we have, Secondly: The selfruinous in speech. "The soul of the transgressors shall eat violence." The corrupt speech of the ungodly is a violence to reason, conscience, social propriety. The sinful tongue of the transgressor, of all violent weapons, inflicts the most violent injuries on his own nature. II. THE SELF-CONTROLLED AND THE SELF-RECKLESS IN SPEECH. First Controlled speech may be useful. "He that keepeth his mouth, keepeth his life." The tongue is a member that requires controlling. Passion and impulse are constantly stimulating it to action. Hence the importance of it being properly "bridled;" held firmly by the reins of reason. Secondly: Reckless speech may be dangerous. "He that openeth wide his lips shall have destruction." Who can tell the evils that a lawless tongue has done in the world? One spark from it has often kindled conflagrations. (James iii. 8, 9.) "If any man among you seemeth to be religious and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain." "Give not thy tongue," says Quarles, "too great a liberty, lest it take thee prisoner. A word unspoken is, like the sword in the scabbard, thine; if vented, thy sword is in another's hand. If thou desire to be held wise, be so wise as to hold thy tongue." "Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips! SOUL CRAVING. "The soul of the sluggard desireth, and hath nothing: but the soul of the diligent shall be made fat." - Prov. xiii. 4. These words suggest.― I. THAT SOUL CRAVING IS COMMON TO ALL. Both the soul of the sluggard and the diligent "desire." Souls have a hunger as well as bodies, and the hunger of the soul is a much more serious thing. You may see physical hunger depicted in the wretched looks of those who crowd the alleys of St. Giles, and you may see the hunger of souls depicted on the faces of those that roll in their chariots of opulence through Rotten-row. What is the ennui that makes miserable the rich but the unsatisfied hunger of the soul. First: The hunger of the soul as well as the hunger of the body implies the existence of food somewhere. Secondly: The unsatisfied hunger of the soul as well as the body is painful and ruinous. II. SOUL CRAVING CAN BE ALLAYED ONLY BY LABOUR. "The soul of the sluggard desireth, and hath nothing, but the soul of the diligent shall be made fat." Charity, or accident, or fortune may allay the physical hunger of man, may make fat even the sluggard's body; but personal labour, diligent effort, is essential to allay the hunger of the soul. Men must labour before they can get the soul's true bread. There must be the sowing, the culturing, the reaping, and the threshing by the individual man in order to get hold of that bread which can make fat the soul. Spiritually, I cannot live on the produce of other men. repugnance to falsehood. A righthearted man cannot be false in speech or life. "He hates lying." The prayer of his soul is, "Remove me from the way of lying! and grant me thy law graciously." (Psalm cxix. 29.) II. MORAL TRUTHFULNESS IS A SAFEGUARD AGAINST EVIL. The evils specified in these two verses in connection with the wicked must be regarded as kept off from the righteous by his moral truthfulness. This, indeed, seems implied. What are the evils here implied connected with falsehood? First: Loathsomeness. "A wicked man is loathsome." A liar is an unlovely and an unloveable object; he is detestable; he attracts none; he repels all. Secondly: Shame. He "cometh to shame." A liar either in lip, or life, or both, must come to shame. A rigorous destiny will strip off his mask, and leave him exposed, a hideous hypocrite, to the scorn of men and angels. Thirdly: Destruction. "Wickedness overthroweth the sinner." Inevitable destruction is the doom of the false. They have built their houses on the sand of fiction, and the storms of reality will lay them in ruins. From all these evils, moral truthfulness guards the righteous. His truthfulness guards him against the loathsome, the disgraceful, and the ruinous : "An honest man's the noblest work of God." POPE. Theological Notes and Queries. OPEN COUNCIL. [The utmost freedom of honest thought is permitted in this department. The reader must therefore use his own discriminating faculties, and the Editor must be allowed to claim freedom from responsibility.] THE GREAT PROPITIATION. Replicant.-In answer to Querist No. 16, p. 352, Vol. XVII., and continued from p. 56, Vol. XX. A further note on the explanation of the atonement of Christ by the theory of debt. Calvinists are very partial to this theory. The difference, according to their theory, between saint and sinner, saved and lost, is that the account of the one is cancelled, settled, or paid by the surety, and the other's debt remains undischarged, and hence his punish For all positive evil, or breach of Divine law, punishment must be inflicted. For all negation of good, or lack of positive righteousness, some other righteousness must be given. The pain (3p) and the righteousness (r) have been fully paid by Christ, man's surety. According to the Calvinistic theory, our Lord paid all for the elect by name, as John Bunyan, and paid nothing for the non-elect; therefore are the elect free from all obligation to God, and their salvation, as far as God is concerned, is of mere justice, and in no sense of mercy, while the salvation of the. non-elect always has been, and ever must be impossible, they being unable to meet the liabilities of the bill, and having no friend to pay the sum required. According to the view of those who believe in a universal atonement, the bill is cancelled for every man, and God, therefore, cannot in any case, with justice, demand a second payment. Let us now.consider: II. The atonement of Christ as explained by the theory of compensa tion. This theory is but a slight modification of the theory of debt. The only point of difference being that in the latter our Lord is supposed to give to God an exact equivalent for benefits conferred upon sinners, while in the former a general compensation only is given; and those theologians who adopt this theory find it very convenient to leave that compensation undefined. Man, they say, having sinned, has forfeited all good by disobedience, and it would be impossible for God to bestow any good upon him now that he is a sinner, without seeming to sanction sin, unless he received an equivalent or was in some way-nobody knows how -compensated, not for the in jury done to his character and government by individual sinners, but by sin absolutely, without any reference to names or numbers. In consequence of this compensation, though no one pretends to say what it was, or how it answered its purpose, the Divine Being is at liberty without making light of sin, to bestow any favour on sinners. He, therefore, bestows upon some of them spiritual influences to make them believe, and gives them eternal life for doing what they could not refuse to do. That is the Calvinistic view of it. The Noncalvinistic theory regards the divine influence as sufficient only to make it possible for man to believe, in spite of his evil propensities, and not as sufficent to annihilate the free agency of believers. This theory requires (1.) The separation of God and Christ, as it would be absurd to talk of one person compensating himself. This theory (2.) Makes salvation of right and not of grace, and renders the punishment of the wicked impossible, for if a man were robbed, and afterwards received a compensation and • acknowledged it satisfactory, he would have no longer any moral right to proscecute the evil doer. (3.) If the compensation be a full equivalent, as in the case of the atonement it is supposed to be, then is there no room for forgive ness. The great fundamental objection to this theory of explanation is this, (4.) That if it was impossible for God to bestow upon the sinner the smallest gift without compensation, it was surely impossible for Him to bestow his greatest gifthis only Son-without compensation. It is, however, supposed that God could give, and actually did give his Son or self for man's good without any compensation whatever. If this was possible, I ask the unsophisticated reader, why could He not give, on the same terms, freely and without compensation, any other smaller gift? Why not give full pardon or eternal life on condition of true repentance ? As I gave in 1862 an elaborate mathematical analysis of this theory in HOMILIST, Vol. iv., Second series, p. 102, it is not necessary to discuss it any further here. GALILEO. (To be continued.) Literary Notices. [We hold it to be the duty of an Editor either to give an early notice of the books sent to him for remark, or to return them at once to the Publisher. It is unjust to praise worthless books; it is robbery to retain unnoticed ones.] THE REVIEWER'S CANON. In every work regard the author's end, Since none can compass more than they intend. THE LIFE AND LIGHT OF MAN. An Essay. By JOHN YOUNG, LL.D. Alexander Strahan, London and New York. We should like amazingly to see an intelligent, searching, vigorous, and thoroughly independent book on modern theological heretics— that is, heretics in relation to the standards which the popular teachers of religion have set up. Such a book would contain not only names that have been sadly slandered by contemporary bigots, but names representing the greatest scholars, the profoundest thinkers, and the most Christ-loving men. We should have such names as Dr. Pye Smith, Dr. Arnold, Archbishop Whately, Dr. Bushnell, Robertson, of Brighton, John Foster, Thomas Binney, F. Maurice, and many others, including the distinguished author of the work before us. And in what does the heresy of such men consist? Simply in thisin making the Scriptures of God rather than the systems of men, the standard of their faith. "My heterodoxy," says Archbishop Whately, "consists chiefly in waiving a good many subtle questions, agitated by various anes' and 'ites' and 'ists,' and in keeping clear of sundry metaphysical distinctions relative to the mode of existence of the Divine and the human mind, which are beyond my comprehension, and which I am disposed to think would have been brought down to the level of it by Scripture, had they been necessary points of a saving faith." The work before, us touches the most vital questions in Christian theology, and contains views in direct antagonism to many of those set forth by the preachers and the authors who arrogate to themselves the title of "Evangelical." As Evangelical opinions are not evangelical truths, Dr. Young's conclusions are not necessarily erroneous on this account. By the Scripture he must be tried, and by its decisions he is manifestly prepared to abide. Though we cannot say we agree with all his propositions, we greatly admire the honesty, ability, and reverence with which they are presented. We heartily commend the work to the candid investigation of all who aspire to the work of expounding the Holy Book of God. THE CHURCH AS ESTABLISHED IN ITS RELATIONS WITH DISSENT. By Rev. J. CLARK, M.A. London: Rivingtons, Waterloo-place. THE HOMILIST knows nothing of Church or Dissent, and takes no interest whatever in the squabbles of ecclesiastical parties. Nonconformity may, in the eye of a mere Churchman, be a very contemptible thing, but to him who studies the revelation of Christ in the light of reason and conscience, in its relations to universal man, and to that eternity which engulphs in a few short years a whole generation, with its kings, princes, generals, judges, bishops, clergymen and dissenting ministers, the "Church of England," as it is called, is rather an insignificant thing-a thing not worth battling for. We feel, therefore, but little interest in such works as the one before us. Dr. Clark is obviously an able man, a vigorous writer, and his work will not fail to awaken an interest in ecclesiastical partisans. A SUGGESTIVE COMMENTARY ON THE NEW TESTAMENT, ON AN ORIGINAL PLAN. St. Luke. Vol. I. By Rev. U. H. VAN DOREN. London: R. D. Dickinson, 92, Farringdon-street. THIS is a work very much after our own heart. It answers well to its name. Though its Greek is not always accurate, and its theological leanings are rather too strong in some cases, it is pre-eminently suggestive, and this to us is the most priceless element in any such work. Its brief critical notes, gathered from our best exegetes, are numerous, lucid, and apt. They strike their light directly on the text. The author's annotations are in the main admirable. They are all pith and point; there is not a waste word; and many of his homiletic points, expressed in a sentence or two, are suggestive of enough to bring up sermons to fertile souls. We heartily commend the book. MEMORIALS OF CHARLES MARCH, COMMANDER, R.N. By his Nephew, SEPTIMUS MARCH, B.A. London: James Nisbet, 21, Bernersstreet. WE once had the pleasure of an interview with Captain March some ten years ago, in the city of Gloucester. His modest bearing, frank expression, social glow, and regal head, so won our sympathies, that |