A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament, Vol. II.Scrivener, Frederick Henry Ambrose
Religion
A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament, Vol. II.
Scrivener, Frederick Henry Ambrose
Bible. New Testament -- Criticism, interpretation, etc.
of York, whose remonstrances to Queen Anne some years subsequently
hindered the ribald wit that wrote “A Tale of a Tub” from polluting the
episcopal throne of an English see, obtained from her for Mill a stall at
Canterbury, and the royal command to prosecute his New Testament
forthwith. The preferment came just in time. Three years afterwards the
volume was given to the Christian world, and its author’s course was
already finished: his life’s work well ended, he had entered upon his
rest. He was spared the pain of reading the unfair attack alike on his
book and its subject by our eminent Commentator, Daniel Whitby (“Examen
Variantium Lectionum,” 1710), and of witnessing the unscrupulous use of
Whitby’s arguments made by the sceptic Anthony Collins in his “Discourse
of Free Thinking,” 1713.
Dr. Mill’s services to Biblical criticism surpass in extent and value
those rendered by any other, except perhaps one or two men of our own
time. A large proportion of his care and pains, as we have seen already,
was bestowed on the Fathers and ancient writers of every description who
have used or cited Scripture. The versions are usually considered his
weakest point, although he first accorded to the Vulgate and to its
prototype the Old Latin the importance they deserve. His knowledge of
Syriac was rather slight, and for the other Eastern tongues, if he was not
more ignorant than his successors, he had not discovered how little Latin
translations of the Ethiopic, &c., can be trusted. As a collator of
manuscripts the list subjoined will bear full testimony to his industry:
without seeking to repeat details we have entered into before under the
Cursive MSS., it is right to state that he either himself re-examined, or
otherwise represented more fully and exactly, the codices that had been
previously used for the London Polyglott and the Oxford N. T. of 1675.
Still it would be wrong to dissemble the fact that Mill’s style of
collation is not such as the strictness of modern scholarship demands. He
seldom notices at all such various readings as arise from the
transposition of words, the insertion or omission of the Greek article,
from homoeoteleuta, or itacisms, or from manifest errors of the pen; while
in respect to general accuracy he is as much inferior to those who have
trod in his steps, as he rises above Stephen and Ussher, or the persons
employed by Walton and Fell. It has been my fortune to collate not a few
manuscripts after this great critic, and I have elsewhere been obliged to
notice these plain facts, I would fain trust in no disparaging temper.
During the many years that Mill’s N. T. has been my daily companion, my
reverence for that diligent and earnest man has been constantly growing:
the principles of internal evidence which guided his choice between
conflicting authorities were simple (as indeed they ought to be), but
applied with rare judgement, sagacity, and moderation: his zeal was
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