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ment, of the works of Jofephus and the elder Rabbins, and of the Syriac verfion of the New Teftament. To evince the importance of fuch ftudies, he actually interprets, through the several sections of this long chapter, a variety of texts, which he confiders as unintélligible to him who is ignorant of Hebrew, Syriac, and the other dialects of the caft; but, unfortunately, his learned editor proves, with the force of demonftration, that nine-tenths of his interpretations are erroneous. Indeed the fuperiority of the annotator over the author is here fo confpicuous, that we truft no preaching baron, for the fake of courting the favour of fuch men as Boetteger, or the late Herder, will henceforth have the impudence to reprefent the learning of England as inferior to that of Germany; for had we not other proofs of the erudition of Michaelis, we fhould have been tempted, by the perufal of this chapter, to confider him as one of thofe, who, with the help of indexes, make a great difplay of literature by quoting works which they never read. He talks of Cilicifms with as much confidence as if he had read a number of books written by natives of Cilicia, who understood no other dialect than their mother-tongue; and he pronounces words and phrases to be barbarous, though grammatical, only because he never met with them in a claffical author! His general arguments, however, in behalf of oriental literature are unanswerable; and though, trufting to his own knowledge of it, he has certainly fallen into many errors, it has yet, in one or two inftances, as certainly conducted him to truth. We recommend the following interpretation of a most important word to our methodists and true churchmen.

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Regeneration-taxifysveta-admits, in the Greek, of feveral fignifications,viz. 1. The Pythagorean tranfmigration of a foul into a new body, which, in the proper fenfe of the word, is a new birth. 2. The refurrection of the dead. 3. A revolution, fuch as took place at the deluge, when a new race of men arose. 4. The restoration of a ruined ftate. The word is ufed in one of thefe fenfes, Matth. xix. 28, but not one of them is applicable to Tit. iii. 5, or the conversation of Chrift with Nicodemus in the third chapter of St. John, who has used, instead of the fubftantive, the verb yvnenvæı avuder. In both these passages the regeneration is ascribed to water, which circumftance alone might have led a commentator, acquainted with the language of the Rabbins, to the right explanation; efpecially as Chrift himself inplies, by his anfwer to Nicodemus, Ch. iii. 10, that he is fpeaking of a regeneration, that might be expected to be understood by a Rabbi. Various have been the conjectures on the meaning of this expreffion, and opinions have been formed on fo important a fubject and fo unufual an expreffion, without knowledge of the language of the Rabbins, or a due regard to the connexion. It has been imagined that Chrift intended to exprefs a total alteration of religious fentiments and moral feeling, that was to be effected by the influence of the Holy Ghoft and of baptifm. But how could Nicodemus fuppofe that this was the meaning? By what motive could Christ have been induced to have used (to use) a term not only figurative, but even taken in a new fenfe, to exprefs what he might have clearly explained in a literal and fimple manner? And with what juftice could he cenfure Nico

NO. LXXII. VOL. XVIII.

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demus for his ignorance on a subject, of which, according to this explana tion, he could never have heard. It would occafion a long and tedious inquiry to enter into a minute detail of the various explanations of this palfage, and it will be fufficient to mention that which naturally follows from a knowledge of the Rabbinical doctrines. In the language of the Rabbins, "to be born again," fignifies "to be accepted of God as a fon of Abraham, and by following the example of his faith to become worthy of that title." In this fenfe the connexion is clear, the language is fuch as might be expected towards a matter in Ifrael, and the water, to which Christ alIndes, is that ufed in the baptifm of a profelyte, to which the Rabbins alcribed a fpiritual regeneration." (Pr. 132, 155.)

If this be a juft interpretation of the paffage, and the arguments urged for it seem to be unan/werable, all modern pretenfions to fudden converfion-to inftantaneous regeneration, or what, among the methodists, is called the new birth, are as directly contrary to Scripture as to experience. Regeneration is thus proved to be, what the doctrine of our church and of the antient fathers uniformly reprefents it" admiffion into the church or family of Chrift by baptifm."

In the fifth chapter our author confiders the quotations which appear in the New Teftament from the writings of the old. Of these imany are introduced, he thinks, merely from habit, or as embellishments; and are accommodated to the writer's purpose as we accommodate our quotations from the claffics of antiquity. Others are urged in proof of doctrines; and thefe are always quoted in the words of the original author, and in the fenfe in which he employed

those words.

This diflination feems to be well founded, and the reader will find fome good rules by which he may afcertain to which of the two claffes any particular quotation belongs. But when the author contends that no prophecy in the Old Testament had a double sense, he feems to have forgotten that the Jewish and Christian difpenfations are but two parts of one great whole, of which the unity could hardly be discovered, but for their primary and Jecondary fenfe of fome prophecies. The fame thing may be faid of the typical adumbration of the Chriftian religion under the rites and ceremonies of the Mofaic law, an idea which he likewife rejects, without, as it appears to us, having duly confidered the fubject. That much nonfenfe has been written on types, and the double fenfe of prophecy, by a set of cabaliftic critics who find Jefus Chrift pourtrayed in the character of every good man mentioned in the Old Testament, must indeed be acknowledged; but that there is a logical truth in fome types, and in the fecondary fenfe of fome prophecies, has been proved by Bifhop Warburton and others, with a ftrength of evidence which nothing in the chapter before us will ever thake. Our author indeed, with a candor which does him honor, admits, that—

"Great diffidence is requifite on our part in our critical explanations of the Old Teftament, nor muft we immediately conclude, that an apoitle has

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made a falfe quotation, because he has applied a pallage in the Old Teslament in a sense, which, according to our judgment, it does not admit. Our own ignorance may be the caufe of the feeming impropriety, and having found by actual experience, and a more minute inveftigation of the fubject, that many paffages, which other critics as well as myfelf had taken for falfe quotations, were yet properly cited by the apostles, I trust that future critics will be able to folve the doubts in the few examples which remain.” (P. 210.)

In the courfe of this difquifition the author proves that the Old Teftament is very frequently, though not always, quoted from the verfion of the feventy. He informs us, that Schulz inferred, from this circumftance, that part of the Old Teftament verfion, called the Septuagint, was not made in the days of the apostles and evangelists; but he fhews, what is indeed known to every icholar, that this hypothefis has not the fhadow of a foundation. Ernefti, on the other hand, contends that the apostles have never quoted from the Septuagint; but as the examples in which their words agree with those of the seventy are too manifeft to be denied, he fuppofes that fuch paffages in the Septuagint have been purpofely corrected, according to the New Teftament, by the Chriftian tranfcribers. This hypothefis is fhewn to be equally groundlefs with the former; and very fatisfactory reasons are affigned why the Septuagint verfion was generally quoted where it gives the fenfe of the original Hebrew. The apostles, however, according to our author, have fometimes quoted from a text which agrees neither with the prefent Hebrew, nor with the Septuagint verfion; but the proofs which he urges in behalf of this pofition evince nothing but his own extreme inaccuracy. Indeed fuch are his quotations, even from works of his own, that we never can implicitly depend upon them; and this chapter, like the former, would be of little value, were it deprived of the learned tranflator's notes. The following paffage betrays a degree of inattention almost without a parallel.

very

"The New Testament, therefore, affords fufficient evidence that our Maloretic text is in many places corrupted, and fupplies in many cafes the means of correcting it. But we must not, therefore, conclude that corrections of this kind are at all times allowable. Though Stephen, in the speech recorded in the feventh chapter of the Acts, has twice departed from the Hebrew text, preferring verse 14, the Greek reading, and verle 4, the Samaritan, a verse which in other refpects is exceptionable, no inference can be made to the difparagement of the Hebrew, for though Stephen was a martyr, he was not inspired, and St. Luke has delivered it, not as a commens tator, but as a faithful historian." (Pp. 221, 222.)

Though we are not accustomed to think with much veneration of the labours of the Maforites, we are fatisfied that, if their vowel P oints be fet afide, their text of the Hebrew fcriptures will be found fufficiently correct. But what appears to us moft worthy of animadverfion in this extract, is the affertion that St. Stephen was not inspired. He was one of the feven whom the multitude must have per

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ceived to be "full of the Holy Ghoft and of wifdom; he did great wonders and miracles among the people; and he is exprefsly faid to have been full of the Holy Ghost, and to have feen the glory of God and Jefus ftanding on the right hand of God." This is the record of a faithful hiftorian, and if it be not fufficient evidence of Stephen's inspiration, we know not how the inspiration of any man could be proved. The reader, however, needs not be under any apprehenfion of the difparagement of the Hebrew text; for, as Mr. Marth obferves, in the paffage, where St. Stephen is here faid to have preferred the Samaritan, "the Hebrew, the Samaritan, and the Greek texts all agree;" and Whitby has proved, to the conviction of every unprejudiced perfon, that in apparently following the Septuagint (v. 14), he has not in reality deviated from the Hebrew.

"In the writings of Mofes, fays our author, to cross the sea fignifies to go the islands of the happy, or the region of departed spirits!" (P. 224.)

When he hazarded this ftrange affertion, to which nothing in the pentateuch gives the flightest countenance, it is probable that he had been thinking of Mofes, as of a mere Egyptian philofopher, and had hence inferred, without confulting his writings, that he employed certain phrases as they are faid to have been employed in the most antient myfteries.

"The Egyptians, fays Warburton, like the reft of mankind in their defcription of the other world, ufed to copy from fomething which they were well acquainted with in this. In their funeral rites, which was a matter of greater moment with them than with any other people, they used to carry their dead over the Nile, and through the Marth of Acherufia, and there put them into fubterraneous caverns; the ferry-man employed in this businefs being, in their language, called Charon. Now in their mysteries, the defcription of the paffage into the other world was borrowed, as was natural, from their funeral rites. So that the Charon below might very well refufe to charge his boat with thofe whom his namefake above had not admitted."+

We recommend to our readers, with fome confidence, the last fection of the chapter under review. They will find it proved there that the Rabbinical mode of quotation was adopted by the writers of the New Teftament, and that it accounts for many of the apparent inaccuracies with which infidels have fo often charged their quo

tations.

There was lately a race of very pious perfons, and perhaps it is not even yet extinct, who were greatly alarmed on hearing that in the various manuscripts and antient verfions of the New Teftament, many thousands of different readings are to be found; and that it is often difficult to decide which reading is that which was written or

* See his annotations on the feventh chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. † Divine Legation, Book II. Sect. IV.

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dictated by the infpired author. To fuch perfons we recommend an attentive perufal of the fixth chapter of the work before us. They will there find it proved, in a very fatisfactory manner, that the autographa of the New Teftament must have been very foon loft or rendered utterly illegible; that, as fome of the apoftles dictated to an amanuenfis, their writings, even in their original state, were not probably free from trifling errors; and that of all the various readings, which have been difcovered by the industry of criticifm, there is not one which affects the effential principles of Chriftianity.

"No book is more expofed to the fufpicion of wilful corruptions, than the New Teftament, for the very reason that it is the fountain of divine knowledge; and if in all the manufcripts now extant, we found a fimilarity in the readings, we should have reafon to fufpect that the ruling party of the Chriftian Church had endeavoured to annihilate whatever was inconfiftent with its own tenets, and by the means of violence to produce a general uniformity in the facred text. Whereas the different readings of the manufcripts in our poffeffion afford fufficient proof that they were written independently of each other, by perfons feparated by distance of time, remoteness of place, and diverfity of opinions. They are not the works of a fingle faction, but of Chriftians of all denominations, whether dignified with the title of orthodox, or branded by the ruling church with the name of heretic; and though no fingle manufcript can be regarded as a perfect copy of the writings of the apostles, yet the truth lies fcattered in them all, which it is the bufiness of critics to felect from the general mafs." (Pp. 263, 264.)

Our author admits that the number of paffages urged in fupport of certain doctrines may have been diminished by our knowledge of the various readings; but he contends that there is not one doctrine of which the proof is weakened by those readings; and in very fignificant language he mentions the effect which this circumstance has produced among his illumined countrymen, whilft he fhews that the greatest part of the variations are of no importance.

"We are certain, fays he, that 1 John v. 7, is a (purious paffage,* but the doctrine contained in it is not therefore changed, fince it is delivered in other parts of the New Teftament. After the most diligent enquiry, efpecially by thofe who would banish the divinity of Chrift from the articles of religion, not a fingle various reading has been difcovered in the two

* This language is certainly too confident; but we have no hesitation to fay, with Bishop Horfley, that fuppofing the text genuine, the unity of the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghoft, which it teaches, appears not to us to be the unity implied in the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity. The difputed text of St. John, taken by itself, affords, at least in our opinion, no proof at all of that doctrine, which, however, is established by the concur ring evidence of many paffages befides the two quoted by our author. It is established completely by the form of Chriftian baptifm, which, on the Arian hypothefis, would be an impious form, and, on the hypothesis of Socinus and his followers, a combination of impiety with abfurdity.-REV.

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