The Church of Rome did not issue any formal prohibition of the free use of the Scriptures until the year 1229, when the Synod of Toulouse, alarmed by the spread of the Waldenses, thus expressed itself:
—"We prohibit, also, the permitting of the laity to have the books of the Old or New Testament, unless any one should wish, from a feeling of devotion, to have a Psalter or Breviary, for divine service, or the Hours of the Blessed Virgin. But we strictly forbid them to have the above-mentioned books in the vulgar tongue."
From that time until the Reformation, the Bible was, as much as the Church of Rome could make it, a sealed book. Of it, the clergy were partially, but the laity entirely, ignorant. Had the Saviour been alive, would he not have spoken to the pope, and all his minions, as he did of old, when he said, "Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye enter not in yourselves, and them that were entering in, ye hindered." (Luke 4:52.)
Romanists, however, are found citing Scripture itself, in support of the decrees of the Council of Trent, in regard to the circulation of the Scriptures. 2 Peter 3:15, 16, is a passage which they are fond of quoting:
"Even as our beloved brother Paul, also, according to the wisdom given unto him, hath written unto you; as also, in all his epistles speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable, wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures, unto their own destruction."
But what does this passage prove? Certainly not what some would infer from it. Does Peter forbid the general reading of the Bible, because in it are difficulties, and from it some may derive only ruin? By no means. Because there are hidden rocks in the ocean, it does not, therefore, follow that no mariner should ever trim his bark, or set his sail for any purpose of merchandise or war. No!
Even these rocks serve some end of which man is ignorant—and their presence only calls forth the greater watchfulness on the part of the voyagers, that so he may avoid the terrors of a watery grave.
Does not Peter immediately add, "Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness. But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ."
The more dangerous his path across the deep, the more skilful the pilot, and the more accurate the chart that will be required—and so the more numerous the shoals and quicksands in the world, the more the believer needs to consult his Bible, and follow the guiding eye of the Spirit of God.
There are mysterious depths in Scripture which no human intellect can fathom, and dizzy heights which no human power can scale—yet so much is revealed to all as is needful to salvation; and when eternity dawneth upon the soul of the redeemed, a light so strong shall be thrown upon the darkest subjects that God's people shall clearly see what now is dim and indistinct.
