On this page
-
Text (2)
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
$ hat ottr customary theological language might be improved , by being brought nearer to the standard of scripture . I may , from time to time , give you examples of my meaning : at present , 1 beg
leave to remark upon the quaint title , of " sainV ** which we cotn - monly give to the four Evangelists . This title is , I observe , retained in the ** Improved Version of the
New Testament , " lately set forth by the Unitarian Book Society . Newcome is here followed , when , ki my judgment , he should have been left for Griesbach , who gives various readings of the superscription of the Gospels , in none of ivhieh , however * is the title in
question to be found . The aateient and common superscription was indisputably that which Griesbach adopts—The Gospel according to Matthew ^ mutatis mutandis *
The titles of the Gospels were flot , as has been pretty clearly proved , furnished by the Evangelists , but by transcribers ^ thei r books * Maldonatus , the Jesuit ,
states this strongly . After giving the same superscription as Griesbach , above quoted , he says : Perspicuura est semper * hunc titulum otnnia Evangelia habuisse * Additum autern fuisse ab
Evangelistis apud nullwm veterem auctorem inv £ mo . " The naked simplicity of the ancient title did not suit the vitiated taste of the church in the
corrupt ages . After the ^ fi fth cen tury , the title was tampered ** th in Latin . The Complutens Polyglot first introduced into * Greek edition of the New Tes - tament the epithet koty , ae ap-P « ed to the Gospols . The trans-« tto r * into modem langu ^ gei > hav «
Untitled Article
gone farther , and . prefixed the same or a kindred epithet to the name of the writer . Our own translators are singular in not following mpthje canonical style , for
though they faint the four Evangelists , they give no title of this sort to the authors of the epistles * For the titling of the Evangelists no reason but a popish one can -be assigned ; g , nd with regard to the Gospels themselves , Campbell remarks ^ after Wetstein , that though the term corresponding to gospel occurs in the New Testament upwards of seventy tiiaes it is not once accompanied with the epithet holy .
This being the true state of the case , nqyay we not confidently hope that such Christians as reject tra ~ dition and seek after reason in reiigion will disuse an idle , unauthorized appellation , which may swell
thfe sentences of a declaim er , but which serves a superstitious pur « pose with the vulgar ; and that the editors of the u Improved Version , ' ' will in this and some other instances , amend their work
in a new edition , and give us the pure scriptures and nothing but the scriptures ? This reformation would give high satisfaction to EIKONOCLASTES .
Untitled Article
Quakers' Yearly Epistle . Sir , Feb . 4 , 1811 . The adoption of the truly honourable appellation of" An Unitarian Christian , " on sending you some remarks on the Quakers
last Annual Epistle , has given your correspondent " Breviloquus *' ( Vol . v . p » € 47 , ) a plausible pretext for representing my letter as " an attempt to discuss some points on which Unitarians and Quakers differ /* Such was not
Untitled Article
On the title Sain ? ' given to the Evangelists . Qs
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1811, page 93, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2413/page/29/
-