Strictures written by the learned, pious, and orthodox Dean of Carlisle.

From the following quotation, the reader will easily collect the state of the question.

"There is at present, before the Public, a great question respecting the Bible Society, and its probable effects, namely, Whether it has a tendency to alienate its members from the Church, and particularly to produce a neglect of the Prayer-Book. Now: the very title of Dr. Marsh's Inquiry, is calculated both to divert the attention of the reader from the real state of the question, and to mislead his judgment.

"He calls it 'An Inquiry into the consequences of neglecting to give the Prayer-Book along with the Bible? And as it is well! understood, that the Inquiry is levelled chiefly at those members: of the Bible Society who are churchmen, the first impression must inevitably be, that those churchmen are charged, not with a mere venial omission, but with a blamable neglect: they neglect to distribute the Prayer-Book among their parishioners.

"Nor is the distinction unimportant. A man may omit to do a thing, and the omission may be even laudable; whereas the term neglect, implies the omission of something which ought to have been done; of something which could not be left undone, without just cause of censure.

"I would not, however, insist on a critical nicety in the use of words; only let the meaning be distinct and clear, and more especially in an accusation.

"Does Dr. Marsh, then, mean no more, than that many churchmen now belong to a society which distributes Bibles> alone. The fact is notorious: the connexion is avowed and defended.

"Or does Dr. Marsh only intend to express an opinion, that a connexion of this sort will probably, in future, induce the church-members of the Bible Society to neglect the distribution of Prayer-Books, among the poor of their congregation? The answer is, that scarcely does there exist a practical position of any sort, concerning which some doubts may not be started, and some plausible arguments advanced, by ingenious men, whose lively imaginations are not restrained by a sound judg ment, well exercised in the search of truth, and the detection of error. Dr. Marsh allows that no person but himself has discovered this ground of alarm and jealousy concerning the PrayerBook. Moreover, a fair trial of upward of eight years, which have elapsed since the formation of the Bible Society, has not yet furnished him with one particle of evidence in support of the apprehension he entertains. I am therefore inclined to think, that men who are not very prone to indulge in theoretical fancies, will feel no great anxiety on account of his suspicions of conse

quences, but will leave the discussion for the amusement of speculative minds, who will predict the future according to the strength and clearness of their understandings, the purity of their principles, their freedom from prejudice, and the influence of their private interests.

"Or, lastly, does our Inquirer into the consequences of neg lecting to give the Prayer-Book with the Bible, undertake to assert, that the churchmen who belong to the Bible Society, do actually, in practice, neglect to furnish their poor parishioners with Prayer-Books as well as Bibles?

"The attentive reader will not be at a loss to see the reason which induces me to put the question in these three different ways. It is to shew, that whatever were the objections of Dr. Marsh to the Bible Society, or to any of its constituent parts, nothing was easier, than to have brought them forward in a manner that should have been perfectly distinct and free from ambiguity.

"Thus if, agreeably to the first question, he had maintained, that the Bible Society was defective or mischievous in its very constitution, and that no churchman ought to have belonged to it, because it could not distribute Prayer-Books as well as Bibles; or if, agreeably to the second question, he had gone further, (as he really does in some parts of the sequel,) and alarmed the clergy, and other friends of the Establishment, by telling them that their connexion with the Bible Society would probably, if not infallibly, generate in their minds a dislike, neglect, or disparagement, of the Liturgy: all this, however unfounded or improbable in itself, might, nevertheless, have been arranged under distinct and intelligible heads.

"A luminous statement of this kind. would have so simplified the points in controversy, that I am fully persuaded, the Inquirer himself must have thought his time and labour greatly misplaced, in supporting such vague and random conjectures. But when it is either asserted or insinuated, that the churchmen who belong to the Bible Society, do actually neglect to distribute the Prayer-Book among their poor brethren of the church; when from the acknowledged fact, that churchmen subscribe to the Bible Society, an intrepid inference is drawn, that such churchmen do, in principle, disparage the Prayer-Book, and do, in practice, neglect to distribute it, the whole controversy assumes a very different aspect. We are instantly called to dismiss speculation, and to look at facts. The charge is so heavy, as to fall little short of a libel on many worthy churchmen, who, in their consciences, think it a duty to subscribe to the Bible Society.

"This accusation is not the less indecorous, or the less invi dious, because it is not always strictly adhered to in the Inquiry, or because, in the manner of preferring it, there is frequently considerable ambiguity. In truth, it is precisely at this point,

that, as a member of the Bible Society, my complaint becomes loud and serious. I complain, in the first place, because the distribution of the Bible alone by a society, is perpetually confounded with the distribution of Bibles alone by the individuals of that society. I complain, because an omission of giving Prayer-Books by the society, which is absolutely unavoidable, is construed, without evidence, and even contrary to the fact, into a neglect of giving Prayer-Books by the individual churchmen who belong to it. I further complain, because the seeds of dislike, neglect, and disparagement of the Liturgy of our Church, which Dr. Marsh pretends that he sees in the constitution of the Bible Society, are represented as having already produced such a plentiful harvest of indisposition towards the use of the PrayerBook, as fully justifies his prognostic of mischief to the Establishment. Lastly, I complain, that the three distinct points specified above, namely, the bad policy in the constitution of the Bible Society, the mischievous consequences likely to ensue from it, and the diminution of love and esteem for the Liturgy of the church, which is said already to appear in many of its members, are so confused and blended together, that it is often difficult to ascertain which of the three points, or what combination of them, the Inquirer has chicfly in view. All that we can with certainty pronounce is, that in every view of the subject he sees room for censure, and for charges of weakness and ignorance, or of something worse, as well as grounds for the apprehension of incalculable mischief to the pure religion of the Establishment.

"The equivocal charge contained in the title-page, of neglecting to give the Prayer-Book with the Bible, might have been passed over without notice, provided, on perusing the Inquiry itself, the ambiguity was found to be done away, by the neces sary and obvious distinctions. On the contrary, a confusion and obscurity, arising from this very cause, pervade almost the whole of Dr. Marsh's performance. The heavy accusation of neglecting to give the Prayer-Book along with the Bible, is indeed, on several occasions, expressed in terms which cannot be mistaken; but at other times, and that not unfrequently, in terms of very dubious import; for they may either mean the neglect of the Bible Society in its collective capacity, or the neglect of some of the individuals who compose it. If, however, such materials as Dr. Marsh has employed, can, by any possible process, be converted into an argument, that argument must run thus: The Bible Society, as a collective body, neither distributes, nor can distribute the Prayer-Book of our church; therefore the individual churchmen who belong to it, must neglect to distribute it in their private capacity. In other words, the Bible Society as a body cannot, therefore the churchmen who are members of it, will not, give the Prayer-Book. The premises of this argument are per

fectly sound, but the conclusion, by its entire want of connexion with them, totters to its very fall.

"The persuasion of a contagious influence from the Bible Society affecting its friends and advocates with disaffection to the Prayer-Book, seems to have taken such firm possession of the mind of our Inquirer, that, under the influence of this sentiment, he would torture every expression they use respecting the distri bution of the Bible, to a meaning which was never intended. Thus, when an advocate of the Bible Society, merely in defend ing his connexion with it from aspersion, says, "Is the distribution of the Bible alone, detrimental to the interests of the Establishment? Have we forgotten that we are Protestants?" Such interrogatories are instantly interpreted as amounting to a justification of the omission of the Liturgy, arising from indifference or dislike. For if the accuser means only that general. omission, which, of necessity, arises from the constitution of the Society, his accusation amounts to nothing." (p. 6-12.)

Having thus, in a manner highly satisfactory, stated the question, Dr. Milner proceeds to its history.

First, saith he, Dr. Marsh, in his Address to the Senate of the University, chose to represent the constitution of the Bible Society, as being unfavourable to the distribution of the PrayerBook. It was not a Church-of-England society; it distributed Bibles only, and not the Liturgy: churchmen indeed might so far correct the evil, that they might associate Prayer-Books with their Bibles. He added, that churchmen were increasing the -importance of dissenters, by joining with them, and so might be contributing even to the dissolution of the Established Church.

"The churchmen of the Bible Society, as might well be expected, repelled this invidious representation with an honest fervour. They resented the insinuation of want of attachment to the church, of indisposition to its Book of Common Prayer. The Bible, they said, was the source of Protestant doctrine; and the extensive distribution of it by the Bible Society, was a blessing to this country, and to the world; adding, that the Scriptures, without the aid of human productions, were able to make men wise unto salvation. They further denied, that, under any circumstances, the Bible could prove hurtful: and to suppose to be possible, they maintained that it savoured of Popish tenets. "Dr. Marsh, instead of understanding this language, as it was really intended, affects, in his Inquiry, to congratulate himself on a discovery, to which his Address, he supposes, had led; namely, that churchmen justified the practice of neglecting to give the Prayer-Book with the Bible."

this

After making a few observations on Dr. Marsh's neglecting to lay his short Address to the Senate of the University before the Public, which document would have enabled his readers to judge

who was the aggressor; and after noticing some facts connected with that omission, Dr. Milner proceeds :

"On the strictest examination, what is the practice which they (church-members of the Bible Society) do justify? They justify the extensive distribution of the Bible alone, by the Bible Society, in its collective capacity. They also justify the distribution of the Bible alone by individuals, so far as to consider it always safe, and in many cases expedient. But the idea of neglecting to distribute Prayer-Books, when they are wanted, to their poor parishioners, they utterly reject, nor did they ever justify such a practice for a moment.

"Our Inquirer, instead of attempting to prove, by fair argu mentation, (what was indeed impossible to be proved,) that the distribution of the Bible alone would most probably make bad churchmen, proceeds to crowd many pages of his book, in the first place, with diffuse eulogies on the excellence and importance of the Liturgy, which no churchman denies; and, in the next place, with charges or insinuations, more or less direct, against the churchmen of the Bible Society, of being disaffected to their Prayer-Book; and with surmises and conjectures of the political dangers which, he thinks, may probably ensue from this assumed disaffection." (p. 15-18.)

Dr. Milner's enlarged and correct views of the advantages to be derived from the union of churchmen and dissenters, for the purpose of distributing the Bible, will appear from the following quotation:

"As to the alleged danger of his (a churchman's) acting, in concert with the dissenters, who differ from him in some other points, the circumstance appears to me both productive of general harmony, and also in no wise calculated to dispose churchmen to be indifferent to the interests of their own Establishment.

"By general harmony, I mean those dispositions of mutual esteem and benevolence between churchmen and dissenters, which cannot fail to be the natural offspring of friendly intercourse in a good cause. The dissenters of almost all denominations, have offered to co-operate with churchmen in the truly Christian work of dispersing the Holy Scriptures; and, in my judgment, both the spirit of Christianity and sound policy, forbid us to reject a co-operation so important in its effects, and so unexceptionable in the means employed to produce them. Benevolent associations always cherish and improve the best affections of the human heart; and there are good reasons to believe, that the meetings of the friends of the Bible Society have, in fact, tended to promote genuine charity and religious union, in a high degree, Similar observations have been made on the effects of those meetings of benevolent Christians of all persuasions, which, under VOL. XXXV. SEPTEMBER, 1813.