agent was constantly employed by him, to convey these useful little messengers of mercy to prisons, hospitals, and workhouses."-pp. 175-177.

"A Dissenter from conviction, Mr. Townsend had imbibed too much of the spirit of his Master, to allow an attachment to modes and systems to separate him from Christians of a different party. With pleasure he united with all, who believed in one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism. Gentle in points where no dereliction of principle was involved, he was inflexible when duty required. His opposition to Lord Sidmouth's Bill, and Mr. Brougham's Education Bill, was both active and decided. Had he lived in the sixteenth century, he would probably have ranked with a Luther and a Melancthon."-p. 179.

"When the Patriarch was buried, there went with him a great company, who mourned with great and sore lamen tation. Thus it was with our venerable friend, at whose interment a tribute of respect and esteem was exhibited, which was almost unparalleled. The carriages covered a length of road that might have indicated a royal funeral. The voluntary homage of thousands, told that the poor had lost a friend, the helpless a counsellor, the children a father.". father." pp. 182, 183.

Of the work from which we have extracted our account, we have to say only a few words. Like the amiable subject of whom it treats, it is a modest and unpretending performance. It is written with great simplicity and seriousness, and contains, we have no doubt, the most important features in the character and history of Mr. Townsend. It does great credit to the female pen which has executed a task which veterans in literature of the other sex failed to accomplish. Our allusion will be understood. Whether the life of Townsend should have appeared as entirely executed by himself, or has been improved in a new version by another, may be matter of taste or opinion. It is our business to speak only of the book before us; which we very cordially recommend to our readers, and doubt not they will derive from it "edification, exhortation, and comfort."

I HAVE observed, what I had not attended to before my last paper was sent to press, as my copy of Mr. Charles Butler's Hora Biblica is contained in his Miscellaneous Works, published in 1817, that his "Short Historical Outline of the Disputes respecting the Authenticity of the Verse of the Three Heavenly Witnesses," was first published in 1805; some time before the two works which have already been noticed. It is contained in two Letters "to the Rev. Herbert Marsh," and constitutes the second Appendix to the very interesting work of Mr. Butler, which is known to every scholar. It illustrates the ex

tensive reading, the patient research, and the great suavity which distinguish all the productions of one of the oldest and most voluminous writers of the present day.

This short outline gives a much briefer view of the Controversy than has been presented in these papers, and omits many things which have been introduced in them. There are also a few inaccuracies which I have noticed, though they are not of any material importance. The plan which Mr. Butler pursues is the follow ing. He gives

I. Some account of the state of the question; II. Of the his

tory of the general admission of The Verse into the printed text; III. And of the principal disputes to which it has given rise; IV. An inquiry whether the general sense of the text is affected by the omission of The Verse; V. Some account of the argument in favour of its authenticity from prescription; VI. Some account of the arguments against it from its absence from the Greek manuscripts; VII. Of the answers to those arguments, from its supposed existence in the manuscripts of Valla; VIII. From its supposed existence in the manuscripts of the Complutensian editors; IX. And from its supposed existence in the manuscripts used by Robert Stephens; X. Some observations on the argument arising on its not being inserted in the Apostolos or Collection of Epistles read in the Greek Church; XI. On its not being inserted in the oriental versions; XII. On its not being inserted in the most ancient Latin manuscripts; XIII. On the silence of all the Greek fathers respecting it; XIV. On the silence of the most ancient of the Latin fathers respecting it; XV. Some account will then be given of what has been written respecting its first introduction into the Greek and Latin manuscripts.

Under these general topics, almost every thing of importance in the controversy is noticed. Were I to go over them, it would be to repeat a great deal of what has been already stated. He gives the evidence pro and con with great candour and accuracy; but lays more stress on several points that I conceive they will fairly bear. One or two passages deserve to be quoted for the information which they contain. As a Catholic, he feels himself in some difficulty by the

Decree of the Council of Trent, which pronounces the authenticity and correctness of the Latin Vulgate. The following passage explains the process by which a good Catholic may escape from the anathema of the Council, though he may dispute the authenticity of this verse. Dr. Geddes would have cut the knot which Mr. Butler's reasoning does not unloose.

"Here the communicant with the see of Rome takes an higher ground. The council of Trent, Session 4, declared anathema to all, who should not receive for holy and canonical, all and every part of the Books of the Old and New Testament, as they had been accustomably read in the Catholic Church, and as they stood in the old vulgate edition: And in the sixth session, declared the Vulgate to be authentic, and that no one should, on any pretence, dare or presume to reject it.'

Now, when the Council of Trent made this decree, The Verse had long been accustomably read in the Catholic church, and long made a part in the old vulgate edition; those, therefore, in communion with the see of Rome, who now reject The Verse, fall within the council's anathema.

"To these objections the adversaries of The Verse reply:

"1st, That, in the times of which we are now speaking, there was little of biblical criticism, and that no works of those times have reached us, in which such an objection either would be made, or would be noticed.

66

2dly, That, before too great a stress is laid on its insertion in the Vulgate, an accurate notion should be formed of the edition denoted, in these cases, by the appellation of the Latin Vulgate. It does not denote the edition,

anterior to St. Jerome, which, from its superior celebrity, was called the Ancient Italic; it does not denote the edition published by St. Jerome; it merely denotes that edition, which, at the time of the Council of Trent, was generally in use; and afterwards served as the ground-work of the editions published, first by Sixtus Quintus, afterwards by Clement the Eighth, and which last edition is the archetype of the modern Vulgate that this edition partook more of the modern, than of ancient versions; and, that standing by itself, it is, in a matter of criticism, of no authority.

"3dly, To suppose, that, the Council of Trent pronounced the Vulgate to be wholly free from error, and that no one was at liberty to vary from it, in translation or exposition, is going to an extreme. In declaring it to be authentic, the Council did not declare the Vulgate to be inspired or infallible; the Council only pronounced it to be inerrant, where the dogmata of faith or morals are concerned. In this decision, every Roman Catholic must acquiesce, as he receives the scripture from the church, under her authority, and with her interpretation: but further than this, the Council leaves the Vulgate in mere matters of criticism, to the private judgment of every individual. To this effect, Father Salmeron, who was one of the ten first disciples of St. Ignatius, and who assisted at the Council of Trent in the character of one of the Pope's theologians, is cited by the Abbé de Vence, to have expressed himself in the third of his prologomena."*

Mr. Butler does not seem quite satisfied with this reasoning, and

* Pp. 383-385.

N. S. No. 54.

hence he introduces Bossuet, who speaks in a much higher tone of authority.

66

In this stage of the argument, Bossuet takes very high ground, in one of his letters to Leibniz, published by Mr. Dutens, in his edition of Leibniz's works; as, in that letter, Bossuet seems to place the general acquiescence of the Roman Catholic Church, in the authenticity of The Verse, among the traditions which the church receives, and the faithful are therefore bound to adopt. As every thing, which has fallen from the pen of that great man, is important, and the passage in question is little known, it is here transcribed at length.

Vous sçavez

"J'avoue au reste, Monsieur, ce que vous dites des anciens exemplaires Grecs sur le passage, Tres Sunt, &c. mais vous sçavez aussi bien que moi, que l'article contenu dans ce passage ne doit pas être pour cela révoqué en doute, étant d'ailleurs établi, nonseulement par la Tradition des Eglises, mais encore par l'Ecriture très evidemment. aussi sans doute, que ce passage se trouve reçu dans tout l'Occident; ce qui parôit manifeste, sans même remonter plus haut, par la production qu'en fait S. Fulgence dans ses Ecrits, et même dans une excellente Confession de foi présentée unanimément au Roi Huneric par toute l'Eglise d'Afrique. Ce temoignage produit par un aussi grand Theologien, et par cette sçavante Eglise, n'ayant point été reproché par le hérétiques. & au contraire étant confirmé par le sang de tant de martyrs, et encore par tant de miracles, dont cette Confession de foi fut suivie, est une démonstration de la Tradition, du moins de toute l'Eglise d'Afrique l'une des plus illustres du monde. On trouve même dans S. Cyprien une ૨૧

allusion manifeste a ce passage, qui à passé naturellement dans notre Vulgate; & confirme la Tradition de tout l'Occident. Je suis, &c.

"J.Benigne, Evêque de Meaux.'

Tradition is no canon of criticism, and can therefore prove nothing in matters in which parchment and ink are the only authorities. Mr. Butler, with his characteristic caution, does not give his own opinion on this curious, and, to all well informed men, unsatisfactory mode of reasoning; nor does he give a positive opinion on the spuriousness or authenticity of the verse in question. He leaves the reader to guess whether he doubts as a critic, but believes as a Catholic.

On another point a passage of some importance occurs, and which has also a bearing on the critical authority of the received and infallibly ascertained text of the Vulgate.

"The adversaries of The Verse contend that-IT IS WANTING IN FORTY OF THE MOST AN

CIENT MANUSCRIPTS OF THE

LATIN VERSION. This, they say, equipoises, if it do not overbalance the authority of those Latin manuscripts in which it is contained.

to find, in different parts of the works of St. Augustin, a sufficient number of quotations, to form the whole of the first four chapters, and likewise the beginning of the fifth. But, when he comes to the seventh verse, this very voluminous father, who wrote not less than ten treatises on the epistle in question, suddenly deserts him, serts him, though immediately after this critical place, he comes again to his assistance. This chasm, therefore, Sabatier fills. up by a quotation from Vigilius Tapsensis, who wrote at the end of the fifth century."*

This fact is, I conceive, of great importance. It shows very clearly, that even in the writings of the Latin Fathers, till the fifth century, beside being wanting in many of the best and oldest MSS., the verse did not exist.

in

Mr. Butler thinks, that the principal argument in favour of the verse, which has not been satisfactorily answered, is its having a place in the Confession of Faith, presented by the African Bishops to Huneric. This is part of the controversy between Travis and Porson, which Mr. Butler thinks the latter displayed his wit more than his logic or learuing. His own argument on that passage in the creed, however, appears to me very inconclusive. It is full of supposition and hypothesis. But as this topic will occur again in our notice of Bishop Burgess's publications, we shall advert to it no further at present.

The valuable work of the late Bishop Middleton on the Greek Article, which was published in 1808, contains a long and learned note, or rather disquisition, on this passage. This volume displays

* Pp. 395, 396.

more profound learning, laborious investigation, and critical acumen, than any critical or philological work on the New Testament published in this country during the present century. It is impossible too highly to estimate its value as an aid to the critical interpretation of the New Testament. Independently of the laboured and phi. losophical discussion of the doctrine of the Article, the application of the doctrine to the interpretation of many important passages, has enabled the learned author to throw much light upon them. The way in which Dr. Middleton was led into a discussion on the disputed passage, he thus explains:

"It has been insisted, that the omission of the rejected passage rather embarrasses the context: Bengel regards the two verses as being connected • adamantina cohærentiâ:' and yet, it must be allowed, that among the various interpretations there are are some, which will at least endure the absence of the seventh verse. But the difficulty, to which the present undertaking has directed my attention, is of another kind: it respects the Article in eiç rò èv in the final clause of the eighth verse: if the seventh verse had not been spurious, nothing could have been plainer, than that TO ev of verse 8, referred to ev of verse 7: as the case now stands, I do not perceive the force or meaning of the article; and the same difficulty is briefly noticed by Wolfius. In order to prove, that this is not merely nodum in scirpo quærere, I think it right to examine at some length, what are the occasions, on which before eis the article may be inserted."*

The nature of the argument which is pursued, in order to

* Pp. 633, 634.

account for the use of the article in the eighth verse cannot be understood, unless I were to quote, what is impossible, the whole dissertation. Nor is it necessary I should do so, as Dr. Middleton himself is unable satisfactorily to account for the occurrence of the article in the 8th verse consistently with his doctrine, nor can he, on the other hand, satisfactorily get rid of it. His own convictions seem, on the whole, to have been unfavourable to the authority of the verse, and yet he thinks the matter not yet entirely decided.

"In concluding this note," he says, "I think it right to offer something towards its vindication. I am not ignorant, that in the rejection of the controverted passage learned and good men are now, for the most part, agreed; and I contemplate with admiration and delight the gigantic exertions of intellect, which have established this acquiescence: the objection, however, which has given rise to this discussion, I could not consistently with my plan suppress. On the whole, I am led to suspect, that though so much labour and critical acuteness have been bestowed on these celebrated verses, more is yet to be done, before the mystery, in which they are involved, can be wholly developed."*

Much as I respect the learning and talents of Bishop Middleton, I cannot allow that a difficulty, which may belong to the use of the article by one of the inspired writers, and he by no means invariably correct in his Greek phraseology, ought materially to affect our judgment of the readings on which an accurate test of the Scriptures must be founded. Such difficulties may be a kind of subsi