three of the passages quoted the word is eth: in one eeth, and in the remaining passage I find the compound word Nitto and though N [othah] is a word of very frequent occurrence, I challenge Mr. Bellamy to bring forward any one passage in the Hebrew Bible, in which any one translator or lexicographer of reputation has given N [othah] the sense of in it. In his first new translation of this verse, Mr. B. had very properly followed our authorised version in translating ' within: a sense which it frequently has. See Exod. xxv. 11. xxvi. 33. xxxvii. 2, &c. In this latter passage the expression bears much resemblance to that in Gen. vi. 14, MY”) " And he overlaid it with pure gold within and without." But in his amended translation he has given the sense of even a house. certainly signifies a house; but I defy Mr. Bellamy to produce a single passage of Scripture in which the sense of even is given to by any translator or writer of authority. I believe he will find equal difficulty in proving that ever signifies an outer-room. with an outer-room." If, in addition to numerous grammatical errors which Mr. Whittaker has proved him to have committed, Mr. B. can produce no authority, besides himself, for also ומחוץ » in the ומחוץ and to מבית to אתה the sense he has given to passage under discussion, I think no one will be at a loss what weight to attach either to his censures on the authorised version, or to his new translation. I now proceed to Mr. B.'s grave charge of infidelity, levelled at those who hold that the text of the Ŏld Testament has suffered from the faults of transcribers. "Now if this be simply the state of the case," says Mr. B. " if the sacred inspired B." volume be corrupt, through the errors of transcribers, we do not know to what extent those errors have been committed, the whole genuineness and authenticity of Scripture would be swept away at once. A better argument than this could not be put into the hand of the objector; it surpasses all that ever was advanced against the truths of the sacred volume. 'But,' says Kimchi,it has suffered more or less, as every human work has done, from the occasional carelessness or mistakes of transcribers.' Here then our modern Kimchi, and every one who believes in divine revelation, are at issue. If the sacred Scriptures be divinely given, if the sacred writers were inspired to write them, then they cannot be a human work, or the work of man, as Kimchi ventures to assert. They would be of no greater authority than the Koran or the Veda." ! Bellamy's Reply, p. 130. It is not a little extraordinary that Mr. B. should accuse Kimchi of venturing to assert that the sacred Scriptures are a human work, when in the very same sentence from which he has drawn this illogical inference Kimchi describes the text of the Old Testament as "penned by the inspired writers." It is the reverence with which I regard the Holy Scriptures, as the word of God, and as alone able to make us wise unto salvation, which has led me to protest against the groundless innovations of Mr. B. The charge of disbelief in divine revelation, which is so prodigally made by Mr. B. against his opponents, must apply not less to "the best Hebrew scholars in this country," as Mr. Bellamy justly calls them,' Lowth, Kennicott, Blayney, Newcome, than to the Quarterly Reviewer, Mr. Whittaker, and myself; for they all agree in entertaining similar views respecting the state of the Hebrew text. "All writings," says Bishop Lowth, "transmitted to us, like these, from early times, the original copies of which have long ago perished, have suffered in their passage to us by the mistakes of many transcribers, through whose hands we have received them; errors continually accumulating in proportion to the number of transcripts; and the stream generally becoming more impure, the more distant it is from the source. Now the Hebrew writings of the Old Testament, being for much the greatest part the most ancient of any; instead of finding them absolutely perfect, we may reasonably expect to find, that they have suffered in this respect more than others of less antiquity generally have done." concerning the present defective state of the Hebrew text," says. Dr. Blayney," the various kinds of mistakes that have found their way into it, and the ordinary sources of its corruption, &c. all these points have been so thoroughly examined, and represented with so much learning, skill and precision in the beforementioned Preliminary Dissertation of the Bishop of London, &c. that I have nothing new to offer concerning them."3 "Other causes of the difficulties with which these prophetical writings abound," says Archbishop Newcome," are the want of historical records, &c. and above all, the many corruptions which deform the present text."4 Dr. Kennicott's opinion on the state of the Hebrew text is so well known, and has been so • Bellamy's Reply, p. 123. Lowth's Prelim. Diss. to Isaiah, p. 50. Perth Edition., "2 3 Dr. Blayney's Prel. Disc. to Jeremiah, p. vii. second edition. As Newcome's Preface to the Minor Prophets, p. vii. Pontefract edition. often referred to by Mr. Bellamy, that it is needless to quote any passage from his works in proof of his opinion. The fear of Mr. B. that, if the corruption of the Hebrew text through the faults of transcribers be admitted, the whole genuine ness and authenticity of Scripture will be at once swept away, is perfectly visionary. "It is a fact undeniable," says the learned and sagacious Dr. Bentley, "that the sacred books have suffered no more alterations than common and classic authors; and have no more variations, than what must necessarily have happened from the nature of things. And it has been the common sense of men of letters that numbers of manuscripts do not make a text precarious; but are useful, nay necessary, to its establishment and certainty. The result then of the whole matter is, that either all ancient books, as well as the sacred, must now be laid aside, as uncertain and precarious; or to say, that all the transcripts of sacred books should have been privileged against the common fate, and exempted from all slips and errors whatever. I have too much value for the ancient classics, even to suppose that they are to be abandoned; because their remains are sufficiently pure and genuine to make us sure of the writers' design. If a corrupt line, or a dubious reading, chances to intervene, it does not darken the whole context, nor make an author's purpose precarious. Terence, for instance, has as many variations as any book whatever, in proportion to its bulk; and yet, with all its interpolations, omissions, additions or glosses, (choose the worst of them on purpose) you cannot deface the contrivance or plot of one play; no, not of one single scene; but its sense, design and subserviency to the last issue and conclusion, shall be visible and plain through all the mist of various lections. And so it is with the sacred text. And why then must the sacred books have been exempted from the injuries of time, and secured from the least change? What need of that perpetual miracle; if, with all the present changes, the whole scripture is perfect and sufficient for all the great ends and purposes of its first writing?" "Take any one, the most faulty Hebrew MS. in the world," says Dr. Kennicott," and I humbly presume, that it will be found to contain the same Bible in the main, and teach the same great doctrines and duties as are taught at present." "Frustra 1 Bentley's Remarks on Free-thinking, quoted by Kennicott in his 1st Dissertation, p. 563. * Kennicott's 2nd Dissertation, p. 585. itaque dicunt," says Vossius, "quia nullum exemplar sit omnino purum, ergo nusquam esse sacram scripturam. Imo vero nullum tam mendosum exemplar, quod non pro sana scriptura debeat habere. Abunde et copiose e quibusvis sacrorum librorum codicibus omnia ad salutem et fidem necessaria, possunt hauriri." If Mr. B. before he had stigmatised that opinion respecting the state of the Hebrew text, which has been held by Secker, Newcome, Lowth, Horsley,3 Blayney, and many more of our first Biblical scholars, as "an infidel dogma," had taken the trouble to examine Kennicott's or De Rossi's collations on any important passages of scripture, he would have been satisfied that the various readings do not at all affect the divine authority of the scriptures or the doctrines and precepts of religion, and would have abstained from a charge so utterly groundless. But let me ask Mr. Bellamy, if a perpetual act of providence has miraculously preserved the text of the Old Testament from those errors of transcribers from which every human work has suffered, would not the same cause have induced the Almighty miraculously to preserve the text of the New Testament? Could it be of less importance that the words of our Redeemer himself, the sublime truths of the Gospel, and the terms of our salvation, should be handed down to us, in every word and letter as they originally came from the pen of inspiration? Does then Mr. B. maintain the opinion that the text of the New Testament is now as pure and perfect as it was when first committed to writing by the inspired evangelists and apostles of our Lord? If so, where is this pure and perfect text to be found? Are we to seek for it in the Alexandrian or the Vatican MS.? and how are we infallibly to distinguish, which is the pure transcript of the autograph, and which has suffered from the faults of transcribers? for all Mss. which deviate at all from the genuine text must inevitably have been more or less corrupted. But if Mr. B. admits that there is no standard and immaculate text of the NEW TESTAMENT, why are those to be branded as infidels and deists who maintain the same opinion respecting the text of the OLD TESTAMENT?5 Falmouth, July, 1821. KIMCHI. I Vossius de LXX Interp. quoted by Kennicott, Diss. 2. p. 586. -2 See his notes on the Psalms and Prophets, inserted in the works of Merrick, Newcome and Blayney. 3 See his notes on the Psalms. + Bellamy's Critical Examination, p. 39, &c. &c. 5 Mr. B. accuses me of want of candor, in not referring the reader to his "Critical Examination." The reason was, that I did not then know that such a work had been published. 93 OXFORD ENGLISH PRIZE ESSAY for 1821. THE STUDY OF MODERN HISTORY. Quo spectanda modo, quo sensu credis, et ore ?-Hor. THE direction of our studies is usually determined, not so much upon grounds of abstract dignity or usefulness, as by the comparative importance of different pursuits with reference to our views in life. The philosophy of man-in other words, the philosophy of history, is almost the only study, at once so comprehensive and so necessary, as to command the attention of every one who is to reason or to act. Whoever would speculate upon the safe foundations of induction, or avoid in practice the errors incident to ignorance, must explore the principles of human nature as they are developed in the annals of mankind, and investigate the Past as the great index of the Probable. But in order to derive the highest possible advantage from the moral and political lessons of history, the attention should chiefly be confined to those systems of affairs, and expositions of character, which are traced out for our examination in all their bearings, and subject to the test of our familiar and distinct conceptions. Man is so much the creature of circumstances, that to theorise upon any notions independent of these, is a certain road to be deceived. However uniform the original principles of his nature may remain, their influence and operation must be perpetually modified. As the current of events rolls on, the sources that supply it may be fixed and immutable, but its channel will be for ever shifting, and its aspect varied by continual alterations. The agency of external and contingent causes has power to control, diversify, transform. Characters, or actions, which have little real dissimilitude, will be attended, under changes of æra or condition, with very opposite appearances, and widely discrepant results. The tyrant of one century would be the fool of another: The action that at one period might be excused as an harmless licence, or recognised as a legitimate proceeding, would be sufficient, at a diffe rent epoch, to kindle the flames of revolution, and deluge a nation with blood. Hence arises the peculiar and paramount importance of MODERN History. To govern conduct by example, to judge of the probable issues of affairs by the rule of experience, being |