Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

low-creatures of the same God, and fellow-disciples of the same master. For, christian love or charity, cultivated in the mind, and exhibited in practice, is the best evidence of any man's fulfilling the christian law.

December 6, 1802.

SUMMARY

[blocks in formation]

As

S the main spring of Mr. Sharp's machine for turning man into God is couched in the first of his rules relative to the uses of the article, that is the only one which is examined at large in the following letters: but his other rules, intended to il

6

lustrate the particularity of that first,' being occasionally alluded to, they are here subjoined and explained by an example to each, together with Mr. Sharp's exceptions and limitations, for the convenience of the reader. With a view to his further convenience, Mr. Sharp's wrought goods, or samples of his 'new' mode of manufacturing a godman, are likewise annexed, that the reader may see the working of the machine exemplified in correcting, or rather corrupting, the common english version of the New Testament.

.

RULES.

1. See this first and principal rule (exclusive of limitations) in page 10 of the following letters. 2. All other things remaining as in the first rule, if the copulative 'be omitted, and the article be

[blocks in formation]

repeated before the second noun, thus, "the "God, the father of our lord," then the two nouns relate to the same subject.

3. If the copulative be omitted, and the article be

not repeated, thus, "the God, father of our

[ocr errors]

lord," the nouns also relate to the same sub

ject.

This rule, according to Mr. Sharp's wording, (which I have not adopted in any of the rules) is very confused. In his table of contents, p. xii. the first noun is required by this rule to have the article before it; but, when the rule is delivered more at length, and exemplified in page 10 of his Remarks, it is not specified whether there is, or is not, to be an article before the first noun. Of his four examples by which this rule is illustrated, only one, that from Ephes. v. 20. has the article before the first noun, and in this example, one of the nouns is a proper name. In his third example, from Tit. i. 1. it seems, from his -mode of printing, as if he considered the proper name Paul as one of his nouns : and between those two which are not proper names, but personal nouns, the copulative xx cannot be properly said to be omitted, because the latter of the nouns being followed by de, the copulative xa could no more be inserted, and therefore can no more be said to be omitted, between the two, than between an adjec

και

tive and its substantive. The copulative xx, either inserted or omitted, expressed or understood, is quite incompatible with the whole turn and tenor of the sentence. And in his last example from 1 Tim. i. 1. it is not clear which of the many nouns it contains, a man so inaccurate as Mr. Sharp, who violates his own rules and limitations with so little scruple, means to fix upon as illustrative of his rule.

4. If the nouns be not personal [for the meaning of this term see the limitations], as in this example, "grace, mercy, peace, from God," &c. (1 Tim. i. 2.) they relate to different subjects. This rule is very loosely worded, nothing being specified, or settled, as to the omission or insertion of either article or copulative. All Mr. Sharp's examples of this rule, given in page 11 of his Remarks, are without both.

5.

If there be no article before the first noun, and the copulative be inserted between the two, as for instance, "God and father of," &c. the nouns relate to different subjects.

It is not here said either in Mr. Sharp's table of contents, or in his Remarks (page 12), whether there is, or is not, to be an article before the second noun: but in a reference made to this rule, at the beginning of the next (Rem. p. 13), it seems as if both the nouns were required to be without articles; and in all the examples given in page 12,

all the nouns are without. In the table of contents, the nouns are limited to personal; but in the Remarks (p. 12), the rule has person or thing,' and in the examples, the impersonal are more numerous than the personal nouns.

The english example, which I have given as an illustration of this rule, though it exactly corresponds to the description required in the rule, will probably, to an english reader conversant with such forms of expression, sound rather as a contradiction to the rule. And Mr. Sharp's example, taken from Ephes. vi. 23, when understood, or translated, as it ought to be (see, for the meaning of this text, the note in p. 158 of the following letters) does actually contradict, instead of confirming, his fifth rule; tho' he chooses to understand it otherwise. The fact is, that expressions, circumstanced either according to this or the next rule, are ambiguous, referring sometimes to different, and sometimes to the same subject. See the observation on the next rule. Mr. Sharp excepts from this rule all forms of expression in which the numeral adjective one precedes the first noun, as in Ephesians iv. 6.

6. If each of the nouns have the article, and the co

pulative be likewise inserted between them, as, "the God and the father of," &c. they relate to different subjects.

In

« AnteriorContinuar »