The Translators Revived

A Biographical Memoir of the Authors of the English Version of the Holy Bible

Alexander McClure

Akai Tsurugi (akaitsurugi.org)

1853-01-01

CC BY-SA 4.0

The Translators Revived

1. Preface

2. Introductory Narrative

1. Venerable Bede

2. John Wiclif

3. Knyghton

4. John de Trevisa

5. William Tyndale

6. John Rogers

7. Miles Coverdale

8. Cranmer’s Bibles

9. Edward VI.

10. Marian Persecutions

11. Geneva Bible

12. William Whittingham

13. Anthony Gilby

14. Thomas Sampson, D.D.

15. Queen Elizabeth

16. Parker’s or the Bishop’s Bible

17. Hampton Court Conference

18. King James’s Version Printed

19. Made in Good Time

20. Competency of the Translators

21. Their Mode of Procedure and Rules

3. The Translators Revived

4. The First Company

1. Lancelot Andrews, D.D.

2. John Overall, D.D.

3. Hadrian Saravia, D.D.

4. Richard Clarke, D.D.

5. John Laifield, D.D.

6. Robert Tighe, D.D.

7. Francis Burleigh, D.D.

8. Geoffry King.

9. Richard Thompson.

10. William Bedwell.

5. The Second Company

1. Edward Lively.

2. John Richardson, D.D.

3. Lawrence Chaderton, D.D.

4. Francis Dillingham.

5. Roger Andrews, D.D.

6. Thomas Harrison.

7. Robert Spaulding, D.D.

8. Andrew Bing, D.D.

6. The Third Company

1. John Harding, D.D.

2. John Reynolds, D.D.

3. Thomas Holland, D.D.

4. Richard Kilby, D.D.

5. Miles Smith, D.D.

6. Richard Brett, D.D.

7. Daniel Fairclough, D.D.

7. The Fourth Company

1. Thomas Ravis, D.D.

2. George Abbot, D.D.

3. Richard Redes, D.D.

4. Giles Tomson, D.D.

5. Sir Henry Savile, Knt.

6. John Peryn, D.D.

7. Ralph Ravens, D.D.

8. John Harmar, D.D.

8. The Fifth Company

1. William Barlow, D.D.

2. John Spencer, D.D.

3. Roger Fenton, D.D.

4. Ralph Hutchinson, D.D.

5. William Dakins.

6. Michael Rabbet.

7. Mr. Sanderson.

9. The Sixth Company

1. John Duport, D.D.

2. William Brainthwaite, D.D.

3. Jeremiah Radcliffe, D.D.

4. Samuel Ward, D.D.

5. Andrew Downes, D.D.

6. John Bois.

7. John Ward, D.D.

10. Other Assistants to the Work

1. John Aglionby, D.D.

2. Leonard Hutten, D.D.

11. Supervisors of the Work

1. Thomas Bilson, D.D.

2. Richard Bancroft, D.D.

12. Conclusion

1. Revised Editions

2. Importance of Circulating the Scriptures

3. Practice of the Early Christians

4. No Better Translators Now To Be Found

5. Opinions of Critics

6. Multiplication of the Common Version

7. Its Influence on Religious Literature

8. An Obstacle to Sectarianism

9. Has Survived Great Changes

10. Translators Blessed of God

1. Title Page

2. Cover

3. Table of Contents

THE

TRANSLATORS REVIVED;

A

Biographical Memoir

OF THE

AUTHORS OF THE ENGLISH VERSION

OF THE

HOLY BIBLE

BY A.W. McCLURE.

New-York:

CHARLES SCRIBNER,

——

1853.

Preface

This little volume has been long in preparation. It is more than twenty years since the author’s attention was directed to the inquiry, What were the personal qualifications for their work possessed by King James’s Translators of the Bible? He expected to satisfy himself without difficulty, but found himself sorely disappointed. There was abundance of general testimony to their learning and piety; but nowhere any particular account of the men themselves. Copious histories of the origin, character, and results of their work have been drawn up with elaborate research; but of the Translators personally, little more was told than a meager catalogue of their names, with brief notices of such offices as a few of them held.

The only resource was to take these names in detail, and search for any information relative to each individual. For a long time, but little came to hand illustrative of their characters and acquirements, except in relation to some of the more prominent men included in the royal commission. The Author quite despaired of ever being able to identify the greater part of them, by anything more than their bare surnames. But devoting much of his time to searching in public libraries, he by degrees recovered from oblivion one by one of these worthies, till only two of them, Fairclough and Sanderson, remain without some certain testimonial of their fitness for the most responsible undertaking in the religious literature of the English world. In regard to some of them, who for a long time eluded his search, the revived information at last seemed almost like a resurrection. As the result of his researches, which he has carried, as he believes, to the utmost extent to which it can be done with the means accessible on this side of the Atlantic, he offers to all who are interested to know in regard to the general sufficiency and reliableness of the Common Version, these biographical sketches of its authors. He feels assured that they will afford historical demonstration of a fact which much astonished him when it began to dawn upon his convictions,—that the first half of the seventeenth century, when the Translation was completed, was the Golden Age of biblical and oriental learning in England. Never before, nor since, have these studies been pursued by scholars whose vernacular tongue is the English, with such zeal, and industry, and success. This remarkable fact is such a token of God’s providential care of his word, as deserves most devout acknowledgment.

That the true character of their employment, at the precise stage where those good men took it up, may be properly understood by such as have not given particular attention to the subject, a condensed “Introductory Narrative” is given. In its outlines, this follows the crowded octavos of the late Christopher Anderson. He has gleaned out the very corners of the field so carefully, as to leave little for any who may follow him. To his work, or rather to the skilful abridgment of it, in a single octavo volume, by Rev. Dr. Prime, all who desire more minute information on that part of the subject are respectfully referred.

The writers to whom the author of this book is most indebted for his biographical materials are Thomas Fuller and Anthony a-Wood. The former, the wittiest and one of the most delightful of the old English writers,—and the latter one of the most crabbed and cynical. What has been obtained from them was gathered wherever it was sprinkled, in scattered morsels, over their numerous and bulky volumes. Beside what was furnished from these sources, numerous fragments have been collected from a wide range of reading, including every thing that seemed to promise any additional matter of information.

The work is, doubtless, quite imperfect, because after the lapse of more than two centuries, during which no person appears to have thought of the thing, the means of information have been growing more scanty, and the difficulty of recovering it has been constantly increased. Critical inquisitors may be able to detect some inaccuracies in pages prepared under such disadvantages; but it will require no great stretch of generosity to make due allowance for them.

The general result, to which the Author particularly solicits the attention of any who may honor these pages with their perusal, is the ample proof afforded of the surpassing qualifications of those venerable Translators, taken as a body, for their high and holy work. We have here presumptive evidence of the strongest kind, that their work is deserving of entire confidence. It ought to be received as a “final settlement” of the translation of the Scriptures for popular use,—at least, till the time when a body of men equally qualified can be brought together to readjust the work,—a time which most certainly has not yet arrived! If that time shall ever come, may there be found among their successors the vast learning, wisdom, and piety of the old Translators happily revived!

Introductory Narrative

The translation of the Bible into any language is an event of the highest importance to those by whom that language is spoken. But when such a translation is to be read for successive centuries, by uncounted millions scattered over all the earth, and for whose use so many millions of copies have already been printed, it becomes a work of the highest moral and historical interest. Thus the translation and printing of the Bible in English forms a most important event in modern history. Far beyond any other translation, it has been, and is, and will be, to multitudes which none can number, the living oracle of God, giving to them, in their mother tongue, their surest and safest teaching on all that can affect their eternal welfare.

Venerable Bede

Many attempts had been made, at various times, to put different portions of the Scriptures into the common speech of the English people. Of these, one of the most noticeable was a translation of John’s Gospel into Anglo-Saxon, made, at the very close of his life, by the “Venerable Bede,” a Northumbrian monk, who died in his cell, in May, A. D. 735. A most interesting account of his last illness is given by Cuthbert, his scholar and biographer. Toward evening of the day of his death, one of his disciples said, “Beloved teacher, one sentence remains to be written.”

“Write it quickly, then,” said the dying saint; and summoning all his strength for this last flash of the expiring lamp, he dictated the holy words. When told that the work was finished, he answered, “Thou sayest well. It is finished!” He then requested to be taken up, and placed in that part of his cell where he was wont to kneel at his private devotions; so that, as he said, he might while sitting there call upon his Father. He then sang the doxology,—“Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost!” and as he sang the last syllable, he drew his last breath.[1]

John Wiclif

The admirable King Alfred, who ascended the throne two hundred years after the birth of Bede, translated the Psalms into Anglo-Saxon. But the first complete translation which can be said to have been published, so as to come into extensive use, was that made by Wiclif, about the year 1350. It was not made from the “original Hebrew and Greek of the Holy Ghost;” but from the Vulgate, a Latin version, chiefly prepared by Jerome during the latter part of the fourth century. John Wiclif was born in Yorkshire, England, in the year 1324. He was a priest, and a professor of divinity in the University of Oxford. His ardent piety was nursed by the Scriptures which gave it birth. He is commonly called “the morning-star of the Protestant reformation,” and was one of the brightest of those scattered lights of the Dark Ages, who are often spoken of as “reformers before the reformation.” Like Martin Luther, his opposition to popish errors and corruptions was at first confined to a few points; but prayer, study of the Bible, and growing grace, led him on in a constant advance toward the purity of truth. He became in doctrine what would now be called a Calvinist; and in church discipline his views agreed with those which are now maintained by Congregationalists. After encountering many prosecutions and persecutions, having however a powerful protector in John of Gaunt, (or Ghent, in Flanders, his native place,) the famous old Duke of Lancaster, Wiclif peacefully closed his devout and laborious life, at his rectory of Lutterworth, in 1384. Forty-one years after, by order of the popish Council of Constance, his bones were unearthed, burned to ashes, and cast into the Swift, a neighboring brook. “Thus,” says Thomas Fuller, “this brook has conveyed his ashes into Avon, Avon into Severn, Severn into the narrow seas, they into the main ocean. And thus the ashes of Wiclif are the emblem of his doctrine, which is now dispersed all the world over.”[2]

Wiclif’s translation of the Bible was made before the invention of the printing machines; and the manuscripts, though quite numerous, were very costly. Nicholas Belward suffered from popish cruelty in 1429, for having in his possession a copy of Wiclif’s New Testament. That copy cost him four marks and forty pence. This sum, so much greater was the value of money then than it is now, was considered as a sufficient annual salary for a curate. The same value at the present time would pay for many hundreds of copies of the Testament, well printed and bound. Such are the marvels wrought by the art of printing, which Luther was wont to call “the last and best gift” of Providence.[3] It has become “the capacious reservoir of human knowledge, whose branching streams diffuse sciences, arts, and morality, through all ages and all nations.”[4] Let us hope, with an old writer, “that the low pricing of the Bible may never occasion the low prizing of the Bible.”

Knyghton

Limited as the circulation of the English Bible must have been in its manuscript form, it still made no little trouble for the monkish doctors of that day. One of them, Henry de Knyghton, said, “This Master John Wiclif hath translated the gospel out of Latin into English, which Christ had entrusted with the clergy and doctors of the Church, that they might minister it to the laity and weaker sort, according to the state of the times and the wants of men. So that, by this means, the gospel is made vulgar, and made more open to the laity, and even to women who can read, than it used to be to the most learned of the clergy and those of the best understanding! And what was before the chief gift of the clergy and doctors of the Church, is made for ever common to the laity.” If the publication of an English Bible in manuscript caused such popish lamentations, we need not wonder that the multiplication of a similar work in print should afterwards awaken such a fury, that Rowland Phillips, the papistical Vicar of Croydon, in a noted sermon preached at St. Paul’s Cross, London, in the year 1535, declared; “We must root out printing, or printing will root out us!”

Manuscripts of Wiclif’s complete version are still numerous. His Bibles are nearly as numerous as his New Testaments; and there are besides many copies of separate books of the Scriptures. They are quite remarkable for their legibility and beauty, and indicate the great care taken in making them, and in preserving them for nearly five hundred years. The New Testament of this version was printed in the year 1731, or three hundred and fifty years after it was finished. The whole Bible by Wiclif was never printed till two or three years since, when it appeared at Oxford, with the Latin Vulgate, from which it was translated, in parallel columns.

John de Trevisa

Contemporary with Wiclif, was John de Trevisa, born of an ancient family, at Crocadon in Cornwall. He was a secular priest, and Vicar of Berkeley. He translated several large works out of Latin into English; and chiefly the entire Bible, justifying himself by the example of the Venerable Bede, who had done the same thing for the Gospel of John. This great, and good, and dangerous task he performed by commission from his noble and powerful patron and protector, Lord Thomas de Berkeley. This nobleman had the whole of the book of Revelation, in Latin and French, which latter was then generally understood by the better educated class of Englishmen, written upon the walls and ceiling of his chapel at Berkeley, where it was to be seen hundreds of years after. Trevisa, notwithstanding his translation of the Bible made him obnoxious to the persecutors of his day, lived and died unmolested, though known to be an enemy of monks and begging friars. He expired, full of honor and years, being little less than ninety years of age, in the year 1397.[5] Little else is known of him, or of his translation, which did not supersede the labors of Wiclif.

The first book ever printed with metal types was the Latin Bible, issued by Gutenberg and Fust, at Mentz, in the Duchy of Hesse, between the years 1450 and 1455, for it bears no date. It is a folio of 641 leaves, or 1282 pages, in two volumes. Though a first attempt, it is beautifully printed on very fine paper, and with superior ink. At least eighteen copies of this famous edition are known to be in existence; four of them on vellum, and fourteen on paper. Twenty-five years ago, one of the vellum copies was sold for five hundred and four pounds sterling; and one of the paper copies lately brought one hundred and ninety pounds. Truly venerable relics! Thus the printing-press paid its first homage to the Best of Books; the highest honor ever done to that illustrious art, and the highest purpose to which it could ever be applied.

The first Scripture ever printed in English was a sort of paraphrase of the seven penitential Psalms, so called, by John Fisher, the popish bishop of Rochester, who was beheaded by Henry VIII. in the year 1535. This little book was printed in 1505.

William Tyndale

The first decided steps, however, toward giving to the English nation a Bible printed in their own tongue, were the translations of the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, made by William Tyndale, and by him printed at Hamburg, in the year 1524;—and a translation of the whole of the New Testament, printed by him partly at Cologne, and partly at Worms, in 1525. After six editions of the Testament had been issued, he published Genesis and Deuteronomy, in 1530; and next year the Pentateuch. In the year 1535 was printed the entire Bible, under the auspices of Miles Coverdale, who mostly followed Tyndale as far as he had gone; but without any other connection with him. Of Coverdale, further mention will be made. But in the year 1537 appeared a folio Bible, printed in some city of Germany, with the following title,—“The Byble, which is the Holy Scripture; in which are contayned the Olde and Newe Testament, truely and purely translated into Englysh—by Thomas Matthew.— MDXXXVII.” This is substantially the basis of all the other versions of the Bible into English, including that which is now in such extensive use. It contains Tyndale’s labors as far as he had gone previous to his martyrdom by fire about a year before its publication. That is to say, the whole of the New Testament, and of the Old, as far as the end of the Second Book of Chronicles, or exactly two-thirds of the entire Scriptures, were Tyndale’s work. The other third, comprising the remainder of the Old Testament, was made by his friend and co-laborer, Thomas Matthew, who was no other than John Rogers, the famous martyr, afterwards burnt in the days of “bloody Mary;” and who, at the time of his immortal publication, went by the name of Matthew.

William Tyndale, whose vast services to the English-speaking branches of the Church of God have never been duly appreciated, was born in the Hundred of Berkeley, and probably in the village of North Nibley, about the year 1484. His family was ancient and respectable. His grandsire was Hugh, Baron de Tyndale. From an early age, he was brought up at the University of Oxford. Here, during a lengthened residence in Magdalen College, he became a proficient in all the learning of that day, and in the latter part of his time read private lectures in divinity. He was ordained a priest in 1502; and became a Minorite Observantine friar. His zeal in the exposition of the Scriptures excited the displeasure of the adversaries, and “spying his time,” says Foxe, “he removed from Oxford to the University of Cambridge, where he likewise made his abode a certain space.” This place he had left by 1519. In total independence of Luther, he arose at the same time with that great translator of the Bible into German; being equally moved with him to resist the corruptions and oppressions of a priesthood, which sought to imprison and enslave the minds of all nations, by keeping from them “the key of knowledge.”

Returning from Cambridge to his native county, he spent nearly two years in the manor-house of Little Sodbury, as tutor to the children of Sir John Walsh. On the Sabbath he preached in the neighboring parishes, and especially at St. Austin’s Green, in Bristol. At Sir John’s hospitable board, the mitered abbots, and other ecclesiastics who swarmed in that neighborhood, were frequent guests; and Tyndale sharply and constantly disputed their mean superstitions. At the first, Sir John and his lady Anne took the part of the “abbots, deans, archdeacons, with divers other doctors and great-beneficed men;” but after reading a translation of Erasmus’s “Christian Soldier’s Manual,” which Tyndale made for them, they took his part. Upon this, those “doctorly prelatists” forbore Sir John’s good cheer, rather than to take with it what Fuller calls “the sour sauce” of Tyndale’s conversation. A storm was now gathering over his head. Not only the ignorant hedge-priests at their ale-houses, but the dignified clergymen in the Bishop’s councils began to brand him with the name of heretic. In 1522 he was summoned, with all the other priests of the district, before the bishop’s Chancellor. In their presence he was very roughly handled. In his own account, he says, “When I came before the Chancellor, he threatened me grievously, and reviled me, and rated me as though I had been a dog.”

It was not long after this, that in disputing with a divine reputed to be quite learned, Tyndale utterly confounded him with certain texts of Scripture; upon which the irritated papist exclaimed,—“It were better for us to be without God’s laws, than without the Pope’s!” This was a little too much for Tyndale, who boldly replied, “I defy the Pope, and all his laws; and if God spare my life, ere many years, I will cause a boy that driveth the plow to know more of the Scripture than you do!” A noble boast; and nobly redeemed at the cost of his life! He now clearly saw, that nothing could rescue the mass of the English nation from the impostures of the high priests and low priests of Rome, unless the Scriptures were placed in the hands of all. “Which thing only” he says, “moved me to translate the New Testament. Because I had perceived by experience, how that it was impossible to establish the lay people in any truth, except the Scripture were plainly laid before their eyes in the mother tongue.”

When he could no longer remain at Sir John Walsh’s without bringing that worthy knight, as well as himself, into danger, Tyndale went to London, with letters introducing him, as a ripe Greek scholar, to the patronage of that Dr. Tunstall, then bishop of London, who afterwards burned so many of Tyndale’s New Testaments. The courtly and classical bishop refused to befriend him; and he who had hoped in that prelate’s own house to translate the New Testament, was obliged to seek a harbor elsewhere. For nearly a year, he resided in the house of Humphrey Munmouth, a wealthy citizen of London, and afterwards an alderman, knight, and sheriff. During this time, he used to preach in the Church of St. Dunstan’s in the West. By this time, he was convinced that no where in all England would he be permitted to put in act the glorious resolve he had formed at Little Sodbury.

In January, 1524, with a heart full of love and pity for his native land, Tyndale sailed for Hamburg, being “helped over the sea” by the generous Munmouth, who also assisted him during his fifteen months’ abode in that city. Here he so improved his time, that in May, 1525, he went to Cologne, and began to print his New Testament in quarto form. Ten sheets had hardly been worked off, before an alarm was raised, and the public authorities forbade the work to go on. Tyndale and his amanuensis, William Rove, managed to save those sheets and to sail with them up the Rhine to Worms, where they finished the edition of three thousand copies in comparative safety. A precious relic, containing the Prologue and twenty-two chapters of Matthew, is all that is known to exist of this memorable edition, which is in the German Gothic type. In the same year and place, there was printed another edition, in small-octavo, of which one copy is extant in the Bristol Museum. During the subsequent ten years of the Translator’s unquiet life, spent in labor and concealment from foes, more than twenty editions of this work, with repeated revisions by himself, were passed through the press. These, through the agency of pious merchants and others, were secretly conveyed into England, and there with great privacy sold and circulated, not without causing constant peril and frequent suffering to those into whose hands they came. Many copies fell into the grasp of the enemy, and were destroyed; but very many more were secretly read and pondered in castles and in cottages, and powerfully prepared the way for the liberation of England from the yoke of Rome. This New Testament has been separately printed in not less than fifty-six editions, as well as in fourteen editions of the Holy Bible.

Besides all these impressions of the work as Tyndale left it, it has been five times revised by able translators, including those appointed by King James; and still forms substantially, though with very numerous amendments, the version in common use. The changes made in these revisions, though generally for the better, were not always so. The substitution of the word charity, where Tyndale had used love, was not a happy change; neither was that of church, where he had employed congregation. Still, large portions of his work remain untouched, and are read verbally as he left them, except in the matter of spelling. The fidelity of his rendering is such as might be expected from his conscientious care. “For I call God to record,” he says, in his reply to Lord Chancellor More, “against the day we shall appear before our Lord Jesus, to give a reckoning of our doings, that I never altered one syllable of God’s Word against my conscience; nor would this day, if all that is in the earth, whether it be pleasure, honor, or riches, might be given me.”

Not only was this holy man faithful in his great work, but he was fully qualified for it by his scholarship. His sound learning is evident enough on reading his pages. Certain historians, however, while acknowledging his proficiency in Greek literature, have represented him as having little or no acquaintance with Hebrew, and as making his translations of the Old Testament from the Latin or else the German. As for German, then a rude speech just taking its “form and pressure” from the genius of Martin Luther, there is no evidence that Tyndale ever had much acquaintance with it. But of his knowledge of Hebrew there can be no question. In his answer to Sir Thomas More’s huge volume against him, he accuses the prelates of having lost the understanding of the plain text, “and of the Greek, Latin, and especially of the Hebrew, which is most of need to be known, and of all phrases, the proper manner of speakings, and borrowed speech of the Hebrews.” In these words he clearly indicates his critical familiarity with the Hebraisms of the New Testament, which contains so many expressions conformed rather to the idiom of the Hebrew tongue than to that of the Greek. George Joye, once occupied as his amanuensis, who turned against him, bears unwitting testimony upon this point. “I am not afraid,” he says, “to answer Master Tyndale in this matter, for all his high learning in Hebrew, Greek and Latin, etc.” What were the other tongues Joye referred to, we learn from Herman Buschius, a learned professor, who was acquainted with Tyndale both at Marburg and Worms. Spalatin, the friend of Luther, says in his Diary,—“Buschius told me, that, at Worms, six thousand copies of the New Testament had been printed in English. The work was translated by an Englishman staying there with two others,—a man so skilled in the seven languages, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, English, and French, that whichever he spake, you would suppose it his native tongue.”

We must draw this account of Tyndale to a close.[6] But one curious incident must be mentioned, which took place in 1529. Tunstall, then bishop of the wealthy see of Durham, bought up the balance of an edition of the New Testament, which hung on Tyndale’s hands at Antwerp, and burned them. The purchase was made through one Packington, a merchant who secretly favored Tyndale. The latter rejoiced to sell off his unsold copies, being anxious to put to press a new and corrected edition, which he was too poor to publish till thus furnished with the means by Tunstall’s simplicity. A year or two after, George Constantine, one of Tyndale’s coadjutors, fell into the hands of Sir Thomas More. That bitter persecutor promised his prisoner a pardon, provided he would give up the name of the person who defrayed the expense of this Bible-printing business. Constantine, being something of a wag, and aware that More was a dear lover of a joke, accepted the offer, and amused the Chancellor by informing him that the bishop of Durham was their greatest encourager; for, by buying up the unsold copies at a good round sum, he had enabled them to produce a second and improved edition. Sir Thomas greatly enjoyed the joke, and said he had told Tunstall at the time, that such would be the result of his fine speculation. “This,” as Disraeli says, “was the first lesson which taught persecutors that it is easier to burn authors than books.”

Early in 1535, Tyndale who had been constantly hunted by the emissaries of his English persecutors, was betrayed by one Phillips, a tool of Stephen Gardiner, the cruel and crafty bishop of Winchester. He suffered an imprisonment of more than eighteen months in the castle of Vilvorde, where he was the means of converting the jailor, the jailor’s daughter, and others of the household. All that conversed with him in the castle bore witness to the purity of his character; and even the Emperor Charles the Fifth’s Procurator-General, or chief prosecuting officer, who saw him there, said that he was “homo doctus, pius, et bonus,”—“a learned, pious, and good man.” It was Friday, the sixth of October, 1536, when this man, “of whom the world was not worthy,” and who ought to be famed as the noblest and greatest benefactor of the English race in all the world, was brought forth to die. Being fastened to the stake, he cried out with a fervent zeal, and a loud voice,—“Lord, open the eyes of the King of England!” He was then strangled, and burned to ashes. Thus departed one for whom heaven was ready; but for whom earth, to this hour, has no monument, except the Bible he gave to so many of her millions.

“He lived unknown
Till persecution dragged him into fame,
And chased him up to Heaven. His ashes flew—
No marble tells us whither. With his name
No bard embalms and sanctifies his song;
And history, so warm on meaner themes,
Is cold on this.”

But there is a better world, where he is not forgotten. “Also now, behold, his witness is in heaven, and his record is on high.”

Old John Foxe, the martyrologist, who justly calls Tyndale “the Apostle of England,” gives the following beautiful sketch of the man—“First, he was a man very frugal, and spare of body, a great student and earnest laborer in setting forth the Scriptures of God. He reserved or hallowed to himself, two days in the week, which he named his pastime, Monday and Saturday. On Monday he visited all such poor men and women as were fled out of England, by reason of persecution, unto Antwerp; and these, once well understanding their good exercises and qualities, he did very liberally comfort and relieve; and in like manner provided for the sick and diseased persons. On the Saturday, he walked round the town, seeking every corner and hole, where he suspected any poor person to dwell; and where he found any to be well occupied, and yet overburthened with children, or else were aged and weak, these also he plentifully relieved. And thus he spent his two days of pastime, as he called it. And truly his alms were very large, and so they might well be; for his exhibition [i.e. pension] that he had yearly of the English merchants at Antwerp, when living there, was considerable, and that for the most part he bestowed upon the poor. The rest of the days of the week he gave wholly to his Book, wherein he most diligently travailed. When the Sunday came, then went he to some one merchant’s chamber, or other, whither came many other merchants, and unto them would he read some one parcel of Scripture; the which proceeded so fruitfully, sweetly, and gently from him, much like to the writing of John the Evangelist, that it was a heavenly comfort and joy to the audience, to hear him read the Scriptures: likewise, after dinner, he spent an hour in the same manner. He was a man without any spot or blemish of rancor or malice, full of mercy and compassion, so that no man living was able to reprove him of any sin or crime; although his righteousness and justification depended not thereupon before God; but only upon the blood of Christ, and his faith upon the same. In this faith he died, with constancy, at Vilvorde, and now resteth with the glorious company of Christ’s martyrs, blessedly in the Lord.”

The good man’s work did not die with him. During the last year of his life, nine or more editions of his Testament issued from the press, and found their way into England “thick and threefold.” But what is strangest of all, and is unexplained to this day, at the very time when Tyndale by the procurement of English ecclesiastics, and by the sufferance of the English king, was burned at Vilvorde, a folio-edition of his Translation was printed at London, with his name on the title page, and by Thomas Berthelet, the king’s own patent printer. This was the first copy of the Scriptures ever printed on English ground.

John Rogers

The next year, 1537, two translations of the entire Bible, printed in folio on the continent, made their appearance in England. One of these was Tyndale’s version, completed and edited by his devoted friend and assistant, John Rogers, otherwise known as Thomas Matthew. The other was the work of Miles Coverdale, afterwards bishop of Exeter.

Rogers was born at Deritend in Warwickshire, about the year 1500. He was educated at Cambridge, and was for some years chaplain to the English factory at Antwerp. He also ministered for twelve years to a German congregation. He returned to England during the reign of Edward VI., in the year 1550. He was made rector of St. Margaret Moyses, and after that vicar of St. Sepulchre’s; two of the London churches. The next year he resigned the rectory on being appointed one of the prebendaries of St. Paul’s. When “bloody Mary” came to the throne, he was at once in trouble, but refused to escape to the continent, as he might have done. For half a year, he remained a prisoner in his own house; and during the whole of 1554 he was confined in Newgate among thieves and murderers, to some of whom he was an instrument of good. He was very harshly and cruelly treated, and being the first of Mary’s victims, he is honorably known as the Proto-martyr of that fiery persecution. He was burned alive at Smithfield, January 4th, 1555. He thus suffered with great constancy and piety. His wife, whom he had married eighteen years before, was a German, Adriance de Weyden. She is sometimes called Prat, which is the English form of the same name, both meaning meadow. He was refused permission to see her; but she met him with all her children, as he was on his way to the fatal stake. It has been much disputed, whether they had nine, ten, or eleven children. The fact seems to be, that, at the time of his imprisonment in Newgate, they had nine; and another was born afterwards. In documents written during his confinement, he repeatedly speaks of his ten children. His widow returned with her fatherless flock to Germany. Daniel Rogers, probably the eldest child, lived to be Queen Elizabeth’s ambassador to Belgium, Germany, and Denmark. Richard Rogers, the famous Puritan minister of Weathersfield, was, in all probability, another son of the martyr; and if so, then the numerous families in New England which trace their descent from Richard, are descended from the illustrious Bible Translator and Protomartyr.

Miles Coverdale

The origin of Miles Coverdale is very obscure, no other person being known of that surname. He was a native of Yorkshire, and born in 1488. It is said that he graduated as Bachelor of Canon Law, at Cambridge, in 1531. He afterwards received a Doctor’s degree from Tubingen and Cambridge. He was an Augustine friar, and enjoyed the powerful protection of the lord Cromwell while he was the prime minister of England. He was an eminent scholar; and was put upon the work of translating the Bible by some influential patrons, who also paid the cost of publication. The first edition purports to be faithfully translated out of the German and Latin, and is dedicated to Henry VIII. and his queen, Anne Boleyn. It is dated 1535; but the place where it was printed is uncertain. It is a mistake to suppose, as many have done, that he acted in concert with either Tyndale or Rogers. That he was skilled in the Hebrew and Greek tongues is certain, though he professes to translate from the German and Latin, in which languages he had five versions before him. His work was “set forth with the Kynge’s most gracious license;” and was warmly favored by the potent Cromwell, and by Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury.

But notwithstanding all this favor, his book could not displace the labors of the martyred Tyndale, which received and retained such a decided preference, that Coverdale himself repeatedly edited impressions of the rival translation. Cranmer gave a decided preference to Rogers’s publication of his own and Tyndale’s labors, and entreated the Vicar-General Cromwell to exert himself to procure the King’s consent, that it may be “read of every person, without danger of any act, proclamation, or ordinance heretofore granted to the contrary, until such time that we, the Bishops, shall set forth a better translation, which I think will not be till a day after doomsday.” The license was fully conceded; and thus, almost before the ashes of Tyndale had had time to cool, his labors received the warm sanction and approbation of the great men who had denied him all countenance or support, and who ten years before were quite indignant at his efforts. This translation will never be suppressed again. It may be corrected and improved, and at times it may be denounced and burned; and after seventy years, King James’s fifty learned men may spend three or four years in making it, as they say, “more smooth and easy, and agreeable to the text.” But the work has been substantially the basis of all the subsequent editions of the Bible in English unto this day.

Grafton, who printed Rogers’s Bible just mentioned, commenced the next folio edition, of two thousand five hundred copies, at Paris, in 1538. The reason for executing the work at that place was the high perfection to which the art of printing was then carried there. But when the edition was nearly completed, the Inquisition pounced upon it, and had nearly succeeded in destroying it. The printed sheets, however, were rescued and carried to London. Also the printing presses and types were purchased; and even the workmen removed with them; so that in two months more the entire volume was completed at London. At the end of these copies is found the inscription,—“The Ende of the New Testament, and of the whole Byble, fynished in Apryll anno 1539. It is the Lord’s doing.” The work was accomplished at the procurement and expense of the Lord Chancellor Cromwell. Thus after a struggle of fifteen years’ continuance, since Tyndale left England, his Bible obtains a secure footing upon his native soil. Cromwell, as “vicegerent unto the King’s Highness,” issued his injunctions, that a copy of this book should be conveniently placed in every parish-church, at the joint expense of the parson and the parishioners; and no man should be in any way discouraged from reading, or hearing it read—but contrariwise, that every person should be stirred up and exhorted, to the diligent study of the Word of God. In another of the injunctions, the clergyman in every church is required to make, or cause to be made, one sermon, every quarter of the year at least, wherein he shall “purely and sincerely declare the very gospel of Christ.” The issuing of such an injunction gives a deplorable view of the qualifications of the ministry, and of the miserable plight of the people as to religious instruction, at that day. An old historian, Strype, thus speaks of the interest excited by those old folios, usually secured by a chain to a reading desk attached to one of the pillars in the churches,—“It was wonderful to see with what joy this book of God was received, not only among the learneder sort, but generally all England over, among all the vulgar and common people; and with what greediness the Word of God was read, and what resort to places where the reading of it was! Every body that could, bought the book, or busily read it, or got others to read it to them, if they could not themselves. Divers more elderly people learned to read on purpose; and even little boys flocked, among the rest, to hear portions of the Holy Scripture read.” Thus was brought to pass that memorable saying of Tyndale’s to the miterd Abbots of Winchcombe and Tewksbury,—“If God spare my life, ere many years, I will cause a boy that drives the plow to know more of the Scriptures than you do!” All this was gall and wormwood to Stephen Gardiner, and the other popish clergy, who, as Foxe says, “did mightily stomach and malign the printing of this Bible.”

During the next year, 1539, the printing and circulation of the Bible went on with great activity. The King himself, in a public proclamation, urged upon his subjects, “the free and liberal use of the Bible in their own maternal English tongue,” as the only means by which they could learn their duty to God or man.

Cranmer’s Bibles

In the following year, those great Bibles, now called “Cranmer’s Bibles,” first appeared. These were published under the archbishop’s direction, with a preface written by him, warmly pleading in behalf of the domestic reading of the Word of God; and quoting, in favor of the practice, some eloquent passages from Chrysostom and Gregory the Nazienzene. The following passage is taken from Chrysostom, who insists “that every man should read by himself at home, in the mean days and time, between sermon and sermon; that when they were at home in their houses, they should apply themselves, from time to time, to the reading of the Holy Scriptures. For the Holy Spirit hath so ordered and attempered the Scriptures, that in them, as well publicans, fishers and shepherds, may find their edification, as great doctors their erudition. But still you will say, I cannot understand it! What marvel? How shouldest thou understand, if thou wilt not read nor look upon it? Take the books into thine hands, read the whole story, and that thou understandest, keep it well in memory; that thou understandest not, read it again and again. Here all manner of persons, men, women; young, old; learned, unlearned; rich, poor; priests, laymen: lords, ladies; officers, tenants, and mean men; virgins, wives, widows; lawyers, merchants, artificers, husbandmen, and all manner of persons, of what estate or condition soever they be, may in this Book learn all things, what they ought to believe, what they ought to do, and what they should not do, as well concerning Almighty God, as also concerning themselves and all others.” One edition of ” Cranmer’s Bible,” which varies but slightly from Tyndale and Rogers, was issued this year, under the royal command, sanctioned in the title page and preface by two prelates of the popish party, Cuthbert Tunstal, bishop of Durham, and Nicolas Heath, bishop of Rochester. So potent was the will of the tyrant, who, about that same time, executed in one day, and at the same spot, three advocates of the “old learning,” and as many of the “new learning,” as popery and protestantism were then respectively known. So impartial in cruelties and persecutions was that odious monster of lust and tyranny. What an age! when men suffered equally for not reading the Bible, and for not reading it with the despot’s eyes. But how wonderful are the ways of divine Providence in so ordering it, that the very Tunstal who was so eager to buy up and burn the labors of Tyndale when printed at Antwerp but half a score of years before, is now editing the same at London, in repeated editions! These noble and finely printed folios, of which four or five impressions were made in little more than a year, were published at the expense and risk of Anthony Marler, a London merchant. Even the Bishop of London, the “bloody Bonner,” chief butcher of the Protestant martyrs in the subsequent “burning times” of Queen Mary, actively promoted the circulation and reading of the Scriptures in English. This vile hypocrite, and flatterer of royalty, set up six large Bibles for public perusal in his cathedral of St. Paul’s, where they were read aloud to attentive throngs of young and old. Stephen Gardiner, the wily Bishop of Winchester, and other crafty and malignant opposers, tried many crooked policies to hinder the free course of God’s word, but their subtle devices came to naught. Thomas Becon, afterwards Christ’s faithful martyr, witnessed, “The most Sacred Bible is most freely permitted to be read of every man in the English tongue. Many savor Christ aright, and daily the number increaseth, thanks be to God!”

Tyndale’s translation had been many times printed under the names of Matthew, Taverner, Cranmer, Tunstal and Heath; and under all of them, had received the royal sanction, and had been ” appointed to be read in Churches.” But still the name of Tyndale was offensive to the brutal Henry and his slavish parliament. By act of parliament, in 1543, his translation, though in current and almost exclusive use, was branded as crafty, false, and untrue,” and was “forbidden to be kept and used in this realm, or elsewhere in any of the King’s dominions.” Acts of parliament are said to be so near omnipotent, that “they can do anything except changing a man into a woman;” but they can no more bind the Word of God, than they can change the winds and light of heaven. The same act of parliament which prohibited this version in one clause, ignorantly enforced its use in its other clauses, and also vainly attempted to restrict its use by the “lower orders” of the people.

Edward VI.

The wretched Henry VIII. died in 1546. He was succeeded by his only surviving son, Edward VI., who held the throne but six years and five months, when he died of consumption, at the age of sixteen. This intellectual and pious child was one of those “who trembled at God’s Word,” which he loved and venerated; and which had “free course and was glorified” during his brief reign. At his coronation, three swords were brought, to be carried before him, in token that three realms were subject to his sway. The precocious prince said that yet another sword must be brought; and when the attending nobles asked what sword that might be, he answered,—“The Bible!” That, said he, “is the sword of the Spirit, and to be preferred before these swords. That ought, in all right, to govern us, who use the others for the people’s safety, by God’s appointment.” Adding some similar expressions, he commanded the Sacred Volume to be brought, and to be borne reverently before him in the grand procession. In the course of his reign, the Bible cause prospered greatly. At least thirty-five editions of the New Testament appeared, and fourteen editions of the whole Bible in English.

Edward’s first Parliament repealed the Act passed by his father’s last parliament against the labors of Tyndale. Cranmer, who was at the head of the regency, made no attempt to press the use of his own correction or revision of Tyndale’s version; and most of the editions followed the older copies, which were the more popular. When Henry died, there were fourteen printing offices in England. In Edward’s time these were increased to fifty-seven; of which, not less than thirty-one, and these the most respectable, were engaged either in printing or publishing the Sacred Scriptures. This short reign was a period of unexampled activity in the good work, which was sadly interrupted by the lamented death of the king in 1553.

Marian Persecutions

His reign was followed by that of his sister, the bigoted and melancholy Mary; who, during her reign of five years and more, did her utmost to suppress the Word of God in her realm, and to restore the authority of Romish corruptions and pretended traditions. It was not till she had been more than a year and a half on the throne, that she felt herself seated firmly enough to dip her hands in the blood of her Protestant subjects. During this time, hundreds who saw the gradual rising of the storm of persecution, fled for shelter to continental Europe. Nearly one thousand of these exiles were learned Englishmen, who were scattered abroad in many cities. Meanwhile, in England, two hundred and eighty-eight faithful martyrs, including one arch-bishop, four bishops, many clergymen and doctors in divinity, as also men, women and children of every rank in life, were committed to the flames for their love to God’s Word, and their adherence to its teachings. The first who thus suffered was that John Rogers who had done so much toward the translation, printing, and circulation of the Bible in English. There is now, in this country, in the hands of one of his descendants, a copy of the Bible which had been for the private use of that holy martyr, whose effigy makes such a prominent figure in the famous New England Primer. Many others were famished to death, or pined and expired in unwholesome dungeons. Miles Coverdale, who had been so active in the business of translating and editing the Bible, had been made Bishop of Exeter by Edward VI.; but two years after, on the accession of Mary, he lost his office, and was imprisoned for two years and a half. He was several times examined before his inquisitors, and was in extreme peril of his life. But in February, 1555, he was allowed to leave the realm, at the intercession of Christian II., King of Denmark.[7]

During the Marian persecution, there was no proclamation expressly prohibiting the reading of the Bible, or calling in the copies to be burned. Still several occasions are recorded, in which copies of the sacred volume were consigned to the flames. Very many were carried abroad by the numerous fugitives. And many were concealed in private places. Some were even built up in closets whose doors were concealed by masonry.

“Fierce whiskered guards that volume sought in vain,
Enjoyed by stealth, and hid with anxious pain;
While all around was misery and gloom,
This shewed the boundless bliss beyond the tomb;
Freed from the venal priest,—the feudal rod,
It led the sufferer’s weary steps to God:
And when his painful course on earth was run,
This, his chief wealth, descended to his son.”

It is a remarkable fact, that, while of a large proportion of the many books printed in England up to this date, 1558, not a vestige is to be found in our day, there is scarce one of the many editions of the Bible and Testament of which one or more copies are not preserved. Such has ever been God’s watchful care in the preservation of his blessed Book.

Geneva Bible

The cessation of open operations in publishing the Bible in England was attended by one signal advantage. It gave opportunity for a new and very important revision of the translation.

The great work first effected by the exiled Tyndale some twenty-five years before, during his banishment in Europe, was now ably revised by another exiled scholar, and again introduced into England when every port seemed to be shut against it. This was the celebrated “Geneva Testament,” which is a reprint of Tyndale’s, after carefully comparing it once more with the Greek original, and various translations in other tongues, and making many decided improvements, forming by far the best form of the English version, which had till then appeared. The first edition, which is now rare, is noted for the beauty of the type and paper. It left the press in June, 1557. It is the first English Testament divided into verses, and it led the way to a revision of the whole Bible. It is not positively known by whom this good work was done; but there is no doubt but that the person was William Whittingham.

William Whittingham

He was a native of Lanchester, near Durham, born in 1524. He was of a good family, a Fellow of one of the Colleges at Oxford; and had spent three years in foreign travel, and at the Universities in France. When Mary mounted the throne, he betook himself first to Frankfort in Germany. A year later, in 1555, he removed to Geneva, where he was ordained as minister of the English Congregation, of some hundred members, and where he married Catharine Chauvin, the sister of John Calvin.[8] Having issued the New Testament of the Geneva version, he was aided to some extent by two of his learned fellow exiles in revising the entire Scriptures, on which they were engaged night and day in 1558, the year that hapless Mary died of a broken heart.[9] They continued their labors till April, 1560, when the whole work was finished. The expense was defrayed by the wealthier members of the English Congregation at Geneva. Of this revision, numerous editions were printed in the course of the next eighty years. It was several times reprinted even after King James’s translation was published, as it was very popular with the Puritans on account of the numerous very brief marginal annotations. As soon as the first edition had passed the press at Geneva, the editors returned to England.

Whittingham, soon after, went to France as chaplain to the British ambassador, the Earl of Bedford. On his return, he acted in the same capacity for the Earl of Warwick. Through the influence of that excellent nobleman, he was appointed to the deanery of Durham, in 1563, notwithstanding his sturdy opposition to the popish ceremonies retained in the Church of England. His abilities were so highly esteemed, that when the Secretary Cecil became, by promotion, Lord Treasurer Burleigh, the vacant secretaryship might have been taken by Mr. Whittingham, had he desired it. He was repeatedly impleaded in the ecclesiastical courts for his non-conformity, and for his presbyterial ordination at Geneva; and he was once excommunicated by the Archbishop of York. On appeal to Queen Elizabeth, she appointed Henry, Earl of Huntington, who was Lord President of the Council of the North, and Dr. Hutton, Dean of York, as a commission to examine and decide the case. The Commission boldly declared, “that Mr. Whittingham was ordained in a better sort than even the Archbishop himself.” Another attempt on the part of that dignitary succeeded no better. Before these prosecutions were ended, Mr. Whittingham died in possession of his benefice, in 1579, and in the sixty-fifth year of his age. He was buried in the cathedral at Durham. He was an eminently pious and powerful preacher, and an ornament to religion and learning, to which he greatly contributed by his publications, and chiefly by his agency in the revision of the English Bible. He was the author of several of those metrical versions of the Psalms, which are still sung in the Episcopal Churches of England and America, even as Tyndale’s prose translations of the Psalms are still printed and read in the Book of Common Prayer.[10]

Anthony Gilby

Anthony Gilby, who was associated with Mr. Whittingham in preparing the Geneva Bible, was born in Lincolnshire, and educated in Christ’s College, Cambridge, where he acquired a very exact and critical skill in the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages; and became a bold reformer as to the habits, ceremonies, and corruptions of the national Church. When Queen Mary went about her bloody and burning work, he fled to the continent, tarrying most of his time at Geneva. Soon after the accession of Elizabeth to the throne, he went back to England, and was placed in the wealthy vicarage of Ashby-de-la-Zouch, where he lived “as great as a bishop.” He was a “famous and reverend divine,” and God wonderfully blessed his zealous and faithful ministry. He stood in the highest esteem with the best and noblest in the land, which did not screen him from being harassed for his non-conformity. He lived to a great age, but the time of his death is unknown. He was noted for a flaming zeal against the errors and abominations of papistry, and all the remnants and patches of it retained in the Church of England.

Thomas Sampson, D.D.

The other helper of Mr. Whittingham at Geneva was Thomas Sampson, D. D., born about 1517, and educated at Oxford. He was a stout Protestant and Puritan, and a very great scholar. In 1551, he became rector of Allhallows, Breadstreet, London; and next year Dean of Winchester. He continued a famous preacher of God’s Word, till the death of King Edward. After that, he was obliged to live in concealment; and at last, with great difficulty, escaped from his country. At Geneva he found the best of employments in aiding to perfect the Bible in English. On returning to England under the reign of Elizabeth, he was offered the bishopric of Norwich, and declined it from conscientious scruples. He was noted in the pulpit for his wonderful memory and fine elocution; and was for several years one of the most popular court-preachers. In 1560, he became Dean of Christ Church, Oxford. The numerous men distinguished for their learning, and who were connected with that College, thus speak of him, in a letter soliciting his appointment,—“After well considering all the learned men in the land, they found none to be compared to him for singular learning and great piety, having the praise of all men. And it is very doubtful whether there is a better man, a greater linguist, a more complete scholar, a more profound divine.” In 1564, he was arraigned for non-conformity before the odious High Commission Court, and deprived of his office, and confined. It was not without much trouble, that he procured his release. He was made Prebendary of Pancras in St. Paul’s Cathedral in 1570. In 1573, having suffered some from a paralytic affection, he was appointed to the mastership of the Hospital at Leicester, a position of influence, where he made himself very useful for sixteen years, till his death in 1589, at the age of seventy-two.

It is evident that these three companions in exile were abundantly qualified for the work of revising the translation, and publishing what for nearly eighty years was the favorite household Bible of the English nation. It was a wonderful providence of God, which drove those learned exiles abroad to give them the opportunity for making this improved translation, and prepared the way for its free introduction among the English people as soon as it was ready. Thus the persecution of the Scriptures, like that

“Vaulting ambition which o’erleaps itself.
And falls on th’ other side,”

defeats its own object, and helps on what it would have destroyed. Haman, while pursuing in his pride the destruction of the whole Jewish race, was elevated at least “fifty cubits” higher than he had ever thought or dreamt of!

Queen Elizabeth

During the reign of Elizabeth, “whose inclinations,” says Coleridge. “were as popish as her interests were protestant,” the printing of English Bibles went on, at first, more by connivance than by royal approbation. Soon after she began to reign, a gentleman somewhat publicly said to her, that she had released many persons from undeserved confinement, but that there were still four prisoners of most excellent character, who craved liberation. On her asking who they were, the courtier replied, that they were the holy Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; and he craved that they might have leave to walk abroad as formerly in the English tongue. To this the politic spinster replied, that she “would first know the minds of the prisoners, whether they desired any such liberty.” But though the sovereign refrained from committing herself at the outset, the year 1561 had not expired, before new editions of the four versions of Tyndale, Coverdale, Crammer, and the Geneva exiles, were in free circulation.

Parker’s or the Bishop’s Bible

It was in 1568, when Elizabeth had been queen for ten years, that the “Bishop’s Bible” was published under the supervision of Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury. This text was most carefully revised by fifteen very learned men, the majority of whom were bishops; and hence the name of the work. As each of these divines completed his share, the Archbishop gave to their labors a final revision. Thus the translation was still further perfected. This first imprint was the most splendid that had ever been issued. It is a magnificent folio, and contains nearly a hundred and fifty engravings. It has long been supposed that this revision was undertaken at the queen’s command; but such was not the case. It was eight times printed before the death of Parker in 1775; but was not appointed, like Cranmer’s Bible, “to be read in churches.”

Up to this time, the Geneva Bible had been repeatedly printed on the continent, and mostly at Geneva itself; but not in England. Yet this was decidedly the people’s Bible, and enjoyed the popular preference for domestic use. From that time, almost all the Bibles, for more than thirty-five years, were issued from the press of the Barkers, father and son; whereas previously it had afforded employment to a large number of different printers. While Elizabeth, “the throned vestal,” was in all her glory, not less than one hundred and thirty different editions of the Bible and Testament were issued; eighty-five of them being of the Bible, and forty-five of the Testament. Of these editions ninety, or more than two-thirds, were of the Geneva version. Of the eighty-five issues of the entire Bible, sixty were of this latter version. The sale of so many copies, and at tenfold higher prices than are paid now, was a “sign of the times,” and evinced the growing eagerness of the nation for the precious Book of God.

Hampton Court Conference

When James I. succeeded to the kingdom in 1603, they who desired a thorough reformation in the Church of England, and against whom the terrible Elizabeth had ever “erected her lionport,” then indulged high hopes of obtaining their desires. His Presbyterian education, and the hypocritical professions he had made with real Stuart perfidy, had raised their hopes only to dash them more cruelly to the dust. He soon gave them to understand, that, in his view, “presbytery and monarchy agreed together as well as God and the devil:” and loudly proclaimed his famous maxim of king-craft,—“No bishop, no king!” As he entered his new realm of England, he received what was called the “millenary petition,” because it purported to bear the names of about a thousand ministers, though the exact number of signers is not known. The petition craved reformation of sundry abuses in the worship, ministry, revenues, and discipline of the national Church. The Universities uttered their remonstrances against this petition. The king, who was eminently qualified to perform the leading part in “the royal game of Goose,” undertook to settle the business at a conference between the parties, at which he was to moderate and decide. He sent out a proclamation, “touching a meeting for the hearing, and for the determining, things pretended to be amiss in the Church.” This conference was held at Hampton Court, on the 14th, 16th, and 18th days of January, 1604. On the part of the Puritans, the king summoned four of their divines, selected by himself. To match them, he called nine bishops, as many cathedral clergymen, and four divinity professors from Cambridge and Oxford. It soon became manifest, that the only object of the meeting was to give the king an opportunity to declare his bitter hostility to the Puritans, who were brow-beaten, insulted, and trampled upon by the tyrant and his ghostly minions. The Puritans were confuted, “as bitter bishop Bale” said on another occasion, “with seven solid arguments, thus reckoned up, Authority, Violence, Craft, Fraud, Intimidation, Terror and Tyranny.”[11] The monarch roundly declared that he would “harry out of the land” all who would not conform their consciences to his dictation.

One good result, however, came from this “mock conference,” as it was usually called by the oppressed Puritans. Among other of their demands, Dr. Reynolds, who was the chief speaker in their behalf, requested that there might be a new translation of the Bible, without note or comment. In an account of the proceedings, given by Patrick Galloway, one of the King’s Scotch chaplains, who was present, and whose account was corrected by the king’s own hand, it is set forth as the second of the articles noted among things to be reformed, and presented by Reynolds,—“That a translation be made of the whole Bible, as consonant as can be to the original Hebrew and Greek; and this to be set out and printed, without any marginal notes, and only to be used in all churches of England, in time of divine service,” To this demand the King acceded; but it was not till nearly six months after the Hampton Court Conference, that the selection of scholars to undertake the work was made. Their labors began soon after, and the first revision of the sacred text by the whole company occupied about four years. The second revision, by a committee of twelve of them, took up nine months more. The sheets were then some two years in passing through the press; and the new and immortal version was finished and published n 1611, after seven years of most thorough and careful preparation.

King James’s Version Printed

Thus it came to pass, that the English Bible received its present form, after a fivefold revision of the translation as it was left in 1537 by Tyndale and Rogers. During this interval of seventy-four years, it had been slowly ripening, till this last, most elaborate, and thorough revision under King James matured the work for coming centuries. It is a very great advantage, that the work, which was well done at first, had the benefit of this accumulated labor and pious care bestowed upon it by so many zealous and erudite scholars in long succession. To this is to be ascribed much of its intrinsic excellence and lasting popularity. Its origin and history so strongly commended it, that it speedily came into general use as the standard version, by the common consent of the English people; and required no act of parliament nor royal proclamation to establish its authority.[12] Some of the older versions continued to be reprinted for forty years; but no long time elapsed ere the common version quietly and exclusively occupied the field. Who believes it possible that another translation can be produced in our time, which shall command the like acceptance; and without strife or controversy, take, among the English-speaking population of the globe, the place now held by our venerable version?

Made in Good Time

This translation was completed at a fortunate time. The English language had passed through many and great changes, and had at last reached the very height of its purity and strength. The Bible has ever since been the grand English classic. It is still the noblest monument of the power of the English speech. It is the pattern and standard of excellence therein. It is the most full and refreshing of all the “wells of English undefiled.” It has given a fixed character to our language. It is as intelligible now as when it was first imprinted; and will be as easily understood by readers of coming centuries as by those of the past and the present. It is singularly free from what used to be called “ink-horn terms;” that is, such words as are more used in writing than in speaking, and are not well understood except by scholars. “In the church, among the congregation,” says Luther, “we ought to speak as we use at home, in the house,—the plain mother-tongue, which every one understandeth and is acquainted withal.”

That King James’s scholars wisely clave to the language of the cottage and the market-place, appears by what Thomas Fuller wrote of Nottinghamshire in 1662; “The language of the common people is generally the best of any shire in England. A proof whereof, when a boy, I received from a hand-laboring man therein, which since hath convinced my judgment. ‘We speak, I believe,’ said he, ‘as good English as any shire in England; because, though in the singing-Psalms some words are used to make the metre, unknown to us, yet the last translation of the Bible, which no doubt was done by those learned men in the best English, agreeth perfectly with the common speech of our county.’” Thus we came to have a version as easy of comprehension as the nature of the case will admit. It is the most precious boon possessed by the vast masses, to whom it speaks “in their own tongue the wonderful works of God.” Well does the Translators’ Preface speak of God’s Sacred Word as “that inestimable treasure which excelleth all the riches of the earth.” And well was it said of them by that same Thomas Fuller; “These, with Jacob, rolled away the stone from the mouth of the well of life; so that now even Rachels, weak women, may freely come, both to drink themselves, and water the flocks of their families at the same.”

Competency of the Translators

But were those ancient scholars competent to make their translation correct, as well as plain?

This is a question of the utmost importance in estimating the value of their work, and the degree of confidence to which it is entitled among readers who cannot examine for themselves the original tongues of the inspired writers. It is, therefore, the principal object of this little volume to present brief biographical sketches of our Translators. By showing who were the men, and what were their qualifications for their work, we shall best enable the common reader to decide for himself, how far he may depend upon their ability and fidelity. Considering the boundless circulation and unapproachable popularity of their work, it seems most strange that no person, up to this time,—not even in the mother-country,—has attempted to do this, except in the most slight and compendious manner.

As to the capability of those men, we may say again, that, by the good providence of God, their work was undertaken in a fortunate time. Not only had the English language, that singular compound, then ripened to its full perfection, but the study of Greek, and of the oriental tongues, and of rabbinical lore, had then been carried to a greater extent in England than ever before or since. This particular field of learning has never been so highly cultivated among English divines as it was at that day. To evince this fact, so far as necessary limits will admit, it will be requisite to sketch the characters and scholarship of those men, who have made all coming ages their debtors. When this pleasing task is done, it is confidently expected that the reader of these pages will yield to the conviction, that all the colleges of Great Britain and America, even in this proud day of boastings, could not bring together the same number of divines equally qualified by learning and piety for the great undertaking. Few indeed are the living names worthy to be enrolled with those mighty men. It would be impossible to convene out of anyone Christian denomination, or out of all, a body of translators, on whom the whole Christian community would bestow such confidence as is reposed upon that illustrious company, or who would prove themselves as deserving of such confidence. Very many self-styled “improved versions” of the Bible, or of parts of it, have been paraded before the world, but the religious public has doomed them all, without exception, to utter neglect.

Not that absolute perfection is claimed for our common English Bible. But this blessed book is so far complete and exact, that the unlearned reader, being of ordinary intelligence, may enjoy the delightful assurance, that, if he study it in faith and prayer, and give himself up to its teachings, he shall not be confounded or misled as to any matter essential to his salvation and his spiritual food. It will as safely guide him into all the things needful for faith and practice, as would the original Scriptures, if he could read them, or if they could speak to him as erst they spake to the Hebrew in Jerusalem, or to the Greek in Corinth. Nor is this any disparagement of the benefits of a critical knowledge of the original tongues. For while a good translation is the best commentary on the original Scriptures, the originals themselves are the best commentary on the translation. Passages somewhat obscure in the translation often become very plain when we recur to the original, because we then distinctly see what it was that the translators meant to say.[13] To one who can readily understand both, the original must, in the nature of the case, always be the easier of the two; just as it is easier for a man to walk by the sight of his own eyes, than by the guidance of another man’s eyes. It is only maintained, that the common English reader enjoys, by the good providence of God, that which comes the nearest to the privilege of the classical scholar; and has a translation so exact, plain, and trustworthy, that he may follow it with implicit confidence as “a light to his feet and a lamp to his paths.”

Their Mode of Procedure and Rules

The King was for appointing fifty-four learned men to this great and good work; but the number actually employed upon it, in the first instance, was forty-seven. Order was also taken, that the bishops, in their several dioceses, should find what men of learning there were, who might be able to assist; and the bishops were to write to them, earnestly charging them, at the king’s desire, to send in their suggestions and critical observations, that so, as his Majesty remarks, “our said intended translation may have the help and furtherance of all our principal learned men within this our kingdom.”

Seventeen of the translators were to work at Westminster, fifteen at Cambridge, and as many at Oxford. Those who met at each place were divided into two companies; so that there were, in all, six distinct companies of translators. They received a set of rules for their direction. The first instructed them to make the “Bishop’s Bible,” so called, the basis of their work, altering it no further than fidelity to the originals required. In the result, however, the new version agreed much more with the Geneva than with any other; though the huffing king, at the Hampton Court Conference, reproached it as “the worst of all.” The second rule requires that the mode then used of spelling the proper names should be retained as far as might be. The third rule requires “the old ecclesiastical words to be kept,” such as “church” instead of “congregation.” The fourth rule prescribes, that where a word has different meanings, that is to be preferred which has the general sanction of the most ancient Fathers, regard being had to “the propriety of the place, and the analogy of faith.” The fifth rule directs that the divisions into chapters be altered as little as may be. The sixth rule, agreeably to Dr. Reynolds’s wise suggestion at Hampton Court, prohibits all notes or comments, thus obliging the translators to make their version intelligible without those dangerous helps. The seventh rule provides for marginal references to parallel or explanatory passages. The eighth rule enjoins that each man in each company shall separately examine the same chapter or chapters, and put the translation into the best shape he can. The whole company must then come together, and compare what they have done, and agree on what shall stand. Thus in each company, according to the number of members, there would be from seven to ten distinct and carefully labored revisions, the whole to be compared, and digested into one copy of the portion of the Bible assigned to each particular company. The ninth rule directs, that as fast as any company shall, in this manner, complete anyone of the sacred books, it is to be sent to each of the other companies, to be critically reviewed by them all. The tenth rule prescribes, that if any company, upon reviewing a book so sent to them, find anything doubtful or unsatisfactory, they are to note the places, and their reasons for objecting thereto, and send it back to the company from whence it came. If that company should not concur in the suggestions thus made, the matter was to be finally arranged at a general meeting of the chief persons of all the companies at the end of the work. Thus every part of the Bible would be fully considered, first, separately, by each member of the company to which it was originally assigned; secondly, by that whole company in concert; thirdly, by the other five companies severally; and fourthly, by the general committee of revision. By this judicious plan, each part must have been closely scrutinized at least fourteen times. The eleventh rule provides, that in case of any special difficulty or obscurity, letters shall be issued by authority to any learned man in the land, calling for his judgment thereon. The twelfth rule requires every bishop to notify the clergy of his diocese as to the work in hand, and to “move and charge as many as, being skilful in the tongues, have taken pains in that kind, to send his particular observations” to some one of the companies. The thirteenth rule appoints the directors of the different companies. The fourteenth rule names five other translations to be used, “when they agree better with the text than the Bishop’s Bible.” These are Tyndale’s;—Matthew’s, which is by Tyndale and John Rogers;—Coverdale’s;—Whitchurch’s, which is “Cranmer’s,” or the “Great Bible,” and was printed by Whitchurch;—and the Geneva Bible. The object of this regulation was to avoid, as far as possible, the suspicious stamp of novelty. To the careful observance of these injunctions, which, with the exception of the first five, are highly judicious, is to be ascribed much of the excellence of the completed translation.

To these rules, which were delivered to the Translators, there appears to have been added another, providing that, besides the directors of the six companies, “three or four of the most ancient and grave divines in either of the Universities, not employed in translating,” be designated by the Vice-Chancellors and Heads of Colleges, “to be overseers of the Translation, as well Hebrew as Greek, for the better observation of the fourth rule.”

The learned Selden says, that when the Translators met to compare what they had done, each of them held in his hand a Bible in some language. If anything struck anyone as requiring alteration, he spoke; otherwise the reading went on. The final revision was made, not by six men, as the tenth of the above rules would seem to indicate, but by twelve. At least, such was the statement made in the Synod of Dort in 1618, by Dr. Samuel Ward, who was one of the most active of the Translators. It seems to have been carried through the press by Dr. Miles Smith and Bishop Bilson, aided perhaps by Archbishop Bancroft and other prelates. All the expense of making and printing the translation was defrayed by Robert Barker, “Printer to the King’s most Excellent Majestie.” The copyright thus cost him three thousand five hundred pounds; and his heirs and assigns retained their privilege down to the year 1709. For two hundred and forty years and more, God has been speaking by this precious volume to the multitudes of the Anglo-Saxon race. Popery, apparently believing that ignorance is the mother of devotion, and especially ignorance of the Word of God, would fain have supplanted it by priestly inventions and monkish corruptions.

“But to outweigh, all harm, the Sacred Book,
In dusty sequestration wrapt too long,
Assumes the accents of our native tongue;
And he who guides the plow, or wields the crook,
With, understanding spirit now may look
Upon her records, listen to her song,
And sift her laws,—much wondering that the wrong,
Which, faith has suffered, Heaven could calmly brook,
Transcendant boon! noblest that earthly king
Ever bestowed to equalize and bless
Under the weight of mortal wretchedness.”

The printing of the English Bible has proved to be by far the mightiest barrier ever reared to repel the advance of Popery, and to damage all the resources of the Papacy. Originally intended for the five or six millions who dwelt within the narrow limits of the British Islands, it at once formed and fixed their language, till then unsettled; and has since gone with that language to the isles and shores of every sea. “And now, during the lapse of almost two and a half centuries, it has gladdened the hearts, and still gladdens the hearts of millions upon millions, not only in Great Britain, but throughout North America and the Indies, in portions of Africa, and in Australia. At the present day, the English is probably the vernacular tongue of more millions than of any other one language under heaven; and the English Bible has brought and still brings home the knowledge of God’s revealed truth to myriads more of minds than ever received it through the original tongues. The Translators little foresaw the vast results and immeasurable influence of what they had thus done, both for time and for eternity. Venerated men! their very names are now hardly known to more than a few persons; yet, in the providence of God, the fruits of their labors have spread to far distant climes; have laid broad and deep the foundations of mighty empires; have afforded to multitudes strength to endure adversity, and grace to resist the temptations of prosperity; and only the revelations of the judgment day can disclose how many millions and millions, through the instrumentality of their labors, have been made wise unto salvation.[14]

Surely it is time, that the names of these “venerated men” were rescued from such unjust oblivion; and that at least some considerable part of those who have received such incalculable benefits at their hands, should know to whom they are so deeply indebted. The sensation of gratitude is one of pleasure; and it is hoped that this little book may serve to awaken it in many a bosom, both toward the men who wrought so good a work, “and made all coming ages their own,”—and toward Him who gave them their skill, and the opportunity to exert it in thus widely diffusing his saving truth.

1. See Neander, Denkwürdigkeiten, etc., III. 171—175; and Fuller, Church History, I. 149—151.

2. This noble passage from a favorite author, Wordsworth has finely versified in one of his Ecclesiastical Sonnets:
“As thou these ashes, little brook, wilt bear
Into the Avon, Avon to the tide
Of Severn, Severn to the narrow seas,
Into main Ocean they, this deed accurst
An emblem yields to friends and enemies,
How the bold Teacher’s doctrine, sanctified
By Truth, shall spread throughout the world dispersed.”

3. Summum et postremum donum.

4. Darwin’s Zoonomia, I. 51.

5. Fuller’s Church History of Britain, I. 467.

6. Those who would know all they can of Tyndale are referred to the First Volume of Anderson’s Annals of the English Bible, which might have been entitled, Tyndale and his Times.

7. In 1559, after Mary’s miserable death, Coverdale returned to England; but being now a zealous nonconformist, he repeatedly refused to resume his bishopric. He continued to preach, in a somewhat private way, as long as he lived; and died most happily, February, 1569, in the eighty-first year of his age, much venerated for his virtues, labors, and sufferings, and regarded as a “firebrand plucked out of the burning.”

8. Calvinus is the Latin, form of the French name Chauvin.

9. One of the old Protestant ministers preached a funeral sermon for her, on the text,—“Go, see now this cursed woman, and, bury her; for she is a king’s daughter.” 2 Ki. 9:34. When he was called in question for it, it was decided that the text was the most objectionable part of the sermon!

10. Thomas Sternhold, John Hopkins, and Thomas Norton, who with William Whittingham prepared the Psalms in metre, were all strongly puritanical men, and eminent in their day.

11. In the nervous Latin of the crabbed ex-bishop of Ossory, the arguments run thus; Authoritate, Vi, Arte, Fraude, Metu, Terrore et Tyrannide.

12. Says Dr. Lee, Principal of the University of Edinburgh; “I do not find that there was any canon, proclamation, or act of parliament, to enforce the use of it.” “The present version,” says Dr. Symonds, as quoted in Anderson’s Annals, “appears to have made its way, without the interposition of any authority whatsoever; for it is not easy to discover any traces of a proclamation, canon or statute published to enforce the use of it.” It has been lately ascertained, that neither the king’s private purse, nor the public exchecker, contributed a farthing toward the expense of the translation or publication of the work.

13. Take an instance from Isaiah 5:18. “Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart-rope.” From the last member of this parallelism has arisen the absurd proverb for a high-handed transgressor,—“He sinned with a cart-rope!” On recurring to the Hebrew, we find that “sin” is not a verb but a noun, standing in apposition with “draw,” as iniquity does in the preceding clause. So that the full expression of the last clause would be,—” and that draw sin as it were with a cart-rope,“—thus drudging in the harness of sin.

14. Report of the Committee on Versions, made to the Board of Managers of the American Bible Society, and adopted May 1st, 1851.

The Translators Revived

Having thus traced the history of our Common Version, through the successive steps by which it has come down to us in its present shape, it remains for us to inquire as to the persons who put the finishing hand to the work, and to satisfy ourselves as to their qualifications for the task. It is obvious that this personal investigation is of the utmost importance in settling the degree of confidence to which their labors are entitled. Unless it can be proved that they were, as a body, eminently fitted to do this work as it ought to be done, it can have no claim to be regarded as a “finality” in the matter of furnishing a translation of the Word of God for the English speaking populations of the globe.

It is exceedingly strange that a question of such obvious importance has been so long left almost unnoticed. Numerous histories of the Translation itself have been drawn up with great labor; but no man seems to have thought it worth his while to give any account of the Translators, except the most meager notices of a few of them, and general attestations to their reputations, in their own time, for such scholarship and skill as their undertaking required. Even the late excellent Christopher Anderson, in his huge volumes, replete as they are with research and information upon the minutest points relating to his subject, allots but a page or two of his smallest type to this essential branch of it.

It is nearly twenty years since the writer of these pages began to consider the desirableness of knowing more of those eminent divines, and he has ever since pursued a zealous search wherever he was likely to effect any “restitution of decayed intelligence” respecting them. At first, he almost despaired of ascertaining much more than the bare names of most of them. But by degrees he has collected innumerable scraps of information, gathered from a great variety of sources; amply sufficient, with due arrangement, to illustrate the subject. His object is simply to shew, that the Translators commissioned by James Stuart were ripe and critical scholars, profoundly versed in all the learning required; and that, in these particulars, there has never yet been a time when a better qualified company could have been collected for the purpose.

Of the forty-seven, who acted under king James’s commission, some are almost unknown at this day, though of high repute in their own time. A few have left us but little more than their names, worthy of immortal remembrance, were it only for their connection with this noble monument of learning and piety. But their being associated with so many other scholars and divines of the greatest eminence, is proof that they were deemed to be fit companions for the brightest lights of the land. This is confirmed by the fact that, though the king designed to employ in this work the highest and ripest talents in his realm, there were still many men in England distinguished for their learning, like Broughton and Bedell, who were not enrolled on the list of translators. It is but just to conclude, therefore, that even such as are now less known to us, were then accounted to deserve a place with the best. What we may know of the greater part of them, must lead to the highest estimate of the whole body of these good men. The catalogue begins with one whose name is worthy of the place it fills.

The First Company

Lancelot Andrews, D.D.

He was born at London, in 1565. He was trained chiefly at Merchant Taylor’s school, in his native city, till he was appointed to one of the first Greek Scholarships of Pembroke Hall, in the University of Cambridge. Once a year, at Easter, he used to pass a month with his parents. During this vacation, he would find a master, from whom he learned some language to which he was before a stranger. In this way after a few years, he acquired most of the modern languages of Europe. At the University, he gave himself chiefly to the Oriental tongues and to divinity. When he became candidate for a fellowship, there was but one vacancy; and he had a powerful competitor in Dr. Dove, who was afterwards Bishop of Peterborough. After long and severe examination, the matter was decided in favor of Andrews. But Dove, though vanquished, proved himself in this trial so fine a scholar, that the College, unwilling to lose him, appointed him as a sort of supernumerary Fellow. Andrews also received a complimentary appointment as Fellow of Jesus College, in the University of Oxford. In his own College, he was made a catechist; that is to say, a lecturer in divinity.

His conspicuous talents soon gained him powerful patrons. Henry, Earl of Huntingdon, took him into the North of England; where he was the means of converting many papists by his preaching and disputations. He was also warmly befriended by Sir Francis Walsingham, Secretary of State to Queen Elizabeth. He was made parson of Alton, in Hampshire; and then Vicar of St. Giles, in London. He was afterwards made Prebendary and Canon Residentiary of St. Paul’s, and also of the Collegiate Church of Southwark. He lectured on divinity at St. Paul’s three times each week. On the death of Dr. Fulke, in 1589, Dr. Andrews, though so young, was chosen Master of Pembroke Hall, where he had received his education. While at the head of this College, he was one of its principal benefactors. It was rather poor at that time, but by his efforts its endowments were much increased; and at his death, many years later, he bequeathed to it, besides some plate, three hundred folio volumes, and a thousand pounds to found two fellowships.

He gave up his Mastership to become chaplain in ordinary to Queen Elizabeth, who delighted in his preaching, and made him Prebendary of Westminster, and afterwards Dean of that famous church. In the matter of Church dignities and preferments, he was highly favored. It was while he held the office of Dean of Westminster, that Dr. Andrews was made director, or president, of the first company of Translators, composed of ten members, who held their meetings at Westminster. The portion assigned to them was the five books of Moses, and the historical books to the end of the Second Book of Kings. Perhaps no part of the work is better executed than this.

With King James, Dr. Andrews stood in still higher favor than he had done with Elizabeth. The “royal pedant” had published a “Defense of the Rights of Kings,” in opposition to the arrogant claims of the Popes. He was answered most bitterly by the celebrated Cardinal Bellarmine. The King set Dr. Andrews to refute the Cardinal; which he did in a learned and spirited quarto, highly commended by Casaubon. To that quarto, the Cardinal made no reply. For this service, the King rewarded his champion, by making him Bishop of Chichester; to which office Dr. Andrews was consecrated, November 3d, 1605. This was soon after his appointment to be one of the Translators of the Bible. He accepted the bishopric with great humility, having already refused that dignity more than once. The motto graven on his episcopal seal was the solemn exclamation,—“And who is sufficient for these things!” At this time he was also made Lord Almoner to the King, a place of great trust, in which he proved himself faithful and uncorrupt. In September, 1609, he was transferred to the bishopric of Ely; and was called to his Majesty’s privy council. In February, 1618, he was translated to the bishopric of Winchester; which if less dignified than the archiepiscopal see of Canterbury, was then much more richly endowed; so that it used to be said,—“Canterbury is the higher rack, but Winchester is the better manger.” At the time of this last preferment Dr. Andrews was appointed Dean of the King’s chapel; and these stations he retained till his death.

In the high offices Bishop Andrews filled, he conducted himself with great ability and integrity. The crack-brained king, who scarce knew now to restrain his profaneness and levity under the most serious circumstances, was overawed by the gravity of this prelate, and desisted from mirth and frivolity in his presence. And yet the good bishop knew how to be facetious on occasion. Edmund Waller, the poet, tells of being once at court, and overhearing a conversation held by the king with Bishop Andrews, and Bishop Neile, of Durham. The monarch, who was always a jealous stickler for his prerogatives, and something more, was in those days trying to raise a revenue without parliamentary authority. In these measures, so clearly unconstitutional, he was opposed by Bishop Andrews with dignity and decision. Waller says, the king asked this brace of bishops,—“My lords, cannot I take my subject’s money when I want it, without all this formality in parliament?” The Bishop of Durham, one of the meanest of sycophants to his prince, and a harsh and haughty oppressor of his puritan clergy, made ready answer,—“God forbid, Sir, but you should; you are the breath of our nostrils!” Upon this the king looked at the Bishop of Winchester,—“Well, my lord, what say you?” Dr. Andrews replied evasively,—“Sir, I have no skill to judge of parliamentary matters.” But the king persisted,—“No put offs, my lord! answer me presently.” “Then,- Sir,” said the shrewd Bishop, “I think it lawful for you to take my brother Neile’s money, for he offers it.” Even the petulant king was hugely pleased with this piece of pleasantry, which gave great amusement to his cringing courtiers.

“For the benefit of the afflicted,” as the advertisements have it, we give a little incident which may afford a useful hint to some that need it. While Dr. Andrews was one of the divines at Cambridge, he was applied to by a worthy alderman of that drowsy city, who was beset by the sorry habit of sleeping under the afternoon sermon; and who, to his great mortification, had been publicly rebuked by the minister of the parish. As snuff had not then came into vogue, Dr. Andrews did not advise, as some matter-of-fact persons have done in such cases, to titillate the “sneezer” with a rousing pinch. He seems to have been of the opinion of the famous Dr. Romaine, who once told his full-fed congregation in London, that it was hard work to preach to two pounds of beef and a pot of porter. So Dr. Andrews advised his civic friend to help his wakefulness by dining very sparingly. The advice was followed; but without avail. Again the rotund dignitary slumbered and slept in his pew; and again was he roused by the harsh rebukes of the irritated preacher. With tears in those too sleepy eyes of his, the mortified alderman repaired to Dr. Andrews, begging for further counsel. The considerate divine, pitying his infirmity, recommended to him to dine as usual, and then to take his nap before repairing to his pew. This plan was adopted; and to the next discourse, which was a violent invective prepared for the very purpose of castigating the alderman’s somnolent habit, he listened with unwinking eyes, and his uncommon vigilance gave quite a ridiculous air to the whole business. The unhappy parson was nearly as much vexed at his huge-waisted parishioner’s unwonted wakefulness, as before at his unseemly dozing.

Bishop Andrews continued in high esteem with Charles I.; and that most culpable of monarchs, whose only redeeming quality was the strength and tenderness of his domestic affections, in his dying advice to his children, advised them to study the writings of three divines, of whom our Translator was one.

Lancelot Andrews died at Winchester House, in Southwark, London, September 25th, 1626, aged sixty-one years. He was buried in the Church of St. Saviour, where a fair monument marks the spot. Having never married, he bequeathed his property to benevolent uses. John Milton, then but a youth, wrote a glowing Latin elegy on his death.

As a preacher, Bishop Andrews was right famous in his day. He was called the “star of preachers.” Thomas Fuller says that he was “an inimitable preacher in his way; and such plagiarists as have stolen his sermons could never steal his preaching, and could make nothing of that, whereof he made all things as he desired.” Pious and pleasant Bishop Felton, his contemporary and colleague, endeavored in vain in his sermons to assimilate to his style, and therefore said merrily of himself,—“I had almost marred my own natural trot by endeavoring to imitate his artificial amble.” Let this be a warning to all who would fain play the monkey, and especially to such as would ape the eccentricities of genius. Nor is it desirable that Bishop Andrews’ style should be imitated even successfully; for it abounds in quips, quirks, and puns, according to the false taste of his time. Few writers are “so happy as to treat on matters which must always interest, and to do it in a manner which shall for ever please.” To build up a solid literary reputation, taste and judgment in composition are as necessary as learning and strength of thought. The once admired folios of Bishop Andrews have long been doomed to the dusty dignity of the lower shelf in the library.

Many hours he spent each day in private and family devotions; and there were some who used to desire that “they might end their days in Bishop Andrews’s chapel.” He was one in whom was proved the truth of Luther’s saying, that “to have prayed well, is to have studied well.” His manual for his private devotions, prepared by himself, is wholly in the Greek language. It has been translated and printed. This praying prelate also abounded in alms-giving; usually sending his benefactions in private, as from a friend who chose to remain unknown. He was exceedingly liberal in his gifts to poor and deserving scholars. His own instructors he held in the highest reverence. His old schoolmaster Mulcaster always sat at the upper end of the episcopal table; and when the venerable pedagogue was dead, his portrait was placed over the bishop’s study door. These were just tokens of respect;

“For if the scholar to such height did reach,
Then what was he who did that scholar teach?”

This worthy diocesan was much “given to hospitality,” and especially to literary strangers. So bountiful was his cheer, that it used to be said,—“My lord of Winchester keeps Christmas all the year round.” He once spent three thousand pounds in three days, though “in this we praise him not,” in entertaining King James at Farnham Castle. His society was as much sought, however, for the charm of his rich and instructive conversation, as for his liberal housekeeping and his exalted stations.

But we are chiefly concerned to know what were his qualifications as a Translator of the Bible. He ever bore the character of “a right godly man,” and “a prodigious student.” One competent judge speaks of him as “that great gulf of learning!” It was also said, that “the world wanted learning to know how learned this man was.” And a brave old chronicler remarks, that, such was his skill in all languages, especially the Oriental, that, had he been present at the confusion of tongues at Babel, he might have served as Interpreter-General! In his funeral sermon by Dr. Buckeridge, Bishop of Rochester, it is said that Dr. Andrews was conversant with fifteen languages.

John Overall, D.D.

This divine is the next on the list of those good men, of whom the marginal comment in the Popish translation says,—“They will be abhorred in the depths of hell!” They may be abhorred there, bnt, after a while no where else. He was born in 1559, at Hadley, and was bred in the free school at that place. He lived through the whole of that happy period, which many, beside the bard of Rydal Mount, regard as the best days of old England,

“When faith and hope were in their prime,
In great Eliza’s golden time.”

In due season, he was entered as a scholar at St. John’s College, Cambridge. He was next chosen Fellow of Trinity College, in the same University. In 1596, he was made King’s Professor of Divinity; and at the same time took his doctor’s degree, being about thirty-seven years of age. It is noted of this eminent theologian by Bishop Hacket, that it was his custom to ground his theses in the schools on two or three texts of Scripture, shewing what latitude of opinion or interpretation was admissible upon the point in hand. He was celebrated for the appropriateness of his quotations from the Fathers. He was soon after made Master of Catharine Hall very much against his will. To end a bitter contention in regard to two rival candidates, he was elected, if election it could be called, under the Queen’s absolute mandate. When Archbishop Whitgift wished the new Master “joy of his place,” the latter replied that it was “terminus diminuens;” which is Latin for “an Irish promotion,” or a “hoist down hill.” But his Grace, in the true spirit of a courtier “all of the olden time,” told the dissatisfied Professor, that “if the injuries, much more the less courtesies, of princes must be thankfully taken, as the ushers to make way for greater favors.” These appointments must be taken as full proof of Dr. Overall’s superior scholarship in that learned age, when such preferments were only won by dint of the severest application to study.

In 1601, on the recommendation of Lord Brooke, that noble friend and patron of men of learning and genius, Dr. Overall was made Dean of St. Paul’s, in London. It may be doubted whether this studious recluse, absorbed in deep studies, shone with his brightest lustre in the pulpit. “Being appointed,” says Thomas Fuller, “to preach before the Queen, he professed to my father, who was most intimate with him, that he had spoken Latin so long, it was troublesome to him to speak English in a continued oration.”

Soon after the throne was filled by James the First, whom that accomplished statesman, the Duke of Sully, called “the most learned fool in Europe,” the Convocation, or parliament of the clergy, came together. Dr. Overall was prolocutor, or speaker, of the lower house of Convocation. To this body he presented a volume of canons, the only book from his pen now extant. Its object was to vindicate the divine right of government. But though it was adopted by the Convocation, the King prevented the publication of the book at that time, because it taught, that when, after a revolution or conquest, a new government or dynasty was firmly established, this also, in its turn, could plead for itself a divine right, and could claim the obedience of the people as a matter of duty toward God. This “Convocation Book,” now so long forgotten, was printed many years after the death of “King Jamie;” and obtained some historical and political celebrity, because it had the very effect which was apprehended by the monarch who suppressed it.

For when his grandson, James the Second, was expelled from the soil and throne of England, many bishops and other clergymen, called “nonjurors,” refused through conscientious scruples, to swear allegiance to the new government of William and Mary. Bishop Sherlock and many others, who at first declined the oath, professed to be converted from that error by the reading of Dr. Overall’s book. But conversions so favorable to thrift are apt to be held in suspicion. Dr. Overall was the author of the questions and answers relating to the sacraments, which have been much admired, by the ablest judges of such matters, and which were subjoined to the Catechism of the Church of England, in the first year of James the First.

It was while he was Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral, that he was joined in the commission, the highest of his honors, for translating the Bible. Though long familiarity with other languages may have made him somewhat inapt for continuous public discourse in his mother-tongue, he was thereby the better fitted to discern the sense of the sacred original. He was styled by Camden “a prodigious learned man;” and is said by Fuller to have been “of a strong brain to improve his great reading.”

John Overall, who “carried superintendency in his surname,” was made Bishop of Litchfield and Coventry, in 1614. Four years later he was transferred to the see of Norwich, where, in a few months, he died, at the age of sixty years. This was in 1619. He frequently had in his mouth the words of the Psalmist,—“When thou with rebukes dost correct man for iniquity, thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth; surely every man is vanity.”

In his later years, he was unhappily inclined to Arminianism. He was a correspondent of Vossius and Grotius, and other famous scholars on the continent. He was greatly addicted to the scholastic theology, now so much decried. Since the days of Bacon the schoolmen have been much depreciated, because there was so little practical fruit of their studies. And yet there was something wonderful in the keenness and subtlety of their disputes; though it is lawful to smile at the excess of logical refinement which subdivided the stream of their genius into a ramification of rills, absorbed at last in the dry desert of metaphysics. One of them is highly praised by Cardan, “for that only one of his arguments was enough to puzzle all posterity; and that when he was grown old, he wept because he could not understand his own books.” We can conceive, however, that the refinement of the schoolmen as to precise definitions, and nicer shades of thought, might be a valuable quality in some, at least, of the company of Translators.

Hadrian Saravia, D.D.

This noted scholar was a Belgian by birth. His father was a Spaniard, his mother was a Belgian, and both were Protestants. He was born in 1530, at Hedin in Artois. Of his early life no notices have reached us. He was, for some years, a pastor both in Flanders and Holland. He was, in his principles, a terrible highchurchman; and seems, from his zeal for the divine right of episcopacy, to have had some trouble with his colleagues and the magistrates at Ghent, where he was one of the ministers in 1566. From that place he retired to England. He was sent by Queen Elizabeth’s Council as a sort of missionary to the islands of Guernsey and Jersey, where he was one of the first Protestant ministers; knowing, as he says of himself, in a letter, “which were the beginnings, and by what means and occasions the preaching of God’s word was planted there.” He labored there in a twofold capacity, doing the work of an evangelist, and conducting a newly established school, called Elizabeth College.

From his island-home, he was recalled to the continent by the Belgian churches, in 1577. He was invited to become Professor of Divinity at the University of Leyden, in 1582; and soon after was also made preacher of the French Church in that city. In 1587 he came to England with the Earl of Leicester, and became master of the grammar-school in Southampton, where, in the course of a few years, he trained many distinguished pupils.

His zeal for episcopacy led him to publish several Latin treatises against Beza, Danseus, and other Presbyterians. He also published a treatise on papal primacy against the Jesuit Gretser. All his publications relate to such matters, and were collected into a folio edition, in the year 1611. They are still highly praised by the “Oxford divines,” who have given occasion to Macauley to say, in his caustic style,—“The glory of being further behind the age than any other class of the British people, is one which that learned body acquired early, and has never lost.”

In 1590, Saravia was made Doctor of Divinity at Oxford, as had been done long before at the University of Leyden. He was made Prebendary of Gloucester next of Canterbury, in 1695; and then of Westminster in 1601. This last was his highest preferment. He added to it the rectorship of Great Chart, in Kent, some eight years after. He died at Canterbury, January 15th, 1612, aged eighty-two years. Thus his fluctuating life ended in a quiet old age, and a peaceful death.

He is said, by Anthony a-Wood, to have been “educated in all kinds of literature in his younger days, especially in several languages.” It was his fortune to find friends and patrons among the great. Archbishop Whitgift, that stern suppressor of Puritanism, held him in high esteem, and made great use of his aid in conducting his share in the controversies of the time. In particular the arch-prelate relied much on Dr. Saravia’s “Hebrew learning” in his contests with Hugh Broughton, that stiff Puritan, whom Lightfoot styles “the great Albionean divine, renowned in many nations for rare skill in Salem’s and Athen’s tongues, and familiar acquaintance with all Rabbinical learning.” Thus the Prebendary of Westminster was accustomed to cross swords with no mean adversaries; and was, no doubt, thoroughly furnished with the knowledge necessary for a Bible translator.

While Dr. Saravia was Prebendary of Canterbury, the famous Richard Hooker was parson of the village of Borne, about three miles distant. Between these worthies there sprang up a friendship, cemented by the agreement of their views and studies. Professor Keble says, that Saravia was Hooker’s “confidential adviser,” while the latter was preparing his celebrated books “Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity.” Old Izaak Walton gives the following beautiful picture of their Christian intimacy;—“These two excellent persons began a holy friendship, increasing daily to so high and mutual affections, that their two wills seemed to be but one and the same; and their designs, both for the glory of God, and peace of the church, still assisting and improving each other’s virtues, and the desired comforts of a peaceable piety.”

Richard Clarke, D.D.

Dr. Clarke is spoken of as a Fellow of Christ’s College, Cambridge; and as a very learned clergyman and eminent preacher. He was Vicar of Minster and Monkton in Thanet, and one of the six preachers of the cathedral church in Canterbury. He died in 1634. Three years after his death, a folio volume of his learned sermons was published. But alas for “folios” and “learned sermons” in these days. When people look on such a thing, they are ready to exclaim, like Robert Hall, at the sight of Dr. Gill’s voluminous Commentary,—“What a continent of mud!”

John Laifield, D.D.

Dr. Laifield was Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and Rector of the Church of St. Clement’s, Dane’s, in London. Of him it is said, “that being skilled in architecture, his judgment was much relied on for the fabric of the tabernacle and temple.” He died at his rectory in 1617. Few things are more difficult, than the giving of architectural details in such a manner as to be intelligible to the unprofessional reader.

Robert Tighe, D.D.

This name, in all the printed lists of the Translators, has been misspelled Leigh. It should be Teigh or Tighe.[1] Dr. Tighe was born at Deeping, Lincolnshire; and was educated partly at Oxford, and partly at Cambridge. He was Archdeacon of Middlesex and Vicar of the Church of All Hallows, Barking, London. He is characterized as “an excellent textuary and profound linguist.” Dr. Tighe died in 1620, leaving to his son an estate of one thousand pounds a year; which is worth mentioning because so rarely done by men of the clerical profession.

Francis Burleigh, D.D.

Dr. Burleigh, or Burghley, was made Vicar of Bishop’s Stortford in 1590, which benefice he held at the time of his appointment to the important service of this Bible translation.

Geoffry King.

Mr. King was Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge. It is a fair token of his fitness to take part in this translation-work, that he succeeded Mr. Spaulding, another of these Translators, as Regius Professor of Hebrew in that University. Men were not appointed in those days to such duties of instruction, with the expectation that they would qualify themselves after their induction into office.[2]

Richard Thompson.

Mr. Thompson, at the time of his appointment, was Fellow of Clare Hall, Cambridge. According to Wood he was “a Dutchman, born of English parents.” By the Presbyterian divines, he was called “the grand propagator of Arminianism.” Of the prelatic Arminians Coleridge too truly said, that “they emptied revelation of all the doctrines that can properly be said to have been revealed” If “sin be the greatest heresy,” as that class usually affirms, a more serious error imputed to Mr. Thompson is intemperance in his later years. As to his literary qualifications, he is described by the learned Richard Montague as “a most admirable philologer,” who was “better known in Italy, France, and Germany, than at home.”

William Bedwell.

Mr. Bedwell was educated at St. John’s College, Cambridge. He was Vicar of Tottenham High Cross, near London. He died at his vicarage, at the age of seventy, May 5th, 1632, justly reputed to have been “an eminent oriental scholar.”[3] He published in quarto an edition of the epistles of St. John in Arabic, with a Latin version, printed at the press of Raphelengius, at Antwerp, in 1612. He also left many Arabic manuscripts to the University of Cambridge, with numerous notes upon them, and a font of types for printing them. His fame for Arabic learning was so great, that when Erpenius, a most renowned Orientalist, resided in England, in 1606, he was much indebted to Bedwell for direction in his studies. To Bedwell, rather than to Erpenius, who commonly enjoys it, belongs the honor of being the first who considerably promoted and revived the study of the Arabic language and literature in Europe. He was also tutor to another Orientalist of renown, Dr. Pococke. For many years, Mr. Bedwell was engaged in preparing an Arabic Lexicon in three volumes; and went to Holland to examine the collections of Joseph Scaliger. But proceeding very slowly, from desire to make his work perfect as possible, Golius forestalled him, by the publication of a similar work.

After Bedwell’s death, the voluminous manuscripts of his lexicon were loaned by the University of Cambridge to aid in the compilation of Dr. Castell’s colossal work, the Lexicon Heptaglotton. Some modern scholars have fancied, that we have an advantage in our times over the translators of King James’s day, by reason of the greater attention which is supposed to be paid at present to what are called the “cognate” and “Shemitic” languages, and especially the Arabic, by which much light is thought to be reflected upon Hebrew words and phrases. It is evident, however, that Mr. Bedwell and others, among his fellow-laborers, were thoroughly conversant in this part of the broad field of sacred criticism.

Mr. Bedwell also commenced a Persian dictionary, which is among Archbishop Laud’s manuscripts, still preserved in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. In 1615, he published his book, “A Discovery of the Impostures of Mahomet and of the Koran.” To this was annexed his “Arabian Trudgeman.” Trudgeman or truchman is the word Dragoman in its older form, and is derived from a Chaldee word meaning interpreter. This Arabian Trudgeman is a most curious illustration of oriental etymology and history.

Dr. Bedwell had a fondness for mathematical studies. He invented a ruler for geometrical purposes, like what we call Gunter’s Scale, which went by the name of “Bedwell’s Ruler.”

This closes what we have to say of that first Westminster Company, of ten members, to whom was committed the historical books, beginning with Genesis and ending with the Second Book of Kings, once “commonly called,” as its title still says, “The Fourth Book of the Kings.”

1. See Le Neve’s Fast Eccles. Ang. P. 194. Also Wood’s Athene, who adds,—“linguist,” and “therefore employed in the Translation of the Bible.”

2. The late Professor Stuart was wont jocularly to say, that, when he was appointed Hebrew professor at Andover, all he knew of the language was, that ash’rai meant blessed, and ha-ish meant the man! Psalm 1:1.

3. He is spoken of in his epitaph, as being “for the Eastern tongues, as learned a man as most lived in these modern times.”

The Second Company

The second company of King James’s translators held its meetings in Cambridge. To this section of those learned divines, was assigned from the beginning of Chronicles to the end of “The Song of Songs, which is Solomon’s.” The eight men to whom this important part of the work was assigned, were no whit behind their associates, in fitness for their great undertaking.

Edward Lively.

He is commemorated as “one of the best linguists in the world.” He was a student, and afterwards a fellow, of Trinity College, Cambridge, and King’s Professor of Hebrew. He was actively employed in the preliminary arrangements for the Translation, and appears to have stood high in the confidence of the King. Much dependence was placed on his surpassing skill in the oriental tongues. But his death, which took place in May, 1605, disappointed all such expectations; and is said to have considerably retarded the commencement of the work. Some say that his death was hastened by his too close attention to the necessary preliminaries.

His stipend had been but small, and after many troubles, and the loss of his wife, the mother of a numerous family, he was well provided for by Dr. Barlow, that he might be enabled to devote himself to the business of the great Translation, He died of a quinsy, after four days’ illness, leaving eleven orphans, “destitute of necessaries for their maintenance, but only such as God, and good friends, should provide.” He was author of a Latin exposition of five of the minor Prophets, and of a work on chronology. Dr. Pusey, of Oxford, says, that Lively, “whom Pococke never mentions but with great respect, was probably, next to Pococke, the greatest of our Hebraists.”

John Richardson, D.D.

This profound divine was born at Linton, in Cambridgeshire. He was first Fellow of Emanuel College, then Master of Peterhouse from 1608 to 1615; and next Master of Trinity College. He was also King’s Professor of Divinity. He was chosen Vice-Chancellor of the University in 1617, and again in 1618. He died in 1625, and was buried in Trinity College Chapel. He left a bequest of one hundred pounds to Peterhouse.

He was noted as a “most excellent linguist,” as every good theologian must be; for, as Coleridge says, “language is the armory of the human mind; and at once contains the trophies of its past, and the weapons of its future conquests.”

In those days, it was the custom, at seats of learning, for the ablest men to hold public disputes, in the Latin tongue, with a view to display their skill in the weapons of logic, and “the dialectic fence.” As the ancient knights delighted to display and exercise their skill and strength in running at tilt, and amicably breaking spears with one another; so the great scholars used to cope with each other in the arena of public argument, and strive for literary “masteries.” Those scholastic tournaments were sure to be got up whenever the halls of science were visited by the king, or some chief magnate of the land; and the logical conflicts, always conducted in the Latin tongue, were attended with as much absorbing interest as were the shows of gladiators among the Romans.

On such an occasion, when James the First was visiting Cambridge, “an extraordinary act in divinity was kept for His Majesty’s entertainment. Dr. John Davenant, a famous man, and afterwards Bishop of Salisbury, was”respondent.” His business was to meet all comers, who might choose to assail the point he was to defend,—namely, that kings might never be excommunicated. Well did Dr. Davenant urge the wordy war, till our Dr. Richardson pushed him tremendously with the example of Ambrose, the famous Bishop of Milan, who, to the admiration of the whole Christian world, excommunicated the emperor Theodosius the Great. Here was a poser! King James, who was always very nervous on the subject of regal prerogative, saw that his champion was staggering under that stunning fact; and, to save him, cried out in a passion,— “Verily, this was a great piece of insolence on the part of Ambrose!”[1] To this, Dr. Richardson calmly rejoined,—“A truly royal response, and worthy of Alexander! This is cutting our knotty arguments, instead of untying them.”[2] And so taking his seat, he desisted from further discussion. The mild dignity of this remonstrance, in which independence and submission are happily combined, presents him in such a light as to constrain us to regret that this detached incident is about all we know of the personal character of the man. We can readily believe that he was a wise and faithful, as well as learned, Translator of the Book of God.

Lawrence Chaderton, D.D.

This divine was a staunch Puritan, brave and godly, learned and laborious, full of moderation and the old English hardihood. He was born at Chaderton in Lancashire, in the year 1537. His family was wealthy, but bigoted in popery, in which religion he was carefully bred. Being destined to the bar, he was sent to the Inns of Court, at London, where he spent some years in the study and practice of the law. Here he be came a pious protestant; and, forsaking the law, entered, as student, at Christ’s College, Cambridge. Oh that, in a far higher sense, all divinity students might be trained in Christ’s own college, and learn their science from the Great Teacher himself!

These changes took place in 1564. Mr. Chaderton applied to his father for some pecuniary aid; but the wrathful old papist “sent him a poke, with a groat in it, to go a-begging;” and disinherited his son of a large estate. The son had no occasion to use the begging-poke. His high character and scholarship procured him much favor; while his mind was sustained by the promises of the Saviour, for whose sake he had “endured the loss of all things.” He took his first degree in 1567, and was then chosen one of the Fellows of his College. He became Master of Arts in 1571; and Bachelor of Divinity in 1584. He did not receive the degree of Doctor in Divinity till 1613, when it was pressed upon him, at the time when Frederick, Prince Palatine of the Rhine, who married King James’s daughter Elizabeth, visited Cambridge in state. Fuller, remarking upon this matter, writes,—“What is said of Mount Caucasus, ‘that it was never seen without snow on the top,’ was true of this reverend father, whom none of our father’s generation knew in the University before he was gray-headed.”

“He made himself familiar with the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew tongues, and was thoroughly skilled in them. Moreover he had diligently investigated the numerous writings of the Rabbis, so far as they seemed to promise any aid to the understanding of the Scriptures. This is evident from the annotations in his handwriting appended to the Biblia Bombergi,[3] which are still preserved in the library of Emanuel College.”[4] His studies were such as eminently to qualify him to bear an important part in the translating of the Bible. In 1576, he held a public dispute with Dr. Baron, Margaret Professor of Divinity, upon the Arminian sentiments of the latter. In this debate, Dr. Chaderton appeared to the highest advantage, as to his learning, ability and temper.

For sixteen years he was lecturer at St. Clement’s Church, in Cambridge, where his preaching was greatly blessed. In 1578, he delivered a sermon at Paul’s Cross, London, which appears to have been his only printed production. About that time, by order of Parliament, he was appointed preacher of the Middle Temple, with a liberal salary. It was thought best, perhaps, that a flock of lawyers should have the gospel preached to them by one who had been bred to know the sins of their calling.

In the year 1584, Sir Walter Mildmay, one of Queen Elizabeth’s noted statesmen, founded Emanuel College, at Cambridge. Sir Walter was not supposed to be a very high Churchman, and the Queen charged him with having “erected a Puritan foundation.” In reply, he told her, that he had set an acorn, which, when it became an oak, God only knows what will become of it.” And truly, it pleased God, that it should yield plenteous crops of Puritan “hearts of oak;” and afford an abundant supply of that sound, substantial, and yet spiritual piety, which stands in strong contrast with all superstition and formality. Emanuel College chapel, by order of the founder, was built in the uncanonical direction of north and south. Nearly a hundred years after, this non-conforming building was punished by the crabbed prelates, who had it pulled down, and rebuilt in the holy position of east and west, agreeably to the solemn doctrine of the “orientation of churches!” Perhaps there was no better way to convert it from the Puritanism wherewith it was infected, than thus to give it first an overturn, and then a half turn toward popery.

It is likely, however, that the religious peculiarities which long marked this College are to be ascribed less to the position in which the chapel was placed, than to the influence of its first Master. For this important office, Sir Walter Mildmay made choice of Dr. Chaderton. The modesty of the latter made him quite resolute to refuse the station, till Sir Walter plainly told him,—“If you will not be the Master, I will not be the Founder.” Upon this, Dr. Chaderton accepted the office; and filled it with zeal, and industry, and high repute, for thirty-eight years. Through his exertions, the endowments of the institution were greatly increased, and it became a nursing mother to many eminent and useful men.

At the Hampton Court Conference, in 1603, Dr. Chaderton was one of the four divines appointed by the King as being “the most grave, learned, and modest of the aggrieved sort,” to represent the Puritan interest. Dr. Chaderton, however, took no part in the debates, perceiving that the Conference was merely a royal farce, got up to give the tyrant an opportunity to avow his bitter hostility to Puritanism, because of its incompatibility with abject submission to arbitrary power. Coleridge, who was a staunch adherent of the Church of England, but by no means blinded on that account to the truth of history, thus expresses his opinion as to the Hampton Court affair. “If any man, who, like myself, hath attentively read the Church history of the reign of Elizabeth, and the Conference before, and with, her pedant successor, can shew me any essential difference between Whitgift and Bancroft, during their rule, and Bonner and Gardiner in the reign of Mary, I will be thankful to him in my heart, and for him in my prayers. One difference I see,— namely, that the former, professing the New Testament to be their rule and guide, and making the fallibility of all churches and individuals an article of faith, were more inconsistent, and therefore, less excusable than the popish persecutors.”[5]

It was during his mastership of Emanuel College, that Dr. Chaderton was engaged in the Bible translation, in which good work he was well fitted and disposed to take his part. “He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one.” Having reached his three score years and ten, his knowledge was fully digested, and his experience matured, while “his natural force was not abated,” and his faculties burned with unabated fire. Even to the close of his long life, “his eye was not dim,” and his sight required no artificial aid.

Many years after, in 1622, having reached the great age of eighty-five, this Nestor among the divines resigned the office he had so long sustained. Not that he was even then disqualified for its duties by infirmity; but because of the rapid spread of Arminianism, and the fear that, if the business were left till after his death, a divine of lax sentiments, who was then waiting his chance, would be thrust into the place by the interference of the Court. The business was so managed, that Dr. Preston, the very champion of the Puritans, was inducted as Dr. Chaderton’s successor. The vivacious patriarch, however, lived to survive Dr. Preston; and to see Dr. Sancroft, and after him, Dr. Holdsworth, in the same station. This latter incumbent preached Dr. Chaderton’s funeral sermon. Dr. Holdsworth used to tell him, that, as long as he lived, he should be Master in the house, though he himself was forced to be Master of the house. The patriarch was always consulted as to the affairs of the College.

The most protracted and useful life must come to its end. There have been various accounts of the time of Dr. Chaderton’s death, and of the place of his interment. But all mistakes are corrected by his Latin epitaph, which has been found on a monumental stone, at the entrance of Emanuel College chapel, and has been translated as follows;

Here
lies the body of
Lawrence Chaderton, D. D.,
who was the first Master of this College.
He died in the year 1640,
in the one hundred and third
year of his age.

Perhaps such longevity was more common then than now. It is on record, that “ten men of Herefordshire, a nest of Nestors, once danced the Morish before King James, their united ages exceeding a thousand years.” Their contemporary, Dr. Chaderton, was more honored by the gravity of his gray hairs, than they by the levity of their giddy heels.

He was greatly venerated. All his habits were such as inspired confidence in his piety. During the fifty-three years of his married life, he never suffered any of his servants to be detained from public worship by the preparation of food, or other household cares. He used to say,—“I desire as much to have my servants to know the Lord, as myself.” These things are greatly to his honor; though his regard to the Lord’s Day may excite the scorn of some in these degenerate times.

Dr. Chaderton is described by Archdeacon Echard, as “a grave, pious, and excellent preacher.” As an instance of his power in the pulpit, we will close this sketch with an incident which could hardly have taken place any where on earth for the last hundred years. It is stated on high authority, that while our aged saint was visiting some friends in his native county of Lancashire, he was invited to preach. Having addressed his audience for two full hours by the glass, he paused and said,—“I will no longer trespass on your patience.” And now comes the marvel; for the whole congregation cried out with one consent,—“For God’s sake, go on, go on!” He, accordingly, proceeded much longer, to their great satisfaction and delight. “When,” says Coleridge, “after reading the biographies of [Izaak] Walton and his contemporaries, I reflect on the crowded congregations, who with intense interest came to their hour-and-two-hour-long sermons, I cannot but doubt the fact of any true progression, moral or intellectual, in the mind of the many. The tone, the matter, the anticipated sympathies in the sermons of an age, form the best moral criterion of the character of that age.” Let us not be so unwise as to inquire concerning this, “What is the cause that the former days were better than these?” For even now people like to hear such preaching as is preaching. But where shall we find men for the work like those who gave us our version of the Bible?

Francis Dillingham.

He was a Fellow of Christ’s College, Cambridge. After the translation was finished, he became parson of Dean, his native place, in Bedfordshire. He also obtained the rich benefice of Wilden, in the same County, where he died a single and wealthy man. “My father,” says worthy old Thomas Fuller, “was present in the bachelor’s school, when a Greek act was kept[6] between Francis Dillingham and William Alabaster, to their mutual commendation. A disputation so famous, that it served for an era or epoch, for the scholars in that age, thence to date their seniority.” From this, it would seem, that he was not without reason styled the “great Grecian.” He was noted as an excellent linguist and a subtle disputant, and was author of various theological treatises. His brother and heir, Thomas Dillingham, also minister of Dean, was chosen one of the famous Assembly of Divines at Westminster; but on account of age, illness, and for other reasons, did not take his seat. Francis Dillingham was a diligent writer, both of practical and polemical divinity. He collected out of Cardinal Bellarmine’s writings, all the concessions made by that acute author in favor of Protestantism. He published a Manual of the Christian faith, taken from the Fathers, and a variety of treatises on different points belonging to the Romish controversy.

Roger Andrews, D.D.

Dr. Andrews, who had been Fellow in Pembroke Hall, was Master of Jesus College, Cambridge. He also became Prebendary of Chichester and Southwell. He too was a famous linguist in his time, like his brother Lancelot, the Bishop of Winchester, whose life has been already sketched as President of the first company of the Translators.

Thomas Harrison.

He had been student and Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge; and was now Vice-Master of that important seminary. Thomas Fuller records the following instance of his meekness and charity. “I remember when the reverend Vice-Master of Trinity College in Cambridge was told that one of the scholars had abused him in an oration. ‘Did he,’ said he, ‘name me? Did he name Thomas Harrison?’ And when it was returned that he named him not,—‘Then,’ said he, ‘I do not believe that he meant me.’” We have a strong evidence of his reputation in the University in another duty which was assigned him. “On account of his exquisite skill in the Hebrew and Greek idioms, he was one of the chief examiners in the University of those who sought to be public professors of these languages.”[7]

Robert Spaulding, D.D.

Dr. Spaulding was Fellow of St. John’s College, Cambridge. He succeeded Edward Lively, of whom we have briefly spoken, as Regius Professor of Hebrew.

Andrew Bing, D.D.

Dr. Bing was Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge. In course of time he succeeded Geoffry King, who was Dr. Spaulding’s successor, in the Regius Professorship of Hebrew. Dr. Bing was Sub-dean of York in 1606, and was installed Archdeacon of Norwich in 1618. He died during the times of the Commonwealth.

These brief notices suffice to shew that the members of this company deserved their places among the translators. The quiet and uneventful lives of these secluded students and deep divines have left no strongly marked incidents on the historic page. But their learning still lives and instructs on the pages of their immortal work.

1. Profecto fuit hoc ab Ambrosio insolentissime factum.

2. Responsum vere regium, et Alexandro dignum; hoc est non argumenta dissolvere, sed desecare.

3. An edition of the Hebrew Bible, printed by Bomberg, at Venice, in 1518.

4. Vita Lanrentii Chadertoni, a W. Dillingham, S. T. P. Cantab. 1700. Pp. 15, 24.

5. Literary Remains, II. 388.

6. That is, a debate carried on in the Greek tongue.

7. Harrisomis Honoratus, etc. a C. Dalechampio. Cantab, 1632. P. 7.

The Third Company

The third company of the Translators, composed of Oxford divines, met at that famous seat of learning, and was fully equal to any other of these companies in qualifications for their important undertaking. The part assigned to this division was from the beginning of Isaiah to the end of the Old Testament.

John Harding, D.D.

This divine was president in his company; a station which shews how high he ranked among his brethren who knew him; though but little relating to his character and history has come down to our times. The offices filled by him were such as to confirm the opinion that his learning and piety entitled him to the position he occupied in this venerable society of scholars. At the time of his appointment to aid in the translation of the Bible, he had been Royal Professor of Hebrew in the University for thirteen years. His occupancy of that chair, at a time when the study of sacred literature was pursued by thousands with a zeal amounting to a passion, is a fair intimation that Dr. Harding was the man for the post he occupied. When commissioned by the King to take part in this version of the Scriptures, Dr. Harding was also President of Magdalen College. He was at the same time rector of Halsey, in Oxfordshire. The share which he, with his brethren, performed, was, perhaps, the most difficult portion of the translation-work. The skill and beauty with which it is accomplished are a fair solution of the problem, “How, two languages being given, the nearest approximation may be made in the second, to the expression of ideas already conveyed through the medium of the first?”

John Reynolds, D.D.

This famous divine, though he died in the course of the good work, deserves especial mention, because it was by his means that the good work itself was undertaken. He was born in Penhoe, in Devonshire, in the year 1549. He entered the University at the age of thirteen, and spent all his days within its precincts. Though he at first entered Merton College in 1562, he was chiefly bred at Corpus Christi, which he entered the next year, and where he became a Fellow in 1566, at the early age of seventeen.

Six years later he was made Greek Lecturer in his college, which was proud of the early ripeness of his powers.

About this time occurred one of the most singular events in the history of religious controversy. John Reynolds was a zealous papist. His brother William, who was his fellow-student, was equally zealous for protestantism. Each, in fraternal anxiety for the salvation of a brother’s soul, labored for the conversion of the other; and each of them was successful! As the result of long conference and disputation, William became an inveterate papist, and so lived and died. While John became a decided protestant of the Puritan stamp, and continued to his death to be a vigorous champion of the Reformation. From the time of his conversion, he was a most able and successful preacher of God’s word. Having very greatly distinguished himself in the year 1578, as a debater in the theological discussions, or “divinity-acts” of the University, he was drawn into the popish controversy. Determined to explore the whole field, and make himself master of the subject, he devoted himself to the study of the Scriptures in the original tongues, and read all the Greek and Latin fathers, and all the ancient records of the Church. Nor did this flood of reading roll out of his mind as fast as it poured in. It is stated that “his memory was little less than miraculous. He could readily turn to any material passage, in every leaf, page, column and paragraph of the numerous and voluminous works he had read.” He came to be styled “the very treasury of erudition;” and was spoken of as “a living library, and a third university.”

About the year 1578, John Hart, a popish zealot, challenged all the learned men in the nation to a public debate. At the solicitation of one of Queen Elizabeth’s privy counselors, Mr. Reynolds encountered him. After several combats, the Romish champion owned himself driven from the field. An account of the conferences, subscribed by both parties, was published, and widely circulated. This added greatly to the reputation of Mr. Reynolds, who soon after took his degrees in divinity, and was appointed by the Queen to be Royal Professor of Divinity in the University. At that time, the celebrated Cardinal Bellarmine, the Goliah of the Philistines at Rome, was professor of theology in the English Seminary at that city. As fast as he delivered his popish doctrine, it was taken down in writing, and regularly sent to Dr. Reynolds; who, from time to time, publicly confuted it at Oxford.

Thus Bellarmine’s books were answered, even before they were printed.

It is said, that Reynolds’ professorship was founded by the royal bounty for the express purpose of strengthening the Church of England against the Church of Rome, and of widening the breach between them; and that Dr. Reynolds was first placed in the chair, on that account, because of his strenuous opposition to the corruptions of Rome. “Oxford divines,” at that period, were of a very different stamp from their Puseyite successors in our day. But even at Oxford, there are faithful witnesses for the truth. Dr. Hampden, whose appointment to the bishopric of Hereford, a few years since, raised such a storm of opposition from the Romanizing prelates and clergy, was for many years a worthy successor of Dr. Reynolds, in that chair which was endowed so long ago for maintaining the Church of England against the usurpations of Rome.

Yet even so long ago, and ever since, there were persons there whose sentiments resembled what is now called by the sublime title of Puseyism. The first reformers of the English Church held, as Archbishop Whately does now, that the primitive church-government was highly popular in its character. But they held that neither this, nor any other form of discipline, was divinely ordained for perpetual observance. They considered it to be the prerogative of the civil government, in a Christian land, to regulate these matters, and to organize the Church, as it would the army, or the judiciary and police, with a view to the greatest efficiency according to the state of circumstances. They held that all good subjects were religiously bound to conform to the arrangements thus made. These views are what is commonly called Erastianism. The claim of a “divine right” was first advanced in England in behalf of Presbyterianism. It was very strenuously asserted by the learned and long-suffering Cartwright. Some of the Episcopal divines soon took the hint, and set up the same claim in behalf of their order; though, at first, it sounded strange even to their own brethren.[1]

Dr. Bancroft, Archbishop Whitgift’s chaplain, and his successor in the see of Canterbury, maintained in a sermon, preached January 12th, 1588, that “bishops were a distinct order from priests; and that they had a superiority over them by divine right, and directly from God.” This startling doctrine produced a great excitement. Sir Francis Knollys, one of Queen Elizabeth’s distinguished statesmen, remonstrated warmly with Whitgift against it. In a letter to Sir Francis, who had requested his opinion, Dr. Reynolds observes,—“All who have labored in reforming the Church, for five hundred years, have taught that all pastors, whether they are entitled bishops or priests, have equal authority and power by God’s word; as the Waldenses, next Marsilius Patavinus, then Wiclif and his scholars, afterwards Huss and the Hussites; and Luther, Calvin, Brentius, Bullinger, and Musculus. Among ourselves, we have bishops, the Queen’s professors of divinity, and other learned men, as Bradford, Lambert, Jewell, Pilkington, Humphrey, Fulke, etc. But why do I speak of particular persons? It is the opinion of the Reformed Churches of Helvetia, Savoy, France, Scotland, Germany, Hungary, Poland, the Low Countries, and our own. I hope Dr. Bancroft will not say, that all these have approved that for sound doctrine, which was condemned by the general consent of the whole church as heresy, in the most flourishing time. I hope he will acknowledge that he was overseen, when he announced the superiority of bishops over the rest of the clergy to be God’s own ordinance.”

Good Dr. Reynolds’ charitable hopes, though backed by such an overwhelming array of authorities, were doomed to be disappointed. Bancroft’s novel doctrine has been in fashion ever since. Still there are not wanting many who soundly hold, in the words of Reynolds, that “unto us Christians, no land is strange, no ground unholy; every coast is Jewry, every town Jerusalem, every house Sion; and every faithful company, yea, every faithful body, a temple to serve God in. The presence of Christ among two or three, gathered together in his name, maketh any place a church, even as the presence of a king with his attendants maketh any place a court.”

Notwithstanding that Elizabeth was no lover of men puritanically inclined, she felt constrained to notice the eminent gifts and services of Dr. Reynolds. In 1598, she made him Dean of Lincoln, and offered him a bishopric. The latter dignity he meekly refused, preferring his studious academical life to the wealth and honors of any such ecclesiastical station. It is supposed, however, that conscientious scruples had much to do with his declining the prelatic office.

He resigned his deanery in less than a year, and also the Mastership of Queen’s College, which latter post he had for some time occupied He was then chosen President of Corpus Christi College, in which office he was exceedingly active and useful till his death. This College had long been badly infested with papistry. The presidency being vacant in 1568, the Queen sent letters to the Fellows, calling upon them to make choice of Dr. William Cole, who had been one of the exiles in the time of Queen Mary. The Fellows, however, made choice of Robert Harrison, formerly one of their number, but an open Romanist. The Queen pronounced this election void, and commanded them to elect Cole. On their refusal, Dr. Horn, Bishop of Winchester, the Visitor of the College, was sent to induct Cole; which he did, but not till he had forced the College-gates. A commission, appointed by the Queen, expelled three of the most notorious papists. As might have been expected, there was but little harmony in that society. In 1579, Dr. Reynolds was expelled from his College, together with his pupil, the renowned Richard Hooker, author of the “Ecclesiastical Polity,” and three others. On what ground this was done is not known. It was the act of Dr. John Barfoote, then Vice-President of the College, and Chaplain to the potent Earl of Warwick. In less than a month, the expelled members were fully restored by the agency of Secretary Walsingham. In 1586, this Sir Francis Walsingham offered a stipend for a lectureship on controversial divinity, for the purpose, as Heylin, that rabid Laudian, says, of making “the religion of the Church of Rome more odious.” Dr. Reynolds accepted this lectureship, and for that purpose resigned his fellowship in the College; “dissentions and factions there,” as he says, “having made him weary of the place.” He retired to Queen’s College, and was Master there, till, as has been stated, he became President of Corpus Christi in 1598, on the resignation of Dr. Cole. Dr. Barfoote struggled hard to secure the post; but by the firm procedure of that “so noble and worthy knight Sir Francis Walsingham,” Dr. Reynolds carried the day.

King James appointed him, in 1603, to be one of the four divines who should represent the Puritan interest at the Hampton Court Conference. Here he was almost the only speaker on his side of the question; and confronted the King and Primate, with eight bishops, and as many deans. The records of what took place are wholly from the pens of his adversaries, who are careful that he should not appear to any great advantage. It is manifest from their own account, that, in this “mock conference,” as Rapin calls it, the Puritans were so overborne with kingly insolence and prelatic pride, that, finding it of no use to attempt any replies, they held their peace. In fact, the whole affair was merely got up to give the King, who had newly come to the throne of England, an opportunity to declare himself as to the line of ecclesiastical policy he meant to pursue.

The only good that resulted from this oppressive and insulting conference was our present admirable translation of the Bible. The King scornfully rejected nearly every other request of the Puritans;[2] but, at the entreaty of Dr. Reynolds, consented that there should be a new and more accurate translation, prepared under the royal sanction. The next year Dr. Reynolds was put upon the list of Translators, on account of his well known skill in the Hebrew and Greek. He labored in the work with zeal, bringing all his vast acquisitions to aid in accomplishing the task, though he did not live to see it completed. In the progress of it, he was seized with the consumption, yet he continued his assistance to the last, During his decline, the company to which he belonged met regularly every week in his chamber, to compare and perfect what they had done in their private studies. Thus he ended his days like Venerable Bede; and “was employed in translating the Word of Life, even till he himself was translated to life everlasting.” His days were thought to be shortened by too intense application to study. But when urged by friends to desist, he would reply,—“Non propter vitam, vivendi perdere causas,”—for the sake of life, he would not lose the very end of living! During his sickness, his time was wholly taken up in prayer, and in hearing and translating the Scriptures.

The papists started a report, that their famous opposer had recanted his protestant sentiments. He was much grieved at hearing the rumor; but being too feeble to speak, set his name to the following declaration,—“These are to testify to all the world, that I die in the possession of that faith which I have taught all my life, both in my preachings and in my writings, with an assured hope of my salvation, only by the merits of Christ my Saviour.” The next day, May 21st, 1607, he expired in the sixty-eighth year of his age. He was buried in the chapel of his College, with great solemnity and academic pomp, and the general lamentation of good men.

His industry and piety are largely attested by his numerous writings, which long continued in high esteem. Old Anthony Wood, though so cynical toward all Puritans, says of him, that he was “most prodigiously seen in all kinds of learning; most excellent in all tongues.” “He was a prodigy in reading,” adds Anthony, “famous in doctrine, and the very treasury of erudition; and in a word, nothing can be spoken against him, only that he was the pillar of Puritanism, and the grand favorer of nonconformity Dr. Crackenthorpe, his intimate acquaintance, though a zealous churchman, gives this account of him, —”He turned over all writers, profane, ecclesiastical, and divine; and all the councils, fathers, and histories of the Church. He was most excellent in all tongues useful or ornamental to a divine. He had a sharp and ready wit, a grave and mature judgment, and was indefatigably industrious. He was so well skilled in all arts and sciences, as if he had spent his whole life in each of them. And as to virtue, integrity, piety, and sanctity of life, he was so eminent and conspicuous, that to name Reynolds is to commend virtue itself.” From other testimonies of a like character, let the following be given, from the celebrated Bishop Hall of Norwich,—“He alone was a well-furnished library, full of all faculties, all studies, and all learning. The memory and reading of that man were near to a miracle.”

Such was one of the worthies in that noble company of Translators. Nothing can tend more to inspire confidence in their version than the knowledge of their immense acquirements, almost incredible to the superficial scholars in this age of smatterers, sciolists, and pretenders. How much more to be coveted is the accumulation of knowledge, and the dispensing of its riches to numerous generations, than the amassing of money, and the bequeathing of hoarded wealth. Who would not choose the Christian erudition of an Andrews or a Reynolds, rather than the millions of Astor or Girard?

Thomas Holland, D.D.

This good man was born at Ludlow, in Shropshire, in the year 1539. He was educated at Exeter College, Oxford; and graduated in 1570, with great applause. Three years after, he was made chaplain and Fellow of Baliol College; and as Anthony Wood says, was “another Apollos, mighty in the Scriptures,”—also “a solid preacher, a most noted disputant, and a most learned divine.” He was made Doctor in Divinity in 1584. The next year, when Robert Dudley, the famous Earl of Leicester, was sent as governor of the Netherlands, then just emancipated from the Spanish yoke, Dr. Holland went with him in the capacity of chaplain. In 1589, he succeeded the celebrated Dr. Lawrence Humphrey as the King’s Professor of Divinity, a duty for which he was eminently qualified, and in which he trained up many distinguished scholars. He was elected Rector of Exeter College in 1592; an office he filled with great reputation for twenty years, being regarded as a universal scholar, and a prodigy of literature. His reputation extended to the continent, and he was held in high esteem in the universities of Europe. These were the leading events in his studious life.

As to his character, he was a man of ardent piety, a thorough Calvinist in doctrine, and a decided non-conforming Puritan in matters of ceremony and church-discipline. In the public University debates, he staunchly maintained that “bishops are not a distinct order from presbyters, nor at all superior to them by the Word of God.” He stoutly resisted the popish innovations which Bancroft and Laud strove too successfully to introduce at Oxford. When the execrable Laud, afterwards the odious Archbishop of Canterbury, was going through his exercises as candidate for the degree of Bachelor in Divinity, in 1604, he contended “that there could be no true churches without diocesan episcopacy.” For this, the young aspirant was sharply and publicly rebuked by Dr. Holland, who presided on the occasion; and who severely reprehended that future Primate of all England, as “one who sought to sow discord among brethren, and between the Church of England and the Reformed Churches abroad.”

As a preacher, Dr. Holland was earnest and solemn. His extemporary discourses were usually better that his more elaborate preparations. As a student, it was said of him, that he was so “immersed in books,” that this propensity swallowed up almost every other. In the translation of our Bible he took a very prominent part. This was the crowning work of his life. He died March 16th, 1612, a few months after this most important version was completed and published. He attained to the age of seventy-three years.

The translation being finished, he spent most of his time in meditation and prayer. Sickness and the infirmities of age quickened into greater life his desires for heaven. In the hour of his departure he exclaimed,—“Come, Oh come, Lord Jesus, thou bright and morning star! Come, Lord Jesus; I desire to be dissolved and be with thee.” He was buried with great funeral solemnities in the chancel of St. Mary’s, Oxford.

One of his intimate associates and fellow-translators, Dr. Kilby, preached his funeral sermon. In this sermon it is said of him,—“that he had a wonderful knowledge of all the learned languages, and of all arts and sciences, both human and divine. He was mighty in the Scriptures; and so familiarly acquainted with the Fathers, as if he himself had been one of them; and so versed in the Schoolmen, as if he were the Seraphic Doctor. He was, therefore, most worthy of the divinity-chair, which he filled about twenty years, with distinguished approbation and applause. He was so celebrated for his preaching, reading, disputing, moderating, and all other excellent qualifications, that all who knew him commended him, and all who heard of him admired him.” In illustration of his zeal for purity in faith and worship, and against all superstition and idolatry, the same sermon informs us, that, whenever he took a journey, he first called together the Fellows of his College, for his parting charge, which always ended thus,—“I commend you to the love of God, and to the hatred of all popery and superstition!”[3] He published several learned orations and one sermon. He left many manuscripts ready for the press; but as they fell into hands unfriendly to the Puritanism they contained, they were never published.

Richard Kilby, D.D.

Among those grave and erudite divines to whom all the generations which have read the Bible in the English tongue are so greatly indebted, a place is duly assigned to Dr. Richard Kilby. He was a native of Radcliff on the river Wreak, in Liecestershire. He went to Oxford; and when he had been at the University three years, was chosen Fellow of Lincoln College, in 1577. He took orders, and became a preacher of note in the University. In 1590, he was chosen Rector of his College, and made Prebendary of the cathedral church of Lincoln. He was considered so accurate in Hebrew studies, that he was appointed the King’s Professor in that branch of literature. Among the fruits of his studies, he left a commentary on Exodus, chiefly drawn from the writings of the Rabbinical interpreters. He died in the year 1620, at the age of sixty.

These are nearly all the vestiges remaining of him. There is one incident, however, related by “honest Izaak Walton,” in his life of the celebrated Bishop Sanderson. The incident, as described by the amiable angler, is such a fine historical picture of the times, and so apposite to the purpose of this little volume, that it must be given in Walton’s own words.

“I must here stop my reader, and tell him that this Dr. Kilby was a man of so great learning and wisdom, and so excellent a critic in the Hebrew tongue, that he was made professor of it in this University; and was also so perfect a Grecian, that he was by King James appointed to be one of the translators of the Bible; and that this Doctor and Mr. Sanderson had frequent discourses, and loved as father and son. The Doctor was to ride a journey into Derbyshire, and took Mr. Sanderson to bear him company; and they, resting on a Sunday with the Doctor’s friend, and going together to that parish church where they then were, found the young preacher to have no more discretion, than to waste a great part of the hour allotted for his sermon in exceptions against the late translation of several words, (not expecting such a hearer as Dr. Kilby,) and shewed three reasons why a particular word should have been otherwise translated. When evening prayer was ended, the preacher was invited to the Doctor’s friend’s house, where, after some other conference, the Doctor told him, he might have preached more useful doctrine, and not have filled his auditors’ ears with needless exceptions against the late translation; and for that word for which he offered to that poor congregation three reasons why it ought to have been translated as he said, he and others had considered all them, and found thirteen more considerable reasons why it was translated as now printed; and told him, ‘If his friend,’ (then attending him,) ‘should prove guilty of such indiscretion, he should forfeit his favor.’ To which Mr. Sanderson said, ‘He hoped he should not.’ And the preacher was so ingenuous as to say, ‘He would not justify himself.’ And so I return to Oxford.”

This digression of honest Izaac’s pen may serve to illustrate the magisterial bearing of the “heads of colleges,” and other great divines of those times; and also, what has now become much rarer, the humility and submissiveness of the younger brethren. It also furnishes an incidental proof of the considerate and patient care with which our venerable Translators studied the verbal accuracy of their work. When we hear young licentiates, green from the seminary, displaying their smatterings of Hebrew and Greek by caviling in their sermons at the common version, and pompously telling how it ought to have been rendered, we cannot but wish that the apparition of Dr. Kilby’s frowning ghost might haunt them. Doubtless the translation is susceptible of improvement in certain places; but this is not a task for every new-fledged graduate; nor can it be very often attempted without shaking the confidence of the common people in our unsurpassed version, and without causing “the trumpet to give an uncertain sound.”

Miles Smith, D.D.

This person, who was largely occupied in the Bible translation, was born at Hereford. His father had made a good fortune as a fletcher, or maker of bows and arrows, which was once a prosperous trade in “merrie England.” The son was entered at Corpus Christi College, in 1568; but afterwards removed to Brazen Nose College, where he took his degrees, and “proved at length an incomparable theologist.” He was one of the chaplains of Christ’s Church. His attainments were very great, both in classical and oriental learning. He became canon-residentiary of the cathedral church of Hereford. In 1594, he was created Doctor in Divinity.

He had a four-fold share in the Translation. He not only served in the third company, but was one of the twelve selected to revise the work, after which it was referred to the final examination of Dr. Smith and Bishop Bilson. Last of all, Dr. Smith was employed to write that most learned and eloquent preface, which is become so rare, and is so seldom seen by readers of the Bible; while the flattering Dedication to the King, which is of no particular value, has been often reprinted in editions on both sides of the Atlantic. This noble Preface, addressed by “the Translators to the Reader,” in the first edition, “stands as a comely gate to a glorious city.” Let the reader who would judge for himself, whether our Translators were masters of the science of sacred criticism, peruse it, and be satisfied.

Dr. Smith never sought promotion, being, as he pleasantly said of himself, “covetous of nothing but books.”[4]

But, for his great labor, bestowed upon the best of books, the King, in the year 1612, appointed him Bishop of Gloucester. In this office he behaved with the utmost meekness and benevolence. He died, much lamented, in 1624, being seventy years of age, and was buried in his own cathedral.

He went through the Greek and Latin fathers, making his annotations on them all. He was well acquainted with the Rabbinical glosses and comments. So expert was he in the Chaldee, Syriac, and Arabic, that they were almost as familiar as his native tongue. “Hebrew he had at his fingers’ ends.” He was also much versed in history and general literature, and was fitly characterized by a brother bishop as “a very walking library.” All his books were written in his own hand, and in most elegant penmanship.

In the great Bible-translation, he began with the first of the laborers, and put the last hand to the work. Yet he was never known to speak of it as owing more to him than to the rest of the Translators. We may sum up his excellent character in the words of one stiffly opposed to his views and principles, who says,—“He was a great scholar, yet a severe Calvinist, and hated the proceedings of Dr. Laud!”

Richard Brett, D.D.

This reverend clergyman was of a respectable family, and was born at London, in 1567. He entered at Hart Hall, Oxford, where he took his first degree. He was then elected Fellow of Lincoln College, where, by unwearied industry, he became very eminent in the languages, divinity, and other branches of science. Having taken his degrees in arts, he became, in 1595, Rector of Quainton in Buckinghamshire, in which benefice he spent his days. He was made Doctor in Divinity in 1605. He was renowned in his time for vast attainments, as well as revered for his piety. “He was skilled and versed to a criticism” in the Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Chaldee, Arabic, and Ethiopic tongues. He published a number of erudite works, all in Latin. It is recorded of him, that “he was a most vigilant pastor, a diligent preacher of God’s word, a liberal benefactor to the poor, a faithful friend, and a good neighbor.” This studious and exemplary minister, having attained this exalted reputation, died in 1637, at the age of seventy, and lies buried in the chancel of Quainton Church, whore he had dispensed the word and ordinances for three and forty years.

Daniel Fairclough, D.D.

The author has bestowed great labor in endeavoring to identify this person. After exhausting all the means of information within his reach, he is led to the belief, that the last on the list of this company of Translators, who is designated simply as “Mr. Fairclough,” is Daniel Fairclough, otherwise known as Dr. Daniel Featley; which, strange to say, is a corrupt pronunciation of the name Fairclough. This is distinctly asserted by his nephew, Dr. John Featley, who wrote a life of his uncle, and printed it at the end of a book, entitled “Dr. Daniel Featley revived.” The nephew states, that his uncle was ordained deacon and priest under the name Fairclough. The main ground for questioning the identity, is the age of Daniel Fairclough, who, when the Bible-translators were nominated, was only some twenty-six years old, which is considerably less than the age of most of his associates. He was, however, an early ripe, and a distinguished scholar; and comparatively young as he was, it devolved on him to preach at the funeral of the great Dr. Reynolds, who died during the progress of the work. This funeral service was performed with much applause, at only four days’ notice,

The birth-place of Daniel Fairclough, or Featley, to call him by the name whereby he is chiefly known, was Charlton, in Oxfordshire, where he was born about the year 1578. He was admitted to Corpus Christi College in 1594; and was elected Fellow in 1602. He stood in such high estimation, that Sir Thomas Edwards, ambassador to France, took him to Paris as his chaplain, where he spent two or three years in the ambassador’s house. Here he held many “tough disputes” with the doctors of the Sorbonne, and other papists. His opponents termed him “the keen and cutting Featley;” and found him a match in their boasted logic;

“For he a rope of sand could twist,
As tough as learned Sorbonnist.”

On returning to England, he repaired to his College, where he remained till 1613, when he became Rector of Northill, in Cornwall. Soon after, he was appointed chaplain to Dr. Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury, also one of the Translators, by whom he was made Rector of Lambeth, in Surrey. In 1617, he held a famous debate with Dr. Prideaux. the King’s Professor of Divinity at Oxford. About this time, the Archbishop gave him the rectory of Allhallows Church, Bread Street, London. This he soon exchanged for the rectory of Acton, in Middlesex. He was also Provost of Chelsea College; and, at one time, chaplain in ordinary to King Charles the First.

Being puritanically inclined, Dr. Featley was appointed, in 1643, to be one of the Assembly of Divines at Westminster. As he was not one of the “root and branch” party, who were for wholly changing the order of government, he soon fell under the displeasure of the Long Parliament. Some of his correspondence with Archbishop Usher, who was then with the King at Oxford, was intercepted. In this correspondence, he expressed his scruples about taking the “solemn league and covenant;” and for this, was unjustly suspected of being a spy. He was cast into prison, and his rectories were taken from him. The next year, on account of his failing health, he was removed, agreeably to his petition, to Chelsea College. There, after a few months spent in holy exercises, he expired, April 17th, 1645. “Though he was small of stature, yet he had a great soul, and had all learning compacted in him.” He published some forty books and treatises, and left a great many manuscripts. His other labors have passed away; “but the word of the Lord,” which, as it is believed, he aided in giving to unborn millions, “abideth for ever.”

1. “Dr. Peter Heylin, preaching at Westminster Abbey, before Bishop Williams, accused the nonconformists of ‘putting all into open tumult, rather than conform to the lawful government derived from Christ and his apostles.’ At this, the Bishop, sitting in the great pew, knocked aloud with his staff upon the pulpit, saying,—‘No more of that point! no more of that point, Peter!’ To whom Heylin answered,—‘I have a little more to say, my lord, and then I have done:’—and so finished his subject.”— Biog. Bp.it. IV. 2597. Ed. 1747.

2. Their requests were very reasonable, viz.: 1. “That the doctrine of the Church might be preserved pure, according to God’s word. 2. That good pastors might be planted in all churches, to preach the same. 3. That church government might be sincerely ministered, according to God’s word. 4. That the Book of Common Prayer might be fitted to more increase of piety.”

3. Commendo vos dilectioni Dei, et odio papatus et superstitionis.

4. Nullius rei prseterquam librorum avidus.

The Fourth Company

The fourth company of these famous scholars was composed of Oxford divines; and to them, as their portion of the work, were assigned the four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Revelation of St. John the Divine.

Thomas Ravis, D.D.

This person, the president of his company, was born of worthy parentage, at Maiden, in the County of Surrey. He was bred at Westminster School; and then entered, in 1575, as student of Christ’s Church, one of the Oxford colleges. As it is a matter of some interest, shewing that he went through an extensive course of study, the dates of his various degrees will be given. In 1578, he graduated as Bachelor of Arts; in 1581, he proceeded as Master of Arts; in 1589, he became Bachelor in Divinity; and in 1595, he was made Doctor in Divinity. The successive degrees of the greater part of the persons belonging to the list of Translators could be given; but are omitted for the sake of brevity. It is enough to record, that they nearly all attained to the highest literary honors of their respective universities.

Dr. Ravis, in 1591, was appointed rector of the Church of All-hallows, Barking, in London. The next year, he became Canon of Westminster, and occupied the seventh stall in that church. Two years later, he was chosen Dean of Christ’s Church College. He was also, in 1596 and the year following, elected Vice-Chancellor of the University. In 1598, he exchanged his benefice at All-hallows Church for the rectory of Islip. He also held the Wittenham Abbey Church, in Berkshire. All these preferments and profitable livings mark him as a rising man. His holding a plurality of churches for the sake of their revenues, in neither of which he could perform the duties of the pastoral office, was one of the cases that justified the complaint of Lord Chancellor Ellesmere, at the Conference in Hampton Court. His lordship complained of this practice, as occasioning many learned men at the universities to pine for want of places, while others had more than they could fill. “I wish, therefore,” said he, “that some may have single coats, or one living, before others have doublets, or pluralities.” To this, the frugal Bancroft, then Bishop of London, who kept his own ribs thoroughly warmed with such investitures, made the thrifty reply,—“But a doublet is necessary in cold weather!” This prelate, a fierce persecutor of the Puritans, was reputed to have manifested very little “saving grace,” except in the way of penurious hoardings. The graceless wags of his day made this epitaph upon him;

“Here lies his Grace, in cold clay clad,
Who died for want of what he had!”

The pernicious custom of pluralities, whereby a man receives tithes for the care of souls of which he takes no care, fleecing the flock he neither watches nor feeds, is one of those abuses still continued in the Church of England, and calling for thorough reform.

In 1604, soon after Dr. Ravis was commissioned as one of the Bible-translators, the Lords of the Council requested his acceptance of the bishopric of Gloucester, for which there were very many eager suitors. Three years later, he was translated to the bishopric of London. Anthony Wood says, that he was first preferred to the see of Gloucester, which he reluctantly accepted, on account of his great learning, gravity, and prudence; and that though his diocese “was pretty well stocked with those who could not bear the name of a bishop, yet, by his episcopal living among them, he obtained their love, and a good report from them.” If he deserved this commendation while at Gloucester, he changed for the worse on his translation to London, where he not only succeeded the bitter Bancroft in his office, but also in his severe and exacting behavior. So true is the remark, that “bishops and books are seldom the better for being translated.” No sooner had he taken his seat in London, than he stretched forth his hand to vex the non-conforming Puritans. Among others, he cited before him that holy and blessed man, Richard Rogers, for nearly fifty years the faithful minister of Weathersfield, than whom, it is said, “the Lord honored none more in the conversion of souls.” In the presence of this venerable man, who, for his close walking with God, was styled the Enoch of his day, Bishop Ravis protested,—“By the help of Jesus, I will not leave one preacher in my diocese, who doth not subscribe and conform.” The poor prelate was doomed to be disappointed; as he died, before his task was well begun, on the 14th of December, 1609. On account of his high offices, and his dying before the translation was completed, it is not probable that he took so active a part in that business as some of his colleagues. Though too much carried away by a zeal for the forms of his Church, which was neither according to knowledge nor charity, he lived and died in deserved respect, and hath a fair monument still standing in his cathedral of St. Paul’s.

George Abbot, D.D.

This distinguished ecclesiastic was a native of Guildford, in Surrey. He was the son of pious parents, who had been sufferers for the truth in the times of popish cruelty. He was born October 29th, 1562. At the age of fourteen, he was entered as a student of Baliol College, Oxford; and in 1583, he was chosen to a fellowship. In 1585, he took orders, and became a popular preacher in the University. He was created Doctor of Divinity, in 1597; and a few months after, was elected Master of University College. At this time began his conflicts with William Laud, which lasted with great severity as long as Abbot lived. Dr. Abbot was a Calvinist and a moderate Churchman; while Dr. Laud was an Arminian, and might have been a cardinal at Rome, if he had not preferred to be a pope at Canterbury.

In 1598, Dr. Abbot published a Latin work, which was reprinted in Germany. The next year he was installed Dean of Winchester. In 1600, he was elected Vice-Chancellor of the University; and was re-elected to the same honorable post in 1603 and 1605. It was about this time, that he was put into the royal commission for translating the Bible.

Dr. Abbot went to Scotland, in 1608, as chaplain to the Earl of Dunbar; and while there, by his prudent and temperate measures, succeeded in establishing a moderate or qualified episcopacy in that kingdom. This was a matter which King James had so much at heart, that he ever after held Dr. Abbot in great favor, and rapidly hurried him into the highest ecclesiastical dignities and preferments. He was made Bishop of Litchfield and Coventry on the 3d of December, 1609; and then, in less than two months, was translated to the see of London. In less than fifteen months more, he was made Archbishop of Canterbury, and Primate of all England. Thus he was twice translated himself, before he saw the Bible translated once. Though an excellent preacher, he had never exercised himself in the pastoral office, rising at one stride from being a University-lecturer to the chief dignities of the Church.

When he reached the primacy, he was forty-nine years of age; and was held in the highest esteem both by the prince and the people. In all great transactions, whether in church or state, he bore a principal part. And yet, at times, he showed, in matters which touch the conscience, a degree of independence of the royal will, such as must have been very distasteful to the domineering temper of James, and very unusual in that age of passive obedience, and servile cringing to the dictates of royalty. Thus it was, when the King, under the pretense that the strict observance of the Sabbath, as practiced by Protestants, was likely to prejudice the Romanists, and hinder their conversion, issued his infamous “Book of Sports.” This was a Declaration intended to encourage, at the close of public worship, various recreations, such as “promiscuous dancing, archery, leaping, vaulting, May-games, Whitsunales, or morrice-dances, setting up of May-poles, or other sports therewith used.” This abominable edict was required to be read by all ministers in their parish-churches. Its promulgation greatly troubled the more conscientious of the clergy, who expected to be brought into difficulty by their refusal to publish the shameful document. Archbishop Abbot warmly opposed its enforcement, and forbade it to be read in the church of Croydon, where he was at the time of its publication. The opposition was too much, even for the ruthless king; and he, at last, gave up his impious attempt to heathenize the Lord’s Day.

It was in 1619, that the Archbishop founded his celebrated hospital at Guildford, the place of his nativity, and nobly endowed it from his private property. In that same year, a sad mischance befel him. His health being much impaired, he had recourse to hunting, by medical advice, as a means of restoring it. This sort of exercise has never been in very good repute among ecclesiastics. Jerome recognizes some worthy fishermen who followed the sacred calling; but says, that “we no where read in Scripture of a holy hunter.” While his Grace of Canterbury was pursuing the chase in Bramshill Park, a seat of the Earl of Ashby de la Zouch, an arrow from his cross-bow, aimed at a deer, glanced from a tree, and killed a game-keeper, an imprudent man, who had been cautioned to keep out of the way. This casual homicide was the cause of great affliction to the prelate. During the rest of his life, he observed a monthly fast, on a Tuesday, the day of the mishap. He also settled a liberal annuity upon the poor game-keeper’s widow, which annuity was attended with the additional consolation, that it soon procured her a better husband than the man she had lost. For the Primate, however, who was ever a celibate, there was no such remedy of grief, and all the rest of his life was overcast with gloom. This business subjected him to many hard shots from them that liked him not. Once returning to Croydon, after a long absence, a great many women, from curiosity, gathered about his coach. The Archbishop, who hated to be stared at, and was never fond of females, exclaimed somewhat churlishly, “What make these women here!” Upon this an old crone cried out,—“You had best to shoot an arrow at us!” It is said that this tongue-shot, which often goes deeper than gunshot, went to his very heart.

His enemies made a strong handle of this accidental homicide. It was insisted, that the canon law allows no “man of blood” to be a builder of the spiritual temple; and that the Primate who had retreated after the accident to his hospital at Guildford, was disenabled from his clerical functions. The King appointed a commission to try the question, Whether the Archbishop was disqualified for his official duties by this involuntary homicide? After long debate, in which the divines on the continent took part, it was the general decision, that the fact did disqualify. Nevertheless, King James, in his usurped character as supreme head of the English Church, an office which rightly belongs only to the King of kings, issued, in 1621, a full pardon and dispensation to the humbled Primate. Still, several newly-appointed bishops, who had been awaiting consecration, and among them Dr. William Laud, then bishop elect of St. David’s, refused to receive it from his hands, and obtained the mysterious virtues of “episcopal grace” from other administration. Others, however, as Dr. Davenant, bishop elect of Salisbury, and Dr. Hall, bishop elect of Norwich, were solemnly consecrated by their dejected metropolitan.

All this did not discourage Archbishop Abbot from making vigorous opposition, in the following year, to the proposed match between Charles, Prince of Wales, and the Infanta, or Princess Royal, of Spain. Though this foolish, unpopular, and unsuccessful scheme was a favorite piece of policy with the King, who was quite unused to be thwarted by his courtiers, Dr. Abbot continued to enjoy his confidence till the King’s death in 1625.

When Charles the First succeeded to the throne, he was crowned and anointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Nevertheless, the latter soon found himself in deep eclipse. His inveterate foe, the resolute Dr. Laud, then Bishop of Bath and Wells, came between, and intercepted the sunshine of royal favor. The matter of the fortuitous homicide seems to have been revived against him, as ground for his sequestration. Charles required him to live in retirement, which he did at Ford; and in 1627, appointed a commission of five prelates, to suspend him from the exercise of his archiepiscopal functions. These prelates were Dr. Mountaigne, Bishop of London; Dr. Neile, Bishop of Durham; Dr. Howson, Bishop of Oxford; and Dr. Laud, Bishop of Bath and Wells. When the instrument for the Archbishop’s suspension was drawn up for their signature, the four senior bishops declined to set their hands thereto, and appeared to manifest much reluctance and regret. “Then give me the pen!” said Bishop Laud; and “though last in place, first subscribed his name.” The others, after some demur, were induced to follow his example. From that time, it is said, the Archbishop was never known to laugh; and became quite dead to the world.

Next year, however, the fickle king saw fit to alter his course; and, about Christmas time, restored Dr. Abbot to his liberty and jurisdiction. He was sent for to Court; received, as he stepped out of his barge, by the Archbishop of York and the Earl of Dorset, and by them conducted into the royal presence. The king gave him his hand to kiss, and charged him not to fail of attendance at the Council-table twice a week. He sat in the House of Peers, and continued in his spiritual functions without further interruption till his death some five years after, when he was succeeded in his see by his implacable and ill-starred rival, William Laud.

Dr. Abbot’s brief sequestration had made him popular in the country, and his restoration was probably owing to a desire to conciliate his influence in the parliament, with which the king was already in trouble. The Archbishop rather countenanced the liberal party, and stiffly resisted the slavish tenet of Dr. Mainwaring, which raised such an excitement. This divine had publicly maintained, as was supposed with the royal approbation, “that the King’s royal will and command, in imposing laws, taxes, and other aids, upon his people, without common consent in parliament, did so far bind the consciences of the subjects of this kingdom, that they could not refuse the same without peril of eternal damnation.” Here was the “divine right of kings” with a vengeance!

Dr. George Abbot continued in office during those troublous times which preceded the civil wars, till he died, at his palace of Croydon, on Sunday, August 4th, 1633, at the age of seventy-one, quite worn out with cares and infirmities.

He was a very grave man, and of a very “fatherly presence,” and unimpeachable in his morals. He was a firm Calvinist, and a thorough Church-of-England-man. He was somewhat indulgent to the more moderate Puritans; but the more zealous of them accused him sharply of being a persecutor, while the high-toned churchmen vehemently charged him with disloyalty to their cause. It is also said, that as he had never exercised the pastoral care, but was “made a shepherd of shepherds, before he had been a shepherd of sheep,” he was wanting in sympathy with the troubles and infirmities of ministers.

He was severe in his proceedings against clerical delinquents; but he protested that he did this to shield them from the greater severity of the lay judges, who would visit them with heavier punishments, to the greater shame of themselves and their profession. He was, in truth, stern and melancholy. As compared with his brother, Robert Abbot, the Bishop of Salisbury, it was said, that “gravity did frown in George, and smile in Robert.” The other brother of these bishops was Lord Mayor of London.

The Archbishop was regarded as an excellent preacher and a great divine. Anthony Wood speaks of him as a “learned man, having his learning all of the old stamp,”—that is to say, vast and ponderous. He published lectures on the book of Jonah, and numerous treatises, mostly relating to the political and religious occurrences of the times. But to have borne an active part in the preparation of the most useful and important of all the translations of the Bible, is an honor far beyond the chief ecclesiastical dignities and the highest literary fame.

Richard Redes, D.D.

Dr. Redes was a native of Bedfordshire, born at Sewell, about the year 1555. At an early age he was sent to Westminster school. He became a student of Christ’s Church, in Oxford, in 1571. He subsequently took his two degrees in arts, and two more in divinity. In 1578, he became a preacher, and arose to considerable eminence. In 1584, he was made Prebendary of Yarminster, in the cathedral church of Salisbury; and two years later, became Canon of Christ’s Church, and chaplain to Queen Elizabeth. In 1596, he was Dean of Worcester, which was the highest ecclesiastical preferment he attained. He was chaplain to James I., as he had been to the illustrious queen who preceded him; and was much admired at court as an accomplished pulpit orator. In his younger days, he was given, like some other fashionable clergymen, to writing poetry and plays; but, in riper years, he became, as the antiquarian of Oxford says, “a pious and grave divine, an ornament to his profession, and grace to the pulpit.” He published several discourses at different times. Dr. Redes died at Worcester, November 19th, 1604, soon after his appointment to be one of the Bible-translators, and before the work was well begun, so that another was appointed in his place. But let him not be deprived of his just commendation, as one who was counted worthy of being joined with that ablest band of scholars and divines, which was ever united in a single literary undertaking.

Giles Tomson, D.D.

This good man was a native of “famous London town.” In 1571, he entered University College, Oxford; and, in 1580, was elected Fellow of All Souls’ College. A few years later, he was out in a shower of appointments, “with his dish right side up.” He was, at that lucky season, made divinity lecturer in Magdalen College; chaplain to Queen Elizabeth, as was his friend, Dr. Richard Redes; Prebendary of Repington; Canon residentiary of Hereford; and Rector of Pembridge in Herefordshire. He was a most eminent preacher. He became Doctor in Divinity in 1602; and was, in that year, appointed Dean of Windsor. In virtue of this latter office, he acted as Registrar of the most noble Order of the Garter.

Dr. Tomson took a great deal of pains in his part of the translation of the Bible, which he did not long survive. He was consecrated Bishop of Gloucester, June 9th, 1611; and a year after, June 14th, 1612, he died, at the age of fifty-nine, “to the great grief of all who knew the piety and learning of the man.” Man is like the flower, whose full bloom is the signal for decay to begin. It is singular that Bishop Tomson never visited Gloucester, after his election to that see.

Sir Henry Savile, Knt.

Some have doubted whether the “Mr. Savile,” on the list of Translators, was the renowned scholar afterwards known as Sir Henry Savile. But the matter is put beyond doubt by Anthony Wood and others. Savile was born at Bradley, in Yorkshire, November 30th, 1549, “of ancient and worshipful extraction.” He graduated at Brazen Nose College, Oxford; but afterwards became a Fellow of Merton College. In 1570, he read his ordinaries on the Almagest of Ptolemy, a collection of the geometrical and astronomical observations and problems of the ancients. By this exercise he very early became famous for his Greek and mathematical learning. In this latter science, he for some time read voluntary lectures.

In his twenty-ninth year, he traveled in France and elsewhere, to perfect himself in literature; and returned highly accomplished in learning, languages, and knowledge of the world and men. He then became tutor in Greek and mathematics to Queen Elizabeth, whose father, Henry VIII., is said by Southey to have set the example of giving to daughters a learned education. It is to her highest honor, that when she had been more than twenty years upon the throne, she still kept up her habits of study, as appears by this appointment of Mr. Savile.

In 1686, he was made Warden of Merton College, which office he filled with great credit for six and thirty years, and also to the great prosperity of the institution. Ten years later, he added to this office, that of Provost of Eton College, which school rapidly increased in reputation under him. “Thus,” as Fuller says, “this skilful gardener had, at the same time, a nursery of young plants, and an orchard of grown trees, both flourishing under his careful inspection.” He was no admirer of geniuses; but preferred diligence to wit. “Give me,” he used to say, “the plodding student. If I would look for wits, I would go to Newgate;—there be the wits!” As might be expected, he was somewhat unpopular with his scholars, on account of the severity with which he urged them to diligence.

Soon after his nomination as one of the Translators, having declined all offers of other promotion, whether civil or ecclesiastical, he was knighted by the King. About the same time, he buried his only son Henry, at the age of eight years. In consequence of this bereavement, he devoted most of his wealth to the promotion of learning. He translated the Histories of Cornelius Tacitus, and published the same with notes. He also published, from the manuscripts, the writings of Bradwardin against Pelagius; the Writers of English history subsequent to Bede; Prelections on the Elements of Euclid; and other learned works in English and Latin.

He is chiefly known, however, by being the first to edit the complete works of John Chrysostom, the most famous of the Greek Fathers. He spent large sums in procuring from all parts of Europe, manuscripts, and copies of manuscripts. He not only made learned and critical notes on his favorite author, but procured those of Andrew Downes and John Bois, two of his fellow-laborers on the Translation of the Bible. His edition of one thousand copies was published in 1613, and makes eight immense folios. All his expenses in this labor of love amounted to above eight thousand pounds, of which the paper alone cost a fourth part.[1] It was fifty years before all the copies were sold. The Benedictines in Paris, however, through their emissaries in England, succeeded in surreptitiously procuring the labors of the learned knight, sheet by sheet, as they came from the press. These they reprinted as they were received, adding a Latin translation, and some other considerable matter, and forming thirteen mighty folios. By this transaction, the friars may have gained the most glory, but surely are not entitled to much honor.

Sir Henry Savile also founded two professorships at Oxford, with liberal endowments; one of geometry, and the other of astronomy. It is related of him; that he once chanced to fall in with a Master Briggs, of the rival University of Cambridge. In a learned encounter, Briggs succeeded in demonstrating some point in opposition to the previous opinion of Sir Henry. This pleased the worthy knight so well, that he appointed Mr. Briggs to one of his professorships. He made other valuable benefactions to Oxford, in land, money, and books. Many of his books are still in the Bodleian library there.

Sir Henry Savile died at Eton College, where he was buried, February 19th, 1621, in his seventy-second year. He was styled, “that magazine of learning, whose memory shall be honorable among the learned and the righteous for ever.” He left an only daughter, Elizabeth, who was married to Sir John Sedley, a wealthy baronet of Kent. Sir Henry’s wife was Margaret, daughter of George Dacres, of Cheshunt, Esq. It is said that Sir Henry was a singularly handsome man, and that no lady could boast a finer complexion.

He was so much of a book-worm, and so sedulous at his study, that his lady, who was not very deep in such matters, thought herself neglected. She once petulantly said to him, “Sir Henry, I would that I were a book, and then you would a little more respect me.” A person standing by was so ungallant as to reply, “Madam, you ought to be an almanac, that he might change at the year’s end.” At this retort the lady was not a little offended. A little before the publication of Chrysostom, when Sir Henry lay sick, Lady Savile said, that if Sir Harry died, she would burn Chrysostom for killing her husband. To this, Mr. Bois, who rendered Sir Henry much assistance in that laborious undertaking, meekly replied, that “so to do were great pity.” To him, the lady said, “Why, who was Chrysostom?” “One of the sweetest preachers since the apostles’ times,” answered the enthusiastic Bois. Whereupon the lady was much appeased, and said, “she would not burn him for all the world.” From these precious samples, it may be inferred that your fine lady is much the same in all ages of the world, no matter whom she may marry.

It is enough for our purpose, that Sir Henry Savile was one of the most profound, exact, and critical scholars of his age; and meet and ripe to take a prominent part in the preparation of our incomparable version.

John Peryn, D.D.

Dr. Peryn was of St. John’s College, Oxford, where he was elected Fellow in 1575. He was the King’s Professor of Greek in the University; and afterwards Canon of Christ’s Church. He was created Doctor of Divinity in 1596. When placed in the commission to translate the Bible, he was Vicar of Watling in Sussex. His death took place May 9th, 1615. These scanty items may serve to show, that he was fit to take part, with his learned and reverend brethren, in preparing our English Bible for the press.

Ralph Ravens, D.D.

This was the Vicar of Eyston Magna, who was made Doctor of Divinity in 1595. He died in 1616. It is thought that he did not act, for some reason, under the King’s commission; and that Doctors Aglionby and Hutten were appointed in place of him, and of Redes, who died before the work was begun.

John Harmar, D.D.

A native of Newbury, in Berkshire. He was educated in William de Wykeham’s School at Winchester; and also at St. Mary’s College, founded by the same munificent Wykeham at Oxford. “Manners make the man, quoth William of Wykeham,” is a motto frequently inscribed on the buildings of his School and College. Mr. Harmar became a Fellow of his College in 1574. He was appointed the King’s Professor of Greek in 1585, being, at the time, in holy orders. He was head-master of Winchester School, for nine years, and Warden of his College for seventeen years. He became Doctor of Divinity in 1605. His death took place in 1613. He was a considerable benefactor to the libraries both of the school and the college of Wykeham’s foundation. For all his preferments he was indebted to the potent patronage of the Earl of Leicester. He accompanied that nobleman to Paris, where he held several debates with the popish Doctors of the Sorbonne. He stood high in the crowd of tall scholars, the literary giants of the time. He published several learned works; among them, Latin translations of several of Chrysostom’s writings,—also an excellent translation of Beza’s French Sermons into English, by which he shows himself to have been a Calvinist, the master of an excellent English style, and an adept in the difficult art of translating. Wood says, that he was “a most noted Latinist, Grecian, and Divine;” and that he was “always accounted a most solid theologist, admirably well read in the Fathers and Schoolmen, and in his younger years a subtle Aristotelian,” Of him too it may be said, “having had a principal hand in the Translation,” that he was worthy to rank with those, who gave the Scriptures in their existing English form, to untold millions, past, present, and to come.

1. Making the usual allowance for the difference in the value of money then and now, he expended to the value of more than three hundred thousand dollars!

The Fifth Company

William Barlow, D.D.

The fifth company of Translators was composed of seven divines, who held their meetings at Westminster. Their special portion of the work was the whole of the Epistles of the New Testament. The president of this company was Dr. William Barlow, at the time of his appointment, Dean of Chester. He belonged to an ancient and respectable family, residing at Barlow, in Lancashire. He was bred a student of Trinity Hall, in the University of Cambridge. He graduated in 1534, became Master of Arts in 1587 and was admitted to a fellowship in Trinity Hall in 1590. Seven years later, Archbishop Whitgift made him sinecure Rector of Orpington in Kent.

He was one of the numerous ecclesiastics of that day, who were courtiers by profession, and studied with success the dark science of preferment. When Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, was beheaded for high treason in the year 1600, Dr. Barlow preached on the occasion, at St. Paul’s Cross, in London. He was now a “rising man.” In 1601, the prebendship of Chiswick was conferred upon him, and he held it till he was made Bishop of Lincoln. In the year 1603, he became at the same time, Prebendary of Westminster and Dean of Chester. This latter prebendship, he held in “commendam” to the day of his death.

When, soon after the accession of James Stuart to the throne of England, the famous Conference was held at Hampton Court, that monarch summoned, as we have said, four Puritan divines, whom he arbitrarily constituted representatives of their brethren. To confront them, he summoned a large force of bishops and cathedral clergymen, of whom Dean Barlow was one, all led to the charge by the doughty king himself. At the different meetings of the Conference, the Puritans were required to state what changes their party desired in the doctrine, discipline, and worship, of the Church of England. As soon as they ventured to specify anything, they were browbeaten and hectored in the most abusive manner by the monarch and his minions. In his time, when comparing his reign with the preceding, it was common to distinguish him by the title Queen James; and his illustrious predecessor, as King Elizabeth. When his learned preceptor, Buchanan, was asked how he came to make such a pedant of his royal pupil, the old disciplinarian was cruel enough to reply, that it was the best he could make of him! This prince, who fancied himself to be, what his flatterers swore he was, an incomparable adept in the sciences of theology and “kingcraft,” as he termed it, was quite in his element during the discussions at Hampton Court. He trampled with such fury on the claims of Puritanism, that his prelates, lordly and cringing by turns, were in raptures; and went down on their knees, and blessed God extemporaneously, for “such a king as had not been seen since Christ’s day!” Surely they were thrown off their guard by their exultation, when they set such an impressive example of “praying without book.”

This matter is mentioned here the more fully, because the principal account we have of this Conference is given by the Dean of Chester. It is not strange that the Puritans make but a sorry figure in his report of the transactions. Gagged by royal insolence, and choked by priestly abuse, it could hardly have been otherwise. Indeed, they were only summoned, that, under pretense of considering their grievances, the King might have an opportunity to throw off his mask, and to show himself in his true character, as a determined enemy to further reformation in his Church. Dr. Barlow’s account is evidently drawn up in a very unfriendly disposition toward the Puritan complainants, and labors to make their statements of grievances appear as weak and witless as possible. Had the pencil been held by a Puritan hand, no doubt the sketch would have been altogether different. The temper of the King and of his sycophantic courtclergy may be inferred from the mirth, which, Dr. Barlow says, was excited by a definition of a Puritan, quoted from one Butler, a Cambridge man,—“A Puritan is a Protestant frayed out of his wits!” The plan of the King and his mitered counselors was, the substitution of an English popery in the place of Romish popery. Their notions were well expressed, some years afterward, in a sermon at St. Mary’s, Cambridge,—“As at the Olympic games, he was counted the conqueror who could drive his chariot-wheels nearest the mark, yet not so as to hinder his running, or to stick thereon; so he who, in his sermons, can preach near popery, and yet not quite popery, there is your man!”

As we have already related, almost the only request vouchsafed to the Puritans at this Conference was one which was well worth all the rest. The King granted Dr. Reynolds’s motion for a new translation of the Bible, to be prepared by the ablest divines in his realm. Dr. Barlow was actively employed in the preliminary arrangements. He was also appointed to take part in the work itself; in which, being a thorough bred scholar, he did excellent service.

In the course of the work, in 1605, being, at the time, Rector of one of the London parishes, St. Dunstan’s in the East, Dr. Barlow was made Bishop of Rochester. He was promoted to the wealthier see of Lincoln in 1608, where he presided with all dignity till his death. He died at a time when he had some hopes of getting the bishopric of London. His decease took place at his episcopal palace of Buckden, where he was buried in 1613. He published several books and pamphlets, which prove him not out of place when put among the learned men of that erudite generation of divines.

John Spencer, D.D.

This very learned man was a native of the county of Suffolk. He became a student of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he graduated in 1577. He was elected Greek lecturer for that College, being then but nineteen years of age. His election was strenuously, but vainly, opposed by Dr. Reynolds, partly on account of his youth, and on the ground of some irregularity in his appointment. Perhaps this opposition was also to be ascribed to the fact, that young Spencer early attached himself to that party in his College which dreaded Puritanism quite as much as Popery. In 1579, he was chosen Fellow of the same College.

He was the fellow-student, and, like Saravia, and Savile, and Reynolds, the intimate friend of Richard Hooker, the author of that famous work, “The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity.” This work, in the preparation of which Spencer was “constantly consulted,” and was even said to have “had a special hand” as in part its author, and which he edited after Hooker’s death,—this work is to this day the “great gun” on the ramparts of the Episcopal sect. Its argument, however, is very easily disposed of. It is thus described by Dr. James Bennett;—“The architecture of the fabric resembles Dagon’s temple; for it rests mainly upon two grand pillars, which, so long as they continue sound, will support all its weight. The first is, ‘that the Church of Christ, like all other societies, has power to make laws for its well-being;’ and the second, that ‘where the sacred Scriptures are silent, human authority may interpose.’ But if some Samson can be found to shake these pillars from their base, the whole edifice, with the lords of the Philistines in their seats, and the multitude with which it is crowded, will be involved in one common ruin. Grant Mr. Hooker these two principles, and his arguments cannot be confuted. But if a Puritan can show that the Church of Christ is different from ail civil societies, because Christ had framed a constitution for it, and that where the Scriptures are silent, and neither enjoin nor forbid, no human association has a right to interpose its authority, but should leave the matter indifferent; in such a case, Hooker’s system would not be more stable than that of the Eastern philosopher, who rested the earth on the back of an elephant, who stood upon a huge tortoise, which stood upon nothing.”

After the death of Hooker in 1600, his papers were committed to Dr. Spencer, the associate and assistant of his studies, to superintend their publication. He attended carefully to this literary executorship, till the translation of the Bible began to engross his attention, when he committed the other duty, though still retaining a supervisory care, to a young and enthusiastic admirer of Hooker. The publication was not completed at the time of Dr. Spencer’s death, and the papers of Hooker passed into other hands.

When he became Master of Arts, in 1580, John Spencer entered into orders, and became a popular preacher. He was eventually one of King James’s chaplains. His wife was a pupil of Hooker’s, as well as her brothers, George and William Cranmer, who became diplomatic characters, and warm patrons of their celebrated teacher. Mrs. Spencer was a great-niece of Thomas Cranmer, that Archbishop of Canterbury, whom Queen Mary burnt at the stake for his Protestantism. In 1589, Dr. Spencer was made Vicar of Alveley in Essex, which he resigned, in 1592, for the vicarage of Broxborn. In 1599, he was Vicar of St. Sepulchre’s, beyond Newgate, London. He was made President of Corpus Christi College, on the death of Dr. Reynolds, in 1607. Dr. Spencer was appointed to a prebendal stall in St. Paul’s, London, in 1612. His death took place on the third day of April, 1614, when he was fifty-five years of age. Of his eminent scholarship there can be no question. He was a valuable helper in the great work of preparing our common English version. We have but one publication from his pen, a sermon preached at St. Paul’s Cross, and printed after his decease, of which Keble, who is Professor of Poetry at Oxford, says, that it is “full of eloquence, and striking thoughts.”

Roger Fenton, D.D.

This clergyman was a native of Lancashire. He was Fellow of Pembroke Hall, in Cambridge University. For many years, he was “the painful, pious, learned, and beloved minister” of St. Stephen’s, Walbrook, London, to which he was admitted in 1601. He was also presented by the Queen to the Rectory of St. Bennet’s, Sherehog, which he resigned in 1606, for the vicarage of Chigwell, in Essex. He was also collated, in place of Bishop Andrews, to the Prebendship of Pancras in St. Paul’s cathedral, where he was Penitentiary of St. Paul’s. His prebendship of Pancras also made him, (so Newcourt says,) Rector of that church. He died January 16th, 1616, aged fifty years. He was buried under the communion-table of St. Stephen’s, where there is a monument erected to his memory by his parishioners, with an inscription expressing their affection toward him as a pastor eminent for his piety and learning.

His principal publication is described as a “solid treatise” against usury. His most intimate friend was Dr. Nicholas Felton, another London minister. The following singular incident is related of them by good old Thomas Fuller;—“Once my own father gave Dr. Fenton a visit, who excused himself from entertaining him any longer. ‘Mr. Fuller,’ said he, ‘hear how the passing bell tolls, at this very instant, for my dear friend, Dr. Felton, now a-dying. I must to my study, it being mutually agreed upon betwixt us, in our healths, that the survivor of us should preach the other’s funeral sermon.’ But see a strange change! God, ‘to whom belong the issues of death,’ with the patriarch Jacob blessing his grand-children, ‘wittingly guided his hands across,’ reaching out death to the living, and life to the dying. So that Dr. Felton recovered, and not only performed that last office to his friend, Dr. Fenton, but survived him more than ten years, and died Bishop of Ely.” By that funeral sermon, it appears that Dr. Fenton was free of the Grocers’ Company, a wealthy guild, to whom belonged the patronage of St. Stephen’s Church. He was also Preacher of Gray’s Inn, a society or college of lawyers. Bishop Felton says of him,—“None was fitter to dive into the depths of school divinity. He was taken early from the University, and had many troubles afterward; yet he grew, and brought forth fruit. Never a more learned hath Pembroke Hall brought forth, with but one exception.” This nameless exception was doubtless the great Bishop Lancelot Andrews. Dr. Fenton suffered severely in regard to health, in consequence of his sedentary habits. “In the time of his sickness,” says his friend, “I told him, that his weakness and disease were trials only of his faith and patience.”

Oh no, he answered, they are not trials but corrections.[1]

Ralph Hutchinson, D.D.

Dr. Hutchinson, at the time of his appointment, was President of St. John’s College, having entered that office in 1590. This, which marks him as a learned man, is all we can tell of him.

William Dakins.

He was educated at Westminster School, and admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge, May 8th, 1587. He was chosen Fellow in 1593. He became Bachelor in Divinity in 1601. The next year he was appointed Greek lecturer. In 1604, he was appointed Professor of Divinity at Gresham College, London. He was elected on the recommendation of the Vice-Chancellor and Heads of Colleges in Cambridge, and also of several of the nobility, and of the King himself. The King in his letter to the Mayor and Aldermen of London, calls him “an ancient divine,” not in allusion to his age, but his character. This appointment was given him as a remuneration for his undertaking to do his part in the Bible-translation. He was considered peculiarly fit to be employed in this work, on account of “his skill in the original languages.” In 1606, he was chosen Dean of Trinity College; but died a few months after, on the second day of October, being less than forty years of age. Though taken away in the midst of his days, and of the work on account of which we are interested in him, he evidently stood in high repute as to his qualifications for a duty of such interest and importance.

Michael Rabbet.

All we can tell of him is, that he was a Bachelor in Divinity, and Rector of the Church of St. Vedast, Foster Lane, London.

Mr. Sanderson.

The bare name is all that is left to us with any certainty. Wood mentions a Thomas Sanderson, D. D., of Baliol College, Oxford, who was installed Archdeacon of Rochester in 1606; but does not say whether he was one of our Translators.

1. Non probationes, sed castigationes.

The Sixth Company

The sixth and last company of King James’s Bible-translators met at Cambridge. To this company was assigned all the Apocryphal books, which, in those times, were more read and accounted of than now, though by no means placed on a level with the canonical books of Scripture.[1] Still this party of the Translators had as much to do as either of the others, in the repeated revision of the version of the canonical books.

John Duport, D.D.

The president of this company was Dr. Duport, then Master of Jesus College, and Prebendary of Ely. He Was son of Thomas Duport, Esquire; and was born at Shepshead, in Leicestershire. He was bred at Jesus College, Cambridge, where he became Fellow, and afterwards Master, which latter office he exercised with great reputation for nearly thirty years. He was a liberal benefactor of the College. In 1580 he was Proctor in the University; and in the same year he was made Rector of Harlton in Cambridgeshire. He afterwards bestowed the perpetual advowsance of this rectory on his College. He was soon after Rector of Bosworth and Medbourn, in his native County. In 1583, he was collated to the rectory of Fulham, in Middlesex, which was a sinecure. Such frequent change of parishes, in a clergyman of the Anglican Church, is a sign of great prosperity; as they are always changes from a poorer benefice to a better, and are considered as “preferments.”

Almost every parish, whenever vacant, is in the gift of some man of wealth, or high officer in church, state, university, or other corporation: Hence frequent removals to more desirable parishes tend to shew that a clergyman has very influential friends or is in high esteem. Still this does not necessarily follow, inasmuch as a very great part of this business is mere matter of bargain and sale. The person who has the right of presenting a clergyman to be pastor of a vacant church is called the “patron;” and the right of presentation is called the “advowson.” These advowsons are bought, sold, bequeathed or inherited, like any other right or possession. They may be owned by heretics or infidels, who are under very little restraint as to their choice of ministers to fill the vacancies that occur. If the bishop should refuse to institute the person nominated, it would involve the prelate in great trouble, unless he could make out a very strong case against the fitness of the rejected presentee. Meanwhile the flocks, who pay the tithes which support the minister, have no voice in the matter, except in comparatively few parishes. They may be dearly loved for their flesh and fleece; but they must take the shepherd who is set over them. If they dislike his pasture, and jump the fences to feed elsewhere, they must pay tithes and offerings all the same to the convivial rector, fox-hunting vicar, or Puseyite priest, who has secured the “benefice” or “living.” It is astonishing, that, under such an ecclesiastical system, the Church of England is not more thoroughly corrupted. And it is astonishing, that such a system can be endured to the middle of such a century as this, by a nation whose loudest and proudest boast is of liberty.

While Dr. Duport was rapidly rising in the scale of preferment, he retained his connection with Jesus College. After he was made Master in 1590, he was four times elected Vice-Chancellor, the highest resident officer, of the University. In 1585, he became Precentor of St. Paul’s, London; and in 1609, was made Prebendary of Ely. He married Rachel, daughter to Richard Cox, Bishop of Ely. They were very happy in their son James Duport, D. D., a distinguished Greek professor and divine. The father died about Christmas, in 1617, leaving a well-earned reputation as “a reverend man in his generation.” Let him also be reverend in this generation, for his agency in the final preparation of the Bible in English.

William Brainthwaite, D.D.

Of Dr. Brainthwaite we recover but little. He spent his life in Cambridge University, where he was first a student of Clare Hall, then Fellow of Emanuel College, and at last Master of Gonvil and Caius College. He was in this last office, when he was named in the royal commission as one of the Translators. He was a benefactor of the last-mentioned colleges; and in 1619, was Vice-Chancellor of the University. These few items go to mark him as a learned, reverend, and worshipful divine.

Jeremiah Radcliffe, D.D.

Dr. Radcliffe was one of the Senior Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1588, he was Vicar of Evesham; and two years later, he was Rector of Orwell. He was Vice-Master of his College in 1597. In the year 1600, he was made Doctor in Divinity, both at Cambridge and Oxford. Thus he, too, is to be ranked as a scholar and a divine by calling. His death took place in 1612.

Samuel Ward, D.D.

This was a man of mark,—“a vast scholar.” He was a native of Bishop’s Middleham, in the county of Durham. His father was a gentleman of “more ancientry than estate.” He studied at Cambridge, where he was at first a student of Christ’s College, then a Fellow of Emanuel, and afterwards Master of Sidney Sussex College. He entered upon this latter office in 1609, and occupied it with great usefulness and honor till his death, thirty-four years after. His college flourished greatly under his administration. Four new fellowships were founded, all the scholarships augmented, and a chapel and new range of buildings erected, all in his time. He was distinguished for the gravity of his deportment, and for the integrity with which he discharged the duties of his Mastership.

Being appointed chaplain to the royal favorite, Bishop Montague, he was by that prelate made Archdeacon of Taunton in 1615, and also Prebendary of Wells. The King next year presented him to the rectory of Much-Munden in Hertfordshire; and also appointed him one of his chaplains. In 1617, the excellent Dr. Toby Mathew, archbishop of York, made him Prebendary of Ampleford in the cathedral church of York; and this stall Dr. Ward retained as long as he lived.

King James sent him, in 1618, to the Synod of Dort, in Holland, together with Bishops Carleton, Davenant, and Hall; as the four divines most able and meet to represent the Church of England, at that famous Council. After a while Dr. Goad, a powerful divine and chaplain to Dr. Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury, was sent in the place of Dr. Hall, recalled at his own request, on account of sickness. The English delegates were treated with the highest consideration; and having exerted a very happy influence in the Synod, returned with great honor to their own country, after six or eight months’ absence. The sittings of the Synod began November 3rd, 1618, and ended April 29th of the next year. During all this time, the States General of Holland allowed the British envoys ten pounds sterling each day; and, at their departure, gave them two hundred pounds to bear their expenses; and also to each of them a splendid gold medal, representing the Synod in session.

At this celebrated ecclesiastical council, Walter Balcanqual, B. D., Fellow of Pembroke Hall, and afterwards Master of the Savoy, by order of King James, represented the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. There were also, besides the members from the Dutch provinces, delegates present from Hesse, the Palatinate, Bremen, and Switzerland, all of whose churches practiced the Presbyterial form of discipline and government. The Church of England, through its “supreme head,” acknowledged and communed with all these as true churches of the Lord Jesus Christ,—sitting and acting with them, by its delegated theologians, in a solemn ecclesiastical assembly. Surely the spirit of the Anglican Church in those days was widely different from what is manifested now.

The object of the Synod, which was convened by order of their High Mightinesses, the Lords States General, was to settle the doctrinal disputes which then convulsed the established Church of the Netherlands. For some ten years the dispute had been very sharp between the Calvinists, who adhered to the old national faith, and the followers of Arminius, who innovated upon the old order of things. The points in dispute related to divine predestination, the nature and extent of the atonement, the corruption of man, his conversion to God, and the perseverance of saints. These five points are explained in some sixty “canons,” which were “confirmed by the unanimous consent of all and each of the members of the whole Synod.” The Dordrechtan Canons are, perhaps, the most careful and exact statement of the Calvinistic belief, in scientific form, that has ever been drawn up. It is wisely framed, so that all the usual objections to these doctrines are forestalled and excluded in the very form of their statement. Although the decrees of Dordrecht had not the desired effect of quelling the errors of Arminianism, they are worthy of all it cost to procure them. At the time of their adoption, King James was very hostile to the Arminians. He soon, however, became more lenient toward them, when convinced by Bishop Laud, that the laxity and pliancy of Arminianism made it far more supple and convenient for the purposes of “kingcraft” and civil despotism, than the stiff and unyielding temper of Calvinism, whose first principle is obedience to God rather than to man. The court favor took such a turn, that it was not many years till, in answer to a question as to what the Arminians held, it was wittily said, that they held almost all the best bishoprics and deaneries in England.

Before going home to England, the British delegates made a tour through the provinces of Holland, and were received with great respect in most of the principal cities. On his return, Dr. Ward resumed his duties as head of Sidney College. In 1621, he was Vice-Chancellor of the University. In the same year, he was made the Lady Margaret’s Professor of Divinity, which office he sustained with great celebrity for more than twenty years. The English Bible, which he actively assisted in translating, was formally published in 1611. Some errors of the press having crept into the first edition, and others into later reprints, King Charles the First, in 1638, had another edition printed at Cambridge, which was revised by Dr. Ward and Mr. Bois, two of the original Translators who still survived, assisted by Dr. Thomas Goad, Mr. Mede, and other learned men.

When the Assembly of Divines was convened at Westminster, 1643, Dr. Ward was summoned as a member, but never attended. In doctrine, he was a thorough Puritan; but in politics, a staunch royalist. In the sad and distracted times of the civil wars, as Thomas Fuller, his affectionate pupil, says, “he turned as a rock riseth with the tide.—In a word, he was accounted a Puritan before these times, and popish in these times; and yet, being always the same, was a true Protestant at all times.” When hostilities broke out, he joined the other heads of Colleges at Cambridge, in sending their college-plate to aid the tyrannical Charles Stuart, whose character, partially redeemed by some private virtues, has been so admirably exposed by Macaulay. “Faithlessness,” says that philosophic historian, “was the chief cause of his disasters, and is the chief stain on his memory. He was, in truth, impelled by an incurable propensity to dark and crooked ways. It may seem strange that his conscience, which, on occasions of little moment, was sufficiently sensitive, should never have reproached him with this great vice. But there is reason to believe that he was perfidious, not only from constitution and from habit, but also on principle.” This historical judgment may seem severe; but its truth is maintained by other competent critics. James Stuart was undoubtedly one of the worse sort of monarchs; but of him Coleridge frankly says,—“James I., in my honest judgment, was an angel, compared with his sons and grandsons.”

Dr. Ward, no doubt, like many other good men who disliked the King’s proceedings, was compelled, by his conscientious belief in the long established doctrine of the “divine right of kings,” to uphold his sovereign. In consequence of his sending the college-plate to be coined for the King’s use, the parliamentary authorities deprived Dr. Ward of his professorship and mastership, and confiscated his goods. He was also, in 1642, with three other heads of colleges involved in the same transaction, imprisoned in St. John’s College for a short time. During his confinement, he contracted a disorder that proved fatal in six weeks after his liberation, which was granted on account of his sickness. He died, in great want, at an advanced age, in 1643, and was the first person buried in Sidney Sussex Chapel. A beautiful character is drawn in some Latin verses addressed to him by Dr. Thomas Goad, the close of which is thus given in English by Fuller;—

“None thy quick sight, grave judgment, can beguile,
So skilled in tongues, so sinewy in style;
Add to all these that peaceful soul of thine,
Meek, modest, which all brawlings doth decline.”

Dr. Ward maintained much correspondence with learned men. His correspondence with Archbishop Ushur reveals traits of diversified learning, especially in biblical and oriental criticism.[2] In his letters to the elder Vossius he animadverts upon that distinguished author’s History of Pelagianism. His character cannot be better described than in the following beautiful passage from Dr. Fuller’s History of the University of Cambridge. “He was a Moses, not only for slowness of speech, but otherwise meekness of nature. Indeed, when, in my private thoughts, I have beheld him and Dr. Collins,[3] (disputable whether more different, or more eminent in their endowments,) I could not but remember the running of Peter and John to the place where Christ was buried. In which race, John came first, as youngest and swiftest; but Peter first entered the grave. Dr. Collins had much the speed of him in quickness of parts; but let me say, (nor doth the relation of pupil misguide me,) the other pierced the deeper into underground and profound points in divinity. Now as high winds bring some men the sooner into sleep, so, I conceive, the storms and tempests of these distracted times invited this good old man the sooner to his long rest, where we leave him, and quietly draw the curtains about him.”

Andrew Downes, D.D.

Dr. Downes was Fellow of St. John’s College, Cambridge. For full forty years he was Regius Professor of Greek in that famous University. He is especially named by the renowned John Selden as eminently qualified to share in the translation of the Bible. Thus it is the happiness of Dr. Downes to be “praised by a praised man for no man was ever more exalted for learning and critical scholarship than Selden, who was styled by Dr. Johnson,”monarch in letters;” and by Milton, “chief of learned men in England;” and by foreigners, “the great dictator of learning of the English nation.” His decisive testimony to Downes’s ability was given from personal knowledge, Andrew Downes was one of the revising committee of twelve, composed of the principal members of each company, who met at London to prepare the copy for the press. This venerable Professor is spoken of as “one composed of Greek and industry.” He bestowed much labor on Sir Henry Savile’s celebrated edition of the works of Chrysostom, and many of the learned notes were furnished by him. “His pains were so inlaid” with that monument of erudition, that “both will be preserved together.” He died, February 2nd, 1625, at the great age of eighty-one years.

John Bois.

This devoted scholar was a native of Nettlestead, in Suffolk, where he was born January 3rd, 1560. His father William Bois, a convert from papistry, was a pious minister, and a very learned man; and at the time of his death, was Rector of West Stowe. His mother, Mirable Poolye, was a pious woman, and a great reader of the Bible in the older translations. He was the only child that grew up. He was carefully taught by his father; and at the age of five years, he had read the Bible in Hebrew. By the time he was six years old, he not only wrote Hebrew legibly, but in a fair and elegant character. Some of these remarkable manuscripts are still carefully preserved. This precocious scholar, who yet lived to a ripe and hale old age, was sent to school at Hadley, where he was a fellow-student with Bishop Overall. He was admitted to St. John’s College, Cambridge, in 1575. He soon distinguished himself by his great skill in Greek, writing letters in that language to the Master and Senior Fellows, when he had been but half a year in College. Bois was a pupil to Dr. Downes, then chief lecturer on the Greek language, who took such delight in his promising disciple, that he treated him with great familiarity, even while he was a freshman. In addition to his lectures, which Dr. Downes read five times in the week, he took the youth to his chambers, where he plied him exceedingly. He there read with him twelve Greek authors, in verse and prose, the hardest that could be found both for dialect and phrase. It was a common practice with the young enthusiast to go to the University Library at four o’clock in the morning, and stay without intermission till eight in the evening.

When John Bois was elected Fellow of his College in 1580, he was laboring under that formidable disease, the small pox. But, with his usual resolution, rather than lose his seniority, he had himself wrapped in blankets, and was carried to be admitted to his office by his tutors, Henry Coppinger and Andrew Downes. He commenced the study of medicine; but fancying himself affected with every disease he read of, he quitted the study in disgust, and turned his attention to divinity. He was ordained a deacon, June 21st, 1583; and the next day, by a dispensation, he was ordained a priest of the Church of England.

For ten years, he was Greek lecturer in his college; and, during that time, he voluntarily lectured, in his own chamber, at four o’clock in the morning, most of the Fellows being in attendance! It may be doubted, whether, at the present day, a teacher and class so zealous could be found at old Cambridge, new Cambridge, or any where else,—not excluding laborious Germany.

At this time, Thomas Gataker, afterwards one of the most distinguished of the Westminster Divines, was a pupil to Bois.

On the death of his father, Mr. Bois succeeded to the rectory of West Stowe, but soon resigned it, and went back to his beloved College. The Earl of Shrewsbury made him his chaplain; but this too he soon resigned. When he was about thirty-six years old, Mr. Holt, Rector of Boxworth, died, leaving the advowson of that living in part of a portion to one of his daughters; and requesting of some of his friends, that “if it might be procured, Mr. Bois, of St. John’s College, might become his successor.” The matter being intimated to that gentleman, he went over to take a view of the lady thus singularly portioned, and commended to his favorable regards. The parties soon took a sufficient liking to each other, and the somewhat mature lover was presented to the parsonage by his future bride, and instituted by Archbishop Whitgift, October 13th, 1596. He fulfilled the other part of the bargain, by marrying the lady, February 7th, 1598; and so resigned his beloved Fellowship at St. John’s. He could not, however, wholly separate himself from old associates and pursuits. Every week he rode over from Boxworth to Cambridge to hear some of the Greek lectures of Dowries, and the Hebrew exercises of Lively, and also the divinity-acts and lectures. Every Friday he met with neighboring ministers, to the number of twelve, to give an account of their studies, and to discuss difficult questions.

While thus absorbed in studious pursuits, he left his domestic affairs to the management of his wife, whose want of skill in a few years reduced him to bankruptcy. He was forced to part with his chief treasure, and to sell his library, which contained one of the most complete and costly collections of Greek literature that had ever been made. This cruel loss so disheartened him, as almost to drive the poor man from his family and his native country. He was, however, sincerely attached to his wife, with whom he lived in great happiness and affection for five and forty years.

In the translation of the Bible, he had a double share. After the completion of the Apocrypha, the portion assigned to his company, the other Cambridge company, to whom was assigned from the Chronicles to the Canticles inclusively, earnestly intreated his assistance, as he was equally distinguished for his skill in Greek and Hebrew. They were the more earnest for his aid, because of the death of their president, Professor Lively, which took place shortly after the work was undertaken. During the four years thus employed, Mr. Bois gave close attention to the duty, from Monday morning to Saturday evening, spending the Sabbaths only at his rectory with his family. For all this labor he received no worldly compensation, except the use of his chambers and his board in commons. When the work had been carried through the first stage, he was one of the twelve delegates sent, two from each of the companies, to make the final revision of the work at Stationers’ Hall, in London. This occupied nine months, during which each member of the committee received thirty shillings per week from John Barker, the King’s printer, to whom the copyright belonged. Mr. Bois took notes of all the proceedings of this committee.

He rendered a vast amount of aid to his fellow translator, Sir Henry Savile, in his great literary undertaking, the edition of Chrysostom. Sir Henry speaks of him, in the Preface, as the “most ingenious and most learned Mr. Bois;” and it is said that the aged Professor Downes was so much hurt at the higher commendations bestowed on his quondam pupil’s share in that labor than upon his own, that he never got entirely over it. Mr. Bois, however, did not cease to regard his veteran instructor with the utmost respect and esteem. For his many years of hard labor bestowed upon Chrysostom, he received no compensation, except a single copy of the work. This was probably owing to the sudden demise of Sir Henry Savile, who was intending to make him one of the Fellows of Eton College.

Mr. Bois continued to be quite poor and neglected, till Dr. Lancelot Andrews, then Bishop of Ely, and who had also been employed in the Bible-translation, of his own accord made him a Prebendary of the cathedral church of Ely, in 1615. He there spent the last twenty-eight years of his life, in studious retirement, providing a curate for Boxworth. After his removal to Ely, he visited Boxworth twice a year, to administer the sacraments and preach, and to relieve the wants of the poor. He left, at his death, as many leaves of manuscript as he had lived days in his long life; for even in his old age, he spent eight hours in daily study, mostly reading and correcting ancient authors. Among his writings, was a voluminous commentary in Latin on the Gospels and Acts, which was published some twelve years after his decease.

He was of a social and cheerful disposition, and had a great fund of anecdote at command.

He kept up a strict family government. His charity to the necessitous poor was limited only by the bottom of his purse; though he “chode the lazy,” knowing that charity’s eyes should be open, as well as her hands. He was “in fastings oft,” sometimes twice in the week; and punctual in all religious duties. His preaching was without notes, though not without much prayer and study. In performing this solemn duty, his main endeavor was to make himself easily understood by the humblest and most ignorant of his hearers. This is a wise and noble trait in one of such vast acquirements; and one to whom Dalechamp, in dedicating to him a eulogy on Thomas Harrison, said with truth, that he was “in highest esteem with studious foreigners, and second to none in solid attainments in the Greek tongue.” He was so familiar with the Greek Testament, that he could, at any time, turn to any word that it contained.

His manner of living was quite peculiar. He was a great pedestrian all his days. He was also a great rider and swimmer; and possessed a very strong constitution, which all his hard study could not impair. He took but two meals, dinner and supper, and never drank at any other time. He would not study between supper and bedtime; but spent the interval in pleasant discourse with friends. He took special care of his teeth, and carried them nearly all to the grave. Up to his death, his brow was unwrinkled, his sight clear, his hearing quick, his countenance fresh, and head not bald. He ascribed his health and longevity to the observance of three rules, given him by one of his college tutors, Dr. Whitaker:—First, always to study standing; secondly, never to study in a draft of air; and thirdly, never to go to bed with his feet cold!

He had four sons and three daughters. The first-born son died an infant. The second son and eldest daughter he saw married. The third son died of consumption, at the age of thirty, at Ely, where he was a canon in the cathedral. The youngest son died of the smallpox, while a student of St. John’s College. Thus the father was not without his sore afflictions. These seem to have been sanctified to his good. He said of himself, near the end of his life,—“There has not been a day for these many years, in which I have not meditated at least once upon my death.” Thus he met death, at last, with great joy, as an old acquaintance, and long expected friend. Having survived his wife for two lonesome years, Mr. Bois had himself carried about five hours before his end, into the room where she died. He there expired, on the Lord’s Day, January 14th, 1643, in the eighty-fourth year of his age. “He went unto his rest on the day of rest; a man of peace, to the God of peace.”

John Ward, D.D.

This name closes the original list of King James’s translators. Dr. Ward was Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge. Fuller gives him the strange title of “Regal,” probably denoting some station in the University. All that we gather of this Dr. Ward is that he was Prebendary of Chichester, and Rector of Bishop’s Waltham in Hampshire.

1. The reasons assigned for not admitting the apocryphal books into the canon, or list, of inspired Scriptures are briefly the following. 1. Not one of them is in the Hebrew language, which was alone used by the inspired historians and poets of the Old Testament. 2. Not one of the writers lays any claim to inspiration. 3. These books were never acknowledged as sacred Scriptures by the Jewish Church, and therefore were never sanctioned by our Lord. 4. They were not allowed a place among the sacred books, during the first four centuries of the Christian Church. 5. They contain fabulous statements, and statements which contradict not only the canonical Scriptures, but themselves; as when, in the two Books of Maccabees, Antiochus Epiphanes is made to die three different deaths in as many different places. 6. It inculcates doctrines at variance with the Bible, such as prayers for the dead and sinless perfection. 7. It teaches immoral practices, such as lying, suicide, assassination and magical incantation. For these and other reasons, the Apocryphal books, which are all in Greek, except one which is extant only in Latin, are valuable only as ancient documents, illustrative of the manners, language, opinions and history of the East.

2. Dr. Usher, in one of these letters, corrects a misprint in the Translator’s Preface, where the name Efnard should be Eynard, or Eginhardus.

3. Samuel Collins, Provost of King’s College, and for forty years Regius Professor. “As Caligula is said to have sent his soldiers vainly to fight against the tide, with the same success have any encountered the torrent of his Latin in disputation.”

Other Assistants to the Work

It remains for us to add a brief account of some, who are known to have assisted in different stages of the work. It has been shewn that two or three of those who were named in the King’s commission, died soon after their appointment. At least two others appear to have taken their places, and therefore require our notice.

John Aglionby, D.D.

Dr. Aglionby was descended from a respectable family in Cumberland. In 1583, he became a student in Queen’s College, Oxford, of which college he afterwards became a Fellow. After receiving ordination, he traveled in foreign countries; and, on his return, was made chaplain in ordinary to Queen Elizabeth, who endured no drone or dunce about her. In 1601, he was made Rector of Blechindon. In the same year, he was chosen Principal of St. Edmund’s Hall, in the University of Oxford; and about the same time, he became Rector of Islip. On the accession of James I., he was appointed chaplain in ordinary to the King. Dr. Aglionby was deeply read in the fathers and the schoolmen, “an excellent linguist,” and an elegant and instructive preacher. It is said of him by Anthony Wood, in his Athanæ,—“What he hath published I find not; however, the reason why I set him down here is, that he had a most considerable hand in the Translation of the New Testament, appointed by King James I., in 1604.” Dr. Aglionby died at his rectory, on the sixth day of February, 1609, aged forty-three. In the chancel of his church at Islip, is a tablet erected to his memory by his widow. Thus he lived just long enough to do the best work he could have done in this world.

Leonard Hutten, D.D.

This divine was bred at Westminster School; from whence he was elected, on the score of merit, to be a student of Christ’s Church, one of the Oxford colleges, in 1574. He there devoted himself, with unwearied zeal, to the pursuit of academical learning in all its branches. He took orders in due time, and became a frequent preacher. In 1599, at which time he was a Bachelor in Divinity of some eight years’ standing, and also Vicar of Flower in Northamptonshire, he was installed canon of Christ’s Church. He was well known as an “excellent Grecian,” and an elegant scholar. He was well versed in the fathers, the schoolmen, and the learned languages, which were the favorite studies of that day; and he also investigated with care the history of his own nation. In his predilection for this last study he shewed good sense, “seeing,” as an old writer has it, “history, like unto good men’s charity, is, though not to end, yet to begin, at home, and thence to make its methodical progress into foreign parts.” Of Dr. Hutten it is expressly stated by Wood, that “he had a hand in the translation of the Bible.” He died May 17th, 1632, aged seventy-two.

Thus we close the best record, which, with very great care and research, we have been able to make, of this roll of ancient scholars. Their united labors, bestowed upon the common English version of the Bible, have produced a volume which has exerted a greater and happier influence on the world, than any other which has appeared since the original Scriptures themselves were given to mankind.

Supervisors of the Work

Several other persons were employed in various stages of the work. In a letter from the King to the Bishop of London, dated July 22nd, 1604, the monarch says,—“We have appointed certain learned men, to the number of four and fifty, for the translating of the Bible.” As the authentic lists contain but forty-seven names, it is presumed the others were certain “divines” referred to in the fifteenth article of the royal instructions as to the mode of prosecuting the work. In this fifteenth article it is provided, that besides the several directors or presidents of the different companies, “three or four of the most ancient and grave divines in either of the Universities, not employed in translating, be as signed by the Vice-Chancellor, upon conference with the rest of the Heads, to be overseers of the Translation, as well Hebrew as Greek, for the better observance of the fourth rule.” That rule required, that among the different meanings of any word, that one should be adopted which is most sanctioned by the Fathers, and is most “agreeable to the propriety of the place, and the analogy of the faith.” It is not known who those supervisors were; but if one of the Universities designated three of them, and the other designated four, it would make out the requisite number.

When the six companies had gone through with their part of the undertaking, three copies were sent to London; one from the two companies at Cambridge, another from those at Oxford, and the third from those at Westminster. Each company also delegated two of its ablest members to go up to London, and prepare a single copy from these three. When the Synod of Dort was discussing the subject of preparing a version to be authorized for the use of the Dutch churches, Dr. Samuel Ward, one of the members, informed that celebrated body as to the manner in which that business had been conducted in England. He then stated, that this last single copy was arranged by twelve divines “of good distinction, and thoroughly conversant in the work from the beginning;” and he, as one of the Translators, must have known the number.

This oft revised and completed copy was then referred, for final revision in preparation for the press, to Dr. Smith, one of the most active of the Translators, and soon after made Bishop of Gloucester, and to Dr. Bilson, then Bishop of Winchester. These two prepared the summary of contents placed at the head of the chapters, and carefully saw the work through the press in the year of grace, 1611.

Thomas Bilson, D.D.

Dr. Thomas Bilson was of German parentage, and related to the Duke of Bavaria. He was born in Winchester, and educated in the school of William de Wykeham. He entered New College, at Oxford, and was made a Fellow of his College in 1565. He began to distinguish himself as a poet; but, on receiving ordination, gave himself wholly to theological studies. He was soon made Prebendary of Winchester, and Warden of the College there. In 1596, he was made Bishop of Worcester; and three years later, was translated to the see of Winchester, his native place. He engaged in most of the polemical contests of his day, as a stiff partisan of the Church of England. When the controversy arose as to the meaning of the so called Apostles’ Creed, in asserting the descent of Christ into hell, Bishop Bilson defended the literal sense, and maintained that Christ went there, not to suffer, but to wrest the keys of hell out of the Devil’s hands. For this doctrine he was severely handled by Henry Jacob, who is often called the father of modern Congregationalism, and also by other Puritans. Much feeling was excited by the controversy, and Queen Elizabeth, in her ire, commanded her good bishop, “neither to desert the doctrine, nor let the calling which he bore in the Church of God, be trampled under foot, by such unquiet refusers of truth and authority.” The despotic spinster ruled with such energy, both in Church and state, as to sanction the saying, that “old maids’ children are well governed!” Dr. Bilson’s most famous work was entitled “The Perpetual Government of Christ’s Church,” and was published in 1593. It is still regarded as one of the ablest books ever written in behalf of Episcopacy. Dr. Bilson died in 1616, at a good old age, and was buried in “Westminster Abbey. It was said of him, that he”carried prelature in his very aspect.” Anthony Wood proclaims him so “complete in divinity, so well skilled in languages, so read in the Fathers and Schoolmen, so judicious in making use of his readings, that at length he was found to be no longer a soldier, but a commander in chief in the spiritual warfare, especially when he became a bishop!”

Richard Bancroft, D.D.

In the Translators’ Preface, which used to be printed with all the earlier editions of the Bible, there is an allusion to one who was the “chief overseer and task-master under his Majesty, to whom were not only we, but also our whole Church, much bound.” This was Dr. Bancroft, then Bishop of London, on whom devolved the duty of seeing the King’s intentions in regard to the new version carried into effect. Though he had but little to do in the studies by which it was prepared, yet his general oversight of all the business part of the arrangements makes it proper to notice him on these pages.

He was born near Manchester, and educated at Jesus College, Cambridge. He was chaplain to Queen Elizabeth, under whom he became Bishop of London in 1597. On the death of Whitgift, in 1604, he succeeded to the archbishopric of Canterbury. In one year thereafter, such was his fury in pressing conformity, that not less than three hundred ministers were suspended, deprived, excommunicated, imprisoned, or forced to leave the country. He was indeed a terrible churchman, of a harsh and stern temper. Bishop Kennett, in his history of England, styles him “a sturdy piece;” and says “he proceeded with rigor, severity, and wrath, against the Puritans.” He was the ruling spirit in that infamous tribunal, the High Commission Court, a sort of British Inquisition. Nicholas Fuller, an eminent and wealthy lawyer of Gray’s Inn, ventured to sue out a writ of Habeas Corpus in behalf of two of Bancroft’s victims in that Court, and argued so boldly for the liberation of his clients, that Bancroft threw him also into prison, where he lingered till his death. Fuller gives the following picture of this prelate:—“A great statesman he was, and a grand champion of church-discipline, having well hardened the hands of his soul, which was no more than needed for him who was to meddle with nettles and briars, and met with much opposition. No wonder if those who were silenced by him in the church were loud against him in other places. David speaketh of ‘poison under men’s lips.’ This bishop tasted plentifully thereof from the mouths of his enemies, till at last, (as Mithradates,) he was so habituated unto poisons, they became food unto him. Once a gentleman, coming to visit him, presented him a libel, which he found pasted on his door; who nothing moved thereat, ‘Cast it,’ said he, ‘to an hundred more which lie here on a heap in my chamber.’” Peremptory as his proceedings were with all sorts of Dissenters, whether popish or puritan, he seems sometimes to have had a relenting fit. It is but fair to relate the following incident. Fuller tells of an honest and able minister, from whom he derived the statement, who protested to the Primate, that it went against his conscience to conform to the Church in all particulars. Being about to be deprived of his living in consequence, the Archbishop asked him,—“Which way will you live, if put out of your benefice?” The minister replied, that he had no way except to beg, and throw himself upon Divine Providence. “Not that,” said the Arcbishop, “you shall not need to do; but come to me, and I will take order for your maintenance.” Such instances of generosity, however, were “few and far between.”

Imperious as Bancroft was to his inferiors, he set them an example of servility to himself, by his own cringing to his master, the King. In a despicably flattering oration, in the Conference at Hampton Court, he equals King James to Solomon for wisdom, to Hezekiah for piety, and to Paul for learning! Scotland owes his memory a grudge for his unwearied endeavors to force Episcopacy upon that people. He was equally strenuous for the divine rights of kings and of diocesan bishops. He vigorously prevented the alienation of church-property; and succeeded in preventing that most greedy and villainous old courtier, Lord Lauderdale, from swallowing the whole bishopric of Durham!

Dr. Bancroft died in 1610, at the age of sixty-six years, and was buried at Lambeth Church. He canceled his first will, in which he had made large bequests to the church, and so gave occasion to the following epigram: —

“He who never repented of doing ill,
Repented once that he had a good will.”

In his second testament, he left the large library at Lambeth to the University of Cambridge. Although in his time, the political sky was clear, he is said to have had the sagacity to foresee that coming tempest, which Lord Clarendon calls “the great rebellion,” and which burst upon England in the next generation.

In his general supervision of the translation work, he does not appear to have tampered with the version, except in a very few passages where he insisted upon giving it a turn somewhat favorable to his sectarian notions. But, considering the control exercised by this towering prelate, and the fact that the great majority of the Translators were of his way of thinking, it is quite surprising that the work is not deeply tinged with their sentiments. On the whole, it is certainly very far from being a sectarian version, like nearly all which have since been attempted in English. It is said that Bancroft altered fourteen places, so as to make them speak in phrase to suit him. Dr. Miles Smith, who had so much to do with the work in all its stages, is reported to have complained of the Archbishop’s alterations. “But he is so potent,” says the Doctor, “there is no contradicting him!” Two of those alleged alterations are quite preposterous. To have the glorious word “bishopric” occur at least once in the volume, the office is conferred, in the first chapter of Acts, on Judas Iscariot! “His bishopric let another take.” Many of the Puritans were stiffly opposed to bestowing the name “church,” which they regarded as appropriate only to the company of spiritual worshippers, on any mass of masonry and carpentry.[1] But Bancroft, that he might for once stick the name to a material building, would have it applied, in the nineteenth chapter of Acts, to the idols’ temples! “Robbers of churches” are strictly, according to the word in the original, temple-robbers; and particularly, in this case, such as might have plundered the great temple of Diana at Ephesus. Let us be thankful that the dictatorial prelate tried his hand no farther at emending the sacred text.

1. It is not till about A. D. 229, that we find any record of the assembling of Christians in what would now be called a church,—Barton, Ecc. Hist., 496.

Conclusion

Having now completed these biographical sketches, we may close with a few pages relating to the literature of the subject. On this, indeed, a larger volume might well be penned.

Revised Editions

The first edition of the authorized version was printed, as has been stated, in 1611, and in a black-letter folio. The first edition in quarto appeared the next year. The successive reprints, in different styles and sizes, became very numerous. In 1638, an edition revised by the command of Charles I., for the purpose of typographical correction, was prepared by a number of eminent scholars, among whom were Dr. Samuel Ward and Mr. Bois, two of the original Translators. The edition in folio and quarto, revised and corrected with very great care by Benjamin Blaney, D. D., under the direction of the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, and the Delegates of the Clarendon Press, in 1769, has been the standard edition ever since; till one was published in 1806, by Eyre and Strahan, printers to his Majesty. This impression approaches as near as possible to what is called “an immaculate text,” as only one erratum, and that very slight, has been detected in it. Among so many reprints of the Bible, and in so many different offices, it would have been a mass of miracles had not many inaccuracies crept in through error and oversight on the part of printers and correctors of the press. As this is a point on which every reader of the Bible must feel some anxiety, it may be well to make the following statement. A very able Committee of the American Bible Society, spent some three years in a diligent and laborious comparison of recent copies of the best edition of the American Bible Society, and of the four leading British editions, namely, those of London, Oxford, Cambridge, and Edinburgh, and also of the original edition of 1611. The number of variations in the text and punctuation of these six copies was found to fall but little short of twenty-four thousand. A vast amount! Quite enough to frighten us, till we read the Committee’s assurance, that “of all this great number, there is not one which mars the integrity of the text, or affects any doctrine or precept of the Bible.” As this, however, is a point in which the minutest accuracy is to be sought, that Committee have prepared an edition wherein these variations are set right, to serve as a standard copy for the Society to print by in future.

Infinite is the debt of gratitude which the world owes to its Maker for the Bible. Scarcely less is its debt to his goodness, in raising up competent instruments for its translation into different tongues, unlocking its treasures to enrich the nations. This matter is finely touched by Dr. Field, a divine of the seventeenth century, in whose writings that great critic, S. T. Coleridge, was wont to take a deep and admiring delight. “That most excellent light of Christian wisdom, revealed in the sacred books of the Divine Oracles, is incomparable and peerless, and whereupon all others do depend; the bright beams of which heavenly light do show unto us the ready way to eternal happiness, amidst the sundry turnings and dangerous windings of this life. And lest either the strangeness of the languages wherein these Holy Books were written, or the deepness of the mysteries or the multiplicity of hidden senses contained in them, should any way hinder us from the clear view and perfect beholding of the heavenly brightness; God hath called and assembled into his Church out of all the nations of the world, and out of all people that dwell under the arch of heaven, men abounding in all secular learning and knowledge, and filled with the understanding of holy things, which might turn these Scriptures and Books of God into the tongues of every nation; and might unseal this Book so fast clasped and sealed, and manifest and open the mysteries therein contained, not only by lively voice, but by writings to be carried down to all posterities. From hence, as from the pleasant and fruitful fields watered with the silver dew of Hermo, the people of God are nourished with all saving food. Hence the thirst of languishing souls is restinguished, as from the most pure fountains of living water, and the everlasting waters of Paradise.”

Importance of Circulating the Scriptures

It is of the highest importance, that the Bible in English should be placed in the hands of all who may be able to read it. This is due to the excellence of the translation itself; and much more to the value of its contents. To the inquirer after religious truth, the Scriptures stand in the same relation, as the works of nature stand in to the inquirer after scientific truth. The natural philosopher who should shut his eyes upon all the facts and phenomena of the material universe, could not fall into greater blunders and follies, than the theologian who closes the lids of his Bible. Without this blessed Book, Protestantism is nothing. Says Luther, a most enthusiastic student and translator of the Bible,— “This volume alone deserves to occupy the tongue, the heart, the eyes, the ears, the hearts of all.”[1] And again,—“While the Word of God flourishes, all things flourish in the Church.”[2]

The refusal of Popery to allow the common people free access to the Scriptures in their vernacular tongues, condemns their divine Author for not having originally inspired his prophets and apostles to write them in dead languages, and unknown tongues. God was not afraid to give the Old Testament to the Hebrews in their mother tongue; nor to publish the New Testament in the Greek speech, which was then more widely spoken and understood than any other. Has it ever been supposed, that the Churches at Corinth and Colosse, for instance, suffered any detriment in receiving those inspired Epistles from the Apostle Paul in a language familiar to all their members? Why, then, may not the people of modern Italy safely read the same writings rendered into their own tongue wherein they were born?

Practice of the Early Christians

For many centuries, while the Greek was a living and widely diffused language, the New Testament in its original form was as freely circulated and read as it could be in manuscript. And the early Latin versions were also industriously diffused among old and young in the Roman empire. We have a letter full of godly counsels, written by a bishop Theonas to Lucian, chief chamberlain to the Emperor Dioclesian before the latter had become a bitter persecutor. Theonas says,—“Let not one day go by without reading at a set time some portion of Holy Writ, and meditating thereon. Neglect not the reading of the Bible. Nothing so nourishes the heart, and enriches the mind, as the reading of the Bible.”[3] In a most beautiful sketch of the religious life of any pious husband and wife, Tertullian says,—“They read the Scriptures together, they pray together, they fast together, they mutually instruct, exhort, and sustain each other.”[4] The sermons and other treatises of Augustine abound in exhortations to his hearers of every degree, to make themselves familiar with the contents of the Sacred Writings. In one place, he urges them to this, that they may be able to give a reason of the hope that is in them to any of the inquiring or the skeptical from among the heathen who may apply to them for instruction, rather than to the ecclesiastics.[5] Like Chrysostom, Augustine often closed his sermon with some important question to be discussed in his next preaching, in order to excite his hearers to reflect upon the subject, to search the Scriptures in regard to it, and talk it over among themselves. As many were unable to read, the rulers of the church took care that there should be a daily reading of the Scriptures in course for their benefit. Alluding to this, Augustine says, —“Since many of you cannot read, either because you have no time, or know not how, such must not forget to gain the doctrine of salvation at least through diligent hearing.”[6] In another place he says, —“The weak and the strong both drink of the same stream, and quench their thirst. The water saith not, ‘I am proper for the weak!’—thus repulsing the strong. Neither saith it,—‘Let the strong draw near; but if the weak cometh, he shall be swept away by the force of the stream.’ It flows so sure and so gentle, as to quench the thirst of the strong, without frightening the weak away,—To whom speaks the resounding Psalm? and who exclaims,—‘It is too high for me!’ What the Psalm resounds, be it even of the deepest mysteries, it so resounds, that the very children are delighted to hear, and the unlearned draw near, and pour out the full heart in the song.”[7] Ambrose, the famous pastor of Milan, exhorted his congregation to the daily study of the Scriptures. “In such studies,” he says, “the soul is quickened by the word of God. This is the principle of life in our souls whereby they are fed and ruled. The more the word of God abounds in our souls, and is there conceived and understood, the more their life abounds; and, on the other hand, as the word of God is wanting there, so their life decays.”[8] Jerome also constantly stirs up his readers to diligent study of the Scriptures. Thus he commends Laeta, a Roman lady, for making her daughters early conversant with them. “Instead of jewels and silks, let them the rather delight themselves in the Holy Scriptures, never having the gospels out of their hands,” and “absorbing the Acts and Epistles of the Apostles with all the eagerness of the soul.”[9] But perhaps none of the Fathers has spoken on this point so often, so fully, so earnestly, as the eloquent Chrysostom, who preached in the very language in which the New Testament was originally written. Costly as manuscripts then were, he insists that even the poorer class should possess copies of the Scriptures, as well as of the tools used in their worldly callings. He often, both in conversation and preaching, exhorted his hearers not to be content with what they heard read from the Scriptures at church, but to read them with their families at home.[10]

So long ago as the fourteenth century, when the popish bishops in the House of Lords brought in a motion to suppress the use of the Bible, as then translated into English by Wiclif, they were stiffly opposed by “old John of Gaunt, time-honored Lancaster.” This noble duke argued earnestly for the free circulation of the Scriptures. He was seconded by others who said, that “if the gospel by its being translated into English, was the occasion of men’s running into error, they might know that there were more heretics to be found among the Latins, than among the people of any other language. For that the decretals reckoned no fewer than sixty-six Latin heretics; and so the gospel must not be read in Latin, which yet the opposers of its English translation allowed.” The debate was closed by throwing the bill out of the house. And well might it be discarded. How much less than blasphemy is it to hold that it is dangerous that a book should be generally circulated and read, which has God for its author, and his eternal truth as its subject matter, and which he has commanded all men to obey as the condition of their everlasting salvation?

Robert Boyle, that devout son of science, on whom first the mantle of Lord Bacon fell, has said,—“I can scarce think any pains misspent that bring me in solid evidence of that great truth, that the Scripture is the word of God, which is indeed the Grand Fundamental.—And I use the Scriptures, not as an arsenal to be resorted to only for arms and weapons to defend this or that party, or to defeat its enemies; but as a matchless Temple, where I delight to be, to contemplate the beauty, the symmetry, and the magnificence of the structure, and to increase my awe, and to excite my devotion to the Deity there preached and adored.” Another scholar of the highest genius, S. T. Coleridge, who went as far in metaphysical studies as did Boyle in the pursuit of natural philosophy, has spoken in the like experimental manner of the Bible,—“I can truly affirm of myself, that my studies have been profitable and availing to me, only so far as I have endeavored to use all my other knowledge as a glass, enabling me to receive more light in a wider field of vision from the Word of God.”[11]

No Better Translators Now To Be Found

As to the Bible in its English form, it is safe to assume the impossibility of gathering a more competent body of translators, than those who did the work so well under King James’s commission. Since then, a great many revisions of particular books in the Bible have been published in English, and some of them embodying the best labors of the most distinguished scholars. But who has dreamed of substituting so much as one of them all, in the place of such books as they now stand in the common version? The late Professor Stuart was a man of learning and piety, whose candor ran almost to excess. He prepared elaborate translations of the Epistles to the Romans and to the Hebrews; but while we gladly use them as helps toward the better understanding of those portions of the Bible, who would think of using them for devotional purposes, either to settle his faith, or to stir up its activities? An edition of the Bible, with those labors of that celebrated Professor substituted for those in the common editions, would be a strange affair indeed! It is quite certain that no portion of the work has been done over again since 1611, by any divine of England or America, in a way which, by general consent of the Christian community, could supplant the corresponding portion as it stands in our family and pulpit Bibles.

And what has not been done by the most able and best qualified divines, is not likely to be done by obscure pedagogues, broken-down parsons, and sectaries of a single idea, and that a wrong one,—who, from different quarters, are talking big and loud of their “amended,” “improved,” and “only correct” and reliable re-translations, and getting up “American and Foreign Bible Unions” to print their sophomorical performances. How do such shallow adventurers appear along side of those venerable men whose lives have been briefly sketched in the foregoing pages! The newly-risen versionists, with all their ambitious and pretentious vaunts are not worthy to “carry satchels” alter those masters of ancient learning. Imagine our greenish contemporaries shut up with an Andrews, a Reynolds, a Ward, and a Bois, comparing notes on the meaning of the original Scriptures! It would soon be found, that all the aid our poor moderns could render would be in snuffing the candies,—and these, it is to be feared, would too often be snuffed out! It were better for them to be framing a Hamlet that shall supersede the master-piece of the “bard of Avon;” or a “Paradise Lost” that shall throw the great epic of the seventeenth century into the shades of oblivion. Let tinkers stick to the baser metals; and heaven forefend that they should clout the golden vessels of the sanctuary with their clumsy patches. When one of these nibbling critics tries his puny teeth upon this glorious and indestructible version, it seems as unnatural as that scaring portent mentioned in “Macbeth;”

“A falcon, towering in her pride of place,
Was by a mousing owl hawked at, and pecked.”

But it is not well to be too much vexed at these petty annoyances, which will speedily pass away and be forgotten, as has been the fate of all previous pests of the kind.

Not that the utmost verbal perfection is claimed for the English Bible as it now stands. Some of its words have, in the lapse of time, gone out of common use; some have suffered a gradual change of meaning; and some which were in unexceptionable use two hundred years ago, are now considered as distasteful and indelicate. But the number of such words is very small, considering the great size and age of the volume; and the retaining of them causes but little inconvenience, compared with the disadvantages of wholesale projectors of amendment volunteered by incompetent and irresponsible schemers. If ever the time shall come for a new revision of the Translation, let it be done with the care and solemnity which marked the labors of King James’s commissioners; and above all, let it be done by men who shall know what they are about, and how it ought to be done. It will be a vast undertaking, affecting the dearest interests of ages of time, and millions upon millions of immortals.

Opinions of Critics

Meanwhile, it may help our contentment with the Bible as we have it, to notice what opinions have been expressed as to its merits by the ablest judges of a performance of this nature. These testimonials might be swelled to the size of a volume, but a few will be sufficient for the present occasion. George Hakewills, D.D., Archdeacon of Surrey, thus speaks to the point .—“Of all the ancient Fathers but only two, (among the Latines St. Hierome, and Origen among the Grecians,) are found to have excelled in the orientall languages; this last centenary having afforded more skilfull men that way than the other fifteene since Christ.”[12] The famous John Selden, in his Table-talk, thus utters his opinion,—“The English translation of the Bible is the best translation in the world, and renders the sense of the original best.” Dr. Brian Walton, the learned editor of a Bible, in nine different languages, and six tall-folios, assigns the first rank among European translations to the common English version. Dr. Edward Pococke, that profound Orientalist, in the Preface to his Commentary on Micah, speaks of our translation as “being such, and so agreeable to the original, as that we might well choose among others to follow it, were it not our own, and established by authority among us.” Dr. Middleton, Bishop of Calcutta, and for ever famous for his work on the Greek Article, says,—“The style of our present version is incomparably superior to anything which might be expected from the finical and perverted taste of our own age. It is simple, it is harmonious, it is energetic; and, which is of no small importance, use has made it familiar, and time has rendered it sacred.”[13]

One Bellamy having made a blind and rabid attack on our version, in crying up some opposition-wares of his own, he was thus chastised in the London Quarterly;—“He has no relish or perception of the exquisite simplicity of the Original, no touch of that fine feeling, that pious awe, which led his venerable predecessors to infuse into their version as much of the Hebrew idiom as was consistent with the perfect purity of our own; a taste and feeling which have given perennial beauty and majesty to the English tongue.”[14]

Dr. White, Professor of Arabic at Oxford, to other strong commendations adds;—“Upon the whole, the national churches of Europe will have abundant reason to be satisfied, when their versions of Scripture shall approach in point of accuracy, purity, and sublimity, to the acknowledged excellence of our English translation.” Dr. John Taylor, of Norwich, a very learned man, but unhappily an Arian, thus delivers his testimony;—“You may rest fully satisfied, that as our English translation is, in itself, by far the most excellent book in our language, so it is a pure and plentiful fountain of divine knowledge, giving a true, clear, and full account of the divine dispensations, and of the gospel of our salvation; insomuch that whoever studieth the Bible, the English Bible, is sure of gaining that knowledge and faith, which, if duly applied to the heart and conversation, will infallibly guide him to eternal life.”[15] To this testimony let there be added that of Dr. Alexander Geddes, a learned minister of the Church of Rome, who himself also attempted a re-translation of the Bible into English;—“The highest eulogiums have been made on the translation of James the First, both by our own writers and by foreigners. And, indeed, if accuracy, fidelity, and the strictest attention to the letter of the text, be supposed to constitute the qualities of an excellent version, this of all versions, must, in general, be accounted the most excellent. Every sentence, every word, every syllable, every letter and point, seem to have been weighed with the nicest exactitude; and expressed, either in the text, or margin, with the greatest precision. Pagninus himself is hardly more literal; and it was well remarked by Robertson, above a hundred years ago, that it may serve as a Lexicon of the Hebrew language, as well as for a translation.”[16]

Dr. Adam Clarke, the Wesleyan, in the General Preface to his Commentary on the Bible, having spoken of the common version as superior in accuracy and fidelity to the other European versions, adds the following declaration;—“Nor is this its only praise; the translators have seized the very spirit and soul of the original, and expressed this almost every where with pathos and energy. Besides, our translators have not only made a standard translation, but they have made their translation the standard of our language.”

The late Professor Stuart, whose mind was so constituted that he neither clung to antiquity, nor shrank from novelty, thus gives his opinion;—“Ours is, on the whole, a most noble production for the time in which it was made. The divines of that day were very different Hebrew scholars from what most of their successors have been, in England or Scotland. With the exception of Bishop Lowth’s classic work upon Isaiah, no other effort at translating, among the English divines, will compare, either with respect to taste, judgment, or sound understanding of the Hebrew, with the authorized version.”[17] Not to crowd the court with witnesses in superfluous numbers, let us close the taking of testimony on this point with the words of the grave and judicious Thomas Hartwell Home, in his invaluable Introduction to the Critical Study and Knowledge of the Holy Scriptures;—“We cannot but call to mind with gratitude and admiration, the integrity, wisdom, fidelity, and learning of the venerable translators, of whose pious labors we are now reaping the benefit; who, while their reverence for the Holy Scriptures induced them to be as literal as they could, to avoid obscurity have been extremely happy in the simplicity and dignity of their expressions; and who, by their adherence to the Hebrew idiom, have at once enriched and adorned our language.”

Multiplication of the Common Version

We may well be satisfied and devoutly thankful for an English Bible whose sufficiency and excellence has such ample vouchers. And if we were not content, it is almost frightful to think of the immense multitude of printed copies which must be superseded, before any new version can be generally adopted. Since the present century began, the Bible Societies in Great Britain and America have published some thirty-seven millions of copies of the present version; and according to the laborious computations of Anderson, a still greater number have been issued on private sale. This vast amount is increasing more rapidly than ever. No book is so abundantly sold, or so freely given away. Doubtless, allowing largely for wear and tear, there are at least twenty-five millions of these copies now in actual use and service. The notion of displacing all these by copies of another, and especially if it be a very different translation, seems to be rather visionary, to say the least.

Its Influence on Religious Literature

It ought to be considered, too, that the language of the current version is thoroughly blended with the whole religious literature of the English tongue. It also pervades the religious experience, and expresses the devotional feelings, of all the Christians who speak that tongue. Truly, the introduction of a very different translation,—and if not very different, there could be no reason sufficient to justify such a sweeping change,—must have a very disconcerting effect upon the public mind, and give rise to an infinity of vexations. The present translation has been, and is, the textbook for millions of Sabbath-School pupils, and religious inquirers; and is hallowed by associations so tender and sacred, that the attempt to discard it will seem to multitudes of devout men and women but little better than sacrilege. It was sufficient, they will say, for the salvation of our godly parents and others of our sainted friends,—and, with the blessing of their God and our God, it shall suffice for ours.

An Obstacle to Sectarianism

Especially objectionable must be the attempt to furnish translations for the use of the various Christian sects. Our common version, though prepared by members of the Church of England, was prepared before dissent from that Church had became so very extensive and earnest. Hence it was, on the whole, drawn up in a spirit remarkably free from sectarianism; and all Protestant denominations, ever since, have confidently appealed to it, as to an impartial arbiter. To these denominations, it has always been the common standard, around which they have rallied against the usurpations and impostures of Rome. Now, were each denomination to issue for itself a new translation, modified to suit the peculiar opinions of the sect, it would place them all in the same position toward each other, as that which they together occupy toward Rome. It would cut off all mutual sympathy, by leaving no common “rule of faith” which the mass of the people could consult or apply. Each class of believers having its own rule of faith, there would be as many distinct Christian religions as professed versions of the Bible. This multiplication of strictly and irreconcilably sectarian Bibles, each acknowledged only by the party from which it emanated, would proclaim a triumphant jubilee to skepticism and infidelity. If only some sects were to pursue such a course, it must prove a suicidal policy to them; for it would be a virtual and practical confession that our long received and thoroughly impartial translation is not in their favor, and that they could not sustain themselves except by a new version so framed as specially to help their cause. The denominations retaining the authorized translation would secure the whole benefit of its celebrity, its authority, and its mighty hold upon the affection and reverence of the Anglo Saxon race.

Has Survived Great Changes

For nearly two hundred and fifty years this translation has been in common use. During that time, it has had free course and circulation among successive generations speaking the English tongue. It was made ready in good season to cross the Atlantic with the first English colonists of America. During that time the reigning dynasty of England has changed once and again, America has become the greatest of republics, science has been even more often and fully revolutionized than politics, the arts of life have almost created society anew by marvelous inventions and discoveries, popular intelligence has brightened from its dawnings into the broad light of day, philosophy has restlessly traversed a thousand circles of inquiry and speculation, and theology has been rushing backward and forward through successive alternations, like a ship beating into port against wind and tide, and losing on one tack, what may have been gained on the other. And yet this glorious version, alone unchanged, remains unrivaled. Though, here and there, some have murmured and threatened, and some have complained and reviled aloud, and some have put forth their skill in “improved” or “corrected” versions, they have been wholly unheeded by the great body of readers. The common version was never more popular than it is now. It is in greater demand, more abundantly supplied by the press, more elaborately adorned by Christian art, and more widely spread abroad than ever before. This among a people so intelligent and cultivated, and so prone to progress, is an unexampled popularity. There must be inherent and preeminent excellence in a work which keeps such firm hold upon the esteem and veneration of a race of men, who show but little conservatism as to any other matter of general concernment. While all else has been falling away, the word of the Lord “liveth and abideth for ever.”

This enduring popularity may in part be accounted for by the personal character, the vast scholarship, and exalted piety, of its authors. The way had been well prepared for them by a succession of older translations and revisions so excellent, that our Translators modestly say, in their Preface, that they did not “need to make a new translation, nor yet to make of a bad one a good one; but to make a good one better, or out of many good ones one principal good one.” Still, their work, though much assisted by the labors of the devout men and martyrs who had wrought in the same line before them, is essentially original. It was done with such prudence, diligence, and scrupulous care, that even the men who would fain have supplanted it with something of their own, have been forced to extol it, as Balaam did the tabernacles of Jacob. “Let us not too hastily conclude,” says Mr. Whittaker, “that the Translators have fallen on evil days and evil tongues, because it occasionally happens an individual, as inferior to them in erudition as in talents and integrity, is found questioning their motives, or denying their qualifications for the task which they so well performed.—It may be compared with any translation in the world, without fear of inferiority; it has not shrunk under the most rigorous examination; it challenges investigation; and, in spite of numerous attempts to supersede it, has hitherto remained unrivaled in the affections of the country.”[18] Who would be so tasteless and senseless as to insist on infusing new wine into the old bottle? Let us rather, to use the strong language of its able vindicator, Mr. Todd, “take up the Book, which from our infancy we have known and loved, with increased delight; and resolve not hastily to violate, in regard to itself, the rule of Ecclesiasticus,—‘Forsake not an old friend, for the new is not comparable to him.’”

Translators Blessed of God

The work, though not absolutely perfect, nor incapable of amendment in detached places, is yet so well done, that the Christian public will not endure to have it tampered with. It would be impossible, as has been demonstrated in the foregoing biographical sketches, to collect at this day a body of professors and divines, from England and America together, which should be equal in numbers and in learning to those assembled by King James; and in whom the churches would feel enough of confidence to entrust them with a repetition of the work. The common version has become a permanent necessity, through its immense influence on the language, literature, manners, opinions, character, institutions, history, religion, and entire life and development of the Anglo-Saxon race in either hemisphere.

Taking into account the many marked events in divine Providence which led on to this version, and aided its accomplishment, and necessitated its diffusion,—and also that to uncounted millions, and to other millions yet to be born, it is the only safeguard from popery on the one side, and from infidelity on the other, we are constrained to claim for the good men who made it the highest measure of divine aid short of plenary inspiration itself. We make this claim regardless of the supercilious airs of flippant Sadducees, or the pitying smiles of literary pantheists. Not that the Translators were inspired in the same sense as were the prophets and apostles, and other “holy men of old,” who “were moved by the Holy Ghost” in drawing up the original documents of the Christian faith. Such inspiration is a thing by itself, like any other miracle; and belongs exclusively to those to whom it was given for that high and unequaled end.

But we hold that the Translators enjoyed the highest degree of that special guidance which is ever granted to God’s true servants in exigencies of deep concernment to his kingdom on earth. Such special succors and spiritual assistances are always vouchsafed, where there is a like union of piety, of prayers, and of pains, to effect an object of such incalculable importance to the Church of the living God. The necessity of a supernatural revelation to man of the divine will, has often been argued in favor of the extreme probability that such a revelation has been made. A like necessity, and one nearly as pressing, might be argued in favor of the belief, that this most important of all the versions of God’s revealed will must have been made under his peculiar guidance, and his provident eye. And the manner in which that version has met the wants of the most free and intelligent nations in the old world and the new, may well confirm us in the persuasion, that the same illuminating Spirit which indited the original Scriptures, was imparted in rich grace to aid and guard the preparation of the English version.

The readers of this admirable version shall do well, if they avail themselves of every help toward a right understanding of it according to the intent of its authors. But such as can obtain no other help than the Book itself affords, by prayerful study and comparison of scripture with scripture, may rely on it as a safe interpreter of God’s will, and will never incur his displeasure by obeying it too strictly. Whosoever attempts to shake the confidence of the common people in the common version, puts their faith in imminent peril of shipwreck. He is slipping the chain-cable of the sheet-anchor, and casting their souls adrift among the breakers. Against all such attempts let them be fully warned, who can only hear the “lively oracles” of God address them “in their own tongue wherein they were born.” Let them never fear but that the All-merciful who has spoken to the human race at large, to teach them his love, his will, and his salvation, has so cared for the souls of the fifty civilized millions who now use the English speech, as to repeat to them his teachings in a form most sure and sufficient as to the whole round of saving faith and holy living. The best fruits of Christianity have sprung from the seeds our translation has scattered.

1. Solus hic liber omnium lingua, manû, oculis, auribus, cordibus, versaretur.

2. Florente verbo, omnia norent in Ecclesia.

3. This admirable letter is to be found in D’Achery’s Spicilegium, III. 293.

4. In Psal. 90, Serm. II.

5. Ad Uxorem, Ep. II. 8.

6. Serm. 105. § 2.

7. In Psal. 103, Serm. III. § 4.

8. In Psal. 118, Serm. VII. 7.

9. Epis. 107.

10. For references on this point, consult Chrysostom’s Homilies III. and IV. de Statuis; Homn. J. I. and XXIX. in Genes.; Ser. III. and IV. de Lazaro: Hom. I. and II. in Matt.; Hom. X. XL XXX. XXXI. XXXII. and LVIII. in Joan.; Hom. XIX. in Acta.; Hom. I. ad Rom.; and IX. ad Coloss.

11. Literary Remains, III. 139.

12. An Apologie or Declaration of the Power and Providence of God. 1627.

13. Doctrine of the Greek Article, page 328.

14. London Quarterly Review, No. XXXVIII. p. 455.

15. Scheme, etc., Chap. XI. In Watson’s Collection of Theological Tracts. Vol. I. p. 188.

16. Prospectus of a New Translation, etc. Page 92. The hint of Robertson has since been realized by Bagster’s Englishman’s Hebrew and Greek Concordance to the Holy Bible.

17. Dissertation on Studying the Original Languages of the Bible. Page 61.

18. Historical and Critical Enquiry. P. 92.