THE

NEW TESTAMENT,

IN

AN IMPROVED VERSION,

UPON THE BASIS OF

ARCHBISHOP NEWCOME'S NEW TRANSLATION:

WITH

A CORRECTED TEXT,

AND

NOTES CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY.

PUBLISHED BY A SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE AND THE

PRACTICE OF VIRTUE, BY THE DISTRIBUTION OF BOOKS:

No ofience can justly be talen fit this new labour; nothing prejudicing any other inan's
judgement by this doing; nor yet professing tl’is so absolute a translation, as that hereafter
might follow no other who might see that which as yet was not understood.

Archbishop Parker's Preface to the Bishops' Bible.

London:
Printed by Richard Taylor and Co. Shoes Lane.
SOLD BY J. JOHNSON, st. PAUL'S CHURCII-YARD; AND LONGMAN, HURST,

REES, AND ORME, PATERNOSTER ROW,

a

Origin, Progress, and Design of the Work. In the year 1791, a Society was formed in London, the professed design of which was to promote religions knowledge and the practice of virtue by the distribution of books. Of this Society, from its first origin, it has al. ways been a principal object to publish an Improved Version of the Holy Scriptures, and particularly of the New Testament. With this view a deputation of the Society was commissioned about twelve years ago to wait upon the late pious and learned Gilbert Wakefield, to request his permission to republish and to circulate his new and accurate Translation of the New Testament at the expense of the Society ; to which that gentleman most rcadily expressed his assent, and at the same time promised to revise his transla. tion with great care, and to give it to the Society in its most perfect state. It appeared, however, in the sequel, that the engagement into which he had entered with his bookseller upon the publication of his second edition pre. cluded him from fulfilling his promise to the Society till that edition was dis. posed of. In the mean time those unfortunate events took place which are but too well known to the public; and, to the great and irreparable loss of religion and literature, the life of that eminent scholar was closed in the midst of its career.

After the decease of Mr. Wakefield, it being found impracticable to make use of his Translation, the design for some time lay dormant, till it was resumed by another Society in the West of England, which was formed upon the same principles with the Society in London. This effort proved abortive in consequence of the sudden and much lamented removal of that active, zcalous and persevering advocate of pure and uncorrupted christianity, the late reverend and learned Timothy Kenrick of Exeter.

The design, however, of publishing an Improved Version of the New Testament was never totally abandoned : and it was resumed with great unanimity and spirit at the annual meeting of the London Society, in April 1806, when a Committee was appointed, consisting of all the ministers who were members of the Society, together with some gentlemen of the laity, to carry the intentions of the Society into effect with all convenient dispatch. To this Committee it appeared on many accounts more eligible to adopt as the basis of their Work a known and approved translation already exist. ing, than to make a new and original Version. And Mr. Wakefield's