Indeed I must take upon myself to tell you, that your fears for the church, from “the circulation of the Scriptures,” are not calculated to do her any honor in the world. She either does not think with you, that, in supplying the different denominations of Christians with Bibles, she is really supplying them “with arms against herself;” or if she does, she has the magnanimity to promote their salvation, though it were at her own expense. I dare say you will set me down for no “true churchman,” when I say this; but I will give you an authority to this effect, which has much weight with me, and which _you_ will scarcely venture to dispute. In a little tract, called “Questions and Answers concerning the respective Tenets of the Church of England and the Church of Rome,” I find the following passage: “Question. Why do you find fault with the church of ROME for not suffering the common people _to read the Bible_? “Answer. 1. Because in so doing they act contrary to the command Christ gives to _all_, ‘Search the Scriptures,’ John, v. 39. “2. Because what they forbid, the Apostles commend, as we see in the example of the Bereans, who are _commended_ for reading the Scriptures, Acts, xvii. 11. “3. It is contrary to the practice of the primitive church, in which the fathers _earnestly exhorted_ the people to an assiduous and diligent reading of the Scriptures. “4. It agrees not with St. Paul’s counsel and exhortation, 1 Thess. v. 7. ‘_I charge you_ that this Epistle be read to all the holy brethren.’ “5. It was a duty of the Jews to have the law in their houses, and to read it to their children, Deut. vi. 7, and therefore must be much more the duty of Christians to read or peruse the Gospel, as being a people living under a greater and richer economy. “6. Whereas it is pretended that the Scriptures are obscure, and that this prohibition is _to prevent heresies_: _we_ answer, that the Scriptures are not so obscure, in places relating to things necessary to salvation, but that they may be understood by the laity: and as to the plea of _preventing heresies_, that is only a pretence, no argument, since _they __might as well forbid people to eat and drink_, _for_, _fear they should abuse that liberty_.”