66 they act wifely, for it would lead to dangerous herefies to fuppofe any thing which may not have taken place in perfons fuffering under extreme agony of mind. Though we must allow that no forrow was like unto his forrow," yet we have no reafon to imagine that the effects of it on his human body, were either different in hind, or peculiar to himself. The examples, however, which are brought forward, are, I am inclined to imagine, relations of what has happened to perfons of a difeafed habit of body. But if we take them for granted, the question is, not whether fuch things have ever happened, but whether they have happened in fuch a cafe, that is, whether any agony or diftrefs of mind, could have occafioned it in one in a found state of health. There is indeed, an expreffion in the Litany, which feems to favour the common opinion, but furely every interpretation in our Liturgy is not an object of faith. Befides, the word might have been intended to give a stronger idea of the intensity of the agony, and thus have been the innocent occafion of the opinion which it feems to favour. Again, fuppofing it a really bloody fweat, the forcing of the blood out of the capillary arteries, would, I think, hardly account for it, nor if it had been this, which would only have spread a kind of bloody dew over the fkin, would the infpired witness have made ufe of fo frong an expreffion as ωσει θρόμβοι αίματος -though the agony and the heat of the climate might well have produced great drops of fweat, which the inspired writer might compare for fize to great drops of blood. The word does not imply a coagulated mafs of blood, but of bitumen, &c. (See Parkhurft in goμCos.) The woul must stand here on the fame footing as in other parts of fcripture, as in the famous paffage ώσει περιςεραν. And if this does not actually mean a dove, but the defcending of the Spirit "as it were" a dove, so neither are thefe to be fuppofed drops of blood, but "as it were" drops of blood. As I know but very little of anatomy, I fhould wish to submit this either to the ingenious Cephas, or to any of your correfpondents who, like the great Paley, have looked into the moft convincing natural proofs of a divinity, of which it may be said, that whoever fixes his knowledge on these principles, has built his house on a rock, which the Atheist may endeavour in vain to over turn. Your obedient fervant, P. S. As I have touched on the subject of infult offered to our Saviour, it may not be ill-timed to enquire of fome of VOL. XIV. Chm. Mag. May 1808. Z z your your readers what has been done on the cafe of the Rector of Cold Norton's vifitation fermon. It will be a disgrace to our church if he is fuffered to retain his preferment without a public recantation of the exploded principles which he raked together from Hobbes and Bolingbroke.* * Our Correspondent will find an answer to this Enquiry in the present number. ED. PRONUNCIATION OF SCRIPTURE WORDS. TO THE EDITOR OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCHMAN'S SIR, WILL MAGAZINE. 7ILL you give me leave to confult you on the pronunciation of certain words in the fcriptures, and to beg your opinion, or that of any of your correfpondents, how far custom should be attended to with regard to proper names. Our English language, in words in general, by an alteration in the accent, has made many fyllables fhort, which are long in the languages from which they are derived, fo that here at leaft, cuftom must be allowed to be the norma loquendi. How far cuftom ought to prevail in proper names, is the chief queftion, for even here it must have its weight. Every one knows what ftrange liberties the French have taken with the most celebrated names of antiquity, and even among ourfelves, I believe few perfons would venture to speak of the city Roma, the poet Horatius Flaccus, or Virgilius Maro, though there can be no reafon why we fhould call one man by the cognomen, as Cicero and Cæfar, others merely by the nomen, as Virgil and Horace, and those too, fhortened by two fyllables. In the fame manner, any one would feel a tenderness in saying that the fhips touch at St. Helena, or in reading of a woman of Samaria, though the word is both, long in the penultimate in the Greek, and marked fo in the Latin by the accurate Labbe. Undoubtedly, no Englishman could fay that Marcus Tullius was a famous orator, or that there was a book published in London called an encyclopædia. I fhould wish to know therefore, for the advantage of myself and my brother cu rates, rates, how a man ought to act in reading proper names, fo as to avoid a feeming ignorance of the originals, or the charge of being a filly and pertinacious opposer of common usages, whose great power in language every one of readers will be ready to confefs. May 7, 1808. I am, Sir, your your obedient fervant. IRCASTRENSIS. ON THE MISSION OF THE TWELVE APOSTLES. (Continued from page 260.) SIR, THE HE refult of the preceding inquiry feems to be pretty clearly this that the Eleven Apoftles were commanded to announce the tidings of eternal life, and the terms of obtaining it, to Gentiles every where, both in and out of Judæa-and, that though they were commanded to do fo by him whom they had followed as being the onlybegotten Son of God, and whom they acknowledged to have been invefted with "all power both in heaven and earth," and had been wonderfully qualified for that purpose by the Holy Spirit, according to the prediction of the fame heavenly meffenger, yet they were fo far from manifefting any difpofition to comply with his command, that they seem, on the contrary, to have betrayed pretty evident fymptoms of difinclination to engage in any undertaking of the kind, and, to have been quite unmindful of all that had paffed; and, moreover, that it seems to have been neceffary, after an interval of fome years, for God himself to interfere again to induce them to fet about the work affigned them by caufing the principal one among them to go to a perfon whom it might have been expected he would have readily visited, as foon as requested fo to do, without any extraordinary interference of the kind. Several years before the converfion of Cornelius, St. Paul, by his own account and by St. Luke's, appears to have been converted, For, by his own account, it was, at least, three years 1 years when he first went up to Jerufalem after his converfion. From Jerufalem he retired to Tarfus." Then, fays St. Luke, the churches had rest throughout all Judæa, and Galilee and Samaria, and were multiplied." And, he further fays, as Peter paffed through all of them, he also came to Lydda, Saron and Joppa:-and at Joppa, he tarried many days with one Simon a tanner, where he was fent for by Cornelius. By this then, it appears pretty clearly, that the converfion of Cornelius happened feveral years after that of Paul. But though this appears to be fo very clear, it may not be amifs to spend a little time in inquiring how long the interval between their converfions is likely to have been.-But as this cannot be done fatisfactorily without previously inquiring when, it is most likely, the martyrdom of Stephen happened, let us in the firft place, beftow a little attention upon this point. Many learned divines have thought that the death of Stephen happened a little more than a year after the afcenfion. The very learned Michaelis, (a) however, fays that "St. Stephen hardly fuffered martyrdom before Pilate was recalled from the government of Judæa, for under Pilate the Jews had not the power of inflicting capital punishments. If this be true, fays he, Saul's converfion must have happened likewife after Pilate's recall. But how long after that, whether in 38 as fome fay, I cannot determine."After having faid this, he adds "neither date agrees with the epiftle to the Galatians"-or rather perhaps, he should have faid, If Stephen was ftoned after Pilate's recall, and Saul was converted in 38, in all probability, he could not, for reasons which are obvious, and which will be presently produced, have returned to Jerufalem till 42. And therefore Cornelius muft, by St. Luke's account, have been converted no one knows how long after that. His equally learned annotator, (b) after having taken for granted that the Jews certainly had not the power of ftoning blafphemers under Pilate, and obferved that Pilate was recalled early in the year 37, fays" It is not improbable that the Sanhedrin obtained from his fucceffor a privilege which they did not enjoy under the government of Pilate: and if they did, they of course, took the earliest opportunity of of making use of it. Confequently the death of Ste phen, St. Paul's perfecution of the Chriftians, and his fubfequent converfion, could not have happened before that year (37) and therefore the journey to Jerufalem, mentioned Gal. i. 18. which was, at least three years later (and may, by his own account, have been five) could not have happened before the year 40." It is obfervable that both thefe learned profeffors, after having taken for granted that the Jews were not permitted to flone blafphemers under Pilate, fpeak hypothetically of their having obtained permiffion to do it under Marcellus. Profeffor Michaelis fays If this be true.” Profeffor Marfh" It is not improbable that the Sanhedrin, &c."-But what reafon have we to think that Stephen muft have been ftoned after Caiaphas had been depofed by Vitel. lius in the year 35? We know he faid to the Sanhedrin, "Ye have been now the betrayers and the murderers of the juft One." With whatever appearance of truth he could have faid this in the pontificate of Theophilus, the second High prieft after Caiaphas, with much greater, it must be allowed, he would have faid it as long as Caiaphas was prefident of the Sanhedrin. But the Jews, it feems, had not the power of ftoning blafphemers under Pilate,-and therefore, not within two years after the depofition of Caiphas. Marcellus, his fucceffor, it feems, was better affected towards the Jews, and had authority to reftore to them the privilege of which they had been deprived. But from whom did Marcellus obtain this authority? He is faid to have been appointed by Vitellius,-and Vitellius, we are told, when he depofed Caiaphas two years before, was so well pleafed with the people of Jerufalem as to remit to them the whole duty of the fruits that were fet to fale: and to have put all the pontifical habits, which used to be kept by a Roman officer in the fortrefs Antonia, into the poffeffion of the high priests to be kept by them. Afterwards at the request of the Samaritans he fent Pilate to Rome to answer their accufation.-Now as Pilate appears to have been so entirely under the controul of the proconful of Syria, is it at all likely that he would have presumed to take an ancient privilege of the first importance from the Jews-at leaft without being authorised to do fo by his fuperior? And if he was fo authorised, it seems likely, as Vitellius granted fuch favour to the Jews, that he would have restored this privilege above any other. And, as we know that Vitellius, about the time that he appointed Mar cellus, |