tions which led to strife and misunderstanding, promises to afford a rallying point for all their genuine adherents. But we may be permitted to refer to a previous controversy involving the same principles, that, namely, between what were called the Old Light and New Light Seceders. The adoption of the "Narrative and Testimony" by the latter of these parties, led to the deposition of the late Dr M'Crie and his brethren of the Old Light School, who protested against it as a defection from the constitutional principles of the Reformation. And yet in 1827, when the Doctor and his friends re-united with some of those who adhered to that "Narrative and Testimony," on a common basis of principles, Dr M'Crie steadily refused to allow any reference to be made to that document, or to any of the controversies about it, or to the depositions of himself and his brethren which followed upon it. The whole of their contendings in a state of separation against the New Light party were buried in silence; and over their grave a union was effected with his old brethren, founded on a series of propositions containing the points of divine truth on which the two parties had come to a mutual agreement. May we not hope that a cordial union, brought about in the same noble and truly liberal spirit, without any compromise of principle, may yet be effected among the Presbyterians at home as well as those of the United States.

XII. CRITICAL NOTICES.

Jesus Christ: His Times, Life, and Work. By E. DE PRESSENSE, D.D. Translated from the French by ANNIE HARWOOD. Second Edition, revised. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 27 Paternoster Row. 1868.

One of the forms in which vigorous efforts have been made in our day to undermine Christianity has been by the publication of Lives of Christ on the principle of denying his claims to a divine character and a divine mission, even to the mission of being a divinely-appointed prophet, representing him as, no doubt, a very extraordinary man, but still as nothing more than a man. Such works, some of which have attained a large circulation, have no doubt done harm; but they will ultimately be of advantage to the Christian cause, and have been so already, by stimulating to inquiries, which have resulted in triumphantly vindicating the divinity of the claims of Jesus, and in exposing the false philosophy and the misrepresentations of history, by which it has been attempted to set aside the divinity of his claims.

Such is the character of this work by Dr Pressensé. Endowed with gifts of a high order, possessing excellent intellectual powers, and able, from the affluence of his genius, to clothe his sentiments in the radiant hues of beauty and eloquence, giving freshness to old truths and enchanting the reader by striking thoughts and illustrations ever bursting forth, Dr Pressensé has consecrated himself with great earnestness to the task of delineating the life of the Son of man, who is also the Son of God, and has produced a work, which, though not altogether unexceptionable, is well adapted to do important service to the church of Christ, and especially to benefit the young, whom its fascinating pages are sure to attract.

Pressense's Life of Christ.

879

In writing the life of Christ, the first question that comes up is that of the supernatural. If this is denied, then his history can be treated only as the history of a mere man-not as that of God manifest in the flesh, his incarnation, in that case, being supernatural. Renan and the Pantheistic school, of which he is so ardent a disciple, lay it down, as an indisputable axiom, that the supernatural is impossible; and upon the principle of Pantheism, which denies an intelligent personal cause distinct from the world, it no doubt is. Theism, too, rejects the supernatural, on the ground of the very perfection of the laws of nature, which appear to it to be immutable; but, unlike Pantheism, it does so inconsistently, for if the existence of a personal God, who has established the laws of nature, is admitted, the possibility of the supernatural is perfectly logical. Cannot the all-wise God, on extraordinary occasions, and for great purposes, break in upon or suspend the very order which he himself has established? In creating the world he did not renounce his own liberty, or bind himself with chains by the very laws he gave to creation. These topics Dr Pressensé takes up in the first chapter of the first book of his work, which treats of preliminary questions, and he conclusively argues out, in opposition to Pantheism and Theism, that the question of the possibility of the supernatural is as fairly a matter of discussion as any subject within the sphere of human thought; and thus we can enter, without obstruction, on the examination of the evidences of the divinity of Christ's claims.

In opposition to Renan and Strauss, and all the disciples of the Tübingen school, who strenuously maintain that the system which Christ taught was not original-that it was simply the offspring of the united genius of Greece and the East, Dr Pressensé has proved, by a succinct and faithful description of the religious and philosophical systems that preceded and existed at the time of Christ, that he could not derive his system from any school of philosophy or any system of religion then known, whether in Judea or in any other part of the world, and that it was the living contradiction of all that surrounded him. The importance of establishing this point cannot be over-estimated.

The author observes, that "the doctrinal and strictly theological does not come within the scope of this book." But while keeping this in view, there is one point to which, from its transcendent importance, greater prominence ought to have been given: for though in one sense it is doctrinal, in another it is historical, and, therefore, comes within the author's plan; and that is the great design of the incarnation and life of Christ in this world-a design to which all other designs, to be accomplished thereby, were secondary and subordinate, namely, that He might might make satisfaction to divine justice for the sins of men by his vicarious obedience and sufferings, in order to their being justified and saved in a way consistent with the most perfect justice. When we consider how much is said on this theme by Christ himself in the Gospels, when we consider farther that it is the cardinal truth of Christianity, and that it is the only solution of the mystery of the humiliation, sufferings, and death of Christ, it ought to be conspicuously brought out in a history of the life of Christ. This subject is but slightly touched upon by Dr Pressensé, and when touched upon, the language is less definite than could be desired.

Dr Pressensé, we think, has failed to give the true interpretation of the agony of the Saviour in Gethsemane and on the cross. It comes far short of being a correct exposition of the mental agony which Christ endured on the cross, to say that "when passing through that unutterable anguish which precedes the breaking of the tie between body and soul, at least in every case of conscious dissolution, Jesus uttered the piercing cry, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?'"-this anguish being intensified in his case from his knowing that his "rightful title is the Prince of Life," and that he "had done nothing to merit death," and "his failing conscious

ness being able no longer to grasp with clearness the eternal object of its love." Something more than this is necessary to explain the Saviour's bitter cry on the cross. It is not enough to say, or rather, it is incorrect in point of fact to say, that it arose from the mere anguish caused by the breaking up of the ties between the soul and the body; for many of Christ's disciples, when dying from disease, or from the cruel death inflicted on them by their persecutors, have risen superior to the terror of mere death; and can we suppose that the Son of God was inferior to them in fortitude? Jesus sustained the character of the substitute of sinners; he bore the load of imputed guilt; and his death, with all the agony, mental and corporeal, that preceded and accompanied it, was a penal infliction. It is quite true that the Father never beheld his Son with more complacency than when he was expiating human guilt on the cross. But it is not less true that Christ suffered in his soul the infliction of the punishment of sin from the immediate hand of his Father, as the rectoral Judge of the universe. This was the cause of his cry of agony; this was the sacred fire from heaven that consumed his sacrifice; this was the sword that smote the great and good Shepherd. "Most unjust is it," says Dr Pressensé, "to regard that cry as a proof of the divine curse resting upon the holy victim." Paul, on the contrary, affirms, "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us" (Gal. iii. 13).

Ante-Nicene Christian Library: Translations of the Writings of the Fathers, down to A. D. 325. Edited by the Rev. ALEXANDER ROBERTS, D.D., and JAMES DONALDSON, LL.D. Vol. VII., Tertullianus against Marcion; and Vol. VIII., The Writings of Cyprian. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 38 George Street. 1868.

Tertullian, the author of the first of these volumes, who flourished at the close of the second century, and in the beginning of the third, is best known by his eloquent apology for the Christians. But the work before us, though it has attracted less attention, is of great and permanent value, containing much that is adapted to instruct and interest Christian readers in every age. Marcion was a native of Sinope in Pontus, and coming to Rome about the year 141, he adopted the heresy of Cerdon, who maintained a duality of gods. His opinions, more fully expressed, were, 1st, That there is the supreme God the Father, who is invisible, inaccessible, and perfectly benevolent; and, 2d, That there is another, an inferior and imperfect deity, the creator of this lower and visible world, who is the author of evil, severe, judicial, and inconstant. This, he maintained, was the God who was known and worshipped by the Jews in the time of the law and the prophets. Jesus is the Son, not of this God, but of the supreme God the Father, and when he came to the earth he did not really become incarnate, but assumed only the appearance of a man. These opinions gained numerous converts among persons of all ranks in Italy, Egypt, Arabia, Syria, Cyprus, Persia, and other places; and in refutation of them numerous works were written by many ecclesiastics, including Justin Martyr, Dionysius of Corinth, and Theophilus of Antioch.

Tertullian conducts the argument against the Marcionites with much vigour and ingenuity, and so successfully, that he leaves no subterfuge for his opponents, whom he often treats with little ceremony. He triumphantly proves from the writings of the Old Testament prophets, and from the Gospel of Luke, and Paul's Epistles, the only parts of the New Testament which Marcion received, though even these he mutilated by cutting off such passages as militated against his opinions, that there is no distinction between the Supreme God the Father and the Creator of the world, —that they are the only one living and true God,—that Christ is the Son of this one God, and that he assumed human nature by a real incarnation.

Life and Times of Bishop Hooper.

881

Thus does Tertullian establish the connection and oneness of the Old and New Testament, which equally bear testimony to the same God and the same Saviour. Such, indeed, might almost have been the title of the book; and thus, apart from its primary object, and though the heresies in refutation of which it was written are now extinct, it directly relates to questions contested in the present day, proving, in opposition to the cavils and objections against the Old Testament urged by Marcion, and still repeated by many, that no part of it is inconsistent with the righteousness and benevolence of the divine character.

The other volume, which is the first of the writings of Thascius Cyprian, who succeeded to the Bishoprick of Carthage in the year of our Lord 248, and who was beheaded at Carthage on the 14th of September 258, in the reign of the Emperor Valerian, contains his epistles and some of his treatises. His epistles are very important from the light they reflect on the state of the Christian church in the time in which he lived.

We cordially recommend these beautiful, valuable, and well-executed volumes. The Ante-Nicene Christian Library is in all respects deserving of encouragement.

London and Calcutta, Compared in their Heathenism, their Privileges, and their Prospects: Showing the great Claims of Foreign Missions upon the Christian Church. By JOSEPHI MULLENS, D.D., Foreign Secretary to the London Missionary Society, and for twenty-two years Missionary of the Society in Calcutta. London: James Nisbet & Co., 21 Berners Street. 1868.

The title of this book, as the author informs us, was suggested by a statement which the Bishop of Oxford is reported to have made, "that it would have been a blessed thing for thousands of people in England to have been born in Calcutta; for there they would have had some chance of being brought within the means of grace; whereas in England they were entirely neglected." This extraordinary statement the author justly pronounces to be quite incorrect; and by a comparison made between the religious and moral condition of London and Calcutta, while doing ample justice to the missionary institutions in operation in the last mentioned city, he completely proves that it does not possess that superiority to London in point of religious advantages which the language of the Bishop of Oxford implies. It is at once manifest that a city containing eight hundred thousands Mohamedans and idolaters, among whom there are labouring only thirty-four missionaries, with fifty fellow-labourers of various kinds, must be vastly inferior in respect of religious advantages to the capital of England. But this volume is not wholly occupied with answering the Bishop of Oxford. It treats of the question of missions generally, and it powerfully advocates their claims on the Christian church.

John Hooper (Bishop and Martyr): His Times, Life, Death, and Opinions. By the Rev. J. C. RYLE, B.A., Vicar of Stradbroke, Suffolk. London: William Hunt & Company, Holles Street, Cavendish Square. Ipswich: William Hunt, Tavern Street.

This is a very interesting sketch of the Times, Life, Death, and Opinions of a man whose memory England ought never to cease to remember and to venerate as one of the most devoted and heroic of her reformers and martyrs. Forced in 1539, when he was forty-four years of age, or soon after, to leave England to escape the persecution raised by Henry VIII. on account of the six popish articles, Hooper resided for at least nine years in Switzerland, where, mingling with the Reformers of the Swiss cantons, he acquired those accurate views of doctrinal truth for which he was distinguished. Returning to England in May 1549, in the reign of Edward

VI., he laboured in London with indefatigable diligence as a Christian minister, expounding the Scriptures to overflowing auditories once every day, often two or three times; nor after he was made Bishop of Gloucester in the year 1551, did he in the least relax his diligence. But his labours were abruptly terminated on the accession of Queen Mary to the throne in July 1553, on the death of her brother Edward VI.; and on 9th February 1355, he was committed to the flames at Gloucester for his protestant principles, being the first of the English bishops who sealed the truth with their blood.

The picture which Mr Ryle has drawn of the melancholy state of religion in England before the Reformation, of the dense ignorance, degrading superstition, and gross immorality then universal,-is not exaggerated; rather it would assume a much more revolting aspect were the details more extended than the author's limits has permitted him to give. This affords the reader an idea of the enormous magnitude of the evils with which Hooper and his fellow reformers had to contend, and of the everlasting debt of gratitude under which England has been laid to these men, whose labours and martyrdom did so much to achieve for her the Reformation. What a contrast between the theological opinions of Hooper-one of the divines who had a chief hand in the preparation of the Articles and PrayerBook of the Church of England-as given by Mr Ryle from the two volumes of the Bishop's writings, published by the Parker Society, and the doctrines of the Ritualists in the Church of England, which are simply those which Hooper did his utmost to subvert, and for opposing which he was burned at the stake!

This sketch of the life of Hooper, written in the true spirit of the Reformation, and in a tone of healthful, manly independence, and similar sketches of others of the English Reformers ought to be widely circulated; for it is greatly owing to the prevalent ignorance of the history and principles of the English Reformation, that Ritualism has obtained the strength in which it is now so exultant.

The Twelve Minor Prophets. Vols. 1. and II. By CARL FRIEDRICH KEIL, D.D. Translated from the German by the Rev. JAMES MARTIN, B.A., Nottingham. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 38 George Street. London: Hamilton & Co. Dublin: John Robertson & Co. 1868.

These volumes elevate Dr Keil to a high place among Biblical interpreters. They are formed very much on the model of Calvin's commentaries, but with the great advantages derived from a comparison of the exegetical works on the Minor Prophets which have appeared since the time of the Genevese Reformer. To explain the meaning of these inspired writers is the object constantly kept in view; and to this task the author has brought much learning and much exegetical ability. Attention is paid throughout to philology, or to the precise meaning of the Hebrew text; the scope or drift of the sacred writers is closely investigated; and the knowledge of the times in which they lived is never overlooked as an expository element, a point so important that one reason, we apprehend, why the Minor Prophets, in many instances, interest Christians less than other parts of Scripture, and why their exact meaning is less understood, is that their vaticinations are not contemplated in connection with the history of their times. The object of these volumes being simply expository, doctrinal discussions are avoided, and practical observations are not formally made, except such as strictly enter into the exegesis of the passage; but many practical lessons are thus frequently brought to bear on the conscience, the heart, and the life. In seizing on the mind of the prophets, the author displays no ordinary penetration and soundness of judgment, and the meaning is unfolded concisely, and yet with much simplicity and