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In so far as Tyndale's work was incomplete other hands were to carry it forward. As Fox of Hereford said in the council of Bishops that very year-"Truth is the daughter of time, and time is the mother of truth, and whatsoever is besieged of truth cannot long continue; and upon whose side truth doth stand, that ought not to be thought transitory or that it will ever fall." The next step onward brings us to the whole Bible as it was sent forth by Miles Coverdale. This was the year before Tyndale's death, that is in 1535. The place of publication is still a matter of dispute, but the probability is that the volume was printed by Froschover, of Zurich. Coverdale, like Wycliffe, was a native of North Yorkshire. He was not a man of heroic mould, rather one of gentle modest spirit, who undertook this work because he felt he must, and in the hope that he might call out a worthier successor to displace himself. There are few things finer than the passage in which he expresses this hope. "Though Scripture," he writes "be not worthily ministered unto thee [good reader] in this translation by reason of my rudeness: yet if thou be fervent in thy prayer, God shall not only send it thee in a better shape by the ministration of others that began it afore" (that is of course Tyndale), "but shall also move the hearts of others to take it in hand and to bestow the gift of their understanding thereon."

Although Coverdale's is but a secondary translation, a version derived from other versions, its importance in the history of the English Bible is great. In three-fourths of the Old Testament this was the first printed version presented to the English reader. Throughout this large portion of the Bible Coverdale for the present stands alone. The most interesting part of Coverdale's Old Testament is the Book of Psalms. The Prayer-Book psalter is in essence the psalter of Coverdale's Bible. As Dr. Moulton has pointed out, a multitude of passages remarkable for beauty and tenderness, and often for strength and vigour, are common to both our versions of the Psalms, and are due

to Coverdale: "My flesh and my heart faileth, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever;" "enter not into judgment with Thy servant, for in Thy sight shall no man living be justified ; "cast me not away

from Thy presence and take not Thy Holy Spirit from me;" "for Thy loving-kindness is better than life; my lips shall praise Thee;" these, and many more passages like them, show to how great an extent the noble language of the Book of Psalms is derived from the Bible of 1535.

Coverdale's version, however, with all its excellence had its defects, and, as I have said, he himself looked earnestly for the displacing of his own work by better. His prayers were answered sooner than he could have hoped. We must just go back a step to understand what followed. At the time of Tyndale's death he had published, besides his complete New Testament, the five books of Moses, the book of Jonah, and a few detached pieces of the Old Testament. But he had left in manuscript, according to general belief, a version of the books from Joshua to 2 Chronicles inclusive, which came into the hands of his friend John Rogers. It was felt that this should not be lost. Thomas Matthews went to the help of Rogers, and together they published a composite Bible made up of Tyndale's translation from Genesis to Chronicles and Tyndale's revised New Testament of 1535, while the remainder of the Old Testament, including Jonah and also the Apocrypha, was taken from Coverdale's Bible. It is sometimes known as Rogers' Bible and sometimes as Matthews'. By Cranmer's petition, by Crumwell's influence, and by Henry's authority, without any formal ecclesiastical decision, this Book was given to the English people. It marks a turning-point in the history of our English Bible. It was a combination of the labours of Tyndale and Coverdale, and substantially all other revisions have reproduced this. All that came after have been mere improvements in detail. There appeared afterwards the Great Bible, the Bishops' Bible, the Genevan Bible dear to

the hearts of our Puritan forefathers, and the Authorised Version of 1611, which is still in use. These contained better renderings of individual passages and better turns of expression here and there, but the Books remain substantially as they appeared in the Bible of 1538.

This, therefore, may be a convenient place to halt in our story. Much that is interesting might be said of the Great Bible which was chained to the desks in the old parish churches of the 16th century and onwards; much also of that Genevan Version, which with its notes and references was prepared for the English people by the Protestant exiles who fled from this country during the Marian persecution. This continued a favourite Bible with the great body of the people for well-nigh a century after the Authorised Version was made. But in process of time, King James' Bible as it is called-though king James had really very little to do with it-was left in sole possession of the ground.

Thus it is now two hundred and seventy years since the last revision of the English Scriptures was issued. For many years, however, it has been felt that the time has now come for a further attempt in this direction. The possession of valuable manuscripts of the original text of which nothing was known by the translators of 1611, and the advance of Biblical scholarship in every direction since then, have given us advantages for this work which it was felt should be turned to the best account. Ten years ago, therefore, a new Revision of the Scriptures was taken in hand by scholars representing all sections of the Church, and worthy of the confidence of the entire Christian community. Twenty-six of these have been occupied on the New Testament and twenty-seven upon the Old. The New Testament is to be issued shortly, and will be received with interest throughout the English-speaking world on both sides of the numerous Colonies abroad.

Atlantic as well as in our

There is every reason to

believe that a wisely conservative spirit has been happily blended with a reforming spirit equally wise, in carrying on this work. Changes have not been made for the mere sake of change, this at least some of the Revisionists tell us, and when they have been made it has only been to make brighter and clearer the human medium through which the mind of the Spirit of God shines forth in radiance upon us. The good men who have taken this good work in hand would be well content I am sure to commend it to us at length in the noble and beautiful words of the translators of 1611. In their Preface which might well have taken the place of the absurd address to king James, which, I know not why, is always printed at the beginning of our Bibles, they say "It remaineth that we commend thee [gentle reader] to God and to the Spirit of His grace which is able to build further than we can ask or think. He removeth the scales from our eyes, the vail from our hearts, opening our wits that we may understand His word, enlarging our hearts, yea correcting our affections, that we may love it above gold and silver, yea that we may love it to the end. Ye are brought unto fountains of living water which ye digged not; do not cast earth into them with the Philistines, neither prefer broken pits before them with the wicked Jews. Others have laboured, and you may enter into their labours. O receive not so great things in vain: O despise not so great salvation It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God; but a blessed thing it is, and will bring us to everlasting blessedness in the end, when God speaketh unto us, to hearken; when He setteth His Word before us, to read it; when He stretcheth out His hand and calleth, to answer Here am I, here are we to do Thy will, O God. The Lord work a care and conscience in us to know and serve Him, that we may be acknowledged of Him at the appearing of our Lord JESUS CHRIST, to whom with the Holy Ghost, be all praise and thanksgiving. Amen."

XI.

HOW TO READ THE BIBLE.

Up to this point we have been looking at the Bible from various sides. We have glanced at its internal and external history, judged it in the light of the thought of our own time, and spoken of its structure, its authority, and its leading aims. We have looked at it also in its bearings upon the individual life and upon Church life, and in all these various lights we have seen it to be worthy of our regard and confidence. I come now to a very simple and practical question, which is this-How should we use the Bible so as to make the most of it? For it is a weapon to be wielded and not a mere curiosity to be looked at. It is possible to have a good deal of seeming reverence for the Bible without reading it, and it is possible even when reading it to read it in an unreal, unfruitful way.

It was once said by Dean Alford that the Bible is the glory of England and also her shame. It is the glory of England because we of all men were among the first to vividly appreciate its value, to throw it open to mankind, and disperse it over the world, and because we also were among the foremost to recognise the truth which lies at the root of all social freedom and eminence, as well as of all spiritual life, that nothing is required as an article of faith which is not contained in, nor may be proved by, the Holy Scriptures. But on the other hand it is our shame because while it is the commonest book among us, it is too often the least read of all books, and because so few comparatively

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