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nacularly acquainted with the structure and idiom of the language in which it was made, and fully competent to avail themselves of all the resources of learning and criticism then within reach, it is justifiable now to intrust the translation of the Scriptures to men who are destitute of all these qualifications. If the most eminent scholars, distinguished for their skill as translators even in the present advanced state of biblical criticism, could not be expected to produce a faultless version of the sacred volume, what is to be thought of the managers of a public institution, established expressly for the circulation of the Scriptures, who think it both safe and proper to commit this important charge to unprepared, and consequently unskilful, hands?

It may, perhaps, be said, that the versions printed under the sanction of the Earl-street committee, however incorrect and faulty in themselves, will at least serve the purpose of opening the way to future improvements, which will finally lead to correctness. But until a thorough revolution has taken place in the system on which the Society's translations are now executed, not the slightest progress can be made towards perfection: were this Society to exist for a thousand years, and were its managers to print a hundred editions of any given version, prepared and revised by incompetent persons, the last of these editions would be about as bad as the first. The efforts of ignorance, however repeated and multiplied, can never produce correctness.

Among the numerous evils manifestly to be apprehended from the multiplication of incorrect versions of the sacred records, we may observe, in particular, that it tends to give additional force to the objection urged by the Roman Catholic church, against the circulation of the Bible. The members of that church contend, that when the acknowledged difficulty of executing correct and faithful translations is taken into consideration, the perusal of vernacular versions exposes the unlearned reader to the danger of misunderstanding the Scriptures to his own destruction. The force of this objection can alone be obviated by showing that every reasonable precaution has been adopted to secure the fidelity of the circulated version. The Bible authorised by the Catholic church-the Latin Vulgate-is itself a translation: it is,. therefore, evident, that a modern vernacular version, derived directly from the original tongues, and carefully executed by individuals of acknowledged competency, must be entitled to claim equal authority. We are quite sure that the care and pains bestowed upon our authorised version, and the high attainments of those engaged in making and revising it, confer upon it a claim to fidelity equal to the very highest pretension that can be advanced

in favour of the Latin Vulgate. To the circulation of our English version, therefore, the Catholics cannot object on the ground that it conveys incorrectly, or imperfectly, the sense of the original. But with respect to the versions put forth by the Earlstreet committee, the case, we are bound to confess, is widely different.

The lax and erroneous system pursued by this committee with respect to the versions printed under their auspices will explain a circumstance for which it has been considered somewhat difficult to account. It has been openly and repeatedly asserted, that among the foremost of the Society's continental supporters appear many individuals notorious for entertaining heretical or infidel opinions. The managing committee have been recently arraigned, with considerable severity, for employing the services of such men ; and they have met the charge, not by a direct denial, but by an inference that men who render themselves active in the circulation of the Bible cannot hold the opinions ascribed to their foreign agents. We must, however, be allowed to observe that this ingenious inference is by no means enough to invalidate the imputation which they wish to remove. We can conceive the utmost activity in promoting the circulation of versions executed upon the Earlstreet system to be perfectly compatible with the views of men who hold the most dangerous opinions. It is almost too obvious to require a remark, that the circulation of incorrect versions of the Bible must open the door to the introduction of the most efficient means of undermining the authority of the Bible itself. Acting under the protection of the Bible Society, the persons in question have already succeeded in making serious innovations in the received versions; under the sanction, and at the expense of this Society, editions of the Bible have appeared in different parts of the continent purified of the passages which gave offence to the philosophers. Mr. Haldane and Dr. Andrew Thomson of Edinburgh have proved these things beyond the possibility of dispute. When the managers, therefore, exult in having enlisted under the banners of the Society the self-styled philosophers and neologists of the continent, we must request them to moderate their triumph. The directors fondly imagine that they use their philosophical agents as tools to promote their own views in this design they have, however, been completely outwitted; the tables have been turned upon them; they have been the dupes of a set of Encyclopedists, who have quietly availed themselves of the influence and resources of the Society in the promotion of their own purposes.

The manner in which this Society's modern versions have been executed

executed appears to us to call for the immediate and earnest consideration of those who contribute to its funds, to whatever class or denomination of Christians they may belong. We are quite sure that few, if any, will be found among them willing, in sober seriousness, to sanction the circulation of unfaithful versions of the Bible. We are persuaded that the majority of the subscribers have hitherto proceeded in ignorance of the system upon which the directors have been acting: we assure them, with truth and sincerity, that so far from entertaining any hostility to the circulation of the Scriptures in all the languages of the world, there is no object which we more ardently desire to promote; but, reverencing as we do the sacred oracles, we dare not countenance any tampering with their contents-we dare not stand quietly by while we witness measures carried on under the direction of ignorant or perverse men, which have no tendency that we can perceive, except to diffuse among the inhabitants of the world mean and meagre shadows, or distorted caricatures of the word of God.

We are sorry to say we think it possible that the actual directors of the Society, whose management we have been compelled to arraign, together with their more immediate retainers, will exclaim against our interference; and, with the hope of enlisting the subscribers in the defence of a cause which they feel to be untenable in fair argument, raise a howl that our strictures have been dictated by principles of covert hostility to the institution itself. If such an attempt should be made to misrepresent our motives, we are satisfied that the good sense of the subscribers will render it unsuccessful. By pointing out to them and to the public at large the errors and incompetency of its present directors we perform the most essential service to the Bible Society; and we are much deceived if we shall not secure to ourselves, by this means, the cordial acknowledgments of all the real friends of the institution. The objections which we have raised do not in any degree affect the principle or the object of this Society; but merely the manner in which one most important branch of its proceedings is now conducted. The diffusion of scriptural knowledge among all the nations of the world is an object which must at all times command the most strenuous support of all Christian men; but to the circulation of versions of the Bible incorrectly and unfaithfully executed we feel ourselves bound to offer every resistance that lies in our power.

There is one circumstance connected with the transactions of this Society to which we cannot advert without the most painful sensations. Among the vice-presidents of this institution there appear the names of men who, from their station and acquirements, ought

not

28 Management of the British and Foreign Bible Society.

not to be ignorant of the dangerous tendency of the proceedings upon which we have animadverted. That the members of the managing committee, who, under a standing rule of the institution, must be laymen,-that men whose lives have been passed, or who are even now engaged, in the toils and turmoils of secular avocations, -that such men, being but little conversant with literary pursuits, should not prove particular in the selection of translators, of whose qualifications they cannot even form a judgment, is a circumstance that can excite no surprise. But that learned clerks, and venerable prelates, whose education and pursuits must have made them thoroughly acquainted with the principles on which all previous versions, of any authority, have been executed, should have lent the sanction of their names to translations such as thesethis, indeed, is an anomaly for which it is difficult to account. Nor can we acquit them of blame, although we are thoroughly convinced they cannot be aware of the extent of the evil at which they have permitted themselves to wink. These men, thinking no evil themselves, have reposed their confidence in persons by whom it has been betrayed, and thus, and only thus, rendered themselves responsible to the public for translations in which they have taken no real or efficient part. Nor, unfortunately, is this a solitary, or even an unusual instance, of the want of foresight and circumspection in the ostensible guardians of public institutions. The high and exalted personages who lend their names for the purpose of patronising such establishments, seldom enjoy the leisure required for the due superintendence of their affairs. The management of these falls, therefore, into the hands of the busy, incompetent, and interested retainers who commonly swarm about the purlieus of such associations. The noble and venerable individuals who fill the stations of president and vice-presidents of the Earl-street Society are all of them entitled to the highest respect, on account of their private worth: they are, all of them, infinitely too conscientious to give, knowingly, the slightest countenance to the circulation of scriptural versions of doubtful authority; but they have allowed themselves to be deceived by artful and designing men, who have used their names as a cloak to conceal their own views and purposes. On this most important subject we venture, therefore, to appeal to the good sense and good feeling of the president and vice-presidents of this institution. It is upon them that we call to consider seriously, ere it be too late, a system of procedure which, we are sure, minds such as theirs cannot understand without condemning.

ART.

ART. II.-The Poetical Works of John Milton; with Notes of various Authors. The Third Edition. With other Illustrations, and with Some Account of the Life and Writings of Milton; derived principally from Documents in his Majesty's StatePaper Office, now first published. By the Rev. H. J. Todd, &c. 6 vols. 8vo.

WE

E are sorry to be opposed on any occasion to the authority of the learned and venerable Bishop of Salisbury; but that the recently discovered Treatise of Christian Doctrine is the long lost work of Milton, appears to be now established beyond all controversy. By evidence from the state-paper office, brought to light since Dr. Sumner's translation appeared, and incorporated in the present edition of Mr. Todd's Life of the great poet, it seems that Daniel Skinner, a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and probably nephew of Cyriack, consigned such a treatise, together with Milton's state-letters, to the hands of Elzevir, to be printed at Amsterdam-that Elzevir declined publishing them, as containing things which, in his opinion, had better be suppressed, and wrote to that effect to Sir Joseph Williamson, then one of the secretaries of state-that meanwhile Dr. Barrow, the master of Trinity, sent a peremptory order to Skinner, who was at Paris, to repair immediately to college, and to desist from making public any writing mischievous to church or state,' on pain of forfeiting his fellowship; and, by a conjecture, almost amounting to certainty, it is supposed, that the said Daniel Skinner did, in obedience to this summons, return to England, and deliver up the suspected papers to the secretary.

It was natural enough that the exhumation of such a work should again direct the attention of the world more particularly to the writings of its illustrious author; and that, after the lapse of a century and a half, we should look on the relic with the feelings of the Roman peasant whose ploughshare happened to turn up the bones of his forefathers, and, with him, wonder at the gigantic stature of the men who lived in the civil wars.

Still we must not suffer a great name to lead us astray- Unusquisque valeat in arte suâ.'-Cicero was an admirable orator, yet a very ordinary writer of verse; and Sir Isaac Newton is pronounced, by no mean authority, to have been, out of his own province, but a common man. Whilst we bow, therefore, to Milton as the poet,-in Milton as a divine or a statesman we can only see a visionary; and cannot but think that, to assert his merits in these latter departments, is to come forward (if we may use the words of a great master of eloquence) with hymas and cymbals to adore the mighty luminary when he is suffering an eclipse.'

The

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