_THE PREPARATIONS FOR FURTHER REVISION MADE DURING THE PAST TWO CENTURIES._
It has not been left to the present generation to be the first to recognize the force of the various considerations presented in the previous lectures. The duty of providing for a further revision of the English Bible has been handed down as a solemn trust from generation to generation. Every new discovery made of Biblical manuscripts, and every fresh field of research opened up, has at once made the need of revision more apparent, and given intensity to the desire that it should be undertaken; and, in their turn, this quickened desire and this increase of material have prompted to renewed efforts in obtaining all possible subsidiary helps. In this way it has come to pass that the whole period which has elapsed since the publication of the Revision of 1611 has been in effect a time of preparation for another and further revision, and here, as elsewhere, the divine law of human discipline has been verified, that every work accomplished is but the starting-point for fresh endeavours.
In this work of preparation four distinct stages may be clearly traced: the first, that of unfriendly criticism; the second, that of premature attempts at correction; the third, that of diligent research and patient investigation; and the fourth, that of widespread conviction of the desirableness of further revision, and the discussion of the plans by which it may best be accomplished.
From the very first the new version had to undergo an ordeal of criticism, springing sometimes from personal pique, sometimes from party prejudice, sometimes from a one-sided attachment to a favourite doctrine, the evidence for which seemed to be obscured by the rendering given to certain passages. Almost immediately upon the publication of the volume, a violent attack was made upon it by Hugh Broughton, who, though a man of immense erudition, and one of the best Hebraists of the day, was of so overbearing a temper that his offer to aid in the revision had been declined. Broughton declared that the version was so ill done that it bred in him a sadness which would grieve him whilst he breathed. “Tell his Majesty,” he passionately said, “that I had rather be rent in pieces with wild horses than any such translation by my consent should be urged on poor churches.”