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"We are told that, in order to preserve the prophet Jonah, when he was thrown overboard by the mariners, the Lord prepared a great fish to swallow him up.' What kind of fish it was is not specified: but the Greek translators take the liberty to give us the word KETOS (whale), and though St. Matthew, xii. 40, makes use of the same word, we may conclude that he did so in a general sense; and that we are not to understand it as an appropriated term, to point out the particular species of the fish; since the naturalists have informed us, that the make of the whale will not permit it to swallow a human body, as the shark and some other of the water animals are known to be capable of doing: and it is notorious that sharks are a species of fish common in the Mediterranean.

"Bochart and Linnæus suppose it the charcarias, or tamia, which has a throat and belly so prodigiously great that it can easily swallow a man without the least hurt. It is much more natural to believe that it was one of these fishes who swallowed Jonah, than to multiply miracles without necessity, by supposing that God, who kept him alive for three days in the belly of the fish, should have brought a whale from the northern coasts, and then enlarge its throat for his reception.

"Our Lord observes, Luke xi. 30, that Jouas, 'was a sign to the Ninevites; and it may be well worth remark、 ing, that the fame of the prophet's miraculous preservation was so widely propagated as to reach even Greece; whence, as several learned men have observed, was, no doubt, derived the story of Hercules escaping alive out of a fish's belly, which is alluded to by Lycophron, who calls Hercules,

"That famed three-nighted lion, whom of old

Triton's carcharian dog, with horrid jaws

Devoured.

"That is, (says Bochart,) whom the canis charcarias, or shark, sent by Neptune, swallowed.

"Thus the poet not only agrees with the Scripture account of Jonah as to the time his hero remained entombed, but even mentions the very species of fish by which it is most probable that the prophet was swallowed. Æneas Gazæus, however, calls the fish that devoured Hercules, as the LXX. and St. Matthew do that which swallowed Jonah, KETOS. 'As Hercules also is reported, when he was ship

wrecked, to have been swallowed by a [KETOs] whale, and yet to have been saved.'*

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"The author of Fragments, &c, as an Appendix to Calmet,' No. cxlv., explains this, not of a living animal, but a floating preserver, by which Jonah was saved from drowning. He remarks, that though DAG signifies primarily a fish, yet that it also signifies a fish-boat,' and figuratively a preserver.' So that the passage will admit. of being rendered, The Lord prepared a large DAG [preserver] to receive Jonah, and Jonah was in the inner part [the belly, or hold] of this DAGAH, three days and nights; and then was cast up on the shore.' This allusion is adverted to by our Lord, Matt. xii. 40, who says, 'Jonah was in the hollow cavity of the KETOS three days and nights, so shall the Son of man be in the heart of the earth.'t

"The word whale' occurs in the translation of Ecclesiasticus xliii. 25, and in the 'Song of the three children,ˆ v. 57 in both which the Greek word KETOS is used."

:

Mr. H. Clarke's Address to Trinitarians, on their affected Pity for Unitarians.

TRINITARIAN CHRISTIANS,

Frenchay, Bristol,
July 7, 1826.

You doubtless think your religious sentiments scriptural; consequently you deem Antitrinitarianism unscriptural. To your entertaining these opinions there can be no fair objection if you hold the first in Christian humility and the last with Christian forbearance. You are entitled, nay you are necessitated, to consider those whose religious views differ from yours, as being in error. Every Christian must possess the same right, and be laid under the same necessity, of concluding, that all who do not think with him are wrong. We all believe our own theological

"The reader may see more on this subject in Bochart, Hieroz. V. iii. p. 687; Vossius de Orig. Idol. 1. ii. c. 15; Grotius de Verit, 1. i. § 16, not. 105; and the author of Fragments in addition to Calmet,” in his 'Investigations on the Dag of Jonah.""

66 6

+ Surely it is as rational to think God made use of a ship, called Dag, to preserve Jonah, as to suppose that all the laws of nature were suspended, and a number of miracles performed to accomplish the same purpose.'

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"Great ships were called 'ketos.' "

tenets true, and those of others erroneous. To think otherwise is impossible. For, from the instant an individual receives as true any particular opinion, he must consider all those which are of an opposite kind false. No one, for instance, can, by any mental process whatever, possibly believe, at one and the same time, that God consists of three persons, and that he is but one person. A man may, at different periods of his life, alternately believe most firmly each of these propositions, but while he considers either true, he must inevitably esteem the other false.

Thus you differ from the Unitarian and he differs from you, and both are led by the very same law of the mind to look upon each other as erring from the truth. But must each therefore anathematize the other? Must both indulge in "bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, and malice"? Or, if one party only be allowed the prerogative to condemn, to which shall it be awarded? If any thing be clear it is this, that the nature of the questions at issue among Christians, the diversity of opinion resulting therefrom, and the spirit of Christianity, unite to declare that all are fallible; that the right to condemn for religious sentiments belongs to no human being; and that mutual candour and charity are indispensable.

He who dares to pronounce that certain theological opinions must incur the displeasure of God, and to consign his differing fellow-christian to perdition, assumes infallibility, breaks the command and arrogates the authority of the Saviour. All this, however, you do when you assert that Unitarianism is a dangerous system, and that its espousers cannot be saved. And you do the very same thing when you say to the Unitarian, "I am sorry for you, and pity you." Sorry for him, for what? Because he is in dangerous error, you reply. Pity him, why? Because he cannot with those opinions be saved, you answer. you disown these replies, then you cannot talk of pity and sorrow; for upon nothing else can such feelings possibly rest but the supposition that the individual's sentiments must lead to future misery. So that to say to a Unitarian, "I am sorry for you, and pity you," is to

"Judge him for modes of faith God's foe,

And doom him to the realms of woe."

If

But to be qualified thus to determine, you must be posses

ised of infallibility. Presumptuous man, "who made thee = a judge?"

But the sincerity of your professions of sorrow and pity may most justly be questioned. When we really possess these feelings we are anxious to assist the object of them; and even should he refuse our proffered aid, our deep concern for his case totally disallows anger at his conduct. But do you enter dispassionately, and in the spirit of love, into the investigation of the religious differences between you and the Unitarian? And are you quite free from anger when you have failed to convince him that he is wrong? If you are unable to give unequivocal, affirmative answers to these questions, then it cannot be true that you are sorry for him and pity him. No, that to which you give the soft names sorrow and pity, is in reality unholy anger.

Another serious objection to your use of the language under consideration, is the gross injustice of its application. If a Unitarian were to address it to you, would you not be displeased? Most certainly you would; for you think your opinions true, and could not like to be pitied and mourned over as being in fatal error. The Unitarian must feel just the same, and you know who has said, "Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, even so to them."

do y

o ye

When, then, you substitute the before-named language for argument, you are carried away by "a zeal not according to knowledge," rashly to utter what can scarcely be true, presumptuously to assume infallibility, and daringly to violate the rule of equity and justice prescribed by Christ himself. It is true that you may do this, under the mistaken notion of rendering service to God and to Christ. But if there be truth in revelation, such conduct must be highly displeasing to both. If you maintain that it cannot be so, because those whom you thus treat are, according to your opinion, in error, then must you allow, that upon the very same principle it would be perfectly right in those who differ from you to treat you in the same manner. And then too, must you grant, that the Smithfield fires were sanctioned by Christianity, and pleasing to God. For those who lighted them, thought themselves right; considered those whom they burnt, wrong; and professed to destroy the body for the good of the soul.

If a man say to another, "You will be lost unless you

believe as I do," there is too much reason to conclude that it would be so if he who pronounces such a sentence were possessed of power to carry it into effect. But I will venture to say, that such an expression never dropped: from the lips or flowed from the pen of any Unitarian. Now if you are right and they wrong, must it not follow that their error is better calculated to produce candour, liberality, and Christian love, than your truth? "By their fruits ye shall know them," is a reply furnished by the infallible Judge of truth.

Jesus also proclaims, "He that is not against us, is on our part." The Unitarian professes to believe, that be who thus speaks came from God; spake the words of God; wrought miracles by the finger of God; was by God made both Lord and Christ; is he by whom God will judge the world in righteousness; and that, therefore, he is to be obeyed in all things as a divinely-appointed instructor and sure guide to endless bliss. Is he then against Christ, because when he prays he says, as his Lord hath taught him, "Our Father," and worships the Father alone, believing this to be true worship, because Jesus hath said so; instead of saying, O God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, and worshiping a Trinity? You of course think the Almighty should be worshiped by these three names, as being those of the persons of the Trinity: but before you pronounce, with so much confidence, that this is the form of worship God hath prescribed, and express surprise at those who cannot conscientiously use such a form, would it not be well seriously to consider and impartially to weigh the reasons that are assigned for the strict and simple unity, the unrivalled supremacy and exclusive Deity of the Father?

The Unitarian's language is, "I believe all the doctrines that are clearly taught in the Bible; but I can nowhere in the sacred volume read such phrases as God the Son, God the Holy Ghost, the persons of the Godhead, co-eternal Son, the Trinity, and similar expressions, and therefore I cannot allow them to be scriptural; I dare not admit them to be parts of revealed truth." Ought this to be met by yon with haughty sarcasm, angry reproof, and bitter anathemas Will Christ, at his second coming, commend and reward you for so doing, think you? But we are assured, that love of God and love of man shall be rewarded in that day. It must therefore be wiser and safer to attach supreme im

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