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An historical account of two notable corruptions of Scripture
An historical account of two notable corruptions of Scripture Author:Isaac Newton Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: what God ? If of the Holy Ghost, since these Three are One, how can the Holy Ghost be reconciled to him who is the enemy of either the Father or the Son ?" These... more » places of Cyprian being, in my opinion, genuine, seem so apposite to prove the testimony of the Three in Heaven, that I should never have suspected a mistake in it, could I but have reconciled it with the ignorance I meet with of this reading in the next age, amongst the Latines of both Africa and Europe, as well as among the Greeks. For had it been in Cyprian's Bible, the Latines of the next age, when all the world was engaged in disputing about the Trinity, and all arguments that could be thought of were diligently sought out, and daily brought upon the stage, could never have been ignorant of a text, which in our age, now the dispute is over, is chiefly insisted upon. In reconciling this difficulty, I consider, therefore, that the only words of the text quoted by Cyprian in both places are, " And these Three are One : " which words may belong to the eighth verse as well as to the seventh. For Eucherius1 bishopof Lion in France, and contemporary to St. Austin, reading the text without the seventh verse, tells us, that many then understood the Spirit, the Water, and the Blood, to signify the Trinity. And St. Austin1 is one of those many; as you may see iu his third book against Maximus, where he tells us, that "the Spirit is the Father, for God is a Spirit: the Water the Holy Ghost, for he is the Water which Christ gives to them that thirst: and the Blood the Son, for the Word was made flesh." Now if it was the opinion of many in the Western churches of those times, (hat the Spirit, the Water, and the Blood, signified the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; it is plain that the testimony of Three in Heaven, in expresswo...« less