ptire or cruel rites. But when men knowing God, glorified him not as God, their foolish hearts were darkened;" notwithstanding the progress of reason and civilization, the absurdities, profanations, and crimes of idolatry multiplied with out end; philosophy plunging into vain disputations, wandered from the truth; or shrinking from the terrors of persecution, did not dare to avow it. But amidst this increasing gloom of idolatrous ignorance and error, this wide-spreading confusion which threatened to reduce the whole moral and religious world to a wild chaos of vice and disorder, an over-ruling Providence gradually prepared for introducing the glorious light of the gospel, and turning mankind from the power of Satan unto God. Literature, philosophy, and the fine arts, were rapidly diffused over Greece, and cultivated with a degree of ardour unequalled in any other age or country. Broken into small and free governments, blessed with the finest climate, the most picturesque scenery, and the most ingenious and animated people, here was formed a language copious, expressive, and harmonious; and here were produced those immortal works in poetry, eloquence, and philosophy, which rendered that language the universal dialect of the polite and learned, both in the east and west; and thus prepared it to become a general and permanent medium of communication, in which the records and truths of Christianity might be distinctly and safely handed to succeeding ages."

"A concise view of the succession of sacred literature in a chronological arrangement of authors and their works from the invention of alphabetical characters to the year of our Lord 345 by Adam Clarke, A. M." This view is somewhat too

concise, as our readers will perhaps agree with us in thinking, when we inform them that, though it embraces a range of nearly two thousand years, viz. from the age of Moses to the middle point of the fourth century of the Christian æra, and undertakes to give a survey of all the sacred writers within this period, and to appreciate their respective pretensions and merits, it is limited to a single volume in twelves, of not more than three hundred and twelve pages. Yet there is much in it that is highly worthy of praise, and very little that may not be read with advantage. Mr. Clarke has, in reality, evinced a depth of research, an acquaintance with oriental languages, an accuracy of judgment, and a general love of literature, that qualify him for much more extensive communications; and we trust that the present is a mere prolegomenon to a work of more ramification and detail. In the mean while to those who have not the time or the talents to unlock for themselves the arcana of Greek and Hebrew erudition, and especially who wish for a digest of their chief contents, reduced to the most concentrated abridgment, the most "concise view" of which they seem capable, we can honestly recommend to them the very ingenious and elaborate opuscule before us. Having thus freely testified to the value of this" concise view," we may be allowed, without forfeiting our pretensions to candour, to point out one or two little defects that have occurred to us upon an attentive perusal. Mr. Clarke seems dissatisfied with every thing yet offered us by the philosophers to explain the origin of writing and of alphabetical characters; but we are afraid, from the specimen before us, that our biblical critics are as little capable of irradiX 2

ating

ating the subject as the philosophers. We remember that Mr. Davies in his "Celtic Researches," published in 1804, laboured with all the learning he could bring to bear upon this point, to prove that written as well as oral language was miraculously bestowed upon Adam in the garden of Eden. Not so, Mr. Clarke; taking a rapid sweep through about five and twenty centuries from this epoch, he contends, that alphabetical characters and writing were first mira culously communicated upon the giving of the law, " as then God is said to have written the decalogue with his own finger." Now, why it should be supposed necessary to maintain on any account, that a knowledge of written language was only obtained through the medium of a preternatural interposition, any more than the knowledge of any other art or science for which man is qualified by the ordinary powers and faculties he possesses, we have never been able to comprehend. In every part of the world, where the smallest progress has been made towards civilization, we meet with some attempt or other to represent articulate sounds or ideas by visible marks, and this in almost every possible diversity: sometimes by rude arbitrary indentations, and at others by direct pictures or images. The very diversity evinces the common and natural propensity of mankind to a commemorative symbolism, and should seem at the very same time equally to disprove the necessity and the fact of a miraculous interposition- the necessity, because it supposes the exercise of a mirade where it is does not seem to be wanted; and the fact, because there would then appear a much greater unity in the mode of forming symbolic characters than we have reason to suppose ever has been, or

perhaps ever will be in the world. If mankind may be imagined capable by their own natural powers of inventing a system of picture-writing; such, for example, as formerly existed in Egypt, and still exists in China, and South America, there requires but a small portion of faith to believe that they may be also possessed of natural powers suffcient to enable them to invent a system of alphabet-writing; while, inversely, if we conceive that they have not naturally faculties adequate to a system of symbolic characters of any kind, and that alphabet-writing was in consequence miraculoasly bestowed upon them, it seems impossible to conceive that they could ever have possessed any other kind of written language than alphabetic; or rather, that alphabetic could have been exchanged for picture-writing. We know indeed that every art and science is just as capable of degenerating as of improving; but picture-writing is not a degeneration of alphabetic-writing; it is altogether a different invention, though the end proposed by both is the same. These are general obser vations, and apply equally to every theory of a miraculous interposition upon this subject. But we have to object more immediately and parti cularly to Mr. Clarke's theory, that although we have no direct proof of the actual existence of writing of any kind, previously to the commucation of the law, we have inferential proof of the fact, in the antecedent command of Jehovah to Moses write in a book, or upon a scroll, a narrative of the victory of Joshua over the Amalekites, as a national archive or memorial, Exod. xvi. 13; and also in the circumstance, that neither the record of the commandments nor of this victory in written characters, is represented as any

thing extraordinary or novel at the respective periods of these separate transactions. It would also have become our author, before he had advanced this theory, to have decided upon the age of the book of Job, so far at least as to have overthrown the best and most common opinion upon this subject, that it possesses the highest antiquity of any book in holy writ; and this, whether written by Moses, or merely communicated by Moses as the work of Job himself, or of his friend Elihu. For if this opinion be correct, not only would the general existence of the book itself be an insurmountable obstacle to his the ory; but particularly those passages in this most sublime and extraordinary poem, in which scrolls or books, and the acts both of writing and engraving are clearly and definitively referred to, as matters of common notoriety in that remote æra. Mr. Clarke undertakes to accuse M. Michaelis and Mr. Marsh of inaccuracy in regard to their observations on the controverted text in 1 John v. 7. and nevertheless admits the passage to be spurious. He then adds, "I would not have my readers to imagine, that the proofs against the authenticity of the passage are demonstrative: to me they are not so; yet they are strongly presumptive." There is a strange confusion of terms in this assertion: a presumption and a proof are two distinct ideas; and a presumptive proof is nonsense: if there be real proofs against the authenticity of the text, those proofs are necessarily demonstrative; for an undemonstrative proof (could the term for a moment be admitted) would be no proof at all. But Mr. Clarke need not be afraid upon this subject; for neither Michaelis por Marsh ever conceived that they

advanced actual demonstrations, but only superior arguments; and our author has here confounded the one term with the other.-In his history of Theophilus, who flourished in the middle of the second century of the Christian æra, and died in the year 181, he has occasion to quote the following passage, which relates to the three days that preceded the formation of the luminaries :— τρεις ημέραι τύποι εισιν της τριάδος του Θεού,

και του λόγου αυτού και της σοφίας αυτου :

these three days were types of the trinity of God, and his word, and his wisdom:' upon which he observes-"I think this is the first place where the word pas or trinity occurs in the writings of the primi tive fathers; if so, it is worthy of remark, that in the same city (Antioch) where the disciples were first called Christians, the sacred persons in the godhead were first termed the trinity." Now, without entering into the question, whether the term pias were ever assumed antecedently or not, no sober trinitarian we believe will feel himself much indebted to Mr. Clarke for the present unwarranted assertion, that neither the doctrine of a trinity was understood, nor even the term made use of, till nearly two hundred years after the commencement of the Christian æra. Independently of which, we are by no means unaware, that the general course of the expression, as it here runs, may just as well refer to the platonism of the day as to its christianity, and of course will prove nothing.

We are pleased to find that Mr. S. Burden is continuing his instructive and entertaining compilation "On Oriental Customs," as an illustration of the sacred scriptures, a second volume of which has now reached us, and, like the first, is not only collected, as it professes to be;

but

grammar, and in which the subject has no more connection with the predicate than a " Dictionary of the Holy Scriptures has with Jacob's Law Dictionary."

"The Antiquities of the AngloSaxon Church; by the Rev. John Lingard," 2 vols. 8vo. Why the writer of this work should choose to introduce the catholic church under the masquerade of the Anglo-Saxon church will be obvious to those who peruse the work itself. The direct intention of Mr. Lingard is to obtain a circulation for his book among persons who would not be much disposed to read it, if he had entitled it, as he ought to have done," The Roman Catholic Church, as originally professed and established in an early period of English History;" and thereby to entrap them into an acquaintance with his own portraiture of the general features and character of this institution, which, it must be allowed, is a very favourable, if not a flattering likeness. We have no objection to a man's advancing the best arguments he can in support of any principles or opinions he seriously believes to be true; nor have we any hesitation in admitting that Mr. Lingard is a plausible and an able writer; but we have a very strong objection to any man's attempting to vend his productions by a title which does not fairly apply to them, and which is purposely meant to impose upon the

unwary.

"An Attempt to display the original Evidences of Christianity in their genuine simplicity; by N. Nesbett, A. M. rector of Tunstall:" a queer title upon a subject rather queerly handled. The inspiration of the apocalyse is questioned; and the bishop of London's explanation of the coming of our Saviour, referred to Matt. xxiv. opposed by an

explanation of a different tendency. We see no reason, however, from any thing here advanced for deserting the bishop for the rector; nor for discharging one of the sublimest books of the bible, accredited at least from the second century of the christian æra, from the sacred code.

"Doctrinal and Practical Illustrations of the Litany; by the Rev. L. Booker, LL.D. rector of Tedstone Delamere," are entitled to much commendation; they are serious, succinct, and in an unexpen sive form; and are accompanied with various admonitory prayers, calculated both for family and private use, which may prove profitable to a devout christian on many occasions.

The Rev. Nicholas Sloan, minister of Dornock, Dumfries, has, in his own opinion, given us "The leading Features of the Gospel delineated, in an attempt to explain some unscriptural errors, particularly the absurd tenet that mistakes in religion are of small consequence." He appears to be a very earnest and well-meaning writer; but a style so loaded with acrimony and vehement accusation as the present, is not best of all qualified to delineate any feature of the gospel; much less its leading feature. This kind of style, indeed, is adopted on several occasions, in which it is at least questionable whether the author be perfectly free from error in his own view of the subject; yet even where we admit him to be correct, we cannot avoid retorting upon him that this also is still "a mistake in religion of no trifling consequence;" and such a mistake as we trust we shall not have to notice again in any subsequent writings of the present minister of Dornock.

How different the spirit, and how much