terious and terrible importance belonged-on whose slightest action the spirits of light and darkness looked with anxious interest-who had been destined, before heaven and earth were created, to enjoy a felicity which should continue when heaven and earth should have passed away. Events which short-sighted politicians ascribed to earthly causes, had been ordained on his account. For his sake empires had risen, and flourished, and decayed. For his sake, the Almighty had proclaimed his will by the pen of the Evangelist, and the harp of the Prophet. He had been wrested, by no common deliverance, from the grasp of no common foe. He had been rausomed by the sweat of no vulgar agony, by the blood of no earthly sacrifice. It was for him that the sun had been darkened, that the rocks had been rent, that the dead bad arisen, that all nature had shuddered at the sufferings of her expiring God!

Thus the Puritan was made up of two different men-the one all selfabasement, penitence, gratitude, passion; the other, proud, calm, inflexible, sagacious. He prostrated himself in the dust before his Maker: but he set his foot on the neck of his king. In his devotional retirement, he prayed with convulsions, and groans, and tears. He was half maddened by glorious or terrible illusions. He heard the lyres of angels, or the tempting whispers of fiends. He caught a gleam of the Beatific Vision, or woke screaming from dreams of everlasting fire. Like Vane, he thought himself intrusted with the sceptre of the millennial year. Like Fleetwood, he cried, in the bit terness of his soul, that God had hidden his face from him. But, when he took his seat in the council, or girt on his sword for war, these tempestuous workings of the soul had left no perceptible trace behind them. People who saw nothing of the godly but their uncouth visages, and heard nothing from them but their groans and their whining hymns, might laugh at them;

but those had little reason to laugh who encountered them in the hall of debate, or in the field of battle. These fanatics brought to civil and military affairs, a coolness of judgment, and an immutability of purpose, which some writers have thought inconsistent with their religious zeal; but which were, in fact, the necessary effects of it. The intensity of their feelings on one subject, made them tranquil on every other. One overpowering sentiment had subjected to itself pity and hatred, ambition and fear. Death had lost its terrors, and pleasure its charms. They had their smiles and their tears, their raptures and their sorrows, but not for the things of this world. Enthusiasm had made them stoics, had cleared their minds from every vulgar passion and prejudice, and raised them above the influence of danger and of corruption. It sometimes might lead them to pursue unwise ends, but never to choose unwise means. They went through the world like Sir Artegale's Iron man Talus, with his flail crushing and trampling down oppressors; mingling with human beings, but having neither part nor lot with human infirmities; insensible to fatigue, to pleasure, and to pain; not to be pierced by any weapon, not to be withstood by any barrier.

Such we believe to have been the character of the Puritans. We perceive the absurdity of their manners; we dislike the sullen gloom of their domestic habits. We acknowledge that the tone of their minds was often injured by straining after things too high for mortal reach: and we know that, in spite of their hatred of Popery, they too often fell into the worst vices of that bad system, intolerance and extravagant austerity,-that they had their anchorites and their crusades, their Dunstans and their De Montforts, their Dominics and their Escobars. Yet, when all circumstances are taken into consideration, we do not hesitate to pronounce them a brave, a wise, an honest, and a useful body.

RECENT DEATHS.

REV. DAVID BOGUE, D.D.

ON Monday, October 23, in the 77th year of his age, died the Rev. Dr. Bogue, long known in the religious world as pastor of the Independent Church at Gosport, and tutor of the Seminary established there by the London Missionary Society, of which Society, as well as of the British and Foreign Bible Society, he was one of the founders. The event took place at Brighton, whither he had gone to attend the meeting of the Brighton Auxiliary Missionary Society. The funeral sermon was preached by Dr. Winter, and will, we understand, be published. As an author, Dr. Bogue attained considerable celebrity, by his Essay on the Authenticity of the New Testament;" and his " Discourses on the Millennium." He will be long remembered, with affectionate veneration, by a large circle of friends and admirers.

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REV. JOSEPH DAWSON.

DIED, at Maidstone, on the 6th of October, the Rev. Joseph Dawson. For many years he was the respected and esteemed pastor of the Baptist Church at Lyme, Dorsetshire. After he left Lyme, he spent several years at Staines, where he supplied that declining interest with unwearied attention, though not with considerable success. The last years of his life were obscured with dark clouds of affliction; but we have no doubt he has now reached that country, of which it is emphatically said, "There shall be no night there."

REV. DR. BALDWIN,

OF BOSTON, U. S.

MANY of our readers will be concerned to hear, that intelligence has been recently received of the death of the Rev. Dr. Baldwin, pastor of the Baptist Church at Boston, U.S.

1. Statement of the Committee of the Edinburgh Bible Society, relative to the Circulation of the Apocrypha by the British and Foreign Bible Society. London, Hamilton, Pp. 16. 2. Remarks on the Propriety of applying the Funds of the British and Foreign Bible Society, to the Circulation of such Foreign Versions as contain the Apocrypha, in Places where no other Versions will be generally received. With a Preface, containing Observations on the Statement, &c. of the Rev. G. C. Gorham, B. D. By H. Venn, M. A. Quarto.

3. A Statement submitted to the Mem

bers of the British and Foreign Bible Society, on the Unlawfulness of circulating the Apocryphal Books indiscriminately mingled with the inspired Writings. By George Cornelius Gorham, B. D.

Second Edition.

Hatchard, Octavo. Pp. 63. 4. Twenty-one Reasons for not contributing to the Circulation of the Apocrypha among the Churches which deem it Canonical. Octavo, Pp. 7. Of all the controversies that have taken place in England on the subject of religion, since the period of the Reformation, none has been so entirely and exclusively Protestant, or which has involved so many important considerations, as that to which the pamphlets now on our table relate.

Former controversies between Pro

testants and Papists, Episcopalians and Dissenters, have related either to the Doctrines or Discipline, the Constitution or Officers of the Church; but this comes directly at the foundation principle of the Reformation: to the very corner-stone on which the building rested, by which alone it can be supported, and the superstructure be eventually raised and perfected."The question to be decided is, Whether the funds of the Bible Society shall be employed to support the Protestant Canon of Scripture, composed exclusively of the Inspired books, and considered as the alone rule of faith and practice; or whether the Popish Canon shall be also circulated, of

which the Apocryphal books make a component part, and which are binding upon the consciences of Roman Catholics, upon pain of their everlasting destruction?"

The British and Foreign Bible Society was doubtless built upon this simple principle, thus unequivocally expressed :-"the sole object of which sball be, to encourage a wider circulation of the scriptures without note or comment." As if, however, they had foreseen the difficulty of encouraging the circulation of the scriptures without human additions among the Foreign Protestant Churches; it was added, "the only copies in the languages of the United Kingdom to be circulated by the Society, shall be the authorized

version."

In strict conformity with the spirit of this rule, the Apocrypha has never made any part of those copies which have been circulated in the United Kingdom; but as to those which, by its means, have been circulated in Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and Russia, the Apocryphal books have, in general, been bound up with them: for as the received versions of those respective foreign Protestant churches contained the Apocrypha, the Society did not think itself as acting contrary to their fundamental rule in granting them pecuniary aid for the purchase of the Scriptures.

Before we proceed to notice the controversy itself, on this subject, it may be necessary to give an account of the principal circumstances which have led to it, and which have involved the Committee of the Parent Society in so many, and, probably, inextricable difficulties: which threaten the disruption of this most noble institution.

A fact not generally known, except by scholars, has been recently brought to light as to the condition of the Popish Editions of the Scriptures, translated from the Vulgate, respecting the Apocryphal Books. Unlike the arrangement in our Bibles, which took place at the Reformation in England, of putting them in a separate series, and marking them Apocrypha," i. e.

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books not in the Canon, and of doubtful authority, they have been, since the Council of Trent, interspersed with the inspired books, without any mark by which they can be distinguished from them. Thus, after the inspired book of Nehemiah, come the apocryphal books of Tobit, and Judith; after the inspired book of Esther, the apocryphal book of The Rest of Esther. After the inspired book of The Song of Solomon, the apocryphal books of Wisdom, and Ecclesiasticus; after the inspired book of Jeremiah, the apocryphal books of Baruch, with the Epistle of Jeremiah; after the 24th verse of the 3rd chapter of the inspired book of Daniel, is the apocryphal book of The Song of the Three Children: and at the close of the book of Daniel, are the apocryphal books of The Story of Susanna, and of The Idol Bel and the Dragon: and after the inspired book of Malachi, the two apocryphal books of the Maccabees. The Vulgate, as translated by Jerome at the end of the fourth century, and from which the Popish versions are made, contained the inspired and apocryphal books in this intermingled manner; but the latter were distinguished from the former by a short notice prefixed by Jerome, informing the reader, that the book did not belong to the Canon of Scripture. In addition to these, he wrote what has been called his "helmeted Preface," excluding the Apocrypha from the Canon. About the ninth century another precaution was adopted, by placing a note after each of Jerome's eleven prefaces, "This is not in the Canon." Bishop Cosin calls this a distinction written as with a pen of iron, that it may never be forgotten." When the Reformation commenced in Germany, Luther and his colleagues found it necessary, in their controversies with the Papists, (who appealed to the Apocrypha with as much confidence as if they were inspired writings,) to take their stand upon the inspired scriptures alone; and in Luther's translation of the Bible, he carefully separated these books from those of the Canon. John Wickliff, long before this, had made a greater distinction between those books than even Jerome had done, by writing under each, "This be no boke of belief;" but it was John Rogers the martyr, who translated the Apocrypha, and added it to Coverdale's

Bible, in 1535. In this Bible, the book of Baruch comes after the Prophecy of Jeremiah. In the Bible called Matthews's, a second edition of William Tyndal's, which had been printed three years before at Antwerp, without the Apocrypha. In this new editiou, all the fourteen books of Apocrypha were appended to the Old Testament. These were called, "The Volume of the Bokes called Hagiographa;" or holy writings," but in Cranmer's Bible, printed 1539, they were called Apocrypha; or "hidden writings."

The church of Rome became justly alarmed (their craft was in danger,) when Luther denied both the authority of tradition, and of all merely ecclesiastical writings; and, therefore, at the famous Council of Trent, in 1546, they passed the infamous decree, that the writings which had been formerly esteemed by the Romish doctors themselves uninspired, were sacred and canonical," and to be received “with the same piety and reverence as the other scriptures."

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Having thus brought the subject clearly before our readers, as to the state of the Bible as received in Popish countries, we now proceed to mention the particular event which led to the Bible Society controversy respecting it.

In the month of August, 1824, the Rev. Leander Van Ess, a foreign Roman Catholic, applied to the Parent Society for authority to print, at their expense, his translation of the Old Testament Scriptures, “with permission from them to intersperse, aud mix up with them, according to the order adopted by the Romish Church, the apocryphal books: the additional expense thus incurred, being defrayed by him and his friends." The Parent Society accordingly voted a grant of money for that purpose, and in so doing they seem to have had no consciousness of having violated their original rule, or "sole object," of providing for "the circulation of the Holy Scriptures alone, without note or comment." Indeed it appears, that up to the year 1822, it had been their practice to vote grants of money to Protestant Bible Societies, in order to pay for the printing of copies of the Holy Scriptures, to which were appended the apocryphal books; and in other instances they had encouraged the Popish editions in which they were intermingled.

In that year, an objection was made to this latter practice by some members of the Parent Society, which led the Committee, on the 19th of August, 1822, to pass the following resolution, namely:

"Resolved-That when grants shall be made by any of the [Foreign] Bible Societies, in connexion with this Institution, which are accustomed to circulate the Apocrypha, it be stated to such Societies, that the attention of the Committee having been called to the fundamental rule of the Society, as limiting the application of its funds to the circulation of the Holy Scriptures; and it appearing that this view of the said rule has been taken from the beginning by the great body of its members; the Committee, anxious on the one hand to keep entire good faith with all the members of the Society, and, on the other, to maintain unimpaired the friendship which it has had the happiness so long to hold with Bible Societies, which circulate books esteemed apocryphal in this country, requests of those Societies, that they will appropriate all future grants which they may receive from the British and Foreign Bible Society, exclusively to the printing of the books of the Old and New Testament, as generally received in this country; such Societies remaining at full liberty to apply their own funds in whatever way, as to the printing and circulation of the Apocrypha, it may seem good to them."

By this resolution they refused to sanction the intermixture of the apocryphal books; but by the grant of Dr. L. V. Ess, they returned to that practice, with a reservation, indeed, impossible to be fulfilled, that "the money of the Parent Society should be applied exclusively to the paying for the Canonical books."

On the 20th of December, 1824, the Committee, after having again discussed the merits of the question respecting encouraging the circulation of the Apocrypha, they returned again to the principle adopted in August, 1822, and passed the following resolution, viz.: "That no pecuniary grants be made by the British and Foreign Bible Society, for the purpose of aiding the printing and publishing any edition of the Bible, in which the Apocrypha

VOL. XVII,

shall be interspersed with the Canonical books of Holy Scripture and that all grants of money to Foreign Societies, which are accustomed to publish Bibles containing the Apocrypha, be made under the express stipulation, and the assurance of the parties receiving the same, that such grants shall be exclusively applied to printing and publishing Canonical books of scripture only."

The Statement of the Committee of the Edinburgh Bible Society, fully explains the circumstance which led to these different and fluctuating measures by the Committee of the Parent Society. The knowledge of the vote to assist the Rev. Leander Van Ess, to publish his Old Testament, having been made known to them, produced considerable dissatisfaction in that quarter, and they accordingly opened a correspondence with London. This led, as it should appear, to the alteration made by the resolution of the Parent Committee in December, 1824.

On this resolution being transmitted to Edinburgh, they were still dissatisfied; and on the 17th of January, 1825, they passed several very strong resolutions: in these they say, that an adherence, strict, avowed, and unequivocal, to the essential principle of the Society, the circulation of the scriptures without note or comment, is essential to insure its permanent unanimity and success, and even the existence of the Society; that the Society stands pledged by its rules and printed statements, to confine its labours to the circulation of the Holy Scriptures alone;that they considered the circulation of the apocryphal writingsin any way whatever, directly or indirectly, through the funds of the Bible Society, to be contrary to the original covenants entered into with the religious public, and to the solemn asseverations on the subject of the exclusive distribution of holy scripture in its annual reports;-that in whatever degree the influence of the Bible Society had tended to encourage the circulation of the apocryphal writings, it had gone out of its original course to give its sanction to a human composition replete with error, which wickedly assumes to be a revelation from beaven;-that the resolutions of the 19th of August, 1822, and the 20th of December, 1824, while they appear to

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