It does nothing but
pander. It says religion is a matter of taste, leave it to itself and
it will take care of itself; now that maxim was forced on us by
necessity, for at the Revolution we scarcely had an Episcopal church,
it was so small as hardly to deserve the name. But in England it is an
unconstitutional, irrational, and monstrous maxim. Still it suits the
views of Romanists (although they hold no such doctrine themselves),
for it is likely to hand over the church revenues in Ireland to them.
It also suits Dissenters, for it will relieve them of church rates;
and it meets the wishes of the republican party, because they know no
church and no bishop will soon lead to no monarch. Again, it says,
enlarge the franchise, so as to give an increase of voters; that
doctrine suits all those sections also, for it weakens both monarchy
and aristocracy. Then again, it advocates free-trade, for that weakens
the landed interest, and knocks from under nobility one of its best
pillars. To lower the influence of the church pleases all political
Come-outers, some for one, and some for another reason. Their views
are not identical, but it is for their interest to unite. One
advocates it because it destroys Protestantism as a principle of the
constitution, another because the materials of this fortress, like
those of Louisburg, may be useful for erecting others, and among them
conventicles.
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