The Sun.
London, England, 1832-10-10 00:00:00

BUCKINGHAMSHIRE.

(From the Bucks Gazette.)
TO THE DISSENTERS OF GREAT BRITAIN.
Fellow-countrymen, and Dissenters from the Established
Church,—Let us awake to a sense of that duty which de-
volves upon us as men and Christians ; let us wipe away
that reproach which rests upon us in a compromising sup-
port of the established hierarchy; let us vindicate the cause
Of true religion and justice, which are injured and violated
by its existence.
We believe the church establishment to be founded in
error, to be unjustly supported, and inefficient for the great
Purpose for which it exists. Let us act as men labouring
under such impressions. Let us conduct ourselves as the
correctors of error, as the opposers of injustice, and the de-
termined foes of every inefficient monopoly, whether tem-
poral or spiritual.

Our separation from the Established Church is a stand-
ing memorial of our dissent, an ever-abiding witness of our
oppression : but we neutralize our dissent by a quiet and
compromising payment of all ecclesiastical demands. We
cast an imputation upon our sincerity by continuing to sup-
port that practically which we are ever theoretically con-
demning.
If we have a creed different to the shiboleth of a party,
let us show that we believe it. If we have principles
based upon truth, justice, and reason, let us act upon
them. Truth will prevail ! Justice will be heard ! !
Reason will conquer ! ! !
We call upon you, not to violate any law, not to em-
barrass the operation of our Ministry (our strength is in
the prompt obeyance of the law), but we do call upon you
to obey it in such a manner as shall show your sense of
its injustice, and your determination to cast off its yoke,
While, so long as it continues, you are willing, in one
sense, to comply with its demand.
The example of the Quakers is that which we call upon
you to imitate. They have been for the last 50 years at
least bearing a silent but increasing testimony to the in-
justice and claims of the clergy. If the whole body of
Dissenters had imitated their example from the first, we
do not hesitate to say, that long ere this the question would
have been settled for ever.
It is not ton late ! Our numbers are great, our in-
fluence, from the Senate to the meanest hovel in the land,
vast and increasing ; we have only to be united and firm
to be happy and free. If the priests will have our money,
let them have it as our blood. If they will have our sup-
!
4 port, let them have it at the expense of every law of hos-
pitality and good citizenship, by the seizure of our property,
and its public sale ; let them seize, but who will buy ?
Let one day throughout the land bear testimony to our
decision,—a day in which history shall record that an
oppressed majority of the nation opened their doors to
spiritual tyrants, and permitted (with a quiet sullen sub-
i mission) their property to be seized, their rights of freemen
to be trampled upon, for the purpose of vindicating the
cause of religion, obtaining liberty of conscience, and ascer-
taining their strength, previous to a conflict, which should
end in a complete and splendid victory of truth over error,
of freedom over despotism, of religion
over hypocrisy and
iniquity.
Some of you hesitate at such a proposal. Peace, peace,
is your cry. Peace, too, is our motto; but not the peace
of vassallage, hut of remonstrance. We have too long
submitted to such a peace as the former; our submission
has been construed into cowardice, the truth of our prin-
ciPles doubted, and our sincerity impeached ; so that if we
have asked for freedom, these charges have been taunt-
' ingly made by the very men we support ; and now that i
We have obtained that freedom, because they neither
could nor durst Withhold it, in the bitterness of their dying
I,- agonies they
charge us with ingratitude. Do not hesi-
tat brethren, it must be attempted,—it must be done !
Do e,
not shrink, we only ask you to carry out our principles.
Do not be ashamed,
first • we only ask you for consistency. The
step is the difficulty ; that once taken, our work
E
is done, our liberty effected, and one of the foulest blots
Wiped from the character of our country. Let this fact
cheer you on to the work. Remember that while there was
a day in which it required the blood of a Hampden to be
shedt as the price of civil liberty, and the lives of holy men
o be sacrified as the redemption price of religious free-
dom, that we live in a day when reason, not arms, are ap-
pealed to,—wben truth, not brute force, is the weapon of
scbonquest. R
--ernembers while the green and luxuriant
ores of Erin are deluged with the blood of some of her
best sons, we may, if we are circumspect and firm, throw
off the despotism of the church without the shedding of
one drop of blood, the sacrifice of one life, or even the
remotest approach to a Pointed eagles of the church. murmur, except from the disap-
s The day of freedom has dawned upon us. We see that
day for which our fathers longed. They contended against
hope. We struggle with bright anticipations, with sure
and certain hope of success. They commenced the strug-
gle : we are called to finish it. We call upon you by the.
bland of those holy men, which yet cries from the ground
for retribution, by the honour of blighted religion, by the
insult' to which you are subject by a bloated and despotic
Priesthood, and the love you bear to your country, be con-
sistent as Dissenters ; be firm in your remonstrance ; be
United, be determined, and British in your operations, and
°nee more the favour of the Most High shall rest upon
us, and prosperity and happiness smile upon every part
of the once happy, but now distressed and burdened Eng-
land.
FIDES.