sense, in such treatment of the Bible, unless it can be shown that a rusty sword is more readily drawn, and more effectively used than a glittering one; and that a tree becomes more fruitful by being covered with moss and ivy. Is it right that the sword of the Spirit, like the sword of Goliath, should be wrapped up in obscurity behind the ecclesiastical ephod? Is it proper that the tree whose leaves were destined for the healing of the nations, should be rendered almost inaccessible, by means of briars, and nettles, and offensive fungi growing up around its roots? Why should the learned read one Bible, and the unlearned another? As far as the authorized version is erroneous, it is false, and every scholar knows that its errors are manifold. Granting that in that, and every other translation, the truths necessary to personal safety are manifest and easy of comprehension; still shall bare necessity be the standard of knowledge, even for the poorest of our kind? Bread, water, and a covering from the cold, will sustain life; but few of us seem content without a variety of food and changes of apparel. Inattention, moreover, to that which is regarded as unnecessary, is generally accompanied by obscurity of perception concerning that which is believed to be essential. And who will dare to erect a fence, where God has left no boundaryline? Admitting that in all cardinal truths no dangerous mistakes, or very perilous representations exist in the public version, still, "to brighten our conceptions," as Dr. Campbell says, "is to strengthen them; and to strengthen them is to give them a firmer hold of the memory, and to render them more productive of all the good fruits that might naturally be expected from them."

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Objections will be made to a proposition for revision of course. But happily they have been already answered by those engaged in former translations and revisions. "Nothing," say King James's translators, "is begun and perfected at the same time," &c. A variety of translations is profitable for finding out the true sense of Scripture," &c. "We endeavour to make that better which others left good," &c. By a fresh revision, "Whatsoever is sound already, will shine as gold more brightly being rubbed and polished," &c. If any thing be not agreeable to the original, the same may be corrected, and the truth set in its place," &c. Vide their preface.

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The stale objection that any alteration

would unsettle the faith of the people, has been so often groundlessly made, and as often triumphantly refuted by facts, that it needs no reply. Campbell has shown that Jerom, Erasmus, and King James's translators had all in succession to contend with this objection; and he observes, "it is remarkable that from the days of Jerom to the present, the same forebodings have always accompanied the undertaking, and vanished on the execution, insomuch that the fatal effects predicted have never afterwards been heard of." Indeed, he shows that no evil, but much good, will ensue. "The differences of translators," he says, "are like the inconsiderable varieties in expression, which different witnesses, though all perfectly unexceptionable, employ in relating the same fact; and the principal difference between them is, that one renders an account of things more intelligible, perspicuous, or affecting than another." And upon the principle that "what is well written or well said, is always more attended to,

better understood, and longer remembered than what is improperly, weakly, or awkwardly expressed," he maintains the expediency of revision and improvement.

If, as some may ignorantly sup pose, we had not amended versions of the whole or parts of the Bible, their apprehensions of injury, rather than benefit from any alteration, might not be altogether groundless. But since we have many translations which, in the great and leading qualities of perspicuity, fidelity and accuracy, much excel the authorized version, there is every reason to expect that a well-conducted revision would produce most important improvement. And the fact that some of them, otherwise generally excellent, are accompanied by pernicious glosses, and dangerous explanatory notes, (e. g. the Improved Version of the Unitarians,) furnishes, as the learned reviewer of that work in the Eclectic observes, an additional argument for a new version, published by authority.

no

Let it be remembered that the authorized version is only a human performance, and possesses more authority than any other translation. Let it have the esteem which its comparative merits deserve, and its authors their just meed of praise. But because they died before the sun was up, and performed their work by taper or twilight, shall we who live later in the day, keep our windows closed, and refuse admission to the solar light? If our eyes are not better than those of our grandfathers, we ought to see more clearly, since we live in a brighter day than they; and if our stature be only equal to theirs, we ought to see farther than they, because our feet are placed upon much more elevated ground.

Surely it is high time to rescue the poems and poetical books of

Scripture from their degradation in being done into English prose, and presented to the reader, stripped of their beauty, perspicuity, and impressive and memorable form. "If in the wisdom of the Holy Spirit who dictated the Scriptures, considerable portions of them exhibit a rhythmical construction, abound in artificially composed acrostic stanzas, and in parallelisms synonymous, antithetic, and constructive,' serving to make a more vivid impression upon the imagination and memory, and thus facilitating the recollection of the momentous verities which they contain, are we showing adequate reverence for this Great Source of Inspiration, asks (Dr. Gregory,) while we continue satisfied with a version, in which comparatively few vestiges of these peculiarities are to be traced?" Assuredly not. On the contrary, we are doing great injustice to the Divine Author, the ingenious composer, and the modern reader. We expose the poetry itself to a disadvantageous comparison with profane writings; we deprive ourselves of much intellectual enjoyment, and others as well as ourselves of much moral benefit.

It is true, ministers possessing the requisite learning, or sufficient skill and judgment, to use with advantage the writings of the learned, may alter and correct the common version in the pulpit. And this indeed they often must do, if they are conscientious and faithful expositors of genuine Scripture. But still it is an unwelcome necessity, that obliges them to deviate from the translation which their hearers employ. Nor can the people generally recollect these amendments, so as to use them with advantage in private reading. Besides, whether wisely or unwisely, most people attach greater authority to the printed words of an

old book, than to the new sayings of even a judicious minister; and the old moss-covered mistakes, and time-hallowed and hoary, though erroneous and unintelligible, phraseology of their Bible, generally outweighs the sense, learning, and piety, of their pastor. -The minister, moreover, finds ample employment in explaining ancient customs and manners, &c. in showing the condition and circumstances, the character and wants of the original parties who wrote and read the sacred books. It is his work to explain the causes and occasions, the designs and ends of apostolic letters, &c. Without some knowledge of those things, which people cannot, or will not get from their Bibles, many whole books of Scripture can be but very imperfectly understood, and will often be mistaken and misapplied when read. With so large a field of labour before him, the minister ought to be exempted from the obligation of translating the text, as he is now frequently compelled to do. And the people ought to possess the books which he explains in an intelligible and accurate version.

The arbitrary division of the books of Scripture into chapters and verses, is, perhaps, one of the greatest obstacles to their being understood by the mass of readers. The figures are useful for reference, and should, therefore, be preserved in the margin, as they are in modern versions, but the consequences of the mangled and dislocated state of the text in the Authorized Version are thus well described. "It stops the continuity of history: it breaks the links of argument: it blunts the edge of demonstration: it obscures the felicity of illustration and allusive imagery: it promotes confined and discrepant sentiments in religion it induces some to

regard the Scriptures as a cabinet of unconnected, and, of course, often discordant aphorisms, of which the men of party may select their parcels, each according to his system, his wishes, or his caprice.'

The indiscriminate praises inconsiderately or ignorantly bestowed upon the Authorised Version, have contributed to the production of most serious evils among the people. They read the Bible, but understand it not: they revere it, but their reverence is often a blind prejudice, having words, not truths, for its object. All that is understood by multitudes is a scrap here, and a fragment there; the religious knowledge which they acquire is vague, uncertain, incommunicable, and uninfluential; the truths which they profess are dimly seen, illdefined, lightly felt, and frequently forgotten. And I have no hesitation in saying, that much of this is owing to the very defective translation which they read. The ignorant mistakes of translators 200 years ago, are reverenced by some as profound spiritual mysteries, which we must not seek to understand; the verbal contradictions of which they were guilty, are regarded as divine obscurities: and the frequent appearance of obsolete and unintelligible phrases on the one hand, and of common words used in singular, technical, and recondite senses on the other, so baffle and puzzle the unlettered reader, that he is discouraged; and either neglects the book altogether, as is the case with many, or else sinks into a blind veneration of the supposed sacred words, as something cabalistic, and not to be

* Vide An Elaborate Critique on the Improved Version of the New Testament, in the Eclectic Review, Vol v. 1809.

ers of

the body for the use of which it would be chiefly, though, of course, not exclusively intended, I am ready to contribute more largely and liberally, from those stores which I have collected, than I am yet disposed to do towards any existing public institution of the kind.

Highbury Place, Jan. 22, 1830.

your valuable magazine. I am not quite prepared to concur in the recommendation of your Correspondent, that such a collection should be placed in the library of one of our Theological Colleges. That does not appear to me, for several reasons, to be the most proper place for the reception and safe custody of such things. But, granting that a more suitable place cannot at present be found, allow me to ask, whether a place in several respects more appropriate might not be provided, and whether it is not, on many accounts, most desirable that a respectable building should be erected in the metropolis, in a convenient and central situation, not for this purpose only, but also for many other kindred and collateral purposes, some of them, perhaps, still more useful and important?

This matter has long occupied my mind, and engaged much of my attention, but, at present, I will only add, that to such a Library, provided it be erected upon a scale and in a style worthy of

J. W.

P. S. In answer to your Correspondent's Queries, I beg to state, that I have never met with any sermon on the death of Rev. William Moth, and have reason to believe that the only account of him in print is that which Middleton has inserted in his Biographia Evangelica; and that the writer of the pamphlet to which he refers was, I apprehend, Rev. Daniel Goodrich, pastor for many years of the church at Oundle, in Northamptonshire, concerning whom, probably, very little information can now be recovered, as, I believe, no printed memorial of him exists.

THERE is no delusion so great and so disastrous, as that which sin practises on the understandings and the hearts of men; for it proffers them a full measure of happiness, and yet brings them, in the end, nothing but sorrow and ruin. It promises the sinner impunity, though the scourge of a guilty conscience and the retribution of a divine judgment, both remain to be felt. It assures him of secresy, while the eye of God and the eye of conscience are present in every transaction.

Sin

cheats the soul of every real joy, while it raises hopes of the greatest; and thus becomes the universal

destroyer of human happiness in

this world, and the murderer of the immortal soul in the world to come. Yet how little is it hated! How faintly is it resisted! How few have set their faces and their hearts both against it! We see sinners every where, bold and shameless, resolute, and ever mad in the commission of iniquity. Yet there is, in the commission of sin, but the name of pleasure, the mere shade of happiness—a dream of the night, and not a reality of the day. The cup is poisoned, though sweet; and the alluring creature, which has the syren's voice, conceals the dragon's claws. It has usurped the name, but it partakes not the nature of happi