the earth, the preserver and nourisher of all things-the curse that man should cat his bread by the sweat of his brow, was mercifully repealed in the very moment it was pronounced, and was changed even into a blessing.-Labour gave him bread, and a comfort along with it, that nothing like labour can bestow. If the earth produced spontaneously, it might be a paradise for angels, but no habitation for beings formed like ourselves; without labour, what could support or adorn the whole fabric of society-It would vanish like an enchantment. The curse of DEATH was also revoked not only by the promise of immortal life hereafter, but to deliver man at the very moment from the harrenness of the earth that was cursed.-Without death, he might have toiled and sweated, but the ground would have yielded nothing; death therefore was ordained to revolve with life in a mysterious and fructifying circle. The corruption of all created things returning into the bosom of na ture, brings them back again to reward the industry of man. Every animal that dies, all vegetables, and they too have lives also, every substance which dissolves and becomes offensive, every heterogeneous mixture, which upon the surface would stagnate and become analignant, brought back by human wisdom into their allotted stations, become the future parents of a renovated world. Can we suppose then that God has performed those stupendous miracles for nothing? When our Scripture tells us that man was formed from the dust of the earth, it should not be taken in a sense perhaps too literal-to the Almighty matter was not necessary to his creation, though his frame was to be material-it may mean that he could live only by the earth, and was to return to it after death. South America. Another momentous subject, still more, if possible, demands your attention, and with that I shall conclude.One of the first sentences you uttered to me, after snatching me from the grave, made an impression upon me which I shall carry there hereafter. You said that this highly-favoured island had been the chosen instrument of Divine dispensation, and that if she deserted or slumbered upon her post, she would be relieved and punished. Beware that this penal moment is not at hand. Why do you now permit despotism and fanaticism to palsy the freedom of the rising world, when your duty and your interest are struggling for precedeney to crush them at a blow? If that vast continent were governed according to the humane maxims of civilized nations, you would have no right to wrest the sceptre out of hands however unworthy to wield it; but since you have been placed for so many ages in the high post of honour for the advancement of human happiness, you ought to suffer no other nation to run on before you in the rescue of suffering millions from famine, dungeons, and the sword.-Recollect your eulogium upon the triumphs of chemistry and mechanics:apply them to the mines and other productions of those vast regions; not as robbers or task-masters, but in the liberal spirit of commerce with their people, by which you might resuscitate your own country whilst you were breathing new life into theirs. The noble minded Morven seemed much pleased and affected, and spoke as follows, but in a voice so subdued as if he almost wished not to be heard: There are difficulties in the way of what you propose so warmly.-The project your honest zeal has suggested might kindle a new war throughout our whole world, which might, in the end, be destructive of the happiness and freedom you justly hold so sacred. There are many desirable objects of policy that are not within our imme diate reach, and which we must wait Heaven's own time to see accomplished; but the principle should be consecrated, and the occasion closely watched for its earliest application. Not a moment, I answered; should ever be lost in any thing we have to do, when we are sure we are in the right; there is no time but the present for the performance of a practicable moral duty; ENGLAND, in such a case, would set at nought all the nations of the old world if the new one invoked her assistance. Such a great work could not be begun prematurely.-If the sun stood still of old in the camp of the Israelites, it would now rush to the west with increased velocity and lustre, to shine on the British standard, if it stood planted even for a moment in the night. England. have now finished all I have to observe upon the condition of your sublime country. Looking at it with the eager curiosity of a stranger, bred in one which has long been the admiration of its own world, and not wishing to see her in any thing surpassed, yet I am obliged it justice to say, that I consider Arinata in no respect behind her, except in the state of your finances. I have not, indeed, been able to trace the smallest defect in any of your institutions, nor in the condition of any of your concerns, that does not manifestly come home to your revenue, which, corrupts your government whilst it depresses our people. Your energies are still happily undiminished, your industry is unabated, your courage unsubdued, your morals uncorrupted; but you have the same sacrifices for a season at least, to submit to, as an individual may have to make, though with the highest qualifications, if his expences have gone beyond his estate; and unless you know how to guard with skill and firmness this heel of the Achilles, the result must be fatal. Remember always the noble eminence you stand on, and that No OTHER NATION IS QUALIFIED TO TAKE YOUR PLACE. In the name of God, then, let this awful but animating consideration inspire you-Be firm in your resolves-Be patient under temporary privations-Be obedient to your government, and preserve your greatness by the wisdom which made you great. MISCELLANEOUS COMMUNICATIONS, Mr. Belsham's Animadversions on that here there is a direct fabrication of the word GOD, and a gross imposition on the reader. To say that the word has been introduced, because the Uni VIT learned dignitary's charges, tarians conceive God to be intended as and which he seems to have selected as the ne plus ultra of Unitarian faithlessness and impiety, and in the prosecution of which he appears to have put forth all his strength and to have exhausted all his venom, is founded upon Heb. xii. 25, 26, the first clause of which stands thus in the Common Version and in Archbishop Newcome: "See that ye refuse not HIM who speaketh;" for which the Improved Version has substituted, "See that ye refuse not God who speaketh," printing the supplied word God in italics, to intimate that it is not found in the original. The learned dignitary takes upon himself to be wonderfully angry at the presumption and impiety of the Editors in supplying the ellipsis with the word God. But let the Dean speak for hinself in his own mild and edifying language. Griesbach and Newcome," says he, p. 671," are the two great standards to which the Editors profess to adhere: yet here they depart from both, and arbitrarily introduce the word Gop, which is not only not to be found in either, but which is not even pretended to have place in any one of the Manuscripts, Versions, or Fathers known to be in existeNCE: 50 the speaker, is merely to say that the crment of the lowest and most illiterate order of Socinians shall be taken as forming a part of the original of the New Testament. This transcends Popery itself. The Council of Trent only decreed that the Comment imposed by the Church of Rome should be received as giving the meaning of Scripture: but the Council of Essex Street ordains that the Comment imposed by the Church which denies Christ, shall be received as part of the Scripture itself. That the word is printed in italics, is but a poor evasion. The common and uninformed reader, the unlearned man of sound understanding, whom they select as the proper arbiter of their criticisms, but little attends to, and is for the most part ignorant of this distinction."* Pre In the Introduction to the Calm In quiry, p. 5, it is stated that the question concerning the person of Christ" is an inquiry into a plain matter of fact, which is to be determined like any other fact by its specific evidence—the evidence of plain unequivocal testimony, for judging of which no other qualifications are requisite than a sound understanding and an honest mind." This assertion has given great offence to suming, no doubt, upon this ignorance, and expecting to escape detection, though the Editors have printed the word in italics, the Dean has cited it in roman capitals, thus making it appear to those who do know and attend to the distinction as part of the text. The Very Reverend dignitary proceeds: Let it for a moment be supposed that the Received Version, instead of reading him who speaketh, had substituted Christ in his divine nature for the word him,' would the Unitarians conceive that King James's translators had dealt fairly with the public? Would they not, on the contrary, clamour loudly against this as a dishonest attempt to impose the Trinitarian comments as the text of Scripture? Would there be any end to the outery which would be raised against interested priests?" &c. &c. "The fact is they plainly saw that the text as it stands must unavoidably lead the mind to Christ as the speaker. They saw more they saw that it not only introduces Christ as the speaker now, but as the speaker before, both in giving the law and in uttering oracles through the prophets. They saw in truth, that not only the præ-existence but the divinity of Christ was viously deducible from this passage, and with the wisdom belonging to their generation they have made the requisite alteration in the text. They have been compelled not only to invent a new translation for the text, but also to invent a new text for the translation. Examples abound of a nature similar to that which has been just adduced, and many of a quality yet more insidious and dishonest.". And now, what have these daring innovators, these seers of strange sights, the Editors of the Improved Version, to offer in favour of this novel, most insidious and most dishonest corruption of the sacred text? a corruption which finds no parallel but in their own corrupt writings? a forgery and a fraud those gentlemen who think that a man cannot be a judge of the truth of doctrines which lie at the foundation of the Christian faith, unless he is a profound Greek scholar. This is the cause of the many sarcastic allusions to these expressions in some late writers. Bishop Burgess is particularly sore upon this subject; and Dr. Magee, bis humble friend, thinks that be ought to be very sore too. which far transcends all example in ancient and in modern times, which exceeds Popery itself, and which, as the Dean emphatically assures us, cannot be matched in the performances of his own holy brotherhood, viz. supplying the ellipsis in the text by the word Gop printed in italics? In truth these unfortunate Editors have but very little to say for themselves; and that little can only afford satisfaction to men of "sound understandings and honest hearts:" so that they entertain very faint hopes of giving content to the Dean and his very learned friends. The truth, however, must come out: and here it is. In the twentieth chapter of the Book of Exodus, at the first verse, it is thus written: "GOD SPAKE ALL THESE WORDS TO THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL." The Editors, therefore, of the Improved Version did not conceive that they committed an unpardonable of fence when they supplied the ellipsis with the word GOD, whose voice it was which then shook the earth. And I am confident that when the venerable Dean produces equal authority for his proposed amendment, "Christ in his divine nature," they will most readily and thankfully receive it into their text. And if the Church of Rome herself can establish her doctrine upon similar ground, I may vouch for it that the Christ-denying Church of Essex Street will admit that doctrine as an article of faith. But the matter must not rest here. The Dean of Cork has produced this passage, this very clause, "See that ye refuse not God who speaketh," as a 66 specimen of important, unacknowledged departure from Newcome's Version, not to be accounted for from mere accident." He has marked the variation in capitals to attract notice: he has printed the word GoD in roman characters, not as the Editors of the Improved Version have done in italics, so that those of his readers who understand that the Editors have forged the text, distinctions are naturally led to believe · an offence of which indeed the Dean distinctly accuses them, and by not acknowledging it, have made the Archbishop responsible for it. It is impossible for the reader of the charge alleged by the Dean against the Editors, p. 481 of his last volume, to foru any other conclusion. Now, Mr. Dean, permit me with all humility to ask two or three plain questions. Did not you know at the very time when you exhibited this charge against the Editors of the Improved Version, in a form which necessarily led to this and to no other conclusion, that every word of this conclusion, the inevitable conclusion from your own statement, was erroneous and unfounded? Did you not know, though poor illiterate Unitarians might be ignoran of it, that the word GOD, which you have printed in roman characters, was by them printed in italics, for the express purpose of shewing that this word was not in the original, but that it was introduced by them to supply the ellipsis? and knowing this, was it quite honest" and "fair" in you to print the word God in romaa letters, and then to accuse the Editors of inventing the text? Did you not know that the Editors far from charging their alteration upon the Primate, had distinctly set down in their notes the reading both of the original and the Primate? And though it did not exactly suit your purpose to make the acknowledgment at the beginning of your book, where you brought your charge, where all your readers would have seen it, by which the Editors would have been saved from all suspicion of foul play, have you not yourself, Mr. Dean, towards the close of your work, p. 694, two hundred pages after the allegation of the charge, and where you night reasonably presume that nobody would look for it, slipped in as it were by stealth, this remarkable concession: It must indeed be admitted that with respect to the clause hitherto considered, the Editors are not chargeable on this head for in their note they confess that both in the Greek and Newcome the reading is, See that ye refuse not him who speaketh." And this concession comes after having charged them directly, peremptorily and without any modification whatever, p. 482, with having in this, equally with other clauses, deliberately and unacknowledgedly rejected the Primate's rendering. How, learned Sir, do you contrive to reconcile these apparent contradictions? How is it that men are to blame, and to be censured as false, dishonest and dishonourable, for doing that which you acknowledge they never did? For once, Mr. Dean, deign to have a little consideration for that small proportion of your readers who are men of "sound understandings and honest hearts," whom in the lofty consciousness of your own vast superiority of learning, you commonly treat with such ineffable disdain. Condescend so far to their mean capacities as to explain that apparent inconsistency in your conduct which in their foolish way of thinking is deserving of epithets which I do not choose to express. Recollect, Mr. Dean, the language which you would yourself have used to the Editors of the Improved Version, had it been possible for them to have acted a similar part, and save us the trouble of the application.* *It would be advisable for the Very Reverend dignitary to be a little more correct in his assertions, not indeed for the sake of the God-denying, Christ-deying Unitarians, who being without the pale of civilized warfare, may lawfully be attacked with any weapons fair or foul; nor yet for the sake of his own character, concerning which the Dean appears to entertain a most magnanimous indifference, but for the sake of his friends, who by implicit reliance upon his unqualified assertions are sometimes brought into a very awkward dilemma. It is not long since the worthy Bishop St. David's was inade the instrument of retailing a most unfounded and abominable calumny against the author of this note, viz. that, Mr. Belsham says, the "clergy are paid to discountenance and repress the truth." And when the charge was de nied, and the Bishop was challenged to fesses that he had not seen Mr. Belsham's produce his authority, his Lordship conbook: but, says his Lordship, "I quoted the words from an authority which I was sure I could safely trust." This infallible authority was that of Dr. Magee, who had indeed printed a sentence of similar import, with inverted commas, as if it had been (which it was not) a quotation from my Review of Mr. Wilberforce's Treatise. And though the pious prelate, when convinced that he had trusted to a broken reed, and had unwittingly propagated a calumny, than which, to use his own words," a more false and atrocious never was uttered," takes much laudable pains to prove that the assertion at most was but half a fib, because with a few verbal alterations, what I did not say might be made to resemble what I did say, yet to speak to the truth, his Lordship was by no means successful in his attempt. And notwithstanding all the The remaining clauses in the text under consideration, Heb. xii. 25, contain some variations from the Primate's rendering, the acknowledginent of which has been omitted by the Editors of the Improved Version. upon which neglect, however, the learned Dean has not judged it necessary to expatiate: probably because he did not find it easy to magnify the error into an offence of high importance. The clause immediately following that which has been already so minutely investigated, stands thus in the Primate's Version: "For if those escaped not who refused him that uttered the ORACLES OF GOD on earth,"-for which the Improved Version reads, "WHEN HE uttered ORACLES On earth." This variation, which is of some importance, is not noticed by the Editors. It is remarkable that in this clause the Primate has introduced the word GOD without any authority from the original: for the word xruali by no means necessarily implies divine inspiration. It is also observa ingenuity and learning which the worthy prelate has exhausted upon the subject in the Gentleman's Magazine for August, 1815, the assertion first found in Dr. Magee's learned work, and afterwards repeated with a little additional colouring by the pious Bishop of St. David's, is an untruth as palpable and unfounded as ever issued from the school of Loyola. As it now stands, it is indeed the joint production of the Bishop and the Dean: and neither of these venerable dignitaries is responsible for the whole of it. But to what degree this division of labour between two holy men may reduce the responsibility of each, is a question the solution of which must be left to that renowned casuist, the Abbess of Quedlinberg. The passage in the Review of Mr. Wilberforce's Treatise, referred to by Dr. Magee, and the words of which he professed to quote, thereby misleading good Bishop Burgess, and which I am confident that neither the Bishop nor the Dean can possibly regard as a libel upon the established elergy, is thus expressed "Men who are engaged to defend an established system, are from that very circumstance engaged to discourage inquiry and to oppose truth, unless, which is not often the case, truth should happen to be the established doctrine." Review of Mr. W. p. 199. 2 ble that the Primate has printed the word GoD in roman, not in italic letters: so that in his translation it appears as an original, not as a supe plementary word. The Editors of the Improved Version regarding this as rather too great liberty to be taken with the text, have in their Version left out the word GoD. Let us suppose now that the case had been reversed, that the Primate in the first clause had supplied the word GOD, and had printed it in italics, but had omitted in the second: also that the Editors of the Improved Version had omitted the word Gon in the first clause, and had introduced it in roman letters in the second in what a different channel would the Dean's criticisms and invectives have run. What a hue and cry would have been raised against these ungodly Editors for wilfully and unacknowledgedly corrupting the sacred text; and how unmercifully would they have been loaded with all the vitu perative epithets in the Dean's copious vocabulary. How strenuously would it have been maintained that the word GOD was rightly supplied by the Primate in the first clause. And how highly would his fairness and candour have been applauded in distinguishing the word by italics, that supplementary expression and not to every reader might see that it was a be found in the original text. With what keenness of censure would this open and manly conduct of the Pri mate in the first clause have been contrasted with the artful and fraudu lent management of the Editors of the Improved Version in the second. What rummaging would there have been of Lexicons, what poring over of voluminous indexes, by the patient Dean and by his numerous and learned allies, in order to accuinulate quotation upon quotation, and criticism upon criticisin, so as to fill twenty modern lore, to prove what nobody or thirty pages with ancient and ever doubted that the word ualer oracle of God, and therefore that does not necessarily signify to utter an these daring innovators had no right to have introduced that word at all! In what a lofty tone of indignant and impassioned eloquence would the pious dignitary have exposed the fraud, the falsehood, the presump Luous impiety of these audacious |