tions of the spiritual life. They exhibit, it may be, a measure of worldly conformity which well-nigh deprives them of the claim to be considered Christ's disciples at all. Where the true spirit of Christianity does appear, however, in the members of that communion, their piety is universally admitted to be of an unusually elevated character. It stands out in bold distinction from the spirit of the world. You cannot mistake it. It gives to social intercourse its prevailing character and tone; lends a peculiar charm to the abodes of wealth and elegance; consecrates daily toil and commercial enterprise; and prompts to the noblest efforts for the elevation of society at home, and the diffusion of truth and righteousness throughout the wide world.

ARTICLE VII.

SHORT SERMONS.

"I am the vine, ye are the branches."-John xv. 5.

OUR Saviour here declares the great principle of the union of believers with himself.

1. The basis of this union:

We find it in the eternal purpose of God; "He hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world"; in the covenant of the Father with the Son; "Jesus Christ who gave himself for our sins . . . according to the will of God"; in the incarnation of Christ ; In all things it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren "; and in the recreating act of the Holy Ghost; "We are his workmanship."

2. In its nature:

This union is legal, federal, or answers the end of the law. Christ takes our sins, and we take his righteousness; "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness," [Greek] justification. It is spiritual. The Spirit of Christ claims possession of the believer. "He hath given us of his Spirit." It is life-giving; "I am the vine, ye are the branches." It embraces the body as well as the soul; ❝ Your bodies are the members of Christ." It is indissoluble, "They shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of my hand."

3. In the method of its establishment:

God by regeneration begets a disposition for holy exercises; "Created anew in Christ Jesus unto good works." Man completes the bond of union by faith in Christ, and the other fruits of the Spirit that succeed it; " Forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified, by faith that is in me."

4. The fruits of this union:

The exchange of our sins for Christ's righteousness; "Ye are complete in him"; adoption into God's family; "As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God"; a sealing of the Holy Spirit unto salvation; "After that ye believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise"; increasing likeness to Christ; "When he shall appear, we shall be like him"; fellowship with Christ in his saving work; "That I may know him, and the fellowship of his sufferings"; his sympathy with us in all our trials; "Lo, I am with you always"; a heavenly inheritance; "If children, then heirs."

Conclusion. "Whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord. Whether we live, therefore, or die, we are the Lord's."

"Every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then, when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin; and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death."-James i. 14,15.

THE apostle is showing that God does not tempt any man to sin. In showing this he unfolds the genealogy or pedigree of sin. He marks, chronologically, its inception, development, and results. In following the apostle we notice:

1. The terms he uses. "Lust," not necessarily libidinous desire, but any inordinate, or ill-directed passion,-'envia. "Enticed," more than led along, ensnared,—dɛhɛalóμevoç, entrapped. The man is caught and held fast under the first motion of an irregular desire. "When lust hath conceived it bringeth forth." Guilt lies in the conception of the evil act, while "bringing forth" is but the manifestation, the overt act, the matured fruit. "Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death." The sinful act thus matured brings its own punishment, death. But the figurative language must not lead us to the conclusion that punishment is only an offspring of sin, an outgrowth. Punishment is two-fold, natural and positive. The former is necessary as a fruit, the latter is optional with God, being sovereign and governmental.

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

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. It reminds one 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