REMARKS ON A CHARGE DELIVERED TO The Clergy of the Diocese of Durham, BY SHUTE, BISHOP OF DURHAM, ᎪᎢ ᎢᎻᎬ ORDINARY VISITATION OF THAT DIOCESE IN THE YEAR 1806. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. Exod. xx. 16 La Harpe. Les sophismes les plus brillans disparoissent devant la simple verité. A PAMPHLET has lately been published under a title calculated to command respect, and ensure popularity; A Charge delivered to the Clergy of the Diocese of Durham, by Shute, Bishop of Durham. It is, or would seem to be, the dying exhortation of a venerable prelate, "whose years have already exceeded the ordinary age of man;" his last instructions to his reverend brethren, the clergy of his diocese; a legacy of love, which, in the fervour of affection, he has bequeathed to his spiritual children. With eagerness I opened the book; and my wishes anticipated the moderation, the liberality, the benevolence of an aged prelate, who was unwilling to sink into the grave, without leaving to posterity a lasting monument of his piety and pastoral solicitude. I saw him, like the Saviour of mankind, entertaining himself for the last time with his disciples; and anxiously enforcing, by his example and discourse, those sentiments of universal charity so beautifully described in the charge which Christ delivered to his apostles on the eve of his passion.* I must confess, I was most grievously disappointed. The Christian bishop had dwindled into the angry polemic; and the object of the publication * St. John, xiv. xv. xvi. B appeared to be, not to draw nearer the bands of unity and affection; not to exhort his clergy to a conscientious discharge of their respective duties; but to quicken the diffusion of religious prejudice, and to misrepresent the creed of a most numerous class of his majesty's subjects. I treated it with the inattention which I conceived it to deserve; and, till I learned that it had been presented to the king by the zealous prelate himself, I almost persuaded myself that it was the fabrication of some obscure controvertist, who, to exalt his own insignificancy, had assumed the venerable name of Shute, Bishop of Durham. The man who embraces a religious opinion from conviction, has undoubtedly the right to maintain it by argument. But truth will be his first and principal object; and the champion of truth will disdain the petty artifices of substituting assertion for proof, and misrepresentation for fact. He will never condescend to swell the crowd of disputants, whose ingenuity first frames a creed for the church of Rome, and then, after combating a phantom of its own creation, exults in an easy and decisive victory. That this expedient should have been frequently adopted by the herd of minor and hungry writers, is not surprising. It has often proved the most certain road to reputation, and, what they probably valued more than reputation, to wealth and preferment.* But the Bishop of Durham is placed far above such paltry temptations. The reputation which he enjoys, may satisfy his utmost ambition; and the ecclesiastical dignity which he fills, if not the first in rank, is at least the first in opulence in the United Kingdom. If then, notwithstanding his great age and high occupations, he be still inclined to shiver a lance in the lists of controversy, we may safely affirm, that his motives are laudable, and trust that his conduct, like his courage, will be fair and honourable. * Thus when the Duke of York asked Archbishop Sheldon, if it were the doctrine of the Church of England, that Roman Catholics were idolators? he answered, " that it was not; but that young men of parts would be popular, and such a charge was the way to it." Burnet, History of his own Times, anno 1673. 66 |