and deep impression of the sanctity and vast importance of that ministry for which they are designed. I even think of preparing a Greek and Latin edition of it, with annotations and indexes, and have collected a variety of materials towards it, for it is more than a century since it was printed, in Germany. Meanwhile I must wait for the appearance of Montfaucon's promised edition of the whole of Chrysostom's works."

This last observation shows why his own publication was so long delayed. Though the first volume of Montfaucon's edition came out in 1718, and contained the treatise "On the Priesthood," yet Bengel's inquiries for it at Strasburg, and among various booksellers in Germany, were unavailing. He was therefore obliged at last (this was in 1724) to apply to Bernard de Montfaucon himself, who had the kindness immediately to send him the treatise in a set of proof sheets; (as a whole first volume could not well be separated from the rest, and to purchase all the volumes would have been too expensive for Bengel.) The delay, however, gave him opportunity of carefully collating the preceding editions, and for availing himself of some valuable manuscripts which had not been noticed in them.* The form of this edition resembles that of his "Gregory:" containing the revised Greek text, and the Latin version at one view, on opposite pages. The notes are at the end, and consist of a compressed selection of the best remarks of preceding commentators; many new notes of his own; and some of the best thoughts of the best writers on pastoral theology. In all which appendages he endeavoured to confine himself to what was most absolutely requisite; as it was one of his rules for editing an ancient author, that we are not to act as architects, who plan, perfect, and accomplish their own original ideas; but like some tasteful and diligent gardener, who sets off the native and appropriate beauties of a spot of ground in their simplest and most attractive form. To this work he also annexed an interesting tract, entitled, "Prodromus, N. T., &c.," which we shall have to notice in the following chapter.

* His work is entitled, "Joannis Chrysostomi de Sacerdotio libri sex, Græcè et Latinè, utrinque recogniti et notis indicibusque aucti, eo maximè consilio, ut cœnobiorum Wirtembergicorum alumni, et cæteri, qui N. T. Græco imbuti sunt, ad scriptores ecclesiasticos suavi gustu invitentur, facilique methodo præparentur. Accedit Prodromus Novi Testamenti Græci rectè cautèque adornandi: operâ Jo. Alberti Bengelii: Stuttgardiæ, apud J. B. Mezlerum et C. Erhardum, 1725."-In the year 1825 there appeared (as if for a memorial of the value of this edition, after a hundred years,) a beautiful stereotype impression of its Greek text, published by Charles Tauchnitz, [of Leipsic.]

Moreover, he wrote "Annotations upon Macarius," whose Greek text, with its Latin version, he improved in various important passages, and elucidated upon many points of philology and divinity. These annotations Dr. Pritius had intended to insert in an improved edition of his favourite Macarius, which his death prevented him from completing, so that it never was published. Lastly, Bengel wrote, "Annotations to Ephrem Syrus," which were left in the same condition.

CHAPTER III.

HIS CRITICISM OF THE GREEK TESTAMENT.

SECTION I.

SOME ACCOUNT OF GREEK TESTAMENT CRITICISM TO BENGEL'S TIME.*

In order to do him justice as a critic in this department, it is but right to take a brief review of what had been done before him. The earliest printed Greek Testament was that of the celebrated Aldus of Venice, who, in 1504, sent from the press the first six principal sections of St. John's Gospel. It was not till 1516, the year before that from which we usually date the commencement of the Reformation, that any thing like the entire Greek Testament was printed. But in that year the first edition of the kind was published by Erasmus, partly from MSS. which he had met with at Bâsle, and partly from collations of the Latin version. Its rapid sale multiplied it to four quickly succeeding editions ; in each of which he still availed himself of fresh MSS., though he seldom furnishes any particular references to them.

In 1525 the Alcala Bible, (Biblia Complutensia,) which had been completed under the superintendence of Cardinal Ximenes, received the Pope's imprimatur. This edition contains the advantages of the Vatican MSS., with those of a codex Rhodiensis, and doubtless of such MSS. as were then discoverable in Spain.

Robert Stephens (Stephanus,) made it his object to combine the excellencies of these two principal editions, and of others less noted, (as of Asulanus's Venice edition of 1518), with his own collations from MSS. in the Royal Library of Paris. Thus

* In this and the ensuing sections we follow, principally, his own historical account of New Testament Criticism in his "Apparatus Criticus," and Dr. J. Leonard Hug's "Introduction to the Scriptures of the New Testament," vol. i. p. 54, &c.

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he published his first edition in 1546; a second in 1549; and a third in 1551; to which his son added another in 1569.

Theodore Beza, the celebrated scholar of Calvin, prepared, about the middle of the sixteenth century, a fourth principal edition of the New Testament. He availed himself of all preceding editions; likewise of MS. materials in the Stephens' family; and moreover, by the favour of Queen Elizabeth, he obtained the benefit of a fine collection of MSS. treasured in England. Thus was his work valuable as containing the advantages of all MSS. hitherto discovered in Italy, Spain, France, Switzerland, and Britain. His first edition was published at Geneva in 1555, from the press of Henry Stephens, and was repeated in 1576. A third appeared in 1582, a fourth in 1589, and a fifth in 1598. Numerous impressions of Beza's text, occasionally altered by that of Robert Stephens's own third edition of 1551, came out after the year 1624, from the offices of those eminent Dutch publishers the Elzevirs and the Wetsteins; and were most favourably received on account of their typographical beauty and convenience, as also of the Latin versions annexed, chiefly that of Arias Montanus. By such means did these gentlemen contrive to give no ordinary measure of credence to an opinion which had been very confidently put forth by themselves, that theirs was the generally received text. All this, however, was insufficient to discourage several learned Englishmen from commencing a deeper research in New Testament criticism, which in the course of time shewed Beza's editions to be less and less satisfactory. Our new laborious critics were, first Brian Walton, then Dr. John Fell, and afterwards John Mill. Walton, who was the leading editor of the London Polyglott, published in 1657 the fifth volume of this great work, which contains the Greek text of the New Testament after Stephens's third edition, with the various readings of the famous Alexandrian manuscript. Fell sent forth a new edition of the Greek Testament in 1675, in which he not only availed himself of all preceding criticisms, but gave the results of collations of very many additional MSS. then newly discovered in England, Ireland, France and Italy; together with the various readings of the Coptic and Gothic versions. Still more extensive and meritorious was the thirty years' labour of his scholar John Mill, who collated over again nearly all the MSS. then known in England, and got collated for him on the continent a very considerable number of others, some of which had never yet been consulted. He was also the first to discover

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settled principles for this department of criticism, and to make use of them with advantage. His Greek Testament was printed at Oxford in 1707, (the last year of Bengel's studentship at the University,) and another edition of it at Amsterdam, in 1710. This latter was superintended by Ludolph Küster, a German, born in 1670, at Blumberg, in the earldom of Lippe; was enriched with additional collations from Paris manuscripts; and was reprinted at Leipsic in 1723.

The firm of Wetstein and Smith at Amsterdam, wishing not to be outdone by their English rivals, had printed, in 1711, a new and carefully corrected copy of the Elzevir edition, which was meant to have some recommendation of novelty from the various readings it contained of a Vienna MS. together with the fortythree critical canons of Gerard von Mastricht. But these new canons of Greek Testament criticism, which Bengel, in 1713, had become acquainted with at Heidelberg, were far from satisfactory to his inquiring mind: indeed the manifest weakness of many of them would naturally but serve to call forth his abilities to aim at finding something better for his own satisfaction. He was further induced to attempt this by considering that his great grandfather by his mother's side, Dr. Matthew Haffenreffer, was one of the few Germans who had ever prepared any substantial editions of the Greek Testament. He had sent from the press of Theodore Werlin of Tübingen, in 1618, a handsome edition in quarto, with the Latin version of Erasmus annexed, and with the benefit of some Greek MSS. to which, however, he gives no distinct references.

SECTION II.

BENGEL'S EARLIER CRITICAL ENGAGEMENTS.

It has been already mentioned that Bengel, during the years of his studentship, became intensely interested about the various readings of the New Testament. As it is not surprising that, with the inadequate means he possessed for clearing up such difficulties, before the publication of Mill, he should have found here a labour to which no young student was equal, so he was obliged to allay his doubts with the Christian believer's axiom, that the providence of God must certainly have guarded His Fountain of