CHAP. XII.] BIBLICAL CONTROVERSY. 171 



forever set at rest. It was admitted that in. all the Greek MSS. 

 of the highest antiquity, the disputed passages were wanting, and 

 Person enumerated a long list of Greek and Latin authors, in 

 cluding the names of many fathers of the Church, who, in their 

 controversies with Arians and Socinians, had not availed them 

 selves of the text in question, although they had cited some of 

 the verses which immediately precede and follow, which lend a 

 comparatively feeble support to their argument. 



All who took the lead against the genuineness of the passage, 

 except Sir Isaac Newton, were Trinitarians ; but doubtless felt 

 with Person, that &quot; he does the best service to truth who hinders 

 it from being supported by falsehood.&quot; Throughout the con 

 troversy, many eminent divines of the Anglican church have 

 distinguished themselves by their scholarship and candor, and it 

 is well known by those who have of late years frequented the 

 literary circles of Rome, that the learned Cardinal Mai was 

 prevented, in 1838, from publishing his edition of the Codex 

 Vaticanus, because he could not obtain leave from the late Pope 

 (Gregory XVI.) to omit the interpolated passages, and had 

 satisfied himself that they were wanting in all the most ancient 

 MSS. at Rome and Paris. The Pontiff refused, because he was 

 bound by the decrees of the Council of Trent, and of a Church 

 pretending to infallibility, which had solemnly sanctioned the 

 Vulgate, and the Cardinal had too much good faith to give the 

 authority of his name to what he regarded as a forgery. In Ox 

 ford, in 1819, the verse was riot admitted, by the examiners in 

 Divinity, as Scripture warranty for the doctrine of the Trinity ; 

 yet, not only is it retained in the English Prayer-Book, in the 

 epistle selected for the first Sunday after Easter, but the Protest 

 ant Episcopal Church in America, when finally revising their 

 version of the English Liturgy in 1801, several years after 

 Person s letters had been published, did not omit the passage, 

 although they had the pruning knife in their hand, and were lop 

 ping off several entire services, such as the Commination, Gun 

 powder Treason, King Charles the Martyr, the Restoration of 

 Charles II., and last, not least, the Athanasian Creed. What 

 is still more remarkable, Protestants of every denomination have 



