4. “It may be said”—(to quote again from Bp. Alexander's recent Charge),—“that there is a want of modesty in dissenting from the conclusions of a two-thirds majority of a body so learned. But the rough process of counting heads imposes unduly on the imagination. One could easily name eight in that assembly, whose unanimity would be practically almost decisive; but we have no means of knowing that these did not form the minority in resisting the changes which we most regret.” The Bishop is speaking of the English Revision. Having regard to the Greek Text exclusively, we also (strange to relate) had singled out exactly eight from the members of the New Testament company—Divines of undoubted orthodoxy, who for their splendid scholarship and proficiency in the best learning, or else for their refined taste and admirable judgment, might (as we humbly think), under certain safeguards, have been safely entrusted even with the responsibility of revising the Sacred Text. Under the guidance of Prebendary Scrivener (who among living Englishmen is facile princeps in these pursuits) it is scarcely to be anticipated that, when unanimous, such Divines would ever [pg 109] have materially erred. But then, of course, a previous life-long familiarity with the Science of Textual Criticism, or at least leisure for prosecuting it now, for ten or twenty years, with absolutely undivided attention,—would be the indispensable requisite for the success of such an undertaking; and this, undeniably, is a qualification rather to be desiderated than looked for at the hands of English Divines of note at the present day. On the other hand, (loyalty to our Master constrains us to make the avowal,) the motley assortment of names, twenty-eight in all, specified by Dr. Newth, at p. 125 of his interesting little volume, joined to the fact that the average attendance was not so many as sixteen,—concerning whom, moreover, the fact has transpired that some of the most judicious of their number often declined to give any vote at all,—is by no means calculated to inspire any sort of confidence. But, in truth, considerable familiarity with these pursuits may easily co-exist with a natural inaptitude for their successful cultivation, which shall prove simply fatal. In support of this remark, one has but to refer to the instance supplied by Dr. Hort. The Sacred Text has none to fear so much as those who feel rather than think: who imagine rather than reason: who rely on a supposed verifying faculty of their own, of which they are able to render no intelligible account; and who, (to use Bishop Ellicott's phrase,) have the misfortune to conceive themselves possessed of a “power of divining the Original Text,”—which would be even diverting, if the practical result of their self-deception were not so exceedingly serious.
5. In a future number, we may perhaps enquire into the measure of success which has attended the Revisers' Revision of the English of our Authorized Version of 1611. We have occupied ourselves at this time exclusively with a survey of the seriously mutilated and otherwise grossly depraved new Greek text, on which their edifice has been reared. [pg 110] And the circumstance which, in conclusion, we desire to impress upon our Readers, is this,—that the insecurity of that foundation is so alarming, that, except as a concession due to the solemnity of the undertaking just now under review, further Criticism might very well be dispensed with, as a thing superfluous. Even could it be proved concerning the superstructure, that “it had been [ever so] well builded,”[378] (to adopt another of our Revisionists' unhappy perversions of Scripture,) the fatal objection would remain, viz. that it is not “founded upon the rock.”[379] It has been the ruin of the present undertaking—as far as the Sacred Text is concerned—that the majority of the Revisionist body have been misled throughout by the oracular decrees and impetuous advocacy of Drs. Westcott and Hort; who, with the purest intentions and most laudable industry, have constructed a Text demonstrably more remote from the Evangelic verity, than any which has ever yet seen the light. “The old is good,”[380] say the Revisionists: but we venture solemnly to assure them that “the old is better;”[381] and that this remark holds every bit as true of their Revision of the Greek throughout, as of their infelicitous exhibition of S. Luke v. 39. To attempt, as they have done, to build the Text of the New Testament on a tissue of unproved assertions and the eccentricities of a single codex of bad character, is about as hopeful a proceeding as would be the attempt to erect an Eddystone lighthouse on the Goodwin Sands.
Article II. The New English Version.
“Such is the time-honoured Version which we have been called upon to revise! We have had to study this great Version carefully and minutely, line by line; and the longer we have been engaged upon it the more we have learned to admire its simplicity, its dignity, its power, its happy turns of expression, its general accuracy, and we must not fail to add, the music of its cadences, and the felicities of its rhythm. To render a work that had reached this high standard of excellence, still more excellent; to increase its fidelity, without destroying its charm; was the task committed to us.”—Preface To the Revised Version.
“To pass from the one to the other, is, as it were, to alight from a well-built and well-hung carriage which glides easily over a macadamized road,—and to get into one which has bad springs or none at all, and in which you are jolted in ruts with aching bones over the stones of a newly-mended and rarely traversed road, like some of the roads in our North Lincolnshire villages.”—Bishop Wordsworth.[382]
“No Revision at the present day could hope to meet with an hour's acceptance if it failed to preserve the tone, rhythm, and diction of the present Authorized Version.”—Bishop Ellicott.[383]
“I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this Book,—If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this Book.