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stood in the sense which the language of their authors naturally conveys, were admitted as a sufficient reason for concluding those authors to have meant something much wiser and better than what they have said, it would equally serve to explain away all the absurdities and follies that were ever broached in the world.-Pp. 145–147.

For the traditions concerning angels and demons, we must refer our readers to Mr. Allen. But we cannot refrain from transcribing, from the chapter on paradise, the following account (doubtless a well-authenticated narrative)" of the stratagem by which Jehosha, a cunning Rabbi, is represented in the Talmud as out-witting the angel of death, and getting himself, both soul and body, into paradise without dying."

Our Rabbies of blessed memory say, that Rabbi Jehosha Ben Levi was a perfectly righteous man. Now when the time of his departure from this world was at hand, the holy and blessed God said to the angel of death, Comply with all that he requires of thee. Then said the angel to Jehosha, The time draweth nigh when thou art to depart from this world; I will grant thee all that thou requirest. When Rabbi Jehosha heard this, he said to him, My request to thee is, that thou wilt shew me my place in paradise. And the angel said to him, Come along with me: I will shew it thee. Whereupon Rabbi Jehosha said, Give me thy sword, that thou mayest not therewith surprise me. And immediately the angel of death gave him his sword; and they went together, till they came up to the walls of paradise. When they were come up to the walls, the angel of death raised Rabbi Jehosha up, and set him upon them. Then jumped Rabbi Jehosha Ben Levi from the walls, and descended into paradise. But the angel of death caught hold of the skirts of his cloak, and said to him, Do thou come out. But Rabbi Jehosha did swear by the name of the eternal God that he would not come out from thence; and the angel of death had not power to enter in. Hereupon the ministering angels presented themselves before God, and said, Behold what the son of Levi has done; he has by force taken his part in paradise. Then follows a conversation which terminates in a decision that "he shall not go out of paradise." And the angel of death, seeing that he could not draw him out, said to him, Give me my sword. But Rabbi Jehosha refused to give it him, till" (another rabbinical authority says, 'at the end of seven years,') a voice came from heaven, which said, Give him the sword; for he has occasion for it, for the killing of others therewith. And Rabbi Jehosha said to him, Swear thou to me, that thou wilt not let it be seen by man, or any creature, when thou takest away their souls. For before that time the angel had been used to slay mankind, even the infant on the mother's lap, in a manner visible to all. And the angel of death did swear in that same hour; and Jehosha gave him his sword again, Then Elijah began to lift up his voice before Rabbi Jehosha, saying to the righteous, Make room for the son of Levi; make room for the son of Levi.-Pp. 181, 182.

Among the traditions concerning hell, our readers will not be surprised to find that the doctrine of purgatory occupies a conspicuous place, or that "the liberation of Israelites from hell is said to be greatly promoted and accelerated by the prayers of their surviving sons." Mr. Allen states, that a certain prayer, called the Kodesh, in the daily morning service, is said to possess this wonderful efficacy, "When the son prays, and says the Kodesh publicly, then releaseth he his father and his mother out of hell."-P. 184.

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Turning to the chapter on human souls, we find, as perhaps our readers are by this time prepared to expect, that souls transmigrate into other bodies, and that there are learned debates among the Rabbies, as to whether the whole soul migrates, or only a part of it, through what number, and what kind of changes it can pass, as, for instance, into other human bodies, into quadrupeds, insects, fish, leaves of trees, stones, water-falls, water-mills, and what not? For these, and similar stories, equally wise, and equally true, we refer our readers to Mr. Allen's volume, pp. 200-210.

Were we not afraid of trespassing on the patience of our readers, we should extract a few of the traditions concerning persons mentioned in the Old Testament; but we prefer giving another extract from the Talmud, which we believe has not before appeared in our language. Mr. Allen states that

Moses is represented by the Cabbalists as having received the law, not as is commonly believed among Christians, by the condescension of the divine Majesty on mount Sinai, but by actually ascending into heaven to fetch it; and ample details have been given of the opposition he experienced from numerous and mighty angels, and the means by which he overcame that opposition, and surmounted other difficulties in his progress through the celestial regions. But to recount these cabbalistic adventures, would require more room than the limits of the present work will allow.-P. 225.

A part of these adventures is thus related in the Talmud.

At the time when Moses "ascended up on high," the ministering angels said to the Holy One, Blessed be He! O Master of the universe, what has one born of woman to do amongst us? Then said He to them, He is come to receive the law. They answered Him, What! that precious and hidden thing, which has been hidden with Thee ever since the six days of the creation, nine hundred and seventy-four generations before the world was created, dost Thou intend to bestow it on flesh and blood? "What is man, that Thou art mindful of him, and the son of man, that Thou visitest him? O Lord, our Governor, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! Thou shouldest rather give thy glory to the heavens. ."* (Ps. viii. 4, 1.) Then the Holy One, blessed be He! said to Moses, Give them an answer. He said, O Master of the universe, I am afraid lest they should burn me with the breath of their mouth. He said to him, Take hold of the throne of my glory, and give them an answer. For it is written, "He holdeth the face of His throne, He spreadeth his cloud upon him." (Job xxvi. 9.) And Rabbi Nahum said, This text teaches us that God spread out the brightness of his schekinah, and overshadowed him with it. Then Moses said to Him, O Master of the universe, the law which Thou art about to give me, what is written in it? "I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage." (Exod. xx. 2.) Then said he to the angels, Did you ever go down to Egypt? Were you ever made slaves to Pharaoh? What then can the law be to you? Again, What is written in it? "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." (Ver. 3.) Do you dwell among the uncircumcised nations, who worship idols? Again, What is written in it? "Remember the Sabbath-day, to keep it holy." (Ver. 8.) Do you do any work, that you should stand in need of rest? Again, What is written in it? "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain." (Ver. 7.) Is there any trading among you, [. e. that an oath should ever be necessary]?

. See note on Exod. xxxiii. 14, p. 651.

Again, What is written in it? "Honour thy father and thy mother." Have you a father or a mother? Again, What is written in it? "Thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not commit adultery; thou shalt not steal." Is there any quarrelling among you? Are there any evil propensities among you? Then they immediately acknowledged that the Holy One, blessed be He! was right. For it is written, "O Lord, our Governor, how excellent is thy name in all the earth." (Ver. 9.) But is it not again written, "Thou shouldest rather give thy glory to the heavens?" Then immediately every one of the angels became his friend, and God delivered to him the law. For it is written, "Thou hast ascended on high; thou hast led captivity captive; thou hast received gifts by being man; i. e. on account of thy being [not an angel, but] man, thou hast received the gift."-Talmud. T. Sabbath. p. 88.

It may be said that all this is evidently a fable, and that no writer in his senses could ever intend or expect that it would be understood as a literal narrative of real facts. Be it so: but what excuse can be offered for the accommodation of the eighth and sixty-eighth Psalms, when the same Holy Spirit, who commissioned the prophet to utter them, has commissioned the apostle to proclaim that a greater than Moses is here ?*

The future coming of Messiah is an article of such exceeding importance in the Jewish creed, that we cannot close this paper without a specimen of the traditions of the Rabbies on this subject.

When Messiah shall have gathered all Israel out of all nations, and brought them into the land of their forefathers; when he shall have rebuilt the city and restored the temple with its ancient services; the Rabbies tell us, he will celebrate a royal festival, to which all Israelites shall be invited, and where they shall experience a most gracious reception, and every one of them be seated at a golden table.

As other kings and princes, at public festivals, are accustomed to entertain their guests with spectacles and games, so this banquet of Messiah is to be introduced by a sportive exhibition. He will entertain himself and the company with a battle between Behemoth and Leviathan, as it is written: "There all the beasts of the field play." (Job xl. 20.) The various feats of Behemoth will be highly gratifying to Messiah: "This also shall please the Lord, better than an ox or bullock that hath horns and hoofs." (Psal. xix. 23.) But Leviathan will advance to the contest, armed with his scales as with a breast-plate and coat of mail, dreadful to behold: "His body compacted with scales, close to each other, like molten shields." (Job xli. 15.) The battle will be fierce; but the combatants being equally matched, neither will be victorious. They will both fall, exhausted by fatigue. Then Messiah with a drawn sword will stab and slay them both: "In that day the Lord, with his sore and great and strong sword, shall punish Leviathan the piercing serpent, even Leviathan that crooked serpent." (Isa. xxvii. 1.) "He that made him, can make his sword to approach unto him." (Job xl. 19.) “Thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters." (Ps. lxxiv. 13.)— Pp. 278, 279.

Then follows the feast; as it is written, (say they) "And in this mountain shall the Lord of Hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wine on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined." (Isaiah xxv. 6.) Among other delicacies at this feast, "the female of this Leviathan shall be brought

See Heb. ii. 6-10, and Ephes. iv. 8-11.

to table, as salt fish. For the Rabbins tell us,* that God having created male and female of every creature, immediately slew the female Leviathan, to prevent the destruction of the world, which would have happened if the propagation of that creature had been suffered and that, having slain her, he laid her up in salt, ordaining her for the faithful Jews at the grand feast of the Messiah. They tell us, likewise, of a female that was created with Behemoth, which God immediately rendered barren, for the same reasons that are alleged for his slaying the female Leviathan; and which female, likewise, God somewhere preserves for the great occasion we are speaking of. The banquet is to be followed by music and dancing. After these things Messiah is to marry; and, having reigned, some say forty years, others seventy, others three hundred, three hundred and sixty five, four hundred, a thousand, seven thousand years, he will at length die like other men, and be succeeded by his son: as it is written: "He shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand." (Isaiah liii. 10.)

But why need we proceed further with these melancholy dreams? We again repeat our firm conviction that nothing will be done towards effecting the general conversion of the Jews, until these awful delusions are swept away. And for this purpose, all that

is wanted is exposure. If a dozen or score of such passages, as those which we have here exhibited, were selected from the Talmud, and published, each in a separate tract, the Hebrew being printed on one page, and a literal English translation on the other; and if the same passages were published in Hebrew and Dutch, Hebrew and German, &c., and liberally circulated among the Jews in London, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Berlin, and other places where their congregations are numerous, it is scarcely possible but that mere curiosity would induce many of them to read the extracts, and that some at least would be awakened from their death-like sleep, and hail the dawning of a brighter day.

ART. III.-Sketches of the Danish Mission on the Coast of Coromandel. By the Rev. E. W. GRINFIELD, M.A. Pp. 152. London: Rivingtons. 1831.

SECTARIANS of all denominations, and those very apocryphal churchmen who prefer the patronage and support of a Society, to say the least, unfriendly, to the distribution of the Book of Common Prayer, together with the Bible, are too frequently in the habit of

*Talmud. T. Bava Bathra. § 5.

+ Stehelin's Rabbinical Literature; or, The Traditions of the Jews contained in their Talmud and other Mystical Writings; vol. ii. p. 215.

indulging in sarcastic allusions to the venerable Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, and endeavouring to exalt their idol by the debasement of the object of the reverential attachment of all true and orthodox members of the Church of England. As we intend, however, in a few subsequent numbers, to enter into a full vindication of the history and proceedings of that excellent Institution, we shall not anticipate the subject at present, and should not indeed have alluded to it at all, had not the volume before us contained a direct refutation of the charges of indifference, which have been somewhat lavishly brought against the Church of England, in the person of her adopted child, and proved incontestably that wherever the interests of true religion were concerned, "the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge," had only to be informed of the fact, to come forward with both personal and pecuniary aid, for the purpose of upholding the good cause to the utmost extent of her ability.

Mr. Grinfield's sketches are valuable in every point of view, primarily, because, as he informs us, the entire "narrative is drawn from the manuscript records of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge," and therefore unimpeachable; and next, in consequence of their treating of a subject of paramount interest and importance,— "the establishment of several religious institutions connected with the conversion of the heathen," and the progress of the first Protestant missions in the East. The first thing that strikes us, in common with the Editor of this work is, the attention shewn by the Dutch colonists to the religious wants of the natives wherever they settled. This, indeed, has always been a highly honourable feature in their character. No sooner had they gained possession of Ceylon, than they began to build Christian churches; so that in the time of Baldæus, the Dutch preacher and historian, (1660) there were thirty-two churches in the province of Jaffna only, "though in the year 1806," writes Buchanan, "there is not one Protestant European minister in the whole province." It was the policy of the Dutch never to give an official appointment to any native who was not a Christian; but it was the complaint of Bishop Heber, that a policy directly contrary to this was pursued towards the native converts of India. This reproach, alas! too justly merited, is not altogether undeserved even at this day, although we learn that much has already been done, and more contemplated, for the effectual reform of such an enormous and crying evil. In fact, the influence of religion is no longer confined to mere outward parade; the heart has been touched and that which the first Protestant apostles in the East so ardently prayed for, appears likely, after the lapse of a century and a quarter, to be carried into effect. At the time when Bartholomew Ziegenbalg (whose life and labours commence the volume before us) resolved to exchange the amusements of a traveller for the labours

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