But now, in the second place, what has been the effect of this union upon the members of the _Established Church_? It may be said, that such meetings will tend to unfix our decided approbation of the doctrines and discipline of the Established Church. But they can know nothing of the nature of these meetings who urge this objection. There is nothing in them either to convert a churchman or a dissenter. The churchman will come away still a churchman; and the dissenter still a dissenter. No one church-principle, or church-feeling; no one point of doctrine, of discipline, or of practice, will be the least affected, or called in question, by attending a meeting of the Bible Society. The sole object for which churchmen and dissenters are united, is to distribute the word of God; but can the distribution of the word of God be injurious to the establishment? If we believe that the tenets of dissenters are plainly contradicted in the Bible, should we not then as churchmen, be thankful that they are willing to circulate, throughout the world, a refutation of their own system? Can the distribution of the word of truth, under any circumstances, be injurious to a true church? To say that the circulation of the Bible can injure the Establishment, seems to me an unwarranted scandal upon it; and perhaps no notion would be more injurious to the interests of the Church of England, than that it cannot bear examination, if brought to the test of the word of God. It has been said, that the Bible Society is _an instrument_ of _dissenters to overturn the church_. But if so, it is a work in which the greatest, the most wise and attached friends of the Establishment have joined; it has been supported by bishops, and ministers, and princes: men of all parties, and of no precisely similar views, or interests, or feelings. It is urged, that remote evils _may_ arise, that the present principle of the Bible Society _may_ be departed from; that dissenters _may_ in time preponderate, and direct this instrument against ourselves. Of all these objections, it must be said, that they are entirely without proof, or the probability of proof: besides that we are hardly, as Christians, allowed to calculate so nicely on one side, upon evils certainly remote, and merely conjectural; whilst, on the other, we have this ascertained fact, that fourteen hundred thousand Bibles have been circulated, in fifty-five different languages. It may still be said, all churchmen should join in the society which is attached to the Establishment. I would urge all churchmen to do so. But I would, at the same time, persuade them to join in this society;—for the two societies stand upon different grounds. The _powers_ of the two societies are different, their _objects_ are different; the one is a national society, and its operations are almost necessarily confined to home; the other takes the whole world for its sphere: the one is doing good in the