The Psalter.

Passages

from the

L'ersion.

and careful revision; and the same remark holds true also of the Psalms in the Occasional Services1.

But the great and enduring monument of the earlier Version of Coverdale and Cranmer is the Psalter itself, which had, as we have seen, become so completely identified with the expression of religious feeling that it was felt to be impossible to displace it. When the last changes in the Prayer-Book were made it was found, it is said, smoother to sing; but this is not a full account of the matter, and it cannot be mere familiarity which gives to the Prayer-Book Psalter, with all its errors and. imperfections, an incomparable tenderness and sweetness. Rather we may believe that in it we can yet find the spirit of him whose work it mainly is, full of humility and love, not heroic or creative, but patient to accomplish by God's help the task which had been set. him to do, and therefore best in harmony with the tenour of our own daily lives.

But when the Psalter and the Hymns were left unAuthorised altered in 1662 the Introductory Sentences, and the Epistles and Gospels were at last taken from the Authorised Version. Up to that time the Epistles and Gospels had been printed from the Great Bible with a few, perhaps unintentional, discrepancies, and the Introductory Sentences, like those at present in the Communion Service, had been an original translation. Thus the cycle was completed, and each great stage in the history of our Bible represented in the Prayer-Book.

Historic

Whatever else may be thought of the story which characteris has been thus imperfectly told, enough has been said to

tics of the

Version.

1 Two changes of tense are worthy of notice. In the Cantate (Ps. xcviii. 9) 'he cometh' is read for 'he is come;' and in Ps. cxvi. 4 (The

Churching of Women) I found,' 'I called' for 'I shall find,' and 'I will call.'

2 See p. 207.

14

shew that the history of the English Scriptures is, as was remarked by anticipation, unique. The other great vernacular versions of Europe are the works of single men, definitely stamped with their impress and bearing their names. A German writer somewhat contemptuously remarks that it took nearly a century to accomplish in England the work which Luther achieved in the fraction of a single life-time. The reproach is exactly our glory. Our version is the work of a Church and not of a man. Or rather it is a growth and not a work. Countless external influences, independent of the actual translators, contributed to mould it; and when it was fashioned the Christian instinct of the nation, touched, as we believe, by the Spirit of God, decided on its authority. But at the same time, as if to save us from that worship of the letter, which is the counterfeit of true and implicit devotion to the sacred text, the same original words are offered to us in other forms in our Prayer-Book, and thus the sanction of use is distinguished from the claim to finality. Our Bible in virtue of its past is capable of admitting revision, if need be, without violating its history. As it gathered into itself, during the hundred years in which it was forming, the treasures of manifold labours, so it still has the same assimilative power of life.

One Version only in old times, the Latin Vulgate, can in this respect be compared with it. This also was formed by private efforts silently and slowly till it was acknowledged by the acceptance of the Western Church. One supremely great man, Jerome, partly revised and partly renewed it, and by a strange coincidence even he could not displace the old Psalter which had been adopted for public use. But the English Bible has what the Latin Bible, as far as we know, had not. It has not

Compared

with the

Vulgate.

martyrdom.

Crowned by only the prerogative of vitality while the other has been definitely fixed in one shape, but it has also the seal of martyrdom upon it. In this too it differs from the other great modern versions. Luther defied his enemies to the last. Lefèvre in extreme old age mourned that when the opportunity was given him he had not been found worthy to give up his life for Christ. Calvin died sovereign at Geneva. But Tyndale, who gave us our first New Testament from the Greek, was strangled for his work at Vilvorde: Coverdale, who gave us our first printed Bible, narrowly escaped the stake by exile: Rogers, to whom we owe the multiform basis of our present Version, was the first victim of the Marian persecution: Cranmer, who has left us our Psalter, was at last blessed with a death of triumphant agony.

Words of the translators.

CRANMER.

The work was crowned by martyrdom and the workmen laboured at it in the faith and with the love of martyrs. The solemn words in which they commend. the Bible to their readers, the prayers which they offer for the spiritual enlightenment of their countrymen, the confessions which they make of their own insufficiency, have even now lost nothing of their eloquence. These are the moral of the story.

'Every man,' writes Cranmer, 'that cometh to the 'reading of this holy Book ought to bring with him first and foremost [the] feare of almighty God, and then next a firm and stable purpose to reform his own self according thereunto, and so to continue, proceed and 'prosper from time to time, shewing himself to be a 'sober and a fruitful hearer and learner, which if he 'shall do he shall prove at length well able to teach, though not with his mouth, yet with his living and good example, which is sure the most lively and 'effectuous form and manner of teaching.'

1.

'As for the commendation of God's holy Scripture,' COVERDALE. writes Coverdale, 'I would fain magnify it as it is 'worthy, but I am far insufficient thereto and therefore 'I thought it better for me to hold my tongue than 'with few words to praise or commend it; exhorting 'thee, most dear reader, so to love it, so to cleave unto 'it, and so to follow it in thy daily conversation, that 'other men seeing thy good works and the fruits of the 'Holy Ghost in thee may praise the Father of heaven 'and give this word a good report, for to live after the 'law of God and to lead a virtuous conversation is the 'greatest praise that thou canst give unto his doctrine...'

'I have here translated,' writes Tyndale, and these TYNDALE. were his first words, 'brethren and sisters, most dear ' and tenderly beloved in Christ, the New Testament for 'your spiritual edifying, consolation and solace; exhort'ing 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 r 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.'

Preface to

Authorised

'It remaineth that we commend thee [gentle reader] 'to God and to the Spirit of His Grace, which is able to Version. 'build further than we can ask or think. He removeth

'the scales from our eyes, the vail from our hearts, 'opening our wits that we may understand His word, 'enlarging our hearts, yea correcting our affections, that 'we may love it above gold and silver, yea that we may 'love it to the end. Ye are brought unto fountains of 'living water which ye digged not; do not cast earth 'into them with the Philistines, neither prefer broken 'pits before them with the wicked Jews. Others have laboured, and you may enter into their labours. O receive not so great things in vain: O despise not so 'great salvation......It is a fearful thing to fall into the 'hands of the living God; but a blessed thing it is and 'will bring us to everlasting blessedness in the end, 'when God speaketh unto us, to hearken; when He 'setteth His word before us, to read it; when He 'stretcheth out His hand and calleth, to answer, Here 'am I, here we are to do Thy will, O God. The Lord 'work a care and conscience in us to know Him and 'serve Him, that we may be acknowledged of Him at 'the appearing of our Lord JESUS CHRIST, to whom with the Holy Ghost, be all praise and thanksgiving. 'Amen.'