FullReads

Fourthly, as these differences of version arise often tinder the same reading of the original text; but as, in the meantime, there are many different readings, here a fifth source of possible error calls for a fifth inspiration overruling us to the proper choice amongst various readings. What may be called a ‘textual’ inspiration for selecting the right reading is requisite for the very same reason, neither more nor less, which supposes any verbal inspiration originally requisite for constituting a right reading. It matters not in which stage of the Bible’s progress the error commences; first stage and last stage are all alike in the sight of God. There was, reader, as perhaps you know, about six score years ago, another Phil., not the same as this Phil. now before us (who would be quite vexed if you fancied him as old as all that comes to–oh dear, no! he’s not near as old)–well, that earlier Phil. was Bentley, who wrote (under the name of Phileleutheros Lipsiansis) a pamphlet connected with this very subject, partly against an English infidel of that day. In that pamphlet, Phil. the first pauses to consider and value this very objection from textual variation to the validity of Scripture: for the infidel (as is usual with infidels) being no great scholar, had argued as though it were impossible to urge anything whatever for the word of God, since so vast a variety in the readings rendered it impossible to know what was the word of God. Bentley, though rather rough, from having too often to deal with shallow coxcombs, was really and unaffectedly a pious man. He was shocked at this argument, and set himself seriously to consider it. Now, as all the various readings were Greek, and as Bentley happened to be the first of Grecians, his deliberate review of this argument is entitled to great attention. There were, at that moment when Bentley spoke, something more (as I recollect) than ten thousand varieties of reading in the text of the New Testament; so many had been collected in the early part of Queen Anne’s reign by Wetstein, the Dutchman, who was then at the head of the collators. Mill, the Englishman, was at that very time making further collations. How many he added, I cannot tell without consulting books–a thing which I very seldom do. But since that day, and long after Bentley and Mill were in their graves, Griesbach, the German, has risen to the top of the tree, by towering above them all in the accuracy of his collations. Yet, as the harvest comes before the gleanings, we may be sure that Wetstein’s barn housed the very wealth of all this variety. Of this it was, then, that Bentley spoke. And what was it that he spoke? Why, he, the great scholar, pronounced, as with the authority of a Chancery decree, that the vast majority of various readings made no difference at all in the sense. In the sense, observe; but many things might make a difference in the sense which would still leave the doctrine undisturbed. For instance, in the passage about a camel going through the eye of a needle, it will make a difference in the sense, whether you read in the Greek word for camel the oriental animal of that name, or a ship’s cable; but no difference at all arises in the spiritual doctrine. Or, illustrating the case out of Shakspeare, it makes no difference as to the result, whether you read in Hamlet ‘to take arms against a sea of troubles,’ or (as has been suggested), ‘against a siege of troubles;’ but it makes a difference as to the integrity of the image.[Footnote: ‘Integrity of the metaphor.’–One of the best notes ever written by Warburton was in justification of the old reading, sea. It was true, that against a sea it would be idle to take arms. We, that have lived since Warburton’s day, have learned by the solemn example of Mrs. Partington, (which, it is to be hoped, none of us will ever forget,) how useless, how vain it is to take up a mop against the Atlantic Ocean. Great is the mop, great is Mrs. Partington, but greater is the Atlantic. Yet, though all arms must be idle against the sea considered literally, and χÎ�τÎ� τÎ�Î� φÎ�Î�τÎ�σÎ�Î�Î� under that image, Warburton contended justly that all images, much employed, evanesce into the ideas which they represent. A sea of troubles comes to mean only a multitude of troubles. No image of the sea is suggested; and arms, incongruous in relation to the literal sea, is not so in relation to a multitude; besides, that the image arms itself, evanesces for the same reason into resistance. For this one note, which I cite from boyish remembrance, I have always admired the subtlety of Warburton.] What has a sea to do with arms? What has a camel,[Footnote: Meantime, though using this case as an illustration, I believe that camel is, after all, the true translation; first, on account of the undoubted proverb in the East about the elephant going through the needle’s eye; the relation is that of contrast as to magnitude; and the same relation holds as to the camel and the needle’s eye; secondly, because the proper word for a cable, it has been alleged, is not ‘camelus,’ but ‘camilus.’] the quadruped, to do with a needle? A prodigious minority, therefore, there is of such various readings as slightly affect the sense; but this minority becomes next to nothing, when we inquire for such as affect any doctrine. This was Bentley’s opinion upon the possible disturbance offered to the Christian by various readings in the New Testament. You thought that the carelessness, or, at times, even the treachery of men, through so many centuries, must have ended in corrupting the original truth; yet, after all, you see the light burns as brightly and steadily as ever. We, now, that are not bibliolatrists, no more believe that, from the disturbance of a few words here or there, any evangelical truth can have suffered a wound or mutilation, than we believe that the burning of a wood, or even of a forest, which happens in our vast American possessions, sometimes from natural causes (lightning, or spontaneous combustion), sometimes from an Indian’s carelessness, can seriously have injured botany. But for him, who conceives an inviolable sanctity to have settled upon each word and particle of the original record, there should have been strictly required an inspiration (No. 5) to prevent the possibility of various readings arising. It is too late, however, to pray for that; the various readings have arisen; here they are; and what’s to be done now? The only resource for the bibliolatrist is–to invoke a new inspiration (No.4) for helping him out of his difficulty, by guiding his choice. We, anti-bibliolaters, are not so foolish as to believe that God having once sent a deep message of truth to man, would suffer it to lie at the mercy of a careless or a wicked copyist. Treasures so vast would not be left at the mercy of accidents so vile. Very little more than two hundred years ago, a London compositor, not wicked at all, but simply drunk, in printing Deuteronomy, left out the most critical of words; the seventh commandment he exhibited thus-‘Thou shalt commit adultery;’ in which form the sheet was struck off. And though in those days no practical mischief could arise from this singular erratum, which English Griesbachs will hardly enter upon the roll of various readings, yet, harmless as it was, it met with punishment. ‘Scandalous!’ said Laud, ‘shocking! to tell men in the seventeenth century, as a biblical rule, that they positively must commit adultery!’ The brother compositors of this drunken biblical reviser, being too honorable to betray the individual delinquent, the Star Chamber fined the whole ‘chapel.’ Now, the copyists of MSS. were as certain to be sometimes drunk as this compos
itor–famous by his act–utterly forgotten in his person–whose crime is remembered–the record of whose name has perished. We therefore hold, that it never was in the power, or placed within the discretion, of any copyist, whether writer or printer, to injure the sacred oracles. But the bibliolatrist cannot say that; because, if he does, then he is formally unsaying the very principle which is meant by bibliolatry. He therefore must require another supplementary inspiration, viz., No. 4, to direct him in his choice of the true reading amongst so many as continually offer themselves.[Footnote: [Footnote: I recollect no variation in the test of Scripture which makes any startling change, even to the amount of an eddy in its own circumjacent waters, except that famous passage about the three witnesses–‘There are three that bare record in heaven,’ etc. This has been denounced with perfect fury as an interpolation; and it is impossible to sum up the quart bottles of ink, black and blue, that have been shed in the dreadful skirmish. Person even, the all-accomplished Grecian, in his letters to Archdeacon Travis, took a conspicuous part in the controversy; his wish was, that men should think of him as a second Bentley tilting against Phalaris; and he stung like a hornet. To be a Cambridge man in those days was to be a hater of all Establishments in England; things and persons were hated alike. I hope the same thing may not be true at present. It may chance that on this subject Master Porson will get stung through his coffin, before he is many years deader. However, if this particular variation troubles the waters just around itself (for it would desolate a Popish village to withdraw its local saint), yet carrying one’s eye from this Epistle to the whole domains of the New Testament–yet, looking away from that defrauded village to universal Christendom, we must exclaim–What does one miss? Surely Christendom is not disturbed because a village suffers wrong; the sea is not roused because an eddy in a corner is boiling; the doctrine of the Trinity is not in danger because Mr. Porson is in a passion.]