E. THE FRATERNAL SPIRIT WITH WHICH THEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS SHOULD BE PURSUED.

From Dr. PARK'S "Duties of a Theologian."

"Another duty of a theologian is, to foster a spirit of fraternal interest in the investigations of his brethren. Nothing is more seemly than the scientific coöperation of such friends as Dugald Stewart and Sir James Mackintosh, and from nothing do we turn with more sickness of heart than from the recorded animosity of a Newton and a Leibnitz. The history of theological speculation has too seldom been the history of friends, aiding each other in candid as distinguished from party research. It has too often been the history of combatants, who have striven, not indeed with more noise than others, but with keener passion.

"The peculiar intolerance of theological dogmatists has been owing in part to their love of power. The depravity belonging by nature to all men has cleaved in a measure to ministers; and while in other professions it has found an outlet in a love of gain, or of parade, or of pleasure, it has often been confined in the clerical profession to a love of authority. This is the avenue through which the concentrated sinfulness of the soul has poured itself out. It has been fostered by the apologizing name of a desire to exert a good influence. It has been favored by the ministerial station. . . .

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"There has been a second reason for the irritating style of controversial theologians. The weapons of their warfare are of refined power. When they plied the chain, the rack, the fire, they used these grosser implements as the symbols of a more subduing penalty. The symbols have gone; the relics of what they signified remain. It is yet hard for the multitude to rise above a superstitious version of the truth, that what the minister binds or looses here shall be bound or loosed hereafter. To many he yet seems to hold the keys of hell and death. He should be aware of this. It is true he should make a vigorous opposition against essential error.

He should call things by their right names. But he should beware of indulging in too hard names, and of exposing his pious brother to the unmerited jealousies of the Church. When he solemnly insinuates that a theological teacher is a heretic, when he breathes out his significant suspicions that a spiritual guide is unsound in the faith, he sends a panic through a host of confiding Christians, and they, trembling for the ark, cry earnestly to the God of Israel that the new stumbling-block may be removed out of the way.

"There is an inward, a still, a penetrating power in that word heretic, which the men who use it are too prone to forget. It is a word that rouses the fears and inflames the superstitions of praying men and women, who, though the humblest, are yet the most awe-inspiring of all men and women, and arms thousands of the elect of God against one solitary victim, and that victim perhaps an unsuspecting inquirer after truth. It is a word that seems to take hold on eternity, and to consign the unfriended student to the companionship of the ancient apostates, who were delivered over to Satan. When uttered by a high and wary ecclesiastic, it has sounded as if the avenging omnipotence of God was wielded by the envy, or jealousy, or perhaps malice of man. No wonder that Martin Luther sighed for death, as his only hope of rescue from the odium of the Church. No wonder that even evangelical divines have lost their fraternal feeling, when they have reciprocated with each other the accusations of heresy and schism."- pp. 15, 16.

"It is a pusillanimous orthodoxy, and not a fraternal Christianity, that prompts the devotee of a human creed to condemn philosophical research, and to confound the true revelation of nature with the philosophy 'falsely so called,' which, and only which, the Bible disapproves; to discharge the epithets proud, ambitious, skeptical, infidel, or worse than all, and worse than any thing else, Pelagian, against every one who brings into theology the enterprise of a scientific

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discoverer, and prefers the sure word of God above all the traditions of the elders. . . . The way to aid an investigator is, not to exclude him from our sympathies because his mind is his as distinct from ours, but to take a kindly interest in his heart's yearnings; not to avoid discussion for the sake of peace, but to labor for rational peace by brotherly discussion, and to imitate the winning voice of the infinite intellect, 'Come, let us reason together.' Our duty is to note well the delicacy of the mind's nature; how like a field-flower it shuts itself up when no rays come down from the sun, and it will never be forced open by the rudeness of rain and hail, but will expand itself to nothing but the light of the morning, and will drink in only the sweet influences of day.". p. 18.

II. VIEWS OF DR. LIGHTFOOT.

[To those who are acquainted with the history of biblical learning, nothing need be said in commendation of the eminent Dr. Lightfoot; for those who are not, let the following brief notice suffice, which I shall give, as far as convenient, in the language of others.

was "

John Lightfoot, son of the Rev. Thomas Lightfoot, "a man much esteemed for his learning and piety," was born in 1602, at Stoke-upon-Trent, in Staffordshire, England. At the age of nineteen, he took his Bachelor's degree at Cambridge, where he "made an extraordinary proficiency in Latin and Greek," " and thought the best orator of the undergraduates in the University"; and two years after received ordination. In 1643, he was summoned by Parliament to become a member of the celebrated Assembly of Divines at Westminster (the authors of the well-known Catechisms, Confession of Faith, &c.), where he "became distinguished for his eloquence in debate and activity in business," ," "gave signal proofs of his courage, as well as learning," and "sometimes, by the strength and clearness of his reasonings, and evidence of Scripture, turned the whole Assembly.”

In the same year, he was appointed Master of Catharine Hall, Cambridge; and in 1655, was chosen Vice-Chancellor of the University. He died in 1675, after a long life devoted with remarkable singleness and strength of purpose to sacred learning, and to public and private religious duties.

"He was not only a man of great learning," says Strype," and exemplary diligence; but of great modesty and humility and gratitude and candor. His spiritual endowments, as he was a minister and a Christian, rendered him more illustrious, than all his natural and acquired. . . . His house was a continual hospital; none went away thence unrelieved. . . . He was a truly devout and pious Christian towards God."

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From the many tributes to his extensive learning and the great value of his researches, by distinguished biblical scholars both in England and upon the Continent, I add but these two.

"Dr. Lightfoot was a profound scholar, a sound divine, and a pious man. He brought all his immense learning to bear on the sacred volumes, and diffused light wherever he went. His historical, chronological, and topographical remarks on the Old Testament, and his Talmudical Exercitations on the New, are invaluable." - Dr. Adam Clarke.

“The writings of Dr. Lightfoot are an invaluable treasure to the Biblical Student. By his deep researches into the Rabbinical writings, he has done more to illustrate the phraseology of the Holy Scriptures, and to explain the various customs, &c., therein alluded to, particularly in the New Testament, than any other author before or since. . . . Of all the theologians of his time, this celebrated divine (whose opinion was consulted by every scholar of note, both British and Foreign) is supposed to have been the most deeply versed in the knowledge of the Scriptures.". Thomas Hartwell Horne.

Dr. Lightfoot was led by his profound biblical researches, and by the great familiarity which he acquired with the Jewish mind and mode of expression, to refer many passages to the destruction of Jerusalem which are often referred to a future day of judgment. His views upon this point, which often appear in his writings, are most fully expressed in a Sermon preached at the Hertford Assize, March 29, 1663, from 2 Pet. iii. 13; in the Hebrew and Talmudical Exercitations upon St. John, published in 1671; and in a posthumous Essay upon the Spirit of Prophecy. Instead of

giving the three statements, which do not essentially differ, I have thought it better to give the one contained in the Commentary, making some additions from the Sermon (enclosed thus, † . . . †), and others from the Essay (enclosed thus, . . . ‡). For the extract from the Commentary, see Pitman's Edition of Lightfoot's Works, Vol. xii., pp. 433–436; for those from the Sermon, see Do., Vol. vi., pp. 290–293; and for those from the Essay, see Do., Vol. iii., pp. 440–442.]

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ST. JOHN, Ch. xxii., "Ver. 22: If I will that he tarry till I come.] Till I come'; that is, till I come to destroy the city and nation of the Jews. As to this kind of phrase, take a few instances:

"Our Saviour saith, Matt. xvi. 28, 'There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom: which must not be understood of his coming to the last judgment; for there was not one standing there, that could live till that time : nor ought it to be understood of the resurrection, as some would have it; for probably not only some, but, in a manner, all that stood there, lived till that time. His coming, therefore, in this place, must be understood of his coming to take vengeance against those enemies of his, which would not have him to rule over them, as Luke xix. 12, 27.

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Perhaps it will not repent him that reads the Holy Scriptures, to observe these few things:

"I. That the destruction of Jerusalem and the whole Jewish state is described, as if the whole frame of this world were to be dissolved. Nor is it strange, when God destroyed his habitation and city, places once so dear to him, with so direful and sad an overthrow; his own people, whom he accounted of as much or more, than the whole world beside,by so dreadful and amazing plagues. Matt. xxiv. 29, 30, 'The sun shall be darkened, &c. Then shall appear the sign of the Son of man,' &c.; which yet are said to fall out within that generation, ver. 34. 2 Pet. iii. 10, The heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements

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