of the church, nor in the sinner's own agency in using means, but in the Holy Spirit;' yet this efficiency, personal and spon+ taneous as it is, is spoken of as nothing more, and nothing else, than wielding his spiritual influences in the word.' (p. 464.) From such representations we can draw but one conclusion, namely, that Dr. Jenkyn does not believe that the Holy Spirit does anything more than this, in converting a sinner; though he tells us, 'in another part of the same volume, that the Holy Spirit does more than this; the 'more than this' he explains to be, the influence of his person and character, an influence, as we understand, included in the influence of the truth, but as the author himself, we presume, understands it, having a different sense, which we have failed to penetrate. 4. We cannot avoid the conviction that the author falls short of the grandeur and majesty of the doctrine of Scripture, in his anxiety to free it from mystic and unphilosophical associations. He has taught with much force the great truth of the intrinsic power' of the word of God, as it has been held in all ages of the church. But we would urge, with most respectful earnestness, that there is another truth, standing side by side with this, of equal authority, and of great importance, respecting the power that worketh within us, which we regret to find slighted-for so, it appears to us, we must regard the attempt to resolve it into any thing else than the immediate working of God's Spirit in the spirit of man. We could grapple with this as a question of interpretation, or of consistent dogmatic theology: we prefer treating it, at present, as a question of experimental fact. : The gospel, with all the influences posited in it,' and, among these, all the truth known respecting the Holy Spirit, by which his person and character could act on men-in the way in which that influence is illustrated in this volume-is addressed to men indiscriminately of those to whom it is addressed, some heed it not, others attend to it, believe it, and are saved. Those who heed it not are wrong. Those who attend to it are right: but they had done the same wrong with others in not minding it. When they begin to attend to it, there is no new truth presented; no new influence in the truth; no new mode of 'wielding the influences posited in the truth,' that we can discover; but there is 'a new combination,? a new way of thinking and feeling in relation to the truth. We do not understand how it can be seriously thought that this new combination, this new way of thinking and feeling towards the truth, is produced by the truth, by any 'influences posited in the truth,' by any associations, already in the mind, with the character and person of the Holy Spirit: for after the severest scrutiny we are capable of giving to such a thought, we cannot get any meaning out of it but this the truth affects a sinner so as to induce him to embrace it for his salvation, while he must embrace it for his salvation, before it can thus affect him. If it is said, that the new feeling is. produced, not by the word, but by the 'personal influence' of the Spirit, we are not helped in the least, because this 'personal influence' is itself the influence of one particular department of the truth. If this is an erroneous view of what is meant by personal influence, we must submit as meekly as we may to the reproach, not of hasty conclusion, nor of inveterate prejudice, but of incapacity to understand a skilful writer-who addresses, not the few, but the churches of Great Britain and America.' II. ILLUSTRATIONS OF SCRIPTURE. I. Ps. Ix. 10: Upon the land of Edom do I cast my sandal. The action here described is commonly explained by a reference to Ruth iv. 7, where the delivering of a sandal signified that the next of kin, who so delivered it, transferred to the party receiving it a family inheritance, and, with it, a sacred obligation. So Gesenius, Rosenmüller, &c. But as the action in the Psalm is that of a conqueror taking possession of a vanquished territory, it is difficult to see how the historical reference in Ruth explains it. It is to make the same symbolical action denote opposite things; in Ruth, a transference of land; in the Psalm, on the contrary, a taking possession of a country. To be analogous, the language of the Psalmist should denote that he had held Edom, but was about to transfer it to another. Evidently, the Psalm refers to a transaction essentially different from that referred to in Ruth, and illustrates it by a different symbol. Is the meaning, then, as Hengstenberg represents, that the Psalmist, having said, in the preceding clause, 'Moab is my washing-vessel,' i. e. a mean vessel in which the feet are washed, here completes the figure, by describing the action of one who has taken off his sandals and cast them to a menial to be taken away, or to be cleaned? Or, rather, does not the passage belong to that numerous class in which the ideas of subjection and humiliation are expressed by the act of placing the object humbled under foot? If the latter interpretation be preferred, the following sentence, forming part of the inscription on the tablet discovered by Mr. Harris, of Alexandria, near the castle of Ibrim, in Nubia, and translated by Mr. Birch, (see Lit. Gaz. of Sept. p. 771,) contains an appropriate illustration. 'Amen-em-ap-t, royal son of Kesh (Ethiopia) says: thy father Amen-ra has ordered thee with all life, power, and endurance: he has conceded to thee the South as well as the North; all lands to be submissive to thy spirits, and every country to be under thy sandals.' According to Chevalier Bunsen, this inscription is of a date from between 1397 and 1387 B.C., that is, about 300 years earlier than the Psalm. II. Gen. xl. 16, 17: The chief baker said unto Joseph, I also was in my dream, and, behold, I had three white baskets on my head. And in the uppermost basket there was of all manner of bake-meats for Pharaoh; and the birds did eat them out of the basket upon my head. The following extract (from The Camp and Barrack-Room: Chapman and Hall,) describes a living repetition of the royal baker's dream: In India the generality of animals are much tamer than in these countries. Hawks come up to the very doors, sparrows crowd into the verandahs with their little beaks opened as they pant with heat, and jackdaws will snatch the bread out of the hands of children.. The cooks, when carrying victuals on their heads, hold the basket in which the messes are placed with one hand, whilst the other is employed in waving a stick above them to keep away the hawks and jackdaws. On one occasion, one of our bobagees forgot his stick; and while proceeding to the barracks, down pounced an enormous hawk, and knocked the dinners of some dozen men to the ground. In the evenings, flocks of sheep and goats might be seen proceeding through the jungle to the village, one shepherd going in front, whom they followed whichever way he turned, while another shepherd came behind to see that none of the younger ones straggled, and to carry the weaker by turns.' The latter part of this extract will remind the reader of that Good Shepherd who, when he putteth forth his own sheep, goeth before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice' (John x. 4); and of whom it was predicted, 'He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom. (Isa. xl. 11.) 1 III. John xi. 11: Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go that I may awake him out of sleep. Kopaola, and its correlatives, were often employed by the Greeks, when speaking of death; just as, by euphemism, the softest terms were commonly adopted by them in relation to the invisible and the immortal generally. But our Lord, in calling death sleep, spoke of a fact; a grand truth which he was about to substantiate for one, as a specimen and epitome of what he will ultimately realise for all; thus turning the figures of human speech, dictated by hope, into a glorious reality. In the Lapidarian Gallery in the Vatican is this ancient inscription in rugged characters, and slightly mis-spelt: 'Sabini bisomum: se vivo fecit sibi in cemeterio Balbinæ, in crypta nova;' that is, 'The bisomum of Sabinus: he made it for himself during his lifetime, in the cemetery of Balbina, in the new crypt.' A 'circumstance of note,' says Dr. Maitland, 'connected with the phrase "in cemeterio Balbinæ," is the use of the term cemetery, derived from the Greek KÖLμпTýρtov; and signifying a sleeping place.' In this auspicious word, now for the first time applied to the tomb, there is manifest a sense of hope and immortality, the result of a new religion. A star had risen on the borders of the grave, dispelling the horror of darkness which had hitherto reigned there: the prospect beyond was now cleared up, and so dazzling was the view of an eternal city, 'sculptured in the sky,' that numbers were found eager to rush through the gate of martyrdom, for the hope of entering its starry portals. 'St. Paul speaks of the Christian as one not intended to "sorrow as others who have no hope."* How literally their sorrow was described by him, may be judged from the following Pagan inscrip tion, copied from the right-hand wall of the Lapidarian Gallery (we give Dr. Maitland's translation only): "Caius Julius Maximus (aged) two years and five months. O relentless Fortune, who delightest in cruel death, He, who lately used to lie beloved on my bosom. "But the Christian, not content with calling his burial-ground a sleeping-place, pushes the notion of a slumber to its full extent. We find the term in a Latin dress, as DORMITIO ELPIDIS the sleeping-place, or dormitory, of Elpis. Elsewhere it is said, VICTORINA DORMIT-Victorina sleeps. ZoricUS HIC AD DORMIENDUM-Zoticus laid here to sleep. Of another we read, GEMELLA DORMIT IN PACE-Gemella sleeps in peace. And lastly, we find the certainty of a resurrection, and other sentiments equally befitting a Christian, expressed in the following (we give the translation only)-" PEACE. This grief will always weigh upon me: may it be granted to me to behold in sleep your revered countenance. My wife, Albana, always chaste and modest, I grieve, deprived of your support, for our Divine Author gave you to me as a sacred [boon]. You, well-deserving one, having left your [relations], lie in peace-in sleep-you will arise-a temporary rest is granted you. She lived forty-five years, five months, and thirteen days: buried in peace. Placus, her husband, made this."'+ I * 1 Thess. iv. 18. + Church in the Catacombs, P. 41. III. SCRIPTURE, THEOLOGY, AND NATURE. ON THE INTERPRETATION OF THE SCRIPTURES-ITS RELATIONS TO THEOLOGICAL SCIENCE ITS RIGHT SPIRIT AND ITS ANALOGIES WITH THE INTERPRETATION OF NATURE. THE great scientific object of all biblical study and research should be the attainment of a full and comprehensive body of pure biblical theology, i. e., of a system of divinity drawn directly and exclusively from the Bible itself, a system whose every article should be seen to rest clearly and solidly upon the authority of God, and which should be fraught, throughout all its parts, with the freshness and life and savour of the Scriptures themselves. Such a system, we are well aware, would not present a finished appearance in all its members; it would not be so exactly poised and so elaborately rounded off, as a system more scholastic can easily become by a free use of human reasonings and speculations. For the word of God itself has many lacunæ, or breaks in it. It does not afford a solution of every question that is agitated in the halls of theology, and it is more solicitous to throw out broadly to view important truths, than to adjust and systematise them. But such a system of divinity, if not complete in all its parts, would at least have the advantage of solidity and soundness throughout; and if it did not furnish enough to satisfy the cravings of theological curiosity, and to meet the demands of polemical subtilty, it would at least exhibit a well-digested compendium of all the religious truth which God himself has judged needful to meet the spiritual and moral wants of the human family. There would be less of man in it than in more artificial systems, and there would be more of God. There would be less of the savour of the schools, but there would be more of the fragrance of that unction from the Holy One which teacheth all things that are necessary to life and to godliness. There are some over-sensitive friends of Bible truth who would not have it arranged and harmonised into a system at all. But this is an excess of scrupulosity and caution. Nay, it is impossi ble for us not to form in our minds a system of some kind or other. The mind naturally and inevitably falls into the process of systematising its knowledge. This is one of the proper and most characteristic functions of the understanding; and no doubt the very persons themselves, who object to all systematising in theology, have systems of their own all the while, with this difference only, that as they have probably systematised their religious views with less care and circumspection than others, their systems are less likely to be sound and well-adjusted. It is not the system |