trophe must have occurred since the latest tertiary formation, if the Mosaic narrative be veritable history? I make this request because it seems quite as likely that Mr. Powell should not understand that History, as that the History should be a fable.

Fourthly. Will Mr. Powell inform us whether he has any other reasons to adduce?

There are probably many of your readers who, while courting free inquiry as much as Mr. Powell, are nevertheless persuaded that the record of Moses is a veritable description of appearances such as Mr. Powell would have witnessed had he been on the earth's surface from the first to the seventh day of time-readers who having mourned over the passage in your October number as alike unphilosophical and irreligious, will be glad to have the subject re-opened in your pages. b W. ROBINSON.

Kettering, Jan. 15, 1849.

** We regard with much pleasure the weight and variety of the Correspondence embodied in the present Number of the Journal. It evinces that its readers are a length inclined to avail themselves of the invitation which was at the outset extended to them-to discuss and examine the subjects set forth in these pages. Now that the work comprehends a considerable body of printed matter, we may expect that this branch of our Correspondence will maintain the ground it has taken; but there is another branch of equal importance, not likely in the same degree to be sustained by external stimulus, and therefore more in danger of falling to the ground-this is, the suggestion or proposition of subjects, and of questions of doubt or difficulty, deemed by the writer to demand inquiry or solution. The reader who looks once more at the Introductory Article to this Journal will understand our meaning; and we earnestly invite the co-operation of our Correspondents in the objects there set forth, from which it seems to us that much good may result.

For the rest, and in answer to the kind inquiries of many friends, we can still express a strong hope that a publication which is thus gradually but surely feeling its way to the results its founder contemplated, will be enabled to maintain its existence; but to ensure this result, the exertions of its friends are still as much needed as ever, and should not on any account be relaxed. There is a point from which, when once reached, the Journal may be expected to proceed by its own momentum ; but the necessary momentum has not yet been imparted to it; and until this is done, we must entreat the many earnest friends of the undertaking to be mindful how much depends, under the Divine blessing, upon their exertions.

bTo this we see no objection; but should rather indeed like to see both sides of the question adequately and fully discussed.-EDITOR.

VOL. III.-NO. VI.

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NOTICES

NOTICES OF BOOKS.

The Ministry of John the Baptist, and the Baptism and Temptation of the Lord Jesus Christ; an Exegetical Essay upon the three first Gospels. By the Rev. EDGAR HUXTABLE, B.A. London, Parker, 1848. 8vo. pp. 95.

THIS Small volume is avowedly sent forth by the author as a specimen of the principles of interpretation which he has long aimed to direct upon the Evangelical narrative in general.' This being the case, we have looked with care to the vit of the proposed investigation, to determine the degree in which may be entitled to an encouragement. The result is satisfactory d we are glad to be enabled to attest that, as the writer hopes, lts here noted down 'have not been pursued without a strong sense. the awful and mysterious nature of the subjects upon which they have been directed;' and that if in any point the author has erred, the error as not been the result of irreverence or unbelief, or animated by any self-willed love of peculiarity.' On this ground, as well as from the substantial learning and competency evinced in this Essay, we sincere tust that the result of its publication will be sufficiently encouraging to justify that more extended work for which Mr. Huxtable states hat he has been accumulating and preparing materials.

The present Essay is, as the reader will collect, an exegetical commentary upon the statements in the three Gospels upon the subjects mentioned in the title-page. These subjects are synoptically handled, that is, all the particulars given in the three Gospels brought together to form the text of the comment. This mod i treating the three synoptical Gospels is now generally seen to be the most advantageous for students, and will, we may expect, be commoy followed in all future commentaries on the Gospels, though it ma ticable in commentaries on the New Testament at large.

prac

f the

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It appears that Mr. Huxtable is fully able to avail hin labours of German scholars, and to them he is indebted valuable matter; while the information afforded by the resea of travellers, naturalists, and antiquarians, is sought out with diligence and produced with good effect.

In his first chapter, on the Ministry of John the Baptist, the author notes that

"The term "kingdom of heaven," which is the form always found in Matthew, and in him alone, or the equivalent term "kingdom of God," which we find employed in its stead-St. Mark and St. Luke-does not occur in the Old Testament, but there can be but little doubt but that it was drawn from the representation given in the book of Daniel of the Fifth Monarchy there foretold as about to arise. The language employed by the prophet was naturally such as to suggest such an appel

lation,

lation, in distinction from the kingdom of Babylon, the kingdom of Persia, the kingdom of Greece, and the kingdom of Rome (Dan. ii. 44). In the days of these kings shall the God of Heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed (cf. also Dan. vii. 14-27). This is the most concrete form in which that sovereignty is represented which in the prophecies of the Old Testament is so often assigned to God the king of Israel, reigning through the Christ.'

Some space is given to the consideration of John's baptism, as distinguished from that of the Jewish baptisms. Our author regards as unsatisfactory the evidence for the anterior existence of the Jewish usage of the baptism of proselytes as a symbol of their admission into the theocracy; but if it was practised so early, the evidence shows that it was regarded as a rite of ceremonial lustration, nor is there anything to render it probable that this proselyte baptism differed from the baptisms of the Law in one very important point in which the baptism of John as well as that ordained by our Lord did differ from them; 'in the baptisms by the Law, which were performed in the normal mode of immersion, the baptism was gone through by the man himself, who was there under the process of purification, and was not administered to him by another. It was only in those abnormal baptisms in which the purificatory element (e. g. blood, or water mixed with ashes) was not plentiful enough, or otherwise improper to be employed for immersion, that the rite was administered by another, who was, I believe, also a priest; whereas the baptism of John, as well as that ordained by Christ, was administered by another.

In these two respects then the baptism of John appears to differ from those enjoined by the Law: first, the latter were used as means of purification from ceremonial defilement, which the baptism of John was not; and, secondly, the baptism of John was administered by John (or some other divinely commissioned person), and not performed by the candidates themselves. To these we must add, as a third distinguishing feature, that whereas those baptisms were repeated upon the occasion of renewed defilement, this as well as Christian baptism was undergone only once. These three features justify us in regarding the baptism of John as an entirely new rite.'

Further on (p. 41) we get at the author's views as to the difference between the baptism of John and that of Christ. He thinks that the baptism of John sealed the forgiveness of sins to every true penitent who underwent it; but it was not, like Christian baptism, endued with the power of renewing the soul, or of sealing to it such grace as should cleanse or spiritualize. It was in this respect a baptism of water only, unto repentance, as St. Matthew adds; it was not a regeneration of water and of the Spirit, such as our Lord intimated to Nicodemus was the character of his baptism (John iii. 15). Its actual purifying power therefore reached no further than the body;-John baptized with water only.'

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On the Baptism with the Holy Ghost and with fire,' which has engaged the ingenuity and learning of our own contributors, our author holds the general opinion that the words and with fire' are used to qualify and illustrate the words 'the Holy Ghost,' but he sees objections to the common interpretations of the precise drift and bearing of

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the words. The explanation which he does give is interesting. 'A comparison of the four Evangelists, in the passages in which they severally quote this declaration of the Prophet, brings to light a circumstance which appears to point out the way to the true explanation of its meaning. In St. Mark (i. 8) and St. John (i. 33) the words and with fire are wanting; and with them are also wanting the words, which both in St. Matthew (iii. 12) and in St. Luke (iii. 17), who have and with fire, follow immediately after. The same observation applies to Acts i. 5. This naturally leads us to look to the verse which follows in St. Matthew and St. Luke as likely to furnish us with the true interpretation of these words which in these Gospels precede it. Now this verse states that a discrimination was to be exercised upon the substances lying on the threshing-floor, according to which the true Israelites, the wheat, were to be gathered into the garner, and the false, the chaff, were to be burnt up with unquenchable fire. And, it may further be observed, this discrimination is called a thorough cleansing of the floor. Now the gathering of the wheat into the garner closely corresponds to the baptism with the Holy Spirit. It is difficult then not to believe that the burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire corresponds to the baptism with fire, and this explains it.'

This burning up of the chaff, which Mr. Huxtable regards as answering to the baptism with fire, has not, he considers, reference to the suffering of hell; for, as Olshausen remarks, baptism always has reference to salvation; but is rather to be understood as expressing the purifying change to be effected in God's Israel-the thorough cleansing of the floor, whereby the Christ, the head of Israel, would transform its character, either by the renewing grace of the Holy Spirit on such as would obey him, or by the consuming fires of his wrath upon such as refused his grace. In the latter case, the term baptize relates, not to those in particular who would perish under his anger, but rather to the whole Israel of which they formed part, but which was thus to be purified by fire as well as by the Holy Ghost.

In regard to that difficult subject, the Baptism of Jesus by John, the author sees that John's baptism was, among other things, significant of initiation into an economy (so to speak) preparatory to that of the kingdom of God. It was fitting therefore, he reverently supposes, that the divine Jesus should enter this preparatory economy as well as others; since, though ministering therein as the Christ, he yet was to minister in a condition preparatory to that in which he was afterwards, as the exalted Prince and Saviour, to reign. At the same time it was so ordered that while thus entering that economy with others, he should enter it in a manner which sufficiently marked his own relation both to the economy itself and also to other men. The following further remarks on the same subject are striking :

Neither was baptism, regarded as the symbol of purification, altogether irrelevant even in the case of the holy Jesus. For though, in the case of men in general, it expressed the cleansing away of sin, in which respect it was inapplicable to Him, being wholly without sin, yet viewed in relation to his work it had its propriety. Our blessed Lord had hitherto passed his life amid secular engagements; for from the question of the Nazarenes, recorded Mark vi. 3, Is not this the

carpenter?

carpenter? it is clear that he had himself carried on the business of his reputed father. He had thus, and in other ways as a fellow-inhabitant of the town, been mingled with the people of Nazareth in the various engagements of social lifelabouring, and selling and buying, and taking part in the offices and intercourse of neighbourhood. In short, he had been completely assimilated to his sinful brethren (except in their sins), associated and blended with them. But now he was about to assume the Divine functions of the Lord's Christ; if we may venture thus to apply the language which St. Paul has used with reference to his actual death, He was to die unto sin that he might live unto God (Rom. vi. 10). It therefore seems fitting that such a transition should be accompanied by his passing through a rite which so graphically expressed purification; in which, in his instance, it was set forth that he washed himself clean of worldly associations, and came forth pure and entire as the Christ of God.'

In respect of the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the baptized Christ, our author is led to conclude that the appearance was visible only to our Lord and the Baptist, 'in consequence of a supernatural unveiling of their organs of perception,' an expression liable, perhaps, to some exception, as applied to our Lord himself. It appears also to him that the addition which St. Luke, in the words in a corporeal form (owμatiky eidel woeì tepiσtepáv), makes to the account of St. Matthew and St. Mark, who simply record that the Holy Ghost was descending like a dove, determines the comparison as referring not merely to the proverbial swiftness of the dove's flight (Ps. lv. 5; Isa. lx. 8), or to any waving or other kind of motion attributable to that bird, but to the form in which the Holy Ghost displayed Its descent upon the Redeemer.'

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The chapter on the Temptation of our Lord will be interesting to the class of persons likely to desire possession of the work. We abstain from entering into its details, as we expect to have occasion to discuss the whole subject very fully ere long. It may suffice to state that, with some hesitation, Mr. Huxtable sets forth the view that subjectively the temptation had a twofold purpose; partly, more fully to develope to the human consciousness of our Blessed Redeemer what the nature of his stupendous work on our behalf was to be, by vividly exhibiting the form into which the Evil One would fain have warped and perverted it; and partly to arm His holy soul against those conflicts of which this temptation was, as Bengel says, a specimen, and which throughout his earthly course were to be continually reproduced in his path.'

Reasons why a New Edition of the Peschito, or Ancient Syriac Version of the Old Testament, should be published with Variae Lectiones from Ancient MSS. and Editions. By J. Rogers, M.A., Canon Residentiary of Exeter Cathedral. Oxford and London, J. H. Parker, 1848. 8vo.

Within the last few years, through the munificence of the present Duke of Northumberland, the Duke of Bedford, the Earl of Ellesmere, and other distinguished persons, a most valuable collection of ancient Syriac manuscripts, from the Monastery of St. Mary Deipara in the Nitrian Desert in Egypt, has been secured by the Trustees of the

British