It is "profitable unto" men. In this, as in all things, God designs primarily and ultimately his own glory, but also the well-being of fallen man. The Divine wisdom and love have shaped it perfectly for this end. To keep back any part of it, is to step between God's infinite love and the souls he seeks to save. Therefore Paul kept back nothing.

Mark the results. A good conscience. It is a great thing, when a man has finished his ministry, to feel that he is "free from the blood of all men." To some he has been made a savor of death unto death, and to some a savor of life unto life." The grand result is with God. His soul is at peace.

It excites attention. So did Paul at Ephesus, at Rome, at Corinth, at Thessalonica, declaring all the counsel of God. If a preacher would put men to sleep, and empty a house, let him tell men of God's love, but not of his justice; of heaven, but nothing of hell.

It wins affection. No other course gains so largely, in the main, confidence, respect, esteem, love.

It saves the soul. Such preaching honors God, and God honors such preaching. Christ is exalted, the Spirit is poured out, and men dead in trespasses and sins are renewed unto repentance and everlasting life.

"Turn ye, turn ye, for why will ye die ?"- Ezekiel xxxiii: 11.

How could God more plainly declare his good will to sinful, perishing man? How could he more distinctly and positively shut them up to the fearful responsibility of their own eternal destiny? Or how could he more emphatically point out the only way of escape from the coming wrath?

God sees men bent on death. 66 Why will ye die?" Certainly men do not choose death in itself; but they certainly do choose the way that leads to death, knowing that it leads to death. In that way they walk, deliberately, perversely, obstinately. And as they do this they still cling to a miserable hope of heaven, basing that hope on their own goodness; excusing their sins on the ground of their circumstances, their temptations, and the strength of their passions.

God seeks earnestly to save them. God knows how, and if God's effort fails, they perish. They must "turn from their evil ways." They must turn. No other can do it for them.

To Christ for pardon. Their whole life is a career of dreadful

guilt that admits neither palliation nor excuse. The blood of Christ

cleanseth from all sin.

To Christ for justification. To be delivered from condemnation is to be justified. That is through the imputed righteousness of Christ by faith.

To Christ for regeneration. Not a single right feeling or desire can they have but as the fruit of the regenerating Spirit. If they will not die eternally, then, let them turn in despair to Christ, if, peradventure Christ may, of God, be made unto them wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.

Baptism, the Covenant and the Family. By Rev. PHILIPPE WOLF, Late of Geneva, Switzerland. Boston: Crosby & Nichols.

OUR faith in flattering and fluent Book Notices is fast dying out. Here is a volume on a most important topic, the subject and the mode of baptism. The leading orthodox journals, so far as we have seen, have commended the work, while some give it a special excellence. Yet we have seldom read a religious book so made up of rash criticism, rough denunciation, innovation, error, and wild conceit. We regard the volume as exceedingly unsafe, and so far as the interests of pedobaptism are concerned, we look on its publication as a misfortune. We feel like disowning it as an authority on our side of this question, not that it has not many excellencies, for it has them, but we speak of the book as a whole. We suppress criticism, and fill the usual space with quotations, that will show the good and ill of the book:

"We renounce completely the use of the Fathers, and we shall not invoke their testimony in support of our doctrines on baptism." p. 21. Baptism by immersion is a modern fiction borrowed from the heathen. . . . Immersion is no baptism." p. 34. "To immerse means to drown," "to bury under the water and keep there." pp. 38-9. The argument from John's baptism of "all Jerusalem and Judea" is thus forcibly put arithmetically to our Baptist brethren. We condense it. "The population of this region was probably six millions; call it three millions; suppose one in six baptized,

or five hundred thousand; John was six months in the work; this would make about thirty-two hundred a day. Being only adults, on the Baptist theory, they would average in weight one hundred and twenty pounds, or three hundred and eighty-four thousand pounds for John to lower into the water and raise up again, and this daily for six months, more than Herculean labor of the forerunner." pp. 56-60. The criticism on the baptism of the Eunuch and the Greek propositions, èπí, eis, and ex, is very good, and removes a vast fog-bank. pp. 62-70. The baptism of John and of the apostles is strangely made one and the same. "To admit that there could have been two baptisms, differing either as to form or to substance, is to place one's self under the impossibility of understanding anything as to Christian baptism." p. 98. This fundamental error vitiates almost the whole book. The "certain disciples" at Ephesus, whom Paul re-baptized (Acts xix.) were "spurious disciples, neither Jews nor Christians, an anomaly and an exception. They had not been baptized by John himself." p. 102. "The apostles have always and invariably conferred baptism before justifying faith." We marvel that a thoughtful and evangelical man can take this position. "At the first baptism performed after Pentecost the apostles baptize no less than three thousand, and in a single afternoon." "The apostle urges them to be baptized immediately, not because they have believed and possess the faith that saves, for on the contrary he has just told them, 'Be baptized every one of you for the remission of sins.' He places the remission of sins, or what comes to the same, saving faith, after baptism, and puts before only the desire of pardon, for which a feeble germ is sufficient. The order of the apostle runs thus: 1st. Repent, that is, desire to do better; 2nd. Be baptized; 3rd. After baptism, strive to obtain the remission of your sins by believing; 4th. After faith, if so be that you believe, you shall certainly receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." So the baptism of the Samaritans, (Acts viii.) of the Eunuch, of Cornelius, of Paul, the jailor, Lydia, and all others, preceded saving faith. "The fact is, that there is in the gospel no condition whatever attached to the reception of baptism. The ordinance is as freely imparted as the word of preaching itself." pp. 118-147. "Baptism always before faith both for adults and infants; such should be the device of pedobaptists." p. 151. "There is no command whatever of the apostles, either expressed or even implied, authorizing us to baptize." "It must be confessed that baptism has somewhat the appearance of an apostolical prerogative, which we have arrogated to ourselves without sufficient authority." "The Quakers and Socinus are therefore perfectly right in saying that nothing in the New Testament enjoins upon us the practice of baptism." "It is only by adopting the Old Testament as a foundation, and connecting with it the practice of baptism, that we obtain sufficient right to perpetuate it." pp. 159, 160. The commission of our Lord, "Go teach all nations," &c., " refers only to the baptism of heathen, and not to that of the people of God." The "nations" are ovn, gentiles. Old Testament law and usage already secured the baptism of the Jews. pp. 162-3. "A nation is not a nation without the children." "The commission, therefore, leaves to infant baptism the widest margin that it is possible to desire or even to imag

ine." pp. 171-2. We see not how our Baptist brethren can break this line of defence for our children. After saying that Baptists and pedobaptists agree that baptism is a rite, admitting to the church, Mr. Wolf adds: "We have, nevertheless, the temerity to deny this relation entirely, and to believe that baptism exists independently of the church." "Baptism existed and was practised a long time before the foundation of the church." How strange a theory! "Baptism can explain the church, but the church cannot explain baptism." "Baptism occupies a larger area than the church.” 'Baptism does not introduce into a church." pp. 199-201.

Chapters tenth and eleventh on the nature of covenants, and on the covenant and its sign from Abraham to Christ, are valuable and well prepared. The chapter on "Baptism substituted for Circumcision " is admirable. We feel like saying this of several chapters in the latter half of the volume, excepting where the erroneous principles we have indicated have gained place in them.

In brief, the book is Jeremiah's figs in one basket.

Faith Treated in a Series of Discourses. JAMES W. ALEXANDER,
D. D. 1 vol. 12mo.
New York: Charles Scribner.
1862.

pp. 444.

Dr. Alexander's preaching was marked by unusual simplicity, clearness, scripturalness, common-sense in thought, and by an honest, manly, earnest method of delivery; which made him alike an attractive and commanding pulpit orator, little as he affected any such superiority, and much as his more private memoranda show that, in his own estimate, he fell short of his ideal. He honored his profession by habitually putting into it his best mental and spiritual power. There is no attempt to write down theology to the comprehension of common understandings, after the milk-diet fashion; but there is a delightful naturalness of expression, and a handling of divine truth in a style of unambitious, familiar, business-like enforcement, which give his sermons a more than rhetorical charm. So should we suppose, that one of the noblest of men and most childlike of Christians must discourse of the truth as it is in Jesus.

We have in this volume sixteen parochial sermons upon the central topics of the Christian life, doctrinally and experimentally treated. They take us onward from "The Righteous Advocate for Sinners," through the various phases, connections, and results of faith, shedding a pure, strong light along this path trodden by all the saints of God from the beginning. Reading its successive developments of this never-wearying theme, we find safe, timely, needful instruction to

minds in search of religious repose, and nourishment for believers rich and relishable. There is nothing forced, fantastic, outre; yet nothing heavy, prosy, lethargic. Being dead, one still speaketh here, to whom men who are willing to be taught the highest wisdom may well listen.

A Commentary Critical and Grammatical, on St. Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians, with a Revised Translation. By CHARLES J. ELLICOTT, B. D., Professor of Divinity, King's College, London, &c. Andover: Warren F. Draper. Boston: Gould & Lincoln. 8vo. pp. 200. 1862.

HERE we have the second volume of a very successful effort to find the meaning of scripture by careful, scholarly, grammatical criticism. We welcome every such effort. It is in the right direction, and will cut up by the roots a thousand dangerous speculations. The mischief of interpretations has been reliance upon general theories and human reason, rather than the strict grammatical import of the words. We would not depreciate reason, but reason in different men differs, and needs a safe guide, and it was for this purpose that inspiration was interposed. We have not had time to follow the learned author of this elegant commentary through all his notes, but so far as we now see, this work is greatly in advance of any that has appeared; and we commend it to the examination and study of ministers and students of the Bible.

A Glance at First Principles. Christ's Work of Reform. A Bible View. By a Layman. Boston: Crocker & Brewster. 1862.

It is most refreshing to find a layman writing a book so thoroughly pervaded by the spirit of the old Puritans, so eminently scriptural in its views, and so manly in its tone. It is what it purports to be “a Bible view," the application of "first principles," in other words, the great truths of Christianity to the practical enterprise of the world's regeneration. It is not controversial, either in form or temper, yet it cuts up with a keen discrimination the merely secular reforms of the day, and clearly demonstrates that vital union with Christ by regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost is the grand central principle of all successful effort for the elevation of fallen man. It has in all its pages the savor of the sound scriptural theology of the elder Edwards and the Puritan fathers. We hail the book with pleasure, and commend it warmly to the attention of our readers.