Note 71 — SENTENCES.
Reading edition
“I am the Lord, that maketh all things; that stretcheth forth the heavens alone:”⸺Isaiah xliv. 24. Thus far is right: the Lord in the third Person is the Antecedent, and the Verb agrees with the Relative in the third Person: “I am the Lord, which Lord, or He that, maketh all things.” It would have been equally right, if I had been made the Antecedent, and the Relative and the Verb had agreed with it in the First Person: “I am the Lord, that make all things.” But when it follows, “that spreadeth abroad the heavens by myself;” there arises a confusion of Persons, and a manifest Solecism.
“Thou great first Cause, least understood! Who all my sense confin’d To know but this, that Thou art good, And that myself am blind: Yet gave me in this dark estate,” &c. Pope, Universal Prayer.
It ought to be confinedst, or didst confine; gavest, or didst give; &c. in the second Person. See above, p. 48. Note.