THE NONCONFORMIST

PULPIT.

THE DIVINE LIFE IN MAN.

By James Baldwin Brown, B.A., Minister of Clayland's Chapel, Clapham-road, London. London: Ward and Co.

SERMONS. By the Rev. Henry John

Gamble, Author of "Paul the Apostle," "Scripture Baptism," &c. London: John Snow.

SERMONS. By Edwin Paxton Hood, Minister of the Offord Road Church and Congregation; Author of the "Earnest Minister;" "Wordsworth, a Biography;" "Self-Formation," &c. London: Judd and Glass.

THE CONGREGATIONAL PULPIT. Conducted by the Rev. J. G. Horton. Vol. VIII. London: Judd and Glass.

THERE are certain truths which form the ground-work of the whole Christian system, and on which its entire superstructure rests-certain central verities, without which we can no more adjust and harmonise the various statements and disclosures of the Christian Testament, than we can explain the sublime and beautiful mechanism of the heavens in the absence of those suns and centres around which all the other bodies move. The doctrine of the Atonement is the chief of these. And if there be a full and hearty attachment to the doctrine of Christ the Crucified, then in every other truth, whether more immediately or more remotely related to this great central one, there will be equal confidence and repose; and with the heart peacefully resting in these sublime and saving verities, the preacher will desire, and labour, to make them known in all their grandeur and entireness.

And here we think Mr. Brown, in his admirable volume, which we have

placed at the head of this article, has laid himself open to serious misapprehension. After setting forth, by a process of reasoning of the most forcible and conclusive character, the utter helplessness and hopelessness of humanity as the consequence of sin, and the need there is of some supernatural intervention on behalf of man, he proceeds to treat of the Gospel as the organ through which the power of God reveals and exerts itself in the reproduction of the Divine life in the soul. Now, it is just here that we should have expected to find some distinct and full deliverance on the nature and efficacy of the Atonement, as involving in itself every other fact and truth of the Christian system. But while he throws away from him the mere subjective view of the Atonement, in which it "is conceived of as simply acting on the human spirit, and setting right its relations to God by kindling its love;" while he believes that the Incarnate One was, "in some other than the subjective sense, wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities," he yet declines to

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enter into what may be conceived of as the element of the Atonement." But why should Mr. Brown shrink from this duty? His volume has in it such a compass and power as to justify the belief that his hand might grasp the spear of Achilles with success. He admits that "the sense of guilt is among the most real and deep of human experiences, "and hence that while the first element of the power of the Gospel lies in the Gospel doctrine of sin, the second element is to be found in the atonement offered for the sins of the world." Then we ask, What is the Atonement? But instead of a direct

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and explicit answer, Mr. Brown says:

"The question must be fully considered by every thoughtful mind which seeks to attain to an intelligent creed, whether we are to fix our thoughts on the sufferings of Christ as so much mere suffering, and as offering, because it is suffering, a satisfaction to Divine justice, abstracting this from the choir of attributes amidst which it shines; or whether we are to regard the loving obedience of Christ, of which, in a body of sinful flesh, intense suffering was a necessary condition and illustration, as offering an altogether higher satisfaction to the Father than mere suffering could afford. I content myself with the broad fact, patent on every page of the New Testament, that the work of Christ, His life, death, resurrection, and ascension, did offer that before the Father on which, as on a substantial rock, the edifice of redemption could be built; and did bring out the whole harmony of the Divine nature in the forgiveness of the guilt of the world." We do believe that the life of Christ was just as redeeming as His death; but we do not believe, nor is it the belief of the catholic Church, that mere suffering, because it is suffering, constituted the Atonement. Patent as the broad fact may be on every page of the New Testament, that Christ did offer it before the Father on which the edifice of redemption could be built, it is just as patent that he offered himself to God, and that on this offering rests the whole scheme of remedial mercy. Mr. Brown concedes, that "man, strange and incredible as it may seem, is jealous of the honour of the Divine law;" that," in vain had the Gospel -God forgives-been preached, if man had not been able to see that it is righteous and godlike in God to forgive;" and that "the awful expenditure of the agony of Christ was needed to give effect to the simple sentence, God forgives the sins of the world;" we go farther, and say, needed as a basis on which to

rest that simple sentence; but, letting that pass, it is granted that the honour of the Divine law" must be maintained and vindicated, to make even man see that it is righteous in God to forgive. For nothing more than this, so far as we know, does the most orthodox disciple of the most orthodox school contend. It gives us all that we can desire or ask on this vital and momentous point.

But we think we see where Mr. Brown differs from the generaliy received opinion. The great object of his work is to bring out the fatherhood of God in all its prominence and completeness, and it is on the fact of God's fatherhood that he rests the idea of God's sovereignty. We must first have the existence of a creation, before we can set up the machinery of administration; then we are to enceive that out of his paternity flows his authority-that his love is the foundation of his rule. But his fatherly love is abused, and the Law which is based on that love is broke and now what course is to be adopted” Is the Ruler to come out in the future conduct of the Father! Oris the Father to be revealed in the conduct of the Ruler? Mr. Brown believes the former view; we 03hesitatingly adopt the latter, nx because it is more in harmony with general consent, but because it is in stricter accordance with the teachings of the Christian volume. When it is said that "God hath set forth his son to be a propitist.. a through faith in his blood," it is not even hinted by the Apostle that this was done to express the exuberatoe of Divine love, or the riches of Gods mercy, though these are involved in the fact, but to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God" and as if the Apostle wished to give emphasis to the truth of s assertion, he adds, “ to declare, I say, his RIGHTEOUSNESS; that he mit be just, and the justifier of him ta believeth in Jesus." Here His righte ousness is made the medium through

which to reveal the riches of His grace. So again in the words, "Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound; that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord ;" the fact stands out with Divine distinctness, that the grace has revealed itself through the righteousness, and not the righteousness through the grace. In other words, it is because all the requirements of unbending righteousness have been fully met, that grace is so freely dispensed. The claims of righteousness being neither sacrificed nor modified, justice can lay no restriction on the exercise and the distributions of Divine mercy; it is upon the secure foundation thus established that mercy erects her throne, and scatters far and wide the blessings of a full and everlasting forgiveness. Before the fall, the righteousness of God revealed itself in and through His fatherhood; but now the fatherhood reveals itself in and through His righteousness-"He hath made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Through him we have access by one spirit unto the Father. He is the way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh unto the Father but by him. We have received not the spirit of bondage again unto fear; but we have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba, Father."

We have written this in candid eriticism of Mr. Brown's sermons, because we are convinced that Mr. Brown has looked at the subject of Atonement from a mistaken point of view, and because we believe the setting forth of this great central truth in its full integrity constitutes the life and power of the Christian Pulpit in our day-as it has done in the past, and will do through all time. But whatever may be the grave exceptions we are compelled to take to some statements in Mr. Brown's volume, it would seem like exaggeration to those who have not read it, if

we fully expressed our idea of the ability, earnestness, and high-minded sincerity of its author.

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Whether we consider its mental grasps, its hearty utterance, its rich and varied illustrations, its full sympathy with the sorrows and sicknesses of humanity, its depth of truth, and withal the originality and vigour both of its conceptions and style, this volume of sermons is a production of rare merit, which will command the attention and quicken the best feelings of every reader. To some minor defects, however, we must refer. The style, we have said, is remarkably good-vivid and affluent, almost classical in its accuracy and refinement-but it is a little too feverish and uniform in its emphasis, and is occasionally disfigured by an awkward Latinism and Helleneeism. We have also been offended by a slight infusion of conventional phraseology in the somewhat frequent recurrence of such phrases as "the echoes of the ages," "the wisdom of the ages," &c., which smack strongly of that odious modern Carlylese," which a writer of pure English will jealously avoid. Then, there is a sort of chevalesque Quixotism; indeed, a certain cliquishness in Mr. Brown's exclusive reference to living men, which is open to censure. The dedication of his volume to J. A. Scott, his commendation of Mr. M'Leod Campbell's dubious book on the Atonement, his unqualified and invidious eulogy of Mr. Maurice, are the only references in the book by which we can gather Mr. Brown's relation to living thinkers, or to any existing section of the Church of Christ. Now, we regret this, because it either shows a narrowness of theological reading and sympathy, which we will not impute to Mr. Brown, or it arises from an unwise charity, that seeks especially to exalt and eulogize these men because he thinks they have been peculiarly disparaged in his own denomination. As to the dedication, and the commendation of Mr. M'Leod Campbell's work, we have little right to speak, save to

declare that we cannot endorse the latter; but in Mr. Brown's reference to Mr. Maurice he has given us cause to demand a retraction or fuller explanation of the terms in which he speaks of that voluminous writer. He implicates and identifies his ministerial brethren with himself in the lofty eulogium, and the expression of profound indebtedness, he tenders to him. We do not know what ground Mr. Brown may have for speaking in the name of his brethren, but it is a serious matter to commit a whole denomination to such an exaggerated and, we believe, erroneous estimate of Mr. Maurice. We believe Mr. Brown has spoken out of the fulness of his own heart, and has imagined it impossible that others should not coincide with his judgment of a man for whom he has so great reverence; but we know they do not; and we trust that in the new edition of his volume about to be published, the unguarded phrase to which we allude will be erased, for we speak of our personal connections and in the name of many men of Mr. Brown's age and position in his denomination, that we regard Mr. Maurice's theological teaching to be throughout unreasoned, crude, and mystical; while his expositions of cardinal articles of Christian doctrine, such as Inspiration and Atonement, are allied to, and borrowed from, the Socinian theology, and are alike unscriptural and irrational, as they are opposed to the "communis sensus" of the catholic Christian church.

contrasts strikingly but pleasantly with the rapid energy and force of Mr. Brown's. These are pastoriks. With lucid, even lustrous language, Mr. Gamble descants upon his there. throwing about it the warm-tempered light of a healthful, fruitful day. Hs thoughts have a murmurous, meditative chime in their flow; they are clear as running streams, and as refreshing. Few sermons we have

read have won us more by the simplicity and beauty of their style, and the pastoral freshness of their nume rous expositions of and illustrations of Scripture.

In Mr. Paxton Hood we have much that is strong and stirring, but his discourses are better adapted for public delivery than for private reading. In him we have a differei type from either Mr. Brown or Mr. Gamble, and he should not be brought into comparison with either. He is, in some respects, sui generit; and of his productions we must jude accordingly. There is in his writi much that we like; but these published discourses give us no true ides of the man. In their publication he has not done himself justice, and the public will demand something difer ent from what we have here, when he next takes up his pen for this species of composition. He is fully equal to something of another order, and, therefore, we accept the present volume only as an instalment.

The "Congregational Pulpit," of which this is the eighth volume, is the outgrowth of many minds, and as a volume of not entirely homogeneous materials, it scarcely is subject to the laws of ordinary criticism. It has, however, high pretensions, and meris its claims. These we freely admit: and within the range of the vole there is much that is entitled to the highest commendation.

Having read these volumes, with some others, which have been re

• Two volumes we reserve for spec.a. and fuller notice next month, namely, Truths," by Rev. C. Stanford, and -Dr Cavendish Pulpit," by Rev. J. Parker.