The Sun.
London, England, 1807-05-09 00:00:00

tc,nor tlf'their live!. It is lor the Society to consider
whether such a condud be consonant to the charac_
ter which it befits them to maintain, or in any man-
ner conducive. to the objet of a charitable and reli-:
crious institution.
. .
" I have the honour to he, &c..
" ORENVILLE."

" The Rev. C:, Laskin, D. 1). Secretary
to the Society for Promoting Chlistian
Know hedg.". • ' •

TO LORD (iREN VILLE.

MY LORD;
r have not been.moro amused than vexed. by your
Lordship's extraordinary-attack upon the Reverend
Dr. GAsKrN, and the. Society to which he is Secre-
tary ; for one naturally feels indignant, though a
smile cannot to repressed, when a -.considerable cha-
racter makes himself ridicidoos. Having so long
taken the lead in the contests of the Senate, what
could induce your Lordship to enter- the lists :with
the Re6tor of Newington ? It is like an old ARor,
who, after many campaigns, .has been at last hissed
from the London Theatres;: but still
,hopes to make
a figure in a strolling company., Stripped of, your
laurels in the House of Lords, you endeavour to
snatch a sprig from the brow of Dr. PAsKtx.
Analogous to' the absurdity of your writing at all,
is the Absurdity of the publication itself ; for what
can be so preposterous, as for a person who is repre-
bending others for calumny, to be guilty of slanJer,
and in imputing want of charity to manifest toemost
rancorous uncharitableness?
Your Lordship, feeling sore .at the. opinion, ex-
presseti by the Society, that . your. Lordship's. , and
Lord ElowicK's• Bill, '"'was an innovation ,h,mstqe to
the Estatlished church," might, you thought it
prudent; have calMly proved the contrary, YOU
might have' shewn, in a decorous and gentlemanly
style, that the Society was in an, erior, and have
• persuaded them to retract it. • but though rho terms
of peace . and union are on your lips, I am afraid
there was something else- in your heart, when you
.asserted'the Resolution of the Society " to have
.been
fabricated for the Watch-ward.of a party „and calcu-
' toted only to' excite and to. uphold a pOpular dq,
sirkour." What , could thus, induce
:your, Lordship
not to express a hope, that the condua of _the So-
ciety'might have arisen from an erroneous judgment,
but at once, without the slightest re4son, presump-
tion, or pretext, to attribute the whole to the most
unworthy and fa(Stions motive ? Rut this,. I suppose,
is the style you are used to in yiiur speetheSin the
House of Lords ; and having accustomed yourself to
the bitterness of debate, you can neither lower your
tone or feelings to the' good manners Of a Gentle-
man, or the charity of a Chri,,tian..
You rather insultingly ask, what right had the
Society to interfere on a, political' subject ? Let me
answer, the same right which your Lordship had to
force it forward. An innovation repealing indirealy
all the Religious Tests, as to the Army and Navy,
which were etrataed by our 'ancestors to be the
guards anti outworks -of our Religions Establishment,
may be a political question, but it is an Ecclesiastical
question too. And if our Constitution is so moulded
that no religious change can be made by, the Church
alone, it is also so modelled, that it Cannot be 'Made -
by the State alone : every Member, both of Chtirch
and State, has a full and complete , right of inter-
ference in every measure which affects them both.
It is a novel assumption in your Lordship to ex-.
dude Ecclesiastical Persons from the right of giving
opinions on the policy of removing the guards of the
Church Establishment.

►
You enter into the defenc'e of your Bill, and your
defence is as shallow and sophistical as your attack
on our motives is uncharitable, and your denial of
our right is despptic.
You seem to be aware of the obnoxious tendency
of your measure, -by the cautious and guarded tern-is
in which you endeavour to soften and .palliate its
principles and ena6tments.' Your Bill, forsooth, is
merely a measure to-allow the King's Subjeas' qfall
persuasions, to serve him, in the army and navy Ver.
trig. decoris obvolvis. vitiuni. Is this, however, the
true statement of your measure, in all its 'bearings,
tendencies, and consequences
Let me, my Lord, refer you to Observations on
the Catholic Bill,• written by a Lawyer. You will
there find it pourtrayed -in very different colours.
You will there see, that by your Bill all constitu-
tional prefeience to the Established Church is aban-
doned in it that the system of complete and en-
tire indifference, on religious opinions, is -set.up ;
. that the Commanders of our Army and Navy, need no
longer profess themselves to be of any sed of reli-
gion, Christian, Jewjsb, or Malfothetan and that
the Ad of Supremacy and all the Test Laws are 'en-
tirely set aside.
These things your, Lordship must be forced to ac-
knowledge; and then, my Lord, let us look to
.the
necessary Consequences. Religious indifference is
the parent of infidelity,
.and infidelity the forerunner.
of revolution. •
You refer us to precedents.—Precedenis,are all
against you ;for in every relaxation of the-Test Laws,
Loose laws are referred to and re-enacted inycedents
-are all against you, for yoti counsel concession for the
sake of tranquillity and peace, when it is,knol.vei, that,
every concession of the present Reign to the:catho,
lies, great and numerous, as they have been, have been
turned into grounds of new demand, and made pre-
tences of fresh discontents. Precedents are all
against you—for when you recite an Ad, enabling the'
King. to levy, foreign soldiers during the war, are .you
nut ashamed .to construe a temporary measure,
adopted for a temporary purpose, upon an immediate
pressure, as a ground for altering the fundamental
principles of the constitution fer ever What would
you think of the Statesman who were to bring in a
Bill to repeal the Habeas Corpus At, and found it on
the precedent of its temporary suspension ? What
would you say to the absurdity of arguing the
exception to a rule to be the rule itself. The pre-
cedents are all , against you--=for when you refer
,•to Mr. Pri'g's measure, what was the.case ?—Was
there not one universal cry throughout the Country
against the measure then in contemplation.? not
the resistance of the Monarch, -and the cry of thc.!
.
. Nation, induce Mr. Pere to abandon it ?—But did
Mr. PITT then accuse his Xing to his People ? did
he move resolutions of censure on him in Parliament?
Did he term. the resistance of the Clergy, at that
period,. inflammatory, libellous, defammory ?—No,

ry RICITARn HARius, Of No. 4, NNW-ea-court-, I..ktv-5T0,...t;
ICE No. 112, St.racid ; wheni Admeif:istynentr, Qiiters