of prefent conveniency, to any conftitution of the ftate. They always fpeak as if they were of opinion that there is a fingular fpecies of compact between them and their magiftrates, which binds the magistrate, but which has nothing reciprocal in it, but that the majefty of the people has a right to diffolve it without any reason, but its will. Their attachment to their country itself, is only fo far as it agrees with fome of their fleeting projects; it begins and ends with that scheme of polity which falls in with their momentary opinion.

These doctrines, or rather fentiments, seem prevalent with your new statesmen. But they are wholly different from those on which we have always acted in this country.

I hear it is fometimes given out in France that what is doing among you is after the example of England. I beg leave to affirm, that scarcely any thing done with you has originated from the practice or the prevalent opinions of this people, either in the aft or in the fpirit of the proceeding. Let me add, that we are as unwilling to learn thefe leffons from France, as we are fure that we never taught them to that nation. The cabals

here who take a fort of fhare in your tranfactions as yet confift but of an handful of people. If unfortunately by their intrigues, their fermons, their publications, and by a confidence derived from an expected union with the counfels and forces of the French nation, they should draw confiderable numbers into their faction, and in confequence

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quence fhould seriously attempt any thing here in imitation to what has been done with you, the event, I dare venture to prophefy, will be, that, with some trouble to their country, they will foon accomplish their own deftruction. This people refused to change their law in remote ages, from respect to the infallibility of popes; and they will not now alter it from a pious implicit faith in the dogmatism of philofophers; though the former was armed with the anathema and crufade, and though the latter fhould act with the libel and the lampiron.

Formerly your affairs were your own concern only. We felt for them as men; but we kept aloof from them, because we were not citizens of France. But when we fee the model held up to ourselves, we must feel as Englishmen, and feeling, we must provide as Englishmen. Your affairs, in fpite of us, are made a part of our interest; so far at least as to keep at a distance your panacea, or your plague. If it be a panacea, we do not want it. We know the confequences of unnecessary phyfic. If it be a plague; it is fuch a plague, that the precautions of the most severe quarantine ought to be established against it.

I hear on all hands that a cabal, calling itself philofophic, receives the glory of many of the late proceedings; and that their opinions and fystems are the true actuating spirit of the whole of them. I have heard of no party in England, literary or political, at any time, known by fuch a defcription. It is not with you composed of thofe men, is it? whom the vulgar, in their blunt,

homely

homely ftyle, commonly call Atheifts and Infidels? If it be, I admit that we too have had writers of that defcription, who made fome noife in their day. At prefent they repofe in lasting oblivion. Who, born within the last forty years, has read one word of Collins, and Toland, and Tindal, and Chubb, and Morgan, and that whole race who called themfelves Freethinkers? Who now reads Bolingbroke? Who ever read him through? Afk the bookfellers of London what is become of all thefe lights of the world. In as few years their few fucceffors will go to the family vault of "all the Capulets." But whatever they were, or are, with us, they were and are wholly unconnected individuals. With us they kept the common nature of their kind, and were not gregarious. They never acted in corps, nor were known as a faction in the ftate, nor prefumed to influence, in that name or character, or for the purposes of fuch a faction, on any of our public concerns. Whether they ought fo to exist, and so be permitted to act, is another question. As fuch cabals have not exifted in England, so neither has the spirit of them had any influence in establishing the original frame of our conftitution, or in any one of the feveral reparations and improvements it has undergone, The whole has been done under the aufpices, and is confirmed by the fanctions of religion and piety, The whole has emanated from the fimplicity of our national character, and from a fort of native plainnefs and directness of understanding, which for a long time charac

terized those men who have fucceffively obtained This disposition still re

authority amongst us.

mains, at least in the great body of the people. We know, and what is better we feel inwardly, that religion is the bafis of civil fociety, and the fource of all good and of all comfort. In England we are fo convinced of this, that there is no ruft of fuperftition, with which the accumulated abfurdity of the human mind might have crufted it over in the courfe of ages, that ninety-nine in an hundred of the people of England would not prefer to impiety. We fhall never be fuch fools as to call in an enemy to the fubftance of any system to remove its corruptions, to supply its defects, or to perfect its conftruction. If our religious tenets fhould ever want a further elucidation, we shall not call on atheism to explain them, We fhall not light up our temple from that unhallowed fire. It will be illuminated with other lights. It will be perfumed with other incenfe, than the infectious ftuff which is imported by the smugglers of adulterated metaphyfics. If our ecclefiaftical establishment fhould want a revifion, it is not avarice or rapacity, public or private, that we shall employ for the audit, or receipt, or application of its confecrated revenue.-Violently condemning

Sit igitur hoc ab initio perfuafum civibus, dominos effe omnium rerum ac moderatores, deos; eaque, quæ gerantur, eorum geri vi, ditione, ac numine; eofdemque optime de genere hominum mereri; et qualis quifque fit, quid agat, quid in fe admittat, qua mente, qua pietate colat religiones intueri : piorum et impiorum habere rationem. His enim rebus imbutæ mentes haud fane abhorrebunt ab utili et a vera fententia. Cic. de Legibus, 1. 2.

neither

neither the Greek nor the Armenian, nor, fince heats are fubfided, the Roman fyftem of religion, we prefer the Proteftant; not because we think it has lefs of the Chriftian religion in it, but because, in our judgment, it has more. We are protestants,

not from indifference but from zeal.

We know, and it is our pride to know, that man is by his constitution a religious animal; that atheism is againft, not only our reafon but our instincts; and that it cannot prevail long. But if, in the moment of riot, and in a drunken delirium from the hot fpirit drawn out of the alembick of hell, which in France is now fo furiously boiling, we should uncover our nakedness by throwing off that Christian religion which has hitherto been our boast and comfort, and one great fource of civilization amongst us, and among many other nations, we are apprehenfive (being well aware that the mind will not endure a void) that some uncouth, pernicious, and degrading fuperftition, might take place of it.

For that reason, before we take from our establishment the natural human means of estimation, and give it up to contempt, as you have done, and in doing it have incurred the penalties you well deferve to fuffer, we defire that fome other may be prefented to us in the place of it. We fhall then form our judgment.

On thefe ideas, inftead of quarrelling with establishments, as fome do, who have made a philofophy and a religon of their hoftility to fuch inftitutions, we cleave clofely to them. We are refolved to keep an established church, an established

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