anxious care, a sense rather of serious responsibility, lest the judgments, the mercies, the mighty deeds, the sacred truths, which make up the story of God's peculiar people, and for the sake of which, we may be assured, that story has been recorded, should in any, even the slightest degree, suffer in his hands.

It may perhaps be already sufficiently obvious, that these remarks have been suggested by the recent appearance of a History of the Jews, in which such views and principles, as those to which I have adverted, have been most unhappily overlooked; a publication popular in its form, and successful, so far as relates to its extended circulation; but which has given very general concern to the sincere and reflecting Christian, and afforded a plausible ground of triumph to the sceptical and the profane. To our own more immediate sorrow, and notoriously to the greater scandal of the public mind, even to the avowed impression, that " Oxford herself has ceased to be jealous of the orthodoxy of her teachers," it has been attributed (and, so far

< See The Record of Dec. 28, 1829.

as I am aware, without even an attempt at contradiction) to one, who is not only a clergyman of the Established Church, but who holds an office of distinction in this University, and has been repeatedly selected to deliver religious instruction from this very place.

To charge the author with infidelity, strictly so called, or to suppose him actuated by any motives hostile to revelation, would, I am well convinced, be as truly unjust, as it would be obviously uncharitable and unnecessary. But notwithstanding a profession of reverence for divine truth, (the sincerity of which I am by no means disposed to question,) and various instances, in which the particulars of the sacred story have been unobjectionably stated, it is not too much to assert, that a spirit of cavil and irreverence pervades the work; that its general tendency at least is sceptical. It evinces a constant disposition to discuss the probability of miracles; to dispense with the Divine agency, wherever a secondary cause can with any plausibility be suggested; to obliterate, as far as may be, the prominent features of distinction between God's peculiar people and the general mass of man

kind; to humanize, if I may so express it, a history, which is utterly incredible and inconsistent on human principles. The inspired Scriptures are habitually treated as if they were a mere portion of oriental literature:-there is almost as little ceremony used in questioning the accuracy of the narrative, in insinuating the liability to error, or in adopting what may appear a preferable solution, as if the works of some profane historian were the subject of discussion, rather than the word of the living God. In short, to adopt an unhappy phrase from the book itself, a "rational latitude of exposition" is professedly employed, which, as practically explained by the conduct of the work, is far too closely analogous to the unhallowed speculations of German rationalism.

The author should appear to have engaged in his undertaking, labouring under the baneful influence of three principal errors; under preconceived views, either wholly or partially unfounded, on three points most intimately connected with the religious tendencies of his work. First, an exaggerated notion of

History of the Jews, preface to vol. iii. page 10.

T

the degree in which it is justifiable, I would rather say in which it is even possible, to separate the political history of the Jews from theological considerations; secondly, a low and inadequate view of Divine inspiration;-and lastly, a vague idea of the accommodation of religious truths to the progress of civilization; that treacherous theory, by the infatuated reliance on which, the neologist followers of Semlere involved themselves in the most revolting impieties, and which, in the case before us, has evidently betrayed an English divine into palpable contradictions of God's revealed word. A brief and separate reference to these three points, both as regards a correct and legitimate view of them, and the aberrations charged on the work before us, will, it is presumed, at once afford the most distinct and intelligible view of its spirit and tendency, and bring us most naturally into contact with the leading particulars in which that spirit has been evinced.

I. First then, a political history of the Jews in the

e See The State of Protestantism in Germany, by the Rev. Hugh James Rose, B.D. p. 74. second edition.

ordinary sense of the expression, and treated according to ordinary rules, is a direct and glaring impossibility. This indeed is distinctly admitted by the author; "their civil and religious history are" declared to be "inseparable,” and the plain reasons of this are assigned by him in terms, which naturally favour the expectation of a pervading regard to the all-important principle. But unfortunately, as it is afterwards stated, "the object of this work is strictly historical, not theological;" an object indeed, which I would not be supposed to pronounce either necessarily illegitimate, or wholly unattainable, if explained to imply the mere absence of theological discussion; but which if less scrupulously understood, or incautiously pursued, so as in any degree to obscure the religious features of the story, tends at once to an inevitable failure, as well in point of piety as of consistency.

The early history of the Hebrew nation is one unbroken series of Divine interpositions. Their whole career is conducted in defiance of obstacles insurmountable to human apprehension, or by hu

Vol. i.

page 5.

5 Vol. i. page 35.