heart, and approLevitical system,

cision, or purification of the priately introduced into the which taught spiritual religion partly by external rites and ordinances), should be revived, when its end will have been fully answered; and when the ceremonial rite, with the practical exposition of it, will have been made known as far as Christianity shall have extended; and, particularly, that its alleged revival should take place, when that very knowledge will not only be universally diffused, but more perfectly understood than ever. He also said, that the expectation of any such revival appeared to him to receive no countenance from the following passages of the New Testament.

"Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the concision. For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh."

"If ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing."

Our Inquirer also said, he found it exceedingly difficult to conceive, that if the converted Jews of the Millennium, supposing them to have received

Scriptural ideas of their liberty in Christ, were required to practise circumcision, that they should not feel themselves in less eligible circumstances than those of their ancestors, who, in the primitive age, had embraced the Christian faith; inasmuch as the latter were free to relinquish the entire system of Mosaic ceremonial rites, and ordinances, had they so pleased, while the Jewish converts of the Millennium will, according to the Millennary hypothesis, be placed under an imperative obligation to observe them. Nor, added he, can I consider it otherwise than probable, that they will be led to regard such a requirement as circumcision, as a very unchristian infringement of their liberty in the Gospel. Looking at the increased external religious privileges, which it may reasonably be expected the Gentile Christians will then enjoy, and considering (what is alleged by Millennarians) that the Jewish nation will, at that important era, be distinguished as Jews by their religious privileges, the imposition of the Mosaic rites and ceremonies, especially of the rite in question, at the particular period contemplated, cannot but appear still more improbable.

His MILLENNARIAN FRIEND here reminded our Inquirer, that the primitive Jewish converts, after

they had embraced Christianity, continued to attend the temple-worship, and to make their customary offerings; nay, that even the Apostles themselves, partially conformed to the Judaic ritual observances. To this our INQUIRER replied, that as the worship of the Jews had been, as well as Christianity, divinely instituted, and that they, as Jews, regarded themselves still under an obligation to observe it, their circumstances were peculiar, and, therefore, a dispensation, resembling an exceptional law, seems, virtually at least, to have been granted to them. He also thought it probable, that the consequences of an opposite course might have tended, in a great measure, to defeat the end proposed by the Apostles in preaching the Gospel to them; and, as they were shortly after reminded by St. Paul, that their whole system was designed to be altogether subservient to Christianity; was about to "vanish away;" and as the destruction of the temple itself would speedily render it impossible to observe its worship, it seems to have accorded with the dictates of wisdom and prudence to grant, as it was without the compromise of any principle, the specific privilege conceded to the Jewish converts, in regard to their observance of the Mosaic ordinances. It was a mild concession to their deeply-rooted prepossessions; but the Gentile Christians having no such

prepossessions, were neither required nor allowed to conform to the Levitical rites. The privilege granted to the Jewish converts is not to be considered as a re-authorizing to do, under the Christian dispensation, what was deemed, in itself, necessary; but as an indulgence in reference to what concerned the observances of an abrogated law; observances in themselves, as having been enjoined by Divine authority, lawful; but, as being abrogated, now become inexpedient; and, if compulsorily enjoined, as necessary to salvation, to be steadfastly resisted.

Our Inquirer also further observed, that to raise up again, and to re-establish an ecclesiastical polity, which has been virtually abolished, and lain dormant for near 2,000 years, is a very different thing from allowing an abrogated economy gradually to expire. Nor did it appear to him improbable, that one of the purposes designed to be answered by the Almighty, in ordaining that the temple at Jerusalem should be entirely destroyed, and the consequent Jewish dispersion, was to effect the entire demolition of the Levitical economy, and to establish almost insurmountable obstacles against all attempts to restore it. And, if the account of the attempt of the emperor Julian, recorded by Ammianus Marcellinus, could be fully

depended on, it would powerfully confirm this conjecture. If, then, he might be permitted to form any anticipation as to the future designs of the Almighty, from what he has declared in his word, and done in his providence, he should feel himself irresistibly compelled to reject, as utterly vain and unscriptural, the Millennarian expectation, as to the future re-building of the temple at Jerusalem, and the restoration of the Levitical institutions, either entirely, or in part.

Finally, on this division of the subject, he must say, that whether he adverted to the alleged distinguished privileges to be conferred on the Jews, or the revival of the burdensome rites of the Mosaic law, viewed either as affecting the Gentile or the Jewish Christians of the Millennium, he equally felt it impossible to reconcile such expectations with the following declarations of St. Peter, in his address to the other apostles and the elders assembled at Jerusalem :—

"Men and brethren, ye know how that a good while ago, God made choice among us that the Gentiles, by my mouth, should hear the word of the Gospel, and believe. And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us; and put no