JOSHUA GREAVES,
Incumbent of St. Peter’s, Birmingham.
December 14, 1848.
{8} “Hopes had been raised of a new order of things, as a new Head,
of a widely different character from any of his predecessors,
ascended the Papal Throne. Yes—rail-roads and gas-lights shall be
admitted for the first time in the dominions of Him of Rome: but, not
the Bible Society; that shall be denounced with as loud a voice of
thunder, as ever proceeded from the City of the Seven Hills. That
voice of thunder has been re-echoed by Cardinals and others, in
France, Holland, and elsewhere; and so re-echoed, that many a faint
heart has quailed; and some, who before stood half-prepared to
encourage the dissemination of the Scriptures, have drawn back and
closed the door before half-opened. And yet, even among Roman
Catholics, the distribution of the Scriptures has proved as large as
ever.—In no previous year has the Society been counted worthy of
suffering a fiercer vituperation from this quarter than during the
past. Take as an example, the following paragraph from a famous
Encyclical Letter, and see with what company the Society is
associated:—
“You are already well acquainted, Venerable Brethren, with other
monsters of error, and the frauds with which the children of the
present age strive bitterly to beset the Catholic religion and the
Divine authority of the Church: to oppose its laws, and to trample on
the rights of the sacred as well as of the civil power. To this
point tend those guilty conspiracies against the Roman Chair of the
blessed Peter, on which Christ laid the irremovable foundations of
his Church. To this point tend the operations of those secret
Societies, emerging from their native darkness for the ruin and
devastation of the common weal, as well sacred as social, who have
been again and again condemned with anathema by the Roman Pontiffs
our predecessors, in their Apostolic Letters, which we, in the
plentitude of our Apostolic power, confirm, and command to be most
strictly observed. This also is the tendency and design of those
insidious Bible Societies, which, renewing the crafts of the ancient
heretics, cease not to obtrude upon all kinds of men, even the least
instructed, gratuitously and at an immense expense, copies in vast
numbers of the Books of the Sacred Scriptures, translated (against
the holiest rules of the Church) into various vulgar tongues, and
very often with the most perverse and erroneous interpretations; to
the end that (Divine tradition, the doctrine of the Fathers, and the
authority of the Catholic Church being rejected,) every man may
interpret the revelations of the Almighty according to his own
private judgement, and, perverting their sense, fall into the most
dangerous errors. Which Societies, emulous of his predecessor,
Gregory XVI., of blessed memory, (to whose place we have been
permitted to succeed, without his merits,) reproved by his Apostolic
Letter (16) and we desire equally to condemn.”—_Forty-third Report of
the British and Foreign Bible Society_.
{11a} “Awful Disclosure, being Extracts Translated from the Moral
Theology of Alphonsus Liguori,” by Rev. R. P. Blakeney.
{11b} “When Drs. Doyle, Murray, and Kelley, the Irish Roman Catholic
Bishops, were examined before a committee of the Parliament, the
following confessions were made by them:—(_Question to Dr.
Doyle_)—You were educated in Portugal? Yes. Did you ever see in
Portugal any translation (of the Scriptures) into the vulgar tongue,
whether allowed or not? No, I did not. (_Question to Dr.
Murray_)—You were educated in Salamanca? I was. Can you give any
information as to any authenticated version of the scriptures in the
Spanish language? I did hear that there was a Spanish version of the
Holy Scriptures, but I do not happen to know the fact. Have the
Scriptures any practical circulation in the vulgar tongue in Spain?
They had not then. Have the people seen the Scriptures in a language
they could understand? I believe they were not generally read by the
people. Do you imagine that any material portion of the people have
so much as seen the Scriptures in a language they could understand?
I do not know that they have.”
Hear again extracts from the evidence of these Roman Catholic Bishops
before the Parliamentary Commissioners, 1825—
“_Ques._ Are the Commissioners to collect that you think it improper
for the children to read through the Gospels and Acts? _Ans._
Without explanation I think it is improper; I think no portion of
scripture ought to be read without being accompanied with explanation
and instruction. _Ques._ Is it a venial or a mortal sin in an adult
peasant to persevere in reading the New Testament in the authorised
version of the Church of England, after his priest has forbidden it?
_Ans._ I should feel great delicacy in fixing the amount of guilt
which constitutes the one or the other. _Ques._ Would you allow any
of the peasantry of Ireland who might persevere in reading the
Scriptures in the authorised version, after having been prohibited by
your clergy, to be received to the Sacrament? _Ans._ No, I
certainly would not. _Ques._ Should you think it improper for such
an individual to bury the Word of God? _Ans._ I should be highly
amused with such a proceeding. _Ques._ Would you think him highly
deserving of approbation? _Ans._ I do not know but I would: it
might show a disposition which I would prize highly, though I do not
think the act a very laudable one, but attending to the disposition
more than the act itself, I would reward the man. _Ques._ You would
consider it in the man a proof of orthodoxy? _Ans._ Yes, a proof
that he was filled with a right faith, only pushed to an extreme.”
Now compare with these answers what Dr. Doyle said in his evidence
respecting the authorised version.
“Though it has many errors I consider it one of the noblest of
works—one of the ablest translations that has ever been
produced.”—_See No. IV. Tract of the British Reformation Society_,
_pages_ 5, 6, 7.
{15} “Do we still then ask why the Holy Scriptures were given to us
by Divine Providence? That question I conceive admits only of the
following answer. They are a gift to us and to our children,
collectively and individually, that we may lay them to our hearts,
that they may be to us our rule of life, and that by following their
precepts we may daily approach nearer and nearer to God. This I
repeat must be their great and primary object. They are not then,
nor were they ever intended to be, a hidden treasure, hoarded up in
the sanctuary of the Church, to be visited only on solemn occasions,
to be held up at a distance to the veneration of the multitude, to
serve only as a test of the accuracy of our oral teaching, but they
are at once the individual possession, the personal friend, the
monitor, the familiar oracle of every servant of Christ.”—_Dr.
Shuttleworth’s Not Tradition but Scripture_.
{18} Greatly should I rejoice, were those of our Dissenting Brethren who
refuse to take part in such proceedings as those of the Anti-State Church
Association, publicly to repudiate, at least, their language and spirit.