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apostolic canons, which pretend to have been collected by Clement of Rome, but in truth were a gradual production of the third and fourth centuries;* then the canons of the most important councils of the fourth and fifth centuries, including those of Sardica and Africa; and, lastly, the papal decretal letters from Siricius (385) to Anastasius II. (498). The Codex Dionysii was gradually enlarged by additions, genuine and spurious; and through the favour of the popes attained the authority of law almost throughout the west. Yet there were other collections also in use, particularly in Spain and north Africa.

Some fifty years after Dionysius, JOHN SCHOLASTICUS, previously an advocate, then presbyter at Antioch, and after 365 patriarch of Constantinople, published a collection of canons in Greek,† which surpassed the former in completeness and convenience of arrangement, and for this reason, as well as the eminence of the author, soon rose to universal authority in the Greek church. In it he gives eighty-five apostolic canons, and the ordinances of the councils of Ancyra (314) and Nice (325), down to that of Chalcedon (451), in fifty titles, according to the order of subjects. The second Trullan council (quinisextum, of 692), which passes with the Greeks for ecumenical, adopted the eighty-five apostolic canons, while it rejected the apostolic constitutions, because, like the canons of apostolic origin, they had been early adulterated. Thus arose the difference between the Greek and Latin churches in reference to the number of the so-called apostolic canons; the Latin church retaining only the fifty of the Dionysian collection.

The same John, while patriarch of Constantinople, compiled from the Novelles of Justinian a collection of the ecclesiastical state laws, or vóuor, as they were called in distinction from the synodal church laws or κανόνες. Practical wants then led to a union of the two, under the title of No

mocanon.

These books of ecclesiastical law served to complete and confirm the hierarchical organisation, to regulate the life of

lationis (the Prisca or Itala) offensus, he has undertaken a new translation of the Greek canons.

'Canones, qui dicuntur apostolorum, . . . quibus plurimi consensum non præbuere facilem;" implying that Dionysius himself, with many others, doubted their apostolic origin. In a later collection of canons by Dionysius, of which only the preface remains, he entirely omitted the apostolic canons, with the remark, "Quos non admisit universitas, ego quoque in hoc opere prætermisi." On the pseudo-apostolic canons and constitutions, comp. the well-known critical work of the Roman Catholic theologian, Drey.

↑ Zórrayμa zavów, concordia canonum, in the Bibliotheca of Justellus, tom. ii.

the clergy, and to promote order and discipline; but they tended also to fix upon the church an outward legalism, and to embarrass the spirit of progress.

ART. II.-Kurtz and Stewart on Sacrifice.

Sacrificial Worship of the Old Testament. By J. H. KURTZ, D.D., Professor of Theology at Dorpat. Translated by JAMES MARTIN, B.A. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark. 1863.

The Tree of Promise; or the Mosaic Economy a Dispensation of the Covenant of Grace. By the late Rev. ALEXANDER STEWART, Cromarty. Edinburgh: W. P. Kennedy. 1864.

IT

[T is recorded of Dr Arnold, that while at one time he was discouraged from prosecuting the study of Hebrew by his notions of the uncertainty of the best knowledge gained about it, the interpretation of the prophets seeming to him almost guess work; yet subsequently he was led to modify this opinion by observing the general coincidence of two men so different as Lowth and Gesenius in the interpretation of Isaiah, which he regarded as a proof that the real meaning of the Hebrew Scriptures could be satisfactorily ascertained. A somewhat similar conviction, in regard to the interpretation of the Mosaic ceremonies, is likely to be produced by the perusal of the two works above named, on any who might be inclined to doubt the possibility of a clear and certain knowledge of the typical meaning of the old economy. Many are apt to regard with suspicion the very mention of typology; and to view the investigation of the import of the ancient ceremonial worship as a mere play of imagination, in which there is nothing to restrain within the bounds of truth and certainty the arbitrary ingenuity or wayward fancy of the expositor; a land of clouds, which may be likened to a camel, or a whale, or anything the spectator pleases, but where no solid and well-founded knowledge can be attained. But when there appears such a general agreement on this subject, between two men so diverse in mental character, and in all their intellectual and literary surroundings, as Dr Kurtz of Dorpat and the late Mr Stewart of Cromarty; we cannot fail to see in this a proof that the investigation of the subject is not mere guess work or play of the fancy, but that there must be certain guiding principles capable of being ascertained and followed, which lead independent thinkers to results so generally harmonious. For certainly these two authors, the German and the Scottish divine, are as

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diverse from one another as could well be imagined, as unlike as Germany and Scotland.

Dr Kurtz is well known in this country by his valuable writings on Church History and the History of the Old Covenant, to which latter work the treatise before us is a sort of appendix, the subject of it forming an integral part of his design, only discussed in a fuller manner, and given to the world in a separate form, on account of the peculiar importance of the subject, and the many questions that have been agitated about it. He is distinguished as an author by extensive learning and thorough knowledge of his subject, a deep and sincere regard for the authority of Scripture, soundness of judgment, clearness in the expression of his views, candour in stating, and acuteness in combating, those of his opponents. But he has nothing of the poetical in his intellectual constitution; there is in his book none of that play of imagination, nor those flashes of genius, that light up a subject to our minds, and betray the hand of a master. On the other hand, it is precisely in these latter qualities that the Scottish divine excels, He may not have had the depth and extent of erudition of the German author; though of that, from the popular and fragmentary nature of his work, we have no means of fully judging; he may not be always so sober and judicious in his views; but he possessed, in a rare degree, the vision and the faculty divine, the intuitive penetration in taking in at a glance the meaning of the symbols he is interpreting, and the instinctive sagacity that guided him, as it should seem not by a minute and elaborate analysis, but at once to their interpretation. Hugh Miller said of him :

"That in which he excelled all men we ever knew, was the analogical faculty, the power of detecting and demonstrating occult resemblances. He could read off as if by intuition, not by snatches and fragments, but as a consecutive whole, that old revelation of type and symbol which God first gave to man; and when privileged to listen to him, we have been constrained to recognise, in the evident integrity of the reading, and the profound and consistent theological system which the pictorial record conveyed, a demonstration of the divinity of its origin, not less powerful and convincing than the demonstration of the other and more familiar departments of the Christian evidences. Compared with other theologians in this department, we have felt under his ministry as if,-when admitted to the company of some party of modern savans employed in deciphering a hieroglyphic-covered obelisk of the desert, and here successful in discovering the meaning of an insulated sign, and there of a detached symbol,—we had been suddenly joined by some sage of the olden time, to whom the mysterious inscription was but a piece of common language written in a familiar alphabet, and who could read off fluently and as a whole what the others could but darkly and painfully guess at in detached and broken parts."

This description is fully borne out by the volume before us. Notwithstanding the disadvantages under which it suffers in being a posthumous publication, and that too of what was never intended to see the light, consisting of mere notes and outlines of a course of sermons, many of which have manifestly met with the destruction he modestly intended for them all, leaving his treatment of some branches of the subject very scanty and imperfect; yet it has, on the whole, a unity and completeness, and a freshness of interest, which, considering the circumstances, is very remarkable. As an example of his power of insight into the meaning and bearing of Scripture in a historical subject, we may mention the chapters on the rebellion of Korah, and, on a more theoretical and doctrinal subject, those on the ritual of the red heifer. On the whole, in comparing the two authors we have placed together, Dr Kurtz gives us more the impression of learning and judgment, Mr Stewart that of genius. If the work of the former is more satisfying to the mind, that of the latter is incomparably more suggestive. Altogether it would be difficult to find two men studying and writing on the same subject, whose natural cast of mind and turn of thought are so different as these two.

Moreover, their position and circumstances are also thoroughly dissimilar; and the work of each bears the impress of the circumstances of its production, for they are as unlike as Germany and Scotland. It is from Germany alone, perhaps, that we can expect, in the present state of theological science, a work like. that of Dr Kurtz, of such varied and exhaustive learning, patient industry, and exact philological criticism; but, certainly it is only in Scotland that we can meet with discourses of such depth and power of thought as Stewart's, addressed to and appreciated by a popular audience. For while, on the continent, theology has its seat almost exclusively in the professor's chair, in this country, and especially in Scotland, it is quite as much at home in the pulpit; and the works before us illustrate this difference in a remarkable way. Unquestionably the facilities that are afforded in Germany for an exclusive attention being given to speculative study apart from the distractions of practical work do possess many advantages, and foster a higher class of theological literature than we can boast of. But, on the other hand, we cannot help thinking that, on the whole, the advantages of the opposite plan which prevails among us are decidedly greater. It gives a healthier, because more practical, tone to theological study itself; and prevents it from wasting its energies in endless subtleties and barren speculations; and its effect upon the popular teaching of the pulpit is most salutary. If the blending together of the theoretical and the practical elements imparts to our theological literature

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a more popular and hortatory character than is deemed consistent with the requirements of criticism and learning; there can be no doubt, on the other hand, that to the solid and masculine nature of our popular religious instruction, Scotland owes in no small degree the intelligence and interest in religious subjects that are so widely diffused among her people. If German theology had not been so exclusively a concern of the schools, and not of the pulpit, and the ordinary work of the ministry; it is probable that the reaction against the rationalism of a former age in favour of evangelical truth would not have been so much confined to scholars and divines as we are afraid it has been; and the church would have been able much more effectually to secure and retain a hold on the mass of the people. But whatever may be the comparative merits of the German and the Scottish style of theological study; it must be borne in mind, in comparing the two volumes before. us, that this characteristic difference places the Scottish divine at a certain disadvantage, when we compare his work in a theological point of view with that of the German professor. The latter was intended for students and divines alone; the former was delivered in the form of popular discourses to a plain provincial congregation; in the latter, accordingly, we find every position fully and elaborately reasoned out; in the former, we have on a very great many points only the conclusions stated, with sometimes a hint or outline given of the line of argument by which they are reached or defended, but often not even that. In a word, we must bear in mind the different objects the authors had in view; that of Kurtz being to a large extent controversial and speculative, to prove and defend what he holds to be the true view of the Mosaic sacrifices against the various false or defective theories that prevail on the subject; that of Stewart being entirely practical and expository, to convey to the unlearned a clear idea of the meaning and lessons of the Levitical rites; and as we do not blame in Kurtz the absence of the frequent practical considerations and references to New Testament themes with which Stewart's book is enriched, so we need not impute it as a fault to Stewart, that the more full discussion of many points of interest did not fall within the scope of his plan.

It gives an additional interest to the comparison we propose to institute between the two works, to bear in mind also that they are not only the production of men who, in their mental character, their position and circumstances, and their design in treating the subject, were very different; but also, that they belong virtually to different ages in the history of theology. For although they have been given to the English public almost at the same time, it is of course well-known that the highly gifted