of the Scriptures; but, in" Scripture Illustrated," the arrangement is pursued into detail. Dissertation II. is entitled Adam naming the Animals.' As it occupies only two pages, it might have been less pompously designated, more especially as we do not perceive that it throws much new light on the subject. Dr. H. supposes that the design of the historian was merely to state, that God having created the living creatures, Adam gave names to such as were brought before him, and that he perceived that the creatures were paired, whereas he ' had no mate.'

Understanding the passage literally, however,' he remarks, 'some commentators have insisted, that all the animals came to present themselves before Adam, both in acknowledgement of his supremacy,' and to receive from him a name; and that this was all done at one time, or in the course of a natural day. But it is not necessary to multiply miracles; nor to suppose as PEYRERUS cavils [Systemat. theol. præadamit. hypoth. P. i. l. iii. c. 2. p. 154], that the elephants were to come from the remote parts of India and Africa, the bears from the polar regious, the sloth from South America, together with the various animals, the several kinds of birds, and the innumerable species of reptiles and insects, to say nothing of the tenants of the waters, to receive names from Adam, which could be of no use to them, and very little to him, who might never see one of a thousand of them again, or, if he did, be able to recollect the name which he had given. It is enough to suppose, that the animals inhabiting the dis trict in which he dwelt, received from him names; and not that the numerous tribes of living creatures were paraded before him, and that he made a nomenclature of the appellation he saw fit to give to each. Far less is it necessary to suppose that all the beasts and birds appeared before Adam at once, or even on one and the same day. Though the transaction is related in a few words, we ought not therefore to conclude that it took up only the space of a few hours. If we attend to the circumstances, we should rather infer that this was a work of considerable time. Indeed, the words of the historian do not require us to believe that Adam now gave names to all the living creatures, but are rather a remark, that the names which they had, were given by him; not all at once, in the space of one day, for that would have been too much for him, but that he named them, some at one time, and some at another in the course of his life, as they came within the sphere of his observation, or incidents happened to give occasion for him so doing.

There are not wanting instances in scripture, where as general expressions as this of "every living creature," admit of great limitation. So Ezek. xxxi. 6. " All the fowls of heaven made their nests in its boughs, and under its branches did all the beasts of the field bring forth their young, and under its shadow dwelt all great nations." Thus, when it is said, that Noah took all the animals into the ark, it is to be understood that he took pairs or more, as directed, of those Vol. XXII. N.S. 20

which had became domesticated, or particularly belonged to the region in which he dwelt; and the destruction of all the other animals must mean of that country or places adjacent; for I adopt the hypothesis that the flood was as extensive only as human population. Nor is the expression in Gen. vi. 47, "all flesh under heaven," contrary to this interpretation. Comp. Deut. ii. 25.

The difficulty on this subject will be greatly relieved by an attention to the original of the passage. Our English version says, "the Lord God brought them unto Adam, to see what he would call them" but the word "them" has no authority from the Hebrew text; the pronoun is in the singular number, not plural; and the next sentence expresses this more fully, the words being, not as rendered in our version, "whatsoever Adam called every living creature," [there is no word in the text for "every,"] but, whatsoever Adam called the living creature, that was the name of IT.

"In this way," as Dr. SHUCKFORD suggests [Account of the Creation, &c. p. 38], "GOD was pleased to instruct and exercise Adam in the use of speech, to show him how he might use sounds of his own to be the names of things; calling him to give a name to one creature, and then another; and hereby putting him upon seeing how words might be made for this purpose. Adam understood the instruction, and practised according to it :" and accordingly, in the progress of his life, as the creatures came under his observation, he used this ability, and gave names to them all.

'After he had been called to this trial and exercise of his voice, we find him able to give name to the woman, and likewise to all other things as his occasion required.' pp. xx. xxi.

The idea that the animals were brought to Adam to afford him an occasion of exercising his untried powers of speech, is more fanciful, we think, than satisfactory. We do not see why it should not be viewed as an occasion rather for exercising his intellectual faculties. But the real design of the transaction is intimated in the eighteenth verse which introduces it; and they are very properly connected in Dr. Boothroyd's version: "And God Jehovah said, It is not good that Adam "should be alone: I will make for him a suitable help-mate. "For although God Jehovah had formed out of the ground every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air, and had brought them to Adam to see how he would call them ;* (that whatever Adam should call any animal might be its "name;) and although Adam had given names to the cattle, "and to all the fowls of the air, and to all the beasts of the "field; yet, for Adam there had not been found a suitable help-mate." To suppose that, literally, a beast and a bird

Mr. Bellamy contends that it should be rendered, which he "brought for Adam to consider what he should call them."

of every species were brought before Adam, and for the sole purpose of receiving names from him, (the reptiles and fishes being excluded from his nomenclature, for of them no mention is made,) is surely quite irrational. On the other hand, to extend the transaction here recorded to an indefinite period, -the progress of his life, as the creatures came under his ob'servation,' is doing violence to the narrative. We recollect, indeed, to have somewhere met with a grave attempt to prove that Adam lived in celibacy for a long course of years before the formation of woman, founded on the calculation how long a period it must have occupied to compose a zoological and ornithological system! Such are the reveries of the learned.

The

Dissertation III. is far more important: it is on the Mosaical distinction of animals, clean and unclean.' Scripture,' remarks Dr. Harris, which is our safest guide in inquiries of this nature, informs us (Levit. xx. 24-6.) that the design was both moral and political, being intended to preserve the Jews a distinct people from the nations of idolatry.

1. The immediate and primary intention of the law was, as I apprehend, to break the Israelites from the ill habits they had been accustomed to or indulged in Egypt, and to keep them for ever distinct from that corrupt people, both in principles and practices; and, by parity of reason, from all other idolatrous nations. No more simple nor effectual method could be devised for preventing or ensnaring intercourse, or dangerous assimilation, than by a law regulating their food; for nothing separates one people from another more, than that one should eat what the other considers as unlawful, or rejects as improper. Those who cannot eat and drink together, are never likely to become intimate. We see an instance of this in the case of the Egyptians, who, from time immemorial, had been accustomed to consider certain animals as improper for food, and therefore to avoid all intercourse with those who ate or even touched what they deemed defiling. (See Gen. xliii. 32.) Hence they and the Hebrews could not eat together; and of course could not associate or live together. Accordingly, they assigned that people, when they had come down to dwell in their country, a separate district for their residence: for some of the animals which the Hebrews ate, were, among them, not indeed unclean, but sacred, being so expressly consecrated to a deity that they durst not slaughter them. The Hebrews, by killing and eating these animals, must appear not only odious, but sacrilegious, transgressing the rules of good behaviour and offending the gods. Other animals, as several of the birds of prey, were also held sacred by the Egyptians, or were venerated in the rites of augury. The Hebrews, being instructed to consider these as unclean, would be prevented from the indulgence of the like superstition. Hence Origen, contra Celsum, 1. iv. justly admired the Jewish ritual, and observes, that those animals which are prohibited by Moses, were such as were reputed sacred by the Egyptians, and used in divination by other nations. Ta vo

παρ Αιγυπτίοις και τοις λοιποις των avłęwπwv partina. And Montfaucon, in his Hexapl. Orig., has published a fragment of Eusebius Emisenus, from a manuscript Catena in the library of the king of France, which may be thus translated: "God wills that they should eat some kinds of flesh, and that they should abstain from others, not that any of them in themselves were common or unclean, but this he did on two accounts; the one was, that he would have those animals to be eaten which were worshipped in Egypt, because eating them would render their pretensions most contemptible. And, pursuant to the same opinion, he forbids the eating of those kinds which the Egyptians used to eat very greedily and luxuriously, as the swine, &c. The other reason was, that their properties and natures seemed to lay a prejudice in the way of some of these, and to render them, as it were, a sort of profanation. Some were monstrously big, others very ugly, others fed upon dead bodies, and to others human nature had an inbred antipathy; so that, in the main, what the law forbid, was human nature's aversion before." Thus were the Jews taught to distinguish themselves from that people, not only in their religious worship, not being allowed" to sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians," Exod. viii. 26, but to deviate from them in the most common actions in life. By having a diet peculiar to themselves, by eating in one instance that to which the others attributed a certain sanctity, as the ox, the sheep, and the goat, and by holding in detestation those creatures which the others venerated as sacred, as the hawk, &c. they would be precluded 'from all intimacy or agreement; and of course from becoming corrupted by their idolatries or addicted to their superstitions.

Not only were the Egyptians, but other heathen nations, and particularly the Canaanites, grossly corrupt in their manners, morals, and worship; and this restriction with respect to diet, was alike calcu"lated to prevent intimacies with them; so that in no instance should "their table become a snare, or their entertainments a trap." Psal. Ixix. 22.

"This statute, above all others, established not only a political and sacred, but a physical separation of the Jews from all other people It made it next to impossible for the one to mix with the other either in meals, in marriage, or in any familiar connexion. Their opposite customs in the article of diet, not only precluded a friendly and comfortable intimacy, but generated mutual contempt and abhorrence. The Jews religiously abhorred the society, manners, and institutions of the Gentiles, because they viewed their own abstinence from forbidden meats as a token of peculiar sanctity, and of course regarded other nations, who wanted this sanctity, as vile and detestable. They considered themselves as secluded by God himself from the profane world by a peculiar worship, government, law, dress, mode of living, and country. Though this separation from other people, on which the law respecting food was founded, created in the Jews a criminal pride and hatred of the Gentiles; yet it forcibly operated as a preservative from heathen idolatry, by precluding all familiarity with idolatrous nations."

So bigoted were the Jews in the observance of this law, that by

no reproaches, no threats, no sufferings, nay hardly by a new command from God himself, could they be brought to lay it aside. See 1 Maccab. i. 63; Ezek. iv. 14; Acts x. 14.

Though some thousand years have passed since this discriminating ritual was given to the Jews, and though they have been scattered abroad among every nation upon earth; though their government and temple have been entirely destroyed, yet this prohibition of particular foods has been regarded, and has served, with other reasons, to keep them distinct and separate from every other people.

• We find Peter, after the vision recorded in the 10th chapter of the Acts, when he had entered the house of Cornelius, observed to the people who were present, "Ye know that it is not lawful for a man that is a Jew to keep company with, or come unto one of another nation; but God hath shewed me that I should call no man unclean. "Here," says Mr. JONES, in his Zoologia Ethica, "we have an apostolical comment ugon the sense of the vision. God had shewed him that henceforward he should call no living creatures unclean which were in any sense proper for food; and by these brutes of all kinds he understands men of all nations. And, without question, he applied the vision to what the wisdom of God intended to express by it. The case was this: St. Peter, as a Jew, was bound to abstain from all those animals, the eating of which was prohibited by the law of Moses: but God showed him that he should no longer account these animals unclean. And what does he understand by it? That he should no longer account the heathen so. • God hath shewed me that I should call no man common or unclean;' or, to speak in other words borrowed from the apostle, God hath shewed me that a Jew is now at liberty to keep company with or come unto one of another nation;' which, so long as the Mosaic distinction betwixt clean and unclean beasts was in force, it was not lawful for him to do." pp. xxv xxviii.

This view of the design of the law has been pursued with much learning by the Rev. Arthur Young, in his ingenious inquiry into the ancient idolatry, published about the middle of the last century. The other reasons adduced by Christian and Jewish rabbies, may be dispensed with. The latter contend, that the quality of the food as having a specific influence on the moral temperature, entered into the reason of the prohibition of certain animals; and Michaelis gravely combats the notion, as destitute of proof, that it is their eating camel's flesh so frequently, that makes the Arabs so prone to revenge. Yet, he inclines to suppose that dietetical considerations might, in the case of certain animals, influence the Jewish legislator. He does not, as Dr. Harris erroneously represents, assign it as the principal reason, but adds: Only we are not to seek ⚫ for them in all the prohibitions relative to unclean beasts.**

Smith's Michaelis, Vol. III. p. 230.