been presented entire, and as it stands, since the day on which the sheet was thrown off at Cologne. They are not a few who will admire the modesty, the diffidence, not to say the simple beauty of the following sentences:

TYNDALE'S FIRST LANGUAGE IN PRINT TO THE PEOPLE OF GOD IN ENGLAND,

“I have here translated, brethren and sisters, most dear and tenderly beloved in Christ, the New Testament, for your spiritual edifying, consolation and solace: Exhorting instantly, and beseeching those that are better seen in the tongues than I, and that have higher gifts of grace to interpret the sense of the Scripture, and meaning of the Spirit, than I, to consider and ponder my labour, and that with the spirit of meekness. And if they perceive in any places that I have not attained the very sense of the tongue, or meaning of the Scripture, or have not given the right English word, that they put to their hands to amend it, remembering that so is their duty to do. For we have not received the gifts of God for ourselves only, or for to hide them but for to bestow them unto the honouring of God and Christ, and edifying of the congregation, which is the body of Christ.

"The causes that moved me to translate, I thought better that others should imagine, than that I should rehearse them. Moreover, I supposed it superfluous; for who is so blind to ask, why light should be showed to them that walk in darkness, where they cannot but stumble, and where to stumble, is the danger of eternal damnation; either so despiteful that he would envy any man (I speak not his brother) so necessary a thing; or so bedlam mad as to affirm that good is the natural cause of evil, and darkness to proceed out of light, and that lying should be grounded in truth and verity; and not rather clean contrary, that light destroyeth darkness, and verity reproveth all manner (of) lying.

"After it had pleased God to put in my mind, and also to give me grace to translate this forerehearsed (before mentioned) New Testament into our English tongue, howsoever we have done it, I supposed it very necessary to put you in remembrance of certain points."

The reader, we presume, cannot but be gratified, by a facsimile of these words, in their original orthography. He will observe the letter Y, then generally used for I; which first led to the discovery of what the fragment is; and here he may contemplate not merely the first page of text, in the first sheet of a work thrown off at press, in the year 1525, at Cologne; but the veritable origin of all those millions of English Scriptures now reading in so many different and distant parts of the globe-parts, utterly unknown to our immortal Translator, when he sent the sheet to the press-parts, then untrodden by any Englishman-parts, then undiscovered!

The last sentence of our extract, however, or that with which the next page of the prologue begins, is full of meaning. It shows that Tyndale, with all gravity, recognised no instigator

under God, and ascribed to his grace alone, the entire glory of his work. Such had been his language in print, before ever Cochlæus had set his foot in Cologne. But now, that he had been so defamed by this enemy, hear his emphatic disclaimer from Worms. "Beseeching the learned to consider that he had no man to follow as an example, neither was holpen with English of any that had interpreted the same, or such like thing in the Scripture before time." Sir Thomas More had read this, though he did not choose, as it was not convenient, to believe it. But surely, if any individual of that age may be regarded as an agent, walking independently of his fellows, it will turn out to have been our English exile,-a man, whose character and powerful talents have been so grievously misrepresented, and so misunderstood, up to the present hour.

We are now just upon the eve of returning into England, after spending two years abroad, in company with our Translator; but before we do return-before the uproar and the consternation begin-before the wrath of 1526 burst outwhile these precious volumes are only coming over that sea, which Tyndale had passed over to send; and before either the quarto or octavo had arrived in our native land; there is one additional event which must not be omitted even here, though it has to be explained more distinctly three months hence, at the moment of its occurrence.

If there was any advantage anticipated by Tyndale, from sending over the octavo without notes "now at the first time”— if it was indeed so sent-there must have ensued a second momentary disappointment. If there was any device or contrivance adopted, then it certainly failed, completely failed! This quarto, with glosses, had been the first-born of his imagination, and we have seen that his whole heart was set upon giving the sacred text, what was strangely styled "its full shape." But the Divine Author will as distinctly say may in London, as he had already done at Cologne! For, after all, we shall find next year, that this quarto book was first held up in warning to the people. The book "with glosses and prefaces" was first condemned,-condemned, too, by no less authority than that of Henry VIII. himself, with Wolsey's full concurrence, if not his advice, -and condemned eight months before

either Tunstal or Warham held up also the octavo, without notes, for destruction.

Tyndale certainly intended that the book with glosses should follow "in time to come," however short. Providence caused it to precede, and, at the same time, over-ruled it as a decoy for several months! All that time, therefore, the precious little volume must have been fulfilling its commission, and passing into its hiding-place in unknown directions!

Nor is the curious fact of the New Testament "with glosses and prefaces" being first condemned, and then passing into oblivion through all history, for above three hundred years, an event carrying no instruction or monition. Quite the reverse. All who venerate Divine Revelation in its purity, will remember that this was the commencement of a new era for Britain, more important than she had ever witnessed, or in truth has witnessed since. Comments, therefore, or glosses, additions of man's devising, professedly to make the sacred language more intelligible than that of its Divine Author, or turn it to a certain meaning, were not to be treated as of small account. As matter of history they were not, and have not been so treated. These glosses sunk the book into the shades; just as those notes, sometimes styled contemptuously the Geneva spectacles, afterwards operated on that otherwise valuable translation.

Never, then, let it pass unobserved, how soon, and how clearly, Tyndale and Fryth saw through this; how soon our Translator put the King of England upon the alternative of receiving, or not receiving, the sacred text alone; or how decidedly, and upon English ground, Fryth repeated the bold appeal to the Lord Chancellor, Sir Thomas More. The warfare was at once reduced to a single point. Receive, or not receive, THE SACRED VOLUME, without note or comment; so that we have now to witness the man who, by way of eminence, fought on one side, and the men who, by way of eminence, or we might say the nation, who fought against him. This important fact not only affords us a notable commencement to our history, but it will connect itself, very powerfully, with the close of this work, or the larger movements of the present day.

MDXXVI.

MEMORABLE INTRODUCTION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT INTO ENGLAND-THE TWO FIRST EDITIONS THE FIRST ALARM IN LONDON, OXFORD, CAMBRIDGE—THE FIRST BURNING OF BOOKS-NEW TESTAMENT DENOUNCED BY THE KING AND WOLSEY-THEN BY TUNSTAL AND WARHAM-THE THIRD EDITION-VIOLENT CONTENTION RESPECTING IT-BURNING IT ABROAD AND AT HOME-BUT IN

VAIN.

HAT interesting period when the Word of God, printed in our native tongue, was first found in England, had now arrived. It was in January 1526. On the banks of the Rhine, Tyndale had finished his New Testaments at the press, but how was it possible for them ever to be conveyed into our country? Had not Rincke and Cochlæus warned the Cardinal himself, the King, and the Bishop of Rochester, that they might "with the greatest diligence take care" lest one of them should come into any port in all England? They certainly had, and in good time, so that it is no fault of theirs, if all opposing parties were not now on the alert. Yet here are the dreaded books, and upon English ground, and not only in the metropolis, but in both universities, to say nothing of the country at large!

It is natural, however, first to inquire whether there were any circumstances, at the moment, favourable to their introduction. Of all other men, the two most able and most likely to have prevented their arrival, or immediately suppressed them, were Wolsey and Tunstal, the Bishop of London. But the former was now completely engrossed by affairs of state policy, both abroad and at home-abroad he was urging, nay, rousing the French Cabinet to renewed war with the Emperor; at home, he was concluding peace with Scotland, and also busily engaged in reforming his master's household, or framing what were called "the Statutes of Eltham." The Bishop of London was not in the country, having been happily removed out of the way eight months before; he was still ambassador in Spain, and not to return till August or September; so that his name never should have been associated, as it has generally been, with the first reception of Tyndale's New Testament. More than this, the winter was peculiarly unhealthy, and such was the alarm

E

created by great mortality, that the courts had been adjournedthe authorities were out of the way-the King was keeping his Christmas at Eltham, in private, with a few friends, "for in the King's house," says Halle, "this was called the still Christmas" --and Wolsey, after carousing at Richmond for a few days, had to attend His Majesty on business at Eltham, from the 8th to the 22nd of January.

Such a conjunction of circumstances but seldom occurred, and, without straining a point, they may surely be regarded as providential; for they afforded certain opportunities, which, we shall find, had been most busily improved. So easily can the Divine Being "scatter the proud in the imagination of their hearts," when He is about to "exalt them of low degree." The country had been first long harassed by oppressive and vexatious exactions, to carry on expensive foreign wars, and now it is assailed by disease and death! Such was the period chosen by Infinite Wisdom to introduce the Word of Life, that "sovereign balm for every wound!" England's surest hope, the true secret of all her future stability, and the only security for it still.

The earliest importations of these precious volumes would furnish a very curious subject of inquiry. The various methods adopted for several years in order to secure their entrance into this country, can never now, indeed, be fully detailed; but the conveyance of Tyndale's New Testaments into England and Scotland, with other books illustrative of the Sacred Volume, could only the half be told, would form one of the most graphic stories in English history. No siege, by sapping and mining, which Britain has ever since achieved, could furnish the tenth part of the incident, or evince half the courage, by which she was herself assailed. But the materials have never yet been examined and compared, with that regard to accuracy as to names, and succession as to events, which would have brought out some of the finest specimens of faith and fortitude and persevering zeal.

From what particular port on the Continent the first copies were sent, and to what port in England they came, may remain for ever a secret. The probability is, that some came from Antwerp, while others were sent from Worms down the Rhine through Holland, and so from different places. Be this as it