fervent piety as well as knowledge, who would labour heart and soul together in the unity of the same Spirit and perfect fellowship in Christ. It would be best, however, if in one individual could be found the triple character of poet, prophet, and divine. Mine is a very unambitious effort to utilize the fruits of long years of study which have found acceptance abroad with German scholars-though without any special savour of theology-and with clerical societies in various localities at home, by contributing not to the superstructure, but the foundation only, of some future edifice, by eliciting the exact meaning of the words of Scripture, as understood in the days when the apostles wrote. I have only commented on various readings where the sense of the text is seriously affected, or important passages have been omitted in the new Revision, or their authenticity disparaged by those unhappy marginal notes; and I have generally left untouched the transpositions and minor changes adopted by the Revisers, not from any doubt of their importance, but from fear only of incurring the reproach μέγα βιβλιον, μέγα κακόν. It is well known that most of the omissions, which have given rise to recent controversy, occur in the two earliest MSS. of the fourth century (B, the Vatican; and Aleph,, the Sinaitic, discovered by Tischendorf), and that the claim of these MSS. to almost paramount authority, so ably advocated by Westcott and Hort, would have justly found a more willing acceptance had it been less dogmatically asserted. But, as usual, partisanship has run into extremes. They are not corrupt as D, nor are they infallible ; and their greater antiquity commands our respect, even when opposed to the sober text of A, the Alexandrine MS. in the British Museum. The omissions which occur so often in these MSS., so strongly contrasted with the interpolations in D, Codex Bezæ, or Cambridge, scarcely deserve the complete adhesion of Westcott and Hort, as some, at least, may be due to the neglect of copyists, or the resumption of their task after similarities of endings, or in places like Luke xxiii. 33, and perhaps in all the four last chapters of this Gospel, to a desire to rescind any passages not attested by the other Gospels. The very opposite error of many of the MSS. consists of the insertion of many words and clauses, because of their occurrence in the parallels. In the translation I have most frequently left untouched the many passages in which the Authorized Version has been followed, or obviously improved by a new rendering; and I have not commented on transpositions where the Revisers have followed the order of the Greek. During the years I have alluded to, I have carefully compared almost every word with the original Greek, and the Greek with the linguistic usage of the Septuagint, and studied both carefully; but I am indebted for assistance in any reference to the Hebrew or Aramaic to one whom, though I am not allowed to name him, I hereby thank most gratefully. I believe that, if it had not been for the fear openly avowed by many critics-and, perhaps, sanctioned by the Chairman of the Committee-that the work has to supersede our incomparable version, greater justice would have been done to the judgment and impartiality of the Revisers, and to the comparative purity of the new text. But the ten years' labour has not been fruitless, though many a decade is still required, and many a revision of new Revisers, before this end can be attained. Only when Biblical scholars at home and abroad have thoroughly exercised, if not exhausted, criticism; when more than half of the marginal notes have been removed and the old references restored; when those that remain have a different value to the needless ones in Mark vi. 22, John v. 2, Heb. x. 32, and many in the same Epistle; when fuller justice has been done to the force of prepositions, and a new Tyndale found to reconcile truth and fidelity with due sublimity and grace; can a new version be achieved worthy to displace the old. Meantime, let every humble effort to restore the pure Word of God, or make its meaning plainer, be received without abuse or acrimony: whether scholars or divines, all are labouring to build only on the same foundation-gold, silver, costly stones, perhaps wood, hay, and stubble. DODINGTON RECTORY, |