tion, is the plant; language is the feed. It is impoffible to prove the Being of a creator, unlefs it is first proven, that matter cannot be eternal, and that it can become nothing.-The mind of man cannot fuggeft to itself the exiftence of intellectual powers, which have no relation to the operations of his own mind; neither can it conceive any external operations which have no relation to the powers of nature.-The mind of God gives Being to objects; but the impreffions of objects give ex ertion to the mind of man.-All the powers and works of God are impoffibilities to our mind, and are therefore what it cannot conceive; and what the mind cannot conceive, it can never fuggeft. Man can have no ideas without fources.-The knowlege of facts which the mind cannot improve upon, is a proof their origin is not from nature. Hence it must be inferred, that every improvement of fuch truth with human inventions. and conjectures, is corruption.-Divine teftimony is not grounded upon the previous acquifitions of our own capacities. -The knowlege of facts unattainable by the natural powers of thought, is a proof of revelation; and the exiftence of revelation is the only proof we can have that there is a God.— Speculative knowlege is not happiness. Knowlege of divine things, as it can only be conveyed to us by facts, they must be facts unalterably relative to our nature and circumstances, which establishes them effential to our life.-None but the guilty or impure can blafpheme juftice or holiness it is impoffible in nature for a right understanding to be capable of it: fo that it is an irrefutable proof of depravity to be infenfible that each attribute of God is effential to our knowledge and enjoyment of him. A teftimony is capable of no other evidence or demonstration, but the perfuafion it produces in the mind of its truth, fimilar to the impreffion light or objects make on the fenfes fo that it is as abfurd to prove what we believe, as it is to demonftrate by mathematics that we fee, or to prove a mathematical propofition by testimony.'

By thefe aphorifms, which are intended as a fummary of the conclufions deduced from the arguments in our Author's Eflays, the Reader may form fome notion of the arguments themselves. As to the North-British idioms we have obferved in the language, they are almoft as difguftful as the obfcurities in his reasonings.

R

A Dictionary

A Dictionary of the Holy Bible: containing an historical account of the perfons; a geographical account of the places; and literal, critical, and fyftematical defcriptions of other objects, whether natural or artificial, civil, religious, or military, mentioned in the writings of the Old and New Teftament, or in thofe called Apocrypha. Wherein also are explained the various fignifications of the most expreffive appellatives in fcripture; whereby the meaning of many objcure paffages of the facred text is cleared up, wrong interpretations corrected, and Jeeming inconfiflencies reconciled. The whole comprising whatever is known concerning the antiquities of the Hebrews; forming a body of fcripture history, chronology, and divinity; and ferving, in a great measure, as a concordance to the Bible. 8vo. 3 Vols. 15s. Beecroft, &c.

THE

HE importance of cultivating a true knowlege of the fcriptures, cannot be called in queftion by any fenfible and thinking perfons; though great fault may be found with many of the methods which have been taken towards the attainment of this defirable end. What whimfical interpretations have been given us by the Hutchinfonians, from their intolerable vanity, and arrogant pretences to the deepest knowlege of the Hebrew language? and, on the other hand, what trite and trifling remarks are we prefented with, by the whole tribe of practical commentators? These last will raife you doctrines and obfervations, without end, from a fingle text; all of them mighty good and found, but without any peculiar relation to the textfrom whence they are afferted moft naturally to arise. In this way, Henry, Burkit, Pool, &c. may have been useful; but they have very little, if at all, advanced the real knowlege of the facred fcriptures. Again, what wretched applications of fcripture texts do we meet with in most of the fermons that are published? a method of treating the facred writings, in our opinion, not very confiftent with that reverence_which every true believer ought to entertain of them. Of this we have thought proper to take notice, becaufe of its frequency, and that the bad confequence of it feems to be hardly ever attended to. Every ordinary fermonizer thinks he takes no unjuftifiable liberty with fcripture, in adapting any paffages out of it to his prefent fubject, though he use them in a fenfe quite different from what they bear in connection with their contexts. But how well foever they may fuit his purpose, fuch accommodation of them is attended with this very bad effect, viz. to fix upon the mind of the reader a wrong idea of the paffages quoted, and thence lead him to argue falfly from them, in defence of particular tenets he may have espoused, however

erroneous.

Thefe

These observations on the frequent perversion of scripture, by those that would be thought to explain it, may give our readers fome idea of the usefulnefs of the prefent attempt to communicate religious knowlege; for in a Dictionary of the Bible, we expect to find that very fense which a text bears in connection with the hiftory. But for a fuller view of the extent of this undertaking, the plan on which it is founded, and the affiftances of which the Author, or Authors, have availed themselves, we must have recourse to the account given us in the preface.

Eufebius, bishop of Cæfarea, wrote a Geographical Dictionary of the scriptures. This is a very useful and reputable work, and has been tranflated by St. Jerom, who has confiderably improved it.

Philo the Jew, we are told by Origen, wrote a book of Hebrew names, with their etymologies and fignifications in oppofite columns. There is a work of this kind ftill extant in Greek by Origen, and St. Jerom carried the fame defign beyond what either of them had done.

A Dictionary intitled Mammotreptus, or Mammotrectus, was composed by a Francifcan for the benefit of the poor clergy, who, when they read the Bible, did not understand the force and fignificancy of the expreffions, nor had a due regard in their pronunciation to the quantity of the vowels.

A variety of moral Dictionaries, or repertories of fuch scripture paffages as relate to men's manners, have appeared at different times; fuch are Wilfon's Chriftian Dictionary, Bernard's Thefaurus Biblicus, Knight's axiomatical Concordance, father Balinghem's Common Places, Lauret's Sylva Allegoriarum, and Eulard's moral Concordances.

Dr. Simon of Lions wrote a Dictionary of the Bible, first printed in one volume folio, in which are comprised the histories of the most remarkable perfons mentioned either in the canonical or apocryphal writings, or in thofe of Jofephus; and alfo the geography as well as the natural hiftory of fcripture; and this work was fo well received in the world, that the author published a new edition of it, which he augmented with a fecond volume.

Dom Augustin Calmet, a benedictine monk, and abbot of Senones, compiled an hiftorical, critical, geographical, and etymological Dictionary of the Bible, in two volumes folio, which he afterwards enlarged with the addition of two other volumes, firft publifhed under the title of a fupplement, but afterwards incorporated with the original work. If fuccefs in the fale of a book, and the many impreffions and translations of its

it, may be admitted as an argument in its favour, not many books can claim more merit than this: for in a very few years after its first publication, there were feveral editions of it in French; and it has been tranflated into Latin, Dutch, English, and moft of the other languages in Europe.

This excellent performance has largely contributed to our defign: in the compilation of which, our helps were in fuch multitude, and our authorities in fuch variety, that it would be tedious to enumerate them; much more to refer to them, upon every occafion, in the body of the work. As therefore, the form of our book would not conveniently admit of marginal references, we have made it only a conftant rule to refer to the Bible; and this we have done all along, by quoting chapter and verfe. But wherever it was judged neceffary, from a fingularity of fentiments, or for the like reason, we took care to mention our authors in the course of the subject, or collect them at the conclufion of the paragraph or article.

• Materials we wanted not. The fources were more than fufficiently ample: fo that the difficulty lay in the form and œconomy of these materials. This difficulty rendered Calmet's Dictionary of fingular use to us, where we found most of the articles difpofed in their alphabetical order; together with all that was neceffary to be faid upon several of them.

'Calmet, however, has a great number of hiftorical articles, collected from Jofephus and others; which, as they do not occur either in the Bible, or Apocrypha, to which we confined ourselves, and confequently do not come within the compass of our scheme, we moftly rejected; as we have alfo done a great many terms peculiar to the Latin Vulgate, which this author frequently introduced for the fake of explaining them, and clearing paffages of this tranflation which are obfcured by them. On the contrary, we have added and explained a multitude of articles, which are not to be met with in Calmet; and several of thofe are articles of no small importance.

The contents of the Bible being in a great measure hiftorical, it was neceflary for our intended brevity, that the feveral narrations fhould be as fuccinct as was confiftent with the precifion and circumstantial exactnefs of fcripture; and not interrupted by infertions from Commentators or Expofitors; unless where fuch were requifite from the occurrence of fome difficulty. But the nature of a work of this kind being fuch, that we were obliged to give diftinct accounts of the actions of fuch perions as have been equally concerned in the fame series of events, a difficulty enfued in feparating carefully whatever is peculiar to each of them, and in dwelling upon fuch circumstances only as be

long

long principally to the perfon we are speaking of; or in giving every one his own, and no more, in order to avoid repetitions: this would indeed be impoffible, did we not frequently refer to the names of thofe perfons principally concerned in the tranfactions, under which the hiftory moft naturally occurs, for some particular facts and circumstances that muft otherwife have been related over again. The narratives are generally collected from the text of fcripture, from Jofephus, from Simon's and Calmet's Dictionaries, and from Stackhouse's and Howel's Hiftories of the Bible; and throughout the whole, we have taken care, where we could not fo conveniently make use of the facred text, to imitate, as near as poffible, the fcripture mode of expreffion.

In fixing the Chronology of hiftorical events, or reducing facts to their proper period of time, Ufher's Annals have been generally followed; and only the epocha of the world's creation made ufe of, in afcertaining the dates of fuch transactions as have happened before the birth of Chrift: but in the hiftory of the New Teftament, we have used the Chriftian epocha. And here it may not be improper to obferve, once for all, that the difference between both thefe epochas is 4000 years, though, according to the vulgar or common computation of the Chriftian æra, the difference is 4004 years. Thence the Christian epocha is reckoned four years later than it really is, and the birth of our Saviour is fuppofed to have happened in the year of the world 4004. We have not always been punctual in fixing the chronological periods of every tranfaction, because the dates of fuch tranfactions are generally afcertained in the annals of the king or high-prieft under which they happened, and under whose name a chronological feries of all tranfactions of importance, referred to his reign, are conftantly exhibited. The lifts we have given of the Hebrew kings, and high-priests, may serve for chronological tables during the time of the Hebrew commonwealth. Befides the Annals of bifhop Usher, we have made fome confiderable use of Prideaux's and Shuckford's Connections, Baronius's Annals, Sir Ifaac Newton's Chronology, and the Univerfal History.

With regard to the geography of fcripture, we are guided by Eufebius and St. Jerom, Calmet, Reland, Maundrell, Whitby, and Wells; and in order to clear this subject, the knowledge of which is fo indifpenfably neceffary in the ftudy of the facred books, we have not purpofely omitted any one place of which we find mention in fcripture; and have generally deli vered all that is known with any certainty concerning cach of them, down to the taking of Jerufalem by the Romans. And here we shall obferve, that, as there have been few names of places