Now, should not Mr. Madan have shewn in what respects our conduct has differed from that of the Quakers? But it is much easier to assert and to calumniate, than to prove a charge. I have clearly shewn you, that our conduct does not at all differ from that of the Quakers, and our public papers shew that from the first we had their conduct in view. In a letter of Mr. Walker's, which was circulated with a view to promote our late proceedings, copies of which were printed here, and sent to all parts of England, is the following paragraph: "The example of the Quakers, of whose union this plan is almost an exact counterpart, is a complete answer to every objection that can be made to this intention, and this mode of consolidating the communion of Dissenters through the kingdom." The compliment Mr. Madan pays the Quakers, is evidently meant to be at our expense, which is nothing but a poor artifice, to engage them on his side, against us. But I know that body of men better than he does. I know that they wish well to our application, and I do not despair of their openly joining us when it shall be renewed.

I am particularly sorry to perceive that Mr. Madan is not ashamed of retailing the low scurrility of Swift. "Your virulent abuse," he says, "of the writings and memory of Dean Swift, cannot fail to return with increased force upon yourself; and his character is above your reach."* Now, I said nothing about his writings and memory in general, but of his illiberal prejudices against the Dissenters; and, that I am not singular in treating this part of his character with contempt, Mr. Madan may see in the last Monthly Review, which I now have in my hands, in which the following censure is passed on the late republication of the Dean's "Tracts on the Repeal of the Test Act:"+"Dean Swift's hatred to the Dissenters is well known; and all calm and dispassionate men are of opinion, that his hatred urged him even to gross defamation. We are sorry, therefore, to see the present controversy on the Test Act thickened by throwing into the cauldron any of his illiberality and virulence."+

I am, &c.

nor applause." See "A Letter to Dr. Priestley, F. R. S. &c. in answer to his Letter to the Right Hon. William Pitt, by William Hunter, A. M., Rector of St. Ann, Limehouse, and late Fellow of Braseu-nose College, Oxford," 1787, pp. 40, 41.

* Letter, p. 35. (P.) See supra, p. 162.

+ "Written and first published in Ireland, in the years 1731-2." Mon. Rev. (1790) I. p. 843. See Vol. XV. p. 397, Note.

Mon. Rev. (1790) I. p. 343. (P.)

LETTER XI.

Of Mr. Madan's farther Arguments in Support of his Position, that the Principles of the Dissenters are unquestionably Republican, and of the Decision of the House of Commons against the Dissenters.

MY TOWNSMEN AND NEIGHBOURS,

As Mr. Madan promised one final reply to all these Letters, you would naturally expect that it would have been an effectual one, so as to leave nothing of any consequence to add to it. Now, in order to this he should not have contented himself with looking for the principles of modern Dissenters in those of the time of Charles I., but have examined our late conduct, and the principles that we now teach. For, admitting that we did put to death one king in the middle of the last century, we may have repented of it before the conclusion of this. Now, it does not appear that we made any attempt upon the life of William III., Queen Anne, George I. or II., or that of his present majesty. Nay, the Dissenters entered into no conspiracy against Charles II. or James II. And as their loyalty to the princes of the house of Hanover stands unimpeached, it ought in reason to be concluded, that in their proceedings against Charles I. they did not consider him merely as a king; for then they would have had the same dislike to all kings. Mr. Madan, therefore, in his final reply, should by all means have answered this argument, which I very particularly urged against his maxim that the principles of the Presbyterians (meaning those of the Dissenters in general) are unquestionably republican.

He ought also to have replied to my argument from the Scots (who always were, and still are, Presbyterians) never having shewn any predilection for a republican form of government, but having always had kings, and a proper attachment to them. But though he intimates that he could have explained this remarkable fact consistently with his accusation of all Presbyterians being of course republicans, he leaves you to guess at what he might say; and I am sure it is not in my power to divine what it could be. Warburton may give what reasons he pleases for allowing the Scots to retain their Presbyterian form of church govern

* Letter, p. 26. (P.)

ment; but the attempt to force episcopacy upon them in the time of Charles II. proves that it was a measure of necessity, not of choice.

But though Mr. Madan says nothing in reply to my objections to this doctrine, he still maintains his own, viz. that the principles of Presbyterians, both in the ancient and modern sense of the word, are unquestionably republican; and in proof of it he now alleges the case of Holland, Geneva, and that of other foreign Protestants, whose principles he supposes to be Presbyterian, and whose governments are republican. But in the same manner he might prove that the principles of the Catholics are republican; for in Switzerland there are as many Popish cantons as Protestant ones. Also, the religious principles of the natives of Holland and of Geneva are materially different from those of the Dissenters of this country: if they be Presbyterians, the French Protestants are so too, and can Mr. Madan shew that they ever discovered a leaning towards a republican government?

Even the Lutheran church may be said to be Presbyterian, since its constitution approaches much nearer to this system, than to that of the Church of England. The circumstance that particularly distinguishes Presbyterians from the members of the Church of England, is, that the latter are governed by diocesan bishops. But among no foreign Protestants are there any bishops with such powers as those in England. They do not there rank with the nobility, so as to have seats in the supreme council of the nation; and they have no such temporal courts (very improperly called spiri tual) as, to your sorrow and cost, you often find they have here. The Lutherans, however, though in fact Presbyterians, compared with Episcopalians in this country, are not republicans; but have always acquiesced in the government of the empire, and have submitted to the laws of it, as much as the Catholic subjects.

On the whole, Mr. Madan's favourite idea of the natural connexion between the principles of religion and those of civil government, on which he charges the Dissenters with being republicans, is altogether unsupported by any facts in history. He night just as well infer that because his next neighbour was both a Presbyterian and a buttonmaker, that therefore all Presbyterians were button-makers, or all button-makers Presbyterians; as because the people of Geneva, or any other particular state, are republicans and

* Letter, p. 26. (P.)

Presbyterians, that therefore all other Presbyterians are republicans. As, if he walk through this town, he will find button-makers of all religions, so if he step beyond the territory of Geneva, he will find republics composed of zealous Catholics; and Mr. Madan himself will hardly say that the principles of the Catholics are unquestionably republican.

Mr. Madan, a little conscious, perhaps, that his arguments from present facts and past history, such as we usually call arguments à posteriori, have but ill served his purpose, has recourse to a new and very curious argument à priori; infering facts from principles; and in the following manner he argues that republican principles must at this day exist among Dissenters, notwithstanding all the changes which he allows to have taken place among us since the time of Charles I. "Parties," says he, "change every day, but principles are a long-lived generation."* "Where then," says he, "are the principles of some of the leading characters who sunk again into the general mass when the Restoration happily took place?" I ask him the same question. Let him find them if he can. Only I will say, they are not among the Dissenters. Where are the principles of the violent Anabaptists in Germany? I do not believe that they exist any where; and yet according to Mr. Madan they must be somewhere. Besides, if these republican principles do exist among the Dissenters, they cannot affect the great body of them; for the king-killers in the time of Charles I. were very few.

But if there must be republican and king-killing principles among the Dissenters, must there not, for the same reason, be the principles of passive obedience and non-resistance among the clergy; since they did exist, and were far more general among them, and in a very late period too, than republican principles ever were among the Dissenters? And in consequence of this, are not the clergy as much to be dreaded, because friends to arbitrary power, as the Dissenters are for being too great friends to the liberties of the people?

With respect to the Corporation and Test Acts, Mr. Madan thinks his reasoning against the repeal of them, on his principle of the Dissenters being republicans, and therefore unfit to be trusted with power, to be confirmed by the late decision of the House of Commons in his favour. Of this

⚫ Letter, p. 24. (P.)

↑ Ibid. p. 28. (P.)

he makes so great boast, by repeating it so often, and with such an air of triumph, that I fancy he begins to think it the best argument that he has to produce. "It would be idle," he says, "impertinent and ridiculous, to refute any arguments from his pen, after so deliberate a decision for the third time, from the collective wisdom of our present representatives in parliament."* He considers the propriety of what he had urged, as "established by the late most decided majority of the House of Commons."† But had this been the three-fold cord, of all the three estates of parliament, as in this case it is only a single one, there are many examples of such cords being broken. For how often have acts of parliament been repealed!

I wonder, however, that recent facts should not have taught Mr. Madan how little force there is in his arguments from acts of parliament, or rather the decision of one house, or both houses. Did not the high-church party boast as much as they now do of the great strength of their cause, when the House of Lords, at the instigation of the bishops, rejected our petition to be excused from subscribing to your articles of faith? As they afterwards relented, whether they changed their opinion or not, (and indeed it is most likely that that remained the very same,) this may be the case again. Many circumstances may occur to induce the members of the House of Commons, even without their thinking any more about the matter, to vote exactly contrary to what they have lately done; and then, what will become of Mr. Madau's great argument? His cause will then want its chief support. Whereas my reasoning, as you see, is altogether independent of acts of parliament; and, therefore, I am not at all less confident of its strength on account of the late decision; for the members of the House of Commons, in this case, were not influenced by reason. Let her voice be once heard, as in time it cannot fail to be, and their opposition to our just claims will cease.

As Mr. Madan lays much stress on arguments from authority, I will inform him of one with which he is probably unacquainted. The Dissenters have not only been defeated in the House of Commons, but in the Royal Society also. A friend of mine was lately recommended to this philosophical Society by myself, Mr. Kirwan, Mr. Watt, Dr. Crawford, and Mr. Watson. His knowledge of philosophy and chemistry far exceeds mine, and I entertained no doubt but that

* Letter, p. 5. (P.)

† Ibid. p. 9. (P.)

See Vol. X. pp. 492, 493.