children of those who are members of the church are, as they were amongst the Lacedemonians, looked upon as the property, rather of the public, than their own parents, from whom they are taken when a year old, and put to a school, where the first lesson taught them is simple obedience and quietness. They have several elders whose business is to give the Bishop, or Pastor, who, by the way, is a mechanic, the most exact information they can relating to the religious state of the whole community. They suspend each other from communion, or withdraw themselves from it, not only from any scandalous of fence, which seldom happens among them, but on account of any little misdemeanor, which seems contrary to the honour of the gospel. Count Zinzendorf was once suspended for being in a passion with one of his servants, and was obliged to acknowledge his fault, and to ask pardon publicly before he was restored.

They tell one remarkable story concerning a person who was a member with them, but something offended at the strictness of their discipline. He did not submit to fraternal correction, as they call it. They therefore proceeded to admonish him, at which he was greatly exasperated. Being a person of eminent rank, he then set them at open defiance, and insulted them in a very audacious manner. Upon which they excommunicated him, very solemnly. He was then seized with violent agonies, both of body and mind; and when he had for several weeks tried most noted physicians, and every method of amusement and comfort he could think of, to no purpose, he at last sent for the elders, and desired them to pray for him. But they insisted on his being brought, I think, on his couch, to their public assembly, where he made an open confession of his sin. It is a very melancholy incident they tell of another of their number who having made a very florid profession, not without some

their duty." Le Long, a Moravian Author, in Rimius, p. 10.

"They pay an uncommon attention to the instruction of youth. There are assemblies held of little children that are not yet in a condition to walk. They are carried thither. Hymns are sung in these meetings and prayers made; even sermons are preached to them, suitable to the eapacities of these infant hearers." Rimius, p. 9.

"Every member is daily visited by one of his class, who gives him exhortations, and takes notice of the actual state of his soul, whereof he makes a report to the Elders. The Elders have the sole right of making matches. No promise of marriage is of any validity, without their Consent." Rimius, pp. 8 and 11.

mixture of ostentation, one day, receiving the sacrament amongst them, was taken with convulsive pains and died in the assembly, crying with his last breath, aud with the greatest horror, Spiritual Pride ! Spiritual Pride!

These people were misrepresented to the late King of Poland, so that he sent an order against them, which would probably have ended in extirpation; but it was very remarkable that a few days before it was to be executed he got that accidental hurt in his toe, which mortified and proved the occasion of his death. The present King sent a commission to inquire after them, but received a report so much in their favour that he secretly protected them.

Mr. Ingham assures me that he has seen amongst them such extraordinary answers of prayer as has thrown him into great amazement. Persons have been recovered from dangerous and desperate illness, as it seems, by this means; and he added a little story, for the truth of which he undertakes to answer, upon his own knowledge. One of the brethren, who is an Elder, was bathing in a river, a little above Savanna, when an alligator darted directly at him. The Moravian did not attempt to fly, but finding himself inwardly supported, as he afterwards declared, with a full assurance of being delivered, he swam directly towards the alligator, and laid his hands on the head of that voracious creature, without the least degree of fear upon him. Upon which the alligator sunk down like a stone, to the bottom of the river, and made no other attempt upon him. He says that several of the inhabitants were at that time within sight, and it was as a sort of a standing saying among some sort of the English, that the little man had beat the alligator.

I might have added, that in dubious cases their Church has often recourse to the determination of lots, and Mr. In

Dr. Doddridge himself, as Dr. Kippis, his biographer, who knew him well, has observed, carried his notions on this subject "somewhat farther than reason and truth will warrant," so as to ascribe to prayer" such an immediate influence upon the Supreme Mind, and to expect from it such interpositions as are scarcely consistent with the regular order of Providence, and the stated course of events in the world." Dr. K. considers Dr. Price and Dr. Ogden as having also exceeded, on this point. B. Britt., v. 305.

This mode of determination was adopted on a remarkable occasion by the Congregation-Church. In 1731, "The Count having endeavoured to evince the utility of a total conformity with the Lutheran Church, it was resolved that we

into heaven, and as they to endless ages, are to be exalted from one state of glory to a greater, he presumed that they were destined to die again, for some short interval, on every promotion to still greater degrees of felicity.

But my present design is to give you his paraphrase upon Romans v. 12, to the end of the chapter. This will exercise your ingenious correspondents, from whose united labours we may hope to learn the true meaning of the original.

:

"For this cause or reason, we have received reconciliation by Jesus Christ, namely, as sin entered into the world by the one man, Adam, and death by his sin in eating the forbidden fruit, and thus by this sin of his, death bath come upon all men, whereupon, in consequence of which, they have all sinned; and yet that death passed upon all by means of the sin of the one man, Adam, as I observed in the foregoing verse, and would briefly prove before I proceed to finish the comparison I there began, is exceeding evident for all along from the time of Adam's lapse to the giving the law by Moses, sin was in the world. But whatever sin may, in its own nature, be supposed to deserve, it is not reasonable to suppose, that it should be universally reckoned to both, when no law is in being that makes death the special penalty of transgression and yet death reigned thus universally through the whole period of time between Adam and Moses, and over those too who did not violate, as they might have done, a positive command of God, "after the similitude of Adam's transgression;" between whom and him that was to come, namely, the Messiah, there is a likeness as to the damage occasioned by the one, and the gift bestowed through the other not that the damage occasioned by the lapse of the one man, Adam, and the advantage arising from the free gift through the one man, Jesus Christ, exactly correspond to each other; for if the many, that is, all men, are subjected to death, through the lapse of the one man, Adam, the grace of God, and the gift by this grace of his, which grace is bestowed through the one mau, Jesus Christ, hath more abounded, unto the same many, or all men. And, not as the damage, to repeat

what I observed in the beginning of the former verse, that I may be more explicit in opening myself upon a matter of such importance; I say, not as the damage through the one man that sinned, that is, in the one instance in which he was tried, so is the gift through the one man, Jesus Christ : for the judicial sentence took rise from the lapse of the one man, Adam, and proceeded to condemnation, condemnation subjecting mankind to mortality, and thereupon to sin also; but the gift takes rise from the many sins which men commit in the course of their lives, and proceeds in opposition to the power and demerit of them all, so as finally to terminate in justification, justification including in it their deliverance from sin as well as death, their being made righteous as well as reigning in life: and it is quite reasonable to think thus of the matter; for if by the lapse of the one man death in all its consequences reigned through this one man over all men; muchmore shall these all men, who are the recipients of the abounding of the grace of God, and of the gift that shall make them righteous, finally reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. I say, therefore, to return now and pursue the comparison, I began in the twelfth verse, as it was by the lapse of the one man, Adam, that the judicial act,"dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return," came upon all men, subjecting them to death; even so, by the righteousness of the one man, Jesus Christ, the opposite advantageous gift is come upon the same all men, which delivers them from death to reign in life for ever; and this may be admitted without difficulty: for to proceed in the comparison, as by the disobedience of the one man, Adam, the many, or all men, by a divine constitution, subjecting them to a frail mortal state, occasioned by this disobedience of his, became sinners; even so, by the disobedience of the one man, Jesus Christ, the same many, or all men, in consequence of an opposite constitution, grounded on this obedience of his, shall become righteous persons, and as such be subjectively qualified for the justification of life, or what means the same thing, an eternal reign in happy life. Now the introduction of the law among the Jews is so far from being an ob

SIR,

TH

W. H.

HE sentiment of your readers coinciding with your own wishes, they are very sorry that you cannot favour them with an exact portrait of the late Mr. Francis Webb. If his cousin, Dr. Jefferies, had been living, he could have particularly described him from his cradle to his grave. Others are still existing in our world, who can do much to this purpose. But, I can do little more than say, that he was uniformly a strenuous advocate for pure liberty, and that according to his favourite maxim, "The love of money is the root of all evil," he was never influenced by a regard to pelf. Above fifty years ago he married an amiable lady, a Miss Milner. At this time he took a house, the rent of which exceeded his income.

Some years after, he accepted the place of deputy searcher at Gravesend, which was accompanied with 500l. a year. Whether the occupation was injurious to his feelings or not, I cannot positively say, but he resigned this lucrative situation, after holding it seven or eight years. Being at a distance from him after this, I cannot be his historian any further. But, I presume, that he never lost sight of liberty. In conversation he was peculiarly eloquent and entertaining. He published two volumes of sermons, when he was a young man, which made all who read them wish for more. I conclude with hoping that you will be able soon to furwish us with many more particulars.

Y. Z.

71

Analysis of a Work by a Jewish Au thor, Mr. Bennet, on Sacrifices. SIR,

PRUSSIAN Jew, of respecta

A Presser, Jew, if, I am

formed, a portrait painter in London, moved with indignation against what he calls the Christian Doctors, and especially against Dr. Adam Clarke, who has had the effrontery to declare that there is not a Jew in the present day that knows the Hebrew language and the literature of that people, has published a small pamphlet on the subject of the Sacrifices of the Levitical Law; and as this subject has much engaged your readers of late, you may not be unwilling to lay an analysis of his little work before them. I confess there seems to me an antecedent probability that the Jewish people are acquainted with the laws of their fore fathers: but even if they were not, since Mr. Bennett does not affect to establish his proof upon any other ground than the Scriptures, it is in our power to ascertain whether his argument is conclusive.

I am, Sir, yours,

J. W. "The great body of Christians maintain that all the laws which regard sacrifices were absolute laws, that no remission could be expected but by the shedding of animal blood; and then they conclude that, to cleanse the spiritual leper, the Lamb of God must be slain, the sprinkling of his blood must be applied: and without the shedding of his blood there can be no remission; and, if this hypothesis be well founded, that the House of Israel in their present state of dispersion, being without animal sacrifices, and without the salvation of the great sacrifice, i. e. the Lamb of God, must remain without any salvation whatever, and no quarter can be given to the ancient house of Israel." He then proceeds:

1. "If we adhere to the instructions of the Mosaic code, we shall find that the primitive sacrifices, either animal, vegetable, or libations, were not instituted for trespasses and remission of sins. In the history of the Patriarchs we meet with quite different notions on this subject; for in all the accounts of the patriarchal sacrifices, those of Cain, Abel, Noah, Abraham, &c. they were neither absolute nor

for the remission of sin. They were all voluntary gifts and free donations, as tokens of gratitude and obedience to the Universal Benefactor: but in process of time, when mankind became more numerous, the practice deviated from its primitive simplicity; it became an inheritance to the priests, and the servants of the temple: and in consequence they were varied and multiplied; they became moreover absolute, and were insisted upon as of indispensable obligation. *

“Profane history informs us that the heathen sacrifices did not only extend to thanksgivings and sin-offerings, but that they were also augurial and soothsaying-employed for inquiries respecting events to come, and discoveries either of political and public concerns or of private interest. These were regulated according to the fancies of the augurial priests; and a most productive system it certainly was to them.

"At the exit from Egypt, when the Commonwealth of Israel was formed, this practice of sacrifices was so generally spread that it could not altogether be dispensed with. The divine wisdom, which wrought miracles in the firmament and the elements of nature, never wrought a miracle on the human character. Any super-natural change in the human mind would militate against the emphatical charge in Deut. xxx. 19, "I testify unto you this day, I have set before you life and death, a blessing and a curse-Choose life." To change the manners and customs from one extreme to another would have been a violence done to the choice of the mind therefore the divine Legisla tor thought proper not to abolish the general practice of sacrifices, but only to reduce them to a more limited system. Generally speaking they were reduced to two classes; the one freewill offerings, thank and peace-offerings; the other, duty-offerings, for sin and guilt. The sacrifices of both classes were also ordained according

Does not this account of the tricks of Priests in the most ancient times correspond with what may clearly be traced out in the history of the Christian Church, of the revenues, obtained by priests, and the various means they gradually brought about of obtaining money from the be. lievers?

to the fortune of the donor or the transgressor, and were either animal or vegetable according to ability: they were to be offered to the Supreme Power alone, in Jerusalem only, and by the hands of the tribe of Levi." We are lead to believe upon reading the history of Moses, that it was the original design of the Lawgiver not to burden the Israelites with many ceremonies; the first institution was extremely simple, and it would probably have continued so, had not the Jews discovered such an absolute determination to attach themselves to rites and ceremonies which all the other nations were fond of, that it was found necessary to load them with burdens, in order to keep down their rebellious spirits-truly does it appear, upon tracing onwards their history, that the prophet spoke truth when he said, 'My people will have it so.'

"2. When we examine the order of sacrifices as it is described in Leviticus, we find that the shedding of blood was not at all necessary for the remission of sins. Thus Leviticus, 1st and 2nd chapters, there is an order for meat-offerings of flour with oil and incense. But, still more to the purpose, in xi. xiv. But if he be not able to bring two turtle doves, then he that sinned shall bring a tenth part of an ephod of fine flour for a sin-offering. He shall put no oil therein.' Nothing can be more dis tinctly intended here, than that the shedding of animal blood, according to the Mosaic dispensation, was not essential for trespasses and sin-offerings at large; but was purely ceremonial and circumstantial.

"3. If we examine the prophetical books at large, we shall find that they all confirm what I have advanced-that the whole system of sacrifices was neither essential to salvation nor of absolute commandment. Thus in Samuel, Hath God as great delight in burnt-offering and sacrifice as in obeying the word of God? Behold to obey is preferable to offering sacrifice, and to hearkeu is more acceptable than the fat of lambs." King David said, Sacrifice and offering thou didst not require; ears hast thou opened in me.' (Meaning that men ought to listen to absolute rational commandments applicable to human welfare). See also xvth Psalm at large,