of similar irregularities to 2 Chron. ix. 31. And Solomon slept with his fathers, and was buried in the city of David, &c. Read, in this concatenated way, the whole history of this illustrious monarch is perspicuous and interesting.

Of the labour, ingenuity, and attention bestowed on this work, it is impossible to speak too highly. The author bas, under the direction of his master-guides, and with the assistance of his own intellect and researches, produced as clear a concatenation of the scattered events in the Scriptural history, as perhaps ever will be accomplished, or can be desired. All the disjecta membra appear clearly reduced into their proper places, and the studious or religious reader may sit down to his sacred studies, and pursue the train of narrative, without interruption by extraneous passages. He will also find himself occasionally enlightened by the judicious and wellarranged information of the notes; and, on the whole, will be much pleased to see, that greatly varying as is this arrangement from the order of the Authorized Version, the explanations of the Sacred Text are in perfect concurrence with it.

But with every deference to the ability, the zeal, and excellent intention of its author, we must freely confess our opinion, that in his expectation of that general utility which he anticipates, he will be disappointed. No lucid arrangement that the wit of man can devise will ever displace, or even accompany, in the houses of those millions of Christians, to whose service the author has so benevolently devoted his labours, the Received Version of the Old Testament. Independently of the heavy price, those numerous classes who have neither time nor talent for discussion and investiga. tion, will adhere to the ancient volume with all its dislocations; and having firm faith in its divine original, will continue to read it, under all its chronological disad

vantages, with equal delight and edification. But in advancing this opinion, let us not be understood to detract an iota from Mr. T.'s conspicuous merits. He has exhibited a degree of erudition, and laborious research, which qualifies him to rank as a worthy successor of the illustrious authors, from whom he derived his first ideas of Biblical arrangement, and on whose exertions he has so evidently improved; and there can be no doubt, that although his work will not find its way amongst the general classes of the community, it will maintain a distinguished place in the libraries of the learned, and be attentively perused by all who, to the means of procuring, unite the desire of reading the Scriptures of the Old Testament disposed in regular and historical order.

The Scripture Testimonies to the Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, collected and illustrated, by the Rev. George Holden, M.A. 460 pp. 8vo. Rivingtons. 1820. THE title of this work will naturally remind the reader of the inestimable manual of Jones of Nayland on the Catholic Doctrine of the Trinity. A singular facility in reducing the highest and most elevated subjects to a level with the meanest capacity, was the distinguishing excellence of that incomparable writer, and the treatise to which we have adverted, at the same time that it conveys conviction to the most powerful mind, gives to the most uninstructed and inexperienced a power of comprehending, as far as it can be comprehended, the sublimest and most inscrutable mystery which was ever revealed to mankind.

Mr. Holden has taken a more limited view of the question, and has restricted his arguments and his testimonies to the Divinity of our

Lord Jesus Christ. In proof of this great mystery of godliness, he has arranged under distinct heads, the texts which speak to the several points which the doctrine involves, and if at one time he has made them, principally by collocation, support the testimony of each other, he has always taken care to sustain and substantiate their testimony by a critical exposition of their proper sense and meaning, and by refuting the opposite interpretations which have been assigned to them, by calling in the authority of the best commentators and critics, and by appealing, in virtue of a familiar acquaintance, to the original languages in which these testimonies are delivered. His constant object has been" to combine, to vindicate from exceptions, and to compress within a short compass the leading arguments" in support of the Divinity of Christ: and his method in pursuing this object has been, 1. "to collect and arrange the scriptural testimonies;" 2." to establish by critical reasons the texts adduced in proof of Christ's divinity;" 3. "to take some notice of the principal objections;" and, "lastly, to include the whole within the shortest limits consistent with perspicuity." The reader needs not to be told, that this is a learned work; but he has no occasion to apprehend, that it is a work intended only for scholars, and professed theologians. The passages, which will hereafter be extracted, will be sufficient to show, that the author has used his talents so skilfully, that the full strength of his argument may be appreciated by any man of common understanding and ordinary attention.

The work is divided into nine principal chapters: I. Importance of the Doctrine of the Trinity; II. Express, and III. Indirect Testimo. nies to the Divinity of Jesus Christ; IV. Divine Titles applied to Christ; V. Divine Attributes ascribed to Christ; VI. Creation; VII. Divine Worship directed to Christ; VIII,

The Sonship of Christ, severally argued in proof of his essential Divinity; IX. Christ's Subordination to the Father, and Conclusion. The view is comprehensive, and embraces all the leading features of the argument; the arrangement is distinct and unembarrassed, and in the large body of evidence which is brought before the reader, all repetition of the commentary is studiously and successfully avoided.

A large portion of the volume is naturally occupied with the Second and Third Chapters, in which the Express and Indirect Testimonies to the Divinity of our Lord, are brought forward, and in appropriating on their own merits, and vindicating from all exception, the true doctrine of the texts, in which those testimonies are contained. The express testimonies are established in an elaborate commentary upon the principal texts which assert the divinity of Christ: viz. John i. 1. Matt. xxviii. 20. Philipp. ii. 6. Rom. ix. 5. Col. ii. 9. Tit. ii. 13. The strength of the argument is made to rest upon these passages, of which the Catholic interpretation is vindi. cated and established, if not be yond controversy and dispute, at least in such a manner as to secure the reader from all the subtlety and sophistry of the school of Socinus, and to enable him to avoid or repel them. There are other texts, illustrated by expositions more brief, but not less satisfactory and con vincing.

The argument in favour of indirect testimony is justly stated:

"Indirect testimonies have, in some respects, the advantage over those which are more immediate. The latter are some times evaded by that ingenuity of distort ing the plainest expressions, which the disciples of a certain school have too successfully practised. From the most perspicuous phrase, when thrown into the is often extracted which no unsophisticated alembic of hypercritical philology, a sense mind could ever suppose it was intended to convey. But conclusions fairly deduced from the apostolic reasonings, cannot se

easily be put to the torture of a rash and unchastised criticism. The opposers of the great mysteries of Christianity can seldom explain them away with their usual pretences of Jewish idiom, fignrative language, and oriental phraseology. The evidence of such arguments may be denied, and so may the clearest deductions of reason, but it can scarcely fail of making a forcible impression upon unbiassed understandings. When we discover indirect allusions to a particular doctrine, and continual implications of it throughout the Sacred Writings, it is impossible to account for its being thus interwoven with their very texture, except upon the supposition of its truth." P. 81.

The sacred writers have expressly and without any hesitation, asserted upon various occasions the divinity of Christ: but they have not entered into any systematic proof of its truth. They have assumed it as a doctrine which could not be dis puted or denied, with which the persons whom they addressed, were well acquainted, and from which they were free to draw their inferences at their own pleasure and discretion. Thus the incarnation and divinity of Christ are inextricably involved in the apostolic writings, and if all the express testimony could be perverted and evaded, the doctrines would be raised above controversy, on the authority of their indirect assertion. The divi. nity of Christ might stand on the Apostle's reasoning with the Romans xiv. 10, 11, 12, where he affirms, "We shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ." The grandeur of the theme, leads him to recite and to apply to our Lord, a text delivered in the name of the Lord Jehovah, and thus to appropriate that incommunicable name to Christ: "For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every knee shall confess to God:" but the Apostle's inference from his original assertion, supported by the application of the prophecy, is most remarkable and important;"So then," (as we shall all stand before the judgment seat of CHRIST) "every one of us

shall give an account of himself to GOD." The argument is incontrovertible in establishing the proof of the divinity of our Lord.

In producing the indirect arguments for the divinity of our Saviour, Mr. Holden does not insist upon the proofs of a plurality of persons in the Divine Essence, which are discoverable in the Jewish Scriptures, but confines himself to the consideration of one clear and convincing argument, arising from a comparison of the Old with the New Testament.

"If it can be evinced, in a satisfactory manner, that Christ was the divine King who reigned over Israel, or in other words, the Jehovah of the Jewish church, his divinity will be clearly demonstrated. Though this opinion has been espoused by the most learned and able writers of ancient and modern times, we must not rest so important a doctrine upon their authority. It is necessary to inquire whether it have any foundation in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, and the result of such Jehovah who appeared in a corporeal form an investigation is, that our Lord was the under the Patriarchal and Levitical dispensations, and was adored as the God of Israel.

"The truth of this position will be acknowledged, if the following proposi tions can be substantiated: First, That an Angel or divine Person appeared to the patriarchs and prophets. Secondly, That this divine Person who appeared to the Hebrews was no created being, but truly and essentially God. Thirdly, That this divine Person was not God the Father, Fourthly, That therefore it was God the Son. As the first proposition is too evident to be denied, it may be proper to proceed to the proof of the second, upon which the main stress of the argument rests." P. 83.

In proof of this second proposition, that this divine Person was truly God, it is shewn, 1. that he bears the incommunicable name of Jehovah; 2. that the divine attributes are assumed or ascribed to him; and, 3. that he is called God, and that he is worshipped.

"The third proposition is, That this divine Person was not God the Father. This follows from his being called an

Angel, which name is given him as we have seen, in many of the above cited passages. God the Father cannot be called an Angel, for this appellation implies a ministerial office; but ministration is never applied to the Father in the Scriptures, and is incompatible with that priority of order which belongs to him. The Father is universally represented as the person who sends, the Son as the person sent.

'No man

Ye have

"We have the express authority of Scripture for affirming that God the Father was never visible to men. hath seen God at any time.' neither heard his voice at any time nor seen his shape.' 'Not that any man lath seen the Father.''God is a spirit,'inhabiting light inaccessible,' whom no man hath seen or can see.' God, however, is reported in the Old Testament to have frequently appeared under the Patriarchal and Levitical dispensations, and therefore we must conclude that the God who appeared was God the Son.

"In this conclusion we have a solution of two difficulties, which are apt to make an impression upon the attentive reader. The first is that in Exod. xxiv. 9. we read, that Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel, went up, and saw the God of Israel;' while in Exod. xxxiii. 20. the Lord said to Moses,' Thou canst not see my face, for there shall no man see me and live.' By the face of the Lord' is meant God himself, as Gen. xix. 3. 1 Sam. xxvi. 20. 1 Kings xiii. 6. Psalm xxxiv. 16, &c. In the former passages, then, Moses, Aaron, &c. saw the Logos, the Son of God, who was the God of the Hebrew church, but in the latter, it is said, that Moses could not behold the inscrutable essence and the invisible majesty of the divine nature. The other dif ficulty alluded to is, that Jehovah is said to have delivered the law to Moses, (Exod. xix. 9. xx. 1.) and yet we read in Acts vii. 53. that the law was received by the disposition of angels;' in Gal. iii. 19. that the law was ' ordained by angels,' and in Heb. ii. 2. that it was spoken by angels,' Now, if angels' be put in the plural, instead of the singular number, to denote eminence and dignity, a phraseology common among the Hebrews, these passages from the New Testament will only affirm that the law was given by the Angel, who, as has been proved, and as is asserted in Exodus, was Jehovah. This solution of the difficulty appears to be confirmed by Acts vii. 38. where we find mention made of the ANGEL who spake to him in Sinai,' and by Gal. iii, 10. and Heb. ii, 2, which

But as

naturally signify that the angels' were the agents in the delivery of the law. the Scripture affirms that it was Jehovah who spake to Moses from Mount Sinai, 'the angels' spoken of must denote the same person, viz. the Angel-Jehovah, the King and God of Israel." P. 93.

The last proposition, that the Divine Person who appeared to the Hebrews, was God the Son, might appear to follow as a necessary consequence from the premises, but is nevertheless established on distinct and independent arguments, and the author concludes with noticing an important objection to his doctrine.

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"Though I have collected several other arguments bearing upon the same point, it is unnecessary to prosecute this branch of the subject any farther, and I shall therefore conclude with briefly noticing an objection, which is certainly the most plausible that has been advanced. It is drawn from Heb. i. 1, 2. God who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son;' from which it is argued, that God did not speak to mankind by the Son, till the time of the Messiah, called by the Apostle, the last days. This appeared of such weight to the excellent Macknight, that he hesitates not to declare, that it overthrows the opinion of the Anti-Nicene Fathers, that the law was spoken to the Jews by the Son. But the plain and obvious sense of the words seems to be this; God formerly spake to the Jews by the ministration of the prophets, but hath now spoken to them by the Son in person. The manner of communication under the Old dispensation, is contrasted with the manner of communication under the New. Formerly, the Divine Logos, the God of the Hebrews, revealed the truths of religion unto the Fathers through the mediation of Moses and the prophets, but in these last times hath assumed our nature and dwelt among us, teaching in person the sublime doctrines of Christianity. This is no argument then against the opinion, that Christ was the visible Jehovah, the angel Jehovah, who delivered the law from Mount Sinai, the God of the Old Testament." P. 102.

The pre-existence of Christ, another important branch of the indirect evidence, is excellently sustained on the authority of those impressions,