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as the other writers of the apostolic epistles wrote to the brethren of the Churches-to "all the holy brethren." Seeing then, that the Bible is made up of these several parts, who can resist the conclusion that it was designed without let or hindrance for the whole people? Yes, my brethren, the Bible, like Christ, was given for the World.

But we have direct evidence from the Bible itself that the Holy Scriptures were designed by God to be read and investigated by all. "Search the Scriptures for you think in them to have life everlasting, and the same are they that give testimony of me." Now, whether you regard this as a command, or as an assertion, you are in either case bound to acknowledge that it was both the duty and the privilege of the Jews to "search the Scriptures." The Bereans were applauded by the inspired historian in the following language: "Now these were more noble than those in Thessalonica, who received the word with all eagerness, daily searching the Scriptures whether these things were so." We have quoted from the Douay version, and the words remain a standing reproof to every Roman Catholic Minister who refuses to his fellow-man the opportunity and privilege of emulating the nobleness of the Berean Christians.

"They have Moses and the Prophets, let them hear them." "From thy infancy," said Paul to Timothy, "thou hast known the Holy Scriptures," a statement which clearly shows what was the domestic practice of the Jews as to scriptural instruction. The last passage which we furnish in support of the Protestant principle

that man's inalienable right is to read the Bible, is from one of the Apostle Peter's letters, in which, speaking of Paul and his writings, he says, "As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are certain things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and the unstable wrest as they do also the other Scriptures to their own destruction." I direct your special attention to this passage, because it proves that St. Paul's epistles were read by the unlearned members of the Christian Church; and because also, though these unlearned Christians wrested the Scriptures of Paul to their own destruction, the Apostle Peter does not command other unlearned Christians to desist from reading them lest they also should similarly wrest them.

But we have the testimony of the ancient Fathers also in favour of the general reading of the Holy Scriptures.

"Search. the Scriptures," says Clement of Alexandria, in his celebrated epistle to the Corinthians. "Who is there," observes Chrysostom, "to whom all is not manifest which is written in the Gospel? Who that shall hear, 'Blessed are the meek, blessed are the merciful, blessed are the pure in heart,' and the rest, would require a teacher to learn any of these things which are here spoken? As also the signs, miracles, histories, are they not known and manifest to every man? This pretence and excuse is but the cloak of our slothfulness. Thou understandest not those things which are written: how shouldst thou understand them" who wilt not so much as slightly look into them?

Take the book into thy hand; read all thy history; and what thou knowest, remember; and what is obscure, go often over it." This Father yet more plainly corroborates the antiquity of the Protestant doctrine and practice, for he says, "The Philosophers speak obscurely, but the Apostles and Prophets make all things delivered by them clear and manifest; and, as the common teachers of the world, have so expounded all things, that every man may, of himself, by bare reading, learn those things which are spoken." The same author, in his Homily on Lazarus, says, "I do always exhort, and will never cease to exhort you, that you will not here only attend to those things which are spoken; but, when you are at home, you continually busy yourselves in reading the Holy Scriptures, which practice also, I have not ceased to urge upon them who come privately to me. For, let no man say,' Alas, causes, I am employed in

I am taken up with lawful public affairs, I follow my trade, I maintain a wife and children, and have a great charge to look to; it is not for me to read the Scripture, but for them which have cast off the world, which have taken up the solitary tops of mountains for their dwellings, which live this contemplative kind of life continually.' What sayest thou, O man? Is it not for thee to turn over the Scriptures, because thou art distracted with many cares? Nay, then it is for thee more than for them; for they do not so much need the help of the Scriptures as thou who art tossed in the midst of the waves of worldly business." He says again, "Wherefore hath the spirit of God so dispensed this word that publicans,

fishers, tent-makers, goat-herds, and shepherds, plain unlettered men may be saved by these books: lest any of the simple sort should pretend this excuse, that all things which are said should be easy to discern; and that the workman, the servant, the poor widow, and the most unlearned of all other, by hearing of the word read might get some gain and profit." The same Father says elsewhere, "I beseech you that you come speedily hither, and hearken diligently to the reading of the Holy Scripture; and not only when you come hither, but also at home take the Bible into your hands, and by your diligent care reap the profit contained in it." Once more, in his Homilies on the Colossians, he exclaims, "Hear I beseech you, ye secular men, provide you Bibles which are the medicines for the soul: at least get the New Testament."

I ask, is this accordant with the present teaching of the Church of Rome? Is it the common practice of the Ministers of that Church, thus to exhort the laity? Who ever heard a Roman Catholic Priest or Bishop beseech his flock to provide themselves Bibles, especially the unlettered and the poor of his flock? Yet, this celebrated Father, as we have seen, did this; and others of the Fathers are not less explicit, not less "Protestant" in the enunciation of their views on the general reading of the Scriptures. Jerome says, "It is for the whole people that the Apostles wrote. The laity ought to abound in the knowledge of the Holy Scriptures." Isidorus affirms, "That the heavenly oracles have been written for the whole human race; even husbandmen," he continues, "are in a condition to learn there what

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it is fitting for them to know. The learned and the ignorant, children and women may equally instruct themselves there." I might multiply quotations, but I forbear. I have furnished these for the purpose of demonstrating to both Protestants and Catholics that the boasted reverence of the Church of Rome for the Fathers is not so supreme as it is sometimes assumed to be, and that antiquity is against her in her present practice of restraining the laity from a free examination of the word of God.

Abundant testimony, therefore, is at hand in favour of the reading of the Sacred Scriptures by the people. Prominent members of the Roman Catholic Church frequently assert that the Bible is not withheld from them, or from the laity generally. We acknowledge that there may be found in the decrees of the Council of Trent one or two clauses favouring such a permission, but then these permissory clauses are so fenced around by restrictions, that they become tantamount to a direct refusal. And here, let me observe, that the authorities of the Roman Catholic Church are not at one on this subject of Bible reading. A conclave of Bishops meeting at Bononia gave the following counsel or advice to Pope Julius III.: "By all means, as little of the Gospel as might be, especially in the vulgar tongue, should be read to the people; and that little which is in the Mass ought to be sufficient; neither should it be permitted to any mortal to read more, for so long as men were contented with that little, all went well with them."

Pope Pius VII. published in 1816, a Bull against

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