Connecticut western news., 1881-06-15
THE REVISION OF BIBLE.
The Revision as Viewed from a Min.
 isterial Standpoint.

the Rev. Robert Collyer. He said he supposed there never was @ time since the New Testament was gathered into one book when so many men and women might be found reading it in the English tongue, and that nowhere on the earth could we find so many bending over the sacred pages as in the United States. | After speaking of the hold which the Bible has upon the common heart and | mind, he continued
 It, is an open secret that for many years there has been feeling among those Sho can compare the English tongue with the originals that the old is not always true. Manuscript copies have be been found of much earlier date than any that were known to the scholars of that day and these contain new reading-new because they are so old-which point now and then to the suspicion that the later manuscripts have been altered in the interest of some sect, or mistakes were made of which the scribe was not aware or mat ters which were once written on the margin have found place in the text We have also to face the fact that in de- spite of the sweet, pure we'll of English undefled we find in the Bible many words in our own tongue have lost their old meaning and taken another, or have quite dropped out of common use.
 The preacher said he was sure he spoke in the mind of all lovers of the Divine Book when he said he was glad so little harm had been done to our deep-lying love for the Word, which is so woven into the warp and wool of onr life. He was glad for this reform, which is so far from revolution in the book so ] many loved best All the great chap ters in the Old and New Testaments have lyrical element in them. We find, to our delight, we can still sing them to ourselves, and they are as full as ever of the sweet old charm, while we cannot be displeased at even losing some touch of it for the sake of the clearer truth which has come to us beyond doubt through the good which has been done He related the cases of two per sons who had learned Greek on purpose to read the Testaments, and who, after having done SO, declared they found nothing there but Unitarianism. There was one passage once deemed conclusive in support of the Trinity, and certainly, If it was proven true, the strongest words to be found for that side-"There are three that bear record in heaven - the Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one." This noble body of divines, who have made the new version, in which there is only one Unitarian, have left the passage out altogether and so conveyed to us their
 belief that John never wrote it-a truth good scholars of the present everywhere
 have been insisting on for many years.
 "I ind," said Dr. Collyer, "no new
 shade of meaning brought in anywhere
 to maintain trinity" "The Lord our
 God, the Lord is one and master, thou
 hast we'll said" He is one in the gos-
 pels, and God is one in St. Paul's epis-
 ties and in the Epistle of James notice
 also new shades of meaning touching
 the person and office of Jesus. In the
 old version we read, "There is one God
 and one mediator between God and
 men, the man Christ Jesus." In the
 new it is "There is one mediator be-
 tween God and man, himself man, Christ | Tao1,c D Tn tho oToIcflo thn old
 reading, "God was manifest in the
 fesh'nsis changed to "He who was man.
 ifested in the fiesh,'' taking the great
 name completely out of the controversy,
 as we have always claimed 1t should be. In another epistle Paul, speaking of
 Jesus, is made to say in the old version,
 "Who being in the form of God thought
 it not robbery to be equal with God. :"
 But in the new the passage reads, "Who
 being in the form of God thought it not
 thing to be grasped to be on an equal
 ity with Coda reading which alters
 the whole meaning. Elsewhere the old
 version reads, "Of whom as concerning
 the flesh Christ came, who is over all,
 God blessed forever" The reading we
 have insisted on is given in the margin -"He who if God over all he blessed forever :" or, "He who is over all is God, blessed forever" which changes
 the doctrine with an ascription. In the First epistle of John the name of God,
 which it has been claimed refers to
 Christ, is taken out of the text entirely.
 There is but one place in the old version F of the New Testament in which the F word "atonement" is used. In the new version this one instance is left out, and the word reconciliation takes it's
 place.
 The old reading on which the Calvan- l istic brethren set such store, ''The Lord addeth to the church daily such as ? should be saved," is now made to read, 3 ''Those that were being saved,'' and
 predestination is softened by just g touch with preordained, so that while l the word is still capable of trouble 7 enough when it is turned from life to 9 death, it is not the old grim word which l has struck such pain to the human f heart. I notice also another word is q changed and touched with this sweet
 reasonableness, and that is the worc e Conversion, of which so much has f been made we could not allow. The l. word is now left out and very good ont e takes its place. "And except ye be con . verted and become as little children" Ii S now Except ye turn and become a.