THEOLOGIANS. 171 them as the major part of the Fathers." But Ridley and Cranmer did so, because the Church of Rome arrogantly protested that the body of Patristic Divinity lay on her side, whereas it was soon seen that the old Fathers condemned the modern innovations of that Church. The real value of the Fathers consists in their evidence as to doctrine taught and the ceremonies observed in their day; and the greatest and best among them afford us no authority-except by strained interpretation-for confession, priestly absolution, invocation of saints, purgatory, Mariolatry, pictures, images in churches, and all the fond symbolism which has been made dogmatic by the Council of Trent. When, however, the Church of England dared to be free, and stand aloof from the Bishop of Rome, (it had asserted its freedom in the first article of Magna Charta, but afterwards lapsed into fashionable servitude,) the appeal to the older authorities did not rest with the Fathers. The English Protestant went at once to the Bible as the only safe ground; and from the translation of the Bible and its diffusion by the newly-invented art of printing may be dated the great rise in literature and expansion of mind. But Rome was not disposed to allow this expansion to continue. In 1559 Pope Paul IV. published a monstrous edict, ordering that all books of which the Romish authorities disapproved were to be catalogued in the "Index Expurgatorius"-a list of works that "the faithful" were forbidden to read; and in this "Index" all Bibles printed in foreign tongues were placed. No less than forty-eight editions were condemned, and sixty-one printers were put under the ban, all works issued by them being expressly forbidden. Henry Stephens, and the illustrious Oporinus "have the honour," to use the words of Hallam, to be among these. The same historian ("Europe in the Middle Ages") thinks that "Rome struck a fatal blow, perhaps more deadly than she intended, at literature, in the Index Expurgatorius'" but this we may doubt, for in many cases the prohibition, as has been pointed out by Bayle, sold the book; and a bookseller having a good but unsaleable work hastened to get it placed in the "Index" to push it off. But there is no space left us to doubt that, at the very period of the revival of learning in Europe, the ecclesiastics of Rome waged a deadly war with literature and progress. "Wherever," says Hallam, "the sway of Rome and Spain was felt, books were unsparingly burned; and to this cause is imputed the scarcity of many editions." But it was not alone in Rome that literature suffered from restrictions. The Queen of England knew that her life was placed under a ban, and that her faith was condemned: hence Popish books were forbidden in England, except for the use of the council. In 1555 the Stationers' Company obtained a monopoly, but the tyrannical Star Chamber watched jealously over the exercise of the Company's privileges. By its regulations in 1585 no press was allowed to be used out of London, save at Oxford and Cambridge; but the influence of reading and of religious inquiry had seized upon the English mind, and soon the stream of knowledge broadened and deepened, until it burst over the petty barriers which, under the pretence of directing, endeavoured to confine it. The great agent in giving us not only a free Church and Government, but an independent and bold litera THEOLOGIANS. 173 ture, and in fixing our language, was the English translation of the Bible. 66 a Among our first translators following in the footsteps of Wycliff, whose version was more than a century earlier, Tyndale claims pre-eminence. He was a clergyman of Gloucestershire, of great piety, gentleness of demeanour, industry, and learning. Beginning to translate the Bible, in 1525, when he published the New Testament, he was so persecuted that he found it necessary to retire to Germany, where he met with Luther, and his translation was first published at Wittenberg. Sir Thomas More, so zealous was he for the Romish faith, called the poor clergyman blasphemous beast, and a child of hell, and of his own father the devil that is in hell," and caused him to be entrapped at Antwerp; and through the agencies of Wolsey, More, and Henry VIII., the poor pious man was strangled and burnt for heresy at Vilvoord, near Antwerp, September, 1536, exclaiming, "Lord, open the King of England's eyes." Upon Tyndale's version, most admirable for its accuracy, our present Bible is in some degree based. Dr. Geddes praises Tyndale's translation for its simplicity, propriety of idiom, and purity of style; in which essentials no English version has yet surpassed it. Our authorised version was produced in the reign of James I. as a remedy for the differing versions then in use. It was executed with singular care. Forty-seven persons, in six companies, meeting at Westminster, Oxford, and Cambridge, distributed the labour between them, twenty-five taking the old, fifteen the New Testament, and seven the Apocrypha. "The rules," says Hallam, "for their guidance were de signed to secure the holy words as much as possible from any novel interpretation. The translation called the Bishops' Bible (1568) was established as a basis." After each person had completed his portion he read it aloud to his fellows, each holding in his hand the original or some Latin version or translation, and so comparing every word. By this means there is no doubt that the translators reached, as nearly as human work can reach, perfect accuracy. The style is very excellent, simple, and manly. It has, perhaps, been too enthusiastically praised, as it is held to be the perfection of the English language; and "no one," as Hallam complains, "is allowed to find fault with it." In consequence of a rigid adherence to older forms, the English is occasionally older than the age in which the translation was made; but it is honest, eloquent, and never wanting either in depth or simplicity. It has been recognised as so true and fair, that, although made for the English Church, all sects have accepted it, and some with such fervour that if any one offers to touch a letter of it, or to endeavour to improve a sentence, he is looked upon as sacrilegious. It has the crowning merit of direct simplicity, and has so taken hold of the English and American heart, espe cially of those who reside not in towns, but in the faroff country, that its phrases have become part of our tongue, and unconsciously its sentences even mix with our common conversation. Nor is there any doctrine or duty perverted or touched. The Romanist may, if it be possible, refute the Protestant from his own version, without appealing to the Douay, the Rheims, or the Latin Vulgate. The Independent, the Quaker, the Congregationalist, the Baptist, the Moravian, and the THEOLOGIANS. 175 Plymouth Brother, alike appeal to this Episcopal version. Only the Unitarian, we believe, of all sects— and the Romanist-have, with the exception of one or two eccentric individuals, gone to the trouble of retranslating even portions of the sacred books. In 1609 a different version of the Old Testament was published at Douay for the use of the English Catholics. As the translation of the Bible has contributed to form and fix our tongue, so it has intensified and simplified the English character, and we must remember that we owe much of this to our admirable preachers, who in the old time did not neglect diligent instruction in Gospel truth. Thus in the Homilies of the Church of England, published in 1547, and again in 1563, "by order of her most excellent Majesty, for the souls' health of her subjects," people are told that they "who would enter into the right and perfect way to God must apply their minds to know the Holy Scripture, without the which they can neither know what is pleasant to God, neither their office and duty; and as drink is pleasant to them that be dry, and meat to them that be hungry, so is the reading, hearing, searching, and studying the Scripture to them that be desirous to know God or themselves." We are also told that, as the great clerk and godly preacher, St. John Chrysostom saith, "Whatever is necessary to the salvation of man, is fully contained in the Scripture of God; therefore, forsaking the corrupt judgment of fleshly men, which care not but for their carcass, let us reverently hear and read Holy Scripture, which is the food of the soul; let us diligently search for the well of life, which is in the Old and New Testaments, and not run for our justification and sal |