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This objection was urged against our Lord: "This people who know not the law are cursed." If the seceders from the church are so ignorant that they cannot appreciate the merits of the clergy, what benefit have they derived from a pretended learned ministry? Whose business was it to have made them wiser? At the meeting they are both instructed and reformed, and this shows who are the best preachers. But though those who leave the church are generally ignorant, which is not much to the credit of the clergy, yet they are not the most ignorant of churchmen. The poor miserable creatures, clothed in rags, and sunk in vice, who are only about one degree removed from the savage state, are stanch friends of the church. Whenever an army has been raised to defend the hierarchy, the troops have been of this description. The lowest of the rabble have been collected, made drunk, marched to the meeting, and set on by the champions of orthodoxy, to huzza, curse, and swear, pelt stones and rotten eggs, break windows, and wound peaceable worshippers, in defence of an apostolic church and learned clergy, to the glory of God, and the honour of our most excellent establishment!

Objection 4. It is not by learning that the people have been drawn from the church, but by violent vociferation, and the most alarming and unnatural gesticulation, such as brawling damnation in their ears, smiting with the hand, stamping with the foot, etc.

Indeed! And have all the sober and learned instructions of the clergy come to this! A man may sit at their feet for years, and be wise in all the learning of the church; but, it seems, the moment he hears the voice of an enthusiast, his brains run round like a whirligig; he sees visions, dreams dreams, feels inspired, and is ready for a strait jacket! If such be the effect, some people will suspect that he was more than half cracked before the Methodist began to operate upon him. No sensible man can be moved to anything but pity, or contempt, by the ravings of ignorance; and, therefore, none but fools

can be gained by it: and the great abilities of the clergy are employed to very little purpose, if the most extravagant of fanatics can produce the greatest defection from the church.

If the clergy seriously believe that ranterism is so wonderfully successful, it may merit their consideration, whether it would not be a measure of prudence to meet the devil upon his own ground, and fight him with his own weapons. From the specimens some of them have given, there is reason to believe that they would soon become proficients in this mode of warfare; for, though sufficiently dull upon common topics, when they treat upon enthusiasm, fanaticism, etc., the wildness of their stare, and the extravagance of their language, are sufficient to inspire with alarm and terror minds the most inert and stoical.

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There are circumstances which betray a disposition in some of the clergy not very favourable to learning. Old Lord Halifax told Dr. Echard that, in his book, "Of the Contempt of the Clergy," he had not hit upon the true reason of it, namely, the knowledge of the laity. To which the Doctor readily replied, God be thanked, there is ignorance enough still among the laity to support the authority of the clergy."* archbishop of Canterbury thought Lord Sidmouth's bill would promote the respectability of the dissenters, by keeping ignorant persons out of the ministry. If the clergy really wish the teachers among the different sects to become a learned body of men, why shut them out of the universities? They have long complained that the terms of admission to these seats of learning are contrary to their consciences, and imposed with a view to their exclusion. When obstacles are thrown in the way of their education, and their supposed want of it made the pretence for abridging their religious privileges by acts of parliament, it is easy to see that their enemies are contriving, not how to promote their respectability, but their destruction;

* Rights of the Christian Church, p. 268.

it is like first cutting off a man's legs, and then knocking out his brains because he cannot walk.

The Lancasterian system of education, which is founded upon the most liberal principles, and calculated to banish ignorance out of the land, has had no enemies to encounter but the clergy; and their opposition has been upon church principles. That the state is under no apprehension is certain, for Lancaster obtained the approbation and patronage of his majesty, and the royal family, and the principal of the nobility. When the clergy saw that their senseless clamour could not prevail against the good sense of the nation, they set up rival schools, founded upon sectarian principles, which exclude the children of dissenters.

Thus, those who affect to pity our ignorance, and would provide against the effects of it by legislative acts, shut us out of their national schools and universities!

Even the Bible society, which bids fair to illuminate and convert the world, has met with no open and avowed enemies of any consequence, except the clergy, whose church is in danger, in their own apprehension, from the circulation of the sacred scriptures, when unaccompanied by a prayer-book.

That boasted learning of the clergy produces no practical effect, if we may judge of other dioceses by the diocese of Durham: witness the following advertisement, which appeared in the Newcastle papers:

"At a Meeting of the Clergy of the diocese of Durham, held at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, on Thursday, the 5th day of September, 1811,

"The Rev. the Archdeacon of Durham in the chair, "It was resolved,

"First. That ignorance of religion, and a consequent disregard of its awful sanctions, may be reckoned among the chief causes of that profligacy which justly excites universal alarm.

Secondly. That an increased attention to the religious education of all the classes of society, and most particularly of the infant poor, is the only remedy that

can be applied to this evil, with any hope of bringing about a permanent and effectual reformation." They then proceed to recommend the institution of schools upon Dr. Bell's plan, as the remedy for the evil of which they complain.

What a sermon would the shaver have preached from such a text as this? That the education of the poor upon Dr. Bell's plan, might be one means of bringing about a reformation of manners may be admitted; but that it is the only method which can be employed with any hope of success, is very surprising! It seems to follow as a necessary corollary, that they have no hope of producing any real or lasting good by their praying and preaching. With what conscience can these holy alarmists share among themselves a yearly revenue of about £200,000 for teaching morality, when, according to their own confession, they cannot persuade the people to practise it. A physician who should continue to attend his patients merely to swell his bill, after he had lost all hopes of doing them any good, would deserve public contempt.

Observe, reader, this opinion of the inefficacy of their ministrations is not expressed by a solitary individual, but by the clergy of a whole diocese. It could not escape as an inadvertency, because they were convened for the express purpose of taking into consideration the state of morals in the diocese, and the above is given, after the strictest scrutiny, as their deliberate judgment.

There are a few words in this advertisement of ambiguous import. The profligacy complained of, is stated to have excited universal alarm. The alarmists, it is presumed, are not to be identified with the profligates; and if all are terrified at sin, who are the sinners? If we take the uneducated poor to be the profligates intended, then we may suppose the clergy, and the higher orders of the laity, to be the persons seized with this panic. But why are their fears excited at the vices of the lower orders of society? Is it not notorious, to speak modestly, that the poor are kept in

countenance by the example of the rich? If this alarm be about the future consequences of immorality, it may justly be retorted, "Weep not for us, but weep for yourselves." If the effects of vice upon civil society be dreaded, the clergy ought not to oppose the exertions of those who have turned thousands to righteousness, when, by their tacit confession, their own labours can avail nothing towards the restoration of moral order.

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It is an old and just observation, that truth is mighty and will prevail. Religious truth, it has been shown, may be understood with ease; it may, therefore, be explained and defended without difficulty. I never knew a man, however great his parts, engage troversy from a conviction of his being in the right, who did not place more dependence upon the goodness of his cause, than upon the splendour of his abilities. It is astonishing to see how an unlettered person, with truth on his side, will foil an opponent of the greatest talents. To instance only in one particular. The clergy generally commence. their attack against the Methodists on the subject of inspiration. They endeavour to persuade people that inspiration has ceased since the days of the apostles, and that the Methodists are enthusiasts and fanatics for pretending to it. There is not an old woman among them but can reply : "Did not you, sir, profess to be moved by the Holy Ghost, when you received priest's orders? Do not you pray in your synagogues every sabbath-day: Take not thy Holy Spirit from us-cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit send down upon all bishops and curates, and all congregations committed to their charge, the healthful Spirit of thy grace.' The Methodists, do not pretend to more inspiration than this; the charge, therefore, of enthusiasm and fanaticism, attaches as much to you as to them. If inspiration, as you pretend, has ceased, the Methodists, though mistaken, are sincere; whereas you are playing the hypocrite, and sinning with your eyes wide open." No advantages of education can

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