Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1849,

BY ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS,

In the Clerk's Office for the Southern District of New York.

306 Andersen

THOMAS B. SMITH, STEREOTYPER, 216 WILLIAM STREET, N. Y.

ROBERT CRAIGHEAD, PRINTER,

112 FULTON STREET.

PREFACE.

In the literature of this country, although it has been so often felt and regretted, a more observable deficiency does not exist, than that of there being no history of the English Bible. It may have been imagined, that such a narrative could embrace no heart-stirring incidents, or incidents laid as the foundation of a great design, no frequent peril of life, no hairbreadth escapes, nor, especially, any of those transactions in which the vital interests of this nation have been involved. No mistake could have been greater, but whatever has been the cause, the defect is notorious.

The Sacred Volume, indeed, carries internal evidence of its divine origin, and that in abundance; but still, with reference to the Bible now being used daily, no questions can be more natural than these-When was this volume first translated from the original, and put into print? Who was the man that labored night and day to accomplish this? Like his Divine Master, was he betrayed unto death? If so, who betrayed him? What became of his betrayers? Or, was there any one man who befriended him, in his last days, or final trial? And since all this, and much more, did take place abroad; in the first transmission, in the secret and singular conveyance of the heavenly treasure to our shores, what were the distinct tokens of a superintending Providence to be observed and adored? What were the notable circumstances connected with its earliest triumphs over the prejudice and passion of our common nature? Or, in short, how has this Sacred Volume, revised, and re-revised, after three hundred years, come down into our hands? And yet, up to the present moment, should any individual apply to his Christian teacher, or any child to his Parent, and put these and other deeply-interesting questions, no definite answer can be returned; nor is there a single publication, which, if it lead not astray, will not leave the inquisitive reader nearly as far from satisfaction as when he began. If a Translator, in whose train all others have followed, must be allowed to rank far above all mere Reformers, it is strange if, on such a subject, historians generally should have slumbered or slept; yet the histories of Halle and Foxe, of Stowe and Strype, of Burnet and Collier, of Turner and Lingard, or Soame, as well as the history of Translations by Lewis, Herbert, or Dibdin, with the Biblical literature of Townley, of Cotton, or of Horne, may all be read, and they must be, when such a