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BEFORE entering upon the practical application of the principles formerly laid down, it is worth while to glance at one portion of that community, which is usually called the Christian world. That large and wide-spread politico-ecclesiastical power, called by themselves Catholic, by the indiscriminate crowd, Roman Catholic, and by men precise in the use of language, Romanist or Papist, stands in a very peculiar and anomalous relation to the written word, the revealed truth, of God. That position which they have most deliberately assumed, they have fenced round with every sophistical artifice of which it is capable; but it is, after all, neither more nor less than an attitude of hostility to the object, the substance, and the authoritative testimony of the inspired volume. They have adopted a system of doctrine which, by their own admission, cannot be brought fully out of the text of Holy Scripture, or

shown to be in accordance with it; but which has, therefore, to be sustained by the false and utterly unwarrantable assumption, that there is an indefinite, but very convenient quantity, of recondite inspiration in the bosom of the church, ready to advance and sanction any new view or opinion that circumstances might call for; and by the solemn decrees of a council which, in the face of the rising reformation, deliberated for a series of years, they have committed themselves irretrievably to these errors. We say irretrievably, because they are, as a body, so deeply and desperately committed, that an abandonment of their complicated scheme of doctrine must involve the real destruction of their vital system. To recede from their artificial and dishonest system, would be to denude themselves of all their peculiarity, pomp, power, and pretension, and to fall back undistinguished into the universal Church.

But

In the ages before printing was invented, and when copies of the Scriptures could only be multiplied at the great expence of labour and time which writing required, it was possible for the Romanists to keep their position undisputed, except by a few retired students and clergy, who had access to the manuscript volume; and who might be silenced by intimidation, preferment, or death. In that long period of darkness occasional flashes of divine light appeared; in that long reign of ecclesiastical tyranny, occasional struggles of common sense, enlightened by revelation, occurred. it was only when, in the providence of God, the art of printing was called forth, and the countless multiplication of copies of the Holy Scriptures became inevitable, that the key of the Romanist position was effectually assailed. Then traditionary doctrines and superstitions stood confronted with the written mind of God. The Author of inspired Scripture and the Church of Rome were manifestly at issue. It was quite impossible to find the Romish system on the face of the record. It was as impossible, for a fair and honorable mind, not to see that the direct testimony of the written word was an unequivocal condemnation of the leading features of their system, and that the prophetic portion of that sacred book drew with exquisite accuracy the leading features of their scheme, as the lineaments of a great apostacy which should for a time prevail in the earth. So that to an impartial mind the Papal system, as opposed to the printed Bible, stood out in bold relief, as a system of unscriptural error, and superstition, and of practical impurity, which the written truth of God had by anticipation most distinctly and solemnly condemned. In the face, therefore, of the published Scriptures, there

remained but to choose one of two courses; either to submit to the divine authority of the book, or to proscribe it. And in obstinate persistency in error, or in fatal delusion, they chose the latter.

They have evidently regarded the record of divine truth as a witness against them. They have used their utmost ingenuity to pervert it, and turn off the keenness of its edge; but manifestly regarding the book as the vital enemy of their policy and their teaching, they have done all that could be done to suppress it. This was a difficult task, because a direct condemnation of the Scriptures would have been a palpably antichristian act; it would have set the Romish system in avowed contradiction to the source from which it would be supposed to originate; and therefore a course had to be adopted which would be effectual to suppress the general spread of the printed Scriptures, while it did not appear directly to condemn them. The line of policy chosen, was to call in question the wisdom of a general spread and study of the Scriptures; to found on that assumption, the rule of limiting, by authority, the reading of the Scriptures, and of allowing it to take place only by a written license; and then as a general custom to withhold the license! This was the wary course chosen by the Council of Trent. The 4th rule of the Index affirms "that more injury than good would arise from reading the Holy Bible; that consequently the permission to read must be granted by a written faculty; and that whosoever shall have or read the Bible without that faculty shall be refused absolution of his sins till he deliver it up." This rule has been repeatedly approved of by the Pope; and there is no point of Papal practice that has been more clearly, resolutely,

and repeatedly affirmed. It has told also for its objects; for when Dr. Murray of Ireland, in giving evidence before Parliament, was asked, Have the Scriptures any practical circulation in the vulgar language in Spain? he replied, "They had not then," i. e. when he was residing there. And in the same way Dr. Doyle, who was educated in Portugal, when asked, "Did you ever see in Portugal any translation into the vulgar tongue, whether allowed or not? answered, No, I did not." The wily measure has succeeded. The approach of the written word to the private Christian in Popish countries is completely suppressed. And when also the people come in contact with Protestant influence, which might induce them to read the Scriptures, the most stringent measures are adopted. Dr. Doyle was at the same time asked, Would you allow any the peasantry of Ireland who might persevere in reading the Scriptures in the authorized version to be received to the sacrament?" he answered, "No; I certainly would not." Should you think it improper for such an individual to bury the word of God?" "I should be highly amused with such a proceeding." "Would you think him highly deserving of approbation?" "I would reward the man." Doyle had previously said, "Though the authorized version has many errors, I consider it one of the noblest of works-one of the ablest translations that has ever been produced." And yet sooner than a man should read it, he would reward him for burying it; nay, if he did read it, he would refnse him the sacrament at a dying hour!

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Now this is not a matter of mere dry controversy about a subordinate point. It is desirable to exhibit this awful apostacy in its true light. God has in pity to a

fallen and ignorant world, sent forth his written word to be a permanent and infallible testimony from Him to mankind. "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my paths." "O send out thy light and thy truth, let them lead me and bring me to thy holy hill." And here is a community which professes to be exclusively the church of Christ, which has adopted a system of seductive superstitions and of priestly domination over the passions and consciences of men, but which unable to maintain themselves and their delusive inventions in the light, or by the light of Scripture, have consequently withdrawn that light from the people. As far as their influence extends, God's illuminating and saving truth, and the human heart are severed! The intercourse of men with God through the written word is stayed. A seeming phase of Christianity, but without any renewing saving power, may make progress in the earth, just as far as the repression of God's gracious message is successful; but precisely to the extent of its success is the increase of the kingdom of God prevented, and the testimony of truth to pardoning and renewing mercy within man's sad heart is suppressed! A weary and broken-hearted world is left without its comforter.

This is the acmé of Romish rebellion. Whatever had been their doctrinal or practical errors, had they held up by the side of them the witness of the Spirit to the truth in the written word, man might have compared and judged, and the existing error might have righted itself. The appointed remedy for all error would have had full and fair play. They played however a deeper game. They hid the light under the tiara. They assumed an authority for repress

ing the revelation which Almighty mercy had sent forth. They kept back the record of the true pardon, that they might sell a lying absolution, which would be of no avail in the day of judgment.

It is scarcely possible to take too strong a view of the sin of the Romanist authorities in their persevering adherence to this impious policy. For the sake of veiling the evil character of their chief superstition, they place themselves as a barrier between man and the means of remedial teaching, which the Almighty God has adopted. They know that their system of demonolatry and of idolatry is directly condemned by the volume of inspired instruction: and conscious that they cannot face the reproof of its pages, they treat them as the King of Judah did the written prophecies of Jeremiah-they cut the roll in pieces with a penknife, and cast it into the fire upon the hearth: and "yet they are not afraid!" If the view which we have taken of the divine record be the true one -and as to the main features of it some of the Romanist documents on the subject of the Scripture admit that it is-what a tremen.. dous developement of guilt there will be, by and bye, as to this hostility to and suppression of the divine message! And if it be true, that the purpose of God, according to the prayer of the blessed Redeemer, is to sanctify men by this word of truth, how sure it is that they who have been prominent and earnest in the suppression of that word, and in the hindering of its testimony, and of its agency on the hearts of men, will be themselves found unsanctified. When the garb of a priestly and sanctimonious disguise shall be stripped off, and each one shall appear in his true moral character before that Judge, where deception is no longer

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possible, then it will be seen—according to the strong testimony of those priests who have lately fled from the Romish communion*that the enemies of inspired truth were not and could not be holy, any more than the human body could continue incorrupt without the life of the soul in it; that, like the abettors of tradition in the Jewish church, they might enlarge the borders of their garments and make broad their phylacteries, and cleanse the outside of the cup, and pay tithe of mint, and anise, and cummine; but that like them also, they were inevitably and necessarily, as the result of their position of hostility to truth, whited sepulchres,' appearing beautiful unto men, but within full of dead men's bones and of all uncleanness-full of hypocrisy and iniquity. This may sound to many uncharitable; but we arrive at that sad conclusion, by a fair and reasonable channel; and if so-if we have fairly described the real character of the Romanist position, then, the more awfully uncharitable the charge may at first appear, the more awfully serious it is. The amount of their guilt is that which charity trembles to utter. It is not a mis-reading, or a perversion, or corruption of the word of God; but it is an apostacy from the message itself, and from its appointed dominion. It is a conspiracy against the living power and mercy of the message of grace and life from God to man. Oh! let them look to it! Is not my word a fire, and a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces ?" "Whosoever falleth on this stone shall be broken, but on whomsoever it shall fall it shall grind him to powder."

But to return. We have shown that in the very nature of things, the true meaning of God's revealed * See M. Maurette's Advice to Rome.

will may be known, and ought to be known. It is the gracious privilege of men, that they may know the mind of the great invisible God. It is in the Scriptures; contained there in a series of statements, precepts, facts, and inferences from them; just as much as the meaning of any other book is contained in the whole mass of sentences strung together; only with this advantage, that the infinite wisdom of God's eternal Spirit, has in this instance dictated the very language: -"holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost,' and has absolutely chosen the best of all channels by which such a given amount of divine truth would be most properly conveyed to the human mind.

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Then as to the mode of ascertaining the true meaning of Holy Scripture; there are two points worthy of most serious notice. In the first place, the meaning of any book is in the plain, grammatical sense of its several sentences rightly interpreted, balanced, and compared; so that at the outset, the reading of the Holy Scripture is as much a matter of scholarship and of accurate reading and exegesis as any other book, such as the poems of Homer, the treatises of Aristotle, or the terms of Magna Charta.

We draw a distinctive line between the student of the original document, and the plain reader of a popular version. Passing for a moment from the one, we say that the deliberate and true interpretation of the original is no light matter. It is a duty solemnly enjoined on the scholars of the Christian Church. The educated man, and, above all, the educated minister, whose advantages in life have given him the opportunity of acquiring facilities for investigating each sacred page with deep and learned criticism, is most solemnly bound

to apply himself to that work with diligence. The facilities for interpretation are as much a matter of providential overruling and arrangement as are the inditing and the preservation of the text itself. We

must believe this. We cannot but believe that all that is necessary to perceive and understand that, which the Author of revelation intended to be understood, has been provided. The material for a proper criticism, both for the correcting and clearing the text, and also for expounding it, is around us and within our grasp; it is within the grasp of a proper and diligent study. And when we look at the Herculean labours of such men as Wetstein and Mill and Kennicott, Walton and Castell and Trommius, of Buxtorf and Schleusner and Griesbach-books that are in these days so little touched, that the very dust on them is become obsolete-men and ministers who arrogate to themselves a character for learning, may well blush for the amount of their own critical reading of the sacred writers.

A very large portion of mankind, however, must unavoidably read the Holy Scriptures only in a version rendered into their own mother tongue; and here, doubtless, we see much of the good providence of the Author of revelation in guiding the minds of men to intelligible versions of the Word. But there is a duty which has not been properly fulfilled; and which would have been better fulfilled in proportion to any measure of increased sense of the responsibility lying in this respect upon the Church of God. They who believe-as all the reformed Churches do that "Holy Scripture contains all things. necessary to salvation"-who vindicate the right of every private Christian to read Holy Scripture for himself, and who do therefore

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