to the express revelation of God, how can we be justified for doing evil that good may come, by ordaining a single individual after the Lutheran form? If the ordination be valid, why do we not accept the offers of many native catechists, persons of Christian principle and irreproachable character, whom our own Missionaries recommend to us as well qualified for the ministry, and as calculated to render essential service? If the principle be good, extend its benefits: if not, let it be condemned and relinquished. Neither must it be forgotten, that the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge is at this moment issuing Tracts which had their origin in these noxious and pestiferous channels. Of this class I find two of singular excellence, written "by that eminent and pious divine, the Rev. Mr. Ostervald, Professor of Divinity, and one of the Ministers of the" (Calvinistic) " Church of Neufchatel in Switzerland *." The Society informs us, in a Preface, that the " arguments and reflections" of Mr. Ostermay be looked upon as the most useful companion for the Scriptures, and the best human means that perhaps was ever invented to make those divine books produce in us the salutary effects for which they were graciously designed." Can the "sound Churchman" read this sentence without indignation? If the Bible Society had ventured, even in one of its Reports, to apply language of this nature to any "noxious channel" in the world, I verily believe vald " *Advertisement on one of the Tracts. that some of your coadjutors would scarcely have been able to repose upon their beds. To crown all, I find in the catalogue Divine Songs for the Use of Children, by Dr. Watts *! Surely, surely, if the Bible, by passing through the hands of a Dissenter, becomes at once so baneful and pernicious, the writings themselves of Dissenters must be replete with the most malignant and deadly poison. These gentlemen, therefore, must not think to identify their principles with those of the Society in Bartlett's Buildings. Till within a few years past, no doctrines like theirs were heard of within its walls its public and recorded principles were as opposite as can well be imagined, and such they remain with a prodigious majority of its members at the present hour. Of the sentiments entertained by the leading members of the University of Cambridge, I shall have occasion to speak hereafter: let us proceed, at present, to the University of Oxford. In the year 1796, this University did. at its own expense, and at the Clarendon press, print, for the use of the French Clergy, who had taken refuge in England, an edition of the Vulgate New Testament. A copy of it is at present in my possession: it is prefaced by a letter of thanks from the Bishop of Lyons to the Vice-chancellor and the heads of the Univer * In vol. vi. of the Society's Tracts, Tract 4, " Dr. Doddridge's Treatise on the Education of Children," is recommended as "not only a very useful, but a very cheap book:" and the reader is informed that he may get it of Rivington, the Society's bookseller. sity; which letter was publicly recited in the House of Convocation, May 11, 1796. It is evident from this transaction, that the university of Oxford considered a bad and corrupt edition of the Scriptures better than none; for the Vulgate edition", it is well known, has so much of a popish tendency as to have been pronounced by the Council of Trent of equal authority with the original +." It is also evident that the University did not object to such alterations as the Papists might think it right to introduce; for I find by the title-page, that the printing of this edition was under the direction of certain members of that church residing at Winchester:-"Curâ et studio quorundam ex eodem * "Neither have the Papists treated Europe with more respect than Asia : e. g. : in the Antwerp edition of the Hebrew Bible, fol. 1572, by a shameless falsification, is substituted for in Gen. iii. 15, to make it harmonize with the ipsa of the Vulgate, which transfers the honour of bruising the serpent's head from Jesus Christ to the Virgin Mary! Alexias Meneses, Archbishop of Goa, ordered the Indian Christians to alter their Syriac version of the New Testament according to the Vulgate! (Wets. Prol. 110.) And in the Chinese MS. in the British Museum, which contains a Harmony of the four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and all the Pauline Epistles, except that to the Hebrews, the version appears, from the style and phraseology, to have been made from the Vulgate!" Wrangham's Sermon before the University of Cambrige, May 10, 1807. In the copy before me, the translation of the 8th verse of the 3d chapter of Matthew gives conntenance to the doctrine of penance: "Facite ergo fructum dignum pænitentiæ." Another verse is translated in a manner which is favourable to the worhip of images: "Fide Jacob moriens singulos filiorum Joseph benedixit, et adoravit fastigium virgæ ejus." "Jacob worshipped the top of his staff!"-Hebrews xi. 21. Clero Wintoniæ commorantium." These gentlemen might therefore introduce whatever corrections or alterations they pleased. Neither did the University object to noxious channels: for, in this case, not only was the channel pre-eminently noxious, but the stream itself was polluted. I mean not by these observations to throw the slightest reflection upon the members of that Uni-. versity; but I would ask those persons who oppose with so much vehemence the distribution of the pure, episcopal, authorised version of the Bible by the hands of Protestant Dissenters, although these generally agree with the church in essential points of doctrine, what is their opinion of this transaction; of the dispersion of a defective and corrupt translation by means of the corruptors? And I confidently appeal, in behalf of the Bible Society, to every Delegate of the University, who was willing to lend in any degree his aid and countenance to this Vulgate edition from the Clarendon Press. Objection 12. I shall state this objection in the words of the author. "After all its pretensions of confining itself to the circulation of the Scriptures alone, there is not a single rule or law to enforce and secure this object *." "Laws and Regulations of the British and Foreign Bible Society. "1. The designation of this Society shall be, The British and Foreign Bible Society, of which the * Country Clergyman, p. 23. SOLE OBJECT shall be to encourage a wider circulation of the Holy Scriptures. The only copies, in the languages of the United Kingdom, to be circulated by the Society, shall be the authorized version, without note or comment *:" i. e. the version of the Church of England. What law or regulation would satisfy him if this cannot ? Objection 13. It is insinuated that the origin of the Bible Society is to be attributed to a love of novelty and contempt of order; and that we have no security for the honesty of versions of the Scriptures into foreign languages ‡. How these charges are to be substantiated I am unable to discover: no accusation has yet been brought against any particular version, and the Society has invariably gone through the regular channels. In Great Britain and Ireland the Establishments have taken the lead, and the highest authorities have promoted the cause. The efforts of the Society are countenanced in Russia by the Archbishop of Moscow, and by the Emperor, who exempted the Bibles which were sent to Petersburgh from the heavy duty on the importation of bound books. The Berlin Bible Society has received the approbation and support of the King of Prussia. The Evangelical Society at Stockholm has been lately incorporated, under the * First Report of the Bible Society, p. 25. Insinuation of Country Clergyman, p. 38. |
