THE

ECLECTIC REVIEW,

FOR SEPTEMBER, 1826.

Art. I. 1. Second Review of the Conduct of the Directors of the British

and Foreign Bible Society, containing an Account of the Religious State of the Continent: in Answer to a Letter addressed to the Author by the Rev. Dr. Steinkopff. By Robert Haldane,

Esq. 8vo. pp. 204. Edinburgh, 1826. 2. Review of the Evangelical Magazine and Christian Guardian for

May 1826, on the Apocrypha Controversy. Extracted from the

Edinburgh Christian Instructor. 8vo. pp. 34. Edinburgh, 1826. 3. Review of the Letters by Amicus, in Defence of the British and

Foreign Bible Society, and of the Eclectic Review, and Congregational Magazine, for April, 1826, on the sanie subject. Extracted from the Edinburgh Christian Instructor for June 1826. 8vo.

pp. 50. Edinburgh, 1826. 4. Two Letters addressed to the Rev. G. C. Gorham on some Points

of his “ Statement on the Apocryphal Books," &c. By Leander Van Ess, D.D. With a Reply by George Cornelius Gorbam, B. D. Fellow of Queen's College, Cambridge. 8vo. pp. 126.

London. 1826. THE HE publications on the Apocrypha controversy already

amount to two tolerable-sized octavo volumes ; the M.M. Haldane (uncle and nephew) and Dr. Thomson having contributed upwards of 600 pages to this interminable discussion. For the sake of the journeymen printers, we could earnestly wish them to persevere; the more bulky their pamphlets, the greater the benefit; and all that the warmest friends of the Bible Society can have to wish for, now that to convince or to reclaim them has become almost as undesirable as it always was, in our judgement, hopeless, is, that they would write on. We look upon Dr. Thomson indeed, as having become a most harmless adversary of the Society, having sunk into a personal libeller : he has, indeed, made só venomous an attack, that he Vol. XXVI. N.S.

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has deprived

himself of his fangs. Silenced he cannot be, except by the Court of Session ; but, whatever annoyance he may be able to give to individuals by that species of private warfare, in which he is the humble imitator of The Beacon,' Blackwood, and Cobbett, the Bible Society have little to fear from him.

We promise our readers to be as brief as possible in analysing the only one of these four pamphlets which demands attention from the friends of the Bible Society. The other three will require from us, notice of a different kind.

We cannot concede to Mr. Haldane the praise of uniform fairness, although he is incomparably the most guarded of our opponents; but at the 169th page of his present Review, he comes to the point in a manly manner.

• The question is, what is duty? If it is not sinful to send the Apocrypha with the Bible, let the prejudices of the Continent be respected. If it is in any manner sinful, let no man sin that he may help God.'

We wish that this question had never been lost sight of either by Mr. Haldane or by any other persons who have engaged in the controversy. All the wrangling about the rule of the Society, all the casuistry respecting the interspersed and the annexed apocrypha, all the perplexed and vibrating resolutions of the Earl-street Committee might have been precluded, had this alternative been fairly met. Our deliberate and conscientious conviction, as avowed from the first, is in favour of the negative proposition, that it is not sinful to send the Apocrypha with the Bible ; and here we take our stand. Once let us be driven from this, and we must give up the defence of the Earlstreet Committee altogether; nor can we conceive how any member or officer of that Committee holding the affirmative, that it is sinful, can honourably remain in connexion with it, after having been a party for ten, or perhaps twenty years, to the commission of a known sin. He may, indeed, plead past ignorance, and ascribe his change of mind to a sudden illamination ; but still, such a man cannot be fit to be entrusted with so responsible an office. He ought to have known twenty years ago, whether it was or was not sinful to give away Bibles containing the Apocryphal books. He may say, I never liked giving the Apocrypha ; but this reluctance, which every one of us feels, every Protestant Dissenter more especially, and which ought to give way only before the necessity of the case,—this feeling of reluctance or dislike obviously rendered it the more imperative on the individual that he should look into the question,--the more inevitable that he should ask himself, Is it sinful, or is it not ? Mr. Haldane asks :

"What can be expected of men who, instead of going out of the management of the Society, have, contrary to their own convictions, yielded to the public opinion in a matter of the highest importance, and have pertinaciously clung to their places in the Committee? Is this acting like men of principle?'

To this question we reply: From men who, though not feeling their past conduct to be either sinful or reprehensible, in giving away the Apocrypha, yet deem it proper that the voice of a majority of the subscribers to the Institution should

govern their future proceedings, every thing may be expected that is at once upright and conciliatory. There is no intelligible reason-Mr. Haldane gives none, nor can he with all his ingenuity frame the shadow of a reason-why such men should go out of the management of a society; because it cannot be contrary to their convictions, not to give the Apocrypha; they give up no one principle, but simply submit to a restriction on their proceedings, which they deem unnecessary, and in its ultimate consequences injurious. But the case is altogether different with an individual, if such there be, who has been for a series of years acting against his convictions, and who nosv should profess tardily to yield, not to public opinion, but to his own reproving conscience. These would be the men, if they existed in the Earl-street Committee, we humbly submit, who should go out, and by a public confession attest the sincerity of their repentance.

Will Mr. Haldane bear with us if, merely for argument's sake, without any disrespect to the Church of Scotland and its inimitable Metrical Psalter, we put the Scotch Psalms instead of the Apocrypha, and suppose a Committee who should have been in the habit of expending the funds of the Public in printing that book, after solemnly pledging themselves to dis seminate the Scriptures only, without note or comment; till at length, their conduct is called in question as at variance with their own rules and loud pretensions, and some unreasonable persons denounce the venerable composition itself as far from unobjectionable. Upon this, the Committee, instead of going out, yield to the public opinion, and consent to omit the metrical Psalms, pertinaciously clinging to their places. May they be Mr. Haldane's men of principle? They would perhaps say, We have ourselves no objection to continue the practice which we abandon ; we see no impropriety in it, but we think it proper to yield the point. But what if a member of such a Committee should say, I am conyinced that it was altogether sinful

for us to expend the public money in such a way, and to circulate such miserable doggrel as a translation of the sublimest compositions of the Inspired Volume, and I have always acted against my conscience in doing so? Would he be the man to deserve our confidence ?

Every Church of England man deems it lawful, and in many cases advisable, to give away the Bible with the Book of Common Prayer annexed. If, however, contrary to his own convictions of the lawfulness of so doing, he yields this point, on becoming a member of the British and Foreign Bible Society, and, in a matter of so high importance, consents to be bound, as a member of the Society, to give away the Bible only, without the Prayer-Book annexed, he ceases, it seems, to act like a mau of principle! Unless he hold it unlawful to give away the Prayer-book, he ought on no account to yield the point, or to abstain from so doing,- that is, if he would secure Mr. Haldane's good opinion, by a becoming measure of uncompromising Christian-obstinacy.

Mr. Haldane only requires at present, that Dr. Steinkopff and three fourths' of the Earl street Committee should be turned out ;-the reverend Secretary, because somebody has told Mr. H., that he, Dr. S., said in 1821, that he would resign, if a stop was put to the circulation of the Apocrypha the committee-men, because their principles,' somebody else says, ' are such that it is a matter of indifference with them

whether they circulate the pure Bible or the Bible and Tom • Thumb.' We are wandering again from the main question, but our readers will not think it wrong if we advert for a few minutes to so grave changes as these, resting on the threefold authority of Robert Haldane, Esq. and his two London correspondents, the Messrs. Somebody

We shall not pay Dr. Steinkopff the ill compliment of supposing that he stands in need of any defence on our part, against the ungenerous aspersions and haughty sarcasnis of his present opponent. Wherever Dr. Steinkopff is known, the rude and supercilious treatment he here meets with, will injure only the reputation of his assailant. Not having had any communication with Dr. Steinkopff for some years, we do not know, nor should we care to inquire, whether he ever did make the declaration which Mr. Haldane says he is informed that Dr. S. made five years ago, and on the ground of which he asks: 'Why has he not resigned now? Why does he cling to • office ? Dr. Sieinkopff may, for any thing we know to the contrary, have entertained such an intention at the time refer- . red to, and may subsequently have been persuaded to abandon it. But are a man's intentions, deliberate or hasty, whether

privately or publicly intimated, to be adduced on hearsay five years after, as the ground of a calumnious charge, as if he had uttered a falsehood or violated an engagement? We think that Dr. Steinkopff, if he had suffered himself to be frightened from his post or to be bullied into resigning, would have discovered weakness of character, and that he has done well to stand by his colleagues and by the Society, whatever may have been his intentions or his wishes. The religious public will, we apprehend, be of the same opinion.

Bui more is meant than meets the ear. Both Mr. Haldane and Dr. Thomson are very anxious to prove, that Dr. Steinkopff and every other officer of the Bible Society are influenced by the most sordid and disgraceful motives in their attachment to the Bible Society. The former begins by insulting the Foreign Secretary with all the purse-proud feeling of a man of wealth.

1 have moreover used some endeavours, as well as Dr. Steinkopff, to circulate the Word of God, although I never received any pecuniary aid from others to assist me in my journeys on the Continent for that end; nor do I enjoy a salary for that purpose. I find no fault with Dr. Steinkopff because the expenses of his journeys abroad are defrayed; but I do blame him for receiving 3001. a year out of those funds which are collected by Bible Societies, (a great proportion of them from the poor,) to multiply and disseminate copies of the Bible. That subordinate agents in a society, who quit their other occupations, and give up their time to its service, should be remunerated and supported, is equitable and necessary. But that pastors of churches, who continue to be such, not being prevented by the time they give to the business of the society from doing the duty of their office, should accept of salaries from a religious society,-more especially if, as I am informed, is the case with Dr. Steinkopff, they have a competency of their own besides, appears very reprehensible. This mercenary spirit seems to be creeping into religious societies more and wiore.' p. 117.

Dr. Thomson follows in his own peculiar style. We shall give the first three of a string of twenty questions, the nature of which may be judged of from the sample.

• Ques. Mr. Hughes; you were at the formation of the British and Foreign Bible Society, and at that period, you told the public, that the Bible Society was, “ by circulating the Bible only, to circulate pure truth, pure religion, pure morality, and to offer the hungry multitude the finest wheat, without tares and without chaff.” But you have since lent your aid as a Secretary of that very Society in circulating spurious Bibles to an incalculable extent, and thus in circulating impure religion and impure morality, and mixing tares and chaff with the wheat. Pray, what do you receive for these your services ?

• Ans. Three hundred pounds a year.