Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

which, on all sides, is admitted to be the ablest work against it on the side of the Rationalists.

In the second article, Professor Karl Wieseler, one of the most learned exegetical writers of Germany, enters into a learned investigation of the age and the contents of the apocryphal Fourth Book of Ezra, one of the most important Jewish writings of the time of Christ. This work has of late become a favorite object of exegetical research. Ewald has published the Arabic text, with various readings, of the Ethiopic translation, (Das 4te, Ezrabuch, 1863;) Volkmar, a new edition of the Latin text, (Handbuch der Einleitung in die Apocryphen, second edition, 1863;) Ceriani, the Syriac text, with a Latin translation, (Monumenta sacra et profana ex codicibus præsertim biblioth. Ambrosianæ, 18611868,) and Hilgenfeld, a Latin translation of the Armenian text, by Petermann, (Messias Judæorum, 1869.) The opinions of the scholars about the origin of the book still vary from the time of Cæsar to that of Domitian. Wieseler endeavors to confirm the opinion expressed by him in a former writing, that it was compiled under the Emperor Domitian.

ZEITSCHRIFT FUR HISTORISCHE THEOLOGIE. (Journal for Historical Theology.) 1870. Second Number. 1. NOBBE, Life of Dr. Hieronymus Weller. 2. SCHURER, The Easter Controversy of the Second Century. 3. Cassiodori Reinii Epistolæ tredecim ad Matthiam Ritterum datæ. 4. Letter of Charles V. to the King of Poland, written by A. VALDES.

ZEITSCHRIFT FUR WISSENSCHAFTLICHE THEOLOGIE. (Journal of Scientific Theology, edited by Professor Hilgenfeld.) 1870. Second Number. 1. WERNER, Conscience, an Ethical Essay. 2. HILGENFELD, New Works on the Gospels. 3. PFLEIDERER, The Evangelical Narrative on the Temptation of Jesus. 4. NOLDEKE, Further Remarks on the Unhistoric Character of Genesis xlv. 5. SPIEGEL, Some Remarks on the Family Jerusalem.

ART. XII.-QUARTERLY BOOK-TABLE.

Religion, Theology, and Biblical Literature.

Rome and Italy at the Opening of the Ecumenical Council. Depicted in Twelve Letters Written from Rome to a Gentleman in America. By EDMOND DE PRESSENSE, Pastor of the Evangelical Church in Paris. Translated by Rev. GEORGE PRENTICE, A. M. 12mo., pp. 327. New York: Carlton & Lanahan. Cincinnati: Hitchcock & Walden. 1870.

[ocr errors]

The "Gentleman in America" is any American who is wise enough to buy and read the book. The " "Letters were received from Rome in the author's autograph by Carlton & Lanahan, and FOURTH SERIES, VOL. XXII.-19

printed as fast as received. They are fresh, therefore, from Rome, and fresh from De Pressensé.

Of Pressensé the "North British Review" says, "His sentences are like cut crystal." In his Mystery of Suffering, the "Foreign Evangelical Review " finds "the same intellectual power, the same exquisite felicity of diction, the same sustained and dignified eloquence, and the same persuasive, invigorating Christian thought which are conspicuous in his Life of Christ." Pages of similar eulogy might be quoted from the foreign periodicals. His glowing classic eloquence, his expansive mental clearness, his lofty assertion of the principles of both faith and freedom, are winning him a high place in the heart of Protestant Christendom. His theology is Melanchthonian, varying a shade from the views of Wesley, while in minor details he exercises a free individualism on points in which we differ from him, but with no vital difference.

In the present work he gives free range to his powers. He expatiates over the scenes of natural beauty which wonderful Italy spreads before his eye. He lingers in delighted yet critical enthusiasm among her multitudinous works of art. He walks the Roman streets and paints the monuments of the past and movements of the living present. He descends into those wonders of subterranean Rome, the Catacombs, where lie the nations of the dead in one vast monumental city, cut by nine hundred miles of streets, and where the epitaphs of a whole glorious army of martyrs reveal to us the wonders and glories of the early faith. In the great pivotal questions of the age he is at home. He understands their genesis from the history of Europe. His penetrative eye reads Papal Rome through and through. His prescient eye sees hope only in the far future; a period of blessed sunshine after Europe has tried the awful experiment of utter Godlessness. Even while the Council was commencing its sessions at Rome a convention of Atheists were assembling at Naples. Dismal was its failure; but in the great current of public thought Pressensé recognizes a growing rejection of God, for which nothing but a temporary but complete success can be the remedy. Evangelical Protestantism tries its hand in vain. The listless ear of Italy will not listen. O for a mighty Savonarola, a divinely anointed missionary, bearing down all opposition by the power of the spirit that is in him, and rearing the standard of the holy Evangels to rescue this fair land from Atheism and despair! Such is the prayer of De Pressensé; and surely no American Christian will fail to send across the ocean his earnest response.

The Gospel according to St. Matthew. With Notes: Intended for Sabbath-Schools, Families, and Ministers. By NATHANIEL MARSHMAN WILLIAMS. With Illustrations. 12mo., pp. 332. Boston: Gould & Lincoln. New York: Sheldon & Co. 1870.

As a scholarly production for popular use Mr. Williams's Matthew is a marked success, indicating that he need not fear to finish the New Testament in similar style. He brings down his work to the latest dates. He states and maintains his views as a Baptist without reserve, but without just offense to those from whom he differs. For those desiring a manual Calvinistic Commentary later than Barnes, and free from the pedantic heaviness of Owen, this is the proper book.

Mr. Williams quotes a statement of our own implying that Calvinism maintains that God decrees the sin and damns the sinner for the sin decreed, and says that such doctrine is taught neither by Baptists, Congregationalists, nor Episcopalians. But, dear Mr. Williams, do not Baptists and Congregationalists teach that God, anterior to all foreknowledge, foreordains whatsoever comes to pass? If God foreordains sin he decrees sin, and also decrees the damnation for that decreed sin. That is, he decrees the sin and damns the sinner.

Robert Barclay's Apology is on our table, and from it we present to Mr. Williams the following extracts from Calvinistic standards, on his unquestionable authority:

"I say, that by the ordination and will of God Adam fell. God would have man to fall. Man is blinded by the will and commandment of God. We refer the causes of hardening us to God. The highest or remote cause of hardening is the will of God. It followeth that the hidden counsel of God is the cause of hardening." These are Calvin's expressions. "God," saith Beza, "hath predestinated not only unto damnation, but also unto the causes of it, whomsoever he saw meet." "The decree of God cannot be excluded from the causes of corruption." "It is certain," saith Zanchius, "that God is the first cause of obduration. Reprobates are held so fast under God's almighty decree that they cannot but sin and perish." "It is the opinion," saith Paræus, "of our doctors, that God did inev itably decree the temptation and fall of man. The creature sinneth indeed necessarily, by the most just judgment of God. Our men do most rightly affirm that the fall of man was necessary and inevitable, not by accident, because of God's decree." God," saith Martyr, "doth incline and force the wills of wicked men into great sins." "God," saith Zuinglius, "moveth the robber to kill. He killeth, God forcing him thereunto. But thou wilt say, He is forced to sin; I permit, truly, that he is forced."**"Reprobate persons," saith Piscator, "are absolutely ordained to this twofold end-to undergo everlasting punishment, and necessarily to sin; and therefore to sin, that they may be justly punished."++

66

If Calvin and his followers do not here teach that God decrces the sin and damns the sinner for the sin decreed, please let it be shown.

*Calvin in cap. 3. Gen. 1d. 1. Inst. c. 18. S., Id. lib. de Præd. Id. lib. de Provid. Id. Inst. c. 23, S. 1. + Beza, lib. de Præd.

§ Zanch. de Excæcat, q. 5. Id. ib. 5 de Nat. Dei. cap. 2, de Præd.

Parens, lib 8, de Amis, gratiæ, c. 2. Ibid. c. 1. **Zuing. lib. de Prov. c. 5.

‡ Id. de Præd. ad. Art. 1.

Martyr in Rom.

++ Resp. ad Vorst. pa. 1, p. 120

We believe in the distinction made between the understanding and the spirit in the human mind. Creeds are framed by the former, and worship breathed by the latter. We do beyond doubt adore the same God whom the spirit of the Calvinist worships, but it would be an awful sin in us to worship the God his creed describes.

Sermons of R. Winter Hamilton, D. D., LL. D., Author of "Rewards and Punishments,' "Pastoral Appeals," etc. 12mo., pp. 480. New York: Carlton & Lanahan. San Francisco: E. Thomas. Cincinnati: Hitchcock & Walden. 1870.

"Write their memorial quickly," said Richard Winter Hamilton, "for ministers are soon forgotten." But Hamilton himself has not been forgotten. Scattered through our country there are single ministers, even of our own Church, who have fallen upon some production of his, and have hoarded it up as a rare treasure trove. The entertaining author of the Lamp of the Temple says that Dr. Stowell's biography of Hamilton, "a rag of a book," "shows that it is quite possible to write a very bad biography of a very great man." "It is not enough to say that it was a bad biography; it is the worst biography of a glorious man we ever read."

Hamilton was celebrated for his conversational powers, his wide range of learning, his commanding oratory. His sermons remind us of what we heard once said of Dempster in his younger days: "He laid his foundations in the skies, and built upward." There is a grandeur in their build, there is a largeness in their component parts, that reminds you of an old cathedral. Of all American preachers he reminds us most of Henry B. BasBut what strikes one as a difference is, that with Bascom the grand pulpit oration was the end; when he had finished and received the assurance that his sermon was an oratorical success his entire object seemed gained. With the burning as well as lofty soul of Hamilton it was but a means, an instrument, upon which, as a production, he set no high estimate, since he was looking to a further end-the success of the cause for which he wrought.

com.

His sermons cannot be recommended as a model. They serve as a mental stimulus. They are grand Miltonian poems. At the same time they are rich unfoldings of sacred truths, clothed in a style that tasks our language, and ennobling conceptions that task the reader's imagination.

The Prefatory Memoir of the author is-and we know not why

the title page fails to say-written by Bishop Simpson. This Memoir is not, like Stowell's, "a rag of a book," but it does slender justice to Hamilton's stature of manhood.

An Apology for the True Christian Divinity, As the Same is Held Forth and Preached by the People in Scorn called Quakers. Being a Full Explanation and Vindication of their Principles and Doctrines, by Many Arguments deduced from Scripture and Right Reason. By ROBERT BARCLAY. Original Edition in Latin. First English Edition, 1678. Thirteenth Edition. 12mo., pp. 384. Manchester: William Irvin. 1869.

Whether there exists an American edition of Barclay's celebrated Apology we know not. We have not seen it since our boyhood, when we read it with singular interest. The copy before us reaches us from England, with greetings from an unknown "Friend," whose autographical name is " Joseph Armfield, South Place, Finsbury." There is a grave and simple dignity in Barclay's style which well represents the cause he explains and defends. There is much of a true and rich evangelicism in the doctrines he presents; much that is apostolical in his spirit. He is true to the doctrines of the Trinity, the Atonement, the perfection of Christian life, the free probation of man. There is a great truth in the doctrine of the "Inner Light." But when we come to his doctrine of worship, we at once see why it is, that with so much that is beautiful and holy, Quakerism is dwindling to a failure. This doctrine is a form of the old Antinomian "wait God's time." The Christian soul must be a passivity until the Spirit breathes it into activity. Voluntary and stated worship is idolatry. From this view arise inactivity, stupor, and death. We are sorry; there is so much that is sweet and tranquilizing in true Quaker piety that we can ill spare it in these noisy days.

Lane's Bibelwerk. Proverbs, by Dr. Otto Zöckler, Professor of Theology at Griefwald. Translated and Edited by Rev. CHARLES AIKEN, Ph. D., Union College. Ecclesiastes, by Otto Zöckler. Edited by Professor TAYLER LEWIS. Translated by Professor WILLIAM WELLS, Union College. Song of Solomon, by Otto Zöckler. Translated, with additions, by W. H. GREEN, D. D., Professor, Princeton College. 8vo., pp. 594. New York: Charles Scribner & Co. This volume is, we think, the gem of the set. After Genesis, no part of the Old Testament presents a more perplexing problem than these products of the Solomonian Theosophy. The blended genius of Germany and America has contrived to furnish as good a solution of the whole as ever was bound in a single volume. In Proverbs we find inspiration coming to the sphere of common sense and practical good conduct, exhibiting religion in

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »