as it were by prolepsis, and judge that such names have been written by a later hand. We sometimes find events recorded in a book bearing the name of a man who died before such events took place, and are, in such cases, certain that they have been inserted by some other person; in all probability, by the person who collected the manuscripts of the deceased. But prophecies, delivered under the Divine Afflatus, were always accounted too sacred by the Jews to be interpolated by them; and he must be grossly ignorant of the subject, who dares assert, that no "Ark of Providence has preserved inviolate" to us the Hebrew text. Not indeed the absolute integrity of the sacred autographs, but the books themselves nearer to absolute integrity, than perhaps any other books of half their antiquity. It is, indeed, true in more senses than one, that "Salvation is of the Jews." They have carefully watched over the sacred deposit of the law and the prophets; perhaps Dr. C. (who seems as enamored of his Biblia sine punctis, as Mr. Bellamy of the contrary,) does not know that the Masoretes have counted all the words in the Bible; all the greater and less divisions; know the middle word of the book, the middle letter, &c. and have taken every method they could devise to preserve its integrity; nor is there the least ground to believe that they have wilfully corrupted a single text. Now, to consider all this done by enemies, and yet to deny that "an ark of Providence has preserved" to us the Hebrew text "inviolate," argues a perversity, or an ignorance, which has every appearance of being incorrigible. Had the Jews corrupted or interpolated any texts, they would have corrupted those relating to the Messiah; but they have left so many that are unequivocally applicable only to our blessed Lord, that it is but justice to conclude from those we have, that we have all they had; and as many of these are levelled point blank at the notions of the Jews respecting the Messiah, we have every reason to believe that we have received these prophecies unadulterated. I can hardly suppose Dr. Clarke's objection to Virgin, as the translation of y, ha-almah, originated in modesty; he immediately proceeds to tell us of his comparisons of the Sodomites, &c. with Jerusalem. The Bible is a Divine Revelation, and we are not at liberty to interpret it as we please. We must not interpret detached passages, or words, in any sense they will bear, but in agreement with the general tenor of the whole. He tells us the Sodomites were merely gross idolators; but a sober critic knows, that if no part of Revelation contradicted this assertion, it can be considered as nothing more than an assertion; because the documents to substantiate it cannot be found. He informs us, that these citizens have "hitherto been incessantly and unmeritedly libelled." They, however, have met with an inadequate advocate in him. He who can suppose the inhabitants of the plain of Sodom exculpated from the odious crimes with which they are charged, by those passages of the three Prophets which Dr. C. quotes, must make a contemptible figure as an expositor of Scripture. A highwayman would set up a strange plea for his acquittal, if he were to tell the judge and jury they ought to account him innocent, because he knew some brethren of the road more guilty than himself; yet Dr. C's plea for Sodom is precisely of this nature. If a prince, or a nobleman, with every advantage of rank and education, should descend to the turpitude of those uneducated and wretched men, whose lives are spent in infamy, and terminated by the executioner, would we not justly account him worse than those, who never had his opportunity of knowing the fitness of things? we certainly would- But would we therefore account the others innocent? no. It was the privileges enjoyed by the people of Israel, and the very ill use which they made of them, that gave the finishing strokes in the picture of their ingratitude and baseness: in this sense their sin was greater than that of Sodom; but this does not clear the men of Sodom from the unnatural crimes with, which they are charged - when they cried out to Lot DAN MUT)) 11ÝN DNÍ, hotzicem eeleynu ve-nudah otham, did they only want to examine them, that they might be able to distinguish them from others, if they should meet them at some future time? That they intended to do them evil is evident, and the method which Lot proposed, to turn them from their wicked intention, though it must have agonised his soul as a father, shows how sacred the rites of hospitality were held by the venerable nephew of Abraham; while the persons whom he offered as substitutes for his guests, undeniably prove what was the intention of the "hitherto incessantly and unmeritedly libelled citizens." If that part of Lot's speech, ver. 8. does not mean that his daughters had not had commerce with men, it means nothing; but since this mode of speech is, in every part of holy writ, used in the sense in which the English translators have here taken it, the inference is plain; that the wretched inhabitants of Sodom shamefully declared their intention of having unnatural commerce with Lot's guests; and to the ipse dixit of this critical D. D. I oppose the assertion of an Apostle, Jude, ver. 7. who, without saying a single word respecting their idolatry, gives as the reason for their suffering the vengeance of eternal fire, the very crimes from which Dr. Clarke would exculpate them. Dr. Clarke talks of abiding by the literal meaning of the Antimasoretic text-I, however, know of no difference which the presence or absence of the vowel points can make in Micah iv. 3. which I think he ought not to say is literally translated by him: surely the literal reading of by O DEU), ve-shaphat beyn ammum rabbum, is not, “Which shall dispense written law among the nations." Really, Sir, I am ignorant enough to believe that DD properly signifies Judicium exercere, and not Legem edere. But there is some confusion in Dr. C's manner of replying to Mr. Bellamy on this passage, or the parallel one in Isaiah ii. 4.; for Mr. B. quotes the Dr. as rendering it thus, " It shall settle the right between the nations ;" and Dr. C. replies to him as if he had objected to, "which shall dispense written law among the nations :" but neither of these is a literal translation of Isaiah ii. 4. nor of Micah iv. 3. and the last is faulty. Shaphat signifies to execute judgment, to judge as a sovereign, to punish the guilty, &c. but not to make laws, and promulgate them. 3, tziveh thorah, he gave or commanded a law, is the Hebrew manner of expressing the act of legislating. Deut. xxxiii. 4. torah trittah lanu Mosheh, Moses commanded תורה צוה לנו משה (or gave) us a law. Again, Psal. lxxviii. 5. UVODNAN MY UN, ve-torah sam beyisrael asher tzivvah_ethabotheynu, and appointed a law in Israel which he commanded (or gave) our fathers. Nor is the other either iteral or classical, for shaphat signifies to judge, but does not include in it the idea of right, for Eli (D) judged Israel, but he did not settle the right between the people," when he suffered his sons to work abomination in the sanctuary. When Sanuel was old he made his sons judges over Israel, e, shopheteem le-yisrael, but they did not "settle the right," when they turned aside after lucre, took bribes, and perverted judgment. The judges in Jerusalem, in the time of Zephaniah, did not "settle the right," when the prophet described them as evening wolves, JW 'INI TUDU, shophiey-ka zecbey eyes. I might multiply passages to show that Dr. Clarke's translation of aphat is not literal; I shall, however, add only one more, y mánab-ab velo le-mareeh eynayo yishphot, and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, i. e. from the appearance of things. Isaiah xi. 3. DOT PRI ODV, ve-shaphat be tzedek dalleem. But with righteousness shall he judge the poor, Isa. xi. 4. Now if it was predicted of the Messiah, that he should not judge according to appearances, the possibility of doing the contrary is certainly implied. If he was to judge the poor in righteousness, it certainly implies, that some judged them unrighteously: hence it is evident, that the idea of right is not necessarily joined with shaphat, to judge; and though there can be no doubt but God will always judge aright, Dr. C. has not literally translated the unpointed Hebrew text of Isa. ii. 4. Micah iv. 3. Dr. .the nomina דבר or תורה C. has adduced no authority for making tive case to D, nor can he, if the signification of shaphat be to exercise legal authority, &c. as above. Mr. Bellamy is therefore right in making the nominative, though he has not produced the reason for it, which is simply this; the law cannot execute itself, some person must execute it. I have always considered it to be the office of criticism to obviate difficulties, not to create imaginary ones in the plainest cases. The literal reading of Mic. iv. 3. to the pause Athnach in the masoretic text is, " And He shall judge between (or in the midst of great peoples, and convince rude nations even to a remote part (of the earth.)" Mr. Bellamy, in No. u. p. 630. calls on Dr. Clarke to prove that , Shiloh, means Christ, and Dr. C. with all the airs of a fencingmaster, retorts upon Mr. B. in No. vi. p. 262. that the Jewish Doctors and Professors may perhaps call on him, as he calls on the author of Hebrew Criticism, to prove that the word Shiloh means Christ." The same inattention respecting the proper import of words belongs equally to Mr. B. and Dr. C. Both these gentlemen ought to have considered, that instead of Christ they should have used the name Jesus; for I believe they will not find the Jewish writers so much averse to acknowledge this to be a prophecy of the Messiah as they seem to think; they only wish to escape from it when applied to Jesus. The Targum of Onkelos on this passage is, "Non auferetur sceptrum habens principatum à Domo Judæ; neque scriba a filiis filiorum usque in seculum: donec veniat Messias, cujus est regnum," &c. Hence it appears, that the most valuable of the Jewish writers inter prets it as a prophecy of Christ, i. e. Messiah; it is of little moment that Aben Ezra interprets it of the place Silo; the last shift in a desperate case is to make a text mean nothing, when we cannot press it into our service. Kimhi, and Moses Gerundensis, endeavour to apply this passage to other times than that of the Messiah; but I have observed in all their endeavours to evade the force of the prophecies respecting the Messiah, a total forgetfulness of an Hebrew saying, "Qui non advertit quod supra et infra in libris scribitur, is pervertit verba dei viventis." They do not observe either what preceded or what follows, but torture an isolated word or phrase till they puzzle themselves; astonish those who behold their perverseness; and in defiance of their own adage pervert the words of the living God. I however am of opinion, that a prudent Jew will not wantonly provoke a dispute respecting the meaning of this passage, while he recollects that the departed sceptre, the absence of a lawgiver, and their scattered state, give us to understand that Shiloh (Pacificus) is come, whom the Chaldaic interpreters allow to be the Messiah, whether that Christ was Jesus or not. Having freely made my remarks upon the Criticism of Dr. G. S. Clarke and Mr. Bellamy, I shall next offer a few on a performance of Sir W. Drummond, intitled a Dissertation on Gen. XLIX.; in which he appears to me to have given a loose to his imagination, in considering a subject so serious as that of Jacob's dying benediction to his children. He appears to have had a slight view of the difficulties attending his hypothesis, and in order to obviate them, has endeavoured to fix a stain upon the character of the Patriarchs; the injustice of which it shall be my endeavour to point out; and, as I hope I shall be able to show his dissertation to be founded on error, the superstructure, which could not have been raised without such a foundation, must necessarily fall. Sir W. begins his dissertation with, "JEHOVAH appears to have selected Abraham, and his posterity, from the rest of mankind, for the purpose of preserving among them the knowledge of the true religion; but this knowledge, it would seem, from the 6th chapter of Exodus, was not bestowed on the patriarchs in all its plenitude." The meaning of which passage, (Exod. vi.) he says, is"That the true import of the word was not explained to the patriarchs, for had they understood it, they would have known that there was no God but Jehovah." That "Jehovah signifies the Supreme Being, or the Being (xar' oz)" is perhaps strictly just. But if this was its true import, how can we possibly suppose, that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to whom the Lord frequently and particularly revealed himself, could remain ignorant of it? Could Abraham be styled the Friend of God, and yet be ignorant of the import of his name? Could Abraham see the day of the Messiah, the plan of human redemption, and yet not know that JEHOVAH was God, and that there was none beside him? That there is a difficulty in Exod. vi. 3. I do not pretend to deny. I have also read some attempts to remove it, none of which appear satisfactory to me in my opinion the negative is a corruption. Dr. Shuckford, and several other writers, think it should be read interrogatively, but in this case there should be an interrogative prefixed to the negative particle, DOS 'MyT) N50 mi) "12), ve-shumi JEHOVAH ha-lo nodaati lahem. "By my name JEHOVAH was I not known to them?" The reading in the LXX. is the same as the common Hebrew text, xai rò őroped peav Kúgios our idńawon avros but Dr. Shuckford says, it has been observed by the learned, that some of the Greek writers read the passage without the negative particle; and the Arabic version favors this interpretation. There certainly is no ground to believe the name JEHOVAH to have been unknown until it was revealed to Moses, since many circumstances in the preceding part of the history sufficiently show us that it was used by the patriarchs. Abraham called the name of a remarkable place JEHOVAH-Jireh when God appeared to Jacob, at Eeth-el, he said to the fugitive, I am JEHOVAH, the God of Abraham, &c. By which Jacob certainly understood, not that JEHOVAH was the God of Abraham, as Osiris was the god of the Egyptians and Pelasgi; but that he was the true and only GOD, in covenant with Abraham. &c. and who, in that place, renewed the covenant with Jacob. Besides, it is not mere conjecture when we say, that the Supreme, self-existent God was known by the name JEHOVAH to all the most early nations, and even after they had been seduced into idolatry by the institutions of Thoth and the Cabiri, and had ceased to retain God in their thoughts; there is reason to believe, that those who were initiated into the greater mysteries, were instructed in the true origin of all things, and informed of the name of the great Builder. If, therefore, the negative was in the Autograph without an interrogative prefixed, and the passage signifies that the import of the Sacred Name was not known to the ancestors of the people of Israel, it must have been some other import than the one intimated by Sir W. Drummond, since nothing can be more plain than that Abraham believed his God el elion konek shamayim vaaretz אל עליון קנה שמים וארץ to be "God most high, possessor of heavens and earth." Gen. xiv. '23. The God of Truth and Mercy, the Judge of the whole earth, &c. as may be most clearly seen by a perusal of Abraham's interview with Melchizedeck, king of Salem, and in his intercession with God for Sodom, &c. Sir W. supposes, that "no man who entertained just ideas of the existence of the Deity, could have thought of making such a bargain with Omnipotence," as Jacob is said to have made, when God appeared to him as he journeyed to Haran, "nor if Jacob had comprehended the name of JEHOVAH, Would he have fancied that he might choose the God whom he should adore." Yet Sir W. Drummond must acknowledge that, in effect, such bargains are very commonly made by men, and that they are not confined to dark dispensations and places, but are common in our days, and amidst all our light and knowledge. There are many, who promise like Jacob, that after the accomplishment of certain enterprises, they will retire from the noise and hurry of business, and devote the remainder of life to the service of God: happy for them if they are enabled with Jacob to perform their vow; but we too often have reason to apply to them the saying of Dr. Young: "All promise is poor dilatory Man, |