endeavoured to render every passage with the
most literal exactness--to use the most forcible and clear expressions
corresponding with the Original--not to omit a particle--preserving the
participles--and following, as much as the genius of our tongue will
permit, the exact order of the Greek words, persuaded that, thus
placed, the sense often receives clearness and energy.

To transfuse the spirit of the Original into a Translation must be
admitted to be very difficult in any language, peculiarly so where the
matters treated of are so weighty, and the words so significant, and
where holy men of God are speaking as they were moved by the Holy
Ghost, without whose continual light and teaching I humbly conceive no
man ever did or can understand and receive the things which are of the
Spirit of God, so as to know them as he ought to know.

As the words of the Spirit contain one precise meaning, and to
communicate his mind is the intention of Revelation, it must be our
endeavour not to leave them equivocal, but to fix a clear and
determinate idea to each, in exact conformity to the Original, that the
true sense may be understood, which can be but one.

That I have endeavoured to obtain this knowledge it is no presumption
to affirm. During forty years and upwards this blessed book of God hath
been continually in my hands--never a day hath passed in which it hath
not been matter of my meditation; I may venture to say I have read it
over more than an hundred times, and many of the passages much oftener.
I have consulted the works of the most godly and ingenious of the dead,
and often conversed with some of the ablest and most experienced
ministers of Christ among the living. I have at two different times of
my life translated and transcribed the whole of the New Testament, and
considered every word, and phrase, and passage, with attention: indeed
the leading object and employment of my whole life hath been to
discover and communicate to mankind the truth as it is in Jesus; and
every day have I bowed my knees to the Divine Interpreter, who giveth
wisdom and understanding to the simple, that he would lighten my
darkness, and shine into my heart, to give the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God, as it is manifested in the face of Jesus Christ.

I recommend to my readers to tread in the same path, looking up to the
Fountain of wisdom and knowledge. I am not ashamed to own my
conviction, that an unlearned person thus serio