Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

APPENDIX TO THE REIGN OF JAMES 1.

AN ACCOUNT OF THE SEVERAL ENGLISH TRANS LATIONS AND EDITIONS OF THE BIBLE.

[ocr errors]

As it was by order of James I. that the exe cellent translation of the Scriptures now used in all our churches, was executed, it may not be deemed uninteresting or foreign to our subject, to take, in this place, a review of the various efforts made at different periods of the English history, to place the sacred volume in the hands of the common people. So far was the primitive English church from believing ignorance to be the mother of devotion, that from the earliest periods, when ever any change was effected by time or conquest in the vulgar tongue, new translations of the Scriptures were made, with the intent of keeping pace with each alteration. Adhelme and Egbert, bishops of Sherburne and Lindisfarne, translated the Psalter and Evangelists into the Saxon tongue, about the year 706. In the following century al version of the whole Bible was directed to be made by Alfred the Great; who died when the pious labour was but half completed.This was pub

lished in quarto, A. D. 1640, with the Latin interlineary text, by John Spelman.

[ocr errors]

In Oxford there are three copies of an English translation of the Bible, bearing date A. D. 1299, nearly a century previous to the appearance of Wickliffe's.-Wickliffe translated the Old and New Testaments, A. D. 1380, from the Latin Vulgate into the English of his own times: the Saxon tongue being then not commonly understood, by reason of its admixture with the Norman, introduced at the Conquést.

: Though the Scribes and Pharisees, by false interpretations of Scripture, took away the key of knowledge from the Jews, they at no period removed the sacred text itself: an arbitrary measure, reserved only for times, in which conduct more liberal might have been expected. Archbishop Arundel, in the year 1407, restricted the people from the free use of the inspired writings, but more particularly of Wickliffe's translations and his edict, being disregarded by great numbers, was enforced with various severities.

"

Tyndal, in the reign of Henry VIII. edited the first printed English translation of the New Tes tament, at Hamburgh or Antwerp, about the year 1526. Attempts were made to suppress it: but the art of printing had now secured religion from being injured by the violence of such low resentment. A new edition was published in the following year: but the Popish clergy raising a

}

violent outcry against its pretended errors, it was destroyed, and the translator himself strangled or burned in Flanders, in 1536.

Coverdale's Bible, being the first edition in English print, of the Old and New Testaments united, was published in folio, in 1535, and in 1550 reprinted in quarto, with wooden cuts. Matthews's appeared in 1537, being partly Tyndal's and partly Coverdale's, and having the various additions of a kalendar and almanack; of contents, notes, prefaces, and cuts to the Apocalypse.

This translation, revised by Cranmer, with the assistance of several learned ecclesiastics, was reprinted in 1539. Tyndal's prologue and marginal notes were here omitted.

A copy of this authorized Bible having been placed in every church, by order of Cromwell, the vice-regent, the Popish ministers endeavoured to obstruct its utility, by reading it confusedly to their parishioners, "humming and hawing, and hawking" at every word, so that scarce any person could understand them. Nevertheless the volume was received with the greatest avidity. Some contracted their expenses in order to procure it: others prevailed with a neighbour to read it aloud, while they listened; and even old persons, ignorant of the alphabet, learned to read, that they might qualify themselves for enjoying the new pleasure which presented itself. The

&

4

demand for the first edition being thus extensive, Grafton, aided by Tonstal and Heath, undertook a second at Paris; leaving out a variety of prefaces and annotations, which had proved offensive to individual reformers; but adding hands and asterisks in the margin, to direct the reader's eye to any passage particularly bearing on the errors of the Church of Rome.-From this translation, published with the royal permission, A. D. 1639, the epistles, gospels, psalms, and hymns, in the liturgy of Edward VI. were taken.-Until the restoration of Charles II. the same arrangement continued; the epistles and gospels were then borrowed from a later translation; but the people having been more familiarly accustomed to the psalter, it was left unaltered, in deference to their prejudices.

After the accession of Edward, in 1548-9, the Bible of 1541 was reprinted and having a prologue written by the Archbishop prefixed to it, was distinguished by the name of Cranmer's Bible. It was sold to churches at the reasonable prices of ten and twelve shillings; while a penalty was denounced against such as should fail to provide themselves. In 1550, Coverdale's Testament was reprinted, accompanied with the notes of Eras

mus.

To the flames which were kindled in the reign of Mary, for the destruction of the Protestant martyrs, all translations of the Bible which lay under

suspicion, were consigned. Such of the reformers as fled to Geneva, published in that city an English translation of the Bible, the first having numerical verses, and accompanied with notes, chiefly written by Calvin on account of which it was not suffered to appear in England, till the death of Archbishop Parker; when it came forth in quarto, in 1576, and passed through twenty of thirty editions. Its preface charged the English reformation with an imperfect relinquishment of Popish errors; and several of its marginal notes were seditious.-Under the auspices of Elizabeth appeared the Bishops' Bible; so called from having been undertaken by Archbishop Parker, assisted by several other prelates of great learning. It was published in 1568, illuminated with costly and curious engravings, and delineations of the arms of Cranmer and Parker; while it was rendered useful by its tables of scriptural genealogies, and its maps of Canaan and the apostolic journeyings. To accommodate persons of circumscribed fortunes, a cheaper edition in octavo appeared in the succeeding year. On the larger impression, the Genevan divines could not avoid looking with the jealousy of rivalship. Had they considered, however, that enmity to governors, and the pride of religious peculiarities, are far stronger principles in the human breast than taste, or the loves of solid and correct instruction, they might have banished all apprehension of having their own

1

« AnteriorContinuar »