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same time the facts of secular history are clearly and carefully narrated. We trust this work may obtain a general circulation.

Dr. MOBERLY has published an Address read to the Hampshire Church School Society, (London, Nutt) which should be in the hands of all educators.

CHRIST'S Presence, the encouragement of His Ministers in the Visitation of the Sick is the title of an excellent Visitation Sermon (J. and C. Mozley) preached at Hastings by the Rev. G. E. HAVILAND. It is not for its theological precision (though here we have no fault to find), that we recommend the Sermon: its chief merit is its earnest practical tone, which cannot fail to encourage those to whom is confided the charge of ministering to the sick and dying.

Three Sermons preached at the Leeds Free Grammar School, by the Rev. ALFRED BATTY, (Rivington,) deserve respectful and honourable mention: not so much perhaps for the sake of the Sermons themselves (which are nevertheless very good), as on account of the Preface, in which the Author advocates the use of special Services for children, and meets the objections which may be raised against the system.

Parochial Sermons bearing on the subjects of the day, printed at Brighton, (Masters,) contain many devout thoughts and some eloquent passages. They are however altogether esoteric, and consequently scarcely fulfil the expectation raised by the title.

The

Mr. BODE's Bampton Lectures, (J. H. Parker, and Longman,) are only another illustration of the saying that there is nothing new. Author doubtless thinks that he has produced something very original; but in point of fact he has only dressed up the old thread-bare excuses of that large class who are unwilling to believe much or do much, in more pretentious language than such apologies are generally clad in. The Lectures are in reality exceedingly shallow-the result, we should say, of a six months' reading for the occasion by a very untheological mind; and they conclude with the most unpardonable inaccuracy that we ever remember to have seen in print. Mr. Bode is speaking of the subject of Absolution, and he declares oracularly that the Exhortation in the Communion Office permits confession "to be made to any Godly learned man, whether a minister of the Gospel or not." The Prayer Book, our readers of course will know, says precisely the opposite, bidding the scrupulous person to come to his Parish Priest, or to some other discreet and learned Minister of God's Word." Of course Mr. Bode did not mean to tell a lie, but like many others, he seems to have imagined that he could "get up Theology," as an Undergraduate would a book for the schools. Hence this sad exposure, which we must add, reflects at least as much discredit on the heads of houses who nominate to this much abused office, as on the Lecturer himself.

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Mr. HUTCHINSON's Parish Recollections, (Masters,) like Mr. Holden's Catechist, are interesting as the record of a thirty-eight years' ministry in one Parish. We trust that they may be read in many Parishes, for they touch on nearly all the chief points of general Parochial concern, and are certainly very much in advance of their day.

JOWETT ON THE EPISTLES OF S. PAUL.

The Epistles of S. Paul to the Thessalonians, Galatians, and Romans, with critical Notes and Dissertations. By BENJAMIN JOWETT, M.A., Fellow and Tutor of Baliol College, Oxford. London: Murray.

SADDENING and sickening indeed is Mr. Jowett's commentary on S. Paul. The impression of gloom which these volumes leave behind, is not softened by any counterbalancing feeling. Some writers, by the creations of misguided philosophy, waken in one an active and indignant antagonism. Others, by the vagaries of their imagination, and the credulity of their scepticism, prevent our feeling the sorrow of thoughtful pity, in the impulsive self-forgetfulness of ridicule. But Mr. Jowett does not write with such levity as to excite a sneer, nor with such audacity as to arouse indignation. He leaves his commentary in our hands, with the impotence of its self-satisfied shortsightedness made evident by the continual stare of vacancy. We read it with unmingled pity. We leave off reading it as we turn away when we have "bent us o'er the dead." The capacity of living functions is there, and is not there. We are riveted to the chamber of death with interest arising from the very fact that living interest has passed away. We cannot think that a frame so like our own has ceased to return our sympathy with "kindred consciousness." We wonder; we rather believe that the faculties are spell-bound, than that they are nullified. It is a mystery to us how in one moment the continuity of life can have been hushed in emptiness. "The creature," so mysteriously complicated in its organism, so adapted for the energizing fulness of might, "has been made subject to vanity." Its very existence in its speechlessness appears to be eloquent with the sorrows of its bondage. And so do Mr. Jowett's notes and essays chiefly impress one with the feeling that he who wrote them was fitted for better things, that they are not written in the blindness of original ignorance, but in the blindness of one who has turned his back upon the light, and the visions of which he has caught a view still haunt his eye. The faculty of appreciating the higher life of the Christian still remains, but that higher life is only remembered as a dream. He shows us that he is not ignorant of the Apostle's enthusiasm, which dictated the exclamation, "I am crucified with CHRIST; yet it is not I that live, but CHRIST that liveth in me," but he puts it away from him with the words, "This is the language of ecstasy, not the reality of this waking world." Yes, indeed, we may wake to the world, or we may wake to Heaven, but

1 I. 250. Note on Gal. ii. 20.

VOL. XVII.-NOVEMBER, 1855.

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we cannot wake to both. Both have their realities, but the reality of the one is immortality, the reality of the other is death.

One of the first notes which he has penned, is to the effect that "such modes of expression are no longer in use among ourselves; to the best of men they would appear mystical. Yet so it was the early Church thought and felt." This, then, is what fills his pages with such unalleviated gloom! He acknowledges what the Divine life of the early Church was, and he is content to think that it is now passed away from us for ever.

Now what is the cause of this? We believe it to be the result of just one misapprehension. He has, indeed, realized the truth. of the Apostolical feelings, but he has not grasped the further truth that they were essentially Divine. He regards them in so far as they result from intensity of human belief, not in their higher aspect, as an evidence of the faithfulness of GOD to His people. He therefore passes by the prayer in the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, "The LORD direct your hearts into the love of GoD, and into the patient waiting for CHRIST," with no notice of the divinity of the HOLY GHOST SO distinctly evidenced by it, and by the kindred prayer in the First Epistle. Instead of the indwelling of the HOLY GHOST, shed forth on the Day of Pentecost to dwell with men, as the bond of fellowship, we have Communion with GOD represented rather as the crowning gift and form of highlywrought human feelings. So upon the words, "the love of GoD is shed abroad in our hearts by the HOLY GHOST Which is given unto us," he has this note: (II. 150.)

"It may be asked, Why should hope never fail, because the love of GOD is diffused in our hearts, any more than because the righteousness of GOD, or the belief in GOD is shed abroad in us? The only answer to this question is, that love expressed the feeling of the Apostle at the time."

In vain would it be for us to read that the love of God was shed abroad in our hearts, if by this were meant the feelings of the Apostle! The answer to the question here raised is evident. The righteousness of GOD would have no meaning, but for some outward standard of judgment. It would be a result of the gift of GOD, as seen from without. The belief in God would express the condition of man in his capacity for that communion. But the Love of God is the essential bond of union. GOD unites us to Himself, by giving us Himself. GOD gives Himself to us by the personal agency of the HOLY GHOST in the Body of CHRIST. GOD is love. We fear, however, that the agency of the HOLY GHOST as the third Person of the undivided TRINITY, is scarcely realized by Mr. Jowett. We tremble so to write of one holding office as a Priest and a teacher in the University of Oxford: but the truth must be spoken, though we would mingle it with prayers and

1 I. 40. Note on 1 Thess. i. 1.

tears. The significant absence of the notice of the TRINITY in the texts already mentioned, is corroborated in pejorem partem by the note upon Rom. i. 4: (II. 41.)

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“ Βy πνεῦμα ἁγιωσύνης, is not meant the HOLY SPIRIT in that more precise sense in which this term is used in other passages of Scripture, and still less in the yet more defined one of the Creeds; but that invisible power or principle whereby CHRIST holds communion with the FATHER and with His Church, as ràpg is the principle of frailty or humanity by which He is linked to human nature, and to the Jewish Dispensation."

Now if the union of CHRIST with His Church and with the FATHER (and they are both put under the same head) is only a sort of electric bond resulting from the contact of mind with mind, a mere invisible power or principle, not a communication of personal indwelling Godhead, we at once can see that the position of CHRIST, both GOD and Man, as an object of adoration, becomes very doubtful, and our own divine life as His members is reduced to a mere figure of speech. The personal agency of the HOLY GHOST as the sanctifying Spirit of adoption, the adoration involved in the doctrine of the Communicatio idiomatum, the consubstantiality of the Son with the FATHER in the unity of the Spirit of glory, are doctrines without which Christianity is a vain fabric of wordy sentimentality. They are doctrines which, if we believe them, must warm our hearts with devotion. We should be truly sorry if we could criticise any matter connected with such deeply rooted objects of love in any other than the spirit of filial love. S. Paul himself certainly could not have penned the note on the doxology in Rom. ix. 5—"Who is over all, God blessed for ever." We give some extracts from it. (II. 244, 245.)

"It is a question to which we can hardly expect to get an answer unbiassed by the interests of controversy, whether the clause is to be referred to CHRIST. .; or, as in Lachmann, to be separated from the preceding words, and regarded as a doxology to GOD the FATHER, uttered by the Apostle on a review of God's mercy to the Jewish people....

Supposing the words. . to be referred not to CHRIST but GOD, it is argued, &c.

"It is replied

"It may be added: (1) That the language here applied to CHRIST is stronger than that used elsewhere, even in the strongest passages : Tit. ii. 13; (1 Tim. iii. 16, where the reading is doubtful) Col. ii. 9. (2)

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"(3) That the introduction of the Doxology, if it be referred to CHRIST, is too abrupt a transition in a passage, the purport of which is not to honour CHRIST, but to recount the glories of the Jewish race, in the passionate remembrance of which the Apostle is carried on to the praises of GOD.

"(4) That in the phraseology of S. Paul κarà σápкa is not naturauy contrasted with Θεός, but always with ἐξ ἐπαγγελίας κατὰ πνεῦμα, and is often used without contrast.

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(5) That the word evλoynτòs is referred in the New Testament (as the corresponding word in Hebrew) exclusively to GOD the FATHER, and not to CHRIST: Mark iv. 16; Luke i. 68; Rom. i. 25."

Now to one who really believes the doctrine of our LORD's Consubstantial Godhead, it cannot matter whether a particular phrase may be used in an equally strong form elsewhere or no. The form cannot be too strong, if it is true. The words of piety are not regulated by conventionality or etiquette, but by eternal truth.

Again, who does not see that the suggestion (3) exactly points out the reason why the words must apply to CHRIST? The Apostle is recounting the glories of the Jewish race, and all their glories are summed up in this, that the Blessed Virgin of Nazareth is in truth the Mother of GOD, for CHRIST, Who is of the seed of David according to the flesh, was not raised up to intimate communion with Godhead as a reward to His individual holiness, but He is essentially and eternally the Son of the Blessed, and One GOD with the FATHER; so that the everlasting SoN came indeed to dwell among them, and took upon Him the seed of Abraham. And again, if the truth of our LORD's two natures is really believed, whatever the supposed law of S. Paul's phraseology may be, xaтà σάρκα must be naturally in the order of things opposed to Θεός, and xaτà τνεμa will be not the expression of an ideal apotheosis, but an equivalent expression of Divine unity.

Since, however, Mr. Jowett does leave the doctrine of the Eternal Sonship under the soil of such hazy verbiage, the natural consequence must be that the adoptive Sonship should fade away into a sentiment. Accordingly we find the contrast between the letter and the Spirit, described as the contrast between a name and a feeling. (II. 243. On Rom. ix. 4.)

"The sonship of the Israelite has sometimes been contrasted with the sonship of the believer as an external with a spiritual adoption. The one had the name of son; the other the feeling, whereby we cry, Abba Father."

We might be disposed to think that this reducing of our sonship as members of CHRIST to a state of feeling was a slip of the pen, but unhappily the phraseology runs through the whole work. So when we turn to Rom. viii. 14, we find the note (II. 226.)

"The Apostle proceeds to express the relation of the regenerate to GOD by a yet nearer figure; they are the sons of GOD as CHRIST is, they are the members of His family, they feel towards Him as a father, they are the heirs of His glory. In their love to Him and in His to them, in the forgiveness of their offences, in the rest of their eternal home, they are conscious that they are His children."

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