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 neither 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 are, 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 hold 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 so 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 to 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 told, 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 as 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 not 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 therefore 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 sort 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 of 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]