What then were the grand fears respecting this book? That whoever read it was certain to have his mind alienated from the Church of Rome. A higher eulogium could scarcely be bestowed upon it. Its extraordinary fidelity and extreme perspicuity, notwithstanding the difficulty of rendering perfectly one language into another, will always render it a work of the greatest use.
In distributing this Bible I was accustomed to dwell on its value, to those who were not already acquainted with it, and also to explain the mode of reading so as to understand it. The chief rule is that the Bible can never contradict itself: obscure passages should be explained by others more clear. "The Bible explains the Bible," is the canon of St. Augustine. It is not true that the Fathers are necessary to interpret it; they may sometimes be useful, but more frequently they do harm, since each of them has a different system.
The Church of Rome orders the study of the Fathers in preference to that of the Scriptures; and this she does because in the diversity of their opinions the reader becomes bewildered, and is obliged to have recourse to her for explanation. The grand maxim of the Church, that no private man can be a judge of the Holy Scriptures, is true in one sense; no private individual can impose his own understanding of the Holy Word upon another person; it being revealed to every one for his own especial good. He may, for the edification of others, reveal the fruits of his own experience; but no man can be the spiritual master over another. We have one only spiritual Master, and that is our Lord Jesus Christ. This observation applies to all persons, even to the Pope himself; who, if he be a sincere believer, and an intellectual man, may comprehend the Word of God, as any other sincere believer and intellectual man, whether priest or layman, may comprehend it: if, on the contrary, he be ignorant and stupid, he is not more capable of comprehending it than any other person of the same description. The privileges of the Popes are as unfounded as their pretensions.
Among intelligent people—and there are such in the Church of Rome—one of the chief objections against studying the Scriptures is an idea of their wanting perspicuity. I was asked by one person how it was possible for him to understand so obscure a work. "Why not?" I replied; "are not you as good a judge as the Pope? Nay, if you are a believer, and he is not, you are in that case a better judge than he can be."
"But to understand the Scriptures in a proper manner, it is necessary to read the Fathers!"
"And who has told you so? Doubtless persons who wish to discourage you; since it requires no little resolution to undertake the reading of the Fathers,—a series of more than forty volumes in folio!! No, no, read your Bible, and never trouble your head about the Fathers."
Every day I was thus occupied in conversing about the Scriptures. At first I sought out for persons to introduce the subject to: in a little time I was myself sought out by them. My house became a general rendezvous, and it frequently happened that from morning till night I had not a moment to myself; so many persons were calling on me, either to ask for Bibles, or to discourse with me on what they had already been reading. Many whom I had never seen before came and introduced themselves to me, requesting a Bible, and several repeated to me the very topics I had argued with others; which showed me how widely the truth might be spread through mutual communication. I had at that time but few of the female sex among my converts; I have however been informed that many have since received the truth from their husbands, their fathers, or their brothers.
Besides the Bible, I circulated a few tracts which I had written expressly for the purpose; and I also availed myself of those I had published at Malta, and in Tuscany, through the medium of friends. The most acceptable of all these was that "On the benefit resulting from the death of Christ," by Aonio Paleario; published at Siena, in 1543. This valuable little book, which treats expressly on our justification by faith, and is, in my opinion, the best explanation of the two Epistles of Paul to the Romans and the Galatians that I have yet seen, was so vigorously sought out, and destroyed by the Romish Church, that of fifty thousand copies that were printed during the Author's lifetime, it would scarcely be possible at the present moment to find even a single one in existence; and I myself owe the restoration of it to accidentally discovering an old translation of it in English, in my first visit to London in 1847, which I retranslated into the original Italian. The Author was burnt by the Inquisition, on account of this work, along with the renowned Pietro Carnesecchi, a most learned and pious prelate; and Cardinal Moroni, after a wearisome imprisonment, narrowly escaped a similar fate. His offence, as well as Carnesecchi's, was having put this little treatise of Paleario's into circulation.