‘Those,’ wrote Mosheim in 1740, ’who are best acquainted with the state of the English nation, tell us that the Dissenting interest declines from day to day, and that the cause of Nonconformity owes this gradual decay in a great measure to the lenity and moderation that are practised by the rulers of the Established Church.’[375] No doubt the friendly understanding which widely existed about this time between Churchmen and Dissenters contributed to such a result.  Herring, for instance, of Canterbury, Sherlock of London, Secker of Oxford, Maddox of Worcester, as well as Warburton, who was then preacher at Lincoln’s Inn, Hildersley afterwards Bishop of Sodor and Man, and many other eminent Churchmen,[376] were all friends or correspondents with Doddridge, the genial and liberal-minded leader of the Congregationalists, the devout author of ‘The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul.’  Much the same might be said of Samuel Chandler, the eminent Presbyterian minister.  An old school fellow of Secker and Butler, when they were pupils together at a dissenting academy in Yorkshire, he kept up his friendship with them, when the one was Primate of the English Church, and the other its ablest theologian.  Personal relations of this kind insured the recognition of approaches based on more substantial grounds.  There was real friendly feeling on the part of many principal Nonconformists not only towards this or that bishop, this or that Churchman, but towards the English Church in general.  They coveted its wider culture, its freer air.  With the decline of prejudices and animosities, they could not but feel the insignificance of the differences by which they were separated from it.  Many of them were by no means unfavourable to the principle of a National Church.  This was especially the case with Doddridge.  While he spoke with the utmost abhorrence of all forms of persecution, he argued that regard alike to the honour of God and to the good of society, should engage rulers to desire and labour that the people should be instructed in matters of religion, and that they could not be thus instructed without some public provision.  He held, however, that such an establishment should be as large as possible, so that no worthy or good man, whose services could be of use, should be excluded.  If the majority agreed in such an establishment, the minority, he thought, might well be thankful to be left in possession of their liberties.  He did not see that it was more unfair that they should be called upon to assist in supporting such a Church, than that they should have to contribute to the expenses of a war or any other national object of which they might disapprove.[377] It must be added that the Nonconformists of that time were drawn towards the National Church not only by its real merits.  They were in very many instances attracted rather than repelled, by what was then its greatest defect, for it was a defect which prevailed no less generally among themselves