The Bible-only principle

This provocative excerpt from a larger review shows that the Roman Catholic Church saw the 1881 revision of the English New Testament as beneficial to them – that the work diminished the principle of sola scriptura and forwarded the work of textual criticism.

“One thing at least is certain, the Catholic Church will gain by the New Revision, both directly and indirectly. Directly, because old errors are removed from the translation; indirectly, because the ‘Bible-only’ principle is proved to be false. It is now at length too evident that Scripture is powerless without the Church as the witness to its inspiration, the safeguard of its integrity, and the exponent of its meaning. And it will now be clear to all men which is the true Church, the real Mother to whom the Bible of right belongs. Nor will it need Solomon’s wisdom to see that the so-called Church which heartlessly gives up the helpless child to be cut in pieces by textual critics cannot be the true Mother.”

“The Revision of the New Testament,” Dublin Review, Third Series, Volume VI. (July-October, 1881), London: Burns & Oates, p. 144.