TWO VOLUMES OF SERMONS.* TILE sermons which we have put

together for the purpose of this notice were preached under very different circumstances and to very different audiences. The subjects, too, have little in common. Mr. Wilson's discourses—it seems like an anachronism to speak of him as an Archdeacon in connection with this volume—are eminently practical ; Professor Bonney's deal with theory. But the standpoint of the preachers is the same : they both address themselves to meet difficulties, whether intellectual, spiritual, or ethical, with an intelligence, a courage, and a candour that are nothing less than admirable.

Eight of the twenty sermons of which Professor Bonney's volume consists were the " Boyle Lectures " of last year•, and discuss a theme with which the preacher is more than usually competent to deal, " The Present Conflict of Science and Theology." The key position, so to speak, of this conflict is the " miraculous." Some apologists for Christianity whose sincerity and earnestness it is impossible to doubt, either frankly abandon this position, thinking it a source of weak- ness rather than of strength, or adopt a tone which may perhaps be best described as agnostic," neither affirming nor denying. With these Professor Bonney does not sympathise.

He admits, without any circumlocution, that if the central miracle of the Resurrection is not a historical fact, " there would be no essential difference between our creed and other ethical systems." But he contends that the acceptance of this miraculous event does not put him, or those who think with him, "outside the pale of science." It will be best at once to hear what be has to say on this cardinal point :—

" Laws and miracle are commonly assumed to be contradictory terms. This assumption is often made by both parties in the con- troversy. But the difficulty thereby created is gratuitous ; it arises from an anthropomorphic conception of the Divine Being and the inevitable imperfections of human language. In referring to Him, we permit, unwisely often, the use of such terms as 'in- terference," change of purpose,' and the like, we allow ourselves to think of Him—how inadequately !—as a kind of head engineer of this world's machinery, changing and altering, mending and • (1.) Old Truths in Modern Lights. By T. G. Bonney, D.Sc. London Percival and Co. 1891.—(2.) Sermons Preached in Clifton College Chapel. By the Rev. J. M. Wilson, M.A., Head-Master. London : Macmillan and Co. 1891.

improving, moving this and stopping that, so as to hinder one result and bring about another. God is not a man, and every anthropo- morphic conception, inevitable though it may be as a symbol of thought, is a misleading conception. Law, of which we sometimes talk as though it were antagonistic to God—law, I say, is but man's induction from watching the sequence of the phenomena of the Divine Power, the modes of manifestation of the Unknown and Infinite Energy. The laws of nature were not fixed by some necessity, and imposed upon the demiurge of the universe to be now and then eluded, or even, under specially favourable circum- stances, overruled by him ; they are nothing more than our state- ment of a chain of sequences. Cause and effect must always stand in a fixed relation—to say this is a mere truism—but it is an unwarrantable assumption to assert that our view of any sequence is always the correct one. Regarded in its relation to the physical order, miracle is only a relative term. In one sense nothing is miraculous, for everything is an outcome of the same Energy, of which law is the expression, not the restraint ; in another sense everything is miraculous, because we can never arrive at the Principle of Causation."

And he proceeds to give some illustrations from natural facts that are, he says, " miraculous, because we can find no

real explanation of them." Of course it is possible that these, or other instances which might be matched with them, may cease to have this character,—i.e., that the explanation may be forthcoming. But it is more than probable that there will always remain the inexplicable,—the origin of life, for instance, is a problem the solution of which is not at all likely to be

accomplished.

The preacher, having established by a closely reasoned argument to which any attempt to epitomise would certainly be an injustice, that his position is not intrinsically un-

scientific, proceeds in his last lecture to assume the offen- sive, if the expression may he allowed, and to show that the opponents of Revelation are open to an attack far more formidable than any that they are themselves able to deliver.

There may be difficulties in belief, but the difficulties of unbelief are infinitely greater. Revelation is at least an attempt to meet the problems of life. If we believe in nothing beyond Nature, these must be abandoned as hopeless. Nature has no gospel for the unhappy ; she, as the preacher puts it, "can reason with the fortunate, but she has no answer

for the unlucky." The con rice satur of the Roman poet may rise up from her feast and make no complaint ; but what of

him whom physical or social ineapacities have shut out from all share in her good things ? Another considera- tion which Professor Bonney puts with much force is, that the morality of Nature is not the ideal morality of man. Chastity, for instance, is not a natural virtue. Nor are there wanting indications that, if free-thought upsets the sanctions which at present prevail even with those who deny their force, it will cease to he a virtue of society. As it is, many people " take their theology from Nature, and their morality from sources which, if examined, will be found dependent on revelation." But that the revolt has begun, that the compromise is denounced, we all know. Another point on which, as the preacher points out, Nature and the morality which springs from religion are at variance, is expressed by the two principles, as they may be called, the "survival of the fittest" and the sanctity of life." To put the matter briefly, neither in this respect nor in any other is Nature altruistic.

We have not space to discuss the other discourses contained in Professor Bonney's volume, but we would call the special attention to four preached from the pulpit of Vere Street Chapel, two of them dealing with the subject of " The Inspira- tion of Scripture," and two with that of " The Growth of Jesus." A brief quotation from the first of the second pair must suffice :-

"Not a few persons, from time to time, have urged almost passionately that, if any saying of our Lord's can be quoted as to an ancient historical event, the authorship of a book, or a matter of science, the question is thereby ended, and that any hesitation to accept this settlement is virtually a denial of His Divinity. It appears to me that those who thus reason lay themselves open to tha charge of denying the reality of His humanity. This dilemma appears to be presented thus : The idea of God implies knowledge without limit ; that of man no less necessarily involves, not only limited knowledge, but also that which is gradually gained by effort and experience. If, then, Jesus knew, as by an innate con- sciousness, the facts of past history or the conclusions of science for all centuries to come, the Godhead had absorbed the manhood."

The matter could not be better put.

Mr. Wilson's Sermons—preached, he tells us, during the last seven terms of his tenure of the Head-Mastership of Clifton College—are seldom apologetic. The eighth, " Criti.

cism and the Synoptic Gospels," has that character, and is an admirable summary of the subject. " Religion Natural to Man" deals with another side of the controversy between belief and unbelief. " Dives and Lazarus" is a notable con- tribution to exegesis. Mr. Wilson takes the singular line of distinguishing this parable from those spoken by Christ. "It would seem," he says, " to be a familiar parable introduced or alluded to by our Lord, and so given at length by St. Luke for the sake of the moral that he wished to draw from it." Commonly the preacher seeks to give practical help to his hearers in the effort to become Christian citizens. What is implied in this last word is an important element in his teaching. The first sermon strikes this note, and it sounds more or less distinctly in all. The preacher has been saying that it is "not what a man thinks good, but that which he thinks best, that determines his character." And he goes on :

" Our Lord Jesus, full of the very Spirit of God, gave an ideal to the world in Himself and in His words which marks the greatest epoch. in the history of man. What did He think best? Can a, more important or interesting question be asked ? Here is some One, who spoke as no man and no age had spoken then or has spoken since ; one whose words have affected the whole course of human history, by giving them a new aim for them to think best ; one whose ideal, so far as men have yet grasped it, has entirely fashioned the saintliest, the best, the fairest spirits in every age, and has done something to lift the thoughts and aspirations of every human soul that has heard His name ? What did He think best ? He thought that the Kingdom of God was the one Best. But we want to know what that meant to Him, and what it means to us. It.plainly is not individualism : it is a. state of things in which man's ideal lies outside himself, in which God's will, justice, and righteousness are supreme in every in- dividual heart, and in the world as a whole. Its very essence is the constant reference to God. It gives a man a best, an ideal, which is as much higher than all other bests as the heavens are higher than the earth. And in one who fixes his mind on this ideal, the coming of the kingdom within and without ; one who cares much for God's will, by which we mean duty as interpreted by a conscience growing constantly more sensitive and more enlightened ; one who so fills his heart with sympathies for others, trying to make life better and purer and happier for all with whom he has to do, that personal aims dwindle into their right proportions ; I say in such a one this ideal of the kingdom of God implants and developes a new character."

Mr. Wilson does not fear, when the occasion demands, to. deal with applications of these principles. Bristol is agitated by a strike, and he tells his boys how they should regard it. On the occasion of Mrs. Booth's death, he has something to say that is certainly well worth hearing about the Salvation Army. The practical value of his sermons seems to us to be of the very highest. That on " The Power of Hope," for instance, is an admirable setting forth of the way in which the supernatural element in religion supplements the teaching of morality. The groundwork of ethics, as the very word implies, is the doctrine of habit; but in what can this end but pessimism, unless we can believe in the miracles of grace ?- " I could argue as well as any one that we inherit tendencies, that we are the slaves of habits, the creatures of circumstances,. the victims of our friends. I could prove that the Ethiopian cannot change his skin, nor the leopard his spots ; and uphold the common-sense, commonplace view of what is practicable in our own individual reform, or in human progress. I well know how little is done in the average course of things, in the natural world, in the absence of the supernatural divine element of faith and hope. But this supernatural element is the very thing I am speaking of, and it is within our reach. We have only to take it, and the ordinary laws of the normal development of character and society are ipso facto suspended or overruled as they were when St. Paul wrote."

If what is necessary is true, is not the Revelation that supplies this necessary spring to human action established ?