Page:Delineation of Roman Catholicism.djvu/77

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CBu. II.] soirrruis. eO nominat/onul or sectarian comment, and thst it is the.del/berate eba- viction of this college that the Bible may be so introduced in perfect consistency with religion8 freedom, and without offence to the peculiar ?enets of any Christian sect." A8 a Roman Catholic bishop, he acted in direct opposition to his onlination vows in approving of the doctrine of* the college. As a Roman Catholic he fayours what is exprossly condemned by the Council of Trent, which forbids the circulation of the Scripture8 in any vernacular tongue, without note or comment; or of even the Roman Catholic version without notes, ualeos the perish priest recommended the individual to the bishop, and then the bishop gave a ,m,/?tm license to him who is thus recommended to be a proper person to be //ce,?ed, or per?n/tt?d to mad God's message to him and every human being. But there is more than presumptive evidence that the bishop of Cincinnati reading of Holy Scripture, and tint 1? co?a?s it a ?? book to be intrusted with children or mature persons without the restrictions which his church imposes. Der Wahrheitsfreund, the German organ of the Roman Catholic Church, edited by the Rev. Mr. Henni, a German priest, and published in Cincinnati, says, in the 29th number, under date of February 7, 1839 :m "Bible seoieties have in thinking Christians produced a just sus- picion, that their zeal, which may please hypocrites, h? for its founda- tion some secret, sinister intentions. However that may be, so much is incontrovertibly true, that those very persons, and those very nations, which have the cltea/?st Bibles, can least agree with regard to religion, ' and are most hostile to each other--that this unlimited reading of the Bible has originated and does still originate--especially in our fanatical America--the most ?b?rd abortim? of phrensy and even ?oenos of Aorr/,? o-/m?. This is the verdict of ?, the judgment of the whole cultivated worM. If every simpleton could take a trandation of the Bible in hiA hands, and pick out for himself that fa/th without which it is impossible to please God, there would be no need of Biblical learning, ordered by all intelligent Protestant churches, which do not, like some sects in this country', scream and croak day and night in the morass of* ignorance and senseless enthusiasm." After endorsing some quotations from German rationalists, "that much in the Bible is so dark that it cannot edify, but only confound the common man; that the prophecies of Daniel, the Song of Solomon, the Revelation of St. John, have done far more injnry than good; that the Bible in the hands of the people will always remain a fatal gift if not accompanied with the right interpretation; that a great multitude of people have been tempted to sin by reading the Bible; that every sec?, every pa?mion finds in the Bible proofs, justilication, and weapons ;" a/ter calling to aid the opinion of* the intidel, David Hume, respecting the Bible, "the Wahrhnitsfreund" eulogizes the decrees of the Council of Trent respecting the re,fiction of Bible reading, and concludes with the following :--" The whole really masonable and religious world ealls aloud with Christ, ' Do not cast pearls before swine.' It was and is only presumption which interpreted the Bible privstely, which printed it Isivately, witich .distr/buted it promiscnously; pride only did this, ? does it now, in order M get Digitized by ?:?00816