cially who are those awful people named Messrs. Ananias Shimei and Rab Shekah, that seem so to haunt his phantasy. After having exhausted himself by the violence of his own denunciations of all the sects, past, present, and to comeexcept his own-he relapses into good humored quiet, and begins the next month to meditate on good manners, as might be expected on returning to himself, wherein, among other excellent principles, he lays down the following: "Under bad manners, as under graver faults, lies very commonly an overestimate of our special individuality, as distinguished from our generic humanity. It is just here that the very highest society asserts its superior breeding."

We respectfully submit whether all this is not preliminary to a theological discussion, or an exposition of the Professor's "special and individual" theological dogmas. Doubtless the Professor has a creed, or he would not be moved to such excitement against those whose creed differs from his own. Or if he has none yet, he is searching after one,* and in due time will find it, and be ready to expound it at all the length which its probable brevity will allow. We should be most happy to hear his theological opinions, and the reasons for them, by any other medium than the Atlantic Monthly. We will listen to him as long as he chooses to discourse upon Theology at the anniversary of the Unitarian Association. If the Christian Examiner declines for any reason to publish his Theological Essays, we will possibly find room for them on our own pages, but we must respectfully decline being pleased to hear them from the mouth of the Professor at the Breakfast Table. are not content that the easy flow of his humor should thus be chafed and ruffled-that his sharp wit should become caustic invective, and his playful sallies degenerate into bitter personali

The following Prescription has been found effectual in similar cases:

We

ties. The odium theologicum is of uncertain influence, even when indulged by a liberal Christian; and we do not care to see the genial and thus far successful humorist of the Atlantic Monthly lose his temper and fail of his fame, by becoming an indifferent and bad tempered theologian.

We take a somewhat more serious view of the matter. The Professor not only challenges for himself the liberty to say what he pleases at his own Breakfast-table, but he does in some sort invite himself to a seat at our own and assert the liberty to indulge in somewhat free conversation. If he takes advantage of this liberty to insult our faith, shock our feelings, sneer at our religious instructions-if his wit shall be discordant with the morning prayers and the evening praises of the thousands of Christian homes to which he has hitherto been a freely admitted guest, then he must expect to be welcome no longer. He will not be burned at the stake for his freedom of thought, nor be socially ostracized for his private creed. He will not be turned out of doors as a dangerous heretic, but he will not be invited to call again,-simply for defect of civility. Nor will it be the clergy or the men of the country that will be thus offended, at the freedom taken with the theological opinions which they accept. Christian women will repel from their home circles the humorist that seems to understand so little the sacredness of the name that they would write upon the hearts of their children, and with whose early faith and worship they would fain allow not a single scornful or disturbing association. For the heart of woman the Professor professes a reverence near to religious, and for her instructive judgments an almost implicit faith. Could he know how much he has offended both the feelings and the judgment of hundreds of the true-hearted, he might find an argument stronger than any which we can write.

It is fortunate for the country, for many reasons, that the Atlantic Monthly is published in Boston. For one reason, however, it may not be so fortunate for the journal itself. If Boston is, in respect to its views of the Christian faith, so far in advance of other cities, as is thought by many, then there is some danger that the conductors of the Atlantic should now

and then be unable to judge of what the rest of their countrymen will accept as wit or receive as wisdom. Sitting in the center of illumination as they do, they may be blinded by their own excess of light, and so what they call wit may seem to others ribaldry, and what they judge to be wisdom may be received as ill-mannered profaneness. It may be quite superfluous to suggest that there are thousands of intelligent people out of Boston who have thought and read somewhat, and have some acquaintance with art and literature, who do yet accept the Truths commonly received by Protestant Christians, not without some knowledge of the difficulties involved, but with an equally intelligent judgment of the greater difficulties attending the more liberal scheme, as well as that misty nothingness called the Absolute Religion. All these, we are sure, are quite content that the Atlantic Monthly should be devoted to Literature, Art, and Politics, but they will not be satisfied, and they ought not to be, if it should become the organ or instrument of a Christian sect or an antiChristian clique.

NOTICES OF BOOKS.

THEOLOGY.

DISCOURSES AND TREATISES ON THE ATONEMENT.*-The most impor tant work on Theology, which has come to our hands since the issue of our last Number, is the volume on the Atonement, issued by the Congregational Board of Publication. It is a volume of nearly six hundred large and full octavo pages. Eighty pages of the book are occupied with an Introductory Essay, by Professor Park, of Andover Theological Seminary, on "The Edwardean Theory of the Atonement." The remaining part of the volume, five hundred and ninety-six pages, contains Discourses and Treatises by seven able advocates of that theory-viz, President Jonathan Edwards, the younger, Rev. Dr. John Smalley, Rev. Dr. Jonathan Maxcy, " President of Rhode Island College,” afterwards the successor of Dr. Edwards in the Presidency of Union College, Rev. Dr. Nathaniel Emmons, Rev. Dr. Edward D. Griffin, President of Williams College, Rev. Caleb Burge, of Glastenbury, Ct., and Rev. Dr. William R. Weeks, of Newark, New Jersey. These discourses and treatises are of very unequal length. The three sermons of Dr. Edwards, which were preached in New Haven, in 1785, when he was pastor of the North Church in that city, occupy forty-two pages; the two sermons of Dr. Smalley, forty-three pages; the one discourse of President Maxcy, is contained in twenty-five pages; the two sermons of Dr. Emmons, in twenty-six; the treatise of Dr. Griffin extends through nearly three hundred pages; the essay of Mr. Burge occupies one hundred and eighteen pages; and the dialogue of Dr. Weeks, thirty-six pages.

The first of these publications, in the order of time, is, in our judg ment, decidedly the first in the order of merit, that of Dr. Edwards. In those three sermons, preached in the year 1785, his strong, comprehensive, consistent and lucid mind, gave the first well formed expression to that theory of the Atonement which has since prevailed in New

*The Atonement. Discourses and Treatises by Edwards, Smalley, Marcy, Emmons, Griffin, Burge and Weeks. With an Introductory Essay, by EDWARD A. PARK, Abbot Professor of Christian Theology, Andover, Mass. Boston: Congregational Board of Publication, Chauncey street, 1859. 8vo. pp. 596. Price $2. For sale by F. T. Jarman.

England-an expression so clear, rational and scriptural, that very little improvement has been made upon it by subsequent writers. It is chiefly due, therefore, to the merits of his exposition of this theory of the Atonement that it is called "Edwardean." All the discourses and treatises, however, contained in the volume, are able, and together they constitute a very valuable work on this essential doctrine of Christian Theology. They are now re-published, it is said, in the introductory essay, “not because they are more complete than other Treatises, prepared with the same general aim, but because each of these works was designed to strike upon certain veins of thought which had not been generally opened, and each of them contributes a certain class of ideas which have been combined in the Edwardean system; a system extensively advocated by American and English divines, often practically believed where it is not theoretically acknowledged, and promising to become the prevailing faith of evangelical thinkers." The Essay of Rev. Mr. Burge is, next to Dr. Griffin's, the longest in the volume, and is worthy of special regard for its thoroughness and ability. It had, when first published, the particular recommendation of Dr. Emmons, Dr. Samuel Worcester of Salem, Dr. Spring of Newburyport, and Dr. Burton of Thetford. Dr. Park says, that "Dr. Woods of Andover, often expressed his high opinion of it," and that "that eminently pious missionary, Rev. Daniel Temple, once remarked (to him, Dr. Park,) I have derived more instruction in regard to the Atonement from the Treatise of Mr. Burge, than from any other uninspired volume."

But that part of this large work which will be received with most interest, is the Introductory Essay by Professor Park. It bears the marks of careful elaboration, and is written with Dr. Park's well known clearness, pertinence, accuracy and analytic skill and power. He begins with an admirable analysis of the Edwardean theory of the atonement, into the following popositions. "First, Our Lord suffered pains which were substituted for the penalty of the law, and may be called punishment in the more general sense of that word, but were not, strictly and literally, the penalty which the law threatened. Secondly, the sufferings of our Lord satisfied the general justice of God, but did not satisfy His distributive justice. Thirdly, the humiliation, pains, and death of our Redeemer were equivalent in meaning to the punishment threatened in the moral law, and thus they satisfied Him who is determined to maintain the honor of this law, but they did not satisfy the demands of the law itself for our punishment. Fourthly, the active obedience, viewed as the holiness of Christ, was honorable to the law, but was not