Nicolai Toinardi Harmonia Græco-Latina; Parisiis, 1707, folio. A work honoured by the favourable opinion of the present Bishop of Peterborough, for its use in the verbal examination of the Evangelists; as this diligent Frenchman has paralleled in columns, not only passages, but words.

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We now come to our own country, and the superior lucidness, accuracy, and learning of her Harmonists are honourable to English Theology.

The first two volumes of Doddridge's Family Expositor, appeared in 1739 and 1740. This work continues to be among the most popular and useful paraphrasts of Scripture. It has received of late years a testimony of which its author might well be proud. In a Collection of Sermons and Tracts, by the present Bishop of Durham, this eloquent and forcible character is given.

" In reading the New Testament I recommend Doddridge's Family Expositor as an impartial interpreter and faithful monitor. Other expositions and commentaries might be mentioned, greatly to the honour of their respective authors; for their several excellencies, elegance of exposition, acuteness of illustration, and copiousness of erudition. But I know of no expositor who united so many advantages as Doddridge; whether you regard the fidelity of his version, the fulness and perspicuity of his composition, the utility of his general and historical information, the impartiality of his doctrinal comments, or lastly, the piety and pastoral earnestness of his moral and religious applications. He has made, as he professes to have done, ample use of the commentaries that preceded him; and in the explanation of grammatical difficulties, he has profited much more from the philological writers on the Greek Testament, than could almost have been expected in so multifarious an undertaking as the Family Expositor. Indeed, for all the most valuable purposes of a commentary on the New Testament, the Family Expositor cannot fall too early into the hands of those intended for Holy Orders."

In 1747 Matthew Pilkington published his Evangelical History and Harmony, folio. Abandoning the customary arrangement in parallel columns, this writer has divided his work into chapters and sections, and given the facts and doctrines in the words of Scripture itself. It is looked on as a valuable performance.

As we draw closer to our own time, Biblical Literature assumes a more accurate form. Macknight's Harmony of the four Gospels is still among the lists of study given by some of our leading Divines. Its use, however, is derivable less from its arrangement of the Gospels, in which it has unwisely adopted the chronological ideas of Osiander, than from its accompanying and voluminous dissertations.

Archbishop Newcome's Harmony of the Gospels, with the original text, arranged after Le Clerc's manner, and Wetstein's Lectiones at the foot of the page, takes a high rank among those works, and has been the foundation of the chief subsequent "Harmonies." It was first published in 1778, folio.

In. 1778 Dr. Priestley published A Harmony of the Evangelists in Greek, 4to., and in 1780 A Harmony in English. Priestley's natural acuteness, and indefatigable diligence, would have given him great advantages as a Biblical enquirer; but his habitual contempt of other men's opinions, and his rash adherance to every prejudice that started up in a brain busy at once with faction in politics, and innovation in religion, have degraded all his works into the rank of pamphlets, and given them but the use and the existence of pamphlets.

In 1799 White, the celebrated Arabic Professor, produced a work of a species, new, or almost forgotten from its antiquity: Diatessaron, sive integra Historia Domini nostri Jesu Christi, Græce. Ex quatuor Evangeliis inter se collatis, &c. 8vo.

In the Diatessaron the narrative is given, not in fragments and parallelisms, as taken from the separate Evangelists; but in succession, as it might have been formed by an original historian, who had the whole four laid open at once, as materials for his work. The Professor follows Newcome in the arrangement of his narrative, excepting with reference to the Resurrection, in which West and Townson are his chief authorities.

Four or five similar works have been since published, of which the latest before the subject of the present article is A Chronological History, or Diatessaron, in English, by the Rev. Mr. Warner, 1819, 8vo. There is a considerable number of Harmonies, &c. of portions of the New Testament.

The great body of these works is thus arranged under two heads:-Those which presume that the facts of the Gospels follow in chronological order; and those which take the order of one in preference to that of the others, or devise a new arrangement for them all.

The value of " Harmonies" is unquestionable, Scripture can find no safe exposition but in Scripture: the contrast of the the several writers explains their occasional difficulties of narration and phraseology; it supplies from each the facts omitted by the others; and it gives the additional and highly important evidence, that the Evangelists were not copyists of each other, nor of any one common original.

We now come to a performance which includes nearly all that is valuable in its predecessors, with much that is excellent of its own. A great contribution not less to the studies of the Divine, than to the knowledge of the general Christian community; and, as we conceive, a highly honourable evidence of the Scriptural learning, the unsparing research, and the sacred zeal

of its author.

Mr. Townsend explains, in a copious Introduction, the principles of his arrangement. His work is at once a "Harmony" and a "Diatessaron." He takes his rules from Chemnitz, as improved by Archbishop Newcome. He adopts Eichhorn's collection of the events of the first three Evangelists, rejecting, however, Eichhorn's theory, since supported by the respectable authority of Bishop Marsh, of a common origin of those Gospels. Following Eichhorn, he preserves the order of both Mark and Luke, altering that of Matthew. He adopts Mr. Benson's theory of the chronology of our Lord's ministry. His principal aids are Lightfoot, Doddridge, Pilkington, Newcome, and (last and least) Michaelis, whom he characteristi cally describes, as " of high authority among the admirers of the German theologians; and among all who mistake novelty for talent, and the rejection of old opinions for exemption from bigotry."

The general subjects of Scripture controversy are too well known to the student, to require any discussion here; and the limited nature of this article would, of itself, prohibit the discussion. We shall do a more acceptable service by giving a brief view of the principal contents of these volumes in their order. Mr. Townsend divides the whole body of the New Testament into fifteen portions, according to what he conceives the successive and decided advances of our Lord's mission and doctrine to full revelation; accompanying each part with voluminous notes and dissertations.

His First Division, or Chapter, comprehends the period from our Lord's birth to the Temptation; with an examination into the doctrine of the Logos, and the identity of the Logos of St. John, the angel Jehovah, the "Word" of the Targumists, and the Lord Jesus-with dissertations on the Miraculous Concep tion, the Incarnation, and the Temptation; all illustrated by curious and extensive enquiry.

The Second Chapter contains the period from the Temptation to the public assertion of our Lord's Ministry, after the impri sonment of John; with dissertations-on the miracles of Moses and our Lord; and on regeneration and baptism, as declared in the meeting with Nicodemus.

The Third Chapter extends from the Commencement of the public Ministry of Jesus to the Mission of the Twelve; with dissertations on Public Forms of Prayer, on the calling of the Apostles, and on the Demoniacs.

The Fourth Chapter extends to the Mission of the Seventy; with dissertations on Church Establishments, on the Confession of St. Peter, and on the Transfiguration.

The Fifth Chapter includes the events from the Mission of the Seventy to the public entry of our Lord into Jerusalem; with dissertations on his Anointing, and on his Triumphal Reception.

The Sixth Chapter extends to the fifth day before the last Passover; with dissertions on the Voice from Heaven, on the Prophecy of the Fall of Jerusalem, and the End of the World, on the Passover, on the Lord's Supper, and on the Agony in Gethsemane.

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The Seventh Chapter includes the Crucifixion; with dissertations on the Power of the Sword among the Jews under the Roman Government, on the hour of the Crucifixion, and on the Titles affixed to the Cross.

The Eighth Chapter comprehends the time from our Lord's Death to his Ascension; with dissertations on the witnesses, order, and nature, of the Resurrection.

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The second volume begins with the Ninth Chapter, comprehending the interval between the Ascension and the return of the Apostles to Jerusalem; with dissertations on the Miracle of Pentecost, on the Mission of Moses compared with that of our Lord, on the Appointment of the Deacons, on the time of the Publication of St. Matthew's Gospel, on the miraculous Conversion of St. Paul, and on the office and powers of the Apostles.

The Tenth Chapter carries on the events to the Conversion of the devout Gentiles; with dissertations on the ancient Proselytes, on the Conversion of Cornelius, and on the period of St. Mark's Gospel.

The Eleventh Chapter extends to St. Paul's first Apostolical Journey; with dissertations on the nature and Services of the Synagogue, on the Prohibition of eating Blood, and on the Gifts of the Holy Spirit in the primitive Church.

The Twelfth Chapter extends from the preaching at Antioch to the Second Visitation of the Churches by St. Paul; with dissertations on the general purposes, nature, and character of the Epistles, on St. Paul's conduct in Athens, on the Inscription " to the Unknown God," and on the Man of Sin. The Thirteenth Chapter contains St. Paul's third Apostolical Journey; with dissertations on the continued Inspiration of St. Paul, on the Period of the Epistle to Timothy, and on the Epis tle to the Romans.

The Fourteenth Chapter contains "the Fourth Journey of St. Paul;" with dissertations on the Island Melita, on the Epistle to the Ephesians, on the Epistle to the Colossians, on the Epistle to Philemon, and on the Epistle of St. James..

The Fifteenth, and final, Chapter comprehends the last Journey of St. Paul, and the Completion of the Canon of Scripture; with dissertations on the Epistle to the Hebrews, on St. Paul's Residence at Rome, on the First Epistle of St. Peter, on the Second Epistle, on the Epistle of St. Jude, on the various Systems of the Apocalyptic Interpreters, on the Canon of Scripture, on the present Condition of the Jews, the Masora, the Christian Church, the Church of Rome, the Progress of Religion, and the future Hopes and Glories of the World.

- We have now gone through the chief topics of these thirteen hundred pages, not from an index, but doggedly from the pages themselves. The mere enumeration of their articles may give some idea of their diversified and important knowledge. But this is not all: for to every dissertation is appended a list of authorities, enough to appal the diligence of our degenerate age; forming an instrument of signal utility in the hands of the student anxious either to fix his own judgment on the points in question, or to impregnate and invigorate his previous knowledge by all that is to be known in the range of Christian theology. Supplying admirable general information to the ge neral reader; solving perplexities for that class who have no personal means of establishing an authentic judgment; unfolding with a laborious and strenuous hand the plan of the Christian Scriptures to that multitude to whom they are, by circumstances, a sealed book ;-their still higher claim to public honour is vested in that higher public use, by which the influential portion of society, alike the fastidious and scoffing, and the sincere and reverent, the Scribes and Pharisees, and the Preachers and Apostles of the Truth, are directed to those great standard writers by whom ignorance and scruples are to be equally cleared away; those ancient, though earthly fountains of wisdom, learning and holy aspiration, by whose flowings the Church of God is to be refreshed from age to age, until faith is absorbed in sight, and hope in glory. The religious principle of the superior ranks is of incalculable importance to the commonwealth. Melancholy as has been the proof of the popular power of mischief, the great final ruin cannot come, while those nobler and loftier portions of society shall stand out from the flood; while they shall still be seen pointing upwards; the first to receive,