_whoever_ cannot be an objective. And so in
all other instances in which the two cases are different: as, "He bids
_whoever_ is athirst, to come."--_Jenks's Devotions_, p. 151. "Elizabeth
publicly threatened, that she would have the head of _whoever_ had advised
it."--HUME: _in Priestley's Gram._, p. 104.

OBS. 15.--If it is necessary in parsing to supply the antecedent to
_whoever_ or _whosoever_, when two _different_ cases are represented, it is
but analogous and reasonable to supply it also when two similar cases
occur: as, "_Whoever_ borrows money, _is bound_ in conscience to repay
it."--_Paley_. "_Whoever_ is eager to find excuses for vice and folly,
_will find_ his own backwardness to practise them much diminished."--
_Chapone_. "_Whoever_ examines his own imperfections, _will cease_ to be
fastidious; _whoever_ restrains humour and caprice, _will cease_ to be
squeamish."--_Crabb's Synonymes_. In all these examples, we have the word
in the third person, singular number, masculine gender, and nominative
case. And here it is most commonly found. It is always of the third person;
and, though its number _may_ be plural; its gender, feminine; its case,
possessive or objective; we do not often use it in any of these ways. In
some instances, the latter verb is attended with an other pronoun, which
represents the same person or persons; as, "And _whosoever_ will, let _him_
take of the water of life freely."--_Rev._, xxii, 17. The case of this
compound relative always depends upon what follows it, and not upon what
precedes; as, "Or ask of _whomsoever_ he has taught."--_Cowper_. That
is--"of _any person whom_ he has taught." In the following text, we have
the possessive plural: "_Whosesoever_ sins ye remit, they are remitted unto
_them_."--_John_, xx, 23. That is, "_Whatever persons'_ sins."

OBS. 16.--In such phraseology as the following, there is a stiffness which
ought to be avoided: "For _whomever_ God loves, he loves _them_ in Christ,
and no otherways."--_Barclay's Works_, Vol. iii, p. 215. Better: "For _all
whom_ God loves, he loves in Christ, and no _otherwise_." "When the Father
draws, _whomever_ he draws, may come."--_Penington_. Better: "When the
Father draws, _all whom_ he draws, (or, _every one whom_ he draws.) may
come." A modern critic of immense promise cites the following clause as
being found in the Bible: "But he loveth _whomsoever_ followeth after
righteousness."--_O. B. Peirce's Gram._, p. 72. It is lamen