The Sunday School Teacher's Manual

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: AN HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE ENGLISH VERSIONS OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. CHAPTER I.?ANGLO-SAXON VERSIONS. The writer of the present and succeeding papers on this subject, is chiefly indebted to the learned introduction to Bagster's English Hexapla, Todd's Contributions to the history of the English Bible, Taylor's Transmission of ancient books, Baber's preface to Wiclif's Testament, and several other equally able works. The present is an attempt to place the contents of these valuable treatises in an easy and readable form, in the hands of every Teacher; and this with especial reference to the workings of the hand of God, in introducing the circulation of the Scriptures, and thus bringing about the Reformation in this country, for to the free circulation of the Bible that great event is chiefly attributable. The Anglo-Saxon and early English versions have first to be noticed, tracing ont what appears to have been done prior to the days of Wiclif, then the versions of Wiclif, Tyndall, and Cover- dale, with the various versions executed up to the year Kill, when the translations, which we have in daily use, were published. The outline of the history of the translation and diffusion of the Scriptures in English, is one from which we may learn how much cause we have for thankfulness, that we are permitted the unlimited use of the Word of God in our own tongue. The Scripture, as being the record of the Holy Ghost concerning the love which God has shewn in the gift of His Son, that His blood should be shed for sinners, was not given forth for a few merely, but it is that which is set before the eyes of all; not for them to exercise respecting it any supposed right or ability of forming a judgment of their own, but for them to acknowledge the authority of God to speak, and t...