position of the early Patriarchal knowledge of the doctrine of Redemption. This he has now to prove from the phenomena of the heathen world, and the nature of Pagan idolatry. He finds it impossible to prove any thing to the point from the latter series of Pagan obfiquities, beginning with Sabianism, or Astrolatry; that is, the worship of the stars. And, on the contrary, he finds it easy, as we shall see hereafter, to demonstrate his position from the former series, beginning with Heroolatry, or Hero-worship. Hence, it intimately concerns him to maintain, against Warburton, and every other theorist on the Bishop's side, the actual commencement of Postdiluvian idolatry, from Heroolatry: and to shew that the contrary system can never satisfactorily explain its own introduction in the various phenomena attending its progress. Now, we are strongly inclined to think, that he is right in his facts and general reasoning on this point. The genuine testimony of antiquity, as to the point of fact, appears to incline in his favour; for example, "Osiris, says Plutarch, was an ancient king of Egypt, who civilized his barbarous countrymen, who taught them how to cultivate the earth, who gave them a code of laws for their civil government, and who instructed them in the proper mode of worshipping the gods. After his death, he was buried (according to Eudoxus) at Busiris, where also he was born. Nor was his corpse alone deposited among the Egyptians: it is asserted by the priesthood, that the bodies likewise of all the other gods, who equally with himself both were born and were liable to corruption, are laid up and are carefully preserved among them; while their flitting souls shine as stars in the heavens. Thus was Isis translated into the Dog-star; Horus, into Orion; and Typhon, into the great Bear." pp. 241, 242. Other cumulative testimonies are referred to, as cited in " the Origin of Pagan Idolatry," sufficient to shew the general sense of antiquity on the subject. Regsoning seems to incline to the same side. The contrary notion, of the priority of Sabianism, Mr. Faber remarks, is attended with many and great difficulties, as to the mode of its origination. From its extraordinary similarity among different Pagan nations, in matters of doctrine or ritual purely arbitrary, it must be concluded to have originated prior to the dispersion of the nations at the tower of Babel: and Mr. Faber then asks "By what process of the human mind were all men led, at a very early period, to corrupt the worship of Jehovah by the adoration of the heavenly bodies? In the first instance, they could not, like the Israelites, have been mingled with the heathen, and have thus learned their ways: for, at the commencement of Postdiluvian idolatry, there were no heathen among whom the children of Noah could be mingled. This species of idolatry, if it were the aboriginal and proper idolatry of the Gentiles, must have emanated from Patriarchism. By what steps did it emanate? On what principles did mankind at an era prior to the dispersion, agree worship of those orbs, which yet from unanimously to devote themselves to the their earliest youth they would have been taught to consider as the mere handywork of the Supreme Intelligence? The great difficulty is, to lay down, after a rational and satisfactory manner, the extraordinary mental process, by which, at some time or another, though certainly before the dispersion from Babel, a family of sound worshippers of Jehovah could have lapsed into the follies of Pagan idolatry. A positive fact, namely the existence of idolatry prior to the days of Abraham,-for this fact stands specifically recorded, whether idolatry itself sprang up before the dispersion or not, a positive fact, of a most remarkable nature, stares us in the face. The question is, how we are rationally to account for it." pp. 237, 238. Bishop Warburton allows in his statement, which Mr. Faber very copiously extracts, that mankind must have passed to this worship of the stars through an intermediate stage of gross barbarism, and total oblivion of all Divine knowledge; with not even the traditional recol lection of a proper Divine nature. And then again Mr. Faber justly takes up the argument readily allow that such conclusions [the priority of Sabianism] are very justly drawn from such premises [a state of savage ignorance]; and they are in fact the only premises from which such conclusions can be drawn: for, though Heroworship (as we shall presently see) may easily and naturally be traced as springing directly out of that patriarchal worship of the true God, which prevailed immediately after the deluge; it is impossible (as the Bishop, distinctly perceived) to reach Sabianism, if viewed as the earliest fom of Postdiluvian idolatry, except through the preparatory medium of barbarous and atheistic ignorance. But are his lordship's premises themselves sound? I more than suspect that they will not bear the test of examination: and, if so, it is easy to discern the fate of the conclusions deduced from them. What proof then have we, that the early descendants of Noah soon lost the revealed knowledge of their Creator? Or rather what probability, or even possibility, is there, that such knowledge should be speedily obliterated among the early descendants of the Patriarch? Bishop Warburton seems to have felt the unlikelihood of this cccurrence, while mankind were united in a single community: he therefore first disperses them, and then sinks them into the barbarism of savage life, by way hy of accounting for that utter ignorance of the true God which he perceived to be so necessary to his system." pp. 281, 282. Again: -702) According to Bishop Warburton, mankad passed from the worship of Jehovah to the worship of the heavenly host tibugh the medium of gross ignorance and savage barbarism; but, according to St Paul, their progress was through the directly opposite medium of a pretended widom. They did not apostatise through orance, and because they had lost all Knowledge of their Creator: but they hed into error, because they became bun in their imaginations, and because they professed themselves to be wise. "Inisbortioifs we may believe the inspired Aborile, it was by wisdom, not through WHgrance, that the world knew not God.?? 282, 256, We very much approve of the following incidental remarks on the common notion of a state of nature, so freely used by writers similar to Warburton. ! 1 "In another: place, the Bishop, not quite consistently, styles this imagined savage state a state of nature: and, from the inconveniences which men felt while existing in it, he deduces the origin of civil government. (See Div. Leg. book i. sect. 2.) His theory does not seem to me to rest upon evidence. To call a sa vage state a state of nature is indeed to speak the language of pagan speculatists, but it is not to speak the language of Scrip ture. According to Holy Writ (and from this source alone can we learn, with any certainty, the transactions of the first ages), man's state of nature was not a savage, but a regularly social, state. Society therefore, if we speak of its origin in general terms (as the Bishop does) and not in particular terms (as it may have haply commenced in this country or in that country), did not spring from the neces sities of savage life; which of course implies the absurd position, that God first created men brutal savages, and that by degrees they licked themselves into social order and decency: but it was coeval with the existence of the first family, and may well be supposed to have been ordained by God himself. Springing then as it did from the constitution of a single family, it assumed what has been called the patriar chal form." Note, p. 280. In other words, a state of nature is no more than a state of utter and long progressive degeneracy: and we know no reason why we are to rious, inventive, reflective, aspiring, assume that man, naturally gregaand in destiny, will be naturally a and lofty alike in mien, in mind, mere wandering, hunting wild man of the woods, any more than that sheep would be naturally averse to flocking together, or birds in a state of nature have a great objection to the use of their wings. The history of the early states and empires of the world appears to be against the hypothesis. But this only by the way. It has been introduced to shew that the priority of Sabianism in the progression of idolatry, has not the alleged support of an early and long settled state of previous barbarism. Mr. Faber further conceives that the priority of Sabianism will not account for the peculiarity, as well as universality, of certain adjuncts to ancient mythology. All the world, descending first from the height of astrolatry and the ravishment of the celestial spheres, would not simultaneously, and by guess, have hit upon arks, and ships, and lotuses, and serpents, and just three, or just eight persons, descending from the spheres, or floating in mid air. To say nothing of what has been already touched upon (the doctrine, in the use of sacrifice, so universally prevalent,) altars, and sacrifices, and their proper deities, may have ascended from earth to the stars, but, it is apprehended, could never primarily, and by accident, have descended from the stars to earth. All these denote a common and a sublunary origin. They imply, that men had talked of arks on earth before they talked of arks in the stars: and if they had retained any distant and dim recollection of a man, or a family, floating on the waters of an universally circumambient ocean, they would, perhaps, when they began to feel a disposition to worship any thing besides God, have preferred rather to worship a venerable old father, whom they did recollect, than a spruce Apollo, with bow and his quiver, Delius aut Patareas Apollo," just alighting from his chariot in mid air, with whom they had formed no previous acquaintance. As far as this reasoning goes, nothing more simple or natural occurs to us, than the following thoughts of Jacob Bryant on the subject, forming, we might say, the nucleus of his own entire system : As the Deluge was so extensive, and, at the same time, so fatal in its consequences, I took notice that it must have left lasting impressions upon the minds of those who had been witnesses to the great event: that the preservation of the few persons who survived must have been followed with continual reflec tions upon the means by which their deliverance was effected; and those attended, with a reverential awe and many fearful sensations. The like impressions, I should imagine, must have been transmitted to their posterity: and upon their defection from the worship of the true God, one might naturally suppose, that one species of idolatry would consist in an undue reverence paid to the Patriarch, the father of mankind; and in rites and mysteries established in allusion to his wonderful preservation." And all this Mr. Bryant further continues, he has irrefragably proved to be the case from innumerable and indubitable Arkite and Diluvian mythological records. See his Ancient Mythology vol. ii. Jonah Chaldæorum. Thus far the learned and illustrious Jacob Bryant, who may justly be considered as the father of Arkite theology. We do not think that Mr. Faber, either in the present work, nor, so far as we can find, in his "Origin of Pagan Idolatry," has done full justice in acknowledgments to Mr. Bryant, as the real inventor of that improved system of Pagan mythology, of which Mr. Faber has made so important and able a use. The first real KEY to the "Court of the Gentiles," which Gale, with such indefatigable labour, so long beleaguered, and upon the same, or similar plans, Stillingfleet, Shuckford, Warburton, and others, was doubtless furnished at last by the indubitable marks of Diluvial tradition amongst all nations, discovered and amassed together by the learned Bryant. He likewise very nearly approximated Hero-worship to Sabianism, when he ranked amongst the earliest idolaters, those of Ham, represented by the sun. He placed the period of Sabianism itself before the dispersion of Babel. And he has offered a probable reason in the counsels of Divine Providence for the obscurity of those ancient records, so much in point to our present purpose, and so well in agreement with our own feeling on the subject, that we must be excused for once more substituting his sterling gold for our own baser coin, by another quotation, found in the conclusion to his main subject, at the end of the second volume of the Ancient Mythology. "Those instances of Arkite worship in the Gentile world, I thought proper," he says, "to enumerate and display, as it is a subject very curious and interesting, and at the same time, QUITE NEW, having hitherto been overlooked, and neg leeted." Some pages further on, he proceeds" I have taken notice that the most early defection to idolatry consisted in the adoration of the sun, and the worship of demons called Baalim. Who these were, could not be a secret to Moses; nor to many of the sacred writers. Yet, though they speak of this worship with detestation, it is curious to observe with what delicacy they treat the subject, and what a veil is drawn over this mysterious iniquity. Not a word is said about the origin of this idolatry; nor tlre least hint given to shew who they were to whom this undue reverence was tendered. For, of all reveren· tial regard, none is so liable to lapse into an idolatrous veneration as that which is paid to the memory of friends departed: more especially, if such persons were the founders of families, and benefactors; men who had endeared themselves by their good works, and been a blessing to posterity. This is evident from the adoration still paid to their ancestors by many people in the East. It is a seeming duty the most plausible of any; and at the same time the most captivating. Hence the silence of the sacred writers upon a subject of such seeming importance; whose purpose it appears to have been, that, if ever the great object of this idolatry should he lost, it might lie in oblivion, and never be again retrieved; at least to no ill purpose. The Jews, by these means, lost sight of the original, and were weaned from the worship: and the Gentiles, who continued the rites, did not know to whom they were directed; so blind was their process. In short, they were plunged in the depth of darkness for ages, till they. became at last conscious of their situation. This rendered them the more ready to return to the light, as soon as an opening was made." Mr. Faber having found these Arkite notions just in the state delineated in this and the above quotation from Jacob Bryant, proceeds to adapt them to his own use. Bryant had not clearly made the worship of heroes prior to all Sabianism; since he certainly antedates the worship of the sun to a period even before that of Ham whom the sun represented. Bryant also had given but one reason for the worship of heroes; namely, respect for departed friends and benefactors. Mr. Faber, on the other hand, asserts, that even the worship of the sun was posterior to that of Ham, and the other Postdiluvian or Antediluvian fathers. And he further adds an entirely new reason for this early and primeval introduction of hero-worship. It is this reason for hero-worship, whether well-founded or not, which constitutes the novelty of Mr. Faber's theory, being a founded in the very expectation he is in search of amongst the Patriarchal fathers, of the redemption of the world through some great incarnate Deliverer. This deliverer was to be, though Divine, yet in a human form; nay, as understood, it appears, by some, even in these ancient times, to be born of a pure virgin-" the Seed of the woman, which was to bruise the serpent's head." This Seed, it might appear, Eve herself congratulated the world too soon on obtaining, when she said of Cain, "I have gotten a man, the Lord, even JEHOVAH, HIS VERY SElf. This Seed, it is true, the Antediluvian world, according to Mr. Faber, rejected, and substituted in its room a species of rebel religion of nature. But this Seed, the Postdiluvian fathers, profiting by succeeding errors, most readily and fully recognised; and, according to Mr. Faber's theory, instead of finding it no where, soon began, like Eve of old, to find it every where. In fact, the degeneracy of religion after the Flood began, according to our author, with mistakes concerning this very expected Seed of the woman. And now, looking back on their great forefathers, and viewing their progress after death upwards amongst the stars, to which they had been admiringly advanced, they gradually traced in their several histories, the actual Incarnations or Avatars, of which they retained the expectation, and they necessarily worshipped first the manes of their venerable progenitors, and at length the planets, stars, and suns, which they might be considered as inhabiting. Thus Adam and his posterity, Noah and his posterity, became objects of dark and blind idolatry. They were perpetually interchanged with each other, and with the stars which they inhabited, and from which they at intervals were thought to have descended. Hence at length grew up star-worship, or Astrolatry, or Sabianism. And, whilst those bet ter divines, the poets, still retained the original heroes of those stars, under the new titles of Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Bacchus, Apollo, &c.; those, far worse, because speculating and dogmatical, divines, the philosophers, discarded the heroes altogether, and refined away their successive Incarnations and Avatars, into the influences of the Elements, Earth, Air, Sea, Fire-in short, into any thing they pleased; and, at last, into a mere atheistic, pantheistic jumble of material atoms, and occult powers. Great is the accumulation of learned treasure which Jacob Bryant before, and Mr. Faber since, each in proof of his own peculiar theory, have heaped together from the old Archaite or Arkite records. In every ancient religion, are dis covered, as from a point of sight superior to all of them, the substantial marks of the same aboriginal system. From Hinduism to Lamaism; from Egyptian Hieroglyphics to " quicquid Græcia mendax tradit in historiâ;" from Ethiopia to the farthest west; the same Ark is to be traced, the same respectable forefather, or his ancestors, or his posterity floating in the waters, and renewing his beneficial or judicial Avatars in the world. We must pass over Mr. Faber's curious illustration of his theory, by a comparison of some ancient mythological tales, with the figures traced on the celestial sphere. We shall however indulge the curiosity of our readers with a passage from his account of what he considers to be the rationale of that remarkable document of Grecian literature, the drama of Prometheus Vinctus, by the father of Grecian tragedy. Prometheus is considered by the Arkite divines to be the aboriginal Noos, or Noah: and nothing, to be sure, can be more unaccountable to the youthful readers of the drama in question, than the miserable fate to which Prometheus is exposed, for conferring some of the greatest possible benefits on mankind; or, than the unrelenting persecution with which he is visited by Jupiter, and which he endures with the utmost hardihood, in consideration of the mysterious reference he bears to the human race, as their representative and their deliverer. Mr. Faber alone furnishes, what he considers the true key to this difficulty. Having given a full analysis of this drama, which he justly entitles "one of the most extraordinary productions which we have received from Pagan antiquity," he thus proceeds : "Such is the extraordinary drama of the Prometheus-Desmotes; such, the remarkably compounded character sustained by its hero. The key to the whole is that which I have already specified. "Prometheus, from the attributes which are ascribed to him, is manifestly the transmigrating great father; that is to |