Essays and Reviews. London; Parker and may say, that the subjects discussed in the Son, 1860.

66

Aristotle, Socrates, Plato,-these were the cruelty of heathenism, are all to be traced to infants of the human race; while our present the same Divine source, as the pure worship Oxford shows us the full-grown men! Nay, of One God, the chastity, the justice, and reasoning with these essayists, we may fairly the mercy of the Mosaic Law. From the go further. They deem Homer and the au- same Fountain came forth at once both saltthor of the book of Job to have been alike water and fresh! There was no Evil Spirit inspired; and the book of Job to be the at work; the " economy of Providence " work of a child-man. Well, then, we should used idolatry, devil-worship, lust, and blood, be glad to be told of a work produced in as means for educating the people!" And modern times, which surpasses the book of not only so, but Dr. Temple can trace the Job, in the same manner and degree as the subordinate parts, and show how all this was author of Paradise Lost surpassed the infan- done :tine John Milton when repeating his primer. But this "education of the world" may be traced and divided, says the master of Rugby, into three periods or courses. "First come rules, then_examples, then principles. First comes the Law, then the Son of man, then the gift of the Spirit." (P. 5.)

Strangely, however, was the "education of this world" divided in respect of time. "The childhood of the world was over when

our Lord appeared on earth.” "It was time that the second teacher of the human race should begin his labor. The second teacher is Example." (P. 20.). "The second stage in the education of man was the presence of our Lord upon earth." And when this was withdrawn," the human race was left to itself, to be guided by the teaching of the Spirit within." (P. 5.) Thus, the "childhood" of the world lasted four thousand years; its youth thirty-three; its manhood is now of eighteen hundred years' growth. Is not all this a dream ?

The dream, however, is not a harmless or innoxious one. There is a monstrous un

truth hidden under it.

Man is not supposed to be "educated" without an Educator. Dr. Temple plainly recognizes this fact, and ascribes the work to God. He says, "The world was under tutors and governors until the time appointed by the Father. Then, when the fit season had arrived, the Example to which all ages should turn was sent to teach men what they ought to be. Then the human race was left to itself, to be guided by the teaching of the Spirit within." (P. 5.) Thus the work, throughout, is described as the work of God. "He is the Rock: His work is perfect:" said Moses. But a strange account of that work is given by Dr. Temple. He says,

"The poetical gods of Greece, the legendary gods of Rome, the animal-worship of Egypt, the sun-worship of the East, all accompanied by systems of law and civil government springing from the same sources as themselves, namely, the character and temper of the several nations, were the means for educating these people to similar purposes in the economy of Providence to that for which the Hebrews were destined." (P. 15.)

So that the polytheism, the impurity, the

"Rome contributed her admirable spirit of order and organization. To her had been given the genius of government. She had been trained to it by centuries of difficult and tumultuous history.' (P. 15.) "To Greece was intrusted the cultivation of the reason and of taste. Her gift to mankind has been science and art." (P. 17.) "The perpetual baffling of all earthly progress taught Asia to seek her inspiration in rest. She learned to fix her thoughts upon another world.” (P. 19.)

of mankind, of which Dr. Temple speaks.
Here we see the "progress," the "growth"
Two centuries
ago, no unenlightened or
ignorant man, but even Milton himself, be-
held with horror,—

Moloch, horrid king, besmeared with blood
Of human sacrifice, and parents' tears.
*

*

*

*

*

"Belial came last, than whom a Spirit more
lewd

Fell not from heaven, or one more gross to
love
Vice for itself."

But now a new light has been shed over these things, and Dr. Temple can see in the devil-worship of heathenism, and the atheism of the Buddhist creed, nothing worse than "an economy of Providence for the education of the world!"

But while Dr. Temple thus sets up a fiction which is more baseless than one of the Arabian Nights' Entertainments, the still greater mischief lies concealed, that all the chief lessons of the word of God are silently rejected or passed by. He professes to pay the deepest homage to the Bible; but under this profession there lies concealed an absolute rejection of its authority. "The Bible," he tells us, "is hindered by its form from exercising a despotism over the human spirit; if it could do that, it would become an outer law at once; but its form is so admirably adapted to our need, that it wins from us all the reverence of a supreme authority, and yet imposes on us no yoke of

We will not impute to Dr. Temple such ignorance as to suppose that he did not know that he was here directly opposing St. Paul, who tells us plainly (Rom. ii.) that the Gentiles who "have not the law," will be judged by the sentence and confession of their own consciences; but that Jews and Christians, who have God's law in their hands, "will be judged by that law;" which is, from its very nature, superior to all other rules. In fact, the very idea of a judgment, which pervades all Scripture, is inseparable from that of law. Without a law, fixed and certain, how could there be a transgression? And St. Paul, when he brings in the "conscience" of the Gentiles, does it, not to displace the law, but as subject to the law. The Gentiles, he says, have "the law written in their hearts; " and the result of that record will be, "that every mouth will be stopped, and all the world will become (or stand) guilty before God."

subjection. This it does by virtue of the tion the force of our Lord's own words, principle of private judgment, which puts "The word that I have spoken, the same conscience between us and the Bible, making shall judge you at the last day." For what conscience the supreme interpreter, whom it "word" of Christ, according to his views, may be a duty to enlighten, but whom it have we, by which we can be either guided can never be a duty to disobey." (P. 45.) in this life, or judged in the next? In the text of Scripture there are "forgeries and interpolations," so that the plain English reader can never tell, when he is reading the words of Christ, and when the words of some forger! And if we were sure that we possessed the very words of Luke or John, "the inspired writers were not protected from occasional inaccuracy." So that though St. John gives us the words which we have quoted a few lines back, still, as St. John may have been " inaccurate," perhaps Jesus never uttered those words! Or, if we were even assured that our Lord did use the words, and that St. John reported them faithfully; still, is it not "proved" to us, in the very first page of the Bible, that we "must not always interpret the plainest narrative literally?" Truly, what with "interpolations and forgeries," what with the " inaccuracies of the inspired writers, and what with the "proved untruth" of the very first page of the Bible, we are not surprised that Dr. Temple should reject the idea of being under any "yoke of subjection" to that book. He may well take refuge with the Gentiles, under the " supremacy of conscience." But all this is an awful delusion. The warning of the Lord Jesus is no forgery, no mistake. To the end of time, he tells us, "He that receiveth not my word, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him at the last day."

This idea, however, seems altogether alien to Dr. Temple's thoughts. The very words, sin and salvation, never occur in his essay. Mankind is being educated, not being saved. The purpose of our Lord's coming was, not to provide an atonement, but to give to man an example. "The one Example of all examples came in the fulness of time, just when the world was fitted to feel the power of his presence." (P. 24.) "Our Lord was the Example of mankind, and there can be no other example in the same sense." (P. 26.)

More than respectful in tone is Dr. Temple when speaking of the Bible. But his outward reverence painfully reminds us of the "Hail, Master!" of him who betrayed Christ. He tells us, that "the immediate work of our day is the study of the Bible." "It must be for some time the centre of all studies." (P. 48.) But while he places conscience, as we have just seen, above the Bible, he quietly and noiselessly demolishes the basis of our trust in the Scripture itself, by denying that the Bible is true. Thus he says, "If geology prove to us that we must not interpret the first chapters of Genesis literally; if historical investigation shall show us that inspiration, however it may protect the doctrine, yet was not empowered to protect the narrative of the inspired writers from occasional inaccuracy; if careful criticism shall prove that there have been occasional interpolations and forgeries," etc. etc. (P. 47.)

Thus Dr. Temple may consistently ques

One of the concluding sentences uttered by Dr. Temple in his dream, would be ludicrous, if it were not lamentable. He says, "At this time, in the maturity of mankind, the great lever which moves the world is knowledge, the great force is the intellect."

Doubtless the Athenians thought so likewise, when Paul stood among them, and told them of the resurrection of the dead, and was grieved with their mockings. But is not the blindness of our modern Athenians still more marvellous, when they can look around the world as it now is, and say, "the great lever which moves it is knowledge-is intellect!"

Was it knowledge, was it intellect, which raised and fostered the Oxford delusion of 1885-1845; and threatened for a time to subvert the whole church and state of England ? Is it knowledge or intellect, which is hurrying men, at the present moment, in an exactly opposite direction; and leading some of the same individuals, who, in 1840, believed the legendary miracles of the middle ages, to reject, in 1860, the miracles of the

New Testament? Was it knowledge or intellect, which, in 1848, suddenly overthrew almost every throne in Europe, and then, in less than three years, replaced despotism in its seat again? Was it knowledge or intellect, which cast the whole power of the greatest European kingdom into the hands of a Paris mob; and then, in some thirty months, surrendered that power to a despot? Truly, instead of dreaming that intellect rules the world, we might with much more rationality recall the old statesman's words, "See, my son, with how little wis

and say,

dom the world is governed!"

II. After Dr. Temple's mild and moderate opening, we are favored with a much stronger dose. The most daring writer of the whole seven comes forward. Yet even he has adroitness enough to use a cloak. Bold as Dr. Rowland Williams is, there are some things which he deems it more prudent to quote from the German than to present, as "" In place, then, of an essay, ." he gives us a "review." He takes up the whole circle of Bunsen's wild profanities, and thus brings into the compass of forty-three pages a mass of reckless infidelity, compared with which the writings of Voltaire and Paine were comparatively harmless.

his own.

We cannot review this review, or even enumerate half its criminal absurdities. A single Egyptian tradition of the most apocryphal kind, suffices, in Bunsen's eyes, and in the eyes of his reviewer, to prove that Moses knew nothing of the subject on which he was writing, and that the present human race is probably at least twenty thousand years old! (P. 55.) The long lives of the first patriarchs are "relegated to the domain of legend, or symbolical cycle." (P. 57.) The following sentence is Dr. Williams' own: "That there was a Bible before our Bible, and that some of our present books, as certainly Genesis and Joshua, and perhaps Job, Jonah, Daniel, are expanded from similar elements, is indicated in the book before us, rather than proved, as it might be." (P. 62.) Isaiah's prophecy "is composed of elements of different eras." In Zechariah's, we find "three distinct styles and aspects of affairs." "The man Daniel is to be distinguished from our book of Daniel." The book of Jonah " contains a late legend, founded on misconception." (P. 77.) These are not a tithe of the monstrosities which Dr. Williams pours forth as glibly as if they were neither nauseously absurd, nor revoltingly profane.

The main object, however, of this paper seems to be, to get rid of the very idea of Scripture prophecies. This is attempted by a rapid and approving survey of Bunsen's

dence. We must condense, as much as we are able, two or three of Dr. Rowland Williams' pages. He thus writes :—

"

"Even Butler foresaw the possibility that every prophecy in the Old Testament might have its elucidation in contemporaneous history." "Bishop Chandler is said to have thought twelve passages in the Old Testament directly Messianic; others restricted this character to five; Paley ventures to quote only one." Coleridge threw secular prognostication altogether out of "But in Germany there the idea of prophecy." has been a pathway streaming with light, from Eichhorn to Ewald, throughout which the value of the moral element in prophecy has been progressively raised, and that of the directly predictive, whether sccular or Messianic, has been lowered." "To this inheritance of opinion Baron Bunsen succeeds. Knowing these things, and writing for men who know them," "he dare not say, though it was formerly said, that David foretold the exile, because it is mentioned in the ruin against Nineveh, or Jeremiah against Tyre, Psalms. He cannot quote Nahum denouncing nian power threw its shadow across Asia, and without remembering that already the Babylo Nebuchadnezzar was mustering his armies. If he would quote the book of Isaiah, he cannot conceal, after Gesenius, Ewald, and Maurer have written, that the book is composed of elements of different eras. "If he would quote Micah, as designating Bethlehem for the birthplace of the Messiah, he cannot shut his eyes to the fact, that the deliverer to come from thence was to be a contemporary shield against the Assyrian. If he would follow Pearson in quoting the second Psalm, Thou art my Son,' he rome the true rendering was Worship purely.'"* "Fresh from the services of Christmas, he may sincerely exclaim. Unto us a child is born! but he knows that the Hebrew translated Mighty God,' is at least disputable; and that perhaps it means only Strong and mighty one, Father of who pretends that the Maiden's child of Isaiah an age; and he can never listen to any one vii. 16, was not to be born in the reign of Ahaz, as a sign against Pekah and Rezin. In the case of Daniel, he may doubt whether all parts of the book are of one age, or what is the starting-point of the seventy weeks; but two results are clear,

""

knows that Hebrew idiom convinced even Je

that the period of weeks ended in the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes, and that those portions of the book which are supposed to be specially predictive, are a history of past occurrences up to that reign." "Some passages may be doubtcapable of being made directly Messianic, and a ful, one perhaps in Zechariah, and one in Isaiah, chapter in Deuteronomy foreshadowing the fall of Jerusalem. But even these few cases tend to melt, if they are not already melted, in the crucible of searching inquiry."-Pp. 65-70.

writes:-
On the fifty-third of Isaiah Dr. Williams

"Bunsen puts together, with masterly analyOf course, St. Paul's citation of this Psalm in assaults on this department of Scripture èvi- | Heb. i. 5, is of no value in Dr. Williams' eyes,

"The sacred writers acknowledge themselves of an essay on the Evidences of Christianity. He approaches this subject under the guise men of like passions with ourselves, and we are promised illumination from the Spirit which He opens the question by a scornful deprecidwelt in them. Hence, when we find our ation of all writers on the evidences; every Prayer-book constructed on the idea of the one of whom, he considers, has failed in the church being an inspired society, instead of ob- task he has undertaken. But, for his own jecting that every one of us is fallible, we should part, Mr. Powell takes ground so closely redefine inspiration consistently with the facts ofsembling that of Hume, that it is not easy Scripture and of human nature. These would neither exclude the idea of fallibility among Israclites of old, nor teach us to quench the Spirit