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plete whole, belongs to the highest order of intellect; for a Paley must have the two-fold power of a Newton; the power of all comprehensive synthesis united with that of minute and careful analysis. In this department of the author's work, the following, among numerous examples, will strike the student; the harmonizing of the two accounts of Paul's conversion; (see ix. 7;) the admirable concurrence of Acts xix. 6 and 19 with 2 Cor. xi. 25 as to the single instance of Paul's being stoned; the fixing of Paul's visit to Illyricum, (Rom. xv. 19,) at the period mentioned Acts xx. 2; and the comparison of the phraseology of Paul's address, Acts xx. 17-35, with similar expressions scattered through his various epistles. The labor of days in collecting the materials, and the reveries of nights in collating them, is condensed often into a brief paragraph; but these mustardlike seeds of instruction will, in a faithful Christian preacher's hands, prove the germ of trees under whose shade scores of Christian converts will find shelter, and of whose fruits hundreds of Christian hearers will partake.

In the department of the theologian the commentator should be thoroughly versed, yet no partisan. It is to be regretted, that some of our otherwise able commentators can see only their own peculiar principles in the pages of the sacred writers; that such an one as Guyse, for instance, who penetrates to the very marrow of Paul's reasoning, is so haunted with the vision of the Judaizing teachers, whom Paul often, it is true, had in his eye, but against whom he was not a constant controversialist. We need not pass in review other eminent and more modern Bible interpreters, who have their own favorite theories to maintain, as one great end in their Scripture study. Dr. Hackett is remarkably free from anything like a dogmatic or sectarian spirit. Upon Acts ii. 23, the relation of the divine foreknowledge and purpose are clearly stated, but not argued; on x. 35, the nature of righteousness prior to faith in Christ, and on xiii. 39, the relation of obedience to the ceremonial law under the Gospel, are distinctly conceived; and in their appropriate place, the leading principles of the Gospel in its doctrine are brought clearly but naturally to view. The sim

plicity of the external organization of the primitive Church is often alluded to; as on xiii. 3, and xiv. 23; but only as Neander or Whately have stated it. The author has perhaps allowed too much force to the fact of Paul's occasionally laboring for his support, as at Corinth and Ephesus; (see on xviii. 3, and xx. 35 ;) for Paul intimates that it was with himself even not a rule, but an exception, and only followed for a brief time, since he says to the Corinthians, "I robbed other churches, taking wages of them to do you service. And when I was present with you, and wanted, I was chargeable to no man; for that which was lacking to me the brethren which came from Macedonia supplied," a declaration which plainly makes Paul's example no exception to the universal law of ministerial support, established as the rule of the Christian Church by Christ and his apostles. Some might have desired a more extended discussion of the subject of the ordinances of the Christian Church, particularly of the ordinance of baptism; in reference to which the views of the author are conformed to the letter and spirit of the New Testament. This, however, is the last of all subjects on which much need be said by a commentator. At every point where the sacred text demands it, the character of the primitive ordinance is briefly and unhesitatingly stated; and the questions of infant baptism and of re-baptism are discussed with scholar-like criticism of the text, and quotations from able German commentators, on Acts xvi. 15 and 19; and xviii. 25 to xix. 5.

It is proper, in closing, to allude to the excellent typography of the work we have thus reviewed. But a single error of the types has been observed; a case of misspelling on page 352. The reputation of the house of Gould & Lincoln is, in this department, of the first order. A book that is to be on a student's table for years, deserves to be in a style of paper, type and binding such as will be a comfort to the eye.

We part from this fond re-sitting at the feet of an old teacher, with the conviction of early years strengthened; that such rare capacities and acquisitions for the work of Scripture interpretation as those of Dr. Hackett, should not

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be confined and cloistered in the recitation room. stitution with which he is connected can do itself and the Christian Church no greater service, than not only to allow him the leisure, but to press upon him the duty of following up his work so well begun. The Acts of the Apostles is the book of all others to test all the varied excellencies necessary to the commentator, who shall be equal to the present advance in biblical science. Others may excel in one or more departments; but the combination, when found, should be put to good employ.

ARTICLE IV.-PLATO ON ATHEISM.

THAT part of Plato's works known as The Laws, consists of twelve books. Each book contains a set of laws for the regulation of a State, and these laws are intermingled with sundry reasonings and exhortations. The Tenth Book, though bearing no distinctive title in the original, is often very conveniently and appropriately referred to as PLATO CONTRA ATHEOS. It has Preface and Laws. The Preface, flying through pretty much the whole book, bears about the same relation to the Laws, as a coachman's whip-lash to the snapper :-all the more terrible is the cut.

This Tenth Book of the Laws is inferior to the Phædon. It has little of its artistic elegance, none of its dramatic power. In the Phædon, we are transported to the prison: we hear Socrates, as he sits on his bed, discoursing as no other man, without a revelation from the Father of lights, could discourse; and we see him, while the sun is yet lingering on the hills, drink the hemlock and die die believing that death will introduce him into the society of the good.

But apart from the absence of this tragic element, the vigor of the argument is less. The Dialogue is too much. like a battle in which all the shots are fired from one side.

The characters are three: Clinias, a Cretan, Megillus, a Lacedemonian, and an Athenian, whose name is not mentioned. The Athenian is the chief speaker. Clinias and Megillus listen and assent. We have no marches and countermarches, no sudden blasts of the trumpet, no charges, no close, hand-to-hand engagements, no retreats, no surrenders. To get these, we must go to the Phædon.

But let us not complain. Plato was now old, and old or young, he could not have another dying Socrates for a character. There is but one Elegy over Saul and Jonathan in the Old Testament: there is but one story of the Prodigal Son in the New Testament; and there was an objective necessity that Plato should give us but one Phædon. We shall find genius and metaphysical power in the work before us, such as, without the Phædon, would have been an honor to the Philosopher of the Academy.

Is the Athenian the Socrates of the Dialogue? Prof. Lewis would answer in the affirmative. Some think that he stands for Plato himself. Prof. Woolsey, in dissenting from the opinion of Prof. Lewis, speaks thus: "The Athenian in the Laws is quite an abstraction, without that playful irony and many of those delicate traits which are so delightful in the Platonic Socrates. The scene, moreover, is laid in Crete, where Socrates, according to dramatic propriety, should not be." *

We have said that each Book of Plato on Legislation, contains laws for the regulation of a State. But a State is supposed to maintain public worship. This Tenth Book, therefore, specifies the laws which should be enacted for the punishment of crimes against religion. But the laws, as we have already hinted, are preceded by an extended preamble. The preamble is an argument against three classes of persons: I. Those who altogether deny the existence of gods; II. Those who deny the doctrine of Providence: III. Those who, while continuing to sin, pretend that the gods can be conciliated by sacrifices and prayers. These persons may all be classed under the general name of Atheists—a

*Bib. Sacra, Aug., 1845.

classification justified by the consideration, that where there is no theoretical, there yet may be much practical, Atheism.

It will be observed that throughout so much of the translation as we shall give, we employ the plural, gods, instead of the singular, god. Prof. Lewis suggests that we should more faithfully represent the spirit of the Platonic Theology, by using the singular. Very likely, but what we want is a correct rendering of Plato's terms: the interpretation is another thing. Plato uses soi, not eɛós. Was Plato, then, a Polytheist? Plato elsewhere teaches the doctrine of one Supreme God. This is certain. In the Tenth Book of the Laws he evidently believes in many gods. What, then, shall we say? To state our opinions, without stopping to fortify them, we think that Plato, while a firm believer in one Supreme Intelligence, embraced just so much of the popular mythology, as taught the existence of a class of intelligences holding a position between God, properly so called, and man. To all these, the one Supreme and the inferior alike, he applied the term so. It would, therefore, be doing him great injustice, to infer from the use of the plural, that he had no belief in one Supreme God.

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Did Plato enjoin the worship of the inferior ɛoi? is the more important question. It cannot be doubted that he did. His great mind vacillated between the popular religion and the religion of reason and nature; not on his own account, but on account of the people. He has no Bible. His moral nature revolts from Atheism. If he sweeps off all traces of the people's religion, the people will become Atheists: so he must have thought.

We have only to remark, that the text which we have used is that furnished by Prof. Lewis in an edition of the Harpers, 1845, it being the text of Bekker & Ast. gret that we had not Stalbaum's.

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We have taken advantage of a few valuable suggestions of Prof. Woolsey's in the Bibliotheca Sacra.

After a few preliminary thoughts, expressed chiefly by the Athenian, the Dialogue proceeds thus:

CLIN. Does it not, then, seem easy to say, with truth, that there are gods?

ATHEN. How?

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