ARTICLE IX.

CRITICAL AND LITERARY NOTICES OF BOOKS.

BY THE EDITOR.

1.-BIBLIA HEBRAICE, secundum editiones Jos. Athiæ, Joannis Leusden, Jo. Simonis Aliorumque, imprimis EVERARDI VAN DER HOOGHT, D. Henrici Opitii, et Wolfii Heidenheim, cum additionibus clavique Masoretica et rabinnica AUGUSTI HAHN. Nunc denuo recognita et emendata ab Isaaco Leeser, V. D. M. synagaga Mikre Israel. Phila. et Josepho Jaquett, V. D. M. presbyter Prot. Epis. Ecclesia, U. S. Editio stereotypa. Nori Eboraci : Sumtibus Joannis Wiley.

1849.

We have given the whole contents of the title-page of this work, as the best endorsement of its merits, and commendation, that we are capable of giving. HAHN'S HEBREW BIBLE is so well known and highly appreciated in the learned world, that the announcement of a standard American edition of it ought to be hailed with pride and pleasure. Prof. Robinson, in the Bib. Repository for April, 1832, congratulated the public on the appearance of the LEIPSIC edition of this work, hundreds of copies of which have been imported into this country and sold. It is surprising that we have waited seventeen years for an American edition of this great standard sacred classic, especially considering the state of Hebrew literature in this country.

It is a sufficient recommendation of this edition to say, that it is an exact reprint of the Leipsic edition. The typographical execution is also well-nigh perfect; the paper is good; the type is new, clear, and handsome, and the points are beautiful and distinct, while the binding is appropriate and substantial. The price is also low, viz., $4. Certainly no Hebrew scholar need longer deny himself a good Hebrew Bible; and as the means of studying the original Scriptures are thus multiplied or made accessible, we doubt not the number of learners and students will rapidly increase.

2.-Essay on the Union of Church and State. By BAPTIST WRIOTHESLEY NOEL, M.A. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1849.

THIS and MACAULAY'S HISTORY, are the two great books of the season. The social and ecclesiastical standing of the author; his reputation for piety and ability; the noble stand which he has taken, and the recent developments of Providence bearing on the great question herein discussed, lend much circumstantial interest and importance to this work. But the book itself is worthy of the theme-worthy of the man-worthy of the age. We feel, on reading it, the contact of a master-mind; the force of a great argument; the warmth of a large and catholic heart; the glow and attraction of a sincere, earnest, allpervading piety; we had almost said the conviction of a new truth, and the impulse of a new life.

Mr. Noel has certainly executed his task, in a strait-forward, thorough, able manner. He is evidently master of his whole subject; his constant reference to authorities, biblical, historical, and statistical, evinces a thorough exploration of the sources of argument, and a wish to meet the question fairly and fully: his language is clear, terse, and intelligible to all; his spirit is emin

ently kind and Christian, though "no spurious liberality or fear of censure" is allowed to restrain rebuke or dull the edge of truth. His array of facts. especially those bearing on the condition and influence of the Establishment, is exceedingly illustrative of his main argument, and indeed truly appalling; and his final conclusions are sound, irresistible, and seal the doom of the iniquitous Union. So little is self brought into the discussion, that the book furnishes no evidence that the distinguished author had ever sustained personal relations to the Establishment, or been so harshly and cruelly used by the Bishop of London on announcing his determination quietly to retire from it there is no invective in the book, it is all argument, and argument that must carry conviction to many of those "loved and honored brethren" of the evangelical school whom he leaves behind, and from whom he parts in so kind a spirit, and in so sublime a manner.

The book is not faultless. Some parts exhibit marks of hastę in putting his thoughts into form; now and then his reasoning may be fallacious, and his principles pushed to unwarrantable lengths; his present views also of ecclesiastical polity will not receive the sanction of a large part of the great body of Dissenters; still these are minor things, and do not in the least affect the integrity or weaken the force of his main argument.

The following is a general analysis of the Essay. Part I.-Principles of the Union between the Church and the State. Ch. I.-General considerations which condemn the Union. In six sections he here shows that it is condemned

by the Constitution of the State; by the Pastoral Relation; by History; by the Mosaic Law; by the Prophecies of the Old Testament, and by the New Testament. Ch. II.-Principles of the Union condemned by the Word of God. This is shown in four sections on the Maintenance of Christian Pastors by the State; the Supremacy of the State; Patronage; Coercion. Part II.— Effects of the Union. Ch. I.-Influence of the Union upon Bishops; upon Pastors; upon Curates; upon Members of the Anglican Churches, and upon Dissenters. Ch. II.-Influence of the Union upon the Number of Ministers: the Distribution of Ministers; the Maintenance of Ministers; the Doctrine taught in the Anglican Churches; the Evangelization of the country; upon the Union of Christians; the Reformation of the Churches; the Progress of Religion; influence upon the Government, and upon other National Establishments. These two chapters reveal some startling statements and facts; take "What is the actual state of the Establishment? Myriads of its members have nothing of christianity but the name, received in infancy by baptism, and retained without one spontaneous act of their own; and millions do nothing whatever to promote the cause of Christ. Its 13,000 churches are generally without evangelistic activity, without brotherly fellowship, without discipline, without spirituality, without faith. Of its 16,000 ministers, about 1,568 do nothing; about 6,681 limit their thoughts and labors to small parishes which contain from 150 to 300 souls; while others in cities and towns profess to take charge of 8,000 or 9,000 souls. And of the 12,923 working pastors of churches, I fear, from various concurrent symptoms, that about 10,000 are unconverted men, who neither preach nor know the Gospel!" Part III.Means of promoting a Revival of Religion in the Churches; its extension throughout the country; Conclusion.

one.

We give a paragraph of his conclusion, in which his argument is summed up and condensed into a burning focus: "The union of the Churches with the State is doomed. Condemned by reason and religion, by Scripture and experience, how can it be allowed to injure the nation much longer? All the main principles upon which it rests are unsound. Its State-salaries, its supremacy, its patronage, its compulsion of payments for the support of religion, are condemned by both the precedents and the precepts of the word of God. We have seen that it sheds a blighting influence upon prelates, incumbents, curates, and other members of Churches. It adds little to the number of pastors, it distributes with a wasteful disregard to the wants of the population, and it pays

least those whom it ought to pay most liberally. It excludes the gospel from thousands of parishes; it perpetuates corruptions in doctrine; it hinders all scriptural discipline; it desecrates the ordinances of Christ, confounds the Church and the world, foments schism among Christians, and tempts the ministers of Christ both in and out of the Establishment to be eager politicians. Further, it embarrasses successive governments, maintains one chief element of revolution in the country, renders the reformation of the Anglican Churches hopeless, hinders the progress of the Gospel throughout the kingdom, and strengthens all the corrupt papal Establishments of Europe."

This work has a great and blessed mission to perform. Baptist Noel has evidently been called to undertake "a second Reformation, more spiritual and not less extensive than the first." God has trained him for the service in his own wonder-working way, and qualified him to achieve it: it is the great work of his life. This is not an ebullition of feeling or a hasty change of views; but an expression of convictions deep-seated, long maturing, and now when the fulness of time is come, boldly and manfully expressed in the language of a Luther. Spiritual Hierarchies as well as Political Despotisms, are indeed "doomed." We wonder not at the prodigious sensation which the book is producing on the other side of the water; Dissenters elated; the people meeting in assemblies to read it; and prelates and churchmen full of wrath and alarm.

3.-God in Christ. Three Discourses delivered at New Haven, Cambridge, and Andover, with a Preliminary Dissertation on Language. BY HORACE BUSHNELL. Hartford: Brown & Parsons. 1849. THE views presented in these Discourses, as they were originally delivered, have already attracted much attention; and our object is merely to announce their appearance in this authentic form. The Discourses on the Trinity and Atonement appear as they were delivered, the former at New Haven, the latter at Cambridge. The Discourse on Dogma and Spirit, has been recast, and so far modified in "its form as even to vary a little the import of the subject." The whole is introduced by an elaborate Preliminary Dissertation, on the "genesis" and powers of language. The views presented in this Dissertation, the author regards as an essential key to the doctrines of the discourses. They must at least have the effect, with those who embrace them, of discouraging theological criticism; since the main conclusion of the author is, that through the infirmities of language, natural science and dogmatic theology are impossible. Thought is not conveyed by literal statements and definitions, serving as measures of truth, but is suggested by the resultant force of mutually repugnant symbols, held up in words. "Poets, then, are the true metaphysicians, and if there be any complete science of man to come, they must bring it."

Having arrived at this conclusion in his Introduction, we could not, of course, expect the author to present his views of the Trinity and Atonement in the usual dogmatic method of our theological formulas; and we are not surprised that such havoc as he makes of catechisms, creeds, and systems of divinity, should excite alarm. But whether his doctrine of an "Instrumental Trinity," and an aesthetic Atonement be identical with that of other Calvinistic theologians, and which approaches nearest the doctrine of the Scriptures, we will not attempt to decide in a single paragraph. To many of the author's views, especially on the subject of the Atonement, we can by no means subscribe. Yet we must at least acquit him of the charge of Unitarianism; and we hope that the publication of these Discourses, and the discussion to which they must lead, will help Christians to a better understanding of each other, and of the doctrines themselves.

Of the eloquence and power with which the author exhibits his views, we cannot express too warmly our admiration. The mysticism with which his

theology is tinctured, and his style really saturated, is an element that does not readily coalesce with Calvinism; and to this in part the "evil notoriety" of the Discourses is to be attributed. We shall doubtless have occasion to refer to this work again.

4.-Macaulay's History of England, from the Accession of James II. By THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY. Vols. I. II. Svo. pp. 619, 617. New York: Harper & Brothers.

1849.

We cannot so well express our feelings in introducing this greatest of recent books to our readers as in the language of the North British Review: "We have never perused a work of literature or science, or even of fiction, with such an intense interest as that with which we have devoured the two remarkable volumes now before us. We have cheated our mind of its usual food, and our body of its usual rest, in order to grasp, by one mental effort, the great truths which they teach, and imbibe the noble lessons which they convey. Were we among the personal friends of Mr. Macaulay, or did we adopt the latitudinarian views of religious truth which he has presented to us in all the fascination of language and of sentiment, we might have suspected that our judgment was partial, and our admiration extravagant; but, though our Presbyterian feelings has been often offended, and our most venerated martyrs but slightly honored, and our national creed not unfrequently reviled, yet these penumbral spots disappear, while we study in his bright and eloquent pages the vindication of our country's liberties,-the character and the fate of the sages who asserted them, and the righteous but terrible doom of the Princes from whom they were wrung."

The first volume is divided into five chapters. "In the first Mr. Macaulay gives a condensed and elegant sketch of English history from the earliest times to the Revolution in 1660. In the second chapter, he details the leading events in the reign of Charles II. In the third, he describes the state of England at the accession of James II., treating of its statistics, its literature and science, its arts, its agriculture, manufactures, and commerce, the state of its towns and villages, and the condition of its population; and in the remaining two chap ters, he gives the history of the last of the Stuarts, which is continued and concluded in the five chapters of the second volume."-The space of time which these two volumes cover is therefore small, being little more than the reign of James II., but that space was crowded with momentous and destiny-ruling events and results. We most earnestly wish that the author had gone more fully into the history of England previous to the accession of James II., the period from which he dates; especially that he had availed himself of his favorable stand-point and sources of knowledge and preeminently fitting quali ties, to bring out in its proper light and importance the glorious Puritan history of that eventful period, which he has scarcely touched upon; and which, as an all-modifying and all-controlling element of the British Constitution and of English history ever since that period, seems to us essential to a fair, just, and complete execution of the great and useful task to which he has addressed himself.

Our narrow space will not allow of our going into the merits or demerits of this History as far as completed; nor need we: the favorable judgment of the world is already passed upon it; no commendation will help it; no criticism will injure it; besides, our readers will be sure to get it, and read and judge for

themselves.

Mr. Macaulay's style, inodes of thinking, and characteristics as a writer; his extensive and accurate erudition, his power of analysis and classification, his liberality of views and acknowledged ability, were so well known beforehand, that an intelligent, a priori judgment might have been passed upon the characteristics of this work. We see Macaulay, the splendid and powerful Essayist in every page. It does not read like history; it is not a dry de

tail of events or chapter of names and dates: it is one grand continuous Dissertation on the working out of English Liberty, in which names and dates and isolated events and characters, which form the staple of most of our histories, are merely incidental, while things-principles the master-originating and moving causes of Revolution and Progress, which constitute alike the true philosophy and the real soul of history, are made chief and paramount. With him, "every fact has but one meaning, every event but one tongue, and every mystery but one interpretation." Hence, there is no darkness, no confusion, no dullness, no unmeaning jargon, no inanimate forms, no useless actors, no crude philosophizing, no stilted diction, no tricks of art, in all his pages. The scene is one; the actors few and admirably chosen, and made to play well their part; the plot thickens; great and still greater events crowd upon the stage and intensify the interest; the grand catastrophe hastens on-signs in heaven and wonders on earth herald its coming; and when at last the climax is reached, and Destiny comes forth to utter the doom of the last of the Stuarts, we are spell-bound, and yield ourselves up to the power of a master-mind. And this is why all classes of readers, young and old, learned and unlearned, find so much to interest them in these pages. That it will not only correct many false opinions of the past and induce a juster and higher appreciation of the present, but also awaken a new and more general interest in the reading and study of history, we cannot for a moment doubt; and therefore rejoice in the rapid and extensive circulation which it has already obtained.

But two volumes are published; several more are to come, as it is to be brought "down to a time which is within the memory of men still living." No little impatience and anxiety will be felt to see the result of Mr. Macaulay's future labors. Says the North British Review, "It will no doubt include the chronicle of the Great Revolution, which at the close of the last century, subverted European dynasties, and which, after being itself subverted, has reappeared with redoubled energy, threatening the extinction, or heralding the improvement of every political institution. The path of the historian will, therefore, lie among thorns and quicksands, exposing him to the assaults of vindictive factions-of men rushing headlong to changes, or checking the march of that great civilization which the highest oracles have taught us to anticipate. The manner in which Mr. Macaulay has traced his course through the intricacies of our own revolutionary period, is the best earnest of his future success; and though we sometimes start at what is perhaps only the shadow of secular bearings, when he refers to conflicting creeds, and treats of ecclesiastical strife, yet we look forward with confidence, and even with delight to his future labors. It is difficult for a statesman embroiled in the politics of his own day, and committed often to hasty opinions which he does not himself hold, to descant freely and consistently on the events of other times, and to protect those stern decisions which he pronounces for posterity, from the taint of passing interests and contemporary feeling. Mr. Macaulay has, in our judgment, steered clear of this Scylla and Charybdis of history, and we feel assured that even his political adversaries will not venture to assert that he has chronicled the reign of James II. with the temper of a partisan, or sought to magnify his own political opinions, by distorting the facts or suppressing the truths of history."

We cannot close this imperfect notice without expressing our surprise and sense of shame, that such a tempest should be raised against the Harpers' noble edition of this History, because the orthography of a few words were conformed to our standard. And has it come to this? Are we to be the last to show honor to our own Webster? Are we never to have a literature, a creed, a standard of our own? Are we never to think a thought, or even to spell a word, without deferring to trans-Atlantic authorities? Shame on American independence! We dislike the principle of mutilation as really as do many others, but if that principle is to be constituted into an iron rule, and applied even to the orthography and punctuation and capitals of an author, leaving a