tremendous revolution? what have been its benefits? has it improved the literature of France? has it produced one single historian, one poet, one sound philosopher? No: literature is on the decline; its utility is disputed; the dry sciences have usurped its place; and the language itself tends to barbarism. as it improved even in military tactics? No: the art of war consists in carrying a post, or gaining a battle with the least possible bloodshed: Was this the art of the French generals, and above all, of Napoleon? They gained their end by numbers, by bloody sacrifices, by a prodigality of carnage. Has it ameliorated the manners, and improved the principles of the nation? No; it corrupted their morals, and perverted their principles; had it lasted one generation more, France would have been inhabited by monsters, and Europe would have been compelled to wage against it a war of extermination. What then has it produced? It has deluged Europe with blood, and covered France with ruins and with graves." P. 95.

Whoever is desirous of deriving rational enjoyment from the scenes now passing in Paris, cannot do better than take Mr. Eustace's publication with him as a companion. It will furnish him not so much with thought, as with, what is equally valu able, the materials of thinking. He will enlarge upon the speculations which are there suggested, and he will form his own opinion how far the observations of his author are founded in a calm and dispassionate review of the events before him, or how far they are warped by the enthusiasm of an ardent imagination.. He will find, in our opinion, much to approve, much to enlarge upon, somewhat also to correct and amend. But whether he submits to his guidance, or dissents from his judgement, he will feel himself under no small obligation to Mr. Eustace for discovering to him the sources of the most interesting reflection, and useful information.

1

ART. VII. A Practical Exposition of the Proceedings and Tendency of the British and Foreign Bible Society, &c. &c. ̄ (Concluded from p. 164.)

IT is well observed of the professed object of the Bible Society (p. 379), that

"Distinctively it is not the circulation of the Bible, but the cir culation of it without Note or Comment. It is not what it imparts, but what it withholds that characterizes the Institution. Nay, its involution of character is so exquisitely skilful, that the full idea of it is not yet conveyed; for besides what it withholds, what it imperceptibly insinuates enters into its mystical composition."

There is much for the serioùs consideration of every zealous Churchinan, who has hitherto contributed to the support of this Society,

Society, conveyed in this short sentence. It is demonstrable that he is not obliged to join the Society, to be enabled to circulate the Bible; because the Church has an old and tried Society, which will afford him superior facilities, and enable him to distribute, with the text of Scripture, that interpretation which he regards as the true one. May we not then ask, why does he prefer the former to the latter? Is his object also not the circulation of the Bible with its true meaning appended to it, but the circulation of the bare text alone, without either Note or Comment? This is no light or trivial question: for, as our Author will proceed to shew him, he is here treading in the steps of more than one fraternity, to whose character and proceedings he would perhaps be offended if his own objects and measures were directly assimilated.

"In that last and most contentious period of the Jewish History which the Gospel contains, a religious fraternity are brought prominently forward, who were in as complete possession of public estimation as the Bible Society ever was, even in the zenith of its popularity, and who had adopted and carried into full effect this expurgatory resolution. The Pharisees are the fraternity referred to, and the analogous principle of their policy is, that they took away the key of knowledge,' that is, the true interpretation of their sacred writings, in which that witness which they bore to the Messiah and to his dispensation was set forth. The expedient then is brought before us in the very narrative of our Lord's Ministry upon earth; nay, it is He himself who introduces it to our notice, and He introduces it only for the purpose of denouncing a woe against those who had contrived so subtle a device, and both exposes the corrupt motives in which it originated-that its inventors. might, without detection, teach for doctrines the commandments of men, (Mat. xy. 9), and make the commandment of God of none effect by their tradition, (Mat. xv. 6); and also admonishes its self-deluded votaries of its mischievous effects, that it at once indisposed them from entering themselves into the kingdom of

* "Luke xi. 52. Grotius notes. upon this passage, Vetus quidam annotator ngare exposuerat xgubare, non mate, quod et in textum alicubi penetravit. Clavim autem Tertullianus recte exponit inter pretationem Scripturarum. Et mos erat apud Hebræos, cum cui potestas dabatur Legem et Prophetas interpretandi, clave datâ quasi in possessionem muncris mittere.

Wilson, in his Christian Dictionary, in explanation of this pas sage, says, "the sense of Scripture is as it were locked up, till it he opened by wise and sound interpretation, which is the key of knowledge." Besides Tertullian, cited by Grotius above, he cites St. Chrysostom and Jerome as thus explaining the phrase. Poole also coincides in this construction."

Heaven,

Heaven, and involved them in the further guilt of hindering those from entering in, who were otherwise well disposed to sue for admission.'" Luke xi. 52.) P. 380.

We know full well the consequence of this mischievous 'system, The miserable Jews, thus deprived of the key of knowledge, which would have opened the real meaning of Scripture to their understandings, were so far from obtaining an insight into the truth by the possession of the bare text, that they denied the Holy One and the Just, preferred a murderer before him, and not contented with killing him, gloried in the action as if they had done God service, and with an infatuated and enthusiastic impiety invoked his blood upon themselves and their posterity. Such is the first recorded instance of the effect of that circulation of the bare text of Scripture, of which the Bible Society boasts as its peculiar honour: an instance which may well make a serious man pause, before he turns away from the divinely appointed method of propagating the religion he professes, and adopts the vain imaginations of mere fallible men. We recommend it to the particular consideration of those, who seem to think that, distributing the Bible, and preaching the Gospel, are synonimous terms; and that it is little less than blasphemy even to hesitate in believing, that the Scripture will do its own work: i. c. that he who reads the Scripture must understand and believe it, and be saved by its faith: a position, which, when its meaning is thus plainly drawn out (and if it means any thing, it must mean this), is so monstrous, that nothing but the blind infatuation, which the spells of the Bible Society are calculated to produce, could induce any man of comprou understanding to assent to it. Other instances, of a character similar to that already given, will prove to us, that the same projects, when at different times renewed, have constantly been attended by effects deeply injurious to pur holy religion and its ministers. Our Saviour foresaw that the times would come, "When men would not endure sound doctrine, but would be turned unto fables; and that then the same designs would again be entertained against the key of knowledge, the same surreptitious removal of it take place, and the same infatuation, guilt, and misery ensue." P. 383. He therefore forewarned his Apostles, that, as the Jews had thought themselves the executioners of divine vengeance, when crucifying him their Lord and God; so would they attack and murder his Ministers in the same spirit; and vent their rage against the Church which he had appointed with the same mistaken appeal to the text of Scripture, which, in their mouths, divested of its true sense and meaning, became an authority for violating the spirit of every commandment it contained.

"All this accordingly has been brought to pass; and to confine the appeal made in exemplification of it, to the transactions of this kingdom, in the Solemn League and Covenant; and in the pillage and slaughter of Christ's faithful Servants, which that bond of iniquity both legalized and ushered in, is exhibited its abundant completion. The confederacy formed by means of this instrument of delusion was, with the exception only of the name, a Bible Society; the Bible, and the Bible only, was the syren song with which it wrought its fascinations-with which it charmed into a temporary coalition, Christians of every name and description ;' and which it cited as its justification on all occasions, even when it was overthrowing God's Altars, slaying his Prophets with the sword, and shedding the sacred blood of his Anointed. These are not points of doubtful disputation, they are generally admitted facts,

* Dr. Milner, at p. 142, laments (says Professor Marsh)." that a Bible Society was not formed in the time of Charles I. Now there was a Bible Society formed in the reign of Charles I. (rejoins the Professor), and it comprised all the Puritans in the kingdom. I have got a Print of it, of which I gave an account in a preceding chapter."

:

"Referring to this chapter, the account will be found as follows: "The print consists of three figures; the figure of a Puritan with a Bible in his hand; the figure of an English Bishop with the Prayer Book in his hand; and the figure of a Romish Bishop with the Mass Book in his hand. The two last figures are in all respects alike, they have the same height, the same dress, the same look, the same every thing. Over them is written, "Every plant which my Heavenly Father hath not planted, should be rooted up."? Here we have a true specimen of the Bible only to be distributed by the Protestant and we know that in four years from that time the Prayer Book was formally abolished." (Marsh's Reply to Milner, p. 138. 92.) The scrupulous preciseness with which the Puritans rejected all notes and comments," and doated upon the text of Seripture, is thus noticed by Hooker, Eccles. Pol. Book 2. Sect. 1. The head theorem of all their discourses, who plead the change of Ecclesiastical Government in England, is, That the Scripture of God is in such sort the rule of human actions, that simply whatsoever we do, and are not, by it directed thereunto, the sume is sin." A curious exemplification of this theorem is exhibited in a Tract, printed during the Rebellion, entitled, "Accommodation discommended as incommodious to the Commonwealth. It is a scholastic production, and the argument is as follows: " First, Accommodation is not the language of Canaan, and therefore it cannot conduce to the peace of Jerusalem. Second, it is no Scripture word : now to vilify the Ordinances which are in Scripture, and to set up Accommodation, which is not in Scripture, no not so much as in the Apocrypha, is to relinquish the word and to follow the inventions of Man which is plain popery."

reaistered

registered by those who did the deeds, and either gloried in their doings, or had been disciplined into vexation and remorse by feeding upon the bitter fruit of their own devices*; and if it be required, what could betray men professing godliness into such inhumanity and sacrilege as this, the cause is equally notorions with the effect; an overweening fondness for their own imaginations had engendered a disinclination either to the opening Scripture by the key of knowledge, or to the receiving it so opened by its appointed keepers, and had induced them to conspire, even to take this key surreptitiously away; and thus the Gospel became hid to them, they knew not the voice of Christ and his Apostles, which were not merely read to them every Sabbath day, but which were constantly in their mouths, and were prostituted to serve all the purposes of their most trivial conversation; and thus as the Jews had dealt with the Master of the House, so did they with those of His Household; they killed them, that in their own conceits they might do good service to God, and might place Christ on his throne in unsullied majesty among them. And to close this speculative survey of the professed object of the Bible Society, there is a moral necessity that the same tremendous result should uniformly ensue, when, as is now the case, and as Mr. Nolan excellently states it, under the pretext of recommending the Bible, the Ministry is superseded, and mankind are set at liberty, to treat, after their own good will and pleasure, c Book, which they have all confidence enough to believe they can understand, and are weak enough to be able to pervert." (Objec tions of a Churchman, p. 25.) See Appendix, No. 7. (Pp. 384, 5, 6, 7, 8.)

Having thus tried the object of the Society by the effect, which that object, when pursued in former times, has invariably produced; we proceed, by the Editors assistance, to put its constitution to a similar test. The models, upon which it is built, are such as would scarcely have been chosen, had the inere distribution of the Bible been all that was contemplated by its framers. The Editor well observes, that

"When the sole and exclusive object," as it is called, "is removed out of the way, and there is no stalking horse interposed to shelter it from observation, the Constitution of the Society can scarcely need a remark to consign it, amongst conscientious men, whatever be their mode of faith, to general reprobation." P. 388.

*

Indeed it has often astonished us, that a Society, whose fundamental principle it is, that each of its Members should with

*Edwards, in the Dedication of his Gangraena to the Parliament, at once professes so strongly his former attachment to the cause of Puritanism, and his subsequent abhorrence of the outrages which it had occasioned, that his confession conveys a most wholesome lesson, and will therefore be found in the Collection of Documents, No. 6.”

hold