and semi-Infidel Dissenters on the one hand, and Papists on the other, rejoice to see any of the Clergy labouring to overthrow the sole object of their insatiable envy and malice! What a pity it is that such Clergymen do not turn their minds to the principles of the Church, and study them, and endeavour to understand them; were they really to do so, they would have far less cause to be dissatisfied with them. If they fancy that Dissent engrosses every spiritual excellency, and that the nearer the Church approaches Dissent, the more excellent she will be, let them ask those of the Clergy who have been Dissenting Teachers, and they will receive perfect satisfaction. Indeed, if I thought that those Clergymen who have turned Dissenting Teachers would speak the real undisguised sentiments of their own hearts, I would say at onceAsk them? for if they have been long amongst the Dissenters, and know their principles and practices, they would tell the enquirers that which would make them abundantly satisfied both with the Church, and their own honoured, and so much envied situation as her Ministers.

But, again, I must be allowed to express my thorough conviction, that if the respectable, upright, and religious part of the Dissenters were fully aware of all the crafty wiliness, and pious trickery, and ambitious scheming of many of their Teachers, they would soon leave them to their own resources-to fall to their own proper level, and unite themselves with the Established Church, where no such mean artifices are ever resorted to, and

would never annoy them.-Let any impartial and unprejudiced person, whether Churchman or Dissenter, take a glance at the proceedings and pamphlets of the Society set on foot ostensibly "for promoting Ecclesiastical knowledge," but really for the purpose of "promoting the dissemination of Dissenting falsehood and sophistry, and of overthrowing the Church of England vi et fraude," and then judge of the spirit and principles by which Dissenters are actuated.

This

Society was started for the professed purpose of making more widely known "the principles of Dissent" "sober, enlightened, and scriptural Dissent," if any one knows what and where it is; but amongst its paltry and expensive publications, we find tracts "On Episcopacy,"" On the Nineteenth Article of the Church of England," " Modern Prelacy," "Tithes," &c. &c., which are direct and malignant attacks upon the Church of England, and have of course a great deal to do with making known" the principles of Dissent." If, however, they do not exemplify " the principles of Dissent," they loudly enough proclaim the practices of some Dissenters. The Tracts on Tithes, are shameful and scurrilous to the very last degree, and fraught with principles of injustice and iniquity, such as are but too common with the Radical and Infidel press. These Tracts were written, it appears, by Dr. Bennett, who is, as they tell us, a very great and learned man. This said Doctor sometime ago published a sermon, sometimes called the "bone and muscle sermon," on the duty of Dissenters to support their Teachers more liberally and respectably than they generally do; and a comparison of this sermon with his unprincipled Tracts on Tithes, would afford an excellent comment on that admirable rule of our Blessed Lord, "all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." Let him compare the two together, with this golden rule before him, and .blush and be silent. For according to his morality, it is perfectly right for Dissenting Teachers to be respectably maintained, by squeezing money to which they have no right out of the pockets of their people, but extremely wrong for the Clergy to have that which is their undoubted right.*

But indeed, not a Tract of this famous Society has yet been published without insinuations and calumnies against the Church, conveyed in language which clearly

See Appendix No. VIII.

indicates the source whence they are derived to their shameless propagators.* That I may not be thought too severe upon this scandalous Society, I will add a quotation from Dr. Pye Smith himself, an eminent Dissenter, and I am glad to add that he appears an upright and conscientious man. He was, it seems, one of the Committee of the Society previously to its second annual meeting; but owing to the violent and abusive nature of its tracts and proceedings, he then insisted on the withdrawal of his name from the list of the Committee-protested against the proceedings of the Society, and said, that if the Committee did not in future exercise greater vigilance in " guarding against violations of equity" towards the Church, he would leave the Society altogether. The Doctor's remarks had particular reference to the objectionable Tracts of Dr. Bennett, who, in consequence, addressed to Dr. Smith a letter, accusing him, as the Doctor himself remarks, "not only of inconsistency, but of something like treachery." To this Dr. Smith wrote an answer, in which he says, "At the meeting itself I was pained and distressed with the general style of both sentiment and expressions in some of the speakers, and with the boisterous acclamation of the hearers,indications of mind and demonstrations of feeling which I thought lamentably at variance with the idea of a Religious Society assembled in a place of worship for the purpose of promoting a professed superiority of regard to the authority of our Blessed Redeemer. Thus does the Dissenting Dr. Smith condemn the unhallowed proceedings of this Society, whose wicked unprincipled leaders strictly act upon the unblushing and scandalous avowal of the organ of Dissent, that "pure attachment to Dissenting principles requires to be kept up in minds of a certain class by a keen hatred,

O'Connell, the Popish Agitator, on receiving some of the publica tions of this Society from Mr. Wilks, told him that he "viewed them with high approbation." Does not this speak volumes?

and now and then a little round abuse of the Church.” It is pleasing, however, to see that amongst such a corrupt mass as the Dissenters now are, Dr. Smith and several other worthy Dissenters-men of sense and piety-men who would be ornaments to a far more scriptural and more holy cause, are disgusted at such wicked practices-the pure result of their principles. Why do not such men leave a sect whose proceedings are so abominable, that their own consciences force them to condemn them; and conform to the Established Church, where they would find far more spiritual peace and happiness, and would never be" pained and distressed" with such unholy proceedings as Dissenters are now practising?

There is also another Society, called the Home Missionary Society, supported by Dissenters for the purpose of disseminating the seeds of division, discord, heresy, and schism, in every town and village in the kingdom, which may yet be destitute of the blessings of Congregational Independency, or as Dissenters will have it, of the Gospel,-for with them the former is synonymous with the latter, although as I will hereafter most clearly prove, it has not a shadow of Scriptural truth about it. This Society by its very existence condemns the whole body of the Clergy, and proceeds in the plenitude of its liberality upon the very charitable and modest supposition, that they are ignorant of the Gospel, and incapable of preaching it. For the purpose, therefore, of supplying the deficiency occasioned by the ignorance and negligence of the stupid Clergy, this Society sends out into the country a set of very spruce, genteel, important, and extremely modest young lads. These boys strut forth with mighty consequence into villages to preach, as they term it, in opposition to steady, pious, and devoted Clergymen, old enough to be their grandfathers. The Society, however, profess to send their itinerating agents into no place where what they call the Gospel is preached by the Clergyman; but this is a piece of Dissenting

craft-mere pretence, made for the wily purpose of blinding the eyes of some well-disposed, though sadly mistaken persons, who would not support the Society if they knew their preachers were sent into such places. They have, however, a predilection for towns and villages, where the Clergy have been labouring devotedly for the spiritual good of their people. As a proof of this among several which might be produced, I could name a large and respectable town with a worthy and excellent Rector, who, besides, employing a Curate, faithfully preaches what Dissenters themselves would not deny to be the Gospel, and otherwise anxiously labours for both the spiritual and temporal welfare of his parishioners, and is well respected by them. His Lady also is a very Dorcas, working incessantly for the poor. And though he has enjoyed the Rectory above ten years, he has yet received but very little if any benefit from it. Having a very handsome income independently of it, the poor have been the great objects of his bounty. Notwithstanding all this, however, and their own hypocritical professions, the Society sent one of their preaching agents into the town to sow the seeds of discord and disturbance between him and his people. And even the Preacher himself, on being spoken to on the impropriety of being stationed there in direct opposition to the professions of the Society, admitted that such was the case, and said, that he would state the matter to the Society, and had no doubt that he would be withdrawn. The circumstance was shortly afterwards mentioned to me, together with the expectation that the Preacher would be withdrawn; but having a little more knowledge of the wily and jesuitical craft of the party, from so much intimate connexion with them, I expressed my firm belief that the man would not ultimately be removed, or if he were, that another would be sent. The latter has proved to be the case, the first Preacher was withdrawn, but another immediately sent, who is there, I believe, at the present moment, and