a deep tinge of Hebrew, could not fail to impart a strong colouring to any new language they might be led to employ. The chief type of the Palestinian Greek was the Septuagint, which, as a translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, retained and communicated no little of the impress of the Hebraic style of thought and utterance. Conjointly with this influential work, various apocryphal writings in a kind of Jewish or Alexandrine Greek, combined to form the general characters of the Greek of the New Testament. Greatest, however, and most durable, was the impress received in the mould formed by the writers of the New Testament themselves, who as having from their youth up been trained in and imbued with Hebrew ideas, associations, and phraseology, could not fail to impart to the expression of their thoughts a decided and lasting tinge of Hebraism, whatever modifications their educational opinions might have undergone, and whatever was the outward dress in which they clothed their thoughts and feelings. Hence the New Testament in general has a Hebrew or Aramaic colouring, in parts of a deeper, in parts of a fainter shade.

It is thus seen that the Greek of the New Testament differs from the pure model in two essential characters;-first, it is taken from a foreign and corrupt dialect of Greek, and chiefly from that dialect as used in conversation; secondly, it is pervaded by a broad and deep Hebrew element derived from several quarters. This last is in some instances so predominant, that we have Hebrew, or Aramaic, thoughts and forms of expression in Greek characters. Mary's hymn of triumph, for instance, in Luke i. 46-79, is so thoroughly Hebraic, that it might almost, term for term, be turned into Hebrew words. Not only in general effect does the style of the New Testament, espe cially Matthew's Gospel, betray marks of its Aramaic origin, but in words also, constructions, and modes of expression, for the right and full comprehension of which, familiarity with the elder Scriptures in the original is indispensable. The union of the several peculiarities of style to which we have now referred, forms what critics, with no great precision, have denominated Hellenistic Greek, on the ground that the Jews who spoke Greek bore the name of Hellenistai.

It might have been expected that, as the Romans were, in the age of Jesus and his apostles, masters of Palestine, the Latin tongue would have left a general impression on the language of the New Testament. But the Greek was the recognised language of literature and social intercourse, and prevalent in all parts of the civilised world, while as yet Latin was merely the language of civil and military despotism. Holding for many years

military possession of Palestine, the Romans, however, could not fail to set in circulation words and modes of expression, while even their Greek wore a somewhat Latinised form. A few instances of Latin terms and idioms present themselves in the New Testament, but they bear a very small proportion to the Hebraisms of word, thought, expression, and construction, which there abound.

These qualities, characterising the language of the later Scriptures, afford a strong, if not decisive, evidence that these writings first appeared within the first century of the Christian era. An earlier age no one has ventured to claim for them; a later age can hardly be assigned; for in the second century the Romans had no longer personal intercourse with the inhabitants of Palestine and the authorities of the Jewish metropolis; and the ever-augmenting corruption of the WesternAramæan would have carried the style of the New Testament farther from that of the Septuagint and the Greek Apocrypha, and nearer to rabbinical Hebrew. In the first century and then only, and in that century during the time when the Jewish temple and polity were still erect, but under the yoke of Rome, were the influences in active and combined operation that gave birth to the altogether peculiar style of language in which are found the earliest written records and memorials of the Christian religion.

LANTERNS (L. laterna) is the rendering, in John xviii. 3, of the Greek phanos, which Lücke interprets as meaning 'torches,' taking the next word, lampades, 'torches,' for lanterns. Instruments of the kind appear to have formed a part of the equipments of soldiers in marches and attacks by night. The Egyptian ruins fail here to supply certain illustration, though this cut seems to pre sent a lantern which is held by one of a military guard.

The view has special interest when considered in relation to John xviii. 3. The ne

cessity for the employment of lights by the soldiers who apprehended Jesus arose, first, from its being night-time (Mark xiv. 27. John xiii. 30); and secondly, though the full moon then (at the Passover) shone, yet its light, specially in the deep shadows in the ravine on the western side of Olivet, would be insufficient to enable the guard to distinguish features and be sure they had seized the right person. Besides, for aught they knew, Jesus might have hidden himself in some house, or behind the trees of the garden. LANGUISH (L. languesco, I grow weak') is the appropriate rendering, in Is. xxiv. 4, of a word which signifies, and is elsewhere (Ezek. xvi. 30) rendered by,' weak,' or 'feeble' (1 Samuel ii. 5). It is applied also to things to denote their fading and wasting away (Is. xvi. 8. Joel i. 10, 12. Nah. i. 4).

LASCIVIOUSNESS (L. lascivia - laaus, looseness,' 'licentiousness') is, in Ephes. iv. 9, used of a person who gives the reins to his passions; hence the word is sometimes equivalent to 'lust;' so in Rom. xiii. 13, where the common version gives 'wantonness.' The view taken by the gospel of this disgraceful vice may be found in Gal. v. 19, seq.

LAODICEA (G.) is a name borne by several ancient cities, of which that mentioned in the New Testament lay near the borders of Phrygia and Lydia, on the river Lycus, about sixty miles east of Ephesus, eighteen west of Colossæ, and nearly the same distance south of Hierapolis. The place, named at an earler period Diospolis, then Rhoas, was called Laodicea, in honour of Laodice, wife of the Syrian king, Antiochus II., who impiously bore the name of deus, 'god.' Laodicea was for a long time a place of small importance; but at the commencement of the Christian era, it held a high position both in commerce and riches. In the year 66 A. D., it, together with Colossa and Hierapolis, suffered from an earthquake. It was rebuilt under Marcus Aurelius, but never regained its lost greatness.

Connected with the name of this city an epistle is mentioned, in Coloss. iv. 16, as the (letter) from Laodicea;' that is, 'sent from Laodicea;'-by Paul? But was Paul ever in the place? (ii. 1). Compare i. 387. It may be held that the letter in question was one which Paul had sent to the Laodicean church, and which the Colossians were to receive from Laodicea; it being, it may be supposed, a circular letter designed to pass from church to church in Asia Minor, where were several Christian communities.

LASEA, a place on the eastern side of the island of Crete, to which, on his voyage to Rome, Paul came after having passed the promontory of Salmone and the Fair Havens, and which, therefore, could not have lain far from Gortyna, the ancient name for which, namely Larissa, may be made out from the

various readings in the manuscripts. Hence, possibly, Larissa may have been the word written by the historian. If so, the difficulty arising from the fact that Lasea is not men tioned in any other ancient writing, disappears.

LAST DAY. See JUDGMENT.
LATIN. See LANGUAGE.
LATTICE. See CASEMENT.

LAVER (L. lavo, I wash'), a round, large brass bowl, standing on a leg and base also brazen, made of the women's brazen mirrors (Exod. xxxviii. 8), which was placed on the left of the altar of burnt-offering, in the fore-court of the sanctuary, in order to afford the priests means for washing their hands and feet before they proceeded to perform their sacred office (Exod. xxx. 18, seq.; xl. 7, 11).

In Solomon's temple, instead of this laver, was a sea of molten brass, with ten bases of brass, adorned with figures of lions, oxen, and cherubim (1 Kings vii. 23, seq.; comp. 2 Chron. iv. 6). Ahaz removed the laver itself from the supporting oxen, and placed it on a pavement of stones (2 Kings xvi. 17). It is possible that a restoration was effected by Hezekiah; for among the sacred utensils carried to Babylon, oue sea and the bases which Solomon had made,' are mentioned (2 Kings xxv. 16). The second temple had one laver of brass, to which a certain person, named Ben Katin, caused to be applied not only twelve, instead of two cocks, which there had been before, but also a special contrivance for supplying and letting off the water. In his description of the Herodian temple, Josephus (Jew. War, v. 5) does not mention this reservoir.

The

LAW (T. lagen, 'I lay'), according to the etymological meaning of the term, denotes that which is laid down or appointed, that is by a competent authority, and so is the expression of the will of a superior, who as being a superior must be presumed to be distinguished either by power, or by that wisdom and goodness which are the only sources of true and lasting power. Law is, therefore, the ordinances of supreme intelligence. As being such, it is a system not of arbitrary appointments, but of those regulations and behests which, in regard to

the agencies concerned and the aims pursued, are, in view of final as well as immediate consequences, the fittest and most effectual in the judgment of the lawgiver. The laws of God are therefore his ordinances for the furtherance of his wise and benevolent purposes. Consequently, obedience on the part of man is enforced no less by an enlightened self-interest than by the most solemn and impressive obligations. And the laws of God, as the emanations of his own infallible intelligence, are the ministers of his good pleasure, not bonds imposed by

They

some unknown power of destiny. also comprehend what is sometimes called 'the laws of nature,' for nature is nothing else than that which is ever being born (nascor-natus naturus-'I come into being') or produced of the great Producer or Creator, that is, God. Hence appears the radical absurdity of the phrase, 'laws of nature,' when employed as a producing or creating power. Law produces nothing, but is produced; and laws of nature' is a form of speech which has no meaning, unless it signify the modes of the Divine agency, the measures of Creative power, the ordinances of Providence; or, in regard to created beings, the course of conduct which it is God's will that they should observe.

Law is an abstraction, to which it is clear men could not rise in the earlier periods of the world. Society must have existed some time before the elements came into being out of which the idea was formed. Hence we gain a measure of the degree of civilization possessed by ancient peoples. And hence we are justified in inferring that the Bible, in its earliest pages, was a consequence of divine revelation, and not a product of a relatively high degree of culture; for the essence of what constitutes law is found in its opening narratives. Superficial thinkers have, indeed, stumbled at particulars there recorded, as if to abstain from eating forbidden fruit might not be a test of obedience equally as well as the refusal of a crown. In the account, however, we find a divine command given to man, accompanied with a penalty to be inflicted on its being broken.

The prohibition is disregarded, and punishment ensues; yet not without a promise of better things to come. In these simple facts is an epitome of the Bible, which is in truth a sacred book, for this, if for no other reason, that its great aim from first to last is to make God's laws universally obeyed, and so to bring peace on earth and prepare the way for pure and eternal spiritual good.

In the promotion of his own wise and benevolent designs, the Creator of the universe has furnished his intelligent creatures with sufficient light in all ages and in all nations (Acts xiv. 17; xvii. 23, seq. Rom. i. 20, seq.; ii. 12-15), while to the lineal and spiritual descendants of faithful Abraham he communicated special instructions, in order that the light thus given might be spread throughout the world (Genesis xii. 3). This publication of law was at the first made to individuals-for instance, the patriarchs yet with a view to its communication to others; but in due time, when a people had been made fit to be its depositary, God's will was through Moses made known to the children of Israel, that they might embody it in their national institutions and national life. The declaration

of that will was denominated law,' or the law,' thorah. The term, signifying instruction,' serves of itself to show the nature of the communication, as being addressed to human intelligence. The remark is the more necessary, because with our higher conception of law in general, and the nobler principle of Christianity, whose tendency it is to make every man obedient by love, we are, in looking back on the law of Moses, too much inclined to see in it only a mass of arbitrary and unmeaning requirements imposed by sovereign power. In truth, the legis lation of Moses was for its time the expression of the highest social and political wisdom, and we speak not unadvisedly when we add, that it contains features in the application of the spirit of which advantage might even yet be found.

The terms law,' 'law of Moses,' 'law of Jehovah,' denote in the Old Testament the Mosaic economy in general, as well as particular portions or enactments of it; without, however, involving any systematic division into parts, according to the nature of the requirements and observances; for the whole Mosaic legislation was, according to the manner of a primitive age, of too simple a character, and was given too much as circumstances arose-too much, so to say, by piecemeal and unpremeditatedly—to admit of any exact arrangement. It is only, therefore, as a matter of convenience that we can give entire acquiescence to divisions made in later days. Such a division is that which finds in the general system bearing the name of law, I. the moral law; II. the ceremonial law; III. the civil law. Of these collectively the foundation is the great spiritual doctrine which sets forth in Jehovah the absolute, self-existent, almighty and eternal Being, Creator of heaven and earth, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as the God of Israel (Exod. vi. 2; xiii. 5; xix. 3, seq.; xx. 2, seq.). Here the universal Lord enters into a peculiarly close relation with the Hebrew race, involving special communications of light from himself, and peculiar duties on the part of that people. Hence also it appears that Mosaism was not a new religion, but a development of the patriarchal. Its founder built his church on pre-existent materials such as established and recognised truths, prescriptive usages, and venerable recollections, making this great truth the corner-stone of the edifice, namely, 'Hear, O Israel, Jehovah is our God, Jehovah is one' (Deut. vi. 4). Doctrine leads to morais. If Jehovah is the God of Israel, Israel belongs to Jehovah. Hence, in the fullest sense of the term, every Hebrew was God's. Obedience was an obvious duty. Jehovah, moreover, was the sole Lawgiver and King. His will was emphatically expressed in the Ten Commandments, which formed the germ of the whole polity. As Jehovah was

the sole possessor and master of the nation, so did its members all belong to him-their bodies as well as their minds. If, therefore, he thought fit to allow those bodies to be redeemed, still were the Israelites liable to pay such services as he might require. Thus the civil and the ceremonial law ensued from the great fundamental doctrine so pointedly set forth in the words just cited (Deut. v.). Hence also arose the general equality of all Israelites; and as, under God, they stood on a level, minor distinctions disappearing before the great relation borne to the one Sovereign, Ruler, and Judge, and as this great Being saw fit to give the Israelites a land of their own, in which wealth and power were to be gained by agriculture, so did a division of the land of necessity ensue, tribal and family distinctions were sanctioned and perpetuated, while history was encouraged in the rudiments of genealogical registers, and still more in the records required in the transmission, if not given in the enactment of ceremonial observances. These outward acts were more or less of a symbolical nature. They thus acquired a moral import and value, and rose into importance. It is an error to limit the morality of Mosaisin to the Teu Commandments, though that digest of law will not suffer in comparison with the laws of the Twelve Tables and similar compilations; but to the well-instructed eye of a pious Israelite, every part, every act, every dress, if not every ornament, appears to have conveyed a moral signification, while the whole combined to carry his mind to God, and make him, as a Hebrew, feel himself one of a great spiritual corporation which embodied high spiritual truth, had a high spiritual mission, and was working a great religious and providential work. Viewed in this light, the complexity and minuteness of the ceremonial law acquire importance, and the polity, seen as a whole having great moral aims and tendencies, appears in a favourable light, and reflects high and lasting honour on him from whom it emanated. We are thus led to find a reason and a justification of the veneration in which the law of Jehovah was held by pious Israelites, and can understand how with propriety they could ascribe to it qualities such as those mentioned in Ps. xix. 7, seq."

We have spoken of the law as it was in its ideal state. The actual observance of the people fell far below the aim of the legislator. For many centuries the Hebrew nation manifested idolatrous propensities, and so struck a blow at its vital part. Kings, priests, and people, forgot God, and would for ever have disowned his sovereignty but for the faithful rebukes of prophets. And at a later period, when they were at length weaned from polytheism, they, in their carnal minds, too easily lost from sight the spi

ritual import of the law, which they caused to degenerate into an unmeaning and profitless system of outward observances, loaded with learned errors, grave, trifling, and human traditions. This degeneracy prepared the way for its own dissolution. Yet, like the fabled phoenix, even in its death it gave birth to Christianity. In comparison with the religion of Jesus, the Mosaic law must in the nature of things suffer greatly (Heb. ix. 10). But while such a comparison was, with Paul and other writers of the New Testament, indispensable, it is no less proper, if we would form a just estimate of the older revelation, to contemplate it in relation to the day when, and the immediate purposes for which, it was given; and in doing this, competent judges must be struck with admiration, and will be ready to admit that, as a code of laws, the Mosaic system far surpasses any ancient legislation.

Among the purposes which the law was designed to answer, was so to educate the conscience as eventually to call forth in each one's mind the knowledge of sin (Rom. iii. 20; vii. 7), without which there can be no true turning to God, and no vital change of the heart; in other words, the law is a pre-requisite to the great work effected in the soul by the gospel.

From this as well as from other considerations, we learn the intimate connection in which the law stands with the gospel. This connection, dimly revealed by Moses (Deut. xviii. 15), is explicitly declared in the New Testament (John i. 45; v. 14 Acts iii. 22; vii. 37. Gal. iii. 24). The connection, of necessity, involved both what was durable and what was transitory in the earlier religion; what was durable, because, as coming from God to man, it was founded on everlasting relations and conveyed undecaying truth; what was transitory, because, as designed for an early age, it in part lost its fitness when that age was gone; and, as being preparatory, it ceased to be valid when it had produced its result in something higher than itself. Thus the religion of Moses and that of Jesus are seen to be parts of God's universal providence, which, by that process of transition that is an essential condition of human progress, incessantly causes old things to pass away, and all things to become new (2 Cor. v. 17). And, as constituting an essential link in the chain of Eternal Providence, as having a realised aim in the promotion of God's will on earth, as executing a great work in the process of man's education, as one grand step in the onward progress of our race, the law remains. for ever, and can no more pass away than any other divine ordinance till all be fulfilled, when it will still survive in its benign effects (Matt. v. 18).

In the New Testament, the word law, from a Greek teriu, nomos (hence nome, a portion