Sir, the Church of England, if only defended by this miserable petition upon your table, must, I am afraid, upon the principles of true fortification, be soon destroyed.  But, fortunately, her walls, bulwarks, and bastions are constructed of other materials than of stubble and straw,—­are built up with the strong and stable matter of the gospel of liberty, and founded on a true, constitutional, legal establishment.  But, Sir, she has other securities:  she has the security of her own doctrines; she has the security of the piety, the sanctity, of her own professors,—­their learning is a bulwark to defend her; she has the security of the two universities, not shook in any single battlement, in any single pinnacle.

But the honorable gentleman has mentioned, indeed, principles which astonish me rather more than ever.  The honorable gentleman thinks that the Dissenters enjoy a large share of liberty under a connivance; and he thinks that the establishing toleration by law is an attack upon Christianity.

The first of these is a contradiction in terms.  Liberty under a connivance!  Connivance is a relaxation from slavery, not a definition of liberty.  What is connivance, but a state under which all slaves live?  If I was to describe slavery, I would say, with those who hate it, it is living under will, not under law; if as it is stated by its advocates, I would say, that, like earthquakes, like thunder, or other wars the elements make upon mankind, it happens rarely, it occasionally comes now and then upon people, who, upon ordinary occasions, enjoy the same legal government of liberty.  Take it under the description of those who would soften those features, the state of slavery and connivance is the same thing.  If the liberty enjoyed be a liberty not of toleration, but of connivance, the only question is, whether establishing such by law is an attack upon Christianity.  Toleration an attack upon Christianity!  What, then! are we come to this pass, to suppose that nothing can support Christianity but the principles of persecution?  Is that, then, the idea of establishment?  Is it, then, the idea of Christianity itself, that it ought to have establishments, that it ought to have laws against Dissenters, but the breach of which laws is to be connived at?  What a picture of toleration! what a picture of laws, of establishments! what a picture of religious and civil liberty!  I am persuaded the honorable gentleman, does not see it in this light.  But these very terms become the strongest reasons for my support of the bill:  for I am persuaded that toleration, so far from being an attack upon Christianity, becomes the best and surest support that possibly can be given, to it.  The Christian religion itself arose without establishment,—­it arose even without toleration; and whilst its own principles were not tolerated, it conquered all the powers of darkness, it conquered all the powers of the world.  The moment it began to depart from these principles, it