and all her gates praise, her windows of agates, her gates of carbuncles, and all her borders pleasant stones"-till-but I must stop; my letter has extended to an unwarrantable length, I add, only, that I am truly yours,

D. H.

UNITARIANS UNDERVALUE THE BIBLE.

The North American Review, a quarterly journal edited at Boston with very considerable taste and talents, has obtained an extensive circulation, and high literary reputation. The editors profess to cultivate literature only by their pages. They are, however, Unitarians, alias Socinians or Arians. The principal editor is understood to be a preacher and a professor in Cambridge University, Whatever appears in that Review may be ascribed to Unitarians.

Christians have long charged these heretics with inclining at least to infidelity. In one of their numbers there is a laboured eulogy on Voltaire, as one of the first literary luminaries of his own, or almost any other age. In the number of April, of the present year, the following doctrine is recorded: "It is true our school boys, although it is happily not so much the fashion as formerly, no sooner have committed their grammars, than they begin the acquisition of the language of Demosthenes, by being introduced to the Hebraisms of the New Testament. But precedent cannot sanctify error, nor supersede the authority of facts, and there is no reason to expect that a miştaken course of education, which is bad enough in itself, will ever communicate the purity of Athens, to the written or spoken speech of Galilee." This is not the first time that the speech of Gallilee has been reproached. At the crucifixion of Christ, Peter's speech of Gallilee bewrayed him. These reviewers are attacking an ancient "fashion" of New-England,

the commencement of the study of the Greek language, in that of the New Testament-ray, the practice of all Protestant seminaries. In New-England, it has long been a most laudable fashion for the learner to read the whole of the Greek New Testament. It would seem that the Unitarian gentlemen are happily rooting out this fashionable error. Do they really think the Hebrew idioms of the New Testament spoil either the force or beauty of the thought, or of the expression. But then the Holy Ghost has not expressed the truth exactly by such turns of expression as the heathen orator: and as Demosthenes is the prototype of all purity of diction, the Greek of the New Testament must be condemned as a barbarious Gallilean dialect. This will not do in the age of Bible Societies. Should we even admit that it has not so much of the dopia λoys,* wisdom of speech, is it the less worthy of the attention of the youthful disciple! Many an excellent, accomplished, and virtuous woman, is not so elegantly attired, as females of a very different character. But "Athenean purity;" this is the highest pursuit in the study of language. O shame! where is thy blush. But who will convince us that the Hebraism.s of the New Testament are less elegant than the Attic idioms?

Were the whole Hebrew and Greek originals substituted in our schools for much heathen trash, we should reasonably hope for less unsanctified literature in the world. On this subject we intend to enlarge somewhat in a future number.

* Cor. i. 17.

CRITICISM ON ROMANS, VIII. 19-23.
NO. I.

THE salvation of the saints, through union with heir spiritual head, is the subject of which this chap

ter treats. The first verse affirms the adjudication to eternal life of all who are really in Christ; and the concluding verses triumphantly proclaim the impossibility of separating a believer from the love of God. From the beginning to the end, indeed, this is a chapter of theology, in which we have a specimen of a powerful argumentative discussion.

The argument, too, close and conclusive as it is throughout, is vastly comprehensive. The graces, the trials, the promises, the duties, and the experience of the children of God, are aptly and elegantly interwoven with the reasonings of the sacred writer, as motives to our perseverance in godliness, while imparting an assurance that our labours shall not be in vain in the Lord. With a grandeur of conception, which does not detract from its accuracy, the eloquent apostle puts the universe under contribution to his argument. Tribulation, persecution, famine, death, life, angels, things present, things to come: the whole creation furnishes him with illustrations of the truths he inculcates.

The obvious design of that section of the chapter, which has been read, is to set forth the magnificence of the celestial state, preparatory to the demonstration of its certainty which immediately follows, and for encouragement under the sufferings previously acknowledged as a part of our communion with Christ in the present life. If children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ: if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. To raise in our estimation, and present to our hopes, that glory with which the sufferings of life bear no comparison, the inspired writer urges three distinct conside rations-the whole creation waits in earnest expectation of witnessing it; the creature itself generally shall have a share in it; and all who have the first fruits of the spirit of God anticipate with eagerness the splendours of their public adoption at the resurrection of the body.

The force of these several considerations will be more clearly perceived after a critical examination of the whole paragraph.

Verse 18, reads in our translation, thus, "For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us." The version is faithful to the original. The apostle Paul reckons; the subject under calculation, is present suffering in comparison with future glory-even that glory which shall be revealed in us, in all the saints, himself, and the beloved of God, called saints, to whom he addressed his letter, included; and the result is, although the words employ a negative, a positive affirmation, that there is no proportion. Never ending possession of complete felicity beyond comparison transcends temporary and partial pain however acute. This result will not be disputed. For although sinners are unwilling to suffer on account of religion, no man can deny as a speculative truth, that finite pain ought not to be compared with infinite pleasure, so as to shun the former at the expense of forfeiting the latter.

Aoyoua, is properly rendered, I reckon. The verb conveys the idea of reasoning, or calculating, so as to come to a decision according to truth. For such a calculation as that of which we have the result, no man was ever better qualified than the apostle to the Gentiles. Guided infallibly in judgment, like other inspired writers, he had, moreover, in a greater measure than his fellow labourers, the lights of an extensive and diversified experience. No man ever had endured more various, continued, and intense sufferings for religion than he; and, being caught up to the third heavens, at an early period of his ministry, he had a peculiar vision of the glory of the world to

come.

He does not, however, in this place, speak of the splendours of the upper palace as a place of residence, of the dignity of its angelic inhabitants, or of the glory of the Godhead, but of the perfection and

blessedness of the saints themselves inveλλovďaw δοξαν εις ημας αποκαλυφθήναι. With this object in view: the glory of the saints to be revealed at the resurrection of the body-he gives, as an evidence of its magnificence, the assertion.

Verse 19. "The earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God."

The nuas of the 18th verse identifies with the viv of this, and both with the lexva xai xλngovou of the 17th verse. All the expressions point out the saints as joint heirs with Christ; and the glory to be revealed in them is, in fact, their manifestation at the resurrection as the sons of God. The Δοξαν αποκαλυφθῆναι ἐξ is the very aroxaλuw for which the creature waits in expectation. Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the son's of God; and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that when he shall appear we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. That we may be glorified together-ouvdoğarw.ev. For this manifestation of the saints, in conjunction with their Lord, who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, it is, that the creature waiteth——Αποκαραδοκια της κλίσεως απεκδέχεται.

The expression is of the most forcible kind. Exôε+ Xoua, itself, is to look out for an expected object, and the preposition an increases the intensity of the expectation. Aroxagadoxia is a stretching out of the muscles and the joints in order to elevate the head in expectation of a desired object. The verb and the noun together give an idea of the highest possible degree of anxious expectation. It is affirmed in this case of the creature in relation to the glory of the saints, 7ns xlows. The same word occurs in the nominative case.

Verse 29. "For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope." Kig is from Klw, which signifies to make or create, and denotes that