CHAPTER XII.
SECTION I. OF THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF TRANSLATING AN INFALLIBLE...
REVELATION FROM ITS ORIGINAL COPIES, AND PRESERVING IT ENTIRE THROUGH ALL THE REVOLUTIONS OF THE WORLD, AND VICISSITUDES OF HUMAN LEARNING TO OUR TIME
Admitting for argument sake that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament were originally of divine supernatural inspiration, and that their first manuscript copies were the infallible institutions of God, yet to trace them from their respective ancient dead languages, and different and diverse translations, from the obscure hieroglyphical pictures of characters, in which they were first written, through all the vicissitudes and alterations of human learning, prejudices, superstitions, enthusiasms and diversities of interests and manners, to our time, so as to present us with a perfect edition from its premised infallible original manuscript copies would be impossible. The various and progressive methods of learning, with the insurmountable difficulties of translating any supposed antiquated written revelation would not admit of it, as the succeeding observations on language and grammar will fully evince.
In those early ages of learning, hieroglyphics were expressive of ideas; for instance, a snake quirled (a position common to that venomous reptile) was an emblem of eternity, and the picture of a lion, a representation of power, and so every beast, bird, reptile, insect and fish, had in their respective pictures, particular ideas annexed to them, which varied with the arbitrary custom and common consent of the several separate nations, among whom this way of communicating ideas was practised, in some sense analogous to what is practised at this day by different nations, in connecting particular ideas to certain sounds or words written in characters, which according to certain rules of grammar constitute the several languages. But the hieroglyphical manner of writing by living emblems, and perhaps in some instances by other pictures, was very abstruse, and inadequate to communicate that multiplicity and diversity of ideas which are requisite for the purpose of history, argumentation or general knowledge in any of the sciences or concerns of life; which mystical way of communicating ideas underwent a variety of alterations and improvements, though not so much as that of characters and grammar has done; for in the hieroglyphical way of communicating their ideas, there was no such thing as spelling, or what is now called orthography, which has been perpetually refining and altering, ever since characters, syllables, words or grammar have been brought into use, and which will admit of correction and improvement as long as mankind continue in the world. For which reason the original of all languages is absorbed and lost in the multiplicity of alterations and refinements, which have in all ages taken place, so that it is out of the power of all Etymologists and Lexieonists now living, to explain the ideas, which were anciently connected with those hieroglyphical figures or words, and which may have composed the original of any language, written in characters, in those obsolete and antiquated ages, when learning and science were in their infancy: since the beneficial, art of printing has arrived to any considerable degree of perfection, the etymology of words, in the scientifical and learned languages, has been considerably well understood: though imperfectly, as the various opinions of the learned concerning it may witness. But since the era of printing, the knowledge of the ancient learning has been in a great measure, or in most respects, wholly lost; and inasmuch as the modern substitute is much better, it is no loss at all. Some of the old English authors are at this day quite unintelligible, and others in their respective latter publications, more or less so. The last century and a half has done more towards the perfecting of grammar, and purifying the languages than the world had ever done before.
I do not understand Latin, Greek or Hebrew, in which languages, it is said, that the several original manuscripts of the Scriptures were written; but I am informed by the learned therein, that, the other languages, they have gone through their respective alterations and refinements, which must have been the case, except they reached their greatest perfection in their first composition; of which the progressive condition of man could not admit. So that the learned in those languages, at this day, know but little or nothing how they were spoken or written when the first manuscript copies of the Scriptures were composed; and consequently, are not able to inform us, whether their present translations do, any of them, perfectly agree with their respective original premised infallible manuscript copies or not. And inasmuch as the several English translations of the Bible do materially differ from each other, it evinces the confused and blundering condition in which it has been handed down to us.
The clergy often informs us from the desk, that the translation of the Bible, which is now in use in this country, is erroneous, after having read such and such a passage of it, in either Latin, Greek or Hebrew, they frequently give us to understand, that instead of the present translation, it should have been rendered thus and thus in English, but never represent to us how it was read and understood in the antiquated and mystical figures or characters of those languages, when the manuscripts of Scripture were first written, or how it has been preserved and handed down entire, through every refinement of those languages, to the present condition of Latin, Greek and Hebrew. Probably this is too abstruse a series of retrospective learning for their scholarship, and near or quite as foreign from their knowledge as from that of their hearers.*
It is not to be supposed that all the alterations which have taken place in language, have been merely by improving it. In many instances, ignorance, accident or custom has varied it to its disadvantage, but it has nevertheless been subject to correction, and generally speaking has been altered for the better, yet, by one means or other has been so fluctuating and unstable, as that an infallible revelation could not have been genuinely preserved, through all the vicissitudes and revolutions of learning, for more than seventeen hundred years last past to this day.
The diversity of the English language is represented with great accuracy by Mr. Samuel Johnson, the celebrated lexicographer, in the samples of different ages, in his history of the English language, subjoined to the preface of the dictionary, to which the curious are referred for the observance of the various specimens.