having revealed to them those elevated views of the Divine Nature and attributes, for which, it is said, even the common mind in the present advanced age of the world is prepared?

We say we do not understand this favourite doctrine of accommodation. God has undoubtedly, in some respects, made revelation progressive, but it must have been for a different reason, and on a different principle from that which is commonly assigned. Besides, we have the same difficulty with the New Testament. The same style, in reference to this subject, is there adopted as in the Old; and yet, can any mind pretend, that through him who had been caught up to the third Heavens and heard ineffable things, God might not have communicated to the philosophers of Athens, to the acute Stoic, to the spiritualizing and idealizing Platonists, those transcendent views, which, it is maintained, bave been reserved for times subsequent to the closing of the canon of Revelation?

The only sound conclusion is, that God chose the method he has employed in the Scriptures, not by way of accommodation for one age, but because it was the very best for all ages. Although it might not perfectly convey what is in its highest sense incommunicable to the human mind, still, it was that which, of all others comprehensible at all by us, comes the nearest to the truth, and which, therefore, it is not safe for us to gloss, improve upon, or in any way depart from. But, say some, this would require us to take literally all the language of the Scriptures, and to believe that God has hands, and eyes, and a human form. No other reply to this is needed, than that which is furnished immediately by the common sense. No one is, or ever has been, in danger of mistaking such plainly figurative language. The merest child, the youngest scholar in the Sabbath school, understands it. It was designed, not as a necessary accommodation to necessary error, but for the same purpose for which it is proper, and will be proper in all ages, viz., to give vividness and strength to language. No doubt figurative expressions are used in the representation of passion; but is the passion itself figurative

or unreal? If so, the figure, instead of giving vividness to truth, only imparts strength to error. We may well doubt, if even anthropomorphism would be a less venial error in the sight of God, than those refinements which destroy the moral power of some of the most solemn declarations of the Bible.

The conclusion then to which we come is this: Admitting that the real doctrine on the subject is ineffable, and transcending all finite comprehension, yet he who humbly trusts the method of the Scriptures, and, without any farther questioning or attempts at improvement, acts upon the belief that God truly loves the righteous and is angry with the sinner, and that his just wrath towards him is appeased by the expiatory sufferings of His own Divine Eternal Son-such an one, we say, is nearer to the ineffable truth, and has less of unavoidable error, than the man who adopts what he may be led to regard as the more philosophical conception. To one who studies the Bible with the most devotion, the strong and impassioned declarations to which we refer, instead of seeming to be imperfections, even necessary imperfections, in the Divine book, are the very parts, which, of all others, he would be least willing to lose. In a little wrath hid 1 my face from thee for a moment, but with everlasting loving-kindness will I have compassion upon thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer.The God who is of old is thy dwelling place, and underneath are the Everlasting Arms. Who that has any hope or feeling of a redeemed Christian, would exchange this style for any pantheistic expression of transcendental benevolence, or any Swedenborgian mysticism, or any philosophical rhapsody on the ubiquity of the Divine Providence?

But to return from this apparent digression on a subject which is so intimately connected with that of the book before us, we would say, in conclusion, that we have been occupied more with a general discussion of the subject of the work, than with any examination of its merits in a critical point of view. There are exceptions which we might take to a good many passages. We cannot at all agree with the author's extreme view respecting the death of Christ. It seems suf

ficient, even on his own theory, to regard the Divine Person as actually suffering the agonies which attended the separation of the human soul from the body, without regarding him as laying down his Divine life. We were disposed, at first, to find fault with the style as too rhetorical and impassioned, but, on a reconsideration, are led to regard it as best adapted to the design which the writer proposes to himself,—namely, to arouse attention to a most important and practical yet neglected doctrine, and, at the same time, "to exalt and magnify the great atonement." (Preface v.) With this end in view, we cannot help regarding it as a most timely and valuable. production. Our American Church greatly needs works of this kind to arouse it from its semi-Nestorian lethargy. Whatever may be the true view, it can hardly be doubted, that in any aspect of the doctrine, we make far too little of the passion of the Divine Redeemer. The universal doctrine of the Church in all ages, that the Eternal Son of God did truly suffer, seems almost to have dropped out of our Theology, and out of our pulpits. Justification by Faith is preached, but, to a great extent, as a scholastic disquisition on the nature of faith, and the design of the atonement, whilst there is kept out of view that which is the very life of the doctrine, and which gives it all its dread importance. In many churches even this has been abandoned, and a mode of preaching introduced, which belongs as much to some systems of natural religion as to Christianity. Instead of its awful peculiarity-the propitiatory sufferings of the God-man, and the utter annihilation, when viewed in reference to it, of all human works, and of every other hope of salvation—there is the philosophy of the change of the governing purpose, the duty of submitting to God, of yielding up the heart, of seeking the truest happiness, and of resolving to serve the Lord. The religious experience, which is the result, has partaken of the same character. We do not wish to judge harshly, but it may with truth be said that one prominent characteristic of such preaching and such experience, is the practical absence of the doctrine of a Divine, agonizing Redeemer.

It is in the intense contemplation of this central truth, of this peculiarity of Christianity, that the soul forgets all else beside, forgets its wretched works, its fancied righteousness, its resolutions of reform, forgets itself, forgets even its sins, whilst it thinks only of Him, and is filled with Him, who, instead of the ineffable joy that was set before him, (avrì rns pagās, Heb. 12: 2,) endured the cross, discharged our heavy debt, and washed our souls in his own most precious blood.

ARTICLE II.

REMARKS, EXEGETICAL AND PRACTICAL, ON THE BOOK OF ECCLESIASTES.

By Professor ENOCH POND, D D.

The Title of the Book.

THE word primarily signifies one who calls or assembles a multitude together; and secondarily, one who addresses them, when so assembled. Accordingly, in the Septuagint, it is rendered Exxλnotαorns, Preacher. Our English translators have retained the Greek word, Ecclesiastes, as the title of the book, while in the book itself they constantly translate this word, and render it Preacher. The book might very well have been denominated the Preacher; or more properly, perhaps, a preachment, a discourse. It is a discourse, which may have been delivered, originally, to an assembled multitude of the Israelites, and was then recorded, under a Divine inspiration, to be read in their assemblies, and in the church of God, from that period to the end of the world.

The Author of the Book.

I agree with the Rabbins, with the ancient Christian fathers, and with almost the entire body of commentators, in

regarding Solomon as the author of this book. Indeed, I see not how this opinion should ever have been called in question. The author has much to say of himself, in different parts of the book, which can agree to no other man but Solomon. Thus, in the first chapter he says, "The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king of Jerusalem." "I, the Preacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem." But none of the sons of David, except Solomon, ever "was king over Israel in Jerusalem."

Again, Solomon is represented, in the sacred history, as a man of consummate wisdom. "I have given thee a wise and an understanding heart, so that there was none like thee before thee, neither after thee shall any arise like unto thee." 1 Kings 3: 12. So the writer of this book says of himself, "I have gotten more wisdom than all they that have been before me in Jerusalem; yea, my heart had great experience of wisdom and knowledge." Chap. 1: 16.

Solomon is further represented by the sacred historian, as excelling all the Israelitish kings, in the grandeur of his buildings, the number of his servants, the splendour of his equipage, and the multitude of his possessions. Besides the magnificent temple which he erected in honour and for the worship of God, he prepared superb palaces for himself and his household, and increased in riches, till silver came to be as stones in the streets of Jerusalem. 1 Kings 10: 21, 27. Hear now the writer of the book before us describing his buildings, his possessions, and his wealth. "I made me great works; I builded me houses; I planted me vineyards; I made me gardens and orchards, and I planted trees in them of all kinds of fruit. I made me pools of water, to water therewith the wood that bringeth forth trees. I got me servants and maidens, and had servants born in my house. Also I had great

possessions of great and small cattle, above all that were in Jerusalem before me. I gathered me also silver and gold, and the peculiar treasure of kings and of the provinces. I gat me men-singers and women-singers, and the delights of the sons of men; as musical instruments, and that of all sorts. So I was great, and increased more than all that were