"Salute the brethren," he says, with his large loving heart, overlooking all other distinctions. (4.) Lastly, there is a home thought here. The words, Father and home, are correlatives. Hence we find the Lord Jesus associating them thus,-" In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you; I go to prepare a place for you." Rich, indeed, are the privileges of Sonship enjoyed by the believers now; and we are to recognise them, and live up to them; but these are only pledges and foretastes of joys yet to be revealed. Over those hills surely lies the heavenly city-the rest that remaineth for the people of God. And whenever we hear the name of God as "our Father," we have a right, through the Forerunner already entered, to count upon the reality of that place, the certainty of our entering it, and the boundless felicity to be enjoyed there. Just as the sunshine illuminates the distant dwelling embosomed in trees, and reveals it clearly to the way worn traveller; so does this inspired Word, this soul-stirring name of God the Father, suspended as it were over the celestial walls, point out to our weak contemplation, and encourage and assure us, that all who love and follow the Lord Jesus as the way, must and shall reach the Father's home as the end.

B.

KINGSLEY'S GOSPEL OF THE PENTATEUCH.

The Gospel of the Pentateuch. A Set of Parish Sermons by the Rev. C. Kingsley, F.L.S., F.G.S., &c. With a Preface to

the Rev. Canon Stanley. Published by request. Parker, Son, and Bourn, West Strand. 1863.

WHAT Bishop Butler says of characters may be applied, without any hesitation, to books. General and undistinguishing censure of the whole is sure to do more harm than good. The writers "know that the whole censure is not true, and so take for granted that no part of it is." (Bishop Butler's Sermon on Self-deceit.) In criticising the little book that now lies open before us, we shall be constrained, in all faithfulness, to record our most solemn and deliberate censure of many of the doctrinal views and statements that it contains. But ours will not be "general and undiscriminating censure of the whole." We wish to "separate the precious from the vile; to distinguish the wholesome words of sound doctrine, from the flippant and unscriptural statements, which can only perplex the minds, and subvert the souls, of those that hear them. The Sermons are neither all flowers, nor all weeds; neither all wholesome, nor all erroneous. In almost every one of them there is a considerable mixture of the two.

We turn first to the flowers, and do not hesitate to pronounce many of them to be alike both fragrant and beautiful. To begin with the Book itself, from which all our views are to be taken, and by which all our doctrines are to be tested. It is with unfeigned pleasure that we transcribe the passage below:

"Good men are not in the habit of telling lies now, and never have been; for no lie is of the truth, nor can possibly help the truth in any way; and all liars have their portion in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone. And that such men as the prophets, of whom we read in the Old Testament, did not know that, and therefore invented this history, or invented any thing else, is a thing incredible and absurd.

"Here we have the Old Testament, an infinitely good book, giving us infinitely good advice, and good news, and news, too, concerning God-God's laws, God's providence, God's dealings-such as we get nowhere else. And shall we believe that this infinitely good book is founded upon falsehood? or that the good men who wrote it could fancy it necessary to stoop to falsehood, and take the devil's tools wherewith to do God's work?... That the prophets ever invented or ever dared to tamper with truth, is a thing not to be believed of men whose writings are plainly, by their whole meaning and end, inspired by the Holy Spirit of God." (p. 232.)

Now, considered by itself, such a statement as this is entirely satisfactory; and, as we read it in a detached form, we feel persuaded that the writer of it had some very right views of the Divine authority and infallible truth of the Holy Scriptures.

So also, considered in the same detached form, the fundamental truth of human depravity appears to be distinctly recognized in the words we now quote:

"The truth is, my friends, that these souls of ours, instead of being pure and strong, are the very opposite; and the Article speaks plain truth when it says, that we are every one of us of our own nature inclined to evil. That may seem a hard saying; but if we look at our own thoughts, we shall find it true." (p. 100.)

The vital doctrine of the one oblation, offered upon the cross, for the sins of the whole world, though by no means occupying the prominence that it ought, is from time to time distinctly acknowledged, and earnestly urged :

"In the second lesson, the words of Jesus the Son of God are all gentleness, patience, tenderness. A quiet sadness hangs over them all. They are the words of one who is come (as He said Himself) not to destroy men's lives, but to save them; not to punish sins, but to wash them away by His own most precious blood." (p. 138.)

"Oh, think of these things, and cast away your sins betimes, at the foot of His everlasting cross, lest you be consumed with your sins in His everlasting fire!" (p. 148.)

We are pleased also to notice the seasonable protest made by Mr. Kingsley against the common error of exalting "the so-called laws of nature" above the Almighty power of the great Creator; and distinctly stating that our ignorance of the means by which He performs His wonders ought not in any wise to interfere with our firm belief that all things really come from Him:

"We are too much already worshipping the so-called laws of nature, instead of God who made the laws; and so honouring the creature above the Creator." (p. 206.)

"What special means God uses to bring about these great droughts, we cannot know, any more than we can know why a storm or shower should come one week, and not another. And we need not know. God made the world, and that is enough for us." (p. 213.)

It is also with peculiar satisfaction that we find Mr. Kingsley, in his own pointed and lively way, urging upon his flock the impropriety of thinking their own thoughts on the Sabbath of the Lord their God. These are his words :

"This I say, and this I am sure you will find, that when a man in business, or out of business, accustoms himself, as very many do, to think of nothing but money, money, money, from Monday morning to Saturday night, he thinks of money a great part of Sunday too." (p. 98.)

It would not be difficult for us to select other passages, not only free from error, but characterized alike by great beauty and great force. But, how far such statements are neutralized and contradicted by the more ample quotations of an opposite character now to be produced, we leave for our readers to determine. We begin with a most important doctrine, which lies at the root of all right theology. We mean, the condition of man as a sinner in the world. In his second sermon, on "The Likeness of God," Mr. Kingsley expresses himself thus:

"If we did lose the likeness of God at Adam's fall, how comes the Bible never to say so? How comes the Bible never to say one word on what must have been the most important thing which ever happened to mankind before the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ?

"And how comes it also that the New Testament says distinctly, that man is still made in the likeness of God? For St. Paul speaks of man as 'the likeness and glory of God.' And St. James says of the tongue: Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith (to our shame) curse we men which are made in the likeness of God.'

"But the great proof that man is made in the image and likeness of God, is the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ; for if human nature had been, as some think, something utterly brutish and devilish, and utterly unlike God, how could God have become man, without ceasing to be God? Christ was man of the substance of his mother. That substance had the same human nature as we have. Then, if that

human nature be evil, what follows? Something which I shall not utter, for it is blasphemy. Christ has taken the manhood into God. Then, if manhood be evil, what follows again? Something more which I shall not utter, for it is blasphemy." (p. 20.)

Writers such as Maurice and Stanley will be perfectly satisfied with these statements. They can build upon them all their delusions. We entirely agree with Mr. Kingsley, that our loss of the Divine image, by Adam's fall, is the most important thing which ever happened to mankind before the coming of Christ. But instead of agreeing with him, that the Bible never says one word about it, we confidently affirm, on the other hand, that it is both asserted and implied, from the beginning to the end of the Bible; that it is the very basis. upon which the whole scheme of redemption rests; and that no one, without some experimental acquaintance with this humiliating and fundamental truth, is at all able either to explain or to understand the Bible. When that awful threatening was incurred, "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die," by forfeiting their spiritual life our first parents most assuredly lost the Divine image in which they were originally created; and which consisted, as the apostle tells us, in knowledge (Col. iii. 10), and righteousness, and true holiness." (Eph. iv. 24.) When it is said, with such marked emphasis, of Adam after the fall, "He begat a son in his own likeness, after his image," (Gen. v. 3,) we know perfectly that this was the image of the earthy (1 Cor. xv. 49), that is, the depraved and the dying state to which Adam had reduced both himself and his posterity by his fall. Has the Bible not told us we have lost the image in which we were originally made, when it informs us, the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth," (Gen. viii. 21); that "the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked," (Jer. xvii. 9); that we "were shapen in iniquity and conceived in sin," (Ps. li. 5); that "from within, out of the heart, proceed evil thoughts, and all the evil things which defile the man," (Mark vii. 21, 23); and that "we are by nature children of wrath," (Eph. ii. 3). Let us deeply ponder in our hearts such passages as these; and then let us ask, Whose image and superscription is this?

With regard to what the New Testament says about man being still made in the image of God. Here is Bishop Hall's simple exposition of 1 Cor. xi. 7: "A man ought not indeed to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the superior; and in this superiority bears the glorious image of God, having none above him, to control and overrule him." The other passage from St. James admits of an equally simple and easy explanation. If we distinguish, as St. Paul teaches us, between that which is spiritual and that which is natural, (1 Cor. xv. 46,)

everything is plain. "Men," says a sage and wise commentator, "were first created after the image of God; they still retain His natural image, and are capable of being renewed to a conformity to His holiness."

But, if possible, more surprising than all this, is Mr. Kingsley's "great proof," that man is made in the image and likeness of God. How could he suppose for a moment, that a firm belief in the "fault and corruption of the nature of every man that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam" (Art. ix.) involves in it the dreadful consequence to which he alludes, with regard to the immaculate conception and the holy nativity of our Lord? Christ was not naturally engendered of the offspring of Adam; and though really and truly "He took man's nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin of her substance" (Art. ii.), "and thus came in the likeness of sinful flesh" (Rom. viii. 3), still we have another article, which speaks in manifest accordance with the Holy Scriptures, and which is actually made for avoiding the dreadful dilemmas to which Mr. Kingsley refers. "Christ, in the truth of our nature, was made like unto us in all things, sin only except, from which He was clearly void, both in His flesh and in His Spirit. He came to be the Lamb without spot, who by sacrifice of Himself, once made, should take away the sins of the world, and sin, as St. John says, was not in Him." (Art. xv.)

We have not a word to say in behalf of any really exaggerated notions of human depravity. On this, and every other matter of faith, we are perfectly content to let the Holy Scriptures, and the Formularies of our Church, speak for themselves; remembering only the most important caution, never "so to expound one place of Scripture, that it be repugnant to another." (Art. xx.) Most simply do we receive, and most firmly do we believe, all that we find in the Bible respecting reason, and conscience, and nature. (Rom. ii. 14.) Everybody knows that Bishop Butler is the special pleader for the just rights and lawful prerogatives of these deputy judges and authorized ministers of the moral Governor of the world; we mean natural conscience, internal reason, and human nature. And yet he has told us, "Mankind have ungoverned passions, which they will gratify at any rate, as well to the injury of others, as in contradiction to known private interest." Now, the propensity thus to indulge our passions is what we mean by original or birth-sin; and this it is "whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined to evil, so that the flesh lusteth always contrary to the spirit, and therefore in every person born into the world it deserveth God's wrath and damnation." (Art. ix.) Whose image and superscription is this?

In the Church Service these are the humiliating terms we are taught to use in the presence of Him who requireth "truth