buted in the course of a journey from Lyons to Paris! It is manifest, therefore, that it is most unreasonable to attach any weight to these divisions in determining the sense of scripture, and that, if they do at all interfere with the right understanding of the word of God, we should not hesitate a moment to banish them from the text. They have sprung from the judgment of mere man; a judgment, too, most superficially formed, if respect be had to the true sense of scripture. For it is evident that the learned men who devised them, did not contemplate a critical arrangement at all; they looked only to the convenience which they might furnish for ready reference to any part of the inspired volume, and probably never dreamed of the tyranny they were about to exercise over readers of the Bible, in every language since.

Tyranny, however, they have exerted, of the most unhappy kind., The sacred writings have been unnaturally broken by their chapters and verses, as if their meaning demanded such a distribution; and it is not too much to say that they have done more to hinder the intelligent reading of the Bible, than all the commentaries and explanations ever written, have effected on the other side-because the evil has been universal, met by every reader of Scripture, while that which might remedy its influence can be only very partially enjoyed. A child begins to read the Bible before he understands its meaning. He finds it regularly laid off into chapters and verses, and naturally conceives these to belong as really to the book, as any thing else he finds in it. At length, he begins to have some notion of something designed to be communicated and understood, in the words of Scripture. Still the common order of dividing them is considered sacred and necessary, and his earliest conceptions of their meaning

are powerfully moulded by the broad separations that stare him in the face, from every page. He grows up, without suspicion that a method of disjoining the text, so universal and uncontradicted, can be without authority. The prejudice of education and habit becomes more and more deeply confirmed. Thus a large proportion live and die, without ever knowing that they have fallen into error on this point. Others more fully instructed, are admonished to study the Scriptures without regard to the arbitrary divisions of verse and chapter. But it is no easy matter to overcome the long established prepossessions of the mind, and resolutely resist their influence, while their occasion is still constantly displayed to its view. So that mere knowledge on this subject cannot secure freedom from the common error. Hundreds who know well enough the true state of the case, are yet fettered in reading the New Testament, by the interruptions of Cardinal Hugo and Robert Stevens. Any person who has seriously attempted to lose sight of them in studying the word, can testify that it requires more than common effort to succeed. Few, even of those who can read the original, and who make an attempt to study it in a critical manner, ever become thoroughly emancipated from the thraldom of their early prejudice, so as to read the Scriptures as independently as if they had never heard of chapters and verses; they oftentimes exert a silent influence over the most wary.

It is notorious to all who have attended to the subject, that the common divisions of the New Testament do not correspond in any manner with the sense of what is written, so as to be safely relied upon in reading. In the epistles especially, they often interfere directly with it, so that the person who attends to them at all, must fail altogether in understanding the

argument of the sacred writer. For example, in the epistle to the Colossians, every chapter, except the first, begins so as to do violence to the natural order of sense; and how often is the same sentence broken up into several distinct isolated paragraphs, by the intervention of verses! True, the verses are differently pointed with commas, semicolons, &c. so as to direct to the proper connexion; but how rarely do the mass of readers notice these marks. The division of verse from verse is the most prominent, and in its appearance it gives to every separated clause, be it whole or be it part of a sentence, the same independent importance. Accordingly we hear people generally reading the scriptures as if every verse terminated with a genuine and lawful period; and when they come to the end of a chapter, stop as naturally and as contentedly as if they had really come to the conclusion of the whole matter. The common method too of reading the scriptures from the pulpit, does not contribute to remedy the last error; why should ministers in this exercise, be regulated by the arbitrary boundaries of common usage, and not rather measure what they read, by the sense of the Holy Spirit?

Is it so then? Is it true that the common order of chapters and verses, is almost universally regarded more or less with deference, as an index to the meaning of scripture? And is it true at the same time that it is altogether unsafe to be relied upon, in this respect? Why then should it be suffered to continue in the midst of the text? There is no advantage of any kind gained by retaining it there; for purposes of reference-the only purposes it was intended for-it may just as well stand out along the margin. Why should it remain continually necessary for the preacher and commentator to correct erroneous impressions, that

arise only from an unauthorized mutilation of the inspired writings, and urge people to read scripture without regard to its established divisions, while those divisions might just as well not appear on its pages at all? Surely it is unnecessary to retain difficulty, where there is so easy a method of deliverance from it. But is there not something more serious still, in adhering to the prevalent system? Is it not an unwarrantable license taken with the word of God, to mangle its text into so many arbitrary portions, and present it so to the world? And if so, is it not duty to relinquish at once the common form of publishing it, and in all future editions to thrust the notation of chapters and verses into the margin? Is it not an admitted fact, that the generality of people are, in some degree, hindered from the most useful and instructive mode of reading the scriptures, by undue though natural regard to the standing order of division? If so, it must surely be wrong to continue the stumbling block; it is an unjustifiable invasion of sacred ground, by an unnecessary device of man; God cannot approve it. As we have no right to add to or take away from the record of revealed truth, so neither have we right to arrange its matter in any other form than such as may best serve to the understanding of its true meaning, according to the ordinary modes of arranging written discourse, among any people at any particular period.

Might it not be well for the Bible Society to consider this subject? The apocryphal writings so often found in volumes of the Old Testament, they rightly exclude from the copies which they publish, as human productions; is it not a mere human invention to mutilate every

• We think there are obvious reasons why the Bible Societies should not act in this matter, till the changes shall have been previously made and sanctioned by the competent authorities.-EDITOR.

We have not seen the work of Mr. Nourse, to which reference is made by our correspondent in the foregoing remarks. But from the auspices under which we know it was published, we doubt not that it has been well executed, so far as the editor was concerned. The plan of publishing the Holy Scriptures without breaking them up into chapters and verses has, and has long had, our entire approbation;

and we do not think our corres

pondent has said a word too much in its favour. The New Testament has been frequently published in Greek, on the plan which he advocates. In the French translation of Beausobre and Lenfant, the division into chapters is preserved; but the verses are inserted, in small figures, in the text, without breaking the continuity of the composition, till the end of a section. In Campbell's translation of the Gospels, the whole is divided by the translator into new sections; and a title of his own is prefixed to each -with a notation of the chapters of the common version at the top of the page, and of the verses in the margin. Our countryman Charles Thomson has printed his version of the whole scriptures from the Greek, by dividing the matter of the sacred writer into sections, according to his views of propriety, and preserving a notation of the chapters of the vulgar version, both at the top and margin of each page, and of the verses in the margin only; but

with no new title to his sections, and no notice of the contents of the chapters, as given in the common version. This plan we like the best of all. We think the matter of the sacred writers ought to be divided into sections, where the sense obviously requires it-Indeed a ne glect of this would, in some cases, be almost as injurious to the sense, as is the other extreme of breaking up the whole into verses. But further than this, human ingenuity and skill ought not, in our judgment, to be employed, except in commentaries, either in giving contents of chapters or titles of sections.

The retention, in the margin, of the chapters and verses as they appear in our common Bibles, is, we admit, important. All our concordances are formed with a refe rence to these divisions. It was for the sake of reference, in forming concordances, that these arbitrary divisions were first introduced; and we verily believe that they would have long since been expelled from the sacred volume, if the aid they afford for easy reference had not kept them where they are. But this aid may certainly be as fully secured by placing them distinctly in the margin, as by introducing them into the text, and breaking it up, as is often done, most absurdly and we had almost said wickedly. In the prophetick scriptures, we think the error and absurdity of the usual division into chapters and verses, is the greatest of all. Prophecies totally distinct, relating to entirely different subjects, and delivered at intervals of several years from each other, are sometimes commenced in the middle of one chapter, and ended in the middle of another. It is probable that Isaiah exercised his prophetick office for at least fifty years, and delivered prophecies, relative to a variety of subjects, through this whole period. These prophecies are all collected in the book which bears his name; and in the Bibles which are commonly

read, they are completely confounded and intermixed. Suppose a minister of the gospel, who has been a preacher for fifty years, should now print the sermons which he has preached, on a variety of subjects and occasions, in the whole course of his ministry, without any intimation where one discourse ends and another begins-and the whole likewise broken up into chapters and verses, and one ending and another beginning in the middle of a chapter-Who sees not the infinite absurdity of such a procedure? Yet this is the very absurdity of which we complain, in regard to the breaking up of the prophecies, and some other parts of the sacred scriptures, in the most arbitrary manner; often without the least regard to the sense and scope of the sacred writer. The evil, we admit, is in some measure abated by the circumstance, that almost every sentence of inspiration contains a weighty truth by itself; and the unlearned reader is of course instructed and edified, although he sees not the connexion; and thus the Bible conveys to him a saving benefit, under all the disadvantages with which he reads it. But is it not desirable that these disadvantages should be removed? Is it not notorious, that not only the beauty and force of a passage is often lost, but its real meaning mistaken or perverted, by not observing the connexion ? But we have said enough. recommend Mr. Nourse's New Testament to the patronage of our readers; and earnestly wish to see the whole Bible published in the same manner.

LETTER FROM CLERICUS TO THE EDITOR OF THE CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE.

We publish the following letter as we received it, without the addition or alteration of a single word We do so, that we may avoid all

VOL. V.Ch. Adv.

suspicion of suppressing any thing which the author might wish to communicate to the publick.Were it not for this, we certainly should withhold several laudatory expressions, which, however sin cerely uttered, we are unaffectedly sensible give us credit for far more than is our due.

To the Editor of the Christian Advocate. Rev. and Dear Sir,-Having seen in the last number of the Advocate, a "Review of Publications relative to Incest," and among them of one by Clericus, the notice which you have been pleased to take of the latter, though there be not between us a perfect coincidence in sentiment on the subject of the controversy, is, I confess, gratifying. I did not expect that my little pamphlet would attract the attention of one so deservedly eminent as a scholar and divine. Duty to myself, however, seems to require that I should correct some things in the notice referred to, and your own sense of justice will prompt you, I trust, to give the correction a place in your interesting and valuable work.

"The subject is one which has❞ for me "no attractions:" I have been drawn very unexpectedly into the discussion; but without detailing the circumstances which induced me to write, I will only observe that I had no other design in that letter than simply to expose the inconsistency of Domesticus. It was deemed unnecessary to employ argument to refute a pamphlet which contained no argument, and I am not aware that I made any direct and unqualified concession as to the scriptural authority applicable to unlawful marriages as you intimate I have done, pages 177 and 179, and on the ground of which you indirectly charge me with inconsistency. Granting, for the sake of accomplishing my purpose, some of the principles of Domesticus and of those who usually

2 F

take his side of the question, I wanted to show that his main argument is in perfect collision with those principles. I pretended to no new light, unless to be so bold as to question the infallibility of a synodical enactment might be so represented. Religious persecution, and the punishment of witchcraft once considered lawful, the world all over, but now reprobated, were adverted to-for what purpose? Evidently, if the connexion be observed, to destroy the position which Domesticus had laid down. "What," you ask, "have religious persecution and witchcraft to do with the question, if there is no similarity between them and the case in hand?" But if they had nothing to do with the case in hand, as you suppose, they certainly had something to do with expediency, his great principle, and proved it to be utterly untenable as the ground of an ecclesiastical enactment. The drift of my letter, therefore, I conclude, has not been exactly apprehended; or after reading Veritas and myself, you have so blended us together, as not to have a distinct recollection of the nature of our respective replies. Veritas, if my memory serves me right, does not mention religious persecution and witchcraft; yet, we are both represented as urging them against the statute in question: and it is not Veritas, but Clericus that enjoys a laugh at the expense of Domesticus.

You say, sir, "that you know not why C. and V. have not condescended so much as to mention the work of Dr. Livingston." For myself, I answer, that I did not think the prosecution of my design, which was to consider the argument of Domesticus, and not to discuss the merits of the question, called for a reference to that work or any other. I have read the work of that learned and excellent man: I have read the dissertation of Dr. Mason and other

able pieces on the same subject; but may I not be permitted to de

clare, without subjecting myself to the charge of pretending to new light, that in my opinion, with all their learning, and with all their acumen, they have failed to prove conclusively the unlawfulness of this particular connexion. I admit that the point had been discussed an hundred times before I was born, by men of gigantic intellects and great learning:-Does this fact, however, preclude a renewal of the discussion? Or must arrogance and conceit, by implication or in plain language, be imputed to those who would endeavour to find out for themselves the will of God on the subject? I admit too what you have so ably stated, that many great and good men in every age have reprobated the connexion; but, sir, it is not the amount of human authority, let it be ever so great, that can determine its impropriety, and when theologians and politi cians are exhibited in formidable array in support of the prohibition, and their opinions so largely and prominently set forth, I cannot help thinking that the lack of better authority than that of fallible men is deeply felt. Allow me very respectfully to say that the argument, if it may be called one, is about as conclusive with me on this question, as the same argument in the mouth of a papist is, in reference to the protestant faith.

I make no boast of learning, theological knowledge and biblical criticism: all I claim is a little plain sense, and a sincere desire to know what God requires or forbids, and the right of judging for myself when a point is clearly established as a part of the Divine will.

The assertion of a great man I can and do respect; but you, Sir, would not have me to submit my conscience to its authority, until I should be satisfied of its correct