ligion;" if they would not believe it on older authority. I cannot agree with the author of " the considerations," that Moses derived this account from Egyptian sources: the ideas and expressions, which seem Egyptian, are common to several nations and appear to be primeval thoughts and words, which have flowed out among many different people from the same fountain. What should an Egyptian piece do, introducing narratives that are any thing rather than Egyptian? and is it not entirely in the same spirit with those narratives, and the very original of them all?of the history of Paradise and the Fall I have written in the preceding letter: I repeat that I know nothing more childlike, whether we consider the relation itself, or the tone in which it is told. As for the dress of fable in which it is wrapped, that was thrown over it by the nature of the subject and the genius of the age: the origin of evil in the human condition can scarcely be treated otherwise; cannot, at least, be more usefully treated. It is like a fairy tale of the happy, alas vanished! dream of infancy and you may wonder at me for believing that, as in the description of the creation are contained the simplest natural philosophy, and system of the world, and origin of man;-so in this is to be found the simplest philosophy respecting the tangled knots of human condition and its most complicated windings.-So it is with the history of the first tribes of men, their modes of life, inventions, excesses, fortunes; not forgetting the beautiful song of Lamech* on the invention of the sword. If you will read, upon this and much that precedes it, the second part of "Oldest Records;" you will find that many ideas in it are now repeated in different forms by authors, who are in other respects wide asunder; and are confirmed by considerations of various kinds. The same remarks will apply to the history of the flood, which was probably compiled from several traditionary accounts;-to the beautiful symbol of the

*The charms of this "beautiful song" are certainly of a very accommodating kind. The fragment is two verses long, and has had perhaps as Inany constructions put upon it as it contains words. Some suppose that Lamech had really killed some young man for something; others understand him as declaring that he had never done any such thing; and others think that the words are mere rhodomontade,-" they will find me apt enough if they give me occasion." Some bear in them the language of remorse, others of exculpation ;-some of conjugal kindness, and others of rough boasting. Some contend that the piece relates to polygamy; and others are sure that it refers to the manufacture of arms. Isaac Delgado says, "this speech of Lamech to his wives is quite unintelligible:" but he immediately after takes courage, and goes on with the true sturdy spirit of a commentator: "Lamech's argument must have been this."

+ Aelteste Urkunde des Menschengeschlechts." Leipz. 1774.

rainbow, to the discovery of wine, to the most ancient of maps, (chapter 10th) and to the tradition of the tower-building, which seems in spirit to lift itself up with the growing height it describes. Over some of these accounts there lies still a heavy mist of antiquity; yet it is undeniable, that within a few years, and from the most different minds at once, much excellent illustration has been thrown upon them. Jerusalem's "ConsideraMichaelis in

tions" are especially valuable as a leading work.

his notes to the first book of Moses has said much well; but much also, as it seems to me, that is foreign from those compositions and the age of them.

With the history of Abraham you cannot help feeling how the tone becomes nearer and more familiar. He was called from far, to be a pilgrim in a foreign land which was to belong to his posterity, as the friend of the Lord Jehovah; to stamp the name of that Being upon his race by means of monuments, observances, altars, and still more, through purity of manners, righteousness, and a steadfast faith. As for the manner, in which God conversed with him, and he with God; how, for example, he besought God on behalf of Sodom, and God showed him the stars, revealed the fortunes of his race, demanded of him his son, &c., nothing approaches the simplicity and nobleness as well of the subject as of the description. It is the same with his conduct towards Lot, Melchisedec, Isaac, Ishmael, Eliezer, the children of Heth: like soft rain on the tender grass, like the dew on roses, distils the artless narration. So goes on the history of his children, Isaac, Jacob, Esau, Joseph and his brethren: the most confidential, domestic, sincere, patriarchal and pastoral history. It is very common for men to prate, that the Hebrews have no historical style, and that the first book of Moses is a special proof of this. Nothing was ever more unintelligible to me than such an assumption. I hold the style of these, and of the simplest parts in the other historical books of the Hebrews, to be the very ideal of history for such times, customs, and people :-nay for the truest, best style of all history. Try once, and tell a child something in an opposite style: indulge, for example, in little conceits, alter circumstances and phrases, and contradict yourself, for the sake of some pretty variety, in what you said a moment before; or, instead of writing plainly, give into observations and pragmatical reflexions; the child will not attend to you, but will remind you that you before related it thus and thus; and if he repeats it after you, he will repeat it like the books of Moses, the book of Ruth, the most delightful passages of Samuel and Kings. All the oldest writers of genuine worth relate even so; Homer and Herodotus, Xenophon New Series-vol. III.

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where he does not philosophize, and Livy where he does not interweave speeches: the last, however, speak agreeably to the diversity of their nations and eras. It is enough to show, that where history departs from this simple tone, through philosophy, fictions, impertinent reflexions, and long speeches, it may win in polished periods and rounded ornaments, but it loses the peculiar, the well connected pearls of truth, and comes at last to forfeit the name of history. Nothing in the world is more difficult than this simple style, that we should merely tell what happened, and not what we think, saw or conjecture; as you may easily satisfy yourself of by a single experiment. I do not mean that you should essay that foolish manner, in which some dull witlings have endeavoured to render the chronicle style of the Bible ridiculous: Every language, age and history, has its own peculiar strain of narrative; and you find it so in these books, according to the difference of time and subject. The familiar, domestic style of the patriarchs, becomes, in the history of the march of the Israelites, in that of their heroes and warlike prophets, more solemn and bold; and often, as is very natural, wholly epic: the style should harmonize with the subject, without any obscurity or love of moralizing, so that the history may stand out naturally and alive. And it is in this very respect, I think, that these family pieces are models. Sublime and truly poetical as is much that we find in the language of the Deity, in the actions and blessings of the patriarchs, often in the mere silence and the easy manner of presenting the scene, when the most difficult events come to be recounted;-still nothing is sought, nothing is borrowed or artificial. I know of nothing nobler than the manner, in which God speaks to Abraham, and Abraham obeys; than the visions which he beholds; than his conference with Melchisedec and the King of Sodom. magnificently wild, on the contrary, is the first adventure of the child Ishmael; and that prophecy of the angel respecting him in the wilderness! how suited to the history and the spot, to the character and destiny of that archer of the woods! Fearfully hurrying is the overthrow of Sodom, silently sublime the offering up of Isaac, sweetly loquacious the wooing of Rebecca; the journeying of Isaac is full of timidity, and there is fragrance in his rural, paternal blessing. How secret and holy, again, is Jacob's vision of the opened heaven, and of the God of his fathers so near him! How bitter-sweet his service with Laban; and how darkly heroic his night conflict with the unknown; and in fine how infinitely versatile the intricate story of Joseph !-Try now the proof; alter any thing in the soft touches, in the apparent negligences and repetitions; clothe these poetical features in the

How

wooden verses of modern art; or overload the simplest history in the world, whose whole character depends on this simplicity, with invented beauties; so that the silence shall break out into speech, and the husbandman shall talk like a warrior, and the poor family scene shall become a rich epic exhibition; every thing is immediately revolting, and nature and truth are lost. A quietness should pervade the very reading of these books; a sort of morning stillness; and a youthful simplicity becomes it the best. It is remarkable how readily children read or hear any thing of such a kind; and in the same manner do you read and retain these narratives. Luther says of himself, that when he was a monk he could not understand why God would have all this domestic prattle in his bible: but when he became a husband and a father, he learned to understand it, and commented on the first book of Moses almost to the day of his death. Statesmen and mere men of learning, and fastidious corrupted minds, are continually mistaking this book; and some of them have heaped together a great deal of absurdity about it: I rejoice that you are not among the number. Read this, as well as the other parts of the Bible, rather avoiding learned commentaries, and seeking their aid only in difficult and unintelligible passages. The best commentary is to read, in travels through the East, of the life of the Scenites, their customs and manners; and from these argue up to those older times of innocence and strength. Jerusalem's "Considerations" and "Letters on Moses," as also Delany's* dissertations upon particular points of this history, are guides to ́a closer acquaintance with individual passages and situations.

UNITARIAN EXPOSITOR.

No. VI.

WE proceed in this number to the examination of those texts in which the appellation, God, is commonly, and as we think, erroneously, understood to be applied to Christ. Those which stand foremost, as well for their intrinsic difficulty, as for the importance assigned to them by Trinitarians, are found in the introduction of St. John's gospel. We are not sure that the explanation which we think satisfactory will approve itself to those who are not conversant with theological discussions, or that we

"Revelation examined with candour." Vol. 1.

can make ourselves perfectly intelligible to them upon this much agitated passage. We shall attempt, however to be perspicuous and brief.

In order to understand the meaning of the apostle in these texts, some knowledge is requisite of the philosophical theology, not of the poor who first believed the gospel which was preached unto them, but of those who embraced Christianity at a somewhat later period, who were deeply infected with the pride and the prejudices of a heathen philosophy, and who laboured to assimilate and incorporate into each other, things so very unlike in their nature as Christianity and Platonism, or Gnosticism. It is necessary to know, that there were some who called themselves Christians, and who thought themselves philosophers, who held as a part at once of their religious and philosophical tenets, that there was a class of beings possessed of distinct and separate existence, which were, to use something like their language, emanations from the Supreme Being; and some, who esteeming matter a source of evil alone, and intending to honour their master, denied that he had a body, and asserted that he took upon him merely the semblance of one. They gave the names of logos, light, life, and many such, to individuals of this class of existences, and traced their descent one from another in endless genealogies, which were very probably those which were reproved by St. Paul, and which certainly deserved to be styled "prophane and vain babbling, and oppositions of science falsely so called." Those Christians who held such opinions as we have here mentioned, were called Gnostics; but there were others, who without going into all the extravagancies of this sect, agreed with them in regarding the Logos as a being distinct from God, and in confounding the character and properties of this being, with the person of Jesus Christ. These were the Platonists.

A knowledge of these facts will serve to explain, and we think this alone will point out, in what manner the apostle was led to that remarkable use of language which is found in the commencement of his gospel; and when these fantastic notions have become as familiar to us as they were to many of the contemporaries of St. John, we shall probably have little difficulty in perceiving that in this passage, he designed to enforce several plain and simple truths in opposition to doctrines so irrational and injurious. We think he meant to shew,

1. That the divine power manifested by Jesus Christ, was not that of an aon, or emanation called the logos, possessing distinct existence and power from the Supreme Being, but that it was the power of God himself.