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is one of great respectability, and even dignity, but not one suited to arouse the reader's faculties, excite his curiosity, or interest his feelings in the issue of the controversies which are brought before him. The work, as might have been expected, affords evidence of long familiarity with Hebrew learning, and with the best modern works upon biblical criticism and interpretation. The author's judgment, where he chooses to exercise it definitely, seems to be mature and sound. His sentiments and spirit are entirely opposed to those of German neology, with which he seems, however, to be well acquainted. Upon all points of dispute between the infidel and Christian modes of exegesis, he exhibits himself clearly on the side of truth. But while we bear this willing testimony to the correctness of his own conclusions, we are forced to qualify it in relation to the means, which he affords his readers, of arriving at the same. The great fault of the work, as to its bearing on the interests of truth, is this, that it details, with a laborious minuteness, the objections of neologists and infidels, without providing a sufficient antidote. The author seldom, and we may say never but through inadvertence, fails to record his own dissent from the objectionable doctrines which he quotes. But his attempted refutation is in many cases wholly insufficient, and in some he attempts none at all, but satisfies himself with the remark that no judicious person can adopt such an opinion, or the like. He seems, indeed, to have confounded the impression made upon his own mind by the statement of the false interpretation, (corrected as it was by adverse arguments already long familiar, or spontaneously suggested), with the impression, which would probably be made upon the mind of one possessing no such safeguard, by the exhibition of the bane without the antidote. Professor Turner may be thoroughly convinced that one of Eichhorn's specious paradoxes is a paltry figment; but we doubt whether the bare annunciation of that fact would be sufficient to produce a corresponding state of mind in every reader, especially in opposition to the plausible fallacies by which the false opinion is so frequently supported. It may indeed be said that a detailed refutation of the various opinions mentioned in the work would be not only more than they deserve, but more than it would hold. We grant it, but regard this rather as a reason for not stating the opinions, than for not refuting them. It is at least a valid objection to the minuteness of detail with which the author sometimes states them, when he has not room

or inclination to refute them with the same particularity. But even where he does attempt a formal refutation, he sometimes appears either to overrate the strength of his own arguments or to underrate the plausibility of those which he opposes. This is often clear from the coolness and indifference with which his argument seems to be conducted. Sometimes, indeed, his mind seems to be roused, as in his spirited and able vindication of the sabbath and the decalogue against Professor Palfrey. But in general, the author is too easily contented with the mere expression of his own opinion, or with a feeble statement of his reasons, while the adverse argument is frequently detailed with all the advantage which it can derive from the perverted ingenuity of those who have maintained it. We regard it as a duty of all writers on the side of truth, not to give currency to the doctrines which they look upon as false, until they have distinctly ascertained their own capacity to demonstrate that they are so. The willingness to do it if they can we take for granted; for a love of difficulties, simply for their own sake, and without any view to their removal, is a weakness, to employ the mildest term, with which we should be sorry to find any Christian theologian chargeable. Perhaps it would not be amiss, in trying to avoid the evil, to avoid, if possible the appearance of it also.

On the whole, we can commend Dr. Turner's work as a highly respectable and useful, though by no means an original performance. With the habits of patient assiduity and careful observation, which we may suppose him to possess, he can hardly fail, in subsequent editions of the book, to make it still more worthy of the public patronage and favour.

The fourth work mentioned at the head of this article is wholly different from either of the others. It is intended to be used as an aid in family devotion. It contains the text of selected passages, in the common version, with explanatory and devotional remarks. The author, an evangelical clergyman of the Church of England, already well known to the public, complains of the difficulty which he had experienced in giving to his written exposition the point and spirit of ex tempore remark. He recommends the latter as much better suited to arrest attention and impress the minds, especially of children and domestics, and describes his own work as intended merely to supply the place of such an exercise, in cases where the officiating person is unable or unwilling to perform it, but still anxious to make family devo

tion still more useful than it can be when the word of God is simply read without any attempt either to explain its meaning or enforce its doctrinal and practical instructions. The want of such books, we have reason to believe, is felt by many conscientious heads of families among ourselves; but the demand is far from having called forth a commensurate supply of the thing needed. The biblical commentaries, which are most in use, are found to be deficient, for the purpose now referred to, because not prepared with any direct view to it, or rather because not entirely well suited to the end for which they were prepared. The two which have obtained the most extensive circulation among orthodox and evangelical Christians of different denominations, are considered faulty or deficient, for this purpose, in very different respects. Henry, though full of life and admirably suited to make those who read him think, is often deficient in the fundamental requisite of explanation, leaving many obscure places unexplained, or substituting a quaint play upon the words of the translation for a clear and concise statement of the sense of the original. His arrangement, too, although highly intellectual and often very skilful, is too formal and methodical for the simple services of family devotion, as now practised; and the very effervescence, both of thought and language which entitles him to be considered, next to South, the wittiest of all religious writers, affects many pious minds unpleasantly, at least so far as to make the use of Henry's exposition seem unsuited to a solemn exercise of worship. This repugnance may arise, in some degree, from the indulgence of mistaken notions as to the consistency of deep religious feeling with a cheerful spirit, and the habit of looking at all objects with a smiling countenance. If ever there were men who lived exempt from morbid melancholy in their views of truth and their religious exercises, those men were Matthew Henry and his father; and we doubt not that the study of their lives and writings would do much to substitute a cheerful piety for one of gloomy and morose austerity. But such a temper is, we fear, a rare attainment, and so long as it continues so, we cannot doubt that the exuberant vivacity and even mirthful piety of Matthew Henry will be felt by most of us to be in some degree at variance with the feelings of religious awe, which we are more or less accustomed to associate with acts of worship. This, in addition to the circumstances which we have already mentioned, seems to leave room for something more than Henry's admirable

work, as an aid in family devotion. With these faults, if they may be so called, Scott is not in the least chargeable. Neither undue formality of method, nor excessive point and quaint antithesis of style, nor any thing like undue hilarity of tone, can be discovered in his pious, faithful, and judicious work. Its defects are of an opposite description. In addition to the superficial character of many of his exposi tions, there is a total want of vivid animation and exciting power, which, although they may not be essential to improvement when the mind is once awake, are of the last importance in arousing its attention. These defects are very common in the evangelical and pious writers of the church of England; we mean superficial notions of the sense of scripture, and a want of spirit in its exposition. The one may arise from the continual public reading of the scriptures without note or comment, a practice which, with all its great advantages, has certainly this disadvantage, that it tends to generate the habit of confounding mere familiarity of sound with real comprehension of the sense. The other evil may be traced to the habit of regarding sermons, and all other compositions of a sacred nature, as intended merely to be read, and therefore not admitting of that pointed style and those direct addresses to the heart and conscience, which the same men would think natural in unstudied speech. If extemporaneous preaching partook more of the correctness of good writing, and if written sermons partook more of the vivacity and point of oral discourse, there would be less room for dispute as to the proper mode of preaching. We can perfectly understand the feeling with which Mr. Blunt complains of his own inability to write as he had often spoken; though we should not be equally disposed to look upon the evil as inseparable from the act of writing. The defect, of which he speaks, does undoubtedly exist in the little work before us, as well as in the kindred works of some other English writers, who are said to be animated, pointed and impressive preachers, but in whose published writings, the vivacity and point are pretty much confined to an occasional ejaculation and an excess of paragraphs beginning with the interjection How! The only inference which we should be disposed to draw, at present, from these facts, is that works intended for the purpose now in question, require something more in those who write them than mere piety, good judgment, and acquaintance with the subject. There is need of sensibility as well as sense. We mean a capacity to write with feeling; and with this there

should be blended a capacity to write a plain, perspicuous, and pointed style, together with a talent for familiar illustration, the whole being under the direction of a cultivated taste and sober judgment. These are high qualifications, but without them we have little hope of seeing the demand, which now exists for "family expositions," suitably supplied. In our own church there are pastors, whom we know to be diligent and successful students, not only of the English Bible, but of the original. To such men the necessities of Christian families must needs be known; and how could they turn their studies to better account, than by the careful preparation of such works as would tend at once to elevate the standard of scriptural knowledge, and to promote the pratical utility of domestic worship as a means of grace? The difficulty of the task should be no obstacle, not only because our best performances are mere approximations to an ideal standard of perfection, but because experiments of this kind, once made, would exceedingly facilitate all subsequent attempts. A book prepared expressly for the use of families, would soon be introduced into a multitude of houses, and its fitness for its purpose brought to the severe test of experiment, the result of which, by means of a little correspondence and inquiry, might assist the author in correcting errors and supplying chasms, of which he had been wholly unaware. In this way the excellence of such works might be easily increased at every new edition, till they reached a height of relative perfection, quite as great as we have any present right or reason to anticipate.

We know not whether in the foregoing remarks, it is sufficiently implied, that expositions even of the most familiar kind, and those intended most exclusively for practical effect, can only be successful so far as they rest upon the basis of correct and thorough exegesis. Nothing can be more unfavourable to the successful preparation of such works, than the idea that critical and popular, or learned and familiar exposition, must be carried on apart from one another. What is the use of philological interpretation but to pave the way for practical improvement? The effects of a mere literary exegesis may be seen in Germany; those of a mere superficial pious one in England.* Let America combine the

*It is scarcely necessary to qualify this general remark by any allusion to the brilliant exceptions which undoubtedly exist, and which appear to be growing still more numerous. It is a fact however, that in England biblical learning has for many years, been in a state far below what might have been expocted from the degree of perfection to which classical learning has attained.