A Discourse Delivered at Warminster, July 3, 1799, Before the Society of Unitarian Christians, Established in the West of England, for

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1799 edition. Excerpt: ...printed, at Rheims, an English New Testament, in which they retained so many Eastern, Greek, and Latin words, that it was well said to be a translation which needed to be translated. .. These five translations, Tyndall's, Coverdale's', the Geneva, the Bishop's, and the Roman Catholic, were all which were published before James I. ascended. the throne of England. i James, in the year 1604, appointed a number of persons to form a new translation. The plan adopted was an.excellent one. Between forty and fifty persons were selected, who were divided into six classes. To each, class a certain portion was assigned; each person of the class was to translate the whole portion, and the class to compare the translations together. Then the portion of each class when finished, was to be sent to the other classes for their revisal. And lastly, they were to obtain the aid of other learned persons in cases of great difficulty. How far all these directions were fully complied with we have not the means of knowing; but the work certainly seems to have been executed with great care, and occupied three years, from the year 1607, when it was first actually begun. It may reasonably be presumed, that those persons were selected who were supposed most competent for the purpose; however, they departed but little from the preceding translations, partly from the directions of the King, and probably also from their own opinion respecting the value of them. And it is the opinion of some good judges, that where our present version has departed from them, the change has frequently been tor the worse, rather then for the better; so that it does not appear that it is much superior, in purity and accuracy, to the Geneva Bible, which James I. had the weakness to treat with...