“Dr. Jamieson appears to me to have solidly refuted this assertion.[[170]] But he has, by no means, proceeded so far as he might easily have done, in shewing Dr. Priestley’s remarkable inattention to rigid accuracy in the allegation of his authorities.
“The instances of this kind which I have observed have given me much astonishment. If they concerned merely the literary reputation of this truly eminent character, to drag them into public notice could only be the work of a petulant and little mind. But they become cases of a very different nature, when conclusions of prime importance on a very interesting subject are inferred from egregious misconstructions of an author’s meaning. In such cases regard to truth must supersede personal delicacies.
“This duty becomes the more urgent when we are told, from high and respectable authority, that, ‘in all the most important controversies in which’ Dr. Priestley ‘was engaged, he had studied the subject thoroughly, and was a complete master of the whole question:’ and that, in his reasoning, ‘there was nothing artificial and ambiguous; no design to slur over difficulties and objections, or to lay greater stress upon a topic than it would well bear.’[[171]]
“The doctor has selected Chrysostom as the father whose evidence is most ample in support of the opinion, that John first taught the divinity of Christ. ‘Chrysostom,’ says Dr. Priestley, ‘represents all the preceding writers of the New Testament as children, who heard, but did not understand things, and who were busy about cheese-cakes and childish sports, but John,’ he says, ‘taught what the angels themselves did not know before he declared it.’[[172]]
“At the bottom of the page, Dr. Priestley faithfully transcribes the Greek of this passage, and no one can say that his translation is materially unfair, so far as it goes. The sentence is exactly thus: ‘All the rest, like little children, hear indeed, yet do not understand what they hear, but are captivated with cakes and childish sports.’ The omission of the clause ‘all the rest,’ (οι γε αλλοι παντες) does not appear of much consequence. The insertion of it would only have led the reader to inquire for the antecedent, and Dr. Priestley has provided a ready answer: ‘all the preceding writers of the New Testament.’
“Do me the favour, my dear Sir, to take down the volume of Chrysostom, and turn to the passage. Will you find the antecedent to this relative clause to be any ‘writers of the New Testament,’ or any persons at all connected with the New Testament? No, Sir. You will find it to be the effeminate and dissipated spectators of athletic games, and the auditors of musicians and oratorial sophists![[173]]”
Smith’s Letters to Belsham.
[168]. Letter to Dr. Priestley, in vol. i. of Dr. Williams’ edition of Owen on the Hebrews.
[169]. Dr. Williams refers only to Chillingworth by name. I would take the liberty of adding, that M. Daille’s admirable work On the Use of the Fathers in Determining Religious Controversies, is deserving of the most careful perusal with reference to this subject.
[170]. See his valuable work, Vindication of the Primitive Faith, &c. in Reply to Dr. Priestley’s Hist. of Early Opinions: vol. i. p. 284-313.