n more auspicious times he might have enjoyed, did more for the
English Bible than all King James's translators. So did Luther for the
Bible in Germany.

It is an unfortunate result of King James's translation of the Bible by
an imposing council of learned men, that it has tended to discourage
individual effort in respect to a labor of this kind, and to create a
prejudice against it as necessarily incompetent and untrustworthy.
Societies and councils have their spheres in which they are useful; yet
they often transcend them and intrude on those of individuals. But
there are great works which individuals can perform better than
multitudes or councils. Councils did not make the Bible at first. It
was made by individuals, each man acting for himself, and giving
utterance to the mighty thoughts that God had given him. A council did
not make Paradise Lost, and could not; nor has a council ever produced
any immortal work of genius or learning, unless it is the English Bible
of King James. With this exception, these are all the works of
individuals. As individuals, therefore, have generally been the
prosecutors of literary enterprises, in the department of Bible
translation no less than in other departments, and as individuals have
been eminently successful and useful in this department of labor
heretofore, both in England and other countries, let it be hoped that
they may be again.

There is a vast accumulation of knowledge to be made available by some
one, or in some way, for the production of an improved English Bible,
that shall bear the same relation to the advanced knowledge of these
times, which Tindal's, Coverdale's, and that of King James did to
theirs. More study has been expended on the sacred text and its
interpretation, and more progress made in Biblical knowledge in the
last seven generations, than in all time before. This knowledge is
treasured up in critical editions of the original Scriptures, critical
commentaries on them in Latin and other languages, in Greek and Hebrew
Lexicons, and in other works in the various departments of Biblical
learning, embracing commentaries on the English Scriptures, several of
which are extensive and valuable. No man can gainsay them, no man can
disparage them. They are monuments of the most precious and valuable
learning of their times. Scholars with ample means and ample time for
critical research, and those whose tastes and professions and
convictions of duty incline them