outward world, must be had recourse to, if the mind is to communicate, or even to conduct, its most simple processes. For the formation as well as the communication of all transcendental ideas, the same conditions are necessary. If we examine the commonest word employed for such purposes, we soon descry the point at which it was borrowed from the region of the senses, while we may often be able to trace the influence of the outward acts and symbols in which its higher meaning was matured.

To one who made these observations and saw what they implied, it would appear in a high degree probable that, if any great system of spiritual truth were to be revealed, some special preparation of its ideas and language would be necessary. It would not surprise him to learn, that this preparation was made by means of a typical history and a typical religion, for indeed he could scarcely imagine any other means for the purpose; or that this history and system were of an earthly character, for that would belong to their function of providing the external symbols of thought; or that they were marked with the strongest evidence of divine authority, for the measure of certainty as to the symbols would be the measure of certainty as to the truths which they were to express; or lastly, that a long period of time had been appropriated to this preparatory dispensation, for he would know that only through time and conflict and vicissitude do ideas deposit themselves firmly in the human mind, the habits of thought mature themselves, and the powers of language become developed. If such a person shall then proceed to consider the great doctrines of the gospel, and all the views which they give us of relations and transactions between God and man, we think he will clearly perceive that the mere natural course of things in the human systems of society and religion could never have supplied sufficient materials for that revelation to make use of in its communications to man, and that those materials which they did supply would have had about them a measure of uncertainty fatally detrimental to the truths which were to be expressed through them.

If, passing from these preliminary reflections, our thinker becomes an inquirer, and asks how, in matter of fact, the gospel has made its spiritual discoveries to men, he finds that it was done through this prepared medium. It appeared in the midst of the scenery, the habits, and ideas of Israel according to the flesh, and drew from them the language of its doctrines and its promises. The kingdom of God, the land of promise, the holy city, the throne of David, the peculiar people, the separation from the world and relations with heaven, the law and covenant, the temple where God dwelt with man on the earth, the courts and altars and veiled sanctuary, the mediating priesthood, the sacrificial system, the atonements by blood, the purifyings of the flesh, the sanctities of worship, the redemptions and dedications,

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the bonds of communion, the feasts of gladness, all the parts and mutual relations of that great system of national life and liturgy, now came out in their true character. They had formed the habits of thought, fixed the ideas, and moulded the language by which the work and kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ could be apprehended and interpreted amongst men. It was with them as with the prophets themselves: "Not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things, which are now reported unto us by them that have preached the gospel unto us with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven."

This ministration consisted not only in creating, but, if we may so speak, in legitimating the language employed by the preachers of the gospel, stamping the ideas which it conveyed as those intended by God. This most essential service of the old covenant to the new was the result, not of its existence as a historical fact, but of its divine appointments and sanctions. A peculiar importance attaches to this consideration in the present day. We know the strong tendency which exists to deprive the old covenant of its character as a divine ordinance, and to treat it merely as a historical fact, from which the apostles, in their exposition of the gospel, borrowed their expressions and illustrations. It is contended, therefore, that allowance must be made for their Jewish habits of thought, and that illustrations derived from the accidents of their historical position must not be pressed. Thus a cloud of uncertainty is raised, the outlines of truth grow dim and wavering, our new covenant in Christ begins to look like a mere revival of natural religion, and especially the virtue of expiation vanishes from the great sacrifice which has been offered before the door of our sanctuary.

Let us illustrate our meaning by this one fundamental example. The gospel is to preach a doctrine of sacrifice, and, in order to preach it, must use such language and appeal to such ideas as it finds in existence. Original and patriarchal sacrifices were historical facts, but whether of Divine institution, and whether expiatory ideas were attached to them, are so far matters of inference or conjecture, that if they alone had supplied the christian symbolism, the extent of its meaning must have remained far more doubtful than it is. The sacrifices of Abel, of Noah, of Abraham, might appear no more than they are in Mr. Maurice's pictures of them, acts of spontaneous worship and symbols of self-surrender; and the great sacrifice might obtain from them no further light on its own character. Heathen sacrifices were historical facts, and so also were the intentions of expiation in many cases connected with them; but the false and morally injurious character of those very ideas, as there presented, was patent, and would naturally place them among those which the sacrificial language of the gospel could not have been intended to imply. The sacrifices of the Jewish covenant were also historical

facts, and on them specifically the christian expressions are undeniably formed. They were free from the unhappy associations attaching to heathen sacrifices, and at the same time there is no possibility of limiting them to the unformed and vague ideas which might possibly be attributed to the patriarchal sacrifices. Their definite meaning, and the effects they were to produce in relation to the system of which they were a part, are written before us. The ideas of expiation, atonement, propitiation, and priestly agency, are wrought into the heart of the system, and are bound up with the national sanctification, and with all the privileges of service and communion. Yet if this system had grown up like other religions, consolidated by progressive human invention, the value of the terminology which it lent to the gospel would have been a fair subject of discussion, and it might have seemed reasonable to make as large abatements on the score of Jewish ideas as have lately been proposed to us. But God is presented as Himself the author of the system. Moses made "all things according to the pattern showed him on the mount," and this authorship was confirmed by multiplied testimonies of divine sanction. It is God, then, who has formed this language; it is God who has moulded and fixed the ideas which the gospel employs: and for this very use. He has created them. We rely upon a witness of God when we are sure that, whatever part the shedding and sprinkling of blood and the propitiatory sacrifices accomplished in the typical covenant, that part the true blood of atonement, the one sacrifice for sin, fulfils in the eternal covenant, and that what the one kind of provision did after the flesh, that the other does after the Spirit.

Very seldom, as it appears to us, have writers on the preparatory office of the old covenant distinctly apprehended this most important part of it. Strongly stating that preparatory office, and abundantly illustrating it from processes of vegetation or of human art, they have in general insufficiently explained its nature by the mention of secondary objects which do not by themselves convey an adequate idea of the relation of the old covenant to the new. The present author adds nothing to the

common statements.

"The object of God in His national covenant with Israel, seems to have been, to preserve the knowledge of the true God, in the midst of an idolatrous and wicked world; and also to confirm that doctrine of redemption, which was before known, until the coming of the promised Saviour. It was an intermediate covenant, filling up a space between the promise of the Redeemer to Abraham, and its fulfilment. This is implied by St. Paul to the Galatians, chap. iii. 16, 17. It did not interfere with, but carried on, that belief in a future state, in the only way of salvation through the mercy of God, by repentance and faith, and in the other religious doctrines which were before known; it pre

sented to the world an outward type, or figurative representation, of spiritual and heavenly realities, by its carnal ordinances and divers washings, imposed on them (as St. Paul says), and which was a figure for the time then present, until the time of reformation.' It, moreover, set forth an example, at least in external and ceremonial holiness and séparation from the rest of the world, in one nation, of the real holiness and entire devotedness to God, which marks the character of the true church of God everywhere; hence it prepared the way for the introduction of the present dispensation." (p. 167.)

The purposes here mentioned are those of preserving, confirming, carrying on what existed already, filling up time, and presenting to the world a parable, which the world could not read. It seems to us that such an account, true as it is, falls short of what is called for by the nature of the phenomenon, and passes over the uses to which it was in fact applied. If those uses had been more carefully considered (especially as they are represented in the epistle to the Hebrews) the author would have more worthily carried out that illustration of his, from which our reflections started. He would have presented to us "the masses of scaffolding and materials afterwards laid aside," as placed for the real purpose of scaffolding; which is something more than to protect foundations laid and materials accumulated within, or to represent by its rough framework a real edifice, and assure the passers-by that some day that edifice would be built. Its purpose is found in the act of building itself, while it supplies a footing to the builders which they could not have had without it. The mass of wood and cordage stretched so far and reared so high, is found to have corresponded with the long lines and lofty elevation of the solid and enduring structure, not so much for the sake of previously exhibiting the design of the architect, as in order to make it possible for that design to be carried out. The long lines could not have been extended, or the lofty elevation raised, unless those who wrought at it had been provided with something to stand upon, and assisted by arrangements proportioned to their need.

Till the office of the first covenant is distinctly understood, there will always be a fruitful source of confusion of thought as to the dispensations of God, and of difficulties as to the spiritual standing of those outside that covenant, and as to the personal religion of those within it,-difficulties which will extend their influence more or less over a multitude of questions connected with our view and use of the Old Testament volume. Many of these questions our author has treated with good judgment, but we think that more fixed principles of treatment might have been obtained if the great subject to which we have referred had been more satisfactorily gone into. If we had followed him into those various questions, we might have more often used the language of concurrence. If we have preferred to dwell on one funda

mental subject, in his treatment of which there seemed something to desire, we have done so, not for the sake of criticising a writer, but from a strong interest in the subject itself, which we wish to see, after all its discussion, more perfectly discussed, and after all the acquaintance with it, more generally understood.

HUMAN FOSSILS.

Rectory, North Cerney, Cirencester;
August 16th, 1860.

SIR, As there has been much discussion lately amongst geologists with respect to the existence of human fossils, will you allow me to make some remarks on the subject?

Independently of the testimony of many eminent foreign geologists, who, from their personal examination of numerous caverns in Europe and elsewhere, in which human bones have been found mingled indiscriminately with those of extinct quadrupeds, under exactly the same geological circumstances, have inferred, without a doubt, that all the bones are of the same age, there is, I think, still stronger proof of the existence of human fossils. Before, however, I mention this proof, allow me to quote a passage from Professor Phillips's Manual of Geology, which is far from being opposed to the belief of the foreign geologists in the existence of human fossils. He says, "The principal argument for the coeval existence of men and extinct pachydermata and carnivora in the south of France, is the intimate mixture and equal conservation of the bones; and these arguments should not be slighted, for they probably would not have been resisted in any case of the mixture of the quadrupedal remains."

The first proof which I shall bring of the existence of human fossils was communicated to me, some years ago, by Dr. Dickeson, of Natchez, in the United States, in a letter, part of which appeared in the Times, in, I believe, the year 1846. He says, that he himself found in the neighbourhood of Natchez a human fossil, the os innominatum, in undisturbed blue clay, at least two feet below, three associated skeletons of the megalonyx. He adds, that fossil human bones are frequently found on the shores and islands of the Mississippi, together with those of extinct quadrupeds. He believes all the bones to be of the same age, for they are all in exactly the same fossil state. He has many specimens

of them in his cabinet.

Another discovery of fossil human bones, associated with those of extinct quadrupeds, was made, a few years ago, in Germany.