from it to make a short remark, obviating the charge of revenge and cruelty, sometimes brought against Elisha, for imprecating destruction upon the children. Elisha had succeeded to the authority of Elijah as the chief of the prophets of the true God. These children, inhabitants of an idolatrous city, derided his pretensions, calling upon him to ascend up into heaven as the other had pretended to do: so that some miracle was necessary to support his character and office. Whatever their age might be, it made no difference in the urgency of the case: unless the idolaters were to be allowed entirely to silence the true prophet. Bald head must be understood as a term of reproach, it being a symptom of one species of leprosy. See Michaelis, Art. ccx. p. 285. NOTE 38. THERE is no reason to find fault with the popular view of this subject, adopted by the respectable editor of the Quarterly Review, No. 57, Art. vii. p. 174., nor with the popular expressions of it, which he uses in describing the mischiefs which redounded to the next generation after Charles the First, from the wickedness of the preceding age of rebellion and civil war: because, in fact, this must always happen in a great degree. The point to be maintained is, that this dispensation, necessary to a certain extent from the constitution of human nature, should not be considered as the rule of God's moral government of mankind. And the present writer would use the critic's observation, made p. 179, on the quickness with which the nation recovered in some respects from one of the evils of the preceding age (which, to use his words "passed away with the generation, and the nation soon appeared to prosper") to confirm his own view of the subject. For + no argument can be drawn from the history of human life, to shew that it is not the moral government of Providence to punish the succeeding generations for the sins of the fathers, more forcible, than the celerity, with which individuals, as well as nations, emerge from the evils derived on them by the fault of their progenitors, as soon as they change their conduct to a contrary course. NOTE 39. OMNIS enim per se Divûm natura, necesse est, NOTE 40. "EVEN at present, many of the evils and blessings of this world may, upon the Almighty's foresight how each creature would act, and when things would happen, have been so arranged upon a predetermined plan, as to produce to a certain degree a moral government of reward and punishment."-Bp. Gleig, in his edit. of Stackhouse. NOTE 41. MICHAELIS, Laws of Moses, Art. 208, says: "The leprosy is hereditary, not however perpetually so; but only for three or four generations. With regard also to its hereditary tendency, it is not uniform: attacking sometimes some of the children only; and breaking out on others late in life. It has been known to lie dormant till the age of forty. And therefore in Aleppo, the Christians commit the children of leprous parents, as soon as they are born, to sound nurses for three months, to see whether any symptoms of leprosy appear on them; if no such appear, the children are brought up within the city; but if the disease shew itself, they are sent to the quarter appropriated for lepers. Moses speaks of the divine judgments on idolatry precisely in the same style in which I have now been describing the leprosy. God is wont to threaten the Israelites with this disease, if they transgress his commandments. I Jehovah-fourth generation,' Exod. xx. 5. This is unquestionably to be understood in reference to leprosy."-To controvert the opinion of a man, who has deservedly acquired such unrivalled authority on all questions relating to Hebrew literature, might appear presumptuous in an ordinary reader: but as he himself often advanced opinions, which he with great candour afterwards confessed to be erroneous; and from the multiplicity and rapidity of his productions, he must often have thrown out suggestions, which he had not had time carefully to weigh in every particular; it cannot be expected every thing said by him should be implicitly received without examination. If after his description of the hereditary nature of the leprosy, he had said that God described his proceedings with respect to idolatry in terms analogous to the methods used in watching that disease, the similarity would have appeared striking, and the allusion highly illustrative of the second commandment. God does not at once condemn the son as idolatrous nor is he satisfied with the non-appearance of idolatry in the son at first sight; but watches carefully for three or four generations, when, as in the case of leprosy, if no symptoms appear, the sin may be supposed to be entirely eradicated. For the idolatry of the father might revive in the son or grandson, even late in Y life, as was the case with Joash the son, and Amaziah, the grandson of Ahaziahı, 2 Chron. xxiv. 2, 17; xxv. 14. There seem these reasons against the learned professor's opinion: First, that the leprosy is never expressly threatened as the special punishment of idolatry; but all the instances, in which it was especially inflicted, were for offences of a very different nature, as in the case of Miriam, Numb. xii. 10; Uzziah, 2 Chron. xxvi. 21.; Gehazi, 2 Kings v. 27. Secondly, if the leprosy wears out in four generations, the divine punishment failed of its effect; utter extermination being threatened as the consequence of idolatry persisted in, Deut xxix. 20. Thirdly, this does not provide for the repentance of the son, the judgment being only to be continued to them that hate God. NOTE 42. THE Sept. Gen. xxxii. 11. has in with a dat. case Lukei. 17. ini with an accusative. The Sept. in Malachi iv. 6. has πpòs with an accusative. Wolf's criticism upon the meaning of Malachi, is nullified by his mistake in supposing the Hebrew preposition to be whereas it is by. The difference of the latter clause in St. Luke, does not affect the present argument. NOTE 43. "As the word 'guilty' is not in the original, many commentators interpret the words to mean, that in executing judgment the Lord will not proceed to extremities with his people. The words literally mean clearing he will not clear:' and in such a solemn proclamation of the name of Jehovah, it would be strange, if no intimation should be given of holiness and justice, which are as essential to the perfection of his character and the honor of his government, as even his grace and truth. Yet if this interpretation be adopted, they are not so much as hinted at."Scott. But surely it is not a safe mode of interpretation, to come to the consideration of a passage with a preconceived determination of what it ought to contain, and then bend the sense of it to that preconceived notion. The literal and grammatical sense of it must be impartially weighed and its connexion with the context examined—and the result, which they give, must be adopted as the real meaning. נקה Michael. Supp. ad Lex. Heb. No. 1637. ps de vastitate, desolatione, expurgatione positum. Purus fuit, etiam in sensu physico, et vero in ingratam partem, poni posse, locus jam Amosi iv. 6, cum dentes nil habent, quod comedendum comminuant, lexicographos admonuit. Arabibus inde medullam eximere; plane urbem expugnare, nihil in illa incolarum vel opum relinquere; sæpius hoc sensu in Timuri historia occurrens. Ex hac verbi significatione lucebit, Zec. v. 3. secundum hanc maledictionem omnis fur, omnis perjurus expurgabitur." Eng. translat:-For every one that stealeth shall be cut off-and every one that sweareth shall be eut off. Hunc significatum, ad Exod. xxxiv. 7. transtulit Ludovicus de Dieu: condonat peccata, exterminando non exterminat (populum suum) sed punit peccata patrum in filiis, nepotibus et pronepotibus. Recte, ut mihi videtur, cum suadente usu Phrasis apud Jeremiam, tum quòd ut promissionis verba citantur, Num. xiv. 18. a Mose deprecante, ne Deus populum deleat. NOTE 44. WITH the same arrogance the Roman Christians, whom Salvian charges with being very impious and vicious, pretended to arraign the Providence of God in punish |