into his jaws, and he is to be brought up out of the midst of his rivers, it follows, " And I will leave thee thrown into the wilderness." When the crocodile thus delighted in unfrequented places, it will not appear wonderful that he fhould choose the ruins of old deferted towns and cities, which were near rivers and lakes, for his efpecial abode while out of the water. Of Babylon, therefore, it might properly be faid, If. xiii. 22. that, when the became defolate, the crocodiles fhould cry in her pleasant palaces; and again, Fer. li. 37. that fe fhould be a dwelling-place for crocodiles. And from hence, polibly, the prophets of the Old Teftament borrowed a figurative expreffion, and faid of every city that was to be utterly deftroyed, that it fhould become a den of crocodiles. Such may be the meaning of . xxxiv. 13. where it is faid of Zion, "it fhall be an habitation for crocodiles, and a court for the daughters of the offrich;" of fer. ix. 11. "I will make Jerufalem heaps, and à den of crocodiles ;" and of ch. x. 22. "To make the cities of Judah defolate, and a den of crocodiles. Such again may be the meaning of ch. xlix 33. “And Hazor fhall be a dwelling for crocodiles;" and of Mal.i. 3. "I hated Efau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waite for the crocodiles of the wilderness." For it does not appear, I think, that thefe places were acceffible to the crocodile, efpecially the mountains of Efau; and perhaps it may be doubted whether Babylon itfelf was ever its habitation; for I know not that the crocodile is to be found in the river Euphrates. Should it, however, be infifted on that these paffages are to be underfood literally, it will be no very improbable conjecture that, under the general name of crocodile, the Hebrews might include every fpecies of lizard, in the fame manner as we, under the general name of lizard include the crocodile.'

Mr. H. wifhes to fee his method of criticifm applied to the whole body of fcripture; and is confident that it would give birth to much interefting and useful remark.' We are clearly of our author's opinion; and hope he will not fruftrate our expectation of fecing, in due time, his volume of Critical Remarks upon the whole Book of Genefis; on which he is now labouring.

E.

ART. XXI. Obfervations on the Four Gofpels; fhewing their Defects, and how far thofe Defects, together with the Writings of St. Paul, have mifled the Compilers of our Church Services, &c. thereby evincing the Neceffity of revifing the Whole by Authority. By a Friend to Truth. 8vo. p. 350. Pr. 10s. 6d. fewed. Geneva. [London, Kearsley.] 1789.

Ir is an unequivocal proof of the advancement of political wifdom, as well as of a candid and liberal fpirit, in the prefent age, that the fanguinary laws refpecting religion, which fill difgrace almost every civil government in the world, are fuffered to lie dormant, and that the boldeft, and even the rudeft, attacks upon fyftems commonly deemed facred, may be made with impunity. This is an indulgence, which no judicious

and

and confiftent friend to truth would wish to fee withheld. For the temporary inconveniences which may arife from allowing free scope to the artifices of fophiftry, the mistakes of ignorance, and the mifreprefentations and infults of malevolence, are of no moment, when weighed against the ferious and fatal mischiefs of perfecution. The coercive fuppreffion of free inquiry can only be favourable to error and fuperftition. Truth is to be difcovered by unreftrained inveftigation alone. And if, among the multitude of writers whom unbounded freedom of refearch may call forth, fome fhould appear, who, for want of ability, learning, or honefty, are incompetent to the undertaking, their deficiencies will foon be difcovered, and their works will be configned to the oblivion which they merit.

Few pieces, fince the days of Woolfton, have afforded more occafion for the exercife of the public indulgence, than these ftrictures upon the New Teftament. The author, a man, con

feffedly, and evidently, of no erudition, formerly, as the tranflator reports, an eminent filk-manufacturer in Lyons, after having lived near fifty years without examining the grounds of the religion he profeffed, undertakes the arduous task of overturning the Chriftian faith. As might be expected from an adventurer thus prepared and qualified, he neither enters into philofophical difquifitions on the poffibility, or the probability, of fupernatural communications from heaven, or on the nature and degree of the evidence which may be necessary to authenticate fuch pretenfions; nor engages in a regular examination of the validity of the hiftorical teftimony brought in fupport of Christianity; but imagines he has completed his defign, when in a curfory view of the contents of the Gofpels, the Acts of the Apoftles, and the Epiftles, he has pointed out a few seeming, or inconfiderable defects and inconfiftencies. And even this poor defign he executes in a manner, which discovers more ignorance and perverfenefs than ingenuity. This cenfure will be fully juftified, in the opinion of every candid reader, by the following brief extracts.

Page 29. Matt. vi. 12. Forgive us our fins for we alfo forgive every one that is indebted to us.' I hope Luke practifed this but being a phyfician, it is likely he received his fees in ready money, and in courfe had no debtors. The governors of the church, not being phyficians, or collectors for the benefit of others, have wifely rejected both; fubftituting And forgive us our trefpaffes as we forgive them that trefpafs against us.'

Page 41. Mark v. Mark v. 30. Jefus immediately knowing in himfelf that virtue had gone out of him. (If virtue had gone out at all, I fhould fuppofe it went out of his garment: but I do not fee what virtue had to do in the affair if the obtained her cure as a reward for her faith.

Page 177. Matt. xxvii. 53. And the earth did quake, and the rocks rent, and the graves were opened, and many bodies of

faints which flept, arofe, and came out of the graves after his refurrection, (that was polite) and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many. (After which, we may fuppofe, they peaceably retired again to their respective graves, as we hear no more of them.')

Page 187. Mark xvi. 5. And entering into the fepulchre, they faw a young man fitting on the right fide, clothed in a long white garment, and they were affrighted. (Mary Magdalene affrighted by a handfome young man,'),

Page 365. Acts xxiv. 26. Of Felix, it is faid, he hoped alfo that money fhould have been given him of Paul, that he might loofe him: wherefore he fent for him the oftener, and communed with him. But after two years, Porcius Feftus came into Felix' room, and Felix willing to fhew the Jews a pleafure, left Paul bound.' Poor Paul, it is certain, could not preach himself our of bonds: but it is not, I think, quite fo certain that a Roman governor, the gallant Felix who kept the gay Drufilla, fhould expect a bribe from a poor tent-maker. But, upon recollection, this poor tent-maker had, by the agency of his pupil, meffenger, companion and friend Titus, collected from the Macedonians, Corinthians, &c. confiderable fums for the poor brethren at Jerufalem, from whence he was hurried fo fuddenly, that poffibly he had not time to diftribute the money, and in courfe his pockets were well lined; this fortunate circumstance, probably obtained the favour of the centurion his guard; and enabled him, during two years, to live at Rome in his own hired house.'

It is wholly unneceffary to dwell longer upon a work, which is too contemptible either to afford the adverfaries of Chriftianity any cause of triumph, or its advocates any ground of apprehenfion.

ART. XXII.

Strictures upon Primitive Christianity, by the Rev. Dr. Knowles, Prebendary of Ely; as aljo upon the theological and polemical Writings of the Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of St. David's, the Rev. Dr. Priestley, and the late Rev. Mr. Badcock. By Edward Hamilton, Efq. Part the First. 8vo. 374 pages. Pr. 6s. in boards. Johnfon. 1790.

THIS writer boldly arrefts the public attention with an 'Eugna. He has himself, as he fuppofes, been fo fortunate as to make a grand difcovery; and he is "impatiently defirous that others fhould partake of the fatisfaction." The world has too often been imposed upon by fuch pretenfions, to allow them implicit credit; but it is too much interested in the real advancement of knowledge, not to give every writer a fair hearing.

First appearances, it must be confefled, awaken a strong sufpicion that our author, as has often happened to projectors, has fome way or other impofed upon himself. It is, at firft fight, very improbable that the religion of Jefus fhould be true, and, at the fame time, the books which record that religion be fpurious. Yet, this is the strange notion which our author

undertakes

undertakes to maintain. To prepare the way for the full denonitration of his paradoxical theorem, which we are given to expect in the fecond part of the work now preparing for, the prefs, Mr. H. in this volume, attempts to afcertain the tenets of the first converts to the divine miffion of Jesus, the Ebionites.

In a preliminary difquifition, he undertakes to prove, that the Ebionites (under which appellation he includes all the Jewish believers, and alfo all thofe Gentile believers who, like the Jews, conformed to the law of Mofcs) thought Jefus to be only a mere man; that they did not believe him to be the Meffiah, or the anointed, foretold by the Jewish prophets; and that they made little account of the books of the New Teftament, excepting only the Gofpel of Mark, which was originally the fame as the Gofpel of Peter, or that according to the Hebrews, but has undergone great interpolation. He then proceeds to give an account of the principal fects which sprang up among chriftians in the first three centuries, and to maintain, that all but the Ebionites were heretics.

On the ground of the fingular opinions boldly afferted, and in our judgment feebly fupported, in this preliminary differtation, Mr. H. examines the writings of the principal modern controverfialists who have written concerning the perfon of Chrift. The chief purport of his remarks upon Dr. Knowles is, to vindicate Dr. Lardner from the charge, that he had fcarcely, produced a paffage from the Fathers favourable to the fcripture-doctrine of the divinity of Chrift. Bifhop Horley, Mr. Badcock, and Dr. Prieftley, being equally ignorant of cur author's great difcovery concerning the Ebionites, fall alike under his cenfure, for the inaccuracy of their accounts of the first herefies, and for their credulity in admitting the general authenticity of the books of the New Teftament, and of the early chriftian Fathers. They are alfo charged with giving the pafleges they quote, incompletely, and rendering them in a fort of free verfion, which enables them to put their own fenfe upen the author's words. In the courfe of his frictures on the Bifhop of St. Davids' tracts, our author maintains, that no Jewith Gnoftic ever exifted; that none of the Jewish believers acknowledged the diftinét perfonality of the Holy Spirit, or the miraculous conception; and that his lordship, in common with Dr. Priestley, is chargeable with Sabellianiim. Dr. P. he cenfures for ranking Marcellus with the Unitarians, and for afferting, that the Arians holding that Jefus Chrit had no intelligent human foul, was a novelty. Mr. Eadcock he accafes, not only of having mis-tranflated many paffages of the Fathers, but with having egregioully mifreprefented the letters which paffed between Jerom and Auguftine. Laftly, he advifes the modern Unitarians to defort their ground of fcriptural"

authority

authority as untenable, and fairly to acknowledge, that the paffages which affert the pre-existence and divine nature of Chrift, are interpolations.

We fhall give Mr. H.'s fummary of the fingular doctrine of this book in his own words:

:

From these sheets it very clearly appears, that the Nazarenes and the Ebionites held the fame fentiment concerning Jefus, as the believing Hebrews, namely, that he was an upright Man without any union of deity: and that he was not the promised Meffiah. Now as the first followers of Jefus were nick-named, by the unbelieving Hebrews, Nazarenes, as being the followers of a Man of mean parentage, an inhabitant of the village of Nazareth and as they are allowed by the Chriftian Fathers themfelves, together with their primitive nick-name among the unbelieving Hebrews, to have retained their primitive faith without any adul *teration, can it reafonably be doubted, but that this faith is the true faith, which fhould be embraced by all lovers of truth, as being that which was delivered by Jefus to his apoftles, and by them taught to the rest of mankind. This follows even from the principles of the Fathers themfelves, who, with great propriety, maintained against the propounders of herefies continually fpringing up, that that which was novel, muft neceffarily be falfe; and of course that that fentiment which was entertained by the primitive or firft followers, must be the true faith. And what this faith was, both with regard to belief and practice, is evident from the controverfy between Jerome and Auguftine lately laid before the readers. Such poor believers who founded upon the promises of the Mofaic law their future expectations, were nick-named by the Chriftians, Ebionites, thus poorly punning upon the term Ebion, which in Hebrew means poor: becaufe, forfooth, fetting at nought the fplendid promifes held forth in the New Teftament, efteeming it a fpurious production, they relied folely in this refpect upon thofe held forth in the law of Mofes. Therefore, if perfons entertaining the fame religious notions are entitled to the fame appellation, doubtlefsly the Nazarenes and Ebionites come within this predicament. If this then be indifputable, as I truft it is, it follows, that the Nazarenes and Ebionites were the fame fect under different appellations, the first being their nick-name among the unbelieving Jews, the latter among the Chriftians, the contrary of which has been afferted by the learned Dr. Horfley, and a crowd of Moderns. And that they were not Chriftians, as Dr. Priestley prefumes, is evident, independently of the teftimony of Athanafius, that they did not believe that the CHRIST HAD AT ALL COME, from their never having been thus defignated by the antients."

A believer in Jefus, who denies that he was the Meffiah-an Ebionite, who is no Chriftian-an advocate for the divine. miffion of Mofes and Jefus, who pronounces ninety parts in a hundred of the bible ufelefs, and afferts, as his great difcovery, that "christianity itself is only a fophiftication of the religion of Jefus"-a writer who not only undertakes to criticile the VOL. VIII.

works