governors of the Established Church should have allowed the anomaly to exist so long. Although since the first introduction of their Liturgy they have repeatedly altered it in less important points, it is truly extraordinary that they should still have retained in it this doubly antiquated version of the Psalms. Whilst they so long ago became sensible of the defects of the Bibles produced in the reign of Henry VIII., and have since twice exchanged their authorized version of the whole Scriptures for new ones, how is it that the chief portion of "Cranmer's Bible" which had been received into the Liturgy is allowed to maintain its station? as if the Book of Common Prayer were, with the Church of England, the source of holiness, capable of canonizing whatever has obtained a place in its pages, and of converting, as the Romish Church have done with their Vulgate, an indifferent and interpolated version into authentic Scripture. The state of the case then, respecting the three verses in question, is this:

The verses are not found in any copies of the Hebrew text, and it is the opinion of all the learned who are not Roman Catholics, that they never had a place in the Hebrew Original.

The verses are not found in many copies of the Septuagint Greek version; but there are others which do contain them.

The verses are found in all the copies of the Latin Vulgate, and in such English and other translations as were made from that source.

The manner in which they first found their way into the sacred text is supposed to have been this: A copyist in very ancient times, not finding the verses in the book from which he was making a transcript, and knowing that they occurred in the Epistle to the Romans, concluded that they were omitted in his copy by mistake, and accordingly inserted them in the copy he was making, from whence they were propagated to others. But whether the copy into which they were first introduced was a Latin or a Greek one, is doubtful: it probably, however, was Greek one, as it is certain that the first Latin version was made, not from the Hebrew but from the Greek, and though it was afterwards corrected from the Hebrew by Jerome, yet he states that he left many things which were not sanctioned by the Hebrew unaltered, to avoid giving offence to the ignorant. Among the Greek copies which contain the passage is the celebrated

a

Vatican manuscript, believed to be the most ancient in existence, and to have been written in the fifth century; but the great antiquity of this codex affords no argument for the genuineness of the additional clauses, since it is certain that the writer of it was a Christian, as the book contains the New Testament as well as the Old indeed, the Jews, though the first authors of the Septuagint version, becoming indignant at the use made of it by Christians, relinquished it to them entirely, and solemnly anathematized it, about the beginning of the second century.

But our correspondent seems disposed to conclude (what many would at first be inclined to infer with him,) that the verses were found in the copy of the Septuagint used by the Apostle, and that as he has sanctioned them by his authority, we may presume that they originally existed in the Hebrew original, whence they have dropped out like the words of Cain, "Let us go out into the field." But the two cases are by no means parallel: for, differently from the passage in Genesis, the Psalm as it stands in the Hebrew and in the Bible version seems quite complete, and exhibits no mark of mutilation. There is no occasion to suppose that Paul found the words in his copy of the Septuagint standing all together for what is more common, to this day, with those who wish to establish a doctrine by Scripture evidence, than to bring together a number of separate texts in which it is inculcated? This also was the practice of the Apostle in other instances: nor is it ever his custom to mention the specific parts of Scripture in which his quotations are to be found; for he supposes his readers to be so well acquainted with the Bible as to recognise them at once. Nor does the circumstance, that the passages in various parts of Scripture referred to in the margin of Rom. iii. 10 to 18, and noted by our correspondent above, do not exactly coincide with the words cited by the Apostle, afford any reason for concluding, that the Apostle did not intend to refer to these passages; for it very frequently happens, that the texts cited in the New Testament from the Old do not agree verbatim either with the Hebrew or with the Septuagint. In the present case, also, the corresponding passages, as found in the Septuagint, approach more nearly to an exact coincidence with the words as given by Paul, than they do as extant in the Hebrew, or in the English Bible-version, which was made from the Hebrew. Indeed, the exact agreement between the passage in Romans and the four

teenth Psalm as found in those copies of the Septuagint which have the additional verses, in the Latin Vulgate, and thence in the Prayer-book version, instead of favouring the conclusion that the Apostle took the quotation from a copy in which he found them all in one series, and thus that such copies of the Septuagint, if not of the Hebrew, then existed, does in reality point the other way, and affords strong grounds for suspecting that they have since been interpolated into the Septuagint and Vulgate by scribes who copied them from the Epistle to the Romans. So close a verbal agreement with the Old Testament, through so many verses, is not to be found in any other of the Apostolic quotations; beside which, it would be very remarkable, if the Apostle found ' all his nine verses in a series from one Psalm, which now contains but three of them, that we should find all the other senti ments given in his quotation, frequently expressed in the same words, in other parts of the Psalms and Prophetic Scriptures. The Hebrew Scriptures have never, like the Septuagint, been subject to the emendations of Christian scribes: since then we still find in the Hebrew, though in six different places, passages answering to all the parts of the quotation, there is reason to conclude that these are actually the sources whence the Apostle obtained it.

On the whole then, we think there is little reason, in this instance, for questioning the integrity of the Hebrew text, on account of the assertions of the Roman Catholics and the enlarged reading of the Church-of-England-Prayer-book. But the case affords a remarkable instance of one of the ways in which various readings took their rise, and which has been particularly operative in the New Testament. The copyists, finding the sacred record less full in one part than in other parallel passages, sometimes concluded the briefer narrative to be defective, and supplied what they deemed a deficiency from the fuller statement which they found elsewhere: whence it is laid down as a rule by the critics, that all particularly full readings which may be thus accounted for are to be scrupulously examined, and may be deemed spurious if other copies of general accuracy omit them: as is the case, in the instance before us, with all the Hebrew copies and many of those of the Septuagint.

EDITORS.

DEPLORABLE PERVERSION OF THE LORD'S

PRAYER.

To the Editors of the Intellectual Repository. GENTLEMEN,

Ir has sometimes been urged against members of the New Church, that in order to prove the fall of the Old Church, they exaggerate or mistate some points of her doctrines. It has, therefore, been, I think, a very useful object with some of your correspondents, to point out remarkable perversions of the Word by various professing members of the sections of the Old Church, which perversions have been as much opposed to common sense, as to Holy Writ.

In this view of the subject I enclose you an Extract from the works of Dr. Isaac Watts, vol. v. p. 364, (Leeds edition,) inserted under the head, "Prayers for Children."

"OF THE LORD'S PRAYER.

"It is sufficiently evident to me, that the Lord's Prayer was given to the disciples, in the beginning of their Christianity, partly as a form of prayer for their daily use, and partly as a pattern for their imitation, in those early days: but since it contains in it scarce any of the peculiar revelations of the New Testament, I am persuaded it was never designed to be a full and sufficient form or pattern after the resurrection or ascension of Christ, and the more complete revelation of the gospel. Yet because it has been usual to teach it as a prayer for children, I have here paraphrased it according to the further discoveries made by Christ and his apostles in the New Testament.

"A Paraphrase on the Lord's Prayer.

"Most merciful Father who art in heaven, and who seest all things that are done on earth, let thy name be hallowed by all thy creatures, and let me ever carry it towards thee as a great and holy God. May thy kingdom come, and be set up more universally in this world by the preaching of thy gospel: May all nations submit themselves to thee and to thy Son Jesus Christ.

Let thy Spirit rule in the hearts of men, and thy will be done among us on earth, as it is among the angels in heaven: Give me this day my daily bread, and every day of my life bestow on me those things which are necessary to maintain my health and strength, that I may be more capable of serving thee: Forgive my trespasses which I have committed against thee, for the sake of the death and intercession of thy dear Son, and enable me from the heart to forgive those who have trespassed against me. Lead me not into temptation, nor let me run carelessly into danger of sinning, but deliver me from the evil one, and from all his devices to defile and destroy my soul: For the kingdom and government of all things belong to thee; Thou hast power to do whatsoever I ask: And all honour and glory are thy due for ever and ever. Amen."

That the excellent man, who was the author of the foregoing extract and paraphrase, should have spoken thus irreverently of the words of him who "spake as never man spake," is truly surprising; and it proves the tendency of religious prejudices to darken the clearest understanding, and the effect of false doctrines confirmed to close the communication of the light of heaven upon even the best disposed heart. It has often been remarked that some, if not all dissenters, treat the Lord's Prayer very lightly in their public worship: if they condescend to use it all, (which many do not) there is a striking difference between the noisy fervour of their own prayer, and the contemptuous mumble of the Lord's Prayer which concludes it. This extract from Dr. Watts will, in a great measure, account for this fact. It certainly is much to be lamented that so good a man should have lent himself to the promotion of this great mischief; and that he should not only have employed himself to set children against the Lord's Prayer, but have furnished them with words, called a paraphrase, whereby they may most grossly pervert it, and deprive it of all the saving, life-giving influence, designed to accompany it by its Divine Author.

Truly indeed in this, as in too many other instances, are the words of the Lord applicable, "Ye have rendered the Word of God of none effect through your traditions."

SPECTATOR.