Excerpt from An Inquiry Into the Consequences of Neglecting to Give the Prayer Book With the Bible: Interspersed With Remarks on Some Late Speeches at Cambridge, and Other Important Matter Relative to the British and Foreign Bible Society

Correcfz't/je, a name lately given it by the Dean of Carlisle but as a proper Companion for the Bible. Does it not con tain devotional exercises composed in the true spirit of the Scriptures Is it not the Book, which we hear constantly at Church; and is it not equally designed for our meditations in the closet? The usyitlness then of this book to every Churchman, I think, no Churchman can deny. He cannot theiefore, at least not with consistency, complain of those, who object to the withholding of this usefulness; who object' to the omission of giving the Liturgy; or, in other words, who object to the distribution, on the part of Churchmen, of the Bible alone or without the Liturgy. Thirdly, I ask the Churchman, whether it is not necessary, when he gives Bibles to the poor, (i do not mean among Dissenters, as I have repeatedly declared) to provide them at the same time with a Prayer Book? Ought it not to be used by every' Churchman? And can he join in the service of the Church without it? Can it therefore be a matter of indgfiierence, whether the poor of our establishment are provided with Prayer Books? Do we perform our duty, do we properly provide for their relzgious instruction, if we provide them only with the Bible, and leave them unprovz'dcd with the Prayer Book? In this case, the Kubrick and the Canons have very unnecessarily enforced the learning of the Church Catechism. When we further consider, that there is at present hardly a town, or even a village, which is not visited by illiterate teachers, who expound the Bible with more con fidence than the most profound theologian, it becomes doubly necessary, if we would preserve the poor of the establishment in the religion of their fathers, to provide them with a safe guard against the delusions of false z'nlerpretatzbn. And what better safeguard can we offer than the Book of Com mon Prayer, which contains the docuines of the Bible, according to its true exposition; in which those doctrines are applied, throughoutthe prayers and collects, to the best pur poses of religion, and ate condensedin a manner, which is intelligible to all, in that excellent formulary the Church Catechism? Under these circumstances, to leave the poor, who without assistance cannot understand the Scriptures, as the itinerant preachers themselves admit by thei'! Own prac tice, to leave, I say, the poor, under such, Circumstances.

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