than in it.  A stiff and cold insistence upon morals and reasonable considerations, to the comparative exclusion of appeals to higher Christian motive, was the common vice of Nonconformist as well as of national pulpits.  At a time, therefore, when the great cardinal doctrines of Christianity were insufficiently preached, it followed as a matter of course that differences of opinion upon religious questions of less moment dwindled in seeming importance.

Such was the frequent relation between the English Church and Dissent when a charge happened to be delivered by Gooch, Bishop of Norwich, which gave rise to some remonstrance on the part of Dr. Chandler, who had been one of his auditors.  Correspondence resulted in an interview, in which Gooch, though generally considered a High Churchman, showed himself not unfavourable to comprehension.  Another time Bishop Sherlock joined in the discussion.  There were three points, he said, to be considered—­Doctrine, Discipline, and Ceremonies.  Discipline was already in too neglected and enfeebled a state, too much in need of being recast, to be suggestive of much difficulty.  Ceremonies could be left indifferent.  As for doctrine, both bishops were quite willing to agree with Dr. Chandler that the Articles might properly be expressed in Scripture words, and that the Athanasian Creed should be discarded.  Chandler, for his part, thought that dissenting clergy would consent to a form of Episcopal ordination if it did not suggest any invalidity in previous orders.  Archbishop Herring was then consulted.  The Primate had already had a long conversation with Doddridge on the subject, and had fallen in with Doddridge’s suggestion, that, as a previous step, an occasional interchange of pulpits between Churchmen and Dissenters might be desirable.  He thought comprehension ‘a very good thing;’ he wished it with all his heart, and considered that there was some hope of its success.  He believed most of the bishops agreed with him in these opinions.

No practical results ensued upon these conversations.  They are interesting, and to some extent they were characteristic of the time.  It is not known whether Herring and his brethren on the Episcopal bench suggested any practical measure of the kind to the Ministry then in power.  If they had done so, the suggestion would have met with no response.  ‘I can tell you,’ said Warburton, ’of certain science, that not the least alteration will be made in the Ecclesiastical system.  The present ministers were bred up under, and act entirely on, the maxims of the last.  And one of the principal of theirs was, Not to stir what is at rest.’[378] Pelham was a true disciple of Sir Robert Walpole, without his talent and without his courage—­a man whose main political object was to glide quietly with the stream, and who trembled at the smallest eddies.[379] He was the last man to give a moment’s countenance to any such scheme, if it were not loudly called for by a large or powerful section of the community.  This was far from being the case.  Indifference was too much the prevailing spirit of the age to allow more than a very negative kind of public feeling in such a matter.  A carefully planned measure, not too suggestive of any considerable change, would have been acquiesced in by many, but enthusiastically welcomed by very few, while beyond doubt there would have been much vehement opposition to it.