PLAN OF THE WORK.

II. PLAN of the Work.

To the end that, from the first, not only the design of this work, but the connexion between the several parts of it, may be plainly understood. a brief sketch, explanatory of the plan pursued in the course of it, may be not without its use.

I. As to the Introduction:-It is divided into five parts.

I. Part I. In this part will be maintained that, as applied to the purpose of instruction, the Church of England Catechism, in so far as it is substituted to the Bible, is a bad substitute: and that, in the National Society's Schools, in effect it actually is substituted to it :-substituted, not simply added. What will thereupon be shewn isthat Church of Englandism is a religion different from the religion of Jesus, and that in these Schools, principally by means of that Catechism, this spurious religion actually is substituted to the religion

of Jesus.

Short title-The Catechism-a bad sub

stitute to the Bible-is substituted to it.

II. Part II. In this part will be shewn that, by express provision anxiously made, by the persons, whoever they are, by whom, in the name of the Society, self-styled The National Society,-as if in the whole nation there were no other Society,-the system of instruction carried on in these Schools is directed, the children of all members of the nation who are not Church-of-Englandists stand excluded from the benefits of it. For the designation of the system by which the accomplishment of this object is aimed at, the appellation of The Exclusionary System, will, in the course of this work, be all along applied. Antecedently to the proofs afforded of the establishment of this exclusionary system, the true nature and tendency of this system will be developed and held up to view.

Short title The Exclusionary System—its bad effects-its establishment.

III. Part III. If, in the majority of the English nation, the spirit of antichristian hostility thus manifested towards 1,500,000 of their fellow subjects, were universal, the spectacle so exhibited would be still more melancholy than it is believed to be. Evidence has been noted, by which the contrary hope has been produced. To bring to view the grounds on which this hope rests, is exclusively the

business of this third, as well as in some sort that of the next succeeding part.-Short title-Exclusionary system-Grounds for the hope, that the approbation of it is not general.

IV. Part IV. On the subject of the proceedings of the National Society in relation to the Schools in question, three Reports have been published, purporting to contain accounts of those proceedings, as carried on respectively, in the first, second, third,. and fourth years of its age, being the years 1811-2,. 1812-3, 1813-4, and 1814-5. In these Reports, a notion all along held up to view, is-that, in the character of Committee-men-Members, some of them of this or that one, others of this or that other, of a variety of Committees,-so many different branches of the business have all along been: performed: so many different minds having in each instance applied themselves to the subject, and given their concurrence to what has been done. A suspicion, which by the complexion of the published documents has been produced, is--that in the intimation thus conveyed, there is no truth: for that it is always by some one Member alone, or, at the utmost, with the general, and not any special concurrence of some one other Member, or very small number of Members, and without means of resort allowed to Members at large, that every thing has been done: and that of this imposture a

d

principal, if not the only object, has been the screening of the exclusionary system, with its principal author or authors, from the reproach so justly due. In this fourth part of the Introduction, the circumstances by which this suspicion has been produced will be laid open to view. Short titleNational Society-Grounds for regarding its Reports as spurious, and purposely deceptious.

The persons to whom the suspicion more particularly points, in the character of authors and conductors of the supposed system of misrepresentation, are the Archbishop of Canterbury, President of the Society, and the Reverend T. T. Walmsley, Secretary.*

V. Part V. In the tenor of the Catechism in question, reference is made, and great stress laid, on a portion of Church service, in which are contained a ceremony called Baptism, and a species of engagement, distinguished or distinguishable by the appellation of Sponsorship. In the tenor of the Catechism, such are the virtues and the consequent indispensability ascribed to this ceremony, and this engagement, such, on the other hand, the mischiefs with which in the present state of things they seemed

*The gaps thus visible in the Christian names of the Reverend Divine would not have been left, had any means been any where furnished, whereby they could have been filled up.