bility of the gospel history; in which all matters pertaining to the chronology and history of the sacred writings, are set forth in order. We are examining the works of the most distinguished German critics on the original text; comparing various English translations, ancient and modern; reading most patiently the original; and re-considering the works of the authors of this translation, for the purpose of improving, if possible, their style; and also for the settlement of some ambiguous renderings-so that the reader may have every possible help to forming clear, just, and comprehensive views of the Christian Revelation. This is in general terms our answer. We are also solciting, and do hereby solicit, all the aids which the biblical critics of every school may please to furnish, with the promise that we will pay all attention to every suggestion, and do the utmost justice, in our judgment, as we shall give an account to the Divine Author of the Christian Religion, in that great day when every man shall be judged according to his works.

We are assured that more depends upon a perspicuous and correct translation of the New Testament, for the illumination of the christian community, and for the conversion of the world, than upon any other means in human power: for no man can present the testimony of God to mankind more clearly or forcibly than he himself apprehends it, and no man can apprehend it more clearly than he reads it.

We are not now to argue the imperfections of the common version, nor the superiority of the new. This has, to a certain extent, been already done. The preface to King James' version, which we published in the Christian Baptist, justifies and recommends the new version, and obviates all objections against it. The fact that the Presbyterians have every few years since been submitting to the public new versions of sundry parts of the volume, shews they feel the need of a new version. Professor Stuart, yet living, and certainly one of the most competent Americans to judge of such matters, has given us a new version of the letter to the Hebrews, and offered many valuable criticisms, not only upon it, but upon various other portions of the New Testament. So have some other American writers.

The most learned periodical which is published in the union, is that from the Andover press, titled "the Biblical Repository," conducted by Edward Robinson, and liberally contributed to by Professor Stuart. This fully authorizes all that we have said on the subject of the necessity and utility of a new version, In examining that work and the writings of Horne, Ernesti, and others, we feel ourselves fortified on all sides in the efforts we are making to introduce an improved version of the New Testament. We adopt all their rules of interpretation, and therefore every improvement in the version is according to the laws of the literary world, and to be tried by the supreme law of the commonwealth of letters. To that court we are amenable; we acknowledge its jurisdiction in the case, and will submit to its decisions:

But the cavils of the traditionized and interested, and the objections of the mere sectarian leaders, are what we must expect; for they always opposed every improvement. Their fathers opposed the Bishops' Bible-King James' Bible. Their grand-fathers opposed Luther's Bible; and their great-grand-fathers burned the bones of Wickliffe after he was dead, because he attempted a new version and recommended it to the English people.

But after all, we have little to do in comparison of what has been done by Campbell of Aberdeen, and Macknight of Edinburg. We have not to amend them, nor to depart from them in any cardinal matter affecting the faith of any christian in the world. It is not the faith, but the knowledge of christians which we aim to assist in these improvements. We have no system to aid or promote by a single variation. We have, we think, given proof to silence the greatest sceptic who has any intellect remaining, that the popularity or unpopularity of any tenet has never turned our course a hair's breadth from the way which conscience approves. Truth alone has been our pursuit, regardless of her retinue, admirers or opposers. At all events, if they will tell us what is wanting to assure them of this fact, we shall make an effort, if in our power, to present it to them. But he speaks to the deaf who speaks to the prejudiced; and to the candid enough has been said.

The faith of christians who read many versions must necessarily be stronger than the faith of those who read but one. Some, indeed, think otherwise; but they confound faith and opinion. Nothing but facts, or the testimony concerning facts, can be the object of faith. No man can believe that the Moon is inhabited, but many may be of opinion that it is. Where there is no testimony there can be no faith, and where there are no facts, real or alleged, there can be no testimony. But these matters have been fully canvassed in our pages.

Now he that reads numerous versions has more testimony than he that reads but one: more testimony in favor of the certainty of the facts which he reads in one version; because all translations in our language exhibit all the same facts, and only differ in the degrees of strength, perspicuity, precision, and beauty in which they present them. No new fact in the gospel history is brought to light-no new character introduced-no new transactions exhibited in any version in the modern tongues of the earth. He that reads numerous versions has greater assurance that he has a trust-worthy translation of the original, than he that reads but one-because the more independent versions he reads, the more witnesses he has that the facts which he believes are the facts reported in the original tongue, seeing that all translators, however they may differ about the meaning of the facts, agree in the narration of the facts.

Various translations are like the four gospels-which, indeed, are four versions of the same history. Though not translations of the same original tongue, they are versions of the same original story, or such parts of it as each narrator thought most conducive to the object he had in view in reference to those addressed. Infidels object

to four gospels and a plurality of translations from the same logic and from the same motives. But the intelligent christian can appreciate the value of four testimonies, and for the same reasons he will appreciate various versions of the New Testament, until there is a perfect and universal agreement in favor of one; which is not to be expected before the Millennium.

The Vulgate for a thousand years was almost universally received without a scruple; but then it was because few but Priests read it, and none but Priests pretended to understand it. It answered their purpose; and their admirers felt little or no interest in the matter. The more intelligent the community, the more scrupulosity concerning the purity of the original scriptures, and the precision and perspicuity of the translations of them. The last two centuries abundantly justify this observation.

The improvement of the style on the basis of Campbell, Macknight, Doddridge, Stuart, and others, is still practicable; though no new ductrine, no new fact, no new article of belief is to be expected. We hold not a single religious practice, we inculcate no doctrine that cannot be fully sustained from any version, Catholic or Protestant, which we have ever seen. As a text or a proof book, James' version is for our use quite sufficient. But as giving a perspicuous, precise, forcible, and intelligible translation of the original, it is greatly excelled by some more modern versions. It would be surprising, indeed, considering the structure of the English language, the many improvements in it, and the great advances made in the knowledge of the original tongues during more than two centuries, if a work completed 220 years ago could not now be much improved.

But there is this evident advantage which all have experienced from the new version, that, like the visit of a new preacher, it awakens the attention of the people. The people would go to sleep under Cicero and Demosthenes if they heard them or read them constantly. Their voice becomes monotonous, their tone, cadence, emphasis, gestures become familiar; while an inferior, because a stranger, would, from the love of novelty and change, awaken all. Hence new versions create more reading and inquiry, and consequently increase the knowledge of the community, more than any other expedient which can be adopted. But many more reasons than we can now urge conspire to recommend the exertions we are now making to perfect the family and pocket Testament now proposed.

Orders from our agents, and from all who wish to encourage and patronize these efforts, will be thankfully received and carefully attended to. Great expenditures of time, of mental vigor, and of "money that answers all things," are requisite to perfect these plans. We have now given a full statement of our objects and pursuits relative to this great undertaking. The co-operation and assistance of all devoted to the promotion of the best interests of mankind, are respectfully solicited. To the liberality and public spirit of such is the community already, in a great measure, indebted for what has been done since the commencement of the present reformation,

Touching our own pretensions to such an undertaking, we have nothing very interesting to say. We have devoted many years to the study of the book, to the language in which it was first written, to numerous translations of it, and have availed ourselves of the best critical works in Europe and America on the original and on the best translations of it. Our humble talents and endeavors have, in concert with others, our fellow-laborers, been much devoted to this work, and to all questions concerning primitive faith and manners. What we have done is our pledge for what we shall do in this undertaking. EDITOR.

LOCKE'S OPINION OF THE FORM IN WHICH THE

SCRIPTURES ARE PRINTED.

LOCKE, the author of the Essay on the Conduct of the Human Understanding, the celebrated mental philosopher, whose fame is commensurate with the English language and the English people, thus condemns the popular plan of printing the scriptures. This is from the London edition of his work on Paul's Epistles, 1823, recently obtained here. Preface, pages 7 and 8:—

"To these we may subjoin two external causes, that have made no small increase of the native and original difficulties, that keep us from an easy and assured discovery of St. Paul's sense, in many parts of his epistles; and those are,

First-The dividing of them into chapters and verses, as we have done; whereby they are so chopped and minced, and, as they are now printed, stand so broken and divided, that not only the common people take the verses usually for distinct aphorisms; but even men of more advanced knowledge, in reading them, lose very much of the strength and force of the coherence and the light that depends on it. Our minds are so weak and narrow, that they have need of all the helps and assistances that can be procured, to lay before them undisturb、 edly the thread and coherence of any discourse; by which alone they are truly improved, and led into the genuine sense of the author. When the eye is constantly disturbed in loose sentences, that by their standing and separation appear as so many distinct fragments; the mind will have much ado to take in, and carry on in its memory, a uniform discourse of dependent reasonings; especially having from the cradle been used to wrong impressions concerning them, and constantly accustomed to hear them quoted as distinct sentences, without any limitation or explication of their precise meaning, from the place they stand in, and the relation they bear to what goes before, or follows. These divisions also have given occasion to the reading these epistles by parcels, and in scraps, which has farther confirmed the evil arising from such partitions. And I doubt not but every one will confess it to be a very unlikely way to come to the understanding of any other letters, to read them piece-meal, a bit today, and another scrap to-morrow, and so on by broken intervals; especially if the pause and cessation should be made, as the chapters the apostle's epistles are divided into, do end sometimes in the middle

of a discourse, and sometimes in the middle of a sentence. It cannot, therefore, but be wondered that that should be permitted to be done to holy writ, which would visibly disturb the sense, and hinder the understanding of any other book whatsoever. If Tully's epistles were so printed, and so used, I ask, Whether they would not be much harder to be understood, less easy, and less pleasant to be read, by much, than now they are?

How plain soever this abuse is, and what prejudice soever it does to the understanding of the sacred scripture, yet if a Bible was printed as it should be, and as the several parts of it were writ, in continued discourses, where the argument is continued, I doubt not but the several parties would complain of it, as an innovation, and a dangerous change in the publishing those holy books. And, indeed, those who are for maintaining their opinions, and the systems of parties, by sound of words, with a neglect of the true sense of scripture, would have reason to make and foment the outcry. They would most of them be immediately disarmed of their great magazine of artillery, wherewith they defend themselves and fall upon others. If the holy scripture were but laid before the eyes of christians, in its connexion and consistency, it would not then be so easy to snatch out a few words, as if they were separate from the rest, to serve a purpose to which they do not at all belong, and with which they have nothing to do. But as the matter now stands, he that has a mind to it, may at a cheap rate be a notable champion for the truth, that is, for the doctrines of the sect that chance or interest has cast him into. He need but be furnished with verses of sacred scripture, containing words and expressions that are but flexible (as all general obscure and doubtful ones are,) and his system, that has appropriated them to the orthodoxy of his church, makes them immediately strong and irrefragable arguments for his opinion. This is the benefit of loose sentences, and scripture crumbled into verses, which quickly turn into independent aphorisms. But if the quotation in the verse produced were considered as a part of a continued coherent discourse, and so its sense were limited by the tenor of the context, most of these forward and warm disputants would be quite stripped of those, which they doubt not now to call spiritual weapons; and they would have often nothing to say, that would not show their weakness, and manifestly fly in their faces. I crave leave to set down a saying of the learned and judicious Mr. Selden: "In interpreting the scripture," says he, "many do as if a man should see one have ten pounds, which he reckoned by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, meaning 4 was but four units, and 5 five units, &c. and that he had in all but ten pounds: the other that sees him, takes not the figures together as he doth, but picks here and there; and thereupon reports that he had five pounds in one bag, and six pounds in another bag, and nine pounds in another bag, &c. when as, in truth, he has but ten pounds in all. So we pick out a text here and there, to make it serve our turn; whereas if we take it altogether, and consider what went before, and what followed after, we should find it meant no such thing."