the Spanish reformers. It is a hopeful augury that they have been led, by the Spirit of God, to contemplate the preparation of a Confession of Faith and Code of Discipline. This work will be looked forward to by all the friends of truth, and the best friends of the infant Spanish Reformed Church, with much interest. May they be well guided in this momentous part of their great undertaking.

We now, for the present, take leave of the Assembly and its important work, carried on under the surveillance of the cruel and fanatical Government of Spain, acting cat's-paw to Rome, and turn our eyes in another diretion, to see what the Almighty Worker is doing, and preparing to do for them."

The political condition of Spain was only what might have been expected in a land so completely under the heel of the Pope. Oppression and misrule were the order of the day, and God, in His holy providence, permitted it to be carried so far as to work its own cure. It became intolerable. Accordingly, on the 19th September, 1868, a few leading spirits, chiefly in the army, who had suffered under the abuses of the Government, raised the cry of liberty, which was so extensively taken up and re-echoed throughout the Peninsula, that the Queen and her guilty court thought discretion the better part of valour, and therefore sought safety in flight. The Spaniards were well satisfied with her resolution, and a Provisional Government was immediately formed, in which General Prim took a leading part. The Government thus formed, recognising the baleful influence exerted by Popery on the country, at once renounced the arrogant assumptions of Rome, and proclaimed the principle of perfect religious liberty. Accordingly, writes Senor Cabrera—

"On the 23d of the same month (September) I went to Algeciraz, a town near Gibraltar, with Senores Alhama and Hernandez, when we waited upon General Prim, who had disembarked there to give orders to the garrison. The General received us with affability, and, upon hearing who we were, inquired, ‘Are you of those who were condemned in Granada because it was said you were not good Christians? and continued, 'You are welcome. From to-day there will be liberty in our country, true liberty. The reign of tyranny is over. Every man is master of his own conscience, and may profess that faith which appears to him best. You can return to your own town by the first vessel which sails, and in freedom enter it with the Bible under your arm, and preach the doctrines it contains."

Thus God opened the door for the introduction of the Gospel into Spain in a way that His most sanguine friends could scarcely have anticipated. Now the Gospel is publicly preached, and the Scriptures openly sold throughout Spain. The labourers engaged in this important work seem to be men of faith, willing to spend and be spent in the service of Christ. But their number would require to be greatly increased in order to meet the wants of such an extensive field already white to the harvest. The Macedonian cry, "Come over

and help us," rises on all sides with such importunate urgency, that the few agents who are at present employed are grieved to find that all they can do is to re-echo the cry for help. In Andalusia, the work is carried on with great spirit, and with a truly cheering degree of success. The crowds which flock to hear the Word are so great that considerable difficulty is experienced in obtaining churches sufficiently large to accommodate them. All that can be done is being done to satisfy the craving for the Gospel thus so suddenly and extensively awakened. The spiritual interests of both old and young are anxiously considered. While the means of grace are being provided for those of advanced years, Sabbath and week-day schools are opened for the young. Fortunately the Spanish reformers recognise the paramount importance of combining the religious with the secular education of the young, and seem disposed to adopt a system of education somewhat similar to the old parochial system of Scotland. Indeed, the present religious reformation in Spain seems in many respects to be very nearly a reproduction of the Reformation in this country 300 years ago.

We must not imagine, however, that the agents of Rome are either uninterested or idle spectators. They are busy at their old work. Where intimidation is supposed to be likely to succeed, they employ it; and where plotting and intrigue are more likely to be efficacious they practice them. The infant Church has much to fear from the intrigues and schemes of the different conflicting political parties that now distract Spain. Not a few of the priests of Rome have been publicly convicted of encouraging and abetting some of the more powerful and more Popish parties who are plotting the subversion of the new Constitution. They and all the friends of truth have great reason to plead with God to restrain their power for evil, and to strengthen with all might by His Spirit those who are called to bear the burden and heat of the day.

Literature.

Discourses on Redemption. By Rev. Stuart Robinson, D.D., lately Professor of Church Government and Pastoral Theology at Danville, Kentucky. Second edition. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 38 George Street. 1869. THIS, though a volume of discourses, each complete in itself, has something of the unity and coherence of a theological treatise. The subjects of discourse, especially in the first part of the volume, have been treated and arranged with the view of bringing out the perfect

oneness of the great scheme of human redemption as unfolded in the Bible. That scheme was revealed "at sundry times and in divers manners;" it was revealed under several dispensations, differing from each other in external form as well as in fulness of light and privilege; but the aim of our author is to show that through all these successive dispensations the same grand plan of redeeming mercy was being developed, as the oak is developed from the acorn, until it has reached its full stature and luxuriance, and bears its full harvest of ripe fruit in this "the dispensation of the fulness of times."

As, in separate discourses, he passes the several dispensations in review, he brings out at least three broad features of identity between them. He shows that under all of them the very same Gospel of the grace of God has been, in substance, presented to the faith of men. He shows very prominently, as what perhaps is less attended to, that under all of them the grace of the Gospel has been dispensed in the same mode--in the mode, namely, of covenants-in which the blessings of salvation have been conveyed to the heirs of them by way of charter, and secured to them by appropriate sacramental seals. A third uniting and harmonising link he is at pains to point out in the fact that, under them all, the grace of the Gospel has been dispensed and sealed to the same society-the select and separated society of God's Church--which, from the relation in which it stands to Christ, its ever-living and unchangeable Head, has continued to be one and the same organic body from its formation in Eden till now.

These views are not, of course, new. But they are here presented very strikingly and with uncommon vigour and grasp of thought. And in presenting them as he has done the author has rendered good and thankworthy service. It is of immense importance to get the mind enlarged with such comprehensive views of the plan of redemption. It enables one to read the Bible with a clearer and larger apprehension of its meaning and scope, and of the organic unity which pervades all its parts, as a revelation of the gracious thoughts and ways of Jehovah. It also enables one to perceive the groundlessness and folly of many of the prevailing errors of the day. For instance, if all Scripture exhibits the gradual and continuous evolution of one everlasting and supernatural plan, then all Scripture must alike emanate from the Author of that plan, and must be all equally inspired. Again, if the New Testament contains only the continued and perfected unfolding of the same Saviour, and the same salvation of which Moses in the law and the prophets did write, then, plainly, it cannot be separated from the Old; having grown out of the Old, and needing the Old to account for it and interpret it, it would be suicidal to its authority to view it as in the least setting aside or superseding

the Old; both must stand or fall together, as the one indivisible revelation which the one Church has got from God. Still further, if the Church of God is one corporate body through all ages and dispensations, then whatever moral truth or precept God has spoken to her at one time He speaks to her through all time; the ten words He spake to her at Sinai, He speaks to her, the same body of Christ, and through her, to all the world still; and thus from the continued identity of the body to which it was given, as well as from its moral nature, we have proof of the continued obligation of the Decalogue, and of the great Sabbath law which is enshrined in its centre. These inferences, though stated in our own language, are not our own. They and others of like importance are drawn by our author in various parts of his book. Indeed, much of its value lies in the constant application he makes of the principles he demonstrates, to the prevailing forms of unbelief and error, with all of which he displays a very thorough acquaintance, and against most of which he displays a very enlightened and faithfully outspoken zeal. Ever and anon he is dealing some well-aimed blow at Popery or Ritualism, or some of the forms of Rationalistic and Neologian error. And he is constantly trying, often with not unskilful hand, to unloose the meshes of "philosophy and vain deceit" in which so many of the young minds of our time are getting entangled. Though on all cardinal points he sets forth the old Calvinistic faith, his book bears on every page the fresh impress of the nineteenth century. Still we cannot endorse all his views. Those of them we take exception to we shall note as we

proceed.

The third discourse is entitled "The Gospel Covenant and Worship of the lost Eden." It is full of general principles, and is valuable for its suggestiveness. We quote from it the following striking and comprehensive summary of the Gospel creed, as wrapped up in the first promise:

"1. That the Redeemer and Restorer of the race is to be man, since He is to be the seed of the woman.

"2. That He is at the same time to be a Being greater than man, and greater even than satan; since He is to be the Conqueror of man's conqueror, and, against all his efforts, to recover a sinful world which man had lost; being yet sinless, He must therefore be divine.

"3. That this redemption shall involve a new nature, at 'enmity' with the satan nature, to which man has now become subject.

"4. That this new nature is a regeneration by Divine power; since the enmity to satan is not a natural emotion; but saith Jehovah, 'I WILL PUT ENMITY,' &c.

"5. This redemption shall be accomplished by vicarious suffering; since the Redeemer shall suffer the bruising of His heel in the work of recovery.

"6. That this work of redemption shall involve the gathering out of an elect seed, 'a peculiar people,' at enmity with the natural offspring of a race subject to satan. 7. That this redemption shall involve a perpetual conflict of the peculiar people,

under its representative Head, in the effort to bruise the head of satan, that is 'to destroy the works of the devil.'

"8. This redemption shall involve the ultimate triumph, after suffering, of the woman's seed; and therefore involves a triumph over death, and a restoration of the humanity to its original state, as a spiritual in conjunction with a physical nature, in perfect blessedness as before its fall."

The Abrahamic covenant holds a peculiarly prominent and outstanding place in the development of the scheme of salvation. A knowledge of its nature and bearings is essential to a right understanding of all that succeeds in the Old Testament, and of much of the New. Our author devotes only one discourse to it; but he shows, as we think, a very just apprehension of its meaning and significance. Accounting for the great prominence given to it in Scripture, he makes the following remarks :

"Now whence the prominence to the covenant with Abraham? The answer will be found in a summary statement of the record here taken in connection with the preceding and subsequent history. Anterior to this era, the protracted period of human life-the life of one patriarch or head extending over many centuries-rendered it unnecessary, and indeed hardly possible that either of the two Divine ordinances for society, the State or the Church, should exist as organisations apart from this third Divine ordinance of the family which was first of all appointed. Now that the contraction of the days of man on earth leaves no longer one natural head by precedence of age and paternal right entitled to govern the tribes descended from him; of necessity states, governments, under chosen rather than natural heads must be instituted; and by force of the same fact, the body of the 'redeemed seed of the woman' must be organised as a government also, distinct from the family. Hence it is that here, midway between the first gospel promise of a Redeemer in Eden, and the glorious fulfilment thereof in the incarnation of the Son of God, stands the covenant with Abraham. It involves all that was involved in the covenant of grace with Adam, and the covenant of security to the race, and the line of descent in Shem, made with Noah; but proceeds to organise the people which shall be gathered under those covenants into a visible body, distinct both from the family and the State, and separated from the rest of mankind. As to its component elements, the Church had indeed existed from the first by virtue of the enmity put between the chosen and the reprobate seeds. But, henceforth, the chosen are visibly and formally set apart to become the special visible body of the Messiah, among whom and through whom the covenant of grace shall have its administration."

Dr. Robinson has clear and orthodox views regarding the place which the children of the Church have in the charter of her covenant privileges, as that was given to Abraham. But he reasons to a conclusion that reaches far beyond any premises he lays down, when he tries to deduce from it the doctrine that all children dying in infancy shall certainly be saved. If, as Paul says, "they who be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham," how is it possible to show that unbelieving parents have such interest in the blessing promised to Abraham-"I will be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee" —as to warrant the conclusion that their children, equally with those of believing parents, shall, if dying early, be eternally saved? Indeed, the author has made admissions regarding the silence both of Scrip