had done before, presented to his countrymen the volume of inspired truth to speak for itself. The master of the undertaking took measures for securing the extensive sale and use of the volume as soon as it was published. Certain injunctions to the clergy are preserved, requiring them before the next Christmas to provide "one boke of the whole Bible of the largest volume in English to be set up in the churches." * From its size it came to be called the Great Bible, the name by which it is generally known, and to which it is seen to have an indisputable title, when the large goodly folio is compared with copies of earlier editions. The date of the injunctions is 1538; but as the year did not end till March (1539, New Style), the next Christmas might be in this last year, leaving ample time, after the completion of the book in April, for the clergy to procure copies of it before the ensuing Christmas. A royal declaration was also issued about the same date, stating his majesty's zeal for the setting forth of God's Word, and his pleasure that the translation of the Scriptures into the mother tongue should be taught and declared by the clergy. But, strangely enough, the people were warned against forming a judgment for themselves of the meaning of the Divine oracles-they were to have recourse to learned men, authorized to preach and declare the same. A singular inconsistency,-to give the Bible to a man, and yet forbid his using his own faculties for ascertaining what were the truths it contained-to tantalize inquisitive mortals by placing before them the means of gratifying their curiosity, and then to forbid their employing such means! The inconsistency in the royal declaration, * The injunctions are given in Burnet's Hist. of the Ref. vol. ii. p. 260. by Cromwell & solmadın iha Beny mated the use of the Bible, while the zinumi wu s himself Exposed to keep the people under the poke of human authority in matters of religion. He wild and comply with his favourite's request without putting in the feclaration the caveat just noticed. St it was a great thing to pen the use of the Scriptures at all. It was the fires me that such a measure of liberty had been granted since the love of Scripture study had been awakened in the souls of the English people. This sheathing of the sword of persecution would have delighted Tyndale, and did delight Coverdale. Grateful must the latter have been to his old patron, Cromwell, for his efforts in this matter; and surely he must have lamented that a man who showed such sincere zeal for the circulation of the Bible should be so practically unmindful of its righteous and merciful precepts! What Strype says of the Bible in 1533 may be applied here. With what joy it was received, not only among the learned, and those noted for loving the Reformation, “but generally all England over, by the vulgar and common people, and with what greediness God's Word was read, and what resort to places where the reading of it was. Everybody that could, bought the book or busily read it, or got others to read it to them, if they could not themselves; and divers more elderly people learned to read on purpose, and even little boys flocked among the rest to hear portions of the Holy Scriptures read," when Scripture reading was allowed in 1538. Several poor men in the town of Chelmsford bought the New Testament, and read it on Sundays to their neighbours gathered round them "at the lower end of the church." A |