GENUINENESS OF THE TEXT of the First Epistle Chap. v. V. 7. There are Three in Heaven, &c. Demonftrated by Proofs which are beyond By DAVID MARTIN, Rector of Tranflated from the French. LONDON: Printed for W. and J. INNYS at the Prince's Arms MDCCXXI!. 1243 C. 131 THE PREFACE. HO' I engage a third time upon the fubject of this famous Text in St. John's Epiftle, There are three in Heaven which bear record, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghoft, and thefe three are one; it is not to continue the defence of it against Mr. Emlyn. There would be no end in removing the miflakes he commits in this matter, and I am naturally an enemy to ftrife and debates. I have always been of opinion, that when a truth is fufficiently clear'd up, all that is added thereto by reiterated difputes, rather carries it off from its true point of fight, than is capable of fixing the mind upon it. Questions are multiply'd, new difficulties are ftarted that are foreign to the principal fubject, perfonal interefts are infenfibly mix'd with it, and in this confufion the Reader's mind, divided betwixt fo many different matters, gives A 2 6 gives but an imperfect attention to the fubject upon which it fhould be wholly employ'd. Mr. Emlyn has lately publish'd a Piece, under the name of a Reply to the Examination I had made of his Anfwer, by which he had pretended to confute my Differtation upon the paffage of St. Johns but as he has but flightly run over fome paffages, and not touch'd upon divers others which carry demonftration and conviction along with 'em, I fhall have no need to return frequently to him; and if this was all I had to do, I might have difpens'd with writing again upon the fame fubject. The only thing which could have engag'd me in it, would have been to defend my innocence in the quotation I had made of a Manuscript of Berlin, upon occafion of which Mr. Emlyn has thought fit to triumph; but one or two Sheets inferted in. fome one of the Critical Journals would have fuffic'd for this, and all the rest of his Piece. Mr. Emlyn therefore and his Reply will be here but incidentally spoke of, and according as the matters I fhall have to treat of will require: the principal defign of this Work does not turn upon. that; and the purpose of it is of more concern to Chriftians, who owning no other foundation of their Faith than the facred Scripture, cannot but with fingular edification fee a Text, in which the myftery of the Trinity is evidently taught, defended against thofe, who thro' the malignant force of prejudice, or an exprefs hatred to this facred myltery, endeavour to take from it this Apofto lick paffage, and deny it to be St. John's. I had prov'd the genuineness of it by the most folid arguments, that can be urg'd for a fact of this nature; and thefe proofs are fo numerous, and of fo many different kinds, that 'tis impoffible not to be convinc'd by 'em, unless an obftinate refolution The PREFACE. refolution form'd of fet purpose against this facred Text, fhuts mens eyes to Reafon it felf. I have produc'd the teftimony of the Latin Church from the fecond Age up to the laft; the teftimony of the Greek Church; and laftly, the Greek Manufcripts of St. John's Epiftle, in the first of all the Editions which were made of the New Teftament in Greek, in which Cardinal Ximenes employ'd feveral learned Men, and which was printed at Complutum from excellent Manufcripts in 1513. After this famous Edition comes that of Erafmus in 1f22. in which this learned Critick and Divine, inferts this paffage of St. John in the manner it lay in a Manufcript found in England. These two ancient Editions were follow'd by those of Robert Stephens, who in the year 1546. and 1549. publifh'd the Greek New Teftament with this Text, agreeably to feveral Manufcripts which he had from the Library of King Francis the First, and fome other Libraries of that time. Divers attempts have been made to enervate the force of this proof; I have given 'em in my two former Treatifes, and have fhew'd the weaknefs of them. But a F. le Long, of the Oratory, has lately taken a new method of oppofing the Editions of Robert Stephens, namely, by produ→ cing the Manufcripts he thinks to have been those of this learned Printer, in which the paffage of St John is not found. I have fhewn that this Father, as learned as he is, has been too credulous in taking the Manufcript he produces from the King's Library for those of Stephens's; and I prove invincibly from the Manufcripts themfelves, that a F. le Long's Letter dated April 12. 1720. and inferted in the Journal des Savans in June. 2 they |