cleared up. And those who thought it right to fue for the penalties to be paid by an occupier of a parfonage-house, who continues in it against the order of the diocefan, would feel fome hesitation on obferving, that the 'occupier is excused if he does not continue in it "wilfully;" a term admitting great latitude of construction; and enough to alarm any one who recollects, that if an incumbent is fued, and gains a verdict, according to fection 27, he receives treble cofts.

The 39th fection, I am afraid, I do not understand.— Those which follow it, being of a temporary nature, calculated only for the first execution of the Act, need not be noticed. The 41ft, concerning non-refidence of bishops, may be confidered as belonging to the subject of exemptions. July 6, 1807. RECTOR.

(To be concluded in our next.)

ON THE SECOND "IMMUTABLE THING."

I

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCHMAN'S

SIR,

MAGAZINE.

think myself not a little indebted to my friendly com-. petitor for the credit by him expected as due to the person who fhall be fo fortunate as to afcertain the fecond immutable thing, for having incidentally (by his note at vol. xii. p. 374.) afforded me a tolerably fair opportunity of explaining my reafon for having offered you my thoughts on this fubject. When my true reason is known, it will, I hope, be confidered as an apology for my taking the liberty of requesting your attention to this fubject a third time. Ít was at firft fuggefted to me that I ought to do it. I then did not fee any neceffity for it. I now begin to be apprehensive that there may have been a greater neceffity for it than I was aware. It was not, I affure you, merely for the purpose of proving that our tranflation of EuEGITEUGEV opna is erroneous; nor,that commentators have mistaken one of the two immutable things; had I not thought I perceived a much greater reason than either of thofe, you would not have been requested to publish my thoughts on this fubject. I flattered myself that

your

if my conjecture concerning the true meaning of the phrase EUEσITEUGEV ори should happen to be well founded, the deniers of the divinity of our Lord would have another obftacle to furmount, which if it could be furmounted, would coft them a little more pains, than they think it neceffary to bestow on some others, among which that adverted to by our friend, may, perhaps, be not very improperly reckoned: to which, I thought, it might be allowed by fome to impart more light than it could receive from it. If God, thought I, mediated; that is, as Leigh and others fay, became a Mediator, or, acted the part of a Mediator opиw by oath-and this ought to be understood as implying "by way of making his oath good," it may feem to imply a more intimate and continued union of two natures than fome care to allow. Having now availed myself of this opportunity of affigning my real motive for offering you my thoughts on this fubject, I trust, readers will be more inclined to excufe me for holding out a little longer in defence of my conceit. By our friend's laft letter, it appears, that he has no objection to express himself in a lefs questionable manner on one or two points. He admits that the oath mentioned Pfalm cx. was not made to David perfonally but to Chrift. Perhaps he would not hesitate to admit that there is no great reason to fuppofe that it was attefted to David by a meffenger better accredited than him by whom the oath to Abraham was made known. And perhaps he would have no great objection to admit that there feems to be room to doubt whether David was fo impreffively affured of it as Abraham. Though David is faid to have been a prophet himself, in one inftance we perceive he appears to have obtained his information from the Prophet Nathan. Our friend will excuse me from doubting whether David received information on this point immediately from heaven. And alfo-for leaving it to him to afcertain the time when this oath was made to our Redeemer. I do not take it upon me to fay that it was made to Chrift when the oath was made in favour of all the nations of the earth.-I only think that it may have been then made.—Without fome proof I cannot be expected to think that it was not then made.

pra

As the hypothefis of two oaths feems to be rather queftionable, our friend now “makes it to be a promife, confirmed by an oath"-that is, he would perhaps fay the mise to Abraham was confirmed by the oath to David" "which, he obferves, is good fenfe." And fo indeed it may be. But as an oath was certainly attefted to Abraham,

and

and as David (even admitting him to be a party who has an undoubted right to be prefent) does not appear to have had a diftinct oath made in his favour, and lived ages after Abraham, ought he not rather to have made it " an oath confirmed by a promise ?" In which case our friend would perhaps allow, it ought to have been éμiσitevσev not onw but εnalyεa. But who confirmed it?-God. And how did he confirm it ?-ELECTEUσrev, which furely feems to imply fomething more than his having done it by a vicegerent, either human, or angelic. For my own credit, I would not appear to be incapable of apprehending a very plain thing. But at prefent I cannot help thinking that this is fomething like the skeleton of my friend's argument. This perhaps is my dull day-of which we Moorlings are fuppofed, by our in-a-long neighbours, to have not a few. Nemo fapit omnibus horis.

In my firft letter on this fubject, I endeavoured to prove that the diftinction ufually made between the promise and the oath, was without good authority-and that, if there was a difference, the oath appeared to have preceded the promife; as no objection has been made to that attempt, I could fee no impropriety in taking it for granted that it ap peared to be not clearly objectionable. Of course, before I am expected to allow that the promise and oath were distinct, and that the promise preceded the oath, and that the oath was not the firft immutable thing, I ought to be convinced of the inconclufiveness of my logic on this point.

Befides having transposed the oath and promife, in fuch a manner as to render the oath confequent to the promise, though the oath appears pretty clearly to have been attefted in a much more impreffive manner to Abraham than to David; and David, at beft, appears to have had nothing more than an affurance of the oath to Abraham by a human meffenger-our friend obferves that " it does not feem good fenfe to fay, with refpect to a fact, which God has done, though done in virtue of his oath, that IT WAS impoffible for God to lie in doing it." But, if a perfon who lived at the time when God did the fact which he had before fworn to do, fhould happen to have faid to his cotemporaries, "By these two immutable things, it appears clearly that it is impoffible for God to lie," would not this feem to be fomething like good fenfe? Now if the facred writer did really mean to exprefs himfelf thus; why fhould our tranflators be juftified for having taken the liberty of faying it was?

was? And why fhould our friend uniformly persisti in adopting this tranflation, and by fo doing contrive to bring a charge against his competitor for this gloria quantalibet, of having appeared to do, what perhaps he himfelf has done for him?If the fulfilment of any promife is not to be confidered as a proof, and indeed the best proof, of the unqueftionable veracity of the maker of that promife, what is to be confidered as a ftronger proof of it? God, it must be allowed, would have been entitled to credit, had he only promifed he is, we however find, faid to have fworn. And why he did so, if it was not to excite greater confidence in him, it is not eafy to fee. Even after he had sworn, he was, it feems, willing ftill more abundantly to fhew unto the heirs of promife the immutability of his counfel.-And this he did, as our friend has endeavoured to perfuade us, by fwearing again to another person, which fecond folemn act, he would have us believe, ought to be admitted on his own evidence, and being admitted would enable us to fee the good fenfe of the facred writer (not only in saying that thofe two oaths evinced an impoffibility in God to lie, but, that God mediated by the fecond oath, and by the fecond rather than the first) better than if he had said that God had actually fulfilled the purport of his oath-or, in other words, than if he had done the fact, which he had bound himself to do by oath.

What Paul meant to suggest to the Hebrews by the elliptical expreffion εν οις αδυνατον ψεύσασθαι Θεον was no doubt pretty well understood by them. The ellipfis, if I recollect rightly, our friend has uniformly filled with the verb fubftantive, and with the verb fubftantive of paft time, and as if it was fo in the original, when he has fucceeded in his undertaking, he may have some reason to do fo; but as long as the true meaning of EPLECITEUGEV opxw is at iffue, it is hardly fair to take this liberty. If it ought to be understood that God mediated by promife or oath to David, or by promise or oath to Abraham, or by both promifes or both oaths, or by both promises and both oaths, it ought perhaps to be filled with it was-but if that phrafe ought to be understood of God's having mediated in Jefus, it thould be rather rendered it is, if indeed it ought to be filled by the verb fubftantive at all, concerning which point I think there is fomething like a reafon to doubt. When only the generation, which is faid to be benefited by this tranfaction is confidered, it may be thought that there is rather more reafon to fupply the ellipfis by fome verb of present than of past time.

D

Vol. XIII. Churchm. Mag. for July 1807.

In

In my fecond letter I faid "Is it not obfervable that every one of those allufions precedes the exprefs mention of the promise and oath to Abraham? That further dif courfe concerning Melchifedic is pronounced to be unprofitable because unintelligible--that another fubject is affumed in the beginning of this chap.-And almost as observable that it appears to be intimated of that oath in particular, that it was the end of all ftrife ?" The force of this our friend feems to think is füfficiently obviated by faying that "it appears to him, that the words of whom at the beginning of v. 11. are to be referred not to Melchifedec, but to Chrift." But as Chrift is mentioned only once in the course of this paffage, and then in the beginning of it—and Melchifedec is afterwards twice mentioned, and, in each cafe, with the article relative who and of whom immediately following, it may perhaps be thought a little excufable if any one should ftill be of opinion that Melchifedec is rather likely to be the person to whom the article relates, at least, till he is affured that Melchifedec and Christ are the fame perfon. But leaving the remarks concerning the tranfition to a new fubject, out of the question, I might still propofe two or three queries which would perhaps be allowed to be a little more pertinent. I might afk" Is it not obfervable that no mention of, nor allufion to, the oath to David, is made in the preceding part of the fixth chapter? Is it not rather more observable that no fuch mention or allufion is made after the oath to Abraham is mentioned-And is it not again ftill more obfervable that the writer does not appear to lose fight of one oath-viz. that to Abraham from the 13th to the 17th. v.?

* In the 5th. ch. it is said "Of whom we have many things to say, and hard to be uttered, seeing ye are dull of hearing. For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God &c. &c." In the 6th. "Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ (which by his own account in the former chapter were necessary to be taught) let us go on top erfection; not laying again the foundation of, &c. &c. &c. and this will we do if God permit." If there was a necessity that the Hebrews should be taught great things rather than deep things, why is the apostle made to talk of passing over plain things in his way to perfection? And to say, if God permit? Has he indeed left those several doctrines unnoticed. Has he not, on the contrary, in the sequel treated of each, and of faith in particular? This passage appears to be very questionable.-If it can be rendered more intelligible, it should be so. I think it may be easily done.

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