they had no regard to the Copies, which have not this facred Text, upon the occafions of a regular correction, what esteem do they deserve fix or feven hundred years after, unless an error is chang'd into truth by tract of time?

Laftly, the conftant and univerfal ufe the Church has made of the Verfion and Copies in which this Text was read, without having ever gainfay'd thofe, in which it was not found, is the moft certain approbation they can have of the former, and an indifputable difowning of the latter. Let these Manufcripts make, as much as they will, one of the curiofities in Libraries; they may be valuable in other refpects, but the esteem must ne ver be extended fo far as to their faults.

The End of the First Part.

PART

PART the SECOND.

In which, the paffage of St. John's Epiftle, There are three in heaven, &c. is prov'd to be genuine from the Greek Copies, and the use of the Greek Church.

That the two ancient Latin Verfions, the Italick and the Vulgate of St. Jerom, are a proof that the disputed paffage was in the Greek Copies.

T

HE Italick Verfion being the most ancient of all thofe of the New Teftament, it can have been made only from the

Greek: 'tis a fact of which no perfon has ever doubted, and which Mr. Simon fpeaking of this Verfion in his Critical History has own'd. Yet this is not to fay, that this Verfion, how ancient foever it may have been, had not its faults; there is none exempt, and that is a good one which has the feweft. But these faults, which moft frequently proceed either from a certain wearinefs the mind contracts in a long and difficult work; or from a want of a thorough acquaintance with the full meaning of certain words in the original language, and fometimes even with the words of the language into which the tranflation is made, that are moft proper to the fubject; these faults, I fay, tho' they were in the Italick Verfion, were not carried K

fo

fo far as to cut off a Text which was in the Greek, nor to infert one which was not there. This would have been a moft audacious crime, and which thofe pious tranflators, who in thofe firft ages made a Verfion defign'd for the inftruction of the Church, could not have been guilty of.

The Text of the 7th verfe of the vth Chapter of the first Epistle of St. John was inferted in that Verfion; it was read there from the firft ages; Tertullian, St. Cyprian, Vigilius, St. Fulgentius, and the others who have quoted it from this Verfion, understood the Greek; the laft efpecially was skill'd in it, as we read in his Life, prefix'd before his Works what room is there left after all this to doubt whether this Text was in the Greek? To doubt of it with any fort of grounds, they muft be able to deny that this Verfion was made from the Greek; and who will deny it? or they must be able to prove, that it was fo unfaithful as to have inferted for Texts of Scripture whole paffages, which never were there, and which no body had read there; but how can they prove fo odious an imputation, and which none of the Chriftians and Doctors of the remote ages has ever charged upon a Verfion fo venerable? Or laftly, they must be able to advance that none of those who have taken the paffage of St. John from this Verfion was capable of comparing it with the Greek, or that if they were capable, they had neither the zeal, nor the care to do it: but for a man to afcribe fuch fentiments to 'em, would be to expose himself to the derifion of all the world. Nothing then would remain but abfolutely to deny, that the Text we fpeak of was in the Italick Verfion; but can they deny this after the proofs I have given of it? Tho there fhould be now extant in our days one or more ancient Manufcripts of that Verfion, and the paffage of St. John be read in 'em, could they fee

it there better than those famous Authors did, who have copied it from thence? And would the report of the Learned among the moderns, who fhould declare this paffage to be in thofe ancient Copics, deferve more credit with us, than the teftimonies which have been by the Tertullians, the Cyprians, the Vigilius's, the Fulgentius's, and the three or four hundred African Bifhops? Since then none of these things I have mention'd can be denied, they can't but own, that this firft propofition, which is infeparably connected with all the reft, namely, that the Text of St. John was in the Greek, is by this very means put beyond all contradiction."

I fay the fame thing with regard to St. Jerom's Verfion, and the proof of it is more eafily to be given. We have no need to fuppofe that St. Ferom was well-skill'd in the Greek Tongue, no perfon ever difputed it; no more have we need to fuppofe that in revifing the Italick Verfion of the New Teftament, he not only chofe the most correct and most exact Manufcripts, but that he had alfo the the Greek Copies in his hand, in order to regulate his corrections by thofe Copics: He has himself declar'd that he follow'd this method; Novum Teftamentum, & fays he, Græcæ fidei reddidi. "I have corrected the Verfion of the New Te"stament exactly after the Greek Copies." Tho' he had not faid it, 'tis feen enough from the abundance of remarks he has made in his Commentaries. He had found in the Verfion, which he revised in order to make it more correct, the paffage of the Epiftle of St. John; and if in comparing the Verfion of that Epuitle with the Greek, he had feen that it differ'd from the Greek in what regards this Text, is it conceivable that he would have left it there, and that induftrious, as he was,

De Scriptor. Ecclefiaft..

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to

to make alterations in many places, which may feem flight, he would have let pafs in his Verfion fo manifest a depravation of the original Text of that Epiftle? The abfurdity is palpable; he faw then this paffage in the Greek, as he found it in

the Latin.

The error which opposes it felf to the truth of this Text neceffarily yields to the force of this reafon, unless it extricates it felf by the help of anothe error, boldly and confidently afferted; and this is to deny that St. Jerom has inferted this paffage in his Verfion. But how can they maintain this after the teftimonies which I have brought to the contrary? The Romish Cenfors fay in their Preface to Clement the Eigth's Bible, as reported by h Mr. Simon, that fince nine hundred years all the Authors who have flourish'd in the Church, have only made ufe of St. Jerom's Verfion; 'tis then from them, and the quotations of that Verfion which are found in their Books, that we may be informed with moft certainty of what was read in that Verfion; and the certainty which will arife with relation to any particular paffage, will be far greater, and beyond all doubt, if this paffage is found quoted by feveral of these famous Doctors. We have here all this, as I have fhewn in the ninth Chapter of the first Part; and thefe Authors are exprefly of the fame age the Romish Cenfors fpeak of. These Authors are fome of above eight hundred years, and others above nine hundred and near a thousand. This fact being thus prov'd, and this laft refuge taken away from thofe, who declaim against the genuineness of this paffage, they will be forc'd to own that St. Jerom mutt have found it in the Greek, because for upwards of nine hun

h Hift. Critiq. des Verf. du N. Teftament. ch. vii. p. 75.

dred