eternity, are blended together. All is in commotion, and on the eve of a mighty change. The purpose which he had formed was now and then like a rush of blood to the head; every thing was swimming and indistinct; while his great mind kept on its path, merely by the force of its own previous impulse. By throwing Abel, and the scenes connected with his tale, suddenly before Paul at chosen moments, the author shows much skill. It might have been difficult for him to carry his hero through the various stages of his mental agony, merely by the force of his own feelings. They would have exhausted themselves; the mind in which they wrought would have passed into delirium. But the intervention of Abel, held out something on which the mind of Paul could fasten; it was a relief from himself, and at the same time quickened his aptitude for visionary and frightful things. At these moments, when Paul's besetting temptations to a sort of frenzied melancholy were upon him, the sudden appearance of Abel, by exciting his horrour, and stimulating his passions, and bringing invisible powers near to his imagination, works him up for the accomplishment of the most dreadful purpose. There must certainly be power in the mind which drew the characters of this story, arranged its several parts, and helped out its great transactions, by the little springs of seemingly undesigned coincidences. Abel reminds us of Scott's Flibbertigibbet, and of Poor Tom in "King Lear," but is different from them both. As it regards the intellectual, and literary merits of this volume, its rich, expressive, undefiled English,—its profusion of discriminated imagery,-its perceptions of what is true and false in manners and character,-its keen, deserved, yet not illnatured satire,-its moral tone, and withal, its simplicity in reason, feelings, and love of nature; we are not able to refer to its superiour, nor to one of which, as the fellow countrymen of the author, we have more reason to be proud. We cannot but call upon the author to be encouraged in his literary efforts: The "Idle Man" will yet prove an INDUSTRIOUS collector of a revenue of praise and desirable honour. There are more readers now, than when it first appeared, who seek for pleasure in having their higher faculties and their deeper feelings called into exercise. His appeal to young men in the preface to his prose, will not be in vain. We think with him, that we can see the commencement of better days in regard to literary merit. A more correct philosophy, and one that responds to the voice of the soul, long imprisoned in the senses, and crying for freedom, is beginning to send its shafts of light, like "Daybreak," into the public mind. The frequent republication of the older writers is a strong proof of the inclination of readers. Mature and thoughtful men are speaking to their younger brethren, and their sons of a new era in the world's intellectual progress. These in their turn, are spreading the feeling, which is the sure forerunner of the thing, far and wide through the community; so that we cannot but liken them, as well as the expected morn, to the images of GILES FLETCHER: "And now the taller sons (whom Titan warms) As though the aged world, a new created were. So fairest Phosphor, the bright morning star, And the bright drove, fleeced all in gold, he chases ART. IV. A SUFFERING AND ATONING MESSIAH Translated from Hengstenberg's "Christologie,"-by the EDITOR. [THE doctrine of the expiatory sufferings and death of Christ, has been justly treated by most theological writers, as one purely revealed. The darkened reason of man, so far from leading to its discovery, often regards it as foolishness, and refuses to acknowledge the evidence offered in its behalf. Still it is true that this doctrine, in its Scriptural simplicity, is exactly adapted to the wants of the human mind, when these wants are rightly understood, and the mind is awakened to a consciousness of them. These wants, consisting principally in the feeling of guilt, and the anxious and unavailing endeavour to procure peace of conscience by self-devised expedients, create a predisposition to believe in the Atonement of Christ, whenever it is made known, and almost an anticipation of it before it is revealed. To allow of such susceptibilities belonging to the mind, when awakened to a consciousness of its sin and ill-desert, predisposing it to a belief in the doctrine of the Atoning death of Christ, is not certainly derogating from the honour of this doctrine, as one of divine origin, but rather giving it more abundant honour. If these susceptibilities are supposed to exist, this doctrine will appear, not, as it otherwise must, arbitrary and inappropriate, but adapted by the wisdom of God to our existing moral condition, and revealed by him in condescension to our actual moral necessities. It is the principal object of the following Article, to disclose the deep foundation for this doctrine laid in human nature itself, and also to show, what were those peculiar circumstances which prepared for the more willing reception of it by the Jews. These subjective grounds of belief in the vicarious sacrifice of Christ, while they can never of themselves account for the origin of this doctrine, yet render it highly probable that it was taught in the Old Testament, and at least dimly seen by the saints of the former dispensation; and thus give additional force to the positive evidence we possess on this subject. We have selected this Article, not only for its intrinsic interest, as bearing on the great central doctrine of the Christian system, but also from a wish to present to our readers a specimen of the work from which it is taken. This work is already favourably known to the public by the articles on the nature of prophecy, extracted from it, and published in Prof. Robinson's Biblical Repository. We are happy to state, that the whole of this work has been translated by Prof. Keith, of the Episcopal Seminary at Alexandria, D. C.; and will soon be published. We shall be glad if this article may be the means of attracting the attention of our readers to a work so eminently calculated to promote the cause of theological science. EDITOR.] To the question, Whether the idea of a suffering and dying Messiah, and especially of the VICARIOUS suffering and death of the Messiah, is contained in the prophecies of the Old Testament, most of our modern Theologians have given a decidedly negative answer. They maintain, that the Israelites expected in their Messiah only a mighty earthly * Umbreit does indeed acknowledge, after the example of Kuinal, (Mess. Weissag. Vorr. and on Is. 53), that the idea of a suffering and atoning Messiah is to be found in the writings of the Old Testament; but he contends, that the origin of this idea cannot possibly have been antecedent to the time of the Babylonian Exile. He says in the theological "Studien and Kritiken," (1, 2, p. 295), "The transformation of the Messiah, as the hoped for King of kings, into a teaching and suffering prophet, is naturally explained from the revolution which took place in the minds of the Jews. The Lord, whom the prophets of king, who would, with little effort, subject to himself all the enemies of the Covenant-people of God. If these theologians could succeed in affixing this character exclusively to the idea of a Messiah, it would be indeed far easier for them to give some plausibility to their opinion of the purely human origin of this idea. Could this be done, too, the wonderful agreement between prophecy and its fulfilment would be done away, and a path would be broken for the doctrine, that it was only through misunderstanding or by accommodation, that Christ applied to himself those declarations of the Old Testament, whose original reference to wholly different subjects, is undeniable. an earlier period had announced as the deliverer of the people, and as the founder of a perpetual peace on the earth, becomes in the mouth of our Seer (the author of the second part of Isaiah, supposed to have lived at the time of the Exile), a servant, since the people had imbibed the spirit of a sanctifying and peace-going humility, from persecution and suffering, and now saw the image of their expected Saviour in the mirror of this newly acquired disposition." In opposition to this view, the following things should be observed: I. This opinion is founded upon the false affirmation, which will be more fully refuted hereafter (see Biblical Repository, vol. II. p. 512, ff.) that the second part of Isaiah was not composed until the time of the Exile. II. It is indeed true, that the idea of a Saviour in the form of a servant, can find place only in the mind of one, who has himself become already conformed to this idea. But can this be denied respecting a David or an Isaiah? The idea of a Messiah did not originate with the whole people, but with particular persons, to whom it was revealed by God, according to the measure of their susceptibility. But long before the Exile there were in existence those means, hereafter described more at length, which were made use of by God for the developement of this susceptibility. The most that could be said, therefore, is this, that it was not until the time of the Exile, that a disposition favourable to the reception of the prophetic annunciation respecting the suffering of the Messiah, became general among the people. But this statement would prove nothing in behalf of the opinion now under consideration; and moreover, though probable a priori, would be contradicted by history. History shows, that true humility of heart was by no means produced in the people by their sufferings during the Exile. This was, indeed, the means of eradicating their former inclination to idolatry. But the bitter root from which their idolatry sprung, still remained in their hearts, as appears from the fact, that at the time of the Exile the fruits of pride and self-righteousness possessed themselves of the whole people, with the exception of a small number. How irreconcilable this state of mind is, with a susceptibility for the idea of a suffering and atoning Redeemer, appears from daily experience at the present day. And how little tendency there is in afflic tion in general, (which does not produce advantage in and of itself, but only in connexion with divine grace, and the desire for it,) to promote this susceptibility, appears sufficiently from the disposition of the Jewish people in its present state of depression. The more severe its sufferings have been, (and those at the time of the Babylonian Exile could not be compared with them,) the more gross and carnal have their expectations with regard to the Messiah become. III. Were the assertion of this author correct, we should look for the most frequent annunciations of the Messiah in the form of a servant, in those prophets who lived at the time of the Exile,-in an Ezekiel, and especially in a Jeremiah, whose humble spirit and broken heart would have peculiarly urged them to this. But we find exactly the contrary in these prophets; and the greater was the misery of the people, so much the more glorious were their descriptions of the Messiah. But those only can profess assent to this view, who make no account of the authority of our Lord, whose holy mouth could neither lie nor mistake; nor of the authority of his Apostles, who were taught by him respecting the meaning of the predictions of the Old Testament, and who were guided into all truth, by the same Spirit which spake from the prophets. We can prove, from their plain and positive declarations, that they found in the prophecies of the Old Testament, not only a Messiah in glory, but also depressed and afflicted. Passing by numerous passages* from the Old Testament relative to the sufferings of Christ, which either have been cited, or will be hereafter in their proper place, we shall invite attention only to a few general texts. In Matt. 26: 24, our Lord says, "The Son of Man goeth, as it is written of him;" i. e. you ought not to be surprised, that the Son of Man suffers and dies; for that this belongs to his destination, you see from this, that it has been already a long time predicted in the prophecies of the Old Testament. In Matt. 26: 54, our Lord shows to Peter the folly of his futile attempt to defend him, from this circumstance, that other powers stood at his beck, if he wished them to contend in his behalf, but that he did not make use of them, because the predictions of Scripture respecting his sufferings and death must be fulfilled; πῶς οὖν πληρωθώσι αἱ γραφαὶ, ὅτι οὕτω δεῖ yevíobai, how then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be? In v. 56, our Lord meets the prejudice which his enemies might take up against him from his most abject humiliation, by the repeated observation, that he was not wanting in power to resist them, but that he voluntarily surrendered himself into their power, that the predictions of Scripture respecting his suffering and death might be fulfilled. In Luke 18: 31, Christ announces to his Apostles, during his last journey to Jerusalem, that now every thing which the prophets had predicted respecting his sufferings and death, was about to go into fulfilment. Luke 24: 25, ff. he says to the two disciples, on their way to Emaus, as they were lamenting his death, and perplexed on account of it, "O fools, and slow of heart to believe all which the prophets *Eg. Is. ch. 42, 49, 50, 53. Zechariah, ch. 11, 12, 13. Ps. 16, 42, 49. 4 That these words τοῦτο δὲ ὅλον γέγονεν ἵνα πληρωθῶσιν αἱγραφαὶ τῶν προφητῶν, were spoken by Christ, and are not to be attributed, as some interpreters have supposed, to the Evangelist, appears from Mark 14: 49, dλλ' ïva #λnpwθῶσιν αἱ γραφαί. VOL. I. 30 |