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how to use them, till we had made a visit to a ship-yard. There we learned that crooked sticks were the very best ship timber for certain parts of the vessel. The gnarled and ugly knees brace against all storms and insure the cargo. Now we try to put our curved man in the church and society just where the curve will be the line of beauty and of force; and the knotty knees of old oak, that grace does not presume to strengthen, we work in where a rugged resistance and stiffness and will are needed. And since that ship-yard lesson we have discovered that the crooked sticks have often saved the ship of state and of church too.

ART AND REVERENCE. We can not refer this sentiment to its author, but it is a key to the best criticism of any art-production: "The instincts of true reverence rarely conflict with the principles of true art." It applies alike to themes derived from nature, humanity, Deity. Each of these has its sanctities which genius can not violate without degrading itself, and, in a degree, forfeiting its claim to that attribute. This is the lee shore which strands so many brilliant but ill-regulated aspirants for artistic fame. No one has executive power enough safely to neglect this law, whether marble, canvas, or language be the material of his work. This is near akin to Coleridge's doctrine of the "close connection between just taste and pure morality, because true taste springs out of the ground of the moral nature of man."

Errata. Page 61, 1. 12, for "calendars" read calculus; p. 65, 1. 33, for "classics" read claims; p. 71, 1. 39, for "appeared" read upheaved; p. 112, 1. 21, read successions of feeling; p. 29, l. 11, for "horrors" read houris.

BOSTON REVIEW.

VOL. VI.-JULY, 1866.-No. 33.

ARTICLE I.

FREDERICK WILLIAM ROBERTSON.

Sermons, preached at Trinity Chapel, Brighton, by the late Rev. FREDERICK W. ROBERTSON, M. A., the Incumbent. Five Series. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1857-1864. Lectures and Addresses on Literary and Social Topics, by the late Rev. FREDERICK W. ROBERTSON, M. A., of Brighton. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1859.

Life and Letters of FREDERICK W. ROBERTSON, M. A., Incumbent of Trinity Chapel, Brighton, 1847-53. Edited by STOPFORD A. BROOKE, M. A., late Chaplain to the Embassy at Berlin. In two volumes. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1865.

FREDERICK W. ROBERTSON was born in London, 3d February, 1816, and died in Brighton 15th August, 1853. Though in the ministry thirteen years, he was actively engaged hardly more than eleven, one at Winchester, four at Cheltenham, and six at Brighton. At the former places, he wrote his sermons; at the last, he preached from brief but carefully prepared notes. In his day, he was not more widely known than many of his profession whose works will never be published, and whose biographies will never be written. Since his death, his name has become familiar to the reading public, in his own country and in this. His published sermons consist partly of abstracts and complete discourses written by himself after their delivery,

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but mainly of fragments gathered from his own and the notes of some who heard him; and yet, as they have been issued a volume at a time, and at intervals sufficient to ensure the safety of continuing the enterprise, they have been warmly praised and widely circulated. Though preached by a professed Trinitarian in the church of England, and published in America in the interest of so-called liberal Christianity, they are yet commended by Orthodox journals, sometimes without a word of censure or of caution, and are consequently purchased and read by many who desire to nourish their piety on the vital truths of the Gospel. They are said to be the favorite reading of many of the younger portion of the Orthodox clergy of New England, who have awaited with interest every succeeding volume, and who are doubtless impatient at the delay of the promised "Pulpit Notes." The appearance of his "Life and Letters” has furnished his admiring critics with a new occasion to commend his works to the people, as of surpassing interest and excellence, and to the ministry, as a means of improving their theology and their preaching. In the absence of knowledge on the subject, it might be inferred from these facts, either that the Latitudinarians are leaning to orthodoxy, or that the Orthodox are leaning to latitudinarianism. There is, however, too much evidence that the former is not the true inference. Is the latter the true one? It may be charitably supposed, that ordinary readers may be deceived through the lack of ability to discriminate between the genuine and the specious, in the works of a sophistical author. But must charity be taxed thus in behalf of professional theologians and public teachers? That the highest praise of these works should have emanated from those whose chief or only interest in evangelical religion is to disparage its professors and undermine its principles, starts the suspicion that they may offer false explanations and specious substitutes rather than clearer and more scriptural exhibitions of the truth; for the offence of the cross has not yet ceased. A few of the Orthodox have indeed expressed their dissent from the author's views; but as they have generally chosen to express it very indefinitely, and to dwell more at length upon certain excellences which will be gener

ally acknowledged, there is certainly occasion for the more unwelcome task of exhibiting his defects.

Since the author is commended as an oracle and a model, it is a little surprising that none of the sermons of the former half of his ministry have been deemed worthy a place in this collection. If a genius indeed, some of his earlier discourses should have been at least equal to any of his later. According to Mr. Brooke, however, the sermons of the first year are weak and "startlingly inferior," and "do not, to the reader, even foretell his future excellence." This judgment might be accepted without question, were it based on the fact, stated by a constant hearer, that they were written "always on Saturday, the time between breakfast and one o'clock sufficing for a sermon." But the secret of their "inferiority" appears to lie rather in the fact that "they contain all the characteristic doctrines against which he afterwards so deliberately protested at Brighton." On this account they might be preferred by many to those which have been published. But whatever the merit of these, some of those preached during the next four years must have been, in style at least, equal to the fragments contained in these volumes. They are pronounced better than his former efforts, in being more carefully wrought, of a different character in sentiment, and "no longer so much disquisitions on doctrine or impassioned descriptions of the love of God in Christ." But we are told that even "at this time his ideal was not very high." The altered character of his sermons were a sufficient reason for not giving them to the public; yet, unhappily, a greater change in the same direction led to the publication of these series. That change was gradual but rapid, and amounted to a complete revolution in his views of the doctrines of the Bible. What he once preached, he afterwards scorned. At the beginning of his ministry he made a "full and forcible declaration of Evangelical views." After a few weeks at Cheltenham it was a question whether he was "a Tractarian" or "an ultra Calvinist"; and within two years he wrote, "The Tractarians despise me, and the Evangelicals somewhat loudly express their doubts of me." In two years more "it became painful to him to preach." Though nominally "of the Evangelical school," he was growing in hostility against it. And by the time he went

to Brighton he felt clear and decided, "that the system on which he had founded his whole faith and work could never be received by him again." This was a discovery, and laid him under great obligation. If the current theology of the Evangelicals was so unsound, it belonged to him to lead a reformation. Could he do this, he would lay the world and the church under great obligation to him.

Whether this revolution was for the better, depends not upon the judgment of those who sympathize either with the views. adopted or with the views renounced, but upon the simple fact of a nearer approach to, or a further departure from the word of God. This is the furnace in which the gold is purified from the dross. "If they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them." To this test it is proposed to subject the views of this author upon some of the prominent doctrines of the Christian system.

Mr. Robertson "projected once a work on Inspiration," but deferred it, saying, "The English mind is not prepared yet." But he has left some hints of what he intended to elaborate. He believed in the inspiration of the Bible, but his views differ materially from those commonly received. "I hold it to be inspired, not dictated. It is the word of God; the words of man as the former, perfect; as the latter, imperfect.' " One who claimed to be so familiar with the New Testament that the proof-texts of a doctrine arrayed themselves spontaneously before his mind, should have remembered a few which represent inspiration as itself dictation. "I heard a voice from heaven, saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth. Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; and their works do follow them." Rev. xiv. 13. If the Apostle may be believed, he wrote the second and third chapters of the Apocalypse from dictation, in distinction from every other phase of inspiration. Nor is it any more incredible that the Holy Spirit should at his pleasure have articulated his revelation to man's hearing and in man's language, than that Jesus converted the water into wine at the marriage in Cana.

"The prophetic power, in which I suppose is chiefly exhibited

'Life and Letters, II. 14.

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