seeking the most beneficial ends by the wisest means, and to leave the event with humble confidence to HIM who rules above. With respect to the latter part of your Letter, I shall only observe, that you greatly mistake the views of the Bible Society, if you suppose they condemn the use of notes and commentaries for elucidating the Scriptures. On the contrary, one of our most active members is now publishing a learned and elaborate Commentary upon them. But the society, as a body, takes no part in this, or any other work of its members. Confident that the Bible alone is able to give wisdom to the simple, it leaves to the Church, to every sect, to every individual, the right of selecting and recommending such further helps as may be necessary for critical research. In so doing, every man will consult his own judgment, and the authority to which he has been accustomed to defer. I am far, as you well know, from undervaluing the advantages of learning: and I should think, that, upon the ground of literary merit, the Bible Society might claim some countenance in a learned University. We justly prize the profound erudition and indefatigable diligence of the compilers of the Polyglott Bible: but what a Polyglott has the Bible Society produced! Can it lessen the merit of such exertions, that they have been applied to living languages, and to purposes of immediate and important service to mankind? But literary merit is not (except in a very subordinate degree) the aim of the society; nor the tribunal of learning that at which it is to be judged. Its objects are of a higher order, and far more important to mankind;—and its appeal is to every Christian heart. If you can point out to me any means of promoting these great objects as powerfully, as rapidly, as extensively, without incurring the dangers you apprehend from the Bible Society, I shall readily concur with you in adopting such means; but till you can do so, I think myself bound to persevere: nor do I believe they will ever be found, except in some plan similar to ours. For it is not simply to the diffusion of the Bible, but to the co-operation of all Christians, to diffuse it, and to the effect of such a co-operation on our own hearts, that I look, not only for the establishment of Christian faith, but the extension of Christian charity. Great George Street, 12th Feb. 1812. N. VANSITTART. No. II. EDITIONS OF THE SCRIPTURES, ON SALE TO SUBSCRIBERS, AT THE SOCIETY'S DEPOSITORY, No. 10, Earl Street, Blackfriars, London. Brevier, demy paper, 8vo. T 2 4345 4 % 4 6 5 Brevier, medium paper, 8vo. with marginal references, 11 10 Long Primer, demy paper, 8vo. 9 6 Long Primer, super-royal paper, 8vo. with the full references of the authorised 4to. Bible in the margins, fine edition, 2 vols. boards Small Pica, medium paper, 8vo. calf Ditto, with full references at the end 34 0 14 0 9 8 10 6 19 Ditto, royal paper, 8vo. with marginal references 23 6136233 2 2 3 4 3 WELSH. 4 10 12 1 1 2 3 3711193 3 0 669993 2 Brevier Bible, 8vo. . . Long Primer Testament, 12mo. sheep Ditto. Small Pica Testament, Irish character, sheep calf. ... calf 6 5 Ditto, 8vo. (De Sacy).. calf. Testament, French & English, in parallel columns, 8vo. calf, 70 5 3 calf Brevier Testament, 12mo. (De Sacy) sheep 哩 MODERN GREEK. Long Primer Testament, foolscap 8vo. calf Ditto, with the Antient and Modern Greek in parallel Columns, demy 12mo. calf HEBREW. CIRCULATION AND PERUSAL OF THE SCRIPTURES, WITHOUT NOTE OR COMMent. The late Bishop HORSLEY's Opinion of reading the Bible without Note or Comment. "IT should be a rule with every one who would read the holy scriptures with advantage and improvement, to compare every text which may seem either important for the doctrine it may contain, or remarkable for the turn of the expression, with the parallel passages in other parts of holy writ. In doing this, you will imitate the example of the godly Jews of Bercea, which is recorded with approbation in the Acts of the Apostles; who, when Paul and Silas reasoned with them out of the Scriptures of the Old Testament, searched the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so. It is incredible to any one, who has not in some degree made the cxperiment, what a proficiency may be made in that knowledge which maketh wise unto salvation, by studying the Scriptures in this manner, without any other com mentary or exposition than what the different parts of the sacred volume mutually furnish for each other. "I will not scruple to assert, that the most illiterate Christian, if he can but read his English Bible, and will take the pains to read it in this manner, will not only attain all that practical knowledge which is necessary to his salvation, but, by God's blessing, he will become learned in every thing relating to his religion, in such degreee that he will not be liable to be misled, either by the refined arguments or false assertions of those who endeavour to engraft their own opinion upon the oracles of God. He may safely be ignorant of all philosophy, except what is learned from the sacred books; which indeed contain the highest philosophy, adapted to the lowest apprehensions. He may safely remain ignorant of all history, except so much of the history of the first ages of the Jewish and of the Christian Church as is to be gathered from the canonical books of the Old and New Testa ment. Let him study these in the manner I recommend; and let him never cease to pray for the illumination of that Spirit by which these books were dictated; and the whole compass of abstruse philosophy and recondite history shall furnish no argument with which the perverse will of man shall be able to shake this learned Christian's faith. The Bible thus studied will, indeed, prove to be what we Protestants esteem it,-a certain and sufficient rule of faith and practice, a helmet of salvation, which alone may quench the fiery darts of the wicked.”—pp. 223-228 of Bp. Horsley's Nine Sermons. Lond. 1815. In another Volume of Discourses (2d. edit. 1811.) the Bishop expresses himself as follows: "It is the glory of our Church, that the most illiterate of her sons are in possession of the Scriptures in their mother tongue. It is their duty to make the most of so great a blessing, by employing as much time as they can spare from the necessary business of their several callings, in the diligent study of the written word. It is God's will that all descriptions of men, great and small, rich and poor, learned and ignorant, should come to the knowledge of the truth; that is, of the truths brought to light by the Gospel ; not only of the fundamental truths, of faith towards GoD, of repentance from dead works, and of a future judgment, but of all the sublimer truths concerning the scheme of man's redemption." Serm. I. pp. 3 & 4. "Our LORD said of himself, that he came to preach the Gospel to the poor and the same thing may be said of the word of Revelation in general,that it was given for the instruction of all mankind, the lowest as well as the highest, the most illiterate as well as the wise and learned. It may be reckoned, therefore, a necessary characteristic of Divine Revelation, that it shall be delivered in a manner the most adapted to what are vulgarly called the meanest capacities: and by this perspicuity, both of precept and of doc trine, the whole Bible is remarkably distinguished. For, although St. Peter speaks of some things in it hard to be understood, he speaks of such things only as could never have been understood at all had they not been revealed; and, being revealed, are yet not capable of proof or explanation upon scientific principles, but rest solely on the authority of the Revelation: not that the terms in which these discoveries are made are obscure and ambiguous in their meaning; nor that the things themselves, however hard for the pride of philosophy, are not of easy digestion to an humble faith." Serm. VIII. p. 121. "The obscurity of the Prophecies, great as it is in some parts, is not such as should discourage the Christian Laic from the study of them, nor such as will excuse him under the neglect of it. Let him remember, that it is the Apostle's admonition, who would not enjoin an useless or impracticable task, to give heed to the prophetic word." Serm. XVIII. p. 359. |