theless have its recompense. He has no thought that the field even of discovery in the divine word, is expanded. In truth, his language is more than once but too explicit, in acknowledging and exaggerating the inherent difficulties of his sacred subject. "The Divine logic," says he, "is always perplexing." "Christ unfolds the Book-nay, His very Apostles unfold it, and straightway their remarks are unlooked for, their reasoning improbable, their comment unearthly." (P. 727.) When he touches on the words of our Lord, "These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full," he calls them "these few difficult. words," (p. 842,) and yet a thousand Christian hearts will respond, "how are they difficult?" He pauses at the prayer, "Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth," to add the strange suggestion, "simple words, yet full of difficulty, as usual." (P. 873.) In this class of remarks, depth and difficulty appear to be confounded, and it seems almost like perverseness, to present the sayings of our Lord as if to human reason they were habitually, not only mysterious, but contradictory and unsatisfactory, or adapted to perplex and embarrass. The meaning on the surface is not often other than the truest and deepest, and the author of this Commentary is not free from the fault of searching too far for explanations which were close at hand. It is hard to account for the air of wonder with which he sometimes invests the least startling facts; as where he twice (p. 635 and 661,) calls it "strange to relate," and "singular to relate," that St. John and the Asiatics, like ourselves, should reckon the hours from midnight.

These instances lead us on to say that the greatest faults of this Commentary are closely connected with its greatest excellence. For, its greatest excellence is, that its author every where remembers that he is on holy ground. He never reads. as if it were the work of man that is before him; he is prepared to encounter any where the fulfillment of prophecies, the disclosure of divine mysteries, and the trace of types and emblems which have the Holy Ghost for their Author. The zeal with which he has searched the other Scriptures, that the Gospels might be seen in all their harmony with the law and

the prophets, has made him a master, not only of biblical language, but of inspired thought and truth. No reader can accompany him without feeling a strong confidence that he is walking with one who, in his devout studies, has walked with God. His hand is never laid lightly upon the humblest vessel of the tabernacle; and he remembers well that every thing there has been made according to the pattern that was showed in the Mount. Reverence, the lowliest reverence, is the great and most excellent characteristic of his book, over against the presumptuous confidence of a multitude who have approached the Divine Oracles with scarcely a single qualification of the interpreter beyond philological learning.

But surely even reverence, even in the sanctuary, can be misplaced, and then can mislead, till, unchecked and eager, it becomes a kind of "will-worship," or puts out the eyes of the noblest faculties which can be employed in adoration. Even in right reverence there is a manliness which makes its value: it should be the reverence of knowledge, of wisdom, and of the heart, not that of ignorance or infancy; nor an indiscrimi nate bowing at every step and every moment, after the manner of the modern Greek ecclesiastics in their public services. A true reverence will not hold the dust of the floor of the tabernacle as precious as the tables written with the finger of Omnipotence.

Not without hesitation in charging such a fault as the excess in certain directions of what is, in its due course, so high in excellence, we are bound to mark the tenor of not a few pas sages as extravagant, and sometimes to an extent which is almost puerile. It does not at all relieve the blemish, if it should chance, in any instance, to have the sanction of one or two of the early Christian writers. When the author cites (p. 290) "those ancient bishops, as concurring in the remark, that he who preaches the Saviour is, in a manner, His Parent, for he produces Him in the heart of his hearers," we see how reverence exercised towards the form of scriptural expression, can, by excess, change its own nature, and become painfully irreverent. Where he twice calls the spittle with which our Saviour touched the deaf man, and made the clay for the

eyes of the blind man, "the moisture of His divine mouth," (p. 326 and p. 742,) and "the sacred moisture," (p. 334,) it would scarcely be justifiable to point out the similar irreverence, were it not demanded by the perverting influence of a religious taste like this over some conscientious hearts, and its hardening tendency with the profane. What honor of relics would be too much for the spirit expressed in a quotation (p. 897) from Williams, where the subject is the disposal of the raiment of the crucified Saviour! "These divine garments, from the very hem of which virtue went forth and healed them all,' we may well suppose were, of all things that the hand of man had ever formed, the most worthy of being spoken of by all of the four Evangelists, and by the Prophet beforehand. Christ, like Joseph, was about to flee from this evil and adulterous world, and leave his garment in its hands." If such reverence is sustained by such analogies, where should we pause, were the literal vesture itself actually in our possession? We do not forget the shadow of St. Peter, nor the handkerchiefs carried from the person of St. Paul to the sick, no more than we forget the ephod of Gideon, which proved a snare, or the brazen serpent which Hezekiah destroyed. But if the honor due to St. Paul and to the grace that was in him, were transferred to the handkerchiefs, this would be much the same thing as supposing that not the assignment of the garments of our Lord by division or by lot, but the garments themselves, as pieces of cloth, as the work of human hands, had occupied the attention of prophets and evangelists.

When it is regarded (p. 805) as irreverent to say of the Gospels, "That one supplies what the other omits, as if we thought that there had been incompleteness in that other;" when (p. 808) every minute circumstance in the narrative of the washing of the Apostles' feet is declared to be "big with mysterious meaning," when it is said, (p. 881,) that "there were eternal reasons, not only why it should be recorded that the servant's name was Malchus, but also why St. John, and no one but he, was selected to record that fact;" when it is insisted again and again, (pp. 255, 616, 909,) that the angel did not roll away the stone from the sepulchre till after the risen

Lord had gone forth;" when (p. 115) with a mark of exhilaration, we are reminded that "a whale is the only creature, besides man, whose creation is specially recorded;" when, in elucidation of the simple words, "a sower went forth to sow," it is added, (p. 120,) "went forth as did our Lord from the bosom of the Father, at His Incarnation;" when (p. 259) we meet the remark, "Only those of the Apostles were deemed fit to behold the Transfiguration: which of ourselves can be thought worthy to behold even the spot where it took place?" when (p. 194) "bringing forth the fruits in their seasons," is thus expounded, "Namely, at Advent, watchfulness and prayer; at Epiphany, faith; humiliation and repentance dur ing Lent; newness of life at Easter; and all the fruit of the Spirit at Whitsuntide;" when (p. 265) the three texts with which our Lord repelled the tempter, are likened to the five stones which David took from the brook, "because the lords of the Philistines were so many;" when (p 312) the question, "Is not this the carpenter?" leads to the exclamation, "The carpenter! yea, who hath builded His house, and hewn out His seven pillars! who hath builded His stories in the heaven, and laid the beams of his chambers in the waters;" when (p. 496) "midnight prayers" are taught from the parable of the friend who asked three loaves at midnight, and a meaning is sought for the three loaves, and the "children in bed" are represented as those saints who "are fallen asleep ;" when Bethabara, (p. 634,) the "House of Passage," is interpreted as "allusive to the Baptist's office," "the passage from the Law to the Gospel;" when (p. 639) the "six water-pots" are matched with the supposed "six disciples," present at Cana, and (p. 677) the five porches of Bethesda with the five books of the Law; and the leaping of the lame man, (p. 678,) and the barley bread, (p. 691,) and the little words, "it was night," (p. 818,) are all sup posed to hide some sacred truth of deep interest, we feel the arm of our guide to be tremulous; we would rather walk alone. Excess of reverence for his task has deprived him of the free, strong perception which discriminates between the grand and the slight things, both of which must be found even where all is holy. The sacred history, like the law, has its

weightier matters, and its mint, anise, and cummin; and the latter can not be made to signify the former. But the interests. of vital truth are bound up in the maintenance of the distinction. If the little be made great, the great must be made little, in the very process.

From excess in uttering reverence proceeds excess in other sentiments and statements, so that they clothe themselves in language far too emphatic and confident. "Sin enters at the eye... how little are the blind aware of their blessedness !"* (P. 55.) To our Saviour is ascribed "a history of weary days and shelterless nights; of houseless wanderings, and scanty supplies of food." "It is certain that St. Mark wrote his Gospel with that of St. Matthew lying before him." (P. 264.) That there was "a double miracle" in the case of the man born blind, in being "blessed not only with the gift of sight, but also with the use of his eyes," is to us a statement which becomes intelligible only by becoming excessive. (P. 269.) Those whom our Lord commanded to keep silence concerning their cures, "seem to have found it impossible to restrain themselves." (P. 270.) "Poverty must be better than riches; want a better thing than abundance." (P. 279.) Simeon "foresaw that he should never more find comfort in any other object this world could minister." (P. 417.) "Should not this very brevity with which this journey is described, induce us to dwell upon it, in thought, the longer?" (P. 438.) The "friends and neighbors," in the parable of the lost sheep, are the angels; (p. 534,) the swine, in that of the prodigal son, are "filthy dreamers;" the "bread enough and to spare," is the word and sacraments. (P. 532-535.) In the parable of the Good Shepherd, "by the porter is intended the Holy Spirit." (P. 753.) With the like undue confidence, certainty taking the place of probability, it is affirmed that the angel who appeared to Joseph in a dream, was "doubtless the angel Gabriel,” (p. 9;) that "nothing is more certain than that our Lord Jesus Christ

We are sorry to see a similar sentiment, hastily introduced, we are sure, into the sermon of Dr. Cooke, of New-York, entitled "The Morals of Bethesda." "The blind," he says, "have one less tie to earth than those who see, and therefore, if religiously taught, are, in their natural state, one step nearer heaven." But then, on the same reasoning, the blind and deaf mute is nearer sull; and a human being without senses would be nearest of all.