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cation of that people; even as accessary evidences in support of the christian religion; upon which more perfect and inward dispensation, they continue to shed considerable light-and by this light, the stranger or religious student, is enabled to take a retrospective view of the divine finger, pourtraying as in dark and shadowy characters on the tables of the law, the great and precious promises of the gospel, and which have been fulfilled in so public and remarkable a manner, as to leave no doubt to the attentive observer, of the divine origin of both.* Nevertheless certain important advantages to the Jews themselves, were connected with those figuresby them the public attention was directed to that all powerful being, who had delivered them from unmerited bondage, and established them in a new and most fruitful country, destroyed idolatry before them, and in the sight of nations, made them an ensign of his own power, and of the purity and justice of his laws-With those figures were also connected, their laws of justice, and their national feasts; by the former of which they were instructed in the duties which they owed their neighbor: and by the latter, their affections were attracted to each other, and to the worship and institutions of one' true God, in opposition to those of idolatry-so that in my judgment it may be said with perfect propriety, that the materials which composed the jewish and christian systems, or the blessings of the law and the gospel, were interwoven together by the hand of the same great Artist.

* See the Epistle to the Hebrews 9th. 10th, and 11th. Chapters.

DAMP BEDS AND SHEETS.

The mortal stabs which have been given to many excellent constitutions, by this species of secret murder ; and the widows and fatherless children which have been produced by it, as well as the subjects of which the king has been deprived, are far beyond the conception of any private individual-In the course of my travels for the last eighteen months, I have heard of so many deaths and disorders, produced by this kind of injury, that I have censured myself for not preserving regular documents of the facts- The legislature has (I understand} condescended to prescribe rules for the regulation of public coaches-but if it could be made appear by the publication of facts, that more lives have been lost, and more constitutions injured, by damp beds and sheets, than by the overloading of coaches; would it be an object beneath the attention of parliament ?

If the latter in its parental attention to public health, would impose such regulations upon Inn-keepers, as would oblige them in their own defence to pay due attention to this part of their economy, it would be truly a public benefit-nor would legislators themselves have reason to repent it, since they also are personally interested, in the prevention of this evil; an evil the more to be dreaded because it is in silent, secret; and sometimes unsuspected by the unhappy victim, until the seeds of death sown in his constitution, apprize him of the fact, when no remedy remains, but that of resignation to his grave.

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REVIEW

OF SOME PASSAGES IN

VOLTAIRE'S PHILOSOPHICAL DICTIONARY.

HIS ACCUSATION OF ABRAHAM-AUTHOR'S DEFENCE OF THE CHARACTER OF THAT PATRIARCH.

I shall pass over Voltaire's learned observations on the celebrity of the name of Abraham in Asia Minor, &c.his humorous observations on the youth of Sarah, the patriarch Abraham's wife, and his critical disquisition of the chronology of the book of Genesis, as relative to Abraham and his father; of which things I am as ignorant as uninterested, and shall proceed to notice his couclusive accusation of Abraham's character, in the following words.

"The Father of the faithful here (that is in the wil derness of Kadesh) enjoined her (Sarah) the same lie as in Egypt; and thus his wife passing for his sister, got more cattle and servants, so that Sarah turned out no inconsiderable fortune to him.”

The former part of this sentence, charges Abraham with a lie the text however informs us, that she was his sister by the father's side-the suppression therefore of part of the truth-or the non-communication of a circumstance, which he was under no moral obligation to reveal, was not a lie-Voltaire's charge of falsehood therefore falls to the ground-it speaks the language of a prejudiced advocate, who determinately took the wrong side of a question, against a character which he wished to destroy-His insinuation against Abraham's honor, relative to profiting by the beauty of his wife, seems to have no foundation in sacred history-for there we are informed, that Abraham said, Gen. xi. 12, 13-" Because I thought surely the fear of God is not in this place; and they will slay me for my wife's sake-and yet indeed she is my sister-she is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother, and she became my wife- -And it came to pass, that when God caused me

to wander from my father's house, that I said unto herthis is thy kindness, which thou shalt shew unto me: at every place whither we shall come, say of ine, he is my brother"The ground therefore for giving her this charge, is obvious-his apprehension of a conspiracy against his life, for the purpose of obtaining the sole possession of Sarab who was beautiful-any other interpretation does violence to the passage-it does injustice to Abraham's own account, who was certainly the best judge of the motives which inspired his conductVoltaire who pleaded so much and so well for candor and good nature, evidently violated both, in pursuing the bent of his prejudiced mind in this relation.

ANGEL, from p. 4, to p. 7.

;

"Angel in Greek," says Voltaire, "is a messenger"I like this explanation of Voltaire-it agrees with St. Paul, and it is particularly gratifying to the heart of a poor christian, to meet with the philosopher at any time in such good company-but he proceeds-" It matters little to be informed, that the Persians had their Peries-the Hebrews their Malacs-and the Greeks their Demonoi→ but what may perhaps be more interesting to know is that the supposition of intermediate beings between the Deity and us, prevailed among the first men"-Voltaire in the next page informs us, that the History of the fall of Angels, is not to be met with in the books of Moses that the first word of it, is in the prophet Isaiah”—but not to say any thing about the inconsistency of endea vouring to invalidate this doctrine, by the silence of Moses on the subject, who he labors to prove in another place, never wrote the books attributed to him; I should think it sufficient to the christian purpose to know, that the Apostolic account of these things, together with the notice taken of the actual existence of good and evil angels by Jesus Christ, are greatly confirmed (if confirmation be necessary) by Voltaire's acknowledged antiquity of the tradition; for if their existence was hekl by the first men-Voltaire's burlesque of the subject (in parts of his essay not here quoted) falls to the groundseeing if he admitted a first man, which I infer from his apparent rejection of the eternity of matter-or at least his admission of its organization by the hand of the

Creator-it proves a strong confirmation of the doctrine of good and evil angels-The first man whoever he was, may reasonably be supposed to be without prejudicesfor I suppose that Voltaire himself, if living, would admit, that they are usually imbibed from others--this, however, could not be the first man's case-his relation therefore of any such circumstance to his posterity, may reasonably be supposed to be the relation of facts, as he could have no interest in deceiving them, and according to our hypothesis. could have no prejudices- The general consent of mankind to this doctrine in one form or another, both in savage and civilized nations; almost amounts to a proof of its being derived from some person, who was prior to them all; and however corrupted by the ignorance of after ages, strongly militates against the Sadducean doctrine, that no such beings exist in the universe.

As I have noticed the sentiments of the Sadducees on this subject-I shall quote another sentence of Voltaire's, under the same head-make a few remarks upon it, and conclude with a reply to his observations in the words of our Saviour Christ.

Page 5. In the Jewish laws, that is in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, not the least mention is made of the existence of angels, much less of worshipping themaccordingly," says Voltaire," the Sadducees believed in no such thing."

As to worshipping them, that was as strictly forbidden, by the Jewish, as by the christian religion; but as to their existence, if no mention is made of them in those books which Voltaire has quoted; their existence, or the existence of separate spirits, is inferred in that part of the history of Moses, where the Deity is represented calling himself in the present tense," The God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob," who as to the flesh being dead long before, must then have existed in a separate state-for their dust being incorporated with the earth from which it was taken, long before this voice was uttered; would hardly be recognized by the Deity as distinct from the common mass-nor would it reflect an adequate degree of glory on the attributes of God, that this dust had been once animated by an immortal principle, and had performed feats of virtue on the theatre of time, but was now with the spirit which animated it,

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