whence were compiled the Kings and Chronicles. They will there learn more fully to understand the bearings of the prophecy of Isaiah upon the history of his times; to note in detail the separate yet confirmatory testimony of Kings and Chronicles; to gather up the scattered hints with which the other prophetical books enlighten the whole subject. The analysis will serve to guide them to the intelligent study of the historical books of Scripture, bringing out the full force of minute facts, which, unobtrusive as they seem to be, have yet an appreciable and marked value.

To proceed to the profane history. The Assyrian inscriptions abundantly establish the existence of Israel and Judah as two distinct kingdoms. The invasion of Judæa by Shishak has been commemorated on the outside of the great temple at Karnack; and the "Melchi Yuda" is found in the list of his captured towns and districts. The irruption of Zerah the Ethiopian (2 Chron. xiv. 9; xvi. 8) upon Judæa, under Asa, occurred when "the King of Egypt was an Osorkon,--a name identical in its root consonants with Zerach," who, according to the monuments, was seated on the throne of Egypt at that time. In Ahab's wife, "Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbaal," we have not only a Phoenician name, but a regal name, which Menander informs us governed the Tyrians at that time; the Tyrian historian who tells us of the Phoenician famine in the reign of Eth-baal, the contemporary of Ahab, a famine connected with Elijah's prophecy to Ahab, and with the wondrous events of Carmel. The Cuneiform Annals are first quoted in corroboration of the events in the wonderful life of Ben-hadad, the King of Damascus, who thrice came up against Ahab; the first time retreating with great slaughter, the second losing one hundred and twenty-seven thousand men; and only after a three years' war does he defeat Ahab. The Cuneiform record confirms the Bible narrative in giving Hazael the kingdom immediately after Ben-hadad. For a hundred years after the death of Jehu, the Assyrian annals, the Tyrian records, and the Egyptian records all fail; while "there seems to have been no political contact between these countries and Palestine during the period in question."2 The invasion of Pul, King of Assyria, in the reign of Menahem, is confirmed by Assyrian documents, which preserve to us distinct notices of Tiglath-Pileser, Shalmaneser, Sargon, Sennacherib, and Esar-haddon, notices which accord most wonderfully with the Hebrew text, and which end with Esar-haddon. Of Tiglath-Pileser's two invasions of Israel, described in 2 Kings, the second is recorded in an Assyrian fragment. Ahaz visited Tiglath-Pileser at Damascus, and the new altar that he set up in the Temple at Jerusalem on his return was doubtless an Assyrian altar, a "formal acknowledgment of the worship of the sovereign country." This is one of Mr. Rawlinson's most felicitous explanations. Shalmaneser and

1 P. 126.

2 P. 132.

3 P. 136.

his successor, Sargon, (who is mentioned in the twentieth chapter of Isaiah,) succeeded Tiglath-Pileser, probably the builder of the great palace at Khorsabad; he who did what the monuments represent him as doing, "leading away the Egyptians prisoners and the Ethiopians captives." The annals of Sennacherib contain a full account of his campaign with Hezekiah; and his Syrian expedition, so miraculously terminated, is allowed to be mentioned by Herodotus (ii. c. 141); and his murder by his sons, itself not mentioned, seems confirmed by the sons' flight into Armenia, which was an independent state, with no good feeling towards Assyria. After the reign of Esar-haddon, the place of Assyria is occupied by Babylon. This transfer is abundantly confirmed by profane writers, and the truth of the sacred narrative allowed on all hands. It is upon the later times of the Hebrew monarchy that the Egyptian and Babylonian records throw so much light. The histories of So and Tirhakah, and Pharaoh-Necho and Pharaoh-Hophra, are all elucidated and explained. The name of So is resolved into Seveh, and a king of the name of Sevech, or Sevechus, appears in Manetho's lists: Tirhakah is the Tarcus or Taracus of Manetho, the Tehrak of the monuments, and the Tearchon of Strabo: Pharaoh-Necho stands as Neku on the monuments, as Neco in Herodotus, and as Nechao in Manetho: while, lastly, Pharaoh-Hophra corresponds to Manetho's Haphris, Herodotus' Apries, and the monumental Haifrahet or Haifra. Merodach-baladan, who is probably the same as the Mardoc-empal of the list, we learn, sent letters to Hezekiah, partly to inquire about the astronomical wonder of the sun-dial, which was natural in a country where astronomy stood so high as a study. Berosus confirms this embassy in all the main particulars, and testifies also to the re-conquest of Syria and Palestine from Necho by Nebuchadnezzar, whose siege of Tyre was spoken of by Ezekiel, as well as by the Tyrian historians.

Here Mr. Rawlinson closes this period, which he regards as one of comparative light; light derived from the abstracts of Berosus and Manetho, contained in Egyptian annals; from Tyrian histories; from Grecian investigation; from contemporary Assyrian records; from the monuments of Egypt. And what is the result of the Bible history when so enlightened? We will give it in Mr. Rawlinson's own words: "The result is, a general confirmation of the entire body of leading facts, minute confirmation occasionally, and a complete absence of anything that can reasonably be viewed as serious discrepancy."1

(To be concluded in the next number.)

1 P. 153,

RATIONALISM IN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

PART V.

THE name of Dr. Colenso, the Bishop of Natal, must be familiar to our readers: his Lordship's sanction or toleration of polygamy amongst the heathen converts of South Africa has excited much animadversion, and was mentioned during recent debates in Convocation. The importance of the controversy which has been raised is indeed obvious, and will be further seen from the remarks at a recent public meeting, by the Bishop of Cape Town:

"There were" (says the Bishop,) "questions of great importance growing up in our different possessions which needed to be considered

... as that of polygamy, which was becoming of great importance in his part of Africa, and which was likely to be decided in different ways in different dioceses."1

The opinion of Bishop Colenso on the subject has been set forth in a work published a few years ago, from which an extract shall now be given. He says:

"I must confess that I feel very strongly on this point, that the usual practice of enforcing the separation of wives from their husbands, on their conversion to Christianity, is quite unwarrantable, and opposed to the plain teaching of our LORD. It is putting new wine into old bottles, and placing a stumbling-block, which He has not set, directly in the way of their receiving the Gospel. Suppose a Kafirman advanced in years with three or four wives, as is common among them, who have been legally married to him, according to the practice of their land, (and the Kafir laws are very strict on this point, and Kafir wives perfectly chaste and virtuous,) have lived with him for thirty years or more, have borne him children, and served him faithfully and affectionately-as undoubtedly many of these poor creatures do-what right have we to require this man to cast off his wives, and cause them in the eyes of all their people to commit adultery, because he becomes a Christian? What is to become of their children? Who is to have the care of them? And what is the use of our reading to them the Bible stories of Abraham, Israel, and David, with their many wives? I have hitherto sought in vain for any decisive Church authority on the subject. Meanwhile it is a matter of instant urgency in our missions, and must be decided without delay in one way or other. I may add, that I returned to England in the Indiana, with an excellent old Baptist missionary from Burmah, Dr. Mason; and I was rather surprised to learn from him that the whole body of American missionaries in Burmah, after some difference in opinion, in which he himself sided decidedly with the advocates of the separation system, have, in the early 1 Guardian, May 25th.

part of the year 1853, at a convocation, where two delegates attended from America, and where this point was specially debated, come to an unanimous decision to admit in future polygamists of old standing to Communion, but not to offices in the Church. I must say, this appears to me to be the only right and reasonable course. In the next gene

ration--but not in this-we may expect to get rid of this evil; for, of course, no convert would be allowed to become a polygamist after baptism, or to increase the number of his wives."1

Such is the theory of Bishop Colenso with its argumentative proof, on the subject of polygamy. Now in order that the subject may be clearly understood, we must carefully notice the difference in the teaching of the Old and New dispensation. The careless and ill-considered remarks of Bishop Colenso are highly censurable, when he instances, as a warrant for the Kafir practice, the polygamy of Abraham, David, and others; since he gives no intimation that there is any difference between the teaching or permission of the Old and New Law, or rather if his argument can be supposed to have any weight, he implies that their teaching on the subject is strictly harmonious. But if the practice of the Old Testament saints may in this respect be a pattern to ourselves, the permission of polygamy must necessarily be conceded, and thus Christianity will be developed, as we have seen, into the foul and degraded system of Mormonism. Polygamy was undoubtedly allowed under the Jewish dispensation: GOD "winked" at it during the corrupt moral state of the Jews, for the prevention of greater evils; but our LORD when the question of divorce was brought before Him, indirectly at least forbad it, by an appeal to the original creation, when GOD only made a male and a female, (apo ev xai 0λʊ,) and thus He taught that polygamy could neither have been contemplated, nor even have been possible, according to God's original institution. That our LORD did thus intend, though the question was not directly brought before Him, to forbid polygamy, the whole Church has ever believed, as we may gather from the fact, that polygamy has never either at an earlier or later period, been tolerated in her communion. But a reference to the Apostolic usage, which is brought before us in the New Testament, will show beyond doubt the meaning to be given to our LORD's words, and this evidence becomes important and conclusive, when we bear in mind that difficulties similar to those which beset the missionary in South Africa, must have occurred during the Apostolic age. Kafir husbands have often three or four wives; and when the Apostles preached polygamy was common amongst the Jews and Greeks; and we have no intimation that the same licence was

1 "Ten Weeks in Natal," by Bishop Colenso, pp. 140-1. Camb. 1855. 2 Theodoret says: “ Πάλαι γὰρ εἰώθεισαν καὶ Ἕλληνες καὶ Ἰουδαῖοι καὶ δύο καὶ τοισὶ καὶ πλείοσι γύναιξι νόμῳ γάμου κατὰ ταὐτὸν συνοικεῖν.” Quoted from Whitby's Commentary." 1 Tim. iii. 2.

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allowed to converts which Bishop Colenso would concede to the Kafirs. Nay, it is quite certain, that such licence was not allowed to them, but that only one wife (the one we may suppose whom the convert first married,) was recognised as being entitled to that name. Had polygamy existed amongst the Christian converts of the Apostolic age, the fact would have been intimated in the Apostolic Epistles. Let us consider the teaching of S. Paul in the seventh chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians, and it is remarkable how distinct is the recognition of the husband and the one wife : "Let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband," language which could not have been used had polygamy existed in the Corinthian Church. Or, consider the same Apostle's comparison of the conjugal relationship to the union of CHRIST and His Church. S. Paul says, that the husband is the head of the wife even as CHRIST is the Head of the Church; but as CHRIST's Church is one Body-unity being its especial characteristic there would be no similarity in the things compared, if the husband might have a plurality of wives. Thus marriage must necessarily imply the husband and his one wife, or it could not be typical of the union of CHRIST with the one Body which is His Church.

But it would be superfluous to appeal further to the teaching of Holy Scripture; not a single passage can be quoted from the Apostolic epistles which either sanctions polygamy, or affords any intimation that it was allowed even though temporarily by the Apostles, or that it existed at all in the early Church. Again Bishop Colenso is perplexed with the difficulty that the Kafir has often three or four wives who by the heathen law are married to him, and he would add, probably, that the heathen contract of marriage has always been recognized by the Church as undoubtedly valid. Admitting this, we must consider that when the Kafir becomes a Christian, he places himself under the obligations of the Christian law, and as the Gospel prohibits polygamy, the heathen contract, so far as it is inconsistent with this law, is necessarily null and void. But Bishop Colenso's remarks, notwithstanding his opinion is confirmed by the whole body of American missionaries, evidently indicate much doubt and uneasiness of mind; he wishes only to sanction polygamy as a temporary arrangement, and hints that it may terminate with the present generation. But it is obvious that the Bishop cannot countenance the practice, though temporarily, unless on the supposition that it is not sinful or inconsistent with Christian teaching, otherwise it would be most criminal to give the usage any toleration whatever. But if polygamy be not as regards a Christian, sinful, but only undesirable or inexpedientto be placed amongst adiaphora, is it probable, when the Bishop's temporary permission expires, that he can get rid of it at all? If the reasons for its permission are valid, and they can only be valid