is expressly written, (Deut. xii. 32,) Thou shalt not add thereto nor diminish from it.' For herein consists the perfection of any thing, that nought can be added to it, nor taken from it; but the law is absolutely perfect, which the royal prophet declares in express terms, (Ps. ix. 8,) The Law of the Lord is perfect;' wherefore it does not admit of any addition or diminution.

"The tenth, that the infinitely good and great God doth behold the actions of all men, and his eyes are always upon them, which this divine oracle doth expressly declare, (Jer. xxii. 19,) Great in counsel. and mighty in work, for thine eyes are open upon all the ways of the sons of men. And that other text of Scripture, (Amos iv. 13,) " And declareth unto man what is his thought.' For if he knew the thoughts of man, how much more evident is it, that he knows his actions?

"The Eleventh, That God deals with every man according to that kind of life which he leads here upon earth; to those who keep his commandments, he gives great rewards: and inflicts great punishments on those that disobey him; sometimes in this world, sometimes in that which is to come, and sometimes in both; according to their several works, whether good or evil; but that the chief rewards, and the sharpest punishments, are deferred till they come to the other world. "The Twelfth is, That the Almighty God will send a Messias to redeem his people; and that though you should meet with delays, nevertheless expect him. This Messias shall be of the offspring of David, abranch of the root of Jesse the Bethlemite: he shall establish justice on earth, and judge many nations; righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins; he shall see his seed, and prolong his days over his kingdom; and there will be no other difference between the present state of the world, and what it shall be at the time of the Messias coming; but that the kingdom, as it was originally, shall return to the people of Israel; and they shall inhabit their own land, build their temple and, offer sacrifices, as they did in their primitive station: the Priests shall attend their service, and the Levites glorify God in their hymns: the ten tribes carried into captivity by the king of Assyria, and not since known or heard of, shall again be discovered and joined to the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, as you have it in Ezek. xxxvii. 16, Moreover, thou son of man, take thee one stick, and write upon it, for Judah, and for the children of Israel his companions,' &c. Likewise that all the nations of the earth shall come to Jerusalem yearly to worship God.' (Zec. xiv.) That peace shall reign, and enmity cease, even amongst brute beasts.' (Isa. ii. 11.)

"The thirteenth is, That at a set time, known only to God, it will come to pass, that all the dead shall live again; that he who does not believe this, has no communion in religion with the Jews; for we have it thus written in the prophet, (Isa. xxvi. 19,) Thy dead men shall live, toge ther with my dead body shall they rise. Awake and sing ye that dwell in the dust,' (Dan. xii. 2,) And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake.' But they are righteous men who shall be judged fit for the enjoyment of this so great and desirable good. I pray God we may be of their mumber, that God may give unto us eternal life, that we may be raised from the dead, and live in his sight." P. 96.

There are occasional references to the worship of the Roman Catholics and other dissenters. Thus

"No. 2.

(THE ROSARY AND CROWN.)

"Towards the conclusion of the tenth century a custom was introduced among the Latins of celebrating masses, and abstaining from flesh, in honour of the blessed Virgin, every Sabbath-day. After this, was instituted, what the Latins called the lesser office, in honour of St. Mary, which was, in the following century, confirmed by Urban II, in the Council of Clermont. There are also to be found in this age manifest indications of the institution of the rosary and crown of the Virgin; by which her worshippers were to reckon the number of prayers they were to offer her. The rosary consists in fifteen repetitions of the Lord's Prayer, and an hundred and fifty salutations of the blessed Virgin; while the crown consists in six or seven repetitions of the Lord's Prayer, and six or seven times ten salutations or Ave Marias, Mabillon Præf. ad acta S. S. Ord. Bened. Sæc. v. p. 58.

"No. 3.

"The fifteen mysteries to be meditated upon in saying the rosary.' "The five joyful mysteries. 1. The annunciation of the angel Gabriel, and the incarnation of the Son of God in the womb of the blessed Virgin. 2. The visitation of St. Elizabeth. 3. The nativity or birth of our Lord. 4. The presentation of our Lord in the temple, and the purification of his blessed mother. 5. His being found in the temple in the midst of the doctors, after having been lost three days by his mother and her chaste spouse St. Joseph.

"The five dolorous or sorrowful mysteries. I. The prayer of our Lord in the garden, with his agony and sweat of blood. 2. His being scourged at the pillar. 3. His being crowned with thorns and abused by the soldiers. 4. His carriage of the cross. 5. His crucifixion and death.

"The five glorious mysteries. I. The resurrection of our Lord. 2. His ascension into heaven. 3. The coming down of the Holy Ghost. 4. The assumption of the blessed Virgin. 5. Her eternal felicity, and that of all the blessed in the kingdom of heaven.

"See The Garden of the Soul, or Manual of Spiritual Exercises and Instruc tions for the Roman Catholics.

"No. 4.

(THE CONFITEOR)

"I confess to Almighty God, to blessed Mary ever Virgin, to blessed Michael the archangel, to blessed John the Baptist, to the holy apostles Peter and Paul, and to all the saints, that I have sinned ex ceedingly in thought, word, and deed, through my fault, through my most grievous fault; therefore, I beseech the blessed Mary ever Virgin, the blessed Michael the archangel, the blessed John the Baptist, the holy apostles Peter and Paul, and all the saints, to pray to the Lord our God for me.

May the Almighty God have mercy on me, and forgive me my sins; and bring me to life everlasting. Amen.

May the Almighty and merciful Lord give me pardon, absolution, and remission of all my sins. Amen." P. 93.

"See The Garden of the Soul, or Manual of Spiritual Exercises and Instructions for the Roman Catholics,"

Wesley and Whitefield find an occasional place in this work. "MATTHEW v. 1, 2.

"He went up into a mountain and taught,' &c.
"(WHITEFIELD AND WESLEY.)

"On the 13th Feb. 1739, Whitefield stood upon a mountain in a place called Rose Green, 'his first field pulpit,' and preached to as many as came to hear, attracted by the novelty of such an address.

"I thought,' said he, it might be doing the service of my Creator, who had a mountain for his pulpit, and the heavens for a sounding-board; and who, when his Gospel was refused by the Jews, sent his servants into the highways and hedges.' Wesley followed the example of Whitefield.

"I could scarcely reconcile myself at first,' said Wesley, to this. strange way, having been all my life, till very lately, so tenacious of every point relating to decency and order, that I should have thought the saving of souls almost a sin, if it had not been done in a church.' "The next day he observed, that our Lord's Sermon on the Mount was one pretty instance of field preaching,' and, he adds, " I suppose there were churches at that time also.' On the morrow, at

four in the afternoon,' he says, 'I submitted to be more vile, and proclaimed on the highways the glad tidings of salvation, speaking from a little eminence in a ground adjoining the city, to about three thousand people.'" P. 13. Southey's Life of Wesley.

A curious instance of the stubborn perversion of an obvious text to suit a sectarian purpose is given by the Quakers.

"MATTHEW xxviii. 19.

"Go ye therefore and teach all nations baptizing them,' &c.

"No. 1.

(QUAKERS.)

"This passage, as well as Mark xvi. 16. the Quakers apply to an inward and spiritual baptism.

"Mr. Tuke observes, that this construction is much corroborated by rendering the former passage as the Greek implies into the name,' &c. By this expression, we (the Quakers) understand, the introducing of the believers into a feeling sense of the power of God in Christ by the influence of the Holy Spirit.

"This application of the word 'name,' as symbolical of the Divine Power, (see the Concordances of Cruden and Taylor, under the word 'name,') is not uncommon in Holy Writ.

"Thus the expressions of our Lord unite with those of the Apostle Paul. 6 So many as were baptized into Christ Jesus, were baptized into his death,' Rom. vi. 3. 'As many as have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ,' Gal. iii. 27.

"That these expressions have no allusion to water baptism, appears to us evident from the context; and particularly from the following expression of the same Apostle, By one spirit are we all baptized into one body, and have been all made to drink into one spirit,' 1 Cor. xii. 13.

"The Quakers admit, that the Apostles made use of baptism with water." P. 78.

Another, equally extravagant, is given of the Unitarian perversion of the plain command to baptize in the name of the Trinity.

"Into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. "Unitarian Version.

"As a symbolical profession of that holy religion which originated with the Father, was taught by Christ the Son, that is, the Servant and Messenger of God, and confirmed by the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Some have called in question the genuineness of this verse, but perhaps without sufficient authority. It is, however, evident, that it is not intended to prescribe an invariable formula in the administration of baptism; for the Apostles themselves baptized simply into the name of Jesus. See Acts viii. 16. xix. 5. x. 48. That the Holy Spirit is here named in connexion with the Father and the Son, is no proof that the Spirit has a distinct personal existence. See Acts xx. 32; Eph. vi. 10. Much less can this phraseology be alleged as an argument, that the three names express three Divine and equal Persons. See 1 Chron. xxix. 20. Some would render the passage upon, or concerning, the name, &c. that is, receiving them to instruction upon these subjects. See Cappe's Dissertations.' P. 79.

"Note to the Unitarian Version."

The Theology of the early Patriarchs illustrated by an Appeal to subsequent Parts of the Holy Scriptures; in a Series of Letters to a Friend. By the REV. THOS. T. BIDDULPH, M.A., Minister of St. James's, Bristol; and late of Queen's College, Oxford. 2 Vols. 8vo. 17. 1s. London. Duncan. 1825.

AMONG the inventions of modern times may be reckoned the art of making books by the means of a pair of scissors. The ancients could form no notion of a process, which the great value of manuscripts before the discovery of the art of printing rendered utterly impracticable. But in later ages it has made a rapid progress, and is at present carried on to such an extent, that it may be said, without exaggeration, to constitute a large part of the current literature of the day. This mechanical manufacture of books, one might suppose, could not produce any thing more worthy the attention of a rational being than the mechanical contrivances of Raimund Lully and Athanasius Kircher, who essayed, by means of moveable circles and a coffer of arts, to construct a logical treatise on any given subject: yet, strange to say, to this manufacture we owe some of the works which scholars are in the habit of regularly consulting,

It were easy to name several of our most useful compilations, to the construction of which little more was requisite than a pair of scissors, along with sufficient skill to write a few sentences in order to groove and dovetail the several pieces together. If we were to place the volumes, of which we are now to give some account, in this class of literary-mechanical productions, we should not greatly err from the truth. On a former occasion Mr. Biddulph has shewn his dexterity in fitting these excerpta to his own productions, but he has in the present instance, done it with a more unsparing hand, and, what is praiseworthy, has the honesty and candour to confess it.

"The author, says he, or rather the compiler of the following pages feels it to be a duty which he owes to his readers, to inform them that they have nothing new, either of sentiment or diction, to anticipate. The letters which are put into their hands are, for the most part, a compilation from what had been previously laid before the public by authors who are therein mentioned, though references may not, in every case, have been made to them; but though the subject of the letters has been long before the public, it has not, in the compiler's opinion, obtained due consideration, or he would not again have troubled the world with it. The present volume, then, is to be viewed as a specimen of mental Mosaic work, consisting chiefly of quotations, verbally or substantially, taken from a variety of authors. It claims no originality of thought; it offers no novelty of style. The compiler makes no pretensions to depth of learning or science, He seeks not fame, but truth. His time has been too much occupied through life in parochial and domestic duties to have allowed of deep research on any subject; and what is here offered to public attention, having been written during the scraps of leisure which an almost unbroken series of imperative ministerial avocation has scantily furnished, pleads for an indulgent regard to its imperfections, and pardon for its errors, should such be found in it. He has collected the tessera of former days; and if any credit be due to him, it is merely that of a new arrangement, and of fixing them in their present relative position by the cement of a few connecting remarks. He may, however, claim some share of fortitude in venturing to re-edit opinions which have been generally exploded, but which, so far as he knows, have never yet been confuted, unless a sneer is to be considered a sufficient confutation. The Ægis of Horne, a Jones, and a Horsley, will however secure, in this more candid period than that of the last century, when these opinions were first systematically brought forward, protection from the contempt which was then thrown on their more early advocates." Pref. P. v.

After this candid avowal of our author, it would be unfair to look for any other merit in his performance than that which belongs to a compilation. Are his materials, then, selected