BOOKS.
REYNOLDS' SERMONS.* GREAT beauty pervades these sermons. They are eloquent with- 0.nt effort ; and evidently spring from a heart attuned to the holy
feelings and aspirations they utter. To all who have ever felt as Mr. Reynolds feels, and in whom similar chords have been struck with like responses, these sermons will be as " bundles of myrrh" and " clusters of camphire." But of such the throng of mankind con- sists not. As regards the world-wide host absorbed in the in- terests, struggles, and turmoils of daily life, the millions intent on money, who have no temples but silver shrines, and the vast ,multitude in whom reigns habitual love of pleasure or chronic indifference to religion,—Mr. Reynolds' sermons, and all such sermons, are utterly powerless. They will scarcely awaken one
latent germ of good in such men ; for they are addressed to few of the feelings common to human nature, but rather to such as dwell only in the breasts of those who have been previously brought at least within the outer circles of religious faith. In those home- thrusts at stubborn sin,—in that intimate perception and full measure of its wrongheadedness, wickedness, depth, breadth, and incarnate coarseness,—and in haat matchless skill and rugged vigour in holding up familiar images of themselves to sinners,— Mr. Reynolds has no vestige of the gifts which constitute the power of Spurgeon. Both have their peculiar mission. One preaches to Christians, the other wrestles with heathens. One fells the foul growth of the forest and clears the ground with mattock and axe ;—the good seed sown and the vine reared,—the other trains the tendrils and ripens the fruit. We know of nothing in the antitheses of style, so unlike, as the sermons of the two men ; and yet in doctrine there is much resemblance. We find Mr. Reynolds dealing in the superlatives of disparagement when speaking of all human righteousnesses : he calls them " filthy rags " (p. 172)—a term applied in Scripture, by the way, ex- clusively to the Israelitish rites and idols, by Isaiah, in his own time (ch. lxiv. 6) ; and never by Christ or the Apostles to moral duties or the practice of Christian virtues. Seeing that although we have sinful tendencies, we have also good tendencies, we incline to question the correctness of habitually holding up human nature as an object of unqualified vileness by a large section of our religious teachers. We shall always remember the remark of a man who took an evil pride in his scepticism, after having been unfortunately induced to listen to one of this class of sermons :—" Why, we reprobates, as he calls us, can- not possibly be worse than his own flock if their nature is alto- gether vile, and their best deeds ' filthy rags.' Faith, I'm best as .I am, for my creed does not compel me to blacken my fellow men anyhow." There are few young children, however perverse, who do not exhibit some pure impulses of love, generosity, and affection almost from their cradles ; and, even in cases of matured sin, there are beams of a purer nature springing from the inner- most depths of hearts apparently dead to all good, which some- times illumine and chequer the worst lives with great deeds, as the darkest woofs are sometimes shot with golden threads. So it would seem that few are without some latent germs of virtue ; and we cannot but lament the intemperate anathemas dealt at mankind by a certain school of divines, who often dress religion in a guise far more likely to scare than win souls. So also as regards the doctrine of Predestination ; which comes forth strongly in these sermons. If the first coming of the sinner to God be always the act of God, as Mr. Reynolds represents it in each phase of conversion, and the very sense of sin be wrought by the Holy Ghost, as stated in p. 84, and there be no coming of the sinner independently of this special moving,— this is Predestination : and not only that, but Reprobation also. For if none come but those who are called by God, those who are not thus chosen are left, and have therefore been created—for perdition ! From this conclusion the premises leave no possible escape. Nor is there anything which qualifies the force or sub- stance of this doctrine, in the following mild way of putting it :— " It is true that the Spirit of God recreates the human spirit, so that it is born anew, and becomes conscious of itself and of its heavenly parent—age ; but the instrument by which the soul makes this great discovery, or rather by which God makes this great revelation to the soul, is belief on the name bf the Son of God."
It is very plainly here meant, and it is affirmed in a passage Preceding this, that " the state of mind and heart with which we approach Christ or discover who and what He is to us must be a Thvine and heavenly work within us." Then follow the oft-quoted passages on the drawing of "the elect according to the fore- knowledge of God." There is no denying the force of these texts ; and the sophisms by which their plain meaning and in- evitable import have been oftentimes evaded are beneath the dignity of criticism. But admitting their entire significancy, and giving them, per se, all the weight which ultra-Calvinists attach to them, does it necessarily follow, as Mr. Reynolds and most Evangelical writers hold,—that none can be saved by any other means ? The Reverend Newman Hall, no mean authority among the orthodox, thinks otherwise. Having quoted the same verses on election, referred to by Mr. Reynolds, in his book on " Sacrifice," he thus argues that such doctrine is not opposed to an universal atonement for the rest of mankind, freely offered and freely given. He says- '. 77:e Beginning of the Divine Life. A Course of Seven Sermons, by Henry Robert Reynolds, B.A. Published by Hamilton, Adams, and Co. "If by such expressions, we are to understand that there are some per- sons whose salvation has been in an especial manner rendered certain; by an eternal Divine decree, the universal sufficiency of the sacrifice of deist is not thereby rendered doubtful. He died to open the door of mercy to all sinners, and not to secure that all sinners should certainly escape by it. He came to proclaim to a rebellious world the free pardon of a God of Love ; but refusal of the offer on the part of any who hear it, does not make the mercy less real, nor prove that they were excluded from the amnesty which they were invited to accept. If God, by a particular act of grace, ordains that some to whom the message comes shall certainly embrace it, this does not limit the general proclamation of pardon, which remains in all its original force and fulness. If there had been no election, a limitation of the sacrifice would not have been imagined. Why, then, should an additional favour to men be regarded as a narrowing of the fortner gift? The certain salvation of some does not render more difficult than it was before, the salvation of the rest. If it is a fact that some must be saved, this does not disprove the fact that all may be. Let us now turn to the, positive evidence of Scripture. The doc-
trine of election is allowed by all to be full of mystery ; the references to it in the New Testament are comparatively few and obscure ; whereas
those passages which speak of the universal sufficiency and design of the atoning sacrifice of Christ, abound on almost every page, and are so plain, that wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein.' ".
Again he says-
" He is the propitiation for the sins of the whole world.'-1 John ii. 2. It is trifling with words, to represent the term " world" as referring to the elect. Believers are sometimes spoken of in contra-distinction to the world.
Ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.' If then the term is to be limited, the elect, and not unbelievers, must be excluded. Besides, if only Christians are referred to, the verse quoted informs us, that God so loved believers, that He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever of them believeth, might not perish ! ' This would imply that some believers might be destitute of faith—that some who were elected to eternal life might perish ! Into such absurdities do they fall, who would obscure the obvious meaning of one of the most pre- cious declarations of the Father's love to sinners! "
The 8th chapter of Romans, the 1st chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians, &c., and especially the latter part of the 17th chapter of St. John's Gospel, seem strongly to confirm this view. They indicate two distinct classes of the saved—those elect and pre- ordained, and those of all mankind who choose to come, like the Prodigal in the parable and receive remission of sin, and salvation freely offered through Jesus Christ.
Leaving theologians to settle these mysteries it may be per- mitted us to express our preference for that solution which does not constrain us to believe the election of the few and the perdi- tion of the many to be a necessity preordained by Providence. The more clearly and forcibly the mercy, boundless lovingkind- ness, and beneficence of God are preached in the pulpits of the land, the more surely. will Christianity strike her deep roots and spread her noble branches. Mr. Reynolds has dwelt in glowing language on the discovery of the soul, the conviction of sin, the coming to Christ, and the desire for Christian work, but he has said nothing in all this out- spoken eloquence so likely to touch-the broad throng of men and awaken them to a vital " sense of God," and of the sterling lifelike reality of religion, as the following splendid homage . to the `achievements of Christ ; with which, as a fair specimen of the high literary and spiritual merit of these sermons, we conclude this notice : " No intelligent student of the history of our race can fail to discern the influence of Jesus of Nazareth upon the entire condition and development of humanity. He has proved himself to be its most authoritative teacher, its greatest prophet, and its sublimest exemplar. 'In some mysterious way the principles of his religion, the moral laws that. He promulgated, and the ideas He uttered about God and man, about heaven and earth, have gone down deeper into our humanity than those of any other teacher. And He has, though a living incarnation of God's justice and righteousness inspired a love to Himself, of most magic power to rule mankind. The things that He said and did have done more to mould the destinies of the modern world than all the philosophy of Greece or all the power of Rome. The successful conflict of Christ with Judaism and Paganism, with the gods of the old world and the lusts of the new, with the barbarism of Phrygian mountaineers and the polished satire of the Greeks, is the most glorious victory in the record of mind. The way in which the laws and 'customs, the science and the government of Europe bear the marks of his influence is a fact patent to all, and admitted by all classes of thinkers. When an intelligent young man becomes alive to this fact, and begins to contrast the Europe that he sees imaged in the commentaries of Caesar or the satires of Juvenal with the Europe of today, and when he remembers that he has within the covers of his Bible the magic sceptre and portrait of Him who by God's grace has wrought this change in humanity ; surely his attention will be aroused, his reverence awakened, and his heart touched."
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