stand one syllable of scripture without this sensible inspiration; and the moment they feel it, they are assured of God's favour, and need not look into scripture to know his will, or compare their own conduct with it. Here, Sir, I am naturally led to observe with frankness, an indecency in your letter, when you say to Mr. D."Pray, Sir, let the scriptures be more your study." What reason, in the name of truth have you, Sir, to conclude, that Mr. D. has not made them as much, or more his study, than you have done? Will you assign as a reason his dissent from your interpretation of some part of them? Do not you perceive that this reason, if it were one, is retorted on you with equal force? You say "E love them, [the scriptures] above all other books. My delight is to be reading them." Candour obliges me to believe you. But it would have been well done, had you more fully explained the method of studying the scrip tures, which you would recommend to Mr. D. you have not been explicit, we must judge of the method of studying them, you would recommend by your method of explaining them; and this will, I am afraid, give a reasonable man no encouragement to imitate you. As The general, I had almost said universal opinion of Divines is, that "men should study the scriptures, like other books, critically; that is, learn the languages accurately, and become well versed in all the modes of figurative expression, and compare passages not only with passages which seem parallel, but those which seem contradictory to them; so as to establish a sense which reconciles all of them." He who studies in this method will: not be hurried away by appearances of a literal sense irreconcileable with many other passages of scripture, and in itself perhaps as absurd as the doctrine of transubstantiation. The limits of this paper will not allow me to enter much into particulars, yet one I must mention. St. Paul says, "I therefore so run, not as uncertainly: so fight 1, not as one that beateth the air, 1 Cor. ix. 26." Now if any man interpret this sentence so as to signify that St. Paul was absolutely certain of salvation, and that what he says of himself, he means of every true Christian, he will, I believe, find it impossible to reconcile this sense. with another passage of St. Paul in the same Epistle, viz. "I judge not my ownself. For I know nothing by myself; yet am I not hereby justified; but he that judgeth me is the Lord," ch. iy. 3, 4.But if he understand St.. Paul Paul in the former text to mean that " he was absolutely certain that Christ would give a crown of glory to every one who runs the race, and fought the fight of Christianity as he ought," then the passages are perfectly reconciled. Nothing seems clearer to me, than that every man in proportion to his prudence will have doubts whether he ean, without vanity, pass a judgment on his own heart. I will produce, Sir, a passage wrote by a gentleman who professes the doctrine of assurance, which is very expresive of these doubts; and his prudence in entertaining them. Having desired a clergyman, to whom he wrote' a defence of the doctrine of assurance, to consider his doctrine well; he assigns this reason, viz. "that if I be wrong, you may observe it to me in an answer." He plainly declares himself unassured of the truth of his favourite doctrine of assurance; and [which is very remarkable] in the front of his defence of that doctrine. You, Sir, assure your friends you know this gentleman perfectly well; I must, agreeably to your principles, have the highest opinion of him, as you assure us, you are assured of his being a Child of God, an inheritor of the kingdom. You will, however, I hope, take the hint to advise him either to obliterate this prudent and modest declaration of his uncertainty about his spiritual state, or that other less prudent and modest dictate. "Say not I HOPE; but answer in the negative or affirmative." pro I have now, Sir, examined your whole letter, as I mised with as much regard as if it had been written by one not only my equal, but superior in birth, education, and years, and must say, I am convinced by it so far as one instance can convince me, of the justice of that natural presumption in favour of regular education and mature years. Had you and your brethren enjoyed and profited" by an university education, and such reflections as advancing years suggest to those who having stored the priuciples of philosophy and philology at the university, apply them to the rational study of scripture, you would hardly have fallen into such a method of interpreting them as tends to expose yourselves and the religion you profess, to the scorn of infidels. "It must needs be that offences come: but woɛ be to that nian by whom the offence cometh." Matt. ch. xviii. v. 7. I recommend you, Reverend Sir, to God's keeping and the sober use of such faculties as he hath given you, and shall shall be ready to assist you to the utmost of my power, if you can bring yourself once to think that you need human assistance. For I am, although an adversary to your doctrines, which I esteem pernicious to true piety, and scanda lous to Christianity, a friend to your soul in all godly love. THOS. COMBer. East Newton, January 8, 1762. P.S. I have been so busy that I could not answer your letter before these holidays. ADDRESS OF THE FRENCH EMIGRANT CLERGY. TO THE EDITOR OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCHMAN'S SIR, MAGAZINE. Not having seen the enclosed letter in any of the periodical publications where it might have remained as a record of the gratitude of the French Clergy, and being one of those who witnessed with great satisfaction and admiration, the pious resignation, the quiet and or derly demeanor, the grateful feelings, and the exemplary virtue of these unfortunate exiles, under the persecution which they so patiently endured; I send it to you for insertion in your Magazine, where it will remain at once a monument of the liberality of our Countrymen, and of the feelings of those who were the subjects of it. It is their parting address on leaving this country, when a prospect was opened to them of seeing again their own country and connections: from which they seemed for some years before to have been entirely cut off, without the faintest hope, or smallest chance of restoration. How far the hopes which this unexpected event rekindled have been realized or disappointed, it would be gratifying to know. In some instances it appears from their letters that they much lament that they ever left the country where they were so well received. June, 17, 1805. 'J. S. The Address of the French Clergy residing in the North of England to the Gentlemen of the Committee formed in their favour at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1796; to the Subscribers and the Clergy, to the Gentlemen of the Medical Faculty, and to their benefactors in general. GENTLEMEN, WE earnestly implore heaven to bless with many hap py years your renowned and great King; great in his Vol. IX. Churchm. Mag. July, 1805. E beneficence beneficence to us, great in the love and attachment he has constantly shewn to his people. We offer as a tribute justly due from us, our most profound respects to the august Senate of the nation, whose generosity has been annually renewed in our favour in an extraordinary, and, we believe, unprecedented manner. We sincerely wish joy and prosperity to the English in general, who are worthy of our warmest eulogiums, as well for their characteristic amiableness, their frank and generous conduct, as the welcome with which they received us on our arrival, May England hold up to nations the mirror of happiness, as she has given to the world a model of beneficence. Such, gentlemen, are the sentiments of all the French Clergy dispersed through the different counties of this hospitable kingdom; and these sentiments, that gratitude which will ever cleave to their hearts, commands them thus publicly to declare. But this general and sincere declaration of gratitude does not satisfy the feelings of us who have had the good fortune to reside in the north of this happy empire. When we arrived on your coasts, you, gentlemen, looking upon us as victims devoted for adhering to our duty, not only graciously received us under your protection, but also in the most friendly manner gave us every assistance. In health, we have been in want of nothing; in sickness, we have experienced the most ready assistance; and that in general without expectation on your part, of any other reward than the consoling satisfaction you felt in prolonging our lives. Nothing has been spared on your part to assuage the sorrows of our exile; and what has most sensibly affected us, we frequently knew not what hand to bless for the favours we have received. Many therefore are our obligations to you; and sensible of them, but not able to express them as we wish, we hereby present you the most grateful sentiments of our hearts. As you have heaped favours upon us without ceasing, so shall our gratitude, joined with admiration, continue during the remainder of our lives; we will daily implore the supreme disperser of all things to recompence your generosity with still more abundant riches; your hospitality and other virtues with his most signal favours. Receive then, gentlemen, these lively and sincere sentiments, which are presented to you unanimously by Your humble Servants, THE FRENCH CLERGY. SHEKALIM, OR THE SHEKELS. СНАР. І. On the §. 1. ON N the first of Adar* they make public procla mation concerning the payment of the Shekelst, and the separation of heterogeneous mixturest. fifteenth of that month they read the roll in walled cities, and repair the highways, and streets, and the reservoirs of water, and do all that the public conveniency and necessity require: they paint § the sepulchres and go forth to enforce the precept relating to heterogeneous mix tures. 2. R. Jehuda says, originally they rooted up the heterogeneous plants, and cast them down before them: but since the time that transgressors were multiplied, they rooted them up, and cast them into the highways. At length they ordained that they would render every such field common. 3. On the fifteenth of this month tables are set out in the country; and on the twenty-fifth commissioners sit at their tables in the sanctuary . From the time that they sit in the sanctuary, they begin to receive pledges. And from whom do they receive pledges? From the Levites, and Israelites, from Proselytes, and from Freedmen, but hot from women, nor from servants, nor from minors. Every minor through whose hands his father has begun to his shekel should return to that office, and not desist. They do not take pledges from the priests, on account of the honour due to them. pay * Answering to part of our February and March, Prohibited. Deut. xxii. 9, 10, 11. This fifteenth day of Adar was called the great feast of Purim:" see Esther ix. 18. The roll was that of Esther, which is annually read on that day in commemoration of the Jews' deliverance from the designs of Haman. The manner of doing this is described in Maaser Sheni, cap. 5. § 1, "They paint the sepulchres with chalk, mixed and stirred in water." And the gloss on this place says, "They painted the sepulchres_with chalk in the shape of bones, &c." compare Matthew xxiii. 27. “Ye are like whited sepulchres." See Matthew, xxi. 12. |