connection with many other tokens, would seem to indicate that the author is not familiar with the masters in modern philosophy; especially that he, like the one master whom he so admiringly but sharply criticises, little knows or appreciates the critical method and results of Kant, or the process of thought in the solution of metaphysical problems since the time of Kant. We are quite willing to have Mr. Spencer's theory of the Unknowable so thoroughly refuted by one avowedly an admirer of the "Synthetic Philosophy." For ourselves, we are looking to see this entire system of philosophy speedily disintegrate and deliver over its elements, so far as they have any stable quality, to a new and different process of philosophical integration.

LOCKE'S THEOry of KnowleDGE.*-This fifth number in the "Philosophic Series" by President McCosh begins the second or historical part of the series; "in this part the same questions (that is, as those discussed in the first or didactic part) are treated historically." In his "General Introduction” the author treats of "divers aspects of first principles"; in the following sections are brief, chatty lives of Locke and of Berkeley, and a similar discussion of the principal opinions of these philosophers as seen from the author's point of view. As the program on the cover of the book informs us: "The systems of the philosophers . . . . are stated and examined, and the truth and error in each of them carefully pointed out." In particular: "It is shown that Locke held by a body of truth, and that he has often been misunderstood; but that he has not by his experience theory laid a sure foundation of knowledge." The very indefinite expectation excited by this promise may be said to be fairly well fulfilled. We will only add our wish that the author would be more precise in his scholarship than to translate the words of Descartes-"Lorsque je dis que quelque idée est née avec nous, ou qu'elle est naturellement empreinte en nos âmes, je n'entends pas qu'elle se présente toujours à notre pensée, car ainsi il n'y en aurait aucune; mais j'entends seulement que nous avons en nous-mêmes la faculté de la produire"-as follows: "While I say that some idea is born with us or that it is naturally imprinted on our souls, I do not understand that it presents itself always to our thought, for there is no thought it does so, but I understand that we have in our selves the faculty to produce it" (pp. 5 and 43).

* Locke's Theory of Knowledge, with a Notice of Berkeley. By JAMES MCCOSE, D.D., LL.D. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1884.

THE ELEMENTS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY.*-The author of this work is a Belgian, who has been for twenty years Professor of Political Economy at the University of Liege. He has published several works on topics of Political Economy which have attracted attention, and gained for him reputation. We hardly think this work will add to his fame. He goes over the principal subjects which belong to Political Economy in a 12mo. volume of less than 300 pages, and there is no thorough discussion of anything. He appears not to have read the recent works on the subject, but advances arguments which have been shown to be fallacious. Sometimes he relieves the abstract discussion by a concrete example in order to bring out his idea more strongly, as when to show the folly of protection, he says, "That Frenchmen and Italians after spending nearly two millions sterling in boring a tunnel through the Alps, can place their custom-house officers at each end to destroy in a great measure by the dues they exact, the usefulness of this marvel of engineering, is an inexplicable contradiction."

The book is well printed and easily read, and the table of contents is full and exact.

MEYER'S COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS.† -Of all the masterly commentaries of Meyer, that on the Epistles to the Corinthians is deemed by some the very best. The critical acumen and the practical Christian feeling of the author are both admirably illustrated on its pages. The Epistles themselves, from the variety as well as the character of the topics which the Apostle has occasion to take up, are an exceedingly inviting field for critical annotation. The notes of the American editor are not They are tinged with the doctrinal peculiarities which characterize his system of theology, but are not deficient in learning or clearness. The volume is a great advance on the commentaries which English and American ministers have generally been familiar with.

numerous.

* The Elements of Political Economy. By EMILE DE LAVLEYE, translated by ALFRED W. POLLARD, B.A., St. John's College, Oxford, with an introduction and supplementary chapter by F. W. TAUSSIG, instructor in Political Economy, Harvard College. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1884.

+ Critical and Exegetical Hand-Book to the Epistles to the Corinthians. By H. A. W. MEYER, Ph.D., &c. Clark's Edinburgh Edition. Edited by T. W. Chambers, D.D. New York: Funk & Wagnalls, publishers. 1884.

WALKER'S HISTORY OF THE FIRST Church in HARTFORD.*— This volume deserves a more extended review than we are able at present to prepare. At a later day we expect to insert such a review from another pen. Prompted by the occurrence of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the foundation of the First Church in Hartford, Dr. Walker, its present pastor, has explored the history of this ancient Church, and has written an extremely instructive and interesting account of it from the beginning. Its successive pastors, from Thomas Hooker down to the present, are described in their characteristic traits and in their peculiar work. The narrative is enlivened by anecdotes which tradition has saved from oblivion. The progress of religion in Hartford, and, incidentally, in the community at large, in different portions of this long period, is faithfully exhibited. The work is marked by candor and truthfulness. Faults of men, where there were faults, are not hidden, but the tone is gentle and charitable, and there is a just appreciation of merit even where it was shaded by imperfection. As the work approaches our own epoch, we are introduced to persons and events of which we have had some personal knowledge. We have been struck with the tact and, at the same time, with the frankness, with which facts are related. The portraits and other illustrations add much to the attractiveness of the volume. It is of much value to the historical student who would study our history in its sources. To New Englanders, both clerical and lay, it may be commended as full of matter which cannot fail to interest them. It is a worthy and substantial contribution to the ecclesiastical annals of the new world.

HAGENBACH'S THEOLOGICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA.t-The "Ency clopædia" is one of the branches of theology which we owe to the Germans. It is a preliminary survey of the field of theological study, with a guide to the literature. Among the works of this class, Hagenbach's is, on the whole, the best. The American work on the basis of it has been prepared by competent hands. It is enlarged by matter pertaining to English and American theology, a topic on which German books are apt to be meager. The lists of books are carefully and judiciously prepared. The index, if not so full as we would like to have it, is sufficient for most practical uses.

* History of the First Church in Hartford, 1633-1883. By GEORGE LEON WALKER. Illustrated. Hartford: Brown & Gross. 1884.

Theological Encyclopædia and Methodology. On the basis of Hagenbach. By GEORGE R. CROOKS, D.D., and JOHN F. HURST, D.D. New York: Phillips & Hunt. Cincinnati: Walker & Stone. 1884.

THE

NEW ENGLANDER.

No. CLXXXII.

SEPTEMBER, 1884.

ARTICLE I.-JONATHAN EDWARDS AND THE
HALF-WAY COVENANT.

THE month of June, 1750, saw the people of Northampton in a state of intense excitement, with which the people of the surrounding country to a considerable extent sympathized. The chief outward expression of this excitement was the dismission from his pastorate, of twenty-three years, of Jonathan Edwards.

This dismission had been demanded by a vote of "above two hundred against twenty" of the church members, and was ecclesiastically effected by the result of a pretty evenly divided council of nine churches, on the 22d of June, 1750.

This result had been prefaced by a controversy between pastor and people of such sharpness and conspicuity, had so enlisted the sympathies, on one side or the other, of observers near and far, and was in itself so melancholy an affair, that it was instinctively felt to be an event of historic importance in New England generally; a conviction which a clearer knowledge of the principles involved only serves to confirm.

Two causes conspired to bring about the controversy between Mr. Edwards and his Northampton congregation resulting in their overwhelming rejection of his pastoral ministrations.

One was the endeavor on his part-whether wise or unwise in method it is not here important to enquire-to lead his church to an investigation of the behavior of a number of the young people of his congregation who were accused of reading and circulating licentious books, and of other bad conduct.

The other was a more fundamental question relating to the conditions of entitlement to Sacramental privileges, Baptism and the Lord's Supper, respecting which the church and the pastor had come to stand in positions of resolved antagonism.

It is to the second only of these two conspiring occasions of controversy that attention will here be directed; but this one was at the time the one of most importance, and is now the only one of other than antiquarian interest.

To set the Northampton affair of June, 1750, in its proper surroundings, and to estimate accurately Jonathan Edwards's relations to the Half-way Covenant system, both as it was generally practiced in New England and as it was somewhat peculiarly administered in the Northampton church in his day, it will be needful to trace out a short pathway of preliminary historical survey.

One of the strongest convictions of the founders of the New England colonies was the necessity of a really Christian membership in the churches they established. They had seen in the old countries, both in England and on the continent, what they regarded as the disastrous results of a membership of the church and an admission to sacramental privileges, of persons confessedly or at least plainly not experimentally Christian. To guard against this danger, which they thought inherent in the State system of churches which they had known in England and Europe generally, they accepted and set on working the way of Congregational churches of New England. These churches they affirmed (see Hooker's Survey, Cotton's Keyes, Holinesse of Church Members, etc.,) ought to be composed of "Visible Saints"; or as John Cotton puts it (Way of the Churches, chap. 3, sect. 3, p. 56):