sentences extracted from that advice will place his labours in a more favourable light than could be done by any thing we might say.

Many good men, in treating of Old-Testament matters, and explaining the contents of these books, seem to think that they are at liberty to pursue allegory and type and analogical processes to any extent that they please. A greater mistake can hardly be made in so important a concern. The moment a reader or hearer gets possession of the idea that a writer or preacher is merely addressing himself to his imagination and fancy, he ceases to give him his serious confidence. He may be amused-greatly amused, if we must concede it by the ingenuity and vivid fancy of his interpreter; but, after all, he will with difficulty be brought to believe that the sacred writers addressed themselves to readers in the way of amusement. His first feeling, after a little wonder, or perhaps of admiration, is over, is indifference. His next is uneasiness in reading or hearing things of this nature. It is well if the matter does not end in contempt of the whole. I would that the Old Testament were employed oftentimes in quite a different way from that which is not uncommon in resorting to it. What can any one say of those teachers who find just as full and complete a revelation in the Old Testament of every Christian doctrine, as in the New? For example, the doctrine of the Trinity is found as completely there, as in the New Testament. Yet the Saviour, in reference even to Moses, says, that no man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.' (John 1. 18.) Were the Jews Trinitarians before the coming of Christ? I know of no satisfactory evidence of this fact. All the efforts to prove it have ended in mere appeals to cabbalizing Jews, who lived long after the New Testament was written. It is the light which the New Testament casts upon various passages of the Old, and that only, which enables us to bring the Old Testament to bear upon this doctrine."-P. 406.

"Violence done to the understanding and to sober common sense, although it may be slow-footed, will be certain to avenge itself at last. If there is any book in all the world addressed to the sober reason and judgment of men, that book is the Bible. It is written by men, addressed to men, and designed for men. Of course it adopts a human and intelligible manner of address throughout. God has shewn his paternal condescension to the weakness of men in all this. The Scriptures written in any other manner could be of but little profit to us. And when we seek methods of interpretation applied to them which no other book will bear, and which would hold any one up to scorn, if he should adopt them in explaining a classic, how can it be expected that the understanding and reason will not distrust them, and sooner or later be sure to revolt against them? Among all the abuses of the Old Testament, none are more conspicuous than those which result from sectarian views and purposes. What a mere lump of wax does the Bible become in the hands of a zealous defender of sect, perfectly mouldable at his pleasure! No laws of language or of grammar stand in his way. The original intention of the writer of Scripture is little or nothing to the purpose. The occult meaning is summoned to his aid; and this is always ready, at his bidding, to assume every possible form. Armed in this way, his antagonists are cut down by whole ranks at a blow, and the standard of sect waves speedily over that of the Bible."-P. 410.

These sentiments are very honourable to their author, and they stand amongst many others, as true and important as themselves.

In making these remarks upon the productions of Mr. Norton and Mr. Stuart, we have wandered very far from our original intention in preparing this article; which was to put down a few thoughts of our own on the subject of the relation in which the Old-Testament Scrip

tures should stand to religious faith and conduct under the Christian dispensation. That intention we now proceed in some imperfect measure to fulfil.

Paul, in his Second Epistle to Timothy, says that "the Holy Scriptures are able to make wise unto salvation, through faith which is in Christ Jesus." He thus teaches that the writings of the Old Testament, to which alone he can refer, are intimately connected with Christian truth. They confirm and conduce to the acceptance of that truth, and, in connection with it, become the means of promoting the moral deliverance which the Gospel has in view.

The evidence, or, at least, the main and most important evidence, on which we receive the Jewish Scriptures as possessing any thing in the nature of religious authority, is the relation they sustain to Christianity. The religion made known to us by Christ, we believe to be divine. It sustains, in our estimation, the character of a revelation from on high. It cannot, with any propriety, be disconnected, in this form, from Judaism. It is intimately interwoven with the law and the prophets. It is based upon the system which was delivered by Moses, and gradually unfolded and applied by the sacred writers who succeeded him. It acknowledges the divinity of the truth which they had to administer. To deny that divinity would be not only to deny a portion of the doctrines and principles actually contained in the New Testament, but to reject the foundation upon which Christianity was expressly built. This we cannot do. Our faith in the Gospel forbids it. Howsoever great may be the difficulties attaching to some of the questions which the reception of the Old Testament presents to us, none of them is, or can be, so great as that which would be implied in a renunciation of the divine origin and obligation of the religion of Jesus. It is because "they testify of Christ," that these Scriptures commend themselves to us. It is because we believe that "in these last days God hath spoken to us by his Son," that we assent to the declaration that, "in sundry times and in divers manners, he spake in time past to the fathers by the prophets." What Paul upheld as necessary to Christian faith, we consider to be true. What Jesus relied upon in justification of his pretensions, we reverence as divine.

The character we attribute to the writings of the Old Testament is also dependent upon the Christian connection in which they stand. Regarding Christianity as the consummation of those religious communications which God has made for the special instruction of mankind, we look upon Judaism as embracing the necessary preparation for such communications. We recognize in it, as far as that preparation extended, the same religious truth which was afterwards expanded and completed. The same object of worship is presented to us by it-the same one true and living God, the only Creator and Ruler of the heavens and the earth. The same office and purpose of religion is also fixed by it-the same universal application of the principles of divine love and fear and obedience, to human thought and word and action. In these and other respects, we discover a unity belonging to the system which the Jewish Scriptures exhibit;-a unity strictly preserved amid all the variety of circumstances through which the operation of that system may be observed. In estimating that system, we fix our special notice upon this unity. We do not, however, forget that the preparatory character

VOL. II. .

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of the dispensation places many things before us in an exceedingly imperfect form, and involves doctrines and principles with which we have no personal concern. We regard the revelation as at best dim and limited. It is burdened with many matters that were designed to serve merely temporary purposes.

The use we should make of the Old-Testament Scriptures is to be explained by the same reference to Christianity, in consistency with which we contemplate their evidence and character. That use of them, and that only, should be made, which Christianity prescribes. What is beneath its truth, should be so regarded and treated. What its principles represent as redundant, should be put on one side. What is irreconcileable with or opposed to its brighter light and purer duty, should be rejected. We cannot claim for the Jewish records themselves what is generally understood by inspiration. They describe to us that to which we believe inspiration in various forms attached; but they themselves partake in no small degree of the ignorance and infirmity belonging to the men by whom they were, from time to time, composed. Matters of science, of philosophy, of history, of individual opinion and conduct, which they contain, are to be judged of on the same principles of common sense and rational propriety that are brought to bear upon other documents which, like them, reflect the knowledge and character of the persons from whom they proceeded. For such things as these, we do not consider the religious truth with which they are connected responsible, any more than we consider ourselves bound to confine our views of religion to the precise representations offered to us by this subordinate system. We set up, as the standard of our judgment in all respects, the manifestation of the glory of God and the duty and destiny of man derived by us from the mission of Christ. By that we interpret all that is doubtful, and add to all that is partial, and correct all that may appear to us erroneous. Whatever purposes Judaism serves, it serves them in entire submission to him who is "the light of the world." The freedom conceded to us by Christianity, we do not renounce in favour of any Jewish bondage, nor can we consent to strain the truth and rectitude of the Gospel so as to produce an exact conformity with Jewish faith and obedience.

We will endeavour to point out, as clearly as we can, the special benefit derivable from the Old-Testament Scriptures, regarded in the light in which we have just placed them. That benefit appears to us to consist, in a great measure, of the means they furnish for concentrating and giving impulse to religious thought and feeling. They form a point around which our religious opinions may collect, and from which we may start in the exercise of religious contemplation. They not only present subjects for such contemplation, but they also supply the standing occasions with which this contemplation naturally connects itself. They constitute an essential part of that which is emphatically our religious book; and are thus eminently advantageous toward affording, in a permanent form, matter for religious investigation. The reverence justly attaching to the circumstances under which they were produced, gives a weight to the lessons to be gathered from them, in this relation, which no ordinary representations of religion, however true they may be, can for a moment be expected to have. The human mind needs something to which it can apply and appeal for the cultiva

tion of its religious interests. If it were, of itself, fully enlightened with regard to those interests-which it is not-they could not be successfully promoted while it was merely thrown upon universal nature for the means and occasions of their promotion. It gains incalculably by having a definite exhibition of the subject of religion about which it may employ itself; and whatever strengthens the associations of respect and deference with which such an exhibition may be connected, will, so far, increase the benefit obtained. We do not, by any means, intend to imply that the purpose we have just pointed out could be properly served by any kind of representation of religion in favour of which human reverence might be secured. The false is not, in this respect, to be confounded with the true, nor the evil with the good. It is our opinion, however, that no objection drawn from that view of the case lies against the writings of the Old Testament. Interpreted by Christianity, in entire subserviency to which we alone advocate the use of them, what is derived from them will be invariably true and good. The doctrines they thus teach and the impulses they supply will not only keep the attention fixed upon the subject of religion, but will be accordant with the noblest forms in which religion can be set before us, and the highest objects to which it can be directed. On the other hand, we do not mean to imply, by any thing we have said, that the mind of man ought to be bound down, by means of these Scriptures, to other thoughts and feelings, on the subject of religion, than those which commend themselves to its own reason and conscience as true and good. Christianity gives to us this liberty. It is one of its chief purposes with such liberty to make us free. The freedom it allows to reason and conscience as exercised upon its own revelation, it extends, without let or hindrance, to all the representations of religion by which its revelation was preceded. The authority to which it subjects the will is no more, in one case than it is in the other, a slavish authority. It is an authority strictly confined to the responsibilities upon which a man's own sense of duty confers obligation.

It will, perhaps, be asserted that the New Testament alone would sufficiently serve the purpose we have mentioned, and better serve it alone than in connection with these older Scriptures. To this we have to reply, that the New Testament cannot, in consistency with historical truth, be regarded alone. It does not, in fact, stand alone. The events it records, and the doctrines it proclaims, are intimately and indissolubly united with the events and doctrines which the Old Testament makes known. Christianity and Judaism cannot be separated from each other; and if we receive the former as the consummation of religious truth, we are bound, in all propriety, to receive the latter as containing the truth which resulted in and conduced to that consummation. But besides this necessary connection existing between the Old Testament and the New, the Jewish Scriptures have a value of their own, on account of which it may be successfully urged that the Christian books would not alone sufficiently serve the purpose to which we have referred. They present some questions of religion-those questions which the Mosaic dispensation was immediately designed to settle-in a form no less authoritative than that in which Christianity presents its peculiar revelations. They describe a regular progress experienced by a part of our race, which embraces a development of the religious principle almost un

paralleled in interest and importance. To trace that progress, under the impression of the direct divine supervision attaching to it, is to pursue a train of religious thought only next in value to that supplied by Christianity. To familiarize ourselves, by diligent and devout study, with that train of thought, is to have, in a manner and degree which could not otherwise be obtained, those means and occasions of religious cultivation and improvement upon whose advantage we have been insisting. The purpose of setting before men materials for religious thought and feeling, in a fixed form to which they may constantly appeal, is thus better served by the Scriptures as we have them than it could be by the New Testament alone. The fact, that that is a purpose eminently worthy of the Divine interference-proved to be such by the beneficial effects produced through its partial accomplishment-is among the strongest evidences that the whole series of occurrences related in these Scriptures happened under that immediate providential direction and appointment which are claimed in their favour.

If it be true that the human mind needs a stay for its religious thoughts and feelings-a centre around which they may collect-a point from which they may start-if it be true that the whole volume of the Scriptures is necessary to supply this place, and that it thus contributes permanently to the religious education of man,—then it naturally follows, that this volume is especially suited to the wants of childhood. It is not in the light of a mere passing allusion that we are disposed to regard those words of Paul in which he congratulates Timothy on the circumstance that "from a child he had known the Holy Scriptures." It is at this period of life that the intellect and the heart can be best, and indeed can only be with any certain prospect of success, moulded to the purposes which ought to distinguish the man. If there be any purpose worthy of such distinction, it is that of steady moral cultivation under the pervading influence of religious principle. To be furnished with such principle, is to have a rule of constant restraint and guidance applicable to every circumstance in which we can be placed. To accustom the child to read and study, to investigate and reflect upon and apply, the facts and truths he may find in the Bible, is so to put this rule into his hands, that it may be always ready for his practical use. We advocate, therefore, an education intimately connected with the knowledge and employment of the Scriptures. We do so that the child may be habituated to religious consideration, and furnished with the materials of such consideration throughout his after-days. We do not mean that Biblical instruction should be communicated to him indiscriminately. What is done in this respect, should be done with wisdom and prudence. The child should be taught to distinguish here, as elsewhere, between things that differ, and to exercise intelligence upon whatever is brought before him. Above all, he should be taught to subordinate every thing with which he meets in the Scriptures to the cardinal principles of religion as they are developed in the character and ministry of Christ. With such understanding, we do, however, contend that at the opening of life the mind should be led into and impressed by this collection of facts and teachings, whose value lies in the permanent character it may sustain, as affording one of the chief means and occasions of religious cultivation. We are far from anticipating any danger from the