"Professor Stuart undoubtedly holds the same opinion respecting this verse; for in adducing the texts in favor of the doctrine of the Trinity, he omits all mention of thiswhereas if he thought it genuine, he must have given it a conspicuous place. He probably alludes to it, with others, when he says, he shall select only those texts, the language of which appears to be genuine, and above the condemnation of textual criticism.'

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"In this place may be added the fact, that the Great Reformer, LUTHER, uniformly rejected this verse from his Translation of the New Testament. He did not admit it to a place in the edition which was publishing at the time of his death; and 'he concluded his preface to that edition,' says Charles Butler, with what may be termed his dying request, that upon no account his translation should be altered, in the slightest instance;' which, of course, implies his firm persuasion, that this verse does not belong to the Bible..

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To these names, some of them amongst the most honored in the church, might be added many more equally well known; it is enough to mention those eminent biblical critics, Simon, and Wetstein; Benson, Grotius, and Semler, (who, says Michaelis, 'not only confuted all the arguments which had been used in favor of this verse, but wrote the most important work which we have on this subject;') Sir Isaac Newton, Bishop Herbert Marsh, Archbishop Newcome, and the distinguished Methodist, Dr. Adam Clarke; and, finally, that illustrious scholar, Porson, whose letters, by which the controversy concerning the verse was brought to a final conclusion, 'are an eternal monument cf his erudition, critical sagacity, and wit.'"

Bishop Marsh, Professor Porson, and Dr. Adam Clarke, mentioned by Mr. Ware, were all living, I believe, at the commencement of the present century; and, of course,

had access to treasures of knowledge unknown in other ages.

Marsh says, "Not a single Greek manuscript was ever known to contain the passage till after the invention of printing-that solitary manuscript was not written in Greece." I may add it was a very modern manuscript, written in England, after the year 1500; therefore of no authority.

Porson says, "All the Greek manuscripts, which, if I have counted rightly, amount to ninety-seven, ancient and modern, oriental and occidental, good, bad, and indifferent, do with one consent, wholly omit the seventh verse." And again" I hesitate not to conclude, with Chandler, Bengelius, Wetstein, Griesbach, and many others, that this celebrated verse exists in no genuine Greek manuscript whatever."

Dr. Clarke, of the Methodist Church, says, "ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTEEN Greek manuscripts are extant, containing the First Epistle of John; and the text in question is wanting in one hundred and twelve." And again—“ It stands on no authority sufficient to authenticate any part of a revelation professing to have come from God." Dr. Clarke died but four years ago.

"An attempt has been made in England," says Professor Ware, "to revive the question respecting the text of the three witnesses, since the first publication of these Letters. It may be well, therefore, to add to the list of orthodox authorities against it, that of the Quarterly Review, as orthodox as any. This journal (January, 1822) contains a learned examination of a work published by the Bishop of St. David's, in defence of this spurious passage. A few sentences from this article will show that, in the judgment of these Trinitarian reviewers, the passage is as evidently spurious as before.

They express their 'surprise' and 'astonishment' that any attempt should be made to defend the verse, and their 'pain and grief that recourse should be had to a plan of warfare in which they cannot co-operate.'

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'They confute the Bishop's arguments in detail, and on his declaration that there is no doubt left on his mind 'that we have in this verse the authentic words of St. John;' they remark-We have the most sincere respect for the Bishop of St. David's, but we cannot peruse the declaration without astonishment.

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They add― The arguments of the learned author are, to our minds, not at all more convincing than those which had previously been employed in the same cause. If the evidence against the text preponderated before the tract. was written, we are quite sure that the scale has not been turned in its favor.'

"They also remark, very justly, 'that whatever censures may be justly due to those who would reject any text which really forms a portion of the sacred volume, may with equal propriety be directed against those, who would introduce a text which is not proved really tó belong to it.'

"We trust that this question is forever put to rest. No man probably will be found to defend the verse again, who is not capable of thinking it a good argument to say, with the Bishop of St. David's, If the verse has not been found in any Greek manuscripts, it may be hereafter!"

Those who desire to see more on this verse, may con sult, in its favor, BENGEL, a fine scholar and an excellent critic; KNITTEL, who wrote with nice discrimination; HEZELIUS, who wrote with great sagacity; DAVID MARTIN, who wrote with candor and simplicity; and Dean TRAVIS, who, in his Letters to Gibbon, has displayed much zeal, but whose knowledge of the critical bearings of the question was very superficial:—against it, MICHAELIS,

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who demonstrated its spuriousness from the five conces sions of Bengel; GRIESBACH's Dissertation at the end of the second volume of his Greek Testament, Halae et Londoni, 1806; and Professor PoRSON's answer to Travis. The latter has so thoroughly explored the field of controversy, that he has left nothing more to be said on either side of the question.

The following article, on the Corruptions of Scripture, which originally appeared in the Unitarian Miscellany, is copied from the pamphlet already mentioned.

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It is a remarkable fact, that those passages in the received text of the New Testament, on which a principal reliance has been placed in proving the Trinity, turn out on examination to be false readings. The first occurs in Acts xx. 28: Feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood,' in which text the word God has been substituted for Lord, the true reading. The second is found in 1 Tim. iii. 16: God was manifest in the flesh,' where God has been substituted for the pronoun who, or rather he who. The third is the celebrated passage in 1 John, v. 7, respecting the three heavenly witnesses, pronounced by all the most respectable scholars at the present day, as well Trinitarian as Unitarian, to be wholly an interpolation. Similar examples might be multiplied, but it is unnecessary.. We would only observe, that those which we have given, are on the authority of Trinitarian writers.

"But the most singular part of our story is yet to be told. When the above mentioned passages, and others like them, have been adduced in support of the Trinity, and Unitarians have of course objected to them as spurious, they have been loudly reproached for denying and falsifying Scripture. Surely, this is a most singular piece of injus

tice. One sect is allowed to corrupt the text of Scripture greatly, and perhaps more than we know, without being censured; but the moment another sect attempts to restore this corrupted text to its original purity, it is loaded with abuse. We had thought that those who inserted the spurious reading were the party to be blamed, not those who detected it, and thrust it out. We had thought, that the exertions of Unitarian writers, in common with the liberal and enlightened of all denominations, to recover the unadulterated Word of God, demand praise, and not censure. For it ought to be distinctly understood, that in every instance where the common reading has been rejected, and another introduced in its place, it has been from uncontrovertible evidence, that the reading so introduced was the original reading. Wherever the received text has been departed from, it has been not for the purpose of altering, but restoring genuine Scripture.

"We are aware that the public generally may be so much in the dark on this subject, as not to distinguish between a departure from the received text, and a departure from genuine Scripture; but so much the more is the blame of those, who take advantage of this want of information in the .people to mislead them, and misrepresent their brethren. No scholar, however, even among the orthodox, if he has any regard for his reputation as a scholar and a man of principle, will dare to call in question the authority on which the received text has been amended as above-the authority of all the best manuscript versions and fathers, the only materials from which a pure text is to be formed. Neither can it be insinuated, that these ancient documents may have been forged, or corrupted by Unitarians, as they have never been in the hands of Unitarians, but only in those of the orthodox, by whom, if by any persons, they have been dealt with fraudulently. Besides, the public are de