tament. Suidas says distinctly, that the Greek word vūža signifies piercing a person or thing, close to you, with a sword or dagger. As I feel myself under the necessity of mentioning the various conjectures, which have been brought forward, in order that the reader may not accuse me of suppressing any thing, I shall here notice a singular various reading, as it occurs in the Vulgate. It is thus translated," he opened his side with a lance," which Beza conIcludes to have been a confusion of some other Greek word (voice). Certain it is, that the word "opened" is in Wheeler's Manuscript, and it occurs in the new Syriac translation. The old Latin translations, prior to Jerome, are divided.

34. "And forthwith came thereout blood and water."] If the direction of the spear was intended to terminate life, and was therefore aimed at the heart, it could only have produced blood, and what the physicians term " liquor pericardii," from the heart, and the contiguous vessels. This is the common opinion, but to make it better understood, I must recur to something which is generally omitted. The " liquor pericardii" is, in general, in such small quantities, that its effusion is scarcely evident; but when the death is slow, and even in the case of a

person who is hung, it accumulates rapidly, as well as in all the pectoral vessels, besides the pericardium and as Jesus had now suffered six hours upon the cross, it must have accumulated so considerably as to become visible. In one point of view, this wound, and the blood and water which flowed from it, are important; they prove the death of Jesus Christ, and that it was not merely a fainting fit, but that it was in the state of death, that he was put into the grave. This proof, however, becomes stronger, when we take into consideration my illustration of the word "taken away." If the object was merely to take away life, the blow would naturally have been aimed at the heart, and the blood and water flowing out would have been the fatal and immediate consequence. But John does not seem to have written this history, however important this fact ultimately becomes, with this object in view; he makes no application of it, as verifying the death of Jesus, but only looks to it, as fulfilling a material passage in Scripture. He does not even hint at the possibility of Jesus being buried alive; and it is not likely he understood so much of the formation of the human frame as to know the effect of the effusion of the "liquor pericardii," and

it is not probable, that many even of his learned commentators were acquainted with the physical consequences. The case would have been different if Luke had related it, as he was a medical man, and is likely to have been conversant with the effect of blood and water issuing in this direction.

35, 36. There is nothing, so far as I can understand the words of John, more clear, than that he here speaks of the actual fulfilment of such passages of the Old Testament, as related prophetically to the Messiah. But it is not here an object to strain passages, or to accommodate them to the situation, to which he conceived they might apply. I will not confine myself to the expression, "For these things were done, that the Scripture should be fulfilled," because that might have another meaning, but to the connection. The history, in the eyes of John, acquires such singular importance, that he says, he writes as an eye-witness, that he has seen every thing himself, and that he knows it to be true; and he writes that his reader may believe that Jesus is the Christ. But in what way does it contribute to this belief? to convince any one, that Jesus was actually dead, and actually risen? It does both; but he

alludes to it, in another way, and merely says, "For this is done, that the Scripture might be fulfilled." The history, therefore, is important: first, as producing an active faith in Christ; and next, as illustrating two passages in the Old Testament, which John necessarily understood to relate to Christ. It is astonishing how some commentators have tortured this passage. Men, who do not believe in types (although in other places, they will believe them, nor is there any thing inconsistent in ceremonies, ordained by God, having a signification), will not believe that the passage, Exodus xii. 46, about the Paschal Lamb, relates to the Messiah: they will not believe that the passage, Zechariah xii. 10, relates to him, although the passage, taken in connection with the one immediately preceding it, is so obscure, that a man who had learned to doubt, would prefer declaring that he did not understand it. But let them think of these passages what they like, and give even the most decisive opinion, what would be the consequence? what would a reasonable man say, in reference to these passages? The utmost he could say, would be, that John had made an erroneous application of the passage. This does not affect the credibility of John, but

only impeaches the doctrine of general divine inspiration, which must, of course, be renounced, if these prophecies do not attach to the Messiah. But this the commentators will not do, and they introduce an explanation, which, instead of admitting the possibility of mistake, involves an intentional absurdity. But here every Jew, deist, and infidel, can judge for himself, whether, supposing the two passages to be prophecies, unconnected with this history, John has erred, or whether he has rightly quoted them in illustration of a singular coincidence.

36. I must think that John refers to Christ, when we look to the passage in Exodus xii. 46, and I think that the sacrifices ordained by Moses are rightly explained in the Old Testament (Psalm xl. 6—9) to be an emblem of the great and true sacrifice, which God requires, and at the same time, of the Messiah, who speaks in this psalm. In Luke xxiv. 27, I must also observe that what Jesus explains to be prophetic of his death, evidently refers to the commandment of Moses in relation to bloody sacrifices, and I am astonished that any should agree with me in the illustration of this passage, and yet deny the Paschal Lamb to be a type of Christ, and the quotation to be only a forced application of it