A letter to a country clergyman, occasioned by his address to Lord Teignmouth, by John Owen

Transcribed from the 1805 J. Hatchard edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org, using scans from the British Library.

A
LETTER
TO A
COUNTRY CLERGYMAN,
OCCASIONED BY
HIS ADDRESS
TO
LORD TEIGNMOUTH,
PRESIDENT OF THE BRITISH AND FOREIGN
BIBLE SOCIETY.

LONDON:
PRINTED FOR J. HATCHARD, BOOKSELLER TO HER MAJESTY,
NO. 190, OPPOSITE ALBANY HOUSE, PICCADILLY.

p. 1A LETTER, &c.

One of those good-natured friends with which the world abounds, took an early opportunity of conveying to my hands a copy of your Address to Lord Teignmouth as President of the British and Foreign Bible Society; and I can really assume you, that its effect upon my nerves was almost as great as that which his Lordship’s circular letter produced upon yours. “The emotions of my mind,” too, “upon the receipt of it, were such as I am not inclined, for several reasons, to describe.” [1]

You must know, Sir, that it had been my fortune to fall into the same ugly snare as the worthy Nobleman whose eyes you have so graciously endeavoured to open. I too had been drawn into the horrid Bible-plot, without dreaming that there was any plot in the business; and, to tell you the honest truth, before your pamphlet reached me, p. 2I had actually lent all the name I possessed, and all the money I could spare, in order to assist in carrying its designs into execution.

Judge then, Sir, what must have been my feelings upon learning from you, that our Noble President, instead of being, as I thought, most loyally, usefully, and religiously employed, had “bestowed his patronage and protection upon every description of the church’s enemies;” that he had deserted “the cause of sound religion;” and that he was actually “confederating with persons openly labouring the destruction of all that is sober and established.” [2]

The inference was too much against me to leave me at rest. I called to my recollection, how prone the world is to say, “like master, like man;” and in the first paroxysms of my fear, had half a mind to send a line to the Secretary, and request that my name might be withdrawn. This seemed, however, too strong a measure to be adopted in so early a stage of the business; besides, though I could not wholly suppress my alarms, yet I had some little scruple about proclaiming them publicly to the world. In these moments of irresolution, it occurred to my mind, that you might perhaps, without any malicious design, have overstated the mischief; that the evils which you predicted as likely to follow from this unhallowed p. 3project, might in reality have nothing to do with it; and that, at all events, your frightful statement exhibited only one side of the case. Perhaps, thought I, some “liberal-basis’d” [3a] gentleman will overthrow this high-church reasoning, and try to bring this bilious Country Priest to a better temper: I may then be inclined to wish, that I had paid less homage to that ex-parte evidence by which he sought to discredit a noble cause.

Unluckily for me, the printers had scarcely struck off the large impression of your Address, when they came to a resolution to print nothing further. [3b] Now though I did not suspect any confederacy in the business, yet I could not help thinking that you were much obliged to them. However that may be, it was evidently in vain to wait for Replies: if fifty had been written (and I suppose that at least as many were expected), not one could find its way before the public. At length I hit upon a project; and what do you think it was? But you would be the last to guess. It was that of reading your pamphlet over again. I had observed that the birds in my garden who were scared away by the first sight of my man-of-straw, would, after a second view, pursue their instinctive robberies with as much composure as if they had really discovered how little mischief he p. 4could do them. I was pleased with the thought, and anticipated much the same consequences. Well, Sir, I made the experiment; and the event, I assure you, exceeded my highest expectation. I rose from the second reading of your Address with feelings so different from those of conviction or alarm, that if I did not think it would ruffle a temper so irritable as yours, I could almost find it in my heart to tell you what they were. However, as I shall have occasion to speak my mind pretty freely in the course of this Letter, you will have no difficulty in discovering what I ultimately thought both of you and your performance.

But now, Sir, to business. You open your Address to Lord Teignmouth with a preamble, which sets forth, that you are “not inclined, for several reasons, to describe the emotions of your mind upon the receipt of his Lordship’s Address, as President of the British and Foreign Bible Society.” There is an air of mystery in these words, which recommended them strongly to my notice; and if you do me the favour to turn back to my first page, you will find that I have employed them as you have done, in fronte operis. I am, however, upon reflection, inclined to think that “there is,” to use your own words upon another occasion, “more of sound than sense” in this affectation of reserve on both sides. For, to say the truth, I have already revealed my emotions, and I am sure you have taken no pains to conceal p. 5yours: and yet it must be manifest that if each of us had not been inclined to do it, neither of us would have done it. However, the preamble has its use; for it invites the reader to believe, that we are both of us men of peace and charity, and very unwilling to injure the feelings and reputation of our neighbour: an assumption which, in your case, it was the more necessary to make; as otherwise the reader of your pages might, innocently enough, have concluded the reverse.

This brief exordium dispatched, you enter, pell-mell, upon the matter of your indictment, and prefer your charges against the Noble Lord with as little ceremony, as if you had borrowed the robes of his Majesty’s Attorney General, and were prosecuting the Noble delinquent at the suit of the Crown. But let us hear the accusation opened. His Lordship (you say), by taking the presidency of the Bible Society, has “bestowed his patronage and protection upon every description of the church’s enemies.” Now here I doubt the accuracy of your representation: I am strongly inclined to think that you do not mean to affirm quite so much as you say. The church’s enemies are so numerous, and some of them so little known, that I think it very probable many descriptions could be mentioned, which have never obtained a place in your enumeration. I have your authority for setting down all the individuals who dissent from the church’s communion as her decided enemies, p. 6for they wish to a man to blow up the national establishment, “clergy and all:” you know they do—“one of them said” so. Such evidence as this, to be sure, must not for a moment be questioned; though I should have thought better of it, if your informer had shown his instructions for saying so much in the name of the rest. But if I concede to you that these are the church’s enemies, I cannot admit, what I suspect you wish to imply, that these are the only enemies with which she has to contend. What think you of “those men of influence and consideration, who continue to revile the church, and still think proper to remain nominal members of her community?” [6a] Into what class do you throw those “men of the world, who, in their sober moments, think it more creditable to be accounted members of our venerable church, than a subscriber to the meeting-house?” [6b] And lastly, where do you place those partisans, whether priests or laymen, who, while they contend for the church as the “chaste spouse of Christ,” [6c] confound most unwittingly both her pretensions and her character, with those by which that spiritual harlot is known, who has committed fornication with the kings of the earth? [6d] For my part, I recognise among such false friends as the two first descriptions, and such injudicious p. 7advocates as the last, some of those enemies, from which the church has most to fear. But I think I do you no injustice when I say, that it does not seem to have been your intention to include such characters as these within those “descriptions of the church’s enemies,” upon which his Lordship is blameable for having bestowed his patronage and protection.

But, waiving these considerations, let me ask the Country Clergyman, wherein he designs to make the Noble President’s guilt consist. It cannot be in the bare and simple act of bestowing his patronage and protection upon every description of “the church’s enemies.” For such an act his Lordship has the highest precedent, and the least questionable authority. For every time the several denominations of Christians meet to worship God according to their various rites (and they may meet just as often as they will), they enjoy the patronage and protection of that exalted Personage, who, as the guardian of the constitution, is present wherever there are rights to protect, and laws to protect them. Upon this point, therefore, no controversy can arise: and the main question between us will be, whether the object for which this patronage and protection are bestowed be of a nature to favour the assumed hostilities of the different denominations of Christians against the established church. Now that object, as defined by his Lordship, is, “to promote the circulation of the Scriptures at home and abroad;” and this p. 8you admit “is an object in which every one, who professes the religion of Christ, must feel a deep interest.” I am glad to find you admitting as much as this; and I hope I do not misunderstand you. Indeed I am so desirous of tracing an agreement between us, wherever I can find a ground for doing it, that I will endeavour to persuade myself, though the delusion should prove never so short, that the circulation of the Scriptures is not among the points on which we differ. But you question whether this be the object; since “the object of a society is not to be known from its public declaration in print;” [8] and yet, shrewd as this remark appears, I cannot but think that “the declaration in print,” of a large body of men, subscribed with their names, is rather better authority for judging of their specific object, than the insinuation in print of an anonymous individual: and I believe that most of the world will be of the same opinion. I know indeed that declarations in print are not to be credited merely because they are made: but yet I cannot think that the mere act of making them is a reason why they should be discredited. For, if the rule were established for interpreting every “declaration in print” into its opposite, I should be justified at once in concluding that your object is to become a member of this obnoxious Association; merely because you p. 9declare in print, “I cannot join myself to your Bible Society.” [9a]

Surely, Sir, as a Country Clergyman, you must have heard of the vaccine inoculation. Now there is an association in the metropolis to which that ingenious invention has given birth, and which is publicly known as the Jennerian Society. I see no reason why it might not as properly be called “the British and Foreign Vaccine Society,” since its object is “to promote the circulation of vaccine matter at home and abroad.” Now indulge yourself for a moment with the supposition, that when this Society had printed their “object, their principles, and their reasons,” and solicited the countenance and support of the faculty and persons of every denomination, some country physician had stepped from his obscurity, and opened a smart attack upon them. Suppose him to have contended with all the gravity in the world, “that the object of a Society is not to be known from its public declaration in print;” [9b] that Societies which afterwards found their way “to the Old Bailey, or the Maidstone assizes,” had announced themselves to the world by “printed declarations of their reasons, objects, and principles;” [9c] and that for his own part, though he saw in their President a nobleman, “for whose head and heart he had the highest respect,” and p. 10among their supporters “many respectable names, with which he should be happy to place his own;” [10a] yet because they received guineas from quacks and empirics, as well as from regulars and licentiates in medicine, he considered the whole Society as a dangerous combination against the health of the community, and a conspiracy for effecting the diabolical design of poisoning his Majesty’s subjects. What, Sir, would you think of such a worthy gentleman? You would not question his sincerity, for no man who was not “horribly afraid” [10b] would intimate suspicions for which he was likely to gain so little credit among mankind: but I think you would feel yourself at liberty to question something about him, which if it did not provoke your resentment, might deservedly enough excite your compassion.

I am glad to find, as I advance farther into your pages, that things are not quite so bad as I had apprehended. “Far be it from me to say,” you tell his Lordship, “that you preside over an association of men combined for designs altogether bad; that you patronize and protect a Society, whose objects and principles are wilfully nefarious.” [10c] Now though this apology for insinuations which might as well have been withheld, is not wholly purged from bile, yet I confess it gives me pleasure to see it made at all; because it p. 11delivers me from the logical difficulty of proving a negative, and you from the logical disgrace of requiring it.

At present then it seems, that the majority of this Society, though weak and deceivable, are not Jacobinical or designing men. It is not within their present intention to “pursue an object of an evil tendency in a close and clandestine manner, under favour of a public declaration of different, and” even “a contrary character.” [11a] Nay, so little are they suspected of being as yet “wilfully nefarious,” that if his Lordship can give you such a security as you require, for the maintenance of its original intentions, you think the Society “will be what it proposes,” and you “shall be proud to rank” your “name, and make exertion under his protection.” [11b]

I do assure you, Sir, that my jealousies on this particular are quite as much alive as yours can be. I know how apt Societies are to depart from the principles upon which their original association was formed; and I am half inclined to think, that in this and other parts of your pamphlet you are reading a lesson to some Societies in the metropolis, that I could name. However, I do not absolutely affirm that such is your intention; for though I might take advantage of your own axiom, and suspect your “declaration in print” to be one p. 12thing and your real object another, yet I should think it scarcely decorous to say so. Besides, it is very possible after all, that the whole may have been the result of accident; and that you had no design whatever of publishing the actual state of one Society, when you were merely predicting the future state of another.

But, Sir, let me ask you now, in the best humour in the world, what security you would require for the maintenance of an original object which the Bible Society has not already given you. I grant, if you had been invited to join a Society, whose object was the promotion of Christianity, the reformation of manners, or the suppression of vice, you might reasonably enough have doubted whether the nature of the object sufficiently explained the views of the associators, and gave you any competent pledge for the purity of those measures which they might in process of time adopt. You might then have argued with some show of plausibility, that “the real object will take its colour from the opinions and pursuits of those effective members, who shall contrive, either by an actual majority, or an assiduity and activity equivalent in force to the power of a majority, to give direction to the energy of the association;” [12] and the event, in certain cases, would have proved, that you were not very greatly mistaken. But in the case under consideration, the object is definite. p. 13For the Bible (which and which alone constitutes that object) is specific; and is further secured, by its authorized translation into all the languages of the United Kingdom, against the possibility of losing its specific character. Now since the Society are bound, by a law of their constitution, to circulate the authorized version of the Scriptures, and that alone, their object must remain so uniform and determinate, that no deviation from it can occur, without a perceivable, an obvious, a felonious sacrifice of justice, honor, and good faith. Of such departure therefore, if ever it should be attempted, the public will most infallibly be apprized. For those respectable characters at least, with whom you would be proud to rank your name, will be the witnesses, the opposers, and (if unsuccessful in their opposition) the reporters of such apostacy; and I hardly need remind you that the efficiency of their exertions under all these characters, will be diminished in the same proportion, in which you may contrive to reduce their numbers, and discredit their association.

So much for that security which the object of the Society affords. But let us hear what sort of security you, in the exercise of your moderation, are disposed to require. “If Lord T. will pledge himself that the six hundred members of his Society are, like himself, honourable and upright men, who speak what they mean, and practise what they profess, who abhor duplicity and deceit, p. 14and know no discordance between the object they profess and the object they pursue—if Lord T. can assure me this, I shall be proud to rank my name, and make exertion under his protection.” [14a]

And are these really, Sir, the lowest terms upon which the benefit of your name can be obtained for the British and Foreign Bible Society? If they are, I must fairly own, humiliating as the confession may appear, I have no hope of hearing that the Secretary has been called upon “to insert your name and accept your donation.” [14b] No Sir; his Lordship cannot go such lengths as you require. I dare say he would do every thing in his power to satisfy you; but I think I may venture to say, without consulting him, that this exceeds his power. His Lordship is a student of human nature, and the situations which he has filled, have afforded him opportunities of pursuing his favorite study. How he has employed those opportunities, and what fruit he has derived from them, I need not tell you. I dare say you have not lost your respect for the biographer of Sir William Jones, in your resentment against the President of the Bible Society. But, with all his powers of discrimination, his Lordship has his limits as well as other men; and I hope you would not wish him to vouch for or against a large class of individuals, as you may have found some people inclined to p. 15do, merely on account of certain peculiar specimens which he has seen, or some indistinct reports which he has heard.

But surely, Sir, I may be excused for doubting whether you “be in jest or earnest,” [15] when you meet his Lordship’s proposition with such exorbitant demands. Did you ever know a President who could engage for quite so much as you require? Or did you ever see “six hundred” names together, that stood for nothing less than so many “honorable and upright men?” I am sure I venerate every useful Society throughout the kingdom, from the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, down to the Society for superseding the Necessity of Climbing Boys; and yet I should not be surprised if their respective Presidents should decline bearing their testimony to the individual characters of the first six hundred members of those several Societies upon which I might choose to lay my hand. Besides, Sir, consider—a rule for one, in such a case is a rule for all. What you require before you subscribe your name, others may think themselves justified in requiring after you have subscribed it. And what will be the consequence?—His Lordship will next be called upon to pledge himself for you; and though I dare say he could do it with perfect safety, yet I think he might have reasons for wishing to be excused.

p. 16The object of this extravagant demand at length comes out; and it seems I was perfectly justified in doubting whether you were in jest or earnest when you advanced it. “All (you say) that I here assert” (and questions of a certain description are the strongest of all assertions) “is this; that your Lordship, for whose head and heart I have the highest respect, appears to have undertaken the patronage of you know not whom or what.” [16] Now, Sir, there is but one portion of this assertion to which I have any objection. His Lordship certainly does know what he has undertaken to patronize; for to the circulation of the Scriptures, the Scriptures as printed by authority, the Scriptures without any addition, deduction, or variation, both his patronage and that of the truly venerable characters associated with him, are restrained. The rest of the assertion is perfectly harmless. His Lordship has undertaken the patronage of he knows not whom: this is strictly true; nor would it be less so, if his Lordship filled the chair of any other Society, or if the Country Clergyman and his friends occupied the place of the six hundred members over whom his Lordship actually does preside.

It seems, however, that if his Lordship does not know over whom he presides, the Country Clergyman can tell him. Lord T. does not know “the p. 17men and their communication” to whom he has joined himself; but you, it should seem, can explain them both. No sooner do you cast your eye over the List of Subscribers which his Lordship has sent you, than you see “a very large proportion” of persons “with which, as an honest man,” you “can have nothing to do;” men of whose company you “have hitherto always been horribly afraid, being frightened at the idea of having the national establishment blown up, as one of them said, clergy and all;”—“wolves,” who design to worry your “poor sheep;”—“crafty beasts;” and, finally, “those who openly and fairly avow that their object is to eat up both sheep and shepherd.” [17] This is indeed, Sir, a very alarming discovery; and I could almost wish, for the honor of the Society, it had never been made. However, though I love the Society much, I love truth more; and therefore, whatever sacrifice it may cost me, I trust it will always prevail.

But now, Sir, though I make no doubt you believe every thing you say, what ground have you for expecting that I should? If you tell me you have seen a ghost, and that he frightened you out of your wits, I may have the best reasons in the world for believing that you have seen a ghost; and yet I may doubt all the time whether there were a ghost to be seen. In like manner, though p. 18I dare say you are a devout believer in the threats of these incendiaries, the howlings of these wolves, and the voracious declarations of these cannibals; yet, I may after all have liberty to doubt, whether such stories are entitled to a moment’s regard. Travellers, you know, Sir, with the best intentions in the world, often play a trick upon us; and I think it very possible, that a Country Clergyman, with no worse intentions, may be led to do the same. When Bruce described the Abyssinian as cutting a steak from the rump of a living animal, and then driving him on as if nothing had happened, the world smiled at the easy credulity of the honest traveller, and did not believe one particle of the matter: I am inclined to think that the marvellous tales of the Country Clergyman will scarcely meet with a better fate.

But let me, Sir, expostulate with you for a moment. I know how unreasonable a passion fear is, and I think it is always worth while to take every honest method of getting rid of it.

As a Country Clergyman, I dare say, you are a pretty good horseman; and though I do not suspect you of appearing upon a race-course, or galloping after the hounds, yet I suppose you are no enemy to a pleasant ride. Now it must have happened to you, at least once in your life, as well as to inferior horsemen, to be in imminent danger of breaking your neck by the sudden and unaccountable starting of your horse. Irritable and p. 19overbearing men will, you know, under such circumstances, make a furious application of the whip and the spur to the back and sides of the terrified animal. The consequence is, that if he was afraid of the object at first, he will be “horribly afraid” of it ever after. You and I know a better way; and that is, to lead the animal up to the object which occasioned his alarm, and to give him an opportunity of forming a more correct judgment of it. I cannot help thinking, that if you had adopted some such steps, under your first impressions of alarm at the Subscribers to the Bible Society; if, without venturing yourself “into the company of men of whom you have hitherto been always horribly afraid,” you had yet ventured yourself near enough to them, to see whether they were likely men to blow you up in the air, or bury you in their stomachs; you would have been saved from the humiliating necessity of soliciting “the charity of the Noble President to pity your weakness and excuse your unconquerable fears.” [19]

But let me tell you a story—A friend of mine (who by the way is a Country Clergyman as well as yourself) was lately invited to dine with a Mohawk Chief, of whose visit to this country the provincial papers have doubtless informed you. My friend was very much in your situation. His head was full of stories against this “denomination” p. 20of people. He had been credibly assured, that they were “the enemies of all that is sober or established;” that they enjoyed nothing so much as pulling men’s scalps over their ears, and eating them up, clothes and all. He could not therefore, for some time, be induced to venture himself “into the company of men of whom he had hitherto been always horribly afraid.” At length, however, he was prevailed upon to accept the invitation; not without some apprehensions on his own part, that he “should feel uneasy, and be illiberally, perhaps, looking towards the door.” [20] How he actually behaved, I am not told; but what do you think was the event of his visit?—Why, he returned from the interview, with his flesh upon his bones, his scalp upon his head, and not a single mark of the tomahawk all over his body. Add to this, he received so favorable an impression of this “denomination” of people, that he resolved hereafter to consider them as brethren, and to co-operate with them in every object which might promise to promote their common welfare, without interfering with their separate, local, and independent interests. I leave the Country Clergyman to use his discretion about trying such experiments as these; but, whether he try them or not, I make no question, that, in many cases, they would be attended with similar success.

p. 21It seems, however, that such Associations are forbidden by that least forbidding of all the Christian graces, Charity. “Christian charity (you tell us) no where recommends associations of discordant principles, combinations of men professedly at variance and in hostility with each other: but Christian charity enjoins that which renders all these elaborate societies useless; it teaches and obliges Christians to be like-minded, to have one faith, one baptism, one speech, and one hope of their calling.” [21a] Now, Sir, though I am far from thinking that you are singular in your notion of Christian charity; for the church of Rome entertained the same opinions, and does, I dare say, entertain them to this day—yet I think you will have a difficulty in turning this notion to any important use. The fact is, that Christian Charity, much as she may enjoin an uniformity of opinion upon questions of a controvertible nature, cannot succeed in effecting it without the aid of those compelling means, of which she has been so long deprived. From the time that some prototype of Lord T. prevailed upon the church “to throw away that natural defence” of whips, and screws, and faggots, “which God Almighty had given her,” [21b] Christian Charity has assumed a new character, and taken up an employment the very opposite to that in which she had been for ages before engaged. Her p. 22attention is now turned from the heads to the hearts of men; and when she cannot succeed in making them like-minded, she tries to make them love one another. She is said to have actually disclaimed all the sentiments and measures which were ascribed to her during her alliance with the Holy Father. The account which is given of the matter, is plausible enough; and as it does not appear to have reached your ears, I will give it you just as I received it.

Somewhere about the time when the churches of the West came under the dominion of the Holy See, the successor of St. Peter was observed to cool in his regard for Charity, and to withdraw his affections very sensibly from her. The cause of this decline in his attachment was at length discovered. A rival, not unknown for many ages before, had now acquired a very formidable ascendancy in the breast of the Holy Pontiff; and the new attachment was not a little cherished by the leading members of the subjugated church. The influence of the favorite rapidly increased, and that of Charity proportionably declined; till at length, matters went so far that the latter was deposed and imprisoned, and the former enthroned in her place. The name of Bigotry (for so she had been called from her birth) was against her, and so was her countenance. The first of these difficulties she got over by assuming the name of her disgraced predecessor; the latter, it is said, remains a p. 23difficulty to this very day. In the mean time, Charity continued immured in the closest confinement; and when the monasteries were pulled down at the Reformation, this queen of all the virtues was found pale and almost lifeless in a subterraneous cell. Her health had been so much impaired by confinement, and her character misrepresented by the artifices of her rival, that it took her a great deal of time to regain her strength and make herself properly known. In both these respects she has now to a great degree succeeded: and though the Pope denies her rights, and many persons, who ought to know better, continue to question them, yet her countenance and temper most clearly identify her with that heavenly original, whose office it is to sanctify the confidence of faith and the fervor of hope; and to make them the instruments of promoting glory to God in the highest, and peace and good-will among men.

Now though this looks very much like an allegorical account of the matter, yet I think it accords so well with the fact, that I trust both you and I shall be the better for the moral of it. I am sure if I thought that uniformity of opinion upon the details of Christianity, could be brought about among those who agree in the fundamentals of it, I should rejoice to contribute my proportion to the advancement of so desirable an event. But I do not expect, what in the present constitution of human nature I believe to be impossible. I think p. 24that the nearest advances to such uniformity may be made by resolving to unite as far as we are like-minded, and to be reciprocally forbearing where we are not, and thus to fulfil our Saviour’s commandment of loving one another. I am sure that if every Country Clergyman will substitute this species of Charity for the adulterous idol which you have set up (and I have little doubt but they will), the church will then maintain herself in vigour, usefulness, and beauty; “and the gates of nonconformity” [24a] will not prevail against her.

I have hitherto been reasoning upon the presumption, that circulating the Holy Scriptures was an act upon the excellence of which no question could arise between us; but it seems that I have been mistaken: for his Lordship is cautioned (and every member of the Society through him) not to be “deceived with the notion, that the bare act of distributing Bibles, is the act of disseminating truth.” [24b]

This species of caution, and the reasons by which it is supported, have acquired so much the air of novelty by having been shut up for more than two hundred years, that I confess I was not a little struck with them; and I dare say, the feelings of most of your readers will be in unison with mine. But I will give the passage at length:

Really, Sir, in reading over this extraordinary morceau, which I do assure you I have done again and again, I have found my astonishment continually increase, and am now as much at a loss as ever, to account for your raising up again those notions, which have been buried by public authority for so many ages. An old parishioner of mine, who scarcely reads any books but the Bible and Fox’s Martyrology, was ready to swoon when she came to this part of your pamphlet; and I could not, for the life of me, prevail upon her to go any farther. She was utterly astonished at my being able to smile at what she was pleased to call, the rankest Popery she had ever read. I told her, it could not be Popery; for it was written by a Country Clergyman: she said, the whole was a trick; and that the Papists abounded in such tricks. It was in vain that I repeated to her my conviction, that the author was a Protestant Clergyman, and that, I feared, he was not singular in holding these opinions: I could not get her to believe one syllable of either. She persisted in her declaration, that, whatever you might call yourself, you were some Romish Priest in the interest of the Catholics; and that you only wanted to prepare the people for parting with their Bibles.

p. 27Now, Sir, though I by no means go the same lengths as my orthodox parishioner, yet I am free to confess, that I agree with her in the main. I dare believe, that you have no more intention of bringing back the Pope than I have; and yet I do not know how you could have written more to the purpose, if you had wished to accomplish such a measure. The dangers which you point out as accompanying the perusal of the Holy Scriptures by the unlearned, were matters of constant anxiety to his Papal bosom all the time that he acted as visible head of the English church; and many a Country Clergyman was employed, under his direction, to enforce upon Lords and Commoners that prudent caution against distributing Bibles, which you so earnestly press upon the Noble President of the British and Foreign Bible Society. Our forefathers, however, were too much of his Lordship’s way of thinking to yield to such considerations: having derived so much benefit from reading the Bible themselves, they would not endure the thought of refusing it to others; and they were, therefore, among the foremost “to promote the circulation of the Scriptures at home and abroad.”

I lament with you that “the Holy Book is made a nose of wax;” I, too, am “sadly experiencing” this, “daily before my eyes;” [27] and, the strange interpretation which you have given of p. 28“Christian Charity,” is another proof of the sad extent to which this practice has spread. But I could not consent on that account to deprive you of your Bible, nor even to refuse you another if you wanted it. Indeed, Sir, the conduct which you blame, and of which you have condescended to become an example, is a grievous evil: but the remedy which you propose, and which the Council of Trent proposed before you, is abundantly worse than the disease.

By the way, Sir, I wonder you were not a little afraid of venturing such sentiments abroad, without first consulting those of your friends who are better acquainted with the principles of the Reformation than you appear to be. You talk of the church, in the same language, with the same pride of appropriation, and with the same prerogative of limiting the course and interpretation of Scripture, as if you had never heard that the church of Rome disputes all these things with you, or as if you had never heard of a separation from her. Had no such separation taken place, your observations would have been perfectly in order. You might then have followed them up too with this precautionary proposition, that Bibles should be suppressed; and that every subject of the empire should engage (in the language of the Douay Catechism) to “believe whatsoever the Catholic church proposes to be believed.” This would certainly (if it could have been carried into effect) have rendered “all such p. 29elaborate Societies” as confine themselves to “the bare act of distributing Bibles, useless;” and consequently the growth of heresy, error, and delusion, impossible.

But, Sir, you and I must take things as we find them: and it does so happen, that things are not, in the church established in these realms, as they once were. Whether it be a wise or an unwise measure to open the Scriptures to the people at large, it is now too late to dispute: to the people at large they are opened; and their distribution is legitimated both by canon and precedent, as an act of the strictest justice, and the purest benevolence.

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:

Now, as this tract is issued by the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, I cannot but think it a misfortune, that, as a Country Clergyman, you should not have seen it before you wrote your Address to Lord T.: you would scarcely then have challenged the Noble Lord to show that he was “a true churchman,” by fearing and restraining the circulation of the Scriptures. As it is, you can scarcely, I should think, expect to escape rebuke. Like that “officer of the Society,” [31] whose secret history you seem to have studied so well, you have stepped a little out of your regular line, and, like him too, have been guilty of some “indecorum towards the church and its spiritual superiors.”

But supposing, Sir, that I could admit your dubious proposition, that the dissemination of truth did not depend upon the Bible which was given, but upon the hand which might give it; a proposition, which, if true to the extent of your statement, would prove equally, that the effect of your pamphlet upon the interests of the Bible Society will depend less upon the merits of your work, than upon the hands through which it may pass;—what expedient would you propose, in the exercise of your sagacity, for providing against the consequences you fear? I am aware of your answer—“Dissolve the Bible Society.” Suppose that p. 32done; though there would, I think, be difficulties in the way of doing it: still the tares are sowing in a thousand directions, and the business of prevention is scarcely yet begun. Your expedient must provide for putting Bibles into the hands of churchmen only, or of those who will infallibly become churchmen by reading them; or it will never succeed. But what will you do with those wholesale Bible-mongers, the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and his Majesty’s Printer, and all their subordinate agents and instruments, the book and Bible sellers throughout the country? While such merchants as these may dispose of Bibles ad libitum as an article of trade, and such bodies as the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, and others of the same description, will continue to favor the traffic, I cannot see how you will contrive to dam up the waters of life to any orthodox purpose; or to prevent their irrigating those lands that are alienated from the established church.

Perhaps it might forward your purpose to put the printing and distributing of Bibles under some new and more definite limitation. As the members of the church of England do not exceed four fifths of the population of the country, and the chance of converting a sectary is scarcely worth the risk of supplying him with “arms against yourself,” what think you of a petition to the Legislature against uselessly and dangerously multiplying p. 33copies of the Holy Scriptures? I will suppose your application successful, and that only four Bibles are printed for every five individuals upon the records of the population. I will also suppose, which is quite as necessary, that these Bibles, when printed, are consigned to an ecclesiastical depot, of which the whole and sole custody shall be vested in the Country Clergyman; and that not a single copy of the Bible shall be issued but under his direction. And now, Sir, do you really think, that, “old as you are in the business,” you would be able to detect all the dogs that, under various disguises, would be seeking the children’s meat? If you find in the little range of your own parish such “hard work with these crafty beasts,” how much would your work be increased, and your difficulties multiplied, by the daily care of all the churches?

But you must go farther, Sir, or else you had better not have begun.—You must interdict the free circulation of all “Apologies for the Bible,” all dissertations upon its authenticity and evidence, and particularly all discourses upon its excellence and usefulness. You must prevail upon the many venerable prelates, archdeacons’, and priests, of the present day, who have done themselves so much honor by advocating the cause of Christianity, to expunge from their writings all unguarded commendations of the Holy Scriptures; or to provide for their works, if they know how, an exclusive p. 34circulation in ecclesiastical channels. Nor is this all: you must invite, solicit, and (if you can find the means) compel, all the different denominations of Christians, to deliver up forthwith the Bibles they possess into the hands of the nearest parish priest. When all this is accomplished (and until it is, your end will be very imperfectly obtained) it will only remain for those well-meaning Societies, in connexion with the established church, to ask a bill of indemnity for the degree in which they have contributed to the propagation of error, by their incautious distribution of Bibles; and to bind themselves over to commit no more such acts of ecclesiastical suicide. Your business, it shall be supposed, is now accomplished; and what is the result?—Why, you may now congratulate yourself upon having withdrawn the antidote and left the poison in circulation; for the different denominations of Christians are still in possession of the privilege of multiplying tracts ad infinitum, and you have deprived their readers of the only means of detecting the heresy they contain.

But really, Sir, to be serious—“I feel very strong objections to the whole plan, not indeed the simple, pure object of” securing the Scriptures from perversion; “the mischief lies in the manner and means,” which must at all events be employed for “carrying that object into effect.” [34]

p. 35The word of God, which is a savour of life unto life, may also, I know, become a savour of death unto death. I am sorry for it: but to restrain the circulation of it, in order to provide against this contingent evil, would, I continue to think, with the authority before cited, be at once as unreasonable and unjust, as to “forbid people to eat or drink, for fear they should abuse that liberty.”

I am really sorry, Sir, you were so much at a loss to interpret the meaning of that “liberal basis,” upon which his Lordship recommended the Society to your notice. The terms “broad bottom,” [35a] which you substitute in their place, would have expressed well enough his Lordship’s intention; but as he was writing to a Country Clergyman, and not to “a preaching blacksmith,” he would not “fail in the respect” that is due to “a gentleman and a Christian.” [35b]—“Those who are used to good company (you say) know how to behave.” [35c] What then is his Lordship to think of you, when you tell him, that you have “not been educated on liberal-basis’d or broad-bottomed principles,” [35d] but that either you have not put on your prettiest behaviour, or that you would “feel” less “uneasy,” than you pretend, in that class of company to which, as a member of the Bible Society, you would expect to be introduced?

p. 36But were there no other authorities to which you could have recourse, when the lexicographer failed you, than the mouths of the “vulgar?” [36] I have an authority before me, which throws so much more light upon his Lordship’s “liberal basis,” than either the synonyms of the “lexicographer,” the slang of the “vulgar,” or the etymological quirks of the “Country Clergyman,” that I shall make no apology for producing it:

Now here, Sir, I found that “liberal basis” upon which the Society is erected, and I am surprised you did not think of looking for it in the same place. But perhaps the liberal basis of the prayer, like that of the Society, “has no charms for” you. I will not presume such a fact; but if you p. 37were to affirm that it is so, I should have very little difficulty in believing you.

You do not however intend “to deny the possibility of any sort or degree of union among certain descriptions of persons composing the Society.” [37a] You are “perfectly aware that all the various and discordant tribes of dissenters from the church of England may unite from the Papist down to the Quaker; for they frequently have, and frequently do unite against the church.” [37b]—“But when (say you) was it ever known that they have united with the church? Show me the history, lay your finger on the page, and say, my Lord, when, where, and upon what occasion, did they ever unite with the church for any important and righteous design. I must be satisfied on this point; I must request some fair example and precedent, to prove that the thing is neither impossible nor improbable, before it can be even prudent to listen to your Lordship’s proposal.” [37c]

Now here, Sir, you throw out a challenge, which, with his Lordship’s permission, I am willing to accept. I will show you the history of such union as you indirectly deny: I will lay my finger on the page, and say, when, and where, and upon what occasion the different tribes of Dissenters did unite with the church for an important and righteous design. The history then to which I refer is that portion of our country’s annals which p. 38commenced with the autumn of 1803, and which is not yet completed. The page upon which I lay my finger is that which displays the voluntary creation of a national force; in which, if one feature was more illustrious than another, it was the magnanimity with which the subjects of the same government agreed “to put away all rancour of religious dissension,” and to unite in the prosecution of that righteous and important design in which they had embarked, “notwithstanding their differences upon points of doubtful opinion, and in the forms of external worship.” Let the Country Clergyman peruse this awful yet luminous page of our history; let him weigh well the danger which threatened the throne, the church, and the nation; let him read in those discourses, which gratitude will not allow us to forget, how that danger was proclaimed by preachers of every denomination; let him walk through the land, in the length of it and the breadth of it, and see how many myriads were added to the national force by those powerful and seasonable appeals to the feelings, the conscience, and the spirit of Britons; and he will want, I think, no other “example and precedent” to prove that an union of the various tribes of Dissenters WITH the church of England, for an important and righteous design, “is neither impossible nor improbable.”

With such a recent portion of history before your eyes, I cannot see, I confess, either the p. 39justice or the policy of your travelling back over a century and half of ground in order to find matter of accusation against those of our fellow-subjects, with whom a sense of common danger has united us, and with whom it is as important now as it was two years ago, that we should continue united. The politico-religious strife which subsisted between our ancestors and theirs is not a sacred inheritance. I trust the various denominations of Christians of the present day would think themselves as much disgraced by the events of “the grand rebellion,” [39a] as the modern members of the establishment would by the revenge with which it was followed. “The church” has, I know, “her sores and scars;” and so, I lament to say, have those who dissented from her. Let us own the truth—“the heavenly dove” [39b] has been sometimes encouraged to make a little too free with “the wings and feathers” of the smaller birds, and it must not therefore be wondered if her own have suffered. Let her but act up to the sweetness of her nature, and allow the other tenants of the air to have their note; she then may plume her golden breast without annoyance, and bear her grateful blessings on outstretched wings to every nation under heaven.

p. 40Your zeal for extending the boundaries of that church in which you minister, is both natural and just: I participate in it with all the feelings of my heart. It is an object which has my prayers, and shall, by God’s assistance, through life command my services. But I will not set her up as the entire and only spouse of Christ: for how can I then curse those whom God hath not cursed?—Away with those superannuated fears, that she must grow barren because her younger sisters are fruitful. I have no doubt but both she and they have “borne many an illustrious child of God” [40a] to their heavenly bridegroom, and will continue to bear many more. I lament with you, that they prefer their Gerizim to our Zion: but I must not therefore refuse to have any dealings [40b] with them, or to entertain any charity for them. If they worship God in spirit and truth, if with the heart they believe on the Lord Jesus unto righteousness, if they “agree in the essentials of our most holy faith, and look for pardon through the merits and intercession of the Saviour,” I cannot, I dare not, I will not put them out of the covenant of grace and mercy and peace. Aliens from our external commonwealth, they are yet fellow-citizens with the saints: and though the earthly Jerusalem disclaim them, they will hereafter be acknowledged by the Jerusalem above—the mother of us all. [40c]

p. 41But the treason can no longer be dissembled; the eleventh article of the Society’s constitution proclaims it: that article purports, that “the committee (which is to conduct the business of the Society, appoint all officers except the treasurer, have power to call special meetings, and are charged with procuring for the Society suitable patronage) shall consist of thirty-six laymen; of whom, twenty-four, who shall have most frequently attended, shall be eligible for re-election for the ensuing year; six shall be foreigners resident in London or its vicinity; half the remainder shall be members of the church of England, and the other half members of other denominations of Christians!!!”

“We have here (say you) a standing majority against the church!” and then, after declaiming, with all the art of the buskin, upon this “death-warrant of the established church,” and with all the prescience of the seer upon the return of the “halcyon days of 1648,” you surround yourself with the imaginary ruins of “our” demolished “Zion,” and make your exit “weeping.” [41] I thought indeed when you played such awkward antics upon “his Lordship’s liberal basis,” that every thing was not right. I could not but regard the laugh in which you indulged, as a symptom of something very different from humour; and I p. 42have not been deceived. It was, I perceive, a moody laugh, and has ended, as all such hysterical affections do, in a flood of tears. As the fit is now over, we may examine this treasonable article, with a better chance of coming to a mutual understanding upon it.

I will then indulge you for a moment with the full benefit of your assertion, that there is in this committee “a standing majority against the church;” and what will you gain by such a concession? The object, you must now bear in mind, is specific—the circulation of the Scriptures; that object, you must also recollect, is limited, within the kingdom, to the authorized, versions in use among us. The same sort of limitation is not resorted to in case of foreign versions, for the best of all reasons; that it cannot in the nature of things be applied. The different Protestant churches on the European continent have their authorized versions, and there the line of proceeding is direct: but where the church of Rome, or, as she calls herself the church, prevails; there, the Country Clergyman would scarcely wish the rule for circulating the authorized version to be observed. As for those languages into which translations remain to be made, they are for the most part so remote from the ordinary sphere of study and commerce, that the office of executing such translations, and judging of their merits, must generally be consigned to foreigners; who probably p. 43neither understand the distinctions to which we annex importance, nor could be made to understand them. No questions, therefore, can arise in this committee, which might bring into discussion the points of disagreement between the church of England and Dissenters: so that if there should be in such committee, a standing majority of members out of the church, that will by no means constitute a Standing majority against her.

But let us see whether your hypothesis does not assume rather too much. The Society is denominated British and Foreign. In the constitution of its committee, it was but just to pay respect to both parts of its designation: nor does it appear extravagant to have assigned a sixth part of that committee to the members of those foreign churches, with which the Society sought a friendly co-operation, and with which, I understand, she is actually co-operating to a very considerable extent. Now these foreigners cannot be identified with the Dissenters from the established church, without as much violence to speech as makes a solecism, and to the rights of hospitality, as constitutes a calumny. Neither these men have sinned, nor their parents, in the way which the Country Clergyman supposes: they brought their religion with them, as they did their language; and they might as truly be said to have dissented from a language which they never spake, as from a mode of religious worship which neither they nor their fathers ever professed. They p. 44are, it should be observed, for the most part members of sister churches, from which the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge has obtained some of its most laborious missionaries, and the established church of this country has derived, and must continue to derive, her nursing mothers. [44] On many grounds, these foreigners would feel the ties which bind them to the established church; and she may therefore fairly reckon upon their neutrality, if she may not promise herself their support.

Let these neutrals (for such at least I am privileged to call them) be withdrawn, and there remain fifteen members to support the church’s interests, and fifteen, as it is supposed by the Country Clergyman, to impugn them. The former will naturally be links of the same chain; common interest, and pledges of a peculiar nature, dictate to them an uniformity of reciprocal support, from which they may not be expected to depart. They may therefore be reckoned upon to the extent of their number. But will you, Sir, who seem to know something of the world, will you allow yourself to believe, that the same uniformity of co-operation may be expected from the fifteen members who are to fight the battles of dissent? Some among them are advocates for infant baptism, some for adult baptism, and some for no baptism at all. Some p. 45hold the tenets of Calvin, some of Arminius, and some of neither. Their sentiments upon church government are also scarcely less various, than their opinions upon matters of faith: so that, widely as they may seem to dissent from the church of England, many of them would be found, if controverted questions could arise, to differ still more widely from each other. Yet all these discordant members must harmonize together; and the foreigners, who probably differ from them all, must harmonize with them; or else the standing majority against the church must remain a mere standing bugbear, to scare the Country Clergyman, and terrify those who choose to participate his alarms.

I am, however, no enemy to strong improbabilities where a pleasant argument is concerned. The fifteen members of all denominations of British Christians shall unite together; the six members of foreign churches shall do the same: and then, like the miraculous pieces of St. Peter’s chain [45] (of which the church makes such notable mention), these two parties shall form a junction; a majority shall thus be created against the church. What then? Are not the presidents, vice-presidents, and treasurer, by virtue of their respective offices, members of the committee? Suppose then for a moment, that the committee should entertain p. 46so foul a proposition as that for “blowing up the establishment, clergy and all;” suppose, that the Quakers should consent to renounce, pro hâc vice, their objections to the employment of gunpowder; suppose further that the foreigners should concur, nobody knows why, in voting for such a measure; the terrified minority would not be without a remedy. It would still be in their power, by the accession of these honorary members, to outnumber their dissenting adversaries at the ensuing meeting; and, by objecting to the confirmation of the minutes, prevent the explosion of this nefarious plot. But indeed there is no end of remedies. Every clergyman subscribing a guinea a year, is a member of the committee. (Art. 12.) Every subscriber of five guineas a year, is a member of the committee. (Art. 5 and 7.) Every subscriber of 50l. at one time, is a member of the committee. (Art. 6.) And lastly, every executor paying a bequest of 100l. is a member of the committee. (Art. 8 and 7.) Now, Sir, supposing the members of the church of England to be (upon your own estimate) to those of other denominations as four to one, whose fault do you think it will be, if the balance of influence in the committee of the Bible Society should be against her? Will you be wholly innocent?—“Oh, Sir, how could you join in such a plot? What could induce you to lend your” professional “name to such a business as this? And why should you think so basely of the clergy as p. 47to tempt them by your example,” and the presumption of your fair reputation, to believe, that, in strengthening the hands of their ecclesiastical brethren, they would “sign the death-warrant of the established church, and the instrument of their own ruin?” [47a] Do, Sir, lose no time in writing your palinodia. I will not ask you to alter your opinion of the Society, or to part with one of your suspicions of its mischievous designs. You shall still be at liberty to talk, as freely as ever, of “preaching blacksmiths and fanatical ranters in holy orders;” and of such “doves,” as you and your friends, becoming “a luscious and inviting morsel to all the several hungry denominations of Christians;” provided you do but seek to multiply the number of our ecclesiastical subscribers, as much as you have hitherto laboured to diminish it. I will not promise, in return, that your “liberality will be sounded forth by every gospel-preacher in the church, and every twanging teacher in the conventicle;” [47b] but I may then venture to promise you, what I should think would afford you quite as much pleasure—the satisfaction of having converted a standing majority against the church into a standing majority in her favor.

I will not dispute with you, whether the established church will be a gainer by this new connexion on the score of dignity and fashion. I am p. 48told, indeed, that there are among the nonconformists those who can wear as gay a coat, play as good a hand at whist, and give as modish an account of an opera or a play, as “those men of the world” among us, who “think it more creditable to be accounted members of our venerable church, than a subscriber to the meeting-house:” but I cannot say how many there may be of this description among the subscribers to the Bible Society. However, though “few men of opulence, and fewer still of rank, frequent the meeting-house or conventicle,” there is “influence and consideration” [48a] enough among the members of our communion to give respectability to both. I grant, indeed, that “the presence of a nobleman cannot make the company which he honours with his presence either creditable or polite,” yet surely the presence of a number will go a great way towards doing it: but then I admit with you, that they must not be “wandering stars,” [48b] which shed a momentary lustre, but luminaries which keep a fixed position, and dispense a certain light.

You expect, as the result of this new association, that all will become unity, and charity, and Christian benevolence, and that you shall see “realized the pretty hand-in-hand frontispiece to the Christian Ladies Pocket-Book 1803.” [48c] Now though I am not so sanguine in my expectations p. 49as you are, yet I trust you will not be wholly disappointed. And, in my opinion, a Protestant clergy will be not acting less out of their character by promoting “unity, charity, and Christian benevolence,” than by disturbing them: nor can Christian prelates be quite so much disgraced by shaking the hands of Dissenting ministers in the frontispiece of a pocket-book, [49] as they would be if represented as drawing those hands through the holes of a pillory.

Your fears are awakened for the purity of the church:—I am certainly more tender of her purity than I am of her dignity; and that because I have been taught to regard her white raiment as her truest glory. But what defilement has she to apprehend from a co-operation with persons differing from her, in an object upon which they are agreed? If Socinians are to be feared, if Calvinists are to be shunned, I question whether the Bible Society will furnish dangers nearly so great as those which the established church incurs from members of her own communion. Socinians are p. 50not remarkable for their zeal in promoting the circulation of the Scriptures; and I question whether half a dozen of them have subscribed their names as members of the Bible Society. As for the Calvinists, they constitute, it must be remembered, only a proportion of those denominations which are represented in the committee. The Wesleian Methodists are not Calvinists; many of the Presbyterians are not Calvinists; the Quakers are not Calvinists; the Lutherans are not Calvinists; and individuals of other persuasions, which might be named, are not Calvinists. Besides, though “scratchings and fightings” may be “usual with the parties when on the outside of the tavern walls,” [50] that is not a reason for there being theological wranglings within. The line of business is, with few exceptions, as direct at the Bible Committee as it is at Lloyd’s; and there is as little reason to expect the peculiar tenets of Calvin or Socinus to enter into a debate for dispersing an edition of the Scriptures, as there would be if the same men were met to underwrite a policy of insurance. But why may it not be hoped that churchmen will not be the only losers by this connexion? What if some of us should grow less proud and phlegmatic, may not some of them become less snarlish and fanatical? The friction which takes off our asperities will assuredly do the same by theirs. It is p. 51therefore highly probable, that we may severally bring away with us our faith, our hope, and our charity, which are all we wish to save; and leave nothing behind us but that “bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil-speaking, and malice,” [51a] which can very well be spared.

You ask, “what concord hath a mitre with a meeting-house?” The Pharisees of old were fond of asking questions of the same sort—“Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners?” The Pharisees were very little satisfied with the answer they received; and, I dare say, any answer that could be given to the Country Clergyman would satisfy him as little. I must therefore leave him to doubt whether any concord can subsist between kindred souls, pursuing the same object under different forms, and in unequal stations, till he shall see how near the spirits of an Usher and a Baxter, of a Taylor and a Henry, of a Tillotson and a Watts, of a Seeker and a Doddridge, will venture to approach each other, in the new heaven and new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.

And pray what are we to understand by your merry question about the unequal yoke? “Why (you ask) should a clergyman of the church of England be unequally yoked with a lovely sister of the conventicle?” And then you desire “a certain officer of the Society” [51b] to be consulted. What p. 52sort of an answer that “officer” might think proper to give, it belongs to himself to determine; but I confess I see nothing in the question which I should be afraid to meet. I am at a loss to see what harm “a lovely sister of the conventicle” can do to any man. I am sure there is every probability that such an “unequal yoke” would do the Country Clergyman’s temper a great deal of good. But I cannot give him any great encouragement, if he should venture himself upon such a speculation, into the company of those of whom he has always hitherto been horribly afraid. The sectaries, on whom he has laid such heavy blows, will keep (I fear) their “lovely sisters” for priests of a gentler nature and better breeding; and leave the Country Clergyman to whisper his tale of love into some high-church ear, and to be as “equally yoked” as Richard Hooker, [52] or any other country clergyman ever was before him.

But though I can pardon in this “certain officer p. 53of the Society,” his hymeneal error (for matches, you know, Sir, are made in heaven), yet I have no such allowance to make for those other transgressions, in which he is, or ought to be, a freer agent. “Perhaps (you say) he can resolve us, how a clergyman of the church can attend the meeting-house, without danger to his principles, or gross indecorum towards the church and its spiritual superior. He perhaps can show us too, how a clergyman of the church can securely, and without breach of trust, take his pupils to hear the harangues of those who daily revile her. This, to common understandings, does not appear to be the likely way ‘to banish and drive away all erroneous and strange doctrines, contrary to God’s word,’ which every clergyman at his ordination solemnly promises to do. It wants some clearing up.” [53]

There is really, Sir, no accounting for the fancies of some of our order. Dean Swift was fond of vulgar manners, and therefore he would take his dinner in a cellar; some clergymen love the sports of the field, and therefore join the hounds at a fox-chase: I suppose this “certain officer of the Society” has a sort of ear for public speaking, and has sometimes stepped a little out of his way in order to gratify it. But then (as you might naturally say) are not the theatres open for p. 54him, as well as for his brethren; and if he wants a slice of good oratory, cannot he give six shillings to a box-keeper, and take it like a gentleman? He may perhaps have a doubt (for he seems to hold opinions of his own) “how a clergyman of the church can attend” the theatre, “without danger to his principles, or gross indecorum towards the church and its spiritual superior.” Perhaps also he may entertain a doubt “how a clergyman of the church can, securely, and without breach of trust, take his pupils to hear the harangues of those” dramatic characters, “which,” as Archbishop Tillotson says, “do most notoriously minister to infidelity and vice.” [54a] Possibly “this,” to his understanding, may “not appear to be the likely way ‘to frame and fashion himself and his family according to the doctrine of Christ, and to make both himself and them, as much as in him lieth, wholesome examples and patterns to the flock of Christ,’ [54b] which every clergyman at his ordination solemnly promises to do.” But I think with you, that the whole of this matter “wants clearing up.” I have, I confess, some difficulty about conceiving how this priest can execute either such, or so many duties as he is said to do, of a parochial and domestic nature; and yet find either time to conduct his pupils to hear p. 55the church reviled, or pupils tractable enough to be conducted by him. But, as I said before, the whole matter “wants clearing up;” and if you should be found to have aimed a blow at his professional character, which he has not quite deserved, you have nothing to do but to say, as the Roman assassins are reported to do when they stab the wrong man in the dark, “Padrone è un sbaglio,”—“I beg your pardon, it was a mistake.”

Your last objection respects “the purity of the Holy Scriptures,” which, you think, will be endangered “if the translation and edition of the Sacred Book are to be intrusted to all the different denominations of Christians.” [55] The greater part of this objection has been anticipated. It has been already stated that the Society is restrained to editing and distributing the versions, printed by authority, throughout the united kingdom. In supplying the different parts of the European continent, the Society will find the versions already in circulation among the Protestant churches; and its proceedings in these cases will be chiefly directed by those Lutheran prelates and ministers, with whom a confidential communication has, I understand, been already opened, through the medium of its foreign secretary. Nor can there be any danger of the Bible Society intrusting “either the translating or the editing the Holy Scriptures to p. 56the care of that denomination of Christians called Papists;” [56a] for, besides the improbability of “that denomination of Christians” joining the Bible Society, there is the absolute certainty, that there would always be in the committee a standing majority against them. With regard to new translations, they relate, as has been already observed, to languages, over which the jurisdiction of the church of England would be as nugatory as that of any other denomination of Christians. The manner of conducting these must be almost, if not entirely, matter of discretion; and such a committee as the Bible Society has been shown to possess, affords the best security that such discretion will never be wanted. So far as the influence of the church in these cases is of importance, she has it, by the natural constitution of the committee; and if a preponderating influence be desirable, the doors are opened for obtaining it by proportional subscription. Should she adopt this measure, as I trust she will, “you see the consequences as well as I can.” The Society will then contain, beyond all question, a standing majority in favor of the church; and there will be no room for apprehending that “our present pure English Bible will be thrust aside to make way for others:” but while “every different party has its doctrine and its interpretation,” all parties will have but one Bible. [56b]

p. 57But, it seems, you have got possession of a fact which strengthens all your fears: you have been “credibly informed that the British and Foreign Bible Society are at this time preparing an edition of the Holy Scriptures in the Welsh language, in which such liberties are taken in the translation as are by no means warrantable.” You are right in saying you give this “merely as a report;” however, I cannot help suspecting that, where the Bible Society, or any of its officers, are likely to suffer by it, you have no particular objection to publishing what are “merely reports.” Others before you have charged upon the Society the nefarious crime of taking “unwarrantable liberties with the translation” and they had just as good authority for saying so as you have. The fact is, that the original informer never imputed to the Society the guilt of altering the translation, but the orthography of the text; and he, it must be observed, had never seen any portion of the corrected copy. But before your pamphlet left the press—perhaps before it went there; the parties, to whom the information had been originally conveyed, were in possession of another sort of report—a Report from the Committee of the British and Foreign Bible Society; in which the corrections that had occasioned this alarm, were shown to have been made (whether right or wrong, judicent periti), upon a collation of the orthographical variations, in the several authorized editions only. p. 58However, the question between the parties is in a train of arbitration, under the direction of the syndics of the Cambridge University-press; who, and not the Committee of the Bible Society, are to be the printers of the Welsh impression.

But lest the Welsh rumour should subside before the Society is overthrown, you have another little story to keep up the public prejudice against it. “The author (you say) has likewise been told, that the distribution of tracts as well as Bibles, was in the original plan of some of the first projectors of this scheme, one of whom is known to be a zealous adversary of the establishment.” [58a] Now, Sir, it is very possible that the original projector of this Society, and his project too, may have been very exceptionable, and yet the present institution be entitled to a very honorable character. I have never thought the worse of the Reformation, because I could not for the life of me think well of Henry the Eighth and his “original plan.” The “Philanthropic Society” is founded upon a supposition, which I think a very just one, that something may be made of the offspring, when nothing can be made of the parent; [58b] and I suppose the Country Clergyman would rather have his pamphlet judged from the fair copy which he sent to the press, than from any one of those “original plans” of it, which were projected by his busy and p. 59inquisitive reporters. The question is, whether the actual plan of the Society comprehends or excludes the distribution of tracts. The answer to this is, that the first article of the constitution peremptorily excludes them. After such a declaration, it is as unreasonable to dispute the present object of the Bible Society, by a reference to any antecedent designs; as it would be to question whether the Paradise Lost be an epic poem, merely because it stood as a drama in Milton’s “original plan.”

But I have done.—My business was not to proclaim the excellence of the Bible Society; but only to rescue it from reproach. I have therefore confined my remarks to those specific objections with which you have opposed it.

What further objections you could have produced (and, it seems, you have nine times as many in reserve) [59] I shall not concern myself to inquire: if they resemble those, which have been already considered, I rejoice that you have had the grace to conceal them. You have already condescended enough “to do the enemy’s work:” and deserved sufficiently well of those who seek the church’s degradation. If this be really the object of the several denominations of Christians, they are abundantly more indebted to the hostility of the cassock than to the friendship of the mitre. p. 60Yours, Sir, is the description of services upon which they will set the most value: and, if they do you justice, “not a single nonconformist, Papist, Socinian, or Quaker, will be silent in your praise.”—“Ungrateful wretches would they be, were they to pass by unnoticed and un-eulogized so great a friend to their cause.” [60a] But I trust you have mistaken them, as much as you have dishonored us: they will hope to get to heaven, though they should not have pulled down the church in their way; and we shall hope to get there too, though we should not have compelled them “to be like-minded,” nor refused them the free use of Bibles, and the offices of brotherly love.

And now, Sir, before I take my leave (a ceremony to which we are hastening with mutual impatience), let me challenge your acknowledgment of that courteousness and suavity with which I have treated you. It was natural for you to expect revilings and reproaches; you esteem them an “honor;” you “have enjoyed them before;” [60b] and I must do you the justice to say, that you take some pains to deserve them. However, in the present instance, you have been disappointed. I have neither reviled nor reproached you: I have not once called you “Beelzebub,” through the whole of my letter: I have never once insinuated that you were a wolf in sheep’s clothing: p. 61I have never once pried into the table of your alliances, nor dodged you from your house to your favorite places of amusement, nor pretended to know any more of your private history, than was strictly consistent with “a gentleman and a Christian.”

I owe this self-government to “those liberal-basis’d and broad-bottomed principles,” to which you appear so profound a stranger: and I trust, this consideration will do a great deal towards recommending them to your favor. They are, Sir, be assured, the genuine principles of Christianity, as well as those of the British constitution. They are calculated to reflect honor on the church, and to promote harmony through the nation. On them the British and Foreign Bible Society has been erected; and from such an institution, resting upon such “a basis,” the happiest events may, under God, be expected, to the country—to Europe—and to the habitable world.

FOOTNOTES.

[3b] This resolution was occasioned by the combination of the journeymen printers, &c. against their masters.

[6d] “History proves that none but the church have enjoyed the splendour and favour of princes.” Address, p. 27.

[36] It struck me suddenly at last, that your Lordship must intend by these classical words, only what the vulgar would call “broad bottom.” Address, p. 16.

[39b] “Whose delight,” speaking of the Dissenters, “has always been to clip the silver wings of the heavenly dove, and to pluck her golden feathers from her breast.” Address, p. 20.

[44] It need scarcely be observed, that our virtuous Queen, and the wives of her royal sons, were of the Lutheran church.

[45] A church at Rome, called San Pietro in Vincolis, is said to have been built in consequence of such a miraculous event.

[49] The reader, who is not acquainted with this part of ecclesiastical history, must be told, that a bookseller, desirous, it is presumed, of reconciling all “denominations of Christians” to the purchase of his Christian “Ladies’ Pocket-book, for 1803,” took the liberty of representing three ministers, respectively of the Presbyterian, Baptist, and Independent denominations of Protestant Dissenters, and a prelate of the established church, together with an union of hands, in the frontispiece of his work.

[52] Richard Hooker was prevailed upon by Mrs. Churchman, the wife of “a draper of good note,” as honest Isaac Walton calls him, to let her choose a wife for him. “Now,” continues the pleasant biographer, “the wife provided for him was her daughter Joan, who brought him neither beauty nor portion; and for her conditions, they were too like that wife’s, which is by Solomon compared to a dripping house: so that he had no reason to rejoice in the wife of his youth, but rather to say with the holy prophet, ‘Wo is me, that I am constrained to have my habitation in the tents of Kedar’.” Walton’s Life of Hooker.

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The Project Gutenberg eBook of A letter to a country clergyman, occasioned by his address to Lord Teignmouth

A
LETTER
TO A
COUNTRY CLERGYMAN,
OCCASIONED BY
HIS ADDRESS
TO
LORD TEIGNMOUTH,
PRESIDENT OF THE BRITISH AND FOREIGN
BIBLE SOCIETY.

p. 1A LETTER, &c.

FOOTNOTES.

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

The Project Gutenberg eBook of A letter to a country clergyman, occasioned by his address to Lord Teignmouth

A LETTER TO A COUNTRY CLERGYMAN, OCCASIONED BY HIS ADDRESS TO LORD TEIGNMOUTH, PRESIDENT OF THE BRITISH AND FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIETY.

p. 1A LETTER, &c.

FOOTNOTES.

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

A
LETTER
TO A
COUNTRY CLERGYMAN,
OCCASIONED BY
HIS ADDRESS
TO
LORD TEIGNMOUTH,
PRESIDENT OF THE BRITISH AND FOREIGN
BIBLE SOCIETY.