thirteen discourses, presenting those termed the friends of Christ; although it is clear there is only a portion of them. Beginning with the wise men, he enumerates Simeon, the Baptist, the Bridegroom at Cana, the Apostles, the Children in the Temple, the Woman with the alabaster box, Martha and Mary, Simon of Cyrene, the Penitent Thief, Joseph of Arimathæa, and the Women at the Sepulchre: from this it will be seen that the selection of the so-called friends is entirely arbitrary, and that the line might have been indefinitely extended; but let that pass

our concern is with the work, which we consider calculated to be useful, as exhibiting, in a fresh and racy manner, the great truths of the Gospel, arrayed in a drapery of facts and circumstances, in such a manner as to give them a hold on the popular mind.

The Commentary wholly Biblical. Parts III. and IV. Bagster and Sons. THE first of these Parts presents portions of Genesis, the Psalms, Matthew, and Mark; the second, which concludes Genesis, and gives a part of Exodus, the Psalms up to the eightyfifth, and a portion of Mark. If any of our readers have not seen previous notices of the volume, we recommend it to their particular attention as the most valuable thing of the kind to be found in the English tongue. Of all the achievements of the Messrs. Bagster, there is not one to which we attach more importance.

The Large Print Paragraph Bible. Bagster and Sons.

WE have here two volumes-the first comprises Proverbs, Ecclesiasticus, and the Song of Solomon; and the second, the Gospel of Luke. In addition to the special peculiarities of the volumes, we have here a valuable index to the Book of Proverbs and to Luke, which wil be found useful to students, teachers, parents, and others.

Form, or Freedom? Five Colloquies on Liturgies. Reported by a Manchester Congregationalist..

WE feel at present indisposed to enter upon the important subject of this elegant Tracfate. That subject is not yet ripe for discus

sion in the Congregational community; but if we mistake not, the time draws on when it inust be dealt with; and then, we trust, we shall not be wanting to our duty. The writer of the Colloquies is clearly a man of ready observation and reflection; and within a brief space of some sixty pages, he has succeeded to present a luminous and impressive digest of the whole subject. He has, nevertheless, touched on points with which he had no business, and which are by no means calculated to further the end he has in view.

A Book for Boys. By OLD JONATHAN. W. H. Collingridge.

OLD JONATHAN is a man who has a right to speak about boys, and also to them; forasmuch as he rejoices in a family of thirteen children. The little volume comprises eighteen chapters of very valuable inatter. Of Old Jonathan we know nothing; but were it not that our friend of beloved memory, Old Humphrey, is gone to glory, we should have been tempted to suspect that this was one of his ingenious, benevolent, and pious performances. We presume we can hardly pay the volume a higher compliment, but assuredly it is a true one. The illustrations are excellent, and altogether the book is a gem.

Our Christian Classics: Readings from the best Divines. No. I. Nisbet and Co. WE cordially welcome this very valuable selection of choice portions of our best works. The present number is an excellent specimen, and we cannot doubt, that in the hands of the respected Editor, its successors, which we hope will be a multitude, will be worthy of it. We have first, extracts from the AngloSaxon period; then from the period before the Reformation; and, lastly, half a dozen admirable pieces from the Confessors and Martyrs.

The Signs of the Times; or, What we have to do with the Crimes of Robson and Redpath. By JonN BARTLETT. Shaw.

THIS very excellent discourse was delivered at Falcon-square Chapel, of which Mr. Bartlett is the junior minister, on the 14th December, 1856; and the wish for its publication was so general, as to induce the author, very properly, to send it to the press. Mr. Bartlett's friends will have no reason to regret their own urgency, or his compliance. Within a limited compass, it presents a large amount of impressive truth. Would that it might be engraved on the hearts of countless multitudes of the young men of this great commercial nation!

The Book and its Missions, Past and Present. Vol. I. Kent and Co.

THIS serial-for such it is-of which the first volume is before us, fills a most important section of Christian literature. The subject is the first that can occupy the human mind; and it has found a congenial spirit, and anaccomplished pen, to detail its achievements. The time is fast approaching when mankind will perceive, that after all, the old and often despised volume is the source of

the first history, the highest poetry, and the inost profound wisdom.

Tendrils, in Verse. Palmer and Son. THERE is a very great variety of pieces, both as to measure and subject, in the present volume; and the whole is steeped in evangelical sentiment. We have not for some time seen so much genuine poetry incorporated with varied verse. The volume will prove instructive, refreshing, and every way edifying to godly people.

Liturgical Purity our Rightful Inheritance. By JOHN C. FISHER, M.A., of the Middle Temple. Hamilton and Co.

THIS is a very remarkable performance, which can hardly fail to excite general attention throughout the ranks of the Church of England. It is proper, however, to state, that the title presents but an imperfect view of the work, which is vastly more multifarious, theological, historical, and comprehensiverendering it an object of interest not merely to Churchmen, but to every class of Protestant Dissenters.

A Brand Plucked from the Burning; or, My Life. By THOMAS SMITH, Agent of the Country Towns Mission, Leominster. Wertheim and Mackintosh.

FEW publications of a religious character more strikingly exemplify the adage, that there is no romance equal to that of real life. Any man who wishes an illustration of a most thrilling, and, we may add, a most tragic character, will find it in this very extraordinary performance. It is much entitled to public attention, and cannot fail to be followed by the happiest results.

Saving Truths. By the Rev. JOHN CUMMING, D.D. Shaw.

THIS is every way a very nice pocket volume. The typography is beautiful, the matter varied, evangelical, and highly edifying. The popular author well observes, that with respect to Christianity some truths are indispensable to its being, others to its wellbeing, and others supplemental to its beauty.

The truths which are illustrated in these pages are those which are regarded by all true Christians as vital, saving, essential; the denial of which is not injury, but ruin; and the acceptance of which is life, and peace, and rest. We have here, then, twelve Essays on vital subjects.

The Harmony of the Four Gospels. Allan. THE present work is presented in paragraphs and parallelisms, with the variations of the Ancient Manuscripts and Versions, Marginal References, and Critical and Explanatory Notes. We set very great store by this publication, and could greatly wish we had the entire Bible on the same plan. The Index to Sections, setting forth these divisions of subjects, will be of great value to the Bible student, as also will be the Index to the Notes. The volume, so far as it goes, is a precious treasure.

Solace in Sickness and Sorrow; or, A Collection of Hymns for the Afflicted. With an Introductory Preface. By the Rev. BARTON BOUCHIER, A.M. Shaw.

WE have here a copious and thoroughly evangelical selection of Hymns. Although we have several publications of the same sort already, avowedly prepared for the same object, there was abundant room for this, as there is still room for more; and Mr. Bouchier has done good service to the cause of suffering piety in presenting such a supply of metrical nutriment to the spirits of the faithful in Christ Jesus.

Jesus Revealing the Heart of God. By Rev. JOHN PULSFORD. Nisbet and Co. THIS tractate presents a large amount of valuable thought and touching sentiment, clothed in happy language. Although in the second edition, it is but a fragment of a forthcoming publication, entitled Quiet Hours." If this brick may be taken as a fair sample of the building, we shall expect a valuable contribution to our popular Theology. We shall hail the volume with considerable expectation.

FIRST SESSION.

The proceedings were begun, on Tuesday morning y singing, reading the Scriptures, and prayer.

The CHAIRMAN then delivered the following

ADDRESS

BELOVED BRETHREN, — The circumstances under which we meet to-day are so unprecedented in the history of our Union, that there is room for the question, whether the usual practice of an address from the Chair should on this occasion be continued. The Committee, however, have thought fit to request that I would, in this respect, adhere to the custom of former Chairmen at the Autumnal Meeting; and with their wishes I will endeavour to comply. Glad shall I be to see January made as much as possible like October, or rather like May; to hnd at

the close of our assembly, that this is not morally a winter gathering, nor even that we are in a state of autumn decline, but that a new spring is bursting upon us, though the skies be charged with passing storms. My address will be very short, and anything but elaborate, for only an hour or two, at the end of last week, snatched from distracting duties and cares of many kinds, have I been able to give to its preparation.

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Had things taken their usual course, I should at Cheltenham have redeemed my promise, to look at ecclesiastical matters among us, to see whether there may not be a few things in detail requiring reformation; whether improvements in some of our present practices, so far from being inconsistent with our principles, be not demanded by them." My meaning was to distinguish between our church principles and our church system,-to show that, in working out the laws of worship, organization, discipline, and activity, which we have gathered from the New Testament, we have fallen into some mistakes,- that in some respects we are beyond our principles, and in some behind, and, perhaps, in some quite beside them. Our doctrines of freedom, Independency, Congregationalism, and Voluntaryism, are good and right enough; but of the way in which we go to work in the practical application of them not so much can be said. The discussion, however, would be inappropriate today; a favourable opportunity for it may arise hereafter. I am sure it is of the highest importance that we should all look carefully at the subject.

Reverting to the terms of the proposed question, some of them strike us now as particularly applicable, in a different sense from that in which they were originally employed,-whether " a few things" among us may not require "reformation," and whether some of our "practices," so far from being quite consistent with "our principles," be not of such a nature as that our principles require us to abandon them altogether. I suppose there are none here who have looked at what has taken place during the last few months, but will admit that into such words the inquiries of their own mind may be put; though, of course, different brethren will give to the words different meanings, and will apply the answers to persons and proceedings in different ways. That there have been things going on, whoever is to blame, which must be put an end to, or we shall dishonour ourselves before all Christendom, is so plain as to be admitted by every body. Much, as to that matter, will depend on this meeting, and if ever we needed a spirit of wisdom and love we need it now.

When, as members of the Union, we held our last, our confidential meeting in May, we heard a voice we shall hear no more, and it urged upon us the cultivation of a devotional spirit. 1 repeat the words-" Dear brethren, apart from this spirit, no warning of dangers, -no specification of evils, however graphic and startling,-will secure us against them. Even while uttering the alarm, we may be unconsciously yielding to them. But, baptized with this spirit of humility, seriousness, and devout dependence, many of these evils

would cease to be dangers to us. From others we should shrink with the quick sensitiveness and recoil of spiritual instinct. How delicately alive we should be to everything that rudely touched the honours of our blessed Lord! How mournfully and feelingly should we mentally resent every attempt to exalt the creature in His presence! How impossible would it be for one to substitute correctness of creed for earnest piety of soul; and for another to imagine that the Church could long be the subject of such piety apart from the truth as it is in Jesus! In the event of divergence, or of the danger of divergence,-from the truth, how soft a hint of brotherly remonstrance would be sufficient for one to utter, and for another to receive! How slow should we be to think evil' of a brother! How ready, on the one hand, to offer explanations, if they were likely to serve truth and peace; and, on the other, how happy to receive them and to meet them with the confession of our own conscious imperfections! Brethren, we need more fraternal intercourse in this spirit. It is the spirit of devout and affectionate dependence on God overflowing in our conduct towards each other. It is but the spirit of the Master re-appearing in His servant. It is the Holy Spirit Himself-the spirit of the Church embodying and expressing Himself in its ministers and members. God help us all to make it more than ever our own spirit!" Of that loved speaker I say nothing now-his name is his inemorial-but his words, find they not an echo in our hearts? He is gone. His vessel has parted company with our fleet in rough weather-it is in the calm harbour there. But that charge remains. It comes with all the solemn weight of a lesson from Heaven. Upon our having the spirit it inculcates depend our peace and strength. Destitute of it as a denomination, as churches, as ministers, as men, we are undone. And the memory of another loving spirit comes over us in these hours of strife. Knill joins with Harris-the earnest worker with the earnest thinker-in bidding us ask to-day from the Giver of every good and perfect gift a rich baptism of wisdom and charity.

A few remarks tending to correct some misapprehensions, to guard against some dangers, to subdue some fears, suspicions, and asperities, is all I shall attempt.

Let it go forth from this meeting to the World that the churches and pastors composing the Congregational Union do not consist of two parties, one of which is contending against evangelical truth, and the other for it. Whatever ideas have gone abroad in consequence of recent controversies, and I know some very false ones have reached dis tant parts of Europe and America,—the fact is, we have no debate amongst us at all like the Arian and Pelagian of early, or the Socinian and Arminian of later times. We have no question as to whether the holy and blessed Christ be simply a creature or truly and properly Divine,-the incarnation of God, the Word made flesh. We have no question as to whether that infinitely glorious One was a teacher and martyr only, or an atonement for our sins in the proper

sense of the word, whether He offered Himself up as a vicarious and propitiatory, or only as an exemplary sacrifice. We have no question as to whether a man be justified by works or faith. We have no question as to whether the new birth be needful or not,whether it consists in an inward work of the

Holy Spirit or not. We have no question as to whether salvation be all of grace, or only partly so. That no questions of this sort at this time are being discussed among us every one here knows. We believe in what is generally understood by the doctrines of evangelical truth. If there be exceptions, I am unable fully to ascertain them, though I have taken some pains so to do. The assurance was recorded by a meeting held last September, that "the ministers of our churches as a body maintain an unabated attachment to those great Christian principles on which they have been incorporated from the time of their formation; and I am persuaded that assurance will be unmistakably confirmed by the present assembly.

It is of the greatest moment to our churches, to their reputation and their welfare, that this fact be kept in mind, and that the substantial agreement of this assembly in the grand verities of evangelical faith be so proclaimed to our sister communities of other orders that they shall no longer be left in doubt concerning us.

While truth demands that all this should be said, it also demands that more should be said, and that an honest reference be made to dangers which hem us round, and which it requires much holy wisdom to measure and to

Overcome.

There are influences abroad, perilous to some of our grandest beliefs, to some of our most distinctive habits. Certain methods of theological thought, and certain moods of religious feeling, now very common, and struggling for prevalence, ought to be narrowly watched. Those methods of thought are sometimes called philosophical; but, employed as a distinctive appellation, that now is without meaning or without truth; for all theological thoughtfulness, whatever its cast, carries in it a philosophical element,-and that theological thoughtfulness which is thoroughly sound and Scriptural is alone entitled to the distinction of being pre-eminently named philosophical. The methods of theological thought to which I refer are the mystical, the transcendental, which, at different periods of the history of Christendom, have been in vigorous play outside the Church, and have also forced their way into it. The history of Alexandrian schools and the Alexandrian Church, of medieval philosophers, of modern metaphysicians, afford abundant illustrations of the fact. The causes of the appearance of the phenomena lie in mental individuality, in the state of the social atmosphere, and in hidden depths of nature which science at present has not fathomed. And their epochs and their places of recurrence appear in mysterious cycles and order, like the epidemics of the middle ages. The mystic spirit threatens us just now. It is rising like a haze over the landscape of thought, seemingly to some eyes sunny and golden; but it dims and hides

To

what should be clear and distinct, while in its bosom it carries a blight under which what it touches droups and withers. minds of a particular cast there is, I know, a fascination about the tendency. They have a natural affinity for the thing, it requires strong self-control to resist it; while in other cases we witness only the wretched aping of intellectual individuality; a poor and pitiful attempt to be very dark and mysterious, under pretence of being very wise and very sublime. The danger is serious to both classes, to the thoroughly original, and to the merely imitative,-to the real men and the simple monkeys, and to the last more than the first.

And there are also influences abroad perilous to our distinctive habits of simplicity, our pure and spiritual worship. Taste and art chastened by wisdom and sanctified by piety, have their place in the service of song and in the sanctuary of God; but with revived attention to these matters, with the just admiration of old church music and poetry, and of mediæval forms of architecture and the like, there is the utmost need of a repellent force to keep off the spirit of formality, display, and superstition, and of a guardian power to keep in mind that God is a Spirit, and that they that worship Him should worship Him in spirit and in truth. Through such phases of taste as I now name, a sentimental, or romantic and ceremonial mood of religious feeling is at work, at variance with pure and intelligent and manly emotions in the worship and service of Him who dwelleth not in temples made with hands; and I venture to couple it with the mystic method of theological reflection, because, however wide may be the divergence of the two tendencies, the mysticism of thought, and the romance of feeling; while one is seen developed in scepticism, and the other in superstition, they are really akin, of the same family, sister souls having one mother, twin trees having one root. Look round and you may see them close together, as well as in separation, influencing minds of the same order; nay, co-existent in the same man. the elements of such danger are far from antagonistic; hope not that the one may be played off against the other. They are not mutually destructive. They may help to produce a common result."

There is all that danger, then, on the side of innovation. There is also danger on the other side besetting us, who are anxious, deeply anxious, for the conservation of orthodoxy. It is idle to suppose that in this world we can adopt any methods of thought, or be in any mood of feeling, which requires no caution against peril in its environs. The sight of danger yonder must not draw off attention from danger here. What we fail to see close to us may be to us fuller of danger than what we discern at a distance, and shrink from with alarm. The condition of our existence is one of peril, whether we be thinkers (in the common acceptation of that term) or not; and in whatever way, we think there is need to spend the days of sojourning in fear. The crown of Christian manhood is to overcome. "Blessed is the man that endureth temptation, for when he is tried he shall receive the

crown of life." The clear-headed thinker on the side of orthodoxy, adopting the system Stamped with the mark of holy naines, and the thinker of the same school, having no particular claims to clearness of head, are apt, in their zeal for system, to confound the subordinate and incidental with the supreme and essential; the mint, and anise, and cummin with the weightier matters of the law. What is really an incumbrance, and which, by retention, gives an advantage to enemies, -what is no part of Divine truth, but simply a human tradition, may, from its inclusion among opinions venerable for age, be deemed most precious, may be regarded as, at least, an outwork of the citadel of Christianity, and therefore to be preserved at all cost. Power spent on its preservation must be worse than wasted. Nor has the old sophism in church practice, of doing evil that good may come, of winking at error because mixed up with truth, of employing questionable means for the defence of sound opinion, lost its deceitful power in modern days; and while we see the working of it plainly enough in the history of Roman Catholic scholasticism and superstition, we are but too apt to be unaware that so mischievous and false a spirit, all but draped in the robes of an angel of light, may visit, even though it should not habitually haunt, the regions of Protestantism, ay, and our Puritan homes. Moreover, there is manifest danger

for one, I feel it so, of defending what is truly orthodox, what is Scriptural and Divine, what is the very heart and life of Christianity, what is essential, I say not simply to our prosperity, but to our very existence-in a spirit which is not orthodox. Dear brethren, we may gratify ourselves,our own vanity, pride, and ambition,-we may please some who think with us,-we may be loudly applauded by friends and partisans, but are we pursuing such a course as is likely to convince an opponent or reclaim any from a state of doubt and hesitation? Let us never forget in controversy, that while the preservation of the sound is to be sought, the correction and recovery of the unsound surely should not be overlooked. If I may speak for myself, I feel more and more that the questions for me to put when I am defending what I hold to be truth, should be these: Are the methods I employ adapted to convince an erring brother, to throw light upon truth regarded from his point of view, to arrest his progress who Stens starting on a wrong path, and to crush in his mind the germ which is quickening with a poisoned and death-bearing life? Looking at his habits of thought, at his prejudices, at his perils, is my manner of guarding and enforcing the true likely to save him from the erroneous? And I may add, that even while in the advocacy of orthodoxy we admit all this, and strive to carry it out as it respects an erring brother, we may transgress the spirit of our own fraternal maxims by turning round with a fierce mien and angry language on one whose exemplification of those maxims we may deem less perfect than our own.

I would thus indicate some dangers incident to our position, because of the very love I bear the truth. If I know my own heart,

it is from no recusancy to what is commonly believed among us; it is from no inclination to connive at error; from no blind latitudinarian and healthless charity; froin no wish to excuse a doubtful, hesitating, timorous line of policy, but from conscious loyalty to the interests we all profess to have at heart, -from a conviction, growing deeper every day, that the Gospel,-the pure Gospel of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,-the Gospel which offers to faith a free salvation through that one Mediator-is the only hope for man, the only rock on which the soul can stand in life's storms and in death's awful battle, it is from this cause, and this alone, that I have ventured to utter these words of caution publicly to my own heart as well as yours.

For an utterance of Scripture truth as clear as thought and words can make it, for zeal on its side even to confessorship and martyrdom, I plead and pray. Only I would also urge on you and myself the cultivation of such a spirit of truthfulness, wisdom, and love, in connection with such utterance, and such zeal, as shall leave those whom we teach no room to charge us with inconsistency when we say, from press or pulpit, "Wherefore, laying aside all malice and all guile, and hypocrisies and envies, and all evilspeakings, as new-born babes desire the sincere milk of the Word, that ye may grow thereby."

I have said enough to show that there is reason for great carefulness, that we are anything but wise men, if we fancy in these days there is no danger before us; but I would also add one word, to the effect that, among our young ministers,-looked upon by some with suspicion,-there is much more of the hopeful than the ominous. For example, it is becoming more common than ever with the most thoughtful among them to insist upon the point, that human theology,—that the systematic or metaphysical treatment of Divine truth by divines,-is not to be confounded with the original teaching of Scripture, or with spiritual religiousness. And again, that Christianity involves much that is mysterious; that the atonement of Jesus Our Lord, while it expiates our guilt and brings us nigh to God, is full of awful mystery, that the new birth of the soul, while a blessed reality, is an inexplicable marvel,that, like God, the things of God are "shrouded in venerable darkness," are dark with excess of light,-that, in Butler's words, Christianity is to us in this world a scheine but imperfectly understood. And further, that the Gospel is a revelation of Divine facts and Divine persons-of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, and of their infinitely important relations to the children of men, rather than a statement of abstract propositions, that Scripture, in this respect, is much more historical, practical, and experimental, than metaphysical. And yet again, that the condition of human nature is to be discriminately viewed by us, even as it is discriminatingly represented in the Bible, -that, while depravity is to be strongly insisted on, it is not to be so to the neglect of the recognition of what it really is, and what it may be connected with,-that it is essen