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 4 prepare the way for an English Bible, that shall be superior to the present Authorized Version, because it shall be more correct in translation and arrangement. Such a grand national work cannot be satisfactorily executed by any man, or body of men, unless they have, like myself, devoted a great many years to hard biblical study. It cannot be well executed unless its elaborators be men extensively familiar with the Hebrew and Aramaean or Syrian languages, and the cabalistic and rabbinical writings (as were Lightfoot and Gill). For the Hellenistic Greek, in which the Septua^int and New Testament are written, is so Hebraical and Oriental in its character, with respect to the real, specific meaning of many of its words, and phrases, and idioms, that no scholar, accustomed merely to classical Greek, can fail to err very grievously in the hard, delicate task of biblical inter- pretation. It cannot be well executed except by men who will reso- lutely adopt the best, highest, and most consistent sense which the original words will fairly admit ; though in so doing they are sometimes obliged to disturb the favourite prejudices of all subsisting sects and parties. In such case God’s truth is to be fearlessly followed, though it may happen to prove all men to be in error. When such a work is well executed, when the Bible is presented to the world in a revised version and chronologic arrangement, more worthy the inspired original than any that have yet appeared, it will, with God’s blessing, prove an instru- ment of great theological and social reform. It will strongly confirm the truth of the Scriptures as divinely inspired revelations, and establish the canon on firmer testimonies of internal and external evidence, so as to diminish that scepticism which, when excessive, produces infidelity and saps the surest foundations of piety and happiness. It will evince the immeasurable superiority of the Bible to all other works in literature ; not only for its religious and moral truth, but likewise its accuracy of science and excel- lency of style. Multitudes of passages that have appeared in previous translations as coarse, obscure, or contradictory, will be rectified; and their defects will vanish like those spots on the sun, which emerge only to be absorbed, and by their absorption augment the blaze of solar splendour. Then, perhaps, a brighter era of sincere and thorough- going biblicism will dawn on the old age of our planet, pre« Digitized by Google