RECENT VOLUMES OF SERMONS.* BISHOP LIGHTFOOT'S reputation was of the
scholar and divine rather than of the preacher. Certain oratorical gifts which it is easier to recognise than to define were wanting to him. Yet there are sermons in this volume which it is no exaggeration to describe as examples of a very lofty eloquence. The sixth in the second division (it consists of eight discourses preached in Trinity College Chapel, and eleven preached from the University pulpit), having for its title "The Greatness and Weakness of Man," is a piece of noble oratory. Nothing could be finer than the way in which the preacher, in en- forcing his theme, first marshals the discoveries of science, showing how they teach man his littleness, how astronomy reveals other worlds unimaginable in vastness and number, geology opens up vistas of time that ,transcend our calcu- lations, the microscope shows the infinitely little, chemistry resolves all that is palpable in the human being into well- known elements, an physiology traces in his structure the closest analogies to the brute ; then displays with equal cogency the accumulated evidence which proves "that, as a thinking, aspiring, progressive being, man is quite unique in God's creation ; " and finally reconciles the two facts by the relation to God which Revelation discovers to us. In another style, but equally admirable, is the funeral sermon on Dr. Whewell, Master of Trinity. And here, to give a specimen of the preacher's style, is a fine passage from "The Wrath of the Lamb :"— " It is not physical agony, if we road the interpretation aright ; it is the beauty of holiness, it is the splendour of purity, it is the majesty of truth, it is the tenderness of love, which shall be the chief instrument of retribution. It is the blessing spurned, and the opportunity lost, which shall start up from the oblivion of the past, and confront us as God's angel of vengeance. It is the glory and the goodness, in which we yearn to slake our burning thirst, and lo I the cup is clashed away from our lips. What was it that wrung from those foolish ones in the parable, the mourn- ful, hopeless cry, Lord, Lord, open to us ' ? Not certainly the howling of wild beasts, nor dread of robbers, nor deadly night- chill, nor menacing storm. As for all these, they had slept securely hitherto, and might sleep on again. It was the awakening and finding that the door was closed, and they were in the dark- ness without. There was the light streaming through the case- ment, and the shadow of the bridegroom thrown on the chamber wall—the light which they might not share, and the bridegroom whom they might not greet. Aye, there is in us all a divine appetency, which seeks the light, which yearns for the light. We may slumber on, till it is too late; but then we must awake, and the fierce craving awakes also, and will not be denied, and there is no longer wherewith to satisfy it. So our highest capacities become our fiercest tormentors. It was an impossible prayer, which the hero breathed of old, Kill me, if it be only in the light.' Light, perfect light, never can be death. Life and light are synonyms in the nomenclature of the Spirit. It is the light felt and yet withhold ; it is the darkness rendered visible ; the helpless conteionsnoss of spectral forms, which we may realise and yet cannot put away, haunting the gloom, that perplexes and scares and paralyses the soul."
Professor Pritchard's volume contains, as we might expect, some able argument especially addressed to students of science. Sermons delivered before the British Association, papers read
* (1.) Camirridga Sermons. By the Into Joseph Barber Lightfoot, Lord Bishop of Durham. London Macmillan and Co. 1890.—(2,) ()occasional Thoughts of an Astronomor on Naturo anii Revolution, By the Rev. C. Pritchard, D.D., Snyilian Professor of Astronomy, Oxford. London : John Murray. 1889.—(3,) Truths to Live By. By Frederic W. Farrar, D.D. London !abider and Co. 1890.- 14.) The .Philanthropy of God. By the Rev. Hugh Price Hughes, M.A. London : Hodder and Stoughton. 1890.—(5.) Regent 6'qvare Pulpit. Sermons by the Rev. T. MeNeill, Vol, I. London : Nisbet and Co. 1890.
at Church Congresses, the preliminary discourse to a series of Hulse= Lectures, and some miscellaneous addresses and papers, make up its contents. The author is at his best when, in the first two sermons, "The Continuity of the Schemes of Nature and Revelation," and "Thee Analogy of Intellectual Progress to Religious Growth," he is applying with modifications, and illustrations drawn from the present condi- tion of our knowledge, the argument of Bishop Butler's famous book. The second of these two is especially noticeable. "I shall endeavour," says the preacher, "to show how the educa- tion of the religious principle as proposed and provided for in the Bible, is all of a piece with what experience teaches us regarding the education of the intellectual faculties." And certainly the similitude which he proceeds to point out between the glow of awakening spiritual emotion and the delight of scientific discovery or intellectual attainment, is very striking. "The Testimony of Science to the Continuity of the Divine Thought for Man" is a powerful effort to rehabilitate a method of reasoning which has of late been somewhat discredited, or at least discontinued, the argument from design. In an appendix to the first sermon is drawn out a formidable objection to the Darwinian hypothesis founded on cosmical considerations which deny the postulate of a past time of incalculable length. Among the miscellaneous papers, we may mention "The Creation Proem of Genesis." Pro- fessor Pritchard frankly acknowledges that the cosmogony is unscientific. The mention of waters before the appearance of the sun is one of the proofs which convince him of this. And he does not see his way to interpreting the word " day " as anything else than a period of twenty-four hours. But these considerations do not lead him to depreciate its value. Its object seems to be, he says, "to impress on a rude and primeval age, in a clear and emphatic manner, the Fatherhood of God over the whole creation," but "not to teach the order, the method, or the times in which that creation proceeded." In fact, he holds it to be what Mr. Maurice, we think, declared it to be, "a Psalm of Creation." With equal frankness Professor Pritchard discards the attempt to account for the Star of Bethlehem by a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn. It was, he thinks, a miraculous appearance.
Archdeacon Farrar's volume has all his characteristio merits. A vigorous eloquence, rich illustrations, felicity of allusion and suggestion, are all here. But we also see some characteristic defects. Here is a passage in which the preacher vigorously puts aside some attempts, all of them, by-the-way, claiming high authorities in their support, to explain the doctrine of Atonement :— " Let the epithet [Jesus Christ the righteous] correct the fictions of a theology, which, taking its ignorance for knowledge, repre- sents the Atonement as some fantastic forensic fiction ; or some hardly bargaining legal satisfaction ; or some bloody Pagan ex- piation exacted by implacable vengeance; or some division between the Persons of the Trinity ; or some conflict between antagonistic attributes of God the Father ; or some specious trick to set aside the eternal law. No; the Atonement is God's loving purification and regeneration of our fallen nature, and the advocacy is the eternal application of that Atonement to turn us from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God."
But what do we find when we turn over the next page P Dr. Farrar, anxious, and rightly anxious, to enforce his teaching by the potent help of illustrations, bethinks him of the story of Theodosius, and the vengeance which he would have exacted from the turbulent city of Antioch, but for the intercession of Flavian its Bishop. He tells the story of the rebellion, the meditated punishment, and the mediation of the venerable man ; and concludes "As was the guilty city, so in the eye of the Eternal Justice is the guilty world ; but instead of a weak human Advocate, our Advocate is the Son of God." Surely the story might have been more appropriately quoted by some exponent of the theology which contrasts a wrathful Father with a loving Son. The preacher, too, is, we think, too scorn- ful of theories of religion which do not coincide with his own. The language which he uses on p. 174 about asceticism is marked by the rhetorical exaggeration which is too much of a habit with him. "An imposthume of corruptions which some ignorantly confuse with Christianity," is a phrase of which we may disapprove, while not inclined to give any countenance to morbid views about bodily mortification.
Mr. Hugh Price Hughes, whatever he may be in his ordinal-1 public ministrations, certainly shows himself in this volume as a lecturer on political and social subjects rather than as a preacher. His views on the matters which he handles have
naturally the crude dogmatism in which a speaker who does not fear contradiction is apt to indulge. Some one has called the pulpit "the coward's platform." And such it is very apt to become, when the preacher attempts to depart from his primary duty of proclaiming principles. Mr. Hughes thinks fit, for instance, to discourse on "Woman's Wrongs." Doubt- less he hits some blots in our social system. But what are we to say of this P—" If a man has no children, one-half [of his property] goes to the wife, and the other half to other rela- tions. What iniquitous folly!" To our minds, it is not folly and not iniquitous. Of course bard cases may be imagined. But it is easy to imagine cases still harder, if the law were altered in the way which Mr. Hughes would desire. A father makes sacrifices to start a son in business. The son dies intestate. Now, the wife is provided for by half ; the other half returns, as surely it should, to the father. Why should the wife, who has not earned a sixpence of it, and whose own property has been probably secured to her, have it all ? Then Mr. Price Hughes deals with the objection to woman's Parliamentary suffrage : Men have to do the fighting." It is simple nonsense to say : "Well, there is a very short way out of that difficulty ; and that would be to give up wars alto- gether." The discourse of " Non-Intervention " is a mass of crude thought and hasty assertion. With much that Mr. Hughes has to say on the topics which he chooses for his utterances, we heartily agree ; but we object to his method and manner. On the occasions, comparatively rare, when he deals with theology, he seems to us much more in his right place.
The migration of Mr. McNeill from Edinburgh to London was hailed with much enthusiasm by his admirers. We were to have a second Spurgeon, we were told. We can- not say that this volume justifies this high expectation. It is true that the preacher has adopted the very trying plan of publishing all that he utters from the pulpit. It is only the man of very remarkable power who can stand such an ordeal. But if we must put up with occasional weakness and commonplace in a volume so produced, we may yet protest against the glaring vulgarity, and worse than vulgarity, that is to be found in such language as this : "I want no big talk, and no gas about all coming back, to the Father's boscim, and so on." We may be compelled sorrowfully to confess that Universalism is untenable, but at least let us have our inability to cherish the "larger hope" put into decent language. After this, the carelessness which we sometimes detect in Mr. McNeill's language is a slight matter. It is possibly held to be essential to orthodoxy in Regent Square to speak of Solomon as the author of Ecclesiastes; but surely the preacher, if he does not attend to the critics, should at least read his Bible carefully. Preaching on Nehemiah, he says "He took a walk by night alone round about the city." He did not go alone "II arose in the night, I and some few men with me." And he did not walk. "Neither was there any beast with me, save the beast that I rode on." We do not deny the presence of some qualities of a good preacher in Mr. McNeill's sermons, but they sadly want the chastening influences of taste and good feeling.
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