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    hend the force of his reasoning , or ta guess at the rales of his logic by which so notable a deduction is obtained ; and as I have carefully abstained from noticing m my former essay the results which must have infallibly been produced by the miracle recorded in our Common Version , had it actually taken place , so I hope I may be excused from detailing those which J . C M . ' s improved miracle could not fail likewise to have effected * had it existed any where else than in his own imagination . Some hints * however , on the

    subject may be gathered from Michaehs ' s remarks on the miracle of the sun going back ten degrees on the sun-dial of Ahaz , and to these I refer J . C . 3 ML and your readers . There is one inference which must necessarily be drawn from the foregoing , which it may not be amiss to state here ; it is this * that both the Septuagint and the Vulgate Versions of the book of Joshua (( from which all our modern European translations have chiefly ema-Joshua from which all our modern European translations have chiefly

    emanated ) must have been made at a period when astronomical science was at a low ebb ; when the degenerate political state of the ancient Egyptians and Jews manifested ( as is ever the case with fallen nations ) a corresponding degeneracy , or rather absence of true science and learning ; and when a string of childish systems was founded , not on the result of philosophical experiment and accurate observation , but on appearances only . Why we should

    still persist in adopting versions like these , the authors of which have swerved from the original because they could not comprehend it , and have in many places substituted error for truth out of sheer imbecility a « d ignprance , may be left to their champion J . C . M . to account for . It might be done : here , but courtesy forbids the attempt . I come now to what your correspondent is pleased to term my grand , ob * jectiofl , and which consists briefly in this , " that as God is immutable , so

    are the laws by which he governs the universe . " In denying this , J , C * M . defines a miracle to be " a departure from the laws by which the Supreme Being governs the universe , " although in a few lines afterwards he considers it to be synonymous with " a departure from the usual mode in which he conducts the operations of his providence ; " and , leaving the reader tore * concile as he can the vast difference between both definitions , he proceeds to assert that an attempt to charge the Almighty with mutability in

    occasionally departing from those laws by which he governs the uni verse , does not derogate from his glory so much as the hypothesis which would limit his omnipotence b y making him the slave of his own decrees . Ah ! Mr . Editor , had my pen originally traced these lines , well might I blush , and well might I incur the just reproach of J . C . M ,, not only of not having used *• more guarded and moderate language , ' * but also of not having spoken with that reverence which it becomes a mere mortal when treating of an all-perfect ,

    all-wise and omnipotent Being , " All nature" ( in the energetic Janguago of a sage of the present day ) " is but the expression of the will of God , " and if the Divine Will , as manifested throughout all his works , and in the laws by . which he governs the mighty whole , agree in perfection with him , the Supreme Being , who is the essence and fountain of all perfection , as it needs must , how can the possibility of a change be for a moment supposed ? 1

    Or , in other words , how can the " unphilosophical idea ' of perfection in Omnipotence becoming imperfect be at all tolerated ? To assert , then , that the perfect laws of an all-perfect Being are immutable , is surely not asserting , as J . C . M * will have it , that an all-perfect Being is , or £ an be , the slave of those laws . The latter are the expression of the will of the former , afid as £ uch cannot but be perfect , harmonious , and , like their Author , immutable . . , From the preceding it may be gathered that I differ not a little from your

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    On the Command of Joshuu . 883

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1827, page 883, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1803/page/27/