“I have now only to acknowledge the comments of several clergymen and
others in this diocese, upon my last publication. To the Rev. B.
Philpot, formerly archdeacon of the Isle of Man, and to the Rev. C.
Green, rector of Burgh, I beg to offer my sincere thanks for the
candid and christian spirit in which their observations were made. I
avail myself also of this opportunity to acknowledge with respect and
gratitude a large number of private communications, both from friends
and strangers, which were a valuable testimony at a time when they
were most acceptable.”
In answer to what concerns me, I repeat that I neither publicly nor
privately to you ever made any comment or observation whatever upon your
last publication; and that, if to others I may have alluded to it, it was
in terms of disapprobation and with feelings of regret.
I now proceed to a discussion of your pamphlet, which will give me an
opportunity of satisfying those, who may wish to know, how far I concur
in your opinions and views; and I trust I shall not express myself
otherwise, than in that “candid and christian spirit,” for which, by
anticipation, you have already given me credit.
The title of the pamphlet is a true index of what may be found within.
Indeed, the contents may be reduced to PROPOSITION and COROLLARY.
_Proposition_: “Subscription the Disgrace of the English Church.”
_Corollary_: “Repeal of the present form of Subscription.”
These in turn shall have my best consideration. The Proposition you
attempt to establish by various suppositions and allegations. A grave
charge, which strikes at the very foundation of our church establishment,
like that involved in this proposition, should not be grounded on
suppositions, the force of which must depend on their degree of
probability, which is always questionable, but should rest solely upon
proven and admitted facts. Indeed, in a matter of such moment as that,
which you appear extremely anxious to substantiate, all other reasoning
but from facts alone must be excluded. I therefore humbly submit, that
the opinions which you appear to have collected from “Newspapers,
Periodicals,” and “Commercial Travellers’ Rooms,” must be rejected as
inadmissible in the present consideration; for the articles in newspapers
and periodicals, of a controversial nature especially, being generally
got up to serve some party purpose, are too often limited to a partial
and one-sided view of things; and I have yet to learn that commercial
travellers’ rooms, however proverbial for practical information and good
sense, have become schools of sound theology. For the same reason, we
must pass by the suppositious questions of “youthful profligates, led on
by some ingenious sceptic;” also, “the obvious reasoning of the
dissenting part of our population,” and the notions of “a still larger
class, who, amidst the din of controversy, pick up a few popular reports,
which help to confirm their indifference to religion.” We must likewise
dismiss from our consideration your analogical reasoning, from the case
of the Officers of the Army and Navy to that of the Clergy, and from the
“Articles of War” to the “Confession of our Faith.” For reasoning of
this sort, to be valid, must be founded upon cases analogous; and what
analogy exists between the “Articles of War,” which depend on
ever-varying expediency and annual revision, and the “Confession of our
Faith,” which is based on the never-changing word of truth? {8} Some
analogy there may be between Officers of the Army and Navy, who for
dishonorable conduct are dismissed the service by court-martial, and the
Clergy who hold opinions contrary to their Subscription. But I forbear
to animadvert on that comparison.
Therefore I think you must allow that, in a demonstration of such moment,
as that “Subscription is the Disgrace of the English Church,” we cannot
admit suppositions, assertions, and notions, but that we must have _stern
facts_.
Is it then the fact, that “while we perceive the variety of opinion
prevailing amongst these several sections (of the clergy,) we see also
that from all of them, more or less, Subscription is requiring that
which, in the ordinary affairs of life, high-minded men would abstain
from; viz. the necessity for qualifying the plain and straight-forward
use of language?”
If you succeed in establishing this position, then I shall be ready to
acknowledge that there is treachery within the pale of our
Church—widely-extended treachery, and that you will have gone far towards
maintaining that “Subscription is the Disgrace of the English Church;”
or, to put the proposition more logically, that _the Clergy thus
subscribing and acting are the disgrace of the English Church_.
It will now be necessary to extract in full from your pamphlet those
allegations upon which alone your position depends, in order that the
truth of them may be canvassed, and the foundation of your charge made
perfectly clear to my readers.