There is really, Sir, no accounting for the fancies of some of our order. Dean Swift was fond of vulgar manners, and therefore he would take his dinner in a cellar; some clergymen love the sports of the field, and therefore join the hounds at a fox-chase: I suppose this “certain officer of the Society” has a sort of ear for public speaking, and has sometimes stepped a little out of his way in order to gratify it. But then (as you might naturally say) are not the theatres open for him, as well as for his brethren; and if he wants a slice of good oratory, cannot he give six shillings to a box-keeper, and take it like a gentleman? He may perhaps have a doubt (for he seems to hold opinions of his own) “how a clergyman of the church can attend” the theatre, “without danger to his principles, or gross indecorum towards the church and its spiritual superior.” Perhaps also he may entertain a doubt “how a clergyman of the church can, securely, and without breach of trust, take his pupils to hear the harangues of those” dramatic characters, “which,” as Archbishop Tillotson says, “do most notoriously minister to infidelity and vice.” [54a] Possibly “this,” to his understanding, may “not appear to be the likely way ‘to frame and fashion himself and his family according to the doctrine of Christ, and to make both himself and them, as much as in him lieth, wholesome examples and patterns to the flock of Christ,’ [54b] which every clergyman at his ordination solemnly promises to do.” But I think with you, that the whole of this matter “wants clearing up.” I have, I confess, some difficulty about conceiving how this priest can execute either such, or so many duties as he is said to do, of a parochial and domestic nature; and yet find either time to conduct his pupils to hear the church reviled, or pupils tractable enough to be conducted by him. But, as I said before, the whole matter “wants clearing up;” and if you should be found to have aimed a blow at his professional character, which he has not quite deserved, you have nothing to do but to say, as the Roman assassins are reported to do when they stab the wrong man in the dark, “Padrone è un sbaglio,”—“I beg your pardon, it was a mistake.”
Your last objection respects “the purity of the Holy Scriptures,” which, you think, will be endangered “if the translation and edition of the Sacred Book are to be intrusted to all the different denominations of Christians.” [55] The greater part of this objection has been anticipated. It has been already stated that the Society is restrained to editing and distributing the versions, printed by authority, throughout the united kingdom. In supplying the different parts of the European continent, the Society will find the versions already in circulation among the Protestant churches; and its proceedings in these cases will be chiefly directed by those Lutheran prelates and ministers, with whom a confidential communication has, I understand, been already opened, through the medium of its foreign secretary. Nor can there be any danger of the Bible Society intrusting “either the translating or the editing the Holy Scriptures to the care of that denomination of Christians called Papists;” [56a] for, besides the improbability of “that denomination of Christians” joining the Bible Society, there is the absolute certainty, that there would always be in the committee a standing majority against them. With regard to new translations, they relate, as has been already observed, to languages, over which the jurisdiction of the church of England would be as nugatory as that of any other denomination of Christians. The manner of conducting these must be almost, if not entirely, matter of discretion; and such a committee as the Bible Society has been shown to possess, affords the best security that such discretion will never be wanted. So far as the influence of the church in these cases is of importance, she has it, by the natural constitution of the committee; and if a preponderating influence be desirable, the doors are opened for obtaining it by proportional subscription. Should she adopt this measure, as I trust she will, “you see the consequences as well as I can.” The Society will then contain, beyond all question, a standing majority in favor of the church; and there will be no room for apprehending that “our present pure English Bible will be thrust aside to make way for others:” but while “every different party has its doctrine and its interpretation,” all parties will have but one Bible. [56b]
But, it seems, you have got possession of a fact which strengthens all your fears: you have been “credibly informed that the British and Foreign Bible Society are at this time preparing an edition of the Holy Scriptures in the Welsh language, in which such liberties are taken in the translation as are by no means warrantable.” You are right in saying you give this “merely as a report;” however, I cannot help suspecting that, where the Bible Society, or any of its officers, are likely to suffer by it, you have no particular objection to publishing what are “merely reports.” Others before you have charged upon the Society the nefarious crime of taking “unwarrantable liberties with the translation” and they had just as good authority for saying so as you have. The fact is, that the original informer never imputed to the Society the guilt of altering the translation, but the orthography of the text; and he, it must be observed, had never seen any portion of the corrected copy. But before your pamphlet left the press—perhaps before it went there; the parties, to whom the information had been originally conveyed, were in possession of another sort of report—a Report from the Committee of the British and Foreign Bible Society; in which the corrections that had occasioned this alarm, were shown to have been made (whether right or wrong, judicent periti), upon a collation of the orthographical variations, in the several authorized editions only. However, the question between the parties is in a train of arbitration, under the direction of the syndics of the Cambridge University-press; who, and not the Committee of the Bible Society, are to be the printers of the Welsh impression.
But lest the Welsh rumour should subside before the Society is overthrown, you have another little story to keep up the public prejudice against it. “The author (you say) has likewise been told, that the distribution of tracts as well as Bibles, was in the original plan of some of the first projectors of this scheme, one of whom is known to be a zealous adversary of the establishment.” [58a] Now, Sir, it is very possible that the original projector of this Society, and his project too, may have been very exceptionable, and yet the present institution be entitled to a very honorable character. I have never thought the worse of the Reformation, because I could not for the life of me think well of Henry the Eighth and his “original plan.” The “Philanthropic Society” is founded upon a supposition, which I think a very just one, that something may be made of the offspring, when nothing can be made of the parent; [58b] and I suppose the Country Clergyman would rather have his pamphlet judged from the fair copy which he sent to the press, than from any one of those “original plans” of it, which were projected by his busy and inquisitive reporters. The question is, whether the actual plan of the Society comprehends or excludes the distribution of tracts. The answer to this is, that the first article of the constitution peremptorily excludes them. After such a declaration, it is as unreasonable to dispute the present object of the Bible Society, by a reference to any antecedent designs; as it would be to question whether the Paradise Lost be an epic poem, merely because it stood as a drama in Milton’s “original plan.”
But I have done.—My business was not to proclaim the excellence of the Bible Society; but only to rescue it from reproach. I have therefore confined my remarks to those specific objections with which you have opposed it.
What further objections you could have produced (and, it seems, you have nine times as many in reserve) [59] I shall not concern myself to inquire: if they resemble those, which have been already considered, I rejoice that you have had the grace to conceal them. You have already condescended enough “to do the enemy’s work:” and deserved sufficiently well of those who seek the church’s degradation. If this be really the object of the several denominations of Christians, they are abundantly more indebted to the hostility of the cassock than to the friendship of the mitre. Yours, Sir, is the description of services upon which they will set the most value: and, if they do you justice, “not a single nonconformist, Papist, Socinian, or Quaker, will be silent in your praise.”—“Ungrateful wretches would they be, were they to pass by unnoticed and un-eulogized so great a friend to their cause.” [60a] But I trust you have mistaken them, as much as you have dishonored us: they will hope to get to heaven, though they should not have pulled down the church in their way; and we shall hope to get there too, though we should not have compelled them “to be like-minded,” nor refused them the free use of Bibles, and the offices of brotherly love.
And now, Sir, before I take my leave (a ceremony to which we are hastening with mutual impatience), let me challenge your acknowledgment of that courteousness and suavity with which I have treated you. It was natural for you to expect revilings and reproaches; you esteem them an “honor;” you “have enjoyed them before;” [60b] and I must do you the justice to say, that you take some pains to deserve them. However, in the present instance, you have been disappointed. I have neither reviled nor reproached you: I have not once called you “Beelzebub,” through the whole of my letter: I have never once insinuated that you were a wolf in sheep’s clothing: I have never once pried into the table of your alliances, nor dodged you from your house to your favorite places of amusement, nor pretended to know any more of your private history, than was strictly consistent with “a gentleman and a Christian.”
I owe this self-government to “those liberal-basis’d and broad-bottomed principles,” to which you appear so profound a stranger: and I trust, this consideration will do a great deal towards recommending them to your favor. They are, Sir, be assured, the genuine principles of Christianity, as well as those of the British constitution. They are calculated to reflect honor on the church, and to promote harmony through the nation. On them the British and Foreign Bible Society has been erected; and from such an institution, resting upon such “a basis,” the happiest events may, under God, be expected, to the country—to Europe—and to the habitable world.
I am, Rev. Sir,
Your humble Servant.