THE

ECLECTIC REVIEW,

FOR MAY 1829.

Art. I. 1. Mahometanism Unveiled: an Inquiry, in which that ArchHeresy, its Diffusion and Continuance, are examined on a new Principle, tending to confirm the Evidences, and aid the Propagation of the Christian Faith. By the Rev. Charles Forster, B.D. Chancellor of Ardfert, and Examining Chaplain to the Lord Bishop of Limerick. 2 vols. 8vo. pp. xlviii. 954. Price 24s. London, 1829. 2. The Mohammedan System of Theology: a Compendious Survey of the History and Doctrines of Islamism, contrasted with Christianity, together with Remarks on the Prophecies relative to its Dissolution. By the Rev. W. H. Neale, A.M., Chaplain of the County Bridewell, Gosport, Hants. 8vo. pp. 252. London, 1828. T will be one very beneficial result of the study of prophecy', which has of late been pursued with so much more ardour than success, should it lead to the more diligent and religious study of the unsealed volume of Divine Providence-history. In our last number, we had occasion to advert to the very inadequate cultivation which has hitherto been bestowed upon this important branch of Christian knowledge, and to the essentially defective character of our leading historical works. The charge which has been justly brought against our moral philosophers, is not less applicable to our historians, that they' place 'the religion of Christ in the relation of a diminutive satellite to the world of moral and eternal interests.'* The very terms,

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* Foster's Essays, p. 427. • When I mention our historians', remarks this truly philosophic Writer, it will instantly occur to you, that the very foremost names in the department, imply every thing that is deadly to the Christian religion itself as a Divine communication, and therefore lie under a condemnation of a different kind. But as to the generality of those who have not been regarded as enemies to the Christian cause, have they not forgotten what was due from its friends?' The Author proceeds to point out the anti-Christian spirit

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sacred and polite, as applied to literature, and intended to comprehend its whole range, indicate that history, the most important material of both, has not been regarded in its true light, since neither of these generic appellations will properly describe what it ought to be. It cannot obviously be included under sacred literature, the province of the theologian; and with still less propriety can it be regarded as a mere branch of polite study, the pursuit of the scholar and man of letters, without lowering its importance and vitiating its character. We lay no stress upon such terms of classification, except as they serve to perpetuate false distinctions, which have a positive influence on the minds of authors as well as of readers, determining the specific aim of the one, and the choice of reading made by the other. History is a serious thing. To speak of it as instructive, as the apt vehicle of moral and political lessons, as fraught with useful information, is not to describe its real character or importance. All this, a fable or a poem might be. But, viewed as the exhibition of moral agency, under the awful predicament in which mankind are placed, as the development of our nature in all its power and weakness, in connexion with the progress of a moral conflict,-the working together of opposing secondary causes in subserviency to the Supreme and Final Cause of all things,-every section of human history is pregnant with awful interest.

To this view of the subject we were led to advert, in noticing Mr. Bowdler's edition of Gibbon's "Decline and Fall"; and we intimated our intention to support it in future articles. We proceed to redeem our promise, happy to avail ourselves of the occasion afforded by the masterly production now before us. Of all the events in modern history, the rise, triumph, and perpetuation of the Mohammedan heresy, form incomparably the most remarkable, not excepting the fall of the Roman empire itself.

It is the remark of Dr. Johnson, cited by Mr. Forster, that 'there ' are two objects of curiosity,the Christian world and the Ma'hometan world: all the rest may be considered as barbarous'. We cannot subscribe to either position: the latter requires to be greatly qualified in order to be correct; and what is barbarous, is not less an object of enlightened curiosity, than all

and tendency of those false estimates of character, and those awards of approbation to the world's heroes, which exclude all reference to the decisions of the Final Judge. The irreligious principles upon which history has generally been written, are, however, evinced, not simply by the false estimates of character which it sanctions, in opposition to the Divine law, but by an atheistic representation of the events, in exclusion of the Divine providence.

that is polished in civilization. But we fully agree with the Author of "Mahometanism Unveiled", that, as the success of the Arabian imposture is the only event in the history of the human species, which admits of comparison with the propagation of Christianity, so, the causes of that success have never yet received an adequate solution. In fact, the attempt to account for it by a concurrence of merely secondary causes, he justly remarks, is not less unsound and unphilosophical, and scarcely less irreligious, than to assign, as Gibbon does, such causes, as explaining the rapid growth and triumph of Christianity itself. Yet, the Christian advocate has condescended to assail the pretensions of the Koran with the identical missiles unsuccessfully launched by the infidel against the claims of the Gospel'. Qualify it as men may', Mr. Forster observes, the found'ation of this argument is unavoidably laid in the exclusion of 'the superintendence of a special, and even an ordinary provi'dence. Supposing those secondary human causes to be fairly adduced, their existence and concurrence would still remain to be accounted for by a primary cause. They form, in fact, a main part of the phenomena which they are employed to explain. But, in the case of the Mohammedan religion, the usual explanation proceeds upon a mistaken view of the facts; and, as to the main difficulty, it does not even cut the knot.

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In the general conduct of the controversy respecting the success of Mahomet, the infidel and the believer have hitherto taken diametrically opposite lines. The object of the former has been, by every artifice of exaggeration, to exalt the case of the Koran to an equality with that of the Gospel that of the latter, to sink the pretensions of Mahometanism below all comparison with the claims of Christianity. The inevitable results of extremes on both sides are legible, in a fruitful growth of undesigned misconceptions, or intentional misrepresentations. This state of the question cannot but be hurtful to dispassionate inquirers, to minds that love fairness, and even to the cause of truth itself. . . . . While the Christian has no reasonable grounds of doubt or fear to withhold him from doing the fullest justice to the phenomena of Mahometanism, the phenomena themselves are singularly interesting and mysterious. The origin and rise of the heresy, its rapid and wide diffusion, with the whole train of circumstances attending its first promulgation, are extraordinary facts. Its dominion over the human mind, and power, both as conquering and as conquered, to change the characters of nations, are facts still more extraordinary. Its progress, in quarters where it resorted only to the arts of peace and persuasion, is unexplained. Its permanency and inviolable preservation of its original pure theism, are inexplicable on any ordinary grounds of rea son or analogy. While, by the mysterious concurrence, unexampled save in the history of Christianity itself, of causes and events conducing to favour its introduction and establishment, the mind is naturally led to seek the explanation in the only adequate source; the

interposition, for some wise and gracious, though inscrutable end, of the special and superintending providence of God.'-Forster, vol. I. p. 66-8.

The inquiry is of the deepest importance, and nothing can be more admirable than the temper and spirit in which it is entered upon by the present Author. The candour and fairness with which the difficulties of the question are stated, must leave a very favourable impression on every intelligent reader, and will prepare him to find the subject treated in both a competent and an original manner. Nor will he be disappointed. The Arch-heresy' is not only examined on a new principle, but is placed altogether in a new and very striking light; and the novelty which the Author has succeeded in imparting to a subject which may hitherto have been deemed trite and exhausted, does not result from any fanciful theory or learned paradox. The utmost sobriety of judgement is maintained. throughout the investigation; and the Author's views and statements are supported by a mass of information in itself highly interesting and valuable. Many of the collateral inquiries into which the subject branches out, are scarcely less important than the original and main question. The illustrations of Scripture Prophecy, the prophetic parallel between Mohammedism and Popery, and the historical analogy between the three religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Mohammedism, will more especially command attention; and the reader will probably be not a little startled at the closeness of the resemblance, and the numerous points of correspondence, between the true and the spurious faith. The work is altogether a valuable contribution to theological literature, while it throws no small light upon general history; and it is not merely the best work that has hitherto appeared upon the subject, (for, with the exception of Sale's Introduction to the Koran, and Mr. Mills's "History of Muhammedanism", there has been nothing in the English language that can be called good,) but it is the only one in which anything like justice has been done to the inquiry. Our readers will reasonably expect a somewhat extended analysis of such a publication; but we can take only a rapid view of the variety of detail included in the contents.

In the introductory chapter, from which the preceding extract has been taken, the Author, after pointing out the mis

Mr. Forster, we regret to notice, has given his sanction to an orthography which we had thought nearly exploded. Among the various ways of writing the name of the Arabian, Mahomet is the least proper; and it has been copied from the worst of all authorities in the spelling of foreign names, the French. But Mahometanism is barbarous. Gibbon has more properly Mahometism.

taken estimates and unfair argumentation of preceding writers, announces, in the following terms, the principle upon which he proposes to conduct the investigation.

The basis of the present argument is laid in the existence of a prophetic promise to Abraham in behalf of his sons Isaac and Ishmael. By the terms of this promise, a blessing is annexed to the posterity of each; and on Ishmael, as well as on Isaac, this blessing is pronounced, because he was Abraham's seed, and as a special mark of the Divine favour...... According to the original promise concerning each, Isaac and Ishmael were severally to become the fathers of great nations; and the history of these nations was also to be signally connected with the history and fortunes of mankind. The Jews were the prophetic offspring of the blessing to the younger; the Arabians, of that to the elder son. The promise to Isaac had, in point of fact, first, a temporal fulfilment in the establishment of his race in Canaan ; and secondly, a spiritual fulfilment in the advent of the Messiah, Jesus Christ, and in the establishment of Christianity throughout the world. In the promise to Ishmael, from the literal correspondence of the terms, coupled with the peculiar circumstances under which it was made, there seems to be just reason to look for an analogous double fulfilment. But the history of the Arabians, from the remotest antiquity down to the seventh century of the Christian era, affords no shadow of a parallel. At this advanced point of time, a full and exact parallel is presented, in the appearance of Mahomet; and in the establishment, through his instrumentality, by the descendants of Ishmael, first of a temporal, and secondly, of a spiritual dominion over a vast portion of the world. Here, in point of fact, there obtains a parallelism of accomplishment, in perfect accordance with the verbal parallelism which subsists between the two branches of the original promise. And the matter comes shortly to this plain issue: that either the promise to Ishmael has had no fulfilment analogous with that made to Isaac, with which it yet so singularly corresponds; or it has found its fulfilment, as the facts of the case so strongly indicate, in the rise and success of Mahomet, and in the temporal and spiritual establishment of the Mahometan superstition.' Vol. I. pp. 87-89.

The first section of the work is devoted to a comparative analysis of the two-fold covenant with Abraham, made in behalf of his sons Isaac and Ishmael. In point of temporal prosperity, the promise to the latter seems to preponderate. To him alone is given the specific declaration: "And I will make of thee a great nation"; and in his seed alone, the promise has been realized. The Jewish monarchy was, at one time, a powerful state, but the posterity of Isaac have never been characteristically a great nation. The grand and peculiar feature in the promise concerning Isaac, was, that in his offspring all the nations of the earth should be blessed; a promise denoting a mysterious fulfilment, and realized in the advent and spiritual reign of the Messiah. Christianity is allowed, on all hands, to