228 Extract from Locke, on the First Resurrection. in the twinkling of an eye. Now that the dead are only the dead in Christ, which shall rise first, and shall be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, is plain from 1 Thess. iv. 16, 17.-4thly, He teaches that, by this corruptible putting on incorruption, is brought to pass that saying, that death is swallowed up of victory. But I think nobody will say that the wicked have victory over death; yet that, according to the Apostle here, belongs to all those whose corruptible bodies have put on incorruption: which must therefore be only those that rise the second in order, and therefore their resurrection alone is that which is here mentioned and described: a further proof whereof is given vers. 56, 57, in that, their sins being taken away, the sting whereby death kills is taken away. And therefore St. Paul says, God has given us the victory which must be the same we which should bear the image of the heavenly Adam; ver. 49, and the same we which should all be changed, vers. 51, 52: all which places can therefore belong to none but those that are Christ's, which shall be raised by themselves, the second in order, before the rest of the dead. : * * * * "Taking the resurrection, here spoken of, to be the resurrection of all the dead in general, St. Paul's reasoning in this place is very hard to be understood; but upon the supposition that he here describes the resurrection of the just only-those who are mentioned (ver. 23) to rise next in order after Christ-it is very easy, plain, and natural, and stands thus:-Men alive are flesh and blood the dead in the grave are but the remains of corrupted flesh and blood: but flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, neither can corruption inherit incorruption (i. e. immortality). Therefore, to make those who are Christ's capable to enter into the eternal kingdom of life, as well those of them who are alive as those of them who are raised from the dead shall all be changed, and their corruptible shall put on incorruption, and their mortal shall put on immortality; and thus God give them the victory over death, through their Lord Jesus Christ. "As St. Paul, speaking of the resurrection of the dead (1 Cor. xv. 42) in general terms, yet means only the first resurrection, or the resurrection of the just; so our Saviour does in Luke xxv. 35, 36; where by resurrection he plainly means only the first resurrection, or the resurrection of the blessed, and not the resurrection of all mankind; as is plain, not only by making them the children of God who are the children of the resurrection, but by saying that those who are accounted worthy obtain the. resurrection; which distinction of worthiness can belong only to those who are Christ's, and cannot promiscuously take in all mankind. "The account given by St. Paul is (1 Cor. xv. 23—28): At Christ's second coming the just rise by themselves: then Christ shall set up His kingdom, wherein He shall subdue all rule and all authorities and power that oppose him-for he must reign until he has put all enemies under his feet; the last enemy that shall be destroyed is Death: then he shall deliver up the kingdom to God His Father: and then cometh the end, i. e. the full conclusion of God's whole dispensation to Adam and His posterity. After which there shall be no death, no change: the scene will then be closed, and every one remain in the same estate for ever."—Life of John Locke, vol. ii. pp. 139-151. TO CORRESPONDENTS. A REPLY has been published by Mr. M'Caul to the strictures which he compelled us to make upon a letter printed by him and distributed gratis in the shop of our publisher. We had no alternative then left but to expose the mistakes, and protest against the unfairness of an attack so rude and unprovoked. His present reply contains some things upon which a few animadversions might well be made; but Mr. M'C. states that he has been ill, and we would not willingly revive any irritating discussion by which his recovery might by pos sibility be retarded. Nor is it very important, for Mr. M'C. has printed our strictures together with his reply; so that those who understand Hebrew will be able to judge between us, and we presume few will read it but those thus capable of judging. One point only we think it necessary to set right, because it is brought prominently forward in the first page of this reply, and frequently alluded to throughout. Mr. M'C. asserts that the Hebrew criticism contained in our strictures on his letter "is certainly" erroneous, "beyond the possibility of denial. Unacquainted," he adds, “with one of the most remarkable forms of the Hebrew language, the segolates, the Editor has been led to accuse me of shuffling two words together, for the purpose of deceiving the unwary reader. The fact is, that the two words are just what I stated them to be; but this gentleman was not able to recognise one of them, because it was not written with a segol." Now first be it observed, that this word, which Mr. M'C, asserts to be a segolute, was omitted in the letter printed and circulated, though inserted in the MS. copy sent to us. Next be it observed, that we asserted "that the whole charge against us rested upon its insertion," and that without it the charge was "pointless and absurd." What, then, is Mr. M'C.'s explanation of the fact? We give it in his own words: "But the question remains, how then were the words 'or' omitted? I reply, certainly not willingly, for these words are absolutely necessary to my argument. The words were, in the copying, omitted in the second MS. copy sent from Warsaw, from which MS. the copy for the press was made. The corrector had this second copy; and also the rough original, which was so full of erasures that no one but myself could be guided by it. The corrector therefore thought it best to follow the copy, and thus the words were omitted. What a very curious account is this! "The rough original full of erasures," shewing the exceeding trouble it had given, and the great pains taken, yet all this trouble thrown away by the omission of words absolutely necessary to the argument in the copy sent to the press!!! We do not call in question the truth of this statement, while we are compelled to declare it a most extraordinary thing that Mr. M'C. in copying his MS. for the press, should leave out the words absolutely necessary to his argument-and the copy must have been made by him, because he says the original was so full of erasures that no one but himself could be guided by it-and evinces a degree of inaccuracy which throws a doubt over all his references. It is scarcely less extraordinary that the corrector of the press in London, who had the original MS. as well as the incorrect copy, should not have perceived the absurdity of the argument as it stood, and groped in the original to supply the deficiency. Finally, although Mr. M'C. asserts that the word in question is a segolate, and that our criticism is erroneous beyond the possibility of denial, we are sure these strong assertions will carry no weight with those who are competent to form an opinion, especially when coming from one who has been heedless enough to omit words absolutely necessary to his argument. If the two words had really been interchangeable without altering the sense, there would have been some ground for calling the one omitted a segolate; but Mr. M'C. knows that we have all along contended that they are not interchangeable, and that they have different senses; yet, without noticing this, Mr. M'C. begs the whole question by assuming it as indisputable that the word omitted by him is derived from the word retained. "This latter word (says he) comes from ya" (p. 61). Had he read with attention the very passages he adduces from Professor Lee's Grammar, much more the Grammar itself, the mistake he has made would have been avoided. The segol is introduced for euphony, in addition to the primitive vowel: "where no difficulty of pronunciation would arise, the primitive form is retained" (Lee, 96): that is, they take not the segolate form, but retain the primitive form. This is so clear that we need say no more: a man who cannot see this, might make the same confusion in the consonants, and call nouns heemantic, when they had none of the characteristic letters, and appeal to Lee, p. 137, in proof. Had we allowed the two words to be the same, Mr. M'C.'s argument would have been precisely similar to an Englishman's asserting the word though to be an apostrophate word, because it may be written tho', with an apostrophe: this, however inaccurate, might be tolerated for classification: but if he should go on to say that plough or bough was also apostrophate, and might be written in the abbreviated form, every Englishman would reject such an absurdity. Mr. M'Caul's mistake does, in plain terms, amount nearly to this; and we can only account for it by referring it in part to the notion, which runs in the mind of all unreflecting persons, and of too many who are considered as reflecting, that the grammars and lexicons have formed the language, and not the language the lexicons and grammars; that rules have preceded usage, when usage has in fact always preceded the rule; and thus lexicons, which are but "remembrancers for the learned, become oracles for the dunce." We do not apply this to Mr. M'Caul to offend him, but it is a truth often brought to our mind during the course of this discussion. Since the death of Dr. Andrew Thomson, the Edinburgh Christian Instructor has lost all its interest to English readers, and those friends from whom we were accustomed to borrow it have discontinued it, at the close of last year. We are therefore not likely to see or hear of this publication any more, and think it fair to strike a final balance, and add a few parting words. In the first place, those extracts from the Fathers which appeared in our first number, and against which nearly all the rage of the Christian Instructor has been directed, under the supposition that he was thus assailing Mr. Irving or Mr. Drummond, were not made by either of those gentlemen; were not even seen by them till after they were printed; and the Christian Instructor has been hitherto beating the air, to the no small amusement of those who were acquainted with the facts. Those extracts were made by a person whose name has not yet appeared in the controversy; were fairly and correctly given (with the exception of an s for an ƒ); and he, with every intelligent person, smiles at the absurdity of representing an accidental disarrangement of order as a lite rary fraud. If the change of order has made any change in the sense, let it be shewn; but every man of common understanding knows that no change of sense is, or can be, made in whatsoever order these extracts may be placed. -Another most ridiculous charge is grounded upon an extract from Novatian being put among the extracts from Tertullian without any name attached to it. Our accuser, we think, must have known, that, in many editions of Tertullian, Novatian's Works are bound up in the same volume with Tertullian; and the edition from which those extracts were made was such, and Novatian's name accidentally omitted. But, after all, the real question is, what are the recorded opinions of Tertullian? This question we have set at rest by referring to the testimony of one whose authority is decisive in such a question, and who cannot be suspected of the least party bias. The Bishop of Lincoln has declared Tertullian's opinions such as we have represented them; from this judgment no sane and learned man will dissent; and if these Edinburgh scholars persevere in mistranslating and misrepresenting Tertullian and the Fathers, though it may serve some petty and temporary purpose, it will bring upon them ultimately a deep and indelible reproach.-We close our remarks for the present, with lamenting the utter want of confidence between man and man which has been manifested by our opponents. We have been accustomed to consider a word as sacred in the eye of God as an oath, and to consider dissimulation and equivocation to have all the guilt of lying; but our opponents have been continually on the watch to seize on any loose or inaccurate expression which may have fallen from us, and pervert it to a sense which our soul abhors. Nay, more: when Mr. Irving and his whole session issued a declaration of the doctrines taught by him in his church, and all affixed their names in attestation of the same-all of them being not only men of unblemished reputation, but most godly men-this declaration, thus put forth by them, and published in this Journal, was represented as drawn up to mislead; as suppressing Mr. Irving's real sentiments; and as stating the doctrines held by him in such equivocal terms that the reader may suppose all is sound and orthodox, while latitude is given for the foulest heresy. This is not the charity that "thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; which beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things." The Christian Observer is exceedingly indignant at the remarks which have been made upon him in this Journal, especially for saying that he had advocated the cause of education independent of religion embodied in the London University. We feel called upon, therefore, again to appeal to the facts of the case. The Christian Observer had attempted to write down the exertions which Mr. Gordon was making in the House of Commons. The Record newspaper took the part of Mr. Gordon: we did the same; and as a principal cause of the Observer's hostility to Mr. Gordon seemed to arise from a dread that Mr. Gordon should be supposed to speak the sentiments of the Evangelical world, we shewed some of the sins of this very Evangelical world now so tenderly alive to its reputation. Among these sins we enumerated the London University. The Observer says we are calumniators, for that he never defended the said University: we rejoin, that we war not with individuals but with principles; not with men, but with systems; and in charging the Christian Observer with deiinquency we spoke of him only as the organ of the Evangelicals-a class which, though it contains many most highly estimable individuals, has as a body been the most active promoter (long before Mr. Owen and the Utilitarians took the field) of the system which drives God out of the affairs of state and the education of the people. From this position we are not to be driven; and we now further charge that same class with being the original and sole cause why religion was excluded from the plans of the London University. We call on the Observer to refute us here, and to refute us in the only way in which such refutation will be satisfactory-namely, to give us the minutes of the preliminary meetings which were held between the Evangelicals on one side, and the Literati on the other, with a view to calling upon the public for its support to the undertaking. We assert that the Literati had not an idea of excluding Religion from the subjects to be taught in the University; but that that proposal came first from the Evangelicals, and was of course greedily adopted by the other. As to who is the author of this or that anonymous paper, which appears either in this Journal or in the Observer, it is not worth the trouble of discussing; but, without meaning any disrespect to Mr. Drummond, with whose sentiments in the main, as far as we know them, we cordially concur, we beg, once for all, to inform the Editor of the Christian Observer, that that gentleman has no more to do with the Morning Watch than Mr. Macaulay has with the Observer. In a preceding article in the present number we have freely and at some length exposed the ignorance in theology and deficiency in Christian principle of the editor of the Record newspaper, or of some penman whom the editor allows to usurp his office. A paragraph in the same Journal of the 16th instant (February) calls for a short further notice. The writer either cannot or will not perceive the distinction between the two natures in the one person of Christ; and that many things may be asserted of the natures which cannot without blasphemy be asserted of the person of Christ. The person of Christ, by whatever name it may he called-whether the Son of God, or the Son of Mary, or Jesus of Nazareth-was God as well as man. To recover fallen man was the end of incarnation, and the Eternal Son of God took the nature of fallen man to effect this recovery. The nature which the Son of God took into union with the Godhead, was the nature he came to redeem; but from the moment of his taking it, though fallen and sinful before, it became perfectly holy; not by any change in the nature, but by the power of the Holy Ghost. So that, though the nature which the Son of God took into union with himself was fallen and sinful humanity, yet, as constituting the Christ, as part of his personality, it became perfectly holy. The Valentinians asserted that Christ passed through his mother as water through a pipe, without partaking of her nature: in answer to which the orthodox church has ever maintained that the human nature of Christ was exactly the same as his mother's; but that the Son of Mary was also the Son of God; and to the Christ, the God-man, we may not attribute the impurities of his mother, though the manhood which he took from her would have been, but for the Godhead which sustained it, liable to them all. The Record has quoted two passages as if in opposition: in one of which it is asserted that the human nature which Christ took had the same impurities as the Virgin from whom he took it; while in the other passage it is denied that the Virgin imparted to her Son of her impurity. Is it possible that the Record does not understand even yet that the human nature is but one part of the Son of Mary? The orthodox doctrine has ever been, that the human part of the God-man was truly humanthat is, like that of all mankind, like that of the Virgin-while the whole person of Christ the God-man was free from impurity and sin of every kind; was that Holy Thing which, though born of Mary, should be called the Son of God. A similar blunder occurs in another part of the same paragraph, wherein the Record appears to be unable to distinguish between the sinfulness of the flesh of Christ, and the sinfulness of that flesh which he took in order to make it holy. The man who cannot understand this, should not touch theology; for this truth lies at the very threshold and portal of doctrine. Christ took not another flesh, but that which required hallowing : he hallowed it in taking it; not by changing its nature, but by consecrating it to God: and from the moment he took it sin became impossible, because it was united to Godhead in his person, and upheld by the Holy Ghost. Sinful it had been; its nature was unchanged; but, as forming part of the person of Christ, who was ever the Holy One of God, it may not be called sinful in an active sense any longer, though having in its nature all the properties of the flesh of man. For the rest, we are not careful to answer: those who are misled by such crudities would hardly understand our reply. |