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feeling, and unmanly. No Minister should wound the peace of mind of the relatives of the unfortunate sufferer. By his execution, the criminal has satisfied the offended laws of his country. The ends of justice having been answered, what purpose, salutary to the community, can be answered, by refusing the last sad solemn rites due to a fellow creature; except that bigotted display of power, which, though it might suit the gloomy period of monkish superstition, I entert..n too high an opinion of my brethren in these enlightened times, not to be fully persuaded that it would be spurned and rejected by them with disdain and virtuous indignation, as utterly incompatible with the mild precepts of the Gospel. By the laws of England an action for defamation of character, will lie against any one who reproaches another with having stood in the pillory for perjury or any other notorious offence. The delinquent having suffered the punishment due to his crime, in the eye of the law, he is from that time deemed innocent. If this consideration is paid to character in offences not capital, why should not humanity at least be shewn to the remains of the unfortunate, who has not imbrued his hands in the blood of a fellow creature?

I am totally at a loss to reconcile the directions in the Rubrick, with what I find stated in Burn's Ecclesiastical Law. Vol. 1. p. 260, 261. In the order for the Burial of the Dead, it is said, Here it is to be noted, that the office ensuing is not to be used for any that die unbaptized, or excommunicate, or have laid violent hands upon themselves. Upon this point, I could wish to be informed, how in the name of common sense, any criminal can be said to die excommunicate, who, previous to his execution, receives the Holy Sacrament in the chapel of the prison, and from the hands of the Chaplain or officiating Minister.

Dr. Burn, in his Ecclesiastical Law, and passage above alluded to, says, that," in the year 1745, a remarkable case happened after the rebel assizes at Carlisle, where some of the rebels died after attainder and before execution; the question was, whether they should be admitted to christian burial?"

*It appears from Dr. Burn, that the then Bishop of the diocese requested the opinion of a very learned gentleman, who maintained, "that after execution the bodies being at the King's disposal, are for the public example, and for the greater terror unto others, never admitted to

christian

christian burial." This opinion is grounded on two ancient canons of the Church of England. Canones editi sub Edgaro Rege: Wilk. Concil. V. 1. p. 225, 232. Johns. A. D. 740. No. 26, and A. D. 963. No. 24.

This question having been started relative to the execution of the two criminals executed this last Summer on Shooter's Hill in Kent, and doubts having arisen in the mind of a very respectable and conscientious Clergyman upon this head, I shall be happy if any of your learned Correspondents will shew me how to reconcile this seeming contradiction in the Rubrick and the Canon Laws. In cases of murder and high treason, there is no doubt of the bodies of criminals being at the King's disposal, for the sentence expresses it to be so; but whether they are actually so in other cases (the usual custom of their being delivered to their friends for interment seeming to argue to the contrary), is an information (with all due deference to legal authority) earnestly requested by,

Gentlemen,

Your humble Servant,

ORDINIS MINORIS.

ON MR. SHARP's RULE.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCHMAN'S

MAGAZINE.

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SIR,

MANY

ANY modern writers understand this whole sentence (i. e. The glorious appearing of the great God, and our Saviour Jesus Christ, Tit. ii. 13.) to belong to one and the same person, viz. Christ: as if the words should have been rendered, the appearing of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ. Which construction the words will indeed grammatically bear; as do also those in 2 Pet. i. 1. But it is much more reasonable, and more agreeable to the whole tenor of Scripture, to understand the former part of the words to relate to the

Father;

Father; the word God, with any high title or epithet annexed, always signifying the Father only."

Dr. Clarke's Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity, chap. ii. sect i. 541. A pious, ingenious, and (so far as his weak state of health will permit) industrious friend of mine, the Rev. S. Nosworthy, who lately pointed out to me the above passage, asks me," whether the first part of it may not justly be considered as a testimony to the truth of Mr. Granville Sharp's newly-discovered rule? and whether supposing it to be so, a peculiar value is not derived to it from Dr. Clarke's high character as a Greek scholar, and from the circumstances of his well-known partiality to Arian principles?" Leaving these questions to the consideration and determination of your readers, I go on to state, that the late Rev. W. Jones, of Nayland*, who, as Mr. Nosworthy also observes, has quoted the above passage from Dr. Clarke, gives a very good reason for thinking, that 2 Pet. i. 1. which our translators have rendered, "Through the righteousness of God, and our Saviour Jesus Christ," ought to be rendered, as indeed our translators in the margin have rendered it; "Through the righteousness of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ." His reason is founded on a comparison of this passage, with the last verse of the very same Epistle, with which it exactly agrees in the order and grammar of the words, and which cannot with propriety be otherwise rendered, than it is rendered by our translators, viz. "In the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." This will very evidently appear from comparing the two passages together, as they stand in the original Greek.

Εν δικαιοσύνη τε Θε8 ημων καὶ σωτῆρος Ιησε Χρισε. 2 Pet, i. 1. Αυξανέλε δε εν χαριτι και γνώσει το Κυρία ημών και σωτήρος Ιησε Χρισε. 2 Pet. iii. 18.

It must not, however, be concealed, with respect to the latter passage, that some MS. instead of Xp658, has Xpress Halpos, which, if admitted as the true reading, would go near to be fatal to Mr. Sharp's rule.

It may not be improper to add, that Dr. Whitby, in his note on part of Jude, ver. 4, i. e. "Denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ," says,

"these

* Catholic Doctrine of the Trinity, page 33, 8vo. edit. 1795.

words

words may be thus rendered, Denying Jesus Christ our only Master, God and Lord. And that they ought to be thus rendered, is argued, 1. Because one article is put before all these words, deorolins, JEOs, upios, which shews they all belong to the same person. 2. Because, &c." He afterwards says, "To the first of these arguments Grotius and Woltzogenius answer, that it is common in Scripture to affix one and the same article to divers persons, and in particular to God the Father, and to Christ; as v. 9. No fornicator, or unclean person, shall have any inheritance in the kingdom re Xpore, 8, of Christ and of God, Ephes. v. 5. I charge thee OTION TO ON Rupes ενώπιον τα Θε8 καὶ Κυρια Inoy Xplore, before God and the Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Tim. v. 21.; which, in 2 Tim. iv. 1. is T To Kupe; and in 2 Pet. i. 2.; in the knowledge re e Inoe sa Kupie nuwe, of God, and of Jesus our Lord. See 1 Tim. vi. 13."

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It is obvious to remark, with respect to this argument of Grotius and Woltzogenius, that the allegation of the first and second of these passages is a begging of the question; since it does not otherwise appear, that the same person is not meant. This may also be said of the latter part of the extract from Dr. S. Clarke. With respect to 2 Tim. iv. 1. and 2 Pet. i. 2. admitting the reading in the common printed copies of the Greek Testament to be the true one, they are, I think, very hostile, if not fatal, to Mr. Sharp's rule; for it cannot be denied, either that the first of these passages is an exact parallel to 1 Tim. v. 21. or that the second is parallel to passages, in which the assertors of that rule consider one and the same person to be referred to. It happens, however, and the circumstance is not a little remarkable, that some MS. copies of these passages favour the rule, by the omission of Te Kups in the first, and the substitution either of Χριστε Ιησε οι σωτῆρος ἡμῶν, for Ιησε το Kup, in the second. The last passage referred to, i. e. 1 Tim. vi. 15. is deserving of the Greek scholar's very particular attention.

Jan. 9. 1806.

E. PEARSON.

APOCRYPHAL

APOCRYPHAL BOOK OF ENOCH.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCHMAN'S

A

SIR,

MAGAZINE.

LL your readers are acquainted with the famous passage in the Epistle of St. Jude, in which reference is made to a prophecy of Enoch; and which prophecy, it is generally supposed, was understood to be traditional in the apostle's time. The Abyssinians, however, have long had among them a treatise which they hold of equal authority with the sacred scriptures; and which they distinguish by the name of the book of Enoch.

The learned Pereisk having heard from a Capuchin missionary, that the Abyssinians possessed such a work, used every method to procure a copy, and at length obtained an Ethiopic manuscript, alledged to be the treatise in question; but Ludolph, the father of Ethiopic literature, having examined the first pages of it, pronounced the whole an imposture, and declared that it contained only the visions of a monk, named, Abba Behaila Michael; and he even went so far as to deny the existence of a Book of Enoch among the Abyssinians.

It appears, however, that Mr. Bruce found such a book placed by them immediately after that of Job, among their canonical scriptures; and he brought to Europe three copies of it, one of which he presented to the late king of France; and the curiosity of the late Dr. Woide, the celebrated Coptic scholar, was so strongly excited by the circumstance, that he went purposely to Paris to peruse it; after which he wrote to Michaelis, that he had no doubt but that this was the work alluded to by some of the fathers as apocryphal.

Bruce mentions thatit is a Gnostic work, containing the ages of the Emims, Anakims, &c. those pretended sons of God, who became enamoured of the daughters of men, that it was written in pure Ethiopic, without one word of the Amharick dialect; and, in short, that it was the most classical composition which the Abyssinians possessed. Though abundantly curious, it carreis with it the most clumsy marks of monkish imposture and ignorance; for

the

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