What Version Authorised Or Revised

33 God’s usual way of continuing the line of a living thing, incidental to and inherent in the thing itself, and not something extraneous thereto. For it is a part of the normal life of every individual to provide for the continuance and multiplication of individuals of its own kind. Thus, as the grain supplies not only bread to the eater, but also seed to the sower, so in like manner God has provided that His living Word should both feed every generation of saints, and should also increase and multiply itself. As it is written, “And the Word of God increased” (Ac. 6;7) ; and again, “But the Word of God grew and multiplied” (Ac. 12:24) ; and once more, “So mightily grew the Word of God and prevailed” (Ac. 19:20). The means which mainly have served to accomplish the purpose referred to, are these : 1. The necessity that there should be a great and steadily increasing multiplication of copies ; for this provides automatically the most effectual security imaginable against corruption of the Text.

2. The necessity that the Scriptures should be translated into divers languages. This translation of the Written Word into various tongues is but a carrying out of that which the miracle of Pentecost indicated as a distinctive characteristic of this age, namely, that everyone should hear the saving truth of God in the tongue wherein he was horn. Thus, the agreement of two or more of the earliest Versions would go a long way towards the establishment of the true reading of any disputed passage. It is appropriate at this point to direct attention to the very great value of a Version as a witness to the purity of the original Text from which it was translated. Those who undertake a work of such importance as the translation of the New Testament into a foreign language would, of course, make sure, as the very first step, that they had the best obtainable Greek Text. Therefore a Version (as the Syriac or Old Latin) of the second century is a clear witness as to the Text recognized at that early day as the true Text.

This point has an important bearing upon the question we are now examining. For, remembering that “we have no actual *Copies* (i. e., Original Greek Texts) so old as the Syriac and Latin *Versions* (i. e., Translations) by probably more than 200 years” (The Traditional Text, Burgon and Miller), and that “The oldest Versions are far more ancient than the oldest (Greek) manuscripts” (Canon Cook), and remembering too that those venerable Versions prove the existence in their day of a standard Text agreeing essentially with our Textus Receptus, and it will be recognized that “the most ancient evidence” is all in favor of the latter.

3. The activity of the earliest assailants of the church necessitated, on the part of the de fenders of the faith, and that from the very be ginning, that they should quote extensively from every part of the New Testament. In this