was written, and the fulness and vigour of thought displayed. If it induces more persons to read the admirable work which it criticises, the bishop himself would have heartily rejoiced.

Private Prayers. Compiled by the Rev. W. F. Hook, M.A., Vicar of Trinity Parish, Coventry, &c. London: Rivingtons. 12mo. 1836.

MR. HOOK observes in his preface, that these prayers are chiefly derived from ancient sources, and follow very much the order adopted in our Liturgy-confession, the Lord's prayer, praises, intercession, thanksgiving, and benediction. They certainly breathe the spirit of ancient piety, and bear about them signs, which cannot be mistaken, of their connexion with primitive times. On this account, (for which hearty thanks are offered to the excellent compiler,) and on the ground of their real excellence and soundness, they are heartily commended to general use, with the remark, that they who use them should try the experiment of using them for a considerable time before they decide on their merit.

Here and there is an expression which, however sanctioned, the reviewer would like to see changed, because the mind is sadly given to wander; and therefore, all which can excite the imagination should be avoided in prayer: as, for example, the epithets, the manywinged cherubim, and the six-winged seraphim.

The Manner of Prayer. By W. Walford, late Tutor in the Academy at Homerton. London: Jackson and Walford. 12mo. 1836. THIS is a melancholy book. The author speaks of a desolating affliction, to which he has been exposed, and of the near approach of his own dissolution. Under these circumstances, it is most natural, indeed, to find that prayer should occupy his thoughts; but, in a general inquiry into the best mode of discharging this solemn duty, entered on under such circumstances, who would have expected that they should so little have softened the author's feelings, that in p. 8 of the introduction there should not only be an attack on the book of Common Prayer, brought in by sheer violence, but that the author should at once, in violation of all charity and decency, first express his surprise that clergy should give their "unfeigned assent and consent" to the book, and then declare, that when they have got over this "apparently insurmountable barrier," it is very natural that they should frequently extol it? Thus he at once insinuates a doubt whether they can be sincere; and then again insinuates, that their praise of it is simply because they have swallowed this camel, and then wish to make the best case for themselves that they can. There is then in the body of the work a very long passage in a still worse temper, (from p. 166— 193.) Thus, in pp. 188-189, it is insinuated, that parliament, and parliament alone, can alter the Liturgy; and that dissenters would never admit such authority, as the persons composing the legislature are not fit for the purpose. If Mr. Walford has written this in sin

cerity, he is only one among the thousand instances of writers, who take upon them to censure our church, in the most profound ignorance of all which concerns her. Every one who does know anything of the matter is aware, that all which parliament has to do with the matter is, that after the proper church authority has effected whatever revision and alteration is proper, the King, and the two branches of legislature, give the force of law to what has been so effected. They do not interfere in effecting it; and Mr. Walford may be assured (if he really does not know it already,) that no true churchman could dream of allowing anything of the kind. It is curious to find papists and dissenters always combining now. The reproach, that ours is a parliamentary church, is a favourite one of both; yet both know, or might know, that this is a mere invidious mode of stating that the church and state are connected. What power supports and keeps up the Roman-catholic church in France, at this time, but the state? Let Louis Philippe now persuade his deputies that some form of protestantism is better than popery; and probably the papists in France will understand that theirs is now just as much a parliamentary religion as ours; and if Louis XIV. had settled the same point a century and a-half ago, they would then have found, when he turned them out of their churches, that, whatever their rights might be, they were maintained in their possession of those rights by the secular arm, and not by their own. To return to Mr. Walford, and his spite to the book of Common Prayer. It does not, he says, secure uniformity, for he has known clergy of every shade of opinion, from ultra-calvinism down to the lowest unitarianism, (as to the latter, Mr. W. must know that dishonest men cannot be kept out of any body, but that no honest unitarian could possibly remain in the church,) to say nothing of the numbers of openly irreligious, profane, and intemperate, &c. &c. As the morality of certain ministers has nothing whatever to do with uniformity, these revilings are only a means for Mr. Walford to discharge some of his bile against the church of England. The reason for it appears at pp. 172-175, and turns out to be the exclusiveness of the episcopal communion, and that episcopal clergy will not exchange pulpits, &c. &c. with dissenters. This is (happily) a stumbling-block which never can be removed (not as Mr. Walford may think, or chuses to think, from the established church of England only, but) from any episcopal church, and is doubtless the reason why the sects in America hate the episcopalians almost as much as they do here. All this is very much in the course of things, and is not worth disputing about; but to find such things dwelling on the mind of a man descending to the grave, and dictating to him such uncharitable sentiments, is a sad proof of the bitterness of sectarian prejudice.

The Doctrine of Atonement and Sacrifice, &c. By J. Whitley, D. D. of Trinity College, Dublin. London: Duncan. 1836. 8vo. THIS book is, in the main, an exposition of the anti-forensic scheme. Dr. Whitley says, very truly, that it is a very partial and erroneous view, to look at sins as merely transgressions of a given law-separate

and distinct acts, for which the offender must compensate, aut per se aut per alium—and to overlook sin as a ruling and reigning evil in our nature, antecedently to all law. He then charges writers on the atonement, and in no measured terms, with holding only the erroneous view; nay, with thinking that sin is very much the transgression of the moral part of the Jewish law; and instead of looking to outward sacrifice, as the substance by which they were to explain the shadow, (the Jewish sacrifices,) taking these sacrifices, which were compensations for particular offences against the law, as the models of our Lord's sacrifice. Thus, they represent it as offered in order to reconcile God to man, when offended by the transgression of his law; whereas, it was offered, according to Dr. Whitley, only to reconcile man to God, to overcome this evil principle of sin, reigning in his nature, and to introduce a new and living principle of righteousness. That principle can only be introduced-the evil principle in our nature can only be overcome by the Holy Spirit's coming to dwell in our hearts, the disease being wholly past our cure. This great benefit it is, which, according to Dr. Whitley, has been wrought for us by the sacrifice of our Lord on the cross. In short, it was offered, not to make atonement for actual transgressions, but to overcome the evil which led to them. Not justification, but sanctification, was the object. It is with great regret, that one witnesses these partial views of the truth, offered under the appearance of putting down others charged with this very fault of being partial.* Beyond all question, Dr. Whitley has stated (and often with great force and justice, in his exposition of Scripture) most truly, that sanctification of an evil and corrupt nature was a great object of the atonement; but it is not true that it was the sole object. They, and they only, who look at it as at once a release from the penalty and the power of sin, conceive of it adequately, or comprehend the Scripture view of it. True it is, that, by one large and active party, justification alone is looked at, and sanctification, as an object of the atonement, set aside, almost or entirely. But these errors are not to be charged on the Christian world at large, nor on many of our great writers on the atonement. The fundamental misfortune in this book seems to be, that it has arisen out of an apologetic view. Dr. Whitley's favourite notion is, the restoration of the Eastern church. This was the great theme, at least, the final view, of his former work; and, at page 382 of this volume, he starts off to his favourite subject. Looking, then, to the conversion of infidels to the faith, he seems to have studied the Mahometan objections to Christianity (see p. 6, note) on the ground of vicarious atonement, the innocent punished for the guilty, &c. &c. These objections he sets himself to remove, by certain deeper views of sin, repentance, &c., for which he thinks writers on the atonement have substituted certain other "false and frivolous notions."

"that in looking

This is strikingly shown in pp. 101-103, where Dr. W. says, to sacrifice, an equivalent to justice is the only thing looked at by most writers; while its efficacy to cleanse the sinner from his sin, to purify the unclean, &c. is overlooked." Be it so. Then, to compensate for this, Dr. W. wholly overlooks its character as an equivalent.

Taking up the argument, then, where Magee leaves it off, (see summary, pp. 3-6,) and taking the positive analogy which Butler suggests, instead of sweeping away the infidel objection by the destructive force of Butler's great argument, he sets himself to destroy the objection, by destroying, as it appears to the writer, one main view of the orthodox doctrine of atonement. The apologetic character of Dr. Whitley's speculations appears, as at the beginning, so at the end. (See p. 355.) Views of the Gospel, more intelligible, more attractive, more in unison with every man's reason and sense of things, are to be put forward, being solid and sober sense, experimental and incontestable verities, and practical realities, that speak for themselves, (p. 357,) to be rested on "broad and obvious fact." (p. 360.) This leads to such statements as that, (comp. p. 376,) the suitableness of temptation for our blessed Lord could not be in the way of satisfying the law (p. 368); that "sufferings merely in themselves could never take away our sins." (p. 369.) In summing up the argument in the Epistle to the Romans, (p. 376, &c.) accordingly, having shewn the world to be all under sin, Dr. W. does not go on to argue that therefore all must be justified by the atonement which God has provided, but (p. 378) goes off to the moral miracles which are wrought by the Gospel, which, as in early ages, must be the answer to the candid inquiries, and honest doubts, of those who now question the truth and virtue of Christ's atonement, and who are now hesitating to admit the benefit or the necessity of his death and sacrifice. These are the evidence, the proofs, of the grace and benefit of the atonement. But what, meanwhile, has become of that atonement itself, faith, simple faith, in which, as revealed in Scripture, and taught by the church, a stumbling-block to Jew, and foolishness to Greek, is found, when received by the Christian, who is baptized into this faith, to be the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth?" The doctrine, that "Christ died to reconcile the Father to us, and to be a sacrifice for actual sins of men," is entirely set aside. The reconciliation (see sec. x.) is, as was said before, of man to God, not of God to man, (the orthodox doctrine being misrepresented, p. 288, as though writers like Magee had not sufficiently guarded against the idea, that the Father did not love his creatures no less than the Son loved them.) The idea of (propitiatory) sacrifice and satisfaction is resolved into the offering up of ourselves, of which our great High Priest set us an example, and which, through his grace, as members of his body, we also must do; and the notion of actual sins, as transgressions and violations of positive law, is lost altogether in the power and dominion over ourselves of the evil principle within us. Meanwhile, there is a great deal of very valuable reflection upon the power of sin, as taught in Rom. vi., as a bondage, &c. of our death to sin, through our incorporation into Christ by baptism, &c.; of our following Christ in suffering, (as in the Hebrews, &c.) All this is very valuable against the low resting in a mere forgiveness of past sins, as though the Gospel did not lead us to holiness; as though the Epistle to the Romans ended with chapter v. So also of the actual destruction of sin, and its power, by Christ's sufferings; of his triumph over the powers of darkness, &c.

But meanwhile, the forensic view of man's condemnation and justification, as guilty before God, and to be justified at his bar only through the propitiation which he has appointed for sin, as set forth in the first portion of the Epistle to the Romans, (ch. i. to v.) seems to be fairly swept away. In short, what is wanting in Dr. Taylor's scheme, as set forth by Magee, seems wanting here. The interpretations of his party are built up again, together with the objection (about our being reconciled to God, not he to us) "which lays the whole stress on our obedience," and in which, as Magee says, "we discover the secret spring of this entire system, which is set up in opposition to the scheme of atonement." This is an imperfect expression of perhaps an imperfect view of Dr. Whitley's book. It doubtless deserves a more attentive examination to estimate fairly its truths and errors; and one is afraid of erring on the side of exaggerating errors, or liability to erroneous inference, from parts of a system, in parts of which there may be much truth set forth. But as far as the primary subject of the book is concerned, it would seem that the "difficulties of atheists and infidels" are removed, by removing the stumbling-block of " the doctrine of atonement and sacrifice," as set forth in the first four chapters of the Romans, maintained in our second article, and defended by Magee, and those who preceded him. But, like Mr. Knox's view of Romans and Hebrews, Dr. Whitley's speculations seem to require a good deal of sifting, to separate the valuable and positive truth from the negative and destructive apologeticism.

Sketches of Germany, and the Germans. By an Englishman, resident in Germany. London: Whittaker. 1836. 2 vols. 8vo.

THIS book may be safely recommended to all, travellers especially. It is not, like Prince Puckler Muskau, a collection of scandalous and indecent anecdotes, nor, like Mr. Von Raumer, a melange of very common-place theories, cooked up from common books of German law and politics, and as unlike the practical condition of things as possible, and of the most incredible blunders and misstatements, (for example, those about Eton,) but is a pleasantly and well written account of things which it would be open as well as interesting to an intelligent mind to observe, and to an honourable one to relate. The reviewer has gone over much of the ground mentioned by the author, and can bear witness to the general accuracy of his descriptions of places and things, as well as (generally) to the sound and right tone of his feelings and principles.

Remarks on the Government Bill for the Commutation of Tithe. By the Rev. R. Jones. London: Murray.

THIS pamphlet is most strongly commended to all persons interested in the details of the tithe bill. Mr. Jones, with his wonted powers, has shewn the futility of most of the objections to it, and defended both the scheme and the provisions of the bill with an ability with which the opponents of it will find it difficult to grapple. At the same