could not be a greater mistake than such an inference. We cannot conceive of a nobler and loftier office than that of a prophet of God, sent to convey his messages to men. And next to this is the office of repeating these messages by divine commission likewise. Moses and the prophets, Christ and his apostles, and all faithful preachers of the word, in this point of view, form one holy and glorious fellowship. Ministers of the gospel are of one rank, because in the nature of the case they cannot be of different ranks. They are all alike consecrated to a duty which elevates them to a position the most sacred to which man can aspire.

If the work of the ministry were one of mere toilsome benevolence-a teaching of little children or of those as ignorant as children-an active administration of relief to the poor and sick and distressed, of every degree-a mere repetition of a few simple elements of truth, connected with the salvation of the soul, it would be the most honorable and desirable employment of man-it would discipline the soul more worthily and effectually in all its nobler and spiritual faculties-it would yield in the very performance of its duties, the most substantial rewards of inward peace and blessedness, and would secure the glorious hope of the high and immortal destiny of those "who turn many to righteousness." And the work of the ministry does embrace what is here mentioned.

But in addition to all this, the system of truth contained in the Bible, and all its facts and mysteries are so rich and sublime, so uplifting to thought, that he, who dwells amid them, seems to stand in the vestibule of the presence chamber of truth, where he is surrounded with a divine radiance, and enjoys glorious and beautiful prospects, and his ears are filled with the whisperings and echoes of knowledges about to be revealed, and he is waiting in momentary expectation of the call to

enter in.

There is also no science or true philosophy, or genuine literature, which is useless to the candidate in preparation for the ministry, or which he may not cultivate advantageously, after he has entered upon it, if he but do so wisely, and use it by right appropriation. The strongest and most cultivated intellect may find none of its powers or gifts useless here. It is an office of heavenly dignity, of heavenly employments and of privileges which cannot be estimated. It is an office too of responsibilities whose solemnity and moment we cannot exaggerate.

Let the reader, if he have taken upon himself this sacred office, pause here, and think of what is committed to him! He is God's ambassador.-He is Christ's minister.-He is sent of the Holy Ghost.-He bears the word of life.-He has the cup of salvation in his hand.-He is laboring for the redemption of the soul-to persuade men to flee from the wrath to come, and to lay hold upon eternal life!" Who is sufficient for these things!" From the depths of penitence and grief for his deficiencies and unworthiness-in the solemn apprehension of this great trust, let him attend to the sublime charge of Paul to Timothy "I charge thee, therefore, before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing, in his kingdom; preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and doctrine."

ARTICLE V.

THE BIBLE AND ITS LITERATURE.

By Edward Robinson, D. D., Prof. of Bib. Lit., Union Theol. Sem., New-York.

THE following article was prepared for delivery before a popular audience, on an occasion, which of course permitted only a very general outline of the great subject under review. For this reason, several of the topics, and some of them important ones, could be little more than barely enumerated. With this explanation it is now submitted to the public in this form, as intended to present an outline of the nature, the extent, and the importance of the studies embraced under the general appellation of Biblical Literature.

This term, in its general acceptation, and as here employed, embraces all those branches of learning, which bear upon the study, the illustration, and the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures. The object of the department is to train up able and

*The inauguration of the author as Professor in the Union Theological Seminary, New-York, Jan. 20, 1841.-EDITOR.

faithful interpreters of the Word of God. And as the Word of God is the corner-stone of all Christian Theology, so the study and interpretation of that Holy Word, must of right be regarded as the first and fundamental branch of all theological education.

Upon this foundation, Scientific Theology next rears her superstructure of doctrines, and points out their relations and adaptedness to the elements of the human mind and character; and then Practical Theology comes in to show how all these truths and doctrines may be brought home with the greatest power to the heart and conscience of mankind. These are the three great departments of Christian science,-Exegetical, Doctrinal, and Practical. But as all these, again, derive life and vigor from the light of experience, reflected from the pages of history as it recounts the dealings of God with his people in every age, and shows how the truths of the gospel have been promulgated and received; and the doctrines of the church proposed, adopted, modified, or rejected; so the History of the Church has naturally come to occupy a place as the fourth branch of theological science; not less important and essential than the other three, to every complete system of theological instruction. Such, in fact, is the system upon which all Protestant Schools of Theology in our own or other lands, have usually been founded: first, the study and observation of the Scriptures; next, the scientific arrangement and proof of the doctrines thence derived; and afterwards, the practice and application of the science with its general history. The time has gone by in our country, theoretically at least, when this order was reversed; when the Bible was appealed to merely to supply an illustration for the preacher, or to furnish prooftexts for a system of doctrines already drawn out from the storehouse of human reason.

It has ever been the glory of the Protestant Faith, that it has placed the Scriptures where they ought to be, above every human name, above every human authority. THE BIBLE IS THE ONLY AND SUFFICIENT RULE OF FAITH AND PRACTICE. Such is the fundamental maxim upon which Protestantism has ever rested; and will rest, so long as the truth of God is duly honored. In this maxim we have the very germ and essence of the glorious Reformation, whose seed was sown by Wickliffe, in the fourteenth century; its rising shoots nourished by the blood of Huss and Jerome of Prague in the fifteenth; and its growth brought to

maturity and its fruit ripened in the sixteenth, under the vigorous training of Luther and Melancthon. What was it that first led Wickliffe to question the dogmas of the Romish church? The study of the Bible. What led Huss and Jerome of Prague to cast off the authority of Rome in matters of faith, and press forward in the path which conducted only to martyrdom? It was the Bible. What gave to Luther his chief power, and enabled him to establish the triumphs of the Reformation on a sure and permanent basis? It was his version of the Bible, which brought divine truth into immediate contact with the mass of mind among the common people. It was no longer a human interpreter, standing between God and the people to tell them what the Lord had said; but it was God himself speaking to the people themselves, and bringing his own truth directly home to their hearts. It was good seed sown in good ground; it sprung up and bore good fruit; and the spirit of the Reformation, which before had been smouldering for centuries, with only occasional flashes of light, now burst forth and shone with a steady and unquenchable splendor. Where the Scriptures were translated and venerated as the only and sufficient rule of faith and practice, there the Reformation was established; and the limits within which this veneration of the Bible prevailed, are to this day the boundaries of Protestantism.

The maxim which we are considering, has usually been received as a self-evident truth throughout the Protestant world. Fifteen years ago, there probably could hardly have been found an individual bearing the Protestant name, who would have thought of calling it in question. But at the present day, a tendency has arisen in a portion of the Protestant community, directed primarily against certain levelling efforts to break down the external power and dignity of the church—a tendency which ascribes to a portion of that church a supremacy which she herself has never heretofore claimed, and exalts her to the dignity of the church primitive and apostolic, having authority over the faith and consciences not only of her own members, but virtually of all Christendom. It results as a main principle directly from this tendency, and we now hear the doctrine warily advanced, that the Bible must be interpreted by the church; or, in other words, that the authority of the church is above that of the Bible. Thus, so far as these views shall become current, there is danger, that the separating wall may again be built up between the truth of God and the mass of

mankind; that the gigantic efforts of the present time to disseminate the Bible throughout all lands, shall go for nought; and that a portion of the Protestant church, verging in selfdefence to an unhappy extreme, may strive to overthrow the fundamental and essential principle, on which she has hitherto reposed, as on an immovable basis.

But why should Protestants thus cast away the very foundation of their liberty in Christ? Why build up again a separating wall to divide them from the truth and love of God? The Protestant maxim has in all ages been the watchword of Christian liberty; and the abandonment of it, the signal of spiritual thraldom and darkness. The manifestation of this principle in the Reformation, was but a return to it after a long night of oblivion; it had already shone forth with equal power and splendor in the still greater renovation of God's church under the ministry of the Redeemer himself.

When Christ appeared on earth, "the Scribes and Pharisees sat in Moses' seat," and had enveloped and obscured the light of divine truth in the Old Testament by their traditions. Theirs was then the authority of the church; they had made themselves the interpreters of Scripture to the people; and on their dictum hung the significancy of the law and of the prophets. Against this assumption of authority, Jesus set his face at once and for ever. In one of the earliest of his public discourses, the Sermon on the Mount, he declares to the assembled multitude by several examples: "Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time," that ye should do so and so; "but I say unto you," that this authority is nought. On another occasion he exclaims: "Thus have ye made the commandment of God of no effect by your tradition ;" and then he proceeds to inveigh against them in the language of Isaiah: "This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoreth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. But in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men." In like manner the great apostle of the Gentiles sets at nought the authority of Jewish tradition: "Why then," he exclaims to the Colossians," as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances, after the commandments and doctrines of men?"§ And again, in a strain of strong invective against

* Matt. xxiii. 2. † Matt. v. 21, seq. § Comp. Mark vii. 6-13.

SECOND SERIES, VOL. V. NO. II.

Matt. xv. 6—9. | Col. ii. 20-22.

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