2. We mark a discovery that the apostle makes. He finds all the germs or sources of sin in the man's heart. "Drawn away of his own lust, and ensnared." Circumstances and the occasions of sin are powerless except as there is found a sinful susceptibility to overt acts of transgression in the man. A depraved disposition accounts for all sinful wanderings.

Reflections.

(a) How corrupt the heart that can furnish all the causes of sin! It has not only sinful acts but a susceptibility to perform those acts, -not only arms boxed and forwarded to the enemy, but a manufactory kept up, and open for orders from rebels against God.

(b) We see that guilt may inhere in a state of heart as well as in an act. Proneness to sin, and sinning, though different manifestations, prove one alike guilty.

(c) How fit the prayer of David to be ours, to be cleansed from a sinful nature, as well as to have pardon. "Create in me a clean heart."

(d) He has little ground for self-complacency whose inordinate desire has stopped only just short of the overt act.

(e) We see the wickedness of charging any sin on God, or on the providential circumstances in which God may have placed us.

ARTICLE VIII.

LITERARY NOTICES.

Outlines of Theology. By the Rev. A. ALEXANDER HODGE, Pastor of the Presbyterian church, Fredericksburg, Virginia. 8vo. pp. 522. New York: Carter & Brothers, 530, Broadway. 1863.

MR. HODGE prepared these "Outlines" originally for evening lectures to his congregation. It is not, therefore, the result of an effort to make a book, that we have, but the fruit of a pastor's endeavor to instruct his own people. Books that we thus get incidentally are among our most valuable. Books made to order are apt to prove an offense. In preparing this the author has used his venerable father's list of questions as his classes at Princeton had them in 1845--6. The book is thus a seed-book-a seminarium. The "Outlines' are generally exhaustive and sufficiently minute in divisions and

It reminds one

subdivisions, to give one a broad and full view of a system of theology. They have a clearness, definiteness, completeness and density of statement that must gratify a scholar, while the full reference to authorities are very valuable. If one wishes to know what the Princeton Theology is, he can learn it here. As a hand-book for a minister it is worth a library of skeleton sermons; for it is intensely stimulating, and suggestive of the only skeletons that a preacher should even attempt to clothe with flesh the bones of his setting up. The volume is nervous and muscular. of a case of condensed meats for an arctic voyage, being dry, substantive, and highly nutritious. And if it has more of "strong meat" than of lacteals, it must be attributed to its Pauline character. We should rejoice to see the "Outlines" and "Notes" of other eminent Professors thus given to the public. Their publication would solve many doubts and terminate much questioning and controversy that are now protracted only by the misty obscurity in which the points at issue are kept.

If we quote a page from Mr. Hodge on "Regeneration" we shall best illustrate his work.

"2. What is the Pelagian view of regeneration? They hold that sin can be predicated only of volitions, and that it is essential to the liberty and responsibility of man that he is always as able to cease from as to continue in sin. Regeneration is therefore a mere reformation of life and habits. The man who has chosen to transgress the law, now chooses to obey it.

"5. What view of regeneration is held by those in America who maintain the Exercise Scheme'? These theologians deny the existence in the soul of any moral habits or dispositions, and admit the existence only of the soul or agent, and his acts or "exercises." In the natural man the series of acts are wholly depraved. In the regenerated man a new series of holy acts are created by the Holy Ghost, and continued by his power. Emmons' Sermon LXIV, on the New Birth.

"6. What is the New Haven view, advocated by Dr. N. W. Taylor, on this subject? Dr. Taylor agreed with the advocates of the Exercise Scheme,' that there is nothing in the soul but the agent and his actions; but he differed from them by holding that man and not God is the independent author of human actions. He held that when God and the world are held up before the mind, regeneration consists in an act of the sinner in choosing God as his chief good, thus confounding regeneration and conversion. The Holy Spirit, in some unknown way, assists in restraining the active operation of the natural, selfish principle which prefers the world as its chief good. . . . This original motive to that choice of God, which is regeneration, is merely natural, and neither morally good nor bad. Thus, 1st. Regeneration is man's own act. 2d. The Holy Spirit helps man, (1) by suspending the controlling power of his sinful, selfish

disposition; (2) by presenting to his mind in the clear light of truth the superiority of God as an object of choice. 3d. Then the sinner chooses God as his chief good under the conviction of his understanding, and from a motive of natural, though not sinful, self-love, which is to be distinguished from selfishness, which is the essence of sin.-See Christian Spectator, December, 1829, pp. 693, 694, etc."

"7. What is the the common doctrine held by evangelical Christians? 1st. That there are in the soul, besides its several faculties, habits, or dispositions, of which some are innate and others are acquired, which lay the foundation for the soul's exercising its faculties in some particular way. Thus we intuitively judge a man's moral disposition to be permanently good when we see him habitually acting righteously. 2d. These dispositions are anterior to moral action, and determine its character as good or evil. 3d. In creation God made the disposition of Adam's heart holy. 4th. In the new creation God recreates the governing disposition of the regenerated man's heart holy. It is therefore properly called a ‘regeneration,' a new creation,' a new birth.'” pp. 443, 4, 5.

Letters on the Ministry of the Gospel. By FRANCIS WAYLAND. 12mo. pp. 210. Boston: Gould & Lincoln, 59 Washington Street. New York: Sheldon & Company. Cincinnati: George S. Blanchard. 1863.

THESE "Letters" are dedicated to Deacon Heman Lincoln, by whose " urgent solicitation," it seems they were written. We have to say, that it is worthy of a good Deacon to have requested, and of an excellent minister of Jesus Christ to have accomplished the writing of a book like this. A subject of the last importance to the churches is treated with Dr. Wayland's singular ability, and with a felicitous adaptation to the passing events of our time. The Doctor has evidently thought much on the subject which he treats; and he has thought with constant reference to the great end of preaching, the glory of Jesus Christ in the salvation of sinful men. That the ministry of the present day is characterized by many excellences needs not be said. That something is wanted, at the same time, to secure for it the highest efficiency, bringing it up to the Bible ideal, every body feels; and no one more deeply than the ministers themselves. To a good minister of Jesus Christ, who desires greater power and usefulness in his high vocation, we would say, "read. mark, learn, and inwardly digest" these invaluable "Letters." The topics treated are the following: "The past and the present. A call to the ministry. The ministry not a profession. Preaching the Gospel. The conversion of sinners. Preaching. The edification of believers. Manner of preaching. Pastoral visitation. Other pas

toral duties. Ministerial example. Personal explanation. Conclusion."

The careful reading of Dr. Wayland's book, not only by ministers and young men preparing for the ministry, but by all the members of our churches, would be a great benefit, and the adoption, for substance, of the views presented, could not fail, we believe, to add immensely to the efficiency of the modern pulpit, and to the happiness of those who are called of God to preach the Gospel.

The Pentateuch vindicated from the aspersions of Bishop Colenso. By WILLIAM HENRY GREEN, Professor in the Theological Seminary, Princeton, N. J. 12mo. pp. 195. New York: John Wiley. 1863.

THE more we read or hear of the sceptical work of the Zulu Bishop, the more we are surprised at its notoriety. Evidently it is the Missionary Bishop and not the author who has made the impression. His work does not rise to the dignity of scholarly infidelity. It is carping, frivolous, sophomoric, and bears more marks of the juvenile debater, assigned to a part, than of the broad and honestly troubled thinker.

Moses is said to have gathered "all the congregation" at the door of the tabernacle, but the Bishop is troubled to find room for them to stand. He had better study Hebraisms as well as arithmetic. Moses and Joshua are said to have spoken to "all Israel," but the Bishop is sure they could not have made themselves heard "by all Israel." He had better study the idioms of the Hebrew as well as acoustics. Under the order to "carry" the refuse of the sacrificial victims "without the camp unto a clean place "the Bishop finds an impossible labor imposed on Aaron or one of his two sons, to carry all this on his back on foot " six miles. He strains the word " carry," extends by assumption the limits of the camp to a "clean place," and restricts, against the record, the "carrying" to Aaron and his two sons. The Bishop is troubled about the transportation for Israel in the desert. He thinks they would require 200,000 tents, and 500,000 oxen to haul them. As commissary he cannot furnish the tents, and as master of transportation he cannot carry them.

66

But enough and too much of this petty dealing with the Pentateuch. The work is more creditable to a native Zulu Bishop than to an Englishman.

Prof. Green has done an unwelcome and almost unnecessary work in these pages. His style is easy but quite dignified enough for his

subject, and we think he does best when he turns the keen edge of his satire and ridicule on the sophister Bishop.

The New Testament; with brief Explanatory Notes or Scholia. By HOWARD CROSBY, D. D., Professor of the Greek Language and Literature in Rutger's College, and formerly Professor in the University of the City of New York. 12mo. pp. 543. New York: Charles Scribner. 1863.

THIS is not a commentary, nor yet a repository of doctrinal discussions, or practical remarks. The obscure idioms of the Greek and of our translation are made clear, and points in archæology are illustrated. Geographical, historical and oriental allusions are opened to the common reader. Doubtful readings of MSS. and improved translations are passed in silence. The Notes are few, brief and lucid, a help and no hindrance; and keep the reader but little time from the divine words themselves.

Professor Crosby has done a good service for the many who are able neither to purchase nor to use a voluminous and profound commentary.

Annual of Scientific Discovery: or Year-Book of Facts in Science and Art for 1863. Exhibiting the most important Discoveries and improvements in Mechanics, Useful Arts, Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, Astronomy, Geology, Zoology, Botany, Mineralogy, Meteorology, Geography, Antiquities, etc.: Together with Notes on the Progress of Science during the year 1862, a list of recent scientific publications, obituaries of eminent scientific men, etc. Edited by David A. Wells, A. M., M. D., &c., &c. Boston: Gould & Lincoln. 1863.

pp. 360.

SPREADING this title upon our page, and saying that the task which its author professes as his annual work has again been well done, is as good a notice as we can give of this closely and richly packed volume. Two or three illustrations of the progress of the ages in material power we nevertheless add. In the manufacture of iron the productive power of man, in six centuries, has increased so much that one man can now produce six hundred tons in the same time required, six hundred years ago, to produce one ton. One man can now spin four hundred times more yarn than the best spinner could turn off one hundred years ago. One man is equal to a hundred and fifty, of century ago, in grinding grain and making flour. One woman now can produce as much lace in a day as one hundred could make, at that period. In refining sugar a day is equal, in the