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7 . This brings me to another fact The text , as Bengelius asserts , was excluded from the Greek and Latin copies in public use , so early as the
second century . About the beginning of the fourth , the peace of the churches was interrupted by the violent disputes which it occasioned . In order to allay these disputes , Constantine first caused the formation of the Nicene Creed , and then the providing- a
sufficient number of copies in the churches without the controverted text . These facts stand on their own evidence : and what is remarkable , the providence of God , which has ever guarded the interests of truth , causes Jerome , as it were , to rise from
the dead , and through the medium of his prologue , to attest the same facts in nearly express terms : " In this I found translators ( or copyists ) widely deviating from the truth ; who set down in their own editions ( or copies )
the names only of the three witnesses , that is , the water , blood and spirit , but omit the testimony of the Father , the Son and Holy Spirit . " I appeal to common sense , whether the author of the prologue would have made a declaration of this kind , if it had not
been a fact forced on his attention by a knowledge and conviction of the truth . If he were a forger he would not have made it , though he had known it to be true ; because it tended to bring into discredit a verse , which he had restored as unquestionable words of the Apostle John .
8 . Here , in the eighth nlace . I I am 8 . Here , in the eighth place , am led to observe that the verse , as restored by Jerome , carries in itself the strongest possible presumption of its authenticity . The author restores it with the express design of proving the Trinity . To do this with truth , it
was necessary in connuinerating the three divine witnesses to substitute the Son , for the Word , the former being a real person , the latter the attributes of God personified , though occasionally applied to Christ in his
official capacity . This substitution has been adopted by ail the Greek and Roman fathers , from Irenseus down to Jerome . This was in opposition to the Unitarians or Sabellians , who adhered to the true reading of the JVord . It is remarkable , that even Arius uses the same language in liis disputes with Alexander : for
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he says not by . ccisi oJV 6 ?¦§ @ £ 8 ^ but o Ts 0 B 8 \ oyo £ , and this he repeats in several ways , connumerating the Logos with the Father , instead of the Son . The author of the prologue must have felt
the weight and tendency of the true CQnnumeration ; and , beyond all doubt , he would have followed the example of his predecessors in avoiding it , if that prologue or the verse itself had been an interpolation and nothing but the force of truth
could have prevented this , as Jerome , when left to his own choice , immediately gives a different connumeration He had , however , the dishonesty to make the last clause of the eighth verse , which destroys the orthodox
interpretation of the seventh , the same in both , thus seeking to silence the Arians who insisted on unity of agreement , as the unity meant by the Apostle . The assertion of Thomas Aquinas that " these three agree in
one , " was a forgery of the Arians , illustrates at once this artifice of Jerome , and , at the same time , affords a sure pledge that he would , in
imitation of his predecessors , have changed the true connumeration , had he felt it a difficulty pressing with equal weight against the orthodox faith .
9 . But it may be asked , If the advocates of the Trinity , from the second to the fifth century , excluded the verse as dangerous to it , how came Jerome , who advocated the same doctr ine , to take a quite opposite course , and restore it under a sense of the
same danger ? By doing this , instead of strengthening the orthodox faith , he was running a risk of blowing up at once the whole system $ and , at the same time , of exasperating all his contemporaries by acting in defiance of them- and the authorities who went
before them . The true answer to this pertinent question is to be found in the political history of Jerome ' s age and of his pursuits as a biblical critic . At the close of the fourth century Theodosius ascended the throne . He was a co ? isubstantialist and a
bitter enemy of the Arians . These he exterminated , and their books he caused every where to be burnt . By these means all danger from the heretics was removed , and the Catholics found themselves at liberty without molestation , to strengthen the fortress of orthodoxy by any measure
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218 Ben David on \ John v . 7-
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1826, page 218, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2547/page/30/
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