we imagine we may claim as our own? The New Church teaches that the only safe standard by which to measure our progress in spiritual life, is the sincerity and success of our endeavours to search out, to resist and to shun, the evils of our natural loves, as sins against God. And at the same time it teaches us that there is no particular time when God begins to be more merciful towards us, or at which he confers upon us any blessings which he was not always offering to us, and endeavouring to make us, or preparing us to be, willing to receive.

We

There may indeed be occasions when we are specially impressed. with the power and beauty of truth, or led into unusual states of humble desire to live the life of truth; but neither any one, nor all of these states are the sole or even the special agent in the work of regeneration. They are useful just so far as the impressions and desires which it is then given us to feel, lead us actually to resist and overcome the evils which prevent those states from remaining permanently with us. may also be aware of a time when we were conscious of making the first efforts to amend an evil life; but we are not aware of those operations in our interiors, by which the Lord has been leading and preparing us to take this open step. The change externally appears abrupt and sudden, as it were an entire turning about; but internally and really it is not so. It might be so, were a passive submission to superior agency all that is required of man. But man cannot freely, and as of himself, turn his affections from one thing to another directly opposite, without the aid of intermediate motives, by which they are bent and gradually inclined towards what is purely good; and man is thus led not in a direct line of progress, but in a circuitous way, whose curvature does not come within his apprehension. If in more advanced states he looks back upon his progress, he may see that it is so; for he will perceive that his motives were at first comparatively external and impure, and his conceptions of duty low and imperfect; and he may discern that while he imagined his eyes and steps to be directed immediately towards the Lord, he was actually looking towards some remoter orb, shining with the borrowed rays of the Sun of Heaven." D. H. H.

REVIEWS.

SCRIPTURE AND THE AUTHORISED VERSION OF SCRIPTURE. The Substance of two Ordination Sermons. By SAMUEL HINDS, D.D. Fellowes. TESTIMONIES given by individuals not of the Established Church, to the disadvantage of "the authorised version of Scripture," are liable to be suspected either of a lack of authority, or a partial bias towards such a translation as favours some particular doctrinal system. We avail ourselves, therefore, of some judicious remarks on the subject, contained in a review of the above publication, in the Athenæum for the 18th October last, which we presume cannot be liable to any suspicion of that kind.

"In these discourses (the reviewer observes) Dr. Hinds has discussed a subject of great delicacy and difficulty, with ability, learning, and what is of no less importance, great discretion. Addressing candidates for holy orders, he points out to them that it is their duty not only to preach from the Word, by developing the object and purport of Scriptural Doctrine, but also to take care to preach the Word, -a task of more importance, and requiring greater labour, than is generally imagined.” Dr. Hinds observes that—

"The Word of God, as embodied in Scripture, is written in a foreign language, a dead language, a language difficult to be acquired; and we preach it to those who cannot understand the Scripture itself, through the medium of an English translation provided authoritatively for that purpose. The Scripture itself, however, is the ancient writing; the version only the instrument for conveying it to the people at large-the instrument by means of which we are to preach it."

"There is (the reviewer proceeds) a common tendency among, not only the laity but the clergy of the Anglican Church, to attribute to our authorised version the same weight and influence which the Church of Rome yields to the Vulgate, and to place it on the same level as the Hebrew and Greek originals; in fact, the same infallibility is tacitly conceded to the translators that properly belongs only to the original writers. Dr. Hinds opposes this error; he points out imperfections and mistakes in our version of the New Testament, which sufficiently prove that it cannot be taken, in all cases, as a safe guide, and he justly adds that a much stronger case could be made out against our translation of the Old Testament. In fact, the very names given to these two collections are mistranslations. Aιankη does not mean a testament or will, but a covenant, and the Scriptural volume should have been published under the name of the Old and New Covenants. There is, indeed, a passage in Hebrews ix., where the word may seem to bear the meaning of a testament (for where there is a testamant there must needs be the death of the testator), but those acquainted with the usages of the ancient world are aware that every important covenant was ratified by the blood of a victim, symbolizing a forfeiture of life in case of any violation of the article. In the passage to which we refer, the writer, addressing the Hebrews, uses all the technical phrases belonging to the vicarious sacrifice with which all his readers were familiar; but

* Dr. Macknight renders this verse, the 16th, and the following verse, thus: "For where a covenant [is] there is a necessity that the death of the appointed [sacrifice] be brought in; for a covenant is firm over dead sacrifices, seeing it never hath force while the appointed sacrifice liveth."(This Note is by the friend who has sent us the review, not by the reviewer.)

these technicalities are not easily intelligible to us moderns, who have no analogous usage, nor, indeed, anything like it.*

"Dr. Hinds classes the imperfections of our translation under several heads, to which we shall advert very briefly.

1. The same word differently rendered.-The title of the Holy Ghost (Paraclete) is, in one place translated "Comforter," and, in another, "Advocate;" the two words "love" and "charity" of our version, represent one and the same Greek noun; "purify," "cleanse," and 'purge," are different translations of the same verb, and in all these cases there is a loss of continuity in the reasoning, and of purpose in allusions, by such variations.

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2. Different Greek words rendered by the same English word.-It may be sufficient to specify the verb " ordain," by which our translators have rendered no less than eight different Greek words,-different not merely in form, but still more in their import and significance. Dr. Hinds adds another example which must not be omitted :—

Expressions different in the original, and on the difference between which much, perhaps, turns, are, in some instances, rendered by one and the same expression in our English translation. This is the case with the word temple. It is the common rendering of two words which are never confounded in Scripture; the one (Iepòv) signified the whole consecrated precinct,- courts and buildings; the other (Naòs), that portion which was roofed in as the local abode of God's presence. It

would have been incorrect to have used the latter word in the narratives of our Lord finding the money-changers with their tables and those who sold doves, and sheep and oxen, in the temple, i. e. in the outer and unroofed courts; and it is the latter, again, which is properly used when our Lord is reported as saying, 'Destroy this temple,' &c., alluding to the indwelling of the Divine Nature in his Person: and again, by St. Paul, when he says, 'Ye are the temple of the Holy Ghost,' and the temple of the Living God;' meaning, that Christians are 'builded together for a habitation of God through the Spirit.''

"Under the third head come forms of expression obsolete in the sense in which they were used by our translators. We take one important example :

"The word Mystery. In ordinary language, then and now, it means something concealed, or unintelligible; in the translation it is applied to Gospel revelation,Christian knowledge. The Scripture term from which it is derived (through the Latin, probably), was so applied by analogy, from those ancient institutions called Mysteries, in which, as in Freemasonry, there were secrets which were made known to

*This notion of the vicarious character of the covenant-sacrifice was probably entertained by the Hebrews, and it was borrowed, doubtless, by the Rabbins from the traditions of the heathen world; but more anciently it had the signification that the covenant ratified by blood should stand firm as the Divine Truth; blood being the correspondence of the Divine Truth, as proved by Swedenborg.-(Contributor of the review.)

members on their admission.* As all Christians correspond to these initiated members, a Christian Mystery-a Mystery in the Scriptural acceptation of the word—is something revealed and known to all of us, and the word is accordingly always used in reference to our privilege of being admitted to that knowledge. In allusion, again, to those ancient institutions, and the emblematic representations through which the secrets were revealed to the initiated, the word is, likewise, used to signify an emblem of revealed truth. It is so applied by St. Paul to Marriage, and by St. John, in the Revelation, to his vision of the Seven Stars, [chap. i.] and to that of the Woman. [chap. xvii.] Now, what a wrong notion a reader of the Scripture version only may form of the general character and intent of the Gospel and its doctrines, by understanding the word 'Mystery,' whenever he meets with it, in its ordinary sense!"

"Under the fourth head come idiomatic phrases not generally adopted in our language, and therefore conveying an erroneous meaning. Under the fifth head come direct mistranslations; Dr. Hinds has only noticed a few, and these not the most striking. We may add to those he has selected, two of some importance. After Christ had worked several miracles, the Scribes and Pharisees are said to have come to him asking a sign,' which would seem to imply that they doubted the reality of his previous miracles; but what they really sought was THE sign,' namely, the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven,' which Rabbinical tradition had taught them to be the only certain cognizance of the Messiah. In the election of a successor to Judas Iscariot, as recorded in the Acts, St. Peter is represented as saying, 'his bishopric let another take;' the word rendered bishopric signifies simply charge, for Judas was never a bishop in any sense of the word. Dr. Hinds further notices italicized interpolations, errors of division into chapter and verse,—a division made since the invention of printing, and made almost at hap-hazard; errors in the summaries prefixed to chapters; errors in parenthesis marks; and, lastly, errors of punctua tion, for which there are no marks in the original text.

"Dr. Hinds urges on the clergy the necessity of studying the original text, and supplying by their collective ministration the defects of the translation; but he does not express any opinion respecting the desirableness of a new version. Passing over the obvious fact that there are many Christian teachers ignorant of Greek, many more ignorant of Hebrew, it is hardly to be expected that all can or will be able to verify, by reference to the original, every passage they may have to quote in their discourses. It is, of course, desirable that clergymen should render themselves familiar with the sacred languages-but is it at all

* This remark illustrates Matt. xiii. 11:-"To you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven."

probable that they will do so universally, or even generally? We believe, with Dr. Hinds, that NO version can adequately convey the full force of the original; but what we have to consider is-not the imperfection so much as the incorrectness of the authorised version. With all its faults, it is a translation of great and unquestionable merit, and for this very reason, we are anxious to have its faults removed."

DIE KIRCHEN-REFORM. Zwei Briefe an die Neukatholiken und eine Anrede an die Elberfelder Gemeinde. VON W. EGGER. &C."Church Reform; being two Letters to the New Catholics and an Address to the Congregation at Elberfeld, by W. Egger, formerly Professor of Philosophy at the French University, and First Vicar (or Curate) at the Church Notre Dame, Paris."

THE author of this pamphlet was some years ago in London, and is no doubt still remembered by many of the New Church who had the pleasure of his acquaintance. Having been a Roman Catholic priest during the former part of his life, but having, in consequence of receiving the New Church doctrines, abandoned his connexion with Romanism, he came to England for a time, and afterwards went to Germany, and is now settled at Elberfeld. The extraordinary movement among the Roman Catholics of Germany has powerfully attracted his attention, as one of the striking signs of the age, and plainly indicative of a new state of things coming to pass in the Christian world. In order to give this movement a proper direction, he has published this intelligent and affectionate appeal to the "New Catholics," in which he endeavours to fix their attention upon the leading doctrines of the New Church. That there is a new spirit of inquiry awakened in the minds of men, in consequence of the religious changes now taking place, is reasonable to expect; and our friends in Germany do well to draw attention as much as possible to the doctrines of the New Jerusalem, in which alone the human mind can find permanent satisfaction and peace. We would adduce extracts from this pamphlet, but they are not of such a nature as to present anything new to readers in this country.

We are glad to state, that the eminently useful Tract on the "True Object of Christian Worship," &c. has been translated into German, and will, no doubt, be extensively circulated.