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very particular limits, are things which will not al ways come when they are called for; and they grow more and more deaf to the call in proportion as the number of those conditions, circumstances, and li mitations are multiplied, under which they are required to make their appearance. Now the conditions attached to the examples which you sought for are many; and consequently the examples them

selves must be few.

In the first place, the number of nouns of any sort, circumstanced as you must have them with regard to article and conjunction, is not very great, including both such as relate to the same, and such as relate to different persons. If you strike out from these all such nouns as are not personal, you greatly reduce the number. If you next discard from the remainder all proper names, you reduce it still further. And lastly, if you exclude from what is left all plurals, is it to be expected that many will remain? But this is not all. There are other secret limitations lurking in your theory, which you have not brought formally forwards; as, for instance, one of the nouns must not be 90s, while the other is Xpisos, xupios, owing, or any term descriptive of Jesus; for in that case, no consideration of common sense, or context, will restrain you from saying, that they both relate to the same person, and that they confirm, instead of opposing your rule. And with regard to all other nouns of official description, rarely as they can now, after the above reductions, occur, they must be such as cannot possibly be made to relate, by any accommodation, to the same person, or

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you will be sure, either by hook or by crook, tơ twist them that way.

It is likewise to be considered, that the form of expression, in which the article is omitted before the second noun, is elliptical, as I have shewn you. Now figurative syntax, of which the ellipsis is one species, does not occur so frequently as the ordinary common syntax. Then, as the greek is a language in which every noun has an appropriate gender, if the two nouns happen to be of different genders, they will require different articles, and in that case the ellipsis will not be quite so readily supplied by the reader, as the supplementary article must be different from that which has been before mentioned, and consequently an exact writer will not so often have recourse to ellipsis in such a language. Again, if, in the form of expression we are considering, it were a matter of perfect indifference, and no opponent of your rule will require or contend for any thing more, whether, when the two nouns relate to different persons, the article were or were not repeated; in that case, one half of the examples might be expected to turn out in favour of the rule. But your opponents have no need to require so much. They may allow that it is a more full, regular, formal, and precise mode of expression, to repeat the article before the second noun, where the two refer to different persons; that is, they may allow that your rule generally prevails, without allowing, as you contend, and must contend, in order to apply it in the way you wish, that it always prevails. And if it generally

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rally prevails, then a majority of the examples must be expected to prove favourable to your rule.

Examples, therefore, such as you sought to contradict your rule, so singularly circumstanced, must indeed be rari nantes in gurgite vasto. It is not surprising, then, that you should be unable to find them. But it was not a just conclusion, that be cause you could not discover one, therefore the rule was confirmed; for the want of examples, as we have seen, was to be accounted for upon other principles.

Had you applied your rule to the omission of a preposition, or other particle, before the second noun, instead of applying it to the omission of the article, which I have shewn you in my second letter you might have done with as much truth and reason on your side as at present; had you, for instance, maintained, that when the preposition xala is found before the first noun, and is not repeated before the second, the two always relate to the same person; and had you then fortified the assertion with your several limitations, you might perhaps have found it equally difficult to discover any example to con tradict the assertion. Or had you given us the same theory of the english, as you have of the greek article, which, from the analogy between the two, you might have done, as appears from my first letter, you might in that case have sought a long while without finding such an example to contradict it as I have produced above, (see p. 20,) from Deut. X. 18.

But, though you could not find examples to shew

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you the fallacy of your rule, a little reasoning and reflection might have detected it, either in english or in greek. In my first letter I have coined several examples, such as " the king and queen," &c. (p. 19.) which, though the work of invention, you must know and feel, from the knowledge you cannot but have of your native language, to be such as may be used, though you might be at a loss to find immediately any instance of their use, and though they may not be quite such full, regular, and accurate. expressions, as they would have been if the article had been repeated. From a similar mode of proceeding you might have derived a similar conclusion with regard to the greek, and have confuted your rule without the aid of examples.

In the english version of Isaiah iii. 2, 3. are several personal nouns, which, as they stand at present, with a repetition of the article, you might take for a confirmation of your sixth rule: but, if the translator had chosen to have omitted the article before the second nouns, here would have been a confutation of your first rule. And what is there in our language to render such omission, not merely uncouth, but absolutely inadmissible?

In like manner, in the septuagint version of Esther vii. 6. απο τε βασιλεως και της βασιλισσης, if the transla tor had chosen to have omitted the article (ns) as he has done the preposition (ano) before the second noun, what is there in the greek language to render such omission, I do not say inelegant, for that is not the question, but so harsh and ungrammatical as to be quite intolerable?

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Would Mark have violated all the rules of the greek language, if he had omitted the article before the second noun in παραλαμβανει τον πατερα τα παιδιά xaι τnν μnlepa. V. 40? or John, if he had omitted both preposition and article before the second noun, in κοινωνία ἡ ἡμετερα μέλα τε πατρος και μετα τα ύια αυτε Ιησε vix Xp58, 1 John i. 3? Would Paul have broken the head both of Priscian and Athanasius at one blow; would he have transgressed grammar and "con"founded the persons," if he had inserted the article before the first noun Seos, in his ordinary salutation, χαρις ύμιν απο θες πατρος ήμων, και κυριέ Inox Xp158. Rom. i. 7. and elsewhere?

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Suppose Luke (ii. 52.) had told us that Jesus increased in favour παρα τῷ θεῷ και ανθρωπῳ, would he have become in your ears as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal; or would he have spoken with the tongue of men and of angels? Would you have said, he that speaketh is a barbarian unto me, and hath spoken five unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter; or would you have extolled him as the sublimest of teachers, who spake not unto men but unto God, saying, no man understandeth him howbeit in the spirit he speaketh mysteries? We know that the article is often prefixed to the name of God, and that apwπos is used in the singular number to denote the species. See an instance of both in one verse of this same evangelist, Luke xviii. 4. See also Luke i. 6. and Septuagint of Psal. lvi. 11. civ. 23.

When Mary of Magdala returned from the sepulchre on the morning of the resurrection, the evangelist

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