thusiasm, and its orthodox construction of the Articles, gave but mingled satisfaction to those Evangelical readers, who were well were well enough pleased with its loyalty. Two admirable Sermons by this writer, on the religious Use of Botany and Natural History, deserve the highest praise.

VIII. Wherever the Bible is read and studied with a heart free from prejudice, intellectual delight and moral improvement cannot fail to be produced; new confirmations of the truth will reward profound research, and on the humbler gaze of enamoured admiration fresh beauties will continually burst. The religious character of the King had, through the whole of this reign, given a sanction to theological studies; and Biblical elucidations were eagerly received by those who recoiled from the infidelity so sedulously diffused by France. While Voltaire was debauching a nation of tigers and monkies, and preparing them for the horrors of revolution, the studies of England were as solid and sanctified, as those of France were light and impious. In the early part of the reign flourished Kennicott, a learned oriental scholar. The son of a parish clerk, and supported at Oxford by subscription, he published, while an under graduate, two Dissertations, on the Tree of Life, and the Oblations of Cain and Abel; in reward for which, the University gave him his degree, without fees, and a year before the statutable time. In the year 1753, he ques

tioned the complete integrity of the Hebrew text, which had been the subject of dispute between Capellus and Buxtorf. Unappalled by the jealousy of the Hutchinsonians, or the alarm of the haters of innovation, he vindicated the authority and antiquity of the Samaritan Pentateuch; proved the present Chaldee paraphráse to have been taken from later manuscripts; traced its history down to the invention of printing; and exhibited a collation of eleven Samaritan and one hundred and ten Hebrew manuscripts. With more than German patience and erudition, and after collating six hundred manuscripts, he at length published the first volume of his Hebrew Bible in 1776, and the second in 1780. Though the doubt he had started, as to the entire confidence to be reposed in the Hebrew text, was favourable to the views of some, who, with sinister motives, sought a new version of the Scriptures, this learned and good man asserted, that his laborious researches would preserve the letter of inspiration, and elucidate many passages by which the expositors had been perplexed. Kennicott died in the year 1783; having been keeper of the Radcliffe Library, and canon of Christ Church. After his death were published some Remarks on the Old Testament. To him the religious world is indebted for a Comment, fatal to the loose theory of Paley and other theologians, who held that the Sabbath was only a Jewish ordinance, to be observed by Christians

as a matter of convention, and without those restrictions, as to travelling and amusement, which attended it under the Levitical law. The withholding of the manna on the seventh day, prior to the giving of the law on Mount Sinai, was successfully urged by Kennicott as proving the observance of the Sabbath to be a matter of original law, and of universal obligation.

Pursuing the path which Kennicott had opened, Archbishop Newcome published in 1778, " An Harmony of the Gospels, with various Readings," and in 1785, "An Attempt towards an improved Version of the Minor Prophets;" as precursors of his "Historical View of the English Biblical Translations; of the Expedience of an authorized Revision of the present Version, and of the Means by which it might be executed." After his death, in 1799, was published his version of the New Testament, in two volumes. This Prelate addressed two Dissertations to Dr. Priestley, on the duration of our Lord's ministry; which he has fixed at four passovers.

A new translation of the Bible was also commenced by Dr. Geddes, a Scottish Catholic, from whose learning much had been expected; but his first volume appearing in 1792, and his second in 1797, exhibited only proofs of a violent temper, a childish conceit, a coarse and indecent taste, and principles diverging from orthodoxy. What imaginable advantage could the world derive from

substituting, in the room of "every man a damsel or two," the more elegant phrase of, "a wench or two;" or from converting "passover" into "skipover ?" Such impietiesscandalized all serious Christians, and even some of the Catholic bishops suspended him from his ecclesiastical functions. His commentary had proceeded so far as the book of Ruth, when death, happily, prevented the completion of a work, which, under the hallowed name of an exposition of Scripture, was, in fact, a magazine of infidelity. He died in 1802, and was interred in Paddington church-yard; where Lord Petre, his patron, has been weak enough to erect to his memory a stone, bearing the following inscription, selected from his works: "Christian is my name, and Catholic my surname; reader, I embrace thee as my fellow Christian; and if thou wert not a Christian, I would still embrace thee as my fellowman." This is in the full spirit of new-fangled liberality; but it is rather misplaced in a Christian burial ground. Yet, had this been the worst, he might have slept undisturbed; and death, like charity, might have shrouded the offences of frailty; but not even the tomb, all still and sacred, can shelter from just severity the writer, who, in his account of the plague of frogs, could exclaim, with wretched buffoonery, "Poor chanticleer! to have thy privilege usurped by a nasty frog;" while he was capable of adding, respecting the magicians: "The rogues had provided a little red

earth." Geddes was the master of Eckhorn, and of all the modern school of German divines; who consider Moses as an impostor, in his pretensions to divine communication. "The God of Moses," said he, "is not the God whom I adore, nor the God whom I could love."

A learned and able reply to Dr. Geddes's theories and absurdities, has appeared in "Findlay's divine Inspiration of the Jewish Scriptures."

While, in this manner, some successfully attempted, and others artfully pretended, to purify the sacred text; while the pious Cruden, who died in the act of prayer, facilitated the study by the publication of his Concordance; to which Cruttwell added his useful Concordance of Parallels; Harmer, a learned dissenter, illustrated the manners and customs ascribed to the Israelites in Scripture, by extracts from the writings of travellers in the east. Descriptions of modern manners, incidentally introduced, bear strong testimony to the veracity of the sacred penmen; since, had they invented their narrative, inadvertencies in these minor verisimilitudes are the points in which they would certainly have been found tripping. Harmer completed the four volumes of his work, between 1764 and 1787. "Burder's Oriental Customs and Oriental Researches," with the 'Scripture illustrated," and the Fragments,"

66

added to "Taylor's edition of Calmet,” being enriched with the remarks of later travellers, furnish