Bible into the language of the country where they live. In general they observe the same ceremonies which were practised by their ancestors in the celebration of the passover. They acknowledge a two-fold law of God, a written and an unwritten one; the former is contained in the Pentateuch, or five books of Moses; the latter, they pretend, was delivered by God to Moses, and handed down from him by oral tradition, and now to be received as of equal authority with the former. They assert the perpetuity of their law, together with its perfection. They deny the accomplishment of the prophecies in the person of Christ; alleging that the Messiah is not yet come, and that he will make his appearance with the greatest worldly pomp and grandeur, subduing all nations before him, and subjecting them to the house of Judah. Since the prophets have predicted his mean condition and sufferings, they confidently talk of two Messiahs; one BenEphraim, whom they grant to be a person of a mean and afflicted condition in this world; and the other Ben David. who shall be a victorious and powerful prince. The Jews pray for the souls of the dead, because they suppose there is a paradise for the souls of good men, where they enjoy glory in the presence of God. They believe that the souls of the wicked are tormented in hell with fire and other punishments; that some are condemned to be punished in this manner for ever, while others continue only for a limited time; and this they call purgatory, which is not different from hell in respect of the place, but of the duration. They suppose no Jew, unless guilty of heresy, or certain crimes specified by the rabbins, shall continue in purgatory above a twelvemonth; and that there are but few who suffer eternal punishment. but are despised by the Jews, because they receive only the Pentateuch, and observe different ceremonies from theirs. They declare they are no Sadducees, but acknowledge the spirituality and immortality of the soul. There are numbers of this sect at Gaza, Damascus, Grand Cairo, and in some other places of the east; but especially at Sichem, now called Naplouse, which is risen out of the ruins of the ancient Samaria, where they sacrificed not many years ago, having a place for this purpose on Mount Genzim. David Levi, a learned Jew, who in 1796 published "Dissertations on the Prophecies of the Old Testament," observes in that work, that deism and infidelity have made such large strides in the world, that they have at length reached even to the Jewish nation; many of whom are at this time so greatly infected with scepticism, by reading Bolingbroke, Hume, Voltaire, &c. that they scarcely believe in a revelation; much less have they any hope in their future restoration. 3. Jews, calamities of-All history cannot furnish us with a parallel to the calamities and miseries of the Jews; rapine and murder, famine and pestilence, within; fire and sword, and all the terrors of war, without. Our Saviour wept at the foresight of these calamities; and it is almost impossible for persons of any humanity to read the account without being affected. The predictions concerning them were remarkable, and the calamities that came upon them were the greatest the world ever saw. Deut. xxviii. xxix. Matt. xxiv. Now, what heinous sin was it that could be the cause of such heavy judgments? Can any other be assigned than what the Scripture assigns? 1 Thess. ii. 15, 16. "They both killed the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and persecuted the apostles: and so filled up their sins, and Almost all the modern Jews are Pha-wrath came upon them to the utterrisces, and are as much attached to tradition as their ancestors were; and assert that whoever rejects the oral law deserves death. Hence they entertain an implacable hatred to the Caraites, who adhere to the text of Moses, rejecting the rabbinistical interpretation. See CARAITES. There are still some of the Saducees in Africa, and in several other places; but they are few in number: at least there are but very few who declare openly for these opinions. There are to this day some remains of the ancient sect of the Samaritans, who are zealous for the law of Moses, most." It is hardly possible to consider the nature and extent of their sufferings, and not conclude the Jews' own imprecation to be singularly fulfilled upon them, Matt. xxvii. 25. "His blood be on us and our children." At Cesarea twenty thousand of the Jews were killed by the Syrians in their mutual broils. At Damascus ten thousand unarmed Jews were killed: and at Bethshan the Heathen inhabitants caused their Jewish neighbours to assist them against their brethren, and then murdered thirteen thousand of these inhabitants. At Alexandria the Jews murdered multitudes of the Heathens, and were mur dered in their turn to about fifty thousand. The Romans under Vespasian invaded the country, and took the cities of Galilee, Chorazen, Bethsaida, Capernaum, &c. where Christ had been especially rejected, and murdered numbers of the inhabitants. At Jerusalem the scene was most wretched of all. At the passover, when there might be two or three millions of people in the city, the Romans surrounded it with troops, trenches, and walls, that none might escape. The three different factions within murdered one another. Titus, one of the most merciful generals that ever breathed, did all in his power to persuade them to an advantageous surrender, but they scorned every proposal. The multitudes of unburied carcasses corrupted the air, and produced a pestilence. The people fed on one another; and even ladies, it is said, broiled their sucking infants, and ate them. After a siege of six months, the city was taken. They murdered almost every Jew they met with. Titus was bent to save the temple, but could not: there were six thousand Jews who had taken shelter in it, all burnt or murdered! The outcries of the Jews, when they saw it, were most dreadful: the whole city, except three towers and a small part of the wall, were razed to the ground, and the foundations of the temple and other places were ploughed up. Soon after the forts of Herodian and Macheron were taken, the garrison of Massada murdered themselves rather than surrender. At Jerusalem alone, it is said, one million one hundred thousand perished by sword, famine, and pestilence. In other places we hear of two hundred and fifty thousand that were cut off, besides vast numbers sent into Egypt to labour as slaves. About fifty years after, the Jews murdered about five hundred thousand of the Roman subjects, for which they were severely punished by Trajan. About 130, one Barocaba pretended that he was the Messiah, and raised a Jewish army of two hundred thousand, who murdered all the Heathens and Christians who came in their way; but he was defeated by Adrian's forces. In this war, it is said, about sixty thousand Jews were slain, and perished. Adrian built a city on Mount Calvary, and erected a marble statue of swine over the gate that led to Bethlehem. No Jew was allowed to enter the city, or to look to it at a distance, under pain of death. In 360 they began to rebuild their city and temple; but a terrible earthquake and flames of fire issuing from the earth, killed the workmen, || and scattered their materials. Nor till the seventh century durst they so much as creep over the rubbish to bewail it, without bribing the guards. In the third, fourth, and fifth centuries, there were many of them furiously harassed and murdered. In the sixth century twenty thousand of them were slain, and as many taken and sold for slaves. In 602 they were severely punished for their horrible massacre of the Christians at Antioch. In Spain, in 700, they were ordered to be enslaved. In the eighth and ninth centuries they were greatly derided and abused; in some places they were made to wear leathern girdles, and ride without stirrups on asses and mules. In France and Spain they were much insulted. In the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries, their miseries rather increased: they were greatly persecuted in Egypt. Besides what they suffered in the East by the Turkish and sacred war, it is shocking to think what multitudes of them the eight croisades murdered in Germany, Hungary, Lesser Asia, and elsewhere. In France multitudes were burnt.-In England, in 1020, they were banished; and at the coronation of Richard I. the mob fell upon them, and murdered a great many of them. About one thousand five hundred of them were burnt in the palace in the city of York, which they set fire to, themselves, after killing their wives and children. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries their condition was no better. In Egypt, Canaan, and Syria, the croisaders still haras-ed them. Provoked with their mad running after pretended Messiahs, Califf Nasser scarce left any of them alive in his dominions of Mesopotamia. In Persia, the Tartars murdered them in multitudes. In Spain, Ferdinand persecuted them furiously. About 1349, the terrible massacre of them at Toledo forced many of them to murder themselves, or change their religion. About 1253, many were murdered, and others banished from France, but in 1275 recalled. In 1320 and 1330, the croisades of the fanatic shepherds, who wasted the south of France, massacred them; besides fifteen hundred that were murdered on another occasion. In 1358 they were totally banished from France, since which few of them have entered that country. In 1291 king Edward expelled them from England, to the number of one hundred and sixty thousand. In the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, their misery continued. In Persia they have been terribly used: from 1663 to 1666, the murder of them was so universal, that but a few escaped ercised upon this people are terrible, to Turkey. In Portugal and Spain they extending to the men, the religion, and have been miserably handled. About the very land in which they dwelt. The 1392, six or eight hundred thousand ceremonies essential to their religion were banished from Spain. Some were can no more be observed: the ritual drowned in their passage to Africa; law, which cast a splendour on the nasome by hard usage; and many of their tional worship, and struck the Pagans carcasses lay in the fields till the wild so much that they sent their presents beasts devoured them. In Germany and their victims to Jerusalem, is absothey have endured many hardships. lutely fallen, for they have no temple, They have been banished from Bohe- no altar, no sacrifices. Their land itself mia, Bavaria, Cologne, Nuremberg, seems to lie under a never-ceasing curse. Augsburg, and Vienna: they have been Pagans, Christians, and Mohammedans, terribly massacred in Moravia, and in a word, almost all nations have by plundered in Bonn and Bamberg. Ex- turns seized and held Jerusalem. To cept in Portugal and Spain, their pre- the Jew only hath God refused the possent condition is generally tolerable. In || session of this small tract of ground, so Holland, Poland, and at Frankfort and supremely necessary for him, since he Hamburgh they have their liberty. ought to worship on this mountain. A They have repeatedly, but in vain, at- Jewish writer hath affirmed, that it is tempted to obtain a naturalization in long since any Jew has been seen settled England, and other nations among near Jerusalem: scarcely can they purwhom they are scattered. chase there six feet of land for a bury I and a patience so long exercised, it is preserved by a particular providence. The Jew ought to be weary of expecting a Messiah, who so unkindly disappoints his vain hopes: and the Christian ought to have his attention and his regard excited towards men whom God preserves, for so great a length of time, under calamities which would have been the total ruin of any other people." 4. Jews, preservation of "The pre-ing-place. servation of the Jews," says Basnage, In all this there is no exaggeration: "in the midst of the miseries which am only pointing out known facts : they have undergone during 1700 years, and, far from having the least design to is the greatest prodigy that can be ima- raise an odium against the nation from gined. Religions depend on temporal its miseries, I conclude that it ought to prosperity; they triumph under the be looked upon as one of those prodigies protection of a conqueror: they languish which we admire without comprehendand sink with sinking monarchies. Pa-ing: since, in spite of evils so durable, ganism which once covered the earth, is extinct. The Christian church, glorious in its martyrs, yet was considerably diminished by the persecutions to which it was exposed; nor was it easy to repair the breaches in it made by those acts of violence. But here we behold a church hated and persecuted for 1700 ages, and yet sustaining itself, and widely extended. Kings have often employed the severity of edicts and the hand of 5. Jews, number and dispersion of executioners to ruin it. The seditious They are looked upon to be as numermultitudes, by murders and massacres, ous at present as they were formerly in have committed outrages against it still the land of Canaan. Some have rated more violent and tragical. Princes and them at three millions, and others more people, Pagans, Mahometans, Chris- || than double that number. Their dispertians, disagreeing in so many things, sion is a remarkable particular in this have united in the design of extermina- people. They swarm all over the east, ting it, and have not been able to suc- and are settled, it is said, in the remoceed. The bush of Moses, surrounded test parts of China. The Turkish emwith flames, ever burns, and is never pire abounds with them. There are consumed. The Jews have been expel- more of them at Constantinople and led, in different times, from every part Salonichi than in any other place: they of the world, which hath only served to are spread through most of the nations spread them in all regions. From age of Europe and Africa, and many famito age they have been exposed to misc- lies of them are established in the West. ry and persecution; yet still they sub- Indies; not to mention whole nations sist, in spite of the ignominy and the ha- bordering on Prester John's country, tred which hath pursued them in all and some discovered in the inner parts places, whilst the greatest monarchies of America, if we may give any credit are fallen, and nothing remains of them to their own writers. Their being albesides the name. ways in rebellions (as Addison observes) while they had the Holy Temple in "The judgments which God has ex view, has excited most nations to banish them. Besides, the whole people are now a race of such merchants as are wanderers by profession; and at the same time are in most, if not in all places, incapable of either lands or offices, that might engage them to make any part of the world their home. In addition to this, we may consider what providential reasons may be assigned for their numbers and dispersion. Their firm adherence to their religion, and being dispersed all over the earth, has furnished every age and every nation with the strongest arguments for the Christian faith; not only as these very particulars are foretold of them, but as they themselves are the depositaries of these and all other prophecies which tend to their own confusion and the establishment of Christianity. Their number furnishes us with a sufficient cloud of witnesses that attest the truth of the Bible, and their dispersion spreads these witnesses through all parts of the world. 6. Jews, restoration of-From the declarations of Scripture we have reason to suppose the Jews shall be called to a participation of the blessings of the Gospel, Rom. xi. 2 Cor. iii. 16. Hos. i. 11. and some suppose shall return to their own land, Hos. iii. 5. Is. lxv. 17, &c. Ezek. xxxvi. As to the time, some think about 1866 or 2016; but this, perhaps, is not so easy to determine altogether, though it is probable it will not be before the fall of Antichrist and the Ottoman empire. Let us, however, avoid putting stumbling-blocks in their way. If we attempt any thing for their conversion, let it be with peace and love. Let us, says one, propose Christianity to them as Christ proposed it to them. Let us lay before them their own prophecies. Let us show them their accomplishment in Jesus. Let us applaud their hatred of idolatry. Let us show them the morality of Jesus in our lives and tempers. Let us never abridge their civil liberty, nor ever try to force their consciences. Josephus's Hist. of the Jews; Spect. No. 495, vol. iv. Levi's Ceremonies of the Jewish Religion; Buxtorf de Synagoga Judaica; Spencer de Legibus Heb. Rit. Newton on Proph. Warburton's Address to the Jews, in the Dedication of the 2d vol. of his Legation; Sermons preached to the Jews at Berry-street, by Dr. Haweis and others; Basnage's and Orckley's Hist. of the Jews; Shaw's Philosophy of Judaism; Hartley on Man, vol. ii. prop. 8. vol. iii. p. 455, 487; Bicheno's Restoration of the Jews; Jortin's Rem. on Ecc. Hist. vol. iii. p. 427, 447; Dr. H. Jackson's Works, vol. i. p. 153; Neale's History of the Jews; Pirie's Posth. Works, vol. i. Fuller's Ser. on the Messiah. IGNORANCE, the want of knowledge or instruction. It is often used to denote illiteracy. Mr Locke observes, that the causes of ignorance are chiefly three.-1. Want of ideas.-2. Want of a discoverable connection between the ideas we have.-3. Want of tracing and examining our ideas. As it respects religion, ignorance has been distinguished into three sorts: 1. An invincible ignorance, in which the will has no part. It is an insult upon justice to suppose it will punish men because they were ignorant of things which they were physically incapable of knowing.-2. There is a wilful and obstinate ignorance; such an ignorance, far from exculpating, aggravates a man's crimes.-3. A sort of ignorance which is neither entirely wilful, nor entirely invincible; as when a man has the means of knowledge, and does not use them. See KNOWLEDGE; and Locke on the Und. vol. ii. p. 178; Grove's Mor. Phil. vol. ii. p. 26, 29, 64. Watts on the Mind. ILLUMINATI, a term anciently ap plied to such as had received baptism. The name was occasioned by a ceremony in the baptism of adults, which consisted in putting a lighted taper in the hand of the person baptized, as a symbol of the faith and grace he had received in the sacrament. ILLUMINATI was also the name of a sect which appeared in Spain about the year 1575. They were charged with maintaining that mental prayer and contemplation had so intimately united them to God, that they were arrived to such a state of perfection, as to stand in no need of good works, or the sacra ments of the church, and that they might commit the grossest crimes without sin. After the suppression of the Illuminati in Spain, there appeared a denomination in France which took the same name. They maintained that one Anthony Buckuet had a system of belief and practice revealed to him which exceeded every thing Christianity had yet been acquainted with: that by this method persons might in a short time arrive at the same degrees of perfection and glory to which the saints and the Blessed Virgin have attained; and this improvement might be carried on till our actions became divine, and our minds wholly given up to the influence of the Almighty. They said further, that none of the doctors of the church knew any thing of religion; that Paul and Peter were well-meaning men, but knew nothing of devotion; that the whole church lay in darkness and unbelief that every one was at liberty to follow the suggestions of his conscience; that God regarded nothing but himself; and that within ten years their doctrine would be received all over the world; then there would be no more occasion for priests, monks, and such other religious distinctions. real objects, and their incredible indus try and astonishing exertions in making converts; of the absolute despotism and complete system of espionnage established throughout the order; of its different degrees of Novices, Minervals, Minor and Major Illuminees; Epopts, or Priests, Regents, Magi, and Mankings; of the Recruiters or Insinuators, with their various subtle methods of insinuating into all characters and companies; of the blind obedience exacted of the Novices, and the absolute power of life and death assumed by the order, and conceded by the Novices; of the dictionary, geography, kalendar, and cipher of the order; of the new names assumed by the members, such as Spartacus by Weishaupt, because he pretended to wage war against oppressors; Cato by Zwack; Ajax by Massenhausen, &c. of the Minerval Academy and Library of the questions proposed to the candidates for degrees, and the va rious ceremonies of admission to each; and of the pretended morality, real blasphemies, and absolute atheism, of the founder and his tried friends. Such of our readers as wish to be fully informed of these matters, we must refer to the Abbe Barrel's works, and to Prof. Robison's Proofs of a Conspiracy against all the Religions and Govern ments of Europe. But while credit may be given to the general facts related in these works, some doubts respecting the ultimate object of Dr. Weishaupt and his associates in this conspiracy may be expressed: as, That men of their principles should secretly con ILLUMINATI, a name assumed by a secret society, founded on the 1st of May, 1776, by Dr. Adam Weishaupt professor of canon law in the university of Ingoldstadt. The avowed object of this order was, " to diffuse from secret societies, as from so many centres, the light of science over the world; to propagate the purest principles of virtue; and to reinstate mankind in the happiness which they enjoyed during the golden age fabled by the poets.' Such a philanthropic object was doubtless well adapted to make a deep impression on the minds of ingenious young men; and to such alone did Dr. Weishaupt at first address himself. But "the real object," we are assured by Professor Robison and Abbe Barruel, was, by clandestine arts, to overturn every government and every religion; to bring the sciences of civil life into contempt; and to reduce mankind to that imaginary state of nature, when they lived independent of each other on the spontaneous productions of the earth." Free Masonry being in high reputation all over Europe when Weishaupt first formed the plan of his society, he avail-spire to overthrow all the religions and ed himself of its secrecy to introduce his new order; of which he constituted himself general, after initiating some of his pupils, whom he styled Areopagites, in its mysteries. And when report spread the news throughout Germany of the institution of the Order of Illuminees, it was generally considered as a mere college lodge, which could interest the students no longer than during the period of their studies. Weishaupt's character, too, which at this time was respectable for morality as well as erudition, prevented all suspicion of his harbouring any such dark designs as have since come to light. But it would far exceed the limits to which this work is restricted, to give, even an outline of the nature and constitution of this extraordinary society; of its secrets and mysteries; of the deep dissimulation, consummate hypocrisy, and shocking impiety of its founder and his associates; of their Jesuitical art in concealing their governments at present in Europe, is by no means incredible: that they should even prevail on many well-meaning philanthropists, who are no enemies to rational religion or good government, to join them, is also very credible. But that a set of men of learning and abili ties, such as Weishaupt and his associates are allowed to be, should form a conspiracy to overturn, and with more than Gothic rage utterly abolish the arts and sciences, and to restore the supposed original savage state of man, appears to us a phenomenon in the history of the human heart totally unaccountable. That "the heart of man is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked," is a melancholy truth, which not Scripture alone, but the history of mankind in all ages and nations, affords full proof of, as well as the shocking history of the illuminati; but while pride and vanity have a place in the human heart, to say nothing of our |