liberty and responsibility. It admits nothing as sin except to the consciousness and apprehension of the sinner. And the personal immortality of the soul it repudiates-i. e., his system leads to its rejection; but out of deference to Christ, it is admitted as a fact. With him the Divine Being, as such, is the one hidden God; the Trinity is the manifested God; the Father is God as manifested in the world; the Son, God as manifested in Christ; and the Spirit, God as manifested in the church. With this view of the Trinity a corresponding view of the person of Christ is necessarily connected. The world is one manifestation of God, God in one form; the human race, a higher manifestation of God; which manifestation, imperfect in Adam and his posterity, is perfected in Christ; the creation begun in the former is completed in the latter. Christ is the ideal man, and, as God and man are one, Christ is God. There are not two natures in Christ but one only, a divine nature which is truly human. As men are partakers of the imperfect nature of Adam, they are redeemed by partaking of the perfect nature of Christ, and thus the incarnation of God is continued in the church. Hence follows subjective justification, and rejection of the doctrines of the atonement and regeneration by the Holy Spirit, as matters of course.*

As Dr Bushnell adopts Schleiermacher's view of the Trinity, he naturally adopts his doctrine as to the person of Christ. In Christ there is but one nature; that nature is divine, "the real divinity;" it is also truly human, God in human flesh is a perfect man. He becomes incorporated in the history of our race, and thus redemption is effected. All this we have on page 149 and elsewhere. "If God," says our author, "were to inhabit such a vehicle [i. e., a human person], one so fellow to ourselves, and live himself as a perfect character into the biographic history of the world, a result would follow of ast great magnificence as the creation of the world itself, viz., the incorporation of the Divine in the history of the world-so a renovation, at last, of the moral and religious life of the world. If now the human person will express more of God than the whole created universe besides-and it certainly will more of God's feeling and character-and if a motive possessing as great consequence as the creation of the world invites him to do it, is it more extravagant to believe that the Word will become flesh, than that the Word has become, or produced in time, a material universe?" According to this passage, the Word or God became a material universe; (i. e., became objective to himself in the world, we suppose). In the same sense he be

Schleiermacher's Glaubenslehre, §§ 299–328. Dorner's Christologie (Stuttgart, 1839) pp. 487-529.

came flesh, and was a "perfect character," or a perfect man. As such he became biographically, historically, or organically (all these expressions are used), connected with our race. The Divine was thus incorporated in the history of the world; or in other words, the incarnation of God is continued in the church. This incorporation, or incarnation, is the source of the renovation of the moral and religious life of the world. All this agrees with Schleiermacher to a tittle.

In accordance with this same theory are such expressions as the following, which are of frequent occurrence through the work:-"The highest glory of the incarnation, viz., the union signified and historically begun, between God and man."-(P. 156). Christ is "an integral part, in one view, of the world's history, only bringing into it, and setting into organic union with it, the eternal life." "God manifested in the flesh-historically united with our race" (p. 165); and all the other cant phrases of the day, which are designed and adapted to ensnare "silly women," male and female.

We think we have made out our case. Dr Bushnell's book in our poor judgment is a failure. It pulls down but does not erect. He attacks and argues against the doctrines of the Trinity, Incarnation, and Atonement, and after all acknowledges not only that they are taught in Scripture, but that we are forced by the constitution or necessities of our nature to conceive of them in their scriptural form. He mixes up in his volume the most incongruous materials. He is rationalist, mystic, pantheist, Christian, by turns, just as the emergency demands. He is extravagant to the extreme of paradox. He adopts, on all the subjects he discusses, the long exploded heresies of former centuries, and endeavours to cover them all with the gaudy mantle of the new philosophy. His mysticism spoils his rationalism, and his philosophy spoils his mysticism, and is then, in its turn, spoiled by having its essential element left out. Instead of a real Trinity he gives us a threefold appearance. Instead of Emmanuel, God manifest in the flesh, he gives us a Christ which is either a mere expression thrown on the dark canvass of history, or a being who is neither God nor man. Instead of a true propitiation, he bids us behold a splendid work of art! These are the doctrines which, he says, "live in their own majesty," and for which he predicts a triumph which finds its appropriate prefiguration in nothing short of the resurrection of the Son of God!-(P. 116.) For the honour of our race we hope that such a book as this is not about to turn the world upside down.

We have reserved to the close of our review a remark, which was the first to occur to us on a perusal of these Discourses. Dr Bushnell forgets that there are certain doctrines so settled

by the faith of the church, that they are no longer open questions. They are finally adjudged and determined. If men set aside the Bible, and choose to speak or write as philosophers, then of course the way is open for them to teach what they please. But for Christians, who acknowledge the Scriptures as their rule of faith, there are doctrines which they are bound to take as settled beyond all rational or innocent dispute. This may be regarded as a Popish sentiment; as a denial of the right of private judgment, or an assertion of the infallibility of the church. It is very far from being either. Does, however, the objector think that the errors of Romanism rest on the thin air, or are mere grotesque forms of unsubstantial vapour? If this were so, they could have neither permanence nor import. They are all sustained by an inward truth, which gives them life and power, despite of their deformities. It is as though a perfect statue had been left under the calcareous drippings of a cavern, until deformed by incrustations; or, as if some exquisite work of art, in church or convent, had been so daubed over by the annual whitewasher, or covered by the dust of centuries, as to escape recognition; but which, when the superincumbent filth is removed, appears in all its truth and beauty. The truth which underlies and sustains the Romish doctrine as to the authority of the church in matters of faith, is this: The Holy Spirit dwells in the people of God, and leads them to the saving knowledge of divine things; so that those who depart from the faith of God's people, depart from the teachings of the Spirit, and from the source of life. The Romish distortion of this truth is, that the Holy Ghost dwells in the Pope, as the ultramontanists say; or in the bishops, as the Gallican theologians say, and guides him or them into the infallible knowledge of all matters pertaining to faith and practice. They err both as to the subjects and objects of this divine guidance. They make the rulers of the external church to be its recipients, and its object to render them infallible as judges and teachers. Its true subjects are all the sincere people of God, and its object is to make them wise unto salvation. The promise of divine teaching no more secures infallibility than the promise of holiness secures perfection in this life. There is, however, such a divine teaching, and its effect is to bring the children of God, in all parts of the world, and in all ages of the church, to unity of faith. As an historical fact, they have always and every where agreed in all points of necessary doctrine. And, therefore, to depart from their faith, in such matters of agreement, is to renounce the gospel. In some cases it be difficult to determine what the true people of God have in all ages believed. This is an historical fact, which evinces itself more or less distinctly, as all other facts of history do. In

may

many cases, however, there is and can be no reasonable doubt about the matter; and the doctrines which Dr Bushnell discusses and discards, viz., the Trinity, Incarnation, and Atonement, are precisely those in which their agreement is most certain and complete. It is high time, therefore, it should be universally agreed among Christians, that the rejection of these doctrines, as determined by the faith of the church, is the rejection of Christianity, and should be so regarded and treated. Let sceptics and philosophers teach what they please, or what they dare, but it is surely time to have some certain ground in Christianity, and to put the brand of universal reprobation on the hypocritical and wicked device of preaching infidelity in a cassock.

Dr Bushnell is like a man who, wearied with the obscurity or monotony of a crowded ship, jumps overboard, determined to scull single-handed his little boat across the ocean. Or, he is like a man who should leave the ark to ride out the deluge on a slimy log. Such madness excites nothing but commiseration. It is evident Dr Bushnell does not fully understand himself. He is lost, and therefore often crosses his own path; and it is to be hoped that much of the error contained in his book has not got real or permanent possession of his mind. He is a poet, and neither a philosopher nor theologian; a bright star, which has wandered from its orbit, and which must continue to wander, unless it return and obey the attraction of the great central orb-God's everlasting Word.

ART. V.-History of the Old Covenant. By J. H. KURTZ. Vol. I. Berlin, 1840, 8vo, pp. 301.*

AMONG the most interesting and important questions arising in connection with the study of the Old Testament is that which concerns its relation to the New. This, too, is confessedly one of the most difficult and disputed questions in biblical interpretation; and upon which as various and conflicting theories have been entertained as upon any other. The difficulty lies in the details, and in the attempt to give accurate definitions and lay down precise rules. In the general it is very plain that the Old Dispensation was preparatory to the New, and prophetic of it. But there is much that is vague and intangible about such a statement. And it is when we come to ask after its limits, and to fix with exactness its mean

* Geschichte des Alten Bundes von Job. Heinr. Kurtz. u. s. w. VOL. II.-NO. I.

I

ing, when we come to inquire definitely to what extent, in what sense, and in how large a part of it the Old Testament is prophetic of Christ, or preparatory for his coming and work, that we begin to discern the difficulties with which the subject is encompassed.

That there are in the Old Testament both predictions and types of a coming Messiah, is very clear. That it awakened among the Jews long before the advent expectations of his coming-expectations which were shared wherever the Scriptures were circulated, is matter of history. The unquestionable authority of the New Testament too, both by express declarations and by frequent implication, requires us to believe that Moses and the prophets wrote of Christ. The general position, therefore, that Christ is spoken of in the Old Testament is impregnable. But how far is he to be found there?

If we admit nothing to be written respecting Christ, but those specific statements of the prophets made ex professo respecting a personal Messiah, we shall find indeed only scattered intimations of him here and there. He will not even thus be banished from the Old Testament; but he will be confined to comparatively a very small compass in that portion of Holy Scripture. Some works-able and useful works, too, and carrying the weight of invincible demonstration with themwhich have been written to show how the prophecies have been fulfilled in our Redeemer, have yet, we fear, to some extent weakened the cause which they undertook to maintain, by allowing the impression to be silently left upon the mind, that it is only or mainly in isolated predictions scattered here and there, that Jesus is to be found. It ought to be brought distinctly out that these are only a part, and a very inconsiderable part of the testimony there contained; that the doctrine of the Messiah does not rest merely upon disconnected proof-texts, however numerous or explicit; but only that in them there comes more prominently into view what the whole drift and current of Old Testament Scripture equally conspires to

teach.

The student of the Old Testament, from reasons which have already been alluded to, cannot be long engaged in its study before arriving at the conviction that Christ is foretold there. There are predictions and types which are so clear as upon their bare inspection to compel instantly this conclusion. But after reaching this point, it will not be long before he is compelled to take another step, and admit that these explicit predictions of a Messiah and these manifest types are not the only things which speak of him. He will find it impossible upon any satisfactory and consistent principles to limit the Messianic contents of Scriptures exclusively to these. All the