classical Greek, but which probably formed | lent translator of it, Mr. Masson, and not less part of the popular language of the day. All Dean Alford, Dr. Wordsworth, and Bishop these peculiarities throw at first a haze over Ellicott, have raised their protest against the style; but the indistinctness is caused, the unbridled licence, with which the dicnot by the vagueness of the writer, but by tion of the New Testament,' up to 1822, the ignorance of the reader. 'was handled in commentaries and exegetical Lastly, unusual forms of inflection, whether dissertations.' 'Had scholars deliberately inarchaic or later (such as the Alexandrian), quired* whether or not those grammatical do not affect precision of expression. Hou- anomalies, which were supposed to pervade sen, in old English, is as definitely the plural the entire texture of Holy Writ, were comof 'house' as houses.' Spenser's or Chau- patible with the essential principles of any cer's spelling or use of Saxon forms does not human language, intended for the ordinary militate against their own clearness of thought purposes of life, expositors would not have er language-yvaxav equivalent to syvúxadi, been so ready to view the sacred writers as κατελίπισαν το κατέλιπον, εἴδαμεν το εἴδομεν, utterly regardless both of logic and of gramἔφυγαν το ἔφυγον, ἀφέωνται a regular Preterper- mar, and would not have delighted to point fect Passive from an old form, do not affect out in every verse of Scripture an alleged the sense; and they are in perfect accordance substitution of the wrong form for the right. with the real grammar of the language,... According to the commentators still though not with our Eton Grammars, which held in repute, some of whom flourished in ought to have told us that there were two the eighteenth and some in the nineteenth forms of the first aorist, in ov as well as in a, century, the main characteristic of the New and two forms of the second aorist, in a as Testament idiom is a total disregard to gramwell as in ov; and that v by itself was often matical propriety and precision. These authe symbol of the plural number as well as thorities profess to specify anomalies and soa. The apparent nonconformity with law lecisms everywhere-here a wrong tense, caused by the reader's ignorance of the there a wrong case-here a comparative for variety of laws, not by the writer's neglect of a positive, i for 15, but for then, and so on.' them. Even the difficult forms of (1 Corinth. iv. 7) iva un quantode (Gal. iv. 7), iva aurous, e-possibly (1 Corinth. x. 22) παραξηλοῦμεν τὸν Κύριον probably ἵνα tupovou (Timothy ii. 4), we suspect also (Coloss, iv. 17) iva auriv Anpois, perhaps iva Asides (1 Thess. iv. 13), supposing them to be all subjunctives, are strictly conformable to analogy. The subjunctive and optative were both formed by lengthening the Towel of the indicative; where that lengthening had already taken place, as in each of the preceding instances, by contraction, the Greeks remained content with it, (just as ures stands both for the indicative and subjunctive,) and employed the one inflection for the double purpose. The law is common. Thus the inflection ov of the neuter was made to give the double signification of the neuter gender and accusative case. And the same which marked past time in the imperfect and second aorist was retained for the third person plural also. The principle may be traced also in the use of letters. A letter of the root when the same letter was wanted to mark the inflection, instead of being repeated, was used for both purposes.

Of peculiarities of spelling, which constitute a vast proportion in the variety of readngs, it is unnecessary to speak.

And now we approach the main question of Seriptural Philology. We do it with an entire sympathy and gratitude to those who, like Winer, in his Grammar, and the excel-]

But let us, in the words, of one of the greatest of Greek scholars (Hermann ad Viger,' p. 786), implore students to beware of supposing that writers inspired by the Holy Spirit despised the ordinary rules of human language; and let them rather remember that such a thought, assumed as it is assumed by some theologians as a law of interpretation, is nothing short of blasphemy.'

It is absurdity as regards scholarship. It is dishonesty if employed as a cover for extracting from the pages of Scripture any doctrine we may choose. It is most perilousor rather most destructive-to positive truth, as giving a licence to every form of error. And it is destructive to the Scripture itself. How much of our present infidelity may be traced to this blotting, and blurring, and fogcreating spirit of mischief let loose upon the grammar of the Scriptures!

The assertion, then (we thank God), of a new and better school both of German and of English criticism is, that the Greek language in the hands of the inspired writers retains (with the exception of the artificial structure of its periods, which would have unfitted it for translation and for general Christian use) all its exquisite precision, its nice discriminations, its profound analogies, its wonderful philosophical correctness-that not a tense is to be changed, not an article omitted, not a

*See Winer's Preface.

case confounded, not a preposition overlook- | 5, when the Deity is spoken of as Heathens ed, not a particle despised-that the more would speak, or a Jew who fused to recog we apply to it the microscope of scholarship, 'nise the Three Persons in one God' of the the more overpowered we shall be with the Gospel. On the other hand, the article seems 'conviction of its accuracy, and the more used-1, when the Deity is spoken of in the clearly will come forth upon its surface the Christian point of view as the One True God, truths, which we know to be truths from dis- opposed to the gods of Heathenism; 2, when tinct and historical authority. the First Person of the Blessed Trinity is specially designated. But again may we not venture to say that the article is omitted when epithets are employed, such as warp, which sufficiently express the last distinction without the article?

though neglected in our Authorised Version. | presented their petition to sit one at the right Bishop Middleton has done much to impress and the other at the left of their Lord, in this law upon us. But much still remains to His kingdom? Our prayer must be cast be added and corrected in his work. Some- into the one mould of the Lord's Prayer. times the article gives a graphic life to the After this manner pray ye. So the first narrative. Sometimes it realises the fami- thing we hear of the disciples after the liarity of the writer with the scenes which he Ascension is, that they, with an effort, and is describing. Sometimes it reminds us that struggle, and laborious perseverance, as Chrythe readers of the Gospels were already fami- sostom remarks, were forcing all their liar with its facts, as St. Luke informs us they thoughts and feelings into the model of the were. And few things can be more import- prayer (Acts i. 14)porxaрTεpоuvres ant to explain the true nature of the Gospels -that they were narrative-written forms of the catechetical instruction given as preparatory to baptism, and given in the shape of question and answer. Sometimes it brings out minute undesigned coincidences. He went up into the mountain.' Was it some one specific mountain to which our Lord was in the habit of retiring, and with which the readers of the Gospel were familiar? He entered into the boat'-the one which in another Gospel is mentioned as devoted to His use. And the one mountain and the one boat to those familiar with the profounder symbolism of Holy Writ will not be overlooked, any more than the one house, where also the article occurs. When ye see the cloud rising from the west-the cloud no bigger than a man's hand-known in that climate as the precursor of storin and rain. Tov xavova, the burning wind,' so well known in that climate. Tò 'Auv, the Amen,' familiar to the reader as used in the service of the Church even in the days of the Apostles. The pinnacle of the Temple was it not that striking angle of the building which rose up from the valley beneath in a sheer wall and frightful precipice; and from this the Tempter urged our Lord to throw himself

poreux. And lest we should confound it with general prayer, it is added xaì rỹ dɛýσɛı, the expression of occasional and particular wants. And again (Acts iii. 1) Peter and John go up for the hour of the prayer-the ninth hour.' Was it then a practice with the Apostolic Church to join in practising the Lord's Prayer at certain periods of the day, of which practice there are other traces in the New Testament? We only suggest the question. And again (Acts vi. 4),We will give ourselves to the prayer.' The phrase occurs again significantly, Rom. xii. 12, 1 Cor. vii. 5, Philip. iv. 6, Coloss. iv. 2..

down?

We pass over the ὁ λόγος, ἡ διδασκαλία, ἡ διδαχή, η πίστις, τό μυστήριον, ἡ ευσεβεία, τὸ εὐαγγέλιον, τὸ κήρυγμα, ἡ ἀληθεία, ἡ ἐντολή,

uoλoyía. Is the article, so constantly attached to these words, compatible with the dream, that in the New Testament, there is no trace of one fixed, positive, definite body of doctrinal truth, committed to she keeping of the Church, to be adhered to without the slightest deviation, to the maintenance of which every Christian was pledged, and the summary of which we possess and maintain at this day in our Creeds, as confirmed by Scripture?

Ὑποτύπωσιν ἔχε ὑγιαινόντων λόγων, ὧν παρ' μo xovas (2 Tim. i. 13). Have, keep by you, an outline pattern (from which to strike The lamp doth not come that it may be off copies), to be filled up separately in detail pat under the bushel or under the bed, but(it is not iroruwua)-copies of healthy inthat it may be placed upon the lamp-stand.' formation derived from Apostolical authority.' What strange suggestions to our modern What an insight may not these words, strictly habits; but what a picture of the poor and scrupulously examined, give into the Jewish house-the one lamp; the one whole obscure, but most important, history measure for wheat or meal; the bed or divan of the formation of the Gospels and our in the same room, and the lamp-stand kept Creeds! There was, then, a body of in that room, while the lamp-lycbnus-was healthy information' (contrasted with other lighted without. The prayer, the weeping, but morbid and injudicious records of the gnashing of the teeth familiar to the mind our, Lord's Life) which the Apostles had of the Jews in their ideas of future torment. determined on as the materials for the Tporeux to which especial attention instruction of the Christian Church, and might be directed. Was it not the Lord's especially of the candidates for baptism. In Prayer? What a field of thought is opened this they were orally and catechetically inby it, all lost in the general word-prayer! structed. Dean Alford has rightly developed Whatsoever ye ask in the prayer, believing, this. This λoyos or Xoyo was not all stereoye shall receive. Does not this give the typed in one exact form; nor, we imagine, needed limitation to the promise-a limita- was it in the form of a narrative, but like our tion apparently not understood by the two own catechisms; large portions indeed being sons of Zebedee and their mother, when they necessarily written, and committed to memory;

One instance occurs to us, in which attention to the article, in the so called Granville Sharpe's rule,' is the key to a whole chapter (Acts xiii. 16) otherwise most perplexing. An instance (we are not writing for professed scholars) will best illustrate the rule, which must not, however, be stated too strictly. A man dies in possession of six black horses, six white horses, and six piebald. He leaves to his son the black and white, or the black and the white. By the first reading, the judge would assign to the legatee the six piebald; by the second, the six black and the six white also. The absence of the article in the second adjective implies that the two adjectives represent not two different classes, but one class containing two qualities. So St. Paul addresses the synagogue at Antioch, in Pisidia, "Avdpes 'lopanλirai, xai oi poBouμedor Tov sóv. There were, then, two distinct classes: the Israelites, and then the Gentiles who recognised the God of the Jews, and who yet had become only proselytes of the gate. To this latter class the speech which follows is specially addressed, and without remembering this, the whole narrative and reasoning will be almost unintelligible.

and the profession of belief in it being sum- | Churches, to frame from them an inoritwo, med up at baptism in the several articles of a and to strike off from it various copies--not creed, precisely as in our own Baptismal one fixed and uniform pattern of avv Service, in question and answer. And the 26ywv. Hence differently detailed Gospels, reference to this preparation for baptism differently expressed Creeds-all resting upon seems mainly to have directed the Apostles Apostolical authority, but not couched in one in their choice of the portions of our Lord's Apostolical form. life, on which they exclusively dwell, a view which would explain the partial, and, as it is too often called, the fragmentary' character, and yet the general identity of the materials, especially of the Synoptic Gospels. These facts, thus conveyed in catechetical instruction, were reduced by many into the form of regular narrative in writing--avaráğarbai diny now (Luke i. 1). To supply an authorised, written, permanent narrative for the wants of the Church was the object of the Evangelists. But it was only a narrative form of the catechetical instruction already given in the Christian schools. And as that catechetical instruction, though everywhere substantially the same, and derived from the same mass of Apostolical information, would yet be slightly varied in detail according to the circumstances of particular Churches, so the Providence of God supplied four authoritative narratives varying in the same manner--St. John's being especially adapted to the doctrinal exigencies of his own Church, and the whole four forming one perfect and complete Gospel. And in the same manner as the Creeds were the summaries of this catechetical teaching, whether supplied or fixed by the Apostles, or, more probably, drawn up by the Churches from But let us pass on to the pronoun. Winer the materials supplied by the Apostles, and will give valuable hints. Two we will venupon fixed principles laid down by the ture to add the first, because it is almost Apostles, we may expect to find those Creeds, the only instance in which the accurate disas we do find them, not sterotyped in one tinctness of the Greek language is lost in the form, but exhibiting the closest substantial New Testament; the other, because it well identity, with slight variation in detail. illustrates the importance of minute attention What, therefore, St. Paul seems to urge upon to seeming trifles in its grammar. All Greek Timothy is, that, as being charged with the scholars are familiar with the beautiful preestablishment and instruction of Churches, cision of the three demonstrative pronouns, he should keep by him a written digest or öde, ouros, Exeivos, hic, iste, ille-this man by record of that mass of 'sound information,' me,' this man by you,' this man out there. which he had received from the Apostle, and Of these, the man by me' is considered the which was to be the substance of the cate- nearest: the man by you' was farther off. chetical teaching to be established in all the But öde, in classical Greek, acquired from this infant Churches; and to consider this as a another signification. It meant that which general die, as it were, from which to strike followed, while ouros was that which went off bodies of sound information,' to be filled before: sins Tads, he said as follows;' eie up variously in detail as needed for each raura, he said what has just been stated.' Church. Does not this grammatically accu- The origin of this second meaning of the rate interpretation harmonise all the acknow- words was the known propensity of the ledged facts in the perplexing theories which Greeks to anticipate, to look forward, to rehave been raised upon this important ques-gard everything future (it is the remark of tion? And would not the insertion of the article be at variance with historical phænomena? St. Paul gave the mass of information,' but left Timothy, the bishop of his

Thucydides) as already within their grasp. The characteristic itself was lost in minds of another temper and national origin; and the use of the pronouns öds and ouros-8