union, denote them sufficiently. Wicked and unhappy men! who scek their private safety, in opposing publick good. Weak and silly men! who vainly imagine that they shall pass for the nation, and the nation for a faction; that they shall be judged in the right, and the whole body of the people in the wrong-On whom would they impose?

How long do they imagine, that

so unequal a contest can last?

There is no complaint which hath been more constantly in the mouths, no grief hath lain more heavily at the hearts of all good men, than those about our national divisions; about the spirit of party, which inspires animosity and breeds rancour; which hath so often destroyed our inward peace; weakened our national strength, and sullied our glory abroad. It is time therefore that all, who desire to be esteemed good men, and to procure the peace, the strength, and the glory of their country, by the only means, by which they can be procured effectually, should join their efforts to heal our national divisions, and to change the narrow spirit of party into a diffusive spirit of publick benevolence.

That we may be more encouraged to do so, it will be of use perhaps to consider, in some particulars, what advances are already made towards that national union, without which no national good can be expected in such circumstances as

ours.

Let us begin with the present temper of the members of the church of England towards the dissenters.

dissenters. Those laws, by which the latter were debarred from serving God after their own way, have not been these many years a terrour, to them. Those which were designed to hinder the propagation of their principles, and those which shut the door of all publick preferment, even to such among them as conformed occasionally, are repealed. Far from desiring to impose any new hardships upon them, even those who have been reputed their enemies, and who have acted as such on several occasions, acknowledge their errour. Experience hath removed prejudice. They see that indulgence hath done what severity never could; and from the frankness of these, if I was a dissenter, I should sooner entertain hopes of future favour, than from the double dealing of those who lean on the dissenters when they are out of power, and who esteem them a load upon them when they are in it. We are now in the true and only road, which can possibly lead to a perfect reconciliation among protestants; to the abolition of all their differences; or to terms of difference so little essential, as to deserve none of distinction. These happy ends must be obtained by mutual good-will. They never can be obtained by force, It is true, indeed, that force, which is the effect of a majority and superior power, may support a rivalship and erect even counterestablishments, But then, by the same means, our ancient disputes will be revived; the church will be thought really. in danger; and religious feuds, which have been so long and so beneficially kept down, will once

more

more disturb the peace of the state. It is a certain truth, that our religious and civil contests have mutually, and almost alternately, raised and fomented each other. Churchmen and dissenters have sometimes differed, and sometimes thought, or been made to think, that they differed, at least, as much about civil as religious matters. There can be therefore no way so effectual to compose their differences on the latter, as to improve the growing union between them on the former. "Idem sentire de republicâ," to think alike about political affairs, hath been esteemed necessary to constitute and maintain private friendships. It is obviously more essential in publick friendships. Bodies of men in the same society can never unite, unless they unite on this principle; and if they once unite on this principle, they will unite on all others, or they will readily and cheerfully make one another easy about them.Let me speak plainly. It becomes a man to do so, who means honestly.- -In our political divisions of whig and tory, the dissenters have adhered to the former, and they want no apology for doing so. They joined themselves to those with whom they agreed, and stood in opposition to those with whom they differed in principles of government. There could be no objection brought against them on this account. They certainly did not follow power. They did not act like a sect, or a faction, who had, and pursued, an interest distinct from the interest of the whole. Their nonconformity hath nothing to do here. They concurred with conformists;

1

formists; and if they had been conformists themselves, as they were dissenters, they would have acted in the same manner. But if this division of parties, on the same principles, subsists no longer; if there be in truth neither a tory, nor a whig, as I have said above, but a court and a country party in being; if the political principles, which the dissenters have formerly avowed, are manifestly pursued on one side; and those which they have opposed, or others equivalent to them in their effects, are pursued on the other; can the dissenters hesitate about the option they are to make? I am persuaded they cannot. I know that several among them do not. What might be, and certainly would be said, if they made their option to stand by the m**, I will not so much as suggest. What must be the consequence of their standing by the nation, in opposition to him, for between these two powers the present contest lies, it is easy to tell, and impossible to deny. They will prove in this case to the whole world, that the spirit of liberty animates, and conscience alone determines their conduct. They, who could never brook a regal, will have the merit of saving their country from a ministerial tyranny; and their country will owe them all the acknowledgments, which are due from good and grateful citizens of the same commonwealth.

As to the other great and national division of whig and tory; he, who recollects what hath passed in parliament, and observes what passes out of it, can differ very little in his opinion from what

what hath been said concerning it. The principal articles of your civil faith, publifhed some time ago, or, to speak more properly, the civil faith of the old whigs, are assented and consented to by the country party; and I say, upon good authority, that if this creed was made a test of political orthodoxy, there would appear at this time but very few heretics among us. How different the case

appear, not only from

is on the other side will the actions, but from the principles of the courtparty, as we find them avowed in their writings; principles more dangerous to liberty, though not so directly, nor so openly levelled against it, than even any of those, bad as they were, which some of these men value themselves for having formerly opposed.

In short, the revolution is looked upon by all sides as a new ara; but the settlement then made is looked upon by the whole country-party as a new magna charta, from whence new interests, new principles of government, new measures of submission, and new obligations arise. From thence we must date both king and people. His majesty derives his title from acts, made in consequence of it. We likewise derive, not our privileges, for they were always ours, but a more full and explicit declaration, and a more solemn establishment of them, from the same period. On this foundation all the reasonable, independent whigs and tories unite. They could unite on this alone; for the whigs have always professed the principles which paved the way for the revolution;

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