translation; this is generally called the Great Bible, and it is supposed to be the same which Grafton obtained leave to print at Paris. There were several editions of it, and particularly one in 1540, for which Cranmer wrote a preface, showing, that " Scripture should be had and read of the lay and vulgar people;" hence this edition of 1540, is called Cranmer's Bible. In this year the curates and parishioners of every parish were required, by royal proclamation, to provide themselves with the Bible of the largest size, before the feast of All Saints, under a penalty of forty shillings a month; and all ordinaries were charged to see that this proclamation was obeyed. A brief or declaration was published to the same effect in the year 1541; but after that time the influence of the popish party increased both in parliament and with the King, and Cranmer's exertions were frustrated by the opposition of Gardiner and other popish bishops. In the year 1542, it was enacted by the authority of parliament, "That all manner of books of the Old and New Testament, of the crafty, false, and untrue translation of Tyndal, be forthwith abolished, and forbidden to be used and kept; and also that all other Bibles, not being of Tyndal's translation, in which were found any preambles or annotations, other than the quotations or summary

mary of the chapters, should be purged of the said preambles or annotations, either by cutting them out, or blotting them in such wise that they might not be perceived or read; and, finally, that the Bible be not read openly in any church, but by the leave of the King, or of the ordinary of the place; nor privately by any women, artificers, apprentices, journeymen, husbandmen, labourers, or by any of the servants of yeomen or under;" but through the interest of Cranmer, a clause was inserted, allowing, "that every nobleman and gentleman might have the Bible read in their houses, and that noble ladies, gentlewomen, and merchants, might read it themselves, but no man or woman under those degrees; which was all the archbishop could obtain. In the same year Cranmer proposed in convocation, that there should be a revision of the translations of the Bible; but so many difficulties were started by Gardiner, and the proposal was so feebly supported by the other bishops, that he was unable to accomplish his object, and desisted from the attempt. In the year 1546, the last of his reign, Henry issued a proclamation, prohibiting the having and reading of Wickliff's, Tyndal's and Coverdale's translations, and forbidding the use of any other not allowed by parliament.

Though in the reign of Edward the Sixth, the

reading

reading of the Scriptures was encouraged by royal proclamations, acts of parliament, and by every other means, and there were many impressions (s) of the English Bible, it does not appear that there was any new translation of the Bible, or even any considerable correction of the old ones, during the seven years and an half that excellent prince sat upon the throne; but it was ordered, that the Epistles and Gospels, and the Lessons, both from the Old and New Testament, should be read in English in the Churches, in the manner they now

are.

The terrors of persecution, in the reign of Queen Mary, drove many of our principal Reformers out of the Kingdom; several went to Geneva, and there employed themselves in making a new translation of the Bible. The New Testament was published in 1557, and the remainder of the work in 1560. This is called the Geneva Bible. It was accompanied with annotations, which were, as might be expected, from the place where they were written, of a Calvinistical cast; and therefore this translation was held in high esteem by the Puritans (t).

Soon

(s) Eleven of the whole Bible, and six of the new Testament.

(t) "Above thirty editions of this were published

by

Soon after the accession of Queen Elizabeth, a new translation of the Bible was undertaken by royal command, and under the direction of archbishop Parker. Distinct portions, fifteen at least,

were

by the Queen's and King's printers between 1560 and 1616, and others were printed at Edinburgh, Geneva, Amsterdam, &c. The New Testament of this is said to have been the first English edition of the Scriptures which was divided into verses. The Greek and Latin Bibles were not antiently divided into chapters or verses, at least not like those now used. Stephen Langton, archbishop of Canterbury, in the reigns of king John and of king Henry the Third, is said to have first contrived the division into chapters; others ascribe the invention to cardinal Hugo, a dominican monk of the 13th century, who adopted also subdivisions, distinguished by the seven first letters of the alphabet placed in the margin, as convenient for the use of the Concordance, which he first planned for the Vulgate. About 1445, Rabbi Mordecai Nathan, alias Rabbi Isaac Nathan, a western Jew, to facilitate the conduct of a controversy with the Christians, introduced this division of chapters into the Hebrew Bibles, and resumed also the antient division into verses numerically distinguished by marginal letters at every fifth verse, and from him the Christians received and improved the plan; and Robert Stephens adopted the division into the New Testament, of which he published a Greek edition in 1551. Vide Præfat. Buxtorf. ad Concord. Bibl. Hebraic. Morin. Exercit. Bibl. Præf. ad Concord. Græc. N. Test. Fabricii Bibliothec. Grec. lib. 4. cap. 5. Prid. vol. 1. book 5.”— Gray.

were allotted to as many persons, eminent for their learning and abilities; they all performed the work assigned to them, and the whole was afterwards revised with great care by other critics. This translation was published in 1568, with a preface written by the archbishop; and it is generally called the Bishops Bible, because eight of the persons originally concerned in it were bishops.

The Romanists, finding it impossible to keep the Scriptures out of the hands of the common people, printed at Rheims, in the year 1582, an English New Testament, translated from the Vulgate, but they retained in it many Eastern, Greek, and Latin words, and contrived to render it unintelligible to common readers (u). The Old Testament was afterwards published at Douay, in two volumes, the former in 1609, and the latter in 1610.

In the conference held at Hampton Court, in 1603, before King James the First, between the Episcopalians and Puritans, Dr. Reynolds, the speaker of the Puritans, requested his Majesty that a new translation of the Bible might be made; alleging, that those which had been allowed

(u) Fuller, in the ninth book of his Church History, called it, "a translation which needed to be translated."