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

Transcribed from the 1805 F. C. and J. Rivington edition from Bodleian Library scans by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
BY A COUNTRY CLERGYMAN .
LONDON: PRINTED FOR F. C. AND J. RIVINGTON, N o 62, ST. PAUL’S CHURCH-YARD; By Bye and Law , St. John’s-Square , Clerkenwell .
1805.
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.