truth, as we have abundant reasons to believe, they were never taught by Christ and his Apostles, but originated in the heresiarchs, who, priding in their superior wisdom, professed to reveal them as an improvement on the apostolic doctrine. To their profession in this respect, the Apostle alludes, when he says, "Wherefore, I declare unto you this very day, that I am innocent from the blood of you all: for I forbore not to tell you the whole will of God. As though he had said, "Some bad men will rise among you, who, by concealing the truths of the Gospel, and by teaching others, which they pretend to have revealed by their superior wisdom, will lead you astray to vice and falsehood. But be on your guard against them: believe them not; they have nothing of importance to teach in the Christian scheme, which I have not taught you. I have made known to you the whole will of God; and as I have neither concealed, nor added, from sinister views, to the truth, I shall ap pear at the great day clear from your guilt."

by the other evangelist; this being a doctrine which it was proper not to divulge sooner. "If Christ," says Chrysostom," from the beginning concealed many things, calling himself the Son of Man, and did not always discover his equality with the Father, why should you wonder that he concealed this, managing it as a great and wonderful thing to preserve the Virgin, and cover her from wicked suspicion. Chrys. Oper. vol. vii. p. 20. "It does not seem," observes Dr. Priestley, "to have occurred to any of these fathers that every reason for this concealment is an argument against the propriety and wisdom of the thing itself, and therefore against the truth of the fact." Early Opin. vol. iv, P. 29.

The Apostle in this passage calls the body of Christians at Antioch the church of God. This I have no doubt, is the true reading; Paul has used it in his epistles eleven times, to mean an assembly of people, dedicated to God by the exercise of faith and virtue; and that sometimes in opposition to those men who, like beasts of prey, went about to destroy and to scatter the flock of Christ. Irenæus, Tertullian, and other early writers, characterise the Catholic believers by the term church, or the church of God, in contradistinction to the Gnostic heretics or to the assemblies of men *.

* One passage of Origen, as it illustrates the meaning here given of the church of God, shall be inserted. "As God," says he, "who sent Jesus, having defeated all the artifices of demons, has so ordered it, that the gospel of Jesus should prevail every where, for reforming mankind; and that there should be every where teachers governed by law different from the churches of superstitious, intemperate, and unrighteous man. For such are the manners of most of those who belong to the churches of the cities. But the churches of God instructed by Christ, compared with the churches of the people among whom they live, are as lights in the world. And who is there that must not acknowledge that the worst of those who are in the church, and are inferior to the rest, are better than most of those who are in the churches of the people. For instance, the church of God at Athens is quiet, mild, and well-behaved, being desirous to approve itself to God, who is over all. But the church of the Athenians is turbulent, and by no means comparable to the church of God there. The same you must also acknowledge of the church of God at Corinth, and the church of the people of the Corinthians; as you must also allow of the church of God at Alexandria, and the church of the people of the Alexandrians. Every one who is candid, and diligently attends to those things,

The Apostle adds, "Which he," meaning Jesus, "secured with his blood." The original is, περιεποιήσατο, a term literally taken that signifies to cause one thing to surround another, such as to make a hedge round a field, a wall round a town, a furrow or trench round a piece of land, marked out for building. Hence it denotes to procure, to fence, to protect, adopt. The allusion under which the term is here used, has been borrowed from the custom of marking out by a furrow, or some other means, those spots of land which were destined for building. The ground on which holy men assembled for the purpose of devoting themselves to God, was enclosed, it seems, by the blood of Jesus.

In these words are included three things, namely, that Christ was not without flesh and blood, as was maintained by the false teachers; that, in order, as it were, to lay the foundation,

with a mind open to conviction, will admire him who formed this design, and has accomplished it, that there should be every where churches of God, dwelling with the churches of the people in every city. And if you will observe the senate of the church of God, and the senate in every city, you will find some senators of the church worthy to govern in the city of God all over the world, if there were such a thing. And on the other hand, you will find that the senators of the cities have nothing in their behaviour to render them worthy of the distinction allotted them. And if you compare the presidents of the churches of God with the presidents of the people in the cities, you will find the senators and governors of the churches, though some may be inferior to others, who are most perfect: nevertheless, you will find them to excel in virtue the senators and governors of the cities. Origen against Celsus, p. 128, 129. See also Lard, Vol. viii. p. 49.

to consecrate the ground, to form the cement, to fence around the church of God, Jesus did, in reality, shed his blood, that is, he suffered in fact as well as in appearance; and, lastly, that the death of Christ formed the great line of dis tinction between the true and false believers, The former, like innocent peaceful flocks, are enclosed on every side within its benign circumference; the latter excluded, and kept without like beasts of prey, seeking to break down the great barrier of their faith, and to seize the unsuspecting victims of their violence and baseness *.

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The orthodox interpret it thus: "Feed the church of God, which God purchased with his blood," making Jehovah, who is an infinite éterual spirit, without flesh and blood, the same with the man Jesus who died on the cross. This interpretation, which is too gross even for an unenlightened Pagan, is yet made by men who deem themselves mighty in the scriptures, and who charge their adversaries with perverting them. No language of this kind, or any thing like it, occurs in any part of the sacred volume. The passage, however, though obvious as to its meaning, is, in a grammatical view, incorrect; and similar instances of incorrectness occur in the New Testament, and indeed in most ancient authors. The writers of the Christian scriptures were plain men, little studious of grammatical propriety, when they knew their meaning to be such as could not well be misunderstood. I will give a few examples of their inattention to accuracy in regard to the subject of discourse, or as it is called, the nominative case. John xix. 5. “Jesus therefore went out bearing the crown of thorn and the purple robe; and he said, Behold the man." In strict propri ety, he should refer to Jesus; but it refers to Pilate, mentioned in the verse preceding. Acts vii. 1, "And the chief priest spoke if these things were so; and he said, &c. And again, in verse 4-"The God of glory appeared unto our

father Abraham-and he left the land of the Chaldeans," &c. In strictness he should be a substitute for God; but the context shews that the writer meant Abraham.

In speaking and in composition, it is not unusual with all men to omit the agent, or principal subject of discourse, if it be notorious who that agent is, or if the frequent recurrence of his name cannot fail to recal the idea of him even in circumstances where he is only alluded to. Thus, the Pythagoreans said and wrote, AUTOs Epa, he said it. It was not necessary on any occasion, to say that auros he meant Pythagoras. The speaker or writer, the subject of discourse, the constant reference which his disciples made to him, as the highest authority, were sufficient to answer the purpose of defining him. In the same manner, it was a notorious fact, that Jesus had shed his blood for the benefit of mankind; and the Apostles were constantly speaking of the generous sacrifice which he made of himself in this respect. On the notoriety of this fact, as sufficient to explain his meaning, the Apostle depended when following the rapi dity of his ideas, without any suspicion of grammatical inaccuracy, he said, "Feed the church of God, which he—he who, as we all know, died on the cross-secured with his blood."

But the construction put upon the passage by the advocates of the divinity of Christ, is repugnant to the usage of all authors in whatever language. "To feed the church of God, which he secured with his blood." Tou Jou is introduced obliquely to limit the general term Exxλnσav, and is to be supplied in the succeeding clause- i. e. v εxxλnσιαν του θεου. Now, this last is the object of περιεποιηGaTo; and, according to the above-mentioned critics, a clause intended to define the object, is separated from it, and changed, to become the agent of the same verb: a mode of writing to which nothing similar, I believe, can be found in any author, ancient or modern. Had Paul intended this meaning, he would have written thusποιμαίνειν την εκκλησίαν του Θεου, ἣν περιεποιησατο ὁ Θεος δια του ίδιου αίματος. And here it may be useful to observe, that it is contrary to one of the first laws of composition in Greek to admit, as the subject of discourse to a