illustration of his opinion. When we speak of the minor, or "lesser poets," we do not include in the term, any thing of degree in poetical excellence, but simply of quantity of production. Dryden, if he had never written any thing but his Alexander's Feast, would have been a minor poet; and he is one of the greater poets, not because he has written any thing better, but because he has written more.

"

"It is altogether unnecessary after this, to offer any observations upon what these men, styled prophets, have written. The axe goes at once to the root, by shewing that the original meaning of the word has been mistaken, and consequently all the inferences that have been drawn fromthose books, the devotional respect that bas, been paid to them, and the laboured commentaries that have been written upon them under that mistaken meaning, are not worth disputing about.. In many things however the writings of the Jewish poets deserve a better fate, than that of being bound up, as they now are, with the trash that accompanies them, under the abused name of the word of God.

If we permit ourselves to conceive right ideas of things we must necessarily affix the idea not only of unchangeableness, but of the utter impos sibility of any change taking place, by any means or accident in, that which we would honor with the name of the word of God, and therefore the word of God cannot exist in any written or human language.

The continually progressive change to which the meaning of words is subject, the want of an universal language which renders translations necessary, the errors to which translations are again subject, the mistakes of copyists and printers, together with the possibility of wilful alteration, are of themselves evidences that human language, whether in speech, or in print, cannot he the vehicle of the word of God. The word of God exists in something else.

Did the book called the Bible, excel in purity of ideas and expression, all the books that are now extant in the world, I would not take it for my rule of faith as being the word of God; because the possibility, would nevertheless exist of my being imposed upon. But when I see throughout the greatest part of this book scarcely any thing but a history of the grossest vices, and a collection of the most paltry and contemptible tales, I cannot dishonor my Creator by calling it by his name"

1

The first of these paragraphs, and all its consequences, has, I humbly think, been sufficiently answered in the remarks upon the preceding extracts. See page 116 to 120. The second, is a sophistical enthymen, in which the minor proposition is a barefaced petitio principii. The changeableness of "written or human language," which Mr. Paine assumes, is the very point at issue. That some words may have lost their original signification, and some phrases be accepted in a different sense from what they once possessed, may be conceded to the Deist without surrendering the stability of the Christians' creed, or invalidating the authenticity of historical record. What work is there, important for man to understand, and that was once understood, whose meaning is now lost? Even works of mere literary curiosity have not suffered such a fate. Did Mr. Paine believe, that the Æneid of Virgil, or the Odes of Horace, or the narratives of Thucydides, and Herodotus &c. are not as well understood now as they were at the time they were written? Assuredly they are. If some minute allusion be lost, it has not impaired the main body of recorded facts, notwithstanding the elapse of two thousand years, and even when read under the disadvantage of translation. Let it also be remembered, that mankind have had but little interest to attain themselves, and still less to transmit to their posterity, the exact meaning of any one of these Authors; to guard against wilful perversion, and scrupulously to attest every copy by collation with those from which it was transcribed, as well as with others; whereas, the word of God, if once received, as the word of God, would be handed down from generation to generation in uncorrupted purity.

The "utter impossibility of any change taking place by any means or accident whatever in that which we would honour with the name of the word of God," when applied by Mr. Paine "to human or written language," involves a conclusion that directly contradicts his own concessions, and imposes a limitation of power upon a Being confessedly omnipotent. In a former paragraph, see page

29, Mr. Paine, speaking of Revelation, says, that "it means something communicated immediately from God to man,” and in the next line adds, that "no one will deny or dispute the power of the Almighty to make such a communication if he pleases." Thus, we have from the same author, in the same publication, a confession, that God can reveal his will to man in "human language,” and yet a denial that human language can be the medium employed by God to reveal his will. If Mr. Paine's disciples should say, that human language may be employed by the Almighty to reveal his wil, Ibut not to perpetuate it, what is it but to declare, that omnipotency cannot render the means he uses effective, to accomplish an end he purposes? If God chose to give man express laws, which is to reveal his will, he certainly would provide for their preservation: and the extraordinary preservation of those laws which are ascribed to Him (see page 101-102) affords one proof of their authenticity.

But as this particular is of weighty importance to the truth of Revealed Religion, let us consider it a little more in detail. The great objections that Mr. Paine urges against "human or written language as the vehicle of the word of God," are "the want of an universal language; the progressive change to which the meaning of words is subject; the errors to which translations are exposed; the mistakes of copyists and printers; and the possibility of wilful alterations."

If Horace, and Pope in imitation of Horace, has complained of the mutability of language, yet the fact is by no means established to that extent which the querulousness of poesy would lead us to suppose. What single Book, what single passage in all the writings of the last eighteen hundred years, has lost its meaning, or varied its meaning, from the "progressive change" above alluded to? What single word has been misunderstood, that was not ambiguous at first? The epithet "honest," which we find applied to "knave," in Shakespeare, conveys, according to our acceptation of the terms, a contradiction

of meaning; but then we are secured from a false interpretation by the sense of the context, and also by the circumstance, that the change has been progressive, countenanced by successive writers, and referred to by successive commentators. Etymology is also a standing security against gross perversion. If this be the case with respect to the usage of words on unimportant occasions, where the precise meaning is never very particularly sought after, and when found, is of no moment whether it be preserved or not, how much more impossible, if I may be allowed the expression, must it be for any significant term in Scripture, which involves the individual interest of every person of every age, to suffer any material progressive change in its meaning; or if it do, to suffer it unperceived. That some few words may become obsolete, as the circumstances they describe may be forgotten, is very probable, but they are unfrequent, and seldom connected with essentials; when they are, and the essentials are important to mankind, the meaning is preserved, and the circumstance remembered.

"The want of an universal language," Mr. Paine's second objection, is completely answered by a circumstance that supplies more than the desideratum; that also clearly manifests the divine origin of the sacred scriptures. The word of God was delivered in a language, and to a people, that were destined to possess a perpetuity of existence, and an almost universality of dispersion. In a language that was decreed to be the vehicle of the word of God, and of nothing else; to a people that was separated from all the nations of the earth, to be the faithful preservers of it. The very desideratum of Mr. Paine would have defeated the purpose he required. A universal language would have blended the interests, and assimilated the principles of all the nations of the earth more than any other circumstance; and it would have been impossible to have defined the boundaries of any people whatever: a dialect does it more completely than a chain of mountains, or a rapid river; and without such a barri

er, Judaism would have been lost in Gentilism. Had the word of God been conveyed to us in the Greek or Latin language, we should have had no living expositors, no descendants that could boast of an uninterrupted education in those languages; we should have been obliged to have waded through a multitude of expositions, to have discovered the precise meaning of long disused expressions; whereas we now possess an ever existing check, and perpetual comment on the word of God in the people who have been taught to read the original volume, in the original language ever since the day it was first written; who still look up to it as the only code of their moral and religious Laws, as the faithful chronicle of their former grandeur, and the prophetic indication of future greatness.

This argument does not apply to the New Testament; its custodes were not designed to be restricted to one nation. Its doctrines were preached, and its writings transmitted to many; and the languages employed in its composition were Greek and Hebrew; thus grafting its evidence upon the former stock, and sending out a ramifying branch, to nourish many people, and shelter many nations under its auspicious shade.

"The errors to which translations are exposed," is an objection that, may to a certain degree, be conceded, when it is applied to prophane writings, but is perfectly inapplicable when extended to the sacred volume. A book which professes, and is acknowledged to contain all those precepts by which mankind hope to attain everlasting happiness, and avoid everlasting misery, will be so diligently and minutely examined, so frequently translated, so often commented on by individuals actuated by different and opposite views, that it may be pronounced to be impossible for any important error to creep into a translation of such a book.

Suppose any one translating the 4th. verse of the 7th. chap. of Saint Mark's Gospel had rendered the words" can me baptisōntai" if they be not baptized (and it will admit of a passive as well as middle sense) and had understood the