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the word never does signify to curse at all. The seemingly discordant senses of this word have been long ago perfectly well reconciled. It signifies properly to bless; or, which was originally the same thing, to say to a person fare you well, or God be with you. But as we bid farewell to a person, when we part with him as well with an ill, as with a good, disposition towards him; to bid farewell to any one often signifies to relinquish, and to desert him, with a design of having nothing more to do with him. And this way of speaking, I believe, prevails in all the languages in the world. It will be sufficient to illustrate it by a few examples from the Latin. "Varro in libris Logistoricis dicit, Ideo mortuis salve et vale dici, non quod valere aut salvi esse possint, sed quod ab his recedimus, eos nunquam visuri. Hinc ortum est, ut etiam maledicti significationem interdum valeat obtineat; ut Terentius: valeant, qui inter nos discidium volunt: hoc est, ita a nobis recedant, ut nunquam ad nostrum revertantur aspectum. Ergo cum mortuo dicitur vale, non etymologia consideranda est, sed consuetudo; quod nullis vale dicimus nisi a quibus recedimus." Servius ad Virg. Æn. XI, 97. "Vivita Sylva. Valete: non enim bene optantis est, sed renunciantis." Id. ad Eclog. viii. 58. Thus too, a man may be said to bid farewell to God; when he deserts him, and will serve and acknowledge him no longer. "Si maxime talis est Deus, ut nulla gratia, nulla hominum caritate teneatur; valeat." Cicero de Nat. Deor. lib. i. And thus the Poet to his obscene Deity:

"Vale, Priape; debeo tibi nihil:

"Jacebis inter arva squalidus situ."

TIBULL, iv. 16.

Now 2 can in no other way signify maledictum, than vale does according to the gloss of Servius; which surely is not the proper interpretation of it. Naboth might apostatize from God, and throw off his allegiance to the king; and Job's sons might renounce God secretly in their hearts, and Job himself openly; without any thing like a curse implied in any of these cases.

The only place remaining, in which the word has been rendered to curse, is Job. ii. 9; which the Author of Divine Legation thus explains. "Curse God, BARECH, benedic, maledic: here rightly translated curse:--and DIE, that is offer violence to yourself." I apprehend, not rightly translated in the former part, nor rightly explained

התמותת it ought to have been

in the latter. Curse God! shocking and improbable, whatever we may think of Job's wife. Why not bless God, in the obvious sense of the word? rip, and die, give up the ghost; for to express, kill yourself, I apprehend, "Then said his wife unto him, dost thou still retain thine integrity? Bless God, and die!" That is, thou seest now what recompense thou receivest for thy virtue and piety, at the hand of God; Go, serve God, and perish for thy pains! To this interpretation Le Clerc (on the place) has aptly applied & passage of Ovid, expressing the same sentiment much in the same mauner:

"Vive pius; moriere pius: cole sacra; colentem
"Mors gravis a templis in cava busta trahet.”

To this irony Job thus replies: "Thou talkest like one of the foolish women," in questioning the justice of God's dispensations. "What, shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? In all this (adds the author) Job did not sin with his lips." In this trial likewise, as in the former, Job preserved his constancy and moderation, and expressed himself rightly and properly with regard to God's justice: though in the next trial, that of the provocation of his friends, charg ing him with hypocrisy and the greatest crimes, he did not support himself with equal firmness of temper, nor keep so strict a guard upon his lips. In this sense of the passage. Job's reply is a direct answer to his wife's speech: and the whole has a relation to the question agitated at large in the poem, whether good and evil are at present dispensed by Providence according to the merits and demerits of men; and very properly prepares the way for the great debate on that question.

REVIEW OF NEW PUBLICATIONS.

The Faith and Hope of the Righteous; or a Sermon preached at the Octagon Chapel, Bath, on Sunday December 2, 1804, on occasion of the Death of the Rev. ARCHIBALD MACLAINE, D.D. By the Rev. JOHN GARDINER, D.D. 8vo. pp. 40.

HIS is a very animated discourse, and a just tribute of respect to the memory of an excellent character.

Dr.

Dr. Maclaine was of the Presbyterian persuasion, it is true, but so far was be from having any Sectarian preju. · dices, that he joined heartily in communion with the Church of England, and was a sincere admirer of her offices. In a note Dr. Gardiner gives the following brief account of this venerable man: " He was a native of Monaghan, the county town-the son of a worthy dissenting minister, who dying while he was young, some relations sent him for education to the University of Glasgow, under the celebrated Mr. Hutcheson. From thence he repaired to the Hague in 1746, to be assistant: to his uncle, Mr. Milling, minister of the English church of that place, whom he succeeded in the office. He married the daughter of M. Chais, a distinguished minister of the French church, by whom he had children; three of whom, two sons and a daughter are now living. He left Holland in 1746."-Dr. Maclaine is advantageously known to the world, by his excellent letters to Soame Jenyns, his translation of Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, and a volume of judicious sermons. Of his literary character Dr. Gardiner gives this account:

"I am far from classing Soame Jenyns, among the insidious enemies of the christian faith-on the contrary, his production in support of it appears to be the genuine result of a sincere and upright zeal. But we all know, that a good cause may be injured by a bad defence in the hands even of a zealous advocate; especially when this advocate has acquired reputation in another walk of literature, and when the defence itself contains many useful and pertinent remarks, expressed in a popular and captivating form. This observation may be illustrated by Mr. Jenyns's View of the Internal Evidence of Christiamity. Such a favourite was this little book with the public, that it ran through four editions before it reached Dr. Maclaine. He was well acquainted with the celebrity of the author, and perceived at once the evil consequences of his work he anticipated with anxiety the occasional triumph which artful unbelievers would gain from so crude and feeble a vindication of the faith-he was convinced that it abounded with inferences adverse to. the cause which it was meant to support; and this conviction gave birth to a beautiful specimen, an admirable model of liberal, of sound and lively criticism. The stile of Dr. Maclaine's Letters to Soame Jenyns, Esq. is animated, pure, and nervous and he exposes in them Vol. VIII. Churchm. Mag. March 1805. Ff with

with vivacity and moderation, with perspicuity and vigour, the many vague assertions, loose reasonings, and untenable positions into which the precipitate judgment of that author had unhappily led him. In saying this, however, let me not be thought to censure with exaggeration, or to disparage beyond reason, Mr. Jenyns's work; let it be consulted with Dr. Maclaine's judicious stric-, tures, and it may contribute both to the pleasure and ad- ; vantage of the reader. 66 I may here take occasion to observe, that our author's principal work, the Translation of Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, is not only considered to be executed with judgment, with clegance, and classical taste; but the original is rendered almost doubly valuable by the sensible and interesting notes with which the translator has enriched it The public voice has sufficiently stamped the merit and utility of this work, by a most extensive: circulation. But alas! sic vos non vobis for a publication which has brought thousands into the purse of the booksellers, augmented the author's with only 1301. He was› sensible of his imprudence in making such a contract, and by dint of persuasion and intreaty, had contrived a plan in some measure to atone for it, by appropriating the work again to himself. A few years since he had resolved to continue the history to the present time, and thus add another volume to a new edition; but the difficulty of procuring authorities to elucidate the progressive state of irreligion in France, and the apprehensions of a decay of: his intellects, as well as constitutional stamina, made him soon abandon his resolution. Posterity have to regret that the scheme was not projected at an earlier period, since it might have given rise to a work which would, no doubt, have instructed and delighted them, as well as have increased the author's reputation.

"His last publication, a volume of miscellaneous sermons, has lately passed the ordeal of all the reviews, with so much eclat, that any encomium on them from me becomes superfluous."

The last end of this worthy man was suitable to his well-spent life:

"In proportion, says Dr. Gardiner, as infallible sym toms announced the fall of its earthly tenement, his soul possessing the peace of God, was fortified against the terrors of death; and he more and more felt the efficacy: of that faith which he had so earnestly inculcated on:

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others. When satisfied that the awful summons was issued, set thine house in order for thou shalt die; he received it in saying, "You remember Socrates, the wisest and best of heathens, in this state could only express a hope mingled with anxiety and doubt, but blessed be God, though a grievous sinner in retiring to that bed from which I shall rise no more, I know, my friend, in whom I have believed-death cannot separate me from the love of Christ-in him to die is gain."

Though he could not but console himself on "his early and habitual attachment to piety, he would sometimes fear that the warmth of his feelings had betrayed him into too much self-complacency, and he would check himself in exclaiming "God forbid that I should boast; is this a time of boasting for simple dust and ashes in a situation like mine, my bodily frame dissolving, my memory gone, the light of reason expiring? No, it is a joy mingled with the profoundest humility and awe, it is in a sense of my own unworthiness, and the all-sufficient efficacy of Christ's sacrifice, that I cherish the hope of laying hold of eternal life, that crown incorruptible which God reserves for those who love him;" and he could give no stronger proof of the persevering firmness and vivacity of his own faith, than by gently reproving his mournful attendants for the deficiency of theirs in those the last words which reason dictated, for me, O ye of little faith."

"r weep not

What reader, after contemplating the expiring moments and Christian triumph of such a character will not exclaim, "Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his!"

The Influence of Christianity on the Military and Moral Character of a Soldier. A Sermon, preached before a detachment of the Second West-York Militia, at Whitburn in the County of Durham, on Sunday November 25, 1804, by the Rev. J. Symons, B. D. Rector. 8vo. pp. 44.

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THIS is a sermon of peculiar excellence. It combines strong reasoning with perspicuity, pathos, and elegance of composition. The advantages and disadvanFf2

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