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of the learned Chancellor ofGottingen : for when he began actually to travel the road to which he was directed , he in vain sought for the objects which he was told that he would meet with , and was compelled to strike into a new and unbeaten path in which he bewildered himself in laborious and
unsuccessful wandering , in search after that which was not to be found , and which did not even
exist-But though all this appears most evidently on the face of the bishop ' s own narration , his worthy descendant with the most edifying zeal for his father ' s credit denies
it altogether : and with all the confidence of one who expects to be believed , he thus sums up his state of the case .
44 In confirmation of the inferences drawn from the ' narrative of Sulpitius Severus , Bishop Horsley appeals to the same passage in the writings of Epiphanius , to which Mosheim had appealed before him . But he does what Mosheim
did not do . He analyses- that passage : vindicates it against the cavils of Dr . Priestley : shows the full force of the evidence which Epipbanius , in conjunction with Sulpitius , affords for the existence of a church of Hebrew Christians
at ^ Elia : and the testimony of these two ancient authors he confirms by the testimony of Orosius and Jerome , to neither of whom Mosheim had made any appeal . He was not therefore a mere
humble and ignorant plagiary of the German historian : but surely his inferences from the united testimony of three or four ancient authors cannot be entitled to the less regard for their being nearly the same , which other men . of such learning
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as Mosheim and Cave , had drawn before him " Horsley ' s Tracts , App . p . 580 . Very plausible indeed ! We
here find that the learned prelate , like Mosheim , takes Sulpitius for his text : compares and criticises Epiphanius : from the stores of his own erudition annexes the
authority of Orosius and Jerome , and the inferences from this critical and original inquiry , by the greatest possible good fortune , turn out to be precisely , or at least nearly , the same with those which other
men , of such learning as Mosheim and Cave , had drawn before him . And be it observed , that , according to the principles of episcopal logic , the c ; argument is not the worse for wanting truth , if the opponent is not sufficiently informed to detect the falsehood . " Who
then will presume , after this , to charge Bishop Horsley with plagiarism ? One circumstance , however , is surprising : that the reverend prebendary does not , after the laudable example of his learned
progenitor , enter a timely caveat against chronological cavils . But possibly he might think that the bishop ' s success in this manoeuvre did not warrant a similar experi - ment . And probably the reverend prebendary judged the precaution
needless , being pretty secure that the majority of his good-natured readers , particularly those whom it was most his wish , and perhaps his interest , to please , would , with great complaisance , take every thing for granted .
There are , however , some troublesome people in the world who are not so easily satisfied , and who have acquired a disagreeable habit of sifting matters thoroughly . Such critics will observe , that the bishop
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Mr . Bets Aam ' s Reply to the Rev . II . Horsley . 385
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1813, page 385, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2429/page/29/
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