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    Tyro in Criticism would be ashamed to apply to works of mere human literature and ephemeral moment . " We cordially wish that he hafl specified the erasures and alterations to which he adverts . To general accusations we offer a general replication .

    With all just deference , we affirm that we are innocent of such mutilations , such erasures and alterations : and Dr . Ryder , if , hereafter , he possess an opportunity of explaining and supporting what at present we must style indefinite and groundless allegations , may ultimately concede that , on this head , we are not altogether inaccessible to " the light of evidence and sound learning . "

    Criticism , in its application to the Scriptures , has two divisions . One of these regards the text ; the other , the interpretation , of the Sacred Volume . That which is exercised on the text , bears the name of Biblical Criticism : that which investigates and employs the principles of just interpretation , is distinguished as Scriptural Criticism . * Important ends are answered by the distinction . The rules of " Biblical Criticism" are comparatively few , and , in theory at least , almost universally recognized and respected ; while those of the second branch of Criticism are observed to leave room for a

    much wider diversity of opinion . Our meaning will be unfolded by an example . Various and even mutually conflicting comments on such a portion of the New Testament as Philipp . ii . 5—9 , have been proposed by a number of preachers and writers : and , hitherto , there is no approach to unanimity in the judgment of the theological world on the point , which of the comments gives the real sense of the apostle . Not so , on the question , whether two well-known clauses in the Received Translation of 1 John v . 7 ,

    be genuine Scripture , and came from the pen of him whp leaned on Jesus ' bosom . Here , with rare and singular exceptions , divines—inquirers—of all denominations , are agreed . It would now be reasonably considered as some impeachment of a man's scholarship and experience in criticism —and this , be he Trinitarian or be he Antitrinitarian—to deny that the clauses so

    rejected by Griesbach are spurious , are interpolated . We could not , indeed , with any show of truth insinuate or say of such an author as Bishop Burgess that , because he attempts to uphold the genuineness of them , he is a Tyro in Criticism : " yet , beyond doubt , if we had been unacquainted with his critical labours in a different field , and with far happier success , our astonishment at him , in the character of a Biblical Critic , would have

    been less profound . The truth , we repeat , is , that the large majority of intelligent and well-educated theological scholars , of every church and society , * concur with each other in acknowledging and respecting the princi p les of Biblical Criticism , their solidity and their practical use and bearing . When Bishop Ryder shall have shewn that Unitarian Christians transgress these principles , in erasing the clauses just instanced , or any similar clauses or words touched by the impartial wand pf Criticism , as being unauthorized additions to the Sacred Text ; and when he shall have further shewn that we

    violate the same principles in adopting those " alterations" of the text , which that wand has marked as genuine readings * we will then confess ourselves guilty of mutilating " the oracles of God : " we shall then sink under the conscious shame of the ignorance , the wantonness , and the levity , imputed to us by " his record of accusation and conviction . "f

    * Bitthop Marsh's Lectures , &c , No . II . t After i he labours of Giiesbach , P or hod , Michaeli * { J . D . ) , and Maryb , on 1 John v . 7 } not to enumerate those of other men v > f greater eminence in the theolo-

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    Bishop of LtchjUW ^ Charge . 11

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1829, page 11, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2568/page/11/