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and superficial manner so common in distejitihg institutions ^ where a notorious deficiency In classical and oriental literature , and a ge ? ieral ignoranceofthe laws of Just criticism , must u'binbusli / give rise fo a mistaken interpretation tifthe original text , and to the consequent formation of erroneous opinions . ' **
' Edv irpoTepos Ti $ 8 irfot 'tx irpoarov $ ictvruf ire ? ) ctWov , hoc ) Si ) ratfir stu > $ sXjEi ' x-ocl 8 X £ Ti ol dytsoyrsg crxey&ovroci , rl $ Ttor dvros £$ ~ w o rctvra , Xsyobv Such appears to have heen the expectation of Air . W . who has cither asserted
thatof whfch he knew nothing , or that which he knew not to be . Me very readil y allow him the milder half * of the alternative , believing that lie has only spoken here in the plenitude of that'dignified ignorance which Churchmen affect ; in regard to the internal concerns of the l ) issenters . We are
for from complaining of this ignorance which it is their privilege to enjoy and our fate to suffer ; but let them at least •* neither bless us at all nor curse us at all , " or if £ hey will stoop to censure us , let them also humble themselves to
learn what it is they are censuring * They would hardly admit it as an excuse on our parts , for a misrepresentation of ah university , that it wa 6 raised too Iiigh above us , for us to see it distinctly :
yet the distance from which we look up tp Mr , W . is exactly that from which he looks down upon us . He should both in justice and in prudence t&avc informed himself a little better ,
before he ventured to commit the honour of his University , and even the credit of orthodoxy , to such a comparison as he has provoked . As a reply to the reflections contained in the paragraph which we have quoted , we shall pjeg leave to la } 7 before our readers a statement of the course of Biblical
study pursued in an academical institution , which till lately was the only one in which ministers among the Unitarian - Dissenters received their education . We are persuaded that we shall the more readily obtain this indulgence from them , as it will afford \ i 3 an opportunity of doing justice to
? That we may not escape under cover of these general reflections , the charge is brought home to us in the next page : — " The very scanty portion of critical skill possessed by th « s disciples of Socimv * , in common with every class of dissidents . " V . 68 . Note .
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one , to wl > orn justice will never te done but by some other fcand than his own . In the first year of l > 'is course , the theological student , who is required to
have reached the age of sixteen at . hjs admission , and to be able to read Homer and Horace , begins , upon his first entrance , the study * of the Hebrew language , in which it will generally be found , that at the end of a session of nine months , he has made sufficient
progress to have read , witk tolerable ease , considerable portions of thfc historical books of the Old Testament . In the second year he reads the Prelections of Lowth , with the notes of Michaelis , grammatically resolving the passages which are quoted in the text ; and in additien to this , some of the
devotional and prophetic books , comparing the Hebrew throughout with the Septuagint . In the third year , he continues to read other parts of the Hebrew Scriptures in the same critical and grammatical manner as before . Syriac and Chaldee do not make a ( n
invariable part of the course , but arc taught to those , whose abijity for learning languages promises that the knowledge of them will be useful . Tho reader will observe , that through the three first years , theological studies ate subordinate to the cultivation of the
languages , history , mathematics and philosophy * while in the two last , theology forms the chief , and almost the exclusive business . The course ot the fourth year begins wjth the critical examination of the sources whence the
text of the Old Testament is derived , including the various ancient versions , the history and authority of which and their relation to the Henrew , are wnoro or less minutely investigated * according
to their importance to the commentator . When the way is thvw prepared , the Scriptures of the Old Testament are separately examined , as the records or the Jewish Revelation ; the laws ot
Moses are presented , in a bystemauc view , that their wisdom and divine origin may appear more conspicuous and all the light is thrown upon the *?* which can be * tippled by oriental manners and & comparison with otttfr
systems of ancient jurifcprvalence , ^ similar course ik pvi ^ ued with reg ^ to the . atljer historip ^ O % h # dcvation ^» an 4 th prophetic hpoVsA 1 } % 9-imv ^ sible to make use of the ofi ^ ilM ^ where so large a space inust be $ P c
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AQ 6 Review . —fVabiticri ghl on the Pursuits of Cambridge .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1816, page 406, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2454/page/34/
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