must be removed, and removed speedily and effectually, if the Society is to continue the same. The circumstances of the times forbid us to hope that it will receive the same cordial support, if it should be once understood that it propagates error; which must be the case so long as broad and palpable contradictions are permitted to exist in the doctrine of its tracts. Other societies have sprung up during the last few years, which are rapidly rising into distinction; one or other of which embraces almost every domestic object of the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge. Surely, then, it becomes this Society to exercise a more than ordinary circumspection; for in no other way can it continue to enjoy that pre-eminent share of the public esteem on which its prosperity rests. If it is still to be the leading body in the great efforts of mercy now going on in the world, it must stand forth in the attire of consistency and truth. No large mass of voluntary subscribers can long be kept together by any other conduct. I need not, I apprehend, do more than allude in this place to the unfavourable light in which the Society's late proceedings with regard to Dr. Mant's tract must tend to place the Church of England in her controversies with the dissenters from her communion. Already has a most injurious use been made of the cir cumstance. And unless the Society shall vindicate its own consistency, it is unnecessary to say what advantages the opponents of our apostolical church will derive from the contradictory interpretations of a Society which includes so large a portion of her ministers. But from these and similar topics I purposely abstain; my sole object being to solicit most earnestly the attention of the general body of subscribers to what appears to me a fatal inconsistency, on a fundamental article of faith, in the Society's publications. A sincere regard for the interests of that Society, and an ardent wish for the increasing and permanent prosperity of that church with which it is so closely connected, have dictated these observations; and I the more earnestly press them on the consideration of its members, from a full persuasion that the speedy and effectual removal of the evil which they point out, while it is imperiously called for by a regard to the interests of true religion in this country, is essentially and indispensably necessary to the respectability and continued usefulness of the Society'. 1 It may be proper to mention, that the above Address was suggested by the publications of the Rev. J. Scott, of Hull, and the Rev. T. T. Biddulph, of Bristol, in reply to Dr. Mant's Tract. From the Appendix of the latter work the extracts from the Society's former publications are given; not, however, without being first compared with the original books and tracts. September 1824. It may be right to add, that soon after the publication of this ADDRESS, a revision of the tracts of the Society was directed to be undertaken by a general board, and a Committee appointed for that purpose. The Report presented afterwards by the Committee denied, indeed, that they had found any contradictions to be involved in the language of the older tracts and that of Dr. Mant; but distinctly admitted all that the ADDRESS contended for; that the term Regeneration was employed in them sometimes in a strict liturgical sense for the grace conveyed in Baptism; and sometimes in a more enlarged and popular sense for the renewal and conversion of the heart generally. It abstained from any direct approbation of the obnoxious tract of Dr. Mant. About the same time, a new edition of Dr. Mant's Tract was published, in which the most objectionable expressions, all those indeed on which the controversy turned, were expunged or modified. In how strong a manner the old writers most in repute in our Church differed from the persons who guided in the publication of the Society's Tracts at this time, was further apparent from the circumstance, that in transferring a comment upon a passage in Ezekiel from Dr. Lowth's pages to those of the Family Bible, the Word Regeneration was expunged, and another and softer word substituted, without the slightest authority or explanation. The alteration was retracted on an expostulation being made at the General Board. |