of the assistance Mr. Carpenter has offered in the volume before us. Of the general execution of the work we can speak with satisfaction. Mr. Carpenter has very diligently collected the solutions of difficult passages proposed by learned critics. The extent of his researches, in this particular department, appears to be very considerable. He has brought together materials scattered over the whole field of sacred philology, and frequently from works which are both expensive and rare. In some instances he would have pleased us better had he given rather the results of his inquiries, than the detail of the various opinions. It is not necessary to encumber the mind of the student with half a dozen exploded solutions, in order to make way for the one to which the palm is to be awarded. It would, in the majority of cases, be the best method to give us at once that explanation which, after careful perusal and examination, appeared to commend itself to an enlightened judg ment. The work commences with some preliminary remarks, which might with great propriety have been extended, especially in reference to the ends subserved by the existence of the difficulties of scripture; of the excellency of these preliminary remarks, of course we cannot but speak favourably, since the author has done us the honour of extracting a considerable portion of them from a Review which appeared in our pages three years ago. Mr. Carpenter, however, deserves well of the public for this as well as for his other works on Biblical science; and we trust his success will encourage him to undertake future labours of the same kind. The Biblical student will find this a valuable addition to his library. From a work which, with propriety, may be described as a collection of criticisms, it is difficult to select a passage which may fairly represent the whole, as each illustration possesses a distinct character. The following upon Genesis xxii. 2d verse, may, perhaps, be regarded as an average specimen. "And he said, take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt-offering.' "This passage of Scripture has been urged as a justification of the practice of offering human sacrifices; and by some, even as the source whence this barbarous rite originated. Can any thing afford a of every thing rational in the mind, when greater proof of the absolute prostration persons take up the sacred volume for the mere purpose of finding in it something to justify their rejection of its claims? Of such persons we have no hope, on the ground of mere reasoning; but while we commend them to Him who only can remove the veil from off the heart, we offer our remarks for the benefit of those who are brought within the sphere of their influence, and are in danger of being perverted by their sophistries. In order to understand aright any of the divine requisitions, it is necessary to bear in mind, that they were uniformly adapted to existing circumstances, in the different ages of the world. Hence, in contemplating this offering of Abraham, and the divine command in which it originated, we must carry back our views Abraham lived. We need not go beyond the sacred volume itself, to ascertain the unbounded right which was exercised under parental authority, in the disposal of children at this period, and also for many ages subsequent to it. This might seem to have been uncontrolled by any other law than that love of their own ture has' implanted in the whole animal offspring, which the great Author of nacreation. Thus considered, the divine command was not incompatible with any existing law, except that of parental tenderness, which himself had implanted, and which the passage under review assures us existed in full vigour, in the breast of the venerable patriarch. This, and this only, therefore, appears to have been the touchstone or proof of his obedi. probation of his faith, most decidedly ence; but a further, if not a fiery trial or presents itself to us, in the divine pro to the circumstances of the time in which mises that had been made to Abraham, respecting this son, when his birth was predicted. "We may also remark, that this occurrence furnishes a striking exemplification of that method by which the Almighty has proposed to regenerate fallen man, namely, by inducing an implicit reliance on the divine word. It is by this faith, or blind obedience to the Divine will, as such, that the human family is to be restored to the image of God. "But does not the whole tenour of the transaction most clearly decide, that it was not the divine mind that Abraham should slay his son? and that the command was given in positive terms, with a view, as the text expresses, to prove Abraham? Had the tenour of the injunction been doubtful, it would not have been a full test of the patriarch's faith and obedience. "A command thus given, and thus obeyed, and yet not permitted to be accomplished by him who could as easily have raised Isaac from the dead, as he did by his servant Elisha, restore the Shunamite's son to life, is therefore a very strong INTERDICTION of those cruel sacrifices which have been offered to the idols of the heathen. It was not merely prevented-it was forbidden in terms of earnest prohibition; in the very moment of danger; when the knife was raised to strike the blow, the angel of Jehovah called to him out of heaven, arresting the patriarch's arm, with Abraham! Abraham!' and when his attention was excited, and his purpose arrested by these words, the command was given: Lay not thy hand upon the lad; neither do thou any thing to him; for now I know that thou fearest God, because thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from me.' The whole tenour of the sacred volume confirms this deduction. Under the law for the first-born male child which was to be devoted to God, a redemption was provided, Num. viii. 16, 19, &c. and in divers places the divine abhorrence is expressed of sacrificing children to idols. It is done three times in terms of peculiar emphasis, which are not employed respecting any other sin: 'I commanded them not, NEITHER CAME IT INTO MY MIND, that they should do this ABOMINATION, to cause Israel to sin.' Jer. xxxii. 35; vii. 31; xix. 5." Mr. Carpenter professes anxiety to obtain the opinion of some living critics upon a difficult passage in the Epistle to the Galatians, and therefore we quote his remarks upon it, hoping that some compeN. S. No. 67. tent scholar will favour the public with his opinion of the difficulty. "Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, and to seeds, as of many; but as of one, and to thy seed, which is Christ.'-Gal. iii. 16. written, no inconsiderable portion of "Upon this passage much has been which has been totally irrelevant, and tended rather to augment, than to remove the difficulty which it involves. The apostle's argument is this,' That the promise made to Abraham, of a seed in whom all nations should be blessed, had respect to one, namely, Christ, is evident promise; for he saith not, and to SEEDS, from the terms employed by God in that as of MANY; but as of ONE, and to thy here is this, that in no part of the HeSEED.' Now the difficulty which arises tinction observed in the use of zero, seed, brew Scriptures is there any such disas this argument assumes, it being employed indiscriminately to denote one or Lev. xx. 2, &c.) many. (See Gen. vii. 3; ix. 9; xii. 7; from being the fact, that it is no where, Nay, so far is this throughout the Bible, used in a plural form, with reference to the posterity of that it can be of no use to argue, as some men. To meet this objection, it is evident learned critics have done, that the word dren or posterity, in the rabbinical writis used in the plural form, to denote chilings; nor, as others have done, to shew that it is employed in the Old Testament in its singular form, to designate some inthese facts may be admitted; but how dividual descendant of a person. Both do they affect the argument? They raobjection, by shewing that there was no ther tend to confirm the strength of the such distinction observed in the use of the term as the argument of the apostle assumes. What, then, is to be done? have cut the knot which they could not Some critics, as Archbishop Newcome, untie, and cancelled the entire clause in which the difficulty lies. But this is scarcely defensible. Some, as Grotius, the apostle is only affirming, that the proDoddridge, Burnet, and others, think that mises made to Abraham are appropriated to one line of his descendants, and centered in one person; which he does with good sense and reason, but in bad Greek; thus imposing on the simplicity of the Galatians! removing it; for if his Greek be bad, his But this only shifts the difficulty without argument can be good for little, as it is a verbal criticism. Mr. Slade thinks, that although the whole posterity of any person is properly denoted by the word in the singular number; yet, that in the case of Abraham, there was such a re 3 C markable difference between the two lines of descendants which sprang from that if the divine promise had extended to both it would have been more ex pressly affirmed by the use of the plural. Macknight suggests, that the Jews refuted the claim of the Ishmaelites (who con tended that they also, as the seed of Abraham, were inheritors of the promises,) by observing, that it is not said in seeds, that is in sons, as God would have said, had he meant both Ishmael and Isaac; but in thy seed, and that the apostle might, therefore, with propriety turn their own argument against themselves: The nations are to be blessed, not through the whole of Abraham's seed, but through one part of it only, and through one individual of that part, namely, Christ; according to the original prophecy, Gen. iii. 15. But we fear that neither of these solutions will be consi dered satisfactory by persons who feel the entire weight of the difficulty. Lord Barrington supposes that the word XotoTOC here signifies anointed, as in Ps. cv. 15: Touch not mine anointed.' That the seed or the one seed, signifies all those of the works of the law and of faith, who are made one by being anointed with one Spirit; or by being baptized into one Spirit, as the one Spirit of the one Lord (mediator,) and of one God, even the Father. But the covenant, or the promises that God made to Abraham, he made to his seed: then it cannot be two seeds, he argues, for the apostle says, that one seed is Christ; or the two different sorts of people, Jews and Gentiles, considered as one, being anointed with the same Spirit; and, therefore, the promises and blessings belong to the Gentiles, who are of the one seed of faith, and have by it received the Spirit, as well as the Jews. Rosenmüller and Dr. A. Clarke seem to adopt this view of the apostle's argument. Let him receive it who can. "Mr. Bloomfield has adopted the opinion of Borger, which, after all, differs but little from that of Whitby, and is totally inadequate, as we think, to meet the real difficulties of the case. "But it will be useless to extend these remarks: we have been induced to say thus much, only in the hope that it may lead to a more careful investigation of the passage, by those who are competent to the task. For ourselves, we confess, that in whatever light we view the clause in question, it seems to militate against the argument of the writer, which is, that the blessings promised to Abraham and his seed, were not restricted to the Jews, but extended equally to the Gentiles, ver. 14, &c. p. 466-468." Our limits forbid further extracts, and we must therefore content ourselves in closing with a general recommendation of this instructive volume. An Essay on Moral Freedom; with a Review of Whitby and Edwards on Free Will; and of Dr. Thomas Brown's Theory of a Causation and Agency. By the Rev. Thomas Tully Crybbace, A.M. Whittaker. pp. 311. 8s. 6d. THE subject of free agency, viewed in connexion with the providence and grace of God, is a subject that has employed all the faculties of many of the most powerful minds; and though it will, probably, never be cleared up in the present world, yet we confess, that we never can join in the vulgar outcry, which sometimes is raised, in a language worthy of a better cause, against all attempts to understand whatever can be known of the conditions and responsibilities under which man is placed in his present state of probation, provided the inquiry be conducted in a manner suited to the serious nature of the subject, and not in the spirit of angry contention, which has too often disgraced it. That man possesses controul over his actions, and to a certain, and, perhaps, very large extent also, over thoughts, is a fact which every one is ready to acknowledge, and on which every one proceeds in the ordinary business of life, however this may have been denied by some in the affairs of religion. And that all spiritual good in man is derived from some operation of God, distinct from the mere combination of outward causes, and distinct from the mere natural mind, operation of man's own must be acknowledged by all who impartially receive the Bible as their ultimate authority. But the grand difficulty is to reconcile these two views, the one affecting his "To free us from all such misconceptions, we are first of all to inquire, what is an agent; and then having settled this preliminary inquiry, and taken, as a matter of fact, the existence of the being whose condition it is required to ascer tain, we are prepared to inquire further, what is the liberty of such and such an agent, and what the opposite state of necessity. The philosophical necessity is the fact of his existence as a being possessed of the power of agency; real necessity can be nothing but a state of an agent who already exists. By thus distinguishing philosophical and real necessity, we shall be delivered at once from a fearful host of arguments on both sides, which will be found utterly irrelevant and unmeaning; and obtain a fine illustration of the justness of the remark of Dr. Brown, that to remove a number of cum The author thus states the ge- brous words is, in many cases, all that is neral design of his work. "Allow me to state briefly how far the subject of liberty has been satisfactorily explained, and at which points it still requires illustration. "Mr Hume, President Edwards, and others, have put beyond all doubt the universality of causation or philosophical necessity. Every thing has a cause, except the eternal First Cause, whose name therefore is, 'I am that I am;' and every action implies an agent who has had power to perform it. So far there is no difference of opinion; but should we hence conclude the universality of any necessity opposed to freedom? Quite the reverse, This necessity, as shall be shown, is nothing but the simple fact, that agents exist, and proves no necessity but that which is stated in the proposition- -a thing cannot be, and not be simultaneously. As a stone is, because it is solid, &c.; so a being is an agent because he has a power to secure the regular performance of the actions peculiar to his nature. To maintain therefore the universality of philosophical necessity, is just to affirm the fact of the existence of agents; and accordingly, as shall be afterwards shown, while one class of philosophers have written many a huge volume to prove to mankind, that while a being necessary to render distinctly visible, as it were to our very glance, truths, which they and they only, have been for ages hiding from our view.' This true method of inquiry, indeed, was laid down by Edwards, though he did not carry it forward to its legitimate conclusions. Freedom he proved to be the enjoyment of power; necessity to be the result of weakness. The voluntary agent, for example, is free when he is able to carry his will into effect, but labours under the opposite state of real necessity, when his will is opposed and frustrated by irresistible physical force. To both these opposite states of being, it is plain, causation or philosophical necessity is equally necessary, that is, whether a being enjoy power and is free, or is weak and is oppressed by the superior power of another, the law of causation equally prevails. 66 Pursuing the inquiry on this just principle, Edwards, and all the necessitarians admit that man is, in one sense, free when he does as he chooses, and is in the opposite state of necessity when his will is opposed and resisted. And that man, when free from all compulsion and restraint, does uniformly act according to his volitions cannot be doubted, and so far all are agreed. The question then becomes, whether this is all the liberty en joyed by man. Hume, Edwards, &c. maintain that it is, and hold it absurd to imagine, that man should possess a higher degree of freedom than the power of doing as he chooses and finds most agreeable. "That this is the whole of free will, as it is usually termed, or all the liberty of the voluntary agent who regulates his actions by his volitions, Mr. Locke long since demonstrated; but that it is not all the liberty possessed by man shall afterwards appear. It is common to man with the brutes; and it is not the muscular motions consequent upon volition, but the will itself which man is required, by the law of God, to regulate; and therefore if he has the power only of determining his actions by his volitions, but not of controlling and regulating the volitions themselves, he plainly cannot be the subject of moral obligation This power is the pro per freedom of a moral agent. As the willing animal regulates his actions, can the moral agent, in like manner, determine and regulate his volitions? It is not the question, does man act with a motive or according to the strongest, for that he does so will he be found simply to state the fact, either that he is a voluntary or moral agent, according as the term motive is taken to signify the desire or the perception of an object; nor is it the question, whether man wills as he pleases, for that is an unmeaning truism;—but it is, can the thinking and intelligent being controul and regulate his volitions, in the same manner as the willing animal regulates his muscular motions. "To ascertain in what this power consists, in what manner and to what extent it is enjoyed, is the object of this Essay." --pp. viii.-xii. LIST OF NEW PUBLICATIONS, WITH SHORT NOTICES. A Guide to the Practical Reading of the Bible. By W. Carpenter. Holdsworth and Ball. Price 5s. THIS neat little manual comprises a great deal of useful information upon the Bible generally, and upon its inspiration in particular. The first part contains a Bibliographical and Critical Account of the English Bible; the second part, Suggestions and Observations on the reading and study of the Bible. The third part is on the genuineness, authenticity, and divine origin of the Bible, and occupies nearly half the volume. Although the work is, in a great measure, a compilation, yet it is a compilation well made, and likely to communicate to the reader much useful information. We could, indeed, have wished that the author had made it more strictly what its title imports, without endeavouring to compress into it the argument for the inspiration of the Scriptures. All guides to the practical reading of the Scriptures, should proceed at once upon the assumption of genuineness and authenticity. In case of any future edition, we recommend the author to separate the work into two; and let us have a manual for the reading of sacred Scripture, another manual for its evidences. A judicious and comprehensive review of the whole evidences, compressed into a volume like the present, would be a valuable service to the cause of Christianity at the present time. The Family Baptist; or a Treatise on the Subjects, Mode, and Moral Designs of Christian Baptism, in relation to Individuals, Families, Churches, and Missions. By George Newbury, Burham, Bucks. Westley and Davis. 3s. 6d. Ir is not often that we stir the Baptismal controversy, though provocations are not infrequent in the pages of contemporary periodicals. An occasional reference to the subject, however, is our duty, and is, doubtless, expected of us by the denomination whose principles we advocate. It is not our intention to occupy the minds of our readers with any discussion of the subject on the present occasion; nor shall we even enter into an analysis of the excellent publication before us. Our views and principles are already well known. When urgent Occasion requires it, we are ready to defend them; but Christian charity and the love of peace forbid us, need |