sura." Thus, Druthmar, a Benedictine monk of the ninth century, who wrote a commentary on Mt. considers the riches and power of the Pope as a clear fulfilment of the promise with regard to Peter, who put the question, and the large endowments of the monasteries as a fulfilment to the rest: "Nunc quoque magnum regnum habet Petrus de villis et servis per omnem mundum, et ipse et omnes sancti, propter amorem Dei." I own that, to me, all things do not appear so plain, even after the alteration proposed by Wet. If this promise, of temporal prosperity, be understood as made to individuals, how is it fulfilled to the martyrs, and to all those who continue to be persecuted to the end of their lives? But if it be understood, as those interpreters seem to fancy, of the church in general, which, after a state of persecution for near three centuries, was put by Constantine in a state of security and prosperity, the following questions will naturally occur: Do not the words here used manifestly imply, that the promise was intended for every disciple who should come within the description? Thus ver. 29: Oudeis ioriv ös άonxev-"There is none who shall have forsaken"— 30, làv μn láßŋ—“ who shall not receive." The evangelists Mt. and L. are equally explicit on this head. Πᾶς ὃς ἀφῆκεν Whosoever shall have forsaken"- Anyera-" shall receive"-are the words of Mt. And in L. it is, Oudeis ¿otiv ös á¶ñnev—"There is none who shall have forsaken" os ou un anolaß-" who shall not ἀπολάβῃ— receive." It is impossible for words to make it clearer. Now, could the promise be said to affect the actual sufferers, as the words certainly imply, if all that is meant was, 'If ye my hearers, have given up, or shall give up, every thing for my sake, houses, lands, friends-those who shall be in your places, three hundred years hence, who have suffered nothing, being themselves perhaps good for nothing, and have lost nothing, shall be richly rewarded for what ye have done, and shall live in great opulence and splendor? If understood, therefore, of an enjoyment which every persecuted individual would obtain here, after all his sufferings were over, it is not true; for many died in the cause: and, if understood of the church in general, it is not to the purpose; nor can it, by any interpretation, be made to suit the terms employed. For my part, if I were, with Heinsius and Wet. to account uera diwyμov, after persecution,' the true reading, I should heartily agree with those who consider this as a strong evidence of the millenium; for in no other way that I know, can it be consistently interpreted. I have other objections against that interpretation which makes it relate to the change that the church was to undergo, after being established by the imperial laws. If our Lord's kingdom had been, what it was not, a worldly kingdom; if greatness in it had resulted, as in such kingdoms, from wealth and dominion, there would have been reason to consider the reign of Constantine as the halcyon days of the VOL. II. 29 church, and a blessed time to all its members. But if the reverse was the fact; if our Lord's kingdom was purely spiritual; if the greatness of any member resulted from his humility and usefulness; and if superior authority arose purely from superior knowledge and charity; if the riches of the Christian consisted in faith and good works-I am afraid the changes introduced by the etnperor, were more the corrupters than the establishers of the kingdom of Christ. The name indeed was extended, the profession supported, and those who assumed the name, when it became fashionable and a means of preferment, multiplied; but the spirit, the life, and the power of religion, visibly declined every day. Let us not, then, shamefully confound the unrighteous Mammon with the hidden treasures of Christ. Those divine aphorisms called the beatitudes, which ascribe happiness to the poor, the meek, the mournful, the hungry, the persecuted, were not calculated for a particular season, but are evidently intended to serve as fundamental maxims of the christian commonwealth to the end of the world. Though there be, therefore, some difficulty in reconciling the words, with persecutions, with what is apparently a promise of secular enjoyments, it is still preferable to the other reading; both because the correction is a mere guess, and because it is less reconcilable than this to the state of the church militant, in any period we are yet acquainted with. For it will ever hold, that all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall, in some shape or other, suffer persecution. And to reject on mere conjecture, because of a difficulty, real or apparent, all that Mr. has additional to what is recorded by Mt. and L. would be contrary to all the rules of sound criticism, and might give rise to a freedom which would be subversive of the authority of Scripture altogether. 40. “ I cannot give,” οὐκ ἔστιν ἐμὸν δοῦναι. Vul. "Non est meum dare vobis." In the addition of vobis, this interpreter is almost singular, having no warrant from MSS. and being followed only by the Sax. version. It is, besides, but ill adapted to the words in connexion. The same peculiarity in the two versions occurs also in Mt. 20: 23. 42. "Those who are accounted the princes," of doxouvres ãoχειν. Ε. Τ. σε They which are accounted to rule. The Gr. expression, suitably to a common idiom both in sacred and in classical authors, may be rendered simply as though it were of ozovres 'the princes;' but I think there is here an energy in the word doROUTES, as denoting those whom the people acknowledge and respect as princes. It also suits the sense better to use the name princes here than the verb to rule, which is not so well adapted to the preceding participle, accounted. The word princes denoting strictly and originally no more than chief men, it may not improperly be regarded as merely a matter of public opinion, who they are that come under this denomination. But we cannot with proprie ty express ourselves in the same doubtful way of those who actually govern, especially when they govern, as represented here, in a severe and arbitrary manner. 46. "Son of Timeus." This may be no more than an interpretation of the name, for so Bartimeus signifies; in which case the words tout lori, as in Abba father, which occurs oftener than once, are understood. 48. " Charged him to be silent,” ἐπετιμῶς αὐτῷ ἵνα σιωπήσῃ. See Notes on Mt. 20: 31, and ch. 9: 25. CHAPTER XI. 1. "As far as Bethphage and Bethany," is Bn qayn xai Bedaviav. Вn qayn xai are not in the Cam.; nor are there any words corresponding to them in the Vul. and the Sax. versions. 10. Immediately after Baohsia, in the common Gr. copies, we read the words ἐν ὀνόματι Κυριον, ' in the name of the Lord; but they are wanting in several MSS. some of them of principal note, and in the Vul. Sy. Cop. Arm. Ara. and Sax. versions. Origen did not read them. And they are rejected by Gro. Mill, and Ben. Their situation between βασιλεία and its regimen, τοῦ πατρὸς ἡμῶν, gives them much the appearance of an interpolation. Besides, the phrase ερχόμενος ἐν ὀνόματι Κυριον, in the preceding verse, accounts very naturally for the inadvertency of giving ¿oxóuɛvn here the same following. There is, therefore, some reason for rejecting these words, but none, that I know, for rejecting the whole clause. "In the highest heaven." L. 2: 14. N. κων. 13. "For the fig-harvest was not yet,” où yao nv naigos oùE. T. "For the time of figs was not yet." Waving the different hypotheses that have been adoped for explaining this expression, Dr. Pearce has, from several passages in sacred writ, particularly Mt. 21: 24, justly observed, that by the time of any kind of fruit or grain, is meant the time of reaping it. This, indeed, coincides with the interpretation which a reader would naturally give it. What can the time of any fruit be, but the time of its full maturity? And what is the season of gathering, but the time of maturity? But figs may be eaten for allaying hunger, before they be fully ripe; and the declaration, that the season of figs was not yet come, cannot be (as the order of the words, in the original, would lead one at first to imagine) the reason why there was nothing but leaves on the tree; for the fig is of that tribe of vegetables, wherein the fruit appears before the leaf. But if the words, xa θὼν ἐπ ̓ αὐτὴν, οὐδὲν εὗρεν εἰ μὴ φύλλα, be read as a parenthesis, the aforesaid declaration will be the reason of what immediately preceded, namely, our Lord's looking for fruit on the tree. The leaves showed that the figs should not only be formed, but well advanced; and the season of reaping being not yet come, removed all suspicion that they had been gathered. When both circumstances are considered, nothing can account for its fruit, but the barrenness of the tree. If the words had been, ovdiv eûgev ei μỶ ỏλυνθοὺς, οὐ γὰρ ἦν καιρὸς σύκων, 6 he found nothing but green figs, for it was not the time of ripe fruit,' we should have justly concluded that the latter clause was meant as the reason of what is affirmed in the former; but, as they stand, they do not admit this interpretation. A transposition, entirely similar, we have in chap. 16: 3, 4. The idiom of modern tongues requiring a more rigid adherence to the customary arrangement, I have thought it reasonable to transpose the clauses. And, for removing all ambiguity, I have, after bishop Pearce, [see his Answer to Woolston on the Miracles], rendered xatoos ouzov the fig-harvest,' (though this application of the word harvest is unusual), rather than by a phrase so indefinite as the time of figs. 15. "The temple." Mt. 21: 12. N. 17. "My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations,” ὅτι ὁ οἶκός μου οἶκος προσευχῆς κληθήσεται πᾶσι τοῖς ἔθνεσιν. E. T. "My house shall be called, of all nations, the house of prayer." Our translators have followed Be. who renders the passage as if the last words had been ὑπὸ πάντων τῶν ἔθνων, "Domum meam domum precationis vocatum iri ab omnibus gentibus ;" and is, I think, the only La. translator who, by inserting the preposition ab, has perverted the sense. He has been copied, as usual, by the G. F. "Ma maison sera appellée maison d'oraison par toutes nations." This is an error of the same sort with that which was observed on Mt. 5: 21. See the Note on that verse. The court of the Gentiles, a part of zo ispov, the temple, as it is expressed in this passage, was particularly destined for the devout of all nations who acknowleged the true God, though they had not subjected themselves to the Mosaic law, and were accounted aliens. The proselytes who had received circumcision, and were by consequence subject to the law, were on the same footing with native Jews, and had access to the court of the people. Justly, therefore, was the temple styled "a house of prayer for all nations." The error in the common version is here the more extraordinary, as in their translation of Isaiah, they render the passage quoted " for all people." 2 There is another error in the common version, in this passage, which, for aught I know, is peculiar to it. Οἶκος is rendered the house, not a house, as it ought to be. This difference, though on a superficial view it may appear inconsiderable, is in truth of the greatest moment. The house of prayer was the utmost that a Jew could have said of the temple of Jerusalem. To represent all the Gentiles, most of whom knew nothing about it, and the rest, at the furthest, put it on no better footing than the idol-temples of the surrounding nations, as using a style which implied that it was, by way of eminence, the place of all the earth appropriated to divine worship, is both misrepresenting the fact, and misrepresenting the sacred writers, who are far from advancing any thing that can be justly so interpreted. 18. "For they dreaded him," ¿qoßovoro yao avrov. I see no reason, with Pearce, to reject the avrov on so slight authority as six or seven MSS. Their fear of the people, mentioned in other passages, so far from being inconsistent, naturally led them to dread one who had so great an ascendency over the minds of the people, who expose the hypocrisy of the spiritual guides of the age, and was so much an enemy to their traditions and casuistry. 21. "Which thou hast devoted," v xarnoάow. E. T. "Which thou cursedst." In Eng. the word cursed is not now so commonly, nor, I think so properly, applied to inanimate things. Besides, that acceptation of the verb to curse, to which our ears are most familiarized, associates, in our minds, the idea of something at once so atrocious and so vulgar, as makes one dislike exceedingly the application of it to a solemn act of our Lord, intended to convey instruction, in the most striking manner, on two important articles, the power of faith, and the danger of unfruitfulness under the means of improvement. Devoted, though sometimes used in a different sense, is here so fixed in meaning by the words connected, that it is impossible to mistake it; and is surely a more decent term than cursed. 22. "Have faith in God," exete níoriv Oɛou. That is, say some, 'Have a strong faith.' The words rendered literally are, Have a faith of God.' It is a known Hebraism, to subjoin the words of God to a substantive, to denote great, mighty, excellent; and to an adjective, as the sign of the superlative. In support of this interpretation, bishop Pearce has produced a number of passages, universally explained in this manner. The context here will suit either explanation. Though this is a point on which no one ought to be decisive, I cannot help, upon the whole, preferring the common version. My reasons are these: 1st, I find that the substantives construed with ɛou, when it signifies great or mighty, (for it is only with these we are here concerned), are names either of real substances, or of outward and visible effects. Of the first kind are, prince, mountain, wind, cedar, city; of the second are, wrestling, trembling, sleep; but nowhere, as far as I can discover, do we find any abstract quality, such as faith, hope, love, justice, truth, mercy, used in this manner. When any of these words are thus construed with God, he is confessedly either the subject, or the object, of the affection mentioned. 2dly, The word niors, both in the Acts and in the Epistles, is often construed with the genitive of the object, |