Page images
PDF
EPUB

above all their prayerful consideration? I feel a peculiar desire to arrest the attention of my brethren in the ministry. I am quite aware that many stand aloof from the Society with the most conscientious feelings. But conscience may be misguided. Saul of Tarsus thought that he ought to do many things contrary to Jesus of Nazareth, and he was most conscientious in so thinking.

We are answerable to God for our negligences, and ignorances too, as well as for our sins. May God grant, that by His Holy Spirit we may have a right judgment in all things, and may He make us to perceive and know what things we ought to do!

Now the grand objection which stands in the way of many, is the very constitution of the society, consisting, as it does, of all denominations of Christians. Let us enter a little into this objection. And in the first place, I would observe that I never cease to think that every dictate of reason and sound judgment should lead us to distinguish between the sublime and unexceptionable object of such an institution, and any awkwardness or infirmity that may be apparent in its machinery. If Christians could only get their thoughts fixed on the vast importance to the glory of God and the good of men of the universal dissemination of the Divine Word, all considerations of the instrumentality by which such a work is effected would be comparatively as nothing. True, there may be an occasional contact with a Dissenter, whose bitterness and hate against our own communion may be too well known. Or, in our meetings there may be a weary speech to listen to which offends against good taste and our notions of propriety. Shall I add that in some

cases a meeting may be held in a place not congenial to our wishes. All this may be, and much more; yet after all what is it in comparison of the work that is accomplishing in the circulation of the Scriptures over the whole of the habita ble globe?

Shall the traveller, intent upon his home, be greatly upset with the badness of the road, or the badness of the conveyance? Will he suffer himself to abandon his journey on this account? What will not men put up with in order to reach home? And if God's word is precious to us, and if we are alive to the importance of sending forth the light of truth to disperse the mists of error overhanging our fallen world, every thought should surely merge in the blessedness of such a consummation.

I am sure that the distinction in the mind between the magnificence of the object and the inferiority of the instrumentality, will do much with candid minds to discern the path of duty. Our endurance may well stretch to a great extremity to compass such an object. Paul went far when he rejoiced that Christ was preached by contentious schismatics! and what co-operation shall we refuse for the full dissemination of Christian truth?

2. But, in the second place, agreed as I am sure we all are on the essential importance of the universal circulation of the Scriptures, I would ask, by what other agency is it expected to effect this object? The Society for promoting Christian Knowledge cannot do it. In the work of translation it is almost stationary. Half a dozen versions are the extent of its publications. Its designs are too multiform to admit of its doing more. But supposing any scheme of a Church Bible Society could be

effected, or any other unexceptionably constituted, I for one feel that I cannot wait till a choice of societies is in existence, and in equally extensive and efficient operation. I may possibly live to see another agency effecting what the Bible Society is now doing. The thing is possible. But life is fast ebbing, and there is no device or work in the grave whither I am going. I must work while it is called to-day, the night cometh when no man can work. In the meanwhile, who can wait for a suspension of the mighty work which is unquestionably progressing? Who would dare to recal the 160 versions and the above 100 translations? Who can forget the more than 16 million copies of the Word of God that this society has already circulated! Is it possible for a Christian heart not to feel some glow of grateful attachment to a Society which has achieved so much in furtherance of the Redeemer's glory and the best interests of the world? Is it possible to wish for a suspension of all this good, till a society less exceptionably constituted presents itself? and yet to stand aloof

is it not almost tantamount to this?

3. But let me observe further, that the constitution of the Bible Society is essential to its success ; I mean to say to the success of every Bible Society which is to be the world's Bible Society. We may declaim against Dissent, but there is no concealing the fact, that Dissenters are largely possessing the privilege and the power of evangelizing the world; and if their missionaries are to be excluded from a share in circulating the Scriptures, as undeniably would be the case if we are to have a Bible Society consisting only of Churchmen, then, consider how we should limit and contract the

free course of God's word in distant lands. And further; the union of all denominations of Christians in England is the only guarantee and security to foreigners of the purity of our versions, and likewise against the possibility of any proselyting intentions. A Church of England, or a Wesleyan, or a Baptist Bible Society may answer for home purposes, but abroad it would be eyed with suspicion, and would necessarily not effect a free and uninterrupted circulation.

4. But may we not ask, what mischief has been found to accrue from the union of Churchmen and Dissenters? We have a right to ask the question after the experience of 40 years. Some serious and positive mischief to our section of the Church of Christ should be indisputably manifest, to set against the abandonment of such an institution. I can only give the result of my own experience. I was one of the undergraduates in Cambridge whose efforts were so signally blest in the formation of the Cambridge Bible Society. Never shall I forget that first magnificent meeting, when the leading men of the University fearlessly came forward to give it their allegiance and to repudiate the charge of danger to the Church; from that day I have been almost as much engaged as any one in attending Bible Meetings, and in watching the impression and effects of the Bible Society, and most truly can I affirm, that I am utterly at a loss to conjecture in what respects it can have proved detrimental to our Church. I believe indeed that the Clergy have suffered loss in the estimation of Dissenters because of their neglect of the Bible Society, while I know, for a fact, that the better acquaintance with them, which the Bible Society has effected, has ex

tensively softened down the prejudices of Dissenters, and produced on their part a more friendly feeling. I am much mistaken if the contact into which Quakers have been brought with pious members of our Church through the Bible Society, and the discovery of an enlightened and spiritual religion, for which they never before gave us credit, has not been one of the chief means of shaking Quakerism to its very centre, and leading many of its communion to join our establishment.

But, where is the Churchman who through Bible Society influence and attachment ever found himself more in love with dissent or less devoted to his own communion?

never

5. But in the very spot where so many falter, I must own, cease to find a welcome resting place. We can have no part with Dissenters in many ways.. I am the more thankful that we can in one. Shall we ever be at strife? In that world to which we are hastening shall we able to keep asunder from each other? Shall we wish it? In the prospect of eternity shall we not try to get as near as possible to all who love the Saviour, rather than consider how entirely we can stand aloof? No one would wish me to refuse to act in concert with a Dissenter for the good of a Hospital. I am equally ready to go hand in hand with him for the circulation of God's word. Here is no compromise of principle. A large work is to be done, and all hands are wanted to effect it; and with all my abhorrence of Popery, if the Pope himself would come and join us on the platform of a Bible Meeting, I would give him an ho

nest welcome.

Would that my brethren in the ministry would consider this matter well; they may depend upon it

they commend not our beloved Church or promote its real interests by acting towards Dissenters as an inferior and dangerous set of beings, with whom no association can be had. Their conduct may often make intercourse difficult I admit. But if they readily come forward to circulate that word which strikes at the root of all error, theirs amongst the rest, shall we swamp the world's welfare in our refusal to unite with them, and virtually say, that the world may go without the bread of life, rather than that a Dissenter's hand shall join with ours in making the distribution? The whole matter solves itself into this: Bread for the world is at stakethe world is hungry for it-shall we send it? or, are we willing that thousands and millions should perish for lack of knowledge, while we are squabbling about the mode of dispensing it? Rather let my right hand forget its cunning, than refuse such a sympathy. Never may I forget, that to him who knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin. I again repeat, that if there were two agencies at work, with their two versions, and issuing their millions of Bibles, it might be a question which I ought to select but in the little : space of life which is allotted to me, I must avail myself of the one channel which is open to me, for doing what in me lies to send the light of divine truth throughout the world.

When I come to die, it will be no regret that my mind was so filled with the importance of sending the Bible to all mankind, as to be comparatively regardless of the agency: it might be a regret that in quarrelling with the only existing agency, I had withheld the boon.

There are other weighty considerations, which I must leave for future number.-ED.

ON DESERTING THE BIBLE SOCIETY.

To the Editor of the Christian Guardian.

DEAR SIR,-I have been too much interested and delighted with your Review of "Essays on Christian Union," to let the present opportunity pass without communicating to you a few extracts from a MS. which was occasioned by some clerical characters deserting the British and Foreign Bible Society. Some of our brethren brought the subject forward, at a Clerical Meeting, about "The propriety of the Clergy seceding from it connexion;" chiefly on account of the virulence of dissenting ministers against the established Church, and the danger there is lest we should encourage their hostility, or be classed with them; some asserting that they could not advocate even a good cause on the same platform with those, who had no sooner left such meetings, than they began to rail against our Church, her Prayer-Book, or her Clergy; and that the best way to avoid being identified with them, or imbibing their spirit, was to leave them and the Society to their sole operation and control.

Now, my good brother, as I have been more than half a century an ambassador of Christ and a minister of the Church of England, I trust I may, without presumption, be permitted to give my opinion on a subject so interesting and so important. Before we, as clergymen, desert the Bible Society, I think, we should consider well the consequences of secession. As we are not called upon, as advocates of that society, to any "compromise of principle," it resolves itself into a mere matter of feeling or expediency. Respecting the former, I

admit, there may be feelings too acute, and faith too feeble to allow every one to encounter the painfulness occasioned by such a public junction with persons hostile to our Zion. As to the expediency, propriety, and utility of leaving the society, the subject in my view speaks to the heart; and every Clergyman, rightly informed, and of right feeling, should in my esteem feel himself at home and alive in the ranks of the Bible Society.

The chief objections which I have seen and heard against Clergymen uniting with this society, are summarily involved in this: viz.— "The sectarian character of the society, in its constitution and operations."

Now, most truly, I consider this a great mistake; for the essential nature of the British and Foreign Bible Society is not division but union. And wherein the UNION of all denominations in the circulation of the Scriptures can fairly be viewed as sectional, I cannot comprehend. We are told that its constitution has a bad tendency, inasmuch as it is calculated to magnify the agreement, and sink the differences of the various denominations engaged in it. To this we may surely say, so much the better. Differences ought never to have existed, no, not even appeared to exist. And how the withholding differences can either create or increase them we are not told.

And " agreement" in any thing which respects the making known the word of God cannot easily be magnified above its worth. It is the very life and breath of divine

truth that it be made known or placed within the reach of every one. It is complained, that its operations obtrude on the Clergy, make them disrespected, and promote, by giving influence to, dissent; and that it usurps the office of the Church, as a witness and keeper of Holy Writ. It is true, if a Clergyman leave the Bible Society to do the office of circulating the word of God, which he neglects in his own sphere, there is no remedy; in a comparison of the diligent with the remiss, his character must and ought to suffer till he amend his ways; and it cannot be said that Dissenters reap an advantage in the circulation of the Scriptures which the Churchman has not, without admitting that the Scriptures favour dissent; and thus conceding the very thing complained of.

With respect to the Church, as the witness and keeper of Holy Writ, I see no usurpation in this case; nor any incapacity in this society for bearing "witness to the truth." Every Society bears witness to that, and to that alone, which it promotes; but the Bible Society, of all societies under heaven, bears testimony to and promotes truth-divine truth-and that alone; unmixed with human

errors.

And in England, at least, we Churchmen cannot complain, because that copy of the Bible, and that alone, is circulated by this society, which was framed by the Church, and legalized at her request. So that I do not perceive how the Bible Society can be complained of by Churchmen, as being divisional, either in its constitution or it operations.

But supposing the fears of some of our tender-hearted brethren respecting the tendency of such mixed society were real, would their sectional tendency be cured by

our deserting them? Rather might we not say that if we decline to circulate the Bible upon the open ground of Scripture, that souls might be saved thereby, we desert the principle of God's word and become sectarian in our own example? The only remedy which I conceive is within our compass is, that Churchmen reassume their general character.

The pre-eminence which the Church of England possesses rests in the constitution of her order, and the character of her clergy. She is in theory built upon the Scriptures-the Scriptures fairly and honestly taken. Her doctrines and her spirit are derived from the vital, soul-saving truths of God's word. They stand on them alone. These are open and evident without reserve or equivocation. She needs not deception. She courts not flattery. She is above sectarianism. She has no quirks nor shifts. She is built on the "Rock of Ages," and there she abides. "The gates of hell shall not prevail against it." But as she has truth for her constitution, so she must have holiness for her character. Her clergy must restore her primitive perfection. Now or never is the time to show themselves men. Holiness is the great object and result of Scripture. The Church, therefore, can never sustain her genuine standing or bear up against the opposing divisions which still combine against her, or advance in her heavenly career, but by constantly planting and cultivating holiness. A heavenly mind is the essence of the Bible, and the Church character. Wherever this is lost or enfeebled or endangered, the life's blood of her vitality is proportionably gone. The clergy, then, must resume their own standing. They have descended many degrees from their original and duly appointed station.

« PreviousContinue »