The Press.
London, England, 1857-10-17 00:00:00

Yittraturt.

Sermons. By the late Rev. F. W. Robertson.
Third Series. London : Smith, Elder,
and Co.
Tux reading of this series of sermons by the
late Mr. Robertson has afforded us an intel-
lectual treat. They contain the development
of many very beautiful thoughts and reflec-
tions which have occurred to a highly culti-
vated and spiritual mind upon several most
important questions of Christian faith and
practice. The originality in setting forth
well-known truths, the vigorous style, and the
freshness and elegance of their illustrations,
must have possessed infinite powers in
awakening the most lively interest in the
minds of his hearers, as they cannot fail of
affording delight to the reader. In a word,
they seem to possess in a remarkable degree
that rare but most valuable quality which the
greatest of our modern philosophers has
attributed to the highest class of genius, that
of restoring old and universally-acknowledged
truths to their original life and power. Thus
those common truths which seem to lose half
their force from the circumstance of their
universal acceptance, in these sermons gather
new life and spirit from the novel mode of the
Writer's expression.
But in any sound and comprehensive expo-
sition of the great body of Christian truth this
volume is wholly deficient. It is not only
originality of thought and varied mode of ex-
hibiting truths that is required in the
preacher of this day, but a comprehensive
grasp of the whole truth in all its manifold
and harmonious proportions, and a soundness
of judgment in its t-tpositio it. The Church
does not in this age lack talent nr originality ;
but what she calls for is an orthodox faith and
wisdom to guide and sober the exuberant
powers of the highly cultivated intellect of the
nineteenth century.
The peculiarity which distinguishes these
sermons, and in our Judgment renders them
an unsafe guide, is the vividness and force
with which isolated truths are set forth with-
out reference to other doctrines in close con-
nection with them. It is, no doubt, a trite
remark, but most important, that partial
truth is positive error, and this is often
forgotten by writers whose mental powers
become entirely concentrated on some indi-
vidual object of interest. These sermons may
be admirably calculated to pour fresh streams
of spiritual thought and devotion into the
Church so far as they go; but some of the
most important questions of the day, being
only regarded from one point of view, are
treated in language that is calculated to lead
the reader into positive error. And this is the
less excusable in the writer of these sermons,
since he has made himself a severe reprover
of all the great parties of the day, and con-
stantly proposes to correct the errors of
others. He should have remembered that if
in exposing an error we only establish a
fragment of truth, we do but remove one error
to make room for another.

After these remarks we will give a few ex
tracts in illustration of what we have said.
In the third sermon, " The Dispensations of
the Spirit," we meet with some very striking
and touching passages. But when he treats
of the spiritual unity of the Church as
the work of the same Spirit, why should
he have altogether omitted any reference
to that outward and visible unity which
is the necessary framework of the inward
epitit? On referring to the eleventh sermon,
in which he proposes to give a definition of
the Church of Christ, we find the same
deficiency—an absolute ignoring of the grand
scheme of Christian polity in which true
spiritual unity ever has dwelt, and by which
alone it can effectually and permanently operate.
Taking the practice of the Apostles together
with the disjointed precepts scattered through
their writings, the early Church felt itself
justified in building up upon them that grand
system of ecclesiastical polity which is still
an existing fact in the Christian world. The
question is, are we justified, after the lapse of
eighteen centuries, in departing from their
model' Tll3 same fact—namely, the long