and so he applies these words to the doctrine of celibacy, and to that blessed and angelical chastity which is the brightest gem in the character of God's saints, and which entitles them, as the blessed St. John declares, "to follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth, for these are virgins."—(Apocalypse xiv. 4.)
And yet Bishop Newton is forced to admit that there is evidently some fault in the Hebrew text, and he owns his preference of the Septuagint, although with an inconsistency quite remarkable he substitutes a reading of his own instead of both, But if even the Hebrew reading, as followed by the Anglican Bible were correct, it appears to me that it would only still more go to express the insatiable lust of Mahomet and his followers; for when it says that he shall make no account of the desire of women, we are forcibly reminded of a common expression in our own language, which describes an extreme propensity to any evil habit, or complete success im any undertaking by a similar phrase. When we say that a man "makes nothing" of drinking so many bottles of wine, we do not mean to say that he is a total abstainer from such a liquor, but quite the contrary. So when the Hebrew text says "that he shall not regard the desire of women," it means that Mahomet would treat
