Notes Critical and Practical, on the Book of Genesis. By George Bush [pp. 271-301]

Bush on Genesis.
away miracles, without recollecting that his own belief in the
reality of such interpositions renders all such explanation at
once needless and unlawful.
We pass with pleasure from the philological department to;
the critico-practical features of the work.
And here, we think, Prof. Bush has succeeded to admiration. As a writer of vivacity and warmth he has long been
favourably known to the public-but it is in a practical application of Bible truths that we have the full value of hit
talent, as an eloquent English writer. It is doubtless his
favourite occupation. It must be so. He gives no symptoms of constraint except of such as is engendered by the
swellings of emotion. The'necessity laid upon him' is by
the accumulating force of feeling, breaking down all barriers
to expression. And accordingly, when he writes, it is with
a' fountain-pen.' And when he draws his sketches we feel
that is with an'ever-pointed pencil.' Very often one is
startled as suddenly, and happily little incidents of historical
narrative are turned to practical account. Gen. xvi. 7.
Gen. xviii. 15.
Not unfrequently the Notes are enriched with an appropriate sentiment from Bishop Hall or Fullel, expressed in their
own nervous and direct style. In other instances, the author has adopted their praise-worthy practice of looking
upon all Scriptutre as "profitable for doctrine, for reproof,
&c.;" and we fancy ourselves sometimes among the old divines of the preceding centuries, as the concealed weapon is
drawi-i upon us, or we receive the powerful thrust when least
aware. No inconsiderable portion of the volume is occupied in deducing firom the conduct and treatment of our first
parents-from the general character, the particular deportment, or the marked deliverances of Noah, Abraham, Sarah,
Lot, &c., Ynaterials for most profitable reflection: while the
calamitous but deserved doom of antediluvian unbelievers-
the signal discomfiture of the rebel builders-and the fearful
overthrow and fiery perdition of the cities of the plain, are
faithfully held utp-to warn a scoffing multitude of God's
threatenings, that they betake themselves to the ark; to notify towering, vain ambition, that it shall'build a Babel to
its own confusion;' and to advertise the profligate and stubbornly profane, that theirs shall be a "portion in the lake
that burns with fire aind brimstone."
We hope to hear from Professor Bush again.
sbI
1839.]