VOICES OF THE NIGHT.

Voices of the Night. By the Rev. JOHN CUMMING, D.D. London, J. F. Shaw. 12mo. pp. 454. 1850.

THIS elegant little work is in fact a volume of sermons, most of which have been preached by their eloquent author in the Scotch National Church, Crown Court, Covent Garden; but great ingenuity has been displayed to make it appear in a form more engaging than an ordinary batch of pulpit discourses. It is well known in Paternoster Row that the market is already overstocked with Sermons,' and that the public are not easily captivated with volumes that contain nothing else. The great charm of the present work is that it presents something of a united aspect. The Voices of the Night fall pleasantly upon the ear throughout, and the several chapters (not sermons) are so far linked together that we are beguiled into a continuous perusal, and are reluctant to lay the book down till the word 'Finis' gives us the word of command.

The title suggests that the subject-matter approaches the region of poetry. Each chapter is ushered in with a well-chosen quotation from one or other of our English bards ;a and the well-known style of the author, abounding in eloquent description and elaborated ornament, preserves the tone thus indicated. The table of contents is itself a bouquet of elegantiæ. What of the Night?' 'Nature's Travail and Expectancy,' The World-copy,' The Time-page,'Nearing Sunrise,' etc., are suggestive fragmentary titles that set the reader dreaming before he cuts the leaves. We are almost surprised to find, on first glancing at the type, that it is in solid rectangular pages of prose, and does not present the irregular appearance of poetry. The explanation is speedily given. The subjects are poetical, but the treatment is in the highest degree real and practical. Dr. Cumming has chosen a series of topics which supply food for the most exuberant fancy, but he has shown how they stand connected with the hopes and joys, as well as duties and difficulties, of every-day life. He nowhere forgets the influence of these truths on the heart of his reader, and ever strives to enforce a lesson of heavenly-mindedness. We might say that he stands upon the boundary-line that separates things seen from the unseen; or that more subtle line which, in matters

a We wish that the poems had been indicated from which the extracts have been given. We conjecture that the author has some motive for withholding this information.

of

of religious faith, divides things clearly revealed from those which are but dimly suggested. Hence the imagination finds occasionally that matter-of-fact reason lags somewhat in the rearhence the transition from prose to poetry; but after all it is a Toinua which has inspiration to give it stability, and in the wolnos the imagination has a safe guide. We think this work well calculated to erect a sober standard of feeling in matters of practical religion,' and more especially those matters which relate to the Christian's hope. We should have some difficulty in selecting a particular class to whom the perusal of the work would afford pleasure and profit, for it is addressed to all. The sympathies of the author are as wide as his style is popular; and no one who has learned in any degree to think upon these lofty subjects, can fail to derive a new stimulus to his meditations. Perhaps the afflicted will owe to the author a peculiar debt of gratitude: they cannot but find many consolatory thoughts, dressed as they are in persuasive language, and uttered as it were in soothing tones that gently waft across a troubled spirit. To them, these Voices of the Night will be sweet melodies, bidding them escape from the cares of earth, and realise the joys of future bliss.

6

The chapter on 'Nature's Travail and Expectancy,' with those immediately succeeding, constitute the portion of the work which we should regard as most important, because the views brought forward have a higher claim to originality. The author approaches a subject of some difficulty but of deep interest, when he discusses the groans of creation.' He has in some measure drawn aside the veil that concealed the ulterior destiny of the physical universe. We are well aware that many pious minds recoil from the idea of deducing the future history of man's abode from that revelation which makes known the future history of man; but we claim a Scriptural investigation, whatever may be the difficulties. The question is this:-Are there any sympathies between man and the material creation? If so, does the Bible supply any comment upon those sympathies? We will first remark that the present age is one eminently favourable for the discussion of such a subject; and it will be no obstacle to the position which we are inclined to adopt, that the theology of ages bygone has passed the matter over in silence. Geology is every day casting fresh light on the physical history of the globe; our ideas of the age of the world are immensely expanded; we have now to deal with millenniums as with minutes; but the Christian system does not fear the light of science. We are fully persuaded that this light must ultimately add to the glorious blaze of that central light that shines in the firmament of revelation; and the same kind of illumination will now be thrown on those suggestions of

Holy

Holy Writ which tell us of new heavens and a new earth—which tell us how the groans of creation shall be changed for a happier song-how a paradise shall bloom where a desert has bared its arid surface. One aspect of moral influences on material creation will be confessed by all believers in Scripture. We mean the curse pronounced upon the ground when Adam fell:- Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life: Thorns also, and thistles, shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field: In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground, for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return' (Gen. iii. 17-19).

Dr. Cumming eloquently describes the results palpable now as ever by which the curse has been followed :—

'I know that in looking around us at creation, and witnessing the present state of disorder in which it lies, we sometimes feel as if this were its normal state—that creation is, as the Pantheists say, just what God made it—and that it is far better it should be now just as we find it; for if there were no storms, nor incidents, nor accidents, nor tempests, men would not exert so much industry and energy, or come under so suitable a discipline. I have no doubt that creation in its fall is more fitted for man in his fall, than creation in its happiness would be; but it is the infected house that suits the infected inhabitant-it is the marred and dismantled home that indicates the presence of the criminal. Sin is the spring of all creation's restlessness: it is sin that has wrecked it. It is because man became sinful that the earth became barren; it was because man lost his allegiance to God that nature ceased her allegiance to him, and that we have war and discord instead of peace, and creation clothed in sackcloth and crape, groaning in travail and pain, seeking her emancipation.'—p. 153.

Of course this will in general be admitted. The point which Dr. Cumming labours further to establish is, that if creation suffers for man's sin, it will be restored in consequence of man's redemption. He is prepared with a passage of Scripture which goes a very long way towards proving this, if only we can agree upon the meaning of a particular word :-The creation (xrious) itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation (nãoα n xτíois) groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now (Rom. viii. 11, 12).' Those who deny the restoration of material things, deny that ríos includes anything more than 'reasonable creatures.' They quote the passage, 'Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature' (πάon Tỹ иTÍOE) (Mark xvi. 15), and argue that the creatures who groan in the one case are those who are capable of hearing the

Gospel

Gospel in the other; but they are constrained to confess that out of the nineteen times this word is used in the New Testament, it means, in at least fourteen instances, simply the created universe, the dumb brute, the material earth, stones, wood, flower, fruit, and sea. The passage in St. Mark appears to favour their view. Let us, however, call in the testimony of Mr. Alford, who, in his admirable new Greek Testament, gives the following note on the passage, where we may observe that his critical judgment is utterly unbiassed by any thought whatever of the controversy in which Dr. Cumming is engaged. The italics are his own :—

'Not to men only, although men only can hear the preaching of the Gospel; all creation is redeemed by Christ (see Col. i. 15, 23; Rom. viii. 19-23). Hominibus primario, ver. 16, reliquis creaturis, secundario. Sicut maledictio, ita benedictio patet. Creatio per Filium, fundamentum redemptionis et regni, Bengel in loc. Krisis appears never in the New Testament to be used of mankind alone.'—Alford's Gr. Test., vol. i. p. 301.

6

The passage in Col. i. 15 (πρωτότοκος πάσης κτίσεως) is ambiguously translated in our version, first-born of every creature ;' and this would appear to imply, to the non-classical reader, 'rational creature.' It shows, however, that our Lord was rather the head of the created universe, according to the law of primogeniture; or, to adopt Schleusner's translation, princeps et dominus omnium rerum creatarum.' This will be found to coincide with a similar expression applied to our Lord (Rev. iii. 14, ʼn àρxù τñs κτίσεως τοῦ θεοῦ), where the same interpretation of κτίσις applies. The word is used (Heb. iv. 13) where the idea of rational creature might seem to be conveyed-οὐκ ἔστι κτίσις ἀφανὴς ἐνώπιον αὐτοῦ but here the universal creation is really implied, as may be gathered from the antithetical remainder of the passage: All things (Távτa) are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.' The primary meaning of the term is an act of creating,' or a creative process.' This rendering gives a new force to two passages where our version limits the term to rational creatures. We refer to 2 Cor. v. 17, and Gal. vi. 15. Let the reader well weigh these verses under this proposed aspect :-Therefore if any man be in Christ, there is a new creative process. (What this process is, the verse proceeds to show.) Old things are passed away; behold all things are become new.' And, For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creative process.' In this last passage, Tegiróun implies a ceremonial process. The use of nτiais, therefore, in the sense of a process, will harmonise far better. We need only refer to one more interpretation of which the word admits, viz., the origination of thoughts or arrangements; and, by metonymy, the thoughts or

arrangements

arrangements themselves. This idea is conveyed, 1 Pet. ii. 13: Ὑποτάγητε οὖν πάση ανθρωπίνη κτίσει, ' Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man.' This acceptation of the term is perhaps applicable in the passage we cited from Heb. iv. 13, which will then stand: Neither is there any mental device that is not manifest in his sight.' Yet, if this meaning be preferred, the limitation to the rational creature is still excluded.

We feel most anxious to establish this interpretation of the word; and have examined, as we believe, all those passages which the opponents of Dr. Cumming's view are eager to cite. We think that we have sufficiently demonstrated Mr. Alford's statement— Tios appears never in the New Testament to be used of mankind alone.' The learned Doctor is probably aware, also, of a passage in the apocryphal book of Wisdom, where xríos has the same extended meaning: He shall take to him his jealousy for complete armour, and make the creature his weapon for the revenge of his enemies' (Wisd. v. 17). The use of the term in Mark xvi. 15 is unquestionably the strongest argument in favour of those who contend for the translation, rational creature;' but we ask, Is it inconsistent with the general language of Scripture that the Apostles should be told to preach the Gospel to the whole creation of God? Did not this same creation hear the duszyyshíor, the curse which turned paradise into a wilderness, and made thistles grow where flowers alone had bloomed? and shall it not hear the suzyyeλíov, the glad tidings of restoration? But the unimaginative interpreters will say that woods and rocks, and mountains and hills, cannot hear. Let them listen to the prophet Micah:- Arise, contend thou before the mountains, and let the hills hear thy voice. Hear ye, O mountains, the Lord's controversy, and ye strong foundations of the earth; for the Lord hath a controversy with his people.' We see therefore no inconsistency in the idea of preaching the Gospel to the whole creation; and we are abundantly satisfied that the whole creation of organized matter groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.

Let us examine, however, some of the results of the opposite view. Assume that it is the mass of God's reasoning creatures from which this cry ascends to heaven. In the first place we find, from the very next verse, that Christians are excluded from the number. Not only they (or rather it, the xríos), but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves waiting for the adoption, to wit the redemption of the body.' Consequently those who groan are separate and distinct from those who have the first fruits of the Spirit. But we are told also that the Tios waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. How can Turks, infidels and heretics' have

any