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which belong to the people. It is a
high gratification that ministers enjoy
when they see their friends ready and
desirous to second them in what may
be done for the public good; and we
gladly acknowledge that there is now
a much greater impression of the im-
portance of truth upon the public
mind, and a much more general desire
than formerly in our friends to study-
the Scriptures for themselves, to attend
to the controversies that have taken
place between the different sects of
Christians, and to promote the plans
which are proposed for the spread of
Truth.

A FRIEND TO THE SPREAD
OF TRUTH.

SIR,

YOU

July 18, 1817. YOU will recollect the following passage so often deservedly quoted from the Seatonian Prize Poem on Death, by the late Bishop Porteus. [Mon. Repos. IV. 532.]

One murder made a villain, Millions a hero; Princes were privileged To kill, and numbers sanctified the crime. I suggested, Vol. IX. p. 464, a probable origin of these lines from a passage of Cyprian, quoted by an anonymous writer in 1787. I have since found the sentiment in a quotation from Lactantius, who flourished fifty years after Cyprian. The passage from Lactuntius is in that curious and learned work, Dr. Hakewill's Apologie, or Declaration of the Power and Providence of God, in the Government of the World, a work often quoted or referred to in Law's Theory. I copy the original, with Dr. Hakewill's translation,

from B. iv. Sect. 5.

"Si quis unum hominem jugulaverit, pro contaminato et nefario habetur, nec ad terrenum hoc domicilium Deorum

admitti eum fas putant, ille autem qui infinita hominum millia trucidaverit, cruore campos inundaverit, flumina infecerit, non modo in templum, sed etiam in cælum admittitur; apud Ennium sic loquitur Africanus,

"Si fas cædendo cœlestia scandere cuiquam est,

Mi soli cœli maxima porta patet.

"Scilicet quia magnam partem generis humani extinxit ac perdidit. Lac. tantius. L. i. Ch. xviii. If a man kill but one, he is held for a villain; neither is it thought fit to admit him to the

houses of the Gods here upon earth;
but he who murders infinite thousands,
waters the fields and dyes the rivers
with blood, is not only admitted into
the temple, but into heaven. Thus in
Ennius speaks Africanus :-
If man, by murdering may climb heaven,
assuredly

The widest gate of heaven is open laid
for me.

"Forsooth, because he had extinguished and made away a great part of mankind."

Dr. George Hakewill, who died in 1649, was, according to Weldon and Camden, an honest court-chaplain. In 1621, he drew up an argument against the Spanish Match, which he presented to his master Prince Charles, who promised concealment, but im mediately betrayed him to King James. He was, in consequence, committed to custody, and at length dismissed from his attendance on the Prince.

SIR,

A

OTIOSUS.

Nov. 16, 1817. PERSON to whom I lately lent "Jones's Ecclesiastical Re

searches," returned it with the follow-
ing memorandum. On turning to
Whiston's Josephus, I find the fol
lowing note, of which Mr. Jones takes
no sort of notice: it is subjoined to
Josephus's Account of Epaphroditus
in his Preface. This Epaphroditus
was certainly alive in the third year of
Trajan, A. D. 100. Who he was we
do not know. For as to Epaphroditus
the freed-man of Nero, Tacit. Annal.
xv. 55, Nero's, and afterwards Do-
death by Domitian, in the 14th or
mitian's Secretary, who was put to

be alive in the third of Trajan."
15th year
of his reign, he could not
What is Whistor's authority for
tioned by Josephus, was alive A. D.
stating that the Epaphroditus, men-
100? It is upon this circumstance of
his being the identical Epaphroditus
mentioned by Paul, that Mr. Jones
builds great part of his theory: but
how does he prove it?

Besides the above note, Whiston has another in the first book of Josephus against Appion, as follows:"Since Flavius Josephus," says Dr. Hudson," wrote (or finished) his books of Antiquities on the 13th of Domitian, A. D. 93, and after this wrote the Memoirs of his own Life,

as an appendix to the books of Antiquities, and at last his two books against Appion, and yet dedicated all those writings to Epaphroditus, he can hardly be that Epaphroditus who was formerly secretary to Nero, and was slain in the 14th (or 15th) of Domitian, after he had been for a good while in banishment: but another Epaphroditns, a freed-man and procurator of Trajan, as says Grotius on Luke i. 3."

If any of your readers can establish the identity, or clearly confute it, they will oblige, A. X.

GLEANINGS ; OR, SELECTIONS AND REFLECTIONS MADE IN A COURSE OF GENERAL READING.

No. CCCXVI. Undefined Prejudices. Yet I confess, that on occasions of this nature, I am the most afraid of the weakest reasonings, because they discover the strongest passions. These things will never be brought out in definite propositions; they would not prevent pity towards any persons; they would only cause it for those that were cabable of talking in such a strain. But I know, I am sure, that such ideas as no man will distinctly produce to another, or hardly venture to bring in any plain shape to his own mind-he will utter in obscure, illexplained doubts, jealousies, surmises, fears and apprehensions; and that in. such a fog, they will appear to have a good deal of size, and will make an impression; when, if they were clearly brought forth and defined, they would meet with nothing but scorn and derision.

Burke's Letter to Sir Hercules Langrishe, Bart., 1792.

No. CCCXVII. Catholics becoming Protestants will be Protestant Dissenters.

Let us form a supposition, (no foolish or ungrounded supposition,) that in an age, when men are infinitely more disposed to heat themselves with political than religious controversies, the former should entirely prevail, as we see that in some places they have prevailed, over the latter: and that the Catholics of Ireland, from the courtship paid them on the one hand, and the high tone of refusal on the other,

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should, in order to enter into all the rights of subjects, all become Protestant Dissenters, and, as the others do, take all your oaths. They would all obtain their civil objects, and the change, for any thing I know to the contrary, (in the dark as I am about the Protestant Dissenting tenets,) might be of use to the health of their souls. But, what security our constitution, in church or state, could derive from that event, I cannot possibly discern. Depend upon it, it is true as nature is true, that if you force them out of the religion of habit, education or opinion, it is not to yours they will ever go. Shaken in their minds, they will go to that where the dogmas are fewest; where they are the most uncertain; where they lead them the least to a consideration of what they have abandoned. They will go to that uniformly democratic system, to whose first movements they owed their emancipation. I recommend you seriously to turn this in your mind. Believe that it requires your best and maturest thoughts. Take what course you please-union or no union; whether the people remain Catholics or become Protestant Dissenters, sure it is, that the present state of monopoly cannot continue.

The Same.

No. CCCXVIII. Fame a Cheat.

A man is not known ever the more to posterity, because his name is transmitted to them; he doth not live because his name does. When it is said, Julius Cæsar subdued Gaul, beat Pompey, changed the Roman commonwealth into a monarchy, &c., it is the same thing as to say, the conqueror of Pompey was Cæsar: that is, Cæsar and the conqueror of Pompey are the same thing;, and Cæsar is as much known by the one distinction as the other. The amount then is only this: that the conqueror of Pompey conquered Pompey; or somebody conquered Pompey; or rather since Pompey is as little known now as Cæsar, somebody conquered somebody. Such a poor business is this boasted immortality; and such, as has been here described, is the thing called glory among us!

Wollaston's Religion of Nat. Del. p. 117.

BIBLICAL CRITICISM.

Mr. S. Bennett in Reply to H. T. on Observations on John xii. 23-32.

I

SIR,

WOULD not obtrude upon the pages of your Monthly Repository, if I had not been called upon by an inquiry which was made in page 488, by one of your literary correspondents: "I find it (said he) difficult to reconcile the opinion given by your learned correspondent Solomon Bennett, in p. 222, of the present volume, that during the whole great period of the second temple, the numerous syna gogues and colleges of the Hebrews of their then great dispersion, had nothing to do with the sacrifices of the temple at Jerusalem,' with the testimony of several ancient and approved authorities of Jewish affairs. A variety of proofs (continued he) might be collected of the veneration which the whole nation had for the temple at Jerusalem," &c. And for which authorities he quoted instances out of Philo and Josephus.

Far be it from me to contradict historical truths, which are the most essential points in human affairs; and more so when they touch on points of pure religion. On the contrary, I shall enhance his difficulty from authorities deduced from the documents of the Mishnah, to shew that the dispersed Israelites possessed a veneration and zeal for their Mother country in general; yet the more we shall discover them to have been dependent in some measure, the more it will strengthen my argument respecting the system of the sacrificial laws (as demonstrated in my "Discourse on Sacrifices" at large).

The first great point which may indicate a dependency, we observe in Mishnah Rosh-hashanah, (Sect. 1. Lesson 4.) in which we read as follows: "On account of two months the sabbath day was prophaned; (meaning, deviated in some measure from its strictness); on account of Nisan (answering to that of March), and Thishry (September), in which months messengers were dispatched to Syria; according to which the annual festivals were regulated by the dispersed." The Talmud adds

thus, "and from Syria the messengers proceeded to Babylon." From this document we obtain a knowledge, that the annual calendar of the dispersed in the East, did depend on the observations and calculations performed by the grand assembly (the Sanhedrim) of the temple at Jerusalem. In Mishnah Shekolim, sect. 3, we read that there were in the temple three chests, treasured with shekels which were sent from all the provinces to Jerusalem, and at different times in the year were disposed of thus: (Sect. 1. Lesson 4.) "The first chest was treasured up in the name of Palestine; the second chest was treasured up in the name of the cities afar off from Jerusalem; and the third in the name of Babylon, Media and the distant countries." Hence we obtain the information that the Hebrews of the Eastern dispersion did send their annual shekels as a donation to the temple of Jerusalem, from which issued the whole expenditure of the temple, as well as the necessary improvements of the metropolis, Jerusalem. From other rabbinical documents we are informed that all the colleges of the dispersed, and their Presidents (viz. their chief Rabbies,) did depend and were sanctioned by that grand assembly presiding at the temple of Jerusalem. This veneration and obedience paid to the supremacy of the temple and Jerusalem, lasted about five centuries after the destruction of the same; at which period (on account of the tumults and wars which raged at that barbarous time, and caused great dissensions in our hemisphere, aud obstructed an orderly communication between the Eastern and Western Hebrew colleges), the above-mentioned colleges then became independent, and every college subsisted by itself in its respective country.

Notwithstanding the above-mentioned authorities, it does not prove an argument of an absolute dependency, as whether by dint of the law, of which we have no authority what ever in the Mishnah and Talmud that indicates, that the dispersed were absolutely bound to contribute towards the expenditure of the Mother country. Nor could it have been a political

scheme, considering the Israelites then to have been subject to different Sovereigns, who were at variance between themselves, and this of Palestine; any strict and absolute dependency might be disadvantageous as well as injurious to their temporal welfare and their religion in general, as they would always be looked upon as conspirators against the government they lived under-particularly as Palestine then formed an opulent part in the eastern kingdoms. It was nothing else but a natural zeal and a national love for the primitive source of their sacred religion and superior antiquity, which inspired them to send dona tions to Jerusalem. These things were done through motives of affection and good-will, but not as obligatory duties. And still less does it prove the dispersed to have been bound to the order of the sacrificial observances practised at Jerusalem, whether public or private thanks, peace, sin and trespass, &c. offerings, which latter (according to the vulgar opinion) ought to be the most essential point, as being peculiar to human salvation, but of which the whole of the dispersed, out of the walls of Palestine, were entirely exempted. For conviction's sake 1 shall repeat the authorities thereon, though in an abbreviated state.

Thus we read in Mishnah Kaduslim (Sect. 1. Lesson 9.) "All the commandments which depend on land productions, are authoritative only in the land of Israel," &c. This instructs us that all agricultural and husbandman donations, whether animal or vegetable, are commandable only in the walls of Palestine, but not at all obligatory out of it; the expression,

narrative; the Roman Jews might have sent voluntary donations, or, perhaps, some individuals out of ignorance of the particulars of the laws on these points (which is very probable), thought it to be a merit, and fulfilling a duty, though there is no real duty by law.

Consistently with the foregoing, we read in Mishnah Halah (at the end of it), "The son of Antinous brought from Babylon to Jerusalem the firstborn of his cattle (this by law cannot be redeemed with money); but the doctors of the temple did not receive, &c. with the view not to cause it to become an absolute law."* In Talmud, Code Psahim (Sect. 4,) we read thus, “Tudus, the Roman, [was] accustomed to make the Roman Israelites prepare roasted kids in a perfect state (similar to this of the passover lamb), to eat at the first night of the passover festival; the synagogue at Jerusalem sent word to him, saying, If thou wert not the Roman Tudus, we would have anathemized you, for making Israel to eat pina Dip sacrifices without the walls of Palestine." I could have brought more authorities form the Mishnah and Talmud, in matters of facts like the former, to prove that the dispersed were exempted from sacrificial laws of every description whatever; but fearing that I have already exceeded the bounds allowable in periodical publications, I shall not obtrude my quotations, but shall turn to a couple of observations more essential to our discussion.

We have not, throughout the bulk of the Rabbinical writings, any hint whatever, as to oblige any individual

are not of the dispersed, to pay a visit at the * בארץ אינן נוהגוה אלא

obligatory but in Palestine," forcibly expresses that there was no obligation by law, neither to convert those productions into money, nor to send the same to the temple at Jerusalem. The reference given by your learned correspondent from Philo, who relates that "the Jews of Rome sent money instead of first-fruits, by their own officers to Jerusalem," certainly is inconsistent with the above-mentioned oral law given in the Mishnah, which secluded them also from redemption with money. There must then infallibly have been some misunderstanding by the translators or copyists of Philo's

Temple of Jerusalem, not so much as once in his life, as was the opinion of your Correspondent. "I am led to think, (said he,) that it was accounted disgraceful, if not a mark of impiety, for any adult Jew, of sufficient sub

* I bring to the reader's recollection the expression made use of by my anta gonist critic, in the Evangelical Magazine (for December 1816, p. 24,) saying, “It misrepresents the doctrine of the Mishnah, (alluding to the Discourse on Sacrifices) as well as that," &c. But this learned gentleman did not shew his literary talents, nor convince the public of my misrepres sentation of the same.

stance, (which phrase I do not comprehend to what it alludes) not to go up to Jerusalem at certain intervals, to attend upon the Temple worship," &c. This opinion is (to my judgment) a conclusion but à posteriori; having observed it to have been a maxim by modern persuasions, such as the Mahometans and the Catholic Christians, to visit, at least once in their lives, the sepulchres of their prophets, or the living Numen and Summus Pontifex, this induced some to think it was originally also a maxim with the dispersion of the Jews, to visit Jerusalem and the Temple once in 'their lives at least; but of which we have no authority whatever. Some individual Israelite might have undertaken a voluntary journey to Jerusalem, and then, being in the walls of it, became obliged to observe all the rites peculiar to it, like any of the inhabitants: but returning from it, he became freed from those rites, (as shewn before).

I shall conclude my reply with a general inquiry; and with a reluctant will, as wishing not to give any offence to theological critics. I also candidly request their attention with the sole views of information. The doctrine of the sacrificial laws, congenial to the vulgar dogma, viz. the shedding of animal blood in the different forms and orders of sacrifices, as being absolute laws, has become so prevalent and promulgated, that numerous volumes have been written in support of its adoption. In short, I see the zealous defenders of that doctrine grasping on every trivial difficulty or authority arising from some (though only) historical accounts, to turn the same to their own account; and yet, overlooking entirely the many great and essential difficulties occurring in Scripture itself: I mean the contradictions respecting the absoluteness attributed to the sacrificial laws, which we meet with in the prophetical books, contrary to that of the Mosaic code, so as to reconcile them. For surely these ought to be the chief views of theological critics.

Not to impose (Mr. Editor) more upon your patience, I refer these critics to my "Discourse on Sacrifices," in which they will meet ample arguments on that subject, deduced from Scripture itself, which prove the ambiguity of the vulgar opinion concerning the

same. But as long as these scriptural contradictions are not reconciled, I pay no attention whatever to historical accounts or Rabbinical sentiments, when they disagree with Scripture.

S. BENNETT,

SIR, Chesterfield, Nov. 5. 1817. HERE are few subjects upon

tian truth enters with a more lively interest than the criticism of the sacred volume, and few which afford such a delightful and endless variety of employment to the mind. In this view, it must be a source of no small satisfaction to many of your readers, to observe the illustrations of obscure texts which are occasionally inserted in your Repository; and there can be little doubt, that if your Correspondents were more frequently to direct their attention to subjects of this nature, (many of whom, it is well known, are admirably qualified for the task,) theological science would be a considerable gainer.

It was with pleasure that I read Dr. Alexander's Criticism on Philip. ii. 5-11, inserted in your Number for the last month, (p. 614-617,) though, I confess, I am not prepared to pronounce upon it the same unqualified eulogium, which it has already received from the ingenious author of "Illustrations of the Four Gospels." The attempt is certainly commendable, and the interpretation has, no doubt, the merit of originality; though I am far from being disposed to give it my unqualified assent, or to adopt it as the true explanation of the passage.

It is the distinguishing peculiarity of Dr. Alexander's rendering that it attributes to the verb yua, a sense different from that which it has been supposed by all former interpreters to bear, and one which gives the passage quite a new turn. With your permission, Sir, I shall endeavour to prove that this sense neither harmonizes with the rest of the clause, nor is authorized by the usage of the word in other instances.

Ἡγεμαι is frequently found in the writings of Paul, and, including the passage at present under consideration, occurs no less than six times in the Epistle to the Philippians, viz

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