important in its effects. A comprehensive view of the various theological opinions that have occupied the mind of Christendom through her whole history, cannot fail of producing, in most cases, a liberalizing and yet regulative effect upon the mind.

"The theological position of the author," Dr. Smith remarks, "is on the middle ground between the destructive criticism of the school of Tübingen, and the literal orthodoxy of the extreme Lutherans, while he also sympathizes with the Reformed rather than with the Lutheran type of theology." We commend the publication to our Christian scholars, and especially to our theological professors.

Prospectus of Nichol's Series of Standard Divines. Puritan section, consisting of the complete works of Goodwin, Manton, Sibbes, Charnock, Reynolds, Clarkson, Brooks, and Adams's Practical Works. 12mo., pp. 26. Edinburgh: James Nichol. 1861.

The project of publishing a series of the old Puritan divines has been started in England, designed to render them accessible to the students and clergymen who are scholarly in taste though scanty in pocket. It has, of course, received the hearty support of the leading Calvinistic divines of England, and to a slightly qualified approval we find appended the names of a catalogue of Wesleyan divines, including those of Mr. Arthur and Dr. M'Clintock. We have not felt quite willing to add our own names to any recommendation to our ministry of a series from which evangelical Arminian divines are formally excluded. Such an exclusion draws a strict sectarian line which we must promptly and frankly recognize. To our ministry we say, here is a body of old divinity, evangelical, but strictly Calvinistic in character. We think it might just as well remain, valuable from scarceness, on the shelves of the large old libraries; for the simple reason that there is an ample body of extant divinity in our language just as evangelical and less unsound.

The Character of Jesus, forbidding the Possible Classification with Men. By HORACE BUSHNELL. 24mo., pp. 173. New York: Charles Scribner. 1861.

The argument for Christianity from the character of Jesus possesses a peculiar force, and is here developed by Dr. Bushnell with his peculiar originality and power. It is an argument specially calculated to impress reflective minds, and into such it enters with an intuitive clearness difficult to resist. Ullmann's work on the Sinlessness of Jesus belongs to the same class of argument. The latter has been published by Gould & Lincoln.

The Benefit of Christ's Death; or, the Glorious Riches of God's Free Grace, which every true Believer receives by Jesus Christ and him crucified. Originally written in Italian by AONIO PALEARIO, and now reprinted from an ancient English translation. With an Introduction by Rev. JOHN AYER, M. A., Chaplain to the Earl of Roden. 18mo., pp. 160. Boston: Gould & Lincoln. 1860.

Aonio Paleario was an Italian martyr for the principles of the Reformation, whose death is narrated with much interest in the introduction. Of his work the following notice is given by Macaulay:

It was not on moral influence alone that the Catholic Church relied. In Spain and Italy the civil sword was unsparingly employed in her support. The Inquisi tion was armed with new powers, and inspired with a new energy. If Protestant ism, or the semblance of Protestantism, showed itself in any quarter, it was instantly met, not by party-teasing persecution, but by persecution of that sort which bows down and crushes all but a very few select spirits. Whoever was suspected of heresy, whatever his rank, his learning, or his reputation, was to purge himself to the satisfaction of a severe and vigilant tribunal, or to die by fire. Heretical books were sought out and destroyed with unsparing rigor. Works which were once in every house were so effectually suppressed, that no copy of them is now to be found in the most extensive libraries. One book in particular, entitled "Of the Benefit of the Death of Christ," had this fate. It was written in Tuscan, was many times reprinted, and was eagerly read in every part of Italy. But the inquisitors detected in it the Lutheran doctrine of justification by faith alone. They proscribed it; and it is now as utterly lost as the second decade of Livy.

The work, however, had been previously translated into Spanish and French, and the present translation was made from the French by A. G. (Arthur Golding) in the reign of Elizabeth. It is a work of much evangelical power and simplicity, slightly predesti

narian in its views.

Notes on New Testament Literature and Ecclesiastical History. By JOSEPH ADDISON ALEXANDER, D.D. 12mo., pp. 319. New York: Charles Scribner. 1861.

Thoughts on Preaching; being Contributions to Homiletics. By JAMES W. ALEXANDER, D.D. 12mo., pp. 514. New York: Charles Scribner. 1861. The Gospel according to Matthew explained. By JOSEPH ADDISON ALEXANDER. 12mo., pp. 456. New York: Charles Scribner. 1861.

These posthumous publications abound with the practical wisdom and rich scholarship characteristic of the authors. The notes on preaching are simply the record of self-study; the memoranda of the author's various experiments in attaining the method for himself most suitable and effective. Herein the record is of itself a lesson. It admonishes the young preacher to be ever on the alert, not merely for general rules that are stiffly laid down for all, but for those specialties of method which are most adapted for the success of one.

Hints on the Formation of Religious Opinions. Addressed especially to young Men and Women of Christian Education. By Rev. RAY PALMER, D. D. 12mo., pp. 324. New York: Sheldon & Co. 1860.

Dr. Palmer's book embraces discussions of a valuable series of most important topics, which only need to be brought in contact with the proper minds to produce an impressive and beneficent effect. The mental injury produced by a permanent state of skepticism, the laws of moral reasoning, the importance of and responsibility for opinions, are topics that prepare the way. Then comes a number of arguments, bearing the stamp of productive ability, upon the proofs, the needs, and the benefits of revelation and of a faith in the high truths of Christianity.

Law and Penalty; or, Eternal Punishment consistent with the Fatherhood of God. By JOSEPH P. THOMPSON, D. D., Pastor of the Broadway Tabernacle Church. 12mo., pp. 358. New York: Sheldon & Co. Dr. Thompson has, in this little volume, discussed in a fresh and original style an ancient and momentous topic, namely, the doctrine of eternal punishment. He first confronts in clear and categorical issue the dicta of those oracles of modern humanitarianism, Theodore Parker and Charles Kingley, with the utterance of the true oracle of divine humanity, Jesus Christ, and shows on which side lies the balance of benevolence and authority. He next interrogates the providential history of the world, and finds visible in its administration the signature of retribution. He next examines the nature of sin, of free agency, and of penalty, to show that after present probation terminates restoration is impossible. Finally, he meets the argument of annihilationism. It is an able and eloquent discussion of this awful subject.

Reason and the Bible; or, the Truth of Religion. By MILES P. SQUIER, D. D., Professor of Intellectual and Moral Philosophy, Beloit College. 12mo., pp. 340. New York: Charles Scribner. 1860.

Dr. Squier is an able and independent thinker, and a clear, attractive writer on moral and intellectual topics, somewhat transcendental in philosophy, theologically an advocate of the Arminianized Calvinism, which maintains "the power of contrary choice," and renders predestination into a decree to permit or non-prevent the free act. The present is a well elaborated essay to show a priori that the religion of the Bible is necessarily true. His trains of thought will meet the demands of certain classes of mind, and are well worthy to be traced by lovers of unique pathways. FOURTH SERIES, Vol. XIII.-22

Commentary on the Sermon on the Mount. By Dr. A. THOLUCK. Translated from the fourth revised and enlarged edition, by the Rev. R. LUNDIN BROWN, M.A., Translator of "The Sinlessness of Jesus; an Evidence for Christianity." 8vo., pp. 443. Philadelphia: Smith, English, & Co. New York: Sheldon & Co. Boston: Gould & Lincoln. 1860. This commentary on the great sermon is one of the masterpieces of the distinguished author. He who reads it after being accnstomed only to the general run of our common English commentators, will find it pour a volume of light over the whole area of that discourse. It is a great mistake to suppose that that passage of the sacred word is a simple essay, made up of the platitudes of an elementary morality; it abounds in difficulties that need the hand of a master to solve, and such a master in the main Tholuck proves himself.

Philosophy, Metaphysics, and General Science.

Guesses at Truth. By two Brothers. From the Fifth London Edition. 12mo., pp. 545. Boston: Ticknor & Fields.

The "two brothers" alluded to were Augustus William and Julius Charles Hare. The work seems mainly done by the latter. It is preluded with a dedication by Julius Charles to Wordsworth, in which he makes most pathetic allusion to his deceased brother, as well as to Coleridge, the acknowledged leader in inaugurating a result from the materializing philosophy of what he styles "a hard age."

Julius Charles, though a prosy preacher, was a nervous writer; and such was his personal influence that he was held by some as the leader of the Broad Church party of the Anglican Church. The "Guesses at Truth was published in 1827. A second edition, with posthumous additions, was issued in 1828. The present volume, from the press of Ticknor and Fields, is in handsome style, and will be very acceptable to our American thinkers and readers, but it should have been furnished with a biography of the authors.

The Coleridgian school of which Hare was so distinguished a scholar did not work the overthrow of the Lockian philosophy, with its train of ultraisms and consequences, so much by a solution of its logic as by aiming to apply an alterative to the spirit of the day in which its logic was based. They entered a vigorous protest rather than produced a thorough refutation. Borrowing much of their philosophy from the then unknown Germany, they prosecuted a guerilla warfare, and harassed the foe with irregular arrowy showers. It was a battle of sharp and salient intuitions against heavy and formal syllologism. Of this war, Coleridge's "Aids to

Reflection," and other works, and these "Guesses," are relics. These writers did not construct any elaborate counter-system. Coleridge, indeed, imagined that his intuitional eye could descry the outlines of a grand synthesis, the structure of which he would in time place before the world. He failed, as his friends thought, from procrastination, etc., to accomplish the work. He failed, as we venture to imagine, from want of constructive capacity to set his building up.

There is something attractive in the refined, classical, subtle, elegant, intuitional spirit of Hare. He belonged to that class of mind whom the semi-sensationalism of Locke, the necessitarianism of Hobbes, and the denial of our moral nature taught by Paley, would have forced into infidelity. He fought his way to what of a spiritual religion he attained. Its sincerity he attested by a zealous performance, colleger though he was, of the humble duties of a rustic pastorate. The engraving prefixed to the present volume meets our beau ideal of the thorough-bred Oxonian.

Coins, Medals, and Seals, Ancient and Modern, illustrated and described. With a Sketch of the History of Coins and Coinage, Instructions for Young Collectors, Tables of Comparative Rarity, Price Lists of English and American Coins, Medals, and Tokens, etc., etc. Edited by W. C. PRIME, Author of "Boat Life in Egypt and Nubia," "Tent Life in the Holy Land," etc., etc. Small 4to. New York: Harper & Brothers. Mr. Prime has here made a fine effort to popularize an interesting and valuable branch of investigation. One of his purposes has been to supersede the present puerile love for strange coin by a legitimate understanding and appreciation of the historical uses of numismatic science. The work is copiously illustrated, as it should be, with engraved specimens. The treatise is itself in chronological order. But revolving its pages backward, beginning with the end, trace with your eye the records of receding antiquity. First, are the coins and medals of our own country running back to a period of the Revolution and colonization. Next come the coins and medals of England, mounting up to William the Conqueror, and through the Saxon times. Then come Greece and Rome; and then the Hebrew ages, ascending even to the Abrahamic age, with a sidelong limb branching into Egypt. Through all these periods do these voluble little pocket monuments commemorate the events, present the pictures of the distinguished men, and illustrate the history, of past ages. Some of the most striking illustrations and confirmations of sacred writ are derived from coins and medals, all the more striking and convincing from their minuteness and the accidental character of the evidence.