Below is a table of the 16 examples of Westminster divines supposedly using "Modern" Textual Criticism shared by Zachary J. Cole.
Of these 16 note:
Two of the examples (3 and 4) are referenced with regard to the sermon audience (House of Commons, a company of soldiers) but not discussed in any detail. One of the examples (2) relates to harmonization of Matthew and Luke and order of verses but not text of those verses. Four examples (5, 6, 7, 8) are a defense of the TR and is not an example of a divine embracing a variant. One (16) involves a one letter difference in a single word. Four examples (1, 9, 10, 14) involve the difference of a single word without any semantic significance (a difference in form but not matter; see discussion above on the authoritas divina duplex). Three other examples (5, 6, 11) relate to one word. One example (2) relates to a single prepositional phrase with minor variation. One example (7) relates to a verb mood. One (15) relates to the person of three verbs. One (13, the example from Ussher) seems to involve an interpretation of the verse rather than the text, per se.
If eight of the examples are excluded from consideration, because they are not detailed (3, 4), do not involve embracing a variant (5, 6, 7, 8), or have to do with an interpretation rather than text (2, 13), this leaves only eight remaining examples. Of these all would be considered minor in scale.
Does this demonstrate that the Westminster divines were doing "modern" textual criticism?
In his article promoting the idea that the Westminster divines were doing "Modern" Textual Criticism just like evangelical scholars today, Zachary J. Cole can offer no examples of Westminster divines who rejected the authenticity of the two lengthiest passages challenged by modern textual criticism: the traditional ending of Mark (Mark 16:9-20) and the woman taken in adultery (John 7:53—8:11). He can cite no Westminster divine who challenged the authenticity and suggested the removal from the text of an entire verse, as often occurs in the modern critical text (see e.g., Matt 17:21; 18:11; 23:14; Mark 7:16; 9:44, 46; 11:26; 15:28; Luke 17:36; 23:17; 24:40; John 5:4; Acts 8:37; 15:34; 28:29; Rom 16:24). He gives no example of a Westminster divine who challenged the authenticity of various readings typically rejected as spurious within modern textual criticism, including the doxology of the Lord’s Prayer (Matt 6:13b); Christ’s prayer “Father forgive them…” from the cross for those who crucified him (Luke 23:34a); John’s declaration that Christ is “the only begotten Son” (John 1:18); Paul’s declaration that in Christ “God was manifest in the flesh” (1 Tim 3:16); and the “three heavenly witnesses” (1 John 5:7). Indeed, Cole offers not one example of a divine who challenged any of the prooftexts found in the Westminster Confession of Faith, passages which came to be undermined with the rise of modern textual criticism (see, e.g., 1 John 5:7 and John 1:18 as cited in WCF 2:3; Mark 16:15 and Acts 8:37 in WCF 28.4).
Cole seems to operate with the understanding that the examples he cites, though minor, indicate that the divines did not hold to any received text “approved,” as he puts it, “in every point of variation” and that, furthermore, this indicate they were committed to the same “reconstruction” method as that found in modern textual criticism. He offers no acknowledgement of the more likely explanation that the divines affirmed the common, received text while at the same time acknowledging the existence of some minor variants in the transmission process. Discussions of such minor variants in written sermons or other writings differs substantially from the reconstruction methods of modern textual criticism, because the Protestant orthodox men believed that they possessed a reliable received text and so did not have to set out to reconstruct the text of the Holy Bible de novo.
JTR
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