other works of the same class, of later date; such, for example, as Mr. Gisborne's discourses on the Colossians: these approximate to the ancient Tractates of Austin on St. John, or his Enarrationes on the Psalms; while Calvin, whose Commentary on the Scriptures is his best work, has deviated into the same style, in his Conciones on the First Book of Samuel, and the Book of Job*. These purport to have been taken down from his lips in the pulpit. Such works as Owen on the Hebrews, and Leighton on St. Peter, hold a middle rank in this style of composition: whilst, in coming down to Mr. Simeon's Horæ Homileticæ, we return to the genuine plan of sermon-writing, though in the skeleton form, to which it has been his practice to reduce his truly scriptural matter. In the actual and expanded form of sermons, we must expect a more detached execution of this consecutive plan. And whilst we are thankful for this be- ginning of the sacred volume, by Mr. Close on Genesis, and Mr. Buddicom on the remaining Books of Moses, and as far as Joshua; we must still acknowledge many an omission, even within their narrower limits; and many a brake unbeaten on the ground they have respectively assumed. Such is the exuberance of the sacred record, that however narrow the limits we assign to ourselves, to select judiciously, rather than wholly to exhaust the topics

* Very appropriate to the privileges of the present times are the remarks on those of the Reformation, by Beza, the learned prefacer to the above Conciones on Job: "Vere ingens et insigne est illud Opt. Max. Dei beneficium, quo nostris istis temporibus ecclesiam affecit: tot excitatis, una cum linguarum, etiam peregrinarum, et bonarum artium cognitione, sacrarum literarum doctissimis interpretibus: in quibus, non judicii acumen, non docendi methodus, non diligentia in sacris voluminibus, modo perpetuis commentariis, modo brevioribus scholiis, modo paraphrasibus, modo habitis ad populum concionibus, perspicue, erudite, sanctè, explicandis desideratur."-Beza Lectori ad Calv. Conc. in

Job.

embraced in them, must be our hope. and it is to this selection, as made by our present authors, that we shall now turn our attention.

We should say further, however, in touching their necessary deficiencies in selection, that one deficiency we think needs not have existed in their respectiveworks; namely, a want of continuity and connexion in arrangement. It would have added a considerable spirit and reality to their various portraitures, could they have been seen more in a family or historical piece, and had there been, as there might have been, a notice of the succession and the mutual bearings of one subject upon another. In this respect Mr. Close has not done himself justice in his table of contents. For perhaps, as far as his long strides across the whole Book of Genesis, which he perambulates in twenty-nine sermons, would admit, he has observed this continuity; at least he has given us a very agreeable idea of consecutiveness in his different details. This, however, no one would reasonably guess from the table of contents, which we shall proceed to lay before our readers.

Importance of the Old TestamentCreation-The Fall of Man-The Promise of a Saviour-Cain and Abel-Enoch -The Deluge-God's Covenant with Noah-On the Sins of Believers-The Confusion of Tongues-The Calling of Abram-Lot-Melchisedec-The Faith of Religion-InterAbram-Hagar-Family cession-The Destruction of SodomAbraham Abraham offering Isaac-The Marriage of Isaac-Esau's Profaneness-Jacob's Vision-The blessed Influence of the Righteous-Prayer-Excessive SorrowGodliness profitable for all Things-The certain Exposure of Sin-The Shortness of Life The Compassion of Christ." Close, pp. xi-xx.

It would be a true enigma to any Edipus, to discover, for example, the appropriateness of the last sermon, on "the Compassion of Christ," to a closing discourse on the Book of Genesis; whereas all might have been made perfectly clear, if the title had run thus, "the Conduct of Joseph to his Brethern illustrative of the Compassion of Christ." The

shorter and the truer title might have been "the Compassion of Joseph." Mr. Buddicom has not attempted any thing like a consecutive series, otherwise than as pursuing the order of the several chapters which furnish his subjects, in the last four Books of Moses, and the Book of Joshua. He assures us that he had not seen Seaton's Church in the Wilderness and Church in Canaan, before he began. We wish he had; for his Discourses would have gained in interest, if he had exhibited something like a geographical delineation of the journeying of Israel from one encampment to another; and had marked the several events of each to which he refers, as the parts of one whole,-the parts of a whole to which the history of the world affords no parallel. That an individual like Moses, "who could not speak, for he was a child," should nevertheless have succeeded in leading an immense host, an entire nation, out of one country, and in its course towards another; detaining them by Divine command forty years within the narrow limits of an uninhabited desert, till the first generation had actually passed away, and, with two exceptions, their children alone could enter the promised land; was one continued miracle, a miracle, indeed, only to have been effected then, or to be credited now, by the means and on the authority of those other signs, marvels, and significant traditions with which it was accompanied.

In a word, as Mr. Close had to detail the genealogies and the history * of a family, so Mr. Buddicom had to detail the events and progress of a journey, or, as we may say, a divinely appointed Anabasis. And to pursue the obvious allusion to an ancient author which the last word suggests to us, we should say, that Mr. Close's series might have been made more classically as well as theologically interesting, by studying the unities of Xenophon, in the famous delineation of his hero, Cyrus the elder; as Mr. Buddicom

might have profitably employed his known erudition in modelling after that historian's celebrated Expedition of the Ten Thousand, under Cyrus the Younger. The erudite and elegant Calvin, whose work onthe First Book of Samuel nearly forms a sequel to Mr. Buddicom, has not omitted this advantage of historical arrangement.

As we have given the table of contents in Mr. Close's volume, we shall proceed to do the same for Mr. Buddicom's two volumes; in which we think our readers will observe a similar derangement to that which we have before noticed in Mr. Close.

"The History of Israel between Egypt and Canaan, typical of the Christian Lifeapplied to the Spiritual Bondage of Men The Captivity of the Israelites in Egypt in Nature and Sin-The Mercy of God towards the Israelites when they cried to Him for deliverance-The Miracle of the Burning Bush, typically and practically considered-The Typical Character of Moses considered, as the Deliverer, Mediator, Lawgiver, and Guide of IsraelThe Opposition of Pharaoh to the Liberation of Israel; and the Manner in which it was eventually overruled-The World and Satan opposed to the Christian's Spiritual Progress-Discouragements in Religion productive of Unbelief in the Promises of God-The Case of Pharaoh The Character and Conduct of the mixed Multitude that left Egypt with the Children of Israel-The Tender Consideration manifested by God towards the Israelites -The Pillar of the Cloud and of Fire--The Deliverance of the Israelites, and the Destruction of the Egyptians, at the Red Sea -The Waters of Marah-The Fall of Manna typically and practically considered-The Rock in Horeb smitten by the Rod of Moses+-The Battle between Israel and Amalek-The Law delivered from Mount Sinai-The Israelites commanded

considered-The Passover instituted

to build the Tabernacle—The Idolatrous

* This, we presumé, should rather have been "The Opposition of Pharaoh, illustrative of the Opposition by the World and Satan," &c.

Why not here also "typically and practically considered," the rock being as much so as the manna? In truth, the above words need not to have been ever inserted by Mr. Buddicom, as his plan presupposed that mode of treatment: and accordingly it will be observed they do not occur in the second volume at all.'

Worship of the Golden Calf-The Veil of Moses." Buddicom, vol. i. pp. xixix. "The Sin and Punishment of Nadab and Abihu-The Character of the Jubilee, and the Mode of its Proclamation-The Invitation given by Moses to Hobab-The Supply of Quails, attended with the Wrath of God against the Discontent of Israel The Report of the Spies, after their Return from searching out the Land of PromiseThe Sabbath-breaker stoned-The Guilt and Punishment of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram-Punishment denounced against Moses and Aaron-The Brazen SerpentConsiderations on the Character of Balaam-The Reproof of Moses to the Tribes of Gad and Reuben-Considerations on the Cities of Refuge-The Death of Moses The Passage of Jordan-Jericho taken-The Sin and Punishment of Achan The Stratagem aud Success of the Gibeonites The Victory obtained by Joshua over the confederated Kings of Canaan-The Promised Land divided by Lot among the Israelites-Joshua's Remonstrance with the Israelites upon their Want of Exertion, to finish the War, and to take Possession of the Promised Land Joshua's Dying Testimony to the Fidelity of God in the accomplishment of his Promises." Buddicom, vol. îì. pp. v-xii.

With

Mr. Buddicom's undertaking, as being the largest and most critical, will demand our largest measure of notice in detail. He has entered on the arduous field of scriptural, and Old-Testament types. what judgment, however, and caution he has entered, will appear from the following extract from Sermon XV. on the Waters of Marah, to which we may also direct our readers as a fair specimen of the affecting, impressive, serious, and experimental tones of which Mr. Buddicom shews himself in these volumes a not incompetent master.

"Moses cried unto the Lord, and the Lord shewed him a tree, which when he had cast into the waters the waters were made sweet.' Some commentators have considered the tree as typical of the Saviour's cross, whereby the world is crucified to the believer, and the believer to the world; and by which every affliction is over-ruled for his sanctification, hope, peace, and joy. I can see no ground for such a reference; and am unwilling in these discourses to adopt any spiritual application beyond that which the Holy Ghost has made by express allusion, or manifest deduction. One inference is undeniable, an inference on which a suffer

ing, tried, tempted Christian, whose heart sinks within him, and whose spirit faileth for waiting so long upon his God, may rest with delighted confidence. The unfailing compassion of that God who is able to supply all our need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus,' will provide a full and sure consolation and deliverance to his people in the hour of their affliction, That and in answer to their prayers. relief and redemption will also be afforded in a manner unequivocally exhibiting the riches of his power, and the unfathomable resources of his wisdom. There was no virtue inherent in the tree to sweeten waters which might suffice to supply the thirsting multitudes of Israel, their wives, their children, and their cattle. The salt cast by the prophet into the spring of Jericho which healed its noxious waters, and bade them fertilize the land around, was in its own nature unequal to the wondrous transformation. The meal which the same man of God bade the sons of the prophets cast into the pot, and which instantaneously corrected the poisonous qualities, of the gourds of the wild vine, was incapable, by its own agency, of producing a change so effectual, and so instantaneous. Whence then did they derive their efficacy? From the secret but sure operation of God's almighty power-from the fullness of his blessing upon means which he had revealed and commanded to be employed. If then, consolation and joy sueceeding to affliction should fill the spirit of a Christian, and rise above his trouble, as the restored sun above the waters of the deluged world, let him remember that he owes the mercy, not to any inherent efficacy in earthly sources of comfort, but simply to an exertion of power and tenderness on the part of God, which the means are only channels to convey. The tree may be near our hands, but God must point it out to our notice: and when we cast it into the bitter and troubled waters

of our affliction, his almighty sufficiency must gift it with the power of healing. The peace of God shed abroad in the soul of a Christian, keeping his mind through Christ Jesus, the blessed assurance conveyed through the gracious ministrations and influences of the Spirit, that all things work together for good to them that love God, the influences of the Comforter, sent by the Father, in the name of his crucified and risen Son, form the real virtue of the tree which the Christian casts into the waters of bitterness, whatever be the external character and form of his consolations. And as the Most High honoured Moses by shewing him the tree, and employing his ministration to heal the waters, so does the Father of mercies use the agency of his Son to sanctify all the sources of happiness to a holy mourner. He thus pours within such a wounded spirit the unfailing tide of that peace, which the world can neither give nor take