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tion of the author . AH of us have too strong a propensity to be biassed by personal attachments or antipathies : and we are desirous of forming and of publicly expressing our judgment oa this translation , sine ir& et studio ,
before the veil which conceals the translator is withdrawn . Indeed , we are far from being of opinion that , in the present state of society and of learning , the cause either of literature pr of good manners and morals is served by
the indiscriminate appearance of a writer in his own person . A man ' s sentiments and reasonings , the fruits of his researches , the results of his invention , the decisions of his taste and his discernment , and the effusions
of his fancy , must be considered independently on any factitious circumstances : they are not the worse because they are anonymous ; while by their being so , delicacy and modesty are often gratified , prepossessions
obviated and prejudices disarmed . The single exception is when he communicates to the world facts , or alleged facts , whether in regard to the living or the dead , to things or persons , to individuals or societies . Here his disclosure
of himself is essential ; since we cannot otherwise pronounce on the credit due to him as a witness . Yet here , in the only case where critical propriety and moral justice imperiously call for it , a writer ' s name is frequently withholden ; while in matters of mere
reasoning and speculation we see it pofopously obtruded . The present translator professes to have 4 * bestowed much care aiid labour upon the work , with the view to render it at the same time faithful
and clear . " Of care and labour his Version , we think , bears evident marks : and his proposed end seems , on the whole , to have been answered . He further says , that " He has made the translation as literal
a « , according to his judgment , the idiouis of the respective languages would allow - and he has preferred the words of the authorized Version wherever they appeared to ex p ress the sense of the apostle with precision , and in a perspicuous and pure atyle . " * r l
These are excellent rules for a translator of the Scriptures : nor has Jrhilalethes often overlooked them . " Perspicuity , " he adds , ought s « r «) y to be a princi pal object m every transla-
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tion , as well as in i&very original worfe ^ and although a participation of tire spirit under which the apostles wrote is necessary to a comprehension of the full import of many passages ia their writings , yet we
ought to believe that an inspired writer , even if he possessed no great portion of natural talents , would compose his letters so as that ev . ery part of them should , i » their primary sense , be plain to reader ^ of the most common understanding , who were not entirely unacquainted with tbe Christian religion . "
By ' * a participation of the spirit under which the apostles wrote , " JP 7 « - lalethes , no doubt , means an enlarged view of their object and sitqatiop , and some degree of resemblance to their highly devotional and moral habits . If this be the sense of his language ,
we agree with him : nor can he qer sign to assert or intimate that in&pira ? tion is necessary to a cpmpreheiwpiji of the full import of many passages in the writings of inspired men . The letters of Paul could scarcely be ok * scure to the original readers of them : and we must be cautious of
substituting our own conceptions- —those , it may be , of a modern age and a modern creed ~ for the ideas pf native Jews and Heathens recently con vertecj to Christianity . < c Some persons , ' observes PMlaletJieS } ct have required that the same words in the original should be rendered uniformly
in the translation ; but to mention this * as a canon of criticism must be to expose 5 ts absurdity , to the view of every one wlna considers that no two languages hare many terms exactly equivalent , and of precisely similar latitude in meaning and construction . Frequently the sense can be determined by tfie context alone . *'
These observations are founded in truth . Uniformity of translation however ought to be studied , so far as we find it practicable . On this subject we copy some good remarks from the address of King- James ' s Translators to the reader :
" — we have not tied ourselves , " say they , to an uniformity of phrasing ^ , or to an identity ofvvords as some pcradventure would wish that we had done , because they observe that some learned men
some where nave been as exact as they could that way . Truly , that we might not vary from the sense of that which we had translated before , if the word signified the same things in both places , ( for there be some words that be not of the same sense every where ^) we were especially careful ,
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Review . —A new Version of tlie Epistles of Paul . § tl
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1819, page 571, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1776/page/47/
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