ARTICLE VIII.-RECENT PUBLICATIONS.

THEOLOGY AND RELIGION.

Les Perspectives du Temps Présent. Quatrième série de Discours prononcès a Genève par le Conte Agénor de Gasparin. Paris: Ch. Meyreuis & Cie. 1860. pp. 508.

COUNT DE GASPARIN's interest in our national struggle, and his just appreciation of the real causes of the conflict, have made his name well known in America. In France and French Switzerland his older and wider reputation has been that of a defender of Christianity and the Bible against the assaults of the Rationalists. In this service he has written several works, among which should be specially mentioned, "Les Ecoles du Doute et l'Ecole de la Foi," a large octavo volume which has done not a little in stemming the current of Neology, which for the last twelve years has been pouring in upon the Protestant Churches of France. The present volume belongs to the same class of works; it is the fourth series of lectures which, at the request of the evangelical party, he has delivered in the city of Calvin. It contains three discourses of more than usual length, entitled: “Our Perils," "Our Strength," and "Our Hopes."

We cannot enter into the particulars of the defence of the authority of the Scriptures which these discourses make; it will suffice to say, that it is able and yet popular, and well calculated to vindicate the "truth as it is in Jesus" from the attacks of its enemies. But there are certain admissions and statements in the discourses which should not be overlooked. They explain the origin of Mr. Wolff's wretched book on Baptism, originally written for French Switzerland, and so justly, and effectively reviewed in our last number.

Count de Gasparin, in his unprejudiced study of the New Testament,

has been led to adopt the distinctive views of Baptists, though he has not yet, so far as we are aware, avowed himself as one of their number. A few extracts from the discourses will not be without interest to our readers.

In speaking against the abuse of the confessions of faith which, in the Churches of the Reformation, have been like Procrustean beds, and yet not preventing the birth of all sorts of error, our author calls every one to the Source of Light and Truth, and adds: "Perfection upon this point seems to have been realized, first in the primitive Churches which knew only one rule, the Scriptures of the Old Testament explained and completed by the teachings of the Apostles, and, in our day, among the Baptist Churches, which also acknowledge only one rule, the Bible. Add to this the solemn question propounded to those who wish to join by baptism: Dost thou believe in the Lord Jesus Christ? and in this double fact, the profession of a faith which is the equivalent to conversion, and the absolute authority of the Word of God, you will have no difficulty in finding the most beautiful, the most positive, and the surest confession of faith."

He expresses the hope that the time will soon come when the question of Baptism will cease to be discussed, and when it will be thought strange that it was ever a matter of controversy. "It is not the time," he continues," to treat of this subject; I will simply say that we are advancing, and that the Scriptures will soon resolve this problem as all others. Sacraments in general will be divested of their ambiguous and mysterious nature, even the word "Sacrament" will doubtless disappear, and we shall find ourselves, like the first Christians, in the presence of two ceremonies, as simple as they are august, by which the child of God manifests his faith, and is confirmed in the same,"

There are two or three other passages in the volume written in the same spirit, which show that the learned Count holds views very similar to those of Baptists on Baptism and Church organization. He is not alone in this. Many a young theologian in France and Switzerland has lost faith in infant baptism as a divine requirement, but is waiting, we know not for what, unless it be a movement under proper leadership, to conform fully his practice to his views.

It cannot be long before such manly and truthful utterances as these of Count de Gasparin shall have produced their legitimate results, and Christianity, freed from traditional interpretation and ecclesiastical bondage, shall once again stand forth in its primitive purity and power.

A Collection of Theological Essays from various Authors. With an introduction by GEORGE R. NOYES, D. D., Professor of Sacred Literature in Harvard University. Third edition. Boston: Walker, Wise and Co. Published for the American Unitarian Association. 1860. 12mo., pp. xlvi., 512.

THE third edition of these Essays found a much larger circle of readers than the first. The commotion excited by the "Essays and Reviews," three of whose authors occupy no înconsiderable space in this collection, served to prepare for it an attentive public. The idea of the collection was first suggested to the editor by Prof. Jowett's Commentary on the Epistles of Paul, dissertations from which occupy nearly two hundred pages of his volume. Rowland Williams, Baden Powell, A. P. Stanley, Tholuck and Guizot, furnish, with three or four essays from older and less current authors, the remainder of the collection. Tholuck does service in an essay made up of his famous papers on Inspiration, published in 1850-1, and translated for Kitto's Journal of Sacred Literature in 1854, and Stanley comes in in various dissertations from his Commentary on the Epistles to the Corinthians.

The volume is avowedly compiled for the use of students in divinity, Sabbath-school teachers, and intelligent readers generally; men of reading and scholars being supposed to have been familiar with its contents in the sources from which they have been derived. That ordinary Sabbath-school teachers should be benefited by such discussions is preposterous, but that all intelligent readers, that is, readers who are acquainted with both sides of the questions involved, should be instructed by them, and that to those especially who are desirous of understanding the present state of theological opinion in England and this country, they should even be accounted indispensable, we can readily admit.

The volume was, of course, made up in the interests of Unitarianism. But, with the exception of the Introduction by the editor, and of the extracts from Jowett, for the sake of which, to be sure, the other essays were brought together, and which, manifestly, in the editor's estimation are the choice portions of the volume, there is but little from which a modern trinitarian will have occasion seriously to dissent. The most objectionable piece in the book is the Introduction. It characterises briefly the several essays, indicating the sources whence they are drawn, but is devoted chiefly to a historical statement and discussion of several theories of the Atonement that have been held by Protestants, particularly in New England, and to a vindication of the theory commonly held by Unitarians. The substitution, or

Anselmic theory, he pronounces "appalling," and, as commonly reprepresented, "horrible." "The very statement of this theory by some distinguished theologians, shocks the feelings of many Christians like the language of impiety." For the governmental theory, so prevalent in New England, and which regards the death of Christ as reformatory and not punitive, he has but little higher regard. "So far as the Divine character is concerned, it is of little consequence whether you call the sufferings of Christ punishment, or only torture immediately inflicted by God for the mere purpose of being contemplated by intelligent beings."

To an orthodox believer in the sacrificial and atoning efficacy of the death of Christ, his interpretation of certain Old Testament texts, as well as of sundry New Testament passages, is bald and jejune enough. Thus the language in the cry of desertion on the cross, “had substantially the same meaning when uttered by Christ as when uttered by the Psalmist;" the phrase "servant of God," in Isaiah liii., “denotes, at least in its primary sense, the Jewish Church, the Israel of God, who suffered on account of the sins of others, in the time of the captivity at Babylon;" and Christ was "set forth to be a propitiation for sin," in a sense different from that in which the Apostles suffered, only in the "greater prominence, importance and influence assigned by Paul and other New Testament writers to the sacrifice of Christ, than to that of other righteous men."

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The Risen Redeemer: The Gospel History from the Resurrection to the Day of Pentecost. By F. W. KRUMMACHER, D. D., Author of Elijah the Tishbite." Translated from the German by JOHN T. BETTS, with the sanction of the author. New York: Robert Carter & Brother. 1863. 12mo., pp. 298.

WE hardly know of another German author of so little real worthwhose writings have been so long, so favorably, and so generally known among us as Krummacher. There is, however, in all he writes, a certain vividness and freshness of thought, a success in re-clothing and making real the brief words of Scripture, which give a charm to his thoughts even after their transfer into a foreign tongue. Those who have read the "Suffering Saviour," translated and published some six years since, will be desirous of reading the "Risen Redeemer," which so appropriately follows it. The translator, while singularly happy in the use of idiomatic English, occasionally allows himself the use of terms and phrases which, though current among many writers, are eschewed by

the more careful and accurate. Krummacher has, however, been remarkably fortunate in those who have rendered him into English.

Speaking to the Heart; or, Sermons for the People. By THOMAS GUTHRIE, D. D., Author of the "Gospel in Ezekiel," etc. New York: Robert Carter and Brothers. 1863. 12mo. pp. 216.

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DR. GUTHRIE is a spirited writer as well as a popular preacher. Direct and explicit in his statements, skillful in his use of imagery and illustration, earnest in purpose, and devout in spirit, he holds his readers, as he does his hearers, attentive to his thoughts. Speaking to the Heart" contains sermons which appear to have been selected and arranged on no other principle than that of being fitted for usefulness by their directness, simplicity, and unction.

The Sympathy of Christ with Man; Its Teaching and its Consolation. By OCTAVIUS WINSLOW, D. D., Author of "The Precious Things of God," "Memoir of Mary Winslow," "Help Heavenward,” etc., etc. New York: Robert Carter and Brothers. 1863. 12mo. pp. 426.

Patriarchal Shadows of Christ and his Church: As Exhibited in Passages drawn from the History of Joseph and his Brethren. By OCTAVIUS WINSLOW, D. D. New York: Robert Carter & Brothers, 1863. 12mo., pp. 402.

DR. WINSLOW is one of those English authors whose writings have not seemed to us to be entitled to the reputation they have had in America. A most excellent Christian spirit, it is true, breathes through all that comes from his pen, and his thoughts are always the dictates of good sense, but when you have made these admissions, there is little more that can justly be added. He is personally one of the most estimable of men, and, withal, a most diligent and faithful pastor, but it has been on insufficient grounds, we think, that he has been led to suppose that thoughts which have interested and instructed his admiring parishioners should have wider circulation. The fact that the circulation has been such as to warrant him in repeating the experiment of publication, would seem to justify his judgment. But popularity never yet was a safe test of the merit or usefulness of either a man or a book.

"The Sympathy of Christ with Man" is a series of discourses illustrative of the theme which forms the title of the volume; and "PatriVOL. XXviii.-32.