Page 140.—See the Note.—“I cannot but express my satisfaction that in the _very place_ where this book was thus regarded as an authority, and thus earnestly recommended, it is now renounced and disclaimed.” I do not know what Mr. Byrth includes in “renouncing” and “disclaiming.” If these words mean “rejecting as a standard authority,” then in the place alluded to was the Improved Version _always_ renounced and disclaimed. The praise quoted in the note certainly requires much qualification. Nevertheless the Improved Version is neither renounced nor disclaimed. We have no predilection for the rude principle of taking things in the mass, or leaving them in the mass, without discrimination. And I fancy that if our opponents were in these matters _as much at liberty_ as ourselves, there are some of their _standards_ which would soon be thoroughly sifted. --------------------- Page 143.—“For even they would scarcely think highly of the scholarship of Bishop Pearce.” I have quoted Bishop Pearce, not for his learning, though unquestionably that was respectable, but for the sake of stating that the acceptance by a Bishop of the English Church of a certain interpretation ought to have screened “a reputed heretic” from the charge of accepting the same interpretation solely for the sake of an _a priori_ meaning. --------------------- Page 146.—“Epiphanius has little authority with any one else.” Mr. Byrth is quite right in his estimate of Epiphanius. But it is hardly wise for those who, like Mr. Byrth, rest their faith upon external testimonies, to look too closely into the characters of the witnesses, or raise doubts respecting them in the public mind. We know how much of the weight of these testimonies rests upon Eusebius—and I doubt not Mr. Byrth knows very well that he is clearly convicted of having interpolated one passage in Josephus, and corrupted another. How can we tell how far this process of reconciliation was carried? Why is it that we have not the works of the Heretics, of whose _names_ ecclesiastical History is so full? --------------------- Page 147.—See the Note.—Mr. Byrth seems to think it impossible to have worded the Title of his Lecture so as not to have insulted _some one_. Will he allow me to suggest what the Title might have been without offence, though not with exact truth of description—“Some of the interpretations of the Improved Version of the New Testament based upon defective Scholarship.” To attribute “dishonesty” and want of “candour,” Mr. Byrth will I am sure feel to be too vulgar to be altogether worthy of his character as a Critic and a Scholar. In the text of his Lecture (p. 122), he indeed states his belief that Unitarian Interpretation, _of every kind_, wants scholarship, or wants honesty—and it was to the proof of this statement that he ought to have applied himself, or else to have altered the Title of his Lecture.