FORSYTH'S POSTHUMOUS SERMONS, AND OBSERVATIONS ON GENESIS AND EXODUS.

THE late Robert Forsyth, a Scotch advocate of eminence, was a very re- markable man. In a brief autobiographical fragment, included in the Memoir prefixed to this volume, he describes his paredts as "extremely poor, but they resolved to make me a minister if in their power." His mother taught him to read English : he" began Latin at a parish-school, at seven years old, and continued till twelve, learning very little " ; but he had acquired a love of reading, and devoured many English books which were lent him by the villagers, including the Persian and Turkish Tales, Paradise Lost, Josephus, and Young's Night Thoughts. "With much difficulty, on account of poverty,' he writes, "I was sent to Lanark School, eleven miles distant, at twelve or thirteen years old " ; and "learned more in a few months than I had done in five years before." At fourteen he was sent to Glasgow College, where he "learned little " ; and at fifteen the situation of tutor in a gentleman's family was procured for him, "by our minister, Mr. Pearson. This vocation he pursued in three successive families, lill he was about twenty ; when he became a preacher or licentiate of the Church of Scotland. He found "much pleasure" in preaching ; but Lavin no interest, he was uniformly ma- successful in obtaining any living that became vacant. " Wauchope of Niddry at one time' and at another Gillespie the snuff-merchant, prevailed with Henry Dundas to give churches to my competitors." Thus baffled, he became angry with his profession ; lay awake a whole night deliber- ating whether he would take to physic or the bar; and decided upon the latter. His struggles with the two great powers of the Church and the Law, as well as with the law itself, are best told in his own words. "I resolved, at the same time, to conceal my views, that I might preserve the power of taking the situation of a parish minister if it should come in my way. But the concealment exposed me to this inconvenience, that I could consult no- body as to the mode in which the law ought to be studied. I supposed I meat read Justinian's Pandects for the Boman Law, and then all the Acts of Parlia- ment for Modern Law.

"I had began with the Pandects, and had read and taken notes of forty-five books, before I learned that there was a more royal (easier) road to the knowledge of the law, by the aid of commentators and abridgments.

"I attended the law-classes and joined a civil-law class. We (the aft/dents) formed ourselves into a club, let met once a week. Mr. (now Sir Walter) Scott was one of our club, and showed good sense, but no unusual powers.

"I next presented to the Court of Session a petition to be remitted to trial by the Faculty of Advocates. That body were terrified lest, on my example, a mu titede of preachers should profane and ruin their profession. There existed at that time also a high aristocratical spirit in the body. They were offended that a poor man's son should presume to intrude into thew body. I was therefore op-

paged. But a restless energy had by this time arisen in my mind. With great feeling and modesty, even to bashfulness, I was fearless and intrepid if brought into public view. I complained to the Court. The objection was, that I was a

preacher, and must renounce that profession. I resisted this, and made a long speech at the bar. The Court decided that I must resignvilege i as a preacher or licentiate of the Church of Scotland. It was supposed that, n the

fkce of opposition by the Faculty to my admission to the bar, would not venture to do so; but I immediately tendered my resignation to the Presbytery that had granted my licence. It was objected that such a licence could not be resigned, as m the Presbyterian Church every individual may preach and exhort, and a licence is merely a certificate of a man's morals and literature, certifying that he is quali- fied to teach, and may safely be ordained a clergyman. My resignation was, however, ultimately accepted. "September 19. Still the Faculty resisted; but the Lord President (Islay Campbell) insisted that they were now acting improperly. I was admitted to trial, and passed," (in 1792.)

Forsyth's real difficulties, though he says but little of them, could but now have begun. Entering "very sanguinely into the notions of the first French Reformers," he was induced to join the Society of Friends of the People ; and, as far as the influence of power and a profitable public opinion were concerned, was of course under professional ban. He with difficulty supported himself by teaching law, and some very trifling employment at the bar : but he kept free from debt ; studied many sciences, to write upon them ; was employed by the booksellers, and be- came one of the standing staff on the first edition of the Encliclopadia Britannica. His contribution on Agriculture was reprinted as a book in 1804; next year he published a Treatise on Moral Science ; and in 1806 his most extensive and best-known work, "The Beauties of Scot- land." But as extensive knowledge, enormous powers of working, and the sciences he had learned in order to teach, coupled perhaps with a recantation of his Reforming heresies, gradually introduced him to an extensive practice, he discontinued the "laborious employment" of writing for the booksellers, and rose to legal eminence and large income. He was born in 1766, and died in 1845.

We have seen that Robert Forsyth did not exactly entertain the Trac- tarian notions of the ministry, or consider himself a sacred person set apart from secular pursuits. Neither did his doctrinal views verge to- wards the Evangelicals. They appear to have resembled the old-fashioned opinions of Christianity that we described in our late notice of Sydney Smith's Sermons. His religious opinions, however, were strongly en- tertained to the last ; his note-books are full of theological reflections ; and he employed the leisure of advancing life in composing the two corn • mentaries on Genesis and Exodus which form a portion of this volume. The seven discourses that complete his posthumous theological writings were mostly, if not entirely, composed in early manhood, when he was preaching in various churches as a "probationer."

The Observations on Genesis and Exodus appear to have been spe- cimens or subordinate parts of a very extensive work on the illustration of Bible History, which he early contemplated, and the notion of which he never perhaps wholly abandoned. It is probably unfortu- nate for the fame of Robert Forsyth that the law diverted him from this purpose—if he could have written his illustrations in the style of these commentaries without having been a lawyer. Profound theological or archmological learning they do not display, though they are sufficient in both of these points ; but they possess novelty, character, and interest, from the habits of mind of the trained lawyer and metaphysician. The case has been thoroughly studied in its entire extent, not only as regards what is to be used but what is to be rejected or kept back in reserve : hence a mastery of the subject on the side the writer looks at it. The case is also well stated : much that is mystical, and some that is drama- tic or poetic, may escape ; but the essential facts are there, drawn together and marshalled in order. The argument is also full and close, with much of the independence or indifference of the advocate as to the subject mat- ter, or persons, provided his view can be upheld. To support religion, is indeed the object of Robert Forsyth's Observations ; but it is a rational religion something made sufficiently intelligible to entitle him to "ask for a verdict," unless where an occasional theory of his own may be pro- mulgated, and even those rare speculations look reasonable.

As an example of what we mean, so far as a mere specimen can give an example, we will quote his remarks on the inspiration of Moses in composing Genesis.

"Moans does not mention the sources from which he derived the information that enabled him to write the book of Genesis. It is a very loose and unsatis- factory mode of testing the matter, to say that he was inspired, and that he learned his facts by inspiration. He does not say so; although in his other books, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, he never hesitates to represent his knowledge as proceeding from a supernatural source when the fact is so. The book of Genesis contains many details of communications to men by superior beings. Facts are also recorded, such as the progress of creation, which could have no human witness, because they occurred before the creation of man, or consisted in part of the formation of the first man himself, of winch he could not be a spectator or witness. A knowledge of these transactions must have been derived from information given by a preexisting being or beings. But it is not said that God communicated these facts to Moses by inspiration, by voice, or dream., or vision or otherwise. The probability is, that in the family of Abraham and his descendants, there existed written notices of their transactions and of the history of their progenitors. Other families, especially those that settled in Egypt, had recor& which are now lost. It is believed on the authority of Pagan as well as Christian authors, that Tautes or Hyoth (the Hermes or .Mercury of the Greeks,) left records. He was a son of llizraim, (or Moses,) one of the sons of Ham the son of Noah. Others, no doubt, did the same. Indeed, there are facts recorded in Genesis which imply that the author proceeded on records. Not only are minute details given of pedigree, and of the settlements of the first men but the account of the flood is singularly special as to dates. Nay, the figure and dimensions of the ark are stated even to inches in length, breadth, and height; while the general form, (as will be presently noticed,) is contrived on the soundest principles of mechanical science, thereby indicating the troth of the whole statement. The book of Genesis also contains details of special trans- actions, such as the adventures of Dinah, Judah, and Reuben, whidi, although instructive as showing the manners of the age, bear no mark of supernatural in- spiration. The Jews also had other books. Thus, in Genesis it is merely said that Terah, the father of Abraham, left Chaldea with his family and went West- ward, but stopped at Haran. No reason for this emigration is mentioned; but in

the book of Judith it is explained that the Chaldean s had become idolatrous and intolerant. They cast them out from the face of their gods, and they fled into Mesopotamia, and sojourned there many days.' The book of Jethro is more than once mentioned in the Old Testament, and the prophecy of Seth is mentioned by Jude.

"On the whole, I am disposed to regard the book of Genesis as, in general, a compilation made from more ancient records. But it has this peculiarity, that the compiler, Moses, was a man who had communication with a Superior Being: the effect of which was, first, to protect him against inserting anything in the narrative that, although obscure, was absolutely, inconsistent with truth; secondly, to direct him, in framing the book, to record events and transactions important to be known by mankind in succeeding ages; and, thirdly, it enabled and authorized him to represent events not merely as ordinary occurrences result- ing from what is called the course of nature, but rather as acts of the Divine Sovereign of the world, by whom its physical constitution (course of nature) has been so framed as to suit its moral history."

The Observations on Exodus are less full than those on Genesis, but equally able so far as they go. They chiefly consist of the character and conduct of Moses, the departure from Egypt, and the reason for the de- struction of the Canaanites, in punishing idolatry and famishing a warn- ing to the Jews. The Sermons (some of which are incomplete) have not so striking a character as the Observations ; but the youth was father of the man in a

remarkable n with Robert Forsyth. If these discourses were not touched in after years his maturity of mind when little beyond his teens is very singular, and though they may want the compass, they have the closeness, fulness, and perhaps the hardness of his age. It is also satis- factory to see that his opinions ire the church were the same as after he had left it. Justification by faith he would not deny, still less the necessity of mediation, (on which point he was firmly orthodox) ; but his Sermons contain more of reasoning in favour of the advantage of good works, or of exhortation from the circumstances of life, than any appeals to a mystical imagination.