such a state, it would be most necessary to stimulate attention and keep it alert, by a reiterated call, accompanied with a two-fold memento of this relation to HIM who called them: hearken unto ME; give ear unto ME: MY people; мY nation.

Bishop Lowth, it should be stated, reads, and renders, the fourth verse otherwise; following the Bodley MS. and a few others, of inferior value: Attend unto me, O ye peoples;

And give ear unto me, O ye nations.

"The difference," his Lordship observes, "is "very considerable: for, in this case, the address is "made, not to the Jews, but to the Gentiles, as "in all reason, it ought to be; for this, and the two

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following verses express the call of the Gentiles, "the islands, or the distant lands, on the coasts of "the Mediterranean and other seas." The change however, (though supported by the Syr. Vers.) seems to be at once needless, and injurious: injurious, because it would make an ungraceful and violent transition, destructive of the unity of the passage; and needless, because, in several other instances, the calling of the Gentiles is announced to the Jews, as a future blessing in which they themselves are deeply interested: how deeply, we learn from St. Paul, Rom. xi. 24. 26. As the received text stands, there appears a beautiful gradation: 1. Incipients in religion are encouraged by the comforts of the Gospel: 2. To those more advanced in religion, and consequently better able to look beyond

their own individual well-being, the calling of the Gentiles is foretold: 3. To those who are rooted and grounded in love, the final conflict and victory of the Messiah, with the consequent happiness and glory of his universal Church, are described in the most glowing terms.

It is to be noted, that neither Dathe nor Rosenmüller has adopted Bishop Lowth's alteration of the text.

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NOTES ON SECTION III.

(1) Bishop Lowth's definition of the synonymous parallelism.] That given in the "Prælectiones," is perhaps less exceptionable, though far from exact: it comprises within itself, its own limitation. "Primam constituunt speciem parallela synonyma; cum, proposita quacunque senten“tia, eadem denuo exprimitur aliis verbis, idem FERE "significantibus." Præl. xix. p. 208. "The first spe"cies is the synonymous parallelism, when the same sen"timent is repeated, in different, but [nearly] equivalent "terms." Dr. Gregory's Translat. vol. ii. p. 35. An important word, omitted by the translator, is here supplied how came Dr. G. to suppress the FERE of his original? Was it from a mistaken notion of, by that means, conforming to the language of the "Preliminary Dissertation"? It should not be overlooked, that Bishop Lowth, in his fourth Prælection, throws out a hint, which he never afterward follows up: and which, if properly followed up, must have led to the discovery of an ascending scale in this class of parallelisms: "Idem ite"rant, variant, AUGENT." Page 50. "They repeat, they

E

vary, they AMPLIFY the same sentiment." Greg. Transl. vol, i. p. 100.

(2) Archbishop Newcome, in his Preface to Ezekiel.] The following are his Grace's words: p. 39, 40. "From the "various examples of ornament and elegance which might "be produced, I shall select a very few; and those of that particular class, where the following clauses so diversify "the preceding ones, as to rise above them:

"To bring him that is bound out of the dungeon; "And them that sit in darkness out of the prison-house : Isaiah, xlii. 7.

"Who maketh a way in the sea; "And a path in the mighty waters.

Isaiah, xliii. 16.

"Jehovah is a great God;

"And a great king above all Gods.

Psalm xcv. 2.

"O Jehovah my God, thou art very great;
"Thou art clothed with honour and majesty.

Psalm civ. 1."

The Archbishop adds other examples; which, indeed, though true and fair specimens of gradation, are by no means the most striking that might have been selected; but all of which, together with those here extracted, Bishop Lowth would inevitably have classed among synonymous parallelisms.

(3) No idle disquisition about words.] The sense of words, however, is not to be trifled with. And I am sorry to be under the necessity of remarking, that the doctrine of SYNONYMOUS PARALLELISM has exercised an influence very far from favourable, on the modern lexicography of Scripture. The assumed synonyme of periods, members, or lines, has, in many instances, occasioned the consequent assumption, that, in the Alexandrine translators, of the Old

Testament, and Alexandrine translators or authors of the Apocrypha, words are synonymous, which, in all other writers, have totally diverse meanings. The same principle has been applied to several words and passages in the New Testament; and if it proceed to be thus applied, this will be one reason, in addition to many others, for serious apprehension, that, from those philological works which students are more and more taught to respect, as guides to the critical knowledge of scripture, much confusion, much obscurity, repeated contradictions, and a fatal habit of explaining away the most pregnant truths of Christianity, may be superinduced upon, or rather substituted for, our manly, sound, and unsophisticated English theology. This is not a place for protracted philological discussion. But I would earnestly exhort those biblical students, who may happen to use, (as, with proper caution, all advanced students will find it their advantage to use) the Lexicons of Spohn and Schleusner for the New Testament, and those of Schleusner and Bretschneider, for the Septuagint and Apocrypha*, to be particularly on their guard against alleged identity of meaning, in words whose ordinary acceptation is any thing but synonymous. In such cases, let the cited passages be carefully examined; and I venture to affirin, that, instead of synonyme, there will almost universally be found an important variation of meaning, between the related members: commonly a progress in the sense; but always such a variation, as will quite supersede the necessity of resorting to an unusual, much less an unprecedented, acceptation of the terms employed. I had selected many examples of erroneous, and, as I think, dangerous interpretation, from Schleusner and Bretschneider; but a necessary attention to brevity, especially on a subject, in this work, but col

* With the particular error, against which I here thought it my duty to protest, I do not think Biel chargeable.

lateral and incidental, has determined me to suppress them.

It is with no invidious, or controversial purpose, or feeling, that I have given this caution. I am simply zealous to maintain the truth and purity of Scripture; to promote, so far as in me lies, the acceptance of scripture language in its just and proper meaning; and to protest against all novelties of interpretation, which may tend, in any degree, to render that language vague, uncertain, unsettled, and indiscriminative.