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country where Mahometanism prevails, as corresponding with, and illustrating, the best features of its morality. From Morocco to Mecca, from Constantinople to Calcutta, the character of this worship is at unity with itself; is alike simply and severely devout in the first of all religious exercises — prayer. The observations of European travellers, however at issue on other points, seem unanimous in this conclusion. Many testimonies might be cited; but I shall content myself with one, which, from the recency of its date, the unpromising national character of the people to whom it is borne, and the unexceptionable authority of the witness, seems entitled to more than ordinary consideration. In the year 1821, when at the town of Baghtchiserai, in the south of the Crimea, Dr. Henderson, then acting as agent to the British and Foreign Bible Society, visited the principal of its thirty-three mosques, at the evening service of the Tartars. His unaffected narrative forcibly illustrates the impression made by the devout decorum of a Mahometan service, on a religious mind: "The Tartars all sat on their heels in the oriental manner, while the Mollah recited to them certain Surahs, or chapters of the Koran; and when he came to the end of a section, or where any direct reference was made to the

object of worship, they bowed themselves twice, so as to touch the ground with their foreheads. During prayer, they covered their faces with both hands, following the Mollah with low and solemn sighs, manifesting throughout the most profound reverence and veneration. Much has been said in defence of pompous and splendid forms of worship, and many have insisted on their absolute necessity in order to interest the vulgar; but I will venture to affirm, that all the dazzling splendour of external ceremonies, superadded to the Christian system, never produced. a solemnity to be compared with that resulting from the simple adoration here exhibited in a Mahometan mosque; every sense seemed closed against earthly objects, and a high degree of self-annihilation appeared to inspire the mind of every worshipper. How humbling the reflection, that so little real devotion, and so feeble a sense of the presence of the great Jehovah, is often to be found in assemblies professing to worship him in spirit and in truth!"

And now, to resume the proposition laid down at the commencement, from the illustrative sketch

* It is to be regretted, that Dr. H. should have drawn this contrast; at least that he should have done so, in a manner thus unguarded. Surely, the worship of the Church of England, her "mild majesty, and sober state,' might have claimed exemption from his implied censure.

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here drawn of the moral parallel,it may seem sufficiently apparent, that the moral scheme of Mahometanism, in its lower features, is constructed from the carnal ordinances and observances of the Mosaic covenant, as interpreted by Rabbinical tradition; and, in its better parts, is throughout a studied and servile copy of the higher precepts of the Law, or the pure morality of the Gospel. The practical imperfection of its merits, therefore, and the glaring character of its defects, instead of injuring the providential analogy, unite in reducing that analogy to the just relative proportion, which alone, a spurious revelation can bear to the genuine; to that proper and respectful distance, which the illegitimate must ever keep, from the legitimate seed. And, when every concession which truth and justice can require, has been made in favour of the system of Mahomet, as viewed in its practical tenets and effects, an immeasurable gulf remains, and always must remain, between its principles and springs of action, and those of the blessed, everlasting Gospel.

SECTION VI.

DOCTRINAL ANALOGY OF MAHOMETANISM WITH JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY.

WHEN Christianity was originally presented to the Gentile world, its primitive teachers, the apostles, inculcated, as the root of all its other doctrines, two fundamental articles of faith: they preached Jesus, and the resurrection." And, although the Jews rejected Jesus as the Christ, the coming of a Messiah, and the hope of a resurrection from the dead, were also undoubted fundamentals of belief, in the ancient Jewish church. These doctrines, therefore, stand properly in the foreground of an inquiry into the doctrinal parallel of Mahometanism with Judaism and Christianity.

Now the religion of Mahomet not only recognizes Christ and the resurrection, but, in its recognition of these primary truths, reaches almost as far beyond the popular notions prevalent among the Jews, as it falls short of the pure and perfect belief disseminated under the Christian dispensation. The character and extent of the doctrinal analogy here subsisting, may be easily collected, from a simple review of

the measure of that faith in Jesus Christ, and in the resurrection after death, which are held essential, in all Mahometan confessions of faith, to the character of a true Mussulman.

The belief professed by Mahomet and his followers concerning Jesus Christ, comprises the following great Christian verities. 1. They acknowledge him to be the λoyos*, or Word of God, in a mysterious sense proceeding from the Father. So the Koran, in the version there given of the angelic salutation: "The angels said, O Mary, verily God sendeth thee good tidings, that thou shalt bear the Word, proceeding from himself: his name shall be Christ Jesus, the son of Mary."+ The lowest interpretation, put by the commentators on this passage, asserts Christ to be called the Word, "because he was conceived by the word, or command of God,

• Aoyov, seu Sermonem, Christum etoxws ab iisdem [Muhammedanis] appellari. Dubitandum non est quin emerov hoc Servatoris nostri, vel potius xapakтпpа ovσiwon, desumpserit Muhammed ex Joh. i. 1. — Hotting. Hist. Orient. p. 105. The sense in which the term λoyos came subsequently to be understood, among the Saracenic philosophers, may be gathered from the Kitab-al-Resula, or "Book of the Prophet; " where the author, while asserting the uncreated eternity of the divine attributes, thus unconsciously bears testimony to the divine nature of Christ, whom Mahomet owned to be "the Word." "Locutus est Deus cum Mose SERMONE, qui est proprietas essentiæ ejus, non vero Creatura de Creaturis ejus." The doctrine of our Lord's divinity inevitably results from a comparison of this extract, with the admissions of the Koran.

+ See Sale's Koran, vol. i. p. 63.; and compare vol. ii. p. 130., and p. 449.

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