fee; but as you mean to prescribe merely from a motive of charity, never prescribe but when you perfectly understand the disorder and its confequences; nor recommend a medicine the effect of which you are not fure of. By fol lowing this rule you will kill none; and if you kill none, and cure but one, you will be a great phyfician. By ftrictly adhering to this rule, and by the bleffing of God, the lives of many were faved, and their health reftored, under my care. Some good, I hope, was done, by my inftrumentality, in my clerical function. Yet, madam, fuch have been my fins, that I have often regretted my ever having been a clergyman. My fermons, and other more occafional documents, have frequently ftuck in the throat of my confcience. Whatever I have been in other refpects, I never accommodated my preachings to my own failings, but to the word of God alone. Now, madam, after all this talk, give me leave to ask you-whether you always keep ftrictly up to thofe rules of life and economy, which you lay down to yourself, your family, and relations? She answered-touch me not there, till I employ you as my father confeffor; not but I could bear to confefs to you, fo far as the question goes, that my precepts are better than my practice, and that I labor to make my children and fervants better people, than I am myself, Afk no more of me now. I fhudder at the return of my own queftion, and am afraid both you and I border a little on hypocrify; for what is hypocrify, but an endeavour to appear poffeffed of more piety and goodness than we feel within? Your readers will hardly fuppofe you fo warm in reality, as your difcourfes fpeak you to be. They will, here and there, think they perceive in your writings, a great deal of artificial fire used to raise a cool cucumber, and a fyllabub hard whipped into froth. If they do, madam, I cannot help it, whether the fault lies in my criticifms, or my performances, or in both. In no one fermon I ever preached, had I one leffon for myself and another for my hearers. My heart and confcience made always a part of the audience; and the pure word of God ever dictated to me, what I delivered to them. Whatsoever constitutional warmth was mixed with my zeal, and much there certainly was; and however earnestly I threatened the terrors of the Lord to obftinate finners, efpecially fuch as preach unfound doctrines to his people; I trembled when I did it, and pushed with a weapon fharp at both ends, that pointed at my own fins, as well as theirs. I can fincerely declare, I write

and

and speak on religious fubjects in earneft. I never durft do otherwise. The utmoft efforts of human genius, nay, of angelic eloquence, are, in my opinion, utterly inadequate to the infinite dignity, the infinite demand on wonder, on fear, on gratitude, in all points of faith and practice of our religion. Here we cannot exceed; here we must fall fhort. Another reason of nearly equal force with the former, for the utmost religious warmths in a clergyman, arife from the lamentable coldness, obfervable at prefent, among all ranks of people, to both the principles and practice of Chriftianity. For this paralytic diforder, not cooling or relaxing medicines, but bracers and flimulants are required; and if not at hand, death muft enfue. Not a lulling, but a roufing fermon fhould be applied to a dofing congregation. One in a lethargy may fret at the bliftering-plaifter, or actual cautery, that awakes him to pain, and may cry out for his former foporific emollients; but his physician must be either very ignorant, or unfaithful, if he yields to the wish of the unhappy patient. So much, madam, for my manner of preaching. Now, as to the hypocrify, whereof you feem to form fome fufpicion in me, and to avoid the offence that fufpicion might excite in my mind, join yourfelf in the cenfure; I folemnly proteft there is nothing I abhor fo much, as putting on a greater fhew of religion, than one feels within, that fome worldly, ambitious, or finifter, or even good purpose may thereby be promoted. I never asked, or employed any one to afk, any of the ecclefiaftical emoluments I have fucceffively enjoyed; have declared they were a great deal more then I deferved; and confeffed myself the vileft and moft unworthy of all God's fervants, and that publicly as well as privately. If my not publishing a full lift of my fecret fins, and wearing clothes to cover my nakedness, as well as to keep out the cold, make me an bypocrite, I am then an hypocrite; but fo is every man living, and every woman, you, madam, among the rest of your fex, a great deal more fo. If this is not abfolutely the naked truth, a very little ftripping would complete the exposure by fhewing the defpicable vanity, which too deeply blotted the fairer part of my life and converfation. Your definition of hypocrify, fir, I clofe with, as better than my own; and am rejoiced to find I have little or none of it in me. Having been your mother confeffor on this occafion, be affured, whenever I am difpofed to be as open with any one living, you fhall be my father-confeffor.

ON THE CROWN OF THORNS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCHMAN'S MAGAZINE,

SIR,

As to

CONSIDER my pains as well beflowed, if they are the occafion of calling back to your pages fo valuable a correfpondent as Cephas. I hope you will allow me in the words of Gray, to call upon him-" once again my charm attend,"by inferting thefe obfervations, which though they contain nothing material, are fo far of confequence, as they may promote enquiries into the Holy Scripture. They are ufeful if they lead the traveller into that good land, which though he enter merely in queft of flowers and leaves, may, perhaps, reward his fearch with valuable fruit. the materials of the crown, both from the arguments in his letter, and from a confideration of feveral paffages in the LXX. where the word anab occurs, I am fully a convert to your opinions, as it must have been fome material for fire, which I imagine the acanthus could not eafily have been. My object, however, was not fo much to examine into the materials of the crown, as to exprefs a doubt which I entertained, whether they were defigned or not to give pain, and whether the reprefentation of painters in general, of thorns entering the temples, and of blood trickling down the countenance, be really correct, or merely a vulgar error. My argument was a kind of induction, endeavouring to deduce from feveral particulars, that the crown was intended merely for mockery, among which, was its being formed of acanthus, a foft and pliable plant. This particular, however, I give up, retaining my firft idea, the reafons for which I will flate to you. It is this, that the circumftance of their being twifted without hurting the hands of the foldiers, which feems to be allowed by Cephas at the end of his letter, feems to favour my opinion. You are perhaps of opinion, Sir, that this mock adoration of our Saviour, though providentially defigned, was by no means an invention of the foldiers, as appears from a fimilar mockery of king Agrippa, when he touched at Alexandria, which does not appear to have been borrowed from the circumftance related by St. Matthew.

Matthew. You will recollect that the Egyptians, probably, from fome wandering prophecies refpecting the Meffias, were particularly jealous of the Jews having a king over them. On which account, by way of derifion, they dreffed up a madman in kingly ornaments, which Philo does not relate as a new and unufual matter, which from his style of writing he perhaps would have done, if it had appeared to him a new thing, and from his filence, it appears probable, that he never read the account in St. Matthew, and it is not likely that the Egyptians borrowed it from the Jews. It might have been an ancient cuftom fomewhat analogous to our carrying perfons about in effigy, common to the Eaftern nations, and particularly pointing at the Jews for their apparent prefumption, in aiming in their reduced flate, at any kind of dominion. It might too have formed part of the provi dential means of keeping up a complete feparation of the Jews from the other nations, as it appears that on account of the vast increase of population, many thousands dwelt in the islands and continents of Europe and Afia, and particularly in the neighbourhood of Alexandria, and in the city. The Egyptians, poffibly from these reasons, produced the madman thus dreffed into the forum, and there paid him a certain mock reverence. But in this inftance, no pain was either intended or inflicted. They placed a reed, opened, (Bucλoy Euguvartes) on his head infead of a diadem, and a carpet, probably of fcarlet or purple, on his fhoulders, instead of a robe, and fome one finding a piece of papyrus lying in the road gave it him for a fceptre. Now as this was a mockery of king Agrippa by proxy, it is evident that no pain was intended to this perfon. From this, and especially because no word in the holy Evangelift gives even by implication any idea of pain having been inflicted; I imagine, that when the Saviour of the world was expofed to the derifion of Jews and Gentiles, the crown of thorns was intended for mockery, and was by no means an inftrument of torture. One

hould, however, fpeak with diffidence on a fubject, which, if an error, is certainly very ancient and univerfal. I do not. find that the circumftance is alluded to by the inspired writers, or by the apoftolic fathers. It is mentioned by Chryfoftom, Ambrofe, and Tertullian, all of whom favour the common opinion. Chryfoftom has these words-anλa wav de σωμα όλον διόλου υβρίζετο, η κεφαλή δια το sεφανς, και το καλαμε--though the word gero may refer more to the infult, than to any pain inflicted. The words of Ambrofe are more exprefs,-Cofonat enjin compungentes;-and Tertullian has these words,

-His

-His implexa fævitia.-As to Chryfoftom, if we fuppofe his words favour the common opinion, we must allow much for the length of time intervening, and much for his oratorical and Afiatic mode of fpeaking; for which reafon, though every one must admire his genius, and be charmed with his general elegance and fweetnefs, he cannot always be relied on, either in trifling or more ferious matters of critical difpute. Haffelquift, as quoted by the learned Parkhurst, has thefe words," This plant; (viz. the Naba or Nabka, of the Arabians) was very fit for the purpose, for it has many fmall and fharp fpines, which are well adapted to give pain.' -But his following words rather oppofe this idea,-"The crown might be eafily made of these foft, round, and pliant branches."-Thefe are great authorities, yet in matters where the cause of religion is by no means affected, and in matters which he has not subscribed to, (for I confider subfcription as the end of controverfy, an argumentum ad hominem, which nothing fhould overcome) I think every man is juftified in retaining his own opinion.

There is another doubt which I wish to fubmit to the confideration of Cephas, in hopes that he will favour me with his opinion in your pages. He will recollect that the gladiators were not difmiffed (rudi donati) till their powers were impaired and altogether ufelefs. He has fhown us that he has no pretenfions to fuch exemptions. My prefent question is, whether what is commonly called the bloody fweat, was compofed either wholly or in part of blood. Moft of the commentators, though they allow that the words do not al together imply this, feem nevertheless, to conclude that it was either blood or coloured with blood. I think the Englifh tranflations by no means appove this: in Cranmer's and Tyndale's, it is expreffed in this manner,-" And hys sweat was like droppes of bloude, trycklynge downe to the grounde." -Thefe, as well as our more modern verfion, may with to exprefs more a fimilitude in fize to drops of blood, than in colour. Poole brings forward a quotation where no mention whatever is made of blood-ιδεώς ωσει θρομβοι κατέχειτο, but he is led to imagine that it was at least coloured with particles of blood, which he fuppofes may be effected by the particles being forced through the skin by internal agony, which, fays he, may well be,-præfertim ubi corpus rarum eft ac delicatum, et fanguis fubtilis, ut in Chrifto indubii erat. Thofe who hold the fame opinion, endeavour to account for it by natural means, and to ftrengthen their opinion by examples which they think are in favour of it. In this,

they