Sir, If we set his relationship for God apart (and if they on whom the education of the country is made to depend are to be trusted, we want no God, or at least can do better than He), I believe it is a just definition of man that he is a laughing animal; for there are some things, speaking as a man, essentially ridiculous; and this, sir, is one of them. Of course you know that I mean the so-called scripture lessons of the Board—the new authorized version of the lovers of education for the instruction of the poor Irish—a Board that honestly desires to provide the well-being of the conductors of schools. How kind and considerate!
But, sir, this is not all. Mr. Carlile, I suppose, knows Hebrew, and this is a translation. Nothing else would answer the purpose— “meet the exigency of the case” —cut the Gordian-knot that tied the destinies of just education, but that some one should sit down and make a new translation of the Bible, or at least such parts of it as were fit to be translated; and here it is with notes, critical, explanatory, and practical. I trust, sir, you will give due publicity to this important fact, for the benefit of others as well as the poor Irish children, that the translator knows Hebrew. He does know what Eden means, and he does not exactly know what Shaphan means; but, for the purpose of making it more clearly intelligible to the rising generation, he proposed to call it Shaphan; neither Coney nor Ischin, nor Daman-Israel, which it is called when the unknown animal is known, answering the purpose at least for Irish children: so we have given the original Hebrew.
As for Eden, very intelligible it would be to say, The children of pleasure which were in Thelassar; or Hasan, or Camah, and pleasure, the merchants of Sheba, and, or planted a garden in pleasure. However, the translator says it may be rendered either as a proper name, or as an epithet. And the translator knows Hebrew—knows Hebrew! knows enough of that, and everything else too, to set at rest all the difficult questions which have hindered Irish education time out of mind, and give just the quantum of scripture which will satisfy Papists and Protestants, Presbyterians, Arians and Socinians, and above all himself (God, sir, we must remember, is put out of question), with just the right sense and nobody to dispute it. Ο happy ages, that we should have one such man! Nothing wanted and nothing too much—a little bit of David's piety, and that of course rightly applied and understood; and a little bit of his own, which others may apply and understand as they like—a little of the Apostle Paul's commentary with his to explain it; and a little bit of his own without anybody to explain it at all; and those who shall not worship the golden image, set up, as it is, by these monarchs of education, with the trumpet of their own unanimous recommendation! A golden head of wickedness they are. Happy age! that we should have one such man to be the common instrument of so noble an oligarchy in enlightening the happy children of this once unhappy land; that Sabellians, and Papists, and Socinians, and doctors, should find one to make a new translation of the scriptures of God, which should satisfy them all, and enlighten the Irish in Hebrew, and the world as to his attainments. How interesting to see the poor little Irish children considering what Zaphnath-paaneah meant in the Egyptian language upon the authority of Jerome, and comparing it with what others think, and the habits of the Chinese language; or studying the distinction between doctors and Heliopolis without knowing what others think at all! But then indeed the translator knows all this, though what all this is hard to tell.
There is one thing indeed I had forgotten, that the Board honestly desires to provide the well-being of the conductors of schools. Why the translator must have been aiming at the literary education of the priests—cramming them, I suppose, to appear in the new schools; and this is an instance of “the Board's” friendship and affection for them. Conceive, sir, I pray you, the thought that would sparkle in the mind of a poor little garcoon (after an account that lambs are supposed to signify some unknown coin, though the translator and the commissioners call them lambs) at these ominous letters, the LXX, and that coupled with such a rapid accumulation of uncouth names, Vulgate (pity we had not Jerome again and his prologus galeatus too about the Maccabees and some other books—I wonder will they appear in the new translation: why not? It is only a history framed without the slightest influence from any peculiar view of Christianity), and ancient versions. However, in the midst of these wonders, he has this comfort, that, though last not least the new translation leads him to the conclusion, which, with his ability to estimate an unknown Hebrew word, will be particularly satisfactory—that lambs mean an unknown coin. Ο fortunati nimium sua si bona norint Agricolae! More might be added, sir, to illustrate the mass of learning which has been accumulated in the new translation, as that Syrian means Aramite, for the use of schools.
But I have done with the translator now, sir. Of all the egregious instances of self-confident flippancy, this provision of Hebrew annotations for the benefit of the Irish children is the most ridiculous. We shall see just now its evil. But there is one serious comfort in it; the translator was even thought to be a Christian, and it gives one hope that this may yet be true, and that it is but a fall, a case when Christians may yet pray for him. It sets beyond all doubt what the writer has never doubted—that it was the snare laid for a man who felt dissatisfied with his situation as inadequate to what he supposed to be his powers, and was led to embrace one which seemed to give him the consequence to which he was entitled. We may trust he may feel the evil honor he has received, and that the praise of God is better than the feeling of self-consequence of ungodly men. I said, sir, I had done with the translator. With the commissioners I must deal seriously; for the weakness of self-confidence is a different thing from iniquity of principle and the mischief flowing from it.
We must bear in mind, for I, sir, at least shall never let it out of my mind, that the system has been introduced in the lieu of one in which the scriptures were read, whether Douay or protestant version—that this was the vital defect of the system, and that because it was opposed to the principles of the Roman Catholic religion. That is, sir—God in His wisdom had been pleased (for the mere right of man is the feeblest side of the question) to write a book for the instruction of His creatures for men. Certain men have stepped in and said, men shall not read it; virtually alleging either the incompetency of God to do it fitly, or His want of authority to do it at all: and rising up in effect to say, that what God had sent, the message of His love and wisdom and mercy, is unfit for man, or at any rate man shall not have it. This is the blasphemy of a system with which we, as Christians, have to contend—the blasphemy of prohibiting, not man, sir, to read, but God to send to His creatures the message of His own will in His own way.
The existing government, of which these commissioners are the instruments, have acquiesced in this. The principles of the Roman Catholic religion are in this to be acquiesced in. God is to be held not to be so entitled; and to hold that He is, renders any system, however otherwise innocent, vitally defective. To the maintenance of these principles the commissioners have set their hands, and that the devil may degrade, as far as possible, any who have any pretensions to Christianity, one becomes the instrument of producing a book which is to take the place—no, that it can never do, but be instead—of the scriptures: which alters them, because they will not do as they are. People may reason and tell falsehoods in prefaces. The scriptures are not used or allowed in the schools, and these lessons are; that is, they are instead of them. Men may talk, in miserable dishonesty, about introduction to the scriptures: are the scriptures allowed to be in the schools? Are they not excluded, and these brought in, because they are so excluded? I would rather far, sir, meet an honest opposer of God's word, than a disingenuous excuse for an act, which is to support the worst and most comprehensive blasphemy against God's authority which can be till Antichrist is revealed—the denial of God's right to speak to every one His will as He has thought fit.
I do not altogether accuse the translator of this disingenuity. He has hired himself to a citizen of that country, and they have sent him into the fields to feed swine. But, sir, in attempting to color the effect, we have the real character of the work admitted. Then, when they get to a certain point of the devil's delusions, they are unconscious often that their excuses are their condemnation. “No passage has been either introduced or omitted under the influence of any peculiar view of Christianity, doctrinal or practical.” That is, the selections have been made without the slightest reference to the truths which they contain. What could the devil himself wish more than to divest the scriptures of those powers of truth which apply themselves to the heart of man, and so turn them into a history, or vague and powerless exhibition of facts, without any purpose, unless to tell us what Shaphans were!
God has always a purpose, and a well-ordered purpose, in all He writes: this doubtless man would avoid. He would cull and pick and choose, and think it wisdom, with professed indifference to the purpose of God. Has Christianity no view of its own? Has God no peculiar view of man, in respect of which He has selected those things from his history, in which the character of His dealings has been manifested, and recorded as such, for those on whom the ends of the world are come? Yes, sir, but these are offensive to man, and God's selection won't do. A Mr. Carlile, or an enemy to God and man, one whom he believes to be the servant of Satan, must come and make selections, in which he must be either wiser than God in doing it, or else do it in order to divest it of all the power and point for the purpose of which God had so selected and arranged it. Away with the disgusting blasphemies! Such must be the result, sir. If I have the wisdom of God, I must have given it just as God gave it; if I have not, I must break in, in ignorance, upon the very purposes and the very connection which God has purposely, in His divine and active and considerate wisdom, therein established. But here, sir, it is made a boast that the influence of any peculiar view of Christianity has been excluded, that is, any view at all: for when there are many, which is in this sentence assumed, each must be peculiar. But they must have introduced the extracts with some view, or they could make no selection. They have a view, but a view which purposely excludes every object with which God caused it to be written.
But, sir, the point is, that God has a view, and has given scripture with this view. It is God's select history of the world, and it is from this that the enemy of God recoils. If it be a matter of indifference which of two views of Christianity I adopt, it is perfectly clear that both are immaterial. And this is the form which infidelity is now assuming, and this is the form in which it is expressed in this selection. The next thing is, sir, that it is a comment; and a comment cannot be made without any peculiar view. If I apply one scripture to another, I affirm at once its sense. For example, I think many of the quotations from the new translation remarkably calculated to mislead, as affirming that to be their application to which they allude merely, having some other object in view, or which is merely the occasion of much further testimony. They have been taken out of the associations in which God has placed them, and set in those in which these infidels have placed them, without the opportunity of seeing or comparing them with those in which they really stand. And observe, sir, it is done with purpose. They are to learn the use of the sacred history from this. So that it is an authorized comment giving the sense and use of what they read; giving it as a poor wretched man has taken it from a few parts, perhaps misapplied, of God's vast and all-comprehensive word. Wretched compiler! I pity the degradation to which he has been brought. So that while they have not been introduced or omitted under the influence of any peculiar view of Christianity they do teach the use of the sacred history, which has therefore in fact no peculiar view at all, doctrinal or practical. This notion of peculiar view is very plausible with the infidelity of the present day, as it hates any peculiar view which will give that energy of truth which will rescue from the domination of Antichrist. Give all the scriptures, and we want none, for God will give His own. But a selection without a peculiar view is nonsense, save in the pointed deprival of scripture of all power of truth; and a selecting for other reasons besides the truth which it contains, must turn the very word of God itself into a broken cistern which holds no water: the last form of infidelity, the essence of it in those days, short of open rebellion against the Lamb, and the preparation of men for it. In a word, it amounts to an assertion that we may learn the use of the sacred history, its piety, and its doctrines too, without receiving any truth by virtue of which blasphemies against that truth should not be indifferent to us.
The divinity of Christ is a peculiarity with a Socinian. The distinction of persons is a peculiarity with a Sabellian. The unity of Christ's mediatorship and justification by faith, and the final sufficiency of Christ's one sacrifice, are peculiarities with the abettors of Popery; and I must divest myself of the consciousness of the existence of these truths, before I can select from scripture for the instruction of the young. The moment you select, you become a teacher. This book proves it. You must select for some reason. Give all the scriptures, and let them teach, and God's blessing will follow, But as a selector you are a teacher—a responsible teacher; and the point here selected to be taught is, that you may learn the use of the sacred history in total indifference to all the truths it contains; for a selection can be made from which its use can be learned where these truths have not been allowed to exercise the slightest influence on the introduction or omission of any one passage in it. In a word, not merely is the scripture thus excluded, but that is introduced from which children are to learn its use, independent of and to the exclusion of the truths which it contains. And the real way we are taught to read it profitably is to read it apart, and as man shall select it too, from the influence of those truths; in a word, to turn God out of His own word.
The peculiar truths of the Bible, sir, are the weapons of God's power over the heart of man. Take these out of the scriptures, and the salt has lost its savor, and wherewith shall it be salted? “What is the history of Abraham to me, but that he was the friend of God, that his very name reminds me that he is the father of all them that believe, that have the faith of that Abraham who believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness; and that it was written not for his sake only, but for us also to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on Him who raised up our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead who was delivered for our offenses and raised again for our justification. But the selection must be made without the influence of any of these things. The ties by which God has linked Himself with the wants, the necessities, and the sorrows of His creatures that He might deliver them out of them, developed in dispensations unfolding and unfolded by the glory of His Son Jesus, the “Word made flesh, must be broken, defaced. Anything which under divine grace could raise the energies, the feelings, and the thoughts of man, by the sympathies of God, and a love which provided objects such as naught but grace could give to hope through a freely wrought redemption, ending in the glory of Him who established it; all must be concealed. It is a peculiar view of Christianity, and the selection must be compiled from a book which contains it all fresh from God's own hand, and fraught with the tender character of God's own wisdom; and the child must read (without permission to wander into fresher pastures of liberty under the security of the good Shepherd) with this only care, that their influence be utterly excluded. Such, sir, is the professed object and principle of this new translation. As far as anything of scripture goes, we are to be delivered up to “the blighting influences of a cold and heartless skepticism, which, whilst planting nothing in the mind, can produce nothing but the extinction of its best hopes and efforts.”
But, sir, there is a remedy proposed. I know not, sir, why it is, but I am not yet quite used to the iniquity of these days. I never doubted the infidelity on which the whole of the new system of education was based, but the unblushing effrontery with which it is carried on in this preface, (while it cannot rouse my indignation—for these men are too bad for me to feel indignant about—while I doubt not they are wise in their generation in it,) so far amazes me as exhibiting the extent to which Satan reckons on the very form of principle being gone. There is a remedy proposed for the professed emptiness of all scriptural truth and principle by which this new translation is characterized. “To the religious instructors of the children they cheerfully leave, in communicating that instruction, the use of the sacred volume itself as containing those doctrines and precepts, a knowledge of which must lie at the foundation of all true religion.”
The first thing which I may remark here, sir, is the full confirmation of what I have previously said as to the exclusion of all scripture principles from that which has been substituted for the scriptures in the instruction of the children. For it is to another source here described they are left for the acquirement “of those doctrines and precepts, a knowledge of which must lie at the foundation of all true religion.” That then which is given in the school, as instead of the scriptures, is not merely free from peculiar views of Christianity, but does not contain those doctrines and precepts, a knowledge of which must lie at the foundation of all true religion. For these they are referred somewhere else. Does it contain what constitutes the superstructure first? I suppose not. What then? Nothing; and it is from that which thus confessedly contains nothing that the use of the sacred history is to be learned. And it is such a compilation which is an introduction to the sacred volume, and which is to lead to a more general and more profitable perusal of the word of God.
But we have here, sir, honestly afforded us what is really done, and the gross dishonor done to scripture, and the disgraceful character which is really meant to be by these lessons associated with it in the minds of the children, just dawning into thought. But is it ever meant that the poor children have the opportunity of receiving their impressions of scripture from scripture itself? Far from it, sir. These things, such as they are, are an introduction to scripture; but where is the scripture they are to be introduced to? Recognized in the schools? Oh no! Excluded from them, by way, I suppose, of introducing them to it, making them thirst after forbidden fruit, while the selection is left empty of the doctrines and precepts which lie at the foundation of all true religion, in order to teach them what they are to thirst after; but where are the scriptures they are to be introduced to? They cheerfully leave the use of the sacred volume—to whom? to “the religious instructors of the children!” No, sir, the children must never have them. The rich may, because they will; instructors may, of what sort God knows the commissioners are upon friendly and affectionate terms with them; but the poor, sir, the poor children, are never to have them. It is not to their well-being the commissioners are looking. Well, indeed, they wrote their own judgment when they said, “They were honestly desirous to promote the well-being of the conductors;” for if ever there was anything which marked their heartless and base apathy, as to the poor children, it is this book; indeed as far as priests and infidels go, their honest desire, if honest it can be called, is to promote the well-being of the conductors.
And is it really so, sir? Does Dr. Whately—I cannot bring myself to call him Archbishop of Dublin—does Mr. Carlile—I sorrow when I think— does Dr. Sadleir, cheerfully leave the use of the sacred volume to priests to instruct children out of? Do they take away the scriptures out of their hands, and cheerfully leave them to the priests for their instruction? Am I right, sir, in reading that, “the use of the sacred volume is left to the instructors!” That it does not enter into the contemplation of these persons, that the children should ever see the book, but that they cheerfully leave its use to others to instruct them as they see fit out of it? This is such a gratuitous profession of apostasy of principle, such a profession of heartless disregard for the interests, nay the rights, in the sight of God, of the poor children, that (save as an evidence, as I said before, Satan was exhibiting how far he reckoned upon the destruction of the form of principle) it would be utterly unintelligible. They might have left it in the dark; they might, however heartless and unchristian, have said, They can get Bibles for themselves if they like it; but to show that they positively dissociated the children and any use of the scriptures, to leave it to the use of their instructors, and cheerfully too!
Oh! sir, if I were not used to these things, if I were not accustomed to evil, I could weep—I could weep for the church (oh! how fallen) whose leading characters are identified with such a system. But it is not to a haughty enemy I should tell my sorrows. The path of faith lies difficult but clear. But, sir, while they speak of a system to associate children without peculiarities, the whole system is in itself the infidel development of popery. The children were associated on the principle of reading the scriptures—a strong broad principle in which God sought His views of Christianity, and His authority was recognized; for the subjection to His word was the recognition of His authority. Here the children are given such parts of scripture as man chooses to select, as the authority of man—that is a fact—thinks fitting, and in such connections as man thinks fitting; and the use of the sacred volume itself is left to the instructors.
Why talk of different denominations being brought together? This is precisely Popery. The system is Popery. I care not now as to the principle (however I might in effect) whether the instructors are ministers or priests: the children are not given the scriptures, but delivered up to men, to whom the use of those scriptures is left for their instruction in the doctrines, precepts, and glories of Christianity. There is no other principle recognized in this statement. If you wish to exist, if you wish the principles of God (the principles on which and with which God has blessed you) to exist, arouse yourselves, ministers, Christians, you that fear God. Talk not of parliaments and petitions, but arouse the minds of the people affected by these things. Testify about them to the people whose children would be sent to these schools of Satan, whose only dealing with scripture is to extract all the virtue from it, that the last instrument of God to rescue man may lose its reclaiming power. A mutilated scripture! (surely shall God's judgments come upon them!) from which that which is peculiar in Christianity has been excluded, that the comments of men to explain the nothings that are left may be introduced to them, their wisdom, and beguile the simple.
All that is valuable in scripture is peculiar, for it is a revelation, a revelation of that which is the supreme actings of God's love, whose thoughts are not as our thoughts, but as far above them as the heavens are higher than the earth. All that is the mere fruit of God's will, all that is the object of faith, must by virtue of its existence be peculiar both from what it is, and from being the object of revelation. Poor ruined lost man wants what is peculiar, or he is lost forever: everything that is not is but part of his ruin; all else is blessedly peculiar. By this as the subject of revelation man is subjected to God, for he receives it on the authority of God's word. It is the obedience of faith. Hence the two great points, the presenting the contents of scripture (the great peculiar facts and truths as such in their reclaiming power), and the authority on which we receive them; so that on the one hand we might be certified that the love contained in them was God's love indeed; and on the other, that we might be subjected to His authority; in a word, that our faith and hope might be in God.
In contending against scripture, Popery covertly, and infidelity openly, deprive us of both these. And so do these commissioners. The authority and instruction of man is substituted for God's, and the lessons are framed upon the principle, that nothing should be introduced or omitted from any peculiar view of Christianity. But this is not all, sir. They positively teach none. Here is that which is given of scripture to the children in the school—that which it affords suitable to them. Here are the lessons which they can learn out of it. But they are taught by the arrangement of their schools that these cannot teach them the doctrines and precepts, the knowledge of which must lie at the foundation of all true religion. They must go to instructors—to men—for that. Such is the direct conclusion from the arrangement, that which is meant upon the face of it, and indeed so stated in this preface, the use of the Bible being loft in it to the instructors. This is a positive profession of the worst form in which Popery arrays itself on this subject. If, sir, the publication of this preface shows how completely infidelity prevails, that the contrary feeling does not even arouse the professors of it to any guardedness in its expression, we may at least feel thankful that those whose eyes have not been closed by its delusions should receive a warning from its openness as to the position they are placed in. But I cannot help asking what will the clergy do as to the archbishop, who cheerfully leaves the use of the sacred volume to the popish instructors of the children? Is there any integrity left?
(To be continued.)