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page, with Campbell and McKnight, as Doctors of the Church of Scotland. I believed that they were communicants in common with all Presbyterian churches. Technically, however, it was an error. Still as the Congregationalists of New England were component parts of the Presbyterian Church of these United States until last year, and sat in their Assembly, I hold it to be according to their own usage to identify them as members of one ecclesiastic community. I, therefore, without the slightest suspicion of any umbrage to the Presbyterians, and without any conceivable interest or advantage to my views, had, as aforesaid, placed him on the title-page with the Presbyterians Campbell and McKnight, as members of the same church, much in the same way as they had placed Jonathan Edwards at the head of a Presbyterian College, as I supposed.

But why assail my motives and arraign my moral character for so doing? What gain or interest had I in this affair? Mr. Landis will tell you: "After Mr. Campbell had proclaimed Dr. Doddridge to be a Presbyterian, he cites him as an important and weighty authority, and one, of course, whose candor had got the better of his Presbyterian principles, to sustain the rendering which his book gives of ekklesia-viz. congregation, instead of that given in the common translations."

Let us now honestly examine this matter. We took but the Acts of the Apostles and the Apocalypse from Doddridge; the four Gospels from Campbell; and the Epistles from McKnight. We quoted Doddridge once in a critical note upon the word ekklesia, but we also gave Dr. Campbell in the same note, as sustaining the same view of the term, as also Thompson. I did not, indeed, at the time know the particular views of Doddridge on ecclesiastical government; I simply regarded him as a Calvinist whose works were every where read and commended by Presbyterians. As to any gain to my views from his remarks on ekklesia, I do not hold myself, or my readers indebted to him the millionth part of a grain. For, as my readers are often shown in my notes, I regarded Doddridge as of little or no critical authority; generally, if not always, preferring Drs. Campbell and McKnight to him, in passages which they had in common translated.

SECOND SERIES, VOL. III. NO. II.

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I had then, in fact, no motive nor temptation under heaven to assign Doddridge to any other branch of the church than that which he occupied. Nor is the New Version in the least indebted to his peculiar views of church polity for a single sentence that is not sustained by Presbyterian authority. After this candid statement of the matter, now listen to Mr. Landis: "In what estimation can the Christian public hold a man who will, for the sake of promoting the sale of a book, be guilty of such dissimulation?" I request the reader to ponder well upon the preceding question, with an especial reference, not only to the history I have given, but also in regard to Mr. Landis himself.*

In the same paragraph he says, "It was not until Mr. Campbell had published several large editions of this book, that he would consent to correct the false statement in its title-page, declaring Dr. Doddridge to be a member of the Church of Scotland." Now, with the above question and assertion in his eye, what will the reader think when informed that this is not so! It was corrected in the second edition!

But he proceeds to say-" As our examination must seriously affect the moral character of this gentleman, we invite attention to another point before we take up the subject directly." This shows what his calculations and intentions were. Now the point and drift of some three pages is to show that "corrections and improvements in style," as alleged by us, have been made in the original works of Campbell, McKnight and Doddridge, in our last editions of the New Version-" yet still retaining its original titlepage." This "retaining of the original title-page" he calls a dishonest artifice a crime in no way differing from actual forgery!" Two very serious charges against my moral character are here published to the world: enough to destroy the reputation of any man of any pretensions to Christian standing, or character. He first affirms as a solemn fact that for the sake of promoting the sale of a book, I knowingly and designedly retained a falsehood on its title

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* Before the reader makes up his mind in regard to the propriety of this question, he should by all means read Mr. Landis' account of the matter, p. 312, seq.-EDITOR.

page for "several large editions."-And in the second place, under the title of the first and second editions I still published the work, though changed and altered in numerous places. -Now certainly Mr. Landis would not have affirmed "several editions," "large editions," and "published under the same title," unless he had examined the affair: for who could imagine that such comprehensive and condemnatory accusations from such a quarter would be preferred without examination? Where, then, are his documents? where are the sources of his information? The case is of itself hard enough without any comments, and therefore I will only say he has no such evidence, and that the whole three assertions-of large editions-and several editions, and "under the same title," are utterly false and unfounded. The books will show for themselves. The facts known and read of all men who choose to examine are:-1st. In the Errata to the 2d Ed. Dr. Doddridge is declared to have been a Congregationalist. In the second place, in the next edition, and in every subsequent one a NEW TITLE is affixed to the work-"with Various Emendations”—and additions of "Critical Notes on the Language, Geography, Chronology and History of the New Testament, and Miscellanous Tables, etc. By A. Campbell. 1832.”

Mr. Landis next collects from my pocket edition of said Testament the spurious readings, which, on the authority of Griesbach and others, are rejected. He would fain impress his readers that Mr. Campbell "has followed in the steps of the Unitarian editors of the Improved Version."

After what has appeared, we are prepared for any thing. We have neither time nor necessity to justify a particular reference to these readings. I will only say, that there is not one spurious reading rejected from the common text that even squints to the pending controversies between the Trinitarians and Unitarians, that is not regarded as spurious by some of the most learned Trinitarians, living and dead, who have spoken of these things.

The motive of Mr. Landis to fix upon myself and the New Version an uncertain character, is so obvious that he who runs may read. His use, or rather abuse of the spurious readings enumerated in the appendix is dictated by this benevolent desire. He has, however, found that the table of spurious readings is larger than the actual excisions from

the text; a matter of which we may speak more fully at another time. Errors of this sort are found in all the Bibles in the land. Even in the single Epistle to the Romans, from the Andover Press; and after the most patient supervision of Professor Stuart himself, and that of the most accomplished proof-reader, an entire verse is left out; and, if I mistake not, it has not yet been noticed by any one of that school.* From whatever motive typographical omissions and errors are corrected, I am always glad. It is fortunate in this case that the omissions noticed by Mr. Landis are all in favor of the common version.†

On the subject of spurious readings, Mr. L. is manifestly not the most competent authority in the world. He has yet to learn that while we have a standard royal translation, there is no standard royal original. The common version is not according to any one ancient manuscript-is not according to any standard or received original in the world. It is a translation of a patch-work original. "It is," says one deeply learned in biblical criticism-a truly enlightened man on such questions-"it is a very singular anomaly, that, although we have, by public authority, a standard English version, yet there exists no standard Greek text for the original of that version. No principal printed editions of the Greek correspond exactly throughout, and none of them have been printed verbatim from any ancient manuscript, but each has been varied by critical alterations of its learned editor, on his own responsibility; on which account all the great collators of manuscripts have judged it necessary to apprize their readers, in the first instance, by what particular printed edition they have made their respec

* As Mr. C. does not inform us what verse is here referred to, the reader will of course wait for proof of the correctness of his assertion.-EDITOR

†The reader will find on recurring to Mr. Landis' article, that, in respect to the translation referred to, Mr. C. has failed to meet the most important points on which his work has been exposed to censure. The statements of Mr. L., then, appear us to remain not materially affected by the reply of Mr. Campbell, and the translation must continue to be regarded as it has been since it was exposed on our pages.-EDITOR,

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tive collations. Thus Birch states, in limine, that he collated by Stephen's 3d edition, 1550; Bentley's collations were made by the text of Erasmus, 3d edition, 1522, as reprinted at Strasburgh in 1724, by W. Cephalaus. Other collators have also specified the editions by which they compared. One of the most ardent defenders of the common version, and much more learned than Mr. Landis, has been con-, strained to admit this fact in "The British Critic and Quarterly Theological Review, and Ecclesiastical Record."*

I am, indeed, of opinion, to use with approbation the words of Mr. Landis, that "all the alterations contended for do not affect, either pro or con, one single article of the Christian system." I have gone farther: I have said that I never saw any version or translation of the Christian Scriptures, Latin, German, French, or English,-Romanist or Protestant-ancient or modern, from which any honest man of plain common sense might not learn the way to heaven, to holiness and happiness, with unerring certainty; if he applied his mind to it. They all name the same persons, places, and events-record the same facts-narrate the same parables, comparisons, conversations, and deliver the same precepts and promises. They may, indeed, differ much in their plainness, perspicuity, and easy intelligence; but the same story is told in all its characteristics, attributes, and circumstances. Like different witnesses, whose testimony exactly agrees in all the facts, even to the most minute, A, B, C, and D, has each his own way of telling it to the court and jury; but there is one of them whose perspicuity and precision make his testimony more intelligible and comprehensible than that of all the others. So in translations : one may greatly excel another in all the attributes of clearness, simplicity, and general intelligibility.

But as I have been permitted thus briefly to disabuse the readers of the Repository of the false impressions, touching both my views and my character, through which they must always have contemplated them and me, had they no other source of information than that furnished them by Mr. Landis, I do not wish further to trespass on your time by a more formal and elaborate exposition of all that Mr. Landis

* London, July 1837, No. 43,

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