very careful definition of "the purpose for which they are quoted." It
is difficult, without entering into minute classifications, accurately
to represent in a few words the opinions of a great number of writers,
and briefly convey a fair idea of the course of critical judgment.
Desirous, therefore, of embracing a large class,--for both this note and
the next, with mere difference of epoch, illustrate the same statement
in the text,--and not to overstate the case on my own side, I used what
seemed to me a very moderate phrase, decreasing the force of the
opinion of those who positively rejected the Epistles, and not unfairly
representing the hesitation of those who did not fully accept them.
I said, then, in guarded terms,--and I italicise the part which Dr.
Lightfoot chooses to suppress,--that "similar _doubts, more or less
definite_," were expressed by the writers referred to.
Dr. Lightfoot admits that Bochart directly condemns one Epistle, and
would probably have condemned the rest also; that Aubertin, Blondel,
Basnage, R. Parker, and Saumaise actually rejected all; and that Cook
pronounces them "either supposititious or shamefully corrupted." So
far, therefore, there can be no dispute. I will now take the rest in
succession. Dr. Lightfoot says that Humfrey "considers that they have
been interpolated and mutilated, but he believes them genuine in the
main." Dr. Google has so completely warped the statement in the text,
that he seems to demand nothing short of a total condemnation of the
Epistles in the note, but had I intended to say that Humfrey and all of
these writers definitely rejected the whole of the Epistles I should not
have limited myself to merely saying that they expressed "doubts more
or less definite," which Humfrey does. Dr. Lightfoot says that Socinus
"denounces corruptions and
{xxxiii}
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