xxi. 8); nor is there any ground for supposing that their duties as distributors of the alms of the church were to be permanent, or so important as to form a distinct order of "helps" in the church, and to obtain the specific name of "deacon" to themselves, and to degrade it from its comprehensive character to that of a mere "pecuniary" one. "It is also remarkable, that though the word occurs so very often in the original text, it is only translated five times in the Common Version by the word "deacon;" and if these passages be examined, it will be evident that they give no sanction to the notion of a separate organisation of men as an ecclesiastical body for a pecuniary purpose. These passages are Phil. i. 1; 1 Tim. iii. 8, 10, 12, 13.

"In none of these passages is there any allusion to the duties of those called "deacons or ministrants;" nothing to point out that their duties were temporal rather than spiritual; nothing to connect them with the seven distributors of alms in Acts, vi. 1-4, except the vague use of the verb "to minister," which is applicable as much to preaching the gospel as to distribution of alms.

"The result of the whole is this, that the word "deacon " in the New Testament, is simply a name descriptive of any and every member of a Christian congregation who is in any way engaged in active exertion in the cause of Christ, and denotes no more an order of persons to be set apart for the specific duty of caring for the temporalities of the church than do the appellations, "little children, brethren, fathers, little youths, young men," in the First Epistle of John, or the "wives or women" exhorted in 1 Tim. iii. 11; compare also Tit. ii. 1–5.”

Critical Notices.

An Exposition of the Prophet Ezekiel, with Useful Observations thereupon. By William Greenhill, M A., Rector of Stepney, and Chaplain to the Dukes of York and Glouchester, and the Lady Henrietta Maria. A.D. 1650. Revised and Corrected by James Sherman, Minister of Surrey Chapel. Edinburgh : James Nichol. London: James Nisbet & Co. 1863.

THIS is the last, and not least, of Mr Nichol's commentary series on various books of Scripture. To those at all acquainted with the literature of the Puritan era, it needs no commendation. "Greenhill on Ezekiel" has maintained its place as a standard commentary ever since its publication. Hitherto, however, it was only accessible in one of those expensive and forbidding tomes, which none but an earnest student of the Puritan era would purchase or handle. It is still a book of 860 pages, though reissued in a very tasteful and attractive style, and offered at a price far below the usual cost of such works. The book selected for exposition is admittedly one of the most difficult in the Bible. The imagery is at once peculiar and sublime, and has no parallel among the prophecies save in the Apocalypse of John. The visions of the living creatures, the throne and its occupant, the valley of dry bones, the temple, and the river of life, stand out conspi

cuous, even among the higher imagery of the prophets. To expound these required no ordinary measure of learning, gifts, and grace. From the testimony of contemporary writers, it appears that Greenhill was eminent among the great divines of an age distinguished for theology. He was the colleague of Jeremiah Burroughs in Stepneythe latter preaching at 7 o'clock in the morning, and the former at 3 o'clock in the afternoon,-and hence they were styled "The Morning Star" and "The Evening Star" of Stepney. Calamy says, "He was a worthy man, and much valued for his great learning and unwearied labours." Howe likewise speaks of him as "that eminent servant of God, Mr Greenhill, whose praise is in all the churches." His exposition of Ezekiel was delivered, in the form of lectures, to London audiences, containing many of the chief personages of the day. These lectures present a very striking contrast to much of the popular London preaching of the present day. The object then was to ascertain the mind of the Spirit of God, and to press it home on the hearts and consciences of great and small; whereas in modern times the object of some very popular preachers is, to ascertain the current of popular opinion, and furnish such sensation sermons as are likely to please the multitude. In the perusal of such works as that before us, one can see how eminently qualified such men were for the work of compiling the Confession of Faith. The character of the Westminster Assembly of Divines is incidentally exhibited by the noble works left to the Church by many of its members. In the perusal of these works one can scarcely bear with patience the flippant criticisms of the Westminster Confession of Faith, so freely uttered by some modern speculators, who have barely mastered the primary elements of theology. How such men would have hid their diminished heads in that venerable Assembly, before such divines as Greenhill, and Burroughs, and Manton, and Goodwin, and Caryl, and our own four divines from the Church of Scotland! It is little less than impertinence for men to cast reflections on that Assembly, and to raise objections against its findings, who have never spent as many days, or even hours, in the study of the Confession of Faith, as these divines spent of years in its preparation. But religion in those days was a chief thing. No amount of time was considered wasted that was spent, either in ascertaining the mind of God, or waiting upon Him in the exercises of worship. This explains what seems undue prolixity in such commentators as Greenhill. But as these expositions were written for hungry souls, those possessed of an enlarged spiritual appetite will find no fault with their fulness, more especially as it is the fulness of the gospel.

The views of our author in regard to the mysteries of revelation are very appropriate. Thus, in his preface

"To all Well-Willers of Truth" he says "In most arts and sciences are difficulties; in divinity depths. . . . Much is in it that God hath intermixed the Scriptures with some difficulties. Hereby we are led to conceive there are infinite depths in God, which eternity must take us up to study. They convince us of our incapacity of high things (John, xvi. 12); they prevent our undervaluing of divine truth. Difficulties quicken and whet endeavours.

Ingenious

spirits, when they hear of hard things, stir lively; and what they get by sorest labour is most precious."

Having, like most evangelical Protestants of his day, a deep sense of the dishonour done to God, and danger to the souls of men, through the Papacy, many of his expositions regarding idolatry are specially applied to that system. How appropriate is his caution, in the close of his preface to the Christian reader, to the inhabitants of the city of London and of the country at large in our own day.

Reader, it is dangerous to symbolize with the superstitious rites and inventions of men. Do not judaize, do not Gentilize, do not romanize, but see you Christianize. Nothing in worship pleaseth God but what is His own; what man brings is spurious, pollutes His ordinances, frustrates His commands (Matt. xv. 6). That which comes from God is set up by Him, carries to Him, is pure, and approved of by Him. False worship, and mixtures of the pure ordinances of God, are as smoke to His eyes, vinegar to His teeth, an abomination to His Spirit; and when they come into His sanctuary, He goeth out of it and far from it (Ezek. viii. 6). . . . Keep off, therefore, from false worship, and mixtures of men; you are not to come there, you are not to hear those who teach such things, but to decline them as serpents in the way, and as poison in your meats; you are to feed on nothing but the sincere milk of the word,' and to worship God only with word service (Rom. xii. 1) such as is appointed and ordered by the word, not contrary to or beside it. The jealousy of the Lord about matters of His worship appeared eminently in Ezekiel's Temple (which represented the Church under the gospel), where nothing was to be of the priest's devising; but the rule was, 'They shall keep my laws and my statutes in all mine assemblies; and they shall hallow my Sabbaths' (Ezek. xliv. 24). The assemblies are the Lord's; in them must be, not men's, but His laws and statutes; otherwise His assemblies are robbed and wronged, His Sabbaths polluted and profaned. Some say the Church follows the Government: the false Church may, but the true Church follows Christ; His sheep hear His voice, and not strangers. They say, 'Christ we know, and Paul we know, but who are ye?' They will not comply with false ways and mixtures, but stand for the pure worship and pure evidences, saying, Let heaven and earth be confounded, yet the sincere worship of God, and His holy truth, in which eternal life is laid up for us, deservedly ought to be, and shall be, more dear unto us than a hundred worlds."

This preface speaks the spirit of the book, and well it is that such works should be reissued at a time when the waves of ritualism are fast submerging the Protestant churches.

We have only space at present for a brief extract from this commentary, under chap. i. 27-" And I saw as the colour of amber," &c. "Here the man that sat upon the throne is described unto us-1. In general; 2. More particularly.

"1. In general, I saw as the colours of amber; 2. Particularly, upwards and downwards. Upwards as the appearance of fire round about within it-from the appearance of his loins upward, so that this fire was more latent. And then downwards the fire was more visible, and had brightness about it. Touching the word hashmal, chasmal, I have spoken largely in the fourth verse; and it signifies a coal intensely hot, and, as it were, presently consuming whatever it touches; such coals are most fiery and lively; and they that render the word color-vividissimus, a most lively colour, or the colour of a burning coal, give the truest sense of the word. Before it referred to the angels, here to Christ. The word chasmal read backward

is lammashach or lammashiach, which is interpreted, the Messiah ;—it is the Cabailst's observation, and the sum of it in general is this: I saw as the colour of amber; I saw Christ that sat upon the throne, all of an intense fiery colour, like the most hot burning coals. And so the Lord Christ is set forth (Rev. i. 14, 15); 'His eyes were as a flame of fire, His feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace;' so here, from head to feet, Christ is presented in a fiery colour. It is frequent, in Scripture, when acts of power and judgment are to be executed against kingdoms or churches, to have Christ presented in the way of fire. So (Rev. &. 1) the mighty angel, Christ, is brought in there with His face shining as the sun, and His feet as pillars of fire; and presently there were great thunders and dreadful things. So (Rev. ii. 18) He is brought in with eyes like fire and feet like brass; and then tells Thyatira He hath a few things against her. So (Rev. xix. 11-13) in righteousness He doth judge and make war; and then, His eyes were as a flame of fire, and His vesture dipt in blood. Thus is He described, when some great designs are afoot, as sentencing a church, vowing against His enemies, &c."

There is here a comparing of scripture with scripture, and an interpretation of scripture by scripture, which sheds a peculiar light upon such emblems as were presented to the mind of the prophet. Indeed, it is by comparing the Old Testament with the New that both are seen in the light of a full and complete revelation.

Without endorsing every shade of meaning attached to some of the symbols, so peculiar and mysterious, we heartily commend this exposition of Ezekiel to our readers, feeling assured that the more it is studied the more will its value be discovered, and the deeper the respect elicited for the author and his compeers of the Puritan era.

The Works of Thomas Goodwin, D.D., President of Magdalene College, Oxford. Vol. VII. Edinburgh: James Nichol. London: James Nisbet & Co. Dublin: W. Robertson. 1863.

THIS is another of Mr Nichol's admirable series of the Standard Divines-Puritan period. It is unnecessary to remind our readers that Dr Goodwin was one of the members of the Westminster Assembly. His various writings afford evidence of his adaptation for the work assigned to that pious, learned, and venerable Assembly. In reading the productions of such men as Goodwin, and Greenhill, and Burroughs, and Manton, we see the spirit of the age in which THE SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT was entered into. It is, moreover, not a little tantalizing to hear theologians in our own day, who have scarcely mastered the leading principles of theology, speaking with contempt of Puritanism, and caricaturing both the men and their principles, for the amusement of popular audiences. They were actors in a remarkable age; and the work assigned them was such as could only be done by persons distinguished by eminent gifts, grace, and learning.

But the literary remains of such men are not only highly valuable in this respect, as evidence of their qualifications for the compilation of the Confession, but also as meeting and refuting the errors of their own day-especially the remaining speculations of the schoolmen, and the dogmas of Popery. Throughout all their writings we find fre

quent reference to existing heresies, or the revival of exploded errors. Against these their works are a standing testimony, while at the same time full expositions of Bible truth.

The present volume comprehends a number of treatises-viz.: The Creatures, and the Condition of their State by Creation-Gospel Holiness in Heart and Life-The Blessed State of Glory which the Saints possess after Death-Three several Stages of Christians in Faith and Obedience-Man's Restoration by Grace-Repentance. The first of these is somewhat controversial, being designed to refute some of the Platonic ideas, that the creatures were but "pieces and parcels of God himself." The modern pantheistic theory, that God is in everything, has a similar source and a similar tendency. The work of creation is luminously presented, and traced forward to the moral condition of man as invested with dominion over the creatures, and under the Covenant of Works, in a very masterly style. All the other treatises are full of gospel matter, contrasting most favourably with the surfacedivinity of much of our modern theology. We have not space for extracts at present, but may enrich our pages by brief quotations as occasion offers.

The Holy Bible, containing the Old and New Covenants, translated according to the Letter and Idioms of the Original Languages. Second Edition. By Robert Young, author of several works in Hebrew, Chaldee, Samaritan, Syriac, Greek, Latin, Gujarati, &c. Edinburgh: George Adam Young & Co., Bible Publishers. A. Fullarton & Co., London, Dublin, New York, Aberdeen, &c. &c. 1863. THE fact that far the larger portion of the special revelation which God has given to men is addressed to them in the Hebrew tongue, gives that language a paramount claim on the attention and careful study of men, and of the Church in particular. That God has seen meet to make this language the medium of communicating His mind regarding truth and duty to men, is of itself sufficient proof that, considering the whole circumstances, it is the fittest that could be employed for this purpose. The conciseness of its construction-the copiousness and beauty by which this language is distinguished-has not been duly appreciated even by Christian scholars generally. But the more it is studied, and the better its laws and idioms are known, the more will its excellencies be seen. The more labour and care any bestow on the study of it, the ampler will their reward be in the increased light which they will see and enjoy shining through this medium. It has a singular aptitude for expressing minute shades of meaning with great distinctness. An important signification, which cannot be overlooked without loss, is often contained in a single letter. Indeed, the extensive use which is made of single letters or syllables in complex forms is one of the remarkable characteristics of the Hebrew tongue.

It might seem incredible, were not the fact undeniable, that the study of this language should be so much neglected, and that in so many cases a very superficial acquaintance with it should be deemed sufficient, even in the cases of those whose official position requires that they should make the Sacred Writings their earnest