Reformation and Restoration. By Prof. W. M. Blackburn, D. D. [pp. 348-369]

Reformation and Restoration.
honor long since freely accorded. The animus of the man
is seen in his theory. Since the laborious attempts to produce an authorized version under Wolsey and Henry the
Eighth came to nothing, except as Tyndale really secured
the basis of one which was sanctioned, we must be taught
that our debt is to be paid to those Anglo-Catholics who
translated the Vulgate. But this fancy will not bear the test.
Tyndale's version of the New Testament must have been made
from that which it most closely follows and resembles. We
are assured that his first complete edition of 1526 never follows the peculiar readings of the Latin Vulgate, never forsakes those of Erasmus' Greek Testament; even rendering
the typographical errors which had crept into the Greek, but
which were not in the Latin. Let one compare the version
printed as Wickliffe's in Bagster's IIexapla, with the versions
of Tyndale and those which were based upon it, and Mr.
Blunt's theory will vanish like a dream. We are prepared for
his regret that "the venerable Pusey, our greatest Hebrew
scholar and theologian, declined to accept the invitation sent
to him" to engage in the present work of revision. Nor do
we hold Dr. Pusey's biblical scholarship in light esteem.
The attempt to asperse Tyndale's work will hardly affect the
judgment of the present revisers. Westcott says of his work,
"He contributed directly the substantial basis of half the Old
Testament, and of the whole of the New. By far the greater
part of his translation remains intact in our present Bibles;
his spirit animates the whole."
No doubt Tyndale was "odious," in his day, to the Churchparty. His real work was not allowed to bear his name.
Why? Evidently because he was too thorough a reformer.
Yet he is now charged with thrusting himself forward as a
translator for party purposes! He attacked the doctrines and
the spiritual rulers of the Church which he had forsaken! He
wrote the "Practice of Prelates," the "Obedience of a Christian Man," the "Parable of the Wicked Mammon," and
various prefaces to books of Scripture translated by him.
Some of his notes were not the most appropriate, as when
he scourges popery in comments upon Genesis. He exposed
errors with scathing language. He commended an apostolic
1871.]
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