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present constitution, would not be endangered, if not positively and certainly sacrificed, by an alteration. And for these reasons we do not hesitate to declare it as our decided opinion, that THE REFORM OF PARLIAMENT would be THE RUIN OF PARLIAMENT.

Such are the arguments which have occurred to us respecting this most important measure; arguments, which we are not aware that the advocates for the Reform in Parliament can answer, and tending to prove that the prospect of good to be expected is fallacious, and that innumerable evils, absolutely certain, attend the adoption of it. We are not actuated by any party views, for we are of no party; but we are not afraid to avow ourselves firmly attached to the present established order of things, and to the revered person, and to the mild and equitable government, of our gracious Sovereign.

Nolumus leges Angliæ mutari.

We hope we have not been intemperate in our language: though we entertain no very favorable opinion of the conduct or the intentions of our opponents; though we conceive we trace in the situation of the country, at the time when the clamor for Reform was first excited, those circumstances which were found in Rome, at the close of the reign of Augustus.' Postquam provecta jam senectus, agro et corpore fatigabatur, aderatque finis et spes novæ,— and though we doubt not that many with jealous leer malign,' have eyed the probable future conduct of the suc cessor; yet, we hope that we have not been intemperate. Owing to the peculiar situation of the Sovereign, all hopes that the discontented may have formed, from what might be the conduct of the successor, are annihilated; he has

Tacitus Ann. Lib. I.

been called upon, in some sense of the term, prematurely to decide and to act; and the course which he has pursued, has raised him in the esteem, and endeared him to the affections, of the worthy and the well affected. From his moderation and the steadiness of his counsels, he has defeated the arts of those who were equally the enemies of himself, and of the country; and he has the satisfaction of contemplating, that his honest and worthy, endeavours have been crowned with a success, that baffles all comparison in the history of modern Europe. These events, it is incumbent on us to contemplate WITH GRATITUDE. We openly rest our cause on fair and legitimate argument-on the experience, on the wisdom of the wise.-We leave invective for those who stand in need of it; to those, who, not having reason on their side, require some succedaneum for argument; to those, who, hoping that from the general wreck of the fabric of the state, some advantage may accrue to themselves; to those, whose trade and occupation it is 'to speak ill of dignities;' to those, who consider every man in office as a knave, and every man who decries and defames the government as a friend to the people. We are fully aware, that as there are philosophical enthusiasts, and religious enthusiasts, so, likewise, there are political enthusiasts, men with slender judgments and heated passions. Quixotism is not confined to combats with windmills; but let the Quixotes of the present day recollect, that when the ferment is once excited, no medicine can cool the blood again; the disease, when once epidemical, becomes deadly, nulli medicabilis herba; and that they likewise may perish with the rest. When once the spirit of discontent is permitted to walk the earth, no ordinary hand can arrest his progress; wherever he sets his foot, the ruin of thousands ensues. That this will be the effect, if the present clamor against the Representation be

suffered to proceed to the extent that many seem to wish, no man can doubt; and, for these consequences, all who engage in that clamor are morally responsible.

of

If, in any one instance, what is submitted to the public in these pages, will avail to rouse the attention of the thoughtless, or to defeat the schemes of the unprincipled; if it will avail to show that in no constitution, nor in any other exertion of human intellect, is perfection attainable; if, by demonstrating the decided superiority of our system government over all others hitherto devised, it will tend to render those contented with their present condition, who before were disposed to complain, or who but acquiesced in it, from the supineness of custom, we shall not feel elated-KOMIIEIN OTXI BOTAOMAI-but in all due humility shall attribute the effect, not to our own merits, but to the goodness of the cause in which we have engaged, and to that conviction which the eternal principles of reason and truth, will ever bring to the minds of the candid and unprejudiced, against the schemes of those, who, either from want of penetration, do not perceive the latent mischief, or, who seek to mislead others, the better to promote their own base interests.

A

CHARGE

DELIVERED TO THE CLERGY

OF THE

Diocese of Lincoln,

AT THE

TRIENNIAL VISITATION OF THAT DIOCESE

In May, June, and July,

1812.

BY GEORGE TOMLINE, D. D. F. R. S.

LORD BISHOP OF LINCOLN.

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