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THE SECOND EPISTLE OF PAUL, THE APOSTLE,

TO THE

Thessalonians.

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5725. — ii. 11.] An Arabian, who may be an exact calculator, an ingenious chemist, and a good astronomer, believes nevertheless that Mahomet could put one-half of the moon in his sleeve. Wherefore is it that he is superior to mere common sense in judging of these three sciences, and inferior to it in his conception of the half-moon in Mahomet's sleeve? In the first place, he sees with his own eyes, and judges with his own understanding; in the second, he sees with the eyes of others, shutting his own, and perverting that understanding which God gave him.

VOLTAIRE.

5723. [ ii. 2. Be not troubled· by letter, as from us] by an Epistle forged in his name. To prevent which in future, he tells them in conclusion, that every genuine Epistle would be signed with his own hand.

5724. [————————— 4, 8.] This man of sin' was undoubtedly the statue of Jupiter Olympus, set up by the Romans in the most holy place of the Temple on earth. Its reflected image, as seen in the reflected Temple exhibited in the World of Spirits, the Paradise in the spheres above and around our Earth, is what the LORD, at the approaching judgment of the Jewish Church, when those spheres should be purified till all the earthly images reflected by them should vanish, would then consume with the spirit of his mouth, and destroy with the brightness of his coming. For a similar dispersion or dissolution, at a former Judgment, See Ps. lxxv. 3. — lxxvi. 8, 9.

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THE FIRST EPISTLE OF PAUL, THE APOSTLE,

ΤΟ

Timothy.

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circumstance from antiquity, we must not lose sight of two important facts; namely, that Asia has been the cradle, as it were, of the sciences; and Greece, the cradle of poetry. From this single consideration a thousand consequences will naturally flow. The poets, the first amongst the Greeks who enjoyed the knowledge of any thing, have arranged, as well as they possibly could, all the materials which they were able to collect, from the sentiments of the Phenicians and Egyptians, relative to the origin of the world, and the generation of gods; but these poets forged many new fables, which they mixed with the antient fables, and particularly laboured at attempts to circulate delusive accounts concerning the origin of the Greeks; an origin for which they blushed to have been indebted to merchants, or a people of slaves. Amidst these poets, Homer quickly obtained the first rank. He composed so many tales, and spoke of such a multitude of things, that his books, in this respect, like the Koran, were of themselves sufficient to found a religion. And yet the oracle of Delphos, another poet, Lycurgus, who made metrical laws, pretending indeed that they were dictated by Apollo, but which he had stolen from the Cretans, Hesiod, and many others, began to form, from a very small number of acquired intelligences, and from a very great number of ingenious conjectures, a monstrous and gigantic scaffolding of materials. From all these poems, and all these oracles, arose a particular language, styled muthos (Grk.), in opposition to logos, which was the language of reason, and which did not prevail until some time afterwards. But the muthos maintained its ground during whole ages; and as the poets had continually treated of the most interesting subjects, such as the origin of republics, the principles

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5736. [1 Tim. iv. 3.] The first Council under Imperial
power endeavoured to introduce into the Church of Christ
this great mark of Antichrist, by forbidding the Clergy to
marry. The fifth general Council, in the year 553, was in
this respect so infamous in the opinion of the First Re-
formers, that its canons and authority were utterly rejected.
- Had every preceding Council, up to the first of Nice, been
cancelled at the same time, it would have been a happy cir-
cumstance for the peace and union of the Christian Church.
RICHARD CLARKE.

of Moses; and if the wife of a clergyman, particularly of a
bishop, died before him, he was never allowed to take
another.

See No. 5766. Dr. W. ALEXANDER'S Hist. of Women,
vol. ii. pp. 250, 292.

5738. [1 Tim. v. 3, 9.] The antient Germans were so strict
monogamists, that they reckoned it a species of polygamy
for a woman to marry a second husband, even after the death
of the first. 'A woman', said they, has but one life, and
one body, therefore should have but one husband'; and be-
sides, they added, she who knows she is never to have a
second husband, will the more value and endeavour to promote
the happiness and preserve the life of the first.'

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Ibid. p. 215.

"More will be done for the happiness
of the poor by inuring them to provide for themselves, than
could be done by dividing all the estates in the kingdom
among them."

FRANKLIN.

5740. [——— 12. They have cast off their first faith]
Athetein pistin is a pure Greek phrase, used also by Poly-
bius and Diodorus Siculus. It here seems to refer to the
widows' violating their former engagement to the church,
that they would not abuse its alms.

PARKHURST's Lexicon.

Having condemnation, because they have abolished the
first faith] Faith is the keeping of a covenant: here, the
covenant of marriage; elsewhere, the new covenant, the
Gospel.

5741. [——— 18.] With the Greeks, the participle is
frequently put for the Infinitives, after verbs that signify
affection of mind: as Memnemai idon, memini vidisse, I
remember to have seen.

KNATCHBULL.

5737. [1 Tim. v. 3, 9.] So scrupulous were the Greeks
about second marriages, that Charouidas excluded all those
from the public councils of the state, who had children, and
married a second wife. It is impossible', said he, that a
man can advise well for his country, who does not consult
the good of his own family: he whose first marriage has
been happy, ought to rest satisfied with that happiness; if
unhappy, he must be out of his senses to risk being so
again'.

After the introduction of the Christian religion, the clergy
were in marriage restricted by almost the same laws as those

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5744. [1 Tim. vi. 10.] The American Indians, when made acquainted with the uses to which money is applied by other nations, consider it as the source of innumerable evils. To it they attribute all the mischiefs that are prevalent among Europeans, such as treachery, plundering, devastations, and murder.

CARVER'S Trav. in N. America, p. 158. Riches however become evils, only when pursued with too much eagerness, or when applied to improper uses. Nat. Delin. vol iii. p. 210.

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angle more and more acute as it is moved towards the axis: about 34 degrees from the equator it makes a right angle, from thence it continues to be recto major, till it come to the pole itself, where it stands perpendicular.— From this experiment the Doctor gathers, that our terraqueous globe possesses a magnetic virtue, which is communicated from its centre to both its poles by meridional projection; that it is also impressed and attached by a magnetic [solar] virtue, in the juncture of which it may be said, as it were to hang upon nothing (Job xxvi. 7): but as it was not known in his day, that light and the magnetic fluid are identical,- that the magnetic fluid is two-fold, and that in all probability the stronger magnetic predominates in and around the earth's northern hemisphere; it was impossible that he should see the necessity of admitting two distinct sources of light, one in the natural sun, the other in that luminous region pointed out by Huygens and Herschel; and that under the influence and attraction of these centrifugal and centripetal forces, are produced in our planet all the motions, phenomena, and effects, that are either visible or invisible.

Ibid. PP. 54-56.

5746. [16.] Thus the special presence of God, says Dr. GREGORY, ever was and is acknowledged to be in that part of the heaven of heavens which answers to the equinoctial east, where the sun rises in the month Nisan, directly over the Holy Land. In this sense, he contends, Moses is to be understood, when he asserts, that the garden of Eden was planted towards the east, and seems fully convinced that the sanctum sanctorum of this Mother Church, the recess in the midst of the garden where stood the Tree of life, pointed toward that part of heaven where the sun rises at the beginning of March. And on this account, he tells us out of the Arabic Catena (MS. c. 35 in Genes.), that from Adam to Abraham's time, during an interval of 3328 years, all true worshippers turned invariably towards that eastern point in the heavens.

See his Notes and Observations, pp. 71 — 89. In the Northern Hemisphere of our globe, we have more earth, more men, more stars, more day; and what is still more to our purpose, the North Pole is more magnetical than the South. This is proved by experiments made with a Terrella, which is an artificial earth formed of loadstone. Its poles being discovered by the application of steel filings or otherwise, if a small wire be applied to its equinoctial parts, that wire will place itself on a meridian, and form an

5747. [1 Tim. vi. 16.] The changes I have observed, says Dr. HERSCHEL, in the great milky nebulosity of Orion, 23 years ago, and which have also been noticed by other astronomers, cannot permit us to look upon this phenomenon as arising from immensely distant regions of fixed stars. Eves HUYGENS, the discoverer of it, was already of opinion that, in viewing it, we saw, as it were, through an opening into a region of light (where undoubtedly stands the ANGELIC SUN of our solar system. See Ezek. i. 4). Phil. Trans. 1802, part

499.

ii. P. Respesting Orion, twice mentioned in Job and once in Amos, the Hebrew term used in the three places, is cesil, so called from the inconstancy of the weather at the astronomical ascension of this constellation: whence also the month of its ascendancy is called Cisleu,— the ninth month, ou the 25th of which was the feast of the dedication, honoured with Jesus Christ's John x. 22. presence, See Rab. BENJAMIN's Itinerary. N. B. The stars in Orion rise to the elevation of Chaldea, glittering on the equinoctial in the North and South parts of the heavens.

See GREGORY's Assyrian Monarchy, p. 225.

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