such popular, loose, and informal writers as those of the New Testament, so effectually, in the use of the article, as that we need never have recourse to common sense and the context for understanding what they mean. Look back again, Sir, for a few moments to your own language, the definite article of which, as the bishop tells you, bears so near an affinity to the greek article, and look to your english bible, the writers of which were much better acquainted with, and much more studious of, grammatical niceties than any of the apostles or evangelists, not excepting even the disciple of Gamaliel, or the beloved physician, and you will see that even these able linguists are not always to be fast bound in misery and grammar. In the greek text of Rev. xiii. 16. you will find several words with an article before each, which are found again in Rev. xix. 18, without an article before any one of them. Our translators have no article in either place. In Rev. xiv. 7. the common greek text has four nouns, joined by the copulative, of which the two first have, and the two last have not the article. In our version all is reversed, the two first being without, and the two last with articles. The words (wiles naι vexpoi, which occur without any article, in Acts x. 42. Rom. xiv. 9. 2 Tim. iv. 1. and I Pet. iv. 5. our translators have rendered without any article in the first place; with an ar ticle before the first word only, in the second place; and with articles before both words in the other two places. In Ephes. vi. 21. Tychichus is called, • a beloved Ι 7. * a beloved brother and faithful minister,' with the article before the first noun only: but in Colossians iv. ' a beloved brother and a faithful minister,' with a repetition of the article. The greek is the same in both places. In Deut. xi. 14. we read, the • first rain and the latter rain,' and so in Jerem. v. 24. Joel ii. 23. with the article before the second noun; but in Hosea vi. 3. James v. 7. the second noun is without the article. In our version of Job iii. 17. 19. we find, the wicked, the weary, the small and great, and the servant,' with definite articles: but in the Septuagint, these words are all left indefinite without any article. So little precision is there in these minutiæ, even in those who were far more attentive to such matters than the original writers of the bible were! Once more, Sir, let us try the experiment where it is most likely to succeed. Let us again appeal to those who, compared with apostles and evangelists, were accuracy itself, to those who were men of superior education, were trained to grammar from their infancy, and wrote in their native language; none of which things can be affirmed of the writers of the New Testament. Had you been disposed to give us a theory of the english as well as of the greek article, there are few rules, perhaps, which you would have been able to confirm with a greater variety of examples than the following, which bears some resemblance to your fifth rule, viz. that if the first of two nouns, connected by a copulative, be a proper name, having no article before it, and the second be a personal noun, descriptive descriptive of dignity, affinity, &c. with the definite article before it, then these two nouns relate to dif ferent persons. Thus, for instance, when I say, "Granville Sharp and the honest compiler," every body instantly concludes that I mean two different persons; because it is the constant, settled usage of almost all writers in our language, whenever they, adopt that form of expression, to intend two diffe rent persons. And if you are for such discoveries respecting the copulative and article as you can construe into infallible rules, which always prevail, you might speculate a long while before you could find any thing better suited to your purpose. And yet even this rule will not always hold; but is sometimes violated by men attentive to precision, and writing in their own language: for when, in our english bible, the Ephesians (v. 20,) are exhorted to "give thanks unto God and the Father," the form of expression exactly corresponds with that of "Granville Sharp and the honest compiler;" and yet, unless common sense is to be wholly set aside (as indeed it might be with as much propriety here as in those passages, the common version of which you would correct by the help of your rule), there can be no doubt that our translators understood these nouns, God and Father, of one person; as also the like phrase in Colossians i. 3. ii. 2. and with a slight variation in Philip. iv. 20. and 1 Thess. i. 3. iii. II. Ι Thus you see, Sir, that those exact and accurate scholars, whom James I. selected from the best and ablest grammarians to be found in Oxford, Cam, bridge, bridge, and Westminster, would not stand your tight lacing, but would be forced to remonstrate against such mechanical inventions, and to cry out that you "hurt their feet in the stocks, and that "the iron of your discovery enter'd into their souls." What then are we to expect when you deal thus with those free and unrestrained, those plain and unlettered men, who, though, as we read, they sometimes "girt their fisher's coats about them," (John xxi. 7.) never, that I can find, dreamt of casing themselves in grammatical buckram suits? What indeed! but what we find? viz. that though much learning never made the most learned of them mad, nor kept him from speaking forth the words of truth and soberness (Acts xxvi. 24, 25.), yet as soon as you contrive to have them treated like madmen, by clapping your strait waistcoat upon them, they rave like bedlamites, in spite of all that wonted patience with which, upon less trying occasions, they never failed to possess their souls. And who would not rave under such treatment?-But let us return to our greek. There is no better rule with regard to the article, nor any one that will solve a greater variety of cases, (many more I trow than you are aware of) than that common one well known to every body that knows any thing about the language, viz. that the presence of the article renders the noun to which it is prefixed definite, and its absence leaves it indefi nite. And if you had applied this rule to the geneal form of such expressions as contain your supposed discovery, you would perhaps have seen some thing more of its nature than you appear to do at present. In the expression, Ὁ θεος και πάληρ πατηρ τε κυριε ήμων, (2 Cor. i. 3.) which is the general representative of all the rest, walng, having no article prefixed to it, should, according to the foregoing rule, if literal syntax be adhered to, be rendered indefinitely ‘ a father.' But as neatness, precision, accuracy, and common sense (excuse my introducing this last) all remonstrate against that rendering, and as alng is not a proper name, does not designate a species, and cannot be taken here as an apposition, we are reduced to the necessity of having recourse to figurative syntax, and of understanding an ellipsis. Now what can that ellipsis be but an ellipsis of the article : before πατηρ ? That we are right in this way of explaining the sentence, is confirmed by the Port Royal Grammar, where we read (p. 387, edit. 1759,) that sometimes ⚫ one article serves for two substantives;' as when Aristotle says, TEρI тоν λoν xαι asрa, instead of' (mark περι τον ἥλιον αέρα, these words, Sir, instead of) xai тa aspa. Dr. Clarke too, who I verily believe knew almost as much of greek, and had read almost as much of the fathers, as your friend the compiler, though he was not fond of quoting at all times every thing that he could rake together that did not make against him, as well as every thing that made for him, tells us, that"in nouns characteristical and equivalent "(as it were) to proper names, the article is very frequently left out. Thus 90s is often used to signify the same as ὁ Θεός, κύριος as ὁ and owing 66 κύριος, |