peal to our people upon this subject, and a strong statement of the gladness with which the truth has been again and again received by multitudes of the heathen.

The great argument in favour of this particular method of increasing our efficiency is, that machinery of vast power may be set in motion, without any very unusual exertion; and that, by a single effort on the part of the clergy, we secure the interest and co-operation of large numbers in the work we design to further; besides, no labour is lost according to this plan. You have no two persons walking over the same ground, and no one person going over the same ground twice; but each individual is working powerfully in his own independent sphere; and the matter is brought before the great mass of the people, by their own natural advisers and friends, and in a manner highly calculated to secure the point.

Every Christian family is, in truth, a little church of God, in which the head of that family is the officiating priest, for the maintenance of piety and charity, and all the families in a parish form together one large family, of which the minister of God is head; and all the parishes in a diocese form one large family, of which the bishop is the head; and all the dioceses in Christendom form one large family, of which Christ is head. Surely, then, no plan is better calculated to promote the glory of God, our Saviour, and the good of our fellow-creatures, than one which recognises and acts upon this simple classification of all Christian people.

Would any of the rural deans, who approve of this suggestion, bring the matter under the notice of the clergy within their districts? Your obedient servant, D.

LESLIE ON THE USE OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. SIR,-The opinion of the early church is an invaluable test of religious truth. Yet, however, in accordance with common sense, this assertion is, at the present day, frequently impugned. It is openly scoffed at and derided by the sectarian, and meets with hardly better treatment from some members of our own church. To be fettered by the opinions of early writers, who after all were but mere men, is considered, by many, an intolerable hardship, and restraint of Christian freedom. To form our own theories on religious subjects, without reference to the recorded opinions of the primitive church, is esteemed an essential part of a Christian's liberty. Any attempt, moreover, to control this, is looked on as an approximation to the system of popery. Yet this was confessedly the principle of the early church. "Quodcunque prius, verum, quodcunque posterius falsum," is the sound rule of interpretation adopted by Tertullian, and still more fully developed at a subsequent period, by Vincent, of Lerins; and is, undoubtedly, the principle on which our church proceeded in reforming herself from the errors of popery. That this sound test of truth may again be applied, in opposition both to popery and puritanism, is much to be wished; and the republication, in the "Tracts for the Times," of parts of the two treatises just alluded to, may, it is hoped, help to

restore to its former influence this principle of catholic interpretation. With the same view I venture to recal to the memory of your readers some passages from Leslie's "Letter on the Study of Ecclesiastical History." Such sound and judicious views deserve to be more generally known.

"Of all history, the ecclesiastical is the most beneficial; as much more as the concerns of the church are above that of the state our souls above that of our bodies -and our eternal state more than the moment we have to stay in this world....... These, and these only, I may say, is the division of all controverted points in divinity, either as to doctrine or discipline; for every one of them must be determined by matter of fact. It is not refining and criticisms, and our notion of things, but what that faith was which was once delivered to the saints. This is matter of fact, and must be determined by evidence; and where any text of the New Testament is disputed, the best evidence is from those fathers of the church who lived in the apostolical age, and learned the faith from the mouth of the apostles themselves,— such as, Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp, &c. These must know the best sense and meaning of the words delivered by the apostles; and, next to them, they to whom they did deliver the same; and so on, through the several ages of the church, to this day. And those doctrines, and that government of the church, which has this evidence, must be the truth. And they who refuse to be determined by this rule are justly to be suspected; nay, they give witness against themselves that they are departed from the truth. Thus the church of Rome will not be concluded by the evidence, but by what they call the authority of the church; then they make this authority the same in all ages, and so settle all upon the authority of the present church. The same method would baffle and silence our vile sectaries, of several sorts. For example, Who can read that history of Eusebius, and doubt that episcopacy was the government of the church at that time and before all over the Christian world? In which we find nothing of the papal supremacy, or presbyterian purity, but flagrant episcopacy everywhere in all churches; yet, with this difference, that whereas our dissenters (may we not add, too, some of the clergy?) have this plea only left to bawl and wrangle, as if our bishops took more upon them, and assumed greater authority than those primitive bishops did pretend to, over their presbyters and people. The case is so far otherwise that, if our bishops should speak now in the language used by those early apostolical bishops, that rout would be ready to stone them, and cry out, blasphemy! If they were told that the bishop does immediately represent the person of Christ; that, therefore, as the apostles and disciples were obedient to Christ, so ought the presbyters, deacons, and laity, to be obedient to their bishop; that who kept not outward communion with his bishop, did forfeit the inward communion with Christ the head......for that he is the principle of unity in his church, and who is not in communion with him is out of the unity of the catholic church, this would be called high-flying with a witness. Yet this was the language of the holy Ignatius, and those primitive, and even apostolic times......The state and history of the primitive church shews, by a stronger argument, i. e., of fact, what was the government of the church, as established and left by the apostles. For that is, after all, what must determine us: it is not what schemes and contrivances we may fancy, but what that government was which, de facto, the apostles left in the church; and that must continue till a greater, at least as great, an authority shall alter it......But some think that the apostles left no standing government in the church, but what might be altered by the church in after ages, according to occasions and emergencies; and so episcopacy, presbyters, or anything else, may come in. These make no great matter of the government of the church, so as they cry, the doctrine be sound. But they consider not that the government was ordained to secure the doctrine, and no instance can be given, from Jeroboam downwards, when the change of the government did not bring along with it a change of doctrine."

This latter assertion Leslie illustrates by reference to the state of the early church of England during the great rebellion, and of Holland; to which we may now add the case of Geneva, as an instance of the lamentable effects of spurious and ultra-protestantism.

CATHOLICUS.

ON THE POSITION OF PADAN ARAM,

In reply to the Remarks of Dr. Paulus upon the subject, contained in his Review of Mr. Beke's Origines Biblicæ.

SIR,-In the Hebrew Scriptures we find frequent mention made of Padan Aram or Aram Naharaim, which is described as being the country into which Abraham and his family first went after their departure from Chaldea, and in which, when Abraham proceeded thence into Canaan, Nahor and his descendants continued to reside. This country was, by the Jews of Alexandria, considered to be identical with the Mesopotamia of the Greeks; and accordingly, its name was so rendered in the Greek Translation of the Hebrew Scriptures made in that city, which bears the name of the Septuagint version. This identification (although from Judith v. 5-7, and Acts vii. 2-4, it is manifest that it could not have been universally admitted at the times when those two books were written,) was, together with many other Rabbinical opinions in Geography, adopted without question among the early Christians; and notwithstanding that it has always been attended with difficulties which commentators have not been able entirely to surmount, its general correctness appears never to have been doubted.

In my Origines Biblica,* however, I have taken upon myself to deny altogether the correctness of this identification; and I have in that work (pp. 122-133,) given my reasons for the opinion therein expressed, that Padan Aram, so far from being represented by Mesopotamia, was situate very much nearer to the confines of Canaan ; and that, in fact, its true position is to be looked for in the neighbourhood, and probably to the southward of Damascus.

The opinion thus expressed has met with the most decided opposition from Dr. Paulus of Heidelberg, who, in a Review of my work published in the Heidelberger Jahrbücher der Literatur,† at the same time that he scoffs at my belief in such a vulgar error as that “the Bible is the written word of God," manifests not less his indignation at the presumptuous attempt thus made-and that above all by an Englishman, to disturb, in this as well as in other particulars, the "received orthodox, and truly Rabbinical interpretation" of the Jews of Alexandria, to whom he would appear to attribute an infallibility which he denies to the writers of the text itself.

It is not my intention upon the present occasion to comment on the subject of that review generally my object is simply to confine myself to the learned reviewer's criticism of my opinion on the subject of Padan Aram.

In order to do this with justice, both to my reviewer and to myself, it is necessary that I should discuss his observations in detail.

He begins thus, then: "I will now proceed to notice a single special example of the (most assuredly not rational) method of the author. The Haran of Gen. xxvii. 43, xxviii. 10, cannot be the Charro so well known from its connexion with the history of Crassus. And why not? Why, because, although it be true from Gen. xxxi. 22, that

* "Origines Biblica; or, Researches in Primeval History," vol. i., London, 1834. For January, 1835, pp. 43–61. 4 Q

VOL. VIII.-Dec. 1835.

Jacob, when he fled, was three days in advance before Laban knew of it, yet still it would not have been possible for him to reach Mount Gilead in 10 days; for Charro being distant about 400 miles from Gilead, his flocks and herds could not have travelled at the rate of 60 miles a day." Now this is so far from being a correct statement of my argument, that it altogether omits what is the real question between us, which is simply as to the meaning of the "seven days' journey" of Laban. It is unnecessary, however, to say any thing here on the subject, as the point will be sufficiently brought out before the termination of the present observations. The "60 miles" (instead of 40,) is, of course, merely a clerical error.

cus.

"The correctness of the latter portion of this statement may perhaps be admitted. But straightways the author comes to the conclusion that there must have been another Haran, and that Padan Aram (Gen. xxviii. 2,) is to be looked for in the neighbourhood of DamasOne cannot but admire the author's observation and reflexion; but one is, nevertheless, not a little surprised that so many different places bearing similar names have always to be sought after." One would have greater reason to be surprised, if mere similarity of name were all that was considered requisite to establish the identity of a place in the present day with one which existed three or four thousand years ago; and I presume that the reviewer does not wish it to be understood that such is his opinion. But if such were really the case, a place in Elhedja, south of Damascus, called Harran, which is mentioned by Burckhardt,* would be a far better representative of Haran than even Charro itself, as being actually identical in name with the Hebrew

The reviewer then proceeds to say: "Let us, therefore, examine the text (rationally) a little closer. Is it any where said that Jacob's flocks travelled a distance of 400 miles in 10 days,—that is, 40 miles daily,—in their journey from Haran to Mount Gilead? This would certainly not have been possible. But neither does the text say that Jacob travelled that distance in 3+7 days." The reviewer is, no doubt, entirely correct in these remarks; but on my part also, at the same time that I assert the impossibility of Jacob's flocks having made such a journey, I expressly state (p. 130,) that "the time employed either by Laban in his pursuit, or by Jacob in his flight, is not men

tioned."

"Jacob had waited" (the reviewer continues)" until Laban was gone to shear his sheep at so great a distance (to the eastward of Haran) that he did not receive intelligence of Jacob's flight until three days afterwards (Gen. xxxi. 19-22)." Dr. Paulus doubtless possesses far more penetration than myself, and he may, therefore, see far more in the text than I can; for although I will not deny that Jacob would naturally have availed himself of the opportunity afforded him by Laban's absence, yet I confess my inability to discover where it is stated that he "waited until Laban was gone to shear his sheep." But that Laban went " to the eastward of Haran" is certainly neither stated, nor is there any thing to lead to the presumption that that was the direction (more than any other) in which he went from

"Travels in Syria," &c., p. 216.

Haran. Neither is it said that Laban "did not receive intelligence of Jacob's flight until three days afterwards." The text says "it was told Laban on the third day (2) that Jacob was fled;" which, according to the Hebrew mode of computation (see Orig. Bibl., p. 82), might have been at any time on the second day after Jacob's flight. These misrepresentations of the history are of no real importance as regards the actual point in dispute; but they of themselves evince, better than any comment that might be made upon them, the general fairness and correctness of the reviewer.

;

"But how quickly Laban was able to return, and commence his pursuit of Jacob, and especially how soon he found out that Jacob had fled in the direction of Gilead, (which was not the nearest way to Canaan,) is not told us." All this I admit; for the history simply says, "And it was told Laban, on the third day, that Jacob was fled and he took his brethren with him, and pursued after him seven days' journey, and they overtook him in the mount Gilead;" from which succinct statement (in the absence of all evidence to the contrary,) the legitimate inference unquestionably is, that the pursuit was immediate; besides that, common sense teaches us, as it would have taught Laban also, that the longer he delayed his pursuit, the less likelihood there would have been of his overtaking the fugitive, who (even as it was) had already obtained at least two days' start of him. The assertion, however, that "Gilead was not the nearest way to Canaan," is a petitio principii unworthy of a logical reasoner, such as (I presume,) Dr. Paulus would wish to be considered. If Padan Aram were situate to the southward of Damascus, in the neighbourhood of the Haouran, then Gilead would have been the nearest way to Canaan ; and in that case all the reviewer's arguments founded upon his illogical assumption to the contrary must naturally fall to the ground. But even if it be conceded that Gilead was not the nearest way to Canaan, it is quite certain, nevertheless, that no great time would have been spent by Laban in ascertaining that Jacob had gone in that direction; for it is not possible that the immense droves of the latter (out of which 580 head of cattle were selected as a present to Esau alone, Gen. xxxii. 13-15,) would not have left traces of their progress; besides that, it is an assumption entirely gratuitous (not to say unreasonable,) that the same persons who informed Laban of Jacob's flight, would not also have made him acquainted with the direction of that flight: independently of which, I will ask whether it be at all likely that so remarkable a passage as that of the great body of persons and beasts accompanying Jacob, could have been made through any country that was not totally uninhabited without being the subject of remark to persons who could have informed Laban of its course, supposing him at any time to have been in doubt respecting it.

"The text merely says this" (continues Dr. Paulus): "that, with respect to Laban, the pursuer, the journey that he made amounted to a seven days' journey, (Gen. xxxi. 23,) meaning thereby that the distance which he rode between Haran and Har Gilead was so much. In how many days Jacob was able to travel the direct road thither with his slow-footed flocks and herds, is, however, not to be ascertained from the text, because no one can tell how many circuits (umwege)