Whether anything be proper to be denied, which is right in itself, because it may lead to the demand of others which it is improper to grant?  Abstractedly speaking, there can be no doubt that this question ought to be decided in the negative.  But as no moral questions are ever abstract questions, this, before I judge upon any abstract proposition, must be embodied in circumstances; for, since things are right or wrong, morally speaking, only by their relation and connection with other things, this very question of what it is politically right to grant depends upon this relation to its effects.  It is the direct office of wisdom to look to the consequences of the acts we do:  if it be not this, it is worth nothing, it is out of place and of function, and a downright fool is as capable of government as Charles Fox.  A man desires a sword:  why should he be refused?  A sword is a means of defence, and defence is the natural right of man,—­nay, the first of all his rights, and which comprehends them all.  But if I know that the sword desired is to be employed to cut my own throat, common sense, and my own self-defence, dictate to me to keep out of his hands this natural right of the sword.  But whether this denial be wise or foolish, just or unjust, prudent or cowardly, depends entirely on the state of the man’s means.  A man may have very ill dispositions, and yet be so very weak as to make all precaution foolish.  See whether this be the case of these Dissenters, as to their designs, as to their means, numbers, activity, zeal, foreign assistance.

The first question, to be decided, when we talk of the Church’s being in danger from any particular measure, is, whether the danger to the Church is a public evil:  for to those who think that the national Church Establishment is itself a national grievance, to desire them to forward or to resist any measure, upon account of its conducing to the safety of the Church or averting its danger, would be to the last degree absurd.  If you have reason to think thus of it, take the reformation instantly into your own hands, whilst you are yet cool, and can do it in measure and proportion, and not under the influence of election tests and popular fury.  But here I assume that by far the greater number of those who compose the House are of opinion that this national Church Establishment is a great national benefit, a great public blessing, and that its existence or its non-existence of course is a thing by no means indifferent to the public welfare:  then to them its danger or its safety must enter deeply into every question which has a relation to it.  It is not because ungrounded alarms have been given that there never can exist a real danger:  perhaps the worst effect of an ungrounded alarm is to make people insensible to the approach of a real peril.  Quakerism is strict, methodical, in its nature highly aristocratical, and so regular that it has brought the whole community to the condition of one family;