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    pany with whom the MS , was inspected , was intimate with the present Bishop of Peterborough , and in the habit of communicating with him on subjects of biblical literature , and Crito states , upon authority , " that he never mentioned to Dr . Marsh his having seen either in Lincoln College or elsewhere a Greek MS . containing : 1 John v . 7 . "

    Driven to confess-that no genuine Greek MS . hitherto known and collated contains the text of the Heavenly Witnesses , its advocates indulge the hope , that among those which time shall bring to light , or the industry pf future scholars make known more accurately , some such will be found ; Bishop Burges . 3 informed the clergy of his diocese of St . David ' s , that the number of MSS . already collated fails very far short of those still uncollated , and that " in the Grand-Ducal library at Florence alone there are at least a

    thousand Greek MSS . of the New Testament , and of these only twenty-four have been collated . " Now , as only about four hundred have , as he reckons , been collated in all parts of Europe , the inference is , that the evidence of the Greek MSS . has been hitherto very imperfectly ascertained . It is justly replied by Crito , first , that though many MSS . remain uncollated in public libraries , there is no reason to believe that one exists which has not been examined at this place ; and secondly , that the number of existing MSS . of

    the New Testament has been enormously exaggerated in the above statement . Dr . Marsh had said that there were in the Florence library " a thousand Greek MSS . ; " Dr . Hales , in his Faith in tlie Holy Trinity , abridged Marsh's statement " after his manner , " says Crito , ( he was rector of Killesandra , ) by adding , " of the New Testament . " Mr . Hartwell Home , compiling " after bis manner , " without discrimination or inquiry , repeated

    the interpolation ; and Bishop Burgess , who misses no opportunity of making a mistake that lies in his way , copies Dr . Hales and Mr . Home . Bendini , who published a catalogue of the Greek MSS . in the Florence library , expressly declares , that there is not in it a single one which contains this text ; and this declaration Dr . Hales , Mr . Home , and the Bishop , might have read in so accessible a book as Griesbach ' s New Testament , Diatr . in

    \ Joaon . v . 7 . Crito's third and fourth sections treat of the Latin Version and Fathers . Instead of going over again the beaten ground of Tertullian and Cyprian , Facundus and Fulgentius , it will be more interesting to notice the attempts made by Bishop Burgess to throw doubt on Bentley ' s opinions respecting the verse , and represent him as so submissive to the authority of the Vulgate , as to prefer the MSS . of this version to the original Greek itself . That

    Bentley , when appointed to the Divinity Chair at Cambridge , in 1717 , read a Preelection , in which he decided against the genuineness of 1 John v . 7 , had been acknowledged on all hands ; the MS . had been long preserved at Cambridge ; his antagonists had reproached him with it ; his well-meaning friends had remonstrated in pious alarm . In writing to one of these , whose apprehensions had been excited by the rumour that Bentley designed to exclude the Heavenly Witnesses from his edition of the New Testament , he

    says , " What will be the event about the said verse of John , I myself know not yet , not having used all the old copies that I have information of " ( Crito , p . 226 ); and as this was only a few months before the Preelection was written , the Bisho p thinks he cannot have been so unfavourable to the verse as has been supposed . Now , not to urge with Crito that these few months were amply sufficient to enable Bentley to make up his mind by examination of the remaining copies , ( though this alone is a satisfactory answer , ) it is clear that in this letter the critic maintains the tone of a judge ,

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    B ® fl < iw ;~ FiudwatimofPersofa 327

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1828, page 327, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2560/page/39/