the sole expense of the Cardinal Ximenes, archbishop of Toledo ;* but not published till 1522. The text of the New Testament in this edition was not that of a single manuscript, but was formed by a careful collation of several which were then supposed to be of great antiquity and high authority. Great doubts however respecting their claims have been expressed by later criticks; and unfortunately the learned have no longer the means of judging of their value, as they are now irrecoverably lost.†

In 1516 an edition of the New Testament was very hastily prepared for the press by Erasmus, the most accomplished scholar and learned man of his age, and printed by Frobenius at Basil, in Switzerland. The extreme hurry with which this work was despatched, occasioned by the earnest solicitude of the printer to be able to send it forth before the publication of the Complutum edition, which had already been printed, as we have before stated, two years, and now only waited the Pope's permission to publish it, allowed but little opportunity for the learned editor to correct the copy which he used for the text of his edition, by carefully com

* Francis Ximenes, archbishop of Toledo and prime minister of Spain, was born in 1437, was educated at Alcala and Salamanca, entered among the Franciscans at Toledo, and by his talents, learning, and sanctity, was raised to the first ecclesiastical office under the bishop of Rome, and to the highest civil power under Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain; being raised to the dignity of Cardinal, and made Archbishop of Toledo and prime minister. Among many other instances of the use of the great power, which his exalted station gave him, to the most important and benevolent purposes, he erected in 1499 the celebrated University at Alcala, and founded the college of St. Ildefonso. In 1502 he formed the design of printing a Polyglot Bible, and commenced the work, which was completed in 1514. But the publication of it was delayed till 1522. Only 600 copies were printed, so that the work is scarce, and wanting in many publick libraries. The work consists of the Hebrew text, the Septuagint with a literal translation, the Latin text of Jerome, and the Chaldee paraphrases of Onkelos, and a Hebrew and Chaldee dictionary of all the words in the Bible. Neither time, labour, nor expense was spared to make the work as perfect as the means at his command would permit. Several learned men were employed for twelve years in preparing the copies, and superintending the printing; and the whole expense of the edition amounted to 50,000 ducats.

+ In 1784 a visit was made to Alcala by two German professors, for the express purpose of finding those important manuscripts in a library where they were understood to be deposited. But to their inexpressible surprise and disappointment, they were informed, at their arrival, that about thirty-five years before, the librarian, ignorant of the value of those venerable manuscripts, and wanting room for some new books, had sold them as useless parchment. The account they received was, that they were sold to one Toryo, a man who was concerned in preparing fireworks, and were used by him in the construction of rockets.

paring it with other manuscripts. A second edition, with very inconsiderable improvement, was struck off in 1519, and a third in 1522. In two later editions in 1527 and 1535, both of them subsequent to the publication of the Complutum, Erasmus was induced to insert a few corrections from that text.

No man perhaps ever possessed higher qualifications for such a work than Erasmus. But he performed it under great disadvantages. He had the opportunity of collating but few manuscripts, compared with the numbers which later criticks have examined; and the laws of criticism to be applied in using such as he had before him were then but imperfectly understood. Besides, the other great works, which he was employed in publishing, more than enough to have occupied the whole time of any other scholar, and the impatient haste of the printer, requiring him, with all his other occupations, to prepare a sheet for the press every day, permitted him to bestow upon the work a degree of attention far short of what was due to its magnitude and importance.

In 1546 a third printed copy of the New Testament was produced by Robert Stephens, the celebrated Parisian editor, who did so much to promote the revival of letters by the correct and elegant editions of the classicks, which issued from his press. The text of this edition was formed by a careful collation of that of Erasmus, and the Complutum with fifteen manuscripts, which had not been used in forming the text of those editions.

In 1582 another edition of the New Testament was printed at Geneva, by Theodore Beza. In forming the text of this edition, besides the corrections which had been introduced into the copy of Robert Stephens, just mentioned, the learned editor had the advantage of several new readings found in manuscripts collated by Henry Stephens, and also the benefit of two very ancient and valuable manuscripts, which had been consulted for neither of the preceding editions. These were the Cambridge and the Clermont; the former containing the four evangelists together with the Acts of the Apostles, the latter the epistles of Paul.

In 1604 this edition, being then the last that had been published, and thought to be the most perfect, was selected as

the text to be used by the learned translators for the English version now in common use.

In 1624 an elegant edition was printed by the Elzevirs at Leyden, which with no material improvement upon preceding editions, and with nothing but the elegance of the typographical execution, and the reputation of the printers for correctness, to entitle it to the distinction, became by general consent from that time the standard text, to which all succeeding editions conformed. It constitutes what is now called the received text, and the learned world remained satisfied with it, as if it were absolutely perfect, and incapable of further improvement, for nearly a century.

This quiet possession of the publick confidence was at length, in 1707, disturbed by the great work of Dr. Mill, who then published at Oxford his edition of the New Testament, with marginal insertions of no less than thirty thousand various readings drawn, with the immense labour of thirty years attention to the subject, from manuscripts, ancient versions, and quotations found in the writings of the early Fathers. Yet this indefatigable critick did not venture to make any alteration in the received text, but adopting that of Robert Stephens of 1551, which varied very little from the Elzevir, satisfied himself with throwing the whole body of various readings into the margin, and only expressing his opinion of the value of some of the most important of them in his notes.

Mill was followed in 1734 by Bengel, who then published his critical edition of the New Testament and select collection of various readings at Tubingen; and in 1751 by Wetstein, who published at Amsterdam, in two folio volumes, his edition of the New Testament, far more valuable than any that had preceded, enriched with a still more copious collection of various readings, with valuable notes, and prolegomena containing a treasure of biblical knowledge. Several other editions of critical merit added somewhat to the stock of knowledge, and prepared the way for the recovery of a more pure and perfect text. Of these, the most deserving of notice were those of Matthäi of Moscow, Alter of Vienna, and Birch of Copenhagen.

At length in 1775 was printed Griesbach's New Testament, and in 1806 a second edition greatly improved, in which the Christian world is favoured with what the preced

ing editors had been deterred from attempting, a corrected text, formed by the labours of that eminent scholar out of the materials, which had been accumulating in the hands of critical students for nearly two centuries.

From the very brief sketch which has now been given of the history of the original text of the New Testament, we derive strong reasons for feeling satisfied of its general purity. The manner in which we trace it, at the revival of learning, emerging from the obscurity in which it had been for so many centuries buried, was such, as utterly to preclude the suspicion of its being then corrupted for the purpose of accommodating it to the doctrines or the interests of the reigning sect. From the time of the papal usurpation, and the separation of the Eastern and Western Churches, the Greek text had been but little known in the West. Copies of it were rare. The Latin Vulgate was the version in common use; and such was the degree of darkness, which had long overspread Christendom, that even this was withheld from the people, and was scarcely known by a considerable part of the clergy themselves. But few copies therefore of the original Greek were to be procured, at the time when they were sought for publication. So profound was the general ignorance of that age respecting the Scriptures, that when copies of the New Testament in the vulgar tongue were distributed by Luther and the other reformers among the common people, he was charged with being the author of a dangerous book called the New Testament. Now, although this general ignorance may be thought to have rendered it easy for designing men to make alterations in writings which were previously so little known; yet we have the satisfaction of seeing, from the account which has now been given of the four first printed editions, which followed so soon after each other, that the work was performed by men, who cannot be suspected of any concert for the purpose of imposing a fabricated text upon the world; since they belonged to different and hostile parties, and had opposite interests and views. You could hardly find four men of the age in which they lived less likely to unite together in any great design, and above all, in the design supposed. Cardinal Ximenes, author of the Complutum, was a steady adherent to the papacy, and held the very first ecclesiastical place under the bishop of

Rome. It was no part of his purpose in printing the Scriptures, to favour the diffusion of them among the people at large, and promote the general knowledge of them. It appears from the smallness of the number of copies which he caused to be struck off, that they were not designed for general circulation. Indeed his principles were opposed to it; for, when it was proposed to translate the Bible into Spanish, he opposed the design, and was of opinion that men might become Christians without reading the Bible. Erasmus was also of the Catholick church. Yet he was no friend to its usurpations, and even attacked with no small wit and severity some of its corruptions. His heart was evidently with the reformers, and he appears in many points to have coincided in their opinions and views. He differed from them less, as to the ends at which they should aim, than as to the method to be pursued in order to accomplish those ends. What the daring spirit of Luther was for effecting by a violent and direct attack of the papal corruptions, he would have attempted indirectly, by a more gentle, imperceptible, and gradual process. He would have waited for the sure influence of that light, which by means of the press, was then pouring in upon the world; confident that when knowledge should be generally diffused, the fabricks of superstition and tyranny, which craft and ambition had erected in the days of ignorance, would tumble down of themselves. Stephens was also educated a Catholick; but being brought under suspicion of heresy by the freedom of the notes, which he inserted in some of the books that proceeded from his press, he was compelled to quit France, and settling at Geneva he joined the Reformers. And Beza was a zealous protestant, one of the pillars of the reformation, a disciple, colleague, and successor of the celebrated John Calvin.

Now between these men there could be no concerted scheme for imposing on the world, by publishing a text falsified for the purpose of accommodating it to any particular system of faith, or of ecclesiastical order. Theirs were separate and rival claims to the publick favour and confidence. They were competitors for the praise of fidelity and a critical correctness; and the materials for their respective works were drawn, in part at least, from independent sources. They had each undoubtedly their individual prejudices and