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Mr. de Montgomery has got a goodly list of subscribers; but we wish a good sale to his little volume of beautiful poems besides; as pecuniary patronage is much wanted to reward the past and to inspire the future; for he says of himself- Although young in years, I am old in the school of suffering.'

THE PROTESTERS AND PEACEMAKERS. (Collingridge)

The "Rivulet" controversy will be the death of us; it seems to be interminable, and the cry is "still they come." The notice of this, pamphlet also must be postponed till another opportunity; when we will endeavour to shew that the religious perplexities of the present day, together with the rumours of wars which abound, are "Signs of the Times," betokening the "things that are coming on the earth" at the fulfilment of the "times of the gentiles."

THE CHURCH Calendar and geNERAL ALMANAC FOR 1857, (Parker), Price Sixpence, contains the usual amount of Church intelligence, viz., the Church, the Universities, the Calendar, the State, Statistics and increase of the population, the Chief Powers of Europe, the Funded Debt, the Post-office, &c., and though last not least, an imposing catalogue of Mr. Parker's publications. This is the best Church Almanac that is published, and we recommend it to all good church

men.

SELF AND SELF SACRIFICE; OR NELLY'S STORY. By Anne Lisle, (Groombridge and Sons),

Is a sort of autobiography of one of two sisters, including however the history of the other; "The childish education of the one turned to promote selfishness-the severe discipline of the other the reverse." The eldest one, Eleanor or Nelly, has been brought up pretty much in the school of affliction; and she describes her step-mother having a look towards her alone" of intense coldness with a faint shade of repulsion, which I could feel but not define.... She seldom reproved me, even when I needed it, and only seemed to desire as little as possible of my presence." Her own daughter was altogether spoiled by selfindulgence. The history and the different fortunes of the two sisters, are finely narrated with all the tact and delicacy of a refined female mind; and their final fortunes corresponding exactly with the previous education which each had experienced, both in the nursery and in the course of their experience of the world. Some scenes and occurrences may be over drawn; but in general they are natural and probable. The moral intended to be inculcated is excellent, and the whole story is wrought up most interestingly with the usual anxieties of love and marriage, with their disappointments, crosses, and the temptations to which women are exposed from want of principle; and the happy, though humbled condition of upright and self-sacrificing humility. It is a nice family book, fit to be placed on the shelves as a worthy reference, both by mothers and daughters, shewing in most affecting and beautiful language, the different results of self-sacrifice and self-indulgence in the conclusion of life in this world.

THE BROTHER BORN FOR ADVERSITY, (Snow),

Is designed to point out to the afflicted Christian "the similarity of the Saviour's sorrows and sufferings, to those of His faithful followers ” The author says in his preface, that "It has struck him as a somewhat singular circumstance, that in the whole range of Christian theology, so far as he is acquainted with it, the identity of the sorrows and sufferings of the Saviour with those of His followers, has never been dwelt upon, or prominently brought out. It is a blessed theme, and one to which he trusts this unpretending publication may be the means of turning the special attention of believers in Christ." Here we think the pious and eloquent author is mistaken; as almost all theologians, more or less endeavour to console the sorrowful and afflicted, with & reference to our Lord's sufferings and afflictions. The beautiful poetry which is inserted are the author's own, and do him great credit as a poet; as he found it difficult to find pieces suitable to his subject for quotation. He very justly says, that "In one form or other every saint of God is constantly reminded, from painful experience, that while on earth, he is in a vale of tears. The striking similarity between the sufferings which our Saviour experienced, and the sorrows which He endured when on earth, to the sufferings and sorrows which fall to the lot of the saints of God, is a subject so full of sweetness and so eminently adapted to sustain the soul amidst the trials and troubles of life, that we may well hope it will prove both pleasing and profitable to us, to turn our attention to the subject somewhat in detail." This the author has exceedingly well done, and his little publication will comfort and console the afflicted brother under his sorrows; and it may be profitably read by those whose troubles are lighter than ordinary, but which are to come; and we recommend it to our afflicted brethren.

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OUR LIFE IN HEAVEN, (Bell and Daldy),

Is a sermon, by the Rev. E. H. Plumptre, chaplain of King's College, London, which was delivered in the College Chapel on Sunday, October 26, to what might be called a learned audience, out-taken the pupils, but to whom indeed it is chiefly addressed; and much to their credit they deemed it worthy of publication. The title is the text (Phil. iii. 20); and there are some very learned and useful critical notes. It would be well worth twopence, if it were not that it is already out of print; but another edition will, probably, soon repair the loss with, perhaps. some additional notes. "If," says the learned author, our citizenship is in heaven-if the city into which we are incorporated is that which has its foundations in eternity, whose builder and maker is God-then are we also fellow-citizens of the saints and of the household of God. And there is One in that unseen world like unto us in all things, whose form is as the Son of Man. We see Him more clearly in all the wonderful glory of His purity, meekness, truth, in the power of His risen life, in His ceaseless work of intercession at the right hand of God." We hope that subsequent editions will have as rapid a sale as the first has had; and that some additional notes will be given, as they serve to explain some points that cannot be so easily introduced in the body of the work.

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SAINT PETER is not again mentioned by the sacred historian of the Acts of the Apostles, after the Council of Jerusalem; but, soon afterwards, it appears that he had gone down to Antioch, where Paul and Barnabas had many Gentile converts, and had gathered a church under its regular officers. From St. Paul's epistle to the church of Galatia, we learn that St. Peter used the Christian liberty permitted by the gospel, of eating and drinking and familiarly conversing with the Gentile Christians. For, in the case of Cornelius, the Holy Spirit had laid down a peremptory rule for the whole Church; by which the council of Jerusalem were evidently guided-that all sincere converts, in every nation, who feared God and wrought righteousness, should be added to the Church by the sacrament of baptism, without circumcision, or the imposition of any of the other rites of the Mosaic church. The vision vouchsafed to St. Peter was satisfactory evidence of itself-in addition to the rending of the veil in the Temple, at the awful moment of Christ's deaththat the middle wall of partition had been broken down by the Master-Builder Himself, Who had erected it. And it is also abundantly evident from the words of St. James, the Lord's brother, that in authoritatively abolishing the observance in the Christian Church of the burthensome and typical rites and ceremonies, that had been intolerable even to the natural Jews, the Apostles and elders were guided by the case of Cornelius and its antecedents.

But after St. Peter had been some time in Antioch, and had, of course, taught according to the revelation in his

VOL. XI.

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vision at Joppa, he was startled by the vehement outcry which was raised by certain "false brethren" which had come down from Jerusalem; who pretended to have received a commission from James, the Lord's brother and Bishop of Jerusalem, to teach the necessity of compelling the Gentile Christians to receive circumcision and the other Jewish rites. Therefore, not to offend these Judaising zealots, St. Peter withdrew from the society of the Gentile Christians, separated himself from their communion, and would no longer eat or associate with them; although, at the council of Jerusalem, he had himself clearly shown that there was to be no longer any distinction made between Jew and Gentile; but that they were both to be one in Christ; and that the latter were no longer to be considered strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints or Christians, and to be of the household of God. St. Paul denounced these false Judaisers, which had introduced the apple of discord into the Church, as deserving of the heaviest anathema, for teaching a decided heresy, as "another gospel," as he calls it, contrary to that which he and Barnabas had taught by divine revelation.

In the fallacious attempt to give no offence to the Jews who had adopted this new "gospel," but which St. Paul had anathematized, St. Peter gave deeper and more substantial offence to the greater number of the Gentile saints by his prevarication. As soon, however, as St. Paul discovered the dissimulation and hypocrisy of Peter and Barnabas, he was exceedingly grieved; "because they walked not uprightly, according to the truth of the gospel." And accordingly, he most earnestly remonstrated with St. Peter, and "withstood him to the face, in the presence of all the Judaisers; because he was to be blamed, protesting, that if he, being a natural born Jew, and emancipated from the law, could live after the manner of Gentile freedom; why did he compel them by his example, to conform to the rites and the manner of living practised by the unbelieving Jews? For we, who are natural born Jews, and not converts from heathenism, know that no person is, or can be, justified by the works of the Law but that we ; are justified and reconciled to God, solely on the condition of obedience to the Faith. Our obedience to the faith of Jesus Christ is alone the con

dition of our justification, or the remission of sins; for by the strictest conformity to the works of the law, after the revelation of the gospel, "shall no flesh be justified."

Any person who seeks justification through the observance of the law, must suppose that he is still in his sins, and that he has not received justification, through the instrumentality of his baptism. Under these circumstances, therefore, obedience to the faith would neither alter nor improve his condition; but it would just leave him where it found him-an unjustified sinner and unreconciled to God. But can we suppose, that Christ would require regenerated Christians to sin against a divine institution, if the ceremonial law were still binding on the conscience, and if the observance of its rites was necessary for the remission of sins? For, if, after having taught that the Christian faith, and all the obligations of the gospel are the conditions of our justification, converts should now be required to seek for remission of sins, through the observance of the works of the law of Moses, I, Paul, would make myself a transgressor, by setting up again those ceremonial rites which I have taught that God had abolished, and Christians would still be unjustified sinners and unreconciled to God.

But, continues St. Paul, I am dead to the ceremonial law, and entirely free from any obligation to it for justification; that I may live unto the service and obedience of Christ, having been justified through faith in His Blood. Therefore, Christians know no man after the flesh; because the old things of the law are passed away, and they are become new creatures in Christ. (2 Cor. v. 16-17.) I live no longer as a Jew, but in the obedience of the Christian faith; and I will not countenance a doctrine that will frustrate the grace of God; for if we could have been made righteous by the law of Moses, then Christ must have died in vain; and in that case there would have been no necessity for His death, to purchase our justification; since we might have been saved by the strict observance of the law.

St. Peter meekly submitted to St. Paul's rebuke; and the whole transaction shews that St. Peter enjoyed no supremacy, or even superiority, over the other apostles, during his life time; neither could he be altogether considered infallible in point of faith. No one can reasonably suppose that St.

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