a capital; for we do not write with a capital any common name which we do not mean to honour:  as, “Though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth—­as there be gods many, and lords many.”—­1 Cor., viii, 5.  But a diversity of design or conception in respect to this kind of distinction, has produced great diversity concerning capitals, not only in original writings, but also in reprints and quotations, not excepting even the sacred books.  Example:  “The Lord is a great God, and a great King above all Gods.”—­Gurney’s Essays, p. 88.  Perhaps the writer here exalts the inferior beings called gods, that he may honour the one true God the more; but the Bible, in four editions to which I have turned, gives the word gods no capital.  See Psalms, xcv, 3.  The word Heaven put for God, begins with a capital; but when taken literally, it commonly begins with a small letter.  Several nouns occasionally connected with names of the Deity, are written with a very puzzling diversity:  as, “The Lord of Sabaoth;”—­“The Lord God of hosts;”—­“The God of armies;”—­“The Father of goodness;”—­“The Giver of all good;”—­“The Lord, the righteous Judge.”  All these, and many more like them, are found sometimes with a capital, and sometimes without. Sabaoth, being a foreign word, and used only in this particular connexion, usually takes a capital; but the equivalent English words do not seem to require it.  For “Judge,” in the last example, I would use a capital; for “good” and “goodness,” in the preceding ones, the small letter:  the one is an eminent name, the others are mere attributes.  Alger writes, “the Son of Man,” with two capitals; others, perhaps more properly, “the Son of man,” with one—­wherever that phrase occurs in the New Testament.  But, in some editions, it has no capital at all.

OBS. 6.—­On Rule 4th, concerning Proper Names, it may be observed, that the application of this principle supposes the learner to be able to distinguish between proper names and common appellatives.  Of the difference between these two classes of words, almost every child that can speak, must have formed some idea.  I once noticed that a very little boy, who knew no better than to call a pigeon a turkey because the creature had feathers, was sufficiently master of this distinction, to call many individuals by their several names, and to apply the common words, man, woman, boy, girl, &c., with that generality which belongs to them.  There is, therefore, some very plain ground for this rule.  But not all is plain, and I will not veil the cause of embarrassment.  It is only an act of imposture, to pretend that grammar is easy, in stead of making it so.  Innumerable instances occur, in which the following assertion is by no means true:  “The distinction between a common and a proper noun is very obvious.”—­Kirkham’s