I should only stipulate that these new
Mess-Johns in robes and coronets should keep some sort of bounds in
the democratic and leveling principles which are expected from their
titled pulpits. The new evangelists will, I dare say, disappoint the
hopes that are conceived of them. They will not become, literally as
well as figuratively, polemic divines, nor be disposed so to drill
their congregations that they may, as in former blessed times,
preach their doctrines to regiments of dragoons and corps of
infantry and artillery. Such arrangements, however favorable to the
cause of compulsory freedom, civil and religious, may not be equally
conducive to the national tranquility. These few restrictions I hope
are no great stretches of intolerance, no very violent exertions of
despotism.
* Discourse on the Love of our Country, Nov. 4, 1789, by Dr.
Richard Price, 3d ed., pp. 17, 18.
*(2) "Those who dislike that mode of worship which is prescribed
by public authority, ought, if they can find no worship out of the
church which they approve, to set up a separate worship for
themselves; and by doing this, and giving an example of a rational and
manly worship, men of weight from their rank and literature may do the
greatest service to society and the world".- P 18, Dr. Price's Sermon.
BUT I may say of our preacher "utinam nugis tota illa dedisset
tempora saevitiae".
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