ARTICLE IX.-NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. THEOLOGICAL AND RELIGIOUS. CHRIST AND HIS SALVATION.*-The large number of readers of the "Sermons for the New Life" will welcome with the highest anticipations another collection of sermons from the same author. Nor will they be disappointed when they read this new volume. They will find in every discourse the same characteristics which have delighted them before;—the same original treatment of the theme, the same stirring and startling turns of thought, the same freshness of imagery and of style, the same boldness of practical views, the same nobleness in the ideals of the Christian life and the Christian affections, the same freedom from the conventionalisms of the schools, the outworn phrases of the pulpit, and the platitudes of religious cant, which have won for Dr. Bushnell's other sermons so great favor, and so warm and general admiration. The inequalities of the author's gifts and genius are fully illustrated in this volume. If there are as many splendid passages as usual, which remind us of the eagle in the majesty and grace of his soaring and audacious flight, perhaps there are no fewer, which cause us to think of the same daring bird, when with creaking pinions and unwieldy movements, he laboriously lifts himself from the earth. Some of the theological views expressed in a few of these sermons will be likely to attract attention. They may awaken misgivings and perhaps elicit unfavorable criticism. The opinions that are more than intimated in respect to the import of the death of our Lord would of themselves excite questionings in many minds. They will be regarded still more seriously if viewed as the foreshadowings of what we are to expect in the promised volume on "The Vicarious Sacrifice." The nineteenth sermon, "Christ bearing the Sins of Transgressors," will be likely to give great offense to some and occasion serious disappointment to others. In this sermon * Christ and His Salvation; in sermons variously related thereto. By HORACE BUSHNELL, New York: Charles Scribner. 1864. 12mo. pp. 456. [New Haven: Judd & White. Price $2.] the three theories of the atonement, most generally received, are set aside in as many brief arguments, after which the attempt is made to give a positive statement of what the scriptural account of the matter warrants us to believe. Of the many who will accept as truly and forcibly stated, all that the author asserts in the form of positive statements;-of some who will agree with him that the developments of the true theory of the work of Christ should commence with the consideration of these aspects of it which Dr. Bushnell enforces ;-there are many who will not fail to ask whether these exhaust its import. Let it be granted that Christ "bears the sin of the world, by that assumption which his love must needs make of it" in the forms of "loss, danger, present suffering, suffering to be,"-" that he is incarnated into the state of sin, including all the corporate woes of penalty or natural retribution under it," and "that he bears, consentingly, the direct attacks of wrong, or sin upon his person ;" and still it may be asked whether this is all; whether, in what Christ does and suffers in order to redeem, nay in the very acts of incarnation and of death, when these are preached and accepted as the ground and medium of pardon, it may not be true that God's regard for holiness is as truly manifested and enforced, as when he punishes the unrepenting. It may also be asked whether the positive statements of the scriptures do not require us to believe this, and whether any satisfactory interpretation of their import can be reached without such a construction; and whether, what is last revealed was not foremost in the plan of God. The first of these questions the author does not satisfactorily meet in this sermon. In other sermons we are happy to say that he raises the question directly, and answers it satisfactorily. For example, on page 366, he writes: "Something may be necessary on his [God's] part, to save an appearance of laxity, when he forgives-some kind of honor paid to the instituted order of justice, that will keep it in as high respect as the exact execution of it. Christ will see to that. I cannot here describe the provision he has made; enough, that when he remits the penalties of justice, in his moral distributions, he shows most convincingly still, that he adheres to justice in his feeling as firmly as ever." Again, he says on page 251: "God certainly did not want it as wanting to get so much suffering, out of somebody. He does not exact a retributive suffering, even in what is called justice, because he wants so much in quantity to even the account of wrong, but only that he may indicate the right and testify his honor to it by a fit expression." What more exact statement of the New England theory of the atonement could its most earnest advocate desire? And yet Dr. Bushnell has spent a great deal of elaborate pains-taking, and it may be, will expend a great deal more in time to come, to show that this is a theory which he cannot accept. Dr. Bushnell's very unfortunate position in respect to systematic thinking in theology is illustrated in this volume. When he wishes to expose the absurdity of other men's thinking, he applies to their opinions with the utmost rigor all the criteria which the most merciless and bigoted systematizer could possibly enforce, viz: the criterion of consistency of each part with every other, and with the whole. For himself he seeks exemption from these very obligations which he enforces upon others, by pleading that he does not believe in "systems," or "notional definitions," and hence is not to be judged or held by them. He will not put A and B together, and qualify the one by the other, as common men do, but when he says A, he insists no B is to be thought of. And yet, he is too good a Christian, and, in his inmost convictions, too true to the scriptures and the faith of the church, not to have said B many times in some other connections, though it' costs his friends at times not a little trouble to hunt up the passages for him, and by dint of patching, to clothe him up with some uncouth and badly fitting tailor-work of a creed, that will fit him to pass muster with common Christian people. We hope that he will not put them to any more trouble of this sort by his forthcoming volume on the Vicarious Sacrifice. We are quite sure he cannot fail to invest this greatest of all themes with a new interest. There are aspects and relations of it, to which the creed-makers and the platitudinarians of the church have not allowed their due importance, which we are certain he will illustrate and enforce with no feeble effect. But we hope he will not forget to place in proper relief those other grand and central relations of the work of Christ, which he has so often acknowledged, and will not by mere defect and oversight exhibit but the half of the truth, out of zeal to combat some outworn scholastic theory, that is but the shriveled husk of a choice kernel of gospel doctrine. "APOLOGIA PRO VITA SUA," AND "BROKEN LIGHTS."t-We have placed the titles of these two volumes together, because though they are so far unlike one another as to seem to represent opposite poles of error, they deserve to be considered as equally the effects of a common cause, or rather as the two extremes which are antagonistic outworkings of a common defect. At the first aspect no two volumes could seem to be more opposed in their origin and in their influence. The autobiography, or rather the confessions of Father Newman, is in its most obvious and external form a vindication of himself and the Romish communion, which was made necessary by sundry wanton and ill-advised attacks upon both, by that well-meaning but rollicking clerical bully, who has more genius than discretion, the Rev. Charles Kingsley. This gentleman had said in his haste, not exactly in the sense, nor with the carnestness of the Psalmist, not "all men are liars," nor "all Romish priests are liars," but "the entire Romish Church are liars on principle," and particularly the Rev. John H. Newman has defended lying in his discourses and other writings. To this rather unguarded challenge, Mr. Newman retorts with the brief and proper inquiries, "When?" and "Where?" The Rev. Mr. Kingsley undertakes to point out the time and the place, but fails most manifestly in the eyes of all men, and especially of all Englishmen, who, much as they like a pugilistic contest, and much as they dislike the Romish priesthood, have still some lingering regard to the rules of fair play. Mr. Kingsley perceiving that he is worsted and must make an apology, forgets the rules, if not of muscular Christianity at least of ordinary Christianity,—both of which requiring, the first a manly, and the second an honest recantation of a slanderous wrong. He tries to get off with a sneaking amende, which is all the more sneaking because it assumes to be so very English and so very manly. With this Dr. Newman is of course entirely malcontent. He in turn begins to square himself for a contest, and prepares to deal out his blows to the right and left, in logical fence. * Apologia pro Vita Sua: Being a reply to a pamphlet entitled "What, then, does Dr. Newman mean?" By JOHN HENRY NEWMAN, D. D. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1865. 12mo. pp. 393. [New Haven: H. C. Peck, $2.] An inquiry into the present condition and future prospects of Religious Faith. By FRANCES POWER COBBE. Boston: J. E. Tilton & Co. 18mo. pp. 242. [New Haven: H. C. Peck.] + Broken Lights: The priestly gown half slips from his shoulders. Out of that artificial mask which thirty years of ascetic sanctimony and artificial pietism have been setting upon his features, there gleams for a moment the honest expression of the indignant Englishman; -when all of a sudden the ecclesiastic suddenly recollects and recovers himself, the gown and cowl are readjusted, and the face is fixed again to its half monkish, half-saintly expression. Father Newman is himself again, and concludes that it will be expedient to take this occasion to write his autobiography-his reverend brothers of St. Philip, "the priests of the Birmingham Oratory," having doubtless considered that as he has obtained the ear of the English schism a second time, it would be a sin against the Holy Church not to improve the occasion to utter a new argument for Catholicity in the Romish sense. The result is the Apologia, which is not only one of the most deeply interesting volumes of the season, but which will remain a work of permanent value as a record of the history of the English church for the present century. When this history shall be written, the books which the future historian will regard with especial prominence will be the "Tracts for the Times," Hurrell Froude's "Remains," "The Life of Dr. Arnold," "The Essays and Reviews," and Father Newman's" Apologia." The interest of this book is expressed in a word. It depicts and explains the beginnings and the grounds of the Anglo-Catholic movement, as well as illustrates some of its tendencies and its results. "In "BROKEN LIGHTS" is a book of quite another origin and character. It is written by an English disciple of Theodore Parker not deficient in original power of conception and in earnestness and fervor of feeling, having at command an eloquent English style. This author has been previously known by an essay on tuitive Morals," a work of more than ordinary interest and value, not only for its consistent and eloquent enforcements of the principles of Kant's Ethics, but for the insidious attack upon the Christian system which it covertly maintains. This author is a woman, and it is not a little remarkable that three of the ablest antichristian writers in England, now living, belong to the softer sex. There is a kind of poetic justice in this. For if the clergy and the university leaders, instead of defending the faith like men, have sought to bolster and cocker it by arts appropriate to women, in all the manifold varieties of ecclesiastical millinery, it is no matter of |