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LITERARY INTELLIGENCE.

Mr. Pyne is preparing for the press, Annals of the Royal Residences of Windsor Castle, Hampton Court, Kew, Kensington, Buckingham House, St. James's, Frogmore, and Carlton House, to be embellished by one hundred coloured engravings, fac-similes of drawings by the first artists, representing the apartments with their painted cielings, pictures, and splendid furniture. The letter-press will comprise the archi tectural history of each building, and a description of the pictures, statues, &c. &c. The work will be published in twentyfour monthly numbers, imperial 4to. price one guinea each.

The Articles upon Session's Law, contained in Addington's Penal Statutes, Blackston's Commentaries, Burn's and Williams' Justice, Const's and Nolan's Poor Laws, East's and Hawkins' Pleas of the Crown, and Tomlin's Law Dictionary, alphabetically arranged. By the Rev. S. Clapham, M.Ä. Vicar of Christ Church, is nearly ready for the press.

The ninth volume of Dr. Shaw's General Zoology, being the continuation of the Birds, will be published in the course of next month. This volume has been written by J. Stephens, Esq. by whom, Dr. Leach, and Dr. Blainville, the whole of the System will be completed.

A Correspondence of Fifteen of the most important Years of the Life of the late David Hume, Esq. is preparing for publication.

OTHER WORKS IN THE PRESS.

A volume of Practical Sermons by the late Dr. Scott, Rector of Simonburne.

Waterloo, and other Poems, by Mr. Edmund L. Swift, a lineal descendant of the celebrated Dean of St. Patrick.

Memoirs of the Life and Writings of M. L. Ramsey, of Charleston, S. C. edited by David Ramsey, M.D. from the American edition.

Paris during the interesting Month of July, 1815, in a Series of Letters to a Friend in London, by W. D. Fellowes, Esq.

An Introduction to Prudence, or Directions. Counsels, and Cautions, tending to prudent Management of Affairs in common Life. By Thomas Fuller, M. D.

The Present of a Mistress to a Young Servant, consisting of friendly Advice and real Histories. By Mrs. Taylor, of Ongar, author of "Maternal Solicitude," &c.

An Illustration of the Liturgy and Service of the United Church of England and Ireland, with an introductory Sketch of the History of the British Church, as connected with the pri mitive Church of Christ, by the Rev. T. Pruen, Curate of Aldbourn, Wilts.

A Manual for the Parish Priest, being a few Hints on the Pastoral Care, to the younger Clergy of the Church of England.

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THE

BRITISH CRITIC,

FOR OCTOBER, 1815.

ART. I. Sequel to Ecclesiastical Researches, &c. By John

Jones.

(Continued from p. 248.)

WE dismissed the consideration of our author, and his work, with the review of those controverted points between the Orthodox and Unitarian, which are decided by the testimony of ecclesiastical antiquity. It was then our object, not merely to embody and concentrate the mass of evidence which thence arises in our favour; but to unmask those witnesses, whom he had suborned from the Jews, and would have palmed on us for Christians; by whose assistance, the Orthodox Faith, and the testimony of its defenders was to be subverted to the ground, The question between us is now to be decided on the authority of the Inspired Writings. The field into which we are now challenged to descend, is indeed wide, and the adversary to whom we are opposed, well practised in the art of winding and doubling, through all the mazes of evasion; but the ground on which we engage is sacred, and feeling every security in the panoply of celestial truth with which we are girt, we descend to the contest, with no apprehension for the event.

We pass over the preliminary observations of our author, which inform us, as a novelty, that Moses and the Prophets uniformly inculcate, that there is but one God, and which proceed to establish, by the force of assertion, that the Prophecies which foretel the Incarnation," furnish arguments fatal to the pre-existence of Christ." Nor shall we waste any words, upon the inferences to which these preliminaries lead,

VOL. IV. OCTOBER, 1815.

in which he very gravely, but consistently prefaces his nonsense with a blunder. "There are two or three solitary passages in the Jewish writings which have been adduced to prove the divinity of Christ." The theme of our author is accordingly answerable to its exordium. One of the first passages on which he alights, is Gen. i. 26., in which we are accordingly informed, that Moses, "holds forth the Almighty communing with his own attributes, or with himself,—as, a king with his ministers.” To this very profound observation, which would be scarcely paralleled in St. Luke's or Bedlam, at full moon, we have indeed very little to reply.

The whole weight of sustaining this fundamental position, that "Christianity, as the soul of Judaism, does not comprehend the doctrines of the divinity, the miraculous birth and the atonement of Christ;" our author now rests upon a single text. It has been rather cruel thus to disappoint our hopes, when we were led to expect something, which proceeding from such a hand, must be at least novel and edifying, on the subject of our favourite texts, Is. vii. 14. lin. 7, &c. and their appurtenances, Matt. i. 23. Act. vii. 32. 1 Pet. ii. 21, &c. But to compensate for the disappointment we are kindly favoured with an improved version and comment upon Is. ix. 6. The former we shall lay before the reader as we find it, that no ray of the light which beams from this luminous detecter of error and fraud, may be lost in transmission.

"The common version," says our author, " is an egregious misrepresentation of the original, and runs thus: His name shall be called wonderful, counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting father, the prince of peace." " ch. ix. 6. The true meaning, as it appears to me, is the following:

"He shall be called by a wonderful name,
Counsellor of the mighty God,
Father of the future age

Prince of Peace." P. 91, 92.

This correction is supported, by the literal force of the ori ginal; by the translations of Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion, and the Septuagint; and by a negative argument deducible from the silence of the primitive fathers, who have "never cited this passage in proof of the divinity of Christ." P. 92, 93.

Had the description of the external testimony been such as it is here represented, in which, however, our author, consistent throughout, has taken a true poetical licence;

"Atque ita mentitur, sic veris falsa remiscet
Primą ne medium, medió ne descrepet imum."

It could not have much weight in deciding the contested point. The object with which Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion, those Hebrew apostates, in whose society our author is ever proud to be found, formed their versions is notorious *. To expect any application of this passage to the Messiah, from them, seems to be just as wise as to imagine it would receive a direct application to our Lord, by the chief Rabbi, who now presides in the London Synagogue of Polish Jews. Of the version of the Septuagint we shall give a good account: on ascending from Father Montfaucon's edition of the Hexapla, to his authorities, it will probably lead us to a conclusion, of which his learned transcriber is little aware. And if our perspicacious commentator had but looked to the context of the prophet, it would possibly have shaken his confidence in the justness of his translation, as fully as it does ours. Is. ib. 7. "Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David and his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice, from henceforth even for ever." These perplexing words, we conceive, form rather a better comment upon the disputed terms; 'the mighty God and everlasting Father,' than upon his improvement, “Father of the future age ;" and they directly apply those solemn titles, not to God the Father but to God the Son. But our cause admits of being placed in a different posture of defence.

From the regular order in which our critic has distributed the several commas of his version, it would appear that he had religiously adhered to the souErgia of the sacred text. But the reverse of this supposition is precisely the fact. And on reuniting the disjointed members of the prophet; they directly evince the violence which is done to the passage in his translation, and demonstrate that the common version is both natural and true. We subjoin the original according to the revisal of Dr. Kennicot, together with the accurate version of Bishop Lowth.

יועץ
פלא
ויקרא שמו

אל גבור אבי עד שר שלום

" Quod

*S. Hier. Præf. in Job. Tom. I. col. 798. ed. Bened. si apud Græcos, post LXX editionem, jam Christi Evangelio coruscante, Judæus Aquila, Symmachus et Theodotio, Judaïzantes hæreteci sunt recepti, qui multa mysteria Salvatoris subdola interpretatione celarunt," &c. Conf. S. Iren. adv. Hær. Lib. III. cap. xxi. p. 215.

On the accuracy with which the rousтpia of the Prophetical writings was preserved: vid. S. Hier. Præf, in Lam. Hierem.

z 2

And

And his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor,
The mighty God the Father of the everlasting-age, the
Prince of Peace.

The nouns are here naturally put in apposition; a change in the construction being properly introduced by a change in the. verse. And this assumption is supported by the authority of every version of the disputed passage; whether made by heterodox or orthodox, by Christian or Jew. However they vary in translating the terms 1, they never render them in regimen, but in apposition. But to support our author's predilection for the former construction, r which closes one verse must be forced down into another to govern 12. Nor is this all; but admitting that these terms occurred in the same

-are simi יועץ אל גבור and אבי עד שר שלום verse, his notion that

lar phrases is a false assumption. For is not only disjointed from the antecedent r by an attraction to the subsequent with which it unquestionably agrees; but so closely are the terms, and connected, that they are generally united by the tie Maccaph; the latter even written in many manuscripts as one word.

As the authorised version is the more natural, and is supported by the context, and as it is consequently that which would most obviously strike a translator, it is confirmed by the best authorities. Not only the Chaldee Paraphrase, but the vulgar text of the Greek, Latin, and Syriack versions †, correspond with the common translation. These authorities are of the greatest weight, as they were not merely made from the original Hebrew, but all, excepting the Latin Vulgate, made by the Jews. The Septuagint is indeed challenged by our author, as not merely neutral, but opposed to the authorised text. Had he known, however, any thing more of Father Montfaucon's Hexapla, than the solitary verse which he has quoted; he would not have left us to inform him that there were several

* Vid. Montf. Hexapl. Orig. in loc. cit. Tom. II. p. 105.

Vid Walt. Polygl. in loc. cit. We add the particular phrases, which correspond with our authorised version, in understanding the disputed text of the Divinity of the Messiah.

Et vocabitur ואתקרי שמיה-אלהא גברא קים עלמיא .Targ. Jonath

est

-

nomen ejus-Deus fortis, permanens in æternum. Vers. Vulg. Syr. Ross? lion low-abe jello. Et vocatum est nomen 10 ejus-Deus seculorum fortissimus. Vers. Vulg. Græc. xỳ xaλeitai Τὸ ὄνομα αὐτῷ.Θεὸς ἰσχυρός. Vers. Vulg. Lat. "Et vocabitur nomen ejus,-Deus, fortis.

edition

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