law of the Lord, with the present distinct comprehension of its individual parts. Our brethren at Oxford would certainly deprive us of the latter that they would improve us in the former, we have as yet seen no reason to believe. : This peculiar anxiety to discover the mysteries of the Christian religion in the Old Testament Scripture, and this tendency to search in every direction for something of a mystic or symbolical character, coupled with a turn of mind usually far more disposed to affection than to criticism, very frequently led the early writers to interpretations utterly fanciful and groundless. They saw in many a passage what was never intended to be found there; and were even led, in numerous instances, to omit or to neglect the solid and valuable instruction presented, while seeking for that which had no real existence in the place where it was sought. Generally speaking, however, there is so much of unaffected piety in their mode of interpretation, that while we read with some sorrow, we by no means read without instruction: we wonder how they could find such mysteries in such places; but we are edified with the piety and gladness with which they hail what they have so curiously discovered. Very different, however, are our feelings when we find these interpretations gravely maintained, at the present day, to be correct. When we find men of great learning, and of a spirit quite sufficiently critical-men who know well enough how to divide a hair, and refine upon words till they take whatever meaning their censors may desire; when we find such men to be defenders of such comments; when they set them forth not merely to be received but to be imitated, we cannot help imagining that they are playing with us a dishonest game; that, as they would defraud us of the Articles by sophistry, so they would defraud us of the Scriptures by mysticism. What was but mistaken piety in the first, the second, or the third centuries, may become intentional fraud in the nineteenth. What was once faithfully meant to elucidate the sacred writings, may afterwards be used to involve them in hopeless obscurity. The gifts of God are none of them to be despised, though all of them may be readily perverted; and the plain strong sense, which he has given to our age and nation, though by the ungodly man often turned to a poor account, and made to labour in the freezing chains of infidelity or rationalism, (what a perversion of language is this latter word!) yet, sanctified by the Spirit of God, and dedicated with humility to his glory, may do good workman's service yet; may repair many a miry road, may clear many an entangled thicket, may obey the command of the Apostle, and "make plain paths for the feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way." To Christian minds of plain common sense our subsequent remarks must be considered as addressed. By such they will be readily received; by others, for aught we know, they may be controverted. We propose, then, to notice some of those interpretations and sentiments which are approved of by our Author; taking first those which may be treated with greater lenity, and ending with two which seem to call for more severe remark. We will make first rather an extended quotation. It is a passage connected with what has been said on the zeal with which the early writers sought for allusions in the Old Testament to baptism and the cross : "Let us see,' says the writer (the author of the so-called Epistle of St. Barnabas, of whom more hereafter,) whether the Lord has seen good to give men prophetical indications of the water and of the cross.' Then, after other texts, he alleges the first Psalm: He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season: his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doth shall prosper. The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away.' Then, Observe,' says he, how distinctly the prophet has pointed out the tree and the water in combination. For what he says comes to this: Blessed are they who, setting their hopes in the cross, have descended into the water: for I will render their reward in its time,' i.e. hereafter. But for the present, the Psalmist adds, his leaf shall not wither,' 'i.e. every word which shall go out of your mouth in faith and love, shall be to the conversion and hope of many. The allusion to the cross is here brief and obscure, turning as it does upon the single word rò túλov. But the moral of the passage is surely most noble and beautiful: The cross, applied by holy baptism, gaining the victory over the powers of the world, is not only the pledge and mean, but also the emblem, of the faithful man's triumph over his spiritual enemies. It is the pattern, as its Lord is the giver, of all victory. And therefore, blessed is the man who walks strictly according to all the rules of a holy life: for he is like the cross of Christ; his success is sure, his lot, to bear fruit eternally without stint or measure.' "-(pp. 23, 24.) Now we cheerfully confess with our author, that this moral is beautiful. We consider it even singularly so. Had it indeed been written by a modern divine we should have sought for some modification of the expression, "The cross, applied by holy baptism," but we are not inclined to think that the fathers, particularly the earlier ones, used their language with regard to baptism in the sense which the Tractarians maintain, and which we always have condemned; on the whole therefore we also say, "the moral of the passage is noble and beautiful;" but we must go on with our author, and add, "Every one must admire the thought, but the question now is, how it is derived from the psalm," and the account which he gives of the mode in which it is derived is no doubt perfectly correct. "The old Christian writers believed that the phrase To Exo, whenever introduced in the Old Testament, was intended to lead their thoughts to the cross, of which in their ordinary speech was perhaps the most frequent appellative." APRIL, 1842. 2 N One little expression of our author we have omitted, because we are far from approving it, he says that the old Christian writers adopted this belief with regard to the expression "either by tradition, or by a feeling so general that it seemed almost like a natural instinct." Now with regard to the former hypothesis, we must be allowed boldly to say, that we utterly disbelieve it. It appears to us that there is no warrant whatever in the New Testament for such a most singular mode of employing a detached word in the Old; and we have no doubt whatever, that if such an extraordinary mode of symbolising had really been derived from apostolic tradition, there would, at least, have been some trace of it in apostolic practice. In fact when we consider the vast regions over which the Apostles preached the word, the shortness of the time which they could devote to each station, and the wonderful minuteness with which, during that short time, they exercised the pastoral care over very numerous individuals, "publicly, and from house to house," "exhorting every one of you;" we greatly doubt, we more than doubt, whether they could have found time to instruct them in the minutiae of scriptural interpretation. We suspect that all the tradition they left is either virtually contained, or else taken for granted, in the gospels and epistles. With regard to the other hypothesis, that the belief concerning the expression was adopted "by a feeling so general that it seemed almost like a natural instinct," we have only to remark that probably it is correct. From this, however, we gather little in favour of the justice of the notion; for it appears to us that a disposition to fanciful interpretation once introduced is sure to spread. Some early writers, with deep piety, but little correct taste or critical sagacity, introduced the habit. Succeeding writers received it as well authorized, and carried it to greater length; so that, though so general as to "seem almost like a natural instinct," it is in reality no such thing-it is, very probably, but an instance of the "decipimur specie recti," each succeeding age or writer admiring the preceding, and imitating its excellences to a certain extent; but yet more remarkably its faults. This is the more likely to be the case, because the further we travel from the fountain the more copious do we find the stream; and Justin, and Clement of Alexandria, and Origen afford us, each in greater profusion, such instances of faulty spiritualizing as we only discover occasionally in the few earlier writers, (excepting, perhaps, the socalled St. Barnabas), and scarcely trace at all in the rich, simple, and holy epistle of St. Clement of Rome. Thus then with regard to this interpretation of an expression in the first psalm, we simply reject it, because the authority alleged in its support is, in our judgment, of no validity, while the interpretation itself seems contrary to the rules of scriptural analogy and of sound and sober reasoning. We consider that the tree and the water have here no allusion whatever to the cross or to baptism. We recollect moreover no passage in which the Christian is compared to the cross, though often to him who hung thereon; and we think that amidst such fancies we are in danger of losing the true meaning of the Psalmist, that "by continual meditation in the sacred writings, a man as naturally improves and advances in holiness, as a tree thrives and flourishes in a kindly and wellwatered soil." (Bishop Horne.) We are disposed, however, to think that the pious and thoughtful reader will consider our remarks on the folly of supposing that the expression "wood," or "a tree," is always symbolical of the cross, and water always symbolical of baptism, as most abundantly confirmed by the simple quoting of passages noticed with approbation by our author. And first we will give his quotation from Justin, where that Father, little as we should have thought the arguments likely to be received by his opponent, is arguing with a Jew. His object is to shew how indications of the cross are to be found in the Old Testament : "Moses with a rod was sent to redeem the people; and bearing this in his hand, in the place of sovereignty over them, he divided the Red Sea. It was by this that the rock gave forth water, gushing out in his sight. It was a tree which he cast into the waters of Marah, which being bitter were so made sweet. It was by means of rods cast into the water, that Jacob caused the sheep of his mother's brother so to conceive, that the young might fall to his share. With his rod, or staff, he, the same Jacob, passed over the waters (of Jordan), as he himself boasts. He declared that a ladder had been seen by him; and that it was God himself who was stationed on the top thereof, the Scripture hath expressly affirmed.' This example is not irrelevant, since a ladder is part (so to speak) of the furniture of the cross... It was the rod of Aaron, which by its budding, declared him high priest. That as a rod from the root of Jesse, Christ should be born, Isaiah foretold; and David saith that the righteous man is as the tree planted by the rivers of water, which shall bring forth his fruit in its season, and his leaf shall not wither.' Again he saith, the righteous shall flourish like a palm. From a tree God appeared to Abraham, as it is written, at the oak of Mamre. Seventy willows and twelve fountains the people found, having passed over Jordan. By a rod and a staff, David affirms that he received comfort from his God."-(pp. 25, 26.) We can only say with regard to this passage that, if seen alone and unconnected with the argument, no one could have suspected that the cross was so much as thought of. But the most extraordinary fancy which has yet been noticed seems to be the idea of several of the fathers, that in that simple narrative, where it is told us, that Elisha, by casting wood into the water, caused the iron miraculously to swim, was set before us in symbol, the connec tion between the cross and baptism, and the preaching of the word. The powerful preaching of the word of God is, of course, considered as represented by the axe; and what has been already said of the symbolical meaning of water and wood will be enough to explain the rest. Precisely of the same nature as the instances brought forward by Justin on the indications of the cross in the Old Testament, are those which various writers have offered to us as indications of baptism. Here however, though many of the instances are assuredly whimsical, we are less disposed to be severe. The divers washings of the old law, the immersion of Naaman in Jordan, the passage of Israel through the Red Sea, the salvation of Noah and his family in the ark, not only from water, but in a certain sense, by water; these and other passages absolutely innumerable, do certainly lead us to view, with no great disapprobation, the feelings of those, who seldom could think of the gentle shower or the refreshing stream, without their minds rising to contemplate the sacrament of their Christian profession, or rather the blessed influences of the Holy Spirit, of which that sacrament was the sign and seal. We are only disposed to find fault when this reverence for baptism led them to real misinterpretation of Holy Scripture, or to the use of strong rhetorical language, which others, of far less correct views, have used to an ill purpose. In fact we suspect that the early fathers, like the best of the divines of our own Church, while they might hold rather strong views on the blessedness of infant baptism, were far, though appearances might seem against them, from being insensible of the necessity of what is now usually termed conversion. We speak not, however, strongly, as it might be difficult to establish our point; nor are we even able to lay our hand on that often quoted saying of Augustine, "Gratia baptismum aliquando præcedit, aliquando sequitur, aliquando nec sequitur." Two passages from poems by George Herbert, one whose mind seems quite formed on the patristic model, occur at the moment to our minds, in one of which he beautifully speaks of the love of God as shewn by baptismal, and in the other as shewn by converting grace. In the former he says :— (6 Since, Lord, to thee A narrow way and little gate In the other he describes himself, in far stronger terms than those who know him only from his biography, would think applicable, as "weltering in sin," and describes the way in which it |