ing been read in churches and chapels for centuries have become a kind of standard for language.' This is a purely literary argument, and as such, were these books other than religious ones, it would have considerable force. But even in that case we should not lose sight of the fact that our language has overleaped its former boundaries, and rendered obsolete many expressions and words found there; and therefore it were worthy of consideration whether they should not follow its advances. With regard to the Bible, the only attempt which has been made to adapt its language to the common speech of the people was by Dr. Blayney in 1769, when he revised the printed University copies. To him we owe such modern spellings as more for moe, and probably the blunder of shamefacedness for shamefastness. As to our Book of Common Prayer, the only change that I know of, is the substitution of dominions for kingdoms, in the prayer for the Parliament,—an ominous change which took place at the period of the annexation of Ireland to Great Britain.

But the Bible must not be viewed merely as a literary treasure, but as the medium by which the revelation of God is made known to the people. As such, every literary merit must, if needs be, give way before the perfecting of its ministration. It is a question of knowledge of salvation concerning it which we should keep in view continually, and remember that

every error

This argument was first started by Swift, in a letter to the Lord Treasurer Oxford.

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in it, though it may be a literary gem, dims its spiritual beauty and mars its heavenward attractive force. pure and stedfast literature bears no comparison with a God-loving and God-fearing people.

The second objection to any alteration in the Authorized Version is founded on the veneration felt towards it by the people. This is an argument which at first sight has some weight; but on examination, when pushed to an extreme, it resolves itself into something like a defence of a pious fraud. Is our Version a perfect and intelligible conveyance of Revelation to its readers? If it is not, then as far as it is not, so far is the veneration which is pleaded misplaced and becomes superstition;-it is veneration for a human thing, and it is a duty to sweep it away. It must be evident to all who think and observe that there are obscurities in our Version which hide portions even of the New Testament from the common people, and even from the more educated classes, yet that this same unreasoning veneration allows them to read such passages over and over again, year by year, without being conscious that they are meaningless to them, certainly without exciting any enquiry in their breasts what their exact meaning is. We are far from undervaluing a reverence for the Scriptures, but we would desire that reverence should be the fruit of intelligence, not of blind superstition: let them think, if they will, that the English Version is the very Word of God; but we object in every case to a reverence for words-for sounds-for a book only as a book. If this reverence were directed to the Word of God, as

the charter of their spiritual life and conversation, it would not oppose itself to, but rejoice in, every attempt to bring that charter home to their intellects and hearts, by making it more comprehensible by their understandings. It is the old story of the man who in the morning set his face towards the east and beheld the sun; in the evening he was found gazing in the same direction still, forgetting that the sun had all the while been running his course. Two hundred and fifty years ago the sun of religious liberty rose splendidly on this nation, and the Authorized Version displayed the pure Word of God: but are we to be bound to it now with the ignorant and blind reverence of a slave, forgetting that biblical knowledge and the changes of our language have withdrawn the fulness of the splendour of its glory? We worship the east, and not the sun.

The third argument which the defenders of the Authorized Version put forth against any alteration in either its language or divisions is, the confusion that would be caused in literature thereby, detracting from the value and use of all books in which passages from the present Version are quoted, or in which references to it are made, and in time destroying the mass of our present solid as well as popular religious publications. The argument is an extremely important one, and ought, I think, to be admitted by all advocates for a New Translation to have great weight. It would be a time, no doubt, before the issue of any New Version could reach all classes of the people, and so one or two generations would pass away without much inconveni

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ence being felt regarding popular religious publications, and in the meanwhile a literature would be springing up with quotations and references from the New Version. The objection still remains good, however, regarding all books of a more bulky and expensive character printed during the last two hundred and fifty years, which would never repay the labour and cost of re-editing, and which consequently would gradually become useless. It is, however, against alterations in chapters, verses and other divisions of our Bibles that this objection principally militates; for whatever revisions should take place in the text, they could not alter any of the doctrines or principles of life (laid down not in any isolated passage, in which mistakes might occur, but) woven into Scripture, but would only rescue them from the rust of years, and render them more intelligible, and so would not very materially affect books containing quotations from our present Version written for the more educated classes. As far as the present divisions of our Bible are concerned, I conceive that this objection is, and must ever be, fatal to any proposition for sweeping alterations: paragraphs may be reviewed, and parentheses may be added, but chapters and verses must remain the same.

Having thus far followed the arguments of the defenders of the Old Version, we must proceed to inquire the ground on which the agitators for a New Version rest their case. It is, that the Authorized Translation is an imperfect conveyance of the Word of God; or, as one of the petitions on the subject to Parliament says,

it is "not so free from faults as the translation of such a book ought to be." If what I have stated in this Preface, and what follows in the Notes, be not entirely erroneous, all this is true; but the real question is, whether the faults are so many and so grievous in it as imperatively to demand nothing less than a New Translation in the face of all concomitant difficulties, and whether the circumstances of our times would allow us, after discarding the present Version, to supply another less faulty. I am inclined to answer No to both parts of the question. I have freely admitted the evils of our present chapter and verse divisions, but I have shown that any remodelling of these would bring many and serious evils; but by the simple process of printing the books of the Bible without the present breaks, and by merely marking the chapters and verses in the margin, both dangers would be effectually avoided. This could be done by a single competent editor; and, while fulfilling this task, I apprehend no reasonable person would object to his being commissioned to alter the few faults in punctuation, and even to supply the evidently required parentheses in the Epistles. If, moreover, he was permitted to place in the margin the modern words and expressions for the obsolete ones, I believe no sect or party would have reason to feel aggrieved; and after all there would remain to us that one-almost only one -common, glorious bond of union between Churchmen and Dissenters of every shade of opinion, bearing witness against that calumny that Protestantism is synonymous with dissension, and proclaiming to the Greek