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!
Alas! my Lord, you well know how many sad examples might be brought to demonstrate the reverse: why then put me to the needless task of reminding you of the many times and occasions when the “several denominations of Christians have united, upon a liberal basis, their zeal and exertion, to an unexampled degree,” for the utter destruction of church and state? Why should I be forced to enter upon the disgraceful history of men, who, with words smoother than butter, and softer than oil, with fair promises of taking sweet counsel together, and walking to the house of God as friends, have put forth their hands against such as be at peace with them, have broke their covenant, and drawn their swords against them? The church’s many scars and wounds as yet unhealed, and sores that are daily vexed, have taught her not to lean upon every arm that is held out to support her weak and tottering strength. Experience always begets caution; and knowledge of degenerate human nature, brings with it circumspection. She reads in the sacred volume written for our learning, of Joab’s slippery trick with Abner; and till she can be persuaded that he who speaks quietly and peaceably means no mischief, it would now be worse than imprudence to turn aside to speak at all. The church, my Lord, is not solicitous for such companions as these; and why should your Lordship be solicitous to bring her sons and servants into familiarity with those who despise her, and are plotting her destruction?
Permit me to address you as a Church of England man; as a man who fears God, honours the king, and hears the church. Allow us, my Lord, to reason together a little, upon this project of yours, to which you call my attention, and endeavour to engage my feelings. You propose an alliance between the churchman and every description of religionists, who either use or abuse the name of Christ; that is, in the new phrase, between Christians of the “several denominations.” Has your Lordship weighed well the advantages and disadvantages that are likely to accrue to the church? Supposing the design of this proposed association to be as pure as it appears to your Lordship, and that the exclusive object be, to disseminate Bibles throughout the world; will this new connexion empower the church to extend its bounds, and to confer its salutary blessings upon those who sit in darkness? Is this likely to be effected by the aid and assistance of those whole delight has always been to clip the silver wings of the heavenly dove, and to pluck her golden feathers from her breast? When did she ever soar, but to encounter a cloud of enemies, to tempt the rapine of every bird of prey under heaven—to offer a luscious and inviting morsel to all the several hungry “denominations of christians, to whom the happy constitution of this country,” your Lordship says, “affords equal protection with herself?” If the church to which you profess to belong, be really a part of the Holy Catholic Church, that kingdom of Christ in which we are promised pardon and salvation—is it likely to be enlarged and promoted on earth, by a coalition with those who profanely hold it in derision, and disdainfully, dispitefully, and cruelly load her with all the ill names that the most vindictive malice can suggest? Look to all the public acts of your new friends; observe the spirit of all their various and varying publications; and what do we find, but one steady and unremitting plan of hostility; sometimes marked with smiles and proffered fraternity; sometimes ferocious and formidable, with open mischief and attack? And if by this connection, it be impossible to enlarge the pale of the church, there appears no probability that its interests of any sort can be safe and secure; for that opposition which would prevent its extension, must infallibly operate, and does indeed operate, to produce its destruction.
In this projected association, indeed, the danger of final destruction to the established church is scarcely concealed; it is open and evident even to him who runs and reads its proposals. It scarcely needs a suspicious eye; it only needs the attentive one. How this has escaped your Lordship, and several other illustrious friends of this association, I cannot explain; unless we bear in mind, that those who mean well themselves, are the last to suspect evil in others.
But let us see, my Lord, how the case stands, and examine what claim I have to credit, when I assert, that your society is in direct opposition to the interests of the established church. In this association, with no previous reconciliation between the church and her acknowledged adversaries, the church is invited, by your Lordship, to meet the several denominations of Christians in all their avowed and secret enmity. Thank heaven, the gates of nonconformity have never, since the grand rebellion, prevailed against the church; and if her members were true to themselves, and to the cause they profess to espouse, in this happy country they never would. But if such projects as this, which your Lordship recommends, become popular and numerous, and are supported by such patronage as appears at the head of this—with tears, and many an heart-rending pang, I must soon bid a last farewell to that venerable mother, that chaste spouse of Christ, who hath borne many an illustrious child of God, and many an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven!
What your Lordship, who has seen a little of the world, can expect from such a meeting, but the usual manners and actions of those several denominations you convene, what you can possibly calculate upon, but the scratchings and sightings, which you know are usual with the parties when on the outside of the tavern walls, it is difficult to guess. Not one friend do you attempt to gain for the church, nor to conciliate a single foe. They are to meet; and by the sweet call of charity, chanted most musically from your Lordship’s lips, peace is to be preserved, and war is no more to be known. But it was to have been expected, that your Lordship, who professes to be of the established denominations of Christians, if you had been disinclined to assist the church, would certainly not have betrayed her, in any degree or mode; much less have addressed a clergyman, inviting him to do the same. My Lord, this I never will believe was your own act and deed. You have lent an incautious ear to some insidious friend, who abuses your respectable name to purposes of his own. How else is it possible to conceive that your Lordship could have invited me into an association, under such a regulation as that which is numbered eleven? in which the committee, (which is “to conduct the business of the society, appoint all officers, except the treasurer, have power to call special meetings, and are charged with procuring for the society suitable patronage) shall consist of thirty-six laymen; of whom, twenty-four who shall have most frequently attended, shall be eligible for re-election for the ensuing year; six shall be foreigners, resident in London or its vicinity; half the remainder shall be members of the Church of England, and the other half members of other denominations of Christians!!!”
We have here a standing majority against the church! Oh, my Lord, how could you join in such a plot? What could induce your Lordship to lend your name to such a business as this; and why should you think so basely of the clergy, as to tempt them, by you own example and fair reputation, to sign the death warrant of the established church, and the instrument of their own ruin?
It cannot escape you, my Lord, that at present (and thank God for it) the church enjoys a very large majority against the combined members of all the several tolerated denominations of Christians. According to the most authentic calculation, she can produce more than four of her members to one dissenter. So that if the constitution of your committee had been formed upon a fair and righteous basis, there plainly should have been at least four churchmen to one of the other denominations. But here, my lord, strange to tell, you propose to deprive the church of her natural numbers and strength, you take from her, her best means of defence, and invite her into the midst of her sworn enemies! Where is the liberality of this, my Lord? Where is the justice? The first temptation held out to the public, is the liberal basis of your establishment. Is it liberal, my Lord, to deprive one party of more than three fourths of its strength, and to throw it among the others, who have no other right to it, nor expectation of it, but what they derive from your Lordship? No doubt, my Lord, if you can gain your point, and can tempt the clergy into your scheme, there will not be a single Nonconformist, Papist, Socinian, or Quaker, silent in your praise. No doubt your unbounded liberality will be sounded forth, by every gospel-preacher in the church, and every twanging teacher in the conventicle. Ungrateful wretches would they be, were they to pass by unnoticed, and un-eulogised so great a friend to their cause. A friend indeed; whole unexampled zeal and exertions in their favour, must raise their memory to their halcyon days of 1648, and fill their beating bosoms, with well-grounded hopes of once more realizing those scenes, which, but for your Lordship, and a few other liberal men, they little expected to see. But what will the church say? What will four-fifths of the nation think of your Lordship’s “liberal basis,” which is treacherously withdrawn from the established church, to build up the walls of conventicles and meeting-houses? Do you expect that any honest clergyman, in his sound senses, can relish your Lordship’s liberality, for such conduct as this? It is too gross, my Lord, to pass. I am lost in astonishment and grief, when I see a man who professes so much good-will to the pure Christianity of the country; whole well-known integrity and respectable talents, might have tempted the woe-worn church to look up to his piety and pity for relief; whose rank and credit in the world, afford him much ability to bestow it; when I see such a man engaged in a fearful scheme, by which our Zion may be pulled down, and her enemies exalted upon her ruins—alas! for these things I weep: “mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water, because the comforter that should relieve my soul, is far from me.”