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on the day he eat thereof, but that on that day his dissolution commenced, I in my turn ask, hath God then lied? (God forbid the thought;)"for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." Adam's state, after his creation, and before his fall or death, being an holy state, I cannot understand. We read of holy angels, holy men, holy land, holy people; but this must be taken in a qualified and comparative sense, for in truth there is none holy but One. What Adam's change would have been, had he not fallen, we can have but little doubt of-acceptance, (as I trust will be the case of us all, if we do well.) And that his fall did not hinder his acceptance to life eternal, we may also gather from the text. He knew not good from evil. The serpent, who alone had knowledge, was cursed; not so Adam, or Eve. What is revealed in the text is mine; but I must understand it literally. What I do not understand by the text, are the hidden things which belong to God. dare not be wise above the letter.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

MOSES would be less exceptionable were he unveiled. He favours much the arguments of Eliphaz the Temanite.

ABRAHAM will oblige us by trimming the exuberant branches. He will be always received.

Our Philadelphia correspondent is reminded, we shall be happy to receive The Philanthropic Spirit of Gregoir. It would be pleasant, were all gospel ministers inspired with his truly catholic spirit.

Published by L. Emanuel No. 265 Broadway

BEING A DEFENCE OF JUDAISM AGAINST ALL ADVERSARIES, AND PARTICULARLY AGAINST THE

INSIDIOUS ATTACKS OF

ISRAEL'S ADVOCATE.

Vol. I. 1st day of the 8th month, MARCHASHVAN, 5584.

No. 8.

Examination and Answer to a Sermon, delivered by the Rev. George Stanley Faber, Rector of Long Newton, Preached before the London Society for promoting......ianity among the Jews, on the 18th April, 1821, at the Parish Church of St. Paul's, Covent Garden. (Continned from page 136.)

He proceeds, page 7:

"Such I believe to be the true secret of the small emolument, with which we Gentiles attempt the conversion of the yet unreclaimed Gentiles. The fact of our little success is notorious and indisputable: the reason is, because an honour, reserved for others, neither will nor can be conferred on us. For, if it be the special alloted task of the converted Jews to effect the conversion of the great national mass of the Gentiles; nothing can be more clear, than that the conversion of that great national mass will never be effected by ourselves, whatever partial success may attend our efforts with insulated individuals. But, that such is the special allotted task of the converted Jews, is set forth with sufficient plainness in the volume of prophecy.

"Whether the language of prophecy be figurative, or whether it be literal, still it ceases not to maintain the same important position.

"Zechariah teaches us, that, in the day when the Jews shall be restored to their own land, and shall be delivered from their congregated enemies, 'living waters shall go out from Jerusalem:' and in the parallel passages of Ezekiel and Joel, which similarly treat of Judah's restoration in the last ages, these same living waters are said to flow out of the temple.

"The language here employed is, doubtless, figurative: but, though figurative, it is still perfectly familiar and intelligible to those who have paid even a moderate attention only to prophetic phraseology, As it is justly observed by Mr. Lowth, while commenting on the passage from Zechariah, 'the supplies of grace are often repre sented in scripture by rivers and streams of water, which both cleanse and make fruitful the ground through which they pass.'

"On this well-known principle, then, of interpretation, as the meaning of the three parallel prophecies is obviously the same, so it is hard to say what can be intended by the efflux of living waters from Jerusalem, or from the temple, during the period

which immediately follows the restoration of the Jews, unless it be the communication of the Gospel to the great body of the now unbelieving Gentiles, immediately after their own conversion. Under the image of a river flowing out from the temple of Jerusalem, the waters of which gradually rise until they become a mighty stream which cannot be passed over, and which itself communicates health and life whithersoever it cometh, is clearly and aptly shadowed out the beneficent progress of the Gospel from the metropolis of the converted and restored Israelites through every province and kingdom of the Gentile world."

Why "the language here employed" is figurative, and undoubtedly so, I cannot perceive. Nay, there appears to be a necessity that it should be literally fulfilled. Jerusalem will become very large and populous. They formerly were very much troubled for water. They never had a sufficient supply of fish; neither was Judea itself extraordinarily watered. They had no navigable rivers except Jordan, and that is entirely inland, rising at Mount Lebanon, and falling into the Dead Sea; and nothing can be conceived more convenient than a good supply of water in a warm climate. And why should the promise of a good supply of spring water, a plentiful supply of fish and fruit, be thought beneath the majesty of Heaven, when he condescends to promise to level the mountains and inequalities of the ground about Jerusalem? "All the land shall be turned as a plain from Gibea to Rimmon, south of Jerusalem : and it shall be raised up, and inhabited in its place, from the gate of Benjamin, unto the place of the first gate, unto the inward gate, and from the tower of Hananeel to the king's wine-presses. Zach. xiv. 10. He condescends to promise us good pasturage and bread, clean fodder for the beasts, (1) plenty of water on the highest grounds, the very top of the mountains. (2) In another place, “Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree; instead of the brier shall come up the mirtle tree.”(3) In another “ A multitude of camels, gold and incense, (4) and servants to minister and wait on us;(5) fir, pine and box; silver, iron;(6) joy and rejoicing; long life; stability.(7) In another place, our joy is promised to satiety; again we are promised health, (8) plenty of fruit and increase of the earth. Nay, in his goodness he even condescends in different places to assure the ladies their peculiar enjoyments, dancing, yes, and merry making; and here we are promised fish and navigable streams: but

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this the preacher thinks too much for the miserable Jews. What! a stream joining the Mediterranean Sea and the Pacific Ocean, which will make their country, Judea, their city Jerusalem, the centre of trade for the universe! This must not be. Let us make it figurative: let it signify grace and instead of permitting them to enjoy this grace at home, let them be sent on missionary journeys. The undoubtedly learned and reverend Mr. Faber has either on conviction or for some other reason, joined in our explanation of the prophetic promises. He will not allow them to be spiritualized. He calls it "The once prevalent mischievous humour of what was called spiritualizing the prophecies." But does not Mr. Faber know, and does not the world feel, that this spiritualizing of the prophecies, is one of the chief corner stones of the ......ian religion, which, when taken away, the whole edifice must fall by piecemeal to the ground? Has not St. Paul erected the fabric entirely on that foundation? Or, does the learned prelate think the world is not yet in a situation to listen to the whole truth? Such I really believe are his thoughts, and which although perhaps he may be correct in, as to Europe; but the case is different in America. Here even the religionist dare and will consider the arguments of his opponents. He has no expectation of confounding him by persecution. Here, even "error in opinion is tolerated;" and only "reason left free to combat it." Cool dispassionate reason and argument are the only weapons of offence and defence used by all parties; and although each in their several spheres play with the passions of their particular audiences, raising. their hopes and alarming their fears, still among and with each other no address but that applied to the head, to the understanding, is or can be used with any, the least probability of success: and therefore here, truth, and truth only, and in toto, will finally have the victory, and here the people are ripe to receive it; and preachers are in duty bound to teach it. To return to our subject: If the spring of water which is promised to arise within and flow out of the temple, and which is to form two navigable rivers, one falling into the Great (the Mediterranean) Sea, and the other into the Eastern or Red Sea, which are to be furnished with plenty of fish, and whose banks are to yield rich fruit trees, ever flourishing; whose very leaves, being medicinal, are to serve as a commodity for exportation (" for the healing of the nations,") and which will

not be needed at home, being we have the promise of health without them; if this spring, these rivers, their concomitants and appurtenances, are to be explained away as figurative language, without any certain and defined meaning, what assurance can we have that all the rest of the promises before enumerated, are not also figurative? So that at last the learned Mr. Faber has only varied his attack: he loses no ground-he makes use of a figurative instead of spiritual meaning; either of which confounds the meaning of the promise, and makes prophecy mean any thing; for if we allow of figurizing, prophetic language becomes uncertain, being undefined, and may be made to have intended any event whatever that may occur. This was the case with the Pagan Oracles, and the ......ian manner of explaining scripture prophecies, either by spiritualizing or figurizing is the same, and would bring them to the same fate, and deservedly so. Again, if this or these rivers of water are a figure of something else, the law, the gospel teachings, ......ianity, Judaism, old or new, the fish must also be a fig

ure.

The fishermen, the nets, the towns of En Rogel and Engedi, the trees, the fruit, the leaves, the vale of Shittem, and the temple itself are figures. It is a rule in writing not to mix figurative and literal language.* When these waters have found their vent in the sea, they are to be healed. This also must be figurative of something. The low places are to become marshy, and be given to salt. This also must of necessity be a figure. Is the law, the gospel, the doctrines, or the graces, to stagnate and become putrid ? The reverend, learned, Mr. Faber ought at least to have explained all these figures. But for argument sake, say the language is figurative. Whence can we gather that it is a figure of ......ian doctrine? Why not Judaism, or any other? What have we to point out to us the particular doctrine that is to emanate from the temple, which, in such case, is itself only a figure? I must conclude with these questions. If the former manner of explaining the promises by spiritualizing them, was a "mischievous humour," what will mankind think of this modern, nay, novel method of explaining them by figure? Is not the humour of it to the full as mischievous as spiritualizing, and liable to the same, nay to stronger objections, being entirely modern and novel, and without the least colour of authority? Does not rejecting the humour of spiritualizing, also

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