Imatges de pàgina
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The manner of paling the evening at Cleator, the first night I

§. 2. Here an excellent hot fupper was brought in, and after it, Mifs Spence faid, she was furprized to hear I was an inhabitant of Weftmoreland, as fhe had never heard of me in

was there.

a name which he had appointed to himself, in preference to all others, and by which he declared by Mofes he should be diftinguished for the time to

come.

And as of all the names of God, this feems to be the most expreffive of his effence, as it can only be derived from the root which fignifies to be, and denotes the one eternal felf-exiftent Being, from whom all other things derive their being, and on whom they muft depend;--As the word does likewife fignify makes to be what was promifed or foretold, and by fuch meaning declares, as often as the word is repeated, that Jehovah our God is not only self-existent, and the Creator of the world, but Him in whom all divine prophecies and predictions center; it follows, in my opinion, that we should utter this awful name in our addreffes to God, and not, like the Jews, through a fuperfti tion omit it, and use another instead of it.”

N. B. The Rector of St. Mabyn is the Rev. Mr. Peters; and the paffage is to be found in an excellent Preface to the octavo edition of his admirable Differtation on the Book of Job, in reply to that part of the Divine Legation of Mofes demonftrated, in which the author, my Lord of Gloucester, fets himself to prove, that this book is a work of imagination, or dramatic compofition, no older than Ezra the priest, whom he supposes to be the writer of it, in the year before

B 4

Christ

in the north, nor feen me at Harrogate before the other day.

I told her I was a ftranger in the county, and by a wonderful accident, as I travelled a few

Chrift 467, or the year 455, in the 20th year of the reign of Artaxerxes, king of Perfia, when Daniel's feventy weeks begins; that is, the period of 490 years, that were to be fulfilled before the paffion of our Saviour. And further, (according to the author of the Legation,) that this allegorical drama or poem was written to quiet the minds of the Jewish people under the difficulties of their captivity, and to affure them, as reprefented by the perfon of Job, of those great temporal bleffings which three prophets had predicted.

Now in the Preface to the book aforementioned, in answer to all this (and fully and beautifully answered it is,) you will find, I fay, the paffage relating to the word Jehovah, and more than I have quoted from it.

As to Pythagoras the Samean, mentioned in this note, on account of his faying-Be fimply thyself;-he was famous in the 60th olympiad, as Jamblicus informs us; that is, his Elikia, or Reign of Fame, began in the first year of this olympiad, which was the year before Chrift 540; for 60 x 4 gives 240-777 leaves 537+ 3, the plus years of the clympiad; i. e. 2, 3, 4 = 540. And he died in the 4th year of the 70th olympiad, that is, the year before Chrift 497: for 70X4=280-777 remains 497: there are no plus years to be added here, as it happened in the 4th or laft year of the olympiad. This philofopher was contemporary with, and a near friend to, the renowned Phalaris, who was murdered in the year before Christ

few years ago out of curiofity, and in fearch of a friend, up Stanemore-hills, I became poffeffed of a lodge I had on the northern edge of Westmoreland, where I lived a confiderable time, and once imagined I fhould never leave

556, when the Belshazzar of Daniel afcended the throne of Babylon. And as Pythagoras lived to the age of 90, according to Diogenes, he must have been born in the beginning of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar; the year this conqueror took Jerufalem, and its king Zedekiah, which was olymp. 47. 3. and of confequence before Chrift 590 for 47 X 4188-777, remains 580 +1590. This was 54 years before Thejpis invented tragedy, and 11 years before the birth of Æfchylus, the reformer of tragedy. Cyrus was then in the 10th year of his age.

:

It is likewife evident from hence, that Pythagoras must have lived through the reigns of Cyrus, Cambyfes, and the greateft part of the reign of Darius Hiftafpes, who flew Smerdis the Magi, and is called in fcripture Abafuerus; the king of Perfia, who married Ether, and ordered Haman the Amalekite to be hanged on the gallows he had erected for Mordecai the Jew, in the year before Chrift 510.

Note, 'David was before Pythagoras 519 years.

Reader, As to the word Elikia, which I have used to express the reign or time of flourishing of Pythagoras, I have an obfervation or two to make in relation to it, which I think worth your attending to.

* Olymp. 61. 1. Selden's Comment on the Arundel Marble.

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leave it, as it is the moft romantic and the moft beautiful folitude in the world.

While I was giving this fhort relation, Mifs Spence feemed greatly amazed, and her uncle, an old clergyman, who had looked with great attention at me, hoped it would be no offence to ask me how old I was.

None

Clemens Alexandrinus fays (Stromata, p. 40,) 'ATÒ Μέσεις επὶ τὴν Σολομῶνος ἑλικίαν ἔτε τὰ πάλα εχακόσια 9éxx: that is, The years from Mofes to Solomon's Elikia are 610; to wit, Mofes's life

From his death to David's acceffion
David's reign

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120

450 4.0

610

From this paffage it is plain, that the Elikia of Solomon is not meant of his nativity, but of the beginning of his reign, when he was 33 years of age:

It is then very furprizing that Dodwell fhould infift upon it, that Elikia always fignifies nativity. It is the more wonderful, as Dadivell quotes this paffage from Clement; and as it is impoffible to make out 610, without coming to the 3 3d of Salomon, as I have reckoned it.

Nay, in another place of the Stromata, Clement lays, Ifaiah, Hofea, and Micah lived after the Elikia of Lycurgus; where he can only mean the time when that lawgiver flourished; for, from the Deftruction of Troy to the Akmé of Lycurgus, was 290 years; and from Solomon, in whofe time Tray was taken, to the time of the prophets, was 360 years.

Thus

None at all, Sir, I replied. I want fome months of twenty-fix; and though I dance and rattle at the wells, and am now going up to London, where all is tumult and noife, yet

Thus does learning accommodate things. Dodwell wanted to fit a paffage in Antilochus to his own calculation, and fo 312 years from the Elikia of Pythagoras, that is, fays Dodwell, from the nativity of the philofopher (he meant taking the word in that fenfe) to the death of Epicurus, brings us exactly to the time. Who can forbear fmiling? A favourite notion is to many learned men a facred thing. Dodwell fettles his paffage in Antilochus to his mind, by perverting the word Elikia.

This, to be fure, in profane things, can do no great harm but when the practice is brought into things facred, it is a detriment to mankind. Some divines for example, to fupport a notion as unreafonable as it is dear to them, tell us that the word Ios fignifies ftrict equality, not like: and that when St. Paul fays ion, we muft conftrue it, Jefus Chrift was Arily equal to the most high God. This is fad conftruction, when Homer, Euripides, Æfchylus, make the word Ifos to import no more than like. Ifanemos, fwift as the wind; Ïsatheos phos, like a God; Ifanerios, like a dream.

And when a divine is pofitive that os and kathos, as, and even as, words occurring in the New Testament, fignify a frict equality, and not fome fort of likeness; this is miferable perverfion, and hurts the chriftian religion very greatly; as they endeavour, by fuch a given fenfe, to prove that the man Chrift Jefus is to be honoured with the fame divine honours we offer to God the Father Almighty, by the command and example

of

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