What Version Authorised Or Revised

29 assures us, and “without a particle of hesitation, that they are three of the most scandalously corrupt copies extant;” that they “exhibit the most shamefully mutilated texts which are anywhere to be met with;” that they “have become (by whatever process, for their history is wholly unknown) the depositories of the largest amount of fabricated readings, ancient blunders, and intentional perversions of truth, which are discoverable in any known copies of the Word of God” (italics in the original).

These are strong statements, but the facts on which they are based seem fully to warrant them. Therefore it matters not what specific excellencies might be attributed to the Revised Version of the New Testament, the fact that the underlying Greek Text was fashioned in conformity to the Mss. Referred to in the above quoted paragraph is reason enough why it should be shunned by Bible users.

In describing the foregoing characteristics of the two most ancient Codices, as revealed by a minute inspection thereof, and by careful comparison with the Received Text, we are not losing sight of the fact that the many divergences between the two do not of themselves tend to show the corruption of the former, since those differences may be explained equally well upon the theory adopted by the Revisionists, and supported by the more modern Greek editors, namely, that the two ancient Codices are the repositories of the purer Text, and that the corruptions and departures are with the Received Text and the sources from which it has been derived.

But let it be remembered in the first place that it is for the supporters of the two ancient Codices, as against the Received Text, to establish their case by a preponderance of testimony ; for the burden of proof rests heavily upon them. It is for them to show, and by testimony which carries thorough conviction, that God left His people for fifteen centuries or more to the bad effects of a corrupt text, until, in fact, the chance discovery by Constantine Tischendorf, in the middle of the 19th century, of some leaves of parchment so slightly valued by their custodians that they had been thrown into the waste paper basket, and until (for some mysterious and as yet unexplained reason) the Codex Vaticanus was exhumed from its suspicious sleeping place at the papal headquarters.[4] It is for them to explain, if they can, the 4 It is easy to understand why this particular Ms. is cherished at the “Vatican; for its corruptions are what make it valuable to the leaders of the papal system. We can conceive therefore the satisfaction of those leaders that their highly prized Ms. has been allowed to play the leading part in the revision of the English Bible, than which there is nothing on earth they have more reason to fear. On the other hand, may not this be one of the causes why God, in His over ruling providence has frustrated the attempt to