opinions, more or less fixed, on the relation of the human to the divine, of the men whose names are prefixed to the writings of the New Testament to the Holy Spirit whom we revere as their ultimate author. Their opinions on these subjects cannot all be drawn from the writings themselves; some of them must be the result either of their own reasonings and researches, or of the reasonings and researches of others: unless, indeed, they have been received as religious doctrines, on the unquestioned authority of their teachers. In any case, it may not be amiss to know that these teachers have not erred, if they have not; or, to know wherein they have erred, and how, if it should be made to appear that they have.-It is no small convenience to have within reach, and at command, some compendious exhibition of the investigations of those who have explored these regions. It is a still higher advantage to those who have leisure for such studies, and whose official duties scem to impose them, that they should be furnished with materials, principles, and suggestions, to aid them in pursuing such investigations for themselves.

In every walk of human cultivation there is an unavoidable distinction between the learned and the unlearned. So great is the division of labour in civilized life, that while it may be given to a favoured few to seek and intermeddle with all wisdom, the many must content themselves with the learning-the technical knowledge-appropriate to their several callings, each relying on the rest for the due measure of attention to everything in its own place. With regard to the particular questions now before us, it would be ridiculous to imagine that a man is competent to form an opinion respecting them merely because he is a sound believer of the Gospel, and an experienced practical Christian; or even because he is honoured and happy as a teacher of Christianity to others. Many of these questions are entirely questions of scholarship; and by scholars only can they be adequately treated. Now since it happens that men of large and exact information have devoted years of study to questions touching the New Testament, and the fruits of their studies have been given to the world in copious publications, their statements are sure to find their way in time to the vehicles of general intelligence. They address the studious, the inquisitive, the learned, in the first instance; but such is the effect of liberal pursuits, and such the activity and diffusiveness of the more educated classes, that the knowledge which is for a while confined to the few becomes, sooner or later, the common property of all. In such labours for the common benefit there are many departments. One man bestows his care on preparing and publishing an accurate copy of some ancient

work. Another collects from the works of former times the facts, opinions, or allusions, that may elucidate some obscurity, solve some difficulty, or reconcile some apparent contradictions. Another may be honourably busied in gathering together the information thus accumulated, at various times, by sundry persons, and in translating them out of one language into another. A writer of a speculative turn may bend his knowledge to the support of his previous opinions, or work out new opinions from the materials before him; and these opinions may be orthodox or heterodox, according to the position of the speculator in these respects. Then comes in another speculator, but of opposite opinions. And a glorious thing to behold, is the conflict of these intellectual athletæ, especially if we are SO happy as to know that he who abets our own opinion is the champion of the True, and to remember that the True must conquer in the end.

It has come to pass, already, that some of the most insidious attacks on our religious belief are made under cover of a respectful and Christian treatment of our sacred books. The time has gone by for repelling such attacks by gestures, and exclamations, and hard names, and general abuse of reason and scholarship, and similar weapons from the good old armoury of the Church: they are getting rusty-nearly as obsolete and useless as penal laws.-Then, what is demanded by the circumstances of the times from our religious teachers? Are they all, without exception, and always without deviation, to go on preaching, expounding, exhorting, as though there were nothing in the cultivated mind of England but ignorance of the Gospel, or unwillingness to receive it and reduce it to practice? Are they to leave the wide field over which we have glanced entirely to men whom they distrust as enemies of the truth? Can they be themselves, or ought they to be, ignorant of the true state of the case? If they know it, is it wise, is it honest, is it safe, to concur in keeping others in ignorance? Is it not the province of religious teachers, as such, to make themselves acquainted with these matters? Is it not of as real moment as any other thing connected with religion, that the guides of the Church should anticipate the tactics of the enemy, cutting away his ground, and working all that is known to be true in defence of that truth which saves men's souls?

Because we feel the urgency and suitableness of such appeals, we think ourselves happy in bringing, as soon as possible, Dr. Davidson's seasonable and invaluable work before our readers. We accept and repeat the challenge which he has prefixed to it in the glorious words of Milton: It is to the learned that I address myself; or if it be thought that the learned are not

the best umpires and judges of such things, I should, at least, wish to submit my opinion to men of a mature and manly understanding, professing a thorough knowledge of the doctrines of the Gospel; on whose judgments I should rely with far more confidence, than on those of novices in these matters.'

6

We entirely agree with him when he says:—

Probably too little attention has been given to theological literature in England. There are few books on it in our language. Every one familiar with the modern works published by theologians and critics in various lands and languages knows, that there is no English book which gives a fair or adequate idea of the present state of opinion in this department. The author therefore proposes to supply a want which many doubtless feel; and in regard to which it is not always expedient to direct the young theologian to the most recent publications in Germany.

It is matter of congratulation, that the class of inquiring Bible students is rapidly increasing. Amid the conflict of opinions truth must always eventually prevail. The Scriptures will bear and repay the closest investigation. In the light of a true philosophy, guided by an humble spirit, they will shine out with a fairer lustre. And yet there are many well-meaning men who entirely discourage the reading of such books as contain new researches into the region of theological science, especially those written in the German language. They denounce them as dangerous. They sound the alarm of heresy. They raise the cry of an infallible, anathematizing ignorance. But in the meantime curiosity is excited. Men's sympathies are drawn in the direction of the accused. The depreciated books are read in spite of denouncements, or rather all the more eagerly because of them; and their essence is reproduced in English works. On this account, it seems to be the wiser course to prepare for all the objections that may be urged against the New Testament. It is better even to anticipate the diffusion of certain subtle cavils in the field of Christianity than to decry them at a distance, or to be overwhelmed by their novelty when they are fairly imported from other lands.

It is the writer's belief that the books of the New Testament are destined ere long to pass through a severe ordeal. The translations of various continental works which have recently appeared in England, and the tendency of certain speculations in philosophy, indicate a refined scepticism or a pantheistic spirit, which confounds the objective and the subjective, or unduly subordinates the former to the latter. Many are disposed to exalt their intuitions too highly, to the detriment of the historical, as Kant did his " Pure Reason."

These observations will serve to show why the author has gone with considerable fulness into objections that have been urged in modern times against the New Testament books, and especially against the Gospels. He thinks it highly probable that such objections will appear in one shape or other in this country. Hence he has partially anticipated their currency. It is true that they are known to a few English scholars even now; but they are destined to be more widely circulated.

Perhaps most of those who are at present acquainted with them are able to set a right value on them without having their minds injured: but the circumstances of the case must change in proportion as the sceptical considerations in question are revealed to a wider circle, unless pains be taken to send a sufficient antidote along with them.'Preface, pp. v.-vii.

We are well aware that here, as indeed everywhere, there is danger in opposite extremes. It is far from being an uncommon thing for a writer in any department to attach undue relative importance to the class of inquiries that have most fully engaged his own attention. It is more than possible to attach undue importance to knowledge, as compared to the moral and spiritual attributes of religion. Unhappily there is a strong temptation among reading men, if they happen to be ingenious as well as diligent, to find out applications of their knowledge which are new, indeed, but neither grounded in solid principles, nor safe in their practical working. Nor can we conceal from ourselves the fact, that literary speculations on questions which owe all their interest to their connexion with religion, have too often been carried on, not without a religious spirit merely, but with an animus that betrays itself in the cold negation, the insidious suggestion, the withering doubt, the artful obscuration of plain facts, which are as positively irreligious as the grosser forms of impudent and daring infidelity. We should attach little value to literary criticisms on Homer or on Horace, by a man whose only recommendation is a grammatical knowledge of Greek or Latin, but who is destitute of the taste, and wit, and imagination, that would lead him to sympathize with the genius of the poet. Infinitely less do we care for the opinions of any scholar who approaches the Gospels without reverence for the authority which gives them their characteristic sacredness, and without love for that mysterious One, whom they reveal. We are as fully persuaded as we are of anything, that a religious sympathy with the writers of the Gospels in that which is their unquestionable aim—the manifestation of the glory of Jesus Christ-is indispensable, not, indeed, to the acquirement of general scholarship and discrimination, but to the right method of applying such acquirements to this particular case. An irreligious, irreverent, unchristian bias will delight in finding imperfections, in creating difficulties, in imagining contradictions, in manufacturing sup. positions, in making out a case for perplexing the believing and devout; while an equally informed, and equally acute, believer and lover of what is proved beyond contradiction to be true in the New Testament, discovers in the self-same materials the confirmation of his faith, and fresh incitements to devotion.

On the other hand, there is such a thing as being so sure we

are right, that we become afraid of being convinced that we are in error. There is a dogged adherence-something akin to oldfashioned thorough-going loyalty to received and settled traditions in religion, an orthodoxy that is arrogant because it is timid; timid, because it is ill-informed; and ill-informed, because it has been moulded by men to whom dictation is easier than instruction, and obedience more welcome than intelligent assent. We are naturally disposed and accustomed on principle, to deal gently and tenderly with all who are on our side in controverted questions. We are glad to have their suffrages, their influence, their support, on behalf of what we are earnestly maintaining as the true and the right cause. Their cheers are sweet to us. We love them for their good honest sense in agreeing with ourselves. We should be sorry for their sakes, and for the world's sake, to see them desert our colours and go over to the enemy's ranks. We are certain that it is better, better for all parties, that, with their habits of mind, they should be where they are, than anywhere else. We listen with inward complacency-we confess it -to their bluff abuse of new-fangled notions, and foreign ideas, be they French, Italian, or German. We are unspeakably delighted with the home-spun logic that looks straight on to the conclusion, which being bad, all the argumentation is only so much the worse, in proportion as it inevitably tends to such nonsense, or impiety.-All this, however, may go too far. Truth has foundations. Christianity consists of truths for holding which good reasons can be rendered. There are times when we must condescend to inquire, to discriminate, and argue. Persons are growing up in schools, and in colleges, and in the great University of human life, who get the notion, somehow or other, that there is sense in other countries as well as in England; that the New Testament may be viewed from points a little wide of our latitude of orthodoxy; that the Reformers, and beginners of existing systems, had no patent for monopolizing either the power, or the right, of private judgment; that men who are strangers to the merits of a particular question, are not a match, on that question, with others who have mastered it by years of study; and that one may sincerely and earnestly believe all that the New Testament writers teach, and yet differ from wise and good men in much that they have taught respecting the outward history of their books.

Now seeing that matters stand thus, we are glad that so much has been done in this volume, and we shall await with some impatience for those that are to follow. The volume is complete in itself. It contains the result of much reading and examination on the chief historical and critical questions relating to the Gospels. The remaining books of the New Testament will be