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

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.

It is very true, my Lord, that “to promote the circulation of the scriptures at home and abroad, is an object in which every one who professes the religion of Christ, must feel a deep interest.” But the object of a society, my Lord, is not to be known from its public declaration in print. Your experience of the world will suggest to you, that the most important objects, whether of a good or evil tendency, have been prosecuted, and are now continually pursued in a close and clandestine manner, under favour of public declarations of a different and often of a contrary character. It is impossible for any man to say what shall be the real object of any society, till he be in possession of the favourite object of each of its members; for although a body of men may at first associate for, and appear to bind themselves to the promotion of some specific common object, we well know, that in process of time, this common object is generally lost in neglect; and at last, each individual pursues that particular object which, as a private man, engages his affection and preference.

To say, therefore, what is or shall be the object of a society, is no easy matter, if we mean to guard against delusion. The real object will take its colour from the opinions and pursuits of those effective members who shall contrive, either by an actual majority, or an assiduity and activity equivalent in force to the power of a majority, to give direction to the energy of the association. Into how many Proteus forms has Jesuitism wrapt itself, upon different occasions? So the monster Jacobinism has insinuated its poison, at one time or other, into almost every species of society in Europe.

It is to little purpose we use our eyes, if we see this destructive principle only in clubs and lodges, and spouting societies. This serpent has a far wider range; wherein there is a place and room to coil in, there let the passenger beware, latet anguis in herbá. And if your Lordship will please to call to mind, the warnings of a learned prelate of our church, you will remember that he is now in a remarkable manner, and with much aggravation of malice and impudence, detected lurking behind the cross.

Your Lordship cannot be ignorant how many hundred public declarations it has set forth, to convince the world how simple are its designs, how pure its intentions! Need we be directed to consider, can we avoid considering, those several political societies of the present day, which, with the most enchanting titles, and with avowed objects of the fairest sort, have perpetrated atrocities of the foulest dye? Look into the public addresses of those societies, sometimes decorated by honourable and responsible signatures. See the printed declarations of their reasons, objects, and principles; then repair to the Old Bailey, or the Maidstone assizes; there compare the acts and deeds of those associations, with the plausible professions of their printed schemes and declarations, and say, my Lord, whether it be prudent, at least in this our day, to consider all as honest and true that meets our eye in print, shouldered by the well-known signatures of respectable presidents and vice-presidents?

My Lord, give me leave to say, you cannot answer for the real object of any association, but by being able to answer for the real principles and pursuits of its individual members; you may heartily wish, and sincerely endeavour to promote the avowed object of this society: (and I know no man more likely to do both, than your Lordship.) Secure those principles, be able to controul those pursuits, and no man who knows your Lordship’s high character, would hesitate a moment to believe that your society will be what it proposes. If Lord T. will pledge himself that the six hundred members of his society are, like himself, honourable and upright men, who speak what they mean, and practise what they profess; who abhor duplicity and deceit, and know no discordance between the object they profess, and the object they pursue;—if Lord T. can assure me this, I shall be proud to rank my name, and make exertion under his protection. If this he cannot do, at least let him tell me where is my security that my contribution to the institution, will not be turned to support some object, which I never intend to support; and to promote not the object proposed to me in the letter, but another, and perhaps a detested one? Your presidency, my Lord, is not exactly of the sort to which you have been accustomed, and which you have much adorned. But far be it from me to say, that you preside over an association of men, combined for designs altogether bad; that you patronize, and protect a society, whole objects and principles are wilfully nefarious: All that I here assert, is this; that your Lordship, for whose head and heart I have the highest respect, appears to have undertaken the patronage of you know not whom or what; and, confident in your own good intentions, you have recommended me to do the same.

But when I cast my eye over the list of your officers, and subscribers, (over which your Lordship’s eye has undoubtedly passed,) I am really in doubt, whether your Lordship be in jest or earnest, when you recommend the institution to the attention of a Clergyman of the Church of England; and, I wonder much, what arguments your Lordship can use, to press it home. In this list, I must acknowledge, I see many respectable names, with which I should be happy to place mine. But I likewise see a very large proportion of others, with which, as an honest man, I can have nothing to do; I see many names of persons, whose objects and pursuits have been diametrically the opposite of mine: what I build, they pull down: what I teach, they mock, and endeavour to render ineffectual. The sacred cause, which as a Clergyman of the Church of England, I have sworn to serve and support, (and which, with the best talents I have, I will support, as long as I have my life,) they hold up to scorn, and abuse with hard names and jeers. They vilify my character, as a servant of the Most Highest, and set me forth to the world, as a dishonest man. Now were I, my Lord, allured by your Lordship’s invitation, and tempted by the sound of what you call the “liberal basis of your establishment;” (the sense of which I have not yet apprehended:) should I be induced, I say, to venture myself into the company of men, of whom I have hitherto always been horribly afraid, being frightened at the idea of having the National Establishment blown up, as one of them said, clergy and all: can your Lordship afford me protection and safety? Can your Lordship shew me, that our days are so evangelical, that the lamb may now dwell with the wolf in safety? I see your Lordship is ready kindly to allay my fears; and to demand, if persons associating for the simple and pure purpose of disseminating the scriptures, ought to be suspected of such views and projects? My Lord, since I have been a shepherd, I have seen so many wolves, and have undergone such terrors for my poor sheep, that you must have the charity to pity my weakness, and excuse my unconquerable fears. Those who are old in the business, have a right at least to be attended to, in matters which concern their experience. Wolves, my Lord, our great Master has warned us, sometimes put on sheep’s clothing; and we find, I assure you, much harder work with these crafty beasts, than with those, which, without disguise, prowl about in their proper character. But have I not too good reason to be afraid of those who openly, and fairly avow, that their object is to eat us up, both sheep and shepherd too? In plain terms, if your Lordship can demonstrate to us, that those persons with whom you invite me to associate, under pretence of doing God service, have at any time really revoked their hostility to the church and ministry, which they have so frequently, and so fully avowed; shew us the time when, and the place where, they have deliberately recanted their well-known threats and projects, repented of their numerous slanders and calumnies, and have as solemnly sworn peace with the church and clergy, as before they have sworn and pursued their enmity. Nay, my Lord, I ask no unreasonable thing; if you can only shew, that upon this present occasion alone, they have explicitly and solemnly put off their old man of hostility and hatred, and have put on the new man of peace, and love, and concord—I am silent. I request your secretary will please to insert my name, and accept my donation. But, my good Lord, if the enmity of these men has never been revoked; if their hostility, and destructive resolutions have never been cancelled; if no proof to the contrary can be adduced, but we are still left in possession of the thousand well-known proofs; nay, in many places, of the open confession of their intentions of undermining and destroying both church establishment and clergy too: I then will leave it to any person of sane intellect to determine, whether it be prudent, whether it be upright, whether it be safe, to accept your Lordship’s proposal.