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mitted, is the Day of Expiation, the Great Fast on the 10th of the month Tisri. See Lewis's Heb. Antiq. vol. II. p. 569. The 10th of Tisri is, according to Michaelis, about the 10th of our October; and consequently, if the great Fast was now past, the season of the year could not well be favourable to navigation. The objection of Markland (ap. Bowyer) that a Heathen would take no notice of a Jewish Fast, is wholly inexplicable: it is not said or insinuated that the Alexandrian Mariners did take any notice of the novela: the remark is made by St. Luke, to whom, as a Jew, or at least a person much acquainted with Jewish habits, the mention of the Fast was a natural and obvious mode of marking the time of the year and to say that "Tv vnoтelav must be νηστείαν something, which increased the danger of sailing, "to which the Fast of the Jews has no more relation "than Circumcision has," would certainly, had it proceeded from any man less eminent than Markland, be thought ridiculous. The Poets represent the stormy season as beginning soon after the rising of Hadi or the setting of Arcturus: yet it never was seriously supposed, that the rising or setting of a star produced a storm.-In short, few texts of the N. T. appear to be less difficult than the present: and yet he, who should read Markland's Note without attending to the passage, would suppose it to be corrupted beyond the possibility of restitution. The same Fast, as Loesner has shewn, is adverted to by Philo de Vitá Mosis, whence we may collect, that it was commonly called The Fast kar écoxv: his words are

Tηv deyouévnv vnoτelav. Besides, as Michaelis observes, it was the only Fast in the whole year, of divine appointment.

V. 16. Tя σKάons. On this passage a Criticism of mine appeared, many years ago, in one of the periodical publications of the day: it is to the following effect.

The learned Michaelis has established it as a rule, that critical conjectures are not to be admitted into the sacred text; and yet he confesses that some emendations have forced themselves upon him, which, in a profane author, he should not hesitate to adopt. One of these proposed readings (vid. Marsh's Michaelis, vol. II. p. 406) respects Acts, Chap. xxvii. ver. 16. Νησιόν δέ τι ὑποδραμόντες καλούμενον Κλαύδην, μόλις ἰσχύσαμεν περικρατεῖς γενέσθαι τῆς σκάφης, where the Critic would reject the Article from της σκάφης, because it implies that they had before let down the boat into the sea, and had afterwards great difficulty in recovering it. "This," says he, "is improbable; "because, 1st. No reason can be assigned, why they "should have let it down into the sea in a storm.

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2dly. If they had let it down, they would have "been able to draw it up again; unless we suppose, "what is contrary to reason, they had let it entirely "loose. 3rdly. Supposing the boat to have been loose, "it does not appear that the circumstance of the ship's being near an island, has any connexion "with the recovery of this boat. I would therefore "omit the definite Article, and explain the pas

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sage thus: Being near an island, we sought for

help, but could not procure a boat to our assist66 ance." Thus far Michaelis.

Now, in the first place, to say nothing farther of this construction, it is impossible to adopt it, because μόλις ἰσχύσαμεν, κ. τ. λ. must signify, we found a difficulty in gaining the boat, and not that we could not procure a boat at all: so uóλis is twice used in this very Chapter, ver. 7, 8. But, secondly, a very easy and obvious supposition will remove all the objections urged by the Professor against the acknowledged reading of the MSS. St. Luke is describing the storm, in which St. Paul at last suffered shipwreck; and it is well known that the boat, with every thing on deck, is frequently washed overboard by the violence of the waves. This seems to have happened in the voyage of St. Paul; and as the sea was running high, mós properly expresses the difficulty of regaining the boat. To the objections, therefore, of Michaelis, I would answer, with respect to the first and the second, that the boat was not purposely let down into the sea, and that nothing of that kind is implied; but that it had broken loose and to the third, that the circumstance of the ship's being near an island, was not intended to have any other connexion with the recovery of the boat, than, in the following sentence, the vicinity of a promontory has with the loss of a mast: "Being a league "S. W. of the Lizard, our foremast went by the "board:" the mention of place, no less than of time, is essential to the accuracy of a journal.

V. 20. μήτε ἡλίου μήτε, κ. τ. λ. Part I. Ch. vi. § 2.

V. 38. τροφής. A few MSS. τῆς τροφῆς. There may be reference to former mention: but see on xix. 29.

CHAP. XXVIII.

V. 4. Aikn. No MS. wants the Article. See Part I. Chap. v. Sect. i. § 2.

ROMANS.

V. 4. υἱοῦ Θεοῦ.

CHAP. I.

Mr. Wakefield, as usual, avails himself of the absence of the Article, not considering that by the usage the Article could not be here inserted. Part I. Chap. III. Sect. iii. § 2. Neither does the context very well accord with his Translation; for if the meaning be merely that Christ was shewn to be a Son of God (a term explained by St. Paul in this Epist. Chap. viii. 14.) surely Christ's miraculous resurrection from the dead" was a much stronger instance of divine interposition than the occasion required.

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We are told (ap. Bowyer) that opiolévтos is supposed by some to be a gloss from the margin: I see no pretence for this suspicion; which must be unfounded, since Toù vioù eoù would offend against Regimen.

V. 17. δικαιοσύνη γὰρ Θεοῦ. It may be right in this place to apprise the Reader, that the style of St. Paul in respect to the Article, as well as otherwise, somewhat differs from that of the Evangelists. It was to be expected from the general vehemence and quickness of his manner, that he would in the

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