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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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the tame view , and on the same plan With jours , an anonymous letter from Geneva , evincing the divine mission of Jlfoses , Jfrom the institution of the sahbatic feat . The author sets out , like you , from this single postulatum , that Moses
tvas a consummate lawgiver ; and shews , that he could never have enjoined a law , so whimsical , impolitic , find hazardous ; exposing the people to certain famine , as oft as the preceding or following year proved barren * if He , who hat ell nature at comman d * bad not 'warranted the success
of it * The . letter is ingenious and sprightly , and dresses out , in a variety of colours , the absurdity of the institution , on the supposition of its being human . It is in French , and published in Bibliotheque Germanioue , torn . XXX .
But , will not this gaiety of censuring the law be found too adventurous , and expose your postulatum itself to some ha * 2 ard ? Especially when there is a fact * generally allowed by the learned , that seems to overturn all this specious
reasoning at once ; viz . that thisla ^ voftbe sabbatic year was never observed . For , if so , it may be objected , with some show of reason , that Moses had charged himself with the issue of events too delicate and beyond his reach , and imprudently enjoined what use and experience showed to be impracticable .
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To the Editor of the Monthly Repository *
Clapton , March 3 , 1810 . SIR On reading the Memoir which a much esteemed friend has con . tributed to your last number , it occurred to me , that CreHi us was
somewhere mentioned as having enjoyed a personal acquaintance with Tillotson , I have since found ^ e following passage in Birch ' s Life of the Archbishop , ( p . 426 , 2 d ed . ) among Jortin ' s < c Miscel . laneous Remarks / ' on that prelate ' s sermons .
" Tillotaon printed the SermonB on the Vtvtnitp of Christ to vindicate himself £ om the charge of Socinjanism , that is , vom an accusation entirely groundless . * ** vc been tol * chat Crcffius * a Soci *
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1 am apprehensive , likewise , that your work will not stand wholly clear of objections : your scheme , as 1 take it , is to show , that so able a man as Moses could not possibly have emitted the doctrine of a future state , thought so necessary to government by all other legislator ? , bad he
not done it by the express direction of tb * Deity % and that under the miraculous dispensations of the Theocracy , be could neither want it himself for the enforcing a respect to bis laivsy nor yet the people for the *«
-couragement of their obedience . But what was the consequence ? Why , the people were perpetually apostatizing either to the superstitions of Egypt , or the idolatries of Canaan ; and tired with the load of their ceremonies , wholly drop * ped them at last , and sunk into all kinds
of vice and profanencss 5 till the prophets , in order to revive and preserve a sense of religion amongst them , began to preach up the rational duties of morality , and insinuate the doctrine of a future state .
As in the other case , then , some may be apt to say , that Moses had instituted what could not be practised without ruin to the state ; so in this , that . he had overlooked what could not be omitted without ruin to religion . ' * ,
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nian , and a descendant of the more celebrated Crellius , who * used , when he came over hither , to visit the archbishop , and to converse with him , justified him .
on this head , and declared , that Tillotson had often disputed * with him in a friendly way upon the subject of the Trinity , and that he was the best rcasoner , and had the most to say for himself , of any adversary he had ever encountered , "
If Jortin were rightly informed on this subject , and referred to Samuel Crellius , Bock must have been mistaken as to the year in
which he first visited England , for Tillotson died in 1694 * I lately met with an opinion , attributed to the first Crellius ^ so inconsistent with the amiable views of his
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Particulars concerning S . and J . CrelKus , < frc * 1 ( T 9
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PARTICULARS CONCERNING 8 . AND J . CRELLIUS , LELIUS SOCINUS * AND HARTLEY .
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VO L . Y . z
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1810, page 169, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2403/page/9/
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