214 



Monthly Revictv of Literature, 



[FEB. 



begirt for new undertakings. He is a 

 very competent person for such matters; 

 and we must say, we greatly prefer his his- 

 tory to his poetry. Divided as men are, on 

 the momentous question of religion even 

 we who heartily embrace the fact of revela- 

 tion it was not to be expected Mr. Mil- 

 man would please every body ; and, accord- 

 ingly, we find, many of his friends we do 

 not, of course, mean the " mumpsimus" 

 party, but even those who are willing and 

 able to take common sense with them to 

 the consideration of the subject, even these 

 have, some of them, thought him approach- 

 ing the very confines of scepticism ; while 

 others, of the evangelical cast, not to use 

 the opprobrious term of fanatic, have broken 

 into open exclamations, and charged him 

 with rank infidelity. We observed a letter 

 in a religious paper, called the Record, a 

 few days ago, representing the work as 

 stained with one universal tinge of atheism 

 the writer affirming, moreover, that he 

 knew but three persons who had read it, 

 and all three had had their faith not only 

 shaken, but shattered. Mr. M. will, of 

 course, treat those extravagances with the 

 contempt they deserve. His purpose was 

 plainly to confine himself, as far as was 

 practicable, to the historical to separate 

 what rested, apparently, upon human testi- 

 mony, and though constituting a portion of 

 the scriptures, to treat it like any other his- 

 torical evidence to discriminate the extra- 

 ordinary from the common to illustrate, 

 in the career of the Jews, each stage of 

 civilization, by reference to similar stages in 

 other nations in different regions of the 

 world and to explain what was explainable 

 by natural phenomena, on the common 

 principles of philosophy to admit no more 

 causes than are necessary, and to ascribe 

 the same effects to the same causes. The 

 prosecution of these principles has, occa- 

 sionally, given the author the appearance of 

 wishing to reduce extraordinary matters to 

 the smallest possible quantity of miracle, 

 and has exposed him to the vituperation of 

 some who would have men, like children, 

 shut tLeir eyes, open their mouths, and 

 s -A- allow what is put into them. According 

 to these persons, Mr. Milman has treated 

 the inspiration of the scriptures with little 

 or no respect. Yet to suppose the scrip- 

 tures the direct effect of inspiration both in 

 matter and language, from one end to the 

 other, and on every subject, is a supposition 

 fit only for children. The absurdity of it, 

 to any one who looks fairly at them, stares 

 him in the face. Obviously the historical 

 part depends on human testimony, for it 

 tells only what had occurred ; and differing, 

 as in different parts it often does, if not in 

 substance, yet in circumstance, the con- 

 clusion is irresistible, that the writers de- 

 pended not on divine communication, nor 

 wholly on their own knowledge, but on 

 report and tradition. Take the moral parts 

 again, such as the Proverbs what signs are 



there of inspiration there? Are not the 

 maxims and monitions the gatherings up of 

 ordinary and every day's experience ? The 

 story of Job again is, apparently, merely 

 dramatic inspiration would not surely 

 argue so uncharitably as Job's comforters ? 

 In short, inspiration seems limited to the 

 prophetic parts, and in them to the subject 

 the varying style shews, not the varying 

 feelings of inspiration, r t but the varying in. 

 strument the taste of the individual. 

 Ezekiel differs from Isaiah, and Jeremiah 

 from both, not because each is not divinely 

 inspired, but because each conveys his in- 

 spirations in the manner prompted by his 

 genius, associations, and habits. 



Mr. M., in his preface to the last volume, 

 describes his views of inspiration as corre- 

 sponding with those of Tillotson, Seeker, 

 and Warburton like our. own, though, 

 perhaps, not so broadly expressed and 

 prudently (we do not use the word invi- 

 diously) appeals to the authority of the pre- 

 sent bishop of London, who, in some 

 Dissertation of his, expressly states his 

 belief, " that Moses himself may have pos- 

 sessed many sources of information, from 

 which he might draw the most material 

 circumstances of the early history of man- 

 kind, without being indebted for them to 

 direct inspiration," which sources could 

 amount to nothing but tradition books, 

 apparently, there were none. 



Now these views of inspiration leave 

 greater freedom of inquiry, and are admira- 

 bly calculated to baffle such men as Bayle, 

 Voltaire, and Volney, and all who attempt, 

 as somebody said Paley we believe to 

 wound Christianity through the sides of 

 Judaism. The Jews were the conservators 

 of the doctrines of the divine Unity and 

 Providence, and the promises of a Re- 

 deemer ; but, in other respects, they seem 

 to have been left to pass through the ordi- 

 nary stages of society, with no other advan- 

 tage than the stimulus and excitement such 

 apparent privilege was well calculated to 

 furnish. " The seeming authorization," says 

 Mr. M., " of fierce and sanguinary acts, 

 which frequently occur in the Hebrew an- 

 nals, resolves itself into no more than this 

 that the Deity did not think it time to cor- 

 rect the savage, I will add, unchristian, 

 spirit inseparable from that period of the 

 social state." Whether we can penetrate 

 the purpose of the Deity or not, the career 

 of the Jews is accountable enough upon the 

 common influences of human passions 

 they acted like other men, with this dif- 

 ference only, that they were more assuming, 

 insolent, and inflexible, from the feeling, 

 irrepressible and inevitable, if the fact were 

 so, and the belief of it comes to the same 

 thing, that they were the favourites of 

 Heaven, and its especial instruments of 

 vengeance. 



The best and most humane feelings per- 

 vade Mr. M.'s tracings of the treatment this 

 unhappy people met with in their later hi*- 



