NOTES.

NOTE 1.-It would have been foreign from the immediate object of the preceding Lecture, to have entered into any discussion of the appearance of Samuel to Saul: but I cannot forbear entering my individual protest against the opinions, either that the sorceress made some person in her interest personate the apparition of the prophet, or that some demon attempted such a personification. I believe that it was indeed the spirit of Samuel and I shall subjoin, as the best illustration of my own views, the following able testimonies. The ingenious writers of the ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA reason thus

"Some have thought there was nothing more than a trick, by "which a cunning woman imposed upon Saul's credulity, making "him believe that some confidant of her own was the ghost of "Samuel. But had that been the case, she would undoubtedly have "made the pretended Samuel's answer, as pleasing to the king as "possible, both to save her own life, which appears from the con"text to have been in danger, and likewise to have procured the "larger reward. She would never have told her sovereign, she "durst not have told him, that he himself should be shortly slain, " and his sons with him; and that the host of Israel should be de"livered into the hand of the Philistines*. For this reason, many "critics, both Jewish and Christian, have supposed that the appa

* It was impossible that she could have prejudged the event of a battle, than which nothing is more uncertain.

«rition was really a demon, or evil angel, by whose assistance the 46 woman was accustomed to work wonders, and to foretel future " events. But it is surely very incredible, that one of the apostate “spirits of hell, should have upbraided Saul for applying to a sorceress, or should have accosted him in such words as these: Why «hast thou disquieted me to bring me up? Wherefore dost thou "ask of me, seeing the Lord is departed from thee, and is become "thine enemy? For the Lord hath rent the kingdom out of thine "hand, and given it to thy neighbour, even to David. Because "<thou obeyedst not the voice of the Lord, therefore the Lord hath "❝done this thing to thee this day.' It is to be observed farther, "that what was here denounced against Saul was really prophetic, " and that the event answered to the prophecy in every particular. "Now, though we do not deny that there are created spirits of pe "netration vastly superior to that of the most enlarged human un "derstanding; yet we dare maintain, that no finite intelligence could "by it's own mere capacity have ever found out the precise time of “the two armies engaging, the success of the Philistines, the con66 sequences of the victory, and the very names of the persons that were to fall in the battle. Saul and his sons were indeed men of "tried bravery, and therefore likely to expose themselves to the "" greatest danger; but after the menaces which he received from "the apparition, he would have been impelled, one should think, by

cominon prudence, either to chicane with the enemy, or to retire "from the field without exposing himself, his sons, and the whole "army to certain and inevitable destruction; and his acting dif❝ferently, with the consequences of his conduct, were events which

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no limited understanding could either foresee or certainly foretel. "If to these circumstances we add the suddenness of Samuel's " appearance, with the effect which it had upon the sorceress herself, << we shall find reason to believe that the apparition was that of no ❝evil demon. There is not, we believe, upon record, another instance of any person's pretending to raise a ghost from below, with66 out previously using some magical rites, or some form of incauta❝tion. As nothing of that kind is mentioned in the case before us, "it is probable that Samuel appeared before he was called. It is "likewise evident from the narrative, that the apparition was not "what the woman expected; for we are told that when she saw

"Samuel, she cried out for fear. And when the king exhorted her

not to be afraid, and asked what she saw, the woman said, I see « gods (elohim) ascending out of the earth. Now, had she been ❝ accustomed to do such feats, and known that what she saw was "only her subservient demon, it is not conceivable that she could "have been so frightened, or have mistaken her familiar for elohim "in any sense in which that word can be taken. We are therefore "strongly inclined to adopt the opinion of those who hold that it

was Samuel himself who appeared and prophecied, not called up " by the wretched woman or her demons, but, to her utter confusion, " and the disgrace of her art, sent by God to rebuke Saul's madness << in a most affecting and mortifying way, and to deter all others " from ever applying to magicians or demons for assistance when re❝fused comfort from Heaven. For though this hypothesis may, to

a superficial thinker, seem to transgress the rule of Horace-nec "Deus intersit, &c.—which is as applicable to the interpretation of "scripture, as to the introduction of supernatural agency in human "compositions; yet he who has studied the theocratical constitution "of Israel, the nature of the office which was there termed regal, "and by what means the administration was in emergencies conduct"ed, will have a different opinion, and at once perceive the dignus "vindice nodus.”

Encyc. Brit. Vol. X. pt. ii. art. MAGIC.

Of the same opinion is the pious Mr. HERVEY—

❝ 1 Sam. xxviii. 19.—On this place the DUTCH translator of the "Meditations has added a note; to correct, very probably, what he

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supposes a mistake. On the same supposition, I presume, the "compilers of our Rubric ordered the last verse of Eccles. xlvi. to “be omitted, in the daily service of the Church. But that the sen"timent, hinted above," (an opinion coinciding with that just stated)" is strictly true; that it was in bride Samuel himself

(not an infernal spirit, personating the prophet) who appeared to "the female necromancer at Endor; appeared not in compliance "with any diabolical incantation, but in pursuance of the divine "commission; this, I think, is fully proved in the HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE OF DAVID, Vol. I. chap. 23."

Hervey's Medit. Vol. I. p. 250, notes. Heptinstall's edit. These extracts refer to page 415, of the preceding Lecture.

NOTE 2. In the translation of David's lamentation over Jonathan, I have not departed from the literal rendering of our own Bible, but where it appeared to me that the reading was amended or elucidated by the alteration. In rendering the 21st verse," there the shield of "the mighty is vilely cast away, the shield of Saul, the armour of the « anointed with oil;” I have followed the translation of Dr. Geddes: who has the following note on the word "armour"-" From the small "change of one letter into another, of a very similar form, arises "this apposite rendering. Interpreters make a shift to translate "the present text thus: as if he had not been anointed with oil. By "what rules of translation I know not." His translation of this lamentation is singularly beautiful throughout. He renders the beginning of it-" O antelope of Israel! pierced on thine own mountains!" This rendering is correctly literal: but as the word 'n also signifies ornamentum*, I have preferred the rendering "O beauty of Is"rael, &c." as in the Lecture.

This note refers to page 415, of the preceding Lecture.

NOTE 3.-Testimony of Menander, the historian, to the drought in the days of Elijah, preserved by Josephus:

Μέμνηται δὲ τῆς ἀνομβρίας ταύτης και Μένανδρος ἐν ταῖς Ιθοβάλα το Τυρίων βασιλέως πράξεσι, λέγων ἔτως· “ε ἀβροχία τε ἐπ ̓ ἀυτή “ ἐγένετο, ἀπὸ τὸ Υπερβερεταίε μηνὸς ἕως τὸ ἐχομένω ἔτες Υπερβερε “ ταίε. ἱκετείαν δ ̓ ἀυτῶ ποιησαμένη, κεραυνοὺς ἱκανὸς βεβληκέναι· “ ἔτος πόλιν Βότρυν ἔκτισε τὴν ἐπὶ Φοινίκη, και Αυζαν τὴν ἐν Λιβύῃ.” Καὶ ταῦτα μὲν, δηλῶν τὴν ἐπ ̓ Αχάβε γενομένην ἀνομβρίαν, κατὰ γὰρ και τότον και Ιθόβαλος ἐβασίλευσε Τυρίων, ὁ Μένανδρος ἀναγέγραφεν. -Menander also notes this defect of rain, in the acts of Ithobal, king of the Tyrians, speaking thus: "There was a deficiency of rain from "the month of October, until October in the succeeding year. " he indeed praying, there followed much thunder. He built the "city of Botrys in Phenicia, and Auza in Lybia." And certainly he relates these things of the drought which happened in the time of Ahab, for at that time Ithobal DID reign over the Tyrians, as Menander himself writes.

But

Joseph. Antiq. Jud. Tom. I. lib. viii. cap. xiii. p. 378. Hudsoni edit.

* See Taylor's Concordance ou the word ar.

Testimonies of Julian and of Cyprian, quoted by Grotius, relative to the fire which consumed the sacrifice of Elijah. Julianus in libro Cyrilli decimo:

Προσάγειν δὲ ἱερεῖα βωμῷ και θύειν παρῃτέσατε. πᾶς γάρ, φησιν, ἐ κάτεισιν ὥσπερ ἐπὶ Μωσέως τὰς θυσίας ἀναλίσκον· ἅπαξ τῦτο ἐπὶ Μωσέως ἐγένετο, και ἐπὶ Ἡλία το Θεσβέτε πάλιν μετὰ πολλές χρόνες. Vide et sequentia de igne cœlesti; Cyprianus Testimoniorum III. "Item in sacrificiis quæcunque accepta habebat Deus, descendebat ❝ignis de cœlo qui sacrificata consumeret." Julian in the tenth book of Cyril: " Ye refuse to bring sacrifices to the altar, and to ። present them, because that fire does not descend from heaven to con66 sume the victims, as in the time of Moses. This happened indeed to "Moses, and long after also to Elijah the Tishbite." See what follows also concerning the fire from heaven; Cyprian, in the Third of his Testimonies, says " That in the sacrifices, whatsoever had acceptance “with God, fire came down from heaven which consumed the things offered."

Grotius de Ver. Relig. Christ, sect. xvi. not. 106. These quotations refer to page 426, of the preceding Lecture.