fay, the deftruction of Jerufalem, with all the circumstances of confufion and dift refs with which it was to be accompanied. This expofition, therefore, makes, as I conceive, the defolation of Jerufalem the prognoftic of itself,-the fign and the thing fignified the fame. The true rendering of the original I take to be-"So likewife, when ye shall fee all thefe things, know that He is near at the doors."He, that is, the Son of Man, spoken of in the verse immediately preceding, as coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. The approach of fummer, fays our Lord, is not more furely indicated by the first appearances of fpring, than the final deftruction of the wicked by the beginnings of vengeance on this impenitent people." P. 17. But our Lord proceeds-" Verily I fay unto you, this generation fhall not pafs, till all these things be fulfilled,”— words, which, according to Whitby and others, afford a full demonftration that all which Chrift had mentioned hitherto, was to be accomplished, not at the time of the conversion of the Jews, or at the final day of judgment, but in that very age, or while fome of that generation of men fhould be alive. To fuch interpreters the Bishop replies, that "All these things, in this fentence, must unquestionably denote the fame things which are denoted by the fame words juft before. Just before, the fame words denoted thofe particular circumftances of the Jewish war, which were included in our Lord's prediction. All thofe figns, which answer to the fig-tree's budding leaves, the apostles and their contemporaries, at least fome of that generation, were to fee. But as the thing portended is not included among the figns, it was not at all implied in this declaration that any of them were to live to fee the barveft, the coming of our Lord in glory." P. 19. The Bishop pursues this interefting difcuffion through the fecond and third fermons, which are both preached from St. Matt. xxiv. 3, obviates many objections that have been urged against his opinion; and from a collation of the parallel paffages in the three firft gofpels, concludes, notwithstanding the great authorities which incline the other way, "That the phrafe of our Lord's coming, wherever it occurs in his prediction of the Jewish war, as well as in moft other paffages of the New Teftament, is to be taken in its literal * Whitby understands the original fo far as relates to the pronoun, which must be here fupplied exactly as the Bishop does, though he thinks that by the coming of Chrift is meant the deftruction of Jerufalem. Rev. meaning, meaning, as denoting his coming in perfon, in visible pomp and glory, to the general judgment." P. 56. The fourth, fifth, fixth, and feventh Sermons are on the fortyfifth Pfalm, which Bishop Horfley confiders as a direct prophecy of the reign of the Meffiah, and as in no fenfe applicable to Solomon or any other earthly monarch. The application of the Pfalm to Solomon and his Egyptian bride, was firft made, he fays, by Calvin, in direct oppofition to all antiquity, Jewish as well as Chriftian. Yet the fame interpreter, and his followers, acknowledge that" thé fubject is not dalliance; but that under the figure of Solomon, the holy conjunction of Chrift with his Church is propounded to us." "It is moft certain," continues the Bishop, that in the prophetical book of the Song of Solomon, the union of Chrift and his Church is defcribed in images taken entirely from the mutual paffions and early loves of Solomon and his Egyptian bride. And this perhaps might be the ground of Calvin's error; he might imagine, that this Pfalm was another shorter poem upon the fame fubject, and of the fame caft. But no two compofitions can be more unlike than the Song of Solomon and this forty-fifth Pfalm. Read the Song of Solomon, you will find the Hebrew king, if you know any thing of his hiftory, produced indeed as the emblem of a greater perfonage, but you will find him in every page. Read the forty-fifth Pfalm, and tell me if you can any where find king Solomon. We find, indeed, paffages which may be applicable to Solomon, but not inore applicable to him than to many other earthly kings, fuch as comeliness of perfon, and urbanity of addrefs, mentioned in the fecond verfe.- But the hero of this poem is a warrior, who girds his fword upon his thigh, rides in purfuit of flying foes, makes havoc among them with his harp arrows, and reigns at laft by conqueft, over his vanquished enemies. Now Solomon was no warrior: he enjoyed a long reign of forty years of uninterrupted peace. He retained indeed the fovereignty of the countries which his father had conquered, but he made no new conquefts of his own." P. 68. Applying the Pfalm, therefore, wholly and exclufively to the Meffiah, the Bishop divides it into three fections, of which the first "Confifting only of the fécond verfe, defcribes our Lord on earth, in the days of his humiliation. The five following verfes make the fecond fection, and défcribe the fuccefsful propagation of the gofpel, and our Lord's victory over all his enemies. This comprehends the whole period from our Lord's afcenfior to Rr BRIT, GRIT, VOL. XXXV. JUNE, 1810. the the time not yet arrived of the fulfilling of the Gentiles. The fequel of the Pfalm, from the end of the feventh verfe, exhibits the re-marriage, that is, the reftoration of the converted Jews to the religious prerogatives of their nation." P. 90. The learned preacher illuftrates each of these sections with a perfpicuity peculiar to himfelf, and in a ftyle fo admirably calculated to fix the attention, that if we were called on to exhibit the moft perfect fpecimen of pulpit eloquence with which we are acquainted in the English language, we know not that we fhould look for it any where else than in thefe four fermons. The eighth fermon, from 1 John v. 6, is an exceedingly ingenious difquifition, and as pious and inftructive as ingenious; but it will not admit of an abridgment, nor could we make an extract from it that would not be injured by being torn from the context. The Bishop feems to confider the feventh verfe of the chapter as authentic, but does not cenfure those men of great learning and unqueftioned piety, who have given it up as fpurious; and candidly acknowledges, that all that is neceffary to the apostle's prefent argument is, that the three in heaven are one," in the unity of a confentient teftimony." In this he is perfectly confiftent with what he wrote on the fubject long ago, when the learned had not fuch grounds as they have now for questioning the authenticity of the text. Even then, if our recollection do not deceive us, he acknowledged the verfe to be such, as, granting its authenticity, would not alone be a fufficient proof of the Trinity in Unity; though, as he observes here, the Apoftle had probably that doctrine in his eye, when he expreffed the unity of the teftimony of the three celeftial and the three terreftrial witneffes in different terms. The explanation which is given of thefe different teftimonies, is to us new. At least we do not recollect to have met with it any where elfe, nor indeed with an explanation half fo fatisfactory; but we are not convinced, nor does the reafoning require it, that the Apoftle meant to fpeak of the water and the blood, which iffued from our Saviour's fide, with fuch chemical accuracy as the Bifhop fuppofes him to have done. Of the ninth fermon, which, from St. Luke iv. 18, 19, was preached before the Society for promoting Chriftian Knowledge, (June 1, 1793) we have elfewhere made our report, to which we refer the reader *; only adding in this * See our third vol. p. 453, where this fermon is faid to have been preached on June the 6th, not the ift, 1793. place, place, that, on a fecond perufal of the difcourfe, we are inclined to abandon the objection which we there took the liberty to make, to the Bishop's interpretation of the poor in the text. Whenever the perfonal preaching of the Meffiah to the poor is mentioned, it muft, as his Lordship juftly obferves, be a preaching of the gofpel to the poor literally; for the preaching of it to the figurative poor, the poor in religious knowledge to the heathen world-commenced not during our 'Lord's life on earth. The tenth fermon, from St. Mark vii. 37, was preached in the year 1796, for the deaf and dumb Afylum; and we feel ourfelves under peculiar obligations to Mr. Horfley for now giving it, for the first time, to the public. It is one of the ableft and moft judicious difcourfes on miracles in general, and on our Saviour's miracles in particular, that we have ever read. Bishop Horfley, like Bifhop Warburton, contends, against Jof. Mede, Dr. Mead, Mr. Hugh Farmer, and their followers, for the poffibility of angels, and even of wicked angels, performing deeds which may be properly called miraculous; but being much more thoroughly acquainted with the laws of nature, as difcovered by philo fophy, than the education of Warburton permitted him to be, his illuftration of this doctrine will be more fatisfactory to the philofophic divines of the prefent day, than any thing to be found in the writings of the learned Bifhop of Gloucefter. As fuch we recommend this fermon to the most ferious and attentive perufal of thefe divines, as well as to thofe who confider human science-especially the mathematical fcience-as of little importance to the ftudent of theology. In the mean time, for the fatisfaction of the fober and pious Chriftian, we shall extract a fingle paffage, (regretting that our limits will not admit of more,) which is alone fufficient to prove, that, in this doctrine, there is nothing either novel or dangerous. "It was not, therefore, in the general principle-that miracles may be wrought by the aid of evil fpirits, that the weaknefs lay of the objection made by the Pharifees to our Lord's miracles, as evidence of his miffion. Our Lord himself called not this general principle in queftion, any more than the writers of the Old Teftament call in queftion the reality of the miracles of the Egyptian magicians. But the folly of their objection lay * He does not enter into controverfy with these great men. nor indeed refer to them; but he fuccefsfully combats their opiion refpecting the agency of evil fpirits. Rr 2 ia in their application of it to the specific inftance of our Lord's miracles, which, as he replied to them at the time, were works no lefs diametrically oppofite to the devil's purposes, and the in terefts of his kingdom, than the feats of Pharaoh's magicians, or any other wonders that have at any time been exhibited by wicked men in compact with the devil, have been in oppofition to God. Our Lord's miracles, in the immediate effects of the individual acts, were works of charity: they were works which, in the immediate effect of the individual acts, refcued the bodies of miferable men from that tyranny, which, before the coming of our Lord, the devil had been permitted to exercise over them and the general end and intention of them all, was the atter demolition of the devil's kingdom, and the establishment of the kingdom of God upon its ruins. And to fuppose that the devil lent his own power for the furtherance of this work, was, as our Lord juftly argued, to fuppofe that the devil was waging war upon himself." P. 240. In the eleventh fermon, from St. John xiii. 34, the Bishop fhows in what fenfe our bleffed Lord's commandment to his followers, that they fhould love one another, is a new commandment; vindicates the Mofaic difpenfation from the charge of deficiency brought on this account against it, by fome divines of more zeal than judgment; and urges on his audience the practice of be nevolence, from the example fet them by Chrift. This fermon is in all refpects worthy of its author; but it is not like thofe which precede it in the volume, characteristic of its author; for it contains nothing which might not have been faid by preachers inferior to Bifhop Horfley. This cannot be faid of the twelfth fermon, which could not have been compofed by ordinary talents. Yet there is not in the two volumes a difcourfe more likely to provoke controverfy, or a fubject difcuffed which affords greater fcope for both philological and metaphyfical difputation. The text is St. Matt. xvi. 28; and the object of the bishop, after afcertaining the fenfe of the words-" Verily, I fay unto you, there be fome ftanding here, which fhall not tafle of death, till they fee the Son of Man coming in his kingdom," is to eftablish the eternity of future punithment. Having in the three firft fermons of this volume proved that by the coming of the Son of Man in his kingdom †, is in the New Teftament *And probably at that period more than at any before or fince, for very obvious reafons.· ́ There is no reference made to thefe fermons; but when 'this volume shall come, as it furely will foon come, to a fecond edi |