a,,?-;:": !,■'

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Biblical Reference Library.

PRESENTED BY ALFRED C. BARNES.

NOT TO BE TAKEN FROM THE ROOM.

PHASED O^ERIOBATION

GNOMON

THE NEW TESTAMENT

JOHN ALBERT BENGEL.

NOW FIRST TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH.

OEIGINAL NOTES EXPIANATOEY AND ILIUSTEATIVE.

REVISED AND EDITED BT

EEY. ANDEEW E. PAUSSET, M.A.,

OF TKINITI COLLEGE, DUBLIN.

VOL. V.

FRAGILE PAPER Please handle this book with care, as the paper is brittle.

TODNG MAN KNOWLEDGE AND DIS- NCBEASE learning; AND A MiH OF SLS." PBOV. I. 4, 5.

GrH :

ORGE STREET

MDCCCLXVI.

FRAGILE DOES_NOT ^^ ^^^^

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G N 0 I 0 N

THE NEW TESTAMENT

JOHN ALBERT BENGEL.

ACOOKDING TO THE EDITION ORIGINALLT BROUGHT OUT BT HIS SON,

I. EENEST BEN⪙

AND SUBSEQUENTLY COMPLETED BY

J. C. F. STEUDEL.

WITH CORRECTIONS AND ADDITIONS FROM THE ED, SECUNDA OF 1759.

VOLUME V.

CONTAINING THE COMMENTAKT ON THE EPISTLES OF JAMES, I. PETER, II. PETER, I. JOHN, II. JOHN. III. JOHN, JUDE, AND THE APOCALYPSE.

TRANSLATED BT

THE EEV. WILIIAM FLETCHER, D.D.,

HEAD MASTER OF QUEEN ELIZABETH'S SCHOOL, WIMBOENE, DORSET, AND LATE FELLOW OF BBASE-NOSE COILEOE, OXFORD.

SIXTH EDITION.

EDINBURGH: T. & T. CLARK, 38, GEORGE STREET.

MDCCCLXVI.

MTIBBAT AND GIBB, PEIKTJiES, EDmEUEGH.

EDITOR'S PEEEACE

YOLS. II., lY., AND Y.

In the name of my fellow-translators and myself, I desire to thank the literary and religious public for the favourable reception which ^ they have given to the two volumes of the Translation of Bengel's Gnomon already published. In sending forth to the world the three remaining volumes, it is only necessary to repeat, that' no pains have been spared to make the Translation throughout worthy of the well- deserved reputation of the original.

Of course it is not possible to reproduce in our more diffuse English language the terse brevity of Bengel's Latin ; but this loss is in some measure counterbalanced by the greater gain in clearness, which the Translation in many passages will be found to possess, when compared with the original Latin. Many readers of ordinary scholarship, often meet in the Latin Gnomon sentences, which, in order to be understood, require more patience and thought than they have time to bestow. They will be tempted to pass by such passages, and say, " Si non vis intelligi, debes negligi." Bengel's friend Marthius warned him of this tendency to obscurity through the ex- cessive brevity of his style ; " Let me beg of you," wrote Marthius to Bengel, " not to give your critical annotations too concisely, under the idea that your readers will take the trouble to think out all the meaning, which you intend to convey in some two or three words." I have tried to make such passages intelhgible to the reader by brief explanations, sometimes inserted in the text in brackets, sometimes appended as footnotes. There are also explained in the notes of this Translation allusions of Bengel to remote facts, usages, and persons, which to many readers would otherwise be obscure. The quotations from the Hebrew and lxx. Old Testament have been carefuUy col- lated, and corrected where it was necessary.

^i editor's pkeface.

Bengel, in the main, laid hold of the true principle for the restoration of the genuine text, namely, that the preference should be given to the oldest MSS. and Versions, though few, rather than to the more recent ones, however numerous. But those oldest !MSS. and Versions had not been so weU collated as they have been more recently : and we have the advantage of other ancient authorities, lately brought to light, which Bengel had not. The results of modem textual criticism are briefly, but folly, given in my notes ; so that the reader can at a glance see the authorities for, and those against, every important reading. This, I venture to think, much enhances the value of this Translation.

iSTo subject is of more importance as regards exegetical criticism, than to rightly distinguish synonyms, so as to mark exactly the deHcate shades of meaning. I have therefore supplied the reader with many helps in this department, for which I am indebted chiefly to Tittmann, TVahl, and Trench.

Occasionally, typographical mistakes occur in the Latin of modem editions of the Grnomon. These must perplex the reader, as they did myself for a time. In this Translation no such difl5culty will arise.

Some reviewers have objected to the retention of the technical terms. Bengel, in his Preface, has by anticipation answered these objectors : these technical terms of figures of speech, often recurrine, are not a pedantic display of leammg, calculated to confuse the English reader, but are in fact abbreviated notes, thrown into this form to save frequent repetition, and clearly intelligible, partly fix)m the context, and the brief explanations which I have inserted in brackets or footnotes, and more folly from the Appendix.

In many cases the convenience of the reader is consulted by texts being given in fall, which are only referred to by Bengel ; and the emphatic part of each such text is marked in such a way that the intention of Bengel in referring to it, which might not be at once obvious, is made apparent.

May the great Head of the Church bless this work to His own glory and the extension of His kingdom ! IMay it be the means, under Him, of leading many in this country, as it has already on the Continent, to an accurate, devout, and reverential study of the Sacred Word!

Ain)EEW EOBEET FAtTSSET.

BiSHOP-JIlDDLEHAlI CuaACT.

April 1858.

SKEJCH

LIEE AND WEITINGS OP J. A. BENGEL.

BY

EEV. A. E. PATISSET.

John Albert Bengel was born at Winnenden, in Wiirtemberg, on the 24th of June 1687. His father, Albert Bengel, assistant parochial minister of that town, was his first instructor ; and the son gratefully makes mention, in after life, of his father's " easy and pleasant manner of instructing him." This parent died in the year 1693 : but the providence of God raised him up, in D. W. Spindler, one who acted to him as a second father, and who, as tutor in the High School of Stuttgart, along with Seb. Kneer, completed the boy's first elementary education. The French invasion in Suabia, under Louis XIV., had caused him the loss of his father's library ; but even this was made by him into a subject of thankfulness in after hfe, that the providence of God had removed fi:om him the temptation of reading too great a variety of books. At the age of thirteen he was promoted into the Upper School, where, under Hoch- stetter, Erhard, and others, he made considerable proficiency in an- cient and modern branches of knowledge. His mother, in 1703, married J. Alb. Glockler, steward of the Theological Seminary of Maulbronn ; and it was by the kindness of this excellent man that he was enabled to become a member of the Theological College of Tiibingen. Besides his other studies here, he chose for more private study Aristotle and Spinoza, in which latter author's metaphysics he attained to such proficiency, that Professor Jager set him to arrange materials for a treatise, " De Spinocismo," which the Professor after- wards published. He also made researches preparatory to a Church History, about to be composed by the same author : and to Jager's employment of him at this time in such works, Bengel was no doubt indebted for that clearness of arrangement and expression, so observ- able in the writings of both. His attention to metaphysics and mathematics also tended to give him perspicuity of thought for analyzing the language of Scripture. Professor Hochstetter was another who was of great service to Bengel during his University

Tiii SKETCH OF THE LIFE AND

career aijd subsequently. On the occasion of the latter taking deOTce of M.A., and the former of D.D., it was Bengels privilege, as respondent, to defend Hochstetter's final disputation, i?e pretio Eedemptionis." He, with Hochstetter, subsequently ^^penntendea the correction of a new edition of the ■German Bible, ^^^^^.^ °°°f™ to the accentuated Hebrew, as far*as could be done, ^^^^^f ^tf^ntty with not altering Luther's own renderings This formed a useful pre parative to^his critical labours in the New Testament, and also led to his writing an essay on the Hebrew accents wherein he wishes to show, that, though there is a general uniformity in the accentuation of all the prophe'tical books, yet each book has besides a distinct ac- centuation of its own, and that therefore the Hebrew accents, though not of equal authority with the text, are closely connected with its true interpretation.

After leaving the University, Bengel, immediately upon ordina- tion in 1706, became curate in the City Church of Tiibingen, under Hochstetter. He next entered on the parochial charge of Metzingen- under-Urach. In his own memoir he observes, " My first fortnight's residence, as curate of Metzingen, convinced ine at once what a variety of qualifications a young clergyman ought to have for such an office. How totally different is it from the notions one had formed of it at the University !"

Before a year had passed he was called to the office of junior divinity tutor at Tubingen. This was not without its benefit to him. He observes, " After one has spent some time among people out of doors, and acquired a gustum pleheium et popularem, it is useful to return for a while to College again, to undergo a second theological education. Thus, upon afterwards coming out, one is hkely to labour with more experience and success."

From 1711 to 1713 he served a curacy at Stuttgart. It was about this period he composed a Latin treatise, " Syntagma de Sanctitate Dei," in which he shows, by parallel passages of Scripture, that all the attributes of God are implied in the Hebrew C'inp holT/, rendered ciyiog or Saiog in the Lxx. : in fact, that the Divine holiness compre- hends all His supreme excellence.

In 1713 he was promoted to the head- tutorship of a theological seminary newly set up by Government at Denkendorf. Before entering on it, he took a tour, at the expense of Government, to qualify him the better for his important post. This literary journey was of much use to him as to his future labours. At Heidelberc he became acquainted with the critical Canons of Gerhardt of iSas- tricht, which he refutes in the Preface of the Gnomon. In Halle too, his attention was drawn by Lang to Vitringa's " Anacrisis ad Apocalypsin," which, as well as his conversations with Lang, who was a disciple of Spener, led his mind into that train of thouo-ht, the fruit of which appears in his Expositions of the Apocalypse.

From his eai'liest years Bengel had felt the dawnings of spiritual

■WRITINGS OF J. A. BENGEL. ix

life ; and lie mentions that the texts inscribed on the church walls of his native town, concerning death, sin, righteousness, the crucifixion, etc., produced in him, as a mere child, " emotions of great joy and peace, and left on him profitable and lasting impressions." The work of the Spirit of God within him was cherished by the religious ad- vantages which he enjoyed externally, in the pious lessons of his parents. His favourite books in his early life were such works as Arndt's "True Christianity," Southon's " Golden Jewel," Gerhard t's "Sacred Meditations" (in Latin), "Franke's and Schade's "Intro- duction to the Holy Scriptures." But the Bible was the book he loved above every other. Not that he was exempt from the sugges- tions of youthful levity at times, as he confesses himself, but he was mercifully preserved from any serious wandering from his Heavenly Father. Like most earnest thinkers, he was not without doubts as- sailing his understanding, but they only drove him to draw the closer to God in child-like prayer ; and, on his first attendance at the Lord's table, he experienced such inward peace, that he felt " a hearty de- sire of departing to be with Christ." His doubts, too, gave him the greater power to sympathize with others in doubt, instead of repelling them by harshness. A remark of his own is well worthy of note, though a seeming paradox : " Conversion easily leads to heterodoxy." The unconverted man finds no difficulties, for he is indifferent to the whole question. But he who has found the pearl of great price examines it with anxious care ; and, as truth is not to be reached without struggles, in the course of " proving all things," doubts will start up, never thought of before : but care and prayer -n ill at last prevail, and faith will be only the more firmly rooted by the storms which agitated it in its early growth.

The variations in the Oxford Edition of the Greek Testament, which at first caused him scruples, were overruled to good, in leading him to prayer, and to the more careful pondering over every nice peculiarity of the Word of God. " The most important of all controversies," says he, " are those which we experience within us ; of which there is no end, till the whole man has undergone a change, and struggled into renovation. When this is done, a host of casuistical scruples disappear at once." In writing subsequently to his pupil Reuss, he remarks, as to the various readings of the Greek Testament, " Take and eat in simplicity the bread as you have it before you, and be not disturbed if you find in it now and then a grit from the millstone. If the sacred volume, considering the fallibility of its many transcribers, had been preserved from every seeming defect, this preservation would have been so great a miracle, that faith in the Written Word could be no longer faith. I only wonder that there are not more of these readings than there are, and that none in the least affect the foundation of our faith."'

^ Twenty thousand various readings, for example, have been noticed in the six comedies of Terence.

SKETCH OF THE LIFE AND

On the subject of inspiration he writes, " The apostles themselves have drawn the most important inferences from Scripture tenns of the utmost brevity, as in Heb. ii. 8, xii. 17, vii. 3, 14; Gal. iii. 16. As to the general inspiration of all Scripture, I am satisfied with this position. The whole Sacred Volume is in most beautiful harmony with itsetj (omnia se quadrant). As we cannot contemplate a globe withoiit observing how round and complete it is, so to an attentive observRr are the Scriptures."

His spiritual life was benefited too by his connection with a society formed of Christian students in Tubingen, for the promotion of vital godliness among themselves and their friends. A severe sickness, which he had in 1705, brought him to the verge of death: but in the height of it he felt the secret assurance of the Psalmist, Ps. cxviii. 17, "I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord." The effect of this discipline was to lead him to resolve, through God's help, " to devote entirely to God's service this renewed grant of temporal life." His tour through Germany, by bringing him in contact with pious men of very different views, gave his re- ligious character a catholicity of spirit, aUke removed from cold for- malism and sectarian fanaticism.

In opening the institution atDenkendorf, Hochstetter, as president, delivered the inauguration speech : Zeller, as senior tutor, delivered a similar speech ; and Bengel, as junior tutor, took, as the subject of his Latin speech, which was the third delivered, " The diligent pur- suit of piety the surest method of attaining true learning :" adopting Aristotle's position, that the three chief requisites for sound learning are natural abilities, instruction, and application, he proceeded to show that fervent piety is the life and soul of these requisites. He drew up for the pupils a plan raisonn^ of study, entitled "The Denkendorf ' Die cur hie,' " in which he stedfastly kept in view the ONE OBJECT which in EVERY thing should be our influencing motive, the glory of God, a good conscience, and the public good ; that the object of education should be, not so much to inform, as to form, the pupil. So successful was he in winning the aft'ections of the pupils, whilst directing them towards the highest aims, that many of them corresponded with him during the rest of their lives and his : for in- stance, J. F. Eeuss, afterwards Chancellor of the University; C. F. CEtinger, afterwards prelate of Murrhardt, etc. From his twenty- sixth to his fifty-fourth year he continued his arduous duties as a tutor. Being called to the dignity of Prelate of Herbrechtingen, on the 24th of April 1741 he closed his duties, as he had begun them twenty-eight years before, with a Latin speech on " The beneficial influence of piety upon the studies of the rising generation."

As a preacher he soon became very ready : his maxim was to " think much and write little ;" yet to the end of his life he composed a sketch of every sermon. He held it as an axiom, that " grace begins where natural means can go no farther ;" " that it was only

WRITINGS OF J. A. BENGEL. xi

for extraordinary, not for common occasions, that the apostles them- selves were told, ' Be not careful what ye shall speak ;' and that, when a preacher forbears to do that for which he has natural ability, becauses he wishes to preach Christ more clearly, such a man will find an abundant blessing in his work." He took great pains about the close of a sermon ; for he considered that a preacher who can come to a close when and how he pleases, is able to preach the whole ser- mon with much greater ease. Khetorical flourishes, and aiming at popularity, he regarded as sinful, and quaint low sayings objection- able. He desired throughout to maintain that gravity {(SiiMvoTrig) which Holy Scripture enjoins. He advises the young minister to " make a beginnmg for preaching the next sermon immediately after preaching the last, whilst your spirit is still warm and stirred within you." As to spiritual qualification, he remarks, that " every candidate for the ministry ought to be able to exhibit the credentials of his spiritual bu-th, because an unconverted minister, being not a man of prayer, must be as inefficient as a bird with one wing."

As to the need of a duly ordained ministry he says, " The awaken- ing which is wrought by the power of the Divine Word in individuals, without the instrumentality of the regular ministry, is one thing , but whether, without such instrumentality, we ai'e to expect a whole church to be planted, is another. To be ever so true a believer, is insufficient of itself to confer a right to all the offices of the Church of God. Ordination is needed. Tliis is the declared will of the Lord, and the practice of His apostles in all the churches. Our separatists consider themselves experienced Christians, and we must put up with it. There is, hovvever, in the greater part of them, much self-will and pugnacity. If, as a body, they had some good thing among them at first, the good was intermixed with so much alloy, as gradually to have disappeared. The righteous among them are chiefly to be sought m the first generation : children and children's children commonly degenerate. God, however, uses separation as a standing protest against the corruptions in om* Church. Still ministers and people may serve God with a pm'e conscience in the very heart of our degenerate Church ; and I find a larger number of such pious persons in it than among our sepai-atists. At the same time, as a minister of a parish, I would live and teach so as to give none any occasion of stumbling ; I would warn my people to use no harsh language against them, and not to judge them ; I would tiy to show them that blameless persons can still be found in the Church, and can conscientiously remain in it."

In his latter years honours were conferred on him, which he had never ambitiously sought. His chief cai'e had always been to do faithfully whatever his hand found to do. " We may, and ought," said he, " to offer ourselves to God for any commission, with which He may be pleased to entrust us ; only we must wait, until He smd us : the less we mingle with His work what is merely ours i.e.

xii SKETCH OF THE LIFE AND

the more immediately we depend for our sufficiency upon God Him- self—the more direct is our progress towards its fulfilment.^ If even a converted man act merely by a will of his own, if he vainly ima- gine it is himself that must support the ark of God, he mars nis undertaking at once." .

His appointment to the prelacy of Herbrechtingen brought with it a change from a life of incessant toil and action, inter- course with students and scholars, to a life of ease and compara- tive quiet. His literary labours were almost completed : the Gnomon had received its imprimatur on the very day of his new appointment. However, he soon found in his new sphere fresh fields of usefiilness. He commenced regular meetings for edification, like those which he had held at Denkendorf, and he now expounded throughout the four Gospels, and subsequently the Apocalypse: and it was from notes of his expositions of the latter, taken by his hearers, and afterwards corrected by himself, that his well-known " Sixty Practical Addresses" on Eevelation were put together. In 1749 he was elected Councillor of Consistory and Prelate of Alpirsbach, which obliged him to leave Herbrechtingen, and reside at Stuttgart. " I enter on my new and unsought office," said he, " trusting in the Divine mercy. My call to it gives me joy in one respect, but shames me in another, as knowing what I am in my- self, and how hard it is to answer even the moderate expectations which men may form of me. However I shall thus become less and less in my own eyes, and more desirous of attaining the ever- lasting rest." Henceforth it became his official business to assist in directing the public affairs of the Church.

" To form a proper notion of the Church (says he), we must not set before us the primitive Church as a model. The apostles, in speaking of the Church, intend not so much the Church as it then existed, but rather the Church in the abstract, or what it was de- signed of God to become hereafter. Christianity has never yet attained that perfect form which it is to have by virtvie of the Old Testament promises." " The Israelites, with all their corruption, were still the people of God, and were called such, because God had His own ordinances among them. We must not then be too eager to adopt every objection brought against our mother Church, worldly as hei* children so generally are ; neither must we forget the privileges we retain in those common public prayers and songs of praise, which she gives us so many opportunities of enjoying. It is to her, under God, that we owe the preservation of the Scrip- tures, and our familiarity with their contents : without her, the whole history of Christ would long ago have been regarded as fabulous."

On forms of prayer he observes, " Good forms are valuable ; but when the heart has been put in tune by them, it is better they should give place to extemporaneous petition. Still prescribed

WRITINGS OF J. A. BENGEL. xiil

forms may be prayed with the heart, so as to come out from the heart. Persons who are for praying always from ' the heart/ as they call it, may, and do, come insensibly to use what amounts to forms." As to church music, he says, " When not plain and simple, it may delight the ear and imagination, but it obstructs the true melody of the heart."

On the divisions between Lutherans and Calvinists he writes, " Were Paul himself to descend from Paradise upon a mission to Protestant Christendom, he would find far other work to do, than that of effecting a civil coalescence between them. A unity of the Spirit cannot be wrought out among so many, while so few of them have the Spirit. The division itself I regard as a fatherly rebuke, not without its beneficial effects. For whereas we Lutherans reject the notion of absolute, unconditional decrees, we constrain its advo- cates to hold out representations more moderate, and more con- ducive to their own experimental piety ; but, on the other hand, if ever the doctrine of decrees in general should fall into disregard among ourselves, the majority of us will decline into what is no better than mere rationalism, having by and by lost all belief in God's universal grace."

As A WRITER, his works were numerous, including, besides his Editions of various ancient authors, about thirty original publica- tions of his own. Yet he held it as a principle, that " we ought to be very careful about composing new books ;" for that " every book should add something to the reader's information, or at least to the improvement of his heart." He had a remarkable power of con- densation, which was by no means characteristic of writers of his day or his nation. " It has long been my rule (he said) to write nothing, which at my dying hour I might have to repent of." What most pained him was, that in the case of some of his works, he had to endure not only the attacks of the worldly, but also the suspicions of the really spiritual. " It is well (said he) to be conscious on such occasions, that the countenance of fallible men was not the thing we had reckoned on, and to be able to say, ' All is under God's direction.' "

The earliest of his larger publications was a new Edition of Cicero's Epistles ad Familiares (Stuttgart, 1719). Conscientious attendance to apparent minutiae, as leading to most important exegeti- cal results, characterized him in his classical, as in his theological writ- ings. He closed his Ed. of Cic. Epistles with an Appendix on the advantages of studying this work, and the right uses to be made of it. In this he warns against the danger to personal Christianity of undue devotedness to philological study. " Even Scriptural researches may, without needful discretion, occasion in learned men indifference to true godliness, instead of nourishing it. Mercury is as much op- posed to Christ, as is Plutus or Mammon. The spirit of heathen wisdom ever was, and ever must be, a spirit of presumption, vanity, worldliness, selfishness, and sensuality ; yet there is in it something

xi» SKETCH OF THE LIFE AND

uncommonly catching to intellectual persons, who are not esta blished in personal religion." He had prepared materials for editing Ovid's Tristia and Persius, but was prevented publishing them by being called to undertake works of a more congenial kind. " Daily relish (said he) for the sweet language of Divine inspiration had now superseded with me that of all other dainties, though I was not in- sensible of their charms." In the midst of his classical occupations in 1717 he confessed, that he often " found his spiritual strength at a very low ebb among the dead heathen."

His next work was an Edition of Gregory's Panegyric on Origen, for the use of his pupils (Greek and Latin), 1772. His reason for selecting it was because Gregory has shown, by his own example, that an inquiring youth can find no solid satisfaction in all the heathen philosophical systems, but is compelled, by a sense of his needs, to seek refuge in the substantial truths of Christianity.

In 1725 he pubhshed his Edition of Chrysostom de Sacerdotio, Gr. and Lat., at Stuttgart. He pronounces that work decidedly the best production of Chrysostom's pen. To it he added a Prodeomus Nov. Test. Gr^CI rect^ cautique adomandi, i.e. a prospectus of a new critical edition of the Greek Testament. Besides, he wrote " Annotations upon Macaeius ;" also on " Epheem Syrus."

Bengel, as has been already said, even whilst yet a student, had felt an intense interest about the various readings of the New Tes- tament. Before the publication of Mill, the believer had to con- tent himself with the axiom, that the Providence of God would not have allowed any such corruptions of the Sacred Record, as would endanger the essential truths of our faith. Bengel now desired to put the question on such a footing, that the Christian henceforth might not only believe, but see, that such was the case. After hav- ing collated numerous printed editions and MSS. (24 in all, besides Latin ones) and versions, he published, in 1734, as he had pre- viously announced in his Prodromus, his Greek New Testament, in two forms, the one quarto, and the other octavo subsequently ;^ and simultaneously with the former, his Apparatus Ceiticus, in which he unfolds the true principles of criticism, the value of his authorities, and the various readings in order. In the read- ings of his Greek text he did not admit a single expression that had not been embodied in the existing printed editions, excepting a few readings in the Apocalypse, a book peculiarly circumstanced ; but in the margin he inserted some readings heretofore confined to MSS. Eesearch had convinced him, that any reading not found in any former printed Edition was of minor importance, and if introduced, might only cause oftence to the weak. His cardinal four-worded canon was, " Proclivi lectioni prsestat ardua," the die-

The Quarto Ed., which came first, was published at Tubingen, 1734; the octavo later in the same year, at Stuttgart. The former is called in this transl. notes, "the Larger Ed. ;" the latter, "the Smaller Ed."

WRITINGS OF J. A. BENGEL. xv

FiCULT IS PREFERABLE TO THE EAST RE-'VDNG ; for the obvious rea- son, that the interpolator or transcrilier would be much more likely to substitute an easy reading for the more difficult one, than vice versa. In the Preface of the Smaller Greek Text, he gives this admirable rule for searching Scripture with profit,

" Te totum applica ad Textum ;

Bern totam applica ad te." Apply thyself wliolly to the TeH ; Apply the subject wholly/ to thyself.

Among the passages especially discussed in the Apparatus, as to the true reading, are Matt. vi. 13 ; John i. 1, viii. 1-11 ; 1 Tim. iii. 16 ; 1 John v. 7. Lastly, in the same work is given an Introduc- tion to the Apocalypse, a book subjected to more various readings than any book of the New Testament, though it exists in fewer MSS. Bengel's exertions had brought to light several MSS. in which it is found.

These critical works of his were warmly received by many ; but others, both Protestants and Eoman Catholics, assailed him as a dangerous innovator. Among these opponents, the most promi- nent were the authors of a publication, named " Early Gathered Fruits" (No. 4 of the year 1738) : J. G. Hager, M.A., probably wrote the article in which Bengel is accused of " unprecedented audacity." An opposite kind of objection was raised in an article of the Bihliotheque Raisonn6e of Amsterdam, known to have been written by Wetstein, viz. that Bengel had not gone far enough ; that he was too timid in not inserting in the text, and not merely in the margin, readings supported by the best MSS., though never before 'printed in the Editions ; that the right of using our critical resources was an undoubted one ; that cautious as Editors had been, they could not escape persecution : that Erasmus had been rewarded with the reputation of an Arian, and Robert Stephens was obliged to fly to Geneva to escape burning at the stake ; that Bengel him- self had been obliged to abandon his favourite caution in editing the Apocalypse ; that therefore it would have been better had he adopted in the text, whether firom print or MS., whatever reading he thought the best ; but he ends with confessing that BengeVs Edi- tion of the New Testament was the best ever yet published.

Bengel in reply wrote " A Defence of the Greek Testament," edited at Tubingen, in 1784. This he inserted in his " Harmony of the Four Gospels," published in 1736. Besides the answers im- plied in what has been written above, he notices what is most im- portant, namely, that the notion (Wetstein's), that the correctness of the reading should be determined by a majority of MSS., is an unsound one : To ascertain the authority of a MS., we must con- sider its origin, a thing which often gives preponderance to one be- yond a hundred others.

He also replied to the " Early Gathered Fruits," through a jour-

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nal called " New Literary Notices from Tiibingen." As to the changes made by him in the Received Text of the Apocalypse, on which his reviewer had dwelt most severely, Bengel showed that Erasmus so hurried it to press, that he had actually substituted for the original Greek of the concluding part, a translation of his own into Greek from the Latin Vulgate ! As to his Greek text supply- ing infidels with weapons, he shows that, on the contrary, if we restrict the liberty of proper revision, we leave the sacred text exposed to every presumptuous judgment ; that infidels cannot be ignorant of the existence of various readings, which, instead of finding in- creased by his revision, they would find fewer for objecting against than ever ; that whereas one party accused him of undue caution, but the other of temerity, it was evident he had kept the middle, and therefore the right way.

The Romanist party, headed by Rev. T. A. Berghauer, at- tacked Bengel, in a publication entitled Bibliomachia, in which the writer threatens such " heretics, who have their flaming pride lighted up by the Bible, with the strong arm and spiritual and tem- poral sword of the Catholic Church." Bengel, in his " Practical Addresses" on the Apocalypse, Append, on 58th— 60th of his " Prac- tical Addresses on the Apocalypse" (to be found also in Ed. 2 of the Appar. Crit., p. 748), replied, meekly showing that he had done no more than what Cardinal Ximenes and the Editors of the Complu- tensian Bible, with their patron Leo X., had done, \'iz. set a high value upon sonnd criticism : that the author had appropriately en- titled his pamphlet " Bibliomachia," War with the Bible; for that it was a congeries of blasphemy against the word of God in all Bibles, Catholic and Protestant : that the threat of persecution only showed that many prophecies in the Apocalypse must now be on the point of fulfilment, and " well may we arm ourselves with the patience and faith of the saints. The children of peace cannot love contention : it is painful to them to be obliged to contend even for the truth itself."

J. L. Hug, in his Introduction to New Testament, 2d Ed., vol. i. p. 313, remarks, that Bengel was the first who classified MSS. according to the incidental agreements in their general features, and in their particular lections. He marked two classes, the African and the Asiatic ; and the general principles, elicited by this simplifi- cation of the question, set in motion the present march of criticism, which will now proceed, even supposing his own editorial works could ever be forgotten.

In 1742, J. Gambold published Bengel's Greek Testament at Oxford ; and, in 1745, Bengel's text was" taken as the standard for revising the authorized Danish Version. A second edition of the "Appar. Criticus" was published in 1763 by P. D. Burk, contain- ing later corrections of the Author, supplementary criticism on the New Testament, and collations of another MS. of the Apocalypse, of which a copy was given him by J. L. Mosheim.

WRITINGS OF J. A. BENGEL. xvli

Bengel had announced in his Prodromus, in Chrysostom de Sacer- dotio, his intention to follow up liis critical works with a Commen- tary on the New Testament. His labours at Denkendorf had thoroughly prepared him for this task. Accordingly it appeared under the title, Gnomon Novi Testamenti, at Tiibingen in 1742, 4to (New Ed. 1759, 1773 : Ed. Steudel, 1835). The designation was meant to imply that the work is an Index or Pointer, " to indicate what lies within the compass of the sacred text ; for Scripture is its own best and safest interpreter;" less for the purpose of exhausting the text for the reader, than to give suggestive hints. The title- page expresses at full his design, to set forth the majestic simplicity of the Word of God ; its unsearchable depth ; its felicitous concinnity ; and its adaptation to all practical uses. " My annotations," says he, " are so far from being intended to preclude the reader from increased research, that I wish rather to put him upon investigation of the text itself, by merely showing him how to set about it. My design is also to refute those expositors who put upon isolated passages of Scrip- ture their own forced (mystical) construction, in order to grasp at impressiveness. Instead of this, I mean to insist upon the full and comprehensive force of Scripture in its whole connection."

Separate thoughts of each writer must be determined as to their sense according to grammatical and historical laws, but this in constant reference to the totality of the faith, and to reve- lation as a whole. " Put nothing into the Scriptures, but draw everything from them, and suffer nothing to remain hidden, that is really in them." " Though each inspired writer has his own manner and style, one and th« same Spirit breathes through all, one grand idea pervades all." " Every Divine communication carries (like the diamond) its own light with it, thus showing whence it comes ; no touchstone is required to discriminate it." " The true commentator will fasten his primary attention on the letter (literal meaning), 'but never forget that the Spirit must equally accompany him ; at the same time we must never devise a more spiritual meaning for Scripture passages than the Holy Spirit intended." " The historical matters of Scripture, both narrative and prophecy, constitute as it were the bones of its system ; whereas the spiritual matters are as its muscles, blood-vessels, and nerves. As the bones are necessary to the human system, so Scripture must have its historical matters. The expositor who nullifies the Jiistorical ground-work of Scripture for the sake of finding only spiritual truths everywhere, brings death on all correct interpretation. Those expositions are the safest which keep closest to the text."

Such are Bengel's principles of interpretation, as stated in his ''■ Essay on the Eight Way of Handling Divine Subjects," prefixed to a volume of sermons by J. C. Storr, 1750. Luther and Hed- inger were his favourite expositors ; but dearer to him than either was Scripture itself. " The Word of God," says he, " is always

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savoury in its own pure form ; but when saturated with human explanations, it is apt to cloy." He used frequent prayer to fit him for»the work : and when the Gnomon was sent him completed from the Tiibingen press, the 28th of March 1742, he sang that evening'- the well-known hymn :

" O Thou, who our best works hast wrought,

And thus far helped me to success, Attune my soul to grateful thought,

Thy great and holy Name to bless ; That I to Thee anew may live, And to Thy grace the glory give," etc.

Not to mention Kosenmiiller in his Sclioliae, Michaelis in his New Testament, and other German borrowers from the Gnomon, in our own country Johii Wesley, in his " Expository Notes on the New Testament," Lond. 1755, largely draws from it, acknowledging that he should "much better serve the interests of religion by translating from the Gnomon of that great luminary of the Christian world, than by writing many volumes of his own notes."

As early as 1706 Bengel had begun collecting Annotations upon Hedinger's Greek Testament. Since 1713 he had gone every two years with his pupils through the Greek Testament. At length, in 1722, he determined on publishing a Commentary on it: he completed it within two years : yet he kept it by him eighteen years more be- fore he gave it to the public. So also as to the German Translation or Version ; he could not bring himself to undertake the translation at all until December 1741, after he had just finished his preface to the Gnomon ; and he wrote the preface to it only a few days before his death. His reason for delay as to the Gnomon was, that he considered sound criticism what was most wanted, and therefore wished previously to send out his Apparatus Criticus. His reason as to the German Version, was his desire not to offend the strong prejudices which existed against the publication of any new ver- nacular translation ; especially as the Lutheran Version was in the main correct : He moreover hoped some one else, better qualified than himself, might undertake the task ; but as none did so, and as he felt convinced of the erroneousness of many of Luther's render- ings, he at last thought it his duty to publish it.

The Evangelical Church Chronicle (vol. ii. p. 228), edited by Hengstenberg, well says of the Gnomon, " It is a rare performance, concise, original, vigorous, eloquent, and sprightly : it is an erudite exposition dehvered in the spirit of fervent Christian love. It evinces the deepest reverence for the sacred text, and a most pro- found acquaintance with its contents. With remarkable simplicity and humility, it follows the drift of the inspired meaning, and in- duces the soul to open itself, even to the softest of those breatlnnCTs of the Holy Ghost, which pervade the written word." Haman (vol. iii. p. 15) likewise remarks, "It is an Exegesis altogether sui

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generis. No expositors, or very few, have caught the full import, impressiveness, and spirit of Holy Scripture. In this respect Bengel's Commentary is one of the best." The Second Edition was published, 1759, under the revision of his son-in-law, the Eev. P. D. Burk, Dean of Kircheim. This Edition contained numerous exegetical and critical additions, from notes left by Bengel, never before published. E. Bengel, in the Third Edition, 1773, retained the exegetical portion of these additional notes, but transferred the critical portion of them to the " Apparatus," a Second Edition of which was now called for.

In the preface to his Germ. Version, he states it not to be his wish to prejudice Luther's Version ; that the Church has need of multiplied versions, and that their multiplication is sanctioned by the practice of the earliest times ; that he had been sparing of re- marks exclusively pracrical, because the Scriptures themselves supply every want of that kind. Should any one feel disappointed at not meeting with more edifying matter in the preface, he would observe, that " a servant waiting upon guests at a great supper, who duly trims the lamps furnished by the master of the house, that they may burn the