more than unity of testimony and consent can be meant by tres unum sunt in the 8th verse, nothing more than unity of testimony and consent is meant in the 7th. This opinion the Lateran Council and Thomas Aquinas confuted by cutting out that clause in the 8th. verse. Thomas tells us, that it was not extant in the true copies, but that it was said to be added by the Arian heretics to pervert the sound understanding of the foregoing authority." What is here said of the Lateran council derives some confirmation from what the professor had asserted (p. 152.), that 29 Lat. MSS. " in general the fairest, the oldest, and the most correct," have the clause of ver. 8. Grotius supposed the clause to be spurious: in his commentary he speaks of a very ancient MS., in which it is wanting: this MS., however, was the Alexandrian, in which the words are found. See Mr. Porson, p. 71. It is wanting in Bryennius, and in the Correctorium Biblicum. The Complutensian edition reads, ὅτι τρεῖς εἰσιν οἱ μαρτυροῦντες ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ, ὁ πατὴρ καὶ ὁ λόγος καὶ τὸ ἅγιον Πνεῦμα· καὶ οἱ τρεῖς εἰς τὸ ἕν εἰσι· καὶ τρεῖς εἰσιν οἱ μαρτυροῦντες ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, τὸ πνεῦμα καὶ τὸ vowρ i Tò aiμa. But the article cannot be used before v in the first clause, because nothing precedes to which it can refer.

oi

For these reasons, then, I conclude, that the disputed passage is necessary on account of the article. To an English reader, perhaps, it would give a tolerable idea of the grounds upon which the argument is founded, if it were translated thus: "There are three that bear witness in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one; and there are three that bear witness on earth, the Spirit, and the Water, and the Blood, and these three agree in their witness respecting this one." Where "this" makes the sentence perfect nonsense, unless some "one" had been mentioned before. GRAIUS.

Sonnet.

THE VISION.

There is a blest voice in the Sabbath air
Of souls rejoicing on their Maker's day,
And my dark spirit, on her mental way,
In holy thought a moment hovers there;

And well forgets this vain earth's gloom and glare,
Her shews of transient date, and gauds, and play,
Beating her prison-house and bonds of clay,
She strives to mingle with the good and fair.
O earthless visions! dear to my sad soul,
Pour your rich beams with more celestial fire,
And chase these shades of doubt and vain desire,
That o'er my spirit thus their darkness roll;
And lead me, pure in heart, the path to God-

And I will drink the cup and kiss the rod.

On the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews.*

PARALLELISM.

HAVING explained the nature, and various species of parellelism, and shewn its existence in the Books of the New Testament, we will conclude the subject by exhibiting its importance in the interpretation of the Scriptures. A strict attention to this subject is not only useful and even necessary in the translator, who is ambitious of preserving in his copy the force, spirit, and elegance of the original: it will be of great use to him, likewise, merely as an interpreter: it will often lead him into the meaning of obscure words and phrases: sometimes it will suggest the true reading, where the text in our present copies is faulty; and will verify and confirm a correction offered on the authority of MSS. or of the ancient versions. A few examples, as evidence of what is here advanced, will be sufficient. In Ps. xxii. 31, our English translation runs thus:

They shall come and declare his righteousness

Unto a people that shall be born, that he hath done this.

And in the Common Prayer:

Unto a people that shall be born, whom the Lord hath made.

-pe) פרישן דעבד,The Chaldee renders it paraphrastically

rishon daävad), the miracles which he hath wrought.' The LXX. agree with the reading of the Common Prayer: ὁν εποιησεν ὁ Κύριος, whom the Lord hath made; with which agree the Syriac, Æthiopic, and Vulgate, except that they read it in the future; reading probably, (mi) who or whom for (kee) that. Michaelis, however, justly observes that the word PTY (tzedakah) which is here rendered righteousness, may, with equal propriety, be translated truth, and then, by the assistance of the parallelism, the just sense is restored, and the passage will run thus :

They shall come and declare his truth;

To a people that shall be born (they shall declare) that he hath performed it.

That is, that he hath fulfilled his promises, and divine predictions. Thus Sebastian Castellio renders it, ut exponant quâ sit usus justitiâ, "that they may shew what righteousness he hath wrought;" by righteousness, or justice, meaning fidelity, or the performance of his promise.

In Psa. xxxix. 20, the common translation is:

* Continued from p. 170.

For they speak against thee wickedly,

And thy enemies take thy name in vain.

And Boothroyd:

Who wickedly rebel against thee;

Thine enemies, who take thy name in vain.

Deriving (yomeroocha), from (marah) to rebel ; instead of (amar) to say or speak, which, however, is the reading of the Keri, and most of the versions. MAIDT TID" (yomeroocha limzimmah) is rendered by the Targumist T 11"

masoo) נשוא לשוא .they swear by thy name for deceit על נבלא

lashav) Michaëlis thinks may be translated to profess falsely, to perjure themselves; and, it is accordingly rendered in the Targum, they swear falsely; and (araicha) translated thy enemies, more properly denotes thy cities: so LXX. Taç ToλELS σov, and Vulg. civitates tuas. The sense of the second line will therefore run thus: "Who swear falsely by thy cities," i. e. by Shechem, Bethlehem, Jerusalem, etc.; by which it was customary for the Jews to swear, as it is plain from Matt. v. 35; and this interpretation not only is such as would be suggested by a proper attention to the parallelism, but is perfectly correspondent to the context:

I would that thou wouldst slay the wicked, O God;
And that the men of blood should depart from me!
Who speak of thee only for deceit,

And swear falsely by thy cities.

Do not I hate them, who hate thee, etc.*

And if the psalm may be referred to the times during, or after, the captivity, as some learned men have thought, the words may apply to Sanballat, Tobiah, and the other enemies of the returned Jews.

The most complete examples of the use of parallelism are adduced by Bp. Lowth in his Preliminary Dissertation to Isaiah. One short passage of Isaiah furnishes a number for this purpose:

Wherefore hear ye the word of Jehovah, ye scoffers;

Ye who to this people in Jerusalem utter sententious speeches.
Who say, We have entered into a covenant with death;
And with the grave we have made a treaty.—
But your covenant with death shall be broken;
And your treaty with the grave shall not stand.

Isa. xxviii. 14, 15, 18.

(moshelai) ye that rule this people, says our version; and so the generality of interpreters ancient and modern. But this prophecy is not addressed to the rulers of the people, nor is it at all concerned with them in particular; but is directed to the Ephraimites in general and this part to the scoffers among them, who ridiculed the denunciations of the prophets, by giving out the parabolic sen

See Michaëlis' Notes to Lowth's Prælection. Præl. 19 edit. Gottingen, or Mason's Translation, vol. ii. p. 57-59.

tences and solemn speeches, somewhat in the prophetic style, in op position to their prophecies of which speeches he gives specimens in the next verse, as he had done before in the ninth and tenth verses, (moshelai), therefore, is parallel and synonymous with 113 (anshai latzon) scoffers; and is not to be translated rulers. but to be taken in the other sense of the word, and rendered, "those that speak parables." And Jarchi in this place very properly explains it, qui dicunt verba irrisionis parabolicè."

The next verse gives us a more remarkable instance of the influence which the parallelism has in determining the sense of words:

We have entered into a covenant with death;

And with the grave we have made→→

what? Every one must answer immediately, an agreement, a bargain, a treaty, or something to the same sense: and so in effect say all the versions, ancient and modern. But the word (chozeh) means no such thing in any part of the Bible; (except in the 18th. verse of this chapter, here quoted, where it is repeated in the same sense, and nearly in the same form;) nor can the lexicographers give any satisfactory account of the word in this sense; which, however, they are forced to admit from the necessity of the case: Recte verto vocem perinde ac n (ver. 18.) transactionem, licet neutra hac significatione alibi occurrat: circumstantia enim orationis eum necessariò exigit: says the learned Vitringa upon the place. It could not otherwise have been known, that the word had this meaning; it is the parallelism alone that determines it to this meaning; and that so clearly, that no doubt at all remains concerning the sense of the passage.

To be in covenant with, is a kind of proverbial expression to denote perfect security from evil and mischief of any sort.

For thou shalt be in league with the stones of the field:
And the beasts of the field shall be at peace with thee.

Job v. 23.

And I will make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field,
And with the fowls of heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground.

Hos. ii. 18.

That is, none of these shall hurt them. But Lucan, speaking of the Psylli, whose peculiar property it was to be unhurt by the bite of the serpent, with which their country abounded, comes still nearer to the expression of Isaiah in this place:

Truce with the dreadful tyrant death they have,
And border safely on his realm the grave.

Again:

And your covenant with death shall be broken.

ROWE.*

But (caphar) means to cover, to cover sin, and so to expiate, etc., and is never used in the sense of breaking, or dissolving, a covenant, though that notion so often occurs in the Scriptures; nor can it be forced into this sense, but by a deal of far fetched reasoning. Besides, it ought to be 5 (cupperah) or, (tecuppar, in

the feminine form, to agree with (berith) a covenant. So that the word, as it stands, makes neither grammar nor sense. There is great reason therefore to suspect some mistake in our present copy. The true reading is probably (tuppar), differing by one letter. So conjectured Houbigant; and so Archbishop Secker and I find their conjecture confirmed by the Chaldee paraphrast, who renders it by (battail), the word which he generally uses in rendering this common phrase, 27 (haiphir berith.)† And this reading is still further confirmed by the parallelism; for (tuppar), shall be broken, in the first line, is parallel and synonymous to DP (lo thakoom), shall not stand, in the second.

The very same phrases are parallel and synonymous, Isa.

viii. 10.

Take counsel together, and it shall come to nought, ¬bni:

ולא יקום,Speak the word and it shall not stand

The following example contains a reading suggested by the parallelism, and destitute of all authority of MSS and ancient versions.

But mine enemies living are numerous;

And they that hate me wrongfully are multiplied. Psa. xxxviii. 19.

The word (chayim), living seems not to belong to this place; besides, that the construction of it in the Hebrew is very unusual and inelegant. The true reading in all probability, is (chinnam) without cause; parallel and synonymous with p (sheker) wrongfully, in the next line; as in Psa. xxxv. 19, which completes the parallelism through both lines. Let the reader compare Psa. Ixix. 5, where the very same three terms in each line are set

* See Bishop Lowth, in loco.

We are very averse to conjectural emendation, unsupported by the autho rity of MSS., and feel inclined to differ from Bp. Lowth. 5 (caphar) denotes to cover, and also to smear over: hence the idea of annulling a covenant is, by Parkhurst, taken from the smearing over and so obliterating a covenant engraven, as the ancient ones used to be, on tablets of stone. So Symmachus, EEAAEIOOHΣETAI; and (cephar) in Syr. denotes abstersit, diluit, abolevit. Whichever be the true reading, the parallelism alone, determines the meaning; and 55 (cuppar) will be as really parallel to Dip (lo thakoom), as (tuppar).