NOTE ON THE SYNOD OF DORT (See above, p. 12 notc.) In that dreary folio Acta Synodi Nationalis...Dordecti habitac (1620) we read (pp. 19, 20) that the seventh Session of the Synod was spent in considering a written Report from the English Delegates (Carleton, Bp of Llandaff, the illustrious Joseph Hall, afterwards Bp of Norwich, Dr Davenant, afterwards Bp of Salisbury, and Dr Ward, Master of Sidney Sussex College, 1609-43') on the method employed in executing our Authorized Bible, wherein are made the following statements: "Post peractum a singulis pensum, ex hisce omnibus duodecim selecti viri in unum locum convocati integrum opus recognoverunt ac recensuerunt." "Postremo, Reverendissimus Episcopus Wintoniensis, Bilsonus, una cum Doctore Smitho, nunc Episcopo Glocestriensi, viro eximio et ab initio in toto hoc opere versatissimo, omnibus mature pensitatis et examinatis, extremam manum huic operi imposuerunt." None of these Delegates had any share in the Translation of 1611, but as seven years had elapsed since its publication, it is wonderful that they had not found out by that time how very carelessly the last revise had been carried through the press. 1 Dr Ward was one of the revisers of the Cambridge Bible of 1638: sce above, p. 22. THE TRANSLATORS TO THE READER. THE TRANSLATORS TO THE READER'. (See above, p. 39.) EAL to promote the common good, whether it be The best ZEAL things have niated. by devising any thing ourselves, or revising that been calum which hath been laboured by others, deserveth certainly much respect and esteem, but yet findeth but cold entertainment in the world. It is welcomed with suspicion instead of love, and with emulation instead of thanks: and if there be any hole left for cavil to enter, (and cavil, if it do not find a hole, will make one) it is sure to be misconstrued, and in danger to be condemned. This will easily be granted by as many as know story, or have any experience. For was there ever any thing projected, that savoured any way of newness or renewing, but the same endured many a storm of gainsaying or opposition? A man would think that civility, wholesome laws, learning and cloquence, synods, and Church-main The text of the original edition has been restored, except where later books have corrected manifest errors. The marginal references set within brackets (chiefly derived from Migne's Patrologia), as also the short foot-notes, are added in the present work: the rest are in the Bible of 1611. The quotations from Scripture are somewhat too loosely given, but in test passages (e.g. Kin. xii. 4; Neh. iv. 2, 3; 1 Cor. xiv. 11) the writer comes very near the Genevan version of 1560: sometimes he uses the Authorized, never the Bishops' Bible. |