The following work is especially intended for Sunday-school and Bible-class teachers, and for such others as from any cause may be unable to consult many books or to read lengthened treatises. It has seemed to me to be of great importance that those who are engaged in the responsible service of teaching the young, and to whom the Bible is the constant source of appeal, should be able both to take up an intelligent position in regard to the new revision of the English Scriptures, and to meet the various enquiries that will be made respecting it by those about them. I have therefore endeavoured to provide for their use, in a compendious form, a survey of the general argument for revision, and of the facts which exhibit the present duty of Christian men in relation thereto. In the execution of this purpose it has been necessary to direct attention to the chief stages in the growth of the English Bible, but this has been done only so far as seemed to be requisite for the illustration of the main argument. Those who may desire to study this part of the subject more at length are referred to the full and interesting volumes of Dr. Eadie, or to the convenient manuals published by Dr. Moulton and by Dr. Stoughton. Such as may wish to investigate more minutely the internal history of the Authorized Version will find Dr. Westcott’s General View of the History of the English Bible a most trustworthy and invaluable guide.

In the Appendix I have brought together the prologues or prefaces to the chief historical editions of the English Bible. Some of these are not of easy access to ordinary readers, while all are of deep and lasting interest. They will abundantly repay a careful perusal. The reader will thereby, more readily than in any other way, come into personal contact with the noble men to whose self-denying labours our country and the world are so deeply indebted; will learn what was the spirit which animated them, and what were the aims and methods of their toil; and, in addition to much wise instruction respecting the study of the word of God, will learn how the deepest love and reverence for the Bible are not only tolerant of changes in its outward form, but will indeed imperatively demand them whenever needed for the more faithful exhibition of the truth it enshrines.

It has formed no part of my purpose either to exhibit or to justify the changes which have been made in the revision in which I have had the honour and the responsibility of sharing. The former will best be learnt from the perusal of the Revised Version itself; the latter it would be unbecoming in me to undertake. The ultimate decision respecting them must rest upon the concurrent judgment of the wisest and most learned; and they who are the most competent to judge will be the least hasty in giving judgment, for they best know how difficult and delicate is the translator’s task, and how manifold, and sometimes how subtle, are the various considerations which determine his rendering. Nor indeed would any such attempt be possible within the limits I have here assigned to myself. To be properly done it would require an appeal to special learning which I have no right to assume in my readers, and to habits of scholarly investigation which I may not presuppose. To the bulk of my readers the one justification for the changes they will discover in the Revised New Testament must practically rest in the fact that those who have for more than ten years conscientiously and diligently laboured in this matter, and who have with such anxious care revised and re-revised their work, have been constrained to the conclusion that in this way they would most faithfully and clearly present the sense of the sacred Word. May He whose word it is graciously accept their service, and deign to use it for His glory.

New College,
April 26, 1881.