J.N.1025 THOUGHTS ON THE PRESENT STATE OF POPULAR OPINION IN MATTERS OF RELIGION, IN ENGLAND: ADDRESSED ESPECIALLY ΤΟ THE NATIONAL CLERGY: WITH A Postscript RESPECTING THE HOME MISSIONARY SOCIETY, &c. BY THE REV. F. MEREWETHER, M. A. RECTOR OF COLE ORTON, VICAR OF WHITWICK, AND CHAPLAIN TO THE MOST HONOURABLE THE MARQUIS OF LANSDOWNE. Why do the people imagine a vain thing?—Psalm ii. 1. London: PRINTED FOR C. AND J. RIVINGTON, ST. PAUL'S CHURCH-YARD; 1824. 656 BY THE SAME AUTHOR, A Defence of Moderation in Religious Doctrine, Practice, and Opinion, applied to the Circumstances of the Present Times. Cadell and Davies, London. 1812. Co-operation in Promoting the Charitable Institutions of the Church of England, recommended in a Sermon preached at Leicester before a District Committee of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. Rivingtons, London. 1822. Observations on Certain other Religious Societies to which some Members of the Church attach themselves: being the Sequel of the preceding Discourse. Combe, Leicester. 1823. A Letter to the Rev. E. T. M. Phillips and the Rev. S. Babington, respecting a proposed Bible Association at Whitwick. Combe, Leicester. 1823. The Rational Creature, the Moral Instrument of his Creator: a Reply to a Sermon by the Rev. E. T. Vaughan, entitled, God the Doer of All Things. Combe, Leicester. 1823. THOUGHTS, &c. IN connecting such a body as the National Clergy with the present inquiry, I should be inclined to offer some apology, were it not that the subject inquired into seems of necessity to involve an appeal to them, for reasons that will be found stated more at large at the end of these pages. I therefore submit my remarks to their candid reflection, hoping that the design, independently of its execution, is sufficient to conciliate their favour. To come, therefore, at once to the object proposed in the following pages; I begin with avowing my opinion, that in matters of religion the public mind of England is at present in a very, very unsound state. When I say the public mind of England, I mean the mind of a very large proportion of my fellow-countrymen. What the numerical extent of those so affected is, it would not be very easy to determine: especially as I am about to add another opinion; viz. that within the nominal (perhaps in the strictest sense hardly to be called real) communion of the National Church are to be found many, whom I cannot help classing with those labouring under the unsound B |