' XI. I believe with a perfect faith, that the Creator (blessed be his name) rewards those who observe his commands, and punisheš. those who transgress them. • XII. I believe with a perfect faith, that the Messiah will come, and though he delays, nevertheless I will always expect him till he comes. • XIII. I believe with a perfect faith, that the dead will be restored to life, when it shall be so ordained by the decree of the Creator; blessed be his name, and exalted be his remembrance for ever and ever.' pp. 95-97. In the seventh chapter, which is a particularly interesting portion of the work, Mr. Allen details the opinions of the modern Jews, on the present moral condition of human nature-sin-and the means of acceptance with God. From authorities which he has cited, it appears that the Rabbies are at variance among themselves on the subject of innate depravity Maimonides rejects the tenet of original sin, as a most flagrant absurdity. Other Jewish writers maintain the existence of an evil principle in man, which is born with him, and grows with him all his days. This was the sentiment of Aben Ezra, who comments in the following manner on part of the fifty-first Psalm. 'Because of the concupiscence implanted in the human heart, David says, "I was shapen in iniquity:" the meaning is, that the evil principle is implanted in the heart in the hour of nativity.-When he prays, "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me," the meaning is, that the concupiscence implanted in him, had seduced him to sin, and therefore he supplicates God to assist him against his inherent concupiscence, that he may never fall into a similar transgression.' p. iii. To the representation of a writer in the Jewish Repository, that sincere repentance, without atonement, is the only mediation which God ever required as necessary to the obtaining of forgiveness by the descendants of Abraham, Mr. Allen very successfully opposes the opinions of some of the most eminent Jewish writers, and the language of their prayer-books, which is very clear and decisive. If,' he remarks, their recitals, lamen❝tations, and confessions be made with any truth, and their peti<tions uttered with any sincerity, if their sentiments be not repugnant to their public professions, it will appear to be the ⚫ opinion of modern Jews,' < • that their ancestors obtained the remission of their sins by virtue of certain expiations, prescribed in the Mosaic ritual; and that forgiveness is now to be obtained by prayer, contrition, and other means, supposed to be substitutes, accepted by the divine mercy, instead of those expiations which it is not in their power at present to perform.' p. 116. In accordance with these sentiments, is the language of the daily morning service inserted in the prayer-book of the German and Polish Jews; (cited p. 117;) in which they present their supplications for the pardon of their sins, and that the temple may be speedily rebuilt, that they may offer in the presence of God the continual burnt-offering, that it may atone for them; a mode of expression which clearly connects the hope of acceptance with expiation. The rabbinical traditions concerning God, Angels, Demons, Heaven and Hell, the Messiah, Adam, Moses, and several other persons, as well as things, occupy many pages of this work, and they cannot be read without exciting at once the pity and disgust of every one who is accustomed to regard the Deity with veneration, and to conduct his inquiries into the nature of invisible and future objects with sobriety. So extravagantly absurd, and so void of all practical good, are the rabbinical notions which have obtained credence among a people whose ancestors received the law and the prophets as the sources of their religious knowledge, and boasted of Moses as their teacher, that all wonder at the corruption of any communication ever claiming to be Divine, must cease after the perusal of them. It would, we believe, be impossible to select from the writings of pagan poets or philosophers, whether Greek or Latin, descriptions and opinions more derogatory to the Divine Creator, or more truly ridiculous as the offspring of a rational mind, than those which the Talmud and the books of Jewish Doctors have imbodied. We shall extract a few specimens, referring our readers to Mr. Allen's pages for other instances of their reveries. They represent the Deity-as existing in a human form, of a cer tain number of millions of miles in height, which they have undertaken to specify:-as circumscribed, since the destruction of the temple, within a space of four cubits:as dressed in a snow-white coat, and studying in the Scriptures by day, and in the Mishna by night :-as employed during the last three hours of every day, before the destruction of the temple, in playing with Leviathan; and since that event, in sitting to give instruction in the law to young Israelites who have died in infancy: -as reading the Talmud, and rehearsing the decisions of all the rabbies except one: as putting on the tephillin and taleth, and appearing like a public prayer-reader in a synagogue :-as actually praying-as groaning, howling, and roaring:-as weeping daily:as shedding two tears into the ocean, whenever he remembers the dispersion and distress of his children; which tears produce an earthquake, and a noise that is heard to the extremities of the world.' p. 141. Angels, according to one Rabbi, were created on the second day; according to another, on the fifth day; and according to a third, they were the beginning of all created beings.' Angels differ greatly in magnitude and stature; one angel being, according to the Talmud, taller than another, by as many miles as a man would travel in a journey of five hundred years. Angels are divided into orders; they preside over nations, and are the guardians of men. The angels are not allowed to say their hymns above, till the Israelites have said them here below. Demons have their share of rabbinical attention. These evil beings are represented sometimes as originally inhabitants of heaven, who fell from that state of bliss soon after the creation of Adam; or, according to other opinions, in the days of Noah. Many of the Rabbies assert their original formation as evil beings; and some of them, more curious in their speculations than their brethren, affirm that they were made at the close of the sixth day; and that the Creator having given existence to their spirits, and intending to supply them with bodies, was frustrated in his design by the commencement of the sabbath, so that there was not time for the completion of this part of the Divine plan. According to the Talmud, If the eye had been capable of discerning, no man could subsist on account of the demons. There are more of them than of us; they stand about us, as a fence flung up out of ditches, about land in a garden. Every rabbi has a thousand on his left, and ten thousand on his right side. The thronging and squeezing on a sabbath in our synagogues, where one would think there is room enough, yet each imagines he sits too close to another, is occasioned by them, for they come to hear the sermon. p. 167. The Jewish Doctors have made wonderful discoveries in the regions of bliss and misery, which they describe with a copiousness and minuteness unequalled in the writings of even inspired men. They have surveyed the celestial and infernal abodes, and furnish the dimensions of the dwellings of the righteous and of the wicked. A certain rabbi, it is said, 'sought all over Paradise, and he found therein seven houses or dwellings: and each 'house was twelve times ten thousand miles long, and twelve times ten thousand miles wide.' In Paradise every one has his particular abode, and is not allowed to go out, or ascend to 'the dwelling of his superior neighbour; for if he do, he is frequently consumed by his neighbour's great fire.' We give their account of Hell. "In Hell there are seven divisions.-The seven abodes are very spacious; and in each there are seven rivers of fire, and seven rivers of hail. The second abode is sixty times larger than the first, and every abode is sixty times larger than that which precedes it. In each abode are seven thousand caverns; and in each cavern, seven thousand clifts; and in each clift, seven thousand scorpions; each scorpion has seven limbs, and on each limb are seven thousand barrels of gall. There are likewise seven rivers of the rankest poison, which when a man touches he bursts. Another high authority affirms each of these divisions to be • as far in depth as one can walk in three hundred years.? The whole extent is described in the Talmud in the following terms. • Egypt is four hundred miles in length, and the same in breadth. Egypt is equal in extent to a sixth part of Ethiopia; Ethiopia to a sixth part of the world; the world to a sixth part of Eden; Eden to a sixth part of Hell.' ” p. 180. The Romanists have been anticipated by the Rabbins in the adoption of the doctrine of a purgatory, and the efficacy of the prayers of the living to deliver the sufferers from that place of torment. The former, however, have improved the invention much better, for their own gain, than the latter. As an instrument of power, and a means of obtaining wealth, purgatory has answered most completely the object of its popish supporters; it has built their churches and filled their coffers. The coming of the Messiah is the great object of Jewish hope. Attached by a fatal delusion to the notions, so fondly cherished by their ancestors, of worldly dominion and magnificence, as ap propriate to the Messiah's character and reign, the Jews have for ages encouraged themselves in the expectation of events which the faith of Abraham would disclaim; and for ages they have been doomed to vexatious disappointment. Their present state, so different from what the predictions of their prophets point to, as associated with the primary part of their accomplishment; their distinction of families and tribes annulled-their priesthood abolished-their altars overthrown-their temples demolished -and their polity annihilated—are circumstances which perplex their wisest calculators. Resisting these proofs that the time of the Messiah's advent must be past, and determined in their opposition to Jesus of Nazareth, they invent reasons which do not satisfy even themselves, to account for their forlorn condition, while the most sagacious of their teachers forbid all conjectures and calculations on the subject. 'The severest interdictions, however, have not been sufficient to prevent these computations. Many of the most eminent doctors have employed their sagacity in attempting to ascertain the period which they anticipate as the consummation of Jewish glory, but which they have found it necessary to adjourn from one generation to another. The rabbies, Saadias Gaon, who died in the year 942; Solomon Jarchi, who lived in the twelfth century; Moses Ben Nachman, and Bechai, who lived in the thirteenth century; and Levi Ben Gerson; al agree in fixing the advent of the Messiah to the year 1358. Gerson had the mortification of living to witness his mistake: he died in the year 1370. Other rabbies fixed on the years 1575 and 1577. Abarbinel, in his commentary on Isaiah, finished in 1498, fixed on the year 1503; and in that on Jeremiah, finished in 1504, fixed on the year 1534. He died in 1508. Gedalia Ben Jacchia, a famous rabbi of the sixteenth century, fixed on the year 1598. The author of the Zohar had long before fixed on the year 1648. Another period of Jewish expectation was the year 1666.' p. 250. Mr. Crool is the most recent of these calculators. By a com putation altogether fanciful, he reckons that there are yet thirtysix years to the end of the Jubilee of Israel; and asserts, that, before the end of these thirty-six years, Israel will be restored, and the Messiah will take possession of his empire. This computation is given in Mr. Allen's work, p. 251. Modern Jews represent the reign of the expected Messiah, as strictly of a temporal kind. Mr. Crool confidently affirms, that the Messiah's kingdom is not spiritual, but absolutely earthly.'" So much accustomed as they are to misconstrue the language of their own prophets, and to restrict all the advantages imparted by the Divine favour, to themselves, it can scarcely excite surprise that they should deny to the Gentiles the least participation in the benefits of Messiah's coming. The restoration of Israel, and the revival of the ancient service in the land of their fathers, under the auspices of the Messiah, will, according to the Rabbies, be celebrated by a royal festival, to which all Israelites shall be invited. Magnificent sports will be exhibited. Behemoth, a huge animal which swallows at one draught as much water as the Jordan yields in the course of six months, and Leviathan, an enormous monster of the deep, capable of swallowing a fish three hundred leagues in extent, together with Bar Juchne, a bird of corresponding magnitude, will be prepared for the sumptuous feast; at which, wine, produced in Paradise immediately after the creation, and preserved most carefully for this splendid entertainment, will be served to the guests. Music and dancing will conclude the festival. Afterwards, Messiah will contract marriages with the daughters of kings; his principal wife, however, will be one of the most beautiful virgins of Israel. • The duration of Messiah's reign has been variously represented. Different rabbies have fixed for it the different periods of forty, seventy, three hundred, three hundred and sixty-five, four hundred, and a thousand years. Some say it will continue as many years as shall have passed from the creation to its commencement; and others extend it to seven thousand years. But whatever be the length of his reign, the rabbies are very generally agreed that at length he will 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 hands:" that is, according to the exposition of Maimonides, The Messiah shall live to a great age, but at length be also shall die in great glory, and his son shall reign in his stead, and This posterity in succession.' p. 274. The deference which is paid to tradition in the Church of Rome, operates, it is well known, against the spirit of a free inquiry, and consequently must be unfavourable to an enlightened and scientific education. There may be exceptions to this rule, but they are of a character so peculiar, and so rare, as abundantly |