exact state of the case as to the judg- the progressive development of that ment of eminent scholars. Opinions human nature which was to be sancare divided in regard to this expression. tified by him, but sanctified it in ac"Writers of the first ability" also feel cordance with its natural course of deconstrained, against the influences of velopment, and in all its several stages. their religious training and ecclesiastical 'He came to redeem all by himself; relations, after laborious examination all who, through him, are regenerated of the works of Irenæus, and comparison to God; infants, little children, boys, of this passage with his current of young men and old. Hence he passed thought and his system respecting the through every age, and for the infants recovery of men by Jesus Christ, to con. he became an infant, sanctifying the clude that it does not recognize infant infants; among the little children he baptism. It will be most satisfactory became a little child, sanctifying those to have a few specimens, showing the who belong to this age, and at the same diverse views which have been given, time presenting to them an example of and the tendency of opinions. piety, of well-doing, and of obedience; among the young men he became a young man, that he might set them an example, and sanctify them to the Lord.' It is here especially important to observe, that infants (infantes) are expressly distinguished from children (parvulis) whom Christ could also benefit by his example; and that they are represented as capable of receiving from Christ, who had appeared in their age, nothing more than an objective sanctification. This sanctification becomes theirs, in so far as they are regenerated by Christ to God. Regeneration and baptism are in Irenæus intimately connected; and it is difficult to conceive how the term regeneration can be employed in reference to this age, to denote anything else than baptism.

Neander, in his History of the Christian Religion and Church, vol. i. p. 311, (Torrey's translation), speaks thus: "Baptism was administered at first only to adults, as men were accustomed to conceive baptism and faith as strictly connected. We have all reason for not deriving infant baptism from apostolic institution; and the recognition of it which followed somewhat later as an apostolical tradition, serves to confirm this hypothesis.* Irenæus is the first church teacher in whom we find any allusion to infant baptism; and in his mode of expressing himself on the subject, he leads us at the same time to recognize its connexion with the essence of the Christian consciousness; he testifies of the profound Christian idea, out of which infant baptism arose, and which procured for it at length universal recognition. Irenæus is wishing to show that Christ did not interrupt

It is worthy of notice, that while some writers reiterate with positiveness the traditionary assumption of the original existence of infant bap. tism, as a Christian rite, such scholars as Neander, Schleiermacher, Semisch, Matthies, &c., speak with

the utmost freeness of the introduction of infant

baptism at a date subsequent to that of the apostles. They speak according to the true light of history; such is their learning, and such their literary can

dour, that it costs them no more effort than it would to speak of any well-known fact, of which they had become personally assured.

Infant baptism, then, appears here as the medium through which the principle of sanctification, imparted by Christ to human nature from its earliest development, became appropriated to children."

Matthies (Expositio Baptismatis, p. 189), says, "The matter turns on this

whether to be born again signifies baptism. It can by no means be doubted that Irenæus is accustomed to call baptism a new birth unto God. Still, this writer does not teach that in his age infants were always baptized; rather,

brought forward as recognizing the bap- | coming to them an example. Then, too,

tism of infants, Irenæus is maintaining that Christ appeared as he really was, and passed through the various stages of human life, sanctifying, it is added, sanctifying every age by the likeness that it had to himself; for he came to save all by himself; all, I say, since by him they are regenerated unto God-infants and little ones, and children, and youths, and elder persons. Therefore he came through the several ages, and for infants was made an infant, sanctify- | ing infants; among little ones, a little one, sanctifying those of that age; and, at the same time, being to them an example of piety, uprightness, and obedience; among the youth, a youth, becoming an example to the youths, and sanctifying them to the Lord; thus also an elderly person, among elderly persons, that he might be a perfect master among all, not only in respect to the presentation of truth, but also in respect to age, sanctifying at the same time also the elderly persons, and be

he passed through even unto death, that he might be the first born from the dead, himself holding the primacy of all things, the prince of life, superior to all, and preceding all. B. ii., c. 22, §4.

"What Irenæus thought of baptism must be gathered from the passages in which he is speaking of the subject. But that he is speaking of it in this passage, there is no sufficient evidence. For a mere resemblance in one or two words to certain terms sometimes used in connexion with baptism, falls very far short of proving the point assumed. The context is against it, for the context directs our attention to Christ, and what he himself personally came to do for the human family. It is by Him, and not by baptism, that they are here said to be renewed, born anew, or regenerated. And parallel passages are against it, for they abundantly confirm the senses which I have given as being the true sense of the passage before us.'

A FEW minor suggestions as to prophetical interpretation may fitly follow the more general discussion which occupied our last number. There are modes of representing truth which, if not peculiar to the prophets, certainly characterize their writings in an extraordinary degree-in a far larger degree than they do any other compositions with which we are familiar.

The most prominent of these is one which, we think, will be best designated in the first instance by the employment of logical terms. The prophets are in the habit constantly of denoting a genus by a species, or by an enumeration of

different species. We may explain this in non-technical language by saying that where they would express some general truth, they are accustomed to put forward either some particular aspect of this truth, or a variety of such aspects. The peculiarity of the case is that we are to conceive of these particularizations not always as the actual realities which will hereafter be verified in history, but simply as possible realities. Before, in other words, we can safely translate them into matters for definite expectation or hope, it is requisite that we should generalize their import, and the fulfilment, when it

arrives, shall, perhaps, be some new | be confined to the more wealthy idolaters development of the promise or pre-of the nation-to those who had been diction, rather than the one specified.

able to afford the cost of gold or silver idols; nor does the prediction restrict either them or others to one particular mode of marking their abhorrence of idolatry; a removal of the former signs and instruments of apostacy, in whatever way, is the thing denoted. The Ephesian converts who, in the apostles' times (see Acts xix. 19) publicly burnt their "curious books," would be as good an exemplification of the religious reform here pre

idols. We will endeavour to make the importance of this observation evident by another instance taken from the same. Part of the prophecy quoted

Let us first take an example of the substitution of a single species for its genus. We will go no farther, in the selection of our instances, whether for the illustration of this or the other idiom, than to the writings of Isaiah. Foretelling, in ch. xxx. 20, a time of future religious prosperity, the prophet says, "Thy teachers shall not be removed into a corner any more, but thine eyes shall see thy teachers." Now, to inter-dicted as any flingers-away of literal pret this language literally, we must suppose that the religious teachers of the Jews had been obliged to seclude themselves from observation-a fact of which we have no evidence. Something from Joel (see Joel ii. 28) by the like it had occurred in the neighbouring kingdom in the time of Ahab (see 1 Kings xviii. 4), but there the calamity would seem to have been little felt. For religious teachers, however, to withdraw into seclusion is one phase of interruption of religious privileges, and we know not whether more than this general case can be said to be here contemplated. The following verse will afford us an example less deniable, "And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand and when ye turn to the left." ver. 21. Here we have a promise of future moral and religious guidance-a promise which would be equally fulfilled, whether the direction given were by audible utterances according to the letter of the text, or by secret monitions according to its spirit. following verse the prophet proceeds, "Ye shall defile also the covering of thy graven images of silver, and the ornament of thy molten images of gold; thou shalt cast them away as a menstruous cloth; thou shalt say unto it, Get thee hence," ver. 22. Now certainly the applicability of this promise is not to

VOL. XV.-FOURTH SERIES.

In the

apostle Peter in his Pentecostal discourse, foretold that in the days of the Messiah the old men of the church should "dream dreams." (See Acts ii. 19.) Now it has been remarked that though we have in the Acts sundry accounts of visions appearing to apostles or apostolic men, we have no single instance of a dream. It is not necessary that there should have been one, nor is there any failure of the prediction on this account. All that the prophecy engages for is satisfied by the fact that the Divine Spirit at that time made known his will to his servants by new and extraordinary methods - that divine revelations were more largely and variously diffused.

This instance affords us a convenient point of transition to the elucidation of the other kind of idiom we mentioned, sc. where a genus is broken up into a number of species. "Visions" and "dreams" are special forms of divine revelation generally; accordingly, as we said, new revelations, of whatever kind, will acquit the obligation involved in their mention. Let us now, recurring to Isaiah, take an example where the particulars specified are numerous

and diverse. The following prediction | cypresses, and sycamores, does not

imply that these would escape the visitation; a few are taken as a sample of the whole, and could we imagine a period to arrive when the latter class of trees would supply more materials for pride and vainglory than the former, it is just these which would then experience the stroke. Impiety is wont to assume different expressions at different times, and it would be altogether a hasty conclusion, because we may, at any given season, be clear from one manifestation of it, to infer that therefore we are clear from all. This was

will be found in ch. ii. 12—16. “For the day of the Lord of hosts shall be upon every one that is proud and lofty, and upon every one that is lifted up, and he shall be brought low and upon all the cedars of Lebanon, that are high and lifted up, and upon all the oaks of Bashan, and upon all the high mountains, and upon all the hills that are lifted up, and upon every high tower, and upon every fenced wall, and upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon all pleasant pictures." Not stopping now to inquire what is the precise reference of these emblematical representations, the error into which the Jews fell when we would put it to the intelligent reader whether more is really signified by the eight species of elevated objects here named in succession, or by the four pairs of such species than by the general description which precedes them. We think our translators have been unfortunate in introducing into this description a word which limits it to living and intelligent agents: that is to say, for the "every one," "every one," and "he," we should have preferred “ all,”

they compared themselves with their forefathers. (See Matt. xxiii. 29, 30.) They felicitated themselves on their purity from all participation in the stain of prophet-murder, just when they were about to imbrue their hands in the blood of one greater than the prophets. They could scarcely have indulged in this self-gratulation had they remembered to distinguish between an inward evil and its outward manifestation. We must, in interpreting those parts of scripture where special forms of error or vice are brought before us, ascend to the root or principle whence they spring, and, according to the circumstances of the case, generalize the rebuke, the denunciation, or the promise.

Another example of this process of generalization will be, perhaps, only too obvious. We have in Isaiah, ch. liv. 11, 12, a picture of the glory awaiting the church under the image of a mansion

‚” “all,” and “it ;" but, this alteration effected, we find nothing in ver. 13-16 more than an amplification of the idea contained in ver. 12. It would be no detraction from the truth of the prediction were these towers or fenced walls (or what they represent) left standing at the time of the general fulfilment; for these, with the particulars which precede and follow, are but specimens of high and elevated objects, as a class of grounds of confidence and boasting. It would be as much a ful-or a palace. "O thou afflicted," says filment of the prediction, supposing for a moment literal particulars denoted, were the judgment in question to strike all the cedars and spare the oaks, or to strike all the oaks and spare the cedars, as should it indiscriminately level both. The silence observed respecting all other trees-respecting, e. g. pine-trees,

the prophet, "tossed with tempest and not comforted, behold I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and lay thy foundations with sapphires. And I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones." Now here, even should we preserve for a time the beau