The Peoples Right to Use the Holy Scriptures, Title page – Publishers note
January 22, 1688.
Imprimatur, HEN. WHARTON.
THE JUDGMENT OF Archbishop CRANMER Concerning the Peoples Right to, and Discreet Use OF THE H. SCRIPTURES.
LONDON: Printed for John Taylor, at the Ship in St. Paul's Church-Yard, 1689.
THE PUBLISHER TO THE READER.
IT my seem very strange to some in the World, to consider the different Fate of the Holy Scriptures among Christians, how very contrary their Affections are towards that Book; yet I for my part, do no more Wonder at the Fury of the Members of the Church of Rome against the Holy Bible, than at the Protestants Zeal for it: Since the learned part of the Church of Rome know that their present Religion, and the new Articles of it are not to be found in that Book; and the Unlearned part are told and believe, That it is a very dangerous Book; and therefore both of them, not without great Cause (as they think) have Reason to be angry and violent against that Book: But since Protestants do find, to their infinite Satisfaction, their Religion in the Bible, they think they cannot express too great a Veneration for it, and believe that their Honour and Zeal for it, ought at least to be as great as the Papists Fury and Anger against it.
And yet as angry as those People are at the Holy Scriptures, when they were about Converting us all here, and the new Trade of Representing Popery was set up among us, they had so much Wit, as to perceive that abundance of Skill and Art must be necessary to get the Bible out of the Peoples Hands; and that their best way was not to be too severe upon the Bible it self, but to spend all their Pains upon disparaging Our Bible.
This was none of the worst Projects; for if the Priests could but once have gained so far upon the People, as to have made them out of Love with Our Bible, and to have got it out of their Hands, they needed not despair of gaining so much further upon them, as to make them altogether careless of having any Bible at all, and far from being desirous of having another Translation instead of ours.
The gaining of this Point was the Design of the Famous Popish Chappel in Lime street; where it was the Jesuites Province to cast all the Dirt they could upon our Bible, and to run down our Translation, as nothing but a mere heap of Falsities: And some of them, Father Petre, for example, were so furious as not only to charge our Translation with such gross Falsities and Misinterpretations, but our Clergy with knowing it to be so, and yet not daring (for filthy Lucre's sake) to acknowledge it.
My Business shall not be to meddle with the Scandal, which needs no other Confutation than to say, It came from a Jesuite's Mouth; and which is more, from Father Petre's Mouth, Brother to the late Jesuite-Privy-Counsellour: I intend only to vindicate our Bible from those false Aspersions and Calumnies of the Jesuites, by shewing that our Translation ought not to be objected against at all, by any Church in the World; much less by the Church of Rome; but least of all by those People, who have undertaken to do it so liberally in our own Nation.
Our Translation ought not to be objected against by any Church in the World; because after the several Reviews of it, and the vast Pains of so many very Learned Men upon it in King James the First Days, we may without Vanity say, That it is as Perfect, and as Compleat, as any Translation in use in any Church in the World. We do not pretend that it is perfectly free from Mistakes, or the least Errour; as no Translation of the Bible ever was so perfect, So, I believe, none ever will, or can, as long as Men not Inspired have the Charge of Translating; but this we say, and challenge the World to disprove it, That it is freed from all material Faults, and that it is accurate as to Matters of Faith and Good Manners, the Errors about which can only be Dangerous to Mankind.
And as no Church now in the World ought to accuse our Translation, so much less ought the Church of Rome to do it, whose Latin Translation of the Bible is so full of material Faults. For not to insist upon those Numerous and Great Differences betwixt the two Bibles of Pope Sixtus Quintus and Clement VIII. which yet both of them, under the Pain of Excommunication are declared to be Authentick. Isidore Clarius, a learned Spanish Bishop, does own, That the Errours in their Vulgar Latin are almost numberless, and he himself has observed eight thousand Places erroneous in it: And which is more, there are not only Literal Mistakes, Omissions or Additions of single Words in their Bibles; but in one Book of the Old Testament alone, to wit in the Proverbs, there are not fewer than eighteen whole Verses or Sentences, which are not in the Original Hebrew: So that the Church of Rome, of all Churches, should not charge us with Errours in our Translation.
And if their Church should not meddle with such things, I am sure those Priests who undertook it in the Popish Chappel in Lime-street, should, of all Men, have been excused from such a Task. They that would be medling with the Corrections of Translations, ought to be perfectly skill'd in the Original Tongues, in the Hebrew and Chaldee for the Old Testament, in the Greek and Syriac for the New. Now, how far Father Petre, or the rest of the Lime-street-Priests, were from being thus qualified for the Noble Province of bafling our Translation of the Bible, the World is almost as well satisfied as their own Consciences. I am persuaded, That not only Hebrew, Chaldee and Syriack are utterly unknown to them, but that Greek is almost as unintelligible. Popery has been a long time an Enemy to Learning; and in our Days, I am sure, the Jesuites have approved themselves to be the best Papists, that is, the most ignorant Dunces: Who upon this account ought not to meddle with Matters of Learning, especially wherein great skill in Languages is so requisite.
After all, I am fully convinced, that all that Fury and Vehemence in the Lime-street Chappel, was much more intended against the Holy Bible it self, than against our Translation of it. Their Church has taught 'em a new Faith, and therefore since the Old Bible has it not in it, they are for throwing it aside, as Old and Useless, especially to the People; whose Right to the Use of that Holy Book is the Subject of this Tract of the most Venerable Martyr of Christ, Archbishop Cramner, to the perusal of which you are now invited.