Whatever apology Cælius Rhodiginus may make for the story, it has all the appearance of a ridiculous impofture. The name of the demon, he tells us, was Cincinnatulus, Little Cincinnatus. He would often return furprifing anfwers, relative to what was paft or prefent; but when he was queftioned about future events, he was always mendaciffimus' a moft lying devil. But he fometimes concealed his ignorance, murmure ́incerto, vel Combo verius ignorabili,' under fome unintelligible murmur. But whether this murmur iffued from the arm-holes, the mouth, or fome more private aperture we are not informed. As we have never feen the Comments of Steuchus Eugubinus, or Hieron. Oleafter, we can fay nothing of the probability or improbability of the ftories they relate. But we can never be perfuaded to think, that there was any Spirit concerned in the plot. Thefe ventriloquifts were, most undoubtedly, impudent cheats, like the famous Cock-lane ghoft, which in 1762 excited the amazement of all the loggerheads in this metropolis. But, heaven be praised! the days of ignorance, credulity, and fuperftition, are past. Learning, science, and philosophy, have banished almost all the whole race of walking apparitions, prophetical ghofts, witches, and ventriloquifts from the face of the earth. A View of Chriftianity, as taught by Chrift himself. In a Series of Sermons, by the late Rev. Samuel Eaton, D. D. vol. II. 8vo. 5s. 6d. Jewed. Longman. THE HE author of thefe difcourfes, in the year 1764, published a volume of sermons, intitled a View of Human Life; and intended to add a fecond, but did not live to carry his defign into execution. The fermons included in this volume, are fome of those he himself had felected for publication. The fubjects are as follows: I. An Enquiry into the Nature and Extent of the Kingdom of Heaven. • If our hearts, fays he, are upright, our confciences pure, our minds pious, and formed into the tafte and temper of heaven, we fhall find God and heaven wherever we are. On the contrary, if we are deftitute of this spirit, and alienated from the life of God, change of place will do nothing for us, much lefs a change of earth, and fenfual pleafures, where our hearts are, for the fpiritual heavenly state, where our hearts are not, and for which we have neither meetness or taste.' II. The II. The Gospel Call, and peculiar Motive to Repentance Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand "This is a continuation of the foregoing fermon, fhewing that heaven is now open to view, that it must commence in this world; and that the eternal happiness or mifery of men is, in the very nature of things, founded on their virtue or vice. III. The Nature and Neceffity of the New Birth. This fecond, or new birth, he fays, is not the origin of a fecond natural life, or being; nor the addition of any new natural powers and faculties, but the beginning of a fpiritual divine life, which does not take its rife from our first birth, nor is derived to us by the laws of animal propagation; but is purely moral and and fpiritual, feated in the heart or will; commencing, when a perfon becomes fpiritually minded, when his will is fubdued to the will of God, his affections fan&ified, and he become partaker of the divine nature.' IV. The plain Marks, and certain Evidences of the Children of God. The terms, a fon, or child of God, are never, he observes, to be understood, in the doctrine of Chrift and his apostles, in a natural or metaphyfical, but always in a figurative or moral fenfe, as denoti g their peculiar character and happiness, arifing from a fathe ly difpofition and care on God's part, and a filial difpofition and deportment on his children's part.' What our author fays in these two difcourfes, and in the twelfth, relative to the new birth, the evidences of the children of God, and regeneration, is but a partial explanation of these terms They are more particularly and emphatically applied by the facred writers to denote that new and happy state of being, into which mankind were introduced by the gospel. When they commenced Chriftians, they are faid, by a very natural and beautiful figure, to be born again, regenerated, called, elected, chofen, faved, purchased, bought, redeemed; to become fons and daughters, children of God, new men, faints, brethren in Christ, &c. And all these privileges, relations, and honours, are applied to all profeffed Chriftians, to the Corinthians, Galatians, Ephefians, and other facieties, without limitation or exception. As God is faid to have chofen his ancient people, the Jews, and they were called his elect, his children, &c. fo the whole body of Chriftians, Gentiles as well as Jews, were admitted into the fame honours, under the gospel; and the words and phrafes, by which our Chriftian privileges are expreffed in the New Teftament, are the very fame with thofe, by which the privileges of the Jewish church are ex preffed preffed in the Old. When men therefore become Christians at their baptifm, they are, in the language of fcripture, confidered as regenerated and born again; and their subsequent repentance and obedience are improperly called regeneration. A good life is not a new birth, but a conformity to that character, which a man affumed when he became a member of the Chrif tian church. V. The Nature of Gospel Repentance. The original word eTavola, which we trauflate repentance, fignifies reflection, or after-thought, and is properly expreflive of the first part, and inward working of reformation in the finner's mind. And our English word, repentance, exactly anfwers to it, as we shall fee, if we confult its original. It is borrowed from the French, in which language it is derived from the verb penfer, which fig nifies to think; confequently repentance fignifies reflexion or after-thought, and exactly anfwers to the original word μ τάνοια. με VI. The Righteous not called to, nor capable of Repentance; or Repentance not an univerfal and perpetual Duty. VII. Repentance abfolutely neceffary to the Salvation of a Sinner. VIII. The Nature and Neceffity of Converfion, together with the Aids and Encouragements which God has afforded as the Groundwork of his Calls to Converfion. IX. Conversion the Sinner's own Act, and indifpenfible Duty. In this discourse the author very properly fays: • I cannot but fufpect that the small efficacy of the Gospel towards the converfion of finners, compared with what might be expected, and the continued prevalency of fin and wickednefs, are chiefly owing to the falfe conceptions on this head, which have long been propagated, and are now generally received and cherished, under the fpecious pretence of magnifying the grace of God, though in fact they deny it; and as far as they prevail, muft deftroy its efficacy, and deprive it of all its converting power upon the minds of finners." He then fhews, that Mofes and the prophets, Chrift and his apoftles, did not teach finners to hope, and ftill wait for God to convert or turn them, but called upon finners to convert and turn themselves. This, he adds, is the conftant and uniform doctrine of the whole Bible, and this is the reprefentation made in the text, Matt. xiii. 5. The general mistake on his fubject, arifes, in a great meafure, from the wrong tranflation of the words σρέφω, επιςρόφως and aros pepe. They are ufually tranflated in a paffive lenfe, as as if finners were converted by the special and immediate agency of the Deity; whereas these verbs are active, and ought to have been fo tranflated. Thus Matt. xiii. 15, 71spelwol is rendered" they should BE converted ;" whereas it fhould be, they fhould turn. This paffage from Ifa. vi. 1o. is cited four times in the New Teftament, Mar. iv. 12. John xii. 40. A&ts xxviii. · · 27. and in Matthew, as above; and is always improperly tranflated. See other inftances Pfal. li. 13. Luke xxii. 32. A&ts iii. 19. Matt. xviii. 3, &c. X. Divine Promifes and Favours peculiar to penitent Con verts. • When the finner, fays the author, is called upon to cleanfe or purify himself, this always looks forward, and refers to future life, fignifying the finner's breaking off his fins, and keeping himself unfpotted from the world; and doing this by the faithful improvements of those abilities God hath given to us as men; and influenced by the encouragements and affistances he has granted to us as Chriftians. But when God promiles to fanctify, cleanfe, and purify penitent finners, the primary and immediate reference of fuch promises is to past life, and to fins that are paft.-For befides guilt, or obnoxioufness to punishment, which is removed by a free and gracious pardon, fins leave a taint and defilement upon the foul.'-He adds, in a note, To nabags, Heb. ix. 14. being in fenfe the fame with ayaev, ver. 13. as the comparison clearly fhews, muft fignify the cleanfing of the confcience, not from the inclination to fin for the future, but from the guilt of paft fin. And this is the conftant fenfe of the word xabapie in the Old Teftament, when joined with ano aμaptiv, Lev. xiv. xvi. 13. Joh. xxii. 17. Pfal. li. 2. Jer. xxxiii. 8. Ezek. xxiv. 13. Whitby. Heb. ix. 14.' XI. The Means and Inftruments of a Sinner's Converfion. 19. XIII. The primary End of our Saviour's Miffion. This fermon is an illuftration of Matt. v. 17. "Think not that I am come to deftroy the law or the prophets; I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill." Dr. Clarke, in his Paraphrafe, copying from Dr. Whilby, and Whitby from Grotius, thus explains thefe words: "I am come to fulfill what was typified, to explain what was obfcure, and to complete what was imperfect. For affuredly, there fhall not be any part of the typical, or ceremonial law, but what shall truly be fulfilled; nor one precept of the natural or or moral law, but what fhall continue in its full force and obligation as long as the world endures." This, fays Dr. Eaton, is not tranflating, nor paraphrafing, but making a new text; and all that is here faid respecting types and ceremonies, is drawn from the words fulfilled, in our tranflation, which have no such words answering to them in the original. The rites and facrifices, in ufe amongst the Jews, appear to me on the fame footing with divorce, which Mofes never commanded, but only fuffered, because of the hardness and ftupidity of their hearts. Their history informs us, that the Jews contracted their prejudices in Egypt, and betook themfelves to these facrifical practices, whilst Moses was about bringing them the two tables of the moral law. Thefe rites were in themselves vain fuperftition, and as fuch are always reprefented by the prophets of old, and by the apostles of Chrift afterwards; beggarly elements, which could not make the obfervers perfect.as pertaining to the confcience. And if men had no other religion in them, but relied upon rites and facrifices, to the neglect of the weightier matters of the law, then this their righteoufnefs was as filthy rags,-infecting and defiling, inftead of purifying ;-offenfive, instead of pleasing and acceptable to God. Pure religion, and undefiled before God, is always of a moral and reasonable nature, confifting in obedience and conformity to the moral law, the only law acknowledged and taught by the author of our faith.' To this paffage is fubjoined the following note, in oppofition to the opinion of those, who contend for the divine origin of facrifices. The Pfalmift in Pfal. xl. 6, 7. Pfal. 1. and the feveral prophets, deny that God ever required these things, and call upon the Jews to prove the contrary. Ifa. i. 11, 12. Jer, vii. 21, 22, 23. Mich. vi. 6, 7, 8.' The law, which our Saviour speaks of in the text, our author thinks is the moral law, and that only. Now, continues he, it is plain our Saviour could fulfil the moral law but two ways, and that he did. One was by fully conforming himself to it in his life and practice; the other was, by teaching and enforcing it in the most perfect manner by his doctrine and preaching; by enlarging the knowledge which the world had of the nature and obligations of morality: fupplying what had been left imperfe&t; and enforcing the practice of universal righteoufnefs and piety with ftronger fanctions, and more powerful motives than had ever been known or taught before. Thus the apoftle uses the phrafe: "I am made a minifter of the gof pel, |