Having defended these views at considerable length, against the various objections brought against them, he thus concludes his whole argument:

"This is certainly what Satan is aiming at in attacking infant baptism with such violence, that this attestation of the grace of God being removed out of the way, the promise which is held up to our view therein, may gradually pass out of memory. Thence would arise not only an impious ingratitude towards the mercy of God, but a certain indolence in the pious instruction of children. For we are not a little incited to educate them in the serious fear of God, and in obedience to law, by the thought that from their very birth they are held and acknowledged by him in the place of children. Unless therefore we would enviously obscure the beneficence of God, let us offer him our children, to whom he has given a place in his household, and among his servants, that is to say, among the members of his church."

It has been well said that "all confessions of faith have had a reference to existing heresies." The remark extends in its application, and with even more force to the writings by which these confessions of faith have been upheld and defended, including those of the most valued Christian teachers. From this fact springs their great value, and from this also in part their defects; their value, because the convictions, the intuitions brought forth in times of widely awakened thought, and feeling, and in the actual conflict with error, are ever deeper and clearer than those which are produced in seasons of peace and tranquillity. Doubt and vacillation, the halting between two opinions, are then out of place, and each earnest spirit grapples mightily with the great questions presented for solution, till it has arrived at some satisfactory conclusion. The truth accepted, and lived on at such a time, the truth that is found to be a stronghold against the assaults of a sneering world, or of a domineering hierarchy, is surely of value for all time, a treasure that cannot be thrown away. Careful should we be how we allow any portion of it, however little it may seem to concern our daily happiness and well being, to slip out of our memory and faith, lest haply we may repent too late, when we find the enemy breaking in upon us like a flood,

sweeping over our weakened defences, and carrying all before him, before we are aware of the danger that is

upon us. But on the other hand the due order and subordination of truth is not always preserved in the crisis of a particular need. This may be illustrated in the instance of Calvin. The impression which has been made upon the world that the doctrine of the Divine sovereignty is exalted to an undue prominence in his writings, is not wholly false. It is dwelt upon with greater emphasis than is at all times required, and it would perhaps be wrong for any Christian teacher, uncalled by peculiar circumstances, to give it so important a place in his instructions. It belongs to the class of defensive and conservative truths. The one great doctrine that should always and under all circumstances stand first, that should never be thrown into the shadow of any other, is not that which stands first in logical order. It rather occupies the central position in the Christian schemethe doctrine namely of Redemption through Christ. To this clings the faith of all Christians. The elect from all the corners of the world, and all the centuries of time shall cluster themselves around it, and the hopes that are founded on its true reception shall never be confounded.

Would that in times like these, when the great enemy of souls is busier than ever in direct assaults upon this very point, the faith of Christians might burn steadily and brightly, testifying that a light is indeed come into the world, "that whosoever believeth therein should not abide in darkness." The truth must always become embodied in the life before it can have power upon the world. The dead forms in which alone the intellect is able to present it are good for the intellect only. Heart alone has power to touch heart. And when the Christian church transfused with the spirit of its head, filled and penetrated through and through with Christ's love, so presents and offers to the world its all sufficient Saviour, men do indeed flow into it, nor can the hesitations of the understanding, the bewilderments of passion, nor all the persecutions of Satan, detain them from hastening into this harbor of safety and peace. Thus it was found to be in the age of Calvin, when doctrine crystalized itself out of a loving experience, and confessions of faith were sealed day after day by the blood of those martyrs from

whose lips they had fallen unprompted by human teaching, in the presence of tribunals that only awaited such signal to pronounce the doom of death upon those who uttered them.

The doctrines so energetically defended by Calvin, relating to the divine sovereignty, election and the like, have no doubt their dangers when entered upon and discussed in certain states of mind, and are to all minds unfruitful when pursued beyond a certain limit, yet let it not be forgotten that all through the close and eager conflict with Romanism, they formed one of the strongest barriers set up against her returning waves. They have been felt and acknowledged to be true in all those periods of history when the life of the church was freshest and most vigorous, and have coexisted with the most tender and vital piety in those whom the church has acknowledged as her holiest and loveliest. If we would comprehend them in their true relations with the Christian life, we must enter into the spirit of the times such as those of the Reformation, and while we strive to understand in their full meaning the utterances of its great teachers, our hearts must also come into living contact with the truth, our wills be surrendered to its power, and we too must stand ready to live or to die, for the cause of Christ and a free Gospel.

ARTICLE VII.

SHORT SERMONS.

"Whosoever is born of God, doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him; and he cannot sin because he is born of God."I John, iii. 9.

THE text does not teach that sinless perfection is essential to the existence of Christian character; but that holiness as the rule and practice is.

This is proved:

"His seed re

1. From a careful examination of the language. maining in him," refers to the general law of plants, requiring them to bring forth fruit after their kind. The word rendered "commit " is noε which may be rendered to practice. A form of the word is similarly rendered in James i. 23, 25, and in many other places. any man be a hearer of the word and not a doer, nointis, a

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practicer. John iii. 21, "He that doeth (o) truth cometh to the light."

2. From the scope of the epistle. Milner says that before the death of John there sprang up a sect which depended on the righteousness of Christ in such a way as to allow themselves to live in the indulgence of a life of unrestrained sin. John wrote directly to meet the error of this class.

3. By the context, and by many passages of Scripture which assert that Christians can not follow evil as the unconverted do.

"And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses."—Acts xiii. 39.

THE subject is Justification.

1. The ground of it. "By Him." Wholly through Christ.

2. It is judicial. It has reference to law. It is a declarative act of the judge, for just and sufficient cause.

3. Its result is a state of freedom and deliverance "from all things," such as both the law of works and sacrifices could not give. 4. The subjects of justification are "all that believe" on Jesus Christ, and thus make him their Saviour.

ARTICLE VIII.

LITERARY NOTICES.

The Constitutional History of England since the Accession of George Third, 1760-1860. By THOMAS ERSKINE MAY, C. B. In two volumes. Volume II. Crown 8vo. pp. 596. Boston: Crosby & Nichols. 1863.

THE continuation and completion of this important history well fulfil the promise of its commencement. As an officer of the House of Commons, the author has had the best sources of information for his work, and the learning and ability which he has brought to his task have achieved an enviable success. The topics discussed in this volume are the origin and influence of the great English parties; the progress of civil and religious liberty; local corporations; Ireland before the Union; the colonial system of Great Britain, including our struggle for an independent nationality; and the progress of general legislation. It is throughout the history of the growth of

popular freedom in the country which, next to our own, still commands our love and reverence-no thanks to her recent mendacity and malignity.

No section of this work is of more interest than its chapters on the struggle for a free press and a free legislation. At the Stuart Restoration "authors and printers of obnoxious works were hung, quartered and mutilated, exposed in the pillory and flogged, or fined and imprisoned according to the temper of their judges; their productions were burned by the common hangman." From this point of despotic surveillance, we rapidly run down the story of the battle for emancipation through the famous libel trials of Wilkes, Junius, William Cobbett. It was a hard fought campaign. We are surprised to be reminded that no longer ago than 1820, the passage of the infamous "Six Acts" by parliament put the realm under an almost Southern interdict of personal liberty. French radicalism was the chief argument of Castlereagh and the restrictionists. But Brougham, ten years before, had given the true key-note: "Let the public discuss! So much the better. Even uproar is wholesome in England, while a whisper is fatal in France." The issue of this protracted controversy is a degree of individual security and freedom, in the criticism of public measures and the general utterance of opinion, in Great Britain, which is not exceeded in our own democratic North.

The mitigation of the penal code illustrates the immense advance of humane sentiments. It took a long time to secure the recognition of the distinction between poverty and crime. When this at length came to pass, " 50,000 wretched debtors" were released from prison in thirteen consecutive years. Fraudulent debt alone is now treated as a crime. Spies and informers in the pay of the government, and the opening of letters by its officials, are also among the things of the past-albeit of a not very remote one.

Three chapters give the main facts in the political improvement of ecclesiastical affairs within the century reviewed. They discuss the measures of relief in behalf of the Quakers, Unitarians, Roman Catholics, Jews, and other Dissenters from the Established Church. Mr. May writes with a strong sympathy for the abrogation of all civil disabilities on account of conscience and faith in religious matters, wherein he is doubtless right, although the question of such differences, in their moral and Christian bearings, is, of all things, no matter of indifference. Here is where the progress of British enlightenment has halted more than at any other point. And, in truth, nowhere else have the established institutions of the country presented so many intrinsic and unmanageable obstacles to a satis