impugned, is justly deemed, by all those who are content to take their religion from Holy Scripture, the very corner-stone of the Evangelical Dispensation. Numerous, and explicit, and to plain men most unequivocal, are the proofs of this all-important doctrine, which are profusely scattered throughout the whole word of God. They meet us in the form of direct assertion they encounter us in the shape of allusions to the piacular sacrifices of the Hebrew ritual and they present themselves to us mingled so intimately and so inseparably with various trains of reasoning, that, if they be viewed in any other light than that of designedly establishing the truth of the doctrine in question, the whole argument connected with them becomes palpably illogical and inconclusive. Proofs of this last description are perhaps, to reasoning minds, the most satisfactory of any at all events, they may be the most cogently employed for the refutation of Socinian sophistry. A proof, which wears the form of a direct assertion, may be explained away, so as to bear any sense rather than the natural one: or, if its refractoriness turn out to be altogether invincible, the passage, which contains it, may without a shadow of authority be boldly pronounced an interpolation. A proof, which is built upon a studied allusion to the piacular sacrifices of the Hebrew ritual, may be disposed of, at least to the apparent satisfaction

of some reasoners, by a dexterous use of the cabalistical words oriental phraseology, poetical application, indefinite accommodation, and the like: the meaning of which in plain English is, that, if one thing be illustratively compared to another, we may fairly conclude, that no two things in the whole world are more perfectly dissimilar. But a proof, which so rests upon a train of reasoning that any perversion of its obvious meaning completely stultifies the whole argument, can neither be evaded nor disposed of: for, let it be understood in any other sense than the natural one, and the writer, who employs the argument, forthwith appears in the light of a most thoroughly inconclusive reasoner'. The

1 In consequence of some experiments of this sort, St. Paul has been absolutely styled an inconclusive reasoner by a wellknown writer of the Socinian school. Doubtless, if Socinian premises be substituted for the premises of the Apostle himself, it requires not the sagacity of a prophet to anticipate that his reasoning will be inconclusive. But I should deem it more logical, as well as more modest, to suppose; that, if a false conclusion be the result of a particular mode of explanation, the explanation itself is erroneous, not that St. Paul has reasoned inconclusively. Let the learned Apostle be only suffered to reason from his own premises, and we shall have no grounds for quarrelling with his logic: but, if he be made to reason from Socinian premises, his reasoning will of course be inconclusive. The blame however does not rest with St. Paul, but with his Socinian commentator: and any unprejudiced person will readily see, that the very alleged inconclusiveness of reasoning is in truth a decisive proof that the

proof, in short, and the argument cannot be separated, save at the expence of ascribing manifest absurdity to the writer who uses the argument.

I. A proof of this last description seems to me to be afforded by the train of reasoning, which pervades the eighth and ninth chapters of the Epistle to the Hebrews. But in order that the proof may be satisfactorily brought out, it is obvious that the train of reasoning itself must be first understood. This however, to a certain extent at least, is obscured by a variation of phraseology in our common English translation which does not occur in the Greek original.

1. Throughout the whole of the eighth chapter and the first half of the ninth, the Greek word Diatheke is rendered by the English word Covenant: but, throughout the second half of the ninth chapter, the self-same Greek word Diatheke is rendered by the English word Testament.

Hence the entire passage, comprehended within the eighth and ninth chapters, presents a materially different aspect in the Greek and in the English for, in the Greek, the single word Dia

Apostle did not reason from Socinian premises. Allow the doctrines of the atonement and of the divinity of Christ, as the foundations of St. Paul's reasoning: and no man will be found to reason more conclusively. Deny those doctrines, as the foundations of his reasoning; while you substitute for them the dogmata of the Socinian school: and then, it is readily allowed, no man will be found to reason more incon. clusively.

theke is employed throughout; but, in the English, two words of a very different signification are employed, namely Covenant in the sense of a compact, and Testament in the sense of that instrument which bears the name of a man's last dying will. The variation too, of which I speak, is rendered the more striking, by the circumstance of our translators returning, after the close of the ninth chapter, to their original mode of rendering the Greek word Diathekè; which original mode they thenceforth retain to the end of the Epistle. Thus, in the ninth chapter, we read of the blood of the Testament; and, in the tenth chapter, of the blood of the Covenant; yet, in the Greek original, the self-same phrase occurs in each place without the least difference'. And thus, in the ninth chapter, we read of the mediator of the New Testament; and, in the twelfth chapter, of the mediator of the new Covenant: yet here again, in the Greek original, there is no material difference of phraseology 2.

2. Now a variation, so extraordinary and so wholly unwarranted by the original, is, I think,

1 Heb. ix. 20. x. 29. Gr. το άιμα της διαθηκης and το αιμα της διαθήκης.

* Heb. ix. 15. xii. 24. Gr. διαθηκης καινης μεσιτης and διαθηκης νεης μεσιτη. The same expression διαθηκη καινη, as it occurs in Matt. xxvi. 28. Mark xiv. 24. and Luke xxii. 20, is uniformly translated the new Testament, just as it is translated in Heb. ix. 15: yet, in Heb. xii. 24, it is translated the new Covenant.

altogether intolerable for, when the inspired author was pursuing one unbroken chain of argumentation to which this single word Diathekè plainly enough supplies the leading idea, it is incredible that so faulty a mode of writing should have been adopted by him, as to use this single leading word in two entirely different significations. Therefore, with Codurcus, Whitby, Peirce, Doddridge, Wakefield, and Macnight, I conclude unhesitatingly, that the Apostle must needs have employed the word Diathekè in one and the same sense throughout the entire passage comprehended within the eighth and ninth chapters.

3. Such being the case, if in one part of the passage we choose to translate it by the English word Testament, we thereby stand pledged to translate it similarly throughout the whole passage: or, if in one part of the passage we choose to translate it by the English word Covenant, we thereby again stand pledged to translate it similarly throughout the whole passage. On the authority of the best Greek writers, we may, in the abstract, that is to say, independently of any particular context, render the naked word Diathekè in either of these two significations 1.

II. From this statement of the matter, a question immediately arises as to the true sense,

1

Thus Aristophanes : Ην μη διαθωνται διαθηκην εμοι. And thus Iseus: Ετεραν ενόμισαν διαθηκην, ἣν εφασαν Αρχεπολιν εν Λημνῳ dialeolai. See Scap. Lexic.