486 REVIEWS AND NOTICES. 1. The Defence of the Archdeacon of Taunton. Masters. 2. A Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, &c. By the Rev. C. S. GRUEBER, B.A., Incumbent of S. James, Hambridge. Masters. THESE are very important publications, and will meet, we trust, with a wide circulation, for together they thoroughly exhaust the subject. The right interpretation of the term "The Faithful," of course, bears largely upon the doctrine of the English Church, and we are glad to see that in both it is very fully vindicated. In fact, there is one only point that the opponents of Catholic truth can possibly make out of our Prayer Book. The language of the Consecration Prayer does at first sight, it may be admitted, seem to be on their side, but it is only an appearance; both it, and the Twenty-ninth Article, are framed in the identical language of S. Augustine, and by reference to the writings of that Father we plainly see that while he assumes it to be possible that a person should not "receive CHRIST in the Holy Eucharist," or (in a certain sense) eat His Body, and that he will not receive It (" ad vitam") if he comes in a state of sin and impenitence, yet he says, "Judas Christi Corpus accepit," and speaks of the Sacrament again and again as being the same for all, the good and the bad equally. And hence it follows that when the celebrant prays GOD in the Consecration Prayer that "in receiving these Thy creatures of Bread and Wine we may be partakers of the most Blessed Body and Blood of CHRIST," it can only mean such a profitable partaking of them as is spoken of in the previous prayer of Humble Access. This interpretation is exactly consonant with the uniform language of S. Augustine. At the same time, it may be added, there seems no reason why the petition may not refer to the efficacy of the consecration, and not allude at all to the condition of the recipient. We mention this merely as another admissible interpretation, and as showing how very far we are from being driven to Dr. Lushington's unCatholic interpretation which would be inconsistent with every other part of the English Liturgy. . . . In noticing recently the sad want of precision and accuracy which prevails in our popular elementary theology, we hardly expected so soon to be able to make such honourable exception as is due to An Explanation of Scriptural and Ecclesiastical Terms, (Masters,) and also to Questions and Answers on the Chief Truths of Religion, by the Rev. J. R. WEST, (Masters). Both would be capable perhaps of enlargement with advantage, but they are very fairly complete, and are free from anything like error. The authors deserve our very best thanks. We are glad at length to announce the publication of the Second Part of the Hymnal Noted, (Novello,) although of the merits of the collection it would be as yet premature to form any opinion. The Advent antiphons, we are glad to see, are given at the end. Among reprints we are glad to acknowledge Mr. CAZENOVE's article on Mahometanism, from the Christian Remembrancer, (Mozley,) and a second edition of the late Mr. WHYTEHEAD's very interesting and instructive little volume on College Life (Masters.) We are glad to see a French translation of the well-known Sermon, Do all to the LORD JESUS (Jersey: Le Feuvre; London: Masters). It may be very advantageously circulated in the Channel Islands, in Newfoundland, in the Canadas, and in the Island of Mauritius. To our neighbours and allies across the Channel, it might also prove acceptable and useful in its Gallicised form; and, it would be a difficult matter to set before them a more valuable specimen of the practical teaching of Divines of the English Church than that which is presented by the Discourse before us. Any thing more real, practical, and searching, in the shape of a Sermon, they certainly have never met with from any of their own preachers-however eminent and distinguished they may be. M. Baptistin Poujoulat has been recently publishing a short narrative of our first Revolution, under the title of Charles I. et le Parlement, (Paris: Douniol,) which has reached us from the other side of the water. The work is principally intended for the young. It is clear, and well written, and likely, on the whole, to convey to those for whom it is intended, a pretty accurate estimate of men and things during that eventful period, as well as to interest them deeply. We meet of course with many statements, applications, and inferences, from which we take leave to differ with M. Poujoulat, but his work is, in many respects, a great advance on those of most of his predecessors; and even when we do differ from, we cannot help feeling great respect for our author, who is evidently a religious man, and a careful and commendable writer. His estimate of Laud is not as high as it should be, but he speaks enthusiastically and well of our martyred King, the account of whose death is graphically and touchingly told. The work contains a short preface, which, it is evident, is by another, and no common, hand. The following passage which occurs in the course of it, strikes us as exquisitely beautiful: "On ne lit pas sans attendrissement le récit de la mort de Charles I, qui fait songer à l'auguste victime du 21 Janvier. Ce fut une belle attitude que celle du roi d'Angleterre en face de ceux qui n'avaient pas le droit de le juger et en face de la hache. Les historiens qui ont cherché à diminuer la sublimité de Charles Ier, à ses dernières heures n'ont pas obéi a une grande inspiration; l'histoire humaine n'est pas assez riche en magnifiques exemples pour qu'il soit permis de dérober à l'admiration des siècles le spectacle d'une admirable mort de roi, quand c'est l'iniquité qui le frappe."-(Avertissement, p. xi.) The author seems to be a high Legitimist, and we fancy we can detect in his Charles I. et le Parlement, many allusions to the present state of things in his own country. The Two Friends, or Charley's escape, is well told and interesting. it will be of use to young men led astray by drunken or godless parents, but it contains one or two mistakes which we could wish to see altered, such as the erroneous meaning given to the term "Confirmation," and consequently to the use and purpose of that Holy Rite, by applying it to the (supposed) renewal of the Baptismal vows taken once and for ever, and not to the confirming of the HOLY SPIRIT in regenerate per sons. We have received the concluding Tales of Mr. Parker's series, being Hobson's Choice, and Mary Thomas, or dissent at Evenley, the first is a cleverly written little tale, designed to show the worthlessness of good intentions if unaccompanied by perseverance and self-denial,-the second, on the errors and fatal result of Dissent, is likely to be very practically useful. Lays Social and Sacred, by a Mother and her Son, (Hurst and Blackett,) as a whole, scarcely fall within our province for review. Those however, which partake of a religious character, exhibit sound doctrine and no mean poetical spirit in the writer. The volume is published in aid of the Funds for the Restoration of a Church. We are sorry that we cannot say anything in favour of Lord LYTTLETON'S Explanatory Notes on the Four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, (Rivingtons.) They are very scanty, and oftentimes altogether miss the sense of the sacred writers. The New Series of the Journal of Convocation, (Rivington) contains a long and able article on Synodal action in Australasia, as well as some good notices of books. The Watchman's Warning to the Churches, a fearful view of those rapid Ministerial Declensions from the Truth, and the wide spread of Arminian, Pelagian, and Socinian Heresies, by Veritas, (Collingridge) is a title which speaks for itself. The Tract, as well as one by Dr. Campbell in reply to Mr. Binney, and entitled Negative Theology, is directed to the support of the charges brought by Mr. J. Grant, against a large part of the Dissenting Community, which we noticed some months since. Amongst Sermons, we have to acknowledge as deserving of special commendation, one by the BISHOP OF CAPE Town, preached on the death of the Bishop of Graham's Town; also one for Schoolmasters and Schoolboys, by the Rev. E. C. LowE, Head Master of S. John's College, Hurstpierpoint; one by Dr. IRONS, in reference to the present distress; and one by Mr. CARTER, of Clewer, preached at S. Matthias, Stoke Newington. The latter, however, contains a statement at the top of the last page, which seems to us a little exaggerated. From Mr. Lowe's Sermon, we are glad to learn that the plan for training Commercial Schoolmasters, which had been for some time contemplated, is in actual operation in connection with the foundation of S. Nicholas College. As many as thirty-two such students can now be received at Hurstpierpoint, at the cost of £27 per annum each. The Rev. P. S. DESPREZ has written a Pamphlet to show that Babylon the Great in the Apocalypse is "neither Rome Pagan, nor Papal, but Jerusalem." Mr. Masters has published an edition of the Steps to the Altar, which will be acceptable to many, on tinted paper and rubricated. SERMONS. 1. Mediaval Sermons. By the Rev. J. M. NEALE. Mozley. 2. Readings for the Aged. By the Rev. J. M. NEALE. Masters. 3. The Seasons of the Church,-what they teach. Edited by the Rev. H. NEWLAND. Mozley. 4. Sermons on the Sunday Historical Lessons from the Old Testament. By the Rev. A. WOODGATE. J. W. Parker. 5. Cottage Sermons. By the Rev. A. OXENDEN. Wertheim. 6. Religion in Common Life. A Sermon by the Rev. JOHN CAIRD. Blackwood and Sons. THE only apology that can be offered for this motley array of sermons, is the very obvious one, that it is most important to ascertain the general state and condition of this mode of influencing the mind, and that it is only by rather a promiscuous selection one is at all able to judge whether the pulpit addresses of the day are calculated to promote the object, which all who deliver them have in view, viz., the instruction and edification of their hearers, their growth in grace and in truth. What makes this inquiry more necessary, is the patent circumstance that during the last twenty years a very great change has taken place, or at any rate has been attempted in the character and composition of sermons. There is evidently a tacit abandonment in all quarters of the stiff essay style. Mr. Neale in the introduction to his " Mediæval Sermons" gives a most graphic description of the almost universal prevalence of this mode of preaching in the eighteenth century. "The same Sunday always producing the same sermon, whatever might be the circumstances of the hearers, the priest never appealing to local events, home occurrences, anything in short that could touch and interest; the instructor turned into a sermon machine, and the sermons so evolved, as unintelligible as if they had been written in Latin." -P. xv. In tracing the history of pulpit eloquence however, Mr. Neale adds,― "that the art of speaking naturally, of preaching from the heart to the heart, of using familiar illustrations, and seizing passing events, was not first discouraged or despised in that dreary eighteenth century; in the preceding also it was out of fashion; and was reprobated by none more strongly than by the early Puritan divines."-P. xvii. 1 Henry Smith, one of the most popular preachers in London, towards the conclusion of Elizabeth's reign, writes-" As every sound is not music, so every sermon is not preaching, but worse than if he should read a homily. It is harder to speak GOD's word than to speak to God; yet there are preachers lately risen up, which shroud every absurd sermon under the name of simple teaching, like the Popish priests."-P. xvii. VOL. XVIII.-NOVEMBER, 1856. SSS But whatever may have taken place previously, certain it is that there has sprung up a very general desire to remedy the evil which Mr. Neale so vigorously attacks, and Plain Sermons, Readings for the Aged, Cottage Sermons, Easy Discourses, and the like, are what may be called the order of the day. There is also, we believe, a very common feeling that it is better to address a congregation in the plain ordinary language of daily life, instead of adopting, as was usual, some years back, the phraseology of Scripture, and clothing the ideas to be conveyed to the mind in the expressions and words of inspiration,—especially of the Epistles of S. Paul. We believe that Dr. Arnold was one of the first opponents of this system: whether however he was or not, everybody may observe a very great change in this respect, and that the passages of Scripture introduced into the discourse, are, for the most part, quoted not so much to express the preacher's meaning, as to illustrate and enforce what has been already expressed in his own words. More than this: a most remarkable change has taken place in the delivery of sermons. It was not very far back, that an extemporaneous address was the exception; and though we will not pretend to say that now it is the rule, at the same time it may be asserted with perfect truth, that unwritten sermons are every year becoming more common, and what is particularly to be noted, that they are no longer in any way to be considered the badge or mark of a party. Indeed as "the self-indulgent softness, the worldly conformity, and the Antinomian spirit (to use Mr. Aitkin's unmeasured language) of modern evangelicalism" increases, the spread of extempore preaching is far more rapid among the clergy of the opposite school. Now we have marked these three radical changes, with respect to sermons, without the slightest intention or desire of finding fault with them. On the contrary, we regard them one and all as great and seasonable improvements, and what is especially to be kept in mind, as signs of vitality and vigour in the Church. We recommend them as well as other more manifest tokens of spiritual life among us, to those of whom Mr. Neale says,— "that having gone on for the last twenty years flattering themselves, that the Church of England was the very pattern and quintessence of apostolic purity, and that in so far as any other communion differed from it, so far was it at variance with the perfect model, there is now some little fear lest they should run into the opposite extreme, and imagine that never was any Church at such a distance from primitive excellence, nor so utterly infected with corruption."-P. lxxiv. "Aitkin's Teachings of the Types."-P. 124. For ? Peter of Blois thus speaks to the clergy in his Archidiaconal Visitation"How shall he keep another man's conscience who cannot keep his own. conscience is an inscrutable abyss, a most obscure night; and yet it is this night in which that miserable priest is concerned, and about which he is occupied-Watch |