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than the cause which gave it birth. So long as its action continues, society maintains a continual progress, and wealth, grandeur, and luxury follow upon the steps of advancing art and enlarging science. But however great the acquired momentum, when the first moving force is withdrawn, it must gradually decline. Civilization has then reached its height. Step by step, society ebbs back again to its first level. Luxury deadens the exertions of genius, wealth poisons the fountains of public morals, passion and party strife rend the vitals of the state, till at length the fearful change is complete, and the once flourishing and noble commonwealth becomes, like the spectre of the Trojan hero, a fearful memorial of perished greatness, a ghastly apparition, covered with filth and defiled with gore.

Now if this be a just view of the causes and nature of barbarism and civilization, they cannot be defined simply by progress and retrogression. The Roman Empire surely would not be called barbarous from the first moment of its decline, nor till centuries later. The distinction is perhaps one of degree, rather than of kind. A state is civilized in proportion as law and right predominate over individual passion and self-will. It is barbarous, just as life and property come to depend on the brute violence of despotic chieftains or a tyrant populace. The causes which, when unchecked, have power to depress the most flourishing state down to the level of barbarism, are rooted in man's moral nature, and are ever ready to start into full activity. Even in our own favoured land, let the ordinances of the church be once uprooted, and the gospel of Christ, with all its mighty influences of grace, disowned and cast away, and the elements of evil may be seen already at work, that would quickly hurry us down to the lowest depth of savage debasement. The warning applies to nations, no less than to persons; "Thou standest by faith; be not highminded, but fear."

In fact the only true and lasting civilization consists in the incorporation and transfusion of divine truth into all the arts, habits, laws, and customs of the social polity. Whatever is short of this is deceptive and fallacious. It may have a season of outward vigour and seeming progress: it may look very fair to a superficial view; but the elements of health and life are wanting. Its activity will be only a feverish excitement, sure to be succeeded by the languor of decay; its grace and refinement are only the hectic flush which betrays the secret consumption that is preying on its vitals. Revealed truth, inwrought into the texture of the social constitution, can alone preserve a state from lapsing deeper and deeper into hopeless barbarism. It is true that imperfect

elements of this truth, due to earlier stages of revelation, and mingled with much corruption, may preserve from total debasement, but nothing else can arrest the downward progress. Before the severance of the State from the Church, that favourite nostrum of some short-sighted religionists, could be fully complete, the State itself would be at an end, and its population transformed into a savage and untameable horde of barbarians.

But we must pass on to a kindred subject. The sixth chapter, on War, contains many interesting facts, designed to shew its peculiar atrocities in a savage state. The author then adds the following remarks:

"War, as we have seen, is more frequent among savage than civilized nations; it is also more sanguinary and more ferocious, and it is utterly destitute of those redeeming features which throw its horrors into the shade. There is no heroism, no spirit of chivalry, no high and noble daring; there is nothing but cruelty in the victor, and misery for the vanquished.

"War is not to be regarded as always an unmixed evil: it is the consequence of the essential diversity of the elements of humanity; its root is inherent in the very nature of the ideas in which the existence of different nations is founded; for these ideas being necessarily partial, bounded, and exclusive, are necessarily hostile, aggressive, and tyrannical. In the first quarrel on record that between Cain and Abel-there was a diversity of occupation, and consequently a diverse development of the elements of human nature. "Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a tiller of the ground." Hostility between these occupations, on a larger scale, meets us in the earliest pages of history."-(vol. i. pp. 127, 128.)

The first sentiment here advanced is one of whose truth there ean be little doubt: but those which follow are open to very just censure. It is too common with German neologists to palm an interpretation on Scripture which it will not bear, to suit some theory of their own, and Dr. Taylor here falls into this grievous fault. Even if Scripture had been silent on the subject, we should reckon it a strange dilution of the moral lesson taught us by that simple narrative. But we are not left to our own vague speculations. The Spirit of God has condescended, in this instance, to become his own interpreter. "By faith," we are told, "Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous." And what cause is assigned for the murder? "Cain was of the wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous." Not one word is said about

diverse development of human nature' resulting from diversity of occupation." The Holy Spirit leads our thoughts far deeper, and teaches the true solution in the nature of the unrenewed heart, and its bitter dislike to works of faith and living patterns of holiness.

The remarks, in chapter xiv., on the history of the Fall, are a further instance of this rash and hasty theorizing upon Scripture :

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"It is not necessary to enter into any of the countless controversies that have arisen respecting the condition of our first parents in Paradise, the causes of their fall, and the nature of their punishment; but, as some writers have insinuated that a desire for knowledge was an essential part of the transgression of Eve, which seems inconsistent with the connexion that has been shewn between the progress of knowledge and the advancement of humanity, it may be necessary to enter upon a brief examination of the subject. 66 Every biblical student is aware that the verb 'to know,' and its derivative 'knowledge,' are used in Hebrew to signify physical perception, at least as frequently as mental reflection. There are fruits which do, in a very remarkable degree, influence our sensations; opium, hemp-seeds, and the juice of the grape, for instance, produce soporific and exhilarating effects. It is, therefore, very possible that the fruit of the tree of knowledge might have had a stimulating efficacy, and might, therefore, for obvious reasons, have been prohibited. The love of excitement is universal in the human race; people will often run into extreme peril for the mere sake of determining how they would feel under such circumstances; and the description of an untried sensation, even though it should be a painful one, excites an earnest desire for its perception. In the prohibition of this fruit, physical results are denounced, not as chastisements, but as natural and necessary consequences. "In the day that thou eatest thereof, dying thou shalt die; intimating that the fruit would produce constitutional effects which would render mortality inevitable. Thus viewed, the prohibition ceases to be a capricious test; it becomes a salutary warning, designed, like every other divine law, for the preservation and prosperity of God's creatures. The obedience required was not submission to an arbitrary mandate, but the observance of a condition necessary to their continuance in the paradisiacal state; it was the reasonable adherence to law, not the blind homage to the will of a despot."-(vol. i. pp. 311.) Now we fully agree with Dr. Taylor, and so will every one who reverences the word of God, that the prohibition was not a capricious test, but a salutary warning; and that obedience would have been a reasonable adherence to law, and not a blind homage to the will of a despot. We would be far also from discouraging a calm and devout inquiry into the moral scope and precise meaning of this affecting and solemn narrative. The author's own solution, indeed, is meagre and superficial; but the subject is too wide to enter upon, and we pass it by. One remark, however, calls for a heavier censure, since it does open violence to the sacred narrative itself. The tendency of his own views is to regard the desire for knowledge as, in all cases, excellent and praiseworthy. Since, however, some writers have insinuated that it was an essential part of the transgression of Eve,' he constructs an hypothesis to set aside the objection. But in doing this he strangely overlooks the plain words of Scripture-" When the woman saw that it was a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took, and did eat." That a desire for wisdom had a share in the temptation, is therefore no gloss of interpreters, but a clear and distinct assertion of the Holy Spirit of God.

A still worse specimen of this style of exposition occurs in the next chapter, on patriarchal civilization:

"The question whether Job was a historical personage or an imaginary character, does not necessarily enter into the consideration of the book as a portraiture of manners, but we may be permitted to hazard a conjecture that a rabbinical error, similar to that which has founded so many legendary fictions on the sixth chapter of Genesis, has been the principal source of all the difficulties against admitting Job's existence. It is now universally conceded that "the sons of God who took wives from "the daughters of men," were the pious descendants of Seth who intermarried with the offspring of Cain. If the same principle of interpretation be applied to the historical introduction in the Book of Job, the rabbinical gloss that the sons of God mentioned in the sixth verse of the first chapter were angels, and the Satan or accuser, the devil, will appear a very unnecessary difficulty. The simple meaning would be, that when the pious men of Idumea assembled to worship Jehovah, the envious spirit of one or more was excited by the prosperity of Job, and the dialogue between the Satan, that is, the accuser or malignant person, would appear to be nothing more than an ordinary oriental mode of describing the struggles between the suggestions of envy and the dictates of conscience."-(vol. i. pp. 331, 332.)

'This theory,' the author proposes, as he says, 'with all possible humility.' But no diffidence can excuse his obtruding on his readers so baseless a theory, framed in the worst mould of German neology. In the first place, his assertion as to the passage in Genesis is unfounded. The exposition to which he refers has obtained a wide currency in modern times, but it has never been universal, and of late, there has been an extensive recurrence to the earlier view. But if the assumption be erroneous, the theory here grounded upon it is even worse. An envious Idumean' returns "from going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it!" This same malignant' neighbour of the patriarch, according to the novel explanation "went forth and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown." Surely to such ridiculous glosses the reproof applies in all its force; "Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?"

In truth, the too general disbelief or neglect, among professing Christians, of spiritual agency, and supernatural power not simply divine, is one dark and infidel feature of the present day. From the gross superstitions of the middle ages we are recoiling into a habit of total unbelief. It is hard to say which extreme is the more perilous. The enlightened Christian will feel it his duty to resist this proud, superficial scepticism in every form, but most of all when it would strain and turn aside the plain import of the oracles of God. Believing firmly in the vastness of that spiritual world which is above, and beneath, and on every side, he will not suffer one avenue of light to be closed which the divine oracles themselves have opened into those regions of mystery and wonder.

There are many passages, however, in which a happier vein of thought prevails. We may select two from the second volume, one for the interest of its facts, and the other for the truth and im

portance of the reflections. The first will be found in the opening page:

"In the last century, the Books of Moses were often attacked, and their authenticity impugned, because they mention the existence of vineyards, grapes, and consequently of wine, in Egypt; for Herodotus expressly declares there were no vineyards in Egypt, and Plutarch avers that the natives of that country abhorred wine, as being the blood of those who rebelled against the gods. This authority appeared conclusive, not merely to the sceptics who impugned the veracity of the Pentateuch, but even to the learned Michaelis, who concluded that the use of wine was enjoined in the sacrifice for the purpose of making a broad distinction between the religious usages of the Israelites and of the Egyptians. The monuments opened by modern research have decided the controversy in favour of the Jewish legislator. In the subterranean vaults at Eilithyia every part of the processes connected with the dressing and tending of the vine are faithfully delineated; the trellices on which the vines were trained, the care with which they were watered, the collection of the fruit, the treading of the wine-press, and the stowing of the wine in amphora, or vases, are there painted to the life; and additional processes of extracting the juice from the grape are represented, which seem to have been peculiar to the Egyptian people. Mr. Jomard adds, that the remains of amphora, or wine-vessels, have been found in the ruins of old Egyptian cities, which are still encrusted with the tartar deposited by the wine.

"It is not necessary to account for the error into which Herodotus has fallen; he wrote long after Egypt had been distracted by civil wars, and then subdued by the Persians; calamities quite sufficient to account for the disappearance of such a highly artificial cultivation as that of the vine must have been in Egypt. His statement is most probably correct, if it be limited to the period when Herodotus wrote; and thus viewed it becomes important evidence for the superior antiquity both of the Bible and the Egyptian monuments."-(vol. ii. pp. 1-3.)

How many a cavil thrown out by sceptics against the word of God, has, like the present, vanished into thin air before the light of more close and searching enquiry. It is only the false glosses upon Scripture and upon science, which can ever bring them into seeming collision. The works, the word, and the providence of God, will, at the last, be found united in the closest and fullest harmony. The other passage occurs in the remarks on the Decline of Poly

theism :

"An established system of opinions must frequently rest for its main support on simple acquiescence in its forms; but it is exposed to serious danger if it does not widen this basis by explaining the forms, shewing their significance, and presenting evidence for the truth they contain. Inquiry will come, whether it be desired or not; scepticism will develope itself, and when it finds no solution for its doubts, will reject the system altogether. And this result cannot be affected by the greater or less amount of absolute truth in the doctrines, for that absolute truth does not become a moral truth until it is established by proof in the understanding..

"Doubt is too frequently treated as a crime, and attributed either to obliquity of intellect or hardness of heart; but doubt is a necessary accompaniment of a spirit of inquiry and research, and its first movements are rather proofs of amity than hostility to an established creed. The earliest desire of scepticism is to discover in the prevalent doctrines something that may justify former belief in them, satisfy the present good-will towards them, and firmly esta

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