Notice of Recent Publications [pp. 443-477]

1Notices of Recent Putblications.
or the New School theory. We repudiate in the strongest terms the
designation lately given to it-TiHE EDWARDEAN THEORY of the Atonement-because the honored name of Edwards, one of the greatest in
church history, is not to be identified with a theory of which not even
the germs can fairly be deduced firom his writings. We could exhibit
illustrations from the President's writings of almost every position we
have advanced in this volume; and mere stray expressions occurring in
his writings are not to be fitted into the crude outline of the governmental scheme, from which his whole mode of thought diverged. No
writer more fully describes Christ as entering into all the obligations
of His people, both as to active and passive obedience. The Hopkinsian or governmental scheme, repudiating imputation in the proper
sense, reduces the atonement from the high ground of a propitiation
to the level of an empty pageant, however imposing; or a governmental display for the good of other orders of creation. It is a scheme
which connects the death of Christ with some imaginary public justice, not with the divine nature and perfections; as if God Himself
were not His own public, the only august public worthy of regard in
this great transaction. According to the Grotian or Hopkinsian
theory, the atonement is fit to impress the creation of God, but is not
necessary in respect of the divine attributes."
The Problem of Evil. Seven Lectures. By Ernest Naville, correspond ing Member of the Institute of France, late Professor of Philosolphy
in the University of Geneva. Translated from the French by Edward
W. Shalders, B.A. Edinburgh: T. &. T. Clark. New York: Scrib ner, Welford & Co. 1871.
Another effort to solve which must needs ever be incapable of but
one, and that the Scriptural solution, at least, so far as it is solvable at
all. That solution is simply this. All other evil is consequent on
moral evil, either as a natural, or penal, or disciplinary sequence. Sin
is not a creation of God, but of the free will of his creatures perversely
used. The sinfulness of our entire race, and not merely of individuals
or portions of it, must have some common ground, which can be none
other than the fall of the race in the fall of its first progenitor, standing
and acting therein as its representative. As to the foundation of this
representative character of Adam-whether it be federal or realisticwe are not sure of the author's position. But we think most of his
modes of statement realistic. "The lot of each of us," says Professor
Luthardt, "was decided by the act of the first of our race, for this was
not only the act of the individual, but the act of the representative of
all men... We all form one great unity; each is mysteriously involved in all; none can isolate himself and say, What does that concern me? " pp. 139-40.
The subject is presented not only in its dogmatic, but its practical
bearings. The book has astrong evangelical tone, and is marked by
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