and Tom Jones.' In force of character, in freshness of incident, in wit and humour, it is very inferior to both; in domestic pathos it is superior. Even if it had been altogether unworthy of him, which it is not, his claim to head the procession of English novelists would have remained the same. It is by St. Paul's and not by Temple Bar that we measure the genuius of Wren.

ART. V.-1. The Epistles of St. Paul to the Thessalonians, Galatians, and Romans, with Critical Notes and Dissertations. By Benjamin Jowett, M.A., Fellow and Tutor of Balliol College, Oxford. London, 1855.

2. Rational Godliness. By Rowland Williams, B.D., Fellow and formerly Tutor of King's College, Cambridge, and Professor of Hebrew at St. David's College, Lampeter. London, 1855.

SOME twenty years ago, the members of an Oxford Com

mon-room were shocked and scandalized by the reply of a German professor, whom they were hospitably entertaining, to a theological argument adduced by one of his hosts. The Oxonian had enforced his views by an appeal to the writings of St. Paul; the Prussian rejoined, not by denying the relevancy of the citation, but by questioning the authority of the writer. 'Paul!' he exclaimed, Paul was a clayver man, but he had his fancies. His letters I have read, but not often I agree with him.' The dead silence which followed the speech expressed the horror and amazement which it excited, and brought a blush of confusion to the cheek of the perplexed Professor, who could not conceive what he had said to shock the company.

If we may judge from the two works at the head of our article, Teutonic guests might now give utterance to a similar independence of thought in the halls of either University without creating so much astonishment, and might even elicit the approbation of some at least among their audience. In the Commonroom of Balliol Mr. Jowett might, perhaps, respond with the remark that there was no wonder if a modern thinker found it difficult to agree in the obsolete modes of thought' of a writer who himself constantly wavered between opposite views in successive verses, and that 'fancies' might naturally be expected in a brain affected by paralysis. Or, if we transfer the scené to Cambridge, and suppose the free-spoken foreigner seated

*

Jowett, vol. i. p. 303.

beneath

beneath the ancient roof of King's, Mr. Williams might there support his German friend, by observing that the Scriptural writers, after all, were men, and the condition of mankind is imperfection. They spake of old; but all old times represent, as it were, the childhood of the human race, and therefore had childish things, which we must put away."

*

The notion of such a scene must raise a smile; yet there is nothing to laugh at in the state of things which it illustrates. The authoritative teaching of Christianity has long been set at nought by the Rationalistic schools of Germany, which have now been in great measure superseded in their own land by sounder teachers; but while Neander, Tholuck, and other orthodox theologians, have restored the shaken foundations of belief abroad, we find the errors against which they have contended gradually gaining ground on us at home; and we have now before us the works of two eminent Tutors of Oxford and Cambridge, which increase the mischief.

Yet we are far from thinking that either of these authors has intentionally opposed the teaching of the Church. The characters of both stand high for earnestness and sincerity. Mr. Jowett has long been known as one of the most conscientious, as well as one of the most eminent Tutors in the University of Oxford. Mr. Williams has shown his zeal for religion by abandoning advantageous prospects at Eton in order to devote himself to the instruction of his native church in the mountain solitudes of Wales. We cannot and do not doubt the real desire of such men to promote the cause of religious truth. Nay, it is impossible to read even the works before us without feeling that they were written with this object. If the writers give up, as we conceive, truths essential to Christianity, it is in the hope of winning consent to truths equally essential which they retain. minds are deeply occupied with the objections which repel so many of their contemporaries from the faith. They are penetrated with the thoughts and aspirations suggested by Archdeacon Hare in the following passage :

Their

The problem of the age is to reconcile faith with knowledge, philosophy with religion. Among men of intellectual vigour, I will not say the majority, but undoubtedly a very large portion, are only withheld from open infidelity by giving up their thoughts to the business of this world, and turning away, with a compromising indifference, from serious inquiries about religion. In such a state of things it becomes the imperative duty of all who love the truth in Christ to purge it, so far as they can, from the alloy which it may have con

tracted in the course of ages through the admixture of human conceits, and which renders it irreconcilable with the postulates of the intellect. This is indeed a very delicate work, and accompanied with many risks, and many will go astray in attempting to accomplish it; but still it must be done. The men of our days will not believe unless you prove to them that what they are called upon to believe does not contradict the laws of their minds, and that it rests upon a solid, unshakeable foundation.'-Hare's Sterling, i. 221, 230.

Far be it from us to throw obstacles in the way of those who attempt this task in a reverential spirit, and, sincerely believing it to have been the purpose of the writers before us, we have no wish to echo, the cry of infidelity' and 'dishonesty' which has been raised against them.. Of their honesty, indeed, they have given the clearest proof by publishing opinions which necessarily exposed them to censure so invidious-opinions which dishonest men would have carefully concealed; and from the charge of infidelity they are exculpated by the same verdict which acquits them of dishonesty, since, in their position, the latter would be implied in the former accusation.

Their chief mistake we apprehend to have been that they have not fully apprehended, the points at issue between Christianity and its modern assailants, nor the absolute irreconcilability of systems which they hope to reconcile. They have not realized the antagonism expressed so truly by Neander :

"This is no longer a contest between an older and newer mode of conceiving Christianity, but between Christianity and a system in every respect opposed to it a contest between Christian theism and the principle, which deifies the world and self' Neander's Life of Christ (Preface to the 3rd edition).

Perhaps, too, they may be more conversant with books than with life, and may imagine that the dreamy speculations of the cloister are capable of satisfying the practical understanding and forming the spiritual food of common men. And they have also, we think, been misled by too eager a desire to merit the praise of candour and liberality in dealing with the popular objections against Christianity.

For there are two ways of meeting the arguments against Revelation, both perhaps equally objectionable. The first is the method of those who, in their resolution to fight for every jot and tittle of the law, raise the jots to the same importance as the statutes; who are willing to peril the faith of their readers upon the correctness of a numeral or the accuracy of a quotation, and defend with mingled obstinacy and weakness positions both untenable and non-essential. Where this feeble rashness is joined with a spirit of unfairness and a bullying style of language, it is

little likely either to work conviction in the adversary, or to save others from seduction. Yet the modern easy method with the atheist' is not less urgently to be deprecated. Its principle consists in attempting to conciliate the feelings of the opponent by going along with him as far as possible; and this is too often carried into effect in practice by abandoning to the objector, one by one, every point of difference between Paganism and Christianity. It is bad to defend untenable positions along your lines, but it is worse to give up the citadel to the enemy.

Of these two erroneous systems of defence, the latter is that adopted by our authors. In the following pages we shall give specimens of their incautious concessions, and shall also endeavour to show the real nature of the system which they are unconsciously supporting. But, before commencing our task, we are anxious to explain that the portions of their works which we select for condemnation must not be taken as a specimen of the whole. These selections, indeed, give the system of the authors and constitute their characteristic peculiarities. But there is also much to edify and instruct in their volumes, especially in those of Mr. Jowett. Indeed it would be quite possible to cut out everything objectionable from his book, and leave an expurgated commentary of unusual value. As an interpreter, his great merit is that he endeavours to ascertain the true meaning of St. Paul, without attempting to wrest his words to the support of some preconceived dogma of theology.* This merit is rare in England, though common in Germany, a fact which admits of an obvious explanation. The German professors, in general, have held the opinions of St. Paul no more authoritative than the opinions of Aristotle; consequently they are under no temptation to extract from his sayings a confirmation of their own. Whereas the orthodox Arminian will inevitably wish to find the apostle an anti-predestinarian; the orthodox Calvinist to identify him with the Westminster Divines. There is, however, on the other hand, a bias to be dreaded in what is called the most liberal school of interpretation. If, namely, a man begins with the foregone conclusion that the apostles must have been frequently mistaken, he will then be under a temptation to prove them so. From this bias we think neither Mr. Williams nor Mr. Jowett are exempt.

We may avail ourselves of this opportunity to recommend to our readers a recently published work which possesses this and most other merits of Mr. Jowett's volumes, with hardly any of his faults. We mean Mr. Stanley's excellent edition of the Epistles to the Corinthians. In careful execution of the exegetical portion, it is not inferior to the best German commentaries; while it adds that vivid realisation of the past, and that richness of historical illustration, distinctive of its author.

In mentioning the work of the latter, we must not omit to notice that though it professes to be a critical edition of the Epistles to the Romans, Thessalonians, and Galatians, yet its more important feature consists in the numerous dissertations on questions ethical, metaphysical, and theological, which are interpolated between the pages of St. Paul, with whom, for the most part, they have a very slight connexion. Most of these essays are written with earnestness and ability, and some of them may be praised, without reserve, as truly valuable contributions to our religious literature. We may specify particularly those on the Quotations from the Old Testament,' on Casuistry,' and 'on the State of the Heathen World,' the last of which, however, is an abridgment from Tholuck. In criticising the writers before us, then, we hope that we shall not forget the respect due to their character in the animadversion due to their conclusions. Nor will they be so unreasonable as to claim for themselves an infallibility which they do not concede even to the apostles.

There is one portion of his work, however, in which the public might reasonably have believed Mr. Jowett less fallible than he has proved himself. In exegetical research we might naturally have hoped to find his commentary on a level with the time; and in Hellenistic scholarship we should certainly have looked for perfect accuracy. It is, therefore, with surprise as well as regret that we find neither of these expectations fully realised. Thus, in enumerating the exegetical writers whom he has consulted, he omits all mention of the two most eminent names of modern times, De Wette and Meyer; while he notices Olshausen, who, as an interpreter, ranks, except in orthodoxy, immeasurably below them both. Again, we might have hoped from the successor of Gaisford an independent text of the Epistles which he edits; whereas we find him adopting Lachmann's text as perfect, and maintaining it with a servile adherence. A far more important blemish, however, is to be found in Mr. Jowett's neglect of accurate verbal scholarship. In this respect his commentary must be regarded as a retrograde step in biblical literature. Up to the end of the last century it was the fashion to treat the grammar of the New Testament in a free and easy manner, very convenient to interpreters. In those days any preposition might stand for any other; prepositions

*For example, in his note on Rom. xiv. 6 (xai ¦ μù x.-.λ.), he says, 'these words are chiefly worth remarking as illustrative of the entire want of authority of some of the readings of the Textus Receptus.' Now, so far from this being the case, the words in question, though they have but little manuscript authority, are guaranteed by so great a weight of patristic authority, that Tischendorf, in his second edition, has retained them in the text.