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into a multitude in the midst of the earth. And when Joseph saw that his father laid his right hand upon the head of Ephraim, it displeased him and he held up his father's hand, to remove it from Ephraim's head unto Manasseh's head. And Joseph said unto his father, not so, my father; for this is the first-born; put thy right hand upon his head. And his father refused, and said, I know it, my son, I know it: he also shall become a people, and he also shall be great but truly his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his seed shall become a multitude of nations. And he blessed them that day, saying, in thee shall Israel bless, saying, God make thee as Ephraim and as Manasseh: and he set Ephraim before Manasseh. And Israel said unto Joseph, behold, I die: but God shall be with you, and bring you again unto the land of your fathers. Moreover I have given to thee one portion above thy brethren, which I took out of the hand of the Amorite with my sword and with

my bow. The incongruities of this chapter are very strong. In the first place we are told, that "Israel beheld Joseph's sons, and said, Who are these?" Directly afterwe aretold, "that the eyes of Israel were dim for age, so that he could not see." The blindness is again comfirmed by the supposition of Joseph, that his father had placed his hands in a mistake, having given the preference to the youngest son. This is the old trick of predestination played off again. In the last verse, Jacob talks of having given to Joseph "a portion above his brethren, which he took out of the hand of the Amorite with his sword and bow." This is the first time we have been told that Jacob was a warrior. Perhaps Mr. Horne will tell me the expression is prophetic of the future: this may answer his view and purpose, I cannot read it so. I shall insert the forty-ninth chapter, but the fiftieth, which finishes the book of Genesis, contains nothing to my purpose.

1 And Jacob called unto his sons, and said, gather yourselves together, that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the last days.

2 Gather yourselves together, and hear, ye sons of Jacob; and hearken unto Israel your father.

3 Reuben, thou art my first-born, my might, and the beginning of my strength, the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power.

4 Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel; because thou wentest up to thy father's bed; then defiledst thou it—he went up to my

couch.

5¶ Simeon and Levi are brethren; instruments of cruelty are in their habitations.

6 O my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united for in their anger they slew a man, and in their self-will they digged down a wall.

Cursed be their anger for it was fierce; and their wrath, for it was cruel: I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel.

8¶Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise: thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies; thy father's children shall bow down before thee.

9 Judah is a lion's whielp from the prey, my son, thou art gone up: he stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as an old lion; who shall rouse him up?

10. The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be.

11 Binding his sole unto the vine, and his ass's colt unto the choice vine; he washed his garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes:

12 His eyes shall be red with wine, and his teeth white with milk. 13 ¶ Zebulun shall dwell at the haven of the sea; and he shall be for an haven of ships; and his border shall be unto Zidon.

14¶ Issachar is a strong ass couching down between two burdens :

15 And he saw that rest was good, and the land that it was pleasant; and bowed his shoulder to bear, and became a servant unto tribute.

16 Dan shall judge his people, as one of the tribes of Israel. 17 Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path, that biteth the horse heels, so that his rider shall fall backward.

18 I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord.

19¶ Ged, a troop shall overcome him: but he shall overcome at the last.

20 ¶ Out of Asher his bread shall be fat, and he shall yield royal dainties.

21 Naphtali is a hind let loose: he giveth goodly words.

22 ¶ Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a wence whose branches run over the wall:

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23 The archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at him, a hated him:

24 But his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob; (from thence is the shepherd, the stone of Israel :)

25 Even by the God of thy father, who shall help thee; and by the Almighty, who shall bless thee with blessings of Heaven above, blessings of the deep that lieth under, blessings of the breasts, and of the womb.

26 The blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of thy progenitors unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills: they shall be on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him that was separate from his brethren.

27 Benjamin shall ravin as a wolf: in the morning he shall devour the prey, and at night he shall divide the spoil..

28¶ All these are the twelve tribes of Israel: and this is it that their father spake unto them, and blessed them; every one according to his blessing he blessed them.

29 And he charged them, and said uuto them, I am to be gather ed unto my people: bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite,

30 In the cave that is in the field of Machpelah, which is before Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought with the field of Ephron the Hittite for a possession of a burying-place.

31 There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife; there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife; and there I buried Leah.

32 The purchase of the field and of the cave that is therein was from the children of Heth.

33 And wheu Jacob had made an end of commanding his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto his people.

It requires no particular degree of keenness to discover, that the part of this chapter, from the third to the twentyseventh verse inclusive, is the work of some Jewish poet, and not of Jacob as here represented. Is the language at all like the language of a dying man? It is the language of a vigorous and fanciful mind, and is applicable to the different tribes of the Israelites in an allegorical sense, which cannot now be defined. I would call the readers attention to the tenth verse, which has been held by Christians as a prophecy of Jesus the anointed. Johanna Southcote also pronounced that this was the prophecy of the young Shiloh she was to bring forth, and twenty thousand of the people of England believed it. A very splendid cot was actually fitted up for it; water-proof napkins, c. with a lamb worked in the centre of each, were also prepared, and cother necessarics to the expence of several hundred pounds. The Cot alone was said to have cost £150! How different this to the Christian God! whose cot was the manger, and whose first bed perhaps of hay or straw! The impartial reader will see through all this trickery, when he reflects, that this chapter might have been written after the Jews were led captive into Chaldea, and this verse is a kind of languid hope, that some one would come upon the theatre of the world, empowered to restore them. The Jews are still waiting for Shiloh, and wait they may! I have not a doubt in my own bosom, that all the pretended prophecies which are said to exist in the Bible, were written subsequent to the time they refer to, and are the impositions of the Jewish Priests, and now the Christian Priests have need of the same imposture. (To be Continued.).

Printed by JANE CARLILE, 55, Fleet Street.

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The Republican.

No. 6, Vol. 3.] LONDON, FRIDAY, JUNE 2, 1820. [PRICE 6D,

REFORM OF PARLIAMENT.

The all important question of Parliamentary Reform, is about to undergo another discussion, in the Common's house of Parliament, on a motion of Mr. Lambton's, to restore triennial parliaments, and to extend the suffrage to all householders. Preparatory to this motion, a meeting of the City Common Council has taken place, and they have resolved, to petition the parliament accordingly, to accede to a reform. The fate of the petition, and the motion might be foretold, without any pretensions to prophecy, when we see the indifference manifested by the ininisters to Lord John Russell's attempt to provide for the representation of Leeds. They have. no inclination to forge and sharpen an axe for themselves: they have too much of that species of knowledge, which is called low cunning to oust themselves from their places and profits. No, no, other means, which are not far distant, must be taken to procure a reform.

The following are the resolutions of the Common Council on the subject:

Resolved, "That it appears to this Court, that the great excellence of the British Constitution must arise from the independent exercise of the several powers vested in the King, Lords, and Commons.

That as the King, by the creation of Peers, can at any time add to the Members of the House of Lords, if these powers were to unite under evil Counsellors, or if, by patronage or undue influence, they could command a majority of votes in the House of Commons, a despotic power might be established, without altering the forms of the Constitution.

That this Court will not yield to any class of their fellow-subjects in loyalty to the King, in obedience to the Laws, and in attachment to the Constitution; but when they reflect on the distressed state of the agriculture, manufactures, and commerce; the state of the VOL. III, No. 6.

Printed and published by J. Carlile, 55, Fleet Street.

finance; together with the daily and overwhelming increase of pauperism, they conceive that such misfortunes, to have fallen upon a nation enlightened, honourable, and enterprizing, possessed of such vast resources, must have arisen in some measure from misrule and bad policy, occasioned by the people not having a due share in the choice of their representatives.

That the freedom and purity of election is an essential principle of the Constitution, as appears from many of our most sacred laws, passed in various periods of our history, especially the 3d of Edward the First, the Bill of Rights, and the 2d and 8th of George the Second, in which it is declared, that the election of members ought to be free-that the election of Members of Parliament should be freely and indifferently made, without charge or expense-and that the freedom of election of members to serve in Parliament is of the utmost consequence to the preservation of the rights and liberties of the kingdom.

That it has been declared by the House of Commons to be high infringement of the liberties and privileges of the Commons of Great Britain, for any Lord of Parliament to concern himself in the election of members to serve for the Commons in Parliament.

That nevertheless, by various changes which have gradually crept into the system of representation, it has become such as to produce a notorious violation of these essential laws; as it appears by a petition presented to the House of Commons by the hon. Charles Grey, in the year 1793, in which it was offered to be proved that 160 members of the house are returned by about 50 voters each; 70 others by voters not exceeding 100 each; 60 others by voters not exceeding 200 or 250 each; that 81 members were returned by peers, possessing burgage tenures, and 150 more by the interference of peers.

That while the right of electing so considerable a number of members of the House of Commous remains vested in such small and inconsiderable bodies of men, all attempts to secure purity of election must be vain; and the punishment of a few detected offenders will only be subversive of respect for the laws, and rather tend to the concealment than the prevention of such offences.

That though this system of government, which has been by degrees substituted for the ancient and legal constitution of Parliament, has been openly defended by persons high in office, under the specious appellation of the constitution as it exists in practice, it is quite evident that the present practice includes the violation of the laws of the realm, which has been fully exemplified by the disclosures of bribery and corruption, under prosecutions ordered by the House of Commons; while the moral and impressive sentences pronounced by the learned Judges on the offenders must convince the most incredulous of the necessity of revising the present system, especially when it is said, that persons of high rank bargain and pay large sums for seats n the House of Commons.

And although this Court are of opinion, that the extension and

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