it ascribes to the person whose appearance it announced; we find that this character perfectly agrees with that of the Messiah, as it is drawn by the Jewish prophets; the difference being only this, that the Jewish prophecies are more circumstantial than the Sibyl line. The sum of the character is the same in both; in its nature unequivocal, and such as even in the general outline could not possibly belong to different persons in the same age. The object of the Sibylline oracle, as well as the Messiah of the Jews, was to be of heavenly extraction, the high offspring of the gods, the great seed of Jupiter. He was to strike an universal and peace, to command the whole world; and in this universal government he was to exercise his father's virtues. He was to abolish all violence and injustice, to restore the life of man to its original simplicity and innocence, and the condition of man to its original happiness. He was to abolish the causes of violent death; and all death, considered as a curse, is violent. He was to kill the serpent and purge the vegetable kingdom of its poisons. The blessings of his reign were to reach even to the brute creation; for the beasts of the forest were to lose their savage nature that the ox might graze in security within sight of the lion.' (Pp. 22, 23.)

Whatever may have been the definite signification of such descriptions of futurity, either in the Jewish prophets or in the Sibylline oracles, to which Bishop Horsley assigns the sanctifying authority of patriarchal times, it is certain that, as far as they denote a new era in human affairs, and a total cessation of misery and strife, such a period has not yet arrived; nor does it, in the present turbulent and convulsed state of man, appear much more likely to take place than it did when the Cumaan Sibyl first kindled with the enthusiasm of prophetic anticipation. After all, however, a very different view of the meaning and application of Virgil's IVth Eclogue has been taken in Mr. Penn's ingenious work on that subject, (M. R. Vol. lxix. N. S. p. 412.) which Bp. H. could not have seen; and which would probably have induced him materially to alter this Dissertation,' or to have wholly suppressed it.

The Bishop does not appear to us to have adduced any new arguments or facts in support of the Resurrection, which occupies four of the nine sermons in this volume: but he has stated the well-known proofs with his characteristic perspicuity and force. The discrepancies in the several accounts of that great event do not appear difficult to be reconciled; nor are they more in number or degree than those which we should find in the narrative which different persons would give of any recent fact, that comprehended a diversity of incidents and a multiplicity of circumstances. Where the action is complex, and the narrators are numerous, a difference does not neces

sarily imply inconsistency; and, where an agreement prevails with respect to the principal fact, the testimony is not only not invalidated, but it is even strengthened, by some discordance with respect to the subordinate details. If we had found less apparent discrepancy in the details of the Resurrection, the event itself would not have been so satisfactorily supported as it now is; since the appearance of collusion, which a more literal uniformity in the testimony would have produced, would proportionally have diminished its credibility.

In vindicating the doctrine of the Atonement, Dr. Horsley allows that

Those who speak of the wrath of God as appeased by Christ's sufferings speak, it must be confessed, a figurative language. The Scriptures speak figuratively when they ascribe wrath to God. The Divine nature is insusceptible of the perturbations of passion; and when it is said that God is angry, it is a figure which conveys this useful warning to mankind, that God will be determined by his wisdom, and by his providential care of his creation, to deal with the wicked as a prince in anger deals with rebellious subjects. It is an extension of the figure when it is said that God's wrath is by any means appeased. It is a figure, therefore, if it be said that God's wrath is appeased by the sufferings of Christ.' 'But nothing hinders but that the sufferings of Christ, which could only in a figurative sense be an appeasement or satisfaction of God's wrath, might be, in the most literal meaning of the words, a satis faction to his justice.'

Here it is a little remarkable that, while the author is representing God as insusceptible of wrath, he yet talks of his dealing with the wicked as a prince in anger deals with his rebellious subjects.' We all know that the anger of earthly princes is not usually of a very mitigated kind; and, when it is inflamed by the appearance of rebellion, it has been known to transgress the bounds not only of charity but of justice, and to be a species of anger not restrained by any moral considerations. When, also, the Bishop describes the sufferings of Christ as being in the most literal sense of the words a satisfaction' to the Divine justice, he does not render much more honour to the character of the Deity than if he had stated those sufferings to be a satisfaction to his vengeance: for how can we appreciate the mild characteristics of that justice which is not to be appeased except by the sufferings of the innocent? Yet the R. R. author has expressly declared that the sufferings of Christ,' though not an appeasement of God's wrath,' are in the most literal meaning of the words a satisfaction to his justice. At p. 273. it is asked, 'What must be the enormity of that guilt, which God's MERCY could

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not pardon, till the only begotten Son of God had undergone its punishment? Cannot that mercy, which is infinite, pardon the temporal offences of frail and imperfect beings without the infliction of torture on the purest virtue and innocence? Like many other theologians, in discussing the topic of the Atonement, Bishop Horsley makes a separation between the justice and the mercy of God: but can one of these divine attributes ever be in opposition to the other? In the bosom of erring man, there may be a separation between justice and mercy: but, in the unerring mind of the Universal Father, these two qualities can never be disjoined, and, whatever he wills, he must necessarily will both in justice and in mercy.

In another part of this volume, the learned author has advocated the doctrine of human liberty, which he attempts to reconcile with the Divine omniscience, but not perhaps in a manner that will be generally satisfactory. We will quote a passage on this abstruse yet interesting subject:

However difficult the thing may be for the human apprehension, the predetermination of all things which is implied in the idea of the Divine omniscience, leaves men no less morally free, and makes their future doom no less subject to the contingency of their own actions, than if nothing were foreseen, nothing decreed in consequence of foreknowledge. The foreknowledge of an action, and the purpose of reward or punishment arising from that foreknowledge, being no more a cause of the action to which reward or punishment will be due, than the knowledge of any past action, and the resolution of certain measures to be taken in consequence of it, are causes of the action which give rise to the resolution; the knowledge of a fact, whether the thing known be past or future, being quite a distinct thing from the causes that produce it. Neither the foreknowledge therefore of the Deity, though perfect and infallible, nor any predestination of individuals to happiness or misery, which may necessarily result from that foreknowledge, however unaccountable the thing may seem, is any impediment to human liberty; nor is any man's doom decreed, unless it be upon a foresight of his life and character." (Pp. 295, 296.)

We confess that it does not appear to us that even the sagacity of Bishop Horsley has here thrown much light over this metaphysical abyss.

ART. XII. Transactions of the Geological Society, established November 13. 1807. Volume IV. Part I. 4to. pp. 116. Sewed. W. Phillips. 1816.

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Or the three articles which compose this commencement of

another volume of the Geological Transactions, the first and by far the most extensive is intitled,

Observations on the Geology of Northumberland and Durham. By N. J. Winch, Esq. Hon. Mem. of the Geol. Soc. - In drawing up this important paper, Mr. Winch has combined the scattered remarks of others with the substance of his own, so as to present a general outline of the geology of a district celebrated for its mineral treasures; accompanied by short descriptions of its appropriate strata, a coloured map illustrative of its principal formations, and tabular sections of the workings. He commences his report with a short account of the red sand-stone which prevails in the south-eastern part of the county of Durham, and which is connected with a numerous series of associated layers of white, grey, or red sandstone, red or blue shale, coaly matter, in thin seams, and gypsum, in nodules or beds. This sand-stone, from its great depth and other characters, appears to be analogous to that extensive formation of the same substance and colour which, in Nottinghamshire, lies to the west of the magnesian lime-stone. This last mentioned rock, which stretches towards Shields and Tynemouth, narrowing as it proceeds northwards, overlies the coal-measures, and is now too well known to require that we should dilate on its properties. Its local affections, however, as they are recorded by Mr. Winch, will be found deserving of attention. Among the few vestiges which it offers of organic remains, one of the most remarkable is the impression of a fish which seems to have belonged to the genus Chaetodon. It also furnishes specimens of the cast of an encrinite, of a reticulated alcyonium, of bivalves resembling muscles, &c.

In his delineation of the extensive coal-fields of Newcastle and Sunderland, the author advances little that is new: but he treats this valuable department of his subject with so much distinctness, that a person unacquainted with its constitution and features needs scarcely apply to any other source of information. The organic remains which occur in this division of the survey, and one of the most considerable of the basaltic dykes in the neighbourhood of Newcastle, which intersects the strata and has obviously charred the coal adjacent to itself, suggest notices that will be perused with interest even by the curious in geology.

'Whatever be the throw or difference of level occasioned in the coal-measures by these dykes, it never happens, as might be expected, that a precipitous face of rock is left on the elevated side; or that the lower side is covered by an alluvial deposit, which connects the inequality of the beds that are in situ; but the surface of the ground covering the vein is rendered level by the absolute removal of the rocky strata on the elevated side. The same phenomena have been observed in other parts of the kingdom; and

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render evident the operation of a most powerful agent employed in tearing up the surface, and in dispersing the fragments of the ruin.

In the coal-measures near the edges of those dykes, rounded pebbles, of sand-stone and fragments of coal cemented together by sand, are sometimes met with; as in Lawson Main, Sheriff Hill, and Montagu Main collieries.

'Galena has been found in a dyke in Willington colliery, and a small string of the same ore has been observed in the main dyke at Whitley. A salt spring issues from a slip in Birtley colliery.

The dykes are an endless source of difficulty and expence to the coal-owner, throwing the seamìs out of their levels, and filling the mines with water and fire-damp. At the same time they are not without their use; when veins are filled, as is often the case, with stiff clay, numerous springs are dammed up and brought to the surface; and by means of downcast dykes, valuable beds of coal are preserved, which would otherwise have cropped out and been lost altogether.. Thus the high-main, the five-quarter, and the seven-quarter coal seams would not now have existed, in the country to the north of the main dyke, but for the general depression of the beds occasioned by that chasm.'

The order, nature, and thickness of the respective strata, which have been ascertained in the different collieries of this district, are minutely registered in 19 continuous pages; thus forming a valuable document, which may be consulted as a standard of comparison with similar formations in other countries.

Mr. Winch next proceeds to mention the different mineral springs which occur within the boundaries of the coal-field. Of these the most common are of a chalybeate character, but some are impregnated with common salt; and one in particular, recently analyzed by Dr. Clanny, will probably be found useful in medicine.

The author's observations on the noxious airs of coal-pits, though short, are judicious; and, as they relate to a subject of distressing importance, we conceive it to be our duty to promote their publicity.

'The choak-damp, the fire-damp, and the after-damp, or stythe, are the miners' terms for the gases with which the coal-mines are affected; and of these, the second, both from its immediate violence and as occasioning the other kind of damps, is the most to be dreaded. The accidents arising from it have become more common of late years, but it should not for a moment be supposed that they arise from any want of skill or attention in the professional surveyors of the mines. The following seem to be the causes in which the gas originates,

1st. The coal appears to part with a portion of carburetted hydrogene, when newly exposed to the atmosphere; a fact rendered probable by the well-known circumstance of the coal being

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