other sentiments than those of exultation and rapture. They saw
nothing in what has been done in France but a firm and temperate
exertion of freedom, so consistent, on the whole, with morals and with
piety as to make it deserving not only of the secular applause of
dashing Machiavellian politicians, but to render it a fit theme for
all the devout effusions of sacred eloquence.

    On the forenoon of the fourth of November last, Doctor Richard
Price, a non-conforming minister of eminence, preached, at the
dissenting meeting house of the Old Jewry, to his club or society, a
very extraordinary miscellaneous sermon, in which there are some
good moral and religious sentiments, and not ill expressed, mixed up
in a sort of porridge of various political opinions and reflections;
but the Revolution in France is the grand ingredient in the
cauldron. I consider the address transmitted by the Revolution Society
to the National Assembly, through Earl Stanhope, as originating in the
principles of the sermon and as a corollary from them. It was moved by
the preacher of that discourse. It was passed by those who came
reeking from the effect of the sermon without any censure or
qualification, expressed or implied. If, however, any of the gentlemen
concerned shall wish to separate the sermon from the resolution,
they know how to acknowledge the one and to disavow the other. They
may do it: I cannot.

    For my part, I looked on that sermon as the public declaration
of a man much connected with literary caballers and intriguing
philosophers, with political theologians and theological politicians
both at home and abroad. I know they set him up as a sort of oracle,
because, with the best intentions in the world, he naturally
philippizes and chants his prophetic song in exact unison with their
designs.

    That sermon is in a strain which I believe has not been heard in
this kingdom, in any of the pulpits which are tolerated or
encouraged in it, since the year 1648, when a predecessor of Dr.
Price, the Rev. Hugh Peters, made the vault of the king's own chapel
at St. James's ring with the honor and privilege of the saints, who,
with the "high praises of God in their mouths, and a two-edged sword
in their hands, were to execute judgment on the heathen, and
punishments upon the people; to bind their kings with chains, and
their nobles with fetters of iron".* Few harangues from the pulpit,
except in the days of your league in France or in the days of our
Solemn League and Covenant in England, have ever breathed less of
the spirit of moderation than this lecture in the Old Jewry.
Supposing, however, that something like moderation were visible in
this political sermon, yet politics and the pulpit are terms that have
little agreement. No sound ought to be heard in the church but the
healing voice of Christian charity. The cause of civil liberty and
civil government gains as little as that of religion by this confusion
of duties. Those who quit their proper character to assume what does
not belong to them are, for the greater part, ignorant both of the
character they leave and of the character they assume. Wholly
unacquainted with the world in which they are so fond of meddling, and
inexperienced in all its affairs on which they pronounce with so
much confidence, they have nothing of politics but the passions they
excite. Surely the church is a place where one day's truce ought to be
allowed to the dissensions and animosities of mankind.

    * Psalm CXLIX.

    This pulpit style, revived after so long a discontinuance, had
to me the air of novelty, and of a novelty not wholly without
danger. I do not charge this danger equally to every part of the
discourse. The hint given to a noble and reverend lay divine, who is
supposed high in office in one of our universities,* and other lay
divines "of rank and literature" may be proper and seasonable,
though somewhat new. If the noble Seekers should find nothing to
satisfy their pious fancies in the old staple of the national
church, or in all the rich variety to be found in the well-assorted
warehouses of the dissenting congregations, Dr. Price advises them
to improve upon non-conformity and to set up, each of them, a separate
meeting house upon his own particular principles.*(2) It is somewhat
remarkable that this reverend divine should be so earnest for
setting up new churches and so perfectly indifferent concerning the
doctrine which may be taught in them. His zeal is of a curious
character. It is not for the propagation of his own opinions, but of
any opinions. It is not for the diffusion of truth, but for the
spreading of contradiction. Let the noble teachers but dissent, it
is no matter from whom or from what. This great point once secured, it
is taken for granted their religion will be rational and manly. I
doubt whether religion would reap all the benefits which the
calculating divine computes from this "great company of great
preachers". It would certainly be a valuable addition of
nondescripts to the ample collection of known classes, genera and
species, which at present beautify the hortus siccus of dissent. A
sermon from a noble duke, or a noble marquis, or a noble earl, or
baron bold would certainly increase and diversify the amusements of
this town, which begins to grow satiated with the uniform round of its
vapid dissipations. I should only stipulate that these new
Mess-Johns in robes and coronets should keep some sort of bounds in
the democratic and leveling principles which are expected from their
titled pulpits. The new evangelists will, I dare say, disappoint the
hopes that are conceived of them. They will not become, literally as
well as figuratively, polemic divines, nor be disposed so to drill
their congregations that they may, as in former blessed times,
preach their doctrines to regiments of dragoons and corps of
infantry and artillery. Such arrangements, however favorable to the
cause of compulsory freedom, civil and religious, may not be equally
conducive to the national tranquility. These few restrictions I hope
are no great stretches of intolerance, no very violent exertions of