"Behold I and the children whom thou hast given me: of all thou hast given me I have lost none." And then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all." The Son, having subjected and put all things under his feet, there will be no power in the universe higher than himself except God the Father; and to put the climax on the grand achievement, the Son himself also, as the head of his body, the church, shall, by a final and crowning act of servitorship, place himself and his redeemed under the eternal government of the Father, as representing the Godhead; and thus "God shall be all in all"-a glory now incomprehensible, flowing from the fountain of supreme Deity shall fill every member of that body, in union with its Head, who shall still retain his supereminent and glorious presidency. Thus "the end" of which the apostle speaks is not an end of termination but of consummation; Christ, in delivering up the kingdom, does not lose it; his saints "shall reign with him for ever and ever." *

We have been thus minute in stating the doctrine of Scripture on this point, as ascertained by the concurrent testimony of the church, that our readers may more readily judge how far our author has diverged from its teaching in his zeal to uphold his favourite theory. He grants that "the appointment to the office of Mediator belongs to the Father; the performance of mediatorial conditions belongs to the Son." But how? "Complacent, self-ruled submission was his, who, having resigned his regal estate to the Father, became what naturally he was not

his servant-being made in the likeness of men.' This altered personal estate of the Son, which implied the resignation of his monarchic honours, and the susception of a creative position, in order to the prosecution of his mediatorial work, enables us to perceive how he, as the Son, could be capable of exaltation by the Father, when his work on earth was accomplished, and in what that exaltation consisted. This consisted in restoration to his own regal honours as the Son, and in the ineffable superaddition of the Father's regal glory to his own,implied in the expression, that he 'sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.' The Son wields the Fathers sceptre. Dominion has passed from the first to the second person of the

*The attention of the early Fathers was specially directed towards this passage. None of them, however, expresses himself more distinctly on the official subservience of the Son of God than Augustine. His words are, in one place, "Non enim sic tradit, ut ipse amittat. Ac per hoc si regni ejus non erit finis, profecto sancii ejus, qui sunt regnum ejus, cum illo sine fine regnabunt" (Aug. ad Oros. tom. viii. 615). He guards against concluding from the words, "He shall reign until all his enemies are put under him," that he would then cease to reign. And his exegesis of the above passage is, "Christus, ut Deus, cum Patre nos subjectos habet; ut Sacerdos, nobiscum Patri subjectus est" (De Trinit lib. i. ib).

Jesus held out as a Judicial Avenger.

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Holy Trinity" (vol ii. 7, 8). From these extracts (the italics in which are his own) the reader may form some idea of the strange fabric which Mr Steward has reared on New Testament phraseology. He allows no mediatorial inferiority, no official subordination of the Son to the Father. He became a servant, indeed, for a time, by becoming man; but this was "self-ruled submission," and consisted in his resigning his royal honours to the Father, only to be resumed when he had finished his work. And now he wields the Father's sceptre. Indeed, he will hardly allow that the Father does anything; he does nothing immediately at least: it was the Mediator that created the earth; it is the Mediator that governs the world. The economical link of subordination so essential to the very idea of mediation between God and man, is kept out of sight, or rather vanishes amid the glories of a being unknown to Scripture-a sort of Independent Mediatorial God. To crown all, this mediatorial sway, it is said, will terminate when the Son shall have delivered up the kingdom to the Father. "The Father's prerogatives are given to the Son, not wielded by himself. This is not their original condition: they are devolved on the Son to effect certain objects of paramount interest, which must, therefore, in due time be consummated. Then they will revert to the Father, with the augmented glory which the Son's work will have cast upon them" (vol. ii. p. 11). This is really too much. The idea of the Father's prerogatives-including, of course, those of pardon, adoption, sanctification, quickening, the giving of the Spirit, the hearing of prayer, administering justice, chastening his children, raising them from the dead and giving them glory-having been "given to the Son, and not wielded by himself," is sufficiently startling; but in what sense these prerogatives can be said to revert to him, after they have been all wielded by his Son, is what fairly passes our comprehension. Our limited space permits us only to advert to another, and to our mind the most repulsive peculiarity of the treatise before us, namely, the effort made throughout to invest the Lord Jesus with all the insignia of an earthly ruler, judge, and avenger. If any thing is plainer than another in the history of our Lord, it is the sensitive jealousy with which he shrunk from every thing that might be construed into an assumption

*We have been strongly reminded, in perusing Mr Steward's pages, of Plato's idea of the One Supreme, who had no direct concern in the creation or government of the world, these being assigned to some Demiurge, or one of his Emanations. In yielding to this fancy we may be acting unfairly by our author, who cannot certainly be charged with detracting from the glory of the Son. But we must seriously object to his treatment of Col. i. 16, "By him were all things created," &c., which cannot, we think, be applied to the Son in his mediatorial capacity without depriving us of one of the most cogent proofs of his Supreme Deity.

of worldly jurisdiction. "Man, who made me a judge or a divider among you?" Even when solicited for a favour in his own kingdom, how careful was he to disclaim the honour of selection! "It is not mine to give, save unto those for whom it is prepared of my Father." How anxious to impress on his disciples that he came "not to destroy men's lives, but to save them," "not to condemn (or judge) the world, but that the world through him might be saved"! How different is the character assigned in this treatise to the Son of God! He comes forth armed with all the terrors of law, the mace of the justiciary, and the sword of vengeance. Around his brow we see the fiery judgments of the ancient law; his voice is heard in the thunder of Sinai, and the lightning that scathes the sinner in the visitations of an angry providence flashes from his eye. It is strange to observe how the author contrives, by picking out every epithet he can find in the Old and New Testaments expressive of stern justice, moral rectitude, or flaming wrath, and by affixing these on the person of the loving Christ, whom "God sent to bless us," to impart an air of gloomy plausibility to his picture. It is odd to see with what eagerness he pounces upon such a passage as John ix. 39, "For judgment I am come into this world," one of the few instances in which our Lord uses the figure of paradox, the more strongly to express the fearful results of which his mission would become, through the obstinacy of unbelief, the innocent occasion; just as on another occasion he said he came not to send peace on earth, but a sword."

This is certainly not the "Christ whom we preach." Nor, with all our Calvinism, would we like to preach such a gospel either to heathen men abroad or to publicans at home. No; we should aim at keeping the law in its own place, thundering its terrors as of old against the world of the ungodly, but, planting the cross of God's mercy and Christ's merit on the rock of eternal righteousness, we should point the trembling sinner to the loving Saviour, in whose bosom there is no wrath, as there is no guile; from whose lips there comes no curse, but, only blessing; whose reign is that of peace, not of war; whose law is the law of love, and whose gospel, as its name denotes, is purely and simply "glad tidings of great joy which shall be to all people."

But we must bring this review to a close. We meant to have noticed some of the other transcendentalisms in these volumes; but, having pointed out the leading fallacies of the work, we take leave of it, with sincere respect for the piety and talent of the author, but with equally sincere regret that so much piety and talent should have been expended on what we consider to be baseless and erring speculation.

The Danish Hymnology.

ART V.-The Danish Hymnology.

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1. Den danske Psalmedigtning, samlet og ordnet af C. J. Brandt og L. Helveg. 2 Dele. (The Danish Hymnology, Collected and Arranged by C. J. BRANDT and L. HELVEG. In Two Parts.) Copenhagen. 1846-47. 2. Aandelige Sange med Melodier. Af. A. P. Berggreen, Organist ved Trinitatis Kirke. (Sacred Songs with Melodies. By A. P. BERGGREEN, Organist of Trinity Church.) Copenhagen. 1853.

3. Psalmebog til Kirke-og Huus-Andagt. (Psalm-book for Use in Church and Family.) Copenhagen. 1859.

N a recent number of this Review, we had the privilege of

Danish Church, and the prospects which, in the providence of God, seem to be opening up before it. Our readers may perhaps remember that we then incidentally promised to revert on an early occasion to a kindred subject, and give some short account of the noble hymnology of Denmark. That promise we now proceed to redeem, confident that in the discussion of such a topic there will be found not a little both to instruct and interest. At all events, the theme has the charm of freshness and novelty to recommend it. The grand hymnology of the German Lutheran Church has been studied in this country, during late years, with ever-increasing care and ardour; its remarkable merits have been gratefully recoguised and appreciated, and we possess many excellent translations of the masterpieces that so thickly stud its pages. But the Danish hymnology at least every way as rich and beautiful as the German-is almost, if not altogether unknown in England, a fountain sealed of course to the ordinary English reader, and strangely neglected even by the small number who have made the literature of Denmark a matter of special study. This is greatly to be regretted, inasmuch as there are three reasons on account of which the sacred song of the Danish Church is invested with peculiar interest and importance. First, it is very attractive to the general student in connection with the whole literary history of Northern Europe, and, mainly, in connection with the growth of poetry in Denmark. The early day in which the magnificent ballad poetry of that country-than which no nobler productions of the kind exist in any language -sprang into wonderful existence, was succeeded by a long period of intellectual gloom and barrenness, when the power of song lay for the most part dormant, and the Danish people passed through the shadow of mental as well as spiritual death. Now, during all that dreary time of literary torpor, the one redeeming influence was the fresh and vigorous devotional poetry, which preserved the great heart of the people from complete stagnation, and kept alive the legarthic muse, until

she replumed her wings for the new and glorious flight that signalised the great poetic revival in Denmark fifty or sixty years ago. Again, the annals of Danish hymnology illustrate in the most effective manner the annals of the Danish Church. They pour a flood of light on the inward development of that Church throughout successive periods, and serve largely to explain the present phases of Lutheranism, not merely in Denmark, but in the entire Scandinavian north. Danish ecclesiastical history is altogether incomplete without the history of Danish sacred song. And, finally, the merits of the hymnology in question are in themselves at once so numerous and eminent that, apart from either of the two causes already indicated, the sacred poetry of our Danish kindred may well claim investigation and demand admiring regard. As a slight help, therefore, to the study of the subject, the following pages may not be without their use.

With various striking resemblances, the Danish and German hymnologies present one broadly marked point of distinction. This is found in the objective character of the former, and the subjective character of the latter. Doubtless such is only a general rule applying relatively to the two; like every general rule, it has its exceptions; and just as in the devotional poetry of the Danes we meet with occasional fine specimens of what may be styled subjective hymn-writing, so in that of the Germans we frequently encounter verses in which the purely objective tone prevails. But we think that the general principle holds good, and we believe that it can be easily established and corroborated by a careful comparison of both hymnologies. Now, the fact thus stated, that the church song of Germany, with the exception of the psalms of Luther, and a few others, is mainly subjective and lyric in its nature, while the Danish is far rather historic and epic-lyric, has its ground in fundamental national diversities, for nothing is so rare as the production of purely lyric poems, whether of secular or religious character, in Denmark and in Norway. The epic key-note in the religious poems of these two countries may be traced through the poetical remains of the middle ages, the echoes of the old ballad-poetry that occur in the century of the Reformation, and also the Icelandic psalms; but, first rightly full of power, it breaks forth in the verses of him who was the true father of Danish hymnology, the celebrated Bishop Kingo. Through some of the poems of Brorson, an author otherwise pre-eminently lyrical, and through those of Nordahl Brun, Boye, and Ingemann, is ever heard the same epic ground-tone, until, in loudest and most perfect volume, it resounds from the harp of Grundtvig.

It may be necessary, however, more clearly to explain our