ther that, and the heedless multitude will attach themselves round their respective teachers, supporting and detending nothing but the oracles of their own temple, and quarrelling together on the high road to heaven.

"Gentlemen, you know what human nature is-when once a few artful individuals have gained a certain ascendancy. over men's minds, they can make them subservient to all the purposes of interest and ambition, or whatever degraded and selfish passions may actuate them. By the means I have pointed out, these men will gain their bread-from the ignorance they encourage or produce, some of them will derive princely revenues, and others will obtain what is more gra tifying to some low minds-a certain spiritual controul over their votaries-the title of reverend and holy-the ve neration of an admiring multitude-and the pleasure of be ing looked up to as the associates of heaven, and the interpreters of the divine will! It will not be impossible to find even good men joining in this collusion, and becoming the active agents of the association; for the respect it gains from its antiquity, the combination of its principles and operations in all the concerns of life, may possibly render some of them the dupes of their own deception, and they may ac tually go on unconscious of the mischief they are producing to society. In the mean while, as to the Bible, SIR, if in the goodness of your nature you suppose it will be able to stand against and to correct the evils which will surround it, you form too favourable an opinion of the head and the heart of man. It will be in vain for us to impress upon the people the necessity of their thinking and inves tigating for themselves-it will be in vain for us to tell them of the many recommendations of Jesus and his apostles to search the scriptures, to prove all things, and to judge of themselves what is truth!--it will be in vain for us to shew to them that equality and unity were the basis of the Christian churches in primitive days, and that the task of teaching and exhortation was mutual, and not confined to any particular class of men!-it will be in vain for us to point out the evils they are inflicting upon themselves and their posterity; the degradation and insults to which they are submitting the foolish sacrifice of their property and their liberty-they will not hear us--they will call us the enemies to God and to religion-and their leaders having so much at stake will even dare to oppose us from the very Bible we are putting into their hands!-Ah! my Lords and Gentlemen, you are amazed-you look at each other with astonishment--I see the colour rising in your cheeks-I un

derstand the murmur which runs through the assembly-you are indignant, and justly indignant-these feelings are what might be expected from the men I have the honour to address; but moderate yourselves, and prepare, as men, to hear the worst! As the truth and simplicity of Christianity would ill suit the purposes of their teachers, they will corrupt its truths, and pervert its simplicity--they will load the religion of Jesus with ceremony-they will dress it out in splendid attire-they will associate with it every thing that can strike the feelings, and inflame the passions! By these means, at every religious entertainment, these men will have made themselves necessary to lead off and preside at the ceremonies without them the Deity must not be approached, or his courts entered, except privately!!

"It would be expecting too much to suppose the sublime doctrines of Christianity can escape the spreading contagion: -the worship of one God-the hope of a future state of existence the necessity of virtue and goodness to fit us for the enjoyment of that state-can you believe that these plain sober truths will suit the itching ears of the people, or that the teacher would give them without any admixture of error? No, SIR; it may be-and you will hardly contemplate it as possible! Yet it may be, that in the room of the ONE Gop of your Bible, a plurality of Gods may be set up!! The Gods of the Christian worship may be represented as capricious, revengeful, and partial! The future happiness of man, instead of depending on his own exertion, may be considered as a bargain and a job among the Gods! and all that is low, that is mean, that is grovelling, may assume the name of Divine truth! Nay, into the book we are distributing will these men go to defend and support their heathenish fables. By dividing and subdividing this book-by taking here a bit and there a bit-by uniting parts which bear no relation to each other, and separating that which should remain entire-they will be able to prove any thing they choose to undertake, and thus the scriptures will be rendered of noneffect by their glosses and interpretations! And, SIR, it is a grievous fact to know, that the scriptures have already passed through their hands, and that they have in some respects suffered in their passage down to us on that account.

Mr. HALE has just told us in his address, that "the Bible is a perfect book."* Another Gentleman has quoted the authority of Sir William Jones to the same effect, who represents it has having God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth without any mixture of error for its sub* See Report, page 34.

ject. If this is intended to refer to the Bible in its present state, and in the state we mean to distribute it, I must beg to differ from those gentlemen.

"I have the enlightened and liberal authority of the CHAIR, that it is not your intention to attach to the Scriptures the singularities of any one form of religion.' And I presume further, it is not your intention to attach to them the peculiarities of any one mode of faith; if so, let me say there are Christian sects who consider the common version of the scriptures very incorrect, and its text in some instances corupted-there are two chapters in the beginning of Matthew and Luke's gospels, which they insist were never written by those writers-they state them to contain circumstances repugnant to reason, and contrary to every other part of the scriptures, as well as to Christianity itself; and they have written books to show from history, and from the comparison of internal evidence, that those chapters are forgeries! Now, Gentlemen, your candour, your love of truth, your ardent desire to spread nothing but the pure doetrines of our Master, will induce you to pause, and to examine the arguments which are adduced on this subject, before you send that as truth into every part of the habitable globe, which may possibly be false ! From the incorrect translation of the scriptures also,much obscurity must arise, and erroneous doctrines find an apparent foundation therein-there cannot be an individual in this enlightened assembly, who will be startled at the thought of pointing out the imperfections of the authorised version of the scriptures! It is about two centuries since complaints were made of the great faults which existed in the translation then authorised to be read; in consequence of which, James 1. ordered a new translation of the Bible. Now if there was nothing wrong in the principle which produced the version of the scriptures our institution purposes to dis tribute, there can be nothing wrong in the principle which would require a better version. If it was right in sixteen hundred and three to direct public attention to the errors of the authorised translation of the Bible, who will object to to my doing the same in eighteen hundred and thirteen? There is not a man so ignorant of the subject as to suppose the translators of our present version left no errors to correct, no faults to amend-when they have actually made our master Jesus bless a crust of bread, and an apostle to speak of God as having laid down his life for us!" Indeed there have not been wanting persons to insinuate *See Report, page 39. + Report, page 40.

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that the recommendation of James, that "the Bible read in the church, commonly called the Bishop's Bible, was to receive as few alterations as might be"-might possibly have had some effect on the integrity ofthe translators, to say nothing of the order issued to the Archbishops and Bishops, to keep all the livings and preferments open, which might occur in their gift and presentation, as a trifling support to these translators, whose ecclesiastical preferments were so small as to be" far unmeet for men of their defence;" but this is an idea that must not be entertained for a moment against men of their defence!!

"Gentlemen, it has been considered a desideratum in literature, to have as correct translations as can possibly be obtained of the prophane writers; and shall those who prize so much a chaste version of Virgil be indifferent to the purity of the translation of PAUL! Is it that the subject of the latter is inferior in magnitude and importance to the former ? or why do you pay that respect to the poet which you refuse to the apostle? These hints the Institution will attend to, and being rich in good works will unquestionably devote some of its influence and its funds to obtain as perfect a version as possible of that book, which contains all that is -authentic of the dealings of God with man-which is replete with the best lessons of religion and morality-and which we are putting with so much zeal into the hands of

men.

"These unsound parts of the version we are distributing become doubly dangerous on account of the association by which we are opposed-on those very parts its members will fix in support of the mad doctrines they will 'teach as scripture truth-and when we attempt to drive them from their posts, and to show the correct reading of those parts, it will be too late-they will render all our attempts abortive, by declaring us the enemies to the Bible, and by stigmatizing our principle as calculated at once to throw su-picion on the whole of the scriptures!

"But, Gentlemen, after all, the radical evil is in the existence of this body of men. Desirable as would be a correct text to our scriptures-even if that were obtained—if our, Bible were written with an angel's pen-clear as chrystal! chaste as snow! these men would still succeed in corrupting and perverting truth-in blasting all our fair hopes, and disappointing all our dear expectations, as long as they con fined the right of teaching and of instruction to themselves, and ruined the free constitution of the Christian churches. "Gentlemen, as there is hardly any point of corrup

tion to which these men will not obtain, I carry my mind to consequences which I hope are only remotely possi ble. Suppose kings should ever again become ambitious, and princes debauched, and rulers corrupt-these teachers may sell themselves to the state, and become the active instruments, or the solemn defenders, of venality and corruption-having robbed the people of their religious liberties, they might soon deprive them of their political rights-under all the forms and shew of religion they might prostitute themselves to the most odious of purposes! In such a state of things one might conceive a vile, a depraved, and an abandonoued Prince! a beast of a man !! SIR, living in the habitual exercise of vices which are disgraceful in the very dregs of society, and yet daring to present himself at the altar between the intervals of pleasure and intoxication-at that altar where the Bible would be read at that altar where our holy religion would be professed-at that altar where one of these teachers would offi ciate at that altar which God would be invoked to sanctify with his presence! whilst the blessings of heaven might be called down by the petitioning audience on the polluted and filthy head of this MAN OF SIN!!!

"Under the sway of such a Prince, it would be impossible for the internal economy or the public councils of the nation to be conducted by wisdom and justice the senators in such times would approach such a Prince in the language of adulation; and though even shocked at the grossness of his vices, they would screen them from public view, lest the people should see farther than they might wish, and penetrate into the depth of that mystery by which they derived all their own wealth, and power, and greatness! The people, SIR, in the mean while, would be oppressed with enormous imposts, in order to support the load of corrup tion under which they would be compelled to labour-the working classes of the country, the strength and sinews of the nation, would be forced away from their natural bearings in society. Poverty, pale, meagre, dejected, care-worn, Poverty, would wander through the land. Nay! start not, my Lords-this is not all-WAR, the scourge and curse of the human species-WAR, with death, and famine, and pestilence, in its train, would desolate the earth!-and Religion-that Religion, which, your Royal Highness and this Assembly are aware, recommends nothing but peace and love among men, and to whose spirit and tenor war is above all things abhorrent! the Christian religion, I say, may even be brought to sanctify its butcheries!!