is said to cleanse from sin, for it is never said to atone for it. They are called sinners who live neither under the Mosaic, nor under the Christian covenant; and who are therefore said to be in an unholy state, how excellent soever their moral character may be; and they are called saints or holy, who publicly profess the Christian religion, whatever be the imperfection of their moral characters. And these are purified by the blood of Christ, because his death ratifies the new covenant; and his blood is in a figurative sense said to be sprinkled on believers, to separate them from the unbelieving world to the service and worship of God. A person who does not attend to this sense of the words sin and holiness will lose much of the meaning and spirit of the Apostolical Writings."-Vol. ii. p. 639, 640.

Agreeably to this mode of interpretation, our author repeatedly asserts, without attempting to prove the unwarrantable assertion, that the death of Christ was not designed to impart any moral benefits whatever--and that all those passages of the New Testament which represent him as dying for sin and sinners," mean nothing more than that, by virtue of that event, ceremonial guilt is removed, and Jews and Gentiles are brought into a state of external privilege. But what those ceremonial sins are for which Christ offered himself a sacrifice, or wherein consists those privileges thus procured for us by the death of Christ, he does not condescend to explain. To crown all, this commentator has the hardihood to assert, over and over again, that in the very same sense, in which Christ offered sacrifice for the sins of others, he also offered a sacrifice for his own sins.

"And let it be remarked that, IN THE VERY SAME SENSE, in which Christ offered a sacrifice for his own sins, in that very sense did he offer sacrifice for the sins of the people. There is no distinction. But the sins of Christ were not moral, but ceremonial, No sacrifices are appointed for moral offences, either under the old dispensation or the new; no atonement, no appeasing of divine wrath, no satisfaction to offended justice. But as Christ, by his own sacrifice, consecrated himself for ever, transferred himself from a ceremonially unholy to a ceremonially holy state; so, exactly in the same way, those who believe the Gospel are, by the sacrifice of Christ, made ceremonially pure. From sinners they become saints-they are transferred from the community of unbelievers and enemies, to that of believers who are reconciled to God; and from this holy community nothing can exclude them but wilful apostasy, voluntary transgression-and for these no sacrifice is provided." Vol. ii. p. 617, 618.,

Thus saith Sir Oracle!

Again, Col. i. 15, is thus translated: "For in him were

"created all things in the heavens and upon the earth, visi"ble and invisible, whether thrones, or dominions, or prin "cipalities, or powers, all were created by him and for him, "and he is superior to all things, and all these things are "holden together in him." In commenting on this passage, Mr. B. gravely informs the readers that by the heavens is meant, the Jews, and by the earth, the Gentiles, and that the former of these are classed with things visible, because they formerly stood in a visible relation to God, and the latter with things invisible, because they had no external badge of communion with him." And further, that the orders and ranks of the Jewish hierarchy, the prophets, priests, and Levites, are represented by thrones, dominions, &c. and are "fitly represented under names given to a supposed celestial hierarchy," which he takes care to inform us in other places, existed only in the imagination of the Apostle, or in the popular superstition of the Jews, to which he thought proper to accommodate himself. (ii. 244, 245.) In like manner the Ephesians are exhorted to clothe themselves with the whole armour of God, for the purpose of successfully withstanding "the devil," that is, some Judaizing teacher who had slandered them; "flesh and blood,” i. e. heathen idolaters; "principalities, powers, &c." that is, the several orders of the Jewish hierarchy.-See vol. ii. p. 164-166.

The "Spirit which assists the infirmities of the saints, and intercedes for them with unutterable groanings," denotes "the spirit of hope, patience, and resignation, which are the leading virtues of the Christian character." (i. p. 103.) The "good works," which the apostle Paul commands Titus constantly to inculcate on those who believe in God, intend nothing more, according to this commentator, than reputable Occupations, as opposed to dishonest pursuits, or indolent habits. (Vol. ii. p. 534.) The "devil," to destroy whom, Jesus partook of flesh and blood, signifies-(will it be credited?) the Law of God; an interpretation of the passage for which our author makes due acknowledgments to a learned friend, and which he considers as having removed all difficulties from a very obscure text. (ii. 558.) These examples, which have merely been introduced as explanatory of the system of interpretation adopted throughout, will be deemed more than sufficient for that purpose; and to discuss their merits, we have neither room nor inclination.

One characteristic feature of the present work we cannot

forbear to notice, namely, the dogmatism that pervades it,— the oracular confidence with which the most daring assertions are made, for which not even the shadow of an evidence or argument is adduced, and the perpetual recurrence of the petitio principii;-faults in composition, which could scarcely have been looked for in the writings of one, who, by implication at least, informs his readers, that he is a much more profound metaphysician than the apostle Paul, and a much greater proficient in the dialectic art, than the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews.

A New and Comprehensive System of Modern Geography, Mathematical, Physical, Political, and Commercial; being a perspicuous Delineation of the present State of the Globe, with its Inhabitants and Productions; preceded by the History of the Science; interspersed with Statistical and Synoptical Tables: and accompanied with a Series of correct Maps, a great variety of appropriate Views, and numerous other Engravings, illustrating the Manners, Customs, and Costumes of Nations. By Thomas Myers, A.M. of the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. 2 Vols. 4to. pp. 916, 957. London. 1822. Sherwood and Co.

THE extraordinary revolutions in Empires and States which have taken place within a very few years, and the great accession of information as to the manners and customs of the different nations of the globe, which a wider diffusion of the spirit of travelling, than marked perhaps any former age, has produced, have necessarily rendered new system of Geography one of the greatest desiderata of modern literature. Hitherto, however, it has but too frequently happened, that the men who have attempted to supply a deficiency, which most of us must at times have felt, along with talents eminently qualifying them for their task, have brought to its execution too strong an attachment to that infidel, or sceptical philosophy, which has infused its deadly poison into some of the noblest speculations-the most finished systems of science and of art, which the last and the present century has produced. We learnt, therefore, with no small satisfaction, that Mr. (now Dr.) Myers, the associate of Dr. Gregory, had undertaken a work, for which the previous studies of his active life-his engagements in the Royal Military Academy-and his acknowledged habits of patient and laborious investigation, eminently qualified him; to which we are disposed to add, as a

crowning virtue, that decided piety and attachment to the truths of the gospel, which prompts him habitually, though reverentially,

"To look through nature up to nature's God."

Such a disposition ought especially to be cherished by an historian of the wonders of creation, as exhibited in the astonishing aptitude of every part of this vast globe to the peculiar character of its endlessly varying tribes; and that it is so in the case before us, our readers may satisfy themselves from the following opening sentences of his introductory"History of Geography."

"To delineate with acuracy, the state and progress of geogra phy, during the primeval ages of the world, or even for centuries after the formation of society, is a task which the researches of the learned have now left us without the hope of accomplishing. The physical appearance of the globe 'prior to the general deluge, the state of antediluvian civilization and attainments, and the succession of events which took place, and progressively enlarged the sphere of geographical knowledge during that period, are equally involved in impenetrable darkness, except so far as it was consistent with the plan of divine wisdom to reveal them in the sacred scriptures. The same conclusion may also be applied, with very slight modifications, to many ages subsequent to that grand epoch; and even when the torch of historical truth does begin to shine, its light is so feeble, and its rays so attenuated by the intervening gloom, that their united force is insufficient to dispel the surrounding darkness, and afford any distinct views either of the events themselves, or of the consequences resulting from them. Whatever ideas we may form relative to the state of the antediluvian world, they must be, in a great measure, conjectural, and cannot be regarded as links in that grand change of established facts which alone constitute the proper subjects of historic records. Nothing more, however, is necessary, than to examine the nature of this science, to be convinced that its first dawnings as an art, must be referred to the primitive ages of the human race.” [vol. i. p. ii.]

How much more worthy of a sound philosopher, no less than a genuine Christian, is this candid statement of our ignorance, than the laborious, but futile attempts of the wouldbe scavans of our days, to invalidate, by their crude theories and false deductions, the only account of the creation and earlier history of the world, which can merit the attention of intelligent beings.

The history of the science, connected with the kindred march of navigation and commerce, is then judiciously traced from the Chaldeans, through the Egyptians and

Hebrews, to the Greeks; and from this accurate and interesting survey, we are satisfied that our readers will be pleased with our extracting our author's estimate of the geographical knowledge of Moses, and of the Jews during the period of their biblical history:

"In tracing the knowledge of geography, among the Hebrews, from the writings of Moses and his successors, it should be constantly remembered, that they were charged with the execution of a mission of a nature the most sublime, and that geographical subjects are only incidentally touched upon when they are essentially conducive to their principal design. A few of the most celebrated rivers in that part of the globe, the mountains. of Ararat, upon which the ark rested on the subsiding of the waters of the deluge, (and which appears to have been one of the branches of Mount Taurus, in Armenia,) with the names and situations of various tribes among the second increase of mankind, constitute the leading features of the geographical statements of the Hebrew lawgiver. One striking circumstance in these accounts is, that the place where Moses states the dispersion of the human race to have occurred, after the confusion of languages on the plains of Shinar, is nearly in the centre of all the countries that were first inhabited. The Indians to the east, the Scandinavians to the north, and the Ethiopians to the south, who were early established in the countries still bearing their names, were almost equally distant from the place where the tower of Babel is supposed to have stood.

"Some authors have thought, that the extent of geographical knowledge in the writers, by whom the earlier books of the sacred writings were composed, should be confined within narrow limits; namely, the Grecian Archipelago on the west, Caucasus on the north, and the mouth of the Arabian Gulf on the south, without assigning any boundary towards the east. Other commentators, however, consider the inspired penmen to have been possessed of geographical knowledge superior to that of any other heathen author of early times, whose works have descended to us; and since so many indications of remote regions are incidentally given in the bible, which was never intended to be a methodical work on this subject, they think it fair to conclude, that the learned among the Hebrews possessed a knowledge of geography much beyond what would appear in such a work. Before Joshua assigned the different portions of the Holy Land to the nine tribes at Shiloh, about 1450 years before the Christian era, he sent men to walk through the land and describe it; and it is afterwards said, that they described it in seven parts in a book (Joshua xviii. 9.) Josephus, also, says, that when Joshua sent men to survey the land, he gave them companions who were well skilled in geometry, and who could not be mistaken with respect to the truth. The obvious