I have found a variant in the larger catechism. Without looking it up to see what the printed text is, does anyone see any difference in the following two readings.

[62] Qu: What is the Visible Church?

Ans: The Visible Church is a society made up of SUCH as, in all ages, & places of the world do profess the true Religion; &, of their children.

[62] Qu: What is the Visible Church?

Ans: The Visible Church is a society made up of ALL SUCH as, in all ages, & places of the world do profess the true Religion; &, of their children.

Does the added "ALL" in the second reading serve any grammatical and thus theological purpose; or are the two answers identical? Or does it add any additional theological statement.

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Seems to me that since "such as" is defined as those who "in all ages, & places of the world do profess the true Religion; &, of their children," that therefore the variant introduces no difference in the meaning -- the "all" is implied in the first reading and simply made explicit in the second reading.

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Casey Bessette
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Strikes me that the first could be read in the singular, i.e. "any" as well as "all".

But ultimately, I see no change in meaning.

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I agree with Bruce.

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The first statement could possibly be construed as a "Some A is B" proposition, while the second statement contains an "All A is B" proposition. A = Professors of the true religion and their chidlren, B = Members of the visible church.

Another way to say #1 would be "...is a society made up of the kind of people who profess the true religion and their children." The second sentence states that not only some, or "some indefinite amount," but all of A are B. I could say "My Greek class is made up of such students as are good at languages" but that does not mean that all students who are good at languages are in my Greek class. The added "all" in #2 clarifies that no one who professes the true religion is outside of the visible church. IMO it bases the definition of "visible church" on where the believers are, instead of making the visible church an abstract entity to which those who profess the true religion happen to be a part.

As Casey said, though, the "all ages and places" could be taken to make up for the lack of "all" before "such."

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I think everyone else has already answered it, but I'll just add:

could be considered a loose list (almost an ejusdem generis--"of the same kind"). So, if you were a modern persnicity (and gnat-straining) grammarian, you could argue that it means that the Visible Church is composed of people who are similar to the characteristics listed:

1. profess the true Religion
2. live in some age and live somewhere in the world

But the sentence does not necessarily mean that the Visible Church is completely composed of such people. It grants the possibility that some who meet the above criteria are not members of the Visible Church (and on the other hand, maybe it could include space aliens who do profess but don't live here).

The second version nails it down:

Because the slight ambiguity of the unmodified "such" is eliminated.

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Thanks for all the replies. Now for the possible monkey wrench. The first reading without the additional "all" is the reading of the both Larger Catechism Manuscripts and the Minutes of the Assembly. The second reading is that of the first printed edition which passed on to all subsequent printed texts. It is "possible" the addition, while it may clarify (and some of you do not think it is necessarily a needed clarification) could have been a printer's slip that got by everyone rather than an intentional emendation by the Assembly to make a clarification.

So, what do you think now?

I expected this, frankly. Nobody in those days would read the original sentence in the way I described. "Such" meant to mean "all such" as near as I can tell, especially after reading a lot of volumes of Owen.

An illustration of the canon that "the more difficult reading is to be preferred"?

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