"Expository Discourses on the First Epistle of the Apostle Peter." The publication of that important work formed a marked era in the history of scriptural interpretation in this country. It is an admirable specimen at once of the critical exposition and the practical application of an important portion of the inspired word of God We had previously in our theological literature few, if any, works of this description, that could be regarded as possessing much value. And yet works of this kind are, if well executed, of more value and importance than any other class of productions. If God has given to men a written revelation of his will, their first duty is to ascertain correctly and thoroughly its meaning and import, and thereafter to apply it to the formation of their opinions and the regulation of their conduct. The most important and imperative work of those who occupy the position of the religious instructors of their fellow-men, is to open up the mind of the Spirit in the word, by expounding and applying the Sacred Scriptures as they stand, as he has given them to us. But too many of those who hold the office of ministers of the word, attempt something in the way of applying the Scriptures, without being well qualified to ascertain and to establish their true and correct meaning, and without labouring to found the application upon its only sufficient basis, viz. a careful and accurate exposition of their actual import. The most distinguishing feature and the highest excellence of the series of Dr Brown's -works, commencing with the Expository Discourses on First Peter, is that they consist principally and primarily of a careful and elaborate exposition of the true and real meaning of the portion of Scripture examined, an exposition conducted with all the talent and learning, the practised skill, and the loving patience, necessary for the successful prosecution of this difficult work, and that on the ground of an exposition so conducted the whole practical application is based. This is the right and the only right mode of employing the Sacred Scriptures, and it is because we get so little of this either from the pulpit or the press, that we attach the highest value to Dr Brown's expository works, extending now over a considerable portion of the Bible, and regard their publication as forming an auspicious era in the history of biblical interpretation.

The volume before us, consisting chiefly of an exposition of the First Chapter of the Second Epistle of Peter, could scarcely be expected to add much to the reputation already acquired by more complete and comprehensive works. But it certainly sustains the wellearned reputation of its author as a theologian, a biblical critic, and a preacher of righteousness, while some of the additional discourses, having special reference to some important eras in an honoured ministry, now extending over more than half a century, are invested with a peculiar personal interest to the friends of the venerable author.

We rejoice to observe, that Dr Brown is about to publish what we trust will prove the crown and copestone of his labours, as an expositor of God's word, viz. An Analytical Exposition of the Epistle of Paul to the Romans.

The Desert of Sinai : Notes of a Spring Journey from Cairo to Beersheba. By HORATIUS BONAR, D.D., Kelso. London James

Nisbet & Co. 1857.

We have read through the whole of Dr Bonar's Notes of his Journey in the Desert with deep and unflagging interest. He certainly has a very unusual combination of the qualifications necessary for making such a work both agreeable and useful. The work, though consisting almost wholly of notes made at the time during the journey, furnishes unequivocal indications of the best qualities of the Christian and the man of taste, the theologian and the scholar; and this combination invests the book with a peculiar charm. Dr Bonar seems to excel equally in accuracy of observation, and in cordial appreciation and felicitous description of what is grand or beautiful, while the more important questions occasionally started of a theological or critical kind, are touched upon, though in an unpretending and off-hand way, with very superior ability and erudition. It is scarcely necessary to say, that he keeps constantly in view, the illustration of the statements of God's word, and has thrown some light upon not a few of them.

The leading peculiarities of the book, besides the combination of qualities above adverted to, are the exposures of the rationalistic attempts of some modern travellers, including Dr Robinson and Mr Stanley, to exclude, or, what is in some respects more absurd, to diminish, the miraculous element in some of the Lord's wondrous dealings with his chosen people, the full accounts of the inscriptions on the rocks in the Written Valley, and the very pleasing descriptions of a district not often visited by travellers, the principal scene of the sojournings of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, a country which Dr Bonar had an opportunity of seeing in consequence of his journeying straight north from the wilderness of Sinai, instead of turning north-east as travellers usually do, and his thus entering Palestine at the south-west instead of the south-east. In consequence of this peculiarity in his route, he conducts us to Beersheba; and there he leaves us. But we trust that erelong he will be enabled to prepare the remainder of his Notes for publication, and, if we are spared to see this, we will not fail to accompany him in his tour through the Holy Land.

Streams from Lebanon.

By the Rev. WILLIAM REID, M.A., Editor of the British Messenger.

THIS is a work of very peculiar value and utility. It brings before the mind a very large amount of matter, adapted in no ordinary degree to furnish both impression and instruction upon the most important of all subjects. It contains considerably more than one hundred pieces, varying in length from one or two to ten or twelve pages,-expositions, exhortations, letters, narratives, &c., characterised by clear and sound views of divine truth, and by a simple but most effective manner

of enforcing and applying it. We have not for a long period read any work that seemed to us better fitted to rouse careless sinners into earnestness about their salvation, to guide anxious inquirers in the right path, and to direct and encourage those who have entered upon the way to Zion. Its peculiar fitness for effecting, instrumentally, these objects is to be found not only in its clear and accurate views of scriptural doctrine, but specially in the combination of great unction and earnestness, with a thoroughly practical and business like way of going about the work of seeking to convert sinners and to edify God's people. Mr Reid is certainly very successful in putting things in such a form and shape as are fitted to impress men with a strong sense of the reality and the importance of the subjects of which he treats, to arrest and fix their attention on the concerns of their souls, on things eternal and unseen. He exhibits in no ordinary degree the plainness and directness, the effectiveness and impressiveness, which characterise the best class of American writers upon practical religion, as they have become known in this country of late through that inestimable work, the Christian Treasury, and other publications of a similar kind; and, on this ground, we reckon it peculiarly adapted for being extensively useful, through the divine blessing, in promoting vital godliness.

The concluding section of this work, which is entitled "The Lord our Righteousness," and which consists of an exposition and application of Rom. v. 12-19, is of a higher order in point of mere ability than the generality of the volume, and is really a very superior and creditable specimen of scriptural interpretation.

We cordially commend the volume as eminently fitted to be useful in the highest of all departments of work, the direct advancement of men's spiritual welfare.

The Sabbath, Sabbath Walks, and other Poems. By JAMES GRAHAME. Illustrated by BIRKET FOSTER. London. 1857.

The Book of Job, illustrated with fifty engravings from drawings, by JOHN Gilbert, with Explanatory Notes and Poetical Parallels. London. 1857.

THESE are most beautiful books, marvellously fine specimens of paper, printing, engraving, and binding. Grahame's poems, with Foster's illustrations, have, we observe, been republished at New York, and the work seems to be, as it deserves, very popular there. The Book of Job is not merely a magnificent reprint of the authorised version, illustrated by fifty very beautiful and, in many cases, very striking, engravings, but it is, moreover, so arranged and divided as to throw much light upon the general structure and connection of the production as a whole, while it is also preceded by an interesting and well-written introduction, entitled, "the Patriarch and the Poem," and accompanied by some very pleasing and scholarlike

notes.

The Protestant Theological and Ecclesiastical Encyclopædia, being a condensed translation of Herzog's Real Encyclopædia, with additions from other sources. By the Rev. J. H. BOMBERGER, D.D., assisted by distinguished Theologians of various Denominations. Parts I., II., and III. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark.

HERZOG'S Real Encyclopædia has established for itself a very high character, as the result of a combination of the talent and learning of almost all the most eminent German theologians of the present day, in providing a view of what is most interesting and important upon theological and ecclesiastical subjects. It was an excellent suggestion to make the substance of Herzog's Encyclopædia accessible in the English language, with such omissions and additions as might adapt it most fully to the necessities and the tastes of the Anglo-Saxon mind. This idea has been taken up, and is now being executed, in the United States under the superintendence of Dr Bomberger, with what seems to be an adequate and well-qualified staff of assistants, while the work is also published cotemporaneously in this country. We have examined the first three parts of it, all that have yet been published amongst us, and from this specimen we have no doubt that it will prove by far the most complete and valuable work of the kind accessible to English readers. We do not of course look to works of this sort for consistent and accurate views upon all the controverted doctrines of theology. But this work, we have no doubt, will prove a valuable storehouse of authentic and interesting information, upon a great variety of the most important theological and ecclesiastical topics.

Man and his Money, its Use and Abuse. By the Rev. W. K. TWEEDIE, D.D. London: Nisbet & Co. Second Thousand.

A GOOD deal has been done of late in the way of expounding, and enforcing upon God's people, the great duty of giving, of honoring God of their substance, of contributing of their worldly means, according as God has prospered them, to the advancement of Christ's cause, and the welfare of their fellow-men. Several very impressive works upon the subject have recently been published in the United States. The Ulster Prize Essays, published three or four years ago, under the title of "Gold and the Gospel," contained a large treasure of valuable matter upon this subject. But we have not met with anything which we regard as upon the whole better fitted to be useful than this work of Dr Tweedie. All the leading topics connected with the spending of money, with the discharge of the great duty of giving, are here handled with so much clearness and plainness, with so much good sense and sound judgment, with so lucid and impressive an exhibition of the scriptural truths that bear upon it, and with so much of interesting illustration derived from a wide range of reading, general as well as theological, that the result is a work singularly well adapted to convince and to persuade, to humble and to stimulate, to produce a much higher standard of giving than usually obtains among Christians, and thus to contribute greatly,

through the divine blessing, to the extension of the Redeemer's kingdom. Dr Tweedie has done excellent service to his Master's cause, through the press as well as in many other ways, and we reckon the publication of this important work, as one of the most valuable of his many useful labours.

St Paul's Epistle to the Galatians. The Text revised and illustrated by a Commentary, intended principally for the Use of Ministers and Students in Theology. By HENRY T. J. BAGGE, B.A.

How pleasant it is, even though there were nothing more conveyed by the fact of its publication than a fresh manly contrast of opinion to the weak expedients sometimes proposed for superseding a scholarly initiation into the original Scriptures, to meet with a work like this of Mr Bagge's! We are unfeignedly glad, however, viewing it according to its own intrinsic merits, to record a still more emphatic testimony to its value.

In a remarkably interesting preface, the author explains the method pursued by him in his structure of a Text, and shews, that while frankly acknowledging both the historical merits of Lachmann, and the critical skill of Tischendorf, in their respective revisions, he has, with equal modesty and firmness, exercised an independent judgment, sometimes agreeing with the one, and sometimes with the other, of these high authorities, while occasionally he differs from both.

Exegetically, his Commentary is marked by the same independent and erect bearing. Strongly imbued by the reverence for the Word of God, which cannot fail to accompany an earnest faith in its verbal inspiration, he has, at the same time, in the genuine freedom of the most scientific grammatical method, anxiously explored the meaning of the Apostle. Did our limits allow us, we would make good our favourable opinion of him as an expositor by one or two extracts. We cannot deny ourselves the pleasure of citing the following words, not more solemnising than seasonable, from his Preface :"I will add, farther, that I felt, and still feel, that if we would be conscientious ministers of the everlasting gospel, acting up to the conviction which we profess to entertain, that Scripture is indeed inspired by God-if we would make our people think that it is indeed a fountain ever throwing forth fresh and living waters-if, above all, we would combat successfully the dangers which now, in the latter days of this evil age, are assailing the church of the living God: we must give over, once for all and for ever, that miserable intellectual Antinomianism which sinks lazily down, and expects the Spirit of wisdom and might to enlighten those who will not endeavour to enlighten themselves; we must throw to the winds that wretched superficial exegesis which is pouring in upon us like a flood; which, neglecting nothing so much as the actual language which embodies God's glorious thoughts, gives us what is human to solace us for the loss of what is divine."