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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
In the services which Mr . Bel sham subsequently rendered to Unitarian Christianity , hid numerous publications first present themselves to notice ; and amongst these , the first place is due to that important work of which he is known to have been the responsible Editor , The Improved Version of the New Testament .
The utility of this performance has been sometimes underrated , from searching for it in a wrong direction . No such attempt can , or ought to supersede the use of the Common Version in the pulpit and the closet . The phraseology with which our earliest devout associations are entwined , and which therefore must needs be the most powerful in exciting pious feeling , should never be relinquished but when its abandonment is required by truth and conscience . The language of the Common Version is the mother tongue
of Devotion . It well deserves to be so ; and not the less on account of some few * antiquated forms of speech , such as a modern translator would study to introduce when he was rendering an ancient original . But although for these purposes the Common should not be superseded by the Improved Version , there is great advantage to be derived from their conjoint use in attaining a knowledge of the Scriptures . It is almost too obvious to remark , that no two translators , however learned and faithful , would render a
passage of any length into English by the very same words . The sense may be substantially the same , but there will be shades of difference in the expressions ; and that sense will be the more perfectly comprehended by the mere English reader from his comparison of the versions . Familiarity with the sound of words often imposes itself upon the mind for a perception of
their meaning . This is particularly liable to occur , and does in fact very extensively occur , to devout readers of the New Testament . It is one evi ) , amongst many benefits , resulting from early acquaintance with , and deep veneration for , the language of scripture . The best remedy is the perusal of a version of which the phraseology is as dissimilar as is consistent with strict fidelity . Campbell ' s translation of the Gospels , Wakefield ' s and
New-The writer of this admonition must labour iiuder considerable mistake both as to the character of the persons to whom he addresses it , and as to the assumed facts on which it is founded . What with the allurements of the Establishment on the one hand , and the bigotry of the Ortlvodox Dissenters on the other , the ranks of Unitarianism are kept tolerably well purged of all who can be drawn or driven from their principles ; of all who require the concurrence of a multitude to satisfy them that they are in the right path ; and who doubt the dictates of the " still small voice" of truth , unless it find an immediate response in the clamours of popular applau . se . They have counted the cost of beiug in a minority .
It is not impossible that the last Report of the Unitarian Association , aod some recent articles occasioned by it in this publicatipn , may have led the Congregmionalist into the other mistake with which he is so well satisfied . Accustomed aabe is to the way in which religious societies deal with the public in their reports * this is not surprising . Fresh from such documents as they send forth , we can excuse his mistaking the frank exposure of occasional and temporary failures and discouragements , and the fervent rebuke of indifference , for an intimation of that total diecom fame wbose approach , it might indicate in other amue ^ ions . We cajn excuse ,
too , his forgetting every symptom of p rogreasiveuess , however solid and decisive ,, which , from the very nature of the case , would not be forced on his notice , or perhaps adverted to at all iu the productions referred to . Onr " failure" abroad will bear a very advantageous comparison with the success of eTangelieul misaioDS hi the same region ; a , nd at hpme it must be a most unthankful view of the dealiqgs of ^ rpvuieuce which fould make u * aqspect that we were " lighting ^ gaiu * t Gu 4 * All that we require , and what by the blessing of heaven we hope to excite , is , more activity to reap the fields that are already ripe , or that are fast ripening * unto tfre harvest .
Untitled Article
On the Character and Writings ef the Rev . T . BeUham . 83
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1830, page 83, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2581/page/11/
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