USE AND ABUSE OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES.

      REVIEW.

Observations of the Use and Abuse of the Holy Scriptures, as exhibited in the Discipline and Practice of the Protestant and Catholic Communions. By the Rev. W. B. Ullathorne, V.G Sydney, 1834.

. . .   The very first statement in the Rev. Mr. Ullathorne's pamphlet takes for granted, in the usual style of the Romish writers, the whole question at issue between Protestants and Roman Catholics. Mr. U. observes,
  The Catholic Church knows of no change in her doctrine, in her moral laws, or in her general organization.
    If Mr. U. means that the Roman Catholic Church has experienced no change in her doctrine, her laws, or her general organization, since the famous Council of Trent fixed and established her constitution in the fifteenth century, and thereby declared her, as the Duke of Wellington did the British Constitution a few years ago, incapable of reform, we admit the fact while we regard it as the greatest misfortune that could possibly have befallen the Romish Church. Indeed, circumstanced as that Church now is and has been for the last two centuries, the only change of which it can possibly admit is not reformation but destruction ; doubtless that it may be fulfilled which was spoken by the spirit of prophecy, and which protestants consider as referring to the Church and Pope of Rome, whom the Lord will consume with the spirit of his mouth; and DESTROY with the brightness of his coming.
 If Mr. U. means that the Romish Church is the Catholic or Universal Church, the statement carries its own confutation along with it; for not to insist at present on the ascertained and undoubted historical fact, that the protestant doctrine was held by an unbroken succession not only of individuals but of communities, from the time when the Church of Rome first became a persecuting, that is, an apostate Church, down to the Reformation, we would ask Mr: U. how he disposes of the Greek Church—a church which is just as, ancient as his own, and which has never yielded submission to the Roman Pontiff ? How, we ask, does he settle the question of unchangeable catholicity with the Russian and Greek priests, whose pretensions are equally high and who can still point in support of them to the pulpits of the apostle Paul, and the apostle John, and the famous John Chrysostom, whereas Mr. U. can only point in support of the Roman Catholic claims to those of the apostle Peter, and the famous Cyprian, and the famous Augustine. In short, with so important a question still unsettled among the parties themselves, how shall we, poor protestants, decide as to the comparative merits of the two fair sisters, Aholah and, Aholibamah, whose frailty, alas! has been too long known and experienced by the kings of the earth?
 But if Mr. U.means that the Romish Church —a hiero-political system,with a temporal prince having soldiers and bayonets, guns and drums, at its head—is not only the Catholic or Universal Church, but the same in doctrine, in moral laws and in general organization, as the apostolic Churches of Jerusalem, of Antioch, of Ephesus, of Corinth, of Rome, we can only smile at the honest gullibility of those who can swallow the monstrous absurdity. It was the Church of the Reformation that was truly an apostolic Church. And why? Why, just because, like the apostolic Church of Ephesus, she tried them. who said they were apostles (or the successors of apostles) and were not, and found them liars.
 In specifying what is not the practice of the Romish Church Mr. U. observes,
         1st.—It is not, and never has been; the practice of the Catholic church to keep the laity in ignorance of the word of God : to prohibit the word of God ; or in any manner, to withhold the word of God. In endeavouring to collect something like evidence of this negative practice of the Romish Church, to use Mr. U's. own phrase, we turned over to a part of the pamphlet in which he enumerates a number of Roman Catholic translations of the Holy Scriptures, in the hope of finding a Roman Catholic translation of these, Scriptures into the Irish tongue the vernacular language of three or four millions of His Majesty's native-born Roman Catholic subjects. But we were exceedingly mortified to find that no such translation exists, as far at least as Mr. Ullathorne either knows or can testify. In fact; the only existing translation of the Scriptures into the Irish language is that of Bishop Bedell, a Protestant! We would therefore beg leave to amend Mr. U's; statement and to read as follows :— " It is, and always has been the practice of the Roman Catholic Church to keep the native Irish in ignorance of the word of God; virtually to prohibit that word, and actually to withhold it by neglecting to translate it into the vernacular language of the people, and by keeping it locked up in a foreign tongue."
 On this subject we would quote the following passage from the illustrious Count Puffendorf, one of the most learned lawyers and eminent statesmen of his age. It occurs in his Introduction to the History of the principal Kingdoms and States of Europe. London, 1711., page 447.
 The laity are debarred from reading the Holy Scripture, by which means not only the authority of the Clergy is maintained among the people, as if the Priests were the only men that have a privilege to approach to the Divine oracles; but also the laity is thereby prevented from finding out those points in the Scripture, which are repugnant to the interest of the Clergy. For if the people should once get a true understanding of the Scripture, they would not be so forward to follow so blindly the instructions of the Priests. By the same means they prevent the laity from diving too deeply into Divinity, which they pretend belongs only to the Clergy ; and for this reason it is that they attribute the power of explaining the Scripture to the Pope only, that nothing may be brought to light, which may in any ways be prejudicial to the spiritual monarchy. For the same reason the Pope pretends to have the sole authority of deciding all controversies whatsoever.
 Mr. Ullathorne again: observes :—
  2ndly. It has never been the practice of the Catholic church to put into the hands of the laity, promiscuously, translations of the Sacred Scriptures in to their native languages, unaccompanied by note or comment.
   In reference to this statement we would ask Mr Ullathorne if it has ever been the practice of the Roman Catholic Church to put into the hands of the laity promiscuously, (that is generally, we presume,) translations of the Sacred Scriptures with note and comment ? Of course there can be no need for Irish notes and comments, as there is no Irish translation of the Scriptures to make notes or comments upon. But we are confident we are correct in stating that the circulation of the Scriptures in any way is uniformly one of the last practices to which the Romish Church resorts in the religious training of her people.
 3rdly. It has never been the practice of the Catholic church to degrade the divine writings into a mere school-book for the acquirement of the art of reading.
     In protestant schools the scriptures are not put into the hands of children, as a school-book, till they are able to read such writings as those of the apostle John without difficulty. With this limitation, which, however, we do not think absolutely necessary, we would maintain in direct opposition to Mr. Ullathorne's opinion, that the Scriptures are not degraded by being used by those who are learning to read. 1st.—Because one grand object of learning to read is to be able to read the Scriptures; and 2ndly—Because the scholar under an intelligent teacher actually learns much of their contents in learning to read them. Is it any degradation to science to learn to read from such a book as MacCulloch's Course of Reading, one of the best selections of pieces under the character of useful knowledge ever used in a school ? Does it not rather interest the young mind in the subjects presented, and form the basis of a deeper and far more valuable knowledge than that of mere words ? Why should it not be so in religion? Degrade the Scriptures, for sooth, by putting them into the hands of children! How does it degrade them ? Does it weaken their authority or lessen their influence ? The very reverse is the fact; for it not unfrequently happens that God perfects praise even out of the mouths of babes and sucklings, through the simple instrumentality of his own blessed word. We recollect a case of this kind exactly in point. A little Scotch boy of about six years of age, who had unfortunately been grossly neglected in his earlier years by his worthless parents, was taken charge of for some time, merely from motives of humanity, by a respected relative of the writer of this article, and taught to read. The books employed for this purpose were a spelling book and the Bible. The boy was unable to read words of two or three syllables without spelling them, when the portion of the Sacred Scriptures containing the history of Joseph, was put into his hands. He had consequently to spell his way and of course advanced very slowly; but the inimitable beauties of the sacred narrative so captivated the mind of the poor child, and took so firm a hold of his affections, that his progress was ever and anon interrupted with his sobbing and tears. One such fact, we conceive, and there are ten thousand such facts to appeal to, is worth ten thousand antiscriptural arguments from the Romish manufactory of the Rev. Mr. Ullathorne.
   Again, contrast the character and conduct of those who have been respectively trained up on the opposite principles in question; and for this purpose let us go no farther than the United Kingdom. The ancient Parliament of Scotland having entrusted the supervision of all schools and seminaries of learning in that kingdom to the national or Presbyterian clergy, the latter have made the daily reading of the Holy Scriptures a matter of imperative duty in all the schools and seminaries under their charge for the last hundred and fifty years. And what has been the consequence of this national degradation of the Scriptures (to use Mr. Ullathorne's phrase) as regards the national morality ? Why, the reader may form some idea on the subject from the two following facts :—1st, That during a whole century from and after the Union with England, there had been fewer executions in all Scotland than there were in a single year at the close of that period in the city of London ; and 2nd, that twelve hundred soldiers, a number barely sufficient to do garrison duty, are at present found quite sufficient to keep the peace throughout Scotland, while forty thousand fixed bayonets, almost the half of the British army, are found insufficient to keep the peace in Roman Catholic Ireland—that Paradise Regained, in which the Bible has never been degraded into a mere school book, nay, in which it has never even been vulgarized, by being translated into the vernacular language of three or four millions of the people. The rule of the Protestant is, that the Bible is the law, and every individual person, man, woman, and child, the judge of the law. The rule of the Catholic is, that the law is partly written in the Bible, partly unwritten and delivered; and that the judge of the law is not every single person, but the pastors of the church, called, educated, ordained and sent for this purpose—Observations, &c. page 6.
 To come to the point—a thing which Mr. Ullathorne has evidently no wish to do—the doctrine of the Protestant is that the Bible is a revelation or discovery of God's will to man ; not to the man Pope Pius VIII—who arrogantly styles himself the Vicar of Christ and the Vice regent of God upon earth, and who deals out and explains the divine word according as it is needful for the maintenance and support of that anti-scriptural and anti-christian system by which he lives and moves and has his being,—but, to all mankind. The doctrine of the Protestant is that the Bible is a collection of God's letters or epistles to the human race, not to the Roman Catholic clergy exclusively. Now as a revelation is opposed to a concealment, the Protestant has a right to take it for granted that the revelation of God's will to man is intelligible to a man of ordinary understanding, for otherwise it were no revelation at all. And as it is of the very nature of a letter that it is intended to be read, the Protestant rightly conceives that it is the intention of God that he and all mankind should read his letters to men, and that he himself moreover would be highly culpable if he did not read them. For what the Spirit saith it saith to the Churches—not to the Church of Rome and its visible head merely—but to all the churches and to all their members; for it is written, If any man hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches.
   Our duty in this respect is taught us both by apostolic precept and by divine example. Take unto you the whole armour of God, says the Apostle Paul; and in describing that armour he specifies particularly the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Nay our blessed Lord doubtless availed himself of that armour expressly, for our example, when, in his famous conflict with the devil, he repeatedly quoted passages of Scripture to disarm the Tempter, saying again and again—It is written.
 That the Scriptures are intelligible to any man of common understanding "in so far as is needful for the salvation of his soul," Protestants consider not only fixed and certain, but so fixed and certain that they conceive it were little short of blasphemy to deny it. For if any man, says the divine author of our religion, will do the will of my Father which is in heaven, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God; that is, if any man of common understanding will do the will of God, in reference to the Scriptures, by reading them with that attention and humility which be come a sinful creature when reading God's letters to himself on so important a subject as that of his eternal welfare, he will infallibly attain that portion of divine knowledge which is needful for his salvation.
   But in endeavouring to ascertain the mind of God in the Holy Scriptures, the Protestant avails himself of the notes and comments of learned and pious men, as well as the Roman Catholic; and to enlighten his understanding in the know ledge of these Scriptures, and to impress their divine truths upon his heart, he has the stated preaching of the Gospel, catechetical instruction in his youth, and the other appointed means of grace and of spiritual enlightenment in his riper years. But the difference between the Protestant and the Roman Catholic systems consists in this, that while these means of spiritual illumination are regarded under the Protestant system as intended merely to guide the judgement, they are regarded under the Roman Catholic as superseding it.
 The whole tenour of the word of God corresponds with the Protestant system, in this particular. To the Law and to the Testimony was the rule under the old Testament; for if they, that is the teachers of religion, speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. And pray, Mr. Ullathorne, what is the rule under the New Testament ? Why, the apostle Paul informs us when he says, If I, or an angel from heaven, preach unto you any other Gospel than that we have preached, let him be accursed. The apostle here takes it for granted that the people to whom he preached were to judge and determine for themselves whether his own future preaching was in conformity to his past nay whether the preaching of an angel from heaven, supposing they had such a preacher among them, was in conformity to the doctrines he had already taught them himself—those doctrines, to wit, which are contained in the New Testament Scriptures. Now will Mr. Ullathorne pretend to tell us that his own commission, or that even of his master, the Pope of Rome; is to be compared with that of the Apostle Paul, in the character of an interpreter of Scripture ? Surely not. If then the apostle was himself to be tried by the christian people, in regard to the conformity of his future preaching with his past, as contained in the New Testament Scriptures; nay, if an angel from heaven was to be subjected to the same trial, Protestants have surely a good right to subject both Mr. U. and his master to that famous apostolic ordeal, the written word of God. Protestants have accordingly tried the preaching of the Bishops of Rome and their Clergy for the last thousand years by this apostolic test; and finding that it does not at all correspond with the word of God, they have separated themselves from their communion, and come out from among them —leaving them to meet the apostle's anathema, directed against all who should preach a different gospel from what he and his brother-apostles preached, by a counter-anathema from the Vatican, or from Trent, or from wherever else their pretended infallibility may happen to reside for the time, just as they please. [To be Continued. ]

The Colonist 19 March 1835, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article31716322