Tothe Editorofthe Christian Observer. secure to you hereafter the possibility of repentance? Who can promise that the mercy which has been deliberately slighted, shall not eventually be withheld? that God will not at length, according to his own awful declaration, "laugh at your calamity, and mock when your fear cometh?" 2. The admonition: "If the Lord be God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him." Think not to unite the pleasures of sin with the hope of the Gospel; to be at the same time the servants of righte ousness and of iniquity; if it be right that you should take this world for your portion, be at ease in the pursuit of it: let no apprehensions of futurity, no alarms of conscience, check you in your course. But "if the Lord be God," let it be your determination to serve him; not with a mixed, and doubtful, and partial obedience, but with the undivided purpose of the heart; honouring him in the means of grace, obeying him in the Gospel of his Son, seeking earnestly for the blessings of his Spirit, repentance unto life, the remission of sins, the purifying of the mind, the quickening and effectual power of that grace, which God alone can bestow, and which, through faith in Christ Jesus, he is willing to impart to every one who sincerely and diligently seeks it. Do not err, my beloved brethren: do not deceive yourselves by the persuasion that you follow God aright when your service is merely nominal, however fair; let it be the worship and devotion of the soul. "Serve him with a perfect heart, and with a willing mind." Such was the dying advice of David to his son; and the argument by which he enforced it may be addressed with equal propriety to every one among us: "If thou seek Him, He will be found of thee: but if thou forsake Him, He will cast thee off for ever." IN reference to the discussion in your Number for last October, p. 389, the argument in my mind, has never been-" Did our Lord eat the Passover at the usual time appointed by the Jewish Law, or did he anticipate that great national type by eating it the day before?" but, "Was the memorable supper which he eat with his disciples the Passover Supper, or was it not? Or did he eat it the night before his passion, or did he never eat it? Was the correct Passover-day the day on which He suffered, or was it the day before?" On points like these, I agree with your correspondent A. B. C. that it is not so material that we should satisfy our minds, either for the negative or the affirmative, as that we should forbear citing as a fact, what we are not reasonably assured is such, for the sake of some inference, however pleasing or useful, that we purpose to ground upon it. For the arguments that Christ suffered on the day and hour of eating the Passover, I refer your readers to Kennedy's Chronology. The direct text against Kennedy's view of the subject, "With desire I have thus desired to eat THIS Passover with you before I suffer," his arguments thus paraphrase:"I have greatly desired to institute THIS my Passover instead of the legal one before I suffer;" and the course of his reasoning is the same as we use against transubstantiation. X, Y, Z. Tothe Editorofthe Christian Observer, I HAVE no disposition unnecessarily to prolong the discussion on Gal i. 7; but your correspondent I. O. Z. having, in your Number for March, cited various authorities in answer to certain philological objections urged by me against our common version of the clause & εκ ετιν αλλο, it ber Lard appears to me due to the subject to But it is necessary, in limine, to Those objections, however, I still think sound and valid. 1st. In answer to the first, I. O. Z. cites the authority of Budæus for the indiscriminate use of erɛpov and aλλo, and produces a very apposite quotation from 2 Cor. xi. 4. I do not here call Budæus's authority in question, but do not see its bearing on my objection. I allow that St. Paul might with equal propriety have applied the epithet ἕτερον οι CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 306. allo to the new Gospel reprobated by him; but I still think, that, having used the former, he would naturally have repeated it. and not changed it to aXXo, had he meant to express the sense conveyed by our version, and that simplicity and perspicuity of style required it.-2d. In support of the adversative signification assigned to ει μη, your correspondent brings forward the names of Parcus, Hoogeveen, Whitby, Leigh, and Parkhurst. Far am I from undervaluing the lights afforded us by such writers; but he who would make their knowledge his own, or satisfy his own mind as to the truth of any particular position, which they may lay down, must search for himself, and examine on what grounds such position is founded. Now, they give us various passages, in which e un occurs; and I. O Z. will do well to analyse those passages for himself. For my own part I cannot see any sufficient reason for assigning to ε un an adversative signification in any one of them. In all (except 1 Cor. vii. 17, on which I will touch again), this compound particle appears to me plainly to have its ordinary exceptive sense of nisi, with the usual grammatical government, a general negation preceding it, from which EL μn makes a particular exception. In some of them indeed & un is disjoined from the negative by an intermediate member, as in Matt. xii. 4; Gal. ii. 16; but still I conceive that the force of the negative is carried forward, and that & μn retains its proper exceptive signification. The English idiom does not admit of this construction, but requires the repetition of the negative, if the exceptive be used; and this has led to the assigning of an adversative sense to ε un in these and similar instances. But this does not, I submit, convey correctly the precise sense of the Greek. In Gal. ii. 16, for instance, the Apostle does not mean so much to assert the affirmative of the proposition, 2 X namely, that a man is justified by the faith of Jesus Christ, as to deny that he can be justified by any other means. Now the exceptive sense of a un alone conveys the latter turn of thought, the adversative gives the former, as if the order of the words had been dikatovrau ανθρωπος εξ εργων νομου, αλλα δια πιστεως Ιησου Χριστῶν, instead of ou δικαιουται ανθρωπος εξ έργων νομου, εὰν μὴ διά πίστεως Ιησού Χριστου. The proper use of alλa or ε un depends upon this, whether the predicate be affirmative or negative: alla might, it is true, have been used in the latter form; but & μn is not admissible in the former, nor is ever used in like cases, but aλλa, as in Rom. ix. 11, 16, 32; 2 Tim. i. 9; Tit. iii. 5, which I would offer to the consideration of I. O. Z. And this shews sufficiently that & un cannot be confounded with alλa, nor has ever, properly speaking, the adversative signification. The opinions of learned men on nice philological questions of this kind, delivered it may be without mature consideration, cannot, and ought not to be relied upon implicitly. But I. O. Z. takes credit for their authorities farther than he is warranted. Hoogeveen in particular, whose authority on the subject of the Greek particles is of most weight, is treating of the exceptive, rather than the adversative, signification of E un, in the section from which your correspondent's passages are cited; and, though he observes, after giving a few instances, "In talibus exemplis sæpe reddi potest per alla," subjoining the parallel passages (Matt. xvii. 8; and Mark ix. 8); yet it is not clear, in what sense he takes aλa itself, whether adversatively or exceptively; for it must be remembered, that in his section on alla (§ v.) he conversely assigns to alλa the exceptive signification of ει μη. "Ex ceptive quoque," he remarks, "accipitur post negationem, et exponitur per a un;" and the intelligent reader, on comparing the parallel passages above cited, will probably agree with me, that, if either of the particles a un or aλλa is to be considered as losing its proper signification, and assuming that of the other, it is adλa, and not ε μn. But (what is most to our purpose) in the particular passage under our consideration (Gal. i. 7.) he ex pressly leaves the matter in doubt, giving both translations thus : “ Sed sunt sive exceptive, tantummodo sunt, qui vos conturbant," &c. It is true that he here gives us, as the exceptive sense of & un, not nisi, but tantummodo, but these are plainly equivalent; for whether we make the Apostle to pronounce the new doctrine" not another Gospel, only there be some that trouble you," or to say, " except that there be some that trouble you," comes precisely to the same thing. Nor is Leigh much more decisive: in his Critica Sacra, under & un, he says indeed, "It is either an exclusive particle, and so it is taken for only; or else adversative, and so it is taken for but: and thus it is used in many Scriptures;" and he then cites our passage among several others; but he does not decide in which of the two senses above noticed it is to be there. understood. Moreover, Whitby himself (another of your correspondent's authorities), in his Paraphrase, renders & un by but that, in the passage before us. What weight are we then to attach to Beza's non placet, who objects to this translation on account of the insertion of quod, that? If it is to be taken as conclusive against this translation, it is equally so against the other. But in fact Beza's ob jection does not appear to stand supported by the usage either of Greek or Latin writers. In forms of expression analogous to that before us we find quod omitted. Thus we find Cicero (1 Tusc. 75), thus expressing himself - "quid aliud agimus quum a voluptate, id est a corpore, &c. revocamus animum, quid, inquam, tum agimus, nisi animum ad scipsum vocamus?" Whence we may conclude, that, if he had had to express the sense, which I attach to the Apostle's words, he would have said, "quod non est aliud, nisi sunt" (not "nisi quod sunt"), "qui vos conturbant," &c. Similarly had the passage cited by Hoogeveen from Aristophanes been put indicatively, instead of imperatively, it would have stood thus:--ουδεν άλλο (ποιεις,) ει μη 'σθιες where, according to Beza, we ought to have had ει μη ότι I beg to add but a few words more upon 1 Cor. vii. 17, in which the force of a un appears to me to be misinterpreted. The Apostle having discouraged the separation of husband and wife on the ground of unbelief, though he allows of it in the case of the unbelieving party desiring it, gives this reason for their remaining together, that it might end in the conversion of the unbelieving party; and he then adds, ει μη έκαστῳ ὡς εμέρισεν ὅ κύριος, ἕκαστον ὡς κεκληκεν ὁ διος dura repitateira. Now I submit, that these particles are here most naturally to be taken in their distinct and primary meanings, and rendered, if not, and that thus they best carry on the train of the Apostle's instructions, which will run thus: "For what knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband? Or how knowest thou, O man, whether thou shalt save thy wife? If not," (that is, if the unbelieving party should not be converted, still)" as God hath distributed to every man-as the Lord hath called every one-so let him walk." That is, in every event, the Apostle discourages the notion, that Christianity interfered with the relations of civil society. D. M. P. MISCELLANEOUS. For the Christian Observer. A LATE Number of the Anti-Slavery Monthly Reporter contains some very important notices of the recent proceedings in the colonies, chiefly those which have arisen out of the instructions transmitted during the last year by Earl Bathurst to the different governors, on the subject of the reforms to be submitted to the colonial legislatures. We recommend our readers to read the whole of the paper; our limits not allowing of our copying more than the following particulars. The propositions of Lord Bathurst were, 1. The establishment of a protector and guardian of slaves; 2. The admission of the evidence of slaves in courts of justice; 3. The giving to slaves a power, under certain regulations, of purchasing their freedom; 4. The legal institution of marriage among the slaves; 5. The suppression of Sunday markets and Sunday labour; 6. The conferring on slaves a legal right of acquiring, preserving, and transmitting property; 7. The prohibition of the separation of families by legal process; 8. The abolition of the driving whip, the regulation and record of punishments, and the abolition of female flogging. By most, if not all of the assemblies, the bills, founded on those recommendations, on being presented, were promptly and unceremoniously rejected. In thus rejecting, however, (without the slightest reserve, and with furious tirades about that constitutional liberty which they are daily outraging in the persons of others,) the whole of the propositions laid before them by his Majesty, the Assemblies appear to have been quite sensible, that there was peril in adhering to their former declarations against all improvement of their slave code. They accompany The unbending resistance with their rejection of Lord Bathurst's bills with a resolution to revise their slave laws, in the view of introducing such ameliorating changes as might be compatible with their own dignity as independent legislators, and with the safety of the colonies. We shall see presently how their professed purpose has been carried into effect. We shall select for our review the largest of the colonies. Jamaica.-I. The establishment of a protector and guardian of slaves. This proposition has been rejected; and all the colonial legislatures, we believe, have been equally unyielding on this point. 2. The admission of the evidence of slaves in courts of justice. The proposition of Lord Bathurst on this subject was, that all slaves of whom any clergyman, or catholic priest, or minister duly licensed, should certify that they understood the nature of an oath, should be recorded and received as competent, witnesses in all courts, civil or criminal,with the exception of civil suits in which the owner was interested, and capital charges against free persons. The objections to this last exception are obvious enough; but the proposition of Lord Bathurst, however defective, is a large advance in the progress of improvement, when contrasted with the provisions which the Jamaica Assembly have adopted on this subject. In the first place, the testimony of slaves is to be admitted only in criminal cases; nor can it be received at all without a certificate of baptism. Slaves are excluded entirely from giving evidence in civil suits; and in all cases a variety of obstacles are interposed so as to make the enactment almost inoperative. 3. The giving to slaves a power under certain regulations of purchasing their freedom. . This proposition is absolutely and entirely rejected in Jamaica, and, we believe, in all the other colonies having legislatures of their own. which this fair, moderate, and reasonable proposition has been met by them all, is a decisive proof of the utter hopelessness of the willing adoption, by the colonists, of any measure which tends, however remotely, to the extinction of slavery. It is impossible to conceive any measure leading to that end which would be attended with less possibility of any private loss or public inconvenience than that which makes manumission the effect of the steady industry of the slave. The experience of the Spanish colonies has proved its perfect safety; while the provision which secures to the owner the full value of his slave takes away the very slightest ground of complaint on the score of uncompensated reform. And yet this is a measure to which an uniform and unqualified and most determined resistance has been made in all the colonies. The colonies, therefore, are here brought into direct conflict with his majesty's government. Lord Bathurst has pressed the measure upon them in the very strongest terms. "No system of measures," he observes, will satisfy the feelings of this country or execute the purposes of the House of Commons, which does not contain some direct provision, some acting principle, by which the termination of slavery may be gradually accomplished." The giving to the slave the right of purchasing his freedom, his lordship declares to be" a vital part of the question" which "cannot be dispensed with." His majesty's government, he tells the colonists," stand pledged to take such measures as may ultimately, though gradually, work out the freedom of the slaves;" and they may be assured, "that, from the final accomplishment of that object this country will not be diverted." So decided is his lordship on this point, that he assures the local authorities of Demerara, that if they should persist in declining to admit the proposed regulations, |