relification, thatin terms oh outward averything in the modes

ment, as to the position and calling of Israel under the law. He repudiates, as it is almost needless to observe, those modes of explanation which “would resolve everything in the cove. nant with Israel into merely outward and carnal elements ;" and he asserts, in terms which seem to us to require some qualification, that “the history of Israel knows nothing of law except in connection with promise and blessing.”

We entirely accord with Dr. Fairbairn's estimate of the false conceptions entertained by the later Jews as to the nature and intent of the law, and as to their ignorance of its depth and spirituality. We are disposed, however, to prefer the explanation of Calvin to that of Dr. Fairbairn, of St. Paul's declaration, that as “touching the righteousness which is in the law” he was “ blameless," and to regard the apostle as distinguishing between blamelessness before men, and blamelessness before God, rather than as surveying “his earlier life from a Pharisaic point of view."

We think, too, that both in this and the following Lecture, Dr. Fairbairn somewhat underrates that advance in the estimate of moral goodness and of acceptable worship of which the Psalms and Prophets appear to us to afford conclusive evidence. For whilst we agree with him that there was no authority given to any, throughout the continuance of the Levitical dispensation, to unsettle its worship, or to prescribe new conditions to its worshippers, we think that the later writings of that dispensation contain indications, which it is impossible to gainsay or resist, of a much deeper insight into the spirituality of the law's requirements, and a more just and adequate appreciation of the conditions of acceptable worship than those which characterize, as a whole, the earlier writings of the same dispensation.*

Dr. Fairbairn's Seventh Lecture, in which he treats of the relation of law to Christ's work on earth, is well deserving of a careful perusal, and admirably adapted, in our judgment, to meet some of the most prevalent and most dangerous of the errors of modern schools of thought.

We do not altogether agree with Dr. Fairbairn's remarks

• The difference between Dr. Fair. similar testimony to the advance made bairn and ourselves is, probably, rather in the prophetical writings. We think, apparent than real, inasmuch as we find however, that Dr. Fairbairn has, unhim, in the Sixth Lecture, speaking of intentionally, failed to represent Dean the “defects” of the old economy as not Stanley's views on this subject with being “perfectly remedied throughout his usual accuracy, inasmuch as the the whole course of the Dispensation" Dean expressly includes in his refe(p. 103); and again, in p. 190 of the rence to the prophetical teaching of same Lecture, he refers to the “fresh Scripture" the earliest as well as the advance in the Divine administration latest writers, "extending from Moses, towards men,” which was made in the the first, to John, the last, of the Prodidactic and devotional writings of the phets." (See Lectures on the Jewish Old Testament. See also p. 204, for a Church, p. 443, 1st Series.)

upon the reserve manifested by our Lord in regard to external rites and ceremonies; nor do we think them quite consistent either with our Lord's own declaration, that it behoved Him “ to fulfil all righteousness," or with the author's own obser. vations respecting the fulfilment of the law in the person and work of Christ. Thus, e.g., the statement (p. 217) that “we read of no act of bodily lustration in His public history," seems to us inconsistent with the fact of His baptism in the Jordan. Again, the statement that, “ though He did not abstain from the stated feasts of the Temple, when it was safe and practicable for Him to be present, yet we hear of no special offerings for Himself or the disciples on such occasions” (ib.), conveys to our minds a different impression from that which we gather from the records of the Evangelists, and more especially from the fact that our Lord's presence at the Temple, even on occasion of the Feast of the Dedication, is expressly recorded by St. John. And once more, Dr. Fairbairn's statement that, “even as regards the ordinary services and offerings of the Temple, He claimed a rightful exemption, on the ground of his essentially divine standing, from the tribute money, the half-shekel contribution, by which they were maintained” (ib.), seems to us calculated to convey an erroneous impression. For, (1) it is not the motive or the necessity which constrained our Lord to submit to the enactments of the Levitical Law, which is the subject of discourse; but the simple consideration, whether He did or did not comply with its requirements; and, on this point, as we have already observed, the records of the Evangelists lead us to conclusions somewhat different from those of Dr. Fairbairn; and (2), as regards the particular instance to which Dr. Fairbairn alludes, the very fact that our Lord, though a Son in and over His own house, nevertheless yielded compliance to the demand made of Him, and wrought a special miracle for the purpose,-seems to us to indicate, not His repudiation of any portion, however subordinate, of that law under which He condescended to be made, but His firm and undeviating resolution to fulfil its minutest requirements.

Having thus briefly indicated a few points on which we are unable entirely to agree with Dr. Fairbairn, we recur with unfeigned satisfaction to subjects of far greater importance, in regard to which we can with confidence commend the Cunningham Lectures to the careful consideration of our readers. We would gladly, had our space allowed, have transcribed a passage of singular force and beauty (pp. 220–2), in which Dr. Fairbairn contrasts the attendant circumstances of the promulgation of the new law on the Mount of the Beatitudes, with those of the promulgation of the old law from the rugged heights of Sinai. Whilst fully sensible of the fulness and the

spirituality of the provisions which the new law contains for the deepest wants and the most longing desires of man, Dr. Fairbairn insists upon the difference between the two dispensations as “ relative," and not “absolute," and shows that the fundamental elements of both are the same; the grand and characteristic difference between the two being embodied in the pregnant utterance of Augustine, “ The law was given that grace might be sought; grace was given that the law might be fulfilled."

But it is not only with regard to our Lord's teaching that we commend to the careful consideration of our readers Dr. Fairbairn's remarks on “the relation of the law to the mission and work of Christ.” It is from that portion of his Seventh Lecture, in which he treats of Christ's sufferings, that we extract a passage which, perhaps more distinctively than any other which we could select, identifies Dr. Fairbairn's school of theology with that of the greatest and profoundest of our old Divines.

“There are many," he writes, “who cannot brook the idea of these legal claims and awful securities for the establishment of law and right in the government of God: the sacrifice of the Cross has no attraction for them when viewed in such an aspect; and the utmost ingenuity has been plied, in recent times more particularly, to accept the language of Scripture regarding it, and yet eliminate the element which alone gives it value or consistence. Thus, with one class, the idea of sacrifice in this connection is identified with self-denial, with the entire surrender of the whole spirit and body to God.'.... What, however, is gained by such a mode of representation ? It gets rid, indeed, of what is called a religion of blood, but only to substitute for it a morality of blood-and a morality of blood grounded (for aught that we can see) upon no imperative necessity, nor in its own nature differing from what has been exhibited by some of Christ's more illustrious disciples. Such a view has not even a formal resemblance to the truth as presented in Scripture; it does not come within sight of the vicarious sin-bearing or atonement, in any intelligible sense of the terms.” (pp. 248, 249.)

After noticing other similar views of the sufferings of Christ which have been adopted in recent times, Dr. Fairbairn observes :

“In all such representations, which are substantially one, though somewhat different in form, there is merely an accommodation of Scripture language to a type of doctrine that is essentially at variance with it.” (p. 249.)

And again ; "In the great conflict of life, in the grand struggle which is proceeding in our own bosoms and the world around us, between sin and righteousness, the consciousness of guilt and the desire of salvation,-itis not in such a mystified, impalpable Gospel as these finespan theories present to us, that any effective aid is to be found.

We must have a solid foundation for our feet to stand on, a sure and living ground for our confidence before God. And this we can find only in the old Church views of the sufferings and death of Christ as a satisfaction to God's justice for the offence done by our sin to His violated law.” (p. 250.)

In his Eighth Lecture, Dr. Fairbairn discusses the relation of the Law to the Christian Church. There is much force in the consideration, that whilst the fulness and precision of the ceremonials of Jewish worship arose out of, and were essential to, the provisional and typical character of the Levitical economy, the realities thus foreshadowed having come, there is no longer any need of a similar fulness or precision in the ritual of the New Testament. Dr. Fairbairn contrasts, in this respect, the number and minuteness of the directions respecting the observance of Circumcision and the Feast of the Passover, with the paucity and simplicity of those which regulate the obseryance of the somewhat corresponding ordinances of Baptism and the Lord's Supper. Dr. Fairbairn does not at all dispute the fact, that the form and the mode of ceremonial observances both may be, and (as in the case of Naaman the Syrian) have been, of indispensable importance; but he argues, and, as it appears to us, with great force and perspicuity, that, had a similar precision of form and mode been the condition of acceptable worship under the Christian dispensation, instead of a profound silence, or of obscure indications, we should have received full and explicit directions in the New Testament on the subject of ritual generally, and more particularly with regard to the celebration of the two Sacraments of the Christian dispensation.

Dr. Fairbairn adduces, in this Lecture, many passages from the writings of the New Testament, with a view to show that, although there is a wide distinction between the position occupied by Israel with regard to the Law and that now occupied by Christians, nevertheless the Moral Law, as revealed in the Old Testament, had, with the Apostles, a recognized place in the Christian Church ; and “as under the Old Covenant the law-giving was also the loving God, so under the New the loving God is also the law-giving.” We entirely concur in Dr. Fairbairn's estimate of the spurious character of that morality which “exceeds duty and outstrips requirement”; and we believe that the highest condition at which man can aim is that in which duty and privilege are so blended that it is impossible to draw the line of demarcation between the two,

-in other words, a condition in which man's will is so lost in God's will that his inmost soul responds to those words which were fully realized only in the experience of the One perfect Exemplar, “ Yea, Thy law is within my heart.”

Not the least important or interesting of this course of Lec

tures is the concluding one, in which Dr. Fairbairn treats of the “Re-introduction of Ceremonialism” into the Church. Without committing ourselves unreservedly either to the statements or opinions advanced by the learned writer in the course of this Lecture, we have no hesitation in commending it to the careful consideration of our readers, as replete with sound sense, and as exhibiting the results of extensive reading and of accurate observation. The gradual expansion of the sacerdotal and sacramental system, as springing out of the too close and formal application to the Christian Church of the often mistaken language of the Old Testament, and subsequently built up upon the basis of a strange compound of Judaism and heathenism, is in this Lecture clearly traced; and the result of the introduction of this system is briefly but forcibly described in the following words :

“The ancient worshipper, as regards the mediating of his services and their acceptance with Heaven, had to do only with objective realities, about which he could with comparative ease satisfy himself. .... But the spiritual element, which it has been impossible to exclude from the new law of ordinances, has, in the ritualistic system, changed all this, and introduced in its stead the most tantalizing and vexations uncertainty. The validity of the Sacraments depends on the impressed character of the priesthood, and this, again, on a whole series of circumstances, of none of which can the sincere worshipper certainly assure himself.” (p. 320.)

We should but inadequately convey to our readers our sense of the value of Dr. Fairbairn's latest (we trust not last) contri. bution to our theological literature, were we to omit a notice of the very able and interesting Appendix to the volume under review, in the form of " Supplementary Dissertations” on “the Double Form of the Decalogue,” “the Historical Element in Revelation,” and “Whether a Spirit of Revenge is coun. tenanced in the writings of the Old Testament;" the second of which Dissertations we commend more especially to the perusal of our readers, as containing an antidote, of more than ordinary value, to some of the prevailing errors of the present day.* We can only add, that an “Exposition of the more important passages on the Law in St. Paul's Epistles forms the concluding portion of a volume which, independently of his other works, would, in our judgment, suffice to secure for Dr. Fairbairn a place amongst the ablest and soundest of the theologians of the present century.

. Amongst the subjects of practical Sis Fourth Lecture, his dissertation on interest treated of in this volume, to “The Historical Elements in Revelawhich our limits will not permit us to do tion," and his Exposition of Rom. xiv. more than allude, we are anxious to 1-7, as deserving the serious considedirect attention to Dr. Fairbairn's re- ration of those who are now agitating marks on the moral elements of the this subject. Fourth Commandment, as contained in