The more knowledge and light we receive, the more our salvation is in danger, unless our labour and watchfulness increase in proportion.

When different opinions arise in the church, let us not abandon the truth, but rather apply ourselves the more diligently to examine it.

As the lover of the chase values the animal which he has pursued long, tracked out, searched for in holes and byeplaces, followed with his dogs; so truth appears in all its sweetness when it has been hunted for and won by toil.

The wise in mind have no doubt some peculiar endowment of nature. But when they have offered themselves for their work, they receive a spirit of perception from the highest wisdom, giving them a new fitness for it.

Philosophy carries on an inquiry concerning truth and the nature of being, and this truth is that concerning which the Lord himself said, "I am the truth.”

It appears to me that that whole discipline of the Greeks, with philosophy itself, came down from God upon men, not according to a distinct pre-ordination, but in the same way as the rains pour themselves forth, both on the good ground and on the dung-heaps, and on the house-tops. On all these grass and corn bud forth, nay sometimes figs, and some of the hardier trees spring upon the very tombs. Those sown in the most careless way bend like the truest specimens of their kind, because they have enjoyed the same influence from the rain, but those which have not had the advantage of good ground wither or are plucked up.

The doctrine of Clement, and of the Christian Alexandrian school to which he belonged, is to be regarded as a grand effort, perhaps the most markworthy which has ever been made, at the association, almost the identification, of Christianity with philosophy. The opposition between the two which has existed in the minds of so many moderns was equally remote from those of Clement and Origen and from

those of their rivals in the Pagan school. This alliance of philosophic and Christian thought will throw light on the sense and relation of the words faith (TOT) and knowledge (yves) in Clement's writings, the former referring to the manner in which all at first receive the truth, the latter to the manner in which it is possest by the "initiated," that is, the Christian perfected by simultaneous growth on the two sides of his nature, the moral and the intellectual. The perfect Christian thus is one with the Gnostic. It is almost needless to say that the Gnosticism of Clement must not be confounded with the false Gnosticism of the heretics. The former, although dangerous from its liability to abuse, was in the hands of Clement a noble, trustworthy thing.

A similar remark may be made respecting the kind of philosophy which Clement adopted. He confined himself to the teachings of no particular school of philosophy, but "whatsover had been said in each of these sects well, teaching righteousness with reverent science, all that he called philosophy." A very different Eclecticism this from that modern method which, forgetful of the limits of the human mind, aims at the reconciliation of existing systems by setting aside much of the character proper to each.

It is evident that in this Eclecticism of Clement one element preponderates—namely Platonism.

While

The spirit of the rival schools of Alexandria differed widely in regard of the multitude and of the few. the Pagan philosopher insisted on a preliminary course of study, the doctrine of the Christian Clement, though more profoundly apprehended by the initiated, was open to all, the sinners and the simple, as well as the moral and the instructed. Christ, according to Clement, leads all His disciples back to a happy childhood of trust, simplicity, innocence, moderation, sweetness.

Clement held the inspiration of the scriptures and the authority of tradition, the Catholic doctrine of the Triunity of God and of the Deity of Christ, man's free will and the need of grace, baptismal regeneration and the real presence in the Eucharist, as those doctrines were held by the early Fathers, the holiness of marriage and also of virginity.

He had caught Philo's shyness of the details of history and of ordinary life presented in the Old Testament, which he endeavoured to dispose of by allegory, even as the Neo

platonists perpetrated like abominations on Homer. A fatal mistake, into which Socrates and Plato would never have fallen, and one of those germs of corruption which at last developed into mere rotten pedantry, destroying the life of Alexandria, which thus was left an easy prey to the overpowering onslaught of the young Islam.

Clement was possest of extraordinary literary ability, and his writing is accordingly-notwithstanding occasional looseness delightful, suggestive and invigorating, making the reader feel as if in the presence of a loving and ripe sage, who combines dignity with ease, and the serene heaven of whose soul finds room in its vastness for the different constellations of truth, calmly presenting with the nearer and familiar stars those nebulae also in its depths, whereof some resolve to reverent science, and others will reveal themselves only when we rise to meet them. You will not find in these books the terms of modern polemics, for Clement saw beyond them: if neither Locke nor Fichte had arisen on him, he had better light. If you can free your eye of dim sectarian glasses, and clearly see and honestly appreciate the wonders of new and wider regions than before, your expectation shall not be disappointed of receiving from the calm old man of Alexandria precious contributions to that Catholic philosophy which is one with Catholic Christianity. The best edition of Cement is that of Potter, Oxon. 1715, fol. 2 vols. Gr. and Lat. But for the Greek alone that of Klotz in the Bibliotheca Sacra is a serviceable edition. is in 4 vols. 12mo. Lips. 1831-1834.

It

W. C.

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 nnjust to praise worthless books; it is robbery to retain unnoticed ones.]

SERMONS: Doctrinal and Practical. By the late Rev. WILLIAM ARCHER BUTLER, M.A. Second Series. Cambridge: Macmillan and Co.

SERMONS, Preached at Trinity Chapel, Brighton. By the late Rev. FREDERICK W. ROBERTSON, M. A., Incumbent. Second Series. Vols. I. and II. London: Smith, Elder and Co.

Both are

Here are three volumes of Sermons of sufficient abounding merit to redeem the pulpit from the charge of narrowness of conception, dogmatism of spirit, and dullness of tone; and to show its unparalleled potentiality, as an organ of the highest order of thought, eloquence, and force. Between the eminent authors of these Sermons there are certain points of obvious similarity. original in the distribution and illustration of their subjects; both were men of high culture, extensive reading, and distinguished attainments; both were ministers in connection with the episcopalian section of the church; both died-for alas! they are gone from the scenes which they adorned and blessed-in the zenith of life and prime of usefulness; and the productions of both, now before us, are posthumous, and far removed, in superiority of merit, from the ordinary run of sermon literature. But, notwithstanding this agreement, there are a few striking points of dissimilitude. Butler is far more objective in his style of thought and utterance; the criteria he most constantly appeals to, are the recognized formularies of belief; and the language he employs, is that which orthodoxy has consecrated to its use. Robertson's tribunal is more within-he brings the scripta to the test of the non-scripta,-the sense of the reasonable and

right in humanity. What he finds written in Hebrew and Greek on paper and parchment, he summonses to the bar of that which he finds written, in the language of universal sentiment, on the fleshly tablets of the heart. He strives more to bring the Book into the soul, than to bring the soul out into the Book. Butler thinks and writes more as a churchman, than a free citizen of the great commonwealth of thought; his stand-point seems more frequently under the hoary and narrow arch of a cathedral, than the fresh and boundless dome of nature. Hence, in his generally exquisite discourses, we have much about "our church; "-the stock phrase of mere conventional thinkers, and therefore unworthy the lips of such lofty men as he. Robertson, on the contrary, has nothing of the mere churchman about him; from his sermons you could never find out to what section of Christian discipleship he belonged. No one could suppose that he ever wore a surplice, or that the hand of episcopacy had ever touched his noble brow. He has evidently no church or chapel consciousness. No denominationalism influences his intellect, no sect bounds his sympathies. He thinks and speaks, not as a functionary, but as a man; not as the advocate of the dogmas of any church, but as the expounder of those truths of Christ, which are race-wide and vitally momentous. Butler has more of the mystic sentiment about him. With that child-heartedness, which frequently characterizes souls of the highest type, he looks at the doctrines of the New Testament, more with the eye of wonder and worship, than of inquiry. Everything seems to strike him with amazement. He manifested but little desire to disrobe truth of her mysterious garb. As a poet, which he undoubtedly was, he loved the sublime, the wondrous, and inexplicable. He loved to talk of mysteries, and would rather magnify than remove them. "It is," says he, "your glory that you are thus robed and shrouded in mystery. Trust no one who would draw you forth from it; it is the awful shadow which eternity casts across time. Believe no one who would give you a religion without much, and solemn, mystery." Robertson, though equally full of sentiment, and of the poetic sentiment too, has, we think, more of the analytic in his intellect, and of the ethical in his soul. We do not find him, like Butler, rapturously exulting in "mysteries;" but rather rejoicing in a power to make divine things clear to the understanding, and congruous with the moral intuitions. Butler, in some respect, is like Robert Hall, esthetic in feeling and fond of the pageantry of thought; but we think superior to Hall in fertility of noble sentiment and fire of soul. He comprises the best of Flavel and Hall, with something superior to both. Robertson is more like Foster-equal, we seriously think, to the great essayist in all points, and superior to him in some. His philosophic eye, to see "the reason of things,"