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 Reverend 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."[77] 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.

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,[78] 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.[79] 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