cuse for writing at all on such a subject, than the fact that I early appreciated his greatness as a Theologian, and for many years had the happiness of discussing frequently with him his general views on scientific Divinity. It was one of my earliest convictions respecting him, that distinguished as he was in many departments of literature and practical philosophy, he was most distinguished as an interpreter of Scripture; and the lapse of years, and an intimate knowledge of his mind and character, have but confirmed this conviction. As an expounder of the word of God, Arnold always has seemed to me to be truly and emphatically great. I do not say this on account of the extent and importance of what he actually achieved in this department; for, unfortunately, he never gave himself up fully to it; he never worked at it, as the great business of his literary life. I shall ever deplore his not having done so ; and I well remember how sharp was the struggle, when he had to choose between the interpretation of Scripture and the Roman History; and how the choice was determined, not by the consideration of what his peculiar talent was most calculated for performing successfully, but by regard to extrinsic matters, the prejudice of the clergy against him, the unripeness of England for a free and unfettered discussion of Scriptural Exegesis, and the injury which he might be likely to do his general usefulness. And, as I then did my utmost to determine his labours to the field of Theology, so now I must deeply regret the heavy loss, which I cannot but think that the cause of sound interpretation-and, as founded upon it, of doctrinal Theology-has sustained in England. The amount, then of interpretation which he has published to the world, though not inconsiderable, is still small in respect of what there remained to be done by him; but Arnold has furnished a method-has established principles and rules for interpreting Scripture, which, with God's blessing, will be the guide of many a future labourer, and promise to produce fruit of inestimable value. In his writings the student will find a path opened before him-a manner of handling the word of God-a pointing out of the end to be held in view-and a light thrown on the road that leads to it, that will amply repay the deepest meditation on them, and will (if I may say so without presumption) furnish results full of the richest truth, and destined to exercise a commanding influence on the conduct and determination of religious controversy hereafter.

It must be carefully borne in mind, that there are two methods of reading Scripture, perfectly distinct in their objects and nature: the one is practical, the other scientific; the one aims at the edification of the reader, the other at the enlightenment of his understanding; the one seeks the religious truth of Scripture as bearing on the inquirer's heart and personal feelings, the other the right comprehension of the literary and intellectual portions of the Bible. That Arnold read and meditated on the word of God as a disciple of Christ for his soul's daily edification; that it was to him the word of life, the fountain of his deepest feelings, the rule of his life; that he dwelt in the humblest, most reverential, most prayerful study of its simplest truths, and under the abiding influence of their power, as they were assimilated into his spiritual being by faith; that Arnold felt and did all this, the whole tenor of his life, and every page of your biography, amply attest. Those, who were most intimate with him, will readily recall the mingled feelings of reverence and devotion with

which he would, in his lonelier hours, repeat to himself such passages as the raising of Lazarus, or the description of the Judgment; nor will they easily forget the deep emotion, with which he was agitated, when, on a comparison having been made in his family circle, which seemed to place St. Paul above St. John, he burst into tears, and in his own earnest and loving tone, repeated one of the verses from St. John, and begged that the comparison might never again be made. It would be easy to multiply illustrations of this feeling; but one more will suffice. Finding that one of his children had been greatly shocked and overcome by the first sight of death, he tenderly endeavoured to remove the feeling which had been awakened, and opening a Bible, pointed to the words, "Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie, and the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself." Nothing, he said, to his mind, afforded us such comfort when shrinking from the outward accompaniments of death,—the grave, the grave-clothes, the loneliness, as the thought that all these had been around our Lord himself, round Him who died, and is now alive for evermore.

But I am here concerned with the other, and strictly intellectual, process; the scientific exposition of the Scriptures as a collection of ancient books full of the mightiest intellectual truths; as the record of God's dealings with man; and the historical monument of the most wonderful facts in the history of the world. For the office of such an interpreter, Arnold possessed rare and eminent qualifications: learning, piety, judgment, historical tact, sagacity. The excellence of his method may be considered under two heads:-1. He had a very remarkable, I should rather say (if I might) wonderful discernment for the divine, as incorporated in the human element of Scripture; and the recognition of these two separate and most distinct elements,-the careful separation of the two, so that each shall be subject to its own laws, and determined on its own principles, was the foundation of the grand characteristic principle of his Exegesis. Our Lord's words, that we must "render to Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's, and to God the things which are God's," seemed to him to be of universal application, and nowhere more so, than in the interpretation of Scripture. And his object was not, according to the usual practice, to establish by its means certain religious truths, but to study its contents themselves to end, in short, instead of beginning with doctrine. Indeed, doctrine, in the strict sense, doctrine, as pure religious theory, such as it is exhibited in scientific articles and creeds, never was his object. Doctrine, in its practical and religious side, as bearing on religious feeling and character, not doctrine, in the sense of a direct disclosure of spiritual or material esssences, as they are in themselves, was all that he endeavoured to find, all that he believed could be found, in the teaching of Scripture.

First of all he approached the human side of the Bible in the same real historical spirit, with the same methods, rules, and principles, as he did Thucydides. He recognized in the writers of the Scriptures the use of a human instrument-language; and this he would ascertain and fix, as in any other authors, by the same philological rules. Further, too, the Bible presents an assemblage of historical events, it announces an historical religion; and the historical element Arnold judged of historically by

the established rules of history, substantiating the general veracity of Scripture even amidst occasional inaccuracies of detail, and proposing to himself, for his special end here, the reproduction, in the language and forms belonging to our own age, and therefore familiar to us, of the exact mode of thinking, feeling, and acting which prevailed in the days gone by.

But was this all? Is the Bible but a common book, recording, indeed, more remarkable occurrences, but in itself possessed of no higher authority than a faithful and trustworthy historian like Thucydides? Nothing could be farther from Dr. Arnold's feeling. In the Bible, he found and acknowledged an oracle of God-a positive and supernatural revelation made to man, an immediate inspiration of the Spirit. No conviction was more deeply seated in his nature; and this conviction placed an impassa ble gulf between him and all rationalizing divines. Only it is very important to observe how this fact, in respect of scientific order, presented itself to his mind. He came upon it historically; he did not start with any preconceived theory of inspiration; but rather in studying the writings of those who were commissioned by God to preach his Gospel to the world, he met with the fact, that they claimed to be sent from God, to have a message from Him, to be filled with His Spirit. Any accurate, precise, and sharply defined theory of inspiration, to the best of my knowledge, Arnold had not; and, if he had been asked to give one, I think he would have answered that the subject did not admit of one. I think he would have been content to realize the feelings of those who heard the Apostles; he would have been sure, on one side, that there was a voice of God in them; whilst, on the other, he would have believed that prob ably no one in the apostolic age could have defined the exact limits of that inspiration. And this I am sure I may affirm with certainty, that never did a student feel his positive faith, his sure confidence that the Bible was the word of God, more indestructible, than in Arnold's hands. He was conscious that, whilst Arnold interpreted Scripture as a scholar, an antiquarian, and an historian, and that in the spirit and with the development of modern science, he had also placed the supernatural inspiration of the sacred writers on an imperishable historical basis, a basis that would be proof against any attack which the most refined modern learning could direct against it. Those only who are fully aware of the importance of harmonizing the progress of knowledge with Christianity, or rather, of asserting, amidst every possible form of civilization, the objective truths of Christianity and its life-giving power, can duly appreciate the value of the confidence inspired by the firm faith of a man, at once liberal, unprejudiced, and, in the estimation of even the most worldly men, possessed of high historical ability.

II. But I have not yet mentioned the greatest merit of Arnold's Exegesis; it took a still higher range. It was not confined to a mere reproduction of a faithful image of the words and deeds recorded in the Bible, such as they were spoken, done, and understood at the times when they severally occurred. It is a great matter to perceive what Christianity was, such as it was felt and understood to be by the hearers of the Apostles. But the Christian prophet and interpreter had in his eyes a still more exalted office. God's dealings with any particular generation of men are but the application of the eternal truths of His Providence to their partic

ular circumstances, and the form of that application has at different times greatly varied. Here it was that Arnold's most characteristic eminence lay. He seemed to me to possess the true xaptopa, the very spiritual gift of yvos, having an insight not only into the actual form of the religion of any single age, but into the meaning and substance of God's moral government generally; a vision of the eternal principles by which it is guided; and such a profound understanding of their application, as to be able to set forth God's manifold wisdom, as manifested at divers times, and under circumstances of the most opposite kind; nay, still more, to reconcile with His unchangeable attributes those passages in Holy Writ at which infidels had scoffed, and which pious men had read in reverential silence. Thus he vindicated God's command to Abraham to sacrifice his son, and to the Jews to exterminate the nations of Canaan, by explaining the principles on which these commands were given, and their reference to the moral state of those to whom they were addressed; thereby educing light out of darkness, unravelling the thread of God's religious education of the human race, from its earliest infancy down to the fulness of times, and holding up God's marvellous counsels to the devout wonder and meditation of the thoughtful believer. As I said at first, Arnold has rather pointed out the path, than followed it to any extent himself; the student will find in his writings the principles of his method rather than its development. They are scattered, more or less, throughout all his writings, but more especially in the Appendix to vol. ii. of the Sermons, the Preface to the third, the Notes to the fourth, and the Two Sermons on Prophecy. These last furnish to the student a very instructive instance of his method; for whilst he will recognize there the double sense of Prophecy, and much besides that was held by the old commentators, he will also perceive how different an import they assume, as treated by Arnold; and how his wide and elevated view could find in Prophecy a firm foundation for a Christian's hope and faith, without their being coupled with that extravagance with which the study of the Prophecies has been so often united. His Sermons, also, generally exhibit very striking illustrations of his faculty to discern general truth under particular circumstances, and his power to apply it in a very altered, nay, often opposite form, to cases of a different nature; thus making God's word an ever-living oracle, furnishing to every age those precise rules, principles, and laws of conduct which its actual circumstances may require.

I must not forget to add, that his principles of interpretation were of slow and natural growth: he arrived at them gradually, and in some instances, even reluctantly; and one of the most elaborate of his early sermons, which he had intended to have preached before the University, was in defence of what is called the verbal inspiration of Scripture. But, since I became acquainted with him, I have never known him to maintain any thing but what I have here tried to set forth. It is very possible that much of what I have here said may appear to many to be exaggerated; But I know not how else to express adequately my firm confidence that the more the principles which guided Arnold's interpretation of Scripture are studied in his writings, the more will their power to throw light on the depths of God's wisdom be appreciated. Yours, ever, B. PRICE.

3. Lastly, his letters will have already shown how early he had conceived the idea of the work, to which he chiefly looked

forward, as that of his old age, on Christian Politics, or Church and State. But it is only a wider survey of his general views that will show how completely this was the centre round which were gathered not only all his writings, but all his thoughts and actions on social subjects, and which gave him a distinct position amongst English divines, not only of the present, but of almost all preceding generations. We must remember how the Greek science, oltin, of which the English word "politics," or even political science, is so inadequate a translation-society in its connexion with the highest welfare of men-exhibited to him the great problem which every educated man was called upon to solve. We must conceive how lofty were the aspirations which he entertained of what Christianity was intended to effect, and what, if rightly applied, it might yet effect, far beyond any thing which has yet been seen, or is ordinarily conceived, for the moral and social restoration of the world. We must enter into the keen sense of the startling difficulty which he felt to be presented by its comparative failure. "The influence of Christianity no doubt has made itself felt in all those countries which have professed it; but ought not its effects," he urged, "to have been far more perceptible than they are, now that nearly eighteen hundred years have elapsed since the kingdom of God was first proclaimed? Is it, in fact, the kingdom of God in which we are now living? Are we at this hour living under the law, or under grace?" Every thing, in short, which he thought or said on this subject, was in answer to what he used to call the the very question of questions; the question which occurs in the earliest of all his works, and which he continued to ask of himself and of others as long as he lived. "Why, amongst us in this very country, is the mighty work of raising up God's kingdom stopped; the work of bringing every thought and word and deed to the obedience of Christ?" (Serm. vol. i. p. 115.)

The great cause of this hinderance to the triumph of Christianity, he believed to be (to adopt his own distinction) in the corruption not of the Religion of Christ, but of the Church of Christ. The former he felt had on the whole done its work"Its truths," he said, “are to be sought in the Scriptures alone, and are the same at all times and in all countries." But "the Church, which is not a revelation concerning the eternal and unchangeable God, but an institution to enable changeable man to apprehend the unchangeable," had, he maintained, been virtually destroyed: and thus, "Christianity being intended to remedy the intensity of the evil of the Fall by its Religion, and the universality of the evil by its Church, has succeeded in the first, because its Religion has been retained as God gave it, but has failed in the second, because its Church has been greatly corrupted." (Serm. vol. iv. Pref. p. xliv.)

What he meant by this corruption, and why he thought it