have been afterwards taken into the text. If the text has been in this way corrupted, the corruption must have been very early, since the repetition in v. 30. though with some variety, is found in all the ancient MSS. versions, and commentaries extant. In a case of this kind, I do not think a translator authorised to ex. punge a passage, though he may fairly mention the doubts enter. tained concerning it. In a late publication of Mr. Wakefield's, (Silva Critica) this passage is explained in such a manner (Sect. 83) as makes the words now in this world, a hundred-fold, houses, and brothers, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions, to signify just nothing at all. I own, I am not fond of a comment that destroys the text, or, which amounts to the same thing, exhibits it as words without meaning. Besides, the promise here is so formally divided into two parts, one regarding the present life, the other the future, that it may be fairly questioned whether such a total annihilation of one essential part, does not bring the significance of the other, at least, under suspicion. See Mt. xxvi. 29. 2 N. 2 As to the other question about the qualifying words, Mera Siayar, I observe that the Cam. and one other MS. read diwyμs, agreeable to which is the Sy. version: but this makes no alteration in the sense. I observe also, that there are three MSS. none of them of any name, which read μera diwy, after persecution. Wet. who commonly pays no regard to conjectural emendations, has, nevertheless, adopted this. A promise, according to the letter, regarding things merely temporal, to be accompanied with persecutions, that learned and ingenious critic considered as illu sory. The more a man has, in that situation, his distress is the greater. He subjoins: "Omnia vero plana erunt, si, quæ "etiam ingeniosa D. Heinsii conjectura fuit, sequamur codices "qui habent μra diayμor. Atque ita promittuntur halcyonia "et pacata tempora duris successura." 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 66 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, v. 29. Ouders E519 os anus-There is none who shall have forsaken— 30. tav un rabn—who shall not receive. The Evangelists, Mt. and L. are equally explicit on this head. Пas is a¶nxev-Whosoever shall have forsaken― anfera:—shall receive are the words of Mt. And in L. it is, Ουδείς εσινός anxev―There is none who shall have forsaken― is 8 un añoAan who shall not 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 it 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 splendour.' If under. stood, 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 μera diwyμov, after persecution, the true reading, I should heartily agree with those who consider this as a strong evidence of the millennium; 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 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 emperor, 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 beati tudes, which ascribe happiness to the poor, the meek, the mournful, the hungry, the persecuted, were not calculated for a parti cular 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, 8x 1519 emov dovas. Vul. Non est meum dare vobis. In the addition of vobis, this interpreter is almost sin. gular, having no warrant from MSS. and being followed only by the Sax. version. It is, besides, but ill adapted to the words in connection. The same peculiarity in the two versions occurs also in Mt. xx. 23. 42. Those who are accounted the princes, & doxBUTES APXEIV. E. T. 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 agxoves, the princes; but I think there is, here, an energy in the word doxouvres, 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, de noting 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 propriety, 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 r&r 15, as in Abba, father, which occurs oftener than once, are understood. 48. Charged him to be silent, ETTETIμav auta iva oɩwanon. See notes on Mt. xx. 31. and ch. ix. 25. CHAPTER XI. 1. As far as Bethphage and Bethany, es ВnbQayn » Bndaviæv. Brayn are not in the Cam.; nor are there any words corresponding to them in the Vul. and the Sax. versions. 10. Immediately after Bara, in the common Gr. copies, we read the words, ev ovoμatı Kupiɣ, 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 Baria and its regimen, 78 kaTp nuw, gives them much the appearance of an interpolation. Besides, the phrase, ερχομενο εν ονόματι Κυρίου, in the preceding verse, accounts very naturally for the inadvertency of giving Exoμn here the same following. There is, therefore,some rea son for rejecting these words, but none, that I know, for rejecting the whole clause. 2 In the highest heaven. L. ii. 14. N. 13. For the fig-harvest was not yet, E. T. For the time of figs was not yet. & yag ny naιp ovxwv. Waving the different hypotheses that have been adopted for explaining this expression, Dr. Pearce has, from several passages in sacred writ, particularly Mt. xxi. 34. 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, και ελθών επ' αυτήν, ουδεν ευρεν ει μη βυλλα, be read as a pa renthesis, 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 want of fruit, but the barrenness of the tree. If the words had been, ουδεν ευρεν ει μη ολυνθούς, 8 γαρ ην καιρος συκων, 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 ch. xvi. 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 xatpos cuxav the fig-harvest, (though this application of the word harvest is rather unusual) than by a phrase so indefinite as the time of figs. 15. The temple. Mt. xxi. 12. N. 17. My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations, ότι ο οίκος μου οίκος προσευχης κληθήσεται πασι τοις εθνεσιν. Ε. 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 |