We take, however, another mode of reasoning with our author. While affirming that the design of the death of Christ is merely to give origin to persuasive arguments on the heart of a sinner, he lays great stress upon it in this aspect, and speaks in the strongest terms of the importance and the force of the lessons which that striking and awful transaction teaches. He represents it as the most affecting demonstration of the evil of sin, and of the love of God towards the sinner, which can possibly be given. We are not going for a moment to call this representation in question. But we ask, on what supposition is it true? There can be no difficulty in admitting its truth, if the death of Christ were an expedient for removing an obstruction to a sinner's salvation, otherwise fatal to his hopes; in other words, if the law and justice of God were in such an attitude towards the sinner as to prohibit the exercise of mercy towards him, apart from the intervention of a vicarious sacrifice. In this case the evil and demerit of sin are very strikingly exhibited in the cross of Christ; nor less so the marvellous and incomprehensible love of God, by which he could have been induced to so costly a gift. But, if it were not so-if, on the contrary, there really was no obstacle to a sinner's salvationif it was easy with God to accept repentance, or, at all events, imperfect virtue, we cannot see in what manner the death of Christ is adapted to teach either the one or the other of the lessons referred to, or any other conducing to move a sinner to repentance. The transaction is then separated from all that can give it a meaning. It has no longer an object. Its design cannot be to provide for the salvation of the sinner; for he may be saved without it, by the natural acceptableness of repentance and imperfect virtue. It cannot be to make expiation for sin, for no such expiation is necessary. Awful as the transaction is, it stands out as uncalled for and gratuitous; and it thus becomes productive immediately of feelings the very opposite of complacency and admiration. The death of Christ is pre-eminently a transaction which requires an object, in order to reconcile it to our instinctive and unconquerable feelings. It involves the infliction of suffering not only immense, but unparalleled, both in quality and degree; and the infliction of suffering upon a person of perfect innocence and unequalled dignity; while the suffering is inflicted by a being, who not only has a character for righteousness and benevolence, but who also stands in a most intimate relation to the party enduring it. All this it is quite hard enough to bring ourselves to revere, when the difficulties attending the salvation of mankind, and the skilful adaptation of the scheme of mercy, are exhibited in their strongest colours. But if we are to regard

the outpourings of wrath upon the Son of God as demanded by no difficulty, and as directed to no end, the contemplation of it becomes painful and harrowing to the last degree. It is then no longer a sacrifice; no longer a token of God's hatred of sin and love for the sinner, but an outbreak of ferocious cruelty.

Of course we are very far from insinuating that Mr. Penrose entertains any such view, but we think it not the less necessarily resulting from the ground he has taken. In pondering his statements, we have been impressed with surprise that he should be so tenacious of the evangelical phraseology, or that he should speak of atonement and sacrifice at all. With his view of the natural acceptableness of repentance and imperfect virtue, there can be no ground for atonement in what he acknowledges to be the sense which protestant Christendom generally has attached to that term; while, conceived of as intended to generate motives to repentance, in any other than the evangelical protestant sense it absolutely fails.

We must confess our surprise still further, that the author can satisfy himself of the identity of what he terms faith, with the faith which occupies so important a place in the New Testament. Expressly telling us that he speaks of faith as 'the faculty addressed by our blessed Saviour and his apostles in proffering or proposing the Christian religion to men's understandings and hearts' (p. 118), he divides it into two sorts, 'conviction and confidence;' meaning by confidence, 'all degrees of that practical energy with which, whenever a conviction is clear, it is right and reasonable to decide our wills according to it' (p. 119). Accordingly, he elsewhere says that faith, in that sense of the word in which only it is directly available to the rendering us acceptable in God's sight,' is 'the moral will to please God' (p. 180).

He further regards faith, or the moral will to please God,' as acceptable to him on the ground of moral desert, and he thus lays the foundation of an absolute and unqualified system of self-righteousness. This will to please God, and the manner (however imperfect) in which it may be carried out, are, in his view, to constitute our sole and exclusive righteousness and ground of acceptance before God.

It may occur to our readers as at least one objection to such an idea, that it goes to separate salvation from Christianity altogether, since it is evident that a will and endeavour to please God may be conceived as existing independently of it. They must not imagine, however, that Mr. Penrose would stumble at any such conclusion. He goes all lengths. All to whom Christianity is revealed,' he tells us, and who receive it, can be saved only if Christians; that is, if they add to their faith (or confi

.

dence) in God, faith (or confidence) in Christ.' And this, not because there is in Christianity any way of salvation revealed, but, 'that if God has given us a revelation, we are bound to accept it, and it would be rank impiety to set up any way of our own against his' (p. 181). It is clear from this passage, that Mr. Penrose thinks salvation may be had apart from Christianity, not only by those to whom it has not been made known, but by those also to whom it has been made known; for he lays it down that those only need be Christians in order to salvation, 'to whom Christianity has been revealed, and who receive it.' Those, then, who do not receive it, or, in other words, those who reject Christianity, may yet be saved by their meritorious efforts to please God; although at the same time guilty of the 'rank impiety' of setting up a way of their own against his! What, upon such a system, can Christianity be, but an unimportant and gratuitous intervention, which may very well be done without when it is not known, and be safely despised when it is?

It may create not a little surprise, that a state of mind, by which Christianity may thus be set at naught can ever have been called saving faith, which, at all events, is palpably enough exhibited in scripture, as faith in Christ. But it is one remarkable characteristic of Mr. Penrose, that he can make words mean any thing he pleases. No man can be more tenacious than he of the most explicit evangelical phraseology. He will have Christ's death to be a 'sacrifice,' and the sacrifice to be 'vicarious;' and Christ's righteousness to be 'imputed,' and salvation to be by 'faith' while yet he means none of these things as people in general understand them, but explains every one in his own sense, with an ingenuity not unworthy of the author of No. 90 himself.

And, after all, one scarcely sees for what purpose all this pains is taken. As stated at the commencement of his book, his object is to achieve such a statement of the gospel as shall be clear from implying that the Father of mercies, the God of all consolation, the original author of our salvation, and the sender of Christ, is not himself as full of love as the Christ whom he hath sent' (p. 8). In other words, he sees the mischief of such a view of the atonement as makes it a scheme to placate a malignant being, rather than one expressive of the kindness of a benevolent one. So also do we. And, further, we agree with our author, that phraseology has been too often used by divines on this subject which is liable to grave exception. But we think his terrors make him run too far in an opposite direction. It is not necessary, in order to shew a sinner that the God whom he has offended still loves him, to affirm that he finds no necessity for an expiatory sin-offering. It is clear, that his intervention

in providing one may as truly express love as his readiness to do without one. It must be even far more expressive, if (as is actually the case) the provision of a victim involves an immense and unmeasurable cost; while, on the other hand, there can be little adaptation, we should rather say none, to convey such an impression, in a mere act of causeless wrath. To represent the Most High as saying to a sinner, 'To convince you that I love you I will slay my only begotten Son, although he stands in no such relation to you, as affords me a just ground for doing it,' must be as fruitless as it appears to us absurd. But no sinner can fail to understand the argument, when it is said. 'You deserve to die, but my well-beloved Son shall take your place, and I will slay him in your stead.'

Thus far we have encountered Mr. Penrose on the grounds of general reasoning. We must notice, before we conclude, his merits as an expositor. We have mentioned already, that he devotes two chapters to the consideration of passages of scripture, with how much success our readers shall judge by a brief example

or two.

His comment on Matt. ix., 13.—' I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance' begins thus: 'It is perfectly plain, that this verse recognizes among mankind a class of the good, no less than a class of the bad.' (p. 215.) So far is this from being perfectly plain' to us, that we must confess we infer the direct contrary; since, if Christ really recognized a class of righteous persons, he recognized a class also whom he did not call to repentance. He calls all to repentance, however; and, consequently, he does not admit any to be righteous. But we forget ourselves; we intended only to give examples. Let our readers, then, digest the following:

2 Cor. v. 14-20.-That Christ died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves;' and that if any man be in him he must be a new creature,' and so 'reconciled to God.'-p. 108.

With this morceau of enlightened exposition, we may safely conclude our illustrations. And we may terminate our remarks on this elaborate octavo volume, of four hundred and ninety-four pages, by saying, in one word, that Mr. Penrose has taken much pains for little profit. He has yet to learn, we think, 'which be the first principles of the oracles of God.'

36

Art. III. The Empire of the Czar : or, Observations on the Social, Political, and Religious State and Prospects of Russia; made during a tour through that Empire. By the Marquis de Custine. Translated from the French. 3 vols. Longman.

ON receiving these volumes, and on seeing the name of the author, a crowd of early reminiscences rushed upon our mind. A sort of revolution was suddenly wrought in our existence. Thirty years were, in a moment, blotted out from our life; and, carried back, as by magic, to the summer of 1814, we found ourselves in the modest but delightful retreat of St. Leger, on the eastern declivity of the hill of St. Germain, the country residence of the Marquis de Boufflers (better known in Europe as .the witty chevalier) and of his lady, formerly the handsome, accomplished, and kind Comtesse de Sabran. Then we were transported into their town apartments, an humble entresol,* Place Beauveau, overlooking, on the left-hand side, the Elysée Bourbon, restored to its royal masters, and, on the right hand side, the magnificent hotel Beauveau, formerly the property of the Countess, and now the residence of Field Marshal Beurnonville. In both places, we were surrounded by the representatives of the highest families of France; most of them deprived of their ancient opulence, but all of them retaining the refined manners and the exquisite taste which had previously distinguished them; and by the remnant of the literati of the eighteenth century, who delighted in casting the last rays of their genius among those who had witnessed and patronized their first essays; in applauding the bons mots of the inexhaustible Chevalier, the recitation of some beautiful extracts of the poem 'Le Repentir,' by the Comte Elzear de Sabran, the son of the Marchioness, or the entertaining conversation of his admirable sister, the Marchioness of Custine, who, sitting by her mother, reminded every one present of the line of Horace :

'O matre pulchrâ, filia pulchrior.'

Her son, a young man of our own age, the author of the present work, appeared but two or three times, and was the only one of the company remaining cool, indifferent, inattentive, absent, which he did even when the Comte de Choiseul-Gouffier was speaking of Greece, with the enthusiasm of his young days, and explained the plan of the IDALY, which he was building in the Champs Elysées, with the columns and the ruins of Greek temples, the only remaining fruits of his embassy at Constantinople, and which was so soon to become an English protestant chapel, and the residence of its minister†. Once only he seemed to be roused from his insensibility, not, indeed, by a * Entresol is a low apartment between the ground floor and the first floor. The chapel and residence of Rev. Mr. Lovett, in the Champs Elisées, at the corner of the Rue de Chaillot.