ment. Dr. Griffin says truly, in one of his discourses: "If there is ever need of simplicity, it is when we attempt the pathetic." The sacred writers always observed this law, and how they touch the place of tears. The evangelists give us some of the most perfect historical sketches in the world,-perfect for simplicity, and powerful as perfect. The pencil does just enough. Still, men of the dashing temperament are not satisfied: they come along and put their coarse daubings right on top of these exquisite touches of the inspired penman. They want something more highly wrought and harrowing. The result is, we are shocked, when we are expected to weep. The simple thought or image would have reached us; but the heavy trappings of it, keep it off. All attempts at "the plastering of marble or painting of gold" are gratuitous: it is labor thrown

away.

It is very easy to overdo, and make a thing which should be good, seem very bad; for the very good and the very bad in oratory, are separated by a narrow line; they dwell in juxtaposition. How often is it, in falling upon some bold and powerful strain, that the writer stops and considers :-Will it do? He himself is startled-is in doubt, and he finds that it will not do, without some modifying, or hauling in. In the original conception, it was just over the line; he brings it just within the line. There everything lies of the higher sort in eloquence. Hence it is that some, who say many fine and striking things, say also some very offensive things. Hence it is, that persons are prone to commit their grossest rhetorical sins in their most excited moments, when in the highest exertion of their impassioned powers. It would be well if all would look sharply to themselves, when they have adventured, or have been borne to, these outer limits of propriety.

A severer restraint is demanded, upon what is intended to be printed than upon what is intended to be spoken; for manner, of the skilful sort, may be made to do much in abating what is offensive in matter. Indeed, what appears bad in unhumoring and inflexible type, may have been not only tolerable, but even forcible and taking, as changed and swayed by tone, and look, and gesture. It is said, by those who were in the habit of hearing Dr. Griffin, that some of the passages in his sermons, which appear decidedly objectionable as we read them, were warmly received, and made a deep impression, as he delivered them.

Dr. Griffin is an illustration of the power and value of manner, in other respects. We apprehend, that no small part of the effect he produced, and the good he accomplished, were the result of manner. By this, he made the people see him; he made them hear him, understand him, and feel him, and the truth he threw at them. Why then do so many, in the presence of such

examples, persist in despising manner, refusing all attention to it, and remain satisfied with a stupid and stupifying way of getting out their thoughts; when, if they would only aim at something better, they might give to these same thoughts a vastly augmented influence. Why does that vigorous reasoner and graphic writer still keep the peace with that frigid and enfeebling monotony, and not rise upon it with indomitable resolution, and break it up, and bring it to an end, and bring into its place the ranging and stirring tones of truth and nature. It is well to have good matter, for matter lies at the foundation; but whoever, in this day, relies upon matter alone, will in the end be disappointed. Whoever puts his trust in matter, to the despising of manner, will find that he is but half equipped for the service. He has got a blade, but he has neglected to put a handle to it.

We admit that the reverse is equally true, and a little more; a handle without a blade is a poor thing for spiritual achievements. Whoever puts his trust in manner to the despising of matter, will effect but little upon discerning minds. So far as the people are fools they will admire him; but the benefit to them or others will be exceedingly small, unless there is a substance and force in what he says, as well as grace in the way he says it.

A great many things enter into the construction of the complete, well-furnished preacher; and rarely do we find, in one man, so many high and admirable qualities as met in Dr. Griffin. He had his faults; he had, too, the rarest excellences. Viewing him in his best estate, and in his happiest efforts, we are inclined to believe that he was, at times, the most eloquent man who has yet stood up in the American pulpit.

ARTICLE IV.

THE PROPHET LIKE UNTO MOSES.

By REV. E. P. BARROWS, Jr., Prof. Sac. Lit. Western Reserve College, Ohio.

Note by the Author.

THE substance of the following article was written several years ago, as a part of a course of lectures on the Messianic Prophecies, before the writer had read Hengstenberg's remarks on the passage. With the general tenor of these remarks he entirely coincides. But Hengstenberg has not, in his view, presented the argument in its full strength. Particularly has he passed over very cursorily one consideration of great weight in

He

determining the Messianic character of the prophecy. hopes, therefore, that the following remarks will be acceptable to the biblical student.

"The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken: according to all that thou desiredst of the Lord thy God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord God, neither let me see this great fire any more, that I die not. And the Lord said unto me, They have well spoken that which they have spoken. I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him. And it shall come to pass that whosoever will not hearken unto my words, which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him. Deut. 18: 15-19.

The above passage is expressly cited by two inspired men, the apostle Peter, (Acts 3: 22, 23), and Stephen, (Acts 7: 37), as a prophecy of the Messiah, and that not by way of accommodation, but of direct argument. There is, moreover, great weight in the argument of Hengstenberg, going to show that Jesus himself led the way in this interpretation. He says, "According to Luke 24: 44, he explained to his disciples the prophecies relating to himself in the Pentateuch. And it cannot be supposed that the very passage, Acts 3: 22, 23, which was brought forward by Peter as the most conclusive of all, should not have been so represented by Christ. We might, then, rest upon the authority of inspiration as decisive against all the objections of Jewish and modern Christian interpreters. If the declaration of Peter, under the immediate and plenary inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and that, too, in giving an interpretation which, beyond reasonable doubt, the disciples had received from the lips of the Lord himself, is to be set aside as of no weight, then there is an end to the authority of the apostles, as inspired men. But an examination of this prophecy, in connection with the context, will show not only that the non-Messianic interpretations are forced and unnatural, but that the ancient Messianic interpretation, which has been generally adopted by the Church in all ages, is altogether natural and suitable to the context.

We will in the first place, state the interpretations proposed by those who deny the reference to Christ, with the arguments by which they endeavor to support them. Then we will bring forward the true Messianic interpretation, in doing which we can best refute the arguments of the non-Messianic expositors.

Several of the Jewish expositors understand by the prophet here spoken of, Joshua, or Jeremiah. Moses, they say, had, just before he gave this promise, been exhorting the people not to imitate the superstitions of the heathen nations whom they were about to dispossess. These nations resorted, for a knowledge of futurity, to observers of times, and diviners. But the Israelites were here forbidden to do so, on the ground that they had no excuse for such practices. Through Moses, they had enjoyed the privilege of consulting the true God, and learning his will, and, now that he was about to be removed, God would raise up to them another prophet, like himself, who should, in God's name, communicate to them his will; so that, if they should resort to the superstitious observances of the heathen nations, who had no living God to consult, they would be without excuse.

Others, as Kimchi, and most of the later Jewish expositors, take the word (prophet), collectively, understanding by it the prophets of all periods. Among the ancients, this interpretation was adopted by Origen; and it is defended by many modern critics, as Rosenmüller, Vater, Baumgarten, Crusius, etc. The arguments by which it is defended we give from Rosenmüller. "By the word is not to be understood any one prophet, like Joshua, as most of the Hebrew interpreters have preferred, or the Messiah, as the Christian interpreters generally, of former time, have taught; but all the prophets, as a class, are indicated, whom God, in coming ages, was about to appoint in the land of the Israelites, as the interpreters of his will. In the Hebrew, therefore, the singular is put for the plural, an enallage of which many examples are at hand; or is to be taken collectively. For this the connection of the discourse obviously demands. Moses had just been admonishing the Israelites to beware of consulting soothsayers, because God would reveal to them future events in another way. What the other way is, he immediately explains. (Verses 15-18.) For even if they were not going to hear the voice of God any longer, by such mediators as Moses himself had hitherto been, yet God would, in future time, speak with them, and raise up to them prophets in all ages." After referring to the Messianic interpretation, and some arguments by which it is defended, he adds, "Every one perceives, at the first glance, that this reference to the Messiah is wholly repugnant to the series of the discourse. For how do these things agree: Do not consult soothsayers, for God will raise up to you the Messiah?" This is a statement of the objection to the Messianic interpretation in its full strength. Of how little real force it is, an examination of the prophecy itself, in all its connections, will show.

It is, first of all, of primary importance (and this is the point which Hengstenberg has passed by with only one or two cursory remarks), that we remember the connexion in which this pro

phecy was originally intended. It was not first spoken by Moses to the Israelites, at or near the close of his life; but it was addressed by God himself to Moses, while he stood before him on the summit of Sinai, at the very beginning of the forty years' sojourn in the wilderness. Now, beyond controversy, the meaning which the words had, as originally uttered by Jehovah, is the meaning which they had when repeated by Moses forty years afterwards the true meaning after which we are to inquire. What then was this meaning? The circumstances connected with the original giving of prophecy are briefly the following:

The Lord had descended in awful majesty upon Sinai, with thunders, and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceedingly loud, so that all the people that were in the camp trembled. From the summit of the mountain, concealed by thick darkness and devouring fire from mortal vision, he had uttered the ten commandments.

This mode of communication between God and his sinful creatures was too terrible to be endured. "And all the people," says the sacred historian, "saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and when the people saw it they removed and stood afar off. And they said unto Moses, speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die." (Ex. 20: 18, 19.) These are manifestly the same words, for substance, that Moses repeats in the passage now under consideration : "Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, neither let me see this great fire any more, lest I die."

"They

This request of the people, Moses reported to God, and he commended it as altogether reasonable and proper. have well spoken that which they have spoken." As if he had said, "I know that this mode of communicating my will to men is overwhelming. They have petitioned that I should address them through thee, one of their own brethren, as a mediator: it is a reasonable request, and shall be granted."

The idea of the necessity of God's using a mediator in communicating to men his will, having been thus distinctly brought forward, God takes occasion to say that he will not only grant the present desire of his people, by ordaining his law through the hand of Moses as a mediator, but that he will hereafter raise up to them a great mediator, like unto Moses, who shall be one of their own brethren, shall communicate to them, as a faithful ambassador, all his will, and to whom all shall be bound to hearken under the penalty of death.

The petition of the people was, (let this be carefully noted) that God would address them through Moses as a mediator, and not overwhelm them with the awful display of his majesty, while, with his own voice, he spoke to them from the midst of