out, less we fear, as a layer of salt to season the earth, than as a portion of the soil, turned and dressed, and fairly smoothed over, to receive whatever seeds of false doctrine the Prince of the power of the air may waft to its surface. Antinomianism is a thistle, the readiest of all other weeds to sink its barbed seed into such ground; and rapidly does its sturdy growth cover the bed, choking the good grain around it. There is something so plausible in what assumes to give all glory to God alone, exalting the Saviour, and debasing the sinner. But the Lord will not be glorified at the expense of His own holy law. He has, indeed, as a redeemed people, delivered us from the bondage of the law; still he commands us not to be hearers only, but doers of that law. He hath wrought all our works in us; but he bids us work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. He beholds us complete in Christ Jesus, without spot or blemish, or any such thing: yet he proclaims a blessing on him who keepeth his garments, and bids us follow after holiness, without which none shall see God. We are always grieved to find any Christian writer or preacher, taking such a wretchedly partial view of divine truth, as to dwell only on what Christ has done for his people; without reminding them of what they are to do for him. A miraculous deliverance is wrought in bringing God's people out of bondage; and, so far, the word is clear: "Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord." The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace." But that deliverance once achieved, they are to march on, and personally conquer the enemies that remain. In their own strength? -No: their bodies are nourished with bread from

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heaven; their steps are guided by a heavenly sign; and the Lord himself is their avowed Leader, in whom, with whom, and by whom alone they put their enemies to flight. The attitude of a believer is not yet that of a crowned conqueror, who has nothing more to do it is that of a person engaged in a race, a strife, a mighty and toilsome warfare against the world, the flesh, and the devil. He knows that God shall bruise Satan under his feet shortly; but while in the flesh he must wrestle hard against him. "Christian freedom" is a work well calculated to throw light upon this exceedingly important subject.

PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY: Addressed to those who profess to be followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. Second Edition, enlarged, 2s. 6d. Curry, Dublin; Simpson and Marshall, London.

ATTRACTED by the title of this book, we took it up, to give it an attentive perusal. Near the commencement, we marked a striking passage, for transcription into our pages; but presently found another, which appeared yet more inviting. They became so numerous, that selection was too difficult; and we finally closed the volume, under a deep impression that it was one of the most solid, most practical, and every way valuable of all the books that we had met with, bearing on the momentous subject, set forth in its title. In a preceding page we have given an extract, from which our readers will be able to form some judgment of the author's power, and of the sacred use whereto he consecrated it. Who he was,

we know not the short prefatory remark states him to have been an eminent Christian minister, now gone to his rest. He has touched, with a nervous and a masterly hand, on a multitude of very important topics; and has bequeathed to Christian parents a legacy, for which we verily believe that hundreds will have cause to bless God, in time and in eternity.

REASONS FOR LEAVING THE CHURCH OF ROME; by the Rev. L. I. Nolan, of the diocese of Meath, lately a Roman Catholic Clergyman, but now of the Established Church. Fourth Edition. Carson, Dublin. Nisbet, London. 1s.

WE were tempted to append a note to page 413 of this number, where the author of that touching Irish "Recollection," speaks of the compatibility of saving faith, with a continuance in the communion of the Romish, apostate church. Unquestionably, there may be instances where spiritual illumination is given, to the extent of beholding in the sacrifice of Christ on Cavalry, a full and sufficient atonement for the sin of the individual, and the sin of the world, and where the work is cut short by death, before its completion can be made visible to man. Popery is a dungeon closed with bolts and bars of adamant, where the victim lies fettered to earth, unconscious that such things as light and motion exist. We may conceive of the unbarring of that dungeon door, the down-streaming of heaven's light, the inbreathing of heaven's sweet air, at once banishing its darkness,

and expelling its foul vapours-we may suppose that every rivet is drawn, every fetter removed and liberty proclaimed to the astonished captive, who sees his fellow freemen joyously passing and repassing, amid the bright scenery just laid open to his eyes, and inviting his now unfettered foot to rove at large with them. We may fancy all this, and that he may not instantly spring to his feet and bound forth: but that he should voluntarily remain within the prison walls, numbered among those who have no part nor lot in the deliverance,-yea, who regard it as the heaviest of misfortunes, the foulest of crimes, to be so enlightened and freed-is what we really cannot bring ourselves to credit. There must be a lurking doubt, menacing him who entertains it with a portion among “The fearful, and unbelieving,”—a secret query whether the Lord Jesus can be to him, instead of his own miserable merits, and contemptible mediators,-to induce a continued sojourn within the pale of that antiscriptural church. And it is more than a vague apprehension that oppresses our minds with regard to such, supposing them to live and die in the external practice of idolatrous superstitions. S. B. has candidly given us the very decided opinion of those who, having themselves been fast bound in the misery and iron of popery, and freed from it by the word and the Spirit of God, are surely, of all people, the meetest to form a correct judgment of the matter: and here we have a testimony recently afforded by an unimpeachable witness who has openly "come out," at the hazard of his very life, from the bosom of the Romish church. We shall not pay our own readers so bad a compliment as to suppose they will grudge a shilling for the pur

chase of Mr. Nolan's gentle, temperate, christian, and convincing address to the copartners of his late captivity-the Roman Catholics of Ireland; we sincerely wish them to read it, and to promote its extensive circulation in this country also: for, however wilfully, or ignorantly blind the majority of our protestant population may be to the fact, popery is making most rapid progress among us. Within a very few years, the number of Roman Catholic chapels has increased to five or six times the amount of what it was: and we, at least, in our very humble and contracted sphere, will not hold our peace when we see the wolf coming rapidly on to destroy and to scatter the poor of our master's flock.

THE BOOK OF GENESIS; with brief explanatory and practical Observations, and copious marginal References. By the Rev. R. Waldo Sibthorp, B.D. Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, and Minister of St. James' Chapel, Ryde. Seeley and Burnside. PULPIT RECOLLECTIONS; being Notes of Lectures on the Book of Jonah: delivered at St. James' Episcopal Chapel, Ryde. With a new translation. By the Rev. R. Waldo Sibthorp, B. D., &c. Second Edition.

THE first of these works is a commentary, on a different plan from ary that we have seen; the text being printed in one column, on the left of the page; over against each verse are the observations upon it in a large type; and to the extreme left, the marginal