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evangelist John (xx. 2.) tells us, that she came to Peter and the other disciple whom Jesus loved. Suppose she had come to a particular apostle of whom John had been speaking just before, and to any other indifferent disciple, of whom at that time he neither had said, nor meant to say, any thing further; or suppose, if you choose, that this other disciple had been Joseph of Arimathea; if in either of these cases John had expressed himself thusερχεται προς τον αποςολον και άλλον μαθήτην, οι προς του αποςολον και μαθήτην ονοματι Ιωσηφ απο Αριμαθαίας, would either of these expressions have been too barbarous to have been borne even in a fisherman and a foreigner?

But enough of hypothetical examples; which as you were probably not much disposed to prove the fallacy of your rule, you would not take the liberty of inventing, though you might have done it at pleasure, without any violent distortion of the greek idiom. Let us leave imaginary contradictions to your rule, and come to those which are real. Of these, though, for the reasons already assigned, we must expect them to be rarities, I have, as I told you, stumbled upon two, which none of your limi tations, were they ever so well founded, will touch, I am indebted for them to your anonymous corre spondent," the honest compiler;" and I recommend them to your notice, as the best things in his book, because these will help to light you an inch or two on your way towards truth, whereas all the rest of his work is only calculated to keep you in limbo̟ patrum, and to make you grope your way as well as

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you can in the dark, across a region more dreary and dismal than poetic fancy ever feigned.

The first example is to be found in page 51, of your correspondent's letters, and is taken from Chrysostom's homily on 1 Tim. v. 21. where that father clearly understands the words suite de xai supie nuwe Inox of two different persons, the father and the son. And he is followed, in that explanation, as usual, by Oecumenius and Theophylact.

This example your correspondent admits to be ⚫ directly contradictory' to your rule. And unless it can be somehow got rid of, it is fatal to your whole theory, as it proves that your rule does not, as you do, and must, maintain, to answer your purpose, always prevail. Your correspondent accordingly labours long and hard to get rid of it: but, at the outset of his attempt, he owns' (page 53), that he cannot furnish a satisfactory solution of the dif- ` 'ficulty;' and at the end of it, he has nothing else "to say at parting (page 62), but to repeat that ⚫ he knows not how the difficulty is to be removed, ⚫ otherwise than by supposing that xups did not * come from the pen either of Chrysostom, Oecumenius, or Theophylact.'

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Unfortunately' all the copies of Chrysostom, printed and manuscript, as far as your correspondent can find, militate against this supposition. Then it is to be observed, that all the three, Chrysostom, Oecumenius, and Theophylact, have the word xupios: and it seems to be a conjecture rather too violent to suppose, that the words have been altered exactly

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in the same way in three different places of three different writers.

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Your correspondent, however, not willing to abandon a theory, in support of which he has 'waded through so much,' tries other expedients. He seeks first for a different explanation of the text, 1 Tim. v. 21. in other parts of Chrysostom, Oecumenius, and Theophylact :-but in vain. Next he seeks for a different explanation of the same, or a similar form of expression, as the words occur ordinarily in those authors:-but in vain also. And therefore, as a last resort, he has recourse to other. writers, not for a different explanation of the text, for that he had previously sought for to no purpose, but for general instances, where the form 90s xxx κύριος, is explained of one person. And here he rakes together six and twenty examples (page 57-61), in which this form of sound words is used when speaking of one person only.

But what does it avail to shew that an ambiguous phrase is used six and twenty times in one way? Does that prove, that it never is, and never can be used in another way? No. The contrary is proved, in this case, by fact. Chrysostom, Oecumenius, and Theophylact, have actually applied the words to two persons.

But perhaps the compiler will be surprised to hear me say, that, out of his six and twenty examples, there is not one which will prove that the writer of it thought the form & Jɛos xai xʊpios, when taken by itself, without further help and assistance, was even

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capable of being used, much less that it must be used, of one person only. For in every one of those instances, provided the reference be clearly and indisputably to one person, there is always something additional in the context, something besides the bare phrase itself, to limit and restrain the words to one person.

Either the two nouns are construed with a singular verb, pronoun, participle, or adjective, or they are put in apposition to a proper name in the singular number; or the latter of them is followed by no separate proper name of which it can be descriptive, and consequently, unless it be referred to the same person as the former noun Jeos, would be a description without a thing to be described; or the article is so separated by the interposition of other articles, adjectives, or pronouns, from the first noun, as to prevent the reader from joining it to that noun exclusively, and to shew that it belongs to the whole phrase, composed of the two nouns and the conjunction, which phrase is thereby insulated, as it were, and the several parts of it; that is, the two nouns, are connected closely together, so as to indicate a unity of reference in the way I have pointed out in my second letter (page 33); or the numeral is precedes the first noun; a circumstance which you yourself (page 13) have thought strong enough to set aside your fifth rule, so as to refer nouns to one person, which otherwise would be referred to two.

In short, there is something or other manifestly visible on the face of every one of the examples, which clearly marks the intention of the writer, and

points out an identity of reference, independently of any thing contained in the form itself. So that these twenty-six examples are so far from proving that nouns circumstanced as you describe, must necessarily relate to the same person, that they rather seem to imply that something more than the bare form of words is necessary and requisite to ascertain and fix the identity of reference.*

The other example which overturns your ingenious theory, and which is placed beyond the reach of your limitations, is to be found in the following words, which your correspondent has quoted in page 122 of his letters, from Justin Martyr; Te OWτήρος ήμων Ιησε Χρισε και πνεύματος άγιε. Apolog. i. p. 131. §.79. Ashton's edit. As you yourself have

*Your friend, however, does not seem to have made the most of his fathers; or he might have. disposed of this example from Chrysostom, by a species of logic which would at least satisfy a determined trinitarian. What if that father understands re des na nupie, apparently of two persons, father, and son? Tertullian tells us, that the word father, includes the son; aye, and mother too, if the church stands in need of it. Item in patre filius invocatur. Ego enim, inquit, et pater unum sumus. Ne mater quidem ecclesia præteritur. Siquidem in filio et patre mater recognoscitur, de qua constat et patris et filii nomen. Tertull. de Orat. cap. ii. p. 150. edit. Rigaltii, 1641. And thus when Chrysostom talks of father and son, he may only mean one and the same person all the while. A staunch trinitarian is like Tom Jenkins in the under-plot of Mr. Puff's tragedy in the farce of the Critic. He can find father, mother, brothers, sisters, uncles, and aunts, all lying perdue, where nobody else would ever dream of meeting with one of them. I will not, however, close this note, without doing Tertullian the justice to say, that it is evident that he did not write this stuff, though we now read it in his works.

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