The

imply uncertainty in others cardinally important. situation of Kir or Sepharad may be conjectural, and the language from which Chiun is derived disputable, with little effect on Amos or Obadiah. If the storming of Betharbel has been too positively assumed, as determining the date of Hosea, the result would be to carry up the book from a quarter to half a century earlier, as general considerations render probable. Whether in Joel I have selected the right' Valley of Thorns,' or what thorns grew in it, I cannot tell. At the 12th verse of the 2nd chapter of Micah, there is a passage predicting destruction, in the judgment of such an array of expositors, Rabbinic, Patristic, Modern, as might seem invincible, if a fully equal array on the other side did not read a promise of prosperity; again, a third company, more critical than the first two, prefer the sense of promise, but trace in it signs of irony, as coming from a false prophet who has just been described. Here are three sets of authorities, any of which might avert censure, but hardly give certainty; much less can my preference for the first, with the addition of a suggestion that the passage describes a past event, presume to ask for more than consideration amongst tentative opinions. In other less striking cases, my claim is equally limited. Although I am as far as Bishop Lowth from thinking the Text supernaturally guaranteed against accidents of transmission, (see his Introduction to Isaiah,) I seldom imitate his freedom of conjecture, (except in the Margin, where it can do no harm,) but translate almost always the original characters: for the most part I follow the Masoretic punctuation, so far as it vocalises the consonants; but so far, as it interpunctuates sentences, I

depart from it frequently, without scruple. Doubtless, the persons to whose un-named labours we are indebted for this immense aid, were incomparably better versed in the technical idiom of their own tongue than any ordinary scholar who may presume to criticise them; yet their work, as it appears in books (I am not dealing with MSS.) betrays occasionally, from undue technicality, if not from a marvellous deadness of soul, manifest mistakes. The two closing verses of the 8th chapter of Isaiah, in the Authorised Version, and the instances noted in Hosea v. vi. vii. may serve as examples. Hence, without rejecting Jewish or Christian aids handed down to us, I have frequently found more attractive guidance in the sequence of thought, sometimes in the rhythm of a sentence. It may be that one who observes a key open some doors, will try it upon too many. Half the changes suggested in this respect may apologise for the remainder. The reader's governing principle should be the connexion of thought. Truer than all the Rabbins and Fathers, this guide will enable him to distinguish the conjectural from the manifest. Thus, whoever masters the meaning of Migdal-eder, as a place by Bethlehem, Micah iii. 16, (A. V. iv. 8,) and observes how the Prophet's thought travelled from the ruins of Samaria to the dynasty of Bethlehem, will hold a clue in his hand, which no one can wrest from him. He will never again doubt the cardinal meaning and main outline of Micah, though he may hesitate over particular suggestions, or reject some as fanciful.

The same principle will hold as to the most questionable step in this work, the marking by special type texts of which the age is doubted upon internal evidence alone.

It would have qeen a departure from strict right, not to indicate such questions, where they occur. Observation of the texture of thought preceding and following, will shew that the suggestions are not made in the interest of theory, and that, instead of impairing, they tend to confirm, our assurance of the genuineness of the Prophetic volume.

My second request is simply, that words familiar in the Authorised Version may not be so much missed, as to condemn whatever replaces them for no charge except strangeness. The beauty of a Translation is to represent the Original; not to be a record of idiom. If our former trauslators said in Isaiah that Tophet was ordained of old, and meant thereby setting the place in order, though flux of language has made them seem to imply a predestinating ordinance, it is time the meaning were given by such a word as arranged, though it may suit some ears less. Although the word LORD is sacred or dear, yet if it fails to convey that mystery of unchangeableness which it pleased God to stamp on the word JEHOVAH for those in whose language it is significant, it is well we should not forget whatever the deeper phrase can convey. We need not confound Moses with Christ, by a denial of plurality1 in their revelations; yet this thread runs through them, that an eternal Will, generating the Wisdom by which it is guided, and breathing Life through all, is taught in both. Though religion bear a scientific side, it does not in its essence grow like other sciences, but needs perpetual clearing from veils. If a version brings a reader nearer to the author, enabling him e. g. to read Amos, Micah or

St. John i. 17. Hebrews i. 1.

Nahum more intelligently, its existence is justified, though its phrase were uncouth.

More serious matter opens, when my third request proceeds to deprecate the dilemma objected to such undertakings, that either their alterations are trivial, and may be well disregarded; or they are dangerous, and contrary to a clergyman's duty. True, the Bible as it stands, is good enough to shew us the way to Heaven. Yet if any one considers how texts are handled in preaching, how long controversies hang upon their distortion, and how probably the sacred writers' own meaning, with its natural play of feeling, might convey edification, he may think an attempt to arrive at a clearer intelligence of the book desirable, though it import no new doctrine. He should think so more, if he holds the book sacred. Again, Orthodoxy depends not on balancing one numerical ignorance against another; but on the first principles of the Church, which are teaching truth, and saving souls. It should neither be assumed, that the Church will find the meaning of the Prophets contradictory to her formularies, nor if she did, that she would be unwilling to reconsider her own views in an access of light. Texts may vanish, yet others remain; as a great doctrine, dislodged from St. John's Epistle, finds a stronghold in his Gospel. More commonly, doctrine will retain its reason in some mode of thought, or ecclesiastical practice its recommendation in some social instinct, either of which would be abundant justification, if it were not weakened by special pleadings on Scripture, sometimes reaching to misrepresentations. An infant may be commended to the grace of God as fitly as an adult, for the

weakness of both is their worthiness; but it is an embarrassment to have to evoke the ghosts of departed texts as witnesses for the practice. It has been shewn that sayings in the New Testament preponderate against Judaic views of the Sabbath; yet few things ever lost our Church more of the affection of religious people, than her attempts to relax the observance of Sunday. The Creed which, from its position we forget sometimes, has an origin later than the Nicene, had once its articles ascribed each to an apostle : it has lost none of its authority by the removal of this fable, although some think it fitter for the school than for the congregation. The 'Descent into Hell' was perhaps first meant of Christ's burial, then of his departure into a place of Spirits, or less definitely, of his disappearance in the Unseen; thirdly, it became his triumphant wakening of lost nations to good news; fourthly, it was his vicarious substitution for men in the pangs of Gehenna. Opinion has in recent generations receded towards the milder, to all but the earliest form. Now, if the latest view is identical with almost the earliest, I cannot discover, why it is less consistent with a clergyman's duty, or why not even more orthodox, than the Limbus Patrum of poets, or the burning Gehenna of Calvin. In another Creed, if we strip apologetically the term Person of all physical organism and association, in order to convert strangers, we should not re-invest it with such things polemically in order to cast out those of our household. In general, the probability that one holding the spiritual nature of Deity, and interpreting anthropomorphisms accordingly, will come oftener in collision with a system framed (like our standards) anthropo

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