DISTRICT VISITING SOCIETY.

DEAR SIR,-Attached to the number of the "British Magazine" for December, is the authorized statement of the objects and rules of the General Society for Promoting District Visiting in connexion with the Established Church.

The perusal of this notification has again excited in me an anxious desire of more distinct information as to the rules by which this society does actually, in practice, guide its proceedings. Comparing this new edition of their exposé with that which appeared in their Fourth Annual Report, when the sermon before the society was preached in Portman Chapel, Baker Street, in 1832, by the Bishop of Chester, I feel convinced that your readers will agree with me, that there is ground, on the part of the parochial clergy, for directly requesting a distinct avowal of the views and practices of the society.

Under" the plan of operation" stands, I. "Communication with the clergy. The central committee feeling the importance of having the sanction and co-operation of the parochial clergy, make it a preliminary step to the establishment of any local society, that a communication shall be held with the clergyman of the parish where its formation is contemplated." To which, in the Fourth Annual Report, is added, "It is, however, to be distinctly understood, that even should the sanction of the clergyman be withheld, a society may still be formed where circumstances render it expedient."

Again" It is advisable that the clergyman should be its president."

It will afford satisfaction, I doubt not, to many of the parochial clergy to be informed, that the rules of the society have been so modified as to render the consent at least, if not the co-operation, of the incumbent, or resident minister, an indispensable preliminary to the formation of a district visiting society in any parish. I am inclined to hope that this is the fact; for it can scarcely be conceived that the bishops and dignitaries of the church would countenance, in the general society, a principle which would justify the Bishop of Bangor in holding a confirmation in Chester, or the Bishop of Durham at York. You, Sir, I am certain, will be ready to adopt and to circulate the opinion, that it never can be expedient for persons not having any official authority in a parish, to assist in forming there any society contrary to the wishes of the resident minister. I will go farther, and declare that, with regard to a district visiting society, it is not only advisable, but indispensable to the maintenance of parochial unity and ministerial influence, that the resident minister should be president, or have the absolute direction of the operations of the society, especially in sanctioning the tracts to be distributed by them, and in the choice of visitors. All who are conversant with large towns will agree with me, that the zeal which may be found there is not always according to knowledge, and that a love of church unity is not always joined with it. I am quite alive to the difficulties which are continually presenting themselves to the parochial clergy of large towns; but how VOL. VII.-March, 1835. 2 Q

ever great and perplexing they may occasionally be, I am convinced that good will result from the open and firm, but temperate assertion of the privilege of the parochial clergy to retain the superintendance of the spiritual concerns of the people committed to their charge, and of their consequent claim to direct the operations of all societies, the members of which may, in any way, interfere with the religious state of the parish. That this is the principal object of the District Visiting Society is avowed in the authentic document to which I have called the attention of your readers. I will not intrude on your valuable pages by quoting more passages, but conclude with the assurance that I remain, dear Sir, yours very faithfully,

RECHAB.

STEPHENS'S TEXT.

SIR,-The manner in which Mr. Huyshe has endeavoured to establish his hypothesis of two sets of Greek MSS. is so intricate and obscure, that if any one of your learned readers were to be asked the questions, how many arguments Mr. Huyshe has collected in support of his hypothesis?-what they are ?-and where each is to be found fully stated and corroborated?-he would be at a loss for an answer. The whole scheme, notwithstanding the respect due to the character of its originator, I cannot but consider as a futile attempt to draw the reader into a belief, that there still exists some forthcoming evidence for the disputed passage, where there can be none in reality.

That the Docti et Prudentes have all agreed to censure the Stephanic text in many places, as founded neither on the faith of MSS. nor on the just principles of sacred criticism, is perfectly true; but that in so doing they were actuated by envy, rivalry, or selfish motives of any kind, is a surmise which has nothing to support it. The Docti et Prudentes were not all editors of the Greek Testament; and if such even had been the fact, that circumstance ought by no means to render the unanimity of their censure suspected, when bottomed, as it expressly is, on grave and solid arguments, which cannot be refuted. The long array of the most eminent critics and editors against the authority of the Stephanic text, notwithstanding the exertions of your correspondent to support its credit, threatens to be still further augmented by fresh accessions to the list. To the names of Dr. Griesbach and of other learned editors who preceded him in the same department of sacred criticism, must now be added that of Dr. Schottz, who, in the Prolegomena to his critical edition of the Four Gospels, has thus dealt out his meed of praise to the early editors of the Greek Testament, and, amongst the rest, to Robert Stephens, with a very sparing hand: Quam parum præstiterint primi N. T. editores, Erasmus, Complutensis, et Stephanus in accuratiore textus recensione, inter eruditos constat.-Prol. xxv. Speaking of the Codex Bezæ, and of its identity with the Codex ẞ of Stephanus, he thus taxes him, as usual, with a general negligence in the collation of that and all his other MSS.: Codex hic certo intelligendus est, quoties Stephanus ẞß memorat; sed et Codice hoc et

reliquis, quorum lectionis varietatem enotatam adeibuit, satis negligentæ usus est.-Prol. xxxix. Now all this Mr. Huyshe may choose to term editorial craft, professional tricks, a conspiracy, malice, and what not; but the learned and sober inquirer will not hesitate to follow that light which the most laborious and best criticism can afford. If, with all this contempt expressed for the Docti et Prudentes, Mr. Huyshe had been able to add one single fact to their accumulated store of critical research; had collated or examined one single MS. which they had not seen; or had followed them in their own tracks, and had been able to correct any one serious and important mistake into which they had fallen, respecting the state of the MSS. which they had seen and made use of,-he would have merited the thanks of the biblical scholar, and the flippancy with which he treats the whole body of sacred critics might have been more patiently endured. But instead of having any claim to praise of that sort, he assumes their statements as he finds them; and then, drawing his requisite materials from such passages of their works as may seem to involve a contradiction or an inconsistency, he spins a cabinet of sophistry, which neither is, nor can be, grounded on any thing except surmises and gratuitous assertion. He professes, indeed, to be extravagantly charmed with the inimitable skill, the felicitous. tact, the acuteness, and the management of Professor Porson, as displayed in his part of the controversy; but when we find that this admiration, so unbounded, and so little short of idolatry, always rises the highest when he thinks he has detected him in some act of critical astuteness, or of deep and consummate dissimulation, it must be needless to say, that the soul of Porson would have spurned such admiration.

The questions, whether Henry Stephens was the sole collator of the MSS., or had other coadjutors? whether the expression év Tãoι ought to be rendered, In all the MSS. which he had, or, In all the MSS. which he took for the margin of that division of the New Testament?-questions on which Mr. Huyshe has written whole pages-are, in the highest degree, frivolous and uninteresting. If he did not use the collation of all the Greek MSS, which he had in his possession, and which happened to contain that division of the text, the more highly reprehensible and unaccountable his conduct. If he did make use of them, then what difference can there be, whether we understand iv não to mean All the MSS. which he had, or All the MSS. which he took, since he took what he had for that division of the New Testament? But whether we apply it to the vindication of the character of Robert Stephens, or to that of the disputed passage, the argument itself, even when stretched to the utmost, is not worth a straw.

In commenting on the words of Stephanus, that he had not suffered a letter to be printed but what the greater part of the better MSS. from the royal library unanimously approved, Mr. Huyshe subjoins the remark, that Mr. Porson does not undertake to shew that this boast is utterly false. There could have been no need, however, either for Mr. Porson, or any other individual critic to undertake the com

pletion of such a task. The lapse of nearly three hundred years, during which period not a single Greek MS. belonging either to the royal library at Paris or to any other library, has been produced or reported by any man, to authenticate the passage of the heavenly witnesses, as it now stands in the Stephanic text, at once demonstrates that the boast of Robert Stephens was utterly false, and that he himself must have been conscious of the falsehood, at the time that he made it. The admission of your correspondent, that the greatest part of these said royal MSS. are still most probably existing in some of the European libraries, corroborates the accusation; in that, if they all probably still exist, they all probably have been long since examined respecting the disputed passage, and found not to contain it.

Mr. Huyshe himself, indeed, appears to entertain some little misgivings about the validity of this boast when, in the British Magazine, he tells us that, notwithstanding it cannot be said that the text does not contain a letter which the majority of the royal MSS. does not warrant, he shall still believe that Stephanus adopted no reading in the edition of 1550, any more than in that of 1546, which was not supported by good authority. Now, my complaint against the editor is not that he allowed the spurious passage to be inserted in the text without being supported by adequate authority; but, that he caused it to be inserted without any manuscript authority whatever. Had there been the least manuscript authority, however worthless, for the form of the passage as printed in his text, his own bigotry, or his fear of suffering from the bigotry of others, might have been candidly admitted as an excuse for the deficiency; but when there is no forthcoming voucher whatever, he is left without an apology, and stands justly chargeable with an act of the most audacious and unpardonable temerity.

It is true, says Mr. Huyshe, that the critics making the third part the object of their attack have pretty sturdy declarations, that Stephanus had no more MSS. of it than those seven which furnished the opposing readings to the folio in that division. He then demonstrates from the statements of the Docti et Prudentes themselves, that besides the seven marked MSS. which appear on the margin of the text of 1 John, v. 7, there was at least another MS. in his possession, marked ɛ, which contained the epistle, though not the passage; and so he concludes that, as the editor is known to have had one marked MS., so might he have had five unmarked MSS. containing the catholic epistles, without being noticed in the margin. This, certainly, is to turn the information derived from the Docti et Prudentes to a most admirable account; nor could the author have consumed his ink to better purpose than by stating and re-stating the fact, that Stephanus had, at least, one more manuscript authority, which he might have employed for the margin of the catholic epistles, but had omitted to do so. The inference which your correspondent attempts to draw from the fact is that, as the editor is acknowledged to have had one, so may he have had many other MSS. which he did not use for opposing the text in the margin; but my inference drawn from the same fact is, that, as he had one MS. opposed to his text of the heavenly witnesses more than he had the honesty to avow in the

margin, so, on the supposition of his possessing still more, he would have equally withheld them in the same manner, and for the very same reason. He made a show of having only seven, whilst in reality he had eight, if not more, MSS. which contradicted his printed text of the heavenly witnesses. Nothing, surely, can more clearly de monstrate his unfitness to become the editor of the word of God than this suppression of critical evidence, the publicity of which was due to the consideration of every Christian reader.

Instead of probabilities, which other critics are always glad to press into their service when they have nothing better, Mr. Huyshe seems to content himself with possibilities. I hold it to be possible, says he, for the first collation to have been so perfect, that the O mirificam might not have a letter that was not warranted by the best MSS. from the royal library. I hold it to be possible, also, for the third collation, when the original copia was augmented to plusquam triginta, to have been such as to secure a corresponding alteration in the text of the folio, wheresoever the balance of the whole authority, ultimately acquired, went against the readings that the royal MSS. gave at first, notwithstanding that the after work of collating with the new text of the folio for the margin may have been hurried over in a slovenly and imperfect manner. In thus admitting the possibility of the afterwork having been done in a slovenly and imperfect manner, there is something calculated to excite a smile. Doubtless, the apologist for Robert Stephens would have been extremely happy to have had the chance of maintaining that the after work, no less than the preceding work, had been executed in a complete and satisfactory manner. But, being met by the unanimous censure of the Docti et Prudentes, who had examined the marginal collation, he found himself embarrassed in this part of the defence, and had no other alternative than candidly to allow the truth of their accusation. From such premises, however, the only argument to be drawn is, that, as the editor stands convicted of negligence and dishonesty in the one collation, so ought he to be suspected of negligence and dishonesty in the other collation; and that, as the after work, so also the preceding work was most probably performed in a slovenly and imperfect manner. talk of his balancing authorities, and altering the text of the folio according to the preponderance of his evidence, is ridiculous. In that case, since he had eight MSS. which opposed his printed text of the Heavenly Witnesses, he must have had at least nine MSS. which gave every letter of it as it now stands; a supposition, which, if it can serve no other purpose, may doubtless create an additional fund of laughter for the Docti et Prudentes.

To

The main question may always be disposed of in a very few words. The disputed passage, in the form in which we now have it, rests entirely on the authority of the Stephanic text. For three hundred years, or thereabouts, the advocates of that text have been called upon to produce a single Greek MS. containing the passage as now printed and received; but though challenged and importuned to the utmost, they have never been able to do it: whilst, on the other hand, one hundred and fifty MSS. of all ages and countries have been inspected,