sincerity of the writer, that the description of heretics agrees only with the apostolic times, and that its resemblance to Jude demonstrates its apostolic origin. A large portion of the volume is taken up with an inquiry relating to the time and place when and where both epistles were written. The author concludes that the first epistle was writeu at Rome (Rome intended by Babylon), and that the second epistle was most probably written in the same place, as Peter in it refers to the epistles of Paul which were written at Rome, and as he speaks of his own death as drawing near, which took place, without much doubt, at the same city. The epistles were addressed, as the writer thinks, particularly to the Jewish Christians, but in an important sense to the Gentile Christians, as Peter refers to the epistles of Paul which were directed to the latter.

16.—Hoary Head and the Vallies below. By Jacob Abbott. Boston:

Crocker & Brewster, 1838. The great characteristic excellence of the author is manifest on every page of this little book. We mean the power of most accurate description, a microscopic observation of what passes under his eye, and an exact transference to paper of what he has seen, and in the order in which things appear in nature. Nothing can be more to the life than the description of the mechanic shop with which the first story opens, the conversation between the father and his son, the anxious and complaining solicitude of the mother, and the several incidents relating to sick litile Benny. On the question of the general utility of the volume, there will be various opinions, according to the judgment of different persons concerning novel writing. For ourselves we must say, that the great truth intended to be conveyed by the author, namely, that a substance cannot change itself, that the heart of man cannot renovate itself, is very strikingly illustrated. It does not appear merely in didactic statements at the beginning and end of the book, but it is interwoven in the thread of the narratives. We are not hurried away from real life. Real life is described to us. We see what we are, and what we ought to be.

ARTICLE XIII.

MISCELLANEOUS INTELLIGENCE.

United States. A volume of Selections from the German will be published early in the ensuing Spring, translated by Profs. Edwards and Park of Andover. The principal contents will be as follows: I. The sinless character of Jesus, by

:

mann.

Prof. Ullmann of Heidelberg. Il. Specimens of the German Pulpit, by Prof. Tholuck of Halle and others. III. Life of Plato by W. G. Tenne

IV. Comparison of Platonism with Christianity by Prof. Baur of Tabingen. V. Life of Aristotle by Dr. A. Stalır of Halle. VI. The origin of Sin and Evil, by Prof. Twesten of Berlin. VII. Biblical Articles by Profs. Köster, Tholuck, Umbreit and others. VIII. Miscellaneous articles, by Profs. Neander, Ullmann, and others.

Prof. Emerson of Andover, is preparing for publication a translation of the history of Augustinism and Pelagianism, by G. F. Wiggers, Prof. of Divinity at Rostock, Germany, with notes by the translator. The work will probably soon be put to press.

Prof. Stowe of the Theol. Seminary near Cincinnati, is preparing a translation of Rosenmuller's Commentary (Compend.) on the Psalms, with additional notes of his own; which will be speedily printed.

The above works will be issued from the Press of Gould & Newman, Andover.

Germany. The controversy occasioned by the publication of Strauss's Life of Jesus continues to rage with unabated fury. Kantists, Hegelians, Rationalists, Semi-rationalists, Supra-rationalists, the disciples of Schleiermacher, and rank infidels have all entered the lists. The firing of Strauss's blunderbuss seems to have been a signal for a general discharge along the whole line. The third edition of the work was published last summer, in two large volumes octavo. He has also published a little work entitled, “ Gallerie meiner Gegner," which would still indicate that he holds up with good courage against the storm of missiles which have fallen around him and on him. It is said that the controversy would already fill a respectable library. Among the opposers of Strauss are the names of men no less distinguished than Neander of Berlin, Tholuck of Halle, Harless of Erlangen, Hengstenberg of Berlin, Lange of Duisberg, Müller of Marburg, Paulus of Heidelberg, Sack of Bonn, Ullmann of Heidelberg, Eschenmayer of Tübingen, Baumgarten-Crusius, etc. Archbishop Whately's Historic Doubts respecting Napoleon Bonaparte have been translated and published. Volumes have been put forth in ridicule ;--one represented as an appendix critically examining the life of Mohammed from a Schiite tradition, and proving the whole life to be a mythus; another volume, supposed to be written in some future century denying that any such man as Martin Luther ever existed. The controversy shows the extreme, the boundless activity of the German mind, the unsettled state of the religious world, and the eagerness with which multitudes are prepared to rush into open skepticism.

It is sometimes said, that the systems of philosophy in Germany are evannescent, and give place one after another, to an uninterrupted succession of novelties. We observe, however, in one advertisement, a notice of the republication of the works of Kant, Fichte and Hegel. Kant’s whole works

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are in the process of publication under the editorial charge of Rosenkranz, and Schubart. Hegel's complete works are also publishing. Volume X., published last summer, contains his Lectures on Æsthetics. C. L. Michelet has published at Berlin a history of the systems of philosophy in Germany from Kant to Hegel. We are very glad to see a notice of the issuing of the third volume of Ast's Lexicon Platonicum, sive vocum Platonicarum Index. The edition of Plato's works by Ast in nine very convenient volumes, octavo, has long been out. The ninth was published in 1827.–The two Grimms late of Göttingen are preparing a very extensive dictionary of the German language. Jacob Grimm's German grammar is a book of the highest authority. The dictionary will be completed in about six or seven volumes. -The celebrated Lassen is preparing to publishi a Sanscrit Manual, and a a manual of Indian Antiquities. The last named was to be in three volumes, the first volume to appear in the course of 1838.-A new edition of Tholuck's sermons on the principal points of christian faith and practice has been published in two volumes.-We collect the following notices of some of the German universities from a late number of the Allgemeine Kirchen Zeitung putlished at Darmstadt. Erlangen. This university contains 184 students, of whom 140 are theologians. Bonn. In this university are 689 students, of whom 184 are theologians, 188 attending on the Catholic faculty, and 76 on the Protestant. Heidelberg. 468 students, of whom 25 are theologians. Giessen. The following was the course of lectures, last summer, in the evangelical theological faculty of this university-Kuinoel on select passages in the historical books of the Old Testament, Credner on Job, on Introduction to the New Testament and on church history, Meier on the epistle to the Corinthians, and on history of doetrines, Palmer on Catachetics and on Symbolic, and Dieffenbach on Dogmatic and Homiletic. Breslau. In the evangelical faculty of this university, Schulz lectures on encyclopedia, methodology and on some of Paul's epistles, Knobel on Introduction to the New Testament, the minor Prophets, christian ethics and catachetics, Middledorpf on Introduction to the New Testament, and the Psalms, Böhmer on the Stroussian controversy or the life of Jesus exhibited in his actual labors, christian antiquities, and church history, Hahn on Dogmatics in connection with ethics and symbolics, and the first part of church history ; Suckow on practical theology. The theological seminary is under the charge of Schulz, Middledorf, Hahn and Böhmer; the homiletic institute is directed by Habn and Suckow. Freiburg. Hug lectures on the Introduction to the New Testament; Wetser on Arabic, biblical Hermeneutics, and Hebrew langnage; Schleger on Joel, Amos, Galatians and Ephe. sians; Vogel on modern church history ; Staudenmeier on dogmatics, and on the theory of religion and revelation ; Hirscher on christian morals; and Werk on pastoral theology and liturgies. Göttingen. Students in the summer quarter, 1838, were 729, of whom 173 were studying theology.

THE

AMERICAN

BIBLICAL REPOSITORY.

APRIL, 1839.

SECOND SERIES, NO, II.-WHOLE NO. XXXIV.

ARTICLE I.

WHAT IS Sin ?

Translation of a passage from Vitringa's OBSERVATIONES SACRAE in

relation to this question, with introductory and other Remarks.

By M. Stuart, Prof. Sac. Lit. Theol. Sem. Andover.

There are times in every Christian country, when accurate definitions of important terms in theology are peculiarly needed. Such a time seems to have already arrived in our own. Disputes have recently arisen among our theologians, and they are so carried on as to assume a grave and somewhat threatening aspect.

There are periods, (there have been such in our country), when pastors and churches can walk together, with the full and quiet persuasion that there is no essential difference of sentiment among them, wbile they are still conscious that differences of opinion in regard to topics not fundamental, or modes of explanation, do actually exist. There have been times, when he that was deemed weak in the faith, was still received with cordiality by bis brethren, who felt themselves, perhaps, to be more vigorous in their belief; and received, too, in such a way as “ did not lead to doubtful disputations." Yet there may be different times, as we are now compelled to believe, which, like some comet portending disaster and filling the public mind with consternation, must pass over us, when every thing appears to be verging to jealousy and disputation. It would seem to matter SECOND SERIES, VOL. I. NO. II.

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but little what the actual subject of jealousy and dispute may be, whether a pebble or a crown ; it is enough that such a subject exists. The smallest trifle will sometimes, in certain states of the public mind, raise up a quarrel as effectually as the most important matter which can be named. The spirit of the day now and then becomes such as will lead on to a quarrel ; and nothing, it would seem, will appease this spirit, short of the very thing at which it aims, i. e. contention, carried on as vigorously and as far as the nature of the case admits.

The churches of our country, in the North and the South, (I speak now of the evangelical Presbyterian and Congregational churches), have, ever since the settlement of this country, walked together, until recently, on terms of amity and peace. It was once generally thought, and to all practical purposes was fully believed by most Christians, that there were not differences between them of magnitude enough to justify any earnest dispute or active disagreement. But those happy days, as it now seems, have passed or are passing away; and what was once regarded, at the most, as being nothing more than a venial error in respect to faith, is now becoming, or has already become, in the eyes of some a dangerous, and of others perhaps even a damoable, heresy.

What can have been the cause of introducing such times as these? Is there any development of opinions which are altogether novel, or really heretical, in the North or in the South ? I know of none. There may be, indeed, now and then a solitary individual who is noisy and assuming, and who throws out paradoxical opinions, more, as I apprehend, to bring himself into notice, than out of any sincere and enlightened regard to religious truth. Such may be found, here and there, both in the North and in the South. But this is nothing new. It has always been so. Enthusiasts, and ignorant, and self-sufficient, and noisy declaimers of paradoxes, are not peculiar to any age or to any country.

Yet the times have been, among us, when phenomena of this kind did not excite any special commotion. Our peaceable and quiet pastors and churches looked on the glare of such meteors for a little while, as men are wont to look upon something new and strange ; and then, turning away, went quietly on with their own great business, as usual. They did not once dream of putting to the account of a whole community, what here and there an enthusiast or an extravagant man either said or did.

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