in the land of Canaan.

Now Abraham

came into Canaan to sojourn there A. M. 2083: if we count hence to the exit, we find it exactly four hundred and thirty years. What difficulty now can we have, even supposing that no Hebrew manuscript, now extant, has the words, which we render, and in the land of Egypt ; will not any reasonable enquirer think, that these words were in the text from which the Septuagint translated, and that they really belong to the Hebrew text, though the manuscript copies we have may, by some carelessness of copiers, have omitted them. The observation of our learned critic is a very just one: “If emendations are true, they must have been once in some manuscripts, at least in the author's original. But it will not follow, that because no manuscript now exhibits them, none more ancient ever did."

No one can doubt but that Moses, in the

I ought not to omit,

b Connect. vol. i. b. v. that in the Samaritan Pentateuch the Hebrew words are found, which we render, and in the land of Egypt.

Philel. Lips, p. 106.

xxxiiid chapter of Deuteronomy, blessed the twelve tribes, every tribe particularly, according to his blessing; and yet it is said to have no one copy of the original text, no one version in general, which mentions the tribe of Simeon at all; the Alexandrian manuscript of the Septuagint only inserting the name Simeon in the 6th verse, writes that verse, in that one word, differently from all other copies. Here then is an omission which cannot be supplied from any Hebrew manuscript will it therefore follow that there is no omission? No version that we now have amends this omission, except one copy of one translation.* Will it follow, that originally all versions

The common Septuagint version is, Znrw Pan xai un ἀποθανέτω καὶ ἔσω πολὺς εν αριθμῷ : The Alexandrian manuscript is, Ζήτω Ρεβὴν καὶ μὴ ἀποθανέτω· Καὶ Συμεὼν ἐσω πολὺς ἀριθμῷ.

Several copies of the Septuagint, besides the Alexandrian, have Ev. See them in Dr. Holmes' edition of the Pentateuch, cum variis lectionibus, fol. Oxon. 1798. EDIT.

had not the name of Simeon? Is it not ap parently more reasonable to conclude, that the Alexandrian manuscript was transcribed from some copy of some more ancient ma nuscript which had the word Simeon; that the original manuscript of the Septuagint translated from a Hebrew copy, which had it likewise; and that the word Simeon was originally in the Hebrew text; however, through some carelessness of transcribers, it came to be dropped, and to occasion great numbers of copies and versions to be without it? There is room in all cases of this nature for reasonable consideration and enquiry and I dare venture to affirm, that there is no scripture-difficulty, of which a serious enquirer, able to make a proper search for it, may not find a proper solution. As for those who have not literature for this examination; if they read the scriptures with a careful design to be made wise unto salvation, they will soon know enough, not to be led away blindly by persons, who perhaps know little more than what may just enable them to impose upon and de

ceive others in points, of which, whether they can say correctly, what is the right or the wrong, may be of no material mo

ment.

The learned have raised a difficulty about a text in St. John's First Epistle, whether in chap. v. verses 7 and 8, for there are three that bear record, [in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth,] the Spirit, and the Water, and the Blood, and these three agree in one; whether the words written in Italics, are in some manuscripts; and in what particular copies they are not? The reader may see the whole of what can be offered upon this point in Dr. Mills, and will probably think there is nothing in the whole,

f Vide Millii Testam, Nov. ad fin. Epist. primæ Sancti Johannis. Several writers, since Dr. Mills, have published for and against the authority of the above verse. The verse is in no authentic MS. but the Codex Montfortii, in Trinity College, Dublin: but the doctrine itself is in almost every page of the Old and New Tes taments. EDIT.

VQL. IV.

which will greatly affect him, when he considers, that what is here said of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, that they are one, is a doctrine to be deduced from various other texts of scripture. And, if I may be permitted, I would enquire, whether it may not perhaps be shewn to be not a jot or tittle more, than what even Moses had declared 1500 years before the writing books of the New Testament were at

any

all thought of.

The 39th verse of the thirty-second chapter of Deuteronomy has, in our English version of it, these words, I, even I am He, and there is no God with me. I would here observe, 1. That the Hebrew text is, [Ani Ani Hua, ve ein Elohim nimmadi]: 2. There is no word in the text answering to the English word even, nor is there any verb expressed in the text, no word for am, nor for is. 3. That Ani Ani is not the usual way of expressing I even I in Ifebrew. It should

The Hebrew words are

אני אני הוא ואין אלהים עמדי