As a philosopher, then, and as a theologian, the English mind of Ockham fixed its impress, and a deep one, upon the religious history of his country, and of all Protestant Europe. Still, it has not been the fashion to honor him, but rather to forget him, as one buried beneath the rubbish of Nominalism; as a mere quibbling scholastic, fit only to divide a hair betwixt its south and southwest side. Ockham was anything but such a devotee of distinctions without a difference. He believed in realities, and not in fancies. He distinguished, because his distinctions were genuine, and not imaginary. He was eminently practical. He was thoroughly benevolent. His ambition was that of a far-sighted philanthropist. He sought to benefit his contemporaries, and posterity besides, by giving them perceptible help, and stepping-stones for actual and consolatory progress. His name should be lifted out of the dust and darkness of by-gone ages, and put on the foreground of history, as a benefactor to his native land, and to the whole of that religious world which looks not to Italy as religion's centre, nor to the Vatican as the spot where that centre is enthroned.

SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY. By Charles Hodge, D.D., Professor in the Theological Seminary, Princeton, New Jersey. Vol. iii. Pp. 880. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1873.

Dr. Hodge has been a professor in the seminary at Princeton for more than half a century. Most of the time he has filled the chair of systematic theology in that institution. Of course, he is now venerable with age and academic honors, and is, moreover, highly and meritoriously esteemed for his general attainments and theological scholarship. The volume whose title is quoted is the last of a series which will give to the world the results of his life-long study and learning. And neither he nor his denomination will have any reason to be ashamed of it as one of the most valuable contributions to theological science which their side of Christendom has ever given to the world. True, it may not have the popularity of Dwight's Theology, since that was intended to be popular, rather than scientific. Dr. Hodge's work is for the theological scientist; and we presume an abbreviation will be made of it, to furnish a text-book for the lecture-room. It is cast in a more angular Calvinian mould than were Dr. Dwight's volumes; which, for their era, were wonderfully gentle and condescending. President Dwight was a wary ecclesiastical politician. He knew that he had the sons of many Churchmen under his charge; and so he complimented the "Episco

pal Church,” as “fast rising in the gradations of piety." A compliment which, for its day, Mr. Hume might have styled a minor miracle.

Dr. Hodge is a theologian simply, and yet even he is more amiable than some of his predecessors; has not always that grim and ungracious cast of countenance which betokens a delight in making religious truth about as ominous and uninviting as a thunder-cloud. In fact, we have known some of a departed generation who have suspected themselves of something like heresy when their sermons were not protested against for their gloominess and severity.

Dr. Hodge endeavors to smooth down some of the rougher wrinkles of Calvinism, and we are rejoiced at it. Calvinism, as Mr. Froude contends, has not been "totally depraved," has done good in its way, filled out its mission, and is now quietly taking a Rip Van Winkle nap. We do not wish to throw a pebble at it. Requiescat

in pace!

Dr. Hodge succeeds, sometimes, admirably. But he is characteristically unfortunate when a Romanist, or a Churchman in ritualistic drapery, crosses his path. True, he can say of Rome, "Indeed, it is a matter of devout thankfulness to God, that underneath the numerous grievous and destructive errors of the Romish Church, the great truths of the Gospel are preserved" (p. 135). But, like too many Protestant theologians, he errs in using such a word as justification, as if Romanists employ it in precisely the same sense in which it is employed by their antagonists. They decidedly do not; and Bishop Hopkins, though a great controversialist against Rome, did (as his son and biographer tells us), did see this, and left that subject out of his book against the Romish Bishop Milner. It seems passing strange that it should so often be forgotten that Burnet (an evangelical for his day) said of the controversy about justification-if a Romanist means by remission of sin what others mean by justification, and by justification what they mean by sanctification-the war is one of words. But he did say just that much in his comments on the Eleventh Article of the Thirty-nine. The Romanist uses the term justification in a moral sense, and the Protestant in a forensic sense; and differences must be eternal if there is no mutual explanation.

And as it fares with justification, in the view of our eminent Protestant doctor, so does it with regeneration when the word is affiliated. with baptism. Even such a divine as Waterland (our Dr. Hodge of the eighteenth century), when he talks of baptismal regeneration, is "full of confusion and contradictions," because he will not consider it "a subjective change in the state of the soul," but rather a change

in the spiritual state and relations of the person receiving it, which change, if properly availed of, will, in due time, produce an issue that may be called regeneration in a sense agreeable to the taste of theologians at Princeton. We wonder, as we read Dr. Hodge's strenuous assertions, if he would insist that regeneration in Matthew, xix. 28 (one of the two only instances in which the New Testament employs the word), did not mean a change of condition, but a change confined, subjectively, to the soul. Waterland could, and no doubt would, have signed, willingly, the declaration which so many of our bishops awhile since issued. With Dr. Hodge, also, that declaration, probably, was altogether passable. Did, then, Dr. Waterland and Dr. Hodge entertain, after all, the same views of the efficacy of baptism? Undoubtedly, the question might open a Princetonian eye somewhat widely. Why, then, will not Dr. Hodge allow Churchmen to define theological terms in their own way? Why should we be subjected to the whims of those who, as the dedication of the Bible to King James informs us, "give liking to nothing but what is framed by themselves, and hammered on their anvil?" We are not disposed to press Dr. Hodge with his theory of predestination, as involving the horrible idea of reprobation, an idea flung in the face of St. Augustine by Julian, the Pelagian Bishop of Eclanum. By no means. A theologian ought not to be attainted because he uses words in his own way, if a liberal and charitable construction can be put upon his language.

When Dr. Hodge looks at baptism from a stand-point, confronted by a hardy denier and repudiator of the efficacy of sacraments, one might suppose, from his lofty tone, that he was an actual HighChurchman. When he looks at it from a stand-point, where he sees a Romanist or a Churchman "of the baser sort" hovering around the subject, he comes forth as if he spake under the broad brim of a Quaker. Thus, "the idea that a man's state before God depends on anything external-on birth, on membership in any visible organization, or on any outward rite or ceremony-is utterly abhorrent to the religion of the Bible" (p. 521). If a Quaker could ever be induced to say Amen out aloud, we think he would let it fly from his tongue in response to such a proposition as this.

Here, then, we see the same sort of confusion or contradiction which Dr. Hodge studiously complains of in the pages of Dr. Waterland. Looking at the same subject in reference to different classes of objectors to truth, our language concerning it will inevitably be tinged by the medium through which we make our observations. Truth itself does not always present the same aspect to the contem

plator. It has its obverse side, and its reverse side, like a translucent picture, or a coin. The Gospel is a savor of death unto death, sometimes. Is it, therefore, essentially deadly? Our Saviour, under one aspect of His mission, came not to send peace, but a sword. Was He, therefore, a military conqueror? Dr. Hodge would explain such cases with supreme facility. Why, then, should he suppose that Dr. Waterland-quite as honest and able as himself—is but a bundle of contradictions, because he speaks of regeneration, now in reference to one of its bearings, and by and by in reference to another of them. Appreciating Waterland's aims and intentions, he ought not to have accounted such variations (and they are nothing more) as blemishes in logic, if not in moral honesty. We have found the same variations in Dr. Hodge himself, and have furnished illustrations. He has spoken with reference to persons of unlike conceptions and dispositions, and shifted his style accordingly. Doubtless, he would say, if faulted, that he followed his Master's example, and delivered the truth as people were able to bear it. And his plea would be a good one. Let him accord its efficacies unto others, and to the limit of that charity which "beareth all things."

Nevertheless, though we thus speak, we have no disposition, not the slightest, to be harsh with such an elaborate and indefatigable laborer in the cause of views which he believes to be the best views of truth ever entertained by mortal men. There is an immense magazine of information in his weighty tomes; and we doubt not that, to his own denomination, and to many others, they may long be a sort of theological dictionary.

MUSIC HALL SERMONS. By William H. Murray, Pastor of Park Street Church, Boston. Second series. Boston. I. 12mo. Pp. 207. J. R. Osgood & Company.

Mr. Murray shows that he has an understanding for the times, and especially for the times under a New England firmament, since his first topic is the proper method for meeting modern scepticism, and his last, an inquiry why the religion of New England has failed to convert the people. Moreover, he understands his own position. in public estimation and in his own; for he could not say (as he does on p. 203), "I think it beyond dispute, that the pulpit of New Eng land, to-day, is a weak pulpit," without fancying that he was authorized to depreciate the pulpits of his neighbors, in contradistinction from his own. We accept the inference, therefore, that Mr. Murray's preaching is just what it should be for a New England lati