of an order of thought which would benumb the vigorous intellectual life of the church, and pledge her to a false science, we would heartily disavow the desire to see the vis inertia of the church suddenly removed, and see her run with itching ears after every new teacher. Let her "prove all things,” and "hold fast that which is good."

Finally, we avow our unhesitating conviction that the apprehended danger to the religious interests of mankind from the discoveries of science is not real. We cannot understand how any one who holds the essential doctrines of Christianity as realities can apprehend any such danger. To say that no permanent damage can accrue to truth, seems to us almost to partake of the nature of an axiom. Science and religion may each one shine with a new and peculiar beauty in each other's light; they cannot obscure or destroy one another. And whilst jarring and discord may reign for a time among those who are struggling through the twilight of that intermediate state between ignorance and perfect knowledge, they will come, in the end, to see eye to eye; and meantime the divine faith of the world will move steadily and surely on, unharmed by the feverish strife-" saevis tranquillus in undis."

XI. BIBLICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS INTELLIGENCE.

UNDER this head we propose from time to time to place before our readers any particulars of recent biblical or ecclesiastical intelligence which seem possessed of peculiar interest or importance. Brief extracts will be given from the leading contemporary periodicals, indicating the views taken from different stand-points of those questions bearing on the sacred Scriptures or the Church of Christ, which happen chiefly to engage attention. Of late, the Colenso controversy has greatly agitated the public mind, and drawn forth expressions of opinion from many different quarters on the vitally important questions which it embraces. Both the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews have, in their last issue, dealt in their own characteristic ways with this new ordeal of criticism through which the Bible has been called to pass. We give the following passages from the two articles to indicate the spirit and style in which they are respectively written, though, of course, without subscribing to all the sentiments which they express.

The "Edinburgh Review" on Inspiration.

Our first extract is from the article in the Edinburgh, entitled, "The Bible and the Church," and embodies the views of the

Arnold school. In reference to the question, "What then exactly are we to understand when the Scriptures are spoken of as inspired?" the following results are declared to be "inevitable” (?):—

"First of all, That it does not by any means follow, because a book is inspired by Almighty God, that it should therefore be faultless, or (to use Dr Arnold's expression) that he should have communicated to it his own divine perfections. The most highly inspired men, such as St Peter, were liable to serious error. Churches and councils, to whom we believe the divine presence to have been in a special manner vouchsafed, 'may err, and have erred, even in matters pertaining to faith.' Nay, in nature herself, where no one can deny the finger of God, imperfection, waste, self-imposed limitation as to variety of type and selection of materials, are obviously consistent with, and to some minds indicative of, the presence and agency of a divine wisdom. Why may it not be so with the Bible? Why may it not be trueand if so, why should it not be recognised-that the Book presents the same characteristics which the best and highest of God's other gifts present, viz., not the mere outward symmetry of a finite and mechanical perfection, but the inward, elastic, and reproductive power of a divine life?

Secondly, It is obvious that the inspiration, the divine Spirit, which breathes throughout this Book is not of a scientific, critical, or historical character, but a distinctly and exclusively religious spirit; that it is in this respect that the gospel is in advance of every succeeding age; that it is to enjoy this effluence from its loved and cherished pages that the pure and good in every generation sit as learners at its feet. If we would but remember this we should escape a host of difficulties; we should thankfully accept the water of life, although presented to us in earthen vessels; and we should certainly never allow ourselves, as some good men have done, to exclaim in peevish disappointment, 'We will not be ministered to by a book which is not in all points perfect and infallible as Almighty God himself.'

Lastly, we conclude that the epithets properly to be applied to the Bible are these, and not more than these, viz., that it is INSPIRED, replete itself, and pregnant without stint for him that rightly uses it, with the spirit of purity, faith, obedience, charity, which forms the essential temper and character of the church and family of God; that it is SACRED, set by itself a book apart, fenced from all levity, irreverence, and mere curious handling; a book worthy, if only for what it has effected in the world, of all possible respect and honour, and regarded with too great awe and love by multitudes of the tenderest, most heavenly and sensitive minds for any one possessed of the commonest sympathy or charity to approach it with the shoes of every-day profanity upon his feet; and once more, that it is CANONICAL, or, in other words, that collection of writings which, amid the multitude of claimants the church has 'canonised,' has deliberately, and after examination, given her sanction to, as her authorised volume of appeal and of instruction, and which so, by a natural transition of meaning, has become her canon, her rule of faith, her standard whereby to test the accordance of men and doctrines with the spirit that is in her, and with that 'mould of doctrine' into which the first apostolic churches were cast.

"And why, it may be asked, should we go farther than this? Why should we be striving and wrestling against inevitable facts, in order to extort a higher, nay, rather an infinitely lower, more unnatural, more mechanical, dead, inelastic, notion of inspiration out of data which positively refuse to lend themselves to such a purpose?"— Edinburgh Review, April 1863.

To this extract we append the following weighty and pertinent remarks from a rising contemporary journal, The Weekly Review,

published in London, which is edited by the well-known writer, Peter Bayne, Esq., and is understood to reflect the views and plead the cause of English Presbyterians.

"We do not comment upon the singular and illogical mingling up in these passages of what the Bible derives from the reverence of individuals, and what, by its intrinsic merit, or its divine credentials, it has imposed upon individuals-upon this marvellous farrago of rationalism, sentimentalism, and popery, which seems to us a positive network of vicious circles in reasoning; but we ask in all calmness, Can this kind of panegyric on the Bible have any essential bearing upon the question, whether it ought to be submitted to as a rule of faith and manners? The Bible claims something of us; it professes to give us something in return. What it demands of us is conformity to its precepts, belief in its principles. To this extent it curtails, while it crowns and develops, the freedom of our intellectual and moral existence. What it gives in return for this faith is certitude in relation to many things which infinitely concern us. Why am I to obey its precepts? On account of its authority. Why am I to believe its promises? On account of their being made by a divine Being, infinite in power, wisdom, justice, goodness, and truth. If I know that the Bible is from the Infinite One, I, a finite being, without degradation to my nature or destruction to my liberty as a man, make its words my law, and its declarations my trust. But if, on the ground of its mere excellence, I veil my intellect before it, and bow my neck to its yoke-if I permit it, in any sense, to limit my speculations or my practice-I make myself a slave. The Koran is imbued with a fanatic enthusiasm, always sincere, and rising at times into religious fervour; the Iliad and Odyssey are enshrined in the admiration of mankind, have been reverenced for more than 2000 years, and abound, not only with the noblest imaginative beauty, but with the greatest simplicities of ethical truth; the Divine Comedy of Dante is an object of wonder and veneration to every man acquainted with it; the tragedies of Hamlet, Mac beth, and Lear produce a feeling almost of awe from the altitude of their intellectual sweep, and from the depth, in some passages, of their moral sublimity. But in relation to all these works I am perfectly free. They claim no allegiance from me, and I accord them none. It would be an absurd mixture of arrogance and folly to extract from them rules according to which it would be my duty to shape my life. It would be the wildest absurdity in me to base a church, or to erect a creed upon them-so long, that is, as I regard them as mere human productions. With reference to the Bible, it is essentially of small moment for me to know whether it is admired by men, whether it is poetical, whether it responds to instincts and cravings. Of all that I shall take the liberty to judge for myself. If the book is to regulate my life in time, and to convey to me truths affecting my weal or woe throughout eternity, I must know whether it bears the stamp of the Most High, the seal and signet of God. To claim my homage to it on any other grounds is to insult my understanding.

"Such, we submit, is the common sense of the matter, as it may be discerned both by Christians and infidels. The grand question of the day is not whether the Bible is a good book, but whether it is God's book; it is mere frivolity and impertinence in the Edinburgh Review to load it with compliments, while evading the point really at issue-whether it has authority from God to bid us humble ourselves before it, and accept only such freedom as that with which it informs us that God will make us free."Weekly Review, June 6. 1863.

The "Quarterly" on "Colenso and Davidson."

"With regard to the great foundation of these theories (viz., of a manifold authorship of the Pentateuch), the alternation of the names Elohim and Jehovah, it is unreasonable to suppose that we can, in every case, assign a reason why one is used in preference to the other. But in many cases the reason is as simple as possible. Dr Colenso has diligently noted the number of times each occurs in the several books of the Pentateuch and the Bible. Now, in Leviticus, where Elohim occurs fifty-two times, and Jehovah 311, there is not a single passage where the latter could possibly be substituted for the former. The Hebrew language does not admit of joining Jehovah with a pronoun, as my or our; in all these cases Elohim must be used. The same is true of the passages in Numbers, with the exception of that portion of the book which relates to Balaam. We think we can discover a reason for the joint use of the two names in the fuller account of the creation of man given in the second chapter of Genesis, on the supposition that Moses wrote it. It is the account of the first covenant of God with man, and the inspired penman desired to mark from the first the identity of the covenant God of Israel and the Creator of the world. From the time of Exodus vi. the word Jehovah becomes the predominant term as a matter of course. When Dr Colenso endeavours to draw an argument from the circumstance that names were usually in early times compounded with Elohim, and not with Jehovah, we see nothing but a perfectly natural development of facts. The names in the desert would naturally all be compounded with the more familiar term; a few might afterwards incorporate the new and more mystical word, but family names would naturally hold possession of the minds of the people for a long period. And this is exactly what meets us in the word of God, if we take it as it is. To meet the theory of the neologists, Joshua and Judges must be declared spurious, nor can any portion of the historical Scriptures be deemed trustworthy! But if we take the word of God as it has descended to us, and study it with reverence, we shall see, as in this case, an answer to much that would embarrass us on any other hypothesis. There appear also traces of an intentional variation in the terms. Where the people of God came in contact with heathenism, there the name Jehovah, although used, as in the case of Balaam, is mixed with other names, as Elohim and Elyon, the Most High. It is remarkable that this latter name is used both by Melchisedec and by Balaam, i.e., by priests and prophets of God beyond the circle of the family of Abraham, and living amongst the heathen. In many cases, as in devotional psalms, it appears to have been permitted to make use of either or of both; and surely we cannot be justified in demanding a reason of the sacred penmen why they use one or the other in every particular case.

"Reflections such as these will rise up in the mind of the devout student of Holy Writ, and will give a clue to much for which neology in vain attempts to supply other reasons. Scripture will bring a divine light to the mind, while neology at best supplies a miserable rushlight or a waning lamp. But the profitable study of Scripture is an affair of years, and not of months. She yields her choicest treasures, not to haste and irreverence, but to humility, to love, and to faith."—Quarterly Review, April 1863.

Did our Lord and His Apostles speak in Hebrew or in Greek?

A very interesting and important question has recently been revived as to the language generally made use of by our Lord and his apostles. The almost universal opinion in the Church, from

Eusebius downwards, has been, that they spoke a mixed dialect, usually denominated Aramaic, and popularly termed Hebrew in the New Testament. On that hypothesis the ipsissima verba of Christ have perished, and we possess in the Greek of the Gospels nothing more than a translation of his words. But this opinion, notwithstanding its lengthened prevalence, is now proved to have been incorrect. This has been placed beyond all reasonable doubt, in a volume lately published by the Rev. A. Roberts, of the Presbyterian Church, St John's Wood, London. The title of this work, "Discussions on the Gospels," does not bring out very specifically its main scope and merit. In this elaborate and scholarly production, Mr Roberts aims to prove, and has succeeded in proving, that although Aramaic may have been used in ordinary converse among the Jews, yet in formal addresses, and in written discourses, the language uniformly employed in the time of our Lord was the Greek. It cannot fail to be interesting to know that in our Greek Testament we have the very words uttered by Him who "spoke as never man spake." It is still more important in a biblical and theological point of view, to feel assured that in the Greek of the Gospels we have the veritable language penned by those "holy men of God who spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." All this has been demonstrated by direct evidence, as well as by a most thorough clearing away of the grounds on which the opposite opinion was based, whether drawn from incidental allusions in Scripture, which seem to favour the notion that Hebrew was the language usually spoken, or from the conjectural reasonings and vague assertions of certain biblical critics.

We give the following extract from an elaborate review of Mr Roberts's work, understood to be from the pen of the celebrated Oxford Professor Max Müller :

"Eusebius declares again and again that the apostles understood no language but that of the Syrians, and in one passage he represents them as replying to their Lord's command to "go and teach all nations" in the following words:-'What language shall we employ towards the Greeks, having been brought up only in the language of the Syrians? It is curious, that on so important a point the ecclesiastical historian should have given us none of the evidence on which he based his categorical statements. But, in spite of this absence of evidence, his statement was accepted by nearly all subsequent writers, and is probably held at the present day by most who have given any thought to the subject. Even independent scholars-men like Thiersch, Ewald, and Renan, who would certainly not be swayed by an unsupported assertion of Eusebius-hold the same opinion. Ewald says, 'It is self-evident that only the generally intelligible language of the country could have served our Lord's purpose. There was no occasion why, besides it, he should have used another; nor do we find the slightest trace of His having employed another-namely, the Greek.' Renan states, We think that the Syro-Chaldaic was the most widely-spread language in Judea, and that Christ would not have used any other in his popular discourses.' We do not wonder that Mr Roberts should have felt awed by these positive assertions, but we are glad that he did not shrink from encountering such antagonists, and that he thought the whole question deserving of a new and minute re-examination. The result at which Mr Roberts arrives is, that 'Christ spoke for the most part in Greek, and only now and then in Ara