vocates for keeping either clergymen or laymen in ignorance of what it is desirable for them to know; but "where ignorance is bliss, it is folly to be wise;" and we should therefore decidedly discourage a taste for the study of Neologian divines, however admirable as critics, in unfledged students. At a future period they may know better how to refuse the evil, and choose the good; though even then it will require great caution, a chastised spirit, and earnest prayer, to commix with such writers without finding the fine edge of Christian feeling blunted by the unhallowed contact. Few men were less open to infidel suggestions than the late Mr. Romaine, yet he remarked that Voltaire often haunt ed him in the pulpit, and that he wished he had never opened his pages. Ministers must be acquainted with error, as apothecaries keep poisons; but let them beware how they try their constitution with deleterious compounds, lest, while they are learning to heal others, they sacrifice themselves. We should add, that it increases the evil that some of the professors and critics we allude to, both French and German, are facetious in their wickedness, and amuse their pupils or readers with very entertaining insults upon the Divine word; so that, even though the critique should be forgotten, the jest will be remembered. Our author, we are persuaded, will concur with us in the spirit of these remarks; and we are indebted to him for the severe gravity with which he has selected his citations; so as to disgust and shock, but never to divert, the most thoughtless reader.

We gladly turn from this painful topic, to notice briefly a few other particulars in our author's first volume.

The whole of the second book is devoted to the important inquiry, What information is afforded concerning the person of the Messiah from the prophetic descriptions of the Old Testament? in discussing which, Dr. Smith treats of the term

Messiah; the expectation early entertained of a great moral Deliverer ; the rules to be observed in applying passages in the Old Testament to this expected Redeemer; and the passages which the author considers as descriptive of him. This last head gives rise to a detailed citation of texts, with critical remarks, many of them highly interesting, and involving considerable research; and the whole presenting such an attestation to Jesus Christ the true Messiah, as we see not how any person can evade, without altogether setting aside the inspiration of the Old Testament. We may differ from our author as to some particular details and criticisms, but the result of the whole is irresistible. We cannot but quote the following summary. Our readers will readily supply the Scriptural references.

"By a careful and impartial analysis, we have endeavoured to obtain the separate result of each leading part of the proracter of the then future Messiah. Those phetic testimony to the person and charesults must now be placed in a connected review.

"A series of prophecies, reaching from the commencement to the close of the ancient dispensations, has exhibited to us a Great Deliverer from evil, originally and repeatedly promised by God, and perpetually the object of the desire, expectation, and hope of the best and most enlightened men, and of those whom the Deity signalized by miraculous communications of his will, to be by them published as his oracles of his righteousness and grace. In the process of those declarations, this great Personage came to be designated by a pre-eminent appropriation of the term, Messiah, to express his excellent qualities and important offices. that the Messiah was to be a real and proper human being; the descendant of Adam, Abraham, and David; in some peculiar sense, the offspring of the woman; the perfectly faithful and devoted servant of God; the messenger, supreme in rank above all others, of Divine authority and grace; a heavenly Teacher, inspired with the fulness of Divine gifts and qualifigiver, who should be the author and cations; the great and universal Lawpromulgator of a new, holy, and happy government over the moral principles, characters, and actions of men; a High model'; the Adviser of the wisest counPriest, after a new and most exalted

"From those sources we have learned,

sels;

the Pacificator and Reconciler of

rebellious man to God, and of men among themselves; the kind and powerful Saviour from all moral and natural evil.

"The Divine Oracles have also informed us that, in the execution of these benevolent purposes, he should undergo the severest sufferings, from the malice of the original tempter, from the ingratitude and disobedience of men, and from the especial circumstance of his devoting himself a voluntary sacrifice to procure the highest benefits to those of mankind who should concur in his plan of mercy and holiness. "They have assured us that, from his deep distresses, he should emerge to glory, victory, and triumph; that he should possess power, authority, and dominion, terrible to his determined adversaries, but full of blessing and happiness to his obedient followers; that he should gradually extend those benefits to all nations; and that his beneficent reign should be holy and spiritual in its nature, and in its duration everlasting.

"The testimony of heaven likewise describes him as entitled to the appellation of Wonderful; since he should be, in a sense peculiar to himself, the Son of God; as existing and acting during the Patriarchal and the Jewish ages, and even from eternity; as the Guardian and Protector of his people; as the proper object of the various affections of piety, of devotional confidence for obtaining the most important blessings, and of religious homage from angels and men.

"That testimony, finally, declares him to be the Eternal and Immutable Being, the Creator, God, the Mighty God, Adonai, Elohim, Jehovah.

"These attributions are made to the Messiah in a remarkable variety of modes, and connected with numerous and diversified relations, bringing into view the perfections, purposes, and acts of the Supreme Nature, so as to be a safe aid in eliciting the sense, and to afford much mutual elucidation." pp. 535-538.

Dr. Smith attaches, and justly, considerable weight to the Divine institution of anointing, in connexion with the predicted Messiah-Christ the Anointed. He shews that this rite was practised under the Jewish dispensation; that a great and exclusive importance was attached to it, for it was employed only in certain cases enumerated; that it implied the idea of peculiar sanctity; and that it was observed upon the ground of Divine institution. All this, assuredly, was not casual, but had direct reference to Him who was set apart to his kingly, his priestly, and his prophetic office, by a DiCHRIST. OBSERV. No. 344.

vine and peculiar dispensation, that He might be a propitiation for the sins of the world.

Our author has a dissertation, which will prove interesting to theological students, on that remarkable peculiarity of the Hebrew language, and its cognate dialect the Chaldee, by which certain plural nouns and attributives are applied to the Divine Being; the plural appellatives, moreover, being joined to singular verbs, pronouns, and adjectives: as in the very first verse of the Bible: "God (Elohim, plural) created " (singular). It has been contended, on various grounds, that this peculiar construction, which has been always relied upon by the orthodox as very important and significative, in fact proves nothing; that it is a mere accident of language, or conventional form of speech, but has no reference to a plurality in unity in the Godhead. Dr. Smith gives the objections, which are strongly relied upon by Socinian expositors, and offers a detailed solution of them; and arrives at the conclusion that this peculiarity of idiom originated in a design to intimate a plurality in the nature of the One God; and that thus, in connection with other circumstances calculated to suggest the same conception, it was intended to excite and prepare the minds of men for the more full declaration of this unsearchable mystery, which should in proper time be granted. This supposition implies, of course, a Divine direction in the origin or in the application of the term; but our author thinks that the intention was merely to intimate, not to give an absolute declaration; agreeably to the fact that the earlier dispensations of revealed knowledge were constructed upon the plan of a course of intimations (as it were involucra), with regard to a variety of truths, the clear manifestation of which was reserved for the brightness of the Gospel day. We are inclined to think that Dr. Smith has been too abstinent in his conclusions on this 3 U

subject; and that he might, without any violence to his argument, have used a stronger expression than that, upon the whole," the impression on his mind is favourable to this opinion;" even if he did not go to the full extent of superadding the word "declaration" to "intimation." The judicious Biblical critic has to steer his course between the fancies of the Hutchinsonians, who see every thing in the idiosyncrasies of the Hebrew language; and those of the Neologians and Socinians, who see nothing in them-as Mr. Bel. sham, for example, did not in this very question. It may be the rash impetuousness of conclusion of the former that has led our author, somewhat perhaps too scrupulously, to soften down the force of his own veritable conclusions. One such powerful argument as the following might allow of his using less doubtful words of conclusion than those which he employs-words which might lead an unwary reader to think, not merely that his expression was modest, but that his mind was not convinced.

"The fact which principally requires our

attention is the constant use of Elohim to designate the One and Only God: and this in the language of the patriarchs and prophets, who spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.' It is not a little remarkable that such a circumstance should exist in the sacred books of a

people who were separated from all other nations for this express object, that they should bear a public and continual protest against polytheism; a people whose whole system of religious, political, and domestic usages was calculated, with consummate prudence and wisdom, to be a perpetual preservative from polytheistic notions; a people who were charged by the Eternal God to destroy every statue, structure, and grove that might recall the memory of idolatrous rites, and to extirpate every thing that could be extirpated which had been associated with idolatry, or might be converted into an instrument of its revival, or of its slightest palliation; who were enjoined to abolish every name of city village, or place, which was compounded with the name of a heathen deity, and to substitute 'new appellations; who were not even to pronounce those names unless necessity compelled;-it is not, we may well say, a little remarkable that, in the sacred books of such a people-books

whose very words, in many cases at least, were selected and dictated by the inspiration of Jehovah-the ordinary name and style of the Only Living and True God should be in a plural form. Did some strange and insuperable necessity lie in the way? Was the language so poor, that it could furnish no other term? Or if so, could not the wisdom of Inspiration have suggested new appellative, and have for ever abolished the hazardous word ?-None of these reasons existed. The language was rich and copious. The names of the Deity in general and constant use were more numerous than in either of the beautiful languages of classical antiquity, or in the most cultivated Besides tongues of modern Europe. 'that glorious and fearful name Jehovah,' the appropriated and unique style of the. True God, and besides other unexcep-. tionable names, there was, as we have before said, the singular form, Eloah, of the very word in question. There was no shadow of necessity, difficulty, or even inducement, for the adoption of a phrase-. ology which, on Unitarian principles, every candid mind must confess can with difficulty, if at all, be defended from the charge of pernicious example and very dangerous tendency." pp. 510-512.

Dr. Smith has added to his general argument what, though not strictly essential to the evidence, assists to illustrate it - namely, an inquiry into the state of opinion and expectation among the Jews, with respect to the Messiah, in the period between the closing of the Old Testament and the dissolution of their national establishment. In this, as in other parts of his work, he has, with much research, condensed a considerable body of facts, which will greatly interest the theological student. His general conclusions from these facts partake of that tantalizing libration of inference to which we have before alluded; and which is far from agreeable to those who covet a downright opinion, pro or contra; and would prefer any measure of hasty dogmatism to those qualified and much-on-bothsides conclusions, which are often of this nature, we can safely arrive. the only ones to which, on questions Mr. Belsham, and other Socinians, had denied that the ancient Jews

expected a pre-existent Messiah; the contrary opinion is that which is generally received; and it were

sufficient to shew that it is the true one, from a reference to the Old Testament itself; but it adds strength to the argument, that it can be proved that even in the corrupt days which followed the closing of the sacred canon this expectation was not lost, but continued to animate the faithful, in the midst of persecution from the heathen, and the mental and moral darkness of their own countrymen. The fol lowing is Dr. Smith's summary of his probable conclusions, relative to the opinions held by the Jews at and near the era of Christianity, on the question, of what kind would be the person and character of their expected Messiah?

"I. Those opinions were sublime. This is manifest from the attribution which we have found of pre-existence, dominion, dignity above all the objects of creation, and properties peculiar to the Deity.

"II. They were imperfectly understood. This could not but be the case, from the nature of the subject, from the reference of the expectation to a future and unknown time, and from the necessary obscurity belonging to unfulfilled prophecy, the great source

from which these sentiments were drawn.

"III. They were, in various respects, inconsistent Not only did one theory oppose another, but each appears to have laboured under difficulties and contradictions within itself. Of such inconsistency we have an example in the case of Philo: and it is readily accounted for, from the mixture of traditionary opinions and diversified hypotheses with the stream of knowledge derived from the Old Testament prophecies. The subject was in itself obscure, and, under all the circumstances, it was not to be expected that the serious and inquisitive Jews of this period could avoid running into conjectures and incoherent notions.

"It is probable that this imperfection and inconsistency were still further promoted by a notion which had acquired a very general acceptance among the Jews at the time of which we are speaking. As piety decayed, and as the conquests of the Macedonians and the Romans spread before the eyes of the Jewish people the glare of military glory and the pomp of dominion, they became more and more secular in their views and expectations. Their hopes of a Messiah became closely united with their national pride and their wishes for a universal ascendancy. figurative representations of the Messiah's reign, given by the holy prophets, were eagerly taken in a literal signification, and were associated with still grosser ideas of

The

ambition and voluptuousness. Thus the bulk of the nation rapidly lost sight of the language of prophecy surrounds its despiritual and holy objects with which the scriptions of the Messiah; and sunk into the habit of regarding him as a politician and a hero. Such an opinion must have sive views of their Great Deliverer as a strongly disposed them to take up excluman merely, and as a man of the world, earthly and carnal in his purposes and his character. At the same time, the vestiges hearts of many, whose devotional and reof purer sentiments still lingered in the ligious habits of mind would represent the best consolation of Israel' to consist in a holy salvation and a spiritual Redeemer. To such persons the ancient faith would present stronger attractions than they could feel from the worldly expectations with which popular partialities had entangled their minds; and, though unable to free themselves entirely from the fond delusion, they would still be looking for nobler blessings when the Lord whom they sought should suddenly come to his temple,' and 'as the light of the morning should arise Jehovah, a Sun without clouds for brightness.'" p. 623.

The conclusion of this extract seems to us to set the matter in a

just light. Indeed, the writings of the Evangelists shew that this expectation was not lost in their day; and as it most clearly existed in the Old Testament period, we might very fairly infer that it also occupied the intervening period, even if the evidence from Targums, Talmuds, and Rabbinical writings were less forcible than it is. And be it remembered, that, as regards the present argument, if only a few persons entertained the true notion of a spiritual Messiah, this, in connexion with the Old Testament prophecies, would be sufficient to overthrow the Socinian assertion, that those prophecies were understood by the contemporary Jews to mean what orthodox Chris

tians discover in them.

(To be continued.)

never

The Christian Minister; or, Practical Hints for the Conduct of a Young Clergyman. By Exaxioτότερος. London. 1829.

A FEW pages of truly pious and excellent advice; not new-for what

is new on this oft-discussed subject?-but not the less deserving to be repeated. We subjoin the author's own summing up, which will sufficiently shew the object and execution of his tractate.

"In the foregoing chapters we briefly considered how a Christian Minister might profitably conduct himself in various situations connected with his holy calling. In our remarks we accompanied him to his closet, and to the house of God; we attended him in his parochial visits, followed him into the private recesses of the family circle, and observed his deportment towards them that are without. Let us now take a cursory review of our subject.

"The Christian Minister's study is his laboratory, where he assorts and prepares the materials for his public ministrations. There, he searches the records of eternal truth, investigates and explores the Divine mysteries of his holy religion. There, too, he examines the secret workings of his own mind; scrutinizes his actions and motives; compares himself, not with himself, nor with any of his fellow-men, but with the perfect standard of God's holy law; laments his imperfections; bewails his transgressions; and, under a deep consciousness of in-dwelling sin, and much infirmity, prostrates himself before the Mercy Seat, pleads the efficacy of the atoning blood and righteousness of his Saviour Jesus Christ, and supplicates for grace to help him in every time of need. In this place of solitary retirement he holds communion with God the Father, through the mediation of God the Son. Here he asks for and receives the blessed influence of God the Holy Ghost; prays for Divine illumination; and obtains the witness of the Spirit to the truth, that light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart.' Psalm xcvii. 11. In this place he wrestles with the 'Angel of the covenant,' for a blessing upon his labours, his family, the church,

his country, and the world at large. Here he devises plans of usefulness, and studies how he may best promote the glory of God. And from hence he goes forth with an unction from the Holy One, to do his Master's service.

66

Again we view him in the house of God; where, as the organ of the congregation, he leads the public worship; and

as the ambassador of Christ' he beseeches sinners to be reconciled to God.'

"In his parish we see him going 'from house to house,' rebuking the careless, warning the profane, comforting the

believer to hold on his way,' and directmourners in Sion,' encouraging the weak ing the attention of all to the 'Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world.' John i. 29. We observe in the faithful minister the active promoter of every useful institution-establishing and superintending schools for the instruction of youth; inducing habits of industry, sorishioners; and endeavouring, by all means, cial order, and piety among his adult pato advance the interests of the Redeemer's kingdom.

"In his family he exhibits a pattern of godliness, meekness, sobriety, and temperance; maintaining a thorough consistency of conduct himself, and gently enforcing the observance of God's commands in his domestic establishment.

"As a pilgrim on his passage through a world that is beset with snares, and whose very atmosphere teems with pollution, he is necessarily circumspect, and fearful lest any stain should attach itself to his character; and well does it become him to "watch and pray that he enter not into temptation. For many there are who wait for his halting and the very persons who are foremost in charging him with being

:

righteous overmuch,' are those who any errors into which he might be tempted would be the first to take advantage of to fall, and the most forward to exult in his humiliation."

MRS. SCHIMMELPENNINCK has published an English translation of M. Empeytaz's Notice on the Emperor Alexander; to which she has added the following corroborative extract from her own unpublished diary, while on a continental tour in 1814-"The next morning the venerable

this excellent man, Christ. Observ. Jan. 1828), came to breakfast with us at our inn; during which time he gave us a very interesting account of the Emperor Alexander, who had just visited the settlement (Zeist, a very beautiful Moravian settlement, about six miles from Utrecht). He had passed through Zeist on his way