ページの画像
PDF
ePub

ten thousand men may easily find shelter under them."On the banks of the Narbudda, adds FORBES, there is an extraordinary tree of this kind; its large trunks amount to three hundred and fifty, and the smaller ones exceed three thousand; it is nearly two thousand feet in circumference, measured round the principal stems; the overhanging branches, not yet struck down, cover a much larger space; and under it grow a number of the custard apple, and other fruit trees.

See his Oriental Memoirs, vol. i. pp. 24,26.

212. [Gen. iii. 10.] God has ever testified his abhorrence of nudity. He has, particularly in the Law, enjoined his priests expressly to wear several garments to cover the whole of their persons, that they might thus be distinguished from the pagan priests, who were not ashamed to appear naked; but, on the contrary, made one of the principal parts of their worship consist of this extravagance; having particular feasts, as those which they called their Lupercalia, appointed for that abomination. See LIVY, Decad. i. lib. 1.

213. [Gen. iii. 1.] In our English Bible the word translated serpent, is in Hebrew Nachash" A great nuisance at Benares is the number of Yogees, Senassees, and Nanghas, or religious mendicants who go about entirely naked: we occasionally," says FORBES, "meet a few of these people at other places, but here they abound."

214.

Oriental Memoirs, vol. iv. p. 86.

The Rabbins themselves, and many of the primitive Fathers, believed that by the unclean animals forbidden by the Law, the Gentiles were meant. (Dr. A. CLARKE, on Acts x. 14.)—" And God said to them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth on the earth;" Gen. i. 28.-" And the fear of you, and the dread of you, shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth on the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea into your hand are they delivered;" Gen. ix. 2.—Thus Solomon "had dominion over all the region on this side the river, from Tiphsah even to Azzah, over all the kings on this side the river: and he had peace on all sides round about him;" 1 Kings iv. 24.—“ Behold, (thus) I give to you (as reformers and civilizers of the Gentile world) power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing shall by any means hurt you;" Luke x. 19.-And thus " every kind (of human Savages) of beasts, of birds, of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and has been (civilized, or) tamed by mankind;" James iii. 7.

By comparing the above facts; the intelligent Reader will perceive clearly, that the talking Tempter in Paradise, though called a "Serpent," was still a Mun.

THE ORIGIN OF EVIL.

[Wisdom i. 12-16.] Seek not death in the error of your life and pull not upon yourselves destruction with the works of your own hands. For God created all things that they might have their being; and the generations of the world were healthful: and there was no poison of destruction in them, nor the kingdom of death upon the earth: but ungodly men, with their works and words, have called it to them, and made a covenant with it.

215. [Gen. i. 31.] No system can possibly be formed, even in imagination, without a subordination of parts. Every animal body must have different members, subservient to each other; every picture must be composed of various colors, and of light and shade; all harmony must be formed of trebles, tenors, and basses; every beautiful and useful edifice must consist of higher and lower, more and less magnificent apartments. This is in the very essence of all created things, and therefore cannot be prevented by any means whatever, unless by not creating them at all: for which reason, in the formation of the universe, God was obliged, in order to carry on that just subordination so necessary to the very existence of the whole, to create beings of different ranks; and to bestow on various species of animals, and also on the individuals of the same species, various degrees of understanding, strength, beauty, and perfection; to the comparative want of which advantages we give the names of folly, weakness, deformity, and imperfection, and very unjustly repute them evils; whereas they are blessings as far as they extend, though of an inferior degree. They are no more actual evils, than a small estate is a real misfortune, because many may be possessed of a greater.

JENYNS' Works, vol. iii. p. 43.

216. The Creator has made Man to be good. Otherwise he, as the beasts whose character is designed to be ferocious, would have been furnished with claws, with fangs, with poison, with some offensive weapon. But he is not, like other animals, provided even with defensive armour; undoubtedly in the view of his having constant recourse to the humanity of his fellow-creatures, and of extending it to them in his turn.-God no more makes whole Nations of men jealous, envious, malignant, eager to surpass each other, ambitious, conquerors, cannibals, than He forms Nations continually labouring under leprosy, purples, fever, small-pox. If you meet an individual, subject to these physical evils, impute them without hesitation to some unwholesome aliment on which he feeds, or to a putrid air which infests the neighbourhood. In like manner when you find barbarism in a rising Nation, refer it solely to the errors of its policy, or to the influence of its neighbours; just as in a child, to the vices of education, or to bad example.

St. PIERRE's Arcadia, p. 194.

justified.

ROUSSEAU.

219. [Mark x. 9.] There is no goodness in any Creature, from the highest to the lowest, but in its continuing in such a union of qualities and powers, as God has brought together in its Creation, Phil. ii. 13. LAW's Appeal, p. 25.

220. [Gen. iii. 5.] Let every one, however, beware of falling into that execrable heresy, that God has infused Himself into men, and that He is in them, and no longer in Himself. God is every-where, as well within man, as without him; being, without space, in all space. If He were

217. [Prov. xxii. 6.] The great and fatal mistake in educa- will survive the body; and in that view Providence is tion, is to imagine that children have any natural dispositions, that they are naturally either cruel or passionate, proud, generous, or affectionate; and the mistake originates in this manner: Few parents begin to educate their children till they are four or five years old, when their tempers are completely formed, by improper means; instead of attempting to erase them by contrary impressions. Children, when left to themselves, generally do wrong; because their first notions tend to excess, if they are not controlled; and consequently become hurtful to themselves and others: for this purpose, they require in their younger years, long and constant attention; and with this it is as impossible that they should be ill disposed, as that a piece of wax which has received the impression of one figure, should represent another. Just what you wish your children to be, they will be if you take pains to make them so; but if a child is eager and impatient for every thing he sees and it is constantly given to him, you must expect that he will never bear to be denied. If you suffer him to refuse every thing he is asked for, you must expect him to be selfish and illiberal; if you suffer him to strike or ill-treat those beneath him with impunity, you must not wonder if he becomes proud and haughty; if you never teach him to be gentle and affectionate, you must expect him to be coarse and cruel; if you never permit him to take air and exercise, he will be puny and tender; if you supply all his wants, and never leave him to do any thing for himself, he will neither be active nor healthy; but if you use him to manly exercises, he will be strong and vigorous; and if you teach him forbearance, he will bear fatigue and difficulty. Our involuntary impressions being much more easily acquired than those we receive by the exertion of the will, example is generally found to be stronger than precept; it is of infinite importance, therefore, that we never expect from our children that which we do not do ourselves, and that all we enjoin or forbid should be strengthened by the powerful authority of our own. example.

BURDON'S Materials for Thinking, p. 220.

218. [Gen. i. 31.] Inquire no longer, man! who is the author of evil behold him in yourself. There exists no other evil in nature, but what you do or suffer; and you are equally the author of both. A general evil could exist only in disorder; but in the system of nature, there is established order which is never disturbed. Particular evil exists only in the sentiment of the suffering being; and this sentiment is not given to man by nature, but is of his own acquisition. Pain and sorrow have but little hold of those who, unaccustomed to reflection, have neither foresight nor memory. Take away our fatal improvements, take away our errors and vices; take away, in short, every thing that is the work of man; and all the rest is good. Let us be first virtuous; and, rest assured, we shall be happy sooner or later. Let us not require the prize, before we have got the victory; nor demand the price of our labor, before the work is finished. It is not in the lists, says Plutarch, that the victors at our games are crowned, but after the conquest is over. The soul is immaterial, and

in (finite) man, he would not only be divisible, but also in-
cluded in space in that case also, a man might think himself
to be a god.
SWEDENBORG'S Divine Love, n. 130.

221. [1 Chron. xxix. 11.] All the perfections communicated to men, or angels, being emanations of the Divine excellencies, do as much belong to God, as in a bright day, all the luminous beams, that are to be found in the air, belong to the sun-in whom they are united, and from whom they all proceeded. BOYLE, on the High Veneration Man's Intellect owes to God, p. 78.

222. [Isai. xlv. 7.] The same Qualities, infinitely good and perfect in God, may become imperfect and evil in the Creature; because in the Creature, being limited and fiuite, they may be divided and separated from one another by the Creature itself. LAW's Appeal, p. 24.

223. [Rom. i. 25.] There is no Evil, no Guilt, no Deformity in any Creature, but in its dividing and separating itself from something which God had given to be in union with it. Ibid. p. 21.

224. [Gen. iii. 5.] If a man suffer himself so far to be misled as to think, that he is not a recipient of life, but life itself, he cannot be induced to think otherwise than that he is a god (or as a god). (SWEDENBORG, on Divine Love, n. 4.)-As he that assumes a king's titles and prerogatives, is that king's greatest enemy; so he that affects to be as God in wisdom and goodness, is virtually become the direct opposite to all that is Divine. Thus man originally fell, or became infernal; and thus the self-wise, and selfrighteous in all ages, ever sin "after the similitude of Adam's transgression."

225. [Gen. iii. 17.] But that all the descendants from Adam fell also under the curse of God's wrath, and deserved eternal damnation, through the imputation of their parents' sin, is a harsh opinion, which reflects severely on God's justice and goodness, and does not appear to be included in any of the denunciations contained in the third Chapter of Genesis. Yet St. Austin maintained the doctrine, and has even in our day many disciples under the denomination of Supralapsarians; though the prophet Ezekiel is directed to declare, Chap. xviii. 20, that the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father; and though Jesus Christ Himself assures us, Matt. xviii. 3, that, unless we be converted, and become as little children, we shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Now, if all children were boru under the curse, to be converted into their state, or to become like them, would be an inevitable preparation in an adult for hell, not heaven.

See, on this subject, STACKHOUSE's Body of Divinity, p. 295, &c.

[blocks in formation]

227. [Gen. iii. 16.] Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrows and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children.

This curse, as it is called, applies only to a certain species of women, whole nations of females being entirely free from it. (See MONTAIGNE des Ess. l. i. c. 14.)This hint may lead to a discovery of the people and place where Paradise originally existed.-Is not child-birth comparatively easy among the Indians, under the Equator, particularly in Great Tartary? But do not the pains of concep

tion and the sorrows of parturition increase even among the Indians, when removed to another, a less genial climate?

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

The matter which is cursed, is not the orb of earth and water, as has been asserted, but the productive matter of which fruit, food, &c., are formned; and perhaps it would be better sense, if the word, bebolek, be read, in thy provision or food; in sorrow shalt thou eat it. (HUTCHINSON's Introduc. to Moses' sine Principio, p. cxcii.)— After the mind of man was perverted, his sphere communicated into the earth the essential forms of noxious plants and vegetables; and then also the herb of the field, or wild herbs, became part of his food. He was no longer fed with the garden productions of Eden alone.

CAIN AND ABEL.

[Gen. iv. 4, 5.] And the LORD had respect to Abel, and to his offering; but unto Cain, and to his offering, he had not respect.

232. [Gen. ii. 8.] The true Patriarchs, from Adam to Moses, appear to have been each, constituted of GOD, Prophet, Priest, and King.

HUTCHINSON'S Use of Reason recovered, pp. 62-68, 89, 94, 96.

233. [Gen. iv. 5.] In this instance Cain, like Esau, had forfeited his birth-right, but might, on his good behaviour, be re-instated, and have Abel under him. The word, nasha, elevare, denotes restoration to that high dignity, which, Gen. xxiii. 6, is denominated Princeps Elohim, or God's chief-priest; the person from whom God would accept the sacrifice and by accepting it from Abel, had for that time instituted him in the office. Levit. ix. 23, 24.

HUTCHINSON'S Introduc. to Moses' sine Principio,
P. ccxxxii.

234. [Gen. iv. 4.] At the hill of Vulcan, in Sicily, they who perform sacred rites, spread branches of the vine-tree on the altar, but apply no fire to the materials so piled aloft: if the deity be propitious and approve the ordinance, the superinduced branches, being properly cut for the purpose, though green and bleeding, spontaneously catch fire, without any accession of inflammatory matter, purely by virtue of a divine influence.

See Solinus Polyhistor, cap. v. in fine, as quoted by Dr. A. CLARKE on Lev. ix. 22.

See the account of a similar spontaneous combustion, in Ler. ix. 24.

[blocks in formation]

242. [Gen. iv. 11.] When Marcus Crassus set out on his expedition against the Parthians, Atteius, tribune of the people, ran to the Gate of the city; and, setting there a chaffingdish with fire in it, as Crassus drew near he offered odors and libations; and pronounced curses against Crassus as he poured them out, thus excommunicating him. Acts xxii. 20. POTTER'S Grecian Antiq. vol. i. p. 287. also Pantologia.

243. [Gen. iv. 15.] The Marquis of Beccaria (in his celebrated Essay on Crimes and Punishments) contends, that man in no case whatever is to be justified in taking the life of a fellow creature; that, in the instance of murder, to punish the murderers with death, is to commit another murder; and that no Divine Law warrants the driving a criminal into the presence of his CREATOR.-Under the influence of this idea, murderers, by the most antient laws of some Christian churches, were subjected to a perpetual penance all their lives. BINGHAM'S Antiq. vol. ii. p. 133.

244. [Gen. iv. 12.] Rejection of caste however, the severest human punishment inflicted by the laws of Menu, must to a Hindoo appear much worse than death: hurled from the high privileges of a Brahmin or a Nair, the delinquent of either sex is obliged to enter the tribe of Pariars, the outcasts of all ranks of society; in which both they and their offspring are compelled to remain for ever! No virtue, no talent, no merit of a child can ever atone for the venial sin of the parent, whose whole posterity must feel the full effects of the dreadful sentence: none are to pray, to sacrifice, to read, or to speak with the hapless culprit; none are to be allied by friendship or by marriage; none to eat or to drink with him; he is become abject, and excluded from all social duties; to wander over the earth, deserted by all, trusted by none; never to be received with affection, nor treated with kindness; but to be branded with infamy and shame.

245.

See FORBES' Oriental Memoirs, vol. i. p. 306.

Taylor, was with the antients, in many circumstances, very The common lot of slaves, says Dr. John deplorable. They were held for no men, for dead men, for beasts;-they had no head in the state, no name, tribe or register. They were not capable of being injured; could not inherit property, had no heirs, and were excluded from all civil concerns. PARKHURST's Greek Lex. p. 174.

246. [Gen. iv. 16.] Grotius and Junius are of opinion that the country, into which Cain retired, was Desert Arabia; which lies, as the Septuagint translate Nod, over against Eden.

See WELL'S Geog. of the Old Testament.

252. [Gen. v. 3.] Among the natives of America, time is even yet calculated by moons.

THE ANTEDILUVIANS.

CAPTAIN DIXON.

247. [Gen. ▾. 5.] And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died.

"As Pharaoh was the name of all succeeding kings in Egypt," and as Levi characterized the Jewish priesthood as long as it subsisted in a regular succession; so Adam, Seth, Enos, &c., were probably the names of religious founders, continuing to distinguish their respective followers; as Israel and Edom became the specific appellations of their descendants and proselytes for many generations.

248. [Gen. v. 2.] At the beginning of the fourteenth century, Khwajah RASHID, surnamed FAD'LU'LLAH, a native of Kasvin; compiled his account of the Tartars and Mongals from the papers of one PU'LA'D, whom the great grandson of HOLACU' had sent into Tátáristan for the sole purpose of collecting historical information; and the commission itself shews, how little the Tartarian Princes really knew of their own origin. From this work of RASHID, and from other materials, ABU'LGHA'zı', King of Khwárezm, composed in the Mogul language his Genealogical History, which, having been purchased from a merchant of Bokhárà by some Swedish officers, prisoners of war in Siberia, has found its way into several European tongues it contains much valuable matter, but, like all MUHAMMEDAN histories, exhibits TRIBES or NATIONS as INDIVIDUAL Sovereigns.

Works of Sir W. JONES, vol. i. p. 78.

[blocks in formation]

253. At the Pelew Islands, they reckon their periods of time in the same manner.-Abba Thulle, on the departure of his son Lee Boo, for England, tied thirty knots on a cord, as a memento that his darling boy would return in thirty moons, or, perhaps, a few more, for which he was willing to make allowance. Those moons have long since performed their revolutions. The knots are untied; and yet the reader, who has seen the tomb erected by the East India Company in Rotherhithe church-yard, knows, that Lee Boo

can return no more!

[blocks in formation]
« 前へ次へ »