THE

CHRISTIAN EXAMINER

AND

RELIGIOUS MISCELLANY.

MARCH, 1846.

ART. I.-STUART ON THE APOCALYPSE.*

PROFESSOR STUART has long occupied a large space in the theological literature of this country. He has exerted a wide influence, both by his writings and his oral instructions. He has been a teacher of teachers, and a multitude of disciples brought up at his feet have promulgated his expositions of the Scriptures in almost every quarter of the globe. His life has been prolonged beyond the average of the life of man, and he still continues to bear fruit in old age.

He is one of the most industrious men of our times. He is truly German in his patience of labor and his power of producing books. He is reaping the fruit of all this industry in the enjoyment of an extensive reputation on both sides of the Atlantic. The sphere to which his studies have been principally confined is the most important of this period, and indeed of all periods of the Church, the exposition of the Scriptures, the interpretation of the words of Christ and his Apostles, as well as the

* A Commentary on the Apocalypse. By MOSES STUART, Professor of Sacred Literature in the Theological Seminary at Andover, Mass. Andover. 1845. 2 vols. 8vo. pp. 504, 504.

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teachers of the elder dispensation, the sources to us of all religious opinion, the law of all duty, the foundation of all hope. He, who stands thus at the fountain-head, occupies the most commanding position in forming the religious opinions of the Christian world.

The position occupied by Professor Stuart has been the more important, as the foundation of the Seminary at Andover constituted an epoch in the theological history of this country. It was the period of transition from metaphysical to biblical divinity, from the abstract reasonings and speculations of Edwards, Hopkins and Emmons, to the, investigation of the real meaning of the word of God, from bodies, or rather dry anatomies, of divinity, to the lively oracles of truth. This was beginning right. It was unavoidable, that good should grow out of it. It was the commencement of progress. The bringing of so many inquiring minds together, too, could not fail to liberalize them all. Had the old method been continued, of devolving the office of theological instruction upon the pastors of churches, with their meagre libraries, imperfect qualification, and absorption in professional duties, the old systems of school divinity might have been taught for ages, and real Christianity have continued to be overlaid and perverted by the traditions of the elders.

The Andover Theological Seminary has been said to owe its existence to the desire which was felt by the Orthodox of New England, to check the tendency that was becoming manifest, towards a more liberal theology; and it was thought by the friends of a more liberal theology, that such would be the effect of its establishment. But the event promises to disappoint them both. Never did the Orthodoxy of New England receive a more fatal blow. There has been in that institution, since the beginning, a constant tendency towards a more liberal theology; and those who rejoiced most over its foundation, have lived long enough to bewail its departure from what they esteemed the faith that was "once delivered to the saints." It has been mourned over in more than one school of the prophets and by more than one theological journal, as far gone from its original rectitude, as quite given over to latitudinarianism, and fast verging towards the worst errors of Cambridge and Germany.

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Professor Stuart has had rare opportunity for study. He has had access to one of the best theological libraries in the country, with power to command any book which he might need for the investigation of any subject. The works of the Fathers, the judicious labors of the divines of England, the massive learning of Germany, have all been open to his examination. The correspondence of living scholars, too, has not been inaccessible for consultation and advice. With these great opportunities, what has Professor Stuart accomplished?

He has made himself a Hebrew scholar, and written a Grammar of the Hebrew language, a work of vast mechanical labor. It is a good Grammar, and with other works of a similar character, is a valuable auxiliary in forming a verbal critic. He has written some criticism on the Old Testament, but his most partial friends must confess, that he has left that glorious, but unexplained book just where he found it. He has told us how we may ascertain the grammatical construction, and perhaps the literal meaning of its words, but the great and momentous questions, which rise up in the mind of every man of thought, as he reads that ancient record, he leaves untouched.

When the controversy sprang up between the Unitarians and Orthodox, after the line was distinctly drawn which separated them, Professor Stuart appeared as an able defender of the Trinitarian hypothesis. The discussion belonged to his department of theology, for the Trinity, if it can be supported at all, must be drawn from the text of the Scriptures. There was more learning in his defence of that dogma than in any other which has been published in this country. What was better than all, there was more candor and fairness in his defence. He had afterwards the ingenuousness, rare among theologians, to retract some of the positions he had taken in his first publication.

The next thing we recollect to have seen of his was a pamphlet on the "Eternal Generation of the Son of God," written in answer to Dr. Miller of Princeton. This was really a masterly performance, one of the most learned and able that have ever appeared in this country. It puts it beyond doubt, by the amplest citations from the Fathers, that the Ante-Nicene Christian writers to a man assert the

derived nature of Christ. Of course they were all Unitarians. This therefore we conceive to be one of the best Unitarian tracts that have ever been written. We know of at least one person, who feels greatly indebted to this work for his transition from Orthodoxy to Unitarianism.

The next publication of his that we recollect, was “A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews." It is a work of great research, and must have cost the author much time and labor. The mere manual labor of writing it must have been prodigious. Almost six hundred pages of closely printed matter are filled, to elucidate about twenty. There is abundant recitation of the opinions of the Fathers, Greek and Latin; likewise of German commentators. But the theological student, instead of being assisted by such a mass of materials, is rather confused, and rises from its perusal more in doubt than ever. The writer expends vast labor to prove a thing that never can be demonstrated, that Paul was the author of the Epistle. The Greek scholar, indeed, feels that the very style is a sufficient proof that it could not have come from Paul. The Epistle to the Hebrews afforded scope for the most consummate powers of criticism, and still affords it. It is the reconciliation of the Christology of the Old Testament with the Christology of the New. It is an attempt to show that the spiritual glories of the true Messiah far transcend the material and earthly glories of the ideal Messiah of the Judaic expectations. It brings up all the great questions of the criticism of the New Testament, the quotation of the language of the Old Testament by the writers of the New, the distinction between doctrines and opinions, the difference between logical proof and analogical illustration, the relation of the Epistles to the Gospels, the question how far there is such a thing in the sacred writers as the argumentum ad hominem -reasoning upon premises that are conceded by the opponent, without regard to their substantive truth. These are the great questions which are brought up by the study of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and they lie far deeper than any verbal criticism, and verbal criticism without settling them, or without some attempt to settle them, is comparatively unimportant. Professor Stuart well knew that he was in the neighborhood of these great questions, and

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sometimes shows that he had revolved them in his mind. But to have broached them, would have raised such a storm in his quarter of the Theological world as he seems to have been unwilling to encounter. One of the above subjects we know must have occupied his thoughts, - the question whether the writers of the New Testament did, or did not, quote the Old Testament in the way of accommodation; for he had given to the world a collection of the texts in the New Testament quoted from the Old, with the Greek of the Septuagint and the Hebrew of the original. He tells us in the advertisement, that "the subject, as every interpreter well knows, is replete with difficulties." And for what is he placed with means of investigation in his hands, but to clear up those difficulties, or at least to do all that he can to throw light upon the subject? The critic who gives dark and doubtful answers to such fundamental inquiries as this, deserts his pupil at the very point where he most needs his assistance.

We know that he may have said within himself, that by a prudent silence the discussion of these great questions might be put off for a while longer. But they must come up, and at no distant period, in the strongest of the strongholds of Orthodoxy itself. They are the questions of the present day, and not those of mere verbal criticism; the human mind has reached them; and any Commentary which leaves them out, or passes them over, is calculated for the ages gone by, and not for the edification of these times in which we live.

The next considerable work of Professor Stuart, was his "Commentary on Paul's Epistle to the Romans." This Epistle has always been claimed by Calvinism as its strong-hold. The Orthodox world has agreed to consider it a discussion of the points at issue between the followers of the Genevan reformer and the Arminians, original sin, total depravity, imputation, and vicarious punishment. Election and reprobation follow in the train. But there is a preliminary question, whether these doctrines are made the subjects of direct teaching in that Epistle at all. The soundest critics have maintained, that the main subject of Paul in this composition was, to meet a practical question of that day, the amalgamation of those who had been Jews