46 



THK REV. H. J. K. MAUSTOX, M.A., ON 



of the Greek language. I hold strongly that the Greek of the 

 New Testament is Greek ; not a patois, nor a jargon. What has 

 been called " grammarless Greek," if it ever existed anywhere, 

 is certainly not the Greek of St. Luke and St. Paul, of 

 St. Matthew and St. James, of St. Peter and St. John. The 

 Apocalypse is, of course, the book in the New Testament the 

 Greek of which most frequently defies the laws of grammar. 

 The sidelights thrown upon it by recent researches into the 

 Greek of the papyri, are often interesting and sometimes 

 suggestive. I would welcome all such light ; but I still believe 

 that St. John in his latest years made no deliberate attempt to 

 use language in defiance of the laws of speech and thought. 

 Witli this exception, however, the books of the New Testament 

 should be studied with the grammar in our hand ; and under 

 the belief that the sacred writers used the words which they did 

 use so as to be understood by all sorts of readers who had 

 learned their language as we learn ours. 



The second remark that I would make is this : — When 

 appeal is made to the conscience or reason of man to settle 

 whether the Christian doctrine of Atonement is true or not 

 true, to what conscience and to what reason of what man is 

 that appeal made ? If Kousseau declared the doctrine to be 

 false because it contradicted his moral sense, I rejoin, what 

 does that signify ? Of what value to anybody was Eousseau's 

 moral sense, seeing it was of no value to himself ? If his great 

 contemporary. Bishop Butler, should declare that the doctrine 

 repugnant to the moral sense of Eousseau was agreeable to the 

 moral sense of men in general, who would hesitate to follow 

 the bishop, and disregard the sentimental savage from Geneva ? 

 And this is but a sample of the difficulties in which we 

 are landed when we follow the method usually follow^ed in 

 enquiring about the Atonement. It is certain that so far as 

 history can teach us, a sense of the need for propitiating God is 

 found everywhere. This is a strong proof that such propitiation 

 is actually possible ; since " nature does nothing in vain." And 

 this pathetic and venerable sentiment is of far more consequence 

 than the objection to it raised by any particular thinker ; that 

 objection might be very strong if it were very general ; but 

 otherwise it seems to me of little account. 



Let anyone, however, consult the writings of those who have 

 treated the Atonement on abstract principles ; and they will find 

 that these writers differ widely between themselves ; and indeed 

 that they agree in little else than in the habit of raising 

 objections to some or other part of the Christian doctrine. 



