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was first introduced as his physician. "Happy, past the common lot," is the author or the man "whose riper years cannot upbraid his green." Yet these Constitutions Mr. Locke never owned publicly; and, from the foregoing extracts, it appears that the author of the "Treatises of Government," written at sixty years of age, expressly to justify the Revolution in 1688, might as fairly at this day be claimed as an advocate for hereditary, interminable vassalage as for negro-slavery, on the authority of his crude political conceptions at the age of thirty. I venture thus to speak of the "Constitutions," from the wellknown fact, that they never answered their design, and were abrogated, after twenty years of troublesome experiment. Lord Eldon is not the first who has injured Mr. Locke, by overlooking dates. Mr. Adams, who ought to have informed himself better, when writing his "Defence of the American Constitutions," takes for granted that the "Treatises of Government" preceded, instead of following after more than thirty years, the Fundamental Constitutions." On these false premises, he gravely concludes that a person " may defend the principles of fiberty and the rights of mankind with great ability and success, and yet, after all, when called upon to produce a plan of legislation, he may astonish the world with a signal absurdity.'

Thus has a great political sage been made to suffer from the inexperience of his earlier years: yet let any one give the slightest attention to the principles avowed in the "Treatises of Government," and then say whether their author could, even by implication, have approved any form of slavery. The first sentence of that work, had Lord Eldon happened to open upon it, even if its phraseology had failed to correct his Lordship's judgment, might at least have induced him to spare the reputation of Locke. "Slavery," says this supposed advocate of a slave-trade, " is so vile and miserable an estate of man, and so directly opposite to the generous temper and courage of our nation, that 'tis hardly to be conceived that an Englishman, much less a gentleman, should plead for it."

If I have detained you longer than I designed on a subject in one view highly political, you will pardon me, on account of its important influence, in another view, on the progress of "pure and undefiled religion." How that progress is retarded by our guilty commerce was well described, many years ago, by an author in whose life and writings love to God and love to man were happily united, "We bear," says Dr. John Jebb, "the name of Christian to every region of the globe; but, at the same time, we bear along with it those horrid forms of vice, by which that name is dishonoured and defiled. The inhabitants

of many a distant clime, astonished at the contrariety between our professions and our practice are justly induced to suspect that we ourselves believe not the docrines we inculcate."

Feb. 9, 1807.

I remain, Sir, your's,

THE INQUIRER.

NO. III.

VERAX.

We have received the following inquiries from various correspondents, which we place together, for the sake of convenience, in No. III. of the INQUIRER, a paper begun in the last volume, and intended to be continued. Materials for No. IV. are already in our hands.

1. Harrison's Miscellanies-2. Dr. Williams-3. Free and Candid Disquisitions; Dissertation on the Numbers of Mankind; and Free Thoughts on Governments-4. Dr. Wood-5. Pictel on the Trinity.

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In the Memoirs of Mr. Clark, inserted in the Repository (Vol. I. p. 617.) your correspondent, in mentioning the late Mr. Grigg, of St. Alban's, informs us that "several of his pieces in prose and verse are collected in Harrison's Miscellanies." Now, Sir, as Mr. Grigg was a preacher I much admired, I should be glad of some farther information respecting his writings. I have made inquiry after the book alluded to by your correspondent; but as I can hear nothing respecting it, I should be much obliged to him if he would, through the medium of your Repository, favour me with farther particulars, such as when the book was published, and by whom, the size and price, and if it be now in print.

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AMICUS.

THE late Dr. Williams, author of a piece entitled "A Free Inquiry into the Authenticity of the First and Second Chapters of Matthew's Gospel," and of a Greek Concordance to the New Testament, in 4to. had, at the time of his death, a work in the press, containing a "Critical Explanation of some very important Hebrew and Greek Words, with the Connection in which they stand in the Sacred Scriptures of the Old and New Testament," of which he once shewed me some sheets worked off, which appeared highly interesting. He at that time lived at Sydenham in Kent, from whence he shortly after removed to Cannonbury Place, Islington, where he died. I shall esteem it a favour if any of your correspondents can give any account what became of that work, whether it was ever finished, into whose bands it came after his decease, or whether it was lost in the wreck of his papers and manuscripts?

J. M.

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I SHALL be very glad, through the medium of your Inquirer, to be informed as to the reputed author of either of the undermentioned anonymous works.

QUERO.

1. "Free and Candid Disquisitions relating to the Church of England, and the Means of advancing Religion therein. Addressed to the Governing Powers in Church and State, and more immediately directed to the two Houses of Convocation." 8vo. 2d edit. 1750.— In these disquisitions the Athanasian creed is complained of, particularly the damnatory clauses. "The great docrine of the Trinity" is spoken of as "never designed for controversy-a subject above the reach of human comprehension." Thus might a Roman Catholic express his reverence for the great doctrine of transubstantiation. The propriety of a new translation of the Scriptures is well stated:

We deal with no book as with our Bible. Just and beautiful versions are bestowed on other books of antiquity; the sense of the authors expressed with the greatest clearness; their spirit and ge nins with the greatest force, and their matter and subject adorned with all the elegance and grandeur that our language will afford. Our Sacred Books alone are not allowed this reasonable favour, nor indeed have even common justice done them, though they so loudly demand it, and the times make it so absolutely necessary they should

have it."

2. "A Dissertation on the Numbers of Mankind in ancient and modern Times: in which the superior populousness of Antiquity is maintained. With an Appendix, containing Additional Observations on the same Subject, and some Remarks on Mr. Hume's Political Discourse of the Populousness of Antient Nations." Edin. burgh, 8vo. 1753.-The dissertation was first read before the Philo.. sophical Society of Edinburgh, of which the author was a member. It maintains the superior populousness of the ancient world, an opinion controverted by Mr. Hume; to whom the appendix, consisting of half the volume, is chiefly a reply.

3,Free Thoughts on Despotic and Free Governments, as con, nected with the Happiness of the Governor and the Governed." cr. 8vo. 1781.-These "Thoughts" accord with the freest of what have been generally called Whig principles. Toleration, or rather the right of religious profession, is maintained, while the au thor contends for the necessity of a "national religion” with “an established ministry."

IV.

T. C. A. of Chatham, "wishes to be informed if any memoir of the late Dr. Wood, of Norwich, has been published; and, if not, will be obliged to the Rev. S. Newton, of the above place,

or any other of" our "correspondents possessing sufficient mates rials, if he will draw up his biography, for insertion in the Monthly Repository."

V.

B. J. of Bristol, is anxious to know whether "Pictel's chap. ter concerning the Trinity," mentioned in the Life of Dr. James Foster, in the Monthly Repository for last month (January, 1807) is not, as far as regards the name of the author, a misprint, and likewise in what book the said chapter is to be found. He supposes the writer of the Life would not have spoken of this chap-, ter without explanation, if it had not been published, and if he had not imagined it to be well known."

BIBLICAL CRITICISM.

COMMENTARY UPON ZECH. IX-x. 1.

Designed to illustrate Matt. xxi. 4. From H. E. G. PAULUS, Crit. Phil. and Hist. Com. on the N. T. Lübeck. 1801. Vol. III. p. 115, &c.

(Concluded from Page 658. Vol. I.)*

THIS retrospect of a period of the Jewish history, too little employed for the elucidation of the later Hebrew writingst, was necessary, in order to determine the meaning of Zech. ix. X. I. and the time at which it was written. From the contents of this oracle we learn, that, when it was delivered, Idumea and what had formerly been Ephraim, i. e. Samaria, were already Judaized, or theocratized; and hence men were led to hope, that the theocracy might soon extend itself over Hadrach, Damascus, Hamath, Tyre, and Sidon, and all the neighbouring towns of Philistia, and to form schemes for it. The oracle, therefore, must have been written after the conquest of Idumea and Samaria by Hyrcanus I. which took place in the beginning of his reign (Ant. xiii. 17. 450 [583, 584],) and before the expeditions against the other places enumerated; the reduction of which, and their submission to circumcision, the author thought that he foresaw; and, it seems, thought with reason; since, with the exception of Tyre and Sidon, most

This

By a mistake of the printer's, this article, which was intended to have been wholly inserted in the Number for December, was broken down into two. will not, it is hoped, be reckoned a great inconvenience, by such readers as have the first volume. EDITOR.

Many of the Hebrew oracles, especially of those gopnrixa, which have been added as appendixes to the older prophets, have such a close relation to the government of the Maccabee Suffete, Ethnarchs and High-priests, that they are unintelligible without a close study of the history of that period: but, by the help of this, they will be discovered to be pieces of much later dates than the conclusion of the Old Testament-canon, attributed to Ezra (like Zech. ix. x. I., and which cannot be older than the times which they paint.

of these places were conquered by the successors of Hyrcanus. His son Aristobulus judaized Ituræa, of which probably Hadrach was a part; and the reduction of the neighbouring countries, and their incorporation with the theocracy, proceeded exactly according to the plan laid down in the oracle. (See the detail given above.) Having now the points to the outside of which the date of this oracle cannot be referred, determined by the text itself, in the transition which it makes from the victories over Idumea and Samaria to similar theocratical exploits, our conjectures as to the exact time when it was written are confined to a small field. It cannot be placed so low down as the time of Hyrcanus II. The conquests in Ituræa, &c. could then be spoken of only as things past, nor could the entrance of a king, alluded to, Zech. ix. 9. be expected, at a time when the nation had no king, but only a sacerdotal regency.

Hyrcanus I. after he had judaized Samaria and Idumea, ruled his states in a wise, equitable, and peaceful union. His successor's first act, however, was to conquer and circumcise the Ituræans. One of these two suppositions, therefore, must be adopted: Either the oracle was written in the time of Hyrcanus I. and the anonymous prophet meant to rouse him from his long repose (he spent the last twenty-five of the thirty-one years of his reign in profound peace): or immediately after his death, and was intended to require from Aristobulus that he should march against Ituræa (Hadrach). The first period is the more probable one. It is well known that the ancient Hebrew oracles frequently contain politico-religious, i. e. theocratical, counsels and injunctions, and then paint the effects of compliance with them as if actually existing. It was for Hyrcanus to consider, whether he would delay to conform to this prophetical advice; but the prophet, who was averse to delay, had introduced his oracle in such a manner as to represent that extension of the judaizing theocracy as what might be effected as soon as it was attempted, and then goes on, and anticipates, as the consequence of it, the return of Hyrcanus to enjoy perfect tranquillity. Ver. 9. This peaceful return is exactly such as could have been expected only from Hyrcanus I. supposing him to have fulfilled the other parts of the oracle. His successor Aristobulus, as soon as he assumed the crown (481 years after the return from Babylon), shewed himAnt. xiii. 19. 454 [588]. He murdered his mother and his brother Antigonus, whom he best loved, and also many of the Jews at the feast of tabernacles, &c.; and his natural emisia, praised by Josephus and Timagenes, was very problematical during his reign of one year. From Hyrcanus I. on the contrary, it was to be expected that, even in VOL. II.

צדיק self not to be

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