Sketch of the Reformation in England

Four volumes of this series have appeared, and if we may consider these as a specimen of the work, we congratulate the Christian public on the prospect of being supplied from time to time, with a rich feast of evangelical matter, calculated to give nourishment and refreshment to the spiritual life of believers.

M’Laurin’s Essays is not a recent work, but the lapse of years can never destroy its value. While the observations of the author are strictly orthodox, they are philosophical, and if read with candour and attention, must have a powerful effect in correcting mistakes and expelling prejudices where they have been imbibed, and in enlightening the mind, and invigorating the faith of the sincere Christian. We would strongly recommend the perusal and reperusal of these essays to the young theologian. Too great a proportion of time, we fear, is spent by the young ministers of our day in light reading, which, while it gratifies a prurient curiosity, has no tendency to strengthen the mind. The effect produced is superficial knowledge, and a distaste for deep and solid research. Religious people are now distinguished for bustling activity and a show of benevolence and zeal; but there exists a sad deficiency of profound and systematic knowledge even in those who have enjoyed the advantages of a liberal education.

The whole life and energies of M’Laurin were devoted to the highest good of his fellow men; and this lovely principle beams forth brightly in his works. Originality, truth, and beauty, are prominent characteristics of his writings. His elements of thought, from whatever source they are drawn, from external Nature, from the exercises and sentiments of the soul, or from the mysteries of redemption, are formed into complete emblems of the richness and peculiarity of the mind from which they proceed. The advantages of a well balanced mind, of a proper discipline of all the powers, and a nice adjustment of them to each other, is strikingly seen in these essays.

In conclusion, we would say the richness and power of thought, the simplicity and greatness of conception in M’Laurin can be realised only by his readers; and to those who would study the revelation of God to man, in its symmetry, its magnitude, its intrinsic excellence, “its easy, free, and unincumbered plan,” these essays will be a most powerful assistance.--_N. Y. Literary and Theological Review._

THE BETTER COVENANT.--We have read this work, of which we had not previously heard, with great and unmingled pleasure. It has reminded us of Jewell, Hopkins, Leighton, &c. of the church of which he is a member, in generations gone by, as well as Owen, Flava, &c. among the non-conformists, as it unfolded the choicest of matter, of sound evangelical doctrine moulded in the happiest form of experience, and practice. The author is at present lecturer at Clapham, known to many as the residence of Wilberforce, Thornton, and others greatly distinguished by piety and philanthropy, and was formerly lecturer in the mission church in Calcutta. Bishop M’Ilvaine in a recommendatory letter thus speaks of it: “As a book of divinity; divinity as it should be, not cold, and abstract and dead, freezing the affections while it exercises the intellect, but retaining the living beauty, and heart affecting interest of the revelation it proceeds from--divinity adapted to the intellectual wants of the closest students of divine truth, which provides the simplest, and sweetest nourishment for the spiritual necessities of the humblest Christian;--As a book of practical piety, especially in regard to the display it gives of the nothingness of the sinner out of Christ, and the completeness of the believer in Christ, and its tendency to promote a spirit of active, cheerful obedience, by all those motives of thankfulness, love, peace, and joyful hope, which belong to the adoption of sons--I know of no book of the present age more valuable. Students of divinity will find it a book to be studied. Readers of devotional writings will find it full of divine knowledge, of experimental truth, and of excitements to prayer, and praise.” With this strong recommendation of Bishop M’Ilvaine, we feel ourselves willing to accord.

The first volume of the series of the Library of religious knowledge, is M’Laurin’s Essays, a work of acknowledged standard excellence. If the succeeding volumes should be equally valuable with the two already published, the series will have a just claim upon the patronage of our religious public. We have seen it stated that it is designed to introduce into the series, Letters on Religious Subjects, by the Rev. David Russell, of Dundee, Scotland, a work little known to American Christians, but of very sterling merit.

From the Episcopal Recorder.

THE BETTER COVENANT PRACTICALLY CONSIDERED.--The above is the title of a work which has recently been published in this city, as the third volume of the Christian Family Library, edited by the Rev. Herman Hooker. The author is the Rev. Francis Goode, of the Church of England, an accomplished scholar, and most devout and godly man. Many excellent treatises upon practical and experimental religion have been issued from the press within the last few years, but none that we have seen is at all to be compared with this. Indeed, we think it decidedly the best book of the kind we have ever read. We know of none in which the glory and excellency of Christ’s salvation is so clearly, fully and delightfully presented to the mind. Throughout, Christ crucified is all in all to the sinner’s soul. Accordingly, as it richly deserves, it is spoken of in the highest terms of commendation, by both clergy and laity. Some of the former, believing that they could not in any other way more effectually preach the Gospel in all its freeness and richness, have even recommended it from the pulpit to their congregations.

We would wish to see his book in every family in the land. We are deeply persuaded that no Christian could rise from its perusal without more enlarged and affecting views of what his Saviour had done for him, without more humility, penitence and gratitude to God, and without a more fixed determination, or divine aid, to follow on to know the Lord and to be filled with all the fullness of God.