Part 2

Mr. Perowne speaks very contemptuously of all professors of religion who are not members of his own community; and especially of Roman Catholics and Socinians. The doctrines, which are held by both these denominations, appear to me to be subversive, in different ways, of the gospel of Christ. They probably consider me to be in equal error; and though we cannot have communion together in religious worship, I think that I should be acting an unchristian part, were I to refuse to unite with them in any works of benevolence, in which we can unite without the compromise of religious principle. Mr. P’s. object in referring to these persons is to bring our Infant School System into disrepute; and therefore we must examine his statements. “If I am rightly informed,” says he, “the school in Crook’s Place and that in St. Miles’ have Socinians among the most regular and active superintendents.” I am not much acquainted with the school in Crook’s Place; but I once visited it, for the purpose of examining the children on Scripture subjects; and, with the exception of a little girl, who said that “the High Priest of the church was the king of England,” they gave very satisfactory answers to my questions relative to the great doctrines of redemption; so that heterodoxy was not perceptible there. With the school in St. Miles’ I am more intimately connected; having been accustomed to visit it monthly. There are Dissenters on the committee, but none of them are Socinians. There are also members of the Establishment on the committee, and in the office of treasurer and secretary; and, though I am not acquainted with their individual sentiments, yet I have no reason to suspect that any of them entertain Socinian doctrine—and I fully believe that Mr. Perowne’s charge has not the slightest foundation in fact.

But even if Socinians were “among the most regular and active superintendents,” with what consistency can they be objected to on that account by Mr. Perowne? “If a man will but leave the Church of England,” says he, “or assist in pulling it down, he is _a Christian brother_, even though he denies the Lord who bought him, or bow before an idol.” Now, to say nothing of the grammar of this sentence, or of the “false accusation” which it involves, I would ask whether Mr. Perowne himself, as a minister of the Established Church, does not acknowledge both “Papists and Socinians” to be Christian brethren? Does he not recognise the validity of popish baptism, and acknowledge its regenerating qualities to be as effectual as his own? Would he not admit a Roman Catholic priest, who had recanted, to his pulpit without re-ordination, and thereby acknowledge that a popish bishop is able to communicate the Holy Ghost? But, without proceeding in these inquiries, relative to the Catholic who “bow before an idol,” let us notice the case of the Socinians, who “deny the Lord that bought them.” Has Mr. Perowne, who renounces all communion with them as a church, no communion with them individually? Most assuredly he has; and there is not a Socinian in the kingdom whom he would hesitate to receive and to acknowledge, under certain circumstances, as “a Christian brother!” He receives tithes and church rates from them; and thereby has communion with them in the support of the “Apostolical Establishment.” He admits Socinians to speak and vote amidst the “peaceful and loving scenes” which are witnessed at vestry meetings; and Mr. Perowne himself, being in the chair, would act upon a resolution which had been carried by a Socinian majority, and thereby permit Socinians to bear rule in the church. Were a Socinian to be seen kneeling at the altar of the church, Mr. Perowne would not dare to refuse him the bread and wine, if he were not “an open and notorious evil liver.” And when the Socinian, who dies in the very act of “denying the Lord that bought him,” is conveyed in a coffin to St. John’s Maddermarket, Mr. Perowne clothes himself in white, and solemnly declares, “I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord; even so saith the Spirit; for they rest from their labours.” Mr. Perowne then calls this same Socinian his “_dear brother_”—he gives God “hearty thanks that it hath pleased him to deliver this _brother_ out of the miseries of this sinful world”—he declares that “it hath pleased Almighty God of his great mercy _to take unto himself the soul of our dear brother_ here departed”—he prays that, when he himself dies, and that when those around him “shall depart this life, they _may rest in Christ as our hope is this our brother doth_”—and then he completes and crowns the whole by declaring, “We therefore commit his body to the ground; earth to earth; ashes to ashes; dust to dust; IN SURE AND CERTAIN HOPE OF THE RESURRECTION TO ETERNAL LIFE, THROUGH OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST!” And yet this very Mr. Perowne rails against the orthodox Dissenters for associating with Socinians, and solemnly anathematizes all Bible Societies and Infant Schools which permit Socinians to become members! “Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel!”

Were the Dissenters of this country to abstain from all interference in “contested elections,” and to leave both church and state to the care of others, such a course of proceeding might be very agreeable to Mr. Perowne, but I question whether it would be serviceable to civil and religious liberty. If, however, there be any guilt in this matter, it does not lie exclusively at the door of nonconformist “teachers and members,” and when Mr. P. offers to feel their pulse, and to write out prescriptions for them, he ought to remember the proverb, “Physician heal thyself.” Party politics have, I confess, no charms for me; and I very earnestly desire that all religious men who come in contact with them, whether Church-people or Dissenters, may so conduct themselves as to give no “occasion to the enemies of God to blaspheme.”

Utterly forgetful of the strife which is often manifested at the “vestry meetings” of his own church, he ventures to attack our “church meetings,” at which, he says, “peaceful and loving scenes sometimes take place.” I dare say that if Mr. Perowne knew much of the history of “church meetings,” from those which were held in Corinth, during the apostolic times, down to our own days, he might tell of some in which peace and love were not very apparent. A thinking mind will perceive, however, that an ecclesiastical system may be good in itself, and even divine in its origin, as that at Corinth was, and yet it may be very imperfectly and improperly exhibited and administered by human beings. In such a case the fault is not in the system, but in the men. But whatever exceptions to peace and love may have occasionally appeared in our church meetings, I deny that Mr. Perowne’s description is applicable to their general character. Our churches are formed on the principle that none but those who profess and practise the gospel of Christ are eligible for membership; and when any person of contrary character is discovered among us, he is excluded from the society, and, as a matter of course, falls into the Establishment. Taking them with all their imperfections, I believe not only that they are formed according to the apostolic model, but that they are among the best societies of men to be found in this sinful world—“and no man shall stop me of this boasting” on their behalf. The church of which I am the pastor, was formed about sixteen years ago. It then contained thirteen members, and since then between three and four hundred have been added. Our church meetings are held monthly, for the purposes of devotion, of receiving additional members, and, occasionally, for the transaction of business, necessary to preserve the order and purity of the church. I do not, of course, expect that Mr. Perowne will believe my testimony on this subject, but I confidently appeal to the members of my church for evidence respecting the character of our meetings. Those “hallowed influences,” to which Mr. Perowne so contemptuously refers, have abundantly blessed them, nor do I expect to witness any scenes more truly “peaceful and loving,” till “the general assembly and church of the first born” appears in heaven.

Another charge, which Mr. Perowne vehemently urges against Dissenters, is that they are aiming to destroy the church to which he belongs. “The leading organs of dissent,” says he, “openly avow that nothing but the destruction of our church will satisfy them.” I should think my own church destroyed, if it were to be overrun with infidelity or heresy, or if it were to be broken up and dispersed as a society of Christians. But, as Mr. Perowne is acquainted with “the leading organs of dissent,” he knows very well that Dissenters have no desire to see the Church of England brought into such a condition; and that all they wish is that the Established Church would support its own ministers, and pay its own expenses, without taxing other churches. And this, if I understand him rightly, he would call “the destruction of the church.” If so, all the dissenting churches are destroyed already. They have no connection with the state, as a controlling power—they choose their own ministers—and they pay their own expenses. They are therefore, according to Mr. Perowne, in a state of “destruction”—they are “things which are not,” and he may perhaps be aware that such things are sometimes employed “to bring to nought things which are.”

But the wholesale charge which he brings against the Nonconformists is, that their system “leads men to tear in pieces the body of Christ—to set at nought the powers that be—to speak evil of dignities—to imbibe and inculcate a disloyal, republican, revolutionary spirit.” And he might have added, with equal truth, that it is productive of hydrophobia, that it brought the cholera into the country a short time ago, and that it turned all the members of our churches into cannibals. Charges such as he has brought, false and ridiculous as they are, have been incessantly repeated since the day when the Head of our churches was himself reviled by the priests, as “a fellow perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Cæsar.” And they will no doubt continue to be repeated, till “the accuser of the brethren is cast out.” They are always freely used by those who find it more convenient to revile than to argue; and they are as useful to such persons, as the broken lantern was to the watchman, who always kept it by him to exhibit as a proof that his victims had been guilty of a riot.

I now proceed to select some specimens of the manner in which he has perverted the language of my letter, and also some specimens of the literature and logic with which his “Observations” are interspersed.

Alluding to the title of my letter he asks, “What right a Dissenter has to remonstrate with the members of the church, on any steps they think proper to take _with regard to the education of the children belonging to their own communion_?” The proper answer to this question is, that I had no right at all to remonstrate on such a subject. But what will the reader think, when I tell him that _I never did remonstrate on such a subject_, and that Mr. Perowne’s apparent object in giving such a form to his question is to excite a prejudice against my Letter at the very beginning of his “Observations.” He knows that the Infant Schools, which the members of the Establishment projected, were _not_ for “the education of children belonging to their own communion,” but for “the children of persons of all denominations.” And he knows that my remonstrance was directed against those who wished to make the members of one church the Instructors of Infants, to the exclusion of the members of all other churches. The artifice which he has adopted may have answered the purpose which he had in view, but it is not the result of an upright and honourable mind, and it manifests much more of the subtilty of the serpent than of the harmlessness of the dove.

Mr. Perowne, having remarked that I had advised the Establishment to act on “the principles on which the Infant Schools in Norwich have hitherto been conducted,” asks, “What are those principles?” And professing to gather his reply from my Letter, he answers, “That the Dissenters _should have the chief management of them_,” while “the members of the Established Church, afford help in directing the concerns, and in defraying the expenses.” Such “counsel,” I admit, is as impertinent as to deny to Churchmen the right “to educate the children belonging to their own communion.” But _I never gave such counsel_; and Mr. Perowne’s interpretation of my language is both unjust and absurd. The statement in my letter is this. The committees of the Infant Schools “are composed of members of the Establishment and of other Christian churches”—and, as it respects the school in St. Miles’, “repeated efforts have been made to induce members of the Established Church to afford greater help in directing its concerns, as well as in defraying its expenses.” Now mark the injustice of my commentator. In professing to quote my language, he leaves out the word “greater,” which is an important word in the sentence, and then he tells his readers that my counsel is “that the Dissenters should have _the chief_ management of the schools” about to be instituted. And now mark his reasoning. The Dissenters have made repeated efforts to induce Churchmen “to afford greater help in _directing_ the schools;” _therefore_ Dissenters desire to have “the _chief management_ of them!” Admirable logic! If “a supposed second Solomon” be needed in the schools of Dissent, no such prodigy is required in the Establishment. Her “mountains have laboured,” and her Solomon is born!

The next specimen is of a similar character. I had said, in my Letter, that as the promoters of the public examination in St. Andrew’s Hall had, in order to effect it, “received assistance from their dissenting fellow citizens, as well as from others,” our “friendly proceedings” would be “used against ourselves,” if they “were to be rewarded by our utter exclusion from all future participation with Churchmen in the system of Infant Education.” “Brethren!” exclaims Mr. Perowne, “Brethren! here you have a truth of the utmost importance, plainly told you from the pen of a Dissenter.” And what is the truth that my dissenting pen has told? Why, that the conduct of the church, in excluding Dissenters, would be “against” those “friendly proceedings” which we had shewn towards the church. But because it would be _against our courtesy_, Mr. Perowne, in the might and majesty of his logic, jumps to the conclusion that it would be _against our nonconformity_! And then, having made this notable discovery, for which he certainly deserves a patent, he blows his “penny trumpet,” and summons the whole hierarchy to listen to his proclamation, that if the church will uniformly treat Dissenters as they have been treated in this business, the “venerable Establishment” is secure. “Brethren! here you have a truth of the utmost importance!”

Mr. Perowne complains of the pain which I have produced in him, by what I have said “about love and union.” “Such things,” says he “_painfully_ remind us of the days of Charles the first.” This Charles, it will be remembered, as the “head of the church,” in his days, and “out of a like _pious care for the service of God_, as had his blessed father,” published the “Book of Sports,” which authorized the people to amuse themselves with all sorts of games, &c. on the Lord’s day, and which the clergy read to their congregations after divine service. I have no wish, however, to mention “Charles the first” to any man of acute sensibility, and I was not aware that my recommendation of “love and union” would remind any one of that ill-fated monarch. Mr. Perowne’s peculiar sensibility on this subject, and the remarkable fact that, in writing a pamphlet on Infant Schools, he should twice refer to “Charles the first,” and “our martyred Charles,” is calculated to excite strange suspicions in the mind of a believer in the doctrine of metempsychosis. Why should _Mr. Perowne_ feel pain when he is reminded of “Charles the first?” or why should “love and union” remind him of “our martyred Charles” at all, except on the principle of the Bramins, that “we should never kill a flea, lest we inflict _pain_ on the soul of some of our ancestors.” It is true that Charles frequently boasted that he was “a true son of the church.” It is true that Charles entertained the very same feelings against Puritans, as Mr. Perowne does against Dissenters. It is true that some of the sentiments in Mr. P’s. pamphlet are as precisely _Icôn Basilikè_ as if they had been dictated by the soul of the headless monarch. It is true, as Bishop Burnet says, that Charles the first “loved high and rough measures, but had neither skill to conduct them, nor height of genius to manage them. _He hated all that offered prudent and moderate counsels_; and, even when it was necessary to follow such advices, he hated those that gave them.” It is true—but, to use Mr. Perowne’s language, “I forbear to finish a picture so painful to contemplate,” and shall only add, that David Hume, in his history of England, states that the last word the king said, was, “REMEMBER”—and that “_great mysteries_ were supposed to be concealed under that expression.”

Mr. P. appeals to the Collect which I quoted, and which he says I have “mutilated,” as affording evidence that “exclusive Churchmen, are consistent Churchmen;” thereby leading us to infer that the church teaches her members to shew their consistency by their exclusiveness, even in the exercise of prayer, and in the presence of Deity! Supposing, however, that the Collect afforded evidence of the charity of the church, rather than of her bigotry, I advised her members to act in accordance with its spirit, and thereby to “add practice to profession and to prayer.” This advice, Mr. P. intimates, is, on my part, an assumption of _infallibility_—as if none but a Papist could consistently enjoin practical piety, or admonish his hearers to shew their faith by their works. “Is Mr. A. infallible?” my inquisitor asks, and immediately adds, “The Pope of Rome could not have gone further!” I have not heard much of the Pope lately, but in former times he was a tolerably far traveller, especially when he was in the pursuit of Dissenting heretics. But as Mr. P. may perhaps claim an acquaintance, as well as a relationship with his Holiness, I shall not dispute the matter, but humbly submit to the decision, that the Pope of Rome never went further than I have gone in my “Letter.”

The next paragraph, in Mr. P’s. “Observations,” is chiefly historical, and he has contrived to give us “a bird’s eye view” of the state of religion in this country, from the days of “our martyred {28} Charles” downwards. It thus begins. “It is said that our church ought to set an example of meekness and conciliation. I SAY she has done so to an extent unparalleled in modern times.” In proof of this oracular declaration, he shews in the first place, what the church _has_ done. “And what has been her conduct while attacked by the army of the aliens?” To this question, I will first give my own answer, and then Mr. Perowne’s. My own answer is this. She “excommunicated, ipso facto,” whosoever affirmed “that the Church of England, by law established under the King’s Majesty, is not a true and an apostolical church.” She erected a spiritual court, in which her ministers sat in judgment on men’s consciences. She maintained a star chamber, where she slit men’s noses, and cut off their ears. She passed corporation and test acts; and an act of uniformity, by which two thousand godly ministers were driven from her pulpits, and in some cases persecuted unto death by her virulence. Mr. Perowne’s account of her conduct amidst all these transactions is this. “_Confiding in her God_, _she has continued her labour of love_, _scarcely raising her hand to ward off the blows that have been aimed at her_!” But her historian goes on to inform us that her acts of “meekness and conciliation,” in former days, are far surpassed by her present conduct; for this is what I suppose Mr. P. intended to mean when he said, “She has done so to an extent _unparalleled in modern times_.” Whatever his ambiguity may mean, he certainly endeavours to represent the church as greatly increasing in “meekness and conciliation;” for now, when she sees the wicked Dissenters attempting to assassinate her, she does not even “lift her hand” as she did formerly; but, like a true member of “the Peace Society,” she merely “withdraws from such” persons; and she thus withdraws, says her historian, “not in a spirit of revenge and bitterness, but in the spirit of Him who prayed for his enemies!” I shall refrain from commenting on this concluding declaration, any farther than to ask, whether the remotest comparison between the spirit breathed throughout Mr. Perowne’s pamphlet, and the dying prayer of the Redeemer, is not an insult to the “meek and lowly” Jesus.