averting it by an inoffensive, temperate, and amicable behaviour. Uncandid it were, indeed, to suppose that Churchmen will not be roused by a sense of danger to a sense of duty. It were equally uncharitable to believe, that finding the same turbulent disposition still raging among the same misguided populace, Dissenters will shew themselves insensible to every danger, and regardless of every duty. The cry of Church and King has, you know, been lately heard in broken and indistinct murmurs, and if you meet again to commemorate the French Revolution, that cry will again thunder in your ears, when the storm of public indignation is collected to one point, and when they upon whom it falls with the surest aim, and with the greatest force, will be left to perish without refuge and without hope. It is for you, Gentlemen, and not for myself, to reap either honour or advantage from the relinquishment of your intended measures, and the renunciation of your supposed right. As I give not my name to the public, you will have the satisfaction of yielding only to the force of my reasoning; and even if I were to reveal that name, I believe that some worthy persons among you would not be ashamed of shewing some little deference to the mere personal authority of the writer himself. That writer is a lover of peace; and of liberty, too, he is a most ardent lover, because liberty is * Et nomen pacis dulce est, et ipsa res salutaris; sed inter pacem et servitutem plurimum interest; pax est tranquilla libertas. Cicero, Philippic II. the best means by which real peace can be obtained and secured. He therefore looks down with scorn upon every species of bigotry, and from every degree of persecution he shrinks with horror-he believes that, wheresoever imperious and turbulent teachers have usurped an excessive ascendancy over the minds of an ignorant and headstrong multitude, religion will always be disgraced, morals always vitiated, and society always endangered. But the real interests, the real honour, the real and most important cause of the Established Church he ever has supported, and will support, as he also ever has contended, and will contend, in favour of a liberal, efficient, and progressive toleration. He confounds not the want of confidence in the measures of an administration with the want of respect for the principles of a government. He distinguishes between dutiful obedience and abject servility to that regal power which, in this country, he holds to be not only conducive but essential to the public welfare. He is not much in the habit of resigning his judgment to the forebodings of the timid, the insinuations of the crafty, or the clamours of the malevolent-yet he looks, perhaps, with no narrow line of foresight towards events which may be approaching, and upon the present situation of the British empire he cannot reflect without a pause—without a pang-without jealousy of every opinion that may shake the fair fabric of our constitution-without abhorrence of every measure that may deluge this land of freedom in blood. In regard to yourselves, Gentlemen, he means to warn rather than censure-the effect of that warning he consigns to your own wisdom, and to the unsearchable will of that Providence in submission to which he has ever found the most solid comfort. But in giving you that warning he has an entire confidence in the purity of his motives: in enforcing it he boldly appeals to the justness of his arguments and upon concluding it, he is at this moment conscious of having discharged a most important duty to you and your neighbours, to the Church and the State, to his country and his GOD. May 17, 1792. N.B. For Biæothanati, which is used by Tertullian and Biothanati, which is the more common word, the reader is referred to Suicer's Thesaurus Ecclesiasticus, page 690. |