has done,) because, in charging me with want of temper and decency, he has brought forward things, which, in comparison of this obfervation, are "trifles light as air." Is this equal juftice? But I obferve that the indignant fpirit of a Reviewer is at length rouzed, and that, in his review of Mr. Wakefield's Letter to the AttorneyGeneral, he has fharply and feverely reprehended him, for substituting abufe in the place of argument, and fuffering his paffion to run away with his reafon. And what have I done more than this? But I beg the Reviewer's pardon. I prefume he means to referve the caftigation of Mr. Wakefield exclusively to himself, like the good woman who cudgelled her husband, but would not let any other perfon lift up a flick against him. Moft willingly, then, do I refign it into his hands, that can fo ably and effectually apply it. But, as a proof of my want of temper and decency, the Reviewer quotes my advice to those who are diffatisfied with our prefent contitution of government, to "follow the example of that arch dif turber of fociety, Dr. Priestley, and feek, in other climes, a conftitution more agreeable to their fentiments." I do not recollect that the late Bishop of Norwich, one of the best and most amiable of men, has any where, in his works, expreffed a fimilar fentiment; I well know he entertained fuch, and I believe it would be no matter of difficulty for me to produce fubftantial evidence that he frequently declared it in public. The Bishop, in his writings, uniformly treats Dr. Priestley as an infidel, in the ftrict fenfe of the word. Has the Reviewer, for this, charged the Bishop with want of temper and decency? He could not confiftently, becaufe Dr. P. himfelf laid claim to the character, by declaring that he had no creed, that he had no fixed principles, and could not say when his creed would be fixed. Confequently, until he had formed fomething of a creed, and declared what he did believe, the Bishop, I fuppofe, felt himself warranted in treating him as an unbeliever, an infidel. But more immediately to the prefent purpofe; one of the ableft and foundest politicians of the prefent day, (Dr. Tucker,) has expreffed a fimilar fentiment. "Thither," (fays he, that is, to America,} "let them all repair." Has the Reviewer, for this, charged the Dean of Gloucester with want of temper and decency? With fuch men I am content to fhare in fuch a charge. Let me not here be accused of difgufting flattery. Of thefe great and good men, the 'Eclavaria of one has already taken place; that of the other, from his extreme old age, is, perhaps, not very far diftant.-But, Sir, I have now, in my turn, a charge to bring against the Reviewer; viz. of mifreprefenting me by a partial quotation. He fays, I give this advice to thofe who are diffatisfied" merely; but a reference to the pamphlet will fhow, that I give this advice" to those who are diflatisfied and difcontented, and are never eafy but when they are publishing that diffatisfaction and difcontent, in order to unfettle and disturb the minds of their contented brethren;" and if they reject which they certainly are at liberty to do,) my advice to feek a more congenial meridian, I requett themast to abyfe and calumniate that government government under the fade of whofe protection they live in peace and fecurity." It fhould feem from hence, that the Reviewer's intention is, to reprefent me in an odious light to the whole body of diffenters without distinction. If that be his meaning, I as heartily despise, as I can easily refute, fuch an infinuation. A confcientious and peaceable diffenter is a character I highly refpect. I have uniformly fpoken of them with refpect: if I have faid any thing disrespectful of them it was far from my intention, and, if pointed out, I am ready to retract it. To fuch disturbed and difturbing fpirits as Dr. P. only, are my obfervations applicable. But Dr. P. I believe, would now be very happy to return into the bofom of his ungrateful country; and, I truft, that country would not reject her repentant and returning fon. I, for one, fhould hail the day of his return as a day of triumph to our glorious conftitution, as Dr. P. has been known to declare in America, that "republican governments are the inoft arbitrary in the world." In ipfo libertatis folo, libertatem defideravit. I have not yet heard that any perfon has followed the example of Dr. P. and repaired to America, or any other country. This is a fufficient proof that they are fenfible they enjoy more real liberty here than they could expect to find elsewhere; that they prefer experience to experiment; that they still think the conftitution of this country, however bad, incomparably better than any other; and that they have too much wit to leap out of the fryingpan of a well-poifed monarchy into the fire of a republic. But the Reviewer asks me, "if I had been an advocate for protestantism at the reformation, and had received fuch a reply from a papist, should I have allowed it to be found Christian reasoning?" I must be par. doned, Sir, if I cannot agree to the fimilarity of the cafe. At the reformation, the nation, in conjunction with the fupreme power, (at that time exercifed by one of the greateft defpots that ever fwayed the English fceptre,) feparated themselves from what they thought an idolatrous and intolerant church; they reformed their religion accord ing to what they believed the pureft model, the doctrines of Christ and his Apoftles; and by dint of reafon and argument, and appealing to the Scriptures, they fucceeded, at length, in establishing the proteftant faith. Inftead of violently pulling down, at one fweep, the old fabric of the church, they destroyed only what they conceived had deformed and disfigured the building; and, by the pillars and buttreffes which they erected, they endeavoured to fecure the ftability and permanence of the ftructure. Having cleared away the Roman architecture which had been introduced, they reftored it to its ori ginal Gothic. At the fame time, inftead of deftroying the govern, ment under which they lived, (confeffedly a moft defpotic one,) they transferred into the hands of the Monarch a part of the power which had been exercifed by the Pope, and gave him an extenfive patronage. Thus wifely fecuring the foitering protection of the state to a church which they were convinced they had purified and reformed. That they acted wifely in fo doing, the experience of the fubfequent century fully evinced, as it fhewed that the downfal of the one involved the X x 4 downfal downfal of the other. Such was the refult of the reformation. From that time the adverfarics of the church, and of the state, have laboured affiduously, whether openly or in fecret, to effect a feparation between them, well knowing the previous neceffity of fuch a step to the overthrow and deftruction of both. And now, in the prefent day, when we are no longer under the undefined power of the Tudors and Stuarts; when our conftitution has been fixed by wife and falutary laws, and fettled on fure foundations; when the prerogatives of the Monarch, the privileges of, the nobility, and the rights of the people, each in their feveral fations, have been afcertained, defined, and secured by law; in the prefent day, when Englishmen fee more strikingly the neceffity of adhering to the good old maxim of their ancestors: Nolumus leges Anglia mutari ;" and in a reign, of which we may truly and without flattery fay "Not Amurath an Amurath fucceeds, At fuch a time, and in such a reign, fteps forth, moft obligingly, a native Englishman, endeavouring to perfuade his countrymen, (thofe, at leaft, who are weak enough to listen to him,) that, under the prefent conftitution of things, our exifting eftablishment in church and ftate, they are no better than flaves; exhorting them to destroy their church, and to refcind their creed, before he has fixed his own, before he can even fay that he has any creed or any fixed principles; and encouraging them to overturn their government (which long time and affured experience have fhown to be the beft fecurity of our civil and religious liberties,) before his own crude and undigested notions have made any approximation to maturity, before his unfinished and imperfect ideas have been embodied into any thing like a shape, or form, or fyftem; thus opening a door for the irruption of the mob, to feize the reins of government, and erect their own tyranny, exactly fimilar to the courfe of events in France. Not content with this, that fame native Englishman talks of having laid a train of gunpowder to communicate with a mine, which fhall, at one explosion, blow up the Church of England, and the government. And it has been his uniform and conftant aim, in his writings and his difcourfes, to unfettle and disturb the minds of his contented brethren, to inflame the paflions of the people, and rouze them to refiftance and rebellion againft their governors. Thefe are facts which no ingenuity of fophiftry, no effrontery of denial, can evade. Having failed, however, in his attempts to feduce and pervert the minds of his countrymen, whose good fenfe difcovered his fophiftry, and whofe good principles were proof against his delufions, he bade adieu to his ungrateful country, and betook himself to America; where, whether the coldnefs and neglect which he has experienced have impofed upon him an involuntary filence, or the interference of the government has rendered that filence a prudential one, or from whatever other cause it may have arifen, he has certainly declared that "Republican governments are the the most arbitrary in the world." It is, indeed, a fingular (I had almost faid a providential) circumftance in the hiftory of this fingular man, that he who, under the protection of a monarchical government, had fpent the greater part of his life in extolling the virtues, the bleflings, the liberty of a republic, fhould, in the fhort fpace of a yery few years, from his own experience, bear a voluntary and unequivocal teftimony to the defpotiím of fuch a government.--And I cannot but regard it as a providential circumftance to us, as it is a confeffion of the fuperior excellence of our conftitution from its (once) greatest adverfary; it is the certainty of a philofophical theory, eftablished by the actual experiment of the philofopher himfelf. Under what government Dr. P. will be difpofed to make his next experiment I am at a lofs to conceive; perhaps he will try the ment of Tunis, Algiers, or Conftantinople; or, laft of all, though not the leaft defpotic, the directorial tyranny of Paris; where, if he fhould venture to declare, that "republican governments were the moft arbitrary in the world," he would quickly be deprived, not indeed of his rights of citizenship, but of his head, and in the fummary manner of Shakspeare's Richard-Off with his head!" govern. And this is the man whom the Monthly Reviewer has felected to compare with our reformers; and, for the fake of defending this man, he would not hesitate to compare the prefent conftitution of this country, in church and ftate, with the intolerance of popery, and the defpotifm of Henry VIII. For, in order to establish a similarity between the conduct of Dr. P. and the reformers, he must admit fomething of a fimilarity between the governments at those two different periods. I have endeavoured to thew, that as the governments were perfectly diffimilar; the one, whatever was its theory, being practically defpotic; the other conftitutionally defined and limited: the one unreftrained, and at liberty to do good or evil; the other enjoying the privilege of doing good, yet reitrained from doing evil: fo likewife was the difference of conduct in the parties concerned no iefs apparent; the one co-operating with the government, and even increasing its power; the other training every nerve to exterminate and deftroy it. If, by this plain statement, I have eftablished the diffimilarity of the two cafes, it must be needless to return any farther anfwer to the Reviewer's queftion. But I have no hesitation in anfwering, that in Dr. P.'s cafe it certainly is not unchriftian reafoning, inafmuch as I confider the fecurity and welfare of a whole nation a matter of infinitely greater confequence than the perfonal concerns, the individual comforts, of a few difturbed and disturbing phi lofophers. But I muft again repeat, that the Reviewer, in his statement of the argument, has partially quoted and misreprefented me. My argument is neither more nor lefs than this: " To thofe who are diflatisfied, and are always publishing their diffatisfaction, to make their contented brethren as diffatisfied as themselves, I recommend the feeking, in other climes, a conftitution more congenial to their fentiments; or elfe, if they choose to continue here, (which they certainly may do without let or hindrance from any individual,) I exhort I exhort them to ceafe to abufe and calumniate that government, which, by protecting them, has a right to their allegiance." Or to ftate it in a more fummary way: "If you don't like us, leave us; but if you choofe to stay, don't abuse us." What government in the world would not fay the fame ? The Reviewer obferves that, in replying to Mr. Wakefield's remark," that the badge of communion with the Gofpel is the fimple acknowledgement of Jefus as the Chrift, the Son of the living God," I cavil at the word badge, and fly from the real queftion, which he states to be, "whether we have inftituted any other terms of admillion to Chriftian communion than the fimple one established by Chrift and his Apoftles ?" I may, perhaps, have been unfor tunate in not properly expreffing my meaning. I meant not to cavil at the word badge, but to ftate my objection to Mr. W.'s doctrine. Mr. W. ftated the badge of Gofpel communion to be the fimple acknowledgement of Christ as the Son of God; in other words, that Jefus of Nazareth was the promifed Meffiah of the Ifraelites ;" confequently, he appeared to me to deny, that Chrift, or his Apofiles, had instituted any other. To this I objected, because I conceived that Chrift and his Apoftles had inftituted other terms. The real quetion, therefore, appears to me to divide itself into two parts; and, inftead of the Reviewer's mode of statement, it fhould have been stated thus: 1. Did Chrift, or his Apoftles, inftitute any other terms of admiflion than the fimple badge abovementioned? 2. Have we inftituted any other terms than fuch as were established by Chrift and his Apoftles? As the former is a queftion of greater importance, when Mr. W. thinks proper to anfwer that, it will be time enough for me to reply to the latter. But as long as he declines admitting Baptifm and the Lord's Supper, as inftitutions of Chrift, and badges of communion with his Gofpel; as long as he denies the neceflity of affembling for Christian social worship, an inftitution of the holy Apoftles, fanctioned by the pre. fence of our bleffed Saviour, fo long fhall I think my felf juftified in the opinion, that Mr. Wilberforce's View of Christianity more nearly refembles the divine original than that of Mr. Wakefield, To conclude.--In my endeavours to confirm the arguments of Mr. Wilberforce, I have appealed to Scripture; and, in maintaining the doctrines of the Church of England, I have maintained them, not because they are the doctrines of the Church of England, but because they are the doctrines of the Gofpel. In replying alfo to Mr. Wake. field's doctrines of perfectibility, equality, and cafting off the fear of God, which he afferts to be Scripture doctrines, I have endeavoured to difprove every affertion which he has advanced; I have turned against himfelf every text of Scripture which he has enlifted into his fervice, and have fhewn, from the authority of Scripture itself, that those doctrines are contrary to that Scripture. Of this the Reviewer has taken no notice, though they are not fubjects fo deep of research, or fo difficult of comprehenfion, as to bewilder the plain understanding, the common fenfe of a common reader. I cannot but commend his prudence in declining to touch upon thefe matters, as they cer. |