REVIEWS AND CRITICISMS.

The Atoning Lamb: a Scripture Exhibition and Enforcement of our Lord's Vicarious Death; in which are set forth the Principal Questions involved in the Atonement, &c. By the Rev. WM. GRIFFITHS, Hitchin, Herts. London: Ward and Co.

WHATEVER may be the fears and despondency with which some of our more aged ministers sometimes look forward to the future; we cannot but feel assured amidst all the conflicts of opinions now coming on, that the rising ministry is carnestly attached to those fundamental truths "most surely believed amongst us:" and we have in the present work on the Atoning Lamb, a sufficient illustration that they have no less willingness and ability to state and defend the most important doctrines, so as to commend the truth to every man's conscience in the sight of God.

There are few of more promise in this department than Mr. Griffiths, and none of less pretensions. His work on the Atonement is clear, solid, and scriptural; entering into the following topics :-The Victim. The Death of Christ a Sacrifice. The extent of his Atonement. The object of it,-to put away sin. The reception of it-by faith. The work is well got up, and in a neat form, the reader has for a slight sum (eighteen pence) an admirable statement of the grand central doctrine of the gospel, in its scriptural nature, and various relations to the hopes and responsibilities of mankind. We shall be surprised if the work does not become a general favorite. It is suited for a present, especially to thoughtful and enquiring minds.

The Work and Strength of the Church. By the Rev. JOHN CORBIN. London: John Snow.

THE above is the title of a Sermon or Discourse addressed by Mr. Corbin to "the Nottinghamshire Association of Independent Ministers and Churches," March 22nd, 1852; also in the following month, preached before the "Derbyshire Congregation Union" at Chesterfield; and is " published by request."

The author is an earnest and able minister of the gospel, and has given us in the cheap little pamphlet, suggestions and admonitions that deserve to be circulated extensively, and are calculated to be of great service.

It is certainly time the Churches were awake: the first part of this address enumerates "the works the Church has to do, and the doing of which calls for the exercise of its strength." The second, examines "in what the strength of the Church consists, and how it should be put on." Under each of these topics there are ten plain propositions, of what requires doing, and how it is to be done. We hope many will read them and set to work.

A Lecture on Inspiration ; with some Remarks on the Spirit of the Age. By HENRY P. BOWEN. London: R. Groombridge and Sons.

THE subject of inspiration is becoming of more practical importance, and will soon form the question of the day. We have many dreams and visions on the subject by intuitional or spiritual elevation and insight men; which serve only to bewilder their unfortunate readers.

Some few men of genius appear anxious to establish the inspiration of the genius, and by a poetical license to lift themselves up to the apostles, or else pull the apostles down to them. This Lecture of Mr. Bowen's will be found very serviceable towards

dispelling this delusion, and pulling down usurpations of such as climb up by "mental elevation," or thinking more highly of themselves than they ought to think.

We cordially hail Mr. Bowen as a labourer in this department, and wish him enlarged usefulness both in his literary engagements and in his ministry, of which they are the proper supplement and completion.

The Bible and the Working Classes: being a series of Lectures delivered to the Working Classes of Bradford, Yorkshire. By ALEXANDER WALLACE, of Edinburgh. London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co.

THE title of this volume is a fair indication of its contents, which are well adapted to the object in view,-to remove both the infidelity of some and the indifference of more of the working classes in reference to the Bible. These Lectures were delivered in the Lecture-room of the Mechanics' Institute, on Sabbath afternoons, and were especially intended for such as were alienated from religion, and from the consecrated places in which it is proclaimed: this choice of a neutral place and especial aim to collect and address those who are not in the habit of attending divine service, is an important advance in the mission of the Church.

We are glad to find the Bradford Town Mission advancing successfully in this course; not only arranging for the delivery of such lectures, but employing earnest methods of visitation and canvassing to secure an attendance, by personally inviting the classes appealed to. The attendances have been numerous, and the effect such as was desired and might be expected. At a large meeting of two thousand of the working classes in Bradford, it was proposed and carried, that these lectures should be printed; and several gentlemen, to their honour, subscribed to render a thousand of these volumes obtainable at a mere nominal price.

Will not this entire example stir up Christians in other towns to go and do likewise? Liverpool has its evening addresses to the same class of persons, (also in a neutral room) well attended; and by this means we may effectually reach "those who are without." We hope to refer again, more at large, to the topics of the volume before us, meanwhile we congratulate the Town Mission of Bradford on so good an example, and commend the lectures of Mr. Wallace as a valuable addition to our religious literature for the people.

The Moral Statistics of Glasgow. By WILLIAM LOGAN, Commissioner of the Scottish Temperance League.

THE direct object of this sixpenny pamphlet, is to exhibit the relation of intemperance to crime: it consists of the testimonies of leading men in different institutions, in answer to certain enquiries; and also many useful statistical tables of poverty, disease, and crime, and will be regarded as valuable by all philanthropists, as exhibiting the degraded condition of many in our large towns.

Those who may not sympathize altogether in the Temperance views for which this information was collected, will still find the work valuable, as indicating how much requires to be done to elevate the victims of vice and sorrow.

The compiler of this work is now actively engaged in the Bradford Town Mission, under whose auspices Mr. Wallace's lectures were delivered. In the preface to those lectures, Mr. Wallace observes :-" It affords me much pleasure gratefully to acknowledge the valuable services of Mr. Wm. Logan, the able and devoted superintendent of the Bradford Town Mission, but for whose persevering efforts and admirable arrangements, the lectures (on the Bible and the Working Classes,) would probably not have been commenced, at all events they would not have been so well attended."

Thus the author of this pamphlet, on "The Moral Statistics of Glasgow," is fully committed to the best interests of the working classes; with such agencies multiplied, we cannot despair of the condition and prospects of our country,

The "Amazon." A Sermon preached by the Rev. William Blood, (one of the survivors,) in the Church of St. Andrew, Plymouth, Jan. 18th, 1852. London: Aylott and Jones.

Of all the sermons of which this terrible disaster has been the occasion, there are none invested with so strong an interest as this. The preacher was one of the fourteen who, after being exposed for many hours in a leaky boat to the fury of the waves-without sail, oar, food, or water, were rescued by a Dutch galliot and at length brought to Plymouth. He arrived there on the Thursday, and though too ill on the Friday and Saturday to make any preparation, acceded to the request of the Rev. Mr. Hatchard, Rector of St. Andrew's, to preach a sermon in connection with this awful calamity. The sermon we have now in our hands is a report of his extempore effort in fulfilment of his engagement. It is by no means without literary merit, but it is chiefly interesting as recording the devout joy of one who had been almost miraculously preserved through e most awful peril. Mr.

ture in treat world'

in him

od has shown his good taste in not choosing as his text any passage of Scripch the mere words might seem applicable to the event, and has preferred to leliverance as illustrative of the love and care of him, who "so loved the its great peril, "that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth ould not perish, but have everlasting life."

We ed scarcely say, that Mr. Blood has met with a ready sympathy in his dear mothe he Church. We understand, that he has been presented to some office in connexio with the Cathedral in the London diocese, of the value of £63 a year!

"PROVE ALL THINGS; HOLD FAST THAT WHICH IS GOOD." 1 Thess. v. 12.

THEODORE PARKER'S NATURAL INSPIRATION; VERSUS, DIVINE WISDOM IN THE GOSPEL.

THE formality of preaching renders the Bible inefficient: we have found deep ruts along the road, from the heavy wheels of the chariot of custom; and so miss the true end of that grand institution, public oral teaching, which the gospel originated, and which has given an impulse to all human knowledge.

The apostles were not so formal, they adapted themselves to the state of society, often took their text from the errors of the people they addressed; and shewed the grandeur and superiority of the gospel of God, by a contrast which was condemnation. So it was with Paul at Athens: so it should be occasionally with us. This method is scriptural and apostolical; that for a moment we should look with other men's eyes, through their mists of prejudice, and seeing how distorted all things appear,emerge into the true light, to feel once more,-truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is to behold the sun.

The forms of error are various and manifold; to those deluded by them, they are dark clouds that hide the sun; but to those who, with a higher guidance, turn to examine them, these clouds themselves become illuminated, and attend the rising orb of day, radient with that splendour they vainly aim to extinguish.

The most seductive form of infidelity in modern days, is an assumption of religiousness and reverence; the Sadducee wearing the phylacteries of the Pharisee; the sceptic turned priest, and worshipping himself and nature, in a style borrowed from the Bible: and finding Christianity in the denial of Christ; and the deification, not of human reason, as before, but of the religious sentiments in humun nature.

Now we shall take up the most plausible form of this artifice, to shew how loosely the scheme hangs together; and how safely we may come back to the word of God, as uttered by, or declared respecting-God manifest in the flesh;-Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham, and Lord of both.

The propounder of this scheme, at least, its most refined and popular advocate, has brought together much that is beautiful and true; but associated so incongruously, that whilst with a shew of occasional reverence,

VOL. II.

P 2

he betrays the Saviour with a kiss; he also cheats the reader's understanding, by a display of sentiment, and an appeal to certain lofty miscalled natural intuitions, which are but gleams of a neglected and misapplied gospel education.

We might quote several authors by whom the sentiments, we propose to examine, have been adopted; to shew that we are dealing not with an individual case, but with a prevailing tendency: but it is not necessary to trespass so far upon the time of the reader, or the space of this review.

The variations of infidelity and rationalism, in their efforts to overthrow the Scriptures or nullify their contents, are very instructive, teaching us this grand lesson, that the present race of sceptics repudiates all previous methods; whilst it is equally confident with the rejected fathers. The Bible has, therefore, only calmly to wait till another sceptical generation, shall by a new demonstration of the falseness of Scripture, prove, at least, the futility of all previous efforts in the same line.

The prevalent colour of the present infidelity and sceptism, is an affected religiousness; a pious and reverential way of bowing the Saviour out of court.

"A very great spiritual phenomenon undoubted thou art; the Eternal shone through thee, and for a time thou wert a God,-but we can excel that any day by the religious consciousness of this nineteenth century.”

Such is the utterance of the late oracle of pious infidelity, as spread over several chapters in Theodore Parker's "Discourse of Matters pertaining to Religion."

It is found out, that the world will have à religion, so the sceptics have learned the art of flattery, and tell every man to look within for the Divine sentiment, and get free from the tryanny of old books: and the gospel is quoted for its own overthrow,-"I will write my law upon their hearts," i. e., not in books, nor by any historical religion. And whilst absolute infidels have thus become devout, pleading for a religion on each man's own account, at first hand, out of that clear authority, called "the Religious sentiment;" our rationalists become orthodox, and use the symbols or language of the irrational trinitarians. All these are hopeful signs of dissatisfaction,-a tacit acknowledgment that they are not quite convinced in their scepticism, or that they know of no arguments so powerful as the simulation of what they would oppose ;*-that in fact they must become proselytes to gain converts. The honesty of this method we may from prejudice be unable to appreciate; we can at least try its validity, in the shape of argument. Accordingly, we propose to examine the doctrine of NATURAL INSPIRATION, as advocated by Theodore Parker, minister of the Second Church in Roxburg, Mass.

The main assumptions with which we propose here to deal are four :1. That God as naturally provides truth for the soul of man, as other requisites for our bodily necessities. 2. That accordingly, every man has or may have this natural inspiration. 3. That Christ and his