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opposed to opinions which we totally disallow and protest against." (p. 86-89.)

After these preliminary observations, the Author proceeds to shew what we are to understand by the promise in the text. For this purpose a number of passages of Scripture are quoted, which speak of the agency of the Holy Spirit ; and by which we are taught to ascribe the renovation of our fallen nature, the illumination of our minds, our progress in holiness, our patience under afflictions, our enjoyment of hope, our anticipation of heaven, and every other Christian temper and comfort, to his divine influence.

Having by these authorities shewn what may be expected from the promise, the Author endeavours to impress the reader with the encouraging argument by which our Saviour excites us to pray for this grace. "If ye being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children; how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to

them that ask him." As a further ex

citement to this duty, Mr. Scott maintains the suitableness of the promise contained in the text to the condition of man, and the state of things in the world. Appealing to those incontestable proofs which every where meet us, of the depravity of human nature, and to the miseries of which it is the fruitful cause; he asks, "What is the adequate remedy for this deplorable moral disease, the restorative from this death in sin, this love of the world, which is alienation from God? We an

swer, the life-giving regenerating spirit of God, who is promised to all that ask the Father to bestow upon them this inestimable gift." (p. 101.)

An Address to various characters, applying to each of them those warnings, instructions, or encouragements, which the subject suggests, concludes

the Sermon.

There is much in Mr. Scott's style to which a fastidious critic might object; but it is always clear and often forcible. To such of our readers as love the truth for its own sake, and have a taste to relish lessons of practical piety, though unadorned with the graces of oratory, we can, with very great pleasure recommend these Discourses,

as containing, within, the limits of 110 pages, a very unusual share of sound instruction on those points which are of the greatest importance to the everlasting interests of mankind.

XLVI. Hore Mosaice; or a View of the Mosaical Records, with respect to their Coincidence with profane Antiquity; their internal Credibility; and their Connection with Christianity: comprehending the Substance of Eight Lectures read before the University of Oxford in the Year 1801, pursuant to the Will of the late Rev. John Bampton, A. M. By GEORGE STANLEY FABER, A. M. Fellow of Linc. Coll. vol. 1. pp. xx. 372. vol. 2. pp. 355. Oxford, 1801.

IT is the object of this important work, which reflects honour upon the institution to which it owes its origin, to sup port the credibility of the Mosaical Records by three kinds of evidence; the first resulting from their coincidence with profane tradition, the second founded upon internal marks of truth, and the third arising from the connection between Judaism and Christianity. The first volume is taken up with the discussion of the two former arguments; the second treats of the last.

Mr. Faber, before he enters upon the formal discussion of the first source of evidence, the external credibility of the Mosaical writings arising from their coincidence with profane tradition, thinks it expedient to present the reader with a statement of the subject, in which he assumes that "the most ancient records now extant are those of the Jewish nation." (Vol. I. p. 8.) Im this assertion, Mr. F. is, indeed, supported by the authority of Sir William Jones; an authority which, upon such a subject, can hardly be overrated. In order, however, to preclude any objection, which, as affecting the foundation of the argument, might be supposed to deprive it of a considerable degree of its force, it may be proper to apprize the reader that, in the judgment of Mr. Maurice, the Vedas are equal, or prior, in antiquity to the writings of Moses.t

Pref. to Inst. of Menu.

Hist. of Hindostan, Vol. i. pp. 55, &c. In an advertisement prefixed to the London Edi

tion of the Fifth Volume of the Asiatic Re

searches, as weak in the performance as wicked in the intent, advantage is endeavoured to be made of this circumstance.

But should we even admit their priority, this circumstance would rather corroborate than weaken the argument of Mr. F.; which in opposition to most of the systems of his predecessors in the same researches, supposes, and requires the supposition, that the primeval traditions of the Pagan nations "descended to them, not through the medium of Jewish Antiquities, but down the stream of an universal and uninterrupted tradition." (p. 12.) "Upon this statement,' Mr. F. proceeds to affirm, "depends the whole of the ensuing argument in favour of the authenticity of the Books of Moses." (p. 13.) For the circumstance, upon which the author's argument is founded, is the undesignedness of the coincidences adduced.

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"The narrative contained in the Pentateuch," says Mr. F. "naturally divides itself into four distinct periods: the account of the Creation; the history of the time which elaps. ed between the Creation and the Deluge; the description of the Deluge; and the annals of certain remarkable post diluvian events. Upon inquiry, it will be found, that the remembrance of these circumstances has been preserved, in a very remarkable manner by almost every nation upon the face of the earth. The same facts are related both in the east and in the west, with a singular degree of accuracy; and the variations which occur in the several narratives, serve only to shew that the knowl edge, which was originally possessed by all the immediate descendants of Noah, has, in process of time, been gradually corrupted." (p. 14)

Mr. F. then gives a brief outline of the Mosaic history during the period abovementioned, in which we were sur prised to find him, after what Reland has said upon the subject,* adopting the common opinion, that Sodom and the neighbouring cities were converted into a lake. (p. 18.)

In interpreting the more obscure traditions of Paganism, Mr. F. calls in the assistance of three rules, founded upon the known practice of antiquity; the first of which is intended to divest those traditions of their allegorical obscurity; the second to deprive them of their local appropriation; and the third deduces the etymology of terms, not from Greek, but from Oriental radicals. Mr.

* Pal. Illust. tom. i. pp. 254-258,

F. is no doubt acquainted with what Sir
William Jones has said concerning the
radicals of Mr. Bryant, in his ninth an-
niversary discourse, in the Asiatic Re-
The illustrious President
searches.
may have carried his objections against
etymological argument to excess; for,
as himself admits, instances innumera-
ble may be adduced of certain deriva-
tion between words the most dissimilar
The ancient
that can be imagined.
and modern names of a great part of
Europe may serve as an example. But
then the derivation, in such cases, must
be established by external arguments;
and without these the most exact re-
semblance may be fallacious.

It would be a vain attempt to follow Mr. F. through his detailed comparison of the traditions of paganism with the records of Moses; which the author has conducted with great ability, and from which he has shewn to result a coincidence inexplicable on any other principle than that of an original derivation from the same source. We will, therefore, satisfy ourselves with transcribing the conclusion which Mr. F. himself has drawn from his own statement.

"Sufficient has now been said to convince any candid inquirer, that the principal facts related in the books of Moses do by no means depend merely upon his solitary testimony, but that they are supported by the concurrent voice of all nations.

"We have followed the stream of profane tradition from the very creation itself, to the period when the Egyptian tyrant was constrained by the mighty arm of God, to dismiss the oppressed Israelites; and though we have frequently seen it corrupted with extraneous matter, or gliding beneath the luxuriant foliage of allegory, yet its purity has never been so far debased, as to preclude the possibility of discovering the fountain from which it originally issued.

"We have observed, that nearly every pagan cosmogony, in a manner strictly analogous to the exordium of Genesis, describes darkmess and water to be the fundamental principles of all things. We have found some nadifferent periods; and others declaring, that tions dividing the work of Creation into six an exalted personage, a mysterious emanation from the Supreme Being, was the author of the universe.

"Proceeding in our researches, we have met with almost a general tradition, that man was once upright and innocent; but that, through the envy of a malicious demon, he

forfeited his pristine integrity, and became the sport of disease and corruption. We have seen the remembrance of that form which the tempter assumed, preserved with an uncommon degree of accuracy; and we have beheld the universal expectation of some victorious power, some mediatorial Deity, who was destined to bruise the head of the van quished serpent.

"Suffering ourselves to be carried down the stream of ancient mythology, we next learned that the depravity of mankind gradually attained to such a height, as to provoke the vengeance of heaven; that the avenues to Divine Mercy were closed; and that a tremendous flood of waters swept away every living soul in undistinguished ruin. Along with this tradition we found that all nations entertained a belief, that some pious prince was saved in an ark from the dreadful calamity which desolated a whole world; and that in many countries, even the number of persons preserved along with him was accurately recorded. We met with various evident allusions to the same awful event in the Gentile memorials of the dove and the rainbow; and we beheld the remembrance of it deeply impressed on the national belief of every country, whether situated in the eastern or in the western hemisphere.

"Advancing next into the confines of the renovated world, we saw the second progeni

tor of mankind transformed into one of the principal gods of the Heathens, and almost every cirsumstance of his life accurately detailed His mythological birth from the ark, in the midst of clouds and tempests; his skill in husbandry; his triple offspring; and the unworthy treatment which he experienced from his youngest son, all passed in review before our eyes, and stamped indelibly the bright characters of truth upon the sacred page of Scripture. We then traced the overthrow of the Tower of Babel, and the destruc. tion of the ambitious Nimrod, in the last war of the giants; when the vollied thunder of heaven was directed against an impious race, and when the frantic projects of vain man were defeated by the immediate interference of Omnipotence. Lastly, we met with various records of the ancient Patriarchs in the writings of profane historians; we saw Greece and China combining to prove the real existence of a seven years famine in the days of Joseph; and we beheld an uninterrupted tradition of the exodus of Israel, preserved in the secluded deserts of Arabia. (p. 241-244.)

Would our limits have permitted, we should have been gratified in extending this extract to the end of the chapter, where the author finishes the first part of the subject-the external credibility of the Mosaic records, arising from their coincidence with profane tradition. We almost expected to have Christ. Observ. No. 9.

found, in this part of the work, some consideration of the objection, which, allowing the coincidence here demonstrated, would draw from it a very different conclusion; which, instead of inferring the credibility of the Mosaic writings, would represent them in common with the traditions of heathenism, as streams from the same source, variously corrupted, and as either dividing the truth among them, or leaving it uncertain whether any could claim it. answered by this confusion of claim, The object of infidelity is sufficiently although the superiority should be allowed to the Hebrew legislator. The objection, indeed, partakes of the weakness of the cause to the support of which it is necessary; but as it might impose upon those who are not upon their guard, the confutation of it is not superfluous.

The internal credibility of the Pentateuch, Mr. F. tries and establishes by the four following rules:

deceived into a belief, that he was divinely "I. That the promulger of it was not selfcommissioned; a deception which could only originate from enthusiasm, or from certain false appearances supposed to be miracles. II. That he was not an impostor; or, in other words, that he had no intention to deceive his followers.

III. That authentic documents have been handed down to posterity from about the time, when such events took place, without any corruption or interpolation, except such various readings as are the natural and necessary consequences of frequent tran scription; and which may, generally speaking, be corrected by a careful collation of the best and most ancient copies. IV. And that the moral precepts be such as are worthy of the goodness and purity of God, tending to promote virtue and to discountenance vice." (pp. 251, 252)

The three first of these rules apply to every written revelation; but the last can be applied only in cases of previous knowledge concerning the nature of God, from whatever source that knowledge is derived. It may be derived from another revelation; and so Christians may rationally argue from the proper and independent certainty of the Christian Religion, which declares the goodness and purity of God. But without the supposition of another, and an independent revelation, we cannot

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try the pretensions of the revelation in question, by the conformity of its moral precepts with the abovementioned per

fections of divine nature, unless we ascribe to the human mind a natural ability to discover the being and perfections of God. To suppose those perfections discoverable by no other means than a divine revelation, and to try any particular revelation by its agreement with them, is to reason in a circle.

In this part of the argument, which is conducted with a perspicuity and force which we anticipated, it will be of considerable importance to advert to the observations of one of the most virulent adversaries of revelation. "That one condition," says Lord Bolingbroke, "of the authenticity of any human his tory, and such alone we are to consider in this place, is, that it contains nothing repugnant to the experience of mankind. Things repugnant to this experience are to be found in many that pass, however, for authentic; in that of Livy, for instance: but then these incredible anecdotes stand by themselves, as it were, and the history may go on without them. But this is not the case of the Pentateuch, nor of the other Books of the Old Testament. Incredible anecdotes are not mentioned seldom, and occasionally in them: the whole history is founded on such; it consists of little else; and if it were not a

history of them, it would be a history of nothing."* In other words, if the history of Moses is a true history, it is a divine revelation. The consequence is unavoidable, and a very important consequence it is. If the reader will attend to this circumstance, the inseparable connection between the ordinary and the miraculous events recorded by Moses, he will peruse the argument of Mr. F. with great advantage.

At the close of this part of the subject Mr. F. observes.

"The preceding pages, however, do not contain the only arguments which may be adduced to prove the matter in question. The completion of an immense number of prophecies, at different periods, and in different countries, stamps indelibly the character of

* Works, Vol. iii p. 279, quoted by Warburton, in his View of Lord Bolingbroke's Philosophy, Letter iii. pp. 105, 106.

divine truth on the sacred volume of Scripture. This branch of theology, however, is in itself and has been already most amply discussed by sufficiently copious to form a distinct subject,

various authors. One part of it shall be considered in a subsequent portion of the present work; which, while it serves to connect the law and the gospel, may be viewed, at the same time, in the light of an additional attes(pp. 336, 337.)† tation to the authenticity of the Pentateuch."

To this part of the subject, which commences and occupies the second volume, we will now proceed. The con

nection between the Mosaical and Christian dispensations, Mr. F. endeavours to establish by three distinct media; that of types, that of prophecy, and that of practical object. To the particular discussion of these subjects he has prefixed a section upon erroneous opinions siders the errors of certain Gentile conrespecting this connection. He first conthe Gnostics, of Cerinthus, of Manes, and verts upon the subject particularly of the Gnostics, of Cerinthus, of Manes, and of other heretics of the same description. He then examines the similar

error of the Jews converted and unconverted.

In the section upon Types, the first of the links by which the two dispensations are connected, Mr. F. takes a comprehensive, and, of necessity, a concise view of the various typical institutions,

characters, and events which abound in the Ritual and History of Moses. The chapter, in which he considers the passage of Israel through the Red Sea as typical of the Laver of Regeneration, deserves the more attention, because he undertakes to explain therein the nature and necessity of regeneration—a doctrine of the last importance to mankind.

"The Church of England," says our author, defines the sacrament of baptism to be 'the outward visible sign of an inward spiritual grace. The external symbol is water; the internal grace, a death unto sin, and a new birth unto righteousness.' As the consecrated elements in the Lord's Supper are, by a common rhetorical figure, denominated the body and blood of Christ: so by a similar mode of expression, baptism is frequently termed regeneration." (pp. 95, 96.)

This passage will serve to correct the too restricted terms in which Mr. F., at the opening of his argument, speaks of the foundations of the credit due to the author of the Pentateach, (See p. 11. Rev.)

Mr. F. then represents regeneration as progressive; and with as much judgment as ingenuity, pursues the analogy between the spiritual, and our natural, life through the successive stages of infancy, youth, and manhood. The analogy, however, entirely fails in the last instance-death; a circumstance at which our author expresses the exultation becoming a Christian.

"Here, thanks be to God through Jesus Christ, the parallel ceases. Every son of Adam is subject to the condition of mortality; but regeneration opens to the Christian the full prospect of a glorious immortality. 'Death is swallowed up in victory. At the close of a life spent in the service of God, the aged believer can raise his eyes, moist in. deed, with the tears of gratitude, but glistening with hope, towards that heaven, in the joys of which he will soon be removed to participate." (p. 124.)

But from this general view of the subject, let us return to examine some particular passages; and let us hear how Mr. F. explains himself on the nature of regeneration.

"The scriptural doctrine of regeneration has unhappily been so abused, on the one hand, to the purposes of fanaticism, that, on the other, probably from a weak unmanly dread of the imputation of enthusiasm, it has been almost totally rejected: but, if the heated imagination of some makes it to depend entirely upon sudden impressions, and sensible impulses; the supposition of others, that it consists in a bare external decency, and in a mere outward reformation of manners, is, if possible, even yet more absurd. The fear of disgrace or punishment; the desire of maintaining a fair character, hereditary prejudices, customs, convenience, and a variety of other motives of a similar nature, may successfully unite in producing a very plausible and decorous exterior. The heart in the mean time, may remain totally unaffected, and completely at variance with God." (pp. 101, 102.)

Much more follows to the same purpose and after some pertinent questions from the writings of our Reform ers, Mr. F. adds:

"From these citations it will sufficiently appear how opposite the general doctrine of the Church of England, as maintained by such eminent characters as Beveridge and Hooker, is to the complaisant and accommodating liberality of the present age. The dignity of human nature; its innate tendency to virtue, and abhorrence from vice; its occasional lapses; its venial errors; its trifling offences; and its accidental failings; are terms equally un

known to our venerable Reformers, and to the sacred page of Scripture." (p. 117.)

Mr. F. however, is far from insisting upon perfection in the regenerate, much less does he found their acceptance in the sight of God upon it.

"We must not, indeed, expect," says he, "that, in the present life, our wills can ever be in perfect unison with the will of God, There is a constant struggle, even in the most devoted hearts, between grace and nature; but no person has any reason to esteem himself in a dangerous state because harassed with this internal warfare." (pp. 130, 131.)

In that part of the argument which treats of the connection between the Mosaic and Christian dispensations by means of prophecy, Mr. F. examines separately and in order :-1. Those prophecies which define the family of the Messiah.

2. Those which relate to his office and character, the call of the Gentiles, and the rejection of the Jews. 3. Those which declare that the Law was to be superseded by the Gospel. We think, however, that Mr. F. has admitted, without sufficient reason, the conjectural emendation of Kennicott, with respect to the reading of Is. liii. 9. pp. 238-240. The objection, which Campbell has alleged against it in the Preliminary Dissertations to his translation of the Gospels, appears to us insurmountable.*

In stating the practical connection between the law and the Gospel, Mr. F. founds his argument upon Gal. iii 24. The sense in which he understands the which he has adopted for his thesis. assertion, that " the Law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ," is undoubtedly, the sense most consistent with the context. In this important discourse, Mr. F. addresses himself to confute the following erroneous notion concerning the Christian dispensation :

therefore is required under the Christian dispensa"God is merciful and man is weak. Nothing tion but sincerity; and provided only we do dur best we are sure of salvation. The ancient statutes of Moses are now abolished; and Christ has promulged a new law, in which the former strict ness of God's justice is abated.” (p 286.)

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Plausible as this system may appear to a superficial observer, Mr. F. justly observes, that the thunder of papal ana

* Diss. xii. Part ii. Sect. 14.

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