from this error the canon proposed by the learned university preacher, and which he has quoted with so much ap probation, p. 112, might have preserved him. "Whenever the same word," says Dr. Edwards," is used in the same sentence, or in different sentences, not far distant from each other; we ought to interpret it precisely in the same sense, unless either that sense should involve a contradiction of ideas, or the writer expressly informs us that he repeats the word in a fresh acceptation." Now Mr. Nisbett cannot fail to know, that the original word is the same in the 25th and the 26th verses, though in the former it is translated life, and in the latter soul. According to Dr. Edwards, it should have the same signification in both passages: and we hesitate not to affirm, that it has. Pearce and New. come have so rendered it; but the latter appears not to have clearly understood our Lord's meaning. We beg leave to submit our opinion to Mr. Nisbett's consideration. The predictions of Jesus concerning his future sufferings at Jerusalem, had caused some offence to his disciples, who were daily expecting that he would assume the temporal power to which they imagined he was destined. Peter ventured to express the feelings of himself and his fellow disciples on the occasion. His master rebuked him, and endeavoured gently to draw off their affections from worldly objects. Ye see,' said he to them, the hardships which I

ART. V.

endure, and if ye continue in my ser vice, these, and more than these, must fall to your share. In some degree ye now partake of my sufferings; but when by the hands of wicked men I shall have been removed from you, ye will be exposed to yet greater trials. Seek not to escape them by deserting the cause in which ye have embarked; for this will assuredly bring upon you a greater calamity in the desolation that awaits your country. Continue steadfast in your profession; and, though ye attain not to worldly honour, ye will save your lives, in that day when your enemies shall miserably perish. The sacrifice ye make may be great; but what does a prudent man value more than life, or what recompence can he receive in this world for the loss of so great a blessing? As ye value your lives, therefore, take the up cross and follow me: for the So of Man will come with great power, to the destruction of the unbelievers, and the security of his friends; and this ge neration shall not pass till he has thus recompensed these two different classes of men, into which the inhabitants of this land will then be divided.'

Such appears to us the sense of a pas sage which we conceive is generally misunderstood. We now take leave of Mr. Nisbett, whose interesting work we earnestly recommend to the diligent perusal not only of the sceptic, but of every friend to Christian truth.

CONFINING our attention to the Literature of the year, we have little more concern with the volumes now before us, than to offer our sincere congratulations to every friend of learning and religion, upon the appearance of a second edition of a work so replete with curious and valuable information: the fruit of the united labour and talents of two such eminent scholars as Michaelis and Marsh. The suffrage which the work has thus obtained from our countrymen, leads us to hope, that the love of Oriental literature will be confirmed and increased, and that our divines will

he as eminently distinguished for theo logical learning, as they are for classical literature and science.

We have carefully collated the present with the preceding edition. The translator's notes to the two first volumes, have received a few corrections and additions, but none of consequence suflicient to claim our particular notice. We lament, in cominon with many others, that the learned editor has been prevented from completing his annotations upon the two last volumes of this important work. His commentary on the author's text, at present extends no

further than the three first gospels. In his remarks upon the remaining books of the New Testament, the Professor has brought forwards many subjects of interesting inquiry; in the investigation of which the biblical student will often require the aid of that extensive erudition, and accurate discrimination, which so eminently distinguish the former part of the translator's labours. We sincerely hope, therefore, that the period is not far distant, when Mr. Marsh will be able to resume his theological studies, and to give to the world the continuation of those admirable criticisms upon the late Professor's valuable

work, by which he has justly obtained the reputation of a profound scholar and a sound divine.

To the notes upon the three first evangelists, Mr. Marsh has added A Disser tation on the Origin and Composition of the Three first Canonical Gospels. This elabo rate performance contains So much matter of a novel kind, and is so contradictory to the opinions which have been generally embraced upon the subject of it, that the learned author must have been prepared to see many of his positions controverted. One adversary has already appeared, in a small work which we shall now proceed to notice.

HAVING expressed his fears lest the "minute researches" of Michaelis and his translator, should prove injurious to the young and inexperienced, shewn the danger which harmonists incur of doing violence to the narrative of the evangelists, in order to force all its parts into an exact method; and endeavoured to vindicate Luke from the implied charge of the Professor, that he did not write by inspiration; the anonymous author of these remarks ventures upon the attack of the translator's formidable dissertation. He objects to the hypothesis which it is designed to establish, because it appears to want simplicity; and to represent the divine evangelists as "the mere copiers of copyists, the compilers from former compilations, from a farrago of gospels, or parts of gospels, of unknown authority every one of them." He denies, that, in part of it, it can be defended by testimony; and asserts, that "the silence of the christian church, and of the whole series of christian writers, amounts to a direct contradiction of such a document as the author of the dissertation supposes, having ever existed. He next charges Mr. Marsh with having endeavoured to fabricate to himself some little matter of confirmation of his hypothesis, by quoting the T dwdexa euxyyɛhior, and a supposed work, called Απομνημονεύματα των Años; the former of which he regards as spurious, and the latter, he asserts, is expressly mentioned by Justin Martyr

By way of

He

as the four gospels now extant. thinks that the difficulty respecting the verbal agreement of the three evan gelists, which first led Mr. M. to frame his hypothesis of a common document, is misrepresented, or much exaggera ted; and observes, that almost all the instances of verbal agreement, are taken from the speeches or discourses of our Lord: a circumstance which appears to him to offer a much more reasonable solution of the difficulty, than that which has been invented by the trans lator of Michaelis.

That the evangelists wrote from a common document, therefore, he does not deny," but that document was no other than the preaching of our blessed Lord himself," whose discourses, he thinks, "might often have been repeats ed in the Greek, before they were come mitted to writing. He then points out several incidents mentioned by Luke alone, which, he says, "the hypothesis of compilation leaves unaccounted for;" and concludes by briefly noticing the objections of Michaelis to the authen ticity of the apocalypse.

This pamphlet, feeble in argument, and frequently defective in style, has been considered by Mr. Marsh, principally perhaps on account of some severe charges levelled not only against his hypothesis, but also against himself, as deserving of particular notice; and an answer has accordingly appeared under the following title,

IN these letters Mr. Marsh under takes a regular and systematic Defence of the Dissertation," but with a particular reference to the preceding article. To the objection, that the hypothesis is destitute of simplicity, he replies, that in a relative sense it is a very simple one. The assertion, that, according to this hypothesis, the three first evangelists are mere copiers of copyists, &c. he asserts, is a gross misrepresentation, as he has supposed the document from which the evangelists formed their histories, to consist of communications made by the apostles; a work, therefore, of good authority, and he believes, that by establishing this point, new support is given to the authority, credibility, and integrity, of the gospels. He contends, that one part, at least, of his hypothesis, viz.; that St. Matthew wrote his gospel in Hebrew, is confirmed by the voice of all antiquity; and if it be allowed, that it is silent respecting common Hebrew documents, that this is easily to be accounted for, by the acknowledged ignorance of the Hebrew language, which prevailed among the Christian fathers, the destruction of Jerusalem, and the devastation of Palestine, and the necessary superseding of the original by more complete works, to which it served as a basis. The accusation of having fabricated evidence in support of the hypothesis, is a serious charge, but very successfully repelled. Nothing can be more clear and explicit, than the words of Mr. Marsh, in his Dissertation concerning the Tav SWDENZ #αγγέλιον, and the Απομνημονεύματα των A; and the anonymous remarker has laid himself open to the imputation either of such carelessness as totally disqualifies him for the arduous task he has undertaken, or of disengenuousness

highly discreditable in a professed friend of religion and of truth. In a long note in this part of the pamphlet before us, it is proved, that "Justin's Amora were not our four gos pels, but some single gospel; and many curious remarks are offered upon the accuracy of that early writer's quotations. Upon the hypothesis which has been adopted by the remarker, in opposition to that which is maintained in the Dissertation, Mr. M. observés, “You are forced at last to admit a common document,' though, in order to have the appearance of differing from me, you contend, that this common document was no other than the preaching of our blessed Lord himself.' Is not then the preaching of Christ himself an original document, according to my hypothesis? Most assuredly it is. There is, indeed, one material difference be tween us, that according to my hypothesis, the preaching of Christ was committed to writing from communica tions made by the apostles, whereas according to your hypothesis, it was abandoned to the uncertain vehicle of oral tradition. According to my hypothesis, the preaching of Christ was rescued from those fluctuations which are the unavoidable consequence of mere verbal repetition; whereas, ac cording to your hypothesis, nothing short of a perpetual miracle could have rescued it from corruption." p. 35. This hypothesis Mr. Marsh proceeds critically to examine.

We consider this little pamphlet as an able defence of the Dissertation; and it we are inclined to condemn the asperity by which it is marked, we are, at the same time, ready to allow, that it is not altogether unprovoked.

THIS is another publication arising from the important work of the late German Professor. The author lamenting in common, we believe, with

many others, that the progress of the translator's notes has been interrupted; and that a considerable part of the text of Michaelis, in which the apocalypse

occurs, has lately been published without his valuable commentary, and fearing that some time may elapse before the public shall receive the sequel of his valuable remarks, deems it "desirable, that the misconceptions of the great Michaelis, on the important subject of the authenticity of the apocalypse, should be met by some earlier, though it be not a perfect answer.'

In these letters, therefore, he pro. poses to review the evidence which has been adduced for the authenticity and divine inspiration of the apocalypse; to add thereto some few collections of his own, and occasionally to make remarks on those observations of Michaelis, which tend to invalidate it. His first object is to ascertain the time when the book was written; and, after a minute inquiry, he places the date of the apocalypse in the beginning of the year 97. He then proceeds to review the external evidence which affects its authority; and he does this with considerable skill and candour. He begins with Irenæus, whose testimony, though not first in respect of time, is first in importance, being more " comprehensive, positive, and direct," than any which that age affords, and extending from about thirty or forty years after the date of the apocalypse, to about eighty years after the same period. Having thus proved the reception of the apocalypse before the middle of the second century, he takes a retrospect of the quotations and allusions in writers prior to that period. These are Ignatius, Polycarp, Fapias, Justin Martyr, Athenagoras, and a writer from the Gallic churches. That Ignatius does not, in direct terms, mention the apocalypse, is attributed to the peculiar circumstances under which this father wrote his epistles; travelling to Rome, a prisone, guarded by a band of fcrocious soldiers. But though he did not mention the apocalypse, he is thought, by this author, to have alluded to it; and several passages are quoted to prove that he did. The evidence of Polycarp is of the same kind. The evidence of Papias is claimed both by the Professor and our author, but upon no better ground than conjecture on each side. Justin Martyr affords a testimony in favour of the apocalypse, "full, positive, and direct." Of Athenagoras, contemporary with him, there is no dispute. The writer of the epistle

from the Gallic churches, has, in one of two passages, used the very words of the apocalypse. About the same time with Irenæus, and during the first century from the publication of the apo calypse, Melito, Theophilus, Apollonius, Clemens of Alexandria, and Tertullian, add great weight to the evidence in its favour.

The rejection of the work by Marcion, who mutilated other books of scripture; and by the Alogi, who rejected the gospel of John, our author thinks, is favourable to its pretensions, as it furnishes a proof, that the book was in existence, and received by the church. One objection of Michaelis, grounded upon the assertion of the Alogi, that there existed no church at Thyatira, is carefully examined, and answered in a very satisfactory manner: after which our author proceeds to cite the evidence of Hippolitus and Origen, who belong to the third century. "These two learned men," he observes, "had the opportunity of knowing and consider ing all the arguments which the novel objectors" (who, he supposes, arose intheir times) had alleged against the authenticity of the apocalypse," and yet their testimony in its favour is decisive. He then examines all the succeeding evidence, amongst which are the opini ons of Dionysius and Eusebius, which, he proves, do not invalidate the preced ing testimony, and he sums up the whole in these words: "And here, Sir, I close what, in a short time, and under many disadvantages, I have been able to collect of the external evidence for the apocalypse. We have seen its rise as of a pure fountain, from the secret rock of the apostolical church. We have traced it through the first century of its passage, flowing from one fair field to another, identified through them all, and every where the same. As it pro ceeded lower, we have seen attempts to obscure its sacred origin, to arrest or direct its course, to lose it in the sands of antiquity, or bury it in the rubbish of the dark ages. We have seen these attempts repeated in our own times, and by a dextrous adversary. But it has at length arrived to us, qualis ab incessu, such as it flowed forth at first. clearing the passage, we discover more of the sacred water than we could expect, and amply sufficient for our purpose."

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