A Christian Minister's Library.

To that portion of the Christian ministry who can read the Sacred Scriptures, in their original tongues, and who, from their education, must frequently stand on the walls of Zion, to defend the Ark of the Covenant from the assaults of Infidels and Heresiarchs, we recommend the following library, as a portion of their armor and munitions of war, offensive and defensive:
1. The Hebrew Bible--Simonis Biblia Hebraica
2. Analysis Critica Practica, Psalmorum. This valuable work gives a critical analysis of every word in the Psalms of David. 3. Gesenius' Hebrew and English Lexicon, or Baxter's Analytic Dictionary. 4. Leigh's Critica Sacra. 5. Septuagint, Leipsic edition. 6. The London Polyglott, containing eight languages--Hebrew, Greek, Latin, German, French, Spanish, Italian, and common English version. This is a great luxury. It may be purchased for $70, neatly bound. 7. Campbell's Four Gospels. 8. McKnight's Epistles. 9. Stuart's Translation of the Romans, with critical notes. 10. Stuart's translation of the Hebrews, with critical notes. 11. Robinson's Harmony of the Four Gospels, in Greek. 12. The Englishman's Greek Concordance of the New Testament. 13. Robertson's Greek Lexicon, Canterbury edition, 1676, if it can be found; if not, Scapula. 14. Bretschneider's lexicon. 15. The English Hexapla, London, 1841. This valuable work contains the Greek text, after Scholz, with the various readings of the received text, and the principal Constantinopolitan and Alexandrine manuscripts, and a complete collection of Scholz text, with Griesbach's edition of A.D. 1805. The six versions are Wickliffe's, Tyndal's, Cranmer's, Genevan, Anglo-Rhemish, Authorized, 1611. There is in it a valuable historical account of the English translations.
16. For everyday use, Greenfield's Greek New Testament, with a Greek and English Lexicon annexed. 17. Bloomfield's do. 18. The Critical Greek and English New Testament, with the Greek text of Scholz; readings textual and marginal, of Griesbach, with the variations of Stevens, Beza, and Elzivir, London edition. These last constitute the itinerating Christian preacher's vade mecum.
For the evangelists and elders of churches, who read only the English tongues, we commend the following. [Such of those in our first class who have not the following works, had better, if convenient, add them to their library.]
1. The Common English Version of the Polyglott Bible, London edition. 2. The Holy Bible, containing the authorized version, with some 20,000 emendations or alterations, plates and maps. It is, indeed, in itself, a condensed and valuable commentary on the Common Version. 3. Cruden's English Concordance. 4. Townsend's Bible. 5. Coit's Bible. 6. Horne's Introduction, 4 volumes. 7. Anderson's Annals of the English Bible, 2 vols., London. 8. Prideaux Connections. 9. Shuckford's Connections. 10. Calmet's Dictionary of the Bible. 11. Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, Ed. by J. Newton Brown. 12. Giesler's Text Book of Ecc. History, 3 vols. 13. Jones' Church History. 14. Neander's Church History. 15. Waddington's Church History. 16. Neal's History of the Puritans. 17. Josephus. 18. Lord King's Primitive Church. 19. Cave's Primitive Christianity. 20. Campbell's Lectures on Ecclesiastical History. 21. Campbell's Pulpit Eloquence. 22. Taylor's Ancient (not Primitive) Christianity. 23. Paley's works, in 1 vol. 24. Sherlock on Providence. 25. Ernesti on Interpretation. 26. Greenleaf on Evidence. 27. Taylor's Manual of Ancient History. 28. Barrow on the Supremacy of the Pope. 29. Campbell and Purcell's Debate on Popery. 30. D'Aubigne's History of the Reformation. 31. Guizot's Modern Civilization. 32. Campbell and Owen's Debate on the Evidences of Christianity. 33. Campbell and Rice's Debate on Baptism. 34. Gaussen on Interpretation. 35. The Christian Baptist, Burnet's edition, stereotype. 36. Christian Baptism, with its Antecedents and Consequents, now in press. 37. Infidelity Refuted by Infidels. 38. Webster's Unabridged Dictionary. 39. All the Bridgewater Treatises on the Being and Perfections of God in Nature. 40. Whewell's Elements of Morality. [His Bridgewater Treatise on the cosmical arrangements of the Universe, with Bell's on the Human Hand, are enough on these subjects.] 41. Comprehensive Commentary on the Bible. 42. As a work of literature, Clark's Commentary.
To these I might add, out of my library, many miscellaneous works and treatises, but these are the best works I have found in many hundred volumes. As Virgil said of farms, I say of libraries: Praise large libraries, but study, or cultivate, small ones. And as a regular hearer of the debate between Luther's party and their opponents, on seeing a reformer, who read no book but the Bible, always routing his opponents, said, so say I, Cave homini unius libri--Take care of the man of the one book. A.C.

Millennial Harbinger, May 1851, 259-260.

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I promised this little gem a couple weeks ago. A few observations: First of all, notice the assumption that the Christian ministry is educated in the classical languages. Campbell's primary recommednations are Hebrew and Greek texts with the best critical apparati then available. Supporting these, besides several lexica, are the best and most recent contintental, British and American translations then available. For those who do not have capacity with the languages (notice also how he assumes elders will be as well read as any minister) Campbell lists an array of helps to Bible study: heavy on critical translations, with strong doses of Christian history and evidences, as well as a plug for a few of his own works (which are themselves works on Christian history and evidences). An outright commentary set, Adam Clark[e]'s, is noted with what appears to be a vague (backhanded?) compliment. Does Campbell value Clarke's insight, couched as it is in rich literary form, or is commedning Clarke for his literary accomplishment and not his Biblical scholarship? Good question. Also somewhat vague is that last line: Take care of the man of the one book. Is that to say that you should beware of the man who, in the 'defense' of the faith shuns all learning or education (read: books); or is this Campbell's way of stating how all of these helps are helps to the study of the one book that in the end matters? Considering that Campbell had an exquisite library (have you been to Bethany? It is in the middle of nowhere) at a time when most folks didn't have glass in their windows, and given that he has just recommended some of the higher quality Biblical scholarship of his day to his readers, indicates to me that it is the former and not the latter. In other words, beware of these folks who disdain an educated ministry.