great, that it becomes a sinful omission to neglect

it.

Of Mr. Drummond's Exposition we can speak with perfect satisfaction: it is quite sound, practical and profitable. A running commentary on a most important and affecting portion of the New Testament, on which every believer loves to pause.

SERMONS ON THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA, and other subjects. By the late Rev. Thomas William Carr, M.A. Incumbent of Southborough, Kent. Dalton.

No uncertain sound did the trumpet give which this estimable minister blew. Such a bold, faithful, animated, protesting strain of preaching as this would soon, under the divine blessing, cause the dry bones of our Protestantism to rattle, and end in equipping an army of warriors for the spiritual contest. We give the preacher's view of the importance of that prophetic Book which furnished him with this subject:* and we would that all his brethren saw it in the same light!

These sermons are of that class which animate the attention, and make the heart of hearer or reader glow. They are replete with a holy fire; energy, and earnestness, and devotion, such as we do not frequently find on paper. It is needless to add that our very warmest recommendation accompanies the volume.

* See page 72.

THE CHURCH IN THE ARMY. Second Edition. Religious Tract Society.

66

THIS gratifying record of God's mercies, manifested among our officers and soldiers, we noticed, if we mistake not, some years since. The second edition appears in a neat pocket volume to which we draw attention at this period when wars and rumours of wars" are likely to abound more and more. A variety of interesting and well authenticated anecdotes shew forth the power and goodness of God in situations the least calculated to dispose men's minds to seek him.

PREACHING: Its warrant, subject, and effects, considered with reference to the "Tracts for the Times," in two Sermons, published at the request of the Mayor, Aldermen, and Councillors of the city of Oxford. And a Sermon preached before the University, at St. Mary's. By the Rev. W. Simcox Bricknell, M. A. of Worcester College; Incumbent of Grove, Berks ; and one of the Oxford City Lecturers. With an Appendix. Baisler, Seeleys.

A HIGHLY important volume. It contains, or rather it is, a firm, consistent, scriptural and undisguised attack upon the false doctrines that, under the name of Anglicanism as arrogated by themselves, or Puseyism as conferred by their opponents, certain Divines of Oxford have succeeded in broaching, to the great trouble and injury of the Church. Mr.

Bricknell took the occasion of his appointment to the Oxford City Lectureship, to lift up a standardand confidently may we say that the Spirit of the Lord by his hand lifted it up-against the flood of error coming in upon us. The subject is the commission of Paul, "Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel," and on this text he has produced two admirable discourses. The third sermon was preached before the University. "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world."

Standing alone, these discourses would present a very effectual barrier against the evils that we deplore and condemn: for before the sincere preaching of the cross of Christ the powers of darkness must flee. Mr. Bricknell, however, has done much more: by a singularly copious Index prefixed, foot notes attached, and an ample Appendix added, he has brought into juxta-position with the truth a very large mass of that unscriptural falsehood which has again crept into the Church; and he has also collected and arranged the condemnatory opinions of two Archbishops, six bishops, and thirteen other dignified clergymen of the present day, as drawn forth by these pernicious Tracts.' We all know with what profound submission the clergy of this school profess to regard the authority and to reverence the person of a bishop: but if we are to believe that such is their real conviction, how shall we reconcile with it the language and proceedings of those among them whose hard lot it is to be placed under the episcopal rule of a Chester, an Exeter, or a Calcutta? Do they, mentally, pass over the bishops of their own church,

6

ship? We profess ourselves unable to solve this problem, without having recourse to very startling speculations and suppositions: and if men will ally and almost openly identify themselves with what God has described as "all deceivableness of unrighteousness," they must abide the consequences. There are some homely aphorisms that the polish and liberalism of the age have prevailed to render obsolete : among them we remember one to the point: Tell me your company and I will tell you what you are.' If our learned countrymen of the Oxford school persist in their present course, we shall be inclined to surmise that they hold orders from other hands than those of the bishops whose authority they virtually set aside, while verbally yielding to its every dictate. True, the series of Tracts for the Times' has been brought to a close, so far as that title is concerned, but pamphlets follow pamphlets in rapid succession, in eager defence of what they profess to have abandoned; and out of the vast body of our really enlightened, Protestant clergymen is there one in fifty who stands forth, and boldly from the pulpit warns his flock of this portentous sign of the times— the abomination which maketh desolate, standing where it ought not?

Some of our musical friends wish us to notice the satisfaction that they continue to experience in each successive number of the Union Tune-Book ; ticularly in social and congregational Psalmody.

par

THE PROTESTANT.

· ANOTHER election, Uncle! Just four years ago the removal of our lamented king William occasioned what in Ireland at least we may call such a national convulsion. You remember, we witnessed a specimen of it.'

No, indeed my dear, we did not. Belfast, Coleraine and Derry were the only places where we actually saw the business going on, and Protestantism preponderates there to such an extent as to prevent such contests from wearing the aspect that, alas! belongs to three fourths of Ireland. I fear we have sterner work in hand now. The dissolution of 1837 was an unavoidable one: the event that occasioned it was of a nature to sadden and to soften the feelings of all right-minded people. We had lost our king: a king who had been rallying around him the hearts, and encouraging the hopes of those who were vauntingly told that he would allow himself to be used as the mere puppet of a faction, and exhibit the fearful anomaly of a monarch infested with whigradical predilections. Those slanderers lied: if the open-hearted William was for a short space deluded by specious pretences to patriotism, and through the honest frankness of a sailor-hearted man imposed upon, he very soon discovered the fallacy of such appearances, and turned from the spectacle of un