CHAPTER I.
GENERAL CORRUPTION.
Sec.

1.
We hear sometimes scholars complain, and with a certain show of reason, that it is discreditable to us as a Church not to have long since put forth by authority a revised Greek Text of the New Testament.

The chief writers of antiquity, say they, have been of late years re-edited by the aid of the best Manuscripts.

Why should not the Scriptures enjoy the same advantage?
Men who so speak evidently misunderstand the question.
They assume that the case of the Scriptures and that of other ancient writings are similar.
Such remonstrances are commonly followed up by statements like the following:--That the received Text is that of Erasmus:--that it was constructed in haste, and without skill:--that it is based on a very few, and those bad Manuscripts:--that it belongs to an age when scarcely any of our present critical helps were available, and when the Science of Textual Criticism was unknown.

To listen to these advocates for Revision, you would almost suppose that it fared with the Gospel at this instant as it had fared with the original Copy of the Law for many years until the days of King Josiah[10].
Yielding to no one in my desire to see the Greek of the New Testament judiciously revised, I freely avow that recent events have convinced me, and I suppose they have convinced the public also, that we have not among us the men to conduct such an undertaking.