adopts, not the Mosaic, but the Christian exposition of this great commandment. In his fourth sermon, entitled "A Comprehensive View of a Great Life," he says, "From the tent of Abraham, of our ancestor, these tones came forth. Here Religion was seen in her true form. Men, Israelites, what would you then? Wherefore do ye strive, wherefore do ye quarrel? Wherefore are you at variance? Religion appears in our father in her most beneficent, in her true form; if you have not this, you have none. You know what Abraham did. What sophistry calls religion, he knew not. What time invented, in order to fence in your degeneracy, was unknown to him. Nevertheless, God calls him his friend, his beloved. He also erected altars, he also uttered prayers; but the prayer, the altar, the sacrifice, were not the substance of his piety, they were but the outward expression of that which dwelt within; beside the prayer, the altar, the sacrifice, there was a heart, desiring and working only for the good of his fellow-men." (p. 75, 76.) There is an important peculiarity in this language: it does not state, as the chief glory of Abraham, that he desired the good of his co-religionists merely (as it would have been expressed by one of the Rabbis contemporary with our Lord); but that he desired the good of his "fellow-men"-of all who wore the human form, whether or not they were comprehended in the number of the "chosen seed." The truth of this will be more apparent from our next citations. We know that the expositions of the command, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," pronounced by those who were learned in the law, not only at the dawn of Christianity, but at centuries subsequent,-not merely limited acts of kindness to the Israelites, but declared there was no sin in withholding such acts from the Gentiles. Maimonides, one of the most eminent of their modern Rabbis, writes thus: "A Jew sees a Gentile fall into the sea, let him by no means lift him out; for it is written, Thou shalt not rise up against the blood of thy neighbour;' but this is not thy neighbour." Moses Ben Maimon, popularly called Maimonides, was born at Cordova in Spain, in the year 1139, when the Gospel of Jesus had existed for above a thousand years; yet such was the character of his philanthropy. The fact that "the Jews had no dealings

with the Samaritans," and the question of the woman of Samaria to Jesus, "How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, who am a woman of Samaria?" testify to the hatred of the ancient Israelites against all who worshipped not in their own temple. From "Harmer's Observations," it would appear that this animosity had attained such a wicked degree of virulence, as even to prevent the Jews offering to the Gentiles the salutations demanded by ordinary courtesy. He narrates, that “the Jews would not address the usual compliment of Peace be to you,' to either heathens or publicans;" and that "the publicans of the Jewish nation would use it to their countrymen that were publicans, but not to heathens." In his feelings towards those who are not of his own people, the Rabbi SALOMON is, once again, more of a Christian than a Jew. In his eighth sermon, entitled, "The Spirit of the Mosaic Religion," he says, "Love the stranger also as thou lovest thyself! Do you again hesitate? There lies between you, perhaps, something more than a continent-a different creed. But say, ye who have feeling hearts, suppose that of two born of the same parents, the elder is tall enough to embrace their father, while the younger can only clasp his knees, must not the elder and stronger assist him, who is as yet too little and weak to climb to the parental bosom? [This is to us exceedingly beautiful and affecting.] Should difference in strength cause difference in paternal love? The heart answers, no! and so speaks religion also." (p. 156.) This is not the philanthropy of Judaism, as it has been hitherto expounded by the Scribes and the Lawyers. It is the philanthropy of the Gospel; of that faith which contains the parable of the good Samaritan; of that faith which demands "Who art thou that judgest another's servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth; yea, he shall be holden up, for God is able to make him stand." It is the philanthropy of Him who healed alike the orthodox Jew, the heretical Samaritan, the polytheistic Roman, and the idolatrous Canaanite. This is a third change which Christianity has wrought in the very spirit of Judaism.

FOURTHLY,-We know that Judaism was emphatically a ceremonial religion; that it abounded in feasts,

and new moons, and sabbaths, and sacrifices, and purifications; that its most devout professors enlarged their phylacteries, and elongated the fringes of their garments, and paid tithe of anise and mint and cumin, to the almost necessary neglect of "the weightier matters of the Law, judgment, mercy, and faith." In this respect also, the Rabbi SALOMON is a follower of Christ rather than of Moses. In his tenth sermon, entitled "Outward Aids to Religion," he thus speaks of ceremonies:-" Do not place too high a value on such aids to virtue; they are the means, and not the end. There ever were, and are yet many individuals in Israel, who imagine themselves to be pious, and better than the rest, because they observe a vast number of ceremonies, whose whole meaning has long been forgotten; because they keep many fast-days, utter many prayers, read much and often in the sacred writings, as if the dead letter could open heaven to them. And these things are held to be religion, while religion itself is disregarded. Oh it is a grievous disease, from which ye suffer much, ye children of my people." (p. 208.) -This is not the language of Moses or his successors; it resembles more the language of Peter at the first Christian "General Assembly,"-"Now, therefore, why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?" It resembles more the language of our Master," Come unto me all ye that labour, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek, and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." "God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." This is a fourth change which Christianity has wrought in the genius of Judaism.

FIFTHLY,-The doctrine of a future existence constitutes no part of the Mosaic religion. We must be content with referring our readers, for proof of this position, to Warburton's "Divine Legation of Moses," as we have not space at present to do justice to the question. The Rabbi SALOMON frequently inculcates the immortality of our race. We are persuaded that Christianity has co-operated to work this fifth change in the peculiarities of Judaism.

G

Although it could not be easily included under any of the five foregoing heads, we have been so much delighted with another passage in Rabbi SALOMON's First Discourse, that we cannot withhold it from the readers of the "Pioneer":"A God, who calleth on us to love him with all our hearts, cannot have created us for perdition. He can have placed man, the masterpiece of creation, upon earth only for happiness. Oh how long in this respect also, did unaided human reason blindly err! By how many nations, by how many philosophers of antiquity, was the Being they called God, considered as a malicious spirit, delighting in mischief, to whom (what blind infatuation!) the permanent happiness of men was repugnant. God himself then declared unto us, that he rejoiceth in us, and in doing good unto us; that in all which he commandeth us to do, he seeketh only to promote our happiness." (p. 18.) How the cheeks of many who affect to rejoice in the name of Christ, should tingle with shame, thus to hear from the lips of a despised Jew, more lovely views of the character of God, and more cheering views of the destiny of man, than they DARE to utter! There is, we confess and lament, nothing in these Discourses, of the technicality of Christianity, there is no acknowledgment of the Messiahship of Jesus; but we scruple not to say, there is more of the spirit of Christianity in the Twelve Sermons of Rabbi SALOMON, than in the "Articles" and "Common Prayer" of the Church of England, or the "Catechisms" and "Confession of Faith" of the Church of Scotland.

We have now gratified a laudable curiosity, as to the present opinions of those whom most of us believe to have been the ancient people of God, and who are endeared to us by the beauty of their religion, their philosophy, and their poetry; by the sympathies which the oppressed ever awaken in gentle bosoms; by the fact, that from among their fathers sprung the Great Teacher whom we delight to follow; by their being fellow-witnesses with us to the glorious yet unheeded truth of the Unity of God. These sermons inform us, that if the children of Israel are to be converted to Christianity, we must first tear from their dishonoured breasts the badge of degradation which we and our ancestors have affixed; we must admit them to

all the rights of citizenship; we must stand together with them on terms of civil equality, before we can expect them to worship in our temples. We must hold out to them the book of our religion, not on the point of a sword, but in the open hand of universal liberty and goodwill. If they are to be converted, it must be by those who respect their Scriptures, who admit them to contain a revelation of the will of Heaven, who see in them a schoolmaster to conduct to Christ: it must also be by those who boldly acknowledge, and intensely revere, and profess with rejoicing, the leading truth of their theology

-the truth for the conservation of which their theology was created, "HEAR, O ISRAEL, JEHOVAH OUR GOD, JEHOVAH IS ONE;" and not by those who offer them a tri-personal Creator, from whom they would shrink with horror as from the idols of Egypt, and whom they would at once refuse to worship, as they ever have refused, as a God unknown to their fathers. This review leads us not to despair that the "lost sheep of the house of Israel" will yet be gathered into the fold of Jesus. We have seen that the spirit of Christianity has pervaded, and is pervading, their own system. To the great doctrines of the impartiality, paternity, infinite beneficence of God; to the high precept of universal love to man, without distinction of creed or nation; to the grand fact of immortality, they have already attained. These are the leading peculiarities of our faith, and the reception of these is a preparation for the reception of our faith itself, as one that came from Heaven. To love and to receive the doctrines and the precepts of the Gospel, even from considerations of their own intrinsic truth and beauty, disposes alike the understanding and the affections to admit the divine mission of the Man of Sorrows. May all the readers of this review be increased in love to the descendants of Abraham; and may they soon unite with us, in acknowledging "Him of whom Moses (in the law) and the Prophets did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph," to be their long-promised Messiah.

R. E. B. M.