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194

THE BIBLE TREASURY.

In both cases Mr. S. appears to us guilty of "taking away'
from positive revelation.

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[MAY 1st, 1857. saw a flight of large red-legged cranes, three feet high, near Very unsatisfactory too is his mode of dealing with the inclines to identify with Hazeroth. the Wâdz Huderâh, which for this and other reasons he passage of the Red sea. its long train of associations are frankly admitted. The magnificence of the crisis, and of birds should be seen in those parts, at any rate illustrates "That any large flights there is a careful insinuation of all that might reduce the tion" coming?] But if the recent explanation of the diffiBut the scripture narrative. [To what is fact to the level of the extraordinary but natural. How cult passage in Numbers xi, 31 be correct, and the expres 66 scripture illustraeither the "eastwind" of the Hebrew, or the "south wind" of the LXX, "compels us to select a portion of the sea not to the accumulation of the mass, but to the size of the sion two cubits high upon the face of the earth' be applied, where the depth is not too great to forbid the agency of individual birds; the flight of cranes such as we saw, may wind," is to us an amazing assertion. Nobody denies the not merely be an illustration, but an instance of the inci east wind which, at the outstretched rod of Moses, brought dent recorded in the Pentateuch, and the frequency of the over the land of Egypt such locusts as were never seen phenomenon in this locality may serve to show that Kibrothbefore nor since; nobody denies the west wind which Hattaavah and Huderâh were not far distant." It is clear was used to banish every one from their coasts. Mr. S. contend, as to Exod. x, that we Will that the animus is to pare down the miraculous supplies, as restrained to the simple effects of a violent storm? For to an unprejudiced believer there is no difficulty whatare there far as possible, to the level of natural causes and results. We are bold to say that the employment of a wind, blow-ever, and therefore no need of abandoning the obvious ing in the suited direction, but at Moses's disposal, made meaning that the "two cubits" apply to the height of the the miracle only the more marked, and did not in the least congregated quails, and not to the tallness of some other degree in itself account for the plague which infected the birds, nor to their flying within that distance from the land meanwhile? It connected Moses with God, much more ground, nor so far apart. There used to be whispers heard than if the locusts had suddenly come and gone without the on the continent, one scholar proposing "locusts," and anwind; which is ordinarily beyond the least control or even other "flying fish," but such notions are refuted by the the knowledge of man. Just as in the miracle of the bread, "feathered fowl" of Psalm 1xxviii. There is no reason to it was as easy for the Lord to have wrought without as with question the accuracy of the English version. The modern the five barley loaves. Does the clay, which was employed Jews are ready enough to change where they have a plauin the cure of the man blind from his birth, warrant the sible pretext; but here Dr. Benisch agrees with our Bible, thought that his defect in seeing was not too great to as did Josephus and the Vulgate, if not the LXX, the forbid the agency of a plaister and then a fomentation? German of Luther and De Wette, the Dutch, Tremellius In the present case the "strong east wind" was itself the and Junius, Diodati, Martin and Ostervald, not to speak of effect of Moses's stretching out his hand over the sea. No the ablest lexicographers, and such authorities in natural wind, without a miracle, could have divided the waters, and history as Bochart and Hasselquist. Our chief reason for made the sea dry land. Floods formed a wall on either noticing a point so small is to guard the reader from being side, which assuredly could not be but by the miraculous influenced by this eagerness for change, this constant uninterference of God. But if this is allowed, whatever be settling of the Authorized Version, in little obscure points, the wind that blew, we are in no way limited to the shal- where every reader cannot follow and expose the fallacy. lower passage at the northern end. actual description accords with this, rather than with a Mr. S. says that the passage lower down the gulf, where they would have passed between, not walls," but mountains of water. goes too far when he adds that no faithful narrative could But he have failed to notice this; for it is the habit of the inspired writers to dwell but little upon physical wonders, such as man makes much of: their bursts of adoration are reserved for any signal displays of God's grace and moral glory, miracles or none. and indeed of all the writers of scripture, when they menThe quiet records of the evangelists, whether as contemplated from their own sacred records, or I. The peculiar characteristic of the Israelitish people, tion the most stupendous interpositions of God, must strike a nation secluded and set apart from the rest of the world; as viewed by their Gentile neighbours, was that they were every unbiassed person. tion is concerned, it must be evident, we think, that, let the in return. Is there anything in the physical structure and And as far as accurate descrip-haters,' it was said, of the human race,' and hated by it height of the waters, through which Israel were led, be ever situation of this country which agrees with this peculiarity? so vast, walls must be considered a much more appropriate Look at its boundaries. The most important in this respect image than mountains. The watery "ramparts" might be will be that in the east. For in that early time, when of any conceivable elevation, 100 or 200 feet high. For Palestine just fell to the lot of the chosen people, the east "the depths were congealed in the heart of the sea;" a phrase perfectly in keeping with the usual and correct plains of Mesopotamia, the cities of the Euphrates and the thought, not with the meagre, even if still miraculous, Tigris, were literally then what Babylon is metaphorically was still the world. The great empires which rose on the diminutive, which the Anglo-German theory substitutes. in the Apocalypse, the rulers and the corrupters of all the There was nothing to hinder the Israelites, numerous as kingdoms of the earth. Between these great empires and they were, from crossing a channel of eight or ten miles the people of Israel, two obstacles were interposed. The between the Wâdy Tuârik and 'Ayoun Mousa, within the first was the eastern desert, which formed a barrier in front limits of a single night. The text of the Bible in no degree even of the outposts of Israel-the nomadic tribes on the favours the northern transit over the shoals, but on the con- east of the Jordan; the second, the vast figure of the trary, the entangling in the land after turning from Etham Jordan valley, which must have always acted as a deep is more simply explained by the more southerly localities. In page 82 is another unpleasant remark, not so grave, eastern hills of the Trans-Jordanic tribes. trench within the exterior rampart of the desert, and the perhaps, as what we have animadverted on, but, in our Assyrian empire in strength and power, superior to it in judgment, reprehensible and baseless. Mr. S., like Schubert, arts and civilization, was Egypt. What was there on the Next to the

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ing passage from chapter ii, pp. 112-117, which exemplifies Mr. S.'s happiest manner in linking together the exWith very different feelings would we quote the followternal features with the history and calling of the people.

land in which God 'prepared room before it, and caused it to take deep root,' and 'cover the mountains with its sha"The vine' was 'brought out of Egypt;' what was the dow ?1

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southern boundary of Palestine to secure that the Egyptians whom they saw on the shores of the Red sea, they should see no more again? Up to the very frontier of their own land stretched that 'great and terrible wilderness, which rolled like a sea between the valley of the Nile and the valley of the Jordan. This wilderness itself-the platform of the Tih-could be only reached on its eastern side by the tremendous pass of 'Akaba at the southern, of Sâfeh at the northern end of the 'Arabah, or of the no less formidable ascents from the shores of the Dead sea. On these the two most important frontiers, the separation was most complete. The two accessible sides were the west and the north. But the west was only accessible by sea, and when Israel first settled in Palestine, the Mediterranean was not yet the thoroughfare-it was rather the boundary and the terror of the eastern nations. From the north-western coast, indeed, of Syria, the Phoenician cities sent forth their fleets: but they were the exception of the world, the discoverers, the first explorers of the unknown depths; and in their enterprises Israel never joined. In contrast, too, with the coast of Europe, and especially of Greece, Palestine has no indentations, no winding creeks, no deep havens, such as in ancient, even more than in modern times, were necessary for the invitation and protection of commercial enterprise. One long line, broken only by the bay of Acre, containing only three bad harbours, Joppa, Acre, and Caifa-and the last unknown in ancient times-is the inhospitable front that Palestine opposed to the western world. On the northern frontier the ranges of Lebanon formed two not insignificant ramparts. But the gate between them was open, and through the long valley of Coele-Syria, the hosts of Syrian and Assyrian conquerors accordingly poured. These were the natural fortifications of that vineyard which was 'hedged round about' with tower and trench, sea and desert, against the 'boars of the wood,' and 'the beasts of the field.'

Arabia, were at hand to remind them of those distant regions from which their first fathers, Abraham and Jacob, had wandered into the country-from which the camels and dromedaries of Midian and Ephah' were once again to pour in. The sea whitening then, as now, with the ships of Tarshish, the outline of Chittim or Cyprus, just visible in the clear evening horizon, must have told of the western world, where lay the 'isles of the Gentiles,' which 'should come to their light, and kings to the brightness of their rising,' &c.

"III. This leads us to another point of view, in which the situation of Palestine is remarkably bound up with its future destinies. I have set Jerusalem in the midst of the nations, and countries that are round about her.' Palestine, though now at the very outskirts of that tide of civilization which has swept far into the remotest west, was then the vanguard of the eastern, and therefore of the civilized world, and, moreover, stood midway between the two great seats of ancient empire, Babylon and Egypt. It was on the high road from one to the other of these mighty powers, the prize for which they contended, the battle-field on which they fought, the high bridge over which they ascended and descended respectively into the deep basins of the Nile and Euphrates. Its first appearance on the stage of history is as a halting-place for a wanderer from Mesopotamia, who passed through the land, and journeyed, going on still toward the south,' and 'went down into Egypt.' The first great struggle which that wanderer had to maintain, was against the host of Chedorlaomer, from Persia and Babylon. The battle in which the last hero of the Jewish monarchy perished was to check the advance of an Egyptian king, on his way to contest the empire of the then known world with the king of Assyria at Carchemish. The whole history of Palestine, between the return from the captivity and the Christian era, is-contest between the kings of the north and the kings of the south,'-the descendants of Seleucus and the descendants of Ptolemy, for the possession of the country. And when at last the west begins to rise as a new power on the horizon, Palestine, as the nearest point of contact between the two worlds, becomes the scene of the chief conflicts of Rome with Asia. There is no other country in the world which could exhibit the same confluence of associations as that which is awakened by the rocks which overhang the crystal stream of the Dog River, where it rushes through the ravines of Lebanon into the Mediterranean sea; where side by side are to be seen the hieroglyphics of the great Rameses, the cuneiform characters of Sennacherib, and the Latin inscriptions of the Emperor Antoninus."

The rest of the chapter traces the peculiarities of Palestine as a land of ruins, its present condition as compared with the past, its climate and volcanic phenomena, its physical configuration, scenery, and geological features, as illustrations of scripture phrases.

"II. In Palestine, as in Greece, every traveller is struck with the smallness of the territory. He is surprised, even after that he has heard, at passing in one long day from the capital of Judea to that of Samaria, or at seeing within eight hours three such spots as Hebron, Bethlehem, and Jerusalem. The breadth of the country from Jordan to the sea is rarely more than fifty miles. Its length from Dan to Beersheba is about a hundred and eighty miles. The time is now gone by when the grandeur of a country is measured by its size, or the diminutive extent of an illustrious people, otherwise than enhance the magnitude of what they have done. The ancient taunt, however, and the facts which suggested it, may still illustrate the feeling which appears in their own records. The contrast between the littleness of Palestine and the vast extent of the empires which hung upon its northern and southern skirts, is rarely absent from the mind of the prophets and psalmists. It helps them to exalt their sense of the favour of God towards their land by magnifying their little hills and dry torrent-beds Chapter iii is devoted to Judea and Jerusalem, as is chapinto an equality with the giant hills of Lebanon and Her-ter IV to the heights and passes of Benjamin; chapter V mon, and the sea-like rivers of Mesopotamia. . . . . . Thus, to Ephraim and Manasseh; chapter VI, to the maritime although the Israelites were shut off by the southern and plain; chapter VII, to the Jordan and the Dead sea; eastern deserts from the surrounding nations, they were yet chapter VIII, to Peraea and the trans-jordanic tribes; always able to look beyond themselves. They had no con- chapter IX, to the plain of Esdraelon; chapter X, to Ganexion with either the eastern empires or the western isles, lilee; chapter XI, to the Lake of Merom and the source but they could not forget them. As in the words and forms of the Jordan; chapter XII, to Lebanon and Damascus ; of their worship they were constantly reminded how they chapter XIII, to the gospel history and teaching, viewed in had once been strangers in Egypt; so the height of the connexion with the localities of Palestine; and chapter hills beyond the Jordan, and of the sea beyond the Philis- XIV, to the Holy places, with an appendix of Hebrew and tine plain, were in their daily life a memorial that they topographical words, arranged under different heads. It is were there secluded, not for their own sakes, but for the curious that the finest sketches of the Canon of Canterbury sake of the world, in whose centre they were set. The are the battle scenes of ancient and medieval times, with mountains of Gilead, and on the south the long ridges of which his accounts of cities and rivers, hill and dale, are plenti

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THE BIBLE TREASURY.

fully bestrewed. His most frequent and perilous fault is habitual exaggeration of secondary causes, the suppression or veiling of the divine actings in the scripture history of the chosen people. We have only to add that the illustrative maps, which convey the colouring and nature of the ground, rocks, &c., of the desert and Palestine, are interesting and valuable. With our author's corrections of the Authorized Version (save of appellatives) we do not agree. Fuller knowledge, we are persuaded, would dispose of not a few which are apparently the offspring of foreign criticism, and that is a most suspicious source, except for verbal minutiæ.

Scripture Queries and Answers.

"THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD."

sinners from the wrath of God.

Rom. i, 16, 17. What does the expression, "the righteousness of God," mean? essence of the gospel; yet the common explanations are to It is evidently of the very me most unsatisfactory. The obedience of Christ in his life (blessed and perfect as it was) could not have saved kindly give your thoughts upon the subject? Will you, Mr. Editor,

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question of God's righteousuess. If man has been proved by the law to have brought forth wrongs, and only wrongs, God must have His rights, the very first of which is raising up Christ from the dead, and giving Him glory. Hence the Holy Spirit is said, in John xvi, to convince the world of righteousness; and this, not because Christ fulfilled that which we violated, but because He is gone to the Father, and is seen no more till He return in judgment. It is not righteousness on earth, but its heavenly course and character, in the ascension of Christ, which is here spoken of. So, again, in 2 Cor. v, it is in Christ glorified in heaven that we are made, or become, divine righteousness. It is plain, then, that the phrase, though no doubt embracing what Christians mean when they speak of Christ's righteousness imputed to us, is a far larger and more glorious thing. It includes not only that which glorified God on earth in living obedience, but the death of the cross, which Satan in his last stronghold, and laid the immutable foundaif it met the deepest need of the sinner, broke the power off in the gospel in contrast with man's righteousness claimed in Romans i, 17, God's righteousness is said to be revealed tion for God's grace to reign through righteousness. Thus in the law; and being revealed, it is "from faith," not from law-works: that is, it is a revelation on the principle of faith, not a work to be rendered on the ground of human contrasted with anything under the law, though the law responsibility. Therefore it is to Therefore it is to "faith." He that beand the prophets witnessed respecting it. It is "God's lieves gets the blessing. In Rom. iii, 21, 22, it is formally righteousness without law," by faith of Jesus Christ, and hence "towards all men effect only upon all them that believe." It is here in special connexion with redemption, and therefore it is added in native tendency, but taking that God has set forth Christ a propitiation (or mercy-seat) through faith in His blood. See verses 24-26. In Rom. x, it is shown to be incompatible with seeking to establish one's own righteousness, God's righteousness being complete, and the object of faith in Christ has to be submitted to, or we have no part or lot in it. 2 Cor. v, rises higher, and shows what the saint is, according to the gospel of the glory of Christ-made divine righteousness in Him risen and glorified. Hence in the later epistle to the Philippians, that ripe sample and development of Christian experience, Paul, transported even to the last with this new and divine righteousness, shows us that, compared with it, he would not have the righteousness of the law if he could. For what was of the law had no glory longer in his eyes because of the glory that excelled-that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness of God through faith. (Phil. iii.) Far from superseding practical godliness, this righteousness of God in Christ strikes deep roots in the heart, and springs up in a harvest of kindred fruit, which is by Jesus Christ to God's glory and praise. (Phil. i, 11.) Luther's conversion, and we may say to the Reformation, neither he nor his companions, or their followers, ever appreIt is a singular fact that, while God used Rom. i, 17 to hended the full truth conveyed by this blessed expression"righteousness of God." Hence it is habitually mistranslated in Luther's German Bible, where dikaioσón Beoû is rendered "the righteousness which is available before God." This, evidently, is far short of the truth; for a legal righteousness, if accomplished by man, would have availed before God. Christ and given an incomparably higher, i.e., a divine, righteousness, and nothing less than this are we made in But God, in His grace, has accomplished in Christ. Perhaps the imperfect view entertained by the great German Reformer may account in large measure for the fluctuations in his enjoyment of peace. The same thing applies to most Protestants up to our day, even where they

"The righteousness of God" embraces the entire dis"BETA." play of God's ways in Christ, one of the least of which, if we are to compare things which are all perfect in their place, was His accomplishment of the law here below. For the law was not intended to express fully and absolutely God's nature and character. It stated, if we may so say, the lowest terms on which man could live before Him. It was the demand of what God could not but require, even from a sinful Israelite, if he pretended to obey God. Whereas, though the Lord Jesus was made under the law, and submitted in His grace to all its claims, He went much farther, even in His living obedience, and infinitely beyond it in His death. For the righteousness of the law threatens no death to the righteous, but necessarily proclaims life for his portion, who magnified and made it honourable. But God's righteousness goes immeasurably deeper as well as higher. It is a justifying righteousness, not a condemning one, as that of the law must be to the sinner who has it not. Hence the Lord Himself established the sanctions of the law in the most solemn way by suffering unto death under its curse: He bore the penalty of the ungodly, of which substitution the Ten words knew nothing, because they are law, and so to die is grace. There was no mitigation, much less annulling of the law's authority. Divine righteousness provided One who could and would settle the whole question for the sinner with God. Nor this only; for God raised Christ from the dead. He was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification. He was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father; His moral being, His purposes, His truth, His love, His relationship, His glory, in short, was at stake in the grave of Christ. But God raised Him up, and set Him at His own right hand in heaven, as a part of His divine righteousness; for no seat, no reward inferior to that, could suit the One who had vindicated God in all His majesty, holiness, grace, and truth, who had, so to speak, enabled God to carry out His precious design of justifying the ungodly, Himself just all the while. Thenceforward, to him who has faith, it is no longer a question of the law or of legal righteousness, which rested on the responsibility of man, but Christ having gone down into death in atonement, and thus glorified God to the uttermost, the ground is changed, and it becomes a

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are devoted Christians, and perhaps from a similar cause; for they have advanced little, if at all, beyond the light on this head possessed by Luther.

1 Cor. xv, 29. What is meant by being "being baptized for the dead?" L. W. For the due understanding of this verse, it is necessary to bear in mind that a parenthesis extends from verse 20 to 28 inclusively. The connexion therefore, of verse 29 and seq. is with the reasoning which precedes that parenthetic revelation.

Now the apostle had already shown that "if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised; and if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins: then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished," closing with the further word, "if in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable." (verses 16-19.) Having thus proved the extreme gravity of denying the resurrection of dead persons, as overthrowing the foundation of salvation for the saints alive or dead, and neutralising that hope which sustained those who suffer now for and with Christ, he interrupts the thread of argument by the positive statement, "but now is Christ risen from the dead." Then he draws out the glorious consequences of His victory as man -resurrection after His own pattern for those who are His at His coming, and a kingdom which He will not deliver to the Father till He hath put all enemies under His feet, till the wicked dead are raised for judgment, and death is destroyed. "And when all things are subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all." For it is not here a question of His divine glory, but of a special authority vouchsafed to Him, as the exalted man, for a given purpose and time; this over, God (Father, Son, and Holy Ghost) is all in all.

Having terminated this most instructive digression, which flowed out of the statement of Christ's resurrection, the apostle takes up the argument he had dropped, and referring to verse 16, he urges, "else what shall the baptized for the dead do? If dead.[persons] rise not at all, why also are they baptized for them ?" And if he puts this case more strongly than in his first allusion to it, if he exposes the absurdity of people following the steps of those who are supposed to have perished, he in the next verses developes our present misery as Christians, and his own especially, "if in this life only we have hope in Christ." Whether dead or living, the saints would be badly off indeed.

"To be baptized for the dead," then, means to begin the Christian career, as the successors of persons whom some of them held to have died never to rise again. To be baptized for such, with any view or reference to them, was folly, if they were not to rise. To stand in jeopardy every hour, to die daily, to pass through such a conflict as the apostle had had with his Ephesian enemies, was to persist in madness, "if the dead rise not." But if the dead are to rise and reign, if all outside them are merely enjoying the pleasures of sin for a season, which will give place to sure and stern and eternal judgment, the only wisdom was to enter their ranks, come what might to mow them down or harass in this life. God is only rightly known as the God of resurrection. Sin-this present evil world-tends to confuse and falsify all just thoughts of God, of His character, and His counsels. Resurrection, as revealed of Him, puts everything in its true place and light, and amongst others the suffering place of the Christian, from its commencement to its close here below. Resurrection is its key, its encouragement, and its reward.

Poetry.

THE CHRISTIAN'S PROSPECT.
We're going to our Father's home
In glory, glory, glory;

Jesus Himself will shortly come
To take us hence to glory:
There dwells our Father and our God,
There dwells the Lamb who shed His blood;
The Spirit's love is shed abroad
In glory, glory, glory!

O! fair, yet never-dying scene
In glory, glory, glory,
O! waters still, O! pastures green,
In glory, glory, glory!
The turtle's voice, in tender strain,
Pervading all the blissful plain,
Tells how the Lord of life was slain
To win for us that glory.

Hark to the "many waters'"† noise
In glory, glory, glory;
List ye to heaven's awak'ning joys
In glory, glory, glory;
Ten thousand saints break forth in song,
Ten thousand roll the tide along-
"To Father, Spirit, Son, belong

Eternal glory, glory!"

Doth not that song your spirit fire,
Ye heirs of endless glory?

Wakes there not up the deep desire

To bear your part in glory? Come on, then, cleave no more to earth, Nor wrong, ye saints, your heavenly birth, But boldly, steadfastly, go forth,

And follow Christ to glory!

Things New and Old.

A FEW WORDS ON ECCLESIASTES AND CANTICLES. In the Book of Ecclesiastes we get the man Solomon, the wisest of monarchs, seeking out that good under the sun with which man may satisfy himself. He goes to prove his heart with mirth and folly and wisdom, with learning, philosophy, natural history, music, wine, wealth, and the special delights of kings. His wisdom, too, remains with him. God allows him, as it were, to try what is to be found on earth. And what does it all come to? Just this: "all is vanity and vexation of spirit; vanity of vanities, all is vanity."

In the Song of Solomon we get another thing-the soul satisfied with one object only, desirous to grasp it more largely and to enter into it more fully. That object is CHRIST, the object of the soul's affections. If we have but one object, we shall be satisfied with His goodness and loving-kindness, and we shall seek only to know its fulness. If it be said, "Well, I want to experience that the world cannot satisfy," I answer that Solomon has far more experience than you ever can have: he fully tried it, and all is vanity and vexation of spirit. But as in Canticles, when the soul is satisfied with one object and that object is Christ, all is peace and satisfaction: "I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste." † Rev. xix, 6. 2 Tim. ii, 12, first clause.

Song of Sol. ii, 12.

Our Study.

Notes on the Book of Genesis. London: Gregg, 24, Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row.

Here is a little work which may be safely and strongly recommended, as a suitable book, both for enquiring Christians who desire to search into the living oracles, and for those whose souls are at all awakened to their true condition. It traverses a large and varied surface, inasmuch as the book of scripture of which it treats, is, when typically viewed, one of the richest tracts where all is rich. It also abounds in forcible appeals to every heart, in plain, perspicuous language.

The Apocalypse of Saint John: A New Translation, Metrically arranged with Scripture Illustration. London: Jackson & Walford, 18, St. Paul's Churchyard. 1856.

An interesting attempt to arrange the one prophetical book of the New Testament according to the parallelistic method of Old Testament poetry. There are a few turns given, in the translation, which are not unhappy; but, on the whole, it fails in representing the apostle John's majestic simplicity. Who, indeed, has succeeded? Mr. Godwin, however, not only imparts too free and modern an air, but he inclines a great deal too much to the not unfrequently rash changes of Lachmann and other critics. In one instance (Rev. ii, 13) he has gone beyond all, and ventures to give a verb, instead of the proper name Antipas, and to render the clause, "and in the days thou wast arraigned." He says that in this he follows some of the oldest MSS. and Versions. Now it is true that the Coptic diverges in one direction, the Syriac, &c. in another, and that the Alexandrian copy, followed by some later ones, spells the word so as possibly to mean a verb; but we are not aware of any authority for Mr. G.'s version, and we have no doubt that a man's name is intended. Mr. G. leans toward the Neronic date, in spite of the testimony of Irenaeus; and this upon the slender ground that the internal evidence (ie., his view) points to the time before the fall of Judaism and Jerusalem. Accordingly Mr. G. makes the seals refer to Jews, the trumpets to idolaters, and the vials "to those who, giving their homage to force and fraud, are really worshippers of Satan" -a scheme in evident accordance with German mysticism and directly tending to blunt the edge of this sharp, prophetic sword of the Lord.

The First Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians. London: Gregg, 24, Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row.

We

This is a companion to the version of the epistle to the Romans, noticed some short time since. It is valuable in itself, and the more so from the notes which justify and explain some of the changes. 1 Cor. ii, 13, last clause, is rendered "communicating spiritual [things] by spiritual [means]." But why "means?" Is not the natural supply of the ellipse furnished by the first part of the verse-Ayous? Not the thoughts only, but the words were from the Spirit: both were spiritual. The sense is substantially the same as in the proposed version; only, as it seems to us, the simpler suggestion is also the more forcible, unless we deceive ourselves. That σvykρOTES means here “expounding," or "communicating," is abundantly clear. transcribe the foot note-"The word means, literally, mixing or putting together: but the use of it as interpreting or expounding, is common in the LXX: Numb. xv, 34; Gen. xl, 8; xli, 12, 15, σvykρia and σvypis are the words constantly used in Daniel for interpretation and interpreting. It means also to decide or decree: the communication of the judge's mind, as well as of God's, before unknown. To this Numbers xv, 34, may be referred. The opposition of avaкpive left no doubt in my mind before I found its use in the LXX." Another interesting thing we may just notice is, that the translator takes Kaтaxраομаι, not as "abusing," but "using a thing as one's own. The apostle, (chap. ix.) as sent of the Lord to preach, had a right to be supported, but he did not use this right. It would not have been an abuse; but he did not use it for himself as a thing he possessed. He weighed the effect as to Christ's glory." Пapaxpaoual, as he observes, is to misuse or abuse. We heartily recommend the little book.

Extracts from Correspondence.

The moral activities that are abroad are surely immense, and ceivableness, I suppose, is beyond all precedent. It is desirable the pressure upon the social system of influences full of deto keep the soul increasingly alive to the fact that the path of the Church is a narrow and peculiar one. Even her virtues must have a peculiar material in them. Her common honesty, her good deeds, too, her secular labours, her truthfulness, purity, and the like are to be peculiar in their functions and their springs. Her discipline does not act after the pattern of the mere moral sense of man. Society, as another has observed, would disclaim the offence contemplated in 1 Cor. v; but society would never deal with it as the Church is there called to deal with it. Society, for instance, would never put covetousness or extortion in company with it, but the saint is instructed to do so. The moral sense of man would there make distinctions, when the pure element of the house of God resents all alike as unworthy of it.

This is "fine gold," dear brother: gold refined again and again. Even the morals of the Church are to be of another quality from those of men. What sanctions are brought in in 1 Cor. v, vi, as to the common matters of life. If the saint be to abstain from fornication, it is because his body is a temple: if he be to refuse the judgment of others in the affairs of this life, in their most ordinary ways of right and wrong, of debit and credit, it is because he himself is destined to be a judge in the seat of the world to come, even from a throne of glory. Is not this "fine gold ?" Does not such sanction make morals divine? What, in the world's morality, is like this? And I ask further, is not the need of this divine or peculiar agency to the affecting any moral results intimated in Luke xi, 21-27? If it be not the stronger man possessing himself of the house, is anything done for God? If it be merely the unclean spirit going out, the end of the history of the house is, that it becomes more fitted for deeper evil. The emptied state, even accompanied by sweeping and ornamenting, is only a preparation for a worse condition, and nothing is done for God but when the stronger enters the house. No instrument of garnishing according to God, but Christ. And in the remembrance of these verses, dear brother, ask yourself what is doing in and for the house of Christendom at this moment. Is not many a broom and a brush sweeping it and painting it? Is this making it God's house, or getting it ready to be the house of the full energy-the sevenfold energy-of the enemy?

W. N. T. would be glad to be informed what may be learned from the discrepancy there appears to exist between "the six days" and "an eight days," mentioned in Matt. xvii, 1; Mark ix, 2; and Luke ix, 28.

The notes on Rev. i, 17, 18 appear confused, as to the person of the Lord. The allusion to 1 Pet. iii, 19, 20, is a mistake. Christ's Spirit (" by which also ") preached through Noah to the disobedient antediluvians, whose spirits are now imprisoned. They were living men when they were preached to.

Postscript to our Readers, Contributors and Correspondents.

The present number of the BIBLE TREASURY Completes a twelvemonths' issue: its future existence must depend upon the estimate formed by its readers of the value and usefulness of the periodical Up to the present time, not only has a considerable loss been sustained; but the circulation is not yet sufficiently large to meet the current expenses. This latter difficulty might probably be overcome by a slight alteration in size and the omission of disinterested co-operation of the editor, the proprietor might be content to the outer cover or advertizing sheet; and with a continuance of the present wait results as to the former. But after much prayerful reflection he prefers to place the matter before the readers. It remains with them to say whether the BIBLE TREASURY shall now close by the issue of an inder and title-page on the first of June; or whether it shall be continued, if the Lord will, for another year. Those who have watched it from its commencement will be aware of the difficulties that have necessarily attended the attempt to establish such a periodical; but it is now fairly afloat, and if a few hundreds could be added to its circulation the matter would be settled. Suggestions or remarks upor this subject may be addressed to "the proprietor of the Bible Treasury," care of the printer.

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