have been sensible of his inability to perform it. Admitting tha he actually promised them a comforter, a very fhort time would have proved the fallacioufnefs of the promife. His apoftles would have waited for the comforter, and waited in vain; and after long and tedious expectations would have broken up their meetings. Dejected, irritated, confounded, they would have re nounced the new religion which they had been commiffioned to teach, without being enabled to understand it; they would have mingled with their fellow-Jews and have been never heard of more." P. 99.

The whole difcourfe, with the trifling exception abovementioned, is of the molt valuable kind. The fixth difcourse is on the character and conduct of Pilate. The arguments here turn chiefly upon what Tertullian has reported concerning the acts of Pilate.

So far the fubjects of the difcourfes have been connected with the history of the gofpel, and evince attentive confideration as well as reading. The feventh is of a different clafs, the fubject being "chriftian fenfibility," but it abounds with obfervations drawn from a correct knowledge both of human nature and of the chriftian covenant. "Chriftian prudence" is the subject of the eighth fermon, which is founded in fome degree on the preceding. In the ninth we come again to facred hiftory, and our Saviour's paffion is the fubject of difcuffion; but the difcourfe turns chiefly upon the condition of man and the neceffity of the mediation. The character of the Jews, and the final deftruction of their polity, are confidered in the tenth difcourfe, with juft remarks on the prophecies of Chrift, which pointed out that event. The eleventh treats of the Arabs, and their agreement with the word of prophecy, as defcendants of Ifhmael. This is a fermon very rich in illuftration, drawn from various fources of knowledge, and does honour therefore to the application, as well as to the fagacity of the author. It is intimately connected with the preceding, which relates to the Jews.

In the twelfth fermon, the author proves that chriftianity is by its nature calculated for univerfal influence, and thence confirms the expectation that it will, at fome future time, be univerfally established. The thirteenth is nearly on the fame fubject, but it is treated in a different manner. The author confiders it, he fays, "as a fpecimen of what he calls his preachments-plain, and unpolifhed, and adapted more, perhaps, than any fermon in the volume, to fermon in the volume, to a country congregation." P. 214. This mode of writing, with a diftinct view to the prefs, or to the pulpit, is, we conceive, rather

N 3

fingular,

fingular. Few 'clergymen, we apprehend, write fermons without an intention of preaching them; and though it is true that all difcourfes are not equally fit for the one purpose or the other, yet it implies a very ready pen, and even a love of writing, to compofe a fermon with a view to the prefs alone. That many fermons, which have an excellent effect in preaching are not fit for the prefs, is undeniable: but few that are fit for publication would want effect if well pronounced from the pulpit. Bishop Horfley thought that even learned and intricate difcuffions might be preached, but he relied a little too much upon his own very extraordinary powers of illuflration. The prefent author's opinion and conduct, in this refpect, we thought at leaft worthy of remark, and have no inclination to blame. We only admire his affluence of authorship.

Admonished by the extent of this article, we must more rapidly enumerate the remaining topics. They are thefe: 14. The particular providence of God. 15. Public worship. 16. The Lord's fupper. 17. The old country

church. 18. The fituation and duties of the hufbandman. 19. Energy and fimplicity in preaching the gofpel. 20. The conduct of a clergyman. 21. The purity of the clerical character. Of thefe difcourfes, that on the facrament has been publifhed before, if not fome others. They all abound fo much with valuable and original remarks, that if we were to attempt to expatiate on the particulars, we fhould write a book, rather than a review. The rules for behaviour at church, at p. 260, are excellent; and the obfervations in the three laft, which are all vifitation fermons, deserve the attention of every clergyman. Nor are the cautions respecting fectaries, in the laft, among the leaft important. We have not a diftinct recollection of the former volumes of this author's fermons, but our feeling is, that he has improv ed, fince they were publifhed, in every quality of a writer and a preacher; and has now attained great excellence.

ART. XI. Remarks on the Most Rev. Dr. **'s Catechifm. Revifed, Enlarged, Approved, and Recommended. By the four R. C. Archbishops of Ireland, as a General Catechifm for the : Kingdom. 8vo. pp. 112. Rivingtons. 1810.

THOUGH the name of the author of thefe "Remarks" does not appear in the Title page, it is to be found at the end of the Preface. It is the work, in fhort, of the venerable, pious, and benevolent Mr. Granville Sharp. It

Mr. Granville Sharp on the Roman Catholic Catechifm 183, is divided into three parts, befides the Preface and Appendixes. Much of the publication relates to the prophecies contained in the Apocalypfe, and the application of them to the prefent flate of the Roman Catholic Church: were we to attempt to go into this part of the fubject, we should involve ourselves in a difcuffion unneceflary to the purposes of our Review, which is rather to give fuch an account of every book as may apply particularly to the contents fet forth in the Title-page, and which in this inftance, are in a great measure confined to the topics handled in the two fit parts of the Remarks. The principal points to which the worthy author calls the attention of the Roman Catholics, are the great error of invoking or praying to the dead, the impropriety and idolatrous tendency of praying before images and crucifixes, and the extraordinary measures adopted by the Church of Rome in fetting forth the two Tables of the Law, to difcard the fecond Commandment. Upon each of thefe heads many weighty arguments are brought forward, and many curious facts adduced, which, in our eftimation, tend to convict that Church of fuch a fyftem of evafion and de. ception, as every wife and impartial Romanist ought to be prepared to difavow and abandon; while thofe of that communion who may hitherto have been incapable of judging for themfelves of the true nature of thefe deceptions, and of the art that has been used again. them, ought to be thankful to Mr. Sharp for the care he evinces to open their eyes, and inform their understandings. The learned author fhows, that whatever pretences may be fet up in juftification of their ufe of images, proftration before fuch" likeneffes," is clearly within the fcope of the divine law, a difregard of which ap. pears to be avowed in the very form of their Catechetical instructions; "Why THEN do we PRAY BEFORE THE CRUCIFIX, and BEFORE the IMAGES and RELICS of SAINTS ?” He contends, moreover, that though individual members of the Roman Catholic Church may deny that they worship the images and crucifix before which they pray, yet that the cuftom has a tendency to encourage fuch worship; and that fuch idolatry has undoubtedly prevailed among them, he proves by an appeal to facts.

But there is nothing perhaps in the whole hiftory of po pery, (pregnant as it is with range events and occurrences) more extraordinary than the conduct that has been pursued in regard to the Jecond commandment, which fo exprefsly prohibits the ufe of images. That it has long been in subflance difcarded from the Popifh decalogue is, we believe, a matter pretty generally known; but few have entered fo N 4 much

much into detail upon this fubject as the worthy author be fore us. One querie in the Irish Roman Catholic Catechifm is as follows:-Q. Is it forbidden by the Firft Commandment to make Images ?-certainly not; for as Mr. S. obferves, the first commandment contains not a word about. images, not even in the Roman Catholic recital of it, which is thus, "I am the Lord thy God, thou fhalt have no ftrange Gods before me," &c :-but then indeed follows as the fecond commandment," Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain;" fo that in fact the whole of our second commandment is included in the comma, and &c. at the end of the first. And to make up a complete Decalogue. without it, the tenth commandment is divided into two. Mr. Sharp enters into a curious inveftigation of the actual circumflances attending this piece of management. The comma and &c. he shows to have been purposely introduced with a view to make it fuppofed that our fecond commandment is but a part of the firft, and that an infignificant, unimportant part of the law; but that fuch a fubtraction might occafion the lefs furprise they omit the latter part of our third, and alfo of our fourth and fifth commandments, but without adding an &c. the ninth and tenth Roman Catholic commandments ftand thus:

"IX. Thou shalt not covet thy Neighbours wife.

"X. Thou shalt not covet thy Neighbours goods." But by a reference to the Hebrew of Deuteronomy v. and Exodus xx. it is plainly fhown that by a variation of the claufes in thole feveral books, what the Roman Catholics make their ninth commandment from Deuteronomy, would be their tenth according to Exodus, a circumftance of which they appear to have been at one time so aware, that instead of making their tenth commandment exprefsly agree either with Deuteronomy or Exodus, they put the word goods for boufe, which occurs in the original of both places. Mr. Sharp charges them alfo with having corrupted the Vatican and Alexandrian copies of the Greek verfion of the commandments, which corruption was afterwards in a blundering way adopted into the Hebrew Bibles, by those who were interest. ed, and poffibly bribed to fupport the fraud. The detection of thefe artifices forms a curious part of Mr. Sharp's prefent work, by an examination of many different copies of the Hebrew Bible, he has been able to fix the precife period, almoft, of thefe corruptions; for it seems in the year 1521, an eminent Jewish printer, Daniel Bumbing printed at Venice a 4to edition of the Bible, in which both in Exodus and Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy no other paufe or divifion between the commandments is introduced, than the common Hebrew period, (:) but in a fecond edition, anno 1533, a b (Samech) is inserted between them, except indeed between the first and Second, where it is intentionally omitted, and the tenth is divided alfo by a Samech according to the Popish reading. How this Jewish printer was induced to favour the fraud does not appear; but it is extremely curious to fee how it was followed by fome and rejected by others. Bumbing happened to divide the tenth commandment in Deuteronomy without doing the fame in Exodus. This blunder appears to have been corrected by another Jew at Amfterdam, (Manaffeh Ben Jofeph) anno 1619. Thefe Jewish editions feem to have inifled many Proteftants of eminence, who were not prepared to detect it as a modern invention, introduced no doubt by the intrigues of the Catholics. Great praife is given by Mr. Sharp, however, to the celebrated Benedictus Arias Montanus, who, though a Catholic, and appointed by Philip II. of Spain to fuperintend the printing of a Polyglot Bible, by Plantin, nobly refifted thefe corruptions, rejected all the Samechs, and properly separated the fecond from the first commandment, as in the ancient copies, which has been followed by other Catholic editors. Vatablus, the Hebrew Profeffor at Paris, who fupplied notes to a Polyglot Bible, in 1616, actually remonftrated against the divifion of the tenth commandment as not according to the intent of Mofes himself, upon whose expreffion he comments.

As a curious piece of literary hiftory and Catholic policy, we have given this flight fketch of the contents of the two firft parts of thefe remarks; there are other very important obfervations to be found in the book, but as they do not immediately relate to the Catechifm of the Catholic Bishops, we fhall here close our Review of this learned work, always wifhing fuccefs to the benevolent exertions of the truly Christian and philanthropic author.

ART. 12.

BRITISH CATALOGUE.

POETRY.

The Plants, a Poem, Cantos the third and fourth, with Notes and Obfervations. By William Tighe, Efq. 8vo. 239 pp. 10s. 6d. Payne 1811.

We repeat with respect to this poem, what we have faid on fome

other