They tremble for their
liberty, from the influence of a clergy dependent on the crown; they
tremble for the public tranquillity from the disorders 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 considerations of religion and constitutional
policy, from their opinion of a duty to make sure provision for the
consolation of the feeble and the instruction of the ignorant, they
have incorporated and identified the estate of the church with the
mass 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 stands, and should 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 ashamed, as of a silly deceitful trick, to profess any religion
in name which, by their proceedings, they appear 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 the vulgar in obedience, they apprehend
that by such a conduct they would defeat the politic purpose they have
in view.
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