which its influence gave rise. Take away the influence which the Christian religion has on the lives of men, and you at once extinguish the cause to which alone those unspeakable advantages which we enjoy over the nations of old can be fairly or justly attributed.'

The sketch of the worship and religion of the Jews, and of their various sects, is not only executed in a very satisfactory manner, but serves to prepare the mind of the reader for the ample discussion of Christian affairs which follow. It is observed that

Two sorts of religion flourished at that time in Palestine, the Jewish and the Samaritan; and what added not a little to the calamities of the Hebrew nation, the followers of each of these regarded those of the other persuasion with the most virulent and implacable hatred, and mutually gave vent to their rancorous animosity in the direst curses and imprecations. The nature of the Jewish religion may be collected from the books of the Old Testament; but at the time of our Saviour's appearance, it had lost much of its original beauty and excellence, and was contaminated by errors of the most flagrant kind, that had crept in from various sources. The public worship of God was indeed still continued in the temple at Jerusalem, with all the ceremonies which Moses had prescribed; and a vast concourse of people never failed to assemble at the stated seasons for celebrating those solemn festivals which he had appointed; nor did the Romans ever interfere to prevent those observances: in domestic life, likewise, the ordinances of the law were for the most part attended to and respected but it is manifest, from the evidence brought forward by various learned writers, that even in the service of the temple itself, numerous ceremonies and observances, drawn from the religious worship of heathen nations, had been introduced and blended with those of divine institution; and that, in addition to superstitions like these of a public nature, many erroneous principles, probably either brought from Babylon and Chaldea by the ancestors of the people at their return from captivity, or adopted by the thoughtless multitude, in conformity to the example of their neighbours the Greeks, the Syrians, and the Egyptians, were cherished and acted upon in private.

The opinions and sentiments of the Jews respecting the Supreme Deity and the Divine nature, the celestial genii or ministering spirits of God, the evil angels or dæmons, the souls of men, the nature of our duties, and other subjects of a like kind, appear to have been far less extravagant, and formed on more rational grounds than those of any other nation or people. Indeed it was scarcely possible that they should altogether lose sight of that truth, in the knowledge of which their fathers had been instructed through an immediately Divine communication; since it was commonly rendered habitual to them, even at a tender age, to be diligent in hearing, reading, and studying the writings of Moses and the prophets. In every place where any considerable number of Jews resided, a sacred edifice to which, deriving its name from the Greek, they gave the appellation of synagogue, was erected, in which it was customary for the people regularly to assemble, for the purposes of worshiping God in prayer, and hearing

C 3

the

the law publicly read and expounded. In most of the larger towns, there were also schools under the management of well-informed masters, in which youth were taught the principles of religion, and also instructed in the liberal arts.'

The remainder of the volume comprizes the history of the first century, and Vol. ii. includes the whole of the second. Dr. M. thus draws a correct representation of the government of the church in the first three centuries:

A primitive bishop was, as it should seem, none other than the chief or principal minister of an individual church, which, at the period of which we are speaking, was seldom so numerous but that it could be assembled under one roof. He taught the people, administered what are termed the sacraments, and supplied the ailing and the indigent with comfort and relief. With regard to the performance of such duties as it was impossible for him to fulfil or attend to in person, he availed himself of the assistance of the presbyters. Associating, likewise, these presbyters with him in council, he inquired into and determined any disputes or differences that might subsist amongst the members of his flock, and also looked round and consulted with them as to any measures which the welfare and prosperity of the church appeared to require. Whatever arrangements might be deemed eligible, were proposed by him to the people for their adoption, in a general assembly. In fine, a primitive bishop could neither determine nor enact any thing of himself, but was bound to conform to and carry into effect whatever might be resolved on by the presbyters and the people. The episcopal dignity would not be much coveted, I rather think, on such terms, by many of those who, under the present state of things, interest themselves very warmly on behalf of bishops and their authority. Of the emoluments attached to this office, which, it may be observed, was one of no small labour and peril, I deem it unnecessary for me to say any thing: for that they must have been extremely small cannot but be obvious to every one who shall consider that no church had, in those days, any other revenue than what arose from the voluntary offerings, or oblations as they were termed, of the people, by far the greater part of whom were persons of very moderate or slender means; and that out of these offerings, in addition to the bishop, provision was to be made for the presbyters, the deacons, and the indigent brethren.'

In the subsequent passage, we have an account of the origin of a very important innovation :

Although all the churches had, at the commencement of this century, various laws and institutions in common, which had been received from the apostles themselves, and were particularly careful in maintaining with each other a certain community of tenets, morals, and charity; yet each individual church, which had a bishop and presbyters of its own, assumed to itself the form and rights of a little distinct republic or commonwealth; and with regard to its internal concerns was wholly regulated by a code of laws, that, if they did not originate with, had, at least, received the sanction of the people

II

constituting

constituting such church. This primitive liberty and independence, however, was by degrees relinquished, and it became the practice for all the minor churches within a province to form themselves into one large association, and to hold at stated seasons, much after the manner of confederate republics, a convention, in which the common interests and welfare of the whole were taken into consideration and provided for. Of the immediate authors of this arrangement we are uninformed, but it is certain that it had its origin in Greece; and there are many things which combine to prove, that during this century it did not extend itself beyond the confines of Asia. In process of time, however, the very great advantages attending on a federation of this sort becoming apparent, other provinces were induced to follow the example of Greece, and by degrees this form of government became general throughout the whole church; so that the Christian community may be said, thenceforward, to have resembled one large commonwealth made up, like those of Holland and Switzerland, of many minor republics. These conventions or assemblies, in which the delegates from various associated churches consulted on what was requisite to be done for the common welfare of the whole, were termed synods by the Greeks, and by the Latins councils. To the laws enacted by these deputies under the powers with which they were invested by their respective churches, the Greeks gave the name of canons or general rules, and by this title it also became usual for them to be distinguished by the Latins.'

The reflections of the author on this change are in his best manner, and furnish a happy specimen of the work. He shews that it occasioned the power of the people in church-affairs to be undermined, while it greatly increased that of the bishops. He also observes that the same arrangement

• Broke in upon and gradually destroyed that absolute and perfect equality which had reigned amongst the bishops in the primitive times. For as it was necessary that some certain place should be fixed on for the seat of council, and that the right of convening the assembly and presiding therein as moderator, as well as of collecting the suffrages, and preserving the records of its acts, should be vested in some one or other of its members, it for the most part became customary to give a preference in these respects to the chief city of the province and its bishop, and hence, in process of time, sprung up the dignity and authority of " metropolitans," a title conferred by way of distinction on the bishops of principal cities. These associ ations of churches, situated within one and the same province, soon gave rise to the practice of many different provinces associating together; and hence a still greater disparity, by degrees, introduced itself amongst the bishops. In fine, this custom of holding councils becoming at length universally prevalent, the major part of the church assumed the form of a large civil commonwealth, made up of numerous inferior republics; to the preservation of which order of things it being found expedient that a chief or superintending prelate should be appointed for each of the three grand divisions of the earth; and that, in addition to this, a supreme power should be lodged in the

hands of some one individual bishop; it was tacitly assented to that a certain degree of ecclesiastical pre-eminence should be recognised as belonging to the bishops of Antioch, Rome, and Alexandria, the principal cities in Asia, Europe, and Africa; and that the bishop of Rome, the noblest and most opulent city in the world, should moreover take the precedence amongst these principal bishops, or, as they were afterwards styled, patriarchs, and also assume the primacy of the whole Christian church throughout the world.'

As the name of no Father is of more frequent occurrence in church-history than that of Tertullian, our readers will not probably be displeased to see the character which is given of him by the accomplished writer before us:

He was originally a lawyer, but afterwards became a presbyter of the church of Carthage. Much of ingenuity and acumen undoubtedly discovers itself in the various treatises of this author now extant, which are written partly in defence of the Christian religion against its enemies and corrupters; and partly with a view to the reformation of men's morals, and the lighting up within their bosoms a spirit of genuine godliness and piety; but they are all of them composed in a style not only tumid and bombastic, but beyond all measure obscure. The opinions, moreover, which they exhibit, are harsh, oftentimes uncertain, and not less foreign from reason than from the sacred writings. In fine, they plainly indicate him to have been a man of a credulous turn of mind, much addicted to severity, and possessed of mose subtilty than solid learning.'

As this celebrated Father was charged with heresy, it may be desirable to have an account of the matter from the same satisfactory quarter:

In embracing Montanism, Tertullian appears to have been less actuated by a cool and discriminating judgment than by self-love, or a wish to promote the growth of certain opinions to which he was immoderately attached. Most of the principles of moral discipline propounded by Montanus, so far from being either new or unheard of amongst the Christians, had been actually adopted by several of them before his time. Of this number was Tertullian, a man of a morose and saturnine disposition, to whom the moral discipline of the Christians in general had long appeared by far too indulgent and relaxed. Upon finding therefore that Montanus was an advocate for the principles which he considered as true and just, he at once, with out ever seeing or hearing the man, pronounced that he must have been inspired of the Holy Ghost. The object of this good father's patronage was, in fact, not so much Montanus as himself and his own opinions.

We cannot take our leave of this masterly performance without acknowleging the obligations under which, we conceive, Mr. Vidal has laid the public by giving it an agreeable English dress.

ART.

ART. III. Medical Transactions, published by the College of Physicians in London. Vol. IV. 8vo. pp. 415. 12s. Boards. Longman and Co. 1813.

AF

FTER a lapse of several years, in which the College of Physicians have been engaged in defending their rights and privileges against the attacks of licentiates and Scotch graduates, we were somewhat surprized to find that they had resumed their plan of receiving and publishing medical communications. It appears, by the date of the papers, that the first of them was read in April 1806, and the last in March 1813; so that this volume must be considered as the result of the accumulated labours of the College during seven years. What may have been the cause of such unusual activity among the members of this learned body, which has enabled them, by the aid of a large type, to produce a volume in so short a space of time, it is not our business to inquire; we shall rather proceed to give our readers some account of the nature and value of its ingredients.

The first two papers are written by Dr. Baillie, and may be regarded as containing statements of facts which are worth recording, on account of the rarity of their occurrence.

The

first is, The Case of a Boy seven Years of Age, who had Hydroce phalus, in whom some of the Bones of the Scull, once firmly united, were, in the Progress of the Disease, separated to a considerable Distance from each other. The author observes that the great peculiarity in the progress of this boy's disease is the separation of some of the bones of the scull from each other, which had once been firmly united, in consequence of the accumulation of water in the ventricles of his brain.' In examining the edge of the sutures, by which the bones had been connected, it was found that their processes of union appeared to be more simple in their form, and fewer in number, than is usual in children of the same age;' a circumstance to which the sepa

ration of the bones is ascribed.

The second case is an instance of Hydrocephalus Internus, in a gentleman aged 56. He was seized with symptoms of compression of the brain, and became paralytic on the right side. He lost all recollection of words, except a few which he pronounced on every occasion, with great distinctness and with a variety of emphasis, as if he had deemed them sufficient to express all his ideas. After some time, contractions and rigidity took place in different parts of the extremities, until he fell into a constant state of drowsiness, and died 11 months after the first attack. The lateral ventricles of the brain were found to contain above six ounces of water.

Dr. Combe