History of the College of St. John the Evangelist, Cambridge

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P. 49. It is said that Jos. Lancaster's practice for some time 'was to use the Liturgy as a reading book in his school; he used to go about to his Church-of-England friends, begging for their worn out PrayerBooks, ... the whole leaves of which he was in the habit of pasting. on boards, that they might serve as reading lessons for the children.' Pp. 55 seq. combat the assertion that no Calvinist can be zealously attached to the liturgy; Dealtry guards himself from the charge of Calvinism.

P. 71. In answer to the charge that the Bible Society injured the S.P.C.K. 'The number of subscribing members [to the S.P.C.K.] chosen in the last year was 869: the largest number chosen in any one year, since 1789, was 270.'

P. 73: 'If the Professor imagines that Dissenters in all cases omit the Liturgy altogether, he labours under a great mistake. Many of them use the Liturgy in their chapels, with some variations. The same observation is true of the Methodists: and numbers of Methodists and Dissenters in this kingdom would be thankful for a Prayer-Book.' P. 104 charges Marsh with hunting for preferment.

P. 105. A friend, whom Dealtry told that he intended to write against Marsh: 'You cannot please him better; the man delights in it; it is his vapour bath.'

Pp. 109, 110. Compliments to Dr. Christ. Wordsworth.

By way of parody on Marsh an advertisement was circulated (p. 114): 'Speedily to be published, An Inquiry into the Consequences of neglecting to give the Assembly's Catechism with the Bible' etc.

In answer to Marsh's challenge to his opponents to declare, 'whether they have laboured harder than I have done to promote the study' of the Bible, Dealtry answers, confounding quantity of work with quality (p. 117): 'the three Secretaries of the Bible Society, and many other members of that institution, have done infinitely more to promote the circulation and general knowledge of the Bible, than all the dissertations of the learned Professor.'

P. 122: Does he not affirm, in that hand-bill, of which he now [Inquiry, p. 79] claims the honour, but which, by some manœuvre, was very suddenly withdrawn from circulation, that though his objection is not to the distribution of the Bible, yet it is to the distribution of the Bible alone?'

P. 126: The Auxiliary Society established at Cambridge was eminently indebted to his seasonable interference. His Address to the Senate gained us some converts, even in the University, and by directing the public attention towards the meeting at the Town-Hall, rendered essential service to the cause.'

The Edinburgh Review xix 39 calls this slight performance 'one of the ablest and most satisfactory controversial pieces that we have ever seen, and only unfortunate in the unequal force with which it has to contend.'

Is. Milner's Strictures, p. 284: Mr. Dealtry, the learned and indefatigable champion of the Bible Society, has closely followed the Inquirer through all his sinister windings and subtle deviations. He

never suffers him so much as to pause and take breath. Abundantly better acquainted with the concerns of the Bible Society than any one else, perhaps, that can be mentioned; and with an established reputation for learning and talents that is exceeded by few; this excellent scholar and able disputant has fully satisfied those who have taste 5 and leisure for entering into the detail of this controversy.'

Lord John Townshend to Sam. Parr, 27 Febr. 1812 (Parr's Works, VII. 166): 'I wanted particularly to ask your sentiments about the Auxiliary Bible Society, on which subject I find I am compelled to differ with my two friends Dr. Barnes and Dr. Marsh; but the latter IO seems, I confess, to have conceived an unwarrantable prejudice on this subject; and Mr. Vansittart's reply to him appears to me perfectly satisfactory. The good to be done by the most extensive circulation of the Scripture is undeniable. The evil to be apprehended by a misapplication of the means, seems to me very problematical.' 15

[N. Vansittart. See above, p. 812 1. 4]. Letter III. Second letter to the Rev. Dr. Marsh, occasioned by his Inquiry. Great George Street, 23 Mar. 1812.

Had delayed his reply in expectation of the publication of Marsh's Appendix. In the Address Marsh expressed his fears lest, as the 20 Society's influence increased, other designs hostile to the church might be engrafted on the main design. In the Inquiry he objects to the circulation of the Scriptures unaccompanied by the Liturgy. The church members of the Bible Society employ the Liturgy 'many of us in our own families.' Those who are also members of the S. P.C.K. 25 do not order fewer prayer-books than other members of that society. The average number of prayer-books supplied by the S.P.C.K. to its members in the 3 years 1802-3-4 was 13,546; 'the average of the last three years was 19,815, being an increase of nearly one half. I am informed also that the ordinary sale of Prayer-books has greatly 30 increased in the same period.'

'The danger of the perversion of Scripture, on which you so much insist, is the very argument used by the Papists in defence of the denial of the Bible to the laity.'

Dissenters by associating with churchmen learn to respect the 35 Liturgy. Churchmen by seceding from the society will leave its whole influence in the hands of Dissenters; all the foreign societies, with the patronage of the Emperor of Russia, the kings of Sweden and Prussia, will strengthen the cause of dissent.

Dissenters are no longer what they were in the time of the great 40 rebellion; nor does the present moderate church government resemble Laud's illegal impositions.

The foreign operations of the Society Marsh admits to be highly laudable; but says that their importance has been exaggerated. The number of languages in which the Society has circulated translations 45 is 58, of which about 25, 'not, as you insinuate, five or six only, are translations into languages in which the Scriptures have not been published before.' The report states exactly in what degree the Society contributes to each publication.

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Marsh spoke of the society's labours in Germany as superfluous. Such of his readers 'as are unacquainted with the Bible Society will be somewhat surprised to find that the fullest, if not the only, account in English of the Canstein Institution is to be found in the Second Report of the Society; that the Head of that Institution was in constant correspondence with them, so long as correspondence could be maintained with the Continent, and that the Institution has been employed to a large extent by the Society.'

To restrict the Society to its foreign department, would be to cut off its supplies, the local Auxiliaries whose first aim is to supply local wants. The Naval and Military Bible Society also gives away, or sells at reduced prices, Bibles and Testaments only, without note or comment. Yet this Society has existed from the year 1780, without exciting any of those alarms which immediately arose on the formation of the British and Foreign Bible Society.'

The Bible Society is as little likely to lead to a repeal of the Test Act, as of the Habeas Corpus Act.

There never was a time when the legislature more liberally promoted the interests of the church. In each of the years 1809, 1810, 1811, a grant of a £100,000 was made to the governors of Queen Anne's bounty for the augmentation of small livings. 'Three Acts of Parliament have passed, in the years 1806, 1809, and 1810, for exonerating livings not exceeding £150 a year, from the Land Tax charged upon them, to the amount of £8000 a year. See 46 G. III. c. 133. 49 G. III. c. 67. 50 G. III. c. 58. N.B. No former parliamentary grants of this kind appear to have been made in Great Britain.' In Ireland from the Union to 1808 £5000 Irish was annually granted to the Board of First-Fruits for building churches and glebe-houses. From 1808 the sum was doubled, and in each of the years 1810, 1811 a further grant of £50,000 British was made for the same purpose.

Danger to the church may arise, if the abuses of the Church should be confounded with its interests... The returns of the non-resident clergy, for instance, are now annually printed;' or again from a discordance of sentiment between the clergy and laity.'

In p. 58 Vansittart refers to the review of Marsh's Inquiry in the Brit. Rev. No. v.

Is. Milner's Strictures, p. 283: 'The Three Letters of the Right Honourable Nicholas Vansittart, as being the production of a layman and a person of distinction, have operated with admirable effect on the public mind. The elegance and piety with which the author conveys his wholesome admonitions, do not diminish the keenness of his censure.'

A letter to the right hon. N. Vansittart, M.P. being an answer to his second letter on the British and Foreign Bible Society: and, at the same time, an answer to whatever is argumentative in other pamphlets, which have been lately written to the same purpose. By Herbert Marsh, D.D. P.R.S. Margaret professor of divinity in Cambridge. London: Printed by Law and Gilbert, St. John's-Square, Clerkenwell, and sold by Rivingtons, St. Paul's church-yard; and by Deighton, Nicholson, and Barrett, Cambridge, 1812. 8vo. pp. 54. Dated Cambridge 16 May 1812. [Reprinted in the Pamphleteer, 1813, 8vo. 1. 367—411.]

Vansittart's second letter contains all the argument to be found in speeches, letters, prefaces, or reviews on that side, and contains it unmixed with personalities. Indeed one of my adversaries [Dealtry?], whose situation it would especially befit to practise the benevolence which we are ordained to preach, has not only departed from the 5 subject of inquiry, . . but has substituted for argument a mass of personal invective, which it would be no less degrading to notice, than it was disgraceful to advance.'

Marsh's history of translations has proved that the Society's boast of a new Pentecost' was exaggerated. The Society had not trans- IO lated so much as two gospels into any one language, into which they had not been before translated; nor printed one entire gospel into any language into which a part of the Scriptures had not been independently translated.

The charge against the Society that its designs were political, not 15 religious, Marsh had never made; the religious zeal which animated its members he had alleged as the cause of their blindness to domestic danger.

Marsh had said that the Society 'gives power to the Dissenter, popularity to the Churchman, and interest to the Politician.' That 20 there was a dissenting interest, whose power increased, as it was courted, he thought was plain. 'That Churchmen, who promote the Bible Society, thereby obtain popularity, while they who venture to oppose it are loaded with every species of abuse, can surely, after the late events, require no demonstration.' 'If you were member for a 25 county, in which a large portion of the voters were Dissenters, your zeal for the Bible Society would certainly have ensured you for the next general election, against any candidate who had opposed the Society.' 'If I had been then actuated by the desire of recommending myself to high ecclesiastical honours, I should have taken the side, 30 which was chosen by my opponents.'

In pp. 13 seq. Marsh proves that he never claimed for the prayer. book an equality with the Bible.

P. 25 seq. The Cambridge printing office had been particularly employed by the Bible Society. In the eight years which have elapsed 35 since the formation of your Society to the beginning of the present year, the number of Bibles and Testaments printed at our office have amounted to 531, 800: the number of Bibles and Testaments printed in the eight preceding years, namely, from 1796 to 1803 inclusive, amounted to 201,000. The increase therefore in Bibles and Testaments has been in 40 the proportion of more than five to two... The number of PrayerBooks printed at our office in the eight years which have followed the formation of your Society has amounted only to 140,900; whereas the number of Prayer-Books printed at our office during the eight years which immediately preceded the formation of your Society, 45 amounted to 161,750. In 1802 and 1803 no Prayer-Books were printed at our office, the 161,750 having been printed in the six years from 1796 to the end of 1801. So much fairer was the opening for the printing of Prayer-Books in the eight following years... Though

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the number has decreased in the last eight years, it had been previously on the increase. In the four years ending with 1795, the number of Prayer-Books printed at our office was 101,500; in the four years ending with 1799, the number was 116,750; in the four years ending with 1801, the number was 133,000.' This is a fact for Simeon, 'who has addressed me in a tone of defiance, not usual among gentlemen, except in repelling a gross personal attack;' and declared that Marsh's 'argument is altogether founded on an assumption of a fact as true, which, if enquired into, will prove false.'

P. 33. A bishop, a vice-president of the Bible Society, applied shortly after the publication of Marsh's Inquiry, for 2000 copies of the prayer-book, to be distributed with the Bible.

P. 35. Last March 'the Admiralty impressed, as it is termed, £1500, which will be continued annually, to the Chaplain General, for the purpose of procuring books, including Prayer Books with Bibles, from the S. P. C. K.'

P. 37 seq. The 'ancient prejudices' of whose surrender Vansittart boasts, are churchmen's prejudices in favour of the liturgy.

P. 41. The friends of the Bible Society 'have discovered that I was right in contending for the distribution, on the part of Churchmen, of both Bible and Prayer-Book. For shortly before the General Meeting of your Society, on the 6th of this month [May 1812], at Free Masons' Tavern, proposals were circulated for another meeting at the same place, on that day fortnight, with the view of establishing a kind of supplementary society, for the distribution of the Prayer Book;' i. e. the Prayer Book and Homily Society.

P. 42: 'If it was Popery to urge the distribution of both Bible and Prayer Book, what would have been then [5 months ago] said of a Society for the distribution of the Prayer Book, without the Bible?'

P. 44 seq. The new society, formed by supporters of the Bible Society, offers to distribute the homilies, which can scarcely be understood by a common congregation, and translations of the prayer-book. The S. P. C. K. printed 2550 Manx prayer-books in 1763, and 5000 in 1808. In 1748 it finished an edition of the Welsh Bible and prayer-book of 15,000 copies; in 1752 it printed 15,000 Welsh Bibles and 5000 Testaments and prayer-books. In 1768 it printed 20,000 Welsh Bibles; in 1799 it printed 10,000 and in 1809 20,000 Welsh Bibles and prayerbooks. Two translations of the prayer-book had been made into East Indian languages by missionaries of the society.

P. 49 seq. 'My endeavours have been as successful as I could have reasonably hoped. When I pleaded from the University Pulpit, for the Articles of our Religion, I was assailed indeed with the bitterest reproaches, by a writer, who pronounced them a mass of mystery and delusion. But then I was indemnified for this abuse, by the approbation with which my Lectures were honoured, by every critic, who had a regard for the Church. When I pleaded at St. Paul's, for the national religion as the foundation of national education, the press again teemed with invective, on the part of those who would gladly

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