but is there nothing to reform amongst us, and should we not carry our penitence as well as our supplications to the throne of the Divine Majesty! all probability, be a large sum of tured. They are beginning to be wickedness, for which responsibi- feared-the people express their lity attaches somewhere:-but a apprehensions in their devotionswar can never be perfectly just on both sides, and what an amount of crime does that nation run up that wages unjust war, especially if such war be long protracted, and more especially if it be It is not meant that this coun withal very sanguinary!-A war, try alone is criminal; patriotism however, that is just in its origin does not require us to stifle the becomes unjust, whenever ex- wish that she were! but it is for tended beyond the limits, or con- ourselves that we have to treat tinued beyond the moment pre. with heaven; and will any man scribed by dire necessity. Wars of reflection maintain that our ravaging all Europe, all the known late wars have been all right in world, and filling up nearly the their origin, all right in their conthird part of the space of man's duct? Yet the moral wrong of life, import peculiar malignancy, war is an amazing complication of in one, or some, or perhaps all, evil, demanding manifold retriof the belligerents. But every party bution. justifies its own quarrel, and appeals to posterity to pronounce upon the justice of its cause, and confidently looks to heaven for success. We are all thus deceiving ourselves: we fast for strife, and, with feet swift to shed blood, we at once tread and pollute the Christian sanctuary. Individuals, it may be pleaded, can do but little whether towards national good or national evil; but the community is composed of individuals; and in the order of providence, individuals are responsible for the acts of a nation,-they suffer in its adversity or enjoy its prosperity. The Long-continued, widely-extend- pretended insignificance of indivied and sanguinary war brings home duals is only a cloak for indolence, to a people, how secure soever or something worse: in a free from the immediate, manual vio- state, the declared opinion and lence of hostility, some portion of feeling of individuals, when forits evils. Great Britain, for in- tified by reason and humanity, stance, after fighting for nearly 20 years, now finds herself as far as ever from any one of the objects she proposed to herself by war; while at the same time she sees her commerce gone, and with it the source of revenue to the government and of subsistence to the people. The evil has not yet got to its head; for taxation will go on in creasing in the same proportion that trade is decreasing; and the sad consequences to individuals and the public cannot be even conjec. must act powerfully upon the Government: but where, for these many years, have any individuals lifted up the voice of reason and humanity against the continuance or even the extension of war? Our silence has been a virtual concurrence with our government, whose measures, therefore, in all their merit or demerit, we have made our own. In truth, we have breathed in impure air, till the vital sentiments of morality (of public justice and charity,) are nearly extinguished within us FOR ITS OWN SAKE! there any thing in our religion, upon which our hopes may safely feed? Or rather, must not solemn self-examination, on such a day as this, convict us of a disregard of the royal law of love, and of disaffection to the Prince of Peace? These reflections, springing from a heart that is touched with the wretched state of the world, "are humbly addressed to conscientious Christians: men of the world will At the present moment, in the midst of unexampled difficulties and dangers, we are about to plunge into a new war, with the people whose amity is most im'portant to us, the only free people in the world besides ourselves, the people who sprung from us, not take their measure of duty and are related to us by language, from the man of Nazareth, or manners and religion: this new square their hopes and their fears war will be, in all probability, by the rule of gospel charity;— ruinous to one or other, or both though by what standard of right of the parties, but though the they can justify our country, or consequences of hostility may be from what source they can draw dreadful, the causes are compara- any consolatory expectations, it is tively trivial or unintelligible: and for them to explain: but let Chrisyet no sentiment of disapprobation tians remember that they cannot or of apprehension is expressed, identify themselves with such men, in any part of the kingdom; no in all their sentiments and purpetition is preferred even for delay suits, without abdicating their own or caution. Thus uninstructed, proper character, and that if while unchecked by the people, an in- they are in the world they be also 'considerate and warlike adminis- of it, to the world they must look tration will soon, it is to be feared, for their reward. commence a contest, which, whatever may be the final issue of it, will certainly aggravate the horrors, widen the calamities and prolong the reign of the war, to the miseries of which the nation and a great part of the world have been subjected, during the whole period that the infant from the cradle has grown to manhood. The writer is not called upon or disposed to decide between the rival parties in the state; he believes that they are right and wrong by turns; his sole wish is to see a new party spring up, a Christian party, that shall temper the bitterness of animosity at home, as well as allay the fierce spirit of war that is raging abroad. In exIs this apathy and inertness pressing this wish, he is at the compatible with the duty of a same time aware that he subjects Christian people? With so cul- himself to the imputation of sinis. pable a silence before the altar of ter and even malignant designs; Humanity, can we expect to be for it is one of the unhappy fruits heard before the shrine of Reli- of the martial temper, that neugion? Have we any reason, with- trality of heart is not allowed to out a change of temper and con- individuals, in the midst of national duct, to reckon upon the protec- contentions, and that a love of tion of Providence, the benedic. peace is accounted want of patrition of the Father of mercies? Is otism. A. BIBLICAL CRITICISM, AND INQUIRIES AND DISQUISITIONS ON ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. On John viii. 58. Sep. 7, 1811. "Abraham saw his day," verse As my ideas respecting the proper translation and interpretation of John viii. 58, laid before the public in a periodical work, between 20 and 30 years ago, appear now to me to have been erroneous, I hold it to be right publicly also to acknowledge what I 4. That the Jews, however, at present regard as an error, and supposed or pretended to suppose, to give what, upon a re-examina- that Jesus had said what was tantion of this celebrated passage, I tamount with declaring that Abrahave been recently led to consider ham had seen him himself, the as its genuine sense and design. very identical person standing beNo one, I imagine, can be justly fore them in the form and figure of censured for owning and correct. a man, and accordingly inferred, ing a misapprehension, into which be conceives himself to have fallen. I, therefore, beg leave to offer for insertion in your Repository D's. Second Thoughts on John viii. 58. I am not aware, that any wellfounded objections can be made to the following positions-viz. that, if that had been the case, he must also have seen Abraham and been alive at the same time with him, which the uncontradicted observation they had just made shows they could not admit. 5. That Jesus perceived, and could not but perceive and grant, that he could not have been living, as a son of Mary, or an inhabitant of Nazareth, in or before the days of Abraham, and, therefore, could not intend to assert the one or the other to have been a fact. 1. That Jesus meant the same kind of being and the same identical being by the word (w) I, in the 58th verse, as by (ue) me, with which (av@pwov) a man, stands in apposition in the 40th verse of ch. 6. That if therefore Jesus really viii. in John's gospel. Both occur meant by his words, verse 58, that in the same discourse; and there there was a sense, in which he is not the slightest intimation of was before Abraham, he must have their being used in different senses. intended to assert, that he (Jesus 2. That by (avfpwπov) a man, Jesus meant that individual visible being, whom the Jews saw standing, and heard conversing with .them. 3. That when Jesus said, VOL. VII. of Nazareth) existed or was before Abraham in the contemplation, appointment or decree of the Deity. 7. That all events whatsoever having been known to the Infinite Mind from all eternity, and there fore, from all eternity, equally (Jesus) was (not only in being as objects of its contemplation, if our their senses must convince them, Lord's meaning had been that but also) in actual possession of stated in the preceding position, the title and character of the though he would have advanced a Christ or Messiah, by whose means strict truism, yet it would have Abraham was to be raised to the been no more than might have honour destined for him by the been said of any other individual Supreme Disposer of events, and of the great patriarch's posterity who consequently, as the instru with equal truth and propriety.- ment to be employed in advancing In such a sense of our Lord's him to that honour, was his supe. words there would have been no- rior. thing exclusively appropriate to The learned reader will observe, his circumstances--nothing likely that the translation I would now to silence the Jews, nothing adapt- give of the words πpiv Alga¤μ yɛ. ed to convince them of the just- verbal, εyw eu, is "Before Abraness of the claim, which they evi- ham shall be or shall exist, I am dently supposed him to have laid he, or the Christ," without the to a superiority to Abraham, and supposition of any ellipsis in the which seems plainly to have been former clause, and that I underthe subject of the latter part at stand yeveabzi to denote mère exleast of the conversation. See par- istence, though under a particular ticularly verse 51-53, 56. character. That you signifies 8. That if neither Jesus nor the same as in two passages Abraham existed the one before at least of John's gospel, ch. xiii. the other in the divine contempla. 2. xx. 27, is noticed by Schleus. tion or appointment, our Lord did ner. I refer also to H. Steph. not speak of simple existence, in Gr. Thes. But that such is not whatever language he spoke, if the unfrequently the signification of words he employed were of the youa in various Greek writers, I same import with us and yeveal, am not aware of being denied. I by whatever tenses in English find some of the ablest writers those Greek words be translated, among the old Socinians so far but of existence under certain cha. from allowing the common interracters respectively belonging to pretation of the former clause of the two persons mentioned in the the text under consideration, that dispute; and that the Jews accord- they even presume to call it a baringly understood Jesus to assert, barism. To their reasoning in fa that Abraham (of their natural vour of my way of translating this descent from whom they so proud. clause, I beg leave to refer. See ly boasted) was not yet in being, Socini Opera, v. i. p. 379, 380, or did not yet exist, in the charac- 504, 505, Enjedini Explicati ter and relation, which God had ones, &c. p. 224. Crellii Opera, changed his name to denote that v. 3. p. 93, 94. Woltzogenius in he should one day sustain, and loc. Artemonius in initium evanwhich would afford his natural gelii Joannis, v. 2. Diss. iv. p、 descendants much better grounds 614. for glorying in him than they could As to the translation of the lat. have before; but that he himself ter clause (eyw, Eu) by a preterite tense (I was) instead of the pre- The question of the Jews, v. sent (I am,) the same authors appear 53, in reply to our Lord's words, to me to have produced very cogent v. 52, shows, that they thought arguments for not admitting it, and him to have claimed a superiority to have satisfactorily shewn the to Abraham; and this seems eviauthorities they had seen adduced dently to have been the principal in its favour to be irrelevant. To point in dispute between them. them may be added Dr. Dod. The Jews, having no better argudridge, who says, in a note on the ment to offer in support of their verse, "I cannot apprehend, that side of the question, urge his com. Eyw Eu is ever used for I was." paratively recent birth to prove Mr. John Simpson, in his excel. that Abraham could not have been lent work on Internal and Pre- seen by him. Jesus, confining sumptive Evidences for Christiani- his attention to the great and ty, &c." part iv. ch. vii. sect. ii, leading point under discussion, entitled, Prophecies uttered by acts, as upon other occasions, and Christ, and their fulfilment," p. passing by unnoticed the query 537, note 2, says " is used to just put to him as intended to emexpress future time, John viii. 58, barrass him by the introduction of as Jesus also uses it, John xvi. 24." a quite different subject from what From this observation I should in. had been talked about before, asfer, that this learned critic is not serts, with a solemnity perfectly one of those who translate pv suitable to the importance of the Alpaau yevεolai, before Abraham fact he maintains, viz. that of his was; for what can be meant by being himself the Christ, and of "before Abraham was, I shall be?" Abraham's not then existing under Though Abraham may never the character denoted by the name be used in the New Testament but given him by the Deity, though as a proper name, yet in several about to be brought into existence passages it seems to have been em. under that character through his ployed to express the peculiar cha means. This is the fact, I take racter and relation implied by the to be affirmed by our Lord here, name, and to shew the Jews, whe- and to signify the same thing as ther they chose to allow it or not, he affirmed at another time when that there was an important sense, he said, "Other sheep I have in which he was to be considered which are not of this fold," John as the father of other nations be- x. 16, clearly referring to the side their's. See Gal. iii. 7, 29. converts whom his apostles would Rom. ch. iv. particularly verse 16 make among the gentiles, when and 18. More may be found on the founder of the Jewish nation this subject in Enjedinus, p. 222 would have a right to the name, -224; Slichtingius in loc. Ar- which till then could be applied temonius, v. 2. p. 618; Socinus, to him only by way of anticipativ. 1. p. 505; Crellius, v. 3. p. on. Our Lord's words thus un94: the last author refers to tran- derstood contain, as Woltzogenius sitions from the names of persons pronounces, a proposition worthy to the things signified by them in of Christ. See Woltzogenius in the words Jacob, Naomi, Pe- loc. Socinus, v. 1. p. 505; Crellius, v. 3. p. 93. ter. |