasant circumstances which have occurred in more than one presbytery of the body, there is reason to suspect that matters are not much altered for the better, that small progress has been made in the way of restoring congeniality of sentiment, nay, that the breach, so far from being healed, is daily growing wider, and that of those who fill

* See page 345.