National Church. For surely it would not cost their consciences more to attend the communion of the Church, than to provide for the extension of that communion. If the instance of Bishop Heber be alleged, we have before said, it is nothing to the point. The Dissenters are not obliged to encourage any opinion, save their own, as the Bishop was ; and, to do them justice, they seldom bestow their encouragement in any other way. The fact that they have an understanding with the Church Missionary Society, is therefore the strongest argument that the effects of that Society are considered, by them at least, not to be favourable to the Established Church. The time therefore is now arrived when all the sound members of the Church Missionary Society, who engaged in it with the objects which they avowed, should be practically sensible of what they are effecting; draining the resources of a much more effective and much more authoritative body, and opening a point whence the malice and worldly-mindedness of dissent may insensibly establish itself, and run up a battery against the Church. We do not mean to attribute malice and worldly-mindedness to the Dissenters as a body; but that such qualities as these exist among them, even themselves must allow, unless they assert superhuman pretensions. Wherever these do exist, it is obvious how they will be exercised. Let those who really perceive the danger, and are sincerely friendly to the advancement of the doctrine and the discipline of the Church among heathen countries, because convinced that therein are contained the soundest views and the most effective ministrations of the Gospel, transfer their subscriptions to the Incorporated Society, where there is no danger from schismatical ambuscades; and, if the dregs of the Church Missionary Society should fall into the hands of the Dissenters, we shall have the advantage of coping with an open adversary, instead of perpetually guarding against a domestic foe. Ζεῦ πάτερ, ἀλλὰ σὺ ῥῦσαι ὑπ ̓ ἠέρος υίας Αχαιών ΕΝ ΔΕ ΦΑΕΙ καὶ ὄλεσσον, ἐπεί νύ τοι εὔαδεν οὕτως. HOM. IL. XVII. 645. STATE OF SLAVERY AT THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE. Vicarage, Bedfont, Middlesex, March 8, 1828. MR. EDITOR.-In various Magazines of the day, it appears to me, that full justice is not done to the efforts of benevolent Englishmen in our colonies to alleviate the hardships of slavery; and as that subject has of late employed the attention of Parliament and the public, this want of candour becomes more remarkable and offensive. In the New Monthly Magazine, and in a pamphlet appended to the Christian Observer of March, much invective is levelled against the local government of the Cape of Good Hope, while no allusion is made to any attempts to lessen the miseries of slavery in that settlement. This omission, if it arise from ignorance, impugns the knowledge -if from design, the honour of such writers; in either case it weakens the value and credibility of their statements. It is not my intention-nor have I the means-to vindicate generally the Cape government, or its conduct on this point; but having resided at the Cape of Good Hope during the whole of Sir John Cradock's (now Lord Howden) government, I can most confidently aver, that every effort was made by his Lordship to protect the rights and vindicate the wrongs of the slave, Hottentot, and apprentice (or prize negro). His Lordship found slavery at the Cape, and he had no power to annul it; but he had both the power and the will to lessen the mischiefs and miseries of an existing and legal evil. To prove the reality of his Lordship's benevolence on this subject, I enclose to you copies of two Sermons, which I preached at Cape Town; which Sermons were printed at the Government Press, translated at his Lordship's desire into Dutch, and officially dispersed through the colony. The Cape swarms with missionaries of different sects; while their registers in England are loud and incessant in their praise. I do not quarrel with their zeal. I would only endeavour to excite those periodicals, avowedly attached to Church and State, to do common justice to the friends of both. A stauncher friend to the Church of England does not exist than Lord Howden; a more benevolent man there cannot be. No Governor could more deeply and sincerely deplore the evils of slavery, or more actively and uniformly labour to lessen them. True to the interests of the Church to which he belonged, he was yet the kind patron of all missionaries. His grant to the London Missionary Society of a large and valuable tract of land in Albany, called, by his Lordship's express desire, Theopolis; and his unceasing and generous patronage of the Moravian settlements, both at Bavian's Kloof and Groene Kloof, sufficiently attest this. With respect to the cruelties and injustice of slavery, in all right minds there can be but one feeling. As to the best mode of putting an end to these evils, it is not my present intention to hazard an opinion; but I cannot permit the humane exertions of such a man as Lord Howden, to be slandered or passed by. I hate slavery as cordially as the most zealous and reckless of emancipators. I raised my voice manfully and fearlessly against its vices, in the midst of those who justified its enormities, and fattened on its wrongs; and in all my views and exertions I was cordially aided by his Excellency, the then Governor, Lord Howden. On one point we may rest assured, that it is not by ex-parte statements good will result, either to this or any other cause, however valuable the object, or even blameless the motive. Nor is it very encouraging to the efforts of either present or future Governors of colonies to find, that their predecessors, who, surrounded with local difficulties and conflicting interests, have honestly dared to do their duty, are unjustly arraigned or intentionally forgotten. Lord Howden could not abolish slavery; but he ameliorated its condition to the utmost of his power, consistently with the safety of the white population. Prudence is as far removed from apathy, as Quixotic from genuine philanthropy. It is a very easy matter, and popularity is purchased at a very cheap cost by so doing, to indite * These Sermons we have read; and we think that the arguments used in them for the amelioration of slavery, would satisfy the mind of every just and wise abolitionist. sentimental essays, or invidious criticisms, on colonial topics, in this country; but let such writers personally visit the scenes they so glowingly and fluently describe, and they will there learn the value of that rare and arduous virtue-the performance of duty in the midst of actual and pressing perils. I beg to remain, Sir, your very faithful servant, ROBERT JONES, D. D. Formerly Senior Chaplain at the Cape of Good Hope. ON GENESIS IV. 1. MR. EDITOR.-The expressions used by Eve on the birth of her first-born, "I have gotten a man from the Lord," Gen. iv. 1, have given rise to long and eager disputes; and it must be allowed to be no easy matter to ascertain their meaning. The writers who have discussed the subject may be divided into two classes-those who think that she intended nothing more by them than to acknowledge the peculiar favour and blessing of God in enabling her to conceive, and bring forth a son, and those who consider them as an expression of her belief, either that Cain was the promised seed that should bruise the serpent's head; or that she then obtained a proof that the promise of the Messiah would be fulfilled. No other mode of interpreting the words can be reasonably adopted, than to explain them in reference either to Eve's thankfulness to the Deity in giving her progeny, or to her gratitude and exultation in the thought that the divine promise of a great Deliverer was then accomplished, or about to be accomplished. Names of such distinguished merit are ranged on both sides, that it is impossible to say which way the balance preponderates; and if the question can be determined at all, it must be by the application of that criticism which forms the basis of all sound biblical interpretation. The verb used by Eve in her ejaculation is D kana, respecting which Michaelis observes, " adquirendi, emendi, possidendi, notiones certæ, videntur tamen illis et alia, pariendi, creandi, parandi, addenda;" and in proof appeals to Gen. iv. 1. xiv. 19, 20. Deut. xxxii. 6. Zech. xiii. 5. Job xxxvi. 33.* The first of these texts must be left out of consideration, as being the passage in dispute. In the second, God is styled "the possessor of heaven and earth;" in the third he is called thy father that hath bought thee;" and so the Psalmist addresses God, "thou hast possessed my reins;" Ps. cxxxix. 13; in all which texts the verb is used, and ought to retain its usual sense of possessing or acquiring. The fourth, according to the authorised version, is, "I am an husbandman, for man taught me to keep cattle from my youth;" which, though sanctioned by the Targum and some modern translations, cannot be endured, the sense being clearly, as Archbishop Newcome renders it, "I am a man that tilleth the ground; for another man (or rather, a man) hath possessed me from my youth; or, as Dr. Blaney's version is, "for a man hath had the property of me." The Supplem. ad Lex. No. 2273. See also Lex. Cocceii ed. Schulz. & Simonis ed. Eichhorn. meaning is the same if it be rendered, with Rosenmüller, "nam emit me aliquis a pueritia mea.' The last text is Job xxxvi. 33. "the noise thereof sheweth concerning it, the cattle also concerning the vapour;" where it is sufficient for my purpose to remark, that, whatever may be the meaning of the verse, the Hebrew word rendered cattle, cannot have any signification which would go to prove that the notion pariendi ever belongs to the verb. From this examination of the passages where kana has been supposed to have the sense of pario, it is obvious that not one of them has a reference to the process of human generation. It occurs in Prov. viii. 22. which, in another publication, I have rendered, “Jehovah possessed me, the beginning of his way, before his works of old," and have applied it to the divine and eternal generation of the Son.† To the view of this chapter which I then took I still adhere; but at any rate the verb must be allowed to be there predicated of some divine attribute or operation, if not of the eternal Logos; and, consequently, not of any human birth. We must, therefore, conclude that, setting aside Gen. iv. 1. it is never applied to the production of human offspring. It is remarkable that Eve calls her first-born W'N, ish, a man; though I believe no example can be produced when it signifies a child. It sometimes denotes a male, in opposition to the female, as Gen. vii. 2; but, if I am not mistaken, it always, when applied to an individual of the human species, denotes an adult, one who is of virile age. The variety of renderings of 8, eth Jehovah, considering that no difference of opinion can reasonably exist as to the meaning of one of them, is truly wonderful. By most of the ancient, and many of the modern translators, the former little word, which has occasioned the main difficulty, is taken for a preposition, and variously rendered "from the Lord," "with the Lord," "by the Lord," "according to the Lord."§ As this particle occurs above 8000 times in the Hebrew Scriptures, examples may doubtless be produced of each of the senses annexed to it in these versions. He who, without an undue bias to a preconceived opinion, shall examine the collections of Noldius, will scarcely be disposed to deny the truth of this observation. my part, I freely acknowledge that it is often used as a preposition, denoting ab, cum, per, secundum; but it by no means follows that it must be so taken in the place under examination, for it is also frequently used as the sign of the accusative case, and in which way it is to be understood here must be determined by other considerations. Let it first be inquired, what can be inferred from those renderings which take eth for a preposition, supposing them to be just. For * Michaelis, Supplem. Nos. 2273 and 2275, proposes to divide the text differently, and to read it thus 781, and to render it, "ager enim fuit peculium a pueritia ;” which is justly rejected by Rosenmüller; Scholia in Zech. xiii. 5. + Attempt towards an Improved Translation of the Proverbs of Solomon, 8vo. 1819. Hewlett, in his note on the place, says, "Some suppose that Lord' here refers to her husband, and that she expresses her joy on being delivered of a male child, agreeably to God's benediction, ch. i. 28." But surely no one can entertain such a suspicion who examines the original: for who ever heard of the incommunicable name JEHOVAH being given to a woman's husband? § They may be seen in Pfeiffer, Dub. Vex. Scr. 11.; Poli Synop. & Critici Sacri in loc. Now it may be asserted that, even on this supposition, we shall not be compelled to reject the explanation which refers the expressions to the promised Redeemer. Eve may still be understood to declare her belief that she had, at the birth of Cain, obtained the expected Deliverer, or the proof that he would at some time appear in the world, from the kindness of Jehovah, with his aid, through his favour, or according to his great mercy. If such an interpretation is neither forced nor unnatural, which surely will be readily granted, it cannot be proved that the words are a mere expression of gratitude to heaven for the blessing of offspring. Hence, should it be possible to estabish satisfactorily any of the translations before-mentioned, the reference to the Messiah may be admitted. "the But further, the ascription of divinity to him will not thereby be necessarily excluded. The words ish eth Jehovah may mean man from Jehovah," the Deliverer who was expected from God, the anthropomorphic Word; or "the man with Jehovah," him who united the divine and human natures in one Christ; or "the man" who was appointed "by or through Jehovah" to be the Redeemer of the world. It would be ridiculous to contend that these inferences must be adopted; but we shall not greatly err if we denominate them quite as probable as any other interpretation, if eth be taken as a preposition. Nay, we should be justified in declaring them more so; for if nothing more had been intended than an expression of gratitude for the blessing of offspring, the Hebrew would most likely have been which are employed according to the usual ;מיהוהעם יהוה,ביהוה idiom to express "by the divine aid or favour," "Deo juvante," as will be evident by consulting in the original, Deut. xxxiii. 29. 1 Sam. xiv. 45. Ps. lx. 14. cviii. 14. Jer. iii. 23. Isa. xlv. 17. Hosea i. 7. The phrase ish eth Jehovah is, indeed, without example in the sacred writings; a circumstance which rather confirms the idea that something more was meant by Eve than a mere acknowledgment of gratitude to God for the birth of her son, as that might have been expressed, without ambiguity, in phraseology usual with the Hebrews. The inspired historian, we may rest assured, if he had taken the words for such an acknowledgment, would not have departed from the customary idiom. He must have had some motive for doing so, which cannot well be supposed any other, than his understanding Eve to declare her belief that she had, at the event which gave occasion to them, obtained the promised blessing of a Redeemer, or at least a proof that the promise would in due time be fulfilled. At the same time the evidence is not such as to remove all doubt. Room is still left for hesitation; and opinions might continue to be divided as to the propriety of explaining the words as a designation of the Messiah, descriptive of his divinity; though it cannot in reason be denied to be as probable, at least, as any interpretation of those renderings, where eth is construed as a preposition.* Gussetiùs, Comment. Ling. Heb. in voc. . E. 2., who takes eth as a preposition in the sense of cum, offers a singular explanation, viz., "se jam possidere virum, qui sit suus, cujus ipsa sit domina;" as if Eve, in reference to her subjection to her husband, ch. III. 16., consoled herself, at the birth of Cain, with the notion that she had then gotten a man over whom her maternal rights gave her authority. But this is too absurdly whimsical to need refutation. |