ARTICLE VII.

SHORT SERMONS.

"By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased and inherit the land."-Ex. xxiii. 30.

To give Israel possession of Canaan had been promised for more than four hundred years. In bringing it about many nations had been disturbed, and when accomplished its results were of such vast magnitude as to recast the face of the world. Yet when to man all seems ready to finish promptly the work, God proposes to complete it "by little and little." This fact unfolds a principle in the administration of God. He performs many of his great and good works slowly, as :

1. In creation. The purpose is eternal and the execution runs through untold ages in those six geological days.

2. In the present productions of the vegetable and mineral kingdoms. As the gardens are deltas that the rivers are ages in preparing, the flowers and fruits and forests are often hundreds of years in maturing. So coals, the metals and precious stones are the slow growth of thousands of years.

3. In the changes of the seasons and day and night. Gradually, beautifully, sublimely, God works these out. Nothing is abrupt and hurried in the blushing dawn, the evening shadows and the floral processions of the spring months, and the cereal ones of autumn.

4. In the reformation of nations. At the Exodus he began to reform Israel from idolatry, and completed it in the close of the Babylonish captivity, nine hundred and fifty-five years.

5. In the work of redemption. A little light falls on our first parents through the first shadows of the apostasy; yet it is four thousand years before the star that shed it, the star of Bethlehem, rises above the horizon.

Then in many of our great and good works, we may well be patient in our industry in doing good. Working, waiting, expecting, this is Godlike.

"Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me."-Ps. li. 10.

A SHORT but great petition. ical and great as that set forth

No work is so original, organic, radby the word "create." Is it acci

dental or of design that this word is chosen in the New Testament to express the supernatural act that constitutes one a Christian, to express the desire for it in the Old Testament, and to declare the work of God in bringing the universe into order, beauty and glory? Such is the fact, and so the text suggests the analogy or parallelism between the creation of the new heart in regeneration, and the creation of the world.

1. The creating act of God in both cases had chaotic material on which to work. The earth was in wild, tumultuous disorder. It was but a mob of particles of matter. So the unregenerate soul, the moral of the man, which sin has ruined in apostacy and total depravity. The moral elements are in anarchy.

2. The creating act of God in both cases is the practical assertion of sovereignty. God makes his presence and power felt in each as one to whom obedience is due and must be yielded, so that the earth and soul alike say: "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?"

3. The creating act of God in both cases is, in part, the introduction of law. This is one of the steps in physical and moral creation. The coming of a sovereign is followed by a code. In the new heart are enacted the laws of heaven, as natural laws take possession of the new earth.

4. A separation is made between light and darkness. God divides between the two in both cases, so that what before was confused and blended is now two kingdoms, and we have the regions and the subjects of both.

5. The creating act separates between earth and heaven. As in the material chaos, so in the unregenerate heart, there is no clear and appreciated distinction between the two. The creating is in one of its forms, a dividing process.

6. The creating act makes the earth and the heart fruitful. The lawn, forest, flowers, fruits, appear in one, and the "fruits of the Spirit" in the other.

From all which

(a) We see the import of many New Testament phrases, as "a new creature," "his workmanship,” "which were born not of blood," etc.

(b) We see how deeply and totally the apostasy affected the nature as well as life of man.

(c) We see why the Lord Jesus and his apostles insisted so strenuously on regeneration as a necessity.

(d) We see who is the agent in regeneration.

ARTICLE VIII.

LITERARY NOTICES.

1.-Sermons Preached at Trinity Chapel, Brighton, [Eng.] By the late Rev. FREDERICK W. ROBERTSON, M. A., the Incumbent. Fifth Series. 12mo. pp. 283. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1864.

MR. ROBERTSON's works, as now given to the American public, consist of six 12mo. volumes, four of which are sermons; one, a series of lectures on the first epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians; and one, addresses on literary and miscellaneous subjects before working men's and other associations. These volumes are a valuable and permanently productive contribution to our religious and general literature. The first two contain sermons of more careful elaboration than the others; the later series are not much more oftentimes than rough outlines of discourses, the beams and timbers standing out in Doric nakedness and strength. We will indicate, in a few particulars, our estimate of these productions.

(a) Directness. They are farthest removed from the essay-like style of sermons. Spoken extemporaneously and reported as spoken, they are the personal address of one man to others before him, with whom, and not with an imaginary reading public, he is dealing. None of these discourses were produced as chapters for a forthcoming book—a poor way of sermonizing.

(b) Freshness. Mr. Robertson had a true genius of his own for. originating thought. He borrows from no one, reflects no one's light, echoes no one's voice. His ideas are his own even when they

are the same as others'. He grasps with quick perception the spirit of his text, and most neatly dissects it out from related truth. He carries the knife of a practised surgeon in thus dividing one truth from another for special use.

(c) Variety. The topics of his sermons are very various, ranging the fields of theology and ethics with a fine freedom, while noue of them are irrelevant to the purposes of the Sabbath pulpit.

(d) Suggestiveness. This subtle attribute of the best mental organizations is diffused throughout these pages. They start the reader's mind on a thousand tracts of independent thought, which is one of the most valuable features of authorship, and one of the rarest.

While we thus express, in a fragmentary way, our sense of the worth of these volumes, we add that some of their author's views are defective, and some in our judgment positively wrong. Of the latter,

we instance his notions about the Sabbath; of the former, his opinions, among others, concerning the atonement and the duty of prayer. Mr. R. was too honest a thinker to conceal any shade of belief which, for the time present, he held. He was minister of a church which imposes small restraint on the propounding of erratic theories in religion. Consequently we find crudeness, error, and incertitude on subjects of the first importance. But there is evidence of a steady tendency in the preacher's thinking to a more balanced and thorough theology, while no one can question the hearty earnestness of his faith, nor help admiring the manly strength, the eagle-like flight of his intellect, the delicate, nimble activity of his bright, free genius, in studying these deep things of man and God. We would rather have on our study table, for mental stimulus, these rough hewn discourses, than piles of the rhetorically finished productions of the Hugh Blairs and Robert Halls of the day.

2.- A Commentary on the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical, embodying for popular use and edification the Results of German and English Exegetical Literature, and designed to meet the Difficulties of Modern Scepticism; with a General Introduction, treating of the Genuineness, Authenticity, Historic Verity, and Inspiration of the Gospel Records, and of the Harmony and Chronology of the Gospel History. By WILLIAM NAST, D. D.: Royal 8vo. pp. 760. Cincinnati: Poe & Hitchcock. 1864.

THE author has so fully set forth his design in this lengthy title, that we need not say much more than that he has learnedly and very carefully executed his intention. The work was undertaken and is published under the patronage of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Dr. Nast is a German, and combines the exact and thorough criticism of his countrymen with a devoutly religious spirit. Preparing his commentary first in German, and then re-thinking and re-writing it into English, he has had the advantage of an unusually protracted study of his subject, which exhibits great breadth, candor, and strength of treatment. His preliminary dissertation, containing a complete synopsis of the Gospel narrative, covers almost two hundred pages, and handles the topics in controversy between believers and the sceptics with great ability. The work, though popular, or rather for this very reason, goes into the objections which unfriendly critics are raising, with much care. It also has appended to each of its sections excellent practical instructions. We notice on the 24th of Matthew, that the author discards the pre-millennial view, and allows the double sense of prophecy in cases where the harmony of

the Scriptures renders it necessary. This large and excellently published volume is to be followed, in like style, by a commentary on the remainder of the New Testament. We shall better be able to see how much of a dogmatic character the work is to assume when it gets into the Pauline Epistles. A portrait of the author fronting the title-page has a substantial and inviting look. He was a university room-mate of the infidel Strauss.

3.-Life and Times of Nathan Bangs, D. D. By ABEL STEVENS, LL.D., Author of "The History of The Religious Movement of the Eighteenth Century, called Methodism." 12mo. New York: Carlton & Porter. 1864.

THIS is a model book, at least in one particular. It is the Life and Times of a man who was for half a contury a distinguished preacher, and a leader and champion among the Methodists, all comprised in 426 pages, 12mo, in good, clear readable type. It is a deeply interesting and instructive volume. Dr. Bangs was an eminently good and useful man, and contributed more than any other to the present strength and efficiency of Methodism in the United States. His labors were incessant, manifold and of very wide range. He was preacher, pastor, editor, one of the founders of the Missionary Society, its first Secretary and the writer of its Annual Reports for more than twenty years, author, historian of Methodism and principal founder of its American literature. He was a Methodist from conviction, and an earnest and able defender of its doctrines and usages. He was a believer in Christian perfectionism: he assaulted Jonathan Edwards' treatise on The Will, with all his might, and saw only doctrinal error and practical evil in personal election and the perseverance of the saints.

The volume is enlivened and enriched by incidents and anecdotes, and is a valuable contribution to American Biographical and Ecclesiastical literature.

4. A Treatise on Homiletics:

Designed to illustrate The True Theory and Practice of Preaching the Gospel. By DANIEL P. KIDDER, D.D., Professor of the Garrett Biblical Institute. 12mo. New York: Carlton & Porter. 1864.

care.

THIS volume has evidently been prepared with great labor and It is at once comprehensive and minute. While it modestly sets forth in the preface that its design is "to aid clerical students and junior ministers of the Gospel in preparing for their life-work," we venture to assert that there are very few preachers and pastors who might not derive valuable aid from it. No topic of interest to the Christian minister has been omitted by Professor Kidder, and he