with Hebrew and Greek literature, and at this early day affirmed, that "It is the will of God that the Holy Scriptures should be translated by many translators, and that there should be different translations in the church; so that what is obscured by one, may be more perspicuously translated by another." I concur with Anderson, from whom I have quoted these rare facts, that this was the first voice in Western Europe for a vernacular translation of the Holy Scriptures. The condition of the Papal dominions at this period, may be fairly inferred from an address delivered by the Irish Fitzralph, the great pioneer in the advocacy of new and popular versions. When at Lyons, as primate of Armagh, in the presence of Pope Innocent IV. he arraigned the popish clergy, in the boldest terms, "for their ignorance, arrogance, and flagitious conduct." In the course of his speech, he affirmed that the Italian scholars did not so much as know the Greek alphabet.

He also complained to the Pope, that "no book, whether of divinity, law, or physic, could stir, but the friars were able to buy it up; and that his secular chaplains, whom he sent to Oxford for education, wrote to him that they could not find a Bible in Oxford, nor any good and profitable book on divinity for a man to study, and that they were, therefore, minded to return to Ireland." This conveys us down to the times of Wickliffe.

To illustrate the value and importance of Bible translation, I will draw yet farther upon my old and recent readings. Wickliffe died A.D. 1384, four years after he had finished his translation of the Roman Vulgate. Both the Greek and Roman Catholics had interdicted any translation into the living tongues of Europe and Asia. Indeed, the Council of Toulouse, one hundred and fifty years before Wickliffe's version appeared, had passed forty-five canons against heresy. One of these involved the first court of Inquisition, and forbade the Scriptures to the laity. The canon reads in the following words: "We forbid the laity to possess any of the books of the Old or New Testament. We strictly forbid the having of any of these books translated." A Latin service in the church, and a Latin Bible in the hands of the priesthood, and none at all in the hands of the people, was the triumph of the Prince of Darkness in Roman Christendom, and the midnight of the so-called Christian world. The first star of hope was Wickliffe's version, though itself but the version of a version, and not of the original. Still, its appearance inflicted an incurable wound on the Man of Sin and Son of Perdition. On the occasion of its first appearance commenced the era of discussion. Henry de Knyghton, a Leicester canon, affirmed, that "a man could not find two people on the road but one of them was a disciple of Wickliffe ;" and again, "The soldiers, with the dukes and earls, were the chief adherents of this sect. They were their most strenuous promoters-their most powerful defenders and their invincible protectors."

On another occasion he said, "This Master John Wickliffe hath translated the gospel out of Latin into English, which Christ has entrusted with the clergy and the doctors of the church, that they might minister to the weaker sort, according to the state of the times and the wants of men. So that by this means the gospel is made vulgar, and laid more open to the laity, and even to women who can read, than it used to be to the most learned of the clergy and those of the best understanding. And what was before the chief gift of the clergy and the gift of the church, is made for ever common to the laity." What a comment on the value of a translation! What a portraiture of Popery!

To this adds another contemporary prelate " The prelates ought not to suffer that every one, at his pleasure, should read the Scriptures, translated even into Latin, because, as is plain from experience, this has always been the occasion of falling into errors and heresies. It is not, therefore, politic, that any one, wheresoever and whensoever he will, should give himself to the frequent study of the Scriptures."

During the controversy of two rival Popes, from A.D. 1380 to A.D. 1400, the controversy for and against translations in the vulgar tongues was very rife. A bill for suppressing Wickliffe's Bible was proposed to be brought into the House of Lords. On that occasion the Duke of Lancaster said, that "he would maintain the having of this law-the Holy Scriptures in our own tongue-whoever they would be that should bring in the bill.”

Still, there was no persecution instituted against the friends of a popular version, or to check the Wickliffites, already spreading all over England, until the reign of the IVth Henry, when some members of Parliament became infected with the heresy of Bible reading in an English version, and when the Papal clergy became alarmed, lest they should introduce a public reformation.

The invention of paper at the close of the 13th century, or early in the 14th, and the invention of printing soon following the revival of learning, the increasing taste for reading an English version, gave to the subject of translation a rapidly growing importance, which never could be annihilated — indeed, scarcely suppressed-until the seeds of a broader and deeper reformation were widely scattered and deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. This secretly working spirit prepared the way for Luther, who, with a lion-hearted courage and an herculean vigor, attacked the basis of the Papal institution. Since which time I need not tell the story of new versions, or of Protestant triumphs. Bible translation soon became the standing order of the day. Luther, Erasmus, Beza, Castalio, Junius and Tremellius, Schmidt, Dante, &c. engaged in it with great spirit. From Luther's version soon sprang up ten others, in other states and languages on the Continent.

In the British Isles we find, in a few years, Wickliffe, Tindal, Miles Coverdale, Grafton, alias Thomas Mathew, Cranmer, and the bishops, at work. The spirit spread through Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, and they must severally have God speak to them in their respective tongues.

Finally, King James, borne on by the spirit of the age, is engaged in making one more acceptable to his people, and to issue it under all authority, political and ecclesiastical.

The version was soon hailed by all the enlightened men in his dominions, and appointed to be read in churches. It was in advance of all others at that day, yet wanting in some respects. Hence the number of private versions of a part, or parts, of the volume, and some of the whole New Testament, which have, since that time, appeared. From the days of King James down to the demise of Professor Stuart, of Andover, in Britain and America the work of translation has ever since been going on. Even Romanists themselves have been compelled by the spirit of Protestantdom and of the age, to give sundry versions in different tongues. In the Latin tongue we have four Romanist versions of the whole Bible. That of Paginus, that of Malvenda and Cardinal Cajetan, and that of Houbigant. The Scriptures, in Europe alone, are now read in some fifty languages.

Thomas Hartwell Horne has borne testimony, ample and striking, in favor of our Common Version, both from the orthodox and heterodox Protestants in Britain. Still he has the candor to admit its defects and imperfections. After summoning his cloud of witnesses to attest its superior claims, he candidly adds these words: "Notwithstanding these decisive testimonies to the superior excellence of our authorized version, it is readily admitted that it is not immaculate, and that a complete correction of it is an object of desire to the friends of religion, were it only to silence the perpetually repeated cavils of the opposers of divine revelation; who, studiously disregarding the various satisfactor answers which have been given to their unfounded objections, persevere in repeating them so long as they find a few mistranslated passages in the authorized version." But he did not think, some quarter of a century ago, "that sacred criticism" (I presume he meant literary criticism) "was yet so far advanced as to furnish all the means that may be expected." If we wait till "all the means," real or imaginary, that may hereafter be expected, be actually possessed by any individual, or assembly of individuals, the work will not be commenced till about the end of the millennium!

Since Mr. Horne wrote these words, there have been issued, in Europe and in America, at least a hundred volumes, containing alledged errors with their corrections. Some of these are, indeed, very minute; and while they occasionally render the obscure more perspicuous, the defective more complete, the indefinite more precise, the ambiguous more certain, and the complicated more simple, we cannot say that any of them is absolutely faultless in every particular. We are truly thankful that there is no version so wholly defective that an honest

reader, learned or unlearned, may not understand the great scheme of salvation, and believe and obey it to the salvation of his soul.

I have never seen any English version, Romanist or Protestant, orthodox or heterodox, however imperfect, from which a man of sense and industry might not learn the way to heaven. Nor have I ever seen a country, however bleak or sterile, in which an industrious, laborious, and persevering husbandman, might not dig out of it the means of living. But what does this prove? That there is little or no difference between countries-between temperate or intemperate zones!

Who, having seen the fertile hills and valleys of the fairest portions of our much favored and beloved land, would think of locating himself in the barren heaths of Siberia, or in the sandy or slimy deserts of Lybia? As little he, that has a taste for the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, who desires the bread and the water of life that came down from heaven, who thirsts after the knowledge of God and of Christ, who prays for the full assurance of understanding the whole counsel of God, revealed in God's own book-I say, as little can he be satisfied with a mere glimpse of light-with a dim, imperfect, or ambiguous version of God's own book of life, health, and salvation to man. Still they are severally and collectively useful, and some of them contain many valuable emendations; but not any one of them meets the wants of this age, or would, in the aggregate, be a proper or satisfactory substitute for the Common Version, notwithstanding all its obscurities and errors.

The labors bestowed upon the original text, in ascertaining the genuine readings of passages of doubtful interpretation, and the great advances made in the whole science of hermeneutics-the established laws of translation-since the commencement of the present century, fully justify the conclusion, that we are, or may be, much better furnished for the work of interpretation, than any one, however gifted by nature and by education, could have been, not merely fifty, but two hundred and fifty years ago. The living critics and translators of the present day, in Europe and America, are like Saul amongst the peoplehead and shoulders above them of the early part of the 17th century.

As for honesty, we ought not, perhaps, to say any thing. But we may presume to say, without the charge of arrogance or invidious comparison, that we are not greatly inferior to them. And if in talent and education, compared with the moderns, they were giants and we but pigmies; still, as pigmies standing upon the shoulders of giants, we ought to see farther than those upon whose shoulders we place ourselves. Biblical criticism is now much more a science than it was in A.D. 1600, so soon after the revival of literature. A far greater number of Biblical critics have succeeded than preceded the Protestant Reformation, and of a much higher order. Before that era there was not one good Greek or Hebrew critic for one hundred at the present day. The Papal Romans were merely Roman scholars, and yet inferior to the Pagan Romans. These are facts so generally known and conceded, that it is not necessary to dwell upon them. The art of printing, with the increased number of theological seminaries, and the competition between Romanists and Protestants, and between the leading Protestant parties themselves, with the facilities of a more enlarged intercourse amongst learned men, could not otherwise elevate the standard of Biblical scholarship, and afford greater facilities for acquiring Biblical learning.

Corresponding with this, the vigorous impulse given to the human mind by the rapid progress in the sciences and in the arts, merely physical and intellectual; the great increase of new discoveries and general improvement in the social system, sustained by the facilities of the press, have all contributed to a higher intellectual development, and a more thorough scholarship, than were ever attained by the Greek or Roman schisms, or by any Protestant denomination anterior to the era of the Common Version. Indeed, one may affirm, without the fear of successful contradiction, that during the last hundred years, on the Continent of Europe, in Great Britain, and in the United States of America, Biblical criticism, Biblical learning, and Biblical translation, have advanced in every essential characteristic and accompaniment, much more in what is usually called Christendom, than was practicable or possible anterior to that date.

A more suitable time, therefore, has never been since the era of the AngloSaxon language, since the rise of the Papal defection, than the present, for a corrected and improved version of the Jewish and Christian Oracles, in the living Anglo-Saxon language of the present day.

A concerted movement of all, or any of the Protestant parties, in such an undertaking, we cannot expect. It is not in living experience, nor is it any where inscribed on the pages of ecclesiastical history, that a plurality of denominations have ever agreed to make a common version, for common use. Romanists and Protestants, Episcopalians and Presbyterians, Congregationalists and Methodists, Baptists and Pedobaptists, never have agreed, and I presume, never will agree, to make in common a new version.

Indeed, the first version in our language, as also the second-which is virtually the present commonly used version-in the main, were made by individual enterprise and on individual responsibility. Their merit, and the course of events, providentially gave them whatever popularity and influence they have possessed.

King James' version is, at most but a correction-not, indeed, always an amended correction-of the version of Wm. Tindal. No assembly ever made a new version of the New Testament. Conventions have met and read, have approbated or condemned, have amended or altered, as the case may have been, versions made by individual men. But no convention has yet made a new or original translation.

We have already shown, that those in power with the people, uniformly opposed new versions, until they had already, by alleged intrinsic merit, gained an authority with the people. Those in power have always opposed innovation, for the most obvious reasons in the world. They could gain nothing earthly, in public favor, by any improvement, and might lose much by innovations of a new version, if a correct one. And this is the reason why both Romanists and Protestants have uniformly opposed new versions.

None but pure, enlightened, conscientious, spiritually-minded men, could attempt, advocate, or execute an exact, faithful, perspicuous, and intelligible version of God's oracles. These seldom, more probably never, have constituted a majority in any nominally Christian communion.

Majorities, in the affairs of mammon, are worthy of all respect and confidence, because, in such matters they have a single eye, a clear head, and a sincere heart. But in Christ's kingdom, minorities are much more likely to be, and most generally have been, most worthy of public confidence, ever since the almost unanimous spiritual court of Israel delivered up the Lord Jesus Christ to be crucified. The history of mankind is full of admonition and warning on this subject. Ever since the days of Noah, Lot, and Abraham, majorities are not famous-rather infamous-in sacred story. Still, we flatter ourselves, and will present the flattering unction to the souls of our contemporaries, that we all are exceptions to a universal rule. Still, I confess I am not without fear in this matter, while I look narrowly into the volumes of church history. One thing is certain, we have as yet no version of the Christian Scriptures made by a convention. "History," I repeat, "is but philosophy speaking by example." If history exemplifies any principle, it is that good men love light, and wicked men hate light, in all matters spiritual and eternal. Hence, as already shown, every valuable effort to give, in the vernacular of any people, an exact, faithful, and perspicuous version of God's own book, has been confined or doomed to individual enterprise, or that which most nearly approaches it. "In the multitude of counsellors," Solomon says, "there is safety." But he did not say, in the multitude of translators there is safety. In giving counsel on meum and tuum, on "miney and thiney,” there is much more facility, and much more safety, than in making faithful versions of the doctrine of self-denial, and of taking up the cross. Still, a company of select men, not selected by a king, a court, a metropolitan, or an archbishop, but by a spiritually and heavenly-minded community, may be found capable and honest, single-minded and single-eyed enough, to guarantee a version true to the original, as they are competent to understand and express it. Learned in their own language they must be, as well as in the original tongues.

But it has been often asked, What may be the destiny of such a version? In other words, Who will receive it, and what will be its influence? This is a question which, however dogmatically propounded, cannot be so dogmatically answered. We are neither apostles nor prophets, but we can freely express our opinion, and give some reasons for it.

In the first place, then, much will depend upon the reputed orthodoxy and piety of those who execute it. The Society under whose patronage, and by whose instrumentality it is proposed, is properly called the Bible Union—not the Baptist Union.

Already it has been opposed and misrepresented as a Baptist Union, for Baptist principles. A new measure to carry out immersionist views of the action of baptism, by translating baptism immersion, and all its family, root and branches, by immerse, immersing, immersed, immersion! This is about all the logic and all the rhetoric that has appeared in one hundred and forty-four paragraphs, written, printed, and circulated against it, from “Dan even unto Beersheba," from Boston to San Francisco, from Mulberry-street, New York, to Old Jewry, London!

Truly, Immersionists have been hardly pressed, although now the largest community in the Union, and annually gaining more than any denomination in the number of its membership; fully equalling in population, wealth, and resources, one-fifth of the political and moral force of this great nation!

But why have recourse to a new version, for the sake of translating this family of baptizo? Have not all, or nearly all, the learned Rabbis and Doctors of the Pedobaptist communities, affirmed not only that baptism means immersion, but also, that it was so administered in the Apostles' day? Ask Brenner, of the church of Rome, what was the ancient apostolic baptism? He responds, that "immersion was practised for thirteen centuries almost universally, and from the beginning till now," in the Greek church. Ask the English Episcopal church, how long did the church practice immersion as the representative of baptism? and Dr. Wall responds, for 1600 years. Ask Luther, what his judgment is on the premises? he answers: "I could wish that such as are to be baptized, should be carefully immersed into water, according to the meaning of the word and the signification of the ordinance; as also, without doubt, it was instituted by Christ." Ask the great American critic, the late Professor Stuart, what is the English of baptize, and he affirms, "that it means to dip, plunge, or immerse in water, and that all lexicographers and critics of any note are agreed in this." And does not ancient history aver, that both Wickliffe and Tindal were in their views immersionists? With all these venerated names-a mere cluster, culled from the orthodox Pedobaptist vine-what need have Baptists themselves to form a Baptist Bible Union, to inculcate their views of immersion!

But it will be whispered that other views than these-heretical and falseare cherished by the Bible Union, and that the version will be colored by these. This has been insinuated-nay, printed and published by Baptists themselves opposed to it! And what is the proof, or the basis of such suspicion? Have not the leading movers of this Bible translation, as now digested and exhibited by the Bible Union, been always regarded as sound and orthodox on every vital doctrine of Christianity? Do not they believe in the fall of man; in the contamination and guilt of sin, which, as a leprosy, has infected every child born into the world? Do they not believe and teach the equal Divine nature and glory of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, as developed in the great work of redemption, in and through the death, the sacrifice, or vicarious sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ? Do not they believe and teach that the Father works, the Son works, and the Holy Spirit works, in the redemption, illumination, regeneration, sanctification, resurrection, and glorification of man, through the grace of the Father, the sacrifice of the Son, and the recreative, renovating, regenerating influence of the Holy Guest of the Christian templethe mystic house of God, erected for an habitation of God through the Spirit?

Can, then, our heterodoxy be alleged as an objection to any version that we may make? There is no vital orthodoxy, no real orthodoxy, in Protestant Christendom. My own individual orthodoxy is too orthodox for the orthodox prelates of a sectarian world. I thank God, as Paul once said of himself, in his own foolish way of boasting, I am more orthodox than any of them. I have all