[British Critic, July 1839.]
Mr. Evans has published a second series of his “Biography of the Early Church” (Rivingtons). Mr. Evans is one of those writers, members of the University of Cambridge, such as the late Mr. Rose and Mr. Chevallier, who, before any thing was published elsewhere, directed the attention of the rising generation to higher and more primitive views of Christian truth than had latterly been in esteem among us. May he long continue to edify the Church by his writings! We do not profess entirely to acquiesce either in his views or his tone; his tone especially is somewhat too literary and intellectual, and, in consequence, too eclectic, to please us; but we are very grateful to him for so good a deed as his dedicating the stores of a rich and imaginative mind to the service of antiquity.
While we are utterly surfeited and sick of “Evidences” for Revealed Religion, as we have explained at length in the early part of this Number, we are addressed, as if our appetite was fresh, by a series of fourteen Demonstrations, all about “the necessity of a divine revelation, the genuineness and authenticity of Scripture, its Inspiration, its Miracles, &c. &c.” by Ministers of the “Established Church in Glasgow,” (Collins) extending to nearly 600 pages, and to copies “8000,” stereotyped, and “placed within the reach of the humblest classes.” This is munificently and charitably done by a number of gentlemen in Glasgow, but it is melancholy that any serious man should think that this is the way in which truth is savingly propagated or maintained. A suggestion is thrown out in the Preface that “the Evidences” should be “taught in a catechetical form in our juvenile schools.” Unhappy scholars! unhappy Church, which having no root in itself and not venturing to speak with authority, is obliged to betake itself to disputations, “never-ending, still beginning!” Can alliance more ill-matched and strange be imagined than this, which sheer necessity has brought about, between pseudo-spiritualism and the evidential method? More venerable surely were the old Covenanters who upheld their Puritanism by the sword, than those who would make Christians by Littleton and Paley.
Mr. Coleridge’s “Companion to the First Lessons on Sundays, Fasts and Festivals,” (Rivingtons) is intended, and well adapted, “to explain briefly and familiarly those passages that occur in them, which, from any cause, are not obviously intelligible by an ordinary reader;” and so to encourage “conversation among the members of a family on the facts of Scripture which they have heard read.” It is a useful little book, and will be found perhaps to convey instruction to the respected author’s brethren in the priesthood, as well as to those for whom it is immediately intended.
“Letters to the Authors of the Plain Tracts for Critical Times by a Layman” (Cadell) are thoughtfully written in defence of the doctrine of baptisma1 regeneration, and the author finds, “upon perusal, that they directly and most powerfully” tend to a “breach betwixt the Evangelical and High Church parties,” and therefore “has been led to attempt a refutation of their contents. This is fair. However, with respect to the Oxford Tracts, the Author begs to observe that he has “abstained from the perusal of them;” yet he has been “led to conclude that” their system “is liable to just exception.” This is not fair.
Mr. Tyrwhitt’s Sermon on the Institution of Baptism by our Lord, (Parker, Oxford), is published in consequence of one of the “Plain Tracts for Critical Times.” It is to prove that our Lord’s action in John xiii. was really the baptising of His Apostles. Thus he answers the question, frequent in early times on the part of heretics, as to the apostles’ baptism. The appendix contains an able and elaborate disquisition upon John iii. 5.
Much as we respect Joseph Milner, we have not respect enough for his history of the Church to welcome with any great eagerness a “Continuation” of it. Such, however, has Mr. Stebbing given to the world (Cadell) in one volume, which is to be followed by two others, so as to bring the reader to the eighteenth century. The volume already published contains an account of the proceedings of the Diet of Augsburg, and the events which followed upon it, and of the state of the Reformation in the several countries of Europe at the opening of the Council of Trent. It appears to be carefully written, but with somewhat too much of a didactic air at times. We cannot, of course, be expected to acquiesce in Mr. Stebbing’s view of Luther and the Reformation, but as we claim the right of protesting against it, so we freely grant him that of maintaining it, if he is able.
“Bellingham, or Narrative of a Christian in search of the Church,” by the Rev. W. Palm (Parker), is the lively graphic work of one who seems to write from actual observation. It is a defence, in the form of a tale, of the Church as a divine institution and an establishment, and contains much which will be serviceable to the general reader. The story itself is not so satisfactory. The hero is the son of an, in every sense, respectable shopkeeper, has a ” good plain education at a day school,” gets acquainted with a dissenting neighbour, falls in love with Miss Bathsheba his daughter, reads the newspapers, leaves the Church, joins a Reform Club, becomes a student in a Dissenting Academy, is chosen minister of Bethel Chapel, then of Ebenezer Chapel, is converted again to the Church, and rewarded with ordination, a living, and, above all, with “Emily Russell,” a blooming girl of nineteen, as fair in mind as in person.