view of the high cultivation of music among the Hebrews of that day. Miriam and the women with timbrels indicated that that instrument was chiefly used by women to give expression to joy. The next era was that of Samuel, under whom music was made a chief branch of instruction in the schools of the prophets. Then were formed bands combining four instruments-psaltery, tabret, pipe, and harp. The age of David and Solomon was next noticed. David's lesser and larger bands sustained the tabernacle service of praise without cessation; and on great occasions, such as the three feasts, no less than 4000 took part. Even in the times of decadence, under Nehemiah, Jerusalem was still a centre of song. Coming to New Testament times, the lecturer dwelt on the notices of musical instruments by our Saviour, and by St Paul, and St John, and concluded by urging the duty of consecrating the gift of music to the praise of God. Much additional interest was given to the proceedings by the performance on the harp of some of the most ancient Hebrew melodies, the character of which strikingly confirmed Mr Churton's remarks on the high talent for music among the Jewish people."-London Paper.

M. Rollin and the Cyropædia.

M. Rollin (Ancient History, vol. ii. chap. 1) writes, that "Xenophon is infinitely more worthy of credit than Herodotus on the subject of Cyrus' life, as he served a long time under the younger Cyrus, and says, in the beginning of the Cyropædia, I advance nothing but what has been told me." Yet Ctesias, who had better opportunities of ascertaining the truth than Xenophon, has left upon record that Cyrus dethroned Astyages, and finally was mortally wounded in battle against an eastern nation who lived not far from India. With regard to any preference which M. Rollin might feel for Xenophon's account of the manner of Cyrus' death, over that given by Herodotus, the following extract may not be altogether unworthy of notice :

"Some writers, among whom, perhaps, M. Rollin may be numbered, have appeared to think that the mind of Coresh or Cyrus may have experienced a strong and abiding moral change at this time (i. e., when he learned, probably from Daniel, the predictions of Isaiah, in which he bad been mentioned by name). And being unconsciously influenced by this notion, they seem to suppose that he was under the special care of the Divine Providence, and that it could not be permitted (so to speak) that he should die otherwise than peacefully, and in his palace, and in the bosom of his family and friends. It would be wicked as well as presumptuous to denounce the Divine judgments against Cyrus, because he (appears to have) yielded to the malignant adversaries of the Jews, and to have allowed the building of the temple of God to be hindered and interrupted during the closing years of his reign.* But the candid

* Cyrus reigned six years after the death of Darius, the Mede; and Zerubbabel and Jeshuer must have been in Judea during more than five years after the death of Darius, the Mede. And as the work of rebuilding was resumed in

reader of the Holy Scriptures will, doubtless, concede that there is nothing of ignorant fanaticism in the idea that, from the day in which be turned his back upon the builders of the temple at Jerusalem, or at least left them in the power of their enemies, Cyrus forfeited (as it were) his claim to continue under the special care of that Supreme God, who had hitherto subdued nations, and loosened the loins of kings before him. If he had faithfully and energetically promoted to a successful completion the building of the temple of the God of Israel, we might have more easily believed that it could not have been permitted that he should die otherwise than peacefully And as Cyrus, after his public recognition of the God of the Jews as the Supreme God of heaven, practically renounced that confession of his faith, when he allowed the malignant enemies of the Jews to stop the building of the temple, we cannot wonder if the Most High permitted the dynasty of Coresh to pass away, and a new dynasty to be established in the person of Darius Hystaspes, before He suffered the great work to be resumed, and the temple to be completed."

Titles of Old Books.

"The True News of the Good New World shortly to come (Heb. ii. 5.) for all such as shall then be found real saints; with the sudden end of all the enjoyments of this present evil world to such as then shall be found unsanctified. By William Sherwin, Incumbent of Baldock and Wellington." London, 1671.

"Maromah; the Lord of Rome, the Antichrist, finally and fully discovered: his name, and the number of his names, hitherto wonderfully hid in the words of Solomon and Isaiah, but now revealed beyond all scruple and doubt, to the seasonable comfort of all the faithful, to the confusion of Pope and Popish ministers, to the vindication, praise, and encouragement of all Protestant witnesses, peculiarly the happy discoverers of the late most horrid Popish plot. Being a second sermon on Prov. xiv. 25. 4to. London, 1679. By William Ramsay, B.D., Lecturer in Islesworth."

the second, and completed in the sixth year of Darius Hystaspes, it is plain that the temple might have been completed before the death of Cyrus, if the builders had not been prevented from continuing their labours.

Correspondence.

To the Editor of the Quarterly Journal of Prophecy.

MY DEAR SIR,-In accepting your courteous offer to insert "another and longer letter" on the subject of The Old Testament Saints and the Church, I am anxious to confine myself to the great point at issue between the articles in your Journal for January and April, and the views against which those articles are directed. Any one judging of those views only by the light in which these articles represent them, would suppose that the depreciation of Old Testament saints was their great point-their most characteristic feature. He would infer that the great object of such as maintain those views, is to assert the superiority of saints during the present period over saints in Old Testament times. But nothing could be more erroneous than such an impression. The real question is as to the doctrine of the New Testament on the nature, calling, privileges, and destiny of the Church: that is, of those who, confessedly by all parties, do, in whole or in part, constitute the Church. The question, whether the saints of former ages shall, in the resurrection, be incorporated with these, as part of the same body, is but a collateral, and very subordinate question. It is not without its interest and importance, indeed, so far as light may be shed upon it by Scripture; but it would be a total misconception of those against whom the two articles in your Journal are directed, to suppose that with them the maintenance of any theory as to Old Testament saints, is an object of primary or cardinal importance. That which is deemed by them the true doctrine as to the Church has this importance in their eyes; but slight, indeed, is any notice of this doctrine contained in the papers it is now my place to examine.

Whether Old Testament saints, and millennial saints, do or do not form part of the Church, all are agreed that saints of the present period belong to it; and that to them (whether exclusively or not) the title belongs. Now, what the New Testament seems to many to affirm is this: that by virtue of the death, resurrection, and ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ, as accomplished facts, and of the personal descent and indwelling of the Holy Ghost, the saints of the present period are vitally united to Christ, as their actually glorified Head, and to one another as actually members of His body, and thus members one of another. To those who are thus, while yet living on this earth, and awaiting Christ's return, united to Him and to each other, the New Testament seems to apply the title, "the Church;" while all its statements, whether prophetic (as Matt. xvi. 18), historic (as Acts ii. and seq.), or doctrinal (as Ephesians and Colossians),* seem to limit this title to those

* The Epistle to the Ephesians clearly affirms the identity of privilege in the case of Old and New Testament saints; nay, it asserts that the result of Christ's death and resurrection was to bring the latter into a participation of the privileges already possessed by Jewish saints. The sad estate of the Gentile was, that he was "an alien from the commonwealth of Israel, and a stranger to the covenant of promise;" and out of this he is brought by Christ's death and resurrection. The " making both one" does not refer merely to Jew and Gentile after Pentecost, but generally to Old and New Testament believers; "both are reconciled in one body by the cross," for surely the cross was the reconciliation point, long before it was actually erected on Calvary. The words, (ii. 19) "No more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints," clearly shew the privileges which Old Testament saints enjoyed, and into which the Gentiles were now introduced. This

of whom these things can be truly predicated. Can they be predicated of Old Testament Saints? Is it any depreciation of these blessed men of God to affirm that, living as they did before the incarnation of Christ, they were not actually united by the Holy Ghost come down from heaven to a rejected, risen, and glorified Christ, at God's right hand? Or are we, from a groundless fear of depreciating these ancient worthies, to hide from ourselves the fact, that sovereign grace has conferred on us blessings of which they could form no idea? This would be a tribute to their memory, which they, of all others, would be the first to reject and deplore.*

I

In the January article, five arguments are brought forward and answered, as though alleged and mainly relied on, by such as doubt whether Old Testament saints will ever form part of the Church. Of these five I can truly say that I never knew more than one so used. now refer to Eph. iii. 6; and would reserve it for consideration by and by. But as to 1 Peter i. 12, Heb. iii. 1, Luke vii. 28, and Heb. xi. 40, no one acquainted with the bearings of the question would produce them to show that Old Testament saints will not form part of "the Bride-the Lamb's wife." They all indicate a wide difference between former dispensations and that under which we live, and have doubtless been referred to in proof of this difference. But to the question at issue between the writer in your January Number, and those whose views he assails, these passages have nothing to say.+

But while Heb. xi. 40, may not in itself afford sufficient evidence of a distinction between the Church and Old Testament saints, the efforts made in both the January and April articles, to use it as a counter-argument, seem to me singularly to fail. Your readers must, I think, have perceived, that on this passage the one article subverts the other. That in January accepts the authorised English version, and reasons on what "the better thing" is. The April article gives a new rendering of the passage, and affirms that it "does not teach that God had provided something better for us than for them." And what is meant, I would ask, by the following statement in the January article? The italics, be it observed, are not mine, but just as in the article itself. 66 But, in addition to all we have advanced, let a man only go

is still more clearly stated in chap. iii. 6, that the Gentiles should be fellowheirs (with Old Testament believers) and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ, by the gospel." The Epistle to the Galatians is equally explicit," If ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed;" "they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham." If Mr Trotter's doctrine be scriptural, it should be, "blessed far above faithful Abraham." The Epistle to the Hebrews, especially the eleventh chapter, asserts the same thing.— Editor.

* This seems to us a most startling assertion, striking at the very root of God's eternal purpose. The argument implies that because Christ did not actually die and rise till a certain age of the world, therefore, in the purpose of God, they who lived before this could not enjoy the benefits of His death and resurrection. It must also be denied that they had the benefit of His blood beforehand, because it was not actually shed. The real question is not as to the actualities of time, but as to God's eternal purpose. Mr Trotter will find some difficulty in reconciling his statements with a belief in that purpose-Editor.

+ We cannot but express our strong dissent from this statement.-Editor. I say in itself; for, viewed in connexion with verse 23 of the next chapter, it does appear to furnish an argument of considerable strength. The one verse speaks of Old Testament saints being "made perfect" at the same time as saints of the present period; the other distinguishes between "the spirits of just men," even when thus "made perfect," and "the Church of the first-born ones (see the Greek) which are written in heaven."

on with the text, that they, without us, should not be made perfect,' and he must surely admit that the apostle was speaking of what these Old Testament saints were yet to obtain in connexion with us, and along with us. What else do the words mean? They were not without us' to be 'made perfect;' i. e., thoroughly set at rest from guilt, and introduced into full confidence toward God." Are we then to infer from this remarkable passage that the writer regards the Old Testament saints as not yet made perfect in this sense? as not yet "thoroughly set at rest from guilt and introduced into full confidence toward God?" I would not charge him with holding such a thought, though I see not how his words, in their proper grammatical import, can be otherwise understood. He says that the apostle spake "of what these Old Testament saints were yet to obtain." Does he mean "were yet to obtain" when the apostle wrote? Afterwards he says, "but surely that means that they are to be made perfect with us." Here again the italics are the writer's own. Will he kindly explain his meaning? Will he inform us whether it be that Job and Elihu, and saints under the law in the earlier part of Israel's history had, after their release from the body, to wait till the commencement of the present dispensation to be "thoroughly set at rest from guilt," &c.; or, that they are still waiting for this till the morning of the resurrection? If either thought be that which he intended to express, I can only say that it is the most depreciatory of Old Testament saints of any with which it has been my lot to meet. What is the view which would assign them a place in glory distinct from that of the Church, compared with that which represents them as waiting for centuries after their departure from this life to be " thoroughly set at rest from guilt and introduced into full confidence toward God?”*

As to the new rendering of Heb. xi. 40, given dogmatically in the April article, to say nothing of its contradicting the January paper, it seems so unnecessary, so unnatural, and so unadapted to any end but that of making the passage support the writer's views, that it needs but to be examined to be rejected. Unnecessary, for why change any part of the passage into a parenthesis, when the whole makes excellent sense as it stands? The writer speaks of an ellipsis, and undertakes to supply it; but any one may perceive that the ellipsis is created by the writer's unwarranted insertion of the demonstrative pronoun "that," which has no counterpart in the Greek, and no existence in the passage. The writer's version is unnatural, for it destroys the harmony and mutual dependence of the separate parts of which the passage consists. Are not περὶ ἡμῶν and χωρὶς ἡμῶν (“for us and "without us,") evidently dependent on each other? But how so, if the former be in the middle of a parenthesis? Finally, the rendering may seem, to such as adopt it, to make the passage support the writer's views. But the only argument for the change which he produces is founded on the assumption that the word xopis (without) absolutely excludes the idea of difference between the Old Testament saints and ourselves. But the word has no such force. It is limited in its application by the special subject in reference to which it is used. In this passage it is limited to time. Our brethren of former ages were permitted to die without receiving the promise, because God had provided some better thing for us, that they without us-i. e., before us, or apart from us, as to time—should not be made perfect. If the word xwpis has the absolute force for which the writer contends, what can be made of such passages as John xv. 5, and

*This is twisting the sentence to make out an unfair result. We read the meaning of it thus. The types and promises of the Old Testament could not give perfect rest; there was needed the discovery of the antitype and of the Promised One. This the Lord gave them; for see 1 Pet. i. 12, and John viii. 56. Now, the fact that the Lord thus took care that they should share our blessings by anticipation, shews His purpose to set us and them down at one feast in due time.-Editor.