Theological and Literary Intelligence [pp. 762-768]

7#68 THEOLOGICAL AND LITERARY INTELLIGENCE. [Oct.
UNITED STATES.
Dr. E. H. GILLETT, Professor in the University of New York, and widely known
as the author of the "Life and Times of John Huss," has in the press of Messrs.
Scribner, Armstrong & Co., for early publication; a work the character of which is
indicated by its title, which reads as follows: God in Hu-man Thought; or, Nvatural
7zeology traced in Literature, Ancient and Modern, to the Time of Bishop Butler.
IWith a Closing Chapffer on tlze lor'al System, and an Enzgl,ish Bibliography from
Spenser to Butler. His essay on the Mforial System is also to be issued separately, as
a text-book for Academies and Colleges, under the title of The Mforial System, with
an Historical and Critical Introduction. It is based to some extent on Butler's
Analogy, and is intended to simplify it, and supplement it with reference to the questions of the day. It is very carefully prepared, and will be found a great help in instruction. In the Introduction, the growth of the Moral System is traced out from the
earliest classical times down to the English systems, which are fully treated, and so
the way is prepared for a right understanding of Butler's epoch-making argument.
The work on God inz Human Thotght is an elaborate historical and critical treatise
(pp. 833) on the views of the Divine being and agency in the earliest religions, in
Greece and Rome, among the Fathers, heretics, and schoolmen, and then in the
whole of English literature, down to the times of Bishop Butler. The learning
shown has a wide range; many old and almost forgotten English authors are exhumed,
with a critical spirit. The Bibliography of English Natural Theology and Ethics is
fuller than can anywhere else be found. The work is sure to arrest the attention
of scholars and teachers.
A LOST TRACT BY ROGER WILLIAMS BROUGHT TO LIGHT. -The Hartford Cou.
rant says that Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull has had the good fortune to discover a
tract by Roger WXilliams which was unknown to all his biographers. It was printed
in London in I652, the same year with his rejoinder to Mr. Cotton, "The Bloody
Tenet yet more Bloody," etc., and with "The Hireling Ministry none of Christ's."
It makes part of a small quarto of twenty-eight pages (of which five are not numbered) with the following title:
"The Fourth Paper, Presented by Major Butler to the Honourable Committee of
Parliament, for the Propagating of the Gospel of Jesus Christ... Also A Letter from
Mr. Goad, to MIajor Butler; upon occasion of the said Paper and Proposals. Togetherwith A Testimony to the said fourth Paper, by way of Explanation upon the four
Proposals of it, by R. W.... London, Printed for Giles Calvert, etc., I652."
An introductory epistle "To the truly Christian Reader" is signed by "The unworthiest of all the Followers and Witnesses of Christ Jesus. R. VW." The initials
only-but a reference to "the controversie of' the Bloody Tenet,' between Mr. Cotton
and myself," and the mention of what "I have spl)oken more particularly in the Ilireling Ministry, &c.," leave no doubt as to the authorship. The essence of the tract
may be given in a quotation from one of its marginal notes: "Soul-freedom, of mighty
consequence to this N\ation."'
The four proposals, in support of which it was written, are, in substance: For liberty of preaching without license from magistrates; for leaving to God the punishment of false teachers and heretics; for the denial of jurisdiction in spirituals to the
civil power; and for permission to the Jews to live fireely and peaceably in' England.
lThe argument is clearly and forcibly presented, and in literary merit the tract is unsurpassed by any work of its author. There was no subject on which Roger Williams
so well loved to speak, or could so well, as on "Soul Freedom," "Oh, that it would
please the Father of Spirits," he says, "to affect the heart of the Parliament with such
a merciful sense of the Soul-Bars and Yokes which our fathers have laid upon the
neck of this nation, and at last to proclaim a true and absolute soul-freedom to all the
people of the land impartially!"
7Tie Chinzese Rcode;r, Shanghai, notices an important work viz., a Czinzese English
Dictionary of the TFI rnaculzr o;-Shoken zanfgstug~e of Amoy, witlh tzhe rincial varialions of hze C,isanz,-chezv and Chzisz-chew dialects, by Rev. CARSTAIRS DOU(GLIAS, M.A.,
LL.D., Missionary of the Presbyterian Church of England, published by Trtibner &
Co., London. The basis of the dictionary is the manuscript vocabulary prepared by
the late Rev. j. Lloyd, Missionary of the American Presbyterian Church, together
w-ith the Aszgo- Chizese M'anzual of Rev. E. Doty, Missionary of the American Board,
and a manuscript dictionary written by Rev. Alexander Stronach, of the London Missionaiy Society. Dr. Douglas was also aided in a portion of his work by Rev. John
Van Nest Talmage, D.D., of the Reformed Church.