fear and love of God. Though these excellent people pass rather for rich, yet their incone is so limited, and their benevolence so extensive, that sometimes they hardly know how to furnish a new suit of necessary clothes. To them I intend to give a bible, considering that their own is very often lent out in different Roman catholic villages."

Nor much less interesting is the information which has been received from a clergyman in North Wales:

"There are none of our poor people willing to live and die without contributing their mites towards forwarding so glorious a design. Their zeal and eagerness in the good cause, surpasses every thing I have ever before witnessed.

"On several occasions we have been obliged to check their liberality, and take half what they offered, and what we thought they

ought to give. In very many instances, servants have given one-third of their wages for the year.

"In one instance, a poor servant-maid put down one guinea on the plate, being one-third of her wages: that it might not be perceived what she put down, she covered the guinea with a halfpenny. One little boy had, with when the collection came to be made, he sold much trouble, reared a brood of chickens; them all, and gave every farthing he got for them towards it; and this was his whole stock, and all the living that he had. Innumerable instances of a similar nature might be mentioned."

NO weak evidence in proof of the genuineness and authenticity of the books of the New Testament, has arisen from the perfect consistency that appears between the character of the apostles and the writings attributed to them; and if the validity of that evidence required to be demonstrated, an appeal might be safely made to the publication now before us. For any other purpose it is altogether useless. It affords a complete demonstration of the inability of genius to contrive such a forgery as the apostolic epistles would be, had they not been composed by those persons whose names they bear. The character of the apostle of the Gentiles, is in these letters most grossly violated; feelings are attributed to him, which it is evident from his history he never knew; and opinions are here delivered as his, to which he was a total stranger; opinions indeed which were not known in the christian world, till many years after his death had elapsed.

It is hardly worth our while to observe, that these letters are arranged in four parts. 1. Letters to various persons, who agreed with Saul, or differed from him in respect to Jesus and his disciples. These are six in number: to Gamaliel, to Caiaphas, to Simeon, to Eleazer, to Jacob Ben Israel, and to Judas of Da

mascus. 2. Four letters written imme

diately after his conversion; to Simeon, to Joseph and Sunma, the two witnesses against Stephen, to Gamaliel, and to Ananias. 3. Nine letters to his christian friends, Titus, Timothy, Apollos, Erastus, Aquila and Priscilla, Lydia, Sergius Paulus, Epaphroditus and Luke. 4. Letters to instruct, warn, reprove, and direct persons in error, and backsliders.

per

Were it possible for any one of the sons here addressed to peruse the epistle inscribed to him, he would assuredly exclaim with Felix, Paul thou art beside thyself!

THE language of this work announces a well-inclined benevolent man, much read in the theologists and politicasters of the day, who has intertwisted into a sort of system the expectations of millenarians and perfectionists, and believes his book to be the predestined harbinger of purified

religion and perpetual peace. Happier who can so dream, than he who estimates more justly the phenomena of reality.

It is

We do not think the work likely to contribute essentially to the rapid progress of the whole toward perfection. diffuse, and it is driftless. No precise

ordinary or original: for what may here be far in respect of combination and expression, or of the requisites of either, is too well understored and generally known to require any expanation; and there is no want of excellent examples of both.

"As imaginative composition corresponds in general with these last remarks: as it often borrows its combinations or descriptions from nature, yet displays them with just selection and discrimination, as well as with great elegance and talent: as imaginative composition, and original imaginative composition, are characterised from their ability to gratify our taste and feelings according to the system and principles, the heads of which are given in the end of the second subdivision of the mind: as they both affect and captivate, elevate and astonish, delight and gladden mankind with their powerful and diversified performances, Lut require for this purpose all the advantages, graces, and charms of nature, fancy, and expression: as imaginative composition has often been confounded with the mere recollection of its own imagery, or of pleasing conceptions, notions, or ideas in art or nature: as excellency of original imaginative composition is often considered as the highest effort of human ability; and as the most serious subjects of plain literary composition demand their assistance in some degree, in order to acquire suitable charms and perfection.

"As the excellency of original combination in general, if it be occasionally the gift of nature, can often be formed or created by different means: and as it is greatly dependent on various external circumstances, and on the happy and proper employment of the powers of the mind in general; on the quantity and nature of the information or materials gathered and combined; on temper and character; on the predominance of certain passions, particularly of those which excite, elevate, and inspire the mind and fix its attention; on the intellectual faculties; on these being fully and

Variously exercised, particularly in the different inodes of combination; on their penetration, and the manner in which they observe things; on their comprehensive views of the largest and most minute objects; on memory and recollection, and on their being stored with objects applicable to the purposes pursued; on surrounding scenes and situations, as favourable to the progress of peculiar thoughts; and on the mind not being restricted to present attaininents, but daring to launch forth in a free manner in pursuit of such as are yet undiscovered or unemployed, and being.

competent to convert them with propriety and advantage to its particular purposes.

"As wit itself is allied with imaginative and original composition, and may be benefited by the preceding observations; and as it consists or operates in forming a composition or picture, the unexpected and fanciful relations or analogies of which surprise, please, excite risibility, and constitute in a great measure its peculiar nature.

As association may be consideration to be a species of intellectual combination, by which we attach things intimately to each other, which yet are so different in nature, that they cannot unite and form a whole; we thus associating external objects, circumstances, and qualities together, thoughts with other thoughts, feclugs with other feelings, thoughts and feelings together, and any of these with external objects, and often with little or no examination, and from the slightest relations as thus various opinions, dictates of the passions, notions, and ideas, are improperly associated, but being respected by us, the things with which they are associated act upon us by their means, and thus appear different to us from what they actually are: as the motives of our actions are in like manner very subject to such associations, and under the impressions of these influence our conduct: as even the beauty and sublimity of material objects may in a great measure depend upon the ideas and feelings, which we have attached to them: and as the recurence of a thought, or object, often causes us, to recollect its associations."

This whole

many

another

and passage, such, has nothing to do with peace on earth, good will towards men, or the civil, political and religious means of establishing the kingdom of God on earth, which are the professed purposes of the writer. It exhibits an extraordinary want of memory. The phrases flow so quickly from the author's pen, that he forgets, over his explanatory amplifications, the purpose, the design, the end, the aim, the scope, the drift of his assertions; and each paragraph terminates without coming to any one proposition whatsoever. We. have as again and again, but never arrive at the so. We are much afraid the writer's millennium, like his argument, will be always about to begin: and then the paulo-post-future of prophecy is in fact an

aorist tense.

"IT will, no doubt," says the unknown author of this tract, "be granted, that in vain do the ministers of God preach to

men concerning the care and salvation of their immortal souls, while, according to the fashionable doctrines of the times,

they believe that they have no souls to be saved." Introd. Rem. P. vi.

From such an exordium what may not be expected? Among many other brilliant discoveries no one can be more acceptable than a complete answer to the enquiry which has been so often instituted concerning the seat of the soul:

"As, therefore, Adam was created alive, then breathed the same common air as did the other living creatures; so it is evident, that the inspiration of God into his nostrils, was not for the purposes of common animal breathing, but for the formation of his living soul. And is it not highly probable, that this inspiration was meant to pass into the brain, in the course of the olfactory rerves, to pervade its substance, and from thence to be diffused through the whole body?"

And again:

"That the soul's residence in the body is extended throughout the whole, appears to be further implied from the following circumstance: When the surgeon amputates a leg, the patient, often, afterwards complains of the toes of that foot, although they have, with the leg, been separated from the body; and this symptom has generally been accounted for, by saying that it arises from the irritation of

the extremities of those nerves, by which the nervous influence was convey'd to the toes. But it seems to me rather to intimate, that this sensation is conveyed from that part of the and now exists in a new situation; for though soul itself which formerly resided in the toes, the surgeon amputated a part of the body, he could not also divide a portion of the soul: as it most probably shrunk from his knife, and retired upwards."

Every other inquiry upon this important subject is decided with equal ingenuity and precision. Texts of scripture that have puzzled the ablest commentators, are here presented to the reader freed from every obscurity. Dr. Priestley is clearly convicted of ignorance of physiology as well as of the language of holy writ; and bishop Law is proved to have been a bungling interpreter. Nay, so confident is this advocate of immaterialism in the ability with which he has managed the cause, that he thinks he may venture to assert, that, if the excellent bishop of Carlisle was now alive, he would rejoice, yea, greatly rejoice, to see the subject placed in that clear point of view, in which it is now permitted to appear."

P. 157.

THIS is not altogether an uninteresting collection of essays upon various religious and moral subjects. The principles which are inculcated are those usually deemed orthodox; the characters in

troduced are supported with some degree of spirit: and the general tendency of the whole is to correct the errors and to improve the virtues of those who profess to entertain a reverent regard for religion.

THIS will be found a very useful com pilation by those who have not Broughton, Mosheim, and other works of a similar kind in their possession. The authorities seem in general to be well selected, and the leading principles of different sects are represented with fidelity and candour.

We transcribe as a specimen, the following account of the Greek church:

"GREEK CHURCH. In the eighth century there arose a difference between the eastern and western churches, which was carried on with great vehemence during the ninth century; and in the eleventh century a total separation took place. At that time the pa

triarch Michael Cerularius, who was desirous to be freed from the papal authority, published an invective against the Latin church, and accused its members of maintaining various errors. Pope Leo the ninth retorted the charge, and sent legates from Rome to Constantinople. The Greek patriarch refused to see them; upon which they excommunicated him and his adherents publicly in the church of St. Sophia, A. p. 1054. The Greek p.triarch excommunicated those legates, with all their adherents and followers, in a public council; and procured an order of the em peror for burning the act of excommunice tion which they had pronounced against the Greeks. This rupture has never been healed; and at this day a very considerable part of the world profess the religion of the Greek, or