timate, that a difference of opinion on the merits of the Bible Society, could justify a severity of language, or the imputation of improper motives. We speak of the spirit in which the present assault has been made, the utter faithlessness by which it has been characterized, the bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, with all malice, which have been exhibited in the false accusations brought against the Society, the dereliction of integrity which they betray, and, above all, the scarcely concealed infidelity which calls in question the utility of distributing the sacred Scriptures. Putting these together, we say, that every principle of Christianity forbids the compromising courtesy into which Mr. Scholefield has been, with the best intentions, betrayed. Bishop Watson has been often blamed, and not without reason, for his excess of courtesy towards Gibbon. Yet, it is observable that, towards the heathen, the Apostles always maintained a marked courtesy and forbearance: their severest language was reserved for the false teacher and the blind guide. Mr. Scholefield would be shocked and scandalised at a person's charitably ascribing to Mr. Carlile an honest desire' to promote the welfare of his country, though unfortunately he mistook the means. Yet, on comparing the respective proofs of an honest 'desire' in the two cases, he would find that he has been guilty of scarcely less impropriety. So analogous, to say the least, are the essential traits of conduct and character betrayed in the malignant opposition made to the circulation of the Scriptures, that it may seem to be referrible to the sovereign dispensations of Providence, rather than to any moral difference in the individuals, that Mr. Carlile is not the dignified reviler of the Bible Society, and H. H. Norris the half-starved vender of sedition and blasphemy in Fleet-street.

Art. VII. Observations on the Conduct and Character of Judas Iscariot: in a Letter to the Rev. Mr. James Primrose, by the Rev. John Bonar, one of the Ministers of Perth. A new Edition. 18mo. pp. 51. Edinburgh. 1822.

THE

HE Author of this Tract, which has long been out of print, was one of the ministers of Perth, from 1756 to 1761, when he was cut off in the midst of his usefulness. Dr. Doddridge has recommended it, in his Lectures, as setting the important testimony of the apostate Judas to the innocency of his Master in a most just and beautiful light.' The encomium of such a man will supersede any opinion of ours; nor can we have any hesitation in recommending the Tract to the perusal

of our readers, notwithstanding that we differ from the Writer on a few minor points. Those persons who have never hitherto considered the force of the argument in favour of the Divine mission of our Lord, supplied by the conduct and confession of Judas, will be much pleased with these Observations.

The exceptions which we are inclined to make to the correctness of the Author's statements, do not affect the validity of his argument. That Judas knew Christ to be the true Messiah,' is very far from being evident from Matt. xxvi. 49; Luke xxii. 48. They afford, in our opinion, not even a presumption in favour of the supposition. Nor do we consider the term "Son of Man," as ever having a sense equivalent to Messiah. It is clearly a term of humiliation, under which our Lord speaks of himself. It is observable that Judas, so far from acknowledging his Master to be Messiah, addresses our Lord by a different compellation from that used by the Eleven at the Passover. When our Lord told them, that one of their number should betray him, they began every one to say, "Lord, " is it I?" But Judas, when he at last puts the same question, says, "Master, is it I?" (Matt. xxvi. 22, 25.)

That Judas had cherished his diabolical project long before our Lord went up to Jerusalem, we consider as another gratuitous, and indeed improbable notion. But it would lead us too far, to shew, from the Gospel history, the reasons which appear to us to lie against the supposition.

The greatest difficulty in explaining the conduct of the Traitor, arises from his selling his Master for such a trifle as 31. 15s. or, according to Dean Prideaux, 41. 10s. of our money; when one is apt to think, that his covetousness would have led him to demand, and the eagerness of the Jewish rulers would have made them willing to give, a much greater sum. Mr. Bonar's explanation is, that he acted from the mixed motive of covetousness and resentment combined; and that impatient for revenge, he had not coolness enough to make the most advantageous bargain. Macknight has a long and fanciful note on the subject, which displays all his characteristic ingenuity and boldness; but his reasoning is weak, and his conclusion quite inadmissible. His notion is, that Judas, becoming excessively impatient at our Lord's not assuming the dignity of Messiah, hit upon the scheme of delivering his Master into the hands of the council, as the shortest way to oblige him to assume his power, and enter on the regal dignity. He admits that resentment urged him on to the execution of this design, but thinks that he had no idea of exposing his Master to death. The most judicious part of the note is the concluding sentence: However, as the motives of men's actions at such a distance of time, must

' needs be intricate, especially where history is in a great. measure silent concerning them, we ought to be very modest. in our attempts to unravel them: for which cause, the above. account of Judas's conduct is proposed only as a conjecture. worthy of further inquiry.' Bishop Porteus says: It ap-. pears to me, that the acquittal or condemnation of Jesus. 'never entered into Judas's contemplation. All he thought. of was gain. He had kept the common purse, and had robbed. it; and his only object was to obtain a sum of money, which. he determined to have at all events, and left consequences to. 'take care of themselves. But when he saw that his Divine. Master, whom he knew to be perfectly innocent, was actu-. ally condemned to death, his conscience then flew in his face,. his guilt rose up before him in all its horrors.' This account. of the matter does not by any means adequately explain all. the circumstances of the case; nor does it seem to us credible,. that, if his only object had been to obtain a sum of money, he. would coolly have adhered to so paltry a bargain. His con-. duct was not that of a man who thought only of immediate. gain; for, though covetousness was probably his ruling passion,. and his following Christ was from sinister motives, yet, he. must have been governed in such a step by long-sighted cal-. culations of ultimate advantage, and his character appears to. have been marked by consummate prudence. That we may. not fall under the charge of merely raising objections, the. common fault of critics, without contributing to a satisfactory solution of the difficulty, we shall transcribe from some ma-nuscript notes to which we have access, what appears to us the most Scriptural view of the conduct of the Traitor.

"Of the motive by which Judas was actuated in betraying our Lord, different explanations have been given. But the inquiry is more curious than important. That he was a thief," a hard-hearted man who cared not for the poor, and in that instance at least a hypocrite, is certain. (John xii. 6.) But the trifling sum for which he sold his master and his own soul, could hardly have been a sufficient temptation, especially when his resolution was taken before he knew whether he could make any bargain with the priests. Sudden resentment could not have been his motive, for it was no hasty act, but had been for days premeditated. There can 'be no doubt that, as a worldly-minded and covetous man, he ⚫ had not only shared in the astonishment and disappointment ' of the other disciples, at finding the kingdom of our Lord was not, as they imagined, a temporal reign,-at learning that Christ must suffer," and that riches were incompatible 'with becoming his disciple; but his faith was unequal to the VOL. XIX. N. S.

H

trial. Though he did not desert Christ, still cherishing, perhaps, the hope of eventual aggrandisement, it is plain that he" believed not." See John vi. 64-71. His disappoint'ment was heightened by his covetousness, till it probably. ⚫ excited the most malignant feelings towards our Lord as the occasion of it. The promises of future glory, which sustained the sinking faith of the other disciples, and the personal attachment which kept them faithful when hope had forsaken their minds, had no influence on Judas. Deep-rooted ma⚫ lignity must have taken possession of his soul, to account for the expression, "Satan entered him." At the instigation of the "Father of murderers," to whom his own evil passions had ⚫ made him a prey, he resolved on putting his Master into the hands of his enemies. It is possible that he might think by ⚫ this private bargain to make his peace with the Jewish rulers, and to provide for his worldly interests, which he had sacri⚫ficed on becoming a follower of Jesus; while his avarice made him grasp at the paltry reward for which he bargained. It is ⚫ a great mistake, however, to suppose that he acted upon any cool calculations of profit. The Scriptures lead us to attrí⚫bute to his motives the highest malignity, and to believe that ' he was urged on to the commission of his crime by the im• mediate influence of the Enemy of souls; a fact wholly lost sight of by the interpreters who would resolve his conduct into ordinary principles.

Art. VIII. Remarks on the Indians of North America, in a Letter to an Edinburgh Reviewer. 8vo. pp. 64. London. 1822.

THE Irish, the Hindoos, and the North American Indians,

have, superadded to their claims on British benevolence as men, the stronger claim which arises from their common character as fellow subjects. Besides the silent appeal which they make to us on the ground of their depressed condition, a louder voice than that of simple misery, speaks to us in their wrongs. And if the strength of their claim not only to compassion, but to reparation, be determined by the amount of injustice and injury they have suffered at the hands of their conquerors, perhaps, that of the North American Indians, would appear to be the strongest. Yet, hitherto, their condition has excited little or no attention on this side of the Atlantic.

A cold-blooded illuminé, however, who writes in the Edinburgh Review, has discovered that the Indians are incapable of emerging from barbarism; that the tendency to improvement which distinguishes man froin the lower animals, would seem

to be totally wanting to them.' We had thought that it was rather too late in the day for crude, and heartless, and baseless speculations of this kind to be put forth by philosophers. Before the establishment of the Haytian republic, before the moral revolution which has since taken place among the once unutterably degraded hordes of the South Sea Islands, such notions might have worn a degree of plausibility. The argument was invaluable to the abettors of the African slave-trade. But the Indians have proved themselves to be capable of civilization; the successes of Eliot and Brainerd are not yet forgotten; and the fact is capable of being established by the clearest historical evidence, that the tendency to improvement which had begun to develop itself in their adoption of the modes of civilized life, has been checked and stopped by the encroachments, the insidious policy, and the outrages of Europeans.

The destruction of the Indians, in the now peopled parts of North America, has been accomplished too gradually, and by means too obviously barbarous and human, to be attributable to any other agency than that of man...... From a passage in the Biographia Britannica, it appears, that, in Lord Egmont's manuscripts, there are preserved certain reflections of Carteret, Lord Granville, on education and colonial government. With deliberate heartlessness, he reproves the converting of the Indians, because the knowledge of Christianity will introduce them to a knowledge of the arts, and such a consummation will make them dangerous to our plantations.'

We rejoice to learn from this highly interesting pamphlet, that, at the present moment, means are in active progress,' in America, to an extent almost beyond hope,' which make the permanent improvement of the condition of the Indians extremely probable. In the hope of receiving fuller information on this head, we take leave of the subject for the present, with recommending these Remarks of Philadelphus and the facts he has brought forward, to the attention of our readers. The Writer appears to us to confound, in one place, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, with the New England Society.

Art. IX. Thomas Johnson's Further Reasons for Dissenting from the Church of England: in two Dialogues with Mr. Sikes and Jolin' Twilight. 24mo. pp. 48. Price 4d. London. 1822.

TH

HOMAS Johnson, although a plain man, is both reflective and conscientious. He is evidently averse to think by proxy, even though it should be in the venerable person of a regularly constituted priest, with all the dignity of Apostolic