God? The personal advent would open upon earth the very fountain from which the Scriptures themselves have flowed, and new streams would issue forth to water a renovated world, and to make glad the city of God. In this view I would very briefly call your attention to the 17th chapter of St. John. That comprehensive petition may be divided into four distinct heads-1. The great Mediator offers up in verse 5, a prayer for himself— "And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self," &c. 2. He intercedes, in verse 11, for those who then formed his little flock on earth -“And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name, those whom thon hast given me," &c. 3. In verse 20 he extends that intercession to all those who in after ages should "believe on him through their word.” 4. He finally prays in verses 21 and 22, that the world may believe and know that he is the true Messiah. I have myself often felt a difficulty in reconciling the two last divisions of this great intercession. For if verse 20 contains an enumeration of all believers to the end of time, (as certainly in the usual view of it, it seems to do,) who are the world who are to believe in consequence of their adherence to, and union with the Redeemer? This difficulty, however, at once disappears if we adopt the hypothesis of a personal advent before the millennium; for then the third petition is limited to those who shall believe on Christ previously to the time of his second coming, and the great instrument of their conversion is distinctly specified-"Those who shall believe on me through their word"through the preaching and inspired writings of the apostles and evangelists. When that number has been completed, and all believers under the dispensation of the first advent shall have been gathered unto Christ; then the great promise will be fulfilled-the heathen will be given to the Redeemer as his inheritance, and the utmost part of the earth as his possession; then the world will believe, not through the word, or by the teaching of the Scriptures, but in consequence of the appearing of the great God and our Saviour with all his saints.

While speaking of the Scriptures, I would mention what appears to me of itself a presumption in favour of the first resurrection, and the consequent participation of the saints who shall have died before in the blessings of the millennial kingdom. All believers in a millennium, however they may differ in their notions of it, equally agree that a large proportion of the prophetical writings have reference to that happy period. Now on the supposition of what is termed the spiritual reign of Christ, of which the first resurrection forms no part, the children of God have been given in all past ages for their instruction, (for such, we are told, is the end of all Scripture,) the future history of a state of things on earth, with which they can have had no manner of concern. When their hearts have burned within them at the bright pictures in which the prophets paint the latter days, their affections have kindled towards an object to them as unsubstantial as a dream. They have been amused with prospects which, fair and beautiful as they may be, never are to be realised to them. Now, allowing the arguments to be in other respects equally balanced on both sides, is there not, I say, something to favour the belief in the antimillennial resurrection of the just in the consideration, that on this principle, when believers have in every age meditated on these delightful portions of God's word, they have anticipated joys which they themselves shall taste? They have viewed in the distance a land of promise, which they, in God's good time, shall enter, repose upon its green pastures, and sit beside

its still waters. Is it not, in a word, more reasonable to believe that the Scriptures which God has placed in the hands of his children, concern a state of things in which they shall have a share, than the history of remote generations, as foreign from them as the inhabitants of another planet?

That there will be a vast outpouring of the Spirit in the latter days, has been strongly insisted on by many, as if it tended to disprove the doctrine of a personal advent; but to me the former expectation seems not to oppose, but rather to imply the latter, To judge by God's previous dealings, if the Holy Spirit is to act with powers unknown before, it will be in consequence of that Spirit's issuing from some new source. The Spirit has not hitherto acted, if I may so speak, absolutely, but as a procession or emanation, and has in some mysterious manner partaken of the nature of that fountain whence it has flowed. Thus while the Holy Ghost proceeded from simple Deity, his rays had comparatively little power to renew and sanctify the nature of fallen man. We know that the Jews were visited and gifted by his inspirations. Nevertheless, when our Saviour invites all those who thirsted after still higher influences to come unto him and drink, the evangelist accompanies his words with this remarkable comment- -"But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive; for the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because that Jesus was not yet glorified."-John vii. 39. That is, the Spirit had not yet acted with evangelical power, because he had not yet proceeded from the God-man. He had not yet issued from that new source, and come forth from that being, who, taking the manhood into God, had power to touch the human soul with sympathetic influence, and to impregnate it with energies unfelt before. It was on this account that our Saviour assured his disciples that it was expedient for them that he should go away, for that otherwise the Comforter could not come unto them. It was thus that when he ascended up on high he gave gifts unto men. We see the first effects of this on the day of Pentecost, when human nature appeared suddenly animated by a principle, and furnished with powers such as the world had never seen before. If, then, the first outpouring of the Spirit was not the simple product of the sovereign will, but the consequence of that mighty change in the divine administration which placed a crucified Saviour on the throne of heaven, may we not fairly argue that the second outpouring of the same Spirit in power to convert and regenerate the whole world, will not be a mere arbitrary movement on the part of God, but the result of new means and new efficients suited to so vast and so stupendous an operation ?-and what means can be conceived so fit and so proportionate as the visible exhibition of that glory which is now invisibleas the immediate presence of that God who now dwells in that inaccessible light which no man hath seen or can approach unto?

But, further, the mode of the Spirit's operation on the mind is not, if I may so speak, by an efficacy which terminates in itself. It is not by breathing into it some vitalizing essence, or purifying element, that it animates or sanctifies the soul. It is by opening the eyes of the understanding to see, and disposing the will and the affections to embrace the objects which the revelations of God successively present to man. The Spirit's power increases in exact proportion to the moral efficacy of the truths be has to open; and as his great office is to take of the things of Christ and show them unto us, it follows that the Spirit's influence will rise precisely in the same degree as the manifestations of Jesus ascend from their early dawning to their meridian day. Under the Jewish dispensation these

influences were comparatively feeble, not only because, as I have said before, they flowed from simple Deity, but because Christ was then revealed in figures, and in distant prophecies alone. Under the present dispensation the powers of the Spirit have increased, not merely from the cause assigned before, but because he can now place in the believer's view And if Christ come in the flesh, evidently set forth crucified amongst us. the same Spirit is yet to act with energies so wholly new as to change the entire course of things below, and place the church of Christ above that world which now enslaves it, does not this plead strongly for the expectation of some brighter and more glorious manifestation of the Saviour than we or our fathers' have known?

It may be objected to the doctrine of a first resurrection, that it would be inconsistent with impartial justice, to place the saints who have preceded the millennium, in rank so far above the saints who may have been born during that reign of righteousness. Waving, then, for a moment, the consideration that such is the final state of neither, and that an eternity of equal honour and glory awaits them both; and admitting an inequality of condition for that limited period, I cannot but observe a peculiar fitness in such a temporary allotment. Those who have lived before the millennium, will have borne the burthen and heat of the day of trial. It was theirs to deny themselves, to take up the cross, to confess the faith of Christ crucified, and manfully to fight under his banner against sin, the world, and the devil. It was theirs to wrestle, not only against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places; and can any thing be more in harmony with the whole of God's administration, than that these should be rewarded according to their works-that they who have been more than conquerors, should reap the laurels they have so bravely won? If in those halcyon days, when the warfare has been accomplished, and when they shall neither hurt nor destroy in all God's holy mountain, it should be necessary that some should hold preeminence, to whom can those distinctions be so fitly given as to those who fought their way through hardships, to which succeeding generations will have been strangers altogether? Such is the principle emphatically recognised by our Saviour in the 22d chapter of St. Luke-" Ye are they which have continued with me in my temptations. And I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto me, that ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel." I am, Sir, yours, &c.

(To be continued.)

H. W.

ON THE INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE CHRISTIAN EXAMINER. SIR-Mr. Haldane and Mr. Carson, in their respective books on the inspiration of Scripture, have not only quoted 2 Timothy iii. 16, in the form in which it stands in our translation, but have made the passage, apparently, one of the pillars of their theory. This I confess surprises me, as, in my humble opinion, this is one of those places in which the original has not been correctly given. Indeed I hardly think that this position admits of a reasonable doubt: πασα γραφη θεοπνευστος καὶ ωφελιμος προς διδασ καλιαν, &c.

In translating this passage, our translators have supposed the article before ypaøn, and the substantive verb or after it. Without supplying these two words, their version cannot be supported. The word ypaon without the definite article ý ought, unquestionably, not to be translated Scripture, but writing; in which case the apostle would be made to assert that "all writing is given by inspiration of God," a position which I take for granted, no one will attribute to him. ἡ γραφη and αι γραφαι, mean the writing, and the writings, and in this form denote, beyond all doubt, the Scriptures, called by way of eminence, the writings. That ypaøn without the definite article, cannot mean the Scripture, might be asserted on mere grammatical grounds; but that it is never so applied, is matter of fact that may be ascertained by reference to a Greek Concordance. There are but two places besides that before us, in which ypaon occurs without the definite article, and these, I think, can be shown to constitute no exception to the general rule. The apostle then appears not to be predicating inspiration of the holy writings ra iɛpa ypaμμara, spoken of in the former verse, (this was on the occasion superfluous,) but pointing out the uses of those writings which possessed the character of inspiration.

I need hardly say that there is not any originality in what I have stated above. The two oldest versions that we possess, (the Vulgate, and the old Syriac,) render the passage in conformity with the principles I am pleading for.

The Vulgate reads thus:-"Omnis Scriptura, divinitus inspirata, utilis est ad docendum,"-" All writing divinely inspired, is useful." &c.

.c& כל כתב גיר דברוחא אתכתב מותרנא- The Syriac reads thus

"For all writing that is written by the Spirit, is useful," &c. Even the Philoxenian, (whose testimony you know, Sir, is important in any question relating to the state of the Greek text in the commencement of the seventh century.) renders the passage according to the sense I am contending for. "Every writing inspired (literally breathed,) by God, is profitable, &c.

,כל כתבא נפיח מן אלהא אף מותרנא הו

I know that the verse, as it now stands, cannot be rendered in the way I suppose. The occurrence of kau, and, creates a difficulty; but neither can the passage be rendered, according to the present text, as it is rendered in our English version; and, I believe, in all the modern versions, for ypaon, as observed above, without the article, is not the Scripture, and tho verb EOT is wanted to complete the grammar of the passage. The text therefore must be corrected, and all we need suppose is, that cat was put in for eσTv, and we shall have the text in complete accordance with the Vulgate, and both the Syriac versions-authorities of no small value in a doubtful case.

I hope I need not say, that in my critical remarks upon this verse, I do not wish to be understood as controverting the general principles advanced by Mr. Haldane and Mr. Carson. This is quite another question. I only mean to protest against the use they make of this passage. Indeed I must say, that, even as it stands in our version, it leaves the point discussed between our friends undetermined. The nature, and the limits of that inspiration, equally maintained by both parties, is not to be ascertained by a reference to this passage. The subject is eminently important; but I am happy to think that plain people can rejoice in the good news, and are sanctified through the truth, while they would be very little able to solve the difficulties with which the question of inspiration is more or less involved. In saying this, I do not, mean to discourage the strictest investigation of the subject. There is an hypothesis, which will account for

thesis is.

all the phenomena, and all we want is to ascertain what that hypoI am, Sir, yours, &c. T. K. P.S. Since writing the above, I have met with a pamphlet of Mr. Carson's, in which he has considered the text in question, and reasons upon it with his usual acuteness. Though I do not see it necessary, on this account, to suppress my letter, I think it but justice to Mr. C. to mention the fact.

MISCELLANEOUS COMMUNICATIONS.

ON THE ANCIENT HEBREW OR CHALDEE.

TO THE EDITOR of the CHRISTIAN EXAMINER.

SIR-Perhaps the following discussion may not be altogether alien from the objects of a publication, which, in addition to its Christian character, professes also to be an Examiner. If any of your literary correspondents should notice this article, in the way either of correction or of confirmation, it might tend to throw further light upon a very curious Biblical topic.

We are commonly told, that the ancient Hebrew character, which was retained and used by the Samaritans in their copies of the Pentateuch, was discontinued by the Jews during the Babylonian captivity; that the Chaldee character of their conquerors was adopted by them in its place; and that this same Chaldee character has continued in use ever since.

I. Such an opinion is encumbered with the following very serious difficulty:

Numerous inscribed bricks have been brought into Europe from the rains of Babylon. Now, the writing upon these bricks is invariably in the arrow-headed character: not one brick, I believe, has hitherto been discovered, bearing an inscription in the character which is now used in our Hebrew bibles, and which it has been the fashion to esteem and denominate Chaldee. Hence, as, on the one hand, it seems obviously to follow, that the arrow-headed character was the character used by the Chaldeans, or Babylonians: so, on the other hand, it seems also to follow, that the character which we have been taught to esteem and to denominate Chaldee, was not the character used by the Chaldeans, or Babylonians, and, consequently, that it could not have been borrowed from them by the Jews during the Babylonian captivity.

II. The whole matter is set in its true light by Jerome, who had made himself master both of Hebrew and of Chaldee, and who was thence well qualified to speak on the subject; though, most unaccountably, his authority has sometimes been adduced in favour of the common opinion.

According to the statement of this learned Father, the Syrians and the Chaldeans, whose languages were closely allied to the Hebrew, used the same number of letters, with the same powers severally attached to them, as the Jews did, but the characters of their respective alphabets DIFFERED from that of the Hebrew alphabet: the Samaritans, in like manner, wrote the Pentateuch with the same number of letters as that employed by Moses, but with letters DIFFERING in form from the then common Hebrew letters: and finally, what is a matter of CERTAINTY, Ezra, not only subsequent to the capture of Jerusalem, but likewise subsequent even to the restoration of the temple by Zorobabel, INVENTED other letters, which, in the time of Jerome, as in the present time, were constantly used; whereas, until the days of Ezra, the same ancient character was employed alike both by the Jews and by the Samaritans.