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of divine grace, and through the blood of atonement alone, that man could find a place there at all, they yet stood so close to God that he was said to dwell between them. Hence also in the Revelation, they are represented as being in the nearest place to Godhead, as in the midst of the throne, and round about the throne,' and to them, as highest in rank among the heavenly hosts, and also perhaps as being most immediately interested, is given the first honour of proclaiming the successive openings of the seven-sealed book. The action, moreover, ascribed to them in chap. vii. is capable of consistent expla nation on no other supposition than the one here advocated. For there, in company with the four and twenty elders, they sing, Thou art worthy to take the book, for thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood, and hast made us unto our God kings and priests." (pp. 313-315)...

We cannot extend our extract. Perhaps it is hardly quite correct to say that "it was to man's office, in connexion with the tree of life," that the cherubim were appointed. Man, indeed, was put into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it (w)-yet surely not in the same sense in which the cherubim and the sword of fire kept it. This remark, however, leaves untouched the merits of Mr. Fairbairn's exposition as a whole; and in the verse in which God is said to have placed in the garden of Eden " cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life," it is, indeed, quite possible that the expression "to keep" may refer merely to the sword-the cherubim being placed therein simply as occupants-but the sword, the symbol of God's vindictive justice, as indicating the means whereby that which the cherubim symbolized, could alone be realised.

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We think, also, that the declaration of Psalm xviii. 10, in reference to God, when invoked by David, that "he rode upon a cherub," might receive a more satisfactory explanation than that proposed by Mr. Fairbairn in a page preceding our quotation (p. 308). Perhaps, as one of the component parts of the cherubim was an eagle, (a bird surpassing all others in power of flight), the expression merely denotes speediness of relief. Mr. Fairbairn's explanation of the term cherub, as applied to the powerful king of Tyre, in supposing (p. 307) that the name cherub is applied to him, not in reference to the truth taught by the symbol itself as such, but simply "because he seemed to stand upon the highest ground of creature life and enjoyment," is, we think, of a more satisfactory kind; and is in principle the same with that proposed in reference to the declaration of the psalmist-the usage of the word being in each instance supposed to be figurative, rather than according to its strict meaning, as symbolically used.

Yet, notwithstanding these criticisms as to minor details, Mr. Fairbairn's opinion upon the point selected by us as a specimen of his work, if not fully substantiated, is, we think, more satisfactory, by far, than the ordinary supposition that the cherubim symbolized angelic natures; and more so, also, than the Hutchinsonian notion, advocated and made popular by Parkhurst, in his Lexicons, that they were emblematical of the triune God-both these opinions being at variance with the fact that the cherubim or "living creatures" are represented in the Apocalypse (ch. v. 8, 9), as acknowledging themselves to have been "redeemed to God by the blood of the Lamb."

But we are not so very anxious to maintain the thorough correctness of the opinion proposed by Mr. Fairbairn, with reference to the cherubim. To contend for the principle that the Old Testament Scriptures contain more of type than is specifically recognized totidem verbis in the scattered and incidental intimations of the New-this is our anxiety; and in Mr. Fairbairn's application of this principle we recognize much that is extremely satisfactory, and but little that is extravagant and fanciful; and hail, therefore, with much pleasure, (though without fully acquiescing in all its opinions,) a work that, adopting the principle for which we have contended, uses it with caution.

How far this and other of God's appointed symbols may have been understood, or how much (unsuspected by us) of unwritten revelation there may have been in patriarchal times, upon the subject of man's redemption, we cannot tell; but we know that the patriarchs were not left in total ignorance; and to assume that they knew merely just so much as incidentally transpires in the brief narrative of upwards of two thousand years, given in the book of Genesis, appears to us more unwarranted than the supposition that they at the least knew, with more or less of certainty, what was a type and what was not; and more unwarranted than the supposition that they also knew (less perfectly, indeed, than ourselves, yet in a general way, and with more or less of clearness), that the types foreshadowed redemption and salvation.

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ART. IV. Vindication of John Ronge, the Luther of the Nineteenth Century. Translated from the German. By the Rev. ROBERT TAYLOR, M. A., Rector of Clifton Campville, Staffordshire. London: W. E. Painter, 1845.

2. An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine. By J. H. NEWMAN, Author of "Lectures on the Prophetical Office of the Church." London: Toovey, 1845,

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THE present ecclesiastical crisis is probably one of the most remarkable that the history of Christendom affords. Rome, torn to pieces by internal convulsions, is fiuding foreign aid where she least expected it. Whilst the iron yoke of her bondage, reluctantly endured for centuries, is at last goading her own children into desperate resistance, her ranks are recruited by seceders from her firmest opponent, and deserters from a purer faith.

That which is passing around us, day by day, is indeed calculated to excite our surprise as well as sorrow. The history of the Church, as far as we know, contains no parallel case. Nothing like it has yet been seen. Rome has often had to suffer for her own misdoings in the compelled secession of her adherents; but, save in isolated instances, has not had, as now, to glory in numerous and voluntary adhesions of intelligent and highly gifted members of the English Church. In the days of the licentious and cruel, Henry, and of his more cruel and darker-minded daughter, whole classes of men were bandied to and fro to take their place in one communion or another, according as the temper of the times prevailed with their interests, or the terrors of persecution influenced them; and ever and anon some cavaliering chaplain or solitary non-juror stepped across the narrow path that divided them from Rome: but it remained for our days to witness an organized and simultaneous secession, important as to its moral character and bearing, from the ranks of the orthodox priesthood of the land, in submission to the usurped authority of such an intruder into God's household, and anomaly in Christendom, as the pope..

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It is no new thing that men should rise in indignant remonstrance against the tyranny of the Church in Rome, as is the case in Germany-it is no new thing that they should pay her back in fierce revilings for all the suffering which her wicked policy has engendered. It is not surprising, that, in endeavouring to force upon the mind of the nineteenth century, the ecclesiastical juggleries of the middle ages, she should have awaked a sleeping giant into conscious existence, whose terrible

cry shall be for liberty of thought and action, and whose fiercest energies will all be exercised in accomplishing her destruction as the first step in its attainment. These are facts neither new nor surprising to anyone who reads the past aright, and is alive to what must be the sure result and reaction of an authority abused to tyranny, and a rule exaggerated to oppression: but it is a new thing that men, who have looked her enormities in the face, should become her worshippers: it is a surprising thing that men, who have had leisure in the recesses of their studies to search into the history of her policy and deeds-who, by one glance from the monastic seclusion of their college life, might look abroad, and ascertain what she is when in the plenitude of her power over blind ignorance-should become fascinated by her pretensions, and yield themselves willing slaves to her bondage.

Amongst the moral phenomena of the age this is undoubtedly one of exceeding, though painful, interest. The philosophical historian of other days will find it a subject of instructive enquiry to ascertain how it was, that, whilst her growing deformity was disgusting her ancient lovers, she should yet possess sufficient attractiveness to seduce those who ought to have been the wise men of their time from their true allegiance into spiritual folly.

It may seem at first paradoxical, yet it is no doubt true, that the movement in Germany and elsewhere against Rome, and the movement Romewards in England, though having such different tendencies, may be traced to the same source; viz, a perception of evil a desire for something better than what is actually possessed, and an impatience of authoritative restraint. Both the leading parties in these movements have started with the complaints of existing evils-Ronge, of the deep abasement of the Romish Church and the tyranny of her rule; the Tractarians, of the disunion, diversities in doctrine and practice, and want of authority in the Anglican both have put forth their ideals, in various forms, of the better thing which they desire to haveboth have been found intractable, even to so much of authority as was legitimately exercised. Ronge set at nought the paternal councils of the aged and venerable Bishop Knauer; and, with few exceptions, the Tractarians, whilst professing to acknowledge episcopal authority, have acted independently alike of its remonstrances, rebukes, or instructions.

It is useless to endeavour to account for these movements from secondary causes alone from anything merely temporary or local in its influence. The cause is one far too deeply rooted

-far too extensive in its ramifications to be seen in all the probable development of the evil by a superficial glance; nor

can any one calculate the growth that it will attain, and the fruit that it will bear, who does not fully consider, under what influences it has been brought into being, the inevitable onward tendency of man to a given end, and the amount of progress already accomplished in its attainment.

Every one confesses that the times upon which we have fallen are most extraordinary. There may be, and doubtless is, a great difference in the nature of the subjects upon which the attention is fixed-a great difference in the kind of sympa thies excited, or reflections called into exercise in coming to this conclusion; but, nevertheless, it is a conclusion at which all arrive, no matter in what way. There are mourners over the evil of the days and the lot of the suffering poor, who, with all the wailing eloquence of the weeping prophet of old, plead unheeded with a scornful generation. There are gentle minds and lowly thoughts, passed by and distanced in the mad taste of the age, which are sorrowing for the past, bewildered with the present, and fearful for the future. There are Utopists, who deem the social house of man too small for his enlarged capacities, and too ruinous for repair; and these would fain pull it to the ground to erect others in its stead, wherein their several fancies may receive a full development. There are the' idolaters of science who, in the Babel temple which they hope to build, stand astonished and elated at the progress which they have made. There are political theorists, utterly baffled in their calculations of remedies and results by the statistics for which they have called; statesmen worn out by the failure of their plans and despairing of the future; men of prophetic minds, who use the events of the day in foretelling what will shortly come to pass; moralists and wise men skilled to dissect the evil as it lies, and descant safely on the world's diseasesome who mourn and some who rejoice-some who fold the hands in despair, and some who rise up, in all the energy of hope, to race with the swift for the prize--some who think there is nothing better to look for-some who think the golden age just nascent: yet all these, though looking upon the things that are from such different points, and with such different sympathies and feelings, however otherwise they may stand apart in their thoughts and conclusions, agree unanimously in saying that the circumstances of the times in which we live are unparalleled-all these agree in saying that one age of the world has passed, whilst the most consider that another is commencing, however differently they may understand the terms.

It is clear that no one can at all comprehend the present aspect of the world, both ecclesiastically and politically, who will