but merely to the English Prayer-book, to shew that the Apo cryphal writings are included under this description. We admit, that most improperly is the term Holy Scripture applied to such compositions as Bel and the Dragon and the Book of Tobit. But, that the words Bible, Holy Scriptures. Word of God, are familiarly understood as including all that the authorized version includes, is undeniable. In at least five cases out of ten, when a quarto edition of the Bible is ordered, were the bookseller to furnish a copy of the Holy Scriptures excluding the Apocrypha, it would be returned on his hands as incomplete. A Bible with notes and a Bible without notes, are terms perfectly well understood; but no one, in ordering the latter, would be understood as meaning to exclude the Apocrypha. The Bartlett's Buildings Society might adopt the very terms of the law in question, and still adhere to the practice of circulating the Apocrypha, without any danger of being charged with departing from its rules, so long as it accompanied the text of the authorized version with neither note nor comment. To say, therefore, that the law of the Bible Society forbids the circulation of the Apocrypha,' strikes us as too much like quibbling about terms. The law implies nothing either way. It simply binds up the Society to the authorized version, and to the Bible without note or comment. And the design of this law is obvious. It was to give a pledge, more especially to the heads of the National Church, that no bye object should be mingled with the plan,—that no room should be left for the promotion of sectarian or party views; as well as to preclude the possibility of jealousies arising from a difference of theological opinion among the members of the Institution.

We have not the least doubt, that, if the law had contained a clause to the effect, that all the copies circulated should omit the Apocrypha, offence and alarm would immediately have been taken in many influential quarters. We are fully persuaded that, as this was not expressed, so neither was it understood. The subject was very properly kept out of sight; and thus, the Society has been able silently to perform an inmense service by exclusively circulating the canonical books, without stirring up oppostion and party feeling by openly denouncing the apocryphal ones. Constituted as the society was at its outset, of members of the Established churches of England and Scotland and Protestant Dissenters, the exclusion of the Apocrypha, in practice, from the English Bibles, was the only plan that could ensure unanimity; and this plan was favoured by the omission of the Apocrypha in many of the smaller editions issued of late years by the King's Printer.

But this has always been an understood, rather than an express condition of the original covenant entered into by the Society with the Christian public.' In all the solemn asseverations on the subject of the exclusive distribution of Holy Scripture' which we have read in the annual reports, in all the reiterations of Chillingworth's sentiment which we have heard in Bible Society speeches, we do not recollect ever to have heard the omission of the Apocrypha once adverted to. And even as to this understood condition, (if such it may be termed,) it applied only to Bibles circulated in this country. Whatever the practice of the Society may or may not have been with regard to foreign versions, the laws, we must contend, leave the Committee entirely free on that head; nor, generally speaking, do we believe that any understanding with the Christian public, has existed on the subject.

It is true, that a resolution of the Bible Society passed in August 1822, admits, that a view of the Rule had been taken from the beginning by the great body of its Members,' which limited the application of its funds to the circulation of the Canonical Scriptures. We do not pretend to be aware of the grounds on which the Committee came to this conclusion respecting the views of the great body of its members; but the fact we believe to be, that the majority of the members and subscribers never had the question in relation to foreign societies brought under their consideration. Nay, since we cannot believe them to have regarded the Apocrypha as either a note or a comment, their view of the rule' must have taken for granted what the Rule assuredly leaves undefined. Mr. Gorham, indeed, would expound the rule thus:

If it be asked, Did not that "authorized version" contain the Apocrypha? we reply, that the law only contemplates the circulation of the Holy Scriptures contained in that Version.'

If Mr. Gorham was one of those who assisted at the original framing of that law, we will take his word for it, that the law, or at least those who drew it up, contemplated only the canonical Scriptures; but if not, we must hesitate to admit his exposition of its intention, seeing that the word canonical is not employed, as it surely might have been, and that a law can never be said to contemplate what it does not express. But, in fact, the framers of that law did not and could not contemplate, as Mr. Gorham admits, the future sphere of their operations; and it is idle to suppose that they framed a rule in reference to a case which they could not possibly anticipate.

If the Rule applied to the printing of the Apocrypha at all, it would be as much a breach of faith on the part of the ComVOL. XXIV. N.S.

U

mittee to aid the distribution of Bibles containing the Apocrypha annexed, as to sanction the Romish mode of intermixing the canonical and apocryphal books. While Mr. Gorham levels his remonstrances against the latter practice only, the Edinburgh Committee seem disposed to resist the circulation of the Apocrypha in any shape or on any conditions. And in this they are more consistent. It would assuredly be as direct a violation of the fundamental law, to annex a body of notes and comments to the copies of the Scriptures circulated by the Society, as to intermingle them. If, therefore, the Apocrypha be excluded by the terms exclusively without note or 'comment,' it must be excluded absolutely and altogether; and Mr. Gorham's irenical plan must fall to the ground. The Edinburgh Statement contends, that the resolutions passed by the Parent Committee, in order to permit the Foreign Pro'testant Societies the circulation of the Apocrypha, would 'justify a similar practice in respect to the printing and circulating the notes of Ostervald or Martini, or the human com'ments attached to any other edition of the Scriptures.' Now the very language of the second of the resolutions here alluded to, has been adopted by Mr. Gorham in the suggestion he offers, That, in future,

'with regard to foreign societies which publish Bibles containing the Apocrypha, but separate and distinct from the canonical books, grants of money be made under an express stipulation, and the assurance of the parties receiving the same, that such grants shall exclusively be applied to printing and publishing the canonical books only!

Thus, the resolution of December 20, 1824, which the Edinburgh Committee condemn and deprecate, lays down the very rule by which Mr. Gorham would have the Society abide. So different are the views taken of the Rule by different objectors. But so far as respects the original Rule, which is the point in question, we contend that it leaves the Society entirely at liberty on the subject of printing the Apocrypha in foreign languages, whether separate or intermingled. Our own "authorized version' includes those books, not as canonical, but as belonging to what is popularly termed and considered as holy Scripture. Foreign churches are known to understand by the Scriptures, the Old and New Testaments with the Apocrypha; and with regard to the mode in which they shall print it, the Rule is silent: only it might fairly be concluded, that they too would be expected and allowed to follow their authorized versions.

We have bestowed more attention, perhaps, than was neces

sary on this point, which has little to do with the abstract propriety or expediency of the practice of circulating the Apocrypha, because the Parent Committee have been loudly and most unjustly charged with a breach of faith in departing from their original laws and violating their covenant with the Christian public. This angry charge may serve the purpose of raising a clamour against the Bible Society, but it cannot in the least contribute to an adjustment of the controversy. No one who is not blinded by spleen and maddened with party feeling, will have the baseness to insinuate, that there has been any intentional or wilful departure on the part of the Committee from either the letter or spirit of their original rules. No one can harbour the suspicion, that there is any Popish leaning to the Apocrypha itself in those Members and Vice-presidents of the Society, whose opinion is known to be in favour of permitting its circulation in foreign countries. With regard to the ultimate object of all parties, it will surely be admitted to be the same. It is respecting the best means only of accomplishing the end, that they differ. We cannot believe that there is a spice of Popery in the composition of the Parent Committee. The individuals whose views are known to be favourable to an unfettered discretion as to the circulation of Bibles in the ⚫ form objected to,' constitute, Mr. Gorham says, a very large proportion both of the general and the special Committee*. Now we cannot bring ourselves to imagine, that those individuals are really more desirous of circulating the Apocrypha, than is the Edinburgh Committee itself. They would exceedingly prefer, we are well persuaded, that the holy Scriptures, pure and unadulterated, should alone be put into the hands of Roman Catholics and Greeks as well as of Protestants. Nothing short of what they deem an imperious necessity, leads them to sanction the circulation of a false canon of Scripture.' They cannot consent that the souls of men should perish for lack of knowledge, while we are disputing about the proper manner of arranging the canonical and apocryphal writings. They cannot bear the idea that the whole population of Europe should, so far as depends on our co-operation, be left without Bibles, till the Greek Church, and the Romish Church, and the Lutheran and Calvinistic churches can come to an agreement with

*The Special Committee consists of Lord Teignmouth, Bishop of Litchfield, Lord Calthorpe, Lord Bexley, Sir R. H. Inglis, Bart. M.P., W. Wilberforce, Esq., Rev. Messrs. Cunningham, Dealtry, Orme, Pratt, Simeon, Dr. Thorpe, and Messrs. Allan, Butterworth, Macauley, Phillips, Stevens, and Trueman,

regard to the Canon of the Holy Scriptures. Mr. Gorham suggests, that there may be some leaven of human vanity mingled with this feeling of expansive benevolence, which indisposes the Committee to contract the sphere of its charity. He admonishes the Society, as Mr. Norris and the Christian Remembrancer have done before him, (we are sorry to place so good a man in such company,) to look to their steps, to moderate their views, and not to be too much elated with contemplating their expenditure of one million and a quarter, and their distribution of four millions and a half of copies of the Scriptures. This advice may be as useful as it is in the present case well-meant. There may have been a little too much of the tone and temper of elation on the part of the friends of the cause.. So mixed are the motives, so much alloyed the best feelings of the best of men, that vanity is apt to mingle with benevolence, self-love with zeal, spleen with holy resentment, uncharitableness with stern integrity, party-spirit with piety; and when we imagine that we are jealous only for the honour of God, it may too often be said, Ye know not what spirit ye are of. Even if vanity has mingled itself, however, with the views or feelings of the Committee, it does not follow that those feelings are too expansive, those views too comprehensive. Let them proceed in as humble a spirit as may be, but we cannot recommend them to contract the sphere of their labours, and to narrow the limits of their charity. In our judgement, they would be doing extremely wrong to stop short in their career. Nothing would better please the Pope, or, we may add, the Pope's Master; for if the Devil could get rid of the Bible in Catholic countries on so holy a pretence as the necessity of keeping it unadulterated, his end would be better answered than by all the opposition he could raise against its circulation.

We return to our first position, that it is lawful to concur in the circulation of a canon of Scripture which we believe not to be genuine, seeing that there is a difference of opinion in the Christian Church respecting that canon; seeing too, that the determination of the question does not come within our province, and therefore does not involve us in responsibility for tolerating that difference of opinion which we cannot prevent. This view of the case, is, however, so very opposite to the vehement declaration contained in the fourth of the Edinburgh Resolutions, that we must devote a few words more to this part of the subject. That Resolution is as follows:

4. That the British and Foreign Bible Society is not only altogether prohibited by the laws of its existence from giving any sanction to the circulation of the Apocrypha, but that it cannot do this