very last; but, as actual experiment is the only sure test of character, we must give still higher praise to one, who, starting with a reputation inferior to that of Hampden, only because he was younger, constantly raised it higher and higher, through a long career of danger, persecution, and temptation. The pilot who has actually shown the skill and courage to weather the storm, must bear off the palm from him who is only believed to possess those qualities.

Hampden tested a great principle, and performed a great service to his country, when he refused to pay ship-money; yet, after all, he only risked royal favor, and not life. Vane, in defence of rights equally sacred and important, braved the Protector's sword and the headsman's axe. He was only twenty-eight years of age when he took his seat in the Long Parliament; yet he at once took his stand among the greatest men of his day, and, by the confession of his bitterest detractors, kept it for twenty-two years of toil, difficulty and trial. There was indeed but one opinion of his genius among all who knew him, and although his motives and conduct have been aspersed, his public acts bear irrefragable testimony to his fidelity and consistency.

He never ruled the commonwealth, like Cromwell, nor ever had his prestige of military glory. It is likely that he did not equal him in the spirit of command, nor so perfectly understand the character and capacities of his countrymen. It may be, that he was too sanguine in believing the English of that day prepared for a republic, and that he would have acted more wisely in aiding Cromwell to establish a new constitutional dynasty. But in speculative ability, supported usually by great practical wisdom, in comprehensiveness of view, and in extent of information, he must have been vastly superior to the Protector. His two favorite principles of constitutional government and universal religious freedom, alone place him. above all cotemporary statesmen. It would be an insult to his memory to compare his purity with that of his oppressor, Cromwell, who was once his coadjutor in the cause of liberty.

The specimens of Vane's eloquence, which have been preserved, and the testimony of his hearers, prove that he had

great speaking power. He was, from the first, one of the weightiest speakers in Parliament, and his defence upon his trial crowned his oratorical reputation.

Clarendon and Hume have represented his writings on religious subjects as unintelligible jargon, and Bishop Burnet gives the same account of his speeches at religious meetings. Having never seen any entire composition from his pen, we cannot assert that this charge is entirely groundless; but certainly there are no indications of its truth in Mr. Upham's specimens. Any exposition of evangelical doctrines would have seemed jargon to Hume, perhaps to Clarendon; and it is very likely that Vane occasionally entered into the abstruse speculations of that day, and did not always express himself with perfect clearness on those dark subjects. Calling no man master, and boldly following truth wherever he found it, he formed a creed acceptable to no sect, and which may have appeared crude and monstrous to Burnet. But Upham, who had once ignorantly called him a "religious fanatic," became, on the examination of his writings, his most ardent admirer and eulogist. Sir James McIntosh, too, no mean judge of style and matter, said, that among English writers, Vane was second only to Lord Bacon. Admitting this to be extravagant praise, we require nothing but the quotations in his biography to convince us that he had genius, learning, taste, and far-reaching wisdom, warmed and vivified by noble enthusiasm.

In regard to his religious opinions and conduct, it must be admitted, that not only Lord Clarendon, but Neale, Cotton Mather, Burnet, and even Baxter, speak unfavorably. But when we remember how intense is the odium theologicum in the minds of the best men, and that these men were not only opposed to him in other points, but especially could not grasp his all embracing principle of religious liberty, we may well suspect that they have not done him justice.

We cannot vouch for his entire orthodoxy; he may have been Calvinist or Arminian, he may have inclined to Origen's Universalism, or Mrs. Hutchinson's alleged Antinomianism, although it is hardly credible that he could have entertained at the same time two principles which appear to be diametrically opposed.

Waiving all doctrinal discussions, we cannot but see that in Upham's copious extracts, Sir Harry Vane sets forth the cardinal principles of the gospel in a way which must delight every true Christian. Above all, “his life was in the right," and his death the crowning glory of such a life. Take him, either as a statesman, a patriot, or a Christian, he was one of the brightest lights, if not the brightest light, of an age luminous with stars of the first magnitude.

ARTICLE VII.-HACKETT ON ACTS.

THE excellences of this work, both of scholarship and composition, have been already justly characterized in this journal. See, especially, the October No. for 1858. We would not abate in the least the grateful praise there accorded to the critical skill of Prof. Hackett. His volume on the Acts is, without dispute, one of the ripest and ablest contributions of American scholarship to New Testament interpretation.

The mechanical part of the volume is worthy of the contents; of neat, clear type, strongly bound, marred by almost no typographical errors; a goodly book to look upon, goodly to handle. Such works, lying open on the minister's studytable, would fairly allure him to exegetical study.

We have but one exception to take to the material form of the volume, and that is the omission of the Greek text commented on. We protest, earnestly, against the current practice amongst critical commentators of giving us, in the manner of this volume, only disjointed fragments of the sacred original. Whoever can afford to purchase the commentary, can well afford the additional expense of having the whole text before his eye without the trouble of turning to a separate volume.

* A Commentary on the Original Text of the Acts of the Apostles. By • Horatio B. Hackett, D. D., Professor of Biblical Literature in Newton Theological Seminary. A new edition, revised and greatly enlarged. Boston: Gould & Lincoln. 1858.

The commentary before us gives evidence throughout of a critical and familiar acquaintance with the New Testament Greek, as well as with classical Greek, and also of a thorough. and extended study of all the available means of explaining the book of the Acts. That perfection has been attained in the work, even with respect to "its predominant object," would not probably be claimed by the author himself. And it is the part of friendly, genial criticism, to point out whatever may seem to be errors in exegesis or interpretation. With respect to the volume in hand, it may be truly said there is very little occasion for the use of such friendly office. And yet, without having passed many portions of it under special and prolonged examination, we have detected what seem to us to be some slight errors both of exegesis and exposition.

Before noticing these passages, we feel constrained to make. a remark or two with reference to an observation in the author's preface--namely, "No single commentary can be expected to answer all the purposes for which a commentary is needed." We fully agree with Professor Hackett in this view, and cannot object to its practical application in making his commentary a grammatical and philological one. Mr. Ellicott has been governed by the same principle of division of labor in his scholarly work on the Epistles of Paul. And the principle should be heeded by all workers in this department of Biblical study. The day has gone by, we hope, for attempts, by one man in one work, at critical, dogmatic, experimental and practical commentary.

Yet it does not follow that because a work is critical and grammatical, it should therefore be exsiccated and exhausted of all the generous juices of religious sentiment. We speak, we believe, the current opinion of those who have most intelligently and thankfully consulted Hackett on the Acts, when we say that the author seems to have put an undue force on himself in repressing the utterance of Christian emotion. This fact seems to be due, in part, to the author's intimacy with. such models as De Wette's Exegetisches Handbuch. That the result is not the spontaneous product of his own nature,. let his "Scripture Illustrations" bear witness-a book abound

ing in warm and glowing passages; nay, let his remarks on the 20th verse of the 3d chap. of the book of Acts bear witness. More of this juiciness of expression we would have even in a commentary whose predominant object is "to determine by the rules of a just philology the meaning of the sacred writer."

As an instance of what we conceive to be a misinterpretation of some importance, we call attention to a remark on page 310, as follows: "They (the Ephesian disciples) may have received the rite of baptism from John himself, or from some one whom he had baptized, but who had not advanced beyond the point of knowledge at which John's ministry had left his disciples." Again, on the same page, The reply of Paul is apparently thus: John indeed preached repentance and a Saviour to come (as you know); but the Messiah whom he announced has appeared in Jesus, and you are now to believe on him as John directed. Then they were baptized," &c. And again, on the same page: "Their prompt reception of the truth would tend to show that the defect in their former baptism related not so much to any positive error as to their ignorance in regard to the proper object of faith.”

Now, if we understand Prof. Hackett in these extracts, baptism administered even by John himself might be vitiated by simple defect of knowledge concerning the subsequent events of the Christian history, although there was a readiness to receive these facts when competently testified of. Very few, we think, will be willing to accept this as even a probable explanation of this apparent anabaptism. For, if a repetition of the ordinance was thus rendered necessary in the case of these twelve disciples, it was equally necessary in the case of Apollos, mentioned in the preceding chapter, and in the case of hundreds more who had properly received the baptism of John at an early period, and had wandered beyond the boundaries of Palestine. But in no other instance have we a hint of a re-baptism. There must have been, therefore, a peculiarity in the administration of the rite in the case of the disciples. Both they and Apollos had received John's baptism as they supposed, but they had received it mproperly, he properly, they out of time, he in time, like the apostles and the seventy.