stragglers of this nature into the fantastical chaplet of our system, what success can we promise ourselves with others still more rambling and perverse? We apply, for example, the terms heaven and sky synonymously to designate the vaulted expanse above our heads; yet we express them differently, for we use the former always without, but the latter always with, the definite article. Again, before the name of that which possesses an existence unlike to all others, and which is of so peculiar a nature as not to admit the idea of number, it is usual to place the definite Article, as the sun, the moon, and the world. And to what other class can the word God, as signifying the one supreme and self-existing Being, be properly assigned? Yet we do not, under this application of the term, say, the God, as we say the sun, definitely, but God absolutely.

It seems then, that, in explanation of such incongruities, we must have recourse, not to any infallible code of philological laws, but to an usage disdainful of all restriction. Nor is even this principle to be considered as uniform in its operation, and constant in its character. Fickle, fluctuating, unstable, it subverts and reestablishes, erects and demolishes, at pleasure, and sometimes abandons even its own innovations. A style of expression to which we are not habituated we are apt to pronounce abhorrent from the genius of our languauge; but that supposed genius, particularly in the case before us, too often mocks description: when we attempt to seize and examine it, it assumes so shadowy and flitting a form as to elude our grasp. what, for example, but to the flux of fashion, and the caprice of usage, can we ascribe the various modes of expression adopted in the different translations of the tenth verse of the thirty-second Psalm? The Common-Prayer-Book Version renders it thus: "Be ye not like to horse and mule, which have no understanding, whose mouths must be held with bit and bridle." The Bible Version thus : "Be ye not as the horse and the mule, which have no un

To

derstanding, whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle." We here perceive, in the first instance a total, omission of the definite and indefinite Articles; then subsequently, a restoration of the former, but not of the latter; while, in the present day, propriety would require a restoration of both for instead of "whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle," we should now rather say, "whose mouth must be held in with a bit and a bridle." Nor, in proof that our idea of correctness depends more upon habit than system, ought the provincialism of counties to be overlooked: for, to an ear familiar only with the dialect of Cumberland, the perpetual insertion of Articles does not sound less harsh and uncouth than the perpetual omission of them to a more polished car.

If therefore the English language be in its use of Artiales so irregular, how are we precisely to point out, and to restrain by certain unerring laws, its correspondence in this respect with the Greek language? It is well known, that in Greek there is only one Article, which is in general correctly translated by our definite Article the; yet on some occasions must we translate it indefinitely, and on others absolutely. With regard to its indefinite acceptation, should a prejudice for system induce us to suspect the meaning of ro ogos, Matt. v. 1, and TO TOIV, Matt. i. 1, we must surely render so odrov, Matt. v. 15, a measure; i didaσxaλos, John iii. 10, a teacher; sov avegov, John vii. 51, a (or, as the New Version has it, any) man; and ro sudos, John viii. 44, a lie. Nor will the absolute sense in which the noun connected with it is occasionally taken, appear doubtful, when we observe, that Tηv Sixxioσuvn v, Matt. v. 6, can only signify righteousness, not the or a righteousness ; ή χαρις και η αληθεια, John i. 17, grace and truth; and ex 58 Javar8 Eis Thy (wny, John v. 24, from death to life. I use the strong terms must and can without fear of contradiction, because the New Version itself sanctions their application.

But further, as a Greek noun with the Article must be variously rendered, so also, as I have already remarked, without the Article, must it be understood sometimes definitely, sometimes indefinitely, and sometimes absolutely. Having previously however adverted to these points, I shall not fruitlessly multiply examples, only subjoining, with respect to the first mode of expression alluded to, a single passage, which, even if it stood alone, would, I conceive, prove decisive upon the subject. St. John says, ώρα ην ὡς δεκατη, c. iv. 6. Would it not be nonsense to translate this "an hour" instead of "the hour was about the tenth ?"

When these different circumstances are contemplated; when we consider that in our own language the addition or omission of an Article is often attributable to no other case than to the predominance of a paramount usage; when we perceive similar irregularities to exist in the Greek language; and the correspondence between both to be regulated by no fixed and determinate principles; who will boast of reducing to the subjection of rule forms of expression superior to all rule? We are indeed too apt, on every occasion, to represent pleonasms and ellipses as systematical ornaments, instead of what they often are, unsystematical blemishes, of language; and to dream of indescribable elegancies, where little perhaps is really discoverable except the negligence of habit, or the peculiarity of custom: but as well may we attempt to chain the wind, as to restrict diversity of usage in the redundance or suppression of Articles, by any thing like an invariable uniformity of con struction.

CHAP. VI.

Existence of an Evil Being.

Translation of

the words Σαταν and Διαβολος.

Another effort to regulate Scripture by the standard of Uuitarian faith occurs in the singular mode of occasionally translating the words Earav and Araboλos, not as proper names, but as nouns appellative. They are therefore thus rendered in the following passages: "Get thee behind me, thou adversary, Matt. xvi. 23. Have I not chosen you twelve? And yet one of you is a false accuser, John vi. 71: There hath been given to me a thorn in the flesh, an angel-adversary to buffet me, 2 Cor. xii. 7. Give not advantage to the slanderer, Ephes. iv. 28. Lest the adversary should gain advantage over us; for we are not ignorant of his devices, 2 Cor. ii. 11. Have been taken captive by the accuser, 2 Tim. ii. 26.”

The object proposed by this translation, and explicitly avowed in various explanatory notes, introduced at almost every possible opportunity, evidently is, to exclude from the Christian creed, in conformity with the sentiments of the Unitarian school, the doctrine of an evil Being superior to man. They think it, I presume, irrational to suppose, that a being of this description exists, because such an existence falls not immediately under the cognizance of the human faculties; and what they do not think it rational to conceive, they will not allow to be contained in holy Scripture. Hence they tell us more than once, that the term devil means only "the principle of evil personified," Matt. xiii. 39; John viii. 44; 1 John iii. 8.

To enter into a philosophical discussion of this subject would be foreign to my design, as well as irrelevant to the point which can be correctly said to be in controversy.

The point in dispute is rather a question of fact than one of philosophy: it is simply, whether Jewish opinions and Jewish phraseology will warrant us in concluding, that by the expressions Zarav and Aiaboλos our Saviour and his Apostles meant a real person, or merely a personified quality.

Truths universally admitted require no formal definition; they are usually introduced in the way of allusion, and in most instances are solely deducible from some opinion stated, or for some fact recorded, by inference. If then the existence of an evil spirit be no where directly asserted in the Old Testament, we must not on that account imagine, that it is not expressly implied there, for a similar remark may be made respecting the doctrine of a future state; and yet are we forbidden by Christ himself to deny that it is there distinctly taught, Matt. xxii. 32.

In the book of Job, a book to which critics coincide in imputing the highest antiquity, an evil Being, under the

* Carpzovius, if not the last, doubtless not the least, of bibilical critics, gives the following opinion, as the result of his reflections upon the subject of its antiquity: "Sic divinus jam ante Mosen extabat Jobi liber poeticus, ad instructionem fidelium lectus quidem, et asservatus, sed Canonico nondum ağıwart insignis. Postquam autem divinis auspiciis Mosis opera condendi Canonis sacrifactum esset initium, diu post, circa Samuelis forte ætatem, ejusdemque ni fallor manu, divini numinis jussu, canonicis ille libris additus et ad latus Arcæ in Sanctuario publice repositus videtur, cum Prologo ac Epilogo historico Georνtus05 ornasset auxissetque illum Samuel, ut quæ sermonum a Jobo exaratorum occasio, quis scopus, quis historiæ nexus, quæ rerum gestarum series, et catastrophe fuerit, ad communem Eccelesiæ omnium temporum notitiam et edificationem, ad oculum patere. Ut adeo geminum agnoscat liber scriptorem, Jobum, qua sui parte metro est, adstrictus, et Samuelem, quod ad capito priora duo, et postremum attinet. Ad Samuelem vero ea de causa referre malui, quod loquend; modus, in priore Samuelis libro adhibitus, ex asse illi respondet, quo prosaica in libro Jobi capita personant. Tum plane tam perspicue tam pure utrobique sermo se habet Ebræus, tam ordinate porro, ac succincte narrations series ut ovum vix ovo similius." Introductio ad Lib. Poet. Bibl. p. 58. Ed. 1731.