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Untitled Article
" They act , " he says , " more like eager advocates than impartial judges . Hence their statements are to be suspected , or at least received with caution , and indeed are in many respects liable to be called in question . " This is a grave charge , amounting to no less than that these eminent men have , in order to support views of their own , wilfully falsified or
misrepresented the evidence which it was their duty to slate . It would be an insult to our readers to quote here the sentiments of the most distinguished men of all parties respecting the integrity and impartiality of Wetstein and Griesbach , or to remind them that had the latter allowed himself to be influenced by doctrinal prejudices , his bias must have been in favour of the common reading ; but since particular grounds for the accusation against them are brought forward by Mr . Bloomfield , we may say a word or two on their validity .
" Their statements are liable to be called in question . As , for instance , in their account of the reading of that most valuable , if not most ancient of MSS . the Vatican , which they can by no means prove not to have ® e& ; a reading whose genuineness ought not to be suspected on any critical grounds whatever . " Here , indeed , the question is settled ! Criticism is set at defiance , and our author might have spared himself his somewhat long and laboured note .
The received reading favours the theological prepossessions of this reprover of the partiality of Wetstein and Griesbach , and it must not be even suspected from considerations of such inferior importance as those furnished by critical science ! From many we should receive such language with indifference or contempt ; coming from him it excites our indignation . With respect to the charge of false statement of evidence against the two great critics , it happens that Wetstein does not even mention the Vatican MS . on
Acts xx . 28 , as no collation of it had been published when he wrote , and he could not know its reading in this place . Griesbach quotes it , on the authority of Birch , in favour of the common reading © fy , only adding a note of Birch ' s own , implying some uncertainty as to the true reading of the MS ., because he found among his papers no notice at all on the subject , a note which certainly could not with propriety have been omitted , though it has since become well known that the quotation in favour of See was
correct . Considering its reading as in some degree uncertain , Griesbach has abstained from making any remarks on the evidence of the Vatican MS ., so that he has not afforded the slightest foundation for any charge of misstatement respecting it . It seems as if Mr . B . had here confounded Wetstein and Griesbach with Kuinoel , who argues ( whether justly or not we shall not stop to inquire ) , that the reading of the MS . is in this place corrupted . The second instance of unfairness appealed to , is , " when they ( Wetstein and
Griesbach ) say that all the most eminent critics have united in adopting Kvyis . " Yet we can assure our readers that neither Wetstein nor Griesbach have used any such argument , or said one word of the opinions of other modern critics as strengthening their conclusions . It is true , indeed , that Kuinoel concludes his list of authorities in support of Kvpfo with " ornnes
que nostra cetate ( an important qualification which Mr . B . has forgotten ) arlis criticae peritissimi . " Can our author in both these instances have taken for granted that Kuinoel copied Wetstein and Griesbach without troubling himself to take down their works , and have founded on such an assumption so serious a charge against two such distinguished men ? It is strange ; yet such we must conclude to be the fact . At all events , however the mistake
Untitled Article
156 Blootnfield ' s Recensio Synoptica dnnotationis Sacra .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1829, page 156, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2570/page/4/
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