NOSTRUM REO.UIESCAT 5? m GIFT OF i W, W . / College, THE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES UKLIVKEED AT THE OPENING THE COLLEGE OCTOBER, 1851. LONDON: JACKSON AND WALFORD, 18, ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD. MDCCCLI. C. AND 1. ADLARP, PRINTERS. BARTHOLOMEW CLO8K. CONTENTS. PAGE Notice of New College v The Inspiration of the Scriptures. By the Rev. JOHN HARRIS, D.D 1 The Earliest Form of Christianity. By the Rev. JOHN H. GODWIN 67 The Study of the Natural History Sciences. By EDWIN LANKESTER, Esq., M.D., F.R.S. . . .109 The Study of Mathematics. By the Rev. PHILIP SMITH, B.A 143 The Exegesis of the Old Testament. By the Rev. MAURICE NENNER 181 The History of Classical Learning. By WILLIAM SMITH, Esq., LL.D. . . . .213 Address to the Students. By the Rev. THOMAS BINNET 245 272908 NOTICE NEW COLLEGE, LONDON 1. The Building. The College is situated half a mile North of the Regent's Park, in the Finchley Road, St. John's Wood, and stands on the South- western slope of the Hampstead Hill. It is designed in the Tudor style of the fifteenth century, the walls throughout being faced with Bath stone. The West front is 240 feet in length, 38 feet high to the parapet, and 44 feet to the ridge, and, in the centre, a massive Tower, 25 feet square, rises to a height of 103 feet above the road. At the Northern end of the building is the Residence of the Principal ; in the centre, the College Proper ; and, at the South end, the Library. The principal front faces the West ; the entrance is in the centre under the tower, and above it is a very elegant oriel window in two stories, filled with tracery and delicately carved. The base mouldings are heavy, and the cornice bold, and enriched throughout with carved paterse and gurgoyles, natural and grotesque. The East elevation, though simpler, is designed in perfect consistency with the character of the principal front. The entrance hall is 20 feet square, and lined with VI DESCRIPTIVE NOTICE OF stone; a door in one angle leads, by the turret stair- case, to the upper rooms of the tower. On the East side a broad arch connects it with the corridor, and on the South side are the principal staircase and the Visitors' room. The ordinary entrance is by a Porch on the East side of the building, a little to the North of the tower. The lower Corridor is 162 feet long. At the Northern end are the Principal's Lecture and Retiring Rooms, communicating with his Residence, and proceeding South we pass the Students' Common Room, 40 feet by 20 feet, hat and cloak room, the Hall, Staircase, Mathe- matical Lecture Room, 28 feet by 20 feet, and two rooms used by the Trustees of the late Mr. Coward, and at the south end is the Library, a handsome room 60 feet long, (in 5 bays,) 24 feet wide, and 44 feet to the ridge of the roof, which is of open-framed timber-work of hammer-beam construction, similar to Westminster Hall, with moulded and carved panelling. The walls are of Caen stone, and at each end of the room is a large six-light window, with four- centred traceried head. The side windows are square-headed, with perpendicular tracery. The fittings are of oak, with carved enrich- ments. The total length of shelves is about 1500 feet. The Principal Staircase, leading to the first floor, is entirely of stone; it is divided from each of the Corridors by three four- centred stone arches on light moulded piers. On the first floor, over the hall, is the Council Room, and above it, in the tower, are the Philosophical Lecture Room and the Laboratory, which are fitted up with every convenience for chemical and scientific experiments. From the roof of the tower is one of the finest views in the neighbourhood of London, ex- NEW COLLEGE, LONDON. Vli tending from Windsor Castle and the Vale of Ayles- bury, to Knockholt and Gravesend. Over the Students' Boom, and of similar dimensions, is the Museum, with an open roof, 30 feet high : it is furnished with cases for Philosophical Instruments and specimens of Mineralogy, Natural History, and Fossils. At the North end of the upper corridor is the Lecture-room for the Professor of New Testament Exegesis and Moral Philosophy, and in the Southern division are those for the Professors of the Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and Modern Languages and Literature. All the internal dressings of windows, corridor door- jambs, and arches, &c., and all constructive features of the building, are of moulded Caen stone ; the doors and joiner's work throughout are of oak, the ceilings of wood, and showing their construction. All the iron- work, and every detail, has been designed completely in accordance with the style of the building. The chimney-pieces are of moulded and panelled Caen stone, with carved foliated enrichments, and in the general furniture there is a union of mediaeval character with modern comfort. The fire-places are lined with en- caustic tiles, and have wrought-iron dog fire-grates. The architect of this beautiful building is John T. Emmett, Esq., of Hatton Garden. Mr. Myers, of Lambeth, contracted for the work. 2. Origin of the College. The College owes its origin to the union of the three Colleges, bearing the names of Homerton, Coward, and Highbury, which were founded for the education of young men for the Ministry among the Congregational Dissenters. Homerton College arose out of an union of two original foundations; one, created by the Congre- gational Fund Board, within a few years after the Vlll DESCRIPTIVE NOTICE OF Revolution, 1688, and the other, established in 1730, by a number of gentlemen, under the name of the King's Head Society. Coward College was founded about the year 1740, and has been ever since supported by the Trustees of devises and bequests made by Mr. William Coward. It was successively fixed at Daventry, Northampton, Wymondley, and Torrington Square, in the metropolis. Highbury College was established in the year 1783, at Mile End, was subsequently removed to Hoxton, and, in 1826, to Highbury. It had long been felt that no advantages were secured by the existence of three separate Colleges in the neighbourhood of London, whose object was the same and whose plans were nearly identical. At length, in 1848, a gentleman closely connected both with Homerton and Highbury Colleges gave expres- sion to the general feeling in a letter on the subject, addressed to the Managers of the respective Institu- tions, pointing out the advantages of such an union, and suggesting means by which it might be carried into effect. His views were very favorably received by the Managers and supporters of the Institutions; and, after long and anxious deliberation, it was at length resolved to combine the three Colleges into one, in which a more extensive and efficient education might be given to the students for the Ministry than had been possible with the limited means at the dis- posal of each of the separate Colleges. In order to carry this resolution into effect, it was determined to sell the buildings belonging to the three Colleges, and with the proceeds of their sale to erect a new College, adapted to the wants of a more extensive course of study and of a larger number of students. An eligible NEW COLLEGE, LONDON. ix site was secured in the Finchley Road, St. John's Wood ; and Mr. Emmett's design for the building was selected from among ten others which had been laid before the Committee by different architects. The first stone of the building, to which was given the name of NEW COLLEGE, LONDON, was laid on the llth of May, 1850, by John Remington Mills, Esq., when an address was delivered by the late Rev. John Pye Smith, D.D., F.R.S., who had for nearly half a century held the office of Theological Tutor in Homer- ton College. 1 The building was opened on the 1st of 1 The following is the inscription engraved on a brass plate in the foundation-stone : HOC-AEDIFICIVM- CVI NOMEN IND1TVM NOVO COLLEGIO- LONDINENSI- AD 1WENTVTEM INST1TVENDAM ET ERVDIENDAM CVM IN CAETERARVM ARTIVM STVDIIS LIBERALISSIMIS DOCTRINISQVE TVM IN PRIMIS- IN-SANCTAE-THEOLOGIAE-DISCIPLINA- AD OPVS MINISTER! AD AEDIFICATIONEM CORPORIS CHRISTI CONDI'TVM EST. FVNDAMENTA- CVM . VOTIS PRECATIONIBVSQVE DEI SALVATORIS NOSTRT ET PATRIS ET FILl ET SPIRITVS SANCTI- VT ORSIS TANTI OPERIS SVCCESSVS PROSPEROS DARET IECIT IOANNES REMINGTON MILLS ANTE DIEM QVINTVM IDVS MAIAS ANNO -DOMINI -CICDCCCL- VICTORIA ANNVM DECIMVM TERTIVM REGNANTE JOANNE THOMA JSMMETT ARCHITECTO X DESCRIPTIVE NOTICE OF October, 1851, with an address by the Rev. John Harris, D.D., the Principal of the College, which is printed in the present volume. 3. Object of the College. The object of the College is the same as in the three former Institutions, namely, the education of young men for the office of the Ministry among the Congregational Dissenters. It is to their education and support that the funds of the College are exclusively appropriated ; but the advantages of the College are extended to young men not intended for the Ministry. The classes of the Faculty of Arts are open to all students above fifteen years of age, without any religious tests. 4. Professorships. 1. FACULTY OF THEOLOGY. Systematic and Pastoral Theology, and Homiletics. Professor: The Reverend JOHN HARRIS, D.D. The Criticism and Interpretation of the Greek Testament. Professor : The Rev. JOHN H. GODWIN. Ecclesiastical History. Professor : The Reverend PHILIP SMITH, B.A. Hebrew and the Oriental Languages, and the Criticism and Interpretation of the Old Testament Professor : The Reverend MAURICE NENNER. 2. FACULTY OF ARTS. The Greek and Latin Languages and Literature. Professor : WILLIAM SMITH, Esq., LL.D. Pure and Mixed Mathematics. Professor : The Reverend PHILIP SMITH, B.A. Mental and Moral Philosophy, Logic,, and the English Language. Professor: The Rev. JOHN H. GODWIN. The Natural Sciences. Professor : EDWIN LANKESTER, Esq., M.D., F.R.S., F.L.S. The German Language. Professor : The Reverend MAURICE NENNER. NEW COLLEGE, LONDON. xi 5. Course of Study. The Course of Study ex- tends over five years. This Course is divided into a Literary Course of two years and a Theological Course of three years, the former of which may be abridged, or dispensed with, in the case of Students who are found, upon examination, to possess such an amount of proficiency in learning as to qualify them for entrance upon the Theological Course. The following are the arrangements for the Lectures in the several departments : A. IN THE FACULTY OF ARTS. i. First Year's Course. Religious Instruction. Classics (Junior Class). Mathematics (Junior Class) and Natural Philosophy (Experimental Class). Natural History Sciences (First Course) : Chemistry, Mineralogy, and Geology. English and Rhetoric. German or French. ii. Second Year's Course. Religious Instruction. Classics (Senior Class). Pure and Mixed Mathematics (Senior Class). Natural History Sciences (Second Class): Botany, Vegetable Physiology, Zoology, and Comparative and Human Physiology. Logic and Moral Philosophy. The Moral Philosophy in this Course consists of the subjects required for .the B.A. degree at the University of London. German or French. B. IN THE FACULTY OF THEOLOGY. in. First (Third) Year's Course. Systematic Theology (First Course) : Natural Theology, Evidences of Christianity, and the Analysis of Standard Theological Works. The Criticism and Interpretation of the Greek Testament. Hebrew (Junior Class). Mental and Moral Philosophy. The Greek and Latin Fathers. Ecclesiastical History. Xli NOTICE OF NEW COLLEGE, LONDON. iv. Second (Fourth) Year's Course. Systematic Theology and Homiletics (Second Course) : Doctrinal Theology, Homiletics, Analysis of Standard Works, Sermons, and Essays. The Criticism and Interpretation of the Greek Testament. Hebrew (Senior Class) and Old Testament Criticism, with Chaldee and Syriac, or Arabic. The Greek and Latin Fathers. Ecclesiastical History. v. Third (Fifth) Year's Course. Systematic and Pastoral Theology (Third Course) : Pastoral Theo- logy, Sermons and Essays, History of False Religions and of Heresies. The Criticism and Interpretation of the Greek Testament. Hebrew (Senior Class) and Old Testament Criticism, with Chaldee and Syriac, or Arabic. The Greek and Latin Fathers. Ecclesiastical History. 6. Government. The government of the College is vested in a Council, elected annually by the sub- scribers to the College. All matters of internal order, discipline, and arrangement are administered by the Senate, (that is, the Professors acting as a body,) under the sanction of the Council. A LECTURE INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES DELIVERED AT THE OPENING OF NEW COLLEGE, LONDON. BY JOHN HARRIS, D.D., PRINCIPAL, AND PROFESSOR OT SYSTEMATIC AND PASTORAL THEOLOGY. OCTOBER 1, 1851. INTRODUCTORY LECTURE, BY JOHN HARRIS, D.D. IN taking possession of these halls, this morning, for official purposes, we have reached a point where many anxieties and labours find their reward, and whence a new scene of hopes, and efforts, and responsi- bilities opens, and stretches away into the future. Even if our designs were purely secular, we could hardly enter on our present position, as thoughtful men, without being conscious of such emotions as would find their fittest utterance in prayer. But the high and holy nature of our aims, by placing us in sympathy with all that is most solemn in the destiny of man, and most spiritual in the kingdom of Christ, shuts us up to the deep conviction that "our sufficiency is of God." " God be merciful to us, and bless us; and cause his face to shine upon us. That thy way may be known upon earth, thy saving health among all nations/' And as the state of mind most appropriate to the occasion is that of devout gratitude and dependence, ; | ? |- J,; 4 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. the subject which has occurred to me, as well calcu- lated to harmonise with it, is the divine inspiration of those Scriptures, for the defence and the publication of whose blessed truths, this, and every similar insti- tution, exists. I am not unaware of the difficulties which belong to it, in common with every subject which involves spiritual agency, and the simplest treatment of which takes us into the region of the metaphysical. Nor should I, most probably, have selected it for this occasion, were it not pre-eminently, in some respects, the topic of the day. Time was when our religious differences related chiefly to the meaning of a text, or to the claims of a single doctrine. Christians united generally in re- garding tradition, reason, and devout emotion, only as important helps in ascertaining the claims and the meaning of the holy book, not as of co-ordinate autho- rity with the book itself in its own peculiar domain. Tradition now assumes to supplement the Bible; and forthwith Tractarianism appears with another reve- lation. Reason, not satisfied with interpreting the book, assumes to be its judge ; and, with the appear- ance of Rationalism, revelation disappears. Emotion, inward experience, under various names, assuming to be, not the mere light in which truth is to be studied, but as truth itself, gives birth to a pious mysticism, which modifies revelation at pleasure. In other words, the claims of the Bible itself are now brought in question, and consequently the Divine authority of all texts and doctrines alike. Every divergent view gives birth to a sect. Eager sympathy is shown with every new theory on the subject ; and a readiness to adopt it, on two conditions, that it do not openly avow INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 5 an infidel tendency, and that it makes itself attractive by an air of learning or philosophy, or especially of genius. If it be suggested that this tendency is symptomatic, and may only indicate the faultiness of the prevalent views on the subject of inspiration, we answer, that we are by no means inclined to chant an ode to their perfection. We are satisfied with their perfectibility; and gratefully welcome every reverent and well-directed effort as likely to advance us on the way. But the tendency in question denotes, we apprehend, not so much intelligent dissatisfaction with the commonly- received views, few of our modern theorists have condescended to understand them ; they have accepted caricatures of them, or, more convenient still, have simply imagined them; it springs rather from the characteristic spirit of the age, and is only one symptom of the general pathology. In every department of our many-sided society, change is the god of the day,- not progress but change, retrogression rather than no change, change even in style. Confident that it has found the philosopher's stone, the age is panting for the advent of some wondrous being who shall apply it. Certain that it is somehow in possession of all the postulates of things, it only awaits the voice which shall pronounce the axioms for all the future. And every aspirant, on announcing himself, awakens the hope that he is the expected hero, or the herald of his approach. One of the most decided forms in which this self- sufficient spirit proclaims itself, in connection with our present subject, is that of ignoring the Bible altogether as a book superannuated and outstript. The religion of human nature is placed above that of the New Testament, and arrayed against it. Man, having un- NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. consciously appropriated many of the truths of revelation, announces them as the excogitations of his own reason. It says much, indeed, for the divinely-adapted and congenial nature of the truths which can thus noiselessly blend with the activity of the human mind in its best moments, as if they were its own offspring ; but it says little for man's self-knowledge, or his knowledge of history, which can thus allow him to mistake the whispers of heaven for his own thoughts. The foremost of the parties in question do not appear to be prodigies either of intellect or of moral excellence, yet the great problems of antiquity are among the easiest of their themes, and all their solu- tions are delivered as oracles. A Socrates admitted that he could only conjecture, and that his best proba- bilia needed the confirmation of the gods ; our Deist, so far from wanting divine teaching, can even revise and amend the only record professing to contain a communication from God. A Cicero, with all the old philosophies lying before him, confessed his inability to answer the question, "What is truth?" by becoming an Academic in his old age; but our modern Deist is not only a stranger to all such misgivings; he professes to derive support for his system, if not even his system itself, from those very writings which failed the philo- sopher, and calls in the authority of Tully himself to justify his confidence. " Our reason (remarks Herder) is educated by the divine revelation, and the well- educated daughter will not strike the mother in the face." But our Deist, besides ignoring the fact that he has been beholden to the Bible for any of the great truths he may happen to hold, repays the obligation by rejecting and calumniating all the rest. We smile INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 7 at the rustic for wondering that the sun should shine by daylight; but the conduct of the Deist in professing his independence of divine illumination is strictly parallel; with this exception, indeed, that while mere ignorance will account for the former, a moral defect alone can explain the latter. Another of the anti-biblical forms taken by the in- dividualism of the day, is to array the present against the past. The man of to-day is deemed self-sufficient; and history is almost ignored as a superfluity. What need of aid from ancient times for one who can himself begin an era; and who infolds all past eras in himself? To be sure he is under the slight obligation to his father of not having been born a savage. Miraculous evidence is consistently resented by such an one as a reproach to his own limited powers, and as an insult to his personal freedom. While that evidence, regarded as documentary, fills up the measure of its offences by actually demanding patient investigation, and a slow " feeling after " truth, from a being capable of living on the wing, and of soaring to the loftiest heights of speculation. If he must believe, let him have novel and piquant reasons for it. Old grounds of faith are effete, and suit not the wants of genius. The same spirit of self-sufficiency also opposes the light within to the light without. What need of external aid for a spiritual clairvoyant, a being who can penetrate the essences of things, and to whom even the senses are almost an encumbrance? What need, at least, of divine attestation, when he receives truth only as it harmonises with his own consciousness and spiritual discernment; and when this internal accordance is his only ground of certainty ? Thus 8 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. evading responsibility, and denying the authority of an objective revelation. Inspiration, with him, is not unique or specific, but generic. It is a natural and necessary part of the human economy. And, not being miraculous but providential, there is no reason whatever, but such as belongs to his temperament and to the age in which he lives, why his own illumination should not eclipse all the lights of the past. Other aspects of this self-magnifying spirit will appear as we proceed. For the present, we need not be more specific, as it is not my purpose to oppose any one theory so much as to ascertain the scriptural doctrine of inspiration, and to point to some of its principal consequences and applications. To any new or original views on the subject T make no pretension, but simply to an earnest desire to know the truth ; and to an adherence to those conditions of the inquiry, by which alone the truth is attainable. I. What, then, is the Biblical idea of Inspiration? This is evidently the first step in the inquiry. For until this is ascertained, we are not in a condition to say whether or not a second step will be necessary. And equally clear is it, that the answer to this inquiry can be derived only from the Bible itself. The validity of its claim is a distinct question; the nature of that claim can be gathered only from its own pages. Now, we submit that one of the first t facts which the Bible brings to our notice on this subject is, that inspiration is something distinct from, and additional to, revelation. In the transmission of truth from the Divine mind, through propheTor apostle, to the general INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. human mind ; the following steps are conceivable : the ( objective truth brought, in whatever way, before the s mind of the internuncius, the subjective influence, and \ the consequent state of mind, which might possibly be necessary in order to the right apprehension and re- ception of that truth, and the influence requisite for his correct impartation of that truth to others, either orally or by writing. Here .jure three steps, the / objective truth presented,^thesubjective illumination ( in which it is seen, also coming from without, and the influence which secures its transmission to others. In the divine proclamation on the banks of the Jordan, and the mount of transfiguration, " This is my beloved Son," we have an example of the first step. A revelation was made, in the sense of a presentation of objective truth, of which none probably at the time fully apprehended the grand spiritual import. The declaration contained a truth unknown before, from the revealing God. In the subsequent confession of Peter, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God," we have an instance of the second, superadded to and including the first ; " For flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee (said our Lord), but my Father which is in Heaven." The same two elements are combined and included in the declaration of the apostle Paul, " It pleased God to reveal his Son (tv statement of the apostle Peter, that " holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost;" they not only had certain divine truths presented to them ; they were, in some instances, supernaturally enabled to understand them ; and they were then moved by the Holy Ghost to impart the burden of the Lord to others. M 10 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. \( Now, in apparent oblivion of these distinctions, the second of these conditions has been recently magnified to a degree which threatens to absorb both the first and the third.j)^It has been more than implied that the grand phenomenon of the process consists in the clear intellectual view of the prophet or apostle that it lies in a state of peculiar mental elevation.^ We freely admit that objective truth constitutes a revelation to a mind only in proportion as its terms are intelligible, and as its disclosures are actually understood. But equally undeniable is it that a given state of mind, however susceptible and elevated, is not, by itself, a revelation, but only the means for receiving it. The power to read is not itself a book. Hunger does not originate food. The eye does not create the objects of perception. Let the most perfect organ of sight be opened on an objectless void, it will see nothing; and equally in vain will the keenest mental vision be strained in the absence of all objective information. If the sun is to be seen, the presence of its own light is not less necessary than the presence of the eye with which to behold it. But if the divine presentation of truth, and the in- spired power of receiving it, be both alike necessary conditions of a Divine revelation to a prophet or an apostle, equally necessary is the inspired power of imparting it, if the revelation is to be divine when it reaches us. The supernatural influence implied in imparting may be only the extension of that which is involved in receiving ; the same in kind, only with a different manifestation. Indeed, granting that the mind was brought into a peculiar state for the percep- tion of the truth, it may be that nothing more was INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 11 necessary than to continue it in that state, in order to the impartation of that truth to others : it may be, that is, that an additional divine act would have been requisite, not to secure the fitness of the chosen agent for reporting the truth, but to destroy that fitness. This, however, is and must be a secret for ever sealed from the eye of our philosophy. That on which we insist is this, that if all that is divine in the process of transmission stops at the moment of the prophet's or apostle's own reception of the truth, or if its continuance beyond that point be even left uncertain, his message can be received by others only as a human, and not as a divine communication ; for we have to do with it, not as it exists in the mind of the prophet or apostle, but as it lies on the sacred page. Now, the truth is, that if any one step in the process of transmission can be conceived of as, in certain cases, not indispensable, it is precisely that peculiar mental elevation which has been almost made to supersede the other two; for we can conceive of the revelation being of a nature not requiring such mental excite- ment. In given instances there may be even no direct revelation of new truth. The effect of the inspiration may be only to bring certain things to remembrance, or to select and record certain things not forgotten. But, however this may be, and whatever the nature of the message which the prophet or apostle may bring, two things are indispensable in order to his being the messenger of God to us; he must have received a communication from God, either a revelation of divine truth, or an intimation of the divine will ; and he must be divinely enabled to deliver the truth, or to obey the will ; that is, he must be the subject of inspiration. 12 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. Accordingly, not only is this distinction recognised in the Bible, but as the inspiration presupposes the revelation, and, for us, includes it, the inspired power of reporting the truth is that part especially on which the Scriptures insist. So far from making almost everything of the percipient and recipient state of the prophetic and apostolic mind, they exalt it chiefly as it is made the organ of impartation to us. f^They say little of God speaking to prophets and apostles, com- pared with what they say of His speaking by them. " The spirit of the Lord (saith David) speak eth by me, and His word is in my tongue. 3 ' God " hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets which have been since the world began." "The spirit of God which was in them testified." " Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." And the inspiration of the written word of God is represented in Scripture as standing in the same relation to Divine revelation, as the spoken communi- cation of it. The speaking and the writing are often identified. Thus, when Zacharias " was filled with the Holy Ghost, and prophesied," and referred (in the text already quoted) to what God "hath spoken by the mouth of all his prophets;" and when Peter affirmed, that " those things which God before had showed by the mouth of all his prophets, that Christ should suffer, he hath so fulfilled," they could know what the prophets had spoken only by what they had recorded. That which they compared with the event was, not the spoken, but the written prediction. Whatever inspi- ration may, or may not, mean, the apostle affirms respecting the Old Testament canon, that " all Scripture is given by inspiration of God." And, respecting his INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. ]3 own portion of the New Testament Scriptures, he claims the same authority as for his preaching. " I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me, is not after man ; for I neither re- ceived it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ." And the revelation which he had so received he imparted, whether by preaching or writing, as an 'apostle. His usual superscription is, " Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ;" implying that the entire document thus inscribed, whatever its particular subjects, is invested with the general authority of an inspired messenger of Jesus Christ. The inspiration of the sacred writers, not only pre- supposed divine revelation, but was different in kind from all the phenomena of mere natural excitement, and of genius. Attempts have been made to identify Ihe influence under which they wrote with that which moves the poet, the artist, and the discoverer in natural science. According to this undiscrirninating genera- lisa^ipn, every earnest man is a prophet, ejrery^poet is inspired, every brilliant idea is a revelation, every admiring soul is a worshipper, and so much of God is in every living man as only to require development in / order to entitle him to the claim of a divine messenger. O " Moses and Minos were equally inspired to make laws." David and Pindar, Isaiah and Newton, exhibit only "various forms of the one spirit of God most high." The "pens of Plato and of Paul are ministering instruments in the different degrees of the same spirit." To Christ, indeed, is " conceded the highest inspira- tion hitherto granted to the prophets of God ;" but "Zoroaster, Confucius, and Mahomet," belong to the 14 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. same class of ' c heroic souls." The inspiration of the individual belongs to " the inspiration of the age ;" is only " a higher potency of a certain form of conscious- ness, which every man to some degree possesses ;" is " as wide as the world, and as common as God." Very different is this form of antagonism to the / received claims of the Bible, from that of the old I infidelity. While its advocates would be politely hor- rified at the coarse idea of branding the sacred book as an imposture, they yet limit their admiration to its literary and aesthetic excellence, or divide the spiritual homage which they render it with a number of other books. The miracles of the Hebrew legislator are allowed, provided they may essay to do "the same with their enchantments." The highest seat in the temple may be reserved for Christ, but then that temple must be a pantheon. Faith and spirituality, divinity and revelation, grace and illumination, are terms which, so far from being ignored, are ever on their lips ; but, then, it is a faith with no historical basis, a faith in themselves and in humanity rather than in God ; it is a spirituality of taste and sesthetic sentimen- talism ; a God without personality; a revelation which admits of a counter-revelation ; grace which has nothing to do with the extinction of guilt ; and the illumination of excitement not depending on a divine stimulus. The fire of the altar is taken to kindle a common hearth, and the vessels of the temple are used for an ordinary banquet. Were this application of the language in question a mere figurative extension of terms from their primary to a secondary sense, as when the Apollo Belvedere is called " a miracle of art," there could be no objec- tion felt except such as arises from the danger of INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 15 misapprehension. Nor could we demur to the repre- sentation that a Milton or a Newton were actually aided, in their respective spheres, by power from on high. He who is sincerely desirous to know the will, and to promote the honour of God, and who 'devoutly disposes his mind for the reception of heavenly aid, is warranted to expect it. But it by no means follows that such general aid is identical with the inspiration enjoyed by the writers of scripture. Because mind and matter are alike amenable to laws, no one thinks of therefore identifying the laws of volition with the laws of the falling stone. And because Newton's Calculus did not render him independent of the Divine blessing, no wise man would infer that the blessing by which he patiently groped his way to his scientific results was specifically the same as the celestial flash which filled the mind of the apostle when he sublimely wrote, " Behold, I show you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump." The ten- dency, if not the design of the course of procedure we are now describing, is not to raise the claims of certain other productions to the high standard of the Scriptures, but to reduce the claims of the Scriptures to the level of those productions. _Tlie inference which it favours is, not that the writers of certain other books are as much inspired as the writers of the Bible, but that the writers of the Bible are no more inspired than the _ymtera of those other books. Now, in confirmation of the proposition that the inspiration of the sacred writers was different in kind from all mere natural excitement, mental elevation, and genius, it should surely weigh for something that 16 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. while, on the one hand, they lay no claim to the in- tuitions of genius, on the other the very* greatest of those with whom of late they have come to be com- pared never thought of laying claim to Divine inspira- tion, and would have even revolted at the idea. The Apostles did not say, " Our communications are true, therefore they must be from God;" but, "They are from God, therefore they must be true." They laid claim to 110 superiority of intellect, but on the distinc- tive superiority of their mission they did insist. It should be borne in mind, also, that a large pro- portion, at least, of the sphere of truth laid open by Biblical inspiration is of such a nature as that poetry and philosophy sustain no necessary relation to it whatever. The poet can, at most, only idealise the real, or realise the ideal. His sphere is the natural and the imaginary. But the prophet of Scripture speaks of things which " eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive." His sphere is the supernatural, and the objects of his contemplations are " the visions of God." The discoveries of science are only the perception of facts previously and always existing before the eyes of all the interpretation of laws as old as creation ; but the disclosures of the Apostle relate to objects entirely new and unknown to nature, and respecting the bare conception of which nature had confessed ' ' it is not in me." The reasoning of the philosopher, however far- reaching and profound, cannot go beyond his data; his conclusions must fall within his premises : but the inspired penman is supplied with new premises ; thoughts previously known only to the mind of God become his thoughts ; he stands in the midst of truths INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 17 brought to him from heaven. The sagacious historian, armed with a knowledge of the past, and assuming the immutability of human nature, may confidently, and, in some instances, correctly, divine respecting the future; but "who, as I, (saith God,) declareth the thing that shall be ?" The future is graphically de- scribed as already present. Granted, on the one hand, that no new faculty was given to the prophet, no known faculty of human nature, on the other, could, without special aid, enable him to foretel the exact duration of the Jewish captivity, and the name of their deliverer long before his birth. Granted, that only the natural powers of the prophet were employed, no mere natural exercise of such powers would have enabled him to foretel, centuries beforehand, the advent of Christ, the place of his birth, and the outline of his earthly course, any more than it would now enable a man to predict what will be the principal events in Central Africa, or in the valley of the Mississippi, during the year 2851. Such knowledge belongs to a sphere which " the Father hath retained in his own power." By no mere native energy can man gain access to it. God himself must bring it to man. And yet to such supernatural knowledge the inspired writers lay claim in all their professed disclosures of the future. " The prophecy came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved [borne along] by the Holy Ghost/' Nor is Biblical inspiration to be confounded with the clear perceptions of Divine truth resulting from superior piety. Some, indeed, hold very different lan- guage. " The inspiration of the Apostles (they say) was purely religious There are no religious 18 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. books to be compared with those of a Paul or a John, because there have been no other such eminent Christians as they. The influence of the Spirit upon the Apostles did not differ, as to its nature, from that which every believer has a right to expect, and which it is his duty to desire." 1 If it be supposed that this sentiment is sanctioned by the declaration of the Apostle John to Christians generally, "Ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things. The anointing which ye have received of Him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you ;" we reply that the language must be so interpreted as to harmonise both with the fact that they were already indebted to the instrumentality of human teaching for their first knowledge of Christianity, and that an Apostle himself was at that moment teaching them. The sense in which they enjoyed the Holy Spirit, therefore, was not of a kind to render them independent of apostolic or inspired teaching. Evi- dently, the meaning of the Apostle is, that knowing what they did, as the result of inspired teaching, and enjoying what they did of Divine illumination in con- nection with that teaching, they were quite independent of all aid from without the sphere of Christian light, or from any pretended rivals of the Apostles. We are perfectly aware that the apprehension of spiritual truth demands sympathy the open eyes of the heart ; that the disclosures which lie on the pages of Scripture as expressions of the Divine character can be rightly appreciated only as the mind is brought 1 L'inspiration des apotres est purement religieuse. II n'y a pas de livres religieux qui puissent etre compares a ceux d'un Paul ou d'un Jean, parce qu'il n'y a pas eu de Chretiens plus illustres, L'action de 1'esprit dans les apotres ne differe pas, &c. Scherer of Geneva. INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 19 into harmony with that character ; and that this state- ment was as applicable to the Apostles as it was to any of their fellow-Christians. But we contend that apostolical piety and apostolical inspiration, however closely united, are essentially distinct. The Apostles, for example, never intimate that either their authority or their ability to teach rests on the basis of their superior piety. The confession of Paul that, in his own estimation, he was "less than the least of all saints," demonstrates that such was not his theory of inspiration. True, the deep lowliness of the sentiment may be only an instance of his proficiency in piety; but this does not the less substantiate the fact, that the theory that Biblical inspiration is identical with holiness of character, or is proportioned to it, was not his theory; for the language just quoted shows that he was not conscious of pre-eminent piety, though he was conscious of labouring, in his apostolic capacity, more abundantly than any of the Apostles. Our Lord's promise to the Apostles that they_gkould..be enjfowej~with ' ''power from jpj^high//_ was made to thenij notT as private Christians, but as his public authorised agents that they might be his " witnesses" or Apostles to the ends of tlic earth. Nor is there any direct or natural connection between superior piety and the subjects of some of the apostolic writings such as the " mystery" disclosed to Paul of the sudden change which will pass on the bodies of the living at the period of the resurrection, and the apocalyptic visions of St. John. Besides which, piety is a slow and steady growth ; but the change which took place in the Apostles' views of the character and mission of Christ, on the day of Pentecost, was so sudden and 20 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. vast, that, if it only denoted a change in their piety, the miracle (for only a miracle could account for it) must be merely removed from their perceptions to their piety. In a word, whatever the relation which personal piety may have sustained to Biblical inspira- tion, as a condition, a sine qua non, it is obvious that it neither presupposed superior piety as its cause, nor was measured by it. On the contrary, the piety of the Apostles was rather progressively developed by the very truths which, by virtue of their inspiration, they had officially proclaimed ; in harmony with the prayer of the great Intercessor, " Sanctify them through thy truth, thy word is truth." And this view of the sub- ject is, besides, in entire analogy with the facts, that a Balaam uttered a magnificent prophecy, and a Judas was endowed with miraculous powers, and that "many (saith Christ) will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name ? and in thy name have cast out devils ? and in thy name done many wonderful works ? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you ; depart from me, ye workers of iniquity." Apostolic inspiration, like apostolic authority, of which it was an element, and for which it was a qualification, appears to have been continuous and abiding a state of mind. This is the true view of plenary inspiration; by which I understand, inspira- tion not confined to the impartation of new truths, but extending to the whole of the apostolic teaching. The theory which represents it as fitful and fluctuating now as not merely quiescent but withdrawn, and now as present and active; at one time as competent only INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 21 to guidance and superintendence, and at another as rising to a heavenly elevation, and amounting to direct suggestion, has had many distinguished advocates. And although it has become the fashion, not merely to dismiss, but to pour contempt on everything in the past which looks erroneous, I confess I see nothing in the view derogatory to human nature, or out of analogy with certain other supernatural phenomena, or in any way antecedently incredible. " There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit." And as the agency of the one Spirit was thus refracted into various gifts, in different men, for a specific purpose (for "the mani- festation of the Spirit is given to every man, TT^OC TO (7Ujupov, to profit withal," for the general advantage of the Church), what wonder if the Solar ray, already prismatically distributed, had also further intermitted its brightness, supposing the attainment of the great end had made it desirable ? The view, however, that it did so graduate and intermit in the case of the writers of the New Testament, appears to have no warrant in Scripture, but to have arisen from con- founding together both inspiration and revelation, and also inspiration and its varied manifestations. Variety in apostolic functions and offices is a very different thing from fluctuation and change in the supernatural power performing them. The same power by which Newton evolved the Principia enabled him to write an ordinary letter to a friend ; but the epis- tolary act argued no remission of the power which produced the scientific. And the only theory which seems accordant with Scripture is that which repre- sents the inspiration of the Apostles as a habit or state of mind, always ready alike to descry whatever new 22 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. aspects of Divine truth came into their bright horizon, to direct and superintend religious inquiry where such functions only were necessary, and generally to give forth such utterances respecting divine things as strictly accorded with the will of God. Such appears to be implied in our Lord's promises, " I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide (nkvtj) with you for ever;" the agency of the Spirit was to be permanent in con- trast with the transitory corporeal presence of Christ : " Until ye be clothed (IvSvariaOt) with power from on high" where clothed must be understood of such a possession of the Holy Spirit as would complete their official equipment as the Apostles of the new economy : and " ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you" (tTreXOoyroe). It accords with the significant act, " He breathed (tvtfyv arias) on them, and said, Receive ye (XajSerc) the Holy Ghost " the sym- bolical breathing denoting the transmission and in- dwelling of a new life. It agrees with the account given of the impartation of the Spirit to the Apostles on the day of Pentecost, that "they were all filled with the Holy Ghost." And henceforth they uni- formly preached and wrote as inspired men. This view of the inspiration of the apostles as a state, is quite compatible with the idea of growth up to the definite period when that state was attained. The eleven appeared to have reached it by at least three progressive stages. When first sent forth in Judea, they were endowed with so much spiritual power as enabled them to work miracles, and to preach the kingdom of God. That power was augmented when our Lord, after his resurrection, significantly INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 23 breathed on them, and said, " Receive ye the Holy Ghost." But still they were to wait. The comple- ment of supernatural qualification was yet to come. On the day of Pentecost their inspiration became ple- nary and complete. Nor is this view of their inspiration opposed to the fact of their receiving, from time to time, additional revelations, divine impulses to particular acts, or of their being susceptible of transient illapse and ecstacy. Not until Peter was to be prepared for visiting Cor- nelius, did the symbolic vision appear which the power of inspiration enabled him rightly to interpret. "A man of Macedonia" beckoned Paul in the direction of Europe. And when he "comes to certain visions and revelations of the Lord," he professes, that whether he to whom they were made was "in the body or out of the body," at the time, he " cannot tell." The fact, however, that the Apostles were conscious of such occa- sional or even frequent revelations and impulses when a special object was to be obtained, is quite consistent with the view of their inspiration as a continuous state of mind. Their ordinary, or habitual inspiration, may even have formed the groundwork for such extraordi- nary phenomena, as well as their qualification for the ordinary duties of their apostolic office. 1 But how (it may be asked) does the doctrine of ple- 1 So, also, when St. Paul apparently disclaims the power of officially adjudicating on the propriety of entering into the marriage state, 1 Cor. vii, 6, 10, 12, 40, he implies no remission of his inspired endowment, but only that he has no divine " command " no revelation from God on the subject. And his jealous care in this particular, not to let his own enlightened judgment pass for a divine decision, implies that on other occasions he was conscious that his teaching possessed a divine authority. 24 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. nary inspiration accord with certain alleged defects in the morality of the Mosaic legislation, or in the apos- tolic conduct ? In the former, we reply, there is a broad and palpable distinction between the permanent and universal elements of the economy, and those which were avowedly temporal and national. The moral law, and everything belonging to the economy of which that law forms the sanction and centre, so far from being chargeable with imperfection, convicts and con- demns every other law, and every responsible being, that falls below perfection. In the summary which our Lord gave of it, he himself bowed to it with reverence. It is the legislation of Heaven for all time as to the letter, and as to the spirit for all eternity. Having kindled Sinai in the forefront of the economy having first erected this immutable standard of moral excellence as the representative and vindication of the Divine -character, a part of the design of the local and temporary portion of the economy was to educate the people gradually to approach and to con- form to its requirements. For example : if divorce was not absolutely prohibited by a special law, " it was allowed (saith our Lord) only because of the hardness of their hearts" only because they were not morally prepared for it. Meanwhile, however, the defect was variously discouraged, made difficult, existed only by sufferance. While the great Moral Law the Law of all laws, be it remembered never ceased to frown from Sinai upon this and every other relative imper- fection of the economy; to denote its merely pro- visional character, and to prepare the way for its repeal when the fulness of the time should come. Now it is only by overlooking this grand distinction between INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 25 the perfect and the provisional in the economy that the charge in question can obtain the shadow of a ground. One might ask the party bringing it, indeed, to account for the perfect elements contained in the law as well as for the imperfect ; to say why, if the imperfect denote a merely human origin, the perfect do not vindicate for themselves a divine source ? Viewing the question on a comprehensive scale, it will perhaps be generally conceded, that those parts of the economy which for a reason were allowed to be relatively im- perfect, do not less illustrate the condescending wisdom of God, owing to their educational adaptation, than the perfection of the moral law proclaims the Holiness of God, as the standard to which universal man is to aspire. In proceeding to remark on alleged or admitted defects in apostolic conduct, we accept the particular instance most frequently adduced, and which is recorded, Gal. ii, 11 15. " When Peter was dome to Antioch I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed. For before that certain came from James he did eat with the Gentiles, but when they were come he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them who were of the circumcision." Now this want of con- sistency in the conduct of Peter could be adduced as a contradiction to his plenary inspiration only on one or both of the following grounds : First, that he was actually ignorant of the requirements of the case, had received no light from heaven on the subject, but was simply abandoned to the dictates of policy or of blind prejudice. Now, so far from this, the Apostle Paul declares (ver. 5, 14) that " the truth of the Gospel " on the subject was fully known ; that Peter himself had freely acted on it, and was known to have done 26 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. so : and that "fear " alone had involved him in a passing inconsistency, and that, therefore, " he was to be blamed." Indeed, so clearly was Peter himself taught on this point, that when, on his return to Jerusalem from his visit to Cornelius, (Acts xi, 3, 18,) " they of the circumcision contended with him, saying, thou wentest in to men uncircumcised, and didst eat with them, Peter rehearsed the matter from the beginning," and concluded with the grand and un- answerable appeal, " What was I, that I could withstand God ? " And all his audience were convinced, and " glorified God, saying, Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life." Or, secondly, that plenary inspiration either presupposes or produces a degree of spiritual excellence which raises its subject above the danger of all practical inconsistency or defect. But such a notion is purely gratuitous. No one entertains it. However superior the piety of the Apostles may have come to be from their constant converse with the truth of the Gospel in the first freshness of its direct disclosure, and however much of the sanctifying influence of the Holy Spirit they would, from the divine peculiarity of their position, seek and obtain, their office, as the organs of revela- tion, left them still within the sphere of humanity. They were "earthen vessels /' men of like passions with ourselves. Their official relation, however closely united, was not identical, with their Christian character. The grace which sanctified their moral nature was a distinct element of their experience ; as distinct from their inspiration, as our inner experience or our prac- tice of holiness is from our intellectual perception of its reality and excellence. As, then, neither of these INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 27 two positions is assumed by our view of plenary inspi- ration, they cannot be alleged in contradiction of it. Nor is this view of inspiration at all incompatible with the fact, that the apostles introduce many topics which appear but remotely connected with strict reve- lation, and some of comparatively small significance. They advert to matters of history, insert fragments from more ancient documents, quote from classic authors, describe their own movements, cite proverbs, lay open much of their individual Christian experience, glance at circumstances affecting their personal comfort, and record the sentiments of the erring and the vicious. Hence has arisen the distinction, that "the word of God is in the Bible, but the Bible is not the word of God," a distinction which is true or false, according as it is understood. If it only mean that the Bible is not all pure revelation, who can object to it? But if it intends that it is not all inspired, that the inspiration is only coextensive with the revelation, and that all the rest of Scripture is purely human, the distinction is founded in error. The claim of such parts of Scripture is that of historical truth, and of moral fitness, in the eye of inspiration, for the places which they occupy, and the designs for which they are employed. They humanise the book. They are the back-ground and drapery of the picture, relieving, and rendering it attractive ; the nitrogen blent with the oxygen of the common air, adapting, and making it useable. Thus, the errors of Job and his friends, besides disclosing to us what is in man, prepare us for the grand, divine reply, the text for a system of natural theology and moral government, with which the book concludes. In one epistle, Paul speaks of himself as having been " the chief of sinners;" 28 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. and, in another, as being " the least of all saints." It is infallibly true, that he was neither the one nor the other; though it is infallibly true, that he felt and deemed himself to be both. His inspiration neither prevented him from forming this judgment of himself, nor from placing it on record. Inspiration kept him from representing his own self-estimate as a divine adjudication, but left him, or rather led him, to record that estimate as an example of Christian piety for all subsequent times. To my own apprehension of the subject, the selecting and superintending presence of inspiration is even more apparent in such portions of Scripture, than in those parts which, from their unique nature as revelations, would bring their own conditions of utterance with them. May we not go further, and suggest that the entire absence of all such portions of Scripture would have justly awakened suspicion, by taking the Bible out of analogy with everything with which it could be most properly compared ? t( The heavens declare the glory of God " but there are vast regions of space which no star brightens, and where no system rolls ; and yet it is these blue interspaces, the mere settings of the celestial splendours, that render the grand spectacle of the heavens endurable and attractive to the human eye. " The earth is the Lord's/' his first revelation to man ; but are all its pages devoted to sublimity and beauty ? One tells of fierce arctic wastes, and another of Saharas of burning sand. One exhibits monstrous forms, to which man is not easily reconciled; and another tells of insect life, too minute for the naked eye to trace. Yet each has its place in the great volume; and the name of the Maker is inscribed on INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 29 them all. But a fitter analogy remains. The Son of God himself, as seen by human eyes, was not all divine. " A body was prepared for him." While here, he was incomparably more man than God; just because he was on earth, and not in heaven. Look from his person to his life. Surely the Bible of his life, if we had but the perfect transcript from childhood to the Mount of Olives, would be great enough for our ambition. Yet we should find him " growing in wisdom/' like the old dispensation. The early part of his course was given to that economy. And even when he came forth to preach, and to set up the kingdom of God, he stopped to take little children into his arms, and turned aside to weep at the grave of a friend. " He went about doing good;" but his acts were not all miracles. The wide intervals between were occupied in patient journey ings on foot, in the quiet of devo- tional retirement, and in the common courtesies of life. " He spake as never man spake ;" but his utterances were not all revelations. He expounded old truths, and quoted current proverbs, and indulged his hearers with pleasant parables. Yet who shall say that these humbler pages of his life were uninspired ? that, in these instances, the Spirit of God was not present? But, if a wisdom more than human pervaded the entire Bible of his life, its lowliest as well as its sublimest passages, there is no reason why the same should not be conceded to the entire volume of Sacred Scripture. The inspiration of the sacred writers relates pre- eminently to their thoughts. The inquirer on this sub- ject has need to be warned, in the present day, against allowing himself to be led away by the very vague yet 30 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. magical manner in which the words verbal and plenary, mechanical and dynamical, are employed. This termi- nology has very different meanings for different minds. No wise teacher, however stringent his views, would now show any sympathy with the absurd notion of Philo, that even the grammatical faults of the Seventy were inspired, in order to afford scope for allegorical interpretation ; or would join with Gerhard and the Buxtorfs in claiming inspired authority for the Hebrew vowel-points ; or with Maresius in ascribing the inter- punctuation to the Holy Spirit. Care is necessary, however, lest, in dismissing error, we cast away a portion of the truth to which it adhered. It is easy to brand one set of views on the subject as mechanical, and to honour a different class as dynamical; and many a sciolist feels as if, in pronouncing these words, he had uttered a smart thing, and had settled the question. Nor is it an unfrequent occurrence for right views to be advocated on wrong grounds. The so-called mechanical views are denounced by many, and the dynamical are magnified, not as scriptural or unscrip- tural, nor yet as in any way related to the character of the Blessed God, but simply from their supposed rela- tion to the dignity of human nature. In the true spirit of individualism so characteristic of the day, men who would be by no means over-scrupulous at the mode of any communication which placed wealth or distinction within their reach, cannot consent to hear of the means of their salvation except on the condition that, in the method of making the announcement, every prerogative of human nature has been ceremoniously complied with. They who would be giddy with delight, who would count it heraldry and fame, to be employed to convey INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 31 a message from certain quarters, even in dictated terms, and on a very small subject, become alarmed for the honours of humanity at the bare idea that any one, thousands of years ago, should have stood on similar terms with the Great God, even though the subject was to influence all humanity for all duration. Men who would be dangerously inflated with the honour of conveying sealed despatches from one human govern- ment to another, cannot hear (not of themselves, not of any considerable portion of the species age after age, but) of a very small number of men, eighteen hundred years ago, having been employed to make a communi- cation from the infinite God to the human race, which they had not the liberty of expressing in their own manner, without being as dangerously inflated with in- dignation. To have been the amanuensis of a Shakspere or of a Newton, even supposing the formulae of the Principia were not understood by the writer, would confer distinction, but for Isaiah to have sustained a similar relation to the Maker of all minds, the idea is to be resented as an insult to humanity at large ! Coleridge tells us, in most poetic prose, how " often he has submitted himself as a many -stringed instrument for the fire-tipt fingers of the Psalmist to traverse, while every several nerve of emotion, passion, thought, that thrid the flesh and blood of our common humanity re- sponded to the touch ;" but that the Psalmist himself should submit, as a many-stringed instrument, to the hand of the Infinite Spirit, is deemed intolerable, as destructive of all personality, freedom, and grounds of sympathy. But the truth must not be prejudiced by such follies. The question still remains, Do the Scriptures them- 32 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. selves affirm that inspiration uniformly relates, not merely to the thought, but that it extends to the lan- guage in which the thought is expressed, in this sense, that all the previous knowledge which the writers pos- sessed of their own language was entirely superseded, and that the very words and phrases which would other- wise have spontaneously embodied the same thoughts, were supplied to them immediately by the Holy Spirit? Now, we not only freely but gratefully acknow- ledge, and earnestly contend, that, in certain instances, distinctly specified in the Bible, verbal inspiration is represented as taking place. We speak not now of those instances in which we have the ipsissima verba of the Divine Being. Audible utterances from heaven are recorded. The moral law is a transcript from tables written by the finger of God ; and to the same class belong many of the divine communications pre- faced with the formulas, Thus suith the Lord; The word of the Lord ; The Lord spake. These, however, are not strictly instances of words infused or inspired into human minds; they are examples of Divine dic- tion, or records of words spoken by the voice of God. The day of Pentecost, however, when the Apostles " began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance/' was pre-eminently a day of verbal in- spiration. Language itself was in the highest respect miraculous. The human tongue was a divine organ, in a sense entirely new ; and had either of the dis- courses delivered on that occasion in a tongue pre- viously unknown to the speaker been left on record, we could have pointed to it as an undeniable example of the inspiration of words. Occasions of verbal in- spiration, to some extent, would seem necessarily to INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 33 arise whenever a prophecy was placed on record, the particular bearings of which the writer did not, and could not, understand; whenever a view of divine truth was to be exhibited which surpassed the entire comprehension of the writer, and to which he knew nothing truly analogous ; indeed, whenever " the mind of the Spirit" could not otherwise be accurately repre- sented. But the sacred writers nowhere claim for themselves immediate and universal verbal inspiration, in the sense we have described. Luke xii, 12, is a promise of supernatural aid adequate to the emergency de- scribed "it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak ;" and is of limited application. 1 Cor. ii, 13, refers to the general style of 'apostolic teaching, as contrasted with the artificial embellish- ment of the Greek rhetoricians : " the words taught by the Spirit," (SicWrotc Trvfu'juaroc,) stand opposed to " the words taught by human wisdom," (SiSa/croie avQpwirivriq GO(j)ia<; Aoyocc,) the style taught in the schools. Enjoying, as the Apostles did, a higher tuition, and relying for success on no earthly arts, they were independent of all the seductions of mere oratory. 2 Tim. iii, 16, "all Scripture is given by inspiration of God," only asserts the fact of inspira- tion, leaving the point at issue, as to the mode in which the divine agency operated in its relation to words, untouched. In turning to the Scriptures themselves for evidence on the subject, the following facts present themselves. Divine revelation has not called for a new language. Absolute perfection, or an infallibility which made defect and mistake impossible, would have required 2 34 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. the origination of a language such as earth has never yet echoed ; but in disclosing his will, the Blessed God has been pleased to accept and employ existing languages, with all their unavoidable imperfections. The popular imagery of the day is taken up into the strain of sacred poetry. Proverbs the medals of a people's life are adopted and consecrated. Where the account of the same fact or statement is repeated (as of the Decalogue, or of certain sentences uttered by our Lord), though the meaning is identical, the words slightly differ. Now the concession of verbal inspiration to one of these accounts denies it to the other. The Greek version of the Old Testament is often quoted in the New as the word of God. As Christendom generally does, and ever will, read the Bible in translations, the inspired Hebrew and Greek Scriptures are comparatively a sealed book. The characteristics, mental and literary, of the various writers indicate their general freedom from organic control. These characteristics are too deeply engraven to escape the eye even of the ordinary reader of a translation. Are they to be regarded as having been created, absolutely originated, by the Holy Spirit for the occasion ? If they are, it follows that they are not the characteristics of the writers ; their charac- teristics are overlaid, and remain unknown to us; and, further, it follows that the writers, (of the Gospels, for instance,) even if they had been forty instead of four, could only have been regarded as furnishing a single testimony that of the one voice speaking through them ; the evidence arising from the combined human testimony would be lost. Or, are we not rather to regard these characteristics as previously existing and INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 35 marking the several writers, and as being simply appropriated and employed by the Holy Spirit in the communication of doctrine and fact ? For the reasons, and within the limits, assigned, we cannot hesitate to reply in the affirmative. Miracle was not lavished. The supernatural never interposed and displaced the natural, except as a means to an end; and the end was attained, in this particular, without verbal infusion. The Divine did not supersede the human, but appro- priated and guided it. The individuality of the man as expressed in his vocabulary, mental associations, range of knowledge, and general dispositions remained, and moved with conscious freedom, under the eye of the Divine Agent. That eye was never withdrawn. Its watchfulness is evident in the presence of what may be called a scriptural style a character resulting from the selection and the proportion of subjects, and from the absence of everything inappropriate in the treatment of them pervading the canonical books in general, so as to distinguish them from all other books. But this superintendence left the sacred writers the free use of their human faculties and cha- racteristics. Never, perhaps, is the mind of the dis- ciple more spontaneously active, and more consciously and exultingly free, than when he is most intimately communing with the mind of his teacher; and, pro- bably, never was the mind of the chosen agent of the Holy Spirit more consciously unfettered in its move- ments, and in the utterance of its thoughts, than when it was living and moving within the hallowed sphere of inspiration. 9 The sacred writers appear to have spoken and 36 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. written under the distinct consciousness of their in- spiration. It might, indeed, have been antecedently expected that, as the organs of a Divine communica- tion to the world, either the revelation itself would, in some manner, bring with it the assurance, to their own minds, of its heavenly origin; or else that they would habitually speak and write, in their official capacity, in the full consciousness of their divine commission, or both. In other words, that they would not be left to mistake, and give to the world their own unaided human notions for communications of Divine authority. This does not imply that the fact of their inspiration must have been always consciously present to their thoughts ; any more than the fact that I am a human being must be present in my mind as a distinct thought during the time in which I may be treating on the subject of humanity. When most imaginative, the mind may be the least conscious of thinking of the power of imagination. Nor, as we have already seen, does it denote that the fact of their inspiration was so present to their consciousness as to restrict the free and natural utterance of their thoughts on whatever they deemed relevant to the occasion. That the prophets of the Old Testament lay claim to inspiration as a fact of their consciousness, there can be no question. Their formula is, " Thus saith the Lord ;" or, " The word of the Lord came unto me." In some instances a Divine constraint was necessary in order to induce them to assume the prophetic office ; and, in still more, the delivery of their message was an unwelcome task which cost them severe self-denial : while their holy life, their anti- fanatical sobriety of mind, and their fortitude in suffering for the truth INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 37 they delivered, evinced the deep sincerity of their own convictions, that they were the organs of the most High. Equally evident is it that the Apostles of Christianity wrote and spoke in the clear consciousness of their supernatural relation to God. Peter writes as " an Apostle of Jesus Christ ;" and classes the writings of Paul with " the other scriptures." " These things (saith St. John) have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life." Of the deep things of God the doctrines of Christianity the apostle Paul writes, " God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit." Respecting the institution of the Lord's supper, he states, " I received of the Lord that which I also delivered unto you." To the Galatians he writes, " The Gospel which was preached of me is not after man ; for I neither received it of man, nor was taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ." In his epistle to the Ephesians, when speaking of the inclusion of the Gentiles in the Christian dispensation, he writes, " By revelation He made known unto me the mystery, which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit." And, possessed with the day-light conviction of his super- natural function as an agent of the Holy Spirit, he speaks and writes as one in whom the consciousness of the fact was habitually present. Now, who shall venture to affirm that the Apostles received no commission to commit divine truth to writing ? that they were not inspired in order to write or to preach, but that, being inspired, they preached and wrote? who shall say, that is, that their writing 38 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. was not one of the objects of their inspiration, but only an optional and incidental consequence? In some instances, probably, they were moved to write merely because " it seemed good to them " they were conscious only of following their own enlightened judgment as inspired men. The design of the Spirit of inspiration was gained without any special impulse. But who shall deny that, in other instances, they were conscious of no such impulse ? If it be said in defence of such a view, that the sacred writers themselves do not prefix an account of any such special commission to their respective writings, we reply that such a super- scription was unnecessary, since they wrote with the divine authority of Prophets and Apostles; that instances do occur in which they were expressly commanded to place certain truths and events on record; and that their silence respecting any corresponding impulse to preach and to write on other occasions is no proof whatever that it did not exist. Here, again let me have recourse to the only appropriate analogy. The Apostles were endowed with the power of working miracles. Can it be justly said, that they were not endowed with this power for the sake of working miracles, with the design of its being exercised, but that, being endowed with it, they happened to exercise it? A formal reply appears unnecessary. Then let me ask further, do the Apostles preface the performance of a single miracle with the formal announcement that they have received a special commission to that effect ? And yet who can imagine that they were left to the exercise of miraculous power ad libitum ? or that they were not conscious of a directing impulse on the subject? Analogy, then, is in favour both of the INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 39 presence of such Divine guidance in the production of the sacred Scriptures, and also of the absence of all formal proclamation on the subject. Or, if the local, temporary, and apparently incidental occasion of several of the sacred documents are alleged as evidence that they could not have originated in any special divine direction, we reply that no event was ever more apparently incidental than that sacrificial scene on Calvary, which yet took place " according to the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God," and to which the great Victim was led by an impulse strong as the necessities of the world. We say appa- rently incidental ; for herein lies the mistake in ques- tion, in supposing that, because an event is incidental to man, it is the same to God; in confounding the apparent with the real ; in forgetting that the plans of the Omniscient God, including both his words and his works, are laid with the foreknowledge of all the future ; and that one of the modes by which he administers his government without interfering with the free agency of his subjects, is by taking advantage of events local, minor, and apparently incidental, for the accomplish- ment of his universal and eternal designs. In this manner, " he maketh the wrath of man to praise him." In the same manner, he took occasion, from the passing rage of the Jews, to provide a sacrifice for the sin of the world, while our Lord yet affirmed that he laid down his life of himself. And, similarly, he took occa- sion, from other passing incidents of apostolic times, to provide portions of a revelation for man as spe- cifically as if the various parts had been sent down direct from heaven. From this brief inquiry into the Biblical idea of in- 40 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. spiration, we gather, first, that the existence of the truth which the inspired mind beholds is presupposed. The supernatural action on the human mind is essen- tially distinct from the truth transmitted from the divine mind. That truth may relate to far-distant events, as prophecy; may be implied in visible facts, as history, and as embodied in the life of Christ ; may present an exposition of facts not susceptible of visible illustration, as doctrine, of which much of our Lord's valedictory discourse consists ; or of express intimations of the Divine will, as precept. But whatever its nature, and however presented, the mind has to look out on it as objective and already existing. Secondly, the exis- tence of the truth to be imparted being supposed, the mind selected for its reception and its utterance becomes the subject of appropriate illumination. No new mental faculty is conferred. The natural consti- tution of the mind includes the power or powers to which the truth is primarily to appeal. But its ear is dull, and its eye dim. A direct divine action is requi- site, in order to prepare the mind for its office. This action is as supernatural as the nature of the truth to be conveyed; as distinct from the ordinary operation of the Holy Spirit as the personal piety and private advantage to which such operations lead, differ from the office of conveying divine revelations to others ; as continuous in its effects as the apostolic office for which it was a qualification ; and is a fact of which the subjects were habitually conscious. It is quite true that the revelation or objective truth presupposed in the first instance could be no revelation to the human mind apart from the divine illumination im- plied in the second. But because the two conditions INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 41 are practically united, they must not therefore be con- founded, nor must the latter be allowed to eclipse the importance and distinct existence of the former. The divine action within takes place only for the sake of the truth existing without. The objective is designed to rule the subjective. The mind does not arrive at a knowledge of the works of God by conforming them to itself, or by viewing them through the medium of hypotheses, or a priori speculations. Its rapid pro- ficiency of late in natural science is entirely owing to its willing recognition of the fact that man is properly " the minister and interpreter of nature." Similarly, his progress in spiritual science depends on his recog- nising the existence of a world of spiritual truth, living in the presence of that objective world, and adjusting and yielding himself up to its assimilating power. And the design of that divine illumination of which the apostles were conscious, was to make that world of spiritual truth present, through the medium of the eye or ear, to the minds of others. But a third step re- mains : besides the existence of objective truth truth depending for its disclosure on the good pleasure of God, and besides the subjective illumination requisite for its primary reception, we have found that the same divine action on the mind extended to the official com- munication of that truth. Indeed, unless it is assumed that the Apostles were preternaturally illuminated for the reception of the divine disclosures for their own private advantage alone, it will follow that the super- natural aid which alone had enabled them to receive, would, for the very same reason, attend their impor- tation of, divine truth. Now of the Apostles as well of the Prophets, it is true that " not unto themselves, but 42 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. unto us they did minister the things which are now re- ported unto us f and of both we have found that while thus reporting, whether by speaking or writing, and reporting every one in his own characteristic manner, each class alike affirmed their consciousness of inspiration. For the same reason that God was pleased to employ human minds for the utterance of His divine mind, He was pleased also to appropriate the characteristics of every mind which He so em- ployed ; and all the truth so imparted and illustrated, is represented in Scripture as the fruit of inspiration. If this be the scriptural view of the subject, In- spiration, as distinct from revelation, is, subjectively considered, a supernatural state of mind, consciously resulting from the direct agency of the Holy Spirit, and designed to secure the oral and written com- munication of such truth, and in such a manner, as infinite wisdom deems requisite for the present and future benefit of mankind. II. Admitting that we have taken the right view of Biblical inspiration, what evidence exists corroborative of the claim ? This I shall do little more than indi- cate. Obviously, the primary and direct proof must be external and miraculous. He who professes to bring more than human knowledge, must be prepared to produce more than human credentials. By such credentials of divine authority the apostolic claims were sustained, so that the inspiration and the divine authority of the sacred books stand related to each other in the form of a syllogism The Bible is of divine authority; the claim to divine inspiration is a INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 43 part of the Bible ; therefore the claim to inspiration is of divine authority. The books themselves contain internal evidence of a superhuman agency. They present disclosures and information such as none but inspired men could have imparted. " By faith we understand that the worlds were created by the word of God." And the account which they give of the original fluidity of the earth, of the order of succession in which vegetable, animal, and human life were created, and of the comparative recentness of man's creation, harmonising, as it does, with the discoveries of science, and yet ascending higher than the farthest reach of tradition, shows that their information was from heaven. The account, indeed, is not scientific but popular; for to have spoken sci- entifically on the subject, in other words, to have made science the subject of revelation, would have been both apart from its moral design, and subversive of it. And yet science has had repeatedly to recall her rash imputations on it, and to confess herself unaccountably forestalled in her own department. Remarkably is the divine claim of the Biblical account strengthened, when we compare with it the traditions and writings of those of the ancients, who, deriving their information more or less directly from the Hebrew Scriptures, felt themselves at liberty to alter, and as they thought amend, them at pleasure. There is the evidence of fulfilled prophecy, proving its divine origin by carrying in itself the proof of its inspiration. Being at once doctrine and miracle, it occu- pies an intermediate place between the two branches of divine authority and inspiration, connecting and constituting both. 44 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. The very form and distribution of the contents of Scripture, especially their comprehensiveness, brevity, and harmony, evince the superintending influence of the divine mind. If we reflect on the exceedingly numerous, various, exciting, and momentous topics of which it treats, we can easily conceive what errors in selection, what confusion in sentiment, what intermi- nable documents we should have had, if each writer had been abandoned to the bent of his own inclination. Yet this diversified mass of materials, embracing the interests of all time and of all worlds, is (as it has been said) concentrated into a compass which a finger might suspend, and a wayfaring man can read. Nor, when the number of agents employed to write the Scriptures is considered, their varied natural capacity and incapacity, the diversity of circumstances under which its parts were written, and the variety of imme- diate ends to be answered by their composition, can we rationally account for the principle of harmonious combination which blends the entire miscellany into one natural whole, without referring it to the pre- siding influence of an all-seeing and over-ruling mind. Nor are the sacred writers less distinguished by a noble simplicity and majesty of style and manner, for which nothing in their outward circumstances will account. Let the writings of the Apostles be compared with those of the apostolical fathers, and the force of this truth will be felt. Pass from the former to the latter, and you pass from simplicity to puerility, and from grandeur to extravagance. Their subjects are the same ; but in the stead of Paul's noble argument for the resurrection, you have Clement's story of the phoenix, and the visions of Hermas for the sublime INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 45 apocalypse of John. Only a step separates the two classes in point of time ; in style and manner they stand immeasureably apart. The influence of the age will account for the qualities of the one, the excellencies of the other can be resolved only into an influence capable of impressing itself on all its agents alike, without destroying the characteristics of any, for it is sui generis, and results in what may be called a Scrip- tural style. In addition, there is the moral evidence, or that which arises from the superior excellence of Scriptural truth, as compared with other systems. This appears from facts such as these that it sets a higher value on moral than on intellectual attainments; that the consistency between its doctrines, between its precepts, and between its doctrines and precepts, by which they are calculated to produce one harmonious impression on the character, shows the superintendence of more than human agency ; that the noble and rational cha- racter of the theology of the Old Testament compared with the low state of literature and philosophy among the Jews; that the New Testament ethics, compared with the worldly circumstances of its writers, and the vast superiority of both the theology and the ethics to the claims of every other religion, evince the divinity of its origin ; that the analogy of the moral adminis- tration which it exhibits with the constitution and course of nature, indicates the same high origin ; but, especially, the manner in which Scriptural truth " restrains and disciplines, without destroying, the subordinate tendencies of our nature; quickens and exalts the conscience while relieving its apprehensions ; satisfies our natural sense of justice while offering us 46 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. escape from the penalty of justice ; demands perfection by presenting the affections with an object calculated to produce it ; inspires hope, while producing humility by the very magnitude and grandeur of the objects which inspire it; and produces active beneficence at the same time that it represses self-gratulation;" and that the universality of this adaptation points to the same source. Let it be borne in mind that we adduce not this moral evidence as a criterion of inspiration, but only in corroboration of the claim. If the Bible be of Divine origin, we might expect that, besides this objective moral evidence of its inspi- ration, its cordial reception would be attended by a subjective evidence to the same effect. This is the experimental evidence of Christianity. And although it cannot be addressed to the unbeliever, as such, as an argument for his conviction ("for the natural man under standeth not the things of the Spirit "), to the believer himself it constitutes one of the most satis- factory proofs that the Bible is from God. For " this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son." And " he that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself." The grounds of this evidence lie in the profoundest accordance between the Biblical description of the disease of our moral nature, and the state we actually find ourselves to be in, between what the Gospel offers as a remedy, and our consciousness of what we need, and between what it describes as ensuing on the reception of the remedy, and the subsequent state and progress of our own minds. This evidence, the Gospel not only pronounces to be necessary, but en- gages to produce. " If any man will do his will, he INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 47 shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God or whether I speak of myself." For the sincere believer, the Bible is instinct with it. A divine life burns alike in its pages and in his own spirit. To him, the " gospel comes not in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance/' This is an evidence whose nature and force nothing can transcend. It appeals to our consciousness and blends with it. It is superior to all adverse outward influences. And it is commensurate with the piety of every believer ever brightening as he prosecutes his upward course. If the Bible be of Divine origin, it is but natural to expect that this experimental evidence of its inspiration will be attended with a corresponding practical evi- dence. Here, however, the question arises, how far the practical triumph of a system may be considered an evidence of its divine origin. For if other systems have obtained in the world, or if, as Gibbon affirms, the success of the Gospel can be accounted for by the action of secondary causes, the practical effects of the Bible cannot be adduced as an immediate evidence of its divinity; though, be it remarked, that, allowing to Gibbon's secondary causes all the force which he claims for them, they would still leave the more im- portant fact, the origin of Christianity, entirely unaccounted for. We lay it down, then, as a principle, that the evi- dence of divinity arising from the success of a system depends, not on the mere fact of its success, but on the circumstances amidst which it triumphs. If, for example, besides being perfectly unlike every existing system, it should rapidly prevail over them all; prevail 48 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. in the absence of all man's favorite and accustomed instrumentality; prevail against the most formidable array of such instrumentality; prevail even over the deep-seated propensities and principles of human nature, then the evidence would seem to be decisive. Now, in the diffusion of Christianity these conditions were all fulfilled. And the evidence derivable from this source has gone on gathering strength to the present day. Indeed, in "the standing miracle of a Christ- endom commensurate and almost synonymous with the civilized world," we may well-nigh regard ourselves as possessing a synopsis of all the evidences. And "if all this combined proof does not establish the validity of those high claims which the Bible advances, nothing can be proved under the sun, but the world and man must be abandoned with all its consequences to universal scepticism/' The place which the Bible occupies in the history of the world knows no parallel, As a system of objec- tive truth for a fallen race, it admits of no improvement, and of no increase. There are no heights nor depths, no lengths nor breadths which are not already included in it. Of self-advauce it can know nothing : it is already at the goal; its only grief is that man will not follow. All his wanderings it has foreseen ; all its emergencies provided for. Its scheme was laid at the first on the calculation of every element in man's nature, and of every combination and development of which those elements admit. Holding in its hand the key of every moral difficulty, and having its finger on every spring of human improvement, its march through time has been marked by a train of blessings. Silently as the light it comes, and the darkness of ages flees INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 49 before it. With the majesty of law it comes, and the anarchy of evil subsides into order and peace. It comes as an angel of mercy, bringing to all that receive it self-restoration, and restoration to God, and an undying zeal for the restoration of others. There is no form of guilt which it has not vanquished, no intensity of anguish which it has not assuaged. And still it awaits each succeeding generation on a higher level, and at a new starting-point, beckoning the way to unattained heights of knowledge and excellence. And its achievements attest alike its divinity and its truth. III. No theory can be accepted in contravention or limitation of the Biblical idea of inspiration, which does not rest on authority equal to that of the Bible itself. Both in this country and in Germany, a new theory of inspiration has of late been loudly called for, and pronounced to be the great theological want of the age. Nor could any fault be found with this demand if it only meant a collected view of all that is known on the subject of inspiration, or an attempt to com- prehend all the Biblical phenomena of inspiration under one or more expressions. Theories, in this popular sense of the term, exist already. And the only justifiable complaint to be alleged against them is, that in applying some of them, so many exceptions, modifications, and difficult adjustments, have to be made, as almost to destroy their usefulness. If, how- ever, the theory sought for is to be strictly scientific, founded on principles established on independent evi- dence j if its assumed explanation of the phenomena of 3 50 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. inspiration is to be based on facts derived from evidence independent of those phenomena, an evil of a much graver kind is threatened. The popular theory can only be charged, at most, with sacrificing its own compactness and consistency to the Biblical facts ; the scientific theory is in danger of sacrificing the facts to its own consistency. The former gradually surrenders its symmetry in attempting to cover and include all the phenomena, however intractable) the latter, relying on its independent claims, is likely to reject such intrac- table phenomena, or, Procrustes-like, to exact their conformity. It would seem to be a previous question, worth the consideration of the theorist on this subject, whether or not he is as yet in possession of any of even the first principles essential in order to exempt him from the charge of rashness? There are those, indeed, who would deem it weak to wait for the appropriate data before they begin to speculate ; who can theorise even better without the facts than with them. And there are some who would construe the question just propounded as a mere mode of attempting to escape from a difficulty. To their unconscious ignorance and temerity all subjects come alike, and are equally open and easy for decision; all theories are seductive and true, in proportion to their simplicity; and all ages and states of mind equally suited for forming such theories. But without going so far as to pronounce even a scientific theory on inspiration ultimately unat- tainable, we cannot but press the question on the truly philosophic theologian, whether he really considers himself already in possession of all the facts essential to a scientific formula of the idea of inspiration ? INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 51 Let it be remembered that the aim is no less than to determine, not the objects, manifestations, and results of inspiration these the Bible itself describes but the actual mode of inspiration ; and, having settled the modus operandi, to harmonise all the biblical phenomena with it. A theory of the mode of creation of the manner in which matter was origi- nated, or mind produced, as an act of divine volition, is one thing, and could not be otherwise than idle or presumptuous ; a theory of the results of creation, or of things created, and of the order of their succession, is another and a very different thing, and might be so conducted as to be useful and praiseworthy. And to speculate on the mode or process of inspiration on a supernatural fact, limited to the experience of a selected few for a special purpose, and as one of a series of miraculous phenomena, is as if a man should refuse to admit the fact of his own existence, and that of the race, as free agents, unless and until he has discovered a mode of explaining the creation of the first human mind, in harmony with its freedom. " But the mode of inspiration (it may be said) must have been such as to be in harmony with the consti- tution of the human mind. The laws of our nature predetermine the manner in which it shall be employed; and the Maker of man would assuredly act in harmony with his own laws." Most assuredly, we reply. No sane mind could conceive of the Divine Being as com- pelling a man to a self-contradiction making him recollect what he never knew before or forget and deny what he had known or believe contrary to evidence. But the theorising, in question, not content with an unviolated mind, assumes a knowledge of what 52 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. mental powers are susceptible of divine aid, and of what powers are not, and even prescribes the kind of aid which God may consistently accord to them. An a priori theory of the modus operandi of inspiration assumes an acquaintance with three things : first, with all the laws of the human mind. A knowledge of its faculties merely would not suffice ; for unless the theorist knows also the more complex laws of their operations, he cannot be certain but that some of these unknown phenomena may be the very facts most inti- mately involved in the subject of inspiration. Secondly, a knowledge of all the possible modes of access which the divine mind has to the human mind, and of all the possible reasons which the divine mind may have for choosing one mode rather than another. And, thirdly, an acquaintance with the best method of introducing a supernatural dispensation. Here are three spheres of inquiry ; of which the second and third are absolutely unknown, except as God himself may be pleased to impart information ; even of the first the laws of the human mind no theory exists, except in broad outline, which is not impugned by the existence of many other theories. And yet the speculatist actually propounds a theory which assumes to include and express all three at the very point of contact. And he does this, we repeat, not because the facts of inspiration suggest or require it. The theory is a priori, and comes not forth from the region of the facts ; the facts themselves have to be cast into the mould of the theory, and to take its form and impress. The theory which would reduce the phenomena of inspiration to a minimum, is either historical or psycho- logical. It undertakes to define and prescribe in a INSPIRATION OP THE SCRIPTURES. 53 matter in which it never has had, and never can have, any experience. Its judgments are as purely specu- lative as if inspiration were still in the future, or had yet to begin. It appears to lose sight entirely of the miraculous character of the Christian dispensation. Let it be imagined that all the supernatural phenomena which signalised the introduction of the economy, were yet to come the wonders which marked Messiah's advent, the stupendous march of miracles which at- tended his earthly course, the solemn scenes which clustered around his cross, his resurrection and his ascension to heaven, his character the greatest wonder of all, the scenes of the day of Pentecost, the change which then took place in the views and characters of his Apostles, the miraculous conversion of Saul of Tarsus, together with the grand doctrines implied in the whole, let it be imagined that all these wonders were yet to come, it appears to me that they could not be foreseen without awakening a fear lest the accurate knowledge of the whole should be limited to the few who were immediately cognizant of the phenomena, lest no adequate mode of transmitting to other minds, and to other times, the true idea of so miraculous an economy, could possibly be found. Assuredly, a supernatural vehicle for transmitting the knowledge of supernatural facts, would appear to be only appropriate and analogous. Most certainly, the idea of the divine inspiration of those employed to transmit it, to the extent we have described, so far from being rejected by us as unnecessary or excessive, would be felt to be the lowest order of means compatible with the mag- nitude of the occasion, and to be barely in keeping with the miraculous character of the entire dispensation. 54 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. Equally at variance with the spirit of a sound phi- losophy, is the attempt to reduce the claims of inspi- ration on psychological grounds. For ought the theorist knows to the contrary, the Maker of the human mind may have access to it by a thousand ways ; and yet he flatters himself that it can take place only by the single mode of which he has happened to conceive. He himself has had no experience whatever of the process ; and yet he ventures to pronounce on it as confidently as if it were an every- day experience with him. No Prophet or Apostle has ventured to speak or to speculate on the subject ; yet he, in the perfect unconsciousness of temerity, would undertake to explain the whole to Apostle and Prophet. He has not mastered even the philosophy of the mind in its ordinary state ; yet he not the less confidently describes the mysterious process which takes place when the infinite mind lays hold of its powers, and employs them for a special purpose. This is a subject on which the ordinary sources of information stand him in no stead whatever : consciousness, observation, analysis, and metaphysical research, are here all equally at fault. The only source from whence he could, by possibility, derive any positive light, is the Bible ; yet his labour in relation to that consists mainly in constraining it to speak the language of his theory. Who, for example, shall warrantably venture to affirm, with Wolff, that the inspiration of the sacred writers does not extend to the exposition and logical application of any part of Divine Revelation, on the assumption that the reasoning power is not the proper faculty to be aided, or that, as man can himself reason on the subject, it was not to be expected that God INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 55 should do for him that which he can do for himself ? Equally conclusive, or inconclusive, would it be to affirm that, as man can remember, the Holy Spirit never brought anything to the remembrance of an Apostle, and Our Lord never promised his aid to that effect ; or that, as man is naturally endowed with the faculty of intuition, it is irrational to suppose that any aid from on high has ever been accorded to it. Surely, the Christian theorist would not reason that as man can sow and reap, therefore the Israelites were not fed with manna, nor the five thousand with the five loaves ; and yet consistency would seem to require this conclusion. The error lies in arguing from the Divine conduct in the ordinary course of events, to the same conduct at the introduction of a miraculous dispensation. The true question is, whether, as inspiration is designed, not for the illustration of a theory, but as a means to a great practical end, a state of things might not exist in which the end would not only justify, but actually require, that inspiration should both furnish premises and point to conclusions ? And surely if this necessity exist at any time, and for any parties, it would be at the opening of a new dispensation, and for its authorised teachers an extraordinary occasion, when an erroneous conclusion might be almost as fatal to the cause of truth as a false postulate. Is it not rational to believe that the father of the race received from the Divine Creator, immediately on his creation, an extent of aid which neither he nor any of the species have subsequently either needed or enjoyed? Are we not to suppose that Moses, as the agent employed by God for the erection of the theocracy, enjoyed the Divine direction in relation to many 56 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. things in which it might have been dispensed with in subsequent ages, and in a political constitution of slow natural growth, and of mere human authority? A rightly-selected analogy, then, would lead us to expect that the direct aid accorded to the first and authorised teachers of Christianity embraced particulars, in har- mony with their natural powers, which have never since been enjoyed, because never since necessary. A theory of inspiration may not deserve rejection, even though it fails to explain all the phenomena. Provided it harmonises a large proportion, and does not contradict any of the rest, it merits attention. But let it be found in direct hostility to a single Biblical fact, and it is chargeable with the impiety of erecting itself into an independent authority. Let it be found, under the philosophic guise of explaining phenomena, explaining them away merging objective truth into a mere subjective act, and even confounding that act with the functions of ordinary piety, or generalising it into a state belonging to every superior mind in its higher moods and we are justified in pronouncing it to be " another gospel," and in calling on its advocates for its miraculous authentication. If there be any meaning in language, or any claims whatever put forwards, say, by the Apostle Paul, that meaning and those claims would seem to amount to this : that he had received a revelation directly from God, and that he was endowed with a supernatural gift for making it known, which demanded the full confidence of mankind, and of which his miraculous powers were the appropriate evidence. Between that gift and any endowment of mere piety or of genius, there is, as Coleridge has said, " a difference of kind a chasm, INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 57 the pretended overleaping of which constitutes impos- ture or betrays insanity;" and he who denies its exist- ence, ignores the distinctive authority of the Apostle, disentitles him to credit on everything he said and wrote in the character of an Apostle, and should be further prepared either to prove that his supposed miracles were imposture, or else should transcend and eclipse them by miracles of his own. IV. What, then, is the amount of deference due to an authority which thus comes before us with a revela- tion, an inspiration, and evidence, the miraculous character of which proves both to be from heaven ? It must be plain that we have no alternative. " Neces- sity is laid on us." For us, the Bible is not only true, but supremely authoritative. It may, indeed, be the fashion of the day to dis- parage the miraculous and historical evidence of Reve- lation, as if it had lost, or were losing, its applicability and force ; and it is true that this particular branch of evidence may have had more than the due propor- tion of regard claimed for it by some parties. But what wise man would, on that account, either deny its permanence or question its authority ? Robbed of its supernatural seals, the Bible must not only con- sent to take its place among the human theories of the day it must be branded with this mark of de- gradation, that it has forged the signature of heaven, while owning only an earthly origin. But, entrenched within its munition of miracles, it stands alone and impregnable, challenging the homage of a message sent from God ; and surrounding itself, in that very 58 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. homage, with the loftier evidence still, that " the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth." If, indeed, this characteristic of the day only implied a preference for the moral and internal evidence of the Gospel over the miraculous and external, it might plead the warrant of that Gospel itself. " Because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed (said our Lord to the doubting disciple), blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed/' The faith which is independent of external evidence, is here assigned a higher place than that which waits for such visible proofs ; implying that the faith which springs up from a meeting between the consciousness of religious want, and the perception of Christian truth, from the mind's spontaneous re- cognition of its Saviour, is peculiarly blessed. It is the heroic faith which summons the miracle, compared with that which the miracle has to summon. And in proportion as the range of Christian truth enlarges in a community, and its transforming power and moral authority become recognised, the necessity for its direct authentication, by miraculous evidence, diminishes. At first, the miracle lends its sanction to the truth ; after- wards, the truth comes to throw a halo around the miracle. If, again, the spirit in question only went the length of affirming that the mind can receive only such, and so much, truth, however authenticated, as it is prepared to receive, the proposition would be undeniable, i This is a scriptural doctrine ; and leaves the mind itself re- sponsible to the God of truth for not being in a higher state of moral preparation. But the objection seeks to discharge the mind from this responsibility, and to INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 59 summon the objective to the bar of the subjective, to substitute our spiritual tastes and impressions for the doctrines of the word of God. Or if the objection only implied that man has certain spiritual intuitions or instincts, and that nothing which contravenes these can be accepted as coming from the Author of those instincts, it must be held as self- evidently true. The objection, however, as we understand it, besides providing no criteria for determining those instincts, erects the human mind, despite its changeful phenomena, into a test and standard of Divine truth. But this is, first, to disparage the fact, that there is objective truth. The office of the miracle is to accom- pany the new truth, and to lay it at the door of the soul. Whether the mind will open, and welcome that truth or not, is left to its own responsible decision. But our reception of the truth does not create it, nor our rejection annihilate it. It is an objective and in- dependent existence. Secondly, it overlooks the variableness of the human mind, in its views of Divine truth. Mistaking his ac- quired tastes for his instincts, forgetting that even these intuitions and instincts themselves have not escaped obscuration and derangement, man is apt to delude himself with the notion, that it is his moral constitution which compels him to take certain views of Christian truth, when, in reality, that truth is simply at variance with a favorite theory of his, or is dis- tasteful to his imagination, or to the present habits of his mind. The same man, and the same age, vary their views of truth with varying circumstances. But, while changing their relations to the truth, that truth itself is objectively unchangeable. 60 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. And, thirdly, the objection ignores the fact, that it is the office of Divine truth to affect and change the state of the mind. The eye exists ; but, having been accustomed only to comparative darkness, it is not in a condition at once to appreciate the light. The ex- istence of light presupposes the organ of vision, but that organ itself may require the stimulating and healing influences of the light, in order to bring it into a right condition. And, similarly, Divine revelation, while pre- supposing the existence of certain mental intuitions and religious instincts, supposes also, that they are in a condition to require its awakening and invigorating influences. It asks to be believed, in order that the reasons for believing it may come to be seen. It seeks to be accepted, in order that it may be found to be worthy of all acceptation. The satisfaction of the in- tellect follows the satisfaction of the heart. And what- ever the presumptions in its favour may have been antecedently to accepting it, another and a distinct kind of perceptions and convictions in its favour arise sub- sequently. The truth submits to take the rude and disordered imprint of the mind at first, only that it may afterwards impart its own heavenly image to the mind. We are aware that Bibliolatry 1 is possible; but so, also, are flippancy, and self-sufficiency, and hero-worship, and the worship of books and beings not over-heroical, and which will have soon passed into oblivion, when the Bible shall yet be achieving new triumphs, domes- ticating itself in regions now unknown, ploughing its regenerating seed into the young mind of nations just starting into being, and repeating to the world truths 1 Christolatry is another coin from the same rationalistic mint. INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 61 worthy of being written in stars on the face of the mid- night sky. So, also, it is possible for men to act irra- tionally in the name of reason ; and to make a near approach to impiety, under the notion that they are only avoiding formalism ; and to clamour for mental freedom, while actually submitting to a state of bondage. But we shall not be deterred, by any charge of idolising the temple, from bowing before the God who inha- bits it. We may be charged, too, as Protestants, with having only exchanged a Pope for a Book. But this is simple caricature, for a purpose. As well might it be said, that the Baconian philosophy is a mere change in the object of homage, Aristotle, or the scholastic reveries which passed under his name, for a volume. But then that volume is the volume of nature, containing a reve- lation of the God of nature. And the amazing progress of our men of science in modern times, is owing to the intensity with which they study the volume, and the deference they pay to its authority. The Bible is God's own record of his revealed mind, in the yet higher de- partment of his grace ; and the authority to which we defer, and which we put in the stead of every other, rationalistic and Romanist, in the affairs of the soul, is his whom it reveals as the Saviour and head of his body, the Church. Reject the Bible as your objective standard of Divine truth, and you are effectually pre- paring the way for some ecclesiastical head to take its place. Not long would the earnest and inquiring mind of a community be satisfied with the authority of indi- vidual intuition, or with the vague Christian conscious- ness of any number of believers. If it did not terminate all inquiry in absolute infidelity, it would, sooner or 62 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. later, seek the repose it required on the bosom of some human substitute. Nor let it be imagined, meanwhile, that these two forms of error, antagonistic though they be, are essentially diverse. They have one root, and produce very similar fruit. The Romanist affirms that though the Scriptures are good, they are not suf- ficient; the rationalist assumes that though they are good, they are not authoritative. The latter is only a corollary from the former ; for if some men can supple- ment Scripture, why not other men ? and if so, where is the need of an authoritative standard at all ? The one fashions and makes his Bible for himself, the other refers the process to the collective authority of the Church. But, for us, I repeat, the Bible is not only true, but of Divine authority. It comes, not merely to be ad- mired, but believed. On all subjects within the range of its decisions, it has the right of dictation. Here, it admits of no compromise, and shares its throne with no rival. It is not merely a guide to truth, but a dis- coverer. Its value lies, not merely in its corroboration of truths already known, nor is its mission merely to strengthen our ordinary principles of morality; but to publish truths which it had not entered into the mind of man to conceive. Even its mysteries have been dis- closed in the benevolent act of exploding the absurdities of human religions, and in enlightening our ignorance on subjects on which ignorance would have been fatal. Every other teacher of religion is correct only as he approaches this standard. Having found, by comparison and investigation, that it is the temple, not of a false god, but of the very Spirit of Truth, what remains but for reason devoutly to enter, and consult the oracle ? INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 63 Henceforth, the sublimest office of reason is to receive the Divine testimony as the highest demonstration. In honour of the Christian revelation these halls have been reared, and to the training of suitable men for its exposition and diffusion they are from this day to be dedicated. Literature, and science, and philosophy are to be valued here, only as the handmaids of that theology which is " the haven and rest of all man's contemplations," and whose aim is to exhibit Biblical truth, as the mind of God, in its grand, organic unity, and the mind of the Church, in advancing reconciliation " and harmony with it. It is the distinction of Christianity, that it is the only form of religion which has what can properly be called a theology, or system of doctrines. And it is the honour of Christian theology to attempt to comprehend, in one sublime whole, all its diversified truths ; to receive verse after verse from the hands of a wise and pains-taking criticism ; and fact after fact from a slowly- formed creed ; and doctrine after doctrine from ages of prolonged discussion; and to rear the whole into a temple more accordant with the Divine mind than even that whose model was showed to Moses on the Mount. High is the aim of the philosopher, in essaying to generalise all the phenomena of nature into a principle, a grand fact, which shall proclaim the unity of the whole, and so reveal a personal and enthroned God. But, sublimer still, is the aim of the theologian, in adding to this melody of nature the more magnificent harmony of revelation ; in realising for the mind the noblest visions of Patmos, in which truth shall be seen in hierarchal order, thrones, principalities, and powers, and " the Lamb in the midst of the throne," receiving the myriad-voiced homage of the whole. The 64 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. bare conception lifts the soul. The actual attempt, disdaining to accept the mere service of a leisure hour, of an occasional effort, or of a single power, demands the consecration of the man. God hath spoken ; what less can man do, than summon " all that is within him," to meet the greatness of the occasion ? Even this theology looks above and beyond itself, to " the perfecting of the saints, the work of the ministry, the edifying of the body of Christ/' In vain will the Gospel itself be the text of all our teaching and theo- logising here, if it be not so taught as to be the means of sending forth a succession of "men of God," " mighty in the Scriptures." And, comparatively, in vain will even that be, if they are not suited to preach, not to the past, but to the men of the present day. Is the age drawn by a strong attraction to a material centre ? they must bring forth the only counter-magnet ; " and I, if I be lifted up from the earth (said Christ) will draw all men unto me." Are our places of worship filled chiefly with nominal Christians, persons to whom religion is almost entirely objective, and its operations mere charms and magic ? they must preach conversion, aiming directly at their conversion, warning them that there is no alternative between it and their destruc- tion. Are there loud calls around us for a new advent of truth, and a higher form of excellence, and a more ennobling method of attaining it ? and are there those who undertake to give utterance to these cravings, and to interpret and encourage this dissatisfaction? pander- ing to an appetite they cannot appease, stronger to demolish than to construct? For as many of such cravings as are genuine, the Gospel is exquisitely, divinely adapted. It seeks to kindle high aspirations. INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. 65 It is comparatively unknown for the want of them. Did they exist, half of heaven might be foreknown on earth. Let our young ministers so preach the Gospel as to show men, that if enlarged views can delight them, or models of high excellence win their admira- tion, or lofty motives inspire them to action, we need not as yet call for a new dispensation. Are our young religious inquirers met with the assurance that their own intuitions are inspiration ; that their noblest guide is within ; and is their natural impatience of authority gratified by the assurance that nothing objective must control them ? We must preach as the ministers of him who hath said, " Preach the Gospel to every crea- ture; he that believeth shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be condemned." " The word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day." And is it true that, for a healthy personal piety, they are in danger of substituting a vague emo- tional mysticism, a weak solution of religious feeling and poetic sentiment ? The men of God we desire to see issue from these walls (let your prayers, dear brethren, co-operate with our aims that their number may not be small,) are such as shall be prepared to show them, from deep-felt experience, that there is a world without no less real than the world within a revelation of mercy addressing them a personal God, at whose bar they are standing as sinners needing atonement, forgiveness, and a new heart. " Brethren, pray for us ; that the word of the Lord may have free course, and be glorified." A LECTURE INTRODUCTORY TO THE COURSE OF THE CRITICISM AND INTERPRETATION OF THE GREEK TESTAMENT. DELIVERED BY THE REV. JOHN H. GODWIN. OCTOBER 3, 1851. INTRODUCTORY LECTURE, REV. JOHN H. GODWIN. GENTLEMEN, WE are about to resume the critical perusal of the Christian Scriptures, and propose to read this session the memoirs of Christ, written by the Apostles Matthew and John, with selections from those of the other Evangelists. In this course of Lectures our attention will be given, not only to the great facts and lessons which are recorded in these books to make men wise for salvation, but also to many other matters of very inferior moment. We shall have to notice the various readings of the Greek text, and to estimate the evi- dence respecting them, which is afforded by ancient manuscripts, versions, and quotations, by the writer's style, and the nature of his statements. We must examine diverse interpretations of words and sentences, and mark how they agree with the connection and design of each passage, with what is known of the subject, and with general usage. Many curious ques- 70 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. tions, chronological and historical, with sundry corre- spondences and differences, real and verbal, will require investigation. It will be needful for us to consider much that is erroneous and false, as well as what is correct and true; and to view, together with the declarations of the Divine word, the deductions of human reason, by which it has been sometimes illus- trated and usefully applied, and sometimes obscured and sadly perverted. These, and other subjects, will require our careful study ; for they will all contribute something to a clear and complete apprehension of the persons, events, and discourses, which are exhibited to us in these writings. Now I might remind you on this occasion of the great advantages which you possess, in respect both to the fulness of your knowledge and the strength of your faith, by having in your hands the original documents composed by the Evangelists, and reading yourselves the very words which they wrote. For in the histories of the New Testament objects are presented to us as they were perceived by those who saw and heard them ; they are set before us in the language which they employed, who were endowed with the Spirit of Christ, in order that they might be his messengers to the world. Or I might speak to you of the value of that more accurate acquaintance with Christian truth, which depends on the exact interpretation of terms and phrases ; or show you, that much is supplied for the elucidation and confirmation of the Sacred Scriptures, by the opinions and practices of after times, whether these were right, or whether they were wrong. But it may, perhaps, be not less proper, if, instead of pointing out the special benefits which belong to your peculiar studies, I endea- EARLIEST FORM OF CHRISTIANITY. 71 our to place before you some general view of the great subject to which they relate. It will be useful for you to distinguish between what is the common heritage of all Christians, and what must be the attainment of a few ; between what is so plain as to afford little occasion for controversy, and what is so far obscure as to be understood differently by minds equally intelligent and upright; between what may be made certain, and what must be left doubtful ; between what is of supreme, and what is of only sub- ordinate importance. And of all these, the consideration of the former seems to be a fit preparation for, and introduction to, the consideration of the latter. It has been truly said, that such is the character of the New Testament Scriptures, that the worst copy of the Greek text, and the worst translation, represent the original with sufficient accuracy to secure all the highest ends of Christian instruction. It may further be said, that such is the character of the Christian revelation, that oral reports of what was seen and heard by the first disciples, would accomplish the same purpose. We do not say that Christian truth could be thus transmitted safely through several generations, for there would then be an accumulation of involuntary and unavoidable misapprehensions, which, though sepa- rately immaterial, collectively would be of much conse- quence ; and in the lapse of ages, additions, willfully and wickedly made, would become sacred from indisso- luble associations with truth and piety. We merely assert, that whatever is essential in the Christian revelation could be at first delivered orally; that Christianity is of such a nature as not to need the 72 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. verbal accuracy which can only be secured by writing, and therefore would not be seriously affected by the change or omission of syllables, words, or sentences; that it did not require for its fundamental facts more than ordinary faculties of apprehension and memory, and could not be easily misunderstood, or misrepre- sented. That such is its character appears from the absence of Christian literature at the period when Christianity advanced most rapidly, and produced the most powerful effects on the minds of men. All the accuracy of written documents might belong to the discourses of the Apostles, for they received extraordinary assistance to remember and relate what they had seen and heard. But we have no reason to suppose that many others shared this endowment, or that most of the early Christians were converted by the ministry of men supernaturally inspired. The wide diffusion of the Gospel, and the great influence it exerted, followed the teaching of those who had been taught by them ; and could not have depended on a verbal correctness which they were not able to communicate. The reve- lations of the Old Testament, and of the New, do not seem to have been committed to writing till some time after their delivery; and when written they were accessible to very few. Before the invention of print- ing, books could be used by only a small number of persons, and not until the present day have they been made attainable to all. Receiving, as we do now, so much of our information from printed books, we may need to be reminded that, for religious knowledge, men have in all ages depended chiefly on oral communica- tion, a mode of instruction which necessarily has less EARLIEST FORM OF CHRISTIANITY. 73 of verbal correctness, but at the same time more of moral impressiveness. There is much truth, and much evidence, which can only be obtained by reading the writings of the Evan- gelists, and which few, if any, of the early Christians could possess, before the publication of these works. But there is also much truth, and much evidence, which was possessed by those who lived in the first century, and had never heard the Apostles, nor seen any Christian Scriptures. It may be possible to dis- tinguish these two portions of truth and evidence, though both are preserved to us in the same docu- ments. There was a spoken Christianity, as well as a written Christianity. The former existed before the latter. It was independent, and, for the most im- portant ends, complete and sufficient. The information and conviction which resulted from oral reports, were in many instances, but not in all, a preparation for the fur- ther instruction which followed the reading, or hearing, the written histories. It might be one of the advantages of this arrangement, that most attention would be given to the subjects which were of deepest interest ; and that there would be little to give rise to the verbal disputes, and vain speculations, which, in after ages, were so adverse to the peace and prosperity of the Church of Christ. It is to the part of Christian truth and evidence, which might be delivered and diffused by conversation and discourse, that I propose now to direct your attention. We must make some use of the writings of the New Testament to ascertain what was the Christianity which existed before any part of the New Testament was written. In doing so we shall speak of these 4 74 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. writings as genuine, and of the facts which they testify as real, for we do not see why we should refer in a doubtful style to matters respecting which we have no doubts. But for our present argument it. is not needful that we should assume this. We may take simply the fact, that before the close of the first century these books existed, and were received as true records of Christ and his Church. Looking, then, at these docu- ments as showing what was reported and believed when they were published, we may infer from them what must have been reported and believed before their publication. We shall hereafter use these writ- ings for another purpose, and shall seek to obtain from them directly the complete knowledge of Christianity which they only can afford. But we propose now to use them merely as means whereby we may learn what was delivered by the disciples of Christ, who only knew what they had heard from the lips of others, and who could only communicate what they remem- bered. This knowledge, partial as it may have been, did exert a most powerful influence on the minds of multitudes. It was accompanied with sufficient evi- dence to render its reception right and reasonable. Whatever may have been wanting, it possessed the essence of the Gospel, the elements of all the good which it has accomplished, and will accomplish, for the human race. It is important to see that there might be an oral Gospel; and it may be useful, as well as interesting, to apprehend, if possible, what this oral Gospel was. I think it may be recovered and reproduced from the written Gospels. We may not only say that, if the facts recorded in these books were real, they must have given rise to similar EARLIEST FORM OF CHRISTIANITY. 75 reports ; but we may also say that, if these records were received, they must have been preceded by such reports as would agree with them in all that was characteristic and of most consequence. It is obvious that all kinds of instruction could not, with the same security, be intrusted to oral commu- nication. There must be something peculiar to the truth, and perhaps also to the manner of its presenta- tion, to render it independent of writing. This pecu- liarity may, I think, be found in the facts illustrative of the character of Christ, and subservient to the design of his mission, which constitute the chief part of the Gospel narrative ; and in the analogies by which all the teaching of our Lord was distinguished. The events of his history might be related in a hundred different ways, and still the same impression be left respecting his character and his kingdom. His discourses are the verbal declaration of the truth, of which he was himself the real revelation ; and the meaning of his sayings is determined by his character, or by the circumstances in which he spoke, or by the common similitudes which he employed. If, therefore, we begin with the unmis- takeable facts of his history, we shall find that with these everything else is so connected, that doctrine, precept, and promise, lose the indefiniteness and un- certainty, which might belong to them in the bare form of language, and become clear and certain, as things which were done, as well as spoken. His actions were words, and his words were actions. The early disciples were taught that the knowledge of Christ was the sub- stance of Christianity. To this, therefore, their regard would be chiefly given; and when they received a right impression of his person, whatever was most important 76 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. in his teaching would become plain to them. And once having this knowledge impressed on their hearts, all the objects of nature, and all the scenes of social life, would serve to recall truths, with which they had already been associated, or which by some resemblance they were fitted to suggest. We learn from Jewish and heathen testimony, as well as from the writings of the New Testament, that at the time of Christ there was a general anticipation of important changes, the introduction of a new order of things, the appearance of some great deliverer. Prophecies had awakened this hope in the minds of the Jews, and the progress of events had spread it widely among other nations. The various systems of religion which had prevailed in the world were found inadequate to satisfy the wants and desires of men, though they were still maintained by all the influence which wealth, rank, and power, were able to confer. The political and social condition of Judea, and of the whole Roman Empire, prepared the minds of men, in some measure, for the recognition and reception of a Divine revelation ; but offered nothing to aid the de- velopment and progress of delusion and imposture. There was an outward association of men which would aid the dissemination of truth ; but there was no com- munity of sentiment to facilitate the diffusion of error. There was little faith in many of the existing systems of opinion and worship; but they were not the less supported by the policy of the government, the interest of the priesthood, and the prejudices and inclinations of the people. It was under such circumstances that the messengers of the Gospel went forth to announce EARLIEST FORM OF CHRISTIANITY. 77 that ill Judea the expected Deliverer of mankind had appeared, not according to the anticipations of any, but above the hopes of all, that Jesus of Nazareth had come to be the Sovereign, and Saviour, of the human race. They sought to make Him known unto the world, speaking of his person and history, his doctrine and kingdom. What was the instruction which they delivered, which needed not the accuracy of books, yet possessed the highest efficacy, which secured the re- conciliation of men to God, and the salvation of their souls, through confidence in that Saviour who was thus proclaimed ? We may indicate the subjects of their teaching, without attempting to imitate the manner in which these subjects would be presented by the first disciples of Christ. They would tell how his condition in life was low, even that of a Jewish peasant, and his associates fisher- men, or persons of a similar station; that his appear- ance was always that of a poor man, this being the state which he preferred, from which he might have risen, but in which he chose to remain, as the most favorable to his purposes. There could be no mistake, or misstatement, respecting the outward condition of our Lord. All would agree that he chose a life of poverty, labour, and obscurity, when he might have lived in wealth, luxury, and glory. The fact that this was his condition, and his choice, is very significant and important. Duly considered, it would do much to change men's estimates of good, and give a new direc- tion to their wishes and pursuits. He showed in his own person how little value belonged to the riches, power, and honour of this world. These objects, there- 78 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. fore, were not much to be desired : they could not be the benefits which he came to bestow, nor the means to be employed for the advancement of his kingdom. The condition in which our Lord appeared was itself a declaration, that the deliverance which he came to effect was spiritual, and that the source of his authority and influence was divine. Such were the statements everywhere made by his disciples. They said that he came from God, to fulfil the predictions of the ancient prophets, and to establish on earth a heavenly kingdom of truth, rectitude, and love : that he required of all men unlimited confidence in himself, to acknowledge his authority, to receive his teaching, to copy his example: and that he promised to all who would confide in him, inward peace, strength, purity, and joy, a new life spiritual and eternal. The character and course of Jesus were so contrary to the anticipations of the Jews, and to those of his own followers, that it is certain they would not have attri- buted to him a divine mission unless it had been claimed by himself. They all would testify that he came professedly from God, not simply as a Teacher and Prophet, but as the Governor and Deliverer of mankind. This is evident from the expectations of his countrymen, the assertions of his followers, and the accusations of his enemies. Wherever Christ was pro- claimed, he was proclaimed as the Lord and Saviour of men. Such professions required to be sustained by proof: and they could not be effective unless accom- panied by evidence adapted to the understandings of those who were addressed, evidence that might pro- duce conviction in the minds of the people, and give to this conviction an influence on their conduct. EARLIEST FORM OF CHRISTIANITY. 79 Accordingly the disciples of Christ everywhere de- clared that this evidence was afforded by him. To prove the truth of his claims, and to promote the ob- ject of his mission, he performed many miracles, works plainly above all human power, removing, by the utterance of a word, or by the touch of his hand, all kinds of sickness, raising the dead, feeding thousands with a few loaves and fishes, stilling the storm, and walking upon the waves. All the accounts which were given of the life of Jesus must have agreed in attri- buting to him such wonderful works. His miracles were acknowledged as facts by those who rejected him, as well as by those who received him as the Messiah. They form a large part of every representation of him which has been given to the world; they were the chief means whereby, at first, his character was made known, and his kingdom established. It is certain that miraculous powers were attri- buted to Jesus by the early Christians, and it is equally certain that the many miracles he was said to have performed, possessed the same peculiar character. " He went about doing good." This is the statement which would in various ways be delivered by all who bore testimony to him. They would say that none of his miracles were wrought for his own ease, pleasure, or advantage, none for the purposes of worldly ambi- tion. They were all works of mercy, manifestations of divine compassion, as well as of divine power, being for the relief of men's sufferings, the supply of their wants, and the removal of their fears. Such were the immediate results : and their ultimate design obviously was to produce confidence in Jesus as the Saviour of men. He rejected none who sought his aid, and his 80 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. words of healing were never spoken in vain. But he required of all who applied to him, either for themselves or others, confidence in himself, a confidence commensu- rate with the boon solicited. This was the only condition asked for, and their request was granted. He did not put from himself the regard of men, that it might be given unto God; but he spoke and acted in such a manner as to draw men's affections and confidence to himself. His miracles were so performed as to appear in simple dependence on his own will; the benefits which he bestowed were given as expressions of his kindness, as occasions for gratitude, and causes of ob- ligation, to himself. The confidence which he thus inspired was unlimited, extending to all the wants of the body and of the soul, to whatever was best and highest in this life, and in the life to come. He claimed submission to his authority as the Lord of all, and received, as due to him, the worship which prophets and angels have rejected when it has been offered to them; showing in all these various ways, that God dwelt in him, was manifested in him, and was worshipped in him. It was not from some isolated sayings that the disciples of Jesus would learn that the Father was ever with him, and that He and the Father were one. This lesson would be imparted to them by the tendency of what he said and did to impress on men's minds their dependence on him, and their obligation to him. He spake as never man spake, saying to the blind, " Believe ye that I am able to do this ?" to the leper, " I will. Be thou clean ;" to the paralytic, and to the dead, " I say unto thee, Arise/' There can be no doubt that this remarkable peculiarity would be ex- hibited in every representation of the miracles of Jesus. EARLIEST FORM OF CHRISTIANITY. 81 The miracles attributed to the Jewish prophets were few, and had no such peculiar relation to them ; but the miracles ascribed to Christ were innumerable ; they would be presented as displays of his character, as proper to the peculiar office assigned to him, and as designed to lead men to trust to him as the Lord and Saviour of the World. But it was not by miracles only that the character of Christ was displayed. The ordinary actions of his life were in perfect harmony with his wonderful works, though they were not such as might have been ex- pected from one, to whose will all nature was subject, who claimed a universal dominion, and received as his ^ust have had the Apostles' testimony. Before the generation who lived with Christ had passed away, Christianity had spread over Judea, and was adopted by many in every part of 100 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. the Roman Empire, whose sincerity was proved by the persecutions they experienced. The new religion was contrary to the opinions and expectations of Jews and Gentiles; it did not promote the worldly advantage of any class; it demanded of all the renunciation of every sin; it promised no exemption from suffering in this world ; and presented only the purest felicity, that of rectitude, benevolence, and piety, as the reward of the life that is to come. And yet it was received by myriads. If delivered by credible witnesses, and founded on truth, and sustained by divine power, these effects are at once explained. But if the first witnesses were unworthy of confidence, and falsehood had the place of truth, and the name of God was put on the folly or the fraud of men, then the early progress of Christianity is altogether inexplicable. It has no parallel in the history of the world, and no miracle can be more contrary to the laws of nature and the lessons of experience. It was not in an obscure place that these things were said to have happened, nor were they believed in an age of ignorance, and after the lapse of a long period of time. Christianity arose in the centre of the civilised world, in an age of intelli- gence and information, when communication between distant lands was comparatively easy and rapid. It was proclaimed by a few poor men, feeble, illiterate, and despised. Yet it passed at once in triumph from country to country, everywhere subjected to fresh scrutiny, everywhere meeting with fresh opposition; but everywhere producing a conviction of its truth, and changing adversaries into friends. Besides the evidence afforded by the testimony of what had been seen and heard, there was the evidence EARLIEST FORM OF CHRISTIANITY. 101 of the new dispositions and habits which followed from the exercise of confidence in Christ. Through the knowledge of him the hearts of the most obdurate were softened, the consciences of the most depraved were awakened, the fears of the guilty were removed, the purposes of the feeble were strengthened, the sorrows of the afflicted were relieved, the expectations of the proud were cast down, the hopes of the humble exalted, the terrors and attractions of the world were taken away, the excellence of duty was disclosed, and the love of God revealed. So the minds of men were renewed and sanctified. They sought and obtained the spirit of Christ, and were strengthened for obedience and suffering in his service. They became consciously new creatures through their connection with him. A fresh fountain of happiness was opened within them, which failed not amid all the privations and afflictions of their outward lot. Christianity awakened the con- sciousness of spiritual need, and afforded satisfaction to wants previously unknown: It discovered to men the degradation, disorder, and defilement of their nature ; and then it elevated what was low, reduced to order what was in confusion, and cleansed both the outer and the inner man from the pollution of evil practices and passions. It directed men's aims and purposes to the best and noblest objects, and enabled them to succeed in the loftiest and most arduous enterprises. The changes then effected in the characters of men may not have been really greater than those which are now produced by the faith of Christ ; but they were more obvious proofs of a divine agency, being more apparent externally, and more evidently connected with the reception of the new religion. Those to whom 102 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. Christ was proclaimed had always presented to them, in the character of some, at least, of the early Christians, a pattern of the excellence and the happiness that came from confidence in him. One and another would declare how the testimony of the Apostles had been confirmed in their own experience; how since they had trusted in the Lord they had found the truth of his promises, and were better, happier, and stronger through faith in Him ; that they were not more certain of the possession of that natural life which connected them in apprehension, activity, and enjoyment, with what was material and earthly, than they were of the possession of a new spiritual life, which brought them into a similar relation to what was moral and divine. And, lastly, the declarations made respecting Christ would be felt to deserve confidence from their own nature, being alien from all that could be justly ex- pected from the invention of men, and agreeing with the perfections of God. Christianity declares much that could not have been anticipated from the lessons of nature and of conscience, but nothing that is con- trary to their instructions. Men must receive it before they can see how much in it is manifestly divine; but before receiving it, they may see that it is manifestly not a human device; and that the first Christians could not possibly have been the authors of Christianity. All other systems of moral and religious instruction have been defective and feeble; this only appears to be complete and consistent, and capable of exerting an attractive and assimilating influence on all classes of men. It stoops to the instruction of the lowest, and surpasses the attainments of the highest of the human race. Agreeing with the spirit and true significance EARLIEST FORM OF CHRISTIANITY. 103 of the Old Testament, it was in direct opposition to the form of Judaism which then prevailed, and to the interpretation which the Jews put upon their prophe- cies. The condition of Christ was not that which was expected by any, nor were his miracles of the kind which all anticipated. His salvation was not, save in part, what his disciples desired, nor his kingdom that for which they hoped. His crucifixion and death were contrary to all their previous conceptions and con- victions respecting the Messiah. Jews could not have drawn from their own fancy a representation of Christ so dissimilar from the expectations universally enter- tained among them. Nor could any have received Jesus as the Christ if there had not been the clearest evidence that he really was the Christ, though so different from all that had been anticipated of him. It could not be an imagination of men's minds that the highest excellence should appear in the lowest condition; that divine power should be shown in removing the diseases of men, in preference to any other way; that suffering should be connected with perfection, the means of its manifestation in Christ, and of its production in his followers ; that the death of one was for the deliverance of many; that the perfect obedience of the Son of God was sufficient to save from the penalties of disobedience all the sinners of the human race; that simple confidence in him secured the acceptance of the guilty, and introduced them to the privilege of the children of God ; that the salvation men chiefly needed was a deliverance from sin, and that every other salvation was consequent upon this; that the divine goodness, revealed in the person of Christ, was to be realised in men of every condition 104 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. by the power of his spirit abiding in them ; that all nations of the earth should be united in one brother- hood by their common confidence in him, and the mutual love which resulted from their union to him ; that all who, by faith, were willing to follow him in obedience and suffering on earth, would share with him the glory and blessedness of heaven these things could not be the imaginations of men ; for such things eye had not seen, nor ear heard, nor had it entered into men's minds to conceive. They who reject the miracles and mission of Christ, because of their unlikeness to the ordinary experience of men, must receive many things as true which are much more inconsistent with the same experience. There have been many tales of false miracles ; but in the whole history of superstition none can be found like his, plain, public, contrary in their nature and design to the prejudices of those among whom they were performed, subjected to the scrutiny of friends and foes, and still regarded as unquestionable realities. There have been many deceivers of mankind ; but in all the records of imposture none can be found re- sembling the Apostles of Christ, in disinterested bene- volence, in transparent integrity, in enlightened piety, in the consistent and steadfast maintenance of their testimony when persecuted for it, even unto death. Many delusions have prevailed among men ; but there have been no instances of enthusiasm and credulity which correspond to the reception of Christianity; contrary as this was to the common tendencies of human nature, to the peculiar customs of every land, to the interests and inclinations of every class. Many EARLIEST FORM OF CHRISTIANITY. 105 fictions have been devised by human fancy; but there are no fables to be found in the mythology of any people at all similar to the memoirs which we have of the life and death of Christ ; so pure, elevated, com- prehensive, and powerful ; so opposed to the formalism, secularity, and exclusiveness of the Jewish nation ; so exempt from the faults of a particular age and country; so suited to the instruction and improvement of all times and nations; so free from all human imperfec- tions, and so full of the manifestations of a perfection everywhere acknowledged to be divine. Our expe- rience of the ways of the Eternal and Infinite God is exceedingly small. Our experience of the ways of men is comparatively complete. On the ground of the former experience we cannot speak with certainty of what God would not do : but, on the ground of the latter experience, we can speak with certainty of what men could not do. In attributing to Christianity a divine origin, we do suppose that God has done a new thing iii our world, but not one surpassing his goodness to devise and his power to effect. But they who attribute to Christianity a human origin, must suppose that men have produced this great thing, though uni- versal experience testifies that they have neither the disposition nor the ability requisite for this new creation. . We have not attempted to draw a complete sum- mary of Christian doctrine from the Scriptures, but have endeavoured to present to you such a representa- tion of Christianity, as we may suppose a man of ordinary capacity and integrity might receive from the discourses of the Apostles, and deliver to others by oral communication. We have wished to show how 5 106 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. the most important truths of Christianity are so related to the facts of Christ's history and the features of his character, and are so connected together, that with common intelligence they might be sufficiently under- stood, and with common veracity be correctly diffused. We may thus distinguish between what is supreme, and what is subordinate in Christianity. What is necessarily dependent, even when first delivered, on the exactness of verbal expressions which only written documents could secure, though very useful, cannot be essential. Many of the controversies among Christians have, we believe, respected what lies wholly beyond the limits of the Christian Revelation, and are altogether vain. Others have turned on the unavoidable ambi- guities of language, and have related to matters of inferior moment, where diversity should not cause dissention. A few have referred to the essential truths, the fundamental facts of Christianity. As these, when presented in the person of our Lord, were rejected by many because they were unwilling to receive the truth ; so there have been, in every subsequent age, men of corrupt minds who have rejected Christianity for the same reason. But it must be admitted that the Church has not presented Christianity to the world exactly as it was exhibited by the Lord himself; and the association of human error has, we doubt not, prevented some from receiving Divine truth. It is, therefore, of the utmost importance that we should ever separate the simple interpretation of Scripture from all speculations which may be founded on what is declared in the word of God ; and that, in the study of these sacred writings, we should discriminate between those great facts and lessons which, in all circum- EARLIEST FORM OF CHRISTIANITY. 107 stances, have been the source of Christian life, com- fort, improvement; and those subjects of minor moment, which could not be certainly communicated to any except in the fixed form of written composition. The general view which we have given may be compared to the distant prospect of a large and varied landscape, where, though the chief objects and charac- teristics of the scene may be readily distinguished, ten thousand things will remain to be discovered and admired on a nearer and particular inspection. We must go to the pages of the Evangelists to have the vivid and complete and impressive apprehension of the character of Christ; for none can give the history of his life, and death, so well as it has been given by them. We must learn from their writings the exquisite forms of speech in which the instructions of Christ were conveyed, the vast compass of truth which is contained in his brief discourses, the perfect adaptation of his teaching, both in matter and in mode, to the spiritual improvement of his hearers. We must look to the books which they wrote to see most clearly that the miracles of Christ were of a nature to preclude the possibility of mistake, and that the character of the first Christian witnesses makes deception on their part equally impossible, The preservation of Christianity in the world is owing to the preservation of these books ; and we who have the collected statements and testimonies of all the Evangelists may obtain a know- ledge of Christ more complete than any of the first disciples had; and a conviction of the reality of his works and the divinity of his mission, not less certain than theirs who themselves witnessed his miracles and listened to his instructions. But as a distant prospect 108 NEW COLLEGK INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. of the mountains, from which streams descend to fer- tilise many lands, is enough to convince us that they were not erected by men ; and as we know, by merely looking at it, that the sun which illumines the world was not lighted up, and fixed in the firmament, by hands like ours ; so a general view of Christianity is sufficient to prove that it is of God, and not of man ; to produce the confidence through which it becomes the power of God to salvation ; and to show that it is a gospel, glad tidings of great joy for all people, which should awaken in every human heart a response to the angels' song " Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men." A LECTURE INTRODUCTORY TO THE COURSE OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SCIENCES DELIVERED BY EDWIN LANKESTER, ESQ., M.D., F.R.S., F.L.S. OCTOBER 7, 1851. INTRODUCTORY LECTURE, BY EDWIN LANKESTER, M.D., F.R.S., F.L.S. GENTLEMEN, AT the commencement of a Session distinguished by the opening of our new collegiate edifice, I am glad to avail myself of the opportunity of making a few general remarks on the course of study I have the honour to conduct in this establishment. Although the importance of the study of the natural sciences is now too generally recognised to need a formal de- fence, yet the recent institution of a chair of natural history in New College may be regarded as a favorable occasion for vindicating their claim as part of a sound general education, as well as considering their connec- tion with theological studies. That the various branches of knowledge comprehended under the term natural history have not been more generally made parts of a complete education, may be accounted for, by the fact of their recent rapid development, and the almost entire 112 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. ignorance of them amongst the Greeks and Romans, from whom we have derived the elements of our early civilisation. We must not, however, regard either their recent development, or the want of knowledge of them amongst the nations of antiquity, as proofs of their in- feriority as branches of knowledge, or of their value- lessness as means for a complete general education. The reason of the late development of the inductive sciences, as compared with the knowledge of language, and the rules of abstract science, will be found in their own nature. The child acquires much earlier the habit of using language, and the properties of numbers, than the habit of observing and arranging the facts of external nature. So, amongst the nations of antiquity, language and mathematics early attained a perfection, which has ever since rendered them the readiest instruments of education. I shall not stay here to inquire as to what are the relative merits of classical and mathematical studies in developing the mind, or what is their effect upon the character of those trained entirely under their influence. I think it will be admitted, on all hands, that, whatever may be their value, they address and can only develope a part of the faculties of the human mind. The observation of facts, which must necessarily occupy so large a portion of the attention of man, requires powers very different from those which are demanded for the expression either of the existence or relation of these facts as in language, or of those abso- lute truths of space and number, which are contemplated by mathematics. The discipline of mind which consti- tutes the chemist, the botanist, the comparative ana- tomist, or the geologist, is essentially different from that which can be acquired by the study of languages NATURAL HISTORY SCIENCES. 113 or of mathematics, however much the latter may assist in facilitating or adorning the pursuits of the former. The mode, also, in which the mind is addressed, in communicating the facts of the natural sciences, in order that they may be properly taught, is different from that employed in teaching languages and figures. In the latter, symbols are used; but, in the former, although language and figures may be employed, to indicate the properties, relations, or numbers of indi- vidual facts, the fact itself is presented to the mind, and a process results which cannot but develope an impor- tant habit in the future mental operations of the student. Constituted as English society is at the present day, it ought not to be a matter of indifference, as to whether the observing powers are rightly trained. Much of the greatness of this country, and her power of exercising good and evil influences, depends on the development of her material resources, those very resources which it is the function of natural science to contemplate as the facts for its general principles. It is . only as England derives increased aid from the chemist, the natural philosopher, the anatomist, the botanist, that she can maintain her manufactures and her commerce. It is only as she increases her wealth by these, that leisure can be afforded from necessary labour, whereby the mind may be cultivated, the feelings directed, and the blessings of religion and civilisation be felt through- out all ranks of society. If there be one feature that distinguishes the civilisation of the present age from every other, it is that which is given it by the increased knowledge of the properties of matter, and the conquest of the external world by the genius of man. Nor can the arts of civilisation known to the nations of antiquity 114 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. be vindicated, as having their foundations in a know- ledge of the same principles as those which distinguish our age. Their arts depended on the observation of facts, without the principles which constitute facts a science ; whilst our distinguishing arts have resulted from a direct application of scientific principles, deduced, frequently, from long series of experiments and obser- vations, having no adaptation to the arts of life in view. Such is steam, in its multitudinous uses, from the heating a sitting-room to its moving a Hudson steamer, such is the electric telegraph, the processes of calico printing, electro-typing, glass making, and the majority of those arts whose triumph the world is now witnessing in the Palace of Industry which our country has been honoured to rear. If, then, it be allowed that these sciences afford a special and useful training for the mind, it must be admitted, that we should be culpable in passing them over in any general course of education. But could we not defend the study of natural science, on the ground of its being a valuable method of training the mind, or its facts a useful acquisition, it would still demand our attention, on account of its moral and religious influence on the character. Neither the study of the classical languages or authors, nor of mathe- matical truths, can be easily made subservient to making the mind conscious of the existence, the wisdom, or the goodness of the Creator, whilst the abundant evi- dence afforded in the study of the natural sciences of adaptation and design in the universe, forces upon us irresistibly the conviction of the constant presence of a beneficent Intelligence, whose finger is apparent in the minutest arrangements of the material world. It is thus that natural science may become the hand- NATURAL HISTORY SCIENCES. 115 maid of religion, and lead the mind from the contem- plation of God, as revealed in the animate and inani- mate world, to the more glorious revelation of himself in his word, and in the person and work of Christ. But it may be inquired, if these sciences are really useful, how is it that they do not more generally enter into our systems of education, and especially how is it that they have been so little cultivated in the Univer- sities of England ? I shall not enter here into any discussion of the reason of the neglect of natural science in our national seats of learning; how it is that many important branches of science are not represented by even n.ominal professors ; and how it is that those who hold chairs on these subjects give little instruction, and have few or no pupils in their classes. Those who have the interests of these Universities deeper at heart than we can have who are excluded from any privileges or advantages they may offer, admit this neglect of natural science to be a great evil. An effort has, in consequence, been made in the Uni- versity of Cambridge to repair this, by the establish- ment of a Natural History Tripos. Professor Whewell, whose testimony cannot be regarded as unfavorable to our present University system, has, in his recent work on Cambridge education, referred so appropriately to the subject of the progressive sciences, that I may, perhaps, be excused for quoting the following passage, although, on the whole, his feeling is, I think, more reserved on this point than the importance of the subject demands : " The science and philosophy of modern times differ from, or at least extend beyond, those of the ancient world. Even those sciences which had begun to exist 116 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. among them have so changed their aspect and enlarged their boundaries, that the ancient portion is the smallest part of them. Our mechanics and our hydro- statics are more extensive and more profound than those of the Greeks. Our astronomy has undergone revolutions which have made it belong eminently to modern times, although the ancient foundations laid by the Greek geometers have not even at this day lost their validity or importance. But, in addition to these ancient sciences, others have sprung up which did not exist at all, or at least in any scientific form, among the Greeks and Romans. Such are the classi- ficatory sciences, botany and zoology. Such are those sciences which I have elsewhere termed Palsetiological, and which explore the past history of the world by studying the causes of change, among which we may especially notice geology, the history of the material earth, and ethnography or glossology, the history of languages. Such, again, are the sciences which con- sider bodies according to the elements of which they are composed, chemistry, which analyses them, and mineralogy, which classifies them with a view to their analysis. Such sciences, finally, are those which attend to the structure, the symmetry, and the func- tions of living beings, anatomy, comparative anatomy, morphology, biology. On these subjects, whatever sparks and gleams of intelligence we may discover in ancient authors, the broad light of science was not shed, till the human mind, in the course of its move- ments, arrived at its modern period of activity. These are the subjects with which a person must acquaint himself who wishes fully to appreciate the progress which man has made, and is making, in the pursuit of NATURAL HISTORY SCIENCES. 117 truth ; and, though it may not be possible for any one to give his attention to the whole of these, and though it is not necessary for educational purposes that a man should attempt to acquaint himself with any large portion of them, yet it is requisite, as a part of a liberal education, that a person should so far become acquainted with some portion of this body of accumu- lated and imperishable knowledge, as to know of what nature it is, what is the evidence of its reality, by what means additions to it are made from time to time, and what are the prospects which it opens to the present generation of mankind. The progressive sciences to this extent ought to enter into the scheme of a liberal education." * * * * And again he says : " I have said that a portion of the sciences which have come into existence in modern times, and which are still in progress, should be intro- duced into a liberal education to such an extent as to acquaint the student with their nature and principles. It is an important inquiry, in determining the proper scheme of a liberal education, what portion of science is best fitted for the purpose. I have already re- marked elsewhere that, among the sciences, natural history affords very valuable lessons, which may be beneficially made a portion of education; the more so, inasmuch as this study may serve to correct prejudices and mental habits which have often been cherished, by making pure mathematics the main instrument of intellectual education. The study of natural history teaches the student that there may be an exact use of names and an accumulated store of indisputable truths in a subject in which names are not appropriated by definitions, but by the condition that they shall serve 118 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. for the expression of truth. These sciences show, also, that there may exist a system of descriptive terms which shall convey a conception of objects almost as distinct as the senses themselves can acquire for us, at least when the senses have been educated to respond to such a terminology. Botany, in particular, is a beautiful and almost perfect example of these scientific merits ; and an acquaintance with the philosophy of botany will supply the student with a portion of the philosophy of the progressive sciences, highly impor- tant, but for the most part hitherto omitted in the usual plans of a liberal education. But the philosophy of botany cannot be really understood without an acquaintance with a considerable portion at least of the details of systematic botany. On these grounds, I should much desire to see botany, or some other branch of natural history, or natural history in general, introduced as a common element into our higher education, and recommended to the study of those who desire to have any clear view of the nature of the progressive sciences, since it is, in fact, the key and groundwork of a large portion of those sciences." These passages will, at least, tend to confirm what I have previously advanced, on the general question of the influence of natural history studies on the mind. Perhaps, however, a fuller perception of the nature of the value of this branch of knowledge will be afforded if we glance for a few moments at the range of subjects they embrace. For this purpose I shall include in my observations those branches of science which, under the name of physics or natural philo- sophy, chemistry, and geology, are not generally in- cluded in the term natural history. It will be seen, NATURAL HISTORY SCIENCES. 119 however, that all these branches of knowledge form but one great group, the basis of which is the properties of matter. Matter, its elements and forms, solid, liquid, and gaseous, under the influence of attraction, motion, chemical affinity, heat, light, electricity, and vital forces, is the field for the development of these sciences. No one of them can be said to be indepen- dent of the other, for every particle of matter affects every other. The life of man himself is dependent on the properties of elements, which are affected every moment by the movements, not only of the solid globe, on which he dwells, but the planetary bodies far off in space. So bound up together are the inquiries of the chemist, the naturalist, and the physiologist, that investigations in the department of one are con- stantly throwing light on that of another ; and the study of any particular object in nature is imperfect, unless in turn it is submitted to the peculiar methods of research, that are adopted by each. A course of study of the natural history sciences is undoubtedly greatly facilitated by a knowledge of the general principles of those sciences which are compre- hended under the term natural philosophy. These, including statics, mechanics, hydrostatics, hydraulics, pneumatics, the mathematical part of optics, and astronomy, will be taught in this institution by the Professor of Mathematics. A glance, however, at the nature of these sciences will show their important bearing on such sciences as geology, botany, zoology, and physiology. The laws of attraction, which lie at the foundation of the study of natural philosophy, form also an element in the studies of the chemist, the geologist, and the physiologist. There is no particle 120 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. of matter, however much it may be changed by the operation of other laws, that is not affected by these. It is the same force that gives the mountain chain its firmness and the ocean its level, that maintains the cedar in the forest, and binds man and the whole animal kingdom to the surface of the earth. Whatever may be the other general properties of matter studied by the natural philosopher, we find them repeated in the forms of vegetable and animal life ; and the nature of the peculiarities they present under the influence of organisation, can only be understood by reference to their simpler conditions in inorganic matter. Nay, even more, every day is revealing the fact to the physiologist, that the processes of life are more under the control of physical laws than earlier investigators were disposed to admit. Let me give an illustraton of this : The force of attraction, which is known to act at such stupendous distances, as the space between the planet Neptune and the Sun, is found to be operative on the smallest portions of matter. Solid bodies will attract solid bodies. Two corks floating on a basin of water will attract each other. Solid bodies will attract liquids. A thread of worsted hanging over the edge of a tumbler will empty it of its water. Some liquids are attracted more forcibly by the same solids than others. Water will pass through an animal or vegetable membrane more rapidly than spirits of wine. Gases will attract each other. Carbonic acid, though heavier than atmos- pheric air, in virtue of the attraction of one for the other, is no sooner formed on the earth, than it is diffused through the atmosphere. Gases are attracted by liquids. All the water on the surface of the earth NATURAL HISTORY SCIENCES. 121 is thus impregnated with both carbonic acid and oxygen gases. Solids attract gases. The mould on the sur- face of the earth becomes the great source of nutriment to the vegetable kingdom, because it attracts carbonic acid and ammonia from the atmosphere. It is in virtue of the same law that carbonic acid passes from the blood through the membranous walls of the blood- vessels of the lungs into the air, and that the oxygen of the atmosphere passes through the same vessels into the blood. We find, then, the same force, which we study on the grandest scale in the solemn movements of the celestial bodies through space, exerting itself on every particle of matter on the surface of our globe, and becoming a primary condition of the minute changes on which the life of animals and plants depend. I need only allude here to further instances of the prevalence of physical laws in the organic world, as the forms which plants and animals assume, which secure them from any ill effects from the action of gravitation, the movements of the animal world, which are effected according to mechanical principles recognised in the properties of the lever; and the passage of the fluids in tubes, as in the circulation of the blood, according to the well-known laws of hydraulics. Another class of phenomena, which are investigated both by the chemist and natural philosopher, are those which embrace those great forces in nature, known as heat, light, and electricity. Without a knowledge of the laws which govern the relation of those forces to matter, it is impossible to understand the properties or conditions of the existence of any form of matter. Heat determines the solid, liquid, and gaseous con- ditions of matter. It is the great agent in all chemical 6 122 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. changes. Elements which are firmly united together at low temperatures become separated by an increase of heat. It is the great resort of the chemist in his laboratory; by its means, principally, he has gained his knowledge of the existence and properties of ele- mentary bodies. The use of heat forms a conspicuous feature in the history of man's civilisation. By its means he cooks his food, he cleanses his garments, softens the metals, works his machines, crosses the ocean, traverses continents, and makes the most incle- ment season conducive to his happiness. Heat, as its rays are more or less directly sent down from the sun, determines the differences of climate and the changes of the seasons. The varying face of the heavens through clouds and sunshine, the times of rain and of drought, the movements of the atmosphere, the trade winds and the sirocco, the sea breeze and land breeze, are produced by heat. The solid fabric of the earth gives indications that it was once fused by heat, volcanoes and earthquakes are still witnesses to its presence under the crust of the globe, whilst mountain chasms, disrupted strata, and melted rocks, attest its activity in the history of the world. The vegetable kingdom is obedient to its influences, and differing isothermal lines are attended with the growth of different species of plants. The periods of germina- tion, budding, flowering, and fruiting, "seed-time and harvest/' are dependent on heat. The animal world, too, is obedient to its influences. The absence or presence of heat determines the geographical distri- bution of beasts, birds, reptiles, fishes, and insects, on the surface of the earth. It is necessary to the per- formance of all the vital functions of animals which NATURAL HISTORY SCIENCES. 123 only live as long as they are capable of maintaining their natural heat. The study of the laws of such a force cannot fail to afford intense interest,, whilst it throws new light on every branch of natural science. Nor are the properties of light less important or less generally active, though less observed than those of heat. Though easily separated and distinguished by their effects, they proceed together from the same source, and work harmoniously in the production of some of the great phenomena of nature. " The chemistry of the sunbeam" is a discovery of modern times. This subtle agent appears to be working everywhere upon all matter. Every atom is changed by the influence of the daily light of the sun. Wherever it impinges it produces impressions each one of these is small, indeed, but the sum of them are great effects in nature. Already has man used the rays of light to produce pictures, which, in their exact delineation of natural objects, defy the power of the artist to imitate. Light is the great agent of the chemical changes which go on in the plant. By it the cells of the vegetable mi- crocosm convert the carbonic acid and ammonia of the atmosphere into the substances which serve for the sustenance of man, and which supply him with the materials for his clothes, his furniture, and a thousand of the comforts and luxuries of life. Nor is its influ- ence less on the animal kingdom. One of the most important organs of the senses is dependent on it for the exercise of its functions, whilst the processes of nutrition and assimilation seem, in a large proportion of animals, to be only duly performed under its influence. From heat and light we pass to electricity. The 124 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. connection between the properties of this agent, and the objects of other departments of science, will become apparent when we reflect that it is this force that alarms us in the thunder-cloud, that controls the unerring indications of the magnetic needle, and affords the instantaneous communications of the electric tele- graph. It is found wherever matter is moving, or is in a state of change. Friction, chemical change, and polarity, alike produce its phenomena, in the form of what are called free electricity, galvanism, and mag- netism. It is developed both in animate and in- animate matter, and exhibited by minerals, plants, and animals. Into the question of whether these three forces are modifications one of the other, and how far they can be regarded as correlative with motion, chemical affinity, and the vital forces, I cannot enter here. It is, how- ever, an interesting fact, and its mention pertinent to these remarks, that some of our most able physiologists and chemists are discussing this question, and that they have furnished a number of illustrations in support of the theory of a common force pervading all nature, which, expressing itself now in the form of attraction, chemical affinity, or motion, may be resolved into heat, light, electricity, or vital force, each of which may again be resolved into the other. From the study of these forces, we pass to that science which investigates the elementary forms of matter, whether they exist in minerals, plants, or animals. The triumphs of chemistry are the con- quests of the age in which we live. Wherever the varied forms of matter are contemplated it lends its aid. If the civilisation of man may be measured by NATURAL HISTORY SCIENCES. 125 the subserviency of the external world to his wants, then almost may the extent of that subserviency be measured by the progress of chemistry. Just as man has in- creased his knowledge of the nature of matter, have its varied forms been made conducive to his use. If we pass from Class to Class of the Great Exhibition, we should scarcely find an object that, in some of its processes of preparation, was not due for its existence or improvement to chemical change. The weaver, the dyer, the printer, the artist, the farmer, and the physician, alike derive important aids from the dis- coveries of the chemist. But not only is the application of the principles of chemistry so extensive, that every branch of science is affected by them, but its facts are so definite, and its laws so fixed, that they may be expressed with mathematical accuracy, and are capable of affording a training to the mind as rigorous as that of mathematics itself. From the consideration of the elements of matter, and the forms which it assumes as minerals on the surface of the earth, we pass by a natural transition to the disposition of matter in the solid framework of the earth. The observation of the minerals and rocks of our globe, show that they have been submitted to the influence of agents, which have from time to time changed their character. The changes which have thus taken place, involving the upheaval from the depths of the ocean of our highest mountain chains, and the sinking below the sea of continents and islands, have required enormous periods of time. But the record of these changes is legibly written on the great masses of matter which have thus been affected, and it is the deciphering these characters which constitutes 126 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. the science of geology. The study of the strata of the earth reveals to us the great fact that, during the changes which have thus affected the earth, it has been successively populated by tribes of vegetable and animal beings that no longer exist. The researches of the geologist have thus revealed to the botanist and zoologist forms of plants and animals of the highest interest in relation to those which now people the earth. By their study, it has become evident that the rich exuberance of life by which we are now surrounded, is but a part of a great creation complete in a unity for which we must look not only to the distribution of forms which now exist in space, but to those which have been produced in time, and whose fragments are found buried in the rocks which, once forming the beds of rivers or the bottom of the ocean, are now dry land. It is thus that the botanist discovers in the fossils from our coal-pits forms of plants which fill up the lost links of a chain of vegetation which is nowhere now to be found in existence. In the same manner, the zoologist, puzzled by the isolated character of groups of animals or individual forms, has found in extinct creations those beings which have confirmed the permanency of the laws of relationship which are found to pervade the animal kingdom. It is this science which supplied to Cuvier the materials on which he founded the law of the adaptation of one part of an animal to every other part of its structure, and which now enables the com- parative anatomist, by the aid of a tooth, a bone, or part of a bone, to build up with precision the whole structure of an animal, and thus with the fragments of a rock to people the ocean in which that rock was formed, as well as the land bv which it was surrounded. Bv NATURAL HISTORY SCIENCES. 127 geology man is taught not only what are the mineral treasures of the earth, but where he may find them with the greatest certainty and in greatest abundance. From these he derives the materials with which he rears the noblest monuments of his civilisation, and by means of which he is principally enabled to culti- vate the earth and develope the arts which contribute to his comfort, happiness, refinement and civilisation. Nor is this all. The earth is the great depository of the materials which enter into the composition of the manifold forms of animal and vegetable life. That " God formed man of the dust of the ground " is not a poetical figure, but a great fact. Man and the whole organised world derive the material elements of which they are formed from the inorganic world. The tremblings of the earthquake, and the eruptions of the volcano are not signs of the divine anger, but indications that changes are going on in the chemical composition of the matter of the earth, by which those elements which are necessary for the growth of plants, and through them for the food of the animal kingdom, are discharged into the atmosphere, and directed towards their ultimate destination. Other elements again, which do not assume the gaseous form, but necessary for the existence of plants and animals, are imbedded in the rocks of the earth, and these, through the researches of the geologist and chemist, have been made available for the culture of plants and the increase of the plenty which the bountiful earth presents to man. From the investigation of the laws of inorganic matter we pass to those of the organic world. Here we meet with the same elements, the same properties, but all under the control of new and higher laws. 128 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. Matter is no longer entirely subservient to physical and chemical laws, but it has assumed a form, in which it becomes intensely active; ceaseless change, in the most limited sphere is its character, and its manifesta- tions we now call life. The atoms of matter are no longer arrayed in simple forms, assuming mathemati- cally definite shapes. The bodies of plants and animals are composed of cells, minute vesicles, within which those chemical changes go on, by which carbonic acid gas and ammonia are converted into the materials out of which are formed all the tissues which build up the bodies of organic beings. The recent study of the func- tions performed by these invisible laboratories of chemi- cal change, has thrown a flood of light on the mysteries of organisation, and contributed greatly to our knowledge of the nature of those processes which are involved in the life of man, and other organised beings. Cell added to cell forms an organ, organ added to organ forms a vegetable or an animal body. The nature of the func- tion of the parts must be known, before we can com- prehend that of the whole body. The cells of which I speak, and by the aid of which all the great functions of animal and vegetable life are performed, are invisible to the naked eye. For our knowledge of their proper- ties we are indebted to the use of the microscope, an instrument which, just as the telescope enables us to view objects too distant for our vision, enables us to view those things which otherwise we should have to bring too near to our eye for sight. The secret organisation on which the life of plants and animals depend, is not open to the unaided eye, but needs to be approached with this instrument, which is the highest achievement of modern optical science, and which unfolds to the senses NATURAL HISTORY SCIENCES. 129 of man a deeper glimpse into the mysteries of nature than had before its invention been imagined possible. It is with this instrument, also, that whole tribes of animals and plants, too minute to be observed with the naked eye, have been brought to our knowledge, and now occupy, in our systems of botany and zoology, a promi- nent place amongst organic beings. The microscope, which was only a few years ago regarded as a philo- sophic toy, is thus rendered the most important means of modern research, and small would be his pretensions to a knowledge of natural history or physiology who had not had an opportunity of examining the structure of plants and animals by its aid. To those who would apprehend the scope and nature .of modern natural history and physiological generalisations, a course of observations, with the aid of the microscope, is a first essential. It is used by the chemist, to detect the forms of minute crystals ; by the geologist, to examine the intimate structure of fossils ; by the botanist, the zoologist, and comparative anatomist, to observe the forms of plants and animals, their tissues and their cells ; in short, wherever the ultimate structure of or- ganic or inorganic bodies is concerned, there must the microscope be used, as the only means of decisive in- vestigation. In the study of organic beings, we cannot well sepa- rate plants from animals. The two form a great whole, having strong analogies in structure, intimate relations one with the other, and performing, in conjunction, a series of functions, which, while they afford the most striking proof of the wonderful harmony and adaptation which exists in the creation, are pregnant with truths capable of adaptation to the practical purposes of life. 6 130 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. Man is no exception to the laws which bind the two organic kingdoms of nature together, and, in common with the humblest zoophyte, is dependent for existence, in a variety of relations, upon the vegetable kingdom. A knowledge of the fundamental facts of physiology appear to me to be the most necessary of human acquirements. The well-being of the people is uni- versally admitted as the object of all wise government. There can be no well-being to the human body unless it be subject to the conditions of a natural existence. These conditions must be understood, not alone by the rulers of a country, but by every individual, if we would secure those blessings and that happiness which is the result of obedience to the physiological as well as the moral and spiritual laws of our nature. It is with some such view as this, I imagine, that, from amongst the various branches of natural science, the Senate of the London University has required a knowledge of the principal facts of physiology in its examination for the degree of B.A. It is to be regretted that this body ever relaxed its demands on the subject of the natural sciences ; but, in retaining physiology, the Senate of that Institution has recorded its sense of the importance of this science, and indicated to those intrusted with education a highly valuable branch of instruction. Time will not permit me to illustrate the importance of physiological knowledge ; but when we recollect that the power of the human body to adapt itself to the varied occupations of human industry, that intellectual activity, moral feeling, and even the right development of the spiritual faculties of man, are dependent on the nutrition of the tissues of the body and the other conditions of perfect health, it will be NATURAL HISTORY SCIENCES. 131 felt that the possession of and the power of communi- cating such knowledge is second alone in importance to religious knowledge itself. In the study of the natural sciences, there is no fact, perhaps, more forcibly impressed upon the mind, and few of more importance, than the permanence of natural laws. The engineer proceeds with confidence in the rearing of works on whose stability the lives of thou- sands of his fellow- creatures depends, because he has faith in the permanence of the properties of the mate- rials he employs. The chemist needs not to repeat his experiments from year to year, or from century to century, to ascertain if the elements retain their usual affinities towards each other. Their permanence is the foundation of his science, and, could they admit of change, all his labours would be in vain. Multi- tudinous as are the forms of plants and animals, passing, by almost imperceptible gradations, from one into the other, there are yet amongst them forms as fixed as the properties of matter itself. A false system of philosophy has endeavoured to account for the variety of creation, and the succession of its pheno- mena, by the constant development of new properties in matter and of new forms in organic beings; but such a philosophy has no support in experience, and is opposed to the fundamental principles on which all human knowledge is based. In the permanence of the specific forms of plants and animals we have a testimony from the natural world of the direct inter- position of the Creator in order to sustain those forms ; and in the fact that we see plants and animals bearing seed and young after their kind, without our being able to discover any secondary cause whatever, we have 132 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. an argument in favour of the constant superintendence and exercise of will on the part of God in the main- tenance of the form and life of every created being. These vegetable and animal forms, for the existence of which all material properties and physical forces seem to have been called into existence, offer in their relations to each other one of the most profound studies on which the human mind can enter. Long has man grouped darkly amongst the inexhaustible varieties of plants and animals, to find something like the laws by which their existence was governed, the plan upon which the whole had been built up. Gradually is design appearing amidst the chaotic mass of facts which past ages have accumulated, and every new dis- covery is throwing light upon the organic creation, in the midst of whose multitudinous forms there is found to pervade unity of plan, harmonious dependence, and intimate relations between its lowest and highest members. It is the vast number of facts involved in the existence of each organic being that renders the study of natural history classification one of the most comprehensive branches of human learning. At the same time, the ground that is conquered can be easily understood, and there are few departments of study that offer to the mind processes of analysis and syn- thesis more useful than this. Here, then, I may be permitted to close my remarks on the value of the natural sciences as branches of a useful, liberal, and polite education ; but I do not forget that I am standing before a class of theological students, and that I hold a chair in an Institution whose main object it is to train men for the Christian Ministry, Within the walls of an edifice, whose NATURAL HISTORY SCIENCES. 133 beauty and completeness for its purpose testify to the large hearts and broad views of those who have founded and brought it to completion, I h;ive no need to plead that the Christian minister should have a useful, liberal, and polite education. If, therefore, the natural sciences are necessary to this end, they must be taught and cared for in this place. But were they less necessary as part of a general education, there are especial grounds why they should form part of the education of a student of theology, to which for a few moments I would now claim your attention. The very word theology brings to our mind the nature of the pursuits of those who study it. It is the science of the nature of Deity; that branch of knowledge which brings before man's mind all that his senses can perceive, or revelation make known, of the nature of God, of his will, and of his relations to man and the universe by which he is surrounded. Such is theology; and it must be self-evident, that he who is ignorant of the great laws by which God governs the universe, who knows nothing of the properties of matter, nor the forces which God employs in sustaining the world, in reple- nishing the earth, and filling it with life and beauty, is no true theologian, and, by his deficient knowledge, may even misapprehend and misrepresent the nature and laws of the Being who is the object of his study. I would not, however, suppose that any one who undertakes the study of theology, and its practical application to life in the teaching religion, could be entirely ignorant of God as he unfolds himself in the natural world ; but if we admit, that in proportion as a man knows the word of God will he be able to commu- nicate it to others, so must he, as he adds a knowledge 134 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. of the works of God to this, be able more completely to communicate the whole purpose and counsel of God towards man. The God of nature, whose will is un- folded in the laws of science, is the same God who reveals himself in the pages of the inspired volume. We may even advance further than this, and maintain, that in proportion as the conviction becomes strong of the wisdom and goodness of God in the arrangements of the external world, will the precepts of the Bible, and the special relations of God to man it reveals, be sanctioned and enforced. It is thus, then, that a knowledge of the facts which are furnished us by natural science become, not only a graceful addition to the learning of the Christian teacher, but a storehouse of treasures, from which he may draw facts wherewith to convince man of the goodness of God, and win him to embrace the message of mercy contained in the Gospel. Of the practical value of such studies, and the importance which has been attached to them in connection with the inculcation of the Christian re- ligion, I may refer to the works of Butler, Paley, and Macculloch, to the Bridgewater Treatises, and the more strictly theological works the Preadamite Earth and Man Primeval of our esteemed principal, Dr. Harris. But there are many subsidiary advantages, to which I would allude. The man who would teach the truths of the word of God, should be able to defend it from the attacks of its enemies. Successively has the Christian religion been attacked from the ground of mental philosophy, mathematical calculations of chances, and verbal criticism. These attacks have been met by the champions of the Bible, and shown to be devoid of foundation. But the progress of natural science has NATURAL HISTORY SCIENCES. 135 once more armed the sceptic and the infidel with weapons to oppose the truths of Christianity. I have before alluded to that false system of philosophy which would drive the Creator from the universe, and leave the order of nature, and the phenomena of life and spiritual being, to a law of organic development. To understand this doctrine, to oppose it effectually, to discover it in its lurking-places in the literature and fashionable scientific doctrines of the day, requires a sound knowledge of the fundamental principles of natural science. It is not, however, alone in the open opposition to religion of writers who employ as argu- ments the laws of natural science, or in the exposure of false systems of philosophy, that we conceive a demand is made upon the Christian teacher for a knowledge of natural laws, but it is also in false systems of medicine, in erroneous interpretations of pathological and physio- logical phenomena, that we find principles inculcated, which, if followed to their legitimate consequences, would deny the claims of religion, and upset the foundations of our faith. The vulgar fanaticism of Mormonism is not more opposed to a true system of theology, than are the hypotheses of a Hahnemann, a Priessnitz, and a Mesmer, to the truths of physiology. It is against these that the man of science and the people look to the pulpit as a barrier. The man who preaches the truth of Christ, should not only not mar the influence of his teaching by the support of practical error, but should be found on the side of wisdom and of truth, in their widest and most extended appli- cation. There is another department of the studies of the theologian in which a knowledge of natural science 136 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. will be found imperative. It was the gross ignorance of the priests of the Romish Church, and their ob- stinate repudiation of all natural laws, that led to the persecution of Galileo, when he announced the great fact that the planets of our system moved around the sun. The same ignorance and the same spirit has since prevailed in the Church ; and, under the cover of an anxiety to protect the Scripture from the objec- tions of its enemies, the discoverer of the laws of God has been persecuted, and treated as a heathen man and a heretic. I need not say how this has weakened the influence of the Christian ministry, and given colour to the charge, that they love more their own views of truth than truth itself. But if I apprehend the office of the Christian minister, he should be a lover of all truth, and embrace it wherever found, and receive it from whatever source it comes. The God of revelation is the God of nature : he cannot contradict himself ; and it is to the men who study God and teach his will that the public more especially look for the explanation of apparent discrepancies and contradictions in His word and works. It should be an incitement to the rising ministry to know that they have ever had in the pro- fession to which they have been called men who have boldly stood up for the whole truth, and who, by their noble defence of the truths of science, have rescued the study of theology from the charge of bigotry and narrowness. Such a one, in our own denomination, was Dr. Pye Smith. When the discoveries of geolo- gical science demonstrated that it was impossible that the changes on the earth's surface, indicative of its having been exposed to the action of water, could be in anv manner attributed to the influence of the NATURAL HISTORY SCIENCES. 137 Deluge of which we have an account iii the Bible, he at once undertook the investigation of the subject, and boldly announced that neither the relation of the facts of the Deluge or a critical interpretation of the Hebrew text of the Bible required that we should believe that this catastrophe was the cause of all or any of the phenomena presented by the strata of the earth. He also pointed out that the language which God had written upon the solid globe, when rightly interpreted, gave to the earth a vastly higher antiquity than that of six thousand years ; and that the interpretation of the first chapter of Genesis, which assigned this as the age of the world, was an assumption not warranted by a just criticism of the language, or a right apprehension of the object of this first record of the history of our race. There are many other points in connection with the facts of geological science, and their bearing on a truth- ful interpretation of Scripture, to which Dr. Pye Smith drew attention in his work on 'The Connection of Scripture and Geology/ to which I cannot now allude ; but I would point to that work as an illustration of the importance of a knowledge of natural science to the student of theology, and as an example of the spirit in which all inquiries into the relation of the truths of science and revelation should be conducted. Although, perhaps, no other department of natural science has so many important relations to the his- torical facts of Scripture as geology, yet there is no branch of scientific knowledge that may not be made available for a correct interpretation of the original text of the Bible. The allusions to the vegetable and animal kingdoms, especially in the Old Testament, are frequent and numerous, and the full significance and beauty of 138 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. many of the grand descriptions of natural objects in the Psalms, the Prophets, and more especially the Book of Job, cannot be understood but through a knowledge of natural history. But even were geology the only science having important relations to Scripture such are the nature of its facts, that they can only be under- stood by the aid of the other branches of natural history knowledge. The student who would make himself ac- quainted with the grounds of geological conclusions, must at least have a knowledge of the principles of physics, chemistry, botany, zoology, and comparative anatomy. Thus it is, that we find the natural sciences are a unity ; and to attain their highest results, to grasp the grand object of the perpetual activity of their laws in creation, we must study not one branch, but the whole. Again, I would say, that in order to meet the popular demand on the pulpit at the present day, the Christian minister should be acquainted with the facts of natural science. This is the day of triumph for physical science. It has, in this country, reared its palace. Its contents attest the prodigious amount of thought and activity that the world is directing to the facts and laws of natural phenomena. The teeming myriads of our population who have swarmed through its courts and galleries, have had their minds imbued, to a greater or less extent, with the principles of those sciences by which this great conquest of man over the external world has been eifected. The popular mind, has, from the very nature of its employments, its warmest sympathies with the facts of natural science ; and in this, the day of its greatest triumphs, the Christian teacher who would be most gladly heard, and NATURAL HISTORY SCIENCES. 139 produce most potent influence on the public, would be he who, in the midst of all this beating of iron, glowing of forges, turning of wheels, this mighty interchange of the results of one man's industry for that of another, should be able to point out, that in the very nature and properties of these material things, God is in all, and ruling all, as potent in the maintenance of the law of gravitation, and the reproduction of a cotton hair, as in the movements of his Spirit upon the heart and mind of man. I trust that these considerations will have carried a conviction of the importance of natural history studies to every theological student. There will always, per- haps, arise a question as to how far they ought to be carried. The time and talent of each one will, in some measure, determine this. There is, however, a class of students to whom they may be of such vast importance, that nothing ought to interfere with their most diligent cultivation ; I allude to the intending missionary. Next to the gospel, the greatest blessings that the missionary can carry to the heathen are the arts and civilisation of Europe. He needs not to carry the materials of these arts; the hand of a bountiful Providence has scattered them everywhere, alike in the arctic circle and the torrid zone, the continent of the New World and the islands of the South Seas. What is needed is the knowledge of the properties of these materials, and the means of practically applying them to the purposes of life. How rich is every part of the world in mineral treasures, and how often might the natives of districts where Christianity has been success- fully introduced been blessed with an advanced civili- sation had they possessed a knowledge of the wealth 140 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. beneath their feet. Plants and animals are everywhere richly distributed for the use and advantage of man, and the knowledge of the properties and value of those in one hemisphere will lead to the discovery of like uses of those in another. Thus may the missionary carry not only the truths of religion but the materials of a civilisation, in the midst of which alone can that religion flourish. But the missionary will not only find such knowledge useful to himself and the people with whom he mixes in a strange land, but he will find it necessary, in his attempts to translate the Bible into the languages of the nations with whom he has to do. It is even allowable to him to cultivate these sciences for the sake of contributing to the knowledge we already possess of the properties, forms, and functions of the external world. Science is already deeply indebted to those noble men, who, amidst their devotion to the duties of their high calling as missionaries, have found time to cultivate and extend the boundaries of natural science. Such a one was Dr. Carey, who, to the deepest devotion to his mission as a preacher of the gospel, added not only the most profound and extended acquaintance with the languages of the East, but a large and accurate knowledge of the uses and forms of the plants of India. He was the first who practically attempted to make the rich vegetable pro- ductions of Hindostan subservient alike to the wants of the natives of India and Britain ; and the Botanic Garden at Calcutta owes its existence to his efforts. He also edited the great botanical work of Roxburgh on the ' Flora of India/ and has thus woven in with the amaranthine chaplet of the missionary the more perishable laurels of a high botanical reputation. NATURAL HISTORY SCIENCES. 141 But, failing all these incitements to the study of natural science, I would urge the acquisition of this knowledge on the ground of self-knowledge and self- improvement. Surely no one can doubt that the highest end of this existence is the knowledge of ourselves and our relations to the Creator of all things. Compounded as man is of matter and of spirit, it is not sufficient for self-knowledge that he studies the spiritual laws of his being ; through his material frame he is connected with all Nature with his fellow-men, with animals and plants, with rocks, rivers, and stones, with the movements of our own planet, and every other in our system. Man is but the part of a stupendous whole, and this is the thought of the Great Creator of all. The endeavour to comprehend and grasp this whole is the privilege and duty of man. The very labour of it is repaid with the highest rewards, for be who knows God most will serve Him best ; and this service is the perfect freedom of the happy human spirit. To know God in his works as well as in his word, is to know Him everywhere. It is the knowledge which will redeem all life from meanness and degradation. It will spiritualise the material world, and make the usual duties and occupations of life pregnant with the Divine presence. The man who thus knows the laws of God will find Him at home at his fireside, and abroad in the fields ; he will find Him at the counter, and by the solitudes of the sea-shore. His faith will be strength- ened in the distant revelation of God, by the constant proofs of his eternal presence. The beauty and glory of the work will lead back his soul refreshed and con- firmed to listen to the word ; from the word he will gain the spirit by which he may again admire the 142 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. work ; and thus passing from one to the other, he will develope those powers of the mind, and feelings of the heart, which shall render him ever more receptive of the spirit and life of Christ, and make him the partaker of divine joys here, and of blessings hereafter. A LECTURE INTRODUCTORY TO THE COURSE OF PURE AND MIXED MATHEMATICS. DELIVERED BY THE REV. PHILIP SMITH, B.A. OCTOBER 8, 1851. INTRODUCTORY LECTURE, BY THE REV. PHILIP SMITH, B.A. GENTLEMEN, BEFORE entering on the specific subject of my Lecture, I must beg your indulgence for a few mo- ments. There are thoughts which, however fully expressed in the first of these opening services, and however naturally present to all our minds, in con- nection with the duties we are resuming in this new and noble edifice, will yet assert their claim to utter- ance again. Let us then pause to cast one look of grateful recollection back upon the course of Divine Providence and human effort, of public history and individual experience, by which we have been brought together this day, as members of a Collegiate Institu- tion, NEW in name and, to some degree, in character, but based on foundations deeply laid by the wisdom and piety of our forefathers. Their work has stood the test of time and been approved by the Divine 7 146 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. blessing. We have entered into their labours, and we would cleave to all that was wise and holy in their designs. " Having, therefore, obtained help of God, we continue unto this day, witnessing both to small and great, saying none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come ; that Christ should suffer, that he should be the first to rise from the dead, and should show light both to the people and the nations/' But while we sum up our recollections of the past by renewing the dedication of all our labours to the furtherance of this Gospel, and in this respect desire nothing new; yet as to the best means of training those who are to proclaim it, we think that we have learnt something from the experience of our old Col- leges, and, thus taught, we seek to begin a new course, with our forces combined afresh, and our mechanical appliances reconstructed for the work which their fit- ness may do much to aid. And thus, though deeply conscious of the manifest defects which must exist in all human plans, and of the hidden dangers which may be made apparent in the hour of trial, we can look forward hopefully to the future, and with a good con- science commend our labours to Him in whose name and for whose sake they were engaged in ; " Save now, we beseech thee, O Lord : O Lord, we beseech thee, send now prosperity/' In approaching my portion of our common work, I can hardly dispense with one word in explanation of the course I shall take to-day. In the arrangements of our College, I have had the honour to be intrusted with a share both in the literary and the theological THE STUDY OF MATHEMATICS. 147 departments of instruction. I have been led to accept this double responsibility by reasons which appeared cogent to myself and others ; and I humbly trust, as God shall give me strength, to succeed in guiding your studies in the two subjects which however dissimilar have to me at least this in common, that they have long been favourite and familiar studies of my own. On the present occasion, I should have felt some embarrassment as to which subject to address you on, but for two considerations. The first is that, as a large portion of your time during the past Session was occupied by a course of Introductory Lectures on Ecclesiastical History, a single Introductory Lecture on the same subject would seem to be superfluous now. The other is that, while, on the one hand, we have clearly no occasion to explain or vindicate the place given to Church History in a theological education; it may not, on the other hand, appear quite so plain that a considerable space in a course of training for the Christian Ministry is rightly occupied by the Study of Mathematics. Requesting, therefore, your forgiveness, if there has been anything of too personal a character in this expla- nation, which I have only ventured to give because I thought it might be looked for, I have now to beg your attention to a discussion, which I can hardly hope to render novel or attractive, but on which I feel it a solemn duty to engage, in the hope of convincing you that all the time and attention you will be able to give to this branch of Study, according to our prescribed course, will be so much devoted to, and not subtracted from, the culture which we trust will advance your fitness for your sacred calling. 148 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. As a preliminary step, I feel it necessary to narrow the ground of the discussion. Our subject embraces both Pure and Mixed Mathematics, the former term denoting the Science of Quantity in the Abstract, and including the developement of those laws which are connected with the ideas of Space and Number in general, and of particular Spaces and Numbers, without the least reference to any other properties of any objects which may fill certain spaces or be reckoned by certain numbers, the Science, in short, of Quantities considered with reference to Quantity alone. The other branch of the study, namely, Mixed or Applied Mathe- matics, carries us into the field of Material Nature, boundless in its extent and exhaustless in its treasures, in which the truths of the former Science become Instruments, powerful and indispensable, for investi- gating all those natural phenomena in which Space and Number are concerned. And further, besides this mathematical view of Natural Philosophy, we are to study the simpler elements of the same science, such as the Properties of all Matter, which make up our conception of Matter itself, and those Phenomena of Material Bodies, when placed in certain relations to each other, which must be ascertained by observation and experiment before we can usefully 1 subject them to mathematical investigation. The intimate association of those portions of Natural Science commonly understood under the name of Natural 1 I say usefully, because we might, for instance, construct a correct mathematical theory of an ideal universe on the supposition that the mutual attraction of two bodies varied inversely as their distance, instead of as the square of their distance ; but, as the supposition is contrary to the observed fact, such an exercise of ingenuity would be fruitless. THE STUDY OF MATHEMATICS. 149 Philosophy with the Study of Pure Mathematics is at once accounted for by the consideration that scarcely a step can be taken in the former without a considerable knowledge of the latter. We hear much, indeed, of Popular Natural Philosophy as distinguished from the Mathematical treatment of the same science ; but alas for the patience of the instructor who should attempt to teach, or the progress of the pupil who should strive to learn, a Natural Philosophy entirely divested of Mathematics ! Fancy, for instance, the result of one's undertaking to explain the Composition and Resolution of Forces to a person ignorant of the properties of a Parallelogram; or, to take a less simply ridiculous example, try the experiment of conveying to one of those ardent disciples of Nature, who prove their thirst for knowledge by scorning to begin at the beginning, a clear notion of the balance of forces on an Inclined Plane, supposing him unacquainted with the principles of proportion as applied to triangles. Thus early, and once for all, gentlemen, I entreat you to believe that a sound knowledge of the deductions of Mathematics, and a tolerable command of its processes, are essential to make your progress in Natural Philosophy safe, your knowledge of its laws distinct, nay, even your entrance on it easy; for of all the popular delusions which a treatment of Science falsely called popular tends to cherish, none is more remote from the truth than the notion that a wrong and slovenly method is easier than a right and careful one, or that the laws of nature can be learnt the quicker by striking out those parts of them which are best worth the learning. For these reasons we place in close association the study of Pure Mathematics and of Natural Philosophy; 150 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. not undervaluing or neglecting the simpler experimental parts of the latter Science, but maintaining that it can neither be fully nor accurately mastered without the use of the former as an instrument both of exposition and discovery. It is the Natural Philosophy of a Newton, an Euler, a Laplace, that we seek to cultivate in these halls. At this point an easy and inviting path stretches out before us, from which it requires some self-denial to turn aside. I should have no fear of gaining your assent, however I might fail in rising to the dignity of the theme, were I to expatiate on the pure and perennial sources of pleasure and instruction which at every step gush forth beneath the feet of the traveller on the field of Nature. A mere glance at the countless applications of the discoveries of Natural Philosophy to the most necessary services of common life would suffice to establish the usefulness of the study ; while, for our highest objects here, the testi- mony borne by the Book of Nature in confirmation of the Book of Life has been proved again and again to be conclusive. But from all these topics I feel it a simple duty just now to refrain myself. Firstly; because their further discussion is comparatively superfluous. It may surely suffice to refer to what has been already said of the Objects, Pleasures, and Advantages of Science, by LORD BROUGHAM, in his Tract with that very title, and by SIR JOHN HERSCHELL, in his luminous, convincing, and fascinating Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy; to PROFESSOR SEDGWICK'S recent volume, founded on the Discourse which he delivered on a memorable occasion before the University of Cambridge THE STUDY OF MATHEMATICS. 151 respecting the studies of that seat of learning; and to cut short an enumeration which might be indefinitely prolonged, to the majestic array of ancient testimonies and modern instances which the veteran Humboldt has spent the last years of a life devoted to Nature in presenting before us, reduced to the harmony of the one great COSMOS. And, if the eulogy of Natural Science in general has been already sufficiently pronounced, its applica- tion to the service of Theology has been equally placed beyond the reach of question by a chain of testimony and discussion, extending from the Greek philosophers to the actual course . of theological instruction pursued within these walls. Even if a misgiving were still left, lest I were wrong in neglecting to give some summary, however brief, of the arguments I have now referred to, I have the satisfaction of being relieved from it by the masterly treatment of them which you heard yesterday from my friend and colleague, who guides your studies in the other branches of Natural Science. Secondly; I am deterred from giving the chief place in to-day's discussion to the subject of Natural Philo- sophy, by the feeling that, while going over a case already made out, I should be neglecting that which really requires to be established. I might, indeed, rest the plea for the Study of Pure Mathematics on its absolute necessity as an introduction to Natural Phi- losophy ; but this would be, on the one hand, to over- strain a mere portion of our argument, and while thus grasping at a doubtful advantage, we should, on the other hand, be making an unworthy I had almost said cowardly retreat from our true vantage- ground; 152 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. and our main argument would be altogether misrepre- sented. Thus restricted, our subject is, to show the import- ance of the Study of Mathematics as a part of a Liberal Education in general, and of an education for the Christian Ministry in particular. I beg to call your attention to this twofold aspect of the question. Some may think that the latter is the only view of the sub- ject with which we ought to have any concern in this place; but I submit that such an opinion would be short sighted and erroneous, as alike opposed to the principles on which our collegiate system has been constituted, and to the principles on which wise men would constitute it, had the work to be begun afresh. The attempt sometimes made to cast ridicule on the use of secular learning as a preparatory discipline for those whose lives are to be devoted to the proclamation of sacred truth, involves one of those sophisms which are too plausible to be sound, and proves nothing but the little thought the objectors have given to the sub- ject. Devoutly thankful should we be that the di- vorce of general and theological learning has had no favour with the founders and managers of our colleges. The great men of former days, who combined the pro- foundest learning with the deepest piety, aye, and the most striking ministerial efficiency too, knew too well how much they owed to the mental discipline, which our University system had bestowed on them how, when its influence was most hidden and remote, it nerved the sinews of their mind and quickened the energies of their spirit how it had trained their whole nature for the service of God in any walk of life, and especially THE STUDY OF MATHEMATICS. 153 for their sacred calling, they were too deeply con- scious, I say, of all the benefits conferred on them by the pursuit of secular learning, merely as a discipline, to consent that that discipline should be wanting to their successors in the sacred office, if they could help it. Happily, the tradition received from them was held fast even when the tide seemed to set strongest against it ; and it has been handed down as a part of the inheritance into which we are now entering anew. Hence it is that in that one of our kindred Institu- tions, whose peculiar honour it is to be the offspring of the great Methodistical revival of religion, the Trust-Deed distinctly requires the Students to be trained "in all manner of useful learning " Hence it is that we meet, by the traditional constitution of our now United Colleges, not to study Theology alone, scorning all other science and literature, nor even Theology alone on the assumed basis of secular learning, acquired elsewhere as chance may have determined, but, as the best system of preparatory discipline for the mental culture needed for the sacred calling, we are to pursue learning and science, both secular and theological, as coordinate branches of that discipline; not, indeed, at all equal in their importance, but each having its own distinct and proper part in the work of ministerial education. It is the very essence of our system, as received from the founders of our Colleges, to attempt to combine what is called Liberal Education, or the mental culture needful for any employment in which the Mind is to be a chief instrument, with the more strictly Professional Education which prepares for your specific line of mental activity; and, let me add, in the former department, at least, we attach far 154 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. more importance to that Mental Discipline which forms the proper office of Education, than to any amount of Information, of which indeed only the rudiments can be acquired here. Discipline is the work of the College ; Information is the work of a Life. You will observe that I am not urging arguments, but stating facts. I am simply describing, though as one who entirely approves of it, the system on which our Colleges have been always based ; and to which, with the exception of a comparatively brief experi- mental episode, they have always adhered: that system being the intellectual training of Candidates for the Ministry by the study of all the branches of sacred and secular learning as parts of one course, and under one body of Instructors. In this respect our late change brings with it nothing new, except indeed the increased care taken to guard the theological course from the inroads threatened by any fresh impulse which may have been lately given to the secular part of our studies, especially by the working of the University of London. Did time permit me to undertake the vindication of this ancient system, I might point out how it is forced upon us, in the case of many of our Students, who would never receive a general mental culture, did they not obtain it here; I might urge the advantage which a Student must derive from studying the various departments of knowledge, which are but rays of one central light, under one body of instructors, working together (with whatever differences of opinion on matters speculative and technical) in the harmony of one set of moral principles, in the acknowledgment of one system of supreme truth, and with a constant THE STUDY OF MATHEMATICS. 155 reference to the one end and object of all the studies of the place; I might urge many arguments, con- clusive to my own mind, against certain modifications of the system which have been suggested or attempted; but I must refrain from all these points, and, on the last especially, if any have disapproved our recent movement because it has not taken some different direction, which they would have preferred, I must be content to remind them that the onus probandi lies on them, and not on the founders of New College, who have simply tried to carry out more efficiently the system established by their predecessors. That the day should ever come, when the secular element in our studies should prevail over the sacred, seems to be a simple impossibility, while trusts have any force and Council and Professors any honesty. I would almost pray that the day may be equally re- mote, in which, under the pretext of a supreme regard for those studies which are most directly useful to a minister, the youthful Candidate should be encouraged to bring an undisciplined mind to the study of the profoundest of all sciences; to attempt original inves- tigation of the sacred text without a long and careful training in the laws of language ; to discuss Natural Theology in ignorance of Natural Science; to un- ravel the intricate thread of Church History with his eyes shut to the Secular History with which it is inextricably entangled ; to form a judgment on the Evidences of Christianity in the absence of any clear notions of the Laws of Evidence, or unaware that Evidence has Laws at all ; or to plunge into all the subtleties of metaphysical divinity without the clue furnished by some knowledge of the philosophical 156 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. systems which whether for good or evil have given that theology its complexion. The best system of in- tellectual training for the ministry may have yet to be discovered; but I do not hesitate to affirm that the one I have imagined would be the worst. Let such a one-sided system be but tried, and the only gain to Theology over the other sciences would be that, like the intended victim of Homer's one-eyed monster, she would have the melancholy distinction of being the last devoured. For such reasons I have chosen to take up the present argument, first and chiefly, as bearing upon a liberal education in general ; satisfied that whatever may be established of the value of mathematical studies in this respect, will be applicable, a fortiori, to your more directly professional studies ; all the mental benefit derived from the one being so much brought to the service of the other : but I trust also to show you that our department of study has certain direct and most important bearings on Theology. In speaking of a Liberal Education, I do not deem it necessary to draw any careful distinction between its two stages, the Education of the School, and the Education of the College. There are, doubtless, im- portant points of difference, but not such as materially to affect our present argument. The main course of mental discipline may be regarded as common to both, the Elements of each subject receiving the chief attention in the one, their Developments in the other; and the methods of teaching being such as to appeal chiefly in the one case to the Memory, in the other to the Reason and the Understanding. Permit me, gentlemen, to THE STUDY OF MATHEMATICS. 157 utter here a word of caution suggested by this dis- tinction. It is but a short time since our great Schools seemed to exist for the training of the Memory alone, and Colleges seemed to aim at little more than a higher degree of the same mechanical dexterity. But, for some years, Educational Reform has been put on the order of the day ; and while, on the one hand, boys at school have been rescued from a treatment which re- garded them as scarcely yet possessing the use of Understanding, much less of Reason, there has, I think, grown up, in our more advanced Education, too great a tendency to make study consist in Reasoning and Speculation alone ; and many an earnest Student neglects to lay the solid base, and to build up the firm frame-work of FACTS, so wrought into the memory as to be an abiding possession, and a trustworthy support for all further inquiry. In the time when nearly all knowledge was orally diffused, before to use Plato's paradoxical form of an important truth " Letters had proved the corruption of Learning/' a Greek poet could afford to despise the eagerness with which his ship- wrecked comrades tried to save their property, and could exclaim, in the consciousness of intellectual wealth, " I carry about me all I have ;" but I fear that few modern scholars, out of their libraries, could dare to echo the boast. I do not pretend that it would be possible, or useful were it possible, to load the memory with those stores of accumulated learning to which we yet need often to refer; but I do main- tain that the chief points in the matter of our learning may be, and ought to be, acquired as the real know- ledge of every student ; and that novj is your time for so acquiring them. 158 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. We return to the question : What is this Liberal Education about which our whole discussion is concerned ? In one word, it is the Cultivation of our whole Intel- lectual Nature, in such a manner as to fit the Mind for ANY work it may have to do } and for any enjoyment which its Maker has designed it to derive from the energy of its own Consciousness, and from the influence of other Minds and of external Objects. I wish I could more fully and accurately define it : for a true defi- nition, perfectly apprehended in all its parts, possesses a power like the magic touch of Ithuriel's spear, to make each lurking fallacy show itself, in a moment, in its deformity: " For no falsehood can endure Touch of celestial temper, but returns Of force to its own likeness." Such a touchstone of educational fallacies is the self-evident truth, that the whole man ought to be cultivated, and in all his various relations. One system may supply the wants of the body, but not the cravings of the mind, like some which claim Utility as their end, restricting and abusing even their chosen watchword. Others may train the mind to subserve the common uses, and even some of the higher aims of life, but to the sacrifice of that serene Pleasure which our Creator has given us to derive from the very consciousness of mental activity, and the pursuit of truth for its own sake; and so with the converse, We might even imagine a system of training, perfect in all its parts for the individual man, but, through its novelty, so taking him out of the general current in which the intellectual activity of his species has run from the beginning of recorded history, as to need this little THE STUDY OF MATHEMATICS. 159 supplement ; after furnishing the man with all his endowments, it must create a new world for him to use them in. Now, it is this relation of the individual to his species, of each student to all who have lived before him, and to all who live around him, that forms a chief consideration in determining the choice of certain Permanent Studies as elements of a liberal education. That we should learn certain things simply because they are things which educated people have always learned, can only appear an inconclusive reason to the man who has not felt, in his own experience, the benefit con- ferred on him, as a social being, by being placed in communication with the intellectual activity of all countries and all ages. And even where reform is needed nay, even where revolution is indispensable the thorough knowledge of the old gives generally the only safe passage to the new. " Every new institution," says Niebuhr, pushing the principle, perhaps, to the extreme, "should be only a further developement of what already exists;" and Arnold adds, with more unquestionable truth, " No Present can yield fruit, or the Future have promise, unless their roots be fixed in the Past." And these sentiments are applied to our present subject in the following passage of Whewell's Essay on a 'Liberal Education' (page 7): "Pro- gressive studies must be a part of the developement of humanity in its general form. They must express an activity which belongs to man as man. They must be, though not permanent in their form, universal in their principles. They must be the results, not of individual caprice or fancy, but of human Reason. They must 160 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. aim, not at mere change or novelty, but at Truth. And since the progress of the human mind is from Truth to Truth, the new Truths must be founded upon the old ones; the progressive studies which education embraces must rest upon the permanent studies which it necessarily includes. The former must be its super- structure, the latter its foundation." If, then, there be a course of Liberal Education which has, for ages, been more or less common to the civilised world, that fact alone is a strong reason for its adoption. It is true that, could the unsoundness of such a system be demonstrated, the former argument, strong as it is, must go for nothing; but doubly cogent are the reasons for adopting the system if it can be proved to be adapted to the Constitution of the Human Mind. Now to develope this very common, but most important branch of the discussion, would be the work of a com- plete Treatise on Education, not of a single division in an Introductory Lecture. You will not expect me to imitate the example of certain German Professors, who are said to be unable to commence a Session without going back to the beginning and opening their courses with the formula : " Meine Herrn, das menschliche Wesen Gentlemen, the Nature of Man, &c." But I may be permitted to remind you, in one word, of some things which the very constitution of our mind pre- scribes as essential parts of a liberal Education, namely, the Exercise of Thought in Reasoning, and the Ex- pression of Thought in Language ; to which may be added the critical analysis of the Laws of Thought and of the Nature of the Mind itself; and the training of THE STUDY OF MATHEMATICS. 161 the power of Observation, and the application, of the Logic of Induction to observed phenomena. On this classification is based that system of Liberal Education which has long prevailed, with minor diversities, wherever any Liberal Education has been provided for ; and thus, in this seat of learning also, we cultivate Mathematics as an Exercise of Thought, the Languages of Greece and Rome as an Exercise of Expression ; and Natural Science as an example of Inductive Reasoning, as well as for the facts it teaches, to which we add the Analysis of the Laws of Thought in Logic, and of the mind itself in Metaphysics. Each of these branches of study performs also, to some extent, the peculiar office of the others ; but the principal uses of each are those I have named. I say this lest I should seem to fall into the error of supposing Mathematics to be the only cultivator of the pure reasoning power. There seems, indeed, to have been a time in the history of the most intellectual people of the human race, when mental Discipline was held to consist almost entirely in Mathematics ; so that the word which originally included not only all objects of such discipline, but also the whole range of objects of instruction, ra ju,aOy/u.aTa, was adopted as the specific name for the studies of space and number. At what time this usage was established is a disputed point : I have not been able to trace it back earlier than Plutarch ; but the notion it implies is to be found repeatedly in Plato, and is attested by all we know of early Grecian educa- tion. Gymnastics were employed for strength and health, endurance, agility, and grace; Music to train the ear and voice to harmony and order; Grammar was 162 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. introduced chiefly for the explanation of the classic writers, and they were read chiefly for the sentiments they expressed; Arithmetic seems to have been taught (as among us, until very lately) rather as an art than as a science ; but GEOMETRY took its place in ordinary education simply as the great instrument of cultivating the reasoning powers. We no longer claim for it and its kindred this undivided homage : we admit that it has been unduly exalted in some systems of education, and especially in the University of Cambridge : but we take up a decided position against the opposite and greater error, and contend that the Study which has been a chief instrument of intellectual culture from the dawn of Greek civilisation (to say nothing of its earlier applications to practical uses in the East) can never be wisely degraded from its place as one of the great co- ordinate branches of a Liberal Education ; and least of all can it be excluded from, or assigned a mean place in, the education of those whose life is to be one of incessant mental activity, and whose work consists in making impressions on the minds, as well as on the hearts, of others. It is not a little curious, indeed, to investigate the grounds on which such a sentence is attempted to be pronounced. In the desire of doing full justice to the arguments on the other side, I have just perused again the elaborate impeachment of Mathematical Study ascribed to the greatest Metaphysician of our age; I refer to a celebrated article, which appeared several years ago, in one of our leading literary Journals, in which a most determined attack on this branch of mental discipline is sustained by such a catena of autho- THE STUDY OF MATHEMATICS. 163 rities as hardly a man in Britain, except one, could be supposed learned enough to produce, skilful enough to marshal, or I grieve to add intent enough on making out his case at all risks, to pervert. Most reluctantly, but for that very reason advisedly, have I used the last expression. In that brilliant essay, the literature of the world is ransacked for every passage of any author worth quoting, in which any charge of any sort is brought against mathematics and mathematicians ; and every such sentence, however slight or indirect, how- ever qualified or even neutralised by the express utter- ance or the well-known opinions or practice of the writer, is pressed into the service of a Crusade which, after all, is avowedly directed, not against the Use of these studies, but against their Abuse. There is scarcely any vice of the intellect, or even of those moral facul- ties which are most closely associated with the intellect, but is throughout the article urged, not only as the tendency of the study of mathematics, but as its actual result visible in the characters of its students. As to its objects and ends, this study unfits the mind for a right comprehension of the matter of thought; as to its method, it cultivates the smallest number of our faculties, and therefore cramps, freezes, and parches the mind ; which is by it " disqualified for observation either internal or external [take Newton as an ex- ample !] for abstraction and generalisation and for common reasoning; and disposed to the alternative of blind credulity or irrational scepticism" A formidable indictment, truly ! and no one can read the filling up the particulars with any idea that the accuser means to shrink from the full force of the charge, or from any consequences it may entail upon its victims. To show 164 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. how far the writer seems prepared to go, I will just quote one passage as an example of his brilliant dia- lectics, and of other qualities, less admirable in a disputant. " In the inertion of this study, the mind, in fact, seldom rises to the full consciousness of self- activity. We are here passively moved on, almost as much as we spontaneously move. It has been well expressed, Mathematics munus pistrinarium est; ad molam enim alligati, vertimur in gyrum deque atque vertimus :" an analogy no doubt ingenious, but chiefly amusing from the breadth of its caricature. Then, as if the text were not farcical enough, it is amplified into the following application : " The routine of demonstra- tion, in the gymnastic of mind, may indeed be com- pared to the routine of the treadmill, in the gymnastic of body. Each determines a single power to a low but continuous action ; all, not disabled in the ordinary functions of humanity, are qualified to take a part in either; but as few without compulsion are found to expatiate on the one, so few without impulsion are found to make a progress in the 'other. Both are conversant about the necessary; both depart from data; of both the procedure is by steps ; and, in both, the first step being conceded, the necessity of every other is shown on evidence equally intuitive. The one is ever moving, never advancing; the other ever varying to infinity only the expression of the same identity. Both are abstract occupations, and both are thought to disqualify for the world ; for though both corrective disciplines, a prejudice prevails towards the one, against the moral habits of its votaries, towards the other, against their moral reasoning. Among many other correspondences, both, in fine, cultivate a single intel- THE STUDY OF MATHEMATICS. 165 lectual virtue ; for both equally educate to a mechanical continuity of attention ; as in each the scholar is dis- agreeably thrown out, on the slightest wandering of thought/' A pitiless pelting of sarcasm ! in the excitement of which, by the bye, the acute satirist has overlooked no ! kept back among other trifling differences, that between Evolution and Revolution, between going on in the path of intellectual certainty, and going round in the walk of physical compulsion. But what if it is all blank cartridge, as far at least as we are concerned ? It will hardly seem credible to a reader of this and most other passages of the article, that it is all directed against an entire, or all but entire devotion to mathe- matics a rare danger! It is affirmed merely of the " EXCESSIVE study of the mathematical sciences," that it "not only does not prepare, but absolutely inca- pacitates the mind for those intellectual energies which philosophy and life require;" and it is by this "EX- CESSIVE study" alone that "we are disqualified for observation/' and so forth, as already quoted. And, in the very statement of the issue raised, we are expressly told that " the expediency is not disputed of leaving mathematics, as a co-ordinate, to find its level among the other branches of academical instruction. It is only contended that they ought not to be made the principal, far less the exclusive, object of encourage- ment. We speak not now of professional, but of liberal education; not of that, which makes the mind an instrument for the improvement of science, but of this, which makes science an instrument for the improvement of the mind. I had thought of taking up the main points in the 166 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. article, as specimens of the strongest arguments which can be urged against our study; but this statement relieves me from any such necessity. If meant in sober literal plainness, it amounts to little more, in the theory of education, than the indisputable truths in mechanics, that a man cannot walk well on one leg, or a tripod stand firm on two. " MERE" mathema- ticians are rarce aves in terris, and hardly worth all this powder and shot, noise and smoke. As in the ancient attack of Sextus Empiricus against the Mathematicians, under which name he includes the professors of any one Mathesis, Grammarians and Musicians, as well as Arithmeticians and Geometers ; so, in the case before us, the true force of the argu- ment is against the mere cultivation of any one branch of liberal study ; and amidst all the testimonies, reasonings, and invectives throughout the article, there are none but could be matched by similar testimonies, paralleled by equally cogent reasonings, and outvied by even stronger and juster invectives against the "ex- cessive" study of Philology or Natural Science, Logic or Metaphysics. If, however, as the introduction and occasion of the article would seem to show, it is all directed against the course pursued at Cambridge, we can only regret that the impression apparently aimed at throughout should go so far beyond the avowed and fair design ; and, while congratulating our sister University on the recent reforms which have made her less obnoxious to such charges, we can also congratulate ourselves on belonging to a University and a College in which all the co-ordinate branches of a liberal education are placed, as nearly as care can compass it, in their due relation to each other, and rejoice that against THE STUDY OF MATHEMATICS. 167 such a Study of Mathematics, however earnest, not even the Reviewer has a charge to make. I will only add that no one can read the article without feeling that, if this attack be successfully withstood, no onset from any other quarter is likely to shake our position. We have thus seen that there is a strong general argument in favour of Mathematical Study as a branch of a Liberal Education, both from the place it has always held in such an education, and from its peculiar fitness for the discipline of certain parts of our mental constitution ; and, further, that the most vehement attacks made upon the study are only directed against the abuse of it. Our line of argument will be completed, so far as our time and ability will permit, if we specify the chief particulars, in which consists the excellence of Mathematics as a Mental Discipline ; for, I would remind you, even at the risk of tiresome repetition, that we are dealing with the study now almost entirely as Discipline. I had long meditated on several points in this part of the discussion, when I lighted upon a passage in which they are all so well summed up, that I will quote it before proceeding further, more especially for the contrast it presents to the statements just now referred to. It is also from an anonymous article, but bearing unmistakeable traces of the pen of the greatest ex- pounder of Mathematical Science in the present day. The passage occurs in the article MATHEMATICS in the Penny Cyclopaedia :-r-" The sciences of which we speak may be considered either as disciplines of the mind, or as instruments in the investigation of nature and the advancement of the arts. In the former point of view 168 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. their object is to strengthen the power of logical deduc- tion by frequent examples ; to give a view of the difference between reasoning on probable premises and on certain ones, by the construction of a body of results which in no case involve any of the uncertainty arising from the previous introduction of that which may be false ; to form the habit of applying the attention closely to difficulties which can only be conquered by thought, and over which the victory is certain if the right means be used ; to establish confidence in abstract reasoning by the exhibition of processes whose results may be verified in many different ways ; to help in enabling the student to acquire correct notions and habits of generali- sation ; to give caution in receiving that which at first sight appears good reasoning; to instil a correct estimate of the powers of the mind, by pointing out the enormous extent of the consequences which may be developed out of a few of its most inherent notions, and its utter incapacity to imagine, much less to attain, the boundary of knowledge; to methodise the invention of the means of expressing thought, and to make apparent the ad- vantages of system and analogy in the formation of language and symbols; to sharpen the power of investi- gation, and the faculty of suggesting new combinations of the resources of thought; to enable the historical student to look at men of different races, opinions, and habits, in those parts of their minds where it might be supposed a priori that all would most nearly agree ; and to give the luxury of pursuing a study in which self-interest cannot lay down premises nor deduce con- clusions." All that I have to say, in addition to this masterly summary, in vindication of Mathematical Study, may THE STUDY OF MATHEMATICS. 169 be arranged under the following heads : the Objects or Matter of Thought with which the Science is con- cerned ; its Methods of Procedure; its Higher Deve- lopements; its Applications, especially to the Investiga- tion of the Laws of Nature and to their subjection to the service of Life; and its bearings on Theological Science and on the practical life of a Christian Minister, I. By a celebrated distinction, into the grounds of which it is not now our business to inquire, the whole Subject Matter of Thought is divided into that which is Necessary and that which is Contingent. We say nothing, at present, about the great controversy respecting the sources of our knowledge. We are content, for the present, with the almost universal admission, that there do exist certain objects of thought, respecting which we cannot conceive them to exist otherwise than in a certain way ; certain pro- positions which cannot but be true to every mind that really comprehends them. Our conceptions respecting such things, and our comprehension of such proposi. tions, constitute what are called Necessary Judgments; and their necessary truth (say, if you like, to us, to exclude all cavil,) is by no means affected by the ques- tions, whether they are independent and original or deduced from other truths, whether they are spon- taneous intuitions of the mind or the fruits of our simplest experience. Surely it cannot be unimportant, in the discipline of our reasoning powers, that we should learn to be conversant with this class of judg- ments, partly to certify ourselves that there are SOME real and unquestionable bases for our thoughts to rest 8 170 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. on, and partly that we may learn to distinguish between them and the merely contingent judgments, based on testimony or induction, which form by far the greater part of the matter of ordinary reasoning. Now it is on such necessary judgments that the Science of Pure Mathematics is wholly founded. It begins with the common notion of Magnitude, that is, whatever can be conceived of as less or greater, still being of the same kind. The Comparison of Magnitudes follows at once from the very notion of magnitude itself, first roughly, when two magnitudes are con- ceived of as equal or unequal, and then more accu- rately, according to our natural idea of their exact relation to one another in respect of Magnitude, that is, in the technical language of the science, the Ratio of the one to the other. As the mind cannot but admit the idea of Magnitude, and cannot conceive of it except as having these relations, so are there certain simple propositions respecting these relations, which every one capable of taking one step in reasoning must at once assent to. These simple propositions, which the trans- lators of Euclid have called Axioms, he himself calls ;co ii' at ivvoiai, Notions common to all mankind ; though whence they are acquired, he does not make it his business to discuss. These propositions, be it observed, are necessarily true of Magnitudes of all kinds, and we might reason from them concerning Qualities as well as Quantities, not excluding even moral qualities; only upon this one indispensable condition, that there exist some unerring test by which we may compare two things of the kind in question, so as to affirm one to be greater or less than the other, or equal to it. Otherwise, they cannot THE STUDY OP MATHEMATICS. 171 be regarded by us as Magnitudes, nor become the objects of that reasoning which is based on our necessary judgments respecting Magnitude. Thus, if A. is GREATER than B, and B GREATER than C, A is GREATER than C, is a proposition necessarily true, pro- vided that A, B, and C are magnitudes in the sense explained, and that they are magnitudes of the same kind: otherwise the proposition is, not untrue, but merely nonsensical. Attempt to apply this reasoning to moral qualities. A certain man, A, is BETTER than another, B, who is BETTER than a third, C ; therefore A is BETTER than C. The reasoning is sound, if there are any degrees in goodness, whatever be the test by which it is determined to be greater or less. But try to take the next step, to define what ratio means, as applied to moral excellence, and to determine that John is TWICE AS GOOD as Richard, who is TWICE AND A HALF as good as Stephen, therefore, compounding the ratios, John is FIVE TIMES as good as Stephen : who does not see that the ludicrous absurdity of such rea- soning results from the absence of any determinate TEST of the MAGNITUDE of goodness ? By similar examples, in the case of other qualities, it might easily be shown, that our necessary judg- ments respecting Magnitude are only applicable gene- rally to Quantity, or, as some modern writers would say, to Quantity and Quotity, that is, in other words, to Space and Number. Now, whether our ideas of Position, Direction, and Distance, together with the general idea of Space, on the one hand, and our ideas of Unity and Plurality, with all the species of the latter, on the other, are original or derived, innate or acquired, matters but little : we all feel sure that they 172 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. are a part of the Necessary Matter of our Thought : we are equally assured that Spaces and Numbers are Magnitudes, for they may be brought to the comparison of Equality or Inequality, the former by the test of coincidence, the latter by pairing off their units; and we are therefore prepared to apply to them those necessary judgments which we have formed respecting Magnitude; and to evolve, by the Laws of logical Deduction, which are also necessary, so necessary that the process of applying them is called Demonstration, the mere pointing out each inference, we are pre- pared, I say, to evolve a complete Science of the Rela- tions of Space and Number in respect of Magnitude. Such a Science is PURE MATHEMATICS, which has been well denned as "the Practical Logic of Necessary Matter. 3 ' It was my intention to amplify this part of the sub- ject, with especial reference to the objections urged against the views now stated, and I had executed the purpose to a great extent ; but I have found it neces- sary to sacrifice this portion of my work for the sake of what remains. I only add, therefore, that the attention we are compelled to pay, from the very first, to these certainties of the science, is all the more useful for lying in the compass of a few examples easily com- prehended : that it need not draw off our attention from that Contingent Matter, with which we are to be mainly concerned in real life ; but, on the contrary, we can only distinctly apprehend what is certain by per- petual contrast with the correlative uncertainties, a contrast the habit of which is the best safeguard against that confusion between the two species of judg- ments, which the untrained Reason is continually THK STUDY OF MATHEMATICS. 173 making, and which is the source of half the sophistry that imposes on the world. I also intended to vindicate the importance of studying these Necessary Judgments on the higher ground, that they are Necessary Truths ; and that, therefore, their Study, rightly pursued, confers on us the inestimable advantage of establishing our conviction that there are Truths which the very Nature of our Mind pronounces Certain. But I must now be content with the avowal of my earnest hope, that our daily study of the subject may be so conducted as to imbue our minds with the first principles of a sound philosophy, and to arm us against every system which calls in question the Reality of Certainty. II. The mental benefits of the Methods pursued in Mathematical investigations needs only to be briefly glanced at. The training of the faculty of reasoning soundly from sound premises, which the Student enjoys by taking up link after link of the adamantine chain of Demonstration in the Elements of Euclid, needs no further illustration, unless our time permitted us to lay bare the sophisms of the few who have ventured to deny it. This must always have the highest place in a course of Mathematics pursued for the sake of intel- lectual discipline ; and to all that Whewell, De Morgan, and other modern writers have said to this effect, I heartily subscribe. But no one, on the other hand, would wish to banish from our studies the method of analytical investigation by means of Symbols and Formulae. The beauty of its results, and the exercise of ingenuity which the use of it affords, are admitted on all hands. But still, we grant, it is a dangerous 174 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. instrument, if wrongly employed, and its danger resides in its very power. The practical analyst often has no more intelligent concern with the methods he employs, than a child turning a barrel-organ with the machinery he sets in motion. But this danger is easily avoided. Let the student's mind be steadfastly fixed on the Methods rather than on the Results; let an account of the reason for each step be demanded, as each step is taken ; and I question whether Algebra may not be made a Mental Discipline as useful as Geometry itself. And this, let me add, is the method adopted in the studies of this place. III. I the less regret the want of time to illustrate the intellectual benefit derived from the Higher 'Developements of the subject, because this topic will occupy us much and often in our ordinary Lectures. You heard yes- terday of the testimony borne by Inductive Science to the Permanence of the Laws of Nature : and, in your study of Abstract Science, you will have repeatedly to admire the Permanence of the Laws of Thought. Thus, in Algebra, we first enlarge the boundaries of Com- mon Arithmetic by the use of General Symbols in the place of particular Numbers, and of symbolic Signs of Operation in the place of ordinary Language; and then, though this Symbolic Language has been framed with rigorous attention to the exclusion of all notions but those which are purely Arithmetical, we yet find ourselves in. possession of an instrument capable of innumerable uses, both of expression and discovery, which were never dreamt of in its formation. Nay, the very forms of expression, which, presenting them- THE STUDY OF MATHEMATICS. 175 selves as particular cases of general forms, you have been compelled to reject as being without significance, you will find, on their contemplation in a new light, to force upon you new and interesting results, as if by some hidden power which they derive from the generality of their form. In this Permanence of Equi- valent Forms, as Professor Peacock has well named it, which may be called the animating spirit of Sym- bolical Algebra, and which is especially displayed in the Theory of "Impossible" Quantities, you will read lessons respecting the Permanence of Law, and the con- sequent power of mere Formulse for the discovery of Truth, which, if I am not grievously deceived, will tend to raise the Mind nearer to the conviction of the Unity of all Law and of all Truth in Him who is the centre of all Truth and the Expression of all Law. Nor, while speaking of the methods of investigation, can I pass over that which is called pre-eminently THE Calculus, which enables us to grasp within the range of accurate expression quantities which have no limits of greatness or of smallness, and even those variable magnitudes, whose variations are so perpetual that we can take no portion of them, however small, within which there is not some change. I speak not now so much of the Power thus gained over the most important calculations of common life, nor of the triumphs over the secrets of Nature which this wondrous instrument of thought has achieved in the hands of a Newton or La Place, an Adams or Leverrier they speak for them- selves, but I insist simply on the obvious advantage to the mind in thus gaining, as it were, a new faculty, that of reducing to accurate expression things and no- tions which, but for this instrument, would always remain 176 NEW COLLEGK INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. vague. And here I cannot refrain from the expressio of my deep regret that the Mathematical course pre- scribed by the University of London stops short of the Differential and Integral Calculus, nor from adding my earnest entreaty to those of you who can do so without interference with your other studies to pursue your investigations at least into its Elements. IV. My reasons for now refraining from the inviting field of Natural Philosophy have been already stated ; but even this brief enumeration of the advantages of Pure Mathematics must not conclude without one word on their application to the discovery of the Laws of Nature, and the subjection of those Laws accord- ing to the expressed will of the Creator to the service of Man. In the few moments which remain for me to hint at this boundless theme, you will permit me to borrow the language of two of the Poets of Science, combining the greatest felicity of illustration with the highest eloquence. In the year 1825, Sir Humphry Davy uttered these words from the Chair of the Royal Society : " Whether we consider the nature of mathematical science or its results, it appears equally among the noblest objects of human pursuit and ambition. Arising a work of intellectual creation from a few self-evident propositions on the nature of magnitudes and numbers, it is gradually formed into an instrument of pure reason of the most refined kind, applying to and illustrating all the phenomena of nature and art, and embracing the whole system of the visible universe ; and the same calculus measures and points out the application of labour, whether by THE STUDY OF MATHEMATICS. 177 animals or machines, determines the force of vapour, and confines the power of the most explosive agents in the steam-engine, regulates the forms and structures best fitted to move through the waves, ascertains the strength of the chain-bridge necessary to pass across arms of the ocean, fixes the principles of permanent foundations in the most rapid torrents, and, leaving the earth filled with monuments of its power, ascends to the stars, measures and weighs the sun and the planets, and determines the laws of their motions, and can bring under its dominion those cometary masses that are, as it were, strangers to us, wanderers in the immensity of space ; and applies data gained from contemplation of the sidereal heavens to measure and estnblish time, and movement, and magnitudes below." And Sir John Herschell says : " The question, cui bono, to what practical end and advantage do your researches tend ? is one which the speculative phi- losopher, who loves knowledge for its own sake, and enjoys, as a rational being should enjoy, the mere contemplation of harmonious and mutually dependent truths, can seldom hear without a sense of humiliation. He feels that there is a lofty and disinterested pleasure in his speculations which ought to exempt them from such questioning; communicating, as they do, to his own mind the purest happiness (after the exercise of the benevolent and moral feelings) of which human nature is susceptible, and tending to the injury of no one, he might surely allege this as a sufficient and direct reply to those who, having themselves little capacity and less relish for intellectual pursuits, are constantly repeating upon him this inquiry. But if he can bring himself to descend from this high but 8 178 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. fair ground, and justify himself, his pursuits, and his pleasures in the eyes of those around him, he has only to point to the history of all science, where speculations apparently the most unprofitable have almost invariably been those from which the greatest practical appli- cations have emanated. What, for instance, could be apparently more unprofitable than the dry speculations of the ancient geometers on the properties of the conic sections, or than the dreams of Kepler (as they would naturally appear to his contemporaries) about the numerical harmonies of the universe ? Yet these are the steps by which we have risen to a knowledge of the elliptic motions of the planets and the law of gravitation, with all its splendid theoretical conse- quences, and its inestimable practical results. The ridicule attached to " Swing-swangs" in Hooke's time, did not prevent him from reviving the proposal of the pendulum as a standard of measure, since so effectually brought into practice by the genius and perseverance of Captain Kater ; nor did that which Boyle encoun- tered in his researches on the elasticity and pressure of the air act as any obstacle to the train of discovery which terminated in the steam-engine." V. It would require another complete Lecture to discuss the bearings of this Study on those pursuits which are your chief business here, and from which it is your highest duty to allow no others to divert your thoughts. So strong, indeed, is my sense of the mental benefits which I have attempted to describe, that I might be content to look for no more special application of our study to your work as Students for the Ministry, than THE STUDY OF MATHEMATICS. 179 would be made in the unreserved dedication of the fruits of the one to the service of the other. But it would be injustice to our argument to leave it here ; for there are direct and essential bearings of Pure Mathematics on Theology. The necessary truths, which lie at the foundation of the former, cannot but prepare the mind for the clearer conception of the necessary truths which are the first objects of the latter; nay, they lead directly to them, as the existence of even so much as one Necessary Truth implies a Necessary Source of all Truth. The same may be said of the Certainty of Procedure and the Permanence of Law. Moreover, in Theology, as in all Science, the habit of calm, stern reasoning is most important ; and, above all, when we have to approach a subject where human passion has been at work for ages to obscure truth, is it not well to have been trained in reasonings from which all passion is excluded ? The accuracy of defi- nition, and the nice distinctions which common lan- guage fails to mark, but which are familiar to a mind thus trained, are again and again needed in Theology. Take, for example, the essential distinction between the mathematical idea of infinity, as the indefinite extension of a series of finite things, and the sense in which we call God infinite, because His being excludes all idea of limitation. Again, nothing is more common, in Theology as in Philosophy, than to hear reasonings about spiritual existence and attributes, as if they were magnitudes ; a fallacy which the mathematician at once detects, when it escapes others. The direct use of mathematics in Theology appears, among other instances, in furnishing easy and tri- umphant answers to the babblings of the sceptic 180 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LKCTURES. about chances ; and in calculations of chronology and astronomy, which affect the credibility of Scripture. On these and many other such points the time will not allow me to enter into details. I only add one more remark, that, as all Truth is one, so every atom of Truth piously acquired, and every power of acquir- ing Truth devoutly cultivated, must place us in some new relation even when we cannot trace the channel of its influence yet by some influence of the Divine Spirit to God the Father, as manifested in His Son, who is the Truth, the Light, the Life. " Two worlds are ours ; till only sin Forbids us to descry The mystic heaven and earth within, Plain as the sea and sky. " THOU, who hast given us eyes to see And love the sight so fair, Give us a heart to find out Thee, And read Thee everywhere." A LECTURE INTRODUCTORY TO THE COURSE OF THE HEBREW LANGUAGE; AND TO THE CRITICISM AND INTERPRETATION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. DELIVERED BY THE REV. MAURICE NENNER. OCTOBER 9, 1851 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE, REV. MAURICE NENNER. GENTLEMEN, IT is a beautiful and truly wise saying of a great poet and sage, borne out by the experience of mankind, and applicable to all human pursuits, that excellence and thorough fitness for the discharge of our duties as rational and morally accountable beings, is connected with difficulties fore-ordained by Providence, or, as Hesiod pithily expresses it : Trjc aprrJe t'Spwra 0foi TrpoTrapoi&y iOriKav. This maxim is, moreover, not only true in the sense of: No work, no pay; but also in the higher sense of: No strenuous, honest effort, no pro- fitable, honest gain ; No hearty, conscientious toil and pains-taking, no fitness for the real use and enjoyment of the thing desired. Though applicable, as I said, to all human pursuits, this maxim is pre-eminently verified, if our efforts and endeavours are directed to things that belong to the Spirit; things that are right, true, and holy; things 184 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. that do not pass away with the fleeting hour, but are intended to be man's highest, everlasting possessions. The office for which, under God's blessing, you are now endeavouring to qualify yourselves in this Insti- tution, implies that you should love and revere these things. It implies that you should know the Truth, as it is in Jesus ; that you should be conscious that you know it; and that you should be able not only to communicate it to others, in a manner both clear and convincing, but also to defend it efficiently against gainsayers and enemies. This may mean little, and it may mean much ; yea, very much. It will mean little, if you understand it merely in the sense of the con- ventional phraseology of sleeping or dying churches. It will mean much, if you understand it in the sense which your own personal experience will reveal to you, when you have, by much toil and perseverance, realised the truth of the maxim above quoted. The great object of your present studies, is to learn rightly to understand, rightly to divide, and rightly to apply and teach, the word of God. How men, in former times, have endeavoured to realise this object, and how they have, more or less, failed or succeeded, this is the main object of Ecclesiastical History to show; and, among the many lessons which we derive from this source, one of no slight importance is that men, other- wise sincere, and desirous of arriving at the Truth, have failed in this, principally from two reasons : 1, because they constructed systems of religious doctrine under the influence of erroneous principles of thought, urged on by bias and prejudice, and therefore little conscious, or perhaps even little heeding, whether Revelation would bear out their hasty conclusions or not; or, EXEGESIS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 185 2, because they had not the means, and the previous training, which might have enabled them to ascertain whether the material which they used for the erection of their fabric, was the pure gold and silver of revealed truth, or the hay and the stubbles of human invention. In the one case, it was Systematic Theology that was at fault ; in the other, it was the want of a sound exegetical procedure that occasioned the failure. But why do we speak of a state of things that has passed away, or, at least, that has been corrected? Have we not free access to the word of God ? And have we not a system of Christian doctrine which we believe to be in accordance with the truth of the Bible ? Happily, we have both. But still, as the privilege we enjoy, of having free access to the word of God, will only be of real service to us if we make the right use of it, so the belief that we have a system of Christian doctrine in accordance with the teaching of the Bible, will be a firm and well-founded belief, only if we are conscious that we have made use of this privilege to the best of our abilities. There is a tendency in the human mind to under- stand truth as a whole. Instinct and analogy, as well as actual positive experience, teach us to believe in the unity and harmony of all truth. As in the material universe there exists no vacuum, by which individual bodies could in such a manner be isolated and detached from each other that it would be impossible for them to influence and affect each other; but, as all created matter forms one continuous unity, joined and knit together by a mysterious power and energy, so is it also with truth. No truth stands alone; and the real force and bearing of any individual truth can only be 186 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. fully understood and appreciated, when thus seen in its natural and real connection with other truths, as well as, so to speak, with the whole universe of truth. Now the attempt to exhibit truth in this natural ob- jective connection, is, as you know, called systematising, and truth, exhibited in such a manner, we call a system. We see, then, that by an innate instinct of our nature, we are led to systematise, or to reduce truth to systems. But we may well ask, What in- stinct is this, that urges us to such a proceeding? And we answer, The instinct of the intellect. No doubt we may enjoy the beauty of nature, we may be benefited by its refreshing and healing powers, without being able to classify natural objects according to the general laws by which they are connected, but do we understand nature under such circumstances ? So, also, in the province of thought. We may be struck with the force and beauty of certain truths, and, on that ground, believe in them, and be benefited by them; but that they are truths, we shall only come to learn when we discover their real connection and harmony, and see that they do not contradict each other. If we apply this to the science of Religion, to Theology, we find that the object of Systematic Theology must be to present the doctrinal and moral truths of Revelation in such a manner, that not merely the immediate religious feeling of man, but especially his intellect, be convinced of the truthfulness of its statements, or, in other words, it must not only state what the Bible teaches, but also how and why these biblical doctrines agree. The Bible itself, it is generally agreed, does not contain a system of doctrines, in the strict sense of the EXEGESIS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 187 word. It was not intended for that; but it contains the materials for such a system, either directly, by clear, evident statement, or indirectly, by suggestion and parabolic or symbolic teaching. From this it follows that the first step towards a sound systematic theology is the elimination, on sound principles, of the statements of the Bible itself respecting these doc- trines ; and this is the object of Biblical Exegesis, both of the Old and New Testament. Biblical Exegesis, however, in the sense in which alone it can properly be called so, requires three things as constituent elements : first, it requires an intimate acquaintance with the language, in which the Biblical book, which is to be exegetically explained, is com- posed; secondly, it requires an accurate acquaintance with the circumstances under which such a book is composed, as well as with the nature of the things and the character of the persons and events spoken of or alluded to ; and, thirdly, it requires a deep sympathy with the religious sentiments and ideas which such a book contains and propounds. This leads us to the immediate object of our dis- course, namely, to the question, In what relation does the exegesis of the Old Testament stand to Theology in general, and to systematic Theology in particular? It is a well-known fact that the Old Testament has often been a stumbling-block to many professing Christians, and a rich arsenal from which declared enemies of religion have borrowed their weapons of attack for the first onslaught. Not only the miracles, the morals, the historic relations, the character of eminent personages, but the very tone and spirit of the Old Testament religion have been made use of to 188 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. demur to its credibility, authenticity, and divine origin. Such objections have been made, now by men of great erudition and acuteness of mind; now by such who had neither been willing nor able to give to this sub- ject the least part of the consideration which its pecu- liar difficulty and importance demands, but boldly judged and condemned, without even giving a cour- teous and patient hearing to those who felt themselves constrained to stand up in defence of the truths and principles impeached. Nor is the controversy on this subject yet come to an end. The old English Deism, French infidelity a la Voltaire, and German Rational- ism in the sense of Paulus, Roehr, and Wegscheider, which have busied themselves so much about this matter, are now dead, or nearly so. They have been weighed, and been found wanting. The temporary halo which for a while encircled the brows of the lead- ing men of this school has vanished with them, or even sooner ; nay, their speculations have in some in- stances become a subject of ridicule to their very disci- ples ; but the spirit which animated these men, the perverse principles from which they started, though they were called common sense or enlightened under- standing or philosophy, these are still alive and show signs of life, though under different forms. The lower strata of the literature of the day is full of them, and is the more acceptable to a large class of readers on account of its coarseness and vulgarity. Nor does, on the other hand, Philosophy disdain to call this subject before its forum ; and, according to the light given to it, its sentence, as may be apprehended, is not unfre- quently wrong. And, lastly, now and then we even hear a voice from the midst of the Church, which, if EXEGESIS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 189 not positively hostile to the claims of the Old Testa- ment, shows that the authority granted to it is granted with reluctance and with a proviso; not to mention the habit of many Christian men to think slightly of the Old Testament, and even practically to neglect it, just for the very general reason that they are Christians and not Jews, and that consequently their source of information respecting matters of faith and duty is the New Testament and not the Old. It is evident that such loose reasoning as the last mentioned must proceed from erroneous views regard- ing the Old and New Dispensations in general, and consequently also regarding the records we have of them in the Old and New Testaments; and these erroneous views, we are led to suppose, must admit of being traced to somewhere. Apart from the objections which men of deistical and rationalistic principles have made to the authority of the Old Testament, and which equally apply to Christ and his Apostles, because they properly imply and proceed from the denial of any actual and direct revelation from God having ever been made to man, apart from these we discover certain tendencies, even among believers, which, if consistently carried out, must in the end materially detract from the dignity and subvert the Divine authority of the Old Testament revelations. One of these tendencies is a one-sided and false spiritualism, or religious idealism. It cannot be a matter of surprise that philosophical speculations, unguided and uncontrolled by the influ- ence of revealed truth, should evince the peculiar characteristics of their human origin, namely, imperfec- 190 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. tion and one-sidedness. All our differences in politics, science, and religion, if they do not proceed from a meaner source, are the result of our general incapacity to look at the same time at the two sides of a subject with candour and impartiality, and thus to modify and correct the judgment which a one-sided aspect of the matter may have suggested. Our tastes and predilec- tions are so strong that usually, without our intending it, and even without our being aware of it, we find ourselves so much shut up and limited to a partial and one-sided view of a subject-matter, that we not only lose all sympathy with the view which the other side of the same subject presents, but that we also conceive a positive dislike and aversion to it ; and, whether from a feeling of insecurity or spite, we not only endeavour to make the best of our position by the use of legiti- mate means, but are also weak enough to damage our cause by exaggerating our resources and pushing every point to extremes. As such extremes, common both to philosophy and to religion, we recognise, on the one hand, Idealism, on the other, Materialism, the one sacrificing the rights of facts to the interests of specu- lative thought, the other perverting man's judgment by subjecting reason to the bondage of sense and sight. Of the systems of philosophy in vogue about the beginning of the Christian era, the most eminent that came into contact with Christianity, the Neoplatonic system of philosophy, was marked by a decidedly idealistic character. In the systems of men like Porphyrius and Plotinus, as well as in the writings of Plato himself, there are not a few of the leading ideas decidedly friendly to the teaching of Christ and of his EXEGESIS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 191 Apostles ; and it is, therefore, easy to understand how men who were imbued with such ideas, who loved them, and felt elevated and ennobled by them, became converts to Christianity, when they discovered the same ideas in a still purer form in this new religion. But what they loved and admired in the religion of the New Testament they could not recognise in the veiled features of the Old Testament, and they felt as much repulsed by what to them appeared the material- istic notions and formal legality of the Old Testament, as they were attracted by the supersensuous and spiritual views of truth in the New Testament ; and they soon came to the conclusion that the religious ideas of the Old Testament dispensation were not only infinitely inferior but positively contrary to those of the New Testament. So sure were they of this, that they did not hesitate to describe the whole Old Testa- ment Dispensation as an institution which had for its author not the God who had revealed himself in Christ, but some inferior being, the Demiurgos, the creator of the principle of all evil, namely, matter. The astonishment with which we must look upon these blasphemous reveries of men who professed to be disciples of Christ, might perhaps be somewhat lessened by the consideration that they were men who, previous to their profession of Christianity, had been accus- tomed to indulge in the most unbounded mystical speculations about religious truth, and that not merely from choice but from necessity. Estranged from the popular mythological superstitions of their forefathers, but repulsed by the frivolous light-mindedness, barren scepticism, and sensuous materialism of their age, the Gnostics for those I refer to sought a refuge and a 192 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. source of consolation in mystical speculations about the probable origin of so corrupt a world, with the ex- pectation of discovering an efficient means for securing themselves from its corrupting influence. This means they believed to have discovered in an idealistic nega- tion of the material world (the {/'Ar/) and its Maker; and hence it was that they felt repugnant to be so constantly and pointedly reminded of both, as this is done by the Old Testament Scriptures. More startling it might appear when we find that men of apparently a very different class, Jews by birth and professedly strict believers in the Divine authority of the Old Testament, should, in many points, have arrived at nearly the same results as the class of Gnostics we have just been speaking of. I refer to the Kabbalists. Pretending to be a revelation from God given to Moses, or according to others to Adam or to Abra- ham or to Ezra, the Kabbalah contains partly a number of traditional doctrines on religious and meta- physical subjects taught in a symbolical and mystical form. Partly, it also contains a collection of rules, or rather a system of interpretation by which professedly the hidden mysterious sense of the Old Testament is to be elicited, and this not merely from the context of the Biblical teaching, but from the single words, and even the single letters of words. The sentiments which men of this school entertained respecting the simple and natural sense of the Old Testament writings, may be inferred from declarations like this : " Alas," it is said in the book of Sohar, "Alas for the man who thinks that the law contains nothing but what appears on its surface; for if that were true, there EXEGESIS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 193 would be men in our day who could excel it. 33 The tendency of sentiments like this could certainly not be to exalt the written word. On the contrary, its highest function was considered to be this, that it was a mere outward vehicle for those pretended mysteries which, properly speaking, alone could lay claim to the title of a Revelation so far as truth is concerned. The logical and historical sense of the Old Testament writings was not only declared to be of secondary moment, valuable only as an enigmatical embodiment of those pretended higher and esoteric mysteries, but was altogether rejected as carnal and delusive, when insisted upon to the exclusion of that pretended higher revelation. Hence it is that the book of Sohar, just referred to, goes on to say : " If angels are obliged when they descend to this world, to assume a body in order that they may subsist in the world, and it be able to receive them, how much more necessary was it that the law, which created them and which was the instru- ment by which the world was created, should be invested with a body in order that it might be adapted to the comprehension of man ? That body is a history, in which if any man think there is not a soul, let him have no part in the life to come/' Granting that this law of the Kabbalah, which is said to have created angels and the whole universe, be a soul, it is utterly impossible that the historic law, the law given to the Jewish nation by Moses, should be the body fitted for it to dwell in. The fact is, that most of these pretended mysteries can with great probability be traced to ex- traneous sources, such as the Persian religion and the systems of Greek philosophers. There the doctrine of emanation and the subtleties of allegorical interpre- 9 194 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. tations of mythical fables are in their right place; foisted upon the text of the Old Testament, common sense must revolt against so unnatural a connection. This was felt, and care was taken to remedy this defect by the introduction of so monstrous a system of inter- pretation as that referred to. The fruits which this spiritualistic method of in- terpreting the Old Testament has borne, are discernible in the alienation of the minds and hearts of the greater portion of the Jews from not only the spirit but even the letter of the Old Testament. The early history of the Kabbalah being involved in great obscurity as long as it was propagated in the form of an esoteric oral tradition, we are not able to judge in what manner arid to what extent it was brought to bear upon the popular mind. The admonition of Paul to Timothy and Titus, not to give heed to Jewish fables and genealogies, that is to say, to the genealogies of angelic powers in the sense of the doctrine of emanation, in which they play so considerable a part in the teaching of the Kabbalah, and some other passages in the New Testament, seem to contain a direct reference to these theosophic reveries. However, that these views were at an early time influencing the Jewish Church as a whole may be inferred from the readiness with which the Talmud, the common receptacle of most of these views, has been received as an authoritative rule of belief and duty to the great neglect and disparagement of the Old Testament scriptures. They were soon stamped with the character of orthodoxy, so that a portion of the church, who indeed formed but a very small minority, when urging the claims of the Bible in opposition to this authorized commentary to it, EXEGESIS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 195 were unhesitatingly cast off as heretics and gave rise to a Jewish sect under the name of Karaites. Even the Christian Church did not remain free from the influence of the Kabbalistic systems. The author of the epistle that goes by the name of Barna- bas, adopts the method of interpretation usual among the Kabbalists, when he, to quote one instance out of many, gives the following interpretation of an Old Testament passage : In the ninth chapter of his epistle where he wishes to show that Abraham circum- cised his servants with a direct reference to Christ's person and crucifixion he says : " Learn, my children, that Abraham, who first circumcised in spirit, having a regard to Jesus, circumcised, applying the mystic sense of the three letters. For the Scripture says that Abraham circumcised 318 men of his house. What then was the deeper insight imparted to him ? Mark first the 18, and next the 300. The numeral letters of 18 are I and H, 1=10, H=8; here you have Jesus j and because the cross in the T must express the grace (of redemption), he names 300; therefore he signified Jesus by two letters, and the cross by one." Of course this would imply that Abraham understood Greek, if he is at all to be considered as having been conscious of what he did when he applied the mystic sense of the three letters in circumscribing his 318 servants. Similar in general tendency and result though dif- ferent in kind and application is the allegorical mode of interpretation as practised by Origen and his school. Origen, as in fact the whole Alexandrine school of Theologians, was doubtless predisposed to this mode of explaining the Scriptures from the nature of his 1 ( J6 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. general habits of thought and taste, yet there is no reason to doubt the sincerity of his conviction respect- ing the necessity of adopting this method, in order to remove many difficulties otherwise insuperable to him, which he met with, especially in endeavouring to recon- cile the doctrines of the Old and New Testaments. In his work Trepl ap^wv where he treats on the subject of Scriptural interpretation, and which if we did not know the man otherwise, cannot but give the reader the im- pression that he has to do with a man not only of eminent power and great candour, but also of conspi- cuous simplicity and straightforwardness, anxious to arrive at conclusive solutions of problems which are not the less of great importance and interest in themselves, although the great mass of believers neither feel the importance nor the interest attaching to them, he rea- sons in the following manner : The Holy Scriptures inspired by God form an harmonious whole, perfect in itself, without any defects and contradictions, and containing nothing that is insignificant and superfluous. The grammatical interpretation leads to obstacles and objections, which according to the quality just stated of the Holy Scriptures, are inadmissible and impossible. Now, since the merely grammatical interpretations can neither remove nor overcome these objections, we must seek for an expedient beyond the boundaries of gram- matical interpretation. The allegorical interpretation offers this expedient, and consequently is above the grammatical. And then referring to the threefold division of man's being, he adds : " The sentiments, therefore, of the Holy Scriptures are to be impressed upon our minds in a threefold manner, in order that whosoever belongs to the simpler sort of persons, may EXEGESIS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 197 receive edification from the flesh of the Scripture (thus we call their obvious meaning), but he who is somewhat more advanced, from its soul ; but whosoever is perfect, and similar to those to whom the Apostle alludes, where he says, f we speak wisdom/ from the spiritual law, which contains a shadow of good things to come ; for, as man consists of spirit, body, and soul, so also the Holy Writ, which God has planned to be granted for the salvation of mankind." However much Origen may have been convinced of the correctness of these principles, and however much he may have carried them out to his own satisfaction, it is evident that, granting their correctness, their prac- tical application cannot but be connected with the greatest difficulties, resulting from the great want of a universally valid criterion, by which to distinguish and point out these three senses in every case, and with certainty of having applied the principle in the right manner. Nor has Origen himself been able practically to show, that this main objection to his theory can be met either by demonstration or fact, though he has, indeed, shown much ingenuity and depth of mind in attempting to do so. The Church felt this, and did not encourage the prosecution of these labours, so that, partly on this account and partly from the feeling of the difficulty of the task on the part of those who at- tempted to follow in the footsteps of Origen, the exe- getical building which he had commenced was, after him, left standing unfinished, and, by degrees, fell to ruins. The feeling, common to all these endeavours, was that of dissatisfaction with the literal sense of the Old Testament writings, and the desire to elicit from them 198 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. a meaning which might be more in accordance with the religious and philosophical ideas which the indi- viduals or schools, thus dissatisfied, otherwise enter- tained. The cause of this dissatisfaction, was the inability of understanding the character and tenor of the religious and moral truths of the Old Testament in an historical point of view, especially in their relation to Christianity ; or, on the other hand, the foolish prac- tice of looking on them through the coloured medium of extraneous systems of philosophy, and the haze of mystic speculations. Of the other tendency, which forms the opposite extreme to the one just described, namely, the mate- rialistic or realistic mode of viewing the Old Testament, little need be said. The history of the Jewish nation, as a whole, up to the period of their final dispersion, forms a continued record of the fact, that, if any nation in the world, the Jews may be pre-eminently described as the representatives of this tendency. The cause of their stubbornness, under the guidance of Moses, was materialism ; the cause of their proneness to idolatry was materialism ; the cause of their national vanity and pride, was materialism ; the cause of their rejecting and crucifying the anointed of the Lord was materialism. The Law, with its burdensome observances and severe penalties, was indeed adapted to this spirit of mate- rialism, but this circumstance had certainly, at the same time, a higher aim, namely, that of crushing this spirit, by the very excess of its burdensomeness ; to engender a longing after deliverance from its pressure, and thus to prepare its subjects for the reception of a higher law, even the law of freedom, written on the fleshy tables of their hearts. The Law, itself, pointed EXEGESIS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 199 with sufficient clearness to this, its ulterior end. Moreover, the principal object in the mission of the prophets, was to direct the minds of the Israelites to the higher spiritual element of the Law, that they might learn "steadfastly to look to the. end of that which was to be abolished." But, as the Apostle testifies, " their minds were blinded ; for unto this day remaineth the same veil untaken away in the reading of the Old Testament." The belief in Christ, implies that this veil of mate- rialistic views, hopes and motives, is taken away. In as far as the Law is concerned, it is inconceivable that the church of Christ should ever recur to these mate- rialistic views, which were attended with such melan- choly consequences in the case of the Jews. Yet, in other respects, especially with regard to Old Testament prophecy, this old leaven of materialism has evidently been working, and is, in some degree, even now working in the Christian church. Look at the interpretations put upon Old Testament prophecy by many of the fathers, especially of the Latin church, or even by Protestant divines of the school of Coccejus, not to mention the grosser forms of millenarian belief, and you will find that the kingdom of God, which these men found pointed to in the prophets, was not one that is within us, but without ; not one that " cometh not with observation," but, on the contrary, one that cannot be recognised except by a distinct reference of prophecy to events and persons of a subordinate local and tem- porary interest. After having thus briefly described a few of the more characteristic tendencies distinguishable both in the Jewish and Christian churches, which lead to erro- 200 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. neous views with regard to the character and aim of the Old Testament dispensation in general, and to false principles and methods of interpreting the writings of the Old Testament Scriptures in particular, the next step we have to take in this investigation, will be to give an answer to the question, which is the right view on this subject, and which are the correct principles to be observed and carried out, in the interpretation of the Old Testament Scriptures ? A complete answer to these questions would fill a whole book, it being nothing less than the subject of Old Testament Hermeneutics. What we, therefore, can do on this occasion, is just to give a few leading thoughts on the subject. First, then, what is required of us to form a right estimate of the character and aim of the Old Testament in general? The first answer to this, is To study its history, its origin, its progress, and the causes and accom- panying circumstances of its close. The theocratic insti- tution, of which the Old Testament Scriptures are the records, is an historic fact, resulting from a certain state of things, and intended for certain definite purposes. These we have to trace. The former we must expect to have had some influence in determining the peculiar form in which it was to be introduced ; the latter, in the choice of the means employed to keep the whole, so to speak, working in the right direction. The former has a reference to what the Hebrews were when the theocracy was established among them ; the latter, to what they were to become through its influence. The great object of the theocracy was the education of the whole Jewish nation, up to a certain point. The plan of their education, therefore, required to be adapted to their wants and capacities, and also, in some measure, EXEGESIS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 201 to their national tastes and propensities. This is a point of which we must in no case lose sight, if we wish to understand both the ulterior aim and the direct bearing of Old Testament institutions as well as of Old Testament teaching. But what were these national qualities of the Jewish nation ? At the time of their leaving Egypt they were a rude, uncultivated people, and, throughout their whole history, they have been pre-eminently a sensuous people, that is to say, a people influenced by sense rather than by principle and thought. This principal feature in their national character involved elements partly fa- vorable, partly unfavorable, to their religious education. Sensuousness narrows the mind, limits and stunts our thoughts as to their range and nature, and imparts to our aspirations and motives a savour of the earthly. On the other hand, it gives vividness, force, and in- tensity to both our thoughts and feelings, with which there is usually connected an aptitude for the manage- ment of the practical affairs of human life. In fact, a share of sensuousness is a necessary element in the character of a practical people. This the Hebrews were. Though not exactly of an excitable disposition, they always wanted something to busy themselves about; not to think, not to speculate, but to act. As they exercised their senses, they acquired acuteness of sense, which made them good observers and good imitators, and, at the same time, gave to their minds a turn towards the imaginative. Thus they were a shrewd, practical people, fit for honest, good work, and worthy to play a con- spicuous part in the great drama of the history of the human race, had it not been for two things; their self-will, and their sad deficiency in ideality. The P 9 202 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. former, as it is usually the case with men who are con- scious of possessing practical power, prompted them to mark out their own line of activity ; the latter gave to this line of work a direction towards the earthly, the material. Such a people were not likely to be influenced by the representation of truth in an abstract form. Creeds and formulas of belief would have been lost upon them. The proper way to get at them and to reach their souls was by work, not by argument. Only by working with, and upon a given material, they could understand what its use and value was, not by analysing it. So also with religion. The surest and safest way for the Hebrew to understand religion and is it not, in a higher sense, the safest way in general ? was to work it out, not to think it out. Work, then, was the first thing required in the education of the Jewish nation, and the Law gave them work. But unless a man be really nothing better than a living machine, work leads to, and suggests thought, and this thought brought to bear upon the work will improve both the product and the style of working, and so on. Thus we are on the road of progress, the end being perfection. But be- tween this and the starting point what a distance, how many a day's severe labour and toil ! The probability is that there will be much bungling and mistaking, many questions put, and inquiries made, by workmen who cannot see their way any further, and are puzzled how to proceed ; some, too, will get tired with their work, and anxious even to get rid of it altogether. But here we have the prophets to correct, rebuke, and encourage them ; there we have the Psalms, to sweeten with their melodious strains many a weary hour, and EXEGESIS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 203 to inspire the fainting heart with fresh courage and life. There are the historical books to relate to them the doings of their fathers both good and bad, and the mighty deeds of the God of their fathers calculated both to warn and to cheer them. Here we have the musings of an inspired sage, counselling them by wis- dom, uttered in the narrow compass of an apophthegm; there, as in the book of Job, we find the subject treated with the impressiveness of almost a dramatic repre- sentation. Such is the scope of the Old Testament Scriptures. We should have reason to feel surprised if they were not written in a style suited to the moral and intel- lectual elevation of those for whose use they were directly intended. Much has been said about the anthropomorphisms and anthropopathisms of the Old Testament, and reference has frequently been made to them to prove that the teaching of the Old Testament respecting the Divine Being, as well as respecting divine things in general, is not suited for enlightened minds. Granting, that with the dull and thoughtless these forms of thought and sentiment may in some measure prove an impediment in the cultivation of more spiritual ideas, we must still remember, that with the thoughtless thought in any form is and remains only a form, and that the forms of thought objected to, imperfect as they may be in our opinion, were at least most suited to bring the sentiments which they embodied home to the hearts of the individuals to whom they were addressed. Shall we say that we may safely disregard or despise truths merely because they may happen to be embodied in a child's story? Or will it not be a wiser course for us to take the story 204 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. as it is, and to draw from it the lesson which it con- tains in the form most suited to our tastes and to our acquirements? And certainly, here, in these Old Testament records, we have more than stories for children offered to us. Closely related to this question, about the style or forms of thought prevailing in the Old Testament writings in general, is another subject, namely, the language, or the languages, in which they are written. These are Oriental, and therefore, as to their character and genius, very remote from our modern European dialects. Now the genius of a language, as compared with that of another language, may appear to many a matter of slight practical importance a matter rather for the exercise of taste and philological scholarship than of real practical use and advantage. And thus, with regard to the Bible, it might be said that all we wanted was a faithful translation from the original into our vernacular tongue. But assuming we were sure that we had such a faithful translation of the original, would it be true that this was all we wanted, would it be all that you wanted ? A book may be written without showing any marks of the peculiar mental habits, the characteristic modes of thought and feeling of the nation in whose language it is composed, so far as thought and feeling are concerned, but it must show them so far as the language itself is con- cerned. The meaning and force of this remark will be best appreciated by those who at any time attempted to make a careful translation from a foreign language, with the desire to do justice to the original. They will have found the difficulty of the task to arise from the fact that, in numberless cases, the two languages EXEGESIS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 205 from which, and into which, the translation is to be made, are wanting in corresponding words to express an idea in such a manner, that the one should be the faithful transcript of the other, or that the one language employs words to which attach ideas, or shades of ideas, for which' the other has no equivalent terms, and the rendering of which therefore cannot be effected without cumbrous circumlocutions, if it can be effected at all. To what extent, and in what degree, this may apply to any two given languages, must be left to the experience of those who may be engaged in pursuits of this sort, for experience alone can teach it. However, as far as regards the Hebrew language, to which our attention is here particularly directed, I may perhaps be allowed, for I can do no better, to quote the words of an eminent Oriental scholar, whose high attainments in these studies claim a peculiar weight and authority for his opinion. Dr. Nicholson, the translator of Ewald's Hebrew Grammar, says, in his preface to this work : " The two facts, that Hebrew is the language of such a totally different social state, and belongs to a fundamentally different family of languages, are alone sufficient to render it a priori probable that it is no easy task to become naturalised to the peculiarities which result from those two causes. These considera- tions, and the acknowledged importance of the docu- ments transmitted to us through this language, and the vital interest we have in their correct interpreta- tion, should render the study of Hebrew an indispensable duty with some; but I would also hope that the time is not far distant when those who derive intellectual pleasure in the study of a language per se, as a mode of thought, will, without disregarding the religious 206 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. interest, which should also weigh with them, be more frequently attracted to the study of a language whose remains are, in a philological and literary point of view, so worthy the attention of enlightened minds. If there is an infinite pleasure in enjoying the national poetry of any people in its original form, if there is an indefinable something, the characteristic of the national mind and external state, which only lives in its native tongue, this is doubly true of Hebrew. No language loses more by translation ; for we can only translate it into a language of a different family, climate, and state of civilisation. Hebrew is the language of man in his infancy, ere his reasoning powers have supplanted his feelings : simple in structure, childlike truthful in expression, the very language of the heart in the house- hold affections, in the ardour of faith or the abyss of despair, or, if dignified, sublime in simple majesty, recalling in its commonest metaphors the tent, the desert, and the pastoral life of the patriarchal ages, and can we translate such a language as this into that of times and people who have grown grey in philosophy and the world, and who are artificial or callous in those feelings which the Hebrew expressed with the honest fervour of youth ? No, the Hebrew Muse, as afore- time, hangs her harp on the willows, and refuses to sing her native songs in a strange land." Still, on Protestant principles, we want translations of the Bible into our vernacular tongues ; and more- over this want has already been supplied. The prin- ciple of private judgment, the birthright of the Protestant, from which the Reformation started, ren- dered it necessary that those wjio adopted the views of the Reformers should be furnished with the means of EXEGESIS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 207 free access to the Word of God, in the shape of a faithful translation of it into their native tongue. The manner in which this task was performed by the Reformers themselves shows that they shunned no pains in the discharge of their duty, and that they did this with a full consciousness of their high and solemn responsibility. Moreover, they were men in whose hearts the flame of love and holy zeal for the prin- ciples which they defended and represented were still comparatively unsullied by the party-spirit and sec- tarian bias of aftertimes. They had realised their religious ideas and formed their religious convictions from a careful study of the Scriptures, comparatively unshackled by the influence of preconceived notions and traditionary habits of thought. This circumstance gave to their spirits a freshness, fulness, and intensity of religious sentiment which could not but manifest itself in the mode in which they translated the Scrip- tures into their vernacular languages. Thus we dis- cover, e. g. y in Luther's translation of the Bible, a vigour, an energy, a precision and majesty, but at the same time, also, a simplicity, sweetness, and tenderness of expression which cannot fail to touch the mind and the heart of the reader. Let any one read, e. g. } his translation of the Genesis, of the Psalms, or of the Prophets, and I have no doubt that he will consider this description of the character of his work even to fall short of its real merits. We cannot deny that Luther has made very many mistakes in his trans- lation, especially of the Old Testament; and how could it be otherwise ? Yet the pertinent remark that his very blunders in translating are of a nature which would almost induce one to believe that they were 208 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. inspired, shows how deeply that great man was imbued with the spirit of the Bible, if it cannot be made an excuse for these mistakes themselves. What I have remarked respecting the character of Luther's translation applies, though perhaps in a modified form, to our English version. Its excellent qualities are too well known to require any description on this occasion ; its defects are being more and more felt, though perhaps not always correctly understood. Our new translations of the Bible, our emendated versions, our Commentaries, few as they comparatively are, bear testimony to this fact. Is it, then, not de- sirable in the highest degree, nay, is it not your solemn duty, that you whose principal office it will be to expound the Word of God should be prepared to give a satisfactory account to yourselves as well as to others, that what you teach is indeed the teaching of the Bible itself. Let us not say that, since we know that our version is on the whole a faithful rendering of the original, we need not be so very particular about these minor defects, especially as they do not involve any doctrines of vital importance. Let us not stand on grounds like this. This is a matter of con- science, in which popular opinion cannot be allowed to have any weight. Assuredly we have great reason to be thankful to God for having raised up and endowed men with talents and energy to perform this essential service to the Church in the manner they have done ; but we must, on the other hand, also take heed not unduly to overrate the excellence of their work, beyond and irrespective of the limits which were necessarily set to them by the very nature and circum- stances of the case. Beside the difficulty, of which we EXEGESIS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 209 have already spoken, of doing justice by translation to records written in a dialect so greatly different in its spirit and structure from any of our modern lan- guages, we must also consider the slender facilities which these men had for giving an accurate translation of the Hebrew text. The Septuagint, the Vulgate, the second-hand use of the Targums, and the tradi- tionary lore of the Jewish Rabbis, were all the resources they could command. The existing verna- cular translations, such as WycliflVs Bible, were, on Protestant principles, of little or no use, as none of them flowed from the original text. To this must be added that the grammatical study of the Hebrew lan- guage was not taken up and cultivated by Christian scholars before the middle of the 17th century, in- dependently of the abstruse and at the same time mostly empiric and meagre instructions of Jewish teachers. Reuchlin, the great oracle of that period in these matters, was almost entirely dependent on them a fact which accounts for the circumstance that in his Hebrew Grammar the syntax is altogether omitted. He, indeed, tried to render the obscure terminology of his masters more intelligible to his readers by the adoption of terms borrowed from classical philology; but this advantage was dearly bought, by the circum- stance that, through this adoption of terms which are inapplicable to the genius of this language, he accus- tomed later Hebrew scholars to look upon the language from a false point of view, and to explain it on erro- neous principles. Modern Hebrew philology has found it necessary to correct this error, yet its effects may be traced in all our translations of the Old Testament. Apart from the interests of a correct interpretation 210 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. of the Old Testament, it might be shown how an inti- mate acquaintance with the Hebrew idiom would be conducive to a full apprehension of the sense of the writings of the New Testament. This might be shown in general from the origin and character of the so-called Hellenistic Greek of the New Testament ; it might be inferred from the Hebrew descent, with the exception of Luke, of the New Testament writers ; and, lastly, numerous instances might be adduced to establish the fact that not only the general mode of thinking, but the very grammatical structure of the language, is mostly Hebrew, though in a Greek dress. Again, we might, in reference to this language, touch upon a subject, indeed, of inferior importance to the last mentioned, but still of deep and general interest, namely, its etymological character. We might show what advantage the Hebrew language derives from the fact of its having retained its primitive roots and stems so little altered in form and meaning, so that the actual meaning of the words, if at all differing from their etymological signification, may at once be known or easily be inferred, whilst the words of the derived languages with which we generally become acquainted are for the most part only so many counters, to which we attach a certain conventional value, without gene- rally understanding their real import and sense. We would see how this feature of the Hebrew languages allows us to cast a deep glance into its very soul, and, whilst admiring its simplicity, we might learn to appre- ciate its force, its poetic power, and plastic impressive- ness. But, this being apart from our immediate purpose, we forbear. The study of a language, if conducted on right EXEGESIS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 211 principles, is in itself of no small use and interest. There may be not many of you who would take up the study of Hebrew as a matter of choice, but I trust there are few of you whom the consideration of its importance as a means for a higher end, would not in- spire with the degree of interest in this language which its peculiar difficulties demand. My chief object in this address has been to offer you some motives for this interest. If I have in some measure succeeded in presenting them in form acceptable to your judg- ment, in spite of the imperfect manner in which I may have done it, my object is realised ; but if not, then I am at least conscious that my failure has not arisen from want of deep personal interest on my part in the subject itself, A LECTURE INTRODUCTORY TO THE COURSE OF THE GREEK AND LATIN LANGUAGES AND LITERATURE DELIVERED BY WILLIAM SMITH, ESQ., LL.D. OCTOBER 10, 1851. INTRODUCTORY LECTURE, WILLIAM SMITH, LL.D. GENTLEMEN, I propose, on the present occasion, to take a brief and rapid survey of the history of the Greek and Latin Languages and Literature, and of the progress of classical studies in Europe, from the revival of learning to the present day. Such a sketch must be necessarily imperfect, both from our limited time and the extensive nature of the subject ; but it may be useful to you, as an outline map of the country through which you have to travel. The Greek and Latin Languages both belong to that great family of languages, to which modern scholars have given the name of Arian, Indo-Teutonic, or Indo- Germanic. These languages were originally one, spoken by a people who probably inhabited the high table-land of Central Asia. From these primeval seats the people issued at a remote period, long ante- 216 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. cedent to all historical records, and spread over a considerable portion, both of Asia and of Europe. Two great divisions travelled southward, one crossing the Himalaya Mountains, and taking possession of Northern India, and the other descending in a more westerly direction into Media and Persia. The former spoke Sanscrit, from which the modern languages of Northern India are derived; and the latter Zend, the mother of the modern Persian. The remainder of this ancient people migrated north-westwards into Europe, where they became divided into four distinct families, the Pelasgic, Teutonic, Celtic, and Slavonic. While the three last-named families occupied the central and northern parts of Europe, from the Volga to the Bay of Biscay, and from the Black Sea to the Northern Ocean, the Pelasgians penetrated southwards into the two peninsulas of Greece and Italy, and there became the ancestors of the Greek and Roman races. The Greeks were the first of the Pelasgic family who emerged from the darkness which enshrouds the early history of all nations. According to later writers, the Pelasgians were reclaimed from barbarism by Oriental strangers, who settled in the country, and introduced among the rude inhabitants the first elements of order and of civilisation. But the civilisation of the Greeks possesses all the marks of an indigenous growth ; and, with the exception of their alphabet, which undoubtedly came from the Phoenicians, they probably borrowed little from other nations. But the origin of their civilisation whether it was indigenous, or derived from the East is a matter of small importance ; HISTORY OF CLASSICAL LEARNING. 217 because, whatever may have been its source, it differs in every essential feature from the Eastern type, and bears the impress of the Hellenic mind. At what period the Greeks were first united into political com- munities, it is now impossible to determine. The first authentic picture, which we obtain of the Greek race, is contained in the Homeric poems, which cannot be placed later than eight hundred years before the Christian era. The state of society depicted in these poems, though rude, is not uncivilised, and supposes a previous existence of the people for several generations. We cannot be far wrong in placing the existence of the Greeks, as a separate and independent people, at least as early as a thousand years before the Christian era. Love of enterprise and mental activity distinguish the Greeks from their first appearance in history. Civil dissentions, desire of gain, and the necessity of getting rid of a redundant population, had led them, in very early times, to plant colonies in various parts of the Mediterranean; and, in the sixth century before the Christian era, the coasts and islands in this sea were fringed with an almost uninterrupted series of Grecian settlements, from Marseilles in the south of France, to Trebizond on the Black Sea. While the mother country remained distracted by civil commotions, and its pros- perity was retarded by numerous causes, which it is unnecessary to specify on this occasion, the colonies grew rapidly in power and in wealth, and became dis- tinguished by their cultivation of literature and of art. The earliest Greek poets, historians, and philosophers, were all natives of the colonies in Asia. The Iliad and the Odyssey, whether composed by one great genius bearing the name of Homer, or by several bards, as 10 218 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. some modern critics have maintained, were undoubtedly produced in the Ionic or ^Eolic cities planted on the Asiatic coasts of the ^Egean. It was in the same cities that Greek lyric poetry took its rise. Archilochus, the inventor of the Iambic metre, whom the unanimous voice of antiquity placed on a level with Homer, was a native of the Ionic colony in Thasos ; Arion, who first composed the choral song called the Dithyramb, and Sappho and Alcseus, who expressed the emotions of rage, anger, and love, in metres previously unknown, were born in the JEolic colonies of Lesbos; and, with the exception of Tyrtseus, none of the early lyric poets belonged to the mother country. Thales, the founder of the Ionic school of philosophy, and the first Greek to whom the title of philosopher can be given, was a native of the Ionic city of Miletus ; and Herodotus, the father of history, was born in the Dorian city of Halicarnassus. The Grecian colonies in Asia had reached their cul- minating point in the sixth century before the Christian era. Their subjugation by the Persians, by depriving them of their political independence, repressed their intellectual energies; while the introduction among them of oriental habits and customs tended to emas- culate their mental vigour. On the other hand, the expulsion of the family of Pisistratus from Athens, and the establishment of a democratical form of government, breathed new life and energy into the Athenian people, which gave them both the will and the power to resist the Persians, nerved them to deeds of heroism, and quickened their intellectual perceptions. Literature and art, which had hitherto chiefly flourished in the Greek cities of Asia, now took up their home among HISTORY OF CLASSICAL LEARNING. 219 the Athenian people. During the century and a half which followed the expulsion of the Persians from Greece, Athens was the intellectual capital of the Hellenic race. The mental activity of the Athenian people, and their keen appreciation of the beautiful, constantly gave birth to new forms of creative genius. Each succeeding generation saw the production of some of those master- works of literature and of art, which have been the models and admiration of all subsequent time. The tragedies of ^Eschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the comedies of Aristophanes, the history of Thucydides, the orations of Demosthenes, the dialogues of Plato, the philosophical treatises of Aristotle, and the statues of Phidias, in which ideal beauty appears in its sublimest forms, all belong to this brilliant period of Grecian history. The downfall of the political independence of Athens, and the subjection of the city to the "Man of Macedon" and his successors, was coincident with the decline of the creative spirit of Greek genius. But it was at this very time, that the Greek language and literature began to exercise an extensive influence over the other nations of the civilised world. By the conquests of Alexander the Great and his successors, the Greek language and civilisation were carried from the shores of the ^Egean to the banks of the Indus, and from the cataracts of the Nile and the Indian Ocean to the Caspian Sea and the steppes of Central Asia. Under the Ptolemies in Egypt, and the Seleucidae in Syria, the Greek language became the prevailing dialect in all the chief cities of Asia and Africa. These cities continued to preserve the Greek language and civilisation after the kingdoms of the Ptolemies and the Seleucidse had been absorbed 220 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. in the Roman empire. Such was the vitality of the Grecian people, that it enabled them to resist and overcome those internal and external causes of decay, which have destroyed the nationality and the language of so many other races. Like the nations of western Europe, the Greeks yielded to the conquering legions of Rome ; but, unlike the former, they maintained their own national character and language ; and their litera- ture and civilisation were so superior to the literature and civilisation of their conquerors, that the haughty Roman nobles, who treated with contempt all the other nations of the earth, began to study the Grecian language, and to send their sons to Grecian schools. In the first century of the Christian era, the schools of Athens and Alexandria, of Marseilles and Tarsus, en- joyed the most celebrity, and were frequented by nume- rous students from all parts of the civilised world, who listened to the lectures of professors upon the various branches of grammar, rhetoric, history, and philosophy. Greek thus became a kind of universal language, which was spoken, read, and written by every man of educa- tion in the Roman empire. Its wide diffusion was one of the means employed by Divine Providence for the spread of Christianity. It was of incalculable advantage, that the records of the Christian faith could be written in one language, alike understood by Greeks and Romans, Hebrews and Galatians; and that its early preachers could address, in the same language, the various nations which they visited in different parts of the world. The invasion of Italy and of the western provinces of the Roman empire by the barbarians of the north destroyed all liberal pursuits. A knowledge of Greek HISTORY OF CLASSICAL LEARNING. 221 became confined to a few persons; and during the middle ages, its study was almost entirely neglected in Western Europe. But for a thousand years after the imperial city had fallen a prey to its barbarian in- vaders, and long after its western provinces had been broken up into the kingdoms of the modern European commonwealths, Constantinople continued to be the seat of a Greek empire, embracing a large portion of Eastern Europe and Western Asia, and inhabited by a people who spoke the language, and could read the works, of Homer, Thucydides, and Plato. During the whole of this period numerous works were written in the Greek language, the most important of which are published in the Collections of the Byzantine writers. The capture of Constantinople by the Turks in the year 1453, is usually specified as the time at which the ancient language of Greece ceased to be spoken ; but it may be questioned, whether we can correctly say that the ancient Greek ever ceased to be a spoken language, since there is not so much difference between the language of the contemporaries of Thucydides and that of the inhabitants of Athens at the present day, as between the English of Chaucer and the English of our modern writers. The Romans are the other great branch of the Pelasgic family. They never possessed any real love for literature and art. Five hundred years passed away from the time of the foundation of the city, before any literary work made its appearance among them. In fact, they can hardly be said to have ever had a native literature. The earliest Latin poets, Livius Andronicus and Ennius, were both Greeks by birth, though they 222 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. wrote in the Latin language. Plautus, the first Latin writer of whose works we possess any considerable portion, borrowed from the Greeks the subjects and the plots of his comedies. His example was followed by Pacuvius, Terence, Accius, and all the other Roman dramatists. The conquest of Greece by the Romans brought the latter into closer communication with the Greeks, and tended to diffuse among them a greater love for literature and art. Many of the Roman nobles became warm patrons of literature. Terence lived on terms of the closest intimacy with the younger Scipio Africanus ; Lucullus received into his house the poet Archias; and it became the fashion among the Roman nobles to fill their libraries with Greek books, and their halls with Greek statues. The study of the master works of Greek literature produced in the Roman nobles the effects which they have produced upon men in all ages. They became sensible to the charms of literature ; their taste became improved, and the circle of their ideas extended ; a love of the beautiful was created within them ; and they began to be anxious to produce in their own language works bearing a resem- blance to the admired productions of their favorite authors. Down to the beginning of the first century before the Christian era, most works in the Latin lan- guage had been written either by foreigners or slaves ; but from this time the Roman nobles did not consider it beneath their dignity to emulate the poetry, philo- sophy, and history of the Greeks. The only works which have come down to us from the first period of Roman literature, are the comedies of Plautus and of Terence, and the treatise of Cato on agriculture. To the second period, which extends from HISTORY OF CLASSICAL LEARNING. 223 the death of the dictator Sulla to the end of the republic, belong the philosophical poem of Lucretius, the lyric and elegiac poems of Catullus, the histories of Caesar and of Sallust, the agricultural and antiquarian treatises of Varro, and the orations, letters, and philo- sophical and rhetorical works of Cicero. The Augustan age forms the third period of Roman literature. Augustus and his minister Maecenas were liberal patrons of literature; and the impulse which had been given to literary pursuits by Cicero, Csesar, and the other distinguished men of the latter days of the republic, continued to be felt during the whole reign of the first Roman emperor. The poems of Virgil, Horace, Tibullus, and Ovid, and the history of Livy, are the chief works which distinguished the Augustan age. The fourth period of Roman literature extends from the death of Augustus to the death of M. Aurelius (A.D. 14 180). The decay of literature commenced with the successors of Augustus. The deadening in- fluence of despotism crushed the love of literature. Many of the Roman emperors looked with suspicion upon all liberal pursuits; the philosophers were pro- scribed and persecuted by Nero and Domitian ; and the free expression of thought, without which no genuine literature can exist, was punished with banish- ment or death. The cultivation of oratory under the Republic had been one of the chief agents in deve- loping the powers of the Latin language, and in giving to it precision, energy, and clearness. The establish- ment of the Empire, by closing the popular assemblies, and by making the Senate the subservient instrument of despotism, confined the exercise of oratory to private 224 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. causes in the courts of justice. Khetoric now assumed the place of oratory ; a false taste rapidly spread both among teachers and pupils; authors abandoned the study of nature and strove after effect ; and poverty of thought was disguised by empty words and ambitious phrases. These injurious effects of a vitiated taste are, however, only partially seen in the earlier writers of this period. Two of the greatest and most charac- teristic of the Roman writers the historian Tacitus and the satirist Juvenal belong to this age. It can also boast of the philosopher Seneca, of the elder and the younger Pliny, of the poet Lucan, and of the epigrammatist Martial. In the poems of Valerius Flaccus and of Silius Italicus, and in the prose works of Appuleius, the deterioration in the character of the Roman literature is still more apparent. The fifth and last period of Roman literature ex- tends from the death of M. Aurelius to the establish- ment of the Goths in Italy, under Theodoric the Great. The irruption of the barbarians, and the removal of the seat of government from Rome to Constantinople, almost extinguished all literary pursuits. The poets of this age, with the solitary exception of Claudian, were mere versifiers ; and the historians, if they may be dignified with the title, were compilers of barren epitomes of Roman history, or chroniclers of meagre annals of the reigns of the Emperors. The best writers of the period were the jurists and the Christian fathers; and Lactantius, who lived in the time of Constantine, continued to write Latin worthy of the age of Cicero. Under the enlightened and vigorous rule of the Gothic king Theodoric, in the sixth cen- tury, order and prosperity were again restored to Italy, HISTORY OF CLASSICAL LEARNING. 225 and learning and literature were encouraged at his court. The last three Latin authors whose works form a part of ancient literature are Symmachus, Boethius, and Cassiodorus, all of whom held offices of trust under the Gothic king. Boethius was the last B/oman of any note who studied the literature of Greece, and had imbibed the spirit of its great writers; and his " Consolatio Philosophise" is the expiring light amidst the growing darkness of the age. At what period Latin ceased to be the living lan- guage of the people cannot be determined. Even before the time of Theodoric the Great, it was pro- bably only spoken and understood by the upper classes of society; and after his death a knowledge of it became more and more confined to the clergy, with whom it continued to be the medium of oral and written communication throughout the middle ages. But, though the majority of the clergy could read the language of the ancient Romans, they paid little atten- tion to their literature; and from the sixth to the fourteenth century the works of the great writers of antiquity were neglected and forgotten. But amidst this general ignorance there were a few bright excep- tions. In the seventh century, Isidore, bishop of Seville in Spain, was an ardent cultivator of ancient literature, and wrote an Encyclopaedia of the Arts and Sciences, which was much used in the middle ages. In the eighth century, the English monk Bede, whose talents and virtues have procured him the title of the "Venerable Bede," was distinguished by the depth and variety of his knowledge. Towards the end of the same century, a new impulse was given to the 10 226 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. study of ancient literature by Charlemagne, who esta- blished several schools in different parts of his empire, in which not only Latin, but occasionally Greek, was taught. He invited to his court the celebrated scholar Alcuin, a native of England, who had previously taught at York with great success. Alcuin was ac- quainted with Hebrew and Greek, as well as Latin ; and, owing to his labours as a public instructor, a school of literature and science was established in Prance, which became the germ from which the University of Paris sprang. The two other chief scholars at Charlemagne's court were Paulus Diacomis, who made an epitome of the work of the Roman grammarian, Pompeius Festus, and Eginhardt, a pupil of Alcuin, and the secretary and biographer of the Emperor. The wars between the sons of Charlemagne, and the rapid dissolution of the Carlovingian empire, checked the progress which literature had begun to make in France and Germany; but these countries still continued to produce men of learning, among whom John Scotus Erigeua and Rabanus Maurus deserve to be particularly mentioned. In the ninth century, England became one of the chief seats of ancient learning, under the fostering care of Alfred the Great. This monarch surpassed even Charlemagne in the efforts which he made for the advancement of knowledge among his subjects. The common notion that he founded the University of Oxford does not rest on contemporary evidence ; and it is probable that there existed a monastic school at this place before his time. But it is certain that he did much for its improvement, and may, therefore, without impropriety, be called the real HISTORY OF CLASSICAL LEARNING. 227 founder of the University. He invited to England scholars from all parts of the Continent, and gladly gave refuge to John Scotus, when this distinguished man left France in consequence of being suspected of heresy. Hitherto a knowledge of Latin had been confined almost exclusively to the clergy, and had been taught by them only as a preparatory training for the church. But from the end of the eleventh century the study of medicine, of jurisprudence, and of the scholastic philosophy attracted the attention of the laity, and extended a knowledge of the Latin language and literature beyond the pale of the church. Many who had learnt Latin merely as a means for obtaining a knowledge of medicine, jurisprudence, and philosophy, were tempted to read the great classical works of antiquity. Some of the teachers of scholastic philo- sophy were extensively acquainted with the Roman literature, and inspired their pupils with an ardent desire to study the ancient writers. The most accom- plished of all these teachers was the celebrated Abelard, whose lectures in the University of Paris, in the twelfth century, produced a powerful impression upon crowds of admiring students. John of Salisbury, a contemporary and pupil of Abelard, surpassed even the latter in his knowledge of the classical writers, and in the clearness and elegance of his Latin style. But, notwithstanding these proofs of a growing love for classical literature, there still prevailed in the majority of the schools great ignorance of the ancient writers ; and the time of the pupils was chiefly employed in dialectic disputations on points of scholastic philosophy conducted in barbarous Latin. 228 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. It was not till the fourteenth century that classical studies took firm root. To Petrarch the honour belongs of kindling among his countrymen a real love for the literature of their forefathers. Although chiefly known at the present day by his Italian sonnets, he possesses a much higher title to the gratitude of posterity. He was indefatigable in his efforts for the promotion of classical learning, and for this purpose visited repeatedly every part of Italy, and made frequent journeys into France, Germany, and even Spain. Wherever he went he procured or copied manuscripts of the ancient writers, which he freely lent to others. He founded the library of St. Mark at Venice, and persuaded Galeazzo Visconti to found the University of Pa via. He was warmly seconded in his enterprise by his friend and contemporary Boccaccio. The seed sown by these illustrious men fell into congenial soil. The classical enthusiasm which they felt themselves, they succeeded in inspiring in others. Italy was then divided into a number of nourishing principalities and republics, which vied with one another in giving encouragement to learning. Two circumstances powerfully contributed to extend and perpetuate those studies, which had commenced so auspiciously. The learned Greeks, who took refuge in Italy after the capture of Con- stantinople by the Turks, brought to the history of Europe a knowledge of their language and literature; and the invention of printing, which occurred about the same time, removed the chief difficulty in the acquisition of knowledge. Academies were now insti- tuted in all the chief towns of Italy; learned teachers were procured ; libraries collected ; and copies of the ancient authors freely circulated by means of the press. HISTORY OF CLASSICAL LEARNING. 229 Tt was an age of intense literary excitement. Almost every year scholars hailed with rapture the discovery of some ancient work, which had laid buried and forgotten on the shelves of monasteries, and they eagerly contended with one another for the honour of superintending the printing of the long lost treasures. That many of these works were received with an admiration and a veneration which they did not de- serve, cannot excite our surprise and will not incur our rebuke. Men had derived so much pleasure and delight from the stores of intellectual wealth which had been recently opened to them, that they invested every- thing which had come down to them from the ancient world with a halo of light and glory. They did not stop to criticise with accuracy the value of the different writers of antiquity, and far less did they attempt to question their statements or to sift their testimony. Catholics as they were, the majority of the Italian scholars of the fifteenth century would sooner have questioned the authority of the Pope than the authority of Livy. It would be impossible, within the limits of a single lecture, to give any account of the great Italian scholars; and we can therefore only mention, in passing, the distinguished names of Laurentius Valla, Merula, Politianus,andMarsilius Ficinus in the fifteenth century, and of Aldus and Paulus Manutius, Sigonius, Victorius, Ursinus, Nizolius, and Muretus in the sixteenth. From Italy classical studies crossed the Alps, and were cultivated with most success in France, England, and the Netherlands. In France, classical literature flourished with extra- 230 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. ordinary vigour for nearly two centuries. The French scholars in the sixteenth century were distinguished for the vast extent of their knowledge in all departments of antiquity. Some of the greatest names in classical learning belong to France. To her we are indebted for Budseus, Turnebus, the family of the Stephens, Lambinus, and those three great masters of universal knowledge, Scaliger, Casaubon, and Salmasius. Nor must we pass over the jurists and statesmen, whose profound acquaintance with the institutions and litera- ture of ancient Rome still excites our astonishment and admiration. Of these, the most celebrated were Brissonius and Cujacius,both of whom lived towards the end of the sixteenth century. The works of the latter continue to be consulted and quoted by the most illus- trious jurists in modern times. A love for classical literature continued to exist in France during the seventeenth century ; but in the eighteenth, it began to decline, and the study of Latin and Greek was more and more neglected in the schools. Into the causes of this neglect, time will not allow me to enter. Since the middle of the eighteenth century, France has produced scarcely one great scholar ; and so low had classical studies sunk in the time of Napoleon, that Dacier, in a memoir addressed to the latter, used the following remarkable words : " Philology, which is the basis of all good literature, and on which the certainty of history reposes, finds scarcely any one to cultivate it. The scholars of the present day are for the most part the remains of a generation which is rapidly disappearing, and they see springing up around them only a very small number of men to take their places." I may add, that at the present HISTORY OF CLASSICAL LEARNING 231 time it has been found necessary to secure the services of German scholars, in order to superintend an edition of the Greek writers, which an enterprising bookseller is publishing at Paris. England was for some time inferior to France in the number and erudition of her scholars. In the seven- teenth century, Selden, Usher, and several others gained a high reputation ; but few of the English scholars rendered such important services to learning as the great French writers, whose names have just been mentioned. England, however, possessed one ad- vantage over France, which kept alive in the former country a love for classical learning in the midst of numerous political and social changes. In conse- quence of the grammar-schools established in all parts of England at the time of the Reformation, and shortly afterwards, the education of this country has been founded upon the study of Latin and Greek, The same causes, which tended to discourage classical studies in France in the eighteenth century, existed, to some extent, in England, and would probably have produced in the latter country the same effects which they did in the former, if they had not been counteracted by the course of instruction adopted in our grammar schools and universities. An era in the classical scholarship both of England and of Europe, is marked by the publication of Bentley's Dissertation on the Epistles of Phalaris in the year 1699. This cele- brated work, which may be regarded as the foundation of the modern school of scholarship, exhibits not only a most accurate acquaintance with ancient history, chronology, antiquities, and literature, but it displays a 232 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. critical acumen in the examination of ancient evidence, and an application of the most varied knowledge to the subject under discussion, such as no previous scholar had hitherto possessed. Bentley was in advance of his age, and infinitely superior to any of his contem- poraries or immediate successors. The next great English scholar was Person. His knowledge of the Greek language was profound and accurate ; and as a verbal critic he may be placed at the head of all modern scholars. His emendations of corrupt pas- sages in the four plays of Euripides, which he edited, are marked by wonderful sagacity and a most perfect mastery over the language. His example, however, was productive of evil rather than of good to the scholarship of this country. His successors, who have been called the " Porsonian school of critics," devoted themselves almost entirely to the emendation of Greek plays, and made no attempt to obtain a comprehensive view either of the literature or the institutions of antiquity. The great improvement in the English scholarship of the present day is almost entirely owing to the labours of our German brethren, of which I shall speak presently. In the Netherlands a school of philology was founded, which flourished for more than two centuries, and produced some of the most distinguished scholars of Europe. This school was strongly marked by the characteristics of the inhabitants of the country. It did not occupy itself with the higher branches of literary culture. It confined itself to a grammatical and exegetical study of the ancient authors, and to an investigation of all points connected with the materi- HISTORY OF CLASSICAL LEARNING. 233 alistic interests of antiquity. Hence it was poor in ideas and in an appreciation of the beautiful in litera- ture and art. But, on the other hand, it prosecuted with extraordinary success those subjects to which it had devoted itself. The editions of the Latin writers, known under the name of the Variorum, and the numerous treatises on the different branches of anti- quities published in the vast collections of Grsevius and Gronovius, bear proof to the learning and industry of the Dutch scholars. The University of Leyden, which was founded in 1575, became the chief seat of learning in the country, and possessed from Lipsius, one of its earliest professors, to Ruhnken and Wyttenbach, two of its last most illustrious ornaments, an uninterrupted series of the most celebrated teachers of classical literature. In Germany, the study of classical learning was long retarded by numerous causes. When a love for ancient learning first crossed the Alps, the Germans shared in the general enthusiasm. One of the chief promoters of classical learning in Germany was Erasmus; for, though this distinguished man was a native of Rotterdam, and spent a considerable part of his life in England, France, and Italy, he may be ranked among the German scholars from his long residence at Basle, where he published his celebrated ' Colloquies' in 1522. The new studies were also favoured by the Protestant Reformation ; and some of the earlier Re- formers, such as Melancthon, Camerarius, and Sturm, were zealous teachers of classical literature. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Germany possessed many illustrious scholars, such as Hieronymus "Wolf, 234 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. Xylander, Rhodomann, Sylburg, Hoschel, Glareanus, Leunclavius, and others. But the religious dissentions of Germany, and more especially the Thirty Years' War, were fatal to classical learning, as well as to all other liberal pursuits in Germany. The revival of classical studies in Germany was co- incident with the rise and development of modern German literature. In the middle of the last century Winckelmann directed attention to the full significance of Grecian art, and pointed out the necessity of its study in order to understand aright the spirit of antiquity. Lessing, in his ' Laocoon/ showed more clearly the relation of ancient art to literature and religion, and in his other writings laid down those aesthetic principles in judging of the works of antiquity, which have produced such happy effects upon the scholarship and literature of Germany. Goethe, with his many-sided activity, laboured in the same direction, and taught his own countrymen a more just apprecia- tion of the merits and defects of the ancient writers. Pupils began to understand the necessity of studying the different branches of antiquity in order to compre- hend it as an organic whole. The Dutch scholars had given no comprehensive view, or clear conception of the public and private life of the ancients. The modern school of German scholars attempted to realise to their own minds, and to represent to those of others, the living spirit of Greek and Roman civilisation. Heyne may be regarded as the founder of this new school. Instead of resting satisfied with a knowledge of isolated facts on various departments of the subject, he endeavoured to show the close relation of the study of ancient history, literature, mythology, art, and HISTORY OF CLASSICAL LEARNING. 235 numismatics, to each other. Among his numerous pupils, who imbibed his spirit and imitated his example, the most celebrated was Friedrich August Wolf. In 1795 Wolf published his ' Prolegomena/ or Prefatory Essay to Homer, in which he maintained, with extra- ordinary sagacity and learning, that neither the Iliad nor the Odyssey was composed by Homer, but that they were originally separate epical ballads, the works of different rhapsodists, and that they were, for the first time, reduced to writing, and formed into the two great poems of the Iliad and the Odyssey, by Pisistratus and his friends. This work took the whole literary world by surprise, and effected a complete revolution in classical scholarship. To it we are indebted for that spirit of critical investigation which has ever since characterised the writings of the best scholars in England as well as in Germany. It is true that Wolf's theory is now rejected, or at least greatly modified, by most scholars ; but the immense services which he rendered to scholarship remain the same, and it is from his own armoury that his opponents have taken the weapons with which they have overcome him. Another most important work, which placed one of the great subjects of antiquity in an entirely new light, was Niebuhr's ' History of Rome/ In this immortal work it was not Niebuhr's chief object to point out the legendary character of early Roman history, and to overthrow the credibility of the tales related in the early books of Livy, as some persons ignorantly imagine, for this had been already done, to a greater or a less extent, by Pouilly, Beaufort, and other French critics. Niebuhr was not a sceptic, who sought to render all historical testimony insecure. Oil the con- 236 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. trary, by removing legends and myths from the domain of history, and by a careful reconstruction of the scat- tered fragments of historical evidence, he endeavoured to place Roman history on a sure and certain foundation. To those who are familiar with his writings, it is well known how earnestly he strove to reproduce an image of the past. Thus, in one of his letters he charac- teristically exclaims : " O, how people would cherish philology did they but know how delightfully it enables us to recall to life the fairest periods of antiquity. Beading is the most trifling part of it; the chief business is to domesticate one's self in Greece and Rome at the most different periods. Would that I could write history so vividly, that I could so discriminate what is fluctuating and uncertain, and so develope what is confused and intricate, that every one, when he heard the name of a Greek of the age of Thucydides or Polybius, or a Roman of the days of Cato or Tacitus, might be able to form a clear and adequate idea of what he was." l Time will not allow me to mention the numerous other works of the modern scholars of Germany. It is sufficient to state, that there is no subject connected with antiquity, which has not received elucidation from their writings. The Greek grammars of Butmann, Thiersch, and Kiihner, the Latin grammars of Zumpt and Madvig, the Greek Lexicon of Passow, and the Latin Dictionary of Freund, the Comparative Grammar of Bopp, the histories of different portions of Greek and Roman literature, by Welcker, K. O. Miiller, Bernhardy, and Bahr, the historical and critical 1 See the Life of Niebuhr in the ' Penny Cyclopaedia.' HISTORY OF CLASSICAL LEARNING. 237 treatises of Bockh, K. O. Miiller, Wachsmuth, K. F. Hermann, and Rubino, the dissertations on the Roman law by Savigny, Puchta, and the other great jurists of Germany, the works on the Athenian law, by Meier, Schomann, Platner, and Hudtwalcker, the description of ancient Rome by Bunsen and W. A. Becker, the account of the domestic customs of the Greeks and Romans by Bottiger and Becker, the dis- sertations on their architecture, sculpture, and painting, by Stieglitz, Hirt, Sillig, and K. O. Miiller, such are only a few of the works on classical antiquity for which we are indebted to Germany, and which have exercised an important influence upon our own scholarship. The present classical school of England is founded upon that of Germany, and has already produced some works of profound learning and ability. The histories of Greece by Bishop Thirl wall and Mr. Grote, and the history of Greek literature by Colonel Mure, are equal in learning and critical acumen to any works in the German language upon kindred subjects, and superior to the latter in sobriety of judgment, and in correct appreciation of the value of evidence. I have considered it unnecessary to occupy your time, by vindicating the claims of the Latin and Greek languages and literature to an important position in a collegiate course of education. The subject has been so fully discussed during the last few years, and the arguments in favour of classical studies have been so ably stated by many distinguished writers, that I should only have repeated what has been frequently said before ; and I should have occupied your time to little purpose, if I had pointed out how the study of the Latin and 238 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. Greek languages disciplines the mind, and how the study of their literature improves the understanding and elevates the taste. It has been the more unnecessary for me to enter into any such discussion, as this College has been founded chiefly for the education of theological students, and the Latin and Greek languages have been always deemed an essential part of a theological education. Latin was for so many ages the medium of communication and instruction in the Christian church in Western Europe, that it is impossible to study the history of the church, to understand its con- troversies, or to read many of the most valuable works of its divines, without a knowledge of this language ; and the very fact, that the records of our faith are con- tained in a book, written in Greek, is in itself sufficient to prove the paramount importance of the study of the latter to every Protestant minister, and, indeed, to every Christian gentleman. With these remarks I might conclude, were it not that this is the last of those Introductory Lectures, which the Council has requested the Professors of the College to deliver ; and it may be appropriate, before commencing our regular work of instruction, to offer the students a few words of advice respecting the prosecution of their studies. After the admirable address, which you have so recently heard from the Rev. Thomas Binney, I will not attempt to call your attention to the high and noble object to which you have consecrated your lives, and to draw, from this fact, an argument in favour of a dedication of all your powers and energies to a preparation for your sacred calling. The lessons then taught you must still be fresh in your memories and in your hearts ; and I therefore propose, now, simply to present you HISTORY OF CLASSICAL LEARNING. 239 with one or two hints, not as students for the Christian ministry, but as seekers and lovers of knowledge. First, then, Gentlemen, let me beg you to remember, that the great work of acquiring knowledge must be performed by yourselves. I know, by experience, that it is not unnecessary to urge this consideration upon students, though it may appear to many an obvious truism. Students, of a certain class, are too apt to imagine that nothing more is required for the acqui- sition of knowledge than a punctual attendance upon the lectures of their Professors. This, Gentlemen, is a fatal error. We can point out to you the path which leads to knowledge ; we may give you some advice, which may prevent you from losing your way, and which may spare you unnecessary fatigue, but, at the same time, the steep and arduous ascent must be climbed by yourselves, and by yourselves alone. As it is the law of God, that "in the sweat of thy face thou shalt eat bread," so is it equally his law, that in the sweat of thy mind thou shalt acquire knowledge. The know- ledge, of which you are a passive recipient, profiteth you little. The cask derives no benefit from the rich liquor which is poured into it : the mind receives as little advantage, from simply listening to the words of knowledge. It is not the quantity of food taken into the stomach which supports the man, nor is it the quantity of knowledge received by the intellect, which nourishes the mind. Both food and knowledge must be digested, and taken up into the system, before they can be converted into the muscles, and bones, and marrow of the body and of the mind. You must go, gentlemen, from the lecture-room to the study. There 240 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. you must ponder upon what you have heard, follow out the hints which have been given you, and read and think for yourselves. Knowledge acquired in this way will become a part of your intellectual nature, and will remain with you throughout life. For myself, I can truly say, that it is not the amount of instruction I give to which I attach value. If I can show students the method by which they can acquire knowledge for themselves, and if I can inspire them with a desire to obtain it, I am abundantly satisfied. Secondly, gentlemen, let me recommend you to pursue your studies with an earnest spirit, and in ac- cordance with a settled plan. Whatever subject you take in hand, give to it at the time all your intellectual energies. The number of hours spent upon any par- ticular study is in itself no measure of the attention you have devoted to it. One man will master in an hour a subject which another man fails to understand in three, simply from his giving to it a more intense and undivided attention. Some men have, of course, greater powers of mental application than others ; but every man may greatly improve these powers by prac- tice and perseverance. The first lesson which a soldier on a field of battle has to learn, is to give no heed to the bullets whizzing by his ears : the first lesson which a student has to learn, when engaged in the prosecution of any branch of knowledge, is to repel all those ex- traneous thoughts which obtrude themselves upon his notice, and would divert him from the subject he has in hand. If you thus concentrate your energies upon the studies of every day, you will most surely, if not most rapidly, grow in knowledge. Moreover, such con- HISTORY OF CLASSICAL LEARNING. 241 centrated application will give a zest to your studies and a relish to your amusements, which the listless and the apathetic never enjoy. It is the hard worker who derives pleasure from relaxation. It is of great importance to every student to have his daily work arranged according to a settled plan ; and it is one of the advantages of a collegiate course of education, that a man's studies are prescribed to him from day to day by the oral instructions of his tutors. But even those men who follow most faithfully the advice of their instructors have still some portions of the day left to themselves ; and their useful employ- ment frequently constitutes the intellectual superiority of one student over another. A man of active mind turns to good account those fragments of time, which another man neglects as too brief or too insignificant to be made use of. It is astonishing how much know- ledge may be acquired by the steady application of only a few minutes a day. The celebrated Chancellor D'Aguesseau, one of the great jurists of France, is said to have written one of his most elaborate and learned works in the daily quarters of an hour, while he was waiting in the drawing-room to conduct his wife to dinner. In order to acquire even a large stock of learning, it is not necessary for a man to deprive him- self of a proper amount of sleep and exercise, or to exclude himself from society and the company of his friends ; but it is necessary for him eagerly to seize and diligently improve every moment of time. Lastly, gentlemen, let me urge you to love and pursue knowledge for its own sake. Do not cultivate it on account of the influence and power which it will 11 242 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. confer upon you. It is not only an instrument, but an end ; not only a means of good, but a good itself. Man has intellectual, as well as spiritual and cor- poreal wants. God has intended that the wants of the mind should be satisfied, as well as those of the immortal spirit and of the perishable body. The utilitarian spirit of the age intrudes itself into the seats of learning, and tests the value of all knowledge by its application to the practical purposes of life. But I decline to advocate the claims of knowledge upon such low and narrow grounds. Man is not content with the present : he looks backwards upon the past and forwards to the future. The stores of knowledge, which you may acquire within these walls, will not only enable you to discharge, with more efficiency than you otherwise could have done, the important duties which will devolve upon you in after life, but they will prove to you an unfailing source of gratification and delight. Amidst the petty annoyances and vexations of life, it is refreshing to withdraw occasionally from the present, and to take refuge in the calm contemplation of another age. And as often as a man renews his acquaintance with those choice spirits, which expanded and purified his mind in youth, he returns to the ordinary duties of life with renewed strength and vigour. The study of the past gives him hope for the future. The accumulated knowledge of former ages is not thrown away. Every great thought bears its appropriate fruit. The deve- lopment of the seed may be long retarded, but it does not die. The river may run so slowly that the eye may fail to recognise the current; but it is never- theless sure to reach the ocean. The words of the poet : HISTORY OF CLASSICAL LEARNING. 243 " For freedom's battle once begun, Bequeathed by bleeding sire to son, Though often lost, is ever won :" are equally true of the struggles of mankind in every high and noble cause. Amidst war and rapine, misery and crime, the student of history sees a steady progress towards a brighter future, and looks forward with con- fidence to the universal reign of righteousness and truth. AN ADDRESS TO THE STUDENTS OF NEW COLLEGE. DELIVERED BY THE REV. THOMAS BINNEY. OCTOBER 6, 1851. ADDRESS TO THE STUDENTS, REV. THOMAS BINNEY. GENTLEMEN, IF this service was simply connected with the commencement of a Session, or if you were to be re- garded as about to enter on a collegiate course, I should probably deem it right to give you some advice with respect to the proper prosecution of your studies. The service, however, is connected with the opening of this edifice it is a part of the ceremonial (if I may so call it) of its public consecration to the great object for which it has been built; you, therefore, are con- templated, this day, not so much as students com- mencing a New Session, or entering on an academic career, as a number of young men, through whom, and through whose successors, the object of this institution, and of all its terms, sessions, and studies, is to be carried out. That object is your personal preparation for sustaining hereafter a public function the office of the ministry in the Church of God. It is true (and I hope well of the arrangement) that lay students will be admitted to the College; the training of such, however, though I trust it will be encouraged, and 248 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. be productive of great and beneficial results, is yet, unquestionably, but a secondary and subordinate aim of the establishment. It exists, primarily, for a higher purpose; to that higher purpose, I think 1 shall be jus- tified in confining my attention, and in contemplating you as looking forward to its attainment in yourselves. You anticipate, then, the ministerial office. Now, this office, even among Nonconformists, stripped of all that is externally imposing in the discharge of its duties, and of all that is priestly and mystic in its pre- tensions, is yet not so utterly destitute of attraction as to be incapable of becoming the object of ambition. Properly understood, indeed, the ministry is not a pro- fession, to which a parent may devote any of his sons, or which any individual may select for himself; it is a vocation. It is not a thing which a man may choose, but for which he is to bs chosen ; it is that to which he is called called of God, and which, therefore, instead of thinking he may select it or not, it is at his peril, when called, if he decline. This spiritual voca- tion, however, in places where Christianity has long been established, in times when persecution has ceased, and in circumstances when the ministry is educated and respectable, though still real in all true ministers, is not so obvious as in extraordinary periods; while, at the same time, the probability is of course increased of the force of secondary influences being felt of men being " moved" to desire the office from the attraction of its intimate relations with learning, or from that of its public and popular aspect, conferring, as it does, official distinction, opening the way to personal influ- ence, and affording facilities for the culture and the exercise of intellectual power and eloquent discourse. ADDRESS TO THE STUDENTS. 249 Now, in this address I wish to fix your attention on only one thing, and to present it, as much as possible, through the medium of scriptural illustration and argument. I want to impress upon you the difference between liking the ministry on account of some of its subordinate attractions, and being ministers, or rather Christian men, by the possession of an inward spiritual life. I want to urge you to cultivate a deep, habitual, earnest religiousness; to pursue your studies, prepare for your office, enter upon your work, and go through life, "walking with God;" for be ye well assured, young men, that this, while it will fit you for doing all that is official in the best manner, is itself that without which everything else is nugatory and vain. I go, for the ground of my remarks, and for autho- ritative guidance, to Him whom we reverence as our Law-giver and Lord. I select an incident from the Evangelical narrative of His public life, which bears directly on the one lesson that I wish to inculcate. The ministry we regard as a Divine institution. In the form in which it at present exists, indeed, it came into use subsequent to the establishment and extension of the Church, after the resurrection of Christ and the descent of the Spirit. But in our Lord's life- time there was an official ministry, one which he ordained and endowed, and in relation to which he uttered an admonition, applicable, in spirit, to any, anywhere, who may sustain the office however modi- fied. Jesus, we are informed, chose seventy disciples, and sent them away "into the cities and villages whither he himself would come." They were employed in a sort of preparatory mission, and, the better to secure attention to their message, our Lord conferred 11 250 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. upon them miraculous powers. When they went forth, they were hardly aware, perhaps, of what they were to achieve by the exercise of their splendid official gifts. When they returned and reported their success, they seemed more impressed with what they had witnessed of their own doings, than with the moral effects of their message on the people. They failed not, indeed, to refer the prodigies to the power of the Master; but still it was with a sense of their personal agency, and an exulting consciousness of their own importance. " Lord, even the devils are subject to us" (subject to us, observe) "through thy name." Our Lord saw, there can be little doubt, in the substance and tone of the remark, the symptoms of a feeling which it was necessary to repress. His servants were in danger of loving their work on wrong grounds; they were getting dazzled by a splendour that was merely external, elated by what was sub- ordinate and secondary; and they needed to be pre- served from so perilous a mistake. A corrective was administered in the form of a great admonitory senti- ment, involving a principle applicable to the ministry throughout all time. Jesus looked upon the disciples with reproving tenderness, perhaps with sorrow, and then, with mingled solicitude and solemnity, said, "In this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice that your names are written in heaven." Adapting these words to the ordinary minister, I should say, that you sufficiently secure their import and force by attaching to them a meaning of this sort: for " spirits to be subject to any one," expresses what he can do; for "his name to be written in heaven," ADDRESS TO THE STUDENTS. 251 expresses what he is. The contrast is between office and character ; external distinctions and spiritual life ; gifts and grace ; powers or position eminent and illus- trious, and a state of heart regenerate and sanctified. I think it unnecessary to defend the propriety of this exposition, partly, because I am avowedly adapting our Lord's words to a particular purpose, taking as much of their meaning as I need, without asserting that I leave nothing behind ; and, partly, because every one will admit that the exposition is true as far as it goes, for I know none who will say that any man could derive comfort from the belief that his name was written in heaven, if he himself was not consciously holy; or that any one who will be admitted to heaven at last, and find his name "written in the Lamb's book of life/' can be other than a spiritual and good man. The unholy, as such, are threatened with having their names " blotted out of the book of life ;" the names, therefore, that remain there must be the names of those who, whatever else they may be, are spiritually distinguished by " all holy conversation and godliness." The contrast, then, in our Lord's language, we again say, may be justly considered and adequately repre- sented as a contrast between office and character ; between external distinctions and internal; between doing and being ; the exercise of ability and the possession of grace; mental endowment, natural faculty, acquired resources, and that inward principle which sanctifies them all, which alone can impart to them, in their exercise and display, anything of the nature of acceptable service, or give them value and worth in the sight of #od. You are already separated to the ministry. One 252 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. day you will be invested with the office, and sustain it in the Church. You may come to occupy distin- guished stations, and to develope in yourselves eminent gifts. The mere fact of official position is itself a distinction ; but when held in connection with rare endowments, large influence, great success, or other outward and visible things, there will be danger of your falling into the sin of the disciples, and need for your remembering the admonition of the Lord. I wish to show you, by a few suggestive remarks, the grounds and compass of that admonition. 1. In the first place, you will do well to recollect, that office and gifts, in themselves considered, are no proof of spiritual character at all. This statement admits of illustration from an his- torical fact and a prophetic announcement. Judas was invested with the apostolical function by our Lord himself. Externally and officially he was as much an apostle as Peter or John. He had probably equal powers with the rest ; could heal the sick, and cast out devils, and perhaps preach as eloquently as any! Yet he never was what we should call a truly converted or spiritual man. He did not fall as Peter did ; he was never on any eminence, religiously speaking, from which he could fall. He was inherently bad, bad always, bad from the beginning. He never was in spiritual harmony with Christ. He was always des- titute of earnestness and sincerity. His ultimate behaviour was the natural development of what was in him. When Peter " denied," he was not himself; when Judas " betrayed," he was. In the one case the cloud was on, in the other it was off. The true disciple ADDRESS TO THE STUDENTS. 253 was concealed and disfigured by his sudden excitement; the false was revealed, in his proper light, by his de- liberate deceit. Our Lord knew from the first who it was that should betray Him. " Have I not chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil ? " It may seem mysterious that with His knowledge He should have acted as He did. I know not, however, but that it was done with the design of illustrating the very lesson I am putting before you. To a human observer, there might have been everything about Judas that would seem to recommend him for the apostleship. All ex- ternal appearances might be in his favour, and on these Jesus might choose to act, for the purpose of showing, in a conspicuous example, not only the possibility of office and gifts being possessed separate from spiritual character, but the probability, also, of that being the case, when external appearances, and personal pro- fessions, would be all on which the choice of ministers would proceed, and fallible men the agents in selecting for, and conferring, the office. The point in question is further illustrated by our Lord's prophetic announcement in respect to the pro- ceedings at the last day. He describes a fact which is then to be revealed, but which involves in it other facts that must previously occur in the history of the Church : " Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils ? and in thy name done many wonderful works ? And then I will profess unto them, I never knew you : depart from me, ye that work iniquity." Here, again, you will observe, there is no falling in the case no change in the individuals is referred to, as if they had once been in a better 254 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. state. They are described in language which seems to imply their inherent and habitual wickedness ; while, in relation to himself, Christ says, " I never knew you/' The point to be pondered, however, is, that their description of themselves that is, of their powers and doings is not contradicted. It is not said that they had not prophesied, or preached, in the name of Christ, or that they had not cast out devils, and not done other wonderful works. It is rather admitted that they had. The truth of their representation is not denied. But in this very way is the lesson taught us, that gifts and powers the most splendid may exist separate from spiritual character. A man may " pro- phesy," and " cast out devils," and achieve wonders ; and yet " his name" may not " be written in heaven." His inward, spiritual state may not be in harmony with his external office or his public gifts. Those things, then, cannot be in themselves a proper ground for satisfaction and joy, which may actually exist separate from those other and greater things which belong to the union of the soul with God. It is not necessary to multiply illustrations of this melancholy truth, or we might show you how terribly the topic is illustrated by the Apostle's suggestion of the possibility (for such, I think, we must deem it) of a man "speaking with the tongues of men and of angels, having the gift of prophecy, understanding all mysteries and all knowledge, possessing a faith that could remove mountains, bestowing his goods on the poor, and giving his body to be burnt, and yet being destitute of spiritual life having no more claim to goodness or intelligence than "sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal." ADDRESS TO THE STUDENTS. 255 2. But, passing from this worst case, in which the two things that ought to meet in the same person are totally disunited, let us take another and more favor- able instance ; one in which office and gifts shall be confessedly associated with spiritual character. It is not difficult, even here, to find scriptural suggestions which give force and pungency to our Lord's admo- nition. In the first place, all gifts, offices, and distinctions, involve corresponding duties and responsibilities. The ranks and conditions of civil society, its stations and functions, from the lowest to the supreme, have all their appropriate, some of them their heavy and awful, obligations. The lowest thing that can be called a talent 5 low in itself, though not so in respect to what it can achieve, aid, or command, money, or that which money represents, it has passed into a proverb that this " has -its duties as well as its rights." Property is to bje regarded as a means to an end ; as an in- trusted power, which is itself to be used with scrupulous fidelity, and which originates moral relations to others prolific of calls that have a claim on the conscience. Genius and ability, original capacity or acquired talent, force of intellect, eloquence and song, everything which confers social distinction and social influence, is given to man with the implied injunction, " Occupy till I come." The same law not only obtains within the precincts of the Church, but obtains, we may sup- pose, with intenser exactness, and demands to be acknowledged with deeper solemnity. To be invested with high office, to be furnished with great powers, to have natural gifts polished and perfected by discipline and culture, to be placed in a sphere of religious action, 256 NEW COLLEGE INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. and called to the work of perfecting the Church and regenerating the world, these things, in themselves considered, are not so much matters for joyous excite- ment, as for serious thought and stern reflection. Instead of producing a flutter of the spirits, and filling the heart with exultant complacency, they should repress these tendencies to inflation, and send the individual to solitude and prayer, peradventure, also, to tremor and tears. Paul was not insensible to the honour conferred upon him, in being " called to be an Apostle," and " put into the ministry." He was ready on occasion to " magnify his office," and to require others to respect it too. But he was burdened by the weight of the honour he had received, by the thought of the responsibility that it brought along with it. He not only asked, " Am I not an Apostle ?" not only said, " to me is this grace given," but he also said, " Though I preach the Gospel, I have nothing to glory of. A dispensation of the Gospel is committed unto me. Necessity is laid upon me ; yea, woe is unto me if I preach not the Gospel." 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Engraved on Steel, in Mezzotinto, by SAMUEL BELLIN, Esq., from the fine Picture in the College at Homerton, taken by the late THOMAS PHILLIPS, Esq., R.A. Prints One Guinea. Proofs Two Guineas. Jackson and Walford. suitaWe for goung persons, Srfjoote, &c. New Edition, with Vignette Title, in foolscap 8vo., price 6*. cloth, THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF Q. Q. By JANE TAYLOR. The "Quarterly Review" (in an article on Juvenile Publications) says: "It is a work which cannot be too highly praised: religious precepts, moral lessons, and in- teresting information, all given in a sound and beautiful form. Another instance of the popularity of good writing this book being in high favour with children. " "That clever little book." Times. Fourth Edition, in foolscap 8vo., price 5s. cloth, MEMOIRS, CORRESPONDENCE AND POETICAL REMAINS OF THE LATE JANE TAYLOR. " will delight all readers of sensibility or taste, by the unaffected gracefulness jlayful humour, and glow of sentiment, by which they are characterized." Eclectic New Edition, in 18mo., price Is. 6d. cloth, HYMNS FOR INFANT MINDS. By ANN and JANE TAYLOR. Authors of " Original Poems," " Rhymes for the Nursery," &c. &c. " Many of these hymns are superior in their poetry and sentiment, and are adapted wisely to impress the lessons of piety on, and instil the spirit into, the minds of chil- dren." American Biblical Repository. In royal 18mo., Fifth Edition, much improved, price 45. cloth lettered, SELECT ENGLISH POETRY: DESIGNED FOR THE USE OF SCHOOLS AND YOUNG PERSONS IN GENERAL. EDITED BY THE LATE DR. ALLEN. *#* Most of the Pieces in this selection are new to Works of this kind. "We can only say of this work, that we regard it as certainly the best selection of English poetry for the young with which we are acquainted." Christian Spectator. In 18mo., illustrated with Twelve Wood Engravings, price 35. cloth, ON TREES, THEIR USES AND BIOGRAPHY. By JOHN SHEPPARD, Author of " Thoughts on Devotion," &c. " It is a little book, adapted to put the thoughts of most readers on a new and pleasant track of observation, and an admirable present for the young." British Quarterly Review. New Stereotype Edition. Price 2d. sewed. ORIGINAL HYMNS FOR SUNDAY SCHOOLS, By ANN and JANE TAYLOR. Second Edition. Square 18mo., price 3d. sewed, SEVEN BLESSINGS FOR LITTLE CHILDREN. By Mrs. GILBERT, Author of " Hymns for Infant Minds," " The Convalescent," &c. ." It would really constitute a perfect blessing, if little children were early imbued with the sentiments so beautifully expressed in this little work. It is worthy of the gifted authoress, whose avocation of writing for little children we reckon to be one of the highest and noblest." Scottish, Congregational Magazine. Works published by Jackson and Walford. 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