far; in several governments it is a standing maxim, that a citizen is not allowed to quit the country where he happened to be born: the import of this law is visibly this: "The country is so bad and ill governed, that we forbid any "person whatever to go out, lest every body "should leave it." Now act more wisely, create in your subjects a delight to stay in your country, and in foreigners a desire of coming thither.

Every man has a right to believe himself naturally equal to other men: but it does not from hence follow that a cardinal's cook may order his eminence to dress his dinner; the cook indeed may say, I am as much a man as my master; like him I cried at my birth, and he will die in the same agonies, and amidst the same ceremonies as I; the animal functions are alike in both; if the Turks make themselves masters of Rome, and I should then come to be a cardinal, and my master reduced to turn cook, I will take him into my service. There is nothing in this soliloquy but what is rational and just; yet till the grand seignior makes himself master of Rome, the cook is to do his duty, else there's an end of human society.

As to him who is neither cook to a cardinal nor holds any state employment, and who has no connection or dependence, but who is chagrined at being every where received either with an air of protection or contempt; who plainly sees, that many Monsignors have neither more learning, more genius, nor more virtue than himself, and to whom it is a torment to be some. times in their anti-chamber-What would you have him do? Take himself away.

EZEKIEL.

EZEKIEL.

OF SOME SINGULAR PASSAGES IN THAT PROPHET, AND SOME ANCIENT CUSTOMS.

It is at present very well known, that we are

not to judge of ancient customs by modern times. He who would go about to reform the court of Alcinoüs in the Odyssey, by that of the grand seignor or of Lewis XIV. would be little applauded by the learned; and to find fault with Virgil for having represented king Evander receiving ambassadors with a bear skin for his mantle, and a dog on each side of him, would very bad criticism.

be

The manners of the ancient Egyptians and Jews vary from ours still more than those of king Alcinous, of Nausicae his daughter, and the good man Evander.-Ezekiel, when a slave among the Chaldeans, had a vision near the little river of Chebar, which runs into the Euphrates.

It is not to be thought strange that he should have seen animals with four faces, and four wings, and their feet like those of calves; nor that he saw wheels self-moving, and having in them the spirit of life. These symbols are pleasing to the very imagination; but several critics cannot be reconciled () to the order

given

(*) Our author acknowledges that the descriptions which he has extracted from this prophet, how shocking soever they may appear at first sight, only denote the iniquities of Jerusalem and Samaria; yet as

weak

given him by the Lord that, during three hundred and ninety days he should eat barley, wheat,

and

weak minds may be offended at his picking out these passages, without explaining them, we shall make a few remarks on that head.

The prophet Ezekiel is very obscure, particularly towards the beginning and end, for which reason the Jews would not permit their people to read him till the age of thirty. He foretels the captivity and destruction of Jerusalem, the restoration of the Jewish people, and the rebuilding of the temple.

In the fourth chapter, under the type of a siege, he shews the time from Jeroboam's defection to the captivity. Here he enumerates the hardships of the besieged, for want of provisions. Their bread, he says, is to be given them by weight, because of the scarcity of grain. They shall also drink their water by measure; and there will be so great a scarcity of fuel, that they will be obliged to bake their bread with dung that cometh out of man; that is, they will be obliged to make fire of man's dung instead of cowdung, because of the scarcity of cattle. This is very different from ordering the prophet to besmear the bread with man's dung, as M. Voltaire understands it, according to the vulgar acceptation. The prophet is still uneasy, and tells the Lord, he hath hitherto abstained from every thing that the law deems polluted, and therefore begs he may not be obliged to make use of what is naturally polluted; viz. man's dung for the purpose of baking. The Lord is moved with his prayer, mitigates his sentence, and says he shall have cow's dung for man's dung, to prepare his bread therewith; that is, to bake it, not, according to our author's comment, to knead it. The conclusion is, that, as cow's dung was also unclean, the Israelites should, in punishment for their iniquities, be certainly polluted.

and millet bread, besmeared with man's dung. Then said the prophet, "Ah, Lord God, behold,

With regard to the contradiction mentioned by our author, between the passage in this prophet, chap. xviii. viz. That the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, and that in Numbers chap. xxviii. we are to observe in the first place, that our author mistakes the book of Numbers for that of Exodus, where, chap. xx. ver. 5. the passage referred to is to be found. Secondly, the contradiction is removed by a right consideration of the whole passage in Ezekiel: the Jews complained that they underwent great hardships in punishment for the sins of Manasseh, "The "fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's “teeth are set on edge." This has been the case in all times, for people labouring under calamities to exculpate themselves, and to blame their forefathers; hence Horace, "Delicta majorum immeritus lues, "Romane." The prophet makes answer, that they are punished for their own guilt, and not for that of their ancestors. See other explications in Pool's Synopsis.

66

The objection against the 25th verse of the 20th chapter of Ezekiel is easily answered; "God gave the Jews statutes that were not good," that is, unpleasant on account of the multiplicity of ceremonial laws, which were troublesome in practice, yet necessary to that stiff-necked people, because of their proneness to idolatry.

With respect to the other passages from chap. xvi. and xxiii. they are certainly allegorical, and denote the wickedness and corruption of Jerusalem, which was grown worse than Sodom. And as the communication with the Deity is represented frequently in the Scriptures under the emblem or figure of nuptials, so the estrangement or wandering from the Deity is described

as

hold, my soul hath not hitherto been polluted. And the Lord answered, Well, instead of man's excrements, I allow thee cow dung, and thou shalt prepare thy bread therewith."

As it is not customary with us to eat bread with such marmalade, these orders, to the generality of men, appear unworthy of the Divine Majesty. It must, however, be owned, that cow dung and all the diamonds of the mogul, are entirely alike, not only in the eyes of a Divine Being, but in those of a genuine philosopher; and as to the reasons God might have for ordering such repasts to his prophet, it is not for us to be examiners.

It is sufficient to shew, that these orders, however odd and disgustful to us, did not seem so to the Jews. True it is, that in St. Jerom's time, the synagogue did not allow the reading of Ezekiel under thirty years of age; but this was because, in chap. xviii. it is said that" the son "shall no longer bear the iniquity of the fa"ther," and it shall be no more said "the "fathers have eaten sour grapes and the chil"dren's teeth have been set on edge."

This was expressly contradicting Moses, who, in the xxviii. chapter of Numbers, declares that the children shall bear the iniquity of their fathers to the third and fourth generation.

Farther, Ezekiel in chap. xx. makes the Lord

to

as a spiritual prostitution, or whoredom. But we refer the reader to the different commentators for an application of the allegory, and agree with our author, that the expressions which to us may appear indelicate, were not so in regard to the Jews.