10th and following verses to the 24th, in which St. James maintains justification by works, and not by faith alone, evidently admit the following short paraphrase:

V. 14. And let not any Jew or Christian think his faith sufficient to justify and save him, without those works of charity and mercy here spoken of, v. 8, 13: for what doth it profit if a man say he hath faith, i. e. in words profess faith in God, v. 19, or in Christ, v. 1, " and have not works," to evidence the truth of that profession? ean such a naked, fruitless faith save him?

V. 15. "If a brother or sister be naked, or destitute of daily food,"

V. 16. " And one of you say unto him, depart in peace, and be you warmed and filled, notwithstanding ye give them not those things which be needful for the body, what doth it profit?"

7. 17. "Even so faith," professed with the mouth, "if it hath not works" answerable to that profession, and flowing from it, "is dead," and fruitless as those words are, "being alone," i. e. without works showing its reality.

V. 18. "Yea, a man may say," to such a believer, "thou hast," in profession, "faith, and I have" real "works: show me thy faith," which thou professest "without thy works," which thou canst never do, faith being seated in the heart, and only discoverable by its effects," and I will show thee by my works my faith," as the cause is manifested by the effect.

V. 19." Thou" being a Jew," believest there is one God. Thou" in this, "doest well;" but doest no more than the very devils, for "devils also believe and tremble;" and if thou hast no better faith than they, thou hast the same reason to tremble, which they have.

V. 20. "But wilt thou know, O vain man!" who makest profession of such a naked faith, "that faith without works is dead," and so unable to justify or save thee? see it in the example of that very Abraham whom thou boastest as thy father.

V. 21. For" was not Abraham," whom we style" our father, justified by works," proceeding from his faith, "when he had offered his son Isaac upon the altar?" confiding that God was able to raise him from the dead. Heb. ii. 17. 19.

V. 22. "Seest thou how," [Greek, thou seest by this example,] that "faith wrought with his works," to produce them," and by works was faith made perfect," or elevated in him to the highest degree of excellence?

V. 23. "And the scripture was," again " fulfilled, which saith, Abraham believed in God, and it," i. e. that faith which produced these works," was accounted to him for righteousness, and," upon that account," he was called the friend of God."

V. 24. "Ye see then how that by works," proceeding from faith, ❝ a man is justified, and not by faith only," i. e. being alone and without them.

From this short paraphrase arises a satisfactory answer to the objection alleged from St. James's epistle. The scope of his argument does not interfere with the doctrine of St. Paul,

as they do not view justification under the same aspect and circumstances in their respective passages concerning it. When St. Paul says, we are justified "by faith without the works of the law," and that "to him that worketh not, but believeth in him that justifieth the ungodly, faith is imputed for righteousness," or to justification; the justification there attributed to faith, without works, imports only our absolution from condemnation on account of our past sins, committed before faith in Christ, and our reconciliation to God, by receiving pardon for them, by their not being imputed to those who believe in him. The whole drift of his argument goes to show, that it was necessary, in the first instance, for both Jew and Gentile to be justified freely by grace, and not by works, because they were all under sin, and had" come short of the glory of God." Rom. iii. "Whereas," says he, "being justified by faith, we have peace with God, and rejoice in the hope of God's glory." Rom. v. "The law," says he again," was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith; but now, after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster," that is, under the tuition of the law; "for ye are all the children of God through Christ Jesus." Gal. iii. Here the apostle plainly insinuates, that we cannot be justified by the works of the law, because the law leads us to Christ for justification. And again; "we are justified by grace, not of works; for we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to good works:" Ephes. ii. 10; where the argument seems to run thus; "we cannot be justified by works preceding faith, because we perform no works truly good with respect to eternal life, until by faith we are interested in Christ Jesus." Such is the plain doctrine of St. Paul: whereas St. James speaks evidently of those works which follow faith in Christ, are wrought by it, and are its natural effects. He inculcates their necessity in order to our continuance in a state of justification, and exemption from final condemnation. The one speaks of the act of pardon on the part of God, his act of justification of the sinner, on his cordial belief in Christ, in the first instance: the other, of the continuance of this act of justification, of its efficacy in constituting the believer in Christ, a friend and child of God, as long as his faith continues to work by love, and to bring forth the fruits of the Spirit, and no longer. St. Paul speaks of believing from the heart: St. James of a faith dead and fruitless. St. Paul speaks of an operative faith: St. James of a faith, which, though it might have justified the believer at first, ceases to do so when it ceases to act, and to show itself in righteousness of life. St. Paul speaks of a faith which receives Christ as a lawgiver and a sovereign, as well as a Redeemer, and of course of a faith which virtually includes a sincere disposition and firm determination to keep all his commandments: St. James, of a faith which consists merely in believing speculative truths, without any concern for the practice of Christian obedience. And thus it appears that the doctrine of St. Paul is perfectly consistent with that of St. James.

Man is assuredly justified by that faith alone, which is described by the former apostle, and not by that alone which is described by the latter. The first procures our pardon and acceptance on the part of God: by it alone we stand justified before him, and continue to enjoy that mighty blessing and privilege, unless our be lief degenerate into that barren and dead faith, which produces no fruits of righteousness-the only evidences of a faith active and justifying. By works, therefore, springing from this faith as from their root and foundation, God is induced to perpetuate his first act of pardon and acceptance; and so far St. James declares the sinner to be justified by works. And, indeed, it is only by works that a habit of saving faith can be formed and maintained; for "faith without works is dead." "Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God," says St. John 1. v. 1.: but he adds, in the same chapter, "whosoever is born of God, overcometh the world." Whence it follows that, in the sense of the apostle, he believeth not " that Jesus is the Christ," who, by virtue of that faith, does not overcome the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil. Wherefore, it appears very evidently, that St. John, as well as the other apostolick writers, considered that alone to be true faith, which was productive of obedience; which, though not formally, yet virtually includes it, as causes virtually contain their effects. So that the difference between men of candour and judgment, as to saving faith, lies more in words than in substance; all agreeing in this-that we cannot be saved by that faith, which does not produce in us sincere obedience to the laws of Christ.

FOR THE THEOLOGICAL MAGAZINÉ.

SOME ACCOUNT

OF THE ORIGINAL INHABITANTS OF AMERICA.

IT is not improbable that America was known to the ancient Carthaginians, and that it was the great island Atalantis, of which Plato speaks both in his Critias and Timeus, as larger than Asia and Africa; though he adds, that it had been swallowed up by an earthquake, with other fabulous accounts. It is well known in what manner Christopher Columbus, a Genoese, under the protection of Ferdinand, king of Spain, in 1492, first discovered the Lucay Islands in America, viz. Guanahani or the Desired Land, and af terwards Cuba, Hispaniola, &c.: also how Americo Vespucci, a Florentine, by the authority of Emmanuel, king of Portugal, in 1501, sailing as far as Brazil, discovered that vast continent which

was called from him America. Among the barbarous nations which inhabited it, all the rest, though united by certain laws of society and government, might justly be styled savages, comparatively to those who composed the two great empires of Mexico and Peru. These were both acquainted with, and very expert in the useful and necessary arts, though strangers to sciences, and even to the use of writing or an alphabet properly so called; so that the memory of transactions was only preserved by signs or marks, made by a wonderful yariation of colours and knots called quippos, in threads or cords, and by these they expressed what they desired. The same was the manner of writing, (if it may be so called,) used by the ancient Chinese before the invention of their hieroglyphical letters. Father Jos. Acosta says, their Indians that were converted to the faith, readily wrote, or rather marked down by a dexterous arrangement of these quippos, the Our Father, Hail Mary, and Creed, in order to learn them more easily by heart. The Peruvians preserved by these quippos, the history of the chief actions of their Incas; on which see the accurate Inca Garci lasso de la Vega, (in historia Incarum,) who was himself of the race of the Incas. The Mexicans, and ancient inhabitants of Canada, wrote, not by quippos, but by certain hieroglyphicks; that is, by marks or little pictures, framed with meal or similar substances, on the barks of trees. Their figures resembled hooks, axes, cards, &c. but were never understood by any Europeans. The Spaniards, in the conquest of Mexico, destroyed many such books, which they at first mistook for magical charms. Certain annals of Mexi co, in this manner of writing, are preserved in the Vatican library. The Peruvians and Mexicans performed their arithmetical operations by the help of grains of maize or Indian wheat. The policy or constitution of the two empires of Mexico and Peru, and their art of government, resembled in some respect, those of civilized kingdoms: their cities, palaces, and temples, were surprisingly magnificent, and well regulated. These were richer in Peru, but the court of Mexico was supported with greater state; their armies were exceedingly numerous; but their chief weapons were bows and arrows, stones which they threw, or sharp flints fixed on poles, instead of steel weapons. The Mexicans had a great number of fantastical idols. They were conquered under their great emperour Montezuma in 1521, by Ferdinand Cortes, who, with 800 Spaniards, and some thousands of Indian allies, destroyed the great city of Mexico, which stood on an island in the midst of a lake. New Mexico was afterwards built upon the banks of the same water. The history of the conquest of Mexico by Cortes, is most elegantly written by Don Antonio de Solis. The incas or emperours of Peru, resided in the rich and stately city of Cusco. The language of Quito was generally understood over that whole empire, the policy of which was superiour to that of Mexico. The chief god of the Peruvians was the Sun, to whom they offered in his great temple at Cusco, bloody victims, and fruits of the earth. Francis Pizarro a haughty, cruel, and perfidious Spanish adventurer, conquered

Peru, caused Atabalipa the Inca to be strangled, and built the city of Lima in a valley of that name in 1535. Pizarro, Almagra, and all the other Spanish adventurers or governours in Peru, perished by the sword in civil wars among themselves. In the learned and ingenious dissertation upon the peofiling of America, inserted in Vol. xx. of the universal history, (which makes amends for certain defective parts of the work,) the common opinion is invincibly confirmed against Whiston, that America was chiefly peopled from North-East Tartary, and the island of Kamschatka, or Jesso, on the North of Japan, perhaps by a contiguous tract of land towards the North Pole, or by adjoining islands only separated by small straits. Some ruins of Japanese or Chinese ships have been found on the American coasts: and in Canada, the people had a tradition, that foreign merchants, clothed in silk, had formerly visited them in great ships, namely, Chinese. The names of many of the American kings are Tartar, ending in ax; and Tartarax, who reigned anciently in Quivira, means the Tartar: Mane or Maneu, the founder of the Peruvian empire, probably came from the Manchew Tartars. Montezuma, the usual title of the emperours of Mexico, is of Japanese extraction; for Motezaiuma, according to Hornius, is the common appeliation of the Japanese Monarch. Father Jartoux, (Lettres Edif.) having obliged the world, in 1709, with an accurate description of the famous plant Ginseng, then only found in Manchew Tartary, it has since been discovered in Canada, where the Americans called it Garentoguen, a word of the same import in their language, with Ginseng in the Tartar or Chinese, both signifying the thighs of a man. See Lafitau's Dissertation on the Ginseng, printed at Paris in 1712. In many particular customs, religious rites, institutions, species of wood, &c. there is a wonderful agreement and resemblance between the Americans and the Manchew Tartars: and as these latter have no horses, so neither were there any in America, when it was first discovered. The Tartars therefore furnished this great country with its first inhabitants. Some few Chinese and Japanese colonies also settled there. Powell, in his history of Wales, informs us, that prince Madoc, having been deprived of his right to the crown, in 1170, with a numerous colony put to sea, discovered to the West a new world of wonderful beauty and fertility, and settied there. It is objected that there were blacks in America, when that country was first discovered. But there was only a small number about Careta, whose ancestors seem to have been accidentally conveyed thither from the coasts of Congo, or Nigritia, in Africa. The ancient inhabitants of Hispaniola, Canada, Mexico, and Peru, had several traditional notions alluding to Noah, the universal deluge, and some other points of the Mosaick history, as Herrera, Huet, Gemelli, and others who have treated on this subject, assure us. America was the last peopled among all the known parts of the globe; and several migrations of Tartars into that country, seem to have been made since the establishment of Christianity. See VOL. I.-No. I.

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