the facts and the doctrines, would be precisely the same, whether Isaiah or Jeremiah, Paul or John, spoke or wrote. The essence and the form of the inspired records were alike throughout and exclusively of God.

Another theory of inspiration, while claiming the divine element both for the matter and the language of Scripture, admits and requires the human element in both. According to it, it is of consequence who the medium of communication is. The education and peculiar powers and turn of thought of each writer affects the expression of the revelation in general just as much as though the divine element were not present at all. John writes just as unlike Paul, and Isaiah as unlike Solomon, as though these writers were ordinary human authors. Beauty of expression, logical form, aptitude of illustration, all were affected according to the human writer. Each had his peculiar style, his peculiar modes of expression, more or less in conformity with the ideal standard of perfection, before and between his seasons of inspiration, and they each preserved those peculiarities during those seasons. A word or idiom might have a different sense, according to the person who used it. The language throughout is thoroughly and essentially human, to be interpreted precisely as we interpret any ordinary language of ordinary men. But not only is the expression of the revelation varied according to the human medium, but the matter of the revelation is influenced by it. Presented the same to different minds, it is apprehended variously by those minds. Their different apprehensions of it are not contradictory, but are multiform and many toned. The revelation affects these various minds differently, and according to their several appreciations of it internally, is their expression of it to those without them. According to their tone of mind, as devotional, logical, intellectual, timid, hopeful, etc., etc., is the view which they take of what is presented to them, is the light in which they view the Spirit's communication; and as they see it they relate it. There is no contradiction, but there is dissimilarity, more or less according to the divergence of their several characters, just as a speech or a narrative addressed to an ordinary assembly gives rise to variety of apprehensions of its substance, according to the characters of those who compose it. One will bear away its hopeful element, another its pathetic, another its argumentative, another its alarming, according to the tone of mind of each.

Those who hold this view of the human element of inspiration maintain just as strongly and as decidedly its divine element both in matter and in words. The human organ is selected by the divine Spirit as the most suitable to give expression to the

heavenly communication, and, therefore, the language of that organ is adopted as its own. But not only this, but the communication of the matter materially affects the expression. We all know how powerfully language is affected by the harmony between any subject and the mind of him who speaks of it, and also by the clearness with which it is apprehended. That which when unsympathized with and dimly comprehended is expressed in cold, hesitating, confused, and not seldom contradictory language, when the mind is fully in tone with its subject, and that subject clearly comprehended, is expressed in clear, distinct, powerful, impassioned language, utterly unlike and utterly superior to the former. In this manner, it is held that inspiration affects the language of the inspired man, and makes that language truly and properly its own. Selecting the mind when in full tone with the subject or bringing it into tone, presenting the subject in plain full vision, it produces by the ordinary laws of the human mind an elevated, a feeling, a clear expression, natural to the human organ, yet produced by the communication of the divine. So, too, the matter of the revelation is held to be divine while variously affected by its transmission through human minds. Those minds are the selected mediums of the Spirit, and selected, not in spite of their peculiarities imparting their tone to their communications, but because of them. Meaning that the matter communicated should affect and tell upon the general mind of man, which mind, while essentially like, is various and multiform, the Inspirer selects minds in unison with the various shades and peculiarities of thought of mankind, in order that those various shades and peculiarities should be affected. This is done by the selection of men whose various minds are types of corresponding varieties among their fellow men. And thus the different aspects in which the different writers in Holy Scripture present the same truth is as much the operation of the Spirit of God as their various modes of expression are his. The organs are selected as the most suitable: the matter is presented plainly before them; their minds are in tone with it; and their variety of expression and their variety of appreciation are with truth the expression of the Spirit, and the mode in which that Spirit would inve it appreciated, in order that the communication might have the very effect intended, namely, to tell upon the general min of man in its utmost variety of thought and constitution. Accol ing to this view all is true, but all is not the same expression t the same appreciation of truth: and one revelation will thus be clearer and more valued by one class of minds and another by another. This variety, so far from being a disadvantage, is held

to be an advantage; so far from being a disproof of the revelation as from God, is in full harmony with its being from Him, as the truest, best, and in fact only way of giving a revelation intended by a common Father for all his children.

Another theory of inspiration admits inspiration in the main and principal matters communicated by the inspired writers, but does not require it in the lesser details. It admits of slight contradictions, while it guards the essential doctrines or facts from the charge of error or mistake. Dividing the records of holy writ into those things which are essential to the great object held in view, viz., the salvation of men, and those things which are not essential, it gives infallibility to the communication of the former, but not to the latter. Thus, the coming of Christ, the nature of his Person, the effect of his death,-these and other things are held to be essentials, and on the communication of them by the Evangelists we may fully and implicitly rely. But there are many other matters which cannot be held as affecting human salvation, in whatever light they are regarded. Thus, it cannot affect it, whether we suppose Judas to have been influenced by avarice in his betrayal of Christ, or by some better, however mistaken motive, and, therefore, John may be held to have been mistaken in Judas's character, when he held him up as the base betrayer of his Master for a paltry bribe, or the low thief who administered the common fund for his own peculiar benefit. Neither can it influence our view of the power of Christ, whether he healed Bartimæus on his approach to Jericho, or on his departure from it, or whether he healed one or two blind men on that occasion. We may, therefore, suppose Luke mistaken, when he represents the miracle as performed on the approach to Jericho, or Matthew, when he says two blind men were healed; or we may, according to our own view, adopt whichever of the varying narratives we please as the correct one, and reject the others as incorrect, without in the least interfering with that full implicit faith, which we give to all their narratives when they speak of the essentials of our common redemption. The Spirit which preserved them from error in the latter, left them to their own ordinary resources in the former, and so, while we have God's unerring voice in the one, we have human judgment erring and mistaken in the other. This theory

admits of irreconcilable discrepancies as to time in the Gospels, of mistakes on the part of the Evangelists as to the meaning of some of the Saviour's expressions, as their understanding in a material what he only intended in a spiritual sense, and matters of a similar kind.

Another theory goes much farther than this in depreciating

NEW SERIES.-VOL. VIII., NO. XVI.

U

the authority of the inspiration of Scripture. It distinguishes altogether between inspiration and infallibility. A record may be inspired, yet liable to error. This theory admits of mistake to a much wider extent, and in matters of a quite different kind from those admitted by the previous one. It admits of error in every subject; at least it is difficult, if not impossible, to fix the limit into which error cannot enter. According to it prophecies may be applied to Christ, in the Sacred Scriptures, which were never meant to be descriptive of him. Actions and conduct may be held up as right and worthy of praise which are morally and at all times wrong. Doctrines relative to the immortality of the soul may be asserted in the Old Testament which are in themselves untrue, and are contradicted in the New.

Another theory admits of supernatural revelations as having been made from time to time by God to Moses and other prophets, but supposes that the records of these revelations were made by men who differed in no respect from others. The historian who relates them, and the poet who sings of them, differed in no degree from other historians, and other poets, and may have given us, therefore, erroneous views of their subject, just as similar writers in ancient and modern times have misrepresented, often without intention, the facts which they undertake to represent as they occurred.

D. A.

Egyptian Entertainments.—At all private festivals perfumes were in great request. The first duty of the attendant slaves on the arrival of the visitors was to anoint their heads, or rather their wigs, for they were all shaven and wore this artificial covering, which served the purpose of modern turbans-to protect them against the rays of a scorching sun. During the entertainment fresh flowers were used in great profusion; chaplets of lotus decorated the necks of the guests, garlands of crocus and saffron encircled the wine-cup, floral wreaths were hung all round the room, and over and under the tables were strewn various flowers, mingling their fragrance with the fumes of numerous cassolettes, whilst, to leave no sense ungratified, musicians charmed the ear with the sweetest melodies. It was thus that Agesilaus was received when he visited Egypt; but the rude Spartan, unaccustomed to such luxuries, refused the sweetmeats, confections, and perfumes, for which act of barbarism the polished natives held him in great contempt, as a man incapable and unworthy of enjoying the refinements of good society. Herodotus relates a very curious custom which was observed at those Egyptian festivals. When the revel was at its height, a man entered, bearing the wooden image of a dead body, perfectly carved and painted, and cried aloud, "Look at this, drink and make merry, for so you will be after your death." Our modern"sensation" dramatists could not wish for a better contrast, and I do not see, after all, why this strange habit should be more wondered at than the fureur with which they have sought lately to introduce ghosts into our public and private entertainments.

THE FOUR GOSPELS: STATE OF THE QUESTION IN 1851.

By C. E. STOWE, D.D.

(Continued from No. XV., p. 149.)

V. Comparison of the Canonical Gospels with the Apocryphal Gospels still extant.

THE impugners of the New Testament gospels appeal to the fact, that there are gospels acknowledged to be apocryphal, as a proof of their theory that our recognized gospels are also myths or forgeries. Any one who candidly examines these spurious gospels, and compares them with the New Testament, will find in them, not a refutation of our sacred writers, but a most convincing testimony to their intelligence, honesty, and supernatural inspiration. So totally diverse are they from the genuine gospels, in conception, in spirit, in execution, in their whole impression,-in all respects so entirely unlike, so immeasurably inferior, that the New Testament only shines the brighter by the contrast. They have scarcely so much resemblance to the genuine gospels as the monkey has to a man.

An elaborate history and collection of these writings was first published by Fabricius near the beginning of the last century. The first volume of a new and critical edition was issued at Halle by Thilo in 1832. Professor Norton has given an account of them in the third volume of his work on the Genuineness of the Gospels, but with an incredulity in regard to the testimony of the ancients which amounts almost to credulousness; yet it is very useful to be studied in connection with other and more credulous authorities. Ullmann gives a very good abstract of them in his treatise entitled Historisch oder Mythisch, and Guerike in his Introduction to the New Testament makes a brief and intelligible catalogue of them. Quite recently Dr. Hoffmann of Leipzig has compiled a life of Jesus according to the Apocrypha, accompanied with learned annotations. English translations of the principal apocryphal writings of the New Testament have been collected and published both in England and the United States. If this has been done with any purpose of bringing discredit on our genuine New Testament, the design has most signally failed, for on every fairminded and intelligent reader they must produce directly the opposite effect.

Fabricius gave the titles of about fifty of such spurious writings, and the industry of subsequent investigation has added to the number; but scarcely one-tenth part of these are now