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able absence of any thing allied to devotional feeling in a cor respondence, conducted principally by dignified clergy and ⚫ eminent prelates.' Disappointed indeed would that person be, who, in the simplicity of his heart, should open these volumes with the expectation of finding in them a picture of pure, holy, and benevolent minds, undistracted by worldly cares, and unruffled by those angry and ambitious passions which agitate the rude mass of mankind. It is very possible, we are well aware, for the best of characters to be sometimes hurried away by the violence of opposite and contending opinions into unbecoming and unjustifiable resentment: but there is a wide difference between occasional acts and confirmed habits. No one can forbear to lament the intemperate disputes of a Toplady and a Fletcher; but examine their familiar letters and private exercises, and you will find an innocence of disposition eminently amiable and attractive, and a chastened humility of spirit truly evangelical. Alas! for the clerical character, when the essence of its happiness is enshrined in an archiepiscopal mitre !

The learned and laborious editor of these volumes has performed his office with diligence and impartiality. Of most of the correspondents, he has given a short biographical sketch; and by this means, as well as by the occasional introduction of judicious and appropriate notes, has succeeded in rendering the collection more intelligible, and, as far as possible, less insipid.

Art. VII. The Critique in the Eclectic Review, on 1 John v. 7. Confuted by Martin's Examination of Emlyn's Answer; to which is added an Ap-* pendix, containing Remarks on Mr. Porson's Letters to Archdeacon Travis, concerning the Three Heavenly Witnesses. By J. Pharez. 8vo. pp. 168. price 4s. Ogle, Hamilton, Button. 1809.

IF a person who is grossly uninformed on any subject which

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requires a knowledge of facts and a patient scrutiny of complex evidence, not only clings to his ignorance with pertinacious fondness, but chuses to pester the world with his wrong-headed effusions, silence is usually the best treatWe cannot always avail ourselves, however, of this compendious mode of reply. When a gentleman does us the honour to publish a four shilling pamphlet, in confutation of fifteen lines of ours, we are bound, in common po liteness, to make him some acknowledgements. In the present instance, also, our silence might have been detrimental to the interests of truth. It might have been conceived that we dishonourably avoided a fair inquiry; or that, being convicted of error by our zealous respondent, we had not integrity and honour enough to come fairly before the

public and confess our mistake. Irksome as it is to waste our time and paper in slaying the ten times slain, we must patiently submit to our duty.

It seems that we have given offence to this Mr. J. Pha→ rez by a paragraph (Ecl. Rev. Vol. V. p. 248.) in which we professed our conviction of the spuriousness of certain words in the received text of John v. 7, 8.

Such readers as have not paid particular attention to the rules of criticism, by which the genuine text of all ancient writings is ascertained and proved, we take the liberty of referring to p. 33. of our last Volume. It was there shewn, that the only legitimate sources of authority, in ascertaining the pure text of the New Testament, are ancient Manuscripts, Ancient Versions, and Citations in the works of early Christian writers; that none of these sources of authority are to be accepted in the gross, but that, in every case, the character and claims of each evidence must be individually weighed ;—and, finally, that the result must be obtained by an impartial summation of all the testimonies. By such a process as this we have been satisfied that the passage under consideration was not written by the Apostle John: and though we may incur, with a very few persons like our present opponent we certainly shall not deserve the charge of temerity, when we assert, that no man of understanding and integrity, who is able to examine the question on its proper grounds, and who will take the pains of going through with such an examination, can avoid arriving at the same conclusion.

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As both our living opponent, and the dead one whom he has roused from his tomb, are in the curious predicament of not knowing the state of the question, and most ludierously labour to prove a clause to be genuine which no person denies, it becomes absolutely necessary for us to premise what that question is. We shall, therefore, transcribe the seventh and eighth verses, including in brackets the part which we affirm to be an interpolation.

Ὅτι τρεῖς εἰσιν οι μαρτυροῦτες [ἐν τῷ ὀυρανῷ, ὁ Πατὴς, ο Λόγος, και τὸ ̔́Αγιον Πνεῦμα· καὶ ουτοι οι τρεῖς ἕν εισι. Καὶ τρεῖς εἰσιν οι μαρτυροῦντες ἐν τῇ γῇ,] τὸ πνεῦμα, καὶ τὸ ὕδως, καὶ τὸ αἷμα· καὶ ὁι τρεῖς ἐις τὸ ἔν ἐισιν.

"For there are three that bear record [in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth,] the spirit, and the water, and the blood; and these three agree in one."

We shall go over the particulars of our former assertion, with respect to the portion marked as spurious.

I. It is found in no Greek Manuscript ancient or recent, except the Codex Montfortianus, in the Library of Trinity College Dublin, and the Codex Ravianus, in the King of Prussia's Library at Berlin.

The last of these we rejected," as an impudent forgery of the 16th century," and not intitled to be ever Dentioned in a question of criticism. David Martin, (a worthy French protestant minister, but a child in criticism, and inferior to many children in understanding, as his work here republished contains luculent proofs,) obtained, he tells us,advices from Berlin, and these are the very words of one of the King's librarians. Locus &c. The passage of 1 John. v. 7. is in the text of the Greek Manuscript of the New Testament in the King's Library at Berlin, but we can affirm nothing certain concerning its antiquity." What follows? Does the good refugee take a journey from Utrecht to Berlin, to see with his own eyes? Or does he again apply to the cautious librarian, and urge an examination into the characters of age which the Manuscript possessed?-O no! far from it: the Reverend Monsieur Martin concludes as follows: "Whatever be determined concerning the antiquity of the copy, the passage of St. John is found in it, and stands in the body of the text; that is enough." !!!

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It is not, however, 'enough' for us. We shall translate a part of an epistle from the celebrated and learned M. la Croze, Librarian to the King of Prussia, (Semler's Historische Sammlungen, &c. apud Marsh's Michaelis, Vol. II. Part ii. p. 765.). "Whoever has seen the Complutensian edition, has seen our manuscript; not excepting even the errors of the press, which the ignorant transcriber has copied so faithfully, as to make it palpably evident that an illiterate person was employed, by some learned swindler, in making this forgery. In fact, the book was sold for an ancient one, and at a vast price; though the chalk or pounce, usually employed in preparing vellum for receiving writing, still adheres to the fresh leaves; and the uniform paleness of the ink, were there no other proof, is quite sufficient for the detection of the fraud., To appeal, then, to this manuscript, is absolute trifling. Assuredly, with regard to myself, I am firmly attached to the Nicene and orthodox faith; but far be it from me to support it by adducing forgeries!"

These charges have been fully confirmed, and further. demonstrations of the forgery produced, by M. Pappelbaum, in a German work, intitled A Disquisition on the Ravian

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Gr. MS. of the N. T. Berlin, 1785. There is another Greek manuscript containing only the First Epistle of John (the Codex Guelpherbytanus D) written in the 17th century, and containing also the Latin translations of Erasmus, Beza, Castellio, &c. This is a happy circumstance: for, otherwise, some Martin or Travis would have triumphantly adduced it in favour of the disputed passage.

We adhere, then, to our assertion, that only One Greek Manuscript, deserving to be so called, contains the clause; the Montfortianus. This is a copy of the whole N. T. written on paper. Besides other marks of a recent date, it exhibits the modern division of Chapters, which is the case with no known Greek MS. written earlier than the middle of the 15th century. The disputed passage has the strongest symptoms of being translated from the Latin; as it servilely adheres to the Vulgate, it presents very bald Greek, -and it copies the peculiar reading of the Vulgate in v. 6. Christus for Spiritus.

Excluding the Montfortianus, the known Manuscripts containing this Epistle are upwards of one hundred and thirty; and not one of them contains the disputed passage. This is a fact so well established, as to be admitted by the advocates of the common reading.

But such a fact as this, a fact which would have force in ordinary cases and with ordinary men like ourselves, makes no impression on such extraordinary geniuses as M. Martin and his resuscitators. Unmoved by the lack of existing evidence, they triumph in that which they imagine once had existence!

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They first inform us that Laurentius Valla, a nobleman of Rome, and a learned man, had, near three hundred years ago, several Greek manuscripts, wherein this passage was. p. 63. What a convenient principle in the mind of a staunch polemic, is credulity! Let us admit, for a mo ment, the truth of this round and bold assertion. Except we had some satisfactory information on the age, character, and history of those MSS. who does not perceive that it is impossible to rest any argument upon them? -especially in a case where more than one hundred and thirty MSS. including all the best and most ancient, with one voice testify against the clause under debate? But the plain fact is as follows, with regard to Lorenzo Valla, a name ever cherished with respect by the friends of religion and literature. Forty years after his death were published his Annotationes in Latinam N. T Interpretationem ex Collatione Græcorum Exemplarium. The principal object of the work was to compare the Vulgate vere Vol. VI F

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sion with the Greek copies in his possession, and to mark their differences: and he takes no notice of any difference in the capital instance before us. Of course, whoever argues from this omission, must suppose that Valla ́ so punctually noted every discrepance of the two texts, as to render his mere silence equal to a positive testimony. Now we know the contrary, and that he has passed by instances of great importance without any notice. For example: 1 Pet. 1. 22. in the Vulgate stands thus; "Qui est in dextera Dei, deglutiens mortem ut vitæ æternæ hæredes efficeremur; profectus in cœlum, subjectis sibi angelis, et potestatibus, et virtutibus:" i. e. "Who is at the right hand of God, swallowing up death [probably taken from Isaiah xxv. 8.] that we might become heirs of eternal· life; having gone into heaven, angels and principalities and powers being made subject to him." Though this remarkable addition is found in no Greek copy, and is countenanced by Augustine, Fulgentius, and the venerable Bede, yet Valla passes it by without the slightest notice. Numerous examples of this kind occur. Indeed it is inore than probable, in that infant age of criticism, that he did not design a complete collation of his authorities. Nor is it at all improbable that prudential reasons induced his silence. For some imputed heresies he had been condemned to the flames, and was with difficulty rescued by the king of Naples. Had he ventured to insert, though in his unpublished collations, any seeming doubt on the subject of the three heavenly witnesses, it may be presumed that royal intercession, if it had even dared to shew itself, would have been exercised in vain.

As M. Martin finds, in the momentous silence of Valla, 'a demonstrative proof' of his favourite point, we are not to be surprised at his wonderful success in getting another. Says he, It is only in some manuscripts this text is wanting, since I have shewn it to be in those of Valla, of Complutum, of Erasmus,of R. Stephens, and others.' 106. Our readers may find some account of the Complutensian edition in our last volume. (E. R. Vol. V. pp. 35, 36.) The disputed passage is printed in it, to the great joy and triumph of Messrs. Martin, Travis, & Co. who are most comfortably sure that "those illustrious editors" found it in some Greek manuscript or manuscripts. This consequence, alas! we are most unfortunately not able to perceive. Where was the impossibility that bigoted Roman Catholics (who had the sense and modesty to compare their edition of the Old Testament, which displayed the Latin version of the blessed Jerome in the middle, with the Hebrew text on one side, and the Septuagint on the other, to Jesus crucified between tw.

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