which those doctrines are applied, throughout the prayers and collects, to the best purposes of religion, and are condensed in a manner, which is intelligible to all, in that excellent formulary the Church Catechism? Under these circumstances, to leave the poor, who without assistance cannot understand the Scriptures, as the itinerant preachers themselves admit by their own practice, to leave, I say, the poor under such circumstances, to be tossed about by every wind of doctrine, which they must be, unless provided with that authorised exposition of the Scriptures, which is contained in the Liturgy, and which every honest Churchman must believe to be the true one, is, at least in my judgment (I speak with deference to the judgment of others) such a dereliction of our duty as Churchmen, that I little expected to hear Clergymen, within the precincts of the University, reprehend a Professor of Divinity, because he contended, that the Prayer Book should be distributed with the Bible.

But though I certainlly did not expect it, I am still ready to confess, that if it is really blameable to object to the distribution, on the part of Churchmen, of the Bible alone, or unaccompanied with the Liturgy, the modern Bible Society can require no further vindication. For if the proposition, which I have hitherto ventured to maintain, is not only untenable, but a fit subject for reproach, it necessarily follows, that the omission of the Prayer Book in the distribution of the Bible, is not only allowable, but laudable. Now, that I have been reproached, and bitterly reproached, for asserting that Churchmen should not content themselves with distributing only Bibles to the poor, is a matter of notoriety. To say nothing of other places, where I have been attacked on this account, I need only appeal to what was said at the public Meeting in Cambridge for the formation of an Auxiliary Society, especially in the speeches of Dr. Milner and Dr. Clarke. Strange, therefore, as it may appear, that a Professor of Divinity should have now to defend himself, in his own University, against the charge of

'The Speeches to which I allude were delivered in the Town Hall of Cambridge, on December 12, 1811, and were printed in the Cambridge Chronicle of December 20, of course with the knowledge and approbation of the speakers.

pleading for the Liturgy, yet as I am put on my defence, I must request to be heard, before I am finally condemned.

The first person who particularly complained of the objection to the distribution of the Bible alone, that is, as repeatedly explained, without the Prayer Book, was Dr. Clarke. "Is the distribution of the Bible alone (says Dr. Clarke) detrimental to the interests of the establishment? Have we forgot that we are Englishmen ? Have we forgot that we are PROTESTANTS? What would Latimer and Ridley and Chillingworth have thought or said, had they lived unto this day to bear testimony to such a declaration ? As the only answer to it, I, as a member, and as a minister, of the Church of England, do not hesitate to declare, so soon as it shall be proved that the distribution of the Bible alone is hostile to the interests of the established church, then, and then only, be that church subverted." Such are the grounds, on which a Churchman justifies the distribution of the Bible alone, or unaccompanied with the Liturgy: and they deserve particular examination, not as being the sentiments of an individual, but as being the sentiments of a party. This is evident, not only from the general applause with which the speech was received, but from the circumstance, that the same sentiments are now entertained by very respectable writers, and are even conveyed through the channel of the public

papers.

Before I examine the grounds, on which my objection to the omission of the Liturgy is now arraigned, I beg leave to call the attention of the reader to the FACT, that the omission of the Liturgy, in the distribution of the Bible, is justified, and justified by Churchmen. And I request the reader to keep this FACT in remembrance, because we shall find it of great importance, when the views of the Society are more particularly examined.

II.

I acknowledge that the arguments for the distribution of the Bible alone are so specious, so popular, so apparently in the spirit of true Protestantism, while the arguments for the contrary lie so concealed from the public view, and are now so confidently as

serted to savour of Popery,' that they are equally difficult to explain, and dangerous to propose. Believing, however, as I do, that there is a fallacy in the arguments of those who oppose me, and conscious of the rectitude of my intentions, I tremble not at obstacles, which present themselves on every side. If it were now a question, as it was at the Reformation, whether the Bible should be distributed or not, men might justly exclaim to those who withheld it; can the Bible be injurious to the real interest of the Church! But this is NOT the question, as every one must know, who argues against me. There were channels in abundance for the distribution of the Bible, long before the existence of the modern Society. And I challenge my opponents to declare, whether they have labored harder, than I have done, to promote the study of it. But it is urged, if you still require that the Bible, however extensively you may be willing to distribute it, should be accompanied by the Liturgy, you must certainly suspect, that there is danger to the established Church from the distribution of the Bible alone.' Here let me ask, whether the Bible itself is not capable

“They are such, as were used by Papists at the Reformation, and can only be advanced by those, who think the Church of England cannot stand the test of the word of God." This passage is taken from a Letter in the Shrewsbury Chro nicle, signed, "A member of the Established Church."-N. B. I have been informed that there is another Letter in the Shrewsbury Chronicle to the same purport: but I have not yet seen it.

* That the reader, however, may judge of the Christian Spirit which animates some of the advocates of this Society, at the very time when they are boasting of their promotion of Christianity, I need only quote the following passage from a Letter, which first appeared in the Suffolk papers, was reprinted in Cambridge with a superscription alluding to my Address to the Senate, and was very generally distributed in Cambridge within a few days after that Address. The author of this Letter, speaking of the auxiliary Societies now forming in different parts of the kingdom, says, " And yet to these Societies there are they, who dare to object. I say dare, because circulated as the New Testament has been described to be, without tract or comment, they who oppose them, oppose the circulation of the word of God, as originally delivered forth, and would have probably opposed our Saviour himself, had they lived in his time.”—-On such language and conduct, it is unnecessary to make an observation.

3 It can be hardly necessary to repeat what, I have already explained, that, when I contend for the distribution of the Liturgy in company with the Bible, mean only among members of the Church of England. It would indeed be uscle

of perversion, whether the best of Books may not be misapplied to the worst of purposes? Have we not inspired authority for answering this question in the affirmative? St. Peter himself, speaking of the Epistles of St. Paul, said, "In which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruc-. tion." Would St. Peter, if he had lived in the present age, have thought this admonition less necessary, than in the age of the Apostles? Can Churchmen, therefore, who know that one party; wrests the scriptures, by the aid of false interpretation, into authority for the rejection of the Trinity and the Atonement, that another party wrests them into authority for the rejection of the Sacraments, that other parties again, on the authority of the same Bible, prove other doctrines, which are at variance with their own, think it unnecessary, when they distribute Bibles to the poor, who are incapable, without assistance, of judging for themselves, and who alone are the objects of gratuitous distribution, can Churchmen, I say, under such circumstances, think it unnecessary to accompany the Bible with the Liturgy, in which the doctrines of the Trinity, the Atonement, the Sacraments, with the other doctrines of our Church, are delivered as contained in the Bible? It is not the Bible itself, but the perversion of it, the wresting of the Scriptures (as St. Peter expresses it) by the "unlearned and unstable," with which England now swarms, whence the danger proceeds. And this danger must increase in proportion as we neglect the means of counteracting it. But if we neglect to provide the poor of the establishment with the Book of Common Prayer, as well as with the Bible, we certainly neglect the means of preventing their seduction from the Established Church. The Dissenters remain Dissenters, because they use not the Liturgy; and Churchmen will become Dissenters, if they likewise neglect to use it with the Bible. Have the persons to whom Bibles are gratuitously distributed, either the leisure, or the inclination, or the ability, to weigh the arguments for religious opinions? Do they possess the knowledge and the judgment, which are necessary to direct men

to give away a book to those whose religious principles must induce them to reject it, whether those persons lived in England or abroad.

in the choice of their religion? Must they not learn it therefore from their instructors? And can there be a better instructor, in the opinion of Churchmen, than the Book of Common Prayer?

But the Bible alone contains all things, which are necessary for Salvation: and to assert the contrary is to argue in the spirit, not of a Protestant, but of a Papist!-This position is indisputably true; it is the very basis of Protestantism; and no Protestant, as far as I know, has ever contended that any doctrine should be received as an article of Faith, which is not contained in the Bible. But have not Christians of every age and nation been at variance on the question, what doctrines are contained in the Bible? If you ask a Trinitarian why he receives the doctrine of the Trinity, he will answer, Because it is contained in the Bible. If you ask a Unitarian, why he rejects that doctrine, he will answer that it is not contained in the Bible. On the authority of the Bible, the Church of England admits only two Sacraments in opposition to the Church of Rome, while the Quakers, in opposition to the Church of England, admit no Sacrament at all. From the same Bible, the Calvinist proves the doctrine of absolute decrees, and the Arminian, the doctrine of conditional salvation. On the Bible, the Church of England grounds the doctrine of the Atonement, which, with reference to the same authority, is discarded by the modern Socinians. If you ask a Churchman why it is right to kneel at the altar, when he receives the sacrament, he will answer that it is an act of reverence due from every Christian to the institutor of that holy rite, at whose name, it is declared in scripture that "every knee should bow." If you ask a Presbyterian, he will answer with the same authority before him, that kneeling at the sacrament is an act of idolatry.

If a

Put then a Bible alone into the hands of the illiterate, and leave them to their own judgment, without Liturgy or other assistance, and determine what articles of faith they shall adopt. Churchman withholds the Liturgy, when he gives a Bible to the poor, because the Bible alone contains all things which are necessary for salvation, he cannot consistently interfere with his own instruction: for if the Liturgy is not wanted to explain the Bible, it would be the height of presumption for a Churchman to suppose that the instruction of an individual could be wanted. Nor