upon their heads, when death, viz. the first and second death, shall be swallowed up in victory, and God shall be all in all. Secondly, it completely denies the power of progressive improvement in the human soul; destroys the efficacy, and consequently lessens the motives to repentance; annihilates the value of the Saviour's admonition, to strive after perfection, even the perfection of him whose image we bear; and damps the fondlycherished aspirations of the wayworn but sainted pilgrim, by inducing on his mind the fearful and chilling apprehension, that there is no ultimate haven of repose; no security from ill; no-not even when enjoying the more immediate presence and approving smile of his benevolent Creator, in the mansions of his promised heaven; but that through eternity temptation will beset him; and by leading him into guilt expose him to punishment, necessarily aggravated in proportion to his progress in his immortal career, and the height of virtue from which he fell for fortunate indeed must be that soul, which, being ever under temptation or liability to err, should maintain a successful conflict with its imperfections throughout an endless extent of being. In what light will the proposition, that " every being not subject to moral and natural evil must necessarily be infinite;" or again, that "it is not in the possible power of Infinity itself to create a being not subject to moral and natural ill"-appear, if applied to our exalted Redeemer? Shall he who was even in this world without sin, and whose exalted virtues were perfected through suffering, and who is now set down at the right hand of his Almighty Father; shall he too, through eternity, be subject to miscalculation, to error, and to guilt? The supposition is too preposterous, if not too profane to be admitted for a moment! But the theory in question cannot escape this overwhelming confutation, but in the creed of the Trinitarian; and it is needless to observe that if one created being can be supposed to be an exception to the views of your correspondent, the whole argument falls at once to the ground. Besides, upon what ground of necessity we must conclude, that because the know

ledge of a created being is not infinite, it must be constantly subject to natural and moral ill, I am at a total loss to conceive. Surely there may be beings of a higher order in the scale of intelligence than man, though at an almost infinite distance below the absolute wisdom of the Supreme, who may have a perfect and commanding knowledge of all the relations and circumstances connected with the immediate sphere in which they are placed; blessed with a corporeal frame incorruptible, and exempt from disorder and decay; and still more blessed with the bright sunshine of an unspotted soul, engrossed only with the boundless perfections of its glorious Creator; and absorbed in adoring gratitude for those blessings, which are too highly placed above the reach of either

"The mists of passion and of sense, Or of the tossing tide of chance or pain," ever to escape them.-Again-that "natural and moral evil are only arbitrary terms which have the same meaning," is a position, I think, that cannot be maintained, nor that "natural evil constantly arises from moral evil, and vice versâ;" for although the former may in most cases be truc, in how many instances does physical evil lead to moral good! How do the sacred writings abound with passages, teaching us that afflictions are often sent in mercy to rectify and expel the moral diseases of the mind! No two principles, surely, can be more distinct; distinct as to their comparative magnitude as well as durability! Physical evil, we have every reason to believe, (I take the word of God for my guide,) can extend no farther than the limits of this sublunary scene, while moral evil accompanies the flight of the immortal spirit into the regions of eternity. How deep, how lasting, may be the stain, which unrepented, viz. uneradicated guilt, may fix on the conscious and reflecting soul, when released from its tenement of clay, and what bitter and enduring discipline may be necessary to renew the immortal mind to the purity of heaven, it has not perhaps entered into the heart of man to conceive: for little do we know of the mysterious principle of

lection, and to receive tracts to the amount of their subscription. And I know that in many instances they would be much better pleased with this method, than they would be with receiving them as a gift from their richer neighbours. And if such a plan was made thoroughly known and understood, and every person who chose, allowed to contribute towards it, I would answer for it that a much larger sum might be raised this way than could be granted from a Fellowship Fund. And it might be left to the option of every subscriber, either to receive their tracts themselves, or to make a present of them to their sunday schools, or to their poorer neighbours. This plan would undoubtedly be attended with a little more trouble, inasmuch as it would be necessary to take a list of the names, and the amount of their subscriptions. But I would answer for it that in every Unitarian society that is worth the name, there are persons to be found, who would gladly come forward, and volunteer their services in such a cause.

At the same time, there will probably be some persons in every society too poor to contribute even the smallest sum towards such a collection. It would be doing these persons an essential and lasting benefit, to keep a few sets of the tracts in the vestries of our chapels, for the purpose of lending to these poor, but perhaps valuable members of our societies. I entirely agree with our Bristol friends, as to the excellent effects they are calculated to produce on the poor and the uneducated, and of the great utility of distributing them in sunday schools. Our orthodox neigh bours are every where on the alert, to distribute publications which are filled with what we deem to be gross and mischievous corruptions of genuine Christianity. Let us be at least equally zealous in diffusing those which abound with the most just, endearing and amiable views of the character and government of our heavenly Father, and are calculated to promote the sublimest devotion and the purest moral practice.

I..

SIR,

IN a late Number of the Monthly

Repository, (p. 277,) you inserted an extract from a paper first printed in "the Inquirer," on the literature of the Dutch Jews, which paper is commonly attributed to the pen of Mr. Bowring. In the concluding passage Mr. B. (if I may take the liberty of assuming him to be the author) states that intelligence had just been received of the conversion of Da Costa to Christianity. I have just been favoured with the Jewish Expositor for July last, which contains a letter from Mr. Thelwall, one of the London Society's Missionaries, giving an account of this conversion, and by which it appears that Da Costa has fully adopted the Trinitarian scheme. It is a very curious circumstance that Da Costa, and his cousin Dr. Abraham Cappadoce, both attribute this change in a great measure to a patient "search into the writings of the old Rabbins, and the discovery of their sentiments respecting the Trinity and the divinity of the Messiah," though, they add," these truths are to be sought out of a great mixture of cabalistic absurdity and superstition." On reading this passage, I was struck by a coincidence between this state ment and some observations made last year at a provincial meeting in aid of the Society for the Conversion of the Jews. The remarks in question were uttered by Mr. J. J. Gurney, a respected member of the Society of Friends, who, it is said, is about to publish a work on the Old Testament with reference simply to the question of the divinity of Christ. As the subject is really curious, and I do not recollect that it has ever occupied any of your pages, perhaps I may be permitted to transcribe, from a report taken in short-hand by a person present, a part of Mr. G.'s observations.

"I must observe that in their apprehension of the character of their own Messiah, I believe the views of the Jews to have materially altered and degenerated, therefore I would have the Society not only point their attention to the Old-Testament account of the Messiah, but also examine the ancient writings of the Jews, to find their original opinions

of him. I cannot refrain from introducing one or two documents on the subject to which I have adverted." (Mr. Gurney here referred to the phrase "Son of God," and to the manner in which it was understood by the Jews, maintaining the opinion that with them it implied divinity.) He proceeded: "I would call your attention to a remarkable passage in a book called Zohar, a cabalistic account of the transactions recorded in Genesis, a great part of which is very old, of about the third century, a book of great importance among Jews. I quote it on the authority of the German critic Schotgen. In it, Messiah is denominated in his pre existing character by the titles Jehovah, Angel of God, Angel of the Covenant, the Word of God, the Image of God, the Lord of Hosts, the Son of God, the Son of the Highest, the faithful Shepherd, Lord over things below, Lord of all ministering Angels.' In this book it is likewise said, that the spirit of God moved upon the world in the beginning, and was the spirit of King Messiah. The same doctrine is plainly recognized in the Jewish Targums, which are translations of the Hebrew Scriptures in the Chaldaic, for the use of the Jews after their return from Babylon, when they had forgotten their vernacular tongue. These recognize the same character in the word of God, who is by them repeatedly identified with Jehovah as being that personal existence who is one with Jehovah, and by whom the wonderful works of God are carried into effect. By this word of God was the world created, by him were the children of Israel led into the wilderness. He it was who appeared to Isaiah in the temple; and where the salvation of Israel is spoken of, it is particularly attributed to the word of God. Thus when Hosea says, And Jehovah shall save his people by Jehovah, their God,' the Targum paraphrases it, 'Jehovah shall save his people by the word of Jehovah, their God.'" The speaker concluded by observing that he believed the Jews never would be converted till brought to recognize their degeneracy in this point. On this opinion, so different from that entertained by Unitarians, it is not my design to

offer any comment; I have merely wished to record some observations which appear to me worthy of a few remarks from some intelligent Christian critic.

SIR,

E.

August 6, 1823.

Mhis Commentary on Paul's

R. BELSHAM, in Vol. II. of

Epistles," feels a difficulty in seeing the force of the reasoning of the Apostle in 1 Cor. vi. 2: “ Do ye not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy?" &c. May I be permitted to say, that I am rather surprised that he should feel this difficulty? Whatever be the meaning of the Apostle in the former clause of the verse, viz. " Do ye not know that the saints will judge the world?" he alludes to an office superior in dignity to that of the determination of civil cases amongst the brethren, and reasoning à fortiori, he urges upon them the consideration, that if worthy of the superior, they cannot be unworthy of the inferior office. Now, this argument seems perfectly clear. If a man be thought worthy of a higher office, he cannot be thought unworthy of the lower. The lower office, it is true, may be unworthy of him, though he be not unworthy of the office. But it does not seem to have been insinuated by the Corinthians, that the office of the determination of civil cases amongst the brethren was an office unworthy of them, and therefore the Apostle does not combat that idea. It will not signify whether the Apostle reasons in the above passage from his own principles, or the principles of the Corinthians only. The argument is equally conclusive on either supposition. If the Corinthians thought themselves worthy of the higher office, the Apostle might well ask them, though he did not himself think them worthy of the higher, how they could be unworthy of the lower. Again, it will not signify whether the higher office alluded to is one in possession or one only in reserve. Suppose it one only in reserve, the conclusiveness of the Apostle's argument may be illustrated by the following similar one. Suppose I was desirous to press