Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

ERRATA.

Page 7, line 25, for into, read with.

[ocr errors]

159, line 15, for Joseph McCaul, read the late Dr. A. McCaul.

398, margin, for breath, read hearth.

406, margin, for month, read mouth.

PREFACE.

THE object of this work is not to inculcate any especial theory, but to place that numerous class of readers, who are intelligent and thoughtful, but not scholastic, in possession of the mind of the Prophets, commencing with those who wrote under the Assyrian empire.

The method originally intended, was to reprint our Authorised Version, endeared by so many associations, as well as commended by signal merit, and to correct in it only what a consent of scholars had pronounced to be imperfections. Almost I could wish I had adhered to this, and sometimes after leaving our Version have returned to it. Those who have felt in a mechanical task the mind ill acquiesce in a suspension of energy, will understand why I have gradually ventured on a course of greater freedom.

No one would retranslate the Bible for the sake of changes so slight, or dubious in character, as some which appear in this volume. Yet, supposing the duty of faithfulness suggested other important changes as necessary, taste, idiom, even fanciful selection, would claim beyond necessity a margin of their own.

The work aspires to be an improvement, without professing perfection. There is no attempt to make it a substitute for the reader's own power of reflexion, by amassing stores of commentary which have been lavished upon the text; still less to transcribe matter for refutation, though specimens of traditions, once authoritative, and still ob

VOL I.

a

structive, have been given. Many collateral topics, of intrinsic interest, are set aside; the more so, since they have been treated in works of merit, whether Travels, Introductions, or Dictionaries, with which there was no wish to enter into competition. Each author has his own field. Some religious questions, to which a reader might more expect answers, will have light thrown on them by the Sacred writers' own language, or by the comments which it suggests; may in part be postponed for a concluding summary. Let me here say, no view of Inspiration appears to me dangerous, but such as, taking its stand on a point attained, opposes itself to any fresh accession of knowledge. No estimate of the Bible can be too high, which does not disparage sanctities, or violate charities.

It has been thought right to employ, as opportunity permitted, the usual aids; such as the ancient Versions, particularly the Septuagint and Vulgate, the latter with a growing sense of its superior, and almost singular merit, where the prejudices of Jerome do not warp his translation, as they constantly warp his commentary. The Targum has been looked at occasionally, seldom by choice. Amongst scholars, a tribute of acknowledgment is especially due to Calvin, a name venerable for integrity, as for piety; Grotius, learned in an age when learning was the devotion of the intellect; Rosenmüller, whose ample collection of comments abridges the translator's work; Eichhorn, excellent in poetical grasp and suggestion, more than in detail; Gesenius, in his proper realm still, it seems to me, un-dethroned; Ewald, who will not leave unquestioned, but pardon, I trust, the preceding judgment; and whose own faculty of divination, compounded of

spiritual insight and immense learning, I only do not praise, because praise from me would be presumptuous; our own Lowth and Newcome, still deserving to be read; De Wette, a master of accuracy; Maurer, an ingenious and suggestive writer; Knobel, of whose instructive Hand-buch on Isaiah I have been able to avail myself, though not of his other writings; while for hints, half forgotten, I may be indebted to miscellaneous reading. Neither upon one, nor all of these, is this Version so founded, as to lessen its author's responsibility. If no Continental scholar had arisen, every particular in this volume would hardly have its present form, but the salient points in it would have been brought to light by the internal forces of philology, unless artificial obstacles intervened. No student of the method, as well as the opinions, of our more critical Bishops and Archbishops in Protestant days, Jewel, Kidder, Francis Hare, Butler, Lowth, Cranmer, Secker, Newcome; can dream that Biblical discrimination began with Spinosa, or depends upon fashion in Germany. I say nothing here of Pecock, Hooker, Chillingworth; although the varying tone of Biblical study, as it has reflected more or less an awakenment of life or literature, might be worth lingering upon.

It would have been an agreeable duty to assign each suggestion to its first author, instead of quoting (as I find myself) from Maurer what he had taken from Rosenmüller, or (as I have observed others,) blaming for German ncology what the blamers did not know originated with old Bochart. Such rectification may belong to the historian of interpretation, but would require a labour of no proportionate interest to the readers at whom I aim. My guide in

Geography, so far as illustration from it was needed, has been the traveller Robinson, with the aid of Vandevelde's Map.

may

It would be idle for the work of a solitary clergyman, without the corrections which the vigilance of many minds may superadd, to aspire to use in the congregation. He may hope that the Version, if hardly the Commentary, may be found suitable for family reading; that as a whole the work may instruct persons trained in the school of Butler sufficiently to think the employment of our intellectual faculties, in connexion with our faith, a part of our moral probation or responsibility towards our Maker; that it aid in critical periods of youthful life men vexed to find their highest aspirations represented as dependent on views of Scripture which they see reason to doubt, or observe denied by men highly informed; perhaps it may enable them to set a limit to doubts extending from the distortion to the truth; at least it may suggest to some in whom the cessation of Academic activity leaves a void, how rich a mine remains little-worked in the reverential, but unshrinking, study of the Old Testament; hereafter, if it should receive a fair measure of approval, it may spare the teacher, in some forlorn outpost, sorrowful years. Some things it teaches which, learnt early and naturally, are innocent as day-light, but forced on men against sacred associations, amidst misgivings and outcries, with the strife of tongues, and with needless consequences fastened upon them in the name of outraged logic, may blight the life that now is, and obscure that which is to come.

Three requests I would make of the reader. First, let not the admitted doubtfulness of some points seem to

« AnteriorContinuar »