Authorised New Testament and Revised Contrasted

I have been looking for a book called Authorised New Testament and Revised Contrasted, With the Translators’ Preface to the Reader. There seemed to be little information on it on the World Wide Web. The initial information I had on it was that Christopher Wordsworth (1807-1885), Bishop of Lincoln, was the author. In For Love of the Bible, David Cloud wrote of Wordsworth’s initial objection to the New Testament revision, and then added:

In 1886, Wordsworth continued his opposition to the Revised Version in his book The Authorized New Testament and Revised Contrasted.

However, it turns out the author of the 1886 book is not Christopher Wordsworth, but rather Benjamin Wadsworth. See WorldCat.org. The book was published in Manchester, England in 1886 by Brook and Chrystal. It has 171 pages. I have not been able to locate a scan of it online, neither have I seen any available print versions. WorldCat lists 5 libraries in the United Kingdom holding copies, as well as one in Canada (the WorldCat listing, of course, is not exhaustive).

I was, nevertheless, able to find a review of the book (though a very scathingly critical one) published in The Manchester Courier, and Lancashire General Advertiser (Manchester, Greater Manchester, England), Friday, July 2, 1886, page 2. See below.

I believe the author is the same Benjamin Wadsworth whose death is announced in The Manchester Evening News, Tuesday, July 10, 1906, page 4. I could find no other biographical information on him. If I have identified him correctly, he was outside the Church of England. Benjamin and Ann Wadsworth are buried in the Non-Conformist section of the Harpurhey/Manchester General Cemetery.

A review of the book in The Congregationalist, Volume 15 (1886), p. 564 quotes the author as saying “It will be seen, when the doctrines of this Revised Version are attempted to be taught and enforced, that all the teaching of the Reformers are undermined by it, and that it is impossible to prove from it any doctrine of grace or salvation by Jesus Christ.”

[Added March 27. Steven Avery pointed out to me an archived description by David Cloud of trips he made to England in the 2000s. In it he writes this about Wadsworth’s book: “Another work defending the KJV that I found in the British Library is B. Wadsworth’s 171-page AUTHORISED NEW TESTAMENT AND REVISED CONTRASTED (1886). This contains Wadsworth’s opposition to the English Revised Version. In the Preface, Wadsworth makes his position clear by referring to ‘the absurdities of the so-called Revision of the New Testament.’ He says that the chief reason he has written on this subject is ‘that the nation may see the wickedness of this Revision’ and ‘may see the dreadful teachings of the Revised Version, and so be led to prize more highly and defend more strenuously the Book which God has given us, which has been, and still is, England’s greatest blessing.’ He warns that ‘if England turns her back on God’s word, God will most surely visit the nation with His displeasure’ (p. vii). How prophetic were those words!” Clinton Fagge later pointed out that this paragraph can be found in In the Footsteps of Bible Translators (David Cloud, 2006, pp. 39-40).]