for this. A man may possess exact and extensive learning, the soundest judgment, the nicest critical tact, and still fail to recognize the true and full significance of the more spiritual portions of the Bible. He may be an honest man, and sincerely desirous to explain the Bible correctly, but without a spirit in some degree accordant with that which reigns in the Scriptures, he will not accomplish his end. The Bible on one essential point is not analogous to other books. It reveals truths which are to be believed, prescribes duties which are universally obligatory. It speaks with authority to the interpreter himself. It is as impossible as it is undesirable for him to approach his work with an indifferent state of mind. What is sometimes vaunted as perfect impartiality in a biblical critic, never had existence. The student has the deepest personal stake in the pages which he is pondering. Its truths touch his moral nature at innumerable points. His mind cannot be in a perfect equilibrium. Entirely to segregate his intellectual from his moral nature is an impossibility. Feelings will course through his soul in a thousand directions, and must modify and color his mental decisions. Besides, no one can interpret the writings of another, without entering into his spirit. The apostle Paul possessed great fervor of feeling, a tender and ardent love to the Saviour, comprehensive and profound views of the scheme of redemption, and a desire that men should experience its efficacy so great as almost to absorb every other emotion. These characteristics pervade every epistle which he has left. They shine out in all his discourses. They tinge all his language. They account for many peculiarities of his style and diction. Now one who has little or no sympathy with the pure and profound spirit of this great evangelist cannot adequately expound his language. He is deficient in one of the essential qualifications. In his method of handling, the glowing words lose their fire. The parenthesis becomes inextricably involved. He does not see that feeling lies at the bottom of the interjected clause. A rational interpreter, e. g., Grotius, with but little emotion, will explain away or dilute words which came from the depths of the heart, vital and overflowing with truth. Interpreters like Melancthon, Calvin, Olshausen, Tholuck, possess a qualification of fundamental importance, which is denied to the whole neological school. This school furnishes many most accomplished critics and philologists, but they would find a more congenial home in Greek and Roman literature, than among the practical and profound truths of the New Testament. There is also a fine and delicate spiritual apprehension, which is a result of a sympathizing study of the Gospel, and which detects a thousand nice shades of thought, almost invisible graces of language, to which a common critic, or a man of mere learning is blind. The

great current of thought has numerous tributary rivulets, little springs that send in their contributions, which will be wholly unobserved by the gross and worldly sense. It is only to the "pure in heart" to whom those finer lineaments of Christian truth stand revealed. We need not, however, expand these thoughts. They are happily recognized by biblical scholars throughout this country and Great Britain, and to a gratifying extent, in other lands.

In bringing these remarks to a close, we will briefly advert to certain desiderata in biblical science. There are aspects of it which cannot be contemplated with entire satisfaction. We are still reminded of painful deficiencies.

In the first place, the educated and Christian community fail to entertain adequate conceptions of the importance of sacred philology, and of the necessity of pecuniary means for the attainment of its objects. The channels of benevolence are too circumscribed, from the want of enlarged ideas of the value of money. The streams of beneficence do not flow too much, but too exclusively, in certain practical directions, or for the accomplishment of results which are immediately useful. Benevolent and wealthy gentlemen have not yet learned to bestow of their abundance upon fields where the richest harvests may be ultimately reaped. Public notoriety, popular sentiment, determine too much the destination of charitable bequests. It is not sufficiently considered that the happiest results often flow from obscure and almost impalpable causes. Physical science may receive a greater impulse from timely aid rendered to a periodical journal, which from its scientific character is addressed to but few readers, than by the founding of a professorship. A few hundred dollars seasonably bestowed upon a young man of decided genius in the walks of science may result in a most useful discovery. The donation to the library of a college of the most important books in the department of sacred literature might keep the flame of divine knowledge ever burning brightly there. A young man in one country of Europe, who discovers an extraordinary aptitude for music, is generously supported several years at the public expense, till he has laid a broad foundation for his profession. But in intellectual and sacred science, works of the fairest promise are left to languish and die, for want of a little timely encouragement. A journal of acknowledged value, and, from the nature of the case, of very limited circulation, is left to struggle for years, unable to avail itself of the aid of invaluable illustrations, and of other costly contributions. An enlarged philanthropy would surely prompt to a different course. A comprehensive charity would apply its means where the vital forces are most concentrated.

Hebrew is a part of the required

It is essential, in the second place, to the prosperity of biblical science, that its elements should be studied at an earlier period of the student's life than is now common. course in the German gymnasia. There is no adequate reason, so far as we can see, why it should not be required as a part of the college course in the United States. The study of it is indeed optional for a small portion of the senior year, at some institutions. But it has shared the same fate, doubtless, with fluxions, and other optional studies. It has either been wholly neglected, or pursued under great disadvantages. What is not a part of the required system will find but few earnest students. The result is that an invaluable part of the theological course is consumed in imperfectly studying that which might be acquired in half the time a few years earlier. Viewed in the light of philology, as elementary grammatical principles, as an important ancient dialect, the Hebrew does not pertain to professional education. It belongs to those general studies which are appropriate to the college. Could one lesson a day for three months of one of the college years be devoted to a Hebrew grammar and Chrestomathy, a foundation would be laid for the subsequent mastery of interpretation, and for a far more useful ministry. We cannot imagine why a sacred language, in a Christian country, settled by a race almost passionately attached to the Old Testament, and that founded the first colleges for the glory of God and the good of the church, should be so sedulously excluded from the collegiate curriculum of later times.

We may advert, in the third place, to certain desiderata in the way of helps for biblical study. The Septuagint version of the Old Testament has as yet received but slight attention compared with its importance. A fundamental work on that version has long been needed, which shall give us a carefully revised text, which shall sift all the facts and traditions in regard to the history of the translation, which shall determine, as far as possible, the relative value and character of the different parts, how far the language coincides with the New Testament dialect, with Josephus, and with the later classical Greek. We need also a carefully discriminated treatise on the Synonymes both of the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures. The materials for such a treatise may be found, in a measure, in the Lexicons and in commentaries, but, for the most part, they must be collected from an independent and careful reading and comparison of the original. A book of synonymes, such as we have of the German and Latin languages, would be an inestimable acquisition. Again, the Hebrew Syntax has not yet been investigated with that completeness which the subject demands. Invaluable as the labors of Gesenius, Nordheimer and Ewald are in this depart

ment, yet every intelligent student must perceive, that in certain topics, e. g., the article and the tenses of the verbs, much yet remains obscure and unsettled. The same remarks apply in a measure to the Compound Verbs of the New Testament. Winer, in his Programmes, has given an earnest of what yet remains in this hitherto neglected part of the language. Finally, we need Commentaries of a different character from what can now be found, with a few exceptions, either in the German or English languages. An adequate commentary deals both with the letter and spirit; it has its basis on the sure principles of grammar; but it does not rest in a jejune analysis of the outward form; it seeks to unfold whatever is in the text, however profound and spiritual it may be; it lays out its strength on the really difficult texts, and passes lightly over what is obvious to the cursory reader; it makes no display of the details of interpretation, or the formulae of science; it goes into these details only when the exigencies of the interpretation which is adopted, require; it chooses rather to give the results than the process of an inquiry; it directs its most strenuous efforts to present the exact idea of the original, and in that form, neither so compressed as to become obscure, nor so diffuse as to be wearisome, which will be most satisfactory in giving the full impression of the text. We have many commentaries which are marked by a great ability in a particular direction. They have prominent and characteristic excellencies. But we have few which are symmetrical, well adjusted, which meet the precise demands of the intelligent and Christian reader. The materials for a commentary, somewhat approximating to this ideal, are now liberally furnished. A combining and moulding hand only is required.

Again, there is needed a profounder faith in the reality and harmony of all truth. The student of God's word should proceed in his inquiries with quiet confidence, though the waves of skepticism may rise around him. He may rest assured that ultimately the apparent discordancy shall vanish. Physical science, reverently and earnestly prosecuted, will do homage to that which is divine. Anxiety as to the final verdict of the two great classes of testimony is, in the highest de gree, unreasonable. He has no occasion to shun an examination of any of the results of geology or astronomy, ethnography, history, or antiquities. He may admit every fact and just conclusion established by these sciences. They cannot shake the rock on which scriptural truth rests. They cannot impugn the Bible as a literal, simple, credible history. At least no contradiction, no irreconcilable discrepancy has as yet been pointed out. Neither may he shrink from any of the demands of philological criticism. He may subject the records of

Christianity to the sharpest tests without any fear.

They will come

After all the ef

out unimpaired from the severest cross questioning. forts of the most sagacious and clear sighted critics of the present day. the life and works of our Saviour, as recorded by four independent witnesses, appear in beautiful harmony. After the fiery ordeal which the Gospels have gone through at the hands of many of the later critics; and after the strenuous efforts of a number of able scholars to break up and reärrange the earlier portions of the Old Testament, it is delightful to find that the integrity and historical value both of the Gospels and the Pentateuch are, in various forms, receiving fresh confirmation and support. The monuments of Egypt, the disentombed cities of Assyria, the searching investigations of accomplished travellers in Palestine, the voice of profane history, the last and severest critical inquiries, all testify that "the foundation of God standeth sure."

ARTICLE II.

EXEGETICAL AND THEOLOGICAL EXAMINATION OF JOHN

1:1-18.

By M. Stuart, late Prof. of Sac. Lit. in the Theol. Sem. at Andover.

[THE title which is given above to the disquisition that follows, is not perhaps exactly descriptive of it. My design is not simply that of a philologist or interpreter, nor merely that of a theologian. My ultimate object is indeed to develop, if I can, the sentiments which the words of John were intended to convey; and these, if they can be made manifest, ought, in my apprehension, to be regarded as truths deeply concerned with theology. But this development I do not undertake to bring about by theological argument and reasoning, except in quite a subordinate manner. When the inquiry is made: What has John taught? I know of no satisfactory way of answering this question, except by a resort to the fundamental and well established principles of exegesis. In the present disquisition it is my aim, on all occasions where it is feasible, to pursue this method.

I need make no apology to the well informed reader, for an endeavor to cast some light on John's introduction to his Gospel. It has been hitherto regarded, by most interpreters and many theologians, as one VOL. VII. No. 25.

2