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where it was not applicable, was "packed," and that no dissent was permitted. "Those who might dissent," said the twice-read resolution of the Committee, "had no right to address the meeting; they were there only by sufferance." Had it been a meeting open to brotherly discussion (though we should think little of the wisdom of those who should have embarked on the argument, in the haste and bustle of a crowded assembly), the result would have been any thing but unanimous. But the Committee took the utmost care to keep its intended rules and regulations secret to the very last persons who went to the meeting had no distinct understanding as to what they were to vote for; the intended resolutions, instead of being made known through the medium of the press, or in any other way, for weeks or months before, as was desirable if calm and candid investigation of the plan was wished for, were kept as secret as the Reform Bill; but with this difference, that the Reform Bill was not expected to be proposed, read, and carried, at one hasty sitting, the moment it was announced, and without allowing a single dissenting voice. Many persons who were present at the meeting, and who were disposed for some change in the principle of the Bible Society, were by no means prepared to adopt every letter of the scheme of the new committee, and even the conductors of the Record themselves disapprove of the title "Trinitarian; " but they could not have been permitted to express their dissent at that meeting. The assembly were summoned to pass the measure, not to discuss it or to modify it. What the

measure was to be, no persons but those in the Committee's private confidence knew. The original proposition was to apply a Trinitarian test. The Edinburgh Society had gone further, by expelling Roman Catholics. The Westminster model Society, alluded to in our last Number, professed to adopt "Scriptural principles," but agreed to take the Socinian's money, though this had been before so earnestly reprobated; and then, finally, came an advertisement stating that the Sackvillestreet Committee "felt themselves at liberty to propose any such regulations as might appear to them necessary to secure the scriptural character of the proposed Society, without binding themselves to the resolutions adopted by them while making an effort to induce an existing society to correct and revise its present constitution." All was thus afloat; no opportunity was allowed, whether to the friends or the opposers of the measure, for prayer or amicable discussion before hand: the meeting was summoned, the resolutions were read; some persons were pleased, some doubted, many strongly disapproved, and all were astonished: but the hire of the room was stated to be

private property; dissent was not allowed to be expressed; and even if it had been, it was then too late to discuss the details except by adjournment; and under these circumstances were issued those resolutions for which the Record claims that they were passed "with but one dissenting voice, and almost by acclamation." We are driven to this strain of remark, which we should not have adopted had it been merely said that the friends of the measure met and formed a new Society, as they had a right to do if they saw fit. But to talk of unanimity because opposers were forbearing, and the persons who hired the room forbad discussion, is not a very fair or Christian way of representing the matter. Where were the bishops and the pious noblemen who are most friendly to the circulation of the Scriptures by means of Bible Societies? Where were the great body of what are called the Evangelical clergy? Where were the Dissenting ministers almost to a man? Where the Methodists and the Quakers? Where the great mass of religious persons of all denominations? Let the reader look at the list of speakers and decide the point for himself. So much for acclamation and unanimity.

We have said that the friends of the new institution had a right to form it, if they saw fit; we mean, that they had a right, as Englishmen, to act as they pleased; but as Christians, that right was to be exercised under a deep sense of their responsibility to God, and with an earnestdesire not to cause a schism or scandal if it could be conscientiously avoided. That they acted honestly it is our comfort not only to presume but to believe: but we are not persuaded that they acted wisely, and the more we look at the whole proceeding, the more we feel assured that the separation was unnecessary; and the more we discern of the evil effects which have resulted and will yet result from it, at least till the real nature of the question is every where understood, and matters return to their former channel. We will not recapitulate what has been so frequently stated of the character, the simplicity, and the lawfulness of the Bible Society's truly scriptural principle, or of the difficulties and errors which necessarily arise the moment we lose sight of it. Already have its opposers gone from one change to another; and while we are writing, the Westminster Bible Society, formed only last month, is already advertising a meeting to re-model its new constitution. One of the rectifications, we presume, will be to expunge the regulation about taking the Socinian's money, and allowing him no voice in the management: for Captain Gordon, in attempting to shew that the old society was in a dilemma by taking the Socinian's guinea, says they could not "accept the Socinian's

guinea, and deny him the privilege of stating why he subscribed it." Yet he himself is a member of the new Westminster Society which perpetrates this injustice, and which is gravely defended by friends of the new Bible Society, especially one writer in the Record, on the ground that the silver and the gold being the Lord's, the saints ought to have the management of it though the ungodly contribute it. These and other difficulties will increase, and not least as respects the solemnity of prayer. Mr. Armstrong has as much right to be chaplain to the society as Mr. Howells, and will, perhaps, be as little restrained in the expression of his peculiar notions as he was in the Reformation Society; from which he has been obliged to be excluded, notwithstanding the advocacy of Mr. Rhind and Mr. Thelwall. But will Mr. Howells patiently say Amen to such a prayer? Mr. Wolff, also, may likely enough be in England at the next meeting, to denounce his fellow-labourers in the Lord's vineyard, as he does in the last Number of the Morning Watch, as "speculating, trading, Ephesian-silversmith-like Protestant missionaries ;" and with them the "evangelical Pharisees" and other members of the "evangelical club' who direct missionary institutions. In the mean time, the whole body of pious Dissenters keep aloof; for we do not see among the speakers a single name of a London Dissenting minister. The Dissenters are, in fact, excluded by any test or regulation that is not of equal tension on all parties. Even the truly pious and apostolic Archbishop of Tuam's wellmeant regulation, that at any Bible society which he attends, a clergyman shall pray and no other person, and that his prayer shall be taken from the Liturgy, is looked upon by the Dissenters as a breach of neutrality, and is splitting the Irish Bible Societies at a moment when their aid is so greatly needed. Blessed, thrice blessed, the privilege of prayer! far too blessed to be made a bone of strife and contention!

Our friends, we repeat, have a right to act as they will, and no person would wish to control them, if their own sense of duty and of love to the peace and good order of the church of Christ do not do it. But let them look well as Christian men to the issue. We have already stated our sad but firm belief that the new measure will neither tend to the glory of God nor the spiritual welfare of the world. In innumerable places where the faithful ministers and servants of Christ are living in love and union and joy in the Holy Ghost, and exerting themselves to the best of the ability which God gives them for the furtherance of his Gospel, this new institution willcome forward with its claims, under a shew

of purer zeal and holier effort; and though the great majority of the friends of religion in the place may and will discern the real nature of the question, and continue steadfast, unmoveable, and abounding in the work of the Lord; yet here and there a well-meaning but weak brother, or a few of the younger members of female committees, will become distressed, and perhaps turned aside, by plausible but not solid objections, which, according to Mr. Hughes's admirably selected motto of "Specie decipimur recti," are likely to stagger conscientious but not well-instructed minds. Thus the torch of discord will be introduced; party spirit will rage; war will ensue; all the religious institutions of the place will be paralysed and exposed to fearful peril; the righteous will be grieved; the wicked will blaspheme; Satan will triumph; and the Holy Ghost, whose emblem is the dove, will quit the contentious scene. If it must needs be that such offences come, let not those who mourn over them take any part in their introduction.

We do not feel inclined to analyse the speeches delivered at the formation of this society, more especially as we have only the report of them in the Record, which, though apparently authentic so far as it extends, does not comprise the whole matter uttered at a protracted meeting. One portion of them is very judiciously abridged; and we are far from finding fault with the omission; we mean the misstatements and vituperations of some of the speakers respecting the Bible Society; and also those denouncements on Christendom, those fearful foreboding interpretations from unfulfilled prophecy, and those allusions to politics, the house of commons, the reform bill, and other measures of government, which though they abundantly evinced the feelings of the founders, certainly were not necessary for the formation of a Bible Society. Mr. Melvill's speech would have borne pruning in some of these particulars; as, for instance, where he says that the Bible Society "has promulgated and supported neology on the continent," and "at home given heresy a dignity, and struck at truth with a sledge hammer;" to say nothing of the not seemly jest of "manufacturing a Millennium by a certain quantity of paper and sheep-skin." It is well that some irreligious senator or Bible-Society advocate did not thus sport with a Scriptural allusion, or the conductors of the Record would not have spared him".

In the report of the speeches in the Record, it is said that Mr. Melvill, in the course of his remarks "was UNDERSTOOD to allude to the article in the last Number of the Christian Observer, which the Editor WAS UNDERSTOOD to have had reprinted and circulated at the doors of the meeting."

The old, never credible, never proved, and often and abundantly disproved inventions about the Bible Society's abetting the circulation of an infidel preface, committing dreadful atrocities in the matter

Had this false and absurd story been merely an assertion of the conductors of the Record, it might have been safely left to its own confutation, for it would be superfluous to spend our pages in contradicting the many unfounded statements circulated by that paper, and which have already gone far towards working their own cure with all lovers of truth and honest dealing: but as the fabrication is inserted in the body of a report of a society, which, from its containing the society's documents may be supposed to bear a stamp of authenticity, it may be as well to state, in passing, that it is purely one of those convenient inventions in which the Record, like the Morning Watch, has of late abounded towards the Christian Observer, in consequence of our defence of the Bible Society and our refutation of the idle charges of neology which have been alleged against so many of the faithful servants of Christ. Neither "the Editor of the Christian Observer," who is thus unhandsomely singled out, nor any person whatever connected with that work, knows or has ever heard or seen any thing of any such reprint or distribution; nor has any application been made to them, or any one of them, for that purpose. Yet thus are unfounded statements currently thrown out by certain party-spirited writers, and in that most disingenuous of all methods, an "on dit," "it is understood," in order to cast discredit on books or individuals whom it may be convenient to represent as over-zealous, or in some way to get rid of their arguments by false reports respecting their motives or conduct. We have already had occasion to advert to the proceedings of the writers in the Morning Watch in this respect, in a former page of this Number; but having done so, we shall consider ourselves exonerated from a similar duty in future. The Eclectic Review, the Evangelical Magazine, and other religious periodical publications, after many explanations and remonstrances, have long ago felt themselves exempted from this task as regards the Record, under the idea that it is a publication so well known to be "unprincipled," (we specially keep the Eclectic inverted commas,) that it is not worth any honest man's reasoning with or contradicting. We, being more charitable, have continued occasionally to remonstrate; hoping, but vainly, that we should induce its conductors, who have it in their power to be an instrument of public benefit, to be more careful in future. The above-mentioned "on dit," so neatly contrived to bring the Christian Observer and

of the Turkish Testament, and so forth, were reported with all the gloss of novelty upon them, and without even a whisper that they had been oft and oft refuted; and this in the presence of Mr. Platt its Editor into contempt, might have been safely left to find its level with numerous similar inventions, (doubtless innocently believed by some who read them in a religious newspaper); but as this particular fabrication was interwoven into the proceedings of a Bible Society, we have thought it right to contradict it. Here we drop the matter.

But though the Record is welcome to invent as it pleases, with impunity, in future, about the Christian Observer or its Editor, we must not in justice allow it always to do so of other persons, where our refutation, even at the risk of some tediousness or apparent pugnacity, may subserve the cause of truth and charity. We lament that the case of poor Greenfield did not come under our notice long ago; but we are still more pained that the conductors of the Record, so far from expressing their grief that the heart of this pious and gifted young man was broken by the absurd charge of neology so pertinaciously reiterated against his work, goes on to repeat it; adding that they shall pursue their course, "not only were it to implicate the Christian knowledge and discernment of any one Christian in the kingdom however respectable," but "though their work should throw the darkest shade of suspicion over the Christian principles and character of the most respectable men in the kingdom." And is it that persons professing to be Christians care not whose character they wound, or whose heart they break? Of the overweening egotism and self-seeking of a writer who thus takes for granted that he is right, and all the great body of pious and devoted servants of God wrong, we say nothing; but of the effects of such writing on the peace of the church of Christ we might say much, were we not fearful that our own spirit might be chafed by the collision. Nor should we have perhaps alluded to the declaration had it not been that the writer proceeds the very next week to exemplify its truth by selecting a new, and as he is himself ultimately obliged to confess, an innocent victim, yet not more innocent than poor Greenfield who has gone down to the grave, or rather has found rest in the bosom of his God and Saviour, with the stigma of Neologism labelled on his great work, the Comprehensive Bible, which, in consequence of the false whisper of the plague being in the cargo, now loads the publisher's warehouse instead of commanding that rapid circulation which it was previously enjoying. The newly-selected victim is the publisher of a recent edition

himself, whose own excellent pamphlet on the misrepresentations about the Turkish and other versions must have been sufficiently fresh in the memory of Mr. Haldane and other gentlemen, even if the author had so far forgotten it as not to be able at the moment to set the meeting right on the subject. Mr. Platt himself

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of Brown's Self-interpreting Bible, with a life of the author, by his grandson the Rev. T. Patterson. This work, say the conductors of the Record, we have been credibly informed" [on dits and "it is understood" fix a stigma, but leave a loop-hole for retreat, if necessary,]" is deeply tainted with the errors of modern Neologism.' "We can conceive," they add, "few things more revolting or more dangerous than such a corruption of the We work of a holy man of God." concur in this opinion; for few things are more revolting than such conduct, except it be imputing it without solid ground for the charge. And thus, if a young man unknown like Greenfield had been the editor, would the work, its author, and its publishers have been left to sink under the slander; but Mr. Patterson and his bookseller promptly sent to the Record Office such strong attestations, that the charge was obliged to be retracted, but still with the singular reiteration that "we were credibly informed" that it was true. How could they be "credibly" informed of a falsehood, and a falsehood incredible on the very face of it? Perhaps, also, they will repeat that they were "credibly informed that the editor of the Christian Observer had done what he never did or heard of; or will they prefer the alternative of the Morning Watch, that the utmost they can acknowledge is, that as it was not he, it must have been one of his friends? They could not know what was not true; and if they did not know it, they ought not to have published it. But enough and too much of this pettyism into which we are reluctantly dragged by the correction of fabricated statements. The readers of that publication will do well, whenever they read in its columns "it is understood," " we are credibly informed,"

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we have good authority," ,""it is said," &c., to write in the margin "Never credit on dits." It is painful to us to write thus; for our habit has ever been to proceed in peace with our fellow-religious periodicals, several of which we very highly respect and cordially recommend, as we did the Record till it addicted itself to this mournful system of casting abroad firebrands, arrows, and death. If the exposure thus wrung from us should answer the desired end, it will rejoice our hearts; and, far from carping at mere faults or errors to which the best designed works are liable, we shall be glad to do all we CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 360.

was so unjustly and cruelly assailed in Scotland and elsewhere, in consequence of his truly honourable and useful connexion with the Bible Society, that he can, no doubt, well sympathize with those who continue to be exposed to similar calumnies. His attestation to his fellow-labourer, Mr. Greenfield's biblical exertions, inserted in the Bible-Society resolutions in our last Number does him great honour*.

We cannot better conclude these painful remarks than by transcribing from Hayley's life of Cowper, the following letter from that Christian poet, to his friend, the Rev. John Newton. At a time when so much violence of language, of unbecoming temper, and of unhallowed fire, falsely called Christian zeal, are employed against the errors of Socinianism and the delusions of Popery, both in and out of the pulpit, its perusal may be useful to some of those good, but inexperienced and mistaken, ministers and others who appear not to know what manner of spirit they are of; who have well nigh abandoned the scriptural method of "winning souls" to Christ, and require to be put into a better way of defending and promoting the cause of Divine truth.

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can to aid its circulation and utility. A celebrated publisher of Paternoster-row said, some years since, that all the religious newspapers then projected had fallen, because they had not devilism enough in them to gratify public taste.' It is for Christian readers and writers to prove that this taste has mended.

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* It is stated, that, speaking of the society's versions, Mr. Platt did most candidly and honourably declare that it was but seldom that errors in translation had occurred, and that these were incident to human nature. This admission does not, however, appear in the printed report of his speech; and he must lament with us the want of candour of those who suppressed his important and competent testimony, leaving the very contrary to be inferred from the random assertions of worse informed or less scrupulous speakers. It is astonishing to us that Mr. Platt should have been induced to quit a society which protests against all heresies, to join another which chooses out one or two heresies to protest against, and thus virtually accredits others." Thank God, may many a heretic and wicked man say, that I am not a Socinian or Roman Catholic: I at least am not excluded from this new "fellowship on scriptural principles."

5 H

I know not; but for my own part I give full credit for the soundness and rectitude of yours. No man was ever scolded out of his sins: the heart, corrupted as it is, and because it is so, grows angry, if it be not treated with some management and good manners, and scolds again. mastiff will bear perhaps to be stroked, A surly though he will growl even under that operation; but if you touch him roughly, he will bite. There is no grace that the spirit of self can counterfeit with more success than a religious zeal. A man thinks he is fighting for Christ, and he is fighting for his own notions. He thinks be is skilfully searching the hearts of others, when he is only gratifying the malignity of his own, and charitably supposes his hearers destitute of all grace, that he may shine the more in his own eyes by the comparison. When he has performed this notable task, he wonders they are not converted, he has given it them soundly;' and if they do not tremble, and confess that God is in him of a truth, he gives them up as reprobate, incorrigible, and lost for ever. But a man that loves me, if he sees me in an error, will pity me, and endeavour calmly to convince me of it, and persuade me to forsake it. If he had great and good news to tell me, he will not do it angrily, and in much heat and discomposure of spirit. It is not, therefore, easy to conceive on what ground a minister can justify a conduct which only proves that he does not understand his errand. The absurdity of it would certainly strike him if he were not himself deluded. A people will always love a minister, if a minister seem to love his people. The old maxim, Simile agit in simile,' is in no case more exactly verified: therefore you were beloved at Olney,

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and, if you preached to the Chickesaws
by them.
and Chattaws, would be equally beloved
W. C."

As to the Bible Society, we have no
honour God by the circulation of his
fears respecting it. It endeavours to
he will honour.
holy word; and them that honour him
society, or a prophecy-expounding society,
It is not a millennarian
society; but a Bible Society. It is not
or a miracle society, or an anti-reform-bill
a partial Bible Society, but a whole Bible
Society. It is a Trinitarian and an anti-
Socinian and a Protestant Bible Society,
presenting to mankind the whole of God's
not by tests of human imposition, but by
revealed truth, as he saw fit to give it.
proceedings in the spirit of prayer, and
It is a society which has conducted its
whose operations have done more to pro-
mote prayer, both public, private, and
existence.
social, in the world, than any society in

good it has done could not be undone ; its If it perished to-morrow, the Bibles, and the blessings which have by Divine grace attended them, cannot be recalled; some narrow-minded, though well meaning men would wish to annex to it "a corrective:" one would stitch up a tract with its Bibles; another cannot entrust them without a Prayer-book; and another fears contamination from their passing and sheepskin" of which they are manuthrough heretical hands, or the "paper factured being purchased with heterodox guineas. These fears appear to us wholly visionary; but where they are conscientiously entertained, it is the duty of those who take larger and more scriptural views to set the matter in a right light; but as for party-spirit, as the venerable Bishop of Salisbury said on this very matter long ago, it has neither eyes nor ears.

.

LIST OF NEW PUBLICATIONS.

Discourses on the Sabbath. By the Rev. R. Wardlaw, D.D. 4s. 6d.

Sermon on the Unknown Tongues. By R. M. Beverley.

Sermons by the Rev. E. Payson, D.D. of the United States. 10s. 6d.

Sermon on the Cause and Cure of National Distress. By the Rev. L. Booker, D.D.

Sermons by the Rev. J. Campbell, late of Row. 1 vol. 6s.

Memoir of the late Rev. R. P. Beachcroft. By the Rev. T. A. Methuen. 5s. The Sincere Convert. By the Rev. T. Shepherd, reprinted by the Religious Tract Society.

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