Let us not, under a real or apparent veneration for the sacred oracles, talk of them, as if the science of Theology, contrary to all other sciences, could be understood at once, by the people, according to the analogy of faith, and without the aid of the Christian ministry, or without note or comment. Can it be reasonably expected (he asks) that the common people should form, without aid from a standing ministry, and some elementary books of explanation, any just conception of the sacred standard of faith and practice?'

Here, again, our Objector finds himself met with the inconvenient fact, that those clergymen who are the advocates and supporters of the Institution which tends (in the strong lan'guage' quoted by the reverend writer) to make the Bible its 'own extinguisher,' are the men who, above all others in the Establishment, labour" in the word and doctrine;" the only men whose churches are thronged with the common people;' the only preachers who uphold in their church, with efficient energy, a standing ministry! To escape from the dilemma into which he bad thus betrayed himself, he has recourse to Jones's maxterly Essay on the Church,' from which he extracts as rank a piece of Popery as ever was penned. With those who are ignorant, and ill instructed in the nature and use of the church, there is (says that writer) a perverse prejudice in favour of preaching; and consequently, a shocking neglect of those duties which belong to the people.' It was never, we believe, suspected that the Rector of St. Dunstan's in the West was overfond of preaching, but we hardly expected to find him so decidedly symbolizing with Popery' on this point, by talking of the more essential parts of Divine worship. To what then does all his cant about the aid of the Christian ministry amount? To reading prayers and dispensing the Sacrament!

Who are the best friends every minister hath in his parish? They who attend the prayers and Sacraments with him; who are edified by his Priesthood, as well as by his preaching, and are active in the great work of their own salvation.'

Now, if the Rev. Richard Lloyd were the only vicar who laboured under Romish delusions on this point, we should not think it worth while to digress from our main topic for so hopeless a purpose, as setting him right. But some of our readers may recollect to have met with a similar sentiment in a writer of a very different stamp, and we shall therefore take the freedom of shewing our Author that we, as well as himself, can, upon occasion, quote Bishop Stilling fleet.

Men that were employed in the Church then,' says the learned Author of the İrenicum, speaking of the days of the Apostles, did not consult for their ease or honour, and thought it not enough for them to sit still and bid others work; but 'they were of Paul's mind, Necessity was laid upon them, yea,

woe was unto them if they preached not the gospel. Public prayers were not then looked on as the more principal end of Christian assemblies than preaching, nor, consequently, that it was more the principal office of the "stewards of the mysteries ' of God," to read the public prayers of the Church, than to "preach in season and out of season." Were the Apostles ⚫ commissioned by Christ to go pray or preach? And what is it wherein the ministers of the Gospel succeeded the Apostles? Is it in the office of praying and preaching? Was Paul sent not to baptize, but to preach the Gospel? And shall we think those who succeed Paul in his office of preaching, are to look upon any thing else as more their work than that? Are ministers, in their ordination, sent forth to be readers of public prayers, or to be dispensers of God's holy word? Are they ordained wholly to this, and shall this be the less principal part of ⚫ their work? But this is but one of those unhappy consequences which follow men judging of the service of God, rather by the practices of the Church, when it came to enjoy ease and plenty, than by the ways and practices of the first and purest apostolical times; when the Apostles, who were best able to judge of their own duty, looked upon themselves as most concerned in the preaching of the Gospel!**

We had brought down the account of the successive attacks upon the Bible Society, to the year 1812, when we were tempted to advert to the remarkable contrariety which has uniformly characterized the arguments of the several opponents. The year 1813 was distinguished by a total change in their tactics. When the party seemed to be almost at their last gasp, having been fairly beaten off of every argument, a Paynim foe appeared on the field, a foul fiend, breathing out fire and • smoke, and his mouth was as the mouth of a lion.' In this combat, no man can imagine, unless he had heard and seen as "I did, what yelling and hideous roaring he made all the time of the fight: he spake like a dragon.' Fresh from the perusal of Leslie, Dugdale, and Bates on the Troubles of England,' of Edwards's Gangræna, (referred to with so much complacency by the Editor of Modern Policies') of Barruel's Memoirs of Jacobinisin, the History of the Irish Union, and of other similar works, all bearing with equal force of illustration upon the British and Foreign Bible Society; and these acting as corrosive stimulants upon an imagination previously heated by resentment, the author of the "Practical Exposition" stepped forward. To those who called for demonstration,' he undertook to prove that a systematic plan was arranged by the Bible

*Divine Right of Forms of Church Government examined. Part II. c. vi. § 19.

conspirators, to clear all the parishes in the kingdom of their ecclesiastical heads,-a confederacy, as he did not scruple to term it, precisely the counterpart of that, in the toils of which 'the martyred sovereigns of England and of France were 'taken.' The ludicrous extravagance of the statements in this singular volume, which the author announced with all the pomp of discovery, and with an effrontery unparalleled in the annals of falsehood, induced many persons too readily to suppose that even the man's own party would be ashamed of so despicable a coadjutor. It is, however, probable, that they were glad at the time, that a man was to be found, who, without any risk to his own character, could dare the task they shrunk from, of reiterating confuted objections and disproved assertions, mingling with them the grossest personalities, and imputations of the basest kind, against some men of the first character in the kingdom. It was even more than they could have hoped to find in such an agent, that he should be able to preserve through the whole performance, an inimitable air of solemn credence and honest intention, which evinced that, like a true fanatic, he had at last brought bimself to believe in the coinage of his own fancy. To this, mainly, is to be attributed the extensive mischief which this book certainly produced. Preceding controvertists had attempted to reason down the Bible Society as unnecessary, as defective in its plan, as objectionable in some of its features; and some little warmth, and not a little prejudice, had been displayed in the discussion; still, a very large proportion of those who stood aloof from the Society, preserved a respectful neutrality. Norris, however, appealed to the fears of the clergy, in a voice loud enough to startle the most somniferous- The 'Church was actually on fire;' and who that hears such a cry as this, uttered in the well-affected language of dismay, stays coolly to inquire whether it be true? and if but a little black vapour is seen issuing from a smoky chimney, doubtless the engine shall be brought out, and water, water, shall be the cry. Norris's book has opened the way for the prosecution of a new species of warfare. The language of alarm has been caught and re-echoed by every subsequent pamphleteer; and, as fear is always malignant, when it has not power to be cruel, it generally vents itself in scurrility. We shall not further conduct our readers through the records of the controversy; they will have in recollection the Hampshire skirmish, in 1815,* since which we have not thought it worth while to occupy our pages with the subject.

Nor should we have thought such a pamphlet as Mr. Lloyd's, deserving of our notice, had it proceeded from a man of less reputation, and had it not furnished, in connexion with other

* Eclectic Review, N. S. Vol. V. p. 52.

circumstances, an indication too important to be overlooked, of the policy upon which the enemies of Bible and Missionary Societies, now appear in more sober earnest to have secretly determined. Ten years ago it was confidently predicted, that the Bible Society would subvert the Church; and ten years have elapsed without the development of its alleged tendency. The 'Dissenters cannot,' it was said, hold long they have, however, held on in peace hitherto. The Society must fall to pieces: it has preserved both its integrity and its unanimity. 'It produces indifference to the Liturgy: immediately there springs up a Prayer-book Society. It disparages the Christian ministry Missionary Societies are in consequence multiplied, and evangelical preaching is found to prevail more and more. All these predictions having failed, one expedient only remained, and Scripture-history afforded the precedent,-to accuse the Society of perverting the nation,' and of being the enemy of Cæsar.

I need not,' says the Reverend Richard Lloyd, in these rebellious and licentious times, most respectfully inquire of our legislators, "Whether all popular organizations, independent of the laws of the country, are not attended with the highest political danger?" Whether they do not teach the multitude an attachment to themselves rather than to their country, and lead, through artful and designing men, to an imperium in imperio? and more especially so, when we see with what unprincipled and cruel policy these modern Universalists have circulated among the lower orders, INDISPUTABLE VERITIES, without any of those contingent, collateral, and important truths, which are founded in a knowledge of men and manners, and which are designed, not to diminish the intrinsic force of these axioms, but to modify and accord them to the complexity of human affairs. Can any patriotic mind contemplate without a holy indignation, their studied concealment of all these intermediate ideas, which serve to amplify and enrich the solitude of moral and political abstractions with their appropriate decoration, and to give them their just bearing and salutary influence upon human conduct? What is this, but to cajole ignorance into the most formidable of all delusions, by robbing it of the consciousness of its inability, and thus inciting it to erect itself into an umpire upon the legislative measures of Church and State. The parallelism between the dangers to which royalty and prelacy, political and ecclesiastical bodies, are exposed, has been developed, with a masterly pen, in a pamphlet called, "The Bible, not the Bible Society," and which well deserves, at this critical period, the serious attention of all in authority, as one part of our constitution cannot fall without fearfully endangering the stability of the other.' Pp. 116, 17.

Mr. Lloyd inserts the well-known paper entitled " Appeal "to Mechanics," &c. and then asks,

• What is implied in this tract? What is the application of it in these perilous times? Can it be said, in the fair exercise of the underVOL. IX. N. S.

1

standing, that the tendency of it is not inflammatory? Are not the common people reminded of their numerical strength and ascendency? Is not their physical force arrayed against the wisdom and authority of church and state? Are they not expressly told, in these days of pressure and sedition, THAT THEY CAN DO MORE THAN THE RICH; that their union is strength; that their penny subscriptions would exceed half a million annually; and are thus roused to come up to the work of the Lord,-to the work of the Lord against the mighty? And whilst they are thus held forth, as the pride, the bulwark, and the glory of the nation,-the actual miseries of their condition are often exaggerated by every artifice; and even in this address it is in a circuitous way insinuated, that they are overlooked and despised as a profane herd.-Are they not, moreover informed, in this season of schism and insubordination, when lay preaching abounds (a monstrous practice, unknown to any state in Europe, and to our own, till the usurpation of Cromwell,) that the Gospel, in its commencement, was not only preached to the poor, but by the poor,-without any allusion to the inspiration of the Apostles, to the preternatural light communicated to them; without the least reference to the miraculous gifts and powers by which they confirmed their mission and doctrine. Let the poor and illiterate now, like the poor fishermen of Galilee, give sight to the blind, and ears to the deaf, and life to the dead, and we will dispense with their want of learning, which is so necessary to an uninspired ministry.' pp. 109-111.

Again :

If this unprincipled latitude of conduct be not restrained and circumscribed, we shall, I fear, be dragooned at last into a compliance with the measures of this imperious and turbulent society, and our subscriptions to its funds will be no longer a matter of choice but of compulsion.' p. 114.

The tyranny of fanaticism already developes itself in no dubious form.' p. 119.

It is difficult, in transcribing sentences like these, to realize that the individual from whose pen they proceed, is a man whose station and character impose any restraints upon the indignation due to his conduct; but Mr. Lloyd's preface might seem to discharge us, under such circumstances, from the ' dictates and influence of a refined delicacy.' 'Conscionable men (says Baxter)'-it is our author's quotation-dare not lie, • but faction and interest abate men's tenderness of conscience." The best of men are not always (says Hooker) the best in regard of Society, owing to their dispositions being so unframable to the several kinds of laws which ought to influence their actions.' Further, Mr. Lloyd thinks that sentiments of delicacy must occasionally yield to a just and lawful indignation, the emotions of which it is neither necessary nor expedient to restrain. For anger is an elementary passion im