till they shall have fairly met and answered the contemporary testimony of disinterred Assyria. It would have been interesting, had space allowed, or had a fair opportunity been presented by our present subject, to have discussed with Bunsen, on his own grounds, some of the questions which he has raised. We should like to inquire, how a philosophical historian can determine Egypt's place in universal history, when he can find no other nation to place beside or near itwhen there is literally no other history, and its own monuments "supply neither history nor chronology?" We should like also to ask, how, since the history of Egypt is divided into three great epochs, as he asserts, of which the middle is historically and chronologically an entire, impassable chasm-how a commencing date can be given to the first human empire, not only as unapproachably beyond that chasm, but as resting on no firmer basis than astronomical cycles, and fabulous reigns and dynasties of gods and demigods? Further, we should earnestly inquire, in what manner philological criticism, even as learned German scholars use it, can positively determine the history of the most remote and dateless antiquity, whether in the absence of other languages, or in opposition to the information which they afford? And we venture to say, that not a few of the assertions made by that boasted higher criticism could be shown to be alike unphilosophical, unphilological, and unhistorical, the gorgeous visions of halfdreaming theorists.

We must, however, hasten to a close, as we have already gone beyond our intended limits, though we have little more than touched a number of points which would have deserved a much ampler treatment. In concluding, we may be permitted. to recall the attention of our readers to the view suggested at the outset. From the time when the Assyrian discoveries were laid before the public, we have watched their progress with intense and increasing interest. It was easy to perceive that they would have an important bearing on Scripture truth; and though we never entertained a doubt that the result would ultimately be entirely in favour of the Bible, yet we were anxious about its more immediate effect. Our anxiety was increased when we thought of the very loose state of public opinion regarding the inspiration and authenticity of the historical books of the Old Testament, and how readily men would adopt any theory that ancient inscriptions seemed to give, in preference to what is contained in that divinely inspired record. To this was added our deep conviction that the characteristics of the present age are those of rapidly advancing change, vast, farreaching, and fraught with inestimable good, or unutterable evil, to futurity. These changes will come; their elements are

NO. VI.

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already working; but we think we can now descry the introduction of influences destined to mould and guide them to a happy issue. Let the reader again mark attentively and thoughtfully the peculiarity of the juncture in which these discoveries have taken place, in connection with the nature of the discoveries themselves, as we have endeavoured to state them.

For some time past the opponents of Scripture have directed their attacks generally against the authenticity of the books of Moses, and the other historical portions of the Bible, being persuaded, doubtless, that if they could destroy the authority of the Word of God as history, and thereby get quit of its facts, it would not be difficult, in a secular-minded and materialistic age like the present, to depreciate all its doctrinal statements, when thus bereft of any basis of facts to rest upon. In this they seem to have thought they had succeeded, so far, at least, as to be at liberty to deal with it as they pleased, and to treat all its records as a series of mythic legends. Having thus resolved the religious system of the Bible into the merely temporary forms assumed by the "religious consciousness" of a past age, to which it was suitable enough, though now worn out and useless, they began to put on an air of great importance, and to talk about the necessity of constructing a new religion, which should be suited to the demands and exigencies of this enlightened age. Were it possible that such an attempt should succeed, the consequence would be, that it would infuse into the heart of an age of transition a false and deadly principle, which could issue in nothing but increased evil, and utter ruin. But Divine Providence appears to have determined otherwise. In spite of historical and philological criticism of the high a priori order, and in spite of myths and metaphysical mysticism, the historical basis of the Old Testament Scriptures has been confirmed in a manner and to a degree which may bid defiance to all the attempts of all present and future advocates of infidelity or scepticism. Evidence, at least disinterested, and actually contemporaneous, has unexpectedly appeared. On a sudden the Pharaohs of ancient Egypt have rolled off their hieroglyph-encrusted swathes, and the Assyrian monarchs have reappeared in serenely majestic sternness, attesting by their visible presence, and the indelible records of their times, the terrible reality of the events recorded in Scripture, and proclaiming from their long-silent tombs that Moses and Isaiah had spoken nothing but the truth. By such testimony the dreamy theories of speculative mysticism must needs be dispelled, and the Bible maintained in its rightful supremacy, as a divinely recorded, and, therefore, divinely true history of the world; given to man, not for the gratification of antiquarian curiosity, but for the infinitely higher pur

pose of revealing to him the principles by which alone human conduct, private or public, individual or national, can be regulated in accordance with the moral government of God. Thus it is, as we believe, that God is infusing into the heart of this transition age, by the confirmed authority of the Bible, those principles of eternal truth which will not only outlive all the convulsions that may occur, but will also reconstruct society on a firmer and more extended basis than has ever hitherto been known, preparatory for a full development and prolonged duration of the royal law of liberty, civil and religious, guided and sanctioned by the word and will of the King Eternal.

ART. VI.-Augustus Neander, his Influence, System, and various Writings.

NEANDER'S greatness, notwithstanding the large space he fills in the eyes of mankind, is not justly entitled to be called a rounded or well-proportioned greatness. With many excellencies, he has his faults. Nor are those faults so slight or unimportant, as to be merged in the splendour of his pre-eminent services. When errors, and especially the errors of great and good men, impinge on Scriptural doctrines of importance, we cannot say, and indeed it would be full of dangerous consequence to say, that we accept their spiritual excellence as a balance of their faults. In two different spheres, Neander's eminence is very unequal. He is so deficient in full-orbed completeness, when viewed from two different and dissimilar points, that it will be necessary, if we would discriminate his merits with perfect justice, to distinguish between the same man as the theologian, and as the historian of the church. In his capacity of theologian, it is impossible to assign Neander a commanding, or even a high place. And his admirers in this and in other lands, who defer to him as an authority in this respect, do a real injury to his memory, as well as involve themselves in a mistake, which those who belong to churches of the German tongue, and who have the means of correcting their mistakes upon the spot, instinctively avoid. It will be incumbent on us in the sequel to review his general principle. But whether we have to exhibit his opinions in detail, or to delineate the dangers of that unregulated subjectivity to which he attached himself as a general tendency, it is impossible, we think, for any one not to take grave exception, and that

in not a few respects, to his peculiar views. He is, in truth, not the theologian but the historian. And the very qualities which in every way fitted him for history, disqualified him, without very large modifications and corrections, for theology. He is not the Calvin or the Owen of theology, whose rising infuses general confidence, and whose stately movements impress on others the conviction that they are revolving in an orbit which is safe, and where a sort of centripetal and centrifugal force is operating from opposite sides to preserve them from extremes, or even from grazing on the boundaries at any point. Neander is not the Owen, but the Baxter, of modern theology. To the latter, indeed, he bore, both as a man and as a divine, no small resemblance. In their eminent holiness, in their practical yet highly speculative turn, in their subjective tendency and unbalanced theology, in their love of Christ and singular usefulness to their generation, as well as in their readiness to make compromises, concessions, and adjustments in the domain of proper doctrine, they may at least be classified among minds of the same family.

It is in his capacity of historian of the church that Neander mainly deserves attention; and future ages, we are persuaded, will regard him in no other light. In this department he readily asserted his natural place, and the churches of Germany acknowledged that it was a place which none disputed. with him. Without any effort of his own, he took the position which properly belonged to him, and that, too, a place of preeminence, which the whole Christian church now joyfully concedes to him. Neander always seems to us to have lived with his living Lord, through the successive lapse of ages, more than any man ever did. The power of his descriptions is great, but it is rather a spiritual than an artistic power. History in his hands becomes a testimony to that divine life which glorifies one age after another. And the reader is never allowed to forget that he is in the presence of the living Redeemer, along the whole line of those manifestations of himself which have been brought to light through the flight of time. This impression is not produced by Neander, as it is unsuccessfully attempted to be produced by Milner, by means of general reflections appended to the narrative, and artificially attached to it. In Neander it is not made by art, but grows, as it were, by nature. What Milner crudely attempts to do by moralising reflections, grows naturally in the other out of the deeds, the words, the writings, the missionary activity, the general movements of the living agents who are presented to us in the

*See Neander's beautiful essay on Richard Baxter, whom he calls, the man "der wahrhaft rechten mitte," among his Gelegenheits schriften, pp. 54-92, of "das eine und mannichfaltige." Berlin: 1840.

various scenes. History has thus, in Neander's mode of writing it, become a speaking evidence* of the divine transforming power of Christianity, a school of Christian experience, and a voice of edification, instruction, and warning, resounding through centuries to all who have an ear to hear.

These qualities were fully and at once acknowledged as epochmaking in the department of church history. Neander made, moreover, a new use of documents, and of original sources, without which indeed he never wrote. He ransacked these records with the eye and heart of a spiritual man, and then emphatically spoke out as the historian what he there discovered in its bearing on the general movements, the minute details, or the prominent features of that age which he described. Long before his death, he enjoyed, in this peculiar walk, a well-earned distinction which outshone all modern competitors, and rendered him the only writer who could be compared with Mosheim, whose labours in the past century emphatically gave church history not only a new form, but a new foundation. Mosheim and Neander, the twin stars of this firmament, occupy at this moment a position which is likely, we think, to be maintained, not to pale or to diminish through a long tract of time. Alike in some respects, they are in others quite dissimilar. In thorough research, and in a conscientious examination of the proper matter of history, they possess much in common. In that historical acumen which sits in judgment on the different sources of information, which appreciates their proper value, and which puts an end to uncertainty, they may be viewed as equal. In that comparing or penetrating glance, which apprehends the spiritual or moral elements which come upon the scene in detail, Neander, as is to be supposed from his spiritual character, is vastly superior to Mosheim. On the other hand, in that comprehensive view which sums up the systematic element of any ecclesiastical phenomenon, Mosheim, we think, is quite superior; for he is natural, while the other, in his combinations or setting of different parts, is to our mind far too artificial. The broad distinguishing peculiarity of each, however, may perhaps be most explicitly defined when we say, that Mosheim's mode of writing history is marked by objectivity, Neander's by subjectivity. Accordingly, Mosheim furnishes a highly correct narrative of the visible church, and of its movements; whereas Neander traces chiefly the living church of Christ, though doing ample justice to the visible church. Neander's history, in delineating the spiritual elements of successive ages, has, we always feel, its firm foundation on Christian biography, which was for a considerable time his only mode of writing, and which is indelibly imprinted on his * Vide the well known words of the preface to the first edition of his history,