tion generally. We give a specimen of the book, shewing its general drift and beautiful spirit:

My task is ended. The road over which we have travelled together began with the anomalies of existence, the enigmas of human life, the problems of human nature. We saw that the enigma of existence demanded God, the personal God. But God is not a dead power, but living love; and his love not suffering him to remain locked up in mystery, he revealed himself to man. The object, however, of his revelation is Jesus Christ. In him it was that God manifested himself; in him the anomalies of our existence are revealed. Let us, then, not shrink from confessing that we do bear anomalies within us. They are the thorns which will not suffer us to rest. We can find no rest till we find Christ; in him contrasts are reconciled It is he who reconciles the contrasts, God and man, holiness and sin, heaven and earth. He is the absolute atonement. If we could penetrate all space, we should but find the God of power; if we could survey all time, we should but see the God of righteousness. We can know the God of grace only in Christ Jesus. But the God of grace alone can reconcile the contrast of creation and of our hearts. In Christ Jesus, Christians have in all ages found their peace and joy. The collective life of the whole church is a confession of Christ. All its deeds, its whole worship, its preaching, its prayers, its sacred songs, its holy rites, are but a testimony to him; while all art, whether of language or pictorial representation, which has from the first been ever made use of by her, does but serve to glorify him. And so long as gratitude shall yet be found on earth, so long will he be remembered, so long will his name dwell in the hearts and hover on the lips of men. They who would deprive mankind of him, would tear out the corner-stone of the noblest edifice of humanity. But it is not merely the memory of a departed benefactor which Christianity preserves; it is a relation to a living one, a personal and vital relation. At his name all hearts beat, all knees bow. And in all time will the image of Jesus, as portrayed in the Gospels, exercise its mysterious power over the minds of men; and the Spirit, which proceedeth from him, become a bond, uniting them in faith and love to himself, and thus a bond of love uniting the whole human race. So long as there are Christians in the world, and such there will be to the end of time, they will recognise each other by the salutation, Blessed be Jesus Christ!"

XI.-CRITICAL NOTICES.

Jacobi Isaaci Doedes Oratio de Liberta'e cum Theologiæ, tum etiam Ecclesiæ Christiana, strenue vindicanda In Auditorio Academiæ Rheno Trajectine Habita, D. xxviii., M. Martii, A. MDCCCLXV, quum Magistratum Academia deponeret.-Trajecti ad Rhenum, MDCCCLXV.

We have no hesitation in pronouncing this Oration, which has been transmitted to us for notice, to be an able and eloquent, and, with one qualification which we must mention, a sound and seasonable production. Professor Doedes is known as an ornament of the Dutch church, and has taken a leading part in the evangelical reaction which that church has recently experienced. The Oration before us was delivered on the occasion of his resigning his office as rector of the University of Utrecht. Its design,

as the title bears, is to "vindicate the liberty at once of Theology, and of the Christian Church.". The first part of the Address, therefore, treats of the liberty of theology, or rather, the liberty which must be accorded to the theologian in the pursuit of truth. Here the professor lays himself open to the charge of going too far in the assertion of an unlimited freedom, "Let him freely judge of all the points of dogmatics, let him give his opinion about them, having no regard to any human authority. Let him treat spontaneously of all questions touching divine things. Estne Deus persona? Estne aliquid præter naturam," &c. lad this amounted to nothing more than the liberty of investigating divine truth, no exception could be taken to the argument; but M. Doedes pleads for this unrestricted freedom as the privilege of the academical chair. His positions on this part of the subject may apply to the case of the Dutch academies, which are not under the superintendence of the church; but it is obvious they are quite out of place as applied to our halls of theology, where the professors are held bound to teach according to the standards of the church. M. Doedes, however, considers the church and the academy to be two separate and independent institutions; and in the second part of his address, he contends, with equal strenuousness, for the liberty of the church, as an independent community, to decide upon the doctrines which she will have inculcated from her pulpits; and to exclude from her communion those who do not teach what she holds to be evangelical truth. "Suppose a follower of Luther or Calvin raised to St Peter's chair, as it is called, would the Roman Catholic Church endure such a person, after discovering him? or a priest embued with the principles of the reformation? Could that church be said to be free, if it were compelled to bear with such a pontiff or such a priest? Certainly not. Nor could this be said of the churches of protestants, were they compelled to bear with ministers who should teach things concerning the gospel and the Saviour Jesus Christ, plainly contrary to the unanimous voice of the Christian church." The force of this reasoning we cordially admit. But then we consider that it is equally applicable to the treatment of theology supplied to those who aspire to the office of public teachers in the church.

Theological Controversy; or the Function of Debate in Theology. An Address delivered to the members of the Theological Society in the University of Edinburgh, with an appendix on the study of the Confession of Faith. By JOUN TULLOCH D.D., Principal and Professor of Theology, of Mary's College, in the University of St Andrews, &c. William Blackwood. 1865. It would not be easy for any who has not perused this pamphlet, to guess at its real character and design from the title page now quoted. From this, one would be led to suppose that it dealt with the old topic of the odium theologicum,the bad spirit which has too often disgraced theological debate -the question of Taulene animis cœlestibus iræ? But this occupies only a part of the tractate, and is introduced only by the way, with the view of supporting the main theme of the address. That theme, we think, might have been expressed much more honestly and fairly by the title which Professor Doedes has prefixed to the address which we have already noticed, namely, "The Liberty of Theology." The point for which Professor Tulloch pleads is the liberty of thought and speculation, which every student of theology should exercise, in judging of revealed truth, untrammeled by any previous systems of divinity, or any existing confessions of faith, articles, or catechisms; and, so far as we can follow the drift of his remarks, he contends that this liberty should be extended to the preaching of the aforesaid thoughts and speculations, unchecked by the discipline and unchallenged by the rulers of the church. He is not prepared, therefore,

to admit the second postulate of the Dutch professor, who contends with equal force for the liberty of the Christian church" to exclude heretical teachers. The beau ideal of the church that ought to be, in the eyes of Dr Tulloch, must be sought in the palmy days of moderatism, when Principal Robertson and Dr Erskine were colleagues, and when the one preached up in the morning what the other preached down in the afternoon. In other words, Dr Tulloch, instead of banishing controversy from the church, would invite it to enter the sacred house, and all that he would bargain for is, that the combatants should behave courteously towards each other, and make no disturbance in the family. Like Eolus, whose cave was filled with stormy winds, over which he ruled, mollitque animos, et temperat iras,Dr Tulloch would keep his controversial winds shut up within the bosom of the church, to conflict with, or rather to neutralise, each other, and thus produce a calm without. For this purpose he takes a broad view of the field of theology; nor is it easy to see where his liberality would stop short, and his orthodoxy step in: Unitarians and Trinitarians, Arminians and Calvinists, Episcopalians and Presbyterians, are alike welcome as members of the happy family which he would inaugurate.

In urging this amalgamation, Dr Tulloch dwells upon two considerations. The first is a distinction which he draws between "Christian verities as they spring from the living Word," and "these verities in a reasoned form, as conceived and argued out by the Christian intellect," between "the form of sound words which he will be called upon to deliver from the pulpit," and "the form of opinion which the apostolie doctrine has encountered in different ages, and which have reacted upon it in various ways." What these "verities" can be which "spring from the living Word," and which, as he tells us somewhat loosely, "go straight to the common heart, and may be felt by all," the Doctor does not inform us. On this point, the most important and practical of all, seeing that the student will be called to deliver them from the pulpit, we are left entirely in the dark. We confess to a strong feeling of curiosity to know the nature and number of these "verities." Surely the Doctor is able to state them in plain language, and tell us where they are to be found. But, then, were he to do so, the danger is that, in the act of enunciation, they would change their character, and become Dr Tulloch's Confession of Faith; in which case they would be no longer "Christian verities," but mere " forms of opinion!" Dr Tulloch has only half learnt the grammar of the Dogmengeschichte of our German divines, else he would not speak so glibly of "Christian verities" at all. According to the approved notion of our German friends, the sacred writings contain nothing more than the germs of Christian verities, of which the doctrines of the church are the developments. Armed with their divining rods, these theological Dousterswivels have travelled over churc history, pretending to trace the sacred ore in its progress underground, till it crops out in the writings of some medieval father, in the shape of a heap of coins, curiously marked, and bearing the impress of the age in which they were current. Such is the theory of our German theologians in their "History of Doctrines," by which term they mean, not the doctrines of Christianity, but the doctrines of the church. Dr Tulloch has obviously adopted this theory, though he appears unwilling to part with some of the shell which he has just chipped. We beg to demur to the whole theory, full-fledged or incipient. Reserving our remarks on the general question to another occasion, we beg to say that Dr Tulloch has fallen into a twofold mistake. In the first place, he confounds the spirit of free personal inquiry into the truths of Scripture, which is alike the privilege and the duty of every Christian, as well as of every theological student, with the philosophic spirit of speculation "in any other department of knowledge." He forgets that these two things are essentially different, both in the objects they seek

to attain, and in the process by which they reach them. The object aimed at by the Christian student is to ascertain whether the teachings of men are consistent or rather identical with the teachings of God in his Word. The Bereans are commended, "because they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the Scriptures daily whether these things were so ;" and when they found these things in the Scriptures, "therefore' -on this simple ground-"many of them believed," (Acts xvii. 11, 12). Could the faith of these Bereans, when expressed in their own words, be styled, in any proper sense, the verities of Scripture in a reasoned form, as conceived and argued out by the Christian intellect?" The next fallacy into which Dr Tulloch has fallen is still more obvious. He confounds the varying modes in which the same truth has been taught in different ages of the church, with varying forms of the truth itself. This appears from the use which he makes of the well-known difference of the popular preaching of the present day in thought and phraseology, from that of the times of Jeremy Taylor, or the older days of Chrysostom. All are ready to acknowledge the influence which the progress of learning, science, and civilisation have on the mode and manner of presenting the truths of the gospel, But the real question is, What were the doctrines taught by those divines? Men may have known and taught the truth more fully and faithfully at various times, but Truth itself is like its author, the same to-day as it was yesterday, and as it shall be for ever.

On the other point mooted in this pamphlet, which, strangely enough, is entitled "On the Study of the Confession of Faith," we cannot too highly applaud Dr Tulloch's concern that students should understand the Confession; but why he should be so zealous for the study of a document which he thinks has outlived its time and use, we cannot see. What else can be made of the following sentence? My own profound conviction is, that religious thought in Scotland, no less than in England, has already entered upon a movement which is destined to remould dogmatic belief more largely than any previous movement in the history of the Church, and that it is well nigh impossible that the oid relation of our Church to the Westminster Confession can continue." Well! by all means let us have an overture for a new Confession; and let Dr Tulloch try his hand on the compilation of a document which may prove a fitting substitute for the old Calvinistic symbol which a whole assembly of divines took so many years to produce. Our hopes of seeing such a document, however, are considerably modified by two reflections. We fear Dr Tulloch would find the task an arduous, if not an impracticable one. For he tells us that "theological opinion is rapidly passing out of the pure logical phase of development, and assuming, with the growth of more intricate and complex philosophical and historical culture, more indefinite and complex shapesshapes which still remain to be sorted and classified." And again, even should the Doctor succeed in his efforts to produce a Confession out of these indefinite shapes of thought, we greatly fear that, in a few years, it might become obsolete in its turn, for, according to him, theology is in a perpetual flux; and the spruce theologue of to-day, who sneers at the old Westminster divines, is in danger of being snubbed very soon by "the growth of a still more complex, philosophical, and historical culture." In good sooth, sensible as we are of the desirableness of a creed more adapted to meet the errors of the day, as well as to the change of modern thought and expression, we would seriously deprecate a movement prompted, as we have no doubt this movement is, by dissatisfaction with the precious truths embodied in our scriptural, judicious, and time-honoured standards.

Narrative of an Expedition to the Zambesi and its Tributaries, and of the Discovery of Lakes Shirwa and Nyassa, 1858-1861. By DAVID and

Critical Notices.

CHARLES LIVINGSTONE. With Map and Illustrations.
Murray, Albemarle Street. 1865.

This interesting and important volume will be found to deserve, what it will doubtless soon command, universal attention. Dr Livingstone has earned an enviable reputation, to which few travellers have attained. His sterling honesty, his transparent truthfulness, his admirable simplicity, his entire freedom from party prejudice, from political bias, and from selfish motives, have won for him the confidence of every reader; as his Christian worth and amiable character have endeared him to all his friends. In Dr Livingstone's company, wherever he goes, and whatever he has to tell, we feel ourselves perfectly safe. The present volume, in which the Doctor has been aided by Mr Charles Livingstone, is superior in point of literary execution to his former book: but under his quiet searching eye, we feel sure that in no single instance has truth been sacrificed to point a sentence, or give effect to a story. And how deeply interesting is the field of discovery through which we are led in these pages! Africa, formerly supposed to consist of interminable vasts of barren and burning sand, into which rivers sunk never to reappear, is now proved to be "a well-watered region, resembling North America in its fresh water lakes, and India in its humid lowlands and cool highland plains." Regret at our past ignorance must be enhanced by the reflection that we have been excluded and kept in the dark by the base cupidity of slave-dealers. The Portuguese, that they might carry on their hateful traffic with more security, "long concealed the four mouths by which the Zambesi pours its waters into the ocean, in order that the English cruisers might be induced to watch at a false point while slaves were quietly shipped from the true one."

The narrative of the Expedition is relieved by the most interesting details, illustrative of the manners, customs, and character of the natives, and enlivened by touches of humour, by graphic descriptions of scenery, and striking incidents. We despair of conveying to our readers, by means of extracts, any idea of the treat which awaits them in the perusal of a volume, every page of which brings us into contact with localities hitherto unexplored, and a people hitherto unknown. And indeed we may save ourselves this trouble, as every one who takes an interest in the human family, in the progress of discovery, in the extinction of slavery, and in the progress of the gospel, will doubtless procure for himself a perusal of this delightful volume. One thing strikes us as contributing largely to enhance the interest of the narrative. The primary object of the missionary is the extension of Christianity; other things are with him subordinate means or ultimate results. Hence his narrative interests only a portion of society, and often only a portion of the church. The same grand object is in Dr Livingstone's eye; but his primary object is the extension of civilisation, to be brought about by the substitution of commercial enterprise, for the debasing traffic of slavery. And hence his travels partake of a human interest, wide as the living world, and warm as the blood that circulates in the living heart. The volume is beautifully printed, and abounds with striking Illustrations.

Essays on Baptismal Regeneration; Theories examined, Errors exposed, and Dangers demonstrated. By JOHN CAMPBELL, D.D. London: John Snow. 1865.

In this volume Dr Campbell has collected together a series of articles on the subject of Baptismal Regeneration, which appeared from time to time in the columns of the British Standard, and other publications under his control. These articles originated in the memorable sermon of Mr Spurgeon on the subject, which, says the Doctor, "led to an excitement far exceeding everything