rit, in order that their congregations may be more practically acquainted with his important office in the work of salvation;-and that, in their general discourses, they should more habitually honour the Holy Spirit, by entreating his Divine aid, and ascribing their success to his gracious inAuences:

That all Christians should be invited to devote individually a set portion of time (say, from seven till eight o'clock on the morning of the Lord's day,) for private prayer and meditation on this subject. Their prayer for this blessing may include themselves, their family, their friends, their ministers, their neighbours and fellow-worshippers, their country, the heathen, the Jews-all the ministers of Jesus Christ, and all societies formed for doing good.

That all heads of families should on a fixed occasion, (say, Monday evening,) entreat the same blessing in their family devotions:

That al! Christians should read the Scriptures with a view to a more intimate acquaintance with this subject; and that they should mention it to their religious correspondents at home and abroad; each Christian using his utmost ability to make this union for prayer as extensive as possible:

That whilst Christians offer their prayers in simple reliance on the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ, they should accompany them with deep humiliation for their own sins, for the sins of their country, and for the sins of the whole church; and aim, in their conduct, to walk in love with all their fellow-Christians, to be watchful against grieving the Holy Spirit, and in all things to adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour.

I am happy to state, that several ministers, and many private Christians, have already begun to act conformably to these hints; and it is hoped that, by the Divine blessing, such a devout union of

heart in prayer, will eventually, and I trust will ere long, become very general. Such an union cannot be contemplated without feelings of exalted pleasure and bright expectation. It is an union in which no party-spirit is raised, no principles are sacrificed, no private feeling is hurt, no doubtful question agitated, no funds are required. It is an union of piety and love! We are not called upon to violate the diclates of our conscience, or to infringe upon the discipline of the religious society to which we belong. Each Christian may associate in prayer with those of his own more immediate communion; yet at the same time may unite in heart with all who are seeking the same object. The poor may assist as well as the rich; the invalid, unfitted for active exertion, may, in this way, aid in building the spiritual temple; whilst those who are at the most remote distance may meet together at the Throne of Mercy, and where practicable at the same hour of prayer.

It was among the last petitions of our blessed Lord, that all who believe in him MIGHT BE ONE. Let it be our desire to be thus united! Let us trust in God simply, pray to him fervently, expect largely, watch soberly, and wait patiently.

"SURELY I COME QUICKLY : EVEN SO, COME, LORD JESUS."

To the Editor of the Christian Observer. NOT being altogether satisfied with the present state of a discussion, which has appeared in your pages, of a passage in the ninth chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews, I venture to offer you a few remarks upon it; not in the vain hope of supplying a satisfactory solution to the difficulty, but with the humbler ambition of suggesting some principles of criticism which ought, I think, to direct us in our decision, and the neglect of which

must be fatal to the soundness of any explanation proposed.

Whoever reads the passage through with attention, together with the remarks which have been made upon it, must perceive, that the main difficulty arises from the use of the masculine participle, diadéuevos, in the seventeenth verse. Could that phrase be omitted, or were it, like Tou diadepévou in the sixteenth verse, of an uncertain gender, many of the schemes hazarded for putting a sense upon the passage would wear a more plausible appearance than they now do. Various have been the expedients to get over this difficulty. But with any person well acquainted with the original language, who considers the question apart from any difficulties in the argument, I think there can be no doubt that • diadeμevos must mean the disposer, the original author of the Saran, conformably to the use of the verb dielo, in the twenty-fifth verse of the third chapter of the Acts. This, as it appears to me, is the first principle that should be admitted.

Hence, we are led to consider, in the second place, in what sense the word dan is used through out this passage. Now, it has been properly observed by N. L., that the word day in the Septuagint, and in the quotations from the Old Testament made in the New, is the invariable representative of the Hebrew . In what sense then is that Hebrew word used? Taylor gives the following account of it: " has two significations: 'first a grant of favour, a deed of gift, freely bestowed, and solemnly assured by the Most High God, which, as it puts those to whom it is made into a new and happier state, seems to have an affinity with

, also a compact, agreement, or league between man and man, which likewise puts their affairs into a new state."

From this account it evidently

follows, that though a signifies a covenant, it is yet not strictly a covenant between two equal parties, which is properly called ovvdyny, but a covenant, granted by the favour of a superior, which is binding on himself for the benefit of those to whom it is granted, and is therefore more correctly rendered day. In this view of the word, which an examination of the numerous places where it occurs would justify, it has a more evident relation and analogy to a will or testament than it would bear if it commonly signified a covenant between two equal parties. Indeed, the relation between the two ideas is such, that it may easily escape observation for a short time in a language in which both are expressed by one word. In confirmation of this remark, the observation of N. L. is important. "A free promise, to which often confessedly applied, has in itself more of a testamentary than of a covenant nature; and though the dispensation of the Gospel has, in reference to Jesus Christ, the nature of a covenant, yet it is in regard to us a free gift, a gratuity, resulting from the uninfluenced good pleasure of the Donor." The transition from one of these senses to the other is the more easy in the passage under consideration, because it is a transition from what may be called the sacred or scriptural sense of a word to that which is common and classical. Of such transitions argumentative works in every language will furnish examples; which yet are seldom noticed by a vernacular reader, though they occasion great perplexities to a translator.

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My opinion therefore is, that the Apostle, having uniformly used the word in the same sense in which it is employed in the Septuagint, here borrows an argument from the other sense of the word which is related to it. I see no difficulty in supposing that this difference of

meaning might either have eluded his notice, or have appeared to him a matter of little consequence, the dispensation of the Gospel being such as may justify an allusion to either a will or a covenant with equal propriety; to a covenant, inasmuch as it is a system of promises, ratified with blood; to a will, because it took effect immediately upon the death of its Author.

The second principle therefore, for which I would contend, is, that brary may ily signify either a will or a covenant granted by a superior, but not so properly a covenant between equal parties, which in Greek is more properly expressed by another word.

In opposition to this opinion, it is urged, first, That the Sinaitic dispensation, to which the words, xain Basin allude, being in fact contrasted to it, possesses none of the characteristics of a testament. But, on the contrary, it seems to me to possess all those characteristics. Its provisions were indeed made known before the death of the Testator; but that death was necessary to give them validity: and this seems to be the precise meaning of the clause, Javalov yerquévou Eis amorway y ET T plan διαθήκη παραβάσεων.

A second objection is, That the expression, Mediator of a testament, does not seem to convey a definite notion. But, in reality, a mediator, though not essential either to a covenant or to a testament, is admissible in either. His office is to reconcile the two parties, and to intercede with the superior for the benefits which the will or covenant is intended to convey. If a father bad disinherited his son, but was induced by a common friend to alter the will in his favour, such a friend would be a mediator of the testament.

A third objection is, That the sprinkling of the blood of a deceased testator appears, by this translation, to be implied in the nineteenth and twentieth verses,

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though it is not consistent with any known ceremonies or established forms of transferring property by will. The expression, The blood. of a testament, is also thought difficult to be explained. But the explanation of this is as follows: The bulls and goats which were slain in sacrifice were not the testators, though their death represented the death of the Testator. It is probable, that the sprinkling of blood for the ratification of a covenant, which came to prevail over all the world, originated in the sprinkling of that of the pas-! chal lamb in Egypt, which was eminently typical. Therefore there is nothing here about the sprinkling of the blood of a deceased testator, but only a sprinkling of the blood of innocent animals, as a pledge of that future death which was necessary to give validity to the testament. The allusion, however, even to this is indistinct; the Apostle in these verses returning from his casual allusion to the common sense of diaxy, to the scriptural sense of it, to which it is in every other passage confined.

Fourthly, it is said, That a similar difficulty attends on the language of the fifteenth verse, The transgressions of a testament. But the real expression is, Transgressions under the first testament; that is, while the first testament was in force, and before it was cancelled, with a view to enlarge its provisions by the substitution of a new testament.

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Fifthly, it is argued, That the promises of the new dispensation are usually represented as nating from God the Father. It would therefore be natural to view him as the Testator. Either, therefore, God, the Father, died-to sup pose which would be impious-or Christ died, as the substitute and representative of the Father. But he was our Representative, our Substitute, our Surety on the accursed tree. Nevertheless it is written, that God redeemed us with his own blood, because he, who is God, has

done so; and the sacred writers readily ascribe to the Deity generally any act of either of the Three Divine Persons. This, however, may be the cause which led to the adoption of the indefinite phrase, Savalou yEvolévov, rather than the more simple and obvious one, Gvñoxovlos álov. Our Lord's own words, in the twenty-ninth verse of the twentysecond chapter of St. Luke, may remove the difficulty.

Sixthly, it is added, That the history of the Old Testament affords no intimation of a testamentary disposition of property. Some have even doubted whether such a practice were known among the ancient Jews. But to this objection-which, be it observed, is addressed simply to our ignorance of the Jewish customs, and does not pretend to substantiate the grounds on which it rests by denying the existence of wills among Hebrews, and more especially among the dispersed and Greecized Hebrews-it may be thought a sufficient reply, that the use of wills, at the time of St. Paul's writing, was notorious, and their validity unquestionable. Even king doms, as those of Pergamus, Bithynia, Cyrene, and Lybia, not to mention Egypt and Cyprus, had been bequeathed in this way.

But the most formidable objection to this interpretation is that brought forward by Mr. Faber. He justly says, that it obliges us to maintain that the Apostle sets out, in the eighth chapter, with using the word day in the undoubted sense of a covenant, or in a sense exactly equivalent to the Hebrew word, employed by Jeremiah, and that he continues to use it in the same sense as far as to the end of the fourteenth verse of the ninth chapter, but that in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth verses of the ninth chapter, without the slightest intimation whatever, he uses the same word, dragrxn, in a new and different sense; namely, that of a lastwill or testament, by which a dying

man makes a disposition of his property after his death; and that in the eighteenth verse of the ninth chapter, with as little intimation as before, he resumes his original mode of employing the word, and thenceforward to the end of the chapter uses it, as at first, to describe a covenant. Now, 1 must freely admit, that the force of this objection, which is in truth the cause that has set all the world in search of some new construction to which it may not apply, has often been felt with such force by myself, that had I found any other construction that I thought tenable, I should gladly have adopted it in preference to that in which however, after the fullest consideration, I am still persuaded that our translators have acquiesced with the ntmost propriety. But the objection, when closely examined, will not look so formidable as it seems at a distance. The promise to the Apostles was, that the Holy Ghost should lead them into all truth, not into accurate philology: and therefore, if the passage in question, when explained in this way, is allowed to contain truth, still more, if it contain important truth, we need not be under much trouble about the correctness of an allusion, or concerned at the transient employment of a word in a sense not identical, though analagous, to that in which it has occurred in the context. Such niceties were not regarded by the inspired writers, who cared not for strifes of words or perverse disputings, but were contented with exhibiting important and saving truths to minds disposed to receive them. Such an application of words in two related senses is neither unprecedented nor unusual, even in the volume of inspiration. In this very Epistle, the word miolos is used, in the second verse of the third chapter, as synonimous to the adjective faithful; whereas in the fifth and sixth verses it seems to be equiva lent to the participle entrusted, or put in trust. So in the thirteenth

verse of the fourteenth chapter to the Romans, the verb xpivce is used first to imply a judicial sentence upon others; and secondly, a settled resolution for the guidance of our own conduct. So again odp occurs eleven times in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians; in four of which it signifies human nature with its depraved appetites and selfish propensities; in three, the person of a man without reference to any personal qualities; and in four, the human body. It may also be deemed in point, that some persons (and Doddridge is among the number) have mistrusted the cogency of the Apostle's reasoning on the use of the singular number of the word crepua, in the third chapter to the Galatians, without having their veneration for his authority or conviction of his inspiration diminished by that doubt.

But further, if this interpretation be thought inadmissible, I know of no other which I can accept; and certainly would rather acknowledge with H. L., that I am left in a state of fluctuation-an acknowledgment creditable to his humility, and furnishing an example to other inquirers-than adopt any of the other solutions which I have yet seen proposed. I will briefly state some of my objections to each of them.

Codurcus translates & diadeμevos, ille, propter quem sanciter, or pro quo disponitur, fædus; by which translation the phrase is represented to signify not the author of the diaxy but the object for whose benefit it was intended.-Macknight interprets it of the victim, which is contrary to all the rules of construction, as it gives to the middle participle a passive sense, and to the masculine a neutral.-Mr. Faber renders it He who ratifies the covenant, as the typical victims ratified by their death the first covenant. Clearly, therefore, he does not mean by that phrase the disposer, the original author of the ax, as the Greek word im

ports.-Pierce translates it the Pacifier; which, if it denote the author of thedia, is obscure; if not, (and I presume it is meant by him to represent our Saviour, not as the Author, but as the Mediator of the covenant), erroneous.-Doddridge and Wakefield render it He by whom the covenant is confirmed, while they understand rou diadeμevou neutrally, as that by which it is confirmed. In neither way is the author of the day supposed to be expressed by it.-All these interpretations violate the first principle for which I have contended. Other objections to them need not therefore be specified. I will only observe, further, on Pierce's version, that ETI VEXPOIS cannot correctly be rendered, On the condition of death; and in respect to Mr. Faber's commentary or paraphrase, that it seems extremely harsh to call animal victims typical mediators of the first covenant. For this reason I think there is no one, who without his commentary would understand his version of the seventeenth verse: A covenant is of no strength, while he who ratifies the "covenant is living," as he would wish it to be understood. It would convey to most readers the idea, that the proprietor, or sovereign, who grants the covenant, and who consequently would be thought the only one who can ratify it, must himself die, before it becomes valid; a sentiment which is true of a will, but of no other disposition of property.

The only translation which rẻmains to be noticed is Whitby's. But he represents the Apostle as speaking in identical propositions, and thus, as speaking without a meaning: for, in his version, the sixteenth and seventeenth verses add nothing to the statement in the fifteenth, but only repeat it in feebler and less intelligible language: for, according to him, the fifteenth verse declares the new covenant to be one of a peculiar kind, inasmuch as it is one made by the death and