negligence, and rapacity of politicians. The The people of England think that they have conftitutional notives, as well as religious, against any project of turning their independent clergy into ecclefiaftical penfioners of ftate. They tremble for their liberty, from the influence of a clergy dependent on the crown; they tremble for the public tranquillity from the diforders of a factious clergy, if it were made to depend upon any other than the crown. They therefore made their church, like their king and their nobility, independent.

From the united confiderations of religion and conftitutional policy, from their opinion of a duty to make a fure provifion for the confolation of the feeble and the inftruction of the ignorant, they have incorporated and identified the estate of the church with the mafs of private property, of which the state is not the proprietor, either for use or dominion, but the guardian only and the regulator. They have ordained that the provision of this establishment might be as stable as the earth on which it ftands, and fhould not fluctuate with the Euripus of funds and actions.

The men of England, the men, I mean, of light and leading in England, whose wisdom (if they have any) is open and direct, would be afhamed, as of a filly deceitful trick, to profefs any religion in name, which by their proceedings they appeared to contemn. If by their conduct (the only language that rarely lies) they seemed to regard the great ruling principle of the moral and the natural world, as a mere invention to keep

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keep the vulgar in obedience, they apprehend that by fuch a conduct they would defeat the politic purpose they have in view. They would find it difficult to make others to believe in a system to which they manifeftly gave no credit themselves. The Chriftian statesmen of this land would indeed first provide for the multitude; because it is the multitude; and is therefore, as fuch, the first object in the ecclefiaftical institution, and in all inftitutions. They have been taught, that the circumftance of the gofpel's being preached to the poor, was one of the great tefts of its true miffion. They think, therefore, that those do not believe it, who do not take care it fhould be preached to the poor. But as they know that charity is not confined to any one defcription, but ought to apply itself to all men who have wants, they are not deprived of a due and anxious fenfation of pity to the diftreffes of the miferable great. They are not repelled through a faftidious delicacy, at the ftench of their arrogance and prefumption, from a medicinal attention to their mental blotches and running fores. They are sensible, that religious inftruction is of more confequence to them than to any others; from the greatnefs of the temptation to which they are exposed; from the important confequences that attend their faults; from the contagion of their ill example; from the neceffity of bowing down the stubborn neck of their pride and ambition to the yoke of moderation and virtue; from a confideration of the fat ftupidity and grofs ignorance concerning

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what imports men most to know, which prevails at courts, and at the head of armies, and in fenates, as much as at the loom and in the field.

The English people are fatisfied, that to the great the confolations of religion are as neceffary, as its inftructions. They too are among the unhappy. They feel perfonal pain and domeftic forrow. In these they have no privilege, but are fubject to pay their full contingent to the contributions levied on mortality. They want this fovereign balm under their gnawing cares and anxieties, which being lefs converfant about the limited wants of animal life, range without limit, and are diverfified by infinite combinations in the wild and unbounded regions of imagination. Some charitable dole is wanting to thefe, our often very unhappy brethren, to fill the gloomy void that reigns in minds which have nothing on earth to hope or fear; fomething to relieve in the killing languor and over-laboured laffitude of thofe who have nothing to do; fomething to excite an appetite to existence in the palled fatiety which attends on all pleafures which may be bought, where nature is not left to her own process, where even defire is anticipated, and therefore fruition defeated by meditated fchemes and contrivances of delight; and no interval, no obstacle, is interpofed between the wifh and the accomplishment.

The people of England know how little influence the teachers of religion are likely to have

with the wealthy and powerful of long ftanding, and how much lefs with the newly fortunate, if they appear in a manner no way afforted to thofe with whom they must affociate, and over whom they must even exercife, in fome cafes, fomething like an authority. What must they think of that body of teachers, if they fee it in no part above the establishment of their domeftic fervants? If the poverty were voluntary, there might be fome difference. Strong inftances of felf-denial operate powerfully on our minds and a man who has no wants has obtained great freedom and firmnefs, and even dignity. But as the mafs of any defcription of men are but men, and their poverty cannot be voluntary, that dif respect which attends upon all Lay poverty, will not depart from the Ecclefiaftical. Our provident conftitution has therefore taken care that thofe who are to inftruct prefumptuous ignorance, thofe who are to be cenfors over infolent vice, fhould neither incur their contempt, nor live upon their alms; nor will it tempt the rich to a neglect of the true medicine of their minds. For these reasons, whilft we provide first for the poor, and with a parental folicitude, we have not relegated religion (like fomething we were afhamed to fhew) to obfcure municipalities or ruftic villages. No! We will have her to exalt her mitred front in courts and parliaments. We will have her mixed throughout the whole mafs of life, and blended with all the claffes of fociety. The people of England will fhew to the haughty potentates

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potentates of the world, and to their talking fophifters, that a free, a generous, an informed nation, honours the high magiftrates of its church; that it will not fuffer the infolence of wealth and titles, or any other fpecies of proud pretenfion, to look down with fcorn upon what they look up to with reverence; nor presume to trample on that acquired perfonal nobility, which they intend always to be, and which often is the fruit, not the reward, (for what can be the reward?) of learning, piety, and virtue. They can fee, without pain or grudging, an Archbishop precede a Duke. They can fee a Bishop of Durham, or a Bishop of Winchefter, in poffeffion of ten thousand pounds a year; and cannot conceive why it is in worfe hands than eftates to the like amount in the hands of this Earl, or that Squire; although it may be true, that fo many dogs and horfes are not kept by the former, and fed with the victuals which ought to nourish the children of the people. It is true, the whole church revenue is not always employed, and to every fhilling, in charity; nor perhaps ought it; but fomething is generally fo employed. It is better to cherish virtue and humanity, by leaving much to free will, even with fome lofs to the object, than to attempt to make men mere machines and inftruments of a political benevolence. The world on the whole will gain by a liberty, without which virtue cannot exist.

When once the commonwealth has established