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MDCCCXLIII.
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CHARLES SLOMAN,
PRINTER,
GREAT YARMOUTH.
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A LETTER, &c. &c.
Sir,
In addressing to you the following remarks upon a pamphlet recently put forth by you, under the title of “Subscription the Disgrace of the English Church,” I think it right to explain the reasons which have induced me to give them publication, rather than to communicate them in a private form, and also why I have not taken this step some days earlier.
The fact is, that till within the last three days, I had seen nothing of your pamphlet beyond the title; neither do I think that I should then have been tempted to peruse its contents, so repulsive did its announcement appear, had I not received an intimation that my name was mentioned in connection with your former publication, in such terms as to create some suspicion that I might countenance your opinions and views, and to require from me a declaration how far I might concur in believing Subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles a disgrace. This information could not fail to excite in me some degree of surprise and curiosity, feeling, as I did, unconscious of having made to you, either publicly or privately, any observation whatever in reference to that or to any other of your publications.
On reading the paragraph in your pamphlet in which my name is introduced, it did not occur to me, that, supposing I had been one of those “clergymen in the diocese of Norwich, who had made comments upon your last publication,” you intended anything more than to speak of me in complimentary terms. Feeling conscious, however, that I could not take to myself that compliment, for the reasons already stated, and that it had been more than hinted to me, that my name being so introduced placed me in an equivocal position, in which some explanation would be expected, I laid the paragraph, together with the fact, before a clerical friend, who gave his opinion, that it certainly did admit of a doubt, how far I might have coincided in, or differed from, your views of Subscription, as stated in your last publication.
Now, if your observations had merely concerned myself personally, I might not have thought this accidental circumstance worthy of notice; at least I should have refrained from drawing public attention to a matter of a private nature. But as I conceive that the character of a clergyman, whether as it regards his flock, or the church, ought not to appear in an ambiguous light, and as I have always, both publicly and privately maintained opinions the directly opposite of those which you have advocated in several publications, it would justly be considered an abandonment of duty, were I, from an ill-timed silence, to allow it to be suspected that I side with the opinions which you entertain in the matter of Subscription.
Under these circumstances and impressions, I have no course but to sacrifice my natural disinclination to make myself a public character, particularly when, in that character, I must necessarily assume somewhat of a controversialist, and when there is connected with the subject much both of a painful and of a delicate nature: I therefore hesitate not to comply with my duty.
Although such reasons for the course which I am about to take apply only to myself, yet if every clergyman in the diocese chose to dispute your allegations generally, and to repudiate your imputations in particular, it would be quite competent to him, individually, to make his public defence.