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is the same treasure of celestial truth now, as it was in the age of Christ and his apostles; it is still the same precious gift of the Almighty as it was then; it has been, and it will be, in all ages, equally worthy of our most grateful acceptation: Christ has founded his religion on a rock of adamantine proofs, and neither time, nor force, nor craft, can prevail against it.

October 1, 1808.

AN APOLOGY

FOR THE

PETITIONERS

FOR

LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE.

THE Petitioners for liberty of conscience are aware that they will have to encounter many inveterate prejudices and much opposition from men as honest as themselves, against the novelty of their proposition. From the violence of enthusiasts in different quarters, they expect the utmost annoyance of an angry contest; from men addicted to the maxims of a worldly poli

cy, they foresee a more calm and decent, but not a less determined resistance. And from the great authorities in church and state, admitting some most generous exceptions which justly claim in a peculiar degree their admiration. and gratitude, the petitioners fear there is no rational hope of support. On the contrary, their decided hostility must be looked for with every possible exertion in their power to maintain the system of intolerance. The mild policy, which marked with honour the earlier and better part of this reign, appears to have been abandoned, and for some years the principles of restraint, as adverse to the peace and happiness of the community as they are inconsistent with the precepts of religion, have guided our cabinet. At this crisis of our fate when danger from abroad menaces our existence as an inde

pendent nation, when discontent at home, excited by hardships inflicted on conscientious men who cannot assent to the established religion threatens to distract the empire with civil war at moments of peril so extreme, has not the crown been advised to reject ministers friendly to national conciliation? And have not millions of subjects humbly suing for redress and for an equal participation in the rights and pri vileges of the constitution been sternly dismissed from the bar of parliament

Under such circumstances, we may be asked, what zeal not tainted by enthusiasm, what hope not disowned by reason, can have induced a body of men, in number comparatively few, in weight of reputation confessedly inconsiderable, and marked as the petitioners are, by every

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variety of religious opinion that is known the christians of this country, to approach the legislature with a claim of absolute liberty of conscience on the broadest principles of justice and universal right. In the happier part of this reign, the most benevolent of men, the wisest statesmen of the age, set these petitioners a very different example. They did not insist on principles apparently impracticable; they did not demand the repeal of the whole code of persecution at once. They asked and they obtained a gradual relaxation of the restrictions, to which the dissidents were subject. Surely those were precedents which these petitioners would have done well to follow. Surely these are times, in which private men whose zeal had not misled their discretion, would have been cautious to shun new and untried paths,

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