been very extraordinary, if irreligious Heathens had desired either a religious establishment or toleration. But, says the honourable gentleman, the Epicureans entered, as others, into the Temples. They did so; they defied all subscription; they defied all sorts of conformity; there was no subscription, to which they were not ready to set their hands, no ceremonies they refused to practise; they made it a principle of their irreligion outwardly to conform to any religion. These Atheists eluded all, that you could do; so will all freethinkers for ever. Then you suffer, or the weakness of your Law has suffered, those great dangerous animals to escape notice, whilst you have nets, that entangle the poor fluttering silken wings of a tender conscience.

The e gentleman insists much upon this circumstance of objection, namely, the division amongst the Dissenters. Why, Sir, the Dissenters by the nature of the term are open to have a division among themselves. They are Dissenters, because they differ from the Church of England; not that they agree among themselves. There are Presbyterians, there are Independents, some, that do not agree to infant-baptism, others, that do not agree to the baptism of adults, or any baptism. All these are however tolerated under the Acts of King William, and subsequent Acts; and their diversity of sentiments with one another did not, and could not, furnish an argument against their toleration,

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when their difference with ourselves furnished none.

But, says the honourable gentleman, if you suffer them to go on, they will shake the fundamental principles of Christianity. Let it be considered, that this argument goes as strongly against connivance, which you allow, as against toleration, which you reject. The gentleman sets out with a principle of perfect liberty, or, as he describes it, connivance. But for fear of dangerous opinions, you leave it in your power to vex a man, who has not -held any one dangerous opinion whatsoever. If one man is a professed Atheist, another man the best Christian, but dissents from two of the 39 Articles, I may let escape the Atheist, because I know him to be an Atheist, because I am, perhaps, so inclined myself, and because I may connive where I think proper; but the conscientious Dissenter, on account of his attachment to that general religion, which perhaps I hate, I shall take care to punish, because I may punish when I think proper. Therefore connivance being an engine of private malice or private favour, not of good government; an engine, which totally fails of suppressing Atheism, but oppresses conscience; I say that principle becomes not serviceable, but dangerous to Christianity; that it is not toleration, but contrary to it, even contrary to peace; that the penal system, to which it belongs, is a dangerous principle in the economy either of religion or government.

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The honourable gentleman, and in him I comprehend all those, who oppose the Bill, bestowed in support of their side of the question as much argument as it could bear, and much more of learning and decoration than it deserved, He thinks connivance consistent, but legal toleration inconsistent, with the interests of Christianity. Perhaps I would go as far as that honourable gentleman, if I thought toleration inconsistent with those interests. God forbid! I may be mistaken, but I take toleration to be a part of religion. I do not know which I would sacrifice; I would keep them both; it is not necessary I should sacrifice either. I do not like the idea of tolerating the doctrines of Epicurus: but nothing in the world propagates them so much as the oppression of the poor, of the honest, and candid disciples of the religion we profess in common, I mean revealed religion; nothing sooner makes them take a short cut out of the bondage of sectarian vexation into open and direct infidelity, than tormenting men for every difference. opinion is, that in establishing the Christian Religion wherever you find it, curiosity or research is its best security; and in this way a man is a great deal better justified in saying, tolerate all kinds of consciences, than in imitating the Heathens, whom the honourable gentleman quotes, in tolerating those, who have none. I am not over fond of calling for the secular arm upon these misguided, or misguid

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ing, men; but if ever it ought to be raised, it ought surely to be raised against these very men, not against others, whose liberty of religion you make a pretext for proceedings, which drive them into the bondage of impiety. What figure do I make in saying I do not attack the works of these atheistical writers, but I will keep a rod hanging over the conscientious man, their bitterest enemy, because these Atheists may take advantage of the liberty of their foes to introduce irreligion? The best book, that ever, perhaps, has been written against these people, is that, in which the Author has collected in a body the whole of the infidel code, and has brought the writers into one body to cut them all off together. This was done by a Dissenter, who never did subscribe the 39 Articles -Dr. Leland. But if, after all, this danger is to be apprehended, if you are really fearful, that Christianity will indirectly suffer by this liberty, you have my free consent; go directly, and by the straight way, and not by a circuit, in which in your road you may destroy your friends, point your arms against these men, who do the mischief you fear promoting; point your arms against men, who, not contented with endeavouring to turn your eyes from the blaze and effulgence of light, by which life and immortality is so gloriously demonstrated by the Gospel, would even extinguish that faint glimmering of nature, that only comfort supplied to ignorant man

before

before this great illumination-them, who, by attacking even the possibility of all Revelation, arraign all the dispensations of Providence to man. These are the wicked Dissenters you ought to fear; these are the people, against whom you ought to aim the shaft of the Law; these are the men, to whom, arrayed in all the terrours of Government, I would say, you shall not degrade us into brutes; these men, these factious men, as the honourable gentleman properly called them, are the just objects of vengeance, not the conscientious Dissenter; these men, who would take away, whatever ennobles the rank or consoles the misfortunes of human nature, by breaking off that connexion of observances, of affections, of hopes and fears, which bind us to the Divinity, and constitute the glorious and distinguishing prerogative of humanity, that of being a religious creature; against these I would have the Laws rise in all their majesty of terrours, to fulminate such vain and impious wretches, and to awe them into impotence by the only dread they can fear or believe, to learn that eternal lessonDiscite justitiam moniti, et non temnere Divos.

At the same time, that I would cut up the very root of Atheism, I would respect all conscience; all conscience, that is really such, and which perhaps its very tenderness proves to be sincere. I wish to see the established Church of England great and powerful; I wish to see her foundations laid