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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.
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marker ' s textual * ' criticism we have before animadverted . And it is curious to perceive bow complacently he avails himself of those imperfect documents—imperfect , because they are at once ancient and human—for the use
of which he appears to censure Griesbach . Thus , he says of *• the Boernerian M . S . marked G , " which is " only applicable to particular parts of the N . T ., and not to the whole , ' * u cannbt indeed be regarded as a pure
specimen of the text to which it seems evidently to belong \ nor will this be said of the quotations from Origen : but each may at least serve for the purpose of a general comparison , in the defect of a better . "Pp . 53 , 54 .
Here we subscribe to the Remarker ' s opinion : we acquiesce , so far , in his method of investigation . For Griesbach however we claim the privilege exercised by Dr .
Laurencethat of employing such a specimen , and such a document , as he can procure , in the defect of a better ; and one which may at least serve for the purpose of a general comparison . * The learned German Professor indeed
regarded Biblical Criticism in a higher light than the performance of operations in addition and subtraction : the comparisons which he instituted , were superior , in their nature and relations , to those which are made merely by the aid of elementary arithmetic .
" Plain and simple , " exclaims Dr . L ., when speaking of his own numerical calculations , " as this species of elucidation seems to be , it nevertheless escaped the penetrating eye of Griesbach , who , too much dazzled perhaps by the splendour of intricate and perplexing research ,
overlooked what lay immediately before him . When he threw his critical bowl among the established theories of his predecessors , he too hastily attempted to set up his own , without having first totally demolished their ' s ; forgetting , that the very nerve of his criticism was a principle of hostility to every standard text . " 56 , 57 .
The language in which these unfounded charges are conveyed , tempts a smile . We have frequently heard of men being dazzled by excess of light : and luminousnessp we know , * " Some sort of comparison . " Dr . ^ aurencG .
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may become splendour . But we had not before read of the dazzling qualities , and splendid appearance , of what is ** intricate and perplexing . " Let Dr . Laurence , if he please , enjoy and exemplify this effulgence : but , for his credit ' s sake , let him cease to make f
insidious thrusts at Griesbachs reputation , which he assails with much variety and mixture of metaphors . Though he had admitted that the Professor was distinguished by patience and by modesty ( pp . 6 , 8 ) , still he objects to him a supposed fondness for
adventurous and innovating critics ( 15 ) , and a vanity that was " dazzled by the splendour of intricate and perplexing research ; " habits of mind not less mutually discordant than the Remarker ' s group of images 1 Assuredly , something was due from this gentleman to Griesbach's character , and to
his own . It is gravely alleged that the Professor ' s " hostility to every standard text" was " the very nerve of his criticism . ** Who , with the exception perhaps of Dr . L ., and of one or two other English writers of the present age ,
will maintain the propriety of considering the 1 ext of the Elzevir edition , of 1624 , as the standard text ? Is not Bengel with reason thought to have been needlessly and unfortunately scrupulous in his adherence to the
text of former printed * editions > Why should he have refused to exemplify as well as state his theory ? Nothing but Criticism , in the hands of learned and judicious men , can frame a text which deserves to be a standard : nor
should that be imputed to Griesbach as an error which , in truth , entitles him to our respect and gratitude . In p . 62 , Dr . L . has transcribed , from one of the Professor ' s works , a
sentence representing this editor ' s minute accuracy in his catalogue of certain readings . - ^ Yet the Remarker seems to have overlooked an important clause in the note of which that
sentence makes a part—consensum in GRAV 10 RIBV 6 lectionibus . Such , precisely , is the difference between the two systems of criticism ; Griesbach ' s being a process of skill and judgment , —Dr . Laurence ' s , one of numbers .
* Michaelis' Introd : &c . 11 . 406 , 685 t Symbol : Crit : I . xxiii .
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S 60 Review—Laurence on GriesbacKs Greek Testament .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1817, page 360, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2465/page/40/
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