BIBLICAL CRITICISM ON HEBREWS, v. 8; ACTS, .... 21; AND REVELATION, xvI. 12. DEAR SIR,—I shall be glad if you will allow me space for a few remarks on the subjects treated of by 'Iourns. 1. Your correspondent's view upon our Redeemer's having learnt obedience is very pleasing, but is, I beg to suggest, incomplete. The same true but illguided reverential feeling which leads many persons to be afraid of dwelling even to a due extent on the experience of our Lord when he tabernacled among us will lead them to object to your correspondent's view, or indeed to any scheme that at all tallies with the scriptural statements on the matter, until they shall have thrown off modern prejudices. It is as dangerous to deny the humanity as the deity of Jesus Christ, but is not the former truth, if not infringed, at least greatly obscured by a theology which gives no place for that bright part of his example wherein he is scen to have even sought the aid of the Holy Spirit, of whom he was conceived in the womb of the blessed Virgin, and who dwelt unmeasuredly in him? I wish your readers to understand that I do not dispute the interpretation of 'Idiwrns, but I deem it insufficient, without supposing some reference to his daily walk in humiliation, on which Mr. Melville, with his accustomed power of language, has dwelt. Let me recommend, as throwing much light on this and allied questions, an able sermon by a very worthy presbyter of our church, the Rev. John Hooper.* 2. While assenting to the distinction drawn by 'Iourns between the seasons of refreshing and the times of resettling, I must yet object to the latter being made to extend throughout the whole period of the present dispensation, and therefore to the rendering proposed for axp. On referring to the 18th chapter of Isaiah, (a chapter whose connexion with the efforts yet to be made in behalf of the Jews has been established by Bishop Horsley,) I seem to find warrant in the fourth and fifth verses for the not uncommon opinion that the history of the present dispensation is divisible into three eras; first, that of the Pentecostal effusion of the Spirit, prefigured by the former rainy season in Judea, and in countries of like climate; secondly, that of the unmanifested, but not less real, agency of God's Spirit, contemporaneous with an unwillingness in Christians to enjoy the high privileges to which in baptism we have all been called; this period is, I believe, represented by the season, in which the agriculture of Palestine is dependent on the nightly recurrence of dew, while no rain falls on the thirsty ground; lastly, a time of renewed life in the church, preparing her for the grand contest against lawlessness and Antichristian delusion-for the final issue of that contest in her own translation, and in the destruction of the wilful king, in which work of preparation for the benefit of the church is the antitype of the latter rain that exceeded the former rain. To the last of these seasons alone do I conceive the times of resettling to be a suitable term. This view illustrates Jeremiah, v. 24, and many other passages. 3. The literal, or as Dr. M'Caul entitles it, the grammatical, method "The word was made flesh." Published at Nisbet's. of interpreting prophecy affords no argument against taking the river Euphrates, in Rev. xvi. 12, for a nation or assemblage of nations, since the word of God declares that "the waters where the whore sitteth are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues." Besides, there is an obstacle of serious moment to supposing the Euphrates to be other than a symbol in the verse before us; for if the actual Euphrates is meant, it almost follows that a city upon the site of ancient Babylon is the Apocalyptic Babylon; whereas in a letter upon "the Lord'sday," Rev. i. 10, I proved the latter to be Rome. So far 'Idiwrns and myself are agreed; we both deem the Euphrates in St. John's vision to be symbolical, though not metaphorical. But to the popular notion of the Turkish empire being thereby designated I see an obstacle unnoticed by him, and that is, the fact of none of the vials having yet been poured out, a fact which those who believe that the Apocalypse yet waits a plenary fulfilment will readily admit. Let this remark be understood in a qualified sense; it is not denied that a series of events typical of those figured by the outpourings of the vials has taken place, but I contend that the great judgments which alone will fully explain the vials are yet future; and I may as well state my opinion that there will prove to be a fearful exactness in St. John's description of these judgments, none of the outpourings, excepting the sixth, being strictly symbolical. Never since the division of the empire have Rome and the powers influenced by Rome derived their wealth, their greatness, their splendour, from the countries now occupied by the Turks. At present, India is a more fertile source of European wealth than the dominions of the Ottoman emperor. To me the united eastern nations seem a more valid interpretation of the symbol, and in " Turkey perishing for want of Turks," I discover the earnest of a day when all the enemies of Jesus in those lovely regions of the globe shall fall away like water that "runneth apace," when the self-tormented Hindoo shall rejoice in the liberty wherein Christ hath made us free, and the crescent of Mahomet shall wane before the sign of the cross. But I would not write confidently on this symbol. PAPIAS. NOTICES AND REVIEWS. Letters from Germany and Belgium. By an Autumn Tourist. London: Simpkin and Marshall. Small 8vo. pp. 232. 1839. Ir is a great pity that this "autumn tourist" does not know better than to call the members of the Roman church," Catholics," and Romanism, "Catholicism." In other respects, his "Letters" are well enough— gossiping, amusing effusions, with nothing particularly novel or striking in them. Indeed, he modestly observes * An observation of Lamartine. VOL. XVII.-Jan. 1840. M "It is hoped that these pages may be considered to be, as they really are, notes, or hasty sketches, intended chiefly to gratify personal friends, and making no pretension to the character of finished productions, such as the public usually look for." Perhaps the following remarks may put some stanch protestants on their guard against papal extortion : If "A fixed and, by-the-bye, not a very moderate tariff is now established here [Cologne], intended, no doubt, for the especial purpose of taxing such English travellers as may desire to visit the tomb of the three kings, the bones of St. Ursula's 11,000 virgins, and Rubens' celebrated picture of St. Peter nailed to the cross. The two former are, I conceive, scarcely worth visiting, and the picture, celebrated as it may be, seemed to me a painfully vivid representation of human suffering. reflecting protestant travellers did but consider how much, by their seeming acquiescence in some of these superstitious exhibitions, they not only encourage bigotry, but contribute immense sums to the support of [Roman] catholicism, few would gratify a culpable curiosity by the inspection of objects little calculated to afford any rational satisfaction."-pp. 171, 2. Tales of the Ancient British Church. By the Rev. Robert Wilson Evans, M.A., Author of the "Rectory of Valehead," &c. London: Rivingtons. Chester Seacome. Small 8vo. pp. 391. 1840. THE publication of this pleasing little volume is intended by the author to further the means of supporting a second daily school which has lately been set up in a more remote quarter of his parish, and is already (as he states in his preface) "working with most satisfactory effect." The volume contains six tales, which illustrate as many periods in the history of the ancient British church. They will be read with profit and pleasure, and deserve to be as popular as Mr. Evans's other productions. Several pieces in verse are introduced into the stories. The following funeral hymn may serve as a speci men : "Child of Adam, son of sin, Unto dust thy dust we give; Heir of glory! enter in, Take thy crown, thy throne, and live. Pilgrims of a passing morn, We must sleep as thou hast slept ; Farewell, Satan, sorrow, night; An Analytical Examination into the Character, Value, and just Application of the Writings of the Christian Fathers during the Ante-Nicene Period. Being the Bampton Lectures for the Year 1839. By W. D. Conybeare, M.A. of Christ Church, Vicar of Axminster. Oxford: Parker. London: Rivingtons. 8vo. pp. 509. 1839. MR. CONY BEARE states in the preface to his lectures that his name was not originally proposed as a candidate for the appointment which has called them forth, and was only suggested at the moment of election. "On this unexpected call,” he adds, “ the author's choice of a subject was naturally directed to a line of inquiry which engaged at the time his private theological studies; but he has since most sensibly felt the disadvantage of the very short interval allowed him for preparation, and has experienced, to an extent far beyond what he had anticipated, the difference between collections formed only for private satisfaction and those which he could regard as sufficiently matured for public notice." Mr. Conybeare also protests against the report that the nomination was conferred and accepted with direct reference to prevailing controversies. It need hardly be repeated, as it is stated in the title, that the Lectures under review contain an analytical examination of the writings of those Christian fathers who flourished in the AnteNicene age. They are eight in number. In the first, Mr. Conybeare maintains that the Bible is the sole authoritative standard or rule of faith, and answers certain objections which have been alleged against this statement on the ground of the immethodical structure of the sacred volume. He also affirms the value of ecclesiastical tradition when viewed as an important subsidiary aid to interpretation. With some of the lecturer's positions in this discourse the reviewer cannot entirely agree; for example, he cannot see how the assertion that "the church has received as a perpetual possession a tradition independent of the written word, parallel to scripture, and not detived from it," militates against the paramount authority of holy writ If, indeed, this tradition claimed to contain essential doctrines not comprised in scripture, the above statement would be true; but it does not do so; it witnesses to its own inferiority to scripture, and that the latter, in the words of the article, " containeth all things necessary to salvation." In the second lecture, Mr. Conybeare proceeds to the examination of the apostolical fathers, Clemens Romanus, Igna tius, and Polycarp. The third is devoted to the remains of the earlier philosophical fathers, Justin, Tatian, and Athenagoras. The fourth examines the writings of Clemens Alexandrinus and Origen, and contains a preliminary sketch of the Alexandrian catechetical school. The fifth is occupied with Irenæus and the Gnostic heresies The sixth is devoted to Tertullian. In the seventh lecture Mr. Conybeare gives some account of the opinions of St. Cyprian; and the eighth comprises a concluding recapitulation on the character of the several classes of Christian fathers, and the bearing of the testimony afforded by them on several leading points of doctrine and discipline. In this last discourse the lecturer truly observes that— “Although the Bible be the sole primary source of our faith, and the only absolutely authoritative ultimate standard of appeal, most injudicious and self-sufficient should we shew ourselves in undertaking the office of interpreters of that Bible, did we neglect or undervalue the light to be derived from tracing out, so far as we may be able, the doctrinal consent of the earlier and purer ages of the church.". (p. 461.) These remarks are followed by a condensed exhibition of the unanswerable testimony afforded by the Ante-Nicene fathers to the apostolicity of the distinguishing doctrines of the church of England. Taken as a whole, these lectures display much patient and laborious research, and cannot fail of being useful to the theological student." With many of the opinions they advocate, and some of their statements respecting certain expressions &c. in the works of the early fathers, the reviewer cannot coincide; but while he is unable to give his assent to "all and every thing" contained in them, he gladly acknowledges (what is indeed a high merit in these days of angry con troversy) that they are pervaded throughout by a spirit of Christian candour, courtesy, and moderation. A Collection for Junior Classes, consisting of Moral and Religious Pieces, in Prose and Verse, Selections from Natural History, Descriptive and Scientific Pieces, &c.; to which is added, a List of Latin Primitives. By Andrew Veitch, Master of St. George's School, Edinburgh. Berwick: T. Melrose. Small 8vo. pp. 191. 1839. THE above volume has been compiled in adaptation to the analytical mode of teaching; and a considerable portion of it is devoted to natural history and descriptive pieces. It also contains several pleasing poems by Rogers, Heber, Cowper, &c. Barbauld and Belfrage are made to contribute the principal portion of the section on Religion and Morality; to Buffon the section on Natural History is chiefly indebted; and the Descriptive Extracts are taken from the writings of Goldsmith, Aikin, Blair, Gallaudet, Kotzebue, Forbin, Clarke, Gregory, and Adams. The book appears very well calculated to promote the design of its compilation. Prayers for Private and Family Worship, founded upon the Primitive Liturgies. By the Rev. Henry Allen, B.A., Vicar of St. Mary-le-Wigford, Lincoln, and Chaplain to the Sussex County Gaol. London: Rivingtons. 12mo. pp. 130. 1839. MR. ALLEN, the author of this unpretending, but learned and excellent little volume, appreciating the spirit which influenced the compilers of our liturgy to search among the treasures of antiquity for that strain of devotion and purity of doctrine which render our officebook so inimitable, has deduced from the same source a form of family and private prayers, which will be found to coincide with the principles of our liturgy, and with the doctrines of the church. The book contains formularies of private morning and evening devotion, and family prayers for every day in the week. These are introduced by an interesting preface of twenty-seven pages on the distinguishing tenets of the church, and the utility of written forms of prayer. Restitution to the Church a Sacred Duty; or, How can the Church be made to meet the Wants of the Nation? London: Burns. 8vo. pp. 52. 1839. THIS is a very excellent little tract, and sincerely does the reviewer wish he does not venture to say, hope that it may lead to the restitution of at least some portion of the property which has been alienated from the church. It ought at all events to be read by all who take any interest in the question and desire to understand it. |