To his greek authorities for your interpretation, your friend has annexed a copious catalogue of latin worthies (pp. 91, 92). Having tired himself with the former, he does not seem to expect that you should wade through all that he has referred to in the latter. But I hope his "ample page, rich with "the spoils of time," will not fail to inspire you with the profoundest reverence for his immense learning and unbounded researches, when you read the venerable names of Lucifer Calaritanus, of Idacius Clarus alias Vigilius Tapsensis, of Anastasius Apocrisiarius, of the Concilium, not Forojuliense only, but Francofordiense also, of Peter Lombard, master of the sentences, and of the angelic doctor Thomas Aquinas, and of many more, some with, and some without an alias to their names !—But to return to the text.

Were it the intention of a writer to say unequivocally what you would make Paul say in these words, and to deliver his meaning so that it could not be mistaken, he should express himself thus: της δόξης Ιησε Χρισε τε μεγάλε ήμων και θες και σωτηρος.

The common version, therefore, of this text is certainly the true one.*

* Most expositors understand this text, as speaking of our Saviour's coming to judge the world. If that be its meaning, then certainly the επιφάνεια της δόξης, the appearing of the glory of the great God, can mean no other than that glory of his father, in which we are told (Matt. xvi. 27. Mark viii. 38.), the son of man shall come.

Wetstein observes, that both the article and the epithet shew that two persons are spoken of in Titus ii. 13; and that the same thing appears also from the next verse, as it is the usage

of

Your learned editor, Mr. Burgess, has inserted in a note (p. 23) what he calls some very solid reasons,' from Dr. Whitby, for understanding this text as you do. But I must inform you that, solid as he thinks these reasons, Dr. Whitby himself did not think them so. For he inserts this text in the second part of his "Last Thoughts" among those

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passages of scripture which seem to have been "misunderstood by most modern expositors, and "sometimes also by himself." And he says of it (p. 85)," that the great God, in Tit. ii. 13. signifies "God the Father, is fully proved by Dr. Clarke, in "his comment upon that text."*

of Scripture to distinguish between the λurpalms and God who sends him, as in Acts vii. 35. 1 John iv. 14; and that it no where talks of God giving himself for us. He adds, that Hilary, Erasmus, and Grotius, understand the words great God, of the God of Jesus. And here your friend the compiler is very angry with him, for producing these three authorities in his favour, without taking the least notice of that load of interpretation against him, which the compiler himself has accumulated from fathers and schoolmen; as if such testimony were of any value, (I was going to say weight; but I fancy we have all felt the weight of it by this time,) against the sentiments of such men as Erasmus and Grotius, either of whom are worth a hundred of your Thomas Aquinases, Peter Lombards, and the rest of that" sordidum scriptorum genus, Sententiariorum, Summula"riorum, Fasciculariorum, Speculariorum, et ô Deum immor"talem, quorum vel recordatio nauseam moveat generosis ac "bene natis ingeniis."-ERASMUS's Pref. to his Notes on Jerome's Catalogue of Ecclesiast. Writers.

* Dr. Whitby, in consequence of longer study, and more careful inquiry into the meaning of scripture, changed some of his opinions materially. As Archbishop Newcome has well observed (Appendix to his Translation of the New, Testament),

Εν δικαιοσύνη τε θες ήμων και σωτηρος Ιησε Χρισ

2 Pet. i. I.

In this text the position of the pronoun uw shews your version to be a forced translation. The situation in which it here stands is not its natural place, if the writer had intended to compel the reader to understand his words in your sense. You maintain that all your texts are so strictly worded, that they cannot bear any other meaning than that which you have given them. But no author, wishing for this strictness, and knowing how to obtain it, would have placed wv after 9, if he had meaned either that it was to be understood by ellipsis after winpos, or that it was to be transposed so as to follow winpos in construction. And one or other of these modes you must adopt before you can make out your version.

If you follow the reading of those editions which repeat nuw after owinpos, your version will not do; because such repetition points out the diversity of persons much more distinctly than any repetition of the article before rwinpos would do in the way you

these "Last Thoughts," published by the Doctor's express order, and containing corrections of several passages in his "Commentary on the New Testament," should be inserted in the next edition of that work. Your editor, Mr. Burgess, refers to that "Commentary" in support of the Athanasian doctrine of the trinity but in his "Last Thoughts," the Doctor, after inquiring particularly into the subject, says: " In fine, this doctrine seems to burlesque the holy scriptures, or to give them an uncouth and "absurd sense, from the beginning of the gospel, to the end of the

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46

:

epistles" (p. 51.) And this he confirms by selecting several instances.

mention

mention in your sixth rule. This you are so well aware of, as appears plainly from what you say in page 19, that you are forced to contend for a transposition of the proper name Jesus Christ. And in this transposition we have another accommodation that convicts your version of being forced and unnatural.

If u were to be omitted after 98, and were to be found only after rainpos, the reading would be something more in your favour. But even thus it would not quite do for you, because the first and most natural way of construing would be to confine it to the noun to which it was immediately subjoin-' ed; as I have before observed in my remarks upon Tit. ii. 13, to which I refer you.

You tell us (p. 45), that Wicliff, Coverdale, Matthew, Cranmer, the translators of the bishops', of the geneva, and of the rhemish bibles, Doddridge, Wesley, Scattergood, and Purver, all translate this text as you do, which you say is altogether a noble ❝ testimony of both ancient and modern times against 'the Socinian impiety.' Now even Wicliff, by much the oldest of these translators, has no pretensions whatever to antiquity, as far as respects any thing of this sort: for he was not born till the fourteenth century, when corruption was completely established over the whole christian world. He lived in those latter times when men, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils, had universally departed from the faith. (1 Tim. iv. 1.). And as to modern times, all that your observation holds up to view is this, that those whom James I. employed to make his version, knew more about greek than you, or

any

of the above mentioned translators. What there

is noble in such a testimony, I am at a loss to discover. It is clear, however, that our present translators rejected that rendering which you have adopted, from their being persuaded that it was not the true sense of the original. For we know that they were ordered to consult the former translations, and that they did, as they have told us in their very titlepage, diligently compare and revise them; and moreover, that they were extremely well affected towards the doctrine of our Saviour's divinity, and zealous to introduce it upon all occasions where they thought there was the least authority or countenance for it in the original.

On this text the compiler has only one reference to produce, and of that all he can say is: I wish ' that it afforded us something more determinate.'

The strict and proper way of expressing the sense you would give to Peter's words, so as to have them inevitably thus understood, is this: εν δικαιοσυνη Ιησε Χρισε τε ήμων ήμων και θες και σώτηρας.

From what has been said it appears, that our common version is much better, more easy, and more natural than yours. But there is a better and more obvious still, which I take to be the true one, which is, literally, this: " in the righteousness of the "God of us, and Saviour of Jesus Christ."

Τον μονον δεσπότην θεον και κυριον ἡμων Ιησεν Χρισον.

Jude 4.

In this your last text we have 90s without the article. The first and most obvious acceptation in