NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS.

THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY.

The Collected Writings of James Henry Thornwell, D.D., L.L.D. Late Professor of Theology in the Theological Seminary at Columbia, South Carolina. Edited by JOHN B. ADGER, D.D. Vols. I. and II. Richmond. Presbyterian Committee of Publication, &c. 1871.

The contemplated issue of Dr Thornwell's collected works will include six volumes. Of the two now before us, the first is labelled, "Theological," and the second, "Theological and Ethical." Of the remaining four, the third will be entitled, "Theological and Ecclesiastical," and the fourth, "Ecclesiological." The first four volumes will be issued by the "Presbyterian Committee of Publication," that is, by the Southern Presbyterian Church of the American states. The mode of publication of the last two volumes is not yet determined.

Dr Thornwell, we believe, was regarded as the foremost theologian of the Southern Presbyterian Church. His leading peculiarity appears to have been sheer intellectual power; and the volumes before us are an excellent sample of what Christendom has to expect in theology from the racy and vigorous original genius of our American cousins.

We incidentally learn from himself that in his early days he was a keen student of mental philosophy, in such schools as that of Aristotle. The fruits of this early discipline are conspicuous in a series of discourses, now republished in the second volume, "On Truth," that is, on the fundamental virtue represented by that term, as illustrated and inculcated by Christianity. The discourses were warmly commended by Sir William Hamilton of Edinburgh, who was "particularly pleased" with Dr Thornwell's estimate of the ethics of Aristotle and of the school represented by Paley. But the fruits of the discipline appear all through the two volumes, in the shape of continuous exhibition of a disposition, and disciplined power to deal with speculative questions rising in the line of theological inquiry, or with theological questions under speculative aspects.

A treatise in the second volume on "Election and Reprobation" is marked by careful and masterly investigation of Scripture evidence In his later works now before us, the same elaborate investigation of Scripture evidence does not appear. In these he appears to have given his strength mainly to the distinctively systematic and speculative discussion of the subject in hand; although all through these he so speaks as to suggest the belief that thorough investigation of Scripture, though not formally appearing in his utterances, had invariably been on his part a preparation for those utterances.

Excepting the publications above-mentioned, and one or two others,

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in reading these volumes we find ourselves in the position of one who has entered the study of a dead man. The great mass of the articles were not prepared by him for the press. They were prepared by him only for pastoral or professorial purposes; and are now pnblished at the discretion of the editor. The editor appears to have published substantially everything he has found fit for the press. And in this he is perhaps right For instance, a good many readers will take real pleasure in running over Dr Thornwell's analysis of Calvin's Institutes, and his questions for his class on Calvin and his own lectures. And such a fragment as we have at the beginning of vol. ii, on The covenant of grace and supralapsarianism," will, to a theologian, be more pleasant and profitable reading than an elaborate treatise would have been. For such jottings bring into bold relief the author's type of mind. Take, for instance, this, about the doctrine of election in relation to the atonement: "It is not an afterthought to save atonement from being a failure." And again, as against supralapsarianism: "Conviction and hanging are parts of the same process, but it is something more than a question of arrangement whether a man shall be hung before he is convicted."

Dr Thornwell's idea of theology was represented by these three formula:— 1st, A system of moral government; 2d, That system as modified by the covenant of works; and 3d, That system as modified by the covenant of grace. The outline thus indicated is far from being completely filled in by the volumes now in hand. Correspondingly to the third formula, we have only a miscellany of treatises and fragments in the region of the covenant of grace. And even correspondingly to the first and second formule, the discussions are only sporadic and fragmentary. Corresponding to these are those sixteen class lectures which occupy the main part of the first volume. These lectures deal with theology systematically, beginning with theology in the strict technical sense, as the doctrine concerning God, and going on to anthropology and hamartiology. But the lectures now published appear to have been only part of the lectures actually delivered: for instance, we find Dr Thornwell promising a discussion of the subject of the Trinity, but find no fulfilment of the promise represented by the lectures. We are informed that he had extraordinary facility in extemporaneous utterance of anything he had fairly thought out. We presume that many lectures of his, delivered extemporaneously, were never committed to writing by him. The unwritten lectures may have been regarded by himself as only a reproduction of the commonplaces of orthodox theology. The written lectures may represent what was most emphatically his own. And certainly the written lectures, not the less readable because having no "stuffing" of commonplace, are replete with vigorous individuality; so that here the part is perhaps greater than the whole would have been.

These sixteen lectures, being his latest theological productions, may be taken as representing him at his best. They exhibit some inaccuracies of minute detail, such as might be expected in lectures prepared in the hurry of class-work, and never earefully revised, or prepared for publication. For instance, he intimates that in "original sin," the Westminster standards probably include the guilt of Adam's first sin, as well as the

corruption inherited from him; while it is demonstrable that they do not include the guilt, that they include only the corruption. Again, he proceeds on the assumption that supralapsarianism is decisively condemned by the Westminster Confession and the Canons of Dordt; an assumption inconsistent with fact, and incredible to those who remember that Gomar in Dordt Synod, and Twisse the prolocutor of Westminster Assembly, were avowed supralapsarians.

But the Southern Church can well afford to have these lectures regarded as a fair sample of the mind of her greatest theologian at his best. He is a Calvinist of the old school, wide-awake to the course of thought and life in our new time. On behalf of his evangelical convictions he speaks, not with the bated breath of a timid apologist, but with the cheerful confidence of one who believes he holds that truth which in the long run must conquer the world. And he always speaks with power and earnestness, as a man of strong native intellect, disciplined through philosophical and theological speculation, and devoted to the service of God.

The third and fourth volumes of the series will contain articles which made Dr Thornwell famous before his death. The whole series is likely to be very valuable to theologians and ecclesiastics. And everything in these two volumes is fitted for edification of private Christians too. M.

NEW TESTAMENT EXEGESIS.

The Apocalypse Translated and Expounded. By JAMES GLASGOW, D.D. Irish General Assembly's Professor of Oriental Languages; late Fellow of the University of Bombay; and late Member of the Royal Asiatic Society, Bombay. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark. 1872.

THIS large volume, of 610 pages, will doubtless find its way into the library of every student of unfulfilled prophecy. The learning and ingenuity displayed fit it for taking its place over against Elliott, while the candour, calmness, and courtesy of the author, encourage a hope, that rancour and intolerance may ere long cease among those who seek to forecaste the future. "In quoting writers, he has not intentionally indulged in either eulogy or censorious strictures." His acquaintance with the animus too often found in prophetic interpretations, leads him to fear that a similar mode of treatment is more than he can anticipate, however reasonable the expectation might appear. In the present instance, the spirit of censoriousness will be absent, though that may result from want of interest in prophetical speculations. In truth, the book is valuable to us in proportion as it leaves out of view the mere foretelling aspect of prophecy, and deals with its moral substratum. In his own sphere of verbal criticism, the Professor's power appears, and the feeling is excited, that surely the best blood of our churches has been flowing in the direction of Bombay and the East; but when he deals with prophetical dates, and expounds his physical theory of a millennium 365,000 years in length, he seems to be weak as other men. From the name of the publishers, we had antici. pated a British work, which would have moulded the heaps of German criticism with a master's hand, so that henceforth the vision of the Seer

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in Patmos would be a book of divine learning for all, and not a mere quarry from which such fragments may be taken as fit into the historicoprophetical schemes of wise interpreters. With sufficient scholarship for this, and with insight shewn here and there into the relations of Old and New Testament prophecy which raises the highest expectations, the author has not been able to get free from the warping tendencies of the prophetical literature so peculiar to our country. One writer might have guided him, viz., Dr Fairbairn, but in the very first sentence, that master in prophecy is classed among others whom he has done his utmost to resist. The principle, it is said, that "days denote years" is recognised or implied in the interpretations of Dr Fairbairn, Dr Keith, Dr Cumming, E. B. Elliott, and others. This looks so like an Irish joke, seeing Dr Fairbairn has only recognised the thing so far as utterly to repudiate the doctrine, that we might forgive Dr Glasgow, were not his book in all respects one of so much gravity. As it is, the year-day theory can be shewn to be one of the rocks on which this work founders. It is used, for example, to explain the half-hour's silence in heaven, and six pages are spent to prepare the way for the following statement :

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"A day being the prophetic symbol of a year, an hour, the twenty-fourth part of a day, represents 15 days and half-an-hour 7 days. But our Lord remained in the tomb less than 3 full days, from about sunset on the evening of burial to sunrise on that of the resurrection = 21 days. He met His disciples at intervals during 40 days, until His ascension. Deduct, then, 42 days from 50 days, the time from the Passover to the Pentecost, there remain 7 days, or the prophetic half-hour."

"Now, without meanwhile considering the baselessness of the relation between the half-hour's silence, and the days spent by Christ in glory from the ascension to the outpouring of the Spirit, it will appear surprising to any one, that the worth of the year-day theory should be made to depend on the fact of our Lord being two and a half days in the tomb. Not a word of proof is adduced for this, and only from one clause in the book, a hundred pages removed, could it be inferred that Dr Glasgow doubts whether our Lord suffered on a Friday. Surely it behoved him to bring forward strong proof, especially when we believe that the ordinary view about Christ being only about one and a half days in the grave, can be most thoroughly established. Of course, if so, the fine-spun theory would be snapped, but only, we fear, to allow of other ingenious attempts to maintain the system. Are we not at liberty to speak thus, though with all friendliness, when we find Elliott's calculation about the three and a half days of the witnesses' death endorsed, without a single word of reply to Alford's crushing criticism on the subject?

Again, as has been indicated, much time is spent on the 365,000 years, manufactured, in consequence of the same hypothesis, out of the Millennium. Happily we are inclined to agree with the author in his estimate of the worth of Augustine's view, that the Millennium dates from the Cross of the Lord Jesus; but the less on that account would we feel warranted in speculating, Malthus-like, on the limits of population, whether in the 1000 or 365,000 years which many suppose are still to run their course. Dr Glasgow's treatment of Scripture is most reverent,

and, therefore, we hope that in future editions he will see fit to say nothing about how the world might be improved, so as to support, if need be, the teeming myriads of a future time of peace. We have no wish for an increased rotation of the earth, nor for the disappearance of the sea from a great middle belt of the world to either pole; neither do we believe that "the gentle undulations of hills, adorned with vine terraces, gardens, orchards, and villas, would immensely more than overpay, even in the article of terrestrial beauty, all that we gain from granite ridges mantled in clouds and crested with eternal snows." Rather such a Millennium as exists at present in physical nature, than this endless multiplication of the gardens and villas of fair Ulster!

It would be better to let the appendix and certain more pages on similar topics drop, in order to save room for what is at present a defect. There is no view given of the Apocalyse as a whole, or of the beautiful and poetic relations subsisting between its various sections. The criticisms of a class-room, verse by verse, are apt to ignore elements of this kind; but in the interpretation of the book of Revelation, they will be found allimportant.

It is more difficult to estimate the worth of the author's translation, for the same reason. Following the author's plan of verbal criticism, we would say that "animal" is by no means a happy translation for the cherubim seen in John's vision, and that it may be hard to find a better than "living creature." Neither can messenger" be regarded as an improvement on the common word "angel." On neither word, unfortunately, does the author enter into such details as would be needful either to fix his meaning with precision, or to justify the translation he prefers. Certainly, on the subject of the cherubim, many will be inclined to put his views out of court, when they read that the seraphim "represent the persons of the Godhead: the two wings covering the face denote the Father, whom no man has seen or can see; the two covering the feet represent the Son incarnate; and the two flying, the Holy Spirit in His Pentecostal efflux." We search the index in vain for anything about "the angels," or the messengers, "of the churches," though this is one of the points on which a Presbyterian professor might have something to say. The most we can gather is, that they are treated as the same with those who sound the seven trumpets: “and as the trumpet is a human instrument, and the blowing of it a human act, the messengers must also be understood to be men in the present life: a messenger, however, usually denotes not one person, but a company, of which one in the vision may be a representative." There is reasoning, indeed, on the subject of the messenger" generally, which will hardly carry conviction. For instance, as regards the angel whom John was ready to worship, it is urged that, being a fellow-servant, he must have been "one of the human flesh, originally a man in the flesh, now a celestial angel." Other points on which the linguistic ability of our author might have been of service (such as the knotty compound Chalcolibanos), are passed over without remark. It is otherwise, however, with Armageddon, the whole section on which is very conclusive; and, indeed, it is in this department the value of the work mainly appears.