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effected, that event is not likely to be brought about without much preparation on their part. To this preparation I consider an extensive conversion among them indispensable. Without it, I do not see why they should return; nor how the intention of the prophecies in regard to them, can be fulfilled. From amidst the converted Jews, will arise a host of most effective missionaries, who shall go forth among their brethren, and among the unconverted Gentiles, preaching the Gospel 'in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.' The spirit of candid and serious inquiry among the Jews, will make rapid progress; and as a disposition to return to the Holy Land gathers strength, and their prejudices yield to conviction, the difficulties that oppose their restoration will melt away. The prophecies on this subject will be remarkably fulfilled."

He says, that if it were true that the exertions of the London Society had, as yet, effected but little, the fact "would be an argument rather in favour of increased exertion, than against it." He refers, how

ever,

to the published reports of the society to prove that their exertions have effected much.-It is pretty well known, I believe, how easy it is to make a great show in a report, and cast a strong light on a few prominent facts, and exhibit long extracts from the letters of missionaries, who put the best face on all that has been done, and are lavish in their anticipations of what may be, and is to be, done. But notwithstanding all the accounts which we have had of the London Schools, and the Chapel, and the labours of Mr. Way, who spends his large fortune in the promotion of this object, the result has been lamentably small, and the Society itself has deplored it. In America, the case is in no wise improved I would ask, whether, since the formation of the American Society, its conversions have averaged one a year? According to P. W's principle, indeed, that the want of success furnishes a motive for perseverance, the progress made in this coun

try in the conversion of the Jews, presents one of the most encouraging prospects I ever saw.

He next discovers a wonderful inconsistency in my saying, at one time, that there was nothing to justify the expectation that any great thing was to be accomplished with present means, and at another time speaking of the powerful exertions of the London Society, and the complicated machinery which had been set in motion. I do not find any contradiction here. I did not intimate that the present means employed were insignificant in themselves, but that they had produced no important ends; and I have seen many a cumbrous and complicated machine, which made a great noise, and turned out but little work.

I had said, that the Jews were not at all situated as those people are to whom Christian Missions are usually sent; but that they had the means of knowledge within their reach, and might make use of them when they chose. To this P. W. replies, that, on the contrary, they are precisely in the same situation with those to whom all sorts of missions are sent, and to whom Christianity is preached. The ordinary preaching of the Gospel, he adds, is a standing missionary institution; and every Christian acknowledges the propriety of erecting new churches, and locating additional ministers, even where both exist; and much more, the propriety of sending missions to those destitute parts of our country where neither are found.— P. W. takes wide sweeps, and brings north and south so close together that they touch. I shall nevertheless persist in asserting that the situation of the Jews is very different from that of the heathen, inasmuch as the former may obtain christian books, and listen to

christian preaching, at their pleasure, while the latter never saw a Bible, nor heard the sound of a church bell; and that it is very different from that of the inhabitants of those portions of our own country which are destitute of the means of Gospel instruction, because such persons are very glad to have ministers sent to them, and houses of worship built for them, while the Jews are indifferent to the instructions of the one, and will seldom enter the other. These cases appear to me to offer some remarkable points of opposition, which do not seem to be so obvious to P. W.

Reading on a little further, I was entertained to find that he had made me out a Calvinist, because I had observed, that the divine will must of course be accomplished concerning the Jews. Well, if this proves me so, I am one. But after my candid confession of Calvinism, I should be gratified to learn, whether P. W. thinks that the divine will may not be accomplished concerning that people.

In answer to my remark, that we can none of us act better than to act from conviction, he replies, "I had thought indeed that the obligations of duty have an existence prior to, and independent of our convictions concerning them; and perhaps would have said in my old fashioned way, that we can none of us act better than to act according to our obligations." Old fashioned or new fashioned, this is mere quibbling. Granting that the obligations of duty have an abstract existence, independent of our convictions, I should like to know how an individual, before he was convinced that they were obligations, could conform his conduct to them?

P. W. is so much attached to that desperate story about the Jesuit and the Indian chief, that he has had the whole of it printed over again, for the purpose of showing that I misapprehended the point of it. If I did so, it was his fault, and not mine. He presents me the story by its but-end, and then complains that I do not feel its point. To make this evident I will just quote one sentence more from his introduction than I did the last time. After some extracts from the redoubtable Rabbi David Levi, P. W. says, "These quotations are made, merely to show that Unitarians would not find the task of converting the Jews, easier than Trinitarians. Yet, Dr. Priestley in his controversy with Bishop Horsley, &c." And then comes. the story of the tribe of Indians who were converted by the stratagem of a Jesuit-no matter whether to real Christianity or not-they were nominally converted; and I doubt not, the Jesuit made excellent Trinitarians of them at last. But P. W's object was to show, that Unitarians would not find the task of converting the Jews easier than Trinitarians. And now I say once more, that the story was not at all to his purpose. The truth is, that he found some abuse of Dr. Priestley by the Rabbi and the Bishop, relating to the conversion of the Jews, and so he put it among his "Remarks" at hazard. The Rabbi does not appear, from the quotations given from him, to have been a much sharper man than our friend P. W.-but the Bishop was, and would not have thanked him, had he been alive, and happened to hear of him, for making such sad work with his story. In Horsley's hands it had indeed some meaning; though the implication it contained was as false as it was

uncharitable. He implies in it that a Jew might be converted to Unitarianism, and yet be no more a Christian than he was before. P. W. supposes that for this I shall again call him an arrogant Bishop, ❝and moreover an arrant bigot." I have no objection to the phrase, seeing that he has got it all ready for me. The fundamental difference between Jews and Christians, is, that the latter receive Jesus as the promised Messiah, and the Jews do not; and the Bishop, and all others who deny that Unitarians receive Jesus as the promised Messiah, may take to themselves the appellation suggested by P. W.-I shall do nothing to prevent it.

I come now to one of the most gratifying portions of his remarks, because it is one which promises me so much rare information. In reply to what I had said of his singular position, that the ancient Jews were Trinitarians, he declares that there are hundreds of passages in the Old Testament, which, with all the help of unitarian glosses, he can understand in no other way than as proving the Trinity; and that, moreover, he will bring forward his trinitarian rabbins in full force, if I will give him time to exhibit their testimony "in its proper dimensions." With respect to the rabbins, he shall have as much time as he wants, for the investigation of their orthodoxy; which will turn out, I suspect, after all his digging, to be rank Platonism, such as that of Philo, for instance. He cannot desire so long a delay, I should think, for his Old Testament passages; and I here promise him, that if he will produce half a dozen of them, instead of many hundreds, which have not been explained in a sense contrary to the supposition of a divine trinity, by at least two trinitarian

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