quite sufficient to efface the sin, and our own resolution as all that is needed to form and improve virtuous habits. Such opinions, we conceive that no person could entertain, who believed what the word of truth teaches on the unutterably evil, vile, and malignant nature of sin; on the rectitude and wisdom of God; and on the true nature and beauty of spiritual holiness.

7. It has appeared to me that the practical treatises and prayers of Unitarians dwell almost exclusively on very partial views of the goodness and benignity of the Divine Character; but that they are far from being equally copious and energetic in exhibiting and enforcing the spotless and undeviating holiness of God, the requirements of his perfect law, and the exercises of his unalterable justice. Unitarianism appears to us to merge the high claims and the glory of the Divine Righteousness, in a subserviency to the eventual happiness of even the most wicked of creatures. They may live in flagrant enmity to God and to all his plans of benevolence and rectitude; and they may die hardened in impiety and every form of crime but many, at least, of the Unitarian body assure them, that paternal mercy will follow them beyond the grave, that their sufferings will be nothing but corrective discipline, and their pains but in reality the exercises of Divine Kindness, or in equivalent words, the greatest blessing of which they will be, under all the circumstances, capable. Yea, the very justice of God is made subordinate to this scheme of allaying the greatest fears of the persevering sinner, and assuring him of ultimate felicity. The usual arguments in favour of the opinion of final restitution appear to me to proceed on the assumption, that God would otherwise be unjust and tyrannical; and that he is bound either to have prevented the existence of evil, or efficaciously to remedy it in every case of its occurrence. Thus, the offenders, when at last they have become virtuous and happy, shall have to say that they enjoy their liberation and felicity not as an act of God's clemency, but as an acquisition in their own right.

Not so does the sincere and practical orthodox Christian hope that he has "learned Christ, and has been taught by him as the truth is in Jesus." He sees that there is a divine and perfect harmony, in the wisdom and holiness, the righteousness and love of God, as manifested in the redemption of mankind by the obedience and sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ. He knows and feels that the gospel of grace is a doctrine according to godliness, purifying the heart, imbuing it with the best principles of all piety and virtue, and supplying the most effectual motives and means of living not to himself, but to his Lord who died and rose again for him. The doctrine of

the renewing, sanctifying, and preserving influences of the Holy Spirit, he embraces as a most welcome part of the plan of saving mercy established by his Heavenly Father. On this foundation of redemption and grace, he builds his cheerful hope of deliverance from all sin, and from all its dreadful consequences. The testimony of heaven dictates his belief, that "other foundation can no man lay;" and that, to the unhappy persons who reject this hope set before them, "there remaineth no more any sacrifice for sins, but a fearful "looking for of judgment, and a fiery indignation, which shall devour "the adversaries" of Christ. With a heart as full of sensibility as that of his Unitarian friend can be, he looks into the awful, the unfathomable mystery of the permission and the prevalence of sin, and the never dying misery which it produces. While he receives with a submissive faith the numerous, clear, and pointed declarations of the divine word, that for the finally impenitent no hope remains beyond death; he possesses a sweet confidence that all the righteous judgments of God will be exercised in highest harmony with consummate wisdom, and with the most pure and perfect benevolence. knows that Eternal Justice will do the wicked no wrong, and will never permit them to suffer the smallest injury: and he rejoices in the full assurance of faith, that, in the most awful retributions of Jehovah's holy government, HE will be, by every righteous being, admired, adored, and glorified, as not less THE GOD OF LOVE than in the brightest displays of his saving mercy.

He

I submit these observations, though but cursory and imperfect, as hints of the reasons upon which it does appear, to my most serious apprehension and conviction, that the distinguishing peculiarities of the Unitarian system rest on the assuming of "low and degrading thoughts concerning THE BLESSED AND HOLY GOD, his moral government, and the revelation of his justice and grace."

Happy should I be, could my solicitation prevail on any of my Unitarian friends to peruse with candid attention, Dr. Edwards's Salvation of All Men strictly Examined, Newhaven, N. A. 1790; and republished at Glasgow, 1802. The author was the son of the great divine, Mr. Jonathan Edwards; and the work is worthy of being ranked among the most distinguished examples of calm, serious, and powerful argumentation.

APPENDIX VII.

As it has been necessary to refer frequently to the Manuscripts and the Ancient Versions of the New Testament, the following brief view of the MOST IMPORTANT MANUSCRIPTS, and of ALL THE ANCIENT VERSIONS, is here added to facilitate reference and to assist the judgment in particular cases.

THE PRINCIPAL MANUSCRIPTS OF THE GREEK TESTAMENT.

1. The Alexandrian, presented to King Charles I. in 1628 by the excellent sufferer and martyr, Cyrillus Lucaris, Patriarch of Constantinople; and placed by George II. in the British Museum. It contains, mutilations excepted, the whole New Testament and the Septuagint Version of the Old. It is attributed to the fourth century, but some place it as low as the sixth. The New Testament was published with fac simile types, by Dr. Woide, in 1786; and the other parts in 1816 to 1821, by the Rev. H. H. Baber, in three beautiful and splendid volumes.

2. The Vatican, No. 1209, in the library of the papal palace of the Vatican at Rome: containing, excepting the mutilations, the whole of the Old and New Testament. The earliest date assigned is the third century, and the latest the fifth or sixth.

3. The Ephrem, in the King's library at Paris; originally containing the whole Old and New Testament, but greatly mutilated and defaced. At least of the seventh century, but probably much older.

4. The Cambridge, or Beza's; brought in 1562, from a monastery at Lyons, in the civil wars of France, and after near twenty years presented by Theodore Beza to the University of Cambridge. It contains the Four Gospels and the Acts, with a Latin Version on the opposite page. "It may be as ancient," says Bishop Marsh,

as

the sixth, the fifth, or even the fourth century." It was published by Dr. Kipling, under the direction of the University, most beautifully printed with fac simile types in 1793.

5. The Codex Rescriptus, discovered in the library of the University of Dublin, and published with fac simile engravings, in 1801. It contains the Gospel of Matthew, but not free from mutilations. The learned discoverer and editor, Dr. Barrett, adjudges it to the sixth century.

6. The Clermont, in the King's library at Paris; containing the Epistles of Paul. Only two leaves and a part have been lost. The Epistle to the Hebrews is in a less ancient hand. Probably of the seventh century.

7. The Augiensis, in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge; containing the Epistles of Paul, except that the beginning of the Epistle to the Romans, and the whole of that to the Hebrews, are wanting. Attributed to the ninth or tenth century.

8. The Stephani Octavus, No. 62, in the King's library at Paris; containing the Four Gospels, with some mutilations. Of the eighth or ninth century.

202

9. The Coislinianus, No. 2; existing thirty years ago in the Benedictine library at St. Germain. It contains only fragments of the Pauline epistles, and is of the sixth or seventh century.

Besides these, there are about 460 manuscripts known to exist, and scattered in the different public libraries of Europe. They are of various ages from the ninth to the fifteenth century. Some were originally copies of the whole, or nearly the whole, Greek Testament, but more usually they are portions, such as the Gospels, the Epistles of Paul, &c.

THE ANCIENT VERSIONS.

1. The Syriac.

(1.) The Peshito, that is right or correct. It certainly existed in the fourth century, and may not improbably be ascribed to the third or even the second. It is pure in diction, very accurate and faithful, and of great utility in criticism and interpretation.

(2.) The Philoxenian; made by Polycarp, under the patronage of Philoxenus, bishop of Hierapolis, in 508. It is literal to servility; but the translator was not well acquainted with Greek.

(3.) The Jerusalem Syriac, in the Chaldaic dialect; existing in manuscript in the Vatican library, written at Antioch in 1030, and containing only the Gospels.

2. The Coptic. (1.) The Memphitic, published by Wilkins, Oxford, 1716. There is reason to believe that its antiquity is very great, probably reaching to the third century. It is said to express the text of the best and most ancient Greek manuscripts. (2.) The Sahidic, existing only in manuscript, except a part of the Gospel of John, which was published at Rome, 1789. Woide thinks it may

be even of the second century.

3. The Ethiopic; ascribed to the fourth century. It has never been duly collated, and copies are said to be almost incredibly scarce in Abyssinia. The only printed edition is that in Walton's Polyglott, and it is extremely disfigured with inaccuracies.

4. The Armenian; made by Miesrob about 410, said to be faithful, and often called the Queen of Versions. But the copies made since the middle of the thirteenth century, are supposed to have been interpolated from the Vulgate.

5. The Arabic. Several versions exist, of the whole, or of parts of the N. T. but all of them are supposed to be later than the seventh century, and are not of high authority. The version of the Acts and Epistles, published by Erpenius, was made from the Old Syriac.

6. The Persic; made from the Old Syriac, and containing only the Gospels. Other versions exist, but none of them are of much value in criticism.

7. The Latin. (1.) Versions before the time of Jerome. These were various, and going back to a very high antiquity. It is probable that the different books, or small collections of them, were translated by different persons. Among these one called the Old Italic is said to have been the most distinguished; but our information is obscure. (2.) The Vulgate; not a new version, but a selection, revision, and careful correction, by Jerome, A. D. 384. It possessed great merit as a very close translation and commonly following the best and oldest Greek copies: but it was not generally received till the eighth century. It has also been considerably altered since, by revisions and the intermixing of the former Latin versions.

8. The Gothic, or ancient German; by Ulphilas, bishop of the Gothic tribes in Wallachia, about the middle of the fourth century, and said to be a very excellent version. The Gospels only were known to be extant, till, in 1818, the Abbate Angelo Maio discovered manuscripts containing the Thirteen Epistles of Paul, in the Ambrosian Library at Milan. The publication of this much desired