The re

nation taught by the former, is the doctrine of the glory of God; that of the latter, the perseverance of the saints. Calvinism regards this perseverance as a means to an end, viz., the glory of God. formed church looks upon it as itself an object, proposed by Deity from that infinite love which must always desire the happiness of his creatures.

We may add, that Dr. Heppe regards the Melancthonian doctrine as the normal type of the Reformation, and the extremes of Calvinism on the one side, and the later Lutheranism on the other, as deflections from the true and genuine Protestantism.

Die Theologie der Psalmen. Von Dr. J. KÖNIG. Freiburg im Breisgau. Herder. (The Theology of the Psalms.' By Dr. J. KÖNIG. Williams and Norgate.)-This book is a praiseworthy contribution to a department of sacred science designated by our German neighbours as Biblical Theology. Less isolated and fragmentary in its character than the exegetical, and less extended in its scope than systematic theology, the theology called biblical occupies a province midway between the two. Exegesis confines itself to the minute study of a single sacred book. A systematic theology endeavours to arrange the whole material of revealed truth, as we now have it, in its fullest development. But biblical theology examines a certain series or family of those diversified writings which make up the Scriptures, and sums up and arranges the religious teaching of that particular section or period. It endeavours to show the relation of the light vouchsafed in a certain age to the lesser illumination which preceded, and the larger communications which followed it. It thus seeks to trace the history of the revelation made by God to man-to chronicle the sundry times and divers manners' in which God spake in successive ages to the patriarchs and to Moses, to the psalmists and to the prophets.

6

Dr. König contends with justice against the notion which regards the Psalms as the mere subjective utterances of pious men, meditating on the character, the acts and the law of God, as made known in the statutes and the history of their nation. While thus musing, a fire burned-an inspiration was granted them which conveyed new truth, and placed the Psalmist, as regards knowledge of the divine nature and purposes, in advance of his forefathers. To us it appears that the superiority of the light enjoyed by David to that of the Hebrew in the days of Moses, lies on the surface of the Psalms, can only be explained by supposing new communications from on high, and will only be denied by those whose perceptions are obscured by a prejudice. But we cannot accompany Dr. König when he argues as follows: the impartation of new truth is essential to the idea of inspiration; to regard the Psalms as mere reproductions of old truth is to deny their inspiration; therefore, they contain religious truth which was positively new to that time. A comparison of the Psalms with the Pentateuch will surely be sufficient of itself to show (and in the course of this book it is shown most abundantly) that to the Psalmist was granted a new insight into the spiritual depth of the law, and

König on the Psalms.

547

new anticipations of the great evangelic consummation. But the author is perfectly justified when he urges that inspiration must involve something much more than a mere negative superintendence to prevent mistakes or the admixture of error. To represent inspiration as only precluding falsehood, not conveying truth, involves a palpable contradiction; for error, the absence of truth, is a defect which can only be remedied by the actual introduction of truth itself. The effectual negation consists in the true affirmation. And this, once made, justifies itself, and becomes the test of falsehood ever after.

Dr. König's analysis of the theology of the Psalms is thus conducted:-First of all, there is a section on their doctrine concerning God, his nature and attributes; secondly, we have the doctrine of the Psalms concerning the creature, nature, angels, men. Then follows their teaching concerning sin, conversion, the life of the righteous, redemption, the Messiah.

The author's remarks on the anthropomorphisms of the Psalms, and on what are called the Psalms of imprecation, are honest and satisfactory. Strange that men should profess to reverence the profound significance of anthropomorphisms like Son of God' and 'Word of God,' while they pretend to be scandalised at reading of the ear, the eye, the mouth of God! The anthropomorphisms of the Psalms are so numerous and so bold, just because those prayers are so ardent and so intense-because, when the soul is most earnest, it must realize God most vividly. A day was coming when such language would be at once surpassed and justified-when the Word should assume flesh, and become a Man among men.

When David and others invoke the divine judgments on their enemies, it is obvious from their whole language that personal feeling is not the sole, or even the ruling motive. They long for the vindication of the divine name and government. They see the grievous encouragement to obstinate, high-handed haters of God; and the sore, almost intolerable trial to the faith of his suffering servants, so long as He delays his interposition. Their love of God involves a hatred of evil not less deep and constant. As is the light, so is the shadow. Under a theocracy they could not doubt which side was the cause of God, which the cause of the devil. So David, without hesitation, unconscious of any sin, while praying 'Search me, and try me,' asks -'Do I not hate them that hate thee, O God?' As though here lay at least one ground of hope that his heart was true and loyal.

The difference between the Old Testament and the New, in this respect, is mainly one of proportion and of prominence. The Israelite was commanded to restore the strayed cattle of his enemy. It is from the Old Testament that Paul draws arguments to enforce the duty of returning good for evil. So, again, the New Testament, on its side, has its terrors for the evil-doer, and a God, who is a consuming fire.' But righteousness is the foremost idea of the old dispensation; mercy the grand proclamation of the new. The prayer, Thy kingdom

come,' has in it two elements-a gracious one and a stern. In all ages that kingdom has been advanced, both by the overthrow of its adversaries, and by the addition of converts-by judgments avenging God's elect, and by mercy multiplying them. In the mind of the Old Testament saint the former means would assume prominence; while the Christian dwells rather on the peaceful triumphs of grace. But the ancient believer did not forget to pray for the diffusion of divine truth, nor need the modern refrain from entreaty that the divine justice would speedily arrest wrong-doing. The prayer now going up from innumerable English hearts that the outrages of Indian massacre may be stayed by a swift retribution, finds fitting words in many of those psalms of David. Some who shrank from them once may find them now rising to their lips. And so it has ever been in times of extraordinary wrong and horror. One purpose, at least, for which the Apocalypse was written was that the persecuted Christians of the Roman Empire might see, as surely at hand, the judgment of that cruel city, and the vindication of their struggling faith. What terrible pictures does John give them of the outpourings of wrath, when the Lamb shall triumph in the great battle with his foes-when heaven, and all prophets and apostles, shall rejoice over the fallen persecutors, rewarded double according to their works'—when the wine-press should be trodden without the city, and 'blood should come out of the wine-press, even unto the horses' bridles by the space of a 'thousand and six hundred furlongs.' And in the height of heaven, what is the song raised by a great voice of much people? Even this- Alleluia: Salvation, and glory, and honour, and power, unto 'the Lord our God, for true and righteous are his judgments: for 'he hath judged the great whore, which did corrupt the earth with "her fornication, and hath avenged the blood of his servants at her 'hands.'

The difficulty felt by many minds in reconciling such sterner aspects of the divine dispensations with the spirit of the Gospel, arises from two causes. First of all, from their forgetting that the kingdom of Christ is a kingdom existing only by incessant conflict. The strife is silent, but awful. Every inch of ground is wrested by the force of faith from the powers of falsehood. In such a state, all that is spared to our enemies is stolen from our brethren. Then, again, in the case of a great national judgment, there are those who imagine immediately the multitude of souls hurried unprepared into the presence of God. And if we were sure that longer life would have led to repentance, we might think upon the soul, and shudder. But when men like the Canaanites of old, or the mass of those miscreants of the modern East, are swept away in multitudes, it is not the soul which suffers. Depraved already, and surrounded by a dense heathendom, the Amalekite who fell by the hands of a Jewish spearman lost not his soul by the stroke, but only so many years of animal life-years which, if spared him, would have borne only fresh harvests of evil. Whatever may be the future condition of such heathens, it cannot be improved by the confirmation and the multiplication of all the vices that have already made their existence an abomination.

Jost's History of Judaism-Athanasii Praecepta.

549

Von Dr. J. M.

Geschichte des Judenthums und seiner Secten. JOST. Erste Abtheilung. Erstes bis drittes Buch. Leipsig: Dörffling and Franke. (History of Judaism and its Sects. By Dr. J. M. JosT. First Part. From the First to the Third Book' Williams and Norgate.)—Dr. Jost is well known as a labourer in the field of Hebrew literature. Since he commenced his researches, much light has been thrown from various quarters on many obscure questions, and many conflicting theories have arisen. In the full and elaborate history before us, due notice is taken of what scholarship has been doing or undoing in this province down to the present day. The book is a learned book, and a thorough; but dry and cold. The author has quite unnecessarily endeavoured to divest himself of all feeling and preconception, that he may write a strictly 'scientific' history. He alludes to Christianity as an historic fact,' much as though he viewed it from some far-off world of philosophic indifference. It would seem as though the natural in feeling were as strange as the supernatural in religion to some of these abstract and desiccated German scholars, when we see one of them telling the tragic tale of the Jewish ruin and dispersion in a style as cool as might be looked for in a treatise on the cultivation of cucumbers. But the book may be commended to the student who wishes to see authorities and facts, and who would become acquainted with the substance of what is at present ascertained concerning the history of the Jews, from the cessation of their independent political existence to the present time. In the first book we have an account of the establishment of the law after the return from the captivity, of the separation of the Samaritan element, and the struggle against the Greek power. The second book discusses the ritual, ordinances, and sects, tracing the rise and progress of Rabbinism. The third book describes the influence of the Roman sway at home, the condition and the doctrine of the Hellenistic Jews abroad. It closes with the fall of Jerusalem. The second volume will follow the Jewish history through the Middle Ages downwards.

Athanasii Alexandrini Praecepta ad Antiochum. Ad codices duos recensuit GUILIELMUS DINDORFIUS. Lipsia. T. O. Weigel. (The Counsels of Athanasius of Alexandria to Antiochus.' Edited after two MSS. by W. DINDORF. Williams and Norgate).—It is not at all likely that any part of this treatise was written by the celebrated Athanasius. In itself it is worthless. But it is found to contain copious extracts, taken without acknowledgment from a very old book-The Shepherd of Hermas. This fact alone gives it value, and renders it worthy of Dindorf's editorial labours.

The Shepherd of Hermas has been attributed to the apostolic age, and its author supposed to be the Hermas mentioned in Rom. xvi. 14. It purports to be written in the time of Clement of Rome, who is mentioned by name. We confess ourselves sceptical concerning so early an origin-the whole tone of the book is too strongly ascetic. But its authorship may be safely assigned to the middle of the second century. It became very popular in the Church, for it encouraged the prevalent tendency towards penance and celibacy. It consists of sundry allegorical visions, practical precepts, and similitudes.

The Greek treatise attributed to Athanasius contains the precepts, all but complete, and several of the parables or similitudes. It was first edited by Bernard de Montfaucon, in his great edition of Athanasius, from a very defective MS. in the Paris library. Hitherto the Shepherd had only been known in a Latin version. It occurred to Dindorf that if another MS. could be found, a comparison of this with the Paris MS., and the Latin version together, might enable the critic to restore, as nearly as possible, the original Hermas, at least in these portions. A German library supplied the lacking document, and jus tified the substantial accuracy of the Latin translation. This collation of manuscripts is a tedious and comparatively obscure kind of toil, but no student of history will underrate its importance. Weighty questions may hang upon a phrase in an old authority, and depend on the genuineness of half-a-dozen lines. It is of the highest moment that the materials of history should be placed before us with the utmost accuracy such patient erudition can secure.

The

Channing, sa Vie et ses Œuvres. Avec une Préface de M. CHARLES DE RÉMUSAT. Paris. Didier and Co. (Channing, his Life and Writings, with a preface by M. CHARLES DE RÉMUSAT.' pp. 400. Williams and Norgate.)-This volume, introduced to the French public by M. de Rémusat, is the production of an English lady, who remains anonymous. It is based on the abundant material contained in the three volume biography of Channing, with which many of our readers are already familiar. About one quarter of the book is devoted to translated extracts from his correspondence and his sermons. biographical notice, and the translations of M. Laboulaye, which awakened on the Continent so much interest in the American divine, left still a something to be done. The authoress supposed, very reasonably, that a portrait of the man-a sketch of his private life not too extended, to be soon read and easily accessible, would be of interest and of service in France, especially among those working classes whose improvement Channing had so much at heart. task is executed with taste and judgment. We regret, however, that more space was not made for some of those devotional passages among the papers of Channing which were read with such interest in the biography of his nephew. The theological position of Channing is not our own, but it is at least one among several intervening posts between the extreme of Romish superstition, on the one side, and deism, or pantheism, on the other. There is danger lest the daily increasing number of those who have detected with disgust the falsehoods of the Romish system, in their rush toward an opposite extreme, should recruit the ranks of infidelity. Any influence which checks the leap from servitude to anarchy-which offers a middle ground, where some at least of the wants, both of the heart and of the reason, may be met, must be so far good.

Her

S. Ambrosii Episcopi Mediolanensis de Officiis Ministrorum, Libri III. Cum Paulini Libello de Vita S. Ambrosii. Ad codicum MSS. editionumque præcipuarum fidem recognovit et adnotatione critica illustravit Jo. GEORGIUS KRABINGER. Tubingae Laupp.