It gives you "pain to see what time and money, what labour and toil have been expended and are still expending in plodding over as it were an old dead letter; to learn languages which exist _no where_ only on paper, barely for the sake of reading the opinions of other men who lived in other times," &c. But you allow that all this would be necessary if "the only revelation of God to man, which was ever recorded on vellum or paper was written partly in Greek and partly in Hebrew," and that "the will of God cannot be known only through the medium of those languages." In this last particular, you express what appears very reasonable, and I presume you would be willing to consent to all this expense and toil, even if the proposition were to lose part of its importance, and it were only contended that God had actually made a revelation to man, which was written originally partly in Greek and partly in the Hebrew, without saying that he has never caused a revelation to be written originally in any other language.
A revelation from God, if it were written only in the Hebrew or Greek, would be considered of sufficient value to recompence the labour of learning the language. But you contend that this revelation, if real, can be translated into English, but, you must allow that to translate it, the original must be learned first. Will you say, that after the translation is once made, the original is of no more use? How then are future ages to determine whether they have not been imposed on? Suppose no person of the present age understood the languages in which the scriptures were first written, surely in this case, those languages would be lost beyond recovery. Suppose then it should be doubted whether our bible was not a fabrication, written originally not in Hebrew nor in Greek, but in some more modern language, how could the suggestion be refuted?
You appear to be perplexed with the disagreement of authors, as commentators, and I presume, critics on the original text; you speak on this subject, as if it were too much for patience to endure. Now, dear brother, I confess I feel very differently on this subject. I feel a devout, a religious gratitude to him whose wisdom is foolishness in the sight of too many of my fellow creatures. I view the very thing of which you complain, as that fire and crucible which have preserved the written testimony from any considerable corruptions. This is a subject on which volumes might be written to the instruction and edification of the disciples of Jesus.