terefts; and those who would promote any great national design, must join with them without fcrutinizing minutely into their various motives of action. The number of perfons of pure and rigid virtue will ever be too inconfiderable to effectuate any great purpose, without the affiftance of perfons of more exceptionable principles and manners. A virtuous man will not join in any measures that his confcience difapproves; but, at a time of danger, no man fcruples to receive affiftance from perfons whofe conduct and character he may know to be cenfurable. He who is affaulted by a robber, or an affaffin, never inquires into the character of the man who comes to his relief. And when our country is attacked by foreign enemies, or by thofe more dangerous ones at home, who would deprive us of our most valuable rights, it is the intereft of all the claffes of the people, ptionable ous man his cone of dan affiftance character e who is , never an who Country y thofe would rights, of the people, ing obfervations to fhew ions which have been t any perfons celebrated for whether with or withou any inferences which ma their conduct, fhould le decline a vigorous opp fpecies of oppreffion. Ru appear to have defende national freedom on th principles: but even tho opposed an iniquitous ad motives not of the m kind, have yet been ofte A able to the public. And whatever fentiments we may entertain of any individvals, who have been applauded for their public fpirit, whether in antient or in modern times, it is ftill our intereft and our duty to maintain, with firmness and with ardour, the rights of our country. Civil liberty will ever be confidered, by generous and noble minds, as the greatest of all tempóral bleffings; our ancestors have acquired it for us at an immenfe expence of blood and of treasure; and if we inherit any portion of their wisdom, or of their vir tue, we fhall never fuffer it to be wrested. from us; but defend it against every attack, either of open violence, or fecret corruption, with a zeal proportioned to its value and its importance, The late Application to Parliament, for Relief in the Matter of SUBSCRIPTION to the THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES and LITURGY of the CHURCH of ENGLAND. If the SCRIPTURES be the rule of my faith, indeed and not in "words only; how can it be fo, if I be not to judge for myself, "what is in it, and what is not? For, if the DETERMINATIONS "of others, are to bind me up, or tie me down, to fuch a par❝ticular INTERPRETATION; then, it is not the Scripture "which is the rule of my faith; but thofe DETERMINATIONS " of others." Bishop HOADLY. [FIRST PUBLISHED IN THE YEAR 1772.] VOL. II. T |