tion, that for these fourscore years hath been breeding to eat through the entrails of our peace. O how much more glorious will those former deliverances appear, when we shall know them not only to have saved us from greatest miseries past, but to have reserved us for greatest happiness to come! Hitherto thou hast but freed us, and that not fully, from the unjust and tyrannous claim of thy foes; now unite us entirely, and appropriate us to thyself; tie us everlastingly in willing homage to the prerogative of thy eternal throne. And now, O thou, our most certain Hope and Defense, that thine enemies have joined their plots to revenge their former ruins, let them take counsel together; and let it come to nought; let them decree; and do thou cancel it; let them gather themselves and be scattered; let them embattle themselves and be broken; let them embattle and be broken, for thou art with us.

"Then amidst the hymns and hallelujahs of saints, some one may perhaps be heard offering at high strains in new and lofty measures, to sing and celebrate thy divine mercies and marvelous judgments in this land throughout all ages; whereby this great and warlike nation, instructed and inured to the fervent and continual practice of truth and righteousness, and casting far from her the rags of her old vices, may press on hard to that high and happy emulation to be found the soberest, wisest, and most Christian people at that day, when thou, the eternal and shortly expected King, shalt open the clouds to judge the several kingdoms of the world, and distributing national honors and rewards to religious and just commonwealths, shalt put an end to all earthly tyrannies, proclaiming thy universal and mild monarchy through heaven and earth; where they undoubtedly, that by their labors, counsels and prayers, have been earnest for the common good of religion and their country, shall receive above the inferior orders of the blessed, the regal addition of principalities, legions, and thrones, into their glorious titles, and in supereminence of beatific vision, progressing the dateless and irrevoluble circle of eternity, shall clasp inseparable hands with Joy and Bliss, in over measure for ever."

ARTICLE VII.-NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS.

THEOLOGY.

COLENSO ON THE PENTATEUCH.*-The English newspapers had informed us in advance of the formidable attack made by the Bishop of Natal upon the Mosaic record, and of the commotion which this attack was likely to arouse in the English church. The Messrs. Appleton were also so good as to awaken beforehand the American public to the lively sensation which the book was certain to excite, so soon as their reprint should come to the market. Well it has come at last, and by this time has been sold by thousands of copies and read by tens of thousands of readers. Some of these readers, who have never heard of these objections before, have, perhaps, cast away their faith in the Scriptures and in Christianity, without waiting to read a criticism or reply. Many have been puzzled by their doubts and shaken by their anxious misgivings who are not ready to take so long a leap. Others are waiting to hear what the orthodox critics will say.

Our limits will not allow us to give a complete analysis of the contents of this remarkable volume, much less to enter into a minute criticism of its positions. It is introduced by a long Preface, in which the author gives a detailed narrative of the change in his views in respect to the Pentateuch and the causes of this change. He refers also to the authors whom he professes carefully to have studied in the progress of his investigations, showing that he has availed himself of the recent literature, both orthodox and rationalistic. The spirit of this Preface is altogether earnest and serious, and the story which he records of the change in his views will be read with a painful interest. In this Preface and the Introductory chapter, he distinctly and repeatedly asserts that he finds no "insuperable difficulties with regard to the miracles, or supernatural revelations of Almighty God." He also expresses the opinion, that the "(so called) Mosaic narrative" im.

The Pentateuch and Book of Joshua critically examined. By the Right Rev. JOHN WILLIAM COLENSO, D. D., Bishop of Natal. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1863. 12mo. pp. 229. For sale in New Haven by Judd & Clark, and T. H. Pease. Price, $1.25.

parts to us "revelations of the Divine will and character." He observes, "I could believe and receive the miracles of Scriptures heartily, if only they were authe ticated by a veracious history; though, if this is not the case with the Pentateuch, any miracles which rest on such an unstable support, must necessarily fall to the ground with it." After stating his position in these words, he proceeds to give the reasons at length why he cannot receive this as a "veracious history." The chief reasons are that it is incredible that the Jewish people should have increased to so great a multitude during the period of their sojourn in Egypt, and that it would have been impossible for such a host of men with their cattle, to subsist for a day in the desert without a constant series of miracles such as are nowhere recounted or supposed. Besides, the size of the tabernacle and its courts, the directions concerning the order and cleanliness of the camp, are all irreconcilable with the possibility that there could be such a host. Moreover, these numbers are not consistent with other facts given as true in the narrative, nor with the story of the gradual occupation and subjection of the land of Canaan.

This position and the reasons given for taking it, we leave for the critics to discuss at length, especially for the Professors of Hebrew and of the Literature of the Old Testament. It is our province to suggest only a word-but that word is, in our view, most important. The order of argument adopted by the Bishop is directly the reverse of that which we should have taken. He ought to have reasoned thus. There is abundant and overwhelming evidence that the Jewish economy was originated and conducted by divine wisdom, by means of supernatural manifestations of divine power. No rational and right-minded man can resist the evidence, that Abraham was called, Moses was commissioned, and the Prophets were sent by God himself, in methods supernatural and miraculous, for the express purpose of establishing in the world the name and the knowledge of its supreme and Holy Ruler, through a theocratic system and a symbolic ritual, in order to prepare the way for the final manifestation of God in Christ, for which the Mosaic economy was a prophecy and a preparation. The evidence is to be found in the nature of the economy itself, which is fraught with a wise adaptation to the end proposed, that is beyond any capacity of man to originate; in the rise, history, and the present characteristics of the Jewish people; in the actual

reception of Christ by a part of this people, and his rejection by the great body of the nation; and in the independent testimony which Christ and the apostles also furnish. It is greatly confirmed by the Old Testament itself, which in the general import and leading facts of its history furnishes decisive proof of the truths which we have stated and of the credibility of the history which it contains. It is so far from being true, as the author asserts, that "any miracles which rest on such an unstable support must necessarily fall to the ground with it," i. e. the history; that the directly opposite inference ought to be derived, viz, given the miraculous conduct of the Jewish system recounted in such a history, and this very fact relieves the mind entirely of any serious difficulties concerning other points which the history contains. If criticism should establish the inference that certain numbers, dates, and genealogies cannot be received in whole or in part, it does not follow that the history itself, in its principal features, is not credible. Errors of this sort, if they shall be proved to be errors, do not prove that Moses did not write most of the Pentateuch, nor that the most important facts recorded in our text are not true. Again,given that the history of the Jews is miraculous, and a history removed by its antiquity and its brevity, too, from the possibility of being tried by many of the ordinary tests of modern story, and of being relieved by such explanations as can be readily applied to events less ancient, and the miraculous element suggests a possible solution of the most serious difficulties. In other words, the miracles themselves, to a certain extent, authenticate the very history by which they are themselves authenticated. Any intelligent and well-instructed Christian, after reading this book, and the Introduction of Dr. Davidson, cannot but exclaim," what is the chaff to the wheat? Is not my word like as a fire, saith the Lord, and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?" The truths of the Old Testament, the miracles of the Old Testament, and the great facts of the history of the Old Testament, are unshaken, because they are unreached by criticisms and objections like these.

Should it here be suggested that these criticisms of Bishop Colenso have already been answered by Christ and the Apostles, who have declared that Moses wrote the whole of the Pentateuch, and the whole of the Pentateuch in the present text, and have in this way given their authority to the proposition that the genealogies, numbers, and dates are in very deed true, we reply that orthodox

theologians are by no means agreed that the testimony of Christ and the Apostles extends so far as this. To load their assertions with this burden of inference, for it is a mere inference from what they say, is to burden Christianity itself with a load which the New Testament nowhere lays upon it. Indeed, it would be easy to show that it is from this very violent assumption that Colenso has been driven off to his more unreasonable and extreme reaction. It is worth while to notice here, how incompetent the Bishop of Natal found himself to grapple with the Biblical questions which broke in upon his amazed understanding, when in the prosecution of his missionary work he undertook to translate the Scriptures for the Zulus of South Africa. The first conspicuous example of his lack of competency to interpret the real import and ap plication of the Scriptures was shown in the allowance of polygamy to certain of his converts on the ground of Mosaic example. In this volume he moves to the opposite extreme, and cannot be lieve that Moses, or God, through Moses, gave to the Israelites any laws recognizing and regulating slavery! Moreover, he suggests that if our Lord did, ipsissimis verbis, sanction every genealogy, date, and number in the Pentateuch, as we have it, it was because he had subjected himself in the incarnation to all the limitations of knowledge which were common to the Jews of his time, and of course spake with no knowledge and no authority. Surely this is to strain at a gnat and swallow a camel!

One thing which the Bishop says is true, beyond all question. Indeed, his own volume is a striking illustration of this truth. "Such studies as these have made very little progress as yet among the clergy and laity of England." No sadder commentary could be furnished on this saying, than the publication of this volume, as well as that of the Essays and Reviews, and some of the Answers to these last. What the English Church needs most of all, and what the English Church must have if she is to live as a Church of Christ, is an enlightened, learned, and philosophical theology. Without this, neither Episcopal protestations, nor millenary petitions, nor exasperated reviewers, nor denunciatory newspapers, nor legal decisions in the Court of Arches, nor political adjustments in her Majesty's Privy Council, will save her from the dry rot, to which a merely traditional theology is certain to bring any and every branch of the Church which does not defend