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entrusted to critics of a very different « tamp than those vvbo have figured away oa the occasion , but whose writings cannot for a moment be allowed to possess any weight either with the
Hebrew scholar or the mere logician . Where , during the warfare carried on , may I ask , was the Bishop of Peterborough I Was lie asleep at his post , or only cautiously waiting the result of the fray * Was the Bishop of St . David ' s tired at the very outset ; or , is his silence the result of conviction I
Will no one take up the gauntlet which Bellamy has publicly thrown down , and translate and apply the mrious passages of Scripture propounded at different times in his pamphlets ; or , lias Bellamy ' s answer to Professor Lee silenced not only him but all the Doctors of both
Universities ? I ask not these questions in a tone of taunting or reproach , but rather of surprise ; my object , I trust , is the acquirement of truth , and sorry should I be , indeed , if I were so bigoted to any one system , or to the translation of any one particular
author , as to be unable to give it up > on arguments being adduced sufficient to convince me of the superiority and greater truth of another : but , if after a patient reading of the new translation with an application of such a knowledge of the original Hebrew as
I happen to possess , I find on a comparison instituted between it and our present authorized Version , that the former , at least in my humble opinion , deserves the preference , as having elucidated much hitherto left uncertain , doubtful , and even
contradictory in the latter , something more is surely requisite to cause a change in my opinion than a pamphlet or two replete with invective and sarcasm , but mainly deficient in sound argument and a critical knowledge of "He * brew . The last separate work which
has come from Mr . Bellamy's pen , is , I believe , the " Anti-Deist / ' in two parts , the third not having yet been published . According to his own account , it was written at a period when the country was inundated with Infidel and Deistical publications , and was intended to be a complete refutation of them . There is a curious
circumstance connected with this work , to which Mr . 13 . has alluded in one of his pamphlets , where he states that
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he was induced to write it , at the suggestion of a worthy prelate of the Establishment , who afterwards saw and approved of the MS . How a Bishop could well countenance a work which pretends to answer the objections of Deists , by shewing , in many instances , that , the grounds of their cavil are not to be found in the original , but only exist in the modern translations of the Bible , &nd consequently in our authorized Version among the rest , appeals somewhat extraordiirary * and can , perhaps only be satisfactorily accounted for , by supposing that it was the same
prelate , who , on another occasion , when B . presented him with a part of his translation , emphatically exclaimed to those present . ** magna est veritas et prcevalebil / " Be that , however , as it may , certain it is , ( as may be ga * thcrea from the newspapers of the
time , ) that an association was actually formed towards the close of the year 1819 , for the refutation of Infidel publications , with Sir J . Bland Btirges at the head , which commenced its proceedings by a vote for the immediate printing and circulating of a large edition of Mr . Bellamy ' s " Anti-Deist . " How that association was
dissolved ** at a moment when / ' to use the chairman ' s subsequent words , % < not a prelate , not a clergyman had stood forward to stem the tide of blasphemy which threatened the subversion of our religion and government 1 believe
, " was never , , publicly known . Not being myself in the confidence of the party most concerned , I cannot satisfactorilv solve the question ; for , although a report has prevailed that the venerable Society in Bartlett ' s Buildings took up the cause , which induced Sir J . Bland
Burges's association to resign , yet the circumstance of the former ' s having only republished a series of old tracts , which , though excellent in their way , were by no ineans calculated to answer in detail * ' the perpetually repeated cavils of the opposers of Divine revelation / ' would seem to
argue against the truth of sucjh a report . Mr . Bellamy's " Anti-Deist , " however , was duly published , though I have been given to understand at his own cost ; and should there be a Deist in the kingdom left , sufficiently able to cope with the author in He-
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206 Necessity of an Improved Version of the Scriptures .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1824, page 206, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2523/page/14/
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