This island is said to have been in old time a seminary and was reputed of the highest Ssanctity; so that there is a tradition of above fifty Irish and Scottish kings being there buried. Columb-kil is plainly a contraction of Columba-kil, which was not originally the name of the island, but of the temple there constructed. The island was simply called Columba. When there was a change made in religion, people converted the heathenish temples to sanctuaries of another nature; and, out of the antient names of places, they formed saints and holy men. Hence we meet with St Agnes, St Allan, St Earth, St Enador, St Herin, St Levan, St. Ith, St Sancreta in Cornwall; and from the Caledonian Columba there has been made a St Columbus. This last was certainly a name given to the island from its worship, and, what is truly remarkable, it was also called löna, a name exactly synonymous, which it retains tó this day. But out of Columbus they have made a saint, and of Iona a bishop. See Camden, p. 1462. Bryant, vol. ii. p. 473.

STONEHENGE, and works of the same nature, we generally refer to the Celts and the druids, under the sanction of which names we shelter ourselves whenever we are ignorant and bewildered. But they were the operations of a very remote age, probas bly before the time when the druids and Celta were first known. I question whether there be in the world a monument which is much prior to the celebrated Stonehenge, There is reason to think that it was erected by a foreign colony, one of the first which came into the island. Here is extant at this day one of those rocking-stones, of which I have been speaking; the antients distinguished stones, erected with a religious view, by the name of umber, by which was signified any thing solar and divine. The Grecians called them petre ambrosie, and there are representations of such upon coins. Stonehenge is composed of these amber stones; hence the next town is denominated Ambrosbury, not from a Roman Ambrosius, for no such person existed, but from the ambrosia petre, in whose vicinity it stands, Some of these, I have taken notice, were rocking-stones, and there was a wonderful monument of this sort near Penzance, in Cornwall. It still retains the name of Main-Amber, by which is signified the sacred stones: main, whence, comes moenia, signified, in the primitive language, a stone. Bryant's Myth. vol. iii, p. 33. olures q

Choir Ghauz, the British name of Stonehenge, may be properly rendered the Grand, Choir, as it exceeded all other works of this kind in bigness and dignity, on account of the Arch Druid, or of his holding his grand, assembly of all the inferior ones in this, place. The most probable conjecture concerning Stonehenge, from the relation which. the barrows, or burying-places, bear to the building, is, that this last was the centre or Kebla, that is in other words the point of view, or distance to all the rest, and might be erected at the charge of the whole nation, and be designed, not only as a magnificent monument, or rather an open and majestic edifice for the performance of funeral rites to the whole people, and more especially to those of superior rank and merit; but like

Wisé to ascertain the property of each barrow to its respective family, by the number of cubits or furlongs, they stood east or west from it. Live Histownies

Rowley, in his poems, has pointed out the origin and use of that famous monument of antiquity, Stonehenge, so little noticed, by our antient writers. He asserts, with great truth, that it was a temple erected by the Britons to Thor: or Tauran, the Celtic Jupiter; for, according to Keysler, Thor, Celtis, est Taran, vel Taram. Now Taran, or Taram, in thẻ Welch vor Irish languages, sighify thunder. Hence' Jupiter Tonant was worshipped in Britain under the title of Tanarus, and an altar dedicated to, hian by that appellation I. O. M. Tanaro, Jovi, Optimo, Maximo, was dug up at Chester, 1653; and is still preserved among the Arundelian marbles at Oxford. Lucan, lib. i, 4461 mentions the same deity. Milles's notes on Rowley's Poeins, p. 71. Abury is a stupendous monument of druidism, first noticed by the inquisitive Mr Aubrey, and since accurately surveyed and commented on by the indefatigable Dr Stukeley: Both this temple and Stonehenge, were almost entire about the year 1716, At present there only remain a few stones standing of this once magnificent and extraordinary monument of druidical architecture. The stones employed in all those works, from 50 to 70 tons weight, are the same as those at Stonehenge, brought from Marlborough Downs, where the country-people call them Sarsens, from a Phænician word for a rock. Although the disfigured plan and ruined state of this vast druidical fane forbid us to speak with all that preciseness and decision necessary to the esta blishment of a new hypothesis, yet my conjecture of the stones being placed in, number and order, consonant to ideas founded in astronomy, borders nearly upon cer-. tainty, when we consider the various corroborating circumstances in the preceding ac-, count. The remarkable numbers, 100, 60, 30, and 12, constantly occurring, unavoid-. ably bring to our recollection the great periods of astronomical theology: the century, sexagenary cycle of India, the thirty years which formed the druid age, the twelve signs of the zodiac, and the number of years in which the revolutions of Saturn are performed; of which, multiplied by five, it has been previously observed, the sexagenary: cycle was originally fabricated. Thus the greater circle consists, we are told, of 100 stones, the whole temple is surrounded with a circular rampart 60 feet broad, and with a ditch of exactly the same breadth, and the two concentric circles inclosed within, the greater: the outermost consists of, 30, the inner of 12 stones. Dr Stukeley computes that the two avenues, one leading to Kennet, the other to Beckhampton, were each formed of 190 stones; but, as of these so very few remained for him to form a just computation by, we may fairly, upon the ground of analogy, and as having an equal reference to astronomical calculation, state the number. of each to have been 180, which doubled, gives the total amount of the antient year, before it was reformed by the superior correctness of modern astronomers. These are all plain vestiges of the solar devotion, as well as proofs of its universal influence, which spread from the plains of Babylon, where, it originated under Belus, to the rocks and forests of Britain, first tenanted by his posterity the Belida, that pri

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mæval colony, who instituted the bealtine; and who, according to Mr Bryant's and my own supposition, were the fabricators of Stonehenge and the designers of Abury. Maurice's Ind. Ant. Vol. vi. p. 137, &c.

Abury, or Abiry, is evidently dirived from vas, abir, potens, validus; as Cabiri is from aa, cabir, importing the same.

DR SECKER (Archbishop of Canterbury) was a wise man, an edifying preacher, and an exemplary bishop; but the course of his life and studies had not qualified him to decide on such a work as that of the Divine Legation, Even in the narrow walk of literature he most affected, that of criticising the Hebrew text, it does not appear that he attained to any great distinction. His chief merit (and surely it was a very great one) lay in explaining clearly and popularly, in his sermons, the principles delivered by his friend Bishop Butler in his famous book of the Analogy, and in shewing the important use of them to religion. Bishop Hurd's Life of Warburton, p. 82; but his lordship had probably never seen the archbishop's interleaved bible, in four vol. folio, now in the MSS. library at Lambeth, which contains a vast fund of theological learning. See also Mr Wintle's vindication of the archbishop.

The Scripture is not, indeed, a plan of Christianity, finished with minute accuracy, to instruct men as in something altogether new to them, which it was not, or to excite a vain admiration in them; but it is somewhat unspeakably nobler and more extensive; comprehending in the grandest and most magnificent order, along with every essential of that plan, the various dispensations of God to mankind, from the forming of this earth to the consummation of all things. It begins with the ground-work of natural religion, the creation of the universe by one holy and good and wise Being; relating, distinctly, how all those parts of it, which the heathen worshipped as gods, were in truth the work of God's hands. It proceeds to the origin of the Patriarchal, Jewish, and Christian, religion, the introduction of sin by the fall of our first parents, of which we experience the wretched effect. It goes on to that amazing punishment of sin, the universal deluge, proved to be as certain, as it was wonderful, by the remaining traces of it throughout the globe. It then recites the second peopling of the world, the relapse of mankind into wickedness, the choice of one family and people to preserve the knowledge of God, and to be as a light shining in a dark place for the benefit of all about them that would turn their eyes and feet to the way of peace. It lays before us the laws given to this people. It recounts their history, chiefly with regard to their moral and religious behaviour, and dwells on the characters and actions of their most remarkable persons. It supplies us with admirable patterns of genuine piety in the Psalms, most virtuous instructions for the prudent conduct of life in the book of Proverbs, for bearing afflictions in that of Job, for thinking justly of wealth, honour,. pleasure, science, in Ecclesiastes. Then in the prophetical books it gives us, together with the sublimest and worthiest ideas of God and our duties towards him, the most A affecting

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affecting denunciations of that private and public misery and ruin, which will ever attend sin, whether cloaked by superstition or displayed in profaneness. And, along with all these things, it unfolds a series of predictions, reaching from the beginning of the Old Testament to the end; and growing from obscure and general, continually clearer and more determinate, concerning the appearance of a divine person on earth for the recovery of fallen man, the revival and propagation of true religion throughout the, world. The books of the New Testament open to us the execution of this great design.. The Gospels record his supernatural birth, his unspotted and, exemplary life, his. astonishing and gracious miracles, his pure and benevolent doctrine, his dying for our. offences, and rising again for our justification. His mission of fit persons, endued with the gifts of the Holy Spirit to teach all nations, his own ascension into Heaven, aud sitting at the right hand of God till he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.. The Acts of the Apostles relate the wonderful success of their preaching, and the original foundation of the Catholic church. The Epistles contain their adinirable. directions to clergy and laity. And the revelation concludes with foretelling the state of Christianity, primitive, degenerate, and reformed, to the last ages. Secker's Serm. vol. vi. p. 39, 40.

What is there in the church established that calls so loudly for reformation? To satisfy some, it seems all inclosures must be thrown down, all creeds and SUBSCRIPTIONS taken away, all uniformity in divine worship left at large, and nothing required as a term of communion, or even as a qualification for the teachers in religion, but the profession of the one article, or (in terms equally indefinite) of what is necessary to denominate a man a Christian. But we must be allowed to inquire what consequences are to be expected from this thorough reformation, supposing they could be gratified? They will promise us a glorious state of universal liberty. But, is it to be imagined that a nation, not wholly abandoned to all sense of religion, could, for any time, continue in such a state as this? Would all Christians be at once set at liberty from their pas sions and prejudices? and, particularly, would the teachers of religion (for teachers, I suppose, there must be so long as there is religion) be, by this means, divested of that lust of power from which some at present affect to be under such dreadful apprehensions? Alas! the denominations of the contending parties might be changed, but, the contentions themselves would remain as fierce as ever. We should soon have teacher setting up against teacher; each proposing a different interpretation of this one article, and of what is necessary to denominate a man a Christian; each zealous for the prevalence of his own, and, probably the more so, in proportion to the hopes he might flatter himself with of being able to draw the then vacant public encouragements towards it. In the mean while, those of the people, whom this scheme should find in a posture of indifference to all religion, would soon be advanced by it into the seat of the scornful, while it would drive the more devout into the arms of the Romish emissary:

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of the rest, some would fall in with one leader some with another. Geo. Fothergill's Serm. Jan. So, 1737.

A remarkable misquotation of SPENCER in relation to the urim and thummim.

In book iii. c. 2, speaking of the place wherein the urim, which he supposes to be images, were put, amongst other authorities to confirm his opinion he produces that of Prideaux, and says, "Ut alios taceam, doctissimus noster Prideauxius sic sensumTM nostrum effert verbis magis disertis et dictatoriis. "Sufficit observasse urim et thum-/ mim a Deo tradita, a Mose recepta, et inter rationalis duplicitatem veluti in Theca quadam fuisse inclusa." Atque hoc unum de oraculo nostro certum fixumque habuit, reliqua de eo omnia nocte mediâ obscuriora." And for this he quotes his Orat. de veste Aaron. p. 16. But, if this be the same with the treatise of urim in his Connection, vol. i. p. 213, it is plain that Dr Spencer has not quoted him fairly; for he says: expressly there, that this was only the opinion of Dr Spencer, which he had borrowed from Christophera Castro, and that Dr Pocock had shewn it to be both absurd and impious; and adds, farther, that it is safest to hold that the words urim and thummim mcant only the divine virtue given to the breast-plate in its consecration.✨

If the purchase of SLAVES was permitted under the Jewish law, which may be inferred from Levit. xxvi. v. 44, 45, 46, and was never strictly forbidden by Christ himself; supposing, that the purchase of slaves is not an act of compulsion, but voluntary deed on the part of the purchased slaves; supposing, also, that the purchasers treat them as they ought, both on their voyage and in their settlements, the heavy charges › against it do not seem so conclusive as the advocates for the abolition of it contend." See Bruce's Travels, vol. i. and the arguments pro and cont. in the several debates of the: British Parliament, and the sundry pamphlets which have been published on the sub-t ject. But, after all, it might be more advantageous in the end to the several planters if they were, by a graduat abolition of this traffic, to furnish themselves, in the course of twenty years or more, with a sufficient number of natives to cultivate their several. plantations, which might be certainly done by encouraging population amongst them;. and at a less expense than they are now at; and these persons properly trained up would have a natural interest in cultivating the lands to the best advantage; and there would be no danger of tumults and insurrections. But an immediate abolition of the slaves trade would be a remedy worse than the disease, as it would involve thousands and tent thousand of families in utter ruin, and, perhaps, océasion many other unforeseen bad consequences.

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SPIRITUS DEI, et Spiritus Jesu Christi, quatenus auxiliis istis atitur, significat in Scripturis vel externa ista omnia, auxilia, quæ apta nala sunt adspirare homini animums et vires, ut libenter et alacriter facere ea velit, quæ Deo grata sunt, sub quibus com prehendo non tantum promissa et comminationes evangelii, sed phira alia, quæ duos

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