THIS work was originally written in reply to those who discard more or less of the writings of the Old and New Testaments from the Canon of inspired Scripture, and particularly in reply to Norton on the Evidences of the Genuineness of the Gospels. It is a work of much research, learning, and vigor. Professor Stuart's main object is, confining himself in the main, within the limits of a critical and historical view of the Jewish Canon of Scripture in the days of Christ and his apostles, to show that this Canon, as received by the Jews at that time, was declared by our Saviour and his apostles to be of divine origin and authority, and was treated by them as entitled to these claims. He first defines the Canon, and then treats of its origin; the state of literature among the Jews; continuing the history, he treats of the books of known authors, anonymous books, lost books, manner of preserving the sacred books; genuineness, completion, ancient divisions, and sameness of the Jewish canon; canon of the Egyptian Jews; Jewish estimate of the Scriptures; testimony of Josephus and others; New Testament testimony; appeals of the New to the Old Testament with an index of passages cited; doubts and difficulties as to certain books of the Old Testament, and the use to be made of the Old Testament under the Gospel Dispensation. An Appendix is added containing and exhibiting the most important documents to show what were the canonical books of the Hebrews. The testimony of some dozen of the early Fathers and others, and of three of their Councils, is embodied in this Appendix. "The author elucidates, in their order, in series of chapters, many questions touching the writings and literature of the Jews, with a freedom and fulness that cannot fail to interest a studious inquirer in this wide field of sacred learning. "This whole work of Stuart's is lucid and instructive.” — Christian Reflector. "It is a reply chiefly to Andrews Norton, and some other Unitarian writers in his country, who discard, if not the whole, yet the greater part of the Old Testament, and portions also of the New, from the canon of the inspired Scripture. The discussion is temperate and manly, and at the same time thorough and satisfactory." Christian Secretary. "The learning, the shrewdness, and force brought to bear on the grand question at issue, are unsurpassed." - Boston Recorder. WARREN F. DRAPER, Publisher, ANDOVER, MASS. I. The extemporaneous element in sermons, and its vary- II. Qualifications in their varying degrees for preaching extempore. III. Rules for extemporary preaching: 1. Cherish an earnest religious spirit. Think more of doing good than of doing well; more of God's approval than of man's. 2. Take a healthful view of your own talents, and regulate your speech according to them. 3. Continue the practice of elaborate writing as an aid to the practice of extempore preaching. 4. Discipline your mind rigidly in such exercises as will be of immediate advantage to your sermons. Biblical, theological, general study. Extemporaneous practice. The instinct and the art of expression. 5. Make a special as well as general preparation for each one of your extemporary sermons. 6. Strive to regulate yourself, so that in preparing and delivering your discourse, your mind may work naturally and easily. State of the body. Choice of the subject. Influence of the subject. Right estimate of mistakes. Borrowing aid from the other methods. Adapting one's method to one's own fitnesses. 7. When you have been succesful in an extemporary sermon, make it the basis of a written one. THE BIBLIOTHECA SACRA. ARTICLE I. LECKY ON MORALS1 BY REV. DR. J. R. HERRICK, PROFESSOR IN BANGOR THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. INSEPARABLE from each other as are morality and religion, the true principles of ethics, appreciated and embraced, are a great help to practical religion, while in many ways they modify or help to form our theological opinions. On the other hand, false or inadequate conceptions of morals, such, for example, as do not carry us beyond the ethics of interest, would lead us to treat religion and Christianity as means of human enjoyment, instead of subjecting man through religion and Christianity to the service of his Maker; and would satisfy us with a theology that makes the good of the individual or the created universe its highest thought and ultimate end! For instance, how different, how much more healthful, the influence of Cudworth's "Iminutable Morality," which, instead of adapting the law of right to the sinful weakness and inclinations of man, vigorously refutes the popular notion of a conventional standard of right and wrong, and makes moral principles as changeless as the throne of God, and alike binding upon all, compared with Paley's system, grounded in happiness and drawing its sanction from personal interest. The former tended to purify the moral atmosphere 1 History of European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne. By Wm. Edward Hartpole Lecky, M.D. In 2 vols. D. Appleton and Co. 1870. VOL. XXIX. No. 114.- APRIL, 1872. 27 by raising men's minds from themselves to God and immutable truth; while the latter has actually exerted a very powerful and pernicious influence in fostering the spirit of utilitarianism through all the relations of life. In fact, whatever view of morals we hold, this must needs have a wide application and influence. But in our day, as might be anticipated from the bold claim of naturalism and positivism that they contain the whole of truth, we have morals and Christianity treated as natural agents among many others in the development of mankind. It follows as a legitimate consequence of rejecting the supernatural, that men must be confined wholly to the sphere of nature, and that whatever comes under the name of morality will perforce conform to laws by which nature works. A very plausible method for this is, first to assume Christianity to be an agent for promoting public morals, and then to look at the external features of moral development. Whether or not this was Lecky's conscious design we need not here affirm. But in his History of European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne he treats mainly of the moral condition of the Roman empire before and after it became nominally Christian, and with the intent, apparently, of showing thus the influence of Christianity as an agency, bad or good or mixed, in civilization. The design of the writer, which is not so clearly enounced as to prevent one of his critics1 from pronouncing it " doubtful," is, where he proposes to state objections to the inductive theory of morals, intimated to be "to define and defend the opinions of those who believe that our moral feelings are an essential part of our constitution, developed by, but not derived from, education"; and then to inquire into the "order of their evolution, so that having obtained some notion of the natural history of morals, we may be able to judge how far this normal progress has been accelerated or retarded by religious or political agencies." 2 We ought also to observe what the preface indicates: the 1 See Edinburgh Review, July, 1869. 2 Vol. i. p. 34. |