of men: this is the preeminence of his Law above those of men; that these restrain the actions, but those enlighten the mind; these punish offences, but those, by informing the judgment and strengthening the reason of man, prevent the commission of them, and direct and instigate him to the practice of virtue." That Church which is built upon a rock must continue by its conformity to the Holy Scriptures; and yours professes that the chief merit of its Liturgy consists in this conformity the wider then that this conformity is shewn, the more compacted becomes every joint, the more secure is the whole of its superstructure; and the more durable will be its gates; that, as the mistress of the whole Protestant faith in Christendom, it shall be preserved! It is therefore far more morally and politically in jurious to the Established Church to check the free diffusion of the Scriptures. You will recollect that when the Disciples questioned whose wife she should be in the resurrection who had seven husbands, error was ascribed to them, and they were charged with neither knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God; Matt. xxii. 29. Mark xii. 24. Had they known them, as it was their duty, they would not have sought an answer to this ridiculous doubt; and this, among very many other passages, shews the neces sity of their free circulation, in order that all mankind may be made wise unto salvation, 2 Tim. iii. 15. If by any obstacles men remain ignorant of them, how can they be fulfilled; Mait. xxvi. 54.? To check the distribution of the Scriptures, would take a way the consolations, as well as the spread, of Divine knowledge, and would be a grievous disobedience of the command, Go and do likewise!— Every ignorant person is as a suffering traveller who needs their ready help; and after the benefit which we have received by them, it is of the darkest ingratitude to do the least towards hiding from others the key of Divine Truth, and the knowledge of their Redeemer, and to deprive the ignorant and unwary travelier of the knowledge of his way, which was written aforetime for our learning, that we, through patience and comfort of these Holy Scriptures might have hope; Rom. xv. 4. The case of

Apollos and many others, besides the Evangelists and Aposties, strongly urge their examples, Acts xviii. 28; and the Bereans afford a strong case in point, who were much respected for having searched the Scriptures for themselves, Acts xvii. 11.

Our Lord in his discourse to the Jews directed them to search the

Scriptures, "for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify of me," John v. 39.Now those Scriptures of the Old Testaiment which he recommended could only mean such as were received in their Synagogue, and read in their worship as genuine, and descending from Moses and the Prophets - he could never have meant any note, paraphrase, or comment upon them, by their fallible Targumists: if he wished to impress upon them a know

de of and love for himself, which they might better acquire by reading those Scriptures which had mentioned him, it is obvious that be would refer them to the originals without any note or comment; and they were most likely to receive these as of authority, to teach and instruct them; as St. Paul afterwards taught his pupil Timothy, that "ali Scripture was given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works, 2 Tim. iii. 16, 17. It is for all the same purposes that the modern disseminators of the Bible fear not to trust it in every hand-the word of God can do no harm to any principality or power or Church in the rational world, which (as St. Peter would have them all) are followers of that which is good, 1 Pet. iii. 13.

Shall vain and frail man, who treads this mortal stage his little hour, and then is numbered with his dust, the mere tenant at will of his little sod, who cannot lift himself above the soil to which he is prone,-shall he presume to say the holy and divine word of God shall go thus far and no further! or that it shall be published only with the Explanation and Commentary of men as fallible and frail as himself! when Deity, condescending to his ignorance, has given his Revelation with the blessed Commentary of his only Son himself, written as of

old

rying his foly Word to the remotest corners of the globe.

The Roman Catholic Church acted until now upon the same rule of restriction, rather more rigidly exacted; and denied to their flock the reading of the Holy Scriptures, or the knowledge of them, without such Catechisms and Comments as their Priesthood thought fit to put into their hands: thus blind ignorance was made to be the mother not only of their devotion, but of their hope; they took it all as their teachers pleased to relate. But at the Reformation, when the English Church became Protestant, a new æra, triumphant for Religion, rose with healing in its wings, and the Scriptures, notwithstanding the struggles of a short period, became general. An attempt was made in the time of Rich. II. A.D. 1350, to suppress this progress by a Bill in the House of Lords to prohibit the use of English Bibles; but it was rejected, on the opposition of John Duke of Lancaster, who is recorded to have said, "We will not be the dregs of all, seeing other Nations have the Law of God, which is the Law of our faith, written in their own language." I need scarcely refer for this fact to Dr. Gray's Key to the Old Testament, who states it upon the authority of Usher, Parker, Linwood, and Collier. The History which is there given of the several editions which followed, shews not only how contradictory to the principles of Protestant Christianity is the least suppression of the Holy Scriptures; but also how contrary does it seem to the will of God, and to the end and design of the great Messiah, who by the spread of his Holy Word wills that all mankind should be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth. 1 Tim. ii. 4.

But is not the command gone forth, that every thing should be done which can tend to promote the free circulation of the Holy Scriptures, and that without note or comment; that all who read them may judge for them selves? The Spirit of God, which is over all his works, may effect his own divine Councils, and in his own graci, ous time! If the book of the Revelation of St. John has any genuine authority, (and it closes the sacred Canon of the Church,) our Lord is there represented, in terms of the highest sublimity and dignified au

thority, to have announced his desire, and invited all to come to bim ; and "whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely; for I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, if any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: and if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this Prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book," Rev. xxii. 18,

I cannot read these passages without making application of them to the whole of Holy Writ; and i take my authority for this from the Old Law, where the same is expressed by Moses. "Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall you diminish aught from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you;" Deut.iv.2.-And Solomon gives the same admonition in Prov. xxx. 6,

In some of your Public Charges to your Clergy, and in many Discourses which your Lordship has preached, has not neglect of the study and reading of the Scriptures been stated as the subject, or at least the root of some moral evil which it was necessary to expose? The Church has viewed this study as the chief meaus of checking vice and immorality: your self and all other Christian Ministers have exhorted their people to be frequent in assembling themselves together; and they have most wisely been taught that the study of the Scriptures is perhaps the only one worthy of man, while he is charged with neglecting it the most, (Darnaud.) Now, if to present them with a Bible without note or comment is a subversion of the Church, what has been the tendency of all these Discourses? for whosoever has had the means has purchased one, and those who have been destitute have gladly received the gift; so that our venerable Monarch's prayer is answered, that" every cottager in his dominions should read his Bible!" and HE could not intend any injury to the Church, of which he is the acknowledged temporal head.

"God himself (says Lucas) has ever carried on this one design of advancing wisdom amongst the sons

of

of men: this is the preeminence of his Law above those of men; that these restrain the actions, but those enlighten the mind; these punish offences, but those, by informing the judgment and strengthening the reason of man, prevent the commission of them, and direct and instigate him to the practice of virtue." That Church which is built upon a rock must continue by its conformity to the Holy Scriptures; and yours professes that the chief merit of its Liturgy consists in this conformitythe wider then that this conformity is shewn, the more compacted becomes every joint, the more secure is the whole of its superstructure; and the more durable will be its gates; that, as the mistress of the whole Protestant faith in Christendom, it shall be preserved! It is therefore far more morally and politically in jurious to the Established Church to check the free diffusion of the Scriptures. You will recollect that when the Disciples questioned whose wife she should be in the resurrection who had seven husbands, error was ascribed to them, and they were charged with neither knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God; Matt. xxii. 29. Mark xii. 24. Had they known them, as it was their duty, they would not have sought an answer to this ridiculous doubt; and this, among very many other passages, shews the neces sity of their free circulation, in order that all mankind may be made wise unto salvation, 2 Tim. iii. 15. If by any obstacles men remain ignorant of them, how can they be fulfilled; Matt. xxvi. 54.? To check the distribution of the Scriptures, would take away the consolation, as well as the spread, of Divine knowledge, and would be a grievous disobedience of the command, Go and do likewise!Every ignorant person is as a suffering traveller who needs their ready help; and after the benefit which we have received by them, it is of the darkest ingratitude to do the least towards hiding from others the key of Divine Truth, and the knowledge of their Redeemer, and to deprive the ignorant and unwary traveller of the knowledge of his way, which was written aforetime for our learning, that we, through patience and comfort of these Holy Scriptures might have hope; Rom. xv. 4. The case of

Apollos and many others, besides the Evangelists and Apostles, strongly urge their examples, Acts xviii. 28; and the Bereans afford a strong case in point, who were much respected for having searched the Scriptures for themselves, Acts xvii. 11.

Our Lord in his discourse to the Jews directed them to search the

Scriptures, "for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify of me," John v. 39.Now those Scriptures of the Old Testament which he recommended could only mean such as were received in their Synagogue, and read in their worship as genuine, and descending from Moses and the Prophets — he could never have meant any note, paraphrase, or comment upon them, by their fallible Targumists; if he wished to impress upon them a knowled,e of and love for himself, which they might better acquire by reading those Scriptures which had mentioned him, it is obvious that he would refer them to the originals without any note or comment; and they were most likely to receive these as of authority, to teach and instruct them; as St. Paul afterwards taught his pupil Timothy, that "ali Scripture was given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works, 2 Tim. iii. 16, 17. It is for all the same purposes that the modern disseminators of the Bible fear not to trust it in every hand-the word of God can do no harm to any principality or power or Church in the rational world, which (as St. Peter would have them all) are followers of that which is good, 1 Pet. iii. 13.

Shall vain and frail man, who treads this mortal stage his little hour, and then is numbered with his dust, the mere tenant at will of his little sod, who cannot lift himself above the soil to which he is prone,-shall he presume to say the holy and divine word of God shall go thus far aud no further! or that it shall be published only with the Explanation and Commentary of men as fallible and frail as himself! when Deity, condescending to his ignorance, has given his Revelation with the blessed Commentary of his only Son himself, written as of

old

old with the finger of Onnipotence? Is not every Church true that stands on such a rock? what can prevail against it? what strength can it acquire by notes and comments of the best of human writers? Did not the Master of our Salvation alarm the Jews in his language to the Woman of Samaria, "The hour cometh when ye shall neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the father; but the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth; for the Father seeketh such to worship him," John iv. 21--22. The Universality of the Church of Christ is here predicted; and the fall of Jerusalem, which followed it in 40 years, was the first fruits of the axe which he laid to the root of the tree. Your Lordship's whole Ministry is engaged to render yourself an active instrument in making the English Church that Universal Church of Christ here promised; but how can so desirable an end of your labours be accomplished, if you regret the spread of the Holy Scriptures without note or comment; or, with Bishop Marsh,sound the trumpet of alarm, and awaken the horrors of its dissolution? Fear not: if you have faith in the rectitude of your Church, and perplexities for its safety should stir you, ask for advice of Gamaliel; he will tell you to refrain from these men, and let them alone; for, if this council or this work be of men, it will come to nought; but if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it, lest haply ye be found even to fight against God, Acts v. 39. Beware lest, by political views in your conclave, ye pervert and do despite to the spirit of grace, Heb. x. 29.; thereby becoming disobedient to the heavenly vision, and like to those builders who disallowed the very stone which became the head of the corner, Matt. xxi. 43. Mark xiii. 10. 1'Peter ii. 7. as Psa. exviii. 22. But, on the contrary, enable and encourage your Clergy and people to prove all things, and hold fast that which is good, Thess. v. 21.; that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ may be given to them that believe, Gal. iii, 13.

two Societies, as well as for all other Christian Churches and religious So-. cieties, of which latter, the Bible Society is become a phenomenon of the present wonderful æra! all in their several degrees, when freed from political views, must tend at length to the grand epoch of universal union, as one fold under one Shepherd, and that Shepherd the Divine Lord, Jesus Christ.

Now to Him that is of power to stablish you according to bis Gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which was kept secret since the world began, but now is made manifest, and by the Scriptures of the Prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith, to God only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ for ever, Amien. Rom. xvi. 25.

Yours, &c.

A. H.

The Charge delivered by the Hon. Sir ROBERT DALLAS, Knight, one of the Judges of His Majesty's Court of Common Pleas, to the Grand Jury of the County of Warwick, at the Summer Assizes, 12th August, 1816; printed at their request and by their direction.

Gentlemen of the Grand Jury,

IN the Calendar before me, I am sorry

to observe so many Commitments, and some of them for Offences of the that any one is of a nature to require, worst description. But I am not aware in the first instance, any observation from me; and when this is the case, it is not my habit to address any thing to the Grand Jury in the way of formal Charge. I have seldom found it, in my own experience, to be productive of good; I have sometimes known it per plex and mislead. The several cases often appear before you so different from what they have been stated in the examinations returned, and again turn out so different in Court from what has

appeared before you, that this fluctuating and shifting state of circumstances which will square, by anticipation, with will scarcely admit of any direction what may ultimately turn out to be the individual case. And I need not inform you, Gentlemen, that the slightest variation of fact will frequently make the distinction between guilt and innocence in the application of the legal rule. have therefore generally left it to Grand

I

Juries to proceed in their own course; and I have never had reason to be dissatisfied with the result. There are, however, occasions on which silence would be as improper as foreign and useless observation; and a Judge might be justly deemed neglectful of his duty, if he omitted to remark upon important facts, closely connected with the business of the day, and brought by circumstances within his immediate view. Of such a nature, Gentlemen, is the present occasion, in one respect at least, I mean the Resolutions which I learn have been entered into by the Magistrates of this County, at one of their late Sessions, for the proper education and employment of youthful offenders of every description, and proposing Subscriptions to carry the intended Plan into effect. That the number of offences has increased of late, may appear, to those who are apt to take a gloomy view of things, to proceed from a degenerate state of morals, characterising the times in which it is our lot to live. But in whatever degree this degeneracy may exist, and how far it is at once the cause and the consequence of crimes, it cannot be considered as the only source, unless we choose to overlook other and weighty causes co-operating in degree. The inerease of our population-the extent of our trade-the progress of our manufactures, though now unfortunately subjected to what I trust may prove but a temporary stagnation · the shocks and revulsions to which all human establishments are liable-the passage from one state of things to another, in which the evils of life are apt to crowd and take their stand;-all these, in their several proportions, undoubtedly contribute to fill our Prisons, and occupy our Courts. But, besides these general causes, there may be, and certainly there are, peculiar practices which add greatly to this unfortunate increase; and, of these, one of the most formidable, as well as the most deplorable, is the system of training up Children of both sexes to the practice and perpetration of every species of crime.

But of those swarms of youthful Of fenders who infest our streets, and invade our dwellings, though we are obliged almost hourly to punish their offences, who is there can withhold compassion from their fate? It is not the character of any human institution to be perfect: our best attainments are but approximations to good: And for the wisest purposes it is, no doubt, fit it should be so. What the Law cannot, therefore, altogether prevent, the Law must punish. To deter by example, and that society may find its safety in

this salutary terror, we are compelled to pass sentence upon offenders of this description; which, if the scheme of justice upon which we act could be taken in detached parts, and the complexity of punishment be separated so as to consist in atonement only, would scarcely be administered in the particular case. For what, I might almost ask, is the intrinsic guilt of a miserable boy or girl brought up from infancy so as scarcely to be able to distinguish right from wrong; or, if able to distinguish, trained and tutored by those to whose controul and command they are subject, to confound the one with the other, and even to feel a pride and emulation in the dexterous practice of almost every fraudulent and felonious act? To such a length has this proceeded, that Courts of Justice bave felt themselves bound to overlook the distinction between the different seasons of life, and to involve in one common punishment the puny delinquent with the hoary veteran grown grey in guilt, and nearly, if I may so express it, superannuated in the commission of crimes. To this painful task we are each of us destined in our turn; the Magistrate at his Session; the Judge on the Bench; and so it will continue till some remedy be found, and so I fear it must prove on the present occasion, To what thanks then are they not entitled, whose benevolent view is directed to the endeavour to reform this evil, and to prevent in future a necessity which at present we all deplore!

Gentlemen,-for now a considerable number of years past, improvements have been going on in the collateral regulations which connect with the administration of criminal justice. Confining ourselves to the subject immediately before us, our Gaols, almost to an extreme, have ceased to be the mansions of misery, except as connected with the consciousness of crime; and the immediate guardians of their unhappy inmates are now generally distinguished for their humanity and worth. Of how many establishments may we not boast, in which a Den of Thieves is converted into a House of real Industry; and from which men, who have entered barbarous and brutal, have come forth enlightened and reclaimed! To several instances of the sort I can myself speak from experience, though undoubtedly many proofs to the contrary have occurred. But much of good still remains to be done, and can never be done so effectually as by the means you propose. While felons of every description are crowded toge. ther, the best possible superintendence must be weak in its effect. The eye