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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
mud Primitivus , who ., I suspect ^ has more ability than candour , on revising his article , will , nevertheless , reflect upon some parts of it with regret . There are two reasons which , with the predominant authority of manuscripts , must determine us with full confidence against Griesbach . The expression tj sxxXyo-ix rov Kvoiou never occurs in the New
Testament : and if it did occur , it would not mean the church of Christy hut the church of God ; because oxvpios , when use ] in the Jewish and Christian scriptures , unrestricted bv some other word
or circumstances in the context , ever denotes the Supreme Being * Grieshach , therefore , has introduced a change of words , without any change whatever in the meaning , which shews him either unacquainted with Greek , or destitute of judgment .
On the other hand , the common text rvjv £ KxXrjeria , v rov Ssou , is demonstrably the true reading . The term EKKXecria , means an assembly or collection v of men ; and the
apostle here uses the phrase rr v ZKKkyjviav rov Ssov , to distinguish the true believers , as a body of people who received the doctrine of God and who were devoted to
God by superior virtue , in opposition to the Gnostic teachers , who embraced cunningly devised fables , and who did noty on account of their vices , belong to the churcri of God , " 1 know this / ' says he , " that after my departure , grievous wolves will enter in among you , not sparing the Hock—speaking perverse things , to draw away disciples after them . " 1 he church of God is the same with that which Peter calls the Jiock of God ,
Untitled Article
1 Pet . v . 2 . And it is observable that Paul uses it eleven times in the course of his epistles , not to mention that , with the same view , he has in the context , the phrases "" kingdom of God , the gospel of God / ' and the counsel of God /' But how aie w ^ to understand the passage ? Not , assuredly , with Mr . Wakefield . Had the expression occurred in a heathen writer ,
• the blood of God , > might be intended to mean " the Son of God . ' But the apostle , who was a Jew , and , as such , accustomed to consider Ood as a pure spiritual Being , would have thought a language of this kind , not only
improper but profane : and I am sorry that Mr . W . through his great partiality for the heathen authors should have been betrayed into such an interpretation . On the other hand , the commonly understood construction stands opposed , not only to reason , but to the practice of writers in Greek and other
languages , " To feed the church of God , which he secured with his blood . " Tou Srsou is introduced obliquely , to limit the general term £ KK \ ncnav + and is to be sudterm eyocXyjariocvand is to be
sup-^ plied in the succeeding clause , — v \ v i . e . yv ekkXtjcticcv rov Ssov . Now this la ^ t is the object of tfEpiETroiecraro ; but a clause introduced to define the object , cannot be
separated from it , and changed , to become the agent to the same verb . This would be a mode of writing , to which nothing , I believe , similar can be found in any author , ancient or modern . Had Paul
inteqejed this meaning , he would have written to this effect ,
ttoilljliveiv ryv ExxXrjcriocv tjv TtepiETtoizcraro o &aof b \ oc rov iSiov di ^ arvg . Who then is the person that we are to
Untitled Article
Mr * Jones on Waft efittd ' s Translation of Acts , xx . 28 . 4 o 7
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1813, page 467, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2430/page/43/
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