larly circumstanced. It will not, I hope, be supposed that, in making these remarks, I shut my eyes to the cheering truth that very considerable life and vigour are attending our parochial ministrations in the present day, for which we have the deepest cause for thankfulness. Blessed results are following in all directions. But this fact only renders it the more necessary to consider whether, if certain hindrances were out of the way, a still larger blessing might not be looked for, and whether the spiritual effects experienced in a few directions might not be extended to many more. What mighty results might we not anticipate if, in answer to the united prayers and energies of the church, God were to grant a still more copious and abundant effusion of His blessed Spirit! Then would these dark clouds now hanging over us speedily disperse. Superstition on the one hand, and scepticism on the other, would hide their face, and the ministers of religion be at leisure to devote their undivided energies to the direct and immediate work before them-the conversion of souls, the edification of believers, the building up of the mystical body of Christ, till "we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ."* DANIEL WILSON.

Historical Lectures on the Life of our Lord Jesus Christ, being the Hulsean Lectures for the year 1859. By C. J. Ellicott, B.D., Professor of Divinity, King's College, London, and late Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge. London : J. W. Parker and Son, West Strand, 1860.

MR. ELLICOTT's treatment of the gospel narrative is so interesting, that it is difficult to lay down his book when once it has been taken in hand. There is a continuous history, on the basis of a harmony of the four evangelists, in which we are kept throughout in company with the Son of Man, and are helped to trace out all His progress, so far as His footprints are marked in the sacred story. Where the track fails, the gaps are supplied by reasonable conjecture, offered with a becoming diffidence, but as the result of much consideration. The notes of time and place are carefully examined and fixed, and the history is broken up into distinct portions (those between our Blessed Lord's baptism and His crucifixion being five in number), each having its peculiar

The substance of this paper was read recently at a Clerical Meeting, in a condensed form.

characteristics, and being such as often serve to account for changes of conduct, otherwise not easily understood.

The tone of the narrative is that of solemn reverence for the sources from which it is derived, as well as for the holy character of its subject. There is no doubt of the gospels having been given by inspiration of God; their incidents are those which "inspired pens have been moved to record" (viii.); and it is evident that the author has a solemn conviction that he is walking over holy ground. Of the atonement he speaks with no hesitating lips, and in no equivocal language. He deprecates the eagerness with which the disputers of this world pounce upon everything that can be turned into a difficulty and made the ground of an objection; and instead of adopting their method, he often shows that a little explanation is all that is wanted, and then offers suggestions by which things which have an aspect of discordance may appear in their own proper harmony. He declares that he does not feel "the slightest sympathy with the so-called popular theology of the present day" (vii.), meaning that of the negative or rationalistic school, as will be seen in the following passage, which we quote, partly for its own sake, and partly as exhibiting those views of prevalent heresy which led him to the selection of his present subject:

Already forms of error, more subtle than ever Ebionite propounded or Marcionite devised,-forms of heresy that have clad themselves in trappings of modern historical philosophy, and have learned to accommodate themselves to the more distinctly earthly aspects of modern speculation, have appeared in other Christian lands, and are now silently producing their influence on thousands and tens of thousands, who bear on their foreheads the baptismal cross of Christ. Already, even in our more favoured country, humanitarian views with regard to the person of our Redeemer are thrusting themselves forward with a startling and repulsive activity,-intruding themselves into our popular literature, as well as into our popular theology; yea, and winning assent by their seductive appeal to those purely human motives and feelings within us which, while we are in the flesh, we can hardly deem separable from the nature of even sinless man. Already, too, a so-called love of truth, a bleak, barren, loveless love of truth, which the wise Pascal long since denounced,- -a love of truth that, like Agag, claims to walk delicately, and to be respected, and to be spared, is gathering around itself its Epicurean audiences; already is it making its boast of fabled civilizations that rest on other bases than on Christ and His Church, daily and hourly labouring with that restless energy that belongs to the walkers in dry places, to make us regard as imaginary or illusory these holy prepossessions in reference to the evangelical history, that ought, and were designed by God Himself, to exercise their unquestioned influence and sovereignty over our whole inner life." (pp. 4-6.)

With no lurking doubts, but with a most entire confidence in the gospels, as having divinely-ordered differences and

characteristics" (10), he explains as follows what are the sources. of his history :

“Our sources are the four gospels, four inspired narratives, so mysteriously overruled in their interdependence, that, regarded from the point of view in which the history of our Lord alone ought to be regarded,—viz., as a history of redemption,—they are all, and more than all, that our most elevated conceptions of our own spiritual needs could have sought for or desired. Such words, perchance, may sound strange in an age that has busied itself in noting down the seeming deficiencies of the gospels, rather than recognizing their divine fulness; that looks out for diversities rather than accordances, and that never seems to regard its historical criticism with more complacency than when it presents to us the four inspired witnesses as involved in the discrepancies of a separate story. Such words, I say, may sound strange, but they are the words of soberness and truth; and I will be bold to say that no patient and loving spirit will ever rise from a lengthened investigation of the four evangelical records without having arrived at this honest conviction,-that though here there may seem difficulty, because faith is to be tried; there a seeming discrepancy, because we know not all; yet that the histories themselves, no less in their arrangements and mutual relations than in the nature of their contents, exhibit vividly the pervading influence of that Spirit which it was declared (John xvi. 13) should guide, ay, and infallibly has guided, their writers into all truth." (pp. 10, 11.)

We believe that we shall render the most acceptable service to our readers, if we give an outline of the plan of this valuable work; and we have no fear of being reproached by any who may be induced by the recommendation which we now venture to offer, that they should possess themselves of the volume. It will long occupy a place amongst our own most valued handbooks on the study table.

We must pass over the history of the birth and infancy of our Blessed Lord, and the one recorded incident of His youth, in His visit to the temple when He was twelve years of age, followed by the silence which entirely withholds from us a knowledge of the next eighteen years, except possibly there be one faint glimpse afforded by a single word, in a reading not absolutely certain, but of good authority,-8 TÉкTwv,—the carpenter, Mark vi. 3. We equally abstain from touching upon His baptism, and the temptation, in order to reach at once the period of His public ministry. Mr. Ellicott divides the history of that portion of the Redeemer's life into five parts.

The first extends over twelve months, from its beginning to its close, namely, from March, A.U.C. 781, to March, 782, which are the same years with A.D. 28 and 29. (He inclines to A.U.C. 750, which is B.C. 4, for the date of the birth of Christ, in preference to A.U.C. 749, B.C. 5.) Its scene is chiefly in Judæa. The second period is only three weeks in length, from 19th

March to 14th April, A.U.c. 782, A.D. 29. The scene is eastern Galilee.

The third lasts six months, from 15th April to about 15th October, A.U.c. 782, or A.D. 29. The scene, north Galilee.

The fourth occupies five months and a week, beginning, as in the other instances, with the close of the last period, and extending to the 7th or 8th of Nisan, being the 17th or 18th of March, A.U.c. 783, or A.D. 30. Its records relate to various journeyings towards Jerusalem.

The fifth is the holy week, and that alone, immediately consecutive on the preceding division.

Thus two full years, and no more are accounted for. (See note, p. 149.)

Mr. Ellicott, dating our Lord's ministry from the time of His baptism, immediately followed by the temptation, speaks of as having lasted altogether about two years and three months. In that short period, many are the days of the details of which no records whatever remain. This would be strange if the chief purpose of the Lord's coming had been to set us an example, or to be a great teacher; but it is perfectly intelligible to us, when we believe that He came into the world to save sinners, by the vicarious sacrifice of Himself upon the cross.

Mr. Ellicott, in his arrangement of the history, has found, in common with those who have gone before him, some of the chief notes of time in the Jewish festivals. One only is involved in obscurity, that which is called simply "a feast of the Jews," oprn, without the article, John v. 1, which he believes, on what seems to be satisfactory grounds, to have been the feast of Purim. He acknowledges himself to be under great obligations to Wieseler, Chronologische Synopse der Vier Evangelien, whom he has generally followed, yet never accepting any of his deductions without careful and independent investigation.

After the temptation, our Lord is represented as returning to the valley of the Jordan, and reaching Bethabara on the day after the Baptist had borne his testimony to Jesus. On the morrow, with His five disciples, He proceeded into Galilee, and therein to Cana, where His mother was; He attended the marriage feast, and wrought the well-known miracle. Thence He went to Capernaum, ready for the journey to Jerusalem, in order to attend the passover. For all this, the authority is John i. 15, to ii. 12. He proceeded to Jerusalem, as related in the next verse, and here began,

1. The early Judæan Ministry, of the particulars of which St. John is the sole narrator, as well as of the return of Jesus into Galilee. (ii. 13—iv. 43.) He went up to Jerusalem, to celebrate the first passover of His public ministry.

Arrived in the holy city, He expelled the traders from the temple; wrought miracles on the feast day (ii. 23); held His

conversation with Nicodemus, and, finding Himself not safe, owing to the enmity shown to Him (ii. 24), He left Jerusalem (iii. 22), "most probably for the north-eastern portion of Judæa." (p. 127.) All that the evangelist says is, "into the land of Judæa;" the conjecture as to the part of the country which He selected arises out of the circumstance of His baptizing those who became his disciples. That He made more disciples than John, and that He baptized them by the hands of His disciples (John iv. 1, 2), is all that we know of a period of his ministry which extended over no less than eight months, till late in December (A.U.c. 781, A.D. 28), four months before the harvest. (John iv. 35.) Influenced again by the enmity of the Pharisees, He retired into Galilee, passing through Samaria, and resting two days at Sychar, after his conversation with the woman at Jacob's well,-a blessing to the people of that place. (John iv. 1-12.) He proceeded into Galilee, and once more visited Cana, a place already prepared, by His first miracle, to welcome His arrival. There, by the power which could work miracles afar off as easily as upon objects in His presence, He relieved the harrowing anxieties of the nobleman, whose son at Capernaum was at the point of death. (John iv. 46–54.)

If the time of the next event has been rightly fixed, there followed no less than two months, of which not a single action. or word is known, unless, as the author supposes, Luke iv. 15, Matt. iv. 17, Mark i. 15, relate to this time, in which case it is further recorded that He taught in the synagogues of Galilee, being glorified of all, and that He preached, saying that the time was fulfilled, and the kingdom of God at hand, and exhorted the people to repent, and to believe the gospel.

After this He journeyed to Jerusalem, to attend a feast (referred to above), held by Mr. Ellicott, and many others, to have been the feast of Purim, which, in A.U.C. 782, A.D. 29, fell on the 19th of March. This was the time of the miracle at Bethesda, of the indignant hostility of the Pharisees, arising.out of it, and of the dignified defence of Himself by the Lord, which Occupy the whole of John v. It is noticed (p. 141), that the Lord's assertion of His "unity, in dignity and honour, with the eternal Father," is here the turning point of the gospel history, provoking, to the highest pitch, the vengeful hatred of the adherents of the Sanhedrim. Jerusalem was no longer a safe abode for Him who had so declared Himself, and He departed, probably a day or two afterwards, from Jerusalem, to return once more into Galilee.

Here this portion of the history ends. We only question whether it ought not to have ended with the previous departure from Judæa, when the ministry in Galilee seems, in fact, to have commenced.

Let us now rest a moment, to notice that while the Lord's