Collation of 1 John in the three texts of Tyndale An examination of the sources of Coverdale's Notes. Specimens of the notes of Tyndale and Matthew VI. Specimens of the Latin-English Testaments of Coverdale VII. Passages of the Pentateuch and Historical Books in Tyn- INTRODUCTION. THEN the boy sprang up from his knees, and ran, Whereat he opened his eyes wide at once, B INTRODUCTION. THERE is a famous saying, which dates from the times of persecution, that 'the blood of Martyrs is the seed of 'the Church. It may be added in the like spirit, that the voice of Holy Scripture is the spring and measure of individual faith. Both statements require to be modified in their application; but it remains generally true that the society which is founded by human devotion and labour, is quickened in its several members by the influence of the Word. So it is that the history of the vernacular Scriptures is in a great measure the history of personal faith. A people which is without a Bible in its mother tongue, or is restrained from using it, or wilfully neglects it, is also imperfect, or degenerate, or lifeless in its apprehension of Christian Truth, and proportionately bereft of the strength which flows from a living Creed. In the first ages of the Church the translation of the Scriptures followed immediately on the introduction of Christianity to a nation of a new language. When the Gospel spread eastwards, a Syriac translation of the New Testament was one of the first monuments of its power. When it spread westwards, a Latin version preceded, as far as we know, all other literary efforts of the Intro duction. The action of this law necessarily suspended for a time among the Northern nations. The first versions in African Church. Ulfilas, the second bishop of the Goths, gave them the Scriptures in their own language. Miesrob, the framer of the Armenian alphabet, was the translator of the Armenian Bible; and the Slavonic version was due in part at least to the two brothers, Cyrillus and Methodius, who first reduced the Slavonic dialect to writing. The history of the Æthiopic and Egyptian Scriptures is probably similar, though it is more obscure; and it is most significant, that of these ancient versions, the greater part survive substantially the same in the public services of the nations which occupy the places of those for whom they were originally composed. The original versions of Holy Scripture remain, but all else is changed. If we fix our eyes on the west only, we see the new-won empire of the Church desolated almost as soon as it was gained, by successive hordes of barbarian invaders, out of whom she was destined in the Providence of God to shape the forefathers of modern Europe. In less than ten years after Jerome completed his version of the Old Testament from the Hebrew (A. D. 400-404), Alaric took Rome (A. D. 410). Thenceforward a fresh work was to be achieved by Christianity, and by a new method. For a time the normal processes of Christianity were in abeyance: organization prevailed over faith. These new races were to be disciplined by act before they could be taught by the simple word. Thus the task of the translation of Scripture among the northern nations was suspended. The Latin Vulgate sufficed for the teachers, and they ministered to their congregations such lessons from it as they could receive. But as soon as society was again settled, the old instinct asserted itself, and first, which is a just cause of pride, in our own island. As early as the eighth century, |