The First Edition of the work, I hope I may now be allowed to tell Your Lordship, without incurring the imputation of vanity, has been noticed and approved by learned persons, far beyond my expectations; and therefore I trust, as a mere testimony of respect and gratitude, which is all that I intend by prefixing Your Lordship's Name to it, this Second Edition may not be altogether unworthy your acceptance.

The Appointment conferred on me by His Royal Highness the Prince Regent, through Your Lordship's particular interposition, while the work was passing through the press, in renewing my connection with the University of Oxford, is highly gratifying to my feelings.

Not being personally known to Your Lordship at the time, I can only refer what has taken place to considerations of a public

nature,

nature, and shall therefore hope, that this mode of acknowledging your kindness, may

appear to the world in general, the most appropriate return I could make, as being connected at all events with those studies and pursuits, which can alone have thus recommended me to Your Lordship's Notice.

INTRODUCTION

TO THE

SECOND EDITION.

THE

HE first Edition of this work appeared in the year 1810. The Introduction to that Edition, now republished with very few alterations, gives a true statement of the motives by which I was then actuated, as well as of the particular circumstances under which it was first sent to the Press. At that time the Improved Version had been but little noticed; the strictures upon it in the Quarterly and Eclectic Reviews, being, to the best of my belief, all that had previously appeared upon the subject.

As my present Title Page and Dedication will announce some change in my circumstances since the first edition was published, in order to obviate mistakes, it may be proper to observe, that it has so recently happened, that whatever appears in my former introduction, or in the work itself, of the local disadvantages under which I have laboured in preparing for the press what I have made public, may well remain

as it is. My constant residence has been to this day in a most retired country village, far from all public libraries, or other literary assistances; my book is still, therefore, merely the fruit of very limited researches and casual reading.

It is true, I have been careful to examine, in the interval that has passed since my book first went to the press, every subsequent work that it has been in my power to procure, and which seemed to bear particularly on the question. To several of the learned authors I am much indebted for the present of their works, and to all of them for the honourable mention made of my own labours in the same line. That such references as I have had occasion to make to some of these writings in the present Edition may be the better understood; and as it cannot fail to be of importance to note what has been expressly written upon the subject in the course of the last four years, I shall briefly mention the principal works of this nature which have come to my knowledge.

The first work that appeared after the publication of my own book, was one of great importance, and which attracted considerable notice, under the title of "Animadversions on the Unitarian Translation or Improved Version of the New Testament, by a Student in Divinity," now known, I believe, generally to have been the Reverend Mr. Rennell; the learned son of a learned father, the very Reverend the Dean of Winchester. This appeared early in the.

year