In the sharp controversies of the Commonwealth period the slight indications given by the version of a certain ecclesiastical bias were unduly exaggerated. Charges of a direct prelatic influence were freely made, and various rumours were circulated, as if upon good authority, that Archbishop Bancroft had taken upon himself to introduce alterations in opposition to the judgment, and even the protest of the translators. Influenced probably by the feeling thus awakened, though not sharing it, Dr. John Lightfoot, in a sermon preached before the Long Parliament on August 26th, 1645,[92] expressed the hope that they would find some time among their serious employments to think of a “review and survey of the translation of the Bible.” “And certainly,” he added, “it would not be the least advantage that you might do to the three nations, if they, by your care and means, might come to understand the proper and genuine reading of the Scriptures by an exact, vigorous, and lively translation.” In 1653 the charge that the New Testament “had been looked over by some Prelates, to bring it to speak the Prelatical language,” was formally repeated in the preamble of a Bill brought before the Long Parliament, which proposed the appointment of a committee “to search and observe wherein that last translation appears to be wronged by the Prelates or printers or others.”[93] In 1659 a folio volume of 805 pages, entitled, “An Essay toward the Amendment of the Last English Translation of the Bible, or a Proof by many instances that the last Translation of the Bible into English may be improved,” was published by Dr. Robert Gell, “Minister of the Parish of St. Mary, Alder-Mary, London.” Dr. Gell was a man who stoutly maintained the doctrine that it is “possible and attainable through the grace of God and His Holy Spirit that men may be without sin,” and his book is an elaborate attempt to show that this doctrine “was frequently delivered in holy Scripture, though industriously obscured by our translators.” An attack of another kind was made a quarter of a century later, by a Roman Catholic writer named Thomas Ward, who, repeating many of the charges made against the earlier English versions by Gregory Martin, one of the authors of the Rhemish version, charged the translators with corrupting the Holy Scriptures by false and partial translations, for the purpose of gaining unfair advantage in the controversy with the Church of Rome.[94] These hostile criticisms, though made in a spirit of partisanship and marred by much uncharitableness and unfairness, were nevertheless of service. They forced upon all, though in a rude and unpleasant way, the recognition of the fact that the new version, with all its excellences, was still the work of fallible men; and despite their passion and their hard words, they did undoubtedly hit some blots that here and there disfigured the sacred page. To this extent they served to prepare the way for further revision.