των.

terpreter runs the risk of overlooking the right, and adopting a wrong division of the sentences. Of this I shall give one remarkable example from the Gospel of John, ch. 10: 14: 15. Our Lord says, in one of his discourses, 'Εγώ εἰμι ὁ ποιμὴν ὁ καλός· καὶ γινώσκω τὰ ἐμα, καὶ γινωσκομαι ὑπὸ τῶν ἐμῶν, καθώς γινώσκει με ὁ πατὴρ, κατ γω γινώσκω τὸν πατέρα· καὶ τὴν ψυχήν μου τίθημι ὑπὲρ τῶν προβά When the sentence is thus pointed, as it manifestly ought to be, and exhibited unbroken by the division into verses, no person can doubt that the following version is equally close to the letter and to the sense: I am the good Shepherd; I both know my own, and am known by them, even as the Father knoweth me, and I know the Father; and lay down my life for the sheep. But its being divided into two sentences, and put into separate verses, has occasioned the disjointed and improper version given in the common translation: "14. I am the good Shepherd, and know my sheep; and am known of mine. 15. As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep." In this artificial distribution (which seems to have originated from Beza; for he acknowledges that, before him, the fifteenth verse included only the last member, "and I lay down," etc.) the second sentence is an abrupt, and totally unconnected, interruption of what is affirmed in the preceding words, and in the following; whereas, taking the words as they stand naturally, it is an illustration by similitude, quite in our Lord's manner, of what he had affirmed in the foregoing words. But though the translator should not be misled in this manner, a desire of preserving, in every verse of his translation, all that is found in the corresponding verse of his original, that he may adjust the one to the other, and give verse for verse, may oblige him to give the words a more unnatural arrangement in his own language, than he would have thought of doing if there had been no such division into verses, and he had been left to regulate himself solely by the sense.

4. Influenced by these considerations, I have determined, neither entirely to reject the common division, nor to adopt it in the manner which is usually done. To reject it entirely, would be to give up one of the greatest conveniences we have in the use of any version, for every purpose of occasional consultation and examination, as well as for comparing it with the original and with other versions. Nor is it enough that a more commodious division than the present may be devised, which shall answer all the useful purposes of the common version, without its inconveniences. Still there are some advantages which a new division could not have, at least for many centuries. The common division, such as it is, has prevailed universally, and does prevail, not in this kingdom only, but throughout all Christendom. Concordances in different languages, commentaries, versions, paraphrases; all theological works,

critical, polemical, devotional, practical, in their order of commenting on Scripture, and in all their references to Scripture, regulate themselves by it. If we would not then have a new version rendered in a great measure useless to those who read the old, or even the original, in the form wherein it is now invariably printed, or who have recourse to any of the helps above-mentioned, we are constrained to adopt, in some shape or other, the old division.

5. For these reasons I have judged it necessary to retain it; but at the same time, in order to avoid the disadvantages attending it, I have followed the method taken by some other editors, and confined it to the margin. This answers sufficiently all the purposes of reference and comparison, without tending so directly to interrupt the reader, and divert him from perceiving the natural connexion of the things treated. I have also adopted such a new division into sections and paragraphs, as appeared to me better suited than the former, both to the subject of these histories and to the manner of treating it. Nothing, surely, can be more incongruous, than to cut down a coherent narrative into shreds, and give it the appearance of a collection of aphorisms. This, therefore, I have carefully avoided. The sections are, one with another, nearly equal to two chapters; a few of them more, but many less. In making this division, I have been determined partly by the sense, and partly by the size. In every section I have included such a portion of Scripture as seemed proper to be read at one time, by those who regularly devote a part of every day to this truly Christian exercise. To make all the portions of equal length, or nearly so, was utterly incompatible with a proper regard to the sense. I have avoided breaking off in the middle of a distinct story, parable, conversation, or even discourse, delivered in continuance.

The length of three of the longest sections in this work, was occasioned by the resolution not to disjoin the parts of one continued discourse. The sections I allude to are, the sermon on the mount, and the prophecy on Olivet, as recorded by Matthew, together with our Lord's valedictory consolations to his disciples, as related by John. The first occupies three ordinary chapters, the second two long ones, and the third four short chapters. But though I have avoided making a separation where the scope of the place requires unity, I could not, in a consistency with any regard to size, allot a separate section to every separate incident, parable, conversation, or miracle. When these, therefore, are briefly related, insomuch that two or more of them can be included in a section of moderate length, I have separated them only by paragraphs. The length of the paragraph is determined merely by the sense. Accordingly, some of them contain no more than a verse of the common division, and others little less than a chapter. One parable makes one paragraph. When an explanation is given separately, the explanation makes another; when it

follows immediately, and is expressed very briefly, both are included in one. Likewise, one miracle makes one paragraph; but when the narrative is interrupted, and another miracle intervenes, as happens in the story of the daughter of Jairus, more paragraphs are requisite. When the transition, in respect of the sense, seems to require a distinction more strongly marked, it has been judged expedient to leave a blank line, and to begin the next paragraph with a word in capitals.

6. It was not thought necessary to number the paragraphs, as this way is now, unless in particular cases, and for special purposes, rather unusual; and as all the use of reference and quotation may be sufficiently answered by the old division on the margin. In the larger distribution into sections, I have, according to the most general custom, both numbered and titled them. But as to this method of dividing, I will not pretend that it is not in a good measure arbitrary, and that it might not with equal propriety, have been conducted otherwise. As it was necessary to comprehend distinct things in the same section, there was no clear rule by which one could, in all cases, be directed where to make the separation. It was indeed evident, that wherever it could occasion an unseasonable interruption in narration, dialogue or argument, it was improper; and that this was all that could be ascertained with precision. The title of the sections I have made as brief as possible, that they may be the more easily remembered; and have for this purpose, employed words, as we find some employed in the rubric of the Common Prayer, which have not been admitted into the text. To these I have added, in the same taste, the contents of the section, avoiding minuteness, and giving only such hints of the principal matters, as may assist the reader to recall them to his remembrance, and may enable him at first glance, to discover whether a passage he is looking for be in the section or not. I have endeavored to avoid the fault of those who make the contents of the chapters supply, in some degree, a commentary, limiting the sense of Scripture by their own ideas. Those who have not dared to make so free with the text, have thought themselves entitled to make free with these abridgments of their own framing. To insert thus without hesitation into the contents prefixed to the several chapters, and thereby insinuate, under the shelter of inspiration, doubtful meanings which favor their own prepossessions, I cannot help considering as one way of handling the word of God deceitfully. I have, therefore, avoided throwing any thing into those summaries which could be called explanatory, and have, besides, thought it better to assign them a separate place in this work, where the reader may consult them when he chooses, than to intermix them with the truths we have directly from the sacred writers.

7. Most translators have found it necessary to supply some

words for the sake of perspicuity, and for accommodating the expression to the idiom of the language into which the version is made, who, at the same time, to avoid even the appearance of assuming an undue authority to themselves, have visibly distinguished the words supplied from the rest of the sentence. Thus the English translators, after Beza and others, always put the words in italics, by which an ellipsis in the original, that does not suit our idiom, is filled up. Though I approve their motives in using this method, as they are strong indications of fairness and attention to accuracy, I cannot help thinking that in the execution they have sometimes carried it to excess. In consequence of the structure of the original languages, several things are distinctly, though implicitly expressed, which have no explicit signs in the sentence. The personal pronouns, for example, both in power and in number, are as clearly though virtually expressed in their own tongue by the verb alone, as they are in ours by a separate sign. Thus, amo, in Latin, is not less full and expressive than I love in English, or amavistis than ye have loved. And it would be exceedingly improper to say that in the former language there is an ellipsis of the pronoun, since the verb actually expresses it: For amo can be said of none but the first person singular, and amavistis of none but the second person plural. The like holds in other instances. The adjective sometimes includes the power of the substantive. Bonus is a good man, bona a good woman, and bonum a good thing. Yet to mark an ellipsis arising from such a want as that of a word corresponding to man, woman, and thing, in the above expressions, the italic character has sometimes been introduced by our translators.

8. I remember, that when I first observed this distinction of character in the English Bible, being then a schoolboy, I asked my elder brother who had been at college, the reason of the difference. He told me, that the words in italics were words to which there was nothing in the original that corresponded. This made me take greater notice of the difference afterwards, and often attempt to read, passing over those words entirely. As this sometimes succeeded, without any appearance of deficiency in the sentence, I could not be satisfied with the propriety of some of the insertions. These words (Matt. 24: 40, 41) particularly attracted my attention: "Two women shall be grinding at the mill," where the word women is in italics. I could not conceive where the occasion was for inserting this word. Could it be more improper to say barely two shall be grinding at one mill, than to say, as in the former verse, two shall be in the field, without limiting it to either sex? And since the evangelist expressed both in the same manner, was any person entitled to make a difference?-On having recourse again for information, I was answered, that the evangelist had not expressed them both in the same manner; but on the contrary, the first, as written VOL. I. 63

by him, could be understood only of men, the second only of women-as all the words susceptible of gender were in the fortieth verse in the masculine, and in the forty-first in the feminine. I understood the answer, having before that time learnt as much Latin as sufficiently showed me the effect produced by the gender on the sense. What then appeared to me unaccountable in the translators was, first their putting the word women in italics, since, though it had not a particular word corresponding to it, it was clearly comprehended in the other words of the passage; and, secondly, their not adding men in the fortieth verse, because, by these two successive verses, the one in the masculine, the other in the feminine gender, it appeared the manifest intention of the author to acquaint us, that both sexes would be involved in the calamities of the times spoken of.

This is but one instance of many which might be given to show how little dependence we can have on those marks; and that if the unlearned were to judge of the perspicuity of the original, (as I once did), from the additions which it seems by the common version to have required, their judgment would be both unfavorable and erroneous. The original has in many cases a perspicuity, as well as energy, which the ablest interpreters find it difficult to convey into their versions. The evangelist John (ch. 1: 11), says of our Lord, εἰς τὰ ἴδια ἦλθε, καὶ οἱ ἴδιοι αὐτὸν οὐ παρέλαβον. I have expressed the sentiment, but not so forcibly, in this manner: He came to his own land, and his own people did not receive him.* On the principles on which the English translation is conducted, the words land and people ought to be visibly distinguished, as having no corresponding names in the original. That the old interpreters would have judged so, we may fairly conclude from their not admitting them, or any thing equivalent into their version. Yet, that their version is on this account less explicit than the original, cannot be doubted by those that understand Greek, who must be sensible, that, by the bare change of gender in the pronoun, the purport of those names is conveyed with the greatest clearness. See the note on that passage in the Gospel.

9. Our translators have not, however, observed uniformly their manner of distinguishing by the aid of italics. Indeed, if they had, their work must have made a very motley appearance. On many occasions, the Hebrew or Greek name requires more than one word in our language to express a meaning which it often bears, and which alone suits the context. There was no reason, in ren

The verse was so rendered in the former edition. Indeed in this I have preferred, He came to his own home, and his own family did not receive him. By the same rule the words home and family should be distinguished here, as land and people in the other case.