to maintain. Mr. Good translates the word correctly, ch. xvi. v. 21. where he says to argue' is the literal rendering of ; but he again falls into error, (p. 213, v. 5.) ₪ is (in p. 128.) said to be derived from w, to fail,' or 'relax in duty,' and bence' to sin' or transgress,' and to mean iniquity; but in p. 143, is said to be a derivation from n, to make equal,' and to mean equality, competency' or sufficiency.' wa is stated (p. 179) to mean heat or fire, as of the sun; as also that 'heat or glow of the cheeks which is produced by blushing or shame, whence it is also made to signify blushing or shame generally,' and is translated ardour. In page 212, the primary meaning of wa is said to be to fail, flag, or relax,' to be confounded,' and hence to be ashamed.' The latter etymology is right, v never means heat' of any kind. Mr. Good (p. 415.) finds fault with his predecessors for considering as a participle in hiphil from 7, and remarks that, in its direct signification means to cast forth,' to 'cast down, or 'cast away,' whence, its substantive form calamity,' af'fliction.' There is no such word as 8, calamity or affliction. Mr. Good confounds

ירה is a participle in hiphil from מורה

ירה with

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The extracts which we have given from this work are amply sufficient as specimens of Mr Good's Translation, and may enable our readers to judge for themselves of its pretensions. We are sensible that it is much easier to detect errors than to avoid them; those however which we have pointed out, we could not, in the faithful discharge of our public duty, overlook A severe revision of the sheets ought to have prevented many of them from making their appearance. Though we must qualify our recommendation of this volume, not feeling ourselves justifiable in assigning it a place among first rate translations of the Hebrew Scriptures, we do mean to say that it is, on the whole, creditable to Mr. Good, considering the circumstances in which it has been executed, and that it is not undeserving of a place on the shelves of the Biblical student.

Art. III. Nine Sermons, on the Nature of the Evidence by which the Fact of our Lord's Resurrection is established; and on various other Subjects. To which is prefixed, A Dissertation on the Prophecies of the Messiah, dispersed among the Heathen. By Samuel Horsley, LL.D. F.R.S. F.A.S. Late Lord Bishop of St. Asaph. 8vo. pp. 352. price 10s. 6d. Longman and Co. 1815.

OUR recent notice of Dr. Horsley's Translations of the

Psalms, renders it unnecessary to enlarge, at this time, our observations on the character of either his writings or his style. If his opinions are not in all cases approvable; if in some instances the tone of his language is harsh and offensive; if, occasionally,

his dexterity rather than his fairness in controversy, is to be admired; his claims to the possession of those qualities whichr give interest to literary productions, will yet be ample. His singular and commanding talents raised him to no mean rank among the writers of our own times; and they are too well known to need our present assistance to give them elevation in the public mind. We shall therefore satisfy ourselves with very limited remarks in reporting the contents of this volume; and shall furnish our pages with a selection of extracts from the most striking or useful passages.

The whole of these discourses are edited by the Bishop's son, the Rev. Heneage Horsley, from loose and unconnected sheets. Besides the subjects specified in the title, the work includes Sermons on the following topics.-The worship of Christ; an exposition of the xcvii Psalm.-The resurrection of Christ the consequence of man's justification, Rom. iv. 25.-Our Lord's reply to the Mother of Zebedee's Children. Matt. xx, 23.— and the sealing of the Spirit, Eph. iv. 30.

The Dissertation on the Prophecies of the Messiah, dispersed among the Heathen, appears to have been originally delivered from the pulpit, and in its present form is evidently an unfinished composition. It is more ingenious than satisfactory. Confident in assertion, it is weak in proof; the most doubtful circumstances being adduced as 'confirmations strong' of the Author's hypothesis.

The general expectation of an extraordinary person who should arise in Judea, and be the instrument of great improvement in the manners and condition of mankind, which prevailed about the time of Christ's birth, was, in the Bishop's judgement, founded on some traditional obscure remembrance of the original promises, and this remembrance, he apprehends, was perpetuated by a collection of very early prophecies, which were committed to writing in a very early age, and were actually existing in many parts of the world, though little known till the extirpation of Paganism by the preaching of the Gospek. In support of this opinion, he undertakes the proof of the fact, from historical evidence, that the Gentile world in the darkest ages was in possession, not of vague and traditional, but of explicit written prophecies of Christ.

The Bishop's proof of the fact which he assumes, is rather extraordinary. He does not produce any predictions which were circulated among the Heathen, announcing such a person as the Messiah, but refers us to the oracles of the Cumæan Sibyl, which, he supposes, were composed of adulterated fragments of the patriarchal prophecies and records, of which in great part the Messiah was the specific subject. These oracles, he contends, were not a forgery of heathen priestcraft, because

their contents were unfavourable to the idolatrous superstition which it upheld, a position which he thinks is supported by the remark of Cicero, who, in opposing Julius Cæsar's assumption of the kingly title, concluded his argument by saying, Let us then adhere to the prudent practice of our ancestors; let us keep the Sibyl in religious privacy; these writings are 'indeed rather calculated to extinguish than to propagate su'perstition.' So we think they might be, on a principle very different from Bishop Horsley's. The Sibylline books were a very powerful instrument in the hands of the Roman Senate, for awing the people into a compliance with their own measures. Cicero might deprecate tampering with these mysterious volumes, as tending to expose the secret; and this conjecture appears by no means improbable, from another passage in Cicero, of which the Bishop has not taken any notice: 'Let us,' says he, deal with the keepers of those books to 'bring forth any thing out of them rather than a king which 'neither the gods nor men will henceforth bear at Rome." These books, we imagine, were not very different, in their intrinsic value, and in the use to which they were applied, from the innumerable popish relics which cunning priests so artfully employed to maintain their influence over the credulous multitudes which they governed as they pleased.

Virgil's fourth Eclogue is next produced as evidence of the existence of explicit prophecies of the Messiah among the Heathen. This remarkable poem, the Bishop is of opinion, contains predictions of the Saviour, drawn from the Sibylline oracles. That the same prophecies were extant in a very late age in various parts of the world, is, in his judgement, indisputable, from the circumstance, that when a new collection of these oracles was made, about a century before Christ, to supply the place of that which was consumed in the burning of the capitol, deputies were sent by the Roman Senate to different parts of Asia, the islands of the Archipelago, Sicily, and Africa, who returned with a thousand verses, more or less, from which the most learned men at Rome were employed to select what they judged the most authentic to form the new collection.

These are the only evidences which are adduced on the subject, and on them the Author rests the following unhesitating

sentence.

'I have now established my fact, that from the first ages of profané history to the very time of our Saviour's birth, explicit predictions of him were extant in the Gentile world, in books which were ever holden in religious veneration, and which were deposited in their temples."

This language is far too strong to be justified by the evidence Vol. V. N.S.

N

before us, which, at best, is only of the presumptive kind. The contents of the Sibylline oracles, are unknown; and the sources which supplied Virgil with the materials of the Pollio, if indeed he was indebted for them to any other fount than that of inspiration, still remain undiscovered. Neither Cicero nor Virgil ever read the first Sibylline oracles; and if the second collection contained explicit prophecies of Christ, which had been circulating in so many countries till the time of his appearance, it is unaccountable that no fragments of them should be preserved; and equally strange is it that no appeal, no allusion to such explicit prophecies' should be made by the writers of the New Testament. Notwithstanding the Author's confidence, we must confine explicit prophecies' of the Messiah, within the limits of the Hebrew Scriptures. The light with which Bishop Horsley searches into the dark and distant ages of antiquity, is too feeble to dispel their darkness, and to illumine their obscurities; and this attempt to explore the deep recesses of heathen temples, like many former efforts, is made in vain.

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The learned Author proceeds to detail what appears to him to have been the means of preserving and conveying the prophecies of the Messiah among the Heathen. Making the analogy of modern times the interpreter of ancient history, he supposes the existence of a corrupt Church among the Gentiles, bearing the same relation to the true Church, as the Church of Rome in her present corrupt state, bears to the true Church. The Gentiles were nothing less than the corrupt branch of the old patriarchal Church of Noah and of Shem; and the family of Abraham were nothing more than the reformed part of it.' This corrupt Gentile Church had its priests and its prophets; Melchizedek, Potiphera, and Jethro, among the former; Job and Balaam were in the number of the latter. Upon the first appearance of idolatry, the uninfected part of mankind would, he thinks, take all pains to check the progress of the contagion; and would commit to writing the traditional history of the Creation, the Deluge, and the promises to the first patriarchs. The prophecies of Job and Balaam, and of other prophets, if any other existed, would also be committed to writing. The records containing these traditions and promises, were committed to some public custody, and preserved as a sacred treasure among heathen nations after they had lost all knowledge of the primitive religion.

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We meet with something more valuable in the four dig. courses on the evidence by which the fact of our Lord's surrection is supported. These discourses are indeed the most important in the volume, and they exhibit in a very clear and masterly manner the testimony borne to that fact, apart from

from which" our faith is in vain." On the singular and permanent character of that testimony the Author remarks :

It is a very singular circumstance in this testimony, that it is such as no length of time can diminish. It is founded upon the universal principles of human nature, upon maxims which are the same in all ages, and operate with equal strength in all mankind, under all the varieties of temper and habit of constitution." So long as it shall be contrary to the first principles of the human mind to delight in falsehood for its own sake; so long as it shall be true that no man willingly propagates a lie to his own detriment and to no purpose; so long it will be certain that the apostles were serious' and sincere in the assertion of our Lord's resurrection. So long as it shall be absurd to suppose that twelve men could all be deceived in the person of a friend with whom they had all lived three years, so long it will be certain that the apostles were competent to judge of the truth and reality of the fact which they asserted. So long as it shall be in the nature of man for his own interest and ease to be dearer than that of another to himself, so long it will be an absurdity to suppose, that twelve men should persevere for years in the joint attestation of a lie, to the great detriment of every individual of the conspiracy, and without any joint or separate advantage, when any of them had it in his power, by a discovery of the fraud, to advance his own fame and fortune by the sacrifice of nothing more dear to him than the reputation of the rest; and so long will it be incredible that the story of our Lord's resurrection was a fiction which the twelve men (to mention no greater number), with unparalleled fortitude, and with equal folly, conspired to support. So long therefore as the evangelical history shall be preserved entire; that is, so long as the historical books of the New Testament shall be extant in the world, so long the credibility of the apostles' testimony will remain whole and unimpaired. As this circumstance to have in itself the principle of permanency, never happened to human testimony in any other instance, this preservation of the form and integrity of the apostolic evidence, amidst all the storms and wrecks which human science, like all things human, hath in the course of ages undergone, is. like the preservation of the Jewish nation, something of a standing miracle. It shews, in the original propagation of the gospel, that contrivance and forecast in the plan, that power in the execution, which are far beyond the natural abilities of the human mind, and declares that the whole work and counsel was of God.' pp. 131-134.

From the words "some doubted," used by Matthew, when relating the appearance of Christ to the disciples on the Galilean hill, which, with many critics and divines, he supposes was the same as that to the five hundred brethren recorded by Paul, the Bishop concludes that this appearance was public, not to the disciples only, but to a promiscuous multitude of disciples and of doubtful unbelieving Jews. Dr. Townson's observations on the passage, however, convinced Paley that the