Far be it from me to speak with disrespect of an undertaking which had the encouragement of so many great, so many good, and so many learned persons; who must be supposed to have acted with the best intention, in consequence of such reports as were laid before them; for many of them certainly had no judgement of their own upon the subject. But Mr. Horne, and some other readers of Hebrew, never approved of the design from the beginning; and Dr. Rutherforth of Cambridge, a man of no small erudition, wrote professedly, and with some asperity, against it; or, at least, against the way in which he thought it would be executed. Some of the considerations they went upon were these following:

1. That the design was dangerous, and had a bad aspect. A new translation of the Bible into English had been strenuously recommended some years before by suspected persons with an ill intention". That such persons, being not well affected to the church of

It appears from a Life of Dr. Sykes, p. 334, that the Socinians had great hopes from a new English version of the Bible, by which all our present learned illustrations of the SS. were to be superseded-all things were to become new-the disciples were to become one fold, and the absolute unity of the peerless majesty of God was to be maintained by the whole community of Christians.—Socinianism alone was to introduce paradise and the millennium. The Socinians of Poland had a translation made, but it did not answer their purpose. See Mosheim's Hist. of Socinianism.

England or its doctrines, would probably interfere with all their heart and interest, to turn the design to their own purposes. For it was evident, by the intention of Dr. Kennicott at first, that there should be both a new Hebrew text and a new English version: and I am rather of opinion that Mr. Horne and his friends, by their remonstrances, however apparently unnoticed, might have some little share of merit in preventing it.

2. It hurt and alarmed them, to see a learned gentleman plead and argue, as if he had a victory to obtain by proving the corruption of the Hebrew text, and it were the game he was hunting after; for this did not look as if the glory of God was the object in view, but rather his own emolument as a collatorόπου το συμφέρον, εκεί το ευσεβες.

3. They were of opinion that the attempt was superfluous; because the exactness of the Masoretical Jews had guarded and secured the text of their Bible in such a manner, that no other book in the world had ever been so guarded and secured: that, therefore, there could not be room for any great alarm upon the subject.

4. That cardinal Ximenes and his assistants, about two hundred years before, had carefully col

VOL. I.

H

lated the Hebrew text with manuscripts, older and better than were now to be met with in the world; and had exhibited a printed Hebrew text, as perfect as could be expected or need be desired: because, by Mr. Kennicott's own confession, no such errors occurred in the text as affected any point of doctrine; the various readings being chiefly to be found in dates and numbers, which are of less importance and more uncertain notation. That, therefore, what cardinal Ximenes had done in a better manner, and with greater advantages, would now be done with more difficulty, and probably to less effect.

5. They apprehended that the dispute about the Hebrew text, the Samaritan Pentateuch, &c. had been sufficiently agitated and judiciously stated by Carpzov of Leipsic, in his writings against Whiston; so far at least as to show, that no great things were to be expected from any adventurer who should afterwards take the same ground. Carpzov's book was thought so useful and satisfactory, that Moses Marcus, a converted Jew, had translated it into English.

6. A consideration which had great weight with Mr. Horne, was that of the probable consequences of an undertaking so conducted as this was likely to

be.

Unbelievers, sceptics, and heretics, of this country, who had affected superior learning, had always been busy in finding imaginary corruptions in the text of Scripture and would in future be more bold and busy than ever; as the work of confounding the text by unsound criticism would be carried on with the sanction of public authority, and the Bible left open to the experiments of evil-minded critics and cavillers. For besides the collating of manuscripts, the collator, in his Dissertations, had opened three other fountains of criticism, by which the waters of the sanctuary were to be healed; the ancient versions, the Samaritan Pentateuch, and sound criticism. Having considered these in their order, Mr. Horne sets before his readers above twenty instances from Mr. Kennicott's own books, as a specimen of his manner of proceeding; to show "what an inundation of licentious criticism

These

was breaking in upon the sacred text." instances are such as fully justify his reflections; which the reader may find at p. 12, &c. of his View of Mr. Kennicott's Method, &c.

Such were the considerations on which Mr. Horne and his friends opposed Mr. Kennicott's undertaking; and, it is hoped, nothing has appeared to their disadvantage. In the progress of the controversy some other considerations arose, which served to

confirm them in the part they had taken. They observed that Mr. Kennicott changed ground; first urging the necessity of a new text for the purpose of a new English version, and afterwards giving it up without assigning his reasons. Another fact arose, which was palpably contrary to his own principles. When the design was to come forward, he had objected to the labours of cardinal Ximenes, as being ineffective, because he admitted manuscripts furnished by Jews: but, when the work was to be carried on, he himself made Jews his agents to collect manuscripts for him in foreign parts, and admitted them, so far as we know, without reserve: and with this remarkable difference, that the Jews of the cardinal were turned Christians, whereas the Jews of Mr. Kennicott were still in their unbelief-except one; and he was of a character so extraordinary, that the reader cannot be displeased if I give some account of him; without which, so great a curiosity would, in all probability, be lost to the world. While the work of collation was going forward, it so happened, that Mr. Kennicott and his work, and Mr. Horne, and some of the friends to both, fell into difficulty and danger, from a man whose name was Dumay; a person who, having been encouraged upon benevolent motives in the beginning, proved in the issue to be not much better than the Dumas who had been attended in the castle at Oxford, and of whom it is