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The entire compilation of writings called the Bible, is reckoned by a large body of Christians to be the inspired word of God. The types and figures, as they are called, of the Messiah, are scattered throughout these writings, and God is supposed to be the author. Now, if God be a Just and Truthful Being, which most unquestionably He is, what was the use of mystifying and obscuring a specific promise-a thing which ought to leave no room for misunderstanding? An upright man, when he makes a promise, leaves not the slightest obscurity about it when made, or when fulfilled. He to whom it is to be fulfilled understands perfectly the nature and meaning of it when it is made, and sees that nature and that meaning in the fulfilment, and is satisfied. Why, then, should not God be deemed upright? why was a promise made, about the nature and meaning of which those to whom it was made could entertain the slightest doubt?—All those passages in the Old Testament which are held as prophecies, types, and figures, are indefinite and obscure, and have required great intellectual effort to make them even to appear to coincide with what is conceived by Christians to have been the fulfilment; while those to whom the promise was made, cannot conceive such a thing as God permitting his promise to be misapprehended, and defeated by those to whom he made it. Those who believe that the Jews were destined to remain in ignorance of the nature of the promise, impugn the highest attributes of God; and their industrious researches after types and figures seem, under the view now taken, to be so many efforts to show that God is not just, and not merciful.

It seems to be utterly impossible that a Being absolutely perfect could act towards a people whose claim is to be His chosen people, in the manner which theologians wish to find recorded in their history. It is said that God's ways are not as our ways. Will any one be so bold as to affirm that God does not hold that to be just which man esteems just? that God does not regard as mercy the exercise of human benevolence? If we did not feel a monitor within us, assuring us of our thoughts and actions being just or unjust, benevolent or cruel, we could form no idea of the God of Christians. Whatever be intended to be understood by the affirmation that God's ways are not as our ways, God's ways must be conformable to what we conceive to be Moral Perfection, else he can be no God

to us.

Among all the notions entertained respecting the promise made to Abraham, there is not one that can be accounted rational and correct. Jesus is held to be God by the Trinitarians;

and it is affirmed that God determined to submit to crucifixion, to satisfy His own Justice. In what part of the Jewish writings is there any indication of such a thing? If it be denied that God was crucified by His own desire, then he that was crucified could not have been God. It is said that God became, in a mysterious manner, a human being for a temporary purpose. Yet, when that purpose was accomplished, it is said he went back to Heaven encumbered by a mortal body. After the resurrection, the body was proved to have been identical with the one that died on the cross. If it was not a mortal body, it could never have died. While on earth it needed nourishment to grow and be sustained: and it suffered pain, and was liable to injury and death. This very body is said to have gone to heaven, and to be seated at the right hand of God. How, then, can there be three in one after the incarnation, whatever might have been the case previously? are all the three essences condensed into the mortal body? Well may it be asked, What am I to believe? For it is found that the Son is sent in one direction, the Holy Ghost in another, and yet that the third person sits on the throne supreme, without any special office assigned. It was the Son who created the world, and who is to judge it. It was the Holy Ghost that spake by the Prophets. What did the third, or rather, as it is held, the First Person, do?

It is easy, and consistent, to believe, that the Unity of God is the religion of nature: and that Jesus, as the Image of God and the Exemplar of Human Perfection, exhibited the spiritual essentials of Religion. That there is one God, the Jews believed: and their religion, divested of all its superstitious observances, and with the sense of moral obligation added to veneration for the Supreme Being, is the religion of nature; and the true religion which Jesus, the most perfect being that ever has appeared in human form, consummated in a spiritual and embodied faith. He said he came not to destroy but to perfect the law. Were men to open their minds to each other freely, it would be found that this belief—this religious and moral belief-is making progress as rapid as that of Physical discovery. Men are restrained in such things by a sense of their dependence on public opinion-by "the fear of the folk." The folk, however, is by no means so great a multitude as is commonly imagined. They are diminishing in proportion as clerical violence and folly are increasing.

S.

ART. VII.—A SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF MOSES MENDELSOHN, THE JEWISH PHILOSOPHER. Taken from the edition of his collected Works published at Vienna in 1838, as a National Tribute to the Memory of their Author.

MOSES MENDELSOHN was born at Dessau on the 6th of September 1729. His father was master of a Jewish school; he was also a transcriber of the Pentateuch, an humble calling, which, however, did not prevent him from giving his son a good education for his situation in life. He taught him the Hebrew tongue, and the Elements of Jewish learning; and engaged a Rabbin to instruct him in the Talmud. Mendelsohn, at a very early age, evinced an insatiable thirst for knowledge. The sacred writings of the Old Testament became, after the Talmud, the source from which his mind received instruction, and his taste became cultivated. The bold and striking delineations of the Hebrew poets made a lively impression upon his imagination, and, in his tenth year, he composed some poems in the Hebrew language, of considerable elegance.

At this time the celebrated work of Maimonides, "More Nebochim"-(the Guide of the Perplexed)-fell into his hands. This master-piece of modern Hebrew literature was exceedingly attractive to his young mind; and it was this work which first inspired him with an ardent desire after truth and freedom of thought.

His father was too poor to maintain him at home, and consequently, at the age of fourteen, Mendelsohn quitted the paternal roof, and travelled on foot to Berlin. Here he lived for several years in extreme poverty, often dispensing with the common necessaries of life; but these privations affected him little so long as he could command the means of satisfying his eager desire after knowledge. He soon found friends in Berlin willing to assist him in his literary pursuits; and a benevolent fellow countryman allowed him to occupy an attic chamber in his house, and gave him free board twice a-week. The Chief Rabbin Frankel, his former instructor at Dessau, now removed to Berlin, also befriended him. He not only employed him to transcribe his manuscripts, but afforded him the opportunity of gaining a thorough acquaintance with the Talmud, and with the Jewish theological jurisprudence and philosophy connected with that study. But this limited sphere of learning could not content the aspiring, opening mind of Mendelsohn, and he was

happy in meeting with a man in Berlin, who was not only as poor as himself—(for in Mendelsohn's circumstances he would scarcely have had the courage to seek the friendship of one less indigent) but who also, like himself, had, in the midst of trial and adversity, found his only consolation in that earnest devotion to truth which elevates the mind above all external circumstances, and ensures the blessedness of inward peace. This was Israel Moses, by birth a Polish Jew, from the small town of Stari-Zamose, situated between Cracow and Lemberg, in present Galicia. He had become an object of hatred to the Rabbins, on account of the freedom of his religious opinions. He was driven backwards and forwards to and from Poland, compelled for years to wander from place to place, helpless and destitute, till at length, worn out by the continual persecution and bitter animosity of the orthodox Talmudists, he became in his old age exhauted and dejected, and died a true martyr to his sincerity.

Israel Moses understood no language but the Hebrew, which, however, he wrote with unusual correctness and elegance. He was, as Mendelsohn in his riper years adjudged him, a profound reasoner and a great mathematician, having, from his own reflections, discovered several very important demonstrations. He was also possessed of considerable poetical genius. He, as well as Mendelsohn, had studied Maimonides with much earnestness, and he delighted to engage in argument with his young friend, according to the principles of that author. Moses Israel gave Mendelsohn a Hebrew copy of Euclid's Elements. He soon inspired him with a taste for Mathematics; and it was the pursuit of this science which first called forth his mental energies, and invigorated and improved his understanding :the invariable effect produced upon every young mind by this much-depreciated study.

Another friend of Mendelsohn, of the name of Kisch, a Jewish doctor and teacher of medicine, advised him to learn Latin; since the most valuable works would remain inaccessible to him without a knowledge of that language. Mendelsohn was so poor, that he was obliged to wait for a while before he could raise the trifling sum requisite for the purchase of a Latin grammar and second-hand dictionary. During six months Dr. Kisch aided him by giving him daily instruction for about a quarter of an hour, and in a short time, with indeed almost incredible assiduity, he had made sufficient progress to enable him to read a Latin translation of Locke's "Essay on the Human Understanding." In 1748 he also became acquainted with Dr. Aaron Solomon Gumperz, a young Jew, who was not only well-informed in medicine, mathematics and phi

losophy, but was conversant with several European languages, particularly the English and French. Mendelsohn did not fail to profit by this intimacy; encouraged and assisted by his friend, he next devoted himself to the acquirement of modern languages and the study of modern literature.

Thus did Mendelsohn employ his early years, living upon the pursuit of learning and science, with no other excitement than that supplied by his own mind, no other impulse than his own ardent love of knowledge; satisfied with a scanty, and often uncertain subsistence, till at length a rich Jewish merchant of Berlin engaged him as a tutor to his sons, and took him into his house.

Herr Bernard soon discovered that Mendelsohn was not only a scholar, but a proficient in calligraphy, arithmetic, and bookkeeping qualifications so rarely combined with high intellectual attainments: and he proposed to him to take him into his business. He was admitted, first as a clerk, afterwards as foreman, and eventually as a partner in the concern.

It was in the year 1754 that Mendelsohn was introduced to Lessing, to whom he had been mentioned as an excellent chessplayer. This introduction proved the most important event of his life. His friendship and intercourse with this distinguished philosopher led to the full development of his reasoning powers, and to the suitable application of his rare talents. It was Lessing who directed Mendelsohn's attention to the nature and advantages of modern language, and his work entitled, "Letters on the Feelings,"* his first publication in the German, was the result. About the same time, Mendelsohn became acquainted with Abbt, and Nicolai. The published correspondence between Abbt, Nicolai, and Mendelsohn, merit, as a monument of a truly philosophical friendship, to be classed with the most admired philosophical letters of antiquity. Mendelsohn likewise took a very important part in those letters on modern literature which had so large a share in the formation of the modern literature of Germany. For a while Mendelsohn opposed the suggestion of Nicolai to publish an Universal German Library, intimidated by the vastness of the undertaking, and the difficulties attending it; but when he found Nicolai resolved upon the execution of his design, he afforded him his most friendly and efficient assistance and support. Mendelsohn's work on the Feelings met with a very favourable reception, and he now, from time to time, appeared before the public in the character of an author, chiefly as a philosophical

* Briefe uber die Empfindungen.

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