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with the Calvinian and Geneva catechisms, the use of them was wholly forbidden, and the former prohibition renewed, with a severe penalty; so that to sing a Psalm, was to be a Lutheran." The substance of this narrative of Florimond de Remond was turned into elegant Latin, by Famianus Strada,* who particularly observes, that Francis I often sang this translation of the Psalms.

We do not find, that, till the year 1553, the reformed, whether natives of France, or inhabitants, sang any other Psalms, than these fifty, excepting eight other Psalms, the translators of which are yet unknown; which eight Psalms, with the first thirty of Marot, were printed, in 1542, in Gothic, at Rome, by order of the Pope, by Theodore Drust, a German, his printer in ordinary, the fifteenth of February; as we read in the last leaf of the book, printed in 8vo., without name of place or printer. Jeremiah de Pours knew nothing of this edition, which, by the way, is the same with that of Strasburgh, 1545, except as to the number of Psalms. The other hundred, put into verse by Beza, appeared probably in 1553, since it was at that time, that being appended to the Catechism and Liturgy of Geneva, they excited the aversion of the Catholics, who, after the example of Francis I, on his death-bed, made no scruple to use the first fifty.

This aversion continued to the time of the Conference of Poissy, the event of which, being favourable to the Reformed, produced, the nineteenth of October 1561, the privilege of Charles IX, upon the approbation given by the Sorbonne, on the sixteenth, for the translation of the rest of the Huguenot Psalms; in consequence of which, the edition of Antony Vincent appeared at Lyons, in 1562; from which, several years after, other editions, in various forms, were

* Strada de Bello Belg. dec. i. lib. iii.

printed at Lyons, Rochelle, and elsewhere, all in virtue of this privilege, which ought to have been inserted in them at length, together with the approbation of the Sorbonne.-Art. MAROT.

MARRIAGE.

(St Paul on that of Bishops.)

REIHING, professor of Divinity at Tubingen in the sixteenth century, and the author of his funeral oration, explain the words of St Paul, wherein he seems to command the bishops to marry, as a precept. They pretend that the apostle commands the ministers of the gospel to marry, and to take but one wife. This would be certainly the meaning of St Paul's words, if they were understood literally, that is, according to the rules of grammar; for the terms, which denote the marriage of the bishop with one wife, are as much governed by the word must, as those that denote the bishop's blameless life, sobriety, prudence, gravity, modesty, equity, moderation, and disinterestedness. As therefore it were absurd to pretend that St Paul leaves it to the liberty of the ministers to be sober, modest, blameless, &c. or not; so it is absurd to pretend that he leaves it to their choice to marry a wife, or to marry none; I mean that it would be absurd, if we adhered to the literal sense, and supposed that St Paul actually observed grammatical rules. I do not mean a rigorous exactness, such as is observed in the articles of a treaty of peace, wherein all the expressions are narrowly considered, to prevent the abuses that might arise from an equivocation, or the omission of a particle. Neither do I mean the rigid exactness of those scru

⚫ 1 Epist. to Timothy, c. iii. v. 2. "A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach."

pulous pedantic grammarians, who had rather spend three hours in mending a period, than let it pass with some carelessness. I mean a method of explaining ourselves clearly and distinctly, as a man of sense would do in a letter to a tutor, containing some directions. If he should write to him, I will have my children say their prayers twice a day, go to church twice a week, forbear swearing and quarrelling, be dutiful to their mother, and go every Monday to the play-house, he would take all these several things as so many injunctions;

he would not think that it is left to his discretion to carry his pupils every Monday to the playhouse, or not. In such a case, he must suppose that there is no connexion between these words, I will, and to go to the play-house; and that the father of his pupils made use of another verb, as to this last thing, and said for instance, and I give you leave to carry them to a play-house every Monday. It must be therefore granted, that if a Sophist should obstinately maintain, that whatever St Paul says concerning the qualifications of a bishop is obligatory, it would be no easy thing to confute him; and that we should be obliged to beg of him not to take it ill, that we departed from the grammatical strictness, since it is not likely that the apostle designed to exclude from episcopacy, those who would live a single life, though they were endowed with all the talents requisite for the performance of episcopacy.

This shews, that too scrupulous an adherence to the literal sense of the scripture, would very often prove the cause of many illusions, and that there are many cases in which the interpreters ought to remember the axiom, summum jus summa injuria. It proves at the same time, that we ought to do, not what the apostles command, according to the grammatical sense, but what common sense teaches us they intended to command. St Paul, according

to the grammatical rules, commands the bishops to marry; but reason shews us, that he intended only to forbid them polygamy. We must therefore abide by this. Reihing and others are in the wrong to find in St Paul's words an injunction to marry; they contain only a permission: but their mistake is much more excusable than the intolerable boldness of forbidding clergymen to marry. The Christian people will never be able to justify before God, the base compliance wherewith they have permitted that the laws of St Paul should be abrogated, though never so plain, clear, and intelligible. They have been severely punished for it, by the overflowing lewdness wherewith their families have been polluted, and they are not yet free from it. I must observe by the by, that the holy scripture has been handled by the Christians much after the same manner as Justinian's code. They are well pleased when the common-law agrees with the written law; but if the common law serve their turn better than the written law, they can very well dispense with the want of conformity. Christendom has not been for many ages governed by the written law. Art. REIHING.

MATHEMATICS.

ZENO wrote a book against the Mathematics. We are informed of this by Proclus, who adds that Possidonius refuted it. Huetius having told us that Epicurus rejected geometry, and the other parts of the Mathematics, because he believed, that they, being founded on false principles, could not be true, adds, that Zeno attacked them another way. This was by alleging that in order to render them certain, some things should have been added to their principles which were not joined to them. Mathematics are the most evident and certain of all human sciences, and yet they have met with opposers. If

Zeno had been a great metaphysician, and followed different principles from those of Epicurus, he might have composed a book not very easy to be refuted, and cut out more work for the geometricians than they imagine. All sciences have their weak side; nor are the mathematics free from that defect. Indeed very few people are able to oppose them well, because to succeed in this engagement it is requisite not only to be a good philosopher, but also a very profound mathematician. But those endued with the latter quality are so ravished with the certainty and evidence of their inquiries, that they never think of examining whether there be any illusion in them, or whether the first foundation be well established. They rarely think of suspecting any deficiency in them, although it is very certain, that several disputes prevail amongst the most famous mathematicians. They refute one another, and answers and replies multiply among them as well as among other learned men. We observe this among the moderns, and it is certain that the ancients were not more unanimous. It is a proof that there are in this road several dark paths, and that a man may wander and lose the track of truth. This must of necessity be the lot of one side or the other, since one affirms what the other denies. It may be urged that this is the fault of the artificer, but not of the art, and that all these disputes proceed from some mathematicians mistaking that for a demonstration which is not so; but that very thing shews that there are some obscurities in this science. Besides, the same thing may be urged, with respect to the disputes of other learned men. It may be said, that if they closely followed the rules of logic, they would avoid the wrong consequences, and false assertions which mislead them. Nevertheless we must confess, that there are many philosophical subjects, concerning which the best logicians are incapable of coming to

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