false; and Calvinism, by contradicting itself, asserts itself to be false.

Dr. Schaff's self-contradictions in his share of the commentary are of the very frankest and most transparent nature. Thus he tells us, p. 329: "Those expositors who would limit the sovereignty of the Divine will by human freedom, and deduce salvation more or less from the creature, must do great violence to the text if they make it accord with their systems." But, 1. There are no commentators who limit Divine sovereignty by human freedom. It is not Divine sovereignty which Arminian divines (for these it is whom Dr. Schaff is here inexcusably misrepresenting) hold to be limited by human freedom, but the exercise of that sovereignty. We believe that God is absolute sovereign both over nature and free agents; but we believe that he does most freely limit the exercise of that sovereignty by the laws which he has established both of nature and of agency. This is all our system claims, and this much Dr. Schaff and Calvinism are obliged to acknowledge. 2. The absolute exclusion of all deduction of "salvation," more or less, " from the creature," is the grossest and stupidest fatalism. It is contradicted by all Scripture, and contradicted, on the very next page, by Dr. S. himself, where he exhorts "each to make his own election sure, and to work out his own salvation." If a creature should do as here exhorted, work out his own salvation, would not his salvation be in some degree 66 more or less deduced from the creature?”

Again, on page 313, Dr. Schaff says, "He only is unrighteous who is under obligations which he does not fulfill; but God is under no obligations to His creature, hence can do with him what he will, (ver. 14–29.) God's will is the absolute and eternal norm of righteousness, and all that he does is necessarily right. There is no norm of righteousness above him to which he is subject, else were God not God."

At this piece of absolutism we stand aghast. A creator, forsooth, is under no more "obligation" to pursue one course than another with his creatures! One course is as right as another, and any other course is as right as this one; so the distinction of right or wrong as to the Divine character and conduct is obliterated, and the moral attributes of God are effaced at one fell swoop. Of course, the man who holds this absurd and abominable doctrine need not be troubled at the doctrine that God decrees the sin and damns the sinner. The imagination of a devil cannot conceive a course which God might not just as rightfully pursue as any other

66

course. Why, then, does Dr. Schaff attempt to show, as he elaborately does, that of all possible courses God takes just the one that is the intrinsically right one? If righteousness consists in the fulfillment of obligation, and God can be under no obligation, then God can possess no righteousness. And if God, as being under no obligation to his creature, can so do with him as he will"-that any way of willing would be right and equally right— then, surely, there can be no one particular "norm of eternal right.” If a creator, finite or infinite, is not bound or obligated to do right and not wrong to his creature, why need Dr. Schaff take pains even to predicate right of God's will at all? But it is an appalling doctrine that a creator is under no obligation of specific right toward his creature. If a father owes duties to the child he begets, much more a creator to the being he originates. To say that because he created him he could do no injustice to him, that the creature has no claim of justice or goodness from him, is a truly accursed absurdity; absurdity, because contradictory to our intuitive reason; accursed, because absolutely abhorrent to our moral sense. The talk about such an obligation being "above him," and so undeifying God, is the shallowest of ad captandum. It is like an Eastern despot's saying, in an old play, that he is "above slavery to his promise," as if absolution from moral obligation was any elevation, or subjection to it any degradation to any being. Did Abraham think it any degradation in the Judge of all the earth to be obligated to do not wrong but right? Did the Apostle think it any degradation that God cannot lie? Is not God, as the self-existent Being, under necessity to exist; and is not that necessity just as truly "above him" as moral obligation? Does the necessity under which God is to be omniscient and omnipotent, undeify him? Surely he does not cease to be God because he must be God. Neither does he cease to be God because he is under moral obligation to be a righteous God. Nay, the necessity of that very "eternal norm of right," which Dr. Schaff holds, is as truly upon God and 66 over him," and so undeifies God as truly as the view he opposes. And if "all he does is necessarily right," is he not under a necessity of doing and being right, with a necessity "above him," and, therefore, no longer God? The being morally obligated to right no more degrades Him than the fact that "all he does is necessarily right."

Biblically, this volume adds something to our literature; theologically, nothing.

The Dogmatic Faith: An Inquiry into the Relation subsisting between Revelation and Dogma, in Eight Lectures, preached before the University of Oxford in the year 1867, on the foundation of the late Rev. John Bampton, M. A., Canon of Salisbury. By EDWARD GARBETT, M. A., Incumbent of Christ Church. 12mo., pp. 307. London, Cambridge, and Oxford: Rivington's. Boston: Gould & Lincoln.

We think the title of this book would have correctly expressed its import had it been thus worded: Historic Christianity, exhibited in its Central Position, and in its Relation to the Religious Sentiment, to the Intuitions, to Philosophical Speculation, to Modern Civilization, and to Conscience. And as such it is one of the best presentations of the claims of Christianity upon our firm belief, of the present day. The Christian argument is presented, in our opinion, in its true shape, the historical argument as main and central, and all the other as valuable indeed, but subsidiary. The logic of Mr. Garbett is forcible and compact, his style fresh and vigorous, abounding in magnificent periods and brief, sententious expressions, well calculated as permanent embodiments of great principles. The work is worthy to stand by the side of Liddon's Bampton Lectures, as a fit and scarce inferior associate.

Historic Christianity is in our possession, embodied in the Holy Scriptures, and traceable, in a luminous and unmistakable succession, back to the divine Christ himself. The Church of all sections holds those Scriptures in its hand, historically authentic, and a train full and strong of her master-minds extends from Christ to the present hour, showing that while the Church has been the historic custodian of the Scriptures, the Scriptures are the charter and the master of the Church. A scheme of Christian doctrine there is, embodied in the creeds of all the great Churches, ever having been claimed to be authenticated by Scripture, of which the Nicene Creed is a fair average representative, and which is held by the Church of England, and by the forty various confessions of Christendom. This is our concrete, incisive, historic Christian faith, which undeniably did not exist in the year of Rome 747, (the birth-year of Christ,) and did exist in the year of Rome 847 in its full and graphic completeness. This faith, according to all the contemporary documents, came from the lips of the Supernatural One, whose voice was self-pronounced to be the voice of God.

Such is historical Christianity. It is definite, structural, demonstrable. With all the variety of freedoms within its area, admitting full play for idiosyncracies and live discussions, we can draw a rigorous outline around it. By the definiteness and vigor of that boundary line we can unceremoniously cut off the ancient FOURTH SERIES, VOL. XXII.—9

Ebionitisms and Gnosticisms, as well as their modern identities, the Unitarianisms, Rationalisms, and semi-infidelities that hover around her margin and illegitimately claim the Christian name. With that same sharp historic outline we cut off the modern accretions which Rome has attempted to gather on the faith, upon the historic beginning of which we are able to put our finger and say they did not exist until such and such a time. Thus do we eliminate every foreign element, and have an amply firm ascertainment of the specific identity of our Christianity.

And now in what relations does this concrete structural Christianity stand to the various rivals, as enumerated in the title we have above suggested for the book, presented by modern skepti<cal thought? The relations, we answer, of real subordination, or of hopeless inferiority. The so-called Religious Sentiment, which reveals itself as the basis of the various religious notions of differ ent ages, nations, and individuals, is nothing but man's susceptibility to spiritual truth. As a mere susceptibility, and not a formative activity, it can give no positive shape to notions, but receives them as fancy or circumstance collects them upon its receptivity. Historic Christianity is entitled to take them as crude matter and give them its own shape. The Intuitions, when their respective validities are ascertained, are taken by Historic Christianity, checked in their overgrowth, supplemented in their deficiencies, assigned their proper place, and embodied into her own system. Philosophical Speculation, which begins with subjective ideas, continues in subjective ideas, and ends in subjective ideas, ever undoes itself, being ever obliged to acknowledge its own incapacity for settled result, and has in fact arrived at the full confession of its own invalidity in the philosophy of Comte. Historic Christianity, as an objective fact, acknowledges no identity with the abstractions which Comteism justly banishes from existence, but asserts her positive place in a true catholic Positive Philosophy. Christ is as true an historic character as Julius Cæsar; and his true Christianity, as a structural dogma, is as historical as the Roman Empire; with the existence of either "speculation" has nothing to do. Even Comte does not expel history from the domain of true knowledge.

The relations of the Christian dogma to Conscience, space obliges us to omit. Its relations to Civilization Mr. Garbett ably but, by necessity, too briefly develops. He maintains that for want of a moral basis founded on religious dogma, ancient civilizations literally rotted, and prematurely perished. Christian civili

zation is already long-lived, and is ever increasing in vitality. He enumerates, as causes of this ever-renewing life, seven distinctive moral superiorities of modern over the ancient civilizations, and specifies the dogmas on which each is based. There is here room for a broader treatment, requiring a volume for its completion. We are surprised that among the distinctive advantages of modern civilization over the ancient Mr. Garbett does not mention the Church, with its Bible, its Sabbath, and its ministry. A chapter, too, is needed, showing the relations between Historic Christianity and modern Humanitarianism. How permanent and based the former, how ephemeral and fungus the latter; how self-conceited is the latter to show off its superiority over, and play off its attacks against, the former, Mr. Garbett, from his high historic stand-point, could show with a masterly effect.

The Divine Mysteries: The Divine Treatment of Sin, and the Divine Mystery of Peace. By J. BALDWIN BROWN. 12mo., pp. 397. New York: Carlton & Lanahan. 1869.

sum.

Judging from his printed pages, we should pronounce Baldwin Brown the prince of the English pulpit at the present day. We have found nothing in Punshon, in Spurgeon, in Liddon, in Garbett superior to the splendor, intensity, and pathos blended in rich varieties in some of his pages. No pulpit periods have we read since the days of Chalmers (whom he is entirely unlike) which we should so like to have heard thundered with all the grace and power of the orator by the-or at least by a-Demosthenem ipThe themes which he treats lie in the very marrow of the Gospel system. All the powers of his soul are given to present the central truths in their intensest vividness, and so to present them as to make them not only seen but felt, felt to the very depths of the soul. Sin, guilt, misery, death, hell, redemption, grace, glory, heaven-what stupendous themes are these! What higher can the orator demand, and what higher vocation than to wreak their highest power upon the souls of men? These are Mr. Brown's themes, and all the powers of language and of thought are tasked to exhibit them in all their solemn, their terrible, and their glorious realities.

The present volume combines two works originally published at different periods of time. The first, "The Divine Treatment of Sin," is much the more powerful of the two. Man is portrayed as developed into the fearful dignity of an unfolded free agency by the fall; sin as permitted wisely, yet not decreed by God; the