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This Institution reserves the right to refuse to accept a copy order if. In its judgement, fulfillment of the order would Involve violation of the copyright law. AUTHOR: JARVIS, SAMUEL FARMAR TITLE: REPLY TO DOCTOR MILNER'S... PLACE: NEW YORK DA TE : 1847 >»«l COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES PRESERVATION DEPARTMENT BIBLIOHR APHIC MirROFORM TARHFT Master Negative # Original Material as Filmed - Existing Bibliographic Record d}f^ cfarvis, Rev. Sami/el Farmar. I786-/85I. ^^^^ T?eply j-o Docfor MilWs/'Enci of r|li|ious cojntrovfersy'; so_ faras -}-h& cHurcfies OT rhe trip'lisn covVimunion are concerned... fix 1847. 0. SlSlp. Restrictions on Use: FILM SIZE:____3_5 TECHNICAL MICROFORM DATA REDUCTION RATIO: _/J^ IMAGE PLACEMENT: lA DATE FILMED: M.l^^_^^ x..x.x^l.^ ijr7iH HLMEDBY: RESEARCH P UBLICATIONq , INC WOODRRrnnF^ ¥ ^ IB IIB H INITIALS c Association for information and Image IManagement 1100 Wayne Avenue, Suite 1100. Silver Spring, Maryland 20910 301/587-8202 Centimeter 12 3 4 5 iiiiliiiiliiiiliiiihiiiliiiiliiiiliiiilii MM TTT Inches TTT WW 1 6 7 8 9 m 10 A I I I T 11 ilJ 12 13 14 15 mm T Jmjlmjhmlmj^^ .0 I.I 1.25 ISA Hill 3.2 163 2.5 I 71 ^ u 3.6 4.0 1.4 2.2 2.0 1.8 1.6 M MfiNUFfiCTURED TO flllM STfiNDfiRDS BY RPPLIED IMRGE, INC. < *'i;i, ■■,..;l, i:iM li-. ;!:iiat1 1 !.- = ■ ,;f,jni ifl''.',! ■.inUl^-i^l-i.-^li:;!-.]] ■»ijl'r -'i-M IkBug a;::st:'';i!:yH.^^i-^f ^ tlliiliiiiil :ii |i!!l ;•■'■: iRH";ii if »| II .|-»»ti;*.«jjT|«5; SB6 mil (S^olnmbiii ©oUegc i»t tlje (City 0t' %lg%v UorU, GIVEN BY JUY, n^TwsI "LyvsA ^t %. I ■ • » •. .* ••• • 01 •» »•»»»»! » (4 > 1 • . . . « • • • • • • :>» • • DOCTOR MIL.N;EP'S END or RELIGIOUS CONTUOYERSY," SO FAR AS THE CHURCHES OF THE ENGLISH COMMUNION ARE CONCERNED. BY SAMUEL FARMAR JARVIS, D.D., LL.D., • • • HISTORIOGRAPHER OF THE CHURCH, AUTHOR OF " A CHRONOLOGICAL INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF THE CHURCH," ETC., ETC. i^k " Ego qaando cuique vel dicendo vel scribendo respondeo, etiam contumeUosb criminationibas lacessitus, quantum mihi Dominus donat, franatis aWue contritis vans indignaUonis aculeis, auditori lectorive consulens, non ago ut efficiar homini conviciando superior, sed errorem convincendo salubrior." S. Auo. cont. Liu. Petiliani, ho. lu. NEW- YORK: D. APPLETON & COMPANY, 200 BROADWAY. PHILADELPHIA I GEO. S. APPLETON, 148 CHESNUT-ST. MDCCCXLVII. • •••••♦••• • «• «•••,!•• • • • ••••••'••• • • • •••• »•"•• • % « • • • • 4 • *^* •♦ •• •»• ••• • • * • • • • ' ' ^ • • • » • • • • •• • • » ,• • • Entered, according to Act of Congress, in tHfe year 1847, By SAMUEL FARMAR JARVIS, In the Clerk's OflSce of the District Court for the State of Connecticut. CO to i 5 8 CM A ROLAND FOR DR. MILNER'S OLIVER. (See the quotations on the reverse of his THUe-page from the same Authors.) " They dare even to rebaptize CathoHcs, whereby they more amply confirm the fact that they themselves are heretics ; since it hath seemed good to the whole Church Cath- olic not to rescind the common baptism even in heretics themselves."— St. Austin, Doc- tor of the Church, a. d. 400. Lib. de H(Bresibus, LXIX. " The Sacrament of Baptism is that which he has who is baptized ; and the Sacra- ment of conferring Baptism is that which he has who is ordained. But as the baptized person, if he shall recede from the unity, does not lose the Sacrament of Baptism ; so also the ordained person, if he shall recede from the unity, does not lose the Sacrament of conferring baptism."— St. Auoustink, Doctor of the Church, a. d. 400. Omt. Donatistas. Lib. I. c. i. " 1. If any Papist living, or all the Papists Hving, can prove unto me that the present Roman Church, is eyther the Catholique Church, or a sound member of the CathoHque Church, I w ill subscribe. 2. If any Papist living, or all the Papists living, can prove unto me that the present Church of England is not a true member of the Catholique Church, I will subscribe. 3. If any Papist, &c., can prove unto mee, that all those points, or any one of those points which the Church of Rome maintaineth against the Church of England, were or was, the perpetuall Doctrine of the Catholique Church : the con- cluded Doctrine of the representative Church in any generall Councell, or Nationall ap- proved by a Generall : or the dogmaticall resolution of any one Father, for 500 yeares after Christ, I will subscribe.— Dr. Montague, Bishop of Norwich. Oagger Gagged. To the Reader. *' Since the time that I could understand the Dispute about Religion, when it was de- manded, on the behalf of the Church of Rome, Where was your church before Luther's time 1 The Answer hath always been : Even where it is now. The answer was : That it is the same church that it was ; a church which was sick, and is now cured ; which was corrupted, and is now cleared of her corruptions."- Dr. Herbert Thorndike, Prebendary of Westminster. Just Weights and Measures. P. I. " It was the challenge of St. Augustine to the Donatists, who (as the Church of Rome does at this day) inclos'd the Catholick Church within their own circuits : Ye say that Christ is heir of no Lands but where Donatus is Coheire. Read this to us out of the Law and the Prophets, out of the Psalms, out of the Gospel itself, or out of the Letters of the Apostles. Read it thence and we believe it. Plainly directing^s to the Fountains of our Faith, the Old and New Testament, the words of Christ, and the words of the Apostles. For nothing else can be the foundation of our Faith, whatsoever came in after these f oris est, it belongs not unto Christ.— Dr. Jeremy Taylor, Bishop Down. Dissu^isive from Popery, Chap. ], Sect. 1. aJiW f I • I • • » • > « •• o > o • 3 • • • ^ • • • • • t»«»» »•• • • » • , ., • • « « 3 c-onDeNts." ' ■ PART I. INTRODUCTION. What the End of religious controversy means.— The address to Dr. Burgess then Bishop of St. David's, and afterwards of Sahsbury, and the charges it contains noticed.— Importance still attached to Dr. Milner'sbook a reason for again answering it.— Frontispiece.— Title. —Dr. Milner's Religious Society of Protestants fictitious. . 13 CHAP. I.— The Rule of Faith. Dr. Milner's first five letters occupied in the arrangement of prclimina- ries.- The sixth and seventh on the first and second false rules ot faith, considered.— The second false rule ascribed to the Church ot England.— Question concerning the term Catholic— The Duke ot Brunswick and Lunenburgh used these two false rules.— Right ot pn- vate judgment and its bounds, in ihe English Communion.— 1 he true questions at issue. CHAP. IL— Tradition. Artifice of Dr. Milner in the use of this term.— Its true definition.-- Cardinal Bellarmine's admissions.— Bp. Marsh's summary ot his language.— Meaning of 1 Cor. xi. 2, and 2 Thes. li. 15, and iii. 6.-- Difference betweeh the Roman and English Communions.— Council of Trent.— Session of 1546.— Synods of London in 1552 and 15b-S. —Articles VI. and XXXIV.-CouncU of Trent professing an equal veneration for Scripture and Tradition, makes the-latter superior, and Dr. Milner limits it to Tradition as received and explained at Rome.— Reflections on this assumption -«*> CHAP. III.— The Bible. Fallacy of Dr. Milner's assertion against learning our religion from a book —Design of the English Reformers for the daily reading of the Scriptures to the people.— The church hath authority in controversies of faith.— The prayer-book set forth, as the Catholic sense of the 6 CONTENTS. Scriptures-^Efeng^rfiJ a'tijiing froij^ > he private interpretation of the Scriptures* caiirio.t: juitiy',apply. io , the "English Reformation — Dr. Milner's Letter IX. endeavours to dispairage the Bible by a series of questions. — J^heisef questions arfswered under the following sections : 39 Sec. I. The Cc^nbii.' The a^re^rnent and disagreement of the Roman and English Communions stated.— In the Old Testament the English Communioii re;ceiveb thc^HcbrevyCp.non ; the Roman, the Greek and Latin Gafova Vulgata, the New Latin Vulgate, to denote that which was made from the Greek Canon. So that, while St. Jerome's translation, established by the authority of Damasus, is osten- sibly retained in the Roman Communion, all those parts which St. Jerome rejected as Apocryphal, are brought in again on the authority of the Old Latin Vulgate f Here we may well leave the subject ; since in this controversy the churches of the English Communion have on their side Damasus, the Bishop of Rome, and the learned St. Jerome, of the fourth century ; while the churches of the Roman Communion are influenced by the prejudices of St. Augus- tine, who knew nothing of Hebrew, and, according to Dr. Milner, by a decretal of Pope Innocent I. in the fifth century ! I do not think it necessary to enter into all the little arts of controversy which Dr. Milner employed to perplex un- learned readers. He asks. Why do you receive the gospels of St. Mark and St. Luke, who ivere not apostles, and yet * Labbei et Cossarti Concilia, torn. ii. p. 1177. t P. 33, ante. 52 REPLY TO MILNEr's END OF CONTROVERSY. " reject an authentic work of great excellence written by St. Barnabas, who was an apostle /" And we in our turn ask, If it be so authentic and excellent, why did the Council of Trent reject it ? When an answer is returned to this inqui- ry, we shall be ready with ours. Eusebius, in his Ecclesi- astical History, observes — '^ Moreover let that Epistle which is reported to belong to Barnabas be ranked among the spu- rious books of the New Testament.'** Let all who uphold Dr. Milner settle his question by appeal to the fathers, whom as human testimony we are willing to receive. Nay more, we say with Hooker, " When we know the whole Church of God hath that opinion of the Scripture, we judge it even at the first an impudent thing for any man bred and brought up in the Church to be of a contrary mind without cause. "f § 2. The accuracy of the text. How do you know that your copies of the Bible are authentic ? By authentic Dr. Milner evidently meant gen- uine ; and the question in general has been sufficiently answered already. We prove the Bible to be authentic, or genuine, just as we prove that any other ancient book is so. if We are greatly indebted to the labours of Kennicott and De Rossi, Holmes and Parsons, Sabatier, Bianchini and Fleck, Mill, Wetstein, Griesbach, and Scholtz, for our knowledge of the integrity of the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin texts. Various readings, instead of injuring have increased to a moral demonstration the evidence as to the purity of the original Bible, and the general fidelity of the Greek and Latin translations. The infidel Collins raised a great hue and cry about biblical criticism and various readings, with precisely the same object as that of Dr. Milner, to unsettle men's faith in the Bible; and if I had space, I could copy whole pages of Dr. Bentley's Phileleutherus Lipsiensis, that admirable answer to Collins, as equally applicable in the present case. But I forbear, and content myself with con- * Grier's Reply to Milner, p. 14. He enters into a laboured reply, which I do not think necessary. t Eccl. Pol., book iU. ^ b. % See before, p. 37. THE BIBLE, OR THE WRITTEN TRADITION. 53 sidering the passage in Psalm xiv., and the disputed text, 1 John, v. 7, which our author adduces to prove two opposite charges against the authorized text in the English transla- tion. " Look," says he, " at Psalm xiv., as it occurs in the Book of Common Prayer, to which your clergy swear their 'con- sent and assent ;' then look at the same Psalm in your Bible : you will find four whole verses in the former, which are left out of the latter! What will you here say, dear sir? You must say that your Church has added to, or else that she has taken away from the words of this prophecy .'"* The words he italicised are from Rev. xxii. 19, " If any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the hook of life^^^ &;c. Imagine the delight with which the cunning polemic thought he had tossed the Church of England on the horns of this dilemma ! But if I had been at his elbow, as he read it aloud and chuckled, I should have said, fair and softly, good sir ! Do not magnify the evil, nor shift the responsibility. The inter- polated verses are three not four ; and we are indebted for them to your own infallible Church ! Dr. Grier answered Dr. Milner gravely and elaborately, and much at length, as if he was ignorant of the truth, and only needed to be set right. But the answer should be di- rected, not to Dr. Milner and his learned brethren, but to the purpose at which Dr. Milner aimed, the unsettling Mr. James Brown's confidence in the honesty and consistency of the Church of England. Let me therefore endeavour to give a plain statement of facts, and then condense the argument. The Psalm which in the Hebrew canon is numbered 14, but in the Septuagint and Latin Vulgate 13, has only seven verses. The three interpolated verses occur between the third and fourth ; but as in the Prayer-book the first Hebrew verse is divided and numbered one and two, the third is numbered four, and the fourth eight, and the three interpo- lated verses five, six, and seven. This interpolation seems to have been originally a marginal note, occasioned by the belief that St. Paul quoted this Psalm in Romans iii. 10-18. For in the celebrated Vatican Manuscript, one of the oldest • Letter IX. sect. 2. 54 REPLY TO MILNER S END OF CONTROVERSY. extant, these verses are written in the margin with this note: "These are placed nowhere in the Psalms; whence, therefore, the Apostle took them, must be a subject of inqui- ry."* The annotator was in part mistaken. St. Paul's quotation, Rom. iii. 10-12, is an abridgment of the Hebrew Psalm xiv. 1-3 ; Rom. iii. 13 is from Psalm v. 9, and Psalm cxl. 3 ;f Rom. iii. 14 is from Psalm x. 7; Rom. iii. 15-17 is from Isaiah lix. 7, 8 ; Rom. iii. 18 is from Psalm xxxvi. 1, or, Gr. and Lat., xxxv. l.J These three verses, Psalm xiv. 5, 6, 7, of the version in the Prayer-book, are therefore words of Holy Scripture, and consequently the use of them is not adding to the Bible, nor does the taking them away, in translating according to the Hebrew canon, subject -the Church of England, and the Churches of her communion, to the awful malediction in the Apocalypse. Having stated the real fact with regard to the interpo- lation, let us proceed now to inquire by wliotn it was occa- sioned. In the year 1586 appeared at Rome the printed edition of the Greek Septuagint, professing to be an exact copy of the celebrated Vatican Manuscript of which we have spoken. But instead of placing the three interpolated verses in the margin, together with the note of the annotator, which clear- ly showed that they did not belong even to the Greek text, the Roman editors suppressed the note entirely, and inserted the three verses in the text ! Unsuspicious of ^\^\s fraud, the learned world received the Vatican text as the true text of the Septuagint. By the providence of God, the injured Cyril Lucar, the Greek Patriarch, first of Alexandria and afterwards of Con- stantinople, whose life was a sacrifice to Jesuitical intrigues, sent, in 1628, to King Charles I. of England, that famous Alexandrian manuscript which is now in the British Mu- seum, and a fac-simile of which has been so munificently published by the British government. The text of the Old Testament in that manuscript, is nearer to the Hebrew than that of the Vatican edition printed at Rome ; and in particu- * Montfaucon, Origenis Hexapla, torn. i. p. 492. t Gr. and Lat. Ps. cxxxix. 3. t See this admirably well proved by Dr. Th. Hartwell Home in his Introduction. Tables of quotations from the Old Testament in the New. THE BIBLE, OR THE WRITTEN TRADITION. 55 !».. f lar, it does not contain in Psalm xiv. [xiii.] the three inter- polated verses. But this was not generally known until the learned Dr. Grabe first published it in 1707. There is, therefore, every reason to believe that these verses did not belong to the ancient Greek version, but were at an early period written by some one in the margin, from the third chapter of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, under the mis- taken impression that he had quoted them from the four- teenth [13th] Psalm. It has been already remarked that interpolations are more easily made in Versions than in Originals. The Old Latin Vulgate was made from the Greek ; and tJiere the three verses were inserted as a part of the text. The Coun- cil of Trent having decreed that " the Old Vulgate edition was authenticj'^ and that " no one should dare or presume, on any pretext whatever, to reject it," the editors of the Vatican Greek text were bound under the curse of the Council to commit the fraud of which they were guilty, by making the Greek text conform to that old Latin translation which was now elevated to the rank of the original Scrip- tures. Contrast with such conduct the honesty of the English Translators. In the first English Bible authorized to be read in Churches, published by Archbishop Cranmer in 1539-40, the three verses interpolated in the fourteenth Psalm, are printed in smaller letters than the rest, to denote that they were not in the Hebrew. From this Bible the Psalter was inserted in 1549 in the first Prayer-book of King Edward VI., and has ever since been continued. The publication of the Vatican Septuagint in 1586 seemed to prove that they were in the Greek as well as in the Latin, and added force to the existing reasons for retaining the old version. When St. Jerome wrote his new version, it was thought best to re- tain the old in the services of the Church, because it was familiar to the people, and they were attached to it. The same reason applied with tenfold more force to the old Eng- lish version ; for learned critics, even at this day, consider it on the whole as preferable to the new. Its Anglo-Saxon purity, the simplicity of its diction, and the mellifluous beauty of its style, are very captivating. And even when it was found that the three verses in question were supported 56 REPLY TO MILNER^S END OF CONTROVERSY. only by the Old Latin Vulgate, still as they were genuine expressions of Holy Writ, they did not seem inappropriate as forming a part of divine worship. We cannot but be in- dignant at the matchless effrontery which would exalt this matter into a charge of guilt upon the English Church, of adding to, or taking from the word of God, when the writer, if he knew the facts of the case, ought rather to have blushed for the Roman dishonesty which occasioned it. Dr. Milner is still more unfortunate when he says in his note to this part of Letter IX., " The Bishop of Lincoln has published his conviction that the most important passage in the New Testament, 1 John v. "7, for establishing the divinity of Jesus Christ, * is spurious.' " " There is no doubt," he says, " as the verses in Psalm xiv. are quoted by St. Paul, Rom. iii. 13, &c., but the common Bible is defective in this passage ;" and then, that he may cut with a two-edged sword, he brings forward Bishop Tomline as saying that it contains a spurious verse, and that verse the most important in the New Testament to prove the divinity of Jesus Christ ! In talking about biblical criticism and various readings as rendering the text of the Bible uncertain, he has played into the hands of the Infidel ; and now, by calling 1 John v. 7 the most important of all texts to prove the divinity of our blessed Lord, he plays into the hands of the Socinian ! Dr. Grier was embarrassed in his reply by personal considerations which cannot influence the present writer. The Bishop of St. David's, against whom Dr. Milner had poured out his invectives, was, at the time Dr. Grier wrote, distinguished as the zealous champion for the disputed text. Mr. Nolan's book in its favour had lately appeared ; and so eminent a critic and so profound a reasoner as Bishop Horsley, had admitted the authenticity of 1 John v. 7, not from external, but from the force o^ internal testimony. The tide was therefore turning at that time in En^iland in favour of the text ; and all this had such an effect upon Dr. Grier's mind that he felt *' compelled to abandon his former preju- dices against it, and to think that a person should almost as soon doubt the genuineness of the rest of St. John's Epistle as that of the disputed passage."* * Grier's Reply, p. 4G. THE BIBLE, OR THE WRITTEN TBADITION. 57 The present writer has no prejudices against the text; for he fully believes in its doctrinal truth, and can therefore read it with a safe conscience, as he could any other apocry- phal passage ; but he cannot quote it as part of the canon or rule of faith. An interpolation may be so consistent with the rule of faith, as to seem, from internal evidence alone, to be a genuine part of it; but if it wants external testimony it must be rejected. In other words, internal may be a very powerful auxiliary, but can never be a substitute, for external evidence. And this is what Hooker meant in saying, that " it is not the Word of God which doth or possibly can assure us that we do well to think it his Word."* To every passage of the Bible whatsoever, the external testimony is of three kinds : first, the existing manuscripts of the original text, copied in various countries, and from age to age ; secondly, the trans- lations into various languages, made in the early ages of the Church from the original text, and therefore representing the original manuscripts from which they were taken ; thirdly, the quotations made by Christian writers of various ages and countries, more especially in works of controversy, where much depends on the precision with which authorities are cited. Where all these agree, the external testimony is as strong as evidence well can be. It amounts, in fact, to a moral demonstration. That which all admit must be true ; that which all reject must be false. By this threefold rule, let us examine the passage, 1 John v. 7. 1. The greatest number now known of the manuscripts of this epistle, in the original Greek, is 149. Of this num- ber 145 do not contain the clause from " in heaven," to " in earth ;" and the remaining four are of little or no criti- cal value. These are known to critics under the names of the Codices Guelpherbitanus, Ravianus, Montfortianus and Ottobonianus, 298. The Codex Guelpherbitanus is evidently a manuscript of the seventeenth century ; for it contains the Latin translation of Beza written by the same hand. The Codex Ravianus, now at Berlin, is a forgery ; a transcript of the Greek text in the Complutensian Polyglott, with vari- ous readings from Stephens's third edition of 1550. The remaining two are the Codex Montfortianus, in Trini- * Ecc. Pol., b.ii. §4- 58 REPLY TO MILNER S END OF CONTROVERSY. THE BIBLE, OR THE WRITTEN TRADITION. 59 ty College, Dublin, called by Erasmus Codex BritannicuSf and the Codex OttohonianuSy in the Vatican Library, No. 298.* The Codex Montfortianus is written in small characters , on thick glazed 'paper. "] These are signs by which critics can discern the limits of its possible antiquity. There are other signs which show that it was written in the west of Europe ; for it is divided according to the Latin chapters, which were introduced by Cardinal Hugo de S. Caro, who died in 1262, and are altogether foreign to the usage of the Greek Church before the introduction of printed editions. No Greek manuscripts are known to be extant in which these chapters are found, prior to the taking of Constanti* nople, (a. d. 1453,) when the Greek fugitives became transcribers for the Latin Church, and of course adopted the Latin chapters. Bishop Marsh therefore agrees with Gries- bach in assigning the Codex Montfortianus to the fifteenth or sixteenth century. " It made its first appearance," he observes, " about the year 1520 ; and that the manuscript had just been written when it first appeared, is highly prob- able, because it appeared at a critical juncture, and its ap- pearance answered a particular purpose. Erasmus had published two editions of the Greek Testament, one in 1516, the other in 1519, both of which were without the words that begin with iv tw ovQavM, [in heaven,] and end with iv ifi yfi, [in earth,] in the disputed clause in 1 John v. 7, 8. This omission, as it was called by those who paid more deference to the Latin translation than to the Greek original, exposed Erasmus to much censure, though, in fact, the complaint was for non-addition. Erasmus therefore very properly answered, that it was not his province to add what was want- ing in the original manuscript. " Addendi de meo, quod GrsDcis deest, provinciam non susceperam." He promised, however, that, though he could not insert in a Greek edition what he had never found in a Greek manuscript, he would insert the passage in his next edition, if, in the mean time, a Greek manuscript could be discovered which had the pas- sage. In less than a year after that declaration, Erasmus * Home's Introd. Analysis of the N. T. p. vi. c. iv. sec. v. t Marsh's Mich8Blis,vol. ii. p. 284. was informed that there was a Greek manuscript in Eng- land which contained the passage. At the same time a copy of the passage, as contained in that MS. was commu- nicated to Erasmus ; and Erasmus, as he had promised, in- serted that copy in his next edition, which was published in 1522."* The Codex Vaticano-Ottobonianus, 298, was first col. lated by Dr. Scholtz, for his edition of the New Testament, the second volume of which, containing the Acts, Epistles, and Apocalypse, was published after his death, in 1836. Previously, however, in the year 1829, a fac-simile of the disputed passage was sent by Dr. Wiseman to the Bishop of Salisbury, (Dr. Burgess, who was Dr. Milner's Bishop of St. David's,) and was by him obligingly communicated to the Rev. T. H. iiorne, who has inserted it in his valuable Introduction, and thus made it accessible to my readers. From Dr. Scholtz and Dr. Wiseman, the abridged account of this manuscript is given in Home's Introduction. It was written in the fifteenth century, and contains the Latin and Greek in collateral columns. It " has been altered in many places in order to make it harmonize with the Latin Vulgate.''i[ It cannot therefore be of any critical value. These two being the only Greek manuscripts which can possibly be adduced as authorities, the evidence in favour of the disputed passage would be exceedingly slender, even if the witnesses agreed. But they do jiot agree ; and of this the reader may easily convince himself by comparing the fac-similes of both, in the work to which I have referred. J It will be seen that in both, the Greek is a translation from the Latin by per- sons ignorant of the distinctive idioms of the two languages. The Codex Montfortianus, which has been traced up to a Franciscan monk named Froy, about or before the middle of the sixteenth century, § was interpolated by some Latin who was unskillful in Greek. The Codex Ottobonianus, on the other hand, seems to have been written by some one who * Bp. Marsh's Lectures, part vi. lect. xxvii. pp. 23, 24, and note 12. See also Home's Introd. vol. ii. pp. 141-143. t Scholtz, Bib. Krit. Reise, p. 105, apud Home, vol. ii. pp. 193, 194. t Home's Introd., vol. ii. p. 141 and 193 ; vol. iv. pp. 449, 450. § Marsh's Michaelis, vol. iii. p. 757. Translator's note to vol. ii. p. 285 ; and Mill, Proleg. 1379. 60 REPLY TO MILNER S END OF CONTROVERSY. did not well understand Latin. In this way, at least, we may possibly account for the extraordinary readings from heaven instead of in heaven, and from earth instead of in or on earth, translated from the Latin in ca/o and in terra. Whether this conjecture be or be not correct, the bad Greek of the Codex Montfortianus, and the blundering translation of the Codex Ottobonianus, added to their recent date, de- prive both of all credibility as Greek manuscripts. 2. We come now to the versions. The clause in ques- tion " is totally unknown to the manuscripts of the old Syriac version. It is wanting in the new Syriac or Philoxenian version, which was made in the beginning of the sixth cen- turv, and collated with Greek MSS. at Alexandria in the beginning of the seventh ; it is wanting also in the Arabic M.SS. as well of the version printed in the Polyglotts, as of that which was published by Erpenius ; it is wanting in the Ethiopic, the Coptic and the Sahidic ; it is wanting in the MSS. of the Armenian version, and in those of the Slavo- nian of Russian version ; and lastly, it is wanting in the most ancient MSS. even of the Latin version.'^ * It was my good fortune to become acquainted with the learned Professor Fleck, of Leipsic, when he was employed in collating MSS. for his edition of tlie Vulgate New Testa- ment, which he has since published. At his request I col- lated the Apocalypse, the Epistle lo the Hebrews, and the Catholic Epistles, in a very ancient Latin MS., supposed to have been written for St. Gregory I., Bishop of Rome, and certainly as old as the sixth century. I have now a fac- simile, which I carefully traced at the time, and which, without the contractions, reads as follows : Quia tres sunt qui testimonium darit Spiritus et Aqua et Sanguis, et tres unum sunt. In English thus : • For there arc three which bear record, the Spirit, and the water and the blood, and these three are one. In the time, therefore, of Gregory the Great, the Latin version of this passage agreed with the Greek. But in the year 1832, being at Venice, I took a fac-simile of the passage in a manuscript of St. Mark's Library, de- * Marsh's Letters to Travis, preface, vii.-x. THE BIBLE, OR THE WRITTEN TRADITION. 61 signaled as Codex XL, written in Greek, Latin, and Arabic, in three collateral columns, and described in the catalogues of Zanetti and Morelli, as written about the thirteenth cen- tury. The Greek and the Arabic have not the disputed passage : but the Latin, written between them, the contrac- tions being filled up, is as follows : " Quoniam tres sunt qui testimonium dant in terra spiritus, aqua et sanguis et hii (sic) tres unum sunt. Et tres sunt qui testimonium dant in celo (sic) pater, verbum et spiritus sanctus et tres unum sunt, xviii." In English thus : *' For there are three that bear record in earth, the spirit, the water, and the blood, and these three are one. And there are three that hear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one.'^ Of this passage, in a letter written May 12, 1832, to Dr, Burgess, the Lord Bishop of Salisbury, I gave the following description : " The words ' in celo (sic) pater, verbum et sps scs et tres unum sunt, xviii,' are not only in smaller char- acters, but are written with ink of a much paler and yellower colour than the rest. I should think, from the appearance of the manuscript, that the scribe, having perceived the discre- pancy of the text and the version, had left a blank, which he afterwards filled up with smaller characters, such as one writes who is pressed for room, and with ink of a different colour. It does not seem to me to be a secunda manu, be- cause the letters, though smaller, are written very much in the same style." It is clear then, I think, that sometime after the sixth cen- tury the Latin version had been interpolated, and that even in the thirteenth century it was in an uncertain and fluctuat- ing state. This the extract from the manuscript just quoted abundantly shows ; for the earthly witnesses are placed be- fore the heavenly. Griesbach affirms, as the consentient observations of the learned, that the more ancient of those manuscripts whicli contain the passage, have this order, and that it is omitted by all which are older than the ninth cen- tury.* 3. That it was never quoted by the Greek fathers in the * N. T. torn. ii. Appendix, pp. 12,13. 4 62 REPLY TO MILNER's END OF CONTROVERSY. THE BIBLE, OR THE WRITTEN TRADITION. 63 Arian controversy, would be utterly inexplicable, if it had been in their copies. The first instance of such quotation occurs in the Greek translation of the Acts of the fourth Lateran Council, held at Rome in 1215. The translation, of course, was later, made for the purpose of uniting the Greek to the Latin Church ; and even that speaks of the passage as found only in some manuscripts J*^ The first Greek writer who quoted it was Emanuel Calecas, about one hundred years after the Lateran Council, or the middle of the four- teenth century. He became a monk of the order of St. Dominic, and adopted the tenets of the Latin, in opposition to those maintained by the Greek church. It is certain there- fore that there are no Greek authorities in favour of the passage, till we come nearly to the age of the Codices Mont- fortianus and Ottobonianus. If there be then so little authority for the disputed pas- sage, how, it may be asked, did it creep into the Latin version ? We answer, by means of marginal annotations, derived from a gloss upon the eighth verse. As Bishop Marsh has clearly stated the facts of the case, they shall be given in his own words. " At the end of the fourth century, the celebrated Latin Father Augustin, who wrote ten Treatises on the first Epistle of St. John, in all of which we seek in vain for the seventh verse of the fifth Chapter, was induced in his controversy with Maximin to compose a gloss upon tiie eighth verse. Augustin gives it professedly as a gloss upon the words of the eigthth verse, and shows, by his own reasoning, that the seventh verse did not then exist. The high character of Augustin in the Latin Church soon gave celebrity to his gloss; and in a short time it was generally adopted. It appeared, indeed, under different forms ; but it was still the gloss of Augustin, though variously modified. The gloss having once obtained credit in the Latin Church, the possessors of Latin manuscripts began to note it in the margin, by the side of the eighth verse. Hence the oldest of those Latin manuscripts, which have the passacre in the margin, have it in a different hand from that of The text. In later manuscripts we find margin and text in the same * Acta Concil. Hardouin, torn. viii. 17. hand ; for transcribers did not venture immediately to move it into the body of the text, though in some manuscripts it is interlined, but interlined by a later hand. After the eighth century the insertion became general. For Latin manu- scripts written after that period have generally, though not always, the passage in the body of the text. Further, when the seventh verse made its first appearance in the Latin manuscripts, it appeared in as many different forms as there were forms to the gloss upon the eighth verse. And though it now -precedes the eighth verse, ii followed the eighth verse at its first insertion, as a gloss would naturally follow the text upon which it was made. It is not therefore matter of mere conjecture, that the seventh verse originated in a Latin gloss upon the eighth verse, it is an historical fact, sup- ported by evidence which cannot be resisted.* Let us now consider the question as relates to the honesty of the English Translators. The knowledge of Greek, which had been nearly lost in the west of Europe, sprung up after the capture of Constantinople, and soon made its way into England. Erasmus went thither in 1497, at the age of thirty, and remained at Oxford more than two years, pursuing his Greek studies, by the assistance of Grocyn, Linacer, and William Latimer. The latter afterwards assisted him in the preparation of his second edition of the New Testament ; for he was invhed to England in 1509 by Henry VIII., and was there from 1510 to 1513, and again from 1517 to 1518. His two editions of the New Testament of 1516 and 1519 were without the Latin interpolation in 1 John v. 7-S. His influence in the reigns of Henry VIII. and Edward VI. is too well known to need any further remark ; and although in his third edition of 1522, he admitted this passage in Greek, on the authority of Froy's manuscript, which he call- ed the Codex Britannicus, yet it was well understood that he did so more to escape persecution, than from any real convic- tion that it was genuine. In 1539 appeared Abp. Cran- mer's Bible, the first which was allowed to be read in Ciiurches. In that translation the suspected passage was printed in parenthesis, and in smaller type, the whole being in the old English character : * Bp. Marsh's Lectures, pt. vi. pp. 19-23. 64 REPLY TO MILNER's END OF CONTROVERSY. (ffor Ibcvc arc tijrcc U)l)ic!)e beavc rcroctJC fii i)cnbcn, tf)e fatj)ev, t|)e li)oc"D, euiT) tijc Jjoh) flost. SlnU tijcsc t1)icc aic one. jFor there are three \Mhtehe ijeare reeortre (in earth) tijr spirit, antr ^uater, tints Woutre ; antr these three are one* Even so late as the year 1566 an edition of this Bible, which I have before mc, retains the same distinction. But Abp. Parker's, or what is called the Bishop's Bible, first set forth in 1568, made no such distinction. I have before me Christopher Barker's splendid edition of 1583 in which the two verses are printed nearly as they exist in the present author- ized version, or that of King James, 1611 : viz. " 7. For there are three, which bcare record in heaven, the Father, the Worde and tlie Holy Ghost : and these three are one. 8. And there are three which beare recorde in the earth, the spirite, and the water and the blood : and these three agree in one." To account for this change, let it be observed, that in 1550 appeared the famous tiiird edition of Robert Stephens which was supposed to settle the question in favour of the disputed text. The celebrity of the printer, and a mistaken reliance upon his accuracy, induced the belief tiiat it was contained in the manuscripts collated for his edition. All controversy on the subject died away ; nor was it revived until the manhood of criticism began by the noble edition of Mill in 1707. This is the only apology which I can render for the con- duct of the editors employed at Rome under the Popes Six- tus V. and Clement Vlll. in setting forth the standard edi- tion of the Latin Vulgate. It is certain that they had be- fore them the ancient manuscript of the sixth century, which I have mentioned as partially collated by me ; for there is an acknowledgment on one of the blank leaves, that on the 12th of July, 1581, it was, by order of Sixtus V., carried to Rome by the Cardinal Antonio Carafa for the emendation of the Latin Vulgate Bible, and was returned on the 19lh of January, 1591. Having thus been kept there nearly ten years, it must have been carefully collated. There is no excuse for them if they did not collate it ; and yet in the face of such testimony, they chose to follow the corrupted text of THE BIBLE, OR THE WRITTEN TRADITION. 65 the media3val ages, and said not one word to their readers concerning that purer reading which accorded exactly with the received text of the Greek Church, and was very proba- bly written for the use of the great St. Gregory himself! I ask how Dr. Milner could have attempted to brand the Church of England with the stigma of corrupting the Holy Bible ? He could not have known the facts of the case ; or he must have sought, meanly and unblushingly, to impose upon his readers. It is his own infallible Church which has ADDED to the Word of God. § 3. The Fidelity of the EiigUsh 'Translation. Admitting "that the several books in your Bible are canonical and authentic in the orifjinals," how do vou know that " they are faithfully translated in your English copy .?" 1 shall not waste many words in reply. Dr. Milner talks of the English Translators, as " fifty dilTerent men, of various capacities, learning, judgment, opinions, and prejudices." Well ! Fifty are better than one ; and certainly fifty must be different f Pray had St. Jerome, who translated the Latin Bible, no peculiar opinions or prejudices ? The '* fifty" had the benefit of St. Jerome's capacity, learning, and judgment, and they probably knew quite as much Hebrew, if not Greek, as he. But " Episcopius" he says, '' was so convinced of the fallibility of modern translations, that he wanted all sorts of persons, labourers, sailors, women, (Sec, to learn Hebrew and Greek." Why modern good sir ? were not ancient translations fallible ? And as to Hebrew and Greek, if labourers, sailors, and women (!) had the time to learn them, where would be tiie harm ? But a truce to such egregious triflinsf, and let us come to facts. The Council of Trent, in the decree already cited, pro- nounced the Old Vulgate edition to be authentic, and forbade any one to reject it, under any pretext whatsoever.* m other words, it elevated a mere translation, and that, as we have seen, with a faulty and corrupted text, to the rank of the original Scriptures. The consequence is, that in the Roman Communion no one dares to depart from the standard * Con. Trid. Sessio quarta. Ed. 1564, p. 21. 66 REPLY TO MILNER's END OF CONTROVERSY. edition of the Latin Bible set forth by Sixtus V. and his successor Clement VIII. I shall not here dwell upon the derision of the learned, in pointinn; out the blunders and cor- rections of the two infallible editions of 1590 and 1592. They were well exposed by James in his Bellum Papale ; and specimens of them may be seen in Home's Introduction, Vol. ii. p. 237-8. I mention the fact merely to show the hollow pretensions of this boasted infallibility, and the arro- gant impiety of claiming for an uninspired composition that veneration which is due only to the sacred orifjrinals. The English Communion have never pretended to such infallibility, nor been guilty of such proud profanity. AH translations are human, and must be more or less defective. But of all uninspired compositions, the English Bible, in the sober and impartial judgment of the wise and learned, ranks among the highest. There may be differences of opinion as to " the choice of a single word ;" and in some cases the translation of 1011 may be thought to have expressed the sense of the original not so clearly as Abp. Cranmer's, or the Bishops' Bible. But taking it all in all, there is no translation superior to it. Yet of what avail would it be to offer proof to those who are determined to reject it ? To men who shut their eyes, the sun shines in vain. Let any plain man compare what is called the Douay Bible with the authorized English Translation, and then let him judge which has the clearest marks of fidelity and truth. I select a part of the Epistle to the Galatians, to present to the read- er in parallel columns. I copy from the original edition of the Jesuit Translation printed at Rhemes (Rheims) in 1582 ; and to avoid misapprehension I add that the Old Testament is properly the Douay , and the New Testament the Rheims version. Gal. ii. 6-14. Rheims Version, 1582. English Translation, of iGil. " But of them that seemed to be " But of those who seemed to be something, (what they were some- somewhat, whatsoever they w^ere time, it is nothing to me. God it mnketh no matter to me : God accepteth not the person of man), accepteth no man's person : for they for to me, they that seemed to be who seemed to be somewhat in something, added nothing. But conference added nothing to me. contrariewise, when they had seen. But contrariwise, when they saw that to me was committed the Gos- that the Gospel of the uncircumcis- THE BIBLE, OR THE WRITTEN TRADITION. 67 ion was committed unto me, as the Gospel of the circumcision was unto Peter ; (for he that wrought effectually in Peter to the Apostle- ship of the circumcision, the same was mighty in me toward the Gen- tiles ;) and when James, Cephas and John, who seemed to be pillars, per- ceived the grace that was given un- to me, they gave to me and Barna- bas the right hands of fellowship ; that we should go unto the heathen, and they unto the circumcision. Only they would that we should remember the poor ; the same which I also was forward to do. " But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed. For before that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles ; but when they were come, he with- drew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcis- ion. And the other Jews dissem- bled likewise with him ; insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation. But when I saw that they walked not uprightly, according to the truth of the Gospel, I said unto Peter, be- fore them all. If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why cora- pellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews ] " Now I ask, not the scholar who can go to the Greek, and see and judge for himself, but I ask the plain, unlettered man, which of these translations conveys to him the clearest sense ? He must at once see that, in general, both convey the sense of the original ; but in the Rheims version it is throuMi a latinized medium. The "labourers, and sailors, and vvomen ( ! )" must learn Latin, if not Greek and He- brew, so that their condition is not much bettered by the exchancre. And here let me ask, how the " labourers, and sailors,''and women," who read the Rhemish version, and no other, can possibly find out that it was St. Peter whom St. pel of the prepuce, as to Peter of the circumcision (for he that wrought in Peter to the Apostleship of the circumcision, wrought in me also among the Gentils) and when they had knowen the grace that was given me, James and Cephas and John, which seemed to be pillers, gave to me and Barnabas the right handes of societie : that we unto the Gentiles, and they unto the circum- cision, only that we should be minde- ful of the poore ; the which same thing also I waa careful to doe. " And when Cephas was come to Aniioche, I resisted him in face, because he was reprehensible. For before that certain came from James, he did eate with the Gentiles ; but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them that were of the circumcision. And to his simulation consented the rest of the Jewes, so that Barnabas also was ledde of them into that simulation. But when I saw that they walked not rightly to the veri- tie of the Gospel, 1 said to Cephas before them al : If thou being a Jewe, livest Gentile-like and not Judaically : how doest thou compel the Gentiles to Judaize." es REPLY TO MILNER S END OF CONTROVERSY. Paul resisted ? The English translators have honestly ren- dered the Greek original Feter ; but the Jesuits, following the Vulgate, have put in Cephas, which was the Syro-Clialdaic name of Peter. This must greatly help " all sorts of per- sons," as Dr. Milner calls the " labourers, sailors, women, &c.," and etfectually guard them from the danger of doubting St. Peter's supremacy. But Dr. Milner did not always deal in vague and gene- ral accusations against our honest translators. lie has con- descended to name two passages which, he says, they have erroneously translated, and which, therefore, 1 lay in like manner before the reader. Bheims Version, 1582. 1 Cor. xi. 27. Therefore who- Boever shal eate this bread or drinke the chalice of our Lord unworthily, he shal be guilty of the body and of the blood of our Lord. Matt. xix. n. Not al take this word, but they to whom it is given. Enslish Translation. Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord, unworlhily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. All men cannot receive this say- ing, save thetj to whom it is givcQ. In the first of these passages the Greek particle tj is ren- dered in the Vulgate vel, and consequently by the Rhemish translators, or ; but in the Bishop's Bible and the present authorized version it is rendered and, though in Archbishop Cranmer's Bible it is translated or. Dr. Milner calls this a corruption. If it be so, our translators are in good company, for they have with them the Syriac, all the Arabic, the Cop- tic, the jEthiopic, St. Jerome,* Chromatins of x\quileia, Cas- siodorus, and Bede.f The Codices Alexandrinus and Claro- montanus, and two other in small cliaracters read xul. I might quote Schleusner and Rosenmiiller, who fully support our translators ; but as I consider the question at issue as very little, and as it is insisted upon by Dr. Milner merely to shore up a very rotten part of his system, the denial of the cup to the laity, I shall pass on to the consideration of the next passage. • Op. tom. iv. adv. Jovin. c. 218. Qui enim indignfc manducaverit IT biberit, reus erit violati corporis et sanguinis Christi. t See Sabatier and Griesbach in loc. ■ I THE BIBLE, OR THE WRITTEN TRADITION. 69 The original in Matt. xix. 31, on which Dr. Milner's criticism turns, are the words ov nuvisg /oiQovaiy which the Vulgate render, non omnes capiunt ; Abp. Cranmer, all menne cannot comprehend ; the Bishops' Bible and the Authorized Version, all men cannot receive. Our scrupulous translators have printed in italics the word men, to show that it is not expressed, though it is implied in the original Greek. Where is the dilference then between the Vulgate and the English ? Does not the word capio signify to comprehend^ receive, or take intellectually ? Ah, says Dr. Milner, but I object to that word cannot because the Rev. Mr. Grier and Dr. Ryan pretend to prove from other texts that continency is not necessary! ! Was there ever such a non-sequitur ? When will such men as Dr. Milner learn to separate their theological opinions from their criticism ? Continency not necessary ! Poor Dr. Grier, what an imputation on your character ! But the Dr. is at hand to return answer for himself: "In my Answer " (i. e. his answer to Ward's miserable book called the Errata of the Protestant Bible,) " I have, as 1 conceive, satisfactorily proved that the rendering of ov nuiTfg x(»()oi(ji, Matt. xix. 11, is perfectly correct in our Authorized Version of the Bible : as beinof most agreeable to the original, as well as to the sense in which SS. Augustine and Jerome understand it. I have there been obliged to convict Dr. Milner of gross ignorance of the Greek, no less than of a fraudulent application of the Latin language, in which he is so deeply versed ; and have proved to demon- stration, that the Rhemish version of this very text as well as of ft dt oi'x eyxQUTsiovjcci, 1 Cor. vii. 9, which he considers of * such importance towards settling the disputes concern- ing the possihilUy of leading a continent life,' is erroneous. Should the reader refer to pages 33, 55, and 92 of my An- swer, I entreat him to notice, whether I have expressly or by implication, said or pretended to prove that continency is not necessary. In truth, the abstract question, whether the con- tinency of the clergy was or was not necessary, was but a secondary object with me ; my chief design being to show, that an ordinance respecting their celibacy, was rather of human, than of divine institution."* Dr. Grier answered * Grier's Reply to Milner's End of Controversy, pp. S5, 96. 4* 70 REPLY TO MILNER S END OF CONTROVERSY. the insinuation gravely. I should have treated it with sor- row for Dr. Milner, but with silent contempt for so mean an artifice. With the same disingenuous spirit Dr. Milner asks his supposed correspondent, Mr. James Brown, " Can you con- sistently reject the authority of the great Universal Church, and yet build upon that of some ohsciirc translator in the reign of James 1.?" Obscure translator ! Let me tell Mr. Brown, or any other plain man of common sense who may read the boasted *' End of Religious Controversy," that our translators did not reject the authority of the great Universal Church, and that they weighed with the most scrupulous accuracy the words they used to convey to the unlearned reader the true sense of the Bible. The following is Dr. Grier's comprehensive summary of facts as to the real value of our English Bible : " If we now direct our attention from the consideration of those few words to which our adversaries object, as being erroneously translated, to the merit of our translation itself; we shall find, that for tiio three critics, viz., Gregory Martin, Thomas Ward, and Doctor Milner, who have heaped on it every species of vituperation and abuse ; not merely three, but I might almost say, three hundred, of the soundest divines and most profoundly learned biblical scholars, might be enu- merated, who have admired it for its general faithfulness, the severe beauty of its language, and the simplicity of its style ; and have pronounced it one of the grandest" efibrts of human skill and industry. That they are borne out in the high encomiums they have passed on it, will appear, if we but advert to the peculiarly happy circumstances under which it was executed ; — the flourishing state of the He- brew, and the wholesome vigour at which the English lan- guage had at the time arrived. Every prudent and wise precaution was taken, in employing the most learned men of the day, and in laying down strict rules for their observance ; and, as the same may be said with respect to those who pre- pared the version which immediately preceded it, the cir- cumstance of our last English Bible being a revision thus derived, is an advantage in itself of the greatest value. In short, executed as it was, when the English language was, as I have already observed, fresh in its native simplicity and I THE BIBLE, OR THE WRITTEN TRADITION. 71 vigour, it will ever be esteemed as classical, and regarded with awful respect."* § 4. The true sense of Scripture. For a wonder Dr. Milner allows that a " learned Protest- ant Bishop" could speak the language of St. Jerome and St. Augustine ; and he translates, accurately, as far as he goes, the words of Bishop Walton, in the fifth chapter of his Prole- gomena. I shall take the liberty of connecting the quotation with its context. The Bishop is showing the great advan- tage to be derived from the collection and collation of the several ancient versions of the Bible. He observes that the languages which we now call learned, were formerly ver- nacular, and therefore commonly understood. There is a wonderful agreement of all these versions as to all things necessary to faith and salvation : for almost every variety consists in smaller matters which are not necessary. This agreement among all nations, divided by so great distances of sea and land, and connected only by the bond of one faith, clearly shows that the doctrine of these manuscripts is not founded on human wisdom, but established by Divine au- thority. All the devices of Satan and his followers, all the ignorance, carelessness, and audacity of transcribers, and all the frauds of heretics, could not possibly destroy or corrupt them. For what might possibly happen in one language, could not possibly happen in so many versions through the whole world. Moreover the collation of the ancient ver- sions, and the liturgies and divine offices which obtained authority in the pure and primitive church, threw much light for eliciting the true sense of Scripture in places doubtful and obscure. And then follows the sentence quoted by Dr. Milner, '* No one," says Walton, '* will deny this who bears in mind that the Word of God does not properly con- sist in letters, whether written or printed, but in the true sense of the words : which no one can better explain than the true Church, to which Christ committed this sacred de- posit ; and which, by the various versions, faithfully trans- mits to posterity its genuine sense, handed down as it were * Grier's Reply to Milner, pp. 98, 99. 72 REPLY TO milker's END OF CONTROVERSY. (quasi per manus traditum) from the Apostles, and received from the governors of the churches." Now every one must see that the true Church of which Bishop Walton speaks, was that pure and primitive Church which handed down its ver- sions, liturgies, and offices, in various languages, and in remote parts of the world ; and which, by its traditive testimony, its faith and practice, shows the true sense in which the Scrip- tures are to be understood. This is that traditive interpre- tation of which Chillingworth speaks when he says : " If you make it good unto us, that the same tradition down from the Apostles, hath delivered from age to age and from hand to hand, any interpretation of any Scripture, we are ready to embrace that also." And again : " If there be any traditive interpretation of Scripture, produce it, and prove it to be so, and we embrace it. But the tradition of all ages is one thing ; and the authority of the present Church, much more of the Roman Church, which is but a part, and a corrupted part, of the Catholic Church, is another. And, therefore, though we are ready to receive both Scripture and the sense of Scripture, upon the authority of Original Tradition, yet we receive neither the one nor the other, upon the authority of your Church."* So the learned Bishop Bull : " With me it is, and always will be, a matter of conscience not to in- terpret the Holy Scriptures against the torrent of all the fathers and ancient doctors, unless when most evident argu- ments compel me to do so ; an event which I believe will never happen. For certainly the consentient judgment of antiquity, and especially of primitive antiquity, ought to out- weiofh many probabilities and plausible reasonings. "f So also the judicious and profound Hooker, in one of the very passages quoted by Dr. Milner: "That which all men's experience teacheth them, may not in any wise be denied. And by experience we all know, that tiie first outward motive leading men so to esteem of the Scripture is the au- thority of God's Church. For when we knov/ the whole Church of God hath that opinion of the Scripture, we judge it even at the first an impudent thing for any man bred and * Chillingworth, Scripture the only Rule to judge Controversies, chap. ii. § 88, 89, lOih ed. fol. 1742, p. 104. + BuUi Opera, ed. Grabe, 1703, fol. p. 9. THE BIBLE, OR THE WRITTEN TRADITION. 73 brought up in the Church, to be of a contrary mind whhout cause.'*'* From the language of these learned scholars, deep think- ers, and great divines, it will be seen that they neither de- nied the just influence of the true Church Catholic, nor the legitimate use of private judgment. The voice of the Church is the reason and learning of the whole Church ; and in ap- pealing to it we do no more than what is done by the best judges in interpreting the laws of the land. As Bishop Walton says, in the passage of which Dr. Milner took only such part as suited his purpose, the ancient versions, the liturgies and divine offices of the Catholic Church, dispers- ed throughout the world, in languages spoken at the time by all sorts and conditions of men, exhibited the sense in which the Scriptures were originally understood. In all things necessary to faith and salvation they speak with won- derful consent ; and even on doubtful and obscure points the knowledge of these versions, and of the daily practice in the pure and primitive Church, enables us greatly to elucidate the true sense of the Holy Bible. To these sources modern commentators are greatly obliged, though they who igno- rantly rail at antiquity know it not. It is only when men confine themselves to one version, as they of the Roman communion do to the Vulgate, that errors and heresies ca'eep in. And hence it is that we of the English Communion, who recojinize the Hebrew and Greek canon as our unle of faith, and use all the lights derived from the diligent com- parison of ancient versions, and the writings of Oriental and Greek fathers, as well as those of the Latin Church, un- daunted by any curse, and unfettered by any modern au- thority pretending to be infallible, have been enabled, through God's blessing, to restore and keep steadfastly the faith of primitive catholicity. All the diflerences between us and the Roman Communion, have grown out of their servile adherence to the Latin version, and their receipt of traditive testimony and interpretation, since the fatal divisions which began in the fifth century. These differences with us are chiefly confined to their own solitary communion, and even in their communion enforced, as matters of faith, only since the Council of Trent. * Hooker, Eccl. Pol. b. iii. 8. 74 REPLY TO MILNEr's END OF CONTROVERSY. Hebrew and Greek ! exclaims Dr. Milner : must ♦' all sort§ of persons, labourers, sailors, women, (!) &c., learn Hebrew and Greek ?"— No, my good sir, no more than all sorts of persons in your Communion must learn Latm. Thanks be to God, we have a Prayer-book which even the most ignorant of our laity can understand, and which em- bodies Tn a devotional form, the Catholic interpretation of the Scriptures. If, as I have already observed, the noble design of the English reformers had been carried out, not an indi- vidual in The wide expanse where the English language is spoken, would have failed to be instructed in the true sense of the Bible. He would have been brought into the Church by holy baptism before he had committed actual sin. He would have been taught what a solemn vow and profession had been then made in his name to lead a godly and a Christian life. His childhood would have been catechized at least every Sunday in the first principles of the Catholic and Apostolic faith. He would liave been confirmed at a proper age, and admitted to the Holy Communion. He would have listened, every day of his life, to four chapters in the Bible, read by a learned priest, who did know Hebrew and Greek,— but read in his own language, and with such just emphasis and intonation, that the very reading would have conveyed to him the true sense of God's holy word. He would, every day of his lifo, have repeated the creeds, and unitefl in those sublime devotions which, saints and martyrs have used, in all parts of the Christianized world, and in the briuhtest and purest ages of the Catholic Church. Who marred all this goodly design ? Alas ! Do not you know ? Have you never read of ennssarics from Rome who assumed the garb and imitated the manner of the Puritan teachers; prayed extempore, and reviled, as being popish, the liturgy of the Church of England ? History faithfully tci-tifies that the sad variety of schisms and heresies which are now to you such an occasion of triumph, grew out of your own cruelties, and were fomented by your own machinations. To the end of the reign of Edward, the Church of England was united. Who kindled the fires of Smithfield and drove to Geneva those English exiles, who, in their deep and burning resentment, were there smitten with the love of Cal- vinism, because it seemed to them the more opposed to your DR. MILNER S QUOTATIONS. 75 corruptions ?— But I forbear ; for I seek not to aggravate our dissensions, or to recriminate, even where recrimination would be justly due. Even in the present weak and imperfect state ot our Communion, longing as we do for a more devout and general fulfilment of the Church's purposes, I will be bold to say that no one who clearly understands our system and follows it in his daily practice, can be carried about with every wind of doctrine and the cunning craftiness of men, whereby they lie in wait to deceive. Blind submission is your system ; enlightened and deferential submission is ours. The in- stance I have mentioned of a poor woman who could not read, and thousands of such instances might be recorded, clearly proves that the more we carry out the designs of the English Reformers the better will the Bible be understood. As'the priest's lips should keep knowledge, so should the people seek the law at his mouth. It is true, as you have said, that "there are in Scripture things hard to be under- stood which the unlearned and unstable wrest unto their own destruction." 2 Pet. iii. 16. So it was in the days of the Apostles ; so it is now ; and so it ever will be, till faith is swallowed up of knowledge. But in our Communion, the well taught Christian knows whence the obscurity pro- ceeds, and how far it extends. If God has not clearly re- vealed it, our ignorance will not be laid to our account ; and if the obscurity arises from being confined to a single ver- sion, the well taught Christian will apply to him who is set over him in the Lord, to resolve his doubts. There is no more uncertainty in our Communion, than there has ever been in the Catholic Church ; and all attempts to enforce the decision of a present infallible interpreter, end only in spirit- ual tyranny. The fires of the Inquisition have made hypo- crites but not converts. CHAPTER IV. DR. MILNER's QUOTATIONS. After having thus endeavoured to convince his readers that the Bible inltself is wholly uncertain and inexplicable, 76 EEPLY TO MILNEr's END OF CONTROVERSY. Dr. Milner proceeds, in his tenth eleventh, and twelfth let- ters, with which lie ends his first part, to establish what he calls " the true rule" of faith, and to answer objections. This " true rule" of faith, he says, is " Scripture and Tradition," but both Scripture and Tradition only as " pro- pounded and explained by the Catholic Church." It "im- plies — a two- fold rule, and an interpreter or judge to explain the rule."* Now the fallacy of his whole argument lies in assuming the very points which he should have jyroved. If I have been so fortunate as to have made the various senses clear to my reader, in which the words tradition and catholic have been used, and their true signification, he will be in no danger from the juggling dexterity of Dr. Milner. Let it be proved that 'traditions" have come from Christ and liis Apostles, and we receive and embrace them. Let it be proved that the Roman communion is exclusively Christ's holy, catholic, and apostolic Church, and his reasoning will then be just and consistent. I begin with his quotation from Blackstone'sCommentaries on the lex non scripia. There must undoubtedly have been unwritten law in the Church, as Blackstone defines unwrit- ten law in Enfjland : "1. General customs ; whicli are the universal rule of the whole kingdom, and form the common law in its stricter and more usual signification ; 2. j)articu- lar customs ; which for the most part aftect only the inhabi- tants of particular districts ; 3. certain particular laws ; which by custom are adopted and used by some particular courts of pretty general and extensive jurisdiction. "f But Blackstone limits his meaning by various cautions. " Tiie authority of these maxims rests entirely," he says, " upon general reception and usage; and the only method of proving that this or tliat maxim is a rule of the common law, is by showinsj that it hath been alwavs the custom to observe it." Even in the passage quoted by Dr. IMihior, whore the learn- ed commentator speaks of the judges as "depositaries of the laws," and " livino; oracles who must decide in all cases of doubt, and are bound by an oath to decide according to the law of the land," Blackstone argues that if their decision be * Let. X. t Blackstone, Com. Intiod. sec. iii. I DR. MILNER S QUOTATIONS. 77 " contrary to reason, much more if it he clearly contrary to the divine law — it is not the established custom of the realm, as has been erroneously determined." Apply this, mutatis mutandis , to the Christian Church, and it will be seen, that our XXth and XXXI Vth Articles are based upon exactly the same principles. Is it not passing strange that Dr. Milner should have so presumed on the ignorance of his readers, as to quote Blackstone's Commentaries ! Let any one read the first and second sections, as well as the tliird, of his Introduction, and he will see how far the English judge was from acknow- ledging the claims of Rome. But by garbled extracts any wri- ter miry be made to prove what was farthest from his thoughts. In speaking of the Roman law, Blackstone condemns the practice of giving to rescripts of the emperor the force of perpetual law ; and then he adds — " In like manner, the canon laws or decretal epistles of the popes, are all of them rescripts in the strictest sense. Contrary to all true forms of reasoning, they argue from particulars to generals."* Dr. Milner next proceeds to show that Christ did com- mission his Apostles ; that they were to continue this com- mission to the end of the world ; and that they and their successors constitute the ever-living and speaking tribunal of the Church. It is truly delightful to find a passage in his book so unexceptionable. It is true that connected with this passage there are a few inuendoes and slight assumptions ; such as " fifteen hundred years before Protestants existed," and " the Apostles, before they separated to preach the Gos- pel to different nations, agreed upon a short symbol or pro- fession of faith, called the Apostles' Creed, but even this, they did not commit to writing." The whole of this last assertion is very doubtful, lie quotes Rufinus for it, a Latin writer of rather dubious authority, who flourished about .350 years after the Apostles! But inuendoes and as- sumptions are the food on which Dr. Milner lives, and we may therefore pardon him. We cannot, however, be so indulgent as to his assertion that "during the first five ages of the church, no less than in the subsequent ages, the unwritten word, or tradition, was held in equal estimation by her with the Scripture itself. a * Introd. sect. ii. 78 REPLY TO MILNER's END OF CONTROVERSY. I shall hope to show the contrary by the very writers whom he quotes, but quotes imperfectly. He begins with St. Ignatius ; not quoting his Epistles, hut what Eusebius says of'him. Why was this? Because in the whole seven Epistles of St. Ignatius not a word occurs alout traditions. The narrative of Eusebius indeed states that the martyr exhorted the several cliurchcs to which he wrote ''to adhere firmly to the traditions of the Apostles;" that is to what the Apostles had delivered to them ; and then Eusebius adds, that for the greater security, Ignatius thought it necessary to commit what he had said to writing.* A strange remark this, if Eusebius was so much in favour of unwritten traditions ! So with regard to the Epistle of St. Polycarp, Dr. Milner vaguely remarks that " the same sentiments appear in the Epistles of Ignatius; and also in iliose'' (!) (as if there were more than one) " of his fellow-martyr St. Polycarp, the angel of the church of Smyrna. Rev. ii. 8." The same senti- ments in the one Epistle of St. Polycarp, as in the seven of St. Ignatius ! Could Dr. Milner have read them and have made such a blunder ? In the only extant Epistle of St. Po- lycarp, which was written to the Philippians when he sent them the collection of the Epistles of St. Ignatius, there is not a word about traditions. But, though silent about tradi- tions, he speaks in it of St. PauPs Epistle to them ; quotes the Epistle to the Ephesians as Scripture, expressing his trust that they were iccll exercised in the Holy Scriptures ; ■ and shows, throughout, his own fiimiliar acqaintance with the Gospels, the Acts, and the Epistles of St. Paul, St. Peter, and St. John. This, let it be remembered, was probably not later than a. d. lOS. Dr, Milner's next witness is St. Irena3us ; and as from a cursory and superficial inspection of the passages he has quoted, his readers may consider them as conclusive, I must take the pains of setting before them a summary of that ven- erable father's argument. In his first book, he gives an ac- count of the Valentinian heresy, as derived from Simon the Magician. The second book contains his confutation of their errors. In the third, he proceeds to exhibit proofs from the * Ecc. Hist. lib. iii. c. 36. I DR. MILNER S QUOTATIONS. 79 Scriptures that the Church hath received from the Apostles and distributed to her children the only true and life-giving faith. And then he adds : " For the Lord of all things gave to his Apostles the power of the gospel ; by whom we have known the truth, that is the doctrine of the Son of God, and to whom the Lord said, ' He that heareth you heareth me, an 1 he that despiseth you despiseth me — and Him that sent me.' Luke x. IH." He then, in the first chapter, speaks of our knowing the economy of our salvation " by no other than those through whom the gospel came to us ; which indeed they then preached, and afterwards hy the icill of God deliv- ered to us in the Scriptures^ to be the foundation and pillar of our faith." With the exception of a few fragments, gleaned from sub- sequent Greek writers, the original work of St. Irenseus is unhappily lost. It is " handed down" to us only in a barba- rous Latin translation, which often obscures the sense. This any one may see by comparing it with so much of the Greek as time has spared. Yet even the Latin in the last sentence quoted, in scripturis nobis tradiderunt, shows that the " tra- ditions of the apostles," that is, ichat the apostles delivered, having frst heen preached, was afterwards, as far as regards doctrine, hy Divine direction committed to writing. St. Irenaeus proceeds to say that " Matthew among the Hebrews published the Scripture of the gospel in their own language, while Peter and Paul were preaching the gospel in Rome, and laying the foundation of that church. After their departure, Mark the disciple and interpreter of Peter delivered to us in writing (Lat. j)er scripta nobis tradidit) what Peter had preached. Luke also, the follower of Paul, deposited in a book the gospel preached by him. After- wards John, likewise the disciple of the Lord, who also lean- ed upon his bosom, set forth the gospel, while he dwelt at Ephesus." Let me here ask what becomes of Dr. Milner's assertion, in this tenth letter, that the Canon of Scripture was not set- tled till the end of the fourth century ? We here find a Bishop of the second century giving this account of the four gospels, and quoting familiarly in his writings almost the whole of the New Testament ! St. Irenseus often speaks with the greatest reverence of both the Old and New, as r> i n" i I r 80 REPLY TO MILNER's END OF CONTROVERSY. Divine Scriptures, the Oracles of God, and Scriptures of the Lord. And so in the following passages : " Since there- fore the Scriptures in general, both Prophetic and Evangelic, are open and clear and may he heard of all, though all do not believe,"