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again participating in the (in this case, afternoon,) public worship of the day.

Independently of the bounden duty of a minister to direct the attention of his flock, in the conduct of all their secular affairs, to the Sovereign Disposer of all things,-it strikes me as peculiarly desirable, at this juncture, to exhibit to the world, whenever the opportunity offers, the ample provision which the church has made for sanctifying all the actions of her members, by providing an appropriate religious service for their use, and enjoining the attendance of a minister to lead them in the performance of it. I remain, your humble servant, H.*

BANNS OF MARRIAGE.

SIR,-I hope that you can receive a few words from an Incumbent who, in common with many others, struggles to stop the evil arising from the attempts constantly made to procure the publication of banns of marriage in churches of parishes where neither bride nor bridegroom resides. The practice is unfortunately common: there are consequently many parochial ministers who feel the evil result of it more strongly than I do myself. I wish, therefore, that they may, through your pages, share the encouragement which I derived from some hints and advice on receiving and publishing banns of marriage, given in a Charge, published last year, by the Archdeacon of Oxford. Since that time I have, generally speaking, acted on his recommendation, and have known the same adopted in other parishes with success.

I have scruples about occupying your pages with any long quotation from the Charge. I wish merely to state, for the use of others, that my observation leads me to conclude that the plan there laid down does certainly operate as a check the parties cannot shuffle about their residence, they seem afraid to do so. They prefer trying other parishes where they say the parson is not so particular. If, then, to use their phrase, all parsons were so particular, the evil would be much abated. The remarks which that Charge contains conclude with recommending the use of a blank form, to be filled up with an exact statement of the name and residence of each of the parties concerned. I send you a form, the blanks of which I have filled up. I hope other parish ministers, in populous places, may find as little difficulty, and as much good, in using it as I have done.

I am, Sir, your humble servant, V. M.

"It is requested by the Parties concerned, that the Banns of Marriage between Alfred BenneTT, residing at MRS. CURRIE'S, 16, DORMER STREET, in ST. ANNE'S (LONDON) Parish, and ELIZABETH WALL, residing at THE FARM in ALSTON Parish, be published in the Parish Church of ALSTON. Dated this 3rd day of July, 1834."

There are several entries in a private book belonging to the rectors of Hadleigh of the Perambulations on Ascension-day, after prayers, at 6 o'clock in the morning. -ED.

MISPRINT IN A LATE EDITION OF THE COMMON PRAYER. Reverend Sir,-In the small edition of the Prayer-book which has recently issued from the Pitt press, a typographical error occurs, which you may think deserving of notice. It entirely destroys the spirit, and even perverts the meaning of that sublime passage contained in the 4th verse of the 68th Psalm :-" Praise Him in His name JAH, and rejoice before Him." Perhaps yourself, or some of your correspondents, can explain on what authority the redundant particle "yea" is substituted, in the edition alluded to, for the untranslatable name of Jehovah. I have consulted the LXX, edited by Breitinger, where I findὀθοποιησατε τῳ ἐπιβεβηκότι ἐπι θυσμων, Κυριος όνομα αὐτῷ· και ἀγαλλιάσθε ἐνωπιον αὐτου,—the sense of which translation is closely followed by the Vulgate. But be this as it may, I conceive that any variation from our old authorized version, if it be designed, is a fit subject for reprehension; if accidental, for restoration.

I remain, Sir, yours, &c., L. W.

SUNDAY SCHOOLS.-CHURCH BUILDING SOCIETY.

SIR, I have read, with entire conviction, the remarks of your correspondent in the September number, on Sunday-schools and Sundayschool teachers. The want, in so many cases, of a more judicious method is lamentably obvious. May I, Sir, respectfully suggest, through you, that your correspondent will be rendering most valuable service if he will enter much more into detail as to the remedy; especially as to the precise steps he would have taken to "teach" the scholars "to understand and to feed upon the kernel that is so plentiful in the Liturgy." I think I may venture to say that many of your readers will be much obliged to him if he will go considerably into detail on this point.

In case, also, you should happen not to have a better answer for your correspondent who asks about Church-building, I will endeavour to reply to his queries, being just now engaged in this very matter :— His first application must be to the incumbent and patron, then to the bishop of the diocese. Assistance towards the building will doubtless be had from the Incorporated Society, but to what extent is of course somewhat doubtful. He had better apply at once to the office for the papers, directing word for word as follows, when no charge for postage will be incurred :--"The Incorporated Society for Promoting the Enlargement, Building, and Repairing of Churches and Chapels, St. Martin's-place, Charing-cross." He must use these exact words.

I am aware of no other public source from which help can be had towards the endowment, but from Queen Ann's bounty; and the governors have been obliged to make a rule not to listen to any application till a church is already endowed with 451. a year; they then make it up 501., and afterwards will, I believe, double any future benefactions that can be obtained. The sum required for 457. per annum will be 1,3651. I am, Sir, most respectfully, yours, G.

VINDICATION OF THE EARLY PARISIAN GREEK PRESS.

(Concluded from p. 187.)

If, however, the Docti et Prudentes authenticate the book of collation and the unmarked MSS. which it collates, they do not furnish us with the means of ascertaining those MSS., except by the lectiones singulares which they quote from it. And Griesbach, xxxiv., Lond. xliii., having observed, that if the materials of an old edition are known, its value can be no more than the amount of the judgment of the editor on his materials, proceeds to say, "Sin vero ignorantur codices manuscripti, quos editores (i. e. Complutenses) in adornanda sua editione adhibuerunt, pretium editionis in se spectatæ dubium est omnino atque incertum." "Dubium omnino atque incertum." Yes; it is uncertain whether any text, which none of the marked MSS. support, be from a MS. older than ẞ or n, or from the latest that he had; it is uncertain whether it be from a correct MS., or from one more incorrect than either of those two: and what is incomparably the most atrocious in the eye of every modern critic, it is uncertain whether the MSS. that furnished it were from a recension of East or West Europe, of East or West Africa; and the critics will want to be delivered "ex ista nebula typographicâ.” (Seml., Pref. viii., as above.) But when I find a text in either the O mirificam or the folio, and, à fortiori, if it be in both, whether I am supported or not by any man who has actually examined the celebrated book of collations, I say, positively, "exstat in nonnullis Stephani nostri veteribus libris. It is in some Greek MSS., more or less in number, of greater or less value, that were used by Stephanus―dont il s'est servi—not from MSS. or from printed copies, to which he is so unjustly said to have attributed the authority of MSS., but from old written copies, MSS., with the understanding that they were MSS., which either he himself collated in the royal library and others of France, or his son collated for him during the three years that he was employed in the work, in the libraries of Italy. There it exists in Greek MSS., if they have not been lost; and if still existing, they have not been, for some reason or other, mutilated or torn. And if the same reading appeared in the Complutensian, or in any of Froben's editions, then I say it is sanctioned by the agreeing testimony of the MSS. of Ximenes or Erasmus with those of Stephanus, in direct opposition to what Michaelis is pleased to assert, i. p. 333,-" from these two our present editions are derived, which afford, therefore, no additional evidence, being only a repetition of foregoing testimony”—a declaration which he had as good right to make of the text of Griesbach as of that of Stephanus or Beza. This is not uncertain; this is not doubtful. If any man professes to doubt it, remember well, that the doubt is held by the assertion that MSS. never existed, the readings of which are actually quoted in all parts of the N. T. by Stephanus's most violent accusers. Here, then, is an answer, as far as editions go, if ever the opponents of a certain passage, that must be nameless, should have the fairness to state the question which we are told (Memoirs of the Controversy of the h. w., p. 52) was put to Mr. Sloss, in 1734, (i. e. before a certain "historical fact" had taken place,) by an opponent who, Mr. Orme assures us, "knew very well the subject on which he requests information." If the demand should be, not merely for MSS. containing the passage, such as have a known "local habitation and a name," but the defender should be asked, "whether he could prove that any editor of the printed copies ever had any such MSS. in his possession," an opponent like this cannot fail to be satisfied, by its being shewn him, in general, respecting Stephanus for one of the editors, without descending to the most convincing particulars, that if he doubts, that doubt can be held only by the assertion that MSS. never existed, the readings of which are quoted in all parts of the N. T. by Stephanus's most violent accusers. Mr. Porson tells us of those who follow in the chase, not like hounds that hunt, but like those that fill up the cry. If there are any but such stupid hounds that can fill up Semler's cry, quod est oppido falsum," (Wetsten, p. 386, note 285,) and that of the VOL. VI.-Oct. 1834. 3 I

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historian, when he gives tongue about the early "editors of the Greek Testament yielding to their own prejudices, or those of the times," in forging Greek, and of" the pious fraud being multiplied in every country and every language of modern Europe" (Gibbon, ch. xxxvii.), I shall not be contented with retorting the delicately-expressed censure, but shall supply some adjective to the word "fraud," that will denote no very high opinion of their piety, or even their morality. What is there to restrain such persons, if they should dislike a passage that happens not to be supported by any of the MSS. that are cited in the division where it occurs? What is to save it from their critical knife? Will it be of any use to observe that the passage is contained in all of Stephanus's editions, and therefore that the MSS. must have undergone three collations? No; they will tell you that there was no collation but by Henry, and that his was all before 1546. And these conspiring critics will inculcate upon their " voluntary dupes" that, as the cited MSS. do not contain the passage, Stephanus must have inserted it without MS. authority? Will it be of any avail to remind them that the MSS. which he cites (qu'il produit) in any place whatsoever, could not be the whole that he had to furnish his text there, but only those that he selected to oppose that text; i. e., at the utmost, those of the seven royal MSS. and the six private, first selected, that happened to have that division? and that Stephanus, when he spoke before the Sorbonne, of the number that he had from the royal library, declared that he had received fifteen from thence; and besides, that he protested that he religiously followed the best of the royal MSS. in his first edition? Can it be of any use to notice that he kept his son almost the whole interval between that and the folio searching the libraries of Italy ?-that Beza, who had his collations for his own work, guessed the amount of the MSS. in his book of collations at xxv.; and that Henry, the actual collator, afterwards gave the undesigned and incontrovertible testimony that he had seen more than xxx. MSS. with the same regadaia in the same places? The Docti et Prudentes are proof against this and ten times more. These are only "difficultates quæ sunt expediendæ ;" these are "small inaccuracies ;" it is swelling the number of MSS. that were acquired; they are hyperbolic words; no critic can "abide by" them, and they must be altered or curtailed. Shew them the readings of the unmarked MSS. that were not taken, first or last, to oppose the text of the folio; shew such in all the divisions, and you see what effect it has. No good your producing the readings of the unmarked MSS. in the very margin of the folio; some "glaring evidence" will be invented to demonstrate that Stephanus has himself declared that he had none such. They know that such readings are quoted by their own body,-by Docti et Prudentes; they avow that several of the MSS. used by Stephens himself are at present either lost or buried in obscurity; but this will never for a moment make them flinch in asserting that he had no MSS. of that division where the passage occurs but those that are cited there. And suppose that you should be able to produce not only unmarked, but even other marked MSS. having the divisioni. e. MSS. taken to oppose the folio, but not in that division, and this from their own voluntary statement-do you think that it will make them relax in their logic, and doubt their inference that the passage could not have the authority of any of Stephanus's MSS., because it was not in any of those that are cited in that division? No such thing. Those who will deny the unmarked which they have themselves quoted, rather than admit that Stephanus had MSS. that might give the passage, will proceed with equal firmness as to the marked; and when they have themselves demonstrated the identity of a marked MS. which is not cited in that division, with one that is admitted actually to have it, they will face round and call in question their own proof on the most contemptibly frivolous pretences; and, if the passage be in the Acts and Cath Ep., will still "contend that Stephens collated only seven MSS. of that division, for this cogent reason, that Stephens has quoted only seven MSS. in the Catholic Epistles;" (Letters, p. 138, n. 20.) But suppose, more

over, that you could go beyond this, that you should not merely be able to prove that Stephanus had marked as well as unmarked MSS. of that division, besides those that he cited, so that he actually had such as might have contained the text that he gave at the place in question;-suppose, still farther, that you can produce the best evidence possible for the fact that some of these MSS. actually contained the passage as he printed it-even that of the man who had his book of collations, which his own work obliged him to examine strictly throughout—the man to whose testimony respecting its contents they themselves constantly appeal as unimpeachable, and, in fact, as the only evidence, except the concurring testimony of the collator himself,-still, I tell you that it is all lost labour. He that gainsayeth, will gainsay still. If such men have once passed the word for its extermination, the same means will dispose of the evidence in this case also. It will be taken as an historical fact that ❝istos codices ad quos provocat, alibi frustra quam in ejus cerebro quæsieris," and, as Mr. Emlyn says, ii. p. 210, "there need be no more words about it; the matter is determined before." They will hatch for him such "strange misapprehension" as was never attributed, in any other case, to a human being above an idiot in understanding; they will alter his words to suit this misapprehension, and then will endeavour, "in a very candid manner, to apologise all they can for the mistake" that they make for him,-knowing, at the same time, that his means of knowledge, and his use of those means, precluded the possibility of such misapprehension; and, moreover, that if there had been any "misapprehension" so incomparably "strange," it must have shewn itself in hundreds of instances, and been corrected by his editors, to each of whom he distinctly appeals respecting the codices that he quotes, and the first actually speaks of them in an advertisement at the end of his work. Conscious of this, they will have an alternative; and, with a self-confutation unparalleled, face round, and in the same breath go upon the opposite and contradictory accusation of" deliberate falsehood," for which they cannot pretend to find a motive, and for which they can offer no proof but Wetsten's inference, that a man must be a falsifier in his testimony which he himself takes throughout, because he behaved so ill to Castalio, and wrote a book to shew that heretics ought to be punished capitally* (149, Seml. 382). So that, after you have done all, the cry for delendum est will be as strong as ever; and men of the first reputation will not be deterred from "protesting against the passage being still permitted to occupy a place in the common copies of the New Testament,' or from telling you, that when you have "confuted Griesbach," you may next proceed to establish the genuineness of the epistle to the Laodiceans, or of the Acts of Pilate."

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Griesbach having decided that where he and his brother critics have not ascertained the MSS. from which an edition was formed-" pretium editionis in se spectatæ dubium est omnino atque incertum"-proceeds to this conclusion:"Cum vero pretium, quod tribuitur editioni cuidam, nil sit aliud, quam opinio quædam atque judicium de lectionum, quas editio exhibet, bonitate generatim; facile intelligitur, pretium quod dubium est, nullum esse." For myself, I must distinctly avow, that this non " facile intelligitur;" and I cannot help thinking, that if Griesbach had really esteemed it so very easy a task to make the world understand it, he would have fairly avowed, that Stephanus's MSS. amounted to "plusquam triginta;" because those above the 15 of the margin,

It may be neither an uninteresting nor an unprofitable inquiry to examine whether Calvin and Beza were led into their views of persecution by popish feelings which still adhered to their religion, or by the metaphysical notions which they themselves added to it. At all events, I think such sentiments could not be entertained by any person who was perfectly taught as the truth is in Jesus. Still I accord with Wetsten's actions in readily admitting Beza's testimony everywhere else, and of course dissent from his words in this place.

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