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not to intimate, that the Lord Christ has at present no personal concern in the regulation of his spiritual kingdom.' It has no atoning altar; how then can sinners approach? The Macedonian army, according to Livy, never returned from a campaign without cutting a dog transverse-wise, and marching between the parts of the victim. Jer. xxxiv. 18. You might at least have left us the Macedonian dog: it would have shewn the death which sin deserves. The two main pillars are wanting: we should fear that the whole fabric would fall and crush us like the architrave of Gaza. No; we can not follow your new version, from a conviction that it will lead us back to the darkness which once covered the whole Gentile world. Many of you from high Supralapsarian opinions have aberrated to Arianism *, to Deism, I would say, to the opinions and habits of the world; and all this by leaving the first principles of your fathers-regeneration and holiness. The Christian scale is to ascend that God in the C ages to come may shew us the riches of his grace in his kindness to us through Christ Jesus;' but where your descending scale will end we leave with the Sovereign Judge to decide.

REMARKS ON THE UNITARIAN VERSION.

"To the texts and notes of your improved version, we might take a thousand exceptions; but

* There are three ministers in the Oratoire; [the Protestant Church at Paris] the opinions and sermons of two of them are much in unison with those of the rational Christians, or Unitarians of our own country. "In Geneva," the pastors of its churches are almost to a man, Arians, or Socinians. Dr. Tho. Raffle's Tour, Let. xv. xix. Voltaire has made a similar remark.

shall confine our remarks to a few of the more prominent readings connected with our design.

"Matthew iv. 1. Your note says, 'our Lord was entrusted with the power of working miracles at pleasure.' Your Dr. Richard Price is of a contrary opinion. In his sermon, John xi. he says, that Jesus could not raise Lazarus from the dead, till he had first asked the power.' The witnesses, reason and scripture are both against you here. Our Saviour never did ask the power to work a miracle; his prayer at the tomb of Lazarus was, that the Jews' might believe that the Father had sent him.' Many of his miracles were creations, as the restoration of sight to one born blind. Now a creature cannot create; and if it were possible, such a new made creature must be arranged. And how could a new creature be arranged in the old creation, which was already perfect?-one discordant link would spoil the whole chain.

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Cap. iv. 1.

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'Then was Jesus led up of the spirit into the desert.' The note, as also on Mark i. adds, This form of expression denotes, that the historian is about to describe a visionary scene, and not a real one.' The devil you say, in half a dozen places, is only evil personified.' It would only be one step farther to add, that as there is no devil, no temptation, our compliances with temptations are, in like manner, but visionary. Socinus, long before you, is partial to the phrase, Tota redemptoris nostræ per Christum metaphora. The whole metaphor of our redemption.' This faith will lead us, I apprehend, to a sort of uniformity, that as spiritual things are all visionary,

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the realities are, a material world, a material soul, a material God.

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Cap. xvii. 1, 6. Your critics add,' that Jesus was greater than Moses and Elias;' as also on 2 Epis. Peter i. The glory of God was present on the Mount at the transfiguration.' There is a condescending majesty in the words of Christ when he says, A greater than Solomon,-a greater than Jonah is here.' But your coldhearted gloss, that he was greater than Moses is ambiguous, for this lawgiver, on Mount Sinai, was once greater than what we shall presently see, you apparently allow the Saviour to be. You set aside the evangelist's words, who says, We beheld his Glory;' and totally lose sight of the Saviour's own words, The Son of Man shall come in his glory.'

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Cap. xxvi. 24. It had been good for that man, if he [the Son of Man] had not been born.' Your version and critics are remarkable for remote antecedents. Error has need of far-fetched references. See on 1 John v. 20, 21. "Cap, xxvii. 50. Then, Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, expired.'-Note, • Breathed his last.' Breathed his last!!! Ho! Ho! Breathed his last.' I perceive the death of Christ is the pun of infidelity. Pope uses the like expression, but his moral is good:

"When husbands or when lap-dogs breathed their last.” "Do you think then, sirs, that expired is a proper translation of a❤nné To Tvεvμa ?* Is there one text To uμa is rendered by the masculine ExEVOS, Gen. iii. 15; Matt. xxviii. 19; Gal, iii, 16: Eph. i. 14, &c.

in all the Bible in which the human soul of Christ can be translated wind or breath; Can the wind rejoice in spirit? Can the wind be sorrowful even unto death? On the contrary, can any thing equal the sublimity of the Saviour's death? Hear his words to the women-Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.' Hear his sacrificial prayer when provoked by the utmost wickedness, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.' Mark his pastoral care of the thief, To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise.' Note his filial attention. ' Woman, behold thy Son.' Be supported by thy consciousness of his Divinity; and to the beloved disciple he added, • Behold thy Mother.' See the consummation,

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'It is finished.' Rising on the climax, behold the sublime of confidence, hands I commend my spirit.' reading,He breathed his last or expired,' has need of the prayer, Father forgive:' We dare not add, They know not what they do.'

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"Mark i. 1. The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.' Note-' or a Son of God; or rather the remainder of the verse is an interpolation.' On what authority do you suspect an interpolation? Has not the text a laconic character in perfect unison with all the New Testament confessions of faith? Does it not indicate that the evangelist, fully believing the two first chapters of Matthew, deemed it unnecessary to repeat the same? Would not a sup

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pression of the grand close, The Son of God,' render the beginning unlike the whole of the Christian scriptures? Why attempt to say, A Son of God, because of the ellipsis of the article, while a thousand texts of the seventy in the Old Testament have the same omission;

Exodus xvi.
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1. και έλαλησε κύριος προς Μωυσην. here and everywhere have the consistency to read, And, A Lord or, A JEHOVAH spake to Moses ?' As all the primitive Christians of the east make a general use of the version of the seventy, what wonder about the omission of the article which their own Bible omits so constantly. Mark makes no scruple of using the article, iii. 11. Or συ ει ο υιος του θεου. 'Because thou art the Son of God.' See the article Matt. iii. 17; xvi. 16;

John i. 49.

"Mark i. 3. 'Prepare ye the way of the Lord.' More than twenty times you notice Griesbach, as having omitted such and such a word, or a reading. Our regret is, that he had not omitted the whole of the New Testament. He notices the preceding verse of the Codex Argenteus or Gothic version of the four Gospels by Bishop Ulphila, written about the year 350; but he fails to cast his eye on a remarkable variation in that version on the adjoining text. RAIHTOS WAURKEITH STAIGOS GOTHS UNSARIS: that is, word for word, • Right work the stages of our God.' This reading is in unison with Isaiah xl. 9, 10. cities of Judah, behold your God. Lord God will come with a strong hand. He shall feed his flock like a shepherd, &c.' Who

Say to the Behold the

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