so eminently qualifying him for his work, during the critical times in which his lot was cast. Like many other men who have been honoured by God as chief promoters of His cause, Mr. Goode passed a large period of his life in comparative obscurity, and under the neglect of the dispensers of Church patronage. His first very moderate preferment, St. Antholin's, in the City of London, was given him by Sir R. Peel, with an intimation that a better reward of his useful labours in the Church's cause should be conferred upon him as soon as opportunity offered; but shortly afterwards Sir R. Peel resigned office, and Mr. Goode was obliged to take pupils, and in other ways to eke out his pecuniary resources ; for many of his publications entailed a positive loss, and his more successful works realized but a scanty profit. As soon, indeed, as Dr. Sumner became Archbishop of Canterbury, he gave to Mr. Goode better preferment in the City of London, and urgently promoted his appointment by Her Majesty's Government to one of the largest of the City livings. But, humanly speaking, his influence would have been greatly enlarged, and the Church would have acted more worthily towards one of its best supporters and defenders, if he had been placed earlier in life in such a post as he occupied at its close. In 1860 he was appointed Dean of Ripon.

We are presented, in the volume at the head of this article, with a posthumous publication of sixteen selected Sermons. With what expectations do we open the sermons of such a deep and varied scholar, and of so practical and suc. cessful a controversialist? If we anticipate displays of learning, or the discussion of deep points in theology or of historical lore, our expectations will be disappointed. We find nothing which displays any extent of reading or thought beyond ordinary men. He seems in a pre-eminent degree to have studied and followed the divine model :-" And I, brethren, when I came unto you, came not with excellency of speech, or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I deterinined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified.” (1 Cor. ii. 1, 2.) The characteristic of these sermons is a witness to the Truth “in simplicity and godly sincerity.” They bear the stannp of the Evangelical school. Yet, though Mr. Goode's father was of that school, as well as his father-in-law the Rev. Samuel Crowther, Rector of Christchurch, Newgate Street, it cannot be supposed for a moment that so masculine an understanding as Mr. Goode's would take the statement or even the complexion of doctrines from any deference to human anthority. He had deeply studied the Scripture account of the way of salvation, and he happily arrived at those views of Divine truth which precisely

coincided with his father's. Mr. Goode's father was a successor, at St. Ann's Blackfriars, of the Rev. William Romaine. Here, then, we have the succession of Evangelical preachers to the third generation, each generation supporting the same views of Divine truth from personal investigation, and a thorough conviction of their conformity with the inspired Scriptures.

It is often asserted that there is a grievous lack of learning amongst the Evangelical clergy. Mr. Goode's name supplies one out of many which may be alleged in refutation of that charge. As the minister of a small city parish, he had much leisure. Had his preferment involved heavy parochial duties, he could not have had time to prepare the many learned treatises which have been published. We might, indeed, have had this volume of unpretending sermons, and the conclusion would have been drawn that, like his brethren, he displayed no learning. The fact is, that the Evangelical clergy, for the most part, are involved in arduous ministerial charges; and the few who have leisure and abilities for deep study, avoid all display, as in Mr. Goode's case, of human learning, while discharging the duty of a minister and ambassador of God.

The deep learning and rare dialectic powers of Mr. Goode, do, however, discover themselves in these sermons, in the clear and forcible language and the well balanced statements with which his views are given.

We add a few specimens of the matter and style of these sermons. We are persuaded the length of our extracts will be excused when they are read as the words of one who was a former Editor of this magazine, and weing dead yet speaketh in these pages. In a sermon preached in the Chapel Royal, Whitehall, Easter Sunday morning, 1866, the following passage occurs :

“It will, perhaps, be asked, if Christ thus rose triumphant from the grave, and has ascended into heaven with all power over earthly and heavenly things given into His hands, how is it that His Church on earth is in the condition in which we see it to be ? It is a reasonable inquiry, and one which calls for a direct answer.

“There is much in the present state of that Church to try the faith and patience of the Christian. To one who has not carefully observed the real nature of the Divine declarations and promises respecting the events that were to follow our Lord's departure from the earth—that they are of a mixed kind, foreshadowing much of trial, and division, and confusion, and apostasy, previous to the full establishment of His kingdom-there is much to create doubt and anxiety. As the disciples themselves were disappointed and perplexed at the events that characterized our Lord's earthly course, so are those that come after them staggered at the condition of the Christian Church.

“But one consideration explains it all. The state of the Church

on earth under the present Dispensation is the counterpart of our Blessed Lord's state during His earthly course. The members of His mystical body the true Church (consisting, as our Church tells us, of the blessed company of all faithful people) are, like Him, to be made perfect through suffering.

" To the world at large there is the same difficulty, the same cause of perplexity in relation to the state of the Church of Christ, as there was to the Jews in relation to the person of our Lord. Prophesied of as King of the Jews, a Mighty Conqueror, the Prince of Peace, under whom the reign of righteousness and peace should be established throughout the earth, who could recognize, in the despised Nazarene, the man of sorrows, the victim of human persecations, nailed upon the cross, the promised Saviour ?

“They remembered not that there were other prophecies that spoke plainly of suffering, persecution, and reproach. In the true spirit of earthly wisdom, and human feelings and desires, they shut their eyes to what was inconsistent with their self-formed hopes and expectations. They would not recognize the truth, that suffering was to precede triumph, the cross to come before the crown, and to lead to it.

“The same mystery hangs over that mystical body of Christ, His true Church, which is now being gradually formed out of the nations of the earth to His glory. To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious, ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.'

“But, as in the erection of the Jewish temple, each stone was laid in silence in its place, and no sounds of axes and hammers broke the noiseless quiet in which God temple was reared; so it is in His spiritual temple. Amidst all the strife and discord which earthly feelings and human passions have raised in the world, and even in the nominal Church of Christ (which, alas! as it respects a large portion of it, has bat'a name to live and is dead'), the stones of the spiritual temple, shaped and polished and fitted for their place by the keen edge of earthly trials, and often through the persecution of the unconscious instruments of God's purposes, are added quietly, unknown to the world, to the spiritual edifice which is being raised to His glory.

“Let it never be forgotten, that, amidst all the events that may be trying our faith and patience, God's purposes are being steadily accomplished. He is taking out a people to Himself (to use the language of the Apostle) from among the nations, not by churches, not by sects, not by large bodies, but individually-one here, another there, even as the Spirit works conviction, leads to Christ, changes the heart.

“In the fires and storms which the clashing interests and passions of contending churches and sects, like the perturbed elements of this world, may create, there is little of God-He is not in the fire-He is not in the whirlwind. God is to be found in the still small voice that speaks peace to each troubled conscience through the blood of Jesus, that heals the broken-hearted, that preaches deliverance to the captives of sin and Satan, the opening of the prison to them that are tied and bound with the chain of their sins, that proclaims the acceptable year of the Lord, and comforts all that mourn.

* The world complain, justly complain, that even among the professed followers of Christ there are a multitude of churches and sects and parties, all speaking with different voices and upholding discordant doctrines; so that they are tempted to say, Till you have agreed, trouble not us with Christianity. When you have settled among yourselves what the true faith is, we shall be ready to listen to you.

* The true Christian, versed in the oraclės of God, and taking God's Word as his guide, is not troubled for a moment at this discrepancy. He would be surprised were it otherwise. He says of all these contests and disputes, Be it so; God's Word remains the same. His Word, not man's perversion of it, is my guide. God deals with individuals ; acts directly by His Spirit upon the indi. vidual heart and conscience. And thus the Christian's faith stands, not in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

“My dear friends, bear this in mind. Our lot is fallen in times when, on the one hand, the very foundations of the faith are shaken by those who ought to be its chief defenders; and, on the other, a superstructure of wood, hay, and stubble, is raised upon that foundation, almost equally perilous to the safety of those who trust themselves upon it.

“And men are asking where is there any resting-place amidst this deluge of unbelief and false doctrine with which the whole earth is overspread? But why such a question ? Is not the Ark of God's Word floating high above it all, offering a secure, a permanent resting-place to every weary and heavy-laden soul that seeks a refuge in it? Is not the Ark of God's Testimony spread open before you? Keep close to God's own Word. Let no man, call himself what he will, move you from the foundation. And amidst all the varied interpretations of that Word, keep to that which a prayerful, earnest, and diligent perusal of it carries home to your conscience. When you stand before the bar of God hereafter, no dependence upon human teaching will be your vindication for not having acted upon God's Word as He gave it you. He who allows any man to come between him and God's message to him, must take the consequence of preferring man's word to God's.

“When our martyred Reformers stood, a mere handful against an opposing host, this was the rock on which they fixed their footingGod's Word, and God's Spirit as its alone infallible interpreter. And God's grace supported them in their fiery trial, and honoured them, even here, with a victory pregnant in blessings to their country-that country so fervently prayed for by one of them, and whose words, notwithstanding all that is happening around us, let us hope, may have flowed from prophetic lips, -* Be of good cheer, Master Ridley, and play the man; we shall this day light such a candle in England, by God's grace, as shall never be put out.'

“ Her greatest trials are from wounds given in the house of her

professed friends. And the warnings of our blessed Lord and His Apostles all indicate that her great and final sufferings will arise from trials and persecutions caused by His professed followers. As it was by the instigation of those who sat in Moses' seat, that our blessed Lord was crucified; so, apparently, will the comparatively little flock of His true worshippers, in the latter days of the present Dispensation, suffer from those who will bear rule in His nominal Church.

“The great enemy of Christ, even the man of sin and the son of perdition, was to arise in the very bosom of His nominal Church. And this mystery of iniquity, the Apostle tells us, had already begun to work even in his day,-a very sufficient answer to those who advocate the union of all the professing Churches of Christ." (pp. 55—61.)

The author never shrank from reminding his hearers of the inestimable advantages of the blessed Reformation, in opposition to the fashion of the present day to question its glorious character. In a sermon upon the Holy Scriptures, he thus speaks :

“We are indebted under God, for the privileges we now enjoy in this respect, to the labours of those who had to contend with almost the whole nominal church, but who counted not their lives dear to them, so that they might be instrumental in spreading abroad the knowledge of the word of life, and building up a pure and reformed church in the country, in the place of one which, by the confession of some of its own most devoted members, groaned under the weight of its numerous corruptions, and whose presumptuous claim to infallibility prevents the possibility of change.

"Learn, then, to prize according to its value the blessing of that Reformation that, among all its other claims to your regard, has more than all given you the free use of your Bibles as the foun. dation of your faith.” (p. 146.)

In an Ordination Sermon, preached at Ripon Cathedral, Feb. 25th, 1866, on the text 1 Cor. i. 22-24, the author thus faithfully explains the essential antagonism between the two schools of Theology which have ever divided the Christian Church, instead of attempting after a modern fashion to represent both schools as useful in conveying different views of the same truth:

“Such, then, is the message with which the ministers of Christ are charged ; and let us now observe, secondly, that that message should be delivered by us as the Apostles delivered it, and for this purpose the Holy Scriptures they have left us are to be our guide.

“There are various ways in which the message of the Gospel may be delivered. Even in Apostolic times, the simplicity of the message began to be corrupted by those who had to deliver it. The Epistles of St. Paul clearly show this to have been the case. Converts from the Jews overlaid it with forms, and rites, and ceremonies, to which Vol. 68.-No. 381.

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