We can easily give the Author the most entire credit for his avowal, that, in the accomplishing of his plan, he has had to struggle with the most formidable and perplexing difficulties. It requires some experience in this kind of employment, to be able to appreciate the value of an undertaking like the present, arising from the cost of acquiring the materials necessary for its completion, and the irksome toil of distributing and placing them in orderly relation. The purchase of every exegetical or philological publication of the least importance, must tax rather heavily the pecuniary resources of a scholar; and Mr. Bloomfield, we learn from his preface, may be said to have expended a fortune on the work, which he has most industriously and most patiently prepared for the use of theological students. In collating authorities, in translating, and abridging, the expenditure of time and labour bestowed must have been immense, and such as few individuals would have been courageous enough to hazard. The ancient Fathers, and early Greek Commentators, Theophylact, Theodoret, Euthymius, Ecomenius, and Aretas, together with the scholiasts and glossographers, are laid under contribution for their quotas of exegetical matter. Considerable use is made of the post-Reformation theologians down to the middle of the last century. Ample selections are furnished from the works of the nume rous foreign commentators who adorned the continental schools of divinity during the last half century; Wetstein, Heumann, Kypke, Koecher, Carpzov, Ernesti, Bengel, Morus, Storr, Valcknaer, Michaelis, Fischer, Koppe, Pott, Henricks, Knapp, Jaspis, and particularly Rosenmuller, Kuinoel, and Tittman. The classical illustrations provided in the works of Grotius, Pricaeus, Bos, Alberti, Homberg, Elsner, Raphel, Abresch, Palairet, Pincinelli, Krebs, Munthe, Loesner, Kypke, Blackwall, Wakefield, and Bulkley, are transferred into Mr. Bloomfield's volumes, and are augmented from his own collections. Such quotations from the Rabbinical writers as appeared apposite to the illustration of passages in the New Testament, found in the works of Cartwright, Drusius, Buxtorf, Lightfoot, Pococke, Hackspan, Surenbusius, Lampe, Schoettgen, Meuschen, Wetstein, and others, are also inserted. The exertions of the Author have been unremittingly directed to the various sources from which assistance was to be derived in the construction of his work, and have produced an accumulation of materials to which he may confidently appeal as most satisfactory proof of his labour in collecting, and of his skill in appropriating whatever might be useful for his purpose. It might be sufficient for us, in describing the value of the present collection, to state that, in addition to other extracts, almost numberless, it

contains the whole of Wetstein's exegetical and philological annotations, many of them translated; but besides these, the purchasers of Mr. Bloomfield's volumes will acquire the most important elucidations and remarks contained in the commentaries of Kuinoe! and Tittman, which are deservedly placed among the principal biblical productions of Germany, though but little known in this country. Mr. B. has only in part executed his plan. We shall be happy to receive the remaining portions of the work, and reserve our entire judgement on its merits till we shall be able to report on the whole of its contents. That our readers may have the opportunity of ascertaining the kind of materials which the volumes provide, we shall lay before them some extracts as specimens of their contents. The present part of the work comprises the four Gospels.

1

We are glad to find that Mr. Bloomfield's selections from the works of modern foreign theological critics and commentators, have been made in the exercise of sound discretion. While we recognize in some of them the proofs of a more enlightened and more accurate philology than that of their predecessors, and while we are indebted to them for improvements in the historical interpretation of the Scriptures; we are also obliged, not only to withhold from them our approbation, but to censure with severity their spirit and conduct in respect to the subtile refinements which they have introduced, and the daring innovations which they have attempted to establish. The theolo gical critics of Germany have been most perniciously industrious in this respect. The school of Semler, in particular, has signalised itself for temerity in hazarding hypotheses, and for the excess of philological speculation. In their modes of explaining, not only the sentiments, but the facts of the New Testament, they have indulged in a licence which is never bounded by sober rules. From their system, the miracles of the evangelical books are excluded; and the extraordinary circumstances which they detail, are considered as natural occurrences. Paulus, Thiess, and some others, have distinguished themselves by their boldness in this species of unhalTowed speculation. Their system is but another verification of the case, so frequently exemplified, of a professed wisdom manifesting itself to be folly. For there is no possibility of separating the miraculous character of the events of the New Testament, which are described by its writers as miracles, from its connexion with the other branches of the evidences of Christianity. In respect to the former, not less than the latter, the probity of the Evangelists is an available and necessary voucher, and the credibility of their records is inclusive of the

truth of every supernatural fact which they have related. The rejection of Christian miracles must be the rejection of Christianity, the belief of Christianity being identified with a belief of its miracles. Mr. Bloomfield has not deteriorated his volumes by details of the particular schemes of these abettors of naturalism and rationalism; and he has never permitted a just occasion of alluding to them in the most general manner to occur, without referring to the Authors by whom they have been most ably refuted and exposed, and of manifesting his strong reprobation of the principles and practice of this sceptical school.

• Matthew, Chap. XIX. 24. ευκοπώτερόν ἐστι κάμηλον δ. τ. ρ. δ. The phylact, with many ancient and some modern Commentators (as Bochart and Castellio), read xáλor, or at least interpret xáμndor, a cable, as does Whitby. But Euthymius, and some ancient versions, with Grotius, Erasmus, Drusius, Lightfoot, Michaelis, Rosenmuller, and Kuinoel, are of opinion that the xanho is to be retained. I am surprised that the critics should prefer sv. Campbell has well defended the common reading. The Rabbinical citations adduced by Lightfoot, Schoetgen, and others, prove that there was a similar proverb in use among the Jews. And the very proverb itself is found in the Koran, Dr. Maltby, in a very able Sermon on this text, thus paraphrases the words: " So contrary is the real notion of my kingdom to the expectations formed of it, so distinct from every notion of worldly power or even comfort, that the rich will not surrender up their pomp and pleasure, will not bid adieu to their gratifications, renounce the prejudices of superstition and habits of vice, to become members of a sect every where spoken against; as unlikely as for a camel to go through the eye of a needle." Dr. Maltby maintains, that the expressions of the text apply only to the circumstances of the Gospel then, and that no conclusion can be drawn from them unfavourable to any order of men in the present day. I think, however, that Jesus did not intend to confine the position solely to the circumstances of those times, but meant it as a gnome generalis, to be applied mutatis mutandis in every age. (As that of Matt. xiii. 22, and elsewhere:" The cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful.") And I, thus much differ from Dr. Maltby as to think, that the narration and the solemn asseveration which it called forth from our Redeemer, is so far unfavourable to the rich as to hint to them their danger, in order that they may exert themselves to surmount the peculiar temptations which assail them; and learn not to trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God. By the parallel passage in Mark it appears, that Jesus meant by rich, one who trusts in his riches. On the dangers of riches, see Intt. ap Poll. Grotius aptly cites Plato: ayadór árra diapigórtus και πλούσιον είναι διαφερόντως, αδύνατον. Celsus said, that this of our Lord was the same sentiment spoiled. See also Denophilus and Aristot. (ap. Bulk.) Euthymius well remarks, "If the rich man shall with difficulty enter, the extortioner shall not enter at all. For if he who

gives what is not his own is condemned, how much more he who seizes what is not his own." It is excellently observed by Dr. Camp bell, "when it was only by means of persuasion that men were brought into a society hated and persecuted by all the ruling powers of the earth, Jewish and Pagan, we may rest assured, that the opulent and the voluptuous (characters which, in a dissolute age, commonly go together), who had so much to lose, and so much to fear, would not, among the hearers of the Gospel, be the most easily persuaded. The Apostle James, ii. 5, 6, accordingly attests this to have been the fact it was the poor in this world whom God had chosen rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom; whereas, they were the rich in this world who oppressed them, dragged them before their tribunals, and blasphemed that worthy name by which they were called. As little can there be any doubt of the justness of the sentiment, in relation to the state of the blessed hereafter, when the deceitfulness of riches, and the snare into which it so often inveigles man, are duly considered. So close an analogy runs through all the divine dispensations, that, in more instances than this, it may be affirmed, with truth, that the declarations of Scripture are susceptible of either interpretation.' Vol. I. pp. 2624.

Nothing can be more appropriate than the preceding remarks of Mr. Bloomfield in correction of Dr. Maltby's erroneous representations. The demands of Christ would prove to be not less trying to worldly tempers in the times most remote from their primary announcement, than they were in the days of the minis try of the Messiah and his Apostles. We cannot suppose that our Lord, by the expression, enter into the kingdom of heaven,' intended to predicate less than the felicity of man, and, as indispensable to it, the sincere reception of his doctrine; and as little can we doubt, that those persons whose minds are correctly and powerfully impressed with adequate considerations of its importance, would receive it at any cost. The requirements of the Gospel are immutable, and will ever prove the test of men's inclinations. But we regret that Mr. Bloomfield has, in other instances, given his sanction to sentiments which assume a difference as existing between the primitive relations of the religion of Christ and its present bearings. We cannot admit that the admonition (Matth. xviii. 17) is temporary and local, and, as not accommodated to our times, needs not to be observed.' The proof which is offered by Mr. B. in support of this opinion, is a very curious one. this public admonition,' he remarks, can have place only in a very small congregation, without the least appearance of civil authority, and governing itself entirely by the precepts of Christ. Are Christian communities, then, not to govern themselves entirely by the precepts of Christ? It may be true, that, as he states, to the present state of the Church VOL. XXVII. N.S. 2 F

For

⚫ this Christian discipline is little adapted; but is it from this to be concluded, that the laws of Christ which relate to it, are temporary and local? Is Mr. Bloomfield prepared to concede the principle involved in his statement, that the laws of Christ relative to the treatment of offenders in Christian societies, can be executed only in the absence of secular power, without the ⚫ least appearance of civil authority,' namely, that the association of civil authority with Christian discipline is incompatible with the rationale of the Gospel? Mr. Bloomfield is, we think, not less erroneous in laying before his readers as approveable and important, the remarks of Bishop Pearce, restricting the expressions new born, regenerate, new_creatures, justified, sanctified, and some others, to the case of converts from Judaism or Heathenism. We are not always able to recommend Mr. Bloomfield's divinity to the acceptance of our readers, though we are bound to state, that his opinions on many essential points are in accordance with our own.

• 28. ὑμες—ἐν τῇ παλιγγενεσία— Ισραήλ. There is scarcely any passage the meaning of which has been more controverted than this. See Pol. Synop. Wets. Koecher, and Bowyer's Conjectures, where Dr. Owen cuts the Gordian knot by proposing to cancel the passage, as the insertion of some person who highly favoured the doctrine of the Millennium. One thing seems certain, and has been proved, especially by Kypke, namely, that the words Tayyia are to be referred, not to the preceding, with Beza, Calvin, Gattaker, &c. but to the following words. The opinion of those who take it in the sense of resurrection from the dead, is very ancient. So Euthymius (probably from Chrys.) explains it, τὴν ἐκ νεκρῶν ἀντιστασιν, ὡς παλινζωίαν ; from which Campbell does not seem to differ. But it is not, I think, well founded. Still it is difficult to fix the exact sense. The opinion of Schleusner is this; that the word ayyvia signifies either, as referring to Christ, the return to life, and, what follows it, a recovery of, and restoration to, former glory; or, as referred to the Apostles, a resurrection from the dead, and a happier state after death. Had ayyevoia meant resurrection, &c. (as Schleusner and others), whether referred to Christ or to the Apostles, it would have required some personal pronoun in the genitive. To Rosenmuller, this seems the proper way of taking it: "Vos, discipuli mei, post meum in cœlum reditum, docendo et salutariter agendo Israelitis publicè consuletis; exponetis Judæis pro me opes doctrinæ divinæ, eosque jubetis vitam omnem ad ejus normam dirigere. Sicut enim Christus per doctrinam et spiritum suum imperavit; ita etiam Apostoli leges de religione ferendo præfuerunt iis, qui ex Judæis Christo nomen dabant." This, however, seems harsh. To this, and to the hypothesis of Mede, Hammond, Fischer, &c. one may observe (with Kuinoel) that it is not countenanced by any similar passages, nor does it appear how the Apostolic office, conjoined with its innumerable troubles, labours, and dangers, could be said to compensate