On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
contrary opinion become * general , it realizes the erent which it leads us to anticipate . Surely , if any things can have a tendency to call forth in the public service
the exertions of individuals , it must be an idea of the magnitude of that work in which they are conspiring , and a belief of the permanence of those benefits , which they confer on mankind by every attempt to inform and to enlighten them . "
It appears difficult , if not impossible , to conceive how any Protestant church can be endangered by the union of its members and ministers with Christians of other societies in the dissemination of the scriptures . This panic however has been avowed and
zealously communicated ; though it receives no support from sound argument or well established facts . The church of Scotland countenances the Institution whose cause we are
pleading : and we have never heard of that church being injured by such an exercise of its patronage . Some twenty years since , the dignitaries , the clergy , &c . of the Church of Ireland associated with the dissidents of that
country for the circulation of the Bible . * Has the Church of England more to dread from an association for this object than her sister church ? We surmise that the clamour raised against the Bible Society by one description of the Anglican clergy
proceeds , unconsciously , it may be , from their reluctance to act together with their evangelical brethren . Yet , were there just cause of apprehension , to either the hierarchy or the state , from the body who are so entitled , the mixture of the rest of the clerical
members of the establishment with them in schemes of public usefulness , would , assuredly , prevent { heir having an undue ascendancy . The future historian of that establishment , will be supplied with ample materials for n narrative of the schism thus existing
within its pale : he will enlarge on the origin , the progress , the tendency , the effects , of this division ; and , not improbably , he will feel himself called to remark that it might have been Bong since checked by one measure ,
which was urged indeed with earnestmesa and ability but resisted with success—we mean , a compliance with the prayer of the petitioning clergy in the year 1772 * We have sometimes put the
ques-* Appendix to Dr . Male ' s Sermon , at Dublin , MayOtli , 1796 .
Untitled Article
tion to ourselves , would Lr . $ Johnson have suffered his name to be enrolled among the friends of the Bible Society , had he lived to witness such an institution ? And we are disposed to answer this inquiry in the affirmative . Dr . Johnson , no doubt was one of the highest of high
churchmen . But he appears to have been sensible that , as a Christian and a Protestant , he was brought under obligations which could not be superseded by his affection for the religious communion in which he was educated . From BowelFs Life of this extraordinary man we copy a passage not a little to our purpose : *
"It seems , some of the members of the Society in Scotland for propagating Christian knowledge , had opposed the scheme of translating the Holy Scriptures into the Erse or Gaelic language , from political considerations of the disadvantage of keep . ing up the distinction between the Highlanders and the other inhabitants of North
Britain . Dr . Johnson being informed of this , I suppose by Mr . Drummond , wrote with a generous indignation as follows : \ " ' To Mr . William Drummond . \ "'Sir , u c I did not expect to bear that it could
be , in an assembly convened for the propagation of Christian knowledge , a question whether any nation instructed in religion should receive instruction 5 or whether that instruction should be imparted to them by a translation of the holy books into their own language . If obedience to the will of
God be necessary to happiness , and knowledge of his will be necessary to obedience , I know not how he that withholds this knowledge , or delays it , can be said to love his neighbour as himself . He that voluntarily continues ignorance , is guilty
of all the crimes which ignorance produces ; as to him that should extinguish the tapers of a light-house , might justly be imputed the calamities of shipwrecks . Christianity is the highest perfection of humanity ; and as no man is ffood but as he wishes the ^ 7 ¦ . 1 tli €
good of others , no man can be good in highest degree , who wishes not to others the largest measures of the greatest good . To omit for a year , or for a day , the most efficacious method of advancing Christianity , in compliance with any purpose * that terminate on this side of the grave , i »
a crime of which I know not that the world has y «* t had an example , except in the practice of the planters of America , a « of mortals whom , I suppose , no other ma » wishes to resemble / % > \ This energetic reasoning , ^ Lr W ? ^ quent appeal , ww successful . cl * the author of it still aaion £ the living , ? Vol . ih \< ed . 3 . ) 27 t &c
Untitled Article
376 Review . o—Bible Society .
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1815, page 370, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1761/page/42/
-