Such is our argument. The sum is, that the Sacred Books are replete with good, and that a just appreciation of what is due to our own interests, no less than gratitude for the gift itself, demands from us the consecration of whatever further power Providence has, in these latter days, conferred upon us to that end, to render that good in its utmost extent salutary and efficacious.
And the time for action presses. Already various undertakings are on foot to supply the desired object: and there may be reason to fear, in the failure of help from higher quarters, that some Society—the Religious Tract Society, for example, as suggested by the “Edinburgh Review,” thus following up its recent excellent publication of the New Paragraph Bible—or some self-constituted body, as is this moment sitting in America for this very purpose—or individual scholars—may appropriate the ground we should rather reserve as the Special Sphere for the operations of the highest Authority in the realm.
It only remains that we give utterance to our most fervent hope that this great work may signalize the reign of our beloved Queen. It will not be the least sparkling of the diamonds that will lend lustre to her crown. All concurrent circumstances point to this as the fitting time, and to her Majesty as the appropriate individual to inaugurate the solemnity. Religious scruples have given way to a more enlightened and creditable feeling, and a higher standard of religious truth than that afforded by the present version is plainly a desideratum. The reflections cast upon the Protestant faith in the recent trials for Bible-burning in Ireland, authorized in measure by the concessions of Protestants themselves to the faultiness of the authorized version, wait to be removed. Let her Majesty, following in this respect the example of James I., appoint to this work a body of men the most qualified for the task the realm affords, and we cannot doubt the result will be a version of Holy Scripture incomparably better than the present; thus supplying a fresh cause of exultation in her Majesty’s rule, and a surpassing debt of gratitude to the hand that conferred the boon.
Extract from a Speech of M. Guizot at a late Meeting of the Protestant Biblical Society in Paris. See Times, April 19, 1856.
“Whether we consider the history of nations, or the private life of individuals, the moral efficacy and salutary power of the holy books glowingly manifest themselves. Undoubtedly, even among nations where it is assiduous and general, the reading of the holy books has not the effect of stifling the bad passions of men; it does not obviate all errors and faults. Man remains full of weakness and vice, even when conscious of the presence of God. But the habitual reading of the holy books preserves nations from the greatest perils; it prevents them from forgetting God. It has this advantage—that God remains for them, not an idea, a name, a system of philosophy, a riddle, but the true and living God, under whose eye they constantly live, amid the struggles and casualties of this world.”
Reed and Pardon, Printers, Paternoster Row, London.
FOOTNOTES.
[3] A solitary voice, in the strict sense of the word, was raised by the Rev. Canon Selwyn at the last meeting of Convocation (March, 1856). The motion was not suited to the mollia tempora fandi, perhaps. But, whatever the cause, there can be no doubt of the fitness of the hands into which the motion fell, or that the day is far from being distant when the question will force itself on the notice of Convocation, in all probability, in another shape.
[4] “Essays, Moral and Literary,” by Dr. Vicesimus Knox. No. XLIX.
[8a] See Psalm xxii. throughout. The difficulties attending the entire application of the psalm to Christ are by no means insuperable. Scott unreservedly refers the whole to Christ. Adam Clarke dissents. Psalm lxix. is for the most part a manifest adumbration of the Messiah; and if the difficulties in the way of the entire application of the Psalm to Christ, presented in verse 5, where he is made apparently to lament his foolishness and his guilt, could be surmounted, a great boon, it is conceived, would be granted to all who desire to understand what they read. The representative scheme, besides being open to other objections, has no explicit authority in the Scriptures to recommend it, and the double sense is now all but universally abandoned. Possibly, if the text will not yield in these cases, there are principles of interpretation involved that await future development.