and irresistible vindication of our Lord's conduct upon this occasion. To that I would refer Mr. English and the reader, just observing, however, that the whole account, as it stands in the eighth chapter of John, is probably a subsequent addition, and marked as such in the edition of Griesbach.

Mr. English charges our Lord with inconsistency, "inasmuch that while he professed to preach the gospel to the poor, he designedly involved his instructions in parables, lest they might understand them, and be converted from their sins, and God should heal or pardon them."* I suppose we must reason with Mr. English, as if he really misapprehended our Saviour's intention. I would say then, that our Lord did not address himself to a philosophical skeptick, who was to live eighteen hundred years after, and would affect to interpret his words by forms of language, never heard of among the Jews; but he addressed himself to those who had been accustomed to the style of the Old Testament from their infancy, and had read therein the following words: "And God said, go and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes, lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed." This occurs in a context,

* Grounds of Christianity examined, p. 70. † Is. vi. 9, 10.

nearly the most solemn in the Old Testament. Does Mr. English, who has argued thus far in his work upon the supposition of the inspiration of Isaiah, really think that the prophet taught, that God commanded him to make his hearers senseless and obdurate, lest they should understand his doctrine, and be converted by it? The reader will find that the language in the evangelists, to which Mr. English excepts, is the same as this of Isaiah.

He quotes on the same page, as an instance of inconsistency, these words of our Lord, 66 Sleep on now, and take your rest-Arise, let us be going." This is something like 'piecing two texts together,' or at least like altering a passage; charges, both of them, of which Mr. English is very liberal against the evangelists. Our Lord, in retiring to the garden to pray, took with him three of his disciples, and while his soul was sorrowful even unto death, he said, "tarry ye here, and watch with me." He knew the extreme agony which he was about to undergo, and requested their attention and care. But when he turned to them after his first act of devotion, he found them asleep, and reproachfully asked "what! could ye not watch with me one hour?” This was repeated twice, and after he had prayed the third time he "cometh to his disciples, and saith unto them, Sleep now and take your rest; behold the hour is at hand, and the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us be going; behold he is at hand

that doth betray me." The words in Italicks Mr. English omits, that he might bring the preceding and following clauses into more apparent contradiction; though the meaning of the whole passage is extremely plain, that whereas Jesus had asked of his disciples to watch with him while he prayed, he reproached them for their neglect, when his devotions were over, by telling them to sleep on now, his prayers were finished, and the hour was at hand when their presence and attention could be of no avail. This was a gentle reproach, and not, as Mr. English would affect to believe, a direct admonition to the disciples to indulge in sleep. But let us hear himself: "The commentators endeavour to get rid of the strange contradictoriness of these words, by turning the command into the future, and rendering the Greek word, translated "now," thus: "for the rest of your time," or "for the future." And that he asked them, "whether they slept for the future ?" which appears to -be just as rational as to have asked, "how they do to-morrow?!" Some profitable remark might be made on the unhappy pervers. ity of moral feeling, which could permit a man to turn from the perusal of so affecting a relation as that in question, and indulge in such a miserable jest. But Mr. English is too much of a scholar not to know, that no al. teration is made in the Greek by turning, as he calls it, the imperative into the indicative mood, and that in the manuscript of the evan.

gelist, the passage in both interpretations would be written equally alike. Though he speaks of "the commentators," it is neither the most nor the best who propose this interpretation; though it be a very rational one. The words of Whitby are, "If with the Vulgate, the Glossaries, and our Bois, we here interpret To Tv, jam, now, as our translation doth, these words being rendered interrogatively, give the sense thus: Do you sleep now, and take your rest, when the hour of temptation and the traitor is at hand? ATEX, it is enough that you have slept so long; arise now and let us go hence."* Is this any thing like the poor foolery, "how do you do to-morrow ?" The fact unluckily is, that Mr. English, in his laudable zeal to introduce this respectable pleasantry, fell into a gross mistake of Whitby. For this commentator told him, that certain criticks translated the word rendered now' by hereafter,' or 'in future,' and certain other criticks rendered the passage interrogatively; and Mr. English, to use a phrase of his own, "jammed these disconnected facts together," and made out of them that the commentators had interpreted the passage, "do you sleep in future." And even this, however irrelevant in its context, seems to me no more absurd, than if I should ask Mr.. English, "Do you retain this objection in your future edition of the Grounds of Christianity examined ?”

6

* Whitby in loc.

He next appeals to John viii. 51. "Verily, verily, [said Jesus,] I say unto you, if a man keep my saying, he shall never see death.” "Reader, what dost thou think," asks Mr. English, "of this saying? Has believing in the Christian religion at all prevented men from dying, as in aforetime? And should we be at all astonished, that the Jews said to: him, we know thou hast a demon;' and if inour times, a man was to make a similar assertion, should we not say the same?" If Mr. English had not lost his former acquaintance with the New Testament, he would have remembered another passage, that would explain this: "This is the will of him that sent me, that every one that seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day."* However, in answer to his question, whether we should not say, that a man in our times was mad who made this assertion, I would reply, that we probably should, unless he wrought such miracles as showed he was authorized to make it. And I assure Mr. English, that, so far from agreeing with the Jews, the wisest and best men that ever lived have thought, that if they kept the saying of Jesus, they.. should never see death; that he himself, for the happiest two years of his life, thought the same; that wise and good men have not only thought this, in the hours of health and strength, when most are apt to think they shall live forever, but that hundreds and thousands, in the

*John vi. 40.