In Further Proof of the Authenticity of 1 Jn 5v7

INTRODUCTION.

THE controversy respecting the authenticity of 1 John v. 7- originated from Erasmus's omission of the verse in his first and second editions of the Greek Testament. It was omitted by him, because it was not
contained in the MSS. from which he printed those editions ; but it was extant in the Latin Version ; nor had its authenticity ever been questioned, before the omission of it by Erasmus, and his defence of his editions. It was however restored to the text by him in his third edition, on the authority of a manuscript found in England, which contained the verse.

From that time to the present, the verse has been rejected as spurious, or defended as authentic, according to the different views, which have been taken of it and of its evidences by learned men, both unbelievers in the doctrine of the verse and believers. In the sixteenth century its chief opponents were Socinus, Blandrata, and the Fratres Poloni ; its defenders, Ley, Beza, Bellarmine, and Sixtus Senensis. In the seventeenth century its authenticity was denied by Sandius and Simon, and asserted by Gerhardus, Hammond, Bull and Grabe.  In the eighteenth century the verse was maintained by Mill and Bengelius, and opposed by Wetstein, Griesbach, and Mr. Porson, the Vindication of whose Letters to Archdeacon Travis by Crito Cantabrigiensis has given occasion to the following Tract.

 

The Inspiration of Scripture

There are two reasons which justify an investigation into the position of the seventeenth-century Lutheran dogmaticians regarding the inspiration of Scripture.

First, the dogmaticians have had no small theological influence upon their Lutheran posterity, even down to the present day.

Second, the attitude of the old dogmaticians toward Scripture has been the chief point where they are remembered and judged.

Preus explores the writings of

Gerhard
Calov
Quenstedt
Baier
Hollaz
and others

Has the Bible Been Kept Pure?

The Westminster Confession of Faith and the Providential Preservation of Scripture

This book is more specific than Muller's Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics Volume 2, as it deals with the specific issue of Providential Preservation

"This work of historical theology looks at the religious epistemology of the Westminster divines and especially what they meant in their Section 1:8 of the Westminster Confession of Faith when they stated that the Scriptures had been kept pure in all ages by God’s providence. I discuss whether they meant to teach that only the doctrine or the doctrine in its autographic text of Scripture had been preserved entire. The Westminster divines held that both the sense or doctrine and the pure text of the original revelation in the original languages had been kept pure through all ages. I argue that their view is the view of Reformed orthodoxy and indeed articulates the claim that the Bible is the autopistic or self-authenticating Word of God. This was an essential position for the Protestant Reformation and its heirs, because it rested ultimate divine authority in the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scriptures as the supreme judge of religious matters. This was in contrast to the Roman Catholic view that the church was that supreme authority. This debate is a matter of interest today, because the question of authority is still very much alive. For the most part evangelicals have accepted the new textual-critical paradigm of the modern textual critics that the recovery of the autographic text is at least an on-going project, and some would say an impossible project. Such a stance removes epistemological certainty for many, and is a radically different position than that of the Reformed orthodox in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It is a view which must be recovered by the church, because, as the Puritans realised, it is required to provide certainty in the authority of the Holy Scriptures, which is a precondition of a subjective assurance of faith."

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A History Over the Debate of 1 John 5:7,8

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