IN addressing to you the following remarks upon a pamphlet recently put
forth by you, under the title of “_Subscription the Disgrace of the
English Church_,” I think it right to explain the reasons which have
induced me to give them publication, rather than to communicate them in a
private form, and also why I have not taken this step some days earlier.
The fact is, that till within the last three days, I had seen nothing of
your pamphlet beyond the title; neither do I think that I should then
have been tempted to peruse its contents, so repulsive did its
announcement appear, had I not received an intimation that my name was
mentioned in connection with your former publication, in such terms as to
create some suspicion that I might countenance your opinions and views,
and to require from me a declaration how far I might concur in believing
Subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles a disgrace. This information
could not fail to excite in me some degree of surprise and curiosity,
feeling, as I did, unconscious of having made to you, either publicly or
privately, any observation whatever in reference to that or to any other
of your publications.
On reading the paragraph in your pamphlet in which my name is introduced,
it did not occur to me, that, supposing I had been one of those
“clergymen in the diocese of Norwich, who had made comments upon your
last publication,” you intended anything more than to speak of me in
complimentary terms. Feeling conscious, however, that I could not take
to myself that compliment, for the reasons already stated, and that it
had been more than hinted to me, that my name being so introduced placed
me in an equivocal position, in which some explanation would be expected,
I laid the paragraph, together with the fact, before a clerical friend,
who gave his opinion, that it certainly did admit of a doubt, how far I
might have coincided in, or differed from, your views of Subscription, as
stated in your last publication.
Now, if your observations had merely concerned myself personally, I might
not have thought this accidental circumstance worthy of notice; at least
I should have refrained from drawing public attention to a matter of a
private nature. But as I conceive that the character of a clergyman,
whether as it regards his flock, or the church, ought not to appear in an
ambiguous light, and as I have always, both publicly and privately
maintained opinions the directly opposite of those which you have
advocated in several publications, it would justly be considered an
abandonment of duty, were I, from an ill-timed silence, to allow it to be
suspected that I side with the opinions which you entertain in the matter
of Subscription.
Under these circumstances and impressions, I have no course but to
sacrifice my natural disinclination to make myself a public character,
particularly when, in that character, I must necessarily assume somewhat
of a controversialist, and when there is connected with the subject much
both of a painful and of a delicate nature: I therefore hesitate not to
comply with my duty.
Although such reasons for the course which I am about to take apply only
to myself, yet if every clergyman in the diocese chose to dispute your
allegations generally, and to repudiate your imputations in particular,
it would be quite competent to him, individually, to make his public
defence.
Before I enter on the main subject of your pamphlet, one word of further
explanation will be necessary upon the personal matter between us.