Imatges de pàgina
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Romains sous le nom de Vulgate. La version nouvelle de Jérôme fut appelée Italique; elle subit à son tour des modifications successives d'après les manuscrits dits Claramontanus et San Germanensis que des savans estiment, mais à tort, avoir été copiés sur la Vulgate ancienne.

De ce moment l'enthousiasme pour le Christianisme cessa, il ne se fit plus de conversions qu'à l'aide de violences, de persécutions et de buchers.

Depuis longtems on a reconnu la fraude, dont les plus anciens manuscrits fournissent des preuves sans nombre. On y trouve en effet des lacunes laissées exprès, afin de pouvoir, ou rétablir la véritable leçon lorsque le motif de suppression serait passé, ou pour admettre les changemens qu'on adopterait encore par la suite, tandis que dans d'autres le texte primitif est simplement rayé ou lavé légèrement, et presentent le nouveau écrit au dessus de l'ancien. La différence dans les expressions employées est encore un fait remarquable: Comme les changemens ne s'opéraient point par traditions orales, mais seulement au moyen de circulaires dans lesquelles on indiquait seulement le sens qu'il fallait ôter et celui à substituer, sans donner la leçon toute faite, il en résulte des disparates fort curieux qui aident à mettre sur la voie.

C'est après une étude sérieuse de ces vicissitudes et l'examen critique des textes hébreux, grecs et latins, des manuscrits les plus anciens et des variantes publiées par les allemands et divers savans anglais que Pascal Alexandre Tissot a découvert la véritable science des écritures, et est parvenu à retrouver de lui-même le texte primitif non seulement des épîtres de Paul, des évangiles de Mathieu, Marc et de Luc, mais encore des Actes des Apôtres, avant de l'avoir retrouvé dans les manuscrits.

Il a non seulement copié la véritable leçon grecque de l' épître aux Galates, mais il a traduit toutes les Lettres de Paul aux Corinthiens, aux Thessaloniens, aux Romains, à Timothée, à Tite, et accompagné le tout d'un commentaire critique et des trois textes primitif, apostolique et reçu.

Il a en outre rétabli, toujours d'après ses autorités, les textes des trois

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evangelistes, et fait connaître les interpollations qu'ils ont reçus à l'é poque de la grande trahison des chefs du Christianisme, et par là, il justifie les assertions de Belcham [Belsham] relativement aux deux premiers chapitres de Mathieu et de Luc.

Tissot n'a rien laissé sur l'évangeliste Jean. I le regardait comme un empyrique qui, cédant aux rêveries de son cerveau, dénature la vérité et donne aux faits qu'il rapporte un air romanesque qui doit le rendre plus que suspect.

Tissot a traduit le livre des Actes et ne le regarde que comme une espèce de concordat signé à Rome entre Paul et les apôtres, lors de la prédication publique de la véritable doctrine. H m'assura qu'il y prouvait que ce livre est singulièrement altéré dans le texte reçu.

Pénétré de tout ce qu'il avait observé dans Paul et les évangelistes, il s'est livré à des recherches sur l'église de Jérusalem, dont il a écrit l'histoire. Il a rédigé un livre tout entier intitulé Examen critique de l' Evangile. Il a expliqué le sens mystique des huit beatitudes. Il a rétabli lévangile des partisans de Jésus, qu'il désigne sous le nom de Jésuens, et du tout il en a déduit des principes qui offrent la constitution politique la plus sage et la plus convenable aux hommes.

Ce travail considérable, fruit de plusieurs années de recherches, de méditations et de fatigues inouies, est accompagné de la conférence des textes grecs et latins imprimés, de notes diverses et d'observations inté ressantes sur les manuscrits existans et sur les livres bons à consulter.

Tissot faisait un très grand cas de la version Copte, du manuscrit Hauv. (Havn. ?) 3, des textes hébreux sans points et de quelques psaumes de David.

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Il me disait souvent qu'il subsistait encore quelques taches dans les textes qu'il avait suivis, mais qu'il n'avait pu, faute de données, retrouver la véritable leçon pour ces passages, heureusement peu nombreux.

Il a négligé aussi, me disait-il encore, de corriger le texte dans les endroits où il pêche seulement contre la grammaire; comme il y a beaucoup à faire sous ce point, par suite de la négligence des copistes, il réservait

cette partie de son travail pour le moment de l'impression. La mort là empêché de s'y livrer.

Tous ces manuscrits sont en bon état et font l' unique espérance de la veuve et des deux jeunes enfans de Tissot. Puissent-ils recueiller un jour, de la justice des hommes dignes de ce beau titre de la reconnaissance des véritables Jésuens, les avantages et la gloire qu'un travail de cette nature promettait à leur époux et père! C'est le vœu qu'exprime en terminant cette note le plus sincère et le dernier ami de Pascal Alexandre Tissot.

THIEBAUT DE BERNEAUD

Brief Notes on the Bible. No. XXIII.

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"The Lord hath sought him a man after his own heart."-1 Sam. xiii. 14. THERE is not, perhaps, any passage in the Bible more generally misconceived than this.

THE

It is a solitary passage, unsupported by any corresponding one.

We learn from the history that the Almighty had set apart and insulated the Jewish nation, surrounded by idolaters, as the visible depository of his divine truth, of the precious knowledge of the absolute and indivisible unity of God. In accordance with this purpose, all the institutions and ordinances of religion were held of primary importance, and their strictest observance indispensable. No quarter, if so familiar, though intelligible, a phrase be allowable, was conceded to the violation of them.

What were the facts? In a great emergency, when the Israelites were apprehensive of being crushed by the Philistines, Saul had waited impatiently for Samuel, the ordained prophet, to minister at the altar, and solicit a communication of the Divine will in the apparently desperate state of their affairs. The prophet was behind his appointment; and the monarch, as such potentates are apt to be, feeling a little sore at what he might think a personal disrespect, had the temerity to offer the sacrifice himself, in defiance of his recognized exclusion from that holy office. This, however, was a profanation not to be endured; it required a chastisement that should arrest attention by its

publicity, and accordingly Samuel, in his own language, it may be presumed, though expressing the will of heaven, denounced the offender thus

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Thy kingdom shall not continue. The Lord hath sought him a man after his own heart, and the Lord hath commanded him to be captain over his people."

There is no rule of construction better established than that the meaning of any passage in the sacred volume, as in all others, of dubious import, is to be sought in, and confined to, the subject treated of,-to what, in more homely phraseology, may be termed the matter in hand.

At the time of this denunciation, David was a youth, and had not betrayed any propensity to evil. He was selected by the Almighty, who 66 sees the fruit in the blossom," as an efficient instrument to uphold, and preserve inviolate, the establishment and ordinances of the Jewish religion. This is what God may be said, without irreverence, to have set his heart upon, as was fully comprehended by the prophet, who, in describing the future king of Israel as a man after God's own heart, adverted, not to his moral character, still to be developed, but to his anticipated and contrasted zeal for the sanctions framed against idolatry, manifest in the strict, undeviating conformity observed by himself, and exacted by his people, to all the divine ordinances of that religion; one of the most important of which had been slighted by the reigning monarch, who was soon to experience the consequences of an offence, which appears to have ranked at that period with the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit in after-times.

In this unsophisticated view of our subject, what is there in the prophet's designation of the successor of Saul at all repugnant to the honour of God, to the divine consistency, to his abhorrence of any crimes which David might eventually commit,-what, to justify the sarcasms of unbelievers so plentifully engendered by this famous passage? In the paramount article of an unrelaxing zeal for the worship of the true and only God, and for the ordinances by which it was to be conducted and distinguished, under the inspection, as it were, of idolatrous nations, ordinances, the neglect of

which was equivalent to moral guilt, because so impressed upon the minds of the whole Jewish nation; in this article, so essential to the main purpose (be that remembered) of their peculiar and conspicuous station, David might aptly be deemed a man after God's own heart, whence Saul had excluded himself by a contrary deportment; and this difficult passage, as many have sneeringly affected to consider it, is thus resolved into an explication simple, concise and satisfactory.

I am aware of Bishop Porteus's elaborate discussion of the subject, notwithstanding which, this compendium of its leading features may not be unacceptable.

BREVIS.

P.S. A writer in the European Magazine, descanting on the merits and defects of the Rev. Edward Irving, and noticing a rich harvest of both, is pleased to observe,

"Mr. I. omits no opportunity of exposing and refuting the errors and anomalies of Unitarianism; he resolutely and skilfully unravels the web which it has spun around Christianity, and displays its close affinity to Deism."

The novelty of the above insinuation is amusing. Unitarianism would divest Christianity of certain articles, which its professors conceive to have been superinduced, but which their orthodox brethren consider as properly belonging to, and essentials of it, and therein the parties should agree to differ; but this is the first time, I believe, that Unitarians have been charged with wrapping it in a web; which, if the language have any meaning, can only mean the surrounding of it with human additions, the very complaint which Unitarians have advanced against their opponents, and found themselves upon. "Unitarianism professes at least-justly or otherwise, no matter;-but it professes to strip Christianity of the web in which its simple and sublime truths have been wrapped and obscured, and to disclose them in the naked simplicity of their promulgation, cleared of the extrinsic articles which human ingenuity has worked into the system, from time to time, since (and partly during) the age of the apostles. In brief, Unita

rianism would recover the Christian world to a creed that can be worded in scriptural terms-and anchor there. Even what is called the Apostles' Creed, admitted into our orthodox Liturgy, whatever repugnancies disfigure it, is, in relation to the Divinity, a Unitarian creed. What web of sophistry, therefore, it may be fearlessly asked, have Unitarians ever been tempted, or found occasion to wind around primitive Christianity?

Unitarianism embraces revelation. Deism repudiates it. Such is their close affinity!

Is the proclaimed hostility of the Rev. Edward Irving to be regretted?

SIR,

B.

HAVE but lately seen a criticism in the Eclectic Review upon Mr. Bowring's "Matins and Vespers." I know it has already had some portion of animadversion, but still think it due to the Unitarian cause, to Mr. Bowring's reputation, and to the cause of fair criticism, that the cant, hypocrisy, misrepresentation and ignorance of this article should receive a greater measure of just retribution. Fortunately this writer has furnished his readers, if they are thinkers too, with a sufficient antidote in the long quotations he has made from the work he condemns. The charges which this Reviewer makes against these poems may be separated into five distinct accusations; and upon each of these, I propose to shew that the character I have given of his critique, though strongly expressed, is richly merited.

First then, ut "in media arma ruamus," he asserts that "a Deist may have been the author of almost any and every Matin and Vesper in the present collection." This is said of poems which recognize in the plainest terms the divine mission of Jesus, which dwell with rapture on the advantages of revelation, which are constantly transferring thoughts and hopes to eternity, and which are perpetually reposing trust on the promises of God. This I will establish by quoting a few passages, and as many of these poems have already appeared in your pages, I will afterwards quote no more.

""Twas in those orient Syrian lands afar,
O'er whose high mountains towers the morning star:
Lands now to tyranny and treachery given,
But then the special care and charge of heaven:
Lands, now by ignorance and darkness trod,
Then shining brightest in the light of God.

"Holiest and best of men! 'twas there thou walkedst,
There with thy faithful, privileged followers talkedst,
Privileged indeed, listening to truth divine,
Breathed from a heart, and taught by lips, like thine!

"But, tho' he dies, he triumphs-and in vain
Would unbelief oppose his conquering reign;
A reign o'erspreading nature-gathering in
Kindreds and nations from the tents of sin
To virtue's temple.

"Sow then thy seed-that seed will spring, and give Rich fruits and fairest flowers, that will survive

All chance, all change: and tho' the night may come,
And tho' the deeper darkness of the tomb,

A sun more bright than ours shall bid them grow,

And on the very grave hope's buds will blow,

And blow like those sweet flowers that, pluck'd, ne'er lose

Their freshness, or their fragrance, or their hues."

"Hope, that builds its airy
On time's transitory star,
Revels in delusive dreams,
Which an ignis fatuus are:
Ever smiling, and beguiling,
Still misleading pilgrims far.

Mat. and Vesp. 137, 138.

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"This is the worst; for if truth

Shine in the Scripture page,

The spirit shall wear the wings of youth, And live through an endless age."

Mat. and Vesp. 245.

"And such were life, without the ray From our divine religion given: 'Tis this that makes our darkness day, 'Tis this that makes our earth a heaven."

But really you can scarcely read a single poem where the bright anticipations which Christianity alone can inspire, do not sweetly blend in these sacred songs with the admiration of nature which sincere devotion always excites. What but wilful misrepresentation can state that a Deist with all his uncertainty, with his mere conjectures, surinises and "impotent conclusions," could raise such a spirit of faith, hope and joy? There is no ground for this first charge, which would not condemn many of the poems of Watts, Young, Milton, Doddridge, and even David and the sublime Isaiah, as compositions which a "Deist whether eastern or western," might not have composed.

The next charge is, that Mr. B. speaks of the Deity "with irreverent and repulsive familiarity." He is obliged to allow that even Watts and Wesley are very reprehensible in this point of view, and he candidly quotes one instance in which the Deity is called "Dear God." "But here the scope and tenor of the hymn redeem the expression from impropriety." This is very indulgent. But " Mr. B. invokes Deity with more than equal familiarity," i. e. I suppose addresses him as an inferior" and without any epithet of affection, and connected with no redeeming, sentiments, with a presumption that makes the" poor Reviewer shudder. Delicate, sensitive being! Moravian indecency, Calvinistic ferocity, and Methodistic temerity, merit reprehension, but deserve redemption. Mr. Bowring is, however worthy, to be condemned without mercy; and three instances of his unpardonable familiarity are quoted-only three, because I believe the lynx-eyed Reviewer could find no more. The first is "All-wise, Allpresent friend." Here "friend" is the offence. Yet the Scriptures have

Mat. and Vesp. 243.

called Abraham "the friend of God;" but I leave it with all its guilt. Mr. B. has spoken of God's wand of mercy, while other poets have repeatedly spoken of his sceptre, rod and staff. He has used the epithet "proud spirit" and "proud mandate." My recollection furnishes me with no appropriate instance to defend this; but Johnson tells us, that Milton uses proud to mean "lofty of mien, grand of

person," " and that Bacon uses it to signify "grand, lofty, splendid, magnificent." And even this wretched critic must know that Mr. B. attached a grand and good meaning to the term, if he have been too bold and injudicious in its selection. I may indignantly say to this Reviewer, when he can tolerate all the bad taste, and indecent familiarity of his own poets"proud me no prouds," and do not hope to bring the style of grandeur and reverence in which Mr. B. generally speaks of the Deity to the level of that orthodox phraseology, which has gone far to make religion a jest among the sensible part of the world. The redeeming sentiments which the Reviewer wants are in this passage: "There is nothing amongst all the ancient fables or later romances that have two such extremes united in them, as the Eternal God becoming an infant of days, the possessor of the palaces of heaven laid to sleep in a manger," (Mr. B. irreverent man! speaks of "heaven's never-sleeping eye,") agonies of sorrow loading the soul of him who was God over all, and the Sovereign of life stretching his arins on a cross bleeding and expiring."-Watts. Had Mr. B. indulged in these most fabulous of fables, most romantic of modern romances, as their pious composer justly styles them, he might with impunity have indeed spoken with indecent familiarity: but not having "so learned

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