III. QUARTERLY REVIEW OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, SOUTH, October, IV. BROWNSON'S QUARTERLY REVIEW, October, 1859.-1. The Immaculate Concep- V. THE CHRISTIAN REVIEW, October, 1859.-1. Dr. Carson and the Romish Controversy: 2. The Philosophy of History: 3. The Old Testament in the Discourses of Jesus: 4. Ministerial Success: 5. The Angel Jehovah: 6. Remarks on Matthew, xi, 2-14: 7. The Relation of Christ's Death to the Law, or Righteousness of God. VI. THE SOUTHERn Baptist Review, July-September, 1859.-1. Able Ministry: 2. Who Vote in a Congregational Church: 3. Conduct in the Kingdom of Christ: 4. Divine Love vs. Universalism: 5. Ordinances Administered by PedoBaptists: 6. The New Heavens and New Earth: 7. Notes on the Revelation: 8. China Mission: 9. Eclectic Department. VIL THE EVANGELICAL REVIEW, October, 1859.-1. The Christian Ministry: 2. English Lutheran Hymn Books: 3. Schmid's Dogmatic of the Lutheran Church: 4. Reminiscences of Lutheran Clergymen: 5. Justification by Faith alone: 6. The Relations of the Vegetable to the Animal World, etc.: 7 and 8. Baccalaureate Addresses: 9. What is the Result of Science with Regard to the Primitive World? 10. Schmucker's Catechism. VIII. THE MERcersburg Review, October, 1859.-1. Religion and Christianity: 2. Christian Union and the Liturgical Tendencies of the Times: 3. AngloGerman Life in America: 4. Faith and Knowledge: 5. The Idyls of Theocritus: 6. The Eutychian Churches: 7. Every Man is the Lord's in Death: A Discourse. By Dr. Rauch. IX. THE CONGREGATIONAL QUARTERLY, October, 1859.-1. William Phillips: 2. Adaptation of Congregationalism for the Work of Home Missions: 3. Congregational Churches and Ministers in Windham County, Ct.: 4. Mortuary Statistics of the Andover Theological Seminary, Andover, during the First Fifty Years: 5. The American Home Missionary Society, and the New School General Assembly: 6. Ventilation of Churches: 7. The Creeds of the World: 8. Architecture and Christian Principle: 9. American Denominational Statistics: 10. Congregational Theological Seminaries in England: 11. A Lesson from the Past: Catechising: 12. Gilbert Richmond: 13. Books of Interest to Congregationalists: 14. Congregational Necrology: 15. Congregational Quarterly Record. X. BIBLIOTHECA SACRA AND BIBLICAL REPOSITORY, October, 1859.-1. Comparative Phonology; or, the Phonetic System of the Indo-European Languages: 2. The Atonement, a Satisfaction for the Ethical Nature of both God and Man: 3. Breckenridge's Theology: 4. India: The Bhagvat Geeta: 5. The Angel of Jehovah: 6. The Oneness of God in Revelation and in Nature. XI. THE PRESBYTERIAN QUARTERLY REVIEW, October, 1859.-1. How should Natural Ability be Preached? 2. Popular Objections to Divine Goodness from the Existence of Evil: 3. The General Assembly's Plan for Increasing the Ministry: 4. Humboldt: 5. The Princeton Review's Criticism on "Barnes on the Atonement." XII. THE BIBLICAL REPERTORY AND PRINCETON REVIEW, October, 1859.-1. Sir William Hamilton: 2. A Nation's Right to Worship God: 3. The Old Testament Idea of a Prophet: 4. The Presbyterian Church in Ireland: 5. Sunday Laws. XIII. THE NEW ENGLANDER, November, 1859.-1. Christianity a Strong System; 2. Robertson's Sermons and Extempore Preaching; 3. Development and Evolution; 4. Dr. Taylor on Moral Government; 5. Dr. Bellows on the Suspense of Faith; 6. Dr. Osgood on the Broad Church; 7. The New Northwest; 8. Co-oper ation in Home Missions-The American Home Missionary Society and the Church Extension Committee; 9. Agricultural Education; 10. The Moral of Harper's Ferry. THE article on Dr. Taylor on Moral Government, by Professor Martin, occupying nearly seventy pages, presents the New Haven theology with much ability, in a very favorable light. The most remarkable part is its discussion on the Divine admission of sin. Until Dr. Taylor, the doctrine has passed as an uncontradicted maxim in Calvinistic theology, that sin was necessary, or at least conducive to the highest good of the universe. The logical result of course is, that good and evil are but two classes of actual good, and that Satan fulfills his mission of peculiar good as approvably as Gabriel. Dr. Edwards's formula was that "sin was the occasion of the greatest good." Dr. Hopkins held "sin through Divine interposition an advantage to the universe." Dr. West, with an affirmative meaning, queried, "Whether the existence and taking place of sin are not the occasion of more and greater good in the system than could otherwise have been effected and produced?" Dr. Taylor introduced into Calvinistic theology the Arminian view that the free moral agency, involving the possibility of sin, was necessary to the best universe; yet the actual commission of sin by the moral agent was neither necessary, nor most conducive to the best estate of things. Did the agent always will right, the universe might be better; and yet this may be the best universe in the nature of things possible. The writer, if we understand him, supposes this doctrine to be original with Dr. Taylor. He endeavors to sustain Dr. Taylor's originality by misstating the Wesleyan view; first quoting an irrelevant passage from Wesley, which he misrepresents, and then quoting Bledsoe "as sympathizing with Wesley." The passage from Wesley quoted by him is as follows: "Yea, mankind have gained by the fall a capacity, first, of being more holy and happy on earth, and secondly, of being more happy in heaven than otherwise they could have been. For if man had not fallen, there must have been a blank in our faith and in our love." Now this passage affirms only what everybody holds to be true, that in our remedial system a particular evil has been overruled by God so as to eventuate in a higher good to our race, all the thanks being due to God and none to the evil. The good has not its cause in the evil, but in the power and goodness of God, who made it a sequence of the evil. But Mr. Wesley's real doctrine was that it was the possibility of evil (involved in free moral agency) and not its reality, which was necessary to the best system. Thus he says: "Why is there pain in the world; seeing God is loving to every man, and his mercy is over all his works?" Because there is sin; had there been no sin, there would have been no pain. But pain (supposing God to be just) is the necessary effect of sin. But why is there sin in the world? Because man was created in the image of God; because he is not mere matter, a clod of earth, a lump of clay, without sense or understanding; but a spirit like his Creator, a being endued not only with sense and understanding, but also with a will exerting itself in various affec tions. To crown all the rest, he was endued with liberty; a power of directing his own affections and actions; a capacity of determining himself, or of choosing good or evil. Indeed, had not man been endued with this, all the rest would have been of no use: had he not been a free as well as an intelligent being, his understanding would have been as incapable of holiness, or any kind of virtue, as a tree or a block of marble. And having this power, a power of choosing good or evil, he chose the latter: he chose evil. Thus 'sin entered into the world,' and pain of every kind preparatory to death." From this we see that, according to Wesley, free moral agency was necessary to the best system, and sin is produced by the agent. And this in itself he holds, not for any purpose desirable or necessary, or conducive to the highest good, but as imputable to the agent, and demanding a remedy, and an overruling to a good result contrary to its own nature. As to Mr. Bledsoe, he "sympathizes with Wesley" just so far as he agrees with Wesley, and no further; but agreeing or not, he is no Wesleyan authority. After Dr. Taylor had vindicated the Divine Government by introducing into his system the Arminian view of sin, it is sad to see how he is obliged, by his Calvinistic position, to overthrow his own work by the admission of the principle of "pre-ordination." "Evil being connected with the system by no necessity of the system itself, and by no connivance of God or preference of it to holiness, not only this providential permission of evil, but the most complete and universal foreordination of it, are explained and vindicated. If sin is to occur, then, as Edwards argues, it is doubtless better that the time and manner of its occurrence should be under the guidance of Infinite Wisdom, in order that this element of evil may be reduced within the narrowest limits. Such arrangements of motives and influences as will most effectually check its spread, and contribute to the recovery of those infected by it, become in the highest degree desirable; and thus the complete foreordination of events, the universality of the Divine decrees, stand above all serious objection." If it be thus true that God not only determinately selects that system in which there is the free possibility of sin, but also foreordains each particular sinful volition, then that agent is omnipotently limited to that volition, and the volition is made objectively necessary, and freedom is objectively destroyed. The only safe and true view here, also, is the Arminian one. This view is, that God, foreseeing how each and every possible free agent, in any possible case, will freely act, so positions all free agents in existence and so adjusts his own course as that from their free, unnecessitated, undecreed actions he may educe the best possible result. Particular foreordination makes God the approver of the particular sin. It makes God will that particular sin in preference to holiness in its stead. That particular sin is fixed by the particular Divine volition; every other supposable act of the agent instead is by the Divine volition excluded, and the one sin receives the Divine sanction and necessitation. Thus at last these elaborate defenses to vindicate the Divine government are-omnis effusus labor !-overthrown by the hand that constructs them. II.-English Reviews. L. THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW, October, 1859.-1. Militia Forces: 2. Rosseau: his Life and Writings: 3. Spiritual Freedom: 4. Modern Poets and Poetry of Italy: 5. Physical Geography of the Atlantic Ocean: 6. Garibaldi and the Italian Volunteers: 7. Tennyson's Idyls of the King: 8. Bonapartism in Italy. II. THE QUARTERLY REVIEW, October, 1859.--1. Architecture of all Countries: 2. New Zealand: its Progress and Resources: 3. Geography and Biography of the Bible: 4. Order of Nature: Baden Powell: 5. Tennyson's Poems: 6. Strikes and their Effects: 7. Farm Weeds: 8. Orchard Houses: 9. The Three Bills of Parliamentary Reform. III. THE BRITISH AND FOREIGN EVANGELICAL REVIEW, October, 1859.-1. The Book of Daniel: 2. Arnauld, Reid, Hamilton: Immediate Perception: 3. Trench on Revision: 4. Theology: Its Idea, Sources, Uses: 5. The United States a Commissioned Missionary Nation: 6. Language as a Means of Classifying Man: 7. The Distinctions in the Godhead Personal, not Nominal: 8. The Hypostatical Union: 9. Nineveh: The Historians and the Monuments: 10. Murchison's Siluria: 11. Anselm and his Theory of the Atonement. IV. THE EDINBURGH REVIEW, OR CRITICAL JOURNAL, October, 1859.-1. Bain's Psychology: 2. A Visit to England in 1775: 3. Sir Emerson Tennent's Ceylon 4. Carlyle's Frederic the Great: 5. The Graffiti of Pompeii: 6. The Virginians: 7. The Italian Campaign of 1859: 8. Unpublished Correspondence of Madame du Deffand: 9. Senior's Journal in Turkey and Greece: 10. Secret Organization of Trades. V. THE NORTH BRITISH REVIEW, November, 1859.-1. State Papers-Memoirs of Henry VII. 2. Canning and his Times: 3. New Poems: 4. Professor B. Powell's Order of Nature: 5. Novels: Geoffry Hamlyn and Stephan Langton: 6. Students of the "New Learning": 7. Japan and the Japanese: 8. Libraries: 9. New Exegesis of Shakspeare: 10. Life-Boats: Lightning Conductors: Lighthouses: 11. The Italian Question. VI. THE SACRED JOURNAL OF LITERATURE AND BIBLICAL RECORD, October, 1859. -1. Modern Prophetical Literature: 2. On the Descent of Christ into Hell: 3. Bunsen's Egyptian History: 4. Analysis of the Emblems of St. John, Rev. xi. 5. The Theology of Revelation and of Heathenism: 6. Slavery Condemned by Sacred and Profane Writers. VIL THE NATIONAL REVIEW, October, 1859.-1. George Canning: 2. The Teneriffe Astronomical Expedition: 3. Senior's Journal in Turkey and Greece: 4. Royer-Collard: 5. Tennyson's Idyl's: 6. The Navy; its Want of Men: 7. Tudor Legislation: Mr. Froude and Mr. Amos: 8. The Poetry of the Old Testament: 9. John Stuart Mill. VIII. THE LONDON REVIEW, (WESLEYAN,) October, 1859.-1. Literature of the People: 2. Natural History of Architecture: 3. Idyls of the King: 4. Bushnell on Miracles: 5. Social Science: 6. Life Assurance Institutions: 7. Ten Years of Preacher Life-W. H. Milburn: 8. Romish Theory of Development: 9. Small Farming: 10. Parliament and Reform. OUR English friends seem to possess much the same relish for our Western preacher race as a metropolitan epicure cherishes for wild game. Mr. Bull is an admirer of Peter Cartwright-blessings on his taste-and Mr. Heylin publishes a caveat against unauthorized editions. When, however, Bull gives a genial welcome to so rare a phenomenon from the western wild as Milburn, we will indorse his notion. The article on Mr. Milburn's Ten Years is appreciative, justly so, we think, in every respect. So abundant, we will say, are the laudatory paragraphs, that the exception upon one point which this article, like our own book notice, makes, must appear extorted by a sense of duty and justice. Without the slightest intention of the kind, Mr. Milburn's book bears testimony from which, as the reviewer well remarks, an uncorrupted mind "would form a darker idea of the effect of slavery upon the dominant class than from Mrs. Stowe's fiction." And it suggests both an aggravation of the seducing influence of "the system" and a palliation of the individual case, when we see how its deep subtle poison can blend with and shed its pervading taint through one of the otherwise purest and noblest natures existing; so unconsciously indeed that the victim's very transparency shall make it all the more clearly apparent to all true eyes but his own. The concluding paragraph is excellent: "The book must be a favorite, by force of its talents, its stories, and its amazing variety. It is not without serious drawbacks as to its moral effects, in the zest with which coarse, and wild, and bad actions are sometimes told. It will, however, breathe a manly respect for preachers of the Gospel, and for a working style of piety, free from moroseness and cant, into many a youth and man of the world. It is a remarkably good transcript of W. H. Milburn, not by any description it gives of him; but because it is the exact representation, as a whole, of his mind and character, as shown in what things he loves to dwell upon, and how he views and depicts them. We ought to add, that, after six years spent in the South, ill health drove him back to the North; that he has since been chaplain to Congress again; has narrowly escaped being secularized into a mere lecturer, a regular and lucrative profession in America, and is now pastor of a flourishing church in Brooklyn. This statement brings us far beyond the ten years with which the book closes. Let us hope that his next ten will not end without as completely blowing away his Southern dazzle, as the last did his metaphysical mists; and that his preacher life will mature in its progress, and leave at its end good seed, to be reaped with gratitude hereafter by the genera tions that are warning us of the present day, with the shadowy but retributive hand of the future." One remark upon Mr. Milburn's style will amuse all pure utterers of the President's Yankee, as well as of the Queen's English: "At a place called Bloomington they had to lie over till two the next morning, in order to make connection with another stage line.' This is one of the most perfectly Americanized sentences in the book; for in style, as in speech, Mr. Milburn is remarkably free from the peculiarities of the country." And then our reviewer luminously translates this specimen of Americanism: "It means that they had to wait till another conveyance came up." Perhaps we do not understand the English language; we certainly doubt whether we correctly understand this last English sentence. But if we do understand it, Mr. Milburn's language has a different meaning expressed in better English. And now our English brother may quote upon us, if he pleases, the Edinburgh Reviewer's witticism, that we resemble "the mountebank who claimed that he could squeal a little better than piggy himself." IX. THE BRITISH QUARTERLY REVIEW, October, 1859. —1. Unitarianism.—Mr. Martineau 2. Tennent's Account of Ceylon: 3. Shelley: 4. The Buddhist Pilgrims: 5. Raindrops: 6. Novels and Novelists: 7. Financial Resources of India: 8. Tennyson's Idyls of the King: 9. Metternich. THE leading article of the British Quarterly Review is a very able discussion of the present condition of Unitarianism, and the inferences as to the truth of that system thence to be derived. At the head of the article are placed the various leading publications of Rev. James Martineau, whom it names as the FOURTH SERIES, VOL. XII.-10 |