nfidelity became a duty. Others said that, if the world
must wait till the synod had concluded its labors, the prophecies of
the New Testament would not be written till some time after their
fulfilment; and that, if all the conjectures of the learned divines
were inserted in the new edition of the Bible, the declaration in
John would be literally verified, and that "the world itself would
not contain all the books which would be written."

But the most amusing thing of all was to see, as time made man more
familiar with this strange event, the variety of speculations which
were entertained respecting its object and design. Many began
gravely to question whether it was the duty of the synod to attempt
the reconstruction of a book of which God himself had so manifestly
deprived the world, and whether it was not a profane, nay, an
atheistical, attempt to frustrate his will. Some, who were secretly
glad to be released from so troublesome a book, were particularly
pious on this head, and exclaimed bitterly against this rash attempt
to counteract and cancel the decrees of Heaven. The Papists, on their
part, were confident that the design was to correct the exorbitancies
of a rabid Protestantism, and show the world, by direct miracle, the
necessity of submitting to the decision of their Church and the
infallibility of the supreme Pontiff; who, as they truly alleged,
could decide all knotty points quite as well without the Word of
God as with it. On being reminded that the writings of the Fathers,
on which they laid so much stress as the vouchers of their traditions,
were mutilated by the same stroke which had demolished the Bible (all
their quotations from the sacred volume being erased), some of the
Jesuits affirmed that many of the Fathers were rather improved than
otherwise by the omission, and that they found these writings quite
as intelligible and not less edifying than before. In this, many
Protestants very cordially agreed. On the other hand, many of our
modern infidels gave an entirely new turn to the whole affair, by
saying that the visitation was evidently not in judgment, but in
mercy; that God in compassion, and not in indignation, had taken
away a book which man had regarded with an extravagant admiration
and idolatry, and which they had exalted to the place of that
clear internal oracle which He had planted in the human breast; in
a word, that, if it was a rebuke at all, it was a rebuke to a rampant
"Bibliolatr