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Writing the History of the English Bible in the Early Eighteenth Century1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Scott Mandelbrote
Scott Mandelbrote*
Affiliation:
Peterhouse, Cambridge and All Souls College, Oxford
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Extract

The letter of Scripture suffering various Interpretations, it is plain that Error may pretend to Scripture; the antient Fathers being likewise dead, and not able to vindicate themselves, their writings may be wrested, and Error may make use of them to back itself; Reason too being bypassed by Interest, Education, Passion, Society, &c…. Tradition only rests secure.

The 1680s were a difficult decade for the English Bible, just as they were for so many of the other institutions of the English Protestant establishment. Roman Catholic critics of the Church of England, emboldened by the patronage of James II and his court, engaged in controversy over the rule of faith and the identity of the true Church, much as they had done in the early years of the Reformation or in the 1630s. Nonconformists and freethinkers deployed arguments drawn from Catholic scholarship, in particular from the work of the French Oratorian Richard Simon, and joined in ridicule of the Bible as a sure and sufficient foundation for Christian belief.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 38: The Church and the Book , 2004 , pp. 268 - 278
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2004

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Footnotes

1

I am grateful to Jeremy Catto and Martin Kauffmann for assistance in the writing of this essay.

References

2 [Johnston, Joseph, OSB], A Reply to the Defence of the Exposition of the Doctrine of the Church of England (1687), 133 Google Scholar.

3 See Tavard, Georges, La Tradition au XVIIe siècle en France et en Angleterre (Paris, 1969), 244–486 Google Scholar; Miller, John, Popery and Politics in England 1660–1688 (Cambridge, 1973), 239–49 Google Scholar; Henry G. van Leeuwen, The Problem of Certainty in English Thought 1630–1690, 2nd edn (The Hague, 1970), 13–48; Michael C. Questier, Conversion, Politics and Religion in England, 1580–1625 (Cambridge, 1996), 12–39.

4 Nottingham University Library, MS PW Hy 228 (declaration of John Hampden, 15 April 1688); other copies at BL, MS Sloane 3229, fols 183r-6v; CUL, MS Mm I 40, p. 191. For some discussion of the translation and influence of Richard Simon’s Histoire critique du Vieux Testament (Paris, 1678) in England, see Justin A.I. Champion, ‘Père Richard Simon and English Biblical critieism, 1680–1700’, in James E. Force and David S. Katz, eds, Everything Connects: In Conference with Richard H. Popkin (Leiden, 1999), 39–61.

5 A View of Part of the Many Traiterous, Disloyal, and Turn About Actions of H.H. Senior (1684).

6 Oxford University Archives, SEP/P/10-11, SEP/P/15-16 (quotations from SEP/P/15, fols 2–3), SP/D/2-3; Bodley, MS Ballard 49, fols 190r-209r, 233r-259v. See also John Johnson and Gibson, Strickland, Print and Privilege at Oxford to the Year 1700 (1946 Google Scholar).

7 Bloxam, J.R, ed., Magdalen College and King James II, 1686–1688, Oxford Historical Society, 6 (1886), 181 Google Scholar, 194, 208, 225–6, 231–2, 252.

8 Duffy, Eamon, ‘“Poor protestant flies”: conversions to Catholicism in early eighteenth-century England’, SCH, 15 (1978), 289–304 Google Scholar.

9 [Wharton, Henry], The Pamphlet entituled, Speculum Ecclesiasticum, or an Ecclesiastical Prospective-Glass, considered, in its False Reasonings and Quotations (1688 Google Scholar); [Thomas Tenison], An Answer to the Letter of the Roman Catholick Souldier (1688).

10 Wharton, Henry, Fourteen Sermons preach’d in Lambeth Chapel, 2nd edn (1700 [1st edn, 1697 Google Scholar]), sig. A6v; cf. Bodley, MS Gough Kent 14, fol. 119r. Wharton’s transcripts are now in LPL, MSS 585, 593–4.

11 [Parker, Matthew], De antiquitate Britannicae ecclesiae (Hanau, 1605 [1st edn, 1572 Google Scholar]); James Ussher, Britannicarum ecclesiarum anliquitates (Dublin, 1639); William Lloyd, An Historical Account of Church-Government (1684); Edward Stillingfleet, Origines Britannicae (1685). See also May McKisack, Medieval History in the Tudor Age (Oxford, 1971), 1–49; Glanmor Williams, ‘Some Protestant views of early British Church history’, in his Welsh Reformation Essays (Cardiff, 1967), 207–19.

12 For an account of Wharton’s life, see Douglas, David, English Scholars 1660–1730, 2nd edn (1951), 139–55 Google Scholar; ‘Excerpta ex Vita Ms. Henrici Whartoni, A.M. a seipso scripta’, printed in George D’Oyly, The Life of William Sancroft, 2 vols (1821), 2:105-54. Notes and exercises written by Wharton when an undergraduate may be found in LPL, MS 592.

13 Westfall, Richard S., Never at Rest. A Biography of Isaac Newton (Cambridge, 1980), 475–80 Google Scholar.

14 Pecock, Reginald, A Treatise proving Scripture to be the Rule of Faith, ed. Wharton, Henry (1688), sigs A1-4V, pp. ix–xxii, xxxii–xl Google Scholar. The manuscript itself is described by Montague Rhodes James, The Western Manuscripts in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge, 4 vols (Cambridge, 1900–4), 1:432-3.

15 James, Thomas, A Treatise of the Corruption of Scripture, Councils and Fathers, by the Prelats, Pastors and Pillars of the Church of Rome, for Meintenance of Popery (1688 [1st edn, in 5 parts, 1611 Google Scholar]); cf. idem, Bellum papale, sive concordia discors Sixti quinti, et dementis odavi, circa Hieronymiauam editionem (1678 [1st edn, 1600]).

16 W[ard], T[homas], The Errata to the Protestant Bible, or the Truth of their English Translations Examin’d (1688 Google Scholar).

17 Ussher, James, Historia dogmatica controversiae inter orthodoxos & pontificios de scripturis et sacris vemaculis, ed. Wharton, Henry (1690), 97–192 Google Scholar, 210–48; cf. Wharton’s own Auctarium historiae dogmaticae Jacobi Usserii (1689), which was appended to the edition of Ussher.

18 Cf. Wharton’s grandest work, dedicated in part to Sancroft, Anglia sacra, 2 vols (1691).

19 Harmer, Anthony [i.e. Wharton, Henry], A Specimen of some Errors and Defects in the History of the Reformation of the Church of England (1693 Google Scholar). Cf. Gilbert Burnet, The History of the Reformation of the Church of England, 3 vols (1679-1714). At least one contemporary observer, who was well-placed to know, doubted that Harmer was Wharton. See CUL, MS Add. 3, no. 43 (Nicholas Battely to John Strype, 22 Feb. 1692/3), MS Add. 4, no. 27 (Wharton to Richard Chiswell, 28 Oct 1693).

20 Collier, Jeremy, An Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain, 2 vols (1708-14), 1:635 Google Scholar (for the quotation); 2:iv, 869.

21 [Johnson, John], Holy David and his Old English Translators Clear’d (1706), 2 Google Scholar.

22 Bodley, MS Ballard 15, fols 108–9 (Johnson to Charlett, [26 Dec] 1713); cf. The Holy Bible (1701) (= T.H. Darlow and Moule, H.F., Historical Catalogue of Printed Editions of the English Bible 1525–1961, revised and expanded by Herbert, A.S. (1968) [hereafter DMH], no. 868 Google Scholar).

23 See DMH, no. 2, now BL, C.188.a.17, and Joseph Ames, A List of Various Editions of the Bible and Parts thereof, in English from the Year 1526 to 1776 (1778), copy at Bodley, 258 c.104, manuscript on verso of titlepage. Ames secured access to the book for John Lewis: see Bodley, MS Don. d.89, fol. 72.

24 See BL, MSS Harley 3781, fols 121–4; 5908, fols 5V, 60r-62v; CUL, MSS Add. 4, no. 103; Add. 6, nos 296, 305, 306, 333, 336; Bodley, MS Ballard 13, fol. 81.

25 For Bagford, see Gatch, Milton McC., ‘John Bagford, bookseller and antiquary’, British Library Journal, 12 (1986), 150–71 Google Scholar; idem, John Bagford as collector and disseminator of manuscript fragments’, The Library, 6th ser., 7 (1985), 95–114; BL, MSS Harley 5908–9; Sloane 1378; Bodley, MSS Rawlinson Letters 20, fols 360–1; 21, fols 38–9; CUL, MSS Dd.X.56-7. On Strype, see John Joseph Morison, John Strype; historian of the English Reformation’ (Syracuse University, Ph.D. thesis, 1976); CUL, MSS Add. 1–10; John Strype, Memorials of the Most Reverend Father in God Thomas Cranmer (1694), esp. 60, 443; idem, The Life and Acts of Matthew Parker (1711), esp. 205–9, 272–3, 399–404.

26 ‘An essay upon the English translation of the Bible’, Bibliotheca Literaria, 4 (1723), 1–23, at 22. This piece refers frequently to Wanley’s conclusions.

27 See Anna Katherine Swift, The formation of the library of Charles Spencer, 3rd Earl of Sunderland (1674-1722): A study in the antiquarian book trade’, 2 vols (Oxford University, D.Phil, thesis, 1986).

28 LPL, MS 1741, fol. 28r (Edward Gee to Edmund Gibson, 6 May 1724).

29 The London Gazette, 6262 (21-25 April 1724), fol. 2r; the order was noticed by John Lewis, see Bodley, MS Eng.Hist.c.313, p. 207.

30 On Russell, see Bodley, MSS Rawlinson J fol. 4, fols 236r, 333–4; Rawlinson J fol. 7, fol. 93r; Rawlinson J 4° 1, fol. 214V; BL, MS Landowne 1038, fols 81–2. For Lewis’s links with Kennett, see BL, MS Add. 28, 651, fol. 27V; Bodley, MS Eng. Misc.c.273, P. 42a.

31 James, Thomas, An Apologie for John Wickliffe (Oxford, 1608 Google Scholar); Aston, Margaret, Lollards and Reformers (1984), 243–71 Google Scholar.

32 Harmer [i.e. Wharton], Specimen, 16–17.

33 See Fristedt, Sven L., The Wycliffe Bible, 3 parts (Stockholm, 1953-73 Google Scholar); Hudson, Anne, The Premature Reformation (Oxford, 1988), 222–77 Google Scholar.

34 For example, James, Treatise, part 5, 30.

35 See Le Long, Jacobus, Bibliotheca sacra, 2 vols (Paris, 1723), 1:424–6 Google Scholar.

36 Bodley, MS Rawlinson d.376, fol. 63r; cf. Lewis, John, A Complete History of the several Translations of the Holy Bible and New Testament into English, 2nd edn (1739), 17, 43–4 Google Scholar.

37 Russell, John, A Sermon preach’d in Lambeth Chapel (1722 Google Scholar), sig. E5V; idem, Proposals for Printing by Subscription, the Holy Bible translated by John Wickleffe (1719). Russell’s transcripts are now BL, MSS Add. 5890–5902. Cf. The New Testament, tr. John Wyclif, ed. John Lewis (1731); an annotated list of subscribers is in Bodley, NT. Eng.1731 b.1.

38 The copy texts used by Lewis can now be found at Bodley, MS Gough Eccl.Top.5 (for the Gospels) and CUL, British and Foreign Bible Society Library, MS 155 (for the Epistles, Acts, and Apocalypse). Cf. New Testament, ed. Lewis, 104–5. For descriptions of these manuscripts, see Josiah Forshall and Madden, Frederic, eds, The Holy Bible, containing the Old and New Testaments, with the Apocryphal Books, in the Earliest English Versions made from the Latin Vulgate by John Wycliffe and his Followers, 4 vols (Oxford, 1850), 1:l, lxiv Google Scholar; Conrad Lindberg, The manuscripts and versions of the Wycliffite Bible’, Studia Neophilologka, 42 (1970), 333–47.

39 Lewis, Complete History, 35–40; cf. Bodley, MS Rawlinson d.376, fols 63–4.

40 [Lewis, John], A Vindication of the Right Reverend the Ld. Bishop of Norwich ([1714])Google Scholar; cf. Bodley, MS Clarendon Press c. 17; [John Lewis], A Specimen of the Cross Errors in the Second Volume of Mr Collier’s Ecclesiastial History (1724), p. v; Manchester, John Rylands University Library, MS 47, csp. fol. 24r; Lewis, Complete History, 68–71.

41 Lewis, John, The History of the Life and Sufferings of the Reverend and Learned John Wicliffe (1720 Google Scholar); idem, Complete History, 23–5.

42 Ibid., 44–5, 356–65, 373–5.

43 London, Dr. Williams’s Library, MS 12.8; Lewis, Complete History, 46, 365–72; Manchester, John Rylands University Library, MS 49.

44 Lewis, Complete History, iii-xvii; Bodley, MS Gough Kent 14, fol. 117r; Lewis, John, The Life of the Learned and Right Reverend Reynold Pecock (1744 Google Scholar). See also LPL, MS 942, no. 47 (Wharton to Tenison, 20 Jan. 1692); Jeremy Gregory, Restoration, Reformation and Reform, 1660–1828 (Oxford, 2000), 91–2; John Shirley, John Lewis of Margate’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 64(1951). 39–56.

45 Bodley, MS Eng.Hist.c.273, fol. 8r.