system of theology," because they represent the Deity in situations, which are either ridiculous in themselves, or become relatively so from the minuteness of their detail, and their trifling degree of importance.

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They find it (he says) quite simple that the triae* Jehovált should dine on veal-cutlets at Abraham's table." They are not at all surprised that the god of the universe should pay a visit to Ezekiel, in order to settle with the prophet whether he should bake his bread with human dung, or with cow's dung."

The Deity (Psalins viii. 7) is represented as riding on a cherub; now in one of the visions of Ezekiel a cherub is described as having four heads, four wings, one hand and the hoof of a calf; this Sir W. D. asserts the Christians to tako literally, triumphantly adding,

"This was a very singular equipage for Jehovah to choose when he went to take an airing."

Several of the provisions of the ceremonial law, such as directions about the pans and shovels," of the temple, and the disposal of the fat and entrails of the animals sacrificed, are adduced as instances of ridiculous detail into which the Hebrew scriptures represent the Deity as frequently descending; the grand objection however of our author against these writings would appear to be their indelicacy. By a mode of logic which we should call dishonest, were it not too absurd to deserve a serious epithet, Sir W. in order to support this point, adduces all the free expressions occurring throughout the Song of Solomon, which he manages to concentrate within eleven lines. Nearly the whole indeed of his extracts from the Old Testament are, evidently meant to bear incidentally upon this point; every word or passage contained throughout the Jewish writings, which custom or association has debased and rendered odious in polished society, is collected together with laboured industry, and carefully ranged along as

The reading of Sir W. D's copy of the scriptures must here be essentially different from our own; we have indeed in vain sought for the expressio. triune, or even one of similar import, throughout the whole of the volume. As it is a great object with us to possess correct copies of these ancient and invaluable records, we should be glad if he would favour us with a sight of his manuscript (doubtless an auc.cat and authentic one) in which the expression occurs; the “ Christian Advocate of Cambridge," also would, we are assured, consent to burn every copy of his reply to the Edipus Judaicus, for one single glimpse of this new and valuable reading. This is worthy Sir W. D's. attention, for the replies are really able ones, and have placed his pretensions either to honesty or to common sense, in a very dangerous and questionable predicament.

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so many mud-heaps with which our author attempts to bespatter the fair fabric of revelation. Sir W. is also possessed of a very praise-worthy aversion to vulgarism; ins deed the only new objection against revelation which we have met with throughout the whole volume is one very strongly and pointedly levelled against the low and vulgar expression of "skin for skin," occurring in the book of Job. The argument is so compleat and decisive upon this point, that we confess it staggered us for a moment, and upon the whole, we do not hesitate to pronounce it at once the most judicious, rational, and dangerous piece of reasoning against the Mosaic revelation contained throughout the whole of the Edipus Judaicus.

We have now taken a fair and impartial review of the ar guments adduced by Sir W. D. to disprove the authenticity of the Jewish Scriptures. We cannot but wish there bad been something of novelty in them; and this as well for our own edification as our readers' amusement, and we may add for the credit of the author. It is indeed, as it regards our selves, rather disgraceful to be continually replying to long exploded objections; we must however comfort ourselves with the reflection, that it is more disgraceful to have raised them. That the Deity of the Hebrew scriptures is a local, a material, or a mutable and changeful being is absolutely false; the point indeed is so self-evident that no argument or mode of proof to which we can resort could possibly make it more so. Read the records of the Jewish nation, the revelations of their law-giver, and the denunciations of their prophets by what strange form of speech can these men, or those whom they instructed, be accused of possess ing mean, and partial, and unworthy notions of the Deity.? What is there in modern times, enlightened as they have been by philosophy, and after-revelation, that for grandeur of thought, or sublimity of expression, can pretend to vie a moment with them when expatiating on the infinite greatness, the boundless power, and the exalted majesty of their master and their God? Language evidently labours when employed in painting their conceptions, and the diction of the poet is too humble for the lofty truths which they acknowledge and inculcate. For this reason it is that we meet with the passages objected against, in common with other deistical writers, by our auther, and which, literally and separately taken, might indeed possibly be tortured into something like the sense he put upon them; for the credit of the human intellect, however, we are inclined to hope that the ideot does not exist who seriously should propose tu regard and take such either literally or separately.

The same sort of argument holds good against the assertion, that the deity is represented as being subject to human passions and infirmities. The assertion is a falsehood-the falsity of it is apparent from the general sense of the Hebrew scriptures-and the ambiguity erely and evidently arises from the imperfection of language, and the necessity, par.. ticularly in the earlier ages, of describing mental and immaterial objects, by means of external and corporeal sym bols.

With regard to the whole earth's being doomed to eternal torments, because Adam até an apple, we would advise Sir W. D. to put on his spectacles. What his figurative interpretation may make of the passage in question we know not, but taken literally it implies no more than this-Adam if he trangressed should surely be punished: that is, of course, himself, in his own person; he did trangess, he was punished-and there the matter ended. Others, however, (Sir W. may assert) have put this construction upon the passage besides himself. If they have done so, we can only say their ingenuity and powers of invention must have been equal to his own.

Sir William trembles with horror at the assertion, that the destruction of the Canaanites was "perpetrated by the express command of God." What may be the opinion of our author as to the extent of the providence of Deity we know not; for our own part we profess to believe that an event never yet it occurred upon this earth which was not "perpetrated by the express command of God." When the Deity, for his own wise purposes, resolves the destruc tion of a nation, he frequently employs the instrumentality of another people, and whether or not it be openly given by way of command to that people, is, as we conceive, merely a verbal distinction, in no way affecting the merits of the case.

With regard to the objections against the minutia of detail, into which it is represented as absurd to suppose the Deity would enter, our author would seem to conceive that, like the giants in Gulliver's Travels, one consequence of the greatness of God must necessarily be that he should not see little things; in this, however, as Christians, we must beg leave to differ from him; as it regards the Deity we know not what may be little, or what great, and even as it regards mankind we cannot conceive those measures mean or unimportant which at the time arrested the progress of idolatry, and eventually brought about the civilization of the world, and rendered the worship of aneGod almost universal. Some persons might laugh at the idea

that the great Lord of the universe should employ his agents to draw up separately minute particles of water from the ocean, not perceiving that these particles, mean and insignificant as they might appear, descended afterwards in refreshing showers, and were designed to beautify and renovate the earth. Let it but be remembered, that it is not the extent of the means, but the nature of the end, by which the importance of a thing should be estimated, and we shall only have, in the present instance, the more. to admire the exalted wisdom of that being, who in revelation, as in the works of nature, has brought about effects. the most extensive and stupendous, through the intervention of causes apparently minute, trifling, and inadequate.

A few words on Sir W. D's. strong objections to the freedom and supposed indelicacy of expression occasionally occurring in the Hebrew scriptures. If he be an oriental scholar (and we prefix the if because the fact has been controverted,) he need not to be told that the eastern languages, particularly in primitive ages, allowed a freedom of expression, which is inconsistent with the more guarded but not perhaps more innocent phraseology of modern dia lects; in this respect also we would observe there is much force in the well-known observation of Swift, that a nice man, or rather as we should say an over-nice man is a man of pasty ideas; and we cannot conceive that the objection, as proceeding from the pen of Sir W. D. savors very strongly either of the honesty or the purity of his mind.

With regard to the vulgarisms of which it appears the Jewish writers have been guilty, what shall we say? The situation of our author in meeting with them appears to have been distressing in the extreme. When terrified at the phrase skin for skin, and other equally ungenteel expressions, he reminded us of a French dancing master skipping carefully over the puddles, and depreciating, with sig nificant gestures the dirty splashings of an approaching hackney coach.

We have heard of a Flemish painter who, being shocked at the vulgarity of the supposed parentage of Jesus, represented Mary and Joseph as habited in the full court dress of the times; the one swimming in silks, and encircled by a tremend us hoop, the other equipped compleately d la mode with ruffles, a sword, a bag-wig, and an opera-hat, An heraldic writer of the sixteenth century, who joined with the painter and Sir W. D. in wishing to remove the aspersion of vulgarity from revelation, contended that the apostles were" gentlemen of blood;" adding, that Christ also was a gentleman as to his flesh, by the part of his

mother, and might, if he had esteemed of the wayne glorye of this world, have borne coat armour." Now this we trust even Sir W. D. will allow to be a genteel religion, and (but that the phrase is vulgar) perfectly as it should be. Such are the arguments adduced by Sir W. Drummond to prove the necessity of a figurative interpretation of the Jewish writings, and he defends the practice by asserting that Christians themselves affix such a meaning to them "when they think there is any allusion to the kingdom of Christ. They then abandon the literal sense without scruple, and sometimes it may be thought without consideration." Now by Christians he here evidently alludes to the Calvinists, the Methodists, and the Southcottonians of the day, who are remarkable for nothing more than their absurd and contemptible constructions of the literal expressions of scripture, finding types, and figures, and symbols where none but medmen and themselves could possibly discover either allusion or resemblance. The congregation of Sir W. D. and other unbelievers with birds of this feather we are not surprised at the similarity of their creeds and their modes of argument had indeed struck us long before, and we are actually only prevented by want of room from presenting our readers with a lengthened parallel between the system of our author and the respective creeds of Wesley and of Whitefield, of Huntington and Joanna Southcott. We had even discovered many points of resemblance in the works of Muggleton; but the grand prototype of our author in this line would appear to be Baron Swedenbourg, who like him, insists throughout upon an esoteric or hidden meaning in the scriptures, asserting that they are wholly figurative, and professing to decypher and explain them for the instruction of the ignorant and credulous multitude, who had hitherto taken them in their plain and literal acceptation,

Having left him in such appropriate company, we must now take our final leave of Sir W. Drummond. Our opi nion of his work, and of his system we have given at some length; the fundamental principle of both is, that the Jewish revelation is false, and the Jewish scriptures a collection of pamphlets upon astronomy; this fact alone must sink thework for ever. Applying the expressions of the Grecian orator, had we been asked what was the first characteristic of the Edipus Judaicus? we should certainly have answered CREDULITY! what the second? still CREDULITY!! and had the third been asked for, still, still, without any sort of hesitation, we must have replied CREDULITY!!!