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mum. Deum imitari, qui templum suum vacuum ab omni imagine esse voluit; et, primi seculi puriorisque consuetudinem, quà templis locisque sacris imagines exesse severa religione jubebantur. Simplicitas illa innoxia est, et tuta ab Idololatriæ et superstitionis periculo. Quæ vero ex imaginibus utilitas speratur, ea alio remedio facillime, refarciri potest, quod periculum aut metum istum periculi non habet. Episcopius de cultu Imagin. c. vi.

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In memory of the cessation of the great eruption of the mount Vesuvius last year, attributed to a miracle of ST JANUARIUS, a marble statue has been erected by the I city of Naples upon Maddalena bridge; and, at the bottom of the pedestal,, the following inscription has been lately placed; "Clement XIII. pope, grants one hundred days indulgences, toties quoties, for ever, to each believer, who devoutly invokes this statue of our patron St Januarius. By brief, dated the 10th of May, 1768." London Gazette; Naples, October 25.'

JULIUS CESAR was without doubt a person of extraordinary parts and wonderful abilities in all the arts of war and civil government, and of equal diligence and application in the use of them. He was beloved and revered by the people, honoured and adored by his friends, and esteemed and admired even by his enemies. But, as his ambition, which knew no bounds, prompted him to inthral his country and usurp a despotic and arbitrary power over those who were as free as himself, he met in the end with that doom which all tyrants and usurpers deserve. If the state had been deemed irretrievable, and a usurper a necessary evil, Rome could not have had a better than Cæsar: but, as Brutus, Cicero, and the best and ablest Romans, judged otherwise, the dictator's power and dominion were downright usurpation, and consequently every Roman was warranted, by all the laws of Rome, to put him to death.

During the several expeditions of Cæsar into Gaul, he is said to have taken 800 cities, subdued 300 different nations, and to have defeated, in several battles, 3,000,000 of men, of which 1,000,000 were killed and another taken prisoners. Circumstances which would seem greatly magnified, were they not vouched by Plutarch and other authentic historians. Univ. Hist.

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Historians, for what reason I know not, are fond of describing the transactions of JAMES I's reign with ridicule; but, for my own part, I cannot avoid giving just applause both to his wisdom and felicity. Upon a review of his conduct, there are few. of this monarch's actions that do not seem to spring from motives of justice and vir tue; his only error seems to consist in applying the despotic laws of the Scottish government to the English constitution, which was not susceptible of them. The clemency and the justice of this monarch's reign early appeared from that spirit of mo

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deration which he shewed to the professors of cach religion. The minds of the people had been long irritated against each other, and each party persecuted the rest, as it happened to prevail. James wisely observed, that men should be punished for actions only, and not for opinions; each party murmured against him, and the universal complaint of every sect was the best argument of his moderation towards all. Were we to take the character of this monarch from Rapin, we should consider him as one of the worst of princes, even while he pretends to defend him: he strongly insinuates throughout that James was a papist, with no better proofs than his being ever a favourer of toleration. He had but just before blamed Mary, and with reason, for her implacable partiality, yet he condemns James only because he was impartial. To this monarch the English are indebted for that noble freedom of opinion they have since enjoyed. The reformation had introduced a spirit of liberty, even while the constitution and the laws were built upon arbitrary power. James taught them, by his own example, to argue upon these topics; he set up the divine authority of kings, against the natural privileges of the people: the subject began in controversy, and it was soon found that the inonarch's was the weakest side. Lyttleton's Letters, let. 38.

That every word and letter in the Scriptures should be dictated by the Holy Spirit, 1st. Unnecessary, as the authors of these sacred volumes did not want the assistance of the Holy Spirit in matters of facts and sayings, which had fallen under their own. observation. 2dly. Had these Scriptures been inspired by an organical conveyance, there must have been the most perfect agreement amongst the several writers of the Gospel in every circumstance of the smallest fact. But we see there is not this perfect. agreement in some minute particulars, which regard neither faith nor manners. 3dly. Supposing a verbal INSPIRATION, the turn of style had been one and the same throughout all the sacred books. 4thly. The words of Scripture must have been preserved throughout all ages, pure and free from mistakes and corruptions of transcribers. In what sense then is this inspiration to be understood? Without doubt in this, as it is the only one which agrees with appearances, and fully answers the purpose. That the Holy Spirit so guarded the pens of those writers, that no error of importance fell from them, by enlightening them with his actual Inspiration in all such matters as were necessary for the knowledge and instruction of the Christian Church, which, either through ignorance or prejudice, they would have falsely or partially represented, and by preserving them, in the more ordinary course of providence, from any mistakes of consequence in the narrative of those things, whereof they had acquired a competent knowledge in the common way of information. In a word, incessantly watching over his agents; but with so suspended a hand as permitted the use, and left them to the guidance, of their own faculties, while they kept clear of error, and then only interposing, when without the divine assistance they would have deviated from truth. War burton's Sermons, vol. i. p. 228.

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As St Paul did not learn the Christian religion from the other apostles, nor they from Christ, but both he and they received it immediately, by the operations of God's spirit, it is evident that the doctrines they preached and the books they wrote were inspired. But the author must have had some very different notion of inspiration, if, indeed, he had any distinct notion of it, who has maintained, that its influence on the minds of the apostles was not permanent but transitory, adapted only to special occasions, and, when these were served, presently suspended or withdrawn. The natural faculties of the human mind enable it to retain the knowledge it has once acquired; especially if that knowledge be clear and important. Noue could be more important, or more justly claim attention, than the suggestions of the Holy Spirit; and there is no reason to believe that they were either obscure in themselves or destructive of a man's natural faculties. But, as long as the memory retained the divine communica tions, so long did the inspiration continue; and this, we may presume, was usually as long as the apostle lived. And, of whatever kind the language of inspiration were, it had probably no other source than the natural abilities of the writers. The form and character of St Paul's Epistles we shall find to have been derived from the circumstances of his early life. Tarsus, where he was born, was in that age a celebrated scat of learning; and the Tarsic eloquence was employed in sudden and unpremeditated harangues. And St Paul, long accustomed to compositions of this sort, transferred· the style and manner from speaking to writing. But St Paul did not learn at Tarsus the general form only of his writings. He collected there, also, many of their minute ornaments. In that city was one of the largest and most celebrated places of exercise then in Asia. See Strabo, lib. 14. And there is no matter from which the apostle borrows his words and images in greater abundance than from the public exercises; and when he exhorts his disciples to the practice of virtue, he does it usually in the very same terms, in which he would have encouraged the combatants. His family also was another source of his figurative expressions. His parents were Roman citizens, and words or sentiments derived from the laws of Rome would easily creep into their conyersation. No wonder, then, that their Son sometimes uses forms of speech peculiar to the Roman lawyers, and applies many of the rules of adoption, manumission, and testaments, to illustrate the counsels of God in our redemption. Nor are there wanting in St Paul's style some marks of his occupation. To a man employed in making tents, the ideas of camps, arms, armour, warfare, military pay, would be familiar. And he introduces these and their concomitants so frequently, that his language seems to be such as might rather have been expected from a soldier than from one who lived in quiet times and was a preacher of the Gospel of peace. When we observe farther, that, being educated in the school of Gamaliel, and instructed in all the learning of the Jewish doctors, he not only uses the Hebrew idiom, but has many references to the Hebrew Scriptures and the received interpretations of them, there will remain nothing that is peculiar in his manner of writing of which the origin may

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not be traced to one or other of the forementioned circumstances. Powell's Sermons, p. 248, &c.

To fix the degree of inspiration, which was imparted to the writers of the New Testa, ment, is an object of much greater consequence than to explain the method in which it was conveyed. That the apostles were constantly under the divine influence, that such influence extended to scrupulous correctness in every particular, and rendered them perfectly infallible in the writings they have left us, is an opinion which its advocates will find it difficult to establish. Aware of the many objections which may be brought against them, it is not for such an hypothesis that we ought precipitately to contend. There seems, however, nothing repugnant to reason, nothing inconsistent with the circumstances of the case, in supposing that the Holy Spirit guarded the Sacred writers from error in the grand outlines of their narration, in the statement of precepts, and the developement of doctrines. A divine assistance, thus favourably imparted, seems to have answered the great end of its communication without exfending to the revelation of other points. It at once accounts satisfactorily for those Slight deviations from exact conformity which the advocates of infidelity have magnified into apparent inportanee, and displayed with ostentatious parade. In the more mihute circumstances of facts, the Sacred writers are left to the resources of their own únassisted memory and experience, and consequently are reduced to the level of all other credible historians. Upon those momentous points which contribute to form an infallible rule and standard of faith and practice, they were guided by the hand of divine wisdom into all truth, and soar to a height of credibility which no human writer can attain." Kett's Bampton Lectures, Sermon 7, p. 265.

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Sicut memoria tua non cogit facta esse quæ præterierunt, sic: Deus Præscientia sua non cogit facienda, quæ futura sunt; nec est consequens, ut, si Deo certus est omnium ordo causarum, ideo nihil sit in nostræ voluntatis arbitrio. Et ipsæ quippe nostra voluntates in causarum ordine sunt, qui certus est Deo, ejusque præscientia continetur. Quocirca nullo modo cogimur, aut retentâ præscientia Dei, tollere voluntatis arbitrium; aut retento voluntatis arbitrio, Deum, quod nefas est, negare præscium futurorum; sed utrumque amplectimur, utrumque fideliter et veraciter confitemur. Illud, ut bene. .credamus; hoc, at bene vivamus. Neque ideo peccat homo, quia Deus illum peccaturum præscivit; imo ideo non dubitatur ipsum peccare, cum peccat; quia ille, cujus præscientia falli non potest, non fatum, non fortunam, non aliquid aliud, sed ipsum peccaturum esse præscivit, qui, si nolit omnino, non peccat; sed si peccare noluerit, etiam hoc ille præscivit. St Augustin, de Lib. Arb. lib. iii. c. 4. Voss. Hist. Pelag. lib. vii. p. 2.

The apostles could use the KEYS of the KINGDOM of heaven no farther than Christ saw fit, who openeth and no man shutteth, who shutteth and no man openeth; yet the

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apostles had great powers by virtue of these words, Matt. xviii. 18, which we have not: the power of discerning by the spirit, in many cases at least, and therefore of declaring who were penitent and pardoned, who otherwise: the power of inflicting and continuing miraculous punishments on wicked persons, which is binding and retaining their sins; and of removing such punishments, which is loosing and remitting them. Secker's Sermons, vol. vi. p. 355.

It appears, and is as plain as can be, that the Jews commonly used the words binding or loosing to mean declaring and teaching things to be necessary or not necessary, but unlawful to be believed and practised; and, consequently, all our Saviour can be understood to mean by those words to the apostles is this, that he constituted and appointed them to be the teachers of the people, and what they enjoined or forbid to be believed and practised should be accounted lawful or unlawful, and accordingly rewarded or punished by God. Gale's Sermons.

This is a very forced and unnatural construction; for it is certainly false that the apostles had any power to make or declare a thing to be lawful or unlawful, that was not made so by Christ. For, as the use of a key is to open or shut the door, by opening to give admittance, and by shutting it to deny it, to any place, so the power which Christ conferred on the apostles is this, that they should be the chief rulers and governors of his church, and as such should have authority to admit or exclude such persons as they should judge convenient. That this is the meaning of our Saviour's promise is plain from the terms of binding and loosing, which commonly signify imprisoning or releasing from prison, and is the proper business of those who have the custody of the keys; and therefore, when applied to the members of Christ's Church, must denote an authority in the officers thereof to condemn them for their sins or absolve them, which, in the spiritual sense, is the only way of imprisoning or releasing from prison. Stackhouse on Creed.

Petro (Matt. xvi. 19) promittitur potestas solvendi et ligandi, hoc est, declarandi quid iicitum, quid illicitum sit; seu quid faciendum, et a quibus abstinendum sit homini, ut salutem obtineat æternam. Vide Seld. de Synag. Ind. lib. ii. Limborch.

The power of binding and loosing, given to Peter, Matt. xvi. 19, relates to doctrine; that given to all the apostles, Matt. xviii. 18, respects discipline. Macknight.

The power of the keys belongs to things, not to persons; and seems to respect those înstitutions and laws which may be proper for the government of the church. Bishop Pearce.

, Matt. xvi. 19, and ca, Matt. xviii. 18, may refer to persons as well as wav, Joh. vi. 37, 99. And then these texts are equivalent to Joh. xx. 23. Archbishop Secker indeed restrains them to the infliction or removal of miraculous punishments. Archbishop Newcome.

All this relates to Peter alone, not to the other apostles; and this authority was temporary, not perpetual. And the power of binding and loosing respects the abrogation

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