Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

revere as facred,' and which he pretends not to fathom,' and which, finally, his Church holds out to him: a widely extended body of men' (who think for the reft) which even his reafon tells him must be a furer guide to truth, than the dictates of his own individual judgment.'

[ocr errors]

In our religious modes of thinking, fays he, in a letter at the end of this work, addreffed to Dr. Priestley, you and I are, I believe, farther feparated, than in particular points of philofophy. Education firft made me a Catholic, and the most rational conviction has finally fettled my belief. Were this a proper occafion, which it is not, I could with pleasure delineate to you the philofophy of my religion.'-The Author tells us that he has, for fome years paft, meditated a work of this character: but we are forry at finding him declaring that this fingular defign will never be realifed.-It would indeed be a curiofity.

We apprehend, however, that the Author has given us a fpecimen of the philofophy of his religion, in treating of the prefence of the fentient principle to its body; or in anfwer to Dr. Priestley's objection to the Immaterialifts that, on their hypothefis, the fentient principle is really nowhere, or that it is no more in the animal body, than it is in the planet Jupiter.'On this occafion he declares that, according to his idea of prefence, he fees no great difficulty in the conception that the fame numerical body may be even in many places, at the fame inftant

of time.'

Our metaphyfical Catholic attempts to extenuate the apparent abfurdity of this position, by a definition or defcription of prefence; which, as well as existence, is, according to him, attefted only by the action of bodies on each other, or on a fentient being. To exift near, or to be prefent, is to exert on other bodies an immediate, or a nearly immediate action.'-Accordingly, Prefence is fuch a pofition that therefrom can be exerted a quick impreffion on the ambient bodies. Such prefence is more or less intimate, the more immediate the action is. As I can act more immediately on the bodies in my chamber, than on thofe fituated at the outfide of my windows, I fhall fay, I am nearer placed, or more present to the firft than the fecond. In fact, when action is immediate, nothing can be conceived more intimate than the prefence of fuch bodies; it generates the phenomenon of contact, which of all pofitions is the moft immediate. Prefence therefore, like existence, is not formally the effect of action, but it is fuch a ftate or pofition that action or immediate impreffion is the direct confequence.

The interefts of the Author's fyftem lead him to deny the reality of space. To his apprehenfion, it is nothing real.'— Bodies co-exift in a general order of reference or relation to each other, and this it is which gives rife to the phenomenon we term Space. He confiders the idea of it as a mere illufion of

J

the human mind, unhabituated to fet bounds to its imaginative powers. And yet he is obliged to own that we cannot even conceive the annihilation or non-existence of space; because the idea of its capacity of receiving bodies will always recur to us.

For a further explanation of the Author's fyftem with respect to the first principles of things, we must refer our metaphyfical readers to the work itself. Our other readers will be content with this fpecimen. We fhould obferve, however, that the latter half of this performance is appropriated to an examination of Dr. Priestley's Difquifitions on Matter and Spirit; in which the Author copies the titles of the fections as they stand in that work, and regularly treats of the subjects difcuffed in them but for his reafonings on thefe contefted fubjects we must likewife refer the reader to the work at large.

ART. X. Reflections on the Doctrine of Materialism, and the Application of that Doctrine to the Pre-existence of Chrift: Addreffed to Dr.

Priestley, &c. By Philalethes Rufticans. 12mo. 3 s. fewed.

Flexney. 1779.

THIS anonymous Opponent evidently poffeffes a greater fhare

of acuteness, as well as knowledge of the fubject in debate, than the generality of Dr. Prieftley's anfwerers; though he, too, mixes perfonalities with his reafonings, and confiders the argumentum ad hominem as not always the worst argument, if unenvenomed with malignity.' There feems, however, no neceffity, on a ferious fubject, for that air of irony or raillery, which occafionally appears in these pages; and for which the Author, in a careless way, condefcends to apologife, and, at the fame time, to take merit to himself, for not being chargeable with an infolent affectation of fuperiority, and coarfe language, unenlivened by a fingle grain of humour;' judging that, to give life and fpirit to the dulnefs of theological controverfy, a little raillery perhaps is not amifs.'

The moft material part of this performance is that in which the Author follows Dr. Prieftley in the objections advanced in the Difquifitions, against the doctrine of an intermediate state, on the authority of various paffages adduced from the fcriptures. He not only confiders the moft material of these, to which he gives a different fenfe; but likewise produces, in his turn, fome additional texts, of which Dr. Priestley, he fays, has prudently taken no notice;' and from the whole he concludes that the doctrine of the foul's immortality, and confequently of an intermediate state, is the doctrine of the fcriptures.

D 2

[ocr errors]

ART.

ART. XI. A Review of the Doctrine of Philofophical Necefity, illuf trated by Dr. Priefley; in which is evidently demonftrated the Erro neoufness and Incongruity of his Dorine, &c. By the Rev. Jofeph Fisher, &c. 12mo. I s. 6 d. Nicoll. 1779.

TH

HOUGH this Author, we doubt not, undertook the prefent review of Dr. Priestley's doctrine of Philofophical Neceffity, from the beft motives, and, in general, treats his Antagonist with temper and decency; we muft obferve that his performance is indigefted and confufed, and carries marks of hafte in the compofition of it. Further, whatever degree of knowledge he may poffefs on other fubjects, we must take the liberty of informing this Author, that he knows very little of the philofophical doctrine of neceffity, as laid down by Dr. Prieftley; the erroneoufnefs and incongruity of which he, nevertheless, pretends, in his title-page, to have demonftrated. In short, whatever may have been his intentions, he has most palpably failed in the execution: having pointed nearly the whole of his heavy metaphyfical artillery, not againft Dr. Priestley, but against the ancient ftoics, and the modern predeftinarians.

ART. XII.

Sacrorum Evangeliorum Verfio Syriaca Philoxeniana, ex Codd. MSS. Ridleianis, in Bibl. Coil. Nov. Oxon. repofitis, nunc primum Edita: Cum Interpretatione et Annotationibus Jofephi White, A. M. Coll. Wadh. Socii, et Ling. Arab. Prof. Laudiani. Tom. Primus. Oxonii è Typ. Clarend. 1778. i. e. The Syriac Philoxenian Verfion of the Four Gofpels, with a Latin Translation by Mr. White 4to. 21. 2 s. Boards. Rivington, White, &c.

TH

HE Syriac verfions of the New Testament have not hitherto attracted that regard, or attention, among the critics in facred literature, which, in our opinion, they deserve. There are many Syriac tranflations, but the old, called Pefbito, or the literal, and the Philoxenian, which we have here before us, are the principal. The Pefbito, which is likewife known under the name of Verfio Syriaca Simplex, contains the whole New Teftament, except the fecond epistle of St. Peter, the two last of St. John, the epiftle of Jude, and the Revelation, all which are omitted, probably for no other reafon, but, according to the opinion of fome, becaufe they were either not known in the time when this tranflation was made, or because they were not looked upon as canonical. This old Syriac verfion is of the

Immediately after the Preface, we meet with another title page, and Tomus Secundus upon it. We cannot account for this, having never before seen an inftance where a Preface, of 31 pages, made the first volume, and the book itself, of 652 pages, the fecond; nor can we reconcile it with Mr. White's words in the Preface, p. 31, Si univerfitati placuerit ut fecundum volumen conficiatur.

4

greateft

greatest antiquity, and we hefitate not to say, that it was made in the first century: nay, ftrange as it might appear to those who judge merely as they are biaffed by education, we think it not impoffible, that, in a future age, a more daring critic may attempt to prove that this Pefhito is the very original in which the facred writers have penned the greatest part, if not the whole, of the New Teftament. Father Harduin, that celebrated fceptic, endeavours, in his Latin commentary on the N. T. to prove that the New Teftament was originally written in Latin, and afterward tranflated into Greek; but we think he might, with far more probability, have contended that the Syriac was the true original; as it feems more likely that the apostles wrote in their mother language, than in Latin or Greek, which they, as poor people, and of a low extrac tion, could no more underftand, without a miracle, than did the greateft part of the Jews for whom the gospel was firft written. Moft of the difciples of Chrift were Galileans, and they spoke, together with Chrift, who was educated at Nazareth in Galilea, the Weft-aramean language, which is the very fame in which the Pefhito is written. It may alfo be asked, Whence it proceeds that fo many Syriafms are found in the New Testament, particularly in the gofpels,-even the Syriac expreffions of our Saviour, fuch as Talitha cumi, Eli, Eli, lama fabachthani, &c. tranflated, with the addition in the Greek ὁ ἐσι μεθερμηνευόμενον ? The old Latin verfions, which were made very early, agree, furprisingly, with the Syriac; and it is by far more probable, that they are made from the Syriac, than that the latter fhould be corrected, as fome would fuppofe, from the Latin. The antiquity of the famous Greek copy at Cambridge (Cod. Cantabr. 1. or Codex Beza) is acknowledged to be very great, and we could venture to pronounce it the oldeft among all the Greek copies that contain part of the New Teftament, which are preserved. This Greek copy correfponds fo much with the old Syriac verfion, that we should be inclined to suppose it made from the Syriac, rather than interpolated from the Latin verfion. Some critics have even thought themselves fharp-fighted enough to find out, in this copy, paffages, where the Greek interpreter mistakes the meaning of fome Syriac expreffions. We could wish the Cambridge copy were accurately printed, together with the text of the Pefhito, as we doubt not that it would lead to useful critical discoveries.

It is further in favour of the great antiquity, if not originality, of the Syriac verfion, that whoever made it, was well verfed in the geography of the Holy Land; and was, in all probability, a Jew. The Writer has given the names of many places with more exactness than we have them in our common Greek Teftament: even those inftances of names of places,

[blocks in formation]

which Wetstein and others have produced as proofs against the antiquity of that verfion, turn out in its favour. It is likewise probable that the apoftles, who were Jews, fhould quote paffages out of the Old Teftament, rather from the Hebrew original than the Greek tranflation, and we find that the old Syriac verfion quotes from the Hebrew.

It is, moreover, very fingular, that the tranflated quotations from the New Teftament, by the ancient Latin Fathers, are full of Syriafms, which we can hardly account for, unless we allow that they quoted either from the Syriac, or from fuch Greek copies as that of Cambridge; which would fcarcely have been the cafe, if they had poffeffed fuch Greek copies as those which we, in our days, look upon as reprefenting the true original.

We muft further obferve, that the different fects of Chrif-. tians in Syria, Neftorians, Jacobites, and Maronites, would hardly, to this day, unanimoufly adopt this old Syriac verfion, and pay fo much refpect to it as they do, had it not existed, and been long established, before ever thofe fects arofe. Chrif tianity fpread very early in Syria; the difciples of Chrift were first called Chriftians at Antioch; and there is reafon to think that the first Chriftian temple was erected at Edeffa in Syria. At this very place an old Syriac copy of the four gofpels was found, and at the end of it a note was added, mentioning that this copy was finished + by the apoftle Achaeus. Though we grant that there is no relying on the authority of this note, yet we think it proves at leaft that an opinion, referring the Syriac publication of the four gofpels to the end of the first century, prevailed at the time when this note was written. But how this could be done fo early, and particularly how it could differ fo much from our modern Greek copies, is altogether unaccountable, if we do not admit that the evangelifts wrote in their own language, which is that of the Syriac in the Pefhito.

We confefs that what we have thrown out here, is not faid merely by way of introduction to an account of the book before us, nor for the fake of novelty, but with a fincere wish, that fome able critic, fuperior to the prejudices of education, and well grounded in these subjects, would purfue the hints here

Mr. White in his Preface, p. v. gives, from Dr. Ridley's dif fertation, the Latin tranflation of this Syriac note, and the words we here refer to are, Abfolutus eft fanclus ifte liber-propria manų Achaei apoftoli, &c. How fome, from this, could draw the inference, that Achæus tranflated the four gofpels into Syriac, for the benefit of King Abgarus or the Chriftians at Edeffa, we cannot well conceive. The words, he finished this copy with his own hand, might as well, perhaps more properly, convey the idea, that he himself tranfcribed it from another Syriac copy.

thrown

1

« VorigeDoorgaan »