PREFACE A DESCRIPTION of the character of the present volume will perhaps at the same time serve as an excuse for a new version of an old and famous book. I. The text which has been translated is that of the Oxford edition of 1675, corrected and supplemented by the MSS., especially the Laudian MS., which contains a considerable mass of Hebrew matter that was not represented in the edition of 1675, and the Harleian MS., the contents of which are almost wholly outside the scope of the edition of 1675 and have never as a whole appeared in English. To this is added the matter recovered from Stokes' Verus Christianus, which, while in many cases it represents only a preliminary form of what is contained in the other sources, yet includes some new passages, and throughout offers points of interest which seem worth preserving. The sources of the text are indicated in detail on the inner margin.1 own. 2. In the translation the aim has been, where the original is drawn from the Septuagint or the Vulgate, to use the language of the Authorised Version and of the Psalter of the Book of Common Prayer, except in cases in which for any reason correction seemed necessary or desirable, or Andrewes elsewhere supplies a corrected rendering of his Where the text of the Septuagint or the Vulgate is altered, some attempt has been made to represent this in the English; but it has proved scarcely possible to carry out this plan consistently, and perhaps it was not worth while to attempt it in detail. Where the original text is quotation from the Hebrew of the Old Testament, the rendering of the Authorised Version has been corrected, largely in the Outside of direction of the Revised Version of 1881. quotations from Holy Scripture, the translation has been 1 As a rule only the ultimate source is indicated; but it must be remembered that all that is in W and W is also in O. |
