not. amount of real enduring benefit are they likely to confer? Is the substitute so much better than the thing supplanted, that the simple fact of the substitution should be matter of warm congratulation, or regarded with triumph, as the prelude of a better age? We fear And yet unless this were the case, our joy at the substitution must be very partial and moderate. We do not mean to affirm that one poisonous drug has been only exchanged for another really as pernicious. We are willing to grant that there is nothing positively injurious in the new preparation. But still, that does not touch the question in hand. It is not enough to take poison from a starving wretch. Neither is it enough to give him in exchange some substance containing no such fatal element, even though it might not be sand or dust. If it was but herbage or foliage, or even the fairest blossom or most odorous flower,-still of what profit would it be? It would not feed his famished spirit; it would not 66 Minister to a mind diseased, Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, Raze out the written troubles of the brain," Man's weary spirit seeks for peace, but the world has none for him. With all its scientific appliances, it has no power to rectify a disordered nature, to restore the balance of the soul, or fill up the void within that craves for something higher and more divine. The world's creatures may be fair to look upon, but blossoms cannot feed a soul. It must be fruit. As has well been remarked, • it remains uncomforted in the midst of them; they cannot quiet the remorse of crime; they cannot heal the wounds of affection, they cannot extract the power of ingratitude, or fill up the tedium of disappointment." This then is the one grievous defect of which we complain in the works before us. God, the living God, has little place in them. His works are there, but not himself. The creature occupies the foreground of the scene,-the whole breadth of it; the Creator has but a niche assigned him among the works of his hands. We have, no doubt, something of natural theology, the evidences, the history of the Bible, and such like faintly-religious articles, but still these, even though they were spread over a wider space than that allotted to them, do not supply the fatal want of what we complain. They cannot re-knit the broken chain between the soul and God. They cannot indicate how the controversy between the sinner and the Judge is to be adjusted and conclusively set to rest. They cannot bring about a meeting with him, in whose favour is life, and apart from whose lovingkindness, all is dissatisfaction and death. They cannot solve the mightiest problem in which a fallen world can be interested, how can a man be just with God?" To many, such statements as these may sound fanatical, too irrational and extravagant to deserve a sober reply. But the words are honestly and calmly spoken, not in haste or under feverish excitement. We write for a needy world, not for the scoffer; or if for the scoffer, only that he may be led to see that there are things truer, deeper, and more real, than his superficial jesting dreams of,—a world invisible, impalpable, yet a world of infinite certainties,-certainties the most durable and the most needful,-a world, on the bright margins of whose deep-flowing waters there grows the tree of life, the leaves of which are for the healing of the nations. Into this inner world these volumes introduce us not. Doubtless what they spread out before us is true, but it is only the outer circle of truth that they compass about, it is only the outer court of the temple into which they bring us. Nothing more. And yet it is the inner region that is truly our ALL, -the home, the dwelling-place of the soul,-where alone it is satisfied with what it sees, and hears, and knows. Doubtless all that is true in science, is really worth knowing,—and had we time in this busy world, we might safely grasp at all. But eternity presses on us, and it must be first provided for. Our everlasting interests once secured we may look around us and gather in the manifold instruction from the various field which God has spread out so broadly, and from which we may learn much,—but till that which is eternal is secured, that which is but temporal may remain for a while in abeyance. For after all, the latter region is but barrenness in comparison with the rich fertility that lies beyond. We may compass the circle of all science and yet return to lay down our head in weariness with the long search, for that which is not there to be found. After treasuring up all that these volumes contain of the true and the useful in knowledge, These works do We have but cruised along its barren coasts, The treasures that within its peaceful vales, The inner land conceals, of these, of these Nought in our stormy circuit have we seen. But then every book cannot contain every thing. not profess to be religious. They leave that department to other works, and tread their own round, content with saying nothing that is irreligious or injurious. There is something plausible in this, something which seems very reasonable. Yet after all, it is but a onesided view of the question. Granting that a man may publish a book of science in which there is nothing directly of God, this does not justify another man for publishing volumes week after week, which are read by tens of thousands, and are moulding the minds of the community, in which there is nothing explicitly of religion. The fact that these works have such a vast circulation,—that they have become the substitutes for other works, (so that many congratulate themselves on having adopted a higher style of reading,)— that they possess such influence over the minds of the people, specially of our youth and our mechanics,-these things render the above argument utterly inapplicable to them. The extent of their circle, and their power for good or for evil, involve a fearful responsibility on the part of the authors, and render the question as to their religious character one of no common moment. It may matter little what may be the quality of the water in some private well or solitary mountain rill, but it is of vast importance to know what is the quality of the waters of a stream by which some mighty metropolis is supplied. This It is quite evident that the effects of these weekly issues of science and literature in which there is no reference to an eternal world, must be injurious. So much knowledge without God as its centre, must tell prodigiously upon the religious character of the people. It may not of itself produce infidelity, but it must be unconsciously preparing a soil in which infidelity will flourish luxuriantly. weekly allowance of mere natural knowledge must give such a breadth and prominence to the visible world that the invisible is forgotten, the mind becomes engrossed with what is palpable to the senses, and all that is impalpable seems to vanish into distance, vagueness, unreality. We do not write these lines with aught of bitterness. We write them sorrowfully. When we consider the tens of thousands that have read these works, and the multitudes more that may still read them, we cannot help expressing our deepest and sincerest regret that there is not mingled with them something of that which maketh wise unto salvation.' By them many a blessed impression might have been made or might still be made. Thousands read them who never open their Bibles, and would scoff at a religious book. And thus truth, eternal truth, might reach some hearts at present inaccessible from any other quarter. We believe that the authors mean the best. They would not willingly sap the religious principles of their readers. Nay, they would perhaps gladly do what they could to foster them. But they deem such subjects out of place in their journals, or tracts, or cyclopedias. They think, perhaps, that it might give offence. We trust we have said enough to shew that spiritual and eternal truth would not be out of place in their miscellanies. It would not lower their character, and it would elevate their tone. It would certainly injure none, and it would be productive of vast benefit to the community. It would not wound the conscience of one, while it would satisfy the consciences of many, who have serious objections to introduce into their families, periodicals in which God, and Christ, and eternity, are never alluded to. We ask the authors solemnly to consider their responsibilty in this matter. It is not inconsiderable. They have much in their power; and will they not employ it not only for the amusement, or the instruction, but for the everlasting welfare of their fellow men? ART. III.-Anastasis; or, the Doctrine of the Resurrection of the Body; Rationally and Scripturally considered. By GEORGE BUSH, Professor of Hebrew, New York City University. London Wiley and Putnam. 1845. THIS work is manifestly one on which much thought and scholarship have been bestowed. It is not the crude production of some shallow and excited enthusiast, but the deliberate offspring of a mind laboriously engaged in bringing every resource into play for the demonstration of a theory which it almost trembles to promulgate. It bears the aspect of continual effort and straining, as if the author had, a hundred times over, touched and re-touched it everywhere, as if never fully satisfied either with the argument or style. No one who reads it can for a moment doubt that he has done his very utmost to establish and set off the doctrine maintained by him. If his speculations be untenable, it is not because he has neglected any effort in their defence. If his arguments be inadmissible, it is not because he has failed to ply every subtlety that science, or scholarship, or logic, could furnish. He evidently meant to bring out a standard work upon the subject of the resurrection, and of course he has spared no pains to accomplish this. The author of the work is George Bush, Professor of Hebrew in New York City University. It forms an octavo of 400 pages. Its chief object is to set aside all the commonly-received opinions regarding the resurrection of the body, and to promulgate a new theory upon the subject, more in accordance with reason, and less inconsistent with the recent discoveries of physiology and science. He considers the common doctrine an untenable absurdity-an unreasonable, unscientific, unphilosophical fancy, nay, an impossibility. 'The resurrection of the body,' says he, is not a doctrine sanctioned either by reason or revelation,' p. 274. He maintains that what is called resurrection in Scripture is not the raising up of the body at all; that the body is never raised up, nay, cannot be raised up; that resurrection takes place immediately upon death, and is not reserved for a future day; and that it is merely the investing of the soul with 6 a spiritual substance in lieu of the original body, which is to abide in dust for ever. His work may be said to consist of two main points. The first is to prove that the resurrection of the body cannot be. The second is, that all the scripture proofs of it may be explained away so as either to have no reference to the resurrection at all, or only to such a thing as he calls by that name. There are, of course, a great many subsidiary points taken up; but these may be said to be the two foundation-stones on which he rests. Both of those kinds of argument are negative; and mere negative arguments are unsatisfactory and perilous, especially as the basis of such a theory. Something far more explicit and overwhelming was required for the overthrow of the doctrine of the resurrection of the body; and something more positive and palpable was necessary for the establishment of such an hypothesis as this work labours to set up. That the work is intended to subvert many of the doctrines most cherished by believers, is manifest and avowed. That it seeks to establish a completely new system of exposition of Scripture is equally obvious. Any thing like literal interpretation finds no favour in the author's eyes. His hermeneutics seem to be chiefly helpful to him in bringing out new senses of passages, such as never would have occurred to a simple reader, who was content to take God's Word as he found it. They are to him a useful machinery for operating on scripture, and extorting from it the very sense he wished them to express. We believe that the germ of the whole work may be found in the following sentence, the true sense of Scripture is that sense which is according to truth,' p. 344. This sounds well : It looks philosophic,-too philosophic, some may think, to admit of its being questioned, Nevertheless, we distrust it: nay, we deny and condemn it. It is either a mere truism, not worthy of being so gravely enunciated, or else it is a false maxim, fraught with evil, and certain to lead the man that acts upon it into gross and manifest error.* What does it mean? Not, the true sense of Scripture is the true sense.' No man would gravely promulgate such a canon any more than he would think of telling us that the Bible is the Bible, • We have now gone * The same statement is thus enunciated in another page. over all the important passages in the Gospels and Epistles usually cited as proving, either by direct assertion or plain implication, the doctrine of the resurrection of the body. We are not conscious to ourselves of having submitted them to any other than a fair and uncensurable exegesis. We have at least honestly endeavoured to elicit the true mind of the Spirit as conveyed by them, and though we have undoubtedly made our previous inductions a criterion by which the absolute truth of the scriptural dicta on the subject are to be judged, yet we conceive that we have taken no unwarrantable license in adopting this course. If our rational results are sound and impregnable, is it possible that the true sense of scripture should be in conflict with them? Is not all truth of necessity in harmony with itself?" |