in good part the remarks I presumed to offer in the discussion in which you are engaged, I shall be happy if the thoughts which I have with some diligence put together on the present subject, meet with your approbation. The company expressed high satisfaction, and Synesius continued his address.. It is somewhat extraordinary that in the history of the transgression of the first parents of mankind, at the beginning of our sacred books, it should be so very generally current with the learned as well as the unlearned, that by the serpent, who is represented as misleading them to violate the command of their maker, we are to understand, a wicked spirit, the supposed enemy and opposer of God, and author of all evil; when at the same time Moses, who gives us the account of the transaction, never intimates that it is so to be understood, in this, or in any other part of his writings. Neither, it is observable, do the learned Jewish writers, who were contemporary with the apostles of Christ, and whose writings happily remain, give into this interpretation, but generally supposed the serpent to signify men's depraved appetites and passions, or whatever, in their situations, could excite and entice our first parents to do evil and sin against God. That Moses himself did not intend to describe the evil being called the Devil, to have deceived Eve under the shape of a serpent, appears farther from his never making mention of such an evil being as having any existence at all then, or alluding to it afterwards in the five books ascribed to him. Whence we may reasonably conclude that he did not know or believe that there was any such powerful mischievous being, who had connexion with mankind; because, had he known it, he would not have failed to apprise his nation of it, and warn them of their danger from him. We must own indeed, that there is mention made of devils, in Leviticus xvii. 7. where it is said, They shall no more offer their sacrifices unto devils; after whom they have gone a-whoring; and in Deuteronomy xxxii. 17. we read, They sacrificed unto devils, not to God; to gods whom they knew not, to new gods that came newly up, whom your fathers feared not. This, however, is not the language of Moses, but of his translators, who knowing these to be the names of heathen gods, whom they took to be evil spirits, on that account gave them the name of devils, instead of preserving their true names, which they ought to have done. The word used in the original, in the first instance, o, soirm, signifies goats, hairy beings, the sacred animals of Egypt, worshipped by them with the most obscene rites. The other name in Deuteronomy,, sdim, is from a root that significs to desolate, to lay waste, to destroy, a proper characteristic of the gods of Canaan, who were of later date, # date, supposed to be deceased kings and mighty warriors, were worshipped by human sacrifices, and with whom the Israelites had become more lately acquainted; and for their compliance in this horrid worship, they are here and elsewhere severely reproved. See particularly Psalm cvi. 37, 38. Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils (O`TE, sdim, demons, dead men deified), and shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and their daughters, whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan*. It is not to be passed over here, that familiar spirits are spoken of in the books of Moses and other parts of the sacred history. And as this is presumed to have a reference to devils and witches, ignorant persons may thereby be imposed upon to think there is some reality in such things. But it should be told them, that the term familiar spirit has nothing to answer it in the original, but was put in of their own heads, by the learned men employed in the last translation of the Bible by authority, in the time of James I. soon after he came to the throne, to favour some notions of the king's about these matters; and in complaisance to him also in this respect, the laws of the country were made more severe against the super *Levit, xix. 31. XX. 6. Deut. xviii. II. 1 Sam. xxviii. 3, 7, 8, 9, 2 Kings xxi. 6. xxiii. 24. 1 Chron. X. 13. 2 Chron. xxxiii. 6. Isaiah viii. 19. xxix. 4. stitious stitious practices of sorcery and witchcraft. We are told that king James himself came off very much from these notions in his elder years; yet, as a wise and excellent person observes *, from whom I have this account, "when laws and translations are fixed, it is a difficult thing to change them.” It may be necessary here to obviate a common prejudice, that the Hebrew word Satan, to which corresponds the Greek word daßonos, diabolus, by which it is generally rendered in the Greek version of the Old Testament, that these words stand for the supposed evil being, as his proper name, which is by no means the case. For in their first and proper sense, they signify an enemy, adversary, calumniator, or the like; and to this sense we shall always do well to adhere, unless the circumstances of the passage demand the contrary. Thus Numb. xxii. 22. we read, And God's anger was kindled because he (Balaam) went ; and the angel of the LORD stood in the way for an adversary (Satan) against him. 2 Sam. xix. 22. And David said, What have I to do with you, ye sons of Zeruiah, that ye should this day be adversaries (Satan) unto me? In these and such like passages, every one will judge for himself, whether any thing more is to be understood than the plain construction of the words implies, without any farther reference. *See Dr. Hutchinson on Witchcraft, pages 178, 179, 180. 1 Chron. The parallel passages explain each other. Satan, provoking David to number Israel, was the advice of an enemy; the suggestions of pride and vain confidence in the strength and power of his dominions, and of odious ingratitude to God in leaving him, to whom all was owing, out of his thoughts, and out of the account. Zechariah iii. 1, 2. And he shewed me Joshua the high priest, standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right hand to resist him. And the LORD said unto Satan, The LORD rebuke thee, O Satan, even the LORD that hath chosen Israel rebuke thee! Joshua the high priest is in this passage stirred up to set about the building of the temple under the promise of divine assistance. The Samaritans (Prideaux, vol. i.) who opposed the building, are styled Satan the adversary. Probably the prophet meant no more by the LORD, Jehovah, speaking to the adversary, than that Jehovah would rebuke and restrain him. Archbishop Newcome, in his Translation of the Minor Prophets, shews, that in this passage the term Satan |