Ancient

severely threatened by the prophet Ezekiel for her idolatry, her pride, and her wickedness. And the Egyptians have generally been more wretched, as they have generally been more wicked, than other nations. authors describe them every where as superstitious and luxurious, as an unwarlike and unserviceable people, as a faithless and fallacious nation, always meaning one thing and pretending another, as lovers of wine and strong drink, as cruel in their anger, as thieves and tolerating all kind of theft, as patient under all kind of tortures, and though put to the rack, yet choosing rather to die than to confess the truth.

AN

* HISTORICAL VIEW

OF THE

ENGLISH BIBLICAL TRANSLATIONS.

CHAP. I.

The Progress of our English Versions.

SECTION I.

Of the Saxon Versions.

ABOUT the year 709, Adelme, bishop of Sherborne, translated the Psalms into Saxon. Egbert, Bishop of Landisfern, who died in 721, made

* By WILLIAM NEWCOMBE, D.D. Bishop of Waterford.

a Saxon version of the four Gospels. Within a few years of this period, Bede translated the whole Bible into that language. Near two hundred years after Bede, King Alfred executed another translation of the Psalms; either to supply the loss of Adelme's, which is supposed to have perished in the Dutch wars, or to improve the plainness of Bede's version; as none of the English was more elegant in expression than that famous king. A Saxon translation of the Pentateuch, Joshua, part of the Book of Kings, Esther, Judith, and the Maccabees, is also attributed to Elfric, or Elfred, who was archbishop of Canterbury in the year 995.

SECTION II.

Of the Versions by Wicklif and his followers.

SEVERAL attempts were made to translate into English the Psalter, the hymns of the Church, and the rest of Scriptures. These translations seem to have been made before the time of the famous Dr. John Wicklif; but they were translations of only some parts of the Old Testament, and not of the whole Bible: and they seem not to have been published; but made only for the translator's own use.

John Wicklif was born in the year

1324, and died in 1384. Some time before 1381, his translation of the New Testament was finished and published.

He set about translating the whole Bible into the English then spoken. This translation he made from the Latin Bibles then in common use, or which were at that time usually read in the Church. Wicklif was not only a good divine and scripturist, but well skilled in the civil, canon, and English law. To great learning and abilities he added the ornament of a grave, unblemished, and pious conduct. He died in his own parish of Lutterworth, Dec. 31, 1384. By a decree of the Council of Constance,