to him which he had already made to the whole house. More, desirous rather to elude this insolent requisition, than to urge matters to an extremity apologised, with great apparent reverence, for the conduct of the members, abashed as they must be by the presence of so noble and extraordinary a personage. He shewed that to return an answer to his Majesty's message by any other persons, how great soever, than some of their own members, was contrary to the ancient privileges of the house; and he concluded by humbly declaring that, though all the members had entrusted him with their voices, yet unless they could also put their several judgments into his head, he alone was not able, in so weighty a matter, to make a proper reply to his Grace. This evasive answer only irritating the haughty cardinal still more, he hastily rose up, and in great wrath quitted the house.' p. 47.

It would have constituted no ordinary fame for a high chancellor of those times to have maintained the noble impartiality alone of More; but his generous mind introduced not less benevolence than justice into the discharge of the office.

The inflexible integrity and disinterestedness of More became proverbial, for while he would allow none of his friends, or the officers of his court, to oppress the suitors by receiving presents, no hopes or fears, or even the affections of kindred or friendship were ever known to bias his judgment. An instance is mentioned in which he made a decree directly against one of his sons-in-law, who, trusting to the partiality of so near a relative had refused to submit his cause to arbitration. Another of his sonsin-law having, between jest and earnest, complained that he did not allow his friends to make any profit under him; not that he, for his part, would be guilty of perverting justice, but that he saw no harm in receiving a small present for speaking in behalf of suitors; More applauded the scrupulousness of his conscience, and told him that he should endeavour to provide for him otherwise; "for this one thing I assure thee," said he," that if the parties will call for justice at my hands, even though it were my father, whom I love so dearly, stood on one side, and the devil, whom I hate extremely, stood on the other, his cause being just, the devil of me should have his due." "For your sake," he would say to his children," I will do justice to all men, and leave you a blessing. p. 67..

Resolved that no man who had been wronged should have to purchase justice, and that the poor and helpless, who stood most in need of the protection of the laws, should not be defrauded of their rights, he took precautions that every one should have direct and immediate access to his court, but in proportion as a suitor was poorer, meaner, or more unprotected, he was received with more affability, his business heard with more attention, and dispatched with more

licitors and the necessar Aware however, that even this

demeanour was not enough, to

justice to all, that the expence of soas well as the regular fees of office frequently deterred men from prosecuting a just claim; and that the suits in forma pauperis, which had lately been granted, were but very lamely supported; it was his general custom to sit every afternoon in his open hall, where every one who had any suit to prefer was allowed to come. without any form or writing whatever, and explain his claims in person.

Although he thus brought on himself a load of causes, which he might have avoided by rendering his court more difficult of access, such was his indefatigable diligence, that he proceeded rapidly even in clearing away the arrears of his predecessors. Though on his first appointment to the chancellorship, he had found his court encumbered by a vast accumulation of suits, some of which had been there nearly twenty years; yet he had only held the office two years, when, on determining a certain cause, and calling for the next to be heard, he was answered that there was not one more depending. This circumstance, which had perhaps never occurred before since the institution of the court, he caused to be entered on record.' p. 65.

(To be concluded in the next Number.)

Art. II. Dr. Middleton's Doctrine of the Greek Article, applied to the Criticism and Illustration of the New Testament.

(Concluded from p. 780.)

THE extent to which we have already carried our statement of Dr. Middleton's principles, requires us to contract the account we are to give of their application within narrow limits.

The Second Part of his elaborate work consists of the Application of the Doctrine, established and elucidated in the First, to the most valuable of all purposes, the Illustration of the New Testament. The intelligent public will not need to be instructed, that Scholia, many of which are large Dissertations, by a Critic like Dr. M. on more than seven hundred passages of the Christian oracles, must be a treasure of sin-. gular worth. So extensive is the scope of this part of the work, that the author judged it necessary to make an apology for omitting to print the Text along with the notes. The Second Part," he says, 66 accompanied throughout by the Greek Text, would have assumed the form of a new edition of the Greek Testament: I thought it better, however, to trust to the hope, that they, who were really interested in the subject, would have the Greek Testament lying open before them, than to increase the bulk of the work by an appendage, which might justly be condemned as of no real use.” Pref.

P. xx.

All that we propose is to make a few extracts, as a specimen of the benefits which are here conferred on Critical Theology. On Matt. i. 18. we find a Note, which, from its length, might be called a Diatribe, on the meanings of Iva in the N. T; and, from its importance, we are induced to insert it. If Ex trisúpatos "ays. Wakefield, both in his St. Matthew, and in his New Test. 1795, translates a holy Spirit." There is reason to believe that he laid some stress on the absence of the Article; for I have observed that he generally in such cases adheres to the letter of the original whence it is plain, that he did not advert to the anomaly noticed

in the Preliminary Inquiry, Chap. vi. § 1. In whatever manner we are to render this passage, it is certain that the absence of the Article after a Preposition does not affect the definiteness of the sense. Since, however, the phrases πνεῦμα and πνεῦμα ἅγιον, both with and without the Article, are of frequent occurrence in the N. T., it may not be amiss in this place to inquire generally into the meanings which they bear, and especially on what occasions the Article is taken or rejected.

I. The primitive signification of TVEUμa is breath or wind in which senses, however, it is not often found in the N. T. In the sense of breath Tua takes or rejects the Article, as the circumstance may require. Thus, Matt. xxvii. 50. d¶й TO μα, his breath or life; Part I. Chap. iii. Sect. 1. § 4. but Apoc. xiii. 15. we have deva vμα, to give life, where To would be inconsistent with the sense: for that, which was pos sessed already, could not now first be given. In the meaning of wind we find, John iii. 8. Tò eμ YET, ÖT Éλu: where the Article is requisite by Part I. Chap. iii. Sect. 1. § 5.

II. Hence we pass by an easy transition to μa, the intellectual or spiritual part of man, as opposed to his carnal part. Thus, μa is freπνεῦμα quently contradistinguished from caę. In this sense also it may be used either definitely or indefinitely: examples of each will be noticed in the sequel.

III. A third meaning arises by abstracting the spiritual principle from the body or matter, with which in man it is associated; hence is deduced the idea of the immaterial agents, whom we denominate Spirits. Thus Luke xxiv. 39. πνεύμα σάρκα καὶ ὀςέα ἐκ ἔχει. John iv. 24. πνεῦμα ὁ θεός. Act. xxiii. 9. πνεῦμα ἢ ἄγγελος. The πνεύματα also of the Demoniacs are to be classed under this head. It is evident that the word, in this acceptation, must admit both a definite and an indefinite sense.

IV. But the word μ is used in a sense not differing from the former, except that it is here employed xar' 'ižoxn' to denote the Great and Pre-eminent Spirit, the Third Person in the Trinity: and in this acceptation, it is worthy of remark, that πνεῦμα Or πνεύμα άγιον is never anarthrous; except, indeed, in cases, where other terms confessedly the most definite lose the Article, from some cause alledged in the preliminary inquiry. 1t will be shown in the following pages, as the passages occur, that such is the practice of the Sacred Writers. The addition of To ayo serves only to ascertain to what class of Spirits, whether good or evil, this pre-eminent Spirit is affirmed to belong. -It may here be briefly noticed, that in the passages, which, from their ascribing personal acts to the μa ayor, are usually adduced to prove the Personality of the Blessed Spirit, the words πνεύμα and πνεύμα άγιον invariably have the Article. See particularly Mark i 10. Luke iii 22. John i. 32. Acts i. 16. and xx. 28. Ephes. iv. 20. Mark xiii. 11. Acts x. 9. and xxviii. 25. 1 Tim. iv. 1. Heb. iii. 7. &c.-The reason of this is obvious; for there being but one Holy Spirit, he could not be spoken of indefinitely. In Matt. also xxviii. 19. where the Holy Spirit is associated with the Father and the Son, the reading is te ayle paros

• V. The fifth sense of μ is easily deducible from the fourth'; being here not the Person of the Holy Spirit, but his influence or operation: the

addition of yo, is explicable as before. And in this meaning a remarkable difference may be observed with respect to the. Article. Though the Holy Spirit himself be but one, his influences and operations may be many: hence μa and Tμ yo are in this sense, always anarthrous, the case of renewed mention or other reference being of course excepted. The expressions of being "filled with the Holy Ghost," "receiving the Holy Ghost," "the Holy Ghost being upon one," &c. justify this obser

vation.

53

VI. The last meaning, or rather class of meanings, for they are several, comprises whatever is deducible from the last acceptation, being not the influences of the Spirit, but the effects of them: under which head we may range up in the senses of disposition, character, faith, virtue, religion, &c. and also whenever it is used to signify evil propensities or desires, with this difference only, that these latter must be supposed to arise from the influence of the Evil Spirit. In all these senses the Article is inserted or omitted according to the circumstances... Now if we put together the consequences of what has been shewn under the fourth and fifth heads, we shall perceive the futility of pretending that the Holy Spirit is, as some aver, merely an influence: the Sacred Writers have clearly and in strict conformity with the analogy of language distinguished the influence from the Person of the Spirit. In like manner the Personality of the Holy Spirit is deducible by comparing the third and fourth heads: for if in the passages adduced under the third mean a spiritual agent, ro, in the places referred to under the fourth, where there is no renewed mention, nor any other possible interpretation of the Article, but the use of it ar' iox, can mean only the one spiritual agent, of acknowledged and pre-eminent dignity. But the personality of Ma under the third head cannot be disputed, unless by those who would controvert the personality of eós: the personality, therefore, of τὸ πνεύμα used κατ' ἐξοχὴν naust be conceded.

I have thus, at some length, examined the senses of the word μ in the first passage in which it occurs, in order to exhibit the result of my observation at a single view; so that in the sequel I need only to refer to what has been here advanced. With respect to the place in St. Mat thew, which has given rise to this note, it is impossible to prove incontestably that the Holy Spirit in the personal acceptation is here meant ; inasmuch as the Preposition (See Part I. Chap. vi. § 1.) may have occasioned the omission of the Articles; and this happens, in some other places also, from the same cause. However, Mr. Wakefield's translation, which implies a plurality of Holy Spirits, the ordinary Ministers of Almighty Providence, is irreconcileable with the phraseology of the N. T. in which μara aya are not once mentioned. Rosenmüller's (See Scholia in N. T. 1789) " per omnipotentiam divinam" is less liable to objection.'

Dr. M.'s opinion of the late Mr. Gilbert Wakefield, as a translator and a critic, will appear from the following passages. They excite afresh our concern, that the conduct of that justly lamented, but precipitate and partial, scholar, was not regulated by the judicious advice he received (we believe from Dr VOL. IV.

3 U

Burney) when his ungoverned egotism led him to assail Mr. Porson :-that he would" observe more accuracy of investi gation, and less acrimony of expression, in his philological researches ;" so that we might "be enabled to bestow those commendations on his learned labours, to which our respect for his erudition would readily incline us to wish them entitled.” 'Heb. vi. 12. Tas irayyıλías. Mr. Wakefield thinks it "not improbable, that we should read τ for as," and observes, that "so several of the ancient Translators appear to have read. The Participle," he adds, "is used as a Substantive, as often."-What is to be gained by this emendation, he does not even hint: the word ixayyɛxía is as frequently -used in the Plural as in the Singular; and as to the remark, that Participles are often used as Substantives, if he mean that of xangovouỡvles Tñs rayythias would be tolerable Greek, I apprehend that he is mistaken. "The Creator of all things" may in Greek be expressed by i roingas ra πάντα ; but he, who should write των πάντων, would do little honour to his teacher. Yet on some points Mr. Wakefield is extremely fastidious. Thus he complains that the usual rendering of the 7th verse of this Chapter is unintelligible and absurd," and he would therefore join ἀπὸ τῷ θεῷ, placed at the end of the sentence, with ἐρχόμενον, which stands near the beginning. He then refers us to Acts xiv. 17; Zech. x. 1. and to a few passages of the Classics, which represent rain as coming from God, though not to a quarter of those, which ascertain the same undisputed fact. If this and some others of his Notes were not written with the intention of making criticism ridiculous, it will be difficult to assign to their Author any thing like an adequate motive: compared with them the Virgilius restauratus of Martinus Scriblerus scarcely maintains its preeminence.'

On the reading of some high authorities, (the Clermont MS. and many inferior; the Vulgate, Slavonic, and Coptic Versions, &c.) 'ayiou for 'awviou, in Heb. ix. 14. Dr. M. writes:

Mr. Wakefield would not admit either epithet. He translates, "who offered himself with a spotless mind unto God," and in his Note he observes, “ διὰ πνεύματος ἄμωμον” (ἀμώμε I suppose to be an error of the press) "more literally, spotless in his mind," adding that the Ethiopic has no epithet to TVEÚμaros. Thus this single Version, whenever it can be made subservient to the purpose of getting rid of an obnoxious phrase, is to be paramount to all other authorities. Perhaps, however, Mr. Wakefield's affection for the Ethiopic would not have increased on a more intimate acquaintance with it. On one occasion at least (on Eph. v. 5.) he was by this very Version" deserted at his utmost need," and that too at the moment, when it was practising on his credulity by insidious offers of support. And how far, in the present instance, does it succour him in his distress? Not, as I suspect, in the smallest degree: for the Latin, which from its similarity to the Greek, can here hardly be incorrect, has "qui obtulit seipsum per Spiritum Deo absque macula:" the whole of which amounts to nothing more, than that this Translator has said the Spirit," meaning the Holy Spirit, than which nothing is more common. Or would