Luke xxi. 28.—Look up, and lift up your hands, for your condemnation draweth nigh—for redemption.
These errata were none of the printer’s; but, as a writer of the times expresses it, “egregious blasphemies, and damnable errata” of some sectarian, or some Bellamy editor of that day!
The printing of Bibles at length was a privilege conceded to one William Bentley; but he was opposed by Hills and Field; and a paper war arose, in which they mutually recriminated on each other, with equal truth.
Field printed, in 1653, what was called the Pearl Bible; alluding, I suppose, to that diminutive type in printing, for it could not derive its name from its worth. It is in twenty-fours;[272] but to contract the mighty book into this dwarfishness, all the original Hebrew text prefixed to the Psalms, explaining the occasion and the subject of their composition, is wholly expunged. This Pearl Bible, which may be inspected among the great collection of our English Bibles at the British Museum, is set off by many notable errata, of which these are noticed:—
Romans vi. 13.—Neither yield ye your members as instruments of righteousness unto sin—for unrighteousness.
First Corinthians vi. 9.—Know ye not that the unrighteous shall inherit the kingdom of God?—for shall not inherit.
This erratum served as the foundation of a dangerous doctrine; for many libertines urged the text from this corrupt Bible against the reproofs of a divine.
This Field was a great forger; and it is said that he received a present of 1500l. from the Independents to corrupt a text in Acts vi. 3, to sanction the right of the people to appoint their own pastors.[273] The corruption was the easiest possible; it was only to put a ye instead of a we; so that the right in Field’s Bible emanated from the people, not from the apostles. The only account I recollect of this extraordinary state of our Bibles is a happy allusion in a line of Butler:—
| Religion spawn’d a various rout, Of petulant, capricious sects, The maggots of corrupted texts. |
In other Bibles by Hills and Field we may find such abundant errata, reducing the text to nonsense or to blasphemy, making the Scriptures contemptible to the multitude, who came to pray, and not to scoff.