hearing and obedience. "See that ye refuse not Him that speaketh." "He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches." ARTICLE VI.-" Of the Sufficiency of the Holy This Article stands first among those which set forth the principles of the Reformation, as directly antagonistic to the decrees of the Council of Trent; the first of which principles is that on which depend all the others, that the Holy Scriptures or written Word of God contains within its sacred pages all that is necessary for our salvation, thus rejecting the doctrine laid down in the Tridentine Decree, that the co-ordination of ecclesiastical tradition with the Word is indispensable. This Article is that which more than any other stamps our Church as essentially Protestant, in accordance with the celebrated Protest presented by the Lutheran princes to the Diet of Spires in 1529, in which is the following passage:-"Seeing that there is no sure doctrine but such as is conformable to the Word of God; that the Lord forbids the teaching of any other doctrine; that each text of the Holy Scriptures ought to be explained by other and clearer texts; and that this holy book is, in all things necessary for the Christian, easy of understanding, and calculated to scatter the darkness; we are resolved, by the grace of God, to maintain the pure and exclusive teaching of His only Word, such as it is contained in the Biblical books of the Old and New Testament, without adding anything thereto that may be contrary to it. This Word is the only truth; it is the sure rule of all doctrine and of all life, and can never fail or deceive us. "For these reasons we earnestly entreat you to weigh carefully our grievances and our motives. If you do not yield to our request, we PROTEST by these presents before God, our only Creator, Preserver, Redeemer, and Saviour, and who will one day be our Judge, as well as before all men and all creatures, that we, for us and our people, neither consent nor adhere in any manner whatsoever to the proposed decree in anything that is contrary to God, to His Holy Word, to our right conscience, to the salvation of our souls, and to the last decree of Spires," which had conceded religious liberty to every German state. The authorities and priests of the Romish Church saw in their wisdom that it was greatly to their interest to keep the Bible a sealed book to the people at large; if its enlightening and quickening power were brought to bear on their hearts, the false doctrines and deceits imposed upon them by their Church would be exposed and no longer tolerated. The Bible must be for the priests alone, if they would maintain their power over the people. It is true the Bible was in a measure allowed, but with such conditions as practically nullified the grant; it must be that mutilated version known as the Douay, and printed in the Latin tongue, a language understood by those of highest education alone. It is obvious that the Word of God was ever intended for people as for priests, and that not in these days only. When the Lord gave His written Word first from Sinai, He did not cause it to be written in Egyptian or other coeval tongue, but in Hebrew, the common language of the people to whom His law and promises were addressed. All subsequent inspired writings to the Jewish Church were in the Hebrew tongue. When, fifteen hundred years later, the Apostles, inspired by the Holy Ghost, wrote the New Testament, though, with the exception of St. Luke, they themselves were Jews, those writings were all in Greek, because the Gospel, unlike the law, was "not for that nation only," but "in all the world" to "every creature;" and Greek was at that time the dominant, almost universal, tongue of the known world. When the Roman Empire succeeded the Grecian in the worldsovereignty, and Latin became the prevailing language, it again became needful that the Scriptures, if they were to be diffused among all nations, should be rendered into the reigning tongue. This need. was supplied by St. Jerome, the most eminent of the Latin Fathers for his knowledge of Hebrew, Greek, and Chaldee. In his cell at Bethlehem, where he retired for the last thirty years of his life, he produced direct from the original that great Latin version of the Western Church known as the Vulgate, which superseding the various incorrect versions previously in use, was at that day invaluable. On the declension of the Roman Empire, and the irruption into its territories of Western barbarians, whose general language was German, and who gradually spread and settled over the North of Europe, a new translation ought in ordinary course to have followed, if these wild. savages were to be brought under the christianising influences of the Gospel. But this translation was never made; the Church of Rome retained for her priests alone that Gospel which was to be freely taught among all nations, contenting herself with sending teachers who, in the interest of her and themselves, withheld the Word of God from their proselytes in its fulness, "teaching for doctrines the commandments of Rome." Thus Papal supremacy and the Romish Church held in bondage Mediæval Christendom. With the dawn of the Reformation this was at an end. The open Bible was in free circulation; by it the errors and superstitions of the Papacy were clearly seen in their true colours, and all who chose to follow the commands of God in preference to the dictates of the Pope were free to follow their convictions. The English Reformation, in its religious aspect, had two great ends in view-the publication of an English Bible and compiling an English PrayerBook. The first of these objects was undertaken early in the sixteenth century by William Tyndale, priest and scholar of both universities. In 1525 he published his first edition of the New Testament translated from the original: this, revised and corrected, was sent out as a second edition in 1534, and this version is the basis of our present Bible. Wycliffe, it is true, had been before him in the work, but the versions of these divines have this noteworthy difference: Tyndale's translation was made directly from the original, Wycliffe's was the version of a version; he translated it from the Latin VulgateJerome's work. We may regard it as providential that the former, instead of the latter, became the foundation of our authorised Bible. Coverdale's English Bible followed Tyndale's in 1535, and the two versions were the basis of Matthew's edition, issued in 1537; but this was mainly founded on Tyndale. The "Great Bible" of Archbishop Cranmer, printed and published in 1539, was the last version issued under Henry VIII. It was formerly "authorised to be read in churches," and it is this version of the Psalms which we still retain in our Psalter; for though the present is the more accurate rendering, the former is far better adapted for musical setting; and having been so long used in the Church Services, there |