the inspired penmen,-more properly the Holy Spirit, who guided the pen of every one of them,-bear witness that the word of God contained in the Bible, is calculated to give understanding to the simple, to impart knowledge, life, and salvation, to the most wretched of the human race. But, no, says the present pope of Rome; no, say the holy fathers of the council of Trent; it is manifest by experience, that the Bible does more harm than good, if it be permitted to be read every where without difference.

Let the church of Rome be tried upon this ground alone, and she will be found to be the antichrist that was foretold by prophets and apostles; that malignant, idolatrous power, that should exalt itself above the authority of God. It was the will of God, when he gave his word to men by the ministry of his servants, that it should be made known to all the world; but the church of Rome, having, by means of cunning and falsehood, obtained an ascendancy over other churches, and having prevailed upon them to submit to her usurpation, laid hold of the sacred word, by which this usurpation, and her other tricks, were unequivocally condemned, and locked it up from the view of vulgar eyes. Thenceforward it was to be seen and read only by the initiated; that is, by those who had acquired an interest in its concealment; and who readily joined in the conspiracy of their predecessors to keep it from the view of all the world besides. Thus the word of God was concealed. The light was put under a bushel. Countries in which the light of the gospel had shone for a time, became, no less than the heathen world, a land of darkness and of the shadow of death, and where even the light was as darkness.

I know that the church of Rome endeavours to clear herself of this wickedness, by openly maintaining that the scriptures were not meant to be given to all men in their own language, but only to the church; and, by a strange perversion of language, they make the word church to signify the clergy. The priests thus place themselves between God and the common people. They say, they alone are commissioned to tell the people, by word of mouth, what God tells them in the Bible, They say the church (still meaning the clergy) has power and authority to declare what is the true meaning of the divine word; that Christ has promised to be with his church (that is, the clergy) to the end of the world; that therefore they cannot err in their exposition of scripture: whereas the people themselves would almost certainly imbibe error, if they were to read the Bible without the glosses of such infallible interpreters. This doctrine is plainly avowed by popish writers of the present day, particularly by the editor of the Orthodox Journal and his correspondents; and by the Rev. Peter Gandolphy, a popish priest in London. Though, therefore, they should deny every historical fact, and call every quotation from every ancient book a forgery, I am ready to meet them, and to prove them antichristian out of their own mouths, and by their own pens. Though every intelligent reader knows that all history is against the church of Rome on this point; that the writings of fathers, and the canons of councils, prove her guilty; yet I am willing to give up all these in the present instance; and I engage to show from the testimony of living Papists, that their religion is hostile to the free circulation of the word of God; and is, therefore, opposed to the authority of God.

The first thing to be established is, that God requires his word as contained in the Bible, to be universally published, and universally read. I am not called at present to prove the divine authority of the holy scriptures, or any part of them. I am not reasoning with professed infidels; but with persons who profess to receive every part of the inspired canon. They very foolishly, indeed, profess to receive as inspired, some apocryphal books, upon no higher authority than the council of Trent; but so far as I know, they reject none of the inspired writings acknowledged by Protestants. From the writings, therefore, which they themselves acknowledge, but which they have studiously concealed from the vulgar, I endeavour to prove that God requires his word to be published to the whole world.

I rest my argument on the first section of the seventy-eighth Psalm; and that my popish readers may have no apology for rejecting its authority, I shall give it in their own Douay translation. I know that they would reject our Protestant translation, though there was not a shade of difference in the meaning. Following the Vulgate, they call it Psalm lxxvii., though it is added, the same line, Heb. lxxviii. Verses 1-8, are as follow:

"Attend, O my people, to my law, incline your ears to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in parables: I will utter propositions from the beginning. How great things have we heard and known, and our fathers have told us. They have not been hid from their children, in another generation. Declaring the praises of the Lord, and his powers, and his wonders which he hath done. And he set up a testimony in Jacob, and made a law in Israel. How great things he commanded our fathers, that they should make the same known to their children: that another generation might know them. The children that should be born, and should rise up, and declare them to their children. That they may put their hope in God, and may not forget the works of God; and may seek his commandments. That they may not become like their fathers, a perverse and exasperating generation. A generation that set not their heart right; and whose spirit was not faithful to God." They have no annotations on this passage, except one on verse second, which is as follows:-" Propositions. Deep and mysterious sayings. By this it appears that the historical facts of ancient times, commemorated in this psalm, were deep and mysterious; as being figures of great truths appertaining to the time of the New Testament."

Now this psalm bears on the very face of it, to be an address by the God of Israel to his people. It is not a private message to the priests; but a public proclamation to the whole nation, or church of Israel, introduced with a solemn note of attention:-" Attend, O my people!" This proclamation sets forth the following important facts, that God set up a testimony in Jacob, and made a law in Israel; that he commanded the fathers to make the same known to their children; and they again to their children, throughout all generations. The testimony and the law, denote the whole of divine revelation, particularly the scriptures of the Old Testament, (Isa. viii. 16, and 20.) It

The reader will find some interesting information on the subject of the apocryphal books, in the two first numbers of the Edinburgh Christian Instructor for the present year.

is not merely the system of legal observances, ordained according to the law of Moses, but the divine testimony concerning the Saviour promised of old, whose work of atoning and sanctifying was shadowed forth, or typically represented, by the Mosaic rites, This is evident from what is declared to be the design of setting up the testimony in Jacob, and making the law in Israel, which was, that they might put their hope in God; which no sinner was ever required to do upon the footing of the law, but solely upon the ground of that righteousness, which was the subject of the testimony.

Now, the command of God is distinct and explicit, that this testimony and law should be made known by the fathers to their children; and not to their children only, but also to the strangers or foreigners who should reside among them. (See Num. xv. 26. Deut. xxix. 11. Isa. lvi. 3, 6.) There is no exception made on account of the dulness of the apprehension of children, or the prejudices of strangers. Call the subjects of the testimony and of the law, "propositions," or "deep mysteries," or what you will, they are evidently things which fathers could teach, and which children could learn. They are things with which both parents and children were required to be so familiar, that they should talk of them when they lay down, and when they rose up, when they sat in the house, and when they walked by the way. (Deut. vi. 7.)

It is no less evident that the scriptures of the New Testament were ordained to be published to all the world. These declare the accomplishment of what was predicted and typically represented in the Old Testament; and what is thus accomplished, is, by the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith. Still there is no account made of the weakness of the minds of children, or of the prejudices of education, or of the danger of misinterpreting the word of God. It is declared of Timothy, that from a child he had known the holy scriptures; those of the Old Testament are no doubt meant; he had learned them from the reading of his mother and grandmother; and Christ himself declares, concerning the things of his kingdom, that is, the subjects contained in the New Testament, that, though hid from the wise and prudent, they were revealed unto babes. They were subjects level to the capacity of children, and to such they were actually made known.

In short, there is nothing that appears more clearly in the Bible, than that it is addressed to all, and that it ought to be accessible to all. The command of God was to Jacob or Israel, (for the words are used indifferently for the church of God,) to make known the testimony and the law; that is, not only to publish it, but to teach it diligently. Every father in Israel was commanded to teach it to his children. This supposes that every family had access to it, in a language which they understood. The same thing applies to the scriptures of the New Testament, for they were written for the purpose of being made publicly known. We read much of the benefit which results from a knowledge of the word of God,-of its dwelling in us richly,-of being filled with the knowledge of his will, and of making the holy scriptures the subject of our daily meditation. But nowhere do we read in the Bible, that the word of God does mischief; that the reading of it is dangerous; and that it ought to be kept from the common people. Thus, I think, it appears evidently the will of God, that the Bible

should be published to all the world; and that it should be accessible to all men. But the council of Trent has decreed otherwise, as the council of Thoulouse did before it. These bodies were in effect the same as the church of Rome. They acted in name of the whole church; and with the pope at their head, they gave forth their decrees as the infallible dictates of the Holy Ghost. Modern Papists do not deny the doctrine; nay, they publicly maintain what was solemnly decreed by the said councils, particularly that of Trent, that the indiscriminate reading of the word of God does more harm than good. Thus they prove themselves in opposition to the will of God, and to belong to that antichrist who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped.

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I engaged to prove the point from the writings of living Papists. Take, therefore, the following from the Orthodox Journal. 'It must be acknowledged, Mr. Editor, that such a plan for propagating Christianity, (that is, by distributing the Bible,) was totally unknown to past ages, and had escaped the notice of Him who was Wisdom itself, the coeternal Son of God, the Author and Founder of Christianity. For, we nowhere find it recorded, that the Son of God, before he ascended into heaven, either wrote down, or commanded to be written, the doctrines which he delivered for the instruction of mankind. He adopted the plain and simple method of verbal instruction; and, when about to leave this world, charged a chosen few, whom he had selected from his followers, to pursue the same plan, and preach, by word of mouth, the truths which they had received from him, no mention being made of distributing Bibles. Accordingly, we find the apostles, in obedience to this divine commission, immediately after the descent of the Holy Ghost, boldly announcing to mankind, by word of mouth, the truths of religion.

"Such was the method by which the Christian religion was first established and propagated, at least if scripture and church history speak the truth. Our Bible men of the nineteenth century, may, perhaps, think that it would have been much more wise, in the Founder of Christianity, to have furnished each of the apostles, before his setting out upon his mission, with a knapsack well filled with Bibles, to be distributed among the towns and villages through which they were to pass. It must be confessed, that the Bible distributing scheme, if it added to the burthens, would have considerably lessened the labours of the apostles, and would certainly have freed them from one care, that of providing themselves with successors, as in this scheme none were likely to be wanting. However, from the most authentic monuments, it is clear that no such plan for the propagation of Christianity was then adopted, but the plain simple method above mentioned, of appoint. ing a set of men to deliver the truths of the Christian religion, by word of mouth, with an injunction upon the rest of mankind of hearing and receiving the truths thus delivered.

"Indeed, Mr. Editor, our Bible men ought to know that the books composing the New Testament, which is the part of scripture which chiefly regards us Christians, were not all written till nearly a century after Christianity had been announced to the world. What then, (I put this question to the Bible men,) what was the guide to faith, or the rule of faith, during that period? Not the Old Testament, for this

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would have left Christians in the dark, as to the very first and most important articles of their belief. Not the New Testament, for this was not yet composed, nor consequently known, but in part, and that to a very small portion of believers. Most undoubtedly, sir, the only rule of faith then known and universally received, was the preaching of the apostles and their lawful successors. Every doctrine conformable to their preaching, was acknowledged to be of divine authority; while every doctrine, whether written or unwritten, contrary to their preaching, was rejected as spurious. When a dispute arose among the faithful, respecting the obligation of observing the Mosaic law, was either the Bible or any other written authority referred to, as the rule of faith? No: the living voice of the pastors of the church was consulted; the apostles assembled in council at Jerusalem; and the affair was terminated by the decision of those who were, by divine institution, the teachers and guardians of the faith. It is by a similar appeal to the living tribunal of the pastors of the church, that, in every succeeding age, "the doctrines once delivered to the saints," have been preserved from all mixture of error and human invention. This is the only rule of faith which the scriptures themselves hold out to us, and to which they enjoin implicit obedience, under pain of exclusion from the kingdom of heaven, with heathens and publicans, in case of disobedience.

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Reason itself, Mr. Editor, tells us, that the scriptures, left to private interpretation, cannot possibly form an unerring rule of faith and morals. To assert that the Almighty has left us his sacred word to be our sole guide in matters of religion, and, at the same time, giving authority to every individual to put upon this word whatever interpretation his private judgment, or want of judgment, suggests, is to convert the God of truth into a God of contradiction and falsehood, and to make the Deity responsible for all the errors, blasphemies, and absurdities of every heretic and fanatic, from the days of Ebion and Cerenthus, to Ann Lee, the shaker, and Johanna Southcott, the raving prophetess of the present day. What then is the conclusion to be drawn from the above observations? Clearly this, that the Bible distributing scheme was not the method appointed by Christ for the propagation of Christianity, and consequently, that the Bible societies are preferring the folly of man before the wisdom of God." Orth. Jour. Vol. II. pages 15-17.

Perhaps some apology is due to my readers for putting so much blasphemy and nonsense in my pages; but I did not know any other way by which I could so effectually expose the hatred with which modern Papists regard the Bible, and their opposition to the general circulation of the word of God. There is no occasion to go to the bulls of popes and the canons of councils to prove that Papists are hostile to the free circulation of the scriptures; their writings in the present day convict them. They do, therefore, prove themselves to be opposed to the authority of God, who has commanded his word to be made known to every creature.

If it shall be alleged, that the editor of the Orthodox Journal is too contemptible to be cited as an authority in this, or any matter connected with religion; I answer, that this will readily be admitted by every Protestant who reads his writings: but he is by no means a contemptible person in the esteem of his own sect. He is praised in a high