BIDDING pose in 1563: it was printed in folio, in 1588. Another version, which is the standard translation for that language, was printed in 1620: i is called Parry's Bible. An impression of this was printed in 1690, called Bishop Lloyd's Bible: these were in folio. The first octavo impression of the Welsh Bible was made in 1630. 44. BIBLE, Bengalee. It is with pleasure we add to all the above accounts, that a translation of the New Testament into the Sanscrit, and the last volume of the Bengalee Bible, are now completed, by the missionaries resident in that part. Much has been done by the British and Foreign Bible Society, in printing new editions of the Scriptures in various languages. The reader will find much pleasing information on the subject in the Annual Reports of that Society. See Le Long's Bibliotheca Sacra; Wolfii Bibliotheca Hebræa, vol. ii. p. 338; Johnson's Historical Account of English Translations of the Bible; Lewis's History of the Translations of the Bible into English; Newcome's Historical View of English Translations; Butler's Hora Biblica; and the article Bible, in the Encyclopædia Britannica and Perthensis. BIOGRAPHY they made use of certain known forms of words, to give notice when each part of the service degan. Agreeable to this ancient practice, is the form. "Let us pray," repeated before several of the prayers in the English liturgy. Bishop Burnet, in his History of the Reformation, vol. ii. p. 20. has preserved the form as it was in use before the Reformation, which was this:-After the preacher had named and opened his text, he called on the people to go to their prayers, telling them what they were to pray for: Ye shall pray, says he, for the king, the pope, &c. After which all the peo ple said their beads in a general silence, and the minister kneeled down likewise, and said his: they were to say a paternoster, ave Maria, &c. and then the sermon proceeded. BIGOTRY consists in being obstinately and perversely attached to our own opinions; or, as some have defined it, "a tenacious adherence to a system adopted without investigation, and defended without argument, accompanied with a malignant, intolerant spirit towards all who differ." It must be distinguished from love to truth, which influences a man to embrace it wherever he finds it; and from true zeal, which is an ardour of mind exciting its possessor to defend and propagate the principles he maintains. Bigotry is a kind of prejudice combined with a certain degree of malignity. It is thus exempli"When Jesus preached, Prejudice cried, Can any good thing come out of Nazareth? Crucify him, crucify him, said Bigotry. Why? what evil hath he done? replied Candour." Bigotry is mostly prevalent with those who are ignorant; who have taken up principles without due examination; and who are naturally of a morose and contracted disposition. It is often manifested BIBLICAL, a term applied to that department of writing which treats of the Bible, considered as the prominent subject of sacred litera-fied and distinguished by a sensible writer. ture. The use of the term has, of late years, become more common in proportion as the study of the Scriptures in the original languages, and the criticism of the sacred text, have been more extensively cultivated. See HERMENEUTICS.-B. BIBLIOMANCY, a kind of divination performed by means of the Bible. It consisted in taking passages of Scripture at hazard, and draw-more in unimportant sentiments, or the circuming indications thence concerning things future. stantials of religion, than the essentials of it. It was much used at the consecration of bishops. Simple bigotry is the spirit of persecution withF. J. Davidius, a Jesuit, has published a biblio- out the power; persecution is bigotry armed with mancy under the borrowed name of Veridicus power, and carrying its will into act. As it is the Christianus. It has been affirmed that some well-effect of ignorance, so it is the nurse of it, bemeaning people practise a kind of bibliomancy cause it precludes free inquiry, and is an enemy with respect to the future state of their souls; to truth: it cuts, also, the very sinews of charity, and, when they have happened to fix on a text and destroys moderation and mutual good-will, of an awful nature, it has almost driven them to If we consider the different make of men's minds, despair. It certainly is not the way to know the our own ignorance, the liberty that all men have mind of God by choosing detached parts of Scrip- to think for themselves, the admirable example ture, or by drawing a card on which a passage our Lord has set us of a contrary spirit, and the may be written, the sense of which is to be gath-baneful effects of this disposition, we must at ered only from the context. BIDDELIANS, so called from John Biddle, who, in the year 1644, formed an independent congregation in London. He taught that Jesus Christ, to the intent that he might be our brother, and have a fellow-feeling of our infirmities, and so become the more ready to help us, hath no other than a human nature; and therefore in this very nature is not only a person, since none but a human person can be our brother, but also our Lord and God. Biddle, as well as Socinus and other Unitarians before and since, made no scruple of calling Christ God, though he believed him to be a human creature only, on account of the divine sovereignty with which he was invested. BIDDING PRAYER. It was part of the office of the deacons in the primitive church, to be monitors and directors of the people in their public devotions in the church. To this end, once be convinced of its impropriety. How contradictory is it to sound reason, and how inimical to the peaceful religion we profess to maintain as Christians!-See PERSECUTION, and books under that article. BIOGRAPHY, (Religious,) or the lives of illustrious and pious men, are well worthy of perusing. The advantages of religious biography, are too well known to need a recital in this place. We shall only, therefore, point out some of the best pieces, which the reader may peruse at his leisure: Hunter's Sacred Biography; Robinson's Scripture Characters; Hunter's History of Christ; J. Taylor's Life of Christ; Cave's Lives of the Apostles; Cave's Lives of the Fathers; Fox's Lives of the Martyrs; Melchior Adams's Lives; Fuller's and Clark's Lives; Gilpin's Lives of Wicliff, Cranmer, Latimer, &c.; Walton's Lives by Zouch; Baxter's Narra BLASPHEMY tire of the most remarkable Passages of his Life and Times, by Silvester; Palmer's Nonconformist Memorial; Lives of P. and M. Henry; Life of Halyburton; Orton's Memoirs of Doddridge; Gillies' Life of Whitfield; Doddridge's Life of Gardiner; Life of Wesley by Hampson, Coke, More, and Whitehead; Middleton's Biographia Evangelica; Edwards's Life of D. Brainerd; Gibbon's Life of Watts; Brown's Life of Hervey; Fawcett's Life of Heywood; Brown's Lites in his Student and Pastor; Burnet's Life of Rochester; Hayley's Life of Cowper; Benson's Life of Fletcher; Jay's Life of Winter; Cecil's Life of Newton; Priestley's Chart of Biography, with a Book describing it, 12; Haweis's Life of Romaine; Fuller's Life of Pearce. BORRELLISTS more than one God, or denies Christianity to be true, for the first offence is rendered incapable of any office; for the second, adjudged incapable of suing, being executor or guardian, receiving any gift or legacy, and to be imprisoned for years, According to the law of Scotland, blasphemy is punished with death: these laws, however, in the present age, are not enforced: the legislature thinking, perhaps, that spiritual offences should be left to be punished by the Deity rather than by human statutes. Campbell's Prel. Diss. vol. L p. 395; Robinson's Script. Plea, p. 58. BLASPHEMY AGAINST THE HOLY GHOST. See UNPARDONABLE SIN. BODY OF DIVINITY. See THEOLOGY. BOGOMILI, or BOGARMITE, a sect of heretics which arose about the year 1179. They held BISHOP, a prelate consecrated for the spi- that the use of churches, of the sacrament of the ritual government of a diocese. The word comes Lord's Supper, and all prayer except the Lord's from the Saxon bischop, and that from the Greek prayer, ought to be abolished; that the baptism 17, an overseer, or inspector. It is a long of Catholics is imperfect; that the persons of the time since bishops have been distinguished from Trinity are unequal, and that they often made mere priests, or presbyters; but whether that dis-themselves visible to those of their sect. tinction be of divine or human right; whether it was settled in the apostolic age, or introduced since, is much controverted. Churchmen in general plead for the divine right; while the Dissenters suppose that the word no where signifies more than a pastor or presbyter; the very same persons being called bishops and elders, or presbyters, Acts xx. 17, 28. 1 Pet. v. 1, 3. Tit. i. 5,7. Phil. i. 1. See EPISCOPACY. All the bishops of England are peers of the realm, except the bishop of Man; and as such sit and vote in the house of lords. Besides two archbishops, there are twenty-four bishops in England, exclusive of the bishop of Sodor and Man. The bishops of London, Durham, and Winchester, take the precedence of the other bishops, who rank after them according to their seniority of consecration. See EPISCOPACY. 66 BOHEMIAN BRETHREN, a sect of Christian reformers which sprung up in Bohemia ir the year 1467. They treated the pope and cardinals as Antichrist, and the church of Rome as the whore spoken of in the Revelations, They rejected the sacraments of the Romish church, and chose laymen for their ministers. They held the Scriptures to be the only rule of faith, and rejected the popish ceremonies in the celebration of the mass; nor did they make use of any other prayer than the Lord's prayer. They consecrated leavened bread. They allowed no adoration but of Jesus Christ in the communion. They rebap tized all such as joined themselves to their congregation. They abhorred the worship of saints and images, prayers for the dead, celibacies, vows, and fasts; and kept none of the festivals but Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide. Bohemian brethren endeavoured to join his party. At first, that reformer showed a great aversion to them; but, the Bohemians sending their depu ties to him in 1535, with a full account of their doctrines, he acknowledged that they were a society of Christians whose doctrines came nearest to the purity of the Gospel. This sect published another confession of faith in 1535, in which they renounced anabaptism, which they at first practised: upon which a union was concluded with the Lutherans, and afterwards with the Zuinglians, whose opinions from thenceforth they con BLASPHEMY, from 8, according to In 1503 they were accused by the Catholics to Dr. Campbell, properly denotes calumny, detrac- king Ladislaus II., who published an edict against tion, reproachful or abusive language, against them, forbidding them to hold any meetings, whosoever it be vented. It is in Scripture ap- either privately or publicly. When Luther deplied to reproaches not ained against God onlyclared himself against the church of Rome, the but man also, Rom. iii. 8. xiv. 16. 1 Pet. iv. 4. Gr. It is, however, more peculiarly restrained to evil or reproachful words offered to God. According to Lindwood, blasphemy is an injury offered to God, by denying that which is due and belonging to him, or attributing to him what is not agreeable to his nature, "Three things," savs a divine, are essential to this crime; 1. God must be the object.-2. The words spoken or written, independent of consequences which others may derive from them, must be injurious in their nature. And, 3. He who commits the crime must do it knowingly. This is real blas-tinued to follow. phemy: but there is a relative blasphemy, as BOOK OF SPORTS. See SPORTS. when a man may be guilty ignorantiy, by pro- BORRELLISTS, a Christian sect in Hol pagating opinions which dishonour God, the ten-land, so named from their founder Borrel, a man dency of which he does not perceive. A man of great learning in the Hebrew, Greek, and La may be guilty of this constructively: for if he tin tongues. They reject the use of the sacraspeak freely against received errors, it will be con-ments, public prayer, and all other external acts strued in blasphemy." By the English laws, of worship. They assert that all the Christian bphemies of God, as denying his being or pro-churches of the world have degenerated from the vidence, and all contumelious reproaches of Jesus Christ, &c. are offences by the common law, and punishable by fine, imprisonment, and pillory; and, by the statute law, he that denies one of the persons in the Trinity, or asserts that there are pure apostolic doctrines, because they have suf fered the word of God, which is infallible, to be expounded, or rather corrupted, by doctors who are fallible. They lead a very austere life, and employ a great part of their goods in alins. BRETHREN BROWNISTS BOURIGNONISTS, the followers of Antoi- | viii. 2, 14, and maintained that the true children of God were invested with perfect freedom from the jurisdiction of the law. They held that all things flowed by emanation from God; that ra tional souls were portions of the Deity; that the universe was God; and that by the power of contemplation they were united to the Deity, and acquired hereby a glorious and sublime liberty, both from the sinful lusts and the common instincts of nature, with a variety of other enthu siastic notions. Many edicts were published against them; but they continued till about the middle of the fifteenth century. nette Bourignon, a lady in France, who pretended to particular inspirations. She was born at Lisle, in 1616. At her birth she was so deformed, that it was debated some days in the family whether it was not proper to stifle her as a monster; but her deformity diminishing, she was spared; and afterwards obtained such a degree of beauty, that she had her admirers. From her childhood to her old age she had an extraordinary turn of mind. She set up for a reformer, and published a great number of books filled with very singular notions; the most remarkable of which are entitled The Light of the World, and BRETHREN AND CLERKS OF THE The Testimony of Truth. In her confession of COMMON LIFE, a denomination assumed by faith, she professes her belief in the Scriptures, a religious fraternity towards the end of the fif the divinity and atonement of Christ. She be-teenth century. They lived under the rule of lieved also that man is perfectly free to resist or St. Augustine, and were said to be eminently receive divine grace; that God is ever unchange- useful in promoting the cause of religion and able love towards all his creatures, and does not learning. inflict any arbitrary punishment; but that the evils they suffer are the natural consequence of sin; that religion consists not in outward forms of worship nor systems of faith, but in an entire resignation to the will of God. She held inany extravagant notions, among which, it is said, she asserted that Adam, before the fall, possessed the principles of both sexes; that in an ecstacy, God represented Adam to her mind in his original state; as also the beauty of the first world, and how he had drawn from it the chaos; and that every thing was bright, transparent, and darted forth life and ineffable glory, with a number of other wild ideas. She dressed like a hermit, and travelled through France, Holland, England, and Scotland. She died at Fanekir, in the province of Frise, October 30, 1680. Her works have been printed in 18 vols. 8vo. BRETHREN, WHITE, were the followers of a priest from the Alps, about the beginning of the fifteenth century. They and their leader were arrayed in white garments. Their leader carried about a cross like a standard. His apparent sanc tity and devotion drew together a number of fol lowers. This deluded enthusiast practised many acts of mortification and penance, and endeavoured to persuade the Europeans to renew the holy war. Boniface IX. ordered him to be appre hended, and committed to the flames; upon which his followers dispersed. BRETHREN, UNITED. See MORAVIANS. BREVIARY, the book containing the daily service of the church of Rome. BRIDGETINS, or BRIGITTINS, an order de nominated from St. Bridget, or Brigit, a Swedish lady, in the fourteenth century. Their rule is BOYLE'S LECTURES; a course of eight nearly that of St. Augustine. The Brigittins sertions, preached annually; set on foot by the profess great mortification, poverty, and self-dehonourable R. Boyle, by a codicil annexed to his nial; and they are not to possess any thing they will, in 1691, whose design, as expressed by the can call their own, not so much as an half-penny; institutor, is to prove the truth of the Christian nor even to touch money on any account. This religion against infidels, without descending to order spread much through Sweden, Germany any controversies among Christians, and to an- and the Netherlands. In England we read of swer new difficulties, scruples, &c. For the sup-but one monastery of Brigittins, and this built by port of this lecture he assigned the rent of his Henry V. in 1415, opposite to Richmond, now house in Crooked Lane to some learned divine called Sion House; the ancient inhabitants of within the bills of mortality, to be elected for a which, since the dissolution, are settled at Lisben. terin not exceeding three years. But, the fund BRIEFS (Apostolical) are letters which the proving precarious, the salary was ill paid; to pope dispatches to princes and other magistrates remedy which inconvenience, archbishop Tenni-concerning any public aflair. son procured a yearly stipend of 50%. for ever, to be paid quarterly, charged on a farm in the parish of Brill, in the county of Bucks. To this appointment we are indebted for many excellent de- BROWNISTS, a sect that arose among the fences of natural and revealed religion, among puritans towards the close of the sixteenth cen which may be mentioned those of Clarke, Kid-tury; so named from their leader, Robert Brown. der, Bentley, Burnet, Berriman, Whiston, &c. BRANDENBURG, CONFESSION OF. A formulary or confession of faith, drawn up in the city of Brandenburg by order of the elector, with a view to reconcile the tenets of Luther with those of Calvin, and to put an end to the disputes occasioned by the Confession of Augsburg. See AUGSBURG CONFESSION. BRETHREN AND SISTERS OF THE FREE SPIRIT, an appellation assumed by a sect which sprung up towards the close of the thirteenth century, and gained many adherents in Italy, France, and Germany. They took their denomination from the words of St. Paul, Rom. BROTHERS, LAY, among the Romanists, are illiterate persons, who devote themselves in some convent to the service of the religious. He was educated at Cambridge, and was a man of good parts and some learning. He began to inveigh openly against the ceremonies of the church, at Norwich, in 1580: but being much opposed by the bishops, he, with his congrega tion, left England, and settled at Middleburgh, in Zealand, where they obtained leave to worship God in their own way, and form a church a cording to their own model. They soon, how ever, began to differ among themselves; Brown, growing weary of his office, returned to England, in 1589, renounced his principles of separation, and was preferred to the rectory of a church in Northamptonshire. He died in pr so that BROWNISTS son. in 1630. The revolt of Brown was attended with the dissolution of the church at Middleburgh; but the seeds of Brownism which he had sown in England were so far from being destroyed, that Sir Walter Raleigh, in a speech in 1592, computes no less than 20,000 of this sect. BURIAL after him, Mr. Ainsworth, author of the learned Commentary on the Pentateuch. Their church flourished near 100 years. Among the Brownists, too, were the famous John Robinson, a part of whose congregation from Leyden, in Holland, made the first permanent settlement in North America; and the laborious Canne, the author of the marginal references to the Bible. Fuller's Church History of England, B. 9. p. 166; Strype's Life of Parker, p. 326; Neale's History of the Puritans, vol. i. p. 375; Mosheim's Eccl. History, vol. iv. p. 98; Hornbeck's History of Brownism. BUCHANITES, a set of enthusiasts who sprung up in the west of Scotland about 1783, and took their name from a Mrs. Buchan of Glasgow, who gave herself out to be the woman spoken of in the Revelations; and that all who believed in her should be taken up to heaven without tasting death, as the end of the world was near. They never increased much; and the death of their leader, within a year or two afterwards, occasioned their dispersion, by putting an end to their hopes of reaching the New Jerusalem without death. BUDNEANS, a sect in Poland, who disclaimed the worship of Christ, and ran into many wild hypotheses. Budnæus, the founder, was publicly excommunicated in 1584, with all his disciples, but afterwards he was admitted to the communion of the Socinian sect. BULLS, (Popish,) are letters called apostolic by the Canonists, strengthened with a leaden seal, and containing in them the decrees and compope. The articles of their faith seem to be nearly the same as those of the church of England. The occasion of their separation was not, therefore, any fault they found with the faith, but only with the discipline and form of government of the churches in England. They equally charged corruption on the episcopal and presbyterian forms; nor would they join with any other reformed church, because they were not assured of the sanctity and regeneration of the members that composed it. They condeinned the solemu celebration of marriages in the church, maintaining that matrimony being a political contract, the confirmation thereof ought to come from the civil magistrate; an opinion in which they are not sin gular. They would not allow the children of such as were not members of the church to be baptized. They rejected all forms of prayer, and held that the Lord's prayer was not to be recited as a prayer, being only given for a rule or model whereon all our prayers are to be formed. Their form of church government was nearly as follows: When a church was to be gathered, such as desired to be members of it made a confession of their faith in the presence of each other, and signed a covenant, by which they obliged themselves to walk together in the order of the Gospel. The whole power of admitting and excluding mem-mandments of the bers, with the decision of all controversies, was lodged in the brotherhood. Their church officers were chosen from among themselves, and separated to their several offices by fasting, prayer, and imposition of hands. But they did not allow the priesthood to be any distinct order. As the vote of the brethren made a man a minister, so the same power could discharge him from his office, and reduce him to a mere layman again; and as they maintained the bounds of a church to be no greater than what could meet together in one place, and join in one communion, so the power of these officers was prescribed within the same limits.-The minister of one church could not administer the Lord's Supper to another, nor baptize the children of any but those of his own society. Any lay brother was allowed the liberty of giving a word of exhortation to the people; and it was usual for some of them after sermon to ask questions, and reason upon the doctrines that had been preached. In a word, every church on their model is a body corporate, having full power to do every thing in themselves, without being accountable to any class, sync, convocation, or other jurisdiction whatever. The reader will judge how near the Independent churches are allied to this form of government. See INDEPENDENTS.-The laws were executed with great severity on the Brownists; their books were prohibited by queen Elizabeth, their persons imprisoned, and some hanged. Brown himself declared on his death-bed that he had been in thirty-two different prisons, in some of which he could not see his hand at noon-day. They were 80 much persecuted, that they resolved at last to quit the country. Accordingly many retired and settled at Amsterdam, where they formed a church, and chose Mr. Johnson their pastor, and BURGHER SECEDERS, a numerous and respectable class of dissenters from the church of Scotland, who were originally connected with the associate presbytery; but, some difference of sentiment arising about the lawfulness of taking the Burgess oath, a separation ensued in 1739; in consequence of which, those who pleaded for the affirmative obtained the appellation of Burgher, and their opponents that of Anti-burgher Seceders. See SECEDers. BURIAL, the interment of a deceased person. The rites of burial have been looked upon in all countries as a debt so sacred, that such as neglected to discharge them were thought accursed. Among the Jews, the privilege of burial was denied only to self-murderers, who were thrown out to putrefy upon the ground. In the Christian church, though good men always desired the privilege of interment, yet they were not, like the heathens, so concerned for their bodies, as to think it any detriment to them if either the barbarity of an enemy, or some other accident, deprived them of this privilege. The primitive church denied the more solemn rites of burial only to unbaptized persons, self-murderers, and excommunicated persons, who continued obstinate and impenitent in a manifest contempt of the church's censures. The place of burial among the Jews was never particularly determined. We find they had graves in the town and country, upon the highway or in gardens, and upon mountains. Among the Greeks, the temples were made repositories for the dead, in the primitive ages: yet, in the latter ages, the Greeks as well as the Romans buried the dead without the cities, and chiefly by the highways. Among the primitive Christians, burying in cities was not allowed for the first three hundred years, nor in churches for many ages after; BIBLE the Psalms; and that Edfrid, or Ecbert, bishop of Lindisferne, who lived about 730, translated several of the books of Scripture into the same language. It is said, likewise, that the venerable Bede, who died in 785, translated the whole Bible into Saxon. But Cuthbert, Bede's disciple, in the enumeration of his master's works, speaks only of his translation of the Gospels, and says nothing of the rest of the Bible. Some say that king Alfred, who lived about 890, translated a great part of the Scriptures. We find an old version in the Anglo Saxon of several books of the Bible, made by Elfric, abbot of Malmesbury: it was published at Oxford in 1699. There is an old Anglo Saxon version of the four Gospels, published by Matthew Parker, archbishop of Canterbury, in 1571, the author whereof is unknown. Mr. Mill observes, that this version was made from a Latin copy of the old Vulgate. The whole Scripture is said by some to have been translated into the Anglo Saxon by Bede, about 701, though others contend he only translated the Gospels. We have certain books or parts of the Bible by several other translators; as, first, the Psalms, by Adelm, bishop of Sherburn, contemporary with Bede, though by others this version is attributed to king Alfred, who lived two hundred years later. Another version of the Psalms, in Anglo Saxon, was published by Spelman, in 1640.-2. The evangelists, still extant, done from the ancient Vulgate, before it was revised by St. Jerome, by an author unknown, and published by Matthew Parker in 1571. An old Saxon version of several books of the Bible made by Elfric, abbot of Malmesbury, several fragments of which were published by Will. Lilly, 1638; the genuine copy by Edin. Thwaites, in 1699, at Ox ford. 18. BIBLES, Arabic. In 1516, Aug. Justinian, bishop of Nebio, printed at Genoa an Arabic version of the Psalter, with the Hebrew text and Chaldee paraphrase, adding Latin interpretations: there are also Arabic versions of the whole Scripture in the Polyglots of London and Paris; and we have an edition of the Old Testament entire, printed at Rome, in 1671, by order of the congregation de propaganda fide; but it is of little esteem, as having been altered agreeably to the Vulgate edition. The Arabic Bibles among us are not the same with those used with the Christians in the East. Some learned men take the Arabic version of the Old Testament printed in the Polyglots to be that of Saadias's, who lived about A. D. 909; their reason is, that Aben Ezra, a great antagonist of Saadias, quotes some pas sages of his version, which are the same with those in the Arabic version of the Polyglots; yet others are of opinion that Saadias's version is not extant. In 1622, Erpenius printed an Arabic Pentateuch, called also the Pentateuch of Mauritania, as being made by the Jews of Barbary, and for their use. This version is very literal, and esteemed very exact. The four evangelists have also been published in Arabic, with a Latin version, at Rome, in 1591, folio. These have been since reprinted in the Polyglots of London and Paris, with some little alteration of Gabriel Sionita. Erpenius published an Arabic New Testament entire, as he found it in his manuscript copy, at Leyden, 1616. There are some other Arabic versions of later date, mentioned by Walton in his Prolegomena, particularly a version of the | BIBLE Psalms, preserved at Sion College, London, and another of the prophets at Oxford; neither of which have been published. Proposals were is sued for printing a new edition of the Arabic Bible, by Mr. Carlyle, chancellor of the diocese of Carlisle, and professor of Arabic in the uni versity of Cambridge; but his death prevented his finishing it. 19. BIBLES, Chaldee, are only the glosses or expositions made by the Jews at the time when they spoke the Chaldee tongue: these they call by the name of Targumim, or paraphrases, as not being any strict version of the Scripture. They have been inserted entire in the large Hebrew Bibles of Venice and Basil; but are read more commodiously in the Polyglots, being there attended with a Latin translation. 20. BIBLES, Coptic. There are several manuscript copies of the Coptic Bible in some of the great libraries, especially in that of the king of France. Dr. Wilkins published the Coptic New Testament, in quarto, in 1716; and the Pentateuch, also in quarto, in 1731, with Latin translations. He reckons these versions to have been made in the end of the second or the beginning of the third century. 21. BIBLES, Danish. The first Danish Bible was published by Peter Palladus, Olaus Chrysostom, John Synningius, and John Maccabæus, in 1550, in which they followed Luther's first German version. There are two other versions, the one by John Paal Resenius, bishop of Zealand, in 1605; the other of the New Testament only, by John Michel, in 1524. 22. BIBLES, Dutch. See No. 26. 23. BIBLES, East Indian. See Nos. 12, 13, 14. 21. BIBLES, English. The first English Bible we read of was that translated by J. Wickliffe, about the year 1360, but never printed, though there are manuscript copies of it in several of the public libraries. A translation, however, of the New Testament by Wickliffe was printed by Mr. Lewis, about 1731. J. de Trevisa, who died about 1398, is also said to have translated the whole Bible; but whether any copies of it are remaining does not appear. The first printed Bible in our language was that translated by W. Tindal, assisted by Miles Coverdale, printed abroad in 1526; but most of the copies were bought up and burnt by bishop Tunstal and Sir Thomas More. It only contained the New Testament, and was revised and republished by the same per son in 1530. The prologues and prefaces added to it, reflect on the bishops and clergy; but this edition was also suppressed, and the copies burnt. In 1532 Tindal and his associates finished the whole Bible, except the Apocrypha, and printed it abroad; but, while he was afterwards preparing a second edition, he was taken up and burnt for heresy in Flanders. On Tindal's death, his work was carried on by Coverdale, and John Rogers, superintendant of an English church in Germany, and the first martyr in the reign of queen Mary, who translated the Apocrypha, and revised Tindal's translation, comparing it with the Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and German, and adding prefaces and notes from Luther's Bible. He dedicated the whole to Henry VIII. in 1537, under the borrowed name of Thomas Matthews; whence this has been usually called Matthews's Bible. It was printed at Hamburgh, and licence obtained for publishing it in England, by the fa |