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of the Jews, is attested by the consideration, that they could have had no motive to write, as they did, if their narratives were false: they have not flattered the vanity of their countrymen, and as their contemporaries must have known the character of the ancient records to which those historians appealed, so their descendants would not have received their productions, without a rational conviction of their being credible.

To all the prophetic books the term authenticity is applicable without exception for each of these books is ascribed, and, we have reason to believe, justly, to a particular author. In estimating the credibility of the prophetic writings, we should remem ber, that as a history may be true, though the author is unknown, so a prophecy may be true, even though it proceeded not from the author to whom it is commonly ascribed. Two questions must here be asked the former, Do the words of the alleged prophecy, according to their plain and literal meaning, relate to that distant event, to which they have been subsequently applied? The second, Was that prophecy delivered so long before the event predicted, as to place it beyond the reach of human foresight? (4-14.)

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With the Margaret Professor we think that a prophecy may be literal and divine, whether it be an authentic part of the book which contains it, or not. There is an obvious importance, however, in ascertaining, if we can, the name and history of the writer; for the purpose of better de termining on the age and character of the alleged prediction.

Bishop Marsh concludes his thirtyfirst lecture with some very general remarks on the antiquity and nature of the remaining books of the Old Testament; on Job, the Psalms, Pro verbs, Ecclesiastes, and Solomon's Song.

In the thirty-second lecture he takes a different view of all the Jewish Scriptures, and considers them not individually, but collectively. To the whole of them he applies the term "authority," which, he observes, "may include both authenticity and credibility, where both terms are applicable, and denote credibility or truth, where the other term cannot

be applied." This authority he finds in the testimony of our Saviour, which has been borne, in various ways, to the books of the Old Testament. By Jesus Christ the Pentateuch was quoted repeatedly, as the work of Moses. Next to the writings of that distinguished Lawgiver, he made the greatest use of the book of Psalms, one of which (the 110th) he expressly ascribed to David. The fact is the same as to the books of Isaiah and of Daniel: these he specifically attested. But the greater part of his quotations from the Old Testament were made without reference to the particnlar book, from which the passages were taken. This mode of quotation was agreeable to the practice of the Jews. Whenever he appealed to the Scriptures, that is, to the Scriptures of the Old Testainent, he appealed to the Hebrew Scriptures without distinction: all of them, as they existed in his time, received the sanction of his authority. They were then, as they are at present, divided, by the Jews, into three classes and this threefold arrangement of them our Lord observed; his appeal to them corresponding with the appeals of Philo and Josephus. Should it be objected, that, according to the Jewish reckoning, the three classes contained twenty-two books, whereas the canonical books of the Hebrews, as arranged in our Bibles, amount to thirty-nine, a slight attention to the manner of computation will convince us that the dissonance is only appa rent and not real. A difficulty so removed, is converted into a proof. (17-31.)

Throughout this lecture the Margaret Professor reasons with intelligence and strength. His argument will be satisfactory to those persons who, like ourselves, are already persuaded of the truth of Christianity. Nevertheless, for the sake of others, we should have preferred his treating of the two Revelations in the order of their dates.

The object of Bishop Marsh's thirty-third lecture, is to prove, that the Hebrew Scriptures which received the sanction of our Saviour, contained the same books which are now contained in our Hebrew Bibles. Of this identity, however, direct historical evidence cannot, at present, be obtained. Ac

cordingly, the Professor endeavours to establish the fact by induction; a mode of reasoning, which, in many instances, is perfectly legitimate, and which is here pursued with consider able ingenuity and force. From several particular propositions he deduces that general proposition which he sets out with enuntiating by steps he arrives at the final conclusion, that the Hebrew canon in the time of our Saviour was the same Hebrew canon, which is now represented by our Hebrew Bibles; and that we have his sanction for every canonical book of the Old Testament. For this purpose, the learned Prelate attempts to connect the catalogue of the Hebrew Scriptures, which Jerom has given in his Prologus galeatus, with the account which Josephus has given of those Scriptures, in his treatise against Apion. Jerom, like Josephus, divides them into three classes, which he calls, the Law, the Prophets, and the Hagiographa. He has further enumerated the several books of which each class consisted: and it appears from this enumeration, that the books which were then contained in the Hebrew Bible, were the same books which are now contained in it. In regard to the first class, or the Pentateuch, the enumeration made respectively by Josephus and by Jerom, is, beyond dispute, the same. The only difficulty which attends the comparison of their accounts, is that which relates to the two other classes. Yet, if we take those two classes together, both writers agree as to the total number of the books comprised in them and the sole difference consists in the partition of the books between the two classes. Now, as we know that the Jews have been gradually augmenting the number of books in the third class, by a proportionate diminution of the number in the second, we need not wonder if the third class, which in the first century contained only four books, contained nine at the end of the fourth century, and that the books of the second class had been proportionally reduced from thirteen to eight. Jo

* We employ this word, in preference to Bishop M.'s repartition, which is a French, and not an English, noun.

sephus himself, in a well-known passage of his treatise against Apion, though he has not enumerated the seventeen books which composed the two last classes, has given a description of those books; and this description exactly corresponds with the inference deduced from a comparison of his account with Jerom's. To the third class the book of Proverbs, and the book of Ecclesiastes, as well as the book of Psalms, have been referred by the Jews of every age: to the same class Jerom, in his catalogue of the Hebrew Scriptures, has referred the book of Job and Solomon's Song; though it be probable that by Josephus they were somewhat differently arranged. Nor is it a solid objection against the accuracy of this reasoning, that later Jews have referred to the third class various books, which are here referred to the second class of Josephus; the removal of such books from the class in which they were originally placed being well explained by history.

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The Margaret Professor's conclusions are, that the Hebrew Scriptures which received the sanction of our Saviour were the same Hebrew Scriptures which were known to Josephus; that they contained the same books which were enumerated by Jerom, and still constitute our Hebrew Bibles; and that the authority of the Old Testament, according to the eanon of the English church, though not according to the canon of the church of Rome, rests upon a basis which cannot be shaken. We recommend his argument to the careful attention of students in theology and in logic. (31—50.)

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Of his thirty-fourth lecture the object is to establish the integrity of the Hebrew Bible, to shew that the books which compose it have descended to the present age without material alteration. With this view, he divides his inquiries into two periods; the one extending from the time of Moses to that of our Saviour, the other extending from the time of our Saviour to this day. Here he makes a very fair and judicious use of several historical facts: nor, in any part of his reasoning, is he more successful than in his proofs that the Jews have not wilfully corrupted their Scriptures. As a specimen of his manner

of arguing, two extracts shall be laid before our readers :

"The authentic books of Ezra and Nehemiah afford us no reason to suppose, that the law of Moses had been so destroyed, as is represented in that apocryphal book, called the second book of Esdras (xiv. 21). From the eighth chapter of Nehemiah it is evident, that the book of the law (whether the Templecopy or not) was preserved during the period of the Babylonish Captivity. For when the worship of God was restored at Jerusalem, they spake unto Ezra the scribe, to bring the book of the law of Moses, which the Lord had commanded to Israel. And Ezra the priest brought the law before the congregation,' Nehemiah viii. 1, 2. The prophet Daniel must also have had a copy of the law, for he appealed to it, and quoted it. Daniel ix. 13."-Pp. 57, 58. 1511

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66 the charge of corrupting the Hebrew Scriptures, though it has been repeated in modern times, had its origin in the ignorance of those who introduced it. The Greek and Latin Fathers were for the most part unacquainted with Hebrew, though Origen and Jerom were illustrious exceptions. The Greek Fa thers quoted from the Septuagint; the Latiu Fathers from the Latin version, which was made from the Septuagint. They had no Latin translation from the

Hebrew till the time of Jerom: and even

his translation was not immediately adopted as the authorised version of the Latin church" P. 64. . re

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Even theological students, who are of considerable standing, may read with great pleasure and advantage this part of Bishop Marsh's lectures. To young men who are preparing themselves for the exercise of the Christian ministry it will be especially and highly useful. At the same time, it has obvious defects. Of these

not the least is the arrangement. The order and the method of proof which a well-informed Jew would pursue in laying before the world the evidences of the authority of his sacred books, are what the Margaret Professor ought, on every account, to have preferred. Another glaring imperfection (we have formerly complained of it), is the extreme scantiness of reference to "the principal authors" on this branch of divinity. How strange that, in the pulpit of the University of Cambridge, the Right

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Reverend Prelate should be silent concerning Sir Isaac Newton, H. Owen, Graves, &c., the arguments of some others he impugns! He will not do of whom he adopts, while those of justice to his subject and to himself, unless, in a subsequent part, he treat of the Hebrew Scriptures in detail.

Generally speaking, his style is pure as well as clear. In p. 65, however, he uses the word operate in an unwarrantable, that is in a transitive signification. 3 bus,ebont 事

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HE question of " Church Revenues" is becoming every year more interesting, and it is extremely desirable that the public should be in possession of full information upon the subject. The author of this pamphlet has done his part towards this great object, under the persuasion that how much soever the fear of change, attachment to custom, respect for individuals and motives of personal interest may retard the progress of opinion, truth, justice and public good will finally prevail, and it must be honourable to be, in whatever degree, an instrument in promoting them. (P. 40.)

The subject is treated in this pamphlet under the four heads of-The expediency of a publicly endowed clergy; the divine right of tithes; the and the story right to Christian tithes ; tithes as being the property of the church. These are argued ably, and boldly argued, and the writer's conclusions are, that an established church is unnecessary, unchristian, and of injurious influence; that the claim of tithes universally, as by divine right, is the imposition of priestcraft on ignorance and superstition; that the history of the Christian Church proves that tithes belong, if to any

On the Prophecies, Part I. Ch. i.

body, to the poor; and that the present right of the clergy in tithes is created, and may be destroyed by an act of the Legislature.

66

Some remarks are made in the pamphlet on the publications of "the Rev. Aug. Campbell, Rector of Wallasey, the champion of tithes," and trusting, as we confidently do, in the quotations here made, we cannot but be surprised at the frankness and courage of that divine. He is said to have called on the Gentlemen of England, in a recent work addressed to them, (p. 26,) to support tithes for the purpose of keeping sixteen or seventeen millions of RAGAMUFFINS in order, by the awful terrors of an invisible world." Again, this Christian minister is represented (p. 39 of this pamphlet, Note,) as saying in his Appeal, p. 15, "It is for their dinners that I wish to interest some of the Gentlemen of England when the people have emancipated themselves from the tyranny of the priests, is it to be supposed that they will submit to the tyranny of the game-laws?" Mr. Campbell is right: tithes and game laws stand on the same ground, that ground not justice; and when the people have rid themselves of one of these abuses of power, they will not be very patient under the other.

Our anonymous author (known, however, to us, and not unknown, under his real name to the religious public) thus satisfactorily disposes of one of this plain-spoken clergyman's arguments for church-property:

"That zealous advocate of tithes, the Rev. Augustus Campbell, in his Appeal to the Gentlemen of England,' seems disposed to rest the right to tithes as property on the gift of King Ethelwulph; but in a previous pamphlet (The Rights of the English Clergy asserted') he seems to prefer resting it on the gifts of individuals in later times: as an example he brings forward the case of his own parish, Wallasey, in the county of Chester, which he says was endowed by a certain William de Walley, before the year 1182, with the tithe and glebe, and he wishes to know what possible right the people can have to what an ancient owner gave to the church? According, however, to

"Appeal to the Gentlemen of En1 gland in behalf of the Church of En gland."

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his own acknowledgment, this owner and all others (or rather their tenants) were at that time obliged by law and custom to pay tithes, though they might then pay them that William de Walley only provided for to what religious house they pleased; so the tithes he could not help paying, being made useful to his own estate. glebe fields only he gave freely out of his own property to the church. This glebe, and all other church lands which have been given by their owners in former times, certainly do not belong to the descendants of those owners; but before we decide that they do belong to the present clergy, beyond the just controul of the Legislature, we must consider a little the nature of the gift. The owners left iu charity, for certain special purgave these lands, as any other lands are poses. Now amongst these purposes was the support of the poor for the lands were all given before the support of the poor out of the parochial income had ceased: and farther, these lands were given with an immediate view to the sup port of the ceremonies and worship of the corrupt Catholic Church of the dark ages, on the performance of which the givers relied for salvation; and, therefore, since neither the poor are now sharers, nor are the rites performed which the givers deemed necessary, the present holders cannot certainly found their right on the original gift. All the lands of the church were given to the Roman Catholic Church, and the kind of right by which they are now held is, that that church ceasing to be the religion of the country, and being discountenanced by the Legislature, its forfeited possessions were given by Parliament, that is, by the public, to the present establishment; and the same public may differently appropriate them by the same right whenever it shall seem expedient. Church lands are precisely in the same situation with estates left for a charitable purpose which would now be thought absurd, or cannot be fulfilled, and which estates are, therefore, applied to some other useful purpose, to be determined by the proper authorities: nor can any one doubt, but that in such a case as that now before us, the only right authority is vested in Parliament. Whatever right, either to tithes or estates, is founded on their being the gifts of individuals, is unsatisfactory; because the gifts are not employed as originally intended, and because the public have already interfered to alter their destination; so that the present Church of England holds its property merely by act of Parliament, and it is no more secure from reformation or abolition by the public will, than any other of the public

institutions of the country: it has no pretensions whatever to a right similar to that of private property; and the cry against the violation of property raised, whenever its reformation is proposed, is no more than the cant of an interested party.”—Pp. 31-33.

ART. III.-Zeal for the Revival and Diffusion of Pure Christian Truth, a Duly arising from Belief in its Divine Authority. A Sermon, preached at the Unitarian Chapel, in Parliament Court, Artillery Lane, London, on Wednesday, May 21, 1823, before the Supporters and Friends of the Unitarian Fund. By Henry Acton. 12mo. pp. 32. Hunter; Eaton; and Fox and Co. TH HIS is an able and judicious argumentative discourse. The proposition which forms its title is deduced from 1 Thess. ii. 13, and is amplified in the following remarks: I. That since Christian truth is the word of God, the more nearly that it shall be professed in its genuine purity, the greater, we are bound to believe, will be its efficacy in answer. ing the important purposes of Divine Providence." "2. Christian truth, being the word of God, is undoubtedly of infinite value to all mankind, and essentially conducive to their highest moral improvement and happiness." "3. From our conviction that Christian truth is the word of God, we have good reason to anticipate its general diffusion in the world." "4. Persuaded that Christian truth is the word of God, we must hold ourselves bound to receive it as a sacred trust, committed to us not for our own benefit only, but that we may do all in our power to dispense its heavenly truths abroad." **

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Under the second head, the preacher thus vindicates the efficacy of the simple doctrines of the gospel:"

Our particular views, indeed, have been commonly denounced by our Trinitarian brethren as being wholly deficient in moral value, especially because they make us acquainted with no atonement for the supposed original and infinite guilt of our fallen nature, without which atonement, it is said, we can have no sure hope of the mercy and favour of God. But this is plainly nothing less than to raise an objection to our views upon a gratuitous assumption of the truth

of their own; for unless the most untenable and gloomy doctrines of orthodoxy be first admitted as true, such an atonement was never needed by man, nor could have been accepted by God. It is little better than sophistry, therefore, to charge our representation of Christianity with being defective, because it contains no remedy for an evil which, if this represensation be correct, never existed. The truth, we humbly presume, is, that our brethren, by their misinterpretation of the Sacred Writings, first plunge the whole human race into an imaginary abyss of guilt and woe; and next, by further misinterpretation, discover an

imaginary method of delivering some few

out of this abyss, which they then call upon us to admire as a peculiar excellence of their system. They first, by their own vain imaginings, cast over the whole face of human existence a thick darkness, which shuts out every ray of hope from the bosom of man, and then purposely revealed to dispel the withering reproach us that we have no doctrine gloom which they themselves have created. But for every moral and spiritual want with which man really becomes acquainted from nature or from revelation, assuredly Unitarian Christianity affords a sweet and abundant supply. To the penitent sinner it points out a sure way by which he may attain to the forgiveness and favour of God, and this in a path the mercy of Heaven, even in the broad expressly consecrated for the purpose by way of repentance and reformation. To them that be slow to the practice of virtue and piety, it brings all the pleasing and all the awful motives to righteousness, arising from the great themes of future judgment, eternity and the Divine favour. To the mourning children of affliction it affords an inexhaustible fountain of consolation and peace, by giving them faith in the constant providence of a heavenly Father, whose dispensations are all mercy and truth. To them whose eyes are closing in the darkness of death, it reveals the light of life and immortality. And if men have been brought to suppose that they need any thing of religion further than this, they are misled by false views of their own condition, or of the character and government of God.” Pp. 17, 18. »

In the following passage, Mr. Acton makes an animated appeal to the experience of the church, in confirmation of his third remark:

"And has not Christianity, in the triumphs which it has already effected, given us a glorious pledge of its future conquests? The Heathen are fast be

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