Part 1

Transcribed from the 1805 F. C. and J. Rivington edition from Bodleian Library scans by David Price, email [email protected]

[Picture: Pamphlet cover]

AN ADDRESS TO _LORD TEIGNMOUTH_. PRESIDENT OF THE BRITISH AND FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIETY, OCCASIONED BY HIS ADDRESS TO THE CLERGY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

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_BY A COUNTRY CLERGYMAN_.

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LONDON: PRINTED FOR F. C. AND J. RIVINGTON, No 62, ST. PAUL’S CHURCH-YARD; _By Bye and Law_, _St. John’s-Square_, _Clerkenwell_.

1805.

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AN ADDRESS, _&c._

MY LORD,

THE emotions of my mind, upon receipt of your Lordship’s address as President of the British and Foreign Bible Society, were such as I am not inclined, for several reasons, to describe. Your friends represent you as not hostile to the established church: nay, some assert that you are its firm supporter; and doubtless it never could have entered your Lordship’s mind to address a clergyman with proposals of lending his zeal and exertions for the promotion of religion, but in the character of the church’s friend. Judge then, my Lord, at my surprize, to see your Lordship’s name at the head of such a list of subscribers as that enclosed to me; to find your Lordship’s patronage and protection bestowed upon every description of its enemies, and your request that I would promote their design. Judge, my Lord, what must have been my grief, to find a man of your Lordship’s respectability deserting the cause of sound religion, and our poor country’s best defence, and confederating with persons openly labouring the destruction of all that is sober, or established!

My Lord, I presume to address you, invited by your Lordship’s known good sense and candour, and much emboldened by a strong conviction that some enemy hath craftily obtained your Lordship’s countenance to his project; which, I am sure, if your Lordship knew all, you would spurn with indignation and contempt. I am persuaded that you know not the men and their communication, to whom you have joined yourself. Let this then be my excuse for intruding myself upon your notice; and if I fail to convince your Lordship, at least let me promise myself that patience and respect which is always due to sincerity and good intention. At present, my Lord, you appear as the head of a party, (rather, should I say, a legion of parties) by whom every opponent is sure to be reviled, as illiberal and uncharitable, and as an enemy to the gospel. I confess I expect the honour of their reproaches. I am thankful that I have enjoyed them before. “If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household?” From you, my Lord, I expect the treatment of a Gentleman and a Christian; and if I fail in the respect which is due to those honourable characters, I sincerely profess it shall be contrary to my resolved purpose; and I beg your Lordship to let Charity do its perfect work, and cover this failure among the multitude of my other sins.

It is very true, my Lord, that “to promote the circulation of the scriptures at home and abroad, is an object in which every one who professes the religion of Christ, must feel a deep interest.” But the _object_ of a society, my Lord, is not to be known from its public declaration in print. Your experience of the world will suggest to you, that the most important objects, whether of a good or evil tendency, have been prosecuted, and are now continually pursued in a close and clandestine manner, under favour of public declarations of a different and often of a contrary character. It is impossible for any man to say what shall be the _real_ object of any society, till he be in possession of the favourite object of each of its members; for although a body of men may at first associate for, and appear to bind themselves to the promotion of some specific common object, we well know, that in process of time, this common object is generally lost in neglect; and at last, each individual pursues that particular object which, as a private man, engages his affection and preference.

To say, therefore, what is or shall be the _object_ of a society, is no easy matter, if we mean to guard against delusion. 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. Into how many Proteus forms has Jesuitism wrapt itself, upon different occasions? So the monster Jacobinism has insinuated its poison, at one time or other, into almost every species of society in Europe.

It is to little purpose we use our eyes, if we see this destructive principle only in clubs and lodges, and spouting societies. This serpent has a far wider range; wherein there is a place and room to coil in, there let the passenger beware, _latet anguis in herbá_. And if your Lordship will please to call to mind, the warnings of a learned prelate of our church, you will remember that he is now in a remarkable manner, and with much aggravation of malice and impudence, detected lurking behind the cross.

Your Lordship cannot be ignorant how many hundred public declarations it has set forth, to convince the world how simple are its designs, how pure its intentions! Need we be directed to consider, can we avoid considering, those several political societies of the present day, which, with the most enchanting titles, and with avowed objects of the fairest sort, have perpetrated atrocities of the foulest dye? Look into the public addresses of those societies, sometimes decorated by honourable and responsible signatures. See the printed declarations of their _reasons_, _objects_, and _principles_; then repair to the Old Bailey, or the Maidstone assizes; there compare the acts and deeds of those associations, with the plausible professions of their printed schemes and declarations, and say, my Lord, whether it be prudent, at least in this our day, to consider all as honest and true that meets our eye in print, shouldered by the well-known signatures of respectable presidents and vice-presidents?

My Lord, give me leave to say, you cannot answer for the _real_ object of any association, but by being able to answer for the _real_ principles and pursuits of its individual members; you may heartily wish, and sincerely endeavour to promote the _avowed_ object of _this_ society: (and I know no man more likely to do both, than your Lordship.) Secure those principles, be able to controul those pursuits, and no man who knows your Lordship’s high character, would hesitate a moment to believe that your society will be what it proposes. 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, and 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. If this he cannot do, at least let him tell me where is my security that my contribution to the institution, will not be turned to support some object, which I never intend to support; and to promote not the object proposed to me in the letter, but another, and perhaps a detested one? Your presidency, my Lord, is not exactly of the sort to which you have been accustomed, and which you have much adorned. But far be it from me to say, that you preside over an association of men, combined for designs altogether bad; that you patronize, and protect a society, whole objects and principles are wilfully nefarious: All that I here assert, 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; and, confident in your own good intentions, you have recommended me to do the same.

But when I cast my eye over the list of your officers, and subscribers, (over which your Lordship’s eye has undoubtedly passed,) I am really in doubt, whether your Lordship be in jest or earnest, when you recommend the institution to the attention of a Clergyman of the Church of England; and, I wonder much, what arguments your Lordship can use, to press it home. In this list, I must acknowledge, I see many respectable names, with which I should be happy to place mine. But I likewise see a very large proportion of others, with which, as an honest man, I can have nothing to do; I see many names of persons, whose objects and pursuits have been diametrically the opposite of mine: what I build, they pull down: what I teach, they mock, and endeavour to render ineffectual. The sacred cause, which as a Clergyman of the Church of England, I have sworn to serve and support, (and which, with the best talents I have, I will support, as long as I have my life,) they hold up to scorn, and abuse with hard names and jeers. They vilify my character, as a servant of the Most Highest, and set me forth to the world, as a dishonest man. Now were I, my Lord, allured by your Lordship’s invitation, and tempted by the sound of what you call the “liberal basis of your establishment;” (the sense of which I have not yet apprehended:) should I be induced, I say, to venture myself into the company of men, of whom I 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: can your Lordship afford me protection and safety? Can your Lordship shew me, that our days are so evangelical, that the lamb may now dwell with the wolf in safety? I see your Lordship is ready kindly to allay my fears; and to demand, if persons associating for the _simple_ and _pure_ purpose of disseminating the scriptures, ought to be suspected of such views and projects? My Lord, since I have been a shepherd, I have seen so many wolves, and have undergone such terrors for my poor sheep, that you must have the charity to pity my weakness, and excuse my unconquerable fears. Those who are old in the business, have a right at least to be attended to, in matters which concern their experience. Wolves, my Lord, our great Master has warned us, sometimes put on sheep’s clothing; and we find, I assure you, much harder work with these crafty beasts, than with those, which, without disguise, prowl about in their proper character. But have I not too good reason to be afraid of those who openly, and fairly _avow_, that their object is to eat us up, both sheep and shepherd too? In plain terms, if your Lordship can demonstrate to us, that those persons with whom you invite me to associate, under pretence of doing God service, have at any time really revoked their hostility to the church and ministry, which they have so frequently, and so fully avowed; shew us the time when, and the place where, they have deliberately recanted their well-known threats and projects, repented of their numerous slanders and calumnies, and have as solemnly sworn peace with the church and clergy, as before they have sworn and pursued their enmity. Nay, my Lord, I ask no unreasonable thing; if you can only shew, that upon this present occasion alone, they have explicitly and solemnly put off their old man of hostility and hatred, and have put on the new man of peace, and love, and concord—I am silent. I request your secretary will please to insert my name, and accept my donation. But, my good Lord, if the enmity of these men has never been revoked; if their hostility, and destructive resolutions have never been cancelled; if no proof to the contrary can be adduced, but we are still left in possession of the thousand well-known proofs; nay, in many places, of the open confession of their intentions of undermining and destroying both church establishment and clergy too: I then will leave it to any person of sane intellect to determine, whether it be prudent, whether it be upright, whether it be safe, to accept your Lordship’s proposal.

A notion prevails in the world, but a very mistaken one, that the association of such a body of persons as appears upon the list, is the unity so much recommended in scripture. We are perpetually called upon, in the name of Christian charity, to throw aside prejudices and dissentions, and to unite for some common religious purpose. Your Lordship must know, that there is more of sound than sense in this fashionable project. That union enjoined in scripture, is not of the hand and purse, but of the heart and mind. Christian charity 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.

But I feel very strong objections, my Lord, to the whole plan: Not indeed to the simple, pure object of disseminating the scriptures: one of these days I hope to see the earth full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. The mischief lies in the _manner_, and the _means_, of carrying that object into effect. Your society is composed of not only many secret foes, and treacherous familiar friends, but of a very large proportion of sworn enemies of the church; to which enemies, a much larger share of influence is given by the rules and regulations of your society, than naturally they have any right to. The consequence of which measure is this: that your society, so far from being in amity with the constitutional church of this kingdom, upholds and promotes the cause of its adversaries; and consequently seeks and assists in its destruction. No one can for a moment imagine, that all this you intend: for myself, it is as far from my thoughts, as I trust it is from yours. Let me therefore crave your Lordship’s attention, only for a few minutes; and let me have it pure and perfectly disengaged of all partiality for your project. Be not then deceived, my Lord, with the notion that the _bare act of distributing Bibles_, _is the act of disseminating the sacred truth_. The word of God in itself is pure and perfect, and more to be desired than much fine gold: but as the finest gold may be turned to base purposes, so may the scriptures. For, alas! through the lusts of men, and the covetousness of the world, the precious book of life is made the instrument of error, as well as of truth; of much evil, as well as of infinite good. When it is remembered, that to the scriptures, not only the true church of Christ appeals for confirmation of its divine doctrine, but likewise that every sect and heresy, by which it ever was defaced, has regularly pretended likewise to deduce its error; when we observe the Papist, and Puritan, the Socinian, and Calvinist, the Baptist, and Quaker, all appealing to the Bible for the truth of their principles, and pretending to prove them thereby—it will not be maintained, I think, that the _mere distribution of Bibles_, under the present circumstances of the times, is likely to spread the truth. On the contrary, it is to be expected, that each member of your heterogeneous society, will draw his portion of books for the promotion of his particular opinion: for it is easily seen, that a Bible given away by a Papist, will be productive of popery. The Socinian will make his Bible speak, and spread Socinianism; while the Calvinist, the Baptist, and the Quaker, will teach the opinions peculiar to their sects. Supply these men with Bibles, (I speak as to a true churchman) and you supply them with arms against yourself.

For what reason have we to suppose, that your _simple_, _pure_, and _important_ design, will be exactly prosecuted by all the various descriptions of your society?—What security have we, that each zealous religionist will not, according to the nature of his particular creed, accompany his pious donation of the scriptures, with his own peculiar interpretation and comment?—As a Church-of-England man, and sadly experiencing daily before my eyes, that the Holy Book is made a nose of wax, by the various discordant and opposite sects, I should deem it my indispensable duty, not only to diffuse the text of scripture, but to guard my people against what I consider as misinterpretations of it. Does not this, indeed, constitute by far the greater part of the Christian minister’s duty? Is not this the chief design of most sermons preached, and of most of the religious tracts, which issue from the press? And can we suppose that any conscientious and careful dissenter will not do the same? If he be indifferent to the prevalence, either of truth, or error; that is, if he be hypocritical and insincere, he may not perchance give himself the trouble: but if he be honest, and is warmed by the least spark of zeal, he cannot do otherwise. Were the Bible so miraculously contrived, that it were impossible to misinterpret or misunderstand it; that is, were it impossible to abuse it, all other religious societies might be saved a vast expence of trouble and revenue, by relinquishing all their former plans, and falling into yours. But if it be possible from the scriptures, not only to draw the word of truth to salvation, but to support so much error and delusion, as every religionist is ready to see any where, or every where but at home, something more is required, than a Bible society, to secure the faith once delivered to the saints. If your Lordship sees no impropriety in requesting a clergyman to aid and assist in the promotion of the various hostile sects, which war against the church, and sound religion; if you see no harm in his becoming the patron and fellow-worker, together with Papists, Socinians, Quakers, &c. your Lordship, I am sure, will not refuse to enlighten my mind upon the subject, and prove it to me from the word of God. At present, believe me, I am fully purposed, by God’s help, never wittingly to lend my hand to sow tares in the church of God. Quote not, that the wheat and tares must grow together till the harvest, if by that you would wind me to your present plan. Tell me not that heresies must needs come—I know it. But by _my_ means they shall never come. You know, my Lord, it is the _enemy’s_ part to sow tares; heresies descend not from heaven. How then can you invite me to do the enemy’s work? How can I do this, and be innocent?

Permit me, my Lord, now to say a word or two upon the “liberality of the basis of your establishment;” which is held out as “giving additional force to the claims arising from the simplicity, purity, and importance of the design.” Not satisfactorily apprehending at first, what might be signified by the expression of a _liberal basis_, I had recourse to a well-known lexicographer, who under the word liberal, gives us these meanings:—“not mean, not low in birth;—becoming a gentleman;—munificent, generous, bountiful:”—then successively applying these several meanings to the subject, I find the address to signify either one, or all of these positions: that the basis of your establishment, is not a mean basis, nor a basis of low birth; it is a basis becoming a gentleman, or it is a munificent, or a generous, or a bountiful basis. My author assists me no further, these being all the senses that he has included under the word. Here, I confess, I was a little posed, my mind remaining still unsatisfied, that any of these meanings were intended, although I felt that all the epithets, could they be applied to the subject, were such as must recommend the basis of any thing. It struck me suddenly at last, that your Lordship must intend, by these classic words, only what the vulgar would call “broad bottom.” _The broad bottom of the establishment_ “gives additional force,” &c.

Now, if your Lordship designs to recommend your establishment by its broad bottom, permit me to say, it has no charms for me. I know the liberal basis, or broad bottom, is very much the vogue in all religious (and chiefly in religious) projects; the reason of which, if this were the proper place, I think I could unfold. But do you really mean to tempt a clergyman to join your society, by seriously holding out to him the opportunity of joining his “zeal and exertions,” as you speak, with the zeal and exertions of all sorts and descriptions of men, who pretend to be Christians? Do you imagine, my Lord, that your invitation can derive additional force, from the prospect of meeting (when I must have the honour of meeting your Lordship, as president of the motley group) and associating with all sorts of preachers and teachers, from the preaching blacksmith up to the fanatical ranter in holy orders? Those who are used to good company, know how to behave. I must confess, that being unfortunately not bred in such liberal-basis’d, or broad-bottomed principles, I should not. I should feel uneasy, my Lord; I should be illiberally, perhaps, looking towards the door; I might uncharitably call to mind that bigot Polycarp, and actually make my escape. And what would you have me do? You have condescended to persuade me to meet my inveterate foes, who have repeatedly declared their intentions of pulling the church about my ears, and starving all the clergy; and who are actually and openly perpetrating their fatal project; could you not bring about a reconciliation, my Lord, before we meet? Do you not think that this would vastly promote and strengthen your present scheme? At present we are all to meet, it appears, each retaining his wonted mind, and continuing his usual exertions; that is, we all meet under your Lordship’s auspices, still to continue pulling, with all our might, different ways!

Surely, to every thinking man it must be plain, that although your Lordship should call upon such a babel of lips and languages, with all the powers you have, for zeal and exertions united, there appears not the least probability that that unanimity will come when you do call, till you can prove that those very means which the Almighty adopted to confound and divide, have changed their nature, and now may be used to collect, and unite, and carry on a simple plan with effect.

Mistake me not, my Lord, as intending to deny the possibility of any _sort or degree_ of union among certain descriptions of persons composing the society. This, I am sure, would be to deny that which authentic histories have abundantly proved to be true. I am 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. “Many times have they consulted together with one consent, and have been confederate against the church,” saying, “let us take to ourselves the houses of God in possession.” But when was it ever known, that they have united _with_ the church? Shew me the history, lay your finger upon 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 upon 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!